Holden's Performance (30 page)

In between home affairs he managed to squeeze in some paperwork in the back seat as he wolfed down delicacies in his shirt sleeves, both doors open to catch the breeze. Even then his restlessness showed. Without revealing the most intimate details he casually confided to his driver, ‘Now here's a funny thing…'

Basically he was a numbers man. The harder he worked the more energy he attained. If he could satisfy just fifty per cent of the population…He brought to the task a simple rude energy of persistence. Why, Shadbolt became disconcerted, he's had more dot-dot-dot than he's had roast dinners (a phrase he'd first head from Frank McBee years ago). Every woman interested him. And they recognised it. Just as Shadbolt felt at ease among mechanics so Hoadley was born to, and developed further, the knack of tinkering with women. He had developed this very effective mix of minute and bold attention. He never stopped listening and watching and smiling. It showed even when he spoke to one on the telephone. He couldn't help himself. And through his apparently casually chosen words he seemed to grow inside them. A woman felt his presence gradually spreading. He entered through their eyes, their ears and partly through their mouths. By then his words and attentions had formed into something almost solid; soft and hard; slow, insistently spreading throughout.

In the mirror or when he turned to accept a leg of chicken Shadbolt saw the Minister pondering the complexities of his electorate, the many individual bodies unfolding into the whole. ‘Not many men are happy in their work, a social problem we as a government are concerned about. But I wouldn't give away this job for anything. It's a real challenge. I love the Austrylian people.' Glancing at his watch he'd sink his teeth into the morsel, hurrying for his next appointment.

If a husband happened to be out of town or if a constituent's needs demanded extra attention the Minister would stroll out to the car, rest an elbow on the door (‘How's it going out here?'), and looking out along the bonnet would say, thoughtfully, ‘I've been tied up for a second', or ‘It's taking longer than I expected', and tell Shadbolt to come back first thing in the morning. Then he'd whack the door with his palm and like an old friend wave and saunter back to the house, which produced in Shadbolt a stain of intense pleasure, such was his gratitude at Hoadley's informality.

The only time Hoadley turned moody and foul-tempered was when a combination of circumstances somehow combined on the one day, disparate lines of force all over Canberra intersecting at apparent random—husband at home, illness at Cox Street, Chinese New Year, death in family, school holidays— leaving Hoadley without a single rendezvous, days when not even the rough diamond from Queensland could receive him at home.

Such days began slowly but as the momentum of knockbacks and no-answers increased so did Hoadley's sense of desolation; Shadbolt would be pressed into service, running up driveways with cap in hand, knocking at doors, apologising for the wrong address if a surprised husband answered, not worrying about concealing the Commonwealth car, Hoadley seated restlessly in the back, and made calls on the Minister's behalf from public telephones.

By lunchtime the full dimensions of the emptiness had become clear—a day so wide open as to have no meaning. To any suggestions Shadbolt made Hoadley said nothing or merely grunted. Fidgeting with papers, glancing out the window, looking at his watch he wore a hurt, slightly confused expression. Only when they stopped and Hoadley concentrated on unfolding hams and spreading imported pates on biscuits did he pull himself together.

Working on the adage, ‘The harder you work, the luckier you become' he leaned forward with all his old cockiness and instructed Shadbolt to drive to the nurses' quarters at the hospital, or to the nearest shopping centre, or if it wasn't too late the nearest kindergarten. There Hoadley would open both doors, almost blocking the footpath, and in his flyscreen shirt and Made-in-America pen poised, concentrated on the important papers of state, one eye though screening every piece of approaching skirt and, seizing upon the slightest sign of interest, whether it was a pair of pale nurses in nuns' stockings, or a harassed housewife loaded down with junk food, or even a young mother-to-be leaving the immaculate kindergarten.

The little Australian flag fluttering on the bonnet usually caught their attention; but if they missed it or chose to ignore it they found their path almost blocked by the wide-open executive doors; sometimes then to make quite sure, Hoadley would flick out with his foot a confidential report which fluttered at their feet like a wounded bird.

As soon as a woman bent down towards the figure in the back working there in his shirt sleeves (‘Scuse me, I think you may have—') Hoadley glanced up and breaking what seemed to be a slightly annoyed expression of interrupted concentration, smiled and said something. It was then with a startled cry they sometimes recognised his face from the newspapers.

