One of Bob’s books has just come out. Maybe The Fatal Shore, do you think? The one about the convicts in their concentration camps, at a time when Deutschland was an idea buzzing about in the brainbox of Frederick II or one of those other Teuton maniacs. Forced labour, floggings, starvation rations – so much there to thrill Himmler in his research on the Final Solution, I’m sure. Anyway, Bob is pissed when we meet him, and if possible even more pissed after an hour at table. Not a shy man, Bob. Like most of the other Australian expatriates who made themselves famous offshore, he was a monster of ego redeemed by talent. Bob embraced the diners he was sharing a table with in the way that a performer wraps his arms around an audience. He has a thousand things to say about almost everything: art in New York and London and Australia, women, books; about Alan Moorehead, the Australian journalist and author, whom he admired; much more about women, food and wine; the British mindset in the eighteenth century.
He flirts with Kate, with me, with Mirka. He says we must go to bed, the four of us – this should happen immediately back at his hotel.
I say. ‘No, are you mad? No.’
Kate says, ‘Bob, no.’
Mirka says, ‘I am not sixteen.’
It’s not a problem for Bob. If it’s not me and Mirka and Kate, it will be three other women. He moves on to another subject without missing a beat. He’s witty, he’s amusing, and that is all the satisfaction I require for the time being. And all Mirka requires. She looks at me; I look at her. Our unspoken comment, each to the other, is an amused: ‘A foursome? Ridiculous.’
It’s unusual in life for one person to be able to say of another, as I can of Mirka, that she knows everything there is to know about me. It’s not a matter of consent, but instead that the possibility of concealment doesn’t exist. Mirka looks at me and the alphabet of my life is open to her. It can sometimes happen that the one who knows you so completely is not your friend, but someone who intends to exploit you. But when it’s your friend who knows you in this way, it’s one of the best things that can happen to you in your life. To be read like a book – fabulous, I promise you.
22
HAZEL
Get this right, Robert. Hazel is gone and I want her to be remembered the right way. Her marriage to Bob was a torment, but she loved him – even on the day of his marriage to Blanche. She threw a Liberation Party that day, at the same time, and many of the people at the wedding left after the ‘vows’ (an ironical word to use when you’re talking of Bob) to come to Hazel’s party. Was there ever a woman who coped so graciously with anguish? On that day, on every day?
I’m at the studio in Gordon Street with Bob and maybe three or four boofheads from the ACTU, preparing for Nationwide, which you’ll recall took the place of TDT for a while before The 7.30 Report started up. There’s a petrol strike, and Bob is about to cover himself in glory by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, that sort of thing, if you can accept a rabbit as the solution to the whole ugly business. Hazel is here, mostly ignored, and she’s still ignored after Bob’s appearance on the show.
Bob and the boofheads are about to charge off to some other event, when Bob suddenly remembers Hazel. He calls to me as he’s departing, ‘Look after her, can you?’
I take Hazel to the Green Room. She’s on the verge of tears. I make her a drink: gin and tonic. It’s been a bad day, and there have been, so it seems, other bad days over the past few months.
She says, ‘I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.’
Bob is a womaniser of a certain sort – ‘G’day gorgeous, what’s your name? Natalie, is it? I knew another Natalie. So what do you think, Nat, you and me, that suit you?’ and away he goes. The Natalies are the Natalies, but now there’s Blanche. She and Bob have been lovers for a few years, although it’s said to be on hold for the time being.
Hazel may or may not know about Blanche, but if she does it’s in the way that someone knows that something would kill them if they kept it steadily in their gaze, so they overt their eyes. All hope is gone, except for the morsel that keeps them alive. Hazel’s trying to keep up with Bob, contribute something, and it’s impossible. Contribute what? Love and support? For Bob? Because she does love him. Of course she does.
I love him myself. How could I not? He’s one thing and he’s another thing, certainly, but he’s not a monster. And all grown-ups know that not all marriages last forever; the husband strays, the wife might sample here and there if the chance comes along: it’s not a tragedy.
