Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.BZ

(dramatic music)

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

(waves crashing)

(dramatic music continues)

(gentle piano music)

- [Michael] The winter sun

was going down on Surfers Paradise.

It was my 98th day on the wagon,

and didn't feel any better than my 97th.

; missed my hip flask of Johnny Walker, my ex-wife Jean,

my pet dog Somare, and,

and my exorbitant salary as Deputy Commissioner of Police.

; wasn't sure anymore I was cut out to be a writer

of controversial exposes of police corruption.

At the moment,

I couldn't lift a lid off a can of baked beans.

I wanted to be 12 years old again

and the best spin bowler in Southport High.

I wanted a lot of things.

- [Landlady] Mr. Stacey.

- So did my landlady, including the rent.

Don't tell me, you had your hair cut.

- Permed. There's been a bloke ringing STD all day.

He left this message for you.

(dog barking)

- [Michael] Oh, yes. It's from a friend of mine,

my publisher.

Somare's been eating him out of house and home.

- The publisher's looking after your dog?

- Well, we're a desperate breed of men.

- Five more bills came for you, and two final notices.

I put them under your door.

- Thank you.

Why don't we have an affair?

While I'm still a free man.

- Not while your room's in that condition.

-Ah, well, that's the sticking point.

(door bangs)

(dramatic music)

(gentle jazz music)

- [Michael] I made my way into the familiar squalor,

wondering how I, Michael Stacey, OBE,

of Army and Police Intelligence,

one time friend of cabinet ministers and brothel keepers

and gambling millionaires,

had come down so far in the world so fast.

It was to do in part, I knew,

with being framed in the Royal Commission,

but maybe it went deeper than that.

Maybe I had a suicidal streak,

one that got worse when sober.

I was thankful at least for the weekly postcard

from my old mate Quiney in Malaya

on which was the latest move in our absorbing game of chess.

The game, now in its seventh month,

was beginning to look interesting.

Clever bugger.

(typewriter clicking)

Then I wrote some more of my forthcoming best seller

that exposed them all, the bastards.

And wished I was writing it better.

And then real life intruded.

I was getting to like it less and less.

(phone ringing)

Michael Stacey, OBE. New Year's Honors 1976.

- [Chuck] Hello Michael.

- Chuck. (chuckles) Hah, hey.

- [Chuck] I'm sorry old bean, the book's off.

- You gotta be joking.

- [Chuck] No, I'm not joking.

- I've done 980 closely typed pages,

all beautiful, gripping stuff.

- [Chuck] I'm sorry, old boy, it's too late.

- Uh, too late?

- [Chuck] Aye, that's right. It's too late.

- Look, that's not the reason.

You know bloody well that's not the reason.

- [Chuck] Your physical has been in the dumps.

- I haven't touched a drop in six months.

- [Chuck] Yeah, I'm sorry.

- Well, all right, three months.

- [Chuck] You're an example to us all.

- But Chuck, gimme another week, huh?

- [Chuck] Sorry mate.

- Well, four days.

- [Chuck] And I'm sending your useless dog back.

- No, keep the dog. It's a gift.

(phone clatters)

(dramatic music)

(door bangs)

I never wanted to be.

(objects clattering)

- [Landlady] What was that noise? Mr. Stacey?

(door bangs)

♪ Hey honey, would you dig that thing ♪

♪ Would you, honey ♪

♪ Will it hold me ♪

- Jersey, straight scotch, give me the change, please.

♪ Hey honey, help me through the night ♪

♪ I'm getting heat in my wings ♪

♪ When you call ♪

- France Australia pair.

- Up yours.

- [Con] Come along ladies, chop chop.

The night is young and so are we.

- [Woman] Can I have a light please?

- [Con] Only if you play your cards right.

- [Woman] Thank you.

- Be on the bus.

- Could be your lucky night.

The wild foot. A lot of them.

- Get lost.

Come along. - Mr. Driver,

my friend wanted to know if they were genuine

dancers from Kauai, innit?

- Mrs. Williams, of course they were genuine.

♪ South of the border ♪

- [Announcer] Welcome ladies to the Midnight Cowboy.

♪ Down Mexico Way ♪

♪ Now that's where I fell in love, the stars above ♪

♪ Came down to play ♪

♪ And now as I wonder ♪

♪ if my thoughts ever stray ♪

- Save your brains now, Stacey,

plenty more hangovers where this one came from.

- You reckon?

- I've seen you before, Stacey.

You put on a suicidal front,

but at bottom you're still an Irish Catholic

and you don't believe in it.

- I'm just getting into training for purgatory.

That's all.

It could be a valuable experience for this growing lad.

- Stacey.

- Show me another one.

Some hundreds of years before tonight

by a coincidence that didn't surprise either her or me,

I'd been almost engaged to Kate

back when the world was young.

And here she was again, lads, two whole marriages later,

hers and mine,

moving slowly closer to the center of my life.

I knew she was there, but I drew back from going to her

and putting my head in her bosom and crying like a baby.

We old soldiers have some pride.

The Irish mistress wasn't helping my appreciation

of the music or the decor.

The crooner sounded like two old cheese graters

fornicating in an iron tank,

and the wallpaper was beginning to look hostile.

♪ Down Mexico way ♪ ♪ Down Mexico way ♪

- Hi Stacey.

- G'day mate.

♪ As she sighed, as she whispered manana ♪

♪ Never dreaming ♪ ♪ Never dreaming ♪

♪ That we were parting ♪

♪ As I lied and I whispered manana ♪

♪ For tomorrow never came ♪

- Les!

♪ South of the border ♪

- Hey, how are you?

- Oh, I'm, I'm all right.

Christ, you look rotten, Mike, bloody awful.

- You should see me on me bad days.

- Yeah, we can leave this for some other time, my old mate,

it's union business, trades, all, you know how it is.

- Yes, yes, serious, serious.

- I'm in the book.

- Not Ted Godfrey, that's Ted Godfrey.

He's not trades hall anymore, is he?

- Well, that's one rumor.

♪ South of the border ♪

(upbeat jazz music)

♪ Pack up all my cares and woe ♪ ♪ Pack up all my care and woe ♪

♪ Here I go, singing low ♪ ♪ Here I go, singing low ♪

♪ Bye, bye blackbird ♪ ♪ Bye, bye blackbird ♪

♪ Where somebody waits for me ♪

♪ Sugar's sweet, so is she ♪ ♪ Sugar's sweet, so is he ♪

♪ Bye, bye blackbird ♪ ♪ Bye, bye blackbird ♪

♪ No one here can love or understand me ♪

♪ Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me ♪

♪ Make my bed ♪

♪ Light the light ♪ ♪ Light the light ♪

♪ I'll be home late tonight ♪

♪ Blackbird, bye bye ♪

(upbeat religious music)

(dramatic piano music)

♪ Falling in love again, never wanted to ♪

♪ What am I to do, can't help it ♪

♪ Love's always been my game, play it how I may ♪

♪ I was made that way ♪

♪ I can't help it ♪ ♪ I can't help it ♪

♪ Men cluster to me like moths around a flame ♪

♪ And if their wings burn ♪

- They seem to be less of them than there used to be.

- We had a close encounter with the Samoan rugby team.

Offered to teach them native dancing.

- [Michael] Desperate men.

- Mm, I lost another four to the Salvation Army.

- Trombone lessons?

- Mm, mm, mm, sense of sin.

- Oh, it's like the regular army,

they were big on sense of sin.

I was in the regular army, or army intelligence.

Eight years.

You're a white man. Give me $20 and I'll buy you a drink.

- [Con] How can I refuse?

♪ I can't help it ♪ ♪ I can't help it ♪

(gun bangs)

(woman giggles)

(energetic rock music)

- [Waiter] Hey, are you all right?

- Huh?

- [Waiter] Hey.

- Hey, I.

-Ah, there you go.

♪ She would go with a red dress on ♪

♪ When the sun comes up that dress was gone at day ♪

- Who's that bit with Todd?

- Who?

- Toddy, he's in Colorado working for the Pentagon.

Top secret.

- Haven't I heard of him, Todd?

- Wanted in Malaya again. Army intelligence.

Lend me $20.

- If I make it $50, will you ask me less often?

- Constantino Kantopolis.

- Kandos.

- You know, you're good 'un.

I wish, I really dearly wish that every early Chinaman

was as good, straight and honest as you.

- We are an ancient and proud people.

- Yep.

♪ Everyone has agreed upon ♪

♪ Everyone has a part today ♪

(energetic dance music)

(singers vocalizing)

- Dance, dance, ladies.

(dancers whooping)

- [Dancer] You wanna go?

- One thing at a time.

- [Dancer] Hey, haven't I seen you somewhere before?

- Yeah, maybe important.

- Yeah. What were you in for?

- Life.

- Huh, can I buy you a drink?

- That's very civil of you, why?

- [Dancer] I like you.

- Really?

Up till now it's the Christian, the army's in town.

Why don't you go and try them?

- I have, and I don't like 'em.

(energetic dance music continues)

(siren wails)

(dancers chattering)

- [Dancer] Someone get him out of here, please.

- [Dancer] Come on brush,

would you clean it when you're finished please?

- Oh my, oh lord, it's you is it?

- Yeah, it's me.

- That's the tricks.

-Ah. It's a silly season.

Lots of Japanese. Too many Japanese.

(solemn music)

(woman gasping)

- Oh, oh.

- I know you.

- I work for Senator McCredie.

You saw him last night, remember?

- Yeah, I remember.

- He wants to see you.

