The
powerful one loves the present: it suits.
The
talkative one loves the future: it echoes.
The one
who loves the past soon goes there.
/Wall
face, Diana's esprit, tusked wall
that
looms so fast with camera-shake
thru
aspens & hazel thickets down root-hammered declivities
where
honeysuckle elder & bramble
&
the grey-yellow dodgem boles
play
blind man's buff with the fated/
*
Then
a vineyard was pulled over at at Peppermint Farm,
&
the livestock was rough-slaughtered
or
drove off into the mist at Sweetmeal Farm,
which
was equally remote... these places are hopeful crofts
at
the far end of Aetolia, practically in the wood,
they
scrape by with grants from the military,
yes,
thin scrapings of marginal land, moss & hard bog,
not
many people get up there & what they say
is
a bit doubtful, you tend to forget because of the names,
but somehow the news
drifted into fly-ridden Pleuron.
It took a grip on the
public, you know, a bloody mystery.
And
no doubt at the big house they got a better picture:
more
information, and they was more mixed up in it —
cos
Oeneus & more especially his wife,
well
she owned land or leased it all through to Calydon,
and
constant travellers all of them, in well-armed parties
the
agents and the children that was all grown-up now
sweated
through Aetolia on diplomacy, on business.
Not
that other folks kept silent when they should of,
ashamed
to display their ignorance.
Far
from it. The bars was thick with rumour,
they
grew cosy and they sold a lot of drinks on the basis of
monstrous
historical precedents, the engirdled
progeny
of a lake stung into menace by leeches
&
churning loam with fiery saurian tails
(the
plural tails of a jellyfish)
&
filleting teeth. Or else there was explanations,
doubly
clever, triply subtle explanations:
my
old Dad heard it said in the market
that
the beast was not even a beast at all
but
just cover for marauding Acarnanians
armed
with hides & wooden props, a contraption
whose
blueprint come supposedly from Crete.
&
many, (coteries of urban sceptics,
each
thinking itself alone, significant... you know the type),
well
they spoke openly of the mischievous wind,
of
bark fallen from a decaying tree,
the
odd effects of light on leaves near water
&
impressionable peasants.
“Yes,
yes,” says my old Dad, “but it’s autumn, you see.
A
funny old time at the best; a season engendering black
if
you give ways to it; precautions is in order,
long
hikes is rash, if they can be avoided —
you
don't know your weakness on the tottery heather
in
the sinking light until perhaps it’s too late;
and
then where are you?
Also,
water turns sharp and all should lay aside
bathing
without purpose. Oh yes, this touches the matter:
sharp
water among the bare trees.
In
autumn, the shimmer blows off & things is seen as they is,
the
mild sun throws an equal light on all,
branches
emerge from hiding & the air goes crisp with seeing.”
(He
always made a speech this time of year.)
&
in a general way it come to this:
“All
the stories from out of Calydon –
dreadful
for them concerned, oh dreadful it must of been –
yes,
it’s credible, nothing more likely...”
&
thus he refutes the sceptics, quite right as it turned out,
&
though many lying reports travelled the highway,
the
house of Oeneus distinguished in fear, even then.
“Also,
intimacy with women & their forests,
the
black forest where suffocated roses bloom
between
your Callisto's sleepy thighs,
where
you snore disgracefully, will sap your vigour —
for
such is autumn...” Thus Phoenix calls up to me
from
out in the street, rousing me
to
walk with him to the town's end, a mile beyond it
perhaps,
to see what new sign of his presence
the
beast had thought fit to trace. & not far off.
Then
for the first time I seen
his
enormous trotterprints on the slats
&
one old chap, a bargeman I had to do with
two
summers previous, when I was tradin salt,
he
takes me aside, he points out a violent white gash
in
the oak door of a swaying granary.
From
above our heads it run, furiously S-shaped,
down
to our feet, & draggled along the ground,
rootin
out pebbles, clods & stamped straw.
We
went silent measuring the range of his tusks.
He
was a big, big bastard.
There
was two men talking earnestly to one other –
&
him I knew by sight as Plexippus;
the
brother of grand Althaea who married
Oeneus
himself. A man of substance, obviously;
it
must of been his tenant’s place, but where’s the tenant?
Plexippus,
well he took a grave view, of course.
“It
needs looking at,” he says firmly.
