Turn Us Again Read Online Free PDF Page B

after dinner, if you don’t mind. I didn’t manage to sleep this afternoon, and of course it was a night flight.”
    My father smiles. Relieved? Is he wondering, as I am, how he will get through this visit, these endless days of exhaustive talk?
    â€œI don’t know what you had in mind Dad, but depending on your state of health, I was planning to travel around a bit. I want to spend time with you, of course, but I don’t want to exhaust you. I can see you are tired.” This is rather clever, making the planned briefness of my stay a result of consideration, instead of selfishness.
    â€œThis might be our last time together, and I would like to see you as much as possible. If you think my exhaustion springs from hosting duties, I don’t plan to cook like this all the time. It’s important to make a little fuss on the first day. I’d be happy if you went out and amused yourself during the daytime, as long as you come back in the evenings so we can sup and talk together.”
    â€œOf course. That sounds great.”
    â€˜You are so fucking honest,’ I think to myself, ‘you just state your wants.’ In one way that is so much better than my devious wheeling and dealing. In another way it makes it difficult for me to state my needs, unless they tally with yours. That is my fault, for not getting in there first. But hadn’t I done that? Hadn’t I said I wanted to travel? I feel confused. I can’t remember. I see my planned trip threatened and feel determined to save it, wondering why I cannot blurt out a compromise. The feelings that hinder me in this inexplicable way prompt me to return to the subject of my mother.
    â€œDo you often think about her death?”
    â€œNot her death. Our life together. I think about it all the time. I think about how strange it is that a person can need, rely on, and love someone so much, yet spend their whole time trying to force that person into a mould that they can understand and control. Is it to diminish the fear that the person will leave them? I believe your mother would have left me, once you had gone.”
    â€œOh, surely not. There was a lot of love there.”
    â€œI thought so. We had our ups and downs. I know that I am a difficult man. Of course there were some very sad episodes, usually when I was drinking. I always drank too much, it did our family irremediable harm. But I can count such episodes on one hand, and I thought there was happiness to balance them.”
    I thought of the wrist spraining, and the shouts, and singing ‘Three Little Fishies’ on the beach.
    â€œThere was enough happiness to balance them. Of course there was.”
    â€œI am so glad to hear you say that. Your mother did not think so, but I am so glad that the happy times balance the hard times in your memory.”
    â€œI’m sure they did for Mum as well.” I look at this sad, defeated man and feel sorry for him. He is a fine father, a noble man. I’m not in a position to criticize him after my conduct as a son.
    â€œNo, they didn’t. She often felt down. Our connubial life crushed her instead of uplifting her. She was not a brilliant woman, you know, and from the beginning I assumed the role of teacher, pompous enough to think I might enlighten her. Perhaps later on I wanted her to conform to modes of behaviour that would adapt to my needs, recognize that my needs were predominant because I was supporting the family. My life was harder, and my genius had to be nurtured and cared for, my faults forgiven, my temper smoothed away. Perhaps in our struggle towards our respective ideas about how married life should be, her confidence suffered. I forced her to submerge her true self.”
    My father takes a long swig of his beer. I find myself wincing when he talks of his genius. It seems so pathetic, now that I’m an adult. When I was young I accepted his pontifications. The world was full of dolts and