A Black Velvet Session

I walked home with a guilty step, feeling rotten about what I knew and what I wasn’t telling Jen. The brief rejuvenation I’d found by having a walk and a cry, and then a swim and a sleep on the beach, had already disappeared as I stepped along.

The air had turned thick and damp, as the southerly had brought in the sea mist and then died off to leave it just hanging there over the cliffs and the town. As I walked along Two Pointers Way, all the power poles were fizzing and crackling in the salty damp. If the mist stayed around till nightfall, all those poles would be sparking in the blackness, dotting the night with intermittent light, like crackers going off. When I was a kid and that happened, it was as if some kind of white man’s magic had over-ruled the sky. Mum used to take me to the ocean window in The Sewing Room, pull back the curtain and point out the fizzing, crackling light coming and going all the way down the road. It was wonderful to see but it gave me an edgy feeling too: half scary, half as if a celebration had begun. It always added to the fun when Dad talked of how the salt-sparkle from the power poles was a ‘death-trap’. ‘Whole bloody town could catch fire,’ he’d say, and inside I’d catch my breath at his gloomy forecast and imagine the town ablaze, and all because of the magic tottering power poles catching fire in the salt-mist.

By the time I got home, not only were my shorts wet from swimming but my shirt was still damp as well, from a mixture of the tears and walking in the mist-laden air. It was after lunch, a bit before two. The hotel would have to open in an hour and we were still a head barman short. I made straight for the barn and changed my clothes, and then hung the wet stuff up on the washing line down the side of the building. Eventually the mist would have to clear and they’d get dry.

I walked across the front of the hotel and entered through the double doors of the verandah. The Lazy Tenor was behind the bar fixing himself a drink. I must say it was starting to feel a little bit rich the way he and The Blonde Maria had taken to helping themselves to whatever food and drink they wanted, without lifting a finger to help with the running of the hotel.

As I walked in, The Lazy Tenor had a large glass beer jug, a bottle of champagne and two pint cans of Guinness out of the bar on the counter. He greeted me by popping the cork on the champagne bottle and knocking out the overhead light globe. ‘Aw, shit. Sorry, Noel,’ he said.

I said nothing and watched as he set the champagne bottle down and opened one of the Guinness cans. Quickly he started pouring the contents into the beer jug with his left hand while he picked up the champagne bottle in his right and waited for the Guinness to settle. Placing the Guinness can aside, he then picked up a tablespoon he had ready on the bar, upturned it in his hand, and began pouring the champagne onto the back of the spoon, from where it spilt into the jug. The alcohol glittered and foamed, the Guinness remaining black and steady under the bubbles of the champagne, until slowly they fused. Rather expertly The Lazy Tenor managed to time the pouring so that the brew didn’t overflow the jug. Before long it was brimming at the lip and, beaming from ear to ear with the sight of it, he set the champagne bottle aside.

‘Maria said she’d never tasted a Black Velvet before,’ he told me, before remembering to neck the remaining champagne in the bottle. ‘So I had to do the honours. Nothing like it on a misty day like this. I mean, look at that!’

He held the jug up in the remaining natural light there was in the bar. He was right, it did look impressive. I hadn’t laid eyes on a jug of Black Velvet for years, not since Father Leo Morris used to have one with his Saturday feed of couta, chips and coleslaw in the old Mangowak Hotel lounge. I was too young to ever get to taste one back then and now was keen to try. All of a sudden I felt like I could do with a good stiff drink.

‘Do you mind?’ I asked The Lazy Tenor, gesturing hopefully at the jug, and he replied, ‘Go for your life.’

Perhaps inspired by my childhood memories, I ducked behind the counter and fossicked in the sideboard cupboard until I found the special Lalique champagne glasses that used to be my Aunty Rita’s.

When I placed two of the Laliques on the bar, The Lazy Tenor was suitably impressed. ‘Hey,’ he said in his rich singer’s timbre. ‘Where did you get them?’

Aunty Rita’s Laliques were beautiful. The stem between the bowl and the base of the glass was an art-deco figurine in opaque crystal – a naked female figure, a nymph no less.

The Lazy Tenor’s lips puckered with amusement as he licked them with relish and poured the Black Velvet. In the pristine paper-thin glass of the Laliques the foaming matt-black concoction looked striking indeed. We each took up a glass and were giggling even before we’d tasted a drop. Such was the effect of Aunty Rita’s Laliques. And then we wished each other good health and drank. And my word did it taste good.

The Lazy Tenor’s interest in opera, of course, betrayed a high-mindedness that otherwise he kept well hidden. It had occurred to me that his bawdy tales from ‘The Tradesman’s Entrance’ were set up to disguise the musical vocation he preferred to keep to himself. But perhaps relaxed now in the full knowledge that I’d not only heard but also appreciated his voice, he couldn’t help but express his appreciation of the elegant craftsmanship of Aunty Rita’s glasses.

