The Electrical Experience

by Frank Moorhouse

  Terri has no religion and may even, in fact, be, in my opinion, a type of ‘witch’. I know that this is terribly old-fashioned unclinical (or maybe not?). What I mean is that she may be psychologically evil maladjusted, committed to harming herself and others, though not necessarily with intention but because of something over which she had no control, and certainly, I’m afraid, something which is irreversible. I have done two years’ psychology at the University of New England and have, of course, read widely in educational psychology, so I do not speak entirely as a layman.

  In our family my mother was the strong person and a religious woman. Evidence of Teresa’s born antipathy to God was shown early as a child when she refused to attend Sunday-School or Church. I remember clearly Terri saying that church ‘suffocated’ her. My father is not what you would call a religious man, but I do not want that recorded against him. He was, in his own way, ethical. But, of course, Good Works alone is not enough.

  We were brought up to love animals, and our father provided us during childhood with almost a farmyard of animals. He thought it educational and as a way of giving us an appreciation of nature. I believe these views he took from the philosopher Elbert Hubbard. Despite this, our father was very much a man of affairs and not particularly spiritual. Maybe, though, if this love of animals could be reawakened in her, she might find her way out of the morass. We not only cared for the animals, and thus learned a great deal of biology, my sister also sketched the animals in various poses. Maybe she was confronted with animal-sex biology too soon. She has some talent as a sketcher, but in my opinion will never be an artist. I suppose she has not told you that she failed to complete Art School?

  I raise the next subject because it is a clinical matter which you, as a social worker, will understand. She was mortified, I remember, by her first menstrual period and tried to conceal it from my mother. She was also disturbed by her breast development. It was as if she hated womanhood and wanted somehow to cling to her childhood. As if she were not willing to leave childhood. But her embarrassment, or whatever, about her body did not last long and she soon became known as a flirt (and worse). I remember another thing about her body which she confided to me. She had one day been examining herself in my mother’s mirror and discovered, by holding a second mirror, that her head, she thought, was badly misshapen. She said she had believed this for a number of years until she realised that, in fact, the two mirrors had caused an optical distortion. But even in recent years she said she has to go to the mirror to check again.

  I must say this melodramatic little story of her imaginary deformity did not stop her seeking constantly the attention of boys (and men). In some ways, though I am loath to criticise them, our parents were remiss in the subject of sex education. This did not matter in my case, because I had other interests. As a teacher educationalist, in the course of my duties, I have had to assess a number of books on sexual education and would say that the whole problem seems now to be realistic and frank without being evocative and stimulating. I don’t know how one overcomes this problem.

  To return to my sister’s psychiatric problems. We had a comfortable childhood, although our father had a policy that every penny had to be earned by some completed task. My sister rebelled against this. I remember she once found a mention of a savage primitive tribe, where the status of people in the tribe was measured by their extravagance. I remember her bringing this up at the dinner table. Throwing it at my father.

  I do not know if this sounds simple-minded, but I believe her dabbling in drugs was a search for delight. An attempt to find delight the effortless way. The delights of life, as you must know being a social worker, are not that easily found. I myself have found some satisfaction through working with children and the administration of the school, but I would not say that I had found delight, or experienced ‘the delights of life’. I do not complain and do not go seeking this through drugs. Unlike my sister, I do not see it as some sort of Right. I certainly no longer believe it necessary for a person to experience everything in life. Even if one tried to go through life ‘using the senses 100 per cent’, it is not always possible to do so. ‘Using the senses 100 per cent’, you may recognise is one of her favourite expressions (or used to be). She was very taken with the idea of sensation through the nervous system, and this again may have attributed to her interest in drugs. I myself have opted, I suppose, for the reasonable use of one or two of my senses and experiencing life through the Holy Spirit.

  Her life is a profound disappointment to her, I suspect. She has not given due weight to the spiritual (as did my mother) or, on the other hand, to community or professional values (as did my father). She leads a disappointed life because she thought the nervous system could provide everything, be it alcohol, speeding in cars, sex, and at one time, Yoga. And another thing, she thought at one time that it was desperately important to surround herself with the ‘right’ objects, shapes, gardens, and the ‘right’-sized rooms even, and she spent far too much time and money doing this. She often said, in the times when we were still seeing each other occasionally, that people could make themselves mentally ill by not having the right surroundings. This is sadly ironic. She constantly changed her address in search of the perfect place to live. She was really a gypsy—a gypsy in this, and in other ways.

  Where does a young person get such ideas? How do such ideas get into circulation and reach even those protected from such ideas? Why do some ideas grab a hold on some people and not others?

  She says every object sends out its own message, which beats incessantly into the brain.

  I suppose it’s all what is called reaction. Certainly our family did not go about emphasising the carnal and sensuous.

  I do not believe that Teresa likes being alive. I don’t think she likes it very much at all and hence her constant attempts to alter her life. She would try anything which took hold of her senses ‘100 per cent’. Even as a child she would say things like ‘I hate life’. As if she expected to ‘like’ life, as if it were a person or an animal. This is a very wrong perspective, it seems to me. She could never accept life as a vale of tears.

