The Children's Writer (16 page)

Maybe this was what Chanteleer had worked out: that
his audience was made up of kids who wanted window dressing in their lives, who wanted larger than life, overwrought, spelt out adventure that left nothing to the imagination, provided it thrilled. The type of kid who lived in a mock-Tudor house, who had come to expect the fantastic hype of Hollywood, the greater and greater highs of designer drugs…

I stopped myself. This was a rut leading nowhere; a tramline looping back on itself.

Here I was sitting under a camphor laurel, its ecclesiastical buttresses comforting and protecting as they had in my childhood, and back then, what had I taken to my sanctuary to read? The lives of the saints and martyrs, all fantastic to me, every blood-soaked detail, every ounce of burning flesh, how my heroes had lost their hearts, their hands; how they roasted in the flames; how they boiled in oil.

Had I believed this propaganda? No, I had not. I’d read it to amuse myself. Because it gave me a thrill. Because it took me some place more exciting than where I was, where I lived, where my mother wanted me to be. Which is what the shopping malls and the blockbuster movies and the designer drugs did for kids today—for the kids I’d been watching as much as those others, the rich kids whose mums and dads dropped them off in the Merc. Every amusement, whether book, or video game, or film, or drug, was designed to excite the senses, to help the child escape—no matter how well off, no matter how cashed-up the parents—the stuff of dreams, the lure of desire, the compulsion to ‘consume to escape’ affected
everyone.

Hadn’t the hookah-smoking caterpillar said as much to Alice?

Which made me wonder.

What if Chanteleer had written his books for the kids I’d been watching in the playground? Given that they could read (and maybe they couldn’t), mightn’t they have preferred the (cheap) thrills of his sorcerers and bubbling cauldrons to the reality of their lives: the apathy, the violence, the poverty? Maybe they preferred to read fantasy—no matter how ridiculous, how exaggerated, how badly written—than face the awful nothingness of their living.

Hadn’t I?

And Charlie Bloome returned to berate me. To tell me that all my soul searching, all my over-excited arguments, were no more than the product of my jealousy. That I was jealous of Sebastian Chanteleer, not because I was an adult (as I had reasoned), but because I was more childish than even he had reckoned, seeing that Chanteleer was famous and my girlfriend (a childish expression in itself, he argued) was in love with him.

Getting up, and dusting myself off (the leaf litter, the fallen pearls), I told Charlie Bloome to piss off, arguing that he was no more than a figment of my imagination.

But he would not go.

Charlie Bloome clung like my shadow.

I arrived home before Lootie. I had no idea where she went these days. If I asked I was told, ‘At the printer’s, doing programs’, or ‘Sorting out the finger food’. This might be true, it might be false, but I wondered how many printers were taking orders at six o’clock on a Friday night.

I flopped down on the bed, throwing my arms wide, groaning with relief at the end of another day. I heard something rustle beneath Lootie’s pillow and lifted it to see. I picked up a crumpled note written in black ink. The words smeared with water, maybe rain, more likely tears. I read: ‘My dear, you can’t imagine how much I have come to rely on you since you entered my life. Indeed, you give me life. I would be lost without you. Sebastian.’

I sat, unable to move, unable to think, unable to manage this.

In time, I put the note back, replaced the pillow, and took a shower.

What else was I to do?

I
woke next morning to find Lootie sleeping beside me. She had come in during the night. I turned to look at her, beautiful on the pillow, presuming that the note was still hidden there, secret, where I had found it. Though my stomach felt like lead, something within me couldn’t accept what Chanteleer had written: the gravity of it, the reality. It seemed so natural to have Lootie beside me; how could I lose her?

When I lay back, thinking rationally, there was no evidence—neither note, nor phone call, nor slip of the tongue—to suggest that she was sleeping with him. This horror would pass, I decided. It was a whim, a phase, and would be over. Lootie would return to teaching, to caring for kids, to caring for me, and like any infatuation, while Chanteleer might excite her for a while, his attraction would pass and the happiness we had known would return—the
habit
of our happiness, at least.

Or so I convinced myself—perhaps even deceived myself. Depending.

