From The Love Makers: Climbing Up The Ladder Of Love

From The Love Makers: Climbing Up The Ladder Of Love

From The Love Makers: Climbing Up The Ladder Of Love

Time, the late 70s. The speaker is Sue Dobson, a young journalist in an affair with John McTaggart, an ex-Liberal Party maverick who has formed the New Progress Party, a radical middle-of-the-road political force.

Setting: a roadhouse.

               The buns look stale, I know the coffee’s stewed,
men in tee-shirts, probably tattooed,
mingle and chuckle. But they ignore
a dumpy woman in yellow by the door.
               I’ve ordered a cup, but this place seems meant
for them and their proud icons: an advertisement
(some model ‘chick’ devoted to her Mack),
postcards, truck monthlies in a rack,
American number plates, photos of grinning friends,
messages from truckies at the very ends
of Aus: We’re still on the job
ha ha love Jeff (Tennant Creek)/Sandgroper Bob.
(Accept this as you’d accept their sticker:
‘Truckies Carry the Country’. Or don’t.) The caf thickens
with families, the drivers up, depart.
I return to my reasons: must make a start
for Koornung.

               Often with exo the nauseating musk-
like scent recalls last March. I looked out at dusk
while light was clinging to the western clouds,
saw his hills flanked against them. ‘The crowds
are kept at bay tonight, girl wonder.’
               Wishing to be polite I held out a number:
dope? I’ll stick to this: something and ice.
Of course even with crowds at bay. Earlier: once, twice,
I’d still my What are we doing?
This is bizarre! to puzzle, perhaps halt me; till the ensuing
weeks, months accumulated and dressed
in what I thought it could be, or guessed.
Which was? Didn’t exactly remember: suppose
many things to whatever was required. Oh, little on-the-nose:
yet: but didn’t I understand? Slowly self-esteem shifts
when taking a job he offers, fiddling a compromise on gifts,
and caught between him and yourself
one hour is something, the next its opposite: ‘He has the wealth,’
advised the gold-digger side, ‘use it; go and scoff
at yet another silly male.’ Hopeless. So try laughing it off:
‘John, I can’t possibly accept this blender;
you know me – Carlton’s last drug-crazed hippy – it’d all end, err,
um, flogged for my habit. Yes.’ But that wouldn’t work either.
               ‘Return the lot, quit the book, grow up and leave’
(me as staunch women’s advocate).
               Stayed, of course, not exactly to ingratiate
myself into John’s world and life, his to mine –
that’s the wrong word – oh, put it down to the company then,
                          which was fine.
               Over a saloon bar hubbub would catch your face on the news
and hear an acquaintance mutter: ‘He’s demented – ahh, hi, Suze!’
For when it was launched, discretion eased then ceased,
helping friends partake a gossip feast
all summer till, gorged on scandal, the stays
of their manners burst. They swooned on it. Those days
I’d sweep Melbourne like some high priestess
of passion (felt I was tall enough). ‘Just guess
who’s y’lover?’ I’d be found asking.
‘Go on, go on.’ Spent the next hours basking
in the thought of you. Others never ‘also ran’;
they didn’t start! The era of the courtesan
I’d advise myself, quit with button-up boots.
Why so shaky questioning these fruits
of being adult, which your future and fate is
storing? We’ve entered the eighties:
it’s our decade, what your home and schooling
bred you for. The movement may’ve quit even cooling
years back, simply to freeze.
It’s time any educated woman must seize
her inheritance to all that ‘liberation’.
No use bemoaning this occasion
as transient – they all are – he can, ought to be, is your equal.
Life’s not a sequel upon sequel
of boyfriends, their hang-ups and triumphs. Realize you’re not
                           twenty-three,
and some mere boy’s girl. You can be me me me
at last! (Though with nothing to trample
over the almost perpetual desire to send it up. Example:
as some tart out of Bangkok or the Levant: ‘– say meester
I veree sexee, veree cleen –’)
                                                    By Easter
I was getting driven up to Koornung.
Noon on Thursday a jacket and bag were already flung
into your car, somewhere near Queen Street
and the office. You’d your turn to shout, ‘Another treat,’
and it was lunch at Lulus. Out on the highway I started to puff
a number. He laughed: ‘If you got to smoke that stuff,
wind down the window!’ (But only just, perhaps)
              ‘Been off it for days –’ days I’d kept researching. My mind collapsed
