Tom Houghton (27 page)

I woke at dawn but by then it was too late, so I went down to the block to shower in my shorts, a towel covering my shame. I worked quickly to rinse and wring them before anyone else came into the shower room and I managed to get them back on before anyone came in.

W
hen we returned home late on Saturday afternoon, Mum had already left for work. I was five hundred dollars richer and had one less item of Pa's in my possession. Mal's mate had made just one offer on the boat and I had snapped it up immediately. Though it was a fair price, Mal said, it was a lesson for me to learn the art of negotiation, and if I'd not shown quite so much enthusiasm, I could have easily ended up with another hundred, maybe two.

‘But I was happy with five hundred,' I said to Mal, confused.

‘Yeah, but you could have got more.'

‘But isn't that dishonest? He's a mate of yours.'

‘Jeez, Tom,'
heh heh heh
, ‘you've gotta be the nicest bloke on earth.'

Mal dropped me home and said he might see me later on, that he might bring Mum home from work. All the way home my plan solidified and I knew the time was close to emerge from the darkness surrounding me. I was too excited to wait until the next afternoon to see how far Mrs B had progressed with my costume, so I knocked on her door after six, when I knew she'd have finished her dinner. I took her some eggs.

She led me into the sewing room, insisting she wasn't quite finished yet, she still needed to put on some embellishments and fancy touches, that she might have to make some alterations after I tried it on. I walked into the room after her and froze.

It took my breath away. It was my second skin, my armour. The shimmering silver fabric looked like metal. On a mannequin on the other side of the room was the cape, not shiny, but floor length grey and just as majestic. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, perfect in every way. The replica of the moth costume Hepburn wore in
Christopher Strong
was to become my own metamorphosis. It was the first film I'd seen of hers after watching
On Golden Pond
and when she emerged from behind that door in her shimmering silver costume I'd been hopelessly mesmerised. This was the precise moment Katharine Hepburn became my favourite star. Here was the most exquisitely beautiful face I'd ever seen on screen, a being of such luminosity it seemed to beam from every one of her pores. Now when I saw images of her in that shiny skin-tight material, things took on a different meaning. The lustre was still there, but I could see this was her message to the world and it resonated deafeningly. Katharine Hepburn was saying:
I have emerged from a tomboy into a thing of incredible beauty but inside I am my brother and now I am also a bona fide star.
I now knew Thomas was the celestial spirit that drove her radiance, was the power behind all of her success, right from this first starring role to her fourth Oscar and beyond. And now that she was nearing eighty, how much longer would she be able to keep the essence of him alive?

It was time. I was to replace Hepburn. If I started by imitating this vision of her emergence into beauty, her birth into stardom, then I could usurp her greatness. I was about to become the real Thomas Houghton.

My fat slug of a body would be sheathed by the shimmering silver, its ugliness would disappear and in the light of day at that assembly, my silver moth costume would dazzle and awe the audience. I was no caterpillar, I was a thing of beauty and destined for legendary status. I would be talked about for years to come. Now they would get it! Now everyone would see that I was Thomas Houghton and I would become a legend. I was too emotional too speak. Water welled in my eyes, my whole body trembled.

‘Oh no,' said Mrs B, ‘you don't like.'

‘You . . . you . . . no! No, I love it. Mrs B –'

‘Oh, thank the Lord!' Mrs B raised her hands and head to the ceiling. ‘I know there is still some work to do for you. I need to do the antenna . . .'

‘It's perfect, Mrs B. You're brilliant!' I threw myself at her and locked my arms around her back. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!'

‘Okay! Okay!' she said with a laugh. ‘I know you like now! You take book back now and here, I have something for you. My son did this.' She rifled around in her drawer and pulled out an A4 image of Hepburn in the suit. To the back, she'd stapled a large piece of the silver material.

‘Wow,' I said with genuine awe.

‘You hold this when you want to be thinking about your costume, until she's ready.'

I insisted I shouldn't try it on yet, that I must wait until she'd done all of the finishing touches before we tested it for size. Mrs B's telephone rang and she left the room to answer it. I walked up to the silver skin and placed my face against it. It was surprisingly soft to the touch and smelt new and fresh. I was desperate to put it on, right there and then, but knew this would spoil the moment. I had to contain myself, had to resist every urge, my entire body willing me into the silver suit, maybe to just try on the grey flowing cape, feel how it swam over my limbs like angel's wings. I forced myself away, out of the room, folding my new picture carefully and placing it in my pocket where no one could see.

Mrs B was speaking her own language animatedly into the phone. I planted a peck on her cheek, she cooed excitedly, and then watched me as I ran out the front door like I was in love for the first time, up on the silver screen, skipping a celebratory dance.

•  •  •

Mal left early the following morning. Mum said he didn't want to intrude on our movie day. I was disappointed, had wanted to show Mal some of the Hollywood glamour he often dismissed, the antithesis to the videos he brought over. Today's double feature was going to be a corker,
Mrs Miniver
and
A Star is Born
. We hadn't decided if we were staying for the third one, yet another Doris Day flick,
With Six You Get Eggroll
.

