‘Mum,’ he said, grabbing his mobile, ‘I’m just off to the loo.’
He texted Dennis: Mum and I are at the Torrens Arms. You want to join us? He sent it off, waited. Dan thought there was no way Dennis could join them: his mother treated him like a baby, she wouldn’t let him out. How would he get there? Was he even allowed to drink? Just as he pushed open the toilet door he felt the phone throb in his pocket.
‘Dennis is joining us,’ he said, as he slid into the booth.
‘Really?’ Then, suspiciously: ‘On his own?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good, he’s a nice kid.’
He’s a man. He’s an adult. ‘He’s my age, isn’t he?’
‘Two years older,’ his mother answered. She looked around the pub, at the despondent man at the bar, at the bored waitress tapping her cigarette packet in her apron pocket, at the three burly red-faced men shouting and joking in a corner, their table a forest of empty glasses. She screwed up her nose, as if she found it all distasteful. ‘I didn’t even know he was born until much later. After I had you. I rang home to tell them that they had a grandchild. I got my old man. You know what he said? He said I already have a grandson, I don’t want yours. I have Bettina’s son, I have Dionysus.’
Then she surprised him by throwing back her head and cackling and convulsing with laughter. ‘God, he was a tough old bastard,’ she said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘You got to hand it to him — the last of the old patriarchs.’ She raised her glass. ‘Let’s drink to that. Let’s drink to the passing of the old guard. We’ll never see the like of pricks like him again.’
She sculled the drink, slammed the glass on the table, swaying as she rose from her chair. ‘If Dennis is coming, we should get another.’
Dan grabbed her hand and pointed to the glass of water. ‘First, drink that,’ he ordered.
He could tell that she was surprised, but she sat back down and obediently drank from the glass.
‘What did giagia say, when you told her about me?’
‘I didn’t speak to her, the old prick wouldn’t let me. But a few weeks later I got this card, some stupid cheap Hallmark card of a stork with a blue balloon in its mouth. There wasn’t even a note in it — she hardly had any schooling, I know that, but not even my name — just this dumb card with fifty dollars inside it.’ She cheekily pointed at him. ‘It kept you in nappies for a month. That’s my mother, that’s what she was like.’ Then she gently corrected herself, ‘What she is like.’
The shrivelled carcass, the mask-like face, the empty eyes. He had no sense of who this woman had been. Just the meat of her dying body and the shade of her in his memory, a ghost already, overshadowed by the untamed life force of her husband.
‘What was she like, Mum?’
He didn’t think she would answer. Time passed as though his mother had disappeared deep inside herself, had forgotten he was there.
‘Frightened,’ she finally said. ‘She was scared, always scared. She was always running after us, telling us to be quiet, to not upset the old man. She didn’t have any courage.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact. He was taken aback by how unaffected she sounded. ‘She was a scared mother hen, that’s my image of her. I never saw her smile at home, only when we were witnessing. She used to love that, getting up on Sunday mornings, putting on our witnessing clothes, taking me along to speak for her. That’s the only time I saw her happy.’
Dan wanted more. None of this filled in the gaps, added blood and life and motion to the meat and bone and skin lying on that hospital bed.
‘You know,’ he ventured, ‘maybe she was braver than you think. She migrated, didn’t she? I mean, you know, she took that risk.’
His mother had started shaking her head before he’d even finished. ‘No, Danny. Not even then. Her brother, my theo Arthur, sponsored her to come out. They had no money to marry her off in Greece so he brought her out here. Even that wasn’t a choice.’
Her voice became animated. ‘It’s that passivity I can’t stand — it was her passivity that made me angrier at her than I ever was with Dad. Fuck!’
Her outburst startled Dan.
‘Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. It was a wasted life, Danny. She just wasted her life in fear.’
Forgive her, thought Dan, just go to her bed tomorrow and whisper it to her. He imagined forgiveness was like flying, that it made you soar. He imagined that it looked like an eagle, a silver bolt in the sky, that it was pure light.
‘Mate, I’ve made a decision.’
‘You’re drunk,’ he reminded her. ‘You might not be in the best state for decisions.’
But his mother dismissed him with a wave of her hand. ‘No, I’m bloody well not. Listen. We’re going to head off tomorrow, go back to Melbourne. And I’m going to drop you off at home — I really want to see your place, baby, it’s not right that I don’t know your place.’ She was slurring her words but her tone was calm, measured. ‘And then I’m going to go home, to be with your dad and with Theo. And after I tell them both how much I love them I am going to take my box of music and drive up the coast to see my daughter. I shouldn’t be here, Danny, I should be with Regan, I should find out how she is, what she needs to say to me — the good and the bad. I don’t know what she wants, what she wants to do with her life. I don’t know who she is. I should know that, I should, I should.’
What do I want to do with my life? He had been fleeing from that question. He hadn’t gone up north, he hadn’t left Melbourne, but he’d been running from that question nonetheless. What could he do? What was he good for?
He took his mother’s hand. ‘Sounds like a fucking good plan.’
His mother was looking over his shoulder; she slipped her hand out of his and waved.
Dennis was standing by the entrance. Dan had imagined he’d be in his usual Acca Dacca t-shirt, trackpants and sneakers. But his cousin was wearing an ironed black shirt, dark jeans and shiny black loafers.
Dennis smiled at them both and sat next to Dan.
‘My shout,’ said Dan’s mother. ‘What are you having, Dennis?’
‘A pot of beer.’
Dan stopped himself from translating. His mother would work it out.
‘How’d you get here?’
‘My mum dropped me off.’
Dan’s mother put her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Dennis, she wouldn’t like you coming to a pub.’
‘It’s OK, Thea Stephanie, I wanted to come, I told her I wanted to come.’
Dan’s mother had only one more drink before he told her they were going to drive her home. Everything was dark at Joanna and Spiro’s, everyone was asleep.
‘I’ll take Dennis home,’ Dan told his mother. ‘I won’t be long.’
In the car he turned to his cousin. ‘Let’s go back to West Beach — you wanna do that?’
Dennis nodded enthusiastically. Then, just as Dan was about to turn on the ignition, his cousin said, ‘Tell me something. Do you prefer Danny or Dan?’
‘Dan.’
Dennis asking that question made him seem less like family and more like a friend.
At West Beach, the waves thundered, the moon had disappeared behind dense cloud; the sea was all black and grey heaving shadow. They sat side by side, listening to the boom of the surf.