Who Is Your Intended Audience?

Isn't this question, when put to a creative originator, of only the most limited use?

It's most used by various types of arts executives floundering for purchase on the creative, the imaginative - most threateningly, the original.

If they really want to be a good disciple of 'market forces' shouldn't they be asking 'How are we going to sell this?'

And the answer to that lies with the marketing department.

It is a question most used by those lacking commitment.

They are the very ones who misuse the word 'passionate' - with 'I am' and 'very' just in front of it (if they use 'absolutely' or 'totally' just practise deep breathing).

In the recent (Issue 18 Spring 2010) Australian Writers' Guild journal storyline editor Rosalie Higson offers  in her article 'what audiences want' the evolving thoughts of major Australian film maker George Miller on putting bums on seats -

'For a long time the question that drove a lot of my process was how do you tell stories well? And then it became, why do you tell stories, why do we need stories. and why do we tell each other stories? And when you get into that question you realise that there is an interplay between the people who create the narrative, whichever form it is - a journalist, a songwriter, a poet, someone on the Web - there is an interplay between the narrator and the zeitgeist. And so I think what you do is you spend a lot of time trying to sense what's out there and you're basically  responding to that according to who you are'.

Even though no artist would consciously 'spend  a lot of time trying to sense what's out there', this is surely a more useful, realistic - a truer approach than to ask 'And who is your intended audience?'

Recently I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1. The audience was overwhelmingly young Chinese Australians. Did J K Rowling have them in mind when she set out to help produce the film? What marketing executive would have thought of them? Especially in terms of what they seemed to find appealing - an identification with nerdish, smallish, dark haired Harry and the hilarity the dumb bunglings and unrequited love of Anglo-Celt Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint - isn't his name better than the one Rowling gave the character?) seemed to inspire?

This article is in part my response to the issue of 'intended audience'.

BUT WHO ARE THEY MADE FOR? - WEST and NOISE

One of the questions which has come to haunt scriptwriters and film directors in the fraught quest to garner production money is –Yeah, yeah, but who is your intended audience? Anyone who is going to give a project money feels as entitled to an answer to this as they do to demanding the script be rewritten to configure with their fantasies and whims.

What answer could there possibly be? Teenage boys? Teenage girls? Middle-aged men? (the response to the latter would immediately be, But they don’t go to movies). And yes, there are films which seem clearly aimed at an intended audience – Finding Nemo was obviously developed as a kids’ flick but did the pitch also include, For kids and those who pay for their tickets? Indubitably.

The answer the creatives would want to give to the question, But who is it for? is, As many people as possible; as my film project has universal themes, naturally everyone will want to see it. Or, Film Lovers (this response is guaranteed to get a laugh or exasperated sighs). Maybe this is what  Matthew Reeder and Anne Robinson who produced West (Dan Krige, 2007) meant by  – ‘It was a film we wanted to make and I think it will find an audience’ (Matthew Reeder quoted in AAP article ‘West director lived on beans for movie’ www.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=277212 accessed 19/07/07 - THIS LINK SEEMS TO BE NO LONGER OPERATING).

Who, come to think of it was My Brilliant Career made for? Gallipoli? Or Harvie Krumpet if it comes to that? And was the success of Kenny (Clayton and Shane Jacobson, 2006) due to its addressing universal themes thus appealing to a universal demographic? Were its producers actually surprised by the extent of its success? Did they accept that their demographic was to be middle-aged men? (In Australia figured as male over twenty-five hitherto believed to have been lost to the allure of film).

Surely that question about intended audience, put blankly, is unanswerable in any sensible way? Pitches though, are not entirely about good sense. And as much as film producers and government funded script developers pretend to be economic rationalists, they are not working in a rational sphere: movies are magic; formulae are death.

David Stratton on the Movie Show asked by way of being dubious about West, But who was it made for? And it does seem extraordinary, given the fairly long line of Australian films which address urban youth hopelessness, that it got producers on board. Perhaps though its line of antecedents were an advantage to West – it could be understood in terms of a tradition of such films. Following this line of inquiry, who did the producers of Noise (Madman) think would be rushing to put their bums on seats to watch that film? Madman, unhelpfully for us, sees itself as a ‘strong supporter of quality content, regardless of how eclectic or unique it may be … Madman will help it find its target audience’  (‘Speciality Genres’CLICK HERE accessed 20/07/07). Which audience did they see as the target for Noise? Madman is also a significant distributor.

Pursuing the matter of how and why West and Noise (Matthew Saville, 2007) got made might allow us to infer what aspects were intended to make them ‘commercial’, what effect this had on them artistically and how the ‘commercial’ and the ‘artistic’ can be separated in the context of Australian feature films when so many projects do not get out of the barracks in the production stakes.

