As they mount the rise, globules of sweat bound off the rescuers’ skins and can almost be heard hissing as the earth swallows them up. A risen sun answers the ear-drums like a struck gong.
Benedict herself has become somewhat sweaty around the thyroid glands. She might have torn off her veil if it hadn’t been for these uninitiated males acting so professional. And then, the other side of the ridge, Angela, Mary, Narelle appear, so ‘nice’ in their drip-dry summer tartans (two inches below the knee). They whimper with relief on sighting the cortège. The bearers are only too glad of a spell. They lay the stretcher on a narrow belt of level ground. The girls fall on their knees, regardless of damage to their lisle stockings. They kiss the hands of an ancient nun they have known distantly as Sister Bernadette. They chafe the milky skin to warm it in what is already a heatwave.
Benedict advises, ‘Don’t crowd her, girls. Let her have air. Air is what she needs.’ What utter rot.
And now Benedict is more than ever superfluous, for here is Finbarr, of freckled, pollarded hands, and that pervading red smell …
As the march is resumed; pork-skinned policemen, stumbling schoolgirls, and two attendant nuns, Finbarr is marching on the right hand, Benedict, she realises only too bitterly, on the left.
Finbarr has begun, in low key, and humble contralto tone, a prayer to the Mother of God.
What can the superfluous Benedict contribute beyond ineffectual tears? Her eyes are blinded by this most recent humiliation. She would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed a policeman by the biceps.
‘Won’t you try one of these sandwiches, Mother? They’re that bloater paste you love – from Fortnum’s. I discovered some of it at D.J.’s. I must say it cost the earth,’ my daughter informs us to draw attention to her thriftiness and at the same time her filial devotion.
‘It would stick in my throat after that raw kipper, which admittedly was going off before we started out.’
We are into one of these picnics Hilda loves to organise, in the Park. She has invited Patrick, to make an audience for her attempt at glorification and witness of what she has to suffer.
‘They look delicious,’ says Patrick, falling in with her plan.
I must admit the sandwiches are exquisitely made. Patrick helps himself with a daintiness appropriate to Hilda’s design.
‘What do you mean by kipper?’ Hilda inquires with the directness of a bulldozer bearing down on its victim.
‘You wouldn’t understand. I’ve been through quite an ordeal – in the course of things.’
Silence in the Park, broken at last by Patrick remarking between munches, ‘Delicious. A dash of lemon, perhaps?’
Hilda smiles for his distinguished palate, and gratitude for recognition of her talent.
Oh, balls, balls, and lemon coughdrops!
Our food is spread on one of those tables installed by the Park authorities for the convenience of picnickers, and students who like to write their theses at them. The tables are bolted to concrete blocks to ensure permanence, but every so often, members of the public in a fit of joie de vivre, or, hate uproot a table and hurl it into the muddy waters of the lake.
I feel almost strong enough to uproot the table at which we are sitting and hurl it into the lake beside us, inspired less by hatred than the despair and frustration of any woman, man, person up against the Hildas – and Patricks (yes, I’ve got to include Hilda’s stooge) of the rational world.
‘I don’t understand what is wrong with you, Mother, on such an idyllic day.’
Old Patrick sits munching, eyelids lowered, refusing to be sucked into controversy.
Oh well, this is it. Let’s face it. I can feel my strength of purpose melting into apathetic melancholy.
In the distance I catch sight of the Mystic and Dog going through the garbage which has spilled out of one of the pebbled concrete vases intended for rubbish, and which dogs, derelicts, and ibis can never leave alone.
I hear the sound of muffled choking in my congested throat.
My interest in these two beings in the middle distance attracts Hilda’s attention.
‘Yes, I admit it’s a disgusting sight. But what can we do about it? We’re not responsible for every human derelict and stray mongrel dog.’
‘I’m responsible for my own garbage – my own rotten soul.’
At mention of the dirty word Hilda’s face assumes its McDermott expression. She folds her upper lip over the lower. She bunches fingertips together to remove any crumbs from her flat front.
