‘Who won the jackpots this week?’ I ask Dad.
His face lights up. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Skeet. Joan won two in a row!’ he says.
‘When’s your next shift?’ I ask, then repeat, ‘YOUR NEXT SHIFT. WHEN IS IT?’ before he can ask me to repeat it.
‘Well, Matt’s been on leave a while,’ he begins, and off he goes on a subject that’s arguably more interesting than what my beloved pig Helga had for dinner last night.
Why do we find it so easy to tune out of most of the details of our parents’ lives yet expect them to listen rapt to the minutiae of ours? Oh we’re just so much more interesting.
Attention Twilight Waters Residents:
MANDATORY EYE TESTS WILL BE CONDUCTED IN THE SHIRLEY LAU TREATMENT ROOM FROM 10AM TODAY.
Thank You,
Management
FIVE
Carry On, Doctor
Dad finishes his story about the pressure of taking on extra bingo calling shifts as I brake at the Give Way sign at the Elderslie Bridge.
‘Gee, the water’s low today,’ Mum says as we wait for the three cars in front of us to use the one-way crossing.
After rains, the Hunter River turns mud-brown and flows fast. Lately though we’ve been through a dry spell and as a result the water has taken on a greenish-blue colour.
‘Eh?’ Dad asks.
‘WATER. LOW.’ I take a repeating-for-Dad shift for Mum.
Huge islands of sand are visible up and downstream, and it feels like we may once again be headed for drought and the omnipresent threat of bushfires. Little do we know that in two short months there’ll be severe flooding and, while the bridge itself won’t go underwater, many of the access roads around it will.
Jeff and I have driven out this way a few times before and it never ceases to surprise me how different the country on this side of the river is. Almost as soon as you cross it, the whole vista changes. From the small towns, busy roads, flat pasture and dead grass beneath grapevines on our side of the river, this side is usually green and lush the whole year round.
Roads weave between hills and mountains and there are so many trees you feel like you’re already up in the Barrington Tops – in a cooler, more alpine-type climate with regular rain and the occasional snowfall. Traffic thins out, you get the roads almost to yourself and instead of big modern houses and developments there are sparsely scattered farmhouses and cottages. It’s peaceful and beautiful, and it’s the perfect place for us to start our new lives – if only we could afford it.
‘Do you ever see people swimming in the river?’ Mum asks, her fingernail tapping on the glass.
‘Every once in a while,’ I say. ‘More of a paddle, really. You don’t see people doing laps or using blow-up floats or anything. I think it’s mostly to take their dogs for a dip when it’s stinking hot.’
‘You wouldn’t catch me in there,’ Jeff says.
‘I’d take a dip,’ Dad says. ‘We used to swim in the Tumut River all the time when we were kids.’
‘Except you can’t actually swim,’ I say, barely above a whisper.
‘Eh?’
‘DO YOU STILL GO FOR A SWIM?’ I say.
‘I haven’t been for a few weeks but I’ll start up again in the new year. Doc says I should go at least twice a week, so I will.’ Dad walks laps of a therapy pool with a couple of blokes he’s befriended in Singleton, though, judging by his re-telling of stories, I suspect there’s much more chitchat going on than actual exercise.
‘That’s good.’
‘Eh?’
‘GOOD!’
When he’s not in front of the telly, in the bath, or calling out randomly generated numbers for old ladies hoping to win enough to buy a stale sandwich from the club canteen, Dad can usually be found at his local. Local pharmacy, local GP, local medical specialist, that is . . . the list goes on. Like Mum’s almost-daily visit to her local, this is Dad’s chance for socialising. When most of us got a sore throat (pre-Covid, at least), we would suck a couple of soothers, take a Disprin and have a little lie down. Not Dad. He’s straight on the phone to the receptionist at the GP, asking for the very next available appointment. If he has an ailment, there has to be a pill or surgical procedure for it – a sure-fire instant fix.
‘I had my ears washed out the other day,’ he begins, a sentence I fear the end of.
‘Nice one, Dad. That’s fantastic,’ I say, before throwing in my diversion. ‘How many times a week do you go to the pool?’
‘I couldn’t hear a thing!’ He continues undeterred and I pray there won’t be any gruesome detail to follow.
‘You should have seen the gunk that came out of them!’
And there it is. I catch Jeff’s reflection in the rear-view mirror and his face has turned a marked shade of green.
‘Can you hear better now?’ I venture.
‘Eh? I’m doing okay, yeah, thanks, Skeet.’
Every single ailment Dad gets is detailed to us with painstaking thoroughness. It doesn’t matter how personal the affliction, we still hear it in glorious graphic detail. And, because I am a thoughtful person, I even make sure Jeff gets included in these regular chats.
