Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

by D. J. Connell

  ‘But I haven’t met anyone famous yet.’

  ‘Keep smiling, honey. You look much better when you smile.’ She flashed lots of teeth to remind me of how it was done. ‘This job is just a stepping stone. You’re bound for bigger and better things but you’ve got to start somewhere.’

  ‘But I look so stupid with a biscuit tin strapped to my head.’ I was starting to whine. I hated my whine almost as much as Dad did.

  ‘Julian, I’m proud of you. You’re the only one with pizzazz.’ She lifted my chin and ruffled my hair. ‘Just a little patience, honey. We’re doing pretty well, the two of us.’

  Mum was right, of course. I was her only hope. John might be able to cut up bodies but he would never look good in front of a television camera. And any pizzazz Carmel had was wasted on the sports field.

  Mum said she didn’t understand her daughter any more. ‘She takes no notice of anything I say.’

  ‘And what’s with the haircut?’ I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips. The subject of Carmel’s hair never failed to get my mother started. Once she got started I was assured of complete support for the Julian Corkle cause.

  ‘What kind of salon does a short back and sides in this day and age?’

  ‘A barber probably. Apparently the clipper cut is very à la mode with sheep farmers. You should see the types we get at the hotel.’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ Mum closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘It’s all your father’s fault, insisting on those damned cricket balls. He’s ruined that girl with his sport, sport, sport. The man’s a fanatic.’

  ‘He certainly never helped me.’ I was going for gold. Mum was eating out of my hand. ‘It’s a good thing I never played ball games.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’ Mum smiled. She was proud of me and it felt right.

  ‘At least I listen to you, Mum.’ I’d hit gold and was going for platinum.

  Mum frowned. Her smile faded. ‘Carmel’s drinking.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Of course Carmel was drinking. She’d been drinking for years. Lager was her drink of choice and like her father she followed ‘the more lager, the merrier’ rule.

  ‘I can smell it in the house.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ This was definitely not a line of conversation I wanted to pursue. Since leaving school I’d been working my way through the spirits in the china cabinet. I’d started with the Irish Mist and sherry and, as choices dried up, had moved on to the eggnog and crème de menthe.

  ‘It’s hard to believe your birthdays are only a day apart. Surely you should have something in common.’

  ‘It’s certainly not dress sense.’

  ‘At least she’s stopped wearing those shearer’s singlets and started covering her arms. I was at my wits’ end with those arms.’

  There was a very good reason why Carmel now wore sleeved shirts at home but it wasn’t something Mum needed to know. One evening I’d bumped into her on the corner of Echidna Avenue. She was dressed in a woollen shearer’s singlet and cricket trousers. My eyes had been drawn to an ugly blue blot on the upper part of her bowler’s arm. The skin around the blue area was angry red.

  ‘What’s that on your arm?’

  ‘Tattoo.’ Carmel gave a lopsided smile and did a Popeye with her bicep. The dark mark expanded. ‘Trudy did it.’

  ‘Trudy from the Hobart team?’

  ‘She’s got a home tattoo kit. From America.’ Carmel obviously thought that the kit’s origins made home tattooing a legitimate activity.

  ‘Why a train?’

  ‘It’s a scorpion, dickhead.’

  ‘Looks like a train to me.’ There was nothing scorpion about it. ‘It’s one of those old-fashioned locomotives with smoke stacks.’

  ‘They’re claws.’ Carmel had decided. There was no changing her mind.

  ‘Why a scorpion?’

  ‘All the other stencils were crap. I didn’t want a bloody goat or a fish.’

  ‘Was there a bull?’

  Carmel narrowed her eyes and nodded.

  ‘Taurus is a bull. You’re a Taurus. They must’ve been horoscope stencils.’

  ‘Fuck it!’

  22

  Hotel workers were divided into two groups at the Dingo, indoors and outdoors. Porters were outdoor staff along with gardeners and window cleaners. Indoor staff had it a lot better. They earned more, wore no hats and had no stripes on their trousers. They also got to mingle with the guests at the top of the hotel. I didn’t intend to remain on the outside for long and made a point of befriending indoor staff between suitcases.

