Warm Honey Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Warm Honey

  by Dave Cornford & Steve McAlpine

  Warm Honey

  Copyright © 2014 by Dave Cornford & Steve McAlpine

  Published by

  MartyBoyMedia

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked statues and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It is a painful act to bury your father when he dies, or so I have been told. Once buried a dead father stays in the ground, cold and silent. A dead father is literally beneath your contempt and beyond your affection. You grieve and hate and mourn and love, then perhaps, in time, move on. You may return on occasions to grief or hatred, mourning or loving, yet a dead father can add nothing to what he has already done. He can take nothing from you that he has not already taken, for he himself has been so utterly and decisively taken.

  The pain of burying a living father is far greater.

  Such pain is only imagined by those with the comfort of a corpse before them. A living father when buried is far more dangerous. In his desperate search for air and light, a living father may yet claw his way up, ready to give and take all over again. His triumphant fist might suddenly break the clods and by sheer willpower pull his whole body struggling and gasping back to the surface. If it does, you will know that some time in the future another painful burial will have to take place for this heaving, mud-encrusted father standing before you. And you have no way of knowing whether he will be dead or alive at the time. Next time.

  If my father had done this to me I could have blamed him for the grief his re-emergence brought over the next twelve months, but it wasn’t really his fault. It was my own doing. Curiosity got the better of me and I dug him up all by myself. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought I was going to impress him now that I was in my late twenties and over all the teenage stuff I was going through when he left. Perhaps I’d hoped he’d explain the mute decisions he’d made in the months prior to leaving, the late nights out, the sneaky phone calls. Or maybe I hoped he’d tell me how he’d broken the news to Mum in such a way that made her sob so loudly late at nights. When he’d gone, he’d left Mum as a shell. “She’s a scarlet woman with the spirit of Jezebel,” she’d snap, when she could summon the strength to get angry.

  Whatever it was I ended twelve years of silence with a few casual clicks through the White Pages online. There were only two “P. McEvoys”, one in a pricey coastal suburb near Fremantle and the other near the industrial strip that separated the coastal plain from the eastern foothills. I punted on the latter, figuring there was just no way my old man would have changed that much, or done so well for himself that he’d be able to afford proximity to the beach. Lotto would have been Dad’s only hope and I’m sure I would have read about it if he’d won. Or heard about it from Mum. In spite of everything, she’d have smelt it.

  I dialled, and counted eight rings before he answered.

  “Hello?” he asked all breathy like he’d been running, his strong Belfast brogue lengthening the “o”.

  “Hi Dad, it’s me.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Robert,” I said.

  “Robert who?” Perhaps I just thought it, but he sounded confused.

  “Robert,” I repeated, “Your son Robert.” It sounded forced like I’d been rehearsing it.

  “Aach away on Robert!! Is it really... it’s good to...is it...?” he tailed off anxiously. “Your mother and brothers, they’re okay?” he almost whispered.

  “They’re fine Dad.” I said.

  “You, son?”

  “I’m okay, just phoning to say hi, it’s been a while.”

  “It has been a few years,” he said, gathering breath and composure. “What’s it been? Ten?”

  “Twelve,” I said, “twelve next month.” As phone calls like this go, I wasn’t doing great. That last bit sounded bad, like I was having a go at him.

  We talked for over an hour, the longest conversation I’d had with him in my life to that point. He asked about the other boys, sounding proud when I told him how Stuart was overseas studying and how Bevan and Chris were in the building trade and had made some money buying and renovating old weatherboard houses. Perhaps it was pride in his voice, or maybe just relief knowing that mum wouldn’t be blaming him for us turning into junkies or screwing our lives up. Mind you, I’m not sure my life isn’t screwed up, I just don’t know if it’s his fault or mine. Maybe I just need someone to blame.

  Gracie was out shopping when I’d called and he’d been in the garden, so it was a good time to talk. He told me what I already knew, that he’d married Gracie straight after divorcing mum, and that he didn’t work anymore.

  “Bad back,” he said, “That’s why I’m home during the days. Gracie does a bit of book-keeping, I’m on the pension.”

  I’d seen Gracie once before, at court eleven years ago. Mum had gotten it into her head that it was a good idea to bring us all to the Family Court the day of her divorce.

  “For support,” she’d claimed, as the five of us squeezed into her old Honda Civic on the big day and drove off, “for support, and to show him what he’s giving up.” My unease at that last comment was confirmed in the gloomy corridors of the court-house. “This is what you’re giving up Phil,” she said when she caught sight of him, pointing to us like spoils of war, “What do you have to say to them?”

