Holden's Performance

by Murray Bail

  To Shadbolt everything about the Epic Theatre and its proprietor was absorbing. It was a world in itself; and he and Alex Screech seemed to be running it.

  Outside on the blazing street, the metallic traffic and the glittery shop fronts, pedestrians advancing and passing in the flesh, and the seagulls rising and settling in a cloud there between the Norfolk pines, all seemed difficult to penetrate. It was as if the half-dark world of perpetual images he'd just left—the Epic Theatre—was real, while the width and breadth of Manly laid out under the immense sky was not; a feeling which persisted even when he returned to the boarding house and his small room.

  ‘If by “bouncer” you mean one engaged to eject unruly persons from a ballroom, it's an Americanism.’

  By explaining the origins Shadbolt's long-distant uncle hoped to conceal his disappointment. But he was driven to add, ‘Did they advertise the job? What do you do exactly?’

  Granted, the word ‘bouncer’ had certain visual qualities, but to Vern it sounded as roughneck as the job it described.

  It was a symptom.

  ‘Unfortunately, that's the road we're going down. There's roughness everywhere. I see it every day. I'm fighting a lonely, losing battle. The world is becoming slipshod. Our local contribution to the English language has been nothing but slang and abbreviations. Try to do a good job, even if it is “bouncing”.’

  Vern added, ‘When the troops were here during the war there was a lot of hooliganism, as your poor father discovered. I don't think you would find many so-called bouncers in Adelaide today. Things have gone very quiet since you left.’

  His handwriting had grown large and rounder. At the same time it was less legible. The postscript—’I suppose it means we won't be seeing you for a while’—formed an hypotenuse to the signature.

  It was how Shadbolt spent his days off. To clear his head he'd propel his tremendous torpedo-bulk into the world-famous surf, tingling a little with the idea he'd entered the edge of the world's largest ocean—a fact he'd picked up from a travelogue on Austrylian life-saving. Then sitting back on the sea wall in the sun he'd tear open the shark-fin flaps of envelopes, letters and proofs unfolding like seagull wings, and digest the latest about his former world, Adelaide, as he wolfed down two or three hot pies.

  His new line of work had not impressed Mrs Younghusband either. Any suggestion of sudden movement, such as a scuffle between two men, was at odds with his politeness. She couldn't understand it.

  But her favoured boarder didn't demand much. He had a certain remoteness.

  Even when she offered a room inside instead of the tiny sleepout, he shrugged his shoulders. The sleepout was fine, although he kept cracking his head on the doorway.

  ‘About this job, whats-you-call-it, be careful of him and his goings on. There's something shady about that theatre. Believe me, I can tell. It's not where you belong. What kind of job is that anyway? That man is looking for trouble,’ Mrs Younghusband nodded privately. ‘He doesn't get enough fresh air.’

  ‘Alex is all right,’ Shadbolt began grinning. And it returned his neck muscles to their former amateur status: the knowing mechanic, strong with his hands.

  With nothing much to do on his days off he'd saunter around to the Epic Theatre. Screech who'd never taken a holiday in his life welcomed him without a word; briefly reducing his movements was his way of acknowledging loyally.

  One afternoon, raining, Screech came hurtling out of his office as Shadbolt arrived.

  ‘There's a good man, quick. Harriet's gone and left these behind.’

  The pile of photographs began curling in Shadbolt's hand.

  ‘I don't know any Harriet.’

  ‘Who do you think does our bloody displays? She should still be out the front. She's not what I'd call a fast mover.’ From his office Screech called out, ‘And tell her not to forget to—’

  Already Shadbolt had spotted the Triumph Mayflower kangaroo-hopping out of a park. Holding the photos under his coat he ran across in the rain.

  At the driver's window his mouth opened. When she rolled the glass down an inch he came out with the words he'd said several months before.

  ‘Are you all right? Do you need a hand?’

  He ran around and sat in the passenger's side.

  ‘If it's not Tarzan,’ she said. ‘My hero, come to help a damsel in distress.’

