# Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

D. J. Connell

The funniest debut novel since Tom Sharpe’s Riotous Assembly, only it’s set in Tasmania!Julian Corkle's got small-screenability. His mother tells him he'll be a star one day. 'Twinkle, twinkle,' she says, giving his hair a ruffle.Not everyone shares Julian's dreams of stardom. Television is too much like hairdressing for his father's tastes. A Tasmanian man wants a son for sporting purposes. 'Boys don't like dolls,' he tells Julian, 'They like Dinky Toys.' Not this boy, thinks Julian, who knows better than to tell the truth.Besides, the family already has a sporting hero, Julian's sister Carmel aka 'The Locomotive'. Julian likes his sister, but knows better than to tangle with her bowling arm. It's the same one she uses for punching.Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar is the ultimate feel-good novel, a book that will have the reader laughing out loud on the back of a bus as it follows Julian's bumpy journey through adolescence, fibbing his way through school and a series of dead-end jobs, to find his ultimate calling as creator of 'The Hog'. It's as if Crocodile Dundee has crashed Muriel's wedding and run off into the desert with Priscilla.

## Julian Corkle. Is A Filthy Liar. D.J. Connell


To my mother Marion, who first got me interested in funny

business, and to my sister Jocelyn, who’s never stopped

laughing at me.

## Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Author’s Note

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

## Authors Note

Dag: 1. Australian for the dung that collects on a sheep’s backside. 2. An unfashionable, unappealing person. 3. A fool.

‘Look at that dag with the mullet cut!’

## [1]. Ulverston

Colleen Corkle knew her son had star quality from the moment he appeared. She was straining forward on the delivery bed when his head popped out. The baby’s eyelids flicked open, and in the instant before the nurse scooped him up, his eyes locked on hers. Colleen recognised the spark in the murky depths of the new irises and smiled. As the baby was whisked away, he started wailing.

‘Listen to those lungs!’ The doctor finished examining the newborn and handed him back to the nurse. ‘Another Sinatra!’

The baby continued to wail as he was carried to a room down the corridor where the nurse wiped him clean and dressed him in a muslin gown.

‘For goodness’ sake, shut that baby up!’ A nursing sister poked her head in the doorway. She was frowning. ‘We’ve got a woman in labour next door.’

The nurse hurriedly wrapped a blanket around the baby and carried him back to the birthing room. Colleen was still on the delivery bed being cleaned up. She was exhausted but the hormones surging through her system made her smile when she heard the baby’s cries. He was thrust into her arms.

‘Will you be breastfeeding?’ The nurse had to shout to be heard.

‘No, there’ll be none of that. Formula like the others.’

‘Right then, I’ll get his bottle.’

The nurse scurried out of the room. Colleen held the baby up and looked into his eyes again. The spark was still there. Something hot and liquid stirred behind her ribs. She pressed her lips to his forehead and drew in the new animal smell of him. With expert hands, she placed him face down on her chest and began rubbing his back. He kept crying.

‘That’s my boy.’ Colleen giggled. ‘You show them.’

The nurse reappeared with a bottle of formula and the baby was flipped over into the fold of his mother’s arm. Colleen tested the warmth of the liquid on her wrist and then thrust the teat into the open mouth. The baby’s lips moved against the rubber and encircled the tip. They tugged tentatively. The cries stopped abruptly and he began to feed.

The nurse wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and let out a sigh. ‘Thank goodness he’s a strong sucker.’

Jim was at the sports desk of The Bugle when the nurse called to say he was the father of a healthy baby boy. In 1965, a new father’s place was not at the side of his wife. His place was down at the King’s Arms. Jim made an announcement and was patted on the back by his colleagues. He arranged to meet them later at the pub and knocked off work early.

He was standing at the bar studying the Punter’s Gazette when a small, elderly woman eased herself on to a barstool beside him. He hadn’t seen her in the King’s Arms before. She was dressed in a floral frock and multicoloured hand-knitted cardigan. The knitted hat on her head resembled a tea cosy. Jim was idly looking for spout and handle holes when the woman spoke.

‘If you buy me a drink, I’ll tell you something interesting.’

The woman’s voice made him smile. She had an Irish accent. He wondered if she was from County Cork, like his parents.

‘My pleasure. I’ve just had some good news.’

‘Ah, that’d be your baby.’

Jim had just told the barman about the new arrival. He looked over at Midge and winked. The barman shrugged and claimed the Gazette.

‘What’s your poison, madame?’ Jim said it the French way to make the woman laugh.

Her expression didn’t change. ‘Oh, I could take a whiskey, yes I could.’ She turned to the barman. ‘I’ll be having an Irish drop. None of that bilge water from the Tay of Dundee.’

Midge reached above the dispensers and took down a bottle of the Spirit of Cork. He shook two nips into a small glass and placed it gently on a Tickworth Ale coaster in front of the woman.

‘To your health, sir, and to that of your son.’ She lifted the glass to Jim, then pushed her head back and let the whiskey run down her throat. She banged it down empty and wiped her lips with the back of a hand. ‘Nothing like a rare drop of Irish sunshine.’

‘Anotherie?’ Jim was feeling generous. He turned and nodded to Midge who refilled the woman’s glass. ‘So, how do you know I have a son?’ He hadn’t told the barman it was a boy.

‘You now have two sons and, by the look of you, there’s also a girl.’

Jim felt a prickly sensation along the band of his Y-fronts. An electric current ran from the elastic up his spine and did a circuit around his shoulder blades.

‘Do I know you?’

‘Depends what you mean by knowing. There’s things I know that I can tell. I know your son’s not what you expected. You’ll try to change him but you can’t. This will give you heartache.’

‘He’s only an hour old and he’s already giving me grief. Ha, ha.’ This was Jim’s way of changing the subject, making a joke and rounding it off with a forced laugh.

She either didn’t understand or chose to ignore him. ‘You’ll think he’s against you but he’s not. The boy’s different, that’s all.’

Jim shifted in his seat. The woman made him uncomfortable. She looked directly into his eyes without blinking. He’d only known one other person to do this: Father Donahue. The priest had been the most feared presence in the school dormitory. The boys had called him Father Doneafew. The thought of the crusty old priest made Jim shiver. Father Donahue had kept his fingernails perfectly manicured.

‘You’ve got to learn to forgive. You don’t forgive for what happened in the past. This is a bitterness that eats at you.’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Try to accept your son. For your sake and for his.’ The woman got off her stool, gave him an abrupt nod and left the bar.

Jim stood completely still. The electrical feeling in his spine had spread to the outer edges of his body. He felt as if the membrane separating him from the rest of the world was dissolving. He knew he would be slapped on the back before Trevor Bland’s hand fell between his shoulder blades. The force of the gesture made him feel solid again. Bland was a typesetter at The Bugle and Jim’s oldest friend.

‘Congratulations, Corkle. I’ll have a Tickworth on the new baby girl, thanks, mate.’

‘It’s a boy, Trev.’

Colleen was placed in an empty six-bed room in the maternity ward. She’d slept a few hours and was feeling wonderful when the nurse carried in the baby and placed him in her arms. He’d been fed and was quiet. She counted his fingers and toes and was peeking inside his nappies through a leg hole when another new mother was wheeled in. The woman had given birth to her fourth daughter. This was not a good gender ratio for a Tasmanian woman of the sixties. A husband needed sons for cricket and other purposes. Colleen now had two boys and a girl. Pushing aside her pride, she tried to console her new neighbour.

‘Don’t worry, love, you’ll have a boy next time.’

‘There’ll be no next time. We can’t afford another mistake. I’m having the tubes done on Tuesday.’ The woman flattened her lips and crossed her arms over her chest.

‘Oh? I’m sure it’s for the best. Would you like to hold Julian?’ In Colleen’s universe giving the woman her baby boy to hold was good juju. It was also very satisfying. Two boys to one girl was an excellent ratio. She slipped out of bed and held him out to her.

The woman didn’t unfold her arms.

‘That’s a mistake for a start. Julian sounds like Julie.’ The woman nodded for emphasis. Her face was still mottled from the birthing process. She looked tired and unhappy. ‘You’ll regret it.’

‘The name has religious significance.’

‘We’re not religious.’ The woman unfolded her arms and took the baby from Colleen. ‘He’s a heavy little thing.’

‘He’s a healthy boy. Boys are more robust than girls. You should hear his lungs.’

‘His lungs disrupted my Debbie’s crowning. They couldn’t get him to pipe down. The sister was at her wits’ end.’

‘Frank Sinatra has fantastic lungs.’ Colleen crossed her arms.

‘Sinatra’s more of a crooner than a screamer.’

‘That’s just voice training. Julian’s got the right lungs. Lungs and personality. My boy’s got star quality.’

‘What a shame.’ The woman pointed to the baby’s mouth.

Colleen’s eyebrows shot skyward. ‘What a shame, what?’

‘He’s got a cupid’s bow.’

‘He’s a good-looking baby.’

‘Brigitte Bardot has a cupid’s bow but it’s a curse on a boy.’ The woman sucked air between her teeth. ‘Odd really. The father’s not French?’

‘My husband’s one hundred per cent Australian, a real man’s man. This is my second son. Two healthy boys.’ Colleen pointed to the baby’s top lip. ‘That’ll come right once he’s off the bottle.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘He’s really taken to the bottle. He’s a very strong sucker. All the nurses say so.’

‘I suppose that’s one good thing.’

‘Let me take him off your hands. Boys are heavy.’ Colleen reached out for the baby.

‘He’s quite pretty.’ The woman hesitated. ‘Like a little girl, really.’

‘That face is made for the small screen.’

The woman looked doubtful. ‘Possibly, but you’ll be forking out a fortune on voice training.’

‘Here, pass him over to me.’ Colleen yanked the baby out of her arms. ‘You need to rest up for your big operation on Tuesday.’

The woman gave a start.

‘I’m heading down to the TV room. The Dick Dingle Hour is on soon.’ Colleen eyed her opponent over the baby’s head. ‘May as well give the boy his first taste of culture.’

## [2]

I was born in Ulverston, a small town on Tasmania’s north coast. I know all about my arrival at Blue Gum Central Hospital from my mother. She even told me how I was conceived. I could’ve done without that information but there’s no way to censor Mum. She’s always known what’s best for me. Ours is one of those exclusive mother-son relationships. We even look alike. Mum says we’re Black Irish which means we’re more attractive than the rest of the family. We have thick dark hair and green eyes. Dad and my siblings are the other kind of Irish: gingery with freckles. It’s not a good look.

It was Mum who bought me my first Celebrity Glitter magazine. It’s important to keep up, she says, star quality is not enough in the dog-eat-dog world of show business. Mum should know. She was the Tasmanian finalist in the Golden Microphone Contest and would’ve gone on to the nationals if disaster hadn’t struck. She still has the newspaper clipping in the back of her recipe book. Her hair is big and wide and she’s holding a bunch of dahlias next to a microphone. She looks beautiful – like Elizabeth Taylor, only thinner.

Mum calls me the Songbird of the South and says I’ll win trophies one day. If it’s not the Golden Microphone then it’ll be the Tassie Wallaby which is the highest entertainment award on Tasmanian television. Dick Dingle has won the Wallaby twice. He’s our local television icon and does a lot to promote Tasmanian youth. Mum says he will be promoting me one day. She says I’ve got small-screenability.

‘One day we’re going to see your big face on the cover of Celebrity Glitter magazine, Julian. You’re my own little star. Twinkle, twinkle.’ The magazine in her hands had Liberace’s face on the cover.

‘Is my face big, Mum?’

My father does not share my mother’s ambitions for me. I became aware of this at the age of four when I overheard a conversation from under our house in Kangaroo Crescent. We lived in a buff-coloured brick bungalow on a rectangular quarter-acre. The house sat on raised foundations which were hidden from view by a white weatherboard trim that skirted the bottom of the bricks. A trapdoor at the back provided crawling access to the area under the house. It was designed for plumbers and electricians but used exclusively by children.

It was my neighbour Raymond’s idea to crawl under there. He was two years older than me and should’ve known better. He should’ve known not to leave our clothes beside the trapdoor for my brother John to find. John had immediately alerted my father to our whereabouts. Raymond and I were directly under the dinette. I could hear the transistor and muffled voices. Someone switched off the radio and the voices of my mother and father became audible.

‘Jim, for goodness’ sake, they’re just little boys.’

‘Little boys? Colleen, they are naked underneath this house, probably under our very feet.’

I heard the shuffling of Dad’s leather-soled shoes on the linoleum above me.

‘I know exactly where this sort of thing leads and I don’t want a Catholic priest in the family. No thank you very much.’

‘Jim, he’s four years old.’

‘Exactly. We’ve got to put a stop to this right now. If it’s not a priest then we’ll have a hairdresser on our hands. Or a male nurse.’

‘A hairdresser would be handy.’

‘You know what I’m talking about.’

‘Hairdressing.’

‘No, your brother Norman. I don’t want his type fluffing up the cushions on my settee.’

‘Don’t be awful.’

‘The man’s as straight as a dog’s hind leg.’

‘Norman’s got a thriving salon in Melbourne. He’s not interested in our cushions.’

