Box Office Browning Read online

  What business are you in, Richard.' Squeeze, squeeze.

  'Oh, films, you know.' Squeeze.

  'Papa adores films, he's often talked of putting some money into films.' Squeeze. 'He'd love to see his name up on the screen.'

  Now, that was interesting. A closer look and I could see that the jewellery Elizabeth was wearing hadn't come cheap and I struggled to remember the address she'd written on the envelope – The Turrets, was it? The Buttress? Anyway, it was something that sounded like money. From some inner well of strength I collected my thoughts. I took my hand off her tit and gently removed hers from my crotch.

  'Elizabeth,' I croaked. 'We mustn't, not now, not here.' I tried a kiss and landed fairly close to the mark.

  Her breathing rate seemed to increase. 'You're right. Oh, where, when?'

  My mind raced or stumbled ahead. 'I'll telephone,' I gasped. 'That's it, I'll telephone. I still have your address, of course.'

  'Oh, Tony . . . Richard, have you? Have you really?'

  'Yes.'

  'And have you thought of me?'

  Had I but known what was in store I would have wished for a rusty nail to stick into my bum at that moment and for tetanus and lockjaw to strike instantly. But I didn't. 'Yes, I have,' I said.

  It was all a terrible mistake, really. I just thought I could keep the lady company occasionally, meet her father and discuss the film business, perhaps enter into a mutually beneficial business arrangement. Before I knew what had happened, the whole thing had got out of hand.

  I admit I was indiscreet about the meetings with Elizabeth. It never occurred to me that Helen would have the least suspicion or that, if she did find out, that she could imagine that I would prefer Elizabeth to her.

  I'll confess it was a nice change though. We met the first time in the Carlton loft when Helen was away on a photographic assignment, and plunging around in all that soft, white flesh was like, well . . . like skiing, I suppose. The next time was in a room in one of Elizabeth's private hospitals. Not a very conducive environment you might think, but you'd be surprised at the things you can do on one of those high, narrow beds.

  Then Helen found out. It was Elizabeth, of course, who got the message to her, although I didn't find that out until later. Helen, who'd originally been happy to have me bedding down the millionaires' wives, reacted completely differently to my infidelity with her old school chum. In the first place she threw most of my things out of the loft window. I ran down to retrieve the first lot and she pelted me as I stood there in the laneway.

  'Bastard!' she shrieked. With that fat slug, you bastard.'

  'Helen, love . . .' A shoe hit me and my hip flask came sailing down to land with an ominous tinkle on the bricks.

  'You vile louse!'

  I raced up the stairs and back into the loft – into a hail of matches, collar studs and the like.

  'Helen, it was an accident. Just the one . . .'

  'Liar. Look!' She shoved an enormous pair of lace knickers at me. 'I only wanted to make you happy. You seemed so lonely, with no friends, no family. An old friend . . . nurse or something . . . the bitch!'

  'Love.'

  'Don't! Get out! Get out! You nothing! No talent, nothing . . .'

  I gathered a few things of mine that were strewn around, stuffed them into a bag and stalked out.

  A fine gesture, but it left me high and dry. I had less than twenty pounds in the bank, the clothes I stood in and carried, and that was all. The car was Helen's. I should have gone straight to the railway and caught a train for Sydney, or signed on as a deckhand on a vessel bound for anywhere. Almost anything would have been better than what I did. I went to Elizabeth.

  First, she took me into her office in the hospital. This was her new establishment in East Melbourne, it was an old house, set in small but pleasant grounds, and designed to care for a certain category of old people – rich ones. She got me a drink and sat with me on the couch. She was wearing a modish dress, white and blue, starched and with just a suggestion of the nursing profession about it. In my shaken state her cool efficiency was very welcome. She kissed me on the cheek.

  'Poor boy.'

  'How could you have left your smalls there?'

  'I'm terribly sorry. I was so excited.' She clutched me and let me feel that soft, warm bosom. I sighed and put my hand on her knee. I needed a bed for the night and time to think.

  'Well, what's done is done.'

