Holden's Performance (25 page)

He watched her legs plait around the stout walking stick, revealing her buttocks.

‘I tell you what. That stick of yours, it goes with you. I can't see you without it.' In his innocence Shadbolt was tactless. He was looking around the room, not at her. ‘It makes you stronger than anyone else. You wouldn't think so, but it does. You know how when you picture someone…Last week I was going to drop in. We wondered where you'd got to. But Alex had me doing all sorts of things.'

Harriet remained standing.

‘I'll get you the drink,' Shadbolt said. ‘Go on, you sit down.'

A lamp on her left illuminated one side of her face. A small, dark-haired figure half lost among the slate-coloured cushions. Shadows softened and distorted her crippled curves. Curled up warm she could fit in his hand. She was a snake.

‘You're a nice boy.'

‘Boy?'

She held out her glass. ‘More.'

A soft glow blurred her face; Harriet began smiling more. Laughing, the white throat bulged. He'd stood up and looked out the large window across the roofs and pines of Manly. So many twinkling lights of privacy. To the right above the broken teeth of rooftops the glow of the Epic Theatre lightened the sky.

‘Alex sure is going to have an electricity bill. I can see it from here.'

‘I don't want to hear about him or his stupid theatre, ever again.'

Shadbolt nodded.

‘You can come here.' She held out her hand.

Lifted onto his knee she slid all over him. Parts of her dismantled. She came to pieces. Whole areas fell away and merged again. She was many places at once. Unstrapped, the metal on her leg suddenly fell away. Her irrational curves redoubled, her head tilted back, snapped forward. Curled up and crouching she guided him like a dog, shuddering cries which resembled distraught laughter; it happened, amazing him.

The symmetrical statistics of Miss South Australia produced the unanimous verdict. Accepting the tiara of cut glass she held her back perfectly straight and used her long-gloved palm to wipe away the uncontrollable tears of surprise. ‘She's streets ahead,' one of the judges, a manufacturer of undergarments, unwittingly murmured.

But Karen herself never fully realised the unusual depth of her beauty.

The runners-up graciously stepped forward and kissed her left and right. There was humid Miss Queensland, and Miss Tasmania with the apple cheeks whose tapering torso duplicated the pubic shape of the island. The others stood in a line behind, smiling.

The new Miss Australia's only weakness, and a touching one at that, had been in the word department, which is understandable considering her history of heat and wide open, flat space. When asked, ‘What are your interests?' she shot back into the mike like a good Shadbolt, ‘I don't have any that I know of. I'm happy the way I am.'

The contestants had all been coached in responses by their sponsors and chaperones; with Karen, Frank McBee had assumed the responsibilities of both. In her excitement on stage she had clean forgotten his instructions. When asked what had she learnt working for spastic children during the fund-raising she should have reeled off in a sing-song voice, ‘Everyone's greatest disability is other people's attitudes towards them,' etc. Instead, Karen seemed to take a bite out of the microphone, ‘Gee, I don't know. They look so awful. First of all I wanted to run away, but they're really very nice little people underneath.'

Miss Australia was photographed leaning against the yellow relief map in the foyer, clasping a bunch of Everlastings. It had been Alex Screech's idea. A plug for his theatre. Standing next to her the Right Hon. Sidney Hoadley appeared to be whispering sweet-nothings in the beauty queen's ear. Coming between them her war-hero chaperone, McBee, waved his mulga walking stick, and from one pinstriped arm hanging onto her bare shoulders, gave his characteristic victory sign.

‘She's a long-limbed filly,' the Minister of Commerce said out of the corner of his mouth. He winked at McBee, ‘And you know what you do with horses.'

‘That'll do. That's my little girl-daughter you're talking about.'

Sid Hoadley gave a friendly laugh. His top lip rolled back revealing a row of polished hearts.

Slipping away from them Karen tugged at Screech's sleeve.

‘Where's Holden gone? I want to see my brodier.'

‘That's funny,' Screech scratched his neck. He felt uncomfortable with women. ‘I haven't seen him myself. And I need him to clean up.'

‘I wanted him to congratulate me.'

