by Gigi Fenster
Morris and his mother listened to the radio and sometimes spent the day in Levin with Norman and Joan.
And some time, somewhere along the line, Morris stopped waiting for his father to come home. Stopped thinking, If I hold my breath, tie my shoes right, hold my pencil properly, draw in the lines, listen to the teacher, finish my food. If I keep my clothes clean he’ll come home. If I don’t cry, remember everything on this list, pass this test he’ll come home. Stopped waiting and started thinking, Maybe he’s dead. Started thinking what it would be like if he was dead. Tipping his mind towards wishing that he was before wrenching it back, telling himself you don’t think those thoughts. Even if you want an explanation, a proper explanation, for why he isn’t there.
After a while all the waiting and thinking and wishing stopped, and it was just Morris and his mother, and that was okay.
Okay? How can it be okay? Your father’s gone and it was all okay?
It was me and my mother and that was okay.
What about after he died? Was it still okay then?
After he—
Died. Died. When your father died, what then?
—
After they sat you down and explained that he was gone. What then?
—
After they told you he was never coming back. In heaven with God, six feet under, pushing up daisies, finito completo, dead and buried, gone.
Finito completo.
Finito completo, gone for ever, never coming back. After the funeral. What then?
—
Come on, Morris, didn’t things change after the funeral?
I never … they never … there wasn’t—
A funeral. Morris Goldberg, do you mean to tell me—?
—
Jesus Christ, Morris, you do mean to tell me there was no funeral. No sit down because we have sad news for you. Do you mean to tell me they didn’t give you a ritual?
A ritual?
Jesus Christ, Morris, we did it for a cat. For a cat we had a fucking funeral. But for a son whose lost his father—nothing. They didn’t even tell you he had died. Did they, Morris? Did they?
—
My God, Morris, I could smack your mother. And Norman. And Joan. And you. I could smack you too. You should have asked them. You should have insisted on being told. You should have asked for details of his death. When you were a teenager. An impertinent up-yourself teenager.
I was never an impertinent up-myself teenager. Neither were you. We’ve been through this.
So when then? When did you know that your father had died? Jesus Christ, Morris, when did you know that your father had died?
I guess … I guess I always knew.
But for sure. When did you know for sure?
For sure?
Think, Morris, think.
When I saw the backpack in my bedroom.
The backpack in your bedroom. For God’s sake, Morris, speak sense. What backpack? What bedroom?
The backpack was waiting for Morris when he came home from university on his first Easter break. Waiting for him on the floor in his bedroom. He circled it a few times before kneeling down to study it. It was khaki canvas. It smelt damp. A Trapper Nelson. It looked familiar to Morris, as though he’d seen it in a picture.
When he thanked his mother for it, she said it had been in the basement gathering dust.
He said, ‘Where did you get it from?’
‘It needs a clean.’
‘But it’s a really good backpack. Really, really good. Where did you get it? Was it—?’
‘If you want it, take it outside and clean it. If you don’t want it, put it outside and I’ll get rid of it. And please Morris, please, stop asking me questions.’
‘But—’
‘Morris, please.’ She turned back to the socks she was darning for him. ‘Please Morris. Please. Stop asking questions.’
But you didn’t stop asking questions. You asked Norman. You asked Joan. You asked your mother again.
—
Norman? Joan? Someone?
—
Oh Morris, sweetheart. You didn’t ask.
He was dead. There was no point in pushing it.
Yeah, well, I would’ve insisted on being told. I did insist on being told. I wasn’t too shy to broach the topic. I chose Joan ’cause she loved to talk.
Sadie wouldn’t have been shy to broach the topic and Joan might have been grateful for her questions. Morris can imagine that she might have been quite relieved, eager even, to share the burden of Morris’s father with Sadie.
When did Sadie ask Joan? Was it before they married? Did she marry him in the knowledge? Or was it afterwards, when the children were born and it was too late to do anything about it? Too late to do anything but watch and wait and pray that, whatever it was, the children didn’t catch it.
It was probably on one of the Saturday afternoons. They’re in Levin. Morris has gone to visit his mother. Sadie is sitting at Joan’s kitchen table. She thinks maybe it’s time she and Morris considered getting married. She has just one question for Joan. She asks it outright. ‘So tell me, Joan, what was the story with Morris’s father? Sorry to be blunt, but I need to know what I’d be letting myself in for. I need to know the truth, Joan.’
Or it is another Saturday afternoon, much later? The children are there. Rachel is a toddler. Joan tries to lift her on to her knee but she wriggles away, squirming. Joan makes light of it, but Sadie is ashamed. There’s something wrong with a toddler who doesn’t want to be hugged. Sadie doesn’t understand it, has never seen anything like it. She’s worried enough to ask Joan outright: ‘This reluctance about being touched is in Morris’s family, isn’t it? There’s something not quite right, isn’t there? Come on, Joan, don’t be coy with me. I know Morris has something not quite right. Did he get it from his mother? I imagine she could be kind of … I don’t know … not the hugging type. And what about his father? Tell me, Joan, what was the story with Morris’s father?’
Well, yes, I asked Joan and she told me.
