Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

by D. J. Connell

  I spun around frantically, trying to relocate the stairwell. My foot landed on something cylindrical that rolled with me as I tried to regain my footing. I lost my balance and fell forward. The crown of my head hit the cast iron of the stairwell with a loud gong. The fluorescent lights flickered to life.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  I was grabbed by the seat of my pants and yanked upward. I kicked the offending lager bottle clear of my feet and moved away from my sister.

  ‘Mum needs the maintenance money. You’ve got to go see Dad.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Carmel winked and motioned with a thumb to the sleeping forms on the couch and bed. ‘You’re looking at two of the finest players on the Hobart team.’

  I hadn’t spoken to my father since he’d moved out. He hadn’t called me and I hadn’t called him.

  ‘Hello, Dad.’

  ‘G’day, Sunshine. How’s my champ bowler?’

  ‘It’s Julian.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘You’ve caught me on the hop. We’re gunning for the deadline.’

  ‘Mum needs the maintenance. Can you bring it round after work?’

  ‘Tonight’s out. I’m going to the track with Trev. You can come and pick it up at the Star.’

  ‘You want me to come to the office?’ John and Carmel had both been to the newspaper office but I’d never set foot in the place.

  ‘On second thoughts, meet me at the Copper Kettle on the corner. It’s got a big brass teapot over the door. You can’t miss it.’

  I’d been waiting for half an hour in the coffee shop when I saw Dad stop in front of the pub across the street. It was strange to see him outside the context of marriage and family. He looked like a normal Tasmanian man, insignificant, even harmless. The brown and beige of his clothes were typical of the men of his generation. So was his build: small head, big belly and skinny legs. He turned his small head as a Toyota Hiace pulled up, and smiled at the members of a rugby team as they clambered out of the van’s sliding door. I knew they were rugby players because they were all wearing blue blazers with a gold rugby ball on the pocket. Most of them had necks as wide as their heads.

  My father was still smiling when he entered the Copper Kettle. He didn’t bother to say hello.

  ‘You must be proud of your sister making the Hobart team.’ Dad threw a very thin-looking Hobart Star envelope in front of me and then turned to survey the cakes and sandwiches in the display cabinet. ‘That girl’s on her way to the Tassie team.’

  Now I knew why Carmel had been so pleasant. I slipped the envelope into my pocket and stifled an urge to flee.

  ‘John’s another shooting star.’ Dad sat down with a cream-filled butterfly cake and toasted cheese sandwich. ‘He’s already cutting up bodies.’

  ‘That sounds about right.’

  ‘He’ll make a fine heart surgeon one day. He reckons he’ll do transplants.’

  ‘That could come in handy.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Dad gave me one of his looks and tore the corner off the cheese toastie. His small teeth made short work of it.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I should probably tell you.’ Dad took another bite of the toastie and talked while chewing. ‘A couple of weeks ago I bumped into that blond thing from the TV. He asked after you.’

  ‘Brendan! He’s a director of Abracadabra Television.’ My stomach fluttered. Brendan had asked after me.

  ‘I don’t care what he calls himself. He’s too much like your uncle for my tastes.’ He swallowed his mouthful and jutted his small chin out in a self-righteous way. ‘Said he wanted a cub reporter.’

  ‘Me!’

  ‘Too late. I told him you’ve already buggered everything up by leaving school.’ Dad smiled in a satisfied way and shoved the sponge wings of the butterfly cake into his mouth. He still followed the sweets after savouries rule.

  ‘But…’ I thought of Tania from Geelong and felt my chin tremble.

  ‘You should’ve thought of all that before, mate. They wanted a school kid.’

  It started drizzling while I was waiting for the bus, the sort of drizzle that starts out looking harmless and ends up soaking its victims to the skin. By the time the bus arrived, my Scary Monsters T-shirt was stuck to my torso and David Bowie’s face was a wrinkle between my bottle tops. The bus driver did a double take as he handed me my change.

  ‘Jesus holy Christ. You should wear a lady’s brassiere, mate. They’re indecent. Ha, ha.’

