Dad Stories

Me: This is going better than I ever expected. The writing is just flowing out of me. Having you here is huge, by the way. I don't feel anywhere near as overwhelmed or scared now you're here.
She: I have always been here.
Me: I was wondering about that. You're that wise deep me from way back, aren't you? The one who knew when things weren't quite right.
She: Yes.
Me: I'm sorry I forgot about you for so long. You're so much nicer than that other voice I've been listening to all these years.
She:It's good to have your attention!
Me: Finally eh? I woke up with a head full of ideas about this story. About calling the stories about dad's side of the family Paternal, and mum's side Maternal, and another part, just about how that all affected me and my life Internal, and then about the rest of the world External... And I'm remembering all sorts of stories now, quite vividly. Don't know if they're true, but it's what I remember, and that's what I want to write about...
She: Let's just keep writing about dad for now.
Me: OK.

I don't want to come across as judgmental.  When I say dad was a boozer, I'm just saying it as a fact. It's just what he did a lot, and a lot of my memories about him involve drinking. I'm not saying "this was a terrible thing."  It's just what was.

A couple of days before dad died, I was sitting with him in the bedroom -- he was home from hospital now, home to die. We were alone. He wasn't talking much, but he suddenly said "Susie, there's an envelope in the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet. Can you get it?" Was he going to change his will on his deathbed and leave his modest fortune to his eldest daughter?! Was there a family secret he needed to share so he could die in peace? The envelope had a wad of money in it. $20s, $10s, $5s. A few hundred dollars. "Go to Wilson Neils and make sure there's plenty of booze for my funeral. I don't want it running out. And make sure you get a case of sparkling wine for mum." "Where did this money come from?" "These are my TAB winnings!" He seemed genuinely delighted.

Later that same day he roused from a slumber and said "There's only one thing I wish I'd done in my life that I didn't do!" Wow, cool, now we're getting down to the deep and meaningful. "What was that dad?" "Finish gibbing the garage. I suppose it doesn't really matter." I suppose I could have got him to tell me how to do it and manage the proceedings from his bed, so he could die a totally satisfied man. But I was a bit teary and overwhelmed. As far as I know that garage still isn't gibbed, and it still doesn't matter.

Anyway, it's a fine achievement to get to the end of your life feeling satisfied that your only unfinished business was a bit of simple carpentry.
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I don't like saying this, but if dad had lived as long as Bill Cook did, he's be just like him. Minus the budgies.

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First memory of reading -- Dad taught me to read when I was two or three.
I am clever! I can read. I’m delighted, dancing and clapping. Dad is delighted too. He shows the visitors how clever I am. “Hold up a record, and she will read you the title!”
Someone holds up the record with the yellow label. I point at the title. “Little. Black. Sambo?”
YES!
The red label: “Little Red Hen?”
YES!
Green: “Henny Penny!”
Blue: “Peter and the WOLF!”
Everyone is amazed and clapping, and I am happy.
How long did Dad and I get away with this party trick? Not sure, but ever since I was three, I thought I could read, and I never thought otherwise. Thanks dad, that was brilliant.

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I never thought about dad as a big gardener -- he just wasn't the type. But he did grow a vege garden, both at the Patterson St house and at Princes St. From this distance, I can understand what he was up to -- he did things other people didn't want to do, so he could get some time alone. Like grow veges and do accounts and taxes. My memories of dad in the vege garden involve a transistor radio tuned to the races, a bottle of beer, an old bedframe with the bedsprings attached that he used to sieve large amounts of soil very quickly, and a round yellow plastic seed dispenser, which adjusted to let out different sizes of seeds, and made for very efficient seed planting. As I write this, I realise I'm just remembering one day. It was the same day I was pottering around near the black currant bushes and looked down to see a huge black spider running across the front of my pretty smocked dress printed with sprigs of lavendar flowers. Did I scream? I know I cried. I know mum and dad came. But after the shock of the spider it's a bit of a blank. After that day I had nightmares for a while--the wall in our bedroom, right opposite the bed, was crawling with black spiders.

When dad died I tried to find that seed dispenser, something special to remember him by. (I see just now that Freud would be loving this disclosure!) I looked high and low for it, in the garage and sheds, in the attic boxes. I never found it.

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I started drinking when I was 18. That's when it was legal, and I was not a rule breaker! So on my 18th birthday I had drinks after work with my work mates. I felt like crap after a couple of glasses of wine. I went home, lay on my bed, and thought "Drinking's stupid. I'm not going to drink again." Later dad came in the back door from work, holding up a bottle in a brown paper bag. "I got some wine for Susie's birthday!" He looked so happy. Wine was special then -- it wasn't common like it is now. And so dad poured himself a beer and mum and me a glass of wine, and I pretended to be grateful and excited. This was a big event for them. And for me I guess. I was 18, and I was admitted into the adult ritual of "a drink before dinner."

30+ years later, it was this that I struggled with most when I tried to stop drinking. It's that identity thing. Drinking marked my transition from child to adult. Drinking meant I was grown up.

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Dad was on the outside of a lot of our life. He went to work. He provided the money. But mum was in charge of us, and dad kept himself out of things until he was summonsed. Dad had other things to think about and worry about -- we shouldn't bother him. So I didn't expect much from him in terms of intimacy or closeness. He was very safe, and could be called on and relied on, but he wasn't that emotionally involved. But I do have an important memory of dad completely shocking me emotionally -- in a good way, and he probably had no idea of the significance of what he did.

I used to work in his office after school. I'd walk up from St Catherine's, and do filing, mail, and then get a ride home with dad at 5pm. He was driving a car by then. He was the office manager after all. He used to tell me, "Never learn to type, Susie. You'll end up being Someone's Secretary!" Ending up being Someone's Secretary was definitely the worst case scenario in my young mind. I would never end up being one of those! I was going to be a writer. (It never occurred to me that it might be handy for a writer to know how to type.)

Next to dad's office on Esk Street was a stationery shop. Photographic posters were getting popular, and they had one hanging in their window -- a winter scene, trees thick with snow, shot with a hot pink filter, with the sun all fractured into a star shape. I was utterly enthralled with it. I guess I stopped and pointed it out to dad. He said "Would you like it?" I couldn't speak. But my face said something meaningful. He walked right into the shop and bought it for me. I was completely gob-smacked. Writing this is bringing tears to my eyes.

She: what's going on?
Me: It was a rare moment growing up that I felt like someone. Like I was a person, with likes and dislikes, and someone else listened to what I liked, and responded. It wasn't about getting a poster. It was about being taken seriously. About being acknowledged.

This didn't happen normally. Liking and wanting something was waving a red flag, asking to be teased, ridiculed, mocked and manipulated, and eventually getting it and being harassed about gratitude and the sacrifices of others. Not by dad -- he didn't do that. But I just didn't have that many opportunities like this with him. The point is that I felt seen. I was someone. It was immense.

She: do you want to write any more about that?
Me: yes, but not now. That's going to be part of the Maternal story.
She: OK.

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