I have wished for a long time that my dad’s sickness wasn’t such secret-parents’-business. And now that dad is on the verge of telling me something about it, I almost wish he wouldn’t.
“What’s wrong with you, Dad? I want you to tell me.” But this is only half true.
“The doctors don’t know, mate. Well, they know what’s happening inside me. They can see it on the scans and in the medical reports; but they don’t know why. And they don’t know what to do about it. Some of my organs just seem lazy; they don’t want to do the work they need to do to keep the juices flowing. Heart’s a bit weak. Kidneys, too. And I feel sick in the stomach most of the time.”
“Is that why you always seem so tired?”
“Yep, that’s why I just can’t get up and about most weekends. Work during the week just tears me up. I’ve wanted to do this trip with you for a long time but…well, it just hasn’t worked out. Then I realised that if I wait til I feel better, chances are we might never do it.”
“Never! What do you mean? You’ll get better one day,” I say.
“Remember I told you my dad died when I was your age. Well, the thing is, the same happened to his father, and his father before him, as far back as I can trace the family. None of them lived to see his fortieth birthday. “
Dad is thirty-eight.
“But that doesn’t mean the same thing will happen to you. People die for all sorts of reasons. Accidents can happen to anyone.” I can feel my voice pitching higher with each sentence.
“Robbie,” says dad calmly, placing a hand on my shoulder, “none of them had accidents. They all… just died. Sickness that the doctors couldn’t treat. I’m just telling you this so you know why I’m not always able to do things with you.” He stops walking, turns towards me. “I love you, Robbie. I love Ebony and Abigail. And I love your mother. I love you all more than anything in the world – you are my world. But there will be a time when I won’t be with you anymore. If I work long hours and am away a lot of the time, it’s because I want to leave you with a future, something to keep mum going and something to give you and the girls.”
My tears start rolling. “I don’t want you to leave me anything. I don’t want you to go anywhere.” Dad puts his arms around me and I feel a strength I had thought he no longer possessed. He holds me tight. It feels good.
All of a sudden it becomes clear to me. The reason for his sickness, and the cure. I struggle out of his arms and before he knows what I’m doing I reach into his shirt pocket, snatch his cigarettes and matches and run back along the track where we’d just been. I don’t stop for five minutes.
I can hear dad calling me but I ignore him. I gather some dry leaves and sticks and easily make a small fire. I take a cigarette out of the packet and drop it into the flames. A minute later I repeat the process and soon the packet is empty. Then I drop it into the fire, too. The smell of the burning sticks, cardboard and tobacco is gut-churning and my lungs and stomach react by retching. I think I am going to vomit and quickly turn my back on the fire. My foot accidentally spreads the flames and immediately my small fire is a bigger one. Frantically I try to stamp out the flames but succeed only in spreading the fire further.
“Dad!” I shout, “Dad, quick, over here.”
I am still stamping erratically when I feel a flood of water splash around my feet. Dad had filled his canvas fishing bag with water from the lake and emptied it on the flames. I keep stamping while he runs the thirty metres to the water for another bag full. Soon the mini-bushfire is extinguished and only a few flumes of smoke linger in the air.
I sit on a nearby rock and watch as dad quietly fetches one last bag of water and snuffs out the remaining hot spots.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That was really stupid.”
“No, it’s my fault - telling you all that stuff. But, Robbie, it’s not the cigarettes. I was sick before I started smoking. Sure, the doctors tell me they don’t help. But they reckon the other problems will take me first.”
I can feel myself about to cry again. As sick as he has been, and as hard as it has been trying to have special times with him, the thought of not having dad around is too much. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I was sobbing like a baby.
“OK, let’s go back to camp.”
We walk in silence. I had run off before dad had finished telling me about his sickness. Now I sense there is more he wants to say. I’ve spoiled it. He was finally talking to me just like I wanted him to – man to man. And I had reacted like a child.
“I’m tired,” says dad after a while. “How about we have a bit of a kip and then we can jump on the bikes and see what’s further down the track? Might even find a better fishing spot.”
I really want to go back to the cave but mountain bike riding sounds pretty good, too. I can’t remember the last time we went out riding together. There would be time for exploring caves, I guess. “Sounds great,” I say feeling a little cheerier.
Back at camp, we both lie down on our stretchers. After a minute dad gets up and walks over to the car. He picks up a packet of cigarettes he’d left on the front seat, takes one out and puts it between his lips. Rummaging around in the glove compartment he finds a packet of matches. He is about to light up when he sees that I am watching.
After a few seconds he takes the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and holds it in front of him. “You know what this is?” I’m guessing it’s not a serious question so I don’t answer. “It’s a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse at one end and a sucker at the other.” I nod my agreement. I only smile when he puts it back into the packet.
“I guess it can wait,” he mumbles. Dad goes back to his bunk and is soon breathing slowly and heavily.
As I lie there I think about my grandfather and his father. How far back did dad look into his family history? How did he go about it? Books? Newspapers? No, they would be useful for researching famous people. But not my family. Letters maybe? That must be it. Is it true that they all died before they reached forty? That sounds pretty weird. If it wasn’t for dad I’d think forty was a pretty fair age anyway. But he’s less than two years off and suddenly forty seems a lot younger than I had ever imagined. And what about me? What chance do I have? Is this mystery illness in me as well? And my sisters? What about them? No, dad only mentioned the males. Maybe Ebs and Abi will be alright. Oh, why am I even thinking this? Dad will be fine. They’ll work out what the problem is and fix him up. No worries.
Suddenly I feel tired, too. Too much thinking, too much crying, and definitely too much fire fighting has made me sleepy.