The Grand Hotel (29 page)
Even after the four o'clock news had started, I hadn't wanted to leave Kooka's bedside, thinking that somehow the dreams might find frequency again. Eventually, after half an hour of excited whispering in the pool of light, Maria convinced me that the pattern of Kooka's sleep could be relied upon. Every night he would dream soon after she finished reading the book, but when the dream was over there would be nothing more â just news reports, film reviews, talkback and comedy re-runs.
So gently we tiptoed out of the room and spent the hour or so until light down in the bar. At last I could quench my thirst. To do so I chose a cup of black Lady Grey tea laced with Black Bush. We both lit cigarettes and by candlelight helped each other join the dots.
I couldn't contain my excitement â at times I was literally shivering with it â but I was also disappointed that the broadcast had been cut short before the cart got to the hotel. Maria said there was no guarantee that we would progress any further the following night; in fact she suggested it was a distinct possibility that Kooka may simply revert back to Joan Sweeney swimming in the ocean with her lists. I disagreed with her on this; I felt in my bones that by some miracle Kooka was dreaming us towards an explanation for why the old Grand Hotel had burnt down. As far as I was concerned, my vision of the valley full of brolgas proved it.
In hindsight I think my head was full of greedy thoughts as we sat there in the early hours. I should have been satisfied and amazed with what I'd just experienced rather than immediately hankering for more. But, unwise and immature as I am, I wanted more. I wanted everything I could get of these uncanny nightly broadcasts, which by their very occurrence seemed to prove to me that with The Grand Hotel my own life was finally on exactly the right track.
At first light Maria said she would try to get some sleep, so I sat alone on the pews at the big table in the bar. I could no sooner sleep than sing like The Lazy Tenor. My stomach was swarming with local butterflies and my mind retracing again and again the contents of the night. For a start it was intriguing to me that Tom String seemed so familiar. I had never heard his name, nor had Kooka ever mentioned Joan Sweeney having such an offsider. He had always described Joan Sweeney as a phenomenally capable woman who ran the pub with charm and an iron fist, but single-handedly. Now I was wondering what had happened to Tom String, and as I wondered I realised I could simply ask Kooka about him later in the day, or, better still, when I took the old fella up his breakfast.
I looked at the cuckoo clock above the catfish skeleton on the wall. It showed 6.45am. I would wait until 7.30 and then fix Kooka an omelette. Oregano, tarragon, rosemary and mushroom, sea salt from Horseshoe Cove and fresh Otway pepper: a Grand Hotel special, just as he liked it. Then, suddenly exhausted, I rested my forehead on the hardwood of the big table and closed my eyes. And before you could say âyellowbellied water-rat', I had fallen fast asleep.
When I awoke, it was 8.25 and I recalled that it was Saturday â the day we'd set aside for our stoneskimming comp down near the Plinths. After the night I'd had, stoneskimming was the last thing I felt like doing but there was no getting around it. There were a dozen or so people who were really looking forward to the event, and I had agreed to be there on behalf of the hotel. The comp was set to kick off at 10am and then finish with a barbecue in the afternoon. But first I had to talk to Kooka.
I found him sitting up in bed watching a welcome swallow flit about The Sewing Room. The poor bird was in a panic, and Kooka asked me if I'd open both the inland and ocean windows so it could find its way back outside.
After flinging the windows open onto the new morning, I placed the tray with Kooka's omelette, toast and tea onto his lap and sat down in the wicker chair beside the bed. âSleep well?' I asked innocently.
âBloody oath. Like a twit,' he said. âIt was only the swallow that woke me up.'
âIs that right?'
âYairs. It was sittin' right here on the bedside table when I opened my eyes. Just starin' at me. Buggered if I know how it got in.'
We both looked up to where the swallow was flying back and forth now along the room's knotty unpainted rafters.
âYou'd think it would smell the air and just head straight out now the windows are open,' Kooka said.
âI suppose it will eventually,' I replied. âDoesn't look real happy in here.'
