I’ve just edited the story ‘Two Caterpillars in the desert’ which I posted yesterday. With my usual impatience, I posted before I thought to order the three parts correctly, and I thought of a better ending. If you have the patience, go to the website (justwrittenonline) to see how I meant it to read.
David

Part one—going north

Going to Alice Springs was my first big adventure without my family. It was April 1964, I was just 17, in my first few months at University in Adelaide; a country boy who hardly knew anybody, feeling well out of my depth. My one new friend, Paul, was 20, which seemed very mature to me. He had been working for three years at odd jobs in another area of rural South Australia, then signed on as a ‘cadet’ social worker which meant that the government was paying his fees in exchange for him agreeing to work for them for three years when he finished his degree. He had quite a bit of money, he’d had several girlfriends with whom he’d gone ‘all the way’, and he had a car. All things I wanted desperately. I tagged along, in his thrall. So when Paul asked me if I was interested in joining him on a car trip to Alice Springs, I couldn’t agree fast enough.

First step was to meet Paul’s landlord, Peter, who in addition to owning a couple of blocks of flats, was an earthmoving contractor. He had just finished a big job at a mine near Alice Springs, and needed his Caterpillar grader and front-end loader back in Adelaide as soon as possible. Paul, with his usual chutzpah, had suggested he get a mate from University, and the three of drive to Alice Springs then drive the two heavy vehicles and the car back. We would do it for free food and drink only, in exchange for a chance to see the real outback. Peter, always keen to save money, went for it, and so we met at a milk bar (no cafes in Adelaide then) to hear his plans.

It was going to take at least 10 days; three days up, three to four coming back at slower speeds, and two to three days in Alice Springs to build two connecting ‘A-frames’ so that we could have one big road train pulled from the front by the grader. This would save on petrol and diesel, and allow us to keep moving 24 hours a day, by rotating drivers. Looking back now, it’s hard to describe how excited I was. It felt like the beginning of being an adult. I rang my mother, and airily told her I wouldn’t be coming home for the University holidays, because I was going to Alice Springs to pick up a grader and front-end loader. There was silence for a few moments. She asked how far away Alice Springs was. I told her—a 1000 miles (1600 kilometres). More silence. ‘How long will you be gone?’ When I told her, more silence. Then she said quietly ‘Do you need any money?’ I didn’t, because I had been working to pay my fees, and that was that. As I write, it hits me for the first time what that call might have felt like for her.

Two days later, Peter Paul and I put our bags in the boot of Peter’s old Holden sedan and drove out of Adelaide. I had purchased a leather travel bag, a duffel coat with ‘real elk-horn’ toggles, and I brought along my brand new, very expensive German shoes. My thinking was that I wanted to look as cool as possible when we went out on the town in Alice Springs. Duffel coat, shiny shoes, studying arts at University, what could go wrong? I was buzzing—with any luck, the days of my virginity were numbered.

In those days, the road was bitumen only until Port Augusta; the first 300; with 1300 more of dirt to come. The plan was to reach somewhere near Coober Pedy, then camp out. In April, it was still warm and mainly sunny in the daytime, so it was a pleasant enough trip, although very bumpy after Port Augusta. But once we had set up our camp that evening, I found out a basic fact about deserts—they tend to be freezing at night. By ten o’clock it was about 6C, and the slight breeze cut through my fashionable but totally inadequate duffel coat. For the rest of the trip, I slept in all the clothes I had in my bag, including two pairs of socks, trying to get back to sleep when I woke up shivering, and delaying as long as I could before going out for a life-threatening pee.

After Coober Pedy, the opal mining town, the real outback began. The ‘road’ became an ephemeral thing, a choice between several tracks made by previous drivers trying to avoid areas churned into impassability by road trains. Mount Willoughby, our next stop, was somewhere about 250 kilometres north of us. Peter had a compass, and if a track seemed to heading too far east, he would go left for a while, hoping to pick up the main track again. This area is criss-crossed by river beds, empty most of the time, but occasionally raging with floods that can carry large boulders and whole gum trees until the water dissipates into inland lakes which fill only every twenty years or so. Luckily there was no rain forecast, but the deep valleys made by the rivers were often spectacularly wide, with a rocky riverbed at their deepest point. If we were on the wrong track when we came to one of these, we had to work our way along until we found an established track that allowed us to go down, across and up safely.

That night was even colder, which made me very miserable later, but it was a clear black sky in the desert; my first. Paul knew all the main constellations and galaxies and so on, and kept us entertained with star-gazing stories of the aboriginal dreamtime he had heard as a boy growing up in the country. I saw several shooting stars, and even a couple of satellites, which were rare in 1964. Paul’s guide to the stars actually impressed Peter, who by now I was beginning to realise assumed that he was across everything a real man needed to know, while we were a pair of soft students who knew not much. He wasn’t far wrong about me.

At Mount Willoughby we filled the tanks with petrol. The station-owner told us he was amazed at how busy the road was getting. We were the tenth car through that day. ‘Like Rundle Street in Adelaide out here’. He’d seen a tourist bus the day before, with about 40 people on board. ‘They weren’t too pleased when I told them we didn’t have toilets here—told them they were going to have to wait till they got to Kulgera before they could have a shit, a shower and a schnitzel.’