Noise is a superb production. The use of new audio technology is only one of the elements which give this film such a high finish. László Baranyai’s photography is for the most part accurately evocative. The dim cold blues and threatening darknesses of the exterior shots and the ominously shadowy domestic interiors suggest whoever did the Lighting was/were in deep sympathy with Baranyai and Writer/Director Matthew Saville’s vision for the film. Paddy Reardon’s mise en scène compounds this sense of production harmony … the victim’s home is cold and bare, she trembles and it offers no succour; the principal couple’s home is busy, witty and slightly disturbingly unreconstructed with seventies kitsch, it is warm with yellows but the dim lighting is ominous and the dark recesses suggest potential violence. There is one serious problem: it seems the team were unsure whether they wanted to reveal the killer’s identity in the slaughter scene; he is either deliberately obscured or badly photographed. This has serious consequences for the intention and effect of the film’s denouement. And there are a few very ordinary touches - the flickering Milk Bar sign, the spot from the helicopter on the body. Perhaps more could have been made of the interior of the police caravan. The high finish of this film and much of its artistic success can probably be traced to the fact that its Producer Trevor Blainey had worked with Matthew Saville and László Baranyai on the award winning short Roy Hölsdotter Live (Matthew Saville 2002) so that high levels of trust and understanding were in place from the beginning and were sustained despite inputs from backers/distributors. The producer and the creatives had a good history and it showed.

With its limited set-ups West seems the result of a lower budget ($1.2 as against $2 million insofar as I can ascertain) but there is also a filmic familiarity which cannot be blamed on budget restrictions alone. Paradoxically, familiarity can sell a script: producers may like what they recognise. But audiences tend to like fresh springs bubbling from familiar genre landscapes. West does not offer this. The originality of Noise emanates largely from its adventurous criss crossing of genres: horror, thriller, domestic drama, cop, noir, comedy and romance. West seemed content to lie somewhere between Ken Loach type docudrama and a (diluted) noir thriller. Its irresolute conclusion (conclusions? - there seemed to be about three moments when the film was gesturing at ending) might have been the result of trying to give its worthy social realist purposes some sort of commercial appeal - no that’s absolutely bleak, that’s too unsettling, that’s too clichéd. Finally it settles on an extremely tentative positive note somewhat at odds with its course. Its producers specifically mention (AAP article ‘West director lived on beans for movie’ op cit) that it was eschewing ‘Hollywood hope’. What then did they imagine was in West which would encourage an audience to ‘find’ it? In its way it is a powerful film but it is not original. Surely it was important that it had something new to say?

The admirable genre complexity of Noise might have been the happy result of many hands attempting to give it audience appeal (though this process can result in unpalatable genre potage). However its success in this regard seems to have derived from imaginative narrative structuring unmolested by multiple script interferences. Matthew Saville claimed that after eight drafts the script was given only ‘incredibly precise changes’ as a result of an AFC SP*RK script hothouse workout (‘2004 SP*RK participant Matthew Saville …. speaks to Dan Edwards about his debut feature Noise http://www.afc.go.au/newsandevents/afcnews/converse/saville/newspge_276.aspx accessed 19/0707 - THIS LINK SEEMS TO BE NO LONGER OPERATING).

Be all this as it may both films suffer from that characteristic fault of Australian films – emotional thinness. It is as if Australian filmmakers cannot understand character. Lantana (Ray Lawrence, 2001) was known as ‘at last an Australian film for adults’ because it could confidently attribute complexity and maturity to at least some of its characters. Neither of the films under consideration managed that. At the moment this weakness would seem to be a national failing beyond the ameliorating influence of commercial appeal (to whichever proposed demographic(s) or government funded interventions.

Noise very, very well establishes the desolation of Melbourne’s Sunshine by the most economical of implications. West flounders in its context (Sydney’s Merrylands sometime in the near past though it could be almost anywhere with a blood house pub, a drain and a chicken franchise). West is extremely well served by its actors but their characters remain, despite their changing circumstances, simplistic. Jerry (an exceptional performance by Nathan Phillips) it is true, grows towards some kind of maturity through his love for Cheryl (the names have a tellingly inaccurate ring) and the ambition for a different sort of life this love fires in him. But this growth is very small - from the outset he has been more responsible and feeling than his adoring cousin Pete (Khan Chittenden) and remains so. The film lavishes attention on these two characters and they are very well served by Phillips and Chittenden yet they remain beneath both our sympathy and contempt. Worse, Cheryl (Gillian Alexy) comes across as if through a glass misogynistically because of this sketchiness: she is a veritable Lilith slithering through Merrylands intent on seduction, destruction and a good time (Gillian Alexy and Krige give Cheryl too much poise and assurance). Oddly enough, the much lesser part of her friend Bunny (Blazey Best) is more successful. The script and Blazey Best’s performance allow Bunny a desperation for affection and affirmation, a clinging to some notion of self-respect which engages. All of these actors incandesce in pub, tree-house, drain or chicken franchise only to blink away again on some frightful errand of despair. Matt Saville and co were able to make of the space between Noise’s police caravan and milk bar, a world. If West was made for the audience with a social conscience many more opportunities for human understanding needed to be up there on the screen. Writer/Director Dan Krige insisted, ‘The relationship with an audience is like any relationship – people know if you are bullshitting’. This seems to suggest he thought his personal authenticity would carry the film. Krige’s need for catharsis (attested in everything he said about West) may not have translated as catharsis for his audience for one basic reason - they did not seem to figure sufficiently in his and his producers’ vision for the film, great though their faith in it was.