  Dad didn’t have anything to say to us of course. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, scared and fascinated at the same time. No one had wanted a scene, except Mum. Her anger was at odds with the affected neutrality of her surrounds, all fake pot-plants and noticeboards filled with “Who to contact if” brochures. Admin staff walked by, turning their faces to the wall like passengers ignoring an assault on the train.

  By the sounds of it Dad didn’t say much in court either. The four of us sat outside listening, never looking at one another, never talking, as Mum literally had her day in court. “I don’t accept this,” we could hear her say, “I don’t accept this, I don’t accept this.” She was still saying it on the drive home in the early twilight. It had started to rain and the Civic’s dodgy wipers were keeping in time with her as she muttered it over and over again. She nearly killed us missing a red light just before our street an
d her scream woke Bevan, making him cry with shock.

  “I’ve got two more you know,” said Dad, just when I was trying to round off the call “Jesse’s eight, Lauren’s five.”

  “A boy and a girl,” I said, just to confirm it, because I’d met a girl called Jesse once.

  “Aye, but I had five boys before I got my little girl,” Dad said, sounding pleased with himself.

  Mum was going to hate that. She’d always wanted a little girl. Mum was into all that Victoriana stuff; dolls, decoupage, fancy bedspreads. Her relief that all four of us boys were into backyard cricket and Scalectrix racing sets was tempered by the grief of a miscarriage back when twenty-four weeks was too young for her little girl to survive.

  “When I had you four boys, I can’t say I was disappointed,” she’d say sounding disappointed, “but a girl would have been nice...” and she’d tail off. That was her cue to tell me, or the dinner guests, or whoever would listen, how when she was pregnant she’d picked me as a Pamela Rachel. And how after she’d had me she was so tired from the forceps, and the fifteen hours of pushing, she’d only thought of one boy’s name because she was expecting a girl.

  “He was breach too,” she’d add pointedly, as if I’d come out bum first just to add insult to her injury. Everyone would laugh and I’d say “I can always have a sex change and be the Pamela you’ve never had,” making them shriek with mock horror, and Mum’s eyes would flash the pleasure she felt at me keeping her old joke going one more round.

  From what Dad said, Gracie was everything Mum wasn’t. She could cook Asian food for a start.

  “No more tatties and mince,” Dad said triumphantly. “Your mum’s food was always wholesome, but,” he added apologetically.

  Nothing spicy ever made it onto our plates growing up. The closest we ever came to exotic food was the Chinese meal we had every year on the last day of our fortnight’s summer holiday in Busselton. After two weeks in a caravan we’d have used everything up “to lighten the load for the trip home”, as Mum would say. By that stage Mum was too tired anyway to cook another meal in the van’s cramped formica kitchen with its quaint doll’s house sink and oven. So it was off to the only Chinese restaurant in town for lemon chicken with cashews and fried rice. Dad always over-ordered so he’d have enough for a doggy bag for the trip home next morning. It was only a three hour drive, but we’d have to stop for lunch on the way. Our holiday was officially over every year when Dad stopped the car at the same park, an hour or so from the city. Mum’d do her usual dash for the dunny, us boys would kick the footy, and Dad would sit staring out the car window like a condemned man facing the gallows, and wring every bit of flavour out of his last worthwhile meal of the year.

  “I’ll tell you what then son, why don’t you come over for dinner some time,” he said, “you can meet Gracie and the kids.”

  It came out of left field, it was more than I expected. He caught my pause.

  “Look son, Gracie’s okay with everything,” he said “and the kids know about...,” he tailed off at that point.

  “No, that would be good Dad,” I said. “But give me a few weeks.”

  “Well, we’ve got stuff on the next two weeks or so,” he said, and I could tell by his tone the conversation was winding down. “The kids have some birthday parties to go to, so after that eh?

  “How about I give you a call next week?”

  “Sure son, that’d be good.” I could sense the relief in his voice. “Thursday evening again, that’s when Gracie’s out shopping.”

  Before I could say anything, he added, “Don’t worry I’ll smooth everything out with her, after all, you’re my son too, she’ll be pleased.”

  When I hung up the phone my armpits were dripping with sweat. It had gotten dark without me noticing. I went round closing the curtains and switching on lights. I had a shower, then lay across my bed wondering what Mum would say when I told her. The kitchen clatter of my flat-mates woke me up an hour or so later, cold, wrapped in a damp towel and dying for a pee.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I told Charis about calling Dad because she wasn’t family and she was the one thing in my life that made sense. Everything else in the last few years; my jobs, my flatmates, the cars I bought, all looked stupid six months later, like I hadn’t thought it through properly. I’d known Charis nearly a year and she still made sense.

