Chapter 26: A New Vocalist

More SVT

February 24, 1977

Today I was due to go back to see Doctor Pickett, at the Prince of Wales hospital so he could run some tests on my heart. Over the last three days I had to stop taking the propafenone; so there was none of that in my bloodstream, and if the SVT was to recur; it wouldn’t prevent it. After breakfast Lori, Megan and I drove over to the hospital at Randwick, and as instructed, I was wearing my running shoes, shorts and a tee shirt.

When we arrived at the hospital, we were directed to the cardiac clinic where the doctor was waiting for me.

“Nice to see you back, Mr. Morris,” Doctor Pickett said. “I assume you haven’t had any recurrence of that episode; everything has stayed fine with your heart?”

I told him how everything had been normal; even during times of physical exertion; I never felt that strange pounding that I had when I had collapsed on the plane. He told me to take my tee shirt off, and the nurse prepared me for the test. She shaved some of the hair off my chest so she could attach some sticky contacts, and connected a bunch of wires to them.

“These are hooked up to the electro cardio graph,” the doctor said. “They pick up the electrical signals from your heart muscles, and get amplified and plotted on the chart, which moves underneath the moving pens. I can also display a channel on the oscilloscope display here. Now, the only unpleasant part, we will put an IV line on your wrist, just in case we have to give you some stuff to settle the heart down.

“Now, what we do is get you on this treadmill; we gradually increase the speed and angle of elevation, and watch to see how your heart responds. If we can trigger the SVT reaction, then I can see exactly what each set of muscles are doing at the time.”

He showed me on a three-dimensional cut-away model of the human heart; he pointed out the various chambers, valves and muscles.

“Now, just put this safety harness on, it goes over your shoulders, and we fasten it here. If you faint, we don’t want you falling, and having the treadmill spit you out the back.”

He also put a mask over my mouth and nose, hooked up to an air supply, I guess so he could also monitor how much air I inhaled and exhaled. By the time he had me ready to start the test, I felt like the monster out of a Frankenstein movie. However, it all seemed pretty obvious how the stress test would work, and I stood on the treadmill, waiting for it to start.

“He’s not going to be in any danger, is he?” Lori asked, looking worried.

“Not in the least,” the doctor said. “That’s why we had the safety harness, so he can’t fall, and if he should have another SVT episode, we’ve got the staff here ready to make sure we prevent anything serious happening. That’s why the IV line is in his wrist, just in case; there’s an injection we can give that will settle his heart down and stabilize the rhythm. Are you ready, Mr Morris? We’ll start out slowly, at a walking pace, and just keep up with the speed of the treadmill.”

As he said, the treadmill started very slowly; at just a walking pace. Over the next ten minutes or so, the speed increased as did the angle of elevation. It got to the point where I was running as fast as I could, and I could feel the muscles in my legs starting to burn. My heartbeat remained rock solid; sure, it had increased as I had started working hard, but there was no evidence of the arrhythmia. Every so often, Doctor Pickett would make a note on the chart paper spewing from the EKG machine.

“You need to imagine you are on that plane, there’s the wild storm outside, and you’re worried ... remember, Musicians and Planes don’t mix,” Megan said to me.

She started singing John Denver’s ‘leaving on a jet plane’.

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go
‘Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

I closed my eyes, and pictured how it was back in December, when I was on that plane with Chris, waiting to fly down to Hobart. All of a sudden, I could feel the fear that I felt then; even though my eyes were closed there were lights flashing in my eyes; I could hear my heart start pounding loudly, and I started to feel weak.

“Okay, that’s it, get him off the treadmill!” the doctor said.

I felt two sets of arms take hold of me and lay me down on the bed. The doctor pressed his fingers firmly against my carotid artery, but the pounding in my head continued.

“Okay, 6mg of Adenosine, stat!”

I felt a warm sensation start in my hand, flowing up my arm. The pounding in my head stopped, and I seemed to pass out. It can’t have been for all that long; when I opened my eyes, the doctor was leaning over me, listening to my heartbeat with his stethoscope pressed to my chest.

