Chapter 10: Party, Party, Party

Party Planning

Late November – Early December, 1982

Thursday night we were having a Thanksgiving dinner at Mary Beth’s suggestion; instead of a complete turkey, which would have been far too much food even for the seven of us, she had baked two large turkey breasts in the oven. Patrick had helped, making some traditional side dishes, a green bean casserole, and somehow he had found a source of candied yams. As we sat around the dinner table, Mary Beth spoke to us all.

“Well, I know Thanksgiving isn’t really an Australian tradition, but it is still a great opportunity with the summer holiday period approaching for us all to think about what is going on in our lives, and what things we are particularly thankful for,” she said. “I’ll start out; I am particularly thankful for all of you, and that I have the ability to live here in this great place – thank you, Will – and be a part of all of your lives.”

“I’ll go next,” Wendy said. “Well, it’s for both Patrick and me, but you are the first to hear; we are pregnant, and we will be having a baby, all going well, early next July!”

All of us congratulated them; they would be the first in our group of friends to have a child; I could see how excited they were. Once our excitement has settled down, we continued around the table; Lisa was next.

“I have so much to be thankful for over the last twelve months,” she said. “The main thing was meeting Will, and moving in here. But also how all of you accepted me into the fold, Mary Beth and Chris teaching me how to operate the control panels, and to help at concerts. I’ve made some great friends, not just Will, but Fiona, and all of you.”

“I am thankful that with the help of all of you, I’ve finished my degree, and got a high distinction for my final year project,” Fiona said. “And it looks like the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences will not just be employing me, but sponsoring my application for my Master’s degree next year.”

“So, I guess by July next year, you’ll be over in England?” Murph said. “Where is it, Leicester?”

“Yeah, the University of Leicester,” Fiona replied. “Two years of intense study, including four months interning at a museum somewhere in the British Isles.”

“I am thankful for all of you being my friends,” Murph said. “And to Will for letting Mary Beth and I live here with all of you.”

My turn; I had so much to be thankful for.

“Well, things to be thankful for. Obviously, and the most important, is Lisa. It was a pure accident – literally – that we met, but meeting her, and falling in love with her has been the best thing that has happened in my life. And without all of you – all of my great friends there to support me, give me encouragement and guidance, I probably would have screwed something up. But I didn’t, and we are now planning our upcoming engagement, and later on next year, our wedding. What this has shown me is how important it is for me to have great friends in my life. So, thank you everyone.”

We all raised our glasses and clinked them together.

“To great friends,” I said, and everyone echoed my toast.

The meal was pretty good; even considering I wasn’t a huge fan of turkey. We finished up with various pies and ice cream – there was a pecan pie (my favourite), a traditional pumpkin pie, and an apple pie. Of course, anything can taste good with enough ice cream, and even a decent slurp of cream over it as well ... Another thing to be thankful for – great ice cream!

On Saturday morning, my parents came around, and Lisa’s parents walked up from their place. The purpose was to plan the engagement party, and for them also to kick around their thoughts for our wedding.

“Do you want to have something in your back yard?” Olga asked. “If you do, then I know of a company that does catering for things like that; they have a transportable barbecue grill. They cook a hindquarter of beef, or pork, or lamb, whatever you want, have all the side dishes, potatoes, vegetables, salads. They bring all the plates, silverware, and take things away afterwards. How many people do you think you will want to invite?”

We quickly went through some names; including my family and relatives (twenty), Lisa’s (another twenty), colleagues from Uni and Lisa’s work (another forty), school friends, band members, people I knew from Alberts, sailing, the Labor party and other various family friends, we came up with a total of around a hundred and fifty.

“We will need to get tables and chairs, too,” Bill said.

“I can get those from work,” Lisa said. “We’ve got the trailer, we can pick them up with that without any problems.”

“Lights? So people can see what they are eating,” I asked.

“We can sort that out,” Mary Beth said. She and Murph had been listening in.

“I can get some lights that we can string up; I’ve got an electrical connection box that will plug into a big three phase socket we installed on the main circuit breaker board, run that outside for lights, music and whatever else is needed.”

