The Mascot (30 page)

W
hen I turned into the driveway, I saw that our house was dark. I wondered where my parents were, as it was unusual for them to be out on a weekday evening.

I parked the car and went inside. I made my way to the living room, not bothering to turn on any lights, and called out their names, but there was no reply.

I sat down in one of the armchairs. Outside I could see the headlights of cars as they passed by and expected that, at any moment, I would see the lights of my parents' car coming up the drive.

Sitting alone in the dark, I had an image of Martin, Andrew, and me waiting expectantly for my father to return from work, when suddenly I saw the headlights of my parents' car. They were home from wherever they'd been.

My mother seemed subdued when she came in. “I'll get some dinner for us,” she said quietly, going straight through to the kitchen.

My father turned on the television—it was time for the evening news—and sat down in the chair opposite me.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Just dropped by Mirdza's,” he replied.

“How are they?”

“They're getting along fine…nothing new.”

After dinner the three of us watched television, but none of us seemed very interested. Nor was there any of the usual banter that accompanied our evenings at home. My mother remained as dejected as she had been earlier in the evening, and my father seemed unable to settle. He rose constantly to fetch small electronic gadgets that he repaired on the floor in the center of the room. Eventually my mother rose, pleading tiredness, said good night, and went to her room.

My father continued to tinker with an old camera on the floor while I stared at the television, halfheartedly trying to follow the plot of a police drama. I gave up and looked away from the screen.

“So what did you talk about with Mirdza and Edgars?” I asked.

My father was evasive. “This and that,” was all he said. He continued to tinker with the camera.

“What did you think of Alice?” he asked without looking up. “She's a nice lady, isn't she?”

“She is.”

“What did you talk about?”

“This and that,” I answered, imitating my father's response.

I could tell that I'd irritated him but I couldn't help myself. If he was going to keep things to himself then I would do the same, I thought stubbornly.

We both lapsed into silence once again, and before long we said good night and went to our respective rooms.

It was the middle of the same night. I'd always been a light sleeper, and the sound of somebody moving in the hall had awakened me. I thought that it must be my father, troubled by another nightmare about his past.

These nightmares were becoming more frequent: I would hear him stir and then make his way to the kitchen for a cup of tea. I would get up and follow him, pretending that I needed a glass of water, then feign surprise at finding him there. In this way, he slowly began to confide in me more of the memories that seemed to be triggered by his nightmares.

This night, too, I rose and headed toward the kitchen, expecting to find him. I was surprised to find the kitchen dark. “Dad?” I whispered. There was no response. Then I heard an indistinct noise coming from the adjacent utility room. I approached the closed door; there was no light coming from under it, but the muffled sound became stronger.

I put my ear against the door.

It was my mother, weeping quietly.

I was suddenly certain that my father had told her his story. I reached for the door handle. But then I stopped, unable to open the door.

I was petrified by my mother's grief: I had had the same feeling when I had first seen my father's tape. As I stood there, frozen to the spot, I knew that I should have done something, made even a single gesture to console my own mother. But much to my enduring shame, I did not. I didn't know how, and I feared that she was beyond comforting. Instead I left her alone: bewildered and frightened.

I lay awake for some time until I heard the sounds of my mother's footsteps returning to her room.

The next morning dawned sunny and unusually mild for early spring in Melbourne.

Over breakfast my mother was perky, but her features were drawn. My father seemed to be avoiding both her company and mine. No sooner had he gulped down the last of his cereal than he rose and headed off to his workshop.

My mother and I were left alone to face each other.

“It's a lovely day, Mum,” I said enthusiastically. “Let's go down to Williamstown Beach.”

We lived a couple of miles from the bay at Williamstown, one of the oldest parts of Melbourne. I parked on the foreshore close to where my mother had spotted a vacant bench. We made our way to it and sat down. We were silent, listening to the sounds of the waves lapping gently against the small boats moored just offshore.

Suddenly, out of the blue, my mother spoke.

“I've seen the tape,” she said. “I know now what was bothering your father. All those years, he never said a word.”

My mother told me that after I had left the house to meet Alice my father had simply left the tape on the kitchen table, telling her that he was off on an errand and that she should watch the tape while he was out.

“Your father didn't return until nearly four o'clock,” she said. “He went straight to his workshop. I tried to speak with him, but he refused to say a single word about it. There was no choice, I left him to it. You know how obstinate he is—he'll only talk when he's ready to.

“Moments later the phone rang. It was Martin, and I'd no sooner hung up with him than Andrew called,” my mother said.

Both my brothers had been at home when my father appeared on their doorsteps. Without even exchanging pleasantries, he had passed over copies of the tape. As with me, he had given neither of them a clue about the tape's contents.

Certainly my father was a shy man, and he must have known that its contents would be traumatic for us, but nonetheless it struck me as perversely reticent the way he had gone about revealing his past to us by videotape.

“How did Martin and Andrew react?” I asked my mother.

She turned away from the view of the bay so that I could see her full expression. It was clear that she was disturbed.

“Andrew was too upset to talk about it very much,” she said quietly. “It really shocked him.”

“And Martin?” I asked.

“Martin hardly said a word about it,” my mother said. “He told me about the tape and then changed the topic. But that's Martin's way. He keeps things to himself.

