Holden's Performance

by Murray Bail

  Shadbolt had no idea of the resentment his arrival caused. It never entered his head. He didn't notice the hard time the other drivers gave him. Even if he had it was doubtful he would have changed. He went about his work, had little to say.

  Shadbolt preferred being with the mechanics.

  At first they regarded him with indifference as he joined them looking under a bonnet, but he knew how to talk to them, or rather, how not to talk, merely making the brief observation as if thinking aloud. And without meaning to he revealed a mechanical mind equal to theirs, and they saw as genuine his interest in keeping his car in top condition. He also showed— rare among drivers—a willingness to get his hands dirty, a man who'd drop everything to give someone a hand: a glance at him was enough to realise that. And they welcomed him, Hoadley's sidekick, nicknamed ‘Mudguards’.

  By the time he discarded the map on his knees he was enjoying himself. He could take notice of the surroundings, his contentment lengthening with the onomatopoeic purr of the eight-cylinder engine. And then the artificiality of the capital, its superimposition of circles and horizontal white on the tawny unevenness, surrounded by pornographic hills, bruised in both summer and winter, and where the immensity of the sky spoke of long days and endlessness in the interior—all this began to please him. Here the cleanliness of the kerbs matched the clarity of the air. He became observant, sharp as a tack.

  If the Minister was required at the Senate the drive took only a few minutes. Hoadley's attendance record though was poor; it could hardly get worse. The Senator believed his duties lay in other directions, and with the single-mindedness which had made him such a formidable political opponent he'd hand Shad-bolt an address typed on a card, or if they'd been there before, merely mentioning the street, or ‘let's see if number 12's home.’ Settling back he'd remove his coat and loosen his Windsor knot, releasing the oscillating haze of his flyscreen shirt, not an ounce of fat, his tan ears and extroverted combed hair gleaming in the sun.

  At first Shadbolt had been surprised at the addresses. They were ordinary domestic houses. Following Hoadley's instructions he'd park around the corner, or shoot straight up the drive if the house was obscured by trees, such as Mrs Dodge's place in Ovens Street. The Minister enjoyed this side of his job. He threw himself into it with phenomenal enthusiasm. Seated behind the steering wheel Shadbolt twiddled his thumbs for anything from twenty minutes to five to six hours (that was the wife of the poor clerk in the Lands Department who ran after Hoadley on the footpath in piped dressing gown).

  Mrs Dodge, she was the chain-smoking bride of a World War Two hero, a man who pushed a pen in the Dept of Defence and showed more concern for the Red Menace than her menstrual periods, an error Hoadley never made. In Cox Street, not far away, there was the pleasantly plump mother of two who welcomed Hoadley in a pleated tennis dress. In a block of terracotta 1940s flats already cracking around the lintels a waitress as mad as a snake fitted Hoadley in between shifts—‘the meat in the sandwich’, as he put it. The hysterical violinist from Moravia who somehow reminded Shadbolt of Mrs Younghusband. There was the disorganised spouse of the time-and-motion expert on contract to CHAI who played the old trick of hiding Hoadley's trousers, and in a cream brick veneer near the War Memorial the disconsolate second—or was it third?—wife of a political opponent known to have one tentative ankle and elbow out of the closet. Some lovely Asian crumpet at the youth hostel: he stumbled out from there always with the sweat patch between his shoulder blades spreading in the shape of the Malay peninsula. At McKinley Street he returned repeatedly to number 12 to explore the sandy interior of Miss Hilda Somebody. There was an usherette from one of Hoadley's theatres, formerly of Adelaide, who hid behind the curtains. A change of shirt. To Darling Street, towards the lake still on the drawing board, and the invisible divorcee whose silvery laugh Shadbolt grew to like. And what about the straw blonde who was into weaving and always spoke in inverted commas? So many variations of domestic architecture facing the sun in the afternoons, flyscreens on the windows and doors. On Thursdays only there was Ainslie tall and la de da who let out elemental sighs in clear view of the mountain of that name. A de facto of an alcoholic journo at a dusty address a stone's throw from Parliament House welcomed Hoadley and his charm with freckled arms.

