Homesickness (16 page)

‘Hear, hear,' said Doug.

So they moved forward.

A Plaster of Paris globe identified the most heavily concentrated areas of corrugated iron in the world. Clusters of the tin-like substance protruded here and there, miniature cities, almost entirely in the Southern Hemisphere. It had been employed widely along the coast of China and throughout East Africa as well as isolated regions of South America. New Zealand had an extremely high ratio too. But Australia, New Holland, Van Diemen's Land: that white continent had become grey with bits of the metal, even the so-called ‘Dead Centre' (spotted all over with corrugated iron, ultimately a sign of life), further significant concentrations along the northern towns and cities, with heavy deposits in Lang's western goldfields.

At the first table on which lay a piece of galvanised iron the guide pirouetted, Oxbridge-modulated:

‘He paid a fortune for some of these rare pieces; and of course when they knew it was Cecil Lang buying they held out and quadrupled the prices, the sods. It is almost impossible to acquire fine examples these days. The Australian Government, like so many other countries, won't allow its heritage to be removed. We understand that. In any case, we now have most of what we want. Do you wish to buy your catalogues or shall we get them later?'

They were all staring at the table. Sheila stood close to Garry but he had his arm around Violet's waist.

‘I have it on the garage and side-fence at our place,' said Doug. ‘It does a good job. But it's heavier than this.'

‘Fourteen-gauge,' Kaddok told him.

‘But what is this?' Gerald Whitehead asked.

Yes! An irregularly shaped sheet painted silver, it had small striations and a row of rivet holes along three edges: an unusual example of the material.

Wayne gave a chuckle.

‘It makes you wonder, eh? I should say, even here we tend to forget its uses were not restricted to elementary shelter—roofing and such. In fact, what we have here is a section of the fuselage of the first Qantas aircraft—'

‘The Avro 504K, 1920,' Kaddok told them, and quickly shot off two pictures (but only caught the guide's neck and combed head).

‘A ruddy good airline,' Doug put in.

‘So this illustrates very effectively what struck Mr Lang: the way corrugated iron is
adapted
, yes adapted is the word, down there for a whole variety of hum, tasks. There's a self-help quality about the stuff.' Garry Atlas shrugged and the young guide gave a cough. ‘Sadly missing, one feels, in our present day and age.'

A sepia photograph showed nine workmen in shorts, navy singlets and boots standing on a sheet placed between two beer barrels. The single sheet had a slight dip—only about four inches.

‘The importance of the corrugations,' Wayne pointed unnecessarily. ‘When any flat surface is hammered into a bulge, like the monocoque construction of racing cars and aeroplanes, and the ordinary egg, its strength, its rigidity, is multiplied something like five-fold. How much would all these working men weigh? God knows. Certainly its durability must be a factor which has contributed to corrugated iron's popularity.'

‘I love these old photographs,' Louisa whispered to Borelli, ‘don't you?'

Alongside, Kaddok misunderstood. ‘The early photographers are our archaeologists.'

‘A galvanised iron aeroplane…' Borelli still seemed to be turning the idea over in his mind. To Louisa he said, ‘It's machismo, isn't it? It's too strong and plain. Corrugated iron must be boring to you.'

He watched her closely, poker-faced. He raised his eyebrows. Slowly smiling she turned her head: provided a profile.

‘And observe the picture frame,' the guide was saying. ‘See the soldered corners? It was bought at an auction in Brisbane in the 1950s. Again it illustrates the practical, no-nonsense nature of the people who lived with corrugated iron. A grazier's wife wanted a picture framed, perhaps an old calendar, and they used the most familiar material at hand.'

Garry Atlas lit a cigarette and as he shut the Zippo winked at Sheila. Others too had noticed: either she had a new lipstick or more of the old, much more. It didn't suit her.

As they went towards the next long table, Violet and others looked up at the roof and frowned,

‘It's not raining, is it?' asked Mrs Cathcart (who hadn't looked up). ‘It never lets up. It was lovely this morning.'