into what was on the tape deck. ‘Mustn’t turn to a spoiler
and bring work into your holiday, kid, but don’t want our book to be a
                          pot boiler.
One’s getting churned out for the plebs already. It’s half tabloid cartoons –
you listening?’ In a sense, yes, but first to the tunes
that filled your car. Had still to get used to ‘staff’, with servants, that vainest
of luxuries (your family still retains retainers),
who ignored me. Never felt the housekeeper warming
to ‘my biographer’, to a euphemism. Why should she? In the morning
we showered together, then you went to church,
a public duty. I thought of your housekeeper’s porch
where a rather scraggy grapevine slumped
round a trellis, but wanted warmth. With hot cross buns I dumped
myself into your study, adjusted the heater,
turned through your photo albums. I’d make them now: what’s neater
than an affair in snaps? You’d caught me with a flash bulb
as I awoke that day, yawning, stale, and dulled
by too much late night exo, stretching up to a moan as a gorilla:
hair skewed, matted, looking like Phyllis Diller
(I hope not sounding); a day begun
as teenagers might. And weren’t we just well done
recovering from something done well?
Again? Our bed had that close, warm, yeasty smell
of bodies, you could almost taste;
had wished to lie for days in it. Knew though, even now, I might be placed
in a continuum of snapped ‘ladies’,
if heading the heap. Whom he had parading
as fourth or fifth fiddle could always get shuffled
through the pack to that frisky, plumage-ruffling
Jack of recent legend. No use dagging
about Koornung when that eventuated. True, but not yet. The party bandwagon
was poised to sweep the outer states. He fired
another invitation, which verged on request: ‘Sue, it’s almost required
you meet my colleagues and organization –’ but with a few bugs
to get ironed out ‘– though please, none of these your –’ waving a hand
                          ‘– your drugs.’
              So May I gave in, Melbourne received a rest
shuttling with you south, north and west
to rallies; while our affair smoothed
on into my career: biographer. Needing an aging IUD removed,
I’d taken playing Vatican roulette:
and dickhead! I think now, deserving what you get.
             Thought, it’s pest control: Sue as pest.
Grabbing a clinic pencil off the desk
I held it out in both hands, and snapped.
We’d our child’s course mapped
back how many hotel/motel suites?
As my adventures turned then to endless repeats
of tea-bags, jugs, heaters, shower recesses,
brown brick walls and a ‘sex drive’. (The guess is
Geraldton, Renmark, Tamworth, Toowoomba, Cairns.)
             We wound up in Brisbane. It’s where I caught the party’s plans
for Ms Lim’s birthday: ‘Vron’s arriving. Haven’t you two met?
Thought you had. A great lady –’ though this praise sounded limp, wet,
off hand even. ‘– it coincides with Victory Night.’ The upcoming Saturday
held four by-elections which their mini-campaign
was verging on winning – only over-confidence could ruin it –
but I’d seen such smart cautious tactics. Their policy unit
was kept trucking after like some army kitchen
with all its doubtful nourishment. And John was chaffing, itching
for Canberra (of all places!) The House to resume:
             ‘When problems loom, we’ll confront that loom!
I’m sure you’ll see more than a mere protest vote
against all established forces, Clive, quote –
ordinary Australians don’t have to be poked, prodded
into action this time round Clive, unquote –’ The interviewer nodded.
             Pundits felt you won a by-election
or two or three through luck, correction,
more than that, it required quite a quota
of management, and our ‘better class of voter’
fell to the necessary stratagem.
Right-to-lifers scored you minus ten,
slapped foetus photos on your campaign shops,
heckled, threw fruit, eggs, grappled with the cops.
Covered in cack, you grinned like Jimmy Carter:
pro-choice, liberal, reasoned, and martyr
for a day; for a campaign.
Linked to these demos, opponents would complain,
you answering: ‘– seems part of a pattern
to me, same shrill thugs –’ sensing it might fatten
your swing (as it would). Then greedier
for coverage you’d shout both print and electronic media
to any dirt dug about the right. ‘– and the left?
Aren’t even truly operating now, they’re nix.’ This deft
disposal of my stance, my colleagues,
somewhat jarred. What you still expect: Che beards, jungle fatigues,
perpetual subversion? Dissent was no less part of the system
than what you’d quit.

