by Murray Bail
He still had the loudspeaker business, but he kept it to one side as he did the microphone at public meetings, just in case.
To Shadbolt's surprise Alex Screech dismissed Hoadley's success. ‘What you've got to remember about Sid,’ he said, wiping his hands with a rag, ‘is that he doesn't have a clue about the guts of the theatre business. The only time he's ever been inside a projection room is to fiddle up some poor fucking usherette.’
How Screech had come to own the Epic Theatre was a mystery. During the war he had offered Hoadley a minority interest, pointing out its advantages of location and the latest in spring-loaded seating. But with no control over programmes, and having doubts about Screech's grey-and-white policy of newsreels only, where catastrophes and natural calamities tend to be emphasised, little there in the way of optimism, Hoadley turned the offer down. Later, they met at party branch meetings; it was Screech who assembled the numbers to pre-select Hoadley for the safe Senate ticket. And although never taken in by the Senator's optimism, Alex made sure a high quota of his speckled face and teem appeared on the Epic screen, at least during election time.
Sharing similar political beliefs they sometimes sat near each other on steering committees; but after the night of the Miss Australia fiasco their interest in each other declined.
These men, and Harriet, stood behind and to one side of Shadbolt attracting his attention; and never had his life been more complex. Early one evening, Shadbolt, summoned to the car, found Karen seated in the back among the papers of state, her thighs forming a V of compliance in the dark, her Ups smeared by excitement widened further as she turned.
Hoadley leaned forward, ‘Miss Austrylia here’—the tips of his fingers stroking her neck—‘wants to say hello and goodbye.’
Karen tugged at her brother's sleeve. ‘I'm sorry I haven't seen much of you.’
The Senator interjected: ‘Been otherwise engaged.’
‘Be quiet,’ Karen elbowed him in the ribs. To Shadbolt she spoke earnestly. ‘I had tons of things to tell you. And I wanted to know all that you've been doing. Any messages for anybody at home?’ She lowered her voice, ‘Frank's shot back to Adelaide in a huff.’
Shadbolt thought of several messages, but changed his mind. ‘Vern writes to me. He seems to be going all right.’
Hoadley leaned forward again. ‘Make it snappy, boy. I've got a lot on my plate tonight.’
Squeezing his hand Karen promised to see him next time.
Shadbolt returned to the wooden house, to Harriet. Up there he felt at ease. It amazed him that she appeared to enjoy listening to him; she appeared to be sitting up waiting for him. He told her about Hoadley. He mentioned a bit about his sister. Bent over the drawing board and illuminated by the anglepoise she asked questions, her sharp lines softened by the shadows and cushions.
And on these occasions he suddenly felt he wasn't doing enough; he wanted to do more for her. At the slightest opportunity he'd leap to his feet. It was enough to make her irritable. Her crippled body concerned and attracted him. Often he felt like lifting her up and crushing her pigeon bones. Harriet was frail but he admired her strength. It was usually she who wanted to touch him.
All he could think of doing was repairing the gutters and the screendoor, and dismantling the Zenith carburettor and checking other parts of the Mayflower, which so absorbed his mechanical mind he had to be called in for tea. And he did the shopping; ran messages. She hardly needed to step outside the house, pivoting and dragging herself around her walking stick. In every sense her life became internal, resembling Shadbolt's Egyptian landlady.
On his days off he took her for drives. They made it to the Blue Mountains. And as he swayed in motion with the curving car they contemplated their situation. It was Harriet who became silent. When they had first met it had been the other way round. It began to perplex Shadbolt: a woman could be so silent.
Now that his sister had reverted to an apparition in his photographic memory—stippled proof showed her returning to a heroine's welcome—Shadbolt resumed the pattern, triangular from the air, of hurrying from the Epic Theatre to Harriet to the landlady. With Senator Hoadley gone—government business required his urgent personal attention in South Australia—a slackness descended on Manly, a discernible loss of energy, exaggerated by the thundering waves along the shoreline.
