by Robert Drewe
No one spoke to him again during the afternoon classes, or on the school bus going home, although from the giggles on the bus and the occasional flicked droplet of some sticky liquid like Coke on the back of his neck he had the feeling that they were speaking of him. But at least he’d lasted the first day without incident or major embarrassment. Things were sort of neutral. Neutral was the best that could be expected. Neutral even counted as a success. So did remembering the correct bus stop for the cottage his mother had rented up here.
From the bus stop it was a long winding walk uphill, cow paddocks on both sides of the road, creatures rustling in the bushes, the occasional lonely-looking horse staring at him over a fence, and every so often a brush turkey racing back and forth in horizontal panic. Lumps of furry or feathery road-kill, and flattened cane toads as dry as parchment, splattered the road. He was halfway up the hill when a truck sped past him carrying five or six young pigs. They weren’t contained or tethered in any way, just loosely loaded in the tray of the truck, and their trotters couldn’t grip. When the truck took the bends too fast the squealing pigs all tottered sideways and fell heavily against one side of the tray, then skittered and banged hard against the other. Their squeals sounded all the way up the hill, and even after the truck had disappeared.
What sort of sadist was that truck driver? Adam wondered. Now he felt guilty having had the pie for lunch, and as he tramped up the hill he fantasised briefly about becoming a vegetarian vigilante who dealt violently with cruel stock transporters.
He was still in a daze about the pigs and vegetarianism when he arrived home, so for a moment he didn’t notice the car parked outside the cottage, camouflaged by the overgrown bougainvillea and lantana thicket. Surprisingly, the cottage’s front door was locked. The back door was locked, too, but there were people inside because he could hear panting and grunting.
When he pushed against the door, the bolt rattled and the noises stopped abruptly. Adam stood by the back door for several minutes. He didn’t knock. It was now silent inside the cottage and he had the feeling that not only he but all the people on earth, from Tibet to Brazil, were holding their breath. Eventually he inhaled one very deep breath himself, let it out, then walked to the farthest back edge of the property, deliberately out of earshot in the long grass, not caring about snakes or ticks, and sat on the raised roots of a Moreton Bay fig, facing away from the cottage into the wind. The tree itself was long gone – struck by lightning, blown over or chopped down – but its buttress remained.
He knew it was too far away but Adam stared hard into the southern horizon in the direction of the city, trying to discern it through the clouds and the sea mist and the silhouettes of distant trees. The present and the future were a mirage too hazy and skewed to contemplate, so he thought of the simple, clear years past, and people and things that were suddenly absent. He thought of his father down in the city doing mundane fatherly things: replacing light globes, checking the car radiator, watching football on TV, exiting the bathroom with the morning paper, and his, Adam’s, favourite memory of him, scraping sodden leaves out of the roof gutters one Saturday afternoon years ago, and laughing as leaf mulch dropped on his head and settled there like a muddy clown’s wig. When they’d left him he was crying, a unique and terrible sight, like someone in a film, sitting alone on the veranda behind the Beefmaster barbecue they’d given him two Father’s Days ago.
Then Adam heard the toilet flush, and an unfamiliar cough, and the weight of his new school backpack suddenly registered. It was still on his shoulders. He dumped the bag on the ground and took out one of his new exercise books and a black pen. Furiously, gripping the pages tight against the southerly breeze, he began to draw.
To warm up, he drew noses first, then drew himself, his own big-nosed face in savage free-flowing close-up. Then he found a fresh page and began to draw a naked couple having sex – crude, exaggerated, public-toilet-wall sex. What he’d do was slide this drawing under the cottage door. As he focused on the cartoon, his concentration forced his tongue and teeth and lips so hard together that in his grimace he tasted blood.
Prometheus and Greg
IN THE BAR of the Reef Hotel I saw an old, weather-beaten man drinking a schooner of beer by himself, sipping it slowly as if to make it last, and gazing out through the pandanus trees towards the ocean. His face, although deeply lined and morose, rang a bell from my childhood. It took me a long while to place him (the inapt pearl ear stud threw me off) and by the time I’d remembered a cheerier version of him, he’d finished his beer and shuffled off into the wind. Alf Holland. Of Alf Holland Motors.
