The Grand Hotel (22 page)

‘Fuck it's hard being me, Noel. I tell you it really is,' he said, wiping away the tears. ‘She comes to my room one night, demands that I make love to her, which I do, and then she's hooked. And the
married man
she's been biding her time with previously goes crazy and starts climbing the walls, destroys a bit of the hotel plumbing and makes himself useless to his employer – and it's all my fault! I'm the villain. I tell ya, you should try it sometime, Noel, bein' me. You wouldn't last five minutes. It's not as easy as it looks ya know.'

He had a point. He had a few points actually. I paused, Lalique in hand, to wonder how on earth I came to be defending a man cheating on his wife while blaming a perfectly harmless bachelor who, as he said, paid his rent and made his bed. I felt as if I'd netted off a cove for a big run of whiting only to find when the fish came in that the net was riddled with huge flapping holes. Once again I felt hopelessly, scarily adrift. And increasingly drunk as well.

Before long The Lazy Tenor had made a fresh jug of Black Velvet and the stout and champagne were bubbling and foaming away again. Still chuckling at my accusations, he changed the subject. That was fine by me. We both knew he was right.

He wanted to tell me about Tito Gobbi, how he'd been a great Italian baritone, a star of La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and how he'd also once been King of Moomba in Melbourne. ‘Imagine the poor bastard arriving out here in the late sixties,' said The Lazy Tenor with disgust. ‘He wouldn't have known whether to take it seriously or not. King of fuckin' Moomba! What's that, hey?
Regio di Moomba che?
And all of Melbourne getting around with corks hangin' off their hats. Apart from those with marbles in their mouths of course. Can you imagine it? The great Tito Gobbi, partner of Callas! Fuck, it makes me wild just thinking about it.'

We talked and we drank – well, I did more listening than talking in actual fact – and unusually The Lazy Tenor spoke more about his interests than his conquests. Before long we were joined by a few passing travellers. It was well past three o'clock by then, the hotel was officially open, and whether he liked it or not The Lazy Tenor was on standby behind the bar.

I was outright pissed by this stage. The Lazy Tenor humoured me for a while by serving the three or four customers who wandered in, and he managed to do it very politely too, I might add. Then came a couple of the very ilk he seemed to hate the most: well heeled, but not exactly aristocratic, well mannered, but not exactly cultured, the kind of neatly dressed baby boomers who might these days be subscribers to the opera in town. But The Lazy Tenor handled them with aplomb. They walked up to the bar and asked if we had any Little Creatures Pale Ale from Fremantle in WA. ‘Certainly,' he lied. ‘We actually have it on tap, sir.' Well, you would've thought the bloke had won the lottery. He clapped his hands together, turned to his wife and said, ‘Did you hear that? They've got Little Creatures on tap.' Then, turning back to The Lazy Tenor, he said, ‘Can't drink any other beer these days. Nothing can touch Little Creatures.'

The Lazy Tenor nodded, smiled pleasantly, and began to pour two Dancing Brolgas from our brandless tap. As the couple waited, I sat quietly on my stool, wincing in anticipation.

The first beer he poured was absolutely perfect, with a nice half inch head. What a fluke! He placed it proudly on the bar mat and winked at me. The second one he had a bit more trouble with and probably poured a spare pot's worth down the drain before he got it looking reasonable. Luckily the couple weren't watching; they were busy raising their eyebrows at each other as they looked around at the contents of the room. It was like a bush bar but not quite – there were absurdist quotes on the walls for one thing, the ocean-facing windows were boarded up, and the air still smelt of frankincense, even months after Veronica's fumigation. I could see that a familiar confusion had replaced the initial curiosity in their eyes.

When their beers were ready, the affluently appointed couple sat on the pews of the big table. Temporarily bonded as we were, due to the magic of the Black Velvets, somehow The Lazy Tenor and I began effortlessly to feign an everyday conversation about a local grape grower who was hiring local lads with high-powered illegal slingshots to shoot the crows that were ruining his vines.

‘Yairs,' The Lazy Tenor was saying, leaning iconically on the beer-tap with a mock-serious brow, ‘the other day they stoned over three hundred crows between lunch and dusk.'

‘Is that right?' I joined in.

‘Yep. Left 'em in a pile down the northern end, by his pressin' shed there.'

‘Geez, must've been a big pile. Three hundred crows you say?'

‘Yep. Eight feet high it was. Handy with the ball bearin's, the young fellas.'

‘Too right they are, Lou.'

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the couple quietly drinking their beers, with no recognition of the fact that it wasn't Little Creatures in the glass. They weren't talking, though. We had their undivided, if somewhat furtive, attention.

‘Yairs, well anyway,' The Lazy Tenor went on, in a perfect rendition of the Blokey Hollow drawl he grew up among. ‘Three hundred crows. What do ya reckon you do with 'em then, Noel, once they're dead?'

