The Everlasting Secret Family

by Frank Moorhouse

  He looked out at their disappointed faces.

  “. . . you do not make remarks judging one way or the other the moral worth of characters in the film-play. I assure you that they cannot hear . . .”

  Laughter from some, disbelief from others.

  . . . you do not, as in the music hall, hiss villains, you do not clap your appreciation at the conclusion of a performance. Some other points—you rise to your feet at the playing of the anthem, and at the conclusion you quietly, without comment, resume your seats. These are the elementary rules of international cinema etiquette.” George McDowell, soft drink maker, Rotarian, rose from his reserved seat beside his wife and said he would endorse Mr Bow’s remarks and bow to his expert knowledge. However, he would pick one bone. He did feel that clapping at the end of the performance was a tribute to the performers, albeit in their absence. Mr McDowell resumed his seat.

  “No—it is incorrect to clap. There will be no clapping, Mr McDowell, if you please. At the conclusion of a performance the lights will be gradually raised, to protect the eyes from the electric glare, distinctive music will be played and the audience will leave the cinema in an orderly fashion, allowing those at the end of rows to vacate their seats first, and so on.”

  The white smile, the swishing dragon.

  Mr McDowell rose to his feet. “Could I then move that you perhaps convey our pleasure—or displeasure, as the case may be—to the performers at the conclusion of the week’s show, by letter or by telegraph?”

  He wished to say to Mr McDowell that in his cinema one did not move motions, as a member of an audience at a moving picture one did not have the right to lay down rules.

  “I doubt whether it would be possible to obtain the addresses of the performers, individually, but I will see what can be done, Mr McDowell, and the expense of it by telegraph would be out of the question. Maybe sea mail.” “Thank you, Mr Bow,” said Mr McDowell from his seat.

  His urge to slaughter George McDowell was always held in check by a scientific fascination with the singularity of the man.

  “To return,” he said, “to the question of cinema etiquette,” his voice at first showing his preoccupation with the preposterous suggestion put by McDowell but then growing stronger as he gave his attention back to the audience, now restless, “I may, instead of the regular film serial each week, give a short lecture on cinema etiquette, or the etiquette of public places going back to the time of the Greeks.”

  He put his tongue in his cheek and cocked his head.

  “Oh please no, Mr Bow,” the children chorused.

  “Shall we then proceed with the show in a well-mannered way?”

  “Yes,” they chorused. Cheers.

  He went then, signalling to the projection box—a finger to the nose. He was lowered pneumatically from the stage on a platform with the organ. He went with a flourish, to the cheers, stamping and whistling of the children.

  They have to be taught, he groaned, not to do that cheering, stamping and whistling.

  He walked along the passage under the floor of the cinema, thinking of the young white bottoms and groins squirming with nervous excitement, and emerged in the projection box. He motioned to the projectionist to gently and unhurriedly dim the lights and start the projector. The show began again, the images jumping to the screen. He dabbed his brow.

  “I forgot to tell them to keep their feet off the backs of the seats.”

  “I do my part, Mr Bow.”

  Alf did not do his part at all well. He was simply fishing for a no-fault bonus.

  He put in slides upside down. Did not raise the music at the beginning of the show to cover the noise of people still coming in and the talk which took time to quieten.

  And he, Irving Bow, didn’t really care a threepenny damn about the etiquette of the cinema.

  He, Irving Bow, did care about the etiquette of cinema. What he didn’t care for was the teaching of it to this town. Because he didn’t, any longer, really “live” in the town. This was not his idea of a proper town. He did not understand why white people had come out here to this dry place to build post offices, corner shops and cinemas. Why hadn’t they stayed where they were. In another time he would have been a maker of pageants. Pageants with beautiful young youths dressed as sultans and girls as veil dancers and nymphs. Something, he knew, had gone wrong with fate. He was not fated, surely to god, to stand in a dinner suit in the foyer of the Odeon Cinema in this tiny coastal town surrounded by millions of miles of eucalyptus trees, to stand, tin-plated torch in hand, in the foyer of the Odeon.

  He was a dragon caged inside the year 1927, caged inside the Odeon Cinema, caged in this incomplete town, caged in this unfinished nation. When would all the buildings be finished? When would it be complete? The town talked only of flies and its thirstiness.

  He awaited the coming of Pacific City and he made this known to the town. He had built the cinema facing the proposed Pacific City, facing away from the town.

  Out in the cinema they were laughing again, settled in the darkness and the prancing fantasy of the film. He looked down on them through the inspection slot in his office. He looked down on the well-brushed pubescent hair and vigorous bodies of the youths and girls. He saw the outline of stiff McDowell and his tight wife. McDowell was always coming to him about “scientific programs”. The time was gone when people would watch anything. McDowell was insufferable. Went about the town like an inspector-general. Seeing everywhere the need for emendation. Talking always of taking water to the desert.

  Would he, Irving Bow, convey to the actors and actresses the appreciation—or displeasure “as the case may be”—of George McDowell and the sun-cowed town.