- Does he now? (grunts)

(gentle music)

- [Michael] I had a mouth like an Ayatollah's armpit,

and a pressing need for a drink.

I could have argued, but frankly I was curious.

We went up river from the Isle of Capri

past bungalow after bungalow of rich men

waiting for the eternal boatman on their summer lawns.

Avoided the Rialto, turned right at Sorento,

and went on past the portals of Orion

into Shangri La Estate.

Les McCredie had come up in the world

from when I knew him first

to class below me in Southport High

where he fielded like a stunned mullet at leg slip.

Storemen and packer, law graduate, local alderman,

Queen's Counsel, federal senator, and cabinet minister.

And our tip to be premier of the emerging seventh state.

And it'd be nice to say he hadn't changed a bit,

but he had, a lot of it was the Labor Party caucus.

You couldn't blame him for that.

And part of it was his new wife,

a social climbing air hostess

with designs on Buckingham Palace.

I wondered if the unflappable Keith

stood by her bed in the middle of the night

the way he did mine

and asked if anything further was needed, madam.

She looked 10 years younger since her hysterectomy,

and mean as a beach full of blue bottles.

- [Joan] Good morning, Mike.

- Was the day so young?

- [Joan] It's lovely to see you. How long has it been?

- Oh, the wedding, uh, breakfast, I think.

When I sang the "Good Ship Venus"

in the manner of Perry Como.

All 48 verses with local references.

- Yes, I remember. Les is inside on the phone.

Washington, I think.

- Your old stamping ground, eh? International set.

- Some of us make it. Some of us don't.

-And some us know when to stop.

- Not you darling.

- This way, Mr. Deputy Commissioner.

- Thank you.

Well, I can't say it's been a pleasure.

- I'll call you back, sometime in the next administration.

Ha ha, Mike.

- Les.

- Yeah, look, I'm, I'm sorry about last night,

but trades all, the labor party.

My pre-selection, what can I say?

- Well, you've said it.

- Now look Mike, they've got me on the hook.

Now there's a difference, as you may have heard,

between number two on the Senate ticket and number three.

- Yes, I have heard.

- [Les] Now if they can dredge up

one more thing against me, Mike, I'm gone a million.

- One more.

- Now this is not delicate,

but I want you to find my daughter.

She came back three months ago,

knocked off my Drysdale, $30,000 worth.

And I don't know where she is.

Oh, it's all to do with my, my marrying Joan

and divorcing Alma, and Alma dying.

Dying the way she did.

She's got it in for me, man for modern society and all that.

- [Michael] For good reasons.

- Now will you do it, Mike?

$5,000 to find her and bring her back

as a favor from an old friend to an old friend.

- I'm writing a book.

- Oh no you're not. I know the book's off.

- Oh, really?

-And I'd leave it that way, old mate. Really.

- Why Les?

- 'Cause you're sticking your neck out too bloody far

and you know it.

Now l-look, Stace, I trust you.

I want you to find Cathy.

- Well, I suppose I'm still her godfather.

(Joan coos)

- [Les] You are?

- We got drunk together, remember? At her christening.

- Oh.

- $4,000.

- Sure.

- Plus expenses.

This the only photograph you got?

- Yeah.

She took the family album last time she came back.

Didn't want her father to have it,

felt she'd let down the side.

Hair of the dog?

- I'm on duty. What do you think?

I think she hates Mrs. McCredie so much

she'll come back after her, make a big scene,

something really melodramatic.

- She on anything?

- I don't think so. She doesn't believe in it.

Very pure.

- She on with anybody?

- Oh yeah, I'd say so. We've had a guest.

- Well-informed guests?

- Babysitting isn't what it was.

- [Michael] it all felt pretty simple at the start

to find an old friend's daughter for $4,000 plus expenses.

It wasn't exactly a new lease of life now the book was off,

but it would keep me going until opening time.

The first place I called at

in search of the missing Drysdale

was the usual kind of Gold Coast art gallery

with a difference

that was run by a manly, shady character I knew of old.

Famed for his fashionable forgeries and development deals.

Hey, Claude.

-Ah, Police Commissioner.

- [Michael] Did a blast-looking blonde young girl

come in here with a forged Drysdale,

which obviously you didn't buy?

(game exploding)

-Ah, blast.

-And it was stolen.

- What are you talking about?

- Well, something that the dealers association

might find a little shonky.

You know, it's not the first time.

-And what do you want, oh, former Deputy Commissioner,

a cut?

- It's the girl I want. Not the Drysdale.

- It's no forgery. He's astigmatic, you know.

World looks just like that to him.

- How did she convince you that it was hers to sell?

- Have a letter from her father, the minister.

- Yeah, but she could've forged that signature.

- Maybe.

But then I thought Les wouldn't prosecute

his own daughter anyway.

- Bargain, was it?

- Steal, you might say.

She had me make out the check in that name.

- Thanks Claude.

(announcer speaking indistinctly)

- [Michael] Two quick phone calls

led me to an address I was familiar with,

full of animals I really liked,

and people I could take or leave.

(audience chattering)

- Kathleen McCredie, it's a lovely name. She in trouble?

- No, her father's just anxious to find her. That's all.

- Well, we met at this, uh.

- Be frank.

- Wild party over the border.

She was really amazing. We really exploded together.

-And you said, "What are you doing after the orgy?"

- Pardon?

- Oh, it's an old old gag.

- Pass the visor.

- What? Oh, yeah.

- Yeah, we lived together for about, ooh, I don't know,

10 days.

It was my best 10 days, four times a night.

- What?

- Four times a night.

- Fo, four?

- She was really warm, loving, breakfast in bed.

All the grass I could smoke. I mean Peruvian gold.

-And what did you do with the money?

- What do you mean?

- For the painting?

- Look, I got nothing to hide.

- Mm-hmm.

-All I did was bank the check for her,

the next day drew out a whole $12,000

with a rubber band around it.

And I gave it to her.

- It really was a bargain.

- That afternoon she bought me a Ducati 860 GT motorbike.

That's Sonya.

- Lovely girl.

- It's all silicone, not the same. I know.

And we had this mad weekend riding all over the coast.

Then we were in this motel in Toowoomba,

and when I woke up the next morning, she was gone.

-And you never saw her again?

- No, I saw her a week later.

She was talking to the bouncer at the Bosolino.

I went up to her and I said,

"Hey, what happened to you, uh?"

And she said, "Go away.

I don't wanna think about any of that."

And I said, "Well, I really want to thank you

for the motorbike."

And Igor, that was the bouncer, threw me down the stairs.

- How'd you know his name was Igor?

- He's a close personal friend of mine.

(groovy dance music)

- Hello Igor. Nice place.

- I prefer Plato.

- Do you?

- Yes.

- I'm a Mozart man myself.

- No kidding. What's the bottom line?

- Kathleen McCredie. I'm a policeman.

- No kidding. Yeah, she's a little nut.

Wild eyes, and a nice bum.

- Drugs?

- No, she's just a little nut.

She's an initiate at the Temple of Expanded Awareness now.

- How long was she with you?

- Four days.

I liked her, but then I thought a nun or a whore,

you know, I mean, I'm a pragmatic realist.

I'm into real estate. I've got no time for mental cripples.

- Yeah, I get the drift.

- I thought you were a poofter.

- Hey?

- It's the suit. Nobody but a poofter wears a suit.

- I personally know thousands.

- Put 'em all under arrest.

The temple's on Shore Drive in the Broad Border.

Great position.

(calming music)

(radio chattering)

- Did you bring a piece of fruit?

- I, uh, no.

- Please make your selection.

- Oh ha ha, yes. Oh, um, hm?

- That will be 50 cents please. All our fruit is 50 cents.

- Should have chosen a pineapple.

- We have no pineapples.

- You mean, yes, we have no pineapples.

- Pardon?

- Don't worry about it, it's an old gag.

- [Practitioner] Om.

(calming music continues)

- My name is Crystal Mountain. Please follow me.

-All the way.

- [Instructor] To know is to share.

- [Initiates] To know is to share.

- Five blind men were shown an elephant in a darkened room.

And the five blind men were asked to describe the elephant.

One, feeling its trunk, said an elephant is like a snake.

One, feeling its tail. - Would you rather

take your shoes off, sir?

- That what? - Said an elephant

is like a brush.

- No thanks. No.

- As you wish. - One feeling its leg

said an elephant is like a tree.

One feeling its tusk said an elephant is like a firm banana.

All were partly right, but all were wholly wrong.

To know is to share.

- [All] To know is to share,

- To see things wholly.

And we are like blind men who do not.

To see things wholly

is to see the whole world the way we see an elephant.

- Would you step this way, sir?

- Huh, no.

- You can bring your shoes.

- But I haven't taken me shoes off.

- Here they are.

- What?

- Those are my shoes, brother.

- Oh, I'm so sorry.

- No, that's cool. That's cool.

Go placidly. Your need is greater.

- But these are perfectly good shoes. Perfectly good shoes.

- To know is to share.

- [All] To know is to share.

- [Instructor] To see things.

- You forgot your banana.

- [Instructor] Not the way a blind man did.

- Oh gosh, so I did. Thank you.

- [Instructor] For now we see in part

and understand in part,

To know is to share.

- [All] To know is to share.

- How.

- Friend.

I have to ask why you won't take your shoes off.

- They're good shoes.

-And I also have to ask you,

are you still affiliated with a branch or office

of any police force or other similar investigative body?

-And I have to warn you that this is Queensland,

not California, and I can tell as many lies as I like.

- What about basic human rights?

- Well, they're in mothballs, you see,

till human life evolves.

