Shark, p.8
Shark, page 8
‘Hot and quickly both sides, eh? Sounds good there, Maree. So, there we are listeners, get yourself down to, say, Canals in Nicholson Street, and ask the man behind the counter for a roughy and see his little eyes light up. And you eat him up safe in the knowledge that the Southern Ocean Fishing Co-operative at Tired Seamen will make sure you get another one next year.’ The producer in the control booth had her head in her hands.
‘This was a conservation story Tony, not a bloody quick cook segment. You know conservation? Looking after something other than yourself.’
‘You look after your little self up there, Cecily; I’m off for a good old kidney burning coffee, I don’t worry about tomorrow. Thanks Maree, I’ll remember the wet fish when I think of you.’ He tossed his earphones on the desk and left.
The producer spoke on the intercom.
‘Ah, Maree, he likes to be the one telling the jokes, honey. You’ve probably guessed that one by now. He’s a man, he can’t help being an idiot. Thanks for the piece, Maree. Good luck with the fish, eh.’
Maree left the radio building and felt the prickly agitation of adrenalin she always felt after these ten-minute rushes in the studio, but this time there was an edge of antagonism too – she’d like to burst the pretty lips of good old Radio Tony.
She had press releases to drop off at newspapers and magazines, a routine call at the Department to check on how things were going and then her first priority was a shower to wash away the grittiness, embarrassment and anger. Most of the interviews were cosy news pieces. ‘Oh, really, they all come together and just swim around in a group do they? Amazing! ‘She’d never had to joust and feint before, never had to throw a grappling hook in the face of the announcer.
Passing the desk in the hotel the receptionist called,
‘Ms McConnell, a message for you.’
Maree took the memo and walked to the lift before looking at it.
Dear Ms McConnell,
Bit prickly and roughy. Sorry.
How about a meal?
Tony the Fish.
She dropped the note on the table and walked into the bathroom. Tony the Fish, she grumbled to herself as the fine spines of hot water needled her flesh. Tony the bloody Fish. She sighed and put her hand on her knees, the water drilling the knuckles of her spine. Anyway, she was going to hear music in the Concert Hall, no olive branch from green-eyed Tony would stop her from enjoying that.
The phone rang immediately.
‘Maree, Tony the Fish. Did you get my note? I was hoping you’d ring me.’
‘I’ve just got in. I work all day, Tony. And I’m going out to a concert tonight, so thanks very much for the invitation, but I can’t.’
‘Now don’t you hang up, Maree, I happen to be a fish that loves music. What concert is it?’
‘At the Concert Hall, Palestrina – church music Tony, doesn’t seem to be your speed.’
‘I could come with you. I could apologise for being a brute. I could tell you it’s not my fault, Maree. You shouldn’t have even been on my show. My producer’s going through the change or something – gone all lefty and concerned. My show isn’t supposed to be concerned about anything. I bet you’ve never even listened to it.’
‘True.’
‘Well there you are. Your fish story was a mistake. The ABC would have lapped it up.’
‘They did.’
‘And I bet you didn’t have to call them fish names either.’
‘That’s right, they were very polite.’
‘Let me come to the church with you, Maree,’ he pleaded melodramatically. ‘Let me get insulted by an intellectual.’
‘I’m a mother and a housewife.’
‘You said you didn’t cook. Is that why I can’t come, because you’re a mother?’
‘You can’t come because I’ve only got one ticket and I didn’t invite you.’
‘Well I’m not a father and I’ll be there.’ He hung up. She felt all the grittiness again and said to herself, the nerve of the man, before she could stop herself thinking it.
She’d had to do some more work in readiness for tomorrow’s meetings and interviews and so by the time she got to the Concert Hall she’d almost forgotten Tony.
She didn’t know much about this sort of music so she bought a program. She’d heard some choral and organ music on ABC FM when she was driving up to Melbourne and when she saw the notice for the concert she rang and booked a ticket immediately. Stirring, restful and private, that’s what she decided the concert would be. She liked music but had no education in it. Shepherd on the Rock could make her weep every time. It was one of six classical tapes she owned and every time she played it in the car, she’d have to pull over to the side of the road until it was finished, tears dribbling, the taste of them exquisite.
‘See, here I am,’ he said, standing in front of her flipping his ticket.
‘Yes, there you are! You said you’d come didn’t you.’
‘And with a seat next to yours.’ Maree looked surprised. ‘Radio. I’m doing a review for Fox FM madam, me and Ms McConnell, we should sit next to each other – compare notes.’
‘Bit of a wheel aren’t you.’
‘Fish,’ he reminded her.
‘Forget it. Can’t you think of another joke or are you waiting for me to apologise?’ The bells rang and she stood up immediately and headed for the door. He followed her.
‘Now look,’ she turned and raised her finger, ‘I’ve been looking forward to this, it’s my escape from the media, so if you’re here to spoil it for me, I’ll get you chucked out now, even if you are a big shot in Tired Old Melbourne.’
‘I told you, I love music – and angry women.’
