They have all gone back; the grandchildren. The poodle is recovering in her basket and the birds are coming back into the garden again
One doesn’t find knickers in the bath or sharp plastic toys, one isn’t under siege for stories, one hasn’t had to answer such questions as “Why are you old?” “Will you roll in your money like mummy says you can”
One can sit at the breakfast table again… quietly.
One can sit at the luncheon table without the uproar of people refusing to eat, the duel between spoons and fists and mashed potato.
The beauty of grandfatherhood is the enjoyment and not the responsibility, they tell me. But they do not say how it is compressed into a few days.
And I tell you, it’s dynamite!
The family for Christmas and New Year, the shouting of young voices the pattering feet, enormously heavy for such light frames: the inquisitive, growing, swaggering, juvenile autocracy; dictators in diapers and shrilling interrogators who question, question, question.
I can tell you I have been lying back in my bedroom watching in slow, luxurious silence a spider on his celling web. He is coming out again too, easing his long legs tentatively in his corner kingdom. The web no longer vibrates to the decibellicosity of young life; the young ones who have overrun us all.
The toys seemed right this year. some of them were transistorised.
But the drum and cymbal set worked its old charm; right by my ear the cymbals met at 6 am, and I rose out of bed in a remarkable display of vertical take-off.
I came down again to rest a few centimetres from a small terrible face: gleeful and relentless.
Hadn’t they said to go and wake Grandpa? Hadn’t they said that Grandpa doesn’t see you often? Hadn’t they said he won’t want to miss a minute of you?
I sweat a little at the memory So I think I will stroll to the kitchen now and have toast.
I don’t want to see toast mauled any more. I don’t want to see it being twisted and turned into the mouth like a screw, the slow awful torturing of the Vegemite until it lies cross the table like black blood.
I didn’t realise how traumatic breakfast could be How the cereal could spread hike rusty measles, the terrible impact of a flung spoon: egg quarried from the plate and then vaporised by a sudden ejection from small, ruby lips.
But I will go now because it is calm again: the poodle and I can sit together and get our nerve ends knitted.
And I shall take my time dressing. Dressing? That’s another chilling recollection.
How they fought their clothes. How they kicked off shoes like shrapnel. How their little heads became imprisoned in pullovers. They disliked dressing. It was a torment imposed by adults. They were walled up inside overalls and jeans. They wanted none of it.
Grandpa will help when he gets the shoe out of his ear.
Oh yes, and later the beach: dropping their duds in front of strangers running away going out too far paddling, blitzing other children.
But grandfather’ They have an identity of their own. They are their own person
They must not be constricted.
If you say so, dear.
Little children must be free. The world is a big enough bird cage. And it is closing around them.
If you say so, dear.
* ~ * ~ *
Don’t forget, you only see-them once in a while. They will be going back to Sydney soon. But hasn’t Sydney enough trouble, power restrictions, wharf conflict, Queensland just next door.
Don’t be nasty. Grandpa. We all love you. Now help us pack. Willingly. Do you want this sock I found down the toilet?
Hasn’t it been wonderful with Grandpa?
Kick him once more. He loves you to be free Yes, Father Christmas forgot to bring him hair again.
We shall wave to him as the train goes out.
Wave, wave…
Now I sit quietly at the breakfast table. Hullo, 1982. Next Christmas those kids will be a year older!
I clutch the Vegemite and spread myself a big slug.
Max Fatchen