Green (49 page)

‘Tim Tams?' Celia says, and looks more closely at one of the photos. ‘That's not a Tim Tam. That's a young man in the midst of a bowel movement, I'd swear it.'

‘What kind of dirty perverted photos are you used to looking at? It's a Tim Tam, for god's sake. It was a prank. There was this surgery tutor . . .'

‘There's always a story,' Celia says, with a voice so calm it's sinister. ‘You're quick on your feet Philip, but there's acting in the family, isn't there? You can tell us how it really adds up. Remember, we're all on your side here. Whether that's a biscuit, or something very different.'

‘And what about . . .' my father says hesitantly, ‘I've been meaning to ask you about that music you were taping a few weeks ago. That song about touching and heat that you were taping over and over.'

‘Oh,
et tu
, Allan? That was an idea of Frank's. It . . . oh, what's the use?'

‘Does Frank give you money too?' my mother says, fear on her face now like a permanent stain. ‘Or is that a matter of affection?'

‘Frank can't afford me. He's always telling me how poor he is. Some days he can't even afford enough roughage to make it worth carrying a camera. You could not be more wrong with this. I'm a fumbling hopeless heterosexual who doesn't even use his bullworker enough to change his lot. I have chosen the Charles Atlas way, but I have fallen. I haven't had sex for fourteen months and that was with someone you never liked, and the closest I've got this year was when I went off early in my own pants and therefore didn't get paid for my job on the
Paradise
. Bad timing in all sorts of ways, but that's my life. And it was with a girl, and in the amateur capacity that I so richly deserve. And when I got another chance with the same girl and she came over here, I cut myself shaving, I got a bit tense, I played my tape, I bled in her drink, I accidentally gave her the impression that I'd slept with you and she ran away. Is that the kind of thing you want to know? Because I'm sorry for not keeping you up to date, and accidentally giving you the impression that I was a prostitute and a pornographer and at least some kind of success at something. Not that there'd be anything wrong with me being a prostitute, blah, blah, blah. I don't know about the pornographer bit, but most of my friends pick up some hooker money here and there and everyone goes home happy as long as safe sexual practices are observed.'

And just when it looks as though things can't get any worse, Celia says, ‘Now, setting aside all that for a moment, why don't you tell me about Mister Wilson?'

My mother interrupts. ‘Perhaps this isn't the best time . . .'

‘No, I'm doing this properly or not at all,' she says. ‘Why don't you tell me about Mister Wilson, Philip?'

‘Mister who? There's no Mister Wilson?'

She fixes me with a look that works the way a pin works when it attaches a butterfly to a board. Mister Wilson. Oh no.

‘Mister Wilson didn't even have genitals, damn you,' I shout at her. ‘He was more like Buddha.' My mother looks down at her plate, at the last crumbs of apple pie. ‘But I made him up, anyway. I copied from one of my friends at preschool. I'm like that. I even cheated when it came to imaginary friends. I've got no fucking life at all, so I had to cheat to imagine one. How about that?'

‘Oh yes. And what was the preschool friend's name?'

Name? What was the bloody name? I look down at the table. I'm being done in by that name business again. My hand has a tight grip on my water glass and I'm stuck again on a name. And the whole Mister Wilson thing is about to turn ugly—even uglier—and he really was just a nice old imaginary friend who deserves much better than this, and was gone, anyway, by the time I'd turned six.

‘George,' I tell her. ‘George Glass.'

I look up at my mother. She knows the look I'm giving her. It could best be described as imploring. And when your only child implores, you should go with it. You really should. Or you will probably go to hell when you die. Bear that in mind, Mother. Bear it in mind now.

‘Oh, George, yes,' she says in a spindly lying voice. ‘I remember George. He always was quite a strange boy. He'd hide behind the geraniums whenever the dogs barked.'

