Rick told me that the supermarket reminded him of being a child, and that he gained some small satisfaction from that feeling. But in truth, he found the supermarket the most attractive location because it lacked uniqueness. It was possible to be in any Woolworths and imagine being in a Woolworths in the city, or a Woolworths situated deeper in the country, or even a Woolworths abroad. There was nothing inside the town’s Woolworths that could remind him that he was in the town. Woolworths was an embassy for nowhere and everywhere. As
Rick went through the checkout and out the doors every evening after a day in the town’s Woolworths, he could imagine he was emerging into a different town altogether. Rick loved how the Woolworths in the town was forever changing. Its corporate branding changed, its slogans pushed new perspectives on homely sentimentality, its sale sections at the end of each aisle proffered new bargains on a weekly basis. One week it’d be $4.00 extra-large boxes of Coco Pops, the next week it would be Kleenex, and then Vegemite. He could dive into the intricacies of how products are displayed, the subtle hierarchies and manipulations, and therein was a world of distraction. Even the workers constantly changed. The staff turnover was relentless, and yet I — and he pointed at me — was among the only constants. Rick could be distracted thinking about the days when I wasn’t yet there, and those days seemed blessedly similar to now.
While I completed scribbling down my notes on all Rick had said, there was silence. When I looked up he was wearing the bland expression of a man immune from surprise. He didn’t seem at all interested in looking at what I had written down. He asked how I’d gone with the CV that he’d given me. I told him that the Woolworths had recently let go of several staff with no intention of replacing them, because the town is disappearing. Besides, there were holes everywhere; he wasn’t seeing most of them because he spent all of his time at the plaza, and the plaza was impenetrable to the elements. It was unlikely now that he would ever get a job at the Woolworths, or the Coles, or the IGA for that matter, or anywhere else. He told me that he thought our coffee was a job interview. I had to tell him that this was an interview, but not for any job.
*
Excessive public drinking soon became the norm in the town. There had always been excessive drinking, but usually inside the pubs, and usually on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Now at all locations and at any time of day, men and women could be seen sipping from longneck bottles, wine bottles, and sometimes even spirits, as they weaved between the holes.
There was more violence too, but the biggest change was how strangers would mingle in the streets, intoxicated and uninhibited. The town resembled a depressed country festival suspended in a 2am lull. Life had taken on a drowsy and aggressive sadness. It was possible to eavesdrop, but no one addressed any pertinent matter directly, instead focusing their conversations on the most general examples of the town’s decline. They seemed careful to explicitly avoid the topic of the holes as the cause of the decline, instead seizing on other, more rational phenomena: that the town was too big nowadays, or else that it was too small. That the town was too far away from elsewhere, or maybe too close. That it was the fault of Muslims, though there wasn’t even a mosque in the town, let alone an organised group of practising Muslims. That kids play too many video games. That giant mutant subterranean rabbits had wrought erosion of the soil. That something bad had happened long before the holes were holes, that this unknown something was somehow connected to the holes.
Ciara told me that people were mourning the loss of the town – even though they’d been actually doing that for many years. The town had never been in people’s eyes what it used to be in the past. Perhaps the moment the town was founded was the very best moment it ever had, and ever since then it had been in decline.
Ciara and I still had coffee at the Michel’s Patisserie sometimes, where normal life continued. I would drink a coffee, and she would watch me do it. She would listen to me hold forth about the progress I was making on my book without offering feedback or advice. She did not like my book. I suspect she might have hated it. Even when I said I had changed tack on my book about the disappearing towns, preferring instead to focus on her town — since it was clearly disappearing — Ciara did not seem especially interested. She only asked how many pages I had written, or what the word count was, or whether I had thought about my prospects of having it published. I told her I had not bothered checking its length, nor had I thought about it being published. I assumed no one would, since the subject matter was obscure.
It’s true that my book about the town was not as factual as I had originally intended. I had started writing about Ciara’s town because it might offer opportunities to verify claims. When writing about disappeared towns I had needed to make do with my own speculations, based on scant primary sources. In theory, writing about Ciara’s town did not require any speculation, since it was there.
But it was impossible to write about the town in any factual detail. Instead, I found myself writing spontaneous, off-the-cuff observations, and then later, as I wandered the honeycombed streets in the evening with Ciara, silently corroborating them. At times it took great effort to corroborate what I had written, but I always managed to stretch the truth of the town around my assertions.
For example, it was possible in my book to write that the town was suffused with “a barely perceptible sadness”, and it was possible to feel confident, as I was writing this sentence, that it did. But it took concerted effort to observe this quality in the people of the town. It was just as possible to write, sitting in seclusion, that, to the townspeople, the highway did not “represent a proper route out of, and away from, the town”, yet it was impossible to verify this without interviewing actual townspeople. The sight of the shimmer on the horizon seemed evidence of my claims.
The truths I aimed to discover about the town changed from day to day. As the town disappeared, so did my grip on any particular town truth. When I dared explain this to Ciara she did not appear surprised by my admission. She wasn’t actively hostile towards my book, but nor was she able to feign enthusiasm – she was just unmoved by the possibility of a book existing about her town. She might have thought I was unqualified, having not been reared inside the town culture. I asked her whether she thought me writing a book about her town was a bad idea, but she told me she didn’t know. She said that I wouldn’t know until it was finished, that I wouldn’t know until it was a book.