  “I finally phoned Dad,” I said. Charis was at the table writing to her sister in Queensland, her mother snoring loudly from her shabby vinyl recliner.

  “I knew you had,” she said, without looking up.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Just knew.”

  Her mother snuffled abruptly, turning on her side.

  “You did a good thing,” Charis said suddenly, turning from her letter.

  “Had to sort it out sometime,” I said.

  “No, had to sort it out at the right time,” she replied, “Another time would have been the wrong time.” From anyone else it would have sounded like something to say, from her it sounded right.

  Her mother woke with a start. “Tea?” she asked, wiping blond hair from her dozy face and getting up. “I’ll put the water on.” She shuffled off and the water pipes banged as she filled the saucepan.

  ** *

  Going out with Charis was like sorting stuff out, clearing the past away. For a while I kept her to myself, not telling Mum about her just to see how it would pan out. I didn’t want Mum reading her own pain into mine if things went sour. She’d done that before and seemed more upset about my break-up than I had.

  Mum had her own way of clearing the past away and it didn’t involve a relationship. Every now and then when there was too much paperwork in her filing cabinet Mum would get a big plastic bin bag and throw away another few years of her history, receipts of Christmas presents, warranties from burnt-out toasters and kettles and old phone bills.

  “Keep them five years for tax purposes,” she’d claim in an official tone, despite the fact she never claimed anything or ran a business, “You just never know.”

  Mum worried that one financial year the Tax Department would finally announce it would be taking a special interest in administration assistants, typists, cleaning staff and low paid casuals and there’d be someone on the phone demanding to know what her third quarter electricity bill was in 1983. She kept the really important stuff in a manila folder at the back of the cabinet, safe from the bin bag. Stuff like her British passport with a black and white photo from when she was my age just before we left Belfast, her marriage certificate and her divorce papers.

  “Irreconcilable Differences,” she’d say incredulously every time she pulled out the decree, “What’s that supposed to mean? It’s like they’re saying it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” She said it confident in the knowledge that none of us would ever assume it was her fault. She was right we’d all taken her side if for no other reason than she’d been the one who stayed.

  It was irreconcilable differences that I liked about Charis. She had an attractive edginess I didn’t have. At the same time she was so self contained, a way of being relaxed about not being the greatest at anything or having done stuff that would impress people. Some people might have been disappointed at not having finished school and just working in a book exchange part-time, but for her it seemed intentional, like it didn’t matter if she didn’t do great stuff, only that she enjoyed the stuff she did. Charis didn’t seem to be hiding anything and gave the impression that she didn’t see why other people should either.

  I met Charis in the exchange. I’d been in a few times and seen her behind the counter crouched over a Penguin classic: an uncluttered face with pale green eyes, even paler skin, neat nose and mouth, the clarity tempered by her curly red bob and a silver eyebrow ring. She wore jeans, cherry dockers, and eighties alternative-band tee-shirts, Joy Division or Bauhaus over a long-sleeved top. I’d picked her as a student working part-time to pay for study and alcohol.

  “Looking for a
nything in particular?” she asked one day, looking up from her book.

  “Something with a bit of punch,” I said, “Got any suggestions?”

  “What about Tolstoy?”

  “Dead white male,” I’d joked.

  “Dead people can still speak to you,” she’d said simply.

  We got chatting and I bought of copy of ‘The Death of Ivan Illyich.’

  “It’s Tolstoy for beginners,” she’d called out as I left, “Watch out, it’ll change your life!” A week later, with Ivan’s death agonies still in my head I went in again and asked her if she had time for a coffee break.

  “Depends,” she said, “Have you read that Tolstoy yet?” I started to say yes, but she cut me off with her laughter.

  “Coffee would be good,” she said, “there’s a place round the corner.”

  “It’s nearly lunch-time, want to get a sandwich?”

  “I’ve brought lunch and I’ve only got twenty minutes,” she said blu-takking a “Back Soon” note on the door, “Anyway lunch’ll cost you ‘War and Peace.’”

  The cafe was crowded. We squeezed into a table, ordered, and talked about the usual stuff, books, films, CDs. She’d left school in year eleven and lived at home with her parents, but she’d read all of Dickens, heaps of the Greek mythology, far more than what I’d read with my degree. The book exchange was owned by an older retired English couple, Doris and Hector who she played Scrabble with on a Wednesday.

  “A triple word score using all your tiles, one of the small joys of life,” she said, strangling a napkin.

  She’d moved to Far-North Queensland with her younger sister a few years ago, but had only stayed a year. “Good fun” she said, then showing the back of her hand, “But pale skin, I’m a winter person.”

  “The coffee’s cold,” she said interrupting our conversation and waving at the waitress.