âNo it doesn't. Unlike yours truly,' said Kooka, as he began to tuck into the omelette with relish.
I let Kooka eat his breakfast in peace for a while until I couldn't wait any longer. âI've got a question for ya, Kooka. About the old Grand Hotel.'
âThe old Grand?' he said perfectly innocently. âNow that was a wild joint. They used to dance like brolgas in that old hotel.'
My eyes widened. âIs that right?' I said.
âWell, by all accounts, Noely, it'd make your Grand look like the Women's Temperance Union! No offence of course.'
âNone taken, Kooka. They were different times I suppose.'
âYes, that's right. Mind you, even back then the old Grand had a bit of a reputation.'
âHow do you mean?'
âOh well, I think Joan Sweeney was an enlightened woman. She ran a clean house, kept a nice table, but she also knew what keeps a man in the sticks sane. I mean there's no point feeding 'em grog on the one hand and tryin' to convert 'em on the other.'
âWhat? Was she religious?'
Kooka looked up from the plate. âJoan Sweeney? No, I wouldn't reckon. But she was of a strong mind. She had deep beliefs.'
âWhat kind of beliefs?'
âWell it's hard for me to say I suppose. I mean I'm only going on what I've got in the archive, just a scrap of info here and part of an old letter there, but I'd say she was, well, a modern thinker.'
âIn what way, Kooka?'
âWell, for a start she believed she was definitely the equal of any fella. I can recall a part of a letter one of her offsiders wrote, where he said that “if it wasn't for the easy glory of her smile, most coves'd think she was a toff. She has that natural dignity which no money can provide.”'
I loved the way Kooka quoted from the letter, and wondered straightaway if it was Tom String who wrote it.
âMind you, Noel, she wasn't short of a quid,' Kooka said.
âNo? Where did her money come from?'
âWell she was a widow. Her husband was a barrister, part of the old squattocracy.'
âI see. And who was this offsider whose letter you've read?'
âOh he was a fella called String. Thomas String.'
âMmm, and what was his story?'
âOh well, the story goes she picked him up off the roadside on her way to open the hotel.'
âWhat, was he a swaggie or something?'
Kooka rested his fork against the plate and with his eyes followed the swallow's flight as he thought about this. âNot exactly,' he said. âLots of people camped out in those days, under the stars or in a cave or in the scrub by the roadside. People were on the move. It didn't mean you were homeless.'
âSo he just came with her right there and then and helped her run the hotel?'
âYairs, something like that. He was like a general hand. But most importantly he brewed the beer for her. In a camp upstream. He didn't live in the hotel you see. Perhaps because he was half black, I dunno. But he was a great help. She couldn't have done it without him. No matter how strong she was.'
âToo right.'
âYep, and he stayed for the duration from what I could make out. Now you could never get a swaggie to do that. Not with the call of the road.'
âThe call of the road,' I repeated.
âYairs. They'd feel all cooped up before too long. Like our friend the swallow here.'
I tilted my head back again to watch the panicky little creature scooting and whizzing around the rafters of the room. Even with my mum's tall broom he was too high up in The Sewing Room to help brush him towards the window.
âBut anyway, that's enough of all the old stuff,' Kooka said. âAs you know, I'm done with it. If I do nothing else, Noel, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life right smack bang in the here and now. I've only realised recently what a privilege it is to have lived this long.'
âWell why don't you get up out of bed and go and take a look around?' I joked. âThere's not much of the twenty-first century happening up here.'
Kooka shook his head with a kind smile. âOh yes there is, son,' he said. âI've got the tranny, the newspaper in the morning, and besides, I'm happy up here on my own. I'm like Joan Sweeney. I'm thinkin' modern thoughts. That's of course unless you're thinkin' of throwin' me out.'
I scoffed. âYeah right, Kooka. As if. The Grand Hotel is at your service, kind sir.'
The old man took his last bite of omelette and beamed at me. âYou're a good boy, Noel,' he said. âWell brought up.'
