Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

by D. J. Connell

  That did it. I pushed Frank out of the room and away from the murky undertow of the past. David Bowie was not a weirdo. He was a sex god and musical genius. Eric Clapton wasn’t even good-looking.

  ‘Let’s go to the Small Print and get the evening paper.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like the blood and misfortune, Julian.’

  ‘Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘From you, actually. Why can’t we just watch Dick Dingle? He’ll be on at seven. I’m keen to hear the truth about that accident. There were all sorts of crazy rumours going around at school.’

  ‘I thought I’d made myself clear.’

  ‘Not to me. You’ve made yourself anything but clear.’

  By the time we reached the newsagent, Frank was sulking and said he was going home to catch the news. I walked over to the rack of foreign magazines and opened House and Patio. I was looking at a feature on Julie Andrews’s kitchen when someone bumped me from behind. It was a sudden yet purposeful bump. An erection grazed my buttocks. I turned and locked eyes with Wayne. My muscles froze in fear. He jerked his head in the direction of the door and walked out of the shop.

  I didn’t know how long I stood frozen with the magazine in my hands but the next thing I knew, the newsagent was calling out that he was closing the shop. He didn’t sound friendly.

  ‘Try the public library next time, mate. I have customers come in here to actually buy things.’

  17

  The box boys had been asked to work late at the supermarket for stocktaking, which was just fine by me. I didn’t have anything else to do and was now saving feverishly for elocution lessons. I’d learned the importance of speaking properly while watching a Tales of Tasmania feature on a youth theatre group. Dick Dingle had been giving the young thespians pointers on voice control when he revealed the secret to his signature voice. ‘Vocal excellence is sixty per cent inspiration and forty per cent perspiration. I had to train hard to get this golden voice. Young Tasmanians need to shorten their vowels and enunciate their consonants. You won’t get on TV sounding like a merino.’ I definitely wanted to get on TV and the brush with Wayne had made one thing clear. I had to get out of Waratah. At fifteen, I was now old enough to leave school but I needed parental consent. I knew my mum wouldn’t provide that unless I had something up my sleeve.

  By the time we finished work, night had fallen and the supermarket was obliged to pay for our taxi fares. When I opened the door to mine, a heavy odour of Tickworth lager rose out of the cab to meet me. I decided to use the seat belt for good measure and was buckling up when the driver took off. He drove extremely fast and didn’t say anything until he pulled into our street.

  ‘If I ever catch that effin’ squawking cockatoo, I’ll wring his effin’ neck.’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘The effin’ kid who told the effin’ police a Tip Top taxi done that hit and run. He lives in this street somewhere.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘The cops treated me like a common criminal.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘They had me fingerprinted and everything.’ The driver slowed as he approached our house. His hands twitched on the steering wheel. ‘The kid was about your age. I’ll effin’ well kill him if I ever find him.’

  ‘Kill is a very strong word.’

  ‘I have very effin’ strong feelings.’ The driver glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. His eyes narrowed.

  I had the door open even before the taxi came to a complete stop. I threw the fare on to the front seat and then sprinted up the drive to the safety of the porch. When I looked back, the driver was still watching me from his taxi. I gave him the fingers and darted inside the house, locking the door behind me.

  Mum had already gone to bed but Dad was sitting in the dinette with Carmel. He was talking to her about an advertisement he’d found in the Hobart Star. In his hands was an application form. My ears pricked up at the mention of Abracadabra Television. The station was recruiting teenagers for a series of human-interest features on Hobart. The programme was to be called Cub Reporter. Carmel shrugged at Dad’s news and continued polishing her hockey boots.

  I couldn’t believe my sister. This was a Golden Microphone Moment par excellence and all she could do was shrug. My heart felt as if it was going to burst through my ribs as I stepped in to fill her shoes.

  ‘You’ve already got a good job at Cobber’s.’ My father wasn’t impressed with the idea.

  ‘But, Dad, it’s television. Lights, camera, action and all that.’ I had to get this job. I just had to.