“I
know all about that. We'll deal with it.”
He
seemed unhappy. I wandered back to the barn,
&
froze in the door-way; there was an angry official shout.
In
the gloom I seen four bodies laid in a row:
the
tenant & his wife lay there in crippled peace
with
a ribbon of muslin wrapped around their midriffs.
The
other two was children & lay naked.
This
much I saw, & then I was socked in the back
&
hauled choking before the great man. “Now here's a tosser
“with
an overactive neck,” says Plexippus.
“The
first of many, no doubt, come for a picnic
“&
to view the ruins.” The bouncer renewed his grip,
with
a ragged wall to wedge me against.
I
seen Phoenix loitering miserably nearby.
“I
suppose you must be the High Street expert in banes,”
I
was semi-addressed, “could tell me a thing or two, eh?
People
in & out the shop all day; gabbing like turkeys.”
He
was livid. He bawls at me (well, obviously
he
needed someone to bawl at) “Who the hell did this?
“Some
of your shopkeepers, maybe? Who regulates the ships?
Who
monitors boarding – who checks the fucking passports?”
(Now
he turns back to the commissioners.)
“You
ask what is your duty. For pity’s sake
your
first is to close this down.
Right
now. For God's sake take control.”
They
fling me down and give me the usual treatment
with
a few lookers-on; when they’d all gone off to dinner,
Phoenix
come and dragged me from the brambles.
*
“Meleager!
Tell me you’re joking,” I says to him,
“What
gets into you in them fields?
That
is about the last person on earth
who
could sort our problems. Look what
they
done to me already!”
“Meleager's
all right. He won’t get to hear about this,
you
know his mother keeps him like a string of pearls,
nobody
tells him nothing of what goes on.
Most
of the people I talk to think that his brother
will
be the man. You know how people talk.
But
he's wanted action for a long time.
He
boxes trees in the park, with blood instead of gloves. He flings
a patio slab across the river, and he swims
back holding it
out
of the water in one hand. Nothing scares him.”
“My
my, do we have a lot of posh contacts.”
“Only
Meleager. I had to deliver some nets;
he
wanted to fish; I shown him some our places,
two
or three nights we fished in the spring. I
wasn’t
to say. But, you know, I seen him walk out
to
the furthest fringes of a bowing willow,
&
go silent til I swore he wasn’t there,
you
know how you blink and blink when you’re unsure,
&
then BAM! he bust an eel's neck with a stone.”
“But
what’s the point? What’s this to you and me?”
“All
my family is here. & I'm afraid.
Believe
me I don’t want to use this contact –
but
you can see for yourself...
whatever
curse it is that’s come down on us
it
might probably take someone who knows
how
to burnish his ancestral greaves
&
find food on the heath in October;
a
man who's trained with centaurs, & whose blood
is
richer than this thin red sauce of yours.”
He
touched my head, & I felt how my hair
had
matted together. The town being tense,
I
cleaned up to avoid its questions.
“An
eel don’t have no neck,” I says to Phoenix.
I’m
thinking, in other words he’s got connections.
*
“Bro's
in his study. Two flights up.
“I
don't know if he's expecting you.
“Probably
not.” So Tydeus turned his back on us.
A
second later he reappears with a towel
&
we watch him slip easily
between
the dunes to the sea.
Would
Poseidon jump on him there, in a dune-slack?
The
staring white light and sand
in
which his body flickers, all alone.
Meleager
looks round quickly, like he’d been caught,
like
he was in his own room without leave.
I
don’t know what I expected, but not his frightened eyes.
Then
he come towards us with heavy steps
which
made the attic shudder on its beams.
“I've
seen you before. Phoenix, that's the name.
You
work a farm we hunt across.”
He
looks at me. “You shouldn't have been admitted.
“I
requested isolation. No matter.”
“We
-” Phoenix introduces me again,
this
time as a victim of his uncle's creepiness.
Meleager
drained a green glass of orange juice.
“We
-” so now we had to explain ourselves,
but
we didn’t make a lot of sense. We hadn’t prepared a speech.
“Incidents
- that came nearer and nearer - the damagee -
spooky
damage to farms & land - people...”
Meleager
relaxed and he made us sit on chairs by the window
which
looked over the black green woods of the park
contiguous
once with Calydon, who knows?
Well,
who knew now what lurked in its shadows?
