Chapter 4: Moving on Out

See Your Face Again

July 5 – July 10, 1976

We woke up with the alarm; made love, had a shower together, then ate breakfast before we drove into Surry Hills and the recording studio. When we reached the studio; I parked at the side in the loading area, and went inside looking for George. We found him in the administration office, speaking with a brunette.

“Hey, Will, good to see ya, Mate,” he said. “And this is...” he asked, looking at Lori.

“You remember my girlfriend, Lori?” I said to him.

“Of course, I remember now. Will, here’s someone you need to get to know; Fifa Riccobono pretty much keeps this place running. She’ll need your details to make sure you get paid, and all that.”

I shook her hand, introduced myself and Lori to her. She seemed friendly; and gave me a form to complete, getting my name, address, tax file number, and bank payment details. Meanwhile she had created a file cover with my name on it; and put the completed form in the file, along with another form that she had George complete.

“I’ll make sure you get paid properly for the week,” she said. “Do you have a union card? I’ll put those details on here as well.”

I handed over the card; she took a photocopy of it, and filed that too.

“Now let’s get you set up before the others arrive,” George said. “Where’s all your stuff?”

We went back to the car; he grabbed a flatbed trolley, and we loaded everything on that, and headed up to one of the recording studios; the same studio that we used back in February when I recorded the album with Salamon. I started setting up my equipment; the Rhodes to one side, my amp next to it, then both guitars on their stands. I checked the tuning; when I was happy everything was right, I picked up the red strat and practiced a few blues licks.

“Mind if I jam with you?” George asked.

“Sure, you can play my other guitar if you want,” I replied. “What do you want to play?”

“Let’s go with those two ones of mine that you covered so well; ‘Good Times’ first.”

George led off with the intro; I picked up the lead after the first verse; we sang the chorus together; it felt really good to be playing rock music again. We had just started on the intro of ‘I’ll Make You Happy’ when the other guys arrived; George and I stopped playing, and he introduced me to the band.

“Guys, this is Will, Will Morris; I’ve bought him along for keyboards, vocals and backup guitar. Will, meet Doc, Rick, Jim, and Buzz,” he introduced me to them in turn. “And the lovely young lady is Lori; Will’s girlfriend.”

“Good to meet ya, Will,” Doc said. “Don’t you play with that group, Salome, or something like that? I saw you support AC/DC at the Lifeswapper at the start of the year, and also at the Antler. You guys really rock it; great energy in your shows.”

“Salomon. Yeah, we haven’t played for a while; most of us are studying at Uni at the moment, so things are on hold until the summer,” I replied. “Glad you enjoyed the shows; we had a great time playing those gigs.”

We set all of the equipment up; then we checked sound levels. Once that was done, Doc suggested a smoke break. After the break, it was back to the studio, and George suggested a jam session, so I could become accustomed to playing with them, learning various cues, and he could work out how I could best fit in. We spent the rest of the morning playing various songs; some classic blues pieces; early Stones and other heavy rock songs; we even ran through extended versions of the two Easybeats songs that George and I were playing earlier on. No one seemed in much of a hurry to start laying down some recording tracks.

By lunchtime we still hadn’t run through any of their songs; but I assumed George knew what he was doing. I didn’t mind; I was getting paid three bucks an hour to play with them. I enjoyed the fooling around and trying different stuff. After the break it was back in the studio; this time George wanted me on the Rhodes; adding some piano stuff to what they were playing.

We started on one of their songs that would be the first track on their album, ‘Take me Home’. It was a bit of a challenge to adapt their songs to include my piano playing; given that they had been playing these songs for quite a while in pubs and various gigs, refining them with lots of live performances.

“Tomorrow I’ve got Harry coming in to help,” George said. “We’ll see what ideas he has, let’s try ‘Am I Ever Going to See Your Face Again’, but with Will on rhythm guitar.”

By the end of the day we had two tracks laid down; George wasn’t 100% happy with how they were; but we had the rest of the week to work on things and polish them up. On the way home Lori and I talked about how the day had gone.