- What do you want?

- Cathy McCredie, the senator's daughter came here.

- Spats McCredie?

- Yeah, that's right. What happened to her?

- She was being pursued by a brutal young man

interested in making a real estate killing with her money.

She sought sanctuary in our order.

She may not have been sincere.

- Why weren't you able to relieve her of the burden

of her excessive wealth?

- Hm, don't provoke us, Mr. Stacey.

As part of our physical discipline, we all learn kendo.

- What happened to her?

- Our policy is after a month

to send our communicants back into the world.

What is laughingly called the real world,

to test their concept of ultimate reality

before returning for ordination, she didn't return.

One of our initiates saw her photograph

in a guide to an escort agency.

He tried to make contact, but in vain.

She was rather a disappointment to us.

- What, do you like to keep it in the family, do you? Hm?

(dramatic music)

(yells)

Sorry, I have this vulgar streak.

- Yes, you do.

- Huh?

(dramatic music)

It was places like this

that were giving God and Buddha a bad name.

I tried to see Cathy McCredie,

a respectable upper class labor senator's daughter

in such a setting, found it all too easy.

She and her generation were trying it all,

bean shoots, and ashrams, hard drugs and primal screaming

the road to Katmandu,

and two weeks as a whore in another town.

They were all getting back at the parents

who had given them the world, they wanted revenge.

Revenge was in the air in Surfers Paradise that morning.

My old mate Curly wanted some of it too.

(phone dial clicking)

- Getting desperate, are you?

- Certainly not. She's a nice girl.

- I think we've got some of them performing

at the New Stages Convention, jumping outta cakes,

that sort of thing.

Want an introduction?

- I'm on the wagon, taking up religion.

Here, have a banana split or something. I got the makings.

- Uh, no, I'm on a job.

- Mm-hmm.

- Do you remember your Jolson imitation?

- Yeah. You ain't heard nothing yet.

I was a popular figure at the policeman's ball.

- You were. You really were.

- You're right.

- Mike?

- Mm, yeah.

- How's the, uh, writing game?

- Shoot out. You see, I've got these pressing deadlines.

- Mike, we're old friends.

- Mm-hmm, no evidence of it in inquiry.

- I'd be very disappointed

if there was anything in that book

that might make my son think any less of me.

He's got his bachelor of law now.

A lot of the blokes in the special section

feel the same way.

- Premonition of disappointment, eh?

- Don't bullshit, Mike, what's in it?

- Why don't you buy it?

Get your wife to explain the big words.

- I heard the publisher didn't want it.

- Oh, did you?

Other publishers, you know, New York, Ealing.

-All right, you've been warned.

Enjoy your ice cream, Mike.

- I will.

- Cram in all the pleasure you can.

- Curly? My lawyer's got a list.

If anything happens to me,

or the people most likely to make it happen,

and your name is on that list,

but I might just move it up, you know.

You see, I can point the banana at you, old son.

So be careful, huh?

- You used to be a pretty smart bloke.

Pity you went on the piss and got all those grand ideas.

You're not as smart as you used to be, mate.

- I'm disappointed in you too, Curly.

(patrons chattering)

(sirens wailing)

- What's the trouble, Stacey?

- Looking for an 18-year-old girl.

- Who isn't?

- She's working as a hooker.

- Uh-huh, who isn't?

- She's the daughter of a worried old friend of mine,

Les McCredie.

- What are you up to, Stacey?

- Oh, now, I just, in between jobs,

in between chapters of my life.

- You need a loan? A drink?

Wrong side of a bed to get out of in the morning?

- Not just yet.

Just got a few granny knots to tie up in my life.

- I don't know that I like you or want you Stacey,

and I'm sure I don't approve of you, but I'm here.

- Why don't you approve of me?

- Well, I don't approve of the army or the police,

and I dislike closet socialists.

And you are all three.

- Well, I didn't say I was perfect. Here.

Did she come in here?

- Yeah. While back, not lately.

I think her trade name was Brandy Alexander.

- Brandy Alexander. That's good.

- Yeah. And she did a centerfold for "Playboy," I think.

Or she was going to.

- How do you know?

-An old friend of mine is a contributing editor.

- Oh really? Does he like you in a cottontail?

- He likes me in lots of costumes.

And I think I saw her stripping at the Hareem.

That's all I know, Stace.

- Thanks. Well, I'll, uh, see you in the morning sun.

Or on the right side of the bed someday.

- Maybe.

(dramatic piano music)

♪ Won't you tell him please to put on some speed ♪

♪ Follow my lead, oh how I need ♪

♪ Someone to watch over ♪

- Brandy Alexander.

She was a senator's daughter, wasn't she? Haughty one.

- How do you know?

- (laughs) I got a heavy laid on me, didn't I?

- Did you?

- Yeah, a couple of well-built gentlemen waiting in the dark

when I came home one night.

"Burn the negative, Kandos," the smaller one said,

"And live to draw the old age pension in Salonika."

- Did you?

- Well, most negatives look alike, don't they?

And most burnt negatives of naked girls

look even more alike.

- You know you got a certain native cunning,

which is surprising for a Chinaman.

- Thank you.

- Constantino.

- Michael.

- Who laid the heavy on you?

- Would you believe the whole Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce

speaking in chorus?

- Not this week.

- Then don't ask. You want prints not negatives?

- Yeah, I guess so. Do you enjoy taking these?

- Not that one. Very strange.

- How strange?

- Glassy, detached. Above it all, slumming somehow.

You know, most of these girls don't enjoy it.

Fools, don't know what they're missing out on.

It's way down on their list of priorities,

below cooking, listening to music,

drinking Barossa Pearl, talking with their mothers, amazing.

- Eh. Ah, sweet Rosie O'Grady, you've come a long, long way.

Sure and begorra. But when do I get the prints?

- Tomorrow morning. Any particular angle you prefer?

- Oh no, not really, it's just something that looks nice

on the, uh, ceiling of the church.

- This is 20th century economics I'm practicing.

I'm marketing a product. You're late.

- I believe you.

- Get in there, and take your clothes off.

And one of the products I'm marketing

might be at the New Status Convention tomorrow night, okay?

- Yeah, right.

(bird chirping)

(airplane engine whirring)

(protesters chanting)

- [Protester] Hiya. Ho.

(attendees chattering)

(protesters chanting continues)

- What's this?

- I'm on a diet. My doctor ordered me off Canapés.

- Well, okay, what's your name? I better write it down.

- Stacey, ex-Deputy Commissioner.

- I thought it was you. Don't drink too much, commissioner.

(attendees screaming)

(camera shutters clicking)

- [Man] Okay, you all right?

- Oh, yeah. Oh, what the hell, yeah, I think so.

I sometimes have these interruptions to my concentration

and I lose a few minutes.

- Yeah, well, you looked a bit green about the gills,

and you're moaning.

- Oh oh.

Could be something to do with the demon drink, you know.

- [Man] Well, take care, huh?

- Yeah.

- [Woman] Didn't he go to jail?

- Would you have some champagne?

- [Man] Macy, was it?

- [Woman] No, no, Stacey.

- [Man] Oh, yeah.

- This is part of the multiple power generation unit.

And we should be able to supply with electricity and LPG gas

a population of up to half a million,

and still have enough leftover to sell to New South Wales.

- LPG. So where are you gonna get your crude oil from?

- 50 miles offshore. Out on the reef.

It is one of the largest deposits in the world.

It's a well known rumor.

-Are they even gonna let you drill there?

- [Man] They'll have to, when the new state comes through.

- Saveloy in tomato sauce?

- Thank you.

What's that?

- [Waitress] A map.

- [Michael] Map of what?

- [Waitress] The Gold Coast State, our new country.

- [Michael] What's down there?

- Mount Warning, sir.

- But Mount Warning's over the border.

- Yes sir. Out of bounds.

- Now this is the model of the proposed Valhalla Estate

with the gambling casino, the convention center,

the shopping and cinema complex.

- [Man] isn't that Ronald Biggs over there?

- [Man] I wouldn't be surprised. They all end up here.

- [Presenter] Direct by monorail to the Gold Coast Airport

at this direction at Brisbane, and in this direction.

- [Woman] I think they put something in the tomato sauce.

- [Man] Well, thank god I'm here.

- [Presenter] Now over here we have the layout.

- Good to see you're a convert to the cause, Mike,

welcome aboard.

- Just came here for the food.

- Mm. (chuckles) Booze, more likely.

- I beg your pardon.

- Hey, don't make a fool of yourself.

Start singing "Advance Australia Fair" or anything. Mm?

-And this is the RDU, the Rhubarb Development Unit.

- [Attendee] Oh, will this be, uh, nationalized?

- [Presenter] Well, uh.

- Excuse me. ls your name Brandy Alexander?

- No. She'll be in later on the stage show.

- Oh, well. Can I see you backstage?

I'm part, I'm part of the family.

- No, it's any minute now.

- No, it's just that.

(dramatic music)

♪ This is the land of the Gold Coast state ♪

♪ The bravest of them all ♪

♪ it prospers in the sunlight, its people standing tall ♪

♪ We cannot wait, it's coming on ♪

♪ Now we have heard the call ♪

♪ The land of great is coming on ♪

♪ Now we have heard the call ♪

(audience applauding)

- Ladies and gentlemen.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?

For the show, thank you.

Yeah, I'm very pleased to see

such a very good roll up here tonight.

I'm sorry about the security precautions,

but I'm sure you understand.

And now, ladies and gentlemen,

I have great pride and pleasure

in introducing our local state member,

and the most acute and independent mind in any parliament

anywhere in the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Ted Godfrey BC.