And glancing at them all, beaming, the young man unable to contain himself began slapping himself and laughing. A thin load of gravel seemed to be pouring onto the roof, soothing them.

‘It's a tape,' he explained. ‘Pretty good, eh? Quite the most marvellous sound.'

The ‘rain' turned heavy and he had to raise his voice, almost shouting. He soldiered on.

‘I must say I have never slept under a tin roof—to my shame—but I believe it is absolutely first-rate. Am I right?'

Some of them nodded, watching him.

‘When Cecil Lang returned to England, he replaced a perfectly sound thatch with corrugated iron so he could lie in bed when it rained. “Antipodean drumming”, he called it. For him, it undoubtedly produced a flood of memories!'

‘Mmmmm…' one or two nodded, imagining.

‘Where is that?' asked Gerald.

‘Oh, a marvellous little cottage in the Lake District. All hell broke loose. The National Trust ordered the thatch to be replaced.'

‘The bastards,' said Garry.

‘Some of our finest homes have—'

The guide held up a lily-white hand.

‘Look, I couldn't agree with you more. Our museum illustrates the point. The Roofing Section is one of the very best endowed.'

Against the wall, a row of evenly spaced vertical sheets demonstrated the power of rust and/or the fighting qualities of galvanised iron: beginning with glittering argentine (brand new sheet); turning to dull grey after twelve months; one showing orange freckles; the next slaked with beer-coloured streaks; and so on to overall russet, darkness spreading; until the last was a scaly brown, crusted with disease, with a hidden powerful lamp showing it riddled with pinholes of light.

‘Mechanical. Dreary,' Gerald turned.

‘Rustic charm,' North murmured to Borelli.

‘The Hindus say everything has a life of its own. That must include corrugated iron.'

Only Hofmann had gone up close to the sheets, touching one with a finger. ‘These are like modern American paintings. Louisa, isn't this one like that Olitski we missed?'

The guide cleared his throat.

‘In the Oxford dictionary, you'll find “corrosive” is the word before “corrugated”. Is that a coincidence? We think not. The association is true to life.'

Samples here taken from city and country; seaside and snow; the rainforest and below sea-level; and in pride of place, sand-blasted and pale outback. Neatly labelled, dated.

Sasha asked a question.

He shook his head. ‘I haven't been yet. It certainly is hum, one of my ambitions to go after Austria and, oddly enough, Yugoslavia.' Pointing for the benefit of the others he smiled, ‘Still on roofing.'

A roughly cut rectangle of faded red stood on the table at 45 degrees, ‘
PLEASE TOUCH
' neatly lettered beside it.

‘Youch!' Sasha squealed.

The guide looked around at them all, smiling.

Garry and the others who had laughed crowded forward.

TAKEN FROM KALGOORLIE, SUMMER
1932, the documentation explained:

A TYPICAL IRON ROOF. THE TEMPERATURE HAS BEEN PRESERVED FROM THE MOMENT OF REMOVAL AND MAINTAINED TO THIS DAY (DAY AND NIGHT) BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY AND A THERMOSTAT; A GLIMPSE OF THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH OTHER PEOPLE EXIST
.

‘Well, you should touch,' cried Sasha, sucking her little finger. ‘It's like an iron.' Looking hurt at Phillip North, who was gently amused, she grabbed his hand.

‘Cecil Lang worked under such conditions,' the young man commented. ‘Very rough indeed.'

‘Come off it.'

‘Yes.'

And they told him, several talking at once.

‘When I had Glenys,' said Mrs Cathcart, ‘it was a hundred-and-seven. Remember, Doug?'

‘It's not iron,' Kaddok suddenly corrected. Again, slightly misunderstanding: ‘To be exact, it's mild steel.'

‘I believe you're right,' the guide turned. ‘Even the name has a charming incongruity.'

‘He's a real smart bastard,' Garry said. ‘You've only got to look at him.'

