Free Dreams of Speaking by Gail Jones

out their posturing antipathies by bombing the shit out of people they can’t see. And that it will go on for years and years, with poor and powerless people invisibly suffering. Michael and I have joined an anti-war group, but it’s looking inevitable. The government here are slavish appeasers; they want the approval of Uncle Sam at any price.
    The other upsetting issue at the moment is the treatment of refugees. Bloody ‘border protection’, is what they’re calling it. The detention centres are nightmarish and there are still children in there, held behind razor wire. We are lobbying for the release of the children – since neither party, as you know, will close down the centres – but getting nowhere fast. I’d planned to go on a trip to the desert, to visit one of the centres, but have had to cancel for other reasons. So Michael and I send phone cards and toys, but we’re not sure if anything we send is actually given to the inmates. Australia distresses me, this barricade mentality, this fear of the ‘illegal’ refugees, this rightist neonationalism. Perhaps you’re sensible to be away, overseas, thinking of other things.
    I saw Stephen last week, for a cup of coffee. He is still in love with you, and in a bit of a mess, frankly, but seems to have made progress in getting to know his mother – who has cancer, by the way, as half the world seems to have. He said she has spoken to him of her childhood in an orphanage in England, how she was ‘shipped out’ to Australia with fantasy promises, how she met his father in a pub somewhere, playing the fiddle. Stephen seems pleased that she’s talking but says it’s because she’s dying. I told him not everyone whohas cancer dies of it. He has picked up some part-time university teaching, and says he will stay at least six months, then consider his options. He’d love to hear from you, if you’re inclined to write.
    Michael and the children are fine. Michael has a job on a community housing project in the northern suburbs, which takes up all of his time. But he seems pleased to be working in the public sector again and is finally believing that architecture is a worthwhile profession. David is still not talking much (unlike Helen, who chatters incessantly), but seems cheerful enough and is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. Helen is actually taller than her brother, and strangers always assume she’s the older child. She has a tendency to throw objects when she becomes frustrated, and at the moment David has a nasty cut on his temple from a hurtled block. I still love it when they’re asleep – this sounds terrible, I know – but they are so beautiful and at peace (and quiet!) and I have time to read or paint. Mum’s been over a bit lately, helping out. She and Dad ask me to remind you to write more often. Both are doing as well as can be expected after the operation. Dad moves more slowly now, but is otherwise recovered and back to his gardening.
    As to the whale, why do you assume, Alice, that you’re the only one ever to remember these things? Of course I remember it. We were in trouble for wandering off, but still felt elated at our discovery. I too remember how we stood in the skeleton shapes and felt the mystery of it, and the charm, and realised that we’d stumbled upon something marvellous. The spinal bone was left behind when we returned to the city. Dad tried to fit it in the car, but it was just too large, and toooddly shaped. So we left it at the front door of the shack, festooned with dried seaweed and decorated with pretty shells. It may still be there, for all I know. Or someone may have claimed it, or sold it, or taken it for a garden. We weren’t always fighting, were we? There were these occasions of joint experience and pleasure.
    How is your work going? I have none to speak of – apart from mothering – but am optimistic I will return one