The Grand Hotel (12 page)

It was hard to fathom at first – not so much the familiar perfection of the perfumes but the unexpected beauty of the sound. Others described it later to me as their musical awakening. The Blonde Maria for one was humbled, almost beyond recall. She flat out refused to sing in The Grand Hotel for weeks afterwards, thereby setting in train the hotel's most miraculous moments but also perhaps its eventual demise.

As my eyes opened from the dream of golden harvests, I breathed deeply through my nose and lay still. Along with the rhythmic healing wafts of riverflat melaleuca drifting into my loft came a song, a song like no other.

It really was a
song
, in the purest sense. And it came from a voice at once so beautiful and ordinary that it seemed both as substantial and ethereal as the sky. In fact, to be more accurate, it was a voice that seemed to contain all the dark heaped-up soil of the earth as well as the endless consolations of the sky's blue light. In the gentle gusts of our local wind this song sailed like the sun itself from an upper-storey window of the hotel out into the morning air of the backyard, convincing everything it touched and anything that heard it that time itself was no more than a sighing, loving, somehow wistful thing.

I learnt later that it was ‘Di Provenza il mar', Germont's baritone aria from
La Traviata
, but that's to somehow trivialise what I heard at the time. I knew nothing of operatic names – I still don't. All I knew was the beauty of a lost world somehow restored to me. Awakening from my dream, it was as if monstrous and needless fissures had been healed.

I propped myself up on an elbow and the singer began the aria again from its beginning. It grew fainter and louder again, and the penny dropped. It could only be The Lazy Tenor, singing this extraordinary welcome to his first day in Mangowak as he moved about his room.

So I lay back again, flat on my pillow, staring joyously at the old barn rafters. What had I said to Veronica when she'd pooh-poohed my comparison of our new visitor with Arthur Cravan? I said I was remaining open to everything.

‘Di Provenza il mar' has a gentle pulse rather than a time signature, more an aquatic current than a rhythm, but of course, as The Lazy Tenor sang it from his upstairs room that morning, any orchestration there was could only come from the weather itself. In an instant, and for the very first time, I understood all the fuss about operatic singing. I understood the word ‘aria' for the first time too, the word ‘air', and that this is the very beautiful thing that sustains us. This was a sound as superlative and fresh as low-tide abalone, a song with all the tangy nourishment of a December strawberry; it was as miraculous as a champion racehorse from a backwater town, as awe-inspiring as a giant Otway mountain ash. It seemed to capture all peace, hold all power, and at the same time set it free. It included all restless and aimless desires but it also had the certainty of a well struck hammer blow.

As The Lazy Tenor began the aria for the third and last time, a new certainty of my own had begun growing within my chest. There was no way, no way on heaven and earth, that this new guest would be turfed out of my hotel.

It took me a long time, but finally, after the singing had stopped, I managed to rise and climb down my ladder. Pulling back the big barn doors, I went out to investigate.

There was not a sound from the hotel now, either upstairs or down. I made my way through the sunroom into the bar. I fossicked in the cupboards and started to fix myself an omelette. As I cracked a large galaxially speckled Heatherbrae pullet into the skillet, I noticed that still lying on the bar mat was a pink business card from an Altona hairdresser, which The Lazy Tenor had been exhibiting the night before as a souvenir of one of his conquests. The likelihood of the singing I'd just heard coming from the very same man who'd brandished that card like a trophy of war began to seem more and more remote. By the time the fourth egg was in my hands and I'd split it on the cast-iron rim, I was convinced the aria just had to be part of my dream, along with the melaleuca and the mussel harvests.

I leant down into the old champagne bucket where we kept the cut herbs and threw them in with the eggs: parsley, oregano, French tarragon, thyme and Vietnamese mint. As I kept prodding the moist parts of the omelette into the centre of the pan and fluffed and finally folded it onto my plate, the everyday reality of food had almost convinced me that, yes, the super-real aria was from the dream. But then I heard a shifting on the furniture, a creak from near the ashes of last night's fire. And a quiet voice asked, ‘Is that you, Noel?'

I picked up my plate and carried it to the other side of the bar. I looked around the corner of the L-shaped room. There was The Blonde Maria, seated at one of the brown laminated tables in her dressing gown, smoking a tailor-made cigarette, with a half eaten chicken carcass and a bottle of ouzo in front of her.