  'Yes.' She stroked my cheek. 'Richard, I think it's time you met my father to talk about your film ideas.'

  Elizabeth always had wonderful timing. She got up and locked the office door. I had another drink and we smoked a cigarette. Then we tested the couch springs.

  Cameron Macknight had had a charmed financial life. He was the son of a wool baron who'd avoided all the pitfalls – over-extension into drought-prone country, over-borrowing from banks, splurging on city mansions and trips 'home'. The solid fortune the father had handed down to the son had consolidated on the land and in the Melbourne property boom of the 1880s. The Macknight character was an interesting blend of adventurism and caution (Elizabeth had it in full measure); they knew when to buy and when to sell but also how to insure. Cameron Macknight once explained to me how he got in a no-lose situation in the war. I didn't grasp the details, but I gathered he was in a position to profit from the expansion of her industry if Germany had won, and was in line for massive reparations when she lost.

  I picked these points up over tea, coffee and soda water at The Gables. I never saw a stronger hater of drink than Cameron Macknight; there were a number of fine drinking rooms at The Gables – dens, billiards room, conservatory and so on – and not a drop to be found in any of them. Elizabeth and her sister Daphne were enthusiastic, semi-secret tipplers; Mrs Maud Macknight was a drunkard. It was not a happy family.

  The night Elizabeth introduced me to her family I felt I had stepped into a play by one of those crazy Norwegians. (I've never seen one of these things, about ducks and women called Gabbler, but I've heard of them.) I walked through the huge entrance doors, all togged up properly and with peppermint on my breath, to be met by a reeling, lurching woman who tried to take my hat although I'd already given it to a servant. Down a magnificent staircase comes an old, white-whiskered, pale-faced codger with rabbit trap jaws and with a steel rod for a backbone.

  'Maud,' he hissed. 'To your room.' Then he lifted his voice a little. 'Daphne!'

  A woman built on the same lines as Elizabeth, although younger and bigger, appeared from a doorway. She strode across the elaborately tiled floor, took the shaking woman by the arm and led her out of the presence of the master and me. Macknight stood on the second stair from the bottom; he wasn't a tall man but this gave him elevation.

  'I must apologise, Mr Browning. My wife is unwell.'

  I'd seen Wild Bill' in a like condition many a time. 'My sympathies,' I murmured (this was the sort of thing I'd picked up from Farnol in Long Bay.) 'I'm delighted to meet you, Mr Macknight.'

  'Yes. Now, where is Elizabeth?'

  The servant, a lean, dignified number in a black suit who'd witnessed everything but betrayed no signs of having seen anything, coughed politely. 'Miss Elizabeth is in the library, sir.'

  'Good,' said Macknight. 'Show Mr Browning through, Manning. I'll see to my wife and join your promptly.'

  Manning steered me towards massive oak doors. He threw them open to reveal Elizabeth sitting at a table with a glass of sherry in her hand. Later, I came to realise what brave behaviour this was. The library was for show, of course: floor-to-ceiling books of incredible dullness to judge by their uniformity, size and bindings. There were four chairs set around a low table on which stood the sherry decanter. I glanced back at the open door and walked quickly across to peck Elizabeth's cheek. She smiled and poured me a glass. I reached for my pocket but she stopped me.

  'Papa detests smoking. Don't, if you want anything from him. He dislikes drinking, too, so be careful to be moderate.' She giggle
d, a fairly nauseating sound to come from a person of her size. 'It would never do for him to find you in the state in which I found you – on our first and second meetings.'

  I smiled. Elizabeth had a knack of making me feel uneasy by referring, in a seemingly light-hearted way, to some of my less dignified moments. I looked at the chair settings.

  'Will your mother be joining us?'

  'Hardly. Sit down, Richard. Don't be nervous.'

  'I'm not nervous. But if I can't smoke I can't sit still.'

  'You'll have to learn. I did. Papa permits Daphne and me to have sherry and wine. Me, because I was so brave in the war and Daphne because she takes such wonderful care of mother. But he would never allow us to smoke.'

