Ishmael and the Return of the Dungongs

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know all about that – let’s just stick with the Dugongs, OK?’

  ‘Well, your father and I became friendly and then one day he told me this band of his had a gig at uni. He asked if I’d like to come along to see them play, and I said yes.’

  ‘Were they any good?’ Prue asked.

  ‘The Dugongs?’ Mum said, as if the answer was obvious. ‘They were wonderful. Everybody loved them. After that first time I went to all their shows.’

  ‘Groupie chick, huh, Mum?’

  ‘Fan, Prudence, fan,’ Mum said with an evil eye.

  ‘But when you saw them play that first night, that’s when you really fell for Dad, right?’

  ‘No, not exactly … That’s when I fell for Billy Mangan, actually.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Billy Mangan. He was the drummer. Ron and Billy were best mates from school. They were very close. They wrote songs together-the next Lennon and McCartney they reckoned. And Billy … Well, he was gorgeous. All the girls had their eyes on him, not just me.’

  Prue leant in closer. ‘So … before you got together with Dad … did you and Billy …’

  ‘Sorry, Prue, we’re not in the Big Brother house. Billy was lovely, he really was. But so was your father … and he made me laugh.’

  ‘He made you laugh?’ I said. ‘That’s it? That’s what did it for you?’

  ‘Don’t knock it,’ Mum said. ‘It sure beats the alternative.’

  ‘So what’s all this got to do with Uncle Ray’s email and Dad turning into one of the extras from Dawn of the Dead?’

  ‘Well, Ray was their bass player.’

  Prue and I exchanged a look. ‘Uncle Ray was a Dugong?’ I said.

  ‘Of course. There was Ray on bass, Billy on drums, Leo McCrae on lead, and Ron on rhythm and main vocals. They had a huge following around the local venues-you’ve got no idea – and when Ron and Billy started to write more of their own stuff, they became even more popular. Some of the bands that were around at the same time went on to have hits in Australia and overseas, but back then they all played second fiddle to the Dugongs.’

  I asked the obvious question. ‘So how come the Dugongs never hit the big time?’

  ‘Well, for a while there, it looked like they were going to. A friend of Ray’s had a small recording studio in town and the band recorded an album of original songs.’

  ‘Wow, Dad made a CD?’ Prue said.

  ‘Vinyl and cassettes in those days. They only made a few hundred to begin with to sell at their gigs-but they were all gone in couple of weeks. Then a big record producer from Sydney got his hands on one and came to one of the shows. There was talk of a record contract and a national release.’ Mum paused and shook her head. ‘But it wasn’t to be.’

  Prue beat me to the punch. ‘Why not?’

  All of a sudden Mum seemed very tired. ‘Because Billy died in a car accident-the other driver was drunk. It happened … twenty years ago … today. Billy died, the band stopped playing, your father stopped writing songs and the big Sydney producer stopped pestering them about a contract. It all just … stopped.’

  ‘But didn’t they ever try to get back together?’

  ‘They talked about it, but it just seemed too hard – and painful, particularly for your father. Besides, Ron and I wanted to get married. We needed money … security. So he took that job with the insurance company. Just a temporary thing, really. But then there were bills to pay and then we had you … and Prue … And well, somehow he’s been there ever since. The boys just drifted apart. Ray went into radio and Leo’s been playing in pub bands in London.’

  Prue’s brow wrinkled a little. ‘So today is the twentieth anniversary of Billy’s death,’ she said, ‘and I guess the twentieth anniversary of the death of the Dugongs as well. No wonder Dad has been so strange and sad. Do you think when he was listening to the Beatles last night that he was remembering how it was with the Dugongs and maybe … wondering what might have been?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Mum said. ‘Billy and Ron always joked about the Dugongs being the new Beatles.’

  Prue nodded slowly. ‘So Uncle Ray’s email … What was that all about?’

  ‘A Dugongs twenty-year reunion concert.’

  Prue and I did one of those dopey double-takes.

