‘What a joke,’ I said, my hand in her hair. ‘Where is your sister?’
‘She…’ Swanna burped up some wine. ‘She moved to America years ago. She’s a lesbian and doesn’t feel like she can tell Dad, so she took this scholarship with a bank there and her and her girlfriend ran away from it all. You know that feeling?’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ I replied, opening my arms to the countryside. ‘Escape the cottonwool comfort of family.’
‘Same.’ Swanna nodded. ‘But I didn’t want to be in the city. I wanted to be near the trees and the birds. And a bachelor of arts felt like the perfect degree for an orphaned, confused, half-Asian, twenty-year-old girl.’ She laughed.
‘Where is your name from? Swanna?’ I asked her, my thumb on her eyebrow.
‘My mother wanted me to have a Sri Lankan name, but Dad said that would make things hard for me at school in Canberra. So she looked at me, and she said to my dad that I looked neither black nor white, but at the same time I looked both black and white.’
‘Like a swan,’ I said.
‘Like a swan,’ she confirmed.
She was very tight and the sun was beating down in spears. The orb had such strength in this part of the world, especially between noon and 4 pm. But the wine and the comfortable rubber surface and the joy of a new and brilliant connection. Strange… never before had I felt so at ease staring into a girl’s eyes. Even with Chandra, I couldn’t look for too long without all her conditions falling into the act. Courtney, well, I never really got to know, her eyes were so riddled with need and grief I could never even manage the insertion, but Swanna’s eyes were somehow harmless, like cardigans. I showed her what it meant to have her own rhythm and she took my confidence and segued into a whole new current of her own – one that was always there and we men could never know about, no matter what we read or touched.
‘I’m not in Canberra anymore…’ she whispered, as she went up.
And I knew right at that moment, as the sun shone on her fabulous big bush, that she would definitely be part of the design team for my final show.
13
Chandra didn’t wake when I got home from Swanna’s place at 3 am. She must have figured the last-night preparations had gone on and on with props and painting and the angling of lights. Little did she know I had been on my way home at 11 pm but I just couldn’t get Swanna out of my thoughts. For weeks we had been stealing kisses behind the set and under the seats, backstage and behind the steel mill theatre. Every morning, every noon and every night – out of sight of the actors and the stage manager, we’d crash together, grinding and tearing at each other, then at the slightest suspicion of noise or company we’d bounce away and resume our work, throwing out earnest sentences like ‘The pre-show state must be symbolic, ominous even, of what will follow’ or ‘Where is the OP dress table?’
In the three years I had been at university I had engaged in some seriously deplorable, fabulous, violent, wrong, weird, dangerous, inexplicable acts of multi-sexual feverishness and bondage – I mean the entire theatre/media strand was a breeding ground for bisexual whoring and I was surely its public ambassador, eating sheets of acid and summoning groups of artists to my house for orgies and improvised naked dance sessions. Chandra wholeheartedly approved of such ‘experimentation’, often chock-a-block herself with a juggler in her mouth, a lighting designer in her pussy, an AD in her arsehole. As long as I didn’t get too attached, which I never did. Chandra was a mad bitch, prone to wild artistic fits and hormonal storms during which she would literally try to kill me, but I loved her, and no one had ever tempted me away from her big spiky heart and her bold way of living in the ripe part of the tree.
Until now.
Until this odd little swan with the listening eyes and the broken story put a spell on me. Not a day went by when I did not think of Courtney – her skin, her eyes, her lips, her mind, and the way things ended that January – but every thought of Courtney was always doused in strain. It was intense and shameful to contemplate the girl and what had transpired between us, whereas every thought of Swanna, well, it was like the sun was out. She was freedom and light.
Chandra was snoring, a copy of The Female Eunuch on her neck. I put my arms around her and fell asleep, so tired from the twenty-hour day at the theatre and from making love to Swanna once fast and once slow like that Mazzy Star song about falling or whatever. Once in bed I rolled over away from my Feminist and fell asleep instantly.
