Read by Silas Hawkins
I arrive home one afternoon to find my eighty year-old father using a spatula to scrape the green, velveteen paper off one of the walls in the lounge. I can hardly believe my eyes. He’s just spent the entire winter grieving for Mum, barely eating or speaking, cocooned inside bedding that had come to smell like a tired, old creek.
Not sure if my presence has registered, I kick off my tan espadrilles and watch, fascinated, as he works the spatula in tiny, measured strokes. Mum had fought him for fifty odd years to keep this God-awful wallpaper. The exertion has him puffing, and his flaccid tongue is dangling over his lip like a thirsty, old dog.
“How’s it going, Dad?” I ask.
“Not bad. Might take a while ta finish the job, though. You know, Son, no woman’s ever gonna move in here with ya while this rubbish is stuck on the bloomin’ walls.”
“You reckon? Not sure I’m looking for someone else just yet, but I’ll definitely keep that in mind. Hey, what do you say I grab us a nice, cold beer?”
“Thought you’d never ask. Be needin’ the Ute tomorrow arvo, too. Moon’s about right to catch a fish. Got today’s paper? Need ta check the tides.”
***
First thing next morning I pull back the blinds and spot Dad on his haunches in the driveway, cranky fingers preparing his tackle. I pull on some jocks and wander out to join him, my winter-white skin prickling under the early rays. I’m curious to see that he’s chosen a slower action rod of around two metres, an eight kilo line, and a stiffer, heavier reel. From what he’s taught me over the years it seems he’s chasing some big fish.
He’s definitely lost condition, and he looks like he’s shrunk by several centimetres, yet here he is after months holed up in bed, suddenly back wearing his signature floppy-rimmed, grey fishing hat and blue-checked flannel shirt – as though the past six months never happened. And while I’m torn about whether I should be trying to discourage him, the minute he asks, I throw on some clothes and ride the old Kawasaki to the local Fish-n-Tackle store to grab him a bag of live worms.
By the time I get back Dad’s got all his gear loaded into the back of the Ute and he’s recovering in one of the faded, canvas deck-chairs on the veranda. Once again I’m struck by how frail he looks.
“It’s been a while since we fished together, Dad. What about some company down the beach later on?”
“Nope."
“Oh. Well how about you just let me drive you, and I’ll …”
“Don’t need baby-sittin’.”
He may be a man of few words, but when he crosses his arms and shuts his eyes I know better than to insist. I’ve come to realise that it’s the tiny things – the slow tap of his index finger, the hint of a nod, the knowing look that follows you way after you’ve left a room ‒ that make him who he is: Inconspicuous, yet formidable.
***
It’s mid-afternoon when Dad hoists himself into the driver’s seat, his eyes barely clearing the steering wheel. I take no refuge in the knowledge that while he hasn’t bothered packing any food he has grabbed the bottle of black label Johnny Walker he’s been hanging onto for the last year or two. I sidle up to the open passenger-side window just as he turns the key.
‘So, what’s with the whisky?”
“Wind’ll blow up later. Warm the old bones. An’ don’t be worryin’ about me, ya hear?”
I watch him set off down the road, and after the Ute disappears I head straight inside and call Frank, my younger brother. Frank lives an hour up the coast with his second wife, Penny, in a renovated bungalow. After sharing my concerns, Frank says that when a retired fisherman suddenly hankers to go fishing again, it’s a positive sign. He tells me I’m overreacting. After we decide that Team Dad will assemble for a barbeque at the foreshores this Sunday at noon, we hang up. In the mean-time, of course, it’s newly-divorced me who’ll continue to keep a close eye on him. Who needs a social life? Right?
A couple of hours later, I’m standing at the open kitchen window imagining Dad’s spindly legs straining to hold him upright against a freshening, easterly wind. I ponder his abrupt recuperation, find myself combing back over today’s conversations. Nothing about the previous twenty-four hours is sitting right with me – not his sudden recovery, not his uncharacteristic refusal of a fishing buddy, definitely not his companion bottle of whisky. And the more I think about it the more I begin to believe I’d caught a hint of bluff in his voice.
Outside, the easterly carries the squawk of seagulls, and I watch as it lifts the sheet of tin covering the old compost bin. While inconsistencies collect in my gut like metal filings to a magnet, a strong gust sends Dad’s fishing hat tumbling across the driveway – and a cold sweat sweeps over my body.
With Dad’s hat stuffed down inside my t-shirt, I kick-start the Kawasaki and head toward the beach. Knowing he has always preferred to fish from the rocks, my best guess is he’s chosen a spot along his favourite kilometre of coast. It’s not long before I come across the Ute. I park the bike nearby and start walking.
There are two huge, rocky basalt outcrops to the south and we’ve fished together many times from both. With no sign of him after twenty minutes and twilight beginning to fade on the horizon, I pick up the pace. By the time I get to the second lot of rocks my guts are churning.
It’s Dad’s tackle box I see first. When he doesn’t answer my calls my mind spins out and away like line running off a fishing reel. I strain my eyes and keep searching, by this time stumbling over rocks in the fading light. When I find the half empty bottle of whisky, my throat tightens. I drop straight down like a crab, feeling my way in a fast semi-crawl toward the first of a cluster of small rock pools. Its here I spot my father lying face down in about a foot of water. And the cold slaps me like an open freezer door.
I haul him out, sit down, cradle a soggy bag of bones. In my arms my father feels as small as a ten year old. He stares up at me, his eyes wide and glazed, his mouth emptying of sea-water ‒ like one of his precious catch ‒ and suddenly I’m howling into the salt-laced wind. Eventually, I retrieve Dad’s hat from inside my t-shirt, pull it down onto his head, and carry him back.
***
It's two hours before I’ve finished with the cops, and when I eventually arrive home I can’t seem to stop shivering. I know it’s high time I told my brother, but this isn’t the kind of news you deliver by phone. Numb, I prop myself up beneath a steaming hot shower. Twenty minutes later I’m heading up the highway in the Ute. I arrive at Frank and Penny’s just after eleven. The second they see me standing on the doorstep struggling to speak, they know Dad’s gone. I have to close my watery eyes and let the words play out like I’m talking my way through the plot of a silent movie.
***
Back home, in the early hours, I find myself standing in the centre of the lounge-room, swigging straight from a dusty bottle of Mum’s xmas-cake sherry. My guts are on fire but it’s a good fire, and as the room begins to tilt I feel time turn back … hours … days … years. I sense my father’s presence within this house. Minimal yet powerful – a life preserved in echoes. And I raise the bottle, smile, and say aloud, ‘Here’s to you, Dad, the man who believed ugly wallpaper was bad for your love-life.’
After I’ve been glued to the floor for God knows how long, turns out it’s the ideal time to pick up the spatula and finish the job.
(c) Maggie Veness, 2014
Maggie Veness has a Nursing and Welfare background and lives on the sunny coast of NSW. She began writing short fiction in 2007 and became smitten. She regularly cycles, eats cake, writes stories, and drinks red wine all on the same day. Her work has been published in seven countries.
Silas Hawkins is continuing the family voiceover tradition (he is the son of Peter 'Dalek' Hawkins and Rosemary 'Emergency Ward 10' Miller). Favourite voice credits: Summerton Mill, Latin Music USA and podcasts for The Register. For countless voice clips see links on website www.silashawkins.com. Voice agent [email protected], acting agent [email protected]
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