Detours

by Tim Rogers

  Any tremors of anxiety give way to shivers of expectation as the plane descends towards Kalgoorlie. The reds and ochres of the earth surrounding the town can seem like a vast movie set recreating a spacecraft landing on Mars, or a savage ecological blight. I feel my throat tighten with emotion. The red dirt is what our family remembers most. No matter what colour your garment was for any chosen social engagement, you came home red. The colours of this place are foremost, infernally beautiful.

  Dad is flying to Perth tomorrow, then driving to Kal. He’s fond of the 600-kilometre drive. The water pipeline dreamed up by C.Y. O’Connor in the late nineteenth century (and completed barely a year after he’d committed suicide, breaking under the strain of criticism) runs parallel as a consistent travel companion.

  Driving is a meditation for Dad once he’s out of the city, and our family crossed the Nullabor, or went further east to Melbourne, often. Our journeys’ soundtracks were provided by West Coast American country rock, J.J. Cale, Paul McCartney solo recordings – anything but the radio, unless the cricket was on. I suspect Dad’s soundtrack on the drive tomorrow will include some Harry Nilsson or Randy Newman, and he’s no doubt expecting his first post-journey beer with his boy to be of totemic significance and proportion. I’m musing on it too. Whether to head up to Hannan Street and mix it up with the locals and part-timers on the strip, or seek somewhere quieter like the bowling club, where my mum’s father, Ted, would hold court when on a break from headmaster’s duties in Melbourne. He was a tall, majestic figure with the eyebrows of Menzies, wavy white hair, and the charm of an ageing British movie star. He and Dad were thick as thespians by all accounts. Together they built a holiday house on Phillip Island, on a street once called Lovers Lane, both eager to get their hands on projects and push through until late in the day. My greatest memory of Grandad is of my brother and me sitting on his knee in our front room singing ‘Two Little Boys’, hidden from the merciless Kalgoorlie sun behind thick window shades striped with British racing green and bone white.

  We’re landing, and the earth, while pockmarked by scrub, is, on no close inspection, red. A couple of tears fall down my chin. The Solo Man and his apprentice, thirteen-year-old Tim, would not be impressed.

  The air, as I step out towards town after throwing my bag in my hotel room, is still and arid. It’s as if a giant cloche had been removed from a huge room-service plate days earlier, all steam and moisture blown east and the meal left ignored. As I’m wondering why I’d think of such a metaphor, an educational tour story comes back to me: of being in a town not unlike Kal, and my dear friend Tex explaining how to reheat day-old chips from room service by aiming a hotel hairdryer through the hole in the cloche. I’ve gotta remember to tell Dad that one. He’ll savour it.

  I hurtle towards a cluster of lights denoting Hay Street, as thirsty for people’s chatter as I am for a drink. The streets are as wide and flat as I’ve forever recalled, maybe twenty metres across. The story we were told as kids was that the roads were that wide so camel trains could turn within the streets’ allowances; however, I was also told by a gentleman acquaintance of my dad’s, whose accent landed softly for the region, that it was simply because they were ‘aesthetically pleasing’. I sincerely doubt I knew that ‘aesthetically’ was even a word at the time, but as with other reminiscences, it lingers with a ghostly whisper. The town’s name comes from the Aboriginal word kulgooluh, a silky pear, edible, and grown locally in the region. I’m as embarrassed by my lack of historical facts about my home town as I am by my failure to slow my eager pace to the languid mosey of the two men I pass on my way to Judd’s, a pub on a corner of Hannan Street. My band last played there some nine years earlier. Some local footy paraphernalia behind glass distinguishes this place from all other large urban pubs. I’ve arranged to meet Scooter, who’s a representative from the Goldfields Footy League and also a radio announcer, who said he’d be happy to fill me in on the talk surrounding the grand final. It was one of only a few preparations I’d made prior to the journey. A quick search of the League website, and the best name was duly contacted. Not quite reconnaissance, just a handshake. I was more than fine to ramble through a solitary pub crawl and soak up whatever the hell was on offer, but this cheerful, bright-eyed young father approached me soon after arrival, quick to fill me in on the footy season just passed.

