HER NATURAL LIFE

As Rosanne and I threaded the hummocks of orangey sand and long grass, I began to share some of her own nervousness. I could hear the plosions of surf, the faint boom in the Devil’s Blowhole and the grating retreat of water across the tessellated pavement.

‘How much further, precious?’

Rosanne half-turned, in what might have been the pose of a cheeky gamine. See that clump of tea-tree?’

‘Up on that ridge?’ Although it was mid-December, the charred trunks and burnished gold leaves looked oddly autumnal.

‘That’s where the production boys started burning off. They’ll have to spray those trees with paint to spruce them up. Makes them more photogenic. They’ve replaced all that beastly undergrowth with some brake of polystyrene granules.’

‘At least the sheep must be authentic.’

‘But rented. They do bleat on cue occasionally, though.’

It was a joy to be with Rosanne in one of her effervescent moods, without all the intensity and moodiness of learning lines and getting in character. She glowed, fresh as an asphodel in a blue Swiss cotton skirt and white halter top. There was a spring in those caramel legs that had become her trademark. Her golden ringlets, so painstakingly fashioned at an ungodly hour, danced upon slender shoulders. She could easily have passed for a teenager.

I had driven down from Launceston on the previous evening to watch Rosanne perform for the first time in the flesh, as it were. Her schedule would vary according to location, weather and budget, but I had always shied away from the set. The glitzy world of trendy technicos, stagy extroverts and fast-talking admen was not my idea of romance. So I was surprised that such an up-and-coming talent had taken a shine to me. My solicitor colleagues at Townsend & Townsend would occasionally rib me with sexual innuendos, but in the seven months of our relationship she had never displayed the caprices of an egotistical sex-kitten. If she had, I could never have fallen in love with her.

Ever since I can remember, though, films have always held me captive. As a toddler, I would silently weep amid the hoots of derision whenever the clown’s face was splattered with cream cake. Then my mother became an usherette at the old Rialto in Kew, so every Friday night, snugly cushioned in rich red plush and sucking on lollies forever, I would yearn for an innocent kiss from Piper Laurie or Susan Hayward or Janet Leigh. At weekends I’d dash through Wattle Tree Park, rescuing those vulnerable damsels with a spud gun from the ruthless clutches of Kirk Douglas and Richard Widmark.

And now here I was with the genuine article, Rosanne. But her own life, she claimed, seemed but a shadow blobbing along in slow-motion, unless she could get under the skin of other people. After working her way through NIDA, bit parts at the Pram Factory and endless first-nighting, she was landing the occasional juicy role and rave notice.

Even so, she was riddled with doubt. Then she would prattle on about security, raising a family, having a base etc and moan about men being fawning or manipulative or intimidating, always wanting their ego flattered in what was a ruthlessly competitive business. Since my arrival on the scene, she had tried to keep separate workaday reality from the dream-factory, but she felt morally obliged to let me enter her world on the understanding that I was not to get jealous, otherwise she couldn’t stay in the relationship; she was only playing a part that wasn’t her, and it was only possible to pull it off if she stayed in character. ‘Come on, darl’, loosen up,’ she’d say to me whenever I was dismayed to come across another photo of her clasping the arm of the latest cheesy heart throb to make the celeb pages. ‘Beware the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on’.

For my part, I was grateful for her frankness and trust in me.

Our personal space suddenly morphed on the cliff-top: a melee of vans and trucks and generators was parked in a lay-by, round which several pockets of people were busying themselves.

‘There’s the set, Paul,’ gleamed Rosanne breathlessly, pointing to a facsimile nineteenth-century cottage of whitewashed brick and shingled roof made smaller than it actually was by the proximity of mounted cameras. A couple of carpenters were still hammering up the veranda. ‘Mostly plastic and plywood inside, would you believe. You simply must have a look-see before the shingles fall off. I’d better introduce you, then go check with wardrobe.’

A nervously alert man in slacks, skivvy and canvas shoes waved, then approached jauntily, with arms outspread as if to engulf us both. ‘Hi there, princess. Mm, you’re looking fantabulous, my darling, as always.’

‘Hi, Kit, you adorable old hunk of a lunk.’

‘Never too old, darling,’ he winked, as if I were the invisible man.

Their bear hug seemed an unnecessary ostentation and prolonged, given that he had clapped his greedy eyes on her only hours before. The bear must have been in his late thirties, in spite of the lived-in face, but his manner was that of a possessive cub.

‘Your rushes were electric, darl’.’

‘Wow, that’s gr r reat news! Really great.’ Rosanne’s eyes lit his before she slipped out of his clutches. ‘Kit, I’d like you to meet the other man in my life, Paul Kalloway. Paul, this is Kit Corrigan, our resident philosopher, friend and mentor, who incidentally happens to be the best director in the southern hemisphere.’

‘Welcome to the set, Paul. Feel free to look around. Enjoy!’

‘Thanks for the invite.’

‘Not a prob.’ Rose, I’ll show your dapper young squire the ropes. You slip into your canoodling gear. The weather’s perfect for the shoot, so all systems go, darl’.’ He patted her on the bottom.

She burst into a bubble of laughs. ‘Terrific. What do you think of my hair, Kit?’ She swept a hand back with haughty nonchalance to bob her ringlets, then struck a pose of expectation.

‘Just divine, darl’. You’re a knockout!’

It disappointed me that she needed so much reassurance from someone else.

‘Now you just behave yourself, Paul,’ she chided, in a mock-solemn way. And don’t trip over the cables.’

