Sorry, I've been battling the black dog - here are the final pages of my novella.
Rolling with the punches
I can remember the exact spot my dad punched me in the face. It was in our kitchen , a couple of steps away from the door which led to the back of the house. Funny enough, I guess not funny ha ha, but funny interesting I can’t remember exactly where he connected. I know it was on the face, but I can’t remember where despite it only happening a month ago.
I didn’t get a black eye or a busted lip so that narrows it down a bit, but I remember I was in shock. My dad had slapped me, belted me, flogged me with a jug cord but I never thought he’d punch me in the face. It seemed like it broke all the rules of father and son. Don’t get me wrong I’m no angel and when I get worked up I can say some bad thing but to punch your son? Sorry, but that bullshit.
I stood there, not knowing what to do. I had no thought of hitting him back, no thought of that at all and it wasn’t through fear of losing, I just thought to my core that that was the wrong thing to do. That would have broken the rules I was talking about and although he’d stepped across that line and pissed on it, I wasn’t about to do the same.
I cried, I know that. I don’t know if I cried in front of him but I did cry and not because it hurt but because it broke something. Whatever we had before then was gone. God knows we weren’t as close as a father and son are supposed to be but whatever we had, however limited, however small was broken in that instant and I cried for that being broken.
I ran out of the house and crashed at a mate’s house for a couple of days. Mark’s house as luck would have it. Well I guess he did owe me after the peach throwing fiasco. So I stayed at his house and drank whatever I could get my hands on. His parents are cool and didn’t mind if we got on it. I was having the time of my life when my mum tracked me down.
She rang Mark’s house and asked Mark’s parents how I was. They said good and mum told them to get me to call when I felt up to it. I didn’t feel up to it quick enough obviously as she called the next day and asked to speak to me. She told me dad loved me and I said he’s got a funny way of showing it and she said he was really sorry again and pleaded, really pleaded for me to come home.
Now my mum is more concerned about the ladies and cocktails but she’s still my mum and when you hear your mum say that it’s pretty hard not to pack up your things and go home despite thinking it’s a stupid thing to do. But that’s what I did and when I got home I shook dad’s hand and as soon as mum was out of the room he told me he wasn’t sorry.
I guess I could have left again, but I was home now and you know you sort of are comfortable with what you know. Anyway I found out a few days later dad had been nominated for father of the year in our state and mum was worried it might become a scandal if anyone found out I’d left home. Father of the year, give me a break. I’m off to bed.
Chapter 44
The walk down was much easier, the rocks and shrubs which had only hours before had been blocking his path now seemed to be helping him down, his body guided through gullies and craters by a presence unseen but felt. Small messages scribble on the barks of the taller trees with white trunks signposted his descent, not a wrong step seemed to be taken as he rounded boulders and scampered over pock-marked rocks. His feet drifted over fallen logs like a ski on snow, smooth and natural and unimpeded.
The grasses caressed his shins and the breeze whispered sweet apologies as he capered down the mount. The trees which had stood guard the night before now protected him and saluted. The chasm from the night before revealed itself as a one metre drop and he ran and jumped and heaved himself over it with a smile. A group of gang gang cockatoos (describe) circled over head to trumpet his return and he looked up at them in appreciation.
He was almost half way down when he peered over a rock face and saw the waterhole. It was deep but you could see right to the bottom where palm sized stones lined its depths. He freed himself from his clothes and dove in, barely breaking the surface with a splash and coasted down to the bottom before returning to refill his lungs. The water was fresh and pure and he cleansed himself in it. He cupped his hands and drank, the first water to pass his lips in more than a day, it quenched his thirst and hunger as one. Sated he emerged from the pool and soaked up the sun as he walked back to the car park.
A new neighbour
Something horrible has happened that’s why I haven’t kept up to date with this diary. You know why and I don’t want to write it down even though the psych says everything is better when you talk about it or let it out. But that applies to normal run of the mill bad things. Not this.
I’m going to try because if I don’t I don’t know what I will do. I could go next door and kill that cunt. What a total cunt. I should have known, all those talks about being a man and him helping me to realise my potential and all that other shit. What the fuck would he do that for and then do that? Why? Why me? Why now?
