Chapter 16 - Heaven and Hell

                  Chapter 16 – Heaven and Hell

“In Japan,” said Keiko, our interpreter, “we believe that some couples are joined together before birth by an invisible red thread. You and Margaret are a red thread couple.”

Keiko, Akita, Japan, 1997.

Have you ever fallen in love in the space of a heartbeat? Have you ever met or seen someone who you instantly knew was the person you have always wanted, needed in your life? And have you ever, in just another heartbeat, realised that this new person in your life is way beyond your reach? That you have absolutely no idea as to how you might ever become worthy enough to win her or his love.

It happened to me, on Wednesday, 8 January 1969, just before 11:00 in the morning, at the top of the staircase, on the first floor of the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau (QGTB), at 90 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. In the space of two heartbeats, I rose higher than I had ever dreamed of, then fell further into my darkness than I had ever sunk before.

*~*~*~*~*~*

I left Brisbane on Monday, 6 January 1969, by the 4:40 p.m. overnight express train to Sydney. After a day in Sydney at the Sydney office of the Bureau (in the eyes of the Bureau, this was a working day for me, so I spent most of it looking at Tour Registers and staying out of people’s way), I boarded the Southern Aurora overnight express to Melbourne, where I arrived early on Wednesday morning.

The Bureau had generously paid for one week’s accommodation at the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association – but nothing like the Village People song!). After my first week at the YMCA, I had intended to rent a room in a boarding house; I had few possessions, and did not intend to gather any more.

This situation changed on my second day in Melbourne; Stan Tallon, the man I replaced, had flatted with Scotty Boyd from the Tasmanian Government Tourist Bureau (TGTB), and it was made gently clear to me that I was expected to move in with Scotty. True to my nature, I followed the path suggested by others, and replaced Stan in Flat 6, 95a Alma Road, East St Kilda. Two of the other flats housed four other staff members of the TGTB, including Bruce Lutwyche, a usually happy, but occasionally most annoyed young man, with whom I became friendly.

Scotty was the perfect flatmate and friend, possibly the most easygoing and forgiving man I had ever met, and he put up with me and my moods and sulks and anger  without ever losing his temper, or lessening our friendship. He was, and is, a man I am proud to call a lifelong friend of both Margaret and myself.

I reported at the Queensland Bureau, and met Alick McCarthy, the Manager. He wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about me, and I wasn’t especially interested in him or in the Bureau.

He introduced me to the staff currently downstairs; four or five Travel Officers, and two young women who did the typing and telexing behind a small screen which separated them from the counter.

We went upstairs, where my life began again, and, at that moment, it was like being alive for the very first time. Alick bounced up the steps, and waited impatiently for me to join him. He said, when I reached the top step, “This is Margaret. She looks after the switchboard and also does some typing and telexing.”

I only saw her face behind the tall switchboard, but it was enough for me to fall in love with her forever.  Until that moment, everything in my life had happened at the whim, or under the direction, of other people. I’m not entirely sure what I said, or what Margaret said, but I knew that Margaret was THE ONE.

Alick moved on to the people in the ticketing section, rattling off names and duties beyond my ability to remember them. In time, I learned them all, their names, their natures, their work ethics, their likes and dislikes, and the work they did or were supposed to do.

I was sent to Melbourne to work as a travel officer, but Alick had no confidence in me. My reputation was not good, and the whole Melbourne office was aware of my sullen angry persona, and my unfriendliness to others. I definitely slotted into the ‘doesn’t play well with others’ category.

Alick assigned me to ticketing for two weeks – in those days we wrote tickets for everything we booked – air flights, accommodation, trains, buses, tours. I surprised him by writing as many or more tickets than any of the four others who had worked at it longer, and I made no mistakes.

“Normie Rowe”, he said as I arrived at work on my third Monday, “I’m going to give you a run on the counter.” The lessons of my childhood stood me in good stead. Ern had drilled into his stupid stepson the rules for serving customers in his shop – don’t keep people waiting, respect everyone, find out what they want, write it down, take a deposit.

I followed the mantra that had been tattoed on my psyche, and I became an excellent travel officer, very quickly. Alick always wanted to out-perform Sydney and Brisbane offices, to have Melbourne recognised as the leading money-taker of the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau. Every week he checked on the sales dollars generated by each travel officer, and I soon became the star. I only learned this in November, when he chose me to represent our office in a month-long familiarisation tour of Queensland. This was a prize much valued by our travel officers, and I was unpopular with my peers who felt they had earned it by their seniority. More of this later.

