WALK

I parked under the shade of a drowsing gum tree. It was warm, not yet hot. Not hot like it would be in a month or two. Still, even a Spring break encourages some shade seeking, especially when you’ll be hot when you get back to the car. There were two choices for the bushwalk. The shorter one was to a man-made lake with an odd name, OT Dam. The other was a circuit through the bush. Which one, I asked. You choose, she said. We both knew the boy wouldn’t care. It’s no longer correct to call him ‘the boy’ but I don’t know what other label to use; he’s still our boy. I said, let’s decide at the point where the routes diverge. So a few hundred metres later we stopped at a fork in the dirt track. Fire tracks; unsealed dirt roads about a truck width, usually scarred by rain channels that have hardened solid as concrete. Fire trucks use them if there’s a bushfire; walkers can use them too.

At the beginning the dam walk went uphill and the circuit walk gently down hill. Which one, I asked. You decide, she said, you’re… Her voice trailed off but I heard the end of the sentence. The oldest, the most unfit. Dam, I said, thinking the other two expected that as it was a shorter walk, scarcely a hike at all. We turned up the right arm of the ‘Y’ and my internal list continued up the first incline. The least enthusiastic about bushwalking, the dodgiest knees, the most likely to need a rest, the first to start puffing… 

An explosion of red and green startled me out of this grey reverie; three rosellas bursting into flight with parakeet screeches. I smiled. Rosellas in the wild, such unlikely vibrancy in the olive-tan bush. I took a breath, focussed on the surroundings, the sun filtering through the canopy, the family up ahead. Go at your own pace, I called. Just wait for me at some point. Pride or frustration would have silenced that request a while back but now it just seemed like stating the obvious. And OK. I’m here doing this, we’re together, it’s a terrific late Spring morning. 

A mountain biker passed us, moving fast uphill. Jeez, I thought, that’s fitness. There was a sign indicating a prepared mountain bike track. I stood on the launch platform and gazed down an almost vertical descent; boulders, gullies, sawn-off tree trunks, it was impossible to even detect a path down. The sign at the top warning of mortal danger did not seem far-fetched. As you age, you forget what it is to be intrepid; a heightened sense of risk is shadowed by a reduction in self-belief and the young are labelled foolhardy to cover creeping caution. Maybe it’s only older people who read the warning signs. Like the one by the lake that cautioned about deep, cold water. Not to mention the hazards of downed trees and other entanglements. Danger every direction. 

We found a boardwalk and ambled along it to enjoy the sun glinting off the water and the gentle murmurings of the bush. At the far end the earthen bank was covered with untidy foliage; much more like a natural lake than a dam. Another daring cyclist wove across the embankment wearing what looked like a motorcycle helmet; Darth Vader on a mountain bike. We took a family selfie with the water in the background. I said we should do the other walk as well, perhaps my voice caring more enthusiasm than I actually felt. Still, it was good to find enough in the legs to want more.

A shipping container plonked by the side of the track had a sign, ‘Peninsula Mountain Biking Club’. That explained the tyre marks, I guess. But what did they keep in the container? Not those fancy two-wheelers with their shock absorber forks and forty-eight gears, surely. Perhaps it was a mini-hospital for treating cuts and lacerations, sprains and bruises. Ride fast over such terrain, you’re going to come to grief at some point. Later we saw a lizard lying in the middle of the track. I wonder if it knows it’s on a bike track, son mused. Might end up as two lizards. We chuckled, the lizard didn’t move. There’s danger even in lying motionless in one place, I thought. 

I wondered how far it was back to the car.

SUITCASE

We’re going on a holiday soon. Somewhere unfamiliar, what’s more. Seems odd, like a forgotten skill or neglected hobby; that’s the impact of the pandemic. When I hear of friends travelling by air, some even making long-haul trips, I blanch. I’m not that brave. So we are taking an old fashioned road trip, driving up through central Victoria to Canberra, the national capital. It’s decades since I was there and it has, by all reports, changed significantly. That’s good. It was extraordinarily boring when I was there in the late 1980s. 

I wonder how our little trio will go with a long drive. The boy’s legs are in oversupply for the back seat but his mum won’t be offering to swap; she needs her orthopaedic seat. I’m looking forward to the driving, despite the legroom in the front being less than generous. There is something soothing about the always-changing always the same Australian countryside. Doubtless we’ll fill the car with stuff, even though it’s only a handful of nights away. Packing feels like an unfamiliar task. What to take, what to leave; what we’ll use, what will make the 1400km round trip without emerging from its bag. Maybe I should start putting things aside, hoping I remember everything important but knowing some vitals will be forgotten. That’s always the way.

~

After my father died I spent weeks fighting a losing battle against a house full of stuff. The place had been my grandparents home, where we moved after they died. Some of the deep cupboards in the kitchen had layers of crockery stretching back half a century. Reaching into the gloomy recess you could find a cake plate my grandmother used for her hard, tasteless scones. Thank heavens for jam. Butter and jam. And cream if it was on offer. Most of the stuff went into skips or off to Opportunity Shops. Boxes of kitchenware, crockery, glassware. Garbage bags of clothes, linen, tea towels from England. Cheap armchairs, bedside tables, that ugly 70s sideboard. Metres of books, kilos of hardware; over fifty years of stuff accumulated by three generations. One afternoon I sat in the middle of the lounge room and wept. Surrounded by piles of nicotine-stained cushions, pianola rolls, outdated travel books and ancient yachting magazines it felt like I was drowning in an ocean of meaningless things guarded by a man who I was never close to. It was the sobbing of the overwhelmed, not grief as such. Though grief did appear once; the only time I cried for that stern, unhappy man.