- [Attendee] Yeah.

(audience applauding)

- Hello Gold Coasters.

Here in this most prosperous region of Australia,

we pay more taxes for less in return

than anywhere else in the so-called Commonwealth

to subsidize the ditch diggers of Woop Woop,

the dog bludgers of Blacktown,

the sheep farms of the Western districts,

and the tea-sipping, time-wasting,

blood-sucking bureaucrats everywhere.

(audience applauding)

We are expecting.

- [Attendee] Take out the trap noise.

- In return for the extra money

we give to the south and the west and the north

and the United Nations and the starving millions

to make do with less.

To be thankful to them for what we have built up ourselves

out of swamp and sand and rainforests

with the sweat of our brow,

and the work and savings and experience of a lifetime.

Independence, therefore,

independence for the Gold Coast state from Queensland,

and if need be, from Australia,

would be only an act of simple common sense

to reduce our taxes, increase our incomes,

enrich our lives with art and industry and commerce,

and glorify our region.

This blessed spot, this golden coast, this paradise.

(audience applauding)

- One time to step in.

(energetic music)

♪ Take my hand ♪

♪ Unashamed of paradise ♪ ♪ Unashamed of paradise ♪

♪ Our lush and beautiful land ♪ ♪ Our lush and beautiful land ♪

♪ On a strange and ♪ ♪ Fast, fast, fast ♪

♪ And I say it's so nice ♪

♪ That to dream of paradise ♪ ♪ That to dream of paradise ♪

♪ Oh, lord, won't you be so nice ♪

♪ I dream with you ♪

(explosion booms)

(crowd screaming)

- [Announcer] Everybody, please remain calm.

Get the security over here.

(crowd screaming continues)

(gun banging)

(dancer screaming)

(guns banging)

(crowd continues screaming)

- I should have done in the dickhead.

(dramatic music)

- [Emcee] Everyone, please, stay calm, stay where they are.

Raise the security walls.

(crowd exclaiming)

(dramatic music continues)

- [Brandy] Where are we going?

- Wherever you like. I think we should talk.

- Your place.

- No, I can't take you there.

- Why? 'Cause of your wife?

- My landlady. We've got this understanding.

- Must be nice to have someone.

- Yeah, it would be. Cathy.

- Don't call me Cathy. Cathy's not a nice girl.

Cathy had some fun. My name's Brandy.

- Yeah, I know.

- You know a lot.

- Not enough.

- Charlie's, let's have a milkshake. Stop here.

(patrons chattering)

- Cathy, wait! Oh, Christ.

Cathy?

(gentle music)

- That's Marilyn Monroe.

She was really in love with Bobby Kennedy.

And then one night he didn't call so she killed herself.

She needed to be loved so much.

There's lots of ways of killing yourself.

- What flavored milk shake is right?

- I like to make love. Take me somewhere old fashioned.

Romantic, and we'll make love.

I'm an old-fashioned girl, you know?

- Have you, have you got everything you need?

- It's all right. I'm sterile.

- Come on, yeah.

- Will you be having breakfast?

- Yes, please.

- Mm. I love breakfast.

- Well, you'll have to come down and get it

it's too late for room service, all right?

- Thank you.

- Don't I know you from somewhere?

- Yeah, and I know you from an old song.

Go "I'll take you home again, Kathleen." Come on.

- My name isn't Cathy or Brandy. (giggles)

- Whatever you prefer.

Now you just keep drinking water.

- Why?

- Just do as I say. Come on.

- [Kathleen] (giggles) Guess what my real name is?

- [Michael] No.

- Do you like dolphins?

- Yes.

- I like dolphins.

They're not fish, you know, they're mammals like us.

- Yeah.

- They breathe the same way.

This guy I once knew told me that. He works with dolphins.

One day we were out fishing and we caught a baby dolphin.

And he said "When they get scared, they just stop breathing

until you put them back in the water."

And I didn't believe him.

So he left him there in the bottom of the boat,

and he did stop breathing.

I thought he'd start again.

I waited, but he just lay there completely still.

And at last I screamed, "Put him back, put him back."

It was too late. He was dead.

I'm scared. Love me to sleep.

I'm not wearing any underwear.

I never do, like Marilyn Monroe.

- I think we both should sleep. Tomorrow I'll take you home.

- I can't sleep.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning

and don't have the strength to face the day anymore.

- [Michael] I know what you mean.

- My name's not Brandy. It's Sherry.

- Is it?

- Tell me a story.

- The sun was shining on the sea,

shining with all its might.

He did his very best to make the billows clean and bright.

That was very strange because you see,

it was the middle of the night.

The walrus and the carpenter that came down to led a hand.

Been on the piss since June the 23rd.

I wept like bloody drains.

To see such quantities of sand.

(gentle music)

Goodnight, little Alice. Goodnight.

Cold shower, that's it. Like a good Christian boy.

That's right, your Honor. I never touched her all night.

You must be demented, my boy. 20 years.

(thunder booms)

(knuckles banging)

- [Clerk] Are you all right?

(Mike grunts) (knuckles banging continues)

Are you all right in there?

- Yeah. Why?

- [Clerk] I heard screaming.

(grunting)

(suspenseful music)

- Oh, Jesus.

(screams)

Don't call the police, Les McCredie's daughter.

- Who?

-Approximate time of death between 1:15 and 2:15 am.

Overdose.

- [Michael] Self-administered?

- I presume so.

- The landlady said she heard screaming. That was 3:15.

- [Doctor] it was a man screaming.

- Was it?

- Do you remember anything about that?

- No, l-l-lately I've been getting these blackouts.

- I'd do something about that if I were you.

Here's my card.

- Thank you. I didn't think she had anything with her.

- Go home, Mr. Stacey. No one'll know you've been here.

- Well, why? Why not?

- Well, do you want them to?

- Well, no, but I, I gotta see Les, Les McCredie.

- Now that's all taken care of. Go home.

(solemn music)

(solemn music continues)

(grunting)

(fists smacking)

(grunting)

(suspenseful music)

(boot thuds)

(grunts)

(fists thudding)

(Mike grunting)

(solemn music)

(solemn music continues)

(solemn music continues)

(waves crashing)

(solemn music continues)

(light switch clicks)

(door clicks)

- [Les] Now I've just done a lot of talking, Mike,

to get you out of a lot of trouble.

And I'm buggered if I know why I did it.

What the bejesus got into you?

- Les, look. I, I.

- You're off the case. Keep the money.

I'll find Cathy some other way.

- Cathy's dead.

- It wasn't her. I saw the body.

Jesus, pull yourself together, Mike. I mean, look at you.

- I don't want the money.

- [Keith] I think you need it now.

(dramatic music)

(knuckles banging)

- Mr. Stacey, Mr. Stacey!

Mr. Stacey, I want you to explain to me

the condition of this room.

I want to know what's going on.

- How nice to see you, Mrs. Gordon.

Here's 25 weeks rent in advance.

And I regret to announce that this means our affair is off.

(table clatters)

(grunts)

(gentle music)

Mrs. Gordon was right, the room was untidy,

unsuitable lodgings for an OBE.

There was a lot of dirty water on my chest

that I had to get off before I felt myself again.

I passed by two whole pubs and didn't go in.

I began to feel virtuous. It was a new experience.

I was determined to find Cathy McCredie

for my own satisfaction whatever Les had said.

What did he mean anyhow, I was off the case.

I went up the long stairs to get Con Kandos' Photos.

The photos of the real Cathy McCredie,

the one who was still alive, or was she?

I didn't exactly feel like a million dollars.

I hoped I wouldn't disgrace myself

by drinking his developing fluid.

- Did you get the number of the truck?

- What truck?

- The one that hit you.

- That is a very old joke.

- I'm an immigrant. I'm still catching up.

- [Woman] What is it? Is it the police?

- It is my pusher, a good man. Go back to bed.

- Oh, that's all right then. Bed, a great idea, bed.

- Never looked that good on me.

- This is true. It's very true.

Eh, Kandopolis, I, I owe you $120.

- This is true. Plus the $5.50 for the coitus interruptus.

Make an even 10.

- By crikey, she's lovely this one.

Used to know her as a little girl, you know,

in Shirley Temple ringlets.

- [Kandos] She's a natural blonde.

- Mm, hang on. What's this?

- (laughs) Double brandy. She came back.

- Double brandy?

- Yeah, that's right. She came back with the other one.

We did some sister shots.

- What do you mean double brandy?

- Well, that's what they called it. Couldn't tell 'em apart.

They worked the same shift on different nights

under the same name.

- Brandy Alexander.

-And some nights they were double Brandy. $500 a night.

(romantic music)

-Are you sure you are an inspector of police, Inspector?

- Sure as I had acne when I was 12. Where is she?

- Yeah, well, she did work here once.

- Yeah, I know, Brandy Alexander.

- Oh well, we specialize in combinations.

Gin and tonic, scotch and dry, double brandy.

- Well, your double brandy's on the rocks.

The other girl's dead.

- What do you mean she's dead?

- Overdose. Where's Kathleen McCredie?

- She's dead.

- What?

- Sherry's gone. Oh my god, what's the point?

I mean, what's the point of it all?

Oh, she went away with a client. Big wheel.

- Sherry?

- No, Cathy, Cathy McCredie.

- Who was he?

- Oh, some government minister, I think.

Bill Todd, minister for something or other.

- He's in Colorado.

- No, he came back. He, uh, went all religious.

He's up in the mountains with some kids.