  Anne-Marie Putts was short with the solid, determined build of a shot-putter. Her features were tiny and crowded into the middle of her large, freckled face, which was framed by a bell of wiry ginger hair. Despite these obvious drawbacks, Anne-Marie thought she was better than me because she was a housemaid. Her shelf was positioned a rung above mine in the service bay.

  ‘I hear you have an Italian in the VIP suite.’ I’d just discovered that Bruno Bempi was in town for the wool auctions. Bempi was a fashion designer and semi-famous in the international world of menswear. The Star said he made tweed jackets for the Duke of Edinburgh. Celebrity clothes designer was on my list of back-up career possibilities.

  ‘Bloody Italians! I must’ve scooped two handfuls of hair out of the jet bath yesterday. The rim had a fur collar. I had to flush the jets. You’d think the bastard had been washing beavers in there.’ Anne-Marie shook her big head in disgust. ‘With his money, he could at least get his back dehaired.’

  ‘He’s a world-class fashion designer.’

  ‘He’s a hairy bastard.’

  ‘He designs for royalty.’

  ‘Big poof.’

  I bit my tongue and arranged my belongings into straight lines. My shelf was by far the tidiest in the service bay. The only other that came close belonged to Nigel, the head waiter. Nigel was the one indoor staff member I hadn’t tried to befriend. It was common knowledge that he lived with a butcher and kept toy Yorkshire terriers. The kitchen staff called him Tiffany and made his life very difficult. Nigel’s mouth was a permanent cat’s bum.

  ‘I hear the jet bath is a deluxe.’ The best way to get information out of Anne-Marie was to appeal to her sense of self-importance.

  ‘Enormous.’ She sighed in a significant way and ran a hand over her stiff triangle of hair.

  ‘I suppose they need it for the really big guests. Elizabeth Taylor would certainly require a deluxe.’

  ‘Why would Elizabeth Taylor use our jet bath?’

  ‘Good question.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I have a look at the VIP suite?’

  ‘Nope.’ Anne-Marie held up her hands officiously. They were as wide and flat as Sandy Bay flounders. ‘I can’t let just anyone inside.’

  ‘But I work at the hotel. I enter guest rooms every day.’

  ‘You’re outdoor staff. The VIP suite is restricted access. Bunion would have a fit if he caught you.’

  ‘Discretion is my middle name.’

  ‘He snoops.’ She jiggled the keys inside her apron pocket. ‘I could lose my job. It’s a responsibility.’

  ‘I’ll clean the jet bath for you.’

  ‘All right but don’t touch anything.’

  The VIP suite was huge and had a bed big enough for Elizabeth Taylor and all her husbands. The remnants of chicken in a basket sat on the room-service trolley and clothes were tossed untidily over furniture. I fingered the wool of a pair of black dress trousers and noted the label on a cherry-red shirt. A thrill went through me, Yves Saint Laurent.

  I’d seen the VIP bathroom in the hotel brochure but nothing prepared me for its splendour. It was The Ensuite to the power of ten. The room was a classic Roman bathhouse and walled in amber Aussiemica with a marble effect. In the corner glowed the pièce de résistance, a glorious jet bath in brilliant tangerine with matching mini-bar fridge and icemaker. I knew from Anne-Marie that the fridge was stocked with Tasmanian champagne. ‘VIPs lik
e to drink it in the bath. It’s not called champagne because the French have stolen the name. But Tassie Mist is better than the actual French stuff.’ She said our wineries are a lot cleaner.

  Anne-Marie was safely vacuuming in the main room when I slipped Bruno Bempi’s satin bathrobe over my uniform. It was cool and silky, and fanned out as I did a twirl in front of the enormous picture window. The ocean and grey skies in front of me stretched all the way to Antarctica. I was the Duke of Edinburgh, Freddie Mercury on tour, John D. Rockefeller at a Tasmanian getaway. This was the life. I twirled over to the vanity, removed my Nana Mouskouris and turned on the lights around the mirror.

  I leaned forward to view Julian Corkle framed by twenty-watt bulbs and noticed a brown outline over my shoulder. It was shaped like a rhombus and moving at high speed towards me. I put on my glasses and froze.

  ‘What on earth?’ Bevan Bunion’s voice was a shriek. He glared at the dressing gown and ground his teeth. His face was purple.