                                       Ever since I kissed him
that first time, outside Koornung, John ought to have known
we’d something in common, if just a private life. Could have shown,
for him, a weird collection of risks
that that entailed. He wouldn’t have heard half Lygon Street frisk
through our, my, love life: men I’d refused to screw spelling out
that Sourpuss Sue was Starfucker Dobbo, was selling out.

             So this man whose campaign, whose life,
I joined, I had to write, arranged for his former wife
to meet me, grant coffee, an interview, near her boutique
in Toorak Road. Seems my presence gave their marriage a relief
she didn’t want or understand, making her mock perplexed.
             ‘Goodness! Jack’s discovered Women’s Lib, whatever next?
Still, glad to see you’re not some twitty-crass
tabloid cadet. You’ve interviewed that Asian lass?
Jack’s introduced us, during the days when she’d him quite in tow – ’
Really? Another thing that everybody knew, I didn’t know?
‘– politically? I view Jack
as some latterday school debater. Ask her about this new Jack,
though; she’d have less jaundice less venom.
Him? The socialists? They’re the same. Business’ll suffer, and amen
to that I say – nevertheless, he’s chanced himself, his job’s on
the line. I can admire that – you’re not a Mount Macedon Dobson?’
              Being a Burwood one’s enough, at least your ex
feels so. Perhaps he saw me representing my age, class, sex?
Perhaps. It seems now he desired I play like a mull
to his bong; or be some permanent finger on the pulse,
informing about what was, could be, going on out there. It made one wary,
this desire to keep me contemporary:
I slightly sent it up. ‘Of course. Don’t want you to sound dated.’
So he uh-huhed as I kept informing. I was amused. I tolerated.

             All this patience got rather routed
though, meeting Vronnie Lim, the once-touted
future spouse and think-tank head. A rival?
She acted so, as if, surrounded by men, survival
meant playing (how pathetic) her Crawford to my Davis.
Wished out of that at once, since she’d a desire to enslave us
both in some continuing performance for John. No I’d hold
a piece of my peace. Only a nineteen-year-old
could expect to escape with a half hour’s strutting, winking
and catty quips. Think-tank? I mused, haven’t caught many
                         signs of thinking.
            The State President’s Pad: a barrister’s mansion on stilts.
John addressed his victory party: vicious tilts
at the right, throw-away quips on the left, that all considered clever,
repeatable. ‘Tonight, Australia’s politics alter forever –
we’ve Jacaranda, Grainger, The Valley.
And look at our swing in Eureka!’ Shy guys turned pally
to amuse me, for this was work, couldn’t afford
to leave my story now. Was I pale? Call it bored.
But how dulled could I remain with a whole book to lurch
into publication? August wasn’t it? Call my contribution research;
leave Ms Lim the rest. She no doubt picks up
where I leave off. Her kind of cat always licks up
another’s cream. Men surrounded her (Sue, try not to gawk
at your sometime ‘rival’); who giggled, yes giggled! She’s in a time warp,
I saw; these games disappeared with girdles. And sinking
into a cold fury tried not thinking,
I’m better than this! Her! (which was beneath me
for a feminist), but thought, So you’ve bequeathed me
an old fuck. Well, thanks, Veronica! And my self-respect
stopped. Started. Did John, her and their party expect
face-slapping fireworks and other relics? Not in my day,
though maybe in hers, this thinking man’s girl Friday.
             Yet, even if portions bore, I thought, love some to last.
this starts my career, it must. But was about to get cast
by John in some wilting bloom role. Did a certain ‘distress’
hold me? Had I minded all the travel? ‘Don’t feel like your mistress,
yet, if them’s the thoughts –’
             No, no, they weren’t. But told John that the kind of rorts
practiced up here were a little wearing: wouldn’t get slimmer
if life kept up as this permanent progressive dinner,
with barbecues for breakfast: those gladhanding men, their generous cheques
and tropical shirts, who weren’t in any way rednecks
please, just not my kind? Out on the verandah
I met their new Honourable Member for Jacaranda,
chatted him up, a mildly greenie dentist: ruddy, hoarse
from too much rum and speeches: ‘So you’re the girl who charts our
                          amazing course?’
             And later, how very Queensland too, produced his harmonica
for all to join in ‘Happy Birthday’. Dear Veronica.