Yeah, some place, new place, um, New Eden, yeah.

Near Canungra.

- Bill Todd?

- [Owner] Yeah, Sherry wasn't her real name now.

- Yeah, I know.

- You oughta get some steak for that eye.

- Uh, yeah.

I drove on up one handed and nauseous

towards Mount Tambourine,

gliding smoothly along in my bright pink Mixmaster.

Past hectare on hectare of green and happy retirement

of dentist and abortionists,

coke bushes, and property developers

into what the guidebooks tell us

is the largest rhubarb breeding region in the country.

A country politically famous for its rhubarb.

A country I used to be proud of.

Nothing much had happened up here in the Lamington Plateau

since a passenger plane went down in 1937,

and a survivor walking back for help

fell over a scenic waterfall and broke his neck.

And the army, judging the scenery good enough to blow up,

moved in and built Canungra.

(soldiers shouting)

Bill Todd and I were there in 1948

boning up for the third World War that never came.

Before wars changed into something less, into hijackings

and kidnappings and letter bombs.

There were no good guys anymore.

We were the good guys in Malaya, Bill Todd and I,

a war we won by keeping the newsreel cameramen

out of the burning villages at gunpoint

and exterminating everyone very quietly

like British gentlemen.

(birds calling)

Yep, lad, excuse me, where can I find Todd?

- He's over there.

- Can I go over?

- Sure. Go placidly.

- Well, I'll try.

(haunting music)

- You have the most beautiful structure in the universe.

Unique. Absolutely unique.

And no other structure, no manmade structure,

church, army, parliamentary, democracy,

multinational consortium, drug ring, league of nations

can ever change or order what is in you.

I'm not that good at words.

- No, no. - Go on.

- Machine guns I'm good at. Atomic reactors.

Germ warfare and all that satanic machinery of repression

I've put behind me.

But until you can cast off

everything that seeks to mold and abort all that is in you,

can you ever hope to find

that reasonable set of breakable rules to live by?

So cast it off. Everything.

Remember, no one is like you.

It's uh, I don't know, to thine own self be true.

"And it must follow as the night the day,

thou canst not then be false to any man."

I know, Shakespeare, but that's half of what I mean.

(group exclaiming)

- That's really good. We've never heard that before.

- Or as Blake put it in another way

- Was a young man from Belgrave

who kept a dead whore in his cave.

He said, I'll admit I'm a bit of a shit,

but think of the money I'll save.

- Michael Francis Xavier Stacey, OBE.

- [Michael] Indeed. God bless the British army.

- Indeed.

- Up the mighty south court.

- Up them all the way. It's so good to see you.

This is Michael Stacey, an old friend.

- Hi. - Hi.

- Old friends are the necessary heretics,

we keep a good man humble.

- We were in the army together. The fighting fifth.

- That's right. We used call him the old hot Toddy.

Hot, strong, reliable. Put you to sleep in 30 seconds fiat.

- Sorry. (group giggling)

I went with Toddy round his little green kingdom

paid for, he told me, by the wages of wickedness in Colorado

and a certain proportion of his family estate,

it looked like it had been glued together

out of old comic strips of "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie,"

or "Blinky Bill, the lovable koala."

Toddy was a bit like Blinky Bill,

quickly able at any time to form a sincere and lasting

and cuddlesome relationship with the highest bidder.

- Breathe, brothers.

- [Michael] But what was his relationship

with Cathy McCredie, apart from the obvious one?

What was he really up to?

It wasn't religion, I knew that. Or did I?

(gentle flute music)

- We're trying to live as far as possible

with natural food stuffs and what we know about vitamins.

- What a good idea.

- To live as far as possible without drugs and preservatives

and without insecticides and without electric light.

- What do you got against electric light?

- We think the night should come down,

the way it does in Asia.

- [Michael] Eh?

- The deep night.

This is an experiment with rhubarb.

We're trying to find a substitute for oil.

Hopefully there'll be a, an inflammable derivative.

Till then, uh,

we're trying to live as far as possible without oil.

- [Michael] Well, what do you got against oil?

- It's caused the world far too much trouble

than it's worth.

Too many wars, too much pollution,

the air as well as the water.

- Simple as that, huh?

- No, it's not, Stace.

We're in search of a reasonable future for the world.

The world that survives.

- Survives what?

- The Holocaust.

- He scared me.

This was the boy I knew all right, but it wasn't the man.

All his maturity had gone missing.

What had they done to him back there in Colorado?

Did you ever hear from Quiney?

- Nah, we wrote letters for a few years,

but he kept on talking about how it was our duty

to change the face of Southeast Asia.

It's hard to answer letters like that.

- I play chess with him by postcard.

Beat him once. Must have had malaria.

- Life's too short for chess or politics

or the army or any of that.

Bloody hell, Stace, we're getting on.

It's time we sorted out what's important.

- Still playing Brutus, aren't you?

Like you did in Southport High.

Been playing it all your life.

- What are you here for, Stacey? Of what are you in quest?

- Les McCredie's daughter, Cathy,

also known as Brandy Alexander.

- Oh, is that all? That's easy.

I'll take you to her. Up this way.

- What'd you think I was here for?

- Money, probably, knowing you of old.

I've heard you're down on your luck. You are, aren't you?

Cathy! This is Mike Stacey, an old friend.

- Hello. Have an apple.

- Woman tempted me.

- That sounds entirely possible.

(gentle music)

(fire crackling)

(frogs croaking)

- [Bill] The night you see, the deep Asian night,

it should fall.

- [Michael] Well, it does.

- Remember what Quiney used to say

when we were in Army Intelligence in Malaya?

On those long Asian nights?

- Yes, that we were the repository

of the most dangerous knowledge.

Technical, biochemical, political of the world.

A tree of knowledge of good and evil. Take, eat and conquer.

It all seems so long ago.

- It is. In Colorado I saw more of that.

The fluid that rubbed on the palm of the hand

would six months later cause internal bleeding,

prolonged agony, and death.

Injections that give you cancer.

It is the tree of knowledge. We know too much.

That's why I started this place

in search of the necessary minimums,

earth, air, fire, and water.

I saw the sunrise in the Grand Canyon

and I thought this level of simplicity must prevail.

We need a new tree of knowledge. A new Eden.

(bells chime)

Excuse me.

(gentle jazz music)

(fire crackling)

- What do you think of all this?

- I agree with Bill.

-About what in particular?

- That we were born with one family,

but our true family might be elsewhere.

- Was it a long search?

- [Cathy] Yes.

- You gonna stay?

-As long as I want.

-Ah.

- You used to visit my father when I was a little girl.

- Yeah.

- I remember you. I was happy then.

- Well, some people can't choose their families anymore.

Like your father.

- [Cathy] He chose.

- Will you come back with me? See him?

He loves you and he's sorry.

- Will you be paid money if I do?

- Oh, no, no, favor to a friend.

(cannon booming)

What's that, Canungra?

- Yeah, mortar fire by the sound of it.

- I don't want to. What do you think?

- Go, go for a day or two. It'll do you good.

-All right.

- Do give him my love.

- Yeah, I will.

Are you still with the police?

- No. I got out.

- Why did you join them?

- Needed the money.

- You brought me a golliwog when I was eight.

- Did I?

- I lost it in Israel. Tel Aviv.

It was confiscated. They thought it might be a bomb.

They cut it open, took out all the stuffing. Poor golly.

That was the last time I ever cried.

(car engine humming)

- Well.

- I feel sorry for you.

- Why?

- You, you put on the uniform.

You did what you were told

for all the one life you had on Earth.

- Many types of uniforms. No uniform is a divine.

- You just don't understand, do you?

- No, I'm bog Irish ignorant I guess.

- Have you ever felt that your childhood

happened to somebody else?

- Well, I, uh, worked at two jobs at the age of 14

to keep my two brothers and my four sisters and my mum.

If there was a childhood back there somewhere,

it certainly didn't happen to me.

- Is there anything you want to ask me? Anything at all?

- No.

- Goodnight, Uncle Mike. Thank you for the golliwog.

(frogs croaking)

- Good night children everywhere.

(car engine revving)

I drove off into the dark

through the smell of frangipanes in old swamp water

and felt righteous and in need of a drink.

I'd discharged my godfatherly duty

and wondered what there was left to do in life.

Maybe Cathy was right.

Maybe some of us do miss out on the Garden of Eden,

and in despair or grief wear school uniforms

and other uniforms into our graves.

Some of us are born in paradise, and think it's overrated.

Thought you'd gone off the army.

- Times change.

- See ya.

I thought about the good night I had narrowly missed

and about the police, the army, and Cathy's life and mine,

and wondered if any time was left in my life

to find a family of my own.

I thought of going to early mass,

and then asked who was I kidding?

And drove my alcoholic withdrawal symptoms home

and found that I was expected.

Somare. Hey you old mutt.

Where the hell did you come from, huh?

(dog barking)

(gentle music)

It turned out that Chuck had not only rejected my book

but also sent back my big useless dog.

But it was good again to walk down a beach

alongside my best and only friend

and contemplate my declining years on a policeman's pension.

Come on, hey, Somare, come here you mutt.

There were hard years coming, I knew.

I was 54 1/2 with a liver twice that age

with most of the bad news yet to come.

You all right son?

Somare, get on the grass.

Get outta here. Here.

Here you are.

(waves crashing)

- [Boy] I'll get into awful trouble, mister.

- So will I, son.

- [Boy] Gee, thanks.

- So will I.

