Free The Best Australian Essays 2014 by Robert Manne Page B

derided.
    But what happens when your crazy parent turns out to be … well, crazy?
    After my sister’s death my family was in tatters. We were like fish swallowing air. Silence enveloped us. But in time my father’s muted grief turned wild and the tangled threads of his control snagged and tore apart. My mother and I woke one morning to find he had partitioned off the kitchen with a hinged ad hoc wooden screen to which he nailed all his favourite books. ‘Jess, Jess. Look, what do you think? Great, hey?’
    I slid towards the table, trying to sit down among the books. ‘I’m not sure about the John Cowper Powys. Your mum’s always hated that book. Boring, she said. Fucking boring.’ My mother tried not to look at the newly constructed shrine. There was meaning in it somewhere, this fictional crucifixion, but my mother and I were frightened, and we huddled together in a quiet fist of unnamed communion over breakfast.
    Drawing of the author as a child; artwork by the author’s father
    â€˜Jess, what about you? You haven’t read any Kafka. You’ve got to, baby! I’ve nailed this one up here. All these books, they’re between me and her. Your sister. Zoe. She’ll know. She’ll know even if you guys don’t. Don’t tell me Kafka’s fucking boring! Jess, your mum does like Kafka, even if she’s not willing to admit it here. Tell her! Zoe will know. So what do you guys think? How do you like it? The end of the hammer broke off last night otherwise I’d add those ones too.’ My father held the broken hammer in his hand, motioning to the piles of books still on the table – ‘Some Mishima, The Leopard.’
    â€˜You’ve taken up half the kitchen. There isn’t enough space to sit.’ My mother’s voice was quavering, falling away at the edges.
    â€˜What? What are you talking about? Just move those books over and sit down. You have to complain about everything. God, Jess, your mother is such a fucking complainer. I scattered the ashes last night. Out in the garden, it was great, just me and her. I could feel her. She was with me.’
    â€˜You scattered Zoe’s ashes? Where?’
    â€˜Out there in the garden.’ He gestured behind him. ‘It’s a great spot. You’ll love it.’
    My mother stood up, her mouth pressed together in a tight line.
    â€˜Oh what, you have a problem with that too?’ My father’s face was red, his lips jutting forward. Wrapping her sarong tightly around herself, my mother replied quietly, ‘What about us? You can’t do things like that without talking about it.’
    â€˜Fuck! She’s my daughter. I know where she should be. You’re such a control freak. You want to control everything.’
    â€˜You’re not the only one who’s hurting.’
    â€˜All right! But I’m not taking the books down. Zoe knows. She knows what it’s all about.’
    â€˜You can’t do this, it’s crazy.’ My mother’s voice was quiet.
    â€˜What, now I’m fucking crazy?’ Leaving no space for reply, my father’s words streamed out, relentless and loud. My mother gazed longingly at the green garden sea, as though willing the trees to come inside and rescue her.
    I slipped into the garden and searched the fallen leaves for some sign of the soft grey dust. It lay in little clumps, meagre and exposed, underneath a tree that looked no different to the others. Gathering some up, I hid my sister’s ashes in a little painted wooden box among my jewellery, and avoiding the kitchen and the shrine of books, walked out to the driveway and the hissing doors of the school bus.
    Always a punctual man, my father began to run late for work, and in the office he made phone call upon phone call until his patients, milling about in the waiting room, looked away from each other’s startled eyes. He bought a small rickety house, on