Chandra elbowed me at 5 am and explained to me where her period sat on the Richter scale of pain and straight away I drove down to the twenty-four-hour Coles and bought her a chocolate cake for $11.45. She ate half of it then fell back to sleep. The cake was in her arms as she woke, asking me ‘When did you get home?’ and ‘Why is there cake in the bed?’
‘You had bad period pain so I drove down and got you cake.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘You don’t remember?’ I asked, spraying myself with Joop.
‘You never go and get me cake, you always say fuck off and have a Panadol – when do you ever do what I say and get me cake on my period?’
‘Last night – heaps of times.’
‘You’re in a good mood.’
‘It’s opening night!’
I moved to the door, slinging my satchel over my shoulder.
‘Where are you going?’ Chandra asked, dipping her long fingers in the cake.
‘I have an interview.’
‘Who with?’
‘Radio.’
‘University?’
‘No, local. The show is selling out, it’s broken out of the college grounds and now the word is out, downtown. General public want a piece of it.’
‘WOW!’ Chandra exclaimed, about as passive aggressive as one could go. ‘You and Julien must be happy with yourselves?’
‘There’s a boy from the local high school in the show who Julien has his eye on for the wrap party, so yeah, Julien is very happy with himself. ’
‘Come back to bed,’ she moaned.
‘I gotta go do this.’
‘I’m not well!’ Chandra rolled over into the cake.
‘Babe, it’s opening night – why can’t you see –’
‘I see! I see! Go go go – don’t even kiss me goodbye! I’ll just lie here in my puddle of blood and cake and misery – you go do your interview!’
For her major work Chandra had chosen photography, focusing on the relationship between nudes and machines. On paper it sounded great, but on the night it was a series of trucks and dicks. She knew it. Since the opening a week ago she had spent a lot of time in my bed vomiting and reading Germaine Greer and talking about her period. She was jealous – and why wouldn’t she be? Since I had graced the university grounds everything I touched had turned to gold. It had become clear to me that I was a Leader here. I was theatre/media’s Che Guevara, although I had never worn a Che t-shirt – but if I had, then I can assure you everyone else would be too one week later. When I got into techno-fire-juggling in first year, so did everyone else. I started building fire sculptures and roaming through the town with a percussion squad – so followed the rest of my course. I coloured my hair purple, pierced my eyebrows and listened to Tricky, involved myself in hectic public orgies – then did they follow with their kerosene, and their L’Oreal Soft Colour, and their flavoured, ribbed and Magnum. One time I walked into the local theatre hang, the Park Hotel, and all the theatre students clapped me. I just stood there by the pool table in my torn-apart and rolled-up stone-wash jeans thinking, Yeah, why not?
But now it was major work time, and everything I had said, dealt, spat, fucked, dreamt or made in three years meant nothing. The final act was tonight and I was only as good as the moment that curtain fell. Tonight was everything. My pinnacle work, the work that could allegedly trampoline me to Sydney, to Melbourne, to England, to America even. And no shadow artist on the rag was going to stop the trajectory.
‘Your friends called!’
‘No – Gordon did. The Gordon guy.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘What’d he want?’ My heart started thumping like techno.
‘Just confirming time and place.’
‘Time and place? Are… but they’re not coming, are they?’
Chandra said nothing. She said less than nothing. She was enjoying having something I wanted so much. Fuck. They were coming to see me and they wanted time and place. Why were they coming? We were no longer friends.
‘Did they mention Stuart at all?’ I asked, my voice all high up in my throat.
I waited for more information from Chandra but all I received was this: ‘OH MY VAGINA HURTS, NELLY! MY VAGINA!’
14
There’s something so doomed about things that get off to a great start. The first six months of university – yes, back in 1995 – Gordon came to visit regularly. He loved it, the whole escapade, driving up past Blaxland, Blackheath and the Lithgow zigzag railway, stopping for McDonald’s on the way, and then arriving at my place for three days of drugs and music, golf and weird adventures round the town. Stuart came too, on occasion, which was when we first all tried cocaine. The drug had such a reputation that I seriously thought my scalp would blow off and that I would be hooked instantly, then spend months in a chair screaming at the atmosphere, like Scarface or something. Stuart issued me with a ‘snow cone’ first, peppering a bong with a sprinkling of the off-white crystals. It was wildly underwhelming, and it wasn’t until the third or fourth time I did coke that I understood its value, but still, it wasn’t my thing. I already talked fast and expressively; I didn’t need a line of gack to find myself interesting. If I was to take drugs it had to be mind-altering. I wanted to be transported to the feeling place, where music was richer, the world more tactile, and the imagination within reach of God, or art, or whatever the fuck. Gordon took it more often than me, but even he preferred an E or some MDMA or just beers and strong dope.