♪ Swift to its close ♪

♪ Ebbs out life's little day ♪

♪ Earth’s joys grow dim ♪

♪ Its glories pass away ♪

♪ Change and decay in ♪

- [Michael] it is difficult as the man said,

to be entirely popular until one is quite dead.

Now Les was dead, the entire Labor party

and all his enemies in the army of bureaucracy

wanted to be his closest friend again.

Death brings out the best and sweetest in those who survive.

Sometimes for minutes on end.

- Greetings, Michael. Ill met.

- Good speech Ted.

- Least I could do. He was a good man.

Could have been a great man.

- [Reporter] Excuse me. Could I ask you a question, sir?

- Never had his chance. Piss off.

This is a bloody funeral man. Not a blasted picnic.

- Did the Senator have any history of heart trouble, doctor?

- [Doctor] No, but it happens.

- Was there any additional pressure in the last few months?

- Look, this is not the time nor the place.

- The interesting thing of course

is that you might be appointed, Sir Ted.

- I might be. You'll have to ask the premier, won't you?

- I heard it could be his wife.

- Oh ho, really? Well, good luck to her.

About time she started earning her money in the daytime.

- Mrs. McCredie, could you comment on the possibility

that you might be appointed to fill the Senate vacancy.

- Push off. Show a little respect, eh?

Mrs. McCredie's in no condition to talk,

- There'll be a press conference on Friday.

I'll answer all your questions then.

- [Officer] Stand aside, mate, let the lady through.

- Hi there, Stace.

- Curly, I think I should tell you. You got bad breath.

(crowd chattering)

You all right?

- Yes. I couldn't go in.

I've been out here remembering.

- I think you should of come in.

- What's the point? Death doesn't matter.

It's just changing our form.

Our body's just what we're living.

- Did anything happen when you went in to see him?

- No.

- I felt I should of come in with you.

- Yes, we had a talk. He was a human being.

He was frightened for me. He loved me.

He really did. They killed him.

- What?

- They killed him.

- Look, I think we should have a talk, eh?

My car's down here.

- Your mail, Mr. Stacey.

- Thank you.

- Who's this one?

- I turned to her in desperation when you rejected me.

- Oh, pull the other one, it's got bells on.

- Mm.

- Who do you play chess with?

-An old army friend. Tell me.

- Can I trust you?

- I bought you a golliwog, didn't I?

- [Cathy] I've grown up a lot since then.

- Yeah.

- [Cathy] At first I was just doing things

to make him angry.

I got expelled from school for having two boys in my room.

And all that.

- Two, that shows enterprise.

- I'd spend all night at discos in the Sandhills

and he called the police.

- [Michael] Yeah, I heard.

- I tried some drugs. I didn't like drugs.

- Tell me what happened.

- I met this nice guy at a party over the border.

I liked him. I liked him in bed.

And I stole one of dad's paintings

and we lived on the money in his flat.

He's dead now.

- Yes, yes. I know, I was there.

An old friend of mine shot him.

An old friend I used to do duets with at Policeman's Balls.

- While we were making love, he'd tell me things

to make it more exciting.

Things I didn't believe.

- [Michael] What sort of things?

-An army coup.

- What?

-An army coup. A takeover with army troops and tanks.

He said he was a secret agent.

And then I went to other people and worked on them.

Igor was the first and then there are others,

including a couple of generals, and it was true.

Daddy was gonna be part of it.

- Then why did they kill him?

- Because he got scared.

Well, that's why he hired you to find me

so that when he told them he was pulling out,

they wouldn't have me to threaten him with.

He was gonna fly me out of the country.

- Well, why didn't he?

- [Cathy] He died the same night.

- Oh, I like it. I like it.

It'd make a good high school composition.

If you ever got back to high school.

- [Cathy] Who are you looking at?

- No one. How did they kill your father?

- [Cathy] Something they rubbed on his arm or whatever.

It can be done.

- Why would they want to take over the Gold Coast?

Pay less taxes?

- Well, that too, but mainly because of the oil.

It's the biggest deposit this side of the Persian Gulf.

Oil's very important now,

it's worth killing a few rich old Australians for.

- Maybe I'd believe you if I had a drink. I need a drink.

- [Cathy] Let's make love.

- No.

- Why not?

- I am your godfather, lapsed godfather.

Tell me, why did your dad want to pull out?

- He didn't want the beaches getting dirty.

They're lovely beaches.

- Yeah.

- Who are they?

- Oh, an old mate of mine, Curly,

and his smart young assistant, Bluey.

Wonder if they've got the room bugged.

- [Cathy] Are they gonna kill us?

- Maybe they're gonna kill me.

Wonder why they haven't done so already.

Come on, I'll give you a leg over the back fence.

There's a lane way open at the back.

Meet me in half an hour at the Stelato Palace.

If I don't turn up, don't call the police.

You might get Curly.

- Okay, I hope I see you.

- The brush off, is it?

- No.

- Why did you join "Buttons and Bows"?

- I needed the money. I spent it all on a motorbike.

- Take care.

- Mr. Stacey.

Somare's just made a mess all over my washing.

- Well, he's a young dog, Mrs. Gordon. He's still learning.

Come on, come on Somare. Come on.

(dog barking)

- Listen are you on, old boy?

- Listen me old china.

- Don't call me your old china.

-All right, me old Taiwan. Me old Hong Kong.

I've been on the phone to a hit man, Ben O'Reilly.

Remember Ben?

I asked how much it'd cost to have you rubbed out.

Do you know, it's only $800. Figure that.

I mean your friends could pass the hat around,

couldn't they?

Anyway, I phoned my publisher.

(air hissing)

- What are you doing? (dog snarls)

- [Michael] Incidentally has a photostat of what you burned.

All except the last three pages.

- Put that back.

(dog barking)

- If I suffer a fatal accident, then so do you.

He is got 800 to spare, you see.

You are a fatter target than you used to be.

- You're bluffing.

- Only one way to find out, old mate.

- You don't know who you're up against, Stace.

- They gotta be pretty dumb to hire you Curly.

Anyway, see you in church. Your funeral or mine.

- What do we do now?

- Get out the spare tire.

- [Michael] Something about the smell of Curly

brings out the beast in me and Somare.

And I wondered which of us would kill the other

if certain American interests didn't get us first.

I drove past a green and clear Pacific,

not yet choked and corrupted with oil,

and thought about things in general,

like the Arabs and the Americans

and the profit motive of the CIA-backed revolutions,

and how close they were getting to my hometown.

I thought about Les McCredie and his daughter too,

and wondered how I would keep her alive.

It wasn't gonna be easy.

There were a billion reasons I guessed,

all of them petrol dollars

why neither of us would outlive our next gelato.

(tank engine whining)

(birds chirping)

You slept with all those men

merely to, uh, further your investigation?

- It's a way of making people talk. It can be done.

It's a bit yucky, but it can be done.

- [Michael] She was all any old fool could ask for,

a beautiful teenage masochist with an Electra complex

and all the hope in the world.

She knew her life was a great predestined adventure.

And if it ended like Bonnie and Clyde, so be it.

It was girls like this old fools like Agamemnon died for.

- Mr. Stacey?

- Yeah.

- There's an old fenton who wants to see you.

- Oh yeah? Wait here.

- Over here.

(birds chirping)

- [Quiney] I'll let you in on something.

Your remaining knight's in big trouble.

- Quiney.

- How are you, Digger?

- What are you doing here?

- Oh, we're doing a combined

Malaysian Australian army exercise at Canungra.

Just showing my lads the local wonders.

- How'd you know I was here?

- Well, I saw you drive up.

She's a bit young, isn't she?

- [Michael] She's old enough.

- What's Jean think about all this.

- Not with Jean anymore.

-Ah, that's a pity. You didn't say so in your post cards.

- No, we only played chess, didn't we?

- Have a beer?

- Thanks.

- Want to tell me about it?

- Well, we tried to have kids all those years,

then we gave up.

Then she got pregnant by another man.

- That's bad luck.

- It shouldn't have made any difference, but it did,

and she miscarried, and that made a lot of difference.

And I got on the pissed zone. Quiney.

- [Quiney] Yes, old lad.

- If I was to tell you that this army exercise

might be more than an army exercise and I knew where it was.

- I'd, uh, listen with great attention

to what you thought it was.

-And if I was to tell you that the Prime Minister

might be prevailed upon by certain people in the know

to, uh, call it off.

- I'd listen with great attention to the names of the people

who might prevail on the Prime Minister.

- I don't play chess with me, Richard.

- I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman,

which you know I am.

That if what you say were happening and I were in it,

I'd invite you to join it.

-And I'd say no.

- Would you?

- Yep.

- Well, I don't know anything about it, Stace, truly.

You could have been misinformed

or looking on the wine when it was methylating.

- Could you inquire?

- Bloody oath,

if I'm gonna be put up against the wall this weekend

I wanna know the reasons.

I'll tell you what,

why don't we rendezvous at 0600 hours tomorrow.

At the chess board on the beach we'll have a game,

and a bit of a chat.

- Okay.

-Ah, this is Lieutenant Colonel Kim Long Sem, my assistant.

This is Mike Stacey, my best pupil.

- Hey, old china.

- How do you do? This is a lovely country.

- Yeah, it is.

- Very like the east coast of Africa.

- Hmm. More so by the minute.

(birds calling)

It was clear to me then as I took the back road round,

that I was gonna be asked

to be part of this political takeover nonsense.

And Quiney was part of it and I knew he was.

Or maybe Quiney was up to something else.

Then I remembered how Bill Todd, Quiney, and I

used to sit on this cane veranda in Long Puak

between patrols and drink chota pegs

and ask endlessly as the night fell and the stars came out.