“They all seem to take a rather laid back approach to it,” she said. “There was no sense of urgency, like ‘we have to get it done this week’; nothing like when you made that recording with Salamon.”

“Yeah, I have to admit I found it all a bit frustrating,” I replied. “But I’m just there as a backing musician; I do what I’m asked to do, follow directions and that’s it. I guess it’s the difference between a debut album by a group no one’s heard of, and an album by a well-established pub band. Still, it will be money towards renting a place.”

We talked more about what we might want in a place to rent; what additional furniture items we would have to get, and speculated on what life would be like living together. When we got back to my place; I packed a bag with all the clothes and other things I would need for the week, and we headed on to Lori’s place. She cleared out space for my clothes in her closet; setting aside a drawer in her dresser for me.

“It’s like you and I both have a place to stay here and at your place,” she said. “I like that, but it will be special when we have a place of our own.”

We had a pleasant dinner with Jack and Chris; talking about the things we would need once we found a place to rent. The list of things we would need was growing; I had to admit I had not really thought about cleaning stuff; a vacuum cleaner, mop and bucket, stuff to clean the bathroom and kitchen. I guess I would soon become an expert on house cleaning.

We got to bed around ten; made love slowly, and slept curled up together. The next morning it was a breakfast after ‘wake up’ sex; Lori riding me to several orgasms of her own before she brought me off. We drove into the Studio; as George had foreshadowed, he was joined in the production booth by Harry Vanda. It was interesting comparing the style of the two; George was the crazy, over-exuberant Scot; while Harry was a more sedate Dutchman.

Under Harry’s guidance, we achieved far more today; he gave us more focus, and by lunchtime we had both tracks from yesterday redone; sounding far better and tighter. He was more forceful with us; rather than just let us fool around, and see what might come out, he would give specific directions to each person. With me; he would tell me how he wanted the rhythm pattern to sound; or when he wanted me to come in with my vocals. I enjoyed working under his directions; he made it clear just what he wanted from me; and I did my best to give him the sounds he wanted.

As we broke for lunch; Fifa called me into her office.

“Have you completed your tax return for last financial year?” she asked.

Given that it was only six days into the new financial year, I really hadn’t started thinking about that. She offered to help, so I sat with her at her desk. Fortunately, I had a lot of the records with me in my organizer. She quickly had the forms completed; showed me how the income averaging procedures would work over the next few years, and I signed the completed forms.

“That wasn’t a bad year,” I said to Lori. “My total earnings, before claiming any deductions or that were over five thousand dollars. A lot of that was from the album; even though sales weren’t all that fantastic; it quickly added up.”

“And this year there will be the money from our book,” she said. “That’s being released on the thirty-first. We will have to start thinking about writing our next one.”

After the lunch break, we completed another two tracks; amazing just how productive you can be when you set your mind to something. On the way home, we stopped off at the big Grace Brothers’ store on Broadway, and went up to the bedding section. We looked around at the mattresses; finally deciding on a rather nice double bed mattress. It was loaded into the back of my car, and we drove home; pleased to have made the first of our joint furniture purchases. We dropped the mattress off in the garage at my place, and then headed to Lori’s place for dinner.

Wednesday started out much the same; love-making, breakfast, and a drive into Surry Hills. Mid-morning, Lori left to visit some agents in Erskineville, to see what properties were available. When we were finishing our lunch break, she returned, excited.

“I looked at a couple of places; one was a real dump, backing onto the railway lines. But then I saw this darling little cottage, just what we’ve been talking about. We can come back later this afternoon, so you can look at it.”

She described it in greater detail; it was one of a pair of semi-detached single level places; not all that far from the main street through the suburb. One bedroom; or two if you didn’t want the dining room to be used for eating; a lane down the side leading to a back lane and a carport. It would only be available for rent until November; when the new owner was planning on refurbishing it; the price was in our range at thirty-five dollars a week.

