Whatever Remains

by Penny F. Graham

  At this stage in our lives our eldest son Chris was living and working in Sydney, Stephen was teaching in Germany, Tim was completing his Honours year at Flinders University in South Australia, while Jeremy, our youngest, was halfway through a degree in Photography at RMIT in Melbourne. In one sense it was convenient, as the house was more peaceful and certainly less crowded without them, but I wanted them all to meet.

  During Pat and Albert’s time with us, we did manage to get to see them all, bar one, by either travelling interstate, or arranging for them to come and visit us. All but Stephen. He was to spend a happy few weeks with them a year or so later in England.

  Both Tony and Derek were keen to meet their new sister. They had, within days of Pat and Albert’s arrival, both popped in to make themselves known, and to welcome them to Australia. Denis had not, as yet, made an appearance. I was not so sure about his feelings. He had been conspicuously silent on the subject since I had told him of their imminent arrival, and I wondered whether he felt the same keenness to meet his eldest daughter as my brothers did their sister. Before their arrival, I had decided it would be up to him whether he wanted to meet Pat after all these years of silence. I would create an occasion for them to meet — it would then be his choice whether he took advantage of that opportunity.

  Over the next few weeks, we were out and about at tourist destinations as much as we could with the constraints of our work. We also encouraged Pat and Albert to take the car and, with map in hand, make their own way to places that were of interest to them. I believe I had compiled a list of well over 60 places of possible interest. Only a couple of dozen were crossed off when they finally had to leave.

  October in Canberra is generally warm and sunny. With our usual winter rain, it was a good month to show off the town centres that make up our ‘city’ and the surrounding bushland of our ‘Bush Capital’. I knew that the spring green would not last, as the summer dryness and hot sun drains the colour from the foliage of our eucalyptus trees and turns the spring grasses from a vibrant green to a dull gold. They did manage to take some drives out into the surrounding bushland, and one trip out to Corin Dam was done on a beautiful spring day. As they were parked overlooking the dam, having a sandwich for their lunch, the sky was filled with scores of sulphur-crested cockatoos flying overhead. The sound and sight of them, Albert told me later that evening, was amazing and would stay with him in the years to come.

  A few weeks after their arrival, Pat was to celebrate her 68th birthday. We all mutually agreed that this was a good opportunity to have a family gathering. We would ask Denis to come to the celebratory dinner — it would be up to him to decide what action he would take. A few days before Pat’s birthday, I rang Denis; he said he would be there but, I wondered, would he really come?

  Pat’s birthday dawned warm and bright. The day was spent shopping, preparing then cooking the evening meal. Flowers by the armful were brought in from the garden and the dining table laid with our best cutlery and china. By 7 o’clock that evening, we were ready to party.

  Derek, his wife Anne and a couple of their children were the first to arrive. By this time, I was becoming quite tense. I have no idea why — it wasn’t as if I was the one meeting a parent I had not seen since childhood. Nevertheless, I had butterflies in my stomach and sweaty palms by the time the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of Denis and Tony a few minutes after Derek’s arrival.

  There are some scenes or actions that are forever imprinted on one’s memory. The next few minutes was one of those defining memorable moments for me. Pat was still upstairs when the doorbell rang. She was perhaps putting the finishing touches to her hair or dress or maybe sitting calmly taking control of her emotions. Surely it was a momentous occasion to once again meet the father you had not seen for over 55 years.

  A few minutes later, there was the rustle of movement on the stairs and Pat emerged round the corner of the stairwell and made her entrance into the room. And an entrance it was. There she stood; slim and attractive in a pale yellow linen dress, hair simply styled, a touch of lipstick brightening her smiling lips. I was impressed — I think Denis was too.

  They hit it off immediately. Pat had decided that if they were to have a relationship at this late stage of both their lives then it would have to start from now. No talk of the past, no recrimination on her part, no awkward questions. She would set the tone of their future relationship and proceed in the way she had begun — with charm and simple acceptance. It worked. Pat and Denis saw each other regularly from that day on till Pat left Australia, and they corresponded regularly until Denis’s death some years later.

