by Biff Ward
Could someone else do it? I asked.
Well . . . yes . . . maybe, he started to smile, stopped himself.
Who? Do you have someone in mind?
Well . . . maybe . . . Carl.
A colleague at the university.
Dad, are you serious? You’re thinking of giving your manuscript to Carl and asking him to finish it?
It was such an outrageous idea, like an artist asking someone to finish a painting. We both became a little giggly.
Yes, he said. It’s only the last chapter that needs finishing . . .
Do you need to think about it more?
No . . . not really . . .
I looked at him. We started to smile. We even chuckled.
I really think that’s what I want.
I brought him the phone. Carl was a little disbelieving of course, so Dad talked hard.
When he finished, he grinned. I think he’s going to do it!
He directed me to the manuscript and I found a box. I taped that package so tightly that it’s a wonder it ever saw daylight again. Next day, Carl and his wife came for a drink. He and Dad went through the process again and I watched Carl gradually take it in, this extraordinary request.
When I came back down the hall from seeing them and the box out of the house and reached Dad in his pillow-decked armchair, he was beaming. If his body had let him, he would have waltzed around the room. After nearly sixty years, work for him was over. A smile, out of control, kept breaking across his face. We laughed like loons and I made us a feast for tea.
Some months later, at his eightieth birthday, when nearly all of us gathered for a weekend in Armidale, he was decrepit. Doubled over, popping painkillers, he was nonetheless luminescent to see us.
At the public bash on Saturday night, Genna, his eldest grandchild, spoke about all the things we loved in him and thanked him for the politics of social justice and activism we had inherited. I did my Rosenberg story. The cake was a replica of the red doorstop thesis with LEGEND printed on it.
On Sunday, Kim, glorious son-outlaw of mine, organised a slow-cook lunch in the kitchen warmed by the wood-burning stove. We pushed two tables together, collected all the chairs in the house and sat in the sun of the family room. There were thirteen of us gathered around him, our Gangy, a truly last supper as it turned out. We were still at the table at four o’clock when, seemingly out of nowhere, Dad fixed his eye on Mark’s son, Roh, and said, Rohan—you’re my height. I have some red pyjamas—silk, would you believe—and they have an R on the pocket. You must have them.
Oh, no, I couldn’t, Gangy, no, said Roh.
Yes, said Dad. Yes, you must. Really, I won’t ever use them again. And there’s a jacket . . . He looked around the table. Yes, Mark, a jacket that would suit you. And shirts . . . he was looking around at all of us.
No, we couldn’t . . . No . . . It’s okay, Gangy. His children and grandchildren demurred in all directions.
Hang on, I said to them. Turning to him, I asked, Are you serious? You have clothes you don’t want anymore and you want us to look through them?
Yes! Yes. I mean it. Go on . . . He shooed us with his hands.
Let’s hit the bedroom! whooped Genna.
That’s right, Dad laughed.
There was an entire penguin suit of tails that had belonged to his father Fred who had died in 1954—several tried it on and it has ended up with Oliver, his third son, who has Dad’s physique. All the men scored trousers or shirts or jackets, much of it better than anything they owned. I took two of the soft twill shirts, a turquoise and a white. Everyone who wanted one got a cravat.
Nothing had blue on it anywhere, except the red silk pyjamas which Rohan loved. The R embroidered on the pocket was blue: made for him by JR, Dad had clearly never worn them because of that blue monogram she had so tenderly placed there. He had never risen above his adolescent warfare with St Peters, the Anglican boys’ school whose colour was blue. ‘Princes’, Prince Alfred College, was maroon and the two schools slugged it out in sport, debating, academia.
When he was in his fifties and wearing funky waistcoats, I gave him a magnificent tartan one for his birthday. He never wore it and when I asked why, he said, I just couldn’t do it. The blue stripe. I couldn’t put it on.
But it was only a tiny bit of blue! Almost nothing!