  I sat down. 'Sounds like you don't have much fun around here.'

  'Don't sound so grumbly, dear. No, we don't. Apart from seeing films, Papa's idea of fun is to make more money this week than last.'

  'He's got a point. It's certainly no fun to make less.'

  She sipped her sherry (I'd put mine down in a gulp) and smiled. 'Display that sort of wit on that subject and you'll get along famously.'

  Oddly enough, we did. He was a scoundrel, of course, a corrupter of public officers, an unscrupulously low tenderer for public contracts who then had a hundred reasons why the costs had to go up, a sweater of labour and a rack renter. But what man in his position wasn't? His wowserism was hard to take but he was no hypocrite – no mealy-mouthed Christianity for Macknight. The Gospel according to Mammon, that was his style. For some reason he was keen on films, and when I told him I'd put the shots through the hotel windows he was mightily impressed.

  'Could have done with you in the Western District in my father's day,' he said.

  'How's that, sir?'

  'Aboriginals.'

  We were sitting down to dinner by this time, Cameron, Daphne, Elizabeth and yours truly, climbing outside an indifferent roast which the girls and I were washing down with an insipid claret. Washing is hardly the word: sipping the stuff I was. Macknight drank iced water.

  'Richard is interested in making his own films, Papa,' Elizabeth said.

  'Oh really, my boy. What subject?'

  I'll swear it flashed into my head just then. 'Pioneer dramas, sir. The struggle for the land against the blacks and the elements.'

  'And the miners and agitators,' Elizabeth chipped in.

  'Pass the potatoes, please,' says Daphne.

  'Splendid!' Macknight cried, thumping his fist on the polished teak. 'Just what the country needs!'

  'You made a wonderful impression,' Elizabeth told me later as she was farewelling me out on the gravel path that swept around the house. I'd have a good tramp from there just to get to the gate.

  'D' you think so?' I was sober of course and able to judge my own performance critically, which wasn't usually the case after a feed with the rich.

  'Oh yes. Oh God, Richard, I wish I could have you tonight.'

  She had this uncomfortably direct manner, quite took the fun out of things. I was living in a hotel in South Yarra, over the river from Elizabeth's East Melbourne hospital. Although she was a few years older than me, Elizabeth, who lived at home, was obliged to be at home every night. Macknight had the most rigid ideas of female behaviour and she was dependent on him for operating capital.

  Compared with Daphne in the wood-panelled, baronial dining room, Elizabeth looked positively sylph-like under the Brighton moon. I took the risk of eyes watching from the house and kissed her energetically. Tomorrow,' I said.

  'Oh, yes, yes. At 11 o'clock, Richard. At the hospital, at 11am precisely.'

  You see what I mean about her ability to take the fun out of it?

  22

  Things moved along very rapidly. I met Macknight several times more (the next time I was at The Gables, for lunch, Mrs Macknight gave me a shovel and tried to get me to work in the garden). Macknight's club, at least the one he took me to, was the Horatian which was progressive enough to have screened films for the enjoyment of its members. Good food, too, although it was damnable to have to work your way through a three course lunch without a drop to drink. It was an even greater agony to have to go two or three hours without a smoke.

  Brown Knight Screen Productions Ltd was formed with a nominal amount of capital from me and a heavy subscription from old Cameron. By chance, I kept the original company papers and had them looked at much later by a film lawyer who told me that it would have been impossible for me to have made a penny out of Brown Knight, no matter how successful it might have been. I mention this to forestall any possible sympathy for Macknight in the light of my own behaviour.

  It was getting cold in Melbourne and I began to see some of the pleasures of working on the production side in films. Warm clothes for one thing, long cosy lunches in well-heated clubs and chop houses and the company of amusing people, especially aspiring actresses. Not that I got the chance to do much in that line. Elizabeth kept me on a very tight rein: she'd leave me alone to pursue sports in which she had no interest, such as horse-riding and target-shooting, but when there was dining out to be done, or drinking or party-going, Elizabeth was by my side.

