Scatter the Stars, page 43
‘Don’t blame me after all these years. If I recall, you were the one who said, this is home turf. I’m the boy who made good, going home, no sweat. Don’t need someone holding my hand, you said, remember?’
‘Yeah. I made good and they never forgave me. The tall poppy syndrome. I’m past being bitter, je ne regret rien. I probably was an arrogant prick. But they still had such a chip on their shoulders, the film industry was part of the cultural cringe.’
‘The what? You mean having convict ancestors wasn’t trendy then?’
‘Nah. Anything from overseas had to be better. You know they were still making films starring overseas actors trying to play Aussies? Ernest Borgnine in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr in The Sundowners. Jeez, when I think back to how hard people like Chips Rafferty worked to establish a studio that would make Australian films for Australian audiences . . . Integrity, passion, love of your own, that’s what it’s about.’
‘Is that what you’re going to say in your speech at the opening of Foreshore Studios? Here we go again – co-productions, Yankee money, international deals? It’s becoming a global industry now.’ There was a humorous note to Ariel’s voice but slight concern as well.
‘They don’t need me preaching to them. They’ve come of age. I’m just happy that they are recognising that I did a thing or two that gave people round the world a bit of enjoyment.’ He spoke with genuine warmth and modesty and Ariel knew this time Australia was going to like the old-timer of their industry and take him to their hearts. There was no maliciousness or bitterness in Randy any longer. Whatever had happened to change him and bring him to this state was some sort of miracle. Maybe she’d never know, but she no longer questioned him.
EIGHTEEN
Sydney 1967
Randy left the Chevron Hotel and turned up Macleay Street to Kings Cross, the throbbing, decadent heart of Sydney. It was just after breakfast but like the neon-lit timeless capsule of a casino, Kings Cross knew no time. In its pulsing coloured lights, unkind to last night’s make-up on the faces of tired prostitutes, where litter blew along streets beside sleeping drunks, American servicemen on R&R from Vietnam staggered happily from girlie bars and clubs, arm in arm with Sydney girls.
They paid no attention to the hunched figure of Randy, himself hungover and unshaven, as he searched for the familiar.
He’d gone to Balmoral to see the amphitheatre of his birth, the place his mother had once shown him all those worlds ago when he was a child. Of all the places he’d been in the world, the graceful white amphitheatre on the shores of Balmoral Beach had remained in his memory as one of the great cultural visions – a perfect venue in a perfect location.
Arriving there, he’d been shocked to discover that one of the finest buildings in Sydney had been demolished and replaced by a hideous brick block of ugly home units, then considered the new modern answer to housing.
The visit home had been disappointing in many ways. He’d left it too long. He was a stranger here. The film industry was struggling in a new direction, the film-makers determined to tell their own stories their way with their people. Randy’s comments in the press that there was a lot to learn from film-making in Britain, Europe and America had not gone down well. He might have been a huge name – as much for his off-screen performances as on – and made and lost small fortunes, but the Australian newspapers had ridiculed the vehicles to that success. In their search for a national identity and their zeal to protect their own, they accused him of selling out and not supporting his roots. He’d angrily asked how many of them would have walked away from Hollywood offers given the chances he had. He pointed out that the quality of Australian cinematographers came from their training under British cameramen and predicted in years to come that Hollywood would cream off the top technical film talent from Australia.
The clash had left him soured. He found his compatriots insular, small thinking and culturally naive. They’d gone from embracing anything foreign as being intrinsically better to throwing out everything non-Australian as not being relevant. It would be a long time before he set foot back in his own country. Hopefully in the meantime, they’d grow up and see ‘the bigger picture’.
If it hadn’t been for the sudden death of his father, Randy wouldn’t have come back. The trip to the farm had been a sad pilgrimage. It was not as romantically rural as he remembered. Cressida was flakier than ever, losing the thread of her conversation all the time, fearful of the insecurity of life on the farm without Daniel. The fact her husband was twelve years her senior must have given her the idea she might face her later years without him, but she acted as if he had conspired against her by dying. She talked about selling up. She seemed healthy enough, she had closed her school some years before, but there was a drifting quality to her that disturbed Randy.