  ‘Exactly. I don’t want a son of mine with a hairpiece doing bath-salt commercials.’ Dick Dingle did bath-salt commercials.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Dad, but I’ll be seated in the press box behind a microphone. Sports commentator is high on my list of career possibilities.’

  ‘You? Sports?’

  ‘Playing the game and having a genuine interest in great sportspeople are two different things. You of all people should know that, Dad.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you show any interest in sports.’

  ‘I’m a late starter with untapped potential.’ I held a ballpoint pen out to Dad. ‘The school’s vocational-guidance counsellor has been very encouraging.’

  ‘About sports?’

  ‘Male nursing.’

  Dad wrote my application and I got an audition at the Abracadabra studio.

  A snowy-blond man and a red-haired woman were seated in the interview room when I arrived. The gingery woman frowned at my tie-dyed T-shirt and waved me into an empty chair. The man smiled. He was wearing an open-necked Firecat shirt and floppy trousers. My fate lay in his hands.

  The woman got down to business. ‘Corkle’s an unusual name.’

  ‘It’s Irish.’ I thought of Dick Dingle and put effort into my consonants. ‘We can trace our family back to the first ship.’

  ‘The first ship of convicts?’

  ‘My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was an Irish poet. The English didn’t like his poetry.’

  ‘A poet? That’s great, really, really, really, really great.’ It was Snowy. He was laughing.

  Ginger pursed her lips and pushed on. ‘Why on earth would the English not like his poetry? It’s the home of Wordsworth, Blake, Shakespeare.’

  ‘His poetry was about the potato famine.’ We’d just studied the potato famine at school. It was a massive human tragedy that struck a chord in every red-haired Australian. I nodded gravely at Ginger.

  ‘But the famine occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century. The convict ships arrived at the end of the eighteenth.’ She tapped her ballpoint pen on the clipboard and wrote something down.

  ‘Did I say famine? Ha, I meant fashion, potato fashion. My great-great-great—’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked up from the clipboard.

  ‘He wrote poems about how much the Irish loved potatoes. This upset the English. It was a class thing.’

  ‘That’s the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard.’ She was writing at high speed and didn’t bother looking up from her clipboard.

  ‘It wasn’t ridiculous for the English. They shipped off my great-great-great—’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, I think we’ve heard enough. Kindly close the door on the way out.’

  I made sure to leave the door open a crack then lingered to untie and retie a shoelace.

  ‘What a ridiculous performance! And that pretentious voice!’ The woman sounded outraged. ‘Julian Corkle is a filthy liar.’

  ‘He does do something funny with his consonants but he’s certainly not lost for words. Potato fashion. Ha, ha.’

  ‘That was a bare-faced lie. I don’t believe the convict story for a minute. His grandparents probably come from County Cork.’

  ‘Ha, ha. The Corkles from County Cork. It’s a great, great, great story.’

  ‘Brendan, that was a great big fat lie.’

  ‘I want him, Leila. He’s comical. You
said it yourself, ridiculous.’

  The day before the shoot, Cherie invited me to eat sponge roll in the home-economics room. She said she wanted to talk about the rumours going around the cricket pitch. Cherie was one of the few people I trusted at Waratah. She was softhearted and never said a bad word behind anyone’s back. She’d made the sponge roll in class that morning and said it was too good to leave for the teachers’ afternoon tea. We’d sneaked into the room at lunchtime and had just started in on the sponge when Christine’s head appeared in the door’s window. Without thinking, I threw my arms forward and dived like Peter Grubb behind a row of benches. I must’ve closed my eyes because I didn’t see the enamel handle of the Bingo oven that slammed into my forehead. My John Lennon glasses snapped and I landed with a thud on the hard linoleum.

  ‘So this is where you’ve been!’

  ‘Hello, Christine.’

  I pushed myself up on one elbow and realised the two halves of my glasses were dangling from either ear. I felt my head. A large duck egg was forming above my eyebrows. I had half a metre of vision without my glasses. From where I lay, Christine looked like Margaux Hemingway. She was standing next to someone in a dinner jacket. The jacket spoke.

  ‘Hi, Julian.’

  ‘Frank.’

