by Tracy Farr
The rooms are filled with the boy’s discarded things – a high chair, a cot, a mattress; bags of baby clothes and nappies; cloth books, rattles, hanging gewgaws, a device with straps for jumping in doorways, a bouncinette, a baby bath. They bring things here from the city, keep them at this house, shut them away in a shed or a sleep-out when they are not yet ready to throw them out. There is room here to store, to stockpile (to keep things for if only, and what if).
At night, in the Cassetown house, I often lie awake. Sometimes when I cannot sleep, I stand on the lawn at the back of the house, where I can hear the waves, though I cannot see them. I hear, not so much the water, but what’s in the water: rocks rolling, stone tumbling on stone. I feel the grass between my toes. I smell salt in the air. I look to the dark windows of the house, empty and quiet.
In the daytime I walk to the bay, and photograph the heaviest stones, boulders that rest on the beach, that the water can no longer move. This one is flat, like a bed, or a table, marked out with cracks, its surface seamed with milky quartz. I fill the camera’s eye with rock, so I cannot see its edges, cannot tell size, or scale.
I pick up smaller stones and slip them into my pockets (I forget about them until I find them at night, when I slip my clothes off and feel their pellet-hardness), tiny reminders of the earth, the action of water.
I do not swim; even on the warmest days I keep to the land, keep even my feet dry. I think of the long-ago geologist, Casse, who drowned, foundering on the rocks, gave this bay its name. When I focus my camera on the water, I find it difficult to frame.
78. Twenty-one years ago
Dust me grey and call me granny. The child is born. Iris has had a boy.
They have yet to name him. He is healthy, big and bonny. He looks like his father; but don’t all babies? Isn’t that nature’s bid to stop the father from running away, to bond them to the miniature portraits of self? He has his father’s long body, long fingers; he has his mother’s dark hair and eyes, that she has from her father. He is beautiful, so very beautiful, as not all babies are.
Iris is looking shattered, poor thing. Broken blood vessels in her skin; even her eyes are red like those of a devil goat.
Paul is ecstatic. The whole noisy Diamond clan has gathered at the hospital (of course). Martina has brought bubbly (of course) and a man I haven’t seen before. Jacko is loud. Alba fusses.
Martina tries to give me a glass, but my hands are full, taken up with my camera. I prowl the room, try to capture it all: the sparkling Diamonds, Iris’s exhaustion (she waves me away with a tired hand, but I catch her anyway). And the mannikin, the beautiful boy: I focus my camera on him, of course, on that new skin, those precious hands, those long lashes. I touch the shutter release gently. He opens his eyes at the sound of it, and fixes his gaze on me. I lower the camera, and greet him.
Hello, my boy. Hello. I am Rosa.
He lifts his chin at me, closes his eyes again.
Iris says: I wish Dad was here.
She means Frank. Dear old Frank.
77. Twenty-two years ago
Postcard from Thailand
Dear Mum,
We should be home before you get this postcard, but I’ll send it anyway. It’s so weird travelling when I’m pregnant – it seems the world is full of pregnant women, and women with babies, and I have never noticed it, until now.
People keep smiling at me, touching me. All very strange. Paul’s gone into protective husband mode, which is hilarious.
I hope all our stuff arrives safely. It was sad to leave Norwich after three years there – fun times – but so good to pack up knowing that the next time we see our stuff, it’ll be back home.
See you soon,
Love
I + P
xxx
76. Twenty-five years ago
Postcard from London
Dear Mum,
A blast from your past – Waterloo Bridge at sunset – you must remember this from when you lived in London before I was born?
A friend of mine from uni – you know, the one I told you about who moved back here? – suggested we meet here, in the middle of the bridge. It’s beautiful, all the people walking everywhere (so different from home, where everyone’s in cars), people crossing the bridge, all dressed in overcoats with umbrellas and briefcases.
Have you ever seen Waterloo Bridge, the film with Vivienne Leigh? Full of missed notes, lost opportunities, sad tokens of love.
It’s good to be back in London after travelling around for so many months. We head to Norwich next, in time for Paul to start at the beginning of the new term. My first job’s to look for somewhere to live!
Love
Iris and Paul
75. Twenty-five years ago
Postcard from Istanbul
Hi Mum,
Travelling is crazy. We’ve been so out of touch. It was good to talk to you from Athens. It’s hard to sort the phones out. Crazy. Thanks for sending the mail, we picked it up from poste restante, no problems.
We’ve been so cut off from news that we didn’t find out that the Berlin Wall had fallen until nearly a month afterwards. And same with that thing in Peking, the Tyanamin (sp.?) Square thing. Awful to think these things can go on, and we don’t know anything about them. Especially the Berlin thing – we were on the same continent!
You might not hear from us again until we get back to the UK. You can send any mail on to my friend’s address in London – or maybe better straight to the university in Norwich? Make sure you send it in Paul’s name, not mine.
Call you when we’re settled.