  Just once, she persuaded me to try bush-walking which was her only outdoor activity. A party of us, all wrapped up against the autumn winds, trudged for miles through the Dandenong hills, startling lyre-birds and wallabies and, in my case at least, removing large patches of skin from the hands, face and feet. Back in town (I had a nice little flat in St Kilda, courtesy of Brown Knight, by this time), I rested my tired body in a deep bath while Elizabeth made me a hot toddy. After that she used some sort of embrocation which, she said, contained goanna oil. I must say it was very restorative, and, as Elizabeth was none the worse for the walk, we had a spirited romp to finish the day. That was the thing about Elizabeth – she would do and say the most terrible things to me and follow them up with something most agreeable. The terrible soon began to outweigh the agreeable however, until she landed the most painful blow of all.

  Everything seemed to be going splendidly. Brown Knight's first production was to be The Squatter's Dream, an epic tale of triumph against nature, primitive man and officious bureaucrats. Cameron's vision was of a film stretching from convict days to the present (something on the scale of Intolerance); it would have underlined the criminal nature of Australian society apart from the landowners. In the Horatian he used to get quite heated on the subject.

  'A constant battle against the riff-raff, that's the story of Australia, Richard.'

  We were on first name terms by now. 'Yes, Cameron.'

  'We need a scenarist who understands that.'

  'We do.'

  That was one of the early problems; Macknight had a mass of material in the form of letters and diaries of his pioneer forbears which he wanted to use as the foundation of the story. The Macknight clan had settled in the Western District where they'd slaughtered the Aboriginals, torn out all the good timber and turned half the land into a rabbit run. No scenarist I contacted displayed any real interest in The Squatter's Dream, still less in the clan Macknight. One chap, a sharp-eyed Gallipoli veteran who said he'd got through the war by telling jokes in the trenches, was interested in the theme but only as the subject for a comedy. I couldn't see old Cameron buying that.

  My greatest coup was managing to convince Cameron that the film should be set in New South Wales.

  'Better weather, better country,' I told him one day in the Horatian.

  'Hmm.' He looked out the window; Collins Street was being swept by gusts of wind-driven rain and the sky was the colour of lead. 'Place is full of wobblies,20 isn't it?' I didn't know what he meant, but I shook my head. 'Not in the film business.'

  'I don't know.' Like many Victorians, Macknight was impossibly parochial, seeing Sydney as a seething den of vice. The non-parochial ones made their way up there as fast they could.

  'Harry Southwell's moved his operation there,' I said. To anyone who really understood the film business
this would have been an argument against what I was proposing. Southwell failed time after time, but Cameron, you will remember, had actually liked The Kelly Gang, mainly because of its anti-bushranging homilies and the (to him) satisfactory ending. Southwell was aces with Macknight.

  'Do what you think best, Richard. I'm sure there must be a good temperance hotel in Sydney where I could stay.

  How are you and Elizabeth getting along by the way?'

  'Oh,' I said absently, 'First rate.' I really wasn't listening, having won my point. I suppose I was yearning for a brandy and a cigarette. I should have been listening; I should have been analysing every word and gesture. But I was well off guard. I hadn't seen such a lot of Elizabeth in recent days: she was subtle that way, able to space her appearances and intrusions out to make them unobjectionable. Besides, she was beavering away, making plans and contacts. So she told me. Poor fool that I was, I thought this was all to do with her expanding private hospital racket.

  I was busy, you see, trying to learn the film production business on the run. There were technical people to consult, theatre owners to talk to, the press to deal with (there was a particularly aggressive outfit called Picture Show, reporters for which could turn up at your door at any time of the night and day), and politics at every turn. New South Wales, I learned, was in the grip of a socialist administration that would probably only want films about heroic miners and factory workers to be made. I gave The Squatter's Dream the working title of Australia to help get around these problems.

  One problem looked intractable. Cameron Macknight refused to have his name associated with a film which showed the consumption of alcohol.

  'But Cameron,' I protested (we were in the den at The Gables at the time, drinking tea), 'some of those pioneers were hard doers, bottle of rum a day men.'