But if you can’t cope with infidelity – few women can – it’s going to tear your heart out, if you’ve got a heart, and Hazel has one of the best. What Hazel is enduring is something I’ve usually sailed through with a shrug and a few cheerful swear words. I think, ‘He’s in bed with Madame X? When he could have Madame Wasowski? Is he mad?’
Hazel phones me a couple of days later and we meet up at her place in Sandringham. Sitting on the sofa, I offer Hazel the Werunia advice for all women in her situation: ‘Don’t sit at home. Go out to the concert hall, the movies, galleries. And if you are at home, read a book, lots of books – they’re better than any therapist.’
Hazel says, ‘Go out by myself? It looks pathetic. Bob would hate it.’ I say, ‘With me. Concerts, galleries, movies, maybe lunch first, maybe dinner. Sure. With me.’
And that’s what we do: concerts together, the movies, galleries.
It’s the concerts that mean the most to her. Hazel is a fine pianist herself, has wonderful poise at the keyboard. I listen to her play, and recall that I was once bound for the Sorbonne. I don’t know that I would ever have played as well as Hazel, though, even if I’d reached Paris. I don’t know that I’d ever have developed her poise.
She plays for me, at Kirribilli, the Beethoven Sonata No. 32 in C Minor – quite difficult. She says, ‘More, Vera? Will I go on?’ She plays Mozart and Debussy.
The sensibility that makes Hazel a fine pianist is the opposite of the sensibility that makes Bob a masterful politician. I recognise that. And I recognise, too, that Hazel’s character is in many ways very different in its priorities than my own. When I came to see that Viktor and I were incompatible, I thought, ‘That’s that.’ Hazel, in her convictions, in her manner of engaging with life, in the quality of her affection, is incompatible with Bob, but she doesn’t say, and never could say, ‘That’s that. I won’t sacrifice myself for this marriage.’
We walk on the beach at Sandringham, where Hazel and Bob have their house. I say, ‘See, this is better. The world.’
The gulls rise from the wet sand of the ebb tide as one, hang in the air for a minute or two, then float down and land on the orange sticks of their legs. Waves break on sandstone cliffs reaching out into the sea. Grey clouds sit on the horizon, only slightly brighter than the grey ocean.
Hazel puts a hand to her eyes to watch the sailing boats tilting in the misty light, tilting and straightening. She says, ‘I’m happy. The kids are okay. But I still worry. Do you worry about Marek?’
At this time, my son is up north with his wife, not so far from Byron Bay in fact, enjoying a life that celebrates the continuation of the individual human spirit through existence after existence, a New Age thing, not my cup of tea.
‘Sometimes,’ I say. ‘Not much. Yes, sure.’
And so we grow close, as close as I am with Mirka, but it’s different, of course. Hazel is slowly teaching herself to pour out the bounty of life from the Horn of Plenty; Mirka has gorged on that bounty for decades.
Hazel says one day, ‘Come with me to hear Rostropovich. It’s the best thing, to hear Rostropovich. Will you come, lovely?’
I say, ‘Rostropovich? I’ll come to Rostropovich.’
Hazel says, ‘You and me.’
‘You and me.’
‘I’d love that.’
Hazel has beautiful eyes. I tell her, and she says, ‘Really? Well.’ Then she says, ‘Eyes that have seen a lot, my dear. Not as much as yours, but a lot.’
She doesn�
��t complain about Bob. What would be the point? And I’m not the right person to complain to, even if she wished to.
I’m not judgemental. Who can be bothered? Once you start judging, where do you stop? I’m not even judgemental about myself, and that’s a good thing. I know people who think of me, ‘She drinks, she smokes, and my God, all that dope! Also, she’s in bed with him, and him, and him – what the devil?’ And I think, ‘She sounds interesting, this Vera Wasowski.’ Hazel doesn’t judge me. If it’s your habit to be judgemental, okay, you can have one sort of friend, but you can’t have the best sort.
One afternoon in March of 1983, we come back to Sandringham after shopping, and the front yard is full of television crews and reporters.
Everybody talks at once. ‘Hazel, Hazel, Attractive Blonde from Ten News, do you have a comment on your husband’s new job, Hazel?’
