by Gregory Day
Before he’d fallen off his perch, Kooka had been concocting a barroom game based on the hushed-up mystery of why the original Grand Hotel had burnt down. The game was to be his fun way of exposing everyone to his particular obsession for our long-ago predecessor, and also maybe to nut out once and for all what had brought it to an end. Why had Joan Sweeney shot through to Chicago and refused to answer the police’s questions? And why were the authorities convinced it was arson yet they couldn’t find a culprit? Basically the game would work like a TV whodunnit. From his research Kooka would provide us with the scenarios and the characters, and each player would try to patch together the most plausible story to explain the fire.
Kooka had been very excited about it. In fact, around lunchtime on the day of his fall I’d found him sitting alone at the communal dining-room table in the bar, surrounded by an assortment of the different coloured shards of time-smoothed glass from the tartan shortbread tin I’d seen in his shack. He fondled these cast-offs from the old Grand Hotel bottle dump with a reverence usually reserved for religious relics. With great enthusiasm he showed me the broken decorative lettering and the ingenious nineteenth-century graphics of the brands embossed on the softened pieces of hand-blown glass, and began to tell me how his whodunnit game would work, who he considered the main protagonists to be, and how each player would get his or her own different coloured piece of glass at the outset, which he would add to as their scenarios and scores progressed over the coming rounds. He also planned to make up special cards, complete with a map of the old Mangowak, for each player to concoct his or her scenario with. Next to the tin and the glass on the table in front of him there was a sheet of adhesive labels with the names of the current regular clientele of The Grand Hotel and other names that I presumed to be the protagonists in the hotel of the past. He had seemed quite possessed by the concept on that afternoon in the bar but now, when I brought it up, it didn’t seem to register at all.
As he looked at me blankly, I didn’t want to press the issue. He was getting on, after all, and maybe his falling off his perch was the first sign of a coming decline. Instead we clinked glasses and wished each other a ritual ‘good health’. Kooka took a sip and smacked his lips. ‘Terrific,’ he said. ‘Bloody nice drop.’
‘Yep. Well you can blame the Balts for this one, Kooka. It’s from Finland.’
‘You don’t say!’
‘Yep. I do.’
Kooka licked his lips again and nodded in a surprised reaffirmation of the wine’s quality. It was a light summer-berry wine recommended to me by our wine supplier. He’d thought the novelty might appeal to me, as Finnish wines had only recently been imported into the country.
‘Now, Noel,’ Kooka said, adjusting his bedclothes, ‘there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.’
The old fella’s big birdlike head took on a serious cast so I leant in a bit closer out of respect. ‘Yeah, Kooka?’
‘Yes, well, I was wondering how you’d feel if I just propped here for a while. Instead of, well, you know, getting back up on the horse?’
I stayed poker-faced, careful not to betray any surprise. ‘You’re comfortable here are you, Kooka?’ I said.
‘Too right,’ he replied enthusiastically. ‘I like this room, Noel. And the bed itself is nice and soft, just how I like it. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I can be bothered with anything much anymore.’
Kooka looked at me sheepishly and took a sip of the wine. I took a sip too. It was a nice drop indeed. Then he said, ‘Well I’m gettin’ on a bit you know, Noel, and–’
But I cut in. ‘You don’t have to explain, Kooka.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘It’s just that I’ve been on me Pat Malone for years now, since Mary died, and what with one thing and another, falling off that stool the other night made me realise it’s time I gave it a spell.’
‘Kooka, it’s alright. You don’t have to explain.’
‘Well, Noel, I’ve been lyin’ here snoozin’ and thinkin’, looking about at this old room where your mum, Audrey, used to fix up my shirts and trousers and run up dresses for Mary and the rest of the Mangowak lasses, and I dunno, I just have a notion I could be content here. That it’d be a good place to finally prop and maybe have a bit of a think about things.’
‘Fair enough, Kooka, if that’s what you want.’
‘Yairs, well to tell you the truth I feel like I’ve been runnin’ around like a blue-arsed fly almost since the day Mary died.’
I nodded, sympathetically. ‘But what about the Grundig? It’s still downstairs on the bar you know.’
