Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

by D. J. Connell

‘Leave Norm out of this.’ She leaned over and waved a hand in front of Dad’s face, forcing him to look at her. ‘You know what you are, James Corkle? A big, fat, bigoted, beer-swilling sports dag.’

  ‘Sports dag? You can’t call me a sports dag.’

  I should’ve left the dinette right then but I was riveted by the scene that had just unfolded before me. As Dad stood to confront my mother, he noticed me out of the corner of his eye. I heard him yell as I scurried for the back door. When he caught up with me I was near the plum tree. His face was red and his eyes were blazing. I knew he wanted to wallop me but he didn’t have a justifiable crime, especially with Mum watching from the back step.

  His eyes narrowed and a smile appeared. The next thing I knew, he’d put Carmel’s cricket bat in my hand. It wasn’t fair but no court of law in Tasmania was going to convict a father of cruelty for making his son play cricket. Mum gave a sympathetic shrug and went back inside.

  I was made to stand with my back to the tree and told to hit hard and high. Dad rubbed the ball on his trouser leg, put it to his lips, blew on it, and then bowled it in my direction. The next thing I knew I was on my back gasping for air. The cricket ball had hit me in the middle of the chest and thrown me on my back.

  ‘Did you just close your eyes?’ Dad was standing over me.

  ‘Yes.’ Honesty was the best policy when it came to my father.

  ‘You idiot.’

  ‘I mean no.’ I changed my mind. Honesty was definitely not the best policy. Flattery was. ‘You throw just like Stan McCabe.’

  ‘I can’t believe your stupidity. I could’ve killed you.’ Dad cared. He really did.

  ‘I mean I did close them.’

  ‘Your mother would have had a fit. Why in God’s name did you close your frigging eyes?’

  ‘The ball was blurry.’ For some insane reason, there was the truth again.

  Dad’s head tilted to the side. He was paying attention. It encouraged me.

  ‘You, too, Dad. When you stand over there by the fence, your edges go all fluffy like Doris Day on TV.’

  This description had an immediate impact. I was grabbed by the shoulder and marched into the kitchen where my mother was peeling potatoes. She looked at me and frowned. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Colleen, the boy’s afflicted. His eyes are buggered. I’ll have to see old Dent.’

  Dr Dent was one of my father’s co-drinkers. They met nearly every night down at the King’s Arms with Trevor Bland to hash over meaningless topics like cricket and football. Dent was Dad’s idea of good medicine. The doctor had a speech problem which prevented him from asking too many questions or giving much medical advice. His small, unpopular practice was located above the Whipper Snapper fish-and-chip shop in the centre of town.

  My mother held up three fingers. ‘How many fingers, Julian?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with his eyes. Apart from their gorgeous green colour.’

  This was my mother being funny. She smiled at me. I almost smiled back but stopped myself. I’d always wanted glasses and couldn’t allow humour to jeopardise this opportunity.

  Yves Saint Laurent wore glasses and he was an actual French fashion designer from France. Everyone recognised Yves by his thick dark glasses. They were his signature, and all the big stars had a signature. Elizabeth Taylor had the Cartier diamond. Gladys had her icebreakers and Liberace, who had made another dazzling tour of Australia, had his candelabra.

  Dent must’ve been a real doctor at one stage because he had a brass plaque on his door. The grubby waiting room was furnished with three vinyl chairs and an Aussiemica table. The ashtray on the table was full. There was no receptionist and obviously no cleaner.

  ‘G-g-g-g’day, Jim.’

  Dent held out his hand to my father. He was a short man with an oily scalp encircled by a strip of grey hair. I immediately thought of Louis Pasteur. Pasteur’s discovery of bacteria and its destruction by boiling was one of Brother Duffy’s favourite subjects. Dent’s lab coat had grime around the buttonholes and along the pocket edges. It was asking to be boiled.

  ‘G-g-g-g’day, Dent.’ My father copied his friend’s stutter and then laughed at himself.

  Dent didn’t seem to mind. He listened to Dad with a vacant smile before going ahead with the examination. After putting me through the eye chart, he brought over a huge pair of black test frames and told me to put them on. The eye circles were like cogs and had numbered notches around the edges. Dad spluttered with laughter.