  ‘Yes, it knocked me for a six as well. Apparently Ray got a phone call recently from Leo. He’d been living in England for ages, but now he and his family have moved back here. Anyway, Ray and Leo got together and talked about the old days and came up with this idea of re-forming the band for a one-off performance. They’ve already dug up their old manager, although that doesn’t thrill me too much, and they’ve lined up a possible replacement drummer-someone from one of the old bands they used to play with. The only missing piece in the jigsaw is your father, and that’s what Ray’s email was about – trying to convince him to agree.’

  ‘Is he going to do it?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I’m sure that deep down he wants to, and maybe he needs to … But Billy’s death hit Ron very hard. It might be too much to expect him to go back there. Anyway, he’s meeting with Ray and Leo in town tomorrow, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.’

  ‘But what about you, Mum?’ Prue asked. ‘How do you feel about it all? Are you ready for the return of the Dugongs?’

  ‘Me?’ Mum said with a weary smile. ‘I’ve been ready for twenty years.’

  26.

  THE ELEPHANT OF SURPRISE

  Apparently it took a bit of work, but my father finally said yes and the Dugongs’ Twentieth Anniversary Reunion Concert was pencilled in for the end of the year-less than five months away.

  Once that first shaky step had been taken, Dad stopped behaving like a fully paid-up member of the undead. Not that he magically returned to his old outgoing self or anything. In fact, at times he walked around looking as if he was about to have his first-ever bungee jump – off Sydney Harbour Bridge – at peak hour-naked. Other times he just looked sad. Like when he played his guitar in the rumpus room, flicking through the old exercise book where he and Billy Mangan wrote down their songs. One night as I watched him I tried to imagine what it would be like to lose your best mate – to have to go through stuff alone. I didn’t try to imagine that for very long.

  I really wished that there was something I could do to help my father, but back at school I had my own worries – and for the first time that year they didn’t involve either Barry Bagsley or Kelly Faulkner. No, this time the cause of my spiralling heart palpitations was the rapid approach of the debating season.

  Our first meeting of the new semester opened with a surprise announcement. Ignatius had joined the boarding school.

  ‘You’re a boarder now?’ Razza said in astonishment. ‘Geez, Prindabel, I always suspected you were some kind of laboratory experiment gone wrong … but a boarder? Hey, wait on – don’t you live just a couple of streets away from the school?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then how come you’re boarding? Has your family taken a restraining order out on you or something to stop you boring them to death?’

  ‘No. My mother feels that boarding will be good for me. She says that relating more consistently and directly to boys my own age will accelerate my social development.’

  Razza studied Prindabel closely before delivering his verdict. ‘Tell her it’s not working.’

  As you may have been able to detect, there was still some ‘unresolved tension’ between Razza and Ignatius over the ‘Hot or what!’ incident. Because of this, Scobie had decided that it might be wise if they didn’t debate together for a while. It sounded like a fair enough plan, and it seemed to be working when Scobie, Razza and Bill easily won our first-round debate against Stonewall High. A couple of weeks later, Scobie, Prindabel and I followed it up by scoring a slim victory over Headly Grammar.

  Of course Scobie was still the common ingredient in our success. He was as brilliant as ev
er at third speaker, polishing our case until it shone like gold and then stripping the opposition’s bare until it looked like a rusty lump of scrap metal. This year, though, we didn’t seem to rely on him quite as much. We were actually becoming a better team.

  Because of this we went into our third-round match feeling pretty positive. This was despite the fact that Scobie and Prindabel were away on a special Science camp, leaving Razza, Bill and me to take on the team from St. Bartholomew’s. As we waited for the result we were quietly confident we’d won. Unfortunately the adjudicator was loudly confident that we’d lost, and declared a two-point victory to St Bart’s. Of course we were disappointed – especially Razza, who kept going on about being ‘ripped off, big time’.

  We knew it wasn’t the end of the world, though. There was still one more first-round debate to go. If we could win that, it would give us three victories out of four, and that would be enough to send us through to the finals. For such a crucial debate we all agreed that it was time to select our strongest combination – Prindabel, Zorzotto and Scobie.

  Although he lacked a little in the charisma department, Ignatius was certainly our best option at first speaker. He was organised and efficient and could outline our arguments clearly and precisely. Razza, at second speaker, could think on his feet, which was good for rebuttal. Whereas Prindabel was ordered and controlled, Razza had flair, personality and humour to carry him through. At third speaker, Scobie was … Well, Scobie was just Scobie. He made everyone else sound like dropouts from a pre-school remedial English class for Neanderthals.