  I flapped the T-shirt away from my chest and made for the empty bench seat at the back of the bus. The seat was giving off an unpleasant, intimate smell of wet wool and dog pee but I was beyond caring. Rubbing my arm across the window, I took in the passing suburban streets. Kids were coming home from school in raincoats and cars with steamed-up windows were waiting outside fish-and-chip shops. I closed my eyes and thought of Ulverston. Things had gone to hell since we’d come to Hobart and it was all Dad’s fault. I would’ve still been at school and had Jimmy Budge if we hadn’t left.

  ‘Get yourself off of the bus.’

  I woke with a start.

  The bus driver was bellowing from his seat through a cupped hand. He swivelled his body and swung one of his meaty legs into the aisle. It was naked from the sock line to the hem of his micro-shorts. All the working Tasmanian men wore such shorts – electricians, sheep farmers, helicopter pilots – and they nearly all teamed them with indecently thick hairy legs. The bus driver’s kelpie-brown shorts were strained to capacity by the pink beef of his thighs. He deserved to be told but I was in no position to do it.

  ‘Where are we?’ I walked to the front and squinted through the windscreen.

  ‘You’ve got eyes in your head. Four of them by the looks. Ha, ha.’

  ‘I can’t see anything.’ The wipers were off and the windows were steamed up.

  ‘What do you think that is then?’ He pointed through the open door to a ticket booth.

  ‘Surely not the bus terminal?’ The terminal was a good half-hour’s walk from home. It was pelting down outside.

  ‘Well, it’s not bloody Fiji, is it, you big twit.’

  As I stepped off the bus, my right foot disappeared up to the ankle in a large brown puddle. I leaped to save the other sneaker and managed to get my left foot on dry land. The doors of the bus hissed shut and the driver revved his engine. The bus jerked forward, sending a wave of filthy water over both legs below the knee.

  21

  It wasn’t the black-and-white TV or the lack of money that finally forced me out of the house and on to the job market. It was my father and the way he’d broken the news to me about Abracadabra. His smug expression haunted me. The only way to wipe the smirk off his face was to pick myself up and get myself back on the small screen. I had to do it right this time, but for that, I needed connections.

  The one place in Hobart with real gold dust was the Dingo Hotel, a glorious high-rise tower adjoining the state’s only casino. People called it the Finger Pointing to God. The former state premier, Bernie Pouch, had certainly benefited from the assistance of higher powers to get the state’s gaming laws changed and the casino approved. He’d overcome public opposition by promising a windfall of charity funds. ‘The money will be channelled back into the community. There’ll be new handicraft schools for the blind and youth centres for idle teenagers. We’ll get these lowlifes off the streets and make our neighbourhoods safer for women.’ Tasmanians were proud of Pouch. They said he was a man of vision.

  Hobart’s only VIP suite was located at the summit of the tower on the ninth floor. The place for Julian Corkle to start making connections was at the top. I silently thanked my mother for buying big as I squeezed into my First Communion shirt. This I teamed with a blue pinstriped suit from the Catholics Do Care charity shop and one of Dad’s old paisley ties. The Julian Corkle in the mirror not only appeared four years older but he also looked damned good.
I spent an hour getting my Bryan Ferry sweep-over just right and then caught a bus to the hotel on Hobart’s waterfront. The bus stopped in front of the casino, a good three minutes’ walk from the hotel entrance. The bus driver told me to get off.

  ‘Don’t you go all the way to the hotel?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘But the sign said the bus stops at the hotel.’

  ‘Not when there’s only one whinger aboard. Then the bus stops here.’ The bus drivers of Hobart were in league against me.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘What’s there to understand, mate?’

  ‘Why you’re not going to the hotel.’

  ‘Because I don’t feel like it.’

  ‘How do I get to the hotel?’

  ‘You got legs, mate.’

  ‘Through the casino?’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  I’d never been inside the casino and the reason was printed above the main entrance in large gold lettering: ‘Persons Under 18 Not Permitted. No Dogs Either’. I silently congratulated myself on the pinstriped suit as I whirled through the revolving door and into the deafening bing-bing-bing of the gaming hall. The enormous room was ringed by banks of colourful slot machines and decorated in the style of an upscale sideshow. In the smoky distance were the tables where the real players gambled away bungalows and automobiles but at the fruit machines near me most of the clients had grey hair and wore cardigans.