“Back with us, Mr. Morris?” he asked. “Well, we got some good information then; whatever you did to trigger the SVT worked. Let me unhook you from all this equipment.”

The nurse disconnected all the EKG wires, and pulled each of the sticky contacts from my chest. I was glad she had taken the time to shave the hair from where she had stuck them; otherwise it might have been rather painful.

Both Lori and Megan looked very concerned; they were trying to make sure I was fine, without getting in the way of the doctor or the nurses. I reached over to squeeze Lori’s hand, and then Megan’s.

“I’m still here,” I said, smiling weakly.

“God, you gave me such a scare!” Lori said. “From now on, that stupid song is officially banned from being anywhere around us.”

“I think we know what triggers your heart to act up like that,” Megan said.

“Well, this confirms my initial diagnosis back last year,” the doctor said. “If we look here, on the ekg trace, see how this one in particular changes from that nice regular pattern, that is synchronised with the others, to this much faster one?”

He indicated with his pen where one of the traces changed drastically.

“It’s what we call Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, and the cause is an extra set of electrical pathways to the ventricle. It’s right here.”

He pointed to what looked like a bundle of nerves on his heart model.

“Now that we have a good idea what the problem is, we need to work out what treatment is possible. There is some experimental work that has been done in the US, where an electrical catheter is inserted through the femoral artery; just at your groin.”

He indicated an area where my leg joined my hip.

“We push that catheter up through your arteries, until we get to the heart, and it ablates the additional pathways; basically zaps them out of existence with a jolt of electricity. But that’s still in the experimental stage, and there are a bunch of other risk factors with that sort of operation, and we haven’t tried doing that here in Australia. I would recommend you continue taking the propafenone and keeping yourself in good physical condition.

“You seem to have a pretty high level of physical fitness and stamina; only a very small percentage of people could have got as far with that stress test as you did. That’s going to help considerably; keeping your heart in good shape means that it’s less likely to need to shift into ‘high gear’, for want of a better term. Now, it appears that there’s some mental trigger tied to a fear of flying, which sets off the brain’s subconscious panic mode. I wouldn’t recommend going flying until you can resolve that. It’s one thing to have an SVT episode here in the hospital where we have all the facilities and trained people to immediately respond. But if you were some distance from medical help, then the effects on your body could be severe.”

The nurse removed the IV line, and put a bandage over the wound, and helped me to my feet.

“Now, the other thing that this shows is you have a very slight murmur; the mitral valve is suffering a slight prolapse. I believe your father also has that, as did his father.”

He pointed to part of his heart model, pointing out a valve between two of the chambers.

“What happens is that when the left ventricle squeezes, to pump the oxygen rich blood into the aorta, and then up to you brain, is this valve here suffers what we call ‘prolapse’, where these two leaflets fall back and let some of the blood flow back into the atrium. That means your brain isn’t getting all the oxygen that it should, which is a bad thing. The other issue, and this is something you need to watch out for, is your heart is more prone to bacterial infection, so anytime you are having surgery or dental work; you need to go on a course of antibiotics beforehand. If you are going to get any dental work done, just tell the dentist you have a mitral valve prolapse, he should know what needs to be done.

“What you will need to do is once a year we can check on how the valve is going, whether the prolapse is getting worse. Now, at the present time, there’s not a real lot that we can do, but again, there’s research being done on surgery to repair or replace the valve; but it’s what I would call major surgery, open heart surgery, and there’s a lot of risks associated with that. I mean, those surgeries are done, but I would consider it something of last resort. But surgical techniques are improving all the time, maybe when you are in your late 50’s or 60’s, and really need something done about the valve, it will be a relatively routine operation.

“Anyway, that’s probably it for today, unless you have any specific questions. I would like you to see me again this time next year, and we can follow up on the heart valve and anything else.”

We filled out the necessary paperwork to set up the appointment for next year, and we made our way home.

“I was so scared when you started to collapse then” Lori said. “Was that how it was when you were on the plane?”

