Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

by D. J. Connell

  Some of these earnings I invested in a joint project with Jimmy: a fort based in the overgrown conifer hedge of an abandoned house. Only we didn’t call it a fort. We were too mature for that. It was a club. Using Dad’s chicken chopper, we’d hollowed out the hedge to create a spacious inner sanctum. This we furnished with a boat tarpaulin we’d found at the dump and some old cushions my mother was throwing away. We’d then created a ceiling with black polythene and hung some sheets from Jimmy’s house to create a Lawrence of Arabia effect. Our club was both private and secret. The only way to access it was by crawling underneath prickly conifer branches. We made sure no one saw us enter or leave.

  The club became a busy nude and leisure centre after I recruited two boys from school, David Perk and Grant Humber. I’d figured these two out on the sports field. Like me, they regularly forgot their sports clothes and spent the phys. ed. hour in punishment, doing laps of the cricket pitch with a weighted medicine ball. Brother Punt was too stupid to realise that some of us preferred this activity to the real punishment of regular sports. It certainly beat kicking a leather bladder around a football field with a bunch of thugs on our backs.

  As club founders, Jimmy and I got to make the rules. The first thing we did was appoint ourselves to executive posts and give the club a name: the JCJB Club. The next rule was another of my ideas. An entertainment hour was established and club members were obliged to either participate or listen. I got to sing Frank Sinatra and Jimmy did Sammy Davis Jr. Grant Humber could whistle but the only thing David Perk could do was make fart noises by pressing a palm into his armpit and pumping his elbow up and down. A smoking-only policy was also established. I suggested we smoke French brands. Jimmy seconded my motion and we learned to smoke the hard way, choking on filterless Gauloises.

  I was inside the club, dividing a packet into four piles, when I heard David Perk arrive.

  ‘Corkle, let me in.’

  A large, spiky tree branch functioned as the door to the club. It was easy to move from within but almost impossible from outside. This made the club impenetrable to intruders. One intruder I was particularly keen on repelling was John. I didn’t want his sort making reports to Dad.

  ‘Who goes there, fiend or foliage?’

  ‘Corkle, you know exactly who goes here. It’s me.’

  ‘You know the rule. Say the code.’

  ‘I forgot it.’ He was starting to whine.

  ‘No code, no entry. That’s the rule.’

  ‘Pore kwah?’

  ‘That was last week’s.’

  ‘Pore kwah pah?’

  ‘That was also from last week.’

  ‘It’s not fair, you change the code all the time. How can I remember French?’

  I knew by now he’d be hopping from foot to foot with frustration. I’d let him hop a little longer. Perk was our least-appealing club member. He had a sneaky, unconvincing personality and had been cursed with the reddish curly hair and large dollopy freckles that were part and parcel of life as a gingernut. What Perkie lacked was panache. This was almost the same as pizzazz but with the added quality of French sex appeal. Jimmy and I used panache to rate boys at school. On the sexual panache scale I was nine and a half and Jimmy was nine. David Perk was somewhere between zero and one.

  ‘French confuses the enemy.’

  ‘What enemy, you wanker? You’re just trying to be posh.’

  ‘Grow up, Perk.’

  ‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?’ Jimmy had arrived and was waiting for the branch to be moved. He was the only one who remembered the passwords. Jimmy Budge understood the French Way. He read Celebrity Glitter and even looked like Alain Delon in Girl on a Motorcycle when he pouted.

  I pulled back the branch and let them in. Perk came in scowling but Jimmy crawled up to me and kissed me on the lips. Jimmy couldn’t get enough of my panache and I didn’t blame him.

  10

  All the JCJB Club members were thirteen years old except for David Perk who had been held back a year and just turned fourteen. It was an exciting time to belong to a boys’ club, especially one with a nudity theme. Fascinating things were happening to our bodies. We monitored each other with enthusiasm, noting growth spurts and key developments.