Love
Iris
74. Twenty-six years ago
I spend the weekend with Paul and Iris at the house that they have bought. They’re so pleased with themselves, but it’s a funny place in the middle of nowhere. An old farmhouse, I suppose, it’s a dark and rickety place, the original house all added to with annexes and sleep-outs and louvred-in verandahs; doors that lead nowhere, windows not to the exterior, but to other rooms. There are overgrown paddocks around it, some bush; it is close to the road, and to an old schoolhouse that is falling down; to a horse stud across the road, all new white fences and big money (the only big money in the vicinity, unless you head closer to the wineries). It’s an odd place to buy a house, and I see the Diamond clan at work in this. Paul’s family used to holiday near here, every summer, and it’s always drawn them, he says.
And at least it’s near the sea. We walk there, Paul and Iris and I, out the side gate, across a paddock, follow the river and there we are, at Little Casse Bay. It’s full of stones and sound and water, not a sandy beach to draw the crowds, the surfers. The beach curves around and out to a disappearing point. It could feel like a lonely place, if you were that way inclined.
That’s Point Geologue. Named for the French ship, Paul says as we walk.
It’s interesting, actually, a double dose of geology, he says. There was a guy, a geologist sailing with one of the early French explorers, on a ship called Géologue, and he jumped ship hereabouts. Presumed drowned, but they never found a body. There’ve been stories through the years that he survived – went bush, went native, walked all the way to the city, even though the city wasn’t settled when he disappeared. One of those stories that pops up every so often. Or someone writes a book about it, some new theory. This place is named after him.
You mean Point Geologue?
I turn my camera towards them, focus as they walk.
Well, he was a geologist, Paul says, but technically the point was named after the ship. His name was Casse; the bay was named for him, Little Casse Bay. And the town. Cassetown. Not that there’s much of a town here now, but there was at one stage. Then people moved – better land, I guess. It’s cheap now, but if we hold onto it for a few years …well, it won’t be a bad investment.
Paul and I think we might move here eventually, Mum. Not for ages – we want to travel first, you know, work overseas, well, we have to really, once Paul’s finish
ed his PhD, and there are so many things we want to do – but Jacko reckons this is a good investment. We might plant a vineyard. Or maybe just sell off the land, keep the house. Somewhere to retire early to.
The sound of the waves in the bay is vast and deep and rolling. The waves move the stones, and the sound of it is smoothly deafening. I imagine stone wearing, surface against surface, millimetre by millimetre, invisible layers, turning to sand.
73. Twenty-seven years ago
Postcard from Tioman Island
Dear Mum,
This is pretty much the view from our room. Not a traditional bridal suite – we didn’t want that – but we are right on the beach, and it’s beautiful.
You were right: everyone from the airport check-in to immigration to the hotel bar has made some sort of variation of a joke about newlyweds, Golden, Diamond, and rings. At least my decision to keep my name is less jokeworthy than if we’ d hyphenated.
Have you developed the photos yet? Can’t wait to see them. Thanks for being wedding photographer and Mother of the Bride! It was a lovely wedding. I only wish Dad could’ve been there, too.
Love from us,
Mr & Mrs Golden-Diamond (I don’t think so!)
72. Twenty-eight years ago
Now that Iris has moved in with her chap (Golden and Diamond, under one roof) I will have the house to myself. How strange that will feel. Strange for Iris, too, who has grown up in this house. Frank’s house. Our house.
It’s all been very quick. Oh, he is pleasant enough, this Paul Diamond. He and his family come as a package (a loud and overwhelming package): the loud twin sister, Martina; the jovial father (‘everyone calls me Jacko – Jacko Diamond, geddit?’) and the quiet mother, Alba. They are in and out of Paul’s house (Paul and Iris’s house). And now Iris is part of that Diamond family package. Not my cup of tea, but there you go. As long as she is happy.
71. Thirty years ago
A door has closed, a chapter ended. I handed over the keys to the photographic studio on the first of this month and by the following week the old sign was taken down, a new one hoisted up in its place. Fortune Photographics, that once was Golden Photographic Studio, is no more.
I retire with a tidy nest-egg from sale of the business. How nice not to have to worry about money! I could have got the pension ten years ago. But it would’ve seemed wrong, with Iris still at school. It’s only now that the time feels right to make the move. Iris has settled into her job. The museum has given her leave to study part-time; she starts classes soon. Finally she is finding her way, her place.
I had thought, at one time, that Iris might take over the studio. When she worked here with me for so long (was it seven years? More?) after she finished school. But this is better: that she finds her own way, moves on from Fortune, that once was Golden.
What will I do? That’s what everyone asks me. I can say in truth that I will do as I please, and please my damned self. What joy there is in a life like that!
70. Thirty-two years ago
Iris has a job (working for someone other than me)!
She will catalogue collections at the museum, process loans, photograph specimens. They have taken her on, she says, because of the experience she has from here, working in the studio. So it has been for some good.
