‘That’s not funny. It’s tragic. Where was she?’
‘Up in the Cross, at the Poosticks sculpture.’
‘Its correct name is Stones Against the Sky, and it’s another piece by Ken Unsworth.’
‘I’ll have a second look with that in mind. Good luck with the assignment. I’m finished here. All yours.’
After having spent a night uncovered in the fridge, the last slice of Roman Holiday tasted fishy, so I ditched it and set out on a mission to scavenge something tasty from Dad’s picnic. I took the scenic route, skating down Liverpool Street into a narrow lane canyoned by garage doors and, reaching a dead end, ollied the kerb and shot blind down the root-buckled concrete footpath. Ducking low to clear a lantana canopy, I emerged unscathed on a street lined mostly with old sandstone and weatherboard workers’ cottages, probably all worth a few million now. On the corner was a larger two-storey house surrounded by a vine-covered wire fence that wasn’t quite tall enough to hide an enormous carved eagle with outstretched wings.
Unable to resist an inspection, I climbed the fence and discovered the eagle was the top figure of a fake totem pole that must’ve been made for a shopping centre or minigolf course back in the seventies. Beside it were a table made from a cable spool and tractor seats shaded by a plane tree growing from a huge tyre. There were two Ampol petrol bowsers, shipping palettes and stacks of metal signs. And lying stiffly inside an enamel bathtub was an armless mannequin, smiling bravely despite her baldness – perhaps cheered by the aroma of all the surrounding rosebushes. I was about to leave when a glint of sunlight, reflecting off a curved metal bar that was poking out from coils of plastic tubing, caught my eye.
Ignoring the BEWARE VICIOUS DOG sign, I jumped down and squeezed through the wire gate, then pulled the tubing away to reveal an object of great beauty: an old-school dragster, complete with sissy bar, ape hanger handlebars and stick shift, circa 1974. A high point of style in the history of cycling. Though rusty, the paint job was fully sick, a slow burn from yellowy orange to fiery red. Attached to the handlebars was a plastic FOR SALE tag.
I knocked on the front door of the house but nobody answered, so I walked around the side. Sitting out the back on a crimson cracked-vinyl armchair was a crusty old dude in a stained singlet, with two empty VB longnecks by his feet. He was facing away from me, so his muttering was hard to decipher, but I caught parts of it: ‘Big explosion down at Garden Island. Ka-boom! Next thing you know, young Johnny’s off to Korea on his Pat Malone. Quack wouldn’t let me go because I had a little something extra. Rained cats and dogs that year and myxomatosis on the bunnies. Rabbitohs won the premiership. Good thing ol’ Bugs was a Yank. Came on with the newsreel, he did. Before the main feature, he did. Myeah! What’s up, doc?’
I edged closer and saw the man was talking to a pale-yellow bird with peachy cheeks – stuffed, and perched on a little branch stuck to a wooden base. Having second thoughts about the dragster, I turned to leave. Then he sang, ‘If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake, howdy-doo, howdy-doo, howdy-doo.’
‘Excuse me?’
He turned and extended his head, squinting like a short-sighted turtle. I’d seen him before – the guy on the mobility scooter who’d kicked in the Beemer’s door last night. His foot was swollen.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t meant to disturb you.’
‘Rack off!’ he said. ‘G’arn! GIT!’
‘Sorry, I just saw the—’
‘Nothin’ here for ya. Now scram or I’ll call the coppers.’
‘I just wanted to know, how much for the bike?’
‘Not selling it.’
‘But there was a sign that said—’
‘Closed on Satdee.’
‘When do you open?’
‘Never. So be a wise lad and bugger off.’
The old man’s refusal to sell the bike made me want it more, a perverse form of determination I’d inherited from my father. I walked around the block, conjuring a sentimental story, and returned.
‘Back again like a bad smell?’ the old codger said. ‘Don’t know when to leave good enough alone.’ One eye was fierce, the other dead.
‘I wanted to tell you that my dad rode a Malvern Star just like that when he was the same age as me.’
‘Whoopee-doo! Didn’t I tell you to bugger off? Beat it, and don’t come back again.’
