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:
Drunken Seals
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 yousinging 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 Traviatathis 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.