STEPS

CHAPTER FOUR Father Mother Others

My mother found inner strength late in life. Back then, ever at the mercy of my father, living in constant fear of his hostility. His bouts of rage unpredictable, exploding without warning whenever he considered himself cornered or his authority challenged. Hands striking and things flung when language proved inadequate - as it often did. His failings and his fears hidden behind crude verbal blasphemies, often escalating to physical reprisals; a liquid filled glass thrown against a wall, dishes swiped off the table crashing in a messy heap on the floor...

My mother always cleaning up in silence. Her mute demureness proving adequate most times, dampening each new outburst.

I witnessed those events. More so, I observed him afterwards, silent, morose, head in his hands, perhaps regretting? A few times crying, my mother comforting him and offering up soothing words.

Later, I understood the depth of his depression. His idea of himself, his own importance at odds with the ineptitude he confronted daily. He hated authority, despised working for others. Having what he called "a boss", his own restricted and maltreated childhood producing a deep-seated need for autonomy.

The series of businesses begun as a means of escape, resulting always in failure, since he held no business training - only ever knowing his trade, working with his hands. The money borrowed and the repayments due after each disaster resulting in black moods, his withdrawing head-down to factory work; until the next idea, the next attempt to break out, leading inevitably to yet another failure.

Those in his social group who remained at the factories all of their working lives, lived to achieve significant success. Investment properties; holiday homes; boats and caravans; supporting affluent retirements. My father only ever managed to pay off one continuous mortgage; retiring instead to the confines of a Government pension. The comparison irking him, his constant references to "bad luck," as he trawled back through history and pointed to what he called "missed opportunities."

The double storey Victorian home he'd refrained from buying because, "it was too big." Times we drive by the now multi-million dollar property, and he offers up the same comment over and over:"I could have bought it for sixty thousand back then." But he'd chosen instead a single storey brick veneer in an outer suburb, because at the time, "everyone else is buying houses there now." The need to fit in, the being part of the communal wave always the basis, the point of reference for his every decision.

From a young age, I too carried the burden of his fears, struggling in the beginning, to understand the reasoning behind his actions. The time he dragged me back to our tent by the hair at thirteen: One of his friends telling him he saw me sitting at the water's edge with the boy camping opposite. Smack! Again, back-handed, smack! My mother hovering, crying, pleading for him not to hit me on the head.

"Not her head! Please! Hit somewhere else, not the head!"

My mother fearing he would further harm my brain, harbouring always the image of finding me unconscious.

For me, only acute incomprehension and the humiliation caused by this private yet very obvious beating. Others in nearby tents assumed to have heard his harsh words, the impact of his hands, my loud protesting cries:

"I didn't do anything wrong! I didn't do anything!"

Our summer holiday cut short, my father packing up the tent, loading the car and taking everyone home 'in disgrace'. His honour, his standing within the closed group of migrant families assumed compromised by my behaviour. Yet I struggled to understand, crying on the long journey home. What had I done? I'd sat with a boy in the middle of the day, meters away from our tent and talked about school.