might have been a librarian or a scholar in a university, for he loved to read, but his mother could only ever have been a farmerâs wife. Daniel had loved his father, and respected him, but it had always seemed a waste of time to bother wading through a lot of words written by someone he didnât know when he could be roaming hills rippling with dry grass, or swimming in the tea-coloured water of the creek. It did not matter to him that he was barely average at school, since he was to inherit and work the farm.
Of course it hadnât turned out that way. His father had overextended himself to buy some long-overdue farm equipment and then there were a couple of bad drought years, and then a year of floods, and the bank foreclosed. They had gone under with barely a struggle, and Danielâs mind stuttered to the weeks of packing, to watching his mother crating her beloved silkies for sale. Daniel hated everything about the unit in suburbia to which they had moved, but he knew his parents needed his income to help pay the mortgage.
He had gone to work in a trucking company; then, three months after they had moved into town, his father had a heart attack on the way to church, crashing the ute and killing himself and his wife both. She had died on impact, but his father had lingered three days, though he had never become conscious.
Daniel had been glad it had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly, and that they had died together. But missing them was a deep ache that had never eased. Memories kept jumping at him, forcing him to remind himself that his parents were gone and that he would never see them again, never feel his fatherâs gentleness or watch him tamp down the tobacco in his pipe, never see his motherâs ferocious energy or taste her golden-syrup dumplings. He had left the city, for the house had been sold up to pay their debts, and so had begun his long drift from job to job, looking for some indefinable thing that would make him feel that same sense of rightness and belonging that he had felt on the old farm. The smell of eggs and bacon on dark winter mornings and the bitter aftertaste of strong sweet tea in the bunkhouse kitchens brought the home breakfasts back to him with such clarity that the present had sometimes seemed a thin, sour dream.
If he was honest, it was his father he missed most, that quiet presence. You never got the feeling he was just waiting for you to finish talking so he could offer advice or an opinion. In fact, he said very little and seldom offered solutions or even suggestions. Mostly he asked mild questions and listened. It seemed little enough, and yet at one time or another practically every one of the neighbours had come to him for advice. People would invariably go away feeling less angry, less desperate, or just plain cheerful. Daniel had consciously modelled himself on his father. He had striven to be patient, gentle, courteous and honest. He was not and never would be his father, yet he believed that he had grown into a man his father would have at least respected.
How many times had he imagined telling his father about seeing the smoke and then the overturned silver Mercedes crumpled against the stand of eucalypts? How many times had he described kneeling beside the big foreigner in his supple steel-dust suit and the strange conversation that followed? The gradual realisation the man was going to die. In his imaginings, as in life, Danielâs father never once interrupted his tale. Nor, when Daniel stopped, had he offered opinions or advice.
Yet Daniel had come to understand he must go to Paris. And so he had flown across the world, violating time. Was it possible to return after coming so far, he suddenly wondered. The thought was like a kidney punch and he stumbled mentally into a vivid memory of the way the dying manâs eyes had grown more and more pale.
âIt was so hard to trust anyone back then,â the man had said. âYou never knew
Of course it hadnât turned out that way. His father had overextended himself to buy some long-overdue farm equipment and then there were a couple of bad drought years, and then a year of floods, and the bank foreclosed. They had gone under with barely a struggle, and Danielâs mind stuttered to the weeks of packing, to watching his mother crating her beloved silkies for sale. Daniel hated everything about the unit in suburbia to which they had moved, but he knew his parents needed his income to help pay the mortgage.
He had gone to work in a trucking company; then, three months after they had moved into town, his father had a heart attack on the way to church, crashing the ute and killing himself and his wife both. She had died on impact, but his father had lingered three days, though he had never become conscious.
Daniel had been glad it had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly, and that they had died together. But missing them was a deep ache that had never eased. Memories kept jumping at him, forcing him to remind himself that his parents were gone and that he would never see them again, never feel his fatherâs gentleness or watch him tamp down the tobacco in his pipe, never see his motherâs ferocious energy or taste her golden-syrup dumplings. He had left the city, for the house had been sold up to pay their debts, and so had begun his long drift from job to job, looking for some indefinable thing that would make him feel that same sense of rightness and belonging that he had felt on the old farm. The smell of eggs and bacon on dark winter mornings and the bitter aftertaste of strong sweet tea in the bunkhouse kitchens brought the home breakfasts back to him with such clarity that the present had sometimes seemed a thin, sour dream.
If he was honest, it was his father he missed most, that quiet presence. You never got the feeling he was just waiting for you to finish talking so he could offer advice or an opinion. In fact, he said very little and seldom offered solutions or even suggestions. Mostly he asked mild questions and listened. It seemed little enough, and yet at one time or another practically every one of the neighbours had come to him for advice. People would invariably go away feeling less angry, less desperate, or just plain cheerful. Daniel had consciously modelled himself on his father. He had striven to be patient, gentle, courteous and honest. He was not and never would be his father, yet he believed that he had grown into a man his father would have at least respected.
How many times had he imagined telling his father about seeing the smoke and then the overturned silver Mercedes crumpled against the stand of eucalypts? How many times had he described kneeling beside the big foreigner in his supple steel-dust suit and the strange conversation that followed? The gradual realisation the man was going to die. In his imaginings, as in life, Danielâs father never once interrupted his tale. Nor, when Daniel stopped, had he offered opinions or advice.
Yet Daniel had come to understand he must go to Paris. And so he had flown across the world, violating time. Was it possible to return after coming so far, he suddenly wondered. The thought was like a kidney punch and he stumbled mentally into a vivid memory of the way the dying manâs eyes had grown more and more pale.
âIt was so hard to trust anyone back then,â the man had said. âYou never knew
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