You Never Met My Father (31 page)

Still, when I started my Leaving Certificate, I didn't exactly select the most suitable subjects to advance academically. I decided to study art. And so did Jimmy. Neither of us had a gift for it. But I fancied I had artistic proclivities, and it promised to be a lot more interesting than mathematics.

When our fathers, at this point still talking to each other, discovered what we had enrolled in, they conspired against us, going so far as to approach the headmaster in person to request that we be transferred to a maths class.

Their involvement astonished me. I considered both of them far too self-centred to concern themselves with our education. I was amazed they were even interested in the subjects we had chosen. Both were highly intelligent men. But both had only a primary school education. It occurs to me now that, had they been given the opportunities that I had to finish high school and go on to university, neither would have wasted their lives in gambling or crime. They were thwarted individuals, frustrated and angry at the fate they had been dealt. Had they been given the chance to channel their intelligence through education, they might well have become contented men rather than violent and self-destructive. When I look back on it now, their intervention in our education seems like their way of saying as much.

They succeeded but their triumph was short-lived. Jimmy and I misbehaved every time our maths teacher turned his back to scribble an equation on the board, and we failed our first tests, which was all the excuse he needed to remove us.

By then it was too late to return to art classes. So, effectively we dropped a subject. I suspected Denny would be furious, but his interest in my education ebbed and flowed, and fortunately the tide was out by the time he discovered what I'd done.

On the surface I was blasé about the incident but realised I'd put my future at risk, and privately I decided to study doubly hard. I passed the Leaving Certificate reasonably well and went into my Matriculation year with a full scholastic head of steam, which seemed to bewilder Jimmy and Marty, whose interest in girls was intensifying with each rebuff they received.

Suffering similar feelings but lacking their tenacity, I avoided following in their footsteps, as they pursued girls around the town, hanging out in places where they thought they might meet the one in their dreams. There was a certain amount of self-pity behind my academic zeal. Once more I broke out in acne.

Without warning, early in my Matric year, the tide came in again. Denny decided my education needed urgent attention. I suspected he was trying to ensure I didn't follow in my elder sister's footsteps. He insisted on taking me to the Repatriation Department in Melbourne so I could talk to one of its educational officers about my future.

We left Portland at four-thirty in the morning. I tried to sleep in the front passenger seat but he woke me before Port Fairy, near the Craggs.

“You missed it. The cross, just by the side of the road back there,” he said. “The first white man killed by a blackfella in Victoria. Speared.”

He had seen it on occasion, when he was on foot, trying to hitchhike to Portland.

Throughout the trip, across the volcanic plains of the Western District, he gave a running commentary.

At Tower Hill, near Warnambool, he said, “It's the largest sunken volcano in the world.”

And on our descent: “This stretch of road's called the Miracle Mile. Experimental surface. Best in the world.”

He put his foot down to be part of the experiment.

Past Garvoc and over a railway crossing: “Saw a train plough into a car here once. Four killed. I raced down the track but there was no chance of pulling the poor buggers out. Looked like they'd been through a mincer.”

Seeing a hill near Camperdown, he said, “It's a perfect cone. But some money-hungry bastards are digging it up; turning it into a bloody quarry.”

Across the Stony Rises: “These fences were built by convicts, back in the old days. They're still standing.”

Past Colac: “See that old mansion up there on the rise, belongs to the Manifolds. They own half the bloody district, and they run the Victoria Turf Club. Lot of money there. Lot of influence.”

It was four hours to Melbourne, providing you drove at seventy miles an hour and didn't take a break. Denny only stopped once because he had to fill the tank. He was as manic about driving as he was about everything else he did. When we reached the city, he scared the life out of me trying to catch every green light.

It became apparent within minutes of our arrival at the drab building in South Melbourne behind Victoria Barracks, which housed the Repatriation Department, that he hadn't made an appointment. While we waited for an interview, he paced the customer service area, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, fiddling with his keys and coins, becoming increasingly agitated as the morning wore on. Occasionally he argued with the hapless junior at reception, and once he thumped the counter with tremendous force.