Noise has an associated problem – it is vitiated by its witty Australian laconicisms. No doubt this increased its appeal for backers because, in its fashion, it is funny. The problem is it thinned two of its characters into caricatures. This mattered less in the case of Maude Davey’s policewoman Rhon (the naming is characteristically hilarious and accurate) than with protagonist Constable Graham McGahan (Brendan Cowell). Cowell’s role was overwhelmingly important. As suggested, his performance lacked nuance. The film suffered accordingly. Writer/Director Saville must take some of the responsibility for this: Cowell was not helped by a script that insists on that laconicism some filmmakers seem to find an irresistibly attractive Australian trait and the fact that Constable Graham McGahan is allowed an emotional age of sixteen. Oh well this is two years more than the same type of film makers can usually endow their male protagonists with. Also characteristically, Noise explores larrikinism. The way it does this is a distinct advance on the usual cinematic demand for a mindless guffawing admiring response. Too many Australian films have been made by boys with budgets who believe the pranks they find hilarious will find a resonance with audiences - that is, they believe their audience is just like them, or ought to be.

In the AAP interview article ‘West director lived on beans for movie’ (op cit) the producers of West follow writer/director Dan Krige’s insistence on the integrity of their artistic undertaking – ‘It was never a commercial proposition in the beginning’ (Matthew Reeder – does he mean it became one in the end?) and Reeder and Anne Robinson ‘admitted it could have been a commercial risk making a film which wasn’t “full of Hollywood hope” … [Well, was it?]  Everyone was very pure about their motivations and I think that comes across in the finished product’. (In what way?). West also had Australian Film Commission support as one of its very few IndiVision Projects. Its very familiarity in a line of Australian films and its ‘purity’ of purpose might have helped it to garner this AFC support as might the fact that it was to be shot in HD. The AFC say they supported the production of West because they felt it met their brief to progress/promote the careers of film talent in Australia. In this regard they saw the careers of Krige, Reeder and Robinson as worth investing in. The AFC felt the script of West was vivid and put characters up on screen whom Australian audiences do not often get a chance to see. The AFC considered that West might have some difficulty finding its theatre audience but felt confident it would make its mark on the big screen thereby securing a further audience via DVD. The AFC feels vindicated in its support of West by its selection for the Berlin Film Festival (pers comm AFC – Jackie McKimmie 30/07/07). The post production company Cutting Edge also demonstrated its faith in West by backing it.

The history of the film’s development suggests it was driven by Krige’s passion for which he was fortunate to find support and understanding in Matthew Reeder, Anne Robinson, the AFC and Cutting Edge. The result is worthily confronting but after such knowledge what forgiveness?

The reasons why producers get behind a project may not be all they proclaim; the project they wish to associate themselves with and to some extent control probably resonates with them for personal reasons of which they may not be fully aware. However as previous articles in Metro demonstrate (see for example Ann Hardy’s ‘The Accidental Author’ in Metro No 148 ), an examination of the backing process and the motivation behind this process will often reveal a lot about the screened result. Those aspiring to make feature films almost invariably find themselves exposed to intense economic rationalist scrutiny at some stage. This need not necessarily be an impediment to a fine, original, imaginative work of art which speaks to audiences. It will be interesting to see if the Government’s revisiting of tax breaks for film backers will result in a flow of features which are screened only to reside for ever more as neglected DVDs. Let us hope the new round of backers will know enough about film and themselves to contribute to more rigorous and original works and that not only the film industry but the nation has grown past our cringingly apologetic – jump cut to - aggressively defiant sense of ourselves.

That Would Be Me - serialisation of a chick lit (if you must) novel of neo colonialism and identity

THAT WOULD BE ME

Chapter One 

in which our heroine is overtaken by an urge for a new life

i

A foot came down on the sand strewn with curlicues and knots of bleached sea bones. It was brown and had pink nails which looked like exquisite simple shells themselves against the nestling and stretched tan toes. Between the big toe and the next lay a plastic daisy - mauve at the centre with wheeling yellopetals.

She raised her eyes and looked at where she was. Far out waves cascaded in an emerald turn and rushed frothing over a turquoise lens into which they subsided. It sparkled. Near her they lapped transparent against sand which fizzled to a dazzling white. Ahead was a green headland sweating, inland was a fringe of shrubbery waving, just.

'I can't go on,' she said and sat down.

She pulled her frock under but the heat of the sand still came through so she got up again.

'Come on,' he said, 'it's only a couple of metres. Iced coffee.' He laughed his winning laugh and put an arm around her.

It was warm and smooth. She looked at it and admired its brownness and curves.

'O K,' she said. Her mind was made up.

'Danke,'  she said to the girl who brought her her iced coffee.

The girl had looked a little surprised and later came and spoke to her in German.

Which she ignored. 'We've been in Thailand. We flew into Cairns. It's incredible. I can never go back.'

'How will you stay?' the German girl asked.

She shrugged.

'We can go underground until we're ready to leave,' Lynton said, 'it's huge, they'll never catch us. How did you get this job? Have you got a work permit? Is the money all right?'

