Chapter 20: Canberra

Hotel Ainslie

November 29th, 1976

When we got home, I pulled out the equipment list that I had compiled earlier; and we started to put all the equipment into the various travel crates. Andrew and Bruce had built a bunch of these for us earlier; there was one for the mixer, another for my Rhodes, one for the microphones, stands and various cables, and so on. Having large castors on each crate made it easy to roll them up into the trailer; as each item was packed into its crate, I checked it off on the list. We didn’t want to start setting up on Tuesday afternoon, only to find we had left a critical cable or piece of equipment back in Sydney.

The trailer fitted everything in with room to spare; I had also obtained a number of nylon webbing straps to secure each crate into position. There was also enough room to hang our ‘stage clothes’ in protective bags from the roof of the trailer; that way we didn’t have to fold them up and pack them in our suitcases, which would require them to be ironed before wearing them. I had also got some external rear view mirrors to put on each front door so I could see behind me; the height of the trailer obscured the view through the normal rear view mirror.

We got a good night’s sleep; and in the morning decided to wait until the worst of the morning rush traffic had past. We were on the road by eight; heading down the Hume Highway to Liverpool. Once past The Crossroads; we were on the freeway; travel was faster, and easier. Despite the larger side mirrors, I still didn’t have a good view behind me in the lanes either side; and I wasn’t accustomed to the additional length with the trailer on behind the car. That made driving through the city traffic rather stressful. But once the road opened out, it was much easier going.

Those conditions didn’t last too long; the freeway ended at Campbelltown, and it was back to a two lane road; through Narellan, Camden, then up over the Razorback Mountain to Picton. We stopped there to stretch our legs; Lori and Megan swapped positions; with Megan sitting up in the front next to me, and Lori on the back seat. The highway (for want of a better word) slowly climbed through Tahmoor and Bargo, before once again we got some good divided freeway into Mittagong. As we left Mittagong towards Berrima, the scenery opened out; no longer were we driving through forested hills, but there were farms and grassy paddocks. More divided road as we passed through Marulan, with the big semi-trailer weigh station, and finally we made it into Goulburn, just in time for lunch.

With the trailer on the back, finding a place to park was difficult; parking on the side streets was all angle parking, and even if I was able to back the car and trailer into a space, I would be sticking way out into the street. Eventually we found two adjacent parallel spaces on the side of the main road, conveniently just across from the Paragon ‘Milk Bar’. We ran across the road, found a table, and perused the menu. ‘Today’s Special’ was roast lamb; we decided to go with that; which turned out to be a good decision. We followed that up with a slice of the tallest lemon meringue pie I think I had ever seen; Murph’s recommendation to stop here for lunch was a good one.

Back on the road; we had maybe seventy miles; or a hundred and ten kilometres to go; it was time to fill the car up with petrol. I checked the water level in the radiator; everything still seemed fine with the car and the trailer. Having refuelled both ourselves and the car, it was now on to the final stretch to Canberra. For quite a while, we were driving on divided road; at least until we came to the little village of Collector. It was then back to narrow, winding two lane road, past the vast expanse of Lake George, before climbing the final few hills; across the border into the ACT. Over the last hill we could see the expanse of the northern suburbs of Canberra; Lori pulled out the map, and pointed out various places.

“Take a left up at these lights; it should be Wakefield Avenue,” she said. “Now up here at the end, chuck a right.”

After a kilometre or so, we could see the Ainslie hotel up on the right. We found our way into the car park, and I pulled up near the front door. Lori went inside, to ask where we should park to easily unload the trailer. She returned a minute or two later, and pointed out just where we could park to unload our equipment. One of the hotel employees had opened the loading bay doors for us, and came out with a flatbed trolley; but with the castors on each of the crates, we could just roll them into the room. The room we were to play in was a good size; we put our equipment up on the small stage, it could stay there until we set things up tomorrow afternoon.