I know. I know . . . he was like a little boy in his embarrassment. It’s silly, he added, but there it is.
I really didn’t know it was that strong in you, I said.
Yes, he said. I thought it would fade away as I grew older. But clearly it hasn’t.
While we chortle, we treasure his blue phobia as one of the quaintest of our ancestral tales.
That night, some dressed in our new clobber from his wardrobe, we sat on assorted sofas and sang ballads and talked until eyelids drooped.
Aren’t you tired, Gangy? asked grandson Brendan.
I thought, he said, looking around at us, I thought if I kept you all talking, you might decide to stay here.
We chuckled and shuffled off to bed.
Next morning, he stood out on the footpath in his dressing gown, bent and smiling through tears, as we piled into two cars, one headed for Canberra, the other to Sydney. Half-sister Sal and I cried together in the back seat of Genna’s car as we headed south-west. Years later, I heard a writer on the radio say, Of course parents always love their children more than children love their parents.
It spoke powerfully to me, now the parent of grown-up children. But also I think of Dad watching us drive away.
When Dad died nine months later, I wasn’t there. None of his children were. JR just made it, for which I was very grateful. He died at 3.30 a.m. in the Texas hospital surrounded by its circle of gum trees.
The funeral day in Armidale, a Friday, was a shemozzle but people are kind at such a time so it didn’t matter.
When I arrived at the university lecture theatre where the memorial gathering was being held, I saw at once that the portrait from the Council Room was not sitting resplendent on the easel provided for it. I found a university official who started to talk about permission slips and signatories. Before he’d finished, I’d headed off to Prue, my old school friend, who’d worked most of her life at the university in various secretarial roles and could run a corporation.
Prue, we need the portrait here now.
She grabbed my friend Sue and was gone. Ten minutes later, they walked in with it held between them and put it on the easel.
How did you do that? I asked.
Formal portrait of Dad, painted by Graeme Inson for the University of New England, oil on canvas
We just walked into the Council Room and took it, she said. Someone went to question us—someone I’ve known since kindergarten—so I just waved.
Dad would have loved it.
I spoke on behalf of his five children, with Charlie, the other ‘eldest’, beside me, his hand on my back just where I needed it. After the set pieces, there was an open mike and many people told stories including one of the ‘swivel-eyed bastards from over the hill’, Dad’s oft-repeated appellation of the rural scientists, who seemed to glory in the term. The Vice-Chancellor called him New England’s most famous son. Many historians who had worked with him over the years were keen to testify: he gave all his university hours, they said, to his students. No research in daylight hours. Research and writing were done in his own time, in the evening. This they admired but, they made clear, his expectation that they would do the same they found astounding.
When all the talking by living people was done, we had to listen to a tape-recording which Dad had made years before. He’d stipulated in letters to the family and in his will that it must be played at the conclusion of his funeral. Some found it interesting, even insightful. I experienced it as ponderous, a lecture arguing the impossibility of life after death, and I writhed with embarrassment—as only children can—at the absurd irony of fulminating from beyond the grave that there is noth
ing there.
Then ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was sung by a friend and people started to move. I grabbed his sister Jean and said, What was that about?
Oh, he’s still arguing with Dad, she answered instantly, that’s all. She laughed fondly, shaking her head.
We had some cartons of Dad’s red wines for the masses to drink with snacks but no one wanted to do that before lunch and the family had to head off to get ready for the cemetery. So the knees-up component was a complete failure.
We buried him in the afternoon in one of his bright red shirts. All the tall children and grandchildren carried his coffin while our folky friend led us in singing ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’. We stood around the open grave and took turns to speak or read or play some music and placed sprigs of bush flowers on the coffin. Sue had an envelope from Phyl, a ribbon of love from all those years ago. When she placed it on the coffin, my tears ran free.