“It doesn’t seem to have affected you as much as it did the first time,” Megan said.

“Well, the first time my heart was racing for almost an hour,” I said. “This time it was only a minute before they put that stuff into my veins. Last time they had to shock me with the paddles, too. But yeah, the feelings I had were pretty much the same; disorientation, the pounding heartbeat, light-headedness. At least now we know what the cause is, and how to best avoid it.”

“It probably rules out international touring for you, too,” Megan said.

“I wasn’t planning on doing that anyway, so there...”

When we got home, there was a message for Lori to call Fifa at Alberts; she called back. They wanted to know if Megan and I could fill in for a sudden vacancy for a series of three gigs next week at Selina’s at the Coogee Bay Hotel; the group that was scheduled to perform had to pull out. We said we could do it, and we would be into the office a bit later in the day to get the details.

We ate lunch sitting out on the laundry roof top; Wendy and Jillian both commented on the bare patches on my chest.

“At least there’s no bruising from being zapped this time,” I said.

“Maybe you should think about getting a full wax,” Wendy said. “Go completely smooth.”

“No way!” Lori said. “I love his hairy chest.”

“It feels sexy when his hair brushes against my nipples,” Megan said.

“I’m with the other two,” Jillian said. “Why would anyone want someone that looked like a hairless little boy? Keep your body hair, Will.”

“I have no intention of having any hair waxed or removed or anything like that. The thought of having someone pour molten wax on my body, then ripping the hairs out ... no thanks!”

“We really need to resolve this fear of flying you have,” Lori said. “If ever you need to go interstate for anything, like appearing on Countdown, for example, you will have to fly.”

“Maybe he could get a lucky rabbit’s foot, like Johnny has,” Megan suggested.

“Pah! I don’t believe in all that superstitious rubbish!” I exclaimed.

“Yet, you somehow have this inexplicable fear of getting in a plane, because you think as a musician, you shouldn’t fly,” Lori replied.

“I didn’t say I was completely logical and rational.”

“Maybe some hypnotherapy would help,” Jillian suggested.

When we had finished lunch, we took a train into the city, and walked up to Alberts office to see Fifa. She called Peter up, and we went over the plans for the three nights at Selinas.

“We were thinking the same set list as you’ve done previously,” Peter said. “George doesn’t want any of the new songs off the new album performed, not until the album is released.”

We arranged to pick up the equipment next Tuesday afternoon, and made our way back home.

The Eros Theatre and Alli Cat

February 24 - 28, 1977

After dinner, we all took the train back into town; Ros and Wendy were going to a gallery opening in Paddington, one of Ros’s friends had a photography exhibition that was opening tonight. The rest of us walked down George Street to the Eros Theatre; it was just in a side lane off Goulburn Street.

“Until the other month it was in the old Anthony Hordern’s building,” Murph said. “But they had to move, apparently there are plans to pull that building down, and replace it with a high rise building, covering the whole block.”

“And more of Sydney’s character disappears,” I said.

We found the entrance to the ‘Theatre’; paid the five dollar cover charge each, and descended the curved stairs to a dark room. Once my eyes adjusted to the lack of lighting, I could see a semi-circular stage, with about a hundred or more plastic chairs arranged in several rows in front of it. A screen was lowered at the back of the stage, and a rather scratched porno movie was playing. We found our way to the back of the room where there were some padded chairs around a low table, and sat down.

Murph and I went to the bar to get some drinks for us; there wasn’t a great range, and what they had was rather overpriced.

“I will be broke before I get drunk here,” I said as we headed back to the others.

The porno movie was pretty crappy; there was absolutely no plot; not that we could understand it if there had been one; all the dialog was in some European language; German by the sound of it. Fortunately we had only been there for fifteen minutes, when the movie stopped; the screen disappeared into the ceiling, and the stage lights came on. From a control booth, someone announced what was about to happen.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the famous Eros Theatre. Put your hands together for tonight’s first performer, the sexy and sultry ... Alli Cat,” he said.

