Beyond The Black Stump

Home after a hectic few weeks, Ted sat on the veranda of the old homestead and looked out over the sunburnt landscape. He reflected on just how much Edward J. McGregor, the best selling author, owed to this isolated, rambling house.

His publishers began calling him a 'best selling author' when his second book hit the bookshops shortly after he sold the film rights to his first novel, 'Bibalong.' Both books were selling well, although many of the sales resulted from his travels around the country, giving radio and press interviews, appearing on television chat shows, and visiting bookshops to sign copies. He was glad this hectic round was over for the time being. He could settle back into the old homestead and concentrate on finishing the third book in the series and perhaps start on the fourth.

Even as a kid back in Scotland Ted wanted to be a writer. Curled up with a book in his chair by the kitchen fire, the bleak winter wind howling around the stone cottage, he had envied the writers who transported him to warmer, more exciting places. He found his own warmer, more exciting place when he was ten years old, and the family left the small village and boarded a crowded migrant ship bound for Australia. He spent the next thirty years in Sydney before moving out here -- beyond the black stump, as the Aussies say.

Ted had joined the staff of the Bank of Australia straight from school and rose through the ranks to become Senior Teller in a large inner-city branch. When Australians enthusiastically embraced electronic banking with its computerised cash dispensing machines, fewer and fewer tellers were needed. When applications were called for the second round of voluntary redundancies, he phoned the union to check the size of the pay-out he could expect and convinced himself that, if he was ever going to be a serious writer, he would be a fool if he didn't apply.

At first they said, "Are you sure? We can ill afford to lose someone with your wide experience." With justifiable cynicism, he realised it wasn't him or his experience they were loath to part with; it was all the dollars in his redundancy payout. He refused to be deterred and finally they agreed. He was free to become a full-time writer.

He had no ties. It was almost five years since he and Julie split up after nine years of a childless marriage. It wasn't that there was anyone else for either of them, just that their preferred lifestyles had diverged to such an extent that they were always squabbling. She worked in public relations, had a wide circle of friends and enjoyed a hectic social life. Friends or business contacts were always popping in for drinks or dinner or else he had to hurry out with her to a cocktail party or be off for a weekend at one of the beach houses of her more affluent associates.

Much more a loner, Ted would have preferred to sit on the balcony of their tiny harbourside apartment with its view across the water to the Opera House, a pad on his knee, trying to write. He was rarely given the opportunity. They parted amicably, realising they were no longer lovers and that, by continuing to live together, they were putting their friendship in jeopardy. She retained the apartment by the Harbour and Ted leased a small flat in Kings Cross, just a short stroll from the bank.

The Cross, as it was universally known, while outwardly both sleazy and cosmopolitan, had two faces. To the casual observer, it was a tawdry collection of hotels, cafes, restaurants, strip clubs, porno bookshops, late night pharmacies, promenading prostitutes, and drug pushers — a mecca for both locals and tourists in search of a good time. Depending upon the point of view, it was either wildly exciting or totally degenerate. Behind this facade, a large population of permanent residents inhabited the profusion of flats, apartments and boarding houses in and around The Cross. They moved almost invisibly through the throng of visitors, had their own favourite pubs, restaurants and coffee lounges and could be observed early on Saturday and Sunday mornings coming out to shop. Then, apart from the occasional paralytic drunken left over from the night before and a few Japanese tourists, the streets were theirs. Ted settled comfortably into this almost invisible community.

Free of the bank, he looked around his little flat and decided that, for a would-be writer, it had to be the next best thing to a garret on the Left Bank in Paris or a cheap hotel room in New York. Later, he would have his doubts.

He bought a laptop computer and a small printer to replace his ancient portable typewriter. With his redundancy money to live on until he sold his first novel, he had nothing else to do now but write -- and that was the problem.