She listened with some interest to his voice and thought she must never sound like that again and to the German girl's clear strong tones.

'It's always bad. They know they can get backpackers to work for very little. It is probably beneath the regulation but ... ' She shrugged in a most interesting way. 'It was better in Cairns, the tourists are rich and give you big tips in the restaurants. Here it is all backpackers.'

They all looked around. Through the woven fronds of the cafe along the endless glaring white curve of the beach, out at the lagoon which had turned aquamarine as morning gave way to the approach of noon. The waves had given up turning over the reef.

The impulse tightened inside her so that it almost hurt. All right, she noted, I am not going back. It relaxed, somewhat.

She and Lynton sat, she in utter silence, listening to the sand being swished by the little breeze, the murmur of voices at the other tables, the shrilling harmony of the cicadas. There was a faint whistling from the palms.

'Let's go back. The guys'll be in from the reef. I can't wait to go. Scuba booba and all that, Reefies whipping by with their white tipped fins.' He sketched a reef shark sweeping by with his arm and hand. He did it very well. She noticed people at other tables admiring him.

She looked at him. Deep blue eyes beneath a tawny thatch, salt clinging to his golden brow. A revelation of beautiful shoulder beneath his carelessly worn shirt, picked with his infallible eye from endless coloured shirts in endless markets in one of the endless beach resorts of Thailand.

'This is the best holiday,' he said under her gaze.

She was examining his chin which was rounded then square, looked at his mouth as he spoke so he smiled his perfect white teeth.

'It's not a holiday,' she said and rose, gathering her bag which like her sandals, his shirt, was the non plus ultra, not too camp, not too kitsch, not too cute ... serious in its whimsy. She had noticed other girls glancing at it, then her with respect.

'You're right,' Lynton said as they made their way out, 'it's a lifestyle.'

Anger bolted up in her. She was unused to feeling so stopped abruptly and pressed a clenched fist to her diaphragm. Her teeth clenched so that she could say nothing and she immediately stepped on.

Walking back towards the bunked room she dreaded, she gazed around, gathering the landscape to her, proprietal, inhaled it.

'Hey!' he called to some people watching television in the rec room, 'Are the guys back yet?'

She continued on to the dorm. Put her bag down, slipped her sandals off neatly and arranged herself on the bottom bunk, carefully pulling the fabric of her beach frock straight beneath her, smoothing its front. She stared at the springs above.

No idea came to her.

After a while Lynton came in. He hesitated because he thought she might be ignoring him for some reason sand then bowed over to sit next to her. He rested a hand on her ribs. Then he said, 'The guys aren't back from the Reef yet, they must have be having a really good time. I can't wait. I've dreamt of it.'

She noted that she would never say 'really good time' like that ever again and said, 'Same,' and resolved against that too.

After a while he said, 'Are you all right?'

She would have sat up but the springs above her were too close so she turned her head and gave him the most penetrating look she had ever given anyone. 'I'm fine. Never been better. Wundabah.'

'You sound funny.'

'Do I?' she ventured and found it strong so heaved her body around, forcing him to stand up, and sat herself in his position, bent over on the bunk.

'Have you got your thing - the period?'

She stood up and he took a step back.

Neither of them was tall but he had always been pleasingly taller than she. She seemed to have grown. 'It must be the climate,' he thought, 'I wonder if I'll grow too. With all the Australian protein. I'll order steak instead of fish now.'

'It was a fortnight ago. Mensa - menstruate - menses - a month you fuckhead,' she hissed inside her head as she took a step forward and wriggled up to him.

'Here?'

She shrugged and went to her backpack.

In the small settlement she caught sight of herself in the window of the general store. She saw sawn-off jean shorts slung low and thick socks. She looked at her foot. It was wearing her hiking boot.

She shuddered. This was not who she was or wanted to be. And suddenly felt the weight on her feet, the heavy clinging to her ankles.

She went into the shop and browsed in its air conditioning.

'Yes?' the woman asked rudely. Then in response to the look she was given, 'Can I help you?'

'I would like some socks - cotton. Light. What colours do you have? Plain. I detest patterns.' The last was too much. She wouldn't share anything personal with a shop assistant, unless ... 'And do you have the bus timetable?'

'It's written up outside.' The woman turned her back.

She swept a plastic bottle off the shelf and it was in her blouse, held by the top of her shorts. 'Where are your socks?' She had never said it before like that.

The woman turned around. 'If you'll come over here.'

Now she allowed herself to feel pleased. Of course she wouldn't buy the socks.

They were rather nice - light but with substance. And there were some pretty pink ones. She wondered if they'd have them in Cairns. Probably.

'I'd like to think about them,' she said and stepped away.

Outside she was aware of the woman scrutinising her as read the timetable. There was one for Cairns at eleven thirty. That was the one they had caught in. Then one at four thirty. That would arrive about six thirty. Eleven thirty was the one. That would give her the whole afternoon to find some where to stay.