‘Is that so? Well, to be perfectly honest, Noel, I think the days of the Grundig are over for me.’
He let out a deep sigh, a tired sigh, as if the very thought of the portable recorder exhausted him. ‘You do what you think best with it,’ he said. ‘And that tape that’s in it, well, it’s all monkey business anyway. That big fella’s stories, down at the bar. That’s about all I’ve recorded for the last little while.’
He took a last and demonstratively savoured sip of the Finnish wine and placed the glass gently on the bedside table. Through the inland sash window flickers of light were playing on Kooka’s unshaven face as he turned on his side to go back to sleep.
‘Bit weary now, old fella?’ I said, fondly.
‘Yairs,’ he said, in a hoarse whisper, ‘nicely so. The food and the grog. From Finland, eh?’
‘Yep. Who would’ve thought?’
‘Like bloody nectar, Noel,’ he said, almost inaudibly, his eyelids beginning to grow heavy and close.
‘Yep,’ I said sadly, ‘like nectar, Kooka. Now you just rest. Don’t worry about a thing. You can prop up here for as long as you want, old-timer. You can stay for keeps if you like.’
As Kooka’s breathing deepened and he sank away into a deep sleep, I added quietly, ‘Yes, my old friend, you can stay till stumps, till the last drinks are called and even beyond. You can stay till all your local histories are finally said and done, old boy.’
And with that I got up, took the half empty carafe of wine and tiptoed out of the room.
Lovesick
As the word got around town that Kooka had hung up his boots and was lying in The Sewing Room, a few locals took the trouble to visit during the daytime and see if he was okay. In fact for a few days there I was quite flat out before opening hours with showing these familiar faces up the stairs. Joe Conebush, whose grandparents had taken Kooka in as their orphaned cousin from the city in the 1930s, was one who stopped in for a stickybeak, and also Dusty Miller, Prickly Moses, Penny Royal, Old Jack Heath and his daughter Erica, and even David Baird, Minapre’s fitness-fanatic postman, came running by one day to pay his respects.
Everyone was quite concerned about the dear old fella, until of course they saw how contented he was in the big lumpy bed in The Sewing Room. Propped up there, with his broad tanned head poking out of his light-blue collarless pyjamas, he’d welcome everyone in quite cheerily, enquire as to the health of themselves and their families, and chat pleasantly enough until they’d seen what they had to see and could happily go about their business, knowing Kooka was perfectly alright. Sometimes on these visits they’d talk a little history with him, offering tidbits that they were sure he’d add to his archive, even though it still sat unpacked in its boxes over near the ocean window. They were surprised when he’d nod and say ‘go on’ but not reach for a notebook and pencil to record a precise account of the information. Later on, as we descended the stairs, I’d explain that he’d not only hung up his walking boots but his history ears as well. ‘Is that so?’ the visitors would say, or, ‘You’re kidding surely?’, and some of them would grow almost anxious at the thought. ‘You’re sure he’s alright, Noel?’ they’d ask, to which I could only reply that his appetite for food and drink was as healthy as ever and he seemed far from depressed, just a little more thoughtful if anything, and occasionally perhaps a little weary of
the trivial things in life.
So we went about the daily business of the hotel, serving drinks and food, balancing out the demands of the clientele with our own idiosyncratic foibles. Sergeant Greg Beer kept a close eye on things as usual, occasionally we’d have another paying guest upstairs in Room Two between The Lazy Tenor and The Blonde Maria, and of course Dr Bernard Feast made regular morning visits, ostensibly to check out Kooka but always in perfect time to catch some of The Lazy Tenor’s arias. After every visit he’d leave shaking his head and smiling with an enchanted disbelief.
One morning I explained how if he was ever to show up for a drink at the other end of the day, during Happy Hour, he’d experience a disbelief of an altogether different order. ‘How do you mean, Noel?’ he asked. I explained that in fact The Lazy Tenor was in residence at The Grand Hotel because he needed somewhere quiet to write up his memoirs, and that every evening around five the bar was treated to an account of what he’d been working on that day. I explained that many in the bar found The Lazy Tenor’s stories extremely distasteful, and that if he himself was to hear some of the ribald details he’d have trouble believing it was the same man who could sing like an angel.
