Fred...

Growing up with three Sisters meant that there was almost always someone to side with when an argument broke out- but it also meant that, after including my Mother in the tally and discounting the cat, my Father had to share the only bathroom in the house with five females.

Had any of Us really been born boys we were all going to be named Peter, after my Father's youngest brother, who had died when he was only three days old. This might have been a problem if we were all born boys, but we weren't. My paternal Grandmother- who I've never met but who is still alive somewhere out there until a policeman comes knocking on the door to tell us otherwise- gave birth to her second child prematurely and brought my Father's brother home in a shoe box, wrapped up in cotton wool, but he didn't survive very long. Or so I was told.

I've also been told that my Father, who was only five at the time, had been left home alone, and was with the baby when he died, but I don't know if that's factual or not, either- and I've never been game enough to ask my Dad if it were true. They are just some places you can't go with Fred.

That's not my Dad's name, that's just what I call him. One of my Sister's started it when we were younger, but she calls him Freddy- and that is very different.

But because He's so quiet I don't know much about what his Life was like growing up except that he lived with his grandparents after his mum and dad broke up after marrying too young. She was only sixteen when she fell pregnant. We start young in my family I guess...

He went to boarding school and smoked cigarettes and pipes behind the sports shed and could build bolt bombs. He threw one out of a hotel window and blew up a car when he was about twelve, but again- I could be making this all up as I go along. I'm not sure anymore. Then he left school and became a Clerk in the army- he always wanted to be a soldier when he was a little boy- and had to count every single bullet and fork in the store rooms. To escape a drink driving charge he fled across the border to New South Wales and then met and maried Mum six weeks after proposing to her, by writing "How 'bout it?", or something like that, on a cigarette, only a few days after meeting her for the first time. And even though I am the only one of their kids who regularily smokes all of the time- it wasn't Me who smoked it after all those years that they had saved it...

I guess they must have really loved each other once, or else they were just infatuatd or incredibly horny or something, like my Grandparents were. Like my Hubby and me. He told me once that She had really nice long legs, and that was what he first noticed about her...

My Father was a good looking young bloke; in fact he looked a lot like I do now, except that I'm missing the beard and the moustache. No jibes now. I would have made a good looking boy. But at some stage after that he became my Father; a man who always worked hard and provided for his family. He's a moody man who grumbles about prices. He tells us that he's happiest when he's by himself, but I don't usually believe him. A few years ago I asked some of his friends over for Christmas Day- stupidly thinking he might have a Funner Time or something- but he got really cranky at me instead.

His philosophy on life is simple; don't share your wife or your toothbrush. Unfortunately we did just that- for about three months we both thought we owned the same Purple toothbrush. I've never really gotten over it, either...

When we were small-to-medium he'd take us along to the big football stadium near where we live to watch the Soccer. He would wear his yellow, black and red spray jacket that had the KB beer logo on it- and on the way home he'd stop off at the pub for one last beer after the match, while we'd have to sit, on the step outside, drinking red Fire Engines and eating cheese Twisties-but I guess those were the days before beer gardens and Playstation Caves- isn't it funny, though, how nowadays people get upset by seeing a dog tied up outside the pub?

He has always followed AFL and Collingwood but he only gets to see one match a year now that he is north of the Victorian border. He was at the grounds both times the Club have won in his lifetime- for the Grand finals in nineteen fifty eight and again in nineteen ninety- but when it came time for the two-thousand and two final he wasn't able to get any tickets. I wrote about six letters to Eddie McGuire, begging him for tickets for my Father, and told him that if Fred wasn't at the game, preferably starting it off with the coin-toss or delivering the oranges to the players at half-time, then Collingwood had no chance of winning against those Brisbane Bastards. Boo the Lions.

I also told him some of Dad's other football stories; like how he still calls them the Woodsmen- 'Carn the Woodsmen' he'll shout, like he did in the old days with his mate Macca, and like the time he conducted the stand of Collingwood fans at the MCG while they sang the team song, with his goat-skin of plonk slung carelessly over his shoulder; and how he had won two premierships Himself, and had a Mean Left-boot in the old days and had even kicked four tricky goals from the boundary in the last quarter of the final in Sixty-eight...

Well, I did receive a letter back- which now sits in pride of place in Fred's Collingwood Cabinet on the back verandah- but it contained no Final's tickets. And it wasn't written by Eddie himself either- just the schmuck Vice President of the football club. I can't even remember his name now, he's so unimpotant.

And no, as History shows you, the Woodsmen didn't win, just like I said they wouldn't. Boo the Lions.

We watched the game with his friends at their house; the one whose son got the Sprite yoyo that I mentioned I stole from under Kelly's desk when I broke into my primary school all those years ago. I'm beginning to think that stealing that yoyo may have been the start of all of my bad karma- and if I could only pick another one up on Ebay and return it to forty two Springfield Avenue, if that's where he still lives, then maybe my luck might finally change for the better...

Another memory I have of my Dad is of the day he came home with Chinese for tea and Mum bought a takeaway chicken. I thought they were going to get a divorce over that little bungle.

I remember Him emptying all of his clothes into the one and only suitcase we had, while the unused tie-rack that I got from the Father's Day Stall at school for one dollar stays hanging alone in the bare cupboard. It had space for about twenty ties but my Father doesn't need to wear ties to work- blue-collar man that he is; and because he has a beard he didn't need the shaving brush and mug that I had also gotten him for an additional fifty cents. He also packs the large photo album with all the 'nice' studio shots of us kids- the ones where we sit rigidly on stools in our 'best' clothes and gappy-smile our way through the ages. At least he will remember us looking at our best, smiling, and need not think of us with our puffy tear-streaked faces- such as they were that night.

Our Cousin, who happened to be there visiting us that day, is used to such parental displays, and shows us how to delay his progress by unpacking the suitcases and carrying everything back inside off the verandah from where he is loading them into the back of the car. I try to blackmail him. If you leave Daddy- I won't ever ride my horse again; I promise. I'll even sell her if you go- the ultimate sacrifice. He packs the trailer anyway and attaches it to the car and leaves...

But then a little while later he is back. I know how he feels. I've packed up four times and my Hubby doesn't even know about it because I've always managed to unpack everything again before he sees that I've ever left.

I can't leave either.

In the confusion of papers left strewn on the floor the day that my Father almost left Rare Rure (raa-ree-roo-ree)- that's Me and my three Sisters in case you are wondering- my birth certificate got thrown out with all the other rubbish. It felt like I had lost my identity; like that piece of paper was proof of My existance, my True sex, my parentage even; the little bit of paper that you need to get into heaven if it really does exist.

And it wasn't lost- like my Mother still insists- trying to get into nightclubs when I was underage. What would have been the point of showing the Bouncers the truth?

They never would have let me in...