  ‘Don’t I know you? You’re Brains from Thunderbirds. No, hang on, you’re Mr Magoo.’

  It was awful to be teased by my father because I was forbidden to retaliate. I could’ve come up with some extremely funny names for him, like Phar Lap or Lassie, but name-calling was a one-way street with Dad.

  The frames had grooves on the sides for inserting test lenses. Dent selected two lenses with his nicotine-stained fingers and slipped them into the grooves.

  ‘H-h-h-how’s that?’

  ‘Still blurry.’

  He added more lenses.

  ‘B-b-b-better or w-w-w-worse?’

  It wasn’t only better; it was brilliant. The lower letters on the eye chart had clearly defined edges. A thrill went through me. It was like finding a ten-dollar note on the footpath.

  ‘B-b-b-better.’ I should’ve turned around before I tried any funny business. The Magoo glasses would’ve provided an excellent view of my father striding across the room towards me. The smack across the back of my head made the lenses rattle inside the frames.

  ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘But you talked like—’

  ‘I said that’s enough!’

  Dent put a hand up. ‘J-J-J-James, your boy’s sh-sh-sh-short-sighted. H-h-h-he probably can’t r-r-r-read the blackboard at sc-sc-sc-school.’

  The doctor wrote out a lens prescription and arranged to meet Dad at the pub later. We drove in silence to the optometrist. Dad must’ve been thinking about what Dent had said and was unusually kind when we reached the shop. He told me I could choose any pair of frames I wanted. It was like being told I could have the best callipers money could buy. I trawled the racks several times, finally narrowing the choice down to two models. My heart said yes to a pair of blue frames with gold rivets on the sides. These were the signature candelabra of fashion frames. Another part of me, the part that read Celebrity Glitter, said yes to simple black plastic frames, not unlike the signature spectacles of Yves Saint Laurent. I showed Dad the two options.

  He raised his eyebrows and jabbed a finger at the blue frames. ‘Put those back on the ladies’ rack, right this minute!’

  Mum said I needed a signature tune to go with my trademark frames. I sang her Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ as we drove to the optometrist to pick up the glasses, stretching out the last ‘waaaaay’ until my voice disappeared for lack of air. We were both excited about my new style accessories. Mum agreed they’d give my face a certain something. I told her that certain something was ‘Je ne sais quoi’. That’s what all the stars had, according to Celebrity Glitter.

  The woman behind the counter was chewing something when we entered the shop and seemed irritated by our arrival. She located my glasses on a shelf under the counter and jerked them out of their case. As she handed them to Mum I realised with horror I’d made a big mistake. They were not Yves Saint Laurent. The frames were too circular and chunky for Yves. The lenses were thick and convex. The overall effect was like a party novelty, the sort of thing that went with a plastic nose and moustache.

  ‘Mum, my eyes have cleared up. I think we should get our money back.’

  ‘What? Now you’d prefer a white stick or Labrador?’ She laughed and elbowed me.

  I didn’t smile back. The situation was critical. I couldn’t accept novelty glasses. I wanted to be a celebrity, not a clown.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you this, Mum, but last Sunday I looked at the statue of Mary in Our Lady of Mira
cles. She was crying real tears. Then suddenly I could see everything perfectly. Even those little hairs inside Father McMahon’s nose.’

  My mother shuddered. ‘Why don’t you just try them on, Julian.’

  The woman behind the counter sniffed with impatience. She wasn’t interested in Christian miracles. She was as hard as they came, probably Protestant. I was going to tell my mother as much as soon as we got our money back and left the premises.

  Mum slipped the glasses over my nose and tucked the arms behind my ears. I blinked and gasped in surprise. A rack of Albert Tatlock frames came into view. So did a poster behind the woman. It wasn’t a scene of Japanese maple leaves but an aerial photo of the Disney castle in Bavaria. Turning, I looked out of the shop window and saw a small dog lift its leg against a tyre. A woman walked past pulling a wailing child by the arm. It was magic. I could see everything in detail. I looked back at the saleswoman and noticed a wiry mole on her neck. On the bench behind her was a half-eaten sandwich. In the mirror, I could see someone in a shamrock-green T-shirt wearing big black glasses. It was me and I looked like Nana Mouskouri. My heart sank.

