Fragments and Regret

Just got back to Sydney, everything still moving after driving and driving and driving. Left here last Sunday at 11am and arrived at the farm at 10pm. Left there yesterday - Wednesday - about midday and decided to go via the farm at Tambar Springs. The most common thing anyone ever asks about Tambar is "where is it?" Halfway between Gunnedah and Coonabarabran I say; which leaves them none the wiseer; so I've started saying two hours directly north of Mudgee, which gives them a better notion.

It was freezing cold; not quite a frost hollow where it's set; but getting close, past the wintery country of Kandos and the other side of the mountains; but nonetheless freezing at this time of the year. It's the rural poor; there's been no money in the area for generations; half the town is alcoholic and the other half delinquent; and they bad mouth each other at the any opportunity; telling you how they don't mix with anyone else in the town - population 103 according to the sign, which they all reckon is an exaggeration - and the leaves that we dissembled; the good times that we sought; the crowds and frustration that kept moving in; these were the times that we ached to join.

It was cruel; all that had gone before; and I found myself; on that property I'd known for 40 years; since the old man bought it in the 60s and we used to drive up there all the time; him working working working; never stopping; always angry, I a great disappointment to him; possibly even gay, God forbid, I was so different. I read books, for a start, which no one else in the family ever did; and flapped my hands around when I wanted to express myself. And played the piano in the house while he banged on angrily in the shed; building things I had no interest in; tormented with bile that I could never understand.

None of us from the first family were on speaking terms with him when my youngest half brother suicided two years ago. I was the only one that rang and said: I'm sorry to hear that. And he, though he didn't exactly cry; was appreciative in a way that I would never have imagined possible; and I went to the funeral; and he welcomed us in all the distress and the sorrow of a 15-year-old who had taken himself out into the orchard and shot hismelf for no real good reason. He'd told all his friends on line he was going to do it; and not one of them wanted to betray a trust and not one of them told their parents. And at 2am he went out into that orchard behind the house and shot himself.

And they live on there, still, two years later now. With his picture and the words from Isaiah, the gift of grieving, the oil of mourning, the spirit of heaviness; the beauty in irreproachable sadness; for his face; that half-formed adult; follows you around the room. And I thought, these school holidays; not sure why, we've got to get up to see him. Only Henrietta ane me went. There was no room for anyone else. Sammy is at a winter camp at the University of NSW; looking at medicine as a profession; and avenue I dearly hope opens up for him; and we sat, with the sun coming through the windows in the morning; and I keep saying, I'll wake Henrietta up; squirming, I admit, with the awkwardness of talking to my own father; it's easier via email and jocularity; blokey stuff; but here, close; it's difficult. And he kept saying no, no, don't do that; let the girls sleep - including his argumentative wife.

And through all the things that were broached; it came up; when I was asked to the wedding of his eldest son; tentatively; a complex thing for which clearly hours of thought had gone into; and I breezily said, sure, I don't mind flying the flag for the first family; the other two aren't doing a great job right now. They didn't even call after the "Andrew thing" he said. And I said, I know, I told them they should; it doesn't matter what has gone on, it doesn't matter whether or not they approved of your wedding to Wendy, who was so young - well baby sat basically by my mother when they met; she still in school uniform; and even when they married, when she was 20 or so, younger than me, and very young looking; nothing matters, life is short; it doesn't matter whether he was the dad we wanted or a brutal bastard when we were growing up; life is short and a phone call wouldn't hurt. You wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy - the suicide of a son. And he misted up and we skidded off topic, desperate to avoid the emotion.

And the day dissolved into walks through the orchard, picking oranges off the trees to squeeze, the macadamia harvest in swing; the sound of the tractor amongst the trees; the looming state forest next door; the giant trees; the beauty of the place.

He's not getting thinner, his belly bulging; he's already had one heart attack, and clearly his own mortality is beginning to play; those words, that face, following him through his every day; the purposeful reproach of the grieving mother. And I'd have to say; though a voice kept ringing in my head "No Good Will Come Of It"; that I'm glad we went. It had to be done. You have to reach rappproachment at the end of life; there has to be some sort of conciliation; or it's you, not them, that carries all the anger and grief and bitterness to the grave. We shook hands before driving off; the sun was out; he gave Henrietta $50 to charge up her phone; the ultimate gift for a teenage girl; and the sadness that had scarred so much of the last few years, "the Andrew thing", dropped away. For a second, as we pottered off in our old bomb, they almost looked happy. No doubt the cold, the silence of the orchard, has settled back around them; they've squabbled pointlessly once again over nothing and he's retreated; defeated; sad now; disappointed in all that was life. But at least we went. We did the right thing.

THE BIGGER STORY:
aljazeera.net


US Congress to debate Iraq conflict


The White House admitted unhappiness over the war had become the 'central fact' of US politics [AFP]

The US Congress is set to launch a fresh attempt to wrest control of the Iraq war from George Bush, the US president.

Democratic leaders have predicted they will pass a bill requiring the start of US combat troop withdrawals within four months and completion by April 1, 2008.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are set to debate the conflict.

The debates come as the Bush administration pepares to deliver an interim report on its troop "surge" strategy to Congress, as it struggles to contain the Republican revolt on Iraq.


The House is expected to debate the removal of troops from Iraq all day on Thursday, before voting on the measure.
A redeployment would begin within 120 days and the president would be forced to report to Congress on why soldiers should stay in Iraq for "limited purposes".

Troop redeployment

A similar bill is also being debated in the Senate, but both approaches mirror earlier Democratic attempts to end the war which Bush vetoed.

Although Republican discontent is growing over Iraq, it is not clear if the Democrats have drawn enough former allies of Bush to clear the 60-vote hurdle in the 100-seat Senate which is needed for success.

Meanwhile, it is unclear what the much-anticipated Bush administration report on its so-called troop "surge" strategy will reveal.
ABC News, the US television channel, said the Bush administration would tell Congress that the Iraqi government merited "satisfactory" grades on eight of 18 benchmarks for political and military progress.

That conflicted with reports earlier in the week that Iraq would fail every single test in the report, which will set the table for a more definitive judgement on the "surge strategy" awaited in September.