As she and Patrick carry on with the picnic they must consider I have done my best to ruin, I am seized by a brainwave. That is not the word, surely. My future has never appeared so determined, or more likely to appease my daughter.
‘I haven’t told you, Hilda, but I’ll be going away before very long.’
‘Oh, where?’ she doesn’t sound all that interested.
‘I have an engagement with a theatre company. A really fantastic project – Arts Council funded – to take culture to the outback.’
‘And what will you be expected to do?’
‘Play some of Shakespeare’s more interesting characters – both female and male. I’m going home to study them in a minute. You can’t expect me to sit here all afternoon eating bloater sandwiches. And then, I’ve also been asked to contribute some of my Dolly Formosa monologues and dances.’
‘Dolly Formosa?’
‘Oh, yes. You wouldn’t know about her, Hilda, because you’ve never taken any interest in my theatre performances. You are one of those who dismiss theatre as illusion, when many of us see it as far more real than what is known as life. Dolly Formosa and the Happy Few is what I call my programme. Sounds élitist, doesn’t it, Patrick? Lots will dismiss it for that reason. You, Patrick, the most élite of élitists, should applaud if you would let yourself.’
I have almost run out of breath.
‘As for the traditionalists, the “bardolators”, there will be my Viola, Titania, Hamlet, Lear, my Rosalind, above all, my Cleopatra, in excerpts from the plays.’
Suddenly the Park is aglow with fevers of blue and green, the water is all glancing light and imperious swans.
‘Well, I must leave you … study – study – so many lines to cram into my head … Dolly Formosa, of course, is second nature.’
They have finished their sandwiches. Hilda hands Patrick a lettuce leaf, for his health, and what I can see will be a sour plum.
Study! Study! Study isn’t the word for it.
I have Grandfather Gray’s folio edition. The silver-fish have got into it. There are lines missing here and there. But many are superfluous, like so many of one’s overheated thoughts.
Hilda looks in occasionally. ‘Well, I don’t believe any of it. But if it’s true …’
‘What is true except sincerity and great art?’
‘I don’t know how you dare, Mother. You’ve had no formal education.’
‘Neither of us has. That’s what rankles with you, Hilda. The difference is that I am an artist.’
She primps and purses. I hope she will soon leave me to the folio edition. There’s so much to accomplish in a short time.
‘I wish you success,’ she says before going, in accents which let you know her hopes are for your disaster. ‘What about the other members of this – company?’
‘Various little persons – students and – mediocrities. So much will depend on me.’
‘But men, Mother. How can you possibly get away with Hamlet?’
‘Bernhardt did – and Esmé Bérenger.’
‘As for Lear …’
‘No male actor has ever conveyed the essence of Lear. He hasn’t the necessary compassion. Lear will be all right. I’m insisting on a straw Cordelia. After that, you’re home when the button’s undone. You’ll see … the house will be one big purge.’
‘I can’t bear to think about it.’
‘You couldn’t. You’re too dry. You belong to Brenda McDermott country.’
/> ‘She isn’t Brenda. She’s Elspeth.’
‘Ten times worse. Sounds like some woman radio announcer. How did you find out?’
‘I saw it in her passport. She asked me if I thought the photograph was anything like.’
‘And was it?’
‘I hate to tell you … Yes!’
Notes
tagari: carry-all
kouros: youth
skala: port
horta: herbs, weeds
ambelourgikós: vine-grower
Meera: Fate
derro: Aust. sl. for derelict
Burlington Bertie: popular music-hall song sung by Australian-born transvestite star, Ella Shields, in London and New York
Fred: Astaire
St Kilda: Melbourne suburb
trahaná: soup made from dried ewes’ milk
galatoboúriko: pudding made from milk, semolina and honey
nounoú: sl. wet-nurse
Editor’s Remarks
As her preparations for the tour grew more intensive, Alex locked herself in her room. At first she refused food, but finally allowed Hilda to bring snacks to her door: salami, pickled cucumbers, pastourmá, yoghurt, and potato salad. The recluse would slam the door and re-lock it. When the time came round for the next meal, dirty dishes would be standing on the mat outside – a rare Bokhara saddle-bag somewhat smeared with mayonnaise.
