© Jonty Cornford 2019
Diary entry #1
26 February, 2017
I’m not really sure why
I’m writing this, but I’ll get it down anyway before I lose my nerve. It’s like
I need to, like an exorcism. Like maybe once it’s down it will be less real,
and I might be able to sleep a little better at night. One can hope, I guess.
My hope is that by sending you this selection of my
life’s work you will understand the whole story that I have been hiding from
the whole time.
I never used to feel like this. I always thought my life
would end up exactly how I had planned it, that I would be able to look back
and see everything perfectly in order. A normal life. What does that look like?
It’s almost funny to me now how set I was on finding something I wasn’t even
sure existed in the form I wanted. It’s awful how ironic life can be sometimes.
There has been a darkness bearing down on me, something
dragging at my heels. I’ve always been prone to melancholy, but not like this.
I never used to think about death as much as I do now – not in a suicidal kind
of way, just that everyday kind that makes your dinner taste that little bit
more dull, or your feet slightly colder when you lie awake in bed at night.
Night has fallen outside and the rain is drumming against
the window. So many things have lost their interest to me, but one thing that
still turns me into a little boy is the rain. It’s sort of like the rain just
washes all the excess away and leaves me in my purest and best form. The
drumming against the window across my study is more relaxing than any
therapist’s couch or warm bath or woman’s touch; it restores me.
But not tonight.
I never used to feel like this.
In all honesty this is the seventh attempt at writing
this tonight. It didn’t start out as a letter, but as I continued to write all
the things that won’t even make it onto this draft I realised with absolute
certainty that it’s addressed to you.
Except, of course, it isn’t. But it is. Fill the margins
with notes, dog-ear the pages and break the binding – these are my stories and
they are all that I have left. Just don’t look too deep or you might accidently
find who I am.
Who I really am.
It’s there waiting for you – or me, I’m not sure.
“A Seashell”
12 June, 1998
Yesterday
I
found a seashell.
Smooth,
small,
fit right in my
palm.
I threw
it into the ocean,
Watched it
drown under the black foam.
I told myself I
didn’t want to keep it anyway.
“A Conversation”
6 April, 2004
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“ What makes you say that?”
“The way you’re telling me this without being able to
wipe that fucking smile off your face, like this is all some kind of hilarious
joke to you.”
“The only thing I find funny about this is the way you’re
reacting to this. Calm down, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Of course it’s not the end of the world, but how am I
going to get you to take this seriously without acting like it is?”
“Don’t be absurd, of course I’m taking this seriously.”
“Then wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, cunt.”
“Don’t call me that ever again.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did. I can tell when you don’t mean it, but
this time you did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“No, I’m sorry that I meant it this time. Because you’re
right, I did.”
“Whatever.”
Diary Entry #2
19 September, 2017
It’s been a while between
drinks from me. I haven’t even had the motivation to pick up a pen lately,
which is scarier than the inability to get anything out of said pen. I’ve been
trying hard to forget, and sometimes I succeed for a while. And it helps for a
while, I think, but it doesn’t last. Nothing lasts. But you already knew that,
didn’t you?
Maybe you’re reading this and wondering if it is
addressed to you. If you are the one, you probably already knew that. I haven’t
told you, but I’m sure you’ve been able to read between the lines, pull apart
the margins and join the dots that I have so painstakingly uncovered from
beneath the skin I keep drawn so tight.
I dropped all of these pages the other day, and try as I
might I am fairly sure nothing is in the right order anymore. Not that the
linear nature of these works were ever important, but please pay attention to
the dates if you wish to get any kind of representation of the normal passage
of time.
Some of the pages slid under my bed, and when I reached
under to find them I found the jar I broke in ’87. Do you remember the one? Do
you remember what we kept in it? Even after I did my best to put it back
together, the scars were still visible all over the rough clay I moulded so
carefully as a young man. But that didn’t matter to you, did it?
You were never able to help me the way I wanted. But I
know now that was my fault.
