Holden's Performance (21 page)

‘Are you all right?' All he could do was concentrate on the part in her hair. ‘Don't worry. This won't last forever. It'll sort itself out.'

Other castaways had accumulated on his elbows and coat tails. It took all his strength not to topple over, taking everybody with him.

Then just as suddenly the pressure subsided; space appeared between people; hands let go of his clothing. Bending down he collected her rubber-heeled walking stick.

‘Everything OK? Or do you need a hand?'

He saw her face consisted of a series of interlocking quadrants—nostrils, wide mouth, eyes—and the distortion below her waist had given extra strength of character, transmitting as obstinate curved surfaces.

She wore sensible shoes and trousers.

‘Don't worry yourself about me. I know how to get home.'

Then there was this slowly receding back view: polio-twisted legs and hips giving a carnal bulge to her buttocks and shoulder-blades. Shadbolt remained staring, ready to blow his nose or something in case she turned. If he had seen her somewhere before it must have been obscured or at mid-distance.

On his return to Manly Shadbolt went over again the peaches-and-cream profile of Her Majesty, which had activated the compression of hats and haircuts into an almost violent momentum of tiptoeing legs and elbows, and took no notice of his own exemplary behaviour—in what could have been a nasty situation.

In separate accounts to the landlady and Vern he faithfully described the crippled woman behind him calling everybody ‘merino sheep', but he downplayed his part in her downfall. Mrs Younghusband had a biological weakness for royalty. It showed in her habit of dangling most of her wealth on her wrists, fingers and ear-lobes (and there was that black diamond on her nose). Weighted down and jingling while peeling potatoes she hung on every word, interrupting only to ask the absolutely fundamental questions.

‘She's as white as a sheet,' Shadbolt supplied a cosmetic point, ‘she wouldn't last five minutes on the beach.' He added the proviso, Vern's training: ‘But I only saw her for a second.'

Mrs Younghusband respected such demonstrations of reliability. A Manly boarding house becomes a catchment for all kinds of wreckage. Shadbolt's solemn naivety she found refreshing. And unlike the others this one seemed to like sitting down and listening to her. To let him know she was enjoying herself she broke into crystal-peals of laughter over nothing, and asked him questions when he made for the door. At meals she ostentatiously ladled extra helpings onto his plate, even though he didn't yet have a job.

‘This one's got his whole life ahead of him,' she explained to herself and others.

In a few weeks, Manly by the sea assumed the worn appearance of familiarity; and Shadbolt turned more to the Epic Theatre. Inside there it was a real pleasure to settle back in the warmth of a delicately creaking bucket seat. It felt like driving the Wolseley at night, his thoughts channelled into the illuminated road in front. And unlike Manly which had stabilised into solid architectural details, the screened images flickering before him were constantly changing, each one revealing a powerful story. Even after a dozen times there was always something interesting to see: expressions, postures, many varieties of small movements to scrutinise.

Besides, he felt drawn to the master of ceremonies, Screech. In the semi-dark his luminous legs could be seen wading back up the aisle after he'd directed patrons to their seats, or else he'd be in the glass booth selling tickets, and tearing them in halves at the door. He told Shadbolt he did all his own maintenance, including plaster work and light-bulb replacement. Keeping the show on the road was almost too much for one man. ‘Lift your eyes for a second. Consider the height of my bloody ceilings.'

Appearing on stage on the hour he spoke without notes or nervousness, taking as a starting point an item he'd read in the morning's papers. Among the favoured topics: what can we learn from Germany; me-tooism; why a PM should never be ahead (get it?) of his time; and always weaved into this the central notion that every man, woman and child were part of an ongoing epic. He also had strong views on the electric chair, beards and the merits of listening to arias in the dark. So softly did he talk, people had to sit perfectly still to catch his pearls. He gave an impression of not standing there on stage, but leaning on the mantelpiece of every Tom, Dick and Harry's loungeroom, and the opinions he peddled were the most natural in the world. Curious combination—horizontal voice from a nondescript figure with socks down around the ankles: it gave his words a force out of all proportion. When ordinariness becomes extreme it can be attractive.

