Chapter Eleven
‘So what do we do now, Dad?’ I propped myself up on my elbows so I could see Dad. He was drinking coffee and sitting in a chair.
‘There is nothing more we can do so I think we should just go home to see how Sam is.’
‘Do you think Sam could press charges against him?’
‘Yes, of course she can. I hadn’t really thought about it, but that’s something I’ll have to talk to her about.’
He stared at edge of the quilt.
I wanted to smooth it out.
He was clearly in deep thought.
‘So he could go to prison then?’ I asked running my hand over the creases.
‘Er, yes, I think so. We’ll talk to Sam about it when we get home,’ and he looked at his watch. ‘We’d better start getting a move on. I’ll find out what flights there are and we’ll take the first available.’
‘Okay, Dad,’ I said and got up to give him a hug.
He was still sweaty.
He was thriving with germs.
But I waived that thought for now.
‘What’s that for?’
‘Because I’m happy you didn’t do anything bad at Stan’s.’
‘But the swine deserved it.’
‘I know but it would’ve brought us all down. You wouldn’t want that, would you?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I wouldn’t want that for you girls. I will talk to Sam about pressing charges though because that man needs locking up at the very least.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘I wonder who that is. No one knows you’re here, do they?’ Dad asked.
‘No. No-one except you.’
‘That’s strange.’
He opened the door.
Standing in the doorway was Nell.
‘Nell, What are you doing here?’
She barged into the room.
It wasn’t often you saw a walking scarecrow.
‘I want to talk about this. There is a lot I don’t know. I want to hear your version of the story,’ she said.
‘Here, have a seat.’ Dad said giving her his chair.
‘Thanks.’
‘Look, I know this is a very difficult situation but I don’t want there to be any animosity between you and I, okay?’ he said sitting next to me on the bed.
‘How can there not be? This is my husband we’re talking about. It’s my husband you’re accusing of rape.’
‘Nell, your husband had sex with a thirteen year old girl. How can that be anything but rape?’
‘Sam was coming onto him. You know what she was like when she was that age. She was a little slut.’
Dad’s face reddened.
I felt my face redden.
It was becoming a family trait.
All of us would be capable of stopping traffic soon.
‘Don’t you call my daughter a slut. How dare you! Whether she was or she wasn’t, which she most certainly wasn’t, there is no excuse for what he did. Even if it was consented sex, which it definitely wasn’t, your husband was with an underage girl. That’s illegal. Surely you’re not that naive you believe Stan, Nell.’
‘He told me he didn’t even go the full way with Sam and I believe him.’
Dad put his hands to his face and shook his head quite violently.
At least it wasn’t his lips shaking this time.
‘You believe him? And where do you think Keisha came from?’
Nell looked at me.
‘She’s not Stan’s at all. Look – she looks nothing like him. She is the product of one of those boys at school your daughter slutted around with.’
Dad clenched his teeth.
I clenched my teeth.
Tics, beetroot faces and now lockjaw.
We were an attractive family.
‘How dare you say that about my sis… my mum! I’ve spoken to her myself. I’ve cried with her. I’ve been with her all my life. I know Sam better than anyone else and I know she wouldn’t make this up. As much as I hate it, I’m Stan’s daughter. Do you think I really want him for a father?’
‘Stan is a good and decent man. He was going through a lot during those times and couldn’t help himself when a good-looking and flirty young girl came his way, but I know you’re not his daughter, Keisha.’
‘Oh, and what makes you so sure of that? Just because I’m not the spitting image of the man, it doesn’t mean I’m not his daughter. Trust me, Nell, I don’t want him to be my father any more than what you do, but it’s something I have to live with.’
She stood up.
She put her hand on her hip.
And pointed her finger at me.
‘Stan is a good man, Keisha. You’d be proud to have him as your father. Look at the way he treated you and the girls when you were younger. He used to take you all to the beach and even to Surfers Paradise for a week. He paid for it all as well.’
Did she think of nothing but money?
She was clearly onto a good thing with Stan.
And exactly why did he take us to Surfers for the week? Most likely to get up to his old tricks with Sam. I remembered Mum was with us the whole time so he couldn’t even get a finger near her, dirty old bugger. I thought back to a time on the beach. I was building sandcastles with Sam. I was four and she must’ve been almost eighteen. She helped me line my sandcastles up.
Stan had been insistent she go for a swim with him and play in the surf.
‘No, Stan, I told you I don’t want to swim.’
‘Come on, girly, it’s beautiful weather. The sun is out, there’s not a cloud in the sky. Please come for a swim with me.’