Outside of work, I found a ready-made social life. Most afternoons after work, several of the staff from the Queensland and Tasmanian Tourist Bureaux had one or two beers at the London Hotel, right across the road from the QGTB office.

There was a party SOMEWHERE every Friday night, after we had a counter tea at Hosies Hotel, opposite Flinders Street Station, and another party most Saturday nights, and occasionally on a Sunday afternoon. These usually took place at one of the flats occupied by the young single people at the Queensland and Tassie Tourist Bureaux. On Saturday afternoons, after work, Scotty and I and others would have a counter lunch (with beers) at the Queens Bridge Hotel; occasionally followed by a football game.

When I realised that I was good at my work, I surprised myself by actually enjoying myself on the counter. Winter was the best time for me, when the office was crammed with Melbournians wanting to escape the cold by heading to Queensland. I listened, explained, estimated costs, suggested itineraries that might best meet needs, and didn’t want to take a lunch break most days.

On Saturday mornings we operated with a skeleton staff of five travel officers, and one of administrative person (usually one of the girls, who could not in those days aspire to classified positions, but were doomed to ever be typists, stenographers, switchboard operators). On the counter, we made our own air, train and accommodation bookings, issued tickets, as well as providing brochures, information and advice. I loved it.

For most of this year, one of my two most important concerns was my inner conflict, which channelled my thoughts into suicide much of the time. I drank a lot when I wasn’t working, which fitted in with what social life I had. I saw a chiropractor regularly for the pain in my neck, but no one ever suggested my neck may have been injured in Vietnam.

One morning, during my tea break, I watched Jim Cairns lead 100,000 anti-Vietnam marchers down Elizabeth Street,right outside our window. Geoff Odgers said to me at the time, “So, Curl, how long are you going to carry the entire weight of Vietnam on YOUR shoulders?”

After a few post-work beers one night, I walked past the army recruiting office, where a group of protestors were chanting loudly. Somehow they discovered that I was a Vietnam veteran, and someone spat on me.

My other consuming concern was young Margaret Richardson. I loved her, she didn’t like me at all.

Because of my unusual upbringing, I had little understanding of my peer group; because I attended an all-boys’ high school, I had absolutely no idea at all on how to communicate with girls of my age. Courting Margaret presented a range of challenges, and I had no idea of how to go about it.

To complicate matters further, Margaret at this time was infatuated with someone else, a Tasmanian who had worked with the TGTB. I soon learned that John was only interested in Margaret if there was no one else around. She had spent the Christmas break with him and his family in Tasmania, but she was, in all respects, a lady, and John wanted more from her than she was prepared to give.

One Friday night, in the pub, he asked me if I was ‘tracking’ Margaret. I said I was very much interested in her. He warned me that she did not and would not ‘do anything’; he said she was a ‘teaser’. I still don’t know why I never hit him. On a happy note, he said I was welcome to her.

When I left the hotel after a counter tea, I went to her flat in Elwood, and knocked on the door. When her flatmate opened the door and invited me in, I saw John stretched out on the lounge with his head in Margaret’s lap. I went home.

Several parties later, he left with another girl, after ignoring Margaret all evening. She was terribly upset, and I invited her and another couple to my flat for coffee. I had no real conversation, so I told my guests a two hour joke about a dead horse. I think it took her mind off John (although the joke had a terribly weak punchline, and I have been firmly instructed to never tell it again in Margaret’s hearing), and I walked her down to her car at 2:00 a.m. on that freezing night.

Around this time I wrote a poem (which I never showed to Margaret in those days,) based on my observations and my desires:

Turn to Me

Sweet little Margaret,

Biding your time,

What are you drinking?

‘Vodka and lime.’

Sweet little Margaret,

Unlock your mind;

What are you thinking?

Leave him behind.

Retentive memory,

Seeking recall,

Why are you brooding?

‘No reason at all.’

Tell me your problems,

Show me your fears.

‘O, it is nothing;

A few foolish tears.’

Sweet little Margaret,

So sad and so shy,

I want to love you;

Please, let me try.

I was so much in love, and she was, I thought, at the point where she recognised John for the sleaze he was.