  It may well have been a superficial relationship in that, to my knowledge, the past was never referred to, nor was any contentious subject ever raised by Pat, but there was a bond, and I believe sincere friendship was both given and received. That relationship would not have suited me; far too inquisitive, too unforgiving and far, far too interested in the unsolved. But it suited them, and I am glad of that.

  The evening was a success. We talked, ate well and drank well. We toasted our birthday girl with sparkling wine, and ate with pleasure the birthday cake she cut and presented to us. It was a grand way to spend a birthday.

  After that first meeting, Denis seemed more than happy to be part of any family gathering or excursion. He even felt comfortable enough to entertain Pat and Albert at his home. Pat and Albert were also invited by Derek, Anne, Tony and Denis to spend a long weekend with them on the South Coast. From the smiling faces in the photos and cheerful chatter that resulted from that expedition, they all seemed to have a wonderfully relaxing time.

  In recent years, Pat and I have discussed the ongoing relationship she had with her father after that visit. It worried me that it was built on a false notion that the past should not impinge on the present. For her it has, so she tells me, worked. She seemed to take a keen interest in all his doings and appeared to have a genuine fondness for him. Denis also appeared to take an interest in Pat’s life. My innate cautiousness makes me wonder how he really felt after all these years at the sudden re-emergence of his first-born child. The answer, like so many things that relate to my father, is that I will never know for sure.

  The period that they spent with us seemed to slip through our fingers like quicksilver. No sooner had a week begun than it was finishing. They were days of sunshine and laughter. Cups of tea under the wisteria, walks in the garden — days filled with love; love for a sister newly known, a history newly discovered.

  About halfway through the visit, Pat and Albert flew to Cairns on the Queensland coast to spend a week on the Great Barrier Reef. They loved it. They loved to dip into the sparkling blue green seas, to lie motionless on the water watching the many coloured fish swim lazily beneath them. They wandered along fine yellow sandy beaches, so different from the pebbly ones of West Sussex, watching the sunset or moon rise through the palm trees and mangroves. It gave them time to revitalise and, no doubt, recover from the stress of living out of their routine and in another’s home. Apart from meeting family, I think this was one of the highlights of their trip. It was a restful time for them and I think they needed the rest. With all the frenetic activity that was occurring on an almost daily basis at our home, being away was no bad thing. So while I somewhat begrudged the time away from us, I was so glad they went.

  We had flown to Melbourne to visit Jeremy, and Tim had been able to spend a week or so with us in Canberra. Pat and Albert had met and forged bonds with Denis, Tony and Derek and had managed to cross off at least some of my ‘must see’ list. It was now time for them to head back to England and home. The extended family had a farewell get-together to say their goodbyes with promises to keep in touch and hopefully meet again in England. The day of departure arrived. Rather than fly out of Canberra, Lindsay and I drove them to Sydney where they were to meet our eldest son Chris. It is a three-and-a-half-hour drive and we thought the journey would give them some appreciation of the NSW countryside.<
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  Sydney lay under a blanket of haze — unusual for Sydney in November. We spent a few days showing them round the city, wandering through the Botanical Gardens and admiring the magnificent Sydney Harbour. The day before they were to fly home, Chris announced that he had organised a surprise. We were all to have a joy ride on a helicopter over the most scenic parts of Sydney.

  A haze still languished over the city that day, diffusing the sharp beauty of the city’s skyline and the deep azure waters of the Harbour — but it was still a spectacular flight and Albert, in particular, treasured it as a memento of the visit. The next day, we took Pat and Albert to the airport and sadly wished them ‘safe journey’. All good things must end and they were due home to spend Christmas with their family.

