Day 106 - Bollywood in Budgee Springs - Chapter 4 (2184 words)

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Bollywood in Budgee Springs

Chapter 4

Outside the Whistle the sun is setting and the evening has started to darken the sky, but the air is still balmy and warm enough at this time of year to allow for people to mill about and have a bit of a chat before heading to their respective homes or evening plans. Ella is standing off to one side and staring into the night sky, not moving away and not chatting to anyone either.

Charlie comes out of the Whistle and makes a bee line for her, he knows her routine, the way she waits out there for him, not as public a statement of their interest in each other, but a discrete understanding that neither of them ever had to speak out loud. They were both widowed, but even given the years between their respective spouses demise, it was Budgee Springs and between the Madame President and the Mayor, some appearance of decorum was required.

They did not touch, they stood side by side both looking upwards at the same point. It was not as physical as holding hands, but it was something they both knew they were doing together, aligned for a while at least.

Ella broke the silence first. “You know ever since I was a little girl, those matinees in the weekends, when the Cinema was still here. The musicals, they were my favourite. I could picture myself as Ginger Rogers or Doris Day maybe.”

“I was never one for all that nonsense, it was Westerns with me. John Wayne, that man never sung and danced. That was a man that knew how to be a man.” Charlie stiffened his stance just a little, trying to stand a little taller.

“Charles Clarke, are you telling me you won't dance?” She wasn't looking at him but he could feel the raised eyebrow bristling at his demeanour.

He did his best John Wayne impression “Now little lady, I don't reckon I did say that. I'd be a might pleased if y'all asked me to dance.” But he could not let it go “I'm just saying I don't need to be seeing other people dancing for entertainment purposes.”

“You old coot.” Ella was softening

“Aw shucks ma’am, reckon I ...”

“That's enough of that.”

“Right you are... ma’am.”

They stood there for a little while and just stared at the sky together as people milled about and took their evening's leave of one another. Most of Charlie's cohorts were still propping the bar up at the Whistle, their best drinking days were well behind them but they belonged inside it's walls. A second home to them it was, like a boy's club house for senior citizens.

“It's still an exciting thing, to have a movie here in the Town, you have to hand it to Max for making this happen.” Ella finally stopped staring at the sky and looked directly at Charlie who then averted his gaze as he felt his irritation rising and he did not want to spoil any moment he spent with Ella.

“Maybe, but it sounds highly suspicious and we'll have no idea about what kind of movie they are making and no idea what they are speaking. No one here speaks Indian.”

“No one anywhere speaks Indian dear.” Ella was smiling as she teased him, but he was missing the bait so she filled in the blanks, “They speak Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali and the list goes on.”

“The Indian constitution recognised twenty two Indian languages to be precise, and to be imprecise there are nearly four hundred in total.” Max had walked over quietly and stood between them, but they were too full of each other's presence to notice his until he spoke.

Charlie took a step to the side and turned around, the connection to the women he loved in mutually remote admiration now broken and all that did was intensify the irritation he felt from his son, a grown man in so many ways and still a child in his, and the town's eyes.

“Oh Charlie, don't be such a grump.” Ella reached out and touched his arm, and the spark they felt hung in the air blithely ignored by the man that stood between them. “I know this movie will be good for the town and I for one can't wait to see them here with all the sets, the costumes and the cameras. I'll be excited to see what they are going to make of our little town.”

“I just want to know what they are going to make IN our little town!” Charlie jabbed a finger in the air at his son.

“It's a movie Dad, it won't be anything you need be ashamed of, it won't be violent or inappropriate it'll be a movie for the whole family I swear.” Max bit his lip, “Of course it would have to be an Indian family as they'll dub the audio into various languages later, but we'll get a subtitled copy after it comes out. Just trust me ok?”

Charlie harrumphed and walked away to the bar.

Then he stopped and his shoulders slumped a little until he turned around with an apologetic look o his face. “I'm sorry that was very rude of me. Good night Ella, pleasant dreams.” Then he turned again and was gone to the Whistle Bar and his friends.

Max sighed lightly, and looked up and down the main street. Soon there would be cables and cameras and all sorts of weird goings on, they just needed to get to it and there would be fallout but by then it would be too late. Keep it together, keep it together.

“You know the first dance number they do and he's going to lose the plot.” Ella was smiling coyly.

“Um... what do you mean?” He wasn't very hopeful that it was just a casual remark.