  Our activities were conducted in utmost secrecy according to the golden rule: ‘What goes on in the club, stays in the club.’ I found this rule surprisingly easy to obey. My parents never asked what I did after school or noticed that I didn’t bring friends home. They were too wrapped up in their own misery. My mother shuttled between Tassie Textiles and home and was always tired. The only real quality time we spent together any more was The Dick Dingle Hour when Mum joined me on the couch to eat her dinner off a tray. If I worked hard enough at it during the commercials, I could get her talking about me.

  It was during a commercial break that Mum mentioned the changes taking place in my body: the down on my upper lip and unpredictable voice. There was something else, too, she said.

  ‘You’re glowing these days.’

  ‘But I glowed before.’

  ‘Yes but now you glow in a different way. What’s going on with you?’

  ‘Just warming up for the Tassie Wallaby. I’ll need all the glow I can get.’ I knew what was going on with me. It was Jimmy but this was not something my mother needed to know.

  Mum’s eyes lingered on me for a moment. Her hand reached out and swept the hair off my forehead as if to see me better. It was too much, her look. I turned back to the TV.

  With a sigh, she got up and went to the dinette, closing the door behind her. I knew she was going to call Norman. She did this at least once a week, always in the evening and always before my father came home.

  Dad shuttled between the newspaper office and the pub and only came home to eat, sleep and watch sports programmes. He’d become even more uncomfortable in the role of husband and father and was incapable of maintaining a consistent standard in either job slot. His efforts came in rare bursts of activity followed by long periods of disillusionment and apathy.

  One night I was woken by a series of loud thumps that made the bed rattle against the wall. The thumps sounded dangerous, like an earthquake or a volcano blowing its top. I left a sleeping John to his fate and ran into the hall. Mum was running toward the lounge in her nightdress. We stopped at the doorway.

  The floor was covered in rubble. The lounge suite and my mother’s ornaments were white with plaster dust and bits of mortar. My father was standing with his back to us with a sledgehammer in his hand. He’d knocked a hole in the wall between the lounge and the sunroom. This small room had begun life as a veranda and been glassed in by the previous owner. It was the storage room for things that were never used like the barbecue and the beach umbrella.

  ‘What on earth are you doing, Jim?’ Mum laid a protective arm over my shoulders. I leaned into her to make the most of it.

  Unaware of our presence, Dad took another swing with the sledgehammer, knocking chunks of wall flying in all directions.

  Mum raised a hand to her mouth like a megaphone and shouted, ‘Oy! Dumbo!’

  Dad turned, removing a pair of sound-absorbing ear muffs that he’d obviously borrowed from someone. The muffs were clean and professional-looking. All Dad’s tools and equipment were old or rusty.

  ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘I’m converting the sunroom into a bedroom. The boys need separate rooms.’

  I stood up straight. I was getting my own room! Dad did care.

  ‘John needs his own space for study.’ He flashed a small-toothed smile. It was his stupid lop-sided après-pub smile. Dad could be uncharacteristically generous and optimistic when he was pissed.

  ‘My Royal Albert is covered in dust.’ Mum pointed to the tea set on the mantelpiece.

  Dad was leaning on the sledgehammer, still grinning. ‘Colleen Corkle, there are two frozen chickens in the deep freeze. Won the chook raffle tonight.’

  Dad was a winner. The two chickens made up for the hole in
the wall and the dust on the tea set. They gave their relationship hope.

  ‘Why the hole?’

  ‘That’s the new doorway to Julian’s room. I’m going to block the side by the dinette.’

  It was true. I was getting my own room. Dad should’ve won the chook raffle more often. We definitely needed a colour television.

  ‘How long is this going to take?’

  ‘It’ll be all done in a week. Mark my words.’

  It took over a month and a concerted effort on the parts of John and myself. It was the only time we’d ever worked as a team. We were both relieved when Dad finally put down his paintbrush and told us to wash it and put the tools away.

  I finally had my own space. No more dirty football boots and no more of my brother’s foul personality. John never hit me; my mother made sure of that. But enduring his constant jibes and sullen moods was worse than taking a punch from Carmel.

