Christopher Pearson remembered
September, 2013
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Medium length read1700 wordsAn elegy to the much-loved (and much-reviled) conservative columnist.
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It was my birthday, and I was eating cake with my children, when my father arrived.
“It’s Pop! How are you?”
“Not so good actually.” He loitered at the door, away from the children. “I’ve just certified Christopher’s death. He didn’t turn up for Mass this morning. They found him in his bed.”
For some years, Christopher Pearson had warned me that his end was nigh, but I had not believed him. Self-pity never did anyone any good, but I suspect we only have a handful of proper conversations remaining. Lately, he had said that he hoped I knew he loved me. Did I love him? Christopher was a complicated pleasure. But now I made my father a cup of tea with shaking hands. “All that richness, gone,” he said.
I had known Christopher since childhood, when my father began writing for him at the Adelaide Review. The early launch parties in Hindley Street soon gave way to a Gatsbyish fabulousness: Grange Jetty, roped off for private fireworks; the heritage-listed Carclew House with the then-new Australian String Quartet; or – my favourite – the historic Carrick Hill, with a hot-air balloon tethered out the back, like a large captive animal. We arrived late, just as the basket bumped down to earth for the final time. But the Goldsworthy children! Christopher called out. The Goldsworthy children must have a turn! And so we were ushered through the crowd and into the basket: the furnace of hot air against the backs of our necks; the noise of the party receding; the sudden, awkward celebrity. And there was Christopher, king of Adelaide, beaming pinkly up at us.
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