The Grand Hotel (16 page)

But I was having none of it. ‘Cut it out would ya, Lazy? This is a pool room after all. Who's for a game?'

‘Aw, come off it, Noel,' he cried. ‘This is the best bit. I'm shagging this office girl from Bob Jane T-Marts. She's half my age and boy has she got some unusual piercings!'

‘Well there's a free game here if anyone wants it,' I said, annoyed, picking up a pile of plates and leaving the room.

After returning the plates to the bar, I headed upstairs to check on Kooka. He was sleeping soundly, with his innocuous looking black tranny playing country songs on the bedside table. I took his empty dinner plate and, heading back past The Blonde Maria's room, didn't hear a sound. I snorted through my nose. Our holy guest was obviously busy praying in there.

When I got back downstairs, it was clear that Big Joan had partaken of a few more double whiskies. He had pulled a bentwood chair in behind the bar and was just plonked on it, his Otway dewlaps hanging morosely over the collar of his flannelette shirt, his big sideburns sagging, as he repeatedly smacked his lips and muttered to himself. Poor Darren Traherne kept pouring beers but didn't know what to make of it. Without saying a word, he threw a querulous look in Joan's direction, as if to enquire as to whether our head barman had lost his mind.

I shrugged. There was nothing I could do right then because Rennie and Lee had finished up dancing and were keen now to get a move on with the barrels so they could head home to the hills. They were expecting me to help load them into their van and, well, who was I to argue with Rennie Vigata?

We stepped outside and I laid the corduroy rolling planks out between the door and the driveway where Rennie had backed the van in. We set to work. Rolling barrels was usually first-thing-in-the-morning work, so it took a bit longer than usual, even with Lee's help. There were about eighty empty barrels there, after all. By the time we were done and I'd said toorah to Rennie and Lee and headed back inside to check on Joan, he was a total mess.

At first, when I entered the bar, I couldn't even see him; he was no longer on the bentwood chair. Discreetly Darren nodded down towards the back kitchen corner of the bar and said, ‘It's hard to work with that in here.'

I peered down to see Joan Sutherland's massive frame sprawled over the black and white checked lino. I was shocked. He'd taken his big Blundstones off and his socks stank. He was shaking his head disconsolately from side to side, tears were falling from his eyes, and he was muttering away to himself like a madman.

With Joan's legs halfway across the floor behind the bar Darren was right when he said it was hard to work. Every time Darren turned around to get a spirit or a soft drink from the dispensers on the back wall, he'd nearly go flying as he tried to avoid the dairy farmer's big red socks.

I knelt down and grabbed Joan by the hand. ‘What the hell has got into you?' I said into his ear. There was no reply. ‘Come on, mate, you can't stay in here like this,' I said. ‘You're in everyone's way. Let's go for a walk.'

Joan put up no struggle and, with Darren's help, I hoisted him off the floor. He stood tottering like a power pole in an onshore wind, before sucking in a long whistling breath and letting me lead him out of the bar, through the sunroom and outside. I didn't even bother trying to get his boots back on, and I figured he wouldn't die without them.

We walked out under the pines and along the dirt road to the river, between the silent grassy ditches. On other nights walking between those ditches the natural world seemed to be in full chorus, but this time there was not even the intermittent hoot of an owl, just Joan's histrionic breathing and the inexplicable gibberish he was muttering beside me.

We rounded the bend of the road and made it onto the riverbank proper. The river was flat and sheeny, slate-like, in an optical merger with the depth of the black moonless night. Ever so faintly I could still hear The Barrels playing off in the distance. I marvelled briefly to myself how we had never had even one complaint about the noise since we'd opened the hotel. Either people were scared of upsetting us or we'd gathered together quite a degree of local goodwill.

By the time we arrived under the canopy of the two old river red gums that my mum used to call The Twins, the big fella's muttering had slowed down and the fresh air was beginning to have a beneficial effect. I couldn't get him to prop under The Twins, though; now that he'd started, he seemed to want to keep going. So we continued along the bank and on towards the indoor creek.