That look on his face like he could do whatever he wanted because he was who he is, as if I was nothing more than a scab he’d picked off his old man knees. All the smiling and laughing and drinking and it was all shit. Why did he do that? I didn’t do anything to him.
All those trips to the book shops, all those walks through the park, just talking and listening and learning. I thought he was my friend. I trusted him. I respected him. I hate him, I’m going to totally fuck him up.
Chapter 45
They’d just finished serving lunch when Klay reappeared at the pub. Ruby who’d been waiting for him rushed over to meet him. He looked ragged, half-healed scratches and emerging bruises marked his boy from head to toe. But his face had changed in a different way. He had the same glow as a pregnant woman, that same aura of goodness and richness. He was radiant. Ruby did not notice this at first, too concerned with the blemishes on his body, but when she looked into his eyes a different person looked back.
“You’ve changed.”
“I hope so.”
He kissed her on the forehead and walked up to the room to rest and he was asleep as soon as body made contact with the bed. He awoke 5 hours later with Ruby by his side. The room was dark with the exception of a desk lamp glowing softly in the corner of the room.
“How did you sleep, Ruby asked.”
“Like the dead.”
“No time for that I’m afraid. She threw him a towel and dragged him off the bed and pushed him towards the shower. He turned on the cold tap and slowly washed himself like he was performing a ritual. He closed is eyes and let the water rush over him and would have stayed there forever if Ruby hadn’t started to knock on the door. He stepped out of the shower recess and dried himself.
“Ruby? Where are my clothes?”
Ruby walked in and hung up a new navy suit, a crisp white French collared shirt and laid out fresh underwear and shiny black shoes.
“What’s all this?”
“You have a eulogy to deliver tomorrow and you can’t wear your I’m with stupid t-shirt, especially if you are going to be sitting next to me.”
“You’re going to come?”
“Is that ok?”
“Of course it’s ok.”
“I’ll let you get dressed.”
Ruby closed the door and Klay shaved off a week’s growth, combed his unruly hair as best he could, dressed and walked down stairs hand in hand with Ruby for his first meal in more than a day.
Angry
You want to know how I feel? Well I’ll tell you. I feel betrayed, deceived, treasoned, double-crossed, deserted, stabbed in the back, sold out, let down, knifed, hung drawn and quartered, guillotined, judased.
On some level I can understand your arguments, it would be bad for dad’s career, it would be unlikely the police would take my word against his, it would turn my life into a circus, the family’s name would be dragged through the mud. I concede all those things, but you are my parents you are supposed to be here for me.
You haven’t been there for me. You haven’t watched out for me. You are never around. You take little interest in what I do. You think I get in the way. But this is different. I asked your help, I asked you for support, I asked you to treat me like a son and for you to act like parents. Where was your outrage, where was your anger, where was your determination to break down his front door and smash his face in and shove a red hot poker up his arse while he pleaded for mercy.
Where was your decency?
Dad you have fought many fights for others but you were too gutless to fight for your son. You marched for workers rights, you made new laws to help refugees, you shouted at the top of your longs to protect the interests of those who are poor, disadvantaged and without homes. But for me you went silent, your lack of words more effective than the most powerful speech.
And you mum. The woman who gave birth to me but could hardly claim to have raised me. In the moment comes along when you could have righted all those wrongs, you too turn your back as if I was somebody else, someone you didn’t know, someone who you cared so little for you could not even cry for the violation of your son less than 20 metres from our front door.
For all these things I leave. This is not the action of an upset school boy, this is the decision of someone who had had enough. I will not be back. Do not look for me. I have taken some money, call it compensation for your lack of attention. Call it theft. Call it whatever you want, just don’t call me, I am no longer your son.
Chapter 46
It was midnight before they left for the capital but they didn’t appear tired, if anything excited by the final leg of the trip, despite the knowledge of what lay in store the next day. Klay sat in the driver’s seat, back straight, elbow lightly resting on the door frame, his hair blowing back in the wind. Ruby sat comfortably in the passenger seat in a simple black dress, she too fad her window down and the chilled wind buffeted her smiling face.