‘It would only start with the cushions. Next thing you know he’d be teaching our boys to play leapfrog.’

‘What’s wrong with leapfrog?’

‘There’s a lot wrong with it if you do it without trousers.’

‘Give it a rest.’

‘Not until I sort that Julian out.’

I heard the door slam and then my mother’s footsteps cross the lino. My father’s voice boomed out near the trapdoor.

‘Julian. Come out immediately.’

My father was a stout man but perfectly capable of squeezing under the house and dragging me out. Raymond and I scrambled to the trapdoor where Dad was waiting with our clothes. He handed them to us and stood with his arms rigid at his sides and his head turned away while we dressed. When we were done, he grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me toward him. The shorts I’d just put on were yanked down and I was smacked several times on the bum with his bare hand. Raymond didn’t get touched.

I pointed to my neighbour. ‘What about Raymond?’

Raymond’s lips parted in horror.

‘Shut up!’ Dad didn’t look at Raymond. His face was red and glistening with sweat.

‘But he’s older.’ I jabbed a finger angrily at Raymond who backed away.

‘Shut up!’ Dad reached out and smacked me again. ‘Never let me catch you with a naked boy again or there’ll be trouble.’

He smacked me several more times. I nodded yes with each smack. I promised I would never ever let him catch me again as long as I lived.

I managed to keep my promise until I was eight.

Dad had built us a fort in the backyard out of some old timber and corrugated iron he’d been given by Trevor Bland. This was completely out of character and something he never attempted again. My father generally didn’t invest time in projects that weren’t directly connected to his personal comfort. He wasn’t the type of father to take his kids fishing or help us with homework. He did things like give us bottles of raspberry drink while we waited in the car outside the pub. This was one gesture I appreciated. Some kids weren’t given drinks. We’d poke out red tongues and wave our soft drinks at them while they died of thirst in their Holden station wagons.

It was a war game that got me into trouble. The boys next door were the Allies and we were supposed to be the Germans. I told my brother John I didn’t want any part of it. I’d only heard bad things about Germans. They were swine.

‘I want to be a nurse.’

‘You can’t be a nurse, stupid.’ John sneered at me. ‘Nurses are girls.’ He laughed out loud and began dancing around me, chanting. ‘Julian’s a woolly woofter. Julian’s a woolly woofter.’

The other boys sniggered.

‘I’m a nurse. I’ll do bandages in the hospital.’ I pointed to the fort. The boys turned to admire Dad’s construction. It was the only one in the street. Everyone loved our fort. It gave us the edge.

‘We need bandages if we’re shot.’ It was little Johnny Hawkins from next door. There were five Johns on our street. It was a very popular name in Ulverston.

Eyes turned to my brother. He was the oldest.

‘OK, you can do bandages in the fort, but you’re a doctor.’ John was as proud of the fort as the next Corkle.

‘I’m a nurse.’ I shouted this over my shoulder.

My first patient was my brother. He came inside grimacing and dragging his leg. ‘Za Brits shot me srew za knee.’

I pointed to the pretty makeshift bed I’d created out of the couch cushions. These were laid out in a line under the sheets I’d hung in a decorative way from the ceiling. It was great to have a fort but having a fort with flair made all the difference.

I put some vinegar on a piece of cotton wool and rubbed around the area where there was supposed to be a wound. John groaned like a wounded soldier. I used the hard plastic snout of the vacuum cleaner to examine the wound. John had his eyes closed and was moaning.

‘I have to get the bullet out.’ Taking a stick I’d found under the plum tree, I drove it in hard under the kneecap.

‘Fuck!’ John had screamed the F word. ‘You fucking bastard.’

‘It’s just a flesh wound.’ I jumped out of the fort and stood on the grass below. I called up to John who was rocking on his back, cradling his knee to his chest. ‘If you hit me I’ll tell Mum you said the F word, twice.’

My next patient was little Johnny Hawkins. He came in doubled over saying he’d been shot in the stomach. I made him lie on his back.

‘Take your shirt off. It’s covered in blood.’ Johnny was no stranger to this game. We often played together in his garage. I undid the zip of his shorts and had just pulled them off when I heard someone outside. I knew it was my brother. He wanted to get me back for the knee job.

‘Piss off, you German bastard. I’m not finished with this John.’

The door flew open and my father stuck his head and shoulders into the fort. He looked at Johnny’s naked body, then at me, then at Johnny again. Johnny’s underpants were in my hand.

‘I’m a nurse, Dad.’

My father reached in and grabbed me by the collar, dragging me outside where I was smacked in front of the other boys. He then marched me to the bedroom I shared with John and told me to stay there until dinnertime. I watched from the window as he cleared out the fort and then went at it with an axe and hammer. It took him an hour to reduce it to a pile of splintered timber. I was crying as he loaded everything on to a trailer and drove away.

A couple of days later I saw Mum rummaging in the cupboard where she kept the cleaning things. She then did a room-to-room search, looking under beds and furniture. She was flushed when she came back to the kitchen.

‘Are you all right, Mum?’

‘I must be going mad. I can’t find the extension to the vacuum cleaner. The little plastic end bit. I’ve looked everywhere.’

John took the loss of the fort hard and refused to talk to me for a full month. This was fine by me because I was busy preparing for the end of year pantomime at St Kevin’s. Mum was thrilled. I was to play Joseph which was a much bigger speaking role than baby Jesus who only got to gurgle. My sister Carmel was recruited to work the pulleys and change the backdrops. Several boys had wanted this job but they were no match for my sister who at the age of nine could already run faster and punch harder than anyone I knew.

My stage debut would have been a triumph if Brother O’Hare had not torn the veil off my head at the last minute. It was Mum’s navy blue chiffon scarf and looked fantastic with the pale blue caftan I’d been given to wear. O’Hare had wanted a bareheaded Joseph but this made no sense when the Three Kings had fancy headgear. He’d stopped me in the wings, insisting that a nativity scene was no place for a lady’s scarf. My cue came and went as I was trying to argue my point. By the time we noticed, Mary and the donkey had been waiting on stage for a full minute. She might have stayed there longer if a familiar male voice had not boomed out over the audience.

‘Move that ass!’ Dad thought he was a funny man.

The laughter spurred Brother O’Hare into action. I was thrust from behind and propelled across the stage, running with my head down as I struggled to get my footing. I heard the laughter even before I hit the donkey head-on and broke it in two. Mary toppled off and fell to the side with a squawk and a thud. The audience roared. The hindquarters of the donkey turned and lunged at me. It was Robbie Skint and, despite the handicap of his donkey leggings, he lunged very fast. The audience roared again as he tackled me and clasped his hands around my neck.

I was gasping for air and twisting my head to free myself when my eyes fell on Carmel. She was standing in the back holding a rope above her head. With a smile she let it go. The backdrop of the stable scene unfurled at high speed and hit Robbie’s head with a bonk.

## [3]

At the start of the new school year, I was given a seat next to Paula Stromboli. I was the only boy in the class who had no desire to sit next to old Smelly Pants. She was very bold for a girl of eight. I’d heard all about her and didn’t want to go anywhere near her cotton tops.

Brother O’Hare had written a line from a psalm on the blackboard: ‘Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer.’ Our job was to copy it into our exercise books with as much precision as possible. Erasers were not allowed. The task was one of concentration. I’d done a brilliant job and was up to the ‘prayer’ bit when Paula grasped my knee and squeezed. My leg shot up and banged the bottom of the desk, causing my hand to leap forward with the pencil. I finished the word but it now read, ‘Hear my cry, O God, listen to my player.’ I looked at it for a while. There was no way to repair the damage without an eraser. The clock was ticking. I wedged a small V before ‘player’ and wrote the word ‘record’ above it. At least it now made sense.

‘You think you’re funny, don’t you, Corker.’ O’Hare had gripped my shoulder and was digging his fingers into the flesh.

The other children were looking at me.

‘It’s Corkle, sir. I was just trying to—’

‘—be the class clown. Corker, you’ll stay here during lunchtime and write out the entire psalm.’

Paula squeezed my knee again as Brother O’Hare turned back to the blackboard. I twisted in my seat, ready to drive a pencil into her thigh, but stopped with my hand in mid-air. She had lifted her dress and pulled down her knickers. I was staring at a bare pink mound. I looked up at Paula’s face. She was smiling, oblivious to the frightening non-event in her underpants. It was bad enough watching men and women kiss on television but to have the Stromboli mound at my elbow was more than I could stand. I turned to the front and put up my hand, waving it about until I got the brother’s attention.

‘Yes, Corker.’

The class laughed.

‘It’s Corkle, sir.’

‘Yes, Corker.’

The class laughed again.

‘Brother O’Hare, can I swap seats with Ralph Waters?’

‘No you cannot.’ He turned back to the blackboard and resumed writing.

‘Excuse me, Brother O’Hare.’

‘What now, Corker?’

The class laughed again.

‘Can I swap seats with Robbie Skint?’

‘No. Now be quiet!’

‘Could I just stand then?’

Brother O’Hare marched up to my desk and pulled me out of my chair. ‘You want to stand? Then stand still now.’

He yanked out my hand and hit the palm six times with his wooden ruler. I sat back down cradling what felt like a throbbing baseball mitt at the end of my left arm.

Ralph Waters approached me at playtime. I would’ve run off but I was scraping the hundreds and thousands off a fairy cake and didn’t see him coming. Ralph was one of the toughest kids of my year. He was skinny and sinewy. His blond hair was cut extremely short with barber’s clippers and his nails were chewed to crumbs. Ralph spent the breaks playing with plastic soldiers under the white-painted tyres that some genius had half buried in the playground as a stepping-stone game. No one ever stepped on them because they were placed too far apart for primary-school children. The older kids never went near them because they were in the primary section of the school.

‘I know what you were doing. Thanks for that, Corky.’

I didn’t bother correcting Ralph. He was one of the few people I’d allow to mispronounce my name.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Did you see her keyhole?’

Ralph was standing there smiling, waiting for me to confirm the sighting of Paula Stromboli’s thing. He’d never spoken to me before. I knew I had to prove something or I was going to be in trouble. Ralph was one of those who singled out boys and ridiculed them for being poofters. This was a regular sport at St Kevin’s. Gary Jings was a poofter and everyone knew it. He had a girl’s shiny pink pencil case and drew swirly things in art class. He even folded the hems of his shorts up like fancy trouser cuffs. Gary Jings paid for these crimes at lunchtime when he sat on his own near the caretaker’s shed pretending to read while kids circled and yelled things like ‘bum-kisser’.

I didn’t call Gary names. I watched others ridicule him and felt sick inside. It was fear and frustration. I felt drawn to and disgusted by Gary Jings. He should’ve known better than to display his poofterism. There were several boys who did it at St Kevin’s but we kept our activities to ourselves. There was a place for that sort of thing and that place was the nature reserve behind the bike sheds.

It wasn’t right the way Gary always bore the abuse. He sat passively with his knees pressed together, occasionally looking up with a dull smile and a faint spark of hope in his eyes. This only infuriated thugs like Ralph who would then administer a Chinese burn or half-Nelson. It was awful to watch the torture of Gary Jings. He never tried to run away. He just went limp and took it. He should’ve denied being a poofter and hidden his pencil case but he didn’t. The one thing I didn’t want to be in life was a Gary Jings.

Ralph narrowed his eyes. I had to prove I was as much a man as him. I looked down at the fairy cake and the hundreds and thousands that were stuck to my fingers. When I looked up, I met Ralph’s eyes with a piercing stare.

‘Yeah.’

Ralph smiled. It was a man-of-the-world smile. We understood each other. I was the sort of boy who regularly looked inside girls’ underpants. Ralph liked me and it felt good. I tightened the grip on my fairy cake.

‘Why did you ask old O’Hairs if you could stand up?’

The fairy cake collapsed in my hand, sending crumbs flying over the front of my shorts.

‘You know.’

‘Nah.’

‘I was just, ah, just trying to stir up old Hairsie.’

‘He was so mad. Did he hurt you?’

This was a stupid question. Ralph was only too familiar with O’Hare’s ruler. Being hit over the hand with a slab of wood was incredibly painful. It was a white pain that made your ears go silent with blood pressure.

‘Nah.’

‘Yeah, O’Hairs is too weak. He’s a big fairy. Brother O’Fairy. Ha, ha.’ Ralph bent his wrists like Kenneth Williams and paraded around in front of me. ‘You think he’s seen Stromboli’s keyhole?’

The idea of Brother O’Hare poking around inside Paula Stromboli’s underpants made me want to laugh out loud in Ralph’s face. I controlled myself. Ralph didn’t know a thing.

‘Yeah I bet he has.’

‘She’s a slut.’

I wasn’t going to argue with Ralph but I didn’t think Paula Stromboli was a slut. If anything, she was like me, an entertainer looking for an audience. She’d apologised after the bell went for playtime. She hadn’t meant to get me into trouble. ‘I was just trying to give you a look.’ I hadn’t refused when Paula offered to lend me her Cherish LP. I was a big fan of David Cassidy. He wore very tight trousers and had silky hair that stayed swished back even during vigorous dance moves.