“Tomorrow”
6 December 2001
“The Explanation Of Everything”
5 November, 2012
[page
missing]
[page
missing]
[page
missing]
[page
missing]
Excerpt from “When Your Plane Lands”
16 July 1989
It’s a dense, sordid
Sunday afternoon in February. It’s the hottest part of the day, but the lounge
room is pleasantly cool, the air conditioning having been working tirelessly
for most of the day. Most people are shut in their homes, the humidity too overbearing
and sapping to allow for any outdoor activities. The local park is empty, void
of dogs running after old tennis balls, soccer mums jogging in expensive active
wear, or couples lying beneath the trees that line the cricket field. For
locals the back half of February is known as a time to catch up on TV shows
you’ve always wanted to see, read that book you’ve always wanted to read, have
afternoon naps and enjoy life from within the insulation of your own home. The
stillness is intercut with the occasional crack of leather on wood, the sound
of a couple of dedicated cricketers down at the nets, training on through the
heat. It lasts for no longer than twenty minutes, the last woody slap hanging
in the sun, slowly melting and running down the drain.
The
ashy redolence hanging in the air suggests a bushfire somewhere, a regular
occurrence during the transition between summer and autumn in this part of
Sydney. A hot breeze tinkles the wind chimes lazily on the landing. There’s a
lonely ice cream van somewhere, no one venturing out to the tune of
Greensleeves despite the offer of a cold treat.
Fiona is damp with sweat from the drive home from work,
not doing any favours for her already sour mood. It’s funny how a single phone
call can completely ruin your day. A pleasant day at work in the
air-conditioned office doing not much at all, enjoying the prospect of Sunday
pay, turned into a distinctly unenjoyable car ride home in a sweat-box of a
car. There was nothing good on the radio. On the other hand, for those who know
Fiona it’s not that funny at all, rather a relatively standard series of
events.
She storms down the street, leaving the car running in
the gravel driveway, to her neighbour’s house; her father’s house.
She told him she was coming.
‘I
can’t believe how selfish you’re being, Alan! I mean, I – you can’t just drop
this on me now.’ She starts talking almost before she’s entered the front door.
Fiona is rapidly descending into one of her ugly moods, and she knows it. She
doesn’t really give a shit these days, though.
‘Why don’t you ever call me Dad anymore, Fi? What
happened to you?’
Alan is
bringing two mugs of tea out from the kitchen, still in his faded old blue
dressing gown and matching slippers at almost four in the afternoon. He had
time to prepare himself for a confrontation, and is doing his best to ride out
the onslaught. His calloused hands shakily place the mugs onto matching equally
worn wooden coasters on the coffee table between the two of them. Fiona hasn’t
sat down, hands firmly on hips. Her eyes turn into these terrifying, beady
glimpses of fury when she’s in these moods, and Alan has learnt to avoid
looking into them. Better to ride out the storm than provoke her further.
‘How am I supposed to figure out my week now? Or any
week, for God’s sake? Leon’s piano lessons start on Tuesday and I’m at work all
day, I need you to take him there. Jesus, how am I supposed to get to the
Foxtrot on Thursdays now if I have to get Leon to and from soccer? You’re
really something.’
Her
words are spilling out faster than she intended, but today she isn’t trying to
slow down or measure them either.
‘I
mean, Jesus H. Christ you’re something. You really are someth-’
‘Fi, I haven’t seen you in weeks. Can you sit down?’ The
weariness in his delivery more than the words themselves is what stops her and
pulls her down into one of the four armchairs. ‘Tea?’ Alan reclines deep into
his armchair, looking intently through the space between the two of them while
rubbing his left forefinger and thumb together, slowly, habitually.
Fiona
has perched herself on the edge of the cushion, obviously not intent on staying
seated for very long, as if she knows exactly how this conversation is going to
pan out. They have been through the exact same routine countless times before.
She yells, he listens, she leaves.
‘Dad,’ she uses the word with caution, like it doesn’t
quite fit well in her mouth, ‘I really need you to think about this from my
perspective. Try to have some sympathy for your daughter.’
‘Fi, this has been coming for a long time, surely you
know this. This can’t really be a surprise to you, can it?’ There’s a sense of
tired amusement in his leathery voice. He is old, but his wit and intelligence
have never even begun to leave him. ‘I can’t keep going on forever. I’m getting
old. Look at me.’
Fiona puts her mug down a little too hard, tea spilling
onto the coffee table. She pretends not to notice.
‘Fuck that.’
