‘Maybe,’ he said, then added, ‘There’s some well-bred women here today. Watch for that. Prophesy big money for their husbands in some deal or other. You only give wins in lotteries to poor people.’
I had made up my mind to predict happiness to all who came in so I didn’t answer him.
‘All these blokes look a lot older than they are,’ he said after a while. ‘They get old by lining themselves up for comparison with younger people they know. They think they’re being watched go down and it makes them worse. “How old are you?” a lot of people say to me. “What’s that going to teach you about me?” I ask them. “That I shouldn’t be enjoying myself so much or what? Are you trying to tie me up with how you feel?” What they do, they try and trim you to their size with a couple of figures. Look at this poor fellow now. I know him. He travels with a girl show. How old do you think he is?’
‘Oh he’s a fair-aged chap,’ I said. ‘About seventy.’
‘He’s not a day over forty. The trouble with him, what makes him look like that, he’s been drinking metho for years.’
‘Does drinking metho age you?’
‘Hell yes! It shrinks you up inside then you shrink outside. You go like an old spud at the bottom of the bag.’
He paused then lowering his voice said, ‘I’ve been screwing off a bloke over there near that tent. You watch him. There’s someone hounding that bloke. He’s on the run. He’s a stranger here yet he’s frightened of being recognised. See how he keeps looking at people as if there might be someone amongst them he doesn’t want to meet. He’s frightened of being seen by someone. He keeps looking over here at the tent. He wants to know something. He’ll be the first bloke in. Leave him to me. Put your ear to the canvas and listen. It’ll give you some leads.’
He was right. In a little while the man came over to us.
‘Are you the fortune teller?’
‘Yes. Do you want your fortune told?’ asked Roman.
‘Yes. Something like that.’
‘Come in.’ Roman gestured towards the tent doorway and held back the canvas flap for him to enter.
I did not hear what Roman told him. It seemed degrading to me to listen at the tent doorway and I moved away. But when they appeared at least half an hour later they had established a relationship usually associated with brothers.
The man shook Roman’s hand and left, walking quickly towards the showground entrance. Roman watched him go.
‘I got a screw of notes from him,’ he said. ‘He thinks it’s money well spent so there’s no harm done.’
‘You must have landed on the truth,’ I said.
‘That was easy enough. I strong-pointed him by saying, “There’s a woman hot on your trail.” “That’s the trouble,” he said. “She’s ruined me four times already. How long have I got?” “Four hours,” I told him. “Hell!” he said. “She must have found out I had a job teed up in this town. What’ll I do now?” “Make north,” I told him.’
‘You did him out of a good job,’ I said.
‘No, I didn’t. We talked it over. He’s a good mechanic and he’ll get a better job than the garage here is offering him. He told me about his wife. She’s been on his back for years—a regular bitch, if ever there was one.’
‘I wonder how you would have got on telling her fortune,’ I said, my tone ironical.
He laughed in pleased comprehension of all my remark suggested.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right. It makes a difference.’
The sideshows had now blared into life. Crowds of people were gathering before the tent where spruikers used their skill to lure them inside.
‘There’s too many sideshows here today,’ said Roman looking speculatively along the thoroughfare between the tents. ‘When a dozen men are spruiking at once, people become undecided. They move from spruiker to spruiker trying to make up their mind. They’ve only got so much to spend. Once they keep moving like that they end up by spending nothing. You’ve got to hold them in front of you till the other shows get started, then it’s too late to get into any of them. I can pull them away from most of these fellows but you will have to work fast. Now are you going on with it or not?’
‘Yes. Will I go in now?’
He glanced at me critically. ‘That coat you’ve got on might be all right for a writer; it’s no good for a fortune teller. I’ll get you a jacket.’
We went into the tent and he took a worn brocade smoker’s jacket from a case. It was patterned with red and green dragons.
‘Put this on.’
I took off my coat and replaced it with the jacket and for some reason it gave me confidence.
Albert walked in.
‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Roman.
‘I’ve been talking to a bloke whose cow’s just died on him.’
‘That’s impossible; it would crush him flat,’ said Roman who, having donned a Japanese kimono, was winding a red turban round his head. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
Albert’s eyes were bright. ‘It did just that,’ he said. ‘Crushed him flat. I keep worrying about it. I’ll have to attend the inquest. It’s what I’ve always said, “You can buy another cow but you can’t buy a human life.” ’
‘Now you can see how it is with him,’ said Roman looking at me and jerking his thumb towards Albert. ‘Outside, Albert,’ he ordered. ‘We want to get started.’
Albert looked at me with a knowing grin. ‘So this is where you start shouting the wrong time, is it?’
‘The right time,’ I corrected him.
He went out with his head back laughing silently.
‘Now, you’re Professor Renui from New Zealand,’ Roman said in business-like tones. ‘Give them three minutes. I’ll give you the tip. When a woman comes through that door look her steadily in the eyes and keep them on her till she sits down. It makes them self-conscious and more amenable to suggestion.’
‘That sounds like a book,’ I said.
