*
Not wanting to bring attention to herself, Sarah sat at the back of the chapel. She listened to the eulogies, the Ashleigh they spoke about was bright and spirited. A little wild and prone to taking risks, but no one said that directly. Over all, you’d think, if you listened to the stories they told that she was a good kid – kind, considerate but then, in Sarah’s experience – and she had been to her share of funerals now – people didn’t speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead were young.
When Ashleigh’s grandfather said something about friendship the woman sitting behind Sarah gasped. Not even the celebrant had mentioned Jo directly; he spoke about love and forgiveness, about tragedy. He talked about the risky nature of youth and …show more content…
Even, Jane, noisy, boisterous, uncontainable adolescent, turned into a flat silent little girl. Rae cried, sobbed, paced, but refused to sit; refused to be comforted, would not eat, would not be touched, pushed her sisters, her parents, even Alex away. Alex raged. Banging his fist on the tables, throwing things across rooms. He cleared the whole of the vegetable garden pulling out plants that had not yet matured. Soon all that was left was a lemon tree pruned to a stump and the empty hill hoist spinning in the wind.
‘He is like a bear in a cage,’ Gary, Rae’s father, said to Antonello, as the two men stood on the veranda, looking over the back garden, watching as Alex stuffed the green waste into the bin, pressing down with his hands first and then climbing into the bin and stomping and stamping on the broken twigs and branches, on the leaves and grasses, like his ancestors once stamped on grapes to make wine.
There had been no contact with Jo or her mother. No card. No apology. Antonello considered going to Jo’s house and knocking on her door. But he doubted an apology would make any difference. Would it make any difference to anyone? Dead is dead. What is done is …show more content…
If the companies had coming knocking on their doors and begged for forgiveness would it have made any difference? The Royal Commission went on for six long excruciating months. Their report clearly blamed the companies for their failure to take care. To take care. The Royal Commission’s report, all 8000 pages, had not made a difference to him. Not to Sandy. Not to the other widows and orphans. The 35 men stayed dead. In some ways the Commission’s pronouncement: Error begat error, was for Antonello a trivializing of the collapse. The companies hadn’t paid enough attention, given enough thought, and lives, workers lives had been lost. Working class men, most of them, like the ones they sent to Vietnam, to Gallipoli, dispensable. But that was past, dealt with, now it was time to move forward, and the bridge could be finished. Events moved with all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy Antonello remembered reading those words, a Greek tragedy? May be life was a Greek tragedy; the ending was not going to be happy, humans beings, a sport for the Gods. Would it have mattered if the companies, the company directors had been apologetic? If they had been remorseful? If they had come to the funerals and begged the widows, the parents, the children for forgiveness? If they had offered to look after the families? Kept the survivors on the payroll instead of sacking them within days of the collapse,
Not wanting to bring attention to herself, Sarah sat at the back of the chapel. She listened to the eulogies, the Ashleigh they spoke about was bright and spirited. A little wild and prone to taking risks, but no one said that directly. Over all, you’d think, if you listened to the stories they told that she was a good kid – kind, considerate but then, in Sarah’s experience – and she had been to her share of funerals now – people didn’t speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead were young.
When Ashleigh’s grandfather said something about friendship the woman sitting behind Sarah gasped. Not even the celebrant had mentioned Jo directly; he spoke about love and forgiveness, about tragedy. He talked about the risky nature of youth and …show more content…
Even, Jane, noisy, boisterous, uncontainable adolescent, turned into a flat silent little girl. Rae cried, sobbed, paced, but refused to sit; refused to be comforted, would not eat, would not be touched, pushed her sisters, her parents, even Alex away. Alex raged. Banging his fist on the tables, throwing things across rooms. He cleared the whole of the vegetable garden pulling out plants that had not yet matured. Soon all that was left was a lemon tree pruned to a stump and the empty hill hoist spinning in the wind.
‘He is like a bear in a cage,’ Gary, Rae’s father, said to Antonello, as the two men stood on the veranda, looking over the back garden, watching as Alex stuffed the green waste into the bin, pressing down with his hands first and then climbing into the bin and stomping and stamping on the broken twigs and branches, on the leaves and grasses, like his ancestors once stamped on grapes to make wine.
There had been no contact with Jo or her mother. No card. No apology. Antonello considered going to Jo’s house and knocking on her door. But he doubted an apology would make any difference. Would it make any difference to anyone? Dead is dead. What is done is …show more content…
If the companies had coming knocking on their doors and begged for forgiveness would it have made any difference? The Royal Commission went on for six long excruciating months. Their report clearly blamed the companies for their failure to take care. To take care. The Royal Commission’s report, all 8000 pages, had not made a difference to him. Not to Sandy. Not to the other widows and orphans. The 35 men stayed dead. In some ways the Commission’s pronouncement: Error begat error, was for Antonello a trivializing of the collapse. The companies hadn’t paid enough attention, given enough thought, and lives, workers lives had been lost. Working class men, most of them, like the ones they sent to Vietnam, to Gallipoli, dispensable. But that was past, dealt with, now it was time to move forward, and the bridge could be finished. Events moved with all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy Antonello remembered reading those words, a Greek tragedy? May be life was a Greek tragedy; the ending was not going to be happy, humans beings, a sport for the Gods. Would it have mattered if the companies, the company directors had been apologetic? If they had been remorseful? If they had come to the funerals and begged the widows, the parents, the children for forgiveness? If they had offered to look after the families? Kept the survivors on the payroll instead of sacking them within days of the collapse,