 

*

 

Was it too much, after our guests had left, to end the evening by screaming at her, ‘You've violated Mister Wilson forever,' and demanding a written apology? It was one of those rare moments when you decide, I can either go formal now, or maybe cry. And crying sucks, if you ask me. I think I also screamed, ‘You were the one who introduced hand puppets to bath time,' even as my mother was already realising this whole disastrous evening was down to her.

Once I'd implored, she was broken. She knew she'd done wrong. But the evening was far too many allegations past saving.

I spend most of the next day in my room with the door shut, trying to study Beischer and Mackay, but mainly just sitting there being angry about still living at home. And everything else. Frank and Zel and Sophie, and my whole collapsed pathetically nonsexual life.

Surely there's a rule that one thing you don't tell people about your adult offspring is the imaginary friends they might have had when they were four. My mother knows that now, but she knew it a little too late last night. She went with the fictional George Glass and his imaginary friend Marcia without even knowing where I'd got them from. She knew she'd done wrong.

My mother started doing puppet shows at bathtime when I was two or three. I hated how the shampoo stung when it got in my eyes, so she had to do something. And I got involved in the puppet shows, so it was only natural that, eventually, my imaginary bathing buddy Mister Wilson would arrive. Mister Wilson was a fat jolly old man who would come through the wall at bath times and make the whole unwelcome experience a little closer to bearable. He was, in his own chubby, crusty, totally invented way, a hell of a guy. Like my life, he was not sexual. And nor was my wearing of a dress (and a little make-up) for the purposes of a revue sketch, nor my not entirely willing participation in the placement of a chocolate biscuit between Frank's buttocks, nor my reluctant acceptance of a cash consultancy fee from Ron Todd.

However these things might seem to add up, some things are simply not to be added up. And there are far too many people in my life who are a long way short of learning that.

 

 

 

20

 

 

 

I
never
thought
I'd welcome a twenty-four-hour shift in Labour Ward, but that's what Monday brings me and I'm glad of it. I decide that if the evening's quiet I'll use it as a chance to study. Exams are a week and a half away, and another whipping at Scrabble looks like a very unproductive use of time at the moment. I wonder if I can claim special consideration for impaired exam performance due to family dysharmony caused by my mother thinking I was a prostitute.

The morning's quiet, so I go to the usual sessions and afterwards I have lunch with Frank.

I tell him about Saturday night, but I give him the abridged version. The part about my mother thinking I had something going with Ron, and for cash. And how she lined up therapist back-up. The irony of me being the one suspected of coming home with hooker money in my pocket is apparent to both of us.

‘Your life,' he says. ‘It's even dumber than mine.'

‘Depending on what Zel tells Ron.'

‘Don't remind me.'

‘Actually, mine still might be dumber. Remember the photos? The ones for O'Hare? They got developed.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah. They came out on Saturday. My mother thinks I'm having a much more interesting life than I am, sometimes involving your arse.'

‘Hey, only once,' he says, and then gives his hur-hur-hur-hur laugh. ‘Did she say what she thought of the arse?'

‘Shit, you and people's mothers. Don't even joke about it. There was a problem though, with the photos. You'll like this. My technique did leave a bit to be desired that day. The photos were pretty blurry.'

‘Yeah? So she couldn't tell it was me?'

‘No, she could tell it was you. That wasn't the problem. Imagine this—a shot that shows your face clearly, your arse kind of clearly and the Tim Tam is blurry.'

‘Blurry? Oh . . .' He laughs, laughs till he practically blows his nose. ‘Jesus. Really, did it . . .'

‘Oh, convincingly. If there was any doubt that the dollar-for-dollar deal had run me off the rails, it was the alleged turd shot that was the clincher. I think they'd had a pretty bad time leading up to Saturday night, wondering what else they might find out when the moment of confrontation arrived.'

‘Shit, I wish I'd been there.'

‘Like I said, it was a big event. There was a therapist in attendance. They were ready for the worst. What they weren't ready for, bugger them, was a series of really simple banal explanations. And a son with a few quiet ambitions, who otherwise happens to be a loser who helps people.'