  My new room was going to be spotless and decorated in grand fashion. The first thing I needed was curtains. The sunroom’s large picture windows were nice but privacy was essential. Mum said she could get polyester off-cuts from work and run me up curtains on her Bingo sewing machine. I suggested I pay half and we buy real fabric from the Blue Gum Plaza department store. I wanted proper drapes with a bedspread to match. My decorating efforts at the club had sparked an interest in interior decor. If my stage and screen ambitions didn’t pan out, interior designer was an excellent back-up career.

  The fabric department was one of the most inspiring places in Ulverston. It was stacked with bolts of multicoloured material and managed by a well-groomed man in tailored clothes. Every woman worth her Bingo bought her dressmaking supplies from Des. He had shiny white satin for confirmation frocks and large bridal gown patterns for last-minute weddings. Local women treated Des like a god in his fabric department and then walked out and gossiped about him behind his back. Most agreed he was one of those. This annoyed my mother who liked to point out that Des was married. The more malicious gossips would then remind Mum that Des didn’t have children. I observed the goings-on with a wary eye and didn’t add fabric floor manager to my list of back-up career possibilities.

  I’d seen Des a few times and knew for a fact that he was one of those. He wore colourful shirts and a gold signet ring on his marriage finger. I recognised a kindred spirit when Mum took me to select the fabric for my bedroom.

  ‘How can I be of service today, Colleen? I see you’ve got a new man in your life.’

  Mum laughed as he kissed her French style on either cheek and told her she looked as beautiful as ever. I’d done her hair before leaving home and matched her handbag and shoes. Des was wearing a silky kingfisher-blue shirt that was open at the collar. I noticed the glint of a medallion. Mum put a hand on my head and ruffled my hair.

  ‘Julian’s choosing fabric for his curtains and bedspread.’

  ‘What kind of theme do you want for your chambre de lit?’ Des looked directly into my eyes, something adults tended to avoid doing. ‘Are you a space traveller, a cowboy or a dandy, young man?’

  I’d never had a grown-up ask my opinion before, especially not the French Way. Adults generally told me off or told me what to do.

  ‘I’d like something…’ I looked at Mum and then at Des. They were actually waiting to hear what I had to say. ‘…something silky. You know, something that fluffs out in the wind.’ I moved my arms in a billowy way. There, I’d said it.

  Des smiled. ‘Wonderful. You’re a gentleman like myself. We have some lovely jersey silks over here.’

  He pointed to a shelf with bolts of soft David Bowie leotard material. I’d recently discovered David Bowie and decided he was the most beautiful man in the world. The jersey silk had a silvery gloss on one side. Mum coughed.

  ‘Julian, let’s not get your father started.’

  ‘But, Mum, it’s just right. David Bowie’s a big fan of this stuff and he’s famous. He’s got a feature in Celebrity Glitter.’ I knew she was right, of course. My father would have a fit.

  Des must’ve seen a bit of this in his fabric department.

  ‘I see your son’s got an artistic temperament.’ He said this without a hint of sarcasm and gave my mother a conspiratorial nod. ‘Let’s avoid fabrics with a more obvious éclat. For a bedspread, I personally love the jacquard. It has a motif but is very understated. We have it in a range of colours. Here, young man, run your hand over this.’

  Des held it out for me to touch. It was soft and luxurious. I pointed to the fuchsia and looked at my mother. She shook her head.

  ‘Why not go for blue? It appeals to the masculine eye even in this lovely aqua shade.’ Des was pointing to a bright turquoise blue. ‘Now, if you team this with, say, a brocade curtain in royal blue, you’ve got an interior design that says male but male à la mode.’ He made a grrr sound like a tiger. I thought of Jimmy Budge and wished he was with me. He would’ve loved Des.

  The brocade was going to billow out like Hollywood curtains. Any fool could see that. And it was shiny around the little dragon designs. An idiot like Dad would look at it and see navy blue. Men à la mode would notice the shiny dragon highlights and fluid texture of the material. My chest was warm and tight as we left the department store. Mum saw me smiling.