  Our opposition was going to be Strawberry Hill High. We knew they’d be tough, but we weren’t panicking. After all, we had our best team on the case, didn’t we? The topic was That as a nation Australia pays too much attention to sport. We were Affirmative – although as it turned out, some of us appeared slightly less affirmative than others.

  ‘Man, what sort of a sicko dweeb came up with this topic, anyway? I mean, what’ve they got against sport? You know, this sounds like the sort of garbage you’d come out with, Prindababble.’

  Also some of us still hadn’t quite forgiven one of us for a certain less than favourable poetry review.

  ‘Orazio, we’ve been through all this before,’ Scobie said with remarkable patience. ‘As I’ve pointed out already, we don’t have to be anti-sport as such. Everything has its positives and negatives. It’s just a debating topic, after all. But our job is to focus on the possible negative aspects of sport and show that Australia’s obsession with it can lead to various problems and dangers.’

  ‘Problems and dangers? What problems and dangers?’

  ‘Well, the kind of things we’ve been talking about in the last three meetings spring to mind. For example,’ Scobie said, reading from his detailed notes, ‘the encouragement of violence, aggression and gambling; the increasing incidence of serious injuries; the win-at-all-costs mentality that can result in the use of performance-enhancing drugs; the negative health effects of being a nation of spectators; the fact that too much of our taxes is being spent on sport and not enough in more important areas like health and scientific research; and the attitude that sports people are heroes, rather than people like scientists who, it could be argued, contribute vastly more to society.’

  Razza curled his lip at Ignatius. ‘Bet you came up with that last one, Prindabel. Who’s your hero? The guy who designed the lab coat?’

  Prindabel’s thin lips became even thinner, but he didn’t respond.

  ‘Come on, Razz,’ I said, hoping to get us moving in the right direction, ‘we really need to focus here. The debate’s next week. If we lose, that’s it, we’re gone.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we should have been through already, shouldn’t we? Man, we were so mega-ripped off. I’m telling you guys, that adjudicator dude from last round must have been blind not to see we were the heaps better team.’

  Prindabel raised his head and twisted his face into a question mark. ‘Blind? Don’t you mean deaf? If he was blind he could still hear what both teams were saying and make a valid judgment, couldn’t he? What you should have said was, “He must have been deaf.” What you said doesn’t make sense.’

  Razza glared across the table. ‘You know what I wish? I wish you were deaf, Prindabel. That way I wouldn’t have to listen to you crapping on all the time.’

  ‘Me deaf? How would that stop you from hearing me? Wouldn’t you have to be deaf? If I was deaf I could still speak, couldn’t I? So you could still hear me, couldn’t you? I might even know sign language, so I could even use that. Then if you didn’t want to hear me you’d have to be deaf and blind.’

  Razza leant forward and jabbed his pen at Ignatius. ‘You know what? I’ve seen backed-up toilets that weren’t as full of crap as you.’

  ‘Well, when it comes to crap, we all know who won the Nobel Prize for that,’ Prindabel mumbled with a superior smile.

  ‘Hey,’ Razza said thrusting a finger forward, ‘are you having another go at my poem? I told you before, Prindabel, you’ve got totally no idea, dude. Mr Guthrie said my poem was rigid and chronic. Tell him, Ishmael – go on, tell him what Guthrie said.’

  ‘Mr Guthrie said Razza’s poem was rigid and chronic.’

  ‘See!’

  ‘Yes, but what did he actually m–’

  ‘Right, let’s just forget all that,’ Scobie broke in. ‘It’s not helping us get our case organised. Look, if we’re going to be any chance of beating Strawberry Hill, we have to work as a team, and you know the old cliché, “there’s no I in team”.’

  ‘There’s no nerd in team, either, so what’s he doing here?’ Razza said, jerking his thumb at Prindabel.

  ‘Orazio, can we just forget Ignatius for a minute?’

  ‘I’d like to forget him permanently.’

