The Electrical Experience

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘Economic factors and economies of scale. That was where the men’s shower was.’

  Where are the men? What is the future of the country town. We could all live in a single skyscraper. One town in a single building instead of spreading houses over good acres. Soon, anyhow, the town will be nothing more than a refrigerated outlet for frozen merchandise from the city. The country merchant and the country manufacturer are disappearing.

  ‘Soon towns will be just refrigerated outlets for frozen products made for us god-knows-where by people we’ve never met. Soon we won’t even bake our own daily bread.’

  Tears.

  Tears.

  ‘Morning, George, sentimentalising again, I see.’

  Sentimental George? Yes, he was a very sentimental person. Ben Backhouse, queer fish. A good town editor. Stuck by the town.

  ‘Our editor, Ben Backhouse, this is Mr Becker from the United States.’

  Local papers disappearing. Owned by people you never see. People you can’t argue with in the street, can’t put a case to. This Max Newton. What happened to Frank Hanley, always working here on some paper on the coast?

  ‘Ben, whatever happened to Frank Hanley?’

  ‘Can’t remember, George.’

  ‘What happened to Boot? I met Boot once with my father. He had the paper at Tilba and then Cobargo.’

  ‘That’s a long way back, George.’

  Time. George. My second daughter died of pleurisy. Wouldn’t happen now. I placed an advertisement in the local paper thanking the nurses at the Cottage Hospital and thanking Dr Trenbow. Don’t see that now. I own all the shops in the arcade.

  ‘I own all the shops in the arcade, which was my idea. How many towns do you know that have an arcade? But it’s not the same, not the same as being a manufacturer. Why, I’m just a collector of rents now.’

  ‘You’ve done very nicely, George. No one is going to listen to your whingeing.’

  ‘I was telling Mr Becker that I was in soft drinks myself until two years ago. No one to take over things. No son. Of course, I’m a rich man. My eldest daughter has done very well—a headmistress. I often ask myself these questions …’

  What questions?

  I once had plans for a political party of Makers and Growers. This country is run by financiers, real-estate men, trade unionists, and public servants—who all make nothing. I was quite a reader. I was once quite a philosopher in my own way, and a world traveller.

  ‘In my own way I was once quite a philosopher. You’d agree with that, Ben?’

  ‘Oh yes, George, you were.’

  ‘I have always said the small town is the answer to our problems. We will one day have to return to the small town. I was against small-mindedness, but always for small towns. It’s not how many square miles in a country that makes it great: it’s how many square people. I see, only recently, a young fellow from the university agreed with me about the towns. He said the future is in small communities. I cut the piece out. His name was McGregor. Or was it Craig. I held high hopes for the country way of life, Ben. You’d agree with that, I once wrote the Creed. Do you remember the Creed, Ben? You printed it. The point of ever larger cities eludes me. This is where the men’s showers were, where I’m sitting now.’

  Where are the men?

  Triple-filtered water was the answer to impurities in the local supply. I didn’t use Blue Ark essence for many years. Made everything myself. All my drinks were 15 parts pure fruit juice. No one noticed when I stopped doing it myself. People don’t basically care. Or appreciate. People have never cared as much as I have. Why was that? No one ever commented. I didn’t sell my factory: I sold my works and my days.

  ‘George?’

  ‘Ben. Have you met this American chap from Coca-Cola?’

  It’s enough to make you weep. Tears of the out-of-business man.

  ‘Come on, George, you’d better get up.’

  ‘What time is it, Ben?’

  ‘Nearly eleven.’

  ‘Nearly eleven, and we haven’t begun our tour of the Points of Historical Interest. Haven’t been to the Lookout. Some thing could happen yet to make this town go ahead. Remember Dorman Long and Co., and what they did for Moruya. Granite for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.’

  ‘Maybe, George. But this town’s doing O.K.’

  A man fell down a mine-shaft and drank his own blood to stay alive for six days. As a boy I was attacked by a sow, and my nose and right arm were broken. Tutman lost a finger. That chap in the garage at Nowra lost an eye when the car battery exploded. Reeves broke his wrist cranking a car. We all lost something or broke something in those days. Life wasn’t as safe as it is now, it seems, looking back.

  ‘Ben, I’ve seen the flower of this town leave.’

  ‘George, come along, I’ll drive you home. Here wipe your eyes.’

  ‘I’m not crying, Ben. Nothing wrong with my eyes. Why, look, everywhere you look—McDowell Cordial bottles, broken glass. I tell you who I saw the other day. Can’t bring his name to my lips. He was with the Coastal Steamship Company. I think he was on the Benandra when it sank on the Moruya Bar. Crying? Yes, I’m crying. Why shouldn’t I damn well cry?’

  ‘George, come on, stand up, old fellow.’

  ‘What did we pay for the Lookout? How much did it eventually cost the club?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, George. It was a long time back. Seven hundred pounds, I think.’

  ‘There could have been economies.’

  Economies of scale and economic factors, and the events and behaviour and personal feelings behind words revealed by the turn of events.