I
saw how he had stiffened against us,
preparing
in bitterness to be terribly bored
-
this danger not occurring, his eyes shone;
he
walked to his desk & crammed his papers
into
a drawer, & capped his pen.
*
Restless
& shivering in their gantries
they
heard at night the siffling on the wind
as
if a gross hog snuffled in the streets
&
drew up by firelit homes, & raised his forefeet:
BANG!
the wind blew the street-door open.
The
huddled infants locked arms.
*
Messages
went out, steps were heard in courtyards,
the
family got involved. Messages came back across the sea,
and
strangers followed, dinners and banners,
but
that was after; before we got sidelined,
we
met in the attic like friends and told our stories.
Stellar
beauty of Mel's room, high in the eaves
&
from a room all poles, straps, gear & reddened sunlight,
cobwebs
in the carpet, old hardwood bricabrac,
some
ancient stain; who knows what summer spilt ink.
Conferring,
conferring. Phoenix and him,
the
charts, the incidents, reports,
weighing
them like flour, sound? how sound?
the
books pulled half out of the shelf,
mugs
of cold coffee on the wood floor,
tables
shifted about. Charts flopping over the tables
like
a god playing about, bending Aetolia in two.
They
sized it up between them, Meleager in earnest
&
Phoenix trying to keep him in earnest.
Always,
always, we steered him away from one name:
Althaea. She who never made a plan, but stonily
worked
one out. Had some such buzz of
enthusiasm,
of
youth, some ardent and piercing ideal,
how
many long years since, produced her?
No,
not her, she was a stone’s stone.
*
Thirty of us
stood
at the farther end of the clearing,
a
few women also, as if for a spell forgetting
the
antagonistic peoples of the forest
&
the year's poor yields in corn & wine.
The
leafless trees showed chases where it seemed
no
animal could hide, & now we just wanted to pace,
murmuring
the briefest prayers to gods one daren't refuse
&
the more magnificent ancestors. Theseus
was
first to step under the canopy
where
ash-keys hung windless. He & Pirithous
had
a two-man net. Jason held the leads
of
four dogs tightly leashed, ears pricked:
he
rounded the black bole of a lime tree
&
descended a badger-path, sure-footed,
curbing
the hounds' haste. Beyond the stream
we
meant to release the pack.
Meleager,
preoccupied with a girl who'd caught his eye,
fooled
around. His spear-point rang
against
a branch. The others cursed him.
This
girl was an Arcadian, a Tegean;
primitives,
basically; she come up the river on a corn-ship
(for
that year, we bought in from the plains).
She
brought no luggage, she cut her bow and arrows
from
the willows by Achelous; had no warm clothes
but
she stained her skin with bark, and anointed it
with
mud from ditches, giggling and festive.
She
inspired a lot of talk among the men,
insulting
and excited. Her briar-scratched legs
seemed
eager to straddle each man she spoke to,
her
knees moved to and fro, as she chattered.
*
“There's
always something you'd find hard;
summer
beneath the leaves would be heavy with mosquitoes,
midges
in your nose and mouth,
&
ants up your arse.”
Phoenix
& I took in turns to forage wood,
finally
collecting a stockpile.
None
approached from larger fires nearby
&
I was lonely & resentful, smoky, half-chilled
&
aching from the iron ground.
Then
from the darkness Oenides stands before me.
“Forget
about the hunt for tonight.
No
point in discussing futures.
Nothing
the hounds sniffed at today
smelled
bad enough. Though he was here,
but
I think he's heavily stealthed. He is a beast...
a
kind of a beast... I haven’t met with before, but...
I’ve
sensed his like... I can’t spell it out to you.”
Obviously,
not to the likes of us you can’t!
“We
should try and get some rest.”
“I
can live with that.”
“So could I,
one
day. Don't feel like it now.”
He
kicks the fire, and shoots a shower of sparks
up
into the chill silent air
where
each one died into dew & soot, unseen.
“Do
you think I'm a nice amiable person?
The
sort that people like?”
“Well,
not exactly. There’s others I’d have in my quiz team.”
“I'm
sorry I invited you now
to
my own do. It's the first one I ever gave.
I
didn't really know anyone else,
except
from books.”
We laughed.
“I
mean obviously I’m doing my best.”
“Such as
it is.”