When his writing was fitted in around working hours, he never suffered from writer's block, but now, with all the time in the world, he frequently stared at a blank computer screen or the pristine page of the pad on his knee. To escape, he would wander downstairs to his favourite coffee lounge, the public library and its newspapers, or a park bench near the fountain. He never tired of watching the passing parade and tried to convince himself he was researching human nature or searching for characters he could write about. When he was honest, he knew it was nothing more than procrastination.

He found the unlikely solution to his problem in an old newspaper someone had left in the coffee lounge. "The Gillangabone Weekly Mail" was a country paper which served a district in the bush. Ted was fascinated by it. It was full of some of the worst writing he had ever read and fuzzy pictures of the locals at sporting events, a woolshed dance, at their weddings or with their newborn babies. As his gaze wandered over the classified advertisements one caught his attention:

Ted had never heard of Gillangabone, but on a sudden impulse, he folded the paper carefully, tucked it under his arm, and headed for the library and a road atlas. The price asked for this supposedly historic homestead was ridiculously low by Sydney standards, but it might provide an escape from the distractions that kept him from his writing. But there had to be a catch. At the library he discovered that Gillangabone was in the far west of New South Wales, way up between the Darling River and the South Australian border. He suspected that 'in original condition' was real estate agent speak for 'run down and neglected,' but if he could knock the price down a bit, he could afford it -- if he wanted to.

Charlie Gibson came down the phone line just as Ted imagined an outback Aussie stock and station agent should sound.

"It's like this," he said. "The place is called 'Bibalong.' Used to be a big place -- couple of thousand acres or more -- owned by the Hayes family for about four generations. When old Frank Hayes wanted to retire, neither of the kids was interested. Son's a doctor and the daughter married an engineer. The old boy wanted to sell the property but keep the house. We arranged a sale to one of his neighbours that left Frank with the homestead block. He and Mary stayed on in the house until about a year ago when they moved to one of those retirement village places near their daughter. The house has been on the market ever since, and I advertise it in the local rag every couple of months just to show Frank I'm trying."

After rambling on for several minutes with details of the house, which sounded far too palatial for Ted's simple needs, he asked,

"Interested?"

"Possibly," and then, on a whim, "Might come and look at it next week. Give you a ring if I'm coming."

Even if the house proved to be unsuitable, he kept telling himself he was collecting characters for future use, and Charlie Gibson sounded eminently collectible. Apart from that, it was as good an excuse as any for a trip out of the city. It might even start him writing again.

After a solid, two-day drive, Ted found Gillangabone at the end of a long, thin ribbon of bitumen and Charlie Gibson in his office on a main street in which several shops and the only bank looked as if they had been closed for years. The following morning, they jolted through the potholes in the rough gravel road which led to 'Bibalong.' Charlie, a big, ruddy-complexioned man who carried his years well and had the great advantage of looking honest, confessed, "I know I said 20 km out of town in the ad, but it's probably closer to 30."

After that Ted was quite prepared to find the historic homestead was a derelict, weatherboard cottage, but Charlie pulled up in front of a set of rusty, but still imposing, wrought-iron gates. A well-kept driveway led to a long, low, stone house surrounded by wide verandas and shady trees.

"The trouble with trying to sell a place like this so far out of town is that there's only this little bit of land to go with it." Charlie said as he unlocked the front door. "It's a very nice house but nobody around here is interested in living five miles the other side of nowhere when they can't depend on the place to provide them with an income. About all you could run here would be a couple of cows and a few chickens. If you're interested, I think Frank would consider any reasonable offer."

Ted wandered around inside and outside the house, asking Charlie about the history of the old place. The spacious rooms still contained most of their original, old-fashioned furniture, and when he had finished his inspection, he sat quietly in the large, comfortable living room. The ambience of the old homestead washed over him and suddenly a whole cast of characters came tumbling unbidden into his head, clamouring to tell their stories. There was a novel -- no, a whole series of novels -- just waiting to be written here. He wouldn't need more land for 'Bibalong' to provide him with a living.