Kulgera is right on the South Australian/Northern Territory border, and we pulled in that evening. In the road-house, we were greeted by two astonishingly pretty young women behind the counter. Peter had forewarned us not to look at them for long, or try to be flirty in any way. There was no risk of that from this shrinking violet, but Paul might otherwise have tried his charming and funny best. Peter explained that the father, a large Greek-Australian man who was making hamburgers as we came in, was bringing the girls up on his own, his wife having left for parts unknown. His basic premise was that any man who got familiar with either of his girls would marry them or he would kill them. He kept a shotgun beneath the bar for this and related purposes. Knowing Paul quite well by now, I was very much on edge until we got out of there. A typical patter from him, such as ‘Hello darling, what’s happening around here tonight—you look like you know what’s going on’ and it could have all ended right there.

It was on to Alice Springs the next morning. But matters were about to get complicated. A fireside chat went very wrong that night

Part two –into Alice Springs

At sunrise, it was teeth-chatteringly cold in Kulgera. We had a chat with two police officers in their patrol car. They had been sent from Alice Springs to catch two bank-robbers who were coming north from Adelaide. This is before GPS, mobile phones and all the other ways that people can be tracked. Because all people driving north had to go through Kulgera to get fuel, all the police had to do was wait. They estimated they had about an hour to kill. What a poorly-conceived escape plan. Probably the huge, isolated outback seemed like a great place to hide, but it was exactly the opposite. As duly reported in the news that night, they stepped out of the car into the waiting arms of the constables right on cue.

But that morning, Peter and I were not talking about bank robbbers, or anything at all. The night before, he began to tell us about some of his sexual conquests, more bombastically with each beer. Initially it was OK, but as his contempt for women became ever more obvious, I tried to opt out of the conversation. He got aggressive, and I should have known you can’t argue with a drunk. ‘What’s the matter, David, you don’t want to fuck women?’ I asked him how many women he had slept with, and he said it would have been about 50. I sailed on into danger, asking him if he had considered marrying any of them. He said no, because they were sluts, and he wanted to marry a virgin. It was 1964, and Peter was a very conservative Italian-Australian man in his mid-30’s, but I was still angry enough to ask him if having sex with so many women made him a slut.

Quickly he was on his feet and in my face, jabbing my chest with his finger. He was beetroot-red and he was spitting and slurring with each word. ‘In this world pal, there are the hunters and the hunted. If you don’t know that you know nothing’. I stood my ground, legs trembling, and then he turned away, threw his beer-bottle into the night and yelled over his shoulder at me to shut up and speak only when spoken to from now on. Paul told me later that he fully expected Peter to punch me at least, if not produce the knife he often mentioned. I didn’t sleep at all that night, convinced he might attack me again. The memory of that fear is so sharp: fifty four years later my pulse is racing as I write this.

So it was a quiet, tense scene at breakfast. After speaking with the police patrol, we packed up and drove into Alice Springs.

If you haven’t been there, the country is stunning. Dust as red as cayenne pepper, mountains rising purple out of the desert, huge gum trees lining creek-beds, and flocks of birds, mainly brightly coloured parrots, wheeling around in a perfectly blue desert sky. The route into Alice itself is via a gorge—it feels as if you are entering another world through a magic door. We went to a river bed known as Todd River and set up camp, near encampments of aboriginal families. Peter left us, to check out the current whereabouts of his earthmoving machines, and Paul and I had a quiet morning to write letters, explore near the camp, and, in my case, catch up on lost sleep.

Peter returned late in the day, and announced we were going into town to have a meal. I considered my lovely new shoes, and my earlier optimism about such opportunities, but I was still shaken after the previous night, so my old boots stayed on. The pub we went to served a great steak and chips, and the beer was cold. A guy Peter knew joined us, and started to tell us about ‘the boongs’—the local aboriginal people. I don’t want to repeat most of the things he said—suffice to say it was raw, corrosive, hateful racism of a type I had never experienced firsthand. This was before 1967, and the referendum that gave aboriginal people Australian citizenship, when the practice known in Alice Springs as ‘nigger farming’ was still widespread. This consisted of collecting the pension payments for all the aboriginal people on your property, then giving them some food—flour, sugar, beans and so on—and having them work for the cattle station without a wage. It was said that with about 50 such pensioners on your land, you got more income than you could from the cattle.

After the events of the night before, I decided to shut up. I felt dirtied somehow, stuck in a space I hated, but not saying anything. Paul was feeling the same, and back in the tent we whispered long into the night about what to do with our feelings. Over the years, both of us went on to work that tried to redress aboriginal disadvantage and marginalisation, I think Paul to greater effect than me.

Peter was in his element for the next two days—wheeling and dealing for parts for the two vehicles, the steel for the horizontal connecting A-frames and the welding equipment. I saw a different side of him—the completely uneducated man who was naturally brilliant at mechanical tasks, and most at peace when he was doing them. I acted as unskilled assistant, not speaking unless I had to, and we got the A-frames built and attached to the vehicles in exactly the time he had predicted. The result was awesome—a 25-metre long road train; the grader in front, the front-end loader next, and the car on the back. I can see the A-frame on the front of the car in my mind, but I can’t remember how it was attached to the chassis.