~

After Overwhelm Wednesday I called on my partner for help. Breathing a sigh of relief—for she had seen the impact the process was having—she immediately stepped forward and into the dusty time capsule. It made a huge difference, both practically and emotionally. I noted, with confused appreciation, the unfamiliar experience of having an ally, someone at your side. It was good, and we made steady progress. The wardrobe in the second bedroom was one of the hardest. Crammed from keel to crows nest with stuff, it was something I had to face alone. A chenille bedspread I remembered from when this was my sister’s room. Some of my high school text books. A rack of photograph albums from local outings he had taken after retirement; after my mother left him alone with his bitterness and resentment. A top shelf crammed with four old pillows, stained and discoloured with childhood dribble. Or tears. A slight shudder as they went into the skip.

At floor level, a selection of travel goods, cases and bags of various sizes. One contained new clothes he’d bought but forgotten about. Perplexingly, a modern carry-on bag was stuffed with skeins of wool seventy or eighty years old. An old shoebox tied with string had two pairs of children’s gumboots wrapped in ancient newspaper. A case, larger than the others, caught my eye. Wedged in the corner, heavy, it gave off an 80s vibe. I dragged it onto the carpet and sat down. More clothes, I thought; more everyday costumes to give an illusion of living life. But no. Here is a full bathroom kit, a light dressing gown, sets of seasonal wear. This was a tourist’s suitcase, meticulously packed  years and years earlier with all the anxious care of the first-time traveller. Cushioned by neatly rolled socks, an international power adaptor confirmed both purpose and intent. I eased open the stud of the suitcase pocket. Inside was his passport and a fold-out map of London. There was no need to open the passport to know it was unused.

*

FISHING

Another year limps towards the finish line. The path behind is strewn with discarded resolutions, unfulfilled dreams and incomplete projects. I reject the implicit invitation to reflect. What makes this particular evening special? Just another weary circuit around the sun.

This morning I continued sanding back the paint on the dingy. Ready for a fresh coat, a new beginning. Have the little craft ready for the two weeks at Blairgowrie starting next Saturday. I tried to get Bruce involved but he disappeared after half an hour. Something about needing to read the books for the coming school year. Soon he won’t come on holidays with us at all. That will leave me and Barb. I wonder what she does while I’m fishing? There are a couple of small cracks here I should fill before painting.

I do not like New Year’s Eve. Read something in the paper yesterday about it being the traditional time for existential torment. Kind of amusing, that, after I looked up the word. Maybe that’s why I have a second sherry. To silence the whispering voices. Am I a good man? A good Father? Firm, certainly. Clear in my expectations. Things should be done properly.

Hard work, the sanding; probably should have put on an old work shirt. The paint makes dust and clogs up the sandpaper. It’s a pretty warm day. Maybe I’ll get Barb to make a jug of Pimms later, while I take a shower. Bruce used to enjoy slicing the cucumber and orange when we had the family over for Christmas drinks. He does what he is asked to do.

My daughter doesn’t seem to understand I am the head of the family. The sole breadwinner. The daily grind of work is hard. I’m starting to feel dried out and the driving is wearing me down, factory after factory. As I drive I daydream about retirement. Fishing from the rocks at the ocean beach or from the dingy on the bay. Must get that garden shed delivered to Blairgowrie on the right day. They offered to erect it but I declined. Well within my skills. Anyway, I don’t want to sit around wasting holiday time waiting for an unreliable tradesman who’ll do a shonky job. It will be good to have all the fishing gear down there, not have to cart it back and forth. Although I might bring the new reel back with me. Cost a pretty penny, but I earned the right to a present for self. It was a long year.

 

SHIRT

The steam iron glides over the fabric, puffs of memory drifting upward. The label inside the collar: St Charles, patron saint of business shirts, early sixties incarnation. My partner soaked it in nappy wash and it’s come up remarkably well, white and bright as the ads say. I’m ironing it—a rare event—because I might wear it tomorrow for the special lunch. Then I think, no. Too many ghosts in the weave.

My mother mended this shirt; a small vertical tear by the second button down from the collar. Maybe my father brushed against something sharp in an engineering workplace and snagged the fabric. He would have been wearing a tie, but that didn’t protect the cotton. Barb, fix this will you? If she asked how it happened anger would spurt; the enquiry a challenge, an implication of clumsiness. We were never far away from his wrath, any of us.

The repair is intricate, painstaking. Was she scared when she was stitching? That her work was not good enough, some tendril of shame clinging to the thread? Still, it was good work, even though the repair is visible like a skin graft. Craft work. She darned socks, too, using a wooden mushroom and rummaging around in a box of odds and ends for the best wool match. Mostly grey. That was the time.

A well-made garment, though it would not have been top shelf. Nothing was, ‘round our place. (Except the toys the head of the household bought for himself. On those he never stinted.) Noticing the reinforced cuffs, the small darts in the waist hem, the collar stiff—though wrinkled—almost sixty years later. Is that why I’ve kept it? A reminder of things well made in a time of fast fashion and one-wear garments. A reminder of starch, of stiffness.

After the shirt retired from active service, my mother used to wear it to paint. Her wooden painting case, brushes and rags with multi-coloured stains. The paintings were not ones to dwell upon, yet there are still a couple in the garage I can’t throw out and am too embarrassed to take to the charity shop. Trans-generational shame. Hide things away. That’s a good one.

I notice a few rust-coloured stains tattooed into the cotton. What oxidised metal rubbed them into permanence? A reminder of his career in engineering sales, perhaps. On the internal canvas of our lives, what pictures, sketches, false starts and abandoned projects are layered? To scrape away the regrets, the resentments, the self-inflicted hurts; that would be good. A steam iron to smooth the wrinkles and dissolve the pain with a burst of water vapour. So much more modern than tears.