  Time goes by and life goes back to normality. I was still making connections with other cousins in the UK that I had not met on our last visit and keeping up correspondence with those we had.

  Our family dynamics were changing. Chris married — twice — his lovely Japanese friend Shinomi. The first was a simple affair at a Registry Office that gave Shinomi the right to stay in Australia. The second, and the one they usually consider to be their ‘proper’ wedding day, was held at Redleaf Bay on Sydney Harbour. This was to celebrate with family and friends their commitment to each other. In May 1995, our first grandchild was born. Shinomi, our new daughter-in-law, gave us the most beautiful gift of a granddaughter. I had always been happy about having four boys but when I held our little Amber I knew the joy a little girl can bring. After the phone call from Chris letting us know of Amber’s birth, we drove to Sydney to see them. When I picked up our little five-hour-old grandchild from her birthing centre crib, I first checked to see how many toes she had. Five toes on each foot, thank goodness.

  I had always known that my mother had problems with her feet. She found it difficult to stand or walk for long periods and finding comfortable shoes was always a dilemma. I had seen scarring on her right foot and had been told that, as a child, a car driven by visitors to the family home ran over the toes of that foot while she was playing on her parents’ driveway.

  Years later I was told by my aunt Daisy that in fact Nona had been born with six toes on her right foot. When she was about 12, she had had the sixth toe surgically removed. I cannot understand why we children would not have been told the truth — surely there is no shame in having such a small physical defect. I was pleased to see that that particular genetic detail had not been passed down to Amber.

  While checking her tiny fingers and toes, I also noticed that both her little fingers curved slightly in, and the middle fingers curved slightly out just like mine. Our thumbs are unusually short as are our smallest toes. There are some inherited likenesses that are a great comfort. Smiling down at the beautiful little child in my arms I thought, ‘This is indeed, quite demonstrably, my grandchild.’

  Over the years, as other grandchildren have been born, I have always felt relief when I have known that they have the correct number of digits on their hands and feet and always have a sense of continuity and pleasure when I see recognisable features reappearing in the family — dimpled chins, curved fingers or small thumbs. Such vanity.

  During the next few years, our other three sons were either travelling or working overseas or furthering their education in Australia. Both Lindsay and I changed jobs, he a couple of times and me just once, to the Commonwealth Department of Health. I loved my new job; it gave me the opportunity to travel interstate, to meet interesting people and I felt a great commitment to the principles that I worked towards. I stayed in that position until my retirement in 2001.

  Life ran smoothly on as the days, months and then years flew by. My relationship with Denis and my brothers continued as before with, I thought I detected, a slightly warmer undertone. Now that it was obvious that Pat was not going to cause ‘trouble’ or try to rake up the past, was I perhaps forgiven for finding her?

  Pat and Albert continued the new relationship with regular letters, postcards then emails when they bought their first computer, and a phone call on special occasions such as birthdays. All seemed rosy in our family circle. Then an accident occurred that was considered at the time to be quite minor but set in motion a train of incidents that was to have dreadful consequences.

  In late November 1996, Denis and Tony were spending the evening with Derek and Anne when Denis struck his head on the door of an open kitchen cupboard. He apparently almost fell with the force of the knock, but recovered enough to spend the rest of the evening sitting quietly before leaving early complaining that he had a slight headache. Unwisely, he did not seek medical attention in the next few days.

  Traditionally, on Wednesdays, Derek and I often had lunch with Denis at a local club. He would get the bus to where Derek and I worked and after lunch a bus home. The Wednesday following the blow to Denis’s head, Derek rang to say that Denis had collapsed soon after arriving at his office prior to lunch and could I take time off to drive him home. I said I could and when Derek brought him over to me, I thought Denis looked very pale and shaky and appeared to be stooping a little to the right. I wish I had realised the significance of that stoop.