  Hoadley listened to their inner-life stories. They cried on his shoulder and yet didn't seem unhappy. They used Hoadley for his warmth. Hated him leaving, hated the sight of his back. Wife of the poor clerk in the Lands Dept—. A good many introduced discreetly complicated arrangements for home visits, and so never registered in Shadbolt's photographic memory. The wife of a lighthouse keeper from Jervis Bay signalled she was ready and waiting by—Hoadley gave a chuckle, he loved them all—flashing a torch. To Shadbolt's surprise others were only too happy to show themselves. There was that peroxide widow at the window of the architect-designed house in Gawler Crescent who made a habit of coming out after an hour in a butterfly-patterned kimono with a cup of tea for Shadbolt. They bought Hoadley gifts. Neckties mostly, which unaccountably depressed the Minister. Some of them he passed on to Shadbolt. If a woman became trouble he avoided her street, but only for a few weeks. He was not doing this to cause unhappiness. (The mother and daughter decked out in silver and gold who grew to despise each other over him.) WRAACs, typists from the bush, widow with the budgerigars. Fridays at 4 were reserved for commerce with Miss Kilmartin of the hornrims, known to the government as a US intelligence plant, who saw stars and stripes whenever Hoadley touched her in a certain part. ‘If anyone leaks it's her,’ Hoadley adjusted his collar and tie in the car. But he had trouble with her. Thought she owned him. For a time too there was the hypochondriac Russian touch typist who always managed an afternoon off from the embassy and during moments of most abandon hissed a word similar to ‘Pushkin’, audible to Shadbolt from the footpath. And what about the good-sort Queenslander with the crocheted pillowslips, napkins and bedspreads who swore like a trooper? God, she was rough. Hoadley vowed never to visit her again but always returned.

  In between home affairs he managed to squeeze in some paperwork in the back seat as he wolfed down delicacies in his shirt sleeves, both doors open to catch the breeze. Even then his restlessness showed. Without revealing the most intimate details he casually confided to his driver, ‘Now here's a funny thing…’

  Basically he was a numbers man. The harder he worked the more energy he attained. If he could satisfy just fifty per cent of the population…He brought to the task a simple rude energy of persistence. Why, Shadbolt became disconcerted, he's had more dot-dot-dot than he's had roast dinners (a phrase he'd first head from Frank McBee years ago). Every woman interested him. And they recognised it. Just as Shadbolt felt at ease among mechanics so Hoadley was born to, and developed further, the knack of tinkering with women. He had developed this very effective mix of minute and bold attention. He never stopped listening and watching and smiling. It showed even when he spoke to one on the telephone. He couldn't help himself. And through his apparently casually chosen words he seemed to grow inside them. A woman felt his presence gradually spreading. He entered through their eyes, their ears and partly through their mouths. By then his words and attentions had formed into something almost solid; soft and hard; slow, insistently spreading throughout.

  In the mirror or when he turned to accept a leg of chicken Shadbolt saw the Minister pondering the complexities of his electorate, the many individual bodies unfolding into the whole. ‘Not many men are happy in their work, a social problem we as a government are concerned about. But I wouldn't give away this job for anything. It's a real challenge. I love the Austrylian people.’ Glancing at his watch he'd sink his teeth into the morsel, hurrying for his next appointment.

  If a husband happened to be out of town or if a constituent's needs demanded extra attention the Minister would stroll out to the car, rest an elbow on the door (‘How's it going out here?’), and looking out along the bonnet would say, thoughtfully, ‘I've been t
ied up for a second’, or ‘It's taking longer than I expected’, and tell Shadbolt to come back first thing in the morning. Then he'd whack the door with his palm and like an old friend wave and saunter back to the house, which produced in Shadbolt a stain of intense pleasure, such was his gratitude at Hoadley's informality.

  The only time Hoadley turned moody and foul-tempered was when a combination of circumstances somehow combined on the one day, disparate lines of force all over Canberra intersecting at apparent random—husband at home, illness at Cox Street, Chinese New Year, death in family, school holidays— leaving Hoadley without a single rendezvous, days when not even the rough diamond from Queensland could receive him at home.