‘It was exactly the same as that one. Same colour and everything.’
‘Bullshit. I painted it myself. It’s a rusty piece of shit and the chain’s cactus.’
‘I could fix it.’
‘Show me your hands.’ I walked closer, then he grabbed them and turned up my palms. ‘Never done a scrap of real work between ’em.’ He slapped them away. ‘Girly hands!’ He cocked his head towards the stuffed cockatiel. ‘What’s that, Perce?’ He put his ear against the bird’s beak. ‘Seventy quid, you reckon? You’re a soft touch. Percy here says seventy.’
‘All right then. I’ll bring the money tomorrow.’
‘Just what I thought. A whole lotta puff.’ He spat a wad of brown phlegm directly onto my left trainer, which I ignored for the sake of the deal.
‘I have to get the money from my dad. I’ll bring it tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow never comes. If it does, might be gone.’ He pushed himself off the chair and shuffled towards the back door.
‘You said that it wasn’t for sale,’ I said, following him. ‘Who else wants it?’
‘I meant me, not the Dick Van Dyke. First and last time in a private box. Final curtain, that’s all folks!’ He waved me off and shut the screen door.
‘If you’re still around, I’ll be back with the cash.’
I skated on down to the Rushcutters Bay tennis courts, where I spotted Dad and Steve with the topnotch birds on a tartan picnic rug near the café. I hid behind a trellis to observe the dynamic. Dad was delivering a semi-factual anecdote to the girls, who couldn’t have been more than seven years older than my sister. The punchline earnt a polite titter from one and a loud snorty drawback from the other. While her head was tilted back, my father popped an olive into her mouth. A truly shocking act. Not just because the olive got lodged in her throat and might’ve been fatal if quick-thinking Steve hadn’t administered four solid blows between her shoulderblades to eject it – but also because popping an olive was something my father had only ever done to my mother. Witnessing him pop an olive for another, much younger, woman rendered me incapable of joining the gathering. I left without eating.
Arriving home a couple of hours later, Dad asked how my day had gone, oblivious to the fact I’d been observing his.
‘Productive. I worked on my assignment and then found a bike I like.’
‘Snap! Because so have I.’ He went and fetched a brochure from the living room. ‘Check out the specs on this beauty. With the Bike Buddies Bonus, we’d get thirty per cent off the second one. We could start training together.’
‘What for, the Tour de France?’
‘Some kids would get mildly excited if their father offered them a bike like that. I get nothing but smartarse lip.’
‘I don’t want the responsibility of a three-grand bike.’
‘Only two-and-a-half with the Buddy Bonus.’
Buying the same bike would be a bonding exercise in Dad’s mind, but I didn’t rate the idea of pedalling around the park on matching cycles. Next there’d be matching lycra shorts, helmets and sunglasses. So I nipped that plan in the butt [sic], immediately, explaining it would be much cheaper if he spotted me for the dragster. He agreed and insisted on coming along to make sure I didn’t get ripped off.
The Sunday morning air was filled with the acrid waft of burning bush, a yellow haze and a pulsating cicada chorus. Walking beneath the lantana canopy, Dad shared his bargaining strategy. ‘We know his starting price. We’ll offer thirty-five.’
‘He didn’t even want to sell it.’
‘Leave the talking to me.’
‘Well, look what the cat’s dragged in, Perce. And he’s brought a playmate.’
‘Actually, I’m his father. Lance Locke.’ He extended his hand but the old man ignored it. ‘I hope Lincoln hasn’t been bothering you?’
‘Persistent little bugger. Chip off the old block, eh?’
‘Some people think that—’
‘Scorcher today. Forty-five out Penrith way. Don’t mind the heat but Perce isn’t too keen on it.’
Dad looked at the bird and frowned. ‘Cockatiel, is he? Must be well trained. Have you clipped his wings?’ Sketchy effort at pretending the bird was alive. ‘Does he talk?’
‘Not to idiots. Come here for the bike, have you?’
‘We’ve got the cash,’ I said.
Dad frowned again. ‘Perhaps I should see it first?’
