Son

He walks in towards the city from Richmond station, across the roof gardens over the old railway yards with the MCG on his right. He’s a little nervous, very nervous, because he’s meeting his son for the first time. He looks over his left shoulder to check the time on the digital clock on top of the Siemens building. He has a twenty-year-old son from a short relationship he had in 2013 with a woman called Sally Breen. She called him three days ago and the twenty-year-old rang him the day after and now they’re meeting at George’s, a café in Federation Square. His son’s name is Andrew. A good enough name, Thomas thinks.

He walks on and follows the red brick path they created through the gardens, surrounded by colourful garden beds and near full-grown trees, and there is a coffee van on his right and he can see AAMI Stadium, home of the Melbourne Victory on his left and he continues on and over the Yarra past Swan Street and through Birrarung Marr and up into Federation Square from the steps near the wharf. He read somewhere that Ganesh is the Hindu god of beginnings, so do your stuff, Ganesh.

George’s is on the Flinders Street boundary of Federation Square and he finds it easily and takes a table. His son says he knows what he looks like and Thomas wonders how that is possible. He orders a latte and a glass of water, and sips the water slowly. He can’t get his head around it. A full-grown man with pubic hair by the name of Andrew is his son. He thought about it after Andrew had telephoned him. Maybe if a girl from say, five years ago, had called him up and said you have a five-year-old daughter he would have sort of been pleased. He could have picked her up at the front door of the house and she would have been wearing this little floral dress and he would have taken her for ice-cream and if she got tired and cranky and started carrying on he could have taken her straight home to mum. And he would see her once a fortnight or once a month and she would love him. What on earth could Andrew want from him?

Sally was very la-di-da when she told him about Andrew.

“He just kept on at me so I gave in and told him who you were.”

“Why is he so interested?”

“Are you completely stupid? You’re his father!”

“Aren’t you in some kind of relationship? Doesn’t he have a step-dad?”

“I had three different relationships when he was growing up and only one of those lived with us and he turned out to be a complete arsehole.”

“We only had a one-month relationship. How can you be so sure?”

“Relationship is putting it a bit too strongly, Thomas. I know because, well, I know. Take the DNA test if you like, but we’re not after money from you. He just wants to know you. I told him you were a sweet man with commitment issues.”

Thomas comes back to the present. He admits that he is very curious about his son. Sally hadn’t told him what he did and she said she hadn’t told Andrew what Thomas did. He waits, and gets a feeling he hasn’t had in a long time. A cigarette would be nice except they shoot you on sight if you smoke anywhere near food or anywhere and he hasn’t had one for fifteen years and giving up was quite easy because in the end he hated smoking. Sally was a great person and she had been totally honest with him twenty years ago when dumping him. You don’t seem to do anything; you have no goals, no passion for life.

And she was right. He was stoner right up until he was nearly thirty and then his father died from complications arising from his drinking. He wasn’t quite an alcoholic but went on wild binges, even in his sixties, and it contributed to his death. His mother is a social drinker. She now has a grandson. After his father died he went back to Monash University and got the Bachelor of Science he had deferred from when he was twenty and was now doing research on the effects of alcohol and drugs. Sally had been impressed when he told her, but said,

“It’s hard to believe because you were stoned twenty-four hours a day.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“But it sounds like you’re in a good place.”

“I was until I got this call.”

“Ring me after you finish meeting him. Tell me what you think of our son.”

He sips the coffee and then he sees him walking straight to the table. Thomas looks away from him and then back at him and Andrew smiles and says,

“You’re Thomas,” and extends his hand and Thomas gets up and shakes his son’s hand and says,

“Hi Andrew, good to meet you, ah, sit down, sit down,” he says pointing to the chair. They both sit. Thomas looks at him and he can see his hair, his brown eyes and the dimple in his chin.

“You look like me.”

“Mum said you were good-looking.”

“Ah, sense of humour.” The waitress comes and she flicks her hair at Andrew and he smiles and asks for a latte and a glass of water.

Andrew says, “I hope you don’t mind meeting me.”