Kit Corrigan draped his arm round my shoulders and steered me towards a cluster of fold-up chairs. I felt self-conscious to be accorded so much attention by the director of The Ballad of Martin Cash and The Valley of Ophir. Corrigan was one of only two or three directors capable of raising millions of dollars for an Australian movie, even though it was a gamble not to sign up at least one top American or British drawcard.

‘For the Term of His Natural Life is one of my favourite novels,’ I ventured. ‘Does your screenplay bear much resemblance?’

‘We haven’t aborted your melodrama, Pauly, though it never did objectively reflect the experience of the convict class. All swash and buckle and simmering sex and not much room for the inner life. Ideal for my medium. Yeah, it’s a red-hot property, all right. Red hot. What’s more, it’s got no ceiling on it.’

All the while he was squeezing my arm with exuberance. If there was a hint of brandy on his breath, it was the emanation of nervous energy that fascinated me. He was certainly not good-looking – his skin was too coarse and mottled for that - but he had the most expressive face I had ever contemplated. Deep down, no doubt, a frustrated actor.

‘When we shoot Rose’s love scene,’ he enthused, a nervous tic in his right eyelid, ‘I’m going for the squeaky clean effect at first: soft focus and Heidelberg pastels that imperceptibly become hard-grained; lush score by Dreyfo - George Dreyfus, you know, best in the business - develops into sinister, atonal sound with Frere’s attempted violation of Sylvia’s innocence; and the backdrop of that beaut sapphire sea and Maria Island steadily tightens on the putative lovers, framing them like a trap.’

‘Wonderful, Kit, really wonderful,’ I tried to reassure, perhaps too loudly to be convincing.

‘Crash Corrigan’s come a long way since loo paper commercials,’ someone muttered.

‘To put the cream on the box-office coffee, it’s got to be, Pauly. And it will be. I’ve already received feelers from the London Film Festival. They’re planning to screen a season of Australian period films. And for the States, where Australian English is a foreign language, the dubbing boys are doing their homework on the subtleties of American lingo.’

‘Hey, Kit, ready to set up the next scene?’ A middle-aged man with a fine head of wavy, auburn hair and a belt bulging with a light meter and case of filters was carrying with an assistant what looked like fifteen feet of railway track.

‘You betcha. Let’s go over to the edge of the cliff. These shots alone would sell Australia to the Poms. Look at the surging passion of that boiling blowhole. Pauly, meet my right arm, Cam McKenzie, the legendary cinematographer.’

‘Paul, mate, you have lovely scenery in Tassie, but you won’t know how lovely till you see it on celluloid. Say, Kit, the light’s translucent. A diffusion filter all right with you?’

‘Absolutely, Mack. Check the angle of the sun. I don’t want my Rose shot in shadow. Revolve three hundred and sixty degrees into the sun for the dissolve at the end of the scene.’

As I watched them head off, I couldn’t help deliberating over Corrigan’s play on Rosanne’s name. I always used her pseudonym in full because it evoked an oriental exoticism that sometimes emerged at parties when she became a little tipsy, smoky-eyed and enigmatic. After all, her agent had chosen it because it stood out from the played-down names of most Australian actresses. I was curious to see how she behaved under the pressure of the set.

I wandered over to the service vans. The make-up team were applying dark-toned cosmetic to the faces of support players, while a costume-designer was snipping at the ragged, dirty-yellow garb of a grizzled convict. On four trestle tables lay a saddle stained with dust, a cat o’ nine tails that looked as if it really could slice flesh, leather buckets, half a dozen muskets, water casks and several pairs of manacles and leg irons, and coils of chains that glinted in the sunshine. Another group of convicts, warders and militia were involved in a lively game of poker.

I helped myself to a bottle of chilled cider from the refreshment van and sat down on a pile of blue-gum logs some thirty feet long and two and a half in diameter. To my embarrassment, the wood collapsed so dramatically that I toppled into the tea urns and snaking cables. ‘Don’t be fooled by the foam timbers,’ one of the cardsharps warned amid the laughter. ‘Otherwise they’ll give you fifteen years in the Model Prison.’

At first I was awe-struck by these familiar faces who had paraded through many Australian films and TV series of the past decade, but it soon became apparent that they were not as physically striking, or even as tall, as I had imagined. Apart from Shane Romanes, that is. Attired in a blue velvet vest, navy cravat, trousers of black serge and riding boots, he emerged from the van that served as leading man’s dressing room with a bearing far more dignified than his sitcom demeanour allowed. After a flourish of his snuff box, he inhaled a pinch in a slow-take of debonair gentility, only to convulse into a sneeze that threatened his jet toupe.

‘Stick to a clay pipe, Shane,’ advised one of the warders. ‘And more Spakfilla under your eyes.’

‘Damn it!’ expostulated the prig. ‘I’ve stained my shirt.’ And retired for repairs.

‘Serve the bastard right for strutting his stuff.’

The intercom crackled: ‘We’re ready to shoot Sylvia’s love scene. Cast and crew, stand by!’

Rosanne materialized like a wraith, so stunning that an aura seemed to radiate from her. She wore eau de nil chiffon with lacy décolletage tailored to nip her bodiced waist. She flounced the ribbon-worked dress and crinolines for effect. Her dresser was still picking off fluff and straightening tucks.

‘You look magnificent, Ros!’ I declared. On drawing closer, however, I saw a rather brazen, almost remote face that I had not seen before.

