One Chapter Ends

Chapter Seven

complex creatures are families

made up of individual parts

they chafe at the restraints of blood and love

and cannot be unshackled

The first meeting with Brian came right after Hazel's fourth Scrabble game. Keith had finally won, to his immense satisfaction – a satisfaction that had ended rather quickly when he'd realised that he'd tied with Hazel. She couldn't keep a grin off her face when remembering how he'd stormed out, face purple. It was so much fun, irritating Keith.

It was a warm day, but not boiling hot, like it had been the week before. Theo drove them back to Brian's house, then left to get groceries soon after, claiming that they'd need sustenance if they were going to spend the night talking away. Hazel could see it in his face, though, however much he tried to hide it: he was both giving them the space to start recording and not yet ready to truly face the reason behind it.

For a twenty-one-year-old man, she thought, setting up her phone and charger in the living room, he seems almost as afraid of things as I am.

That was when she made a promise to herself to focus; to give her complete, undivided attention to Brian and his stories. He deserved that. So once she'd settled herself on the edge of the couch, plugged her phone in – not wanting to trust only its dicey battery to something so important – and pressed record, she looked at Brian expectantly.

"How do you want to begin?" she asked, hoping she sounded professional and that it wasn't totally obvious that this was her first ever major writing project. At least, writing project collaboration.

Brian seemed far away for a minute; then he blinked and was back with her. "Sorry, I drifted off for a minute. What did you say?"

Ignoring the pang inside her, she repeated gently, "How do you want to begin?"

"Oh." Brian seemed a bit flustered.

"Did you want to start with where you were born?" she offered, throwing him a line.

He smiled at her. "Yes, that sounds right." Clearing his throat, he moved slightly, as if to get closer to the phone and began. "I was born in Sydney, on October 11th 1942. My mother's name was Katherine Jackson and my father's name was Michael Nevas. I am an only child."

"Was that by choice, or..." Hazel trailed off, wondering if she was allowed to ask questions. Should I just let him reminisce?

But Brian had nodded. "Yes, actually. It was a bit of an odd choice at the time, but my parents didn't want to have any more children after me. All of the children around me had two, three, four siblings apiece, but there was just me and my parents in our house. We lived in a certain suburb of Sydney until I was about eight..." He frowned briefly. "I can't remember the name of it now, but we moved to Parramatta in the spring of 1950. My father worked as a mortgage broker and my mother was a housewife, but she also did some part-time editing for a local women's magazine. The other women in our street were horrified," he said with a laugh. "One of them, Mrs., um... Mrs. Parson, that's right – Mrs. Parson came marching up to our front door with the magazine in hand one morning and demanded to know if it was my mother's name they mentioned in the editors' lists. I don't think I'll ever forget what she did next. I was on the front veranda and Mum was doing some gardening, on her knees. She stood up and fixed Mrs. Parson with the look she gave me when I was in trouble and just said, 'Yes, it is. So?'"