Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

Barney doesn’t know where his father picked up the virus and he thinks it is pointless to guess. There were plenty of opportunities. Drugs and sex did not dominate Dan’s life like music did, but he wasn’t averse to experimenting with them. He was as attentive to his son as his life allowed, but he knew that Sheila was a decent mother and probably did better with him not around. Barney can be damning of his old man, moaning about his laziness and his irresponsibility. But Barney detests normalcy too much not to have a grudging respect for the way Dan had chosen to live his life, for the things he had learned and the people he had got to know. Lining our kitchen wall back in Melbourne is a scrappy collage of photos that Barney has made of his father. Dan in Nepal; Dan and Sheila smoking a bong; Dan and an old girlfriend nude at ConFest; Dan playing guitar with a tiny Barney on his knees. And in pride of place, in luminous black and white, Dan beaming with his arm around Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Los Angeles, 1979.

•

Just before we arrive in Sydney’s outer suburbs, Barney stops the car and asks if I mind driving. We change seats and I drive into the city. It is late morning and the closer to town we get the more the traffic hems us in.

Barney closes his eyes and lets out an infuriated groan. ‘I hate this shithole.’

I don’t. I’m excited to be back in this furious, massive city.

•

Dan opens the door and I can’t hide my shock at how ill he looks. I stumble over my greeting. His hair has fallen out, his face has sunken in and his whole body seems to have shrunk. He sees my confusion and reaches out to hug me. I loop my arm carefully around his frail frame, fearful of hurting him, but I kiss him strongly on the neck. Barney is standing behind me with our bags. I move aside as the two men hold each other tight.

The house is a small terrace in Glebe. It smells of coconut, tobacco and frankincense. Dan ushers us through a blanket hung across a doorway and into the lounge. A glass sliding door separates the kitchen from the lounge room. The rooms feel warm and light. Big bright canvases fill the walls, and the kitchen is all white surfaces broken up by a collection of posters. Even though it is warm early autumn, a small heater is blowing out hot air.

Dan bends down slowly and clumsily turns it off. ‘Sorry, boys, I feel the cold these days.’

Barney reaches down and turns it on again.

•

The first night is a party. Three friends of Dan’s come over, with beer and Turkish takeaway. One of them is a tall man called Stanley. He wears faded clothes, has long thin hair, and proceeds to tell excellent stories about religion and magic. He looks a little like a warlock himself. He is dating Katerina, who is a huge Greek woman with a grand wave of hair, streaked in thick stripes of silver and black. A shy man our age arrived with them and he quietly sits in a corner rolling joints. Very soon Barney and his father are arguing politics with Stanley, and Katerina has put Bob Marley on the stereo and is dancing lazily by herself. I sit next to the young man, Richard, and take puffs from his joints. Soon his shyness lifts and he becomes garrulous. My eyes keep returning to Barney and his father. With both of them animated and focused on their argument, I have time to study their faces.

Even though Dan is so very ill, you can still see the father in the son. They don’t share the same features but their heads and bodies have the same shape. Barney sits in between his father’s legs, one hand casually slung over a knee. Dan has one hand resting on his son’s shoulder. As the argument continues he seems to grow tired and leans back into the sofa.

‘Barney,’ he suddenly barks, ‘can you fetch your old man a glass of water?’ He is wheezing. He leans across the sofa and picks up a black wooden box. Inside are assorted packets and jars of pills. He quickly sorts through them and swallows his selection in one gulp.

‘Bedtime,’ announces Stanley. There is rapid action in the room. Katerina starts clearing things away, Richard goes to wash dishes, and Stanley and Barney take Dan to bed. I help clean up. Barney and his father remain talking in Dan’s bedroom and I’m the one to farewell the guests.

I get ready for bed. I feel like an intruder in the house. Taut, anxious — I am very conscious of the two men talking downstairs — I begin to wonder if it was a mistake to come along on this trip.

When Barney comes into our room he doesn’t put the light on. I watch him undress; the fluorescent streetlight outside our window makes his skin golden. He slides into bed next to me and asks if I mind him smoking.

I have one as well; my first full cigarette for months.

‘He looks really sick, doesn’t he?’

I slowly nod my head.

‘He’s such a funny old geezer. You know what he wanted to talk to me about just now?’ Barney sits up on one elbow. He looks handsome and so very cool in the half-light. Like a great jazz sleeve. ‘He wanted to talk to me about George Jones. He wanted to make sure that they play George Jones at the funeral.’

‘Will you?’

‘Of course.’ He lies flat on his back again, silently smoking, his body not touching mine. Then, mashing the butt of the cigarette into a teacup, he speaks. ‘My mum still can’t stand George Jones. Says it reminds her of too many years stuck in outback outhouses.’ He mimics Sheila. ‘“For fuck’s sake, Dan, can’t you play something else? It’s already enough like frigging Alabama here without having to listen to that redneck country and western crap.”’ He gives a deep sigh. ‘I hated that shit too.’

There is a pause.

‘I don’t want to fight with him anymore. I’d like to think it’s because I’m growing up but I think it’s because he’s dying.’ ‘He is, you know. He is dying.’ My anxiety takes over and I blurt out the words.

Barney keeps talking, as if he has not heard me. ‘He’s not like your dad; he’s not generous. Though Dan would call your father sacrificing. He was always a lot of fun but lousy on being there. Never sent enough money, never thought to ask if we had enough to eat.’

I remain silent. I’ve heard this before but tonight it sounds different: there is no bitterness, no anger.

‘I told him that I’d be happy to stay.’ Barney looks over at me, then quickly turns away. ‘That we would both be happy to stay and look after him.’

‘And? What did he say?’ I try to keep apprehension out of my voice.

‘He said he doesn’t want that.’ His chuckle surprises me. ‘He said he’d hate to do that — to clean up someone’s shit, to have to feed them and wash them. So he doesn’t expect anyone to do it for him.’

Barney turns and looks at me. His eyes shine enormous in the dark. ‘Do you love me?’

I’m surprised and answer instinctively. ‘Of course. Why would you ask?’

‘I don’t know. Tonight I just want to hear you tell me it. Just tell me it.’

I hold him tight and tell him how much I love him, tell him how I want to always be with him, tell him how my gut, my heart, my cock all burn for him. The words come out easily. I can trust every single one of them.

•

Next morning we take Dan to hospital. It is St Vincent’s, near the city, and we decide that the chunky Valiant will be too much of a bitch to park.

Dan rings a taxi. ‘I can’t be bothered with public transport anymore,’ he explains.

‘Go ahead, blow my inheritance,’ his son answers drily.

While Dan is in hospital, Barney and I take a walk up to Oxford Street. It has been a few years since either of us has been in Sydney and Barney keeps exclaiming over the changes. Many pretty and fit young men walk past us, and I catch a few eyes. Barney ignores them all. We turn into Crown Street and he walks into a small Vietnamese coffee shop. ‘Can we just get a coffee?’ he asks the young guy behind the counter and the man nods yes.