“Charles Junior, please. Do you really think that the Budgee Springs Chapter of Mothers of Merit would not do a little research into the type of movie that was going to be filmed in our town? Shame on you! I've a good mind to rush in there and tell them all right now!” She was teasing him, chiding him with a wagging finger, but as the blood rushed from his face she began to regret her decision to make him squirm. “Don't worry your secret is safe with MoM, and I know Charlie and his foolish friends well enough, they're all bark, and very little bite these days. Who knows what they may learn from this experience, they may even like it.”

Neither of them believed that.

The day before the first of the crew was to show up Ella had her own visitor scheduled. Her daughter and her husband were taking a much needed trip away for a few weeks to see if they could solve a few issues they were having with each other, issues that were making everyone's life a little tense. Their son Nathan, Ella's grandson was coming to stay with her. Nathan was twelve years old and in that awkward stage where he was not really wanting to be thought a child, but not even in the first year of being a teenager yet, the awful limbo that young men found themselves in growing up.

The tension at home resulted in a few 'behavioural' issues so it was decided that in the middle of nowhere Budgee Springs was a safe place for him to be while his parents went away to find each other again. Nathan thought it was as bad as an exile or a prison sentence, and in a way it was. There was no internet at his Nan's house, there was very little connectivity in the town save the café with it's less than reliable connection and it's hardly private booth in the middle of the room on it's one computer. Nan did not have Satellite TV, and the only place that did was the Whistle which was permanently on the sports channels, the remote having been locked away a long time ago after the incident of things being thrown at the Prime Minister on the news channel years before. Budgee Springs was a separate little world with a very insular and focussed lifestyle, and to Nate's parents that was a guarantee that he'd have little trouble he could get up to there.

The bus arrived in town in the late morning, having left Sydney the night before and wandered through a route it only travelled once a week that did a giant loop through rural communities, dropping off visitors, packages and supplies that were non essential and by the time it got to Budgee Springs, not much was ever left on board. The dusty exterior was not as shiny and sliver as it had been when Nathan had boarded it the previous day, the battered impression that the bus now gave out was one that the boy held about the town where his Nan lived. It was important once but it had seen better days, would see better days when away from this place once more.

He was the last passenger on the bus for the last three hours he had been driven in relative silence through the barren land, emphasising the feeling that it was a prisoner transfer, not a grandson seeing his Nan. His I Pod had died in the early hours of the day and there was no way to charge on the bus ride, it was far from a modern carriage and when he asked the driver if they had USB ports on board, the look he got in return suggested that he had been speaking an alien language.

The Driver got down and there was Ella waiting and smiling at him, as he unloaded the luggage and a few packages to take to the Whistle, which was the place where most things were centralised in the town these days. If your business was not in the Whistle, then chances were that the person what you had business with was.

Nathan was not smiling when he hugged his Nan, and while he recognised her it had been a few years since they had seen each other. He broke away from the hug as quickly as he could without appearing too rude, but not so slow that Ella did not get that twinge when she felt him wanting to not be there, to not be here with her. She was a punishment, a banishment and they both knew it.

The bus accelerates away from them heading on to Gordons Gully with nothing and no one on board. It was going down the road out of town, which was the same way as the Road in. Nathan looks at Ella and Ella looks down at Nathan. He smiled at her warmly but he can really only hold it for a few seconds, and then he looks like he might cry from the depressing sadness of his situation. Ella wisely decides to not press the issue.

“Did your mother tell you? Do you know there’s going to be a movie shooting here next week, you should have some fun watching that. I’m afraid there’s not much else to do here.” She looked up and down the street, wondering what on earth they would do. Even the local library was closed and gone now, the books gone to the school, which was also closed and all the equipment, books and gear was distributed to other schools a decade ago.

“Is there really no one else who is not old here?” It was a little rude, but he did not mean it to be, it was a hard question to ask any other way when you are twelve.

“There's Max I guess.”

“How old is he then?” Nathan was a little hopeful.

“He’s the Mayor, sweetie. But he's the youngest person here, except maybe Polly, his wife, she might be a few months younger … maybe? I don't suppose that really helps you does it dear?”

I don’t suppose he’s got a Playstation or X-Box does he?

“I wouldn’t know love, what are they?”

“Never mind Nana, what movie are they making? Is it good?”

“It’s an Indian movie dear.”

“You mean cowboys and Indians? That’s cool I guess...” Nathan brightened at the prospect.

“No dear, Indians from India. Indian People, people from India the country.”

“No cowboys then?”

“No, no cowboys. Sorry.”

“It's okay Nana.” He sighed a sigh that only a twelve year old could manage to make and looked up and down the street. A middle aged man was walking down towards them and waved to Ella.

“Here's Max now.” Nathan took a good look at the man, who was older than he'd even guessed, and this was the youngest person in town?

This was going to be a long month.