  ‘Twinkle, twinkle.’ She started the car engine then reached out to squeeze my knee. ‘Happy?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, it’s perfect.’

  ‘Des is quite special.’

  ‘He’s very nice, Mum.’ This was an understatement. The man was a saint.

  ‘I don’t know what I would’ve done without him when I got married. It all had to be arranged so fast and I was in no state to do anything. All I could think about was the Golden Microphone. I was so disappointed. Des and Norm took over. Des took care of the wedding dress while Norman made all the reception arrangements.’

  ‘Des knows Norman?’ This was news to me.

  Mum didn’t hear me. She was studying the road ahead with a tight unhappy expression.

  Norman was one of several subjects that were off-limits in our house. Dad only ever mentioned him with a snigger or scowl and Mum went vague and defensive whenever his name was brought up. Sex education was another touchy area. My parents left this business to the school and the school left it to my imagination. Any research on the matter had to be done quietly and on my own time.

  I knew the testicles were important. I’d tried to tell Carmel that a thousand times. I’d just learned they were capable of producing enough sperm to populate six towns every minute. It was there in black and white in the medical book I’d consulted in the Ulverston Municipal Library. The testicles churned out fifty thousand sperm every sixty seconds. If I used each of these for the purpose proposed by the Catholic Church, I could more than replace the population of Ulverston every ten seconds. I moved in my seat to give my big boys more room.

  To get into the adult section of the library, I’d had to pass the small sharp woman with glasses on the information desk. She’d been about to stop me when someone in the children’s section let out a loud fart and a group of kids started laughing. The librarian shot out of her seat and marched over to the source of the noise. I slipped into the adult section and went directly to the S shelf where I selected a book entitled Sexual Organs at a Glance. I sat discreetly at a corner table, trying to look as serious and adult as possible, then got down to some serious research. Just the day before, I’d had my first ejaculation. The book explained that I’d lost between eighty million to three hundred million sperm. My first impulse was to mourn such a loss but the sheer scale of the massacre made me feel important.

  Someone coughed behind me.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  I turned and discovered a skinny boy of about sixteen looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t tell whether he was one of the staff or a library user. He had oily hair and pimples and wore a checked shirt with the buttons done up all the way to the collar. His hands were in the pockets of his be
ige cone-stud stretch trousers.

  ‘I’m doing a science project for school.’

  ‘Science? Isn’t that human reproduction?’ He leaned over me and tapped a finger on the diagram of sperm.

  ‘We’re doing a project on the penis.’

  ‘What school do you go to?’

  ‘Pendergast School for Boys.’ I chose a private Anglican school to be safe.

  ‘That’d be right. It’s a boarding school, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, my parents live on a big cattle station north of Adelaide. That’s why they sent me to boarding school. The station is a really big one with a homestead and a veranda. We have a dog called Flossie and there are kangaroos and cockatoos. And budgies, of course.’

  ‘What’s it like exactly?’

  ‘I’ve kind of described it already. It’s very big and we have cows – er, beef cattle and all that.’

  ‘No, the school. What’s it like in the dormitories?’ The youth moved from side to side, rocking on his heels. His hands were agitated inside his pockets. ‘Do the boys doss in together?’

  ‘No.’ I was now sure he wasn’t a librarian. ‘We have separate beds. Kapok mattresses on wire-wove springs. Lumps as big as duck eggs.’

  ‘I’ve heard some stories about those dormitories.’

  ‘What kind of stories?’

  ‘About the prefects. How they…you know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How they creep into the dormitories at night and rape boys in the bottom.’ He was talking rapidly in a hoarse whisper. Moisture had collected on the fine stubble above his lip. ‘I’m sure you know better than me.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  I knew exactly what he meant. My father had warned me about his kind often enough. I was not supposed to take rides in his Hillman Hunter or accept boiled sweets or chocolate. I was supposed to be afraid of him. I wasn’t. The teenager probably didn’t have a car or anything other than his hands in his pockets. He wouldn’t have belonged to a club or had a boyfriend. He was lonely, even pitiful. I felt sorry for him.