âYeah, well some wouldn't agree,' I sniggered, thinking of Greg Beer. âOne last thing, Kooka. Whatever happened to that Thomas String you mentioned? Joan Sweeney's offsider?'
Kooka raised an exasperated time-blotched hand and blew air through his lips like the horse from his dream. âGet on with ya,' he cried. âThat's all in the long ago. You've got your own Grand Hotel, Noel, and a damn good one it is. The old one burnt down remember, and no matter how hard you look you won't see old Tom String for the smoke.'
I stood up from the wicker chair, not wanting to push the subject any further. Kooka ran his index finger across the buttery remains of the omelette and toast on the plate and then nodded for me to take the tray. âI suppose Maria will be in soon,' he said, âfor my massage.'
âIt's alright for some,' I replied, motioning for him to finish his cup of tea so I could collect it with the tray. He slurped it up noisily, and I headed for the door.
Down on the beach at 10am the bells on the Plinths were ringing intermittently in the light breeze. Neat piles of flatstones had been gathered and placed along the shore of the estuary, and Givva Way and his son, Alex, had already set up the registration table on the sand by the beach steps leading down from the outdoor swimmers' shower. Young Alex Way was by all accounts a demon skimmer and hot favourite for the event after spending the last few months taking long daily walks along the beach on his doctor's advice. His recovery from the mishap on the indoor creek swing-rope was going well and the whole town was much relieved. His progress was largely because of his new found love of stoneskimming, which he'd discovered on his walks and which he could freely indulge on account of his health. It was an unusual obsession for a teenager, especially one with the larrikin streak he had before the accident on the river had twisted his spine. When he had got wind of our upcoming contest, his competitive juices had begun to flow and what had been merely a fun way to while away the walks his doctor had ordered had become a flared ambition.
His father Givva was right behind him in all this and his mother thought that yes it was at least a less dangerous sport than football or surfing, not to mention hanging catastrophic bombs off the polypropylene swing-rope into the roofed-in river. So as the hour approached and they waited for the other competitors on the sand, Givva was behaving like any other obsessive sporting parent, constantly whispering motivational gems into Alex's ear, and reminding him of all the hard work he'd put in during the course of his rehabilitation. Eventually, when a few kids of Alex's own age turned up to watch the event, Givva reluctantly left his son to socialise and came across to talk to me.
âWe've been here since seven, Noel. Gettin' the stones ready and that, working out the throw-point. It's lookin' good eh?'
âYep, Givva. Certainly is.'
âAlex is primed. He's gonna leave 'em for dead you know. The other day he skimmed it twenty-one times.'
âGeez. That's gonna be hard to beat.'
âI'd reckon. But he gets toey you know, in front of people and that. His technique falls apart, he stresses out and then his back starts playin' up. That's the worry.'
âOh I'm sure he'll be fine, Givva,' I said, trying to placate the nervous father. âAnd anyway, it's just a bit of fun. A nice way to brighten up the morning.'
âNo, no, Noel. This means a helluva lot to Alex. He's been through hell, mate. And winning here, well, you never know, it could lead to something. Who knows? He could get to travel overseas and compete, with his compo money and that.'
Rather than suggest to Givva that there might be more productive ways to spend the hundred and twenty thousand dollars they'd been told to expect as a result of the accident, I hailed Jen and Joan Sutherland, who to my surprise were stepping off the beach stairs and down onto the sand with their two boys. Extricating myself from Givva, I made my way over and said hello.
It would be an understatement to say that big Joan was looking much more himself than the last time I'd seen him. His free arm was placed around his wife's waist in a relaxed and affectionate manner, and we had a pleasant and entirely normal chat. The kids seemed happy too. I got the impression that, between them all, they'd managed to turn a corner and that things were looking up again for the Sutherlands.
By about 10.30 there were twenty people gathered on the beach, half of whom were competitors. Givva had taken it upon himself to write the official rules of the event and also to ask Raelene Press from the Brinbeal shire to adjudicate as a non-partisan judge. Raelene lived back up the coast at Devon Beach and because she knew none of the competitors in the event Givva was sure she'd remain impartial.
