Almanac Illness: Fever

 

Good Friday morning.

 

I awake to the sound of silence. Not even a whisper. The distant hum of tyre rubber on bitumen is absent. The wind is still. The birds sense the occasion and resist a new day call. The depth of this quiet is unusual. It’s unique to Good Friday, the most peaceful day of the year.

 

Advertisers haven’t completely overwhelmed it. Yet. They’re working on it. Good Friday door busting deals must be coming.

 

I go for a walk. A slow trudge really as I’m still recovering from a flu that’s knocked the stuffing out of me. The fever lasted three days. The headache four. The fog of illness was heavy.

 

I got so sick of the bed I went to the couch in the depths of the night, reclined it, and looked at the ceiling. I thought about some of my deceased uncles. Who knows why these thoughts come in the no-man’s land between dusk and dawn. In the fits of a high temperature.

 

In this mist I remember going to Queensland as a kid. A little kid with skinny legs. I can see Bishop Street, St Lucia in Brisbane through my fog. We walk out of Uncle Michael’s front driveway, turned left up the hill, wonder along a meandering, jacaranda lined, Brisbane footpath with its thick couch grass nature strips, then drift to the right (I think) and just down the hill is a milk bar. Is that how it was or am I dreaming it?

 

The fever is strong now. Gripping me. My shoulders are cold, but my feet burn.

 

I can see Uncle Michael, long cotton strides on, a light knit rolled up to the elbows, no shoes, darting about his house. Leaping over cushions and pushing the plush leather armchairs aside.

 

“Have you read this, Dips?” he says reaching into a bookshelf.

 

“Try this wine, bloody marvellous.”

 

“You must read this after you’ve read that.”

 

Before long I have two books and a glass of Mount Mary Quintet in front of me. I’m probably 16 years old.

 

I think of Uncle Gerard. What a wonderful chap. Had a perpetual glint of mischief in his eye. The glint resided just beneath his eyelids. Loved a good joke. Abused a golf ball like no one I’ve ever met. He’d bring two long necks of Courage Draught to our family barbecues and drink two long necks.

 

“Bring two, drink two” is what he used to say, as he rolled a Drum with one hand and held his seven-ounce glass in the other, the white mucus of the beer’s head clinging to the sides all the way down. I can still smell it. The bitter, glorious aroma of fresh draught.

 

“Ha, ha, ha.” He’s laughing at one of my old man’s silly jokes. Then he turns to me, “you’re old man’s bloody mad, Dips.”

 

There’s my Dad. Just over there. Bent over the barbecue, which is a hotplate on a mound of bricks. He’s carrying on like a pork chop. He loved the Selleck gatherings. He was king of the barbecues, cooked whilst wearing the sailors cap he bought in an Opp Shop in Warrandyte. Bloody mad he was.

 

“Ha, ha. Turn it up Jackson.” Uncle Gerard is laughing again. He empties the glass.

 

I shift in the couch. Nowhere is comfortable. My eyes sting but won’t relent into slumber. Dreams and memories collide. Sweat bubbles on top of my head. I wrap the blanket around my frigid toes.

 

Uncle Richard sits next to Mum. They’re both so young. He has a small glass of whiskey. He’s laughing at and with his brothers. He marvels at their humour and wit. And they marvel him. A man of letters. An intellect. A gentleman. When he was 12 years old, he wrote a letter to JRR Tolkien. And got a response. His children (my cousins) still have it. I hope Tolkien’s children still have his.

 

When I went to London as a young idiot it was Richard who gave me the low-down before I went.

 

“Now Dips, when you get off the plane at Heathrow, here’s where to head.”

 

In my hot head I’m at Heathrow again, in 1987. But I’m also on the couch at home. In 2025. And it’s like Richard is standing next to me.  Hand on my shoulder. As a matter of fact, it’s like his hand is always there. Even now. But I don’t pay enough attention to it. I have too much other noise going on.

 

Somehow the night passes. When I wake up its still pitch dark, but I can feel the coldest hour. The sun isn’t far away. I’m no longer reclining. I’ve tipped sideways and am lying along the couch, slumped really. My uncles have left. Though they never really do I just don’t listen hard enough.

 

I like to walk up main roads on Good Friday because they’re quiet, like they’re protesting. Shops closed, no trams rumbling, there’s no zing in the overhead wires, the street trees smile. This could be what the end of civilisation is like. Peace. Maybe I should pray for it.

 

I remember when there was no football played on Good Friday. It was reserved for religious observance, for thinking, for contemplation, for attending churches to hear the story of a hero. No matter what you believe. He threw the traders out of the synagogue.

 

Those who wanted the day preserved argued it was just one day when we should stop. Just one.

 

I remember when some people said, but what about us? This religious stuff isn’t for us. Why can’t we have football? And they pushed this argument. And I suppose those who wanted to preserve the day and were opposed to football on Good Friday eventually relented. The tolerant are the most difficult to offend. And football was played. No harm done?

 

And so, I wonder if the world is a worse place because football is played on Good Friday? And I also wonder why my deceased uncles came to me in a fever and not during a normal day. Is it because in a fever they have my attention? There is no other noise. I am locked in thought. Like I am on a Good Friday.

 

So, is the world a worse place because football is played on Good Friday?

 

Maybe just a bit.

 

 

More from Dips Here

 

 

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