Daniel’s father wanted to see him. It was an announcement at which I always felt conflict. It could be good. It could be bad.
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While Chris always walks through my front door as if he owns the joint (I still forget to put the snip across – it’s such a small flat, I can hear people just walking past), it could go one of two ways: he brings us out-of-date biscuits and bruised fruit from the market (ie he’s in a good mood) or he’s angry about some aspect of his life and is brusque with me, and whips Daniel away before I can ask when he’ll be returned.
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Chris never asks how I am, the 24/7 carer of his child. By the way, am I a drug addict, that he hadn’t noticed in the three months we “dated”/he cheated on Tracey?; am I over-fatigued, can he help any?; am I part of a mothers club so I can talk with others what to expect of Daniel’s development, and Daniel can make baby friends? (not with this low self esteem).
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Nor does he ask how Daniel is – does he socialize at all (only when I can afford child care); is he teething? (yes, and did you know there’s a gel you can buy that numbs the pain?!); has he spoken yet? (no, but oh, music flows from his mouth – and the child health nurse said it’s because of how I read to him! Isn’t that great?).
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Most certainly, he never asks, “Is Daniel really my son?”, because he knows he is. And I brought Chris to court and he told the Magistrate “She could’ve been with ANYbody”, and I obtained orders for a DNA test, and we were waiting for that blood test and that court date to present the test and obtain child support orders… just because Chris wanted to delay paying for the beautiful boy he bundled away and did, I am never really sure what, with; but I know he shows him off to family.
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“So I come over 6.30, after the market,” Chris told the answering machine, “And you ring me, you not there.” It was a safe assumption we would be available, he knew. With no family in Perth, no friends with children, we weren’t likely to ever be far from home, or for long.
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I recalled the day Chris barged in, his girlfriend Tracey and her son Phong following. When the wire door slammed behind Phong and Chris barked, “You do that again, I kick you all the way to China!”, a fear seized in me. Whenever Chris made his entrance into our home, a familiar fear pierces my guts. It is the exact same anxiety which knotted my stomach all through teen age, most especially when I heard Dad’s footsteps coming up our driveway. Would he be in a good mood, or a bad mood? Would he bring food or only beer? Would I have to sleep in the cupboard to escape his untiring verbal, mental abuse; or could I sleep soundly in bed, patting Ghost the stray cat that Dad hates, and I must not be caught with?
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I look at the clock – 4 p.m. A couple of hours to prepare dinner, to settle. Daniel and me had just come in from shopping, and I felt back-broken. I wondered whether Chris planned to take Daniel away, or just visit with the string of women he comes in with, saying, “This is my baby and this is the Mother” and they look at me and I at them, and I wonder how Chris picks us – Tracey and me: low self esteemed women, that he passes things under our radars so easily. Perhaps we are detectable for our lack of radar.
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I turn off the answering machine, sit at my desk and look out the back window. Daniel had begun busying himself with looking through the pile of plastic shopping bags I had dumped on the kitchen floor. He knew the drill: I look through them, unpack. He’d begun taking cans and packets out and placing them on the floor, and piling some on top of each other. I saw no reason to not daydream, let our food be building blocks for just a sigh.
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I looked at the scrawls of my “novel-in-progress” on my desk. I ordained it a “novel”, to exist on in denial of my lack of use on Earth; for really, it was a waste of time. Yet, it had me feel a nuance of purpose in being.
Girl Without Boundaries, a telling of my teens, was only 122 pages long. It had a beginning, middle and end all in its title. Teachers at school would give me an A, but publishers would give me a big fat “F” for fail. Fail, failure – just ask Dad.
“Write yer life story?” he had laughed – and I mean really laughed. “Yer haven’t bloody lived yet.” Yes, I’ve said it before: my pains did not qualify; my will to die did not qualify. I simply did not qualify in either brains or existence, to be of use, let alone of value. But I continued to pen Girl Without Boundaries, feigning a purpose in being, and to release ghosts of memories from my heart.
After all, how many journals are taken to the grave unspoken, dirt sprinkled on them ceremoniously, before comes the grave digger with his shovel, to bury the body that held you, your spirit, for a lifetime. People will visit the headstone for a few years or many, but none will know truly who, was buried six feet under.
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I flicked through my “novel” in progress; caught my eye did Chapter 5:
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” When I arrive back at 11H, the lights are off. It’s probably about 7 p.m. and the grey of Melbourne winter hangs dark and cold over our house. I feel well and truly expired, which is good. Nothing Dad says or does will get through to me. Two-dimensional, ironed flat, my exhausted body and spirit will take no impact.
I put my hand through our broken front window, careful not to accidentally slit my wrist (heh), and unlatch it. Climbing through, my boot lands in the seat of our rank old lounge chair. Clambouring inside, I then reach blindly for the light, turn it on. I can tell Wanda is home, in her room out the back: her light is on.