‘Thank thee, kind sir.’ She fluttered her long, golden lashes in that kind of false modesty perfected by a coquette. Even her hyacinth eyes dilated archly and her cupid’s-bow mouth was wet-painted to provocation. I was conscious of a bitter taste in my own mouth.

‘Feeling nervous, precious,’ I inquired.

‘Nay, sirrah, unless I embarrass thee.’ She stared at me doe-eyed, as if she lacked only a tortoise-shell fan to tease me to distraction.

‘No, no, you look oddly different, that’s all.’

Shane Romanes had caught up with us, freshly laundered. ‘I hope we’re not exposed to this broiling sun for too long. My wig itches already.’

‘You’re not supposed to pomade the underside, darling,’ taunted Rosanne. Even the timbre of her voice was richer, more modulated than I had ever heard it. She gave off a shrill laugh.

‘I’ll soon take the starch out o’ thee, impudent wench. I’ll see thee burst a bustle afore I’m through with thee.’

In spite of my show of deference, I did not take to Romanes.

‘Why, Mr Frere, thy boorish manners can scarce woo the heart of a lady.’

‘You’re no lady, you’re my wife! Sorry, Ro, couldn’t resist that one. A fig o’ tibbacky for thy heart, my little spitfire. I covet the very plenitude – does such a word exist? Who wrote this script? – the very cornucopia – that’s more like it - of thy charms. Don’tcha know.’

Endeavouring not to appear sulky, I resented being made to feel a trespasser on their adolescent bantering or their practising lines, whatever. Nor did I approve of Romanes’ black starting eyes roving over Rosanne’s figure.

Corrigan called the two thespians over to discuss their key scene. I was relieved when they adopted a serious attitude. McKenzie had mounted an Arriflex with lead weights on the horseshoe-curved rails and was testing its stability on the grass foundation. He was joined by other technical crewmen balancing cameras and carrying boxes of film stock and lenses. A girl from make-up, her jacket pockets bulging, stood by with a box of tissues, hairspray, lipsticks, a brush, sponge and cotton wool.

Rosanne circumspectly eased herself down on to the manicured grass. Corrigan manipulated her position and dress, before Romanes, with an upward tilt of the chin, lowered himself stiffly beside her.

‘This is just a dummy-run, everyone!’ Corrigan announced. He shooed away some seagulls flapping around. ‘Not a take!’

‘Get that creep out of eyeline!’ Romanes fired in my direction.

‘Okay. Action!’

Apart from Corrigan, who hovered close, presumably to consider camera angles but also coaxing his stars, the crew gathered about five yards from the lit-up couple. It was a trifle difficult to catch the dialogue because of the intimacy of the scene and the boom of surf pounding the Blowhole. At first I found myself riveted to the videotape monitor, where Rosanne’s face became a kind of virginal landscape to linger over. Never before had I really appreciated the plaintive appeal of her eyes or even that minute mole on her neck or that her nose was pertly retrousse. Framed yet constantly changing as her features were, their delicate animation and cream-of-wheat texture were far more fascinating than her words and feelings.

Then suddenly Romanes was kissing Rosanne’s neck in a frenzy of passion.

‘Oh, Maurice, I must be sure of you.’

‘My darling, there. Hush, don’t cry.’

‘I am a wicked girl, Maurice. I don’t know my own mind.’

Real tears were trickling down Rosanne’s cheeks. Her arms tightened round Frere’s ample shoulders. I wondered whether I shouldn’t have done better to put in my nine-to-five routine at Townsend & Townsend.

‘I think sometimes I don’t love you as I ought. You who have saved me.’

‘There, never mind about that.’

‘I have the strangest dreams. You are always there, Maurice, but not kind and good as you are but scowling and threatening and angry, so that I am afraid of you.’

‘Cut! Hold it right there!’ Corrigan called. That’s fine, Sylvia, fine, but you’re hitting the emotional keys a wee bit too hard. You’re trying to come to terms with your own uneasiness about Maurice’s character, which you still haven’t cracked. Maurice, not raffish enough. May I be so bold as to offer a suggestion, love? Do something with those big black eyes to persuade us deep down you’re a right bastard.’

I smiled to myself that Romanes had received his come-uppance.

‘Okay, we’ll go for a take.’

The make-up girl touched up Rosanne’s lips and dabbed powder on her neck. McKenzie was testing his light-meter against various parts of Romanes’ body, the sound recordist knelt by his Nagra, clamping headphones, when a press photographer requested half-a-dozen publicity stills of the lovers. Corrigan gave the nod. The photographer suggested that Rosanne lean over Romanes’ face to kiss him.

‘How’s this?’ she offered. My temples were beginning to moisten. She was revealing too much cleavage.

‘Would you undo another button, love?’ he replied in a matter-of-fact manner. ‘Just a little more titty. Ah, that’s perfect.’

Before I could protest, Rosanne had thoughtlessly obeyed. In fact, she did not seem embarrassed in the slightest, what with her come-hither smile and flashing teeth and upper breasts cosseted into prominence as she cradled Romanes’ head in her lap. My stomach keeled over.

‘These tabloid journalists know all the tricks,’ Corrigan murmured to McKenzie.

The cameraman nudged him. ‘She’s a juicy peach all right. She could put her cheekbones up against anybody’s.’ Then he noticed me out of the corner of his eye. ‘Congratulations!’

‘Thanks,’ I said feebly, trying to swallow my indignation. I loathed having to share my girl with all those gawping bohemians. She was being publicly humiliated, yet seemed blithely unaware.