I needed to go to his workshop, as planned. To assess his charms. To assess what Lootie saw in him. I wanted her to believe that I saw the worth in him, even that I might learn from him, and so win her back.

I walked to the tram stop alone. Lootie had never intended to come, arguing that since the workshop had been arranged by Eve, she wanted nothing to do with it.

But as I waited at our stop, fidgeting, and looking down the line, back to my past, my inadequacies returned, crushing me, and my resolve vanished by the minute. How could I face the man who was wooing my girl? How could I pretend to learn from him? And having read Chanteleer’s note, and realising that this was not all in Lootie’s head, I knew in my heart of hearts that she was lost to me.

But there was more than that.

If it wasn’t Chanteleer, would she find someone else? A man who was better than either of us? She had already told me that Chanteleer’s fame constituted her ‘big’ chance. So I began to wonder if he might be no more than a means to an end. That there would be others, men of accomplishment, ambitious men, that she would fall for (and be used by) and I would always be at the bottom, in the dirt, good for nothing but to pedal and fetch. Which is the way of monkeys, and children too, I supposed, pedalling and fetching, always on call to do tricks, to make goofy faces…

Just as the tram arrived, Charlie Bloome turned up. He climbed on, taking a seat beside me.

Charlie spoke very reassuringly, all the way to Chanteleer’s stop. So intent was he, he walked with me to the writer’s house. At the gate, he said, ‘You’re a man now.
You’ll be all right,’ and having shaken my hand, he left me to enter alone.

Adrian Chanteleer answered my knock, dressed in black and white, the colours of a servant. He showed no sign of recognition as he led me down the hall (the rooms to the right and left were still in a state of flux) to the dining room, its panelled doors drawn back to reveal the magnificent table. The chairs that had cluttered the hall on the previous visit were now in place, allowing seating for twelve.

A few people were already seated, looking up at me, wondering.

‘These are some of the other p- p- participants,’ Adrian managed. ‘I’ll let them introduce themselves.’

I mumbled something and put my bag down. Others also mumbled. In the absence of the author, it seemed the thing to do.

‘I came by tram,’ I said to a woman who stared.

‘Oh?’ she said, ‘You’re not Sebastian Chanteleer?’

‘No,’ I said.

People dropped their eyes. ‘The stained glass is beautiful,’ I said, moving to look by daylight. One person glanced up, the others busied themselves finding pencils; one turned off a mobile.

‘Is there any coffee?’ I asked.

Nobody answered. Adrian had vanished.

Another person came and I said ‘Hi.’ She looked away.

And another. The same thing happened. The silence was awful. ‘Have any of you read his books?’ I said, pulling out a chair.

A wave of tittering.

‘Sebastian Chanteleer?’ I said. ‘The man running the workshop. Has any one read any of his books?’

‘Are you Sebastian Chanteleer?’ asked a newcomer.

I thought of answering,
No, but he has stolen my girlfriend.
Instead, I sat, opening my bag. I sorted my paper and set it straight. I tested a pen. I kept my mouth shut.

By 10.00 a.m. there were nine people: seven women and another man, much older, maybe seventy. Chanteleer had made $1,800. By ten past there was fidgeting. At quarter past, the author arrived.

He appeared in the doorway, dressed in his writer’s uniform, the bow tie crooked, quirky, the vest buttoned up tight. Adrian came up behind, standing to his right. ‘SS- Sebastian Chanteleer,’ he said, sticking his head out from behind his brother’s shoulder, looking ridiculous (even making the goofy face?).

Someone clapped.

‘Thank you,’ Chanteleer nodded, ever so slightly. ‘This is Adrian. He does what has to be done.’

Someone giggled. Sebastian did not introduce Adrian as his brother. Adrian vanished.

‘Now,’ said the author, very formal. ‘Let us begin.’ And standing at the head of the table, his back to the panelled doors (now shut), he nodded to a woman on his left, who reddened, ‘Let’s go around the table, saying who we are and why we are here, shall we?’ He tapped the red woman on the shoulder and began unbuttoning his vest, slowly, meditatively. His work had begun.