‘Right you are. I’ve done a little tinkering and gussied her up a bit. Hold your horses and I’ll fetch her.’ The man doddered off to the other side of the cottage, leaving an inflated pink rubber ring on the seat.
‘Looks like a severely reduced mental faculty isn’t the only thing he suffers from.’
‘He’s just a bit eccentric.’
‘Lincoln, he’s nuttier than a fruitcake. Did you notice one of his eyes doesn’t move? I think it’s made of glass.’
‘So what?’
‘Have a little think about how that might’ve happened.’
‘Shh! Here he comes.’
The old guy wheeled the bike around, beaming like a dentally challenged Santa Claus. ‘Here she is,’ he said, propping the dragster on its kickstand. It looked nothing like the bike I’d seen yesterday. He’d repaired the chain, fixed the brake and gear cables, and replaced the tyres. The chrome fixtures were gleaming. He must’ve worked on it all night long and, judging by the added extras, had a team of gay elves assisting. There was:
1) A white woven plastic basket with a daisy on the front
2) Spokey Dokeys on the spokes
3) A fluoro-orange flag on a bendy pole
4) A horn
‘Wowee!’ Dad said, and gave it a honk.
‘Came up a treat, didn’t she?’ The man winked. ‘Bet it looks just like the one you rode back in the day.’
Dad shot me a side eye and I gave him a subtle nod to play along. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘The old Malvern Star. Same model and everything, without the fancy bits. I was a terror on that baby, fastest kid on the street.’ Then he spotted the new price tag. ‘A hundred and fifty dollars? You told my son seventy!’
A price dispute ensued and quickly became heated. Dad accused the old guy of swindling me, even though he’d obviously put in well over a hundred dollars’ worth of parts and labour. The old guy thought he’d done me a solid by gussying it up, and my subsequent refusal to admit that I didn’t actually want the extras infuriated Dad. He threatened to contact an imaginary reporter friend from A Current Affair. The old guy told us both to fuck off.
My father’s pride was at stake, so as the guy wheeled the bike away he called out, ‘I’ll take it off your hands for two hundred.’ The guy kept going. ‘Make it two-fifty then?’ No response. ‘Three hundred?’ The guy stopped. ‘We got him,’ Dad whispered.
‘You can have the bloody thing!’ the man growled, and let it drop. And when my father produced his wallet, the old guy snapped, ‘I don’t need your filthy lucre. Just piss off, the pair of you!’
‘Get your bike,’ Dad said.
I didn’t move.
‘Get it!’
I lifted the two-wheeled trophy of shame, wondering if I’d ever be able to ride it. Dad pulled a couple of hundred-dollar notes from his wallet and offered them to the man but he refused, then shuffled inside and slammed the flyscreen door.
‘Stubborn old goat,’ Dad said, and wedged the notes between the mannequin’s fingers.
My sister Venn was born three years before me. My parents couldn’t decide on a name so they drew a Venn diagram with the intersection of two circles holding the names they both liked. Unable to choose one of those, they decided to call her Venn. I’m not sure if it’s connected to her naming in any way, but diagrams have continued to play an important role in Venn’s life. She draws them to make sense of tricky things – to manage disruptions before they have a chance of causing chaos. Another coping mechanism of hers is to go into the bush and meditate on the natural order. But her innate sense of balance and harmony went totally whack when my parents split, and her diagrams failed to diminish the resentment she’s been feeling towards Dad since he moved out. So she turned again to the healing power of nature.
Tonight, while Dad was cooking dinner, Mum called – purportedly to find out how my first week at Crestfield had gone, but really to bang on about the wellness retreat Venn had talked her into going to.
‘It began with something called “beneficial deprivation”,’ she said. ‘Which meant we weren’t allowed to drink anything except a fermented kale tonic that tasted a little more fetid than swamp water. They confiscated all electronic devices for three hours of communal silence, which just made me want to scream. As soon as I got my phone back I packed your sister into the car and almost escaped, but she talked me out of it. And I’m glad she did because the next morning, during a hot stone massage, I worked through some anger issues.’
‘I didn’t realise you still had them?’ I said, restraining the level of sarcasm in my inflection.