‘It doesn't matter,’ he tried consoling the landlady. ‘You know what he's like. He's always on the move. He's a senator. Running the country he has to have a lot on his shoulders.’
When she pouted Mrs Younghusband looked even more Egyptian.
‘Did he tell you when he was coming back?’
The objects from the Nile gathered dust on the shelves and tables. There was the smell of humid fruit.
‘He'd call in here when he does, no doubt about it. He'd see you before he'd see me.’ No reason he'd see me, he said to himself.
Seated at the table she became pensive, almost smiling. She only wanted to see Hoadley again. And in the filtered afternoon light her expression grew beautiful to Shadbolt—smooth-skinned and grave.
‘You can almost hear his brain working,’ he said to cheer her up. ‘He's always one step ahead. He can talk all right. He speaks like a charm off the cuff. And he's got a taste for fancy sandwiches. I've never seen him eat ordinary meat, only chicken or salmon.’
‘He's married, isn't he? Doesn't he have children?’
‘I'm not one hundred per cent on that,’ Shadbolt lied. ‘I spose he'd have to be tied up.’
What other people did was their own business.
Even Harriet kept asking him questions about Hoadley. And he noticed how she abruptly corrected her interest, ‘He's a revoltingly crude man, who uses words.’
Inside the Epic Theatre the icecream in the confectionery bar was melting, and the curtain creaked to a halt halfway along its track; and when the fuses weren't blowing, a few light bulbs exploded at random, and as soon as Shadbolt and Screech replaced them, no longer worrying about blocking the screen with their ladder, another at some other point would go out, as if somebody was deliberately darkening the future. The socialist projectionist chose this time of weakness to conduct a go-slow for higher overtime rates, which turned even the most serious news-reel into a somnambular comedy, while in the foyer the continent displayed under glass on the floor began cracking up in the centre, in sympathy with the nationwide drought. As Alex said with a grim laugh: the two of us are like the blasted Dutch kid trying to plug holes in a leaking dyke, except we're running out of fingers.
But Shadbolt enjoyed working alongside him. After Alex Screech's moment in the national spotlight his presence at his elbow was needed even more. When the hour came for his speech Shadbolt had to give him a nudge as a reminder, even though the rows of springloaded seats were mostly empty. And standing there on stage with the screwdriver and pliers casting obscene shadows, which raised a few wolf whistles, he shielded his eyes from the projected cone of light swirling with moths and a few blinded blowflies, glancing around the theatre for other maintenance tasks. As a consequence his propositions lacked conviction, his voice trailing off in different directions.
Side by side they worked, repairing and improving. Each helped the other. There was so much to do. The foyer was left unattended and people wandered in without paying. It didn't seem to bother the proprietor, turning from one maintenance problem to the next, keeping the theatre going. Maintenance became an end in itself; and Screech no longer bothered about maintaining appearances.
On a Monday without warning the Senator returned and summoned Shadbolt for an audience. The politician tends only to develop casual acquaintances, the penalty of speaking to mid-distant crowds while at the same time looking over one shoulder. Shadbolt and the driver left the theatre together; they had done it so many times a nonchalance had developed between them. As soon as they crossed the street the overweight driver, a religious man with a large family, began belly-aching about the job and his late hours with the Minis
ter of Commerce, Home Affairs and the Interior; and as Shadbolt remained silent the driver assumed he was an ally.
Hoadley in his shirt sleeves welcomed him by patting the seat. Shadbolt made room among the fluttering papers of state, and the Minister straightaway began talking. Again surrounded by the odours of genuine leather and Hoadley's hair oil, Shadbolt dutifully listened, and the flywire pattern of the Senator's close-up shirt blurred into screened images of epic actions, of crowd movements, laws and decisions exercised from a vast distance. In the middle of talking the Minister asked a few personal questions, ‘What size shoe do you take?’ or ‘Have you seen any sharks lately?’ and watched Shadbolt's face as he answered. It made Shadbolt feel he actually valued his presence. And by remaining non-committal and nodding where necessary Shadbolt appeared stolidly, firmly, discreet.