The next day, there was a big circle: his sisters, his children and grandchildren, his partner JR and ex-wife Barb sitting in the backyard. Kim enlisted a couple of the younger ones and produced a baked feast for lunch which was served up on a table between two apple trees. Late in the afternoon, several of us went to the grave and sat beside him as the sun set.
Then JR and Dad’s sisters left and the following night, in a sudden rush of awareness, we realised it was the end. Most of the eleven of us still there would be leaving the next day. Dad had long since dispatched most of his papers and books to various libraries. Some were staying on to deal with furniture, the remaining books and the other tasks needed for ending his life. We had been to a will reading in a solicitor’s office and heard much mention of the term ‘goods and chattels’.
The goods and chattels! someone cried. We need to sort them tonight. Who wants what?
Crockery was brought out of cedar sideboards and pictures taken off walls.
Who wants the bloody oar? was the refrain of the evening. The enormous oar had always hung in the dining room, a whacky memento from his university eight win in 1936.
I knew what I wanted but thought everyone else would want it too. I tried to focus on soup tureens and salad servers. I could feel his desk, its physical presence, through the wall over my left shoulder. Tears I hadn’t shed all week welled up. I clenched them back: I didn’t want to spoil the fun going on around me. Eventually, Genna noticed I hadn’t moved out of the bentwood carver, that I was not joining in.
What is it? What’s going on? Genna asked.
I could only make a sound.
Sal and Charlie appeared and stood in front of me.
What is it, Biff? What do you want?
You have to say, my daughter ordered.
It’s . . . his desk, I blurted. I’d like his desk and chair.
Of course, they chorused. Of course you can have his desk.
My tears exploded. I thought everyone would want it, I mumbled.
You’re the obvious one, said Ov.
Yes, Biffy, said Sal.
Yes, please, Biff, Barb put in.
I’m really happy you want it, said Charlie.
And Mark stood sentinel over us, nodding approvingly.
I had hardly slept all week. But that night, after I ran my hands over the worn desktop where he wrote The Legend and everything that came after, I slept peacefully.
Weeks later, when the desk arrived at my house, I spent all afternoon nesting it. What would I keep in the six drawers? What would I put on the shelf on top? How would I use the dark oblong space under the shelf? I had a plaque made: Russel Ward, 1953–1995, the years he sat there, and stuck it on the front panel. Later I found he mentioned the purchase in a letter to his parents—it was actually bought in 1952.
I put a flat cushion with embroidered flowers in warm Indian thread on the seat of the solid oaken chair. I placed my arms on the curved rests. I tilted the chair backwards, keeping my balance with the tips of my fingers under the lip of the desk, just like he did.
Gradually, unwillingly, I conceded that the chair didn’t work for me. It was too big. It didn’t slide under the desk. His frame, his huge chest, filled that space. I was too far away, my back hurt from bending forward. After a year, I moved it to the dining table where it melds with my old bentwoods. It has become the chair that everyone prefers, both family and guests. When my first grandchild could sit up, I filled it with cushions to make a faux highchair.
It’s used every day. There’s not a creaky spot in it.
Oh dear, Mum said when I told her that Dad had died. That’s sad.
She reached for another cigarette. Sad for the children, she added, referring to his second family. I waited for anything more but she floated back to her normal state, her eyes slaty. Her life with Russel was long gone and far away.
FIFTEEN
Voices
The year after Dad died, Sal spent her gap year tripping around eastern Australia and came for a lengthy stay with me in Adelaide. We walked on the beach with the winter wind ripping up the gulf, straight from Antarctica, two sisters, a generation apart, comparing the loss of the father. For Sal, at just eighteen, a loss always anticipated but nonetheless dreaded.
He’s in my mind every day, she said. All the time, sort of . . . she trailed off.
How? I asked. What’s it like?
His hands. I see his hands a lot. And when I visit a university, any university, it’s like it’s his place, he’s there somehow, even though it’s a different uni and he’s dead.
