No more visceral reminders, etched like a calling card into his memory of his marriage: the familiar growling squabbles of the ringtail possums in the white peppermints and on the cottage roof after dusk; the honking of the geese and swans on the pond; or the rooster sentinel at dawn. And, at last there was an end to the incessant scratching by the Long Overdue For A Prune Wisteria on the bedroom window on breezy nights.
And now, two years later, they were fading like the echoes of laughter in a forest gully, the peacefully swaying yacht masts around the harbour replacing the tall creaking eucalypts of the countryside, and the hypnotic inky waters of the ferryman’s dock, the reflecting mooring lights and infinite flickering patterns becoming his backyard.
Then a third thing happened.
*
It hadn’t taken long for Kant to be wearied by the social rituals of city life, particularly an encroaching nightlife, only minutes from his apartment beckoning like a gaudy, illusory temptress. Initially, heading for the fleshy strip of Salamanca Place clubs, galleries and bars seemed the easiest way to fill the yawning crevasse that stretched across his heart. But to Kant, these glitzy dens of desire seemed only to spawn a young breed of over dressed, over cologned office workers who congested the fuggy air with their stealthy glances and overly dull inventories of LOL gossip.
Nevertheless it was in one such lair of lascivious grazing, one of Max’s little classics, that Kant met James Mackelroy one evening. Or rather, the twenty years younger, ex Sydney television director recently based in Hobart, introduced himself to Kant, shouting him a beer, before offering him ‘the job of a lifetime with a gold crested salary’.
‘Not sure it’s me you’re after, pal,’ Kant had replied morosely, sipping his beer and wondering if he’d manage to get another expensive stubby of the Belgium Leffe beer out of the conceited out of towner before traipsing back to his apartment for another early night.
Mackelroy had laughed. ‘That’s it! That very unassuming manner of yours I was drawn to in the first place. It’s a rare quality these days. So many talentless hacks out there craving recognition.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Kant replied suspiciously. ‘And when exactly were you … drawn to my manner?’
‘Oh, I’ve been watching your news reporting on the box. It’s serious business finding the right persona. And you have a look attached to that manner, and in the TV show I want you to front, that counts for a lot more than you’d realise. Of course, as director I’ll have to do a little chiselling but you’re almost there,’ Mackelroy said with a devious pat on Kant’s shoulder.
Kant shook his head and smirked. The only look he thought he displayed these days was jaded. ‘Look … James, isn’t it? I’ll be sixty in a couple of years. I’m an old journo milker whose udder’s drying up. To be honest I feel like shit most days, I can hardly get myself to work since my wife died recently, and my greatest pleasure in life is talking to my daughter’s baby. Now, why don’t you look along the bar here and pick out one of these fine young men?’ And momentarily finding amusement in a thought, he added, ‘What about spotted bow tie over there? Pretty sure it’s not me you’re after.’
‘We’ll just have to see, won’t we, Barry Kant? … God, even your name!’ Mackelroy replied, gripping Kant’s shoulder as if the proposal was already a done deal.
Kant did get a second Belgium, and after a third the conversation had ignited something dormant deep inside him. Sarah was gone and only once before in his life had he felt so alone, and in some primal cell in the core of his body he knew this offer could be the antidote he needed to anaesthetise his grief.
Getting more than he bargained for, Kant, in just two years, became a national household name. His life never seemed to be far away from the newspapers, and dominated women’s magazines for months. No more trudging Apple Isle reporting for Barry Kant. The TV icon’s unique television show had smashed all the previous ratings records for National television. The now famous BK Smile, disarming so many early skeptics, had secured him the position as host of the most watched TV reality talk show in the country. The unlikely hit had tantalised the voyeur in society with an alternative keyhole to ogle through, which, according to the ratings was just about everyone.
The tiny island state of Tasmania began to parade its engorged pride relentlessly, Kant’s celebrated image appearing in tourist promotions and a plethora of local product advertising from clip lock fencing to men’s aftershave to Flinders Island goat’s cheese.
The program’s format resembled a chat show, but sounded like an hour long confessional of emotional and psychological collapse with the benevolent host, and depended on a public vote for a winner. The twist came with the cash prize. Not for the best performer with a voice as pure as a lark, or the most inventive mind, certainly not the one with superior survival instincts, or the one capable of devising a delectable, culinary experience. And it didn’t even go to some head bursting brain who could answer inordinately obscure questions about ex prime ministers, fatuous sporting obscura, or agrarian farming practices in the Middle Ages. No, it would be for a wholly unique superlative, the prize of fifty thousand dollars going to the person whose ghastly life story and misfortune was voted to be the worst case. The wretched souls not only agreed to put themselves through the indignity of public exposure but subjected themselves to a final, humiliating question time by a gloating, and in the director’s mind, non too bright studio audience, a cordonbleu recipe for excellent TV devouring.
The show was gladiatorial in its intensity, thumbs up or thumbs down. Nonetheless there was an endless queue of hopefuls happy to divulge their bad luck for some easy money. For some, the mere sharing of their traumas became a purging, Barry Kant becoming their saviour, the compassionate oracle who guided them through their perils of the past with his probing but kind persona that the public warmed to and most ended up adoring. At the end of the first series viewers bombarded the station with texts and phone calls, even the odd proposal of marriage.
There were also the inevitable expressions of outrage. The show was callous and exploited suffering. Simply unfair! One retired Liberal MP had even described it as unAustralian. One mainland newspaper commented that ‘The Barry Kant Show is a blatant manipulation of the already down trodden, particularly the poor souls who put themselves through the wringer to come out at the end, flattened and with nothing’.
Of course, the poor souls who found themselves in the public spotlight were often from a luckless under class who the rest of society had previously not wanted to admit existed in such great numbers in charming Hobart town, and further afield in the broader Tasmanian tourist haven of outstanding beauty. And so it gathered momentum, the ratings soaring higher and higher with the thud of every outrage and the splash of each tear.
Chapter Three
4.30 am Sunday
Kant woke to the clattering of his alarm clock.
The night’s storm had run out of spite. No excuse now not to have that jog he’d promised himself before visiting Melinda and Rosie. It would be an invigorating start to his birthday and the last day of his holiday. Tomorrow, BKS would encircle him once again. He raised himself onto an elbow.
His glasses had fallen into the creases of the doona over night and become twisted. He tried to straighten and match one arm to the other side. Damn. Inspecting the line of the burgundy toned stainless steel, a shade lighter than his new car, he began to wonder why he’d needed to buy the latest model Audi. ‘Wretched thing spends most of its life parked,’ he mumbled out loud as he changed into his jogging gear.
And when was the last time I wore shorts, with no shirt, and wandered carefree along a beach, bare footed on cool sands?
Apart from visiting Melinda and Rosie during his break Kant had dithered around, never quite organising to do anything substantial. He hadn’t been able to clear his head of the Afghan woman, lugging her pain around with him like a sea anchor, and now it was almost