Tom Houghton (17 page)

I
t was tough saying goodbye to Martha. Most characters pass through like a visiting relative I was frankly glad to see the back of, but it was different for Martha and me. The last performance hung heavily over us all, for end of season also meant parting company. It was the most exhilarating adolescent summer camp coming to a close. Damon and I still hadn't spoken, Max and I were still avoiding each other, but there were enough people I would genuinely miss to make the last drinks at the pub somewhat melancholy. After my last drunken performance in front of the gang I tried my best to control my intake to keep the beast at bay. Perhaps I was bored with the company after all, for I couldn't relax until well into my fourth beer. The crew was very complimentary to Victor and me, as though the run had been of our joint creation, and Turner admitted that despite the odd hiccup, my behaviour throughout had been unexpectedly non-diva.

Thursday was a strange evening to end on, but a handful of the technical support had another job to rush off to, a rehearsal to light and sound and dress. Max was celebrating his anniversary, so excused himself earlier than usual and I didn't even see Damon and Alyce leave; surrounded by well-wishers, I'd realised that I'd barely seen them arrive either. By eleven p.m. it was just Victor and I along with Amelia, who'd played Nick for the majority of the season. She was a lovely and sweet girl but we'd barely said two sentences to each other outside of communicating to get the roles nailed. I liked her all the same, and she bore a striking resemblance to Meryl Streep that made her all the more magnetic.

We found a cheap noodle place still open in Darlinghurst and sat under the fluorescent glow, chatting about the show's highs and lows and what we were doing next. Amelia had landed a recurring role in a commercial series that was paying her more than she'd ever earned and Victor was racing back to Scotland the very next day to get things ready for his revival of
Who's Afraid
over there. Amelia let it slip that Damon was down to the last three in a much-hyped revival of
Rocky Horror
(playing Rocky, naturally). I was coy about my next step, said I had a mound of things to get through but this was, of course, shorthand for ‘absolutely nothing' and they both knew it.

The gasoline wine we'd been guzzling over too-spicy and lukewarm glass noodles swiped Amelia from the side like a bus running a red light and within minutes of the meal arriving she was slumped in her chair, barely able to keep her eyes open. How refined it seemed to me to simply pass out from drunkenness than turn into a social pariah. Victor poured her into a taxi and paid the driver to ensure she got to her door, and came back inside the soulless restaurant. We shared her barely touched bowl as we polished off the last of the wine from tiny water tumblers of orange and blue.

‘I actually wanted to be alone with you,' Victor began.

‘Oh . . .' I murmured into the dregs of my glass. My stomach dropped to my knees and I looked about the restaurant searching for a happier distraction. In my experience, all serious Victor roads led in one direction. All out, all change!

‘Do you really have another job lined up or was that all bullshit, sweetie?'

A work talk! My mood was once again enthused.

‘You know, this and that . . .' I said without a hint of irony.

‘Just as I thought. Do you mind?' he asked as he reached over to eat the raw shallots I'd left on the side of my plate. I motioned for him to go for it. ‘Look, I didn't want to tell you this in front of anyone else, it's bitchy enough on the scene without me playing favourites.'

‘Am I your favourite?' I teased.

‘One of . . . unbelievably so. Yes, you are, Tommy Houghton.' He only ever called me Tommy when he was praising me.

‘Fool. Cretin! Stupid luvvy.'

‘Yes, that's what everyone else has been calling me when I've told them what I've gone ahead and done.'

‘Sounds ominous,' I said, wishing desperately that there was more wine in the bottom of the bottle, drawing just shy of being desperate enough to turn it upside down into my glass.

‘So. Edinburgh. You, me, Martha.'

It was like the time he'd stuck his tongue in my mouth. Close in, whispering directions, just the two of us on my living room floor. Wet, acrid flesh, twisting around fishily, looking for some form of contact, an acquiescence that never came. Only this time I
was
eager, I could have leapt across the table and mounted him. But I needed to play it cool. He was my director, my boss, my employer.

‘Are you asking what I think you're asking?'

‘Don't be a dumb shit, my sweets. Of course I am! I can't begin to tell you how much begging and pleading I grovelled my way through on your behalf. Local talent, local schmalent. Australian unknown, Australian unschmown. It's Tom Houghton or it's no one!' He was beaming like he'd just solved a most complex scientific problem, had achieved the impossible. He tried, but could not hide the moisture in his eyes.

‘Victor, I think you are quite possibly the nicest person I have ever had in my life,' I said to him in earnest. For the life of me I could not work out why he would be so generous. I knew the part – I was damn good in the part – but to take me all the way to Scotland when scores of local actors would have given their left and right testicles for the role . . . ‘Is there a catch?' I asked.

‘Don't ruin it, you pathetic old tart. Just be thankful.'

‘I am. Victor, I really am. The first time, I couldn't feel it . . .'

‘I like you! I really like you!' he joined in and we laughed at this place in our hearts.

He asked me out for a nightcap and I could hardly refuse, had I even wanted to. In the Victoria Room we could well have been in Europe as we knocked back our cocktails and made fun of the scene-stealers. Darkened corners had a habit of bringing the wicked stepsisters out in us and, so long as no one ventured close enough to overhear, we were usually safe from retaliation, verbal or otherwise. So much youth and beauty, the only thing I knew to do was to jest by finding fault in any minute mannerism or fashion detail and Victor with his pockmarked face and sadly hideous teeth could imagine he was a king being knelt before.