‘I feel like Tito fuckin’ Gobbi, drinking from one of these!’ was his ecstatic observation.

I’d heard him mention this name once before. ‘Who is Tito Gobbi?’ I dared ask.

The Lazy Tenor scoffed and stared at me with derision. But then he took another sip, raised the Lalique in the air again and said, ‘Never mind. Tell me about these glasses.’

So I told him about Aunty Rita and her South Yarra parties and how we were the poor country cousins. And I told him also what I knew of René Lalique himself, whose biography was passed down to us in the paraphernalia that came with the glasses when Aunty Rita died. All I really remembered of it was that Lalique had been born in a tiny country town in France but at an early age the family had moved to a suburb of Paris. From that day on they had visited the country town on summer holidays, and young René had developed a deep affection for the river and the unspoiled natural world of his birthplace. When later he became famous for his art-nouveau glass design, it was the naturalism in his work, the filigree, the plant forms, the birds, that set him apart. And this was all due to his attachment to the nondescript little town where he was born. Beyond that and of course his fame, I couldn’t really tell The Lazy Tenor much. Judging by his reaction, however, it seemed like it was enough.

‘You see blokes like him were a dime a dozen in Europe back then,’ he began enthusiastically, still holding his Lalique aloft. ‘Work like this, the music, the architecture – yes, even the fuckin’ glasses they drank from were fair dinkum.’ Then he gave a bitter laugh. ‘But growin’ up in Blokey Hollow ... mate, I might as well have grown up on the moon. It’s like starting off the back-markers. You got Buckley’s.’

Out of nowhere The Lazy Tenor had for the first time admitted to having thwarted ambitions. It was curious. Either the unique craftsmanship of Aunty Rita’s Laliques had made a deep impression or The Blonde Maria had been getting in his ear about becoming a household name. The last thing I was gonna do was be nosey about it though. So I just stood at the bar and sipped the Black Velvet, and let him hold forth.

‘But do you reckon this Lalique cunt was some kind of toff, just coz he made beautiful shit? I doubt it. You said he was from a small town too, hey? He was probably a terrible shagger, just like me. Thing is, people round here think you have to talk with a marble in your mouth to be artistic. So a bloke like me’s gotta change, you know what I mean? You gotta change the way you talk, the way you walk, just coz God gave you a voice. Well where’s the fuckin’ logic in that? I’ve got the voice. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?’

He was getting het up now and gestured for me to drink up so he could pour me another one. I drained the glass and he poured from the jug. ‘Isn’t The Blonde Maria expecting you upstairs?’ I asked.

He smiled. ‘She’ll keep,’ he said. ‘She’s asleep anyway. The Black Velvet was gonna be a surprise. But what with these glasses you’ve pulled out of your arse, fact is, I can drink with you and cuddle the lady at the same time.’

We laughed, and toasted our good health again.

‘Now where was I?’ he said, with the velvety foam on his upper lip. ‘That’s right. Fuckin’ hell, she’s on at me upstairs about “getting my act together”, as she calls it. “Well what would I wanna do that for?” I say. “Because you’ve got a gift,” she says. “Yep, so why turn it into a punishment?” I say back.’

‘How would it be a punishment,’ I asked, ‘to have a singing career?’

‘Mate, have you ever been to the opera in this country? It’s a fuckin’ joke. Half rate singers and fucknut tossers in the audience pretendin’ they care. They wouldn’t know Caruso from Perry Como half of ’em. I just couldn’t tolerate it. All that grandstandin’. Back in Italy when the whole show started, it was an absolute shitfight. You had your toffs in the boxes and the riff-raff down below, and the toffs’d be pissin’ and spittin’ on the riff-raff from a great height, people’d be throwin’ punches and fucking in the seats, and all while the opera was being performed. Now compare that to the Presbyterian shit they serve up in Melbourne. Fuck, if I’d been born in Venice in the fifteen hundreds I would have been a household name alright. You better believe it. But not now. Not here.’

‘Well, you could go overseas,’ I ventured.

The Lazy Tenor’s jaw dropped. ‘Don’t you start,’ he said. ‘I thought we were having a pleasant drink. If I wanna be nagged at, I can just go back upstairs.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Yeah, well drink up, and tell me what you’re gonna do now you’ve lost your head barman.’

I drained my glass and let The Lazy Tenor pour me another. But I was starting to feel peckish. So I went around behind the counter again and upturned a packet of peanuts into an imitation parquet bowl.

‘Good idea,’ said my drinking partner. ‘That’ll keep the orchestra in tune.’

With a bodysurf and two Black Velvets under my belt I was feeling unusually good now. The concoction was extraordinarily drinkable and as a result it occurred to me that The Lazy Tenor might have a way with alcohol as well as women and song. So I put it on him. Had he ever poured a beer behind a hotel bar?