             The sun could still splash, but Melbourne snapped to winter,
and swaddled in coats, a huge red scarf, Louise would enter
my hallway, check how I was that evening:
            ‘Throat better? Cold going? Not still grieving
over some perfidious man or men! Your health
is too important; time though I’d an attack of that myself.’
            You wouldn’t arrive back in your suite till ten. I chanced it.
           (‘John? John? Oh, Jack! Jack!’ a staffer announced,
‘he’s somewhere here.’) Thought, Why do I start flailing
round in your absence? Know the biography’s failing.
           ‘Hope he’s still awake,’ I’d told Louise,
‘John’s been busy –’ had to try and breeze
on into maxi-pathos, being pukka with a heartache
if it was. No, plain old confusion. Were you awake?
I’d say: waiting to a background of music, babble, the tone
of which seemed party time! party time! You grabbed the phone:
           ‘Hello, Central, give me Doctor Jazz.’
           Steady John, what you on? Riesling, mateus, shiraz?
I’m about to drop a big ’un, and the portion
of you that’s sober better tune in: ‘We need an abortion.
Not going to chuck a nervy-do, just want your help.’
And I paused, waited, sensing a brief gulp
from over five hundred miles. ‘Sue. You all right, okay?’
Slurring but concerned. Oh, who wouldn’t give a bouquet,
then, to this year’s most sympathetic male?
Supportive promises, desires to ‘be with you soon’ couldn’t fail;
could they? If Earnest Concern (Theory) were a subject,
you’d be post-doctoral; more than a bit suspect
in the practice though. Thanks for little and why bother thanking
for just promises, really? I gave a plus-two ranking
and obsessed my child’s course, tracked
it back in my mind till you returned from Sydney. I was attacked
for being a silly, silly girl, okay, gently chided,
for not warning: you were fond, you trusted, you confided
more in me, or so you said, than anyone else.
Therefore ‘Whatever I can do – ’ oh, hallelujah! ring dem bells.
This being my first, I trust my last, termination, your quota
of platitudes seems endless, quit wooing with them, please. I’m not a
                          swinging voter.

              And hadn’t that progressive image commenced a dud?
In early Hansards most words seem as the cud
of your class: ‘containment’ – ‘stock’ –‘backbone’ – ‘fibre’.
You could be quaint (still can: using ‘imbiber’
for alcoholic, say, if he’s a mate).

Weren’t you a PR nightmare? How could your tête-à-tête
with destiny arrive on that image?
              ‘I was pretty “right”, yes, call it “right”, Sue. It helps me guage
how far I’ve, no, Australia’s come. Blame my era,
my history, my schooling. Still, the nearer and nearer
I got to power, the more I grew up. Though your lefties clothe me
in a very middle of the road grey, conservatives loathe me.
I’m their own seventies-style Stabber Jack.’ What’s this mean?
But a reference explained wouldn’t really add. Thought you’d still enough sheen,
shining to class you as a ‘rebel’. Was I to discover
a mere question of ambition, no votes in having a lover,
how discreet or advertised? I was, soon after, lying awake
in yet another motor lodge. We ordered a break:
‘quarter time’ as it was neatly termed.
Saw a landslide defeat if the effort of your concerns
were party politics. By then I wouldn’t want you to intrude,
though, even asking, ‘Sue, what’s up?’ seemed a platitude.
             Yet, of course, I liked you; needed to cope the warp and weft
of what we term ‘relating’. This wasn’t just another girl out of her depth,
probably worse: a woman. Spent nights awake, hunting
for excuses, even reasons. Knew I was stunting
myself with childish tantrums, and tried hard
to avoid them, not wishing to drop my guard
and screech, ‘Fuck off!’, like when you were grazed
by an attempted cuff, later telling, ‘Sorry, I was “fazed”’,
a word that, shamefully, I can’t abide.
            Or sweat-banded we jogged, each at the other’s side,
panting like pups. What’s that ever prove?
Sport at the third remove;
hearing your kind of Debbie-Dollies in the changing room: ‘Garth reckons
my tracksuits are straight out of Fabulous Seconds,
and he still won’t believe the labels!’
            Could I believe yours? How would I trust you to trust your babble
or my own? May have had your life to finish, and an agility
to sometimes keep my counsel, but, now, I was your liability.

