‘I wonder what became of their Pekinese?’ Rod asked himself, and knew it to be an odd thought the second it manifested. He loathed the malevolent incontinent animal, a yapping ginger mop on stunted paws, and forever cocking a rear one to leak on his shoe. The dog, ‘William’ by name—after The Bard—was however, part of the Gerald and Leila package. They adored him. Rod supposed that was why the cranky canine had buried that bone in his mind.
The traffic light turned green. Rod accelerated gradually. What he ought really to have been asking, he told himself, was, ‘What became of Gerald and Leila’s fame?’ Their example offered proof that for humans who achieve some renown, in the broad scale of things, for most, fame is as fleeting as a shooting star. The pair had enjoyed a run of recognition though. Up until Gerald’s death, they still regularly made the daily lowbrow paper, that is if a feature article once every two years constituted regular. The populist rag’s newest junior reporter always got that assignment: Gerald and Lola and their Olde Worlde tea shop. A perpetual curiosity, Russell’s Old Corner Shop, almost a time-warp. If the young journo also mentioned thespian careers, the couple were always ‘former actors’.
‘Damn it, we’re between jobs!’ Gerald, reading the gauche reportage, would rail in plummy tones once lauded for their clarity and carry to the cheap seats.
Leila waxed more practical. ‘Don’t be silly, Gerald, there’ll be no more jobs. They’ve forgotten we exist.’
‘Oh no, lass, surely not?’
‘Gerald, it’s true.’
‘Well bugger them!’
‘They’ and ‘them’ were the casting agents.
‘A lazy unimaginative lot,’ Leila would say on lady-like days. When really riled, having grown up in Port Melbourne, she could easily apply a wharfy’s description in damning those held accountable for the demise of their performing careers. That, worldwide, active professional nonagenarian actors could be counted on the fingers of one hand, she’d never concede.
In their time, Gerald and Leila (never Leila and Gerald) had been household names. Three nineteen sixties Australian feature films starred Gerald, while Lola had, in stage musicals and dramas and TV series, been lead actress. ‘And an actress I am, Rod,’ she’d insist, ‘not an actor. There is nothing pejorative or demeaning about the term actress.’
During radio’s heyday of course, they performed in airwave serials and plays too, and it was through this medium that Rod had met them. With radio drama breathing its last, Auntie ABC produced one of his works. Gerald and Leila played minor roles. There had been an instant affinity with Gerald. Like Rod’s dad, he had been an airman during World War Two. Raiding some monstrously defended Japanese naval base most of Gerald’s squadron were wiped out. ‘Every day I remind myself,’ he’d say, ‘of what a fortunate fella I am.’
Getting to know Leila came slower but proved no less rewarding for that. Wit dry and salted with original gems and an occasional wharfy-ism, acidic in her contempt for the pompous and pretentious, she kept her personal cards guarded.
Gerald and Leila’s partnership was a life-long love affair. Yet love stories tend to end tragically. One partner predeceases the other. In their case, Gerald had passed-on the previous month, peacefully, from pneumonia, the old peoples’ friend. Until then, fit and in robust health, he still participated annually in the entire Anzac Day march. Now however, he was gone.
Green, amber, red ... Rod eased through his gears. Once more his drive home from the retirement facility into which Leila had been placed came to a temporary halt. Of her ageing inmate companions, some were demented, others in diapers, a few mentally and physically handicapped. There were no former actors. No-one seemed aware they had a former celebrity in their midst. When Rod tried to tweak some interest out of the younger generation staff, none showed any interest in Leila’s history. As for Leila, she was bewildered, distraught, tearful. Of making a return visit, Rod was uncertain. If the only outcome would be an upset Lola, he thought not.
Green! Detouring into city centre Rod drove past Russell’s Old Corner Shop. The two-story structure’s street-level windows were boarded. Bowing walls had been shored-up by timbers. New signs warned the public, this beginning-of-working-week day, to keep clear. It had been a Monday also, Rod well remembered, when he last saw Gerald and Leila together …
The shop/residence’s clock cuckooing nine a.m. together with tinkling doorbell produced a weird duet to signal Rod had left street’s hustle-bustle and entered. Within the sanctuary it delighted him to find the presence of a rare species inside this wee business: an early customer had preceded him. Not many people actually came into the shop. Most of these Leila called, with disparaging politeness, ‘lookers’—after gawking through a window or two, in for a stickybeak, no intention of purchasing.
Suitcase at feet and clearly off a country train, the seated customer did not glance up from his newspaper. Rod proceeded on past vacant counter’s glassed-in cakes to access Gerald and Leila’s small living-room. Save for William, the cluttered space was devoid of life. Prostrate before a single bar electric heater the lumpy ginger rug growled low.
