His talc of choice used to be Old Spice. It made gift purchasing the easiest thing in the world; birthdays, Father’s Days and Christmases were simply Old Spice talcum powder, year in, year out, without fail. These days it’s no longer on the market, and Dad was forced to resort to Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder, which, even though it’s the thought that counts, is way too low rent to give as a gift. One Father’s Day I managed to source some Old Spice talc on eBay. As he opened it I stood by proudly, like Marco Polo having returned with exotic spices from the Orient.
Munich sold Dad the dummy in almost every respect. It’s a relatively small city, not unlike a miniature version of Melbourne, so there were hardly any crowds, and it was easy to navigate on foot because most things were close to each other. Plus our tour guides, Markus and Hans, took us on the most direct routes. When we weren’t walking, we were being driven around.
I knew Dad was thinking, ‘Europe is easy!’ He thought I was a liar. Because previously, no matter how much I prepared before going overseas, the one element that always brought me undone was the amount of walking involved, and I’d warned him about that.
I’d like to think that I walk a fair amount in Melbourne, but it’s usually a casual stroll to the supermarket or the pub. Living in the inner city means I don’t travel long distances, either, as almost everything I need is close by. But experience had taught me that overseas, walking can easily lead to soreness and niggly injuries, because you go from almost nothing to circumnavigating the earth on foot.
I never helped myself with the walking, as I’m not one of those travellers who can wear running shoes with casual clothes. Being overseas is no reason to give up your dignity by wearing jeans with Mizuno runners suited to running a marathon. My preference was to remain cool, walking around in casual sneakers. Yes, I always paid a massive price for that, but what cost for coolness?
Some travellers are completely unfazed by fashion, apparently just walking into a Kathmandu store, surveying everything, and saying, ‘Yes!’
Weeks prior to departing Australia I had recommended to Dad that he start walking, to get some miles into his legs and acclimatise his body to what it would be going through in Europe. He took my suggestion on board as he always does. He smiled, said ‘yes’, then completely ignored it.
I pushed my case, but each time he argued, ‘I walk,’ even though this was completely untrue. I wasn’t talking about strolling around Westfield at Airport West with Mum, or hitting the aisles of Coles on a Thursday night (supermarket shopping replaced fish and chip night once we all moved out). He drove a truck for a living but made it sound like he was a postman delivering a farming region’s mail on foot.
Everyone has a kilometre or two in them, but it’s backing it up day after day that had me concerned for Dad. After two days in Buenos Aires I could barely stand, a combination of hours of walking and an extremely poor choice of footwear. I had shocking blisters, my knees hurt like I’d been attacked by a bikie for not repaying a debt, but I didn’t have the luxury of sitting in the hotel for a day or two to recover. I’d waddle my way out of the accommodation and onto the street, aching with every step, slowly working myself into a rhythm until my body warmed up and the pain eased a little. And that was at a time when I considered myself really fit. Unless walking to the fridge for seconds of leftovers (so, fourths) burned calories, Dad was not fit.
He drove everywhere in Melbourne, an option that wouldn’t be practical when we were in a major European city. Even public transport usually meant stairs. Unless we hired a mobility scooter, Dad was going to be walking.
Every few days I’d check in with him to see how the preparations were going for the whole trip, but I’d also ask where he was at with getting his fitness up. He kept saying he’d been doing the walking, but Mum would undo him and tell me the truth. I was frustrated, firstly because I knew it would become an issue on our trip, and secondly because he was flat out lying to me.
It was a ‘thing’ with Dad that he lied, but usually it was so blatant that everyone would laugh it off. I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of making light of something we’re not interested in doing. The problem is it doesn’t actually address whatever the problem is.
In our house there was a ritual of Mum telling him to get ready to head out of the house and Dad yelling out, ‘Just putting my socks on!’ That was his joke. It must’ve done Mum’s head in hearing it day after day. If I was her I’d have taken those socks and used them to strangle him.