‘Geez, I dunno, Lou. Too many to eat. I suppose you'd burn 'em.'

‘Or bury 'em.'

‘Yeah, or bury 'em.'

‘Well they didn't have to worry about that problem anyway.'

‘No?'

‘Nah.'

The Lazy Tenor took a theatrical sip of his Black Velvet. His performance was faultless and his smile at the sight of René Lalique's nymph between his fingers merged seamlessly with the act. The couple, however, weren't daring to look our way from the pews, where they sat with their trusty pots of Little Creatures.

‘Well, what did they do with the crows then?' I asked as Big Lou The Country Publican set down his drink.

‘They did nothin',' was his reply.

‘Well, what happened to the crows?'

‘What do you reckon happened to 'em?'

‘Geez, Lou, for the life of me I can't think what.'

‘Aw, come on, Noel, how long have you lived around here?'

‘Born and bred.'

‘And you can't work out what happened to the crows?'

I scratched the crown of my head and thought about it. I noticed the wife steal a cautious glance my way in the silence.

‘Well the only possibility, Lou, is that some other bastard got rid of 'em.'

Lou The Country Publican clicked his tongue in affirmation. ‘Too bloody right they did, Noel. Jimbo reckons when they went back the next day to ping some more, the pile was gone. Feathers, heads, feet, guts, the lot. Goannas, mate.'

‘You don't say.'

‘Yep. Goannas. Ate 'em overnight. Three hundred crows. Better than the council garbage truck. One minute the crows are in a pile, next minute nuffin'. Jimbo reckons it was awful to think about. But after they shot another couple of hundred that day he took his old man's video camera back that night to film the feast.'

‘Fair dinkum? Geez, no flies on Jimbo.'

‘Nah, you can say that again. Anyway, I've got it on DVD right here if you wanna watch it. It's grouse. Top qual too. We'll pop it on the big screen. Jimbo's old man's good with the video gear.'

‘Shit yeah. I'll have a look.'

‘Alrighty then.'

As if on cue the couple drained what was left of their phoney beers, stood up quickly, said thanks, and made for the door.

‘Enjoy the Little Creatures?' The Lazy Tenor called after them.

‘Yes, yes,' the man called back over his shoulder. ‘My favourite. It's great you have it...' But then his pocket started clanging like an old wall-phone and with his wife he rushed outside through the sunroom to take the call.

The Publican and Her Slushy

As Kooka held up his hand in the pool of light, The Blonde Maria closed the book on her lap and waited. The old man smiled sleepily at her, reached across to the bedside table and turned on the transistor.

At the tiny window high in the western wall beyond Kooka's bed she could see a single bogong moth batting its wings at the pool of light inside. She kept her eyes on the moth rather than on Kooka, for fear of having any kind of influence on what was about to happen.

They caught the tail end of an interview with a museum curator from the Riverina and then a Lee Kernaghan song took its place, ‘She's My Ute'. Eventually the song went clunk, Kooka's bottom jaw relaxed into sleep and the tranny once again turned to static.

After many nights this had become the moment she waited for, and she nodded confidently to herself, reassured by the fact that this was exactly how things had happened on the other nights. A few minutes later, without any sign that the static on the tranny or the moth at the high window were about to disappear, Maria began to get agitated. Then suddenly there was a harsh sound, like a gear being missed, the tranny spluttered, and the static was banished into the night. Once again there was silence and up in the glass of the tiny window the moth had flown away.

And then, after only a few seconds, there it was, the unmistakable sound of someone swimming in the ocean.

She sighed as she pissed. Maria imagined the water up at her neck like a frill of champagne lace, and silver clarity out on the horizon. But this time, before the swimming woman could even begin to make her lists or duck dive, a voice called. The cooee came from back on the beach. A man was trying to reach her over the ocean sounds. The cooee cut through the air: the ‘coo' provided the stability, the ‘ee' the open range. It was both distant and close, like a myth.

The swimmer must have felt some hold in the call because she didn't dive, as she had on previous nights. As the cooees went out across the spray, Maria heard the close sound of elastic-slap against skin as the swimmer adjusted her togs, and the breath of effort as she jumped up through a tumbling oncoming wave.

When the wave passed, the turbulent air calmed, there was a buckle in the wind, a long releasing hiss surrounded her and the cooee came clearer.

She turned now and called back. Presumably she waved. ‘Tom String!' she cried.

Stepping back towards the beach, her knees rising high, her feet splashed down through the water with the double beat of a human heart. She said the name again but this time quietly to herself:
‘Tom String.
' When her feet were slapping in only an inch or two of water on sand, she whispered, ‘He and Paul have come to get the coal.'

