Of course mama never approved. She knew what I was getting myself into, she said again and again. She knew because she’d been there. As far as she was concerned I was just marrying my papa all over again, and I was a bloody fool if I couldn’t see it. I pleaded with mama. I said that it would be different, that I wouldn’t be living her life all over again. That I wasn’t marrying papa. I nearly said that I never knew papa anyway, and that it was all her fault. But I didn’t.
It was true, though. There was always mama, but no papa. And, I swear, there’s not a day goes by when I don’t remember the last of papa.
I was watching the sun coming through the screen door of the old home in Tivoli Street. It was a Saturday morning sun. Bright and warm in the heart of winter. I was sitting on the floor or standing in the hall watching. I don’t remember. Papa was standing at the door with his hat and coat on, a newspaper in his hand. I could see a small overnight bag on the front porch and mama was nowhere in sight. Papa said he was just going down the street to see a man about a horse and that he’d be back soon. He bent down, kissed me on the cheek and gave me a small brown bag of broken biscuits.
I knew he wasn’t just going down the street to see a man about a horse, and even now I can still hear the door creak, I still hear the groan of the old rusted springs. I still see papa picking up his bag from the porch and walking out along the garden path. He raised his old hat at the gate, smiled a big smile, his black moustache all turned up at the edges, his pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth, and then he was gone.
But I smelt pipe tobacco in the hallway all day. Long, sweet clouds of pipe smoke, slowly settling onto the furniture, the hat stand, the coat stand, the old chair, the shoe rack, the umbrellas, settling on it all, in the still hallway, long, sweet clouds of pipe smoke. And I followed it with my nose, out through the screen door like I was following papa’s scent. Out into the garden, and I didn’t even have to use my nose, I saw it with my eyes, a long, still trail of white smoke hanging over the garden path because there was no wind that day. It was Saturday morning, bright with sunshine, there was no wind and papa’s trail was in front of me. I closed my eyes and followed it all the way to the front gate, until my hands hit the painted wire of the gate and I knew I couldn’t go any further. I opened my eyes again, climbed up onto the gate and looked down the street, but there was no papa.
So I stood at the gate, swung back and forth and sucked broken biscuits from the brown bag that papa gave me. All the time I knew mama was somewhere back in the house, but she left me alone, let me stand at the gate all morning sucking on broken biscuits and waiting for papa. But when the day clouded over and the wind sprang up there was still no sign of papa. Even the sweet smell of his tobacco had gone from the garden now, and if I’d run out into the street and tried to follow his trail with my nose I couldn’t have because there was no trail left. And so I waited, hanging over the front gate, till I’d finished sucking on the bag of biscuits and the afternoon turned grey.
Inside the house I could smell where papa had been; in the hallway, the lounge room, and the kitchen. And when I asked mama where papa was she said he’d gone visiting. He was visiting friends and he’d be back. But mama wasn’t looking up from the kitchen table where she was rolling pastry and I knew she was lying. And although I knew I’d go on waiting at the front looking for papa in the street, I also knew there was no point.
But one day, a lot later, mama, my sisters and me were all walking down Chapel Street on a Sunday afternoon, in our best walking clothes. Everybody in the street was in their Sunday best, with their hats and gloves, and suddenly there was papa. On the other side of the street. And I said mama, there’s papa, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was walking along with a well-dressed woman and she was holding onto his arm, but I barely noticed her because I was watching papa. And once again I said, mama there’s papa, but mama grabbed me by the arm and told me to shut up. She told everybody to join hands and look the other way and ignore papa.
I was looking across to the other side of the street while mama was dragging me along by the hand. Papa was raising his hat, waving at me with it and I waved back with my free hand. He was smiling that big smile, with his black moustache curled up at the corners. He blew a small, white cloud into the air, took his pipe from his mouth as he waved again, and I swear, from the other side of the street, over the cars and the trams, I could smell papa’s sweet breath. Then we turned a corner into a small street.
It was the last time I saw papa, and I never knew why we weren’t allowed to stop and talk to him. It’s not fair what people keep to themselves, what they keep from you, because when they die they take it with them.
And I swear, I’m certain, that if I ever leave, if I ever go, Michael will know why. He will be told what happened, and he will know why people drift apart and leave each other, and he won’t spend the rest of his life wondering why. He won’t spend the rest of his life trying to understand something he knows he never can, because everybody who could possibly tell him what happened is dead.