“Your father was like a man possessed yesterday,” my mother continued. “Not long after he returned home, he announced that he was going to visit Mirdza and Edgars.

“‘Now?' I asked. ‘Are you going to tell them?' He was desperate to have it all out in the open.

“‘Will you come with me?' he asked.

“Of course, I couldn't let him go by himself: Edgars is a reasonable man, but I worried about how Mirdza would react. This would be difficult for her to accept. He was so impatient to get over there that he jumped in the car and waited for me there—beeping the horn several times to hurry me up.

“Mirdza answered our knock. She was startled to see us standing on her doorstep, but welcomed us inside. Edgars was home as well, reading the newspaper in the kitchen.

“Your father didn't even wait for Mirdza to prepare coffee. We'd barely sat down when he started telling them his story.

“Mirdza and Edgars sat in silence staring at him the entire time. I'm not even sure how much they absorbed of what he was saying; he was speaking so quickly and jumping from event to event. When he'd finally finished, they looked shell-shocked. They didn't say a word.

“Then after several moments your father looked at his watch. ‘We'd better be going,' he said. ‘It's almost seven. Mark might be home by now.'

“Your father rose, and as he did so, he produced a copy of the videotape from his case. ‘Let me leave this with you,' he said, putting it on the table.

“With that, we were out the front door and on our way home. I felt sorry for Mirdza and Edgars as they waved us off from their front gate. Your father had swept in like a whirlwind and then disappeared as quickly.

“What I don't understand,” my mother said, turning to look at me, “is that I saw on the tape that it'd been recorded over two months ago. Why didn't he tell me sooner? He's kept it from me all the years we've known each other, and even after he'd told those characters on the tape?”

I had no answer to her question.

“How long have you known, Mark?” she asked.

I'd been put in an awkward position once again. I did not want to tell my mother about my father's visit to Oxford. Somehow his muteness about the past was one thing, but its offense would be worsened by the revelation of a secret journey to the other side of the world.

“Just this week, too,” I answered instead.

“Still, for better or worse, we all know now,” she said. “But he owes people more of an explanation than simply thrusting a tape at them, don't you think?”

I nodded.

“It's funny,” my mother said pensively on the way home from Williamstown. “You know how your father's been about chocolate all his life? He wouldn't share it with anybody, or if he did, he had to be in charge, handing out a piece at a time.”

My father had always been a “chocoholic.” He would hoard supplies of chocolate, hiding little stashes all over the house. His addiction to it had become a family joke.

“A few weeks ago,” my mother said, “he gave it up completely. In one go. I came home one day and found him clearing out his various stashes. Bars and slabs and boxes of the stuff were piled up high like a treasure. I thought he'd lost his mind.

“‘In God's name, what are you doing?' I asked.

“‘Disposing of it,' he said. ‘You can have it. Or give it to the grandkids, if you want.'

“‘But why on earth?' I asked, but your father only shrugged. ‘Lost my taste for it,' he said.”

We turned into the driveway. “You okay, Mum?” I asked. I didn't know what else to say.

“I'll be okay,” she said. “I'll be as right as rain. Just need time to take it all in.”

I admired her attitude, but I wondered if she would be “as right as rain.” Her mood was somber and she shook her head resignedly. “This world…” she said.

I don't believe that she ever really recovered, despite her best efforts to put on a brave face. I still wonder if it would have been easier for her to deal with my father's revelations if I'd not been so fearful of her emotions during those days.

Now that my mother and the rest of the family knew about my father's past, it was as if a brief Indian summer had descended on our house: the curtains had been tied back and the windows thrown open to let in the fresh, mild air.

My father's decision to speak gave me the tacit go-ahead to begin a more concerted search. Two mornings after he had made his disclosures, I was reading the newspaper in the living room when I heard what sounded like a minor explosion in front of our house.

“What on earth?” I heard my mother exclaim as she came into the room, hurried to the front window, and peered through the curtains.

When I joined her there, I saw a dilapidated car shudder to a stop.

The driver's door opened and Alice Prosser got out, collected her bag from the passenger's side, and struggled up the driveway. She was carrying a rolled-up map and a number of books under her arm.

“Poor thing,” my mother said sympathetically. “She looks like she's in constant pain with that leg of hers. I wonder who she is…she must want your father to repair something for her.”

Evidently, my mother had no idea who Alice was.

“Come away from the window or she'll see us staring at her,” my mother said, giving me a nudge. “I'll get your father. You look after the lady.”

“Alice!” I exclaimed as I opened the door. “This is a surprise. Come in.” At that moment I heard my father enter the kitchen.

It was an awkward moment. I could see my mother wondering about this goblinlike woman whom we'd befriended.

“This is my wife, Patricia,” my father said. Alice reached out for my mother's hand. My mother seemed momentarily nonplussed.

“Alice has been helping me with my story,” my father added, noticing the question in my mother's eyes.

“Oh,” she said, before collecting herself and offering Alice a chair.

“Fine to smoke?” Alice asked. When my mother nodded, she got out her tobacco pouch and rolled a cigarette.

“Coffee, Alice?” my mother asked.

“Please, Patricia. May I call you Pat?”

“Yes, you go ahead, dear.” My mother seemed to have shed her suspicious attitude.