  I never spoke to her again after that one unfaithful act. She pleaded, ‘But, George, it has never been this way for either of us. We were as we had never been.’

  ‘We were like animals, and I do not wish to be that way.’

  They had become like animals on the dirt floor of the Showground Pavilion. She died, impaled on a burning branch in a bushfire. Going away from the town.

  ‘Will you help me, Mr Becker? Give me a hand, and we’ll get George over to the car. Come on, George. Stand up.’

  Stand up.

  Stand up.

  The class will sing

  Advance Australia Fair

  Blue Bells of Scotland

  Dear Little Shamrock

  The Song of Australia

  Rule Britannia

  One two three

  George will speak on The Enterprising Spirit of the Anglo-Saxon Race.

  I must dig out those accounts. They must be in a box somewhere.

  I never had an experience like it with anyone else before or since. It remains singular and alone.

  All right, children,

  one, two, three.

  In those days one could not afford the risk. You can never be certain. Never trust your memory.

  ‘My recollection, Ben, is that it cost more than £700.’

  ‘Give me a hand. Come on, George, over to the car. Steady now, he’s quite a weight.’

  ‘He seemed to be in good spirits when he called for me at the motel. Obviously the demolished factory and all.’

  ‘Come on, George, you can’t sit here in the rubble.’

  ‘I think, Ben, I’ll start again from scratch. It’s my view that there’ll be a swing back to country-made things. I’ll start again from scratch.’

  ‘Come on, George. Here wipe your eyes. No one is going to listen to your whingeing. You’ve done very nicely.’

  A COINCIDENTAL NARRATIVE

  An Application for a Film Grant

  Extract from an Application for a Film Development Corporation Grant for the Film The Australian of the First Half Century.

  ‘… as the material covers a lengthy time-span, a stylised form of storytelling is employed. Each sequence is, we hope, to be one shot. There is absolutely no cutting within the interview sequences. The documentary footage will be interlaced with the interview sequences. Each sequence will either fade or iris in and out. There w
ill be enough emotive, even perhaps heart-rending, material without building up melodrama by cutting. In the enclosed treatment we list interview “topics”, but the filmed interviews will essentially be ad-libbed …’

  FILMING THE HATTED AUSTRALIAN

  It is not my idea.

  We, the film crew, arrive at the football ground: Director Stewart, Peter Sound, Gary Camera, Continuity Jane (who is also on with Stewart), Terri Props, etc., Me Script. But there is no script.

  We are looking for an Australian, vintage 1910 or thereabouts.

  We stalk through the crowd draped in equipment, me hanging back. We are going to pounce on the ‘subject’—extract him clean, gut him from his life.

  —how about that guy, says Peter Sound, pointing at a hatted fifty-year-old.

  We look.

  —no, says Director Stewart, hardly looking, no.

  Peter Sound can never be right. A sound man can never be right about anything outside Sound. That would be wrong.

  —I think that’s him, I think that’s him says Director Stewart, pitch rising up with enthusiasm.

  We all look. A hatted fifty-five-year-old sits on a newspaper in a synthetic knit shirt, binoculars, smoking a roll-your-own. He does not wear sunglasses. Stewart had stipulated that he must not wear sunglasses. The man must be pre-sunglass. Stewart raises both arms outstretched as if to hold us back from rushing the man. As if we might startle the man and send him fleeing into the undergrowth of crowd.

  ‘The Undergrowth People’—a title?

  —back, let’s get some long shots, candid, just pull in on him.

  We stand shooting. I clap it. I feel that just by being there for any purpose other than football-watching offends the spirit of the place and interferes with others.

  Director Stewart has not revealed his plans in detail. He has told us he will not fully reveal his plans because he does not want us leapfrog-thinking him, because he does not want to bruise the vision with too many inadequate words and minor misinterpretations (he says that most films are ‘a multitude of minor misinterpretations put together with a multitude of minor compromises’, he wants to avoid this), because he does not want to reduce his vision to something that can be ‘explained’, because we must learn to follow the scent rather than the plan, and, with uncharacteristic honesty, he says he has not thought through what he wants.

  As for the script, he says we will write the script after we have shot the film.

  —right, cut, now let’s approach him. I will do the talking, says Stewart.

  —do we walk in single file? I say flippantly.

  We approach with all the stealth of a film crew, leads, boxes, clapperboards, clipboard, bumping and breaking all before us.

  —excuse us, sir.

  The hatted Australian, binoculars to eyes, shifts with fright.

  —may I have a word with you? We are a small film unit. We are making a film about football and its followers. We would like to talk with you about it. There is a small payment, of course. We have received a grant from the Federal Government. But we are no big Hollywood company or anything like that.

  It is Stewart’s ABC voice which he took with him when he left.

  —come again mate? says the fifty-five-year-old politely defensive. Is he being sold something? He does not grasp.

  Stewart is patient. He explains further.

  The man looks at each of us and says:

  —oh yeah?

  I avoided his gaze. I am not sure whether this means, yes I will do it, or yes I understand, or just a question rolled into a reply.