In the toilet of the cafe she examined the bottle. Just cheap moisturiser, no sun screen in it. She should have checked a little more carefully, she was getting careless. That was stupid. Wasted effort. To some degree. She could use it after the beach. She unscrewed the cap. It smelt cheap. She thwarted an impulse to fling it away, put it in her bag.

On the way back she thought she could offer it to some girl who didn't have any.

Lynt was asleep on her bunk. Or at least his eyes were closed so she moved very carefully, examining where her things were. She was always very neat, kept things together so they wouldn't be mislaid, left behind. She would put her boots in her pack later. She thought about just leaving them under the bunk.

She knelt over her pack. Everything seemed to - '

'How was town?'

She jumped.

Lynt laughed. 'You O K?'

She remained bent over her pack until she was ready then swung up and around to face him. She listened to her voice regress and as she heard it, forced the placating whine out of it. 'Oh it was really interesting, I saw - ran into that Aboriginal woman who showed us over that sacred site. We had a chat.'

'Did she remember us?' Lynt said. he got up. 'I booked another room for us.'

Her heart began to race. 'Did you?'

'Yes. I thought you felt ... needed privacy.'

'Where? This place is so convenient. We've just got to know - '

'Here.'

' - a few. Here?'

'Yes. They had a double. It's in that cottage out the back.'

'Won't that be a ... I thought we were saving for Byron Bay and Sydney. I haven't ... I'll have to get a job. I wonder if Ilse ...?'

'We're - I thought - we're only going to be here two more nights.'

They were in their room in the 'cottage' at the back of the property and he put his arm around her.

'Turn over,' she said.

He looked startled which he converted to amused.

'I want to look at you.'

He shrugged and obliged, predictably.

She gazed down his tapering brown back to the marble white of the buttocks, ran her hand in possession down his spine, pushed between his legs and stroked the back of his balls, jiggled them a little.

'Ow.'

She laughed. 'Turn over.'

She straddled him, gazing as she moved at his shallow expanse of hard chest like the two sand bars at low tide a channel disgorging the lagoon water back to sea, ran her hand down his sternum. He was perspiring. 'He's such a lady,' she thought and he reached up to hold her hips. 'I must try a draught horse next,' she thought, 'rough and hairy, running with sweat, coarse and bulky, huge, white and matted with black hair.'

'This is good,' he said, 'you're so pretty.' He reached up for her breasts but she placed his hands back down on her hips looking at his biceps bulging. And began to stroke herself.

'Ooh that's disgusting,' he said, entranced.

She felt the inside of her highs against his smooth flanks, warm and rode him, somewhat tentatively at first and saw the brown heel of a riding boot lying on moving brown hide, the heel flew out and came in hard on the ribs rippling under the smooth chestnut. She screamed and came.

This was her first time.

He said, trying to disentangle her hair, 'That was amazing. What came - what got into you?'

She looked at him out of idle curiosity and decided to speak, 'Oh I don't know. The sun? What's pawpaw got in it? All I know is I can never go back.'

. . .

'She's so gentle. I don't know what's happened to her. She's never ... she's very punctual and - reliable. She wasn't well. All I want ... Her parents ... She comes from the Midlands.'

The young constable alone in this outpost of law thought, 'I wonder how you get to fuck a guy like that.'

'Hrm. We have this all the time. Look mate, why don't you go home - back to the hostel ... backpackers, I'll come around and see if she's ... we get this all the time, she's probably gone with old Coral, whatever she calls herself now on one of them walks she does.'

'No. I don't think so, we've already done the walk with Arpinti, she wouldn't ... we were saving for Sydney.'

'Sydney, hey? You want to be careful down there, specially round Mardi Gras time. When were your heading off south?'

'We were going to Byron Bay first - in a week, we didn't really get to see Cairns, we came straight up here.'

'Name?'

'Lynton.' He watched the painful lettering, ' No that's my Christian - Trevalley.'

'That's a nice kind of fish round here. What was her name, Lynton?'

. . .

'You go,' she had said, 'I'll be all right. I've probably just had a bit too much sun. You said yourself that ... You go, I'll come with you tomorrow. You can find the best spots. Go on, the guys'll be waiting. I'm just going to stay here in the dark and sleep in a bit. It's so good you got us this room.'

The moment he had gone her heart started to pound.

She dashed to her backpack, then back to the bed and sat, forcing herself to breathe deeply. It could be like a movie, he could come back after breakfast, he might have forgotten something, he might want to brush his teeth, he was like that. And he would come in on  her scurrying around in a panic.

No way.

She had plenty of time - too much. But they could be back early and she could be caught.

She opened her book, Sydney on the Cheap. She had found it in a second hand book shop in Cairns before they had fled up to this far flung resort. It was a couple of years out of date but it would give them - her, an idea.

Half an hour. She looked up. Now she knew where she was going when she arrived in Sydney.

She rose and made her way to Ilse, the German girl's cafe, for breakfast. She carried the stolen bottle of moisturiser.

Ilse brought her fruit juice.

She ordered a big breakfast.

As she was leaving she held the moisturiser out to Ilse, 'Can you use this? It's brand new. Lynt bought it for me and I already had some - plenty.'