When did she tell you?
It doesn’t matter when she told me. It doesn’t matter what I know. What matters is what you knew, what you didn’t know. What matters is that they didn’t tell you. When it mattered. The details. You didn’t know the details and that’s what matters.
Even after he’d scrubbed it outside and left it in the sun to dry there were still some watery stains on the backpack. Morris traced a finger round those stains and knew that his father had died somewhere damp. Somewhere damp and overgrown. Where explorers used axes to cut through the jungle. Where vines could rise out of the water, pull you in. Could drag you down and swallow you.
David says, ‘Hold on. Hold on.’
Morris opens his eyes. It’s raining hard again. The road is awash. The car is shaking from the current. He puts his hands on the dashboard and holds on.
‘I do remember a princess frozen under ice. There was a story about a sleeping princess—kind of like Sleeping Beauty on Ice. Joanie read it to us when we went to visit them in Australia. Man, Rachel loved that story. She used to get Joanie to read it again and again.’ He pauses. ‘That was a nice holiday, when we went to Australia.’
David starts talking about ice creams in the park, about peeling noses and water fights. About how embarrassed Joan got when one of her dogs pooed on the beach.
The current is pulling Morris downstream.
David is telling a story about Rachel freaking out when he put a block of ice down her T-shirt.
Morris’s feet can’t find a hold in the rushing water. He doesn’t know up from down.
David remembers what Joan gave them to eat (hot dogs and tinned peaches), how Norman goofed about at the barbecue, how Sadie spent half the holiday in Joan’s garden with a book and a cold drink. ‘Come to think of it, it was probably a gin and tonic. It was that kind of holiday. It’s a pity you weren’t there.’
David remembers everything.
But the argum
ents that preceded their visit to Australia. Does David remember them? Does he remember the cold silence that sat in the car on the way to the airport? Does Rachel?
It’s unlikely David would have heard the arguments. When she was really angry, Sadie would wait until the children were asleep before setting her tongue free.
‘Norman is over seventy. This could be the last time you get to see him. How can work be more important than that? Some stupid deadline more important than seeing Joan? Of course they want to see you. You’re like a son to them. Of course they told you not to worry about it. Of course they told you they understand. Of course they said there’ll be a next time. That’s what they do. They tell you not to worry. They tell you they understand. They console you with next time. And your job, Morris—your job is to worry. To be a son to them. Jesus Christ, Morris, there might not be a next time.’
The night before they left she pulled a towel over her wet hair and said, ‘It’s not too late to do the right thing, you know.’
But it was too late. He was too tied up in their argument. She’d immobilised him with her absolute truths.
‘They love you like a son.’
At the airport she gave her knots one last pull (‘Look how excited David is. He can’t wait to see them’) before letting go and leaving him spinning and reeling, a child’s toy in an empty passage.
That was the last time any of them saw Norman.
Morris saw Joan only once more, at Norman’s funeral.
They died within a month of each other. Norman at the hospital, Joan at her niece’s house where she stayed after Norman’s death.
The only inconvenience was the dogs. Becky didn’t want them. They were old and incontinent. She’d put up with them messing on her carpets for long enough. She had them put down. Morris told her it was the right thing to do.
The children came back from that holiday with suntans and toys. Sadie’s suitcase was packed with vases, plates, wine glasses Joan had got for her wedding.
Morris said, ‘That was nice of her to give those things to us.’
Sadie said, ‘To me. Joan gave them to me. She didn’t send anything for you.’
Morris didn’t believe her at first. Sadie could be spiteful when she felt superior. Joan wasn’t spiteful and Joan never considered herself superior. Joan was on his side.
Later, alone in his office, he reconsidered. Superior or not, Sadie didn’t often lie and Joan might, in the heat of the Australian sun, have finally decided that Morris wasn’t worth bothering with. No more presents for Morris.
No more presents for you, he told himself, and grinned. This is no laughing matter, he told himself, but he kept on grinning. No more backpacks filled with chocolate for you.
Morris Goldberg had done something wicked enough to cause his aunt to withhold a gift. He felt like a naughty schoolboy who had got away with a prank.
Only it wasn’t a prank. He’d wounded Joan. And he hadn’t got away with it. He’d been found out by Sadie who would never forgive him. She told him so that evening, when they were clearing away the dinner dishes.
‘To tell you the truth,’ she said, ‘Joan sent those things for you too. Not that you deserve them.’
Morris turned to wipe the table. ‘You shouldn’t have—’
‘She might have forgiven you for not visiting them,’ Sadie told the dirty dishes, ‘but I haven’t. I don’t think I ever will.’
Maybe she forgave him when he went over for Norman’s funeral. If she’d seen how he reached over to hug Joan, how long he let her hang on to him, she would surely have relented.
Joan was tiny on her low shiva stool. The dogs circled her like the sea. One of them put his paws on Morris’s back when he bent down to be held.
It was probably the same dog which kept Morris up that night, jumping on to and being pushed off the sleeper couch in Becky’s spare room.
The next day he came home, bad tempered from lack of sleep.
It was too hot there, too dry.
Norman should not have died in a desert.
