Excerpt from Come Alive Performance – Barry is a returned Vietnam Veteran. His brother is in a pub band, based on Farm which went on to become Midnight Oil. Rob has been writing songs about the fact that his brother went to Vietnam, and Barry is not happy about it.
BARRY
You know, people still come up to me and say, “You were a bloody good cricketer, Barry.”
Yeah. Was. Back before the letter came.
ROB
You ever try to write about someone who’s still alive, but part of them isn’t?
BARRY
They told us we’d be seeing the world. Serving our country. Didn’t say anything about digging holes for your mates because there’s not enough left to carry. Or how it feels, long after you’ve put it down, to feel like there’s still a rifle in your hands. Or to know you’ve killed a man.
ROB
I start a song about Barry, and the words come easy — war, loss, silence, all the big stuff.
But when I get to the truth of him, I freeze.
BARRY
Eight months. That’s all I did. Eight months and they sent me home, stamped “unfit.”
Unfit for what? For life, apparently.
ROB
He thinks I’m using him — turning his pain into chords. But what else can I do? I feel like I’m betraying him. Sitting by. Like I’ve let him down somehow.
BARRY
When I came back, everyone had moved on. They’d built new shops, new rules, new songs. Rob’s going to uni, and I hate myself that I can’t help but think: that was supposed to me. Like he’s stolen my life or something.
Even my girl was gone. Said she couldn’t wait forever.
ROB
He won’t talk, and the rest of us just stand around him like he’s glass that might break if anyone breathes too hard. And I don’t want to be like that. Like that person who doesn’t talk when their brother… needs them.
BARRY
Now I’ve got the bottle — keeps me quiet when the noise starts up again. Rob reckons he’s helping, writing those songs. Says it’s art, says he wants to make a difference. But he doesn’t get it — every time he strums that guitar, I’m back there.
ROB
Mum keeps the house quiet, Dad just watches the cricket, and me — I write songs about the noise we can’t make.
BARRY
And yet…
Sometimes he sings a line, and it’s like he’s seen it too. Like he’s the only one who knows what’s missing in me. He wrote this line, I can’t get it out of my head: “It’s like the war took hold of you, sent back the pieces when it was through…” And it’s… it’s what I feel.
And I hate him for it.
And I love him for it.
ROB
Sometimes, when Barry’s had a few, he’ll hum along under his breath —
not loud, just enough that I know he’s still listening. That’s when I think maybe he gets it —
that I’m not trying to tell his story… I’m trying to find a way to live with it.
BARRY
So I sit here, listen to the cricket, pretend it’s still… before… before I went to Vietnam…
when the worst thing in the world was dropping a catch at mid-on.
ROB
I reckon some songs are just there to hold the pain steady so it doesn’t spill everywhere.
BARRY
Now, I’d give anything to drop another catch. Just once more, to miss something small —
instead of everything.
ROB
Barry’s still my hero…
even if he can’t stand to hear it.
[Rob goes to Barry as if to shake his hand. Barry looks at his hand, as if he won’t take it. Then grabs it and pulls his brother into a hug and clings to him]