Tom Houghton (6 page)

Harlen's father must have worked in some sort of factory, because one time he brought a box full of plastic cups to school. The cups were printed with cartoon characters; most were Smurfs, but there were some Transformers too. All the other kids swarmed around him like piranhas, their hands outstretched, begging.
Oh please, Simon! Me too, Simon! Aw c'mon, Simon?
Every kid in the class got one except me, even those kids Simon hated. The next day, he walked up to me.

‘Didn't you want a cup yesterday, Tom-girl?'

‘No,' I said, trying determinedly not to show fear.

‘Why not?'

‘Why would I want anything from you?' The more Harlen spoke directly to me, the less of a monster he seemed and the easier it was for me to be calm.

‘How about a punch in the face?'

I ignored that one.

‘You're a real little freak, aren't you, Tom-girl? Or maybe just one of them little poofs, eh? Eh, poofter Tom?'

I found enough courage to turn my back on him and walk away, thankful for once that his merry band of men was not by his side to egg him on further.

I had the last laugh when, three days later, all the kids started complaining that their fancy new cups were beginning to fade. Cheap cups from a cheap family.

The worst trick so far (and I knew things could always get worse), was when Fitz came running up to me in the playground. He was out of breath, panicked.

‘Tom, hey, mate . . . you need to get to the principal's office right away.'

‘Why?'

‘He sent me down here to look for you, he said it's urgent.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘I'm sorry to tell you, but it's your mum, Tom. She's been really hurt at the butcher's . . . she sliced her hand or something and she's in hospital. You need to come right away!'

Fitz was hyperactive, the look in his eyes pleading. My stomach sank and my head began to spin. This couldn't be happening. I shut my eyes for a moment, opened them to see Fitz still standing there, looking anxiously from side to side, bobbing up and down on his feet with nervousness. My composure melted away instantly and my entire body flushed with a sea of tears and trembling.

‘What's wrong with her?' I screamed at Fitz. ‘What happened to my mum?'

‘You have to come now, they're all waiting for you. Come on!'

Fitz ran in the direction of the principal's office, glancing around occasionally to make sure I was following. I was in a total daze, unable to run; dizzy on my feet, afraid I might fall. I could barely see through the tears, snot dribbled from the end of my nose. All I could think of was poor Mum in some hospital bed, alone without me. What would happen to me if she bled to death?

‘Come on, Tom!' Fitz urged me on. ‘Your dad's here to pick you up and take you to the hospital.'

I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt sick to the gut. ‘My dad?'

‘Yeah, I just seen him, in the office. He left work to get you.'

It was then that I knew I was the victim of another of their stupid pranks. There had been no accident. I followed Fitz to the principal's office and saw, at the corner of my eye, Harlen and his gang hiding around the side of the canteen building, their eyes peeled on the principal's window. I took a second to compose myself.

‘Thanks, Fitz,' I said.

‘Principal Gadstone said to go right in.'

‘Okay.' I wiped the mucus from my face. ‘Thanks again.'

I walked into the office, nodded my head politely to the receptionist, and then kept walking out the other side of the building.

That night in bed, I held on to Mum tightly as I slept, feeling like I never wanted to let her go. I kept seeing the image of Fitz's shaved head, how convincing he had been. And I couldn't get Simon Harlen out of my mind. I wanted revenge. I prayed to a god we did not believe in to punish Simon Harlen. To make him die a slow and intolerable death. I remembered the scene in
Carrie
when, bullied to the point of bursting, she used telekinesis to burn down the whole school, fools and all. What a fitting revenge, I thought. I wouldn't spare a single one of them. One day, I would get Fitz back. It might take a lifetime but eventually he would see that I wasn't one to be messed with, I was better than them all.

Now, as Mum stood looking expectantly at me in the kitchen, the evening meal bubbling away on the stove behind her, it was impossible to even hint at these troubles.

‘Well, they could teach us things a bit faster,' I offered while I chopped the last of the chilli. ‘It can get a bit boring, you know, waiting for the other kids to catch up.'