‘No, Stan. I don’t feel like it. I’m playing with Keisha anyway. Go for a swim by yourself.’
He winked at Sam and said, ‘how about we go and get an ice-cream then? We can bring some back for the girls.’
Then Mum intervened.
‘She doesn’t want to, Stan. Just leave it. We’ll go and get ice-creams when we leave.’
He sighed and lay back down in the sand. Sam shook her head and said ‘dirty old perve’.
Now I knew what she meant by it.
‘You want to know why he was always so nice to the girls, Nell? Isn’t it obvious?’ Dad said.
‘No, why?’
It was my turn to intervene.
I was losing my touch by letting Dad do all the talking.
‘He used to take us on trips so he could be near Sam,’ I said.
Nell firmed her lips, put her head down and started pacing the small room.
‘How dare you say such a thing! What he did was innocent. He just wanted to take you girls away because he had no kids of his own. We never could have kids.’
‘That’s rubbish and you know it. Okay, he probably wanted to take the girls out to be kind but he had ulterior motives, Nell, and you know it. He wanted Sam,’ I said.
‘No – no, he just wanted to be kind to you girls, and when he saw Sam flirting with him he couldn’t help but do it back. That’s what happened. I want to talk to Sam myself.’
Dad shook his head vigorously. ‘No – no, Nell. You’re definitely not going anywhere near Sam. Not now. We need to let this all settle before we do anything about it, anything drastic anyway. And that includes you going to see her. She’s been through enough.’
‘But I need to see her to find out her version of this story and to explain things to her.’
‘No. I said no and I mean no, Nell. You’re not going anywhere near that girl. She’s fragile as it is, and what would you have to explain to her anyway?’
‘That what Stan did wasn’t rape.’
Dad looked like he’d been on the wine all night. His face was red and he had enough stubble to give anyone a good session of acupuncture, and so many contours around his eyes and mouth, we could’ve used his face to navigate our way back to Melbourne.
‘I think Sam can form her own opin
ion so you have no need to go and tell her.’
‘She was only a young girl. What she thought might’ve been rape could’ve been something completely innocent.’
Her ignorance was driving me insane.
It wouldn’t be Dad going to jail for killing Stan.
It would be me going for killing Nell.
‘And where do you think I come from then?’
She firmed her lips so tight they disappeared.
‘No, you’re not Stan’s daughter. Will you stop saying that!’
‘Look, Nell. We aren’t going to sort this out now. We need to let things rest for a while and then deal with them. But for now, I think you need to leave. You’re upsetting all of us,’ Dad said.
‘Very well then, Tony, but we’re not finished yet. Nowhere near finished.’
Once Nell left, and Dad booked our evening flight to Melbourne, we sat on the bed together to watch TV.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to buy you dinner, Keisha?’
‘No, I’m okay really. We’ll get some dinner on the plane. I don’t think I could handle any food right now anyway.’
Apart for the Neighbours tune playing in the background, it was silent for what seemed like the next ten hours.
Dad finally broke the silence. ‘Keisha?’
‘Yes.’
‘I – I’m really sorry about all of this. I know what this must be doing to you, especially with your condition too.’
‘No, I’m alright really. I’m actually coping better than I thought.’
He frowned. ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you’re not just telling me that?’
‘No, of course not. I wouldn’t do that. If I was suffering mentally because of all this I’d tell you, Dad, so please don’t worry. How do you think Sam is though?’
‘Oh, I’d say she’s probably not good, but within time she should be okay. Poor girl, I really shouted at her when I wanted to find out what was going on with you being gone. I hope she’s okay.’
‘Well, we’ll be back in Melbourne soon and I’m sure if anything happened you’d have been called by now.’
‘Actually, no. I brought the mobile and forgot the charger, and the battery’s out, so we’re technically without a phone.’
‘We’ll be home soon anyway,’ I said.
Dad looked at me and smiled.
‘Tell me, Keisha, how are you really doing, knowing that Stan is your father and Sam is your mother?’
It was hard to say how I was feeling. Right at the beginning when I found out Sam was my mother I was shocked beyond anything that had ever happened to me. Now I felt like a collage of emotions, like someone had taken photos of me pulling many different expressions and pasted them onto a big canvas. When I found out Stan was my biological father it was like I was looking at this collage through a magnifying glass. Betrayal, anger and sadness infiltrated my mind and paid homage to every cell in my body. My stomach was constantly like a mass of metal pips all intertwined, grinding and screeching against one another.
It was just as well I didn’t have Asperger’s.