‘You haven’t seen an angry woman yet, cobber, and when you do, you won’t have eyebrows.’ He touched his forehead and sucked in breath dramatically.
‘I’m here to sit and listen, Ms McConnell. I won’t even buy a chocky topper.’
‘You can’t buy them here, anyway. It’s Lindt or ice mints or nothing.’
‘Nothing, then. Nothing and the music and you.’ She glared at his expensively cropped hair as he gave a mock bow.
When the musicians tuned up she held a warning finger up to him again. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head in a vast manner of composure. She glared and he sat up again with a smile.
‘I love music,’ he whispered, ‘especially when they take fifteen minutes to find the first note.’
She’d forgotten him already, glancing down to the program, trying to sort out who was who.
The Concert Hall was furnished in a marbled pattern of pastels, pretending to resemble the low undulations and dusk tones of the Australian desert. Three weeks after its opening people had forgotten all about that and either came to wear their best clothes or listen to the best music, sometimes both, or, in Tony’s case, to annoy other people until they noticed him. Well, everyone noticed him, but on this particular evening it was Maree’s notice he was after. It wasn’t like him, but he was also being quite patient.
From the moment the music started he could see that she was absorbed, vibrating with the deep pipe tones of the bass voices and the fluting ascensions of the tenors. It didn’t do much for him, besides he was studying the detail of her profile. She was beautiful, to be sure. No more beautiful than many, but smokily beautiful like a lazy fire that might blaze at any moment. He hummed in his nose at the thought of that blaze. She was bold. He knew that from her bridling anger in the radio studio. It excited him.
The concert finished and she looked reluctantly at the program, realising that now she’d have to notice him.
‘See, I was a good boy and now, without insulting the mother in you, I’d like to share some delicious food and wine with you and take you to hear some of my music.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, really Maree. Really I would. I am looking forward to your company and looking forward to showing you that I’m not an absolute weasel.’
‘You’ll have to work hard then. But come on,’ and she plucked her bag and program and stood up. Christ, she’s a cat, he thought. All spit and scratch.
The clean, light flavours of the food were wonderful. The tea was perfumed hot water, the sashimi and horseradish represented nothing but the flavour of themselves – and she didn’t have to talk to him much. People came up to their table to talk to him. Actors, fashion people, all that sort of beautiful person. There were radio and TV people amongst them and she unashamedly organised another rave for the orange roughy on a show she’d never heard of. It was a kind of club. The Japanese waiters brought food to tables for customers who hadn’t even sat down yet. It wasn’t anonymous as you usually expected of restaurant meals but it was more comfortable than she’d thought possible and she enjoyed some kind of frascati while he leaned back in his chair to talk to this person and that. She didn’t have to work hard at her enjoyment. There was the food and the wine and the other members of the Japanese club which meant she didn’t have to accommodate his attention. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed by her ease and comfort or nettled by her disdain.
In a flourish of hoisted coats and scarves and toasting glasses, a group of them prepared to set off for the music and dancing at the Xerox Club.
‘The music I told you about,’ he explained. ‘You’ll love it. Not Mahler exactly, but it’s fun, it’s abandonment – you know like letting yourself go.’ He looked at her meaningfully but she turned away. ‘It’s the sort of thing people do who don’t take themselves too seriously.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do they do it?’
‘No, why don’t they take themselves seriously?’
‘Because you get ulcers and start to believe that you’re important.’
‘All these fun people are convinced they’re important, but they don’t take anything seriously. They’ll have even forgotten about fur seals next month when the Russian steppe lynx becomes news.’
‘Well, you’ve ridiculed all my friends, stamped your name on the ticket that says morally superior, but I think you’re missing the fact that most of those people are paid to take the serious seriously, in their own time they like to forget it. They like to enjoy themselves.’
‘Alright then Mr Society, show me the lighter side of life and you enjoy it, but don’t blame me if I don’t, that’s none of your business.’
‘You’re about as much fun as a mollusc.’
‘It’s not an act, playboy. I love my rock.’
‘Well, come on. We’ll go dancing and there’s no compulsion to smile and be pleasant to anyone – that’d be like encouraging the progress of civilisation. Teach them how to be cheerless misanthropes.’
‘You’re not even insulting me.’
‘I know I’m not. I know you’re happy studying the world like this. I’m just trying to convince myself that you’re not right.’ He put his hand on the small of her back to guide her through the door.
‘Did you learn that at Lions Club or Rotary. The hand. The manly shepherd.’
‘The Manly shepherd. Sounds like a breed of New South Wales dog. No, I didn’t. I wanted to feel your waist and I did. You’re as fine as willow, exactly as I expected.’
‘Weeping willow?’
‘No, come on, it’s better when we don’t talk, I think.’
The Xerox Club comprised two brick tunnels joined at the centre by a square vault. It was the cellar of Melbourne’s original winery and still smelt a little vinegary. There were lots of casks and presses and artistically cobwebbed bottles. It was a pleasant place where people committed to late nights and fun would gather to drink, laugh and dance with each other.
