Getting It On Paper - Prevaricating- and Aaron Eckhart, Blind To the Reefs.

I've been trying to write this novel for oh, I dunno, about twenty years now. Not actually writing it all that time, but thinking about the characters, the times, the mores, the places. Getting some of it down, rethinking, rewriting, starting again. Coming at it from another angle. Daydreaming in fact . Mostly daydreaming, and being spooked by the unforgiving minute. Damn you to hell, Catholic guilt complex! Lately I've been casting the film of my novel, which, as you are no doubt aware, has been translated into fifteen languages, has topped every best seller list in the free world, won the Man Booker, The Miles Franklin and to date, has sold upwards of twenty million copies. I've become the darling of the chat shows, literary festivals and book signings. And I've done it without a skerrick of a grant. Eat your hearts out you literatti bitches!! I need never work again. Now if only Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein would stop pestering me, life would be bearable.

                                            "Blind To The Reefs" by Michael Grelis

Old Prince's Bridge and St Paul's by moonlight by Ludwig  Becker 1857. Cowan Gallery.

Proposed Jacket cover design for "Blind to the Reefs"

This daydreaming jag has got to stop.  All this running before your horse to market. Get the words on paper, that's all you have to do. It's Easter Monday morning, early. Well, early for me anyway. I've taken the dog out for her morning constitutional, which, by the by, has lately taken on the proportions of the weekly bag of grocery shopping- damn near did a disc, bending down to shovel the stuff into a plastic bag. Yep, shovellin' dog poo. That's life in a nutshell. But I digress. As I said, it's Monday mornin' and  the last person I spoke to, fleshwise, was sometime last Thursday in Benalla, I've spent the Easter weekend alone,  in complete silence. Not bitchin' mind, just sayin'.It's by no means an uncommon occurence.

 I did spend a lot of time in front of the screen trying to get this story moving along, which, as I'm inferring, is easier said than done. For me, an untrained, unqualified "Writer" that task  is akin to reaching down (or up- I don't know the physiognominy of it) into your own bowels, to wrestle a tape worm out into the light of day. So I trot down the path of make believe. That's part of the deal anyway-and isn't writing novels make believe?

HMAS Perth

Australian Prisoner of War.WW2

In my story set in 1956, Olympic Year in Melbourne there are two coppers, one older, wiser and a whole lot sadder, one younger, smarter,  somewhat feckless and driven. Both ex prisoners of war, having survived the sinking of HMAS Perth,
one (probably Redge, the elder) a survivor of the Burma railway, the other (Finbar, the younger) I think will have been a slave in Tokyo, on the wharves, I reckon.
Haven't decided yet. Both men, like all those who lived through that, are haunted by memories that won't stop, by their feelings of guilt at having survived the horror, when so many of their mates did not, and by their feelings of inadequacy as husbands, sons  and fathers, who can't communicate their anger, despair and misery.  If they do, they will have to put a name to it, it's more than an elephant in the room, it's a satanic beast.  They won't have to confront as long as it remains locked in their minds. Let it out, and everyone will suffer. But it is there. Always.

Victoria Police Shoulder Flash 1950's

 They came back from hell into a world that asked them to "get on with it" and to "put it behind you". Some chance. They can't. It's in their every waking day, it's waiting for them when they close their eyes. Faces, faces, faces, death, starvation, disease. Of men they knew and loved. Heartbreaking, and a heartbroken generation. How could anyone put behind them Batavia, Changi, Japanese prisoner of war ships, Hellfire pass.

Hellfire Pass

All that after having a ship they loved blown from under them in a mire of blood, brains, and limbs torn asunder. Then there was dysentery, starvation, tropical ulcers, beatings and executions and unspeakable cruelty waiting for them. But they are expected to do so. And be on time for work each day thereafter, go home on the tram at 6pm, prune the roses on Sunday, eat  cold lamb chops and salad for dinner, and read bedtime stories to their children a; the time hiding a heart as heavy as an anvil. While their memories and nightmares destroyed them from within.