“I’m here.”

“You are.”

“What do you do, Andrew?”

“I’m studying at Melbourne University, a Bachelor of Arts.”

“You take after your mother. She was so into literature and films and all the rest. I think she even did film studies at La Trobe.”

“Yeah, she did. I’m doing literature and classical civilisation.”

“Oh, that’s Aristophanes and all that.”

“Something like that.”

And then it starts to get awkward. They look at each other closely, then seem to turn away at the likeness. Thomas is feeling uncomfortable. He finishes his coffee and says,

“Shall we order?” The waitress reappears and they order lunch and Thomas doesn’t look at Andrew but can feel his son looking at him. What’s he bloody waiting for, say something. And still the silence continues and Thomas says,

“Look, I don’t think I can do anything for you. You’re a grown man and I’m over forty. I’m a scientist and I do research on the physical effects of drugs and alcohol, mostly on people who are addicted.”

“I just thought we could get to know one another.” Thomas doesn’t know what to say. He half wishes he hadn’t come, now. And he says,

“Er, um, alright, Sally said you live in a share house in Richmond.”

“Yes. She’s very easy to get along with, mum.”

“I remember that about her.”

“Where do you live?”

“They built an apartment block over the carpark at Burwood station about ten years ago and I bought off the plan. It has double glazing but you can still hear the trains and frankly I like it. And there’s a little Thai restaurant underneath the building on the ground floor, along with a 7-11 and half a dozen other stores. On Friday and Saturday evenings they have food stalls, like a hawker’s market with other clothing and knick-knack stalls. I went to Singapore many, many years ago and that’s what it reminds me of. There’s a Malaysian word that sums it up, kampung, which roughly translates to village. There’s a similar set-up at Ashburton station, they built over the carpark too. But there’s lots of green around that area, they planned wetlands sites and parks and bike and walking paths. I walk a lot. I suppose I sound boring to you.”

“You’re not married?”

“No. And no, I’m not lonely. I take my work home a lot. There’s quite a lot of statistical work to be done.” Again there’s a long silence. Come on, Ganesh, do your thing. Thomas flirts with getting up and saying a quick goodbye but Andrew looks at him and says,

“I’m quite a good cricketer.”

“Good to hear, summer’s just around the corner.” And he feels like a total pill for saying such a stupid thing.

“I might get going,” Thomas says.

“Mum said you used to take a lot of drugs.”

“Long time ago. Anything you want to tell me?”

“I … we have parties at the house and one of the other guys smokes a lot of weed and …”

“And you want to try it or you hate it.”

“I smoke a joint sometimes but it just seems like he’s always in the lounge room with a bong in his hand.”

“The only advice I can give you is don’t smoke dope. Don’t take any drugs, it’ll set you back years if you get into the swing of it and convince yourself you like it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why is it called dope?” And Andrew smiles and Thomas thinks it was the last thing he thought he would be talking about, offering fatherly advice on drugs, but hey, if he doesn’t know, who does. And he senses perhaps some kind of slow connection beginning.

A beat.

“Mum asked me to ask you over for my birthday on Saturday night. Usually it’s just me and her, so if you like, about 7 p.m.” And here we go, Thomas thinks, the instant family he didn’t want.

“Oh, er, let me think about it. You don’t have a girlfriend to ask over?”

“It’s like I said, I just want to get to know you a little bit. I have to go now anyway; I have cricket training, so, take my cell number and call me about dinner.” Andrew recites the number and Thomas taps it into his phone. He watches the boy leave and thinks he’s a pretty impressive lad. Bigger than him. Could be a fast bowler. Why didn’t he show more interest?

Andrew calls his mother as he crosses over the lights at Swanston Street and walks under the clocks at Flinders Street Station.

“Hi mum.”

“How’d it go?”

“He seems alright.”

“Just alright.”

“More than that. I thought you said he likes cricket.”

“That was twenty years ago.”

“I asked him to come on Saturday.”

“And?”

“He’s going to call me.”