There was a long flat stretch before the mountain range and even in the dark you could see the differences to their long journeys through the centre of the country. Man’s mark was everywhere: neon signs flashing business names, foreign trees lining suburban streets and concrete walkways built over busy roads. Even in the gaps between towns were different, so many fences partitioning paddocks over such small distances. The whole place felt barricaded, unsafe.
“Do you think you’re ready?”
“I was just thinking that. I don’t know Klay said. “If you’d asked me a week ago what I was going to say I would have been able to tell you a million things, all things my old man had done to me.”
“And now.”
“And now there’s still all those things, but I also remember some of the things he did for me. “
“That’s got to be good.”
“You’d think so, Id don’t know. I don’t know if I’m the best person to deliver it you know? I only saw parts of his life.”
“Isn’t that what we all see of each others, just parts of the puzzle?”
“But some of these pieces which are missing could be really important.”
“No more important than those you can talk about. Just trust your heart Klay. If you are true to yourself, you will be true to him. Maybe that’s why he chose you. Maybe he didn’t want the pretty pieces to be turned into a pretty picture. Maybe those fragments shared with you are how he wants to be remembered?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure I’d go to the funeral.”
“Is that what you really think?”
“No. No it isn’t.
Ruby laid her head on Klay’s lap as he drove to his father’s funeral and watched the white lines approach and past, one after another, relentless and comforting.
Chapter 47
When Ruby woke they were just about there, the circuitous route over the mountains had flattened into a straight line headed for the coast, lined by concrete, bricks and red rooves. The traffic had slowed and Klay wound down his windows to try and stay away. Ruby rubbed sleep from her eyes and tried to pat down her hair the best she could. She stretched and yawned and Klay told her not to start that and he drove and stopped, drove and stopped again, their life a series of green, amber and red lights and the sounds of cars, trucks and motorbikes.
The air was thick with people and pollution, the rawness of the outback replaced by the engineered superficiality of the city. Billboards in bold colours told them what to buy, where to go, who to be and Ruby yawned some more as Klay hummed some tune in time to his finger tapping on the steering wheel. Ruby looked over at him and smiled and Klay gave out a little laugh.
“Hello gorgeous,” he said.
“Hello yourself.”
Klay took the turn to the centre of the city and the buildings grew taller and the sun disappeared but the heat increased and at a set of lights he rolled up his sleeves and wiped his forehead.
“How’s that speech going?” Ruby asked as she finished the last of a can of cola.
“All good” he said, I’m just not sure how to start it.”
“Try me,” she said.
“Hi, I’m Klay and I’m an alcoholic. Sorry with so many drunks in the room I forgot where I was, let me start again…”
Ruby slapped him and laughed.
“Well what about this… Hi, to give some context to this eulogy I have decided to go back a bit in time…in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
“Klay.”
“A bit long? This is my favourite…”Hi, I told you he was sick…”
“Klay be serious for Gods’ sake, how much longer?”
Chapter 48
The first person they met at the church was Mrs Steele. It had been seven years since Klay had seen her and she looked decades older. When Klay had left she was considered at the peak of her powers, now, dressed all in black her features looked wan, she had become an old woman. She stood at the entrance to the church, alone, dignified, lost. Klay asked Ruby to wait while he approached his mother, she still had not spotted him.
Quietly he said her name. “Mum.”
She turned slowly to face him and she looked even older closer than she did from a distance. Her wrinkles had set firmly around her eyes and mouth, she stood tall but her eyes had looked as lifeless as those on the marble statues standing either side of the doors.
“Klayton. You have come.”
“Yes.” He said as he leant over to give her over to peck her on the cheek.” You look tired.”
“I am. It’s so good to see you. You’ve grown up.”
“It’s been a while.”
“It has. You know you look just like your father at the same age.”
“Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. I am sorry. I am so sorry and so was your father.” She pushed an envelope over to Klay.
“I need to go inside. Read that and introduce me to your friend after the service.” Mrs Steele walked inside and sat in the front pew of the church which started to quickly fill.
There were two former Prime Ministers in attendance, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Premier and an assortment of Ministers and politicians from all sides of politics. Photographers and camera crews jostled for the best shots of mourners going in until the doors were shut and the service started.