Hoadley spoke about everything under the sun, that is, he concentrated on regional subjects. He appeared to be thinking aloud. Always to be found in the theatre, Shadbolt, as always, was a captive audience.
On the following morning, nothing special, except it was raining, Shadbolt noticed the government car waiting when he arrived for work.
‘I've had it about up to here,’ the driver straightaway began whingeing. He had to half-run to keep up with Shadbolt. ‘Do you know what the bastard did yesterday? Because he had a meeting with a bigwig he had me sitting outside under a telegraph pole. And then all last night he was frigging around with one of his female constituents. Anyway he wants to see you, he's waiting.’
Hoadley borrowed Shadbolt for the day. He had spoken to Alex. It was OK. Seems that a perfectly straight stretch of uneconomic railway line had been converted by the federal government into a new bitumen highway going off into the sunset. The Minister explained he didn't want any trouble from the local sheep farmers during the opening ceremony. ‘Besides,’ he settled back in his freshly ironed shirt, ‘a hundred and forty miles as the crow flies a man needs some male company.’
The windscreen wipers made in America became by turns respectfully quiet, or they applauded, or flung their arms out in exasperation.
‘This here's the road to Canberra, I know it like my own face.’
Clearing his throat the driver winked at Shadbolt in the mirror.
Soft boulders of sheep dotted the paddocks, and forests of gums gathered at the base of hills like independent states. The rain had changed the white trunks into evenly spaced grey poles, and as the car sped past they overlapped and replaced each other, the entire forest of verticals taking on the flickering grey of a film of a forest of gums. It must have triggered associations in Hoadley too, for it was here that he revealed the extent of his picture theatre chain and mentioned a few of the film stars he'd met. ‘Errol Flynn's an old mate of mine. I'll introduce him to you one day.’ In the next town which had a dog relieving itself in the main street the Minister pointed across Shadbolt to the old Mechanics' Institute (1904) peeling with posters. ‘That's one of mine. It mightn't look much, but it pulls in every day what your Epic Theatre manages in a week. If Alex had any brains he'd show nothing but Westerns. People on the coast always look towards the interior. They can't walk on water. And the other thing Alex hasn't woken up to is that people want colour. They're prejudiced. This is the new world.’
The only connection between Hoadley and the Epic Theatre was a brief sharing of syllables; for the Senator considered himself something of an epicure. Shadbolt had never met anyone before who treated food seriously.
Just after twelve as the rain eased Hoadley placed a napkin over his knees, opened the cocktail cabinet, and began dismantling a pigeon. Still talking but now choosing his words like morsels he handed Shadbolt a wing.
Surprisingly, Hoadley used his fingers daintily; and delicately he picked his way around the bones with his teeth. The monogrammed cufflinks, the gold watch and the emblematic gold ring acted as integral parts to the process. He grew larger in Shad-bolt's eyes, and he tried to follow him.
‘Eat up,’ Hoadley instructed.
‘You know,’ Shadbolt waved the flapping folds of breast, ‘this is all right.’
But the Senator had gone slightly cross-eyed sinking his teeth into the paradoxical delicacy, the parson's nose.
The car entered drought-faded country and he tossed the ribcage out the window where it landed near the carcase of a cow. Of the two tomatoes he selected the largest and gave it to Shadbolt. They also had cucumber, triangles of brown bread, two passion-fruit each, which Shadbolt spurted all over his trousers, a guava, and raisin cake.
By the time Hoadley had washed it all down with a tumbler of white rum he became expansive again.
‘This is a job that gives a man a warm feeling in his gut. Serving the people, it must be the highest ideal a man can aspire to. I've always believed that, ever since I was a kid in bare feet. Did I tell you I used to mow people's lawns? This job has its rewards, sure. I get to meet the general populace, I get nothing but pleasure visiting the interior. Twenty-four hours a day I work keeping my constituents happy, and I love it.’
Listening earnestly while glancing at the passing scenery Shadbolt became aware of the driver relaying messages back to him, catching Shadbolt's eye in the mirror, sighing heavily and shaking his head. Over the years he had heard most of the Minister's spiel. It was all a big joke to him. Hoadley must have noticed but seemed to ignore him.