Thomas walks back along the red brick path. How could you imagine Melbourne without this beautiful sky garden, he thinks. They promised and promised, politician after politician, to do something over the rail yards and finally Premier Banton got it done. We give our politicians a hard time. He thinks about what he said to Andrew about all the parks and gardens and walkways near where he lives. Politicians did that, under some pressure, but they did it.

Saturday is two days away. He’s on annual leave at present but still working at home most evenings in his apartment where he can hear the trains rattling up until midnight. They never wake him in the early hours though, he must be used to the noise. Saturday. Hey, it must be his twenty-first. Just Thomas and Andrew and his mum. Must be having another party for his twenty-first. And he still can’t get over him asking about drugs. At twenty Thomas was a five-year veteran of dope and E and acid. Another lifetime ago and so stupid; but the real wasted years were between twenty and thirty.

He calls Sally on Friday night and says,

“Is Andrew having a separate party with his friends?”

“They’re all going to some club later in the night. Dinner is small, Thomas, no big deal.”

“I’ll be there. He, um, he seems sensible.”

“Mostly, yes.”

Andrew sits at his laptop, writing an essay on Lysistrata. His housemate, Lily, comes in and asks him,

“How did the meeting with your father go?”

“He was pretty straight. My mum told me he was a bit of a dope fiend when she met him and now he works doing research on the effects of drugs and alcohol. But he was nice, a good guy.”

“Maybe he could get us some test drugs,” she says, laughing. “And hey, speaking of drugs, would you like a tab of acid for your birthday? I know it would be your first time.”

“Let me think about it, OK?”

Acid is back in fashion.

Saturday comes around and Thomas drives down Warrigal Road to Oakleigh, the traffic isn’t too bad. Oakleigh has become a small CBD-like suburb. Business is booming and high-rise are welcome here where they aren’t in other small suburbs. Restaurants and cafés abound. He pulls up outside the block of flats where Sally lives and takes a deep breath. It’s not just Andrew, he’s meeting Sally again after twenty years.

He walks up the stairs and knocks on number ten. She opens the door and his first thought is that she hasn’t changed much and he says,

“Hello Sally, you look ten years younger than me.”

“You look well, too.” And they kiss each other awkwardly on the cheek. Sally has short blond hair with a fringe. She’s slim and wearing new blue skinny jeans and a dark blue T-shirt. Thomas is wearing grey chinos and a black polo shirt. Andrew gets up off the sofa and shakes his hand and Thomas hands him his gift wrapped in brown paper with no card. Andrew says,

“Feel like a beer? You still drink, don’t you?”

“Yes, light beer only though.”

“I have a Carlton Cold light.” And he walks to the kitchen and gets Thomas the beer and hands it to him sitting on the sofa. Sally says,

“Andrew had a good day at cricket.”

“Oh, I meant to ask. Are you a bowler or batsman?”

“I try to be an all-rounder.”

“So what happened today?”

“I got a five-for.”

“Great, good present for your birthday.”

“Yeah,” Andrew says and unwraps the present. It’s a book called Praise by Andrew McGahan.

“I haven’t heard of him.”

“This came out a long time ago, maybe in 1990 but it has an interesting take on drug use or abuse, plus it’s a great yarn. I hope you like it.”

“Thanks.”

Everyone is a little uncomfortable, nothing too destabilising but you’d feel it if you walked into the room.

“Sally, I didn’t ask you what you were doing for work?”

“I’m a bank teller. I started at the bank when I turned thirty. I was grateful for the job and I got a bank loan for this flat too and … I like it; mostly the customers are very nice.”

“Oh,” says Thomas, “Andrew, you also have a grandmother who wants to meet you.”

“That would be great wouldn’t it, Andrew.”

“Yeah, great, I’m cool with that.”

They sit down to a dinner of pasta and garlic bread, there’s nothing fancy about it but the food is good and Andrew and Thomas mostly talk sports and Sally is bright and happy and Thomas starts to think he could buy into this. This little dinner might happen every now and then and they’re not trying to get money out of him when by rights she could be pissed off about previous school fees and all the rest, but she had the opportunity to track him down before, he hasn’t been hiding.

