The Grand Hotel (28 page)

After the watery light in the hallway the cavernous Sewing Room was gloomy and dim, full of dark recesses, with the smell of twill and drill, corduroy, the unpacked archive, and hand-sawn, unsealed wood. That was of course but for the pool of light where Maria sat on the wicker chair beside old Kooka in the bed.

She was reading from George Santayana, a writer whom my mother used to mention from time to time because he was the fella who had first come up with the phrase ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'. As kids that strange name ‘George Santayana' became synonymous with some kind of irritating know-all. The only time Mum would trot out the famous line was when we had done something repeatedly wrong and she was cross at us about it. ‘
Santayaaaana
' – the second-last vowel stretched with twanging teenage sarcasm – became the family nickname for someone who'd made the same mistake twice. I'd never read the actual writing of this man whose name had become a family joke and so found myself unexpectedly interested and amused as I pulled up a bentwood chair as Maria read from Mum's weighty hardback version of
The Last Puritan
.

Neither Kooka nor The Blonde Maria even seemed to notice my interloping on their nightly ritual. As I sat down, Maria may have ever so briefly paused in her reading to acknowledge that I'd come, and Kooka may have opened his eyes just for a moment where he was lying back on his pillows listening, but they said nothing, obviously too absorbed in the story and too deeply immersed in its atmosphere and that of The Sewing Room to speak.

Maria just continued reading, from the book of my mum's old mate George
Santayaaaana
.

Before long the novel's hero had travelled from Boston to Europe to further his education, but I couldn't get my eyes off the transistor beside Kooka's bed. As the hero met with his future love outside a church in a small town called Iffley in England, Kooka seemed to nestle more comfortably down into the bedclothes. Then, as the suitor was told by the vicar that he might have had what it took for some type of spiritual calling, Kooka's hand went up from where it was cradling at his chest and he gestured for Maria to stop.

Maria completed the sentence, closed the book, and all was silent. Then she leant across from the wicker chair and switched on the transistor. She adjusted the volume and settled back in her seat.

Kooka turned on his side to face the transistor by the bed. Now I watched his brow knit ever so slightly, as a man on the radio talked about refurbishing an old 1920s house in Darwin. The house was one of only a few in the town to have survived the famous Cyclone Tracy of 1974. The man had discovered it abandoned and overgrown while visiting Darwin from Canberra on holiday. He fell in love with the place and decided to see if he could buy it. That had been ten years ago and he'd been lovingly restoring it ever since.

As the enthusiastic man spoke on the radio, Maria and I dared not look at each other for fear of disturbing the process. So far so good. Kooka was looking decidedly relaxed; he already seemed to be sleeping among the blankets. My presence in the room had not bothered him one bit. But would it bother the little black transistor? That was the question.

As the man waxed lyrical about how the ingenious old Darwin houses were the forerunners of new environmental design, the tranny suddenly glitched and his voice was cut off. For a moment or two we were subjected to just pure static before, just as suddenly, the static ceased and a new set of sounds emerged.

Immediately, through the shifting sounds of the load of coal, wood knocking on wood, the buckle of the wheels, and the tinkling of a horse's harness, I recognised what Maria had already described to me. It was Joan Sweeney and Tom String, taking the ocean coal back to The Grand Hotel on the dray.

Meeting Mr Arvo

I leant forward in my chair. Within only a few seconds of our listening to Tom String and Joan Sweeney jigging along in the dray, they came to a resounding halt. Tom String started cursing. They were at the top of the Boatbuilder's Track. To this day Boatbuilder's Road, as we call it, remains dangerously steep, so much so that my sister-in-law recently used it as a training ground for her trekking holiday in Nepal. It seemed, however, that the palomino of history had other ideas. He was digging his feet in.

‘Oh blow you, you two-faced mule,' Tom String was calling. ‘You've done it before. What's the rub?'

‘It's obviously the full dray behind him,' said a reasoning Joan Sweeney. ‘He's scared it'll come down on top of him.'

‘Pah. I've had him bring a load of ironbark down this hill. I tell you he's got a bloody headache – from those dregs you let him in on.'

‘Well, maybe you're right,' laughed Joan Sweeney. ‘What about we give him a hair of the dog?'

This time Tom String snorted like a horse. ‘You're a fine one, missus. That's quite enough of the lighter side, thank you very much.'

‘No, Tom, I'm serious,' she replied, but still with a humorous tone. ‘You'd do the same for a man who couldn't work for a hangover.'