By the middle of the second day in Alice, Peter and I were talking fairly freely, which was a huge relief. As long as we avoided any discussion of women or aboriginal people we were OK. We even had a friendly debate about religion (I know, I know, I couldn’t help myself risking it) in which he said he had stopped believing in God when his mum died young. We were almost on the same page on that one. Anyway, we got the jobs done without any obvious rancour, and the whole caravan was ready to leave. That night we went to the pub again. I felt much better, so I decided to wear my best gear, including the new shoes. Disaster! One was missing. I looked everywhere, but it has not been seen since to my knowledge. I had one perfect, unused, fine leather German shoe. Probably a week’s wages for a young man down the drain which in today’s terms means at least $400. What can you do with the other one? Certainly not look cool enough to attract the right sort of attention from the young women in Alice Springs. I left Alice Springs astride a Cat 12 grader, with one shoe and none of the sensual memories I had hoped for. I kept that shoe for a couple of years, then gave in to the obvious and put out in the rubbish.

Part 3 the return trip

Outside a service station, where Peter was farewelling his business partner, a dog wandered up to me, wagging its tail. As I walked to pet it, Peter appeared and told me to back off. I looked up to see a man on a motorbike with sidecar looking at me intently. I froze, the dog looked disappointed, then trotted back and jumped into the sidecar. The man was wearing an old army greatcoat, and had a long beard. As he drove off, he threw me a glare that suggested I was right to back off. Peter explained that this was a lone prospector, and the dog was his only companion in the desert. Such men could get very upset if their dog received affection from anybody else.

Driving out of the town, people looked in amazement at our enormous road train, waving and calling out, ‘Where are you guys off to?’ Up in the cabin, with Peter driving, I felt pretty special, with us passing out of the entrance gorge and returning to the desert in such grand style. Peter told Paul and I about the grader’s controls, emphasising that ‘The hand-brake is useless—never rely on it, you have to be able to come to a smooth halt without brakes.’ More on that later. He also showed us how the gearbox had no synchromesh, which meant the only way to change down when in motion was to double-declutch. Best not to try was his advice; if in doubt, we should put it in neutral and coast to a stop. I wish I had listened.

It was about 25C when we left. By midday I had stripped to a T-Shirt and shorts. But by early evening, when Peter surprised me by saying, ‘Alright David, you take over’, it was cooling rapidly. Paul and Peter retired to the car at the back, and I drove on at a stately top speed of 30 kilometres an hour. By 9 o’clock at night, I was wearing all the clothes I had. The night was freezing, and I leaned close to the exhaust pipes to get some heat. Then I heard the car horn tooting. I stopped, and Peter told me they were taking the car off the A-frame, so that they could sleep, and I could go a bit faster. 40 kilometres an hour! But soon after, a new problem. I had to leave the main track because it was impassable, and then found myself lost in the dark. I stopped, and turned off the motor, to see if I could get my bearings. Of course the lights went off as well. As I climbed off, I realised it was a pitch-black cloudy night, and I could see very little. I spotted ghostly shapes, probably small trees, and heard animal noises. I felt the silence closing in on me, and without warning, I got into a state of panic—I had to get the grader going and get out of here.

After a tense minute with the starter motor groaning, I actually cheered as the diesel roared into life, the lights came on, and the grader started to move. The relief was immense, and I started singing ‘Hit the road Jack’ as loud as I could. Soon after, I found the main track, and drove along in good cheer until Peter and Paul drew alongside in the car, around 2AM. Peter congratulated me on making good speed and not getting lost. I said nothing, happy to go back to the car and get some sleep.

Late the next day, all this satisfaction and companionship came to a sticky end, and it was all my fault. I was driving alone again, with the other two back in the car, when I came to a deep river bed. I had been timing the five-mile markers, and knew I was averaging 40 with the car on the back. I was chuffed, so when I saw this valley coming up, I decided to put my foot to the floor and get down and up without having to change gear. I so nearly made it. About 50 metres to go uphill, as the whole rig slowed to a crawl, I tried to double de-clutch into a lower gear. I missed it with a noisy grinding of gear teeth, so I went for the hand-brake. No effect, as so rightly forecast by Peter. A moment of stillness, then we started to roll backwards. When we reached the bottom, I jumped down and ran back, to find Peter and Paul scrambling out of the car, which had jack-knifed to a crazy angle, but seemed undamaged.

Peter was furious of course, but so was Paul, who had feared for his life moments before. Peter got into the grader, said ‘Get in the car now’ and started driving. After about an hour, during which nothing was said between Paul and I, we came to the outskirts of a town called Kingoonya. Peter stopped, came back to the car, and said ‘David, out, take your bag and start walking.’ Paul asked if I had any money. I said yes, although I knew I only had about $5. I waited at the side of the road as they drove away, in abject misery. It was a long walk into town, and I feeling quite desperate just before I got there, when a farm ute pulled up alongside, and a guy said ‘Get in mate.’ He took me to the pub with no questions, other than where I was going to.