It was raining when Joe died.
No one walked through the rain to follow his spirit out of this world.
He was sucked under.
So maybe I was wrong to be unforgiving but, you know, I didn’t know the whole real story then.
The whole real—
Story. The full megilah. The whole catastrophe.
The whole catastophe.
The thing is, Morris. Are you listening to me?
Am I?
Listening to me. The thing is, I didn’t know there was that whole business of them not telling you when and how your father died. It’s no wonder you were pissed off with them. Furious. Angry with them and not knowing why.
I was never—
Pissed off with them. Of course you were. They should have told you.
Morris turns to look at David’s profile. ‘I think maybe your grandfather committed suicide.’
David doesn’t say, ‘Bloody hell, Dad, where did that come from?’ Or, ‘Jesus Christ, I’m trying to drive.’ He doesn’t say, ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’
He says, ‘I’ve also been thinking about that. I told Tim but it doesn’t mean … it doesn’t mean …’
The windscreen wipers shake from side to side. Even the policeman knows.
Morris’s window has misted up. He could take his finger and write his Miss Robson Question on the glass. Or he could ask David, ‘D’you think Rachel could have … you know? These things can be genetic.’
The land slides and the water comes rushing down to catch the car in its current. David pulls hard on the wheel. Morris braces himself for the skid that doesn’t come.
They have pulled over to the side of the road. The windscreen wipers are still. The rain drums on the car roof. David’s hands rise to hold on to his father’s face.
‘Dad, you have to listen to me.’
Morris flinches when David touches him.
‘Listen to me, Dad. Listen …’ His hands cup Morris’s cheeks. ‘Dad, I’m sorry. It’s just … It’s just … you know, Mum and I discussed this. That time when Rachel went tramping and Mum was in hospital. You remember—Rachel and I had a fight and I was pissed off that she was going and you looked so sad. Man, you were so drawn in and sad about it all.’
If David moves his hands, Morris’s face will melt away.
‘Mum was … she was like … okay, she was worried you’d be worried that Rachel might be like … be like your dad. She was worried you’d be worried that Rachel would just leave one day. Just disappear or … or commit, you know. She said Rachel was nothing like your dad. She said your father had post-traumatic stress from being a soldier in Europe during the war and he lost family in the holocaust and your mother was so … She said if anything Rachel was more like your mother than your father. Mum said there was something about a miscarriage and a hysterectomy and Joan said your mother never got over it and she blamed him and … man, Mum said that Joan said that your mother and father …’
David is talking and talking, drowning Morris in words. Until he stops, takes his hands from his father’s face, freeing Morris to say, ‘Sadie and Joan discussed this. You and Sadie discussed it.’
‘Don’t be cross with Mum. She had to discuss it with me. She was worried there would be a time like, well, I guess like this, and she wanted me to be able to tell you … she wanted you to know that there’s nothing wrong with your genes.’
Morris clenches his jaw tight shut. His face will not melt away. He will hold it together with grinding teeth.
‘The thing is, Dad, I’ve been wanting to tell you. It’s been worrying me since Rachel … since yesterday. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it. But you know—’
‘I’m hard to talk to.’
‘Hard to talk to? No … well, maybe a bit. But that’s not what stopped me. I didn’t want to be the one to raise it. Debs thought it might start you worrying about something you weren’t t
hinking about in the first place.’
And Debbie knows.
David opens the glovebox to reveal a box of tissues. ‘You look exhausted. Maybe you should lie down in the back of the car.’
If Morris leaves the car he might keep on walking. He might get swept away in the rain. He might get sucked into the earth. He shakes his head and David understands. ‘It’s okay, Dad. It’s warmer in the front anyway.’
He starts the car, says, ‘I don’t even know what I just said. My words ran away with me.’
David has nothing left to say. His words have run away without him. They’ve been evicted by Sadie’s words, which are crammed into the car like unwanted hitchhikers. David picked them up when he swerved to the side of the road, but it’s not his fault. Sadie’s words are good at hitching rides.
Sadie’s words send one pretty-girl word out. She stands on a flat stretch of road so you have time to study her as you approach. You notice the tentative angle of her thumb, the way the sun catches her hair. When you get closer you see her smile. Could that be a gap in her teeth? Sadie’s pretty-girl word shifts her handbag from one shoulder to the other. She has nothing to hide. She wouldn’t hurt you for the world. She’s worrying about taking lifts from strangers. You melt faster than Ahasuerus faced with Queen Esther.
You pull over.
Sadie’s pretty-girl word takes a step forwards.
You lean over to open the passenger door.
She smiles and flicks her hair off her face.
You open the door and hear dogs barking.
Words come roaring out of their hiding places on the side of the road. They throw their backpacks in your boot. You try to lock the doors but it’s too late. They’re crammed into the back seat of your car. One hangs on to the roof, leaning forward over your windscreen so you can see the knife in its mouth. A scarred word leers hungrily at you from the passenger seat. You’re too afraid to say this is not what I signed up for.
Your passenger sneers. ‘We’re here for your own good. Now put your foot on the gas. We’ve got places to go, you and us.’