‘I’d like you to savour the bodies as you dolly round. Very soft focus, fully lit. Maybe use a reflector. Then some tight shots on the portable.’

‘Right you are, Kit. Grip!’ McKenzie took up his position on the dolly. Two long-haired tyros prepared to push him. The lovers became entwined on the grass. A boom mike was swung above them. The clapper-board girl faced the camera. The whirring began.

‘Scene seventy-five, take one. Action!’

McKenzie tracked round slowly to capture Rosanne’s face just as she began to realise that her officer husband was about to take his leave.

‘Maurice!’ she cried. ‘I have hurt you!’

‘No, no. It’s nothing. I don’t like to hear you talk this way. About not loving me.’

‘Oh, forgive me, dear. It is my silly way of saying more than I mean. How could I do otherwise than love you after all you have done for me?’

‘But suppose I had not done all you think? Would you not love me still?’

‘How can I say what I might have done if something else had happened? Why, you might not have loved me. You’re a strange man, Maurice. I can’t make you out. Tell me what you really are.’

‘Cut!’ said Corrigan, slashing the air. ‘That was great, Rose and Shane love, just great. Now Cam’s going to use the hand-held to capture the emotional confusion, so ignore him when he moves in real close. Rose darl, listen. When Shane gets up and marches off, that’s when you can let your frustration out. Writhe a little, arms akimbo, just above your head.’

‘Like a tormented cat?’

‘Certainly not. More of a kitten, ingenuous, unaware of your sexual allure, pettish, confused.’

‘Got you.’

‘That’s my girl. Use what you can from inside your own experience and put it out there. But understated. Okay. Stand by, everyone. Quiet on the set! This is a take.’

McKenzie took a five-second shot of the newly chalked-up clapperboard. Then he knelt down by the lovers. This sequence Corrigan had, I think jokingly, termed his tribute to cinema verite.

‘Scene seventy-six, take one. Action!’

‘If you leave this minute, I won’t be responsible for my actions.’

‘Poppet, of course I love you.’ Romanes buried his head on her breast. Then looked up beseechingly. ‘But I durst not tarry while a bolter is at large.’

‘Oh, the poor wretch.’

‘Darling, you do not pity him?

‘I pity them all, poor creatures. Who is it?

‘The notorious Mr Dawes.’

‘Good Mr Dawes? Oh, Maurice, I fear some great wrong has been done this man.’

As the scene progressed, I became more intrigued by McKenzie’s camerawork, particularly when Captain Frere strode from Sylvia’s side to do his duty. As she lay with slight gestures of whimpering, shaking her head and beating the ground like a child, McKenzie appeared to be almost caressing her body with the sensuous sweep of his camera’s downward tilts. Strange to say, I felt more perturbed about McKenzie’s work than when she was embracing Romanes.

‘Cut!’ said Corrigan. ‘What do you think, Mack? Too much camera noise?’

‘Nah, reckon we can wrap it up, Kit. The gate was clean. Do you want the camera hand-held for the point-of-view shot into the sun?’

Rosanne glided over to me, beaming through smudged lips. ‘How was I?’

‘Just great. Really good.’ There was no point in creating a scene in public. Besides, I’d experienced too much inner torment to understand its import. I did sense, however, that Rosanne had somehow fallen in my estimation; or at least, she was not the same girl I was in love with. This suspicion gnawed at me. When Romanes joined us, I put a lid on my irritation with difficulty.

‘You were sen-sational, dearie,’ he said, gingerly taking off the toupee. ‘That’s better. Now my scalp can breathe. But you didn’t have to kiss me quite so hard.’ He gave me a furtive look.

‘Why is it that Latin lovers never live up to their own publicity?’ she teased.

‘Frankly . . . ‘– a slight flush suffused his very dry, almost orange-coloured skin – ‘it’s impossible to relax fully into the role when you’re being ogled by a gang of envious voyeurs.’

‘Oh, come on, you’re a professional trouper,’ I ventured. ‘What do you really think of in an intimate scene like that?’

Romanes studied me for the first time, as if I were a struggling actor he would like to dismiss with an imperious snap of the fingers.’

‘With me, it’s all intuition and chemistry. If there’s no magic between us, it’s a hollow sham, just going through the motions. But if the communication’s right, at the level of the soul, then everything goes just divinely.’

‘Why do you never look me in the eye when we rehearse a scene, though?’ Rosanne had become serious again. “It’s really unnerving. That’s when I wonder if we really do jell together.’

Romanes pouted to consider. ‘There’s not that heady atmosphere in rehearsals. Interaction there is more like a disciplined drill. To get the words off pat, get inside the character, get a feel for the body language, gesture. I prefer to pull out all the stops in the show proper.’

‘Okay, people! Attention now, people, please!’ Corrigan’s voice was muted by the megaphone. ‘I’d like to shoot some interiors in the cottage this afternoon.’

‘More bloody arc lights!’ muttered Romanes.

‘We’ve made good time so far, but I’m aiming to have three minutes in the can by day’s end. Grab a bite to eat and be ready to roll at one-thirty!’

‘You’re not on again, Ros, are you?’

‘’Fraid so. Must troll over to make-up. Sometimes I forget what my own face looks like.’ She pecked my cheek. ‘Mind you help yourself to some munchkins. I don’t want my legal eagle fading away.’ She delivered a radiant smile on cue.

Some of the company took their lunch back to the rugged face of the cliff, besieged by a flock of squawky gulls and a pair of green mountain parrots. In the distance the silhouette of notorious Maria Island rose like a benign mirage in pale blue. It beggared the imagination how a notorious penal settlement had been established on that paradise.