‘You’re a scary beast,’ Rod told him, and hearing a clatter of dishes, went on by the narky Pekinese and into the shop-residence’s shoebox kitchen. Stained blue-striped apron on over stained well-worn slacks and pullover, in his slippers Gerald had begun to fry ham and eggs, and also to fret to himself lest the precious customer up and leave. Russell’s Old Corner Shop, being never an express takeaway, this some would do. As for the food preparation area, most mornings it was chaos—unwashed plates and pans, tucker leftovers, vegetable scraps … This day was no different. Luckily, the city’s health inspector had soldiered in Vietnam, and tended to turn an unobservant eye toward the catering code infringements of an older ex-serviceman. This included, within the dining area, the scrounging presence of a certain William the Pekinese.
Seeing Rod, ‘Sorry lad, I’m flat-out, flat-out,’ apologised the agitated Gerald scurrying about in a flap and getting customer’s toast on the go. ‘But please, please, make yourself a coffee if you like.’
Rod, sixty on his next birthday, smiled at being referred to as a ‘lad’. But as for him operating the ancient Gaggia? All those dials and gauges and switches, taps and screws, and valves for bleeding off steam ...? NASA moon launches were less intricate. Gerald, only Gerald, could handle that temperamental intimidating contraption, and well he knew it.
Rod checked on the customer. No worries there, head still buried in the Herald-Sun sports pages, needing to be nowhere fast. He suggested to Gerald he should relax, but Gerald could not. Right after the hungry man was seen to, another brekkie required preparation, Leila’s.
The complete morning ritual commenced when Gerald arose, descended tight spiral wooden stairs, their threadbare carpeted steps themselves worryingly narrow, to then fuss about the shop, feed William, and with this done, take him for a very necessary walk in the park opposite. Sometimes this went smoothly, sometimes not. It depended on William’s degree of constipation. And then, now and again, other problems might present, such as a parks’ attendant deciding a dog-walking veteran of the Pacific air-war made a good target: ‘Unrestrained?’ Gerald had politely protested, ‘But sir, William won’t do his do-do’s if he is on a leash.’ On-the-spot fine amounted to $250! (Not that the parks’ prat ever again similarly imposed his small authority, for Rod—the only Australian playwright to ever ruck for Leeton—made certain that at the first opportunity he had a quick but very effective word in that parkie dingo’s ear.)
With William’s walkies over, Gerald’s next task involved running Leila her bath. After this, while the lady bathed, he prepared a pot of tea, and made toast with a honey or marmalade spread. Placing all on a tray, precarious ascent of stairs followed. Brekkie was then deposited bedside for Leila to, propped up by silk-slipped pillows, enjoy at her leisure. Gerald doted on Leila, adored her. How though, hands full in either ascending or descending those narrow steep stairs, he had not fallen and broken a hip or his neck almost beggared belief.
Toaster began to send up smoke signals. Rod switched it off. Yet he knew better than to offer further assistance. Harassed Gerald may have been, but when it came to tucker preparation, he was fiercely independent. Besides, there were other ways to be useful. The fuel man had been. Four 20kg bags of split redgum stood inside the back door. Russell’s Old Corner Shop had to be the last dwelling in the entire city to have, in addition to an operational outdoors chain-pull dunny, an upstairs bedroom with a still-functioning fireplace.
‘Listen old mate,’ said Rod, ‘how about I transfer that wood up above for you?’
‘Oh, would you lad?’ enthused Gerald, busy scraping and buttering awfully over-brown toast, ‘That’d be such a help,’ and then, as Rod hefted the first bag, ‘But do give Leila a hoi won’t you—let her know you’re on the ascent?’
Etiquette, always there had to be a degree of etiquette. However, Rod’s call up that narrow challenging staircase received no response—no doubt Leila must still be in her bath, or have finished bathing and returned to bed and dozed off. She was a little deaf too. Rod commenced negotiation of the steep spiral. Of his broad former footballer shoulders, one supported a bag of redgum, while both barely fitted within the confines of cracked plaster wall and banister. Total concentration required … indeed, how daily did Gerald ever safely manage, up and down, bearing that loaded tray? Seventy years’ practise doubtless accounted for this small miracle, but the old chap was a saint for doing it, no question.
Seventeen narrow steps. Fixated upon each in turn, Rod counted them off as he climbed until, eyes coming level with the final step he also saw two bare feet. From there, his gaze panned upward, continuing unchecked until he looked directly into Leila’s face. Sometimes a gentleman’s attention ought not to linger anywhere upon a lady except her eyes. Leila wore a slightly bemused smile. Aside from a short white towel draped around her shoulders, she wore nothing else. ‘Oh, Rod?’ A mildest exclamation, no move made to conceal or retreat. ‘I didn’t expect to see you this early in the morning?’