When lunch time arrived and we were informed to come back in an hour, his indignation burst asunder with a verbal torrent about the treatment of poor rural clients who had travelled for seven hours to get here and had a seven-hour return journey ahead of them, only a slight exaggeration.

I was so surprised I can't remember what else he said, just the menace in his voice. Others shifted warily in their seats. To everyone's astonishment he leapt over the counter, his cardigan billowing like a superhero's cape, and disappeared into the office.

There were no security guards around. Their deployment was not even contemplated in those days.

I heard more shouts and curses and cries of alarm. Within minutes I was being ushered into a side room. Denny was there, triumphant, with a flustered public servant, a diminutive, bespectacled man, who sat down with a profound sigh and told me the importance of maths or a language as a university entrance requirement. He spent some time asking me questions about my current studies and educational plans.

Finally, I explained I wanted to study at La Trobe University, which had no particular prerequisites, like maths. He shrugged, informed Denny that I was right, and rose to show us out.

He spoke to Denny at the door. “Come back when he's got his results and we'll see how we can help.”

I didn't detect any condescension in his tone but Denny apparently did.

“You're making it sound like charity!” he railed. “I've bloody-well earned this, you little runt, just like every other poor bugger who's had his life ruined fighting for this useless bloody country.”

“This country does its best by its ex-servicemen, Mr Sparkes.” The man retreated to his desk and stood stiffly behind his chair, prepared to wear as much personal abuse as my father could muster but unwilling to take the vilification of his country sitting down. “We understand the sacrifices made, yours included.”

“Like bloody hell you do! Sitting on your arse all day!”

“Look, Mr Sparkes, let's not argue, please.” He was trying his best to sound conciliatory. “When the time comes we'll discuss your son's education in earnest. But your boy has got to pass his exams first.”

“You needn't worry about that,” he muttered. “My family's got more brains than this entire bloody department.”

Outside Denny straightened his cardigan, hoisted up his trousers whose belt had dropped low on his belly, and chuckled. “That's the only way to deal with these bloody pen pushers,” he said. “If you don't yell and scream, nothing ever gets done. These bastards'll just ignore you. In the end they'll walk all over you.” He paused a moment, then added: “You better not let me down, my friend.”

Back in the car I dared to ask him what he had meant about his life being ruined.

He glanced across at me with his incendiary eyes.

“Never bloody mind.”

“You didn't actually go to war,” I pressed on tentatively. “Did you?”

“I went to bloody Japan.”

I said nothing, waiting. He didn't elaborate so I spoke again.

“Mum once told me you were beaten up by Yankee MPs for stealing blankets from a US army depot to give to orphans.”

There was a flash of anger but it subsided. “What'd she bloodywell tell you that for?”

“I pestered her, I suppose. She only said it to explain why you get mad at everything.”

“Did she now?”

We were still parked. I stared out the window at the car in front of us, unable to bring myself to look at him.

He snorted at my silence. “Surprise you, does it?”

I knew he'd been a boxer. And I'd seen how indefatigable he could be once he was in a fury. But I imagined he had been outnumbered, not to mention outgunned.

“All I remember is waking up at the bottom of a whole lot of bloody stairs.”

I turned away, unable to decide whether to believe him.

“Any lasting damage?” I said grimly.

“To me? Brain damage, they say.”

“Your brain's all right,” I murmured.

“Tell that to the experts.”

While he started the car and forced his way into the traffic, I mulled over what he had told me. One mystery solved, I thought. So I summoned the courage to ask him about his disappearing act in Brisbane years earlier, adding recklessly that I had found out long ago that he had gone to jail. “From a policeman's son,” I said so he wouldn't be blaming my mother for every revelation. “That had something to do with what happened to you in Japan too, I suppose.”