Hazel murmurs, ‘Dear God.’
At this time, Bob and Blanche have renewed their affair, and Hazel hears little of Bob’s plans and progress: far less than Blanche. I had expected Bob to become opposition leader and then prime minister, but not before Bill Hayden maybe lost the coming election to Malcolm. I’m amazed.
I also need to get back to Gordon Street for what is bound to be a night of blood and entrails.
Hazel, preparing for the interviews, finds the perfect smile for the occasion, finds the grit for the ordeal awaiting her, makes the brief speech Bob expects her to make. Privately, I think, ‘She wants to scream.’ Her marriage is held together (in a sense) by her loyalty to Bob’s ambition, and now she has to spend the next so-many years smiling in public like a crazy person.
Bob becomes Master of The Lodge. Hazel becomes Mistress of The Lodge. Werunia becomes an occasional visitor to The Lodge and to Kirribilli for dinners, lunches and sometimes Easter holidays, Christmas celebrations, when the birth of a Jew who remained unemployed for most of his life is honoured with plum pudding and little hats of coloured tissue.
Bob’s ambition in life is to dress in no garment other than his bathing trunks – very like underpants but without a fly. He has a good body (I ought to know, having had it displayed to me) and wishes to give as many people as possible the opportunity to gaze on it.
He’s at Christmas dinner in his trunks and a paper tissue hat. In the stupor that is courted by Australians at the Christmas table – two servings of everything, Champagne, merlot, maybe a liqueur, beer in between – we are invited down to the swimming pool. Bob exhibits his freestyle. I sit with Hazel, watching my grandson, Pani, shrieking and splashing in the shallow end. (I have not mentioned Pani so far – I will have more to say.) The Lodge staff (they have a butler here, who knew this? – a man who wears, on occasions, a magnificent designer apron) serve drinks and canapés and juice for the children (a number of these children: Pani is mine by way of Marek; all of the others, who knows?).
Bob takes a call of national importance, still in the water, on a telephone that sits on a table at the side of the pool.
I can see Hazel in profile on her banana lounge, one hand dangling down to the poolside tiles, brushing their surface lightly with her fingertips. I’m aware, as much as anyone, of the strength of character that permits her to keep everything under control. I am aware of the currents beneath the surface that can wrench her about. I admire her, of course I do, and she admires me for dancing through life, for laughing at all the nonsense, for having the sublime ability to shrug at the right moment. But admiration doesn’t explain our friendship. Some people, you look at them once and you know their heart; others, no matter how much intimacy, you never even get a glimpse of a heart. I know Hazel’s heart. After that comes friendship, love, loyalty. She doesn’t ever wish to hear me criticising Bob; she doesn’t want to hear me saying complimentary things about her, fulsome things: that’s not what she’s after. She wants me to hold her in my gaze, accept her.
And I do.
23
AN AXING
TDT is axed in 1978, after eleven years. Isn’t it interesting that shows are ‘axed’ rather than ‘put to sleep’ or ‘permanently retired’ or even ‘terminated with extreme prejudice’. In show business, the violence of the act is candidly preserved in the image of execution.
No single reason for the axing is offered. Bill has been gone for three years, and maybe TDT hasn’t been as engaging since he departed. Maybe. I’m not sure. And maybe there’s another reason: the playfulness, the satire that was such a part of the show, just doesn’t suit current affairs any longer. After the Dismissal, politics in this country has become more intense. There is not so much room for the satirical songs we commissioned; the April Fools’ Day hoaxes; Peter Nicholson’s animations; even Bill and his banjo. The Dismissal thrust politics onto a new stage in a new theatre – this is my opinion. And this new venue is for serious drama. It’s as if people are saying, ‘You think politics is funny? Politics is not funny. Politics is John Kerr going berserk with the Constitution.’
The country has lost its innocence, and it won’t come back. In the Coalition, they’re either exhilarated by their own audacity, mad on self-congratulation, or full of pious rationalisations. Very earnest men and women, very competent men and women, have raised their hands for pre-selection in the ALP. They want revenge, but they’re patient. They’re not ready to laugh. Bob Ellis in the Whitlam years, I happen to know, wandered Parliament House like a barfly on a pub crawl, propping his arse on the corner of a desk and picking up drafts of bills to peruse under the nose of the minister himself, herself. By 1978, the shadow ministers are not so easygoing.