Back outside, I unhitched the trailer, and chained it up to a rail, then moved the car to the main car park. Finally we could get our bags, and go to our room. The room was a large one at the back of the hotel, overlooking the kitchen delivery area. We had a large bed; it must have been king sized, plus a separate single bed. There was a sitting area, with some couches, and a small table and some chairs. It would be fine for the three of us for the week. I flopped down on the large bed.

“You probably want a nice hot shower after that drive,” Lori said. “You go and have one; I’ll unpack stuff for you. Go on, Megan, help him with the shower. I’ll call Cathy, and let her know we are here.”

The bathroom had a large, walk in shower; there was plenty of room in it for both Megan and I together. I took my clothes off, as did Megan, and she ran the water.

“How are you feeling about seeing Cathy again?” she asked me.

“Oh, okay I guess; to be honest, I haven’t really thought much about it. I’m feeling fine about seeing her; curious I guess to see who she’s with now. I’m interested to see how she reacts to the three of us being together.”

“Hmm, that will be interesting. Now, what can we do while we are in here?”

Megan knelt down in front of me, and took my prick in her mouth. As soon as I was hard, she stood up and turned around, presenting her backside to me. Her pussy was already wet; I slid in easily. We fucked slowly and steadily; in and out at a constant, slow page. She would moan as I pushed into her; feeling the wet walls of her cunt opening up around my knob; then sliding along my shaft until I was completely inside her. I would pause; then slowly pull back out until just the tip of my knob was inside.

“I love that, I want you to come inside me,” she moaned as she was rubbing her pussy, a hand underneath her between her legs.

I kept the same steady pace; I rubbed and caressed her breasts. Megan clenched her muscles tight around me; and moaned loudly as she came. I sped up; my own orgasm was close, a few more thrusts, and I was spurting inside her.

“That was so good,” I said as I pulled out from her.

We finished our shower, dried each other off, and returned to the main part of the room.

“Cathy will be around in about ten minutes,” Lori said. “She wants to give us a quick tour of the city, then back to her place, and she was suggesting a local Vietnamese restaurant for dinner.”

“Sounds pretty good,” I said.

Lori went to the bathroom for a quick shower, meanwhile Megan and I pulled some clean clothes on; Lori had already unpacked our bags, and put the clothes away in the dresser. Within a minute or two, we both looked presentable; no one could imagine that only a few minutes ago we were having wild sex in the shower. Lori emerged after a couple of minutes, and pulled on the clean clothes she had put on the bed. We were all ready when there was a knock on the door; Lori answered it, and Cathy entered our room.

“Hi, so you made it down without any problems; it’s so good to see all of you,” she said, kissing each of us in turn. “Ready for me to show you around town? We can take my car, that way you don’t have to worry about where to go, Will.”

We followed her out to the carpark; she had an old, beat up looking Holden; Lori got in the front passenger side, while Megan and I slid across the back seat.

“Where we are is part of the first lot of suburbs built in Canberra’s early days,” she said, as she turned back into the divided road behind the hotel. “Along with the part of the city just on the other side of the lake. We’ll go up to Mount Ainslie; it gives a good view over most of the city, I can show you where everything is. We’re coming up to the War Memorial just on the left; I thought one morning you could go there and look through it; it’s well worth a visit.”

She continued pointing out various locations; we soon turned off the main road onto a narrower road that wound its way up to the top of the hill. She pulled into a parking space, and we walked down a few steps to the main lookout. We seemed to be right above the War Memorial that she had pointed out earlier; from it a wide divided road led to the lake; and on the other side I could make out Parliament House, and what looked like government office blocks around it.

Cathy pointed out the various features; explaining the overall layout of the city, showing where the University was, the area where she was living now, the main shopping centre and how the roads connected. At one stage, I had read about the competition for the design of the new national capital, and how the American architect Walter Burley Griffin won the competition. Once we had taken in all that there was to see, it was back in the car, and Cathy drove us back to Anzac Parade. We continued further around the lake, past the main Defence headquarters, then across the lake and drove past Parliament house, and a number of the office buildings we had seen from the lookout.