Dear Klayton,
Even on my deathbed I did not have the courage to call you. I feared what I wanted to say would come out wrong and we’d fight and I didn’t want that to be our last contact. I know this may appear to be a feeble attempt by a feeble old man to get in the last word – you always said I was good at that – but the reality is I want to say sorry, and for you to be able to read that apology. I do not ask for forgiveness, Ii do not deserve it. I don’t say that to try and get you to feel sorry for me, it is what I feel in my heart.
I have made many mistakes but my biggest was not giving you the love, support, guidance, nurturing, that a father should give a son. I wish I could say that I have a good reason for these failures but the truth is I don’t. I have been selfish where I needed to be selfless, I have been arrogant where I needed to be humble, and I have been blinkered when I should have seen what was going on in my own family.
If you could humour me for a few minutes I will try and explain why I did what I did. In no way is this an attempt to justify my actions or lack of actions, I just want to explain the man that is your father, something I should have done many years ago, to try and save you from the same mistakes that I have made.
I grew up on a farm as you know and that’s where everyone thought I would stay. I remember something one of the children I went to school with said to me when we were talking about what we would do when we grew up. Everyone else had said doctor or engineer or teacher or the like and I said I wanted to be a lawyer. This student, Barry Blundell was his name, I can still remember his rodent like face, whose father was the town clerk, laughed at me and said I couldn’t be a lawyer as I was a farmer’s son.
I have never forgotten those comments. They have helped me pick myself up when I had been beaten down. They were the rallying cry to me whenever I thought a task was too hard for a mere son of a famer. But along the way I forgot I had already shown-up that son of the town clerk. I had not only become a lawyer, but a member of parliament, a minister of the crown no less. But those blinkers of pride had blocked out all the sacrifices along the way.
But please do not misread this explanation, to blame all my abominable behaviour on the naïve words of a small boy would be not only be self-serving but futile. I just give that example to demonstrate how I conjured myself a life where I played the role of the hero overcoming all adversity to show them all I was more than just a farmer’s son. I should have been proud of my achievements; instead I used them as a weapon against myself. I should have been proud of being a farmer’s son and content that I’d chosen a different path, instead I was embarrassed by one and never satisfied by the other.
I was at a caucus meeting instead of your birth. I was giving a speech about something or other when you walked through the school gates for the first time, and I’m sure you could add to this list ad infinitum so I won’t try to catalogue every indiscretion or oversight.
There is one thing however that I must mention, as painful as it is to me and undoubtable it is for you. This thing was no mere oversight or indiscretion, this was so much more than that, a dereliction of duty sounds trite but I struggle to find sufficient words to describe my failure. Let me call it my greatest failure as a man, a human being, a father. Unforgivable.
I am sorry from the bottom of my soul son, and I say this as I approach an imminent death with fear and overriding terror. I prostrate before you on this page and kiss your feet and offer any goodness I have left to try and wipe away any small measure of pain that I inflicted through my callous disregard for your welfare. When you came to me for help the night before I left our house for the last time I turned my back on you. When you left I did not follow. For that I will never forgive myself.
My greed, my arrogance, my myopia blinded me to what is just and right. No father should ever treat a son that way, and no father deserves too be given relied from the hatred that sort of action engenders. If you ask me now how I could put my career and position before my own flesh and blood I could no easier give you an answer than if you asked my to explain the meaning of life.
Hah, position. My coveted position, status, career. How worthless they are, but trinkets on a brightly coloured coat with no worth other than what you yourself give them, and I give them nothing, they are worth nothing. I would swap any of it for the temporary lifting of this great darkness that surrounds me to spend just a minute or two with you, just holding hands and feeling your warmth, your life.
I have said what I’ve needed to say. I hope my mistakes can help you live a better life not full of regrets. I hope you can meet your fate when it arrives with a clear conscience and a warm heart and happy memories. If any of these words give any assistance in helping you to attain a meaningful life then I will be forever grateful.
One last thing my dearest Klayton. I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but nevertheless I ask you this. Please forgive your mother. I know it would be easier not to, but she is a good woman, behind everything, she is a good woman, she just picked a bad husband. For that she is not to blame.