  Such days began slowly but as the momentum of knockbacks and no-answers increased so did Hoadley's sense of desolation; Shadbolt would be pressed into service, running up driveways with cap in hand, knocking at doors, apologising for the wrong address if a surprised husband answered, not worrying about concealing the Commonwealth car, Hoadley seated restlessly in the back, and made calls on the Minister's behalf from public telephones.

  By lunchtime the full dimensions of the emptiness had become clear—a day so wide open as to have no meaning. To any suggestions Shadbolt made Hoadley said nothing or merely grunted. Fidgeting with papers, glancing out the window, looking at his watch he wore a hurt, slightly confused expression. Only when they stopped and Hoadley concentrated on unfolding hams and spreading imported pates on biscuits did he pull himself together.

  Working on the adage, ‘The harder you work, the luckier you become’ he leaned forward with all his old cockiness and instructed Shadbolt to drive to the nurses' quarters at the hospital, or to the nearest shopping centre, or if it wasn't too late the nearest kindergarten. There Hoadley would open both doors, almost blocking the footpath, and in his flyscreen shirt and Made-in-America pen poised, concentrated on the important papers of state, one eye though screening every piece of approaching skirt and, seizing upon the slightest sign of interest, whether it was a pair of pale nurses in nuns' stockings, or a harassed housewife loaded down with junk food, or even a young mother-to-be leaving the immaculate kindergarten.

  The little Australian flag fluttering on the bonnet usually caught their attention; but if they missed it or chose to ignore it they found their path almost blocked by the wide-open executive doors; sometimes then to make quite sure, Hoadley would flick out with his foot a confidential report which fluttered at their feet like a wounded bird.

  As soon as a woman bent down towards the figure in the back working there in his shirt sleeves (‘Scuse me, I think you may have—’) Hoadley glanced up and breaking what seemed to be a slightly annoyed expression of interrupted concentration, smiled and said something. It was then with a startled cry they sometimes recognised his face from the newspapers.

  What happened next was always a mystery to Shadbolt. Sometimes he'd hear Hoadley introduce himself. His words were in a low murmur, difficult to hear, but evidently self-deprecating; for very soon there'd be the tinkle of a musical laugh (‘A woman's laugh is a very fine thing,’ he said one day. ‘A woman is made for laughter’) and Shadbolt glancing in the side-mirror would see a woman resting groceries on her knees, or crouching, listening to him while smiling at the traffic.

  Surrounded by papers Hoadley appeared to be an invalid, a fallen monument. But the seated, half-darkened posture only gave his words an extra concentrated force; for it must have been plain to anybody he was a man in the prime of life. His powers were hidden and at rest, that was all. Insistently and softly his words sought questions, reaching the centre of the chosen ones, always circling the centre, until they understood his interest which at the same time seemed to be no interest at all. That was the balance Hoadley casually reached. Not for one second did he remove his eyes, except for casual side-effects, as when he spoke slightingly of himself.

  That was how he hypnotised Joy Shoulders, completely covered with freckles, down from Deniliquin for the Show, and Mrs Pirie, the midwife between husbands, suffering a loss of confidence, and the identical twins with the narrow-set eyes…Shadbolt could scarcely believe his ears. It was how Hoadley had hypnotised his future wife eight years ago outside one of his pleasure palaces in Bondi, a frail creature blowing her nose in all innocence from the Technicolor happily-ever-after ending of The African Queen.

  The success of his kerbside technique widened his local support, and with more and more people visiting Canberra to see how the capital was going he gathered in loyal supporters from interstate and country towns, each one carefully jotted down and followed up as soon as possible—‘Hello, there. You've probably forgotten me already, but…’

  Regular trips out west were necessary.

  And then so flat became the land and vast the sky that although the car made progress it didn't appear to be moving through time and space; and as the sun heated his extended arms on these long journeys Shadbolt wondered how other men spent their days at work.

  On the outskirts of towns he stopped and took out the Australian flag from the glovebox, where it had been folded so it wouldn't get worn out, and as he fastened it back on the bonnet he felt the flickering of insects all around him, otherwise stillness, or slowness all around, the heat from the earth came up through his soles; and he felt pleasantly aware of the Minister, his boss, seated in the back in comfort, surrounded by his difficult work.