‘An ancient Greek breakfast,' I joked, pulling up a chair beside her and putting down my plate.

She smiled mildly, then laughed quietly through her nose. She took a swig of ouzo, straight from the bottle.

‘All we need is naked men,' she said.

I nodded, laughed quietly, then tucked into my omelette. My appetite was strong. Beside me The Blonde Maria just puffed on her cigarette.

Eventually she leant back in her chair, let out a deep chicken-scented breath and asked, ‘Could it really have been him?'

My knife and fork stilled. I considered the question and then asked tentatively, ‘Do you mean the singing?'

The Blonde Maria gazed into my eyes with a glazy look. ‘It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard,' she said.

I swallowed, filled my cheeks with air and blew. ‘Well, you won't get any arguments on that from me. I was just beginning to think I'd dreamt it.'

‘I still can't believe it,' she went on. ‘I really can't. I'd just woken up from the most beautiful dreams. I was riding a grey mare on the indigo slopes back in Dookie. I opened my eyes, felt so free and relaxed, and was about to go down to the ocean for a swim when I heard a man's footsteps in the hallway and remembered he was staying. So I stopped, sat down on the edge of the bed looking out the window, and waited. And then it started. Oh my God it was beautiful.'

I began eating again. Tink, tink, went the knife and fork. So I hadn't imagined it, or dreamt it. And up there in the room above us the singer still sat, presumably hunched over a laptop, writing his ribald book.

‘I know there were a few people unhappy with his behaviour last night, Noel, but you can't kick him out. Not if he sings like that!' said The Blonde Maria.

I didn't reply. I finished off the omelette and wiped my mouth. Then I reached over and grabbed the ouzo bottle and took a burst for myself. A hot course of aniseed rushed through my blood.

‘You don't have to worry, Maria,' I said then. ‘That fella can stay in my hotel any old time. Let's just hope “The Tradesman's Entrance” is a bloody long book.'

Italian Yoga

Later that day, in a mood somewhere between happiness and bafflement, I was standing alone in the toilet, having just installed the day's new loop in Duchamp, when our illustrious singer himself appeared, busting for a piss. He looked dishevelled, he reeked of beer and seaweed, but although his boots and shirt were wet on his huge frame he was buttoned to the cuffs, just like a boy from the inland would be.

He told me gruffly he'd been drinking on the beach since well before lunch. As his pent-up golden stream splashed into the stainless steel, the new contribution I'd chosen for Duchamp sounded almost more apt than surreal:

I'd chosen this particular loop to inspire a greater intake of alcohol, after the paltry quantities that were drunk the night before due to the distraction of our new guest. Now, as he finished pissing and zipped up, he asked me with a big smile if we could hear the loop again. So I stepped up onto the pissoir and had a turn. When I finished halfway through the second repeat, he clapped his big hands together and crowed, ‘Well fuck me! That is deadset weird.' He put a thoughtful hand up to his chin and broke into a broad grin. ‘This pub is tops. I slept like a twit up there last night. Nice room, nice breeze, nice fartsack. Took myself down to the beach this morning after breakfast, thought I'd give myself a day to settle in before I began the book. Bloody beautiful. Gotta watch the sunburn though. Freckly bastard aren't I, hey? The red hair and that. Mate, I might be able to drink but I'm no bloody drunken seal yet, that's for sure.'

Seeing him so happy, I decided to test the waters. I had to – I just couldn't stand the cultural confusion. The guy was like a walking collage. ‘If you like Duchamp,' I said innocently, ‘maybe you could sing something for us and we'll put it on the loop one day? That was
you
singing upstairs this morning wasn't it?'

He thrust his lips forward, turned his head to one side and began scratching his neck. ‘Singing?' he said. ‘Is that what you'd call it? You should hear me on a good day.'

‘Well I'd like to. What I heard this morning was beautiful.'

‘Beautiful!' the big man scoffed, loudly, with a full horsey snort. ‘No, mate, let me tell ya, only women are beautiful, only women. Well, maybe a recording or two of Tito Gobbi, in his prime mind you, but that stuff this mornin', nah, I was just stretchin'. Italian yoga I call it.'

