And then, in the same address book, I come across my partner, my true love, here described as โDebbieโ โ a contraction of her name that sheโs never liked. Thereโs a university college room number, but โ of course โ no phone number. At some point, I must have knocked on her door. Hopefully, by then, Iโd learnt what to call her.
The address book is no use to anyone, of course, and yet I find myself reluctant to throw it out. Maybe one of my sons might pause to flip though and see the first clumsy step โ โDebbieโ โ in the relationship that later led to his existence.
Maybe itโs better if the children face up to our flaws.
OK, probably not. Theyโll throw it in the skip without looking. Iโm not blaming them: Iโve been through this with my parents and step-parents. Itโs a brutal business.
The first to die was my stepfather โ my English teacher from school, whoโd run off with my mother in term two. Heโd then, some years on, disappointed her by dropping dead while my father remained healthy. This was โterribly unfairโ, according to my mother, once you considered a) my fatherโs drinking problem, b) the teacherโs prowess at squash and c) the fact that she and the teacher were both English aristocrats (a claim that can only be described as โseriously contestedโ).
Still, he died. And so his daughter from his first marriage flew out from London, and the two of us built a bonfire out the back of this house in country NSW and burnt just about everything.
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It was not a hostile act, not by either of us. It was just a question of โwho needs this stuff?โ โ the old bank statements, the teaching notes, the school magazines.
The English teacher had failed to do his Swedish Death Cleaning, so it was up to us.
When my mother died it was more dramatic. Sheโd left hundreds of love letters between her and the English teacher, including both her steamy erotic thoughts about him, and some less than complimentary thoughts about her own son. โA punishing presenceโ was how she described me in one letter, as she described the weekend I visited her to mark my 15th birthday.
I still remember reading through these letters, after she died, alone in her empty house, the Queensland sun filtering through the windows in a way that seemed to heighten rather than dispel my gloom.
So, just this once, perhaps the Swedish are onto something.
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Are there things that would embarrass me if my children found them? Should I throw out the three-volume, self-annotated Collected Works of Karl Marx, product of a period of adolescent madness? What about Gillian Andersonโs collection of womenโs erotic fantasies? I purchased a copy last year to help write a column. So, do I need to put a sticker on the front declaring my legitimate excuse?
And what of the joint record collection, product of shacking up with โDebbieโ โ indicating an intense shared interest in Billy Joel? (Three copies of Piano Man!)
Maybe itโs better if the children face up to our flaws. Iโll throw out the old bank statements, the old news clippings and perhaps that third, mysterious, copy of Piano Man.
But bad luck, kids, everything else is staying.
