Now it’s Meg’s shop.
She’s free at last to make the place how she wants it, no more compromises. Doug feels better too. He was like a bull in a china shop. He and Meg just weren’t on the same wavelength when it came to retail. At the shop he’d had to take smaller steps than was comfortable, speak in a quieter voice than felt natural and smile at people he thought were ‘arseholes’. He would watch Meg dealing so effortlessly with customers; it came naturally to her.
Towards the end of his days on Brunswick Street, Meg had begun to think of him as ‘negative space’. He insisted on wearing black T-shirts to work and sitting solemnly behind the counter, he seemed to suck in any positive energy that the day had managed to generate.
But now he’s gone and Meg can get on with things in her own way.
The first thing she does, is move all The Phantom paraphernalia to the rear of the shop. There are mugs, boxer shorts and ties, all with the same purple picture of The Phantom. Doug had predicted, ‘They’ll walk out the door’. The display has remained pretty well intact since the day they opened. And the dead gnomes? Well she puts them under the counter out of sight; she sees no future in them at all. Doug had painstakingly painted Hawthorn jerseys on twelve of the gruesome cement figures then lined them up in front of the window display. Several had chainsaws sticking out of the backs of their heads, some had daggers in their hearts and there was the one he called ‘Harold’. Harold had an arrow sticking out of his eye. When he unlocked the shop in the morning, Doug would chuckle and say, ‘Hawthorn! What a pack of losers!’
The rearranging continues for a couple of days and the shop seems to grow more spacious, brighter, even the air feels fresher. Now wind chimes hang in the door and plastic beaded curtains, like strings of coloured crystals, cascade down the walls hiding some ugly cracks. She’s shifted the scented soaps, beeswax candles and range of natural shampoos and conditioners nearer to the cash register. The carousel of Larsen cards, fridge magnets and bumper stickers has been moved from pride of place and now there is a lockable glass cabinet with fragile and expensive bits and pieces: amethyst crystals, rose quartz, tumbled tiger’s-eye, silver drop earrings with turquoise and a collection of porcelain mermaids curled inside tiny clam shells.
A woman comes into the shop with a little girl in tow. The child is five or six and dressed like a fairy – a lilac fairy. She wears a satin leotard and tights and over the top, a tulle skirt. A pair of wings, made from panty hose and stretched over a wire coat hanger frame, stick out from behind her shoulders. She looks up at Meg, who sits importantly behind the counter, and says, in a clear strong voice, ‘Does your shop do fairy parties?’
There’s a beat while Meg thinks. Then she says, ‘Yes.’
The mother and the fairy leave the shop having made a time and a date for the party. Meg stares into space until her vision blurs. She has a week to work out how this is going to happen.
At the rear of the shop is a door leading to a small kitchen and beyond that is another door and a toilet. She paces the kitchen and thinks out loud. ‘If I clear out the table and chairs, put a mat over the lino, beaded curtain on the wall, a string of lights, pot plants and some cushions – there would be one, two, three, four metres by one, two, three – that’s enough space for ten children. And a Storyteller’s Chair in the corner.’ The Storyteller! A fairy party needs a Storyteller! And she knows what they cost – only too well. More than is worth her while.
That night Meg rings her old school friend Jill. Jill is a member of the Storytelling Guild of Australia (Vic Branch) and she has a big pink fairy dress hanging in her wardrobe. Meg’s voice is an octave higher than usual. She begins the conversation with flattery and lists all the reasons Jill’s not going to want to do what she is about to ask. ‘I know you’re always busy and as a professional you must hate people asking favours and I can really understand that because … I mean where do you draw the line? And I understand that your weekends are precious but look, I’ve painted myself into a corner and I’m desperately in need of help. I’m having a fairy party in my shop and I’ve got my first booking in a week. Umm. Can you come as Fairy Twinkle and help me out?’
‘No,’ Jill speaks without hesitation. ‘I can’t and I’m not going to apologise and explain my reasons. I’m working on a new style of personal projection and this conversation could, if I’m not careful, lead me down my old path of self deprecating anecdotes and tasteless personal disclosures. Suffice to say, I have decided never to appear in public as Fairy Twinkle again. Haven’t you a friend who does balloon sculpture, or is it puppets? Why not ask him?’
‘Puppets. He does puppets.’
Meg couldn’t possibly ask Sean to help her out. He’s in a dreadful state and it’s all her fault. She really should learn when to keep her mouth shut. It happened like this…
Sean has been a puppeteer since he quit a psychology degree sometime in the 80s. From as far back as he can remember – he’s loved puppets. He has a collection of vintage glove, sock and marionette puppets that include Sooty, Lamb Chop and a Jerry Gee. He grew up glued to Sesame Street and Mr Squiggle and has followed the careers of Jim Hensen and Norman Hetherington. He’s loved by children all around Victoria, and makes a point of taking on a couple of regional tours every year. His work until recently has always been live, then his friend and neighbour persuaded him to appear in the instructional DVD – The Installation and Maintenance of Home Sprinkler Systems. Who would have thought it! The DIY DVD has been a huge hit, was sold to Bunnings Hardware and plays on an endless loops in their garden centres all around Australia and New Zealand. To cut a long story short, a talent scout spotted the DVD and suggested Sean for a role in an episode of a television police drama series.
The series is called FORCE and revolves around the life, loves and crime solving adventures of a fictional inner city police station. Even before Sean was approached by casting, this particular episode had proved to be controversial, The synopsis read something like this …Tamsin becomes suspicious when Pedro the puppet man arrives in Angle Vale and begins performing in local schools. His presence in town coincides with a wave of truanting and vandalism. Johno reminds her that suspicion and intuition are not facts but then he experiences the surfacing of a repressed memory of abuse when he smells the musty odour of Pedro’s puppets. The Boss pulls them both off the case because they become too emotionally involved and sends Elaine in under cover as a young mother. Pedro is exposed as a paedophile, Johno is offered counselling and concedes that intuition does play a part in police work.