  They investigate a murder disguised as a suicide, then a missing person, then a murder. Enter Lorelie Sunday. I haven't decided what to do with her yet, but she is the most beautiful,most bewitching female anyone has ever seen. She is also a whore, and has the filthiest mouth in all of literature. Teresa Palmer

Teresa Palmer

will play her of course, I don't know how she would feel about the dialogue, but she is certainly beautiful enough, ethereal enough, and you could understand how Finbar would risk everything, given his state of mind, to possess her. Stupid, stupid man. One more regret, something else to torture yourself over. There are a lot of other characters also , Migrants, post war refugees, nuns, a surly, snobbish Irish priest, Australian "Battlers" all trying to make sense of the time in which they find themselves, post war Melbourne in the 1950's, in the wasteland  to the west of the city.

For those who have read "The Harp in The South" (I think it was the first "grown up" book I read, I was probably 11 or 12 at the time- but I digress. Again) Ruth Park's wonderful story published in, I think, about 1948. (I wasn't 12 in 1948-fair go!) You will probably say that  story is about Roie, and you would be mostly correct.. But, the lynchpin is Mumma. So it is with my yarn. Although it is essentially Finbar's story, Redge holds the key to everything. His story is the backbone to it all. In some respect Finbar is a conduit to Redge.
I was cogitating on this, trying to give my characters some physical appearance. Ms Palmer fills the bill, beauty wise, and she'd have the acting chops, no doubt. Finbar-Hmmm, Rupert Reid, maybe. That sort of look. Does he act anymore I wonder- Got a great singing voice I know, and runner up at Tropfest. I wonder if the budget will stretch to him these days, after that sort of adulation? Redge? What does Redge look like?

John Hargreaves

Aaron Eckhart

 In the beginning I always imagined John Hargreaves. Damn it all, why did he have to die?  For all sorts of reasons he is missed, only one of which is for all the great roles he had yet to play. My character Redge is/was right up his alley. I'm flicking through the Sunday paper, and there's Redge. Of course it's Redge. Aaron Eckhart.
He is in Melbourne at the minute, filming. In the photograph he's at some function for the Melbourne Grand Prix.  I wonder what he'd do with the role of a tortured Australian Copper. He looks the part. Strong face. a lot hidden, but a lot going on behind the eyes. Yair, he'd be good. I wonder how he's go with the accent.(And Actors Equity-but that's not my problem- anyway Meryl Streep got over that so there's precedent..)  He'd manage ok, I reckon. So will my literary agent-she's a maneating tiger, she'll bring him onboard.  (I haven't got an agent of any sort-that's another daydream-but in my world, she'd take your balls home in her purse.) I've written a few
hundred words where Finbar and Redge reach some sort of denoument, after all that has gone before. It's late spring, early summer, they sit on Redge's front verandah, beside the railway viaduct in Richmond. The trains rattle overhead, kids play in the street. A roar comes from the MCG, as the Olympic games athletics carry on.   A sort of golden twilight. a cold bottle of Melbourne Bitter between them, I have given Redge a fairly long monologue, wherein a lot of things at last,  make sense. Tears glinting in the late sunshine. Awkward mateship-a goodbye. There's your Oscar moment, right there Aaron, old son.

Miriam Margoyles

 So the struggle goes on. Thankfully at least I've finished with Sister Una Connell (Miriam Margoyles in my dream-a cameo that sets the screen alight) I find that this written exercise this morning (A dull damp gloomy morning in Violet Town it is, too) has at least been a little bit cathartic-although I'm obsessing about the spelling of Physio-whatsit (I never use spellcheck or look anything up- I won every Spelling Bee I entered at primary school, and it's a matter of vanity and form that I do not check-arrogance some would say, but I could care less, it's what I do.)

I'm going to stay in front of this computer for a while now, and DO something creative. But first......hmmm maybe Abbie Cornish for Lorelie if Teresa's booked up, (Now I'm thinking of Abbie in Candy, with Heath Ledger-Man, she was awesome) if Rupe doesn't want to play, I wonder if Damien Walshe-Howling would be interested? Bit boyish perhaps.  Brett Clymo? Probably not-it might be one copper to many in the CV.  Geez, I dunno, it's a worry.  But definitely Aaron for Redge. Yep, I'm going to borrow Mr Eckhart for a while, to get Redge into being, to give him some skin and bone.  Rest in Peace Johnny, you'd have been bonzer, but Aaron and I will do you proud.

Rupert Reid