The day of Ian Thorpe’s ‘big reveal’ interview, in fact only a few hours beforehand, I went off to do what has become one of the highlights of my week. Sometimes I do it for hours, even whole days: in short, I take myself off on Sunday drives. Yes, I’ve reached that point in my life. Thankfully I don’t take with me ELO or Mariah Carey CDs, but albums by Sonic Youth or Red House Painters or Burial or Jon Hopkins. Last Sunday, however, I didn’t have time for a whole day’s adventure, just a quick drive to the edge of town. Because the drive is only partly the point, as is the listening of music; I actually go on the hunt for old shit. Not posh antiques so much, but bits and pieces that might look good in a crumbling 120-year-old house owned by a writer who too is falling apart.
Last Sunday’s trip could only be short because I’d spent much of the day preparing financial records for my accountant. Getting my tax together is officially the nadir of my year. It is a time of great, fathomless despair. So, after six hours of that, it was time to jump in the car and head out to my local purveyor of old stuff. The business is in what clearly used to be a corner-shop. It’s filled with good things from years forgotten (by most), but none of it is expensive, and very little of it is in perfect condition – excellent. The shop is neat, but it’s not the sort of place where you feel you should put on a pair of white gloves before checking the price-tag. It’s owned by a friendly middle-aged man called Mart. A Sunday not long ago he offered me one of the Tim Tams on his plate. During the week he drives a school bus to towns and villages further out; it’s an appropriate occupation because I can easily imagine him to have been the sort of cheerful, chatty kid that no one had a reason to dislike.
As always, as soon as I stepped inside the shop, Mart said g’day – literally – and commented on the weather. ‘A big frost this morning, eh mate, minus-seven, they reckoned, with a feels-like temp of minus-ten. Winter’s really hit, eh mate!’ I could only agree. Before my eye was immediately taken by a light-fitting from the very early 1900s. I’d been on the hunt for exactly it for years. I checked it over: not only was it appropriate, it was highly affordable. I asked him to get it down from its display. I checked it over one last time, before I said that I’d buy the thing.
At the counter, which is a low desk with an old brass sign cheekily declaring ‘OFFICE CLERK’, Mart began packing the fitting into a box and started writing out a receipt. Wanting to hold up my end of the conversational bargain, I told Mart that for at least a couple of years I’d been driving all over the district looking for a light-fitting like the one he was selling me. I told him about the shop I go to in a small town an hour’s drive way that specialises in antique lights and lamps. He said, ‘Oh yes, the joint owned by Andrew and…’ and immediately went back to finishing the wrapping of my purchase before getting to work on the EFTPOS machine.
But I got the drift.
The lights-and-lamps shop an hour’s drive away is owned and operated by a gay man. Mart obviously knows him and his partner; being the gregarious, welcoming, non-judgemental person that he’s always displayed himself to be, he’s probably on very good, friendly terms with his regional antique-trade colleagues.
Being fond of black jeans and hoodies and Blundstone boots that have seen much better days, and often having paint or chook-crap stuck on me somewhere, and a three-day growth, I may not present as the typical (whatever that is, Christ) same-sex-attracted bloke. But neither would I present as someone with limited views on these things. Still, for Mart, it was easier to not make it clear that the light-and-lamp specialists were gay men. It was easier just not to say. Who knows: to him I might have extreme views. So, yes, best not to say, best not to say. That’s not to charge my mate Mart with homophobia. It was just easier.
Until people like me and Mart can be open and honest about the relationships of the people around us, even Australian heroes will have to go through the painful, anxious, almost debilitating act of shedding one skin to reveal another. Which is why, despite all the media-people build-up, the strategic commerce, the close-to-scripted event of it all, what Ian Thorpe did last Sunday night was necessary, important, valuable, and gigantically illuminating.
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 19, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Gabrielle Bryden
Loved this post Nigel – you’ve said so much without saying too much, which I suppose is exactly what Mart was ‘not saying’. Things in this country are changing but not nearly enough; so good on Ian for everything he finally said (not that it is any of our business but the media thinks everything is everyone’s business).
Excuse me for being pedantic but I think in paragraph two (last sentence) you may have meant to write ‘no’ instead of ‘on’ (‘chatty kid that on one) 😉 ps. I’m glad I’m not the only one that roams around with chook poo on my shoes – hahahaha
July 19, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Gabe, many thanks for that.
Yes, it’s tempting for people to say that this is all just a non-issue, because we’re all pretty tolerant. But are we really that tolerant? There’s obvious homophobia, and then there’s the more insidious – perhaps the latter is worse? Interesting, too, that Michael Klim said this week that there’s still a ‘gentle form of homophobia in sport’ (or words to that effect), but it can be just as devastating – good on him for making that so clear to people. And I think it’s all of our business when we find ourselves, like Mart (not his real name) and I did, skirting around a topic for no good reason.
PS Many thanks for picking up the typo!
July 22, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
pscottier
To totally ignore the main point of the article, if that light-fitting was for sale in Canberra, it would cost so very much…
I think I must drive to Goulburn some time.
Sorry for etsying up the discussion, Nigel. I have a real talent for trivia.
July 23, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi PS, good to hear from you. Perhaps we can say that this post could have been very expensive for all concerned? And I wonder if in five years time readers will have any idea of what ‘etsying’ actually means? I just hope that you’re remembered for your poetry talent, not your trivia talent.
July 23, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
pscottier
This post is both important and timely, Nigel. I in no way wished to detract from that.
Hopefully, such insidious homophobia as you describe is on the decline. Until gay marriage is legalised, though, that telling hesitation may continue to exist.
I look forward to the day where such attitudes are full antiques.
July 24, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Geoff
I agree with Gabe on this one Nigel in that you’ve said so much without sounding like you’re saying too much … those finely honed writing skills perhaps 😉
Perhaps one day you may check your pending comments queue and realise that I continue to leave comments even beyond the hope that they may one day be read by you. And I think I will have to visit this shop … Goulburn’s not so very far away.
July 24, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Geoff, thanks, as always, for your terrific feedback on this post.
Also, thanks for letting me know about your comments. I checked my comment queue and did find one of yours – on my autumn piece – that I hadn’t ‘approved’. WordPress seems to let some comments go straight through to publication, but holds some back for my review. However, all others were published and replied to…at least I certainly hope I replied to them, as I remember many of them, and I do commit to replying to every comment received. Needless to say, I very much appreciate your engagement with Under the Counter.
As to visiting the shop mentioned? That would be GREAT, though send me an email as I fictionalised things just a little to protect the identity of the shop owner. And do take the opportunity to drop in to my place for a cuppa.
July 24, 2014 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Penelope, I completely agree with you that marriage equality is the way of stamping out insidious homophobia. But I fear that Australia is a little way from finding its maturity on this front. Such a pity. As to linking to homophobia with antiquated thinking: you’re spot on, as usual.