My dear friend Mungo MacCallum has kept his sense of humour, but he’s maybe the only journalist in Australia capable of seeing the laughable and the pitiable in the same situation, simultaneously. Well, seeing the laughable and the pitiable is not the accomplishment, of course; writing it up is where the gift comes in. When he comes to Loch Street for dinner, his conversation is what you bother to live for: an Australian wit that circles and delves and probes, and reaches its destination with a great cackle of laughter. Really, if you can’t laugh at your own jokes, what hope is there for you?
It’s over, TDT. On the final show, Paul Murphy interviews John Kerr in London, where the ex-Governor-General has gone to live. Nobody in England cares about the Dismissal; nobody asks Kerr questions of any sort; nobody throws tomatoes at him. And watching that final show, you think, ‘Why is this program being axed? Why is this excellent program, with reporters like Paul, interviews of that quality, being axed?’
We drown our sorrows, all of us, and prepare for the replacement show, which is to be called Nationwide, much the same sort of program as TDT but more earnest. Was Andrew Olle the first presenter on Nationwide? Or was he doing Four Corners? Robert, can you find out?
Andrew was the loveliest man. When he died, I thought, What the hell? If Andrew can die, anyone can. It was 1995. Glioblastoma multi-forme: which is to say, a brain tumour. Glioblastoma multiforme – who on earth thought of a name like that? What pretentious twaddle. And Andrew was the most unpretentious man you ever met. Anyway, this is incidental.
We moved on to Nationwide. I continued on in the same job: officially researcher, which is to say jack-of-all-trades, factotum, virtuoso dogsbody, what you will.
Nationwide is, as I say, more earnest. And we who are working on the show are a little more chastened. There are fewer lunches; there is less wine. There’s a feeling that we’ve seen the best of everything we’re ever going to see.
Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s not that we’ve seen the best, but that we were in a certain place at a certain time where something was happening. Do you know what I mean? In various places, at various times that cannot be predicted, the most vital thing happening anywhere in the world is happening there. Between 1970 and 1975, this is where something was happening; Australia was the most interesting place on earth, the most vivid. The gods were gathered here for five years, and now they’re gone, with their music. The country is mo
re mature; journalism is more mature.
During my time at Nationwide, I come to know Mary Delahunty. Not everyone can get along with Mary, but I can. I’m a sort of corrective to the hifalutin aspects of Mary’s personality. At times when other people might roll their eyes, I smile and shrug, and, if the occasion calls for it, take the whole conversation in a more casual direction by telling bawdy stories maybe, because I do have a great store of bawdy stories.
Mary asks me to come with her to Japan, where she’s to send back a series of pieces on politics and culture. I say, ‘Of course.’ It might have been for Nationwide. Yes, Nationwide. In either case, Mary’s pieces are well crafted, well presented, and Mary is good company. If some people find her difficult, what’s the matter with them? And I get a look at Japan for the first time in my life, which is absorbing.
What in God’s name the Japanese thought they were doing in Manchuria and Korea and China and the Pacific between 1936 and 1945, I can’t imagine. They’re obviously much better at peace. They’re the only people in the world ever to have experienced nuclear war, and that appears to have cured them of the desire to go charging about with fixed bayonets.
Mary meets Jock Rankin not so long after I come to know her; Jock, a wonderful journalist, was with the ABC as Director of News and Current Affairs, although not when Mary met him, I think. Who wouldn’t marry Jock, with that intellect and great competence?
He and Mary have a place up in the country, Rosebank, at Wood-end. I visit her there from time to time. Mary’s a horsewoman, cantering about in the bush, very striking on horseback, like a Valkyrie scouting the mulga for fallen Norwegians; watching her, you expect to hear the Ring Cycle echoing around the hills.
Darling Mary. To this day, she remains one of my dearest friends.
Vera Page 21