You Never Met My Father (45 page)

One thing I had to admit, though: he hadn't been violent for a long time. Bad tempered, yes. Abusive on occasion. But no violence. No knives brandished. No fists. No strangler's hands. Not even a ferocious grimace. Perhaps the heart attacks and the cancer had emasculated him. Perhaps he no longer had the will to assert himself so demonstratively.

I continued to bury myself in study, spent long hours at university and, when I was at home, shut myself in the bedroom to write essays or read. All this reading and writing was not exactly helping me, but at least it kept more vindictive thoughts in check, pushed them into some dingy recess of the brain, which no doubt they still inhabit, waiting for the moment when I drop my guard to emerge and horrify everybody; myself more than anyone.

More than halfway through my degree I had less of an idea than the day I started about what career I wanted to pursue. I'd come no further with my thinking on the matter than the public service or teaching, both of which were barely more appealing than factory work. I was distracted too by the government, which was still sending young men to fight in Vietnam, and the day was rapidly approaching when a marble bearing my date of birth might be plucked from the national service barrel.

I had tried to avoid thinking about being conscripted. Besides my opposition to a war that I considered was nothing more than international thuggery, the thought of being routinely barked at by some megalomaniac drill sergeant was almost too much to bear. If the issue was ever raised by those around me, I was adamant I'd never accept conscription: I'd be a conscientious objector or a draft dodger. And since I considered my objections political more than ethical, it would most likely be the latter, the illegal option.

Denny called me a fool. What was the point of ruining your life by going to jail just on a principle? Who'd care? As far as jail was concerned, he probably knew what he was talking about. But he didn't want me going to war, either, not for the sake of ‘them bloody Yanks' or anybody else, not with the risk I might end up in a psych hospital, like he had.

“When they make you do the medical just tell them you had rheumatic fever on Flinders Island,” he suggested. “They never kept medical records there, so there's no way they can check. They'll never take you then. Not worth the risk.”

“Why not?

“They'll reckon you've got a dodgy ticker.”

I thought his suggestion was fanciful, but it started me considering other ways to cheat at a medical examination, if it came to that.

One day as I arrived home my mother met me at the door and urged me to listen to the radio. The conscription lottery was on again. I sat at the kitchen table as a marble bearing my birth date was drawn.

My head began to spin. Why couldn't something go my way, just once?

“What are you going to do?” my mother murmured.

Without answering I went to my room and propped on the edge of the bunk. My mind was torpid. A stagnant pond. I had no group of supporters like some student activists who had become draft dodgers. Nor had I made any attempt to contact the underground movement. I had nowhere to hide. If I refused to take the medical examination, the Federal Police would come knocking on my door. The thought of going to prison filled me with horror. Gradually I came round to Denny's plan.

But I wasn't happy about it. Over the next few months and years I indulged in a good deal of self-recrimination.

The medical examination was conducted in a dismal office in the city. No money had been wasted on décor. All the walls were painted in a prison hue. Why worry about the sensitivities of those already condemned? As I queued I saw a lad from Portland I knew. We talked briefly about our rotten luck. He was counting on the Labor Party winning the next election and ending the draft. At my interview, when I was asked to list any diseases I had ever contracted, I made a big deal about how I was yet to recover completely from hepatitis. When the time came to test my hearing I was instructed to put on headphones in a booth and asked to indicate when I first heard a sound in each ear. A bell chimed. The volume increased. It chimed again. Once I detected it I waited until it chimed a few times before I signalled that I thought I heard something. Throughout the examination I tried to downplay my health. I felt sneaky and cowardly but it worked. Within a month I received a letter announcing I had failed the medical.

The only honourable moment in the whole affair for me came from my determination not to mention rheumatic fever.

Everyone was pleased except me. I moped about, at home where my family ignored me, at Claire's where her housemates didn't notice, at university where anti-war activities were a daily occurrence. I was convinced I'd let the peace movement down, a betrayal that I'd have to live with the rest of my days.

Then something happened that jolted me out of my navel gazing.

Claire announced she was pregnant.

"How did that happen?” I murmured, shocked.

She glared at me. “How do you think?”

It came as a complete surprise to me; to the best of my knowledge she was using the contraceptive pill. But that was no excuse. If I'd been less naïve, if I'd had my wits about me, I'd have taken my own precautions. I knew how unreliable she had been with the medication she had taken for epilepsy. Why then did I imagine she'd keep to the pill's unforgiving schedule?

She was four months pregnant before she learnt of her condition. On earlier visits to her family GP her suspicions hadn't been taken seriously. The doctor considered the missing periods a consequence of her depression, and never bothered with a pregnancy test. Despite her instincts she accepted his diagnosis and never sought a second opinion, wanting to believe the improbable. By the time the pregnancy was confirmed, an abortion, which was still difficult to arrange even under more favourable circumstances, was out of the question.

“But you needn't worry,” she said with a bitter laugh. “It's probably not yours.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. “What?”

“Before you get all indignant on me, I want you to know this is worse for me than you.”

“Who was it?' I couldn't conceal my hurt. “Who else did you have sex with?”

“Dan,” she said, without looking at me.

Dan was one of her co-tenants, an aspiring musician who rarely spoke to me.

“Do you think I wanted it?” she went on, anticipating my questions. “I was depressed. He came into my room with a flagon of wine to try and cheer me up. I had a drink with him, quite a few actually. Then he was all over me. I told him to stop but he took no notice. He forced himself into me.”