After I asked for a bit of shoosh from the assembled throng, Raelene Press stood by the registration table and read out the rules. Unfortunately it was hard to hear some of what she said because of the sporadic clanging of the bells on the Plinths, but the general gist was that each competitor would get three throws in each round and at the end of ten rounds the winners of the various categories would be announced. The judges were to be myself, Raelene, and Tommy Collins from The Barrels, who as it happened had prepared a new version of the REM classic âNightswimming' for the occasion, renaming it âStoneskimming'. After Raelene had battled to read out the rules over the clanging bells, there was a timely lull in the southerly in which Tommy performed his composition on acoustic guitar. It went down a treat among the FM-radio lovers and then everyone took up their positions and the inaugural Mangowak Stoneskimming Championship commenced.
The throw-point was marked by an orange banner attached to a blue pole that was stuck into the sand on the eastern side of the estuary, where Givva and Alex had lined up the flatstones. The three judges were placed strategically to cover the throw: Raelene at the throw-point, Tommy on the western shore some fifty metres across the brown water and myself on the sand at the southern edge, to get a side-on perspective. For fairness' sake the participants were to throw in alphabetical order, and Dave Buckley was first cab off the rank.
Dave is not only a master waterman who's lived by the ocean all his life, he is also the local transcendental meditation teacher. Because of these qualities I had reasonably assumed that he would have the experience, the poise and the mental strength required to focus on an ephemeral, almost non-existent point in the water and successfully skim a beach stone. How wrong I was.
After a few prolonged callisthenic stretches and a protracted gaze into the distance, Dave stepped up to the pole with his three stones and let the first one fly. Rather than skimming as he'd hoped, it simply plopped into the water and sank without a trace.
Of course everyone thought this was a great joke, and Dave himself could see the funny side. âGreat start, Dave,' called Joan Sutherland from where he was standing with his family beside me on the sand. Most of the crowd laughed at this dry crack out of pure relief, happy as they were to see Big Joan had his humour back.
Dave Buckley's next throw wasn't much better than his first, and it was odd to see this second stone disappear under the water without so much as a skiffle. We were all so used to Dave being in control when it came to water-sports that to watch him fail was now a little embarrassing. When his third throw did nothing more than skip once and then slam into the limestone of the southernmost Plinth, the crowd went silent. Dave raised his hands in the air in frustration before quickly recovering his trademark equanimity and standing aside for the next competitor. Beside me young Dylan Sutherland remarked to his mother that Dave Buckley's attempt was âtotally gay'.
The next competitor was Nan Burns; she'd decided to ham it up. She straightaway bent into a low crouch beside the blue pole, adopted a mean, peering expression and then let fly. Off went the stone, skimming once, twice, three times on the water before disappearing below the surface. The small crowd cheered and Nan remarked, âWell, at least now we've got a leader.'
Nan's second throw was again delivered with the theatrics: the low crouch, the squinting of the eyes. Because everyone was well acquainted with Nan's at times uncompromising temper, it made us all happy to see her playing the ham. We all felt the same sense of reprieve that hovers around a sleeping bull. This second throw went one better than her first, skipping four times across the water before it sank. We watched as a quartet of perfect circles radiated out across the water from where the stone had skimmed. All three of us judges called the word âFour!' into the air, which made it easy for the shire official to certify that indeed four was the official result of the throw.
For her third throw Nan seemed to suddenly discover some real ambition. After weighing the flatstone carefully in her right hand, she threw off her slapstick approach and gazed meaningfully at the water. This time she didn't crouch, rather she merely dropped her right shoulder into an advantageous position, turned side-on to the water and with an experienced flick of the wrist hurled the stone. It hit the water perfectly, too perfectly in fact. On contact the stone seemed to gather momentum rather than lose it. It gained velocity as well and the whole crowd watched as it whanged into the air before crashing into the Plinth without ever touching the water again. A cloud of blonde dust rose from the Plinth and as if in acknowledgement the bell clanged loudly.
