signs. He had never been inside a school in Paris. He didn’t want his children growing up thinking they were French. France was okay. He didn’t have a problem with France or the French, but he didn’t want his kids missing out on growing up Australian. He wanted his children to be like him. If they grew up in Paris they would not understand their father’s love for Australia. Whenever he tried to explain this to Sabiha she got upset. It had reached a point recently where they couldn’t talk to each other about children without one of them getting upset. For Sabiha it wasn’t just children, it was
one
child, a daughter. ‘Why not a son as well?’ he asked her. John didn’t care what sex their children were so long as they were healthy, happy Australian kids growing up in the sun, the way he had. He wanted totake them to the farm, and for them to know and love his mother and father and the country where he had grown up. He dreamed of showing them the fishing holes along the river, and the good swimming holes. The places where he and Kathy had swum when they were children. If his children grew up in France they would be strangers to him and to his country, and he couldn’t bear the thought of that.
In her most recent letter his mother had asked him the question which he knew she had been wanting to ask ever since he’d called her that day and yelled down the phone at her, ‘I just got married!’
‘Oh, that’s lovely, darling, that’s really lovely! What’s her name? She must be a treasure to have taken
you
on. Give her a cuddle from the pair of us.’
Now at last, almost two years on, she had brought herself to ask him the big question:
Is there any sign of a little one yet? Your father and I can’t wait to be Granny and Grandad. I don’t think your sister’s ever going to meet a man good enough for her, is she? You know what I mean. So you’re our only hope. How does that make you feel? It’s a stupid question and I shouldn’t ask it. But we do wonder, that’s all. Neither of us is getting any younger. Your father wants to put a deposit on a unit in Moruya, but I’m not keen on the idea. It feels like planning our own funeral to me. We’ve had one of our best years since you left. Thetrout have come into the creek again and the eelers are coming by every night with their lamps and driving the dogs crazy. I shall hate to leave the old place when the time comes. Your father amazes me. He’s more realistic than I am. You and I always were the dreamers, darling. I hope you’re still dreaming. I know I am. Silly me.
There was something about the tone of his mother’s letter that made John wonder if everything was really going quite as well as she said it was. The idea of his mother and father living out the end of their days in an old people’s unit in Moruya, the farm in the hands of strangers, depressed him.
He engaged first gear and let out the clutch. There was a high-pitched screech and the van moved off with a jolt. He was away. The smell of his cigarette and the warm pastries in the back of the van. He took a last quick look at Sabiha in the doorway, his hand raised.
Chapter Nine
S abiha shut the back door against the cold and walked across the kitchen to the stove, the smell of the van’s exhaust sharp in her nostrils. She was frozen. The oven was still warm from the morning’s baking and she stood with her back to it, listening to the rattling of the van’s unsteady old motorcycle engine receding down the lane. Then it was gone, suddenly, as John turned into rue des Esclaves. She had a moment to herself. The kitchen was quiet, the tapping of a loose windowpane against the timber frame. She closed her eyes and stood warming herself. Houria was singing in the bathroom. Houria had a big velvety contralto voice. She was singing a French song. Houria never sang the old songs of her people. She did not know the songs of her people as Sabiha knew them. They were not hers. She had not
one
child, a daughter. ‘Why not a son as well?’ he asked her. John didn’t care what sex their children were so long as they were healthy, happy Australian kids growing up in the sun, the way he had. He wanted totake them to the farm, and for them to know and love his mother and father and the country where he had grown up. He dreamed of showing them the fishing holes along the river, and the good swimming holes. The places where he and Kathy had swum when they were children. If his children grew up in France they would be strangers to him and to his country, and he couldn’t bear the thought of that.
In her most recent letter his mother had asked him the question which he knew she had been wanting to ask ever since he’d called her that day and yelled down the phone at her, ‘I just got married!’
‘Oh, that’s lovely, darling, that’s really lovely! What’s her name? She must be a treasure to have taken
you
on. Give her a cuddle from the pair of us.’
Now at last, almost two years on, she had brought herself to ask him the big question:
Is there any sign of a little one yet? Your father and I can’t wait to be Granny and Grandad. I don’t think your sister’s ever going to meet a man good enough for her, is she? You know what I mean. So you’re our only hope. How does that make you feel? It’s a stupid question and I shouldn’t ask it. But we do wonder, that’s all. Neither of us is getting any younger. Your father wants to put a deposit on a unit in Moruya, but I’m not keen on the idea. It feels like planning our own funeral to me. We’ve had one of our best years since you left. Thetrout have come into the creek again and the eelers are coming by every night with their lamps and driving the dogs crazy. I shall hate to leave the old place when the time comes. Your father amazes me. He’s more realistic than I am. You and I always were the dreamers, darling. I hope you’re still dreaming. I know I am. Silly me.
There was something about the tone of his mother’s letter that made John wonder if everything was really going quite as well as she said it was. The idea of his mother and father living out the end of their days in an old people’s unit in Moruya, the farm in the hands of strangers, depressed him.
He engaged first gear and let out the clutch. There was a high-pitched screech and the van moved off with a jolt. He was away. The smell of his cigarette and the warm pastries in the back of the van. He took a last quick look at Sabiha in the doorway, his hand raised.
Chapter Nine
S abiha shut the back door against the cold and walked across the kitchen to the stove, the smell of the van’s exhaust sharp in her nostrils. She was frozen. The oven was still warm from the morning’s baking and she stood with her back to it, listening to the rattling of the van’s unsteady old motorcycle engine receding down the lane. Then it was gone, suddenly, as John turned into rue des Esclaves. She had a moment to herself. The kitchen was quiet, the tapping of a loose windowpane against the timber frame. She closed her eyes and stood warming herself. Houria was singing in the bathroom. Houria had a big velvety contralto voice. She was singing a French song. Houria never sang the old songs of her people. She did not know the songs of her people as Sabiha knew them. They were not hers. She had not
Similar Books