My big day was coming up but like every year Carmel was going to cheat me out of the attention that was rightfully mine. I was a year younger than her but had the misfortune of being born on the day after her birthday. This gave my special day a definite second-best status. Carmel called her birthday the main event. Mine was the repeat performance.

On the morning of her tenth birthday, Carmel got a doll called Nancy. It was made of pony-coloured plastic and had movable limbs and long white synthetic hair. Nancy came with a vinyl make-up kit and an irresistible set of tiny pink hair curlers. I loved curlers and spent hours playing with the set my mother had received from her brother Norman. He’d also given her a portable hairdryer with a floral plastic cap. On the days when Mum had two hours to spare I was allowed to roller and set her hair.

Carmel finished unwrapping the doll with impatience. When she saw what was inside, she said ‘Ugh’ and put it to one side. I swallowed a mouthful of breakfast cereal and reached for the box.

‘Hands off, fat boy.’

‘I just want to touch her hair. It’s so long and shiny.’

‘That’s enough, Julian!’ My father was giving me his don’t-you-start look.

I felt tears building. Carmel poked her tongue out and made a chopper with her hand, a warning not to cross the invisible line between the doll and me. She moved on to the next present. It was a Nancy ‘Evening Fantasy’ outfit in a clear plastic tray. She let out another ‘Ugh’ and tossed it next to the doll. The urge to touch the little pink curlers was almost unbearable. Carmel sighed and felt the other presents through their wrappers. I knew she was looking for a cricket ball and I knew she wasn’t going to find one. At least her frustration was some sort of consolation.

Carmel left her other presents unopened on the dinette divan and went back to her rice puffs. As Daddy’s girl, Carmel was entitled to be ungrateful. My father gave her an indulgent smile, pushed his chair back and stood up.

It was now or never. It would be my birthday in less than twenty-four hours. I had to convince my parents to buy me something practical, a present I could actually use. I tugged Dad’s sleeve.

‘Dad, can I have a Nancy?’

‘No you cannot! Nancy dolls are for girls! You’re a boy and boys want Dinky toys.’

My father’s response was too fierce and too loud. Carmel snorted into her cereal, sending a shower of rice puffs and milk over the Aussiemica tabletop.

‘Not me. I want a Nancy.’ The tears had started and my voice was shrill. I didn’t want junk. I wanted a doll.

‘You’re not getting one and that’s final.’

Dad shoved his empty chair against the table and made a move for the door. I leaped off the divan and flattened myself on the floor face down. I started to kick and punch the lino, wailing.

‘Shut up, Julian.’ It was too much for my father. He hated displays, especially from boys.

‘It’s not fair. Carmel gets everything.’

I reached out and grabbed Dad around an ankle. He straightened his leg and tried to shake me off. I held tight, crying into his trouser leg.

‘For God’s sake, get off and stop being a cry baby.’ He swiped me over the head with the Punter’s Gazette and shuffled toward the door, dragging his leg with me attached.

‘I want a Nancy, Dad. Please, please, please.’ The words came out in shrieks between sobs.

Mum bent down and pulled me off. My father hurled himself out of the house and slammed the door behind him. I was still kicking and flailing my arms as Mum pulled me against her chest. I felt her turn her head toward Carmel.

‘Carmel, go wash your face.’

‘I’m not dirty, Mum. It’s my birthday.’ There was laughter in her voice. She’d been enjoying the main event.

‘Get out of this dinette right now, madam!’

‘It’s not fair. It’s my birthday!’ Carmel stormed out leaving Mum and me alone.

Mum whispered in my ear. ‘Julian, there’ll be a nice surprise for you tomorrow. But you’ll have to be a good boy and wait till dinnertime.’

My tears stopped abruptly. ‘What?’

‘Wait and see. It’s not going to be a stinky Dinky.’

I woke the next morning to a box of Shelby’s chocolates on the end of the bed. Yes, it was my birthday! In our house, a double-layer box of soft centres and a roast-chicken dinner were standard birthday issue. Presents were a different matter. Their quality depended on who chose them and the mood they were in when choosing. If it was Mum, we tended to get one thing of value among junk she bought to please my father. If Dad bought them, we’d get stuff that was completely useless. I had a Meccano set, a rugby ball and several Dinky toys in the bottom of my wardrobe. I knew by now Carmel would have thrown Nancy on top of the manicure set and necklace-making kit she’d hidden at the bottom of hers.

I knew exactly what went on inside everyone’s wardrobes. I monitored them on a regular basis, particularly my mother’s. She was the only one in the house with flair and quality fabric. I spent hours going through her drawers and trying things on. This could only be done when Dad wasn’t home. He didn’t think boys should like nice things and hit the roof if he saw me as much as finger the fabric of a dress my mother was wearing. I tried to explain that fashion designers earned a fortune but Dad didn’t want to know.

Carmel’s wardrobe was dangerous territory for another reason. I only ventured into her room when she was a good kilometre from the premises. It wasn’t worth getting caught. She could punch extremely hard and thoroughly enjoyed practising her Cassius Clay Royale. John and I were forbidden to thump her back, especially below the belly button. This mysterious zone was for making babies. Carmel was only too aware that the same protection did not extend to our testicles.

As soon as I opened the magnet collection, I knew Dad had chosen the presents. His self-satisfied smile told me everything I needed to know. He sat there every bit the happy sadist as I opened the Boy’s Own Annual, the cricket ball and the kit-set model of a German tank. Crap, crap, crap. The only thing I could use was the cricket ball. It would come in handy as a bargaining chip with Carmel. I said thank you through my teeth and turned to leave for school.

‘Hey, Stan McCabe, you’re not taking your cricket ball?’ Dad wore the crooked smile of an insane sports fanatic.

‘I wouldn’t want anyone to pinch it. Far too valuable.’ I spoke through a locked jaw.

When I got home from school, my mother was shoving bread and mixed herbs into the rear end of a defrosted chicken.

‘Where is it?’

‘What about hello?’

‘Hello, darling Mummy, where is it, please?’

Mum pointed to a package on the table.

My heart was thudding as I ripped it open. Inside was a cardboard box with a clear plastic cover. It was a doll and, according to the box, he was called Billy the Back-up Singer. I removed the cover and touched the miniature golden microphone wired to his hand. Billy was wearing a white shirt and black vinyl trousers. I would wait until I was alone before checking inside the vinyl.

‘He’s perfect, Mum.’

I put my arms around her waist and held her tight. She bent down to receive a kiss but I licked her cheek instead. I liked licking my mother. She tasted both chemical and floral.

‘Ugh, Julian. That’s disgusting.’

Mum giggled and wiped her face with the back of a crumby hand. She leaned against the sink and watched me remove Billy from his box. I put the doll up to my nose and breathed in the new plastic smell of his copper-brown synthetic hair. It was cut in a David Cassidy, just long enough to style with tiny doll curlers. Billy came with a change of clothes: a tiny pair of beach shorts and sunglasses. This was an odd outfit for a singer but I didn’t care. I’d make him something new to wear, a snazzy Liberace number for the spotlight. In my hands, Billy wouldn’t stay a back-up singer for long.

‘You know what to do, Julian.’ Mum laughed and ruffled my hair. ‘Go hide him in your wardrobe before your father gets home.’

## [4]

‘Julian, have you seen the Companion?’ My mother was making her way down the hall toward me. She sounded irritated.

I was lying on my bed in my underpants and singlet reading a feature on Christiaan Barnard, the doctor who’d transplanted a heart into a grocer’s chest in 1967. The magazine had a photo of Louis Washkansky before he received the donor heart. He was smiling with a tube up his nose.

I knew the word ‘donor’ meant dead person and was fascinated. The heart would’ve been cold, like one of the defrosted chickens my mother stuffed on birthdays. I put my hand over my heart to make sure it was still beating. There was nothing happening. Panic knocked at the back of my throat as I moved my hand to the left side of my chest. My mother snatched the magazine from my hands and left the room.

Mum and I both enjoyed the Australian Ladies’ Companion. It didn’t have the glamour of Celebrity Glitter but it did keep us plugged into the Australian entertainment scene and even featured Tasmanian celebrities. Dick Dingle occasionally made it into the Companion for his work as patron of the state’s Little Aussie Rising Star awards. Mum told me to keep my eye on Dick Dingle. He was an impresario for talented young Tasmanians like me. The Little Aussie Rising Star was a stepping stone to the Golden Microphone which was an even bigger stepping stone to national television stardom.

Christiaan Barnard was a star even though poor old Washkansky had almost immediately died. The failed heart transplant intrigued me. I closed my eyes and tried to picture what was going on inside my skin. We were currently studying the human body at school. Brother Duffy had started at the top with the brain and was working his way down toward the interesting area. We’d got to the kidneys, which I knew were attached to the important bits. Duffy had more or less admitted this when he said the kidneys were responsible for producing urine. I understood what that meant and was looking forward to the next lesson.

I already knew how babies were born thanks to Ralph Waters. He’d led us into the Ladies’ toilet behind the Whipper Snapper fish-and-chip shop and pointed into the bowl where something brown and enormous was bobbing about in the water. It was three times the size of anything I’d ever produced.

‘The lady who dropped this A-bomb has had a baby.’ Ralph had raised one eyebrow and spoken with authority. ‘See the size of her floater. She’s stretched to buggery from giving birth.’

I hadn’t considered how babies got out from inside their mothers. If they used the same exit as number twos, they had to come out filthy. That meant I’d come out filthy. I asked Ralph the obvious question.

‘Don’t babies smell when they come out?’

‘Nah, they’re inside a kind of bag.’

‘Doesn’t it hurt the baby then?’ I knew nothing about the dimensions of ladies’ bum holes. Female bum anatomy had absolutely no appeal to me. This was not information I needed to share with the likes of Ralph Waters.

‘If it’s a lady’s first baby, the baby’s head gets squashed to the size of a lemon.’ Ralph cast an eye over our heads.

‘And if it’s the third baby?’

‘Normal shape and size.’ I let out a lungful of air. Ralph had two older siblings like me.

My brother was fixing a puncture on his bicycle when I got home. I stood for a moment examining him from behind. His head was definitely pointier than Carmel’s. He was trying to put the tyre back on his wheel by wedging two of my mother’s dinner spoons under the rim. A spoon fell out and clattered on to the concrete of the driveway. John cursed. As he turned to retrieve it, he noticed me. His mouth pulled downward in a sneer. John only had to look at me to get upset. There was something about the way I was put together that disgusted him. I suspected it was the same thing Ralph Waters felt about Gary Jings.

‘What are you looking at, poof?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Piss off then. Go and try on some of Mum’s pantyhose or something.’

There was no use explaining John’s condition. It would just alarm him. I went inside to examine my mother’s bottom.

The heart transplant article haunted me. I thought about it constantly. My version of the operation went something like this: I’ve had a major heart attack on Hollywood Boulevard. Christiaan Barnard is busy so they call in a trainee called Herb to do the job. Herb disconnects my heart before a donor can be found. He keeps the blood pumping through my body with a machine powered by a lawnmower engine, but time is running out. Still no donor can be found. Herb substitutes my heart with a defrosted chicken. The chicken refuses to pump. I regain consciousness with a Tender Choice broiler in my chest, still wet and cold from the defrosting process. Herb attaches electrodes to the chicken and turns on the juice. It jumps but flops back lifeless next to my lungs.

Dad regularly drank with a man called Herb. It was common knowledge that Herb didn’t wear socks. He simply blackened his ankles with shoe polish. This habit had been discovered when Herb crossed his legs and swiped the beige trousers of one of his neighbours. The owner of the trouser leg had then traced the origins of the black smudge back to Herb’s ankle. No one said anything about this habit, at least not to Herb’s face. They just gave him plenty of legroom in the public bar.

It was Herb’s socks that gave me the idea for the fishnets. I tried to tell my father this but he didn’t want to listen. He was too busy shouting at my mother about her brother Norman. I had performed the Olivia Newton-John show to cheer Mum up. Dad wasn’t even supposed to come home. It was race night at the pub. I was singing along to ‘I Honestly Love You’ into the handle of a hairbrush when he burst into the lounge and found me dressed in one of my mother’s frocks. It was when he noticed my legs that he started shouting. They were criss-crossed with ballpoint pen in the fashion of fishnet stockings.

I felt my heart again. It was still ticking, ticking like a time bomb. I could feel tiny ripples of pain each time a tick happened. I went to consult the house physician.

‘Mum, I think I’m going to have a heart attack.’

‘Really, Julian.’ Mum was peeling potatoes over the sink and didn’t turn round.

‘It’s got a funny tick. I think I’d better not do any phys. ed. tomorrow. Can you write a note?’

‘Physical Education is probably the best thing for a dicky heart.’

‘My situation is very delicate.’ My situation was that I hated sports.

‘All the more reason to build up your stamina.’

‘Ralph Waters says he’s going to smash my teeth in if I set foot on the rugby field. That sort of thing could ruin a stage and screen career. I’ll need a good set of teeth if I’m going to be a star.’ Ralph had done no such thing. He’d kept a respectful distance since the Stromboli incident but Mum didn’t need to know this.