‘Ailsa Carruthers,’ the red woman muttered, staring at her fingers twisting on the table. ‘I would like to write a children’s book for my grandchildren.’ Then she looked up and said, ‘That sounds silly, doesn’t it? Saying children twice.’

‘Not silly at all,’ Chanteleer said, though not to her. ‘Except for the part about having grandchildren. In fact, there ought to be a law against having any sort of children.’

People tittered. What a card this Sebastian Chanteleer was. Surely the children’s author was joking.

The nervous responses continued as he sauntered around the table, making a comment upon each participant’s offerings. Each of his remarks was zany, bordering on rude, followed by more tittering.

The older man sat next to me. When his turn came he said, ‘Morrie Turnbull. Writing a history of the light cruiser
Sydney
, sunk off Western Australia in 1941.’

There was a long silence, then a kind of a titter (was this a joke?) and Chanteleer said, ‘Would that be Morris, with an “o”, or Maurice with an “a”?’

‘Morris,’ the man answered, spelling it out. ‘I believe it’s English, not French.’

‘Ah…’ Chanteleer breathed, as if this made all the difference. ‘Well Morrie, unfortunately, whether French or English, I believe that you are in the wrong workshop. I am Sebastian Chanteleer. I write children’s books. I do not write war stories.’

‘But you write, don’t you?’ Morrie asked.

‘Indeed,’ Chanteleer replied, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead, indicating that this was hard work. Somebody groaned. Maybe me.

‘Then I’m in the right workshop. I have to learn something, eh?’

Chanteleer pursed his lips, pussy-bum like. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Next?’

Next being myself, I thought that Chanteleer might admit to knowing me, or having seen me before somewhere (like at this very table). He did not. ‘Next,’ he said again, as if I was deaf.

‘Charlie Bloome,’ I said. ‘I’m here to learn.’

‘And what exactly would you like to learn, Charles?’ he said. He was circling the table, moving towards me.

‘To grow up.’ The words came just like that. (An ejaculation, you might say, prematurely.) Perhaps because he intimidated me. Perhaps because they were the truth. But once out, there was no taking them back. Maybe people laughed, I don’t know. My embarrassment rendered me deaf. Too dazed to do anything but sit, waiting for Chanteleer to reduce me to nothing.

‘Well,’ he said, stopping behind me, ‘I’m not sure that we can practise group therapy here, but we might try.’ Nobody laughed. I know for sure. The silence was terrible. ‘Now then, Charles,’ he said (smirking, I knew), ‘what would you like to be when you grow up?’

I had two options, to answer truthfully, or to cut and run, to leave the room, the house, to duck through that gate and put Chanteleer out of my life, forever.

I chose to tell the truth.

Bugger you
, I thought.
I know what I want. Bugger you.

‘A writer,’ I said, holding my head high. ‘I would like to be a writer.’

This was the correct thing to say, being the truth, but it left me wide open, giving him further reason (from his great height, with his towering acclaim) to laugh at me. To mock my honesty.

‘Ah!’ he said, and I felt his hands on my shoulders. ‘Now that
is
to grow up. Well done Charles. Well done. What a fine answer. Well done indeed!’ But his crushing fingers told another story. A secret between him and me:
You’re a fool, Charlie
, they said.
A loser. Give it away. Whatever you’re trying to prove, you’ve lost.

But out loud, he said, ‘Coffee?’ since he had them. He had done nothing of value, said nothing of worth, taught them nothing other than to reinforce their own inadequacies, but all the same, he had them. In the palm of his hand, he had them. Even as he had Lootie.

Such was his way, that children’s writer.

Adrian directed us to the glassed-in room at the rear of the house. I hesitated, momentarily alone, staring up at those stained-glass windows, at the creatures in flight.
Strange
, I thought,
every creature flying, exhilarating in the act, every creature escaping, yet none actually moving
.

And putting my place in order (restacking my blank paper, straightening my pencil), I tagged along.

We were served supermarket lamingtons (I saw the clear plastic boxes) and over-brewed plunger coffee. There was muttering. Chanteleer looked to Adrian, who turned away.

He wasn’t so stupid, this servile brother.

‘You were very brave,’ Ailsa Carruthers said to me sidling up, balancing her lamington plate and her coffee and the handbag she would not leave in the dining room. ‘I couldn’t have said that. Not what you said, about growing up.’

