The Origin of Me

by Bernard Gallate

  She quietened down and became still.

  I held my breath and waited.

  She clucked intermittently, then again came the whirring and shifting of gears.

  Then nothing – nothing at all.

  My heart sank. I recalled my dog Gus’s valiant last attempt to stand – how hard my loyal friend had tried to please me.

  I said to the little hen, ‘Don’t worry about it, Ethel, you gave it your best shot. You can let go now.’

  She clucked one last time and she did let go.

  She let go of a golden egg, which came rolling down the little chute. The cool, smooth metal warmed quickly in my hand. The egg had a seam like the wooden ball. I peeled off the sticky tape around the seam and unscrewed the egg. It contained neither of the things Bert mentioned, no lolly or handkerchief. But there was something much more promising – a scroll tied with a tiny blue bow. I slid off the ribbon and, fearing the scroll might disintegrate or tear, uncurled it just enough to see perfectly formed but miniature writing – as if penned with the aid of a magnifying glass. I squinted, but it was still impossible to read.

  I searched everywhere for a magnifying glass without luck. I went to the chemist on Darlinghurst Road but they didn’t sell them, so I tried the newsagency. There was one left, the size of a bread plate with a super-thick lens – sure to work. I waited behind a guy who was having his lotto ticket checked. He won fifteen bucks. It was a good omen. I congratulated him and bought the magnifying glass, then ran past Frank at the concierge desk, holding it up to my eye for comic effect. Caught the lift up to level twenty-seven. Uncurled the scroll and held it in place between a metal ruler and my mouse.

  I read these words:

  Dear friend,

  In faith I trust that you are the intended recipient of this missive, and am heartened it has finally reached you. Yet I’m also saddened that your possession of it means you bear an affliction that I am in part responsible for passing on. For, if all instructions have been executed as prescribed, then you are my descendant, and alone will be able to determine exactly how many generations apart we are. Not only do I seek to convey my deepest sympathy and most humble apology, but I also hope to express the type of encouragement only possible from one who has shared your peculiar condition.

  Where to begin? Perhaps at the very beginning of life itself. All humans in the embryonic stage possess extra vertebrae that are somehow absorbed before they’re delivered screaming and bawling into this world – yes, each and every one of us. But a very few are born with vestigial evidence of this formation intact. I was born with no obvious abnormality, the discolouration not becoming a protuberance until my adolescent years. Initially it was small and easily ignored, but over a period of months it grew to a little over three inches in length.

  Recently I completed an autobiographical account of the early portion of my life, which I hope has also found its way into your hands. Some names were changed to enable me to tell my story as candidly as possible while protecting the privacy of those close to me. My real name is Theodore Stonehouse. Edwin Stroud is the alias I used from my first performance in Sydney to my final one in New York. The story ends with my decision to return to Australia after fifteen months performing in the United States of America. The next chapter of my life, described briefly below, is intended for your edification only.

  Reuniting with my family was one of the greatest joys of my life. Especially as I’d returned with enough money to pay off all our debts and buy a modest stone cottage in Balmain for us to inhabit. Many things had changed in my absence, but the impact of Federation seemed insignificant compared to matters of a personal nature. My beloved Daisy Blythe, Deidre (Diddy) Budd in my memoir, had fallen pregnant to Reginald McGuffin, who demonstrated his true colours by abandoning her the day after she told him. It was the most dire of predicaments for Daisy, but for me it was an oddly fortuitous turn of events. I’d ruled out the possibility of ever marrying and having children, for fear of passing on my affliction. Here was the perfect solution for both of us! I’d never stopped loving Daisy, and without hesitation I proposed to her. We married quietly and lived with my family in the cottage. I hired a tutor and finished my secondary education around the time our son Otto was born. He is now a fine young lad, exhibiting the kind and serene nature of his mother and none of the malignant traits of his biological father.