‘Go find a pen and paper.’

## [5]

My family generally didn’t do holidays. We didn’t own a caravan or tent and Dad didn’t want to rent a beach house. That would’ve been throwing good money away. My father liked to point out that there were plenty of decent beaches around Ulverston. He called our stretch of coastline the Tasmanian Riviera. If Ulverston’s sand was good enough for him when he was a kid, it was good enough for us. We could like it or lump it. Dad’s idea of summer fun was to get us throwing a cricket ball to each other while he drank beer and shouted from the back step. This was fine for Carmel and John who had an obscene attachment to balls but it was hell for me. Cricket balls made me carsick.

Summer holidays were difficult because they meant Dad was home during the day and this meant pressure to go outside and play. I was getting depressed about the post-Christmas period when he suddenly announced we were going to stay in a real holiday house on the east coast. Trevor Bland’s brother had a cabin and said we could use it for two weeks. We only had to pay for electricity. Mum was thrilled and began baking immediately. Even Dad got into the spirit of things. I overheard him telling Mum we should start getting used to candlelight.

The beach settlement had five cabins and a small shop that sold frozen and tinned food. Fresh milk and bread arrived every other day. Our cabin was a two-room wooden shack under gum trees. My parents put up camp stretchers in the main room and we took the bunks in the other room.

The beach was miles from the nearest town and didn’t have a sewage system. Our cabin had a septic tank for the kitchen waste and the run-off from the outside shower. The toilet wasn’t connected to the tank. It was a hole in the ground over which sat a small corrugated iron shed that could be moved when things reached maximum capacity. Inside was a makeshift bench seat with a hole to put your bum through. The stink of the shed would’ve been unbearable if the hole hadn’t provided such an interesting view of what was going on in the family.

Dad had recently stopped trying to make Carmel play with dolls and started encouraging her interest in cricket. The sports desk at The Bugle was seeing more articles on women’s cricket. Dad still relegated these to an obscure corner of the sports pages but he’d realised that it was now almost respectable for a woman to play the game. He’d bought Carmel a bat and a new set of wickets for Christmas. John and Carmel pulled this equipment out of the Holden Kingswood not long after we arrived and headed down to the beach. While they were off making fools of themselves, I made friends with the kids from the next cabin, Donna and Dean Speck.

I’d noticed their Holden Statesman as we arrived and wondered whether they might be my kind of people. The car was brand new and fitted with snazzy hubcaps. The Speck kids exhibited the same kind of style as their car. They wore new beach outfits and spoke with a posh Hobart accent. Dean did all the talking. He was a strange boy, loud and aggressive, but I decided to overlook these faults when he said his father worked on radio. Mr Speck had been reporting on the sheep trials in Ulverston that morning. Any fool knew that radio was television without pictures. Mr Speck was more or less a star, just the sort of contact I’d need in the future. The Specks were building a hut out of tea-tree sticks when I leaned over the wire fence. I loved building forts and asked if I could help. Dean shook his head in a final sort of way and suggested a more interesting game called Disease. I was flattered.

‘You’ll love it. It’s really exciting.’ Dean said this with confidence as he picked up the long, wooden pole his mother used to prop up her washing line.

I followed him to the back of their cabin and watched as he poked it into the hole of their toilet.

‘Now run for your life or you’ll catch the disease!’ Dean had a violent smile on his face when he spun around, waving the damp end of the pole in the air.

Donna must’ve played the game before. She immediately disappeared inside the Speck cabin and slammed the door. I turned and ran as Dean charged at me, holding the pole in front of him like a jousting lance. I didn’t want anything to do with a game called Disease and headed straight for our cabin and the safety of my mother. As I rounded the corner of the fence, I slipped on the sandy soil and fell hard on my chest. I was face down struggling for breath when I felt the wet end of the pole poked under my chin. Dean was laughing.

‘Now you’ve got the disease. Ha, ha.’

I decided to avoid the Speck kids after that. There had to be a cleaner way to get on television. I washed my neck with the hose and went off to see how Carmel’s bowling arm was developing. It was the same arm she used for punching.

Mum had been talking to other mothers and discovered that the beach was located close to a scenic national park with a waterfall. One morning Dad told us the family was going to see some real Tassie bush. By the way he spoke, I knew it was the last thing he wanted to do. Neither was he happy about having an extra passenger in the car. John had invited his new best friend to come along. Dean Speck and John had a lot in common. They loved throwing balls and both got sadistic pleasure out of calling me names. Their name of preference was ‘poof’. I didn’t like them making a Gary Jings of me and made a point of keeping my distance. This was difficult in the back seat of a Holden Kingswood but at least I had Carmel as a buffer. I also had Mum in the front seat if push came to shove.

It was already hot when we arrived at the nature reserve. Dad parked under a tree and walked off to urinate behind some man ferns. It was a three-kilometre hike to the waterfall. I decided to retain all fluids until we reached our goal. Brother Duffy had described what dehydration did to the Australian soldiers in North Africa. I didn’t want old sneakers for kidneys.

I kept a wary eye on the boys as they prepared for the hike. John obviously looked up to Dean. He let him carry the cricket bat while he lugged the wickets. They ran on ahead with Carmel while I kept pace with Mum, Dad and the plastic picnic bin, silently agreeing with Dad as he griped about every step. It was the most physical activity I’d ever seen him do. My father was a sports maniac but only when other people played the game. I felt my heart at regular intervals to make sure it was still ticking.

At the base of the falls, we laid out the picnic on a wooden table and then ate while brushing flies off our egg sandwiches. When Carmel pulled out a cricket ball after lunch, I decided to do some exploring. I didn’t want to be roped into a ball game with a thug like Dean.

The track to the top of the falls was well marked and Mum said I was allowed to venture off on my own. I followed it for ten minutes until I reached the large pool above the waterfall. The picnic table was somewhere beneath the treetops below. The thrill of absolute power guided my hands to my fly. I was the source of the Ganges, the spring of Lourdes, the piddling bronze boy of Belgium. I urinated into the river with pride and calculated how long it would take to flow past my parents. I imagined my father scooping a plastic picnic cup into the stream and taking a drink.

As I descended, I could hear a strange noise filtering through the bush. It sounded like the high-pitched wail of an injured animal. I imagined a wombat being torn apart by a Tasmanian devil and hurried down the track to the picnic area.

My mother was standing next to the picnic table hunched over Dean. She was pressing a damp cloth to his forehead with a worried look. Dean’s face was red and wet with tears. He was crying openly like a girl. Dad was packing up the picnic bin with his lips in a hard line. John was looking at his friend in an embarrassed, disappointed way. Only Carmel was smiling. Her eyes were on Dean but her hands were busy with the cricket ball. She was tossing it expertly from one hand to the other.

I was the first to be diagnosed with hepatitis A. Carmel followed within a week and a few days later Dad came down with the disease. We were told not to leave our house in Ulverston for four weeks. Dad wasn’t allowed to go to work or the pub and was forbidden to drink alcohol. He spent his days feeling sorry for himself in front of the television, swiping flies with the Punter’s Gazette. The disease wasn’t pleasant but it did have one very shiny silver lining. We were forbidden to engage in any physical activity. Television was out with Dad hogging the set so Carmel and I took up board games and poker. These we pretended to play while kicking each other under the table.

Mum and John miraculously didn’t get the disease. They were told to be very careful and to wash their hands with special soap after handling us. John held his nose and flattened himself against the wall whenever he met me in the hall. He even got a room on his own after Carmel and I were shunted in together. This was a temporary arrangement but a vast improvement on life with John. Carmel punched hard but at least she made me laugh. She also had imagination. Her eyes lit up when I suggested forming a singing duo.

‘You’d make an excellent back-up singer.’ Carmel had a keen eye for natural talent. ‘We could be the next Carpenters. We just need the charm of Val Doonican with the staying power of Andy Williams.’

I felt a glow of pride in the defrosted-chicken department of my chest. Carmel knew what she was talking about. She’d seen me perform often enough. Mum and I had been working on my voice since I was old enough to say Dick Dingle. I performed for my mother whenever she got something mysterious called her period. These unhappy periods occurred quite regularly and entailed tears and hot-water bottles. My job was to sing into the handle of a hairbrush and dance until she smiled and remembered where the family block of Shelby’s fruit and nut was hidden.

‘What about Frank Sinatra?’ I didn’t like the Carpenters and wasn’t particularly fond of Val or Andy. They appeared on Sunday-night TV music specials. I always felt slightly carsick before the start of the school week and associated these singers with a feeling of doom.

Carmel smiled. ‘Once every five years you say something intelligent.’

The chicken stirred again behind my ribs. This meant I’d said at least two intelligent things in my life.

‘Sinatra’s where the money is. You’re Dean Martin and I’m Ol’ Blue Eyes.’ Carmel examined her eyes in the mirror over the mantelpiece. She blew a kiss to herself.

‘No, I’m Sinatra.’ My voice had the whine that preceded tears and a tantrum.

‘OK, OK, we’re both Sinatra. I’m Frank and you’re Nancy.’

Carmel put together a routine of Frank Sinatra songs from Mum’s Sinatra records. My job was to do the harmonising vocals for every song except for a ‘You Make Me Feel so Young’ medley. For this number, I was allowed to sing the Nancy part unaided.

‘You have to sing it even higher and warble the end bits because it’s a girl’s part.’

‘But you sing Frank’s part in your normal voice.’

‘Yes, but my voice has a naturally deep timbre.’

I couldn’t argue with her on that point. People sometimes mistook Carmel for Dad when she answered the phone.

Carmel arranged an evening performance for the family in the lounge. My stomach was fluttery as we dragged the Aussiemica table in from the dinette and draped a red candlewick bedspread over it. Carmel placed three chairs in front of this stage but took one away after John refused to join. He said he had no intention of being showered with disease.

Mum and Dad were quiet for the first four songs, politely clapping at the end of each number and occasionally nodding. It wasn’t until the Frank and Nancy duet that we got the reaction Carmel had anticipated. Dad smiled for the first time in two weeks when I broke into Nancy. He was clapping wildly next to Mum by the time Carmel and I did our final harmony.

At the end of the show Mum handed us each a bar of Shelby’s. She ruffled my hair and whispered ‘Twinkle, twinkle’ in my ear before going into the kitchen to cut a cream sponge cake she’d baked for the occasion. Dad was still smiling when he came up to me. He pounded me on the shoulder in a manly but friendly way.

‘I needed that. The laugh’s done me the world of good.’

‘It wasn’t supposed to be funny, Dad.’

‘I was laughing with you. Did you think I was laughing at you?’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘You think I’m the type of father who laughs at his children?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I was humouring you. It’s a form of encouragement. You’ll understand when you get older.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Don’t worry. In a couple of years you’ll lose that whinny.’ He walked away laughing to himself.

## [6]

The illness was ideal for receiving special treatment and avoiding sports, but it was bad news for Mum and Dad’s relationship. They’d always been a mismatched couple and never had the lovey-dovey sort of arrangement I saw on family TV shows. Mum and Dad didn’t exchange compliments or show open affection to each other. It was more businesslike than that. The arrangement became even less amicable after the beach trip. This lack of warmth transformed into hostility during Dad’s illness. While it had never been acceptable to show affection with children in the room, it was now fine to go at it hammer and tongs in front of us.

As the weeks dragged on, Dad got progressively more miserable and touchy. Even Carmel avoided the lounge where he’d taken up residence. My father spent his days not drinking and glowering at daytime television, which was dominated by cooking shows, farming programmes and reruns of old films. Even Dick Dingle produced boring daytime programmes. It was one of these, a Dingle documentary on the scouts of Tasmania, that finally stirred my father into action. He called John into the dinette and took out his chequebook. John waved the cheque at me to make sure I’d seen the sort of power relationship he had with our father before leaving on his bicycle.

That evening, a van arrived with a load of timber and chicken wire. Dad sat on the back step to avoid passing on his disease and called instructions to the man driving the van. The next-door neighbour started his lawnmower just as Dad began speaking. The bedroom I currently shared with Carmel was located at the back of the house and provided a view of the van and the back step. We watched from the window.

‘Just leave it under the plum tree, mate.’ Dad had to shout over the noise of the mower.

‘What’s that, mate?’

‘Under the plum tree, mate. Plum.’ Dad drew a plum in the air with two fingers but it may as well have been a heart or an upside-down bum.

‘Another bum treat? What the hell are you on about, mate?’

The man in the van had no way of knowing Dad was ill. Bum treat sounded poofy. To the driver, Dad was implying something unAustralian.

‘Under the fucking plum tree, you idiot.’

The mower stopped and Dad’s words hung over the neighbourhood. I imagined families frozen in front of their barbecues, sausages going silent on the grill. The F word had power. A thrill went through me. It was the first time I’d heard it from my father. I had to make the most of it.

‘You want to watch your mouth, mate. I’m not paid to be abused by some queer bastard who’s too lazy to get off his back step.’

Dad stood up and walked over to the van with long, deliberate strides. By the crimson of his neck I could tell that he was sizzling with anger. He poked his head in the van window and shoved it up close to the driver.