  ‘So, do they make a difference?’ My mother had her hands extended in front of her. She did this when she was going to adjust my shirt or give my hair a ruffle. Her head was tilted to one side.

  ‘Not one bit.’ I tapped the lens with a fingernail. ‘Total waste of money.’

  The saleswoman snapped the glasses’ case closed and handed it to my mother with the prescription. ‘We don’t do returns on prescription glasses. A lot of work’s gone into grinding those lenses.’ She pointed to me. ‘Very necessary with the sort of eyes your boy’s got.’

  My mother’s head jerked back to upright position. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my son’s eyes.’

  It was a ridiculous response but my mother did this when I was under threat. It was one of the things I liked most about her. Mum’s hand landed between my shoulder blades and I was propelled out into the real world, a world that suddenly had shapes and textures. I left the glasses on as we drove home. They made me feel disoriented and dizzy, but the thrill of being able to see was worth the carsickness. I could read names on letterboxes and see merchandise in shop windows.

  ‘You know who those glasses remind me of?’ Mum knew I was disappointed.

  ‘I hate myself and want to die.’

  ‘Roy Orbison.’

  ‘That cheers me up.’

  ‘Sammy Davis Jr has black frames, too, and he’s part of the Rat Pack.’

  ‘He’s the smallest member.’

  ‘Don’t forget Rolf Harris.’

  ‘You’re not cheering me up.’

  ‘Norman had glasses when he was your age.’

  Mum pulled up at traffic lights next to the Whipper Snapper fish-and-chip shop. I was looking at people waiting in cars when my heart skipped a beat. Elizabeth Taylor was sitting in the passenger seat of an orange Chrysler Valiant! There was even something sparkly around her neck. It had to be the Cartier. I waved. She waved back. The lights changed and my mother put her foot down. I was about to tell Mum when I saw David Niven heading toward us in an old Vauxhall. I took the glasses off and rubbed my eyes.

  A letter from the United States of America was waiting for me when I got home.

  Dear Fan and Friend,

  We’re delighted by your interest in the official Liz Taylor International Fan Club. You’re one of thousands of fans around the world following Liz’s sparkling career.

  Full membership in the official Liz Taylor fan club is just ten American dollars per year. For this nominal fee you receive a fan-club badge and certificate. Naturally, you also get our quarterly Liz Taylor fanzine, Liz, Camera, Action!

  We look forward to hearing from you soon.

  Don’t forget to include your money order for club membership.

  Yours truly,

  Barbara Bushel

  President of the official Liz Taylor International Fan Club

  The envelope contained a studio photo of a young Liz Taylor with her arm around a dog’s neck. There was also a quote from one of her movies: ‘“It’s a very odd feeling – to be someone’s God.” Liz Taylor as Kathie Merrick in The Courage of Lassie.’

  9

  Mum and Dad were having money problems. Dad said his problem was having to support a moaning wife and three thankless children. Mum said the problem was his having to support his drinking and horse-racing habits. She went out one day and got herself a job on the production line at the Tassie Textiles factory. We were each given a set of keys to the back door and warned not to let strange men or brush salesmen into the house.

  Mum’s timing was unhelpful for my career aspirations. I’d just decided to take up tap-dancing after watching Gene Kelly with an umbrella and required her encouragement on the old heel-toe routine. Her abrupt decision left me high and dry. In one fell swoop I’d lost both my impresario and audience.

  I struggled to adjust to this sudden loss. Mum had always been there for me after school. She was my cheerleader and I was her beauty consultant. The focus of our relationship shifted once she started work. She was tired after a day at the factory and wasn’t as switched into my pizzazz or the Golden Microphone. I had to work like hell to make her laugh or get a ‘Twinkle’ out of her and, even worse, I lost my only beauty client. I knew better than to touch Mum in front of Dad. Whenever I got her alone, I did my best to fluff and style but this didn’t give me the same satisfaction.

