A Conversation with My Father

It’s a strange feeling, sitting on a park bench with my father. Coming here was his idea: he wants to be outside, in the fresh air, in the sun, with happy children playing on the swings, people walking their dogs, and others just enjoying the fresh air, sitting in small groups on the manicured lawns. He says it will be a good place to sit or stroll and catch up with each other.  

I like the park. I often feel confined in my little downtown apartment on the fourth floor of a building with no lift. Windows looking across a narrow back alley at the dirty brown wall of a similar building. It’s cramped enough on my own, but now that dad is staying with me – not for long, I hope – we’re both tripping over things every time we move. I’ve told him he has to go to social welfare and get on a benefit of some sort. I’ll kick him out as soon as he gets that sorted. 

He's wearing a suit. I’m sure it’s the one he was wearing the last time I saw him, fifteen years ago, when I was nine or ten years old. It’s warm at the park, and he has taken the jacket off. He looks skinny, despite the hard physical work he says he’s been doing. 

“So,” I say, “Are we here just to reminisce about the good old times, or do you have something to tell me?”

“Both, really, Dianne,” he says. “But I’m not sure how to say it.”

“Start wherever you like, Dad,” I tell him. 

“I had lots of time to think when I was working out on the farms,” he says. “And I always came to the same conclusion. I didn’t have to run away. I should have stayed and sorted things out, but I didn’t. I have to live with that now. And try to put things right.”  

“We all have to live with it,” I tell him. “Me, your three sons, and your youngest daughter. Can you remember their names? You haven’t mentioned any of them in the two days you’ve been here.” 

He sighs, shifts around on the bench, makes himself more comfortable.

“I deserve that, I guess,” he says. “Can I start at the beginning? “

“Wherever you like,” I say. “I’ve got so many questions I don’t know where to start.”

He sighs again. “I met Melody – your mother – at high school. We were in the same class. Melody. I loved that name. Still do. Anyway, it was our last year at school. I hadn’t paid her much attention before then: she was just another girl in the room, a bit quiet, kept to her own small group of friends. But she blossomed over the summer break, and came back looking like a movie star. I was all besotted with her. I kept asking her out, offering to walk her home, asking her to help me with my homework. She was one of the smartest kid in the class, and that made her more alluring. For me, anyway.”

He pauses. Takes a sip of water. 

“I always had a feeling she liked me better than most of my mates, and it turned out that I was right. One day she asked me to walk her home after school, and from then on we walked home together whenever we could. One day she invited me in to her house to meet her mother. After that I often went to her place after school and we’d do our homework together. Her mother was always home when I was there. I think she had a part-time job, but I didn’t talk to her much. Well, we were getting on pretty well, and started going out together. Movies, roller skating, and even a local night club where they had local bands playing.”

He pauses. Then says, “But there was one stumbling block in our path. Her parents were very religious. Melody told me she rebelled when she was about fourteen, and refused to go to church any more. She said her parents reluctantly accepted that. They were smart enough to know forcing her to go to church would open a gap between them, she told me.”

I ask him if they were in love.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think we knew what love was, at that age. I’m not sure I do now, either. We were really good friends, and we had started kissing and cuddling and getting ourselves a bit worked up. This was at her place, if her mother wasn’t home.”

I’m not sure I need to know about his schoolboy groping escapades. “Was it crowded, like ours?” I ask him. We had three boys in one big room, and two girls in a room with just enough space to walk between the two single beds, and we shared a wardrobe. It was right next to the bathroom too. People using the toilet at all hours of the night. You coming home and taking a shower at midnight. It was good though. I liked all that bustling around.”

“It was a busy place, wasn’t it,” he says. “But we managed, didn’t we?”

“Until you walked out on us,” I say. “It’s been a bit tough since then. And I’m still resentful you wouldn’t let me and Donald sleep in the little room together. We’re twins, and we hated being separated.”

Dad looks horrified.

