beginning the journey home

When I was five years old, my mother picked me up in her arms and sat me down in front of her on the kitchen bench top. She dallied for a moment, putting some grocery bags aside and looking generally uncertain. After a bit of this, she eventually crouched herself down and brought her eyes to my level. She took a long breath and politely and hesitantly, she asked me:

 “PJ, what would you say about you, me and your brother going on a holiday without daddy?”

At the time, I had no idea what she meant. I was more interested in my new socks, which were black and patterned with bright green, globular ghosts and a couple of cheerful skeletons in top hats.

They were immensely distracting, as were the orange saucepans on the bench top that I wanted to bang together, and my pet rabbit Peter, who I could see outside the window, twitching away in his hutch.

When mum asked the question again, I managed for a second at least to pull myself away from the sight of my mesmerising socks, and the sundry other more important things that had my attention.

“Would you be okay with that sweetie?”

The idea of a holiday sounded fine to my young ears. And not at all a new concept. We’d been going on family camping trips as often as dad could convince mum to go. All I wanted to know was where to? and when?  Mum’s response was something along the lines of “Adelaide” and “very soon”.

Of course, on a child’s timeline, “very soon” could easily have been tomorrow. And I didn’t have a clue what Adelaide was.

“Well,” mum said, “Adelaide is the place where grandma and grandad live. And that’s where we are going away for a while.” There was a big pause here.

“And daddy’s going to stay here for a bit.”

The question “but why is daddy not coming?” inevitably came next.

My mother’s simple reply was that sometimes mums and dads “need a little time to themselves. Sometimes mummy and daddy need to take a break.”

Bundled up in that simply stated euphemism (the first I had ever been told), were whole worlds of my mother’s private struggles. These were worlds that, out of love and protection, she always did her best to hold close to herself and far beyond her children’s grasp.

A few months after that day, we set out on our holiday without my father. It began at the airport in regional Tasmania, in the cold quiet before dawn. My father was out to sea at the time, a skipper on a vessel that saw him away on the job for weeks at a time. I don’t remember ever saying goodbye to him. I do remember that my mum’s best friend was there to see us off, our backyard neighbour who had been like an aunty to me and my brother Michael. 

That day was the first time I had seen my mother cry. I remember it clearly still, watching as she hugged her best friend goodbye. I had never seen these two significant women in my life upset before. I didn’t understand it. Their hug lingered, neither seeming to want to let go. It puzzled and troubled me. It also gave things away. I remember the rising sense of confusion and worry, and of having no way to articulate it.

I knew then, of course, that something huge was going on. And as we boarded the plane, I knew that we wouldn’t be going back home again.