The lights came up at three and I saw Victor into a taxi and started the stroll down the hill towards my little box near the harbour. A wave of anxiety overcame me. I'd never lived outside Australia before, not even for a few weeks. The most I'd ever stayed in any one place was six nights and that was Vegas, so it barely counted. What was I going to do with all of my stuff? Would I simply lock up my flat and leave it for the months Victor told me I would need to be away? Maybe I could take this opportunity to end the lease and start afresh. But that would mean losing all ties and floating was something I never dealt well with. One step at a time. Did I need a new passport?

Sitting on the stoop of my building was Damon, his duffel bag next to him. He looked like he'd been crying, though the bleariness in my own eyes made it difficult to say for certain.

‘Hey,' I said, thinking it suitably non-committal. Not excited, not angry.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't know where else I could go.'

‘I thought you never wanted to be in my presence again,' I said and sighed.

‘Me too.' He sat staring at his feet.

‘Come on up.' For what else could I have done?

We sat on my couch, not touching, drinking my last two beers. He told me about his falling out with Alyce, that she felt he was not behaving in the way normal friends should, that he failed to ask after her, showed no interest in anything she was doing in her life. He admitted that they had fooled around sexually and then the entire situation made perfect sense. Damon didn't ask where I had been, whom I'd been with, or what my plans were. He spoke non-stop for over an hour, wishing we had not had our falling out, wondering if I'd be okay with him crashing on my floor. I asked him about his audition and he said he felt he'd nailed it, but you never could tell. I wanted to reach out to him, to move across the couch and touch him, lay my head across his lap and look up into that face of his while he spoke. I wanted to see him naked again, wanted to breathe him in like a last delicious line of coke that would send me soaring far away from those earthly constraints I was so petrified of losing in real life. Most of all I wanted him to hold me.

I went to the bed and lay down on top of it, yawning and apologising for feeling so exhausted. Damon asked about a pillow for his carpet mattress but I ignored him, turning away from him and towards the wall. Behind me was a large space for him to fill. I heard him remove his clothes and felt the weight of his body sink down into the bed next to me. He uttered not one sound. My face was hot with want, my body shivered with anticipation. But deeper breaths soon came from the body next to me and when I painstakingly, inch by inch, turned to face him, it was clear he was already asleep. He'd left his underwear on in bed for the first time since I'd met him.

My head was nowhere near sleepy. I kept looking at the man next to me, silently worshipping his pectorals and the hairy mounds of his thighs, breathing in deeply through my nose to try to catch that essence of him. My dick stirred hard in my pants and I desperately wanted to touch it, to move it to rest against his exposed flesh, skin to skin just one last time. A tear emerged.

•  •  •

I never sleep with the blinds drawn, so the sun was hot and blinding by the time it woke me from a deep, hungover sleep. There was no sign of Damon. He'd taken his duffel bag. I sat down and eased the piss out of my morning fat, sighing at the relief. I looked into the mirror – hello, bloodshot eyes. I breathed into a cupped hand and sniffed. Poison. A fruitless search ensued for a note from Damon, or any sign that he'd even been here. Disappointment stabbed me. The schoolgirl in me even checked her phone for a message or missed call.
Just ducked out to get you coffee and doughnuts,
it would have read in her fairytale romance novel.
Meet you on the roof with the papers.

M
um had company. I thought Steve had come back, come to his senses and dumped Kit for the real love of his life, my mother. I heard two cars pull up in the driveway and then my mother struggling to get her key in the door.

‘Shit,' she said, at the sight of me in her bed.

‘Want me to get him out?'

‘Nah, leave him. Why don't you follow me?'

After another self-absorbed evening in the garage, I felt it wasn't right for me to spy on Mum with Steve again. In fact, staying in her bed knowing she had company made my forehead throb. I went back to my own bed and listened for familiar noises from the backyard. As I lay there, I pictured Steve handling my mother the way the woman in Pa's magazine was handled, imagined his starring role in the final pages and now I understood, finally, what this was all about. Naked frolicking, the heavy panting, the chemistry up there on the screen. This was what it meant to be an adult.

•  •  •

It went against all of my experience that Mum would be up before me on a Monday, yet I woke to cooking smells and the sound of the shower running. I desperately needed to pee, so walked into the bathroom without knocking as I normally did. Under the shower, his hair lathered with my mother's shampoo, stood a stranger with his eyes closed. I retraced my steps comically, like in the movies, closed the door then bolted out the back.

‘Morning, Tommy!' Mum called after me. ‘Tommy?'

I stood in front of the lemon tree and released my bladder: a long, slow stream I thought might never end. I shook myself dry then casually walked back into the house.

‘What was that all about?'

‘Bathroom wasn't free. I thought you were in there . . .'

‘Oh.'

‘I heard you come home last night, thought maybe it was Steve with you.'

Mum gave me a look that told me to be sympathetic to our guest, shifting her head in the direction of the hallway.

‘You wouldn't happen to have a spare . . .' the man said, walking into the kitchen. His body was still slick from the shower and the towel tied tightly around his waist forced a small fold of skin to spill out over the top. ‘Sorry. I . . . ah . . . I'm, er, Mal.' He approached me with his right arm outstretched. Mal was short and thickset. His hair was tied back into a tight bun, a loose curly strand hanging clumsily over his left temple.

‘Tom,' I said, and shook his hand.

‘A spare T-shirt or something, Lana? Big enough for me, I mean?'

Mum led Mal into her bedroom and hunted around for something for him to wear.

‘Shouldn'ta come out here with no clothes on, eh, bro?' he said when they came back into the room. He looked quite ridiculous in one of the over-sized concert T-shirts Mum had bought years ago.

‘No, guess not,' I offered half-heartedly.