Mum sounded unusually tired, said work had been full-on, with three fights and Kit getting herself in the middle of one of them. She'd been taken away in an ambulance.

‘They're talking about getting a security guy in full time,' she said.

‘Are you okay there, Mum?'

‘Yes, Tommy, I've told you that before. I know how to handle myself and I've been in enough fights to know how to win. I'm not scared at all. Besides, Steve is there most nights and there is no way he would let anyone do anything to hurt me.'

‘Maybe we should . . .'

‘What, baby?'

I wanted to offer her some solution, suggest perhaps that we move somewhere else, some place nice. Mal had spoken so longingly about his hometown I thought it would be a beautiful place to live. But there was still work for me to do, especially at school. The timing was not yet right, nor was it the right thing to do merely to escape, ride off into the night without some confrontation. Katharine Hepburn's brother had surrendered and if I did the same, well then, what would have been learnt? I knew I needed to have my victory and it was weak to just walk away from them and let them beat me.

‘Oh nothing,' I said, forcing another piece of toast into my already crowded mouth. ‘I just don't want you getting hurt.'

‘No need to worry about that, handsome, I told you to stop worrying about anything. I'm the parent, not you, it's my job to worry and I will always look after the both of us!'

In the cinema, in the quiet, dark cool, I reached over to Mum and held her hand tightly. She squeezed it firmly and brought it to her lips. She leant in close to me and whispered, ‘I love you.' My other hand was tucked into my left pocket, lightly stroking the silver material that hid there. Nothing else in the world mattered to me as I sat watching movies with Mum – not Mal, not Spencer, not Simon Harlen – nothing.

But just after the opening credits of
A Star is Born
, she started crying. Without talking, I asked her what was wrong, was she okay. Her whispered reply was barely audible.

‘I need sleep, Tommy, I need to go home. You're staying here and when the movie's over you're calling in sick for me.'

‘But Mum . . .' I said a little too loudly.

‘Just do it,' she hissed.

People around us glared and shushed and this kept me glued to my seat. Mum gathered up her things and walked out like a zombie. Tears streamed down my cheeks but I could not follow, I knew enough to give her space.

After the movie, I called her boss and apologised, saying she had yet another migraine then I went back into that dark cinema and watched stupid Doris Day act all sweet and supple and it was all I could do to keep myself from vomiting.

E
ddie called me, as he'd promised, as soon as he walked in the door of his apartment. We had agreed not to mention anything to Lexi. We were, after all, merely getting to know each other better.

‘The train trip sucked,' he said with a chuckle. ‘It was slowed down about twenty times and, against our best judgement, Lexi and I grabbed some beers from the bar.'

‘Hours stuck on a train and too many beers sounds like a recipe for a kiss and tell all.'

‘I promised you I wouldn't, Tom, so you need to stop with that shit, okay?'

‘Okay,' I said with the softest hint of a huff.

‘And you can stop that too!'

‘What?' I tried innocently but we both began to laugh.
Stamp out the diva
, I told myself.

‘So anyways, I'm home now. The cat's been fed, my shirts have been collected from the cleaners. I'm all yours till we both get too tired.'

It was already late on Sunday evening, our only performance-free night of the week. Eddie didn't ask how the matinee had gone but then I already knew not to expect him to.

‘So what did you want to talk about?' I asked. I was lying under my covers and had a bottle of red wine next to me, sipping on my third glass of the evening.

‘Let's not force topics,' he said, ‘it's best to just let things flow.'

‘I sometimes wonder why Lexi doesn't hate me,' I volunteered. The question had been plaguing me for some time. I could never have blamed her for feeling antagonistic.

‘I'm sure she's had her moments,' Eddie said. ‘I know my old man and I went years without talking . . .'

‘Years? What happened?'

‘He's just a bit of a cunt is all. I decided one day I didn't want him in my life any more.'

‘Just like that?'

‘Yep, of course. I mean, when I came out to him his reaction was, “How in god's name is one to explain this to the boys in the club without looking like a nancy oneself?” And that sort of laid the foundations for the next couple of years . . .'

I laughed because to take it seriously would have been too melodramatic.

‘Yeah, funny
now
,' Eddie said.

‘A bit. I was going to compile a book of quotes from parents at their child's coming-out.'

‘Why, what did your parents say?'

‘My mother, you mean. She said, “Oh Thomas, always so dramatic. Pass me my fags, would you?” And yes, she did use that particular word.'

‘What about your dad?'

It took me quite a long time to explain the situation to Eddie. As an adult, Lana was less resistant to talking about who my father might have been. And that was just it:
might have
. It was all very
Mamma Mia
, one of potentially three men, though I suspected in my mother's bad maths that probably meant one of five. She only spoke of two of them, which led me to believe it was neither of those. One was a truck driver, someone she'd met at a carnival and rendezvoused (her word) with in his cab. He was either from Taree or Albury, she couldn't remember, and was married with six kids. The other one she spoke about was one of my grandfather's work colleagues, a man twenty years her senior and – she was ninety per cent certain – had since died of a heart attack.
At least I think it was him
, she said.
Pa did go to someone's funeral and the name sounded vaguely familiar
.