SOMETHING GOT ME STARTED by SIMPLY RED. Story by Laura Sheridan.

High Street, Northcote, Victoria 1994-1997

Outside the window the run of dilapidated Victorian shopfronts stops. It was interrupted by a squat grey concrete monolith, set back, and tagged with graffiti. We were on High St, in a narrow strip between hipster Westgarth and gentrifying Northcote. A no-mans land where plastic shopping bags, leaves and litter rolled like tumbleweeds across a plain.

Inside, his cigarette dipped into the ashtray with the regularity of a quill in ink. Ash overflowed its edges, a slump glass form too small for its task. Beside it lay his Lucky Strikes, a soft white pack with a red target insignia, glowing in a ray of morning sun. A quiet line of music threaded its way around the flat, a gentle accompaniment to his full, clear voice.

‘Open quote, cap W we, all know ital, don’t pos t, we query close quote, new par.’

We were proofreading The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtenay. It was my first proper novel and I was honoured and excited.

Six weeks earlier my role in life had been as unformed as the ashtray, apprenticing at Handspan Theatre in Fitzroy. I didn’t know anything about the company when I approached them, all I knew was that Ariette Taylor had worked with them, and I was besotted with Ariette’s work. I offered to sweep floors, make cups of teas, fetch coffees, do anything to be within her orbit.

As a sixteen year old, I had been under Ariette’s direction, singing in the Victorian Opera Children’s Chorus. When she said she had a new show, I made sure I went. It was Handspan’s production of Picasso’s Four Little Girls. It was immersive and intense, terrifying and breathtaking. When I described it to Ariette as a nightmare, she clapped her hands and laughed. ‘Darling, that is the nicest compliment I have ever had!’

So there I was, nine years later, paintbrush in hand, working on the a new production of Four Little Girls. I was directed to paint anything on the black stage, black, and I took my job seriously. In between rehearsals, before and after performances I was there at the ready, dashing forward and dabbing black paint wherever I saw white. A centimetre scratch, a millimetre scar, a micrometre tear. Quickly and deeply I was moulded into the Handspan culture and its complexities, and although I never did meet Ariette that time, I met him.

Tall, lanky, goatee and glasses, he had a glint in his eyes that told of a life well-lived. Quick to laughter, the wrinkles in his face would crumple like tissue paper when he smiled. I reminded him of his daughter, so in his paternity, he cared for me, inclusive and encouraging, gentle and kind.

One evening, after a performance, he took me aside.

‘You’re going to need a second job if you’re going to be an artist,’ he warned. ‘Come to my house at 9am tomorrow,’ he offered mysteriously and left.

So there we were, the following morning: ‘Open quote, cap T that, one O-N-E shriek, close quote, new par.’

He taught me to proofread the old-fashioned way, as we sat side-by-side in the morning light. Heads lowered in prayer, we traced identical lines of text with our fingertips, our touch as tactile as braille. He spoke aloud every capital, quote, question mark and indentation, as I checked my copy against his. I giggled each time he exclaimed ‘shriek!’ for an exclamation mark, and every time, his eyes crinkled and he laughed along with me.

As we worked, his right hand deftly traced corrections in the margins, while his left fingers cradled the slowly burning embers of a cigarette. Absorbed in his work, he’d bring the stub to his lips, draw a breath, tap the ash, return to his pose. As one was extinguished, another was lit. His eyes never left the page. By eleven, the little flat was under a soft cloud of smoke, and we’d sit on the back porch for fresh air, a cup of tea and the first joint of the day.

It was then, passing the stub between us, that I told him about Bernardo Bertolucci. How he had added songs to Stealing Beauty’s ethereal score from Liv Tyler’s iPod. I related the story of how Tyler, on a set surrounded by people twice her age, would sit alone during breaks immersed in her music. One day Bertolucci sat beside her and asked to listen, and from there the soundtrack was born.

He cocked his head as he concentrated, his brow furrowed deep in thought. He resolved, from that day on, we would only listen to music from my collection. I offered titles from his generation: Jefferson Airplane, Supertramp, Christopher Cross, but he refused them all. Instead, he developed a soft spot for Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales, but to start work each morning, without fail it was Simply Red, an enigmatic band I adored since seeing them live at Festival Hall.

So at 9am each Tuesday and Friday we’d make a cup of tea, he’d light a Lucky Strike, and we’d settle into our desks in the morning light. ‘Something Got Me Started’ would weave through the threads of smoke in the air, waft through the windows and tumble past the graffiti into the no-mans land and I realized. It wasn’t some-thing that got me started, it was some-one. A someone who through their gentle kindness, their laughter, their love, through their sheer belief in a younger generation, gave me the skills to get me started in life.

Stereo Story 881

Handspan Theatre