telephone

I have a strange recalcitrance about the telephone. Most people can’t tear themselves away; I’d rather dip a leg in hot fat than get on the elephant. Rationally I can’t find a good argument not to pick up the phone and call, but it doesn’t come naturally.

Last Friday I’m thinking that I haven’t spoken with my kids for too long. What are they doing? What’s going on in their lives today, yesterday, the past ten days? I’m always amazed by parents and their adult children who claim they speak each day. Have they nothing else to do?

My son rings Saturday morning, says he’s 15 minutes away and can he pop in? I’m still eating toast, but of course. His partner works Saturdays, retail, and he’s slept over at a mate’s place in The Basin. Mostly these days he looks good, happy. Marvellous the effect a good woman has on a bloke. He looks rough today, says he’s having a haircut the minute he leaves me.

We wander into the garden and I show him the work I’ve done out there. We fossick in the shed for remnants of his tenancy here while I lived in Bendigo. I ask what help he needs when he moves into the house he and his partner have bought at Somerville. Only three weeks to go.

Friday afternoon I miss a text message from my daughter asking if I’m Skypable. I’m not; I’m beavering away in the MM office. For three days we can’t seem to get to the end of our respective phones at the same time. Finally yesterday morning we connect.

The first 20 minutes I listen to my grand-daughter linking two and three words for the first time. She offers my image on screen a flower—“flower for you.” She can say Bendigo and pardalote and penis, her current favourite word. She drifts outside and I watch my daughter’s profile as she keeps an eye on her daughter through the window.

She has news: she’s pregnant. Eight weeks. She’s sick as a dog, expects to be OK in three or four weeks. Her best friend Milla is pregnant too, number four, hoping for a girl this time. My daughter thinks she’s carrying another girl. Intuition.

I ask how the house-hunting goes. They’re trying to buy a house, she says. Given up trying to rent. It’s 25 minutes from town, Bendigo, on 25 acres, bush, dams, pasture.

Later I fire up the interweb and hunt the place down with minimal details. Seven photos. It would suit my daughter, partner and their little family well. I can visit them, stay over. I can’t do that while they live in someone else’s house.

Two phone calls, so much news.

Rock on.