‘I got it from a book,’ he said sharply. ‘Now look,’ he went on, ‘Follow their expression like a sheepdog follows sheep. You read their face not their hand. They got to tell you while they’re thinking you’re telling them. If any woman wants to know about her aches and pains tell her you can see her going to a doctor next week. Bad luck will come to her if she doesn’t. If a woman asks you if her husband’s unfaithful just say, “All your plans to hold him are going to work.” No more than that. Make wins in lotteries and money from wills a long way ahead. Married women like to think they attract men. Tell most of them another man loves them but he’ll never tell them. Start them off feeling sorry for themselves then send them out sorry for everyone else. We’re wasting time. Are you set?’
‘Yes, but I think I’ll go longer than three minutes.’
‘All right then. I’ll tell them it’s sixpence a question over three minutes. You’ll go well, I’m telling you.’
He hurried out.
I sat behind a table on a chair facing the doorway. The table was covered with a dark blue velvet cloth fringed with metallic braid. The chair with the repaired leg provided a seat for the patrons.
The back of my chair was against the rear canvas wall of the tent and people entering had to walk across the tent to reach the table. I could thus study them as they faced me and seated themselves.
Roman had told me to greet women by saying, ‘Good afternoon, madam. Would you please seat yourself, but I was incapable of being formal so decided to be friendly.
Roman had begun his spiel. I was surprised at the power and resonance of his voice which sounded louder than that of any spruiker I had heard. Its suggestion of urgency and importance suddenly placed upon me responsibilities for which I did not feel prepared and panic seized me for a moment but I recovered myself and stared at the canvas flap that covered the doorway.
‘Ho there! Ho there! Ho there!’ Roman shouted across the showground. ‘Prognostication and Prediction by the Great Man, the Great Man, the Great Man. In your town for one day only. The Great Man
, the Great Man. Professor Renui of New Zealand. On his way to a year’s engagement in America. For one day only, I say. The Great Man.
‘Don’t forget you will be sitting before the Great Man, the confidant of the world’s nobility.
‘Are you going to receive bad news, good news, a lover’s letter, an engagement ring? Who are your enemies? Who are your friends? Ask the Great Man, the Great Man, the Great Man, Professor Renui of New Zealand.
‘Two shillings admission. Three minutes only. Longer sessions by arrangement.
‘Ho there! Ho there! Ho there!’
He stopped and stepped swiftly into the tent while calling loudly, ‘Just one moment, madam. I’ll see if Professor Renui is ready.
‘She’s on her own,’ he whispered sharply. ‘No boy. No parents. No ring on her finger.’
He stepped back through the doorway.
‘Right, madam, through here if you please.’
The girl who stepped through the doorway was about nineteen years old. She had blond hair recently set at some hairdresser. She was wearing cheap, imitation jewellery—cheap bangle, cheap ear-rings, cheap pendant.
Her floral frock was new, her stockings were new, her shoes were new, her handbag was new. Her shoes were a design the Modern Shoe Company had turned out in thousands.
She walked with studied precision like one familiar with flat heels, not with the high ones she was wearing. She smelt of perfume.
She was a healthy girl with a full figure. Open air. Good food. Parents not poor.
My gaze confused her. She sat down with the movements of one wishing to sit down correctly, the influence either of certain people she was meeting or of articles on deportment and social graces in women’s magazines. She crossed her legs. She placed her bag on the table.
Her face was round and lacked animation. There was something sullen in its contours. She had a sulky mouth. They were not reflections of a present mood but of past conditioning. A brooder, maybe.
I smiled at her. ‘Would you mind putting your left hand on the table.’
It was a square, short hand, the fingers wide apart. The skin on the palm had the shine, texture and flatness of one who has milked cows. Her nails were short, the fingers slightly shrunken from suds, washing up, scrubbing …
Though I felt she was passive in temperament she gave an impression she could be stubborn.
This was the evidence. What did it amount to? I had to draw my conclusions almost at once.
A fortune teller draws conclusions from the first thing observed. As observation gathers more evidence the first conclusion grows to embrace a wider and wider field of conjecture until when the eyes have finished their objective survey the mind is ready to present its findings. At first they are tentative and probing then, when expression and response from the patron prove their truth, they are asserted as fact.
I strong-pointed the girl in front of me almost immediately. The statement I made was the result of this chain-action reasoning and followed this sequence:
I was in a country town surrounded by farms with no industries for employment of young people. This girl was wearing things recently purchased. They were not gifts. They had cost her money.
It was money available to her now but not available until recently since, if this were not so, what she was wearing would vary in its newness. The purchase of personal things would have then extended over a longer period and this would have been revealed in their condition. No mother or friend would have bought her the jewellery she was wearing. She had bought it herself.
Her appearance, manner and the fact that she was alone, suggested an absence of friends in the town and an upbringing some distance away. She was obviously a farmer’s daughter. It would not be wages from her father that supplied her with money.
She had not come to the show with a family party. She was wandering round on her own.