“Music?” Lisa asked.

“Under control,” Mary Beth said. “Not just our band, but I assume you’ll ask some of the others, Angus and Malcolm from AC/DC, Chrissy and the others from the Divynils, Don, Mossy, and Barnsey from Chisel ... We can get a pretty good group set up. Leave that to me.”

“Drinks?” my father asked.

“Stewie has a mate who works as a mobile bartender; he’s got a portable drink dispenser, including stuff for beer kegs, soft drinks, ice and all that. He can provide all the glasses, and everything else that we will need. Plus he gets all the drinks at wholesale prices, too, and whatever doesn’t get used, he will be able to use at another job. So we will only pay for what gets consumed. And there aren’t going to be all that many big drinkers.”

“Sounds like everything is under control,” Bill said. “I’ll print off 150 or so invitations at my shop on Monday, I have all the papers and inks I need. So Monday night you can fill them out and address them. Is there anything you want on the invitations?”

“No presents!” Lisa and I said together. “We have more than enough crap between the two of us!” Lisa added.

“Fair enough, “Olga said. “Now, what thoughts did you have for your actual wedding? Do you have a date in mind?”

“Early July,” Lisa said. “Saturday, July 2nd; we need to fit things in right after our exams will finish, but before Fiona flies out to the UK. That gives us time for a honeymoon before we have to get back into our studies and work. We are thinking of having a civil ceremony, I can get the big function room at the council chambers.”

We talked more about the actual wedding, and then worked on the list of people who we wanted to invite to the engagement party, and the wedding. My parents suggested I include both of my godfathers and their wives; they were already on the mental list I had of family friends. I wanted to include quite a few people from work, and others that I knew in the music industry. By the time we had finished, we had just under one hundred and eighty names on the list; we couldn’t think of a reason why not to invite the same people to both the engagement party and the wedding. We would probably add a few more names to the list over the coming months, but at least we had made a start.

I wasn’t sure how many of the Labor Party members would be able to make the engagement party; I was pretty sure Peter Baldwin would, but I wasn’t that sure about Paul Landa, Frank Walker or Jeff Shaw. I owed them particularly for all the help when I had my run in with the Special Branch the other year. So out of that list of one hundred and eighty; there might be maybe one hundred and fifty or so who would accept. There was still a lot more to work out for the wedding; caterers, flowers, what we would wear, where we might spend our wedding night, and what to do for a honeymoon. They were things we would have to talk about over the coming few weeks.

On Monday evening we got the printed invitations, Bill had run off two hundred copies. We split the pile in half, and started going through the list of invitees, addressing the invitations. I would deliver the ones to the people at Uni tomorrow, and also drop the ones off for Fifa, George and Ted at Alberts on the way home. Lisa had picked up a box of postage stamps, at least they were a ‘peel and stick’ type; the thought of licking over a hundred stamps had my mouth feeling dry already. Lisa would drop them off at the post office tomorrow.

“Now, we haven’t talked about a ring,” I said. “I assume you would want an engagement ring, we should see about looking at some. I know a good jewellery shop in the city, we could go there one afternoon this week.

“I’m not wanting to push you, but, what about the ring you still have, the one you gave to Janelle?” she said. “If you want to, you could give that to me to wear.”

“I don’t want you to think that somehow you are a second choice, or whatever, that I’m giving you a second hand ring.”

“Will, don’t be silly! I have never thought that way, I have never believe that you think I am a consolation prize, or second best, or anything! It’s not the actual ring that’s important, but the feelings behind it; me wearing an engagement ring is just a way of saying to the world ‘I’ve committed to a man’.”

“Well, if you are happy, you can look at the ring, and if you like it, then I can give it to you.”

There must have been something in how I said that she might have misunderstood.

“I’m not trying to step on your memories; Will,” she said softly. “I know that it must have been really traumatic, really upsetting for you when Janelle was killed. I’m not trying to replace her in your memory, so if you don’t want me to have what was her ring, I perfectly understand.”