The years of operating in semi-darkness had left Alex Screech flour-skinned. The closest comparison would have to be the Queen with her peaches-and-cream in the Austrylian light; but with Screech the burdens of office had introduced a shadow line, roughly dividing his face down the middle. If Shadbolt needed a mnemonic it was a misfitting sump gasket. The vertical division gave Screech a slightly untidy appearance. Bisecting his mouth it targeted his words, audio-visually, and so made his sentences seem even more horizontal. Otherwise, it was a more or less ordinary face.

All this showed in close-up in the foyer where daylight angled in through the glass doors, and faded a large block of carpet. Strands of hair fell across Screech's forehead as scratches. He ran his tongue over his lips. He hitched up his wrinkled shorts on his hips. And when the proprietor began making a habit of talking to him, singling him out, Shadbolt felt an onrush of irrational obedience. No one else in Manly had taken much notice of him.

Shadbolt developed a habit of standing at Screech's elbow as he took the tickets, and if he spotted the Movietone truck double-parked out the front he'd help the bloke lug in the collaged canisters of film; Shadbolt had plenty of time on his hands. He became so comfortable in the Epic Theatre he felt he didn't have to say anything.

On days when the newsreels were changed, or during some world-shattering event, and on Thursdays, when people cashed their pension cheques, the stalls became more than half-full. On Saturdays tilings could even get out of hand, what with the influx of out-of-towners, bored or half-drunk out of their minds, often a combination of two.

One Thursday afternoon Screech said with his mouth full, ‘I've been watching you, I've been keeping my eyes open. And I like what I see. It's your attitude. There's no mucking about with you. You get on with it. That's good, that's good. I'm a judge of character, I can depend on you. You're not one of those slack bodgie types who leave chewing gum on the seats and who've never done a fucking day's work in their lives. (If I ever catch one of them at it I'll boot him right up the arse.) I'd like you to help me more. Could you give me a hand? I know, I know. You already are. And I'm bloody well grateful. But it's time you were put on the payroll.'

All in the slow, quiet voice, muffled as he took another bite. Turning to his man he had to look up.

He took another bite.

‘You're not like everybody else, I knew it the minute I saw you. You've got a relaxed attitude to darkness and light. That's unusual. It's a completely black-and-white world in here. Most people can't handle it. It's like being in a coal mine with a football crowd. There's a slope on the floor. A man's got to watch his step. It's not everybody's cup of tea. But you're at home there. Have you ever considered that? I also think you believe in what I'm doing here. Here's your first week's wages.'

Unable to talk, Shadbolt appeared to need a shove in the right direction. That was always his trouble; the problem.

‘We trust each other, that's the main thing. And take a look at yourself: Christ Almighty, you're built like a Sherman tank. I want you here as a bouncer. That's what I want out of you. The direction this god-forsaken society of ours is heading means there's going to be trouble—disturbances, and the like—in the near-future. I can feel it in my bones. Everybody's got too much confidence. Besides, the cricket season finishes next weekend and whole mobs of ratbags'll be coming from the bush for their usual shindig. It happened last year. At the first sign of hooliganism, smart alecks giving lip when I'm public-speaking, or anyone eating meat pies in the stalls, or not standing up for our national anthem, I want you to march down the aisle and turf the bastards out. Here's your torch.

‘I want you to keep your eyes open for pervs. Only the other day some Errol Flynn-type had a young redhead in G row with both her tits hanging out. I had my own hands full, I couldn't do a bloody thing. She just smiled at me. What's the world coming to? Some people like to bring their animals in. I don't want to see a single pooch in the theatre. Before you know it they'll lay a turd on the carpets. In the afternoons you'll find old codgers falling asleep, and snoring even. They must think this is a bloody library or something. Take it easy with them, but I want you to lead them out.'

Shadbolt nodded. The job sounded a breeze.

‘When you go down the aisle you'll have to crouch, otherwise your skull will show on the screen. You did tell me, but what's your first name again? Good. Put it here. Call me Alex from now on.

Shadbolt stood there blinking. To actually be paid to be inside the pleasure-palace where he wanted to be anyway; to have the apparent friendship of the proprietor and the news of the world running non-stop in front of him, for free. He couldn't believe his ears.