The publican looked at me, curiously dressed in a duffel coat, with the longer hair of a student, and said ’Have you got any money?’ I told him the truth, and a couple of other drinkers said “Get him a beer—it’s on us’. Then the publican fed me at no cost, and suggested I take a shower. Once that was done, the business of me getting back to Adelaide became the priority, with all involved making suggestions. The best idea was the train that was due in an hour or so. While the driver was in the pub, I could board one of the empty passenger cars, and hitch a ride back to Port Augusta. With the driver duly distracted by my co-conspirators, I scampered around to the far side of the train and climbed on. I hid on the floor until the train was under way, then made myself comfortable on a seat. I was exultant for a while, but soon the adrenaline ran out, and I slept for eight hours without waking.

I woke to the sound of a whistle, and realised the train was stationary. The whistle was from a man checking around the carriages in the Port Augusta railyards. As soon as he was past my carriage, I jumped out and walked as casually as I could across the tracks to the highway. I’d done it. I was back within hitch-hiking distance of home, and I still had my $5. Two truck-rides later, I was in the northern suburbs of Adelaide.

I got on a bus, which cost me about 50 cents in those days, and slumped into a seat. It all felt a bit surreal, but it hit me right then that this was exactly what I’d hoped it would be. A real adventure, without any help from my family; one I would be talking about for years to come. Of course it was only a tiny step on the road to growing up, a journey I think is still far from finished, but I did feel a different person to the one who set out only ten days before.

Next day, on the front page of the newspaper, there was a headline and picture, without me in it, about the ‘75-foot road train from Alice Springs that made it to Adelaide. ’ Looking at Peter and Paul, dwarfed by those muddy giant machines made me feel very alone, but I was proud that I made it home on my own. Writing this, I feel a surge of affection for that boy that turned into me. Impatient, naive and sometimes very foolish, but brave and resourceful when it counted. A deep sense that I could take big risks and survive was being forged. Along with a hunch that my next major fuck-up would never be too far away.

Going for a coffee this morning, we had to wait while for a table to become available. Whatever the economy is doing, good cafes seem to proliferate and boom regardless. While we stood outside, a group of people came towards us, one man making earnest efforts to get the ear of a tall good-looking guy who seemed to be the centre of attraction. I belatedly recognised him as the Leader of the Opposition in our State Parliament, who inherited the job a few months ago when the previous leader and Premier lost the election. He is seen as a star of the new generation of Labor Party leaders; one to watch. He certainly looks and sounds very impressive so far, although trying to get much of the conservative media’s attention, when they are absorbed in an orgy of mutual back-slapping with the new Premier, seems set to be a long and unrewarding haul.

Watching this little piece of street politics, on a Sunday morning, reminded me yet again of the reasons I have never been remotely tempted to run for public office. The closest I ever came was to join a party a couple of years ago, when I was about to retire. Most of my roles in both the government and non-government sectors have made any obvious political leaning unwise. A few times, colleagues who chose differently have been shown the door, the day after an election result that didn’t favour their friends. In some of my jobs there were plenty of risks of me getting the sack, even without me being silly enough to make my politics an additional problem. So I kept my views on the stormy matters of the day to myself most of the time, even though I know conservative governments generally view people in human services executive positions (other than ones they have appointed recently) as left-leaning. ‘A vipers’ nest of chardonnay socialists’ was how one political apparatchik described us to me in private. So I trod very carefully, and I think I’m right in saying it never became an issue for my career. Both sides gave me good jobs, and both sides sacked me for other reasons.

Anyway, back to why being a politician doesn’t appeal. Most of my positions brought me into close contact with political staffers and their bosses, so I think I’m reasonably well-informed when I say that apart from lazy back-bench time servers, most politicians, and certainly most front-bench ones, work ridiculous hours, under unrelenting pressure to always say the right thing, and so lose most of the freedoms that I hold dear. Dinner at home with guests—a chance to relax? Only if you’re absolutely sure no-one will report to your political enemies every word you say. Somebody on your staff needs to be brought into line? If they find fault with your handling of the matter, or just plain dislike you for telling them off, who will they complain to? The political class live this way all the time, and if they are not very, very good at these games, they will always be in danger—if not of complete banishment, at least of losing any chance of getting to the top.

The pressure to be available to just about anyone who wants to speak with them is constant. Although political staff have proliferated in the last decade or two, and they do deflect a lot of the petitioners and seekers of special treatment, there are still more people to talk to than I could possibly attend to properly—and they must always do it carefully, politely and with all their radar on full alert for possible advantages and dangers. One chief-of-staff told me I was the 200th person the Minister had spoken to one-on-one in her office so far that month. This was in the context of why I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much on my topic de jouer, but what struck me was the sheer volume of it—I thought I was busy if I met one-on-one with a few people every day. And I often saw evidence that the leading political lights could remember each of those 200, what their issue was, and at least make up some lines that suggested they had been mulling it over ever since. Staggering really. And I know I couldn’t do it.

Many of the people who make it to these tete-a-tetes with the decision-makers are well-paid professional lobbyists, as was I, I suppose, uncomfortable as that feels to admit. As a class we are well resourced to prepare our positions, which are designed to make it obvious to the Minister or whoever that this is a risk-free, affordable and elegant solution that will benefit the deserving, while reflecting well on the politician with the insight to bring it up with their leaders. Occasionally this may all be true, but the experienced politician will treat all of it with the careful restraint it demands.