“Of course not. Boys and girls can’t sleep in the same room. Even if they’re twins and just little kids. We thought you could keep an eye on young Jessie if you slept in the same room, and Donald could keep James and Stewart in line. You did a good job, too. You’ll make a great mother one day.”

I let that comment slide past me, and we sit quietly for a while, until Dad says “I had to leave, you know. I thought it was the only option.”

“I was eight years old, Dad. Jessie wasn’t even two. Mum didn’t have a job. She’d never worked. You married her less than a year after you left school. You were both only nineteen.”

“Melody was eighteen, actually,” he says. “She got bumped up a class because she was so smart.”

He looks away, into the far distance. My brain ticks over.

“Oh my God. You weren’t married when she got pregnant. It was a shotgun wedding.”

“Are you saying your mother never told you?”

“Yes. But you didn’t, either.”

“Well, all I can say to that is I’m sorry. We talked about telling you but could never make up our minds. Does it matter?”

“Probably not, Dad. No, maybe it does. I don’t know.”

We sit in silence for a while. Then Dad says, “Neither of us was ready for marriage, let alone children. My dad said we shouldn’t get married and should adopt the baby out as soon as it was born. He was shouted down. Melody’s parents were religious and said there was no way they would accept an abortion or condone children being born out of wedlock. So in the end they told us we had to get married and keep the baby.”

“Babies, you mean, don’t you? Did you know you were having twins?”

“Not until Melody was in labour. It was a bit of a shock, to be honest.” 

“I bet.” I lean over and kiss him. “Thanks Dad. Malcolm. For keeping us and telling me. I’ve had a sort of okay life so far. Well, it’s a bit tough at the moment. And I’ll always miss growing up without a father.”

“Hey, I stayed until the youngest was two.”

“Yeah. Then you bailed out. Deserted us.”

“Not entirely. I got a job on a farm a couple of weeks after I hit the road. I put money into your mother’s bank account every month. Enough to pay the mortgage.”

“It wasn’t, you know. It was barely enough to feed and clothe us, and pay the power bills and stuff like that. Mum went on social welfare and stayed home and cared for us. She couldn’t cover the mortgage. All of our grandparents are paying it off and James and Stewart are living there, paying rent. The house is on the market.” 

It’s Dad’s turn to sit in silence for a few moments.

“I had no idea.. And thanks for bringing me up to speed. I’ll talk to her parents and thank them for their support. And find a way to pay them back.”

“They were tough times, Dad. Still are. I told you yesterday: All of us had to leave school early and find jobs. You cut me off, said you didn’t want to hear about any of that just yet. Well, now I’m telling you. You’ve seen how I live. No qualifications. I’m working at a supermarket, stocking shelves and working the till. James and Stewart are working on an assembly line. Jessie is staying with mum’s parents.”

He pauses. Stands up, walks a few steps. Turns around. Asks the question.

“And your mother?”

“You’ve been staying with me for three days, and now you ask about her?”

“Yes. I was waiting for the right time.”

“The right time was years ago. Now is too late.”

He looks stunned. Slumps down on the seat. Mumbles into his beard.

“I didn’t catch that, Dad. What was it?”

He straightens up. Looks me in the eye like the man he used to be. 

“Tell me. Please. What happened?”

“She died, Dad. Three months ago.”

I can see he needs time for this news to soak in. I go for a short walk, come back and sit beside him again. He stands, takes a step away from the bench, turns and looks at me. 

“What? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

I’m not going to let him get away with making this all about him. 

“We tried, Dad. We tried. We wrote to the last address we had for you. We talked to the people who lived there. They didn’t know where you’d gone. They said you walked out on the job at the peak of the season. Good riddance too, is what they told us. But we kept trying. We asked the police to track you down. They couldn’t find you. We asked them to issue a ‘Missing Person’ notice. They did that. No-one ever responded. Not a whisper.”

I’m crying now. Hold back the tears. “Mum – your wife – was exhausted. She got a part-time job as soon as Jessie started school. Trying to keep her kids fed and housed and educated. In the end she gave up. She drank herself to death.”

