It’s a delicate moment. My father’s a proud man. I don’t want to be condescending, so I tell him to let me know the level of help he needs. “I’ll take my cues from you,” I offer quietly. With a default formality I still find endearing, he tells me he’ll require assistance at two stages of the process: getting in and getting out.
I’ve travelled from my home in northern New South Wales to Perth to spend 10 days with my father, while his second wife, my stepmum, is in Melbourne visiting their two adult sons and new grandsons.
Dad’s 91. I’ve just turned 60. Getting reacquainted is always part of these sporadic visits across the continent. We’ve lived most of our lives in different states, even countries, so I’ve cherished the wisdom he’s offered along the way. One that has stuck with me is his daily routine, which he calls six by six.
He says if he starts the day at 6am with a swim at North Cottesloe and finishes with a glass of wine while listening to classical music at 6pm, he can deal with pretty much whatever happens in between.
But it has been two years since he has felt the kiss of his beloved Indian Ocean. Bladder cancer, the fitting of a pacemaker, a hip replacement, prostate cancer and cataract surgery, atop the usual ravages of old age, have robbed him of his daily ocean fix. I’m managing a prostate cancer diagnosis of my own – not the father/son bonding I would’ve chosen, but a bonding nonetheless.
He’s in remarkable shape for all this – mentally sharp, admirably mobile – and I am soon gripped by an ambitious plan: to get him in the ocean again.
I’m a lifelong surfer. Dad shepherded me into the ocean as a small child. I learned to swim in the kiddy pool that once adorned the beach at Cottesloe. My surfing life began on a polystyrene board called a Little Nipper at a patch of Cottesloe Beach known as Slimy Reef. Barely a surf break at all, the tiny surge of whitewater is like a scale model of a proper wave.
On day three of my visit, I tell him my plan. Dad’s sceptical. He fell in the shore break on one of his last visits.
“No pressure,” I say. I tend and water the seed I planted by walking alone to Cottesloe early each morning, and returning filled with joie de vivre.
He eventually concedes we could try. There’s a longing to this quiet utterance. On day four, he agrees to accompany me to North Cott. “I’m not sure I’ll go in,” he says.
We drive to save him the walk. I slow to his shuffling pace, close by his side as we descend a gentle ramp to the change rooms where he was once a regular. A couple of familiar faces greet him warmly and acknowledge that it’s been a while. A different Ian Baker had recently appeared in the West Australian newspaper’s death notices. Dad has fielded phone calls inquiring if he’s still with us. His reappearance at the beach after a two-year absence must seem like an apparition.
The old boys in the North Cott change rooms get their gear off with admirable abandon. I’m more circumspect than any of them – changing under a towel. I’m self-conscious about the ravages of hormone therapy, the frontline treatment for prostate cancer, rather than old age – the lack of body hair, the breast swelling, the side-effect that dare not speak its name (genital shrinkage – there, I said it). I’m not sure if all this elderly male nudity is shocking or beautiful. Probably both.
Dad seems undeterred by his own physical decline. The blots and blemishes that decorate his rice paper skin. Webs of dark blue and purple veins like crude tattoos, his legs a topographical map of bruises and swelling and sores. Dad’s always been an understated character, so I’m surprised to see him gingerly step into the most colourful pair of swimmers I’ve seen in quite a while. There’s a hint of showbiz about this otherwise tentative comeback.
It’s a steep set of stairs down to the beach. He’s concerned about the final step on to the sand. “Sometimes there’s quite a drop off,” he says. But the beach gods are kind: a sand drift has formed right up to the base of the stairs so there’s no drop off at all. I ditch my towel, strip off my T-shirt. The ocean’s right there, only a few paces away.
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Dad tells me he’d like to go for a walk first, and I offer to come with him. The beach drops at an angle to the water’s edge so traversing this slope is tricky, even for me. We only get 100 metres or so before he pauses, slowly shuffles 180 degrees and says it is probably enough.
We’re soon back where we dropped our towels. He faces the ocean, takes a few halting steps towards it. I stick closely by his side, extend my right arm at chest height, bent at the elbow. A human handrail. He grips my forearm with his left hand as we take slow, baby steps until the water is lapping at our ankles.
“Let’s wait for this one,” I suggest. A little shore break lurches and expires at our feet. Beyond it the ocean beckons, calm, blue, gleaming. Its chill creeps up our legs as we advance. The bottom is uneven, with ripples of sand, an abundance of shells and small outcrops of rock. He grasps my forearm more tightly as the water pulls around our knees and his balance wavers.
Once, my father carried me into the ocean, sure and strong, and my infant mind knew with absolute certainty I was safe. Now, as he stumbles slightly and leans more of his weight on me, I know with that same certainty my own body – compromised by years of cancer treatment – is suddenly rock-like, immoveable. I can’t recall the last time I felt so sure of my own physicality. Soon the water is about our waists and provides a steadying force.
“I think I’ll be right from here,” he says. He bends at the knees, submerges himself up to the neck, rises again, then hooks his fingers into his ears and immerses himself completely. He emerges, grinning like a kid, eyes wide.
I tell him I might swim out a little, and he tells me to go for it. I breaststroke out 50 metres or so, float on my back, gazing skywards and turning periodically to check on him. I lose sight of him in the undulations, curse my negligence, then spot him again with a surge of relief and start swimming back.
Dad’s beaming. We’ve done it. I help him up the incline, through the shore break, hesitating at the onset of each small swell. We make it back to our towels.
That afternoon, he shares stories I never knew – the impact of the second world war on his family’s quiet lives in Nedlands, Western Australia, rowdy uni days, a boisterous share house in London, my parents’ courtship.
“It’s been a good day,” Dad declares before bed.
The next day, we are meeting his oldest friend Bruce for breakfast – another sweet pleasure, when so many of his mates are dropping off the perch. Dad suggests we go back via the beach. “Let’s bring our swimmers.”
