Tom Houghton (2 page)

We must have spent hundreds of evenings over the last twenty-odd years dissecting my need to drink. We'd explored every corner of my family history, shaved away the outer layers of my epidermis, dug deep into the recesses of my psyche, and the best we could come up with was that it was either genetic, or alcohol was my escape from something neither she nor I were objective enough to identify. Damon had been living with me for the past eight weeks – in large part because he had nowhere else to stay. He was the understudy for Honey but Max (who played Honey) would go on even on his deathbed, so the chances of Damon getting a run depended upon acts of god. At first, I was only vaguely attracted to him with his fresh, smooth face and that childish button nose but when I saw him getting changed one day, my more animal instincts got the better of me. He was yet to work out that youth and beauty die tragically together before their time. For my part, I'd rather selfishly abused my position as ‘star' to seduce him onto my own private stage. I had no doubt Damon would move out as soon as his next job came along and I would miss his vigour, but not his constant shadowing, nor the way he presumed I was a better person than I was capable of being.

‘Actually they say it isn't genetic, now . . . Apparently.'

It took me a moment to remember what we were talking about and I shouldn't have been surprised to remember it was my drinking. ‘Please, let me have one vice.'

‘Your vice is that you have many.'

You shared them with me before you traded in life for life-giving
, I wanted to say, but didn't.

‘Don't you ever forget I've kept track of every single one,' Hanna said. And to prove her point, went on: ‘Coupon collecting, prescription anti-inflammatories, sugarless chocolate, rugby magazines . . .'

‘Actually, honey, you don't even know the half of it.'

‘Oh no, I think I have a pretty good handle on it all,
actually
.'

The waitress, who was now sweatier and less polished than when I first arrived, brought me a second milkshake and winked as she did so.

I asked Hanna about her life as I almost always remembered to do and she told me of her financial woes, boredom at work, Bankes's behavioural issues, the successes of her sister and then skirted around the topic of her husband, Jakob. Though I wanted her to trust me with all the gory details, I had long since learnt not to press her on them. Jakob and I had never gotten along sober and he bristled visibly whenever I was in their home, so she not unsubtly insisted that I always met her out. Even if that meant travelling to her side of the city and, due to my public transport aversion, paying a forty-dollar cab ride for the privilege. Hanna hadn't seen me in a play since university but I was too embarrassed to pick at that scab. I certainly was not brave enough to hear what she thought of my skill, or if she thought anything of it at all. I'd dallied with a band for a few months after university and although the fact that I could not sing was lost on the rest of the band members, I was sure it wasn't on the modest-sized pub crowds to which we played. Hanna came one night and stood at the back of the room with her boyfriend at the time, a bemused expression plastered across her face. At the end of the set I thanked the manager and arranged a date for the next gig before making my way to where she had stood.
We had to run,
she said later by way of explanation.
We thought you were good
. And I suppose that was akin to a Victor
Thanks
email.

It's funny how art and friendships so seldom mix. I'd had some incredibly close friends never see me in anything, and acquaintances only very loose by association who chose to sit in the front row night after night. But then I'd never sat at Hanna's desk to watch her work either.

Hanna insisted on paying the bill and I griped, but it was beginning to cause a scene – which we both hated – so I surrendered. I promised I would pay for next month's breakfast but she floored me by suggesting that perhaps next time we could each bring a picnic and she would bring Bankes to play in the park. I told her I'd like that.

We kissed each other awkwardly on the cheek.

‘Don't slit your wrists today, my dear, it's only a number. And congratulations for surviving the odds and actually making it this far. One day you're going to have to tell me what made you such a monumental fuck up. And I don't mean the New Zealand years either – yawn, I know all those. I was there for all the break-ups, let-downs, back-stabs, AIDS scares, drug binges, failures, rejections and forced outings too, remember.'

‘Trust me, you don't want to know the rest.'

‘Try me.'

‘I might be a weirdo, but unlike you, at least I still have my boyish good looks.'

‘Delusional,' she said, shaking her head at me as she slowly walked away.

About ten metres down the café strip, she turned back to me as if she knew I was watching and said: ‘Give your mother my love.'

Hanna 1, Tom 0.

T
he evening before my twelfth birthday the anticipation of presents had been too great and at some hour between midnight and dawn, I crept out of Mum's bed and into my room to take a peek. There beneath the window was a new desk – white, clean and sturdy. Its surface was printed with a map of the world and as I studied it in the glow from the streetlights outside, I wondered why they had chosen to colour all of the Commonwealth countries pink. Before Mum woke to find me snooping, I rummaged through the shapes on my bed. There must have been twenty presents, all wrapped in bright colours, just like the countries on my new desk.

I crept back into Mum's bed, my whole body riding waves of expectancy, knowing sleep would never come. I lay there listening to her soft snores and dream-filled sighs, soothed by the conditioner smells of her wavy red hair.

I woke later to the smell of crisping bacon – white chocolate cake and bacon sandwiches for breakfast, washed down with milk and sugary tea. Pa came out and shook his head disapprovingly, but I knew the old man would be helping himself to a few slices of cake as soon as Mum and I left for the cinema. I opened all of my presents bar one, stringing out the excitement for as long as I could bear. With the opening of each gift, I couldn't help but get more excited. Mum had really outdone herself, even keeping some hidden in her wardrobe until I thought they were all opened. There were twenty-three magazines, four books, eight videos (I now had enough to open a video store, Pa said), a new set of coloured pencils and one thousand crisp new index cards. With the opening of each gift, I couldn't help but get more and more excited, even though I knew we didn't have enough money for any of this; she must have saved every spare penny just to spoil me.