“That’s not what I meant, Lisa; and I don’t think for a moment you are trying to do that,” I said, holding her hands. “I didn’t want you to feel that I was somehow treating you as second best, or as an afterthought. It’s a fairly simple, plain ring, nothing ostentatious about it. I don’t want you to think I’m not prepared to spend any money on you.”

“That’s just what I want, I don’t need you to spend money on my like that,” she said. “As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not really into wearing jewellery. Not like one of the other women at work, she has rings on almost every finger, fancy earrings, necklaces, bracelets; I am sure she also has anklets, you know, things around each ankle.”

“Back when I was in high school, around third or fourth form, we called those ‘root bands’; a girl would wear one on her left ankle if she wanted to have sex, if she was up for a root. Then once they had done it, they moved the anklet to the other ankle.”

“Was there meant to be one root band for every guy she had rooted?” she asked, lauging. “I don’t think we had that at Queenwood! Mind you, there are some girls in our year that would have run out of space on their ankles, if it was one for every guy they had sex with!”

“Well, I think it was just an urban legend, maybe started when a few of the more promiscuous girls in our year all started to wear anklets. Anyway, let me get the ring, and you can see if you like it.”

I went to my bedroom, and retrieved the ring (in its box) from the top drawer of my dresser. I made sure the ring was still seated properly inside the box, and went back to where Lisa was waiting. I knelt down on the floor in front of her, and opened the ring box, showing her the ring.

“Lisa Coleman, will you please marry me?” I asked, holding out the ring.

“Will Morris, you big dope! Of course I will marry you! I wasn’t expecting you to do that; you’ve already proposed to me. Come on, put the ring on my finger, and let me see how it looks.”

I held her left hand, and slid the ring onto her finger; it seemed a little loose, and it slid around on her finger.

“That’s such a lovely ring,” she said, holding her hand up and looking at the ring from different angles. “It’s a bit loose on my finger, but I love the setting, the stone looks big, but without being too over the top. It’s just what I want!”

“We can go into the jewellers tomorrow, get them to resize it. I suppose we should order the wedding rings, too,” I said.

I told her where Hinkley’s Jewellers was located, and we arranged to meet there around 4:00 in the afternoon. After that, we could just head around to King Street and drop off the invitations for the people at Alberts.

“I don’t want to take it off; it’s so beautiful,” she said. “But I guess I should wait until they can resize it; I would hate for it to slip off and get lost or damaged.”

As we had arranged, we met at Hinkley’s on Castlereagh Street, just after four. We went inside, and I asked one of the sales assistants for some help.

“I bought this ring here last year, and now I need to get it resized,” I said.

The assistant had a set of ring size gauges, and checked the correct size for Lisa’s finger.

“J and a half,” she said. “Did you want to leave it with us? We should have it done by Friday.”

I also asked if they could re-engrave the date on the inside of the band, so that it would be 23-12-82. We also asked to look at some wedding rings; she measured the size of my ring finger – a ‘U’ – and showed us a sample of rings. We decided to go for a simple, plain gold rings, and we told her the date to be engraved on the wedding rings, 2-7-83. They would be ready at the same time; and I arranged to pick them up on Friday afternoon. It was back into the car for a quick drive around the block to Boomerang House where Alberts was located.

“Hi there Will, Lisa, what’s news?” Fifa asked us as we walked into her office.

“We are getting married,” I said to Fifa, “and there’s an engagement party next month. Here are some invitations for you, George, Harry and Ted.”

“Oh, congratulations, I’m really happy for both of you,” she said. “Ted, can you come out here?” she spoke into the intercom. “So, when will you be getting married?”

“We are planning on early July next year,” Lisa said. “We have to fit things around our work and study schedules.”

Ted appeared in the office, and wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Fifa told him that Lisa and I were getting married; and there was an engagement party next month.

“Married? Congratulations to both of you,” he said. “I wish you many, many happy years of life together.”

He shook my hand, and gave Lisa a kiss on the cheek.

“Is this an invitation to the party? You didn’t have to do that, but thank you. Popsy and I will be there; I am glad things are working out for you, Will.”

