Editorial
Intimations
by Finlay Macdonald
It was one of those juxtapositions that, were you to encounter it in fiction, would ring decidedly untrue. On the front page of the same newspaper on the same day, the deaths of two very different men are reported. One is a very wealthy and admired businessman, the other a homeless eccentric, and both shuffled off within about 24 hours of each other. Utterly unalike in almost every way, but there they were, united in newsprint’s tombstone prose – and, when you read each life’s story, not so utterly unalike after all.
With admirable hometown instincts, Wellington’s Dominion Post gave greater space to Robert Jones, the well-known peaceable street person (rather than his rather better-off namesake), than to Howard Paterson, farmer, innovator and reportedly the South Island’s richest man. The fact that the former’s name is more often associated with a tycoon, whereas only the latter was one, merely added to the mortal irony of that morning’s news.
Most people who have lived or live in Wellington will have known of Jones. In the 1980s, I remember him carrying his possessions in a plastic laundry basket strapped to his back, possibly one incarnation of the style that had him nicknamed the "bucket man". He shuffled endlessly around town, slept rough, never met your eye; he was truly Chaplinesque, a genuine little tramp. A friend knew him as "Mr Thank you very much" for his unerring politeness in the face of random small acts of charity. A lot of people felt broken up when they read how he’d come down from his bush camp, asked a motorist to call an ambulance, and then died in a gutter.
But it was a sensitive and poignant follow-up story that finished you off: "A frail Sydney woman was heartbroken to learn that her only son, Wellington identity Robert Jones, had died this week in almost identical circumstances to his father – at 61, suddenly, on the side of the road." His 85-year-old mother "recalled a lovable, shy little boy who dreamed of being a truck driver and had an uncanny way with dogs, but who was consumed by feelings of inadequacy and grew up into a lonely young man." Again unlike his namesake, Jones had done very badly from one property investment, drifted out of a lowly job in the public service and onto the streets, where he lived and walked until two weeks ago.
Howard Paterson’s obituaries made much of his wealth and his commercial daring, but behind it lurked the image of another maverick, just one whose difference took him up instead of down. Self-made rather than self-unmade, if you like, and from humble enough beginnings, too. He eschewed conventional wisdoms, took punts and listened to his heart, embraced life. According to police reports, he choked on a chip in a hotel room in Fiji, and was only found later after missing a business meeting. Not even a passing motorist to ask for help.
People made the usual noises about living while you can, about enjoying the here and now because you never can tell … it’s what people say in the face of death. Personally, I don’t know what "living in the moment" means. There’s the perceptual paradox, for starters, of having to take another moment to appreciate the moment just gone, which logically means you might spend your life living on memories. We can’t enjoy the moment, strictly speaking, it’s not in our natures. But we can appreciate good things at the time and when they’re gone, and we can look forward to more if we’re lucky.
Did Robert Jones enjoy any moments, look forward to anything? I’ve often looked at his fellow travellers, here and abroad, and thought how most of them must have had a loving mother once, and wondered where it went wrong. Two kids, dealt similar hands on the face of it, destined for whatever reasons – temperament, genes, circumstance – to tread such different paths, but which come inevitably to the same place.
So much meaning and meaninglessness. When my own father died, it felt like his last lesson, and the hardest to learn; here I am, gone. Take it away Mr Shakespeare: "Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." RIP Robert and Howard.