What if?

What the?

- [Kathleen] Oh, no.

(brakes squeal)

(tank engine roaring)

- What the?

- Is that deliberate?

- I don't know. I think you should leave the Gold Coast.

- Should I?

- Yeah. Fly south, yeah.

Eh, on the noon flight tomorrow to Sydney.

You can stay with my sister.

- Sounds thrilling. Do you want me gone?

- No.

- You come too?

- No.

- Why?

- Just do what you're told.

♪ I'm a stranger here myself, don't ask me way ♪

♪ I'm just another face in someone else's play ♪

- It's all true, is it?

♪ There's no telling wrong ♪

- I don't know, I think so.

- Sounds crazy.

♪ Stand up on the stage ♪

- Yeah, well it's not the country it used to be.

♪ Night after night ♪

- It never was.

You saw it from your khaki tower. I lived there.

- Yeah.

♪ Now I'm a stranger ♪

- Where are you staying tonight?

- I don't know. Maybe the morgue.

- How about my place?

- May I?

- Mm.

- Do you know I'm making up a list

in my mind of all the people I really care about.

You're on it, and Somare of course.

Very short list.

(gentle music)

- [Doctor] The blood flow to your brain

is being interrupted, and you're blacking out,

and it'll get worse.

- So I should stop drinking, eh?

- [Doctor] if you want to live.

- I see.

- Of course if you don't, that's another matter.

Then I'd, uh, recommend Dom Perignon and a room with a view.

About three dozen bottles should see you out.

- You interested in the way people die, are you?

- It's of great professional interest to me.

- How did the girl in a hotel room die?

The one you thought was Cathy McCredie?

- Overdose.

- Who gave it to her?

- Oh, could have been anyone. Could have been you.

- Supposing I wanted to give somebody else an overdose,

eh, heart attack, stroke, I had a lot of money.

- I'd ask my local police commissioner if I were you.

- How much would I have to pay?

-A lot of people die in Surfers Paradise.

They come here to die.

- This is true.

- I mean, most of them are over 60 already.

- Yes, indeed.

- This town's what Australians have instead of an afterlife.

- Or a life.

- They come like Christmas beetles crawling down in the wall

to die within the smell of the sea.

- Good town for a doctor, is it?

- Well, that's the rumor.

- How much did they pay you to rub out Les McCredie?

- I beg your pardon?

-And the girl, the one you thought was his daughter.

- I think the alcohol has affected your brain

more than I could.

(glass tinkles)

(tray clattering)

(bullet whining)

(dramatic music)

(cheerful music)

(patrons chattering and exclaiming)

(suspenseful music)

- [Kate] Are you all right?

- I think so. Where's Cathy?

- She's in the shower. Want a whiskey?

- Yeah. Ah, I mean, no, d-doctor's orders.

- What happened, Stacey?

- Trouble is the doctor's dead,

sort of brings his diagnosis into disrepute.

- Stacey, what's happening?

- I used some of your shampoo. Is that all right?

- Yeah, sure. I'll get some more in the morning.

Now I've got your ticket.

The coach leaves at a quarter to 11.

- Great. Thanks.

- That's okay.

- Well, I'm off to bed now. Coming to tuck me in?

- Why not?

- She's nice.

- Yeah, she's a good friend.

- Did someone try to kill you?

- Yes.

- It's really happening, isn't it?

- Yes.

- Do you feel out of your depth?

- Too right. Do you?

- No. I'll miss you.

- I'll miss you too.

-Are you going to sleep with her?

-Absolutely.

- Well, don't make too much noise.

- Why not?

- I'll get jealous.

- What, jealous of me?

- Jealous of anybody.

- Sweet dreams.

- You too.

I like you, Uncle Mike.

- Do you like Somare more than me or me more than Somare?

- We're varied.

- I'm very fond of you, Stacey.

-And me of you.

- I heard a phrase, sexual friends. It's good, isn't it?

It says a lot.

- Mm. Only too good for my taste.

Whatever happened to lovers?

- They saw the light and became sexual friends.

- Did we do that?

- Oh, I think so.

- You know I would've married you in 1952, way back then.

- I know. And I wouldn't have married you.

- You saw the light.

Too much light on too many subjects, you learn too much,

like the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Eat once and whammo, goodbye paradise.

And you wake up with a headache in the parking lot outside.

- Stacey.

- Mm-hmm.

- Don't die.

- I'll try not to.

- I don't altogether believe that.

- I've been too close too often

not to be a total coward by now.

- Take care, please.

- I will.

- Hold me.

(gentle music)

- Where are you going?

- Early game of chess.

- Oh, I was dreaming about a young boy in an army uniform,

and standing in the dark outside a dance hall,

with the sea pounding and the sand blowing

and waiting for him to kiss me.

It was very real.

And I woke up to see you beside me, snoring.

- You know how time flies.

Kate, my love.

- Yes.

- Listen, if I don't get back, or get back by nine,

take Cathy in my car by the back road to the airport.

Make sure she gets her plane, okay.

- Kiss me, Stacey, this time round.

(waves crashing)

(birds calling)

- [Quiney] Hello, Stace. Your move.

- [Michael] I never could get used to army hours.

- [Quiney] Ah, best hours there are. Mind's crystal clear.

Everything can be foreseen.

- [Michael] All I can do is take your bishop

and lose my knight.

- (chuckles) You never could see the obvious, could you?

- Huh?

- Check.

- [Michael] Well, what's obvious to the keen mind

is often unthinkable to the dull and honest one.

- [Quiney] Nothing is unthinkable ever.

- What did you find out about the exercise?

- Everything you said is true.

-And you knew about it all along.

- Yeah, I planned it all.

- Yeah, when does it start?

- [Quiney] Tomorrow at 0600 hours, 23 hours from now.

- Where does it end?

- In a better order of things.

- What, a guillotine in Cavill Avenue?

And you as minister for public safety?

- Something like that.

- [Michael] And who is Prime minister, Ted Godfrey?

- No, someone more pragmatic.

- [Bill] Hi Stace.

- Oh, Christ.

- We want you with us, Stace.

- Tell me the obvious Quiney, what have I been missing out?

The oil offshore, the American money?

- [Quiney] The oil offshore, the uranium inland,

and all the mineral wealth clear through to South Africa.

A few more years, we'll be marching west.

- You're mad, stark raving mad.

- [Bill] Come with us.

- Why?

- It's one of those things we talked about on that veranda.

- That was just talk on a veranda by young men

maddened by chota pegs and youth in another world.

- Was it?

- Do I have a choice?

- Every man always has a choice. At least one choice.

- Look, I'm up early.

I seem to have mishandled a very important chess game.

I got a bad liver.

I'm a shandy off the horrors on my good days.

My old friends are dying off like flies.

My wife is on with my lawyer. I'm a tired man.

- [Quiney] Yes, you are.

- Join us.

- Now we want you for us, old lad.

- Well, why don't you two grow up for God's sake?

Things don't happen like this.

It takes 100 years to introduce Sunday drinking.

- We'll be up in New Eden if you should change your mind.

- Why did you bullshit me Toddy?

All that ecological, transcendental rhubarb

and that William fucking Shakespeare stuff, to an old mate?

- It wasn't bullshit. I believed most of those things,

-And those who don't believe it, you put up against a wall.

You two are crazy, you know that? Crazy.

What if, oh Jesus.

- [Quiney] Go home, Stace, eat your corn flakes

and sleep through the revolution.

- Will you give me your word that Cathy won't be harmed

and/or me?

- [Bill] We can't promise.

- [Quiney] I think we can.

Memory of the old days, if for no other reason.

- [Michael] Okay, thanks.

I'll send you a postcard

from the People's Republic of North Victoria.

- [Quiney] (chuckles) Come and visit us anytime.

Write a learned article for "The National Times."

- [Bill] "Forever and forever, farewell Cassius.

If we should meet again, why, we shall smile.

If not, well then this parting was well made."

- [Michael] Yeah. Ta-ta.

(dramatic music)

(jeep engine roaring)

(dramatic music continues)

(explosion booms)

(sirens wailing)

- [Man] What the shit?

(dramatic music continues)

(crowd chattering)

- [EMS] She's dead. Cancel order.

- [Michael] Where's the other one?

- What other one?

(dramatic music continues)

(dog barking)

(dog whining)

(suspenseful music)

(siren wailing)

- [Michael] Come on, come on, c-come on.

(siren wailing)

(steam chuffing)

(siren wailing)

(dramatic music)

- Took a long time

to get the blood outta your shirt, Mr. Stacey.

- Thank you Mrs. Gordon.

- But I suppose these accidents will happen.

Where are you going?

- [Michael] To an old boy's reunion.

- Jesus Christ.

- May I borrow your vehicle?

- [Con] Why?

- Mine got blown up.

- Yours got blown up. You wanna borrow mine?

- Who beat you up?

-A tribe of pint-sized orientals

and an underdressed American with a band around his head.

He said, "I love your friends."

- What did you tell him?

- Nothing? Not a thing.

- What'd they wanna know?

- Where you were.

I had the distinct advantage of not knowing where you were.

It's the God's honest truth. Here are the keys.

I'm gonna have a liquid breakfast.

Have it back by six.

- I must watch this.

- I will therefore resign,

but only if I have the party's agreement

in favor of the one man I consider capable

of filling my husband's shoes,

in parliament, in the cabinet, and in the war office.

A great Australian, Mr. Bill Todd.

- [Reporter] Ah, Mrs. McCredie, may I ask one more question?