We drove back over another bridge, and Cathy took us through the University grounds, pointing out where her college was, some of the lecture halls, and the general scenery. It was a rather attractive campus; a tree-lined creek ran through the centre of it, emptying in the lake. Since it was now the summer holiday time, there were few people around. Finally, she took us across one of the main roads, and into the suburb where she was living. We pulled up outside of a neat brick house; it looked similar to the rest of the houses on the street.

“This is it,” Cathy said, and we piled out of the car, and up to the front door.

Cathy opened the door, and ushered us inside; a tall guy, maybe a year older than me came up to her, and they kissed. I could tell by the way they looked at each other that he must be Cathy’s boyfriend; for a second or two I felt a twinge of, well, not jealousy, but something ... Jealousy implies that someone else has what I want for myself; I didn’t want Cathy back. The feeling was more like remorse; realizing that someone else had what I once had; and I had lost it, never to get it back.

Cathy introduced us to him, Martin Ball.

“G’day, Will, nice to meet you,” he said, and we shook hands.

He had a firm, dry grip, and from his appearance and the way he spoke, I assumed he was from a well-off family. He reminded me of any one of a number of similar guys in my year at Uni; all from Sydney’s society class, educated at either Kings, Joeys, Riverview, Shore or St Ignatius. I wondered just how many would be back next year; most of them had been accustomed to the high pressure environment of these prestigious schools, where there were teachers and tutors working to make sure all of the students studied hard and got the level of results that their parents expected came with the exorbitant fees they paid. Still, he came across as friendly enough; and I assumed Cathy was still smart enough to avoid some chinless upper class twit.

We walked through into the living room; two women were sitting together on a large bean-bag cushion; Lori, Megan and I sat on the sofa, while Cathy and Martin squeezed into a smaller love seat.

“This is Andrea and Dianne, friends of mine from the SWP,” Cathy said. “Girls, meet Will and Megan, the two musicians who made that album, and Lori.”

After the introductions, we chatted about our various courses; Martin was studying Economics, with Cathy, while Dianne was doing an Arts degree, majoring in Australian History, and Andrea was also doing Arts, but with a major in ‘Women’s Studies’, whatever that was. I resisted the temptation to be a smart arse and comment on how I enjoyed studying women, too.

“How do you actually put the album together?” Dianne asked. “I mean, the first one you did, that was a live album with your band, so I assume that’s stuff that you’ve all been playing for a while, and the record company just records you at the gig. But the one with the two of you, there’s a bunch of other musicians playing; how do you select the songs, and how do the others know how to play along with you, and sound so good?”

“Well, you are just about right with the live album,” I said. “The two guys who produced it; Harry Vanda and George Young turned up at some of our rehearsal sessions, just to hear what we were playing, and to make sure their tape system would connect to our PA mixer. They made a few suggestions of what we should include or not; and some comments on our arrangements, but it was pretty much how we had been playing sets for a while. Then they turned up at a couple of live gigs, connected their tape deck, and away we went.”

“The album with just Will and me was quite different,” Megan continued. “Probably more like a conventional studio album. Again, both Harry and George were producing; Will and I would go into the studio one afternoon a week; we would play stuff; either songs we already did with the main band, or other songs we thought might sound good. But basically it was George and Harry’s concept; they wanted the album to show the progression in a couple’s relationship; from a first date, to the romance blossoming, encountering a few problems, then finally to when they looked back over their life together.

“They brought in some of their colleagues, Jim Keayes and Glenn Wheatley, originally from the Masters Apprentices, and some of Glenn’s bandmates from the Little River Band. Two of the original tracks were written by LRB, in fact. But over the weeks before recording started, all four of the guys producing would make suggestions as to songs, or made changes to the arrangement. We would go home, practice what they had suggested, and by the time we were ready to record, we were pretty much as good as we could be with it.”

“But how did the other musicians know what to play?” Andrea asked.