‘If you sell up, where would you go?’ asked Randy nervously. ‘I’ve just split up with Simone. Her lawyers are trying to get me to support her and her kids from her first marriage, as if I had anything left from the other two alimony settlements.’
‘I’m not asking you for money, son. It’s distressing to me you haven’t found happiness. Three wives, no children, no security. What will happen to you, Richie?’
‘Buggered if I know.’ He was still angry with his mother. It was the first time she’d ever shown concern for his happiness but he couldn’t help feeling she regarded him as a burden she didn’t need to cope with at this point in her life. He read an accusation in her unspoken words. ‘I have to get on with my life, why don’t you? I can’t help you.’
He countered her question by asking, ‘What will happen to you?’ He recognised, as she did, that he wasn’t prepared to help her. The last thing he could imagine would be having his mother live with him. Even if he had a stable home life. He was back living at the Chateau Marmont. The only home he’d ever hung on to was Paradis.
As always, Cressida had an answer. Despite her vagueness, her lightness of being not quite of this earth or of this moment, there was a steel thread that kept Cressida looking out for Cressida. She smiled at him. ‘You have to finish unfinished business in this life. I can’t live in the past, the mystery of what has all gone before will be shown to us if we live in the present moment. There is no death, there is only life. I will be with Daniel again. So I must finish my own journey.’
Randy sighed. ‘And what’s that mean, Mother?’
‘In this moment, I’ve decided. I shall move back to India. To Adyar, to Madras. There is a searching and spiritual awakening everywhere in the world. I believe I can be helpful in being part of that. I left before I was ready.’ Randy immediately took this on board as being his fault, but Cressida caught him unawares, ‘You know, I should have left you there when I came back to Daniel. You have unfinished business too, my dear child.’
‘I don’t think I’m going to find any solutions to the immediate problems in my life by going back to a guru or ashram,’ he said, more tartly than he meant. Dropping out would be the easy way at the moment. But only temporary. Ariel or the debt collectors would find him and drag him back. She was still going on about him doing theatre.
Cressida, as she always did, unnerved him. The small boy in him did want to go back and shelter with his strong and gentle teacher, the wise Dorgei. Randy realised his monk must only be in his fifties. Where was he now?
‘Well I’m pleased you have a plan, Mother. So do I. I’m going to New York to work in the theatre. Challenge myself a bit.’ He was living in the present as she suggested. He’d decided on this course of action as Cressida was speaking.
The veil fell over Cressida’s eyes and her interest in him waned. ‘That’s nice, dear. Do come to Adyar when you can.’
‘I’ll do that, Mother.’ He embraced the still beautiful woman he had never come to know or accept.
Randy sent a note to Mac telling him he was coming to Paradis before he left for Los Angeles.
The minute he stepped off the plane in Moresby, he was overwhelmed by homesickness and joy at things he remembered. There were small improvements but the smells, the voices, the humidity, the smiling faces rushed back at him as if nothing had changed. Though he noted the nationals were now wearing European clothes. His mate, Frank, was still at Burns Philp when Randy rang him to confirm he really had arrived and they arranged to meet for drinks at sunset. ‘I hear there’s even restaurants now we could go to,’ he added.
Frank was subdued and quickly broke the news to Randy about Mac. ‘He’s not good. If you hadn’t said you were coming, I was going to call you. Naturally, he never wanted me to bother you.’
‘What’s up? How bad is it? What can I do?’ Randy was instantly concerned.
‘Not a lot anyone can do. Cancer got away from him. He was in the hospital and the doc was going to medivac him down to Brisbane but he insisted on going home to Paradis, wants to die in the place he loves most, not some hospital bed with strangers round him.’
‘Die. Oh Jesus. It’s that bad? How long’s he got? I wish to hell you’d told me, Frank, I could have brought him over to the States for treatment, you never know . . .’