- [Reporter] Mrs. McCredie?

- That'll be all. Thank you gentlemen.

- [Reporter] Bill Todd have known.

- Great stars of Moses.

(dog barking)

- What about the dog?

- [Michael] Look after him, will you?

(bus engine purring)

One thing you could always depend on

was the word of an officer and a gentleman.

All those treaties with all those American Indians,

all those peasants promised amnesty

after the peasants revolt.

I could feel my life coming to its end.

But I couldn't work out why.

(dramatic music)

(air brakes hissing)

(dramatic music continues)

(suspenseful music)

(engine roaring)

(dramatic martial music)

(soldiers shouting in foreign language)

- Mr. Stacey. Turn around please.

(grunts)

(soldiers speaking foreign language)

(moans)

- [Michael] For a long time in the dark,

I was the sand in an hourglass

over a thousand centuries sliding away.

Then I was a Christmas beetle looking up in reverence

at roaring great breakers under three hanging moons.

Then I woke.

It was a room I'd been in before, but everything was wrong.

There were Asians and cables and a device for brewing tea.

And Cathy McCredie was sitting like stone.

I wanted to pull the dark back over me,

but everything was still there and everything was wrong.

I felt I needed a drink.

A long final magnum of Don Perignon,

and a long cool sleep till judgment day.

I didn't get the brand I wanted, but I nearly got the rest.

-Ah, there police commissioner.

- What's happening?

- It's the first day of the new world.

- [Michael] Really?

- The army exercise is about to start.

Mrs. McCredie and Sir Ted Godfrey are observers.

When Sir Ted gives the signal,

we shoot him between the eyes.

- Saves referendums.

- Something like that.

- What's happened, Cathy? Why are we still alive?

- You both have to die of natural causes,

much tidier that way.

- Give me 20 years, it'll save you the trouble.

- We can't wait that long, I'm afraid.

I've been offering you a drink for a long time.

- Open it.

- Now you're gonna have it. Chug-a-lug.

(gurgles)

(screaming)

(guns banging)

(Cathy screaming continues)

(guns banging continues)

(soldier screams)

(Cathy continues screaming)

(guns continue banging)

- Oh.

(dramatic martial music)

- Oh, oh.

(gun banging)

(Cathy continues screaming)

- [Woman] Right, now get in there.

Cop that sweetheart.

(gun banging)

(Cathy continues screaming)

- [Woman] Come on, Stacey.

- Come on, Dana.

- Hey Dana, how's the tricks? Joined the army, have you?

- [Dana] Come on baby. Let's get outta here.

- Just another little drink.

(dramatic martial music continues)

(Cathy screaming)

- [Soldier] Pipe down. I can't stand screaming women.

(Cathy continues screaming)

(explosion booming)

(dramatic martial music continues)

- What are you, ASEA or something?

Thought ASEA were all good Catholic.

- I'm not ASEA. I'm army intelligence.

- Jesus Christ, Valerei.

- She's ASEA.

- Oh, very good and bad.

- Thanks.

- Pat.

I wonder what she tells them is the question.

(guns banging)

- [Michael] I looked up and behold,

the garden of Eden was in big trouble.

Word had got out that happiness was getting popular.

The army moved in.

The way the army always moves in on everything,

without exception.

Join the army and visit the pearly gates.

I was sorry to see the rhubarb go.

Something about it reminded me of human potential.

(dramatic martial music continues)

(wood crunching)

(guns banging)

(people shouting)

(explosion booms)

(helicopter blades whirring)

(dramatic martial music continues)

(flame thrower whooshing)

(explosion booms)

I didn't know what the hell was going on.

- Wha-what? - what the fuck?

- [Michael] But Todd and Quiney's infiuence

on the Australian army seemed to be diminishing fast.

Quiney, speak to me.

[Indistinct]

(dramatic martial music continues)

(singers vocalizing)

(explosion booming)

(gun bangs)

(car exploding)

(gun banging)

(singers vocalizing)

(helicopter blades whirring)

- Quiney, you bastard. Come back!

(helicopter engine roaring)

(guns banging)

(water splashing)

(solemn music)

(child crying)

- Forever and forever.

(jeep engine roaring)

- Everything under control here, Major?

- Yes sir.

- Major?

- Not too many casualties. Most of them Asian.

- Oh, well, they're expendable.

We'll, uh, call it an explosion in an ammunition dump.

Well done, my lad. Take a week's leave.

Go lie on the beach somewhere for a while.

- [Major] Thank you, sir.

- Good morning, Ted.

- Oh, drunk again, Michael.

-Absolutely.

(glass clattering)

Oh no. The Chinaman's bus.

How am I gonna tell him?

(flames roaring)

(birds chirping)

- You wanna lift?

- Hi there, copper.

- What's he doing? Moonlighting in a second job?

- Don't be silly. He's one of us.

- Oh, it's all right then.

So you knew about it all along?

- Of course I did.

- So what happened?

- Certain American interests got wind of the oil offshore

and organized with certain Asian

and Australian army officers, a coup,

along traditional lines.

But they made the mistake of inviting me in.

And I got to work on the army officers

and organized a little counter coup, which you saw today.

(laughs)A wizard show.

- Yeah, only a few Asians dead, expendable.

-And, uh, Lonely Buffalo and Madam McCredie

and a few other wobblies.

Part of the exercise you see was to flush out the wobblies.

- Like Les McCredie.

- Yes, Les was decidedly wobbly.

And Bill Todd, playing the bleeding heart Hamlet

to the last.

Have a KH3 pill.

- What is it?

- Super vitamin. Keeps you young.

Look at me.

- Yeah. And who dealt with Les?

- They did. David Walsh.

The doctor at the table

the night you sang "Bye Bye Blackbird."

And then we dealt with him from a great height,

dangerous little bastard.

Shake hands with him, you cough yourself to death.

- I thought you were shooting at me.

- (chuckles) No, no mustn't get tickets on yourself,

Michael, no, you weren't at all dangerous.

And furthermore, you were working on our side.

- What?

- Mm, and you actually got to Cathy McCredie,

which we couldn't do, and grilled her very efficiently.

- How do you know?

- We had your room bugged. Little port?

- Yep. Eh, yeah.

-And your preposterous little car and your banana.

- My banana? What?

- See, looks like a freckle.

When Curly and his mates were working you over,

it was the only soft thing you had in your pocket.

- What are you, Ted?

You're not just some lapsed trades hall numbers man

with a controversial knighthood, are you?

- I'm the secret head of northern operations

for Army Intelligence.

A job you might have had if you'd stayed in the service,

and stayed off the booze.

- Can I have a cigar there, boss?

- Hmm, of course, Curly. Of course.

Cuban.

Thank God the relations with the communists have eased.

All this has been in confidence, of course.

Now I can trust your basic common sense.

Now you're off the turps, that is.

- Oh yeah, yeah, too right.

- Mm. And Stace?

- Yes, Ted?

- I'd revise a few things in your manuscript if I were you.

- Chapter 15, you mean.

- If you think that one's a bit, uh, superfluous.

-And chapter 12, paragraphs eight and nine.

- Oh, well, yeah, why not? Just for old time's sake.

- That's it.

- Yes.

- For old time's sake.

- Yeah.

- Here good enough for you?

- Y-y-yeah, yeah. This is, this is good enough.

- Pip pip old man. Keep the flag flying.

- That was a good flag in its day.

- On to tomorrow.

(solemn music)

(children shouting)

(patrons chattering)

- Have the keys.

- Where's the bus.

- It's very sad about your bus.

There was a big explosion and I.

- Ooh. (speaks foreign language)

(laughs) Good evening.

I-ladies, ladies, ladies, have I got a surprise for you?

Plan B. We not go in the bus.

(cheerful music)

- Here, come.

(dog barking)

- [Con] Chop, chop ladies, the night is young.

- [Michael] I bought a golliwog for Cathy

as I had 12 years before,

and waited calmly among young people

being gentle with one another in the dark.

Looking at them and thinking what had happened.

Certain old men wanting to surround and capture paradise,

and what that meant.

The strange, bright place Australians went to

instead of dying.

I realized paradise is youth.

And all of us in our middle age and old age

try to recapture it in different ways.

Like Lonely Buffalo did, and Toddy and Ted Godfrey,

and the lady from "Buttons and Bows,"

and all those other old failures like my good self

with nowhere to go but into the heads of the very young.

But the young are tougher than they seem.

And they know in the end what's most important,

which is to dance in their youth, make love,

and be adored in their proper season.

And believe all manner of things for a time,

till the time ends, and they know when it has.

It's written in the slow alteration of their cells.

And you can't change that however you try.

Cathy and I met and talked and parted

the way I knew we had to, and she knew too now.

And I raised my milkshake to her and wished her good luck,

and imagined her naked

and kindly to my old age one last time,

and took my old bones off into the early dawn.

I thought about homes and families and Kate,

and everything I'd loved and lost and tasted once

and been afraid of ever since I was a schoolboy here

in this strange time.

I wasn't sadder or wiser or perceptively older,

but I knew how old I was, and that was good too in its way.

Now is the time for all good men

to come to the aid of their hometowns, signing off.

(dog barking)

(dramatic music)

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ You were rather nice ♪ ♪ You were rather nice ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ Been there once or twice ♪ ♪ Been there once or twice ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ You were rather nice ♪ ♪ You were rather nice ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ You were rather nice ♪ ♪ You were rather nice ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪

♪ Been there once or twice ♪ ♪ Been there once or twice ♪

♪ Goodbye paradise ♪ ♪ Goodbye paradise ♪