  In his office Irving had a scotch and took some peppermint to hide it. He had to hide too much from this town. It made him groaning weary. When he was groaning weary he still had to keep smiling his white smile at the towp.

  He’d been wrong, too, in stopping the show—untheatrelike, going to the front and making a point of etiquette. That wasn’t right. You should never stop a show.

  He ran a daily program of deceptions.

  His desire for the young, that was number one.

  What was the etiquette of deception? That one should not reveal information about oneself—show something about oneself—which the people around you could not comfortably accept. Yes. Yes, also that one should never, by aside, or by stray remark, or hint, give an inkling that there was something about oneself that was dark and sinister, that would then puzzle or disconcert another person. Yes. A hint was as bad as a revelation. Or worse, to make such a hint, inkling, to an innocent person could inflame the righteous imagination. Thus misrepresenting oneself by permitting the person to imagine the worst about oneself. Never inflame the imagination of a townsperson. Yes. That one should also shape and manage the deception in such a way that if by chance the deception was made public, by the turn, say, of events, a person one cared for was not both offended by the revealed secret and by having been deceived. That was tricky. One had to foreshadow to close friends the possibilities of one’s nature without inflaming incorrectly their imaginations.

  The etiquette of deception was for the comfort of others—and reciprocally, one’s own comfort and survival on the far side of acceptability. Ah the fettering nature of reciprocity.

  What then was the etiquette of loving the young?

  That they should enjoy the sensations introduced to them, or if not, be adequately rewarded in their terms for having given you the sensations you sought? Yes. Something like that. On the matter of their understanding? Yes, that, though they may not understand, in the sense of having words to describe what was happening to them and how the sensations they were experiencing fitted into their lives, they should not be made feel that they had been overwhelmed, yes. Ah yes—and that they should at all stages be able to retreat from the situation. Yes, retreat, have exits. That the rewards offered should be commensurate with the nature of the experience in the child’s eye
s, not in the adult’s eyes—the adult who received one sort of pleasure, the child another. The experience had to have a young person’s perspective. He was against material rewards. No—that was a deception. He, Irving Bow, would give his very life, possessions, standing and respect for the pleasure of love making with the young.

  A tap on the door.

  George McDowell and Thelma.

  “Yes, George? Good evening, Thelma.”

  They wanted to hand in their notes on the film screening that evening.

  “Your notes?”

  “Our appreciation.”

  They handed him slips torn from a note book, from a Brooks diary. He looked down at them.

  “If you choose to implement my proposal re sending our appreciation to the performers as discussed earlier,” said George.

  “Oh yes. Well thank you both, yes indeed.”

  The second knock on his door was Backhouse for his after-work drink. Irving pushed the button which opened the door automatically.

  “The show is running late,” Backhouse said.

  “I had to lecture them but they pay no heed.” Irving poured the whiskies. “Ah how I look forward to the first whisky of the evening.”

  “No heed to what?”

  “Etiquette of the cinema.”

  “Are they causing trouble?”

  “Misbehaviour is everywhere. They don’t know how to be a proper audience—they act as if they are at vaudeville. What am I doing in this town, Backhouse? When will Pacific City ever be built?”

  June, the usherette, came and said she was going. “I’ve put out the lights, Mr B.”

  June the vamp.

  Alf, the projectionist, came for his no-fault bonus.

  “You were late with the curtain drop.”

  “You always find something different wrong every time.”

  “Oh here, take it, take it, take it.”

  They were now all gone. The cinema quiet. He turned to Backhouse. “McDowell says I should write to Hollywood and Ealing, tell them whether the town liked the show or not.”

  He pushed the McDowells’ diary pages with a finger as he sat on the edge of his desk.

  What was the etiquette of confession?

  They drank their first whiskies down. Told stories of the town. Talked of Pacific City, its dimensions and facilities, when might it be built, when might it overrun the town and obliterate it, incorporating them all into the master plan?

  He sat in his dinner suit and cracked funny stories about McDowell but behind the talk the weight of his deceptions lay. He was forever checking about his life, his rooms, locking desk drawers, hiding this and that, had he left something showing, a silk stocking hanging from an open drawer, the dressing room whether it was locked, the trunks, the costumes.

  Irving had a patter of stories and saw things differently. McDowell even said he gave a “very fair” speech in a town where people were judged by their speeches.

  He was a good emcee.

  He sat now in his dinner suit with Backhouse drinking whisky and wanting to confess. Wanting to throw open the drawers, unlock the doors, reveal the secret passages, open the trunks of costumes. Not to receive punishment but to be relieved of being warder to this, his imprisoned life.

  “I want to confess my deceptions, Backhouse,” he finally said.

  Backhouse made a wry smile and shook his head.

  “No I’m serious, Backhouse, I want to tell you about my deceptions. My life.”

  “Come on Irving—you’re Mr Popularity. You’re King of the Kids.”

  He looked at Backhouse, had he by innuendo released him from his deception—no, he was talking only of his popularity as a motion picture theatre operator.

  Just how fine a cinema was the Odeon?

