LITMIR.BIZ

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       8

      It was one thing to have love handles bulging over the top of my shorts but it was quite another to overhear my father referring to me as a podge. Podge? I stopped in my tracks. I’d been on my way to the fridge to get cheese for a sandwich.

      ‘That little podge eats like a horse and watches too much TV. It’s not natural for a boy of his age. He should be outside playing not watching Dick Dingle on the box.’

      Dad was sitting in front of the box talking to Mum as she ran a duster over the porcelain. He couldn’t see me in the dinette because his eyes were fixed on the All Blacks who were getting pounded into mincemeat by the South Africans. The New Zealand rugby tour of apartheid South Africa had stirred up a hornet’s nest on the pages of The Bugle. Dad didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

      ‘When was the last time you did any physical exercise?’ Mum’s hand had stopped moving. Her duster was hovering over the Royal Albert teapot.

      ‘I’m not eleven years old.’

      ‘No, you and that Trevor Bland act more like five-year-olds.’ Mum let the duster fall and put her hands on her hips. ‘Not all boys were made for sports. Julian has other talents. He’s sensitive and original.’

      ‘I’ve heard that before about you-know-who.’

      ‘Leave Norm out of this.’ She leaned over and waved a hand in front of Dad’s face, forcing him to look at her. ‘You know what you are, James Corkle? A big, fat, bigoted, beer-swilling sports dag.’

      ‘Sports dag? You can’t call me a sports dag.’

      I should’ve left the dinette right then but I was riveted by the scene that had just unfolded before me. As Dad stood to confront my mother, he noticed me out of the corner of his eye. I heard him yell as I scurried for the back door. When he caught up with me I was near the plum tree. His face was red and his eyes were blazing. I knew he wanted to wallop me but he didn’t have a justifiable crime, especially with Mum watching from the back step.

      His eyes narrowed and a smile appeared. The next thing I knew, he’d put Carmel’s cricket bat in my hand. It wasn’t fair but no court of law in Tasmania was going to convict a father of cruelty for making his son play cricket. Mum gave a sympathetic shrug and went back inside.

      I was made to stand with my back to the tree and told to hit hard and high. Dad rubbed the ball on his trouser leg, put it to his lips, blew on it, and then bowled it in my direction. The next thing I knew I was on my back gasping for air. The cricket ball had hit me in the middle of the chest and thrown me on my back.

      ‘Did you just close your eyes?’ Dad was standing over me.

      ‘Yes.’ Honesty was the best policy when it came to my father.

      ‘You idiot.’

      ‘I mean no.’ I changed my mind. Honesty was definitely not the best policy. Flattery was. ‘You throw just like Stan McCabe.’

      ‘I can’t believe your stupidity. I could’ve killed you.’ Dad cared. He really did.

      ‘I mean I did close them.’

      ‘Your mother would have had a fit. Why in God’s name did you close your frigging eyes?’

      ‘The ball was blurry.’ For some insane reason, there was the truth again.

      Dad’s head tilted to the side. He was paying attention. It encouraged me.

      ‘You, too, Dad. When you stand over there by the fence, your edges go all fluffy like Doris Day on TV.’

      This description had an immediate impact. I was grabbed by the shoulder and marched into the kitchen where my mother was peeling potatoes. She looked at me and frowned. ‘What’s happened?’

      ‘Colleen, the boy’s afflicted. His eyes are buggered. I’ll have to see old Dent.’

      Dr Dent was one of my father’s co-drinkers. They met nearly every night down at the King’s Arms with Trevor Bland to hash over meaningless topics like cricket and football. Dent was Dad’s idea of good medicine. The doctor had a speech problem which prevented him from asking too many questions or giving much medical advice. His small, unpopular practice was located above the Whipper Snapper fish-and-chip shop in the centre of town.

      My mother held up three fingers. ‘How many fingers, Julian?’

      ‘Two.’

      ‘There’s nothing wrong with his eyes. Apart from their gorgeous green colour.’

      This was my mother being funny. She smiled at me. I almost smiled back but stopped myself. I’d always wanted glasses and couldn’t allow humour to jeopardise this opportunity.

      Yves Saint Laurent wore glasses and he was an actual French fashion designer from France. Everyone recognised Yves by his thick dark glasses. They were his signature, and all the big stars had a signature. Elizabeth Taylor had the Cartier diamond. Gladys had her icebreakers and Liberace, who had made another dazzling tour of Australia, had his candelabra.

      

      Dent must’ve been a real doctor at one stage because he had a brass plaque on his door. The grubby waiting room was furnished with three vinyl chairs and an Aussiemica table. The ashtray on the table was full. There was no receptionist and obviously no cleaner.

      ‘G-g-g-g’day, Jim.’

      Dent held out his hand to my father. He was a short man with an oily scalp encircled by a strip of grey hair. I immediately thought of Louis Pasteur. Pasteur’s discovery of bacteria and its destruction by boiling was one of Brother Duffy’s favourite subjects. Dent’s lab coat had grime around the buttonholes and along the pocket edges. It was asking to be boiled.

      ‘G-g-g-g’day, Dent.’ My father copied his friend’s stutter and then laughed at himself.

      Dent didn’t seem to mind. He listened to Dad with a vacant smile before going ahead with the examination. After putting me through the eye chart, he brought over a huge pair of black test frames and told me to put them on. The eye circles were like cogs and had numbered notches around the edges. Dad spluttered with laughter.

      ‘Don’t I know you? You’re Brains from Thunderbirds. No, hang on, you’re Mr Magoo.’

      It was awful to be teased by my father because I was forbidden to retaliate. I could’ve come up with some extremely funny names for him, like Phar Lap or Lassie, but name-calling was a one-way street with Dad.

      The frames had grooves on the sides for inserting test lenses. Dent selected two lenses with his nicotine-stained fingers and slipped them into the grooves.

      ‘H-h-h-how’s that?’

      ‘Still blurry.’

      He added more lenses.

      ‘B-b-b-better or w-w-w-worse?’

      It wasn’t only better; it was brilliant. The lower letters on the eye chart had clearly defined edges. A thrill went through me. It was like finding a ten-dollar note on the footpath.

      ‘B-b-b-better.’ I should’ve turned around before I tried any funny business. The Magoo glasses would’ve provided an excellent view of my father striding across the room towards me. The smack across the back of my head made the lenses rattle inside the frames.

      ‘That’s enough.’

      ‘But you talked like—’

      ‘I said that’s enough!’

      Dent put a hand up. ‘J-J-J-James, your boy’s sh-sh-sh-short-sighted. H-h-h-he probably can’t r-r-r-read the blackboard at sc-sc-sc-school.’

      The doctor wrote out a lens prescription and arranged to meet Dad at the pub later. We drove in silence to the

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