‘It just came out,’ I said. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Oh,’ she said, sipping her coffee, ‘and are you in therapy?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘of course not.’

She made a sound in her throat, evidently doubting. ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a uni student,’ I said. ‘I’m studying literature.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and pulled a face, which might have been in response to my answer or, as I thought later, on the tram, the bitter coffee. All the same, she left me to be harassed by Morrie of the
Sydney
.

Bored, I looked down into the garden. Among the camellias I saw a flash of pink and then a slipper, also pink, extending from the shrubbery. The mother was in the garden, seated, I presumed.
I should go down
, I thought, remembering our connection, but before I could slip away, Sebastian called us for the next session.

‘Back to the table,’ he said. ‘Bring your coffee. Adrian, make a fresh pot.’

‘Enough for everyone?’ Adrian asked. Then added, his eyes sly, ‘Even you?’

‘Of course,’ the writer quipped. And under his breath, ‘Stupid.’

As one, the group turned away.

We resumed our seats, expectant. But the Master was not ready. When he came to the door and saw us holding our cups, not daring to put them on the polished table top, he mouthed the word ‘Shit’ (obviously, so as not to be held responsible for his servile brother), then bellowed, ‘Adrian, drink coasters. Now!’

We sat, uncomfortable, waiting.

When the coasters had been placed (tossed?) between us, the author still did not proceed. ‘He has the pot yet,’ Chanteleer said, condescending.

And so Adrian returned, holding the Deco coffee pot that I had once admired (under different circumstances) and another coaster which he reached out to place in the centre of the table. But as he stretched (I saw bright red hairs on the back of his fingers), a few drops spilled from the spout, drawing an obvious ‘Cluck’ from the Master. Adrian grunted and left the room to return with a cloth with which he proceeded to mop up the offending drops. When he had finished, leaving no evidence of his ineptitude, he turned to his brother, announcing, ‘There!’

Pity
, I thought, hoping for more.

The author nodded. ‘Now we might get on.’

‘So,’ he said, taking his pen from his pocket, and fondling it, ‘I want you to tell me an idea that you have for a story. We will start here,’ and he put his hand on Ailsa’s shoulder, because she was the nearest.

Ailsa burned scarlet.

‘What?’ he snorted. ‘Too many ideas to choose from?’

‘I wasn’t ready,’ said Ailsa.

‘Ah,’ the Master said, wagging his pen to dispel her stupidity. ‘The writer must always be ready.’

Jo, the woman opposite me, noted something down. Intrigued, I read what she had written upside down:
Be ready.

‘The world is teeming with ideas,’ the Master continued. ‘The writer should carry a journal and be ready to record whatever he sees and hears. On a bus, in a tram, at a restaurant.’

Jo wrote,
In a tram.

I said, ‘The other day, I heard an idea for a story in a Chinese takeaway.’

‘Oh?’ Chanteleer said, either surprised that I hadn’t left, or that I still had the balls to say something.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A little girl was making soy sauce rings turn into…’

‘Soy sauce rings?’ he declared. ‘How exotic!’

Some people tittered. Morrie did not.

‘Hang on,’ I said, determined to get this right. ‘Let me finish. She was making soy sauce rings by pressing the lid of a soy sauce bottle onto a piece of newspaper. And they were turning into gold.’

I looked around, thinking this was clear enough.

‘Hmmm,’ the Master said. ‘And the idea is…?’

People dropped their eyes.

Why had I opened my mouth?

‘Let us learn from this,’ the Master said with authority. ‘Charles, isn’t it? Well, Charlie,’ and he used his pen to point—not that there could be any doubt as to whom he was singling out—‘if your idea was set in the Middle
Ages, not some tacky Chinese takeaway, which has no romance, no narrative value whatsoever, this girl might be an alchemist. Better yet, if you are writing for children, she might be the apprentice to an alchemist. I utilised just such an idea in my novel,
Aryon, Apprentice to the Mage
, which won the British Children’s Fiction Award some years ago. The story concerns a boy who is the apprentice to a mage, which means…’ And he was away.