‘It's like World War Three,' said Screech referring to the theatre. Lit up by magnesium flashes his face looked a little careworn: the expected spinoffs and the rubbing of shoulders with useful connections hadn't eventuated. He suddenly glanced at Karen, ‘Did you say your brother? Is he your brother?'

Among the bystanders straining for a glimpse of what represented archetypal beauty was Mrs Younghusband, flashing lapis and gold earrings. Her fleshy immensity almost revealed its secrets as she became squashed in the crowd. Shadbolt had wangled her a free ticket; and obeying her weakness for beauty queens the landlady had stepped out onto the footpaths of Manly for the first time in seven years. Miss Australia's symmetrical features she recognised from the newspaper cuttings on Shad-bolt's sleepout wall, and looking around now for her favourite boarder to escort her home she became conscious of the eyes of the solid healthy specimen with sandy hair, staring at her while talking to several men. Perhaps a few years younger than her this man had been the master of ceremonies, a confident man, and now only a few steps away retained the same aura of power and optimism, so much that she kept glancing unavoidably in his direction, which he must have noticed. There was no sign of Shadbolt; but she couldn't move anyway. The crowd straining to be associated with an archetype had pushed up into view the fluidity of her breasts.

‘Two radio stations here want to talk to you,' Karen's chaperone-manager called out. The manufacturer of ladies' undergarments was also trying to get a word in edgeways: something about a contract for modelling. ‘And then you and I,' whispered Frank McBee, ‘are going back to the hotel. You got that?'

Nodding and half-listening to a bigwig petitioning for a local tram licence Senator Hoadley brushed the Egyptian elbow, let out an exaggerated ‘Woopsie daisy,' and introduced himself with his well-known vote-catching smile which bulged the manly muscles in his neck.

Outside his office Screech shrugged off the heckler incident. ‘He's in my employ. I need a fulltime strongman to control the crowds I pull in; someone who's reliable. This is not a tinpot outfit I'm running here. And tonight with all that bare flesh and high heel shoes we had to watch out for the perverts.' A reporter from a metropolitan daily wrote hurriedly in a notebook. ‘Say, what did you think of the gala occasion?'

When Shadbolt returned to the boarding house in the morning he noticed the ministerial limousine parked outside, the driver slumped over the wheel clocking up triple overtime.

Mrs Younghusband was still in bed. ‘This hasn't happened before.' The typesetters rattled utensils and plates. ‘I don't like the sound of it.' They had to set their own breakfast.

After the night of nights Alex Screech went back to wearing shorts, and looking out over a scattered audience, half of them hard of hearing, the other half nodding off.

Out of stubbornness and in the hope of attracting future bookings—conventions, annual general meetings, anything—dog shows, tap-dancing contests, hypnotist displays—he'd kept the loudspeaker system which needed perpetual fine-tuning, and its electronic reverberations made the theatre seem even more desolate. Many in the audience took their seats for the soothing sensation of seeing and hearing evidence of the rest of the world's energy—in the form of Mr Screech, a no-nonsense younger man, pale and gaunt there with the effort of proposing arguments and opinions. But without his normal horizontal voice the soothing element went, and with it most of the core audience. This in turn affected his delivery. To stir up the remaining listeners he raised his voice and introduced impatient arm movements. As Harriet put it, ‘Alex is beginning to screech.' The very tiling he preached against began happening to him. Like everybody else in the world he felt the difficulties of superimposing his presence on events. The surrounding epic forces were gaining the upper hand. He could feel it. Everything became confusing. The world was a swirl. At his time in life it was dead easy slipping off the rails—he had said that until he was blue in the face—and now he too was beginning to lose direction. He wanted to recapture his old clarity: now you see it, now you don't. Even the small everyday problems worried him. It became hard to make decisions. There were so many alternatives.

He began relying more on Shadbolt. During the hourly lectures Shadbolt stood in the wings, a solid gum tree, holding a screwdriver for emergencies, to prompt the boss when he faltered and lost the thread; for his speeches were all recycled from material Shadbolt had heard many times before.