The next day he put on a narrow bow tie and an electric-blue blazer, which matched the carpet (‘so they won't see you coming'), and in the footsteps of the Adelaide usherette embarked on his career with such solemn application he was told at mid-morning by Screech, who let out a laugh of disbelief, to take it easy. The spectre of Shadbolt slinking about like Lon Chaney almost on all fours gave members of the audience a start, especially the incontinent septuagenarians who monopolised the aisle seats.

In daylight hours the audience accurately reflected the demography of Manly. That's to say, it consisted of pensioners—Screech offered them cut rates—and there was little to attract the eagle eye of the bouncer. Shadbolt found then he could take time off to carry our minor repairs, such as replacing dud 40-watt globes in the mauve sign, EXIT, and constantly tightening the screws in an irritating seat which creaked under the slightest weight, reminding him of a certain floorboard outside his mother's bedroom in Adelaide. And whenever he glanced up he saw the enlarged image of a public figure in some foreign city, and—he would never get used to his height—the silhouette of his own head and shoulders which produced hisses and catcalls from the cranky old audience. He made tea and handed a mug through the plywood door to the invisible projectionist; Screech drank his out of the saucer on the run.

When things were quiet they shared a ham sandwich in the office, the proprietor sticking his feet up on the desk in an excessive display of informality. It encouraged trust. Sinking his teeth into the sandwich Screech recalled some of the bloody women he had known. Even here he managed to sheet back his experiences to the all-embracing term, Epic, because ‘Every Prick Is Cuntstruck'. He had little trouble triggering in Shadbolt a feathery grinning inside, almost blurting out laughter—barely containing it—at Screech's oblivious rolling on of rubbery words, and his deployment of swear words.

The slightest sign of familiarity turned Shadbolt clumsy. He usually got around it by fixing his eye on the circular ashtray made by the manufacturer of car tyres. But in allowing Screech every extremity Shadbolt became implicated. It was the old story. He found himself nodding, too eagerly. And there was nothing he could do about it. Alex needed an audience. He talked about anything that came into his head. He revealed his operational secrets, ‘I screen my projectionists very carefully. So many are practising anarchists. They sit alone in their little rooms and see the world in terms of shadows. I've had the buggers trying to sabotage my programmes. I never trust a projectionist. I keep tabs on them.'

To Shadbolt everything about the Epic Theatre and its proprietor was absorbing. It was a world in itself; and he and Alex Screech seemed to be running it.

Outside on the blazing street, the metallic traffic and the glittery shop fronts, pedestrians advancing and passing in the flesh, and the seagulls rising and settling in a cloud there between the Norfolk pines, all seemed difficult to penetrate. It was as if the half-dark world of perpetual images he'd just left—the Epic Theatre—was real, while the width and breadth of Manly laid out under the immense sky was not; a feeling which persisted even when he returned to the boarding house and his small room.

‘If by “bouncer” you mean one engaged to eject unruly persons from a ballroom, it's an Americanism.'

By explaining the origins Shadbolt's long-distant uncle hoped to conceal his disappointment. But he was driven to add, ‘Did they advertise the job? What do you do exactly?'

Granted, the word ‘bouncer' had certain visual qualities, but to Vern it sounded as roughneck as the job it described.

It was a symptom.

‘Unfortunately, that's the road we're going down. There's roughness everywhere. I see it every day. I'm fighting a lonely, losing battle. The world is becoming slipshod. Our local contribution to the English language has been nothing but slang and abbreviations. Try to do a good job, even if it is “bouncing”.'

Vern added, ‘When the troops were here during the war there was a lot of hooliganism, as your poor father discovered. I don't think you would find many so-called bouncers in Adelaide today. Things have gone very quiet since you left.'

His handwriting had grown large and rounder. At the same time it was less legible. The postscript—'I suppose it means we won't be seeing you for a while'—formed an hypotenuse to the signature.

It was how Shadbolt spent his days off. To clear his head he'd propel his tremendous torpedo-bulk into the world-famous surf, tingling a little with the idea he'd entered the edge of the world's largest ocean—a fact he'd picked up from a travelogue on Austrylian life-saving. Then sitting back on the sea wall in the sun he'd tear open the shark-fin flaps of envelopes, letters and proofs unfolding like seagull wings, and digest the latest about his former world, Adelaide, as he wolfed down two or three hot pies.