Room Service (12 page)

He left the house that day, without a word, to stay at a Hilton.

‘Nothing ennobles me,' Wesley said, at the refrigerator, ‘not demonstrations, not folk music, not handing out how-to-vote cards, and certainly not this Wake for Jack Kerouac.'

Around us the Wake stormed for Jack Kerouac.

‘And I shouldn't be here,' I said, ‘but anyhow ennoblement isn't a sensation that an Australian should expect to experience.'

‘I guess not,' she said, ‘but at least you can record your observation of the Wake.'

‘I'm more inclined to agree with your brother,' I said, ‘that it is difficult to understand why people write anything but fiction, seeing that the truth is impossible.'

‘Did he say that?'

We nodded at Nigel, who smiled, said something we couldn't catch, whinnied, and inhaled himself into a joint.

‘I should be here,' Wesley said, ‘when you consider the state of my relations with Milton.'

‘There's your brother,' I said, pointing with the toe of my shoe towards Wesley's brother across the room.

‘I bet half of them don't know who Jack Kerouac was,' Wesley said, propped against the refrigerator.
The refrigerator was continually being opened to reveal a well-lit but empty stage.

Wesley's brother, ‘the writer', came over and said he and Milton were now ‘working off each other' rather than working ‘against each other's fictions'.

He said it was the beginning of communalised literature.

‘How does it operate?' I enquired, having been trained by my father to ask questions rather than to give answers.

‘It operates this way,' said Wesley's brother. ‘Milton tells me over the telephone a key sentence from a story he is writing. I make a response to this key sentence while at the same time reacting “fictionally” on my typewriter there and then. You see my reaction on the phone orally is an “event”, that is, voice-to-voice in the oral tradition. I then telephone Carmel and initiate an “event” by telling her what I've written and she reacts to that and responds to it and then telephones Milton who writes some more and then telephones me. We are working with fictional representations of each other at the same time, you see. Of course, I know what you are going to say – the “real” story is the uncaptured parts of the linked telephone calls – the parts we don't think of putting down, or cannot “catch” as it were, in flight because the spontaneous interaction is too quick to be consciously observed and recorded.'

No, I thought, no I wasn't going to say that, but I was able to say, ‘It is recorded though – ' winking an academic smile – ‘by ASIO.'

‘God yes!' Wesley's brother was excited, ‘of course! ASIO must have the only complete oral history of the Australian Left. Richard Hall must get the tapes for us.'

‘And the Labor governments have made the only oral history of the Australian Right. We were in danger of losing that.'

‘We're working towards the private story also, Milton and I, the story for a readership of, say twenty people, each of whom participates in the making of the story by telephone, and who alone know the story. Cabbala.'

Wesley's brother, over-excited by his ideas, trailed off into private thought.

‘Telephone, telephone?' said Bunny Stockwell Anderson of the English Department, lurching past, ‘someway one the telephone,' he said.

We turned our uncomprehending stares at him. He had taken off his shoes and was walking through the Wake, immaculately dressed, as always, from Hunts, but without shoes. A reference I thought, perhaps, to Jack Kerouac. He took the uncomprehending stares and said ‘Ooopsy' and passed by.

Milton came over to us at the refrigerator and said, like a notice, ‘Keep the Door of the Refrigerator shut at All Times.'

‘But there is nothing in the refrigerator,' I said.

‘It costs money – it burns up ohms,' said Milton.

‘Since when have you been Guardian of the Ohm,' Wesley quipped. Lying behind her joke, of course, was
the fact that Milton and she had lived together for some unsatisfactory period when he had been pursuing the ‘domestic mode'.

He was now allegedly having an affair with her brother, although this was dismissed by some as his attempt to create the appearance, at least, of his capacity to enter the darker worlds of sexuality.

‘Amps,' I corrected, suddenly unsure, ‘it's amps that are burned, isn't it, not ohms.'

‘Our lady of the Amps perhaps,' Wesley said, ‘Vamps.'

‘We're going to get the ASIO tapes,' Wesley's brother exclaimed to Milton, putting his arm around him. ‘Richard Hall will get them for us – for the cassette magazine.'

Milton said that he thought they should incorporate what people said about the stories into the later versions of the stories.

‘Who actually writes the story?' I asked, not having their speed.

‘We all do,' they said together, turning to each other and giving a small bow.