Lori was almost beside herself about the house; I was glad we finished early so we could go over to see it. We pulled up in front of the estate agent’s office, and walked in. Lori introduced me to Melissa, the agent; she grabbed a folder and some keys, and we walked the short distance up the street to the house. It was a nice street; trees down the footpaths, with mainly terrace houses on both sides.

The one we were to look at was right next to a lane; a low stone wall separated the front veranda from the street. Melissa opened the door for us; turning on the light. The living room was small; with a gas fireplace against one wall. A hallway led into the rest of the house; first was the master bedroom, then a dining room, and finally the kitchen. The kitchen was better than I had imagined; an old gas stove on one wall, plenty of cupboards, space for a refrigerator. A door opened to the backyard, a covered pathway led between the side fence and the rest of the house. There was a bathroom, with a gas water heater built over the bathtub. No hot water in the kitchen, I remarked. At the rear of the bathroom was a small laundry; a pair of concrete tubs, and space for a washing machine and a small enclosed toilet. The rest of the back yard had some empty garden beds, then a small carport at the back fence.

The house wasn’t large; but if there was only going to be the two of us in it, it would be fine. More importantly, it was in reasonable condition; no signs of mould, no rats. We talked about when it would be available (right now), how long we could get the lease for (the end of November), and what we needed to do to rent it (fill out the paperwork Melissa had bought with her). We walked back to the agency, completed the paperwork, and I told her that we would be back around noon tomorrow to pay the bond and the first month’s rent.

“Can we go back there and have another good look at it?” Lori asked, and Melissa gave her the keys, saying we could drop them back in the agency mail box when we had finished.

“It’s so convenient to everything,” Lori said to me as we drove the half block to the house. “There’s a grocery store back on Erskineville Road, it’s probably five minutes’ walk to the railway station, and it’s just what we’ve been talking about.”

In the bundle of papers Melissa had given us were application forms for the electricity, gas and the phone connection. We pulled up out the front, and went back inside.

“I should draw a sketch for the floor plan,” I said, “pace out the dimensions of each room, and make a note of how many cupboards are in the kitchen and bathroom.”

“We can see just how well all the furniture we have will fit in,” she said. “This is so much fun; our first home together.”

We stood on the front porch, and I gave her a huge hug and we kissed. I opened the door, picked her up and carried her into our house. Not that it was really “ours”, but it felt like it was. Even with the lights on, the rooms were dark; the windows could do with a good clean. At least there were curtains; and the carpet on the floor looked in reasonable condition. We explored the place again; I drew my floor plan, pacing out measurements, while Lori suggested places our bed, the sofa, a TV and all that could go. There were two telephones in the house; one mounted on the wall in the kitchen; the other sitting on the floor in the living room. I made a note of the number on them. That might speed up getting the phone connected; however there was no dial tone when I lifted the handset.

“Have you ever used one of those gas hot water heaters?” I asked her. “Both of my grandparents’ places had these in the bathroom; it heats the water quickly, and the advantage is you never run out of hot water, no matter how long you take in the shower.”

“But there’s no hot water in the kitchen, how do we wash the dishes?” she asked.

“We just have a big kettle on the stove,” I replied. “Add that to the list of stuff we will need.”

“Do you think we can christen our new house right now? On the carpet in our bedroom? I’ll go and shut the front door while you get undressed.”

I closed the curtains in the kitchen, dining room, and bedroom; after making sure the back door was locked. Lori returned to the bedroom, and quickly got undressed. She had bought in one of the old bedspreads I kept in the back of my car to pack around my equipment; she spread that out on the floor.

“A pity we dropped that mattress off at your parent’s place last night, we could see just how comfortable it will be. At least this old bedspread will add a bit of comfort.”

We lay down on the bedspread; I had my arms around her, and we kissed.

“In a couple of days we will have our bed in here,” she said. “We will really be living together; not just sharing a bed at our parent’s places. It will be like a dream come true for me; ever since I first met you; I’ve had dreams, fantasies about us living together.”