  ‘I get a real kick out here in the bush,’ the Minister called out. ‘This country of ours is one great block of dirt.’

  The grass seeds and the wide open spaces acted as aphrodisiacs; Hoadley could hardly wait to press the flesh of the local constituents.

  They had adjoining rooms, government footing the bill, in grand verandahed hotels, tall silver ships in the desert, with incessantly creaking floors and wooden walls like the floors, where in summer commercial travellers slept out on the open verandahs, the dining rooms adorned with a calendar and reproductions of bulldogs playing cards around a green baize table, slightly askew.

  Usually by mid-morning a motorcade formed outside the entrance, and led by the local mayor's ute or the Chev of an influential grazier Hoadley set forth to open a bridge. Wherever it was or whatever its size—a footbridge or merely an elevated crossing for sheep—Hoadley never knocked back an invitation to open a bridge, even poaching them from other Ministers. The very idea of a bridge appealed to him. The joining together of two sides, the graceful flanks spanning a flow, were distinctly feminine qualities. There was no such thing as an ugly bridge. Many a time he said that. And often he'd get Shadbolt to skid to a halt so he could admire the ample curves of a stone bridge or the swaying grace of one suspended by wires. The sight could leave him at a loss for words. If Hoadley was vulnerable it might somehow be via a bridge. It had been his idea to erect the signs lovingly listing their vital statistics fore and aft.

  Standing coatless on the site, hands on hips, his red head swaying like a penis, Hoadley opened with the standard line. Shadbolt had heard it many times but never tired of it.

  ‘I'm sixteen years older than the Sydney Harbour Bridge,’ he bellowed out across the windswept plains. Tm a nuts and bolts man. I believe in concrete, the smooth path, the joining together of people; I'm a modern man. It's through strength and geometry we'll go forward. Bridges are the symbols, algebras, whatever you call them, dotted all over the landscape, measuring our progress, our determination to conquer the elements. I love this bloody [usually OK out in the bush] country of ours. But it can be a bastard! It can be unforgiving, as you people on the land know only too well. But a bridge—this one we're standing on now—a bridge is generous. A bridge is strong. It carries our burdens. It opens up opportunities. A bridge is a collective, human effort. I'm all for them. They also look good to the eye, close up or from a distance. This one here's a little beauty, one of the nicest I've seen. Sure, you'll get the odd ratbag crashing into the rails on his motorbike, or someone jumping off. But the advantages far outweigh the minuses.
Some of my most treasured experiences have taken place on, or underneath…bridges.

  ‘Ladies and gennelmen! On behalf of your government, as Minister of the Interior (among other things) it gives me very great pleasure—.’

  It was enough for tears to swell around the crow's feet of the country people; Shadbolt too joined in the applause for the nodding and waving Minister, everybody's best-friend.

  During his speech Hoadley's roving eyes swept the small audience, and when his voice paused almost imperceptibly, Shadbolt noticed a woman smile, or become disconcerted. And sure enough during refreshments (mutton sandwiches, rock-cake, flies) Shadbolt watched the boss in conversation with the chosen one at the exclusion of everybody else, and he knew that he'd have a late night or a long morning next day, waiting outside a darkened house in the car.

  With a completely reliable driver up front Hoadley could relax; he even seemed to enjoy Shadbolt's company.

  But nothing impressed the Minister more than his photographic memory.

  They were cruising into Deniliquin at dusk. Lining the main street at an angle the dented cars and utes bled into the verandah posts, the yellow light melting glass and metallic shapes, casting an underwater film over the slow-motion pedestrians, glistening the stretch of street, although it hadn't rained in the district for years.

  Between cars a figure separated from a post.

  The wide-apart features focused in unmistakable grey tones.

  ‘Our pub's down the end,’ Hoadley was saying. He was dog tired.

  ‘There's that Mrs Shoulders lady,’ Shadbolt half turned. ‘If you want to—’

  ‘“Shoulders” did you say?’ Hoadley twisted in his seat. ‘Which one are we talking about?’

  ‘You know,’ said Shadbolt kindly, ‘she was that one outside Parliament House—by the lawn. Remember she said she came from here.’