  As luck would demand, the publican of Judd’s is the coach of Railways, one of the teams in tomorrow’s final, and as he’s pouring us a round he has the distracted air of someone contemplating his team’s backline above the perfect head on a ten-dollar pint of draught. Which shocks me a little. The ten-dollar pint part of the scene, not the coaching. I’m happy to pay anything to anyone at this stage, but my desire to be immersed in history, and my family’s past, jars with the spanking new decor and feel of the pub. And flippin’ ten-dollar pints? My gaze sharpened with incredulity, a look that even without the aid of a mirror reminded me of Dad when confronted similarly with inflated drinks’ prices, but it was only a flicker of protest. Scooter, his family and a few mates are great company and it’s all I can do to resist suggesting a foolhardy kick-to-kick in the middle of Hannan Street to exhaust myself of nerves for the following day.

  We talk footy and family and radio and music until I’m conversing, obliquely, to myself. Wisely I remove myself from the presence of other humans, out into a street watched over by a sky of such vast proportion and benign beauty that no interior decor appreciations are going to render this trip anything less than sublime. Go to bed, Tim.

  One of Nana Nonie’s frequent phrases when I was a kid was: ‘Give Tim a tennis ball and you won’t see him for a week.’ Such was my love of anything sporting. As I roll out of my crisp hotel sheets onto the floor of a room of no immediate distinction, I wonder how that has morphed into: ‘Give Tim a pub within hiking distance with the promise of stories and he won’t show up the next day.’

  But it’s grand final day, and no mild fug settling slothfully around my head will slow my need to get out and among the town.

  Nine am at the Relish Cafe on Hannan Street, and a strong coffee and some cheeky chastisement from the lady serving my elaborate order does its work. The town centre of Kal had, I imagine, once accommodated a posse or two ambling up Hannan Street on horseback in silent pursuit of their enemy. Today its ample bitumen is lined with grand Edwardian buildings neighbouring more modern, uninspiring retail stores, a streetscape mercifully interrupted by many pubs with second-floor verandahs, ornate railings and parapets, and adorned with the decorative bold typeface redolent of the early 1900s. In the odd reverie of a mild hangover I can half-close my eyes and the scene rusts to sepia tone. A century and a half evaporates and the sidewalks are bustling with gentry and otherwise, the pace of walking urged or slowed by class, the main street offering entertainment to a bulging populace shod in cotton, wool and linen. The town is quiet this morning, and Hannan Street is flecked with only a few dozen walkers, all in casual wear.

  The real throb of the town these days, its true heart, lies on the south-east edge of town. The Super Pit, a 3.5 kilometre x 1.5 kilometre, 570-metre-deep open-cut gold mine, is in operation around the clock, and the thrum of its massive pursuits can go unnoticed by me for hours, until it seeps into my thoughts, even as I head in the opposite direction. It’s a persistent reminder that this town was built to cater for the mining community exclusively. Everyone’s livelihood depends on it.

  I’m off to see the old family house in the suburb of Lamington and the stroll is along streets wide and handsome; rare, light gusts of wind lift and encourage shallow clouds of red dust across them as if decorating a cake. I can assume nearly all the houses these days would have that most desirable, and unattainable, appliance from our time living here: an air conditioner. The absence of them in my childhood school or home, as with, God forbid, the dishwasher, has left me with little affection or need for either, although when I begin cursing my sartorial choice of Cuban-heeled boots, jeans and long s
leeves on a day appointed for long walks, I consider knocking on the old home’s door for a five-minute respite from the heat. I try to picture myself at six, hoarding squash balls stolen from the local outdoor courts under the roots of the tree on the nature strip, but no amount of squinting can alter the present view. Our old house on Lyall Street has been replaced by a newer, shinier version. So softly folded into dreams, the flowering of my criminal past goes.

  The sweat has settled into a constant rhythm now, which bothers me not at all, but will make entry into the bowling club more conspicuous than I wanted. And walking around town looking for all intents like the unnamed ninth member of Lynyrd Skynyrd will preclude me further. It’s enough, really, to ramble around the outskirts of the green, watching men and women execute their deliveries with deft attention. My mum’s mother taught me the basics in her backyard in Ferntree Gully. She and Grandpa were both eager bowls participants; perhaps this is why the sport makes me so wistful. It demands skill and cunning, yet is played with a gentleness undesirable for most other competitive sports. I pay my respects to the noble participants with a few unreciprocated smiles, then head back to Hannan Street.