“Most
of the parties are out of food,” I says to him,
“But
I still got some scraps from home.” Meleager looks at me,
&
concludes I’m pleased to share food with him.
He
threw himself down as if not very hungry,
but
he smiled as I laid out a squashed banquet
on
leaf litter. In the gloom I had trouble
recalling
what cake or cheese lay in what wrapping.
“Did
your woman make these? They must of been nice once.”
The
smoke swirled around and made me cough.
“I
feel I want to act up; to Theseus mostly.
And
Telamon. I feel raw & hateful.
I
didn't want it to be a social occasion,
going
on for days and days. I suppose I thought
we'd
be dead by now, or drunk & triumphant.
I've
no patience to listen to their dignity.
I
should’ve just formed a band. The Fucked Farms.”
“Or
the Big Pigs,” said Phoenix. Meleager looks at him,
I
look at them both: “Be rude then; if that's your nature.”
“They're
lucky and they're good. I'm not.
But
their triumphs were years ago.” Meleager brightened.
“If
anyone gains honour from this farce,
it
must be someone young. I'm twenty.
What's
Jason, for God's sake?”
“Well,
I was nineteen in June. That must be young enough.”
“I
know, but you're a shopkeeper.”
“He
can count his years, which I can't.”
That
was Atalanta: silent, she come with
an
arrow held in each hand, just letting them dry,
&
she’d touched up her own paintwork too.
She
sank down by Meleager as if the ground was soft.
“But
I think, Oenides, I am the youngest.”
Mel
took her head in his arms & kissed her cheek
slowly.
Hungrily she makes it into an embrace,
&
he tightened his hold. I looked at the earth,
at
the fire, stunned by what I was seeing.
Cos I thought
it
was cranked up really high, like they snatched at something
bound
to be snapped off, under whatever laws governed
the
dark & nightchilled wood. They had no custom.
“There
is,” says Phoenix, “a reason for this delay.
A
god’s monster would obviously knows who’s here.
It
doesn’t run and hide, or roam about for its own reasons
like
natural creatures. There’ll be an onset all right,
but
the god wants something else to happen first.”
*
“We’re
lucky,” says I, “it could well have rained by now.
My
old Dad smelled it and I also thought I seen clouds gather
on
the hill-tops. But they moved off.”
Meleager
sighed angrily. It was not for this stuff
we
stood alone at the vantage point, that afternoon.
He
stares at the fires below, misery boiling inside of him.
I
was supposed to say nothing, but ready to die.
He
hadn’t impressed me that day.
“Meleager
– if you’ve got something to say to me,
just
say it to my face, all right?”
The
expected fury tore free of him, like a canvas roof
eliminated
by the wind. He looked at me.
“You
know I was with her last night. Atalanta.”
“Well,
I saw you by our campfire. You seemed pretty occupied.”
“We
didn’t say much. You disappeared. She and I
were
alone, the fire died and it began to grow cold,
but
we were hugging each other. She kissed me;
her
mouth was cold but her breath was warm,
then
it was wet and became cold in the night.
I
had to keep getting closer and then I became
excited
and not cold at all. And I thought we should
go
somewhere & finish it off. Although no-one stirred
I
thought we might be watched and maybe, I’m sorry for this,
by
a shopkeeper?”
“Likely,
ain’t it?” says I – knowing too well I’d abandoned my pack
by
the fire and spent a sorry night with Phoenix on stones.
“I
know – you have a reverence for the great folks.”
I
snapped. “I’d do the same for any peasant. I ain’t no pryer,
whatever
your uncle says. I’ve got no special friendship for your house.
It’s
brought us enough hardship to kill off any fine feelings.
I
do for you what I can’t help doing, that’s all.”
*
“Listen
to me. We went away from the camp,
she
followed quietly behind me and said nothing.
I
lost my appetite, but then we found a place where
our
feet bounced on lush grass. I turned and grappled
with
her. She made me slow down, and she touched me;
I
touched her. We stripped off. I felt her breasts in my face
&
I grew hard as a bone. Then she lay down and we –
we
tried to do it.” His voice broke.
“What
- ?”
“I
tried to enter her but I felt something – a blockage.”
“Oh,
yes – like a virgin.”
“No!
No! As if I would blab about that! Of course
she
is a virgin. But this was not an everyday thing.”