‘Sshhhh,' said Violet.

Here were large photographs of familiar buildings. The guide discreetly stepped aside. Spanning a broad spectrum of architectural styles, each building had a corrugated-iron roof. Factories and barns, warehouses with Architects' Society citation (‘Rarely has the material been used with such…'), tram sheds, tractor garage, the country racetrack grandstand, abattoirs (the original bloodshed), were each represented. Again, the idea was to underline the metal's outstanding flexibility, how it can ‘get a job done'. God, here a cathedral had a fine belfry, turrets and many ogivals of stained glass—with a corrugated iron roof. A marriage of the old world and the pragmatic new; but the rusting iron somehow didn't seem properly God-like. Abo humpies flung out to the edges of towns by some centrifugal force had it collaged with flattened kero tins (‘The poor things'—Sasha). Views of more than one State parliament house: first, the stately granite facade, and next to it a bird's-eye view revealing the iron roof! University libraries and conservatories were the same. The group looked on silently.

But the houses, the gracious old spacious homesteads: the iron blended in. The diminishing straight lines of the corrugations sharpened the roof's perspective, even falsified it in some cases, flattening a roof, making it shallow, giving it clarity; and hooped it formed long verandahs, the stone walls there pierced with french windows for the westerly. At the sight of those verandahs: their ohhs and ahhs.

‘I tell you what, they make the English places we've seen look pretty sick.'

Gerald snorted. ‘I'd better dry up,' he said to North.

‘Oh,' said Sheila, so matter-of-fact, ‘they've got our place.'

And they all stopped.

She pointed: large low homestead, stone, shaded and stately. It was the grandest of them all.

Garry whistled, ‘Ver-ee nice.'

‘But Sheila, that's lovely.'

They turned to the guide: they wanted to show him. He should see. But he'd already come over, instinctively.

‘What d'you think of this?' Garry asked, jutting his jaw.

The young man studied the photograph and nodded. ‘So you're a grazier's daughter? It looks a nice little place. You call them homesteads, I believe. That's a fine piece of roofing.'

‘Jesus!' Garry groaned.

‘Family property?' Wayne asked.

‘I have a manager. And I have my uncle living there.'

‘How lovely,' Sasha sighed.

Garry turned to them showing his familiarity, ‘She's never there though. Are you Sheila?'

He shouldn't have said that. She fumbled.

‘I'm fond of it, but it's quiet.'

‘I'll have it,' said Violet, grim; and they laughed. Sheila looked around, characteristically startled.

‘We should continue…'

They moved on, altered somewhat. They relaxed, talked among themselves more. It felt good to have Sheila in their midst. Garry acted familiar, like an old family friend, and others wanted to ask her questions. The guide had to stop several times in mid-sentence to have their attention.

‘Uh-hum. As I say. Now, how did this marvellously dextrous metal handle the vast historical forces of the day, eh?'

‘Dear,' Mrs Cathcart broke in, never one for fancy ideas, ‘what's he on about?'

Corrugated iron had given them a peculiar relaxation, superiority even. Young Wayne had to use a firm hand.

‘I mean, of course, the Second World War,' he said almost shouting, and pointed at a table. ‘How did it help stop the world becoming engulfed in fascism?'

Good question. It took a second for the example before them to make sense.

‘In the defence of Australia, corrugated iron played a vital role. Thousands of square yards—of roofing—were painted thus in these camouflage tones, painted by the leading artists of the day. Many a roof was signed. A sheet like this'—a corner of an enormous olive-green and brown abstract—‘is worth a considerable sum in its own right. They are of course parts of an artificial landscape. Collectors and certain unscrupulous dealers have had sheets ripped off old buildings, mainly from the Darwin area, and gilt-framed. This one is signed “R.D., 1943.” Our curator thinks it is either Drysdale or Roy Dalgarno.'

‘I don't know Dalgarno,' said Hofmann interested. ‘Drysdale painted
The Drover's Wife
.'