“Just think, we will be able to do this every night,” I said. “Although we won’t have that time in the car talking about our day, and all of that.”

“We weren’t alone then; we had Garry with us,” she replied.

“Shit, I had better call him to tell him that I won’t be driving in every day now.”

She rolled over on top of me, pressing her lips to mine.

“Don’t worry about any of that now,” she said. “We have to make love in our house; christen our bedroom, even if we don’t have a bed in it.”

She moved around to straddle my waist; rubbing her groin along my erect prick. She sat up, positioned herself right on top of my prick, and guided me into her. She sighed deeply as she slid down over my cock; she gripped her breasts with her hands, and rubbed her thumbs across her swollen nipples. She rode me until she had come; she then rolled off, lying next to me.

“Your turn; I want you above me, making love,” she said. “I want to be able to look at your face, look in your eyes as we make love.”

I positioned myself between her legs, lowered myself onto her, and let her guide me inside her. I leant down to kiss her as I slid inside. She reached up to put her hands on either side of my face; we kept kissing as I moved in and out. As I felt myself get closer to coming, I sped up. Lori pushed my face up from hers; and started breathing harder.

“Keep going like that,” she cried out. “Oh, yes, that’s it ... I love you Will.”

I concentrated on what we were doing, picturing my prick sliding in and out of her, tensing my muscles to make the sensations around my cock even stronger. I felt my orgasm starting, the muscles around my balls tightening, the hot surge as the spurt of semen started deep inside me. I groaned loudly, jerking as each spasm blasted inside her.

I lowered myself down, resting on her chest. Her hands stroked my hair, my cheeks; she planted kisses all over my face.

“That was so lovely,” she whispered, blinking away the tears. “The first of what will be many beautiful love-making sessions, I’m sure.”

I rolled off her, leaving a trail of sticky semen across her thigh. She laughed, and smeared it with her fingers.

“You’ve marked me!” she exclaimed. “Now, we had better try and wash up a bit; we don’t want to be smelling of sex when we get home!”

We ran some water in the kitchen sink, and using some old bits of paper towels, we cleaned ourselves up as best we could, before getting dressed. I made sure all the lights were out, and the doors locked, before we left. As we were going out through the front gate, a middle aged man from next door said hello to us.

“Are you the new owners?” he asked.

“No, we’ve just looked through the place, we will be renting it,” I replied.

“I’m Nick,” he said. “Welcome to the street, it will be nice to see a young couple next door again.”

We introduced ourselves to Nick; he told me how he had been living here for twenty five years, and how he knew the previous owner. The two of them had been in the Greek resistance during the Second World War; and came to Australia just afterwards as refugees.

“Costa and I both worked for the railway, in the carriage maintenance shops,” he said. “We raised our families in these houses; but after his wife died the other year, he went downhill. He was older than me, and just retired, and eventually it was too much for him, so he’s now with his daughter in Haberfield. My kids have moved out too, but I’m still a long way from retiring.”

He called his wife out to meet us; she was about his age, named Maria.

“My parents couldn’t understand why I married an Italian girl; they wanted to know why I didn’t find a good Greek girl. They understood when we went back home, and they met her and could see why I chose to marry her.”

We told Nick and Maria how we were studying at University; how we hoped to move in this weekend, once we arranged with our parents to help move our stuff across. Maria promised to take Lori up to the various shops on the main road, and introduce her to the shopkeepers, and make sure they understood to treat her well, and to make sure they looked after her, giving her the best deals, and the best produce they had.

After we had spoken with them for a while, we bid them goodnight, telling them we would see them on Sunday, when we moved in. We headed back via the agency, dropping the keys off in the mail slot, and then it was back home.

“I love that place,” she said. “And the people next door, Nick and Maria, seem lovely. Do you think they suspected what we had been up to earlier?”

“I don’t think so; the walls are pretty thick; double solid brick, so they wouldn’t have heard us.”