I seek out Diana. She’s lying on the other bed in my room, staring at the wall. Sometimes she is excited to see me arrive back, but today she just keeps staring at the wall.
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“Hi Di.”
“Hi Tollees.”
I put the light on and find Ghost on my bed. I am greatly comforted. I go over and stroke her. She responds with a luxurious stretching of her limbs, and re-settles herself in slumber. I lay beside Ghost, my face close to her body. I watch her belly rise and fall, rise and fall. I touch her silken, matt being, feel comfort by its warmth, liveness, by her breathing.
Ghost’s life is an uncomplicated one. She goes where she wishes, is fed wherever. She fights if she must, kills if she needs to, and otherwise, she just sleeps. Her whiskers are twitching and I think she must be dreaming some great chase, shaving lives off in her dreams. She is adorable, unwittingly.
A long while passes as I meditate on the life of Ghost, drawing comfort and company from her, contemplating her simple charm, stroking her svelte, smooth beauty, wondering what it must be like to be her – when we hear Dad’s key in the lock.
Ghost’s eyes immediately spring open and together we share a moment of red alert, our hearts beating in S. O. S. time. Ghost looks at me as if to ask should she stay, or should she dart out the window so he would never know. Our pause in uncertainty brings us perilously close to trouble, for within seconds Dad’s hand is on my bedroom door handle. As it turns, I fling a blanket over Ghost. He enters in time only to see me laying side-on, on one elbow, amidst nothing but blankets and discarded clothes. Ghost does not move.
Dad looks at me, looks at Diana, then steps back out of our room and closes the door. He does not say hello, he does not say goodbye. He only checks we are there.
The panic and anxiety I feel, the sickness that rises up in me by the disturbance my father creates, will take about an hour or more to settle. The peace I had fallen into, the calm, the comfort, was completely shattered. I could feel him, his mood, through the concrete wall.
I uncover Ghost, listening in the background as Dad treads down to Wanda’s room, pauses, stomps back to the lounge. Ghost shakes her head, flicks her ears, and looks at me, wide-eyed. We listen as Dad punches on the television and collapses into his old chair.
I hate when Dad is home, sitting in that chair in front of the broken front glass window, and I ask him to please open the door. And he ignores me. I used to ask a couple of times, giving him the pleasure of ignoring me twice. I now ask only once just in case, in case Dad cares to get up for me.
So then, I have to reach through the broken glass to open the window, step through it, trying not to stand on Dad, trying to keep my school dress down, trying to not spill his beer, trying to haul my school bag through. It’s a humiliating process and I hate it. I love it when Dad is not home, while I hate it that a Dad should be home.
I stroke Ghost’s head and she settles. I then get up, turn off the light and return to my bed. In the moonlight, Ghost begins to purr. I stroke her from top to toe a few times, then lay my head down beside her and close my eyes.
I wonder if Dad will bother us tonight. I wonder if I may completely rest or if in an hour or two he will charge through our door, vomit words at us, and stumble back out. He can do this 10 and more times a night, and I am powerless to stop him. His words stick in my brain, though I try to ignore them. But I can’t ignore them because of the glint of hate for “you kids” in his eyes, as he delivers them. And if he doesn’t get enough of a rise out of us, if you do successfully zone out and not hear him, he stomps in closer and leans over you, looking ready to punch you, and you feel the spittle of hate spraying from his foamed mouth. It is why I sleep in the cupboard, if I see it coming – but sometimes, you just can’t see it coming.
It does something for Dad to bludgeon us so. He bashes us mentally and emotionally with his so choice words, with much the same violent passion as I punish the tennis ball. It seems to me he’d like to kill us this way completely, but something in me just won’t bloody die.
Five minutes passes and Dad doesn’t return. This is a good sign as much as it is bad. Either he is content to stew in his own shitty mind tonight, can’t be bothered getting up to strike at us, or he’s stewing some real mean shit – simmering it nice and thick until much, much later in the night, he will come barging into our room to force-feed us his mind, dish out his shit to us, jam it down our gobs until our hearts bleed. And slur drunkenly and jab his hating finger at us, and screw up his piggy eyes.
I’m tired of the teachers asking why I haven’t done my homework.
Only time will tell which way Dad’s mood swings tonight, so I have little choice but to close my eyes and pretend I am not waiting. Diana continues staring at the wall; while I listen to Ghost, purring.
In the far reaches of “later”, I hear Dad pop another can, guzzle, and as I doze, I hear him occasionally mutter, mumble or shout “NO! No!!” My jangled nerves begin to re-knit, but Sleep’s warm hand strokes them smooth. Splintered with anxiety, I feel. It is kindling to my ache, my pain, my aimless aimless aim.
Then morning came.”