Tom String blew an exasperated breath. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, missus? This ain't a man, it's a horse. Let's start treatin' him as such.'

And with that came the rustling sound of the wattles-witch, before it rapped down on the hide of poor Paul. Tom String hit the horse three times in succession, with cries of ‘Ho, thee!' before giving up in disgust.

The horse snorted, then chewed its cud. The harness tinkled as Paul shifted his feet where he stood, looking headfirst down the precarious Boatbuilder's hill.

For a time there was silence, a stymie. Then Joan Sweeney said, ‘Here, Tom, at least let's try it. You don't seem to have any other bright ideas.'

‘I am not feedin' this horse from my cask of grog in broad daylight. It's what your dead husband would call “half caste behaviour”, Mrs Sweeney.'

‘Yes, but the point is all bets are off, Tom. The hotel must open for lunch and it's getting on. I demand we try it.'

Tom String sighed. ‘Very well then, missus.'

The sound of his feet landing on the ground as he hopped off the cart preceded a rummaging in the toolbox before the telltale sound of a cork squeaking from a bottle was heard. Then the liquid glug of beer being poured into a metal container.

‘Would the good lady like to do the honours?' said Tom String, with sarcasm in his voice.

‘Certainly,' said Joan Sweeney, before she too hopped down off the cart. ‘Thank you, Tom,' she said, as he handed her the beer. ‘Now, Pauly, all your Christmases have come at once, old boy. You take it from me, I'm a publican, I know. This'll fix you up.'

As the horse slurped the beer out of its container, Maria and I looked at each other for the first time. Both of us were smiling.

Before long the beer had been drunk and the palomino's tongue could be heard scouring the empty metal. Then he neighed, quite distinctly asking for more.

‘A top up? Most certainly, sir,' said Joan Sweeney. ‘Tom, a top up of your Native Companion Ale for this gentleman, please.'

I could only imagine the look on Tom String's face as he rolled his eyes before pouring more beer from his travelling cask into the horse's cup. Once again Paul slurped it up. Then, if I am not mistaken, he farted. Either that or it was Tom String, expressing his disgust. I think it was the horse, however, because Joan Sweeney said, ‘Hear that, Tom? The sweet sound of satisfaction. That's music to the mine hostess's ears.'

The cork was then squeaked back into the cask, the cask returned to its place beside the mattock and other tools, and the two passengers, Tom String and Joan Sweeney, resumed their positions in the dray.

After a few moments the swish of the wattle was heard again but no resounding thwack on the hide was needed. It was enough this time that the wattle had been raised. The horse and cart set off, ever so gingerly negotiating the steep downslope of the Boatbuilder's hill.

A shiver went up my spine when finally they made it to the bottom, rounded the left-hand corner and Paul broke into a trot along the Dray Road, heading seawards on the riverflat. Surely they weren't far from the hotel now, and for the life of me I tried to picture the scene. For a start there would be no houses, and not as many trees because of the stock. There would be no Ocean Road either; where the Dray Road terminated at the hotel corner there would have only been a sandy bridle track running away westways along the shoreline. Before too long I was smelling wild freesias by the roadside, seeing trout jumping in the riverbend, watching wedgies sailing in the thermals high above, with freshwater springs every mile or so and the whole air of the place tangy and pure. I was reminded of the Reconstructed Inlet picture we had on the wall of the bar downstairs, except that now the picture had come to life, there was a cart in a trot, and from the Dray Road the original Grand Hotel would soon come into view.

And then, blazing across my vision, to the right of the melodic cart, I saw the brolga pairs dotting the riverflat. The grass was green and lush, and they pranced, frisked, bowing, jumping suddenly into the air, browsing the ground with their bright crimson heads, in the same stable blue weather in which Joan Sweeney had enjoyed her swim.

‘Woah there, Pauly,' Tom String cried as the dray reached the riverbend. Then he called out, ‘That's no place to read, Mr Arvo. That pontoon was built for loading and unloading my barrels.'

‘Don't you mind him,' called Joan Sweeney. ‘He doesn't even know his own horse.'

‘Mrs Sweeney, Tom String – a fine day,' called the man on the riverbend pontoon politely, in a European accent.

‘Yairs. A top day for workin'. Readin's for the rain,' Tom String called back, continuing his jest.

There was no reply from Mr Arvo.

‘That's right, Mr Arvo, you just ignore him. His horse does,' Joan Sweeney joked.