  ‘I’m giving Anne-Marie a hand with the bath.’

  ‘You’ve no business in here.’ Bunion glanced at the bath protectively. ‘You’re outdoor staff.’

  ‘I was flushing the jets.’

  ‘The jets do not require flushing. The unit was made in California.’

  ‘They’re blocked. Beaver hair.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Bunion tweaked the satin gown away from my shoulder. His pinky was standing up like an alert soldier. ‘Take this off immediately. It does not belong to you.’

  ‘I was just trying to keep my uniform clean.’

  ‘Outside! Now! One more trick like this and you’re fired.’

  Bevan Bunion was a big fat killjoy. There was only one way to deal with humourless fools like him. On my way out, I stopped at the front desk and leaned in close to the receptionist. ‘Be careful around Onion Head.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Bunion. He’s in a foul mood.’

  ‘Why Onion Head?’

  ‘That’s what they call him. It comes from Bunion the Onion.’

  ‘I’ve never heard that.’

  ‘It’s a private joke among the senior staff.’

  ‘Bunion the Onion. I’ll have to remember that. Ha, ha.’

  There, that put a spring in my step. I knocked off work feeling as if I’d won the chook raffle. The pay packet in my pocket was radiating warmth and joy. Julian Corkle was on the up and up.

  Hobart had only one menswear shop worth its trouser rack. New Modern Man was a small, exclusive boutique run by a shiny man with perfect hair and fingernails called Roger Shirley.

  Mr Shirley pushed his Celebrity Glitter aside and smiled as I entered the shop. The smile expanded as I introduced myself and explained my needs. Only too pleased to help a Dingo trainee manager, he pointed me to the permanent press trousers, tut-tutting when I told him I wanted black.

  ‘Brown.’ He nodded for emphasis.

  ‘Black. It’s the new brown according to Bruno Bempi. I was just in the VIP suite.’

  Mr Shirley tightened his lips and removed a pair of black trousers from the rack.

  ‘Why not go for gussets, sir? The elastic side gussets provide the give and take for an active man of your stature.’ He stretched the waistband of the trousers to demonstrate its give and take. ‘Team these trousers with a thick belt and a designer shirt and no one would be the wiser.’

  Mr Shirley held out a cherry-red shirt in a cardboard box. On the pocket were the initials YSL. He waved a hand over the shirt like a magician and then did the same conjuring motions over the top half of my body.

  ‘Heads will spin! It’s you, sir. A very rare shirt for a very rare trainee manager.’ Mr Shirley tapped the shirt box for emphasis. ‘I only have the one and it has your name written all over it, Cerise de Montagne.’

  ‘My name’s Julian Corkle.’

  Mr Shirley gave a hesitant smile and then led me to a booth with curtains that didn’t close properly.

  Half an hour later, I emerged from the shop with the shirt and trousers to find Debra Fig examining the window display. Debra was the friendliest of all Carmel’s friends at Waratah High. She never hit me and always remembered my name. She also happened to be the sister of prefect god and radio DJ, Terrence Fig.

  ‘Debra!’

  ‘Jerry, I haven’t seen you since that rumour at school. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Working with the VIPs at the Dingo Hotel. It’s just temporary until they create a new slot for me at Abracadabra.’

  Debra raised her eyebrows. ‘You’re full of it.’

  ‘What are you doing here? It’s a menswear shop.’

  ‘I was looking at that bright red shirt in the window. What kind of idiot would buy that?’ Debra glanced down at my two New Modern Man bags. ‘What did you buy?’

  ‘Trousers and a belt.’

  ‘The belt’s got its own box?’

  ‘It’s French. They make big belts in France.’

  I had one more important purchase to make. Nearly all my money was gone but where I was going that didn’t matter. George’s Electrical Emporium was a showroom of white goods and appliances that offered same-day delivery and a time plan called ‘hire purchase’. George was one of Hobart’s self-made men and regularly appeared on Abracadabra promoting his electrical goods. The commercials always began with him pointing to appliances bearing large ‘SALE’ stickers. His accent was foreign and his message was always the same: ‘Bargains, bargains and more bargains. Electricals at rock-bottom prices. Buy today, pay later.’ George’s message made perfect sense to me.