Dad reaches out, holds my hand. He’s tearing up too. Part of me resents that, but I hold on to the fact that he’s my father, and I love him, even if he is a total loss.

“I was using a false name. I moved around a lot, and gave a different name to every shearing gang I worked on. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, Dad. We all are.”

We sit together, trying to hold back our sobs and tears. Then Dad reaches out, takes my hand. I let him, but don’t respond. He says: “Your mother had a problem with alcohol. She started drinking spirits after you were born. But never before you kids went to bed. She didn’t want you to know.”

I look at him, stunned. “I didn’t know. That explains her morning headaches, I guess. And is that why you always worked the night shift? To get us all up and fed and dressed? And off to school or childcare?  Is her drinking the reason you left us?”

“It’s one reason, but it’s not enough on its own to make a man walk out on his wife and kids. There’s another reason, the one that still hurts me. Something I find hard to forgive.”

“What are you talking about? What can’t you forgive?”

“As I said before, she came from a religious family. Her parents more or less forced us to get married. We were happy enough. We had James and Stewart, and decided not to have any more kids.  But she got pregnant again, with Jessie. She isn’t my child. She can’t be. I had a vasectomy after Stewart was born.”

He pauses. Gets up, walks off across the grass, turns, comes back, sits down again.

“Your mother had an affair with an elder from her church. Jessie is his daughter. He ended the relationship as soon as he knew she was pregnant, and told the church she was lying about him being the father. He admitted to the affair, but said she was trying to trap him into paying to raise the child. They believed him. She never went to church again, and started drinking, but only at night, when you were all in bed. That’s when I started working the late shift. She was in no shape in the morning to get all of you off to school or day care or wherever, so I got up and did it. But it all got too hard, and in the end I had to walk away.”

“Well, that explains he midnight showers,” I say. 

He looks angry. So he should, I realise. “Sorry,” I say. “That last comment was a bit snide. I need a bit of time to absorb this. Give me a moment, will you, please?”

 I stand up, walk around the kids’ playground, walk back to the bench, face him.

“So much for coming to the park and quietly reminiscing about the past,” I say to him. “But thanks anyway. You’ve explained a lot, and I think sooner or later I’ll be able to make sense of it all. In the meantime, I want you to leave my place as soon as possible. Mostly because there’s not enough space and we’ll drive each other mad, but also because I need time on my own to process all of this.”

There’s a strange look on his face. Thoughtful and hopeful mixed together. “I want to find somewhere to live around here,” he tells me.  “I miss my family. Do you think I could move in with James and Stewart? I’ve still got money in the place. The title was in your mum’s name and mine, and I’ve never signed anything that gives your grandparents ownership.”

“Temporarily, maybe. I think mum signed the place over to them, but I’m not sure of the details. I do know they all want their money back so they can buy into a retirement village.”

We sit in silence, both lost in our own thoughts.  Finally, Dad says: “I really want to try to put things right. Starting with my parents. And then your mum’s. I could do a bit of work on the house, tidy it up, make it look real pretty. Get the best price we can for it.”

I’m not sure I want him living that close to me. But he is my father. I walk a couple of circles around the bench we’ve been sitting on. Dad gets up and joins me. We do a circuit together in silence. 

Suddenly my mind is made up.

  “Put your jacket on, Dad,” I say. “Tidy yourself up. Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“Social Welfare. It’s only a block away. We’ll go now. At the very least we should be able to walk out with a job-seekers allowance for you. And hopefully an accommodation allowance, so you can pay rent somewhere. Then I think you should talk to your parents and in-laws.”

He stands up. Says “when did you get so bossy? I’m your father, remember. Show me a little more respect.”

But he picks up his jacket, brushes a few leaves off it, puts it on. Then he hugs me. 

“We’ll be okay, won’t we?” he asks.

“I need more time, Dad. But yeah, we’re okay. I still want you out of my place though. You snore all night.”