What happened next was always a mystery to Shadbolt. Sometimes he'd hear Hoadley introduce himself. His words were in a low murmur, difficult to hear, but evidently self-deprecating; for very soon there'd be the tinkle of a musical laugh (‘A woman's laugh is a very fine thing,' he said one day. ‘A woman is made for laughter') and Shadbolt glancing in the side-mirror would see a woman resting groceries on her knees, or crouching, listening to him while smiling at the traffic.

Surrounded by papers Hoadley appeared to be an invalid, a fallen monument. But the seated, half-darkened posture only gave his words an extra concentrated force; for it must have been plain to anybody he was a man in the prime of life. His powers were hidden and at rest, that was all. Insistently and softly his words sought questions, reaching the centre of the chosen ones, always circling the centre, until they understood his interest which at the same time seemed to be no interest at all. That was the balance Hoadley casually reached. Not for one second did he remove his eyes, except for casual side-effects, as when he spoke slightingly of himself.

That was how he hypnotised Joy Shoulders, completely covered with freckles, down from Deniliquin for the Show, and Mrs Pirie, the midwife between husbands, suffering a loss of confidence, and the identical twins with the narrow-set eyes…Shadbolt could scarcely believe his ears. It was how Hoadley had hypnotised his future wife eight years ago outside one of his pleasure palaces in Bondi, a frail creature blowing her nose in all innocence from the Technicolor happily-ever-after ending of
The African Queen
.

The success of his kerbside technique widened his local support, and with more and more people visiting Canberra to see how the capital was going he gathered in loyal supporters from interstate and country towns, each one carefully jotted down and followed up as soon as possible—‘Hello, there. You've probably forgotten me already, but…'

Regular trips out west were necessary.

And then so flat became the land and vast the sky that although the car made progress it didn't appear to be moving through time and space; and as the sun heated his extended arms on these long journeys Shadbolt wondered how other men spent their days at work.

On the outskirts of towns he stopped and took out the Australian flag from the glovebox, where it had been folded so it wouldn't get worn out, and as he fastened it back on the bonnet he felt the flickering of insects all around him, otherwise stillness, or slowness all around, the heat from the earth came up through his soles; and he felt pleasantly aware of the Minister, his boss, seated in the back in comfort, surrounded by his difficult work.

‘I get a real kick out here in the bush,' the Minister called out. ‘This country of ours is one great block of dirt.'

The grass seeds and the wide open spaces acted as aphrodisiacs; Hoadley could hardly wait to press the flesh of the local constituents.

They had adjoining rooms, government footing the bill, in grand verandahed hotels, tall silver ships in the desert, with incessantly creaking floors and wooden walls like the floors, where in summer commercial travellers slept out on the open verandahs, the dining rooms adorned with a calendar and reproductions of bulldogs playing cards around a green baize table, slightly askew.

Usually by mid-morning a motorcade formed outside the entrance, and led by the local mayor's ute or the Chev of an influential grazier Hoadley set forth to open a bridge. Wherever it was or whatever its size—a footbridge or merely an elevated crossing for sheep—Hoadley never knocked back an invitation to open a bridge, even poaching them from other Ministers. The very idea of a bridge appealed to him. The joining together of two sides, the graceful flanks spanning a flow, were distinctly feminine qualities. There was no such thing as an ugly bridge. Many a time he said that. And often he'd get Shadbolt to skid to a halt so he could admire the ample curves of a stone bridge or the swaying grace of one suspended by wires. The sight could leave him at a loss for words. If Hoadley was vulnerable it might somehow be via a bridge. It had been his idea to erect the signs lovingly listing their vital statistics fore and aft.

Standing coatless on the site, hands on hips, his red head swaying like a penis, Hoadley opened with the standard line. Shadbolt had heard it many times but never tired of it.