Arriving at the infamous roofed section of the creek that had caused so much controversy and grief, we found Joe Conebush's youngest boy, Kim, smoking a spliff with a teenage girl under the new gantry. As we approached, they pretended they hadn't seen us but as soon as we actually entered under the roof they took off into the night like a pair of wood ducks.

Perhaps because of the air of vacancy left by the teenage departure, or more likely because of the broad bench seats the shire had provided under the roof, Joan all of a sudden decided he'd had enough of walking and flopped himself down.

If I thought it was dark out in the moonless night, it was even darker under the Colorbond roofing of the indoor creek. The lights under there had long ago been smashed, and without the radiance of the Milky Way I was struggling even to see my hand in front of my face.

I sat down beside Joan on the seat and for a few seconds listened to the poor fella just sniffing and breathing. Eventually I said, ‘Bloody shit in here hey?'

‘Can't see a fuckin' thing,' was his reply.

‘Do you wanna sit somewhere else?'

‘Nah,' he said. ‘This is as good a place as any to hide.'

I reflected on that comment for a few seconds, then took up the challenge. ‘What do you want to hide from?'

More sniffing came from beside me in the dark. Then silence. But then, ‘I want to hide from Jen. Nah, from myself more like it.'

‘Why? What's wrong?'

More sniffing. ‘You don't wanna know. Believe me, you don't.'

The indoor creek smelt of cheap paint, piss and marijuana. I knitted my brow in the darkness, trying to ignore the aromas, concentrating hard. ‘Well, actually I do want to know, given that I've just had to scrape you up off the floor of the bar like a spilt parmigiana.'

A hint of mirth issued from the pair of nostrils beside me. Ah, I thought, that's a bit more like it.

‘Have you got a smoke?' he said then.

‘No,' I answered. ‘But anyway, you don't smoke.'

‘Well, I've really fucked up this time.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah.'

More sniffing. Then he said something under his breath.

‘What was that?' I asked.

‘I said she doesn't fuckin' deserve it.'

‘Who?'

‘Jen. Who else?'

I rolled my eyes in the darkness. I was getting sick of the riddle. ‘Well, what doesn't she deserve?'

‘Can we walk again?'

‘What, now?'

‘Yeah. Do you mind?'

Fifty yards further down the bank we came out from under the roof to the galaxies blazing above us. It was as if a celestial jewellery box had been opened wide, purely to fling radiant stars across the universe to light our way. I could see Joan plain as day now, walking beside me in his socks. He no longer looked so messy either; rather, he looked as solemn as when he'd been a pallbearer at the mud-brick Barroworn church on the day of his father's funeral.

We walked a little more along the bank in silence. The previously slatey rivertop now had creases of starlight reflected in it. I thought perhaps those lovely tricks of the light would relax Joan enough to tease the story out of him; but no, there was nothing forthcoming.

‘So why don't you tell me what's upsetting you?' I said, eventually.

‘I'm rooting The Blonde Maria,' was the big dairy farmer's sudden reply.

Was it the tricks of light in the river or the sharp transition from dense blackness to the Milky Way that had me doubting whether I'd heard him right? After a few steps, however, an involuntary shudder went through me, and I knew I was not mistaken.

I couldn't speak. Thoughts began splintering off in my brain like the space junk of some kind of small town Big Bang. How long had this been going on? What the bloody hell was he thinking? And had he any idea of what I'd discovered in The Lazy Tenor's room just a few hours earlier that afternoon?

‘Well aren't you gonna say something?' Joan said eventually, in a bleak and desperate tone, as we reached the riverbend slope where a spiky layer of euca-mulch had been strewn by the shire.

I breathed out. ‘Fuck, mate. I don't know what to say. Is that what you and Jen were fighting about earlier tonight?'

‘No,' he said heavily. ‘She still doesn't know. But I've been that stressed out about it I've been treating her like a dickhead.'

‘Well can I ask how long it's been going on?'

‘For a while.'

‘What's a while?'

‘Oh I dunno. Probably since that night we had the party in her room with Givva Way. She's a great girl, Noel.'

‘Yeah sure, but that's no reason to ruin your life.'