  Immersed in my later study of medicine at the University of Sydney, I was content with our small family, but women can be persuasive creatures. Shortly after my graduation, Daisy’s belly began to swell a second time and with it my anxiety that something might go awry. My fears proved unfounded when Alice arrived in the world perfect in every way. However, it was only on reaching sixteen that my problem manifested, and the same may yet happen to her. Even if Alice develops no malformation, she may carry the trait to future descendants, which is my reason for writing.

  Three years ago, our dear friend George Pemberton passed away and in his will left Ethel the mechanical hen to me. On completing this letter I shall seal it within her egg. Alice will be given charge of the hen on her sixteenth birthday, along with the key and golden token required to set her in motion. If blessed with children of her own, she will pass Ethel on to them and so on down the family line, with instructions to be activated by the person who manifests the strange affliction. That person, my dear descendant, is you.

  I hope that you’re living in a kinder and gentler world than the one I currently inhabit. A world where difference is tolerated, if not celebrated – a world where men and women are treated equally and a person is never denigrated or shown prejudice because of their physical bearing, colour of their skin, religion or creed.

  On my return to this land, I learnt that our newly formed Federal Government had not recognised Aboriginal people properly in the constitution. It seemed a perpetuation of the barbarous treatment they’ve been subjected to for the past hundred-odd years. And it shames me deeply that while my short performing career earnt enough money to rescue my family from debt, my early act was rife with a pernicious form of humour that condoned bigotry. I must live with this and many other contradictions and failings. There is no possible means of calculating the extent of the historical harms I have caused. So I continue moving forward, seeking to address and oppose ignorance in its various guises, in the hope of a more enlightened future.

  Some poor souls are bound and paralysed by their secrets. In my medical practice I often see patients afflicted by what others might consider insignificant, and yet they remain oppressed by their inability to bring them to the light. Once I considered myself too hideous for a woman to love. It took a long time to realise how wrong I was. It is only through accepting our faults and imperfections that we can accept others and love them as they truly are. So I hope that, knowing my failings, you’re still able to feel some sort of bond with me, even though I am probably no longer of this world, and you are not yet in it as I write. I hope that my story gives you strength to prevail against any adversity you face.

  Finally, possessing a tail may be an inconvenience, absurd and at times embarrassing. But it really is a tiny problem in relation to the multitude of challenges some people face every day of their existence. Lacking a sense of the ridiculous is a far worse plight – one of the most terrible incapacities a man can suffer from. So never forget to laugh at yourself. The tail is, after all, quite funny.

  Yours most lovingly,

  Theodore Stonehouse, a.k.a. Edwin Stroud

  I ran through the full-moon night to Bert’s place, hoping for one last look before the bulldozers arrived. I was too late. The property was wrapped in mesh screens printed with the words PARADIGM – YOUR NEW SANCTUARY, over and over. What a bitter irony to swallow, like a fat green pickle in a glass of sour milk. I crawled under the mesh where the gate was and forced my way in. The plane tree and the fake totem pole were the only things standing. Bert’s house had been demolished.

  I sat in the rubble and told old Bert a
bout finding the message and what it said, even though I knew it was too late. Too late because I’m pretty sure that Bert had already opened the egg, read the message and resealed it – sticky tape wasn’t invented till 1930. Too late because Bert died more than a week ago. And yet the broken pipes and piles of bricks conveyed a finality I hadn’t fully comprehended when Lana had broken the news to me. I never had the chance to talk to Bert about being related. He must’ve been too ashamed of the feature we shared and the way he’d treated his own family. At least I’d told him I was glad that I’d found him.

  I got up and searched through the debris, scouring the area like a volunteer rescue worker, stupidly hoping to discover a trace of a life lived there before construction began.

  And then I found Percy. Flattened and dirty. Both eyes missing.

  I brought the little guy home and laid him next to Ethel, then went out onto the balcony. Twenty-seven levels above the ground. The night was still and cold, the air sharp, city lights unblinking and the moon high.

  One hundred and twenty years ago, my great-great-great-grandfather ventured across the world to save his family by putting himself on show, exploiting the thing that had made him feel ugly. The thing we have in common. I remembered seeing Edwin’s real name, Theodore Stonehouse, on Mum’s family tree. Knowing where it came from and who had gone before me, I wasn’t so ashamed.