Wesley made a vomiting gesture.

‘We are communally tilling the literary acreage,' Milton said.

‘Sounds more like the destruction of Vietnam to me,' Wesley said, and continued ‘never before have more explosives, napalm and concentrated artillery fire been turned on such a small, innocent, and agriculturally worthless piece of landscape.'

‘Go over the same ground until it speaks to you,' said Wesley's brother.

‘Charcot to Freud,' Milton completed.

‘He didn't mean that you should make the ground uninhabitable,' Wesley said.

They moved off, Milton propelling Wesley's brother away.

Wesley gave the Sicilian cursing gesture with her forearm, and a Greek spit.

‘Winsome couple,' she observed.

What happened next was this. They were linked there, arm in arm, trying to do a vaudeville routine while at the same time drinking from a common glass, when for absolutely no reason, Milton said, ‘The way to tame an eagle is to keep him tired.'

I was about to rejoin, across the room, for I was still tuned, as it were, to them, straining as always to be part of it, feeling always some distance from the centre, I was about to say in response to Milton, ‘Eagles catch no flies.' I am something of a student of folklore. This proverb means that people with the stature of eagles do not concern themselves with trivia.

I was about to say this, across the kitchen, throwing it to Milton, the way you return in a conversation knowing that there is no ‘logical' answer required, and that in the absence of witty response you can say something that is at least parallel to the first statement and that may perhaps catch onto, release, some unforeseen wit, an unforeseen humorous association (seen sometimes by one's unconscious, but not
‘seen' by the speaker until spoken). If delivered with appropriate swagger it passes for wit.

Wesley's brother, however, ignored the game-playing conversation with a moody toss and said to Milton urgently, ‘What did you say that for?'

Milton repeated, ‘The way to tame an eagle is to keep him tired.' Having, I think, sensed that it was ‘alive' for Wesley's brother, and determined to play it through.

Wesley's brother pulled away from Milton, his face alert with tension.

‘What's bugging you?' Milton said to Wesley's brother.

‘Why did you say that!' Wesley's brother again demanded, obviously disturbed.

I felt I was looking in the window on the adjoining flats.

‘It's true – the way you tame an eagle is to keep him tired.'

‘Don't keep saying it!' Wesley's brother screamed, throwing the glass to the floor.

‘That's one of our good glasses,' Milton said peevishly.

‘Oh dear,' said Wesley.

‘Someone's playing games with me and I don't like it,' Wesley's brother said, standing away not only from Milton, but from us all, staring from one face to another angrily.

Wesley's brother is a robust sort of poet, but prone to paranoia.

The misty, alcoholic glee had blown away from around us, leaving behind a bright, fluorescent kitchen glare.

‘It's not a game – the way you tame an eagle is to keep him tired.'

I was surprised that Milton kept repeating the phrase when it obviously was pressing on a nerve.

Wesley's brother screamed again, putting his hands over his ears, ‘Don't say that! Don't say that!'

‘Anyone for telephones?' Bunny Stockwell Anderson said, soft-shoeing it, or soft-socking through the kitchen.

‘Shut up,' said Wesley's brother.

I said, in an aside to Wesley, ‘I think it all refers to Kerouac.'

‘How?' she whispered back.

‘I don't know,' I whispered.

‘What about the ping-pong ball?' Wesley's brother said with cold seriousness, all hysteria swallowed from his voice.

I laughed, jovially, thinking that he had characteristically turned the conversation on its head, a way of forcing Milton to grapple with a new play – to make him jump for the ball.

Wesley's brother turned to me and said, in answer to my laugh, that someone had been bouncing a ping-pong ball in the flat above his, keeping it up throughout the night in a steady beat. ‘When I get out of bed and go up to the flat above to com plain it stops. I go back to my flat and get into bed and it starts again.'

I was now feeling socially very slippery. I was trying to smile, yet not knowing whether a smile was appropriate or not. Or what sort of smile.

Still looking at me, but not really talking to me – talking really to Milton – he said, ‘Item three – the bookcases.'

‘Item three – the bookcases,' I said, involuntarily.

‘Item three – the bookcases,' Wesley's brother said, emphasising the seriousness of his mood, ‘the bookcases in the American's room – there was something very strange about it. I looked through the books, and although I couldn't name the titles, there were key titles missing.