  As a child she was befriended by an old man, an eccentric, in the town. They were what you might call ‘natural friends’. I suppose, later, they had art in common. He was always lending her art magazines from abroad. He used to call himself various things from time to time. Once for some time he was a Dadaist, whatever they may be when they are at home. It was always thought that he had a degree from some university or other, but when he died it was found that this was not so.

  It is revealing that these ‘sorts’ of people always find each other, even in a normal healthy town.

  She often said she could not ‘learn properly’. She was not dull, nor did she have any obvious defect, such as hearing. She could not, though, listen straight and would always get instructions mixed up, as if, at times, to annoy. It is an educational problem which should be given more attention. I think she was overimpressed with life and its immensity and thought it offered more than, in fact, life does.

  I know all this is probably very revealing about me. These things always are, but that can’t be helped. Really, there is no explanation for her conduct. I came from the same family and it was a very decent childhood. Apart from the death of one of our sisters, the family has suffered no real tragedies, suffered no hard times, and not faced scandal. I don’t know if what I’ve told you is of any use. I hope that you are able to do something for her, but I very much doubt it.

  THE ENTERPRISING SPIRIT OF THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE

  That next bright morning he called around to the motel to collect Becker and take him to the Lookout—this visiting American he’d met at Rotary the previous night and who knew his daughter Terri in the city.

  The American was bemused.

  ‘No,’ he said to this Becker, ‘you must see our Points of Historical Interest.’

  He liked visitors. They filled the time he had, it seemed, these days.
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  ‘After all we are, or I was, in the same business, Mr Becker. I was making soft drinks before you were born. Now, of course, retired. Would you believe there were independent cordial-makers in every country town before you chaps came along with your Proprietary lines—Coca-Cola, Jusfrute, Schweppes. Still that’s Progress, I suppose.’

  I suppose. That’s Progress. How you believe in something and it changes like a stick into a snake. Cherished beliefs turn and bite you. Competition. Good for the winner, bad for the loser. And always more losers than winners. That was why people became socialists. Socialism was a system for losers. But for the life of him he couldn’t see whether he’d won or lost now, now that it was the final round. Some words were only made clear by the events that arose and followed in and around and behind the word.

  ‘Situations and people’s subsequent behaviour make the meaning of some words clear,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘Just thinking aloud. No matter.’

  School of Arts—Tap-dancing, Tues., Thurs., Sat.

  ‘That was where the Science Club used to meet before the war. These days they use it for Housie—the Catholics. I suppose we have the answer to everything now. This has always been a brick town. Weatherboard towns don’t trust themselves. I’ve always said a brick building was a statement of faith.’

  ‘Brick, sir???’

  Street Light, Weathered-grey Ironbark Blackened with Creosote at the Base

  ‘Believe it nor not, that’s our first street light—still standing. Not that it is a Point of Historical Interest. I just mention that in passing. I can remember when it was our only street light. It was a carbide light, before I moved a motion that we have a row of electric lights in the street run off the generator from sunset to midnight, except on moonlight nights—we were a bit tight, that council. I made one of the speeches on Switch-on Night from the back of Carberry’s Fiat motor-lorry …

  ‘How do we get up on the lorry, Henry! Didn’t anyone think of steps? What about the Ladies? A butter-box or something! Do I always have to think of everything myself?’

  ‘We had a potted palm on the lorry and a table draped with the Australian flag. Coloured lights. I have always said Australians don’t know how to put on a Show—have a proper ceremony. I was telling you last night about the St Louis Rotary Convention. Now, you Americans, you people know how to put on a Show.’

  ‘Yes, sir, you did tell me.’

  ‘Electricity is used extensively in America and Europe, and seven towns now have electricity in New South Wales alone. The approach to this town could be a White Way of Electricity—a proclamation of this town’s belief in the Scientific Future. No city parliamentarians came. Some of the locals were peeved. I was not. Towns should be masters of their own affairs.

  I have always avoided bowing and curtsying to politicians, which is not to say anything against Harry Bate.’

  ‘Towns should be masters of their own affairs and powers unto themselves. I have always avoided this bowing and scraping that goes on with city parliamentarians. I remember thinking at the time that electricity power and its conveniences might equalise the country and the city and keep the young from leaving the town. We failed to keep our young. My two daughters have gone.’

  ‘There were those opposed to the spending of the £8000. Council could go too far and ride the good horse called Good Times into the ground. There were those on council who would always have you budget for bad times. I have always budgeted for better time ahead.’

  ‘Ironbark poles—all ironbark poles and many still standing.’

  ‘An unnatural extending of the daylight. “The moon and the stars are good enough for God,” Old Holdstein, the Lutheran said. We all grinned behind our hand and winked at each other.’