‘I’m not queer, mate. I’ve got hepatitis A. You can catch it from saliva spray. A microscopic speck is enough. Makes you as crook as a dog.’

The driver rolled up his window as soon as Dad had pulled his head away. He waited until my father had retreated to the step before hastily unloading the timber and wire. As he drove off, his wheels spun in the grass and left two long brown furrows under the plum tree.

Dad called the chicken coop a boys’ project and expected me to pitch in and help with its construction. He said it would teach us about building things, responsibility, life and death. I reminded Mum about my hepatitis and my father was warned not to let me lift a nail let alone a hammer. It took Dad and John three days to build. John was then sent on a mission to the local poultry farm, returning with ten chicks in an aerated shoebox on his bike carrier. The chicks were past the fluffy stage and had the beginnings of combs and feathers. Dad put them in the coop with some porridge. They pecked madly at the meal, spraying grey missiles in all directions. I ventured out to watch them feed. They were busy, funny things that took my mind off the miserable state of affairs inside the house.

We got the all-clear to rejoin the human race just as school started. The chickens began laying eggs a month later. A few months after that, Dad began introducing new chicks and culling the older girls. He bought himself a large metal chopper and placed a sawn-off tree trunk in the backyard.

I was supposed to take part in the slaughter but Dad ordered me to the back step when I refused to catch a chicken. I told myself that it wasn’t a big thing; chickens got killed every day. Carmel said they regularly got killed crossing the road. Dad put on a barbecue apron and sharpened the chopper. He wiped down the wooden stump and pulled the hose out to the backyard. John took his place next to him with a stupid grin.

Dad had prepared us for the slaughter by solemnly declaring that killing animals for food was natural to mankind. ‘We’re omnivores. That’s why we have molars and canine teeth. In nature, it’s survival of the fittest. It’s either them or us.’

I watched him run his finger along the chopper’s edge and began to sweat. ‘Them or us’ was a stupid idea. The chickens had no intention of pecking us to death.

My stomach tightened as Dad reached into the coop and grabbed a bird by the legs, carrying it to the stump upside down with its wings flapping. He asked John to hold the legs while he stretched out the neck. Bringing the chopper down fast, he sent the head flying off the stump at high speed. The chicken’s legs slipped out of John’s grasp as it gave its last jerks of life. Blood sprayed in an arc from the chicken’s neck, showering John and Dad with a line of bright red dots.

My stomach heaved. I ran to the bathroom and splashed cold water over my face until the carsick feeling eased. When my legs felt solid again I went to the kitchen to see Mum. She was boiling water to remove the chicken’s feathers.

‘Mum, I can’t eat that chicken. It was murder.’

‘I’m making a roast-chicken dinner, your favourite.’

‘I can’t eat it for religious reasons.’

‘OK, honey. Carmel can have the drumsticks and wings and John can have the juicy white meat from the breast. I’ll just have those two little flesh oysters from the hollows of its back. They’re probably Elizabeth Taylor’s favourite bits. Your father can have the skin and the pickings on the carcass. There, that’s settled then.’

They were welcome to it. I’d had a religious transformation. It was wrong to eat a murdered chicken. The only chickens I would eat from now on were those from a supermarket. Happy, bloodless things that came in sealed plastic wrappers.

Religion was a non-negotiable subject in our house. We were Sunday Catholics. We didn’t bother practising much of what the priest preached but we went to Our Lady of Miracles every Sunday like the other good Catholics of Ulverston. On the subject of church, Mum and Dad were in agreement. It didn’t matter how crappy things were in real life: once a week we had to pretend to be a normal family.

‘Dad, I can’t go to church today. I’ve had a religious transformation. I had a visitation. Like an archangel, only bigger and shinier.’

Dad was putting on his tie in front of the hall mirror. He looked at my reflection and tightened his lips. I pushed on.

‘I was sucked up into the clouds where I met a man sitting on a large Brazil nut.’

My father raised his eyebrows in the mirror.

‘He looked like Mr Patel from the fruit and vegetable shop but he had long hair.’

Dad frowned and tucked the tail of his tie into his shirt.

‘I’m being called by a higher voice, he said. I should follow the voice, wherever it leads me, even if I have to walk through the valley of death and all that.’

Dad turned from the mirror and gave me one of his looks. ‘I heard a higher voice on the radio this morning. It was Joan Sutherland. Put on your Sunday jumper and get in the car. I’m in no mood for one of your stories.’

Church services at Our Lady of Miracles were a complete waste of time. The priest should have looked good in his glittery frock but managed to completely ruin the effect with a tragic haircut and old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses. Father McMahon wasn’t just a frump. He had absolutely no talent for working a crowd. It wouldn’t have taken much to liven up his sermons: a few ‘A funny thing happened to me on the way to the church this morning’ starters, some audience participation, novelty giveaways. But when Father McMahon talked, people picked lint off their cardigans and dug holes into pews with car keys. The priest lacked showmanship. My mother and I called this quality ‘pizzazz’ and divided the world into those who had it and those who didn’t. Mum and I fell into the first category while Dad and John occupied the second. Carmel was impossible to categorise. Mum said I had so much pizzazz I glowed. This was an exaggeration but I knew what she meant.

A shiny ecclesiastical gown would not have been wasted on me but the priesthood held no appeal. The Catholic Church had too many nutty rules and not enough handsome role models. Father McMahon managed to be even less attractive than the Pope, which was saying something. The best way to get through the hour of what he managed to stretch into half a day was to squint my eyes at the other churchgoers and imagine them without clothes. I’d actually seen my mother naked once when I’d surprised her coming out of the shower and taken in a few crucial points. Ladies had the Stromboli mound, only it was covered by a thatch of what I now knew to be pubic hair. Carmel had explained the mechanics of this anatomical oddity. ‘It’s like Velcro. It helps keep your underpants up.’

I’d done more research and come a long way since the Ralph Waters field trip. I knew for a fact that women had something called the lady hole, hidden away below the Velcro line. Where John got the point on his head, however, was still a mystery.

My father had done nothing to help my research. I’d shared a bathroom and towels with him for over a decade but had never seen him naked, not a pubic hair, not once. I’d seen him with his shirt off a handful of times but no Velcro. The mystery of the adult male had been cleared up by Greg Bean, a boy with Down Syndrome who visited the Ulverston Municipal Baths every Saturday in summer. Greg had the body of a teenager but the smiley temperament of a six-year-old. He had absolutely no concept of modesty and walked around inside the changing shed without clothes, singing, while his brother Denny tried to get him to step into his bathers.

The only times I considered God was when I wanted something expensive or when I was touching myself. If it was the latter case then I preferred to think that God didn’t exist. It made no sense that a higher intelligence would’ve provided such excellent equipment then forbidden me to use it. Masturbation was a key theme at St Kevin’s. We constantly heard about the perils of it from the Christian Brothers who ran our school. I might’ve taken notice if the message had come from another source, but I had no confidence in these particular men of the cloth. For the most part, they were a miserable bunch of failures. They’d given up the worldly joys but didn’t have what it took to become priests. Brother Punt was the school’s anti-wanking fanatic. He gave the religion class twice a week.

‘Masturbation is dangerous, boys. It’s a very difficult habit to break.’

Brother Punt turned his palms upward and spread his hands in front of him with a sweeping gesture. I’d seen a magician on television do the same thing to prove he had nothing to hide. Thomas Owen put up his hand. He was the tallest boy in the class and had permanently chapped lips.

‘What about in the bath, sir? I mean how do we wash ourselves down there?’ Thomas pointed to the hot zone below the belt of his trousers.

That question would’ve been a joke from anyone else in the class but Thomas didn’t have a ha-ha sense of humour. His mother came from somewhere in Germany.

‘Good question, Owen. I have two keywords for washing yourself. Be fast and be sure. Soap your flannel into a lather and clean your privates with a brisk rubbing motion.’

‘I tried that, sir, but I’m having problems.’

We all knew what kind of problems Thomas was talking about. These were not problems as far as I was concerned.

‘Be brisk, Owen. Do not linger.’

Poor Owen. His problem wasn’t masturbation. His problem was that he thought it was a crime. I knew he had it wrong. If there was a God and he didn’t want us to touch ourselves, he would’ve given us something useless like the joyless mound of a girl. Thomas was making a Gary Jings of himself. He wasn’t supposed to attract attention to himself. His job was to get on with business and keep quiet about it. Someone had to come to his rescue.

‘Do you think Jesus had a problem with…you know?’ I looked Brother Punt in the eye and shrugged knowingly. My question seemed to throw him off balance.

‘What sort of question is that?’ The brother’s hands clamped the edge of the desk.

‘Well, I mean, did they have flannels in those days? When Jesus Christ took a bath and all, do you think he—?’

‘No! Jesus was the son of God.’

The brother was firm on this point. He lifted a hand and brought it down hard on to the desk. Thomas Owen jumped and let out a squeak.

‘But he had a man’s body.’

This I knew for a fact. I’d admired it every Sunday in its shiny plaster form on the wall of Our Lady of Miracles. I imagined Jesus had quite a Thermos flask inside the old tea towel wrapped around his loins. I’d spent many services redesigning the sculpture in my head, with and without the loincloth. My Jesus was clean-shaven with sexy little sideburns. He had a yellow brocade scarf slung around the hips, just low enough to reveal a hint of pubic hair. My scarf wasn’t tucked between the legs like Our Lady’s tea towel. In my version, the long tassels dangled cheekily in front of the groin. My design was a definite improvement on the original. It certainly would’ve encouraged more people to attend church and look up to Jesus.

‘He wouldn’t have done anything impure with his body.’ Brother Punt was leaning forward over his desk in a threatening manner.

‘But maybe he touched himself by mistake sometimes.’

‘He wouldn’t have.’ The brother’s word was final. The look on his face made that clear.

‘But he might have, you know, bumped against something accidentally. Maybe a chair or a goat.’

‘Shut up!’

I wasn’t sure if it was the mention of the chair or the goat that inflamed Brother Punt, but he moved toward me with the speed of a great white shark. I knew these particular sharks moved very fast because I’d just read an article in the Australian Ladies’ Companion about a man who’d lost a leg at Bondi Beach. I’d read it through to the end because it featured a photo of the surf lifesavers who had pulled the victim from the waves. The lifesavers wore tiny nylon bathers and little multicoloured caps that did up under the chin. The story inspired me to add surf lifesaver to my list of possible careers. But I wasn’t going to be one of the lifesavers who actually went in the water. I was going to provide cold drinks and suntan lotion, and speak to television cameras.

The teacher grabbed me under the armpit and dragged me to his desk. Reaching into the drawer, he pulled out a long, thick, leather instrument of torture. Punt had his own peculiar style with the strap. He brought the base down hard on to the palm, leaving the length of leather to slap at high speed across the delicate inner part of the wrist and forearm. I imagined it wasn’t too different from having nails driven into the wrists then being hung from a wooden cross. The brother’s technique made the veins stand out and left huge red welts on the skin.

The only good thing about being strapped was the attention it drew. Strap marks were the stigmata at my Catholic school. They were the mark of a star and sent popularity ratings sky high. At playtime I had an audience and even got a pat on the back from Ralph Waters.

## [7]

Popularity had a strange effect on me. The more I had, the more I wanted. The Christian Brothers called me a show-off but they didn’t understand the value of good entertainment. My classmates did and so did my mother. This was a good base but if I was going to take my pizzazz to the next level, I needed to develop a look. That look was a lot thinner. I found the ideal solution to weight loss in an advertisement in the back of The Bugle. Ten days later, a plain brown-paper package was sitting on the table when I got home from school.

‘What’s this, then?’ My mother tapped it with her fingernail.

‘Private and personal.’

I picked it up and took it into the bathroom. I could feel my heartbeat in the back of my throat as I locked the door. The package had cost me all my pocket-money savings. It was worth it. I needed to start making preparations now if I was going to win the Little Aussie Talent Quest. I had four years to prepare myself. Mum said that the talent quest was a stepping stone to the Golden Microphone and advised me to keep my eye on the prize. It didn’t matter how I applied my pizzazz, she said. The important thing was to make full use of my star quality and one day I’d end up on television.

As an incentive, Mum had taped a photo and caption from the Companion to the door of the fridge. It showed a smiling teenage girl from Geelong, Tania, holding the Golden Microphone trophy. Her cheeks were bright pink and her teeth had braces. Mum said I would be a Tania one day. It was just a matter of doing the right thing in the right place at the right time. She called it the Golden Microphone Moment and warned me not to squander my talent as she’d done. Marrying my father just after the Tasmanian finals had been the biggest mistake of her life, she said. She never made it to the nationals.

I opened the package. It contained an instruction sheet.

> Remove all items of clothing including undergarments.

> Wash your body thoroughly to remove skin toxins.

> Towel your body dry.

> Slip the SlimQuik Body Skin on underneath your regular clothes.

> The body-hugging SlimQuik Body Skin is worn against the skin and is not visible under clothes.

