son

My son is 33 today. My mother still thinks of me as a child, despite my nearly 61 years. I barely remember my son as a child because he hasn’t been one for a long time. He’s supported himself since he was 16, as a farm trainee, a storeman, a tree lopper, and putting up signs.

I drive through the rain to have tea with him and his partner at Carrum Downs.

If you’re a couple renting cheap, working in Dandenong and Knox, then Carrum Downs is your default compromise. It’s no place I’d choose to live. The JRT and I splash through the front lawn to the door. I rap on the narrow windowpane beside it, get no answer. I rap harder, pull my mobile from my pocket and dial. He’s a minute away.

Katie’s small car mounts the kerb, sinks into the grass. I fear it will never leave. Mo’s work vehicle, a VW Transporter dual-cab ute, shiny aluminium toolboxes welded in, hunkers in the dark.

Inside a fire slumbers behind the glass door of the wood heater. We confabulate over the Thai takeaway menu, Katie’s Kiwi accent broader than ever. She calls my son Olmo, his birth name. Unheard of.

The JRT goes out the back to piss and Sid comes in. The two shared my house for two months, but this is Sid’s pad and he’s not keen to share it with the JRT. Sid seems bigger, wider, heavier, even his tail. I think of the cat I’m about to introduce into my house: Red Ned McLintock. Or Idji. Or maybe some name not yet thought up.

I like my son, a lot, but seldom see him. He works long and hard, shares no interests of mine. He left home too soon, the bonds of early adolescence broken, with no chance to heal and morph into something new and stronger, as happened between me and his sister.

For fifteen years I struggle to reconnect, unsure if he wants to, can’t be bothered, or doesn’t know how either. For fifteen years we’ve connected better, conversed, in the presence of third parties, Rock, his sister, now Katie.

He sometimes works for my sister at weekends, demolishing before she renovates, now building paths and moving soil before she rents out her Hampton house. He is a one hundred per cent honest labourer. She tells me how wonderful he is. I don’t doubt her for a second. When I tell him my various plans to fix up my house he volunteers to help. He’s naturally generous.

He washes the dishes, cooks, keeps a house reasonably clean. Everyone likes him. He’s a fine man, his humility and lack of confidence hiding a golden light. Clever Katie to see what others could not. 

Rock on.