In 2011, Wayne Marshall left Melbourne for a job as an electricity meter reader in the country. The offer came from an ex-bandmate working at the meter-reading company. They were desperate: the previous person lasted only a month. Marshall had walked inner suburbs on meter-reading beats during his undergraduate years, so he knew the challenges. But navigating central Victoria's Macedon Ranges in a beaten-up ute with over 300,000km on the clock was a different beast entirely.
Desperate for Change
If the company was desperate to fill the position, Marshall was equally desperate to take it. He had spent four years attempting to write a novel as part of a postgraduate degree. It hadn't worked out, leaving him in a scary state of mind. He wanted distance from the literary world, craving movement, the outdoors, and freedom from living inside his head. Above all, driving that white Holden Rodeo in the shadow of Hanging Rock, he wanted to rid himself of the desire to write.
The Video Game of Meter Reading
On the surface, meter reading seems simple. Armed with a handheld device, Marshall would proceed from property to property, taking readings and passing data to electricity providers. But within that were obstacles, like a video game. On the screen, codes were attached to specific addresses: Aggressive Customer, Bees in Meter Box, Dog in Yard, Savage Dog. Some codes were years old and no longer applicable. The only way to find out? Open a gate, step inside a property, and hope for the best.
Encounters with Dogs and a Horse
Marshall was bitten by dogs, but he also made friends with many. At a place outside Woodend, he returned to the ute after reading a meter to find a bulldog perched in the front passenger seat, facing the windscreen, ready for an exciting day out. Gently, he coaxed it from the car. As he drove away, he looked in the rearview to see the dog wrestling with something red in the dirt. Instinctively, he reached for the red beanie that had been on his head. Reclaiming it from between the dog's jaws was a slow and complicated negotiation.
Another time, on backroads between Carlsruhe and Kyneton, Marshall was reading a meter when he sensed movement from behind the house. Seconds later, a horse appeared, tearing in his direction. He shoved the handheld device in his bag and sprinted across the lawn, tumbling over the gate just as the horse arrived. The commotion brought the owner outside. "He'd only wanted to say g'day to you, mate!" the man told him, ruffling the horse's mane.
Adventures with the Ute
The ute was another adventure. Once, while backing from an elevated driveway, a wheel slipped into a ditch and he became stuck. A car pulled over, and a man asked if he needed help; minutes later, he came bumping along on a tractor, using the front-end loader to lift Marshall out. Near Trentham, he drove to the bottom of a farm to locate a meter inside a spider-riddled shed. Afterwards, the ute refused to grip the soft, sloping track to get out. With darkness approaching, Marshall made the ill-advised decision to drive at speed up a hill of windscreen-high grass to escape. At the top, he jumped out and inspected the ute, praying he hadn't damaged it. Everything appeared fine, so he sped by the farmhouse and into the twilight.
The Creative War
All the while, the war with the creative part of himself continued. He found himself pulling over between meters to write down story ideas, watched by birds in the roadside gums. Parked outside public toilet blocks or eating lunch at deserted sports grounds, he was suddenly working on short stories. Soon, he was waking an hour earlier each morning to write, before strapping on his boots and gaiters and hitting the road.
Lessons Learned
Marshall will never forget the year he spent out there. First and foremost are the stories he came away with. The Macedon Ranges are stunning and were an absolute balm during a time of recovery. That year also lives in his memory as an in-between period verging on the mythic – his PhD attempt on one side, fatherhood and a bowel cancer diagnosis on the other. But most of all, stepping from the ute in his high-vis yellow shirt, heading for another porch and another meter, he learned what deep down he suspects he already knew: that, for all its many challenges, he is bound to this life of writing and creativity.
Wayne Marshall is the author of Henry Goes Bush, available now (A$34.99, Pan Macmillan Australia).