“Well, a lot of songs have a pretty similar structure, and the chord progressions follow well-known rules, in general,” Megan explained. “So once they know the key and the structure, it’s not hard for any musician to pick up a tune, and follow along. Particularly for the drummer, bass and rhythm guitarists; once they are told the key, tempo and basic song structure, they can fit right in.”

“I’ve heard that women in the music industry, particular rock, get treated pretty poorly,” Andrea said. “Is that true, Megan?”

“I don’t think so, not as a general rule. Sure, there are some guys who act like real pricks to women, but you find that anywhere. Last week I was doing some session work with Will, and initially the guys in the group we were working with gave me a hard time. But as soon as I showed them I had just as much ability and skills as they did, they shut up and accepted me as one of them.”

“That’s not unique to women, either,” I said. “The first time I did session work with some other groups, I was treated like shit, but once I started to play, and they saw I knew what I was doing, there wasn’t a problem. It’s a lack of ability, rather than gender, which causes people to get treated poorly; at least in my experience.”

“Seems fair enough,” Andrea said. “What I don’t understand, is how you could choose that first song on the album; it’s basically about a date rape, he gets her drunk and brow-beats her until she agrees to stay the night with him. It’s in pretty bad taste, in my opinion.”

“What! That song is nothing like that at all,” Megan replied. “When it was written, it was very risqué; the woman is trying to convince herself to defy convention and spend the night with the man she loves. To me, it’s all about self-empowerment.”

“But what about the line ‘say, what’s in this drink?’, it implies the man is trying to drug her, slip her something so she won’t resist!”

“Not at all; she’s giving herself justification to stay with him, and making sure he understands that this is going to be something special, she just doesn’t sleep with any old guy. The point is, music is like all other forms of art, there’s no ‘right’ interpretation. Just like a painting, or a poem, each person gets their interpretation based on their own experiences and perspective. So, I guess if you are the sort of person who believes the only way a woman would voluntarily sleep with a man is if she was drunk, drugged, or somehow forced by him, then you will see this song as a ‘date rape’ song. On the other hand, if you believe that a woman should be able to sleep with and have sex with whoever she chooses, and bugger what society thinks, then you see it as an early message about female empowerment.”

I don’t think Andrea was all that impressed; she probably caught the subtle dig that Megan was directing at her.

“Actually, you have to look at the context of the song, and how it was written,” I said, trying to defuse a potentially nasty argument. “You need to look at when and why it was written; it was written by Frank Loesser as a duet with his wife in 1944, never intended for public performance; they would sing it together at the end of the private parties they hosted.

“At the time the song was written and for some time after, however, it was not socially acceptable for women to agree to spend the night with a man to whom they were not married and the words ‘I ought to say no no no’ refer to the social mores which the woman in the song wishes to ignore, not that she doesn’t want to stay with him.”

“That’s like how so many people ignore facts and context when trying to make a political argument,” Lori said. “I had one lecturer, for Australian History, and she objected to the term ‘history’, and told us women that we need to write ‘herstory’. I told her that the ‘his’ in the word ‘history’ had nothing to do what the male possessive pronoun, but the word ‘history’ comes from the Latin historia ‘finding out, narrative, history’. In French, the word ‘histoire’ has the same etymology, and means story, as well as history.”

“Maybe we should head out to dinner,” Cathy suggested. “There’s a good Vietnamese place only a few minutes away at the O’Connor shops.”

We all headed to the cars; the three of us with Cathy and Martin; while the two girls took their own vehicle.

“Sorry about all that from Andrea,” Cathy said. “She can be a bit ... well, a bit extreme in her views at times.”

“That’s okay; she was just another ignorant person; maybe she’ll accept things as they really are, or maybe not, that’s her problem, not mine,” Lori said.

We were seated at a large, round table; I had never tried Vietnamese food before, so we let the others order for us. We started with a huge plate of tiny spring rolls; unlike the standard Chinese versions, these had thin, crispy wrappers, and inside was a mix of minced pork and other things. I saw Cathy, Dianne and Andrea dipping their rolls into little bowls of sauce. They were surprisingly good; unlike other spring rolls that seemed to be filled with nothing more than steamed cabbage. The rest of the food was equally as delicious; there was a dish with thin strips of beef that had been somehow cooked with a spicy honey sauce, chicken, pork, everything was exceptionally good.