            Throat like an oven, phlegm like toffee,
those mornings Lou was busy, but Ian came: Earl Grey? Coffee?
Tea thanks, and he’d chat with mummy me trussed
into two pullovers and gown. Lunchtime she’d arrive. They’d fuss
like parents (come on: will you coy two ever stroke
this easy eyeing off into a ‘relationship’?). Had croaked,
‘Just run down with a chill’ two days before. More than mere chill,
now flu, oh flu the great! And my book could stand still
forever. Lou phoned his office, my notes were packed,
the deadline transferred to, well whoever. Pillows stacked,
behind me, sun through the window, how was tricks?
My Kleenex mountain grew, I stank, like the room, of Vicks,
but felt improving. Saw them to the door, came back, collapsed with this
                          damn erratic
disease, whatever I had. ‘Call it psychosomatic,’
I mumbled, fell asleep, then half awoke, still dressed
in sweat first, clothing a sticky second. Would’ve been depressed
about my, our, whole dumb business,
but had this great distraction of an illness
to distance me from you. Couldn’t see how some amends
might be adjusted, though. After all my problem-lobbing onto friends
was Ian impatient, Louise annoyed,
helping my emotions get easier employed?
Their suffering friend’s a terrier
for digging out one more disaster area.
Never been a type to sigh, ‘so be it’,
yet just look every hour, you’ll see it:
a juggernaut marked destiny is hitched
easily, a woman’s destination switched
for another’s; could call it control
if you like, or ‘playing some role’.
But no one should; you’re never a role. However erratic
the mind or heart gets, life’s not amateur dramatics.

             With this ‘trial separation’, didn’t greatly
care, got blasé: anything happen lately?
Haven’t seen you in weeks! I’m turning chubby, that’s what. Fitness,
diets, start tomorrow, always did. But things improve. Witness
how we’ve moved our drinking: junkies, dealers, have poured
into the Albion and stayed. Making me bored,
at the least. They’ve washed us down to Fitzroy
and the Standard. It’s my life. Why shouldn’t I employ
reference points? You’ve your ‘Club’, or Lulus, the Lobby,
as somewhere to tryst. Dining with you has swung from hobby
to career. Please, take other women, men, to join you and impress. For
                          something hackled:
a grit got in the friendship, then more. Didn’t want to be shackled
with someone calling me ‘kid’ the once too often,
and just accept such irritations, to soften
them with the excuse of his sex, age, class, for that old latent cat
in me merely to purr, refuse to scratch. It began as a chat,
just gossip. I was a fool, of course, yet wasn’t, to go pumping
you on the ins ’n’ outs of political bedjumping.
Harmless enough trivia: wasn’t ready to ensure
it’d get me wincing or worse, yet now no colours seem truer,
and wouldn’t I crawl the clichéd mile
of broken glass to view the leader and his shy if warm smile
swap for the grin of some sexist smarty:
              ‘Sue, haven’t I said we’ve affirmative action right through our party?’
              Oh, shuddup: ‘That’s just an equal balance of pricks to cunts
for you. Huh? And don’t look so damn hurt.’ And once,
when you’d another album out for showing:
‘– Vronnie and I’d this thing going –’
going? And hadn’t it gone? ‘– well before I met you,
well before. Not jealous?’ Would never let you
turn me into some stereotype, would I? Can’t demand her
sacking on my account, but: ‘John, I can’t stand her!’
              Wasn’t prepared for analysts, though, to join the legions
of those ‘meaningfully depressed’, patrolling their regions
of therapy and medication. Any fool has power to grope
on through the murk, given faith enough to cope,
adjust and continue, take a finger, dab it
in spit, test the air: ‘Oh John? He’s an ex-habit,
sure but I’m weaned off.’ Then early mornings
I’d awake, recovering from dreams, their warnings
of what to avoid (or should have), had risen, burst
through, flowered to seed again. Was the worst
I still could be your lover if required
still the girl on tap? I’d been so wired
for changes, call it hormones, call it ‘your late twenties/early thirties fog’,
(Ian’s phrase), a suitable one, since these winter weeks seemed clogged
with a greyish indecisive nothing. Now there was little to repeat,
all combinations had occurred. Considered playing Susan, Duchess of
                         Lygon Street:
part mistress part biographer, oh but always a favourite;
though, how could I take ‘intimate’ ‘ – then we became intimate –’
to mean ‘being this close’ to some kingmaker, would-be pretender?