I wouldn’t have had a clue what I was feeling.
On the other hand, maybe that would’ve been a good thing.
‘I’m okay, Dad. I think I’m coping pretty well with it all, especially as it’s all out in the open now. I was worried about you doing something to Stan, but I hope that’s all in the past. Is it?’
He paused and said, ‘yes, I won’t go after him, but you know my feelings.’
‘Yes, I do.’
Then he huffed and smiled. ‘So, what do you think about me being your grandfather instead of your father?’
I laughed.
But I was sad.
Technically I had more of Stan’s genes than I did Tony’s.
At least I was still related to Tony even if he was my grandfather instead of my father.
I was the product of an interfamilial affair.
Was it a wonder I was mentally challenged.
‘I haven’t processed it all properly yet, Dad, but now that you ask me and I think about it, it all makes it pretty revolting.’
He looked at me. I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. ‘Don’t you want me to be your grandfather?’
‘Well, it is a bit odd and I’m still going to think of you as my dad. It’s just the whole interfamily thing. I can’t believe Stan raped his own niece. Do you think that’s maybe why I’m mentally crazy?’
‘No – no! Don’t you say you’re crazy, Keisha. You’re not at all. Unfortunately, you have a condition but that certainly doesn’t make you crazy. It just makes you special and unique. Your intelligence is no worse than anyone else’s. In fact it’s probably better.’
‘Thanks, Dad, but I do feel crazy. I always get all these thoughts running through my head and I can’t control them.’
‘Oh, darling, I know, and that’s what makes you special. Just think that while you have all those thoughts, others have none going through their heads. It makes you aware of the things going on around you. Look at it this way - can you imagine sitting in a busy café and not having the interest to know what’s going on around you? Can you imagine how boring that would be? At least you are always pre-occupied with something. At least you’ll never get bored. And I know for a fact that people find you interesting.’
That was like saying people found the Pope fun and exciting.
‘Interesting? Are you kidding, Dad? If people found me interesting, how come the only friend I have is Dougall? And he’s only my friend because he doesn’t have any.’
‘That’s because kids of your age are impressionable. There is a lot of peer pressure going on so they feel they all need to fit in. Because you’re different to them, more mature, more of a thinker, they find you a threat. You impose on their already superficial bubble with your deep thinking and down to earth approach to life. Which one would you sooner be? Like you are or like them, only concerned about being like everyone else?’
Dad was right in a sense. I didn’t fit in with the other kids because I liked doing things my way and didn’t need to answer to anyone. I didn’t have a need to fit in like all the others did.
‘Thanks, Dad. I would sooner be myself. If I had to change just to adapt to the way other kids are I wouldn’t be myself.’
‘Well, I’m glad you don’t feel the need to change just to fit in.’
Then he paused and said, ‘so how do you feel about me being your grandfather and Sam your mum?’
Sam always felt like a motherly figure to me anyway.
She had even scolded me once when I was little. I called my nextdoor neighbour ‘a silly old man’ because he couldn’t drive.
Sam was playing with me out in the street and said, ‘Keisha! How dare you talk to Mr Reine like that. He’s not a silly old man at all. Now apologise to him.’
I had looked up into the old man’s face.
His pale blue eyes, dotted with tiny black cataracts were watery.
He had spiky white hairs sprouting out of the crevices either side of his mouth the way grass sprouts out of the cracks in pavements.
‘It’s alvight, Samantha. De girl is only little. She doesn’t understand vas she says,’ he said with a smile so genuine I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
His sad face still haunted me.
‘I don’t really feel a lot different knowing Sam is my mum because she’s always been like a mother to me, plus I’m older now so I don’t have to answer to her so much. As for you being my granddad…’ and I paused before saying, ‘well, you’re a lot older than most of the girls’ dads in my year.’ Then I forced a smile.
‘Well, that’s the first time in a long time I’ve actually seen you smile so you must be a bit happier.’
‘I’m glad it’s all out in the open now. I just hope there are no more surprises to come out of this. I’m not ecstatic about Stan being my real father but there??
?s nothing I can do about it, so I’ll just have to live with it and make the most of myself being the individual that I am.’
‘That’s so true, and I’m really impressed you have such a mature attitude about it all. We might be the products of our parents but our individuality is something we create ourselves. I’m so proud of you, Keisha.’
He came over to hug me.
‘I’m so proud of you too.’
‘What for?’
‘For the way you’re handling this and for not doing anything to Stan.’
‘Come on, sweetheart, we’d better get ready to go to the airport.’
*****