Maree ordered frosty German ale in a tall stem glass and savoured its bitterness. He led her into one of the tunnels where a band called Young Home Buyers was hard at work. Here too, people accosted each other with huge greetings. He was dancing with her in between the interruptions of ritualised communion. Once again, she was happy to have his attention distracted and allowed the music to carry her on the insistence of its harmless beat. This is what the place was for, to let your mind and body go into a cruising overdrive, the same sensation as a well-tuned car humming along a good flat country road on a clear night. She loved it.
Nearby, a group of women in their late thirties were tolerating the awkward intrusions of marauding males and then laughing hysterically when they’d left, burnt off by the women’s reckless independence. They danced around the pile of their handbags like beautiful witches tromping the midnight heath. They weren’t important people; no one called them Jules darling or waved to them from across the room, they were middle-aged women on the tear. They were hilarious with their abandonment and glee, but they’d have to go home soon and slip into bed beside their man with the disjointed nose. They’d have to let him grump and grunt for a while – might even have to root him stupid – yes, might even have to startle him with a good warm wet patch slipped across his thigh. But not yet. More music, more wine, more frigging fun.
He was right, the radio announcer; it was fun here. Not his people but the unknowns who’d snuck into the club from their suburbs and were hellbent on a night on the town. Their joy was unbridled with the responsibilities of being known. They were the Wantima Basketball Team off the leash.
They weren’t in bad nick at all. The clothes weren’t the expensive style sewn by myopic cobble-fingered seamstresses in Milan, but they were chosen with care. They let their bodies speak through the soft fabric of their plumage.
‘Here it is,’ they cried, and one of them grabbed Maree by the arm, dragging her into their shrieking coven.
‘We asked’em for it. This is our bloody song. We’ve come all the way from good old Wanny to hear our bloody song.’
The women stood in a circle and let their dancing rip. They screamed the lyrics into each other’s faces, choking with the irony they ladled onto the words,
‘Stop right there,
I gotta know right now,
Before we go any further
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and make me your wife?
Ain’t no doubt about it
We were doubly blessed
‘Cause we were barely seventeen
And barely dressed.
Though it’s cold and lonely in the deep dark night
I can see Paradise by the dashboard light.’
The music paused and they clasped each other and Maree, their throats full of their laughter, the rich ridiculousness of it all. Then the music drove on again and they were into the lyrics. The songwriter had had a ball writing this song and these women had latched on to it as their anthem.
Will you love me forever?
The drollery with which they could surround that word made you wince.
They were exhausted afterwards and Maree included them in a round of drinks that one of Tony’s friends was shouting. When the Wantima girls ordered their frosty beers and glugged them with such relish, his face took on the chrome gleam of the capstan on his yacht. Ah, women enjoying themselves.
‘Where did you say they came from?’
‘Wantirna, they’re out on the tear.’
‘I can see that. Enjoying themselves too. Enjoy your beers girls?’ They raised their glasses and winked at him in unison. He flushed unexpectedly. They were making fun of him. He waved at someone at a decent distance down the other tunnel.
‘Like that little song, did you?’ Tony asked.
‘I like watching the women enjoy it.’
‘Watching again. Not actually enjoying it per se.’
‘Per se bullshit. I enjoyed it but it was their song and my joy came from theirs.’
‘Vicarious.’
‘No, empathetic. I didn’t want to steal their song, their night. They invited me to join them, not to take them over.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning nothing.’
‘Not an excuse for a feminist argument?’
‘No excuse is needed for a feminist argument. But all I was saying was it was their night. It’d be an insult to try and get more fun than them out of their song. Did we get up your nose?’
‘Well, I thought we were here to see my side of the world.’
‘Is that what you thought? Well, I have seen your side of the world. I saw your friends and while you were talking to them I saw some people who weren’t your friends – and they were good fun.’
‘And mine aren’t?’
‘I don’t know, they don’t talk to me.’
‘They would, you know. You don’t talk to them – almost on purpose you find something else to look at.’
‘Well look, you invited yourself into my evening. I didn’t want to come. I didn’t want to talk to you or your friends, but as it turns out I’ve enjoyed myself.’
‘But you haven’t enjoyed me.’
‘Was I supposed to enjoy you, not me?’
‘Look, you’re good with words, Maree. So am I, but you’re not letting me talk to you. You just bat me away.’
‘It’s not accidental. I like being a watcher as you put it. I’m more comfortable like that and it’s my privilege.’
‘I know all that, but seriously Maree, I didn’t invite you out here for you to approve of my friends or my life, I wanted to spend time with you and you won’t allow it.’
‘And for good reason. I didn’t search you out and I’m already married.’
‘I know that.’
‘But it needn’t matter, is that what you’re saying.’
‘It doesn’t have to matter. I’m attracted to you.’
‘And that’s enough?’
‘It can be.’
‘You were great on the radio.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I heard three shows and people in town reckon there were a few more. It must have been hard work.’
‘Yes.’
‘All the newspaper stuff as well. It was a tremendous job. We’re home and hosed now. Even Reg Darcy admits you did a great job.’