“That's rape!”

“Yeah, but who'd believe it?”

“Fuck,” I said, shocked. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. No stupid heroics, all right? I just want to forget it.”

“What about the child?”

“It'll be adopted.”

I groaned, bewildered, unable to think clearly. “I wouldn't want you to do that on my account.”

“Not because of you,” she murmured, despairing.

“You shouldn't be living in the same house as him.”

“He shifted out weeks ago.”

She made a futile gesture and buried her head in her hands to weep alone. I wanted to suggest she go to the police but I knew what her answer would be.

Within a week she shifted back into her family home.

Her father was a decent man but conventional, and once he learnt of her condition he refused to let her stay for the duration of her pregnancy. When it became obvious he insisted she move into Berry Street Babies Home, which offered shelter to unmarried pregnant women on condition they adopt their babies, which the agency arranged.

The home was adjacent to Yarra Park and a stone's throw from the MCG in East Melbourne. I used to go there as often as I could to stroll around the park with her, while she smoked and talked about the rotten state of the world, of society, of art. We both observed her girth expand with grim incredulity. I remember she used to wear a yellow crenulated dress that reminded me of a paw paw.

Sometimes she would come back to the housing estate with me on weekends. Pat and Denny assumed I was responsible for her condition, and neither of us said anything to disabuse them. They took it in their stride. They urged Claire to reconsider adopting. She could come and live with us, as Jean had with her baby. Neither of them could understand why we would want to give away our own flesh and blood. They seemed to take it as a personal slight.

I was relieved that Claire was adamant about the adoption. Besides the doubts over its paternity, I wasn't ready to face parenthood. I had vowed often enough that I would never be a father like Denny. I would never harm a child with a father's resentment or indifference. When, or if, I finally wanted children I would look after them properly. If it crossed my mind that giving up a child for adoption might be just as cruel, I never allowed the thought to linger. There was too much chaos and uncertainty in my life to try to persuade Claire to change her mind.

As the expected date of birth drew closer both my parents put pressure on me to keep the child, even offering to be surrogate parents until Claire and I were ready to take over. They thought I was only worried about finishing my studies before I started a family.

I was agitated enough without their meddling. Then just as the child was due, Denny took me aside and told me that, when I was conceived, he'd been going through a difficult time, receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital. His own mother—my grandmother—had tried to persuade Pat to have an abortion on account of his instability. Pat was on the point of agreeing when he got wind of it and intervened.

“If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be here,” he whispered to keep privy what he had to say. “I beg you, as a father, don't give up your own flesh and blood.”

Once again I was stunned. I stared at the wall for a long time after he left my room. Was he telling the truth? And, if he was, why had he been so concerned about my birth? It made no sense. It was bullshit. He had shown virtually no interest in me as I was growing up. Was I supposed to feel grateful?

His assertion struck me as unfair, preposterous and manipulative.

With my emotions so brittle any burst of laughter from my family watching the sitcom in the room next door, any shout from the street might have broken me into pieces.

I grabbed my jacket and left the flat. My eyes were raw. I walked for a long time, trying to quell my rage. If I had misgivings about the adoption they were lost in his words.

The baby was born a few days later at the Royal Women's Hospital. I remember being there, watching Claire in labour, and thinking
she'll change
her mind
. The intensity of the experience left no room for detachment. Her face was contorted. The waves of pain were palpable. Beneath a sheen of sweat, her skin was wan, as if her blood had retreated to the interior drama.

“Good luck,” I said with a feeble smile as an orderly wheeled her into the delivery theatre.

I stood around with a few imminent fathers in a waiting room. Our collective anxiety made the room unbearable. Some of them had cigars poking from their jacket pockets. I went out for air and when I returned I was informed the baby was born. A boy. I went to see Claire, hoping she would be pleased that I was still around, but she was withdrawn, impassive.

The following night I went to see the baby, which was held up to a viewing window in the nursery. There was nothing remarkable about him, nothing that set him apart from other babies, nothing to identify him as Claire's except for a band around his tiny wrist. There was nothing in his appearance that suggested he was related to me. But as I looked at his face—his eyes clenched and his mouth experimenting with shapes—I had an unwanted feeling that he was mine.

My heart constricted.

I wondered if I would ever see him again. I wondered how often I would think of him over the years, ponder what he was doing or where he was, ponder if he ever thought of us. I remembered the story Denny had told me of how he had turned away to avoid identification as my father when, twenty years earlier, I was held up at a viewing window. It was a shameful thing to do and a cruel thing to tell a child. But wasn't what I was about to do—turn my back on this baby—far worse? In my heart I knew it.

My mother and sister visited Claire in hospital but I wasn't there and have no idea if they saw the baby or discussed his fate. Subsequently the subject was never raised at home, at least not in my presence. It became another of those episodes we never talked about.

When Claire left hospital she returned to her father's place to live. She didn't talk about the adopted child. She didn't talk much at all. Now and then she went to visit another woman who had been at Berry Street with her, who had given birth to a child just before she had and was having trouble coping with its adoption. Once I went with Claire. She tried to reassure the woman they had both made the right decision. Her words sounded hollow but the woman found them reassuring and she pleaded with Claire to visit her more often. Claire did visit until the woman's emotional state became unbearable, undermining her own defences.