Even as we were first preparing for the trip, I knew finding things to do was going to become an issue. Not liking anything at all tends to eliminate possibilities at a fairly rapid rate, and a continent with such a rich history gave Dad an almost limitless supply of things to turn down. So far we’d had a superficial look at Munich, which was right up Dad’s alley. A quick look at an apparently dusty church, or finding out about the history of another building without having to go in.
I’d known for a long time what Dad’s interests were. Or more to the point, what they weren’t. The turning point had been when I gave him a book about cricket. I’d chosen it for his birthday/Father’s Day combo present, the two days generally falling within a week of each other, allowing me to get by with only one gift. It was book-shaped, as books generally are, meaning he knew long before he’d opened it what it was. The only surprise would be the subject matter.
When Dad opened it, I could immediately tell by the lack of excitement on his face that he wasn’t a huge fan. I was as annoyed as an eight-year-old can be, chastising myself for getting it so wrong. I’d gone rogue and paid the price. Old Spice talc was foolproof! I knew that. I knew he didn’t read. He can read, he just chooses not to read books. They were Mum’s domain; she read every night, tearing through books at an incredible rate while the TV was on and still managing to engage in conversation with us about what was happening on the show. It was quite the feat. Dad reads the newspaper in the morning with his coffee and that’s it. I can say whatever I like about him in here knowing he’ll never read it and, so long as Mum doesn’t say anything, I’ll be safe.
I’ve never liked to throw people under the bus, but that cricket book was 100 per cent Mum’s fault. At that age I couldn’t have scoured the bookstores alone, and wouldn’t have had the funds to pay for the book either. She’d known him for a lot longer than me, so it also would have been nice to receive some guidance. Maybe she had offered some advice and I’d insisted on buying the book, thinking I knew how to win Dad over.
If you asked Dad what he’d like for any upcoming celebration, he’d say, ‘Don’t get me anything.’ Some people would take that as torturously misleading, but Dad genuinely meant it. Nowadays I know it’s a slab of Crown Lager, no matter what the occasion, but as an eight-year-old that wasn’t an option. Not that I couldn’t buy it; it was the early eighties and almost anything went. I just wouldn’t have been able to carry it.
Beyond reading the paper, from what I could tell Dad didn’t have a lot of interests. In the early days I’d have said it was the footy, as we went to see Carlton almost weekly. But as I grew older I assumed it was for my benefit, as he no longer supported a team, cynical about the modern game and what it had become. He saw it as soft, over-structured and boring.
He didn’t like one-day cricket because he claimed – without offering any evidence – that it was ‘rigged’, like some kind of low-level truther. Even as a kid I didn’t think that sounded right, but he stuck to it so hard that I began to doubt myself. He once had a love for boxing, long since passed, the Muhammad Ali era a peak that no other fighters could reach.
Though I struggled to find what he liked, I definitely knew what he didn’t like. The arts were not for him, having never shown an interest in theatre, architecture, gardens, live music, painting, dance, literature, sculpture, poetry or history. I’ve never known him to go to a museum, probably because when you think about it it’s just a 3D book that you have to walk around, and I knew where he stood on bot
h books and walking.
Knowing all that, the first day in Munich I’d been playing on easy mode. Having locals to guide us meant Dad had been more inclined to go wherever they took us, as he didn’t want to be rude to people who’d given up their time. Plus, in the early days of a trip, everyone tends to be more open to looking at everything; two weeks into a trip I’d find myself thinking, ‘If I have to look at one more ancient relic I’m going to smash it like I’m back at the tip.’
I knew Dad would have felt a similar honeymoon effect, but that it would fade fast. I would have to choose our adventures carefully, because he would be prepared to put himself through far less than I was in the name of learning (which wasn’t a lot); the extent of Dad’s curiosity had been reduced to the trivia underneath Carlton Draught bottlecaps.