I had the temerity to take the fold-up chair next to Cam McKenzie.

‘He doesn’t look the part somehow.’

‘Who?’

‘Kit Corrigan’.

‘The Big C? Hell, what do you expect? An eyeshade, polo neck jumper and deck-chair marked DIRECTOR? Or a camp commandant?’

‘No, you misunderstand me. Crash is so animated. Like the conductor of an orchestra. Perpetual motion.’

’Look here, the great Aussie public aren’t ready for a smart-arsed creative type, but feel more comfortable with an alcoholic or druggie whose scrapes regularly make the front pages.’

‘Wasn’t there a silent version of Natural Life?’ I asked, hoping to be reinstated.

‘In fact, there were two. Unless you’re going to count Life of Rufus Dawes. In the 1927 remake there’s this fantastic shot by Bert Cross. The old penitentiary at Port Arthur had fallen into disrepair, so what they did was erect a camera platform with a large panel of glass immediately in front of it on a second platform. Its missing odds and sods were painted on the glass. They replicated the penitentiary in the background to the last stretcher and header. Everyone was hoodwinked.’

‘It’s a privilege to meet someone who thrives on his work.’ I thought it tactful to humour him.

His stained teeth were pulling hard at his hamburger. ‘I’m lucky. Films have always been in my blood. You see, it’s not simply a question of framing and lighting actors as if they were cut-outs. You’ve really got to relate to them, their nuances of feeling, almost love them in a way whilst keeping a professional distance. It’s a funny sort of ambivalent relationship. Then you’re more likely to reach the audience with the quality of their performance.’

‘Sounds as if you’re practically as influential as the director.’

‘Look, I’ll tell you something. When that feeling of power wells up, then you’ve got to be careful.’

‘You mean the in-fighting behind the scenes?’

‘Nah, that’s something blown up by the media.’ McKenzie warmed to the topic with an extra dollop of tomato sauce. ‘When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you can play god.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you can age an actress ten years simply by using a grainy film stock or shooting the wrong side of her profile. Haven’t you noticed how sensitive they are to light and shadow?’

‘I guess not.’

‘I’ll let you into a secret. When you’re shooting a real glamour lady, it’s as if she’s making up to you. The physical distance keeps the relationship idealized. The old camera sweats a bit, though.’

I tried to digest this point of view, tried to understand how he might have felt towards Rosanne. Would she really have reciprocated to the cameraman as if he were me?

McKenzie swilled a mouthful of beer. ‘Not like those vultures at Cannes. It’s more like pack-rape down there, even if the girls are willing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The way the paparazzi hustle the would-be starlet into the time-honoured position. She’s lying in the water as if she hasn’t noticed twenty of those morons gawking at her curves.’ He spat out a piece of gristle. ‘They plead with her to take her top off, promise all sorts of spurious offers, plum roles, great deals. You know the scene. But their real pay-off comes from the degradation of the girl. How far will she dare to go? Victim of her own vanity and her own dreams. She can’t afford to be squeamish, the competition for fame is too great. That’s when the paparazzi get a heady rush of power, the control of woman’s image, her mind and body; it’s not just the male libido at play.’

Sick at heart, I stared out to sea but saw nothing. Nothing but Rosanne smiling seductively at me, dilating those beautiful hyacinth eyes and fluttering false eyelashes to draw me in like a female spider.

‘So you don’t ever feel like that when you’re filming Rosanne?’ I knew that I shouldn’t have asked him so bluntly, but I panicked into it.

He took a while to chew that mouthful. ‘If you rate yourself a professional,’ he tapped out the words thoughtfully, ‘you don’t give way to your own feelings.’

Corrigan drew up a chair. ‘Enjoying yourself, Peter love?’

‘Paul,’ I corrected. ‘Yes, it’s quite an eye-opener seeing how the other half live.’

‘I hope we haven’t destroyed all your illusions. This is a weird caper. You slog your guts out on a sixteen-hour day, fight tooth and claw to smoodge round investors, bitch about everyone else’s work and kiss the asses of your worst critics. Then when you’re riding a winner, you promote it with all the hype of a new detergent.’

‘You’re certainly making the story leap from the page, Kit. I’m most impressed.’

‘Right now we’re shooting the grim tearjerker sequences, especially the unsung love relationship. You can’t help identifying with Richard Devine, the natural son, alias Rufus Dawes, and his dream child, Sylvia Vickers. It’s a topsy-turvy morality, though, when murder is regarded as an act of charity. Three convicts draw lots so that two of them can die, the victim and his murderer, while the unlucky bastard is the witness who survives. Those are your only options because no one escapes from the Peninsula. What with the bloodhounds chained across Eaglehawk Neck and bloody great sharks infesting Pirate and Norfolk bays.’

‘It did cross my mind that you were straining the credibility of the love intrigue between Frere and Sylvia.’

‘Of course, dearie. The public can’t stand too much of the socio-political message. Besides, what can be more inspiring to work with than the chutzpah of beautiful women? Darling Rose represents the feeling side of human nature which is in danger of being brutalized. The performance that I coax from her is like sculpting a Venus out of Carrara marble.’ He chuckled and dug me in the ribs.

‘Quite so.’ I was uncertain whether he really did believe all his spiel, but I concede a secret envy of men who market themselves with a sure sense of destiny. ‘You know, it’s often puzzled me why newspaper critics seldom comment on how a film is technically made. Or whether movies add a fresh perception of ourselves. Do the reviews really matter?’

