Although my father appeared in the role of resigned provider to a household of permanent guests, I think his enjoyment of their continual company equalled, in his much quieter way, my mother’s. At least he could escape, and frequently did—not far, to be sure, for to reach his bed he had to undress in one room and make his way in striped pyjamas through the crowded sitting-room to the verandah where he slept. But he had no inhibitions about doing this and the evening’s conversation continued to the accompaniment of his ferocious snores. He became, at this time, quite an established ‘club man’ and keen billiards player. His championship status ended on the day he shot himself; ever after, he found it painful and difficult to bend the affected knee into the prescribed position.
Actually his first two adventures with firearms weren’t too serious: only on the third occasion was any bodily damage done. The pistol was of very small, very smart Spanish manufacture—just large enough to lie in the palm of his hand, and affording a more comforting and solid feel than the thin jingle of key rings or the like with which some men fidget. He first came to carry one of these on the advice of the police, who were concerned over his lone night calls into the underworld areas of dock and slum land. Sydney had during the thirties a crime wave of serious proportions, terrorised by a gang of slashers known as the Razor Gang, and it was against the possibility of attack by these assailants that the gun was bought. On his first day home with his new toy, my father indulged in a little quiet target practice in the surgery, but beyond a ricocheting bullet which gouged some plaster out of the surgery wall, splintered a glass case full of instruments and bounced harmlessly out into the light area, no untoward incidents occurred. Secure in the assumption that he now knew when it was liable to go off, and when it was not, he took the gun out with him at night for as long as the situation lasted, and occasionally fondled it by day as it lay in his desk drawer. When war broke out, all licences to own firearms were reviewed: my father took his pistol up to No. 3 Police Station where, over a cup of tea with the Station boys, he missed the sergeant’s leg by inches.
On the afternoon he finally shot himself, my mother was upstairs and as usual entertaining some friends to tea. It was a humid, somnolent day, enervating; and the patient who was sitting by my father’s desk cataloguing her woes was one of his regular and more boring hypochondriacs, whose long list of ailments needed no further response than an occasional murmur of sympathy. While making these reassuring noises, he idly fingered the pistol in the middle drawer of his desk, lying in its accustomed nest of old papers, tobacco pouches, and pipe cleaners. As usual it was loaded and, as usual, my father hadn’t quite got the hang of it.
‘I get these terrifying palpitations, Doctor—sometimes when I lie down I think I’m going to choke. And then, suddenly, I’ll get a feeling of something awful about to happen—it’s my nerves, I suppose. Don’t you think I should have something to calm my nerves?’
‘Mmmm,’ said my father, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet made a deafening report, in the doubly confined space of the drawer, and of the consulting room. The initial impact of the drawer bottom probably lightened the blow, which nevertheless neatly blew off part of my father’s kneecap. The patient swooned—my father cursed and bellowed—the nurse ran in, first to mop up the blood and call an ambulance into which she assisted my father; then, to revive the patient and put her in a taxi. Upstairs my mother’s guests exclaimed at the noise, but my mother assured them, ‘Don’t worry. The doctor’s probably shot himself.’
It was not until some hours later that she learnt that her husband was in hospital, where he stayed for two weeks, the central figure of a good deal of amused attention.
Later that night, I opened the door to two plainclothes policemen.
‘Miss Eakin,’ they said, ‘you can tell that father of yours that if he doesn’t learn to use that gun properly soon, we’re going to take it away from him.’
While he was in hospital, the patient who had witnessed the accident recovered sufficiently to ring him for further professional advice. In fact, the hospital switchboard operators were pestered by the wretched woman, and finally agreed to ask the doctor for his opinion. The sister on duty came one day, ‘Mrs So-and-so is on the telephone. She says to tell you she has that sinking feeling again, and please, what should she do?’
‘Tell her,’ said my father, ‘to strike out for the shore.’