Saturday, 30 August 2014

For Liam

I wrote this post just a few days after learning of the MH17 disaster last month and the tragic death of Liam Davison. I didn’t post it then. I’m not sure why, but I thought it belonged here now.


With Liam Davison at the Eastern Regional Libraries Writing Awards
The whole world has had the breath knocked out of its lungs, stopping dead in the street to gape at an iPhone screen, leaving the TV on in the next room during the washing up, and I have been in Ballarat.

Bloody Ballarat.

I both love and hate travelling for work. Last week, while the people were kind, the internet was not. Facebook half loaded a status about “some bastard who shot down a commercial–“ and then promptly dissolved into white space. Given I was being slow cooked under the bright lights of Wendouree shopping centre at the time, with advertisements flashing by on screens, on walls and from between the lips of one throaty sales woman with a microphone, I was probably less concerned than I should have been.

It was my mother’s voice on the phone Friday afternoon that finally tipped me off. It was thick and wobbly.

On the drive back to Melbourne in that cramped rental car, I checked the ABC website. I went on The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. I googled the new phrase MH17 furiously, before I really understood what it meant. I told my colleagues everything I could. We sat in the dark on the Monash highway for thirty minutes, watching videos, reading articles, taking it in.

It is a strange thing coming late to tragedy; seeing the political responses already circulating, the information having been mostly glued together by now, the commentators encamped on their respective sides. But, it wasn’t until I was back home and hunched over the heater Saturday night that I saw a familiar face flash by on the six pm news. Australian author, Liam Davison, had been travelling back from the Netherlands with his wife, Frankie, when their plane was shot down over Ukraine. 

He was among the 298 MH17 dead.

I met Liam as an eleven year old. He was, of course, somewhat older, already an award winner, and so tall I had to crane my head until my neck clicked. We were at the awards ceremony for the Eastern Regional Libraries state writing competition, standing under bright lights holding bad sandwiches. As the judge that year, Liam was obliged not to comment on the ratio of cheese to cucumber and had awarded me the junior prize. There was sherry and bookshelves to hide behind; John Wood came down from rehearsing a play to present the awards. At school the next morning, I told everyone it had been Brad Pitt handing me that prize cheque. One girl asked to examine it for fingerprints.

So, while my dad giggled away into his sherry glass and my sister cooed over John Wood, Liam pulled me aside for over an hour to discuss my writing. I don’t remember all of what he said to me that night. I was eleven after all and we were close to a shiny new display of Jackie French books. What I do remember has survived as a kind of mantra, something I half reach for when I’m in doubt or I don’t know what comes next. Liam frowned a lot when he spoke, even when laughing. He was the first person to tell me I could do the thing I love every day, and keep on doing it, until I got a wrist cramp or my electricity was cut off. He was generous like that.

Now, gearing up for the Bendigo Writers Festival next week, I can’t stop thinking of that night and wondering if something began there, a lit fuse in my head. I can’t stop thinking of Liam. 

I know I am only just setting out on the journey he dedicated his life to – this business of writing. I know I have a lot more yet to scribble down and chop up and type and print and bin, mostly in that order. But, when I saw his face on that 6 pm news bulletin, I made a promise to him never to stop. From here on out, I will write knowing that time is short and stories are quick; they will flash like lightning across the page if you let them loose, and I want to spend my life, as Liam did, chasing them down.

So, to the man who lit that fuse, I say thank you. I will try to honour you as best I can, with every story I catch from this day on.

R.I.P Liam and Frankie
My thoughts are with your families.

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