Inheritance
Wentworth Falls
It’s early March and the Prime Minister is giving another press conference. Every day a little more of life slips away, locked up till who knows when. I tell myself I still have the pool for a few more weeks but it closes too. So its books and walks. I still have books and walks.
Cronulla
Every morning Daddo takes me with him to do laps in the ocean pool. I look longingly at the surf, but he thinks splashing in the waves as a waste of time.
‘That’s good, but try to make it smoother. You want to glide through the water, like this. Now two more.’
The salt never has time to dry on our skin—we don’t linger—but the wet smell of it stays sharp with me all day, long after my grandfather and I have held our sandy feet under the tepid water from the old tap at the side of the flats. In wet towels and squeaky thongs, we’re soon back inside the dark cool of my grandparents place.
Nanna and Daddo have twenty-four grandchildren, but I’m the lucky one who gets to stay with them every year. They always say it’s ‘to give mum a break’ but I hope the break is really for me. I can’t wait for the holidays. After dinner, once the Rosary is over, I kiss them both goodnight and go to bed. I read till late, while the night rolls quietly on, the waves across the road counting out time till I slip under consciousness. In the morning, Nanna has put my book tidily on the end of the bed and the bedroom light is off.
My grandmother is tiny, softly spoken and a little stooped. I’m her height by the time I’m eight years old. The skin of her forehead is folded into worried creases, like she’s always waiting for the bad news. In a photo I have of my grandparents, she’s a tiny apparition about to float away, but Daddo holds her close, his brown leathery arms folded confidently across his chest.
‘Why doesn’t Nanna come to the pool with us?’
‘Nanna? Nah, love she won’t come. Her nerves… I wish she would. Irons everything out. You know?
‘Mmm…’ Looking up at him, sun in my eyes, nodding like I understand.
The family folklore is that my grandfather is supposed to swim at the Olympic games (1932?) but he’s married with a young family then. He can’t leave Nanna on her own. So he keeps swimming and later searches for a swimming prodigy in those twenty-four grandchildren.
He has none of the easy ways of grandparents now—'love you’—or even much skill talking to small children. But he holds my hand firmly when we cross the road to the beach. Decades later I still feel the no-nonsense curve of his paw.
Wentworth Falls
‘How are you coping?’ we ask, backing away from each other at the supermarket. People hugging on TV look wrong. I buy three-layered cotton face masks and carry them with me everywhere. Books and the quiet frosty air of the mountains count out the days.
Then its September and pool is about to open. On the first day I’m back, ironing it all out. It’s not the beach but the trees are shading the water and the steam floats up and away.