CHAPTER 76
We got a regular flow of letters after that, or perhaps it could be described as an intermittent drip feed. Every now and again, we would pop off a new snap of our boy, and hint about dates, but my mother-in-law never bit, not even to the extent of mentioning me at all, or using anything other than Malay for her correspondence. According to my wife, Mrs R even appeared to be matchmaking a few times, even though her daughter was already married. I began to feel a little unwanted by her.
Ish, on the other hand, became more and more of a delight, within certain broad limits. His mobility improved substantially once he managed walking, which led to running, which in turn led to face-planting every so often. Maz taught me a few lessons there, holding me back when my instincts urged me to rush to him and Make It Better.
“No, love. If we don’t make a fuss, he won’t end up seeing a trip as so serious. They bounce at that age. Walk casually over and offer a hand up”
“Where’d you get all that from?”
She chuckled.
“Geeta, mostly. Apparently, Dal was more than a handful as an infant”
“What happened to kissing it better?”
“Ah, later. The aim is to push them, nicely, into a little more self-reliance. Obviously, if there’s blood everywhere, that’s different”
“you are a harder woman than I suspected, love”
“Nope. Just pragmatic”
I tried it her way, but I am sure I was a lot less strict in my observation of her rules. Leaving our boy crying was unnatural in the extreme. Overall, though, he was a happy child, and each time we visited the climbing centre, he quickly became the centre of attention. More than that, we needed not so much a babysitter for those sessions as a baby wrangler in that American sense, for once he was walking, he wanted to follow us, and that meant upwards. I bit the bullet, and after Vern had a word with his boss, I was the owner of a dozen bolt-on holds. Some lumber and boards were easy to build into a tiny little wall—or rather very easy-angled slab—which went into our back yard with a pile of closed-cell camping mats secured at its foot, and Ish was soon scrambling up to its heady four foot summit. I was absolutely bursting with paternal smugness the first time he topped out.
Our extended sort-of-family was a lifeline, despite the pointed absence of that other Mrs R. During college holidays, Dal was amazingly eager to babysit or simply take Ish out, as was Geeta, and Kul was as cheeky as ever. He was sitting in our garden one day, watching Ish slapping at his climbing wall, while we sipped LLBs. He waved at our son, grinning.
“Like having a grandkid but without having to worry about all that dowry rubbish”
Maz had gasped at that little sally.
“You don’t believe in that still?”
Kul shook his head.
“Being serious”
He paused un an obvious invitation for me to interject a comment, but I shook my head, and he simply grinned once more before continuing.
“Being serious, which I sometimes am, the dowry system is stupid. I mean, there are cultures where it’s sort of ‘Here, I’ll pay you to take my daughter’, and others where it’s ‘Here, I’ll buy your daughter for my son’. Logically, both can’t be right. And then there’s the family greed”
Maz looked across to the drawer where we filed the semi-regular MiL missives, then back at Kul.
“You mean cousin marriage?”
“Oh indeed, with all the consequences that can bring. Some of our neighbours, back in that other L-Town, the issues their kids have. And then there’s the murders, just for the money. No, sod that. Right: serious head is coming off. Can I have a go on your climbing wall?”
I laughed out loud at that one.
“Mate, that is almost low enough for you to sit on!”
“Yeah, well, no head for heights, have I?”
He never could stay serious for long.
Mobile Ish was a new set of problems on two chubby little legs, because when we had him in his pushchair he wanted to get out, and when he was out it wasn’t long before he was demanding that his chariot be provided again. He was also growing at quite a rate, which was, I suppose, hardly surprising, given my genes. That meant me getting rather familiar with the Aussie idea of children’s clothing, for it is very heavily loaded in the direction of sun protection. There are all sorts of colourful tops like thin, long-sleeved T-shirts, suitable for swimming, and a wide range of infant-sized hats, some a bit like a cross between a bush hat and one of those French Foreign Legion things. When I tried to describe one to Maz, she just said “Havelock”
“You what?”
“The cloth bit that hangs down the back of the neck. It’s called a havelock, after one of your generals”
She looked down at our lad, who, just for once, was tranquil in his pushchair.
“Daddy wants to buy you a hat, Ishmael.”
“Hat! Blue! Want blue!”
So, a blue hat he got, with a havelock, and he wore it until he got bored, pulled it off and dropped it on the ground. Maz picked it up, and he began again, holding out his hands for it.
“Hat! Mine!”
We still loved him, of course. Happy, happy days, as the person inside the baby fat slowly but steadily emerged. He slept with us every now and again, but once he had settled into a proper sleep pattern, his room became his domain.
Kindergarten allowed us to get some more of our working lives back, though it obviously involved juggling our time slots so as to be available to collect Our Preshish, as Kul was calling they boy. All the time, Ish was opening out further, and his initial encounter with other children really started things moving, particularly in his conversation. From simply detailing his wants and dislikes, he progressed, in what seemed an incredibly short time, to recounting what others had done. I could have done without the regular reports of how particular children had found new, unusual and inappropriate places to relieve themselves, but hey. He was finding his own world, and sharing it with us, if in rather too much detail.
In a way, we were coming full circle, for his conception had occurred as Maz and I had shared our photo collections, and as he grew, we were making a new, united one. He was amazingly advanced in some ways, though, especially in reading, which he took to well before his fourth birthday. That all started with some of the strip cartoons in our weekend papers. Both Maz and I valued our days off and until Ish had become a little more independent, we had been tied to the house, and Sunday mornings had consisted of a pile of the Saturday’s papers, saved for the purpose, consumed while in bed, one of us having emerged just long enough to make a pot of tea and return with the warm mugs.
Ish would join us, squirming into the middle of the bed and under the dooner, demanding the mug of squash I would have ready for him, and staring at the papers as we read. Sometimes he would simply nod off again, slumped against one of us. Other times, he would be doing the usual “What’s that?” routine, and it was usually Maz who would take over the spelling game.
“It’s a bird, see? B-I-R-D bird”
If it was an actual bird, of course, she would tell me, over his head, the species name, which backfired slightly one day.
“It’s an ibis, Ish. See? I-B-I-S ibis”
“No! Bin chicking!”
A true Australian, our boy.
Our first proper holiday with him was in a rented ‘unit’ (wooden hut, basically, with facilities) to the South of Mandurah, where we had the choice of swimming in a reasonable safe sea or the very, very shallow and warm Collins Pool, where multiple family groups were out collecting crabs.
In the Perth fashion I was becoming all too used to, the unit was owned by a friend of Phil and Val, and the restaurant where we sampled the crabs belonged to a mate of Des. I found myself remembering that chat about cousin marriage, and when Maz asked me what I was laughing at, I explained.
There was no safe way of explaining what was so funny to our child, who was, in any case, too busy trying to read the menu.
“No pitchers, Dad! Why?”
That beach… our boy in one of those shirts, long shorts and his sunhat straps tied under his chin to keep it on, all wrapped in a sort of miniature flotation jacket as he lay on a boogie board which I launched forward as a wave took it, Ish screaming in delight, or with him between us, bobbing up and down with each wave as Maz and I just enjoyed their cool caress.
That holiday’s photos were edited onto yet another disc, and that went to K.L. with another covering letter. This time not just from both of us but with our son’s attempt at a signature.
Still nothing; the next Malay Missive didn’t come until the end of the following Ramadan.
Mrs Rahman’s loss, not ours.