“I’m so excited about moving in, tomorrow I’ll see about getting the electricity and gas accounts done, and the phone on, too. I guess they have to come out for the phone, so that won’t be until Monday.”

We talked about the place all the way home; discussing just where we would put each item of furniture, what other things we needed to get, who we would have over for a party. She was bubbling over with excitement; and to be honest, I was very excited about moving in as well. I was surprised that we had found a place that looked to be ideal so quickly; we were lucky, in that the place had only become available earlier today, when the sale from Nick’s friend to the new owners went through.

My parents were happy for us, too; when I mentioned about the phones, my father said he could call and make sure we got them connected first thing on Monday; he took the application form that Lori had filled out.

“Do you want to keep the two existing phones where they are?” he asked. “If they don’t have to do any work inside the house, that will make it much quicker; all that have to do is reactivate the connection at the exchange. I’ll call the district manager tomorrow morning; see what they can do for you. Now, I suppose we need to make plans for moving all your stuff across on Sunday.”

“I’ll call Chris,” my mother said. “Once we go through all the stuff she has, and we have here, we can work out what extra things you’ll need. There’s the old Electrolux vacuum cleaner we got from Nan’s place, too, that still works. I got a serviceman around today; he’s recharged the gas in the old fridge, too, so that now works and will keep things cold. If you want a small table in the kitchen, there’s the red laminex one in the sunroom, too.”

We talked a bit more about what stuff we would need; then headed back to Lori’s place. Her parents were excited about our news; once we had described the house to them, and shown them the floor plans that I had drawn, Chris got on the phone with my mother, and spent the next forty-five minutes going back and forward about what things each of them had in storage that we could use. Meanwhile, Jack, Lori and I looked at the furniture down in the family room that we would be able to use. As well as the sofa and two matching chairs, there was a stereogram, and an old dining table. It could be extended to seat eight people; with two carver chairs for each end, and three normal chairs down each side.

I made some measurements and we confirmed that it would fit in the dining room, with plenty of space to spare. I was thinking of setting up my instruments and amps in that room and when we weren’t using the dining room for meals we could study there. The kitchen was large enough for the smaller red table to be used for our normal meals; only if we had other people around would we need the large, formal dining table. Jack said that he would be able to get a truck from his work; all of the furniture would fit in that. He would even see if any of the ‘strong, young fit guys’ wanted a few hours overtime work to help load and unload stuff. The extra help would be useful.

Everything seemed to be moving at a very fast pace. Lori had the forms to drop off for the gas and electricity tomorrow, and then we would go back to the agency, pay the bond and first month’s rent. We also had agreed to catch up with Bob for a drink or two, as well; I would have to remember to call him to get the details. I just realized that I needed to call Garry, and tell him about my changed situation; he would have to find another way to get in and back from Uni each day, since I wouldn’t be driving.

I decided to call him, and tell him what had been happening. He was pleasantly surprised when I told him that Lori and I would be moving in together; of course he said it in a way that suggested I should have done that months earlier, and that I had only taken a lifetime to realize that she was the right person for me.

“Now why a beautiful and intelligent girl like Lori would want to be stuck living with you is a mystery to me,” he said.

“Yeah, well fuck you too,” I replied, jokingly.

The fact that I wouldn’t be driving in each day wasn’t going to be a problem; he had just been offered a room in one of the residential colleges; he was going to call me to let me know. We chatted about what each of us had been doing over the break; he was working in a plastics fabrication factory; that would count towards his “industry experience” component of his degree. Plus the money he was earning would help to pay for his accommodation expenses; staying in a residential college was more expensive than renting private accommodation since meals were provided every day.

Lori and I had a shower together, and then got into bed. It had been a long, but productive day.

“Another four nights, and we will be sleeping together in our first place together,” she said as we cuddled up close. “A nice big double bed, plus everything else to do with living together. Are you sure you really want to live with me? It’s a big step for us, I realize.”