I took off my school uniform. The SlimQuik was made of stiff pink plastic that crackled and was designed like a Charlie Chaplin bathing suit with short legs and a sleeveless top. I climbed into it and pop-closed the row of domes running down the chest. It was too big. I’d ordered an adult medium to be on the safe side but it was hanging off me. I put my school uniform back on and looked at myself in the mirror. Apart from the suit bottoms hanging out of my shorts, no one would ever know. I rolled the legs up, stuck the instruction sheet in my pocket and opened the door. My mother watched me from the back step as I put the empty packaging in the rubbish tin.

‘You going to tell me what’s going on?’

‘It’s scientific, Mum, for the good of mankind and all that. You’ll see in ten days.’ That’s how long it would take me to lose five kilograms.

I gently nudged Mum on my way back inside. The suit crackled as we bumped.

‘Snap, crackle, pop!’ She laughed and ruffled my hair.

I ignored her and headed back to my bedroom without moving my arms. A new Celebrity Glitter had arrived and I had research to do. The magazine had an exposé on Elizabeth Taylor’s secret second marriage to Richard Burton, a good move in my opinion. Burton was a generous man. He’d given Liz all her best necklaces and didn’t seem to mind her plumpness.

My own body was supposed to have projections and hollows like the bodies of other boys who were now elongating and sprouting. But puberty was not so kind to me. I was increasing in density and getting softer and rounder. My father did nothing for my confidence. I was foolish enough to walk past him one day without a shirt. He’d looked at my chest and laughed. ‘Look at those bottle tops! Ha, ha.’

This was rich coming from him. The pair he had on his chest talked to each other when he climbed the three steps to the back door. I knew where the bottle tops on my chest came from and I resented him for it. His other physical deformity I didn’t want was body hair. I desperately wanted pubic hair but I feared what adolescence might do to my back. Dad’s hairs marched their way north from his bum crevice like a hungry army, fanning out at the top of his back and sweeping over his shoulders. From there they worked their way south again, over his chest and down past his stomach. Carmel said if we rubbed him along our nylon carpet we’d generate enough static to attach him to the back of the couch.

My body density would’ve been unbearable if I’d suffered it alone but it was reassuring to suffer it along with Elizabeth Taylor. The Celebrity Glitter article was particularly unkind. It referred to Liz as a bejewelled porker. I decided to write to her personally through her fan club.

Dear Liz,

Don’t worry about being a little on the big side. You’re the world’s best ambassador for big people because you’ve still got a beautiful face and anyway, you could be a lot bigger. So don’t worry. You’re a big star, big and shiny like a real star in the sky.

I just wanted to tell you that.

By the way, is the Cartier diamond heavy? Sixty-nine seems a lot of carats even for a big diamond like the Cartier. Those carats must be heavy. That’s what I think anyway.

Liz, you and I have a lot in common. I’m sure we’ll be good friends after I move to America. I just have to win the Golden Microphone or equivalent trophy. Mum says it’s a sure thing. I first have to win the Little Aussie Talent Quest but I can’t enter this until I’m fifteen. So you will have to be patient. In the meantime, why don’t you visit Ulverston? You can stay at our house. Our couch is a four-seater so it should be big enough.

Love from YOUR BIGGEST FAN,

Julian Corkle

The Songbird of the South

There, that would make her feel better. I licked the envelope flap several times and pushed it flat. It curled up again. The sticky tape was in the dinette where Mum was entertaining our neighbour, Roslyn Scone. Roslyn was a sharp woman with a pinched face and limp blond hair that sat on her head like wet seaweed. She could have done something to remedy her looks but Roslyn wasn’t the type to invest money in something important. She was proudly describing her husband’s new Ford Escort when I entered the dinette. The Royal Albert tea set was out and a cake plate with three chocolate Tiffany biscuits was sitting in the middle of the table. I loved Tiffanies almost as much as I loved Shelby’s chocolate. My idea of happiness was sharing a packet of Tiffanies with Mum while I did her hair and she talked about my career. This we could do only when Dad and John were off the premises.

I sat down next to Roslyn with a crackle. She didn’t look in my direction or even acknowledge me. Roslyn didn’t like me and it was all Carmel’s fault. The papers and television had been making a lot of noise about a Scottish stripping sensation touring Australia called Gladys McGinty. Gladys had enormous breasts that sat on her chest like two Russian icebreakers. The media referred to her as Gladys Maximus and got a lot of mileage out of jokes about her massive tartan bagpipes. According to Carmel, our neighbour Roslyn had a sunken treasure chest with grains of sand for breasts. One day I was sitting with my sister behind the hedge when she called out, ‘Roslyn Minimus, the scrawny tart and bag!’ Carmel had run off and left me to my fate. I was cowering behind the hedge, smiling foolishly, when Roslyn found me. She hadn’t forgiven me.

‘Mum, can I have a Tiffany?’ I took a biscuit as I asked.

‘Just one, Julian, then go outside and play.’

‘I need some sticky tape.’

‘You know where it is.’

I got off my chair and found the tape in the drawer. I sealed the envelope and returned to the table, crackling as I sat down. It was getting hot inside the suit. I could feel sweat tickling down the backs of my knees. I reached out and took another Tiffany as swiftly as possible. The suit crackled again. Roslyn looked at me suspiciously.

‘What’s that rustling sound? The boy’s got something in his trousers.’

The sweat was now running down my legs. Roslyn made me nervous but I couldn’t leave while there was still a Tiffany up for grabs. If I let the biscuit slip through my fingers, it would haunt me all afternoon.

‘Everything inside my trousers is normal, Mum.’

‘Colleen, young boys are pleasure-seekers. He’s got something alien down there.’ Roslyn folded her arms over her two grains of sand. She wanted war.

I wanted the Tiffany. I decided to offer her an olive branch. ‘Mrs Scone, I bet you’re an expert on carats. Women love them. The bigger the better and all that.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Roslyn gave me a horrified look. She obviously didn’t read the right magazines.

‘Carats. You know, the big ones. You’ve got to have them if you’re a glamour puss. Film stars can’t get enough of them.’

Roslyn made a high-pitched whistling sound as she sucked air past her dentures.

Mum rattled her Royal Albert teacup in its saucer. ‘That’s enough, Julian! Get outside.’

I grabbed the last Tiffany and slipped off my chair with a crackle. I heard Roslyn whistle-gasp as I made for the door. Outside, I squatted down and waddled like a duck until I was directly below the open dinette window.

‘You want to watch that boy, Colleen.’

‘For goodness’ sake! He’s wearing a sweat suit to lose weight.’

Mum’s statement was followed by the clatter of plates. She was clearing the table and being rough on the Royal Albert. This was out of character for Mum. The tea set was the nicest thing we owned and only made the voyage from the lounge mantelpiece to the table when there were guests to entertain or impress. She’d bought the porcelain with her Golden Microphone prize money.

‘Boys shouldn’t wear sweat suits.’

‘Roslyn! Julian is a good kid and I don’t appreciate you implying otherwise. He’s got a lot of talent and will go places one day.’ More china rattled.

‘I wasn’t finished with that cup of tea.’

‘I think you were.’

‘Well, I know when I’m not wanted!’

‘At least you know that.’

A chair scraped. The door slammed. I watched Roslyn’s rigid back as she marched down our driveway. She turned at the gate and saw me crouched under the window. I thought of Carmel and gave her the fingers.

The family was going out to the King’s Arms and had dressed up for the occasion. I was wearing my new maroon stretch trousers and gingham check shirt. Mum had on her knee-length apricot skirt and cream twin set. I’d spent hours curling and setting her hair and she looked just like Bobbie Gentry. The dinner was Mum’s idea. We were going out to celebrate John’s sixteenth birthday in a grown-up way at the hotel’s new Sunday Family Buffet. Dad didn’t like family outings but had been won over by the pub’s all-you-can-eat deal.

I’d never been to a buffet and wanted to make the most of it. The three Tiffany biscuits I’d eaten in the afternoon had been digested hours ago. I was starving and keen to get going. Dad must’ve felt the same way because he was the first in the car. I followed John and Carmel into the back seat with a crackle. Carmel made a face and slid away from me. John gave me a disgusted look and wound down his window. I leaned over to talk to Dad.

‘Can we really eat as much as we like?’

‘What?’ Dad was occupied with counting the one- and two-dollar notes in his wallet.

‘Can I really eat until I’m full, without stopping and all that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can I fill my plate and go back again for seconds? And are the desserts and drinks included?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What if all the food’s gone when we get there?’

‘It won’t be. We’ll be there at opening time. That’s the Corkle way.’

‘But a rugby team might turn up. Or a herd of sheep farmers.’

‘Ulverston’s got fish-and-chip shops for that sort of thing.’

‘Do you think they’ll have chips?’

‘Probably, they’re cheap to make.’

‘That’s all right then.’ If I could eat as much as I like, and if the buffet had chips and dessert, then everything would be fine.

Dad was right. We were the first family to arrive and had to wait ten minutes for the staff to finish laying out the buffet. Trestle tables had been set up in the lounge bar under a banner: ‘Caterers’ Choice Brand. Mouth-watering cuisine made from home-style recipes’. It was like something out of Celebrity Glitter. The stainless steel and porcelain shone under the fluorescent lights and the food steamed inside the bains-marie. There were fancy dishes like beef curry and macaroni and cheese alongside normal Tasmanian food like chips and sausage rolls. Mum led us to a table as Dad paid. He followed us over scowling.

‘Sharks! We should’ve come yesterday when John was fifteen. I had to pay full price.’

John smiled smugly. He was now officially almost an adult.

I got off my chair and stood beside Mum, waiting for the signal. She nodded and I made my move. I’d surveyed the tables and knew exactly where I was going. Avoiding the tasteless stuff like vegetables and salads, I loaded my plate with sausage rolls and chips. I went back and filled another with desserts in case the sheep farmers arrived while I was stuck on mains. We all took more food than we needed.

I worked my way through the first plate of savouries and then went back for another of crumbed chicken pieces and spaghetti. By the third round I was feeling gassy and hot. The SlimQuik was tight inside my clothes. Carmel heard domes pop as I got up a fourth time. She pinched her nose and made a waving motion with her other hand. ‘Ugh, not in the public sphere.’

I filled the fourth plate with beef curry and rice. It was a ridiculous choice. I didn’t like beef curry any more than I liked Irish stew. I ate it anyway.

Little rivers of sweat were running from under my arms when I started in on the apple sponge and chocolate cake. By now the suit had ripped open underneath my clothes. I didn’t care. I just had to make enough room for a chocolate éclair and a helping of pavlova and then I’d be done.

I swallowed the last spoonful of pavlova and put the bowl on top of the stack of empty plates in front of me. I felt bloated and carsick. Complete calm was the only cure. I just wanted it all to end and to go home.

The family was still eating when a man came up to the table and spoke to Dad. ‘I’d like to have a word with you, sir, away from the other paying customers.’

Dad got up and followed him. When he returned, his face was an angry red grimace. He didn’t sit down.

‘What’s the matter, Jim?’ Mum was brushing crumbs off the tablecloth in front of me.

‘We’re going. Some family discount they have here! That idiot just asked me to pay full price for Julian.’

Dad’s eyes fell on me. I tried to sink lower in my chair but the interior of the sweat suit was slick with sweat. The suit and my clothes remained upright on the chair while I slipped down inside them. The suit made a squeaking sound as my skin rubbed against the plastic. Carmel aimed an elbow at my ribs but hit my shoulder.

‘He said Julian ate four plates of mains. I told him to shove his buffet up his bum. Come on, let’s get out of here.’

‘But, Dad, I haven’t had dessert yet and it’s my birthday.’ John’s voice was a sickening whine.

Dad shook his head. We were leaving. John shot me a dangerous look. I knew by the look that I’d get hell later but I was in too much discomfort to care. I burped and tasted pavlova and beef curry in the back of my mouth.

As soon as we got home, I rushed into the bathroom and locked the door. I tore off all my clothes and removed the SlimQuik. It had ripped from the crotch to halfway up the back but I didn’t care. It felt wonderful to be free of it. I pulled out the bathroom scales and stood on them naked, holding my breath. I’d been wearing the damned suit for an entire day and deserved some weight loss as compensation. The scales indicated I was two and a half kilograms heavier. I got off, wound back the little arm a few notches and then got back on. There, I was just under my regular weight.

## [8]

It was one thing to have love handles bulging over the top of my shorts but it was quite another to overhear my father referring to me as a podge. Podge? I stopped in my tracks. I’d been on my way to the fridge to get cheese for a sandwich.

‘That little podge eats like a horse and watches too much TV. It’s not natural for a boy of his age. He should be outside playing not watching Dick Dingle on the box.’

Dad was sitting in front of the box talking to Mum as she ran a duster over the porcelain. He couldn’t see me in the dinette because his eyes were fixed on the All Blacks who were getting pounded into mincemeat by the South Africans. The New Zealand rugby tour of apartheid South Africa had stirred up a hornet’s nest on the pages of The Bugle. Dad didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

‘When was the last time you did any physical exercise?’ Mum’s hand had stopped moving. Her duster was hovering over the Royal Albert teapot.

‘I’m not eleven years old.’

‘No, you and that Trevor Bland act more like five-year-olds.’ Mum let the duster fall and put her hands on her hips. ‘Not all boys were made for sports. Julian has other talents. He’s sensitive and original.’

