by Angela Paxton

This short story won first prize in the Society’s Geography Writing Competition, open category.

From the window of the bus, the Brisbane River dozes. It lies languid, like a wrist upon an armrest, soaking up the sun. I also sweat in my bus seat, too compressed by strangers to breathe deeply. But the river reminds me of my father and that is good. I am visiting him today. As I trundle toward the city, I dream of my father, and of this river, both of whose bones ache in the sun.

My father swam this same river as a boy, which now runs flanked and dazzled by the highways I ride and the buildings I wander beneath. But although I am young and it is the only river I know, it will always be his river, over mine. He alone can tell you how well it bore his raft and what the bridges look like from underneath. The mangroves are still there, he told me, beside the bridge pylons. But I will never smell them, nor risk my naked feet in their mud.

In my pocket is a letter from my brother, unopened. Right now he would be in Athens, standing like Hadrian amongst the remnants of the Parthenon. All his life he had dreamt of this moment. Now, this is his letter. But I won’t open it yet. My father and I will open it together because it was his dream too.

My gaze is drawn to the dark verandahs of the Regatta Hotel – my great grandparent’s hotel. Here, as a boy, my father wiped beer from elbow-heavy tabletops, his small hands cold with pints he was too young to drink. I have never been there. Like the mangrove mud, my feet have not trod those hallowed rooms. But I have dreamt of it. That, enough, is my Parthenon.

The bus sweeps into the kerb and my body reacts accordingly. With heaviness of mind, my feet meet the concrete and choose their path.

I walk across the dappled grass. My heart beats fast because it has been too long and I know his stony stare will reproach me. I am right. My father waits, unblinking, in the distance. I lean against the headstone and stroke his granite brow. Like the Regatta, he too has begun to weather and fade.

I unfold my brother’s letter and read aloud so my father can hear:

I stood inside the colonnades of the Parthenon, with birds above and rubble below. My dream come true. But it’s stones. Only stones. I will come home.

I tuck the letter into the earth beside the grave and swathe the grass over it. My father had always wanted to travel but had never gotten the chance. Now, perhaps, he could. As I stride toward the ferry dock, I realise that I can too. Through my eyes, I would look for my father’s city and everything old would become new again. I smile at the wind-stirred scent of mangrove mud. I would go to the Regatta and get my hands sticky with beer on the ancient bar. But first, I would see the bridges. From underneath.