Love your father,
James Steele
Chapter 49
Klay’s knuckles had turned white from clenching the funeral program and as he looked up at the overflowing church he gripped the paper tighter. He felt nauseous looking into the sea of black before him, black suits, black hats, black dresses rippling across the pews like water in the wind. His mother sat in the first row looking as old as her mother would have been if she was still alive. As he scanned the faces he recognised a few, his father’s work colleagues, Mr Mulligan the owner of the yabby dam, there was nobody from his old town although Klay did not know that. Down the back was something solid amongst the swaying, Ruby stood tall against the back wall looking directly at him. He have a light smile back was about to start when he noticed someone coming in late near Ruby.
He was a tall man, well built, wearing an impeccable black suit with a black shirt and tie, black hair and a deep rutted face. His face was grey and when Klay caught his eye he looked down at his scuffed black shoes and didn’t look back up. It had been seven years since Klay had seen him, but he was hardly recognisable. His proud stance had slumped to a stoop, his hair looked unkempt and his eyes had become deep pools of black, sucking in light but letting none out. Without looking up he pulled out a white handkerchief from his trousers pocket and blew his nose, wiped it clean, refolded the sullied cloth and put it back in his pocket. Klay looked back to Ruby.
“My father.” Klay said and then stopped to clear his throat.
“My father was not a great man,” he said as Ruby looked at him, her eyes squinting with the strain.
“My father was not a great man, but he tried as hard as he could to be the best man he could be – and what more can anyone ask? “Ruby lowered her eyes, the tightness of her shoulders eased and she struggled to hold back tears welling in her eyes.
“Previous speakers have talked about my father’s political contribution and I thank them for that, and will for others to judge.
I can only speak as a son, an imperfect son of an imperfect father. My father came from a poor farming family where survival was considered success. That was not the measure by which my father marked himself.
Through hard work he succeeded at school and quality education became a cause he promoted and protected.
As a lawyer he represented those who could not afford representation, and argued for the right causes when the self-righteous remained silent.
Along the way many people told him not to bother, which bothered him. Many people told him to give-up, but he promised himself never to give-in. Many people told him it was not worth it – he sometimes had his doubts.
My father was an honest man which is why I must be honest today.
When we had moments of joy they were pure joy – the day we went yabbying and they were jumping into our scoops, the time …, and the afternoon when …
Like all of us he was flawed. On occasions he let me down in ways I can only describe as heart breaking.
On occasions he placed his grand goals before his family responsibilities.
On occasions he could have treated his wife better and on occasions he could have spent more time with his son.
But any goals worth pursuing will produce casualties.
Shortly before his death my father wrote me a letter. He did not ask for forgiveness. He asked for understanding. The letter included this quote:
Grant that I may realise that the trifling of life creates differences, but that in the higher things we are all one.
I do realise. I love you. Good bye.
Epilogue
Few stories really end with happily ever after and this is no exception, but this is not an end and Klay and Ruby are as happy as they can be a day at a time. After the funeral they got back into that old EH and headed west towards the mountains and that long stretch of road which would eventually take them back to their spiritual home in the north.
But as can happen they were side-tracked on the way when Ruby became sick and they had to stop at a small one-pub town towards the top of the mountains. It was at this pub that Klay found a couple of days work to help pay for the petrol for the trip back. He found serving drinkers helped him to stay off the stuff and Ruby took longer than expected to recover and by then they’d found a nice cottage on the side of the hill with a couple of acres as a backyard and a glorious view of the valley at their front door.
Chickens ran wild, dogs moped about and a pig made one corner of the property his home when Klay decided he could no longer come into the house now that they had a baby. Nine months after he buried his father Klay welcomed a son, John James Steele, named after both their fathers. JJ as he was called by mum and dad was born healthy with loud lungs and a mischievous look. Klay has kept working at the pub and Ruby plays there every night, sad country songs which talk of her past, but not her future. They have hope, it was a long road, but after much searching they realised it had never gone away, it had been there all the time, they just hadn’t been looking in the right place.
Kiss by Andy Warhol, 1963.