‘Dammit, yes. Obviously, we must rake back a good percentage of our investment. But when Sight and Sound dredge my body of work for semiotics and iconography, I doubt whether those self-righteous high priests are crapping on about the same film I’ve made. In my humble opinion,’ he winked, ‘the uncorking of a bottle of champagne is purely and simply the uncorking of a bottle of champers.’

I was finding this discussion rather finicky, if not incestuous. I was also deflated by how regularly Rosanne crept into the conversation as someone abused by a kind of public lust masquerading as airy-fairy aesthetics.

‘Ever done any acting?’ asked Corrigan.

‘Not since eleventh form. I was the second or third gardener in Richard the . . . I forget which.’

‘Bravo. I could see talent written all over you. How would you like to play one of your convict ancestors?’

‘Won’t the union object?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Not over non-speaking, walk-on roles, love. Let’s drop this false coyness. Just hop into that van and try some gear on.’

‘Perhaps we can give you a screen test,’ McKenzie chuckled. ‘Then we’ll see what you’re made of.’

It’s an uncanny experience to feel one’s personality gradually changing with each application of Leichner. I could scarcely shift my eyes from the mirror, as a friendly make-up girl teased my scepticism into the grimy, sullen visage of a nineteenth-century convict.

‘There you go,’ she said proudly, as if she was launching one of her own creations. ‘Now there’s just one more item.’ She affixed a close-cropped wig over my deftly layered hair. My first impulse was to blurt out laughing, probably out of self-consciousness and nerves, but there was no denying that I was beguiled by my own strikingly new but still recognizable image. Then it registered: this bleak reflection was incapable of laughter.

I stood up, my eyes transfixed on the mirror. Even my relaxed manner of walking stiffened into a bow-legged shuffle, in spite of myself. I felt the compulsion to chew a straw and dig my thumbs into my belt. It’s a peculiar, nay, scary sensation to be taken over by another’s imagination. I even smelt differently, a mixture of boot polish and sacking. All of a sudden, I felt tempted to break out of myself, to do a Long John Silver a la Robert Newton, but somehow the hold of the felon’s get-up was too strong.

‘Jeez, don’t you look spiffing!’

The make-up girl was still smiling, leaning back against a table to appraise me. She looked so pretty, so helpless, so insincere. Just for a moment I filled with a show of assertiveness, urging to pinion her arms, kiss her roughly across the mouth, bite her shoulder. That impulse passed, thank goodness. It was all I could do to squeeze out a watery smile.

Cautiously, I stepped outside. There was considerable bustle over by the cottage, with cast and crew in conference in the shade of the veranda.

A keen, fresh-faced young man with studs in his ears dressed in white flares and cowboy boots, an Akubra and spotted red neckerchief, introduced himself. ‘Hi, I’m Ron Gillespie. I pull focus for Cam.’

Words were proving oddly elusive. It now seemed ridiculous to utter sounds without taking into account that my appearance was no longer normal. I nodded.

‘Cam asked me to take a few shots of you on sixteen mill. Just thought you’d be interested in how they turned out. From time to time I film the filming and informal shenanigans on the set.’

‘I thought he was kidding,’ I finally coughed out, drily.

‘He was,’ he tittered. ‘We’ve lined up a little scene away from the action. Behind those gums.’ He signalled the opposite direction from the cottage. ‘By the way, did you know that your left profile is more youthful but has less character than your right?’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Honest.’

‘Go on.’ But I wanted to believe him. ‘Aren’t you involved in the cottage shoot?’

‘No. It’s pretty intimate. Off-limits to all those not absolutely necessary.’

‘Why’s that?’

Gillespie raised his eyebrows at me, then studied the ground. I could only wish for my heart to stop thumping.

‘Rosanne is doing her number in the tub.’

‘What!’

Gillespie flicked a hand through his hair, sheepishly. ‘Rosanne is doing the bath scene.’

‘Naked?’ Now it was my turn to feel humiliated.

‘I . . . er . . . I don’t know. There was a bit of a buzz about the set, but Corrigan may’ve cleared it.’

Whether he was telling the truth or not was immaterial. Sickening sensations lurched in my stomach. All those many hours of tender intimacy had been shredded in seconds. The girl I loved was public property, fawned over by God knows how many millions of emotionally starved perverts seeking cheap titillation. It seemed so incongruous that Rosanne could do this to me.

‘Actors have to ride with the part,’ Gillespie apologized. ‘It’s just a role to them. Not so personal.’

‘Like hell, it isn’t!’ I snapped. ‘These girls are compromised for posterity.’

Gillespie looked askance. I was squirming. Whatever had happened to my angel?

When we had cut through the tea-tree, we came upon another surly convict. This guy’s playing Kirkland, the embezzler,’ Gillespie explained. ‘He gets eaten in the cannibal scene,’ he added, overdoing the cheeriness.

‘A victim of artistic licence and undiscerning palates,’ the pock-pitted Kirkland muttered in a sour, trans-Pacific accent. ‘I like your canaries, old chum.’

‘You’re not exactly a good-conduct man yourself. What’s the set-up here?’ I had to force myself to get the drift. To dwell on Rosanne’s betrayal would snap my self-control. I was close to tears enough.

‘Take this cat,’ said Kirkland, eyeing me narrowly. ‘Pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ In spite of its nine thongs and leathery appearance, it proved harmlessly lightweight. ‘Are you into flagellation?’ he sneered. ‘You’re supposed to improvise an Oscar-winning cameo, but the upshot is you larrup the bejesus out of me. These are the triangles.’

