Indulging silence

Her father’s house was filled with various different piles, towers and stacks of half-finished hobbies, projects and items for several hobbies. After his retirement, it seemed that Richard was trying to ‘find himself’ now that he no longer had the structure and regime of a 9-5 job. 

He had tried stamp collecting, gardening, morris dancing and half a dozen more. It was a nightmare trying to navigate his house, but it seemed to make him happy so she left well enough alone. She had come over to pick him up to go to the local classic car show. Hopefully on the drive over they’d be able to catch up and reconnect.

He’d never shown much interest in classic cars until the last few weeks. He could never afford one, the pension wasn’t much, so they’d taken to going on these kinds of trips together. 

‘Dad?’ she called up the stairs, ‘are you ready?’

Richard Hollingsworth emerged from the top of the stairs dressed in his usual slacks and jumper. Regardless of the weather he always dressed the same, the way he used to dress at work. He nodded sharply and disappeared back into his study.

He was an easy man to love her dad, amiable, very smart (but not smug about it) and endlessly affectionate. If he had one flaw, it was his indecisiveness and that once he’d stuck to a decision he would never move from it (regardless of how foolish or shortsighted it was). He’d become a lot more standoffish and cold recently and she didn’t know how to reach him.

The car show was 20 minutes outside of town, based in an old churchyard. Part of a week of activities to raise money for the church and local youth activities. Richard was meant to be bringing along some baked goods to sell at the bake sale. When she asked where they were he just grunted from upstairs.

She picked her way around the coin collections, and past the kite making supplies until she got to the kitchen. Luckily, they were all there. Stacks of baked brownies, cupcakes, vanilla slices and one huge chocolate cake. It only took a few minutes to pack them all up in the car. By that point, they were running dangerously close to being late. 

There was a loud bang from upstairs, and when he arrived, looking rather dishevelled but unharmed. She asked what the noise had been, only for the question to be waved away. It was never any good asking what noises were in the house.

They made their way down to the car show, driving carefully as to not disturb the baked goods. It was a short drive made longer by the lack of conversation. Her dad had never been particularly fond of conversing but after her mum died he slipped into long silences. It was fine until he had to retire and then he sort of regressed into his hobbies.

She waved away that unkind thought. He was doing his best to reorient himself and it wasn’t her place to judge how he achieved that. She just wished that he would have a bit more focus and would bloody talk more. These long silent drives were doing her head in, and she couldn’t imagine that they were easy for him. 

She turned the radio on, in an attempt to fill the silence, but there was only annoying talkback radio and top of the pops music. Her dad turned off the music almost immediately. 

“So Dad how have you enjoyed bird-watching?”

Every attempt at conversation was either shot down or quickly dissipated. It was something of a relief when they arrived at the car show. He seemed to come more alive, more animated in the presence of these vintage cars. She tried hard not to be insulted. She made a tacit attempt at making conversation but he just walked away.

Some of his old friends were there and she resigned herself to being silently ignored for the next few hours. Giving up on politeness she wandered over to the food trucks and availed herself of the Mexican-Japanese fusion food.

“Oh Maeve I haven’t seen you at one of these before”.

Her day had somehow become more tedious.

“Hello Auntie” she leaned in for a greasy kiss on her cheek. 

They chatted for some time. Her late mother’s sister was a well meaning but deeply annoying person. She had married well and young and when her husband died under “unusual circumstances” she made a lot of money from the inheritance. 

She didn’t understand why any woman would want to do something as base as “work for a living”.

“I don’t much care for these things, I’m mostly here for the food’ she laughed gracelessly and Maeve practised her Christian patience.

“Are you looking for eligible young men? Marriageable young men?” 

She was not a subtle woman. 

“No Auntie, I’m here with Dad. She’s looking at the cars, I was just his ride”.

That statement did not land well. 

“Oh well, still you can make the most of a bad situation I can see more than a few men with empty ring fingers”.

At that point Maeve made an abrupt departure just on the edge of rudeness. She would be hearing about this at the next family dinner but there was only so much she could swallow in one day. 

She found her dad hanging out with some of his old work colleagues. It would be impossible for her to extricate him without bloodshed. Now she had to make a decision, did she live out the rest of her natural life waiting for her Dad or did she make an excuse to get them to leave? 

She had indulged his hobbies and silence and now she wanted to go home. After a few minutes of awkwardly trying to shove herself in, she just put one hand on her Dad’s shoulder and gently led him away. 

He stopped talking almost instantly which continued as they drove away from the car show.