9 - The word

Summary

On Meg's step one day

Rosy to Carmella: You are a good talker. If you listen to others they can't do that, but you are good at it.

Carmella: I come from a family like that where people talked.

Jed is a man who lives on the trunk road, and when the weather is good he sits outside the front of his house behind a little railing watching life go by. Rosy has gotten to know him over years, and she stops to chat with him on our daily route as we pass the house. His health is not good, and Rosy says that he is not looking after himself as he should. In the block one day Rosy discovers that he has died and after getting the funeral details on RIP. ie, Charlie, Rosy and myself attend the funeral mass a few days later in a city centre church. The church is one of the more opulent in the city and sits almost concealed among the wealth and high-end branded consumption stores that surround it. Charlie sits away from us near the door, as he says he has things to do and must leave before the end. Rosy looks at the people around her and says almost to herself, “There are lots of nice people here today.” She repeats the same phrase again a few moments later. She is out of her locale and feels a difference between herself and other the people in the church. She will later say to Steph, “They were all wealthy at the funeral.” The priest talks about Jed's life and then tells a story about Jesus and informs the assembled congregation, “Do you know that Jesus had a nickname?” No one answers or is expected to answer. Those present are a bit puzzled. He provides the answer from the altar and says, “His nickname was ‘The Word’.” After the service we leave the church and head to get the bus back to Bridgetown in the pouring rain.

The word has its own existence in the profane day-to-day life in the Bridgetown Estate. The discursive rhythm and texture that infuses and animates the lives of the people in the group is an important theme in its own right. Language is substance, in that it has potency in both its presence and its absence.