The conversation drifted to our experience with university; we all had stories of terrible, arrogant lecturers, horrendous assignments, and excessive workloads. Everyone laughed when I told them about Barry and my disasters in Chemistry, particularly the failed lab experiments.

“I don’t know what the problem I have with Organic Chemistry is, but there’s just a mental block there,” I said. “Maybe the basic stuff; carbon rings and all that just didn’t sink in.”

“You were good at high school chemistry,” Cathy said. “Maybe it’s just the lecturer?”

“Well, the first half of the year was pretty much a repeat of the last two years of high school chemistry. The lecturer for that half was pretty good, and I got an ‘A’ for the half year exams. But this semester, it’s a completely different story. I should end up with a pass overall though; and I will never have to touch the stuff again!”

“Why would they have chemistry as a requirement for a computer science degree?” Andrea asked. “That seems a bit silly to me.”

“It’s because I’m enrolled in Electrical Engineering,” I said. “I’m doing the first two years of that degree, and then I will change to a B.Sc. for the final two years.”

We talked more about various degrees and majors, how universities seemed to have stupid rules about what subjects people had to study, and all of the frustrations that we had encountered. We had finished dessert by around nine-thirty; and I said that we really needed to get back to the hotel; it had been a long day for us, and we wanted an early night. Cathy said she would drop us back at the hotel, so we said good night to the other three, telling them we would see them at the gig tomorrow night.

When Cathy dropped us off at the hotel, I told her that there would be four tickets waiting for them at the counter, in her name.

“Cool, we will be here around six thirty,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing you. Now, what time tomorrow morning do you want me to pick you up for more touring? We could do a tour of Parliament house; I’m not sure what will be happening in the chambers, but they normally start around ten in the morning.”

We decided not to go for an early start; we suggested to Cathy that she come around just after nine; to give us time to have some breakfast. We waved goodbye, then went into the hotel; and as we passed by the front desk, the receptionist called to Lori, saying there was a fax message that had come through earlier in the evening for her. Lori got the faxed pages, and we returned to our room.

“It’s a message from Fifa,” she said, reading through it. “Here’s what she had to say ... glad we arrived there safely, apparently one of the local radio stations has really been plugging the gig; and their morning DJ has been running a contest where people can win free tickets. The DJ will be around tomorrow afternoon to see us, his name is Paul Bartlett, and he will want us to draw the winners on air Wednesday morning.

“As well, Friday morning, at eleven, there’s a record signing and public appearance at a record shop in the main part of town; Monaro Music in Garema Place. We had better see if we can find out where that is. The other thing she says is that record sales are doing well, for both of the albums; the final figures for this month won’t be in until Friday, but it looks like we are close to ten thousand sales for the Roberttones album; and just over ten thousand for your album. The single has climbed to number twenty-five on the top forty, too. So that’s going to be a decent payment all around; I’ll have to sit down and do the sums, but for everyone in the band, it’s going to be close to a thousand; and for you two, maybe another thousand or so.”

“As much as that?” Megan exclaimed. “That’s going to be really good.”

“I’ll be able to afford a new Rhodes, too,” I said. “Plus that will keep us going for the coming year, not even counting what I earn over the summer.”

“She also said not to forget you two will be back with the JPY All Stars in the studio next week, and she wants Megan to see if Jillian can also come in that week. George wants her to play clarinet and sax on some of the tracks.”

“Cool; what if I call her now, make sure she will be available, before she makes other plans.”

Megan dialled her parents place; I heard her telling her parents about the news of how the record was going, and asked if Jillian was there. I could hear Jillian’s excitement over the phone; even more so when Megan said she could crash on the sofa in our living room for the week.