There wasn’t an actor in Melbourne or Sydney who would take on the part of Pedro, then Sean’s name was suggested. He jumped at the chance to further his experience in front of the camera. With the exception of Meg, everyone said, ‘Don’t do it! Blind Freddie could tell you that playing the part of a paedophile in a national television series is a bad career choice for a children’s entertainer.’ But Meg said, ‘I think you should do it. I think it’s important to keep the community talking about ugly issues. FORCE handles tough topics intelligently and you could get Gary Sweet’s autograph for my mother-in-law. Those actors who’ve turned down the job lack courage and are distrustful of the general public’s ability to discern the difference between documentary and drama.’
Sean found Meg’s argument convincing so he agreed to do the job. For a week or so he talked in a slow and serious voice about the performing arts and the role of the artist in raising and keeping important issues in the forefront of public consciousness.
Then … there was the full-page article in TV Week. The headline read, Popular Puppet Man Plays Paedophile in Police Drama and there was a picture of Sean in a pair of handcuffs. It was then that he collapsed in on himself, regretted his decision and wished to curl up and die.
For two days, Meg has left long messages on his phone. These include supportive statements in regard to FORCE and, (she knows she shouldn’t be asking at a time like this), the request to help her out with the fairy party. On the third day he picks up and says, ‘I can’t help you Meg. I’m really sorry. They were right. It was a mistake. I should never have done FORCE. It goes to air next Wednesday and I’m going to ground. I feel sick every time I think of it and I’ve been a fool.’ And he hung up.
There’s nothing Meg can do to change his mind. That evening she says to the family, ‘Next Wednesday Sean’s episode is on and he needs support. I’m going to ask him over for dinner and we can all watch it together. I don’t think he should be on his own.’
‘I’ll do a fish curry,’ volunteers Brian.
Brian! Meg looks at him sitting at the end of the table. He’s down from Magnetic Island for a month, ‘seeing to a few running repairs’ as he poetically expresses it: an ingrown toenail, suspicious looking mole and prostrate check. Normally he would stay with Liz and Charles but he’s had a falling out with Liz and is temporarily not welcome.
Meg eats quietly and observes him. Her kids adore him; he can entertain them for hours with tales of his adventures. He’s been with them for a week and the television has gone cold and is gathering dust. At night, after the table has been cleared, he decamps to the concrete slab, that is to become the sunroom, lights a few mozzie coils and a candle and with a beer he lays back on a deck chair, scratches his testicles and gazes up at the sky. One by one the family drifts out to join him. Boofda is always the first, then Lily and Darren. They’ve dragged an old mattress out of the shed and like to stretch out and gaze up at the urban stars, something they’ve never done before.
Brian tells stories from all over. He’s crossed the Tanami in a car with no brakes, he’s pulled a dead body out of Port Phillip Bay, he was at the zoo when the capybaras escaped and caused havoc at Jazz at Twilight.
Dinner is almost over and Meg is about to offer dessert. She’s made up her mind. ‘Brian, you couldn’t help me out of a tight spot this weekend could you?’
And he says, ‘Yes.’
The fairy party day arrives and Brian is nervous. He’s never thought of himself as a storyteller but Meg has said to him, ‘Brian you have reawakened in our family a love for the spoken word. You are a true raconteur, you have gifts in you custody and you can have my Dylan collection.’ (Meg still has her old vinyls and she knows Brian collects old vinyls.) This acknowledgement of his gifts has not been good for him. Normally his tales just flow but now with all this attention, he feels like he’s gone dry. And Meg has insisted he dress up! He had flirted with the idea of a pirate but Meg said it wasn’t right for a fairy party. Then she produced an old caftan and suggested he could be a wizard – Wizard Brian. Problem solved.
He drags on a cigarette and paces about the little yard at the back of the shop while Meg arranges plastic cups for the lemonade and a plate of jam tarts. He tosses his butt on the ground, drops a few tic tacs into his mouth and takes his place in the little space she has so carefully decorated. Meg looks at him with affection. ‘You really look the part, like a kind of Merlin. I can’t thank you enough for this and you can have my Simon and Garfunkel as well.’
The children arrive in a clump. Even as he sits waiting for them to burst through the beaded curtain, he’s turning over in his mind what to do. He can hear Meg OOHING and AHHING at their dress-ups and he can hear their shy voices. It’s the sound of their voices that helps him make up his mind.
The first faces peer through the curtain and then one by one they make their way into Wizard Brian’s room. Meg has scattered cushions and there is one for every child. She is right – he really does look the part. His caftan is deep green with embroidery around the sleeves. His long grey hair, growing from a well receeded hairline is brushed and his bald dome shines smooth. His eyebrows hang thick over deep-set pale blue eyes that sparkle with a hint of mischief.
And the story begins.
And it’s good.
It’s Wednesday and the family sit around the television balancing large bowls of fish curry on their laps and watching FORCE. Sean sits in the middle of the couch wedged between Darren and Lily. The smell of the curry is making him nauseous but he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself so he picks at it silently. After the first commercial break, he’s still not appeared. Meg tactfully removes the bowl from his hands. Then after an ad for copy paper, his face comes on and fills the screen. His throat closes and he imagines his pounding heart is rocking the couch. Another commercial break and another. No one says anything in the breaks.
An hour later and it’s over. Sean looks like he’s run a marathon. Meg turns off the TV and for a moment there is silence. Then she speaks truthfully and for them all when she says, ‘Sean, that was the most moving and thought provoking piece of television drama I have seen in a long time. And you were good.’
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