Sometimes through a crack in the opened door Hilda would ask how the actress was progressing with her studies.
‘Oh, fine, fine! They’ll lap up my Cleopatra. Many great names have barged up the Nile but nobody has understood that Egyptian whore-slut. All those Anglo-Saxon ladies – pooh! In red wigs – or American accents. I am Cleopatra. I know. I have the smell of Egyptian women in my nostrils. I can hear their laughter – the clang of brass above running water. No eau de Nil – dirty water – bilharzia – the lot! You know what the key to Cleopatra is? She hung on to her clitoris. You should appreciate my Cleo, Hilda. She’s real.’
It was never clear to anybody when the tour was expected to begin. There were references to rehearsals in a corrugated iron shed in the suburbs. As time went by and tension increased, Hilda asked, ‘When will you be leaving us, Mother?’
‘Soon, soon! The exact date hasn’t been decided, the schedule is still being worked out.’
‘Have you a contract?’
‘Their word is their bond. It’s the Arts Council.’
‘I hope everything will be alright.’
‘Oh, you needn’t worry. One day you’ll find I’ve gone. Gary will have fetched me – in the van.’
‘Gary?’
‘The director-manager. Could be Barry. Or even Craig. Wayne? There seem to be several Waynes around.’
‘If I only knew the date, I’d pack a basket – a few little comforts for the road.’
‘Comforts? Austerity is the keynote of our project.’
She shut the door as tight as she could.
Speaking from the other side, she continued, ‘I’ll keep Patrick posted on our progress. Patrick understands the demands of art, though he’s never exactly come good himself. Patrick is too piss-elegant by half.’
From then on, the door remained shut between us. Had the genius removed herself? There were faint sounds. A scratching of mice. Once or twice a mewing as from one of the Empress Alexandra’s cats. There were smells – of cheese, of Nescafé, and a spirit lamp.
I was away in Europe much of this time, but Hilda remitted letters from Ms Gray which amounted to a journal of the actress’s progress through the outback.
Alex Gray’s Theatrical Tour of Outback Australia
Dear Patrick,
We started off on the first stage of our journey into the wastes of Philistia. As it was early morning I was able to escape my daughter’s advice. Through a cold and windy dawn my beloved cats wound down towards the gate piteously mewing after their defecting mother. I cried a little and at once realised I had forgotten tissues. Craig produced some. He is immensely considerate of his leading lady. Attractive thighs – but no use.
I drive with Craig in the first of our four vans. Craig is our director. He won’t be any bother, because I made it clear at rehearsals that my performances, while formally structured, depend on my creative instinct for the drift of nuance and the fleshing out of character. You, Patrick, will understand immediately what Craig only finally accepted.
Craig and I are the only occupants of Van No. 1. Gary and Barry (sound, lighting, and general purposes) travel in No. 2, along with props, and all that angular, splintery stuff which will be put to many uses as it becomes transformed into settings of luxury and exotic beauty.
Other members of the company seem perfectly happy to squeeze into Nos 3 and 4. Most of these young people show great vitality and enthusiasm. They enjoy closeness, which is all to the good in the circumstances. One sulky little thing – Linda – may give trouble before very long. She has ideas above her billing. But I have no doubt firmness and tact will deal with Linda if the need arises.
They have rigged up a bed for me at the back of our van where I can recline during the more tedious stretches of the journey, and my God how many of them there are, dust and trees, trees and dust, or simply dust. I lie amongst my sumptuous costumes, their velvets and brocades, the trappings of Athens, Egypt, and Illyria, attempting to protect them from the glare and mediocrity of the Australian bush. Sometimes I am carried off into dreams. I am standing in a robe of midnight velvet holding a great black fan of sequined net, I am about to launch into a role which has not yet been devised, although I can feel it forming in me. Incorporate it perhaps into Dolly Formosa’s dance sequences and reveries.
When suddenly I am brought to my senses. I am tossed several feet in the air, my skull makes contact with the roof of the van. My God, I am concussed, if not fractured!
Craig calls back, ‘No worries. We’ve just hit an interloping kangaroo.’