‘No. Don’t bash yourself up about it. A friend of mine, a specialist going through Moresby looked at him and spoke with his doctor . . . there’s nothing more can be done. He could last a bit longer, maybe, if he was hooked up to fancy equipment in a hospital, but that’s not what he wants.’
Randy rubbed his eyes, he felt close to tears. He couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘I wasn’t expecting this. My father died ten days ago. Now this. I always thought Mac would be around forever.’ He looked stricken, his voice breaking. ‘I really need Mac’
‘I’m sorry about your father. Mac is hanging on to see you. I’d get there as soon as possible. They wanted to give you a dinner, do a bit of local boy makes good stuff, but under the circumstances I thought it best not to . . .’ Frank let the sentence trail off. He was shocked at Randy’s appearance. Far from the handsome movie star pin-up they remembered and had seen on the screen, Randy looked closer to fifty than forty, his pallor and eyes showed the effects of too much drinking. He had already had two drinks to Frank’s one and his hands shook as he lit one cigarette after another.
‘Listen, if I can help out in any way . . . I’ve tried to keep tabs on things for Mac. Got him a good accountant. I think you’ll find things are in order despite Mac being forced to take his hand off the tiller . . .’
‘Yeah, thanks, Frank. I appreciate all you’ve done. I should have bloody come back years ago instead of messing round over there. Being in movies isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’ He gave a wan smile. ‘How’s business here?’
‘A few exciting prospects looking up. Mining for one. Let me know when you’re interested.’
Arriving at Paradis, Randy was stunned at how lush the garden was. The view to the beach was partly obscured but they’d been right in deciding on this place. The fragrance of the frangipani flowers brought back memories of Talia. He walked slowly through the garden and then he saw her, sitting on her garden seat, sketching, as she did so often. He walked softly towards this apparition, afraid she might disappear. She turned and looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, holding up her sketch pad for him to see. On it was a pencil sketch of Beefcake as a young bird with a bottle of beer.
Memories of him teaching the bird to drink, much to Talia’s chagrin, came back to him, making him smile. ‘Oh, I remember, I remember. He was a quick learner, that fellow . . .’
He lifted his eyes from the sketch and she was gone. He looked back down at the seat and it was empty. No Talia, no drawing. He glanced wildly around. Had he imagined this vision? But the overwhelming sense of her having been there, even to the faint trace of her perfume, reassured him she was still here. What was she telling him? That she was all right? That she was always with him? Randy turned to the house, flushed with warmth, comforted, strengthened.
The old boss boy was still there and came to greet him with a big grin. He wore his uniform of faded lap-lap, singlet and hibiscus in his surge of wiry hair.
‘Masta Mac call for you.’ He carried Randy’s bag to his old room while the meri, whom Randy didn’t recognise, padded from the kitchen and pointed to the side verandah.
Mac had closed in one section with louvres and a large window so that it became a sleepout and sitting area combined. He was propped up on a cane lounge under a cotton cover facing the view of the bay. His muscular body had shrunk, his face was gaunt, the bones chiselled beneath the paper-thin skin, a shadow of the old Mac.
However, Randy almost burst into laughter at the shock of seeing in one corner a stand and cage on which Beefcake sat, newspapers spread with droppings and birdseed on the floor beneath him. He had lost a few feathers, his head was bald in patches. ‘You dopey bloody bird.’
At the sound of Randy’s voice, Mac’s eyes flew open, bright and eager. ‘That you, mate?’
‘Bloody oath it is. Who else were you expecting? Diana Dors?’
‘A man can wish,’ he gave a hoarse cackle and his bony hand came from under the cover. ‘Struth, she’d kill me in five minutes.’
Randy reached him and knelt by the lounge, taking his hand and lying his head on the old man’s chest. ‘Jesus, Mac . . . I’ve missed you. Why didn’t you send for me? I wish I’d come back sooner. What the hell was I doing?’ Randy’s voice was muffled, rough-edged with tears. Mac ran his other hand over Randy’s hair.
‘You’ve been living your life. That’s only right.’