As we all kind of expected, Gordon bypassed tertiary education and went straight into the workplace. The bloke Carmen was married to now, Albert, owned a blinds company, and invited Gordon in as a partner. Gordon thrived in the sales department, designing all-new brochures and ad campaigns, and learning the secrets behind running a successful small business. Within weeks he looked the part, wearing suits from Kenrays and scaping his hair all high and tight. Coming up the hill to Bathurst, well, it was a sort of release for Gordon I reckon; an escape from normality into a silly, fictional place full of silly, fictional people where he could kick back and let the mad theatre begin, snorting with laughter, sucking on pipes and pilsners, shaking his head at my weird, wild world. I loved it too. My best friend was still in my life; he wasn’t just a sword hung on the wall.
But it all came abruptly to an end, those awesome visits, somewhere between August and October of that first year. Gordon came up late one Friday night, he hadn’t even warned me, and when I laid eyes on him his face seemed different, stripped of the usual light and excitement that he exuded every time he arrived. He looked tired and spent. There was a BIG percussion troupe in town, the Bang Bang Brothers, and I was supporting them at the Rafters Bar with my original poetry band, Jack KeroSmack. I was all packed up to go when G arrived forlornly on the doorstep, suggesting we grab a pub meal or something, and failing to elaborate. I was already late for the sound check, I couldn’t wait any longer, and so he jumped in the back of the car, work suit on, and accompanied us to the gig. On the ride up to campus he asked me if we could go for a drive to Sofala tomorrow, where they’d filmed Sirens. Albert had told him what a unique and fascinating town it was, and only forty minutes away. I had been to Sofala heaps of times, but I didn’t tell him this, I just said, ‘Yeah, course’, and nodded in the rear-vision mirror.
The gig went off, my boys joining their boys on stage for a psycho jam session, the whole of Rafters loose and dancing. Seriously, the fucking roof nearly exploded. There were hula girls and fire dancing, dudes sliding about on computer chairs, and these sick, addictive rhythms accumulating and twisting in that invisible whirlpool between players. No one could resist the magic, except for Gordon, who was propped up on a stool by the bar, sipping on a warm beer and looking bored as fuck. I loved him, but for the first time I wished he hadn’t come up. He was making me feel guilty and stupid, when all I was doing was playing the truth of the jam, all I was doing was stretching my sound.
After the gig, the Bang Bang Brothers declared themselves stacked with magic mushrooms, announcing their plan to swing on up Mount Panorama with some instruments and a ton of booze and see where things took us. I packed up my bass and harmonicas, hugged my band and rolled on over to Gordon with the movement order. Gordon stood up as I reached him, his smile puffy with forced politeness, his eyes all cracked and red, nodding, oddly.
‘Nice gig, son,’ he said, slapping my shoulder.
‘You dug it?’
‘For sure, man, you’re getting good on that thing.’
‘Nothing else to do in this town but play,’ I said, setting my case down and searching for my fag pouch.
‘So what’s the go, now?’ Gordon asked, rubbing his hands together.
‘The Brothers want to get loose. Fuck, how amazing are they on the skins?’
‘Not bad, yeah. Bit showy…’ Gordon remarked.
‘Showy?’ I said, raising my brow up.
‘Bit much, but yeah, they got rhythm.’
‘I’d be showy too if I was them.’
‘Yeah,’ Gordon said.
There were knots in my stomach now, and I couldn’t unravel them with Gordon looking at me all smug like this.
‘You want to come up the hill with us? The boys have got mushrooms, we’re going to make a fire and go mad,’ I said.