“Thanks Ted, it goes without saying that I am really indebted to you for all your help and support over the years,” I said. “Fifa, can I leave the invites for George and Harry here?”

“Sure, they will be in tomorrow, I’ll make sure they get them,” she replied.

We thanked her, then headed back to the car, and drove home.

“Looking at those wedding rings made it really hit home to me,” Lisa said. “It’s really happening, isn’t it?”

“Having second thoughts?”

“No, not in the slightest, it’s what I really want,” she replied. “What I’ve wanted for a long, long time. To find a guy who I really love, and to be married to him. There’s a lot we have to start planning about though; I mean, I still don’t know what I want to wear. Should I wear a traditional white gown with a veil and train, or go do something more contemporary? What would you like to see me in?”

“I haven’t thought about that; I mean, the standard white wedding gown is traditional, but then we aren’t going the traditional route, with a church wedding and all that. But then most of the women who don’t wear white are divorced women, getting married a second time. Maybe there’s some in between option; not the full blown wedding dress, train, veil, but a simpler white dress?”

“I think I know what you mean, I’ll start looking around. What would you want to wear?”

“Certainly not a tux with frills all over it; I’ve seen some atrocious ones. Often they are a pale blue or green, and they have all that stupid froufrou stuff on them. I don’t want to wear that. Now if you are going slightly informal, with a dress rather than the full blown gown, maybe a business suit, shirt and tie. What I wear isn’t as critical, I mean, at a wedding, who really looks at what the groom is wearing?”

“True. Maybe once I find something, then you can wear whatever is in a similar style. I need to start a folder with all of the information, making sure nothing gets forgotten or overlooked. By the way, I mentioned it to Janet, the woman at work who is the celebrant, she would love to do our service. One thing that we need to think about is what style of service we would want; traditional, modern, new age, whatever. She has some samples of thing she has done; printed out notes. What we need to do is think about the words and style of the vows we will exchange.”

“I didn’t think a wedding was so complicated,” I said. “Most of ones I’ve been to were church weddings, and they all follow a pretty standard format. The only real choice was in the hymns and music used. I guess we can think about the vows and what else will be said; my only proviso – no Kahlil Ghibran, the ‘spaces in your togetherness’ stuff.”

“I agree,” she said. “I’m not into all that ‘new age’ stuff. But not the ‘to have and to hold, for this day forth’, either. No ‘plighting my troth’, whatever my troth is, either.”

“I always thought it was a bit unfair, the woman having to vow to obey her husband, but the husband just had to love and cherish,” I said.

“That was one of the things Janet was asking, what form of words we wanted to vow to each other. She will give me some samples in the next few days that we can look at and pick what ones we like. Or we could use those as inspiration to write our own.”

“Another thing to work on, but at least that will make it personal, just ours.”

“Any thoughts on where we could go for our honeymoon? I know you won’t want anything that involves flying.”

“That’s true; I guess it will be winter, so no point going someplace near a beach, it will be too cold for that. One thought I had was we take the overnight train to Melbourne, and spend a week there. There are some nice hotels in the centre of the city, and we could see all of the sights, eat at some good restaurants. What do you think?”

“Taking the train? I guess they have sleeping compartments, like what Mary Beth and Chris were helping restore the other weekend? That would be pretty neat, we could share a bed, and make love while the train carriage is rocking!”

“Okay, I will start to look around at some suitable places, make a list of places we could go to, things to see.

The next day, at lunchtime, I caught a bus into the city, to Central Station, and got some information on the Southern Aurora, and booked our tickets for the honeymoon, travelling down on the Saturday night, and returning a week later. I was able to get the larger ‘deluxe’ cabin, on the so-called ‘DAM’ carriage; this contained the larger double cabin; which was actually two compartments merged into one. There was a larger bed rather than the two bunk beds, a toilet and shower, plus armchairs for sitting in.

Then I went into the city proper, to the Victorian Government tourism office. I told the young woman behind the counter what information I was looking for; primarily a hotel to stay in for the week, preferably in the centre of the city.