  One day, in a moment of desperation, I bribed Carmel with a family block of Shelby’s to sit for me. I hadn’t even put all the curlers in her hair when she finished the chocolate and shook them all out. I let her go without a squeak of protest. She was now an active member of the girls’ cricket and hockey teams. She and her friends had budding breasts and thick arms. They openly smoked cigarettes and rode their bicycles everywhere in third gear. Boys were frightened of them.

  A couple of dismal months had to drag by before I could appreciate the benefits of not having parents around. Under the new arrangement, no one knew what time I came home and no one told me what to do when I got there. While I enjoyed this new freedom and the extra television-viewing it permitted, I still craved an audience.

  I’d started taking French at school. It was one of the elective culture lessons set aside for the last hour of every Friday. The choices were limited: debating, charity work, Bible study, crochet or French. When I discovered that boys were excluded from the crochet class, I chose French. It was not only the language of Brigitte Bardot but it also did something nice to the back of my throat. The lesson was taught by a big friendly woman with the unlikely name of Mrs French. Most of the vocabulary we learned was related to food and restaurants: my kind of language.

  Jimmy Budge had also chosen French. He lived around the corner from us in a notorious bungalow in Wallaby Place. People stopped at the Budge hedge and shook their heads. Jimmy’s father was a quiet-spoken widower but a sore point with the mothers of the neighbourhood because he bred and raced pigeons. His birds flew over our houses as a massive cloud to land on his front lawn in a grey flutter of feathers. People didn’t like the pigeons. There was talk of disease and droppings. My father said Mr Budge’s hacking cough was pigeon-fancier’s lung and warned me not to get too friendly with his birds. I liked Mr Budge. He was a vast improvement on Dad. He was a friendly man and never told kids off.

  Jimmy was probably the best-looking boy in our school. His sandy-blond hair was faultless and flopped perfectly over his eyes, which were slightly different colours. He told me that one eye was green with envy because the other was blue. ‘That’s what my father says. He’s got the same genetic defect. Bung eyes and lungs run in the family.’ I started walking home with him after school on Fridays.

  On the third Friday, I stopped in front of our gate and invited him into the garage. ‘You want to see my amphitheatre?’

  I had a feeling about Jimmy Budge. It was the way his eyes had shone when he repeated �
��La cuisine de la France’ for Mrs French.

  I’d created the amphitheatre behind the firewood in the garage. From the outside it looked like a normal stack of wood but inside it was a private chamber with bedding and other personal comforts. It was where I kept my valuables and ate contraband.

  The only way to get inside this secret chamber was to climb up the exposed timber framework of the garage wall and jump. I did this and disappeared from Jimmy’s view. He scrambled up the wall after me and watched as I stripped off my clothes. I was twirling my underpants in my hand when he jumped into the amphitheatre, peeling off his clothes with the efficiency of a German tourist.

  I’d learned all about the German enthusiasm for nudity while staying at the Bland holiday cabin. From a sand hill, I’d observed a couple of tourists prepare for sunbathing by removing all their clothing except for their socks and sandals.

  My father should’ve been happy that Mum had a job but he was more disagreeable than ever. Mum said he lacked pizzazz. He certainly had no interest in music or show business. The only celebrities he appreciated were famous thugs who played sports. At least since the Dent diagnosis he’d stopped harassing me about ball games. My Nana Mouskouris confirmed for him that I wasn’t quite right and he now avoided eye contact. This was fine by me. He’d diverted his attention to John who’d come up with the insane idea of becoming a doctor and started doing homework every evening after school. John thought this choice of career made him superior and Dad seemed to agree.

  They could keep each other as far as I was concerned. I had better things to do. Jimmy had put in a word with the distributor of The Bugle and I’d started delivering newspapers with him in the mornings. Within a couple of months I’d lost weight and looked almost normal when I held in my stomach. I had to get up at five in the morning but the job gave me freedom and power. For the first time in my life I had real coinage in my pocket and no longer had to play Dad like a fiddle to get a dollar. I could buy what I liked and be as thankless as I pleased.