She walked over and hugged me tightly. ‘You're such a great kid, you know that? You're gonna amount to something big one day, just you wait and see. Don't worry about Pa, Tom, he doesn't understand . . . he doesn't see you the way I see you. You're my knight in shining armour. He's just a bit set in his ways, that's all.'

An hour later, Mum went to the bar where she worked, leaving the lingering scent of her perfume. That was my mother. Not the blood from fresh meat at the butchers, not the stale smoke and booze – her perfume. Without her in the house each evening, I'd often go to her dresser and sniff the lid of the carved glass bottle.

Pa was grumpy and in no mood to talk, so I chose to spend the remainder of the evening in my room. I'd cleared away the dinner dishes, scrubbed down the kitchen and closed up the house. Pa sat watching television and did not respond when I said goodnight to him. I went back into the kitchen and poured him a small glass of port from the over-sized bottle he kept in the laundry.

‘Thought you might like this,' I said, setting it on the side table next to him as quietly as possible, careful not to interrupt his favourite show.

‘Off to your magazines, are you?' Pa asked without looking in my direction.

‘I thought I might read a book tonight. One of my birthday ones.'

‘Jesus H! That's reminded me, Tommy, I haven't given you my present yet!'

‘No – no you haven't, Pa.' Naturally, I had thought of the present several times throughout the day, too scared to let my grandfather know I wasn't at school and not wanting to disturb him at his tinkering.

‘Why didn't you ask me for it?'

‘Because that's not polite.' I found it odd that he should be encouraging me to break one of the rules he'd tried to instil.

‘Well, it's up in my garage – how about you go up there and see for yourself?'

I made my way up the back lawn to the fibro garage in the far right-hand corner of the yard. The narrow chicken pen stretched around it on two sides as though holding it partly together, keeping its innards intact. Pa always left the roller door open but still I was generally forbidden from entering. The rafters were exposed for extra storage space. Boxes of clothes and books, odd pieces of furniture and keepsakes from Pa's life were lined up like awkward schoolboys. He'd left a light burning, its dull yellow globe casting shadows over the tools and benches, making the small canvas-covered boat in the back corner take on sinister tones. An old fridge sat in the opposite corner to the boat, its large metal handle almost daring me to open it but I wouldn't, not tonight. The space smelled like Pa: sweat, engines, sullied tools and stale booze. Mum had barred me from ever talking about it after I'd once queried that omnipresent smell. She explained it matter of fact, said old age brings with it a certain measure of despair, or else boredom, and somewhere between the two, Pa was just looking for a way to escape the predictability of his days. I suppose I understood this, recognised that even adults didn't want to face up to certain things, but if Pa loved it up there so much, why would he want to make it smell bad?

As I crept closer to the buzz of the bulb, my present was gradually revealed. Pa had tied a red bow on it, crudely fashioned from an old rag. There was no card, no wrapping paper. It was three metal bars set into pairs of old coffee tins that had been filled with concrete. I can't begin to describe the despair and hopelessness I felt. Pa wanted me to be a man, wanted me to be something other than myself. He'd never once mentioned weightlifting to me before, never suggested that my muscles were something to invest in.

I didn't want to speak to Pa then, couldn't acknowledge my disappointment at such a barbarian, meathead gift. I would have rather swallowed razorblades than spend my time lifting a heavy metal rod over and over. Wasn't it my brain that needed the most exercise and deserved the most attention? After turning off the light in the garage, I let myself back in the house as quietly as possible and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth hurriedly before climbing into bed. I figured my grandfather wouldn't even notice I was back in the house but that night of all nights we ran into each other in the hallway.

‘I knew you wouldn't exactly love them,' Pa said with a shrug. ‘But in time I think they may become very good friends of yours.'

‘You spent a lot of time making them,' I said, scrounging around for some measure of positivity. ‘I appreciate that.'

‘When you're ready, I'll show you some of the exercises that get the fastest results.'

‘Yes, Pa.'

‘What book you going to read, then?'

‘It's one about Katharine Hepburn.'

‘Oh yes! A strange duck, that one!'

I was offended by his choice of term. She was one of the greats, an icon beyond all icons. It just went to show how little Pa understood of the world outside his stupid garage. ‘I don't know a lot about her . . . yet, but I like her movies. A lot.'

