Ian Farr Take Two
This is the moment when we stepped forward in time; from those days so long ago. I met Ian very early; 1969, 70, 71, something like that. I had left home but was living on the northern beaches, and would come into the city seeking adventure; at an age when conglomerations of the future held so many hints, of excitement, of promise. He was a friend of other people I had met, groups I was determinedly disentangling, or engaging with, at a time and age when everything was close to us and the world was shifting on its axis. He was living with Wayne Reeve, and in the grip of alternative lifestyles they were one of the first gay couples I had ever met. Wayne was always charismatic, lively, They would be sitting cross legged on the floor, waiting for the trips to kick in, in the days when acid really was acid, and Wayne would be swigging from the tequila bottle and daring everybody on; and they all laughed at their inner-city jokes and secret knowledge; and I, barely 16, was fascinated by them all.
To spend the night there, crashed out on the couch, was to enter a secret enclave. And Ian was part of that house, a musician, I had never met a real musician before, and he knew everybody, the way they kissed in public was daring beyond anything I had ever seen; and Rob was there, completely out of it as usual; and to me, meeting this drug-fucked band of renegades, they were different to anybody I had ever met; they were everything I wanted to be, creative, spectacularly out it; and I was cute enough to know my looks were an entre to anywhere I wanted to go. Rob turned out a mess, but in the process turned out a child with Virginia; the child is now in her 20s and turned out to be a lovely person. Virginia is now an older woman, poised, genteel. And Ian was just part of everything.
I organised a group house in Kings Cross, where a band of us lived; the shower never worked properly, John Nelson painted a mural of Queensland rooftops, washed out palm trees and the silvery tones of the Australian summer. And all these things, these bands of people, were part of Ian and Ian was part of them. He died in Adelaide and the funeral was held very quickly because his sister had to return to America. As Russell put it, there weren't many of his ratbag friends there, representing his past, his true self. We came hunting; but skipping across time was not going to solve the disappearance of someone we thought would always be there, a witness to us all, our mascot, our spiritual guide.
One of the most vivid events I ever remember with Ian I even now hesitate to tell. I didn't look good in the outcome, I was blamed for my own harshness, the cruelty of the games I played with other men's hearts. As every rent boy knows, they pay better if you dangle them along, offer them little and give them nothing; if, to put it bluntly, you're a pricktease. I wanted to be in the inner-circle, to get to know these people, to adopt a band, be part of a group which included such wonderful characters, Lynne Hapgood, Ian Farr, Johnny Bygate. Lynne overdosed while pregnant with her second child, Bygate died of a brain haemorage after his final, hopeless years soaked in alcohol and prescription pills.
The first money I ever made out of writing was after I won a short story competition with a story about Bygate, who was a close friend of Ian's. And like I had wriggled and flirted with so many, with so little genuine care or consideration for what happened to these fragile souls, a manipulative little tart, so I wanted entre to the galaxy of genuine creative spirits that Ian knew. If they wanted me they paid, and in his own way pay he did. For someone with no money, for someone who was so gentle and so genuine, it was just plain wrong. He fell in love. It wasn't quite true, but I liked to think I could always get off with anyone, male or female, as long as the price was right. I was about 24 before I started to have sex for anything but social or financial gain.
Unrequited love in the terraces of Paddington. We shared our time; but the dividends were not high enough. Those were the days of Mandrax, and in that house in Hargrave Street, nextdoor to the Bellevue Hotel which was such a critical part of the annals of Sydney life, the dramas played out in a series of magical days. In the preceding hours or days I had told him that things couldn't go on, I really didn't love him, didn't want to sleep with him anymore, that after years of emotional blackmail I wasn't going to be held hostage anymore. We were all, as I said, spectacularly out of it; flopping around on the double bed in the front room upstairs; the group gropes and fluster clucks that were all part of mandies and being off our scones. There were several of us in various states of unconsciouness in and on the bed. And then he just emerged from under the blankets; blood everywhere.
He had slahsed his wrists in my bed, underneath the blankets; with all of us around. The only reason I was conscious was because I was tripping, everyone else was on the mandies - a now banned subtitute for sleeping pills which were very fashionable at the time; and mixed with a bit of alcohol really made one very amicable indeed. The mandrax stagger was a completely fashionable statement of an inner-city elite; we're off our scones and we don't give a fuck about all your normal oppressive crap, going to work, being straight, being normal. He rose up from under the blankets like some great bewildered bird; and there was instant chaos in an already chaotic scene.
I went nextdoor to the pub and got them to ring triple 000. The ambulance came and took him away. For a pianist, slashing his wrists was the worst thing he could possibly do; it impacted on his ability to play for years to come, for the rest of his life really. He had had a jolly good attempt at it; in the days when we were all fascinated by the suicide of Sylvia Plath, or Sylvia Platitude as some of the graffiti in our houses said.
I never went to see him in hospital. This was the third time in my short life that someone had pulled a stunt like this; one of the men had died, with massive associated drama, people screaming hatred at me out of car windows; the other just ended up in hospital. And there was Ian. I considered it an outrageous piece of emotional blackmail, and I wasn't going to play ball. I was considered a cold hearted bastard, blamed for ravaging this sensitive soul, but I stayed away from the hospital nonetheless.
I remember when he came to see me, after he got out of hospital. The house was a different place now; much quieter, more organised. I went to work, I tapped away at short stories which were rarely published; and the house was mine now, not a wild band of partying fringe dwellers. We sat in almost frozen silence in the front loungeroom; I couldn't possibly explain, didn't even know, why I had acted the way I did. And his hopeful, tremulous expressions were just nothing; I couldn't participate. Sydney's gay scene was kicking off, we were a real, big city now; and and with all the crass competitiveness and bitchy swirls; love was easy to find. All you had to do was sit on a bar stool. We sat in the front room, drinking heavily, awkwardly, and as I downed each glass of Douglas scotch, I threw the empty glasses into the fireplace, smashing them. We both acted as if this was perfectly normal behaviour; and continued to talk, or maneouvre, in our frozen, awkward way until he finally left.
We didn't speak much for months afterwards, the intimacy wiped in one horrific afternoon of acid drenched flashing and blood streaming arms. In the end we became friends; although things were never the same again. And now time has finished the job he started so long ago. I wish he was still here, a sentinal for our group; our priest, taking confession and leading prayers for our troubled little band.