  This tail is in my genetic make-up. Its appearance was inevitable – my predetermined legacy. I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason. But everything has a cause. Knowing the cause of the tail has liberated me from the search for its meaning. The only meaning is the one that I choose to attach to it. If Theodore Stonehouse had fronted up to the physical examination for Crestfield Academy 125 years ago, Joseph Millington Drake would have been disgusted by what he saw and rejected him as the progeny of depraved parents. Maybe I should’ve whipped mine out at the interview? Theodore was right. The tail is, after all, quite funny. And laughing at it was one way of redeeming my affliction. The other would be daring something worthy.

  The early morning sky was gold on the horizon, then blue, with barely a transition. The Crestfield colours. It was ten degrees and still an hour before sunrise, which meant an hour before the opening of International Velvet. Isa had brought a thermos of coffee, which she poured as we sat on the backpacks we’d stuffed to bursting with the knitted DNA.

  ‘Your hands are shaking,’ she said as I took the cup. ‘Are you nervous?’

  ‘Just cold,’ I said, even though I was scared shitless on at least two counts. Isa had figured out I’d been faking my appreciation of the macchiato, which was a huge relief, and she’d made the coffee sweet and milky but strong enough to provide a much-needed surge of courage and determination.

  I took out her charm bracelet and held up the little key. ‘It worked,’ I said. ‘Last night I wound the mechanical hen, and when I dropped in Pericles’ token, Ethel started clucking.’

  A smile lit up Isa’s face, and her eyes widened.

  ‘She laid a little golden egg with a message inside. A message to me, and Bert as well. A secret about our shared ancestry.’

  ‘I don’t understand?’

  I gave her a smile. ‘It’s a long and crazy story, so I’ll save it for after we get this thing up.’

  Walking through Crestfield’s rear gates with the weight of hundreds of hours of knitting on our backs, I figured we’d be easily spotted on the security footage. ‘Let’s hope nobody’s watching the live broadcast,’ I said. ‘It would suck if this thing got cut down by a security guard before anybody else had a chance of seeing it.’

  ‘No chance of that happening,’ Isa said. We reached The Labyrinth and dropped our packs. ‘I’m going to record the installation and post it on The Owlet.’

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘Last night I wrote this blurb to go with it.’ On her phone she showed me a rationale of our work more explicit and detailed than the one we’d submitted to Ms Tarasek. It was followed by a call to action, urging the students to sign a petition demanding that the faculty, administration and board commission plaques outlining Joseph Millington Drake’s involvement with the eugenics movement and his establishment of a racist and discriminatory selection process. The plaques would be attached to the statue and the auditorium bearing his name.

  Why not have the statue and references to Millington Drake removed altogether? ‘Whitewashing,’ Isa said. ‘What he did should be talked about. Not forgotten.’

  Isa climbed over The Labyrinth gate first. I heaved over the backpacks then followed. We walked to the centre in silence, contemplating the magnitude of what we were doing. Isa had never entered The Labyrinth before, and she laughed when she saw Millington Drake with his hand on King Henry’s rump. ‘Pompous git,’ she said, and reached for the bull’s snout.

  ‘Don’t! If you touch him he talks, and it might set something else off.’

  We unpacked the two massive lengths of DNA. Isa stitched them together then filmed us wrapping one end around Joseph Millington Drake’s neck. We trailed the coil almost halfway back to the entrance, at which point it ran out, then tied on a single thread that we laid the rest of the way to the gate. Isa attached a small disk to the end that said YOU ARE HERE! We climbed back over the gate, then hid our empty backpacks behind the recycling bins and found a spot in the grove that was catching the first rays of sun.

  Beginning with the discovery of my connection to Edwin Stroud, a.k.a. Theodore Stonehouse, I told Isa all about myself. I told her about the strange discoloured patch that had become a nub, which grew into a tail. I told her of my fear of it being exposed and the shame that had controlled me. She was incredulous, astonished, perplexed then curious, but never once showed any sign of being repelled. She hardly spoke until I’d finished and asked what she was thinking.