The Hofbräuhaus had been an easy sell, so if all tourist attractions had beer and schnitzel then we’d be fine. I had my fingers crossed that when we got to Paris the Louvre had introduced a pot and parma night.
Armed with all this information about Dad, I chose wisely for our first solo excursion: the Dachau concentration camp. It would be educational but it wasn’t a museum as such, so I figured Dad would be okay with it.
We wandered through Dachau in relative silence, recognising the horror that was perpetrated there. I had visited when I backpacked around Europe years earlier, and it was an overcast day once again, which seemed right. It’s not a place that deserves sunshine. On the main grounds it looked like any old prison that had been shut down – iron gates, barbed-wire fences, guard houses – but it’s pretty obvious a place has a heavy history when even school groups are solemn.
A desolate atmosphere pervaded. The showers. The room containing the ovens. The piles of shoes belonging to completely innocent people. Each scene was more confronting than the last, ramming home what sick and depraved things went on there.
As we sat on the train back to the city, I asked Dad what he thought. He responded that it wasn’t much of a surprise as he’d heard so much about concentration camps as a young boy. I asked when that had been, knowing Dad had left school when he was fourteen, and I had only learned about it in the later years of high school. He told me his mum used to talk about the camps at home. This went a long way to explaining why he’s never fazed by anything, because why would you be when you’ve grown up with knowledge of the Holocaust since you were a small child?
Before the close of business, Dad wanted to get to the post office to send a birthday card back home to Mum. This would be the first time they wouldn’t be together to celebrate the occasion. I was blown away by this, though I shouldn’t have been – neither of them ever travelled for work, so where else would they be mid-October? As a comedian I’m used to regularly being away from home and have missed plenty of birthdays, Christmases and other, lesser celebrations that I’m not terribly upset about, much to Mum’s annoyance.
Post office located, we walked in and, after browsing for at least thirty-five seconds, Dad chose what he thought was the perfect card, just the right blend of happy birthday wishing and mocking of age. He wrote his message inside and then excitedly addressed the envelope, getting to write ‘Australia’ on it for the first time ever. He was briefly stumped by what to write on the back for the sender’s details, laughing, ‘It’s the same bloody address!’
Our senses of humour couldn’t have been further apart. Even though I’d worked that out the moment he turned the envelope over, I decided to let him have his moment. ‘It is too.’
As we walked out the front to post it, he was exceptionally proud, even though I pointed out the assistant spoke English so well we may as well have been back home. Dad ignored me, content to taste the sweet German gum on the stamp, placing it carefully on the envelope and putting it in the box we were told to, on its way to surprise Mum.
With him so satisfied by this achievement, I decided to keep quiet about my distrust of foreign postal services. A package I sent home from Rome during my backpacking days never arrived – photos, souvenirs, hash-tainted trinkets. Sent back for safekeeping and to lighten the load, the package never made it, which I’m still disappointed about. They weren’t of value to anyone, so it’s unlikely they were stolen, but they were my memories.
I didn’t tell Dad because I wanted him to feel confident that his nice gesture for the woman he loved would work out. Also, I didn’t need to be lectured on Italians and their work ethic.
The two of us needed to get a move on, because we were due to have dinner with some of Dad’s extended family. This was one of the big reasons for the whole trip, so to make sure it went smoothly Markus and Hans were picking us up at our apartment to drive us out to the suburbs. Walking down the streets of Munich, as we neared our place, Dad casually asked, ‘What night’s bin night?’
Even after the last few days with him, this question took me by surprise. In all my time travelling I’d never considered bin night. It was someone else’s problem; I was merely passing through. I’d never considered him a naive person, and while I knew jetlag left you foggy, I was fairly sure it didn’t make you simple.
I could smile at his questions on the first day, about who cleaned the church and whether you got change when paying with euros, but this was another level. Clearly he’d been thinking about it. He must’ve seen a bin out. Or perhaps he’d seen several bins, in which case he could have assumed bin night was that night. Or, as anyone else in that situation might think: it doesn’t matter. Nothing on our trip would change because of this information.