Soon after this, I tried the Norm Wotherspoon courtship gambit no. 1, the one with the safety harness and lots of wriggle room. “Margaret,” I asked, one workaday morning teatime, “if I were to ask you to go out with me, what do you think you might say?”

“She looked at me with those clear, candid eyes, and said, “Why don’t you ask me?” My defences crumbled. In the words of J. Alfred Prufrock, “Do I dare? And, do I dare?” What if she should say, as Prufrock imagined his inamorata might respond: ‘And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

So, I asked her out, and she said, “Yes”. We went, I think, to a live theatre review, ‘No, Sir Henry’, which was focused on the then Victorian Premier, Sir Henry Bolte.

After that night, I assumed a proprietrary attitude to Margaret, and became incredibly jealous if any other should venture inside the mental boundary I had built around my love.

Again, I had absolutely no idea how to deal with someone else usurping my territory, even though I had never told anyone it was my territory.

Here is an extract from a letter Margaret wrote to her mother on 19 June 1969:

‘As a matter of interest, I heard of an incident a few weeks ago where Scotty gave John a real dressing down.

I do have one problem though. Since I went to the ball Norm (who flats with Scotty) hasn’t spoken to me. I told you he was moody, but that is downright childish. Now I am going to the footy and dinner with Scotty on Sunday, where I went with Norm a fortnight ago, so goodness knows what’ll happen now.’

In August, the Tasmanian Tourist Bureau organised a Sunday trip to the snow at Mount Donna Buang.

Margaret wrote to her mother on 12 July 1969:

‘I don’t know whether I told you the Tasmanian Bureau are running a trip to Mt. Donna Buang next Sunday. It is snowing there now. Anyway, Jan and I and a few others from work sent our money around to the Tasmanian Bureau for our tickets. Mine came back. It appears Norm (the poet) paid for me, but the funny part is he hasn’t asked me as yet. He spends a lot of time not speaking to people when he is in a mood and at the moment he is not speaking to me. He didn’t speak to Scotty or I for more than a week after the ball. Boy! One can get into strange situations.’

Because I had paid for the tickets, Margaret felt she ought to sit beside me. I had no conversation, and spent the entire journey to the mountain writing the following poem on the front pages of a Pan Cryptic Crossword book. Ouch!

   Revelation

I was sitting at home all alonely,

Thinking deeply about a blank wall,

And the silence was broken by only

The bounce of a black rubber ball.

As the fingers of darkness descended,

And night brought its sheltering hand,

So my channels of thought were extended

And the patterns formed swiftly, unplanned.

From a path of uncertain direction,

To a road so increasingly clear,

From a mind of insane introspection

To a logic enticingly near.

I was reaching out for rainbows

When I could have touched the stars;

Seeking bright, quick-fading vain glows,

(Wilting roses in the vase).

This is not a time for brooding,

That’s not why I was designed,

Let the sunlight keep intruding,

Enter laughter to my mind!

I had assumed that Margaret had given up on John, so I am glad I never saw (until 40 years later) her letter home of 28 July 1969, in which she wrote:

‘Mum, does a person ever really and truly get over someone? Saturday night I went to a party by myself. I was to meet Jan and her escort there. I was just walking towards the door of the flat when John McDermott  came out the door. That unnerved me a bit because I honestly didn’t think he would be there (but of course, secretly hoping he would be). Anyway, the party was very good and there were a lot of interesting people there. I guarantee there were at least three people I could have gone home with, but I ended up with John again. Now this has happened every time I have been to a party which he has been at, since March, bar one. I really don’t know what I’m trying to explain. The thing is, I still want him back and I think he realises it. When I told Scotty last night about the party I didn’t get any sympathy. All he said was, “I like John in his right place, but I’m afraid there isn’t a hole deep enough.

It appears John has an arrangement which he makes out I am in agreeance with – when there is nothing better in sight, I’ll make do with Margaret. And vice versa; when there IS something better, Margaret can look after herself. I can’t say anything, no matter what I feel, and I just have to act carefree. He will never commit himself, although the other night he wasn’t so clear-cut. What I really should have done on Saturday night was to go home with someone else. I know it would have hurt him, but I couldn’t. It is a ridiculous situation.

Well, he knows when my birthday is, so we shall see. At least Sunday will be fully occupied with the champagne breakfast, football, and the social.’