'Thank you,' Ilse said, examining it, 'it is quite expensive and I put it on after I swim. And at night. I haven't seen this one.'

'It's probably local.'

Back at the backpackers she checked that she had everything ready then went across to the office.

'Can I have my passport? I need to buy some things and I want to cash a traveller's cheque.'

The receptionist was another English girl. She had established herself in the place because it made her feel important. She stooped to the safe.

'Oh, and my wallet too. I need to check ... my traveller's ...'

'Is this yours or his?'

It was Lynton's. She almost hesitated. 'That's Lynton's, he'll be back. Soon. Probably.'

The girl surfaced with the security box and handed her the other wallet.

She took it and said, 'If I'm not back, would you just tell him that I've gone into town for - to just get a bit of cash.'

In their room she read about places to have good time in in Sydney. She was dismissing most of them as she read.

She went for a quiet walk around the establishment to settle her nerves and to check her escape route. They always designed these places so you had to pass the front desk to get in and out. The confusion of the plants out the back was discouraging but the cyclone fence had breaks in it and near their cottage part of it had fanned over under the weight of some tropical vine. She would get through the fence and take the path at the back. It was a short cut to a secluded part of the beach. If she were challenged she would just say good-bye, that Lynton was still there. She would continue on her way, sadly. She saw herself as her accoster would, walking down the dusty road, a sad, solitary figure.

The only problem was the boots.

They had cost her so much - apart from her tickets, the biggest expenditure of the trip. And now she couldn't stand them. They were so unfeminine, they were like something a model in a girlie calendar would be dressed in, grease artfully smeared over a torn t-shirt. But she might need them. And she had worn them in. What if she got the chance to go trekking in Tasmania, or more likely, Mt Kosciusko?

She put them on and they were familiar and she hated them so took them off and placed them neatly back under the bed.

What would she wear on the plane to New Zealand? Her feet would freeze in her sandals and they were against the law. A girl had told her she hadn't been allowed on the plane in Bangkok wearing sandals and had had to rush back out and buy some running shoes in a duty free shop. She had showed them to her, they were quite nice.

She had bought the boots in Liverpool.

. . .

Settling into the coach as it sped towards Cairns had been the happiest moments of her life.

Now she gazed as the outskirts of Cairns thickened into a suburb. She imagined all Australian suburbs were like this - strange flimsy looking bungalows crouching amongst grasses rampant  despite the mowed swathes and hung over with straggly pawpaw trees, palms and huge ornamentals with pendulous bracts in  screeching colours. She felt a melancholy billow in her; she did not want to live in one of those, isolated in shimmering heat, beaten down with heavy air, always fighting the grass and looking out for snakes and neighbours with rifles and cowboy vehicles.

Then she saw the terrace and her figure after an interminable getting dressed, stepping forth. And it was all futile, she was devastated by the freezing pounding of the winds which buffetted you worse than surf. It was all grey and brown and there was always the smell of gases. The footpath rang steely with cold and the bus shelter offered no shelter and when she got wherever she was going it was no where. Mr Craddock's pigeons wheeled over, black and desperate.

There was a service station and cluster of shops, white and glossy with plastic advertisements for soft drinks and bread and ice creams. Some smart cars were pulled up. There was no-one about and then a woman emerged and made her way towards one of the cars, trailed by two children tearing wrappers off cones. She watched as the woman turned and told them to hurry. They were dashing from air conditioned shop to air conditioned car. Their home would be air conditioned. Even though they lived ten minutes from the sea they would have a pool. All the turquoise pools. And the big dogs. And the carelessness.

. . .

She knew she would have to get out of the backpackers hostel she had found. She felt she was almost seeing Lynton approaching along a corridor. Someone asked her where she had come from.

She fled the hostel restaurant because she thought she saw someone they had met in Thailand.

She found herself in a bar area of an expensive hotel, a waiter hovering over her. He too looked like one of the Svens they had trekked along jungle paths with or watched little elephants being goaded into knocking soccer balls about.

'I'll just have coffee,' she said. 'White. Weak.'

He said something about the cafe but it closes at six.

She moved to another bar. She pretended she was looking for someone and continued the charade while a Czech girl brought her a coke.

By the time she had finished it she was feeling much more comfortable and beginning to enjoy herself; she was most pleased observing what was going on about her. The Czech girl placed a small blue cocktail in front of her.

'I didn't order this.'

'It is a gift.' She nodded towards another part of the bar.

A man was smiling at her and nodding.

'Take it away. I can't accept this.' She turned to the man and smiled but shook her head, swept her open palms up in a not quite helpless gesture.

The Czech girl watched her, glanced across at him and left the cocktail where it was.

He was at her table. 'No harm meant. It's on me. No strings attached. I just thought you might like ... It's called a Blue Lagoon.'

'Thank you. Won't you sit down then?' She decided she wouldn't use the 'then' again.

He did. And with a nod of his head indicated to the watching Czech girl to get his drink. It was very suavely done.

How interesting. She liked the economy, she felt here was much that could be learned.

As she drank and they chatted her mind roamed over him. She wondered if he was hairy. He was built somewhat brutishly, she decided. And that he was a truck driver. She had to get out of here.