‘I’ve heard that before about you-know-who.’

‘Leave Norm out of this.’ She leaned over and waved a hand in front of Dad’s face, forcing him to look at her. ‘You know what you are, James Corkle? A big, fat, bigoted, beer-swilling sports dag.’

‘Sports dag? You can’t call me a sports dag.’

I should’ve left the dinette right then but I was riveted by the scene that had just unfolded before me. As Dad stood to confront my mother, he noticed me out of the corner of his eye. I heard him yell as I scurried for the back door. When he caught up with me I was near the plum tree. His face was red and his eyes were blazing. I knew he wanted to wallop me but he didn’t have a justifiable crime, especially with Mum watching from the back step.

His eyes narrowed and a smile appeared. The next thing I knew, he’d put Carmel’s cricket bat in my hand. It wasn’t fair but no court of law in Tasmania was going to convict a father of cruelty for making his son play cricket. Mum gave a sympathetic shrug and went back inside.

I was made to stand with my back to the tree and told to hit hard and high. Dad rubbed the ball on his trouser leg, put it to his lips, blew on it, and then bowled it in my direction. The next thing I knew I was on my back gasping for air. The cricket ball had hit me in the middle of the chest and thrown me on my back.

‘Did you just close your eyes?’ Dad was standing over me.

‘Yes.’ Honesty was the best policy when it came to my father.

‘You idiot.’

‘I mean no.’ I changed my mind. Honesty was definitely not the best policy. Flattery was. ‘You throw just like Stan McCabe.’

‘I can’t believe your stupidity. I could’ve killed you.’ Dad cared. He really did.

‘I mean I did close them.’

‘Your mother would have had a fit. Why in God’s name did you close your frigging eyes?’

‘The ball was blurry.’ For some insane reason, there was the truth again.

Dad’s head tilted to the side. He was paying attention. It encouraged me.

‘You, too, Dad. When you stand over there by the fence, your edges go all fluffy like Doris Day on TV.’

This description had an immediate impact. I was grabbed by the shoulder and marched into the kitchen where my mother was peeling potatoes. She looked at me and frowned. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Colleen, the boy’s afflicted. His eyes are buggered. I’ll have to see old Dent.’

Dr Dent was one of my father’s co-drinkers. They met nearly every night down at the King’s Arms with Trevor Bland to hash over meaningless topics like cricket and football. Dent was Dad’s idea of good medicine. The doctor had a speech problem which prevented him from asking too many questions or giving much medical advice. His small, unpopular practice was located above the Whipper Snapper fish-and-chip shop in the centre of town.

My mother held up three fingers. ‘How many fingers, Julian?’

‘Two.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with his eyes. Apart from their gorgeous green colour.’

This was my mother being funny. She smiled at me. I almost smiled back but stopped myself. I’d always wanted glasses and couldn’t allow humour to jeopardise this opportunity.

Yves Saint Laurent wore glasses and he was an actual French fashion designer from France. Everyone recognised Yves by his thick dark glasses. They were his signature, and all the big stars had a signature. Elizabeth Taylor had the Cartier diamond. Gladys had her icebreakers and Liberace, who had made another dazzling tour of Australia, had his candelabra.

Dent must’ve been a real doctor at one stage because he had a brass plaque on his door. The grubby waiting room was furnished with three vinyl chairs and an Aussiemica table. The ashtray on the table was full. There was no receptionist and obviously no cleaner.

‘G-g-g-g’day, Jim.’

Dent held out his hand to my father. He was a short man with an oily scalp encircled by a strip of grey hair. I immediately thought of Louis Pasteur. Pasteur’s discovery of bacteria and its destruction by boiling was one of Brother Duffy’s favourite subjects. Dent’s lab coat had grime around the buttonholes and along the pocket edges. It was asking to be boiled.

‘G-g-g-g’day, Dent.’ My father copied his friend’s stutter and then laughed at himself.

Dent didn’t seem to mind. He listened to Dad with a vacant smile before going ahead with the examination. After putting me through the eye chart, he brought over a huge pair of black test frames and told me to put them on. The eye circles were like cogs and had numbered notches around the edges. Dad spluttered with laughter.

‘Don’t I know you? You’re Brains from Thunderbirds. No, hang on, you’re Mr Magoo.’

It was awful to be teased by my father because I was forbidden to retaliate. I could’ve come up with some extremely funny names for him, like Phar Lap or Lassie, but name-calling was a one-way street with Dad.

The frames had grooves on the sides for inserting test lenses. Dent selected two lenses with his nicotine-stained fingers and slipped them into the grooves.

‘H-h-h-how’s that?’

‘Still blurry.’

He added more lenses.

‘B-b-b-better or w-w-w-worse?’

It wasn’t only better; it was brilliant. The lower letters on the eye chart had clearly defined edges. A thrill went through me. It was like finding a ten-dollar note on the footpath.

‘B-b-b-better.’ I should’ve turned around before I tried any funny business. The Magoo glasses would’ve provided an excellent view of my father striding across the room towards me. The smack across the back of my head made the lenses rattle inside the frames.

‘That’s enough.’

‘But you talked like—’

‘I said that’s enough!’

Dent put a hand up. ‘J-J-J-James, your boy’s sh-sh-sh-short-sighted. H-h-h-he probably can’t r-r-r-read the blackboard at sc-sc-sc-school.’

The doctor wrote out a lens prescription and arranged to meet Dad at the pub later. We drove in silence to the optometrist. Dad must’ve been thinking about what Dent had said and was unusually kind when we reached the shop. He told me I could choose any pair of frames I wanted. It was like being told I could have the best callipers money could buy. I trawled the racks several times, finally narrowing the choice down to two models. My heart said yes to a pair of blue frames with gold rivets on the sides. These were the signature candelabra of fashion frames. Another part of me, the part that read Celebrity Glitter, said yes to simple black plastic frames, not unlike the signature spectacles of Yves Saint Laurent. I showed Dad the two options.

He raised his eyebrows and jabbed a finger at the blue frames. ‘Put those back on the ladies’ rack, right this minute!’

Mum said I needed a signature tune to go with my trademark frames. I sang her Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ as we drove to the optometrist to pick up the glasses, stretching out the last ‘waaaaay’ until my voice disappeared for lack of air. We were both excited about my new style accessories. Mum agreed they’d give my face a certain something. I told her that certain something was ‘Je ne sais quoi’. That’s what all the stars had, according to Celebrity Glitter.

The woman behind the counter was chewing something when we entered the shop and seemed irritated by our arrival. She located my glasses on a shelf under the counter and jerked them out of their case. As she handed them to Mum I realised with horror I’d made a big mistake. They were not Yves Saint Laurent. The frames were too circular and chunky for Yves. The lenses were thick and convex. The overall effect was like a party novelty, the sort of thing that went with a plastic nose and moustache.

‘Mum, my eyes have cleared up. I think we should get our money back.’

‘What? Now you’d prefer a white stick or Labrador?’ She laughed and elbowed me.

I didn’t smile back. The situation was critical. I couldn’t accept novelty glasses. I wanted to be a celebrity, not a clown.

‘I didn’t want to tell you this, Mum, but last Sunday I looked at the statue of Mary in Our Lady of Miracles. She was crying real tears. Then suddenly I could see everything perfectly. Even those little hairs inside Father McMahon’s nose.’

My mother shuddered. ‘Why don’t you just try them on, Julian.’

The woman behind the counter sniffed with impatience. She wasn’t interested in Christian miracles. She was as hard as they came, probably Protestant. I was going to tell my mother as much as soon as we got our money back and left the premises.

Mum slipped the glasses over my nose and tucked the arms behind my ears. I blinked and gasped in surprise. A rack of Albert Tatlock frames came into view. So did a poster behind the woman. It wasn’t a scene of Japanese maple leaves but an aerial photo of the Disney castle in Bavaria. Turning, I looked out of the shop window and saw a small dog lift its leg against a tyre. A woman walked past pulling a wailing child by the arm. It was magic. I could see everything in detail. I looked back at the saleswoman and noticed a wiry mole on her neck. On the bench behind her was a half-eaten sandwich. In the mirror, I could see someone in a shamrock-green T-shirt wearing big black glasses. It was me and I looked like Nana Mouskouri. My heart sank.

‘So, do they make a difference?’ My mother had her hands extended in front of her. She did this when she was going to adjust my shirt or give my hair a ruffle. Her head was tilted to one side.

‘Not one bit.’ I tapped the lens with a fingernail. ‘Total waste of money.’

The saleswoman snapped the glasses’ case closed and handed it to my mother with the prescription. ‘We don’t do returns on prescription glasses. A lot of work’s gone into grinding those lenses.’ She pointed to me. ‘Very necessary with the sort of eyes your boy’s got.’

My mother’s head jerked back to upright position. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my son’s eyes.’

It was a ridiculous response but my mother did this when I was under threat. It was one of the things I liked most about her. Mum’s hand landed between my shoulder blades and I was propelled out into the real world, a world that suddenly had shapes and textures. I left the glasses on as we drove home. They made me feel disoriented and dizzy, but the thrill of being able to see was worth the carsickness. I could read names on letterboxes and see merchandise in shop windows.

‘You know who those glasses remind me of?’ Mum knew I was disappointed.

‘I hate myself and want to die.’

‘Roy Orbison.’

‘That cheers me up.’

‘Sammy Davis Jr has black frames, too, and he’s part of the Rat Pack.’

‘He’s the smallest member.’

‘Don’t forget Rolf Harris.’

‘You’re not cheering me up.’

‘Norman had glasses when he was your age.’

Mum pulled up at traffic lights next to the Whipper Snapper fish-and-chip shop. I was looking at people waiting in cars when my heart skipped a beat. Elizabeth Taylor was sitting in the passenger seat of an orange Chrysler Valiant! There was even something sparkly around her neck. It had to be the Cartier. I waved. She waved back. The lights changed and my mother put her foot down. I was about to tell Mum when I saw David Niven heading toward us in an old Vauxhall. I took the glasses off and rubbed my eyes.

A letter from the United States of America was waiting for me when I got home.

Dear Fan and Friend,

We’re delighted by your interest in the official Liz Taylor International Fan Club. You’re one of thousands of fans around the world following Liz’s sparkling career.

Full membership in the official Liz Taylor fan club is just ten American dollars per year. For this nominal fee you receive a fan-club badge and certificate. Naturally, you also get our quarterly Liz Taylor fanzine, Liz, Camera, Action!

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Don’t forget to include your money order for club membership.

Yours truly,

Barbara Bushel

President of the official Liz Taylor International Fan Club

The envelope contained a studio photo of a young Liz Taylor with her arm around a dog’s neck. There was also a quote from one of her movies: ‘“It’s a very odd feeling – to be someone’s God.” Liz Taylor as Kathie Merrick in The Courage of Lassie.’

## [9]

Mum and Dad were having money problems. Dad said his problem was having to support a moaning wife and three thankless children. Mum said the problem was his having to support his drinking and horse-racing habits. She went out one day and got herself a job on the production line at the Tassie Textiles factory. We were each given a set of keys to the back door and warned not to let strange men or brush salesmen into the house.

Mum’s timing was unhelpful for my career aspirations. I’d just decided to take up tap-dancing after watching Gene Kelly with an umbrella and required her encouragement on the old heel-toe routine. Her abrupt decision left me high and dry. In one fell swoop I’d lost both my impresario and audience.

I struggled to adjust to this sudden loss. Mum had always been there for me after school. She was my cheerleader and I was her beauty consultant. The focus of our relationship shifted once she started work. She was tired after a day at the factory and wasn’t as switched into my pizzazz or the Golden Microphone. I had to work like hell to make her laugh or get a ‘Twinkle’ out of her and, even worse, I lost my only beauty client. I knew better than to touch Mum in front of Dad. Whenever I got her alone, I did my best to fluff and style but this didn’t give me the same satisfaction.

One day, in a moment of desperation, I bribed Carmel with a family block of Shelby’s to sit for me. I hadn’t even put all the curlers in her hair when she finished the chocolate and shook them all out. I let her go without a squeak of protest. She was now an active member of the girls’ cricket and hockey teams. She and her friends had budding breasts and thick arms. They openly smoked cigarettes and rode their bicycles everywhere in third gear. Boys were frightened of them.

A couple of dismal months had to drag by before I could appreciate the benefits of not having parents around. Under the new arrangement, no one knew what time I came home and no one told me what to do when I got there. While I enjoyed this new freedom and the extra television-viewing it permitted, I still craved an audience.

I’d started taking French at school. It was one of the elective culture lessons set aside for the last hour of every Friday. The choices were limited: debating, charity work, Bible study, crochet or French. When I discovered that boys were excluded from the crochet class, I chose French. It was not only the language of Brigitte Bardot but it also did something nice to the back of my throat. The lesson was taught by a big friendly woman with the unlikely name of Mrs French. Most of the vocabulary we learned was related to food and restaurants: my kind of language.