              Drovers, miners, abalone divers hit town, go on a bender
and, well, if so much creeps up grey, ill-defined, to confuse
like then like now, I also head to pub company. Tends either to amuse
or bore; and, when these overlap, keeps reminding
of what Lou once said: ‘Maybe it is this mind thing,
but Melbourne! On occasions I’ve heard and agreed, or thought and
                           said myself,
Fuck, fuck, fuck! In this place do they think of nothing else?’
              So chatting up one Friday at the Standard,
after a joint has hyped me ultra-candid:
              ‘Like getting smashed, Kev? I do. Wine, lager, bitter
draught, even stout? Nah. Spirits only tonight.’ The hues of winter
filled the public bar: blacks, blues and browns;
with friends to share my ups and ride my downs,
I’d arrived back. And this Kev deserved I make a start
in ‘getting along’. But the taste was tart,
and I shuddered, saw myself staring in
a barrel of bullshit, all that’s, so called egalitarian.
             A women’s studies post-grad meets a wharfie/
painter ’n’ docker/that ilk, say, invites him back to coffee,
a number, a rave; and what’s to follow
the next day? ‘Bonjour, Kev.’ ‘Huh?’ ‘That’s hello
in French.’ And the final hour is spent,
trying to save him, you, more embarrassment.
            Oh, a touch of the worker and consciousness unfurls,
to separate the women from the girls,
they think. Poor deluded molls. Why slave
after ockers? Haven’t you heard that they’ve
almost another language? Why bother bumming it
round public bars for further slumming it,
huh? Sure, there’s a whole class struggle to instil ’em
with, but you just wince at every haitch and fillum.

            Yet I am sure how they feel these guys,
floundering beyond an un-used-to-depth, somehow applies
to my last year. Only now has the house-rebel
returned to discover her own level,
not having to explain the unspoken
(since such shouldn’t get explained: as token
of a similar wavelength); not having to always chat, discuss,
argue, or when John got really arch, rap. ‘You’re a stubborn cuss,’
he’d announce, ‘– a liberal education, still you won’t budge,
much.’ (I’d adapt, more, if this less-than-subtle nudge
towards what you believe wasn’t so constant.)
Then I truced. Supposing we acknowledged similar problems, while
                          you’d grant
my interesting theories: ‘– though the practice! The practice!’
              Even this part of our game wouldn’t last: became quite seasoned
                           in how to kiss
and make up, just like them fillums. It still amazes
being your lover, you mine. Re-heating your old phrases?
‘can’t keep my hands away,’ or, ‘– aren’t we just a couple of sooks?’
              Today I’ll be arriving with those papers, books
lent for my work, and I’m thinking, Play cool. Koornung could tee you
another afternoon like all the rest. Thinking, Love to see you,
want to, but don’t need to, the chorus of (what I’d choose
to call my present reverie), Roadhouse Blues.
              For I mean you weren’t just novelty. It would inflame
some friends that I haven’t yet quit in disgust, or don’t proclaim:
‘Agh! His mob. Little but a pack of trendies!’ Trendies?
a meaningless term of abuse. In the end it
merely repeats the old-time left honing
in on, ‘Agh! Uuh! Silvertails.’ No use moaning
the establishment! The establishment!
in your case, though. Influence is spent
clunk, over. Old wealth’s a museum piece;
only its pride remains; though that’s enough to stop you greas-
ing on up to media magnates, yet.
Respecting (if not you) your families, their debt
is owed to a tone, but then it stops.
For what’s a use of Buvelots’ riding crops,
restored jinkers, etcetera, in laser technology? Crown, sceptre, orb
of a quaint past: Like graffiti, the movement daubed
during the struggle. Did we ‘Lynch McTaggart’
a decade ago? We did. Tell myself: You’ve just to hack it,
sweetheart, each time his past, our present, whose future
is presented. ‘That clown’ll suit ya,’
a friend said, ‘like a leper.’ Some friend!
Was proud to ditch her, proud not to pretend
what our affair had become. Or so I thought,
for some things had escaped: ‘Jack Mac’s Biographical Rort’
was a smutty par sub-headed, ‘Ssshh (Hot!) Gun Wedding Chimes?’
Yet alluding sniggers in the Toorak Times
Merely pestered. Know it won’t hold a candle
to the great all-star celebrity affairs. Can’t see this as any scandal;
though Melbourne may adopt group apoplexy,
I couldn’t bother. But know how our afternoons can build – slow, sexy –
and, if we’d admit, quite loving. To get and end us snarling,
grunting like a sow ’n’ hog. Why ask, ‘Fuck me’ when ‘Fuck me, darling’
sounds much better? Hitting this woman ‘just there’.
Mere words don’t commit you, but surely you’re aware
even these smallest touches add, cement,
a couple’s feelings. Oh, there’re friends who’d try getting me repent
at that word ‘couple’; but knowing you I’ve learnt
enough guile, say, to ignore them; or gall to answer, ‘What were we
                         if we weren’t?’