‘Key books were missing. While the American was in the lavatory I looked under his bed and there were books. He had removed certain books from the shelf to give me a certain impression. He wanted me to think x instead of y. These books were also missing from your shelves at the university.'

He turned to Milton with this accusation, although I pointed a bemused questioning finger at myself as well.

‘Someone is playing games with me,' Wesley's brother said, grimly.

We were all holding our glasses too tightly.

‘I don't know this American,' said Milton, too calmly.

‘Please,' said Wesley, not to any person, but as an undirected prayer.

‘That is, I think, the whole point,' Wesley's brother said.

‘Excuse me,' I said to Wesley's brother, ‘I have, to go …' I gestured towards the lavatory, that safe place deep in the party somewhere.

‘You stay,' he said curtly.

‘The whole point of what?' Milton said.

‘And I laid a false trail.'

‘You laid a false trail?' I said involuntarily again, feeling compelled to say something, not to stand silent within a conversation. I am always compelled to end silences, too.

‘I laid a false trail, I told Milton and the American that I was going to the opal fields for a few months. They were the only two I told. I then took a cab as far as Penrith and returned back to my flat. A thread I had attached to several items had been broken.

‘Nothing had been stolen, but someone had been in there – doing god knows what.'

‘Paranoia,' said Milton.

‘It would be paranoia if there was no pattern.'

‘What is the pattern?'

‘There is always a pattern,' I said ‘except for basic matter.'

‘Oh, shut up,' said Milton, ‘you are humouring him.'

Although I ask questions I am also somewhat compulsive in supplying answers to the questions, fearful lest I have asked a question of someone who does not have an answer.

‘You want me to go back to the doctor?' Wesley's brother said.

‘Why should I want that?' asked Milton.

‘To have me in a drugged state – the way to tame an eagle is to keep him tired.'

I smiled because it seemed, fleetingly, to be a good answer.

‘You're crazy,' Milton said to Wesley's brother.

Wesley's brother pushed Milton over; Milton fell on his backside on the kitchen lino tiles, spilling his wine.

Milton tried to get up and he pushed him over again.

‘Get out of this house,' shouted Milton, and Wesley's brother darkened, and then went off darkly out of the house.

‘Shouldn't we, ah, do something?' I asked.

‘Your brother sabotaged the readings tonight – he changed the date and place on all the notices at the University. No one turned up.'

‘God what a rotten wake for Jack Kerouac.'

Milton, back on his feet, inspected his wine-stained clothing.

‘Come to the bedroom while I change,' Milton said to Wesley. The invitation was loaded with meaning.

As they went off, they laughed, and I thought I heard Milton say, ‘It worked,' but I could be wrong.

I noticed then that the door of the refrigerator was open; just an inch the sneaky light glinted out, and silently the refrigerator pumped chilled air into the almost deserted Wake for Jack Kerouac. When Milton and Wesley awoke in the morning they would be hoary with frost.

As you know, Chief, I have a love for the dying art forms – the speech, the sermon, the motto, the letter to the editor (which I think is making a comeback), civic tributes and, of course, the telegram, which we now know is dying an agonising death.

I was invited to the Sydney College of the Arts to talk about something – I lost the letter – so I talked about The Death of the Telegram. The students were indulgent.

Firstly I told them about the novel not being dead. Everyone talks about The Death of the Novel – it had mourners in the nineteenth century (maybe that was what I was supposed to talk about). But I told them about a novel called
Gadsby
(not
Gatsby
) by Ernest Vincent Wright, written in 1939 without using the letter ‘e', except in the author's name. It could have been titled
The Story of E.
He did it to violate the statistical pattern of the English language without violating either gram mar or sense. Which is a better reason for writing a novel than a lot I've heard. The queer thing is that if you didn't know he wasn't using ‘e' you might not miss it. But it makes eerie reading when you do know. The absence of the ‘e' creates a sense of deprivation – a letter-e deficiency. You need a shot of ‘e' badly after
reading even a part of the book and although you know that the author has not used an ‘e' you still check each page trying to catch him out.

Part of the ‘e' deficiency caused me, I think, to say that it was a ‘queer' and ‘eerie' experience to read it.

When I told the College of the Arts students about this I noticed that a few didn't laugh. I think they might have been working on the same idea.

The point is, I told them, that the novel is not dead – there are at least twenty-five other novels that could still be written.

