We crunch across the gravel path towards the front door. Loose cobwebs on either side are coated in a thick, brown silt and the occasional hollow fly. Jack rummages around in his pocket for the keys then unlocks the door, using his shoulder to push it open. We step inside the cool entrance which, aside from an umbrella stand to one side of the staircase and a large potted monstera on the other, is empty. The Persian rug and floor lamp are gone, as is the large print of fishbones on a plate.
‘I’m more of a minimalist now, because I’m getting rid of anything that doesn’t serve me’ Jack says pre-emptively as he walks forward, switching on lights and fans.
He’s moved most of the indoor plants to the low shelf near the windows, which has only made them crisp under the magnified sun. A peace lily has imploded into a mound of dried leaves and crinkled stems. A fern has calcified, and one lone orchid has drooped over the tiles, leaving a deposit of petals below.
‘What happened to all the plants?’ I ask.
‘Global warming, Lia—it’s a killer.’
I can see through to the kitchen, which faces the water, and into his home office, where many files are kept in tight rows above the desk.
‘How’s the writing going?’ I ask.
‘It’s going, that’s for sure. Someday you and Simon might want to know what your father got up to.’
It’s in moments like these that I can see he doesn’t know how much we adore Vincent. Growing up, it was Vincent who did the school runs and the worming tablets. He volunteered at the tuckshop at school and helped me pick my formal outfit. He bought me any magazine that had models with long noses on the cover, and he somehow coped with Simon between the ages of fourteen and twenty, weathering the political punk and sitting patiently through many hours of obscure anime. Jack might be my father, but Vincent is my daily dad. I took his surname when I was twelve because I loved him, and at that point Jack had stopped calling regularly. Vincent was moved to tears when I told him, and addressed me by my new full name whenever he could. I remember picking up a call from him and listening to his flustered excitement, Amelia Aurelia, Dad here, do we need butter at home? Even now when he says it, I can see how much it means to him.
Jack took it terribly when I eventually told him. I remember he nodded to himself quietly for a moment and then looked me straight in the eyes and said, Love is alkaline and hate is acidic, and I will not be made into a cup of vinegar because of that man. In hindsight, it was unintentionally the cruellest thing that I could have done to Jack, as much as it was the most meaningful thing for Vincent.
I step into the office and look at the top folder on the neatly stacked pile. It’s labelled: The Skinny on Growing up in the Seventies.
‘It’s not finished,’ Jack says, taking the folder from me quickly before I have a chance to open it.
‘How long have you been working on your book now?’
He shrugs. ‘Ten years or so. But these things take time. I’m weaving through my own take on Stoic philosophy as I go, which is no easy feat; I clearly bit off more than I can chew.’
All my early memories involve him writing, or trying to write. He used to wear a pencil behind his ear, and some days he would put it there in the morning and not touch it again until he took it out at night. Being a writer, in a way, was more of a lifestyle for him. Over the years he has let me read a few of his short stories, and they always seem to involve a decrepit alcoholic trying to make sense of his world. All of them have been unreasonably dark.
When I came down a few summers ago, he had decided to make a real go of it. He was sure that being more organised was the key. We made a trip into town so that he could pick up some colour-coded folders for the study, and he ended up buying a fountain pen for eighty dollars as well. He spent the rest of my visit in his office, rearranging his bookshelf and printing out every document on his computer to file away systematically. He asked me to help him a couple of times, and gave strict instructions on what each colour of folder represented. Lemon was for poetry. Saffron for short stories and essays on life. Marigold for anything to do with The Book. A wall of piss, Simon said, when I told him about it.
Jack ushers me from the office and gestures down the hall. ‘Why don’t you drop your bags in your room then come and help me with dinner?’
I walk past the stairs and down the hall towards the bedroom that’s mine when I’m here, placing my case and handbag just inside the door. The bed has been made, and there is one of Jack’s spare terry-towelling robes folded on top of the cover. The room has a high ceiling, and one tall window which looks out onto a rotting love seat in the front yard. Whoever hung the wallpaper started at an odd angle, because the motif of a heron near a stream, followed by replicated tufts of bamboo, warps suddenly between the ensuite and the door. The room smells of my grandparents. Like brandy and camphor. It has always felt familiar, but not homely.
I flick the switch on in the ensuite and run the tap, wiping some water over my eyes and chest. I sniff each armpit, decide they are fine for now, and then look in
