Amelia Fielden

Never on Sunday

One morning in my retirement apartment, I caught the melody of a bouzouki playing on the radio the theme song from that movie. A very long time ago, on a Tuesday, Dad took me to see it. We were both away from home, in the big city.

Dad was there on business, while I was on vacation from university. Meeting in the central square after work, we walked to a newly-opened Dutch restaurant he favoured, The Tulips. I was nineteen. The first time for just the two of us to dine out. We shared an elaborate rijsttafel of Indonesian dishes, delicious, and so exotic. He had not yet been overseas, but Dad was a keen armchair traveller. We talked about Holland, Indonesia, Greece, Japan … all the foreign countries on the horizon of my future.  After coffee, a short stroll to the cinema.

how suave
my charcoal-suited father
with his daughter,
hair in a French roll, and
wearing scarlet high heels  

Black and white movie magic: Melina Mercouri, spirited and convincing, as a Greek prostitute in the port of Piraeus. Out on the street again, with the bouzouki rhythm in my ears, I was kissed and put in a taxi to my lodgings.

I wonder
whether my father too
still remembered
our 'Never On Sunday' date
when he was eighty one

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Note: Title taken from the 1960 film Never on Sunday, directed by Jules Dassin.

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About the Author

Amelia Fielden is Australian. She is a professional Japanese translator and a keen writer of traditional Japanese forms of poetry in English. Her most recent collection is These Purple Years (Ginninderra Press, 2018).

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