‘Just, um, bringing up the firewood, Leila.’ What else to say ...? Well, nothing. Placing bag of split redgum down Rod put his footwear into reverse.
Following record-pace retreat to ground level, Rod popped his head into the shop’s front section. No worries, one completely content country customer was tucking into his ham and eggs. Back went Rod to the kitchen where at a sudsy sink Gerald had got to soaking and scrubbing the trusty black encrusted iron pan that for decades had cooked similar breakfasts. ‘Best leave him to it,’ thought Rod, and took a seat at the living-room’s round table, from where he idly observed stacked books, hung paintings, sepia photos of long-gone family members, faded theatre posters, an overcrowded hat-rack, some displayed crockery, and leakage stains that streaked and splotched the saggy walls. In fact, he was waiting. Eventually, an incomparable super-strong coffee would come his way. ‘The very libation,’ Gerald liked to claim, ‘that, prior to padding-up for a Boxing Day test, once sent our most famous customer weak at the knees, which is more than Harold Larwood could ever do.’
A past era and names—Larwood, along with Bradman—that meant nothing, Rod reckoned, to ninety-nine point nine-four percent of Australia’s current younger generation. Even fewer, if any, even those aspiring to become actors, had any knowledge of Gerald and ... Ah yes, Leila? Thinking of her just now, Rod wasn’t sure how he ought to feel about springing her naked. He did hope the image would not, as it now was, remain embedded in his brain. All the same, what a fine figure Lola had retained—at ninety-four, astounding really. Actually, both of them were in great shape. Gerald, a mere ninety-three, and having been a talented school gymnast and lifelong swimmer, still had a fit physique.
Gymnast, actor, airman, and ... master barista. After slipping past Rod and out into the shop and then applying both his hands and a customary prayer to the Gaggia, Gerald had coaxed the ancient coffee service into cooperation. It gurgled, it hissed, and following further hesitation, and additional owner’s finessing, relinquish its caffeinated coal-black treacle into a Russell’s embossed cup the dodgy device had. This Gerald now brought in and across to the round table. Okay, as opportune moment as any for a bloke to confess to seeing a man’s missus in a state of absolute undress, guessed Rod
When told, Gerald just laughed, ‘Oh, water off a duck’s back to Leila. Think nothing of it, lad,’ and offered Rod an Anzac biscuit. Then, draping apron over a chair back, he withdrew an Australian Who’s Who from bookshelf, saying, ‘Always something of an exhibitionist, you know, our Leila. Never happier than when she landed a role requiring her to disrobe on stage.’ The hefty tome came Rod’s way. ‘Look up her biography,’ urged Gerald, ‘you’ll see.’
More gobsmacking even than surprising Leila starkers was her plethora of performance credits. Jewel in this crown had been touring with an internationally famous theatrical knight. And the play? Nude With Violin’.
‘Leila was the eponymous Nude,’ allowed Gerald with a chuckle.
Acting credits aside, right alongside Leila’s name sat something even more significant.
‘Order of Australia?’ prompted Rod.
‘For distinguished services to the Arts - taught drama for forty years as well as acted, did her ladyship.’
‘Really, I had no idea.’
‘As it should be, lad, as it should be.’
Uh-huh, ‘blowing one’s own trumpet’; unlike the present day, when fame is gained simply by preparing an egg in aspic, back then what bad form to broadcast one’s personal achievements. Rod reflected that indeed, despite Gerald’s wartime service, and all his and Leila’s stage and screen credits, it took a verbal crowbar to prise any of that stuff out of them.
Gerald returned to re-engage with the Gaggia. This time he brought back a coffee for himself. Cup raised: ‘Bradman made a double-century you know, that same day he tried our coffee.’
‘Just as well they didn’t drug test in those days, eh?’ smiled Rod, and seeing this had gone through to the ‘keeper, added, ‘Y’know, excess caffeine levels and all that?’
Same expression of non-comprehension. Yeah, different eras, fading names, different attitudes, differing values ... Once Gerald and Leila were gone, their own era would lie on the brink of erasure. The ‘heroic generation’, who’d known the Great Depression, had battled fascism. Durable they were. Immortal, unfortunately no. Only in dusty dark film archives would the legacies of Gerald and Leila live on—so long as someone bothered screening the celluloid or tape.
Once more Rod took in the dim-lit surrounds, cobweb threads connecting photos to paintings to light fittings, dusty furniture that accumulating years had rendered antique. Once Gerald and Leila did go, so too he knew, would Russell’s Old Corner Shop. A childless marriage: one compact building with wonky walls occupying prime city corner in an otherwise hideous overdeveloped square mile, this last remnant of Goldrush architecture left alone, preserved, not regarded as an impediment to mindless progress …? Fat bloody chance of that! Greatest motivator of all, money, meant some bland tower-block would soon enough stand on this very land.