  Irving Bow had a brenograph which could make pictorial effects on the screen such as falling snow while the slide said, “The Management Wishes You a Merry Christmas.” He could have smoke curling from the cigarette over the slide which said, “The Management Requests No Smoking for the Convenience of Others.”

  He had a soda fountain and chocolate bar with a professionally arranged display of empty chocolate boxes. He did not sell sodas but bottled drinks because of an arrangement with McDowell who thought bottled drinks would replace soda fountains.

  He employed a carpenter one day a week to muck about with the side sets of scenery which he tried to make appropriate for each film and its theme.

  He had an orchestra pit but no orchestra. The Town Band had played on opening night a medley of mournful marches.

  He had an organ which could be raised and lowered pneumatically and Charles Scribner, who’d learned to play at Oxford, had agreed to play when his fingers were not so stiff. The organ could produce human cries.

  He could raise and lower the temperature in four different parts of the cinema.

  He had orchestra seats, front stalls, back stalls, a dress circle (although no one dressed: the McDowells had dressed on a few Saturday nights at first) and a lounge—five types of seat, five prices, and five distinctively coloured tickets.

  For oversized people he had special size seats, now favoured by lovers.

  He had a passage from the stage to the dressing rooms under the floor and another passage from the stage to his office, as well as other sliding panels and passageways.

  He had lighting effects from four colour tonings and a rheostat.

  He had a drop curtain, if Alf could only get it right.

  In the foyer he had statues of Melponmene and Thalia which no one really noticed.

  He had recordings of prelude music, interlude music and going-out music, until Scribner’s fingers were less stiff.

  At first Irving had donned white overalls and gone around after every show with a tin of paint and a daubing stick to cover up the scuff marks on the backs of chairs and at the counter of the soda fountain and chocolate bar. He didn’t bother much now.

  He was becoming a bad keeper of the temple in that respect, and becoming fatigued with keeping its mysteries.

  He sat in his dinner suit and told Backhouse that he wanted to confess his deceptions.

  “Don’t tell me,” Backhouse said, relaxed with whisky. “I want to know only about the public events and behaviour of people in the streets. I don’t want to know secrets which I cannot print.”

  What was the worst thing that people could discover about you? Did some people have nothing to hide?

  “You won’t hear my confession, Backhouse?”

  They drank another whisky. Sometimes they both said things to each other which the other didn’t quite understand. It didn’t bother.

  “Tell the whisky bottle,” said Backhouse.

  Sometimes friends were there not to share the secrets but to keep them in.

  Irving thought that there were towns which permitted you to be honest and towns which kept all secrets hidden. Pacific City would be more the sort of town where the secrets would be all on show.

  He sat in his dinner suit and told Backhouse that he was not serious about confession.

  “Confession is bad for the bottle,” Backhouse said, and laughed.

  “All right,” Irving said, “I confess I had a snort before you arrived. Some confession!”

  They laughed.

  “See—nothing up my sleeve, nothing concealed, nothing hidden,” he said to Backhouse, but they both knew they were hammering down the secrets.

  Irving felt that the offer of his confessions had been retrieved and was safely back in his pocket. A workable deception put in its place.

  What was the etiquette of confession? He was sure he didn’t know.

  “And McDowell wants you to tell the actors and actresses of his likes and dislikes?” asked Backhouse.

  They laughed.

  “Oh, the cinema is not fully understood,” Irving said. “They want to clap at the end of the performance. I am forever, too, showing people behind the screen. They will not believe there is nothing there.”


  THE CRYING ORGAN

  Irving Bow bought the Wurlitzer Unit Organ for the Odeon because it could produce human cries and this had bewitched him.

  That had clinched the sale. Charles Scribner, a person of the Arts about the town but with no occupation, had learned, he said, to play the organ at Balliol and was down there now making human cries on the Wurlitzer.

  Scribner was to play at the Odeon before the screening, at the two Intervals and during the Exit, but his fingers had been too stiff until now and, even so, Scribner was uncertain as to his “reliability in the matter of the organ” and referred to his “life of impetuosity”.

  In his ornate manager’s office Irving read an article shown him by George McDowell, manufacturer, “hundred percent Rotarian” and pain in the neck. The article by Dr Russell, a West End neurologist, said that the child of today was “out of hand”. Dr Russell attributed this to attendance at moving pictures. The Modern Child of twelve had more experiences and sights pass through his brain than a person would have had in a completed lifetime previous to motion pictures. The child’s curiosity was seriously fatigued by fourteen. This interested Irving more than the other clippings given him by McDowell. This interested him in a way McDowell could not have foretold because it confirmed for Irving something that he had pondered on—the absolutely immoral way that children involved themselves in dishonesty, deception, theft, vandalism and pederasty.

  Maybe the willingness of children to be immoral had to do with the passing of experience through the brain at a rapid rate, which matured the mind but left the body young. Perhaps the child, having thus matured mentally, was able to seek its own advantage and indulge in trickery, rather than remain innocent. But Irving, on second thoughts, suspected that it might have to do with the inherently corrupt nature of children.