‘Yep, it's so wrong. It's so wrong, isn't it? They should be so glad they've got you.' Hur hur hur hur. ‘The loser who helps people. And the people don't make it easy for you, do they?'

‘Life was a lot easier when I was just a loser who minded his own business.'

‘The Sophie bit would have come your way anyway—that scene on Friday. If she was thinking what she was thinking. That all happened because of me and Zel.'

‘Yeah? I don't know. It's too tangled up for me to guess what might have happened and might not.'

‘So what's happening with her now?'

‘What do you mean? Sophie? I don't think we're getting on very well at all.'

‘Come on, think like a movie maker and tell me what's happening with her now. And this time cut the crap. You know how the story goes. You've got your game-playing, and there was plenty of that. That was always cute. You've got arguments, and that's where you are now. Then you fall for each other. You have to get shitty with each other in the middle before things get hot and heavy at the end. It's
The
Taming of the Shrew
formula.'

‘What? How many times do I have to have this discussion with people about my life not being a movie? Lives don't work that way. With stories you can have that sort of formula with the game-playing and then the arguments and then people falling for each other, and everyone knows it's a formula but they're happy to go along for the ride. Make the ride good enough and they all want the happy ending, anyway. It's all about the journey. Life doesn't come with those endings. With life you get ragged messy endings instead of resolution. You get exactly the kind of bullshit I'm getting now. You get bits of different stories happening at the same time. You get things that just drift off into nothing, even if it might have crossed your mind occasionally a while back that they might have amounted to something. And, anyway, maybe I didn't pay enough attention at school, but where's the bit in
The
Taming of the Shrew
where she thinks he's sleeping with her mother?'

‘You've got to update it a bit. But fine. Don't if you don't want to. I might have a crack at her if you're not going to. Presumably you're okay with that.'

‘You're so wrong for her.'

‘Might leave that to her, hey?'

‘Whatever. Fine. She can do what she likes, obviously.'

‘Obviously,' he says, and laughs.

 

*

 

A few hours later, I'm sitting making small talk with a patient and her husband. She's in the early stages of labour, he's dabbing at her brow with a wet washer and giving her two fingers to squeeze during contractions. He breathes with her, and I do too because it's harder not to.

After a while, the contractions don't seem to be amounting to much.

She's Jeanne, a receptionist at a big caravan park on the southside. He's Col, he fits seats in cinemas. This'll be their first. And so it goes. Does their story fit a formula? I don't think so.

Frank's wrong with his
Taming of the Shrew
theory. If the last month or two conformed to any genre, it'd be one that'd see our story finishing on a high-point for World of Chickens. It'd be more sorted out than it is now, I'd be played by some boyish Mickey Rooney type and last Friday would have been the eighties suburban equivalent of stirring the kids up to put on a show. Michael J. Fox could play me, but not the Alex P. Keaton ‘Family Ties' version. I'm casting myself as good-hearted, with a strong right part to my hair and a sense of purpose that real life (or my own slackness) is perhaps too erratic to allow.

I take a break for dinner, and I don't hurry. On my way back, I walk up the hill towards Mater Mothers' and some of the evening's visitors are coming out to go home—a third-time father (I'm guessing) with two small children, a couple in their fifties. It's close to eight o'clock, closing time. When I get there I decide I'll take the stairs instead of the lift and I go all the way to the top, the floor with the Special Care Nursery. I go in and take a look at the board just inside the door. Baby Neil Armstrong has gone, but the RN looking after his humidicrib tonight is just back from leave and doesn't know if he's gone home or to a regular ward or not.

Well into the night, Jeanne's labour accelerates. The contractions become closer and stronger. We start to see the top of the baby's head, moist matted black hair. I call the midwife more than I'm supposed to, but I keep thinking the baby might come out any time.

We see head, we don't see head. We see head, we don't see head. Everything slips back between contractions, but Col and I start to convince ourselves we're seeing more with each one.