And
now at last I begun to pity Meleager of the house of Oeneus.
“It
was a sort of nub of flesh, like a walnut. I tried
to
get through but I couldn’t. Then I lost hardness.
I
hugged her but it was sorrow not desire.
She
had no idea that anything was wrong. She cried
and
cried. I cried. It seemed like it was
the
only thing we could do together.
I
began to love her much more – and then she said something.”
His
eyes shined and I felt pain had gone wrong in him.
“She
pitied me – not herself. She saw me walking
alone
by the river of death. She saw it and she said it.”
*
The
weather was so dry. Here the cool glossy ilex -
HRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMNNNNNNNSHHHHHHHHHH
We
heard a wild shout among the trees,
disembodied,
bewildered, and dying away —
then
a long silence. I don’t think anyone thought:
Oh
well, here it is, this is the thing we've sought.
A
man hung oddly on the hillock's edge,
pregnant
with meaning but not eloquent.
Then
we heard the bassdrumbattering trotters
of
a heavy creature of horrible strength.
&
then he rode the ground towards the rise,
where
we clustered like stamens
fragile
and nodding round a stigma.
Imagine
a house swollen with muscles,
his
bones like beams, trees snapping like pins,
a
churned track behind him,
and
beautiful, murderous, vacant,
bushes
sprouted from his back,
dust
bubbled from his feet,
and
brassy air blew from his nostrils.
The
noise of his roar filled the valley
like
the spate of a hundred streams of scree
and
the mallets of all the coppersmiths.
his
head lowered like a cream-jug
was
the size of a wheelbarrow &
the
tusks like lightning-forks. The speed pumped panic
into
our veins, & we scattered in all directions.
In
contravention of one thing Telamon had said,
I
thought of my wife. Oh full, raven hair and
reason,
incessant, and sweet, hot madness!
And
chuckling together at the moon through a window —
only
once been home
&
seen our baby suckle at her breast,
&
couldn’t smile and killed her smiles stone dead,
&
not been open, never said why I was chosen,
&
made to depart the next day without equipment or food
just
hinting at a long bit of work. & I was
almost
angry for her not understanding
my
mind, and where it started where it was going,
all
which she could of possibly seen in a dream, I suppose.
I
was unfair. Remembered her hair unbound
&
trailing my shoulders as we bathed.
I
was sorry I'd kept her in ignorance,
absent
even in her thoughts. I knew some’d say
to
Callisto at the well: he's run away.
In
the deep bend of a stream my party paused
to
take breath. All strained for sounds of conflict.
Jason,
eyes lit with divine contact, his medium,
though
he was old and trembled, he alone rejoiced.
Taking
an arrow from his quiver with a rasping noise
he
shot it skywards through a gap in the tree canopy
“For
thus,” says he, “do we lure the event.
“You're
too young to know. The rules change out here,
“&
no-one now should calculate his field in strips
“or
count his debts aside from the till.”
Which
seemed intended for me and Phoenix.
I
grasped at his belief, uplifted like the unguided arrow
but
it clattered mere yards away; we watched it glance
off
the pocked trunk of a poplar
&
lodge with a grunt in the snapped back of
a
favoured hound, well-known in Pleuron, Chloe.
Poor
awkward stiff old man! He was right, too —
but
he knew as if the forest had shouted in his head,
he
was not chosen, just here for the ride. Hearing it
lots
of times doesn’t make it hurt less.
Our
fear was a stone arch with both ends rooted
in
our stomachs. We ignored the slithering
dog
dying
loudly; but Atalanta took aim
&
shot her through the head. In the sudden quiet we faced her.
“You
bring death on yourselves,” she says.
I
saw we were better out of the stream.
We
led the others to a point where some view
of
the hunting ground was clear between the poles
of
saplings, checked by the unfallen leaves
of
young oaks. Nothing stirred but ourselves;
we
might be alone, barring the wretched corpse
of
a fellow huntsman, snagged on a downslope
in
the largest glade where the morning frost was smeared,
where
heels had lipped in panic & shame.
We
had not seen that; now came a wave of remorse & revenge.
The
silence didn't last. The brave creature
meant
to meet his targets without delay.