Always relaxed in Gerald’s company, the time-cuckoo reminded Rod that he had other business, an eleven o’clock interview with the artistic director of city’s largest theatre company. There had been a promising phone call. For an obscure playwright to get even his big toe in the door of this establishment? That was rare. Rod could barely believe his luck, nor that … Hell, he’d forgotten to tell Gerald!
When informed, ‘It’s not luck, lad,’ Gerald insisted, ‘it is talent,’ for he’d read an earlier draft of the work to be discussed at the theatre’s office. And then, eyes all a-twinkle, he chuckled, ‘I do so like too, that part you have earmarked for me.’
‘Thanks Gerald, that’s great,’ replied Rod, his response requiring a touch of non-commitment, for the work had no role suitable for anyone over fifty.
Country rail customer still read his Herald-Sun as, again drawing a tinkle from the doorbell, Rod departed on his quest for bigtime theatrical success, Gerald calling after him, ‘Break a leg, lad, break a leg!’
Never had Rod heard that traditional remark directed at a hopeful playwright, but why ought it apply only to actors? Ah, and hey, why bother to drive in this hideous city traffic either? A spring in his step he made for the nearest tram stop.
The afternoon was well-advanced when, that same day, Rod returned to Russell’s Old Corner Shop. Doorbell’s cheery tinkle elevated his mood none. The enthusiastic artistic director of that recent phone conversation had forgotten lauding Rod’s work as ‘near to Shakespearean’. Actually, he almost couldn’t remember phoning. Manuscript under arm and tail between legs, in vacating that lousy theatre Rod had told himself the bloke would not know The Tempest from his bloody Coriolanus. In truth however, he knew: rejection had nothing to do with his work’s merit, it was all about bums-on-seats. Unknown playwrights did not draw paying punters to pews, no matter how scintillating their scripts. Once inside the shop Rod could hear from the kitchen Gerald chatting with William. That country train gent long since gone, save for Leila the premises lay empty. Occupying her customary window seat close to entrance door and the counter, she sat asleep, the doorbell failing to wake her. In a matching grey twin-set and a mauve silk scarf, her white hair as always carefully brushed and styled, oblivious to the outside’s traffic charge and ever-altering streetscape, cup of tea rested on the wee table before her half-finished … ‘There she reposes, eyes closed and dreaming,’ smiled Rod to himself.
Very sound asleep it so appeared, for even the vacant living-room’s amplified cuckoo announcing five p.m. did not produce a stir. Yet as Rod made to move off and convey his bad tidings to Gerald, ‘Rod, how nice to see you,’ handbraked him.
When Rod turned, one small smile made beatific by a sun that had slid out from behind cloud greeted him. Sunbeam had perhaps ten more minutes’ brilliance to bestow before the north-western high-rises blocked it. One of Leil’s blue eyes was open, albeit none too brightly. If not asleep, she had been dozing deep. Did she recall what had transpired that morning, wondered Rod, their fleeting meeting at the stair-top? Leila’s overloaded memory bank had its good days and its vague ones.
‘Ah, hi there Leila.’ Rod took her hand, kissed a powdered cheek. ‘How’s business been?’
Leila’s closing of that open eye coincided, through long-practised timing, with a theatrical sigh. ‘According to Gerald, our one piece of trade has many hours since been and gone.’
‘The bloke this morning, that’s all? That’s it? Your only customer?’
‘Yes,’ murmured Leila dreamily, ‘came in for a cooked breakfast ...’ Both eyes now sprung wide open, this time with remarkable double-blue clarity, ‘apparently while I was still parading around in my birthday suit.’
No foggy recollection this day.
‘That’s a very naughty smirk you’re wearing Leila,’ laughed Rod.
‘Oh, really?’ Eyelashes fluttered—flirting, at ninety-four.
Re-direction of conversation advisable, back perhaps to business, by saying, ‘So, right, um, only one paying customer for the entire day, eh?’
‘Uh-huh, very unlikely we’ll die wealthy I’m afraid, Gerald and I.’ Again, the eyelids became weighty.
But oh, that sunray, those high cheekbones ... Old casting photos showed Leila had never been a conventional beauty, yet how striking she must have once been in person when younger. In truth, confirmed Rod to himself, she still was. ‘Just one customer,’ he repeated, ‘that is a real shame.’
Leila looked away, out through the window and down the same street she had played on as a child when her grandparents ran Russell’s Old Corner Shop and would treat her to sherbet bombs. She may have been following the progress of a City Circle tram, and she may not have been. ‘It’s a Monday, Rod,’ said Leila softly. Still gazing way off, with a smile just as distant, she added, ‘There’s no money on a Monday. There never was.’
©2018 Jim Ewing