среда, 6 июля 2016 г.

My mother's stories (chapter sixteen)

My mother’s stories
chapter 16
My father's only friend



As far as I can remember my father had only one friend who lived with his mother in the next street. He was red-haired with freckles and had a strange name Renar. His job also seemed exotic to me – he worked as a captain or a captain’s mate on a tug-boat in our sea port. Uncle Rena, as I used to call him, was good-natured and I liked him and his thoroughly cultivated garden, especially the roses, which climbed up his fence, creating a beautiful dark-red carpet. Once he had something like a garden party where I was present. I don’t remember eating anything there but the atmosphere was wonderful: cheerful people sitting in the garden chattering. We had never had such gatherings at home and I enjoyed the experience. From time to time my father and Renar went fishing to the sea or shooting birds at the coast of the salt lake Kuyal’nick. My mother disapproved their entertainments, like most wives usually do, and refused point blank to cook poor birds. Nevertheless, their friendship lasted till Renar himself got married. After that my father began to feel that he was not welcome in his friend’s house any more and their relationship quickly came to an end.
My father worked at the machine-building plant, at first as an ordinary worker and later as a foreman of the model workshop. There they made wooden patterns, which were used for making moulds for future machine parts. Some of the rejected patterns my father could buy as firewood. I remember how excited I was when a truck uploaded the pile of curiously-shaped pieces of wood in front of our gates. I was always eager to help my father carry them inside our yard and then I invited my friends to explore the pile and build wooden castles for our dolls.
My father liked working with wood. All the windows and doors in our house and most of our furniture were made with his own skillful hands. I liked to watch him work and inhale fragrant smell of wood as corn-coloured shavings were falling down from under his plane. He got up very early in the morning on his working days. I couldn’t understand why he had to get up at a quarter to five and arrive at his working place 45 minutes earlier. He explained to me that as a foreman he had to make some preliminary calculations before the shift started. Yet, I had always had a nasty feeling that this job was too exhausting and he had not had enough sleep. I tried to persuade my father to get up half an hour later at least but he wouldn’t even listen to it.
As for making friends at his plant - he had never managed it. The main problem was that my father couldn’t drink alcohol because of his stomach and for his co-workers drinking was the foundation of male friendship. They didn’t think that he had a good enough reason to justify his sobriety. So, for several years my mother, on my father’s request, had to meet him near the entrance gates on paydays not to let his mates drag him to the pub. It was a widespread custom to wash salaries over. So my father’s colleagues perceived him as some weirdo, who was under his wife’s thumb, and left him alone in the end.
My mother didn’t have friends at all – only the stories about her disappointment in different people who she had tried to make friends with. From time to time I could see her standing near the fence with some neighbouring woman, gossiping happily about all their acquaintances and relatives. Yet, after a long chat was finished, she usually came back slightly irritated saying that malicious talk left a nasty taste in her mouth. I felt irritated myself watching her near the fence for two or three hours, wasting her time with people, who, as she believed, were stupid and malevolent. I couldn’t comprehend her behaviour, but now, I think, I understand her better. There was no mystery, actually. She had always loved the process of talking and our secluded style of life hadn’t given her a lot of opportunities for that. Although, there could be another reason too. She thought that people couldn’t be trusted and her gossip-mates only confirmed this belief, giving her a pleasant feeling of her own superiority.

To be continued…

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