The doctor shook his head knowingly at this. ‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Noel,’ he said. ‘The extraordinary thing about his song is that he sings not like an angel but like a man. That’s why it breaks my heart you see, and why it makes me so happy. The voice sings, Noel, the note is true, but the timbre and the emotion are textured with real experience. An ability like that almost goes beyond music – it’s a rare gift – and whatever else he gets up to is obviously good for it. With artists such as that it’s often as if they are two people. A little bit like being a doctor perhaps.’
‘A doctor?’ I said, confused.
‘Well, yes. As old Bill Dwyer used to tell me when I first showed up as his young understudy in Minapre, we all have our private lives, Noel. We minister to the sick andlose our temper at home. We listen patiently to the obsessions of the town’s hypochondriacs andstop in ourselves for a gloomy afternoon playing the pokies in Colac.’
‘You play the pokies?’ I asked him.
Dr Feast laughed, and waved his hand dismissively. ‘Oh, don’t take me literally, Noel. You know what I mean.’
By this time The Lazy Tenor had been at The Grand Hotel for over a month, but as yet I’d seen no sign of the manuscript of ‘The Tradesman’s Entrance’. Of course we were all still enduring the anecdotes that were to make up the book every evening at Happy Hour, although I had finally convinced him to tell these lurid yarns in The Horse Room on a permanent basis, for the sake of the other patrons. But I was beginning to grow curious, given his propensity to big-note himself, that we hadn’t yet been shown even one page from his illustrious manuscript.
One day after lunch I climbed the stairs to check the linen in the vacant middle room. When I got to the top, I found the hallway trees and ducks and platypus alive as ever in the afternoon light. Down the far end I could see the door of The Sewing Room shut fast, with Kooka no doubt snoring behind it. I knew that sometimes The Blonde Maria would sit with him in the afternoons, and seeing that her own door was flung wide open I imagined that was the case.
The Lazy Tenor’s door, however, was shut. Craning my neck forward like the brolga in the clearing, I listened for a telltale clicking sound from his laptop keyboard. I heard nothing. The whole hotel was quiet and peaceful, with almost the air of a hermitage. Very gently the willows of the wallpaper rustled in the light breeze coming through the open doorway of The Blonde Maria’s room.
I knocked gently on The Lazy Tenor’s door and waited. There was no answer, and still no movement from within. I found myself standing there indignantly, questioning whether the book we’d heard so much about was actually being written at all. So I knocked again, a little bit harder. But still no response. I wondered if he’d gone out but felt sure I would’ve seen him if he had. I’d been cleaning in the bar and in the sunroom all morning and he would have had to pass me to leave the hotel. I popped my head through the bathroom door next to his room to make sure he wasn’t in the bath but no, he surely wasn’t. And then, perhaps irrationally, given how happy and confident The Lazy Tenor always seemed and how quiet his room had always been in the afternoons, I worried that perhaps he might have done away with himself in there. Yes, the mind plays tricks, particularly in the memorial stillness of night or on a dreamy afternoon in an empty hotel. But, suddenly convincing myself that it was my proprietorial right to make sure things hadn’t gone astray in one of my rooms, I turned the door handle and pushed it open.
The room was dim, the curtains pulled across the partially opened sash window. Straight ahead at the desk under the window there was no sign of a laptop, just a half empty bottle of Laphroaig and a newspaper opened at the crosswords. The Lazy Tenor’s green suede jacket was on the back of the desk chair and his packet of cigarettes had fallen out of the pocket and was lying on the carpet beside the chair. There was a smell of cigarette smoke in the room but not a stale smell, rather an old attractive smell, with a hint of cigar about it.
Then, looking towards the bed against the wall to my right, I saw what I was in no way meant to see. Sleeping peacefully, with naked limbs entwined on top of a single sheet, were The Lazy Tenor and The Blonde Maria. Their bodies were glowing through the gloom, still luminous with sweat, The Blonde Maria’s spent form splayed languidly like a figure in a Bonnard painting across The Lazy Tenor’s rufous stomach and thighs.