Three wooden staves, seven feet high, were fastened together. Gillespie tied Kirkland’s feet to the base of the triangle, then bound his wrists above his head at the apex. Kirkland’s white back, fully extended, flared in the sunlight.

‘Now what? I can’t think of anything to say. Who am I supposed to be, for God’s sake?’ This charade was becoming ludicrous, but I was itching to lay into Kirkland’s insolence. Yet still my worst fears about Rosanne kept breaking over me. In the cottage Corrigan would be emptying buckets of hot water into the tub. All the leering, hot-wired technicians would be bunching round for a close-up. Rosanne was pouting innocently, the upper mounds of her breasts glistening above the soap bubbles.

‘Let’s not turn this into a David Lean epic,’ growled Kirkland, who made no pretence that he was only reluctantly doing what he was bidden. He should have been playing Gabbett, the lead cannibal.

I can’t explain what happened next. I mumbled a few clichés, Kirkland raved his defiance, then bowed his head in submission. The first few lashes that I delivered were merely playful flicks, not even warm-ups.

‘Got a problem with anger management, chum?’

Goaded on, I steadily fell into an insistent rhythm whereby I genuinely desired to flay the skin off the exposed back of this devil’s advocate.

Gillespie concentrated on two-shots, but took the odd close-up of me grimacing. At the same time I was haunted by that sickening image of Rosanne smiling slightly open-mouthed above strategically parted soap bubbles.

‘That’ll do,’ said Kirkland, obviously bored. ‘He’s got bugger-all SOC!’

‘Hold it! I’ve got some blood here.’ Gillespie at least had entered into the spirit of the occasion. From a squeeze-bottle he daubed crimson stripes over Kirkland’s back, then created welts with a purple stick of Leichner.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Kirkland complained. ‘He’s not bloody Erroll Flynn!’

‘Wait on!’ cried Gillespie, smearing the thongs with blood or raspberry cordial. ‘Now Mr Dawes, er Mr . . . Kalloway, if you draw the cat through your fingers, I’ll do a close-up.’ He was obviously in his element calling out the jargon. ‘Try wearing a look of gloating with grim satisfaction. Action!’

Since I was unused to physical exercise, this flogging skit was taking its toll on the muscles of my right shoulder, but I was prompted by my imagination. Kirkland’s back grew into a hunk of festering meat as the blood oozed from flesh splitting and bruises black as thunder clouds. I sought to visualize exactly how his weeping lacerations would cringe from a pail of salt water.

Suddenly, to my bemusement, Kirkland screamed out: ‘Oh, Dawes! Mr Trokell! Oh, my God! Mercy! Oh, Doctor!’ His histrionics broke the flow of my thoughts and flailing rhythm.

‘Cut!’ Gillespie was peeved by this over-the-top performance. ‘The spaces between the words are often more telling than the words themselves, as you damn well know.’

Kirkland took his flogging in bad faith and scowled at us both. I no longer knew what to feel, except that I had to have it straight out with Rosanne immediately she was free.

‘Thanks for teeing up the experience, Ron. Do I get to see the action replay?’

‘Yes, Mr Kalloway. As soon as we’ve edited it.’

We walked briskly back to base, listening to the seething of the surf through the Devil’s Kitchen. Only partially rescued from thoughts which I could no longer batten down, I wrestled and spun with bitterness.

But managed: ‘So you’ve settled on movie-making as a career?’

‘Yes, I’ve made a couple of industrial doco’s to date.’

“On the sweat glands of the yak,’ interceded Kirkland, shambling behind us, ‘and the perverse sexual habits of the widow spider.’

‘You can be snippy, if you like,’ Gillespie retaliated, ‘but I’m definitely going to make a full-length feature one day.’ There was a pensive far-sightedness in his watery blue eyes. ‘I could never hold down a straight run-of-the mill job. That would destroy your creative drive completely.’

‘Depends on your values,’ I shrugged, rather testily. There’s a lot to be said for security, regular hours, privacy.’

‘Maybe. But how else can you fabricate your own imaginary world?’

‘Ratshit!’ uttered Kirkland, whose face took on an even more liverish hue. ‘Who would want to anyhow? Why can’t you just be, for Christ sake? This movie racket is one long, hallucinogenic wank. It distorts everyone’s vision, from the Big ‘C’ himself, our national myth-maker, to you, Dizzy Gillespie, one of our most successful little men.’

‘I have enough problems coping with the real world,’ I tossed in quickly to placate him. ‘What time will they finish shooting in the cottage?’

‘Difficult to say. Come on, I’ll show you our cutting room?’

‘Why not?’ I heard Corrigan raving about yesterday’s rushes.’

‘Rushes are always great,’ broke in Kirkland. ‘Have you ever heard of bad rushes? But something always happens between the rushes and the premiere that fucks up the final impact.’

‘Ah, knock it off,’ groaned Gillespie.

‘See you at the producer’s chicken and champers party, mate,’ bade Kirkland, saluting facetiously. ‘Under the glare of the searchlight. You might be nominated for the Golden Foreskin Award among rent-a-crowd.’

‘Huh, typecasts!’ murmured Ron, his eyes wandering around an imaginary ceiling.