  ‘I was surprised to hear about Abracadabra. I thought you didn’t like media.’

  ‘Changed my mind.’

  ‘You’ll probably do well. You’ve got the gift of the gab.’

  ‘Thanks, Frank.’

  ‘I thought you should know.’ A blurry smile appeared on Frank’s face. ‘I don’t believe the rumours those thugs have been saying.’

  ‘About the taxi driver?’

  Frank said something I didn’t catch before disappearing from my field of vision. The white cushion shoes of Mrs Stone appeared in front of me.

  ‘Off my home-economics floor at once! I have hygiene standards.’ Mrs Stone dug her shoe into my shoulder. ‘And you, Cherie. I’m surprised at you. I had plans for that cake. The male teachers are very partial to an afternoon roll.’

  ‘Julian’s had a mishap, Mrs Stone.’ Christine’s voice was calm and full of authority. ‘We dragged the poor thing in here and gave him some sponge roll to revive him. He’s got quite a bump on his head. It was those ruffians from the cricket pitch. They’ve ruined his glasses.’

  ‘I’m all right, Mrs Stone.’ I stood up shakily and leaned against the Bingo oven.

  ‘You’re not all right if those hoodlums have had their way with you. It was those boys who stole my cooking sherry. They’ve broken your glasses.’ The teacher tut-tutted and gently lifted the two halves off my ears. ‘I’ll take Julian to the sick bay. The rest of you can wait on the benches until the bell.’

  I had no alternative but to use my old Nana Mouskouris for the shoot. It was tragic. My one shot at television and I looked like a horror show. The lump had gone down overnight but there was still something freakish about my forehead. From side-on I looked like a Neanderthal. Mum came into The Ensuite while I was examining it from different angles. She adjusted the glasses under the bulge and smiled encouragingly.

  ‘They have a classic frame. Ronnie Barker wears classic glasses and we all know how big and successful he is.’ She was trying to be cheery but I could tell by her voice that she was tired. Dad hadn’t come home. ‘This is your big moment, Julian. I’m so proud of you.’

  ‘I’m more worried about the lump, Mum.’

  ‘What lump?’ She ruffled my hair. ‘Twinkle, twinkle.’

  Abracadabra had given me a feature on the Free Musketeers, a club of Hobart antique-gun enthusiasts. I was driven to a sheep farm in a TV van along with a sound technician and cameraman. Brendan appeared briefly in a denim leisure suit and handed me a list of questions. I was then pointed toward the shooting range, a wooden maze of old sheep pens with sacks thrown over the barriers, and introduced to Joe, the club’s founder. Joe wore his checked woollen shirt out to cover a Tickworth beer belly and tucked his trousers into knee-high gumboots. He worked at Digger’s Hardware and managed the musket club in his spare time. He told me this while eyeing Valerie, the sound technician. Valerie wore tight jeans and a lot of make-up. She ignored Joe as she dangled a fluffy thing on a pole over our heads.

  I felt a strange calm take hold of me as I took my place in front of the camera. With cool ease, I slipped Brendan’s questions into my pocket. Hard-man cub reporter Julian Corkle would ask the questions the public wanted answered. This was my Golden Microphone Moment and no one was going to take it away from me.

  The camera was rolling when Joe handed me a musket and gave me instructions on how to use the weapon. I didn’t want my side profile on screen, but I could hardly point the gun at the cameraman. Delaying the inevitable, I rested the gun on the barrier cowboy-style. I turned to Joe and gave him a suave Gregory-Peckish look. It was time to probe.

  ‘Could I kill someone with this gun, Joe?’

  ‘Well, yeah, that’s what they were designed for really.’ He looked at Valerie for confirmation and laughed in the condescending way adults laughed in front of teenagers. ‘My advice, young man, is to aim for the target.’

  ‘But what if someone was out for a walk and happened to pass behind the target and I happened to miss the target and hit that certain person in the chest, through the heart, and all that?’ The TV audience would love this stuff. Julian Corkle, Abracadabra hitman.

  ‘I’d say you’d have a very good chance of killing that certain person.’ Joe gave a patronising snort in my direction and glanced at Valerie again.