At 9 p.m. Andrew gets up from the table and says,

“I have to be going, mum. Thanks for coming around, Thomas.”

“Don’t go crazy now,” his mother says and kisses him on the cheek. He goes to the bathroom and comes back and says goodbye again and leaves.

“He didn’t start socialising until he was nearly nineteen,” Sally says. “He just didn’t seem to be interested in going out but it changed when he turned nineteen. He met some people at uni and then he started going to pubs and clubs. He’s a late bloomer but still naive.”

“Seems like you’ve done a good job raising him. The world hasn’t changed that much in twenty years. We don’t have flying cars yet but drink and drug driving is viewed like smoking used to be. It was a similar type of campaign and now road deaths in Victoria are under 100 a year. That was unheard of when we were his age.”

“Sounds like you like your work. You’re right, mostly things have changed for the better. Also, Thomas, I wanted to say. This is about Andrew wanting to know his father. I had nothing to do with it. I just got in contact because he asked me to.”

“Understood, Sally, I’ll be on my way.”

“Hey, I wasn’t being rude. You look good, Tom, and healthy, and here you are fighting against drugs and alcohol. What a strange world it is.”

“I better be going,” he says, and they kiss each goodbye uncomfortably at the door.

Andrew is sweating furiously. He took the tab of acid about an hour ago and he’s feeling very anxious, just can’t shake it. Lily left him at home after he started complaining he was feeling bad. She was feeling euphoric and took off into the night to go clubbing. He’s getting odd thoughts in his head about wanting to hurt himself. It’s getting really bad, sweat is pouring off him now. His cell phone starts ringing and he takes it out and sees the caller ID, it’s Lily but he doesn’t want to talk to her. She did this. She did this. He should be feeling great; everyone tells him how good they feel. Shit, he doesn’t feel good. This is bad.

Thomas is at home watching a film and his cell phone starts ringing. He’s about to send it to voicemail when he sees the call is from Andrew.

“Hello.”

“Tom, Thomas, I’m not feeling good. I took a tab. I’m getting bad thoughts. I feel bad.”

Thomas knows this feeling; he had it a couple of times all those years ago.

“Andrew, are you cold, are you feeling cold and anxious.”

“Don’t say it. Just come, come. I’m at home. Come, please.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Can you keep talking to me until you get here? I feel like doing something bad.”

And Thomas talks to his son in the lift down to his car. He talks to him about cricket and about how he just started buying old jazz CDs and tells him to hang on, he’ll be there soon. Don’t worry, don’t worry, those bad thoughts won’t last, he promises him. It’ll be over soon. And he talks to him all the way in the car as Andrew sits on his bed sweating and anxious and paranoid, thinking, why did Lily do this to me, why? Oh shit.

“I’m outside, Andrew; you need to let me in.”

“OK, OK.” He gets off the bed and thinks, please let it be him, let this be over, soon. The room seems to have changed dimension somehow and he walks down the hall and opens the door.

They sit together on the sofa in the lounge and Thomas holds his hand and talks gently to him. He knows that in some cases the psychosis may never be over. It can be the stimulus that begins schizophrenia if you are susceptible to it. Andrew sweats and Thomas gets him water and finally after a couple of hours he starts to settle down. Thomas was going to take him to hospital but as soon as he mentioned it Andrew started getting aggressive and telling him there was no way he was getting in an ambulance and so he trusted himself and it seems like it is over and he puts him to bed and stays with him until he falls asleep at around 4 a.m.

He stays in the house and at 7 a.m. Lily comes home. He knows who she is straight away and she’s tired but not under the influence of drugs or alcohol any more. She sees him sitting on the sofa and says, “Who are you?” half-smiling at him, amused at this stranger in the house.

“You left Andrew at home when he was in a bad way. You knew what was happening to him but you left.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m his dad. And if you ever do something like this again I’ll call the police. I’ll tell them you’re dealing drugs whether you are or not. I’ll say that you sold drugs to my son. I’ll make your life a fucking misery.”