‘Can’t we just go back to yours? Punch a couple of cones, have a chat or some shit?’ Gordon asked me, a massive disclosure on his behalf, to admit he needed ‘a chat’.
‘Man, the Bang Bang Brothers are in town like once a year, and they’re psycho for my outfit, like mentioning a possible tour and shit, we gotta go up and get loose with ’em, they’re like the most awesome guys, you’re going to love them… And mushrooms, man, you can get on the skins with them on shrooms!’
‘I don’t know if I’m up to it,’ Gordon said, wiping his tired eyes.
‘Fuck, dude.’ I looked around. The Bang Bang Brothers were waving to me from the stage door. I turned to Gordon. I knew there was something up, but I resented him for bringing it into my world like this. Perhaps I should’ve thrown the night away and gone for a cone and a chat with G, but I didn’t, I went on with things, so kill me. The Bang Bang Brothers were really wicked guys, although I never heard from them again after that night.
‘Alright, let’s go then,’ Gordon said, and he picked up my bass case and loped over to the Brothers, who stood smoking by the door.
Mount Panorama was home to the annual race week, namely the Bathurst 1000, when forty-five thousand revheads and rapists descended on the tiny town for six days of car racing, partying and chaos. They’d drink all day on the mountain, then come down at night into the town, lifting cars up at the lights, even if there were passengers in them, stripping parked cars of their wheels, and if they were Ford fans they’d destroy the Holdens, and Holden fans would destroy the Fords. Then they’d go looking for a fuck, and if they couldn’t find one, which was highly probable due mainly to the ratio of men to women in race week being around a thousand to one, they’d pick a fight. Basically you didn’t leave your house in race week. If you were a woman, and you went up on the mountain, you were your own responsibility. There was so much violence and so much rape, the police simply raised their hands and bid you good luck. It was quite a time on that hill.
But for the other fifty-one weeks Mount Panorama was a beautiful place to be, offering the most exquisite view of what I always believed was a gloriously cute city. Flow
ers grew on the shoulders, men panned for gold in the dam; there was a vineyard even, and a farmyard with alpacas and goats, offering such contrast to the colosseum of war and engines that the world knew it for.
We travelled up in Julien’s car. I can’t remember what was on the stereo, either something camp or the Red Hot Chili Peppers – that was the extent of his collection. Gordon stared out the window the whole journey, as if he was about to hurl or something, as if he was being sent somewhere ominous.
The mountain was rolling with theatre students when we arrived. There were dozens of bongo drums, some Tibetan peace flags draped between trees, a few forty-gallon drums raging with fire, fire sticks and fire breathers, twirlers and sword jugglers, guitars and a flautist, saxophones and other shit; already Amy Siegfried had her top off, displaying her limbo skills beneath a fluorescent skipping rope.
Julien brewed up the mushrooms in a pot of coffee and we all had a cup. Gordon opted out, settling for a cold beer and a scoob. He said he didn’t trust anything that came out of cow shit. I challenged him on this – he still drank milk, which came out of a cow’s penis – but he said there’s a big difference between a penis and an anus, and besides, it was an udder, not a dick that milk came from. I told him milk was only meant to be consumed by babies anyway, and he said, all churlish and weird, ‘Maybe I’m just a big baby then,’ and walked off over to the car where he sat down with the door open, drinking from a can of Tooheys New.
The mushrooms arrived in force, taking control of the entire operation, propelling me, Julien and the Bang Bang Brothers onto the grass, where we giggled like girls around the fire. We decided to delve into the woods, and so we all began crawling towards the bright light that speared through the column of thin trees. We crawled and crawled, penetrating the forest with mad faces – I could not look around, and I didn’t need to, I could feel the Brothers and Julien behind and around me, as we drilled deeper and deeper into the woods. It seemed like we had been crawling for hours, for miles, until Gordon appeared in front of me with a beer and a girl. He told me to turn around, and so I did, only to realise we were but six or seven metres from where we set out. Gordon shook his head at me, and asked when I was intending to go. I could not mouth the words that made up an answer; all I could do was laugh and dribble.
How it feels Page 10