I remember one Minister (I am still putting a capital letter on Minister, even in retirement. Go figure.) who asked me to sit in with him, as a group of very senior professionals put a case to him that a particular government policy had gone too far, and it was time to slow down for a year or two before more people were hurt. After hearing them out, and asking several questions politely, he bade them farewell, but asked me to stay. When he was sure they were out of hearing, he turned to me and said ‘David, was that the shrill cacophony of professional self-interest or the clarion voice of the actual end-user?’ I said it was mainly the former, and he replied ‘I thought as much, but I wanted to hear another opinion’. That was a top politician at work, doing business like that many times a day, every day. No thanks.

I’ve just finished watching the final episode of a spy series, ‘The Bureau’, which is from France. I liked it so much that I actually cheered during one scene, as the central character gasped with relief when an agent was saved from some Libyan insurgents. The body count was significant, but I, like our hero apparently, barely gave that a thought. The important thing was that after many close shaves, written about and filmed with exquisite attention to tense dialogue, plots and sub-plots, something a bit better than bad has more or less prevailed.

Why do so many of us lap up crime and spy thrillers, with endless offerings in film, books (fiction and non-fiction) and even live theatre? When I go to bookshops in airports, about 50%-60% of everything for sale is from these genres. I, of course, literary snob that I am, only choose authors I think are very good writers, who don’t use too much gratuitous violence, and who offer me characters that I find intriguingly likable, or at least compulsively watchable/readable. And of course, in my case, a political positioning that is either middle-of-the road or a little left of centre. A number of American authors fail me on this, writing as if it is unarguable that American ‘free world’ values and resourcefulness will always prove to be just that little bit better than everybody else’s in the end.

Maybe political is the wrong word here—maybe it is philosophical; about my hunch that the world is inevitably full of shades of grey and not black and white. So I crave subtlety of characterisation and narrative that muddies the difference between the good guys and the bad. Making it possible for insightful readers ( like myself of course) to spot the fine shades of virtue that justify our hero’s chicanery and occasional violence as necessary to coming out alive, often barely, believing he or she has contributed to some small incremental gain for civilisation. It helps if the protagonist has doubts all the way through, only in the end being prepared to draw the line in the sand that they can’t or won’t step over.

At a literary festival, I once asked a panel of crime writers about why their heroes were so often dysfunctional losers in every aspect of their life except crime fighting. I prefaced the question by saying that these were exactly the characters that drew me in, and I was interested in their views on what this was all about. A couple of the authors needed interpreters, so something may have been lost in the exchange, but none of them were very keen to explore this. Bored even. I was a bit disappointed, because to me, it is obviously such an important ingredient in these genres. Maybe so obvious that they thought my question was dumb.

Our hero never succeeds for long in relationships, with lovers, or even with their own children. They often drink and smoke too much, and spend much of the plot trying to control this. Essentially they are loners, and most of their colleagues are wary of them; impressed in some ways because of their record of success, but confused or straight out-furious at their refusal to be loyal team players who will always stick up for the tribe. This mixture of brilliance and anarchical tendencies means that they have risen through the ranks to where they are in on the planning around weighty matters, and in contact with people like politicians and criminal masterminds. But they are not allowed to go higher. Inspector, even chief inspector, but never superintendent. Major but never colonel. Team leader but never director. Many spend parts of the story suspended from duty while they are investigated for insubordinate or morally questionable behaviour. Will they get their badge and gun back? Of course they will, but what a frustrating and winding track back it is. Will their white-anting nemesis in the force get the good kicking they deserve (rarely fatal of course, because they are needed in the next book or film)? Yes they will, and if the author has done well, we will just love it.

The superior officers in these scenarios will usually contain one long-standing loyal supporter. He or she closes the door and says something like, ‘You might have gone too far this time lonesome hero—I’m not sure even I can protect you this time.’ Or, ‘OK, you have 48 hours to get this done; after that you’re on your own.’ Because of course the supporter is surrounded by colleagues and higher masters who can’t wait to get rid of our irksome hero. The supporter is a loser in some ways too—not likely to get to the very top, because of their tendency to forgive misbehaviour and even tolerate some disloyalty in the greater cause. But they are usually a bit more stable than our hero, because they have to remain a rock. They do have a loving partner, and the pair often think of the hero as the son or daughter they never had (or, in another frequent trope, lost tragically).

So here we have her or him. At an AA meeting, after being shot, beaten up and/or threatened with dismissal, unable to trust most of their colleagues, but within an ace of realising what is going on with the crime or terror threat they have precious little time to solve. Smashing the bottle of scotch, flushing the ciggies down the toilet, saying ‘Some other time darling’ to a sexually tempting distraction, and crashing through all the barriers to triumph yet again, by the thinnest of margins. If it all seems more or less plausible, and the writing/cinematography/acting is great, I, and millions like me, will be back for more, and more, and more.