  ‘I’ll aim for the target then. Ha, ha.’ Some humour for the camera.

  ‘They are safety glasses you’re wearing, aren’t they?’ Joe had stopped looking at Valerie and was examining my Nana Mouskouris.

  ‘No, they’re just normal glasses. I mean, they’re not my normal ones. I usually wear John Lennon glasses with little metal frames and round lenses.’

  ‘I’ll be damned. I thought they were safety glasses.’ Joe snorted again and winked at Valerie. ‘Hang on, come to think of it, they’re more like those things that Greek lady singer wears.’

  ‘Well, they’re not! They’re Yves Saint Laurent signature frames. Your shirt looks like it comes from Cobber’s. The supermarket does a nice line of cheap woollens.’

  ‘It’s a pity they’re not safety glasses because you’ll have to put some real ones on before you shoot that gun, son.’

  ‘Can’t I just wear these? The lenses are quite thick.’ I’d ask Abracadabra to cut this part and the bit about the Greek singer.

  ‘Nope. Them’s the rules. Put these on.’ Joe was trying to show Valerie who was boss. I removed my Nana Mouskouris and slipped the safety glasses on. The pens and pastures were reduced to blobs and shadows. I placed my elbows on the fence and held the gun in front of me. I aimed for the target and pulled the trigger. The bang nearly dislocated my shoulder and left my fingers tingling.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Joe’s voice was loud. He sounded angry, borderline hysterical. I put my Nana Mouskouris back on and looked at the paddock. There was no target, just a sheep running toward a gate. I could hear the click, click, click of its dags rattling. The target was in another paddock to my left. I’d been leaning on the wrong sack. Joe wasn’t looking at Valerie. I had his full attention. On his face was a nasty self-righteous expression.

  ‘I was trying to hit the target.’ My voice was shaky and went high at the end. I was upset and it was all Joe’s fault. He’d made me remove my glasses and shoot blind. Now he was trying to humiliate me on Tasmanian television. I pictured Jimmy watching the Budge black-and-white set in Wallaby Place and shuddered. I had to put Joe in his place. ‘You said sheep made great moving targets.’

  ‘I said nothing of the sort.’ Joe blew air out of his cheeks.

  ‘But you said they’re good for practising.’

  ‘Look, son, I don’t know what you’re implying here.
’ Joe’s voice was a low growl.

  ‘I’m not implying anything. I’m referring to our earlier conversation, about how you practise with sheep.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘I can see this is a sensitive subject for you and the other gun fanatics.’

  ‘We are not fanatics! We’re enthusiasts. And, no, it is not a sensitive subject.’

  ‘So it’s out in the open then, an open secret and all that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The sheep business.’

  ‘There’s no sheep business.’

  ‘I don’t mean business as in business. I mean funny business. The stuff you and the other fanatics get up to when the TV cameras aren’t around.’ I winked at the camera. The viewers would lap this up. Jimmy Budge would have a smile on his face.

  ‘For once and for all, we do not get up to funny business, especially not with sheep.’

  ‘I don’t mean funny ha-ha. I don’t see any sheep laughing. Do you, Joe?’ Another wink at the camera.

  ‘I’m not laughing, son.’

  ‘Neither are the sheep, just like I said.’

  ‘You have no right to call our members fanatics and you had no call shooting at an innocent sheep.’

  ‘Who said that sheep was innocent? I mean, how often do you and the other fanatics use these sheep pens for this practising business?’

  ‘I’m going to start counting and if you are not sitting in that Abracadabra van by ten, I’ll show you what a musket enthusiast is capable of doing. Now get the hell out of my sight, you little poof, before I pepper your tail end.’

  ‘That’s a threat of bodily harm if I ever heard one.’ I gave the camera a serious look. ‘Journalism, freedom of the press and all that. Not in Hobart.’

  ‘Nine, eight…’

  ‘That wraps up our fascinating feature on the gun fanatics of Hobart.’

  ‘Six, five…’

  I turned and ran as fast as I could, hooting at Joe over my shoulder.