He merely shrugged and said that he'd hit someone. He'd witnessed a driver speed through a school crossing. No kid was hurt but the recklessness had so enraged him he had set off in pursuit. (Again for the sake of children.) He managed to overtake and block the offender's path. Pretending to be a plain-clothes cop, he ordered the driver out of the car and gave him a ferocious lecture. When that failed to make an impression he grabbed the fellow's nose and gave it a punitive twist. Civic duty done, he drove off, unaware his victim had managed, through watery vision no doubt, to memorise his car registration number. Denny was tracked down and arrested on two charges: unlawful assault and impersonating a police officer, which culminated in a nine-month sentence.

“I try to do the right thing,” he said with a disgusted cluck as he accelerated to beat the changing traffic lights. “And look what happens.”

A car swerved to avoid us.

I sat hunched, reluctant to look at him. I felt weird, suddenly privy to his secrets, which I had brooded on for years.

As we travelled through the western suburbs my emotions were in turmoil. I thought of my mother. If she knew all along what I'd just learned, her enduring attitude towards him—her tolerance and passivity—was more understandable, more dignified. In his own eyes, and probably hers, he had done the right thing.

Then it occurred to me he had no car in Brisbane.

“Anyway it's all in the past,” he said. “You don't have to bother yourself with what happened to me. But don't ever think I haven't got your interests at heart. I only wished your sister hadn't been so bloody stupid.”

Jean had gone to New Zealand with her boyfriend to work as a rouseabout. They had separated soon after. But she had met a Samoan in Auckland, a national footballer, and had already married him.

“Look at the mistakes she's making. She'll never get anywhere. She could've gone to university too and become whatever she liked. It was pure bloody-mindedness on her part. Don't you do the same, Butch. Make something of yourself.”

Perhaps I had judged him too harshly over the years. As on this occasion, there were times when he'd shown an interest in us. There were times when he'd been affectionate, when he'd put his arms around my mother and hugged her and called her ‘pet', or given me a friendly wrestle, or hugged his daughters. There were times when I caught sight of him sitting in his chair with a contented look on his face, a faraway expression, which looked so innocent I could hardly believe it was him. And when he noticed me gaping at him, he would smile, an innocent smile, a smile without a trace of malice. There were times, too, when we'd had fun with him…surely.

Only a few weeks before the trip to Melbourne, he had entertained some of my friends with a paranormal experiment. We were in my sister's room because it was bigger than mine, playing cards on the floor, when he came in with a kitchen chair.

“Hi, Denny,” said Marty, audaciously using my father's first name. “Know any good card tricks?”

“Pack up the cards and try this.”

He opened one side of his mouth, clicked his tongue, and gave a droll wink. He placed the chair in the middle of the room and sat on it, one eyebrow raised.

Marty and Jimmy were amused. Marty's new girlfriend, Julia, began to giggle.

Once he thought we had dwelt long enough on the mystery of his presence, he spoke. “Three of you circle around four times, saying ‘you weigh nothing'.” He paused to allow his instructions to sink in. “Then stop, one on each side, one at the back, and lift me up with just your two fingers, like this.”

He clasped his hands together and made a point with his index fingers. Th

ere was a glint in his eye. His mischievous grin provoked us to try.

While Julia watched, Marty, Jimmy and I followed his instructions and lifted all fourteen stone of him with ease.

Amazed we hooted and almost dropped him from shoulder height.

It didn't deter him.

“Now do the same thing, only this time go, ‘you weigh a ton'.”

And we couldn't move the chair an inch off the floor.

This reminds me of another supernatural display. He appeared in my room holding a needle aloft one day when Jimmy and Marty were around.

“Here,” he said earnestly. “Jab this into my arm.”

He offered the needle to my friends. They looked at each other. Jimmy took it.

“Go on, try it,” said Denny. “I won't feel a thing.”