The Blonde Maria was staring at Kooka's tranny, her mouth open in awe again at what she was hearing. As the woman trod up the beach towards the man called Tom String, she said, ‘You've come to get the coal, Tom,' with her feet now almost silent on the flat tide-slickened sand.

‘Yes, missus. My apologies for upsetting your bath. You looked like a real jollytail out there. I dunno where you get the nerve.'

‘Oh, that's alright, Tom. It's a mystery to me why the likes of you resist it.'

Tom String chuckled. His voice had a slow softness about it, almost as if it had grown a fur. ‘Well I tried it once as it happens. As a sapling on Deal Island with my da. Thing was I got a thrashin' to within an inch of me life. For not knowing my place and thinkin' I was a fish. You could say I was put off it for good. But as I recall it wasn't my cup of tea anyhow. I was windy the whole time I was out there.'

‘Well, Tom, I'm sure the thrashing didn't help,' the woman said. ‘And do I look like a fish to you? How did Paul travel with the dray?'

‘Oh he played up. Been in a good paddock for too long. Tell me, missus, can a horse become an alcoholic? We've gotta stop letting him thorough out the dregs. He's not meant for a slushy, after all. He's a palomino for goodness' sake!'

The woman laughed happily at Tom String's jesting. Well, at least one thing was cleared up: Tom's companion Paul was a horse. In the background Maria could hear the tinkle of a harness.

‘Yairs, I got him up the hill on the Boatbuilder's alright,' continued Tom String. ‘But cranky? On the level ground across to here you should have seen the fuss. I'm sure he's got a headache. Then, comin' down the track to the beach here, he was just plain obstinate. Can't wait to see him goin' back uphill with the coal.'

‘But it's light isn't it?'

‘Yairs, the coal is. But the dray's not.'

The woman laughed again. The two were obviously fond of each other, on better terms at least than Tom String and Paul.

Tom String groaned. ‘And don't go talking to him like a man, Mrs Sweeney. He'll be ordering whiskey next.'

‘Well I've had worse customers in my hotel than poor old Paul.'

‘To be sure. But that's no reason. Now I suppose I better be getting on with this reef here.'

‘I suppose you know best. What's say I linger with Paul and hitch a ride back with you on the dray when you're done? I could help you load and unload.'

‘Aw, there's no need for that, missus. As you said, this stuff's nice and light. You duck back into the water if you want. You're welcome for a ride anyhow.'

‘Thank you, Tom String.'

‘Yairs, missus. And no chattin' up Paul here while I'm working.'

When Maria first heard the voice and then the mention of the coal, she was none the wiser, but when Tom String actually called her name it was plain.

Mrs Sweeney
, he'd said. Maria's head began to swim. Like everyone else in the hotel she knew the name. Joan Sweeney ran The Grand Hotel for thirteen years till it mysteriously burnt to a crisp sometime in the late 1890s. That was how Joan Sutherland had got his nickname. And now here she was, Joan Sweeney, trying hard not to be too nice to the palomino as Tom String chipped away at the reef with a mattock.

It was a hard sound to listen to – the metal on the rock sent shivers down Maria's spine – and under the bedclothes in the pool of light even Kooka was stirring. She bit her lip, hoping he wouldn't wake.

Thankfully the mattock now began to hit softer rock, presumably the coal. It was a lot easier to listen to, more like the sound of an axe on soft wood, and Kooka settled down again among the sheets. He no longer looked so pale either; now there was a freckly blush in his cheeks, as if he, like Joan Sweeney's offsider, was being warmed by the action.

Gradually the ocean once again stole into the foreground, as Joan Sweeney left off chatting to Paul and made her way back over the sand and into the water. This time she did duck dive, threading her way through the subaquatic hum, breast-stroking beneath the waves, before emerging back into the hiss of pure oxygen. But there were no lists, not like on previous nights, no chicory, no rum, no rushlights or pickled onions, and Maria wondered if that was because Tom String was on the beach. There was no mention of barrels either, no two gross of buttons. Instead she just breathed deep and satisfied sounding breaths, sniffed the salt back into her nostrils and occasionally blew it out again with a honk like a swan.

By the time Joan Sweeney had finished her second swim, Maria's throat was dry. She didn't dare budge to go and get a drink, and was kicking herself that she hadn't brought something into the room with her – a glass of The Dancing Brolga perhaps, or a bottle of Laphroaig.

Now Joan Sweeney was repeating her walk back along the beach to Tom String. The tinkle of Paul's harness could be heard but no longer the mattock chipping the reef. Presumably Tom had a drayful.

‘That's a good load,' she said, as another sound, of the coal thudding and rolling into the timber dray, could be heard.

‘Any more and the drunk'll strike,' Tom String replied between hefting. ‘Do they have a union for alcoholic horses, Mrs Sweeney?'