“That should be good, it’s always fun having Jillian around,” Lori said, and she went off to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

“That’s strange,” she said when she returned. “Normally my period would have started by now; for the last few years I’ve been as regular as clockwork, starting on the Sunday evening. I’ve put a tampon in, just in case it starts tonight, but...”

“You don’t think you could be pregnant?” Megan asked.

“No, I haven’t missed a pill, I’m sure of that.” She pulled out the packet from her toilet bag in the bathroom. “See, all of this months have been taken, and I started the sugar ones back on Friday. So why hasn’t my period started when it should have?

“Maybe yours is changing,” Megan said. “Mine is due to start on Friday, it’s been the forth Friday morning for as long as I can remember, except last month it started on the Thursday night.”

“Maybe the two of you are getting in sync,” I said. “I’ve heard that can happen.”

“I guess we’ll see exactly when we both start,” Megan said. “Poor Will, having both of us on our periods together; you will have two ultra-horny women to deal with.”

“Well, he can start right now; maybe my period is about to start soon, because I’m feeling really horny at the moment. Why am I the only one ready for bed? You two, get your clothes off, and let’s fuck!”

We undressed quickly; tossing our clothes on the other bed. Lori pulled the covers down on the main bed, and the three of us leapt on the huge mattress. It was probably the largest bed I had been on; there was room for all three of us to spread out, with space left over. We arranged ourselves in a triangle; I had my face buried between Lori’s thighs, while she was licking Megan’s pussy as Megan was sucking my cock. After a few minutes, we moved around again; Lori and Megan were in a sixty-nine while I positioned myself behind Megan, and started fucking her doggy style.

We went through several different positions and combinations, all of us coming at least twice, before we collapsed, exhausted but satisfied, and fell asleep.

Around the National Capital

November 30th, 1976

We woke up with the sun streaming in through the open window; somehow we had forgotten to draw the curtains last night. Probably a good thing that we woke up when we did; since we had also forgotten to set the alarm last night; and Cathy would be arriving in about an hour to show us around the city. We didn’t have time for lovemaking; not if we wanted to have some breakfast before the dining room closed, so it was off to the bathroom.

“It’s started this morning,” Lori said, pointing to a trace of blood on her thighs. “A day and a half late, that’s strange.”

“Still three days before mine is due,” Megan said.

Once we were dressed it was down to the dining room, at least they were still serving breakfast. Before the time we had finished eating, Cathy had arrived so we invited her to sit at the table with us, and have some coffee while we ate. We talked about what we might do today; the only restriction was we needed to be back at the hotel early in the afternoon to start setting up for the evening’s performance. Cathy suggested that we look around Parliament house; we could probably get into watch ‘Question Time’ in the House around ten am; we all thought that would be interesting.

It wasn’t all that far to drive over Parliament house – I was starting to believe that nowhere in Canberra was all that far to drive – and we parked by the side of one of the office buildings not far from Parliament House. After a short walk we entered the building, under the main stairs, and looked around the expanse of Kings Hall. The room was filled with portraits and other displays, the most impressive were the copy of the Magna Carta in its protective case, and the huge Tom Roberts painting showing the opening of the first Federal parliament. After a little while, Cathy came up to tell us she had got some passes for us to go up to the House of Representatives’ visitors’ gallery to watch question time.

We found our way up to the visitor’s gallery, and took our seats looking down on the chamber. After a minute or two, the speaker – Billy Snedden – called the house to order. Cathy whispered to us, pointing out the key people; the Hansard reporters, the Sergeant at Arms, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. I looked around the opposition benches, and spotted my local member, Les McMahon. Question time was interesting; no real fireworks though. I felt that the bulk of the ‘questions’ were really set pieces of political theatre; designed to either allow the government to trumpet its successes, and to criticise the opposition, or alternatively an attempt to embarrass the government, depending on which side was asking.

“It’s pretty similar to how the State parliament works in Sydney,” Lori said. “Although they seem far better behaved here; there’s a good reason why they call the lower chamber up there the bear pit!”