Of course, I will miss her. I have become used to her presence these past years. I’ve become used to her help, I’ll admit it. But she needs to make her way in the world, not linger here with me all day, at home with me all night.
69. Thirty-nine years ago
It is odd having Iris here each day with me, in the studio.
She’s useful, so far. It’s just for the summer, she says. Until she’s decided what to do.
She is – what? – a little shiftless? No interest in travelling, or anything much other than just filling time. Or perhaps she simply doesn’t tell me.
I get her to do the dirty work. Well, why not? She mixes developer, stop and fixer; cleans the tanks; disposes of the waste. She does the heavy work. She’s young, strong. And she can learn the business. Who knows, maybe one day she’ll take it over. Frank would have liked that. Dear Frank.
68. Forty years ago
From a 1974 report in the Geological Bulletin, sent to Rosa Golden
MEXICAN QUAKE ONE YEAR ON – COUNTING THE GEOLOGICAL COST
The tragic loss of life in last year’s Veracruz earthquake is high, but the real number affected may never be accurately known. Though the confirmed death toll is in the hundreds, many hundreds more are still listed as missing, presumed dead, after the Mexican earthquake last August that registered 7.0 on the Richter scale.
Among those missing is renowned geologist Dr Zigmund Silbermann, 38, who was leading a geological survey in the region when the quake struck. The field camp established by Dr Silbermann and his team was swept away during heavy rain in the aftermath of the quake. Dr Silbermann is presumed drowned.
Colleagues of Dr Silbermann’s will recall his great zest for life. He was known by students and colleagues for his lively lecture style and, beyond his scientific work, for his love of music, poetry, and cycling. A memorial service is being planned in Dr Silbermann’s home city, though he will be sadly missed around the globe, through fieldwork that took him to most of the world’s continents.
67. Forty-one years ago
Unaddressed letter, found at Silbermann field site, Mexico
[Illegible] August, 1973
My darling Rosa,
I write to you from the land. I lie here in the middle of my map, not yet made, in the midst of making. The land lies beneath me, stretches out around me, ready to be translated, though mine is just one translation of many possible. They will tell you, geologists will, that instruments measure the realities of the land, its now and its has-been, its present and past; that these are fixed points, true, factual, measurable. But mapping the land is – I know this – like translating from one language to another. There are many possible translations; here is the translation I choose, now, today. Here is my understanding. This – this translation, this understanding – this is where my art resides.
I have more words than my maps can hold. The words pour off the map, out of my notebook. My notebook cannot hold them. The words make poems instead. Each poem’s shape maps the page, a cartography of words, as visual as the land, shape predetermined, integral.
I mutter my map as I annotate it, performing it to the canopy of this tent: doubt, slip, no doubt.
Every question mark on this map holds a [illegible] of meaning, signifies –
[The remainder of the letter is missing]
66. Forty-one years ago
Letter from Mexico City
1st August, 1973
Dearest Rosa,
This, scribbled quickly: I have arrived in Mexico, and head into the field tomorrow. Our timing is terrible – the onset of the rainy season – but that cannot be helped. The local team is good. We will take 6 weeks for the survey, then I fly to you, and Iris, in Australia.
Until then, know that my heart is yours, beating rock-steady, my own love.
Zigi
65. Forty-three years ago
From a geological report
Zigmund Silbermann, ‘The Hope Fault: A Strike Slip Fault in New Zealand’, NZGS Bulletin, Wellington, 1971 (MS completed 1969)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was carried out during a period of sabbatical leave in 1968, as a special project of the New Zealand Geological Survey. I am grateful to the NZGS Directorate for approving and arranging this research project. For valuable help in the field and with draughting and photography I thank Mr R. Hawkes, Mr A. McKenzie, Mr W.B. Christie and Mr A. Courtney. I am grateful to Rosa Golden for typing the manuscript, and helping in other ways.
64. Forty-three years ago
From a geological report
CHAPTER 1. THE SHAPE OF THE HOPE FAULT
The Hope Fault is recognisable as a clear single trace, branching into a series
of discontinuous fault traces. The most obvious of these runs along the foot of the seaward Kaikoura Range. This trace is intermittent, and does not reach the sea.
In detail, the most common shape of the fault trace is an arc concave to the north. The strike of the fault changes gradually along each arc, then swings back abruptly where the arcs join one another. Other reports have described the fault differently, for example as echelon segments, or consecutive arcs. The shape of the fault may be visualised in different ways, depending on the observer.
63. Forty-three years ago
From a geological report
INTRODUCTION. A HISTORICAL NOTE
The earliest published reference to a strike slip fault can be found in the Bible:
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. Zechariah 14:4
Apart from this biblical reference, the Hope Fault is, we believe, the first strike slip fault reported in the literature.
62. Forty-three years ago
From a book of poems
Zigi, The Hope Fault, Hissing Swan Poetry Collective, London, 1971
THE HOPE FAULT
Fault leaves a clear trace.
It is intermittent and
does not reach the sea.
61. Forty-three years ago