Tim Bowie was the editor, a remarkable fellow. He grabbed some old film stock of Rosanne performing a screen test and demonstrated how by sheer order of sequence he could render her persona both happy and sad with identical frames. His powers of manipulation were pure magic, as he shuttled to and fro on the machine before making a quick but studied splice, flipping the curling off-cuts into the bin. I was a mite impatient for Tim and Ron Gillespie to create something from my inauspicious debut.

I was chafing and perspiring in the muggy mid-afternoon atmosphere with the barest sea breeze. But I was determined that Rosanne should realize that I was not just a pin-striped personality. Besides, I felt less of an outsider in costume, however ridiculous. I strolled across the grass towards the scenic look-out, from where I could steep my agitation in the Devil’s Chimney.

The company was due to film at the Commandant’s House and jetty in Port Arthur the following week. Should I tag along too? Or would it appear as if I were checking up on Rosanne? I had always valued constancy in a woman, but now . . .

The pulsation of the surging combers was hypnotic . . . relentless curl and claw of salty assault crashing and shivering into filaments of flung spume . . . bass roar grumbling in the gob, the grating suck of gloating aggro . . . embroiled in boiling . . . vertigo in vortex . . . locked in thick-slabbed walls . . . solitary . . . can’t lie can’t sit can’t sleep . . . no air no light no sound . . . save flies gumming eyes . . . reek of urine . . . ache in belly . . . crave hard tack, water . . . heaven is water . . . dizzying black . . . iron eats legs . . . lick mouldering fur on chilled stone . . . black . . . hell-hole . . . blacking . . . don’t black out

. . . can’t breathe for God’s sake . . . jemmy out, jemmy out . . .

How would I? Garrotte the jailer with a selvedge of my jacket? As he shunted me to the exercise-yard? Then filch his keys and uniform? Disguise, the only possible means of escape. Apart from death . . .

‘Paul! Paul!’

I turned with a shudder.

‘For Christ sake, get me out of this flea-circus!’ It was Rosanne closing in on me, lips compressed, a stony glint in her eye. ‘I’ve had such a lousy day.’ Then she took in my tarnished face and matted crew-cut and burst into laughter. ‘What a mugshot!’

My disgust for her performance eased a little, leaving a residue of sarcasm. ‘Don’t you like the street-urchin look?’ I lisped, placing hands on waist, then mincing like a mannequin. ‘It’th tewwibly, tewwibly a la mode. Or would you prefer the hard-boiled cannibal?’ I scowled.

Rosanne looked slightly perplexed and softened. ‘I much prefer you the way you really are.’

‘And which way is that, my little Scarlett?’ I persisted.

‘Straight and narrow,’ she teased, tweaking my nose. ‘But decent and dependable and . . . defrocked.’

‘Look, Rosanne.’ I held her shoulders at arms’ length and sought to fix those hyacinth eyes. The streaks of mascara gave her an almost hostile appearance. ‘I don’t really know how to explain this. Maybe I’m a little touchy, even touched. But I don’t see why I have to bloody well share you with Corrigan and the arty set. And when I imagine the masses feasting on your . . . ‘

‘Don’t,’ she whispered, looking down, but clinging to my arm.

‘On you . . . ‘

‘Let’s get out to hell out of here!’ she urged abruptly. ‘We can collect our things later.’

‘I’m sorry, Rosanne, I’m a bit mixed-up, on edge.’

She grabbed my hand and cavorted down the track that meandered through the tea-tree towards the dunes and her rented villa on Squeaky Beach.

‘I felt all prickly around you today,’ she began.

‘I shouldn’t have come, I know,’

‘No, in a funny way I’m glad you did. It’s like when you take your feller home to mum and dad for the first time. You can gauge whether the relationship stands a chance according to their reaction, your own ease before them, the kitchen sink ambience.’ ‘You had doubts too?’

‘Not about you. On the contrary. About what I’m doing with my life. It’s not easy divorcing your mind from your body, particularly when you have feelings for someone. Perhaps today I was trying too hard. At any rate, I just couldn’t get natural.’

‘If you’re a professional, you can’t afford to give in to personal feelings. Is that it?’

‘But why should I have to preserve their image of me? That’s the role of a courtesan. A labour of self-love; or is it self-denial? I hate being used. I’m approaching that stage in life when I haven’t the heart to sustain illusions just for the bubble’s reputation. But if I hadn’t left little, authentic me behind five years ago, I would never have grasped the spotlight. To realize what I was capable of. Can’t you see?’

‘Of course, Ros.’ But the rouge of her cheeks and enlarged eyes rendered her earnest protestations somehow unreal. I guided her into a declivity behind a boulder and reclined her on the sandy bank. Gradually, I became aware of my every gesture. I wondered how Shane Romanes would have handled those tender moments. I closed my eyes to kiss her, my Rose, but sensed Kit Corrigan stealing in to direct McKenzie’s tight shot.

Then Rosanne whispered, ‘It doesn’t feel right when you’re still tarted up like a down-and-out, with your chops and maulers discoloured.’

But even as she suggested restraint, I found it thrilling to be embracing in fancy dress, even to risk being observed by other show folk passing by. Somewhere behind the face-mask lay Rosanne, yet I knew not where. The lurid glamour of a temptress tantalized me. Those bold red lips, smear of mascara and heady perfumes of the harem hinted at pleasures unscripted. My gaze panned down from the painted face to the lacy décolletage. At long last I was gaining possession of sacrificial beauty, mystery as woman, a star in my own firmament.

                                                                                                                                     Michael Small

December, 1977

published:  The Sun-News Pictorial, January, 1978

                 Her Natural Life and Other Stories, Tamarillo, 1988