The Serpent's Sting (4 page)

Percy Wavel didn't bother to supervise our rehearsal. You won't find his name decorating the lists of Australia's great theatre directors. He ought, if talent were the decider, to have been in charge of the theatre's boilers. With a great deal of study and application, he might have learned how to take tickets at the door. As it was, by some ghastly, war-driven flaw in the machine, he'd been given the task of directing the Tivoli's matinee-only pantomime. He had no understanding of, or sensitivity towards, the peculiar needs of actors and actresses. He didn't care about the performance, and so he made the assumption that neither did we. It didn't take me long to discover that he was wrong about almost everyone in the company. Most of them were second-rate vaudeville performers, not actors at all, but they certainly cared enough to give their best.

My first performance in Jim Stokes's role went smoothly. I brought a subtlety to the part, the possibility for which had escaped his end-of-the-pier sensibility. The laughs weren't as loud, but you can't hear a wry smile, and that was the response I was after. Percy Wavel, who'd surprisingly prised himself off a bar stool to watch the performance, demanded that the laughs be put back in.

‘They've paid to see those hairy legs, so lift your fucking skirts,' he said. Now that I'd signed a contract, his reserved and reasonable phone manner had been entirely abandoned.

I'd had little to do with the rest of the cast when I'd been filling in. Now I made an effort to introduce myself properly. After I'd changed, I ducked my head into the other dressing rooms. There were only two in use, apart from mine and Roger's — one for the females and the other for the males. They were a chaos of costumes and make-up, and the air in each was a fug of sweat, cigarette smoke, and grease paint. Activity was feverish, as most of the panto cast had to hurry back to the Tivoli to appear in the evening vaudeville show. In no time at all, before I'd had a chance to say a word, there was just one woman left in the dressing room. The rush of men down the corridor suggested that that dressing room would now be deserted.

‘I'm Will Power,' I said to the actress, who was removing make-up from her eyes. She looked at me in her mirror.

‘Oh yes, you're our new Mother Goose.'

I smiled.

‘Well, I'm trying to be. It's all been a bit of a rush.'

‘You can't be worse than Jim Stokes.' She turned to face me. ‘At least you're slimmer and better looking than he was.'

‘Damning with faint praise.'

She stood up and held out her hand.

‘I'm Geraldine. Everyone calls me Gerald. Nice to meet you off stage, Will Power.'

Geraldine was assembled in ways that were designed to excite admiration. She wore her dark hair in a shorter version of Veronica Lake's peekaboo style, and although she resembled the blonde Miss Lake only slightly, I could tell from the way she angled her head, and her general air of assured swagger, that she modelled herself on the star of
This Gun for Hire
. I must have been staring, I hope at her face, because she reached out and placed her hand on my forearm — a gesture of electric intimacy.

‘You don't look like the last person I knew who was called Gerald,' I said. ‘He was bald for a start.'

‘I feel like I've got a head start.'

She didn't remove her hand from my arm, and I didn't want her to. I found myself examining her elegant fingers. She wasn't wearing nail polish, but her nails were flecked with paint. She removed her hand and flexed her fingers.

‘I'm an artist as well as an actress. I help with the scenery, but before the war, portraits were a specialty, although I could knock you up a gum tree if requested.'

She stepped back from me.

‘Have you ever been painted?'

‘No.' Without thinking, I added. ‘I worked as a life model once.'

I don't know why I revealed that. It's one of the incidents in my adult life that's best forgotten.

‘Really? Posing pouch or no posing pouch?'

‘No posing pouch, I'm afraid. It wasn't a planned component of my working life.'

‘Well, it's nobody's childhood dream to stand in a draughty room without so much as a posing pouch to cut the wind. Let's face it, acting isn't always enough to pay the bills.'

‘Which is why it's not the only arrow in my quiver.'

‘You're not a teacher, are you?' Her tone suggested that this would be a grave disappointment if true.

‘No. In fact, the life modelling was in the way of being undercover work. Ironically, I suppose, given the lack of cover.'

‘Heavens. Are you a policeman?'

‘I'm a private-inquiry agent. It's a sideline. Mostly, I'm an actor.'

‘It's just like in the movies. Do you investigate murders? Oh lord, was Jim Stokes murdered?'

I laughed.

‘Jim Stokes was murdered by his diet. I have looked into a couple of murders in my time.'

‘I am frankly riveted.'

‘Would a cup of tea somewhere be in order? I'd like to get your views on the rest of the company. I haven't met them properly yet.'

‘A cup of tea would be marvellous. Where?'

‘Somewhere quiet.'

‘I live in Parkville, but my landlady disapproves of gentlemen callers, and besides, it's only a room really, and it's a ghastly mess.'

In a rush of gallantry, I offered Mother's house. It was on Geraldine's way home, and I would walk her across the park afterwards. The murderous Eddie Leonski, despite having been hanged, had left Melbourne nervous about unescorted women after dark. I reassured Geraldine that we wouldn't be alone in the house, that it was all very proper. She lowered her chin and raised her eyes, and told me that I was a gentleman and that gentlemen in the theatre were a rare and unexpected pleasure. She laid her hand on my arm again and said, ‘Lead the way.' I somehow knew that it was I who was being led, and it was my inclination at that moment to follow.