  ‘Cherry! Cherry! Give me a damn cherry!’ A pensioner stood on the rungs of her stool and thumped the side of the slot machine with a tiny fist. The machine whirred before giving a half-hearted bing. She plonked back down deflated. ‘Bugger!’

  A hand fell on my shoulder. ‘You’ll have to leave the premises, young man.’ The security guard said this without a smile.

  ‘I’m only passing through. I’m a guest at the hotel.’

  ‘You’ll have to take the outside path.’

  ‘I’m staying in the VIP suite.’

  The guard gripped my shoulder and pulled me close. He didn’t need to say another thing. His face had the joy and liveliness of Ned Kelly’s death mask. I’d seen this plaster cast first hand when it had travelled around Tasmanian primary schools as part of the ‘Australia of Yesteryear’ exhibition. When it came to St Kevin’s everyone in the class had hurried past the gold mining pans and wooden washboards to get to the important lump of white plaster. We knew the cast had been taken off a famous dead person and wanted to make the most of it. When Brother Punt turned to slap a boy for jostling, Ralph Waters had leaned across to put a finger in one of Ned’s ears. His ring-a-ding-ding sound effect had been too much for Gary Jings who’d fainted and hit his head on a butter churn.

  The reception of the Dingo Hotel reflected the hotel’s status as the flagship of Tasmania’s Own hotel chain. The lobby was big and shiny and furnished with clusters of orange vinyl armchairs and glass-topped coffee tables. I breathed in the lavender air freshener and imagined myself with a manager’s badge gliding through reception to welcome VIPs, asking about their children and refusing twenty-dollar tips. After a hard day of gliding, I’d kick back to drink a coconut cocktail with Dick Dingle. ‘You’re wasting your talent,’ he’d say. ‘Your face is made for the small screen.’ I know, Dick, I’d tell him. ‘But I insist on having my own show this time.’

  I swaggered up to the front desk. It was a long pinewood construction done up in the shape of a cruise ship with porthole display windows for Dingo-theme cigarette lighters, pens and key rings. The young receptionist noticed my suit and put away her nail file. She sat up straight when I asked to see the manager and dialled through my request. I was shown directly into Bevan Bunion’s office. My entrée into the world of movers and shakers was going to be easier than I thought.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  Bevan Bunion seemed surprised by my appearance. He stood and stretched out an arm. It was short and thick and went with his short, thick body, which bulged out at the middle like a spinning top. He was dressed in a blue pinstriped suit, white shirt and paisley tie. The only difference between his outfit and mine was the gold and onyx ring on his pinkie. The finger stood out like a rigid antenna.

  ‘I want to apply for a job.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bunion slumped back into his chair with his thick legs open. His trousers rustled as he scissored the legs against the vinyl. ‘As what?’

  ‘I’m thinking of management.’ I didn’t bother telling him that my position would be temporary. I’d only be staying long enough to meet the right people.

  ‘How old would you be, Mr…?’

  ‘Corkle, Julian Corkle. I’m almost nineteen.’

  ‘You look very young for your age.’

  ‘I live a very healthy life. No alcohol, no cigarettes and no flesh. I’m a vegetarian.’

  The word ‘flesh’ seemed to rouse him. He looked at me more seriously. ‘Have you any experience in the hospitality industry?’

  ‘My family ran the Cracker Hotel in Sydney for years. I grew up in the hospitality business and was weaned on Caterers’ Choice products.’ I moved closer to his desk and bent forward to give him the full force of my managerial charm. ‘Mr Bunion, Hospitality is my middle name. Industry would naturally be my other middle name.’

  ‘We might have a position for a person with your background.’ Bunion shifted his large bum in the chair. ‘The job’s a great starting point for an ambitious individual with managerial aspirations. I’m looking for someone who can think on his feet.’

  ‘I’m not short on aspirations or fancy footwork. You could call me a shooting star.’

  ‘You’ll be supplied with a uniform, a gold name badge and your own shelf in the service bay near the kitchen.’

  ‘My own shelf?’