‘I get a helluva kick out of discharging my responsibilities,’ he said delving with a toothpick, ‘I'm responsible for all that happens in the interior. Commerce of course is closely connected. It has to be. I keep both eyes open for opportunities. A man has to. Only the other day I was offered Defence. I knocked it back. I happen to believe in a strong defence capability, but thinking along defensive lines is not what I'm about.’
There was—there always will be—a quota of Sid Hoadleys in all populated parts of the world. His characteristics were even more universal than the idealised proportions of beauty queens. His gifts were the original tribal ones: an ability to simplify and give clearly defined shape to himself. Such forceful personalities who come to believe in their own shape emerge from the smallest village gatherings, as well as the most complex and congested populations. Hoadley stood out from those who served him and stood apart from other politicians. It was said that he hardly ever took no for an answer. In a narrow range of men and in many—many, many—women he produced feelings of loyalty.
The interior was open to any definition. Hoadley took it to be everything in from the edges. He expropriated the idea of the interior.
And what a bruised, uneven surface it was! To travel its contours, to acquire first-hand knowledge of its forests and valleys, and to be constantly, even eagerly, surprised by variety; above all, to go below the surface. The interior breathed and emptied itself. It followed its own seasons. Parts of it were barren—always a shock—but around the next corner or in the next town you could count on rivers and the sought-after complexities. And each version represented the whole and was part of an unfolding endlessness.
‘Basically,’ Hoadley glanced at his gold watch, ‘I enjoy people, I can't leave them alone. My opponents would say that's a weakness. Personally I don't think so. It all gets back to looking after the needs of your constituents.’
‘It's worth working that into a speech,’ Shadbolt nodded solemnly.
Harriet always said he said yes to everything. He looked out the window.
Switching on his public smile Hoadley said, ‘Keep talking like that and you and I will get along fine.’
The driver showed his feelings by shoving his Commonwealth cap over his eyes and slouching down in the seat. Almost immediately they approached the town and he sat up.
‘We're late,’ Hoadley frowned. But he smiled and vibrated his hand like Her Majesty at a group of uncomprehending cockies squatting outside the hotel.
On the other side of town a stretch of dirt road met the new strip of highway which simply went for a short while then stopped. It
headed into nowhere. You'd think it had some use…A cluster of local dignitaries faced the town, the wind twisting their wide trousers, while their stout women pressed flapping hats to their heads in salute. Vaguely they reminded Shadbolt of the people at his father's funeral. Another thirty or forty spectators including school children stood nearby. They parted as the car pulled up, their eyes crinkled into rural welcome as Hoadley unfolded outwards from the open door, his politician's right hand already extended.
‘We drove through six thunderstorms,’ Hoadley shouted. Slight exaggeration.
‘She's a bit on the blowy side,’ conceded the shire president. ‘We anticipated that. We know something about the weather out here, Minister. We lifted the speakers from the race track, so as you could make yourself heard.’
Under the gum trees some local ladies stood behind a trestle table shooing flies from the lamb and the upturned cups and spoons.
‘Do us a favour,’ Hoadley turned to Shadbolt. ‘I don't see the local press here. See if you can find them and make sure their camera gear's set up.’ He beamed and winked at a grazier's wife. ‘I wouldn't want to come out all this way for nothing.’
Sure! Shadbolt gave a nod. That's what he was there for, to give a hand.
As Hoadley made his way to the beginning of the pointless road, Shadbolt reported out of the corner of his mouth, ‘The photographer's OK and the reporter's got his notebook and pencil. I noticed over by the trees there a couple of blokes with shotguns.’
‘Good man. What'd you say?’
But Hoadley was steered away and handed a pair of pliers.
Instead of the ceremonial white ribbon a single line of barbed wire crossed the road, waist high.
‘It's all we could find,’ the shire president explained sheepishly. ‘Besides, it stops the hoons in town coming out here on their blasted motorbikes.’