  ‘One old chap I remember said that it was extending daylight unnaturally. Most people, he said, didn’t want to be moving about at night. But we are go-ahead down this part.’

  “‘You are living in the unscientific past, Mr Holdstein,” I said. “And you, George McDowell, are an arrogant man, dazzled by mechanical fabrications and unable to have proper fear of their implications.” The others were having a bit of a laugh behind their hand.’

  ‘I replied that we have to go where Science takes us. That’s the destiny of our Times. He said that he knew very well where Science was taking us.’

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke, sir?’

  ‘No, by all means.’

  He pulled out the ashtray for the American. ‘I myself have never smoked and did not take alcohol until I was fifty. Both my daughters smoke, I don’t know why. I always believed though, privately, that I could become a heavy drinker if I ever had let myself go.’

  Tutman’s Ice Works—‘Safe and Pure’—Two Shillings in the Slot

  ‘Now there’s an interesting story. My childhood friend, the late James Tutman, built that ice works and it’s still going. He was a pioneer of ice-making in this country. First to make block ice, or one of the first. I once predicted that it was finished. Now his son’s put ice in plastic bags for service stations and hotels.’

  I show James the advertisement from Popular Mechanics for the Tyrell Institute Formula, and we agree to write away for it and try it. It says that it will ‘magnify your energy, sharpen your brain to razor edge and put a sparkle in your eye’. I tell James that we get no answer to our letter, but, in fact, we do and I take the powder but do not tell James. I do not want to share the secret. I should not have done that. I’m sorry, James. I’m sorry. It did not work anyhow. I felt no different.

  ‘We were great friends and business associates and fellow Rotarians. Do you know what my greatest mistake was?’

  ‘No, sir. What was your greatest mistake?’

  ‘I decided against going into ice-cream manufacturing. The coast is ideally suited. Milk, butter, cheese. I decided against ice-cream. Why? I thought domestic refrigeration would spell the end to commercial ice-cream. I thought every woman would make ice-cream in her home. I was wrong. Throughout my life I have underestimated the laziness, lack of initiative, lack of resourcefulness of the human race.’

  ‘H. L. Mencken once said, sir, that no one has ever gone broke underestimating the public taste.’

  On the balance, things are for the best rather than for the worse. ‘Where is the proof of that?’ I ask Teacher. ‘Sit down, George, and get on with your work.’

  ‘Where is the proof?’

  ‘Don’t be insolent, George.’

  Sit down.

  Sit down.

  I wanted it to be proved, I wanted it to be true.

  Dr Trenbow’s Former Residence with Wireless Aerial

  ‘Am I boring you with all this talk of the old days?’

  ‘No, not at all. But sooner or later I have to get on with my calls.’

  ‘That stone residence is where old Dr Trenbow lived. He, too, was an advanced thinker. He had the first wireless set in this town and formed a Radio Listening-in Club. It was in 1924 when F. P. Naylor, representing the Associated Radio Company of Australia, visited this town.

  F. P. Naylor rises to speak. ‘It is with great pleasure that I come here this evening to address your listening-in experiment organised by your Science Club. For those of you new to wireless the method of use is as follows: the family gathers around a table on which the wireless receiving apparatus is placed. A selective switch is turned—this ebonite knob—to get the correct strength of sound, this other ebonite knob is turned. The best artists in the city travel through the ether at 186,000 miles per second, thus annihilating distance. The apparatus literally takes the broadcast programme “out of the air”. For family listening a trumpet is used to distribute the sound equally up to a distance of 200 yards. For private listening the ear receiver is used.’ Dr Trenbow and I had spent the afternoon rigging up the aerial from the chimney to the pine-tree. The doctor had purchased a Burgusphone wireless receiver. Thus annihilating distance.

  ‘The wireless annihilated dist
ance. I’ll tell you a funny thing. They used to say that until we had wireless, this town was always about ten minutes behind the world. The town clock was always slow by about ten minutes. Every time someone went up to the city, they found their watch slow. When wireless came, we could set the clock by that.’

  ‘That’s intriguing, sir.’

  McDowell’s Cordials and Aerated Waters—Tru-frute Flavours—Now Demolished Except for the Brick Front which Still Stands

  ‘I built that factory in 1925, lived in it until I married. Get out, we’ll have a look around. You’ll be interested, being in the soft-drink business, yourself.’

  The Business.

  Business Card.

  Letterhead.

  Printed Invoice.

  Painted Sign.

  Printed Label.

  Advertisements.

  All bearing my name. A person becomes a business entity. An address. A telephone number.

  A letterhead. There was something fine about it. Something of a special pleasure in a letterhead. A registered business name. The Eckersley Carbonator will be here on Tuesday.

  ‘This is where the Eckersley Carbonator was—over here—and the Progressive bottle-washing machine here. And this here was my office, this slab here was my office.’

  My office.

  And these are my tears and this is my aching heart. This was my office and this was my factory. I didn’t sell my factory: I sold my works and days. Economic factors and economy of scale.