  ‘Responsibility has its rewards.’ He rocked back in his chair and formed steeples with his stubby fingers, regarding me through the fingerwork.

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘The glasses.’ Smiling, he unsteepled his fingers and made twirling motions around his eyes. ‘You remind me of that Greek singer.’

  ‘Nana Mouskouri?’ This was no time to be a poor loser.

  ‘No, the bigger one.’

  ‘She’s about the biggest.’

  ‘Demis Roussos.’

  ‘He doesn’t wear glasses.’

  ‘I didn’t say he did.’

  I quickly decided I didn’t like Bevan Bunion. The job he assigned me was the lowest on the Tasmania’s Own food chain. I was hired as a porter, a position that put at least five years between an assistant manager’s desk and me. The VIP suite may as well have been in Alice Springs. I soon discovered that most of its occupants were unfriendly businesspeople who never spoke to or even noticed porters. They had rude assistants for that. Worse still, porters weren’t allowed near the VIP suite. We had to deposit VIP luggage in the lobby for a duty manager to take up.

  My uniform consisted of a Queen Mother pillbox hat and a piddle-coloured suit with a blue stripe running down the trouser leg. It was hotel policy for porters to personally carry all luggage to the rooms below floor nine. Bevan Bunion refused to supply us with wheeled carts or carrying aids. He said we wouldn’t be getting motorised golf chariots either. ‘Guests lap up the personal hands-on touch.’ He thought he was a funny man.

  My first hour on the job coincided with the arrival of a Tasmania Razzle Dazzle Tour bus packed with thirty tired and thirsty tourists who wanted immediate access to the clean underwear in their luggage. It was a brutal initiation to portering and left me with a personal hatred for the Little Swag line of baggage.

  Little Swags were locally made products with a ‘Proud to be Australian’ emblem sewn into the stiff, reinforced vinyl. The suitcases were designed in the shape of the Australian mainland and came with a toilet bag in the shape of Tasmania. Not only was the plastic boomerang handle hard to hold, but the Queensland part of the suitcase jutted upward awkwardly. This unsymmetrical design made carrying diffic
ult, particularly when the suitcase was stuffed with thirty kilograms of souvenirs and pastel clothing.

  ‘Makes you proud to be Australian.’ A large cattle farmer on holiday was watching me heave his Little Swag through the door of the room. It was my eighth Swag.

  ‘A word of advice, sir, from a professional.’ I lowered my voice in a confidential way and put the Swag down in the middle of the room. I pointed to Queensland. ‘Be extremely careful with this suitcase. One of our porters lost a testicle on Cape York Peninsula.’

  ‘A test…’ The sheep farmer didn’t want to say a dirty word. ‘I think you mean a ball, mate.’

  ‘Tore it clean off poor Geoffrey. He’s suing the company. Naturally, they’ll have to pay for the rubber implant.’

  The farmer drew breath sharply.

  ‘Geoffrey’s lawyer is demanding a recall of all suitcases. He’s campaigning to get Queensland removed from the Little Swag map.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t be Australia without Queensland.’

  ‘Where would you be from, sir?’

  ‘Near Brisbane.’

  The one benefit to working as a hotel porter was obvious within a couple of weeks and didn’t slip my mother’s notice. Mum was an expert at finding the silver lining wherever I was concerned.

  ‘You’ve lost weight, honey.’ She reached out and gently pinched one of my love handles. ‘Give us a twirl.’

  I held in my stomach and did a new fancy aerobics twirl with my arms at shoulder height. Aerobics had arrived in Tasmania and was taking the island by storm. I didn’t know anyone who actually did the exercises but hundreds now wore the fluorescent Lycra outfits. Body-hugging leggings were a particular favourite of the bigger Hobart lady.

  ‘Svelte.’ Mum was learning new words at the Wool Board. She was also dressing better and had allowed me to rinse the grey out of her hair.

  I let out a lungful of air and sagged back into my trousers. ‘Mum, I’m not sure if the Dingo is the right place for me.’

  ‘It’s a four-star hotel and you’ve got at least four stars.’ Mum tucked the back of my David Bowie T-shirt into my trousers and patted my bum. ‘Twinkle, twinkle.’