Finishing books

I’m trying to read a book I can’t get enthused about. I’m not up to the usual 100 pages I give it to find out if it’s worth going on with, so I might persevere for another chapter or two. I’m a life-long bookworm. Starting in year 5 primary school, by the end of year 6, I had read every book in our little classroom book cupboard (this was before school libraries). Every boys’ book, girls’ book, encyclopaedia, atlas, old ‘National Geographic’ magazines; whatever the teacher put in there. In recent years, I’ve been devouring about 80-100 books a year, but I’ve become a bit more choosy– maybe 20% get the flick when the initial promise is not fulfilled.

I pick a book based on the cover, the topic and the reviews. Top reviews like the Guardian, New Yorker, TLS, etc, tend to get me in, and recent prize-winners are always worth a look. But even when all those boxes are ticked, I can still find myself grinding to a reluctant halt. The three main hooks that keep me going are a great story, excellent writing, and key characters that I start to care about. It doesn’t have to be three out of three. A couple of years ago I read the story of Madame Cliquot, of champagne fame. The writing was almost excruciatingly bad, but the story was so engrossing, and I liked her so much, that I ploughed on. The first woman to run a champagne house, and the actual inventor of modern clear bubbly, she beat ridiculous odds of sexism, labour troubles, war and family tragedy to become the matriarch of an industry that was on its knees early in the 19^th Century. Could she manage to disgorge 10,000 bottles on her own, with all her workforce on strike? Could she find a way to break through the British naval blockade to get her champagne to Russia? It was impossible to put down.

Conversely, writing that flows poetically, surprising, shocking and moving me, can make a mundane story or an unconvincing plot worth persisting with. In fact, as I write this, I realise the only consistent turn-off is when I actually dislike the key character, or at least don’t care what happens to them next. Even in a biography, where the ‘true life’ aspect gives any story a few bonus points, if it becomes increasingly obvious that the subject is a not particularly interesting and/or totally unpleasant person, no amount of sparkling prose and interesting history will keep me going. Especially if the biographer fails to add any new insights about the events and people they are describing.

So my ‘best books’ are, unsurprisingly, the ones that have all three qualities. I’ve just finished reading one that makes the cut– ‘Less’ by Andrew Sean Greer. It had the catching cover, the reviews and the prizes a-plenty. It is so well written that I kept asking my partner to let me read the best paragraphs aloud to her. She, sensibly, told me to let her read it. (A week later, and now she is reading them out to me!). Simple one-liners with a twist stay with you– ‘It was one of those San Francisco bars that was neither gay nor straight, just odd’. The story, a man of 49 facing a lonely middle age, resonates with events in my own life, and I’m sure of many others. It is the funniest book I’ve read for a while, and I cared very much what might happen next to our hapless protagonist.

And the book before that–I almost forgot. ‘Circe’ by Madeline Miller. What a roller coaster of a journey that was. From page one she asked me to get into the world of gods and mortals in ancient times. Monsters, spells, enormous violence and earthy sex had me page turning in total absorption, cheering on the heroic but conflicted Circe, who is a witch but not quite a god. Way outside my usual genres of choice, but it delivered those in-the-moment, in another world experiences that great books are all about. To top off the package, the writing itself could make me laugh, clap and cry. Whatever Madeline Miller writes next, I’m in.

Back to my current book, the one I’m struggling with, ‘Invitation to a Bonfire’ by Adrienne Celt. It looked so good, and the publishers gush got me in—‘Part psychological suspense, part literary puzzle, a smart seductive thriller.’ Set in 1920’s Russia and 1930’s America. What could go wrong? Of course I should confess that it is an advance copy, so the real reviews are not available yet. I know that whatever publishers and their obedient client authors write, it might be of the ‘Well, they would say that wouldn’t they?’ variety. Kind of sad really; that I don’t trust all these authors, some of them wonderful writers, to give an unbiased review. Their couple of paragraphs on the back cover can be very lucid enticements. But everything in an advance copy is marketing spin, aimed at getting booksellers to stock it. And, regrettably, this time it turns out to be not much to my liking. A complicated plot structure, too many names to remember, and a central character I just can’t get acquainted with. Ah well. At least these uncorrected proofs don’t cost me anything. When I pay $30 or more, I usually feel obliged to try a little harder. Maybe it will begin to make sense in the next chapter—I’m doubtful, but the author has probably put a year’s work into this, so an hour or two more seems the least I can do.

Adelaide has a nice buzz at the moment, around the Festival Centre at least. The annual Cabaret Festival has begun, bringing in some top-line acts from around the country and the world. Friday night was the grand opening, and we were there.

Before the show we came upon what seemed to be a sort of members-only event, with glamourous people serving Pol Roger champagne to other, mostly older, glamourous people. The door was well guarded so we could only look on wistfully at first. Then Charmaine suggested we look for another way in, which we found. We slipped quietly amongst the throng as all backs were turned, because the Premier of South Australia was giving an opening speech. I must say it seemed a little bizarre to see our newly-minted conservative party leader breathlessly extolling the whole burlesque scene, essentially a range of shows celebrating swearing, nudity and fluidity of gender, along with very good singing, dancing and music. I’m not sure if he actually risks attending the Festival other than to open it.