âWhoops,' said Nan at her duffer of a throw and stepped back from the throw-point.
Next up was Tyson Conebush, Joe's twenty-four-year-old son. Tyson's a huge tree of a kid who's famous locally for his prodigious hitting on the golf course. I played with him and his dad once and couldn't believe my eyes when Tyson, who was only sixteen at the time, whacked the ball into outer space off the first tee. But three hours later, when we'd finally made it to the ninth hole, I'd realised why despite his power off the tee the Conebush family trophy cabinet back in the garage at Breheny Creek remained full only of lifesaving certificates and the silverware from his mother's netball triumphs. To put it succinctly, Tyson could hit a golf ball anywhere but on the fairway.
As he collected the three stones ascribed to him and stepped up to the blue pole, Raelene Press raised her hand for him to pause before his throw. âCould all competitors please be careful not to throw in the direction of the Year of the Maritime Plinths. They are shire property and as works of public art must be protected.'
She should never have said it â not with our local version of Long John Daly about to step up to the plate. On the sidelines I groaned, knowing that even though Tyson hadn't thrown a stone yet, the die of his stoneskimming destiny had been cast. With intense seriousness he bent into a similar crouch to the one Nan had adopted in jest. He paused and then unleashed his projectile out over the water.
And out over the water it certainly went! At no stage did it even look like skimming on the surface of the estuary. Instead it sailed like a bullet through the air, some two metres above the patiently waiting water. On the far shore Tommy Collins surrendered his responsibilities and ducked for cover. He needn't have bothered. Halfway across the water Tyson Conebush's exocet flatstone sundered once again into the southernmost Plinth, causing a sizeable wedge of the sculpture to plop into the water like the shard of a melting polar ice cap.
A hush came over the crowd. Young Dylan Sutherland said quietly to his brother, âAnyone'd think they're aiming for it.' Back near the throw-point I could see Givva and Alex Way rolling their eyes.
Before Raelene Press could stop him, Tyson the Tree cast off again, this time with a better result. The stone hit the water at the perfect angle and at a ferocious speed. Once, twice, three times it skimmed, but it hadn't near finished. When it finally ran out of puff and sank slowly to the bottom of the estuary, I had counted a grand total of fifteen skims. It was incredible. On the far shore Tommy Collins excitedly shouted âFIFTEEN' as well, and we waited for Raelene Press to concur.
She wasn't forthcoming. âWell? How many?' Tyson eagerly asked her. Raelene's face was set, her lips shut. Slowly she reached into the pocket of her Brinbeal shire polar fleece jacket and pulled out her phone. Holding one hand up to placate the crowd, she methodically thumbed in a number.
âWhat, are you calling the third umpire?' Joan Sutherland called cheekily across the water.
âShe is the third umpire,' a frustrated Givva Way called back in response.
Raelene Press's call was answered at the other end, and as she spoke she began to wander away from the throw-point and back towards the beach steps. I knew immediately what she was discussing: it wasn't how many times Tyson Conebush's extraordinary second throw had skimmed across the water but rather the damage his first throw had done to the Plinth.
Raelene Press remained in deep discussion for a good ten minutes, by which time the crowd was getting decidedly edgy. I was regretting allowing a shire official to be involved in what should have just been a bit of Grand Hotel fun, but with Greg Beer watching for the slightest slip-up I'd figured we'd run this event by the book. Now it looked like we were on the verge of trouble anyway.
With the phone at her ear Raelene started looking down the body of the estuary, to where the other two untouched Plinths were standing with their bells momentarily idle. She began pointing and then shaking her head, and I could tell she was discussing the possibilities with someone back at the shire head office of changing the throw-point. That was a waste of time. Choosing our site had in the end been very straightforward because neither the positioning of the three Plinths on the water or the protected sedge and marshland further back behind the dunes had allowed for us to do it anywhere else. We had to be on the sandy shore for the throw so we didn't cop a fine for trampling native species, and the arrangement of the two Plinths further back in the water meant that throwing alongside the single Plinth at the southern end was the only option.