Dad spent one night in hospital. The pressure was on to buy flowers even though I knew he wouldn’t appreciate them. Flora always seemed to me a non sequitur of a present for someone in pain anyway (how about a flagon of morphine?), but I found a couple of huge sunflowers. He didn’t appreciate them. I didn’t care. The important thing was that the operation was a success. The doctor was very pleased, he said. That’s a tip for you: never bother asking after the patient; it’s a waste of time. The important thing is to discover how the doctor is feeling. And Dad’s was on top of the world.

I was there when the bandages came off. To tell you the truth, the anticipation had built to such a level I was sort of expecting something on a grander scale: a colossal ear that doubled as a bottle-opener, or a time-traveling ear picking up conversations from the past, or a universal ear hearing for everyone alive, or a Pandora’s ear, or an ear with a tiny red light that showed when it was recording. Basically, an ear to end all ears. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was just a regular ear.

“Speak into it,” Dad said. I moved around to the side of the bed and leaned into the new arrival.

“Hello. Testing. Testing. Two. Two. Two.”

“Good. It works,” he said.

When he was released from hospital, he ventured out in the world eager to catch a glimpse of himself. The world provided. Dad lost the ability to walk in a straight line. A to B was now always via the side mirrors on passing cars, shop windows, and stainless-steel kettles. When you obsess about your appearance, you notice just how many reflective surfaces exist in the cosmos.

One night he came to the doorway of my room and stood there, breathing loudly.

“Feel like playing around with my camera?”

“Are you making porn?”

“Why would I be making porn?”

“That’s between you and your biographer.”

“I just want you to get a few snaps of my ear, for the album.”

“The ear album?”

“Forget it.” Dad made a beeline for the hall.

“Wait.”

I felt bad for him. Dad didn’t seem able to recognize himself. The outside of him may have been more presentable, but the inside shrank down a size. I felt there was something ominous in all this, as if by adding on a new ear, he’d actually broken off a fundamental part of himself.

Even after the plastic surgery, he worked every day. Once again there was no money. Once again our lives were unchanged.

I said, “OK. What are you doing with the money now?”

He said, “I’m saving again.”

I said, “Saving for what?”

He said, “It’s a surprise.”

I said, “The last surprise sucked.”

He said, “This one you’ll like.”

I said, “It better be worth it.”

It wasn’t. It was a car. A slick red sports car. When I went outside to look at it, he was standing beside it, patting it as if it had just done a trick. Honestly, I couldn’t have been more shocked if he had blown the money on political donations. My dad? A sports car? Pure lunacy! It wasn’t just frivolous, it was meticulously frivolous. Was it a distraction? Was he announcing his dissolution? Was it a surrender or a conquest? Which part of him was this meant to fix? One thing was clear: he was breaking his own taboos.

It was comical, the sight of him getting into that sports car, a 1979 MGB convertible. Then, strapped into his seat, he looked as apprehensive as the first astronaut.

Now I think it was a brave attempt, an ingenious act in total defiance of himself and the voices within him intent on categorizing him. Dad in that sports car was a man reinventing himself from the outside in. A rebirth doomed to miscarriage.

“Are you coming?”

“Where?”

“Let’s take her for a spin.”

I get in. I’m young. I’m not a machine. Of course I love the car. I fucking love it. But there’s something about it that just isn’t right, like if you walk in on your kindergarten teacher getting a lap dance.

“Why did you buy this?” I asked him.

“Why?” he repeated, picking up speed. He’s trying to leave himself behind in the dust, I thought, and on some level I could already hear the tendons and joints of his sanity split and tear. His job, his regular hours, his suit, his new ear, and now his car: he was creating unbearable tension between the selves. Something’s going to give, I thought, and it won’t be pretty.

II

Then it gave. It wasn’t pretty.

We were in a crowded Chinese restaurant and Dad was ordering lemon chicken.

“Anything else?” the waiter asked.

“Just some boiled rice and the check.”

Dad always liked to pay before he ate so the second he finished swallowing he could leave. There was something about sitting in a restaurant not eating that he just couldn’t stand. Impatience seized him like a fit. Unfortunately, some restaurants make you pay at the end no matter what. In those situations Dad stood next to the table to show that he no longer wanted anything to do with the table. Then he called for the bill as if he were pleading for mercy. Sometimes he’d carry his plate to the kitchen. Sometimes he’d wave money under the waiter’s nose. Sometimes he’d open the cash register, pay the bill, and give himself change. They hated that.

This night Dad had a table by the window and was staring out, his face set on “boredom incarnate.” I was there, but he was eating alone. I was on a hunger strike for some heroic cause I can’t remember now, but this was probably in the period we ate out eighty-seven nights in a row. Dad used to cook in the old days, but they were old, those days.

We both looked out onto the street because it required so much less effort than talking. Our car was out there, parked behind a white van, and beside it a couple were fighting as they walked. She was pulling his black ponytail and he was laughing. They came right up to the window and fought in front of us, as if they were putting on a show. It was a bold performance. The guy was bent over with a big grin on his face, trying to get her to let go of his hair. It looked painful, having your hair pulled like that, but he wouldn’t stop laughing. Of course, now that I’m older, I know why he had to keep laughing like that; I know he’d have kept on laughing even if she’d pulled his whole head off and dropped it in the gutter and pissed on it and set it on fire. Even with the sting of piss in his dying eyes, he’d have kept on chuckling, and I know why.

The lemon chicken arrived.

“Sure you don’t want any?” Dad asked, a taunting lift in his voice.

The smell of hot lemon made my stomach and my head mortal enemies. Dad threw me a look that was smug and victorious and I gave him one back that was conceited and triumphant. After a grueling five seconds, we both turned our heads quickly to the window, as if for air.

On the street, the fight was in intermission. The girl was sitting on the bonnet of a black Valiant; the guy was standing beside her, smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t see her hands because she had them bunched up under her arms, but I imagined they were clutching pieces of his scalp. Then I heard scraping metal. There was a figure in the background, behind the couple, someone in a red parka, hunched over Dad’s car. The red parka moved alongside the car slowly. It was hard to tell exactly what he was doing, but it seemed that he was scratching the paint off with a key.

“Hey, look!” I shouted, and pointed out the scene to Dad, but his lanky body was already up, running for the door. I leapt out of my chair and followed his trail. This was to be my first chase scene through the streets of Sydney. There have been others over the years, and I’m not always the one in pursuit, but this was the first, so it remains special in my memory.