He was hairy and very dainty in his love making. She surrendered almost to his delicate wiles. She had experienced nothing remotely as expert as this before, not with Hussein then Lynton.

He took her to breakfast and asked if she would like to have dinner. No? Perhaps that was a bit too much. If she wanted to have lunch tomorrow ... just leave a note at the reception desk, he was here for a couple more days.

She flinched at the other backpackers. She was acquainted with so many. She expected Lynton to turn up any minute.

She fled into the streets of Cairns.

Her truck driver had pushed two hundred dollars into her hand. She would buy shoes. Then she thought she would get a plane ticket. She had to get away. To Sydney. She could lose herself, get away from these familiars everywhere here once she was there. It would take time but she knew it was a big city. Millions. No-one would find her there.

The plane tickets were much more expensive than she had calculated. She told the travel agent she wanted to think about when would be the best time to leave.

She drifted along the most unlikely street in Cairns. And found herself in a small department store.

She was looking at lingerie. 'Something cool, light, cotton, pure ... white. I can't sleep in this heat,' she said to the girl and idly examined some expensive sets beneath the glass of the counter while the girl went to a rack. She turned apparently looking for the assistant and her expert gaze swept for the security cameras, anyone who looked like a store detective. When the girl came back with something her grandmother would have worn and apologised she smoothed it out on the counter and saw, as if surprised, the sets. 'Oh they're nice. Can I see the apricot ones?'

'We call it biscuit,' the girl said.

And she noticed the unconvinced way she rolled her lips forward in what was apparently an attempt to register prudishness. She had noted a teacher warning them against getting into the back seat with boys do it but much better of course.

'The Japanese love this colour. We keep it for them.'

'Oh well you'd better show me the rose petal ones and those with the lace.'

She examined them idly and returned her attention to the nightie. 'Yes, like this but I wanted a broderie anglaise trim. Very traditional.'

The girl started back towards the rack and turned abruptly just as she was about to sweep the rose petalled knickers under her blouse. 'I don't know if we've got that, what does it look like?'

She went with her to the rack and began to explain.

'Oh I know! We've got some like that but they're boxed.'

'Yes, they probably would be.'

'They're English.'

She smiled. 'Could I see a couple. I'll choose one of those.'

Back at the counter she didn't check for observation again, she simply took the rose petal knickers.

Her heart was pounding. The effort not to betray her excitement was thrilling. He will love them, she thought.

An older woman appeared and began to fold the sets strewn on the counter.

She should have left.

Her almost panic resolved itself into a clarity. 'Your assistant is getting me some cotton nighties trimmed with broderie anglaise to look at,' she said. 'Will you give me some idea of the price?'

'Broderie anglaise trim? We haven't any ... Oh, Rachel probably thought ... I know what she's gone to get, it's very nice. A lovely crocheted trim around the hem and inset.' The woman's hand went to her chest.

'Oh. The friend I'm buying this for loves broderie anglaise, I .... '

'You might get it in one of the big hotels. They all have shops. Where are you staying?'

'We took an apartment. We're here for the diving. My husband's very keen. Oh, he's parked .... Thank you. I'll have to come back later.'

She just avoided Rachel heading towards the counter with a couple of white garments floating over her outstretched arm.

She descended into panic; she should have checked the best way out. She made herself pause to examine some lipsticks. A salesgirl asked her if she's like to have a makeover, she was starting a demonstration in ten minutes. They'd be doing the announcements soon.

The audacity tempted her but she thanked the girl and excused herself.

'Anyway, you should change to this ...' she picked up a pale pink lip gloss, 'it'd really suit you with your dark skin.'

The tan had to go.

She was clear of the department store and her breath was almost heaving now. She went into an arcade and as she walked transferred the rose petal knickers into her bag. The glimpse she had as they passed through the light satisfied her deeply. They were lovely, perfect.

She had a watermelon and ginger drink at a stand and headed back towards the hostel. On the way she stole some tissue paper in the newsagent's where she had stopped to pick up an Australian magazine. 'Oh and this,' she'd said, picking up a roll of cello tape as the youth concentrated on the cash register. Her guilt deliciously drained as he cancelled and rerung the total and handed her the change. No thank you, she didn't need a bag, She threw the magazine and tape into her small bag, on top of the knickers and tissue paper.

She lay on her bunk and flicked through the magazine, satisfied.

Then she went to the ironing room and wrapped the knickers in the tissue paper.

Thank you for the lovely time. I hope we meet again.

Have to leave earlier than expected.

Elsie (P S my real name is Rachel in case we do).

She left the parcel at reception for him.

She knew the gift would thrill him enormously.

And it did.

On the way back she got a standby ticket to Sydney.

She couldn't stay here.

She was on the plane she had wanted, there had been no wait.

The old lady sitting next to her went on and on about her son's business and how she had helped her daughter-in-law. Curtains.

She was politely attentive though desperate to think.

Where would she stay? They'd be landing at ten-thirty. She'd head for Kings Cross. She was seven hundred dollars behind. But then there was the two hundred Gareth had given her. She would have to get shoes with that. Good shoes. She might have to pay more - a lot more. Where would she get the money? Well now she knew one way. She wouldn't feel obliged to repay next time.