  Denis managed to walk with me to my car and I drove him home. On the way, I wanted to take him to the casualty department of the nearby hospital. He said no, he just wanted to go home to rest. I should not have listened. I got him home and into bed and suggested that he should call his doctor. With his usual bravado, or maybe stubbornness is a better word, he told me he would feel better after a rest. Lying down was, I was to learn later from the doctors, the worst thing he could have done.

  Tony was living with Denis at that time so I knew that he had care at home but I still wished he had allowed me to take him to the hospital. Two days later, Denis’s condition had deteriorated so much that he agreed to let Tony take him to the hospital. He was admitted immediately. The blow to his head had apparently perforated his skull and caused a slow cerebral haemorrhage that had created a sizeable pool of blood in his head cavity. He was by now in a critical condition.

  The doctors recommended that he have immediate surgery to drain the blood from the area between the skull and his brain. By this time the pool of blood was putting enormous pressure on his brain. The operation was risky and his condition dire but there were no options now, as the bleeding could not be controlled. I saw him the day after he was admitted; he was disoriented and confused and looked very weak, but he was coherent. We talked for a short while about his transfer to the bigger hospital in Woden where he was to be operated on. This was the last conversation I had with him when I knew him to be completely lucid and in full control of all his faculties.

  The next day he was transferred to Woden Valley Hospital and, the day after, the lifesaving operation to drain the head cavity of blood and patch the skull was performed. Any operation of this kind on the skull is dangerous, but on a 91-year-old who had had severe trauma to the head followed by prolonged bleeding, it was critical. It is a testament to his inner strength and physical stamina that he survived the operation.

  Tony, Derek and I, with our families, congregated at his bedside in the Intensive Care Unit after the operation. He was still critical but alive. After our visit to the hospital we sat together over dinner at a local club and rang Pat to tell her of Denis’s condition.

  From then until Denis’s death some three months later, his condition and my relationship with my brother Derek both deteriorated rapidly.

  The doctors managed to alleviate the blood flow and lessen the pressure on the brain at that first operation but Denis never really recovered fully. After he was stable enough to be taken back to the ward, he was in a constantly confused state. He did not want to eat, as he thought the food was poisoned, and he regularly asked us to help him ‘escape’ from hospital as he believed they, the nursing and medical staff, were doing him harm. It was so sad to see a man who had been totally in command of himself only a few weeks ago, in such a weak and c
onfused state.

  He had a second operation to try to repair the damaged skull, but over the following weeks he began to gradually lose both his physical and mental faculties. As he slipped further and further away from reality and his grip on life became more tenuous, Derek became more and more obsessed with keeping him alive at all costs. By now, I took no part in discussions with the medical team overseeing his care as I judged it wiser to leave it to Derek. Nor did I visit Denis when I knew my brothers would be there.

  There came a point when he slipped into unconsciousness and the hospital staff advised us that he had only a matter of days to live. My brothers could not accept that prognosis and argued the case that Denis should be put on a life support system until his body was once again strong enough to maintain life on its own. The hospital staff begrudgingly agreed. It was their opinion that once he was removed from the life support equipment he would not survive for long. It was just prolonging the inevitable. Denis was removed from the ward and taken to the ICU unit and placed on full life support and stayed for a month in an induced coma. He lay, alone and vulnerable, surrounded by tubes and machines. I found it very distressing to visit as all I could do was sit and hold his limp hand and watch the slow rise and fall of his chest as oxygen was pumped into his lungs.

  I now no longer had any say, nor wanted to, in Denis’s care. Nor did I care to discuss his condition with either of my brothers. Once again, for very different reasons, my opinion and wishes were put aside by what was left of the family. A dear friend from my ACT Department of Health days was now working at the hospital. She kept a close eye on Denis during the months that he was there and gave me regular updates on his condition.

  The astringent smell of hospital corridors, the sight of crisp white sheets with the inert body of Denis lying there — these were the sights and smells my life took on. Hospital visits became a regular part of my day and phone calls and emails to Pat a regular occurrence.