‘No,’ he said. ‘Matter of fact I haven’t. But it can’t be rocket science.’

I giggled, looking at the glassy nymph in my fingertips. ‘Well why don’t you fill in for Joan?’

‘Me? Fill in for that galah?’

‘Yeah. Why not? We could do with the help.’

‘Yeah, yeah, but I’m writing a book here, mate. Don’t you get it? And I’m paying you rent I might add.’

‘Well, we can certainly waive that, come to some other arrangement.’

The Lazy Tenor drained his glass with a look of disgust. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m writing a book here, mate. Do you reckon I’d be holed up in this backwater for any other reason? If that mate of yours is silly enough to break his arm chasin’ my skirt, then that’s his problem. And yours I suppose.’

‘Oh, well thanks for your kind consideration,’ I said sarcastically.

The Lazy Tenor was outraged. ‘What, are you havin’ a go at me now? I’m a lodger here, mate. I pay my board and that’s that. It’s not my fault if you’re one short. And anyway I’m in that fuckin’ Horse Room every night entertaining your clientele with my literary efforts. You should be payin’ me. Not hasslin’ me to prop your whole fuckin’ hotel up. Don’t get me wrong, I like the joint and all that, but shit, Noel, you can’t lay that on me. Nah. No way.’

As he poured another Black Velvet into my Lalique, I was feeling cheeky now. Oh dear: champagne and Guinness – what a combination. Those Black Velvets were dynamite. So I spoke up. And what I had to say worked like a cattle prod on a rooster. ‘Well maybe it is your fault that we’ve lost our head barman. Yeah. You’re entangled in all this whether you like it or not.’

The Lazy Tenor’s brows lowered. His tongue flicked, licking the Black Velvet foam from his lip as quick as a skink darting off a bush track. All of a sudden he looked every bit of his six foot four inches standing there behind the bar. I wondered if I’d made a mistake.

‘How do you mean?’ he said sourly, with the stately monotone that often precedes violence.

‘Well, you’ve stolen his girl. If it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have had to climb up the downpipe coz Maria would’ve thrown him the keys.’

The Lazy Tenor promptly burst into loud laughter. He hooted and guffawed, took a huge draught of Black Velvet and couldn’t stop giggling. Eventually, through tears of red-faced mirth, he managed to get a word out.

‘Fuck it’s hard being me, Noel. I tell you it really is,’ he said, wiping away the tears. ‘She comes to my room one night, demands that I make love to her, which I do, and then she’s hooked. And the married manshe’s been biding her time with previously goes crazy and starts climbing the walls, destroys a bit of the hotel plumbing and makes himself useless to his employer – and it’s all my fault! I’m the villain. I tell ya, you should try it sometime, Noel, bein’ me. You wouldn’t last five minutes. It’s not as easy as it looks ya know.’

He had a point. He had a few points actually. I paused, Lalique in hand, to wonder how on earth I came to be defending a man cheating on his wife while blaming a perfectly harmless bachelor who, as he said, paid his rent and made his bed. I felt as if I’d netted off a cove for a big run of whiting only to find when the fish came in that the net was riddled with huge flapping holes. Once again I felt hopelessly, scarily adrift. And increasingly drunk as well.

Before long The Lazy Tenor had made a fresh jug of Black Velvet and the stout and champagne were bubbling and foaming away again. Still chuckling at my accusations, he changed the subject. That was fine by me. We both knew he was right.

He wanted to tell me about Tito Gobbi, how he’d been a great Italian baritone, a star of La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and how he’d also once been King of Moomba in Melbourne. ‘Imagine the poor bastard arriving out here in the late sixties,’ said The Lazy Tenor with disgust. ‘He wouldn’t have known whether to take it seriously or not. King of fuckin’ Moomba! What’s that, hey? Regio di Moomba che?And all of Melbourne getting around with corks hangin’ off their hats. Apart from those with marbles in their mouths of course. Can you imagine it? The great Tito Gobbi, partner of Callas! Fuck, it makes me wild just thinking about it.’

We talked and we drank – well, I did more listening than talking in actual fact – and unusually The Lazy Tenor spoke more about his interests than his conquests. Before long we were joined by a few passing travellers. It was well past three o’clock by then, the hotel was officially open, and whether he liked it or not The Lazy Tenor was on standby behind the bar.

I was outright pissed by this stage. The Lazy Tenor humoured me for a while by serving the three or four customers who wandered in, and he managed to do it very politely too, I might add. Then came a couple of the very ilk he seemed to hate the most: well heeled, but not exactly aristocratic, well mannered, but not exactly cultured, the kind of neatly dressed baby boomers who might these days be subscribers to the opera in town. But The Lazy Tenor handled them with aplomb. They walked up to the bar and asked if we had any Little Creatures Pale Ale from Fremantle in WA. ‘Certainly,’ he lied. ‘We actually have it on tap, sir.’ Well, you would’ve thought the bloke had won the lottery. He clapped his hands together, turned to his wife and said, ‘Did you hear that? They’ve got Little Creatures on tap.’ Then, turning back to The Lazy Tenor, he said, ‘Can’t drink any other beer these days. Nothing can touch Little Creatures.’