Despite my continued efforts to prompt the question from her, Ciara never asked about what town truths I had aimed to arrive at in my book. As time passed, I started to pursue conversations with her about my book more aggressively. I would mention that I had just finished an especially difficult section — even if I hadn’t — but Ciara would only express a vague pride. Then, when my efforts could no longer be mistaken for idle conversation, she invited me to read an extract from my book on her radio show.
Nearing the day of the show, as we stood buying cigarettes at the western petrol station, Ciara reminded me that no one ever listened to her show — but that if they did, they might well call to offer me some feedback on the direction of the book. She couldn’t offer any feedback, she said, because she had never written a book. Nor had she read any classics that struck her as relevant to her life, because old classic books were old and new classic books weren’t written anymore. Life wasn’t classic, anymore.
I was enthusiastic about the prospect of reading an extract from my book on live radio, but only because I would be reading in the presence of Ciara. Maybe she would have a change of heart. Maybe when she heard me reading it aloud — with me taking pains to dwell on certain well-constructed sentences that I was proud of — she would come to believe my book had potential. So I spent many days choosing the passage I would read, and then many days reading it aloud in my lounge room. The writing did not seem as evocative when read aloud, nor did it seem as interesting or consequential. In the end I rewrote an entire section of my book, stitching together the most r
esonant phrases I had written.
I told Jenny at the pub that she should tune in for my interview, but she did not even know the community radio station existed. She didn’t believe me when I said that it did. She said that the town had only two radio stations: the AM and the FM.
When I told the librarian about my radio spot, he wasn’t impressed. He reminded me that I hadn’t even finished my book yet – how could I feel good reading on the radio when I didn’t know what it was about? I told him that I did know, that it was about a disappearing town in the Central West of New South Wales, and that besides, surely it is impossible for anyone to embark on writing a book without knowing what it’s about? The librarian shook his head, told me that I was completely wrong. That the sole reason why a person wrote a book, in his view, was to figure out what it was about.
The community radio studio was in an old office building across from the Rec Street petrol station. Inside, shelves of old twelve-inch records lined one wall, and smaller shelves with CDs lined the other. Photographs of Australian country singers decorated noticeboards, all of them brandishing their guitars in authentic rural environments. Their presence felt at odds with the fluorescent light – and with Ciara, who was the only person on the premises at that time on a Thursday night. She said that old people were in bed by seven, although they didn’t listen to the station during the day either. The radio frequency was hers alone on a Thursday night, which was why she could get away with playing the strange keyboard music. She offered that maybe when I’d finished writing my book I could read the whole thing on air. I could read it from beginning to end, every word, perhaps with the backdrop of strange keyboard music.
Ciara’s pigeonhole was stuffed with unmarked cassette tapes. None had artist names or song titles, nor any label artwork to differentiate them. I wondered aloud what Ciara could say about the music during her back announcements, since there was nothing to factually report. She said that I’d obviously never listened to her radio show before.
She carelessly scooped a pile of cassettes into her satchel, leaving debris on the carpet surrounding. Then we entered the studio: a harshly lit cube, the inner walls covered with soundproofing egg cartons and more posters of country music singers. Ciara pulled the cassettes from her satchel, stacked them neatly, picked one from the top of the pile, and slotted it into the tape deck. As she prepared, I scanned my handwritten notes. It was important to get my reading right tonight. Reading to Ciara was like reading to the whole of the town.
Ciara warned that we were to be on air in thirty seconds. She waited for the previous show’s pre-recorded closing track — ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ by Bill Withers — to finish, her finger poised on the pause button. Then, at exactly 11pm, she lifted her finger and a quiet hiss emanated from the studio speakers. Seconds later a single synthetic piano note resonated throughout the room. It trailed off with the faintest trace of repetition before a second note sang out, lending a sad clarity to the first. Then a third, brighter note sounded, before the trio became acquainted amid the hiss. They interacted at a graceful-yet-lazy pace. The echoes caused each note to smear together, before even more notes joined the fray.
We sat in silence. Ciara spent minutes re-stacking her cassettes in possible orders she could play them, but eventually she could no longer feign distraction. She shot me a brief glance and then stared up at the soundproof padding behind me. I stared at the Chad Morgan poster behind her. The music had seemed to erect a barrier between us. As I thought for something cheerful to say, Ciara looked embarrassed.
It should have been easy to say something admiring about the music, but it was impossible to do so as it played. The synthetic piano notes stripped speech to its core banality. The thought of anything other than the music and Ciara made me feel small, but the music and Ciara made me feel smaller still. The music did not evoke images, but instead a hazy indeterminate colour. Its familiar components did not culminate in familiar qualities. It was sad, but not for any graspable reasons. It felt like an absence, but a warm, preferable absence. It did not mean anything at all.
If only I could make music about the town instead of writing about it. Then I could bypass the explicit assertions I puzzled over, those ephemeral obstacles that prevented me from making any meaningful progress.