She recognized me, saying “you’re the musician, aren’t you? I saw you at the Hordern Pavilion the other month.” She recommended two hotels; one was the historic Windsor Hotel, in Spring Street, the other the much newer ‘Hyatt on Collins’.

“If you stay at the Windsor, you simply have to go to one of their formal afternoon teas,” she said. “On the other hand, the Hyatt is about thirty-five floors high, and you really want to get a room up high, with a view to the south, looking towards the botanic gardens.”

She gave me some brochures on both of them, and I picked up a bunch of other material on places we could see while we were there – the National Gallery of Victoria, the Botanic Gardens, Como House, Puffing Billy, and a booklet with details of other places to see.

“Now, one thing we might like to see are the fairy penguins at Philip Island,” I said. “We won’t have a car; we are taking the overnight train down and back, so what options are there for us to see them? I assume they are a reasonable distance from the city.”

“There are several companies that offer a bus trip, picking people up from several places in the city,” she said. “This company has the best reviews, there are some that I wouldn’t recommend, but we have had nothing but good reports from this one.”

She handed me another brochure.

“We can make the hotel bookings for you, plus book the bus trip to Philip Island on whatever night you want,” she said. “We can also get you a weekly transport pass that is valid on the trams and buses, since you won’t have a car. They are the easiest way to get around. Here’s a map of the city, and the surrounding suburbs, too.”

She also gave me a few other brochures on things that would also be worth looking at. I thanked her for her assistance, and headed back to work with plenty of reading material. While I was on the bus traveling back to Kensington, I looked at the information on the two hotels; the rooms at the Hyatt looked very nice, and the views were fantastic. However, I did like the old world charm of the Windsor; and the idea of having ‘high tea’ did seem rather good. Tonight, Lisa and I could talk it over, and determine which one we preferred.

That evening, after dinner, we sat down together in the living room, and went over all of the brochures I had picked up. She liked the photos of the sleeping compartment on the train; she felt that having a larger bed would be better.

“I would hate for one of us, or both, to fall out of a bunk bed in the middle of our love making,” she said. “That’s a nice looking dining room, too. So what time does it leave Sydney, and when would we get into Melbourne?”

“According to the timetable, it leaves Central at 8:00 p.m.; and we would get to Melbourne at 9:00 a.m. the next morning. Most hotels don’t have check in until 3:00 p.m., so we would have to see if we could drop off our luggage in the morning. Which of the two hotels takes your fancy?”

“Hmm. The Hyatt looks pretty fancy, and those views are fantastic; of course, if we had a room much lower down, or looking in another direction, it might not be as great. I do like the older one, the Windsor. The interior of the place, that staircase, and the afternoon teas look really neat. I can imagine you escorting me to high tea, both of us dressed up for it. I suppose we would have to take some good clothes with us; a nice dress or two for me, and good trousers and a jacket for you. We probably need to get a suit bag or two. Is there a limit on how much luggage we can take with us on the train?”

“Not in any real sense, I think; not like flying. They have a baggage car, and except for what we need overnight in our sleeping compartment, everything else goes in there. So if we have two or three cases between us, and a suit bag. We will have to be able to get them to the train, and from there to the hotel, or at least to a taxi to get to the hotel, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“That will be good. I’m thinking I might prefer that older place, the Windsor,” she said. “What about you? What type of rooms do they have there?”

“Hmm, let me look. They have these deluxe rooms; king sized bed, marble bathroom, a separate lounge and sitting area. That might be good for a week’s stay.”

“I think so too. When should we book it? And can we also do that fairy penguin tour? They look so cute.”

“I can give the woman at the tourism bureau a call tomorrow, and make the bookings for us.

The next day I called the tourism office, and made the booking for our week at the Windsor, and also arranged for a coach trip to see the Philip Island fairy penguins. With the train bookings made, the honeymoon was pretty much organized. Friday afternoon we collected the engagement ring, and Lisa tried it on for size. It fitted perfectly, and she loved how it looked on her finger. We picked up the two wedding rings as well; that was another task we could cross off Lisa’s list.

