‘You appear on the Wool Show, as a contestant.’
‘Doing what? Animal, mineral or vegetable? Twenty questions? Come on.’
‘Australian sport and general knowledge. There’s a big waiting list but the final choice of contestants rests with me. We’ll wait till the jackpot gets right up high and then I’ll slot you in.’
‘I left school after the Intermediate. There’s no way I could do it.’
‘I can’t give you the actual questions because they don’t exist yet. But I can do the next best thing. That book I gave you . . .’
‘The key to knowledge and unheard of financial success.’
He nodded. ‘You get the picture. The answer to every question we’ll ask is in that book. Learn it and you’re home and hosed.’
‘It’s a bit risky, isn’t it?’
‘Well, this is the way it’s usually done, if you understand me.’
‘It’s fixed?’
‘Put it this way: modern quiz programs more resemble the wrestling than they do real life. In real life, as we know, by and large winners keep winning and losers keep losing, with only occasional exceptions. In wrestling and in quiz shows, the battler has a chance, and vice versa; last week’s winner could, and should, be this week’s loser. If it’s run right. You could say we iron out some of the shortcomings of real life, improve on it.’
‘Blimey. Rigged!’
‘Keep your voice down. Look, I’m telling you this off the record. Not rigged. Stage managed. Just enough to make it a good show. And that’s where you come in. It’s like in the fights, a good guy goes up against a bad guy, an abo against a fair-headed bloke, dago against Englishman, and so on—you know the drill. Well, it’s the same in the quiz show racket, we work hard to maintain the balance. Anyway, you’d make a good winner—a decent Aussie bloke making a go of a small business, not too thick, but not real bright either.’
‘Thanks.’
I’m talking about image here, Bill. By the way, what business are you in?’
‘Mail order.’
Davey laughed. ‘We’ll say sporting goods.’
‘How much would have to I kick back to you?’
‘You don’t “kick back” anything. However, if you were to let that grand drop—’
‘It was twelve hundred.’
‘Of course. Anyway, you let it drop and maybe later on you can loan me a few thou, if you get my drift.’
‘But what if the jackpot doesn’t get up high enough?’
‘Oh, it will. You don’t have to decide now. Take the book with you. You’ve got a few months to think about it. We’ll launch the program later in the year after I get back from America. Meanwhile, you study that book. Hey, do you want to interview Sabrina before you go?’
‘Why would I? I’m not a journo.’
‘There’s a special deal her manager gives the press blokes, just to prove there’s no trickery topside. A couple of minutes alone with her. They cop a quick look, a feel if they’re lucky, satisfy themselves the tits are real. Christ, it’s getting her some great publicity. You want a go?’
‘Some other time, I’ve got to shoot through. But tell me one thing, with this quiz show business, am I the good guy or the bad guy?’
‘The good guy, of course.’
I went home and browsed through The Wonder Book of Australiana. I found out that the lowest temperature ever recorded in Australia was –8°F at Mt Kosciusko on 14th June 1945; that Australians drink 238,000,000 gallons of beer per year; and that the biggest black marlin landed in Australia weighed 680 pounds, caught at Bermagui in 1940 by one C. Starling.
At five o’clock I was tossing up whether or not to go hit the greyhounds again that night when Max rang, all excited, telling me to be sure to tune my television in to Six O’Clock Rock. He and Del had landed a spot, he said. They were going to perform ‘Kiss Crazy’, give it a bit of a flying start for its release next week. Max said if I felt like tagging along afterwards, they would be kicking on with the television crowd at the 729 Club. I said I might, and wished him luck.
Six O’Clock Rock had only been running a couple of months but already it was the most watched program on Australian television. Johnny O’Keefe was fronting the show. His career had passed its peak, but he was hanging in. He’d still sing like Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis had had a minor hit covering Johnny’s own song, ‘The Wild One’ the year before. But he was mixing in more and cabaret.
He was admired as a powerhouse businessman, but was popping more pills and smoking more reefer than even Max and me. The show was all live music, no lip-syncing. Motley acts came and went, and often as not O’Keefe had forgotten their names by the time he was announcing them. ‘Put your hands together for . . . a cat who needs no introduction!’ he’d say.
I tuned in to Channel Two at six o’clock. O’Keefe booted off with ‘Wild One’. Ten minutes into the show he introduced Del and the Percolators, just like that—left Max’s name right out of it. The camera cut across to Del and the band, who were on a low rostrum. Kids were dancing on the studio floor. Del looked good, and did a better than passable job of ‘Kiss Crazy’. Max at the piano behind her played standing up, Little Richard style. The other Percolators were wearing sharp suits but Max looked a sight in a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, beret and Bermuda shorts.
Del and O’Keefe finished the show with a duet on ‘Love Is Strange’. O’Keefe’s band, the Deejays—and not the Percolators—supplied the back-up.
I met them later at the 729 Club. Del was on top of the world. O’Keefe had made it clear that they wanted her to make a repeat appearance on the program, and hinted that there could be a regular spot for her, minus Max. Max was peeved about not playing back-up guitar on ‘Love Is Strange’, which had long been part of his and Del’s stage act. He was steadily getting drunker.
Later on, when the party split up, Del and I were left together. We got talking, and without me engineering it, Del ended up coming back to my place for a reprise of our stalled love affair. She had a quick glance around the new digs, was not greatly impressed.
The next morning, when I brought in a cup of tea, she was sitting up in bed holding a long strand of Trish’s dark brown hair between her fingers, peering at it. She turned around to face me, waiting.
I put the tea down, went and had a shower. When I came back Del was walking out the door. She stopped, turned around, pointed at me and said, ‘You’re going nowhere, Bill. See you, I’m off. Don’t call.’
Thursday of the following week I slipped in to work at eleven, raced through the orders. At lunchtime Murray tapped on the door looking red-eyed and liverish. He came over to the desk, sat down, avoiding my eye. I asked how he was, he said fighting fit. Then he asked me how I was. I said all right, why was he asking? He said no special reason.
Then, on my suggestion, we adjourned to the Goulburn, supposedly for a counter lunch of curried snags. Once there though, we kept to liquid sustenance. Murray’s outlook brightened with each nip. Mine got worse.
After a little while Murray leaned over and said quietly, ‘Listen, old sport, there was a chap here asking about you the other day.’
‘Oh yeah? Maybe it was a customer.’
‘He didn’t look the hillbilly guitar type.’
‘What type did he look?’
‘The policeman type.’
‘Fred Slaney?’
‘Heaven forfend. No, this was a New Australian cove.’