            Yet I’ve rejoined my crowd: those art, rock, writing, acting
                        teaching mentors
of the inner-urban left. My morning centres
once again on coffee (at Trotters now), piss fartin’
about other people’s business. Round Carlton
what’s to be believed? The gossip is so numerous!
           But yesterday a very queen of rumours
(its source is excellent): I head – ahem –
the job short list at QED-FM.
Imagine this: Sue hosting current affairs
(might have you on), co-ordinating live-to-airs,
all purpose two IC. Oh, it’ll serve to give
a public what they crave: quite alternative,
quite my style and generation. But who’ll be kidded
with all their safe, bland preaching to the committed?
(Which, maybe, just, their comedy ‘cures’,
despite what those smartarse in-jokey film reviewers
get across as culture and a good chuckle,
any adolescent throwback will dig, any suck’ll
no doubt love.)

                         Lou was round the other night. We were stoned.
The first after a few months’ break. Then you phoned
with your message, news thought to enhance
my name, your life: Another Choice Another Chance
by Susan Dobson and Veronica Lim.
Well, thanks, but I’d not been asked by her by him
to get included. ‘Who thought that dumb title, sweetee?
Mmm? It’ll be used. Sounds great for a curriculum vitae.’
             ‘Kid, your recognition’s deserved – it’s at the binders.’
             ‘Vron ’n’ Sue eh? You’ve a fine pair of intellectual minders.’
             Perhaps he laughed. Which helped me laugh it
into, Please, John, something must’ve been worth it.
Say something real is, was. But didn’t, for I rank quite poorly
in the tact ratings. Though anything can be salvaged, surely,
even this afternoon?

                                       Don’t want it frittered
into sitting at this table littered
with plastic knives and forks, fast-food bibs.
I sip this coffee, prepare to meet his nibs
(my pendant wearing, slight greying Mr Bliss);
thick-sconing myself into the obvious:
you were my prize and I, yours,
but, match abandoned, am writing off the scores.
That’s civilized and ex-lover deferring to ex-lover
how it should be. ‘Michelle!’ A young mother
snaps, her five-year-old messing in a bin
sending her ratty. ‘Michelle!’ She gives the world a din
of: ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t!’ I’d do it too.
The child gets smacked. Study the table, Sue.
I won’t. Michelle! Must’ve been unfurled
on half of a half of the English-speaking world.
Poor brat (hardly more than five): a freckled roly-poly
kid in cardigan and floral skirt. Some names digest slowly
through time. Think, though, this one has stuck.

                                                                                   Ahh, but neither too ‘normal’:
Lara, Tara, Samantha, Danielle, or too ‘formal’:
Emily, Emma, Sophie, Sarah (too anything), Bronwyn is a
                          fine strong name.
So maybe I’ve cracked off on another hobby horse to entertain
the thought of a future Bronwyn Louise?
And I have. There could be a tight squeeze
in the schedule but given six years, well into some career
(QED as mere stepping stone), I might’ve bred, though this could appear
as maybe less, if any worthwhile partner’s found.
              And he’ll hear-tell things about you, aware that the scripts,
                          sight and sound
of a public figure ex-lover must remain.

                                                                    For so one night as interlude
behold McTaggart once more on the tube.
My husband, boyfriend, the child’s father might laugh:
             ‘Weren’t you once a member of his staff?’
             ‘Euphemisms become you,’ I’ll reply, always geared
for this quiet, slightly caustic man with a beard
to make his brief, sardonic comments. Four years my junior,
he’ll have an ambiguous point-scoring concern ‘– miracle is he didn’t
            ruin ya
absolutely, Sue. That clown’s demented.’
            And knowing I won’t object, quits there. He’s meant it,
but that can’t hurt. You were jobs back, Bronwyn ago.
What started as a ‘profile’, turned you companion, employer, beau
for ten months. What a hoot! (You gather,
John, I’ll be capable of saying it then, now.) After the weather,
he somewhat suggests we watch what follows, but though on leave I’m
                          tired; Bron must be fed,
sometime. (The late news flickers to a dot, out.) We go to bed.