  On a lazy day in an unfamiliar town I always seek out a vintage clothing and/or bookstore. Both offer that chance to chinwag with the proprietor that other forms of retail don’t; a personal investiture in stock encourages their engagement with customers. And so I get chatting with the titular Sue of Sassy Sue’s Vintage, while thumbing through a collection of winter wool suits, their textures and light musky smells infusing my mood with the same poignancy I got from watching lawn bowls.

  Sue is buoyant yet unobtrusive. Before she asks me the inevitable question about my attraction to unseasonal clothing, I say with a flourish: ‘Sue, I’m of the opinion that the practical and the sartorial should be mutually exclusive pursuits.’

  At this point she goes to make a phone call. I get it. I should leave bon mots to the truly witty.

  Dad is arriving, I guesstimate, around two, which will give us time enough to get him into the hotel and grab a shower before heading off to the game. It’s around midday, and as it’s mid-afternoon somewhere in the world, the decision to neck a drink in a beer garden and daydream a little comes easy. It’s a surprise then that just as I sit down Dad calls. He’s hit town early and wants to know what pub I’m at. He knows his boy well and minutes later he sallies into the garden. In spite of the long drive from Perth, he’s perky – like a sixteen-year-old with a lascivious secret to hide – and declares he’s up for anything if it doesn’t involve stairs. He has none of the apprehension that walking has caused him since his heart bypass surgery and a bout of cancer. We knuckle down to a brew and to stories.

  Many of the tales from Dad’s time here are of boom, then bust. We did six years out here as a family, and of course, because I was just a kid, most of my memories are about mischief. There must have been some terse talks between my folks over Laminex tables.

  I remind Dad of his Hungarian acquaintance who’d bought explosives off a family friend of ours. He took ’em home, sat on ’em and lit ’em up. Neither of the houses adjoining his were even cindered, but the block remains vacant to this day, forty-three years later. I’d walked past it this morning and couldn’t help wondering how many times we’d run past it as kids, on our way to some minor impropriety.

  When Mum and Dad drove into Kal in 1969 after buying a car in Perth, the first sign Mum saw was CATTLE CROSSING. To a suburban girl from Melbourne’s north, this was a cinematic shock. Though Mum and Dad divorced long ago, I have precious memories of them sitting together at the dinner table, after we’d moved on to Perth, then Adelaide, sharing cask wine (‘Chateau Aluminium’ was the family term) and wildly exotic foods like paté(!) or olives(!). I’d sneak away from an episode of Happy Days to spy on them, thinking it the most bohemian, romantic thing I’d seen. Because Dad was away most of the year, just seeing them together was enough. These memories are always dappled with candlelight, a sure sign of my romanticising.

  I wonder what Anke, Dad’s wife of twenty years, would think of Kal. I reckon I’d be too eager to ‘sell’ it to her, to press its wilder histories, which I find so attractive. Our relaxed attitude here today indicates that Dad and I share the same romantic notion of the place. Maybe that’s the true reason we’re out here, to confirm that we have a history smudged with romance as well as sadness.

  The clock is ticking for us to get to the footy. A heightened sense of purpose infuses us when the Railways coach tumbles through the beer garden with an esky, barrelling towards his ute parked out back. He’s unresponsive to a few supportive whoops and hollers and best wishes for the game. Most from Dad and me. We’re an excitable couple at times like this. Though the recent years have been difficult, the way we switch to boyish silliness reminds me that it was Dad who played us Monty Python cassettes among the Eagles, and that he took us to Jacques Tati films as well as more prosaic fodder. Which I reckon would be a surprise to a lot of his acquaintances.

  In repose his face can have the solemnity of a benevolent dictator, or noble potentate; his habit of nodding is as arch and wise as the Easter Island monoliths. In response to questions or hasty opinions, he folds his hands over his gut, thumbs free to continue their opposable tussle, leans his hefty frame back and stares, with no small commitment, into middle space. There is a grumble, then a silence. The matter has been put to rest. Yet I’d dearly love for him not to be the taciturn patriarch, and instead run off at the mouth. Like his kids do. Like my mum does. Like his wife does. Like his friends, workmates and clients do. Because he has so much to say. Truths and histories can often spill out of opinions or loose chatter. There are many truths I’d like to know about my dad, many histories.