Tom String geed the palomino lightly, manoeuvring the dray off the clip-clop of the road and onto the softer grass of the riverbank proper, closer to the pontoon.

‘What would they say back in your country, Mr Arvo, about a lady publican who feeds good grog to the horses?' he asked, as Paul's hooves settled on the grass of the bank.

Mr Arvo's reply was light and good humoured. ‘My apologies, Tom, you cannot corner me to say a cross word of Mrs Sweeney. I'm sure my room is the best in the whole colony, let alone in The Grand Hotel.'

At this Tom String burst into howls of sardonic laughter. His palm could be heard slapping his big thigh where he sat on the cart. The laughter was so forceful that by rights it should have scared the horse, but there was no movement from Paul, not even a shift of feet. ‘That's a good one, Mr Arvo! The best in the colony you say. And how long have you been 'ere?'

‘I first arrived in '75.'

‘Why, that's over a couple of decades ago now. You been sleepin' in hollow logs all that time? No one's ever mentioned The Windsor to you, in Melbourne, not even in passin'?'

‘Oh, I've heard of The Windsor, Tom. I imagine it's very fine. But far too noisy for me.'

‘Noisy you say?'

‘Yes,' Joan Sweeney chimed in. ‘Like you, Tom String. Noisy. At this rate Mr Arvo will be moving on sooner than he'd wish.'

‘Aw, that'd be a shame,' said Tom String. ‘I'd like to hear more of his imaginin's. The Grand Hotel the finest in the colony! What other secrets can be found in that book you're readin', Mr Arvo?'

The Balt laughed a little defensively. Then Joan Sweeney asked, ‘Will you be wanting lunch today, Mr Arvo?'

‘No, Mrs Sweeney. Your cook, Mrs Lynch, made me a sandwich for my walk.'

‘And I s'pose if you get peckish you can always catch a fish,' said Tom String, laughing still, mainly to himself.

‘Or pick some of the blackberries further along the bank,' Joan Sweeney cut in.

‘Yes, all that, yes,' said Mr Arvo. ‘No, but for now I think the sandwich will be plenty. Perhaps I'll take a berry or two when it's time to leave.'

‘Well, Bertie Bolitho'll be grateful if you do. They're the bane of his life those berries,' said Tom String.

‘Anyhow then. Cheerio, Mr Arvo,' said Joan Sweeney. ‘We must get this coal unloaded and open doors. You never know who's to show up at The Grand on a fine day at this time of year.'

Tom String clicked his tongue and geed his Pauly to move. The horse let out a deeply resistant groan. ‘Ho, thee!' Tom String cried, and swished the wattle through the air.

Groaning again, Paul reluctantly moved off. The planks and hasps of the dray began their knocking sounds. The harness tinkled as they covered the uneven ground of the riverbank back to the road.

‘You see, missus, what you've done now?' Tom String said, as the wheels levelled out and Paul began to huff and snort. ‘You've spoilt him. He thinks it's time for a nap. Ho, thee! Yea get up, you moke!' the jesting slushy cried, and the half boozed palomino lumbered into a heavy trot.

As the cart trotted off on the dirt of the Dray Road, Kooka switched position in the bed, this time rolling over onto his right side to face the ocean window of The Sewing Room, away from the bedside table and the tranny. Now we could no longer see his face clearly, just in profile, and like the palomino after it had drunk the two cups of beer at the top of the Boatbuilder's hill, Kooka now began to fart like a trooper. The tranny glitched, we lost the sound of horse's hooves and the jingling harness, and then, after a brief gap of nothingness, The Sewing Room was filled with pure static.

In the absence of the dream the white noise came as a shock but as we sat there, unable to move, hoping the broadcast would recommence, it gradually began to sound just like the ocean. I grimaced, thinking how cruel it would be if just as they were approaching The Grand Hotel Kooka's dream was broken.

But broken it was. The ocean static lasted for only a few seconds before a man's voice could be heard talking about the plight of the homeless in Australian cities. I'll never forget those first words he spoke as Maria and I were ripped away from the dream. ‘
It is a common misconception among the population that only the unemployed are homeless. It is becoming increasingly common for people with jobs to sleep on the streets as well.
'

The word ‘abrupt' does not adequately describe the transition from listening to Tom String and Joan Sweeney on the dray, to an ordinary man's voice on night-time radio. The Blonde Maria and I sat in a common stupor of silence for the entire duration of the interview about ‘the new homeless'. When it finished, we were treated to the theme music for the four o'clock radio news.