“Of course I want to live with you, Lori,” I replied. “These last two weeks, with us being together, pretty much living together, has made me understand just how important a part of my life you are. I don’t think I could contemplate not living with you. I guess that’s all because I love you so much.”

She hugged me, and kissed me deeply.

“I love you so much too, Will.”

The next day at the studio we sat around and worked on a couple of new songs. These were a bit different; they had only just written them (at least Doc had), and they still needed to be refined. I guess that showed the difference between new songs, and those songs that had been played for months at live gigs; where you get pretty much instant feedback on what works and what doesn’t. I also called Bob, at his office at the Labour Council; and we agreed on meeting at the Spanish Club in Liverpool Street.

“We can have tapas for dinner, if you want,” he said.

Around the middle of the morning, Lori left to go into the city. She planned to visit the Sydney County Council offices to get the electricity billing set up, and also AGL, for the gas service. I noticed that the fireplace in the living room had been converted at one stage from using coal to gas, as well as needing gas for hot water and cooking.

She returned just as we were breaking for lunch; looking very pleased with herself.

“I really enjoyed filling out the forms for ‘Lori Earle and Will Morris’,” she said. “I got us a present, too.”

She put a large shopping bag up on the table.

“Look inside, tell me what you think.”

It was a queen sized doona; just what we would need for the bed.

“It was on special at David Jones,” she said. “We can also go and pick out a few covers and matching pillowcases, so we have some variety.”

“Maybe we can have a look after I’ve finished tomorrow afternoon,” I said.

After lunch, we worked on another new track, ‘You’re a Lady Now’. This was a slower number; I worked up some backing licks to play in between lines. By four we felt it was sounding pretty good; we had one version down on tape, and decided that we’d done enough with that for the day.

“Always good to look at it again with a clear head,” Harry said. “When you keep plugging away, you often gloss over some of the subtle things. Let’s call it a day; good work everyone.”

Lori and I headed back to Melissa’s agency in Erko; and parked out the front. We went in, paid the first month’s rent and the bond. She gave us a set of keys, and then said we should go up with her, and do a walkthrough to check off the inventory and condition report.

“If there’s anything that’s not right, or stuff that’s missing or broken, let’s make sure we get a note of it now, so there’s no arguments or disagreements later,” she said.

We walked the short distance to the house (I was starting to realize that most people who lived in the inner city would walk unless it was really too far), and checked through each room. We made notes of where walls had marks or nail holes; checked off missing light bulbs (although Melissa reminded us that we were responsible for replacing bulbs); tested all the taps, the gas hot water heater, each burner on the stove, and the gas fireplace in the living room. I also made a note of what additional light bulbs we would need; and some were rather low power bulbs – a single 25 watt bulb did not give sufficient light in a room; not when the light fitting had three sockets in it.

“Well, you two enjoy the house,” she said. “I think you’ll like living in Erko; it’s a friendly neighbourhood; the shopkeepers on the main drag are pretty friendly. When are you moving in?”

We told her that we would be moving in on Sunday; but Lori had already arranged for the gas and electricity to be put in our names. We thanked her for all her help; and walked back to the agency after locking up. We drove up into the city, found a place to park in a parking garage in Sussex Street, and walked up around the corner to the Spanish Club.

“Do you know what ‘tapas’ is?” I asked Lori

“I think it’s like where there are varieties of Spanish style appetizers,” she replied. “They don’t make a true full-blown meal, but there are lots of different things to try and snack on.”

“Sounds interesting; do they serve bull testicles, you know from ones that don’t survive the bull fights? Maybe eating them will give me more sexual prowess; you know; make me like a bull.”

“You don’t need any bull balls to help you there,” she said. “And thank God you’re not hung like a bull; or I would be split in half!”

We entered the club, and found where Bob was sitting in the front bar area; the older man sitting next to him looked familiar.

“Will, Lori, good to see you, take a seat,” he said. “This is John, he’s secretary of the Labour Council, and my boss. He lives up near you, too, at Mona Vale.”