  The grand final is played in the neighbouring town of Boulder at the Digger Daws oval, as onomatopoeically perfect an oval as it is physically. The short cab ride there has us both a little pensive. Although I’ve got no emotional investment in the game, I want this to be a great experience for Dad. We both have an interest in the big league, mine more rabid than his, but we’ve always shared stories about the country games we’ve seen, and recall the local women’s leagues and suburban kids’ games with great fondness.

  I’ve seen spellbinding performances on the grand stages, but still my favourite footy story is how Dad and his mates would finish training on a cold Melbourne Wednesday night, buy a big loaf of bread, paw out the fluffy innards and stuff it with hot salty chips as a reward for the walk home. Oh, the steam that would plume out in that freezing trek! Or perhaps it’s the one about my uncle Graeme, who, after winning a grand final with his amateur team, swapped guernseys with the opposition side in respectful tradition. Once the crowd had dissipated, he then hastily dug a ditch in the middle of the oval, threw the jumper in, set it on fire, pissed on it (steam no doubt also abundant) and then buried it.

  I doubt there’ll be steam even in the hot-dog broiler at the oval today. Weather is my least favourite subject to discuss, after religion and personal training, but it’s a perfect day for country footy and its spectators. Dry and warm, the sky so bereft of cloud that the oval takes on gigantic proportions, like a full head of hair sprung free from a ponytail. Skills will be on full display; jackets and scarves won’t. The one grandstand at Digger Daws is half an oval away from where the cab has dropped us, and though Dad is in excellent cheer and protests my assistance, there have been enough falls and injuries lately for me to be a little cautious. We take our time to walk there, mingling with the crowd of about two thousand.

  The dominant dress code is informal and revealing. We’re so used to being among crowds rugged up against the Melbourne cold, it’s a joy to see so much colour and vibrancy. Sporting apparel is the clothing option most favoured, not only the red and black, and the blue and white, of the grand final teams, but a full spectrum of gear from other sports, mostly basketball singlets but also netball, hockey and tennis.

  Maybe the strong history and imp
ortance that sport has always had in country areas is a chance for the kids to feel part of a gang, providing them with a fast-track education in hierarchies and, I can only hope, the will to confront them. The spring in the kids’ steps as they maraud through the clusters of adults today feels very different from the young supporters at big AFL matches in Melbourne: there’s an ease about them, even in the company of older folks. Country kids are perhaps not under the watchful eyes of parents so often and sort their relationships out in the street, or at least outdoors. For the older folk in sporting gear – tracksuit tops and polo shirts – it’s a shortcut to stories of seasons past and small glories shared.

  The oval is skirted by a stretch of bitumen, allowing entry for cars and magnificent viewing potential. I wonder why anyone would want to sit in a car on a day like today, until I spy the first of many utes reversed into position with their loading trays facing the oval, couches and eskies arranged for maximum comfort and self-hospitality. The oval’s surface is spectacular: despite the terrain of the surrounding suburbs (bitumen mottled by red dirt), the grass is lush and even, indulgently green and ripe for all the action to come.

  Negotiating a few inhospitable stairs with care, we find space in the small grandstand among older gentlemen in blazers denoting positions of importance in the local leagues.

  I watch the crowd grow in front of us. No-one seems to stand still for more than a few seconds. Although one could blithely say it’s a ‘family affair’, the generations are as interested in each other as cats are in bathing: young Indigenous kids kick footies with their sandy blond mates; older women administer raffle tickets and cake slices, laughing in mock competition with other purveyors; brawny teenagers sidle through the crowd like peacocks, with biceps the size of my head; high-school girls still in their sports uniforms from morning matches sing the latest pop anthems arm-in-arm. There is the middle-aged spread of men and women my age too. I notice a few of each gender casting an eye to the oval a little wistfully. Some in envy, others perhaps with disdain. I can’t help but look for some freckly tousle-haired son of an umpire out there, kicking a footy to himself and providing the hysterical commentary to his imagined best-on-ground performance.