‘Neither did I, until Revati made the stones too hot and burnt my back. I overreacted, which made her cry, and then I cried. Even though I’d been scorched, I couldn’t stop apologising. Talking it through, I realised I’d been conditioned to make other people feel better – especially men. Despite your father’s significant contribution, I’d blamed myself for our marriage failing. I felt guilty for working too hard at building the business and neglecting you in the process.’
‘I hardly felt neglected.’
‘In hindsight, your father and I had been drifting apart for a couple of years. The surprise-party business with Maëlle was simply the final straw.’
Now is a good time to tell you about the party.
In April last year, Maëlle Beauvais – so Frenchy, so chic – had glided into Signal Bay with a joie de vivre that instantly captivated us all. Her family in Paris had hosted my sister as an exchange student a couple of years before, and we reciprocated the favour during Maëlle’s gap year. Madly intelligent, politically engaged and insatiably curious about our suburban existence, she made us believe we were far more interesting than we really are. Mum was delighted to have an eager sous-chef in the kitchen; Maëlle conversed in French with Venn while shopping or drinking coffee at La Poule en Étain, helping Venn prepare for her looming final French exam while simultaneously endowing my sister with a sophisticated Parisian je ne sais quoi by osmosis.
I bonded with Maëlle by teaching her to surf, which garnered greater respect for me from the line-up, especially from Tom and Coops. Though realistically there could never be anything between Maëlle and me, I basked in the tanning lamp of false kudos that came with letting people speculate. Disconcertingly, Dad seemed to be relishing her attention as well. He and Maëlle shared a love of Scrabble, and would continue playing into the night after the rest of us had given up. Perhaps she was simply eager to please everyone, I thought.
But Mum wasn’t thrilled by their late-night games and soon my parents’ arguments, private but audible, flared up again. So whatever possessed Dad to enlist Maëlle’s assistance in preparing a surprise dinner party for Mum’s fiftieth when she’d flagged her desire to let it pass quietly is beyond my comprehension. The plan was for Mum’s business partner, Morgan, to take her for Friday drinks while the rest of the team took the stealth route to our place for the ambush. It quickly backfired because she declined his invitation, pissed off that Emma, Jules and Penny had aband
oned her with a stack of work. Initiating Plan B, Morgan sneaked down to the car park and deflated one of her tyres. Instead of accepting a ride, Mum called the NRMA. Unable to endure her darkening mood after waiting for almost an hour, Morgan let the cat out of the bag. Mum cancelled roadside assistance and accepted Morgan’s lift, promising to act surprised on arrival.
Back at Signal Bay the guests had by now been drinking for hours and, having eaten only Maëlle’s delectable but insubstantial canapés, some of them were on the looser side of tipsy. Roger Harris, our next-door neighbour, was legit shit-faced. His foxhound Dougal was barking and whimpering with canine FOMO, so he let him into our backyard. After scrapping with Gus and chasing Venn’s cat Oscar up a tree, Dougal foraged about, humping anyone or anything in his path. Eventually he found his way into the unguarded kitchen, pulled Maëlle’s mustard-encrusted lamb rack off the bench and wolfed down half of it before being caught. After Dad and Roger Harris debated the ethical and health ramifications of serving the salvaged remains without informing the guests, Dad ordered ribs from Jeb’s Smokehouse.
Maëlle was dejected about the lamb, so Dad took her into the living room for a consolation dance. The song was ‘Burn’ by Usher. Wrong track – too slow. And in one of those moments of perfectly bad timing that would have you calling out ‘Bullshit!’ in a film, Dad dipped her at the exact moment that Mum walked through the door.
‘SURPRISE!’ we all yelled.
Surprise all right.
For the duration of the night Mum maintained perfect composure, faking gratitude with the fixed smile of an event professional. But during breakfast one week later, without warning she suggested to Maëlle that it might be a good time to move on and see more of Australia, especially the Northern Territory, which boasts an abundance of crocodiles. She didn’t pinpoint that particular danger but the inference was there, leading me to believe that something more than the dancing had tipped her over the edge – something I’m yet to uncover. There was no chance of Maëlle staying in the house, it seemed, so she left.
The Origin of Me Page 3