Again the laughter was a little thin.

However, I went on, the telegram is dead – forget about it as an art form. The use of the domestic telegram had in fact been in decline since about 1935 as people overcame their inhibition about using the telephone for long-distance calls. Maybe the telephone conversation is the new art-form, and I suggested they study police phone taps. Maybe this is where the crime novels are being written. They didn't think phone taps were a joke.

But it is not only the use of the telegram that has declined, I think the standard has declined. On the evidence of the telegrams I receive I don't think people sweat over the writing of the telegram the way they used to. A painter friend of mine, Adam Rish, puts a bit of effort into it. He's very good at one-word telegrams but they can't be quoted because they require elaborate context. The telegram today is more verbose because affluent people don't try as hard to save money by
eliminating unnecessary words. It was the elimination of unnecessary words that gave the telegram its force and vitality. My mother sweated over eliminating unnecessary words as a matter of pride.

The economy of telegrams can produce ambiguity. A journalist telegrammed the actor Cary Grant ‘How old Cary Grant?' Grant telegrammed back ‘Fine how you?'

At this point a few of the students excused themselves.

Hemingway was the first to realise that the telegram was an art form. He was perhaps the last of the great telegram writers. He exclaimed about cable-ese once, ‘Isn't it a great language!' I don't know to whom he exclaimed this or what their reply was. He published two of his press cables unchanged as the short story
On the Quai at Smyrna
, and the story
Old Man at the Bridge
was an unchanged press cable. Or at least that's what Heming way says. Maybe they are stories that were written to
read
like telegrams. Hemingway was a bit of a liar.

As a literary form Henry James played about with it in the story
The Cage
, where the action (?) takes place at a telegraph operator's ‘cage' or office. Alphonse Allais wrote a story called
The Telegraph Operator
in which a gentleman falls in love with the girl in the telegraph office and goes as often as possible to send telegrams in the hope of attracting her attention. But she remains professionally impersonal, as someone sending and receiving personal messages should be. He also fears
that she might think him crazy for sending all those dozens of pointless messages to his friends. Finally he hits on the answer and sends a telegram to a friend saying, ‘I am madly in love with the little red-haired telegraph operator at Baisenmoyen-Cert'.

But even the joking telegram seems to have declined except for tired wedding jokes. I'm not impressed with singing telegrams or gorilla-grams – they seem to be a way of avoiding the hard work of actually creating a funny telegram.

In the 1930s when a group of Oxford undergraduates heard that Kipling received 10 shillings a word for his short stories they telegrammed him 10 shillings and asked for ‘one of his best words'. He telegramed back ‘thanks' (even that's not
really
so funny, Rudyard). You can telegram money, which I'd forgotten. They are better telegrams than a joking gram.

It's difficult to recall joking telegrams. Dorothy Parker sent a telegram to a friend on the birth of the friend's child, ‘We all knew you had it in you.' Dorothy, you've done better than that.

Hollywood liked the telegram. When MGM fired William Faulkner as script writer they did it by telegram. The director Howard Hawkes wired back, ‘You can't sack Faulkner. He's America's greatest writer.' MGM wired back ‘You're fired too.'

Maybe funny telegrams are like
Punch
cartoons – they never were as funny as you remember.

A few more students left the talk.

But the point of the talk was supposed to be that if
a technology is on its way out nothing will make people use it.

We use the telegram, but the telex is taking its place. The telegram used to be the way to get the attention of people at the other end. To get them to jump. A telex is used that way now. Or a courier. Which is really a reversion to an older technology called ‘the messenger'.

The Australian film industry discovered the courier. Even though film projects take years to develop, every step in that development is carried out with dramatic urgency and all communication cannot wait for the ordinary mails, but must be rushed across the city or the nation by breathless express couriers.

A visit from a courier is a bit like receiving a present.

Some legal and important mail, I've noticed, is now sent like a telegram, with something of the drama of the telegram.

The letters are delivered by courier, but are delivered
flat
, sandwiched between inflexible cardboard so that they cannot be folded or bent – and you get the letter uncreased like some proclamation.

But if more of our telephone calls are to be recorded by security agencies and eventually find their way into courts, history books, the news media, maybe we should pay attention to the style as well as the content. It could unintentionally lead to a vast improvement in the standard of telephone calls.

The two remaining students clapped politely.