Anyway, it took us quite a while to sidle around to where the Pol Roger was running out fast, but we made it in time for a glass or two. So there we were, surrounded by the well-heeled and very nicely dressed, sipping very superior bubbly, with not a single suspicious glance coming our way. It was delicious to be a bit naughty and get away with it. To add to the surreal, I met an old colleague, who is cleaning many things with high pressure water; driveways, houses, old pipelines in the Outback and whatever else people will pay him to make it like new again. It was a surprisingly interesting conversation. Whatever pays the mortgage is good I guess, but this guy just loves his work, his team, and his success in a niche market.

Last night was the first headline act, and I didn’t see the Premier. I’m not surprised—it was definitely not from the conservatives’ playbook, at least what they do in public. It was basically about how the star, Em Rusciano, was in trouble because she called the media a ‘pack of c—ts’, the dialogue interspersed with drinking from a bottle of what looked like rose until she seemed to me to be a bit drunk.

So to the show. It was a new scene for me. I’ll get to the excellent music later, but first other matters. Em has a huge Facebook following in Australia, I think nearly 300,000 people, who she says are mainly women 18 to 50 and gay men. She played to them, and it became clear most of the audience were from what she calls her ‘movement’. The core theme is not being hesitant about being ‘difficult and noisy’ women when facing unequal treatment, and the crowd roared their agreement whenever asked. It felt more like a political rally more than a stage show at times.

Of course it’s great to see such large numbers of people getting on board with a bolshy, take-no-prisoners attitude to confront sexism. She is clearly reaching an audience much wider than a more theoretical approach will appeal to. That’s exciting and much-needed in an age when so many younger women are not identifying as feminists. But (you just knew there was a ‘but’ coming) I had two misgivings. One was that it’s not necessary to be difficult and noisy all the time, as she seems to be. In fact she repeatedly said she was. Clarity and bravery in the face of oppressive behaviour is one thing; highly desirable and still in short supply. Demanding to be the centre of attention and to get your own way most of the time is a whole different thing, and to my ears, she chooses to ignore the difference.

My other issue was the personality cult she is clearly comfortable to be the star of. We heard all night about how much she needed her fans’ support to get through difficult times, as if her battles were emblematic of every woman’s struggle. She called on them to ‘grow this movement with her’, and then gave the example again and again of how people in the media are angry at her right now, because she responded to some negative reporting by saying they were ‘all a bunch of c—ts’. ‘We can beat these c—ts if we stick together’. To me, it seems like a shaky foundation, a questionable cause, if it is essentially about a very highly paid radio announcer having the right to talk like this in public. OK, I gather her ‘difficult woman’ persona has been developing over time based on a wide range of issues. But last night it was all about her. Her ratings have been falling, which is why there was media analysis, possibly unfair, about the causes. It left me uneasy, impressed that she is at an important battlefront, but not sure it is for all the right reasons.

But back to the music. Em Rusciano is a sensational singer, and her backing group was sublime. She belts out cabaret numbers with a thrillingly strong voice, and includes the band and backing singers with generous praise and solo opportunities. A class act all round, showing great teamwork between some very fine musicians. The range of material was just right, ending with a hard-driving version of Nina Simone’s ‘I got life’ that had everyone standing and cheering. This is what I came for, and I got more than my money’s worth. We have five more shows this week. What a lifestyle!

All quiet here at the moment. Gas fire humming like the sound in a ship’s cabin, jazz playing softly. Faint sounds of building works in the distance. Apart from a snoozing partner on the couch, I could imagine this suburb is empty.

Of course it’s not. It is a week day and mid-afternoon, so many are at work or just getting out of school. Many houses will fill up in the next couple of hours, adding to the largely hidden population of shift and part-time workers, pensioners, unemployed people and ever-larger numbers of retired folks like me. But then and now, these streets look so deserted most of the time.

We spend a lot of time in Indonesia, mainly Bali, and the contrast is stark. Arriving home, after the bustle of the airport, it’s on to roads where there is almost no-one on the footpaths, or in the front yards of houses and businesses. OK, after about 10 PM it’s like this in Asia, because everyone goes to bed. But from around 5.30 AM till 10 PM every facet of daily living, for all age groups, is on show. Children as young as five coming and going from school, men on bicycles with huge loads from the fields and factories, whole families on one motor bike, small, medium and large buses and trucks. And everywhere, people at their front gates talking, showing off their babies, watching, selling, and washing the dishes, clothes and themselves in the roadside stream. It’s intoxicating, and it’s why so many of us keep returning to Asia for a fix of this lovely mayhem.

So back to suburban Adelaide. The generation before me say that life was lived out front of the house until the early fifties. Most people hadn’t got around to the family room extensions at the back and brush fences in the front. Houses were rarely empty, with mothers, little children and grand-parents visible most of the day. Children were walking or riding to school from an early age. Corner shops meant a good proportion of shopping was done by walking a short distance, often meeting other locals on the way. Television, bigger extensions, back-yard pools and fewer people at home during the day, especially women, have all played roles, along with the perverse belief that the streets have become unsafe.