The music started; appropriately given the name of the dancer, it was Bent Fabric’s ‘Alley Cat’. The dancer – a youngish looking brunette – slunk up the stairs on the side of the stage. She was wearing a long black cloak, and of all things had fake black furry cat ears on her head. I had to admit she was very good at dancing; well, very good at taking her clothes off and moving in time to the music. The first to go was her black cloak; under that she had a black bustier and a suspender belt holding up black fishnet stockings.

With her cloak discarded, she moved onto the floor, strutting around between the rows of seats, giving the patrons a close up view of her body. She would tease and taunt them, sticking her breasts or backside out, and just before someone would reach up and touch her, she would pull away quickly. One person reached up to touch her backside; she quickly slapped his hand away, then grabbed it, and pressed it to her breast, rubbing it against her.

By the time she had discarded the bustier, garter belt and stockings; revealing a tiny cut out bra and miniscule black g-string, she had moved close to the table where we were sitting. She was about to slide onto our table, when she looked directly at me. We recognized each other at the same time; I could see the look of surprise on her face. She didn’t pause her routine; she knelt on the table, and facing towards Jillian, she slide her bra straps down, pulled her arms out of them, and reaching behind her, undid her bra. She kept her arms pressed against the side of her bra, keeping it in place, as she stood up, then she spun around, and leaning over towards me, let her bra drop into my lap.

I smiled at her as I handed her bra to her; she winked at me, and pranced back to the stage.

“Did you recognize her?” Megan whispered to me. “That’s Allison Thornton, from the church fellowship! What’s she doing here?”

“Displaying her nice body, that’s what she’s doing,” Lori said. “She seemed to take a shine to you, Jillian!”

She moved between some of the rows of seats, this time letting some of the men touch and rub her breasts. She would tease and cajole them, before she would allow them to touch her; the whole exercise appeared to be to get the audience aroused; ready for the other ‘hostesses’ to invite men to have a special ‘private showing’. If that was her real job here, she was very good at it.

Once she had removed her g-string, she returned to our table; this time sitting on the table top facing us. She pulled her legs up, spreading them apart to give us a clear view of her pussy. She slowly turned around, giving all of us a good, long look at her. Just before she stood up to return to the stage, she whispered to me.

“Don’t go, I’ll come and see all of you when I’ve finished.”

She moved back to sit on the edge of the stage, so as to give the people sitting in the front row a good, close up view of her crotch. She stood up when the music finished, and the announcer asked everyone to “give a big round of applause to the beautiful and talented Alli Cat”. He then said she would be back for another show at nine; and the crap porno film restarted.

“She seemed to like you, Jillian,” Lori teased.

“Do you all know her?” Murph said.

Megan filled him in on how we knew Allison; meanwhile the hookers were doing their rounds of the audience. At least two of them seemed to be successful as they lead a man off to the rooms to one side. Another one came up to us; she leaned over our table, to give us a good view of her breasts.

“I don’t suppose I can interest either of you gentlemen in a private show?” she asked. Both Murph and I shook our heads, and she turned to Jillian.

“Are you interested, honey? I can give you a special experience?”

Jillian blushed a bright red, and she managed to say ‘No’ while shaking her head.

“Do you think she could tell that I’m inclined that way?” she asked.

“Just a good guess; you look like you are here without a partner; the rest of us girls are sitting next to a guy, so it’s a safe bet we are ‘taken’,” Mary Beth said. “Not that I can blame her for trying it with you; damn it Jillian, I would if I was looking for a partner.”

Before we could talk further, Allison came up to our table. She had got dressed; and was wearing a pair of jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt; her hair held back with elastic. She looked completely different to the exotic dancer who only a few minutes earlier had been completely naked displaying her body in front of us. She sat on the table; crossing her legs.

“I never expected to see you in here; the last I heard you were living in the inner city,” she said to Megan, Lori and me. “Well, I did hear your new album, too; that’s a really good one.”