That’s all very well. I could be maimed. Shall I sue the Council? Or will it be punishment enough if I am unable to perform at Cutncumagen? (I must remember little Linda, though – waiting to jump in and make the most of an emergency.)
Patrick darling,
Patience is the secret of life on the road, and magnanimity. I have become quite attached to some of my fellow actors, and they to me – I like to think. Even little Linda has her sulk-free moments. She shared a Mars Bar with me yesterday while Barry, Gary and Craig were skinning their knuckles changing a tyre on Van No. 2. Actually, if one is prepared to wait, some amiable brute of a farmer will appear from beyond the horizon and do the job in no time at all.
So far there is a drama attached to each town (sic) on our schedule, but I shan’t bore you with these stories unless they are very special. Actually, there is a sameness about the stories as there is about the towns. I can’t go on writing (sic) because there is almost too much sic about this journey. (Oh dear, when I thought I had learnt humility while playing an assortment of nuns, or just from living with an impossibly dictatorial daughter. It seems I shall never be humble. Are artists ever?)
There is a subtle difference about the sameness of the towns (…) difficult to analyse – whether Peewee Plains, Lone Coolabah, Ochtermochty, Kanga Kanga, Toogood, Baggary Baggary, or Aberpissup – some nuance of civic pride or absence of it, a clump of dusty cannas or bed of burnt-out salvia, a row of dying or living poplars.
Dust is everywhere. I know every cranny of the School of Arts by heart. The smell of every urinal or dunny. The figure one may bump into in the dark.
When we started out I was told that members of the company would be billeted with private families in each town. I refused this warm offer, insisting that a room be booked for me at the Royal, the Imperial, the Commercial, or whatever. I love the iron-lace balconies. I love to limber up by running a leg along the rail, regardless of the gratuitous audience in the street below, whereas in a private home the hostess is worrying about her savoury boats, her sponges and Pavlovas f
or the after-performance supper in her lounge room. I know every lounge room from Cutncumagen to Ochtermochty. I know every balcony of every Imperial or Royal Hotel. At Ochtermochty – no, wait – I think it was Lone Coolabah – the balcony had been carried away by fire. I almost lost my balance, lifting my leg to limber up against the darkness. I could have toppled with disastrous results into my devoted audience in the street below.
Need I say that reactions to performances vary in any theatre, School of Arts, salon, or convent refectory throughout the world. You are a seasoned performer as I am.
The audience is puzzled by much of what I do, which I take as a tribute to creativity. Who wants to go on seeing the same old boring Rosalind, Viola, Hamlet, Lear, for ever? Mind you, most of the deprived individuals we play to haven’t seen any of these characters in any shape or form. Not like the professional ‘bardolators’ in the capital cities of this colony.
Sometimes creatures, always at the back of the hall, shout rudery such as, ‘If the guy’s supposed to be fat and short of breath ’e shouldn’t look skinny as an old ewe on agistment,’ or, ‘Why’s the lady carryin’ the straw dolly got whiskers tied on under ’er chin?’ In such cases the mayor, or at least an alderman, has to go round and silence them, or if that doesn’t work, ask them to leave. Sometimes that doesn’t work either. At Peewee Plains there were eggs and tomatoes: quite a scandal.
Patrick,
You will wonder why there’s been a pause in my report on our progress. It is not that I’m deterred by rebuffs. Isn’t it what we expect when we lay our necks on the block for art? If the axe falls, the blood may reach somebody and dragons’ teeth spring up to defend our cause.
Anyway …
What may prove to be the historic climax of our tour came at Ochtermochty. Or was it Baggary Baggary? Frankly I’m too dazed to remember. The Sydney Morning Herald had promised to fly their critic, K.V.H., to cover our performance. They kept their promise! K.V.H. landed at dusk in a Cessna. He was driven to the Royal, Imperial, or Commercial for a wash and brush-up, the usual armpit drill, before the Mayor turned up to drive him to the hall. No time for more than a ham sandwich, but it was hoped he would be elegantly fed at the post-performance supper.
Memoirs of Many in One Page 11