We rounded the bend in thoughtful silence. Now we had a choice. Either we continued along in a straight line on the ragged bitumen of the Dray Road or we straddled the paddock fence and followed the eely course of the river through the pasture of the flats. One thing was for sure, we both now needed to walk a little while longer.

In the end we straddled the fence, preferring the privacy of the river to the publicity of the road, even at night time. Immediately on our left the ducks that sleep in the open by the little soak there woke up and flew off, with tiny bird hearts beating fast. At the far end of the flats I could just make out a herd of steers bunched together under the red gums. I prayed they wouldn't take exception to our nocturnal meander.

We followed the straight stretch of the river running westward from the bend. We clumped along over soft ground dotted with kangaroo poo, cowpats and shaggy-caps, and with occasional patches of pigface. Joan's socks were no doubt getting a little dirty and moist by now but he wasn't worried; he had other things on his mind.

As we walked along, he began to explain. Or tried to. ‘I've never, in all the years with Jen, even looked at another woman, Noel. I mean why would I? We've always been happy. But Maria, well, she's a different kettle of fish. That first night up in her room, you fellas had all wandered off to bed. There was only me and her, and Givva and that Italian bloke Guido, just sittin' in there with the lights out and the window flung open, waiting for the dawn. She started telling us how she loved to see the dawn but, to tell you the truth, I was the only one listenin', coz Givva was sound asleep on the chair under the window and the big Italian bloke was slumped against the cupboard, obliterated by the booze. So it was like me and Maria were all alone.

‘Anyway, I was sittin' on the end of her bed with me back against the wall and she was lying on the bed with her feet restin' across my legs. And we were just talkin'. And smokin'. Yeah, I was smokin'. She makes it look so good, Noel.

‘She started telling me a few stories from the city, talkin' too about how she loved the country life, and I was fillin' her in about how we got off the dairy, and how Dad was the tallest bloke ever to run a place in the Stawell Gift. I even told her a bit about Jen and the kids. I felt so good, Noel, up in those second-storey rooms it's bloody tops, and it was a beautiful still night, and she's, you know, real familiar, like a little sister except totally exotic at the same time.

‘Anyway, we started talkin' about the pub and that and I was fillin' her in how I'd never been a barman before and she couldn't believe it. She reckoned she'd played music in loads of pubs across Australia and never seen a better barman than me. Then she asked me if I'd like a foot massage while we waited for the sunrise, coz of being on my feet all day and that, and well ... anyway...'

Joan's voice dwindled away as we trudged along the bank. He was devastated. I had to feel for the big bloke.

‘I shoulda said no to the massage I suppose.'

‘It was probably hard to resist,' I said.

‘Too right it was. She's such fun, Noel. It's all so easy and natural with her. You don't even have to try you know.'

‘Does anyone else know about this?'

‘No. No way. Definitely not. At least I hope not.'

‘So, if you don't mind me asking, has it all been going on just in her room? Or elsewhere as well?'

‘For the most part in her room, yeah. Although with The Lazy Tenor and Kooka around it's been a bit awkward at times.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well, you know, you have to watch your noise levels. You have to keep a sock in it.'

‘I see.'

‘Yeah, so a few times we've nicked off down to the caves after stumps.'

‘To the caves?'

‘Yeah. Well no one's gonna bust us in there, eh? Remember those fires we used to have in the caves as kids, Noel? After climbing out our windows at midnight. Remember Spin the Bottle?'

‘Yeah, I remember.'

‘Anyway, come the cooler months we'll have to find somewhere different.'

‘Hey?'

‘Yeah, well it's bloody freezin' in those caves in winter.'

For a moment Joan's last remark didn't compute. How could he be in a state of shame one minute and then planning their winter rendezvous the next? This was totally contradictory. But then, of course, I realised the obvious. Joan Sutherland was in love. Or, as the first whalers and sealers around these parts used to say, in a phrase not so much well worn as twisted with isolation, he was ‘cunt struck'.

It was obvious now that part of his depression was coming not only from his shame but also from the knowledge that it was destined to continue. He was helpless, flailing about between extremes of despair and bliss. I also understood now why he hadn't wanted to talk about it. What was the point, if he wasn't looking for a way back onto the straight and narrow?