Free The Electrical Experience by Frank Moorhouse

myself for three weeks,’ he said, ‘as a test.’ Hoping that would satisfy the doctor about purity.
    They clambered down a gully, sliding now and then on their heels, sending one or two rocks bouncing down. George talked about the possibility of ice-cream wholesaling. ‘Say the word “wholesale” and people think“city”. Need not be. A country town could wholesale to the city. Why take our milk more than a hundred miles to buy it back as city ice-cream. As it is now each shop has its own recipe and some don’t have the first idea. Can’t get it cold enough for a start. Some of it’s no more than custard. I’ll take the best recipe, or the best two or three. Try them all. I’ll put it out as the town ice-cream. Take soft drinks. In the United States Dr Pepper is sold thousands of miles from where it’s made. Take flavoured milk. No one has really done much with flavoured milk. First you need go-ahead cafés which put in refrigeration. The South Coast could do it. Our shopkeepers go with the times. First you need reliable electricity.’
    George panting, realised, as they pushed through the snagging bush, that he was gabbling again and pulled himself up, changed to a more reserved demeanour.
    â€˜You’re alive with ambition, George,’ the doctor said.
    The doctor said it in a way that meant he himself was not.
    â€˜As a doctor you’re a member of a very learned profession’, in case the doctor felt inadequate.
    â€˜All a matter of meeting requirements, George. Now you—you’re headed for the uncharted territory.’
    Yes, by golly, thought George, new products are like that.
    The space between conversation was becoming longer as their energy leaked away into the bush, as the bush dragged at their attention, and the bush dullness settled on them.
    â€˜Influenced by America, George?’ the doctor asked at a stop.
    â€˜Rotary could be bigger than governments.’
    â€˜You think so?’
    Little more was said between them until camp.
    By the time they made camp, they had what the doctor called ‘bush stumbles’ from the scrub, foothold finding, wading through knee-high fern, rock clambering. George also suffered from the overbearing darkness of the bush as they went farther from the township. He kept seeing in his mind the scattered smoky houses, the long green grass of the unbuilt-on blocks, the shops which still didn’t all link up to make a solid row, his factory, and the two saw mills nibbling away at the huge endless bush surrounding the town, turning it into building planks. Always in the bush he realised impatiently how little a hold they had yet on the coast. The thin white line of dusty habitation between the sea and the un settled mountains. He urgently wanted for the land to be cleared and the roads properly made.
    They both dozed for an hour or so and then, clumsy with fatigue, made the fire. As they sat there gazing, doped, at the camp fire, they let out with pieces of conversation, like broken biscuits. Tired talk. George went on a little about his ideas for beach kiosks when the rail came farther down the coast.
    The doctor listened, sipping his rum while George sipped his tea.
    The doctor made a surprise shift in the conversation.
    â€˜What about divinity, George?’ the doctor asked, after which they sat without talking in the croaking night.
    The doctor was a known sceptic.
    George thought about what he could say judiciously, considering the town, and how to please the doctor, and then about what he really believed, and found that the wide night sky, the mesmerising camp fire, the blackness of the bush, compelled him to try to assemble his true ideas.
    The doctor got up before George answered, and urinated, too close to the camp fire for George’s way of thinking. The doctor always washed his hands before instead of after, because he said his hands were dirtier than his privates.
    â€˜I