  The man doesn’t know the camera is on silent roll. Stewart had patted his head, which is the signal for silent roll.

  The Australian in the hat, for want of something better to do with the situation, has gone back to the football, obviously unable to size up the situation, having no stock response for this.

  Informally, Stewart squats beside the man and motions to me to hand him the prepared ‘dummy’ questions: age, place of birth, so on.

  Stewart asks him which team he follows, using now a modified voice, used by intellectuals when talking with Real Australians.

  —come again, mate, the man says. On cue.

  It clearly means, ‘What are you doing squatting there beside me, asking questions in that phony voice.’

  The man turns his eyes back to the game, but he is still paying some sort of attention to Stewart.

  Continuity Jane throws up her eyebrows at me.

  —end of roll, says Gary Camera.

  While Gary is reloading the camera, Stewart explains it all again to the man.

  —don’t think I’m your man, he says.

  —come on, it won’t take long and there’s money in it.

  This, I think, will offend his dignity. I think it suggests that he, an Australian, is mercenary. The working people can’t be so easily bought, I’ve been told.

  —not my line of work, friend, he says.

  Eyes back to the football, binoculars, up, we’ve lost him. The impassive self-contained Australian. Ah yes.

  None of this is my idea. I am embarrassed.

  Continuity Jane crouches down.

  —oh please, it would help us a lot if you would.

  Her voice is the one little girls use with their daddies, and later in public relations.

  He looks at her, a different approach, sucks his teeth. The approach I thought was now discredited—as sexist.

  —nah, not my line, girlie.

  —oh please, you’d be so good at it. You’re so right.

  —you’re just trying to get around me, he says, winking at Stewart.

  Face breaking into girlish smiles, Jane pushes back a wisp of hair from her ingenue face and has to admit she is trying to win him over. So artful.

  —please? she pleads.

  —what’s it all about again? he says, weakened.

  She explains this time.

  He’s buying time, getting the information together in his head, taking in a little more on each repetition, piecing it together.

  —tell me if I’ve got this straight. You (pointing at Jane) want to make a picture about me (points at himself) about what football team I follow and my opinion. Have I got you straight?

  —yes, says Jane, turning deferentially to Stewart, who nods vigorously.

  What she and Stewart are saying is just not true. I know that much.

  The Australian turns back to the football. Considering, he pulls a blade of battered grass from the trodden football ground, makes tooth-picking movements, thinking, thinking.

  He turns back to Jane.

  —you want to make a picture about me going to the football, right?

  —yes.

  —can’t see the story in that.

  He’s right.

  —about football, the followers, the different teams, she says, making it up.

  —you say you’re from the government?

  —no, we have money from the government, a grant.

  —you from TV then.

  —no, just doing it for ourselves.

  —the government gives you money to make a film about me going to the football?

  —yes, Jane says, smiling hard.

  —can’t for the life of me see the story in that.

  What we got the grant for was to make a film about the prejudices, the beliefs, the life-style (especially ‘life-style’, oh yes, the life-style, especially) of the self-contained Australian of this vintage; The Australian of the First Half Century, we called it in our submission.

  To be fair, I guess that Stewart’s way is to begin on familiar ground like football, so that we can break and enter the man’s personality.

  —just a few questions, Jane says, wheedling.

  —suppose it’s all right, fire away, but I can tell you now there’s no story in me.

  He is now the humble man.

  Now he’s submitted, he becomes immediately embarrassed and uncertain of what he’s supposed to do. He has
shifted into a limelight which is too bright for his liking but—too late. He is no longer unnoticed.

  I clap it. The man is moving about his hands and head, shifting his newspaper mat, ill at ease as all hell.

  He answers the dummy questions, trying at the same time to look over Stewart’s hand at the written list on the clipboard.

  Yes, he played football at school, and then for the town team at Milton, and in the army. He played outside centre. They were the best days of his life. The days of football matches.

  He’s a bachelor.

  —work?

  —been many things in my day.

  Oh, of course, I think, of course.

  —working out at the abattoirs at Homebush just now. Could have been many things. Could have got on.

  Lost promise.

  —I’m from the South Coast, worked on the coast mainly.

  Probably knows my father, Terri says to me.

  We finish all the routine questions and Stewart hops about saying, fine, wonderful, that was great.

  —what we want, says Stewart, is to come to where you live tomorrow and ask you a few more questions where it’s a little quieter. Won’t take long.

  —not that much to tell, son, that’s about it.

  He’s suspicious.

  —would tomorrow afternoon be O.K.?

  —never been one for talking.

  —please, says Jane.

  —really not my line of business.

  —you were great, says Jane.

  —maybe if it won’t take long, got things to do on Sunday.

  —it won’t take long.

  We have projected something like ten shooting days, I don’t know what’s going on.

  It wasn’t my idea.

  Jane asks if he would like to be paid now or by cheque.

  He says now would be all right with him, but it makes no difference one way or another; cheque in the mail would be all right.

  Pretended indifference to money.

  She pays him twenty-five dollars.

  He stares at the money.