Jimmy Budge had also chosen French. He lived around the corner from us in a notorious bungalow in Wallaby Place. People stopped at the Budge hedge and shook their heads. Jimmy’s father was a quiet-spoken widower but a sore point with the mothers of the neighbourhood because he bred and raced pigeons. His birds flew over our houses as a massive cloud to land on his front lawn in a grey flutter of feathers. People didn’t like the pigeons. There was talk of disease and droppings. My father said Mr Budge’s hacking cough was pigeon-fancier’s lung and warned me not to get too friendly with his birds. I liked Mr Budge. He was a vast improvement on Dad. He was a friendly man and never told kids off.

Jimmy was probably the best-looking boy in our school. His sandy-blond hair was faultless and flopped perfectly over his eyes, which were slightly different colours. He told me that one eye was green with envy because the other was blue. ‘That’s what my father says. He’s got the same genetic defect. Bung eyes and lungs run in the family.’ I started walking home with him after school on Fridays.

On the third Friday, I stopped in front of our gate and invited him into the garage. ‘You want to see my amphitheatre?’

I had a feeling about Jimmy Budge. It was the way his eyes had shone when he repeated ‘La cuisine de la France’ for Mrs French.

I’d created the amphitheatre behind the firewood in the garage. From the outside it looked like a normal stack of wood but inside it was a private chamber with bedding and other personal comforts. It was where I kept my valuables and ate contraband.

The only way to get inside this secret chamber was to climb up the exposed timber framework of the garage wall and jump. I did this and disappeared from Jimmy’s view. He scrambled up the wall after me and watched as I stripped off my clothes. I was twirling my underpants in my hand when he jumped into the amphitheatre, peeling off his clothes with the efficiency of a German tourist.

I’d learned all about the German enthusiasm for nudity while staying at the Bland holiday cabin. From a sand hill, I’d observed a couple of tourists prepare for sunbathing by removing all their clothing except for their socks and sandals.

My father should’ve been happy that Mum had a job but he was more disagreeable than ever. Mum said he lacked pizzazz. He certainly had no interest in music or show business. The only celebrities he appreciated were famous thugs who played sports. At least since the Dent diagnosis he’d stopped harassing me about ball games. My Nana Mouskouris confirmed for him that I wasn’t quite right and he now avoided eye contact. This was fine by me. He’d diverted his attention to John who’d come up with the insane idea of becoming a doctor and started doing homework every evening after school. John thought this choice of career made him superior and Dad seemed to agree.

They could keep each other as far as I was concerned. I had better things to do. Jimmy had put in a word with the distributor of The Bugle and I’d started delivering newspapers with him in the mornings. Within a couple of months I’d lost weight and looked almost normal when I held in my stomach. I had to get up at five in the morning but the job gave me freedom and power. For the first time in my life I had real coinage in my pocket and no longer had to play Dad like a fiddle to get a dollar. I could buy what I liked and be as thankless as I pleased.

Some of these earnings I invested in a joint project with Jimmy: a fort based in the overgrown conifer hedge of an abandoned house. Only we didn’t call it a fort. We were too mature for that. It was a club. Using Dad’s chicken chopper, we’d hollowed out the hedge to create a spacious inner sanctum. This we furnished with a boat tarpaulin we’d found at the dump and some old cushions my mother was throwing away. We’d then created a ceiling with black polythene and hung some sheets from Jimmy’s house to create a Lawrence of Arabia effect. Our club was both private and secret. The only way to access it was by crawling underneath prickly conifer branches. We made sure no one saw us enter or leave.

The club became a busy nude and leisure centre after I recruited two boys from school, David Perk and Grant Humber. I’d figured these two out on the sports field. Like me, they regularly forgot their sports clothes and spent the phys. ed. hour in punishment, doing laps of the cricket pitch with a weighted medicine ball. Brother Punt was too stupid to realise that some of us preferred this activity to the real punishment of regular sports. It certainly beat kicking a leather bladder around a football field with a bunch of thugs on our backs.

As club founders, Jimmy and I got to make the rules. The first thing we did was appoint ourselves to executive posts and give the club a name: the JCJB Club. The next rule was another of my ideas. An entertainment hour was established and club members were obliged to either participate or listen. I got to sing Frank Sinatra and Jimmy did Sammy Davis Jr. Grant Humber could whistle but the only thing David Perk could do was make fart noises by pressing a palm into his armpit and pumping his elbow up and down. A smoking-only policy was also established. I suggested we smoke French brands. Jimmy seconded my motion and we learned to smoke the hard way, choking on filterless Gauloises.

I was inside the club, dividing a packet into four piles, when I heard David Perk arrive.

‘Corkle, let me in.’

A large, spiky tree branch functioned as the door to the club. It was easy to move from within but almost impossible from outside. This made the club impenetrable to intruders. One intruder I was particularly keen on repelling was John. I didn’t want his sort making reports to Dad.

‘Who goes there, fiend or foliage?’

‘Corkle, you know exactly who goes here. It’s me.’

‘You know the rule. Say the code.’

‘I forgot it.’ He was starting to whine.

‘No code, no entry. That’s the rule.’

‘Pore kwah?’

‘That was last week’s.’

‘Pore kwah pah?’

‘That was also from last week.’

‘It’s not fair, you change the code all the time. How can I remember French?’

I knew by now he’d be hopping from foot to foot with frustration. I’d let him hop a little longer. Perk was our least-appealing club member. He had a sneaky, unconvincing personality and had been cursed with the reddish curly hair and large dollopy freckles that were part and parcel of life as a gingernut. What Perkie lacked was panache. This was almost the same as pizzazz but with the added quality of French sex appeal. Jimmy and I used panache to rate boys at school. On the sexual panache scale I was nine and a half and Jimmy was nine. David Perk was somewhere between zero and one.

‘French confuses the enemy.’

‘What enemy, you wanker? You’re just trying to be posh.’

‘Grow up, Perk.’

‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?’ Jimmy had arrived and was waiting for the branch to be moved. He was the only one who remembered the passwords. Jimmy Budge understood the French Way. He read Celebrity Glitter and even looked like Alain Delon in Girl on a Motorcycle when he pouted.

I pulled back the branch and let them in. Perk came in scowling but Jimmy crawled up to me and kissed me on the lips. Jimmy couldn’t get enough of my panache and I didn’t blame him.

## [10]

All the JCJB Club members were thirteen years old except for David Perk who had been held back a year and just turned fourteen. It was an exciting time to belong to a boys’ club, especially one with a nudity theme. Fascinating things were happening to our bodies. We monitored each other with enthusiasm, noting growth spurts and key developments.

Our activities were conducted in utmost secrecy according to the golden rule: ‘What goes on in the club, stays in the club.’ I found this rule surprisingly easy to obey. My parents never asked what I did after school or noticed that I didn’t bring friends home. They were too wrapped up in their own misery. My mother shuttled between Tassie Textiles and home and was always tired. The only real quality time we spent together any more was The Dick Dingle Hour when Mum joined me on the couch to eat her dinner off a tray. If I worked hard enough at it during the commercials, I could get her talking about me.

It was during a commercial break that Mum mentioned the changes taking place in my body: the down on my upper lip and unpredictable voice. There was something else, too, she said.

‘You’re glowing these days.’

‘But I glowed before.’

‘Yes but now you glow in a different way. What’s going on with you?’

‘Just warming up for the Tassie Wallaby. I’ll need all the glow I can get.’ I knew what was going on with me. It was Jimmy but this was not something my mother needed to know.

Mum’s eyes lingered on me for a moment. Her hand reached out and swept the hair off my forehead as if to see me better. It was too much, her look. I turned back to the TV.

With a sigh, she got up and went to the dinette, closing the door behind her. I knew she was going to call Norman. She did this at least once a week, always in the evening and always before my father came home.

Dad shuttled between the newspaper office and the pub and only came home to eat, sleep and watch sports programmes. He’d become even more uncomfortable in the role of husband and father and was incapable of maintaining a consistent standard in either job slot. His efforts came in rare bursts of activity followed by long periods of disillusionment and apathy.

One night I was woken by a series of loud thumps that made the bed rattle against the wall. The thumps sounded dangerous, like an earthquake or a volcano blowing its top. I left a sleeping John to his fate and ran into the hall. Mum was running toward the lounge in her nightdress. We stopped at the doorway.

The floor was covered in rubble. The lounge suite and my mother’s ornaments were white with plaster dust and bits of mortar. My father was standing with his back to us with a sledgehammer in his hand. He’d knocked a hole in the wall between the lounge and the sunroom. This small room had begun life as a veranda and been glassed in by the previous owner. It was the storage room for things that were never used like the barbecue and the beach umbrella.

‘What on earth are you doing, Jim?’ Mum laid a protective arm over my shoulders. I leaned into her to make the most of it.

Unaware of our presence, Dad took another swing with the sledgehammer, knocking chunks of wall flying in all directions.

Mum raised a hand to her mouth like a megaphone and shouted, ‘Oy! Dumbo!’

Dad turned, removing a pair of sound-absorbing ear muffs that he’d obviously borrowed from someone. The muffs were clean and professional-looking. All Dad’s tools and equipment were old or rusty.

‘What’s all this?’

‘I’m converting the sunroom into a bedroom. The boys need separate rooms.’

I stood up straight. I was getting my own room! Dad did care.

‘John needs his own space for study.’ He flashed a small-toothed smile. It was his stupid lop-sided après-pub smile. Dad could be uncharacteristically generous and optimistic when he was pissed.

‘My Royal Albert is covered in dust.’ Mum pointed to the tea set on the mantelpiece.

Dad was leaning on the sledgehammer, still grinning. ‘Colleen Corkle, there are two frozen chickens in the deep freeze. Won the chook raffle tonight.’

Dad was a winner. The two chickens made up for the hole in the wall and the dust on the tea set. They gave their relationship hope.

‘Why the hole?’

‘That’s the new doorway to Julian’s room. I’m going to block the side by the dinette.’

It was true. I was getting my own room. Dad should’ve won the chook raffle more often. We definitely needed a colour television.

‘How long is this going to take?’

‘It’ll be all done in a week. Mark my words.’

It took over a month and a concerted effort on the parts of John and myself. It was the only time we’d ever worked as a team. We were both relieved when Dad finally put down his paintbrush and told us to wash it and put the tools away.

I finally had my own space. No more dirty football boots and no more of my brother’s foul personality. John never hit me; my mother made sure of that. But enduring his constant jibes and sullen moods was worse than taking a punch from Carmel.

My new room was going to be spotless and decorated in grand fashion. The first thing I needed was curtains. The sunroom’s large picture windows were nice but privacy was essential. Mum said she could get polyester off-cuts from work and run me up curtains on her Bingo sewing machine. I suggested I pay half and we buy real fabric from the Blue Gum Plaza department store. I wanted proper drapes with a bedspread to match. My decorating efforts at the club had sparked an interest in interior decor. If my stage and screen ambitions didn’t pan out, interior designer was an excellent back-up career.

The fabric department was one of the most inspiring places in Ulverston. It was stacked with bolts of multicoloured material and managed by a well-groomed man in tailored clothes. Every woman worth her Bingo bought her dressmaking supplies from Des. He had shiny white satin for confirmation frocks and large bridal gown patterns for last-minute weddings. Local women treated Des like a god in his fabric department and then walked out and gossiped about him behind his back. Most agreed he was one of those. This annoyed my mother who liked to point out that Des was married. The more malicious gossips would then remind Mum that Des didn’t have children. I observed the goings-on with a wary eye and didn’t add fabric floor manager to my list of back-up career possibilities.

I’d seen Des a few times and knew for a fact that he was one of those. He wore colourful shirts and a gold signet ring on his marriage finger. I recognised a kindred spirit when Mum took me to select the fabric for my bedroom.

‘How can I be of service today, Colleen? I see you’ve got a new man in your life.’

Mum laughed as he kissed her French style on either cheek and told her she looked as beautiful as ever. I’d done her hair before leaving home and matched her handbag and shoes. Des was wearing a silky kingfisher-blue shirt that was open at the collar. I noticed the glint of a medallion. Mum put a hand on my head and ruffled my hair.

‘Julian’s choosing fabric for his curtains and bedspread.’

‘What kind of theme do you want for your chambre de lit?’ Des looked directly into my eyes, something adults tended to avoid doing. ‘Are you a space traveller, a cowboy or a dandy, young man?’

I’d never had a grown-up ask my opinion before, especially not the French Way. Adults generally told me off or told me what to do.

‘I’d like something…’ I looked at Mum and then at Des. They were actually waiting to hear what I had to say. ‘…something silky. You know, something that fluffs out in the wind.’ I moved my arms in a billowy way. There, I’d said it.

Des smiled. ‘Wonderful. You’re a gentleman like myself. We have some lovely jersey silks over here.’

He pointed to a shelf with bolts of soft David Bowie leotard material. I’d recently discovered David Bowie and decided he was the most beautiful man in the world. The jersey silk had a silvery gloss on one side. Mum coughed.

‘Julian, let’s not get your father started.’

‘But, Mum, it’s just right. David Bowie’s a big fan of this stuff and he’s famous. He’s got a feature in Celebrity Glitter.’ I knew she was right, of course. My father would have a fit.

Des must’ve seen a bit of this in his fabric department.