The Lazy Tenor nodded, smiled pleasantly, and began to pour two Dancing Brolgas from our brandless tap. As the couple waited, I sat quietly on my stool, wincing in anticipation.

The first beer he poured was absolutely perfect, with a nice half inch head. What a fluke! He placed it proudly on the bar mat and winked at me. The second one he had a bit more trouble with and probably poured a spare pot’s worth down the drain before he got it looking reasonable. Luckily the couple weren’t watching; they were busy raising their eyebrows at each other as they looked around at the contents of the room. It was like a bush bar but not quite – there were absurdist quotes on the walls for one thing, the ocean-facing windows were boarded up, and the air still smelt of frankincense, even months after Veronica’s fumigation. I could see that a familiar confusion had replaced the initial curiosity in their eyes.

When their beers were ready, the affluently appointed couple sat on the pews of the big table. Temporarily bonded as we were, due to the magic of the Black Velvets, somehow The Lazy Tenor and I began effortlessly to feign an everyday conversation about a local grape grower who was hiring local lads with high-powered illegal slingshots to shoot the crows that were ruining his vines.

‘Yairs,’ The Lazy Tenor was saying, leaning iconically on the beer-tap with a mock-serious brow, ‘the other day they stoned over three hundred crows between lunch and dusk.’

‘Is that right?’ I joined in.

‘Yep. Left ’em in a pile down the northern end, by his pressin’ shed there.’

‘Geez, must’ve been a big pile. Three hundred crows you say?’

‘Yep. Eight feet high it was. Handy with the ball bearin’s, the young fellas.’

‘Too right they are, Lou.’

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the couple quietly drinking their beers, with no recognition of the fact that it wasn’t Little Creatures in the glass. They weren’t talking, though. We had their undivided, if somewhat furtive, attention.

‘Yairs, well anyway,’ The Lazy Tenor went on, in a perfect rendition of the Blokey Hollow drawl he grew up among. ‘Three hundred crows. What do ya reckon you do with ’em then, Noel, once they’re dead?’

‘Geez, I dunno, Lou. Too many to eat. I suppose you’d burn ’em.’

‘Or bury ’em.’

‘Yeah, or bury ’em.’

‘Well they didn’t have to worry about that problem anyway.’

‘No?’

‘Nah.’

The Lazy Tenor took a theatrical sip of his Black Velvet. His performance was faultless and his smile at the sight of René Lalique’s nymph between his fingers merged seamlessly with the act. The couple, however, weren’t daring to look our way from the pews, where they sat with their trusty pots of Little Creatures.

‘Well, what did they do with the crows then?’ I asked as Big Lou The Country Publican set down his drink.

‘They did nothin’,’ was his reply.

‘Well, what happened to the crows?’

‘What do you reckon happened to ’em?’

‘Geez, Lou, for the life of me I can’t think what.’

‘Aw, come on, Noel, how long have you lived around here?’

‘Born and bred.’

‘And you can’t work out what happened to the crows?’

I scratched the crown of my head and thought about it. I noticed the wife steal a cautious glance my way in the silence.

‘Well the only possibility, Lou, is that some other bastard got rid of ’em.’

Lou The Country Publican clicked his tongue in affirmation. ‘Too bloody right they did, Noel. Jimbo reckons when they went back the next day to ping some more, the pile was gone. Feathers, heads, feet, guts, the lot. Goannas, mate.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘Yep. Goannas. Ate ’em overnight. Three hundred crows. Better than the council garbage truck. One minute the crows are in a pile, next minute nuffin’. Jimbo reckons it was awful to think about. But after they shot another couple of hundred that day he took his old man’s video camera back that night to film the feast.’

‘Fair dinkum? Geez, no flies on Jimbo.’

‘Nah, you can say that again. Anyway, I’ve got it on DVD right here if you wanna watch it. It’s grouse. Top qual too. We’ll pop it on the big screen. Jimbo’s old man’s good with the video gear.’

‘Shit yeah. I’ll have a look.’

‘Alrighty then.’

As if on cue the couple drained what was left of their phoney beers, stood up quickly, said thanks, and made for the door.

‘Enjoy the Little Creatures?’ The Lazy Tenor called after them.

‘Yes, yes,’ the man called back over his shoulder. ‘My favourite. It’s great you have it...’ But then his pocket started clanging like an old wall-phone and with his wife he rushed outside through the sunroom to take the call.