Back at home, she pulled out the planning folder she was maintaining for the wedding, we looked though everything that she had written down. As well as checking off tasks like getting the rings, booking the honeymoon travel and accommodation, she had also booked the venue at the Lane Cove Town Hall, and Shirley had confirmed she would be able to perform the ceremony. We would have to complete the ‘Notice of Intended Marriage’ and give that to her at least a month before the wedding, and we would need to show a copy of our birth certificates as part of the process.

“Do you intend to change you name as part of the marriage?” I asked her.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” she replied. “Do you not want me to?”

“It’s entirely up to you,” I said. “I know it’s pretty much the standard, that a wife will change her surname to match her husband’s, but as I said, that’s your choice.”

“I want to, I want to have your name,” she said. “Lisa Ann Morris, I like how that sounds.”

Party Support

Mid December, 1982

The location for the Labor party strategy meeting wasn’t all that far from home; the Twin Towers Inn was a mile or two down the highway at Artarmon. I parked in the rear parking area, and found where the meeting was, in a large room in the lower level of the building. I found the sign-in desk, and identified myself.

“I’m Will Morris, here for the meeting,” I said.

I was given a name tag, I signed the attendance sheet, and looked around for others that I might know. I saw Peter Baldwin, Paul Landa, Frank Walker and some others on one side of the room next to the coffee machine, so I walked over to meet them.

“Will! Comrade, great to see you,” Peter said. “And congratulations are in order, I believe! I’m looking forward to meeting your lovely betrothed at your party next week.”

“Will, great to see you,” Paul said. “Let me introduce you to some of the others.”

He and Peter led me across the room to where a bunch of other people were standing. I recognized a few of them, some were Federal politicians, some others I vaguely remembered from other party meetings.

“Bob, I would like you to meet one of our up and coming younger members, Will Morris,” Paul said. “Will, this is Bob McMullen, the federal secretary of the party.”

I recognised him, of course; as national secretary he was a well-known figure, at least within the party. We shook hands, and he welcomed me to the meeting. There were a few other federal politicians in the group, Paul introduced me to them; Senator Gareth Evans, Senator Susan Ryan, Michael Duffy, and Ralph Willis. All of them were shadow ministers, and would no doubt have similar jobs on the front bench, assuming the ALP won the next election – which was what this meeting was designed to ensure.

“In case anyone didn’t know, Will is not only a talented and highly successful musician, but is also a university lecturer, and researching some new and sophisticated computer network processes,” Paul said. “He’s been a good member of one of our inner city branches, and done some great research work for us, too.”

“Great to have you here with us this week, Will,” Bob said, and shook my hand.

The others all shook my hand, and welcomed me to the conference; I was just about to say something, when I heard someone call out my name.

“Will Morris! I didn’t know you would be here!”

I turned around to see Cathy standing at the registration desk. She ran over to greet me, hugging me and kissing me on the cheek.

“And congratulations on the engagement, do you think I could meet Lisa one evening this week?”

“Cathy! Great to see you; I didn’t know you would be here. I didn’t even know you’re a member of the party,” I said to her.

“I’m here with Paul Keating, I’m his chief economic advisor,” she said. “But I joined the party about a year ago. Come and meet him, I’ve told him a bit about you. Sorry to drag Will away, but...”

She took my hand, and led me to where Paul Keating – the shadow treasurer – was standing, chatting with some others.

“Paul, this is my old friend, Will Morris,” Cathy said. “Will, I would like to introduce you to Paul Keating.”

“Will, comrade, g’day, welcome. Great to actually meet you after everything Cathy has told me about you,” he said, shaking my hand. “I actually got to see one of your concerts in Canberra earlier this year, you lot are pretty impressive. After seeing you guys play, I went and bought a bunch of your albums.”

“Thanks for that; if you have the chance this week, you should come to one of our rehearsal sessions. We’re preparing for our summer touring season, and a new album that we’ll be recording, probably in February. You should come too, Cathy, and meet Lisa, and catch up with the others.”