For her birthday on August 3^rd, I left a little poem on her desk:

‘Perhaps

Perhaps, upon this day of days,

Your thoughts will

Wander homewards and

Will linger there, awhile;

Wistfully

Retracing happy memories

Of birthdays past,

Together with your family.

Perhaps a sense of loneliness,

Of separation,

Will in some way sadden a portion of your day;

As it should.

But,

Do not dwell too long in years ago;

Leave before the soft, sweet sadness of self-pity,

With clutching fingers grasps your mind,

And leaves you dark and almost-crying sombre;

Perhaps, instead,

You might spare a little time in

Brighter thoughts of now and

Maybe, even, maybe.

If, perhaps, another can in some way

Also make you happy

Upon your happy birthday.’

I racked my brain constantly to find reasons to ask Margaret out. One Thursday morning, she mentioned at morning tea that she and her flatmate Mary had seen ‘War and Peace’, a four hour film, at their local cinema the night before. Margaret added that she had the novel, in two parts, in her flat. I immediately said that I had always wanted to read it, and would she consider lending it to me.

The following day, she gave me Volume One as we left work for the weekend. I read most of Friday night, and most of Saturday.

Just before 8:00 p.m., I finished it. I raced up to the phone box on Dandenong Road, and called her. I had just finished the first book, I said,; could I call and collect the second? She said ‘yes’. I took her bowling, and she gave me the book. As I left her at her door, she said, “Well, I expect you to bring the book back on Monday morning, since you’re such a fast reader.”

Romantic complications set in late in the year, just as I had realised that Margaret was never going to be mine; I made too many mistakes, through ignorance, of how to successfully court a lady. One Saturday afternoon, in the private bar of the London Hotel, I found Kerri, my friend from the days in the New Farm flat. She had returned from New Guinea, joined the army, and was stationed at either Ballarat or Bendigo. And she still wanted me, as friend and lover.

Given that my relationship with Margaret had never even become a relationship, I took what comfort I could from Kerri’s visits to Melbourne, but always with a sense of emptiness and longing for …love.

In November, I set off for the month-long familiarisation tour. I flew to Sydney, then took the overnight Ansett Pioneer coach to the Gold Coast. In two days we (four of us took part in this extended holiday – one each from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Townsville offices) looked at lots of accommodation places, resorts, tourist attractions, and then drove up the highway to Brisbane. We visited the local tourist spots in Brisbane (Botanical Gardens, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary), then headed up to the Sunshine Coast for two days, where we checked out the beaches, the hinterland, the Buderim Ginger Factory, and just about everywhere else.

On we travelled: Maryborough, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, most of the Whitsunday Islands (Brampton, Lindeman, Daydream, Happy Bay, Hayman, South Molle), Proserpine, Townsville, Magnetic Island, Dunk and Bedarra Islands, Cairns, Green Island and the Atherton Tablelands. We flew to Cooktown for a night, then flew back to our respective bases.

We stayed three nights in Cairns and, on the first night, a young lady in a ridiculous bathing cap decided that I was part of the fun she wanted on her holiday. She was much better at the art of seduction than I was, and I found myself spending my evenings with Jill, a grazier’s daughter from a small country town in Victoria.

By the end of 1969, I was desperately unhappy. Jill and Kerri visited me some weekends (not together, I hasten to add), summer brought fewer clients to our counter, Margaret went home for Christmas.

I loved her, more than ever, but she had no feelings for me except dislike. Nightmares shared my bed most night, my neck hurt, my mother and stepfather were unapproachable, and my life held little joy. It was a very bleak Christmas, and my closest friend seemed to be the barman at the London Hotel.

I drank, I worked, I drank some more, I wrote bad poetry, and I thought of death. It was the darkest hour before the dawn.

CHAPTER 16: APPENDIX 1

Some of the bad poetry I mentioned follows:

 A Gentle Ramble through a Wandering Mind

Yo ho ho and a bottle of breeze,

I can’t see the forest for the tops of the trees;

Fifteen men on a dead man’s toes,

I can’t see the river for the bridge of my nose.

Sailing along in a catamaran

When a submarine said “Catch me, if you can.”

So I threw my line right over the side,

And reeled it in on the rising tide.

The night was black, the stars were green,

When I started to cook that infernal machine.

Too big for the pan, too tough to grill,

So I called for the chef with his culinary skill.