I went to the bathroom. When I came back into the room, I threw my arms around her. I started to cry.

‘Baby, what's wrong? Don't you like what I bought you?'

It took me a few minutes to be able to talk again. ‘No, no, it's not that,' I sobbed, now feeling even guiltier.

‘Then what is it? What's the matter?'

‘I don't deserve any of this, Mum, it's too much.'

‘That's just nonsense,' she said. ‘Of course you do. You're my handsome leading man – you deserve all of the presents in the world.'

‘But how can we – ?'

‘Now you listen to me clearly, Tom Houghton. Stop worrying. All right? I missed your last birthday and I can't forgive myself – I hate myself for that. And this is just presents, you know? This is just a small way for me to show you how sorry I am for going away for so long. I want you to know that I am here for you, and always will be. I love you, okay? I love you more than life itself. Now, leave that last present and get ready for the movies, we're going to have a wonderful day.'

I wanted to tell her that I forgave her, that I understood what one of her spirals meant, that she went away to get better. But the truth was she had left me with just Pa. The other times Mum had gone away, Ma had been here and we'd gone to the movies just like we always did, but with just Pa things were different. Prickly. I'd cried myself to sleep on my last birthday and even when Mum came home, she hadn't said she was sorry to have missed it.

But this year things would be different. Our Sundays were cast in stone now. Mum only ever took a late shift on a Sunday. Up for breakfast, a quick tidy of the house; make Pa's lunch and leave it in the fridge. Then we'd head straight to the cinema and stay there all day. Mum packed sandwiches for us, and soft drinks, corn she'd popped the evening before. Usually she made us fresh cupcakes but, as it was my birthday, we'd take some of my cake. White chocolate because she knew it was a weakness.

I usually hated shuffling during movies (mine or anybody else's) but that day, I couldn't keep still. There was something about the mysterious present that kept drawing my thoughts back to it. I tortured myself with that one unopened gift for the rest of the day and I loved the power it held over me; it let me stretch out my birthday for as long as possible, like those kids who made the chocolates from their Easter Show bags last till August.

The images on the screen flickered almost as fast as my mind. Maybe the present was a collection of posters, all rolled and stood on end? Different lengths would create the illusion of it being oddly shaped. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't any closer to working out what it might be, and I found it virtually impossible to concentrate on the Doris Day and Rock Hudson double feature and even harder to enjoy
The African Queen
because I'd seen it before, though not on the big screen. I should've been excited to see it, as Katharine Hepburn was the best and my all-time favourite. She'd been Ma's too. Hepburn exuded Hollywood royalty – so enigmatic, so cool. And besides, with so many Oscar nominations, everyone knew no one would ever catch her – it was validation that she was the best and would always remain it. Ever since Ma and Mum took me to see
On Golden Pond
when I was eight or so, I'd painstakingly tracked down as many Hepburn films as I could find. I scoured the television guide searching for late-night showings then carefully programmed the VCR to start recording ten minutes before each one. Sometimes I was so worried about the timer function not working that I would set my alarm and get up to press the record button myself. I'd exhausted the local video shops of her films and had called several of the large wholesale warehouses looking for the rarer ones. In all, I owned copies of twenty-six Hepburn films and I reckon I'd watched each one three times. Mum wanted to know what my favourite was but it was impossible to say, I couldn't narrow it down. Of the earlier ones, I liked
Bringing Up Baby
,
Woman of the Year
and
The Philadelphia Story
, but saying one was a favourite was taking it too far. One of my birthday books was a biography of Katharine Hepburn and I couldn't wait to get started on it.

I managed to convince Mum we shouldn't stay for the fourth movie and she finally understood I was fidgeting over what lay in store for me. When we got home, I couldn't contain myself any longer, not even staying outside to open the gate for Mum to drive in the old Holden. I bounded up the front steps, raced into my room and ripped apart the paper like a famished explorer sitting down to his first home-cooked meal in months.

My heart burst with appreciation. Mum had tracked down a genuine movie set prop from Hollywood. A ceramic vase used in a scene for
Now, Voyager
as proven by a black and white still from the film with it circled in the background. It didn't matter that I wasn't familiar with the film as I read the certificate of authenticity –
I
had a piece of cinema history right here in my own bedroom! Howard Carter could not have felt more enamoured of one of his finds.

Mum left for work around five and though she'd prepared our dinner before leaving, I was in no mood to eat – there was so much to do. I took a deep breath, sat down on my bed and thought things through methodically. If I started with the cards, and updated my collection accordingly, then at least I could put those aside and move on to the magazines and books before bed. This was the right order to absorb things in.

I pulled the shoeboxes out from under my bed and lined them up in front of me. I peeled the plastic away from one of my new packs of index cards and deeply inhaled their fresh woody scent. New stationery gave me a feeling of purpose. I got my notepad and opened it to its waiting page. First on the list was Marlee Matlin, a new young star getting rave reviews for her debut role in
Children of a Lesser God
and touted as being yet another next big thing. I wrote the actress's name in black pencil above the double red line at the top of a fresh card. Underneath that, in grey pencil, if she had an alternate spelling or a different birth name I would write that too, like Cher's Cherilyn Sarkisian, or Lauren Bacall's Betty Joan Perske. On the first blue line of the card I wrote:
Children of a Lesser God
. Next, I went to the shoebox labelled
to be added
and pulled out a small envelope marked
M
. In it was a pile of identically sized pictures (four centimetres by four centimetres) I'd clipped from magazines, and I rummaged through until I found the image of the young actor. I glued the clipping to the reverse, top-right corner of the index card, marked off Marlee Matlin's name in my notepad and placed the card before Walter Matthau in the M–Q shoebox.