Day 117 - Bollywood in Budgee Springs - Chapter 13 (1923 words)

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Bollywood in Budgee Springs

Chapter 13

Charlie is looking at himself in the mirror, having a hard time with what he can see, and what he can't see. He had waited patiently to talk to Ash and then set about trying to apologise, telling him a long story of his childhood and trying to put the idea in his own head more than Ash's that ignorance and racism don't go well together. Of course as soon as he said that he realised how stupid that sounded, racism was born of ignorance so the idea that being ignorant was an excuse for not knowing, fell flat even to himself.

Ash accepted his apology with good grace, but Charlie had been working with stubborn and strong willed people for decades and knew when he was hearing what the person thought he wanted to hear. Ash had no idea what it was that Charlie wanted though, anymore than Charlie really did. So he tried again, but now instead of apologising he just explained who he was. Any sentence that started with 'I am not racist, because' was as bad as the 'I am not racist, but' position, so he just went about trying to show Ash who he was, instead of what he was not.

“When I was younger my wife died, it was over twenty years ago that I became a widower, and she died suddenly. I had no time to get used to it. It was an accident, a drunk driver.”

“I am truly sorry to hear that.” Ash was listening intently, the shooting had wrapped and the sets were being covered, props moved and the area cleared for the next days shoot.

“It was a while ago, as I said and I have had time to adjust. I still miss her, and I sometimes feel like she is watching me every time I make a move. I hear her voice every day.” Charlie was not being wistful, just matter of fact.

“I am sure that is a great comfort to you.”

“I mean I hear her in the way she affected people. This is a small town and we all knew each other growing up, there have been plenty of people moving away, but virtually no one moving back to town. No one but my son and his wife, and they are both from here originally.” He looked about the set with all the people bustling about. “She was a firey, attractive and positively amazing woman and she influenced everyone she met. She would have loved you, this project and all the people you have here? All of them would have fallen in love with her. She was that kind of woman.”

Ash nodded and waited

Charlie went on “There's a long history in this town, it is a farming and mining community, or it was in the day, both of those industries are dead in the region, reduced to hobby and history by now, but that was us for generations since god knows, a hundred years and more. We had no Aboriginal problem, we had no aboriginal people here except one. He. He was a sore thumb. Do you know the expression?”

Ash nodded. “Sticks out like...”

“Yes, that was him and he did. He had a family and he worked hard and yet he never fitted in. He had one friend, and it was not me. I admit I tolerated him, I held no animosity towards him or his race, or I don't think that I did. The people here did not like him, they had their reasons, none of them any good or right, but they had them and I left them to that. I never let the tide turn against him, but I did not stand up for him either.”

“What is it you are trying to tell me Mr Clarke?” Ash was intrigued, as apologisers for racist insults went this was fairly left field.

“He had one friend and that was my Nellie. My late wife. She was the only one who saw why he became the way he was, the things that chased him downstairs and around corners in his own mind, they weren't madness they were us. We held him as an outsider but he wasn't one. Nellie looked out for him and stood up for him and defended him.”

“She sounds a brave soul.”

“She made his life worse. He had no friends and no future but he felt he could not leave the land here either, he had a connection or some such thing I can never pretend to understand. He had no people, but his own children and wife, but he had some kind of connection here and he was bound to it. He could not leave, he could not stay being isolated as he was, and the only person to stand for him was a woman. I don't pretend to get why that was a problem, but he loved my wife and hated her at the same time.” Charlie sighed. “It was complicated. It was a complicated relationship.”

“It seems so.” Ash was saying things to allow him to continue, it felt like the man needed to say it, whatever it was.

“And then one day he drank too much, as was his habit and he stole a car. He was going to drive that car far away and just leave it in the middle of nowhere and then walk back to town, get the earth under his drunk feet and feel his way back to town. That was his plan, he told me later when he sobered up.”

“His plan went awry?”

“He drove the car in a loop around the main street, around the rotunda, a circuit of a kind and came back to where he started. He was confused and disoriented and he … he ran over my wife who was not even aware of what was going on. She came out of that building there.” Charlie pointed to a shop front that was now doubling as an office building in the set. “And he drove over the pavement, confused, and clipped her – just a little, and she fell and knocked her head on the pavement. She died right there. The doctor said that the chances of her dying from that one impact was less than one percent.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

“So am I, so am I. Not as sorry as he was though. She spent years defending this man in the town, berating people for the way they treated him, or ignored him like he did not exist, how they contributed to his madness and his drinking problem. She was always ready to bring people to her side, to his side and to try and make that difference. Some people had come around, some of the people her age like Ella and some of their friends, they were seeing it her way. So was I, but I did nothing about it and I … I was the Mayor, if I had stood up and offered a hand sooner then none of this may have happened.”

Ash frowned. “So you are saying? You know I have no idea what you are saying?”

Charlie looked into the ground. “I forgave him years ago, but I never forgot him or what I did not do for him. She reminds me because I her her indignation in her best friend Ella, and I hear a distorted reflection of her when people say things I knew she would not sit still for. Her death was a product of our character. It's not pervasive, we don't have the chance to be worse and we don't have the chance to be better.”

Charlie looked at Ash now. “What I am saying is that I would like this chance to be better now. Please.”

Ash drew a deep breath and put an arm around the man. “I thank you for your words, but I wonder why now and why at all? Let me tell you a story, one much shorter I promise you.”

“Go ahead.”

“My father said to me when I grew up, 'you never know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes'. I know that this is not his quote, it is apocryphal perhaps or attributed to I know not whom, but it was his favourite saying. This was interesting to me because he never showed any interest in walking in anyone's shoes but his own most comfortable ones. He only ever said to me to show my actions up, to put me in my place and to get the high ground.” Ash was unsure of Charlie's motivation, but he stabbed at it anyway to see if it bled true. “I cannot say it was a ground he earned, but one he he bought and kept away from everyone else. He talked a good game I guess is how you might put it.”

Ash and Charlie looked at each other a mutual understanding of the impasse they had reached.

Charlie walked into the dinner hall at the Whistle and was greeted by his friends over the hubbub of the noise of the tables of Indian cast and crew eating dinner and chatting after a long day. He waved to his friends and approached the bar, catching Paul’s eye and motioning for a drink out of habit before he was halfway across the room.

As he got near the bar he took the drink and raised it to his friends, saluted them with and then walked to the dinner tables and found a seat with the Indian crew.

The room went silent, his friends staring at him from the front and the chatter among the tables stopped as suddenly as they all stopped and stared at him. He smiled and tried some casual conversation but it was limited to a basic yes and no type, everyone wondering what he was doing.

“Charlie, come up to the bar and get yourself some grub mate!” Jonno called out and pointed at his seat, one or two of the men near him indicated that he was welcome to go and that he did not need to stay for their sake.

“No mate, I've been working all bloody day in the hot sun, I'm eating with the boys that work for a living tonight, I'll have plenty of other nights to prop up the bar with you drunken louts.” That was the way they referred to each other normally, though in saltier language when not surrounded by women and guests, so Jonno shrugged it off and went back to drinking.

From somewhere a meal appeared in front of him and Charlie gave a hearty thanks and took a big spoon full of the stew that landed in front of him, before any of the protests and warnings got to him to tell him to take it easy. His face reddened slightly and he ate the mouthful, chewing carefully his eyes slightly wider as he ate it trying not to react to the heat of the spices.

He measured his words carefully as he took another spoonful and readied it to eat more.

“I see you boys like it spicy.” and he continued eating, not reaching for any cooling drink to sate the burn.

There was laughter and a slap on the back from the man next to him and the conversation returned to a normal level again.