*
&
then the boar, the Calydonian boar,
run
ragged & sweating with a bloody poll
lurching,
pantomimic, piteous,
with
odd deliberation lumbers into Mel's spearpoint
&
stuck there. Mel churns his shaft like an oar
&
the pig's eyes closed in sad calm
while
blood & slaver sprayed from his face
drenching
the beech leaves. His whole body trembled
like
a docked boat in a squall.
Then
time began again, but not for the boar.
Others
drew round, and wormed their spears in his hide
or
hammered his butt with stones. One was Phoenix.
It
became hard to know how far the beast was dead,
such
was the mass around him, I couldn’t get close.
And
grim cheers rose from the shambles, urge and urge again,
Get
the bastard get the bastard get the bastard!
Atalanta
sat on a stone and wept. I saw her.
Her
knees made the same movement as in joy.
“Why?”
I asked. “Oenides triumphed. Oenides was chosen.”
“no
not chosen not chosen. If he’d been a different person
I
could have saved him from this if I’d been a different person
but
you never know who you are and it just didn’t work
and
now everything is the way I knew it would be
because
I am me and I only liked the idea
and
his matted hair and eyes but I couldn’t really
like
him because if only he’d been different.”
I
followed her eyes and there was dust in the air
&
through it stumbles Meleager, with red spray on his clothes.
His
hands looked odd, seized with cramps,
&
I saw he was clutching somethings, bits of boar,
and
he was sobbing, holding them out to his girl.
“These
are for you, lover.” She painfully took them and he
made
a grab at her. She knitted her elbows around her face.
He
bellowed.
Behind
him strode furious Plexippus. “This is indecent,”
he
shouted. Meleager picked up a spear – mine.
Plexippus
never flinched. “Stop playing this game.
Your
mother will thrash you for this. Go and clean
yourself
up – you’re a disgrace.”
Meleager
looked at him. He was too disgusted to strike.
All
honour, all beauty, all gold, all islands were destroyed
in
his sight. Ruin, shame and dust stoned him. He bawled,
and
a spear-tip grew big like an apple towards my body,
and
cracked my shoulder into wickerwork.
I
flickered, saw Phoenix waving his arms in dismay,
and
then the cruel spear was through Phoenix.
Phoenix,
an eel, a catkin, my brother, fell soulless.
Meleager,
raving, opened his mouth to the spear.
“Stop
this,” I heard Plexippus order. Meleager
walked
hogtied to his death, on strange little steps,
as
the books say.
*
For
a winter month I lay in the warm wood,
watching
the scampering squirrels and swooping jays,
the
mist breathing from a fire and smarting my eyes
and
snatched by the wind and dissolved by the pittering rain.
The
trees moaned and moaned and to me they comforted
by
mourning Phoenix. Oh do you step
Too close
to the fire
Do you
step, do you step
Too close
to the fire
Well it’s
me, it was me
Too close
to the fire
and
the tune became nonsense but it soothed me.
Once
at night, I think, Atalanta fucked me
and
it was fine, no problem. But I can’t be
sure.
I
lay shaded by the woodbine never bare of leaves,
and
spring came in Calydon, I began to hear,
and
I hear the sound of distant traffic,
I
looked for hours at an horizontal line, puzzling,
until
I seen it was barbed wire. For the wood was not
like
that dense green puff of lovely primeval ground,
that
fragment monastery of nature
lingering
sweetly in the park of Oeneus,
where
Meleager’s study overlooked it, that evening.
No,
it was hacked and scarred,
replanted
and regimented, rutted with
tractor
tracks and seamed with telegraph poles,
gravelled
sidings, garden plants
sprouting
on brick-strewn banks,
and
the trees were marked with plastic ties
and
coloured codes, rhododendron, fencing, bales of hay
and
hides made out of pine, the ground
spattered
with gaily-coloured cartridges,
Private
Keep Out, infant plantations of
Pseudotsuga,
Tsuga, Picea,
sorry
saplings ringed by mesh,
and
then there was the quarrying, the BMX,
the
4WDs in blank-eyed processions on Sundays...
When
she had sung me to health, Atalanta says:
“That
arm won’t work again. You’ll be a hero
to
the customers. But you’ll think nothing of that.
Take
Callisto in your one good arm and kiss her;
kiss
your daughter and then share your bed with Callisto.
I
am sure she is a fine woman. You have secrets
together
and now, because of him —
you may live.
Business
will sort itself out for you. I see your
grandchildren.”