Tom Houghton (36 page)

My favourite place was Queenstown, with its dramatic scenery and holiday atmosphere. Mal and I climbed a tall hill just to the side of the town. At its summit we stood admiring the view, proud of our accomplishment, taking sips from a lukewarm bottle of water. I was feeling very much an adult.

‘There's a sense of newness here, isn't there?' Mal asked. ‘Like we haven't worked out we're on the same planet as everyone else, spinning in the same direction. We haven't fucked it all up yet.'

I smiled and nodded at that, understanding precisely what he meant.

‘Do you think you can be happy here?'

I was genuinely unsure of the answer, so merely shrugged.

•  •  •

I was getting used to having no routine just as the school holidays were drawing to a close. I'd never had to start at a new school before. On my first day, I woke feeling empty and frail, an old man dealing with the sudden onset of an appreciation for mortality. Mal told me to lighten up, shook his head and said he'd never guess where I got all these ideas. He was excited for me to be going to the same school he'd gone to as a kid, said it was one of the happiest times of his life and he knew I was going to find it the same. Besides, two of Mal's nephews went there and, though they were two and four years older, they'd promised to keep an eye on me.

I felt overdressed in the full uniform, but Mal had insisted I wear everything, including the jumper and blazer, and told me to just ignore the heat that had already settled over the day at seven. Mal gave me his best pep talk on the way, trying to calm me by telling me it was the first day of school for everybody, there were bound to be other kids who didn't know anyone else, and even those ones my age who did know each other were coming to high school for the first time so everyone was pretty much in the same boat.

My hands were sweaty and I shivered uncontrollably with nerves. My head spun with the emptiness of having no breakfast but I knew I simply wouldn't be able to stomach anything. I wanted to cry but refused to allow myself the indulgence, just wished that a force of nature could intercept our car and somehow render to zero the possibility of starting at school. Part of my wishes were answered as we got stuck in a traffic jam caused by some unexpected road works and we sat in the car frustrated, watching nine o'clock come and go.

‘Oh mate, I'm so sorry, eh,' Mal said.

I repeated over and over in my head, hoping Mal would get it by telepathy,
Turn around and go home, turn around and go home, turn around and go home
, but we eventually made it to the simple-looking school too late for the welcoming assembly. I felt even more like an outsider.

An officious school orderly got Mal to sign a few papers and told him it was now time for him to leave. She referred to Mal as ‘your father' and I liked the sound of that. Mal gave me a quick, unemotional hug but whispered hotly in my ear, ‘Be strong,' and this was the weight that overbalanced me and I nearly crumbled to the ground.

I followed the enormous bulk of the woman across the grassed play area to one of the demountable buildings located behind the library. I supposed, if nothing else, I knew where that was and I could escape there during the terrifying periods of non-class time. The flab on the back of her arms wobbled with each determined step she took and she never stopped to check I was still following her, nor offered to point out anything so I could keep from getting lost. She clambered up the metal steps of the room and they hummed her arrival.

She turned to me and smiled. ‘If I were you, mate, I'd lose the jumper and blazer. It's the bloody middle of summer and you're either gonna die of a stroke or embarrassment, especially if the other kids see you in the winter get-up.'

I smiled at her awkwardly and hurriedly removed the heavy outerwear. Bloody Mal.

‘Now chin up, you'll be right. Good-looking fella like you will have heaps of friends in no time.'

She knocked firmly on the classroom door and introduced me to my new teacher, Mrs Forrester, who made no comment or fuss.

‘Take a seat,' she said, ‘there's only one left.'

Most of the kids were staring straight into my eyes as I entered the room. A couple of girls in the front row nudged each other and whispered foolishly. This made me hold my head even higher.

‘Shh!' hissed the teacher.

I held eye contact with as many of the students as I could. It felt liberating to be standing in front of them, all eyes on me. The foreignness of me seemed to have them all in awe. Warmth grew from deep down inside my stomach and it stretched out far into my limbs, igniting my fingers, toes and hair with an electricity I thought would be simple to master and redirect.

‘Class,' Mrs Forrester said, ‘this is Tom Houghton.'

But that was no longer my name. I'd come too far from Seven Hills to be known by a name so undignified.

‘Actually, miss . . . it's Thomas,' I boomed with confidence. ‘Thomas Houghton Hepburn.'

New York City, 2015

I
've been researching for several weeks, countless hours in front of the computer, tracking down articles and documents for my story. I only have five days here to find out what I can, saving this trip to the very last, so apprehensive about what lies in store and its impact on me personally. The enormity of New York would have to wait for another time, as much as it was begging to be explored. I've received a modest grant to complete the project and Victor has secured some funding to help me get it off the ground, meaning I can splurge just a little, do not have to rely on public transport to get around. The Arts Group has also arranged for one of their New York counterparts to collect me at JFK. She is a very efficient and overtly friendly young student who knows all about the purpose of my brief visit. It is easy to talk to her about it on the long drive to my hotel, Four Points, in the city. I've chosen it very deliberately.

After freshening up, the few daylight hours left allow me to complete the most important task. Repeated letters addressed to ‘the landlord' have finally received a response and after minimal cajoling and a modest bribe (financed by myself) the tenant of the top-floor apartment is prepared to let me visit for an hour or so. I am due to meet him at four o'clock. I've been practising my lines to convince him to leave me alone in his apartment but know it is a long shot, even though I have a lot of evidence to support my claims.

