strange family

I was visiting a family that lived in an outer suburb of Newcastle. The father had died only the day before but the family was faring reasonably well. The mother, an elderly woman, was short and quite rounded and she had the most prominent nose: a great curved beak jutting out from her face alarmingly. She wore a headscarf and a house apron tied around her waist. Although she welcomed me into her home, she preferred to keep her own company. She stayed in a room underneath the house, sitting on a reclining armchair pulled as close to the old television set as she could manage, and watched programs to block out the world. I spent some time with her children: an assortment of red-haired young women and dark-haired young men. They were all peculiarly old-fashioned, like people from another time. The girls wore spotted smock-like pinafores over white blouses and their skin was pale and freckled. We sat at a large dining table and proceeded to eat and talk. The oldest male stood and tapped his glass with a spoon, indicating that he had something to say and that we should all pay attention. I do not recall what he said but I noticed that he looked a lot like a man I knew when I was a teenager. I wondered how they were related or if this was indeed him. I left the house and felt grateful for my own family.