Illywhacker

It was after five o'clock now and the bar started to fill. In pubs all over Ballarat thirsty men had only one hour's heavy drinking before they were expelled into the street at closing time.

"Hell, Lee-anne," shouted Nathan Schick, now hemmed in by a forest of trousered drinkers, "hell, I know, I'm not an artist. I'm just making a suggestion. Look, an example only. If you want to play, say, Dallas, Texas, you need a hook. You're Australian. You got to have an Australian hook. Something in your act, not a snake – all snakes look the same. Not your ostrich. Something Australian."

"It's an emu."

"Who cares? This is an American audience. Do you say to them, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is an emu even though you think it's an ostrich? Does Herbie make a comedy routine from this?" He raised his pale eyebrows from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. He considered the idea of my comedy routine, flicking his wide eyes from one face to the next. I wondered how it was that, no matter how I hated Henry Ford, I always loved Americans. "Nah," Nathan smashed the idea flat with his ringed hand. "Nah, you need something Australian in your act."

"A kangaroo," said Charles, and momentarily stopped kicking the table.

"Yes," said Nathan Schick nodding his head at my blushing son. "But no. I took a herd of boxing kangaroos out through the Middle West at the end of the Great War and no one was too interested. They are a vicious animal, Herbie, did you know that? Yes, they are. They ripped each other's guts out – excuse me, Lee-anne -but it's true. You can't have that sort of thing in family entertainment, as I'm sure you know," he said, obviously believing we knew no such thing. "Now you two kids should not be scraping around Ballarat pulling bad tricks in second-rate hotels. Neither should I. If Jack Benny could see me here, he'd say, what the hell is Nathan doing in Bell-A-Rat. My answer is: Jack, I am making a living. His answer to me: Nathan, it is not a living, it is a death. My reply: don't I know it. We are getting too old for all this. What I want is an Aussie act for the States. This is a great country, but it hasn't even started to be exploited. You people don't realize what it is you have to sell."

"Wombats", said Charles, "and koalas."

"There are problems with the wombat," Nathan Schick said. "I was interested in wombats in '29. I went up to your zoo in Sydney and looked at the wombat. The fellow said you could train them but God, Herbie, no offence… Lee-Anne… but the wombat is not star quality. They would laugh at you in Pittsburgh. You know what I mean, uh? Pittsburgh?"

We didn't.

"They would laugh at you and your wombat. And the koala -sure, it's cute, but they pass wind and they're intoxicated all day. You can't work with those sort of people. The koala is not a commercial property. You need something very original. Maybe you should have some abos in your act. They do a war dance? Tie you up? Herbie rescues you? No, it's not enough. It's the wildlife that I like, and that's where I think you two are on to something."

And what did puritanical Leah think of Nathan Schick? Leah Goldstein, who put Izzie Kaletsky on a pedestal and then worried about the ethics of skin, this same Leah Goldstein sat in her chair with her gin and water, and beamed at him. She loved Nathan Schick's vulgar suit and ringed hands. She liked the garrulous checks, like leftover material from a Silly Friends party. Even as he had walked across the saloon bar, stepping over the snake so carelessly, even as he opened his gold-filled mouth to expose her for fraud, she liked him.

Leah became light-headed more quickly than mere gin could explain.

She laughed, that great wild snort of a laugh that was her trademark, and gave not a damn that heads in that noisy bar turned to look at her. She was talkative, almost (for her) garrulous. She told a story about Rosa, one about a snake; she held my hand and patted me on the head. When we stumbled out into the gin-bright street she liked Nathan enough to kiss him, first on one cheek and then the other. She made his sunken eyes gleam like diamonds and she glowed herself, realizing the importance of her gift.

Nathan had a soft spot for us too. He was to tell us so, continually. He exploited us in his crummy show in Ballarat and had us work at starvation rates, but still he liked us. He was lonely, divorced three times with all his children either in hospital or gaol, but he was an optimist. He quickly became Dear Nathan, Bloody Nathan, Poor Nathan, Nathan-won't-shut-up, Nathan-won't-go-home.

I grew to love the bony-faced bastard and his schemes, and I thought that Leah did too. She worked hard, laughed more often, told her awkward jokes, but the letters from Ballarat show the true condition of her soul: they lack joy. It does not matter that she had a real job in a big city, three shows a day, write-ups in theCourier Mail, a new act with a Distinctive Australian Flavour. All this, it seems, was froth.