  ‘Look, last meeting, didn’t we decide that you would concentrate on how our obsession with sport harms the individual and Ignatius would cover the negative effects sport obsession could have on groups and the nation as a whole?’

  ‘Yeah … I suppose.’

  ‘So … Have you actually written up any of your arguments like you said you would?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t quite finished them.’

  ‘I’ve got mine right here, Scobie,’ Prindabel said, waving a bundle of paper in the air.

  ‘Oh bravo, Tolstoy. Why don’t you read it all aloud and we’ll take bets on who’ll be the first of us to die of boredom.’

  ‘So, Orazio … have you done anything?’

  ‘Look, Scobes … I was sick, all right? I was away on Monday, remember? You saw what I was like yesterday-well, on the weekend it was way worse. I was in bed most of the time. I couldn’t talk ’cause my throat was so bad and I could hardly breathe. Man, it was like they were holding the world snot convention in my nose. What was I supposed to do?’

  Prindabel held up his pen. ‘Here’s a rigid thought. Maybe you could have recorded your experience for posterity by writing another one of your chronic poems. You could have called it “Snot or What!”.’

  Razza flashed his eyes around the table at Bill, Scobie and me as each of us tried to stifle a laugh. Then he leapt up from his seat, pulled up his shirt and twisted from side to side, frantically examining his bare midriff.

  ‘Ishmael, hurry for god’s sake! Am I gonna be all right? Is there much damage? Will I pull through? Tell me. I can take it.’

  ‘Razza, what are you doing?’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Razza said, patting his stomach and feeling around to his back. ‘It’s a miracle! You positive you can’t see any rips or tears? I thought for sure my sides would have split when Prindabel came out with such a hilarious comment. Gee, Ignatius, can you warn us next time before you dump one of those absolute gut-buster howlers on us?’ Razza sat back down after firing off a look of withering contempt at Ignatius.

  ‘Orazio,’ Scobie said calmly, ‘you really do need to get your speech finished as soon as possible.’

  ?
??Yeah, yeah, I know, OK. But I can’t write everything out word-for-word, right? I don’t want to sound overprepared and predictable. Unlike some people, I like to be flexible … spontaneous … interesting even. I like my speeches to have that … that elephant of surprise … You know what I mean?’

  Prindabel reared forward in his chair. ‘The what of surprise?’

  ‘The elephant of surprise,’ Razza said in his Play School voice. ‘Gee, Prindabel, am – I – talk – ing – too – quick – ly – for – you?’

  ‘Well, Orazio, I think you’ll find that the correct expression is the element of surprise, not elephant.’

  ‘Element?’ Razza scoffed. ‘Prindabel, I warned you about munching on too many computer chips, didn’t I? Look, work it out for yourself. If you walked into a room, what do you think would give you the biggest surprise – to find an element there or an elephant? You can phone a friend if you like, Leonardo.’

  Prindabel held up his hands in despair. ‘How about we settle this straightaway?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Elephantary, my dear Zorzotto-we’ll have a vote. Who thinks Orazio’s correct and it’s “elephant of surprise”?’ Prindabel checked each of us in turn. ‘Well now, that’s a surprise,’ he said. ‘No elephants! Seems like the tribe has spoken, Orazio.’

  Razza looked at us as if we’d betrayed him. ‘Yeah, well maybe I was just being … you know … creative with language … Yeah, avoiding clichés like Miss Tarango always goes on about.’

  Scobie stepped in to save Razza further embarrassment. ‘Look, as we don’t seem to be making much headway, perhaps it might be best if we finished up for now and meet again on Friday at lunchtime. Anyone have anything to add before we go?’

  Bill and I shook our heads, but Ignatius nodded his thoughtfully. ‘Yes, you know what you should do?’ he said to Razza. ‘First, you should take Scobie’s notes and pick out all the arguments that apply to individuals and write them up fully. Then you should make sure you can tie everything to our team theme that “too much of a good thing is harmful”. Then after you’ve done that, you should get on the internet and find the necessary facts and figures you’ll need to use as supporting evidence. Oh, and you know what else you should do? You should make a photocopy of my speech. That way you won’t overlap with my arguments and as well you’d see exactly how you should organise and set everything out. That’s what you should do, Orazio.’