Paris and Other Disappointments by Adam Rozenbachs

Author:Adam Rozenbachs
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760144470
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

With a couple of drinks in him Dad was back to his old self, the reflection gone. We spoke of eventually getting back home to Melbourne, and he told me aside from looking forward to getting back into his routine, he was more excited about a primary school reunion happening a few weeks after we were due back.

‘The girl who I saved from drowning will probably be there,’ he casually dropped in.

I was shocked. Who goes to a primary school reunion? High school I understand – we all shared some pretty amazing times on our journeys into adulthood. But in primary school there were way too many pants-wetting incidents for anyone to want to relive that time.

More importantly, I guess . . . he had saved someone from drowning? Talk about burying the lede. For my whole life.

How had he never mentioned this before? Even if you stretch it out and say Dad saved her in his final year of primary school, when he was around twelve years old, that meant he’d sat on that story for over fifty years. It was even more annoying to know that he had the ability to be quiet for at least half a century, yet couldn’t help himself when we were in the car and he saw a wind farm in a distant paddock and called out, ‘Look, fan.’

If I was in his position, I’d be bringing it up at every available opportunity. Any time I went near a body of water I’d casually drop a ‘saved someone from drowning once’.

When the swimming was on during the Olympics: ‘That’s a really impressive time and you need to be careful around pools; easy place to drown, which I saved someone from doing.’

No moment would be safe. ‘Did someone say dessert? Can you drown it in chocolate sauce? Which is what the girl I saved didn’t do.’

I’d have a range of merchandise publicising the fact. T-shirts, stubby holders, floaties. I’m sick of people not claiming their hero status. If a journalist asked me if I thought I was a hero for saving someone who was drowning, I’d be more than emphatic. ‘YES! Now where’s my key to the city?’ I wouldn’t be a shy hero. From there on in I’d want to be known as ‘Adam Rozenbachs: drowning preventer’.

Dad had been at his school swimming sports and noticed a girl at the bottom of the pool. Rather than running to get help, as most kids would have done, he just jumped in and pulled her to safety. I couldn’t believe he had the wherewithal as a kid to do that.

Our primary school experiences couldn’t have been more opposite. I’d suffered a similarly traumatic experience, even though it was largely my own fault.

The walk to prep that day was a normal one, Mum dropping me off at the gate and continuing on with my sister to her kindergarten. As my friend Stephen approached, I walked ahead to greet him, ensuring I was out of earshot of Mum when I told him I had the matches.

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