‘Fi, please…’
‘No, fuck that, you can’t do this to me, cunt. Fuck you.
You’re meant to be looking after me, but I guess that’s a bit too hard for you.
It’s always been a bit too hard for you, hasn’t it? Well, this isn’t something
you can just walk away from, this has to do with your grandson too, you know. I
know he’s the only one in this family you still care about, so do it for him,
if no one else.’ Her voice wavers a little as she pushes herself up awkwardly.
She is starting to sound not in control, falling apart.
‘Would you listen to me and calm down? This isn’t
something I can control—I’m getting old. I can’t look after myself anymore, not
without Jen here to look after me. I know you know that, you have no issue
reminding me yourself. I have to go, they’ll look after me there. It’ll their
job to look after me, for Christ’s sake, and I’m sure they’ll be a damn sight
better at it than you ever have been.’
‘What does this have to do with you? This is about me!
This is about what I need! I can’t look after Leon without you.’
Alan can’t pretend to be patient anymore, his control
slips away.
‘Of course it is, what was I thinking? It’s always about
you! That’s all I’m here for, isn’t it, just to look after you!’
‘Because that’s what fathers are for! That’s what you’re
meant to do!’
‘Goddammit, Fiona – do you have any idea how hard it is
being responsible for you? How much bullshit I have put up with? How much I had
to sacrificed for you? And not because I wanted to. I mean, at the start, of
course I wanted to. But as soon as you were old enough to tell me how I wasn’t
good enough, the fact that you are my daughter has been all that has kept me
here. I hope you realise that.’
An ugly silence in the room.
Alan’s
isn’t used to raising his voice – he can’t remember the last time he let those
emotions surface like that – and he can already feel an uncomfortable tightness
around his Adam’s apple to go with the churning in his turbid stomach. Fiona is
staring wildly at Alan across the room, a feral charge in her eyes. He has
never replied like that before, and she is taken aback.
How
many times has he wanted to say those things and held back, she wondered. He
never speaks like that. He’s always just sat back, taken it and said nothing.
For a split second a shard of shame passes through her, and she glimpses
something of the frustration and desperation her father has lived with for as
long as she’s been around. It passes almost immediately when she remembers the
logistical predicament he has put her in by deciding to fuck off to a
retirement home.
‘I
don’t want you to ever talk to me like that again, Fiona – I may be a huge
disappointment to you, and I’m sorry about that, I really am – but I’m still your father, as much as it pains me to
say it.’ Alan choses his words carefully and lets them pause before
evaporating. ‘I want you to think about what this means, if you’re able to. I
have reached the stage in my life where I am no longer able to take care of
myself, and I’m taking responsibility for that by allowing myself to move on. I
want you to realise how much you used me.’
He no
longer meets her gaze, but rather eyes the small hole in his slipper, through
which his bog toe protrudes slightly.
Fiona
sits down then gets up again quickly and ungainly, and bustles out of the living
room towards the front door, picking up her handbag on the way out from next to
the threshold and exhaling loudly in vague vowel sounds. She pushes the
fly-screen open loudly, and stops before leaving, searching for something to
say.
She
arrives at nothing and instead exits silently into the smoky summer afternoon.
Diary Entry #3
28 November 2017
Somewhere along the way I
made a discovery. For the longest time I wasn’t sure what the point of all of
this was, and the thought of finding out always seemed like something that was
beyond possibility. But here I am, at what I suppose is the end, writing to you
in an attempt to wrap together what is my best attempt at representing my
life’s work. Perhaps now you have figured out the great fallacy that my life is
– I pray that you do not hold me in too much contempt by the time you reach the
end. There truly once was a kernel of truth to be found in the tragic story of
my love, and while it may have been lost somewhere along the way I still
believe that it has been of great value to me, and hopefully to you too.
I find myself at a point of finality here, and I’m not
sure what scares me more; the thought of having completed what I set out to do,
or the thought of what you might think when you read it. There are so many
things that I want to say to you, but I wouldn’t know where to start or where
to finish. I guess it’s now just a matter of trusting you to understand what I
am trying to say with these words.
I ask again that you don’t hold it against me – I promise
that it started with good intentions. I just wanted to write a good story.
© Jonty Cornford 2019
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