'He's thinking of importing his own fabrics, from India,' her travelling companion said.

She smiled and nodded and wondered how much she had in her bag and if she would ask her to mind it when she went to the toilet. 'Indian fabrics are wonderful,' she said, 'and very good value. Benares is a good place to go. They have little shops everywhere selling fabrics.'

Kay got a notebook out of her purse for her to write it down.

'I can sew,' she said, 'do they ever need anyone?'

Kay wrote out their name and number and tore the page out of her notebook to give her.

Parting in the airport, Kay irritated her daughter by delaying everyone by taking her notebook out again and writing her name and number to give to the lovely girl she had flown with. Then she made her daughter drive her to a backpackers in Kings Cross.

She waited until the daughter had squealed off, Kay waving, and crossed the road and went down the street to another hostel.

She instantly loathed the atmosphere.

History/Herstory John Irving the First Convict to be Pardoned and Dorothy Parker Wit

This multimedia poem depicts the brutality of early colonial life in Australia in the person of John Irving, the first convict to be pardoned - 'history'. This is contrasted to 'herstory', a process which emphasises the aspects of a woman's life in order to, in some ways, trivialise her. Who remembers that Dorothy Parker left her literary estate to Martin Luther King? After his assassination it went to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. 'Dow-Dow' is what Sara Murphy called her husband Gerald. Dorothy Parker did quote the Great Gatsby - Owl-Eyes saying 'The poor son-of-a-bitch' at Jay Gatsby's funeral  - at Scott Fitzgerald's. If 'clever' were the word, it was probably the cleverest thing she ever said.


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HISTORY/HERSTORY

John Irving – the first convict to be pardoned

After larceny?

The hulks, transportation on the First Fleet,

Sydney Cove, a full pardon, Norfolk Island and

Parramatta.

Females

on ‘The Scarborough’, ‘The Prince of Wales’:

sick.

Got a few

through.

West side of Sydney Cove,

scurvy, dysentery, brewing tea from native plants.

Making do for a couple

of years.

Someone must have had a

word with Phillip.

Off to Norfolk Island on ’The Sirius’

with that full pardon and Captain Hunter

who ripped the bottom out of her but came good.

Flying through the tempest seas

on a grating.

Landed.

Dried his clothes soon enough.

There was plenty of work.

Good for the record.

Recalled.

Parramatta.

Settling.

Commended for a post mortem

on a partially blind man, stabbed

by a butcher,

his mate.

Dead.

A couple of days later

the order came through

to pay him

a hundred pounds.

Dorothy Parker – wit.

Pushed off to Europe

(“Guess who’s on board?

Marlene Dietrich.

Guess who’s not?

My trunk”).

Spain

(throwing the portable typewriter she’d just bought

down to Ernest standing on the wharf

when he shouted up he didn’t have one)

and Switzerland

Montana Vermala.

A sanatorium in which the Murphies

had generously installed

a bar to brighten up the place

where their son was dying.

Dorothy came to help

(patting the back of Sara’s hand,

“I hate society too”).

And really she was pretty good.

Down to her whisky sour for breakfast

(waving gaily from the bar,

“Sweets for the sweet”),

wine with lunch,

two or three martinis

and cognac swirling, swirling with the Murphies

after dinner

(DowDow, “Look, Mrs Parker’s a gypsy.”

Sara, “Tell us our fortunes,

oh do Dorothy!”

‘Cross my palm with gold.”

Gerald tossed her his lighter

which she carefully inspected, lit a cigarette with

and placed in her pocket-book with her own,

then inhaled and said,

“Now let me see …

I see a spring. a summer and a fall”).

And so it was.

Switzerland.

God it was boring.

Switzerland for a spring, a summer and a fall.

She’d even been glad to see Scott Fitzgerald

when he’d turned up.

Really, Dorothy was very good.

The doctor would talk to her,

that was how they’d come to know

and

she was always so neat

with her little black dresses and diamond clips.

Sara had to send off to Paris

for some more underwear and for that book

Dorothy had talked about when the food was

so terrible that night.

And she’d walk with Patrick in the wood

(sitting writing to Mr Benchley on her beautiful stationery

-

Sara,” Oh let me see Dorothy, please,

you must write such wonderful letters to him”

“Mountains, mountains everywhere,

How I long for coasts.

Mountains, mountains all around,

I cannot leave my hosts”)

and later, along the terrace.

Much later Sara confessed

when asked what Dorothy Parker was really like,

“She’s really very practical.

She helped us – Gerald and I

to make

all sort of arrangements.

Do you know we discussed giving her

but DoDow said,

“Why don’t we just thank her?”

Somebody heard her quote a line

in the Wordsworth Room

at Scott Fitzgerald’s funeral

(to which nobody went).

She stood there for a while

in her little black dress

looking at the pickled body

before tossing her wreath,

“The poor son of a bitch.”

Owl-eyes

at a funeral.

Later still, her play failed

(“it was the only thing I ever did

that I was proud of”)

and she left what she had to

The Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.