We introduced her to Mary Beth and Murph, filling her in on how all of us were sharing the one house. It was mainly Megan and Lori talking with her; it turns out that after her father died last year, her family didn’t have the money to pay for her to stay in a residential college at Sydney University. Jillian was really interested to hear that she was studying for a pharmacy degree; Allison told her what to expect from her first year there, what the classes would be like, plus advice on textbooks, what equipment she would need to purchase, all sort of things like that.

It was a long discussion; initially Allison seemed to be a little embarrassed that some of her acquaintances from her home area had seen her strip show, but once we told her that we wouldn’t mention seeing her to anyone, she relaxed somewhat. The full story, at least as I understood things, was that she needed to earn money over the summer break in order to be able to pay for her accommodation and living expenses in the coming year. I was really sad to hear about her father; I knew both of her parents from my time at the church in Mona Vale; in fact, when we built the extension on the back of the house about five years ago, her father had been the main contractor that my father had used to oversee the construction.

One of her classmates put her on to the dancing job; she worked most nights of the week, doing several shows a night. She stressed that all she did was dance; she wasn’t one of the ‘hostesses’ that would offer ‘private shows’ – that is, sex. She was currently living in a boarding house owned by the company that ran the theatre, with many of the other dancers and hostesses; but she was concerned that once classes started after next week, it would be very difficult for her to study in that environment.

“Tell me, Allison, can you still sing as well as you could a year or so back?” Megan asked.

That reminded me; she did have a pretty good voice; she had been in the church choir.

“I guess so; not that I’ve had the opportunity to sing of late.”

“Well, our group, we are looking for another good singer; there are nine of us in it, and we have a regular gig every Friday and Saturday nights at a dance hall in Petersham. You could join us; we can afford to pay pretty well.”

“Where would I stay? My accommodation is all part of a package deal with the job. If I was to quit my job, and sing with you, then I would have to find another place to live.”

“We have a spare room in our place,” Lori said. “Why don’t you come over tomorrow morning, see the place, and rehearse with Will, Megan and some of the others? I’ll be working, but others will be there.”

She gave Allison the address and directions to our place; and told Allison to come around any time in the morning. She told us she would be there; but now she had to get ready for her next show. Her nine p.m. show was pretty similar to her earlier one; except when she came up to our table, she got Jillian to remove her bra, and then held her head in between her breasts – much to the cheers of the rest of the audience.

“She seems to have taken a liking to you, little sister,” Megan said.

“Damn, Jillian, why couldn’t she have done that to me?” Murph asked. “She could suffocate me between those tasty titties, and I would die a happy man!”

Mary Beth didn’t look all that pleased at his comments; I reminded myself to suggest to Murph that she’s probably just as sensitive about the size of her breasts as Lori is; and as much as she is prepared to let him sleep with other women, he shouldn’t go on about how nice or desirable larger breasts would be.

For the final part of her act, she had a big, bright pink dildo / vibrator, and she sat on the edge of the stage, masturbating herself with it. When she had it inserted in her vagina, she walked up towards us with it still inside her; she must have great muscle control to keep it held there. She stood on our table, and got Jillian to fuck her with it – she was standing with her legs spread wide apart; a spotlight was on her and I could see all of the audience turned around watching. When she stepped down, she gave Jillian a big kiss, hard on her lips, and strutted back to the stage.

“She really, really likes you, Jillian,” Lori said. “I think you’ve made a friend tonight!”

With Allison’s show finished, we decided to head back home; I don’t think we could face watching more of the rubbish porno movies until her eleven o’clock show. On the way out, I stopped at the entrance, and told the woman behind the ticket counter how much we all had enjoyed “Alley Cat’s” performances. On the way home, we talked about Allison.

“I think she would be a great addition to the group,” Megan said. “She’s got a really good voice, and has a pretty good musical knowledge too. Remember the other day how I said we needed to look for another backup vocalist; well, maybe we have found one.”

“Just as long as she doesn’t dance like that on the stage at Crystal,” Murph said. “We might get shut down!”

“Or have a big increase in the audience size,” Lori said.