‘I'm sure I don't know, Tom, but I doubt it. There's no union for swimming publicans after all.'

Tom String half laughed, half hefted now, causing himself to snort, as if he was the horse in question. ‘Nor for overweight slushies like myself.'

‘Oh I wouldn't know about that. But I don't like to hear you call yourself a slushy, Tom. Where would The Grand be without you? Where would I be?'

Tom String scoffed. ‘Oh you'd be fine, missus. There's plenty of other fellas about who can pour a drink.'

‘Oh yes? And plenty of others who can brew a beer as good as you? And punt the barrels back and forth between the hotel and your camp upstream? And smithy for the nags of the clientele? Polish the fish cutlery, the bone-tweezers, the crab scoops? Remove the brawlers? Boil the eggs for the bar? And all with a lady for a boss, a widow? No, no, Tom, in my experience a slushy is a down-and-out who you feel sorry for, some old swaggie who needs a few bob, some fella with the DTs who you haven't the heart to throw on the tip. Or a boy for that matter, who can run the glasses and plates for a loose bob. Now that's a fact, Tom String. I know your mum was native born and I'm from the city, but I'm speaking from experience and you should know better than to call yourself such a thing.'

For a moment the chips of coal ceased thudding into the cart. A gull squawked nearby. There was a tapping sound on fabric as if Tom String was searching in his pockets for a jocular reply.

But then there was a rich knocking sound of wood on wood: his pipe on the edge of the coal-cart. And he said, ‘Phew, missus. There's no need to get so het up about it. I was only having a lend.'

‘Yes, well nevertheless ... it's an important trait ... for a man to know what he is worth.'

‘That it is, Mrs Sweeney. And for a horse.'

Now there was silence again – if you could call it that, with the ocean so close – and eventually the sound of a match being struck. Then the crackle and pucker of a pipe being sucked.

‘It always buggers me,' Tom String said, ‘the way those gannets dive out there like that. You'd think their heads would explode as they hit the water.'

‘You would, Tom String. I suppose God made the world though.'

‘Do you think so, Mrs Sweeney? Nah. Tough birds. Hungry birds. It's amazin' what you'll do to get a feed.'

‘I suppose they've worked out how. Do you not think there's a god, Tom?'

‘Do you, missus?'

‘Sometimes, on days like this. When it's fine enough to swim.'

‘Well, as you know, I'm no swimmer.'

‘Nor was your father?'

‘No, Mrs Sweeney, I don't believe he was. Always said there was nothin' but your own nous. He believed the world gone wrong, you see. Since the devil got into it.'

‘The devil?'

‘Man. Mankind.'

‘And what was it like before that?'

‘He said it was like early autumn on the northeast side of King Island. Calm weather and plenty of seals.'

‘But no one to sell the skins to, Tom.'

Tom String paused to suck at his pipe. ‘I suppose you've got a point there, missus. No mistakin' your husband was a lawyer, eh?'

‘Well, I didn't get my ability to reason from him.'

‘No? Where did it come from then?'

‘Same place as those gannets I suppose.'

Tom String chuckled again; it seemed he couldn't resist a joke. ‘Yairs, well, there are some at the hotel who call you a tough bird.'

Joan Sweeney laughed too now. ‘Oh, Paul,' she exclaimed, talking to the horse, ‘no wonder you get cranky with him.'

Maria was on the edge of her seat, feeling both the pleasure and the strain. She couldn't help but keep expecting the tranny to glitch or for Kooka's sleep to roll over into some other blank style of restfulness, but it didn't. This time it stayed constant and clear. Now Tom String and Joan Sweeney were getting up on the cart to ride back to The Grand.

‘Ho, thee! Up there, Pauly!'

Tom String had no plaited whip but a wattle-switch whose leaves could be heard rustling in the air before he brought it down on the flank of the horse. As the cart moved up off the beach and onto the beach track, the timber wheels and joints knocked and jostled, and the iron parts rattled with the uneven ground. ‘He'll be right when we get him past this shoulder, round the hook and up through the elbow there,' said Tom String in an anxious voice. ‘Ho, thee, Paul, my friend. Up, up!'

‘Right you are, Tom,' Joan Sweeney replied.

The cart jostled on, with Paul snorting, his shod feet clinking on what sounded like shelly rather than stony ground. The coal in the back could be heard too, shifting about lightly as first one wheel of the cart then the other rose and fell on the rooty camber. Occasionally, too, the ratcheting sound of a wattlebird would pierce all this with harshness.

Apart from Tom String's geeing of the horse, neither he nor Joan Sweeney spoke for some time now, presumably until the difficulties of the track had been negotiated. Either that or they were absorbed enough by their progress to sit silently on the dray in the sunshine, as Paul did the work. But when eventually the publican did speak, it was to point out a burrowing echidna that had stopped Paul in his tracks.