  ‘Alex told me to give you these. And he said play down the next polio vaccines, but blow up the Pakistan famine and the terrorist shots in, ah—’

  ‘Algeria?'

  ‘Right.'

  There was more street fighting in Algeria. He'd run across the street with the proofs of bomb damage and wailing mothers under his arm. Everything seemed to be happening in other parts of the world.

  Seated in her car he didn't know what else to do or say. He felt her eyes on his face.

  ‘What are you puffing for?’

  ‘I was just thinking…’

  ‘So you're the one who's working for Alex? You're his new man?’

  Shadbolt shrugged.

  ‘He told me about you. He thinks you saved his neck—taking the weight off his shoulders was the term I think he used. Alex was heading rapidly for a nervous breakdown. He's half crackers, you know. I could tell you all about him. Do you always make a practice of saving unfortunate people?’

  ‘Who, me?’ Shadbolt needed time to digest all she had said. She said about ten things at once.

  The Mayflower had a walnut fascia panel, and a wirespoked steering wheel.

  ‘This car,’ Shadbolt said with authority, ‘suits you.’

  The sharp curvature of the body matched the extreme twist of her chin, eye corners and hips. It was a small car, and neat. Shadbolt had never known anyone, a woman especially, with such pronounced lines.

  ‘I saw you driving once before, you know.’

  Trying to park: with her next-to-useless legs in coarse green trousers. He wondered how she could manage at all.

  ‘Move over. And I'll get you out of here.’

  The skinny arms of the wipers began waving, and using her wrists and shoulders in a way Shadbolt found distasteful she shoved at the steering wheel in a series of short concentrated jerks, the engine revving hysterically.

  He touched her shoulder. ‘Let me do it for you. You can do your clutch in like this. Where are we going?’

  ‘These streets are a nuisance to me. I'd like to see them dug up, every one of them, and dropped in the sea.’

  That was a good one! Shadbolt tossed his head and let out a laugh.

  ‘How would you get around then?’

  ‘Oh, I'd manage somehow.’

  Her independence showed in the line of her jaw; and now the front of the car emerged clear of the park.

  Crossing his legs Shadbolt settled back.

  ‘Where are we heading?’

  Harriet—Harriet Chandler—lived only five or six blocks away in Kangaroo Street, a two-storey weatherboard, cleared of white ants and the dreaded borer (Shadbolt asked), on high rocky ground. The front windows looked down on the wilderness of the tidal oval, the roof of the Epic Theatre, and the keyboard strokes of the pines against white sand and sea.

  ‘A house with stairs has disadvantages for me. But I can sit and follow the goings-on of the world from my own window. There's no need for me to leave the room.’

  Feeling at home Shadbolt spoke loudly.

  ‘You sit down. I'll make you a cup of tea.’

  To his surprise she obeyed.

  Unlike Mrs Younghusband's establishment of brown air, foreign objects, the rooms here were lemon and filled with a flung down clutter of soft articles. Papers, magazines, books lay on sofas and side tables. There seemed to be a surfeit of armchairs. Rugs and baskets muffled the floorboards. Reproductions of paintings of naked women daydreaming at goldfish. And cushions. Shadbolt had never seen so many: soft breasts in tight bodices, large and small, spilling onto the floor.

  Such a surrounding of soft objects seemed
to lend comfort to this woman's stricken condition.

  The place reminded Shadbolt of Vern's place in the Hills. But Harriet Chandler had invented sunlight and fast colours. It represented her will; design and determination spoke everywhere.

  In a strange upsurge of respect Shadbolt grew fond of the sight of her small black shoes neatly crossed. It had stopped raining. Finishing his tea with an accidental slurp he became unusually expansive.

  Her trousers were made of some kind of felt. When she stood up she barely came up to his chest. Pointing like Colonel Light he squinted, ‘Where I live is…Right about there…’

  In the nick of time Tudor geometry had appeared through the trees.

  ‘Oh, that place,’ she said indifferently. ‘It used to be a brothel during the war. I believe the police closed it down.’

  ‘You're kidding!’

  And she lit a cigarette.

  ‘Don't you know how war brings out in adult males, like yourself, the darkest passions?’