I laughed. Italian yoga. That was a good one. But I couldn't work out whether he was serious or not. Surely he'd been told all his life how amazing his voice was, and surely somewhere along the line he'd put a lot of effort into getting it to sound like that. ‘So are you a tenor?' I asked. ‘Excuse my ignorance.'

‘Ignorance!' he scoffed again. ‘Come off it would ya! Don't worry about that, mate. This is your fuckin' joint isn't it? You can ask any question you like.'

Suddenly then his face took on a different cast. It settled, became more considered, and he said, ‘I am a tenor actually, but I'm what they call a
lazy tenor
. Can't be bothered with the high notes you know. Most of the time I end up singing baritone parts. They're more solid anyway – you know, richer tone, more manly. Like that thing from
La Traviata
this morning, “Di Provenza il mar”. Magnificent piece of music that. They say Verdi wrote it but it's more like an act of nature.'

The Lazy Tenor began to hum the aria right there in the toilet, and straightaway I could hear the honeyed resonance I'd encountered when I'd woken from my dream. Even with his lips closed, just humming, I could hear it.

He stopped as quickly as he'd started. ‘My pa back in Blokey Hollow used to sing that piece when he was fixin' his bikes. Heavily into pushbikes my pa.'

‘Is that right?' I replied, deciding to tease out a bit more information. ‘Did he have a good voice too?'

‘Pa? Nah, you couldn't really say that. But I liked it, as a kid and that. He was a smart bloke, Pa. Made my first violin with his own hands. It was rough as guts lookin' back, probably sounded like a shot cat, but he made it himself you know. In his pushgrunt workshop.'

‘In his what?'

‘His pushgrunt workshop. Pushgrunt's what we used to call bikes in our part of the world. Pa had dozens of 'em there in his workshop. And old wheels and bits and pieces lyin' about.'

‘So you play the violin as well?'

‘Not anymore. Don't ride bikes anymore either. Used to though. Used to race 'em as a real young fella. And then when I got a bit older I used to chase sheilas on 'em. Geez, the miles I've pedalled a pushgrunt after the hairy magnet! Hey? Fuckin' miles alright. Most of central Victoria I reckon!'

‘Is that right?' I said, poker-faced.

‘Yep, I reckon. Used to go down to Harcourt, Castlemaine, up to Boort. Went as far as Mildura once. Folks thought I was going to sing in church choirs but nuh, I was pedallin' after the skirt. Now tell me, would ya, who was that sheila I saw here last night? With the dyed hair and the big brown eyes? She went home early.'

‘You mean Veronica?'

‘That's it, that's the one. They were callin' her Ronnie. Nice lookin', bit exotic. Not that I'm here to shag. Nuh, I'm here to write – I've told you that.'

‘Yeah, “The Tradesman's Entrance”.'

At the mention of his book The Lazy Tenor's face opened like a child's. It was the first signal I had that he wasn't completely cocksure.

‘That's right! You remembered!' he cried.

‘Well, I could hardly forget.'

‘Nah, I suppose not. Great title isn't it? Titles are important you know. They gotta sound good. Otherwise you're stuffed. That's why the Italians write the best operas, mate. The language just sounds so grouse. Virtually everything rhymes you know.
La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, Otello ...
I mean “The Tradesman's Entrance” doesn't sound as good as that but it's funny you know, like a punchline to a joke.'

‘You don't reckon it's a bit
off
?'

‘What do ya mean “off”? Like too dirty or somethin'?'

‘Well, yeah.'

He wiped a polyester cuff across his brow. ‘Oh geez,' he said, in a mildly depressed tone. ‘I didn't pick you for an uptight prick. You are the publican here aren't ya?' He nodded towards Duchamp. ‘You obviously don't mind a bit of a laugh, hey? So, what the fuck?'

I giggled through my nose; it's all I could do. Without going right back through the history of the oppression of women and dragging out the worthy clichés about the objectification of the female body, there was nothing I could say. He had me stumped. Plus, I was cornered by my sheer amazement at what this bloke entailed. By the pure and natural qualities of both his singing and his boorishness. He was nothing if not well and truly
alive
. If I was ever gonna try to rein him in, I'd have to take a few deep breaths first. But now wasn't the time, I decided. No, I certainly wasn't up to it there and then. And besides, I was having too much fun.