Megan talked about how sad it was her father had died; Graham Thornton was in her words, “a top bloke”.

“I guess things are pretty tough for her family without him there,” she said. “I don’t think her mother has ever worked; she always relied on her husband to earn the money.”

“Well, if Allison decides to move in, that takes care of our spare room,” I said. “I guess having nine people in the house isn’t much different from having eight. Play your cards right, Jillian, and she might prefer sharing your room with you.”

“Oh, I doubt she would want to do that,” Jillian said. “Why would she pick me, anyway?”

“She seemed to take a shine to you earlier tonight,” I said. “I mean, she shoved your face into her boobs, and she got you to use that dildo on her.”

“Stop reminding me! I will have enough trouble getting to sleep as it is, without you getting me even more worked up.”

“Maybe you should have asked Allison if you could have kept her dildo,” Megan said to her. “It appeared to be rather effective, or maybe that was just from the person wielding it?”

Jillian stuck her tongue out at her sister, and made a rude noise. Once Lori, Megan and I were in bed, we talked about Allison; how she might have decided her only option was to work as a stripper, and whether we believed her when she said the dancing was all that she did. We all felt she would be a good addition to the group; tomorrow we could try her out with some of the songs.

Lori, Mary Beth and Murph had all gone off to their respective jobs, and the rest of us were just sitting around in the living room when there was a knock on the front door. The fact that Allison was coming around today had slipped my mind; I grabbed a pair of shorts by the door, pulled them on, and opened the door just a little. It was Allison; she had come around to see us as arranged last night. As I ushered her in, and she saw the others sitting around naked, she stopped.

“Oh ... if I’ve come at a bad time ... I’m sorry, I can come back later,” she stammered.

“No, sorry, we have a convention here, all of us are naked when we are at home,” I said. “Lori came up with the idea at the first place we lived in, she called it ‘naked at night’; but we can all put stuff on if you want.”

“No, don’t be silly, given the work I do, it would be hypocritical of me to object to you being naked. I mean, it’s your place, so you can do whatever you want. I guess I should do the same, since I’m a guest here. It’s not that I’m unaccustomed to being naked in the presence of other people.”

She removed her clothes, and looked around for a place to sit. Wendy ducked out to the kitchen, and returned with a spare towel for her to sit on. I introduced Allison to Wendy; telling her that the other four were all at work. I then volunteered to show Allison around the house, so she could see what the place was like before agreeing to anything.

“There are eight of us here; and the others are in a similar place two doors down; Phil, Paul, their girlfriends, Andrew and Bruce, and Mandy and Rachel. You’ll meet most of them a bit later this morning; Rachel is a primary school teacher at Redfern, but I think the others will be around. Chris Murphy – Murph – who you met last night is our lighting guy, and Mary Beth is our sound engineer. Wendy looks after our stage clothes, and Ros, who’s at work today, does a lot of the artwork and graphics we use.”

After looking around the ground floor, we went up the stairs, to the first lot of bedrooms.

“This one at the top of the stairs would be yours,” I said. “Conveniently, right next to a bathroom. This one is Ros and Wendy’s, and the final one on this floor is for Megan, Lori and me.”

“So the rumours I heard about you three living in some sort of threesome are true,” she said. “Mind you, the way Katey Jackson told it, all three of you were living in some hippy free-love commune, all debauched sex and stuff like that.”

“Well, she’s not far from the truth,” I said. “The sleeping arrangements are how we usually pair up, but on occasions, there will be some partner swapping.”

“I really didn’t believe what Katey said; you of all people should know how bitchy and gossipy she gets.”

“I assume they don’t know about the work you’ve been doing this summer?”

“No, all I told my mother was that I had a job working in a bar. Well, it’s pretty close to the truth, but if I told her what I was doing to earn money, she would feel even guiltier that she does already. It’s not her fault that dad died and left us to fend for ourselves, it was just one of those terrible accidents.”

“Well, we aren’t going to tell anyone what you’ve been doing; mind you, once you start singing with us, then there’s no reason not to let people know about your new musical career.”