Rose Boys by Peter Rose

Author:Peter Rose [Rose, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781922148278
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2013-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

The rest of us muddled along. The pattern of hospital visits and weekend outings was unchanged. We saw more of Salli, who was growing up precociously. I enjoyed my new avuncular role. ‘What’s that?’ Salli demanded like a staccato doll. I named things for her and watched her fascinated reactions. She was delighted by her first moon and by her debut on my old recorder. I thought I would like to have a child of my own one day. Sometimes I wondered how Robert reacted to my being able to frolic with Salli while he was immobile.

Barbara married an academic and promptly announced that they were moving to the United States. I knew I would miss her immensely and decided to visit them at the end of the year. One of our last outings as an unconventional family was to a fundraising benefit for Robert. I was unnerved by one of the acts, a drag queen named Stan Munro, but I did enjoy one pouting line: ‘You don’t really think Mick Jagger got those lips sucking strawberries!’

Footscray, with a late surge, made the finals for the first time in many years, only to be quietly eliminated by Collingwood. Encouraged by their late-season form and by the likely recruitment of the South Australian champion Neil Sachse, Dad decided to stay on as coach. Mum, as before, would have preferred him to stop.

Our emotional instability produced moments of strain and euphoria. One morning Robert and I were joking with each other as I gave him breakfast in bed. I said he had a cheek expecting to be fed just because he was a cripple. It was one of those stupid jests that die on your lips, staining them. We looked at each other, then went on talking, but that silence was terrible. Why did the word ‘cripple’ intimidate us so? Robert understood the innocence of my remark, but also the everlasting tragedy of it. Later Terry told me he had cried all the previous night, and I felt even worse. Robert didn’t get up that day. He told me he was going through a silly period and decided not to attend a family function he had been looking forward to for some time. But everyone’s mood improved next day. Robert had a visit from Jack Ryder, simply ‘The King’, still ramrod and immaculate at eighty-five. Ryder had played in Collingwood’s first district match in 1906 and had made 295 in 245 minutes when Victoria hit 1107 against New South Wales twenty years later. I took photographs of him with Robert.

That evening, about to take Robert back to the hospital, Terry accidentally put the car into reverse and slammed into a brick wall. Anyone standing behind her, as we often did when seeing them off, would have been killed. No one was hurt, but Terry became distraught and Salli howled in her harness. Robert stayed amazingly calm. I began to hate cars and all the misery they caused. Some nights, when A. drove

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