His mother heaved a sigh. ‘I met your father when I was seventeen.’
He winced … he didn’t need to hear the story of his conception again. The orange Datsun. The busted radiator. The inventive ways in which the young Patty and Robbo had put the back seat to use while they waited for help. ‘I know, Mum,’ he said, patting her hand.
But no, Patty was on a roll and had her hand pressed to her heart. ‘You know we drove an orange two-door Datsun around Australia a week after we first met. Gosh, the things we got up to in that car …’
Joey grabbed the brolly from his mum, to hold it a little higher before he lost an eye to one of its rusty spokes. Please god, she’d spare him any more details.
‘So when it came to beyourturn to be seventeen and in love, pet … and then Natalie’—his mum’s voice grew choked—‘died, and you were so very sad. It hurt to see you so sad, Joey. It hurt to see you leave home because you couldn’t bear to stay. Which … is why I have been too chicken to tell you about your father’s cancer.’
Her fingers were cold in his. ‘How serious is it?’
‘He had a lump that, of course, he ignored. You know what Robbo’s like about visiting the doctor. So by the time the biopsy results came back the concern was that it might have spread into his lymph nodes. He had a mastectomy about the same time you told us you were coming back to Clarence.’
‘Mastectomy.’
‘Your dad says he’s thrilled that breast cancer is an equal opportunity cancer and is just as happy to present itself in men as well as women, but … well. Obviously that’s classic Robbo talk, trying to make us all feel better. He has been scared, Joey.’
‘Oh my god.’
‘And then, just the other week, we found out the cancer has spread into his lymph nodes, so now he’s having radiation and chemotherapy. That’s what is knocking him around.’
His dadhadbeen quiet. Spending time with Amy on his lap, or bottling his honey, or snoozing in a camp chair with a book across his face to keep the sun out. He’d seen all that and put it down to age. He’d prided himself on being the responsible son when really he was the oblivious one.
Felicity had it right. He’d hidden himself away so his family thought he was so damaged that they couldn’t share bad news with him. He wasn’t damaged, not anymore, not about Natalie. He’d just smashed up his pride, and who cared about that, now?
Not him. Not anymore.
‘I’ve made the decision to stand down from the Bush Poetry Muster committee this year so I can take care of him. If these fainting episodes are a side effect of his treatment, I don’t want him driving.’
‘And I’ve been letting him work his arse off at the farmhouse. I’m so sorry, Mum.’
‘Nonsense, he’s been tickled pink at being so useful. He wants to be involved with his children’s lives, and that is why I need to give up the muster, so your dad doesn’t have to give up anything. Anything at all.’
‘As though the muster matters,’ he said.
‘Oh, son, that’s not true at all,’ Patty said. ‘If you’d lived here in Clarence the last twenty years, maybe you’d understand. This community relies on the muster to bring it together. Think about Amy! There are children just like her who have been working on their bush poems for weeks … these are kids who won’t get to go to uni or have grand jobs in the city. This is a big, big day for them, and I hate to let them down.’
There was a committee, wasn’t there? The others could step up for a change. Like his sister … who, now he turned his thoughts to it, must have been suggesting his mum step aside when he overheard them in Hogey’s office.
‘And Daisy’s known from the beginning about Dad’s cancer,’ he said.
‘Oh yes, love. She’s been driving him to the oncologist at Lismore Base Hospital when I haven’t been able to.’
‘And Will.’
‘All of them.’
‘But not me.’
She reached up to hold his cheek. ‘I told you, I was afraid, Joe.’
He frowned. ‘Afraid of what, exactly?’
‘I was afraid this would stir up all that old heartache and you’d leave again.’
Thunder rolled through the distant mountains and the sky had grown gloomier. ‘Let’s get undercover before that next rain squall hits,’ he said, veering past the compost pile and heading for thelean-to where Angelo’s goats lived. He propped the umbrella up against a post and rolled over a hay bale to find a dry side for them to sit on.
It was time he came clean. About everything. Let the rain just wash the truth out of him.