We walked up to Princes Hill, and Geraldine was free in her opinions of her fellow cast members. It was a mostly happy company, with friendships forged in the Tivoli. The pantomime was an annual money-spinner, and it was considered a bit of fun and a distraction from the hard grind of vaudeville. Geraldine had never done vaudeville. She couldn't, she said, sing, dance, or juggle, and she wasn't willing to strip and assume a static, heroic pose as one of the living statues. I withheld my feelings about vaudeville and vaudevillians, not wishing to get off to a bad start. Geraldine clearly held her fellow performers in high regard.

‘We should go and see them after tomorrow's show. Peggy Dunston — she's the girl who plays Jill — is incredible. She's one of the Dunstan Sisters, and you won't believe what they can do.'

I was feeling queasy at just the thought of what the Dunstan Sisters might be capable of. I suspected that they were one of those acts involving inhuman and nausea-inducing feats of physical elasticity. Nevertheless I agreed to go with Geraldine to the Tivoli the following evening. I'd known her for barely an hour, and I was already in her thrall.

We arrived at the house in Garton Street to find both Brian and Mother standing at the front gate. Peter Gilbert was walking south towards the cemetery. All three of them saw us approaching, and Peter Gilbert paused as if considering whether or not etiquette demanded that he return and offer a greeting. He decided against it, and strode on. Mother and Brian at least had the grace to wait for us. I began to introduce Geraldine, and realised too late that I didn't know her last name. She rescued me by saying, as she took Mother's hand, ‘Geraldine Buchanan. How lovely to meet you.'

She created precisely the impression that I'd hoped to create myself — that we'd known each other for some time. Brian looked Geraldine up and down, and his gaze was appreciative — a fact that made me absurdly and inexplicably proud of her. I'm not given to sudden, adolescent attachments, but as we sipped tea and made small talk in the front room of Mother's house, I found my feelings for her migrating into the regions of the heart.

‘Do you enjoy being in pantomime, Geraldine?' Mother asked.

‘Please, call me Gerald. Everybody does.'

‘A woman called Gerald? That's rather unusual. Are you a lesbian?'

I was both appalled and unsurprised. Mother had made the impertinent inquiry into something of an art. Geraldine, to her credit, didn't blanch.

‘What an interesting question, Mrs Power. I'm not a lesbian. Are you disappointed?'

‘Yes, I suppose I am rather. I like lesbians.'

‘My father's name was Gerald. He died when I was very young and I just sort of assumed his name, but not his moustache.'

Mother laughed, and against her better judgement I think she began to warm to Geraldine. I say ‘against her better judgement' because on the few occasions in my youth and early manhood when I'd made the mistake of bringing a girl home, Mother had been merciless in her treatment of her, and the relationship had collapsed very soon after the meeting.

‘I don't mind pantomime, Mrs Power. I admit the role of Silverleaf in
Mother Goose
is a dull one. Playing the good fairy doesn't get any laughs.'

There was further discussion about pantomimes generally, with Mother skilfully avoiding making any mention of my performance in the play. I hadn't told her that I was now Mother Goose, the grand dame part, and when Geraldine mentioned this, Mother said that of course she'd return to the Princess Theatre to see me. I knew this to be a polite lie, but didn't disturb the conversation by pointing out that most of my performances had escaped my mother's attention. I knew that she had grave doubts about my professional abilities, and I knew this because she'd told me so on more than one occasion.

‘You have some talent, darling,' she once said, possibly thinking she was being both helpful and kind, ‘but in the theatre you need presence, don't you, and I'm not sure you can practise that.'

‘The theatre is uncertain work isn't it, Gerald?' Mother said.

‘Yes, it is. I don't rely on theatre work — on acting, I mean. I'm an artist. Portraits a specialty.'

With an instinctive understanding that one of Mother's most notable and reliable characteristics was her vanity, Geraldine screwed up her eyes, concentrated her gaze on Mother's face, and said, ‘I'd love to paint you. Your face is quite beautiful. I suppose you've been painted already.'

‘Just once,' Mother said. ‘It was hideous, so I burned it.'

‘I didn't know you'd been painted,' I said.

‘It was before either of you children was born. Your father and I were in Broome.'

‘During your year of heat, Mother,' Brian said.

It was the first time Brian had said anything. I looked at him and thought how remarkable it was that he was, by degrees, making himself invisible — a desirable quality in a spy, but hopeless at the dinner table, or over afternoon tea.

By the time we left Mother's house, darkness had fallen, and I walked Geraldine across Princes Park. We stuck to the paths. The ovals had been pitted with air-raid ditches, and falling into one of them and perhaps breaking a limb would have put an end to my stage career. Geraldine said that she thought that Mother was rather marvellous, but that Brian seemed shy and reserved.

‘You wouldn't have said that if you'd seen him shimmying around a stage in a satin sheath dress. He gave Jean Harlow a run for her money. Now he's practising reticence. His ambition is to vanish.'

‘He's awfully good-looking. I'd like to paint him before he succeeds.'

‘You want to paint everyone except me.'

‘Oh, I'd love to paint you as Mother Goose.'

I was strangely hurt by this, and I made no reply. Geraldine must have sensed that her words had stung me. She put her arm through mine.

‘Oh, Will, of course I'd love to paint you. It's a very intimate thing having your portrait painted. Are you sure you want me to look at you that closely, so early in our acquaintance? I might see things you don't want me to see.'