Mcbride

Who?

I share a middle name with my grandfather, nothing weird about that, but we don’t know where it came from. 

It’s not some generational gift that traveled over from the old country or a name we can trace back to 1266 it just appeared because my great grandmother thought it made him sound more interesting.

Roy Mcbride Henry seventeen twelve thirty five 

Tom Mcbride Dyer fifteen two ninety two

I’m sitting at the same table that has been in the same dining room next to the same curtains as the same radio listens to the same station it has done for the last 3 decades I can recollect, the plates are new, thin grey scratches on the delicate white porcelain trace like the lines on my grandfathers face, the same pantry groans with bowls, cups and plates though he only ever uses 1 or two you keep the rest just incase.

Pops been digging in his garden telling me about the dahlias he’s grown for 6 decades…twice my life span and probably longer.. fucking huge red flowers, big glossy wet green leaves and hollow stems he showed me how to turn into blowpipes for when you want to play cowboys and Indians…did Indians have blowpipes? Shit maybe they did in the 30’s when he learned how to play. 

We’re talking about possums, my new house has a whole host of silver furred bandits that strike in the nights and leave no garden bed un munched..secretly I lie and tell him I want to get rid of them but I already know that tonight I will cut a plate of fruit and veg and leave it on the table outside just incase… I know he would do the same 

dad calls to speak to one of his great mates, a man he holds so much respect for decades after a horrible messy violent divorce, I try not to listen as they chat about treatments because if I even consider the fact these two men who created everything I am could be taken from me the bulb we’ve planted in my heart will rot and fester…but they’re both doing ok and a few more shoots push through the soil towards the sun

We share the chat, how’s he doing? How’s his treatment? He asks if I’ve spoken to grandma? What has she been up to? 

He knows I dream, he’s always known because I think he does as well, we share a middle name you know? We share blood and we share tears. 

I tell him the same thing I dream every time I need to speak to her: she’s going on a cruise and she doesn’t know when she will get back so bugger off before I miss the boat, I linger in the dreamscape, soft orange and purple fog filters around us but she will never tell me when the cruise comes back or where it is, I tell her I miss her and I love her and can I please have her rissoles and gravy recipe because the last dream we spoke I told her I made her lamb stew and I cried so hard it made me laugh alone in the kitchen she gives me a thumbs up and I’m awake 

I don’t tell him of the dreams where great black serpents take everything from me and I can feel every fang that pierces my body and fills it with poison, my love stolen from me by some faceless entity as I fight till my bones break and my skin is torn from my body dragging myself broken to her feet while she laughs 

Mullet are running, and so are the bream! Have I been diving? Remember when I use to come sit on the rocks and hold my breath while you swam down to find some tea? He’d never let the worry show but it was there, can he get me some fish? Or can I get him some? I’ll have to fix my spearguns sometime I can’t let him down now…I can’t tell him I’m scared to dive incase I miss the call it’s happened.

Two sugars, two tea bags fill it up till it’s low tide and then let it sit, a cap full of milk and a diagram for a new garden bed, but how are you feeling? His hands look old…he looks old

I mean he’s 90 so he’s going to look old but I swear the last year has aged us both by 20…he said I look young; I’ve shaved my head and beard but I’ve lost weight..25 kg almost half his body weight…is the tea ok? 

Tonight I’ll sit and watch the video I shot of him telling me about his life, it’s 30 mins of us just chatting in the same yard by the same bird feeders, I’ll make another copy and back it up on another hard drive just incase 

The same table and the same chairs creak as we sit in comfortable silence, me and Roy, Roy and I 

Poppa,Michael, micky…my king