He walked round and round it for a very long time,

Chewing his lips, and his parsley and thyme;

He said, “I know what to do. I’ll start right now.

We’ll bring it ashore and have a real luau.”

Little iron monster, sitting in a pit,

Revolving around on a fat-free spit;

For forty three days and a long, countless night,

It just WOULD NOT COOK, not for love, not for spite.

Our hunger grew stronger as dark turned to days;

Most of the crew were just wasting away,

Their rib-cages tracing an angular path;

And twelve of us able to sit in one bath.

Then, one certain Sunday, when hopes were forlorn,

(Seven had died, but had all been reborn);

Came from the cook-pit, a shout from the cook:

“It’s done to perfection!” I went for a look;

Stepping on wearily, down to the pit,

Wide-eyed and wondering, staring at IT!

Tin opener twisting, diving in deep,

Silent the watchers, frozen, like sheep;

Wishing, and willing, the moment of truth,

Saliva ran reckless down each yellowed tooth.

A wreath of aroma, a sizzling scent,

The rushing release of a sigh of content;

Fixing the napkins, serving the wine,

Ready, and eager, just waiting to dine.

Roast leg of bulkhead in sweet asdic sauce,

(Potpourri of porthole, before the main course),

Came the parfait, Captain’s Table au Jacques,

And a chartroom collation of periscope caques.

Grandly we feasted, and merrily dined,

With peace drifting gently to each troubled mind;

The finest French brandy, sublimest cigars,

Then we parted, to follow our own secret stars.

Upon the Waters

Desolate and drifting on the ice-blue plain,

Searching for a memory I could not explain;

Four lonely winds blew to north and to south,

And whistled through the tunnel of the long, black mouth.

Whisky had watered the rivers of gin,

When the tearaway eloped with his tears of chagrin;

As the sun in its setting cried farewell to the earth,

The memories of midnight sent the moon to its death.

Paralytical fishermen laughed as they viewed

Conventions of oysters which bathed in the nude;

Hemingway wrote with satirical smirk,

While matadors drank, and neglected their work.

Fragments of fiction floated away,

While the Mardi Gras banished despair and dismay;

Way up above, in a cotton-wool cloud,

The thinker thought thoughts, and stayed silent, aloud.

Ask Me an Answer, I’ll Tell You a Question

If you ask of me an answer to a question that I know,

I will do my best to help you, from a mind that’s laying low;

If you tell me of a secret that is seeking out an ear,

I will listen with both eyelids, and pretend that I can’t hear.

When a student with a problem seeks a reference in his books,

But the answer’s all in Latin, and is hid in crannied nooks;

In the house, if there’s a doctor, of unorthodoxic charm,

Could he translate this prescription, to save a brain from harm?

Should there be a certain something which is nothing in your eyes,

Maybe mine would fill with blankness, just to help you realise

That the act of being artless in itself is quite an art,

And the hiding of one’s feelings sometimes shows one owns a heart.

Even though the world’s a crossword, I am puzzled by the clues,

And the sometimes cryptic answers, with their often-changing hues.

There are moments in a lifetime when a man must play a part,

Sometimes jesting, sometimes gentle, sometimes bitter at the heart.

We nay stare around in wonder, though our eyes be nearly closed,

And arrive at an equation gleaned from all we had supposed;

Yet neglecting all the answers that might run too close to truth,

For honesty’s a quality we leave behind in youth;

Leaving us the situation, whereby no more may be learned:

Who can quench a thirst for knowledge, when all but hemlock’s spurned?

CHAPTER 16: APPENDIX 2

QGTB – Melbourne Staff, January 1969

PERSON	POSITION
Alick McCarthy	Manager
Reg O’Grady	Assistant Manager
Geoff Odgers	Third in Charge
Bill Tann	Travel Officer
Don Pinne	Travel Officer
John Dennis	Ticketing Officer
Gil McDavid	Ticketing Officer
Graham Kluver	Travel Officer
John Herron	Junior Clerk
John Webster	Travel Officer
Margaret Richardson	Switchboard/Secretary
Joy Cowley	Switchboard/Secretary
Maree Nevin	Switchboard/Secretary
Mary Pickworth	Switchboard/Secretary
Peter Lloyd	Messenger
Norm Wotherspoon	Travel Officer
Ernie Kelly	Travel Officer
Sean O’Brien	Junior Clerk