‘I'm sixteen years older than the Sydney Harbour Bridge,' he bellowed out across the windswept plains. Tm a nuts and bolts man. I believe in concrete, the smooth path, the joining together of people; I'm a modern man. It's through strength and geometry we'll go forward. Bridges are the symbols, algebras, whatever you call them, dotted all over the landscape, measuring our progress, our determination to conquer the elements. I love this bloody [usually OK out in the bush] country of ours. But it can be a bastard! It can be unforgiving, as you people on the land know only too well. But a bridge—this one we're standing on now—a bridge is generous. A bridge is strong. It carries our burdens. It opens up opportunities. A bridge is a collective, human effort. I'm all for them. They also look good to the eye, close up or from a distance. This one here's a little beauty, one of the nicest I've seen. Sure, you'll get the odd ratbag crashing into the rails on his motorbike, or someone jumping off. But the advantages far outweigh the minuses. Some of my most treasured experiences have taken place on, or underneath…bridges.

‘Ladies and gennelmen! On behalf of your government, as Minister of the Interior (among other things) it gives me very great pleasure—.'

It was enough for tears to swell around the crow's feet of the country people; Shadbolt too joined in the applause for the nodding and waving Minister, everybody's best-friend.

During his speech Hoadley's roving eyes swept the small audience, and when his voice paused almost imperceptibly, Shadbolt noticed a woman smile, or become disconcerted. And sure enough during refreshments (mutton sandwiches, rock-cake, flies) Shadbolt watched the boss in conversation with the chosen one at the exclusion of everybody else, and he knew that he'd have a late night or a long morning next day, waiting outside a darkened house in the car.

With a completely reliable driver up front Hoadley could relax; he even seemed to enjoy Shadbolt's company.

But nothing impressed the Minister more than his photographic memory.

They were cruising into Deniliquin at dusk. Lining the main street at an angle the dented cars and utes bled into the verandah posts, the yellow light melting glass and metallic shapes, casting an underwater film over the slow-motion pedestrians, glistening the stretch of street, although it hadn't rained in the district for years.

Between cars a figure separated from a post.

The wide-apart features focused in unmistakable grey tones.

‘Our pub's down the end,' Hoadley was saying. He was dog tired.

‘There's that Mrs Shoulders lady,' Shadbolt half turned. ‘If you want to—'

‘“Shoulders” did you say?' Hoadley twisted in his seat. ‘Which one are we talking about?'

‘You know,' said Shadbolt kindly, ‘she was that one outside Parliament House—by the lawn. Remember she said she came from here.'

‘Well, I'll be blowed.' And Hoadley actually placed a hand of gratitude on Shadbolt's shoulder. ‘I clean forgot about her, a nice figure of a girl. I should have made a note. I've had too much on my plate.'

Already Shadbolt was reversing back, and as they drew level Hoadley swung open the door.

‘Righto!' he shouted out false instructions. ‘Stop here, I've found her.'

In the side-mirror Shadbolt saw the boss lean towards the startled woman and make a sweeping gesture, as if removing an invisible hat; Shadbolt had his mouth open in admiration.

‘Well, what d'you know?' the woman squatted by the car. In her hometown she became excessively informal.

He was here to open a few bridges. ‘I'd like you to be my personal guest.' To re-hypnotise her he studied her face with interest. Shadbolt could see this was necessary although could never manage it himself.

‘What exactly have you been doing since we last met?'

And so on.

Joy Shoulders' features were especially difficult to ‘assemble'. Covered in so many freckles she always appeared blurred as in a newspaper photograph, coming into focus only at a certain distance. But Shadbolt had plenty of occasions to demonstrate his gift. So many country women visiting Canberra had been hypnotised by Hoadley on the footpath that every other town had some walking around. In the main street of Cootamundra Shadbolt picked in a flash the frown of the English rose walking with her deaf stepmother; outside the hospital at Tamworth he isolated little Betty Gascoigne and her wineglass waist (which had originally hypnotised Hoadley) from a flock of uniform nurses; and he amazed the boss by skidding to a halt on the dust track this side of Bourke and pointing to the grazier's wife in men's trousers, standing at the mailbox cut from a 44-gallon drum— and who, recognising Hoadley (although he had trouble for a second placing her) joined him in the back seat where she straightaway began whispering rapidly and weeping on his fly-screen shoulder. Shadbolt spotted them in broad daylight, in passing cars, and side-saddle on motorbikes. He could isolate a face in a crowd, behind sunglasses, from under a hat, and in the stalls of Hoadley's picture theatres. It happened without special effort, almost before Shadbolt could blink.