  In her house she was quieter; but Shadbolt felt he had to watch his step. He avoided her face.

  ‘The place is full of old bods from the Mirror and Truth. They're retired. And there's me, of course.’

  ‘And you're not retired, you've got that job with Alex.’

  ‘Right. It's a boarding house run by a Mrs Younghusband. You ever come across her? It's cheap, and the tucker's not bad.’ He stopped. ‘Did she run the place during the war?’

  Harriet had gone back to her drawing board.

  ‘You'd better ask her.’

  ‘I'm not sure about that’—he almost gave a laugh at the thought.

  With scissors she attacked the blown-up photographs and arranged pieces on powerful red cardboard. As she cut around the dusty food bowl of a Pakistani mother of nine her mouth formed an Islamic crescent. She allowed Shadbolt to study her. Barbed wire from the Berlin Wall linked Pakistan with Algerian explosions with dark crowds out of control in Johannesburg with a Grand Prix fatality at Reims.

  Shadbolt went behind her.

  ‘That's really good, the way you do that.’

  On the chair she gave a slight swivel of pleasure: twin peaks outlined in thin wool passed left and right below him.

  Shadbolt cleared his throat to explain, sounded too solemn, tried again; she glanced up at his efforts. To him, everything about her was confusing. He was only too happy to wash out her brushes in the sink, where he could stare down at his thick fingers. Then they sat mostly silent, one watching the other working, until Shadbolt had to go.

  ‘Let yourself out,’ she concentrated cutting around French soldiers up to their armpits in Vietnam.

  Again he felt her independence. Hardness, this is unnecessary, he would not have minded saying; she needed a hand.

  And yet it went with her shape, all flow and curve: her strength.

  At the door he turned to make sure. Illuminated by the angular lamp the face looked up to acknowledge him, and curved.

  ‘You'll go places, stick close to me.’

  And young Shadbolt's career in the bouncing business matched, relatively speaking, the rise of Frank McBee in South Australia. There in another part of the old eroded continent, McBee energetically ran for parliament, hoping to add the confusing letters MP after his household name, and expanded his autodidactic opinions on the cons of public transport. Shadbolt followed his dream-run through proofs supplied by Vern; and on the screen at the Epic Theatre the expansive Winnie lookalike in violent pinstripes with the historical necessities of cigar, walking stick and ‘war hero's’ limp appeared larger than life, strutting and nodding, now trailing a small crowd.

  Shadbolt's unconscious trajectory towards indispensability went something like this. In the space of four months he was entrusted with the keys to Screech's rubbish-filled Citroen, and then with carrying the day's takings to the friendly savings bank. By driving over to the newsreel office, and collecting the cans personally, Shadbolt found they could screen the news to the people twenty-four hours earlier. He was entrusted with opening the doors in the morning, even though Screech slept in the projection room. He made the tea. He answered the phone using the proper tone of voice, and fobbed off the health inspectors with his archetypal deadpan face when they came sniffing around the lavatories and fire exits. He supervised the delivery of confectionery and went about turning off the lights. At the same time he never forgot the job he was paid for, namely to stalk the aisles at unexpected intervals with his burglar's torch, locating any perverts, roughnecks and layabouts. Shadbolt had perfected the bouncer's craft. A firm grip of the collar and elbow, and a troublemaker found himself treading fresh air before his neighbour realised he was missing. Shadbolt's photographic memory was an asset here. Spotting a previous offender in the foyer it was enough to brush past and murmur, ‘No monkey business, I'm keeping two eyes on you.’ Nobody wanted to tackle Shadbolt, let alone make wisecracks about his hulking silhouette.

  The theatre began operating with an efficiency Screech had only dreamed about. Freed of the many day-to-day tasks he could now concentrate on long-term policy matters, such as programming, overdrafts and subsidiary uses for the auditorium. First thing in the morning Screech, satchel and Citroen would set off on mysterious trips into Sydney's solid business district. ‘Hold the fort, I'll be back in an hour.’ Discreet or indifferent as always, Shadbolt never enquired why, only vaguely wondered—and then got on with his job. The boss was a man with many connections.

