Brothers & Sisters - Charlotte Wood [43]
Dubbo was a party town. There was nowhere else to go. Tony arrived at the door with a bundle of 45s hot from the record companies and gave some away. ‘Eines harten Tages Nacht’ (‘A Hard Day’s Night’) was already a collector’s item the year of its release, and he kept that one for himself (still has it). Onwards then towards the year of ‘Sergeant Pepper’. Tony wrote his own jingles and testimonials, achieving status in the eyes of Macquarie network executives through a broadcasting belt more or less contiguous with the growth range of native cypress, from the Queensland border down to approximately Peak Hill. Later—in Sydney, making his name—he liked to rib ABC types on the occasions when they met, as being a bit too Sir Robert Menzies with it, and not being of the people. Any young fellow seeking his advice about a career in national radio he warned to wear lead underpants. Was he ever tempted to go over to Aunty himself? You must be out of your mind (though he never lost his ‘plum’).
Tony had a studio visit from Warwick, who’d been to some outfit that made tapes of hopefuls playing guitars and yodelling cowboy songs, and transferred them to 45 rpm extended plays for a whopping fee. A ludicrous amalgam of doggerel and strummed chords was Warwick’s offering. ‘There’s no easy way to be any good,’ said Tony, as he walked Warwick to the door. They did not see each other for years after that, not for decades, it’s true, though birthdays and Christmases weren’t forgotten. There was a feeling, always strong, that their connection was close to a blood relation. But there was a feeling of offence, as well, and as they didn’t have blood relations to judge this by, they didn’t know that a feeling of offence equally defined what they so definitely felt they lacked.
On 17 April 1967, live telephone conversations were made legal broadcasts and Tony Watson was born—let me calculate: for the fourth time? There were to be no further incarnations. Answering back to the nation (eventually) on ninety-eight syndicated stations, Tones would keep on doing it till the wind blew itself out, by which time the clock of the years would hook around the dial into the spiderwebs of disbelief, and if you doubt me, recall when you peered through the soundproof glass and saw liver-spotted Tony with a slack turkey-gobbler jawline doing the countdown still.
Tony was known Out West as a terrific snob—but home-town-hatched, familiar in his scorn, loved to death for loving them along the shrivelled Darling. He never forgot those cards and letters, birthday and Christmas presents, nor telephone calls where he never announced himself by name but was the unmistakable owner of that tremulous helloo—as the promos used to say, ‘smooth as a triple malted’. Of late, the promos merely call him the King Of, a tired appellation for a tired old ratings’ ruler, while pundits headline in the industry press: When Will Tones Pull the Plug On It? Judy asks the same question.
Tony had a curious experience recently, on a Qantas flight to London. The bloke he was sitting next to said, ‘Your voice reminds me of someone.’ Tony preened and said, ‘My voice reminds you of me, my friend.’ He was Tony ‘Give Me Your Ears’ Watson: the bloke who’d invented talkback or near enough. But no, said the bloke, it was someone else. Had Tony ever lived in the Territory? ‘Nooh,’ said Tony. They advanced through degrees of separation until they came to the name Warwick Mickless. ‘That name rings a bell,’ said Tony with self-protective affability. He didn’t want to give too much away. There was the dead son, Chicka Watson, whose ghost he’d brought to life, just by living, and there was Warwick Mickless. Then there was Judy. The four of them—dead and alive and alive and alive— occupied an indefinable space, elbows linked, feet scuffing