  The showroom seemed a lot smaller and more ordinary than its TV version. Half the lights were off and George wasn’t around. I was examining an all-in-one colour television and radio-record player when the lights flickered to life. A pimply youth materialised from behind a fridge-freezer. His name badge said ‘ERIC’.

  ‘Walnut.’ Eric had a long neck and large Adam’s apple. ‘Aged in an English swamp.’

  ‘Nice.’ I ran my fingers over the wood.

  ‘Probably out of your range.’ The youth puckered his lips and blew a jet of air through the puckers. ‘I’m not saying you don’t have the money or anything.’

  ‘I do have the money.’

  ‘I’m just saying you’re better to leave the fancy stuff to those that can afford it. Quality has a price, you understand.’

  ‘I can afford quality.’

  ‘This baby is top of the line.’

  ‘I’m a top-of-the-line sort of guy.’

  ‘No deposit. First month interest free. Payments eased over a generous five-year time plan. You won’t even know you’re paying it. We’d need a pay slip for verification.’

  I patted my pocket and nodded. ‘Is it full colour?’

  ‘We don’t do half colour.’

  Eric got a lot more friendly once I’d signed the agreement. He even gave me a ride home in the delivery van, a white Ford Escort with ‘FOR HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICALS JUST ASK GEORGE’ painted on the side. He helped me move the black-and-white set down to Carmel’s bedroom and rig up the new one in the lounge. It was beautiful.

  While the cartoons were playing I prepared a celebratory steak Diane for two. Mum would be surprised. The only things Carmel or John had ever brought home were bad manners and dirty sports clothes.

  By seven o’clock the steaks were curled up like old sandals and the chips and garlic bread had wilted. Mum was working late again. It wasn’t fair. I’d bought my first big-ticket item and couldn’t show it off to anyone. Desperation drove me to the phone.

  My father answered on the twelfth ring. ‘Hang on a minute, Greg Norman’s taking a putt.’

  I waited for what seemed like half a day and willed myself not to feel carsick. I heard polite television golf applause and then Dad came back on the line.

  ‘The man’s a genius. Bob bloody Charles, eat your heart out. Aussie rules!’

  ‘Dad, I’ve bought a colour TV. It’s got a twenty-six-inch screen. Swamp waln
ut. Beautiful.’

  ‘What? I don’t pay good maintenance money to have it wasted on bloody walnut.’

  ‘It’s my television. Mum doesn’t even know about it yet.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m a trainee manager. I’ve been working for over a month.’

  ‘That’s a turn-up for the books.’ Dad was full of surprises. He did care about my career.

  ‘I probably should’ve told you earlier.’

  ‘Yeah, I would’ve cut down the maintenance payments earlier. You can tell your mother that I’ll be docking the next lot.’

  ‘I’m working at the Dingo Hotel.’

  ‘Not that gambling monstrosity down at the docks?’

  ‘The waterfront. I work at the hotel. The VIP suite’s got a vista. On a good day you can almost see Antarctica.’

  ‘There’s a lot of rough trade on those docks.’

  ‘The hotel has four stars.’

  ‘Don’t go anywhere near those public toilets near the car park. Notorious.’ Dad paused and lowered his voice. ‘There are laws against that sort of thing.’

  My father wasn’t wrong. Tasmania did have laws against that sort of thing and they were the most frightening in Australia. We’d been told about them during hygiene class at St Kevin’s. The information had been relayed in a let-this-be-a-warning sort of way. Under the law, homosexuals were clumped together with people who sexually abused animals. Men caught having sex with each other could be thrown in prison for twenty-five years. Car thieves and murderers got it better.

  By the time my mother came home, I’d eaten my dry steak and chips and fallen asleep in front of the TV. Mum’s face was flushed. She giggled as she took her plate out of the oven. This was very un-Mum-like behaviour. She didn’t even notice the colour of the sheep being herded through pens. I had to point it out.

  ‘They’re merinos, Mum. You can tell by the colour and texture.’

  ‘Tasmanian fleeces are going for gold at the auctions.’

  ‘With wool that colour and texture, I wouldn’t doubt it.’