‘Hey, some kid hanged himself from the rafters in your loft about one hundred years ago and I'm here to pay my respects,' is not exactly a promising opening line, so I rehearsed alternatives very carefully on the flight over.

Outside the building, the street is just as any New York street should be. A couple of brownstones (is that what they call them?) amid apartment blocks and office towers, cars parked either side of the strip and spring-budding trees overhanging the pavements. A number of traditional streetlights. Traffic flows steadily but not busily or noisily; if anything, there seems to be an abundance of whizzing cyclists on their way to somewhere important.

My chest constricts as I walk up the six steps to the front door. I find it difficult to breathe and force great gulps of air down into my lungs. Nothing feels familiar, just as it shouldn't, and yet a sense of foreboding hangs over my head, threatening to overcome me. My heart is pounding, my throat goes dry. I press the buzzer of the apartment corresponding to the number in my notes.

‘Yo,' he says, ‘come on up.' And the door hums before I have a chance to confirm I am the person he is expecting.

I haven't told the landlord or the tenant exactly why the attic space holds such importance to my research project. I've uncovered in my studies that in the sixties part of the building was important to the gay and lesbian movement (good old Auntie's legacy?) and perhaps this is their assumption. Or maybe they simply do not care – some weirdo Australian who wants to travel to the other side of the world to stand in a stranger's apartment to feel its energy, and pay for the privilege? Be our guest!

I climb the stairs timidly. It is a long way up. Corridors and apartment doors meet me, not at all as it would have been ninety years earlier. Had she owned the whole building? Everything points to that being true. At the last step I nearly lose my balance. Imagine that as my epitaph: died of a broken neck after all. I make my way to the front of the building and tap on the door.

‘You must be Tom,' Jeff says.

‘Yes, thanks so much for letting me come,' I say, shaking his hand. ‘It means a lot. I know it must be a strange request . . .'

‘You gotta be kidding me, right? I get ten or so a year. Hepburn freaks . . . not that I mean you're a freak or anything, but fans, you know? Like, serious fans? They wanna come here and see where it happened, you know what I'm saying?'

‘So you know then? About Thomas?'

‘Hell yeah, man, course I do. Freaked me out when I first heard but then I could see it could turn into a nice little money earner. Get outta it what I can, you know?'

‘Why not?' I deliver deadpan.

He moves out of the doorway and ushers me in. The ceiling is low in parts, almost down to waist height, but gone are the rafters. In one corner stands a grubby kitchenette, a sink and a few cupboards really, and in the other the door to what must be a bathroom. His bed is in the same place I imagine Thomas's must have been, against the far wall, parallel to the windows.

Jeff watches me nonchalantly, stands off to a corner of the room.

‘Do you ever get the spooks?' I ask.

‘I don't believe in no ghosts,' he says, as if I am joking. ‘A kid dies, he dies, you know? There ain't no afterlife, no haunting. He's just dead.'

‘I don't suppose –' I begin.

‘Tell me,' he interjects. ‘You don't seem like the rest. If it hadn't been her brother, would you even be here?'

The question takes me by surprise, but of course he is right. ‘No, I suppose not,' I concede. ‘And this might sound even crazier to you, but his existence meant a lot to me as a kid.'

‘Hmph,' he utters. As in,
whatever.
‘I charge extra for alone time. It's just rents in New York are stupid, you know?'

‘Yeah, I get it.'

‘An extra hundred for ten minutes but no kinky shit and the door stays open. I'll be out in the hall.'

‘Thank you,' I mutter, only because I'm not sure what else I can do.

It's not what I thought it would be; my feelings are nothing remarkable. Jeff's presence, his mercenary forthrightness, probably prevents it being more momentous.
He died right here,
I say to myself. I try to envision him hanging, not to satisfy my moribund curiosity, or keep it going, but because I want to acknowledge him in a way those gawkers and indeed the Hepburns never could.

Before I know it, my time is up and I pay my pimp his cash. It was an exchange, a dirty sharing of guilty desires. I have seen where Thomas Hepburn hanged himself but seeing beyond the modern furniture and the essence of Jeff's life is something I find impossible to do. No spirit lingers, no clarity can be drawn from the visit.

I make my way back down the stairs and wonder which room she slept in. They could make a motza offering guided tours! I'm on a Disneyland ride, nothing more, and my presence is futile. I paid my entry fee, now it's time to move on to the next thrill. I walk back to the Four Points down the road, unsure of what to feel. There is a measure of guilt, of disappointment, but overwhelmingly it is loss I feel. What had seemed like a noble purpose has been exposed as a sham.

•  •  •

Eddie arrives at the hotel a little before seven. It's the first time I've seen him since my words on his stoop but we have spoken many times. We have agreed if ever there was an age a relationship could withstand distance, especially one yet to become physical, then surely this is it. He hasn't forgiven me, per se, but has gradually allowed me to plead my case. My crime is being the fuck-up, and I have been asked to lay all evidence for the affirmative at his feet.

We go to the City Winery for dinner and a gig. All the wine on tap I could ever want and I sit there sipping my water like the good little virgin I've become (again). Eddie drinks red that turns his lips magenta and offers me a sip not as a test but merely because he's forgotten. The food is wonderful and the show exactly what I need to take my mind off things. I've decided against a quiet face-to-face meal as I am uncertain how things will be between us. We are not sharing a hotel room, so the walk to the winery is the first real chance we've had to interact.

‘How did it go today?' he asks.

‘It was a revelation of sorts,' I say, but he misunderstands. He's promised not to pry too deeply into my project because he wants the freshness of reading it without prior knowledge.