I loved his hands, too, I said. They were so big. Those long fingers with those square ends.
Yeah, she smiled.
I love seeing those hands on other men, I went on. You do sometimes, see hands like his. I want to stare. And touch them. Even complete strangers!
Me too.
We chuckled as we walked, the damp sand crunching under our boots, the sea dull grey and the wind rising.
Biffy . . .
Yeah?
Pulling her beanie down further, Sal said, What’s the story about the baby dying or something?
Why? I looked at her sharply. Why do you ask?
That last time I saw him, he said, ‘I want you to know that I believe Margaret killed the baby.’
He told you? My voice was loaded with shock. What did he say?
Just that, she said. Just that he thought Margaret definitely killed the baby.
Oh, Sal, how awful for you. Did you know what he was talking about?
Not really, she shrugged.
Well, I said and slipped my arm through hers, holding her cold hand in mine, leaning close as we kept walking beside the shooshing sea, gulls looping over us with their cranky cries. Well, they had a baby called Alison . . .
When I’d finished, I asked, Do you think he mixed us up?
You know how he was, she said slowly. Really quick but with that slurry speech and everything. He definitely knew it was me, but maybe . . . maybe he just let it all slide in his mind.
Yeah. I nodded.
We kept walking into the wind, the wool of our scarves caressing the line of our jaws.
It’s a big thing for you to hear, I ventured.
Yeah, it was a bit. But I knew it was for you. And I feel sad it happened in his life but it wasn’t part of my life with him.
It’s good, that part. How he had you guys, another whole family, without all that.
We turned and started back, the wind behind us.
It’s too late now for all the questions I want to ask him. How did you carry this knowledge, where in yourself did it lie through all the years of living with her and then all the years after when you never saw her again? How did you manage to be so kind and generous? How did you not go mad yourself? Why did you not pin people to the wall and moan your lamentation into their ears?
In our retiring years, Sue and I had taken to having at least one holiday a year together. In 2009, we went to a writing retreat in Byron Bay. In the first flurry of meeting people, Sue grabbed my arm. Look who’s here, she sa
id, pointing at a woman with pink cheeks and huge hair.
Who? Who is she? I asked as she came up to us, smiling.
Libbie Nelson—from Armidale, said Sue.
Oh, of course!
Libbie grew up with us through our teens. She lived on the same block as Sue. She was in Mark’s class but being a year younger, I noticed her only because she was the daughter of one of Dad’s colleagues and had an afro head of hair before there was a word for it.
The three of us reminisced about the Armidale years, a pod of animation on the side of the group. Next day, I started writing this book. When I read a piece, Libbie leaned towards me. My dad really loved your dad, she said.
I started. What?
She repeated it several times. I was struck by the word ‘love’: not admired or liked or envied, but loved.
Then she said, He used to worry about your dad—about all of you.
I was speechless, shaking my head. What do you mean? Worry?
Little Arch Nelson, Dad called him. He could be viciously disparaging of small men if they had puffy-chested behaviour but there was none of that in his tone about Arch Nelson. Only affection.
So what was this worry? I asked.
I remember he’d say, I hope they’re all right, Russel and the children. I hope they’re okay.
Really? I was flustered and flushed. I thought no one had any idea what went on in our house, I said.
Oh, no, said Libbie. He knew. He knew some anyway. There was something about a baby.
A baby? I croaked. He knew about the baby?
Libbie nodded. She looked concerned at my reactions and also pleased that she was telling me things I didn’t know.
I’ll ask my mum, she finished. She’s in a nursing home in Lismore. Ninety-one, she added proudly.
When the retreat ended, Sue and I went to Libbie’s to stay the night. Her house in Byron Bay suburbia is a haphazard hippy mansion made of every shape and size of recycled wood, spilling down a hillside of ferns and palms. Settling us at the kitchen table, Libbie said, I saw my mum and asked her what she remembered. And she remembered the baby.