  Shadbolt's first test of resolve occurred early in his career. Although common enough in the Southern Hemisphere the incident took him by surprise. But if Alex Screech had any doubts about his assistant's ability to work under pressure—extreme pressure—they were quickly cast aside.

  Two cricket teams from the sticks had landed in Manly for their traditional end-of-season binge. Why Manly was anybody's guess. (They wanted to see the sea.) After being flung about all day in the world-famous surf the only place that promised any further action, Saturday night, was the Epic Theatre. No sooner had they settled in their seats than feet went up on the front and the catcalls and drunken belching began.

  Shadbolt listened in the shadows, even smiling at some of their cracks, before advancing down the aisle. The idea was to pick out the ringleader. This he managed to do (brief head-shot on screen, hisses), and began frogmarching towards the revolving doors a wiry man with a flashy gold watch, hiccuping and protesting pedantically.

  In the foyer Shadbolt put on a slightly nonchalant expression as Screech came out of the office; but then the agitator in his grasp went limp, and thinking he'd held the necktie too tight, or the sight of the proprietor had reduced his resistance, Shadbolt relaxed his grip. Screech suddenly pointed and gave a warning shout. Pitching forward the geography teacher from Broken Hill turned khaki and hiccuped at Shadbolt's feet a broad lava of vomit, and stumbled out into the fresh air.

  Together they stared down at the unexpected mess. Shadbolt was about to move, someone had to do something, when Screech, in a graphic demonstration of his ability to think on his feet, held his arm.

  The vomit had almost stopped its spread; and as they watched it rapidly settled and adjusted here and there, suddenly accelerating at the edges, a matter of viscosity, of carpet drag, until it reached the final unmistakable shape—Australia.

  It sparkled there on the sea-blue, the jewel in the Pacific; and Shadbolt saw why Screech had quickwittedly held his arm: stationary, his dusty size-12 indented the Gulf of Carpentaria. Carefully, he removed it now.

  As they stared the uneven surface congealed into mountains and river courses, a pre-Cambrian, a vast desert of abandonment, plateaus there and mineral deposits, dun-coloured claypans, such emptiness, the rich wheat belts ragged among the mallee at the southern edges, while to the north, strips of spinach-coloured vegetation and what appeared to be mangroves. Bright red particles located the capital cities with surprising accuracy and many, though not all, major towns. The accidental significance of Shadbolt's s
hort-radius grip on the stricken cricketer, and the centrifugal force generated as he tried to struggle free became clear, for in the second and third waves he'd deposited more or less on the right latitude, Tasmania, the apple isle, complete with its spittle of white rivers, and blobs for islands in Bass Strait, and a suggestion towards the door of the Barrier Reef. South of Adelaide Shadbolt saw the semicircular beach which acted as a trap for all manner of flotsam.

  Screech glanced around the foyer. ‘It looks as if we've got a real problem on our hands.’ Already some blowflies were buzzing around the Northern Territory.

  The shape of Australia reproduced down to the last wind-worn mountain and one-horse town could never be repeated. It was unique, in that sense a work of art, containing its own spontaneity and moral force; a pity to erase it from the face of the earth.

  On the other hand, Alex Screech who considered himself as patriotic as any man, could see that some people, probably the majority, would find this version of Australia distasteful, even though the colours were the same as in an atlas. Leaving aside the choice of materials it appeared at his feet as rich but empty, an extreme place, still to be civilised. When everybody knew it was the complete opposite: there were plenty of things to like about the place, you only had to look outside at the streets and shops, at the beach and the clear blue sky.

  For the first time Shadbolt saw the boss chew on his lip, undecided. As a hired hand he knew management had to weigh up pros and cons; that was the difference between them and him; but at that moment he spotted a retired silver couple advancing through the front doors. Of all the people it had to be the most fastidious of their regulars, Mr and Mrs Goodlove, if you don't mind. They had ploughed their life savings into a chain of fly-specked delicatessens, and were forever complaining about the mess dogs left on the streets and the state of the hand-towels in the theatre's washrooms.