It was a scene of great repose, great sensuality, and, needless to say, great privacy. I quickly stepped backwards through the doorway and hurried down the stairs. I felt foolish, and intrusive. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t put two and two together. In my naivety, misled by The Blonde Maria’s recent monastic air, I hadn’t considered it possible that these two highly sexual musicians, alone in the upstairs floor of a country hotel, day in, day out, with only a sleeping local historian as chaperone, might somehow find their way into each other’s rooms. Well, that was exactly what had happened. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. And yet that was nothing compared with the complicating surprise I was presented with later that same evening by Joan Sutherland.
It was a busy night, and now that The Lazy Tenor had agreed to hold court in The Horse Room rather than in the bar we all had a good time during Happy Hour with my brother Jim’s first non-musical contribution to the entertainment. He had put together a short mockumentary film, which we accessed on the big screen via YouTube, called ‘The Dying Gardens of the Great Ocean Road’. In it Jim posed as a celebrity gardener touring the private gardens along the coast, delivering an earnest narrative about the supposedly catastrophic effects of the Great Australian Drought. The joke was that despite him being dressed comically for ultra-parched conditions, in park ranger shorts and a bush tucker man hat, he described the devastation of the Great Drought with a background of Otway drizzle and from a series of lovingly cultivated and obviously flourishing green gardens.
The locals in the bar lapped up this piss-take of Jim’s. They were always ready for a parochial poke at the mainstream media’s expense, so the film set the mood for the night. The food was top-notch too: kangaroo steaks with mushroom sauce for the carnivores and leek and mushroom vol-au-vents for the vegetarians.
Around eight o’clock, after the fun of ‘The Dying Gardens of the Great Ocean Road’ and a hearty meal, Jim had happily swapped his cinematic for his musical hat and The Barrels were in full flight. I’d confided to him only the day before that I’d given up on The Blonde Maria ever descending the staircase again, and the new certainty of that unfortunate situation seemed to have relaxed the band. They were no longer anxious for her return, even though they would always long for another late-night party in her room. As far as their music went, well, they were not quite up to what I would have liked, but nevertheless they had improved since playing a few nights with an inspired expert. Either way both Jim an
d I were resigned to our self-sufficient fate.
Near the end of The Barrels’ first set I noticed Joan and Jen Sutherland having a disagreement just outside the door of the hotel. I could see Dylan and Dougie waiting forlornly under the pine tree and could feel the whole family’s tension. That was unusual, I remember thinking, they were typically a very harmonious outfit.
Before long Joan was waving his arms about and kicking the empty beer barrels near the back door. He shouted and gesticulated until eventually Jen took off in a huff with the boys. Big Joan stepped back into the hotel, shot a gruff ‘Don’t ask’ to me as he entered, and headed back to the bar.
Something was up so I followed him back into the bar only to find him pouring a double whiskey in a corner with his back to the clientele. He normally only drank Dancing Brolgas but he skulled the whiskey and turned around to continue serving, his face flushed, a barely suppressed look of anxiety in his eyes. I had noticed he’d been a bit tetchy of late but what with everything else that had been going on I hadn’t had the time to think about it. But now I made a mental note to talk to him when the time was right. The fact was I loved Joan Sutherland like I loved few men. He was a big giver, a loyal heart, who also had the indispensable knack of always seeing the best side of a situation.
Later on in the evening Rennie Vigata showed up with Lee, his girlfriend, which I was happy about because I’d been ringing him for the past week to come and take away the empty Dancing Brolga barrels that were piling up in the backyard. Rennie’s supply of the grog had been fantastic, and I let him know now once again what a consistent hit our Recommended Looseners continued to be.
‘You must be flat out up there, mate, coz they’re certainly drinkin’ the stuff down here,’ I remarked.
Rennie’s black underworld eyes and bushy single eyebrow sneered at me, somehow offended by my compliment, as if my surprise at the success of his beer implied some deeper doubt about his abilities. Lee, tall, skinny, in stretch jeans and leather jacket, replied for him, ‘He knows how to work, my Rennie. And beer’s in his blood.’