Pa followed me into my room and invited himself to sit at the foot of my bed. ‘She was your grandma's favourite, that Ms Hepburn. That's what your Ma used to call her. Never Kate, never Katharine, always Ms. Like she actually knew the woman. Ma insisted I find the money for her to go see that damn expensive play with her in it. Just would not let up till I gave in.'

‘Shows how much she respected her talent, I guess.'

‘Yeah. Yeah.' Pa nodded his head in agreement. ‘I guess you're right. She just about gnawed my arm off to go but then the play was not enough – she would not give up till she got to meet her.'

‘Who met whom, Pa?'

‘Ma! Ms Hepburn. Caught the train in and waited outside the stage door for hours but she never did show that first night. Wouldn't give up that easily, but – went back night after night on her own and stood there with her paper and pencil.'

‘You're not pulling my leg, are you, Pa? She really tried to meet her?'

‘More than
tried
, Tommy. She met the woman!'

‘Ma met . . . Ma met Katharine Hepburn?' I jumped up onto my knees and leant towards Pa, egging him on.

‘Too right she bloody well did!' Pa said and clapped his hands. ‘Only just remembered it now that you say you're reading about her. Never understood your lot's fascination with all that make-believe.'

‘Pa, tell me!'

‘Well,' he said with a smirk, ‘it must have been about fifty-five, fifty-six?'

‘Forget about the year! What happened?'

‘Yes, yes,' he said to calm me. Forget Sundays at the movies with Mum, Pa was the closest I was ever going to get to the real thing. I could have hugged and kissed him, was hanging on every syllable like each was the greatest high. ‘So Ma made sure I got home early from work night after night so I could look after our Trisha. Well, that's what she was known by then . . . before all this Lana business. Ms Hepburn – would you listen to me –
Katharine
Hepburn, was here doing a tour of Shakespeare. Some nimble fella brought her here . . . a dancer . . . Helpin or something . . .'

‘Helpmann? Robert Helpmann?'

‘Rings a distant bell . . .' he said, gazing off as though he could indeed hear one. ‘Yeah, I think that's it. Anyway, they did some touring around the country and your Ma went, managed to get backstage, and met the great woman. It was more than just a stage-door autograph, as I recall.'

‘So they actually spoke? They exchanged words?' It was all too fantastic, almost impossible to believe. Why had I never known this before? Why had Mum never mentioned it?

‘The way your Ma told it, they became best friends! But no, not really. I can't remember how she managed to get her way in, but they exchanged pleasantries and shook hands.'

‘What is she like? In person, I mean . . . what is it like to be that close to a Hollywood legend?'

‘Your Ma said she was – divine was her word. Not your typical Ma word so it sticks in my head. Well spoken, gracious enough to accept compliments from a theatre novice like Ma. That's about all I can remember really, Tommy. Now, you should get some sleep so you don't miss any more school.'

‘But Pa, this is just amazing! I can't believe you never told me before.'

‘Well then, I'm glad you liked hearing about it. Enjoy your book tonight, but just for a little while and then maybe tomorrow after school we can have a go at the weights together?'

‘Okay, Pa, 'night.'

‘Ni'night, Tom. Maybe you'll dream Hollywood dreams? I think . . . I don't want to get your hopes up or anything, mate, but I seem to remember a signed theatre program among your Ma's things. We'll have a look for that tomorrow too, eh?'

‘Tops,' I said, practically out of breath with excitement. And already my mind was beginning to race. I knew it would be another sleepless night.

I opened that Hepburn biography like it was a map to secret treasure. I half expected there to be mention of her tour of Australia, and a chance encounter with a charming woman from Seven Hills, details of their meeting and what was discussed. I raced through it faster than any book I'd started before and I was less than ten pages into it when something quite unusual leapt out of the page at me: my own surname, staring me boldly in the face, the familiar word with its repetition of H and O. The skyline of the letters jumped out – so uncommon to see it in print – and my eyes darted ahead to the name. No doubt about it, there it was. I had to backtrack to find why it was there. Hepburn's mother's name: Houghton. My stomach was in my throat. It was more than a chance encounter with Ma; I was utterly convinced of it. They had met and exchanged more than mere words because we were related.