Randy lifted his head and looked into his dear friend’s face, the man who’d been friend and father figure. ‘I’ve screwed it up, Mac. Made a bloody mess of it. Nothing’s ever been any good since . . . Talia.’
‘Don’t say that, mate. Sit down and get a beer and let me look at you.’ He rang the bell by his bed and the meri appeared straight away. ‘Bring him something to eat, and a cold beer.’
Mac lifted up a plastic cup with a spout. ‘I’m on the baby bottle. Spill stuff. Damned stupid.’
‘What do you want, Mac? Let me help you. How can I help?’ Randy looked around desperately, looking for some instrument, some potion, some action that would make Mac into Mac again.
‘You sit back and relax and have a beer and yarn to me. You look a bit stuffed. Sorry about your dad.’ Mac leaned back on the lounge.
Randy could see the talking had tired him. ‘Yeah, I suppose I should have expected it, he was getting on. I feel bad . . . I mean, I never really had much in common with him. I always felt I failed him. They came over for a wedding, my second. Christ, what a mistake that was, and one of the big premieres. Deadly Seas. I think they enjoyed being parents of the movie star. Press made a big deal out of them both . . . bumped him up to a professor and Cressida had them eating out of her hand.’
Randy spoke fast, words falling over each other. ‘Trouble is, Mac, I never felt I belonged to them. I never felt I belonged anywhere except with you and Talia . . . Sure I’ve made a name for myself, gone through a lot of money – well, three wives have done that – had a lot of shit thrown at me, for what?’
‘It’s called life, kid.’
‘Yeah. Well, when does it get good? When I look back I thought I had life by the balls, Mac’
‘You strayed off the track, Rich. Remember you’re responsible for your life, you’d better start acting with love and wisdom, that means making yourself whole. You’ve forgotten the lessons of Dorgei, that you are meant to grow in life and how you live your life in this time dictates other lives.’
‘It’s a bit late. But you’re right, I got sidetracked. This isn’t how I saw my life working out.’
Mac’s eyes fluttered closed and he squeezed Randy’s hand. ‘You must love yourself, dearest boy, before others can love you or you they.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Think I need a bit of a kip.’
Randy sat by Mac, smoothing the cover, touching his once weather-beaten brow. No longer creased and coloured by sun, wind and salt air it had a sheen that was like wax. As he sat there he thought about Mac’s words. He thought about Talia, how she had loved him. Had he loved her enough? Why had he been punished so? Why had old Mac suffered? He was a good man. He had never been anything but good-hearted, fair and honest. Yet his wife and daughter had been taken from him. His life had been hard. Randy realised Mac held no grudge against God or society, he was at peace with himself, he accepted God’s will. He loved and accepted himself. Could I ever be like that? Could I look at all the pain and trials and agony as being gifts, not punishments, wondered Randy. I’m not so good a person as you, Mac. Randy tried to push from his mind his dishonesty, his lies, his treacheries. Looking at Mac’s peaceful if emaciated face, he wondered could he start over, could he learn from Mac? He thought of his only child, lost with Talia. What sort of a father would he have been?
Randy was drained. He’d never felt so empty before. He had nothing left in him to give and no-one to give anything to anyway. He was utterly hollow. The realisation he was losing Mac hit him in the gut so hard, he felt he might vomit. He couldn’t breathe.
He walked outside, away from the house. Instinctively, he went through the palms along the track that he had walked with Talia. The further he walked over the quiet plantation, the harder it became to breathe, the faster his heart pounded, the fiercer his feelings swirled inside him. There was a burning behind his eyes and a rushing in his ears. For a minute he thought he was having a heart attack, some sort of spasm. His knees gave way and he fell down on the carpet of grass beneath the palm trees. He had no idea what was happening to him. It was as if he had been plugged into an electric socket and some sort of shock, a current, was charging through his system. Was he going to die? Here? Like this? ‘I give up!’ he shouted to the sky, the earth, the motionless tall palms. He simply surrendered to sensation, he could do nothing nor did he want to struggle.