Only a few weeks after the Quest night Screech began pointing out in public how dead-easy it was ‘to miss Austrylia, as a place, as an idea.' A promising start. Continuing he then tried relating the Miss Australia quest to the island-continent lying speckled and dun-coloured on the foyer floor, which was ‘hard to miss', and he lost track of the argument; not even Shadbolt could grasp the connections. While striving to find his way Screech noticed Sid Hoadley, the Senator, sitting in the back stalls; he saw the large aggressive head, and parts of his face looking bored. It threw Screech completely. He lost all thread of the argument, all hope of wrapping it up. Assuming that the Senator had come for business—perhaps to hire the theatre for a very important public event—his voice trailed off into absent-mindedness.

The sight of Alex stubbornly standing there in his shorts and downtrodden socks produced real sadness in Shadbolt; he tried hard to swallow down the lump in his throat; and when, at the prearranged signal, the defenceless figure became engulfed in grey-and-white screen images, which normally produced such an electrifying effect, it only threw his ordinariness into relief, a gaunt figure at the mercy of stronger remote imagery, and the gelatine strobing lit up the vertical faultline on his forehead, multiplying his helplessness.

As if blinded by his predicament Screech remained squinting at the flickering light until Shadbolt hissed from the wings, ‘This way, Alex. Over here.'

Alex came off looking worried.

‘I was going great guns until I saw Sid Hoadley's mug sticking out like dog's balls. I think he's come to see me.'

He was pale, worn out, perspiring.

‘He must have come in to see the show,' Shadbolt suggested.

‘Come off it. Sid Hoadley's a frigging cabinet Minister. He wouldn't waste his time. No, I've known Sid for bloody years. He's up to something. That bloke never does anything without a reason. He's always onto some angle or other. I'd say he's come here to hire our hall for a night.' He began nodding, shrewdly. ‘In fact, I'll put money on it.'

Alex returned in a few minutes, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

‘It's you he wants to see.'

Shadbolt laughed and turned away.

‘I'm not bullshitting. Go on! He's outside in his flash government car, all smiles.'

It was four o'clock in the afternoon. With his torch in one hand Shadbolt pushed through the doors onto the footpath.

Several sizes too small his blue bouncer's uniform exposed his ankles and elongated shoes. Shadbolt had always been oblivious of appearances. From the footpath he squinted up and down for a second before he lunged across the street, thrusting his neck forward, his threadbare buttocks parting the slit of his coat like a curtain.

It was the same cream-ducoed car and Commonwealth driver he'd seen outside the boarding house. Shadbolt wondered how the Minister of Commerce, Home Affairs and the Interior found time in the middle of the afternoon to wait outside a picture theatre in Manly; but on the far side the passenger door was wide open, and Mr Hoadley was seated in his short sleeves, surrounded by confidential folders, papers, wire out-trays and an American dictating machine.

The Minister lowered his fountain pen.

‘There you are. Thanks for giving me your time, I know you're a busy man.'

Because of his size Shadbolt had to half-crouch, one hand resting on the gutter of the car.

‘That was a fine job you did the other night. I notice these things. I was impressed. I get a tremendous kick out of those gala evenings. There's nothing better than a man in my position to move among the people, to rub shoulders…you know, to see how individual citizens go about their pleasures. My portfolio, Commerce, Home Affairs and the Interior, takes me everywhere. I take my constituency's affairs very seriously. You've got to put a lot of elbow grease into this job, I'm always on the road. This is a great country. Listen, don't stand out there in the sun. Take a pew, take a seat.'

He cleared a space.

Genuine leather. To Shadbolt's surprise he found he could stretch his legs.

‘Have you ever seen one of these things?'

A cocktail cabinet in a series of walnut planes unfolded on cantilevered elbows.

‘Will the boss let you have a drink?'

Without waiting for an answer he splashed out a north Queensland rum of one-twenty proof and doused it with a squirt from a syphon enclosed in a silver wire net. The exceptional diameter of the glasses spoke of power attained. Hoadley could barely wrap his ginger hand around them, and on his smallest finger a gold ring displayed the shape of the lucky country set in opal.

‘I've known Alex Screech since the war. He used to hit the bottle a bit those days. How is Alex? A real battler. There's a man who never throws in the towel. Always unlucky with women and business. I remember a time when Alex wanted to go into politics like the rest of us. We used to call him “Axle”—always going around in circles. It doesn't pay,' he added mysteriously, ‘to be too singleminded.'