When we got back to the apartment I checked my Lonely Planet and there wasn’t a single section on bin nights, an oversight I’m sure they didn’t correct for the one person who has ever required that information.
We both got ourselves ready for dinner thinking about bin night. Dad wondering when it was, me trying to work out why he wanted to know. And how did he expect me to know? I had done quite a bit of research for the trip, but not to that level. What other information would he need? What time the street sweepers would come through? Which night the local council met? If Mrs Schwarz’s cat was tagged?
I expected Dad to interrupt my shower any minute to ask me whether I knew if our pilot from Abu Dhabi to Munich had been left-handed.
In the last few days, Dad had asked questions and displayed behaviours that were peculiar, to say the least. I’d not noticed any of this back home, but maybe I wasn’t around often enough. I didn’t recall any meaningless questions in my childhood, but would any kid? Everything Mum and Dad said I considered normal, because I had nothing to compare it to.
When I was young, my home was my universe, and Mum and Dad were my all-seeing and all-knowing gods. Until the one day I visited a parallel universe and realised all wasn’t what it seemed.
Jonathan’s family seemed very much like mine, which is why we’d bonded. One day he invited me to stay for dinner, and it was a big deal. (In primary school, this is getting to first base. A home run is the coveted sleepover.) This is when I discovered the earth was round.
As we sat for dinner, I felt welcomed in the extra seat and space that had been created for me at the table. I waited patiently for everyone else to start eating, so as not to disgrace myself or my family. My brother had had friends stay for dinner at our place over the years; I knew the conversations that went on after the friend left. ‘Did you see the way he helped himself to the butter?!?’
When Jonathan’s father, Mr Toohey, wondered, ‘Where’s the sauce?’ I saw this as an opening and leaped to my feet, ready to prove what a gracious guest I was. I headed to the pantry to grab the sauce and triumphantly bring it to the table.
‘It’s in the fridge, mate.’ There was a small amount of knowing laughter, but I barely heard it over the sound of my mind exploding. Jellied legs held me up as I opened the fridge, unsure whether I was about to be the victim of an elaborate condiment-based prank. Sauce in the fridge sounded weird, but then Dad had pulled off some pretty odd ‘pranks’ in his time, so I
couldn’t be too sure. The fridge light revealed it wasn’t a gag; the sauce was indeed right there in the fridge door.
So many questions ran through my mind. Why was it there? What else from the pantry could go in the fridge? Did this mean I could cool down hot chips as I ate them? I had seen the future.
Like Columbus returning to the Old World, I came home keen to show off my discovery. After our next meal I eagerly cleared the table, sneaking the sauce into the fridge. At our next dinner I sat, not really interested in my food, waiting for my chance. I’d set the table, deliberately forgetting the sauce. I could see Dad looking around the table before asking, ‘Where’s the bloody sauce?’
I leaped from my chair, cocky, throwing a look at my brother and sister to let them know I’d handle this.
‘It’s just right here in the fridge, Dad,’ I said as I opened the door and got it out. I proudly returned the now chilled bottle of tomato sauce to the table.
Dad picked it up. ‘What’s it doing in the fridge? Doesn’t belong in there; belongs in the pantry.’
And just like that I was back to being a flat earther.
When the trip was confirmed, one of the first things we organised was meeting Dad’s extended family. He had aunties, uncles and cousins on his mum’s side who he’d never met. I hardly knew my dad’s mother, so meeting her immediate relatives wasn’t on any bucket list I’d constructed over the years. As Markus and Hans drove us through what could have been any middle-class suburb in the world, I steeled myself for some serious boredom. The tree-lined streets, modest houses with yards and the occasional trampoline took me back to visiting friends and family in my childhood.
Paris and Other Disappointments Page 6