  ‘It must’ve been a huge thing for you to deal with. Especially trying to work through all of the possible causes. But maybe now you’ve shared it, you’ll realise that it’s actually a really small thing.’

  ‘It’s almost five centimetres.’

  ‘Okay. Well, out of all the afflictions that anybody could have, it’s still far from the worst.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m a complete freak?’

  ‘It makes you unique, which is a good thing. We should embrace the unusual. And like Theodore wrote, it is a little bit funny.’

  ‘Remember when we were at my dad’s apartment and I pushed you away?’

  ‘How could I forget?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It almost killed me.’

  ‘Same. But now you know the reason.’

  The sun had risen high enough to provide a little warmth and give Isa a beautiful golden glow. ‘Would you push me away now?’ she said.

  I shook my head and Isa moved in close. Right on the verge of something exceptionally amazing happening, Pericles appeared in the corner of my eye. With zero sensitivity for the moment, he yelled out and came gambolling down. ‘Did it work?’ he said.

  Unsure if he meant the key in the chicken or the art project or telling Isa everything, I said, ‘It worked!’ and he pulled us into a three-way hug.

  During Maths, Isa sat with Phoenix and I sat next to Pericles and none of us gave Monaro a second of our attention. The air was electric with anticipation. Tibor poked me in the back and asked what was going on. Considering his vital role in devising the DNA pattern for Isa, I passed him a note saying that we’d installed it this morning. He sent one back saying, ‘May the Force be with you.’

  Second period, Isa and Phoenix had Dance, and Pericles had Woodwork, leaving me alone with free study in the library – almost an hour to speculate on the possible scenarios that might play out. Though initially I’d hated going to Crestfield, I now had a tight crew of good friends and was worried we might be broken up. But I figured that expelling Isa and me would only bring unfavourable attention to the school and its troubling foundations.

  For the final five minutes I stared at the libra
ry clock, willing the second hand to move faster. And when the electronic glockenspiel finally sounded, it wasn’t the regular signal for recess but the call to special assembly. Adrenaline spread like poison through my vascular system. My heart raced and the tail folded in on itself.

  I took the catwalk to the Joseph Millington Drake Auditorium, calling and texting Isa on the way, but there was no response. I lingered near the entrance, asking other Year 10 students if they’d seen her. Cheyenne Piper said Isa had gone in already so I made my way up the stairs. And just as I was about to enter alone, there was a tug on my blazer. ‘Shh!’ Isa said as she took my hand then led me back down the stairs and around the side of the building. ‘Word on the street is that two meddling kids have tampered with the statue of our beloved founder and his bull.’ She opened her laptop and got onto The Owlet. The clip of us wrapping the DNA around Millington Drake’s neck was ready to post. ‘I think it’s time,’ she said, and tapped SUBMIT, sending the footage, exposé and petition to every exceedingly gifted and dangerously privileged student enrolled at Crestfield Academy.

  ‘You’re the bravest person around,’ I said. ‘No matter what happens next, we’re in this together.’

  ‘There’s nobody in the world I’d rather get into serious trouble with,’ Isa Mountwinter said. And then she kissed me.

  Thank you, Mum and Dad. I wouldn’t be here without your love and unwavering support.

  To Belinda Bolliger and Mark Macleod for first showing faith in me and this story a long time ago.

  To my early readers: Beth Gallate for thinking the first draft was already perfect at one thousand pages, and Jason Gallate for other superlatives I didn’t deserve but kept repeating to myself. To Drusilla Modjeska, for telling me I had a voice. You opened your door and invited me into another world. And to Martha Bentley, for getting me the moment we met, falling in love with Lincoln Locke and starting the Secret Middles twenty-four-hour support group. To dedicated members Maggie MacKellar, thank you for words that live between Earth and Heaven, and Our Kate Gordon for your constant buoyancy. #BeLikeTaffy.