All the evidence shows that there is less crime of the ‘stranger-danger’ type, but I often find myself a lone voice when I bemoan something like the low number of kids who ride to school compared to my childhood days. ‘There’s so much more traffic’, ‘You just don’t know what perverts might be out there’, and even ‘Maybe there is less crime because parents are more responsible about these things now’. When it’s people I love, from my own family circles, I know when to shut up in these conversations. And it’s not just the young ones. I’ve read various surveys showing that people older than me feel unsafe in their homes, often accompanied by the ‘It’s not like in my younger days’ type of quote to seal the point.

But I do think we have lost a lot that’s good for all of us, including kids, by giving in to the dark side that screams from the news every day. Some of life’s most important skills and lessons are learnt when bunches of kids play together around neighbourhoods. Of course accidents happen, fights break out, and hearts are broken for a while by cruel insults and friends lost. But plans are made and acted out, dreams of the future are talked about endlessly, riding, running, kicking and catching skills are constantly reinforced and friendships can be made that endure for life. Short-changing kids on so much of those unscripted, unplanned, unsupervised times, on the basis of ensuring their greater safety, seems like a category error in parenting history, which at the very least means they will have a lot less fun than I did.

I’m not going to join in the chorus of amateur child development theorists who say these changes will produce a more inward-looking, selfish, less socially aware and less robust generation of young people. Growing up is so complex, influenced by so many variables of nature and nurture, that for all I know the many advantages of social media, better education and generally older, more mature parents may be more than outweighing these losses of freedom.

So there you have it. I ’m joining another chorus, that of amateur anthropologists, with a gross over-simplification. We stay inside the front gate, and in Asia, they don’t. I can’t be sure it bodes well for those kids in the streets of Bali, but they look so engaged and enthused to me. I actually don’t know the comparative crime statistics for Bali and Australia, but I have noticed that it’s the ex-pats who talk about muggings and robberies there, never the locals. The locals clearly believe life on the streets is an essential part of growing up, and I think the evidence on their side. Yes, I admit it, I’d dearly love to see our kids and all the rest of us in, or at least visible from the street more of the time. I think we all get more out of living in groups, and every street has groups aplenty, just waiting to be enjoyed.

 

 

 

Sitting down to have a coffee with my partner this morning, I saw a colleague from the past coming to the next table. He was and is a striking-looking man, tall, strongly built, blessed with good looks and a charming open-smiling face. I’m guessing he is about 65 now.

We started off in the usual way, with him asking if I was still working. After I spoke for a few minutes about my volunteer activities in retirement, I introduced him to Charmaine. Then came from me, ‘So what are you up to?’ ‘Well, I’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma. I’ve had two good years since then, but time is running out’. How conversations can veer off so far in one sentence.

He explained in some detail what has happened so far, including the initial surgical procedure to empty 600 mm of fluid from his lungs. This was very successful, but it can only be done once, so chemotherapy is the remaining intervention, and he is not at all sure he wants to go down that path, just to gain a bit more time. ‘There’s four tumours, they are growing near my heart, and my lung walls are beginning to leak again.’

His quality of life has been good up to now, although he is starting to tire after even short bursts of activity. His days of golf and sailing are nearly over. He and his wife have moved house, to be closer to their grandchildren. This time, it is a smaller house and garden that she will be able to manage later, on her own. It is also close to where they lived as young parents, where their children went to the same school as mine. That brought back a memory of getting several dads together to get organised football underway for the boys, because ‘It was ridiculous that there wasn’t a team.’ He was a noted footballer in his day, and had some famous mates (I use the word ‘famous’ to mean star players in one code of football in one small state of Australia) to help them.

A little more of this, then Charmaine asked if he knew about her bookshop, which is the in next suburb to their new home. He knows it well in fact, and had been in a couple of days ago. The discussion then easily segued to shared colleagues from the health system where we had all worked at some time. He talked animatedly about the job he had for about thirty years, working as a team with a close friend to build up a widely-respected service from very humble beginnings. It is obviously still a source of great pride and satisfaction.

The discussion lasted a few more minutes, all of us I guess digesting the fact of his tenuous grasp on time to savour such common experiences as these. We shook hands and walked away, with me thinking this was very likely our last meeting.

I feel heavy now, a few hours later, reflecting on the fragility of it all. He has no idea how he came into contact with asbestos, the most likely cause of mesothelioma, but doesn’t seem very upset about that. I guess the lack of some plausible route to ill-health leaves those of us in good health more rattled because we can’t adopt preventive measures even if we wanted to. That scary possibility that doing all the right things might not make any difference. Like a cartoon in the New Yorker where a gravestone reads ‘Even though I ate so much kale’.

All of us face these fears up close from time to time; increasingly often with late middle age. The usual thing is to say that we need to make every day count; to stop putting off life experiences we’ve been thinking about for ages, etc, etc, etc. I feel like I’m well down that path anyway, but maybe each reminder/scare/loss gets us a bit closer to living a fuller life while we can–whether it’s loving, giving, learning or just enjoying. It just feels as if there ought to be something more to make of such existential angst; some exciting new insight that will make sense of it all, even for a rational (well, most days) humanist like myself. Something like the sharp detail that shows up in the light before an approaching storm. That would be so much better than the possibility that these are just bullets that graze you from time to time until it’s your turn.