When the song ended Ciara allowed the silence to linger for minutes before speaking.
You’re listening to Thursday Night Sounds, she said into the microphone. She moderated her voice on air, sharpening the otherwise loose trails of her rural accent. If you’re listening, she said, please call up. There’s nothing to be ashamed of and I would like it. Ciara recited the phone number and said that she’d be there all night. And then she played the next tape.
This music was not dissimilar to the first composition, with stretched notes, except that a synthetic horn instrument carried them further. And the notes were pressed more deliberately, and the echo was stronger, driving the simple melody into fractured, dissipating circles. The colours the music evoked were colours absent in the town – or absent from the physical world entirely. These foreign colours, serene and sad, only brought a stifling clarity to the studio around us. It was painful that we could not somehow inhabit that sound, yet it also seemed impossible that we couldn’t.
After dozens of unchanging repetitions in the song, Ciara said to me that she knew she had listeners out there. Why didn’t they call? I told her that it might be because they had nothing to say about the music. It was music that elicited a profound sense of hopelessness, that revealed a critical failure of language. The music might have contained its own existence because it bore the complications of one. It could not be adequately discussed during a telephone call, nor politely bonded over. If words tried to live up to this music, they could only fail in their attempt to compensate. What could anyone say, I said to Ciara. She said that they only needed to say that they were listening. They didn’t need to admit they were responsible, nor did they need to talk about the music at all. It’d just be nice to know someone else was hearing it. It seemed important.
Hearing her say that made me think about my book, and how it was not important at all. The music seemed to contain everything that was important to convey, and my book was a mess of clumsy, off-the-cuff observations that frequently contradicted each other and never arrived at any truth, real or imagined. The music seemed at peace with meaningless, and my book strove to find meaning where none existed. Or at least, it fumbled with a meaning I lacked the capacity to understand. I was writing my book because it hadn’t been written, and beyond that there were no reasons to write it. I was writing my book to lend substance to myself, and to all the spectral people to whom I figured I might potentially belong.
You’re listening to Thursday Night Sounds, Ciara said quietly again into the microphone. My guest tonight is writing a book, and he needs your help to complete it. She left a long silence, and continued: It will only take a moment to turn your radio down and call me on the number. She announced the number. Make a request, please. Share a comment, tell a story, anything is welcome. I urge you to call the number immediately. Everything you have to contribute is relevant. We can discuss anything you like. I can try to help you, if help is what you need. Or you can tell me a joke. Ciara paused, and then said, I’m afraid I don’t know any jokes.
There was another tense silence. I will wait a little while for your call, she said. I will not let the music play for two minutes. You will not miss anything if you leave your chair, or bed, and walk to wherever your phone is situated. We can then speak on air or off – whichever you want. The studio fell silent. One minute left, Ciara said into the microphone.
I dared to look at Ciara, who was staring at the light on the telephone. Feeling temporarily brave, I let my eyes linger on hers, but they evaded me as she moved to play the next song. Then she slouched back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. A funereal major key melody stretched over a booming, barely audible drone. I gave up wondering about Ciara’s mo
od for a moment and let the music absorb me. When I did, I soon needed to pull back, gasp for air, before the undercurrents pulled me permanently in. I fixed my stare on the cassette player, eager to rationalise the music, eager to reduce it to a composition deliberately recorded onto tape. But the dread was insurmountable, and its source could not be unpicked to any extent that would explain the feelings it wrought. I wanted to leave the room but felt crippled by the strongest desire to make Ciara forget I was there. The music rendered all my efforts pathetic, and nothing I could ever do would live up to it.
The composition ended as abruptly it had started, with a jarring fade and silence.
I might not read an extract from my book after all, I said. Doing so did not seem in keeping with the spirit of her program. Whatever you want, she said. She supposed her radio show might not have been in keeping with the spirit of anything. It’s not, I said, relieved. It’s definitely not at all. And then I laughed.
I went to the bathroom and flushed my extract down the toilet, and then climbed out the foyer window onto the roof and smoked one of Ciara’s cigarettes. The town’s lights seemed more static than usual, as if the world had paused to contemplate the music. The black stretch of countryside at the edge appeared more foreboding and unknowable than before. If anyone listened to Ciara’s radio show, they likely lived out there.
When I climbed back into the station Ciara was mopping the foyer floor. I wanted to say something intimate, but more than ever before I felt unqualified to speak.
She gestured at the mop and told me that she needed to take a break from the music sometimes. I told her that I understood. She smiled. Thanks for listening to my radio show, she said.
I left her there alone. Men and women argued on the footpath outside, drunk and frustrated. None could convey their message. They were all trying very hard to be heard. I could not make sense of anything they argued, and I wondered whether they might at some point stumble across a realisation otherwise too sentimental for my line of thinking. But I felt sentimental too that night, and their arguments, drunken though they were, seemed born of more critical symptoms. The town was coming to an end – that much could not be ignored, not even by them. The nature of the ending, though, was harder to know. I drank a longneck of Sheaf Stout and went to bed in the shadows cast by the lights of the petrol station, still open for business, despite everything.
The Town Page 14