Her hands suggested domestic work. She was a domestic. Who would employ a domestic in Boswell? Her employer would need a substantial income. What sort of employer? There was the way she walked, the way she sat down, the suggestion she was imitating someone. Influence of a woman socially established in the town? A woman directed by city influences? Probably a doctor’s or a lawyer’s wife. Certainly not the wife of one of the business men who ran a store in the main street. Their trade was languishing. A doctor’s wife? That would be it. She worked for a doctor.
Why did she leave home? Discontented with farm life? If this was so it would annoy the type of mother she obviously possessed. She would have disagreements with her mother, quarrels maybe. That sulky mouth, that impression of stubbornness …
She wanted a brighter life with boys. She was that type of girl. She hadn’t got a boy. If she had he would certainly have brought her to the show. It was a public holiday.
No girlfriend either. She would be lonely, day-dream a lot. There would certainly be a boy she thought she loved even if he didn’t love her, never took her out. There would be some boy who supplied an image of the man she would like to marry. But it went no further than that. Frustrated, certainly. This town was dull. She would like to work in Melbourne where there was a brighter life and plenty of boys.
‘You have had a lot of disagreements with your mother recently,’ I said.
She looked startled then nodded.
‘You quarrel sometimes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your mother didn’t want you to leave home. Your parents run a farm some distance out of the town but you didn’t like farm life. You would have liked to get a job in Melbourne but both your mother and father objected to this. They thought it was too far away from home and they kept saying you were too young, that city life wasn’t what you thought it was. They wanted you to help with work on the farm but finally after a number of arguments your mother consented to you taking a job at the home of a doctor in Boswell, a job which was advertised in the local paper.’
‘That’s all true,’ she said in amazement. She had lost her self-consciousness. She was listening intently.
‘There is a boy in this town with whom you would like to go out but he has never asked you,’ I said.
Her cheeks flushed. She dropped her gaze.
‘It’s not his fault,’ she said almost inaudibly.
I now knew some boy wanted to take her out but was prevented. Who prevented him and why? What boy would she be seeing frequently, a boy who had let her see he wanted to take her out but who was prevented from doing this. They must have spoken to each other many times for them to have reached the stage of confidences. Maybe he was the son of the house in which she worked. It was the most reasonable assumption.
‘He is the son of the people for whom you are working,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘He is a doctor’s son,’ I said ready to somersault out of it if I was wrong.
Her expression did not deny it.
‘Your future, as far as he is concerned,’ I went on, ‘will depend on circumstances. You’ll see each other quite often but his parents do not wish him to go with you. They have other plans for him. He hasn’t got the will to oppose them. He is a studious young fellow and hasn’t knocked about much.’
She kept listening, her face showing confirmation of what I said.
‘You will go to Melbourne to work. Your present job will not last very long. Even now you feel you should leave.
‘When you are working in Melbourne you will meet a boy who will fall in love with you. You will eventually marry this boy. His hair is inclined to be dark and he is taller than you. He has the type of face that attracts you. You will have children. You have a favourite girl’s name in your mind and your eldest daughter will bear this name.’
I began giving details of her future life based on my knowledge of the problems that face all people, the trials all experience. I told her of friends made, interests developed, happiness experienced. I told her of temporary illnesses and people of whom she must beware. I told her of her courage in
adversity, her thoughtfulness for others.
Roman shoved his head through the doorway.
‘Are you ready, Professor Renui?’ he asked. ‘There’s a queue of people out here.’
The girl rose. ‘I can’t understand how you knew so much about me,’ she said. ‘I think you are marvellous. How did you know I quarrelled with my mother?’
‘It was all revealed.’ I bowed.
I found fortune telling exhausting work and was glad when the afternoon was over. I had told over forty fortunes, men, women and children, and Roman was delighted.
‘Travel with us,’ he said, ‘and we’ll split the take.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t. I’m giving the game away.’
But I didn’t. In a few weeks time I returned to Melbourne and there from a room I rented I went out telling fortunes in aid of the unemployed, hospitals and the Spanish Relief Fund.
The committees who invited me provided me with posters and tents. I became known as ‘Shabaka, the Great Egyptian Soothsayer’, and with darkened face and turbaned head I gradually developed a technique that impressed even my friends.
My mother, half convinced by the stories they told her about me, held her work-worn hand before me one day and asked, “What do you see there, Alan?’
I looked at it cupping, as it seemed to me, my very life.
‘Myself,’ I said. ‘Myself.’
25
Fortune telling brought me face to face with people. They were presented for my observation under conditions that removed the facade concealing them.
In a fortune teller’s tent life became literature, a book, the chapters of which I was asked to write. It demanded an interpretation of glance, of movement, of remark.
I began cutting prediction down and entering into discussion with the one in front of me. A problem revealed in a question became a focal point for conjecture and I found people responded to this and found greater satisfaction in confession than in listening to prediction.
I carried this attitude away from the tent, to circles of friends, to girls I met. There was a desperate need among young people to pour out their confusions, their fears and bewilderments to some person who could listen uncritically and with understanding.
In Mine Own Heart Page 23