In my youth, Alf Holland was a big wheel in this town, a leading motor-dealer at a time when the motor car attracted more reverence than it does nowadays; when to present new Holden cars to the Australian public, especially if you featured prominently in your own television commercials with the release of each year’s model, was as estimable a social position as being a chef, racehorse trainer or hairdresser is today.
In the heyday of Alf Holland Motors he was ubiquitous: president of the local Chamber of Commerce and a member of every sporting club, charity and Catholic Church committee in town. He wore bow ties, proper ones, which in itself was almost enough to make him a public figure back then, and he spoke in a lazy semi-American drawl, with constant references to General Motors, that mythical country whose empire he served so diligently.
At his most celebrated stage he made the front page of the local paper, the Northern Sun, by brazenly swapping our sunny coastal shores one Christmas for the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado. Another time he made the paper by learning to sail ocean racers and then entering the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. But mostly Alf Holland was pictured shaking hands with a nun or a boy scout or a lifesaver or someone in a wheelchair while handing over an outsized cardboard cheque for thousands of well-publicised dollars. Those were the halcyon days for the Holland family.
I went to St. Joseph’s with his sons, Alan and Greg. It would be hard to imagine two more different personalities or physical types than those brothers. Greg, the elder by two years, was a handsome muscular boy, a star athlete, football captain and, to any observer of the family, his father’s favourite. Alan was my age, short, chubby and scholarly, usually top of our class, and a mother’s boy barely tolerated by his older brother. Alan was late to mature, whatever that condition is called, and with his smooth pink cheeks and unbroken voice he was still being called on to play female roles in our school plays at the age of sixteen.
Fortunately for Alan, bullies tempered their worst attacks on account of Greg being his older brother – not that retribution would necessarily have followed; Greg seemed to ignore his existence. Of course Alan was regularly taunted. But somehow, through brains and guile, he prevailed at this tough, sporty, all-boys school. I remember we other sixteen-year-olds sniggering at his pure high voice in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, just as I recall him bringing notes from his mother about ‘glandular problems’ to excuse him from cadet camps and sport – and, presumably, from the humiliation of the showers and the change rooms.
Greg’s sporting ability heralded a big future. As they always do, the football-crazy Christian Brothers advocated a stellar league career, but track-and-field and cricket fame were also possibilities. It was just a matter of him deciding which sport to favour with his attention. Unfortunately, as well as strength, speed and superlative hand-eye coordination, Greg had a sulky disposition, little conscience, a short attention span, and a late-night girl habit on the eve of exams and big sporting events. Maybe the temperament and the athletic ability went hand in hand. But even from my vantage point two classes below (and most younger boys hero-worshipped him), his high opinion of himself, the impression he gave that he’d already made it to the top, seemed premature.
On leaving school, bankrolled by Alf, he travelled overseas for a year to surf and ski at various famous locales. Once back home again, however, while he continued to seduce the d
istrict’s best-looking girls as if he were checking off a list, he had trouble settling into steady employment. University was out of the question. Similarly, as his night-life blossomed he showed little inclination to train hard enough for serious sporting success. Like many men before him, he seemed destined to leave his athletic brilliance behind on the school playing field. Much of the town, however, still regarded him as a glamorous figure. Boys respected him for his natural ability, his way with women, his knockabout nature. And while condemning the stupidity of any girl who got involved with him, most young women who gossiped about Greg Holland’s dreadful exploits did so with a trace of wistful envy.
Increasingly, though, as he passed through his twenties and entered his thirties, he still gave everyone the impression that the world owed him a living and that the world wasn’t accepting this proposition with sufficient speed and enthusiasm. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t already had an armchair ride. Through his father’s influence, many jobs were offered. Over the years Greg dabbled in luxury-boat sales, real-estate development and motel management. He was lucky to live in a benign coastal town where all that really mattered was that you grew up there. And if your parents and grandparents had, too – well, as long as you were easygoing and turned up at the office, you could make money and be successful. And his family had been settled there for three generations.
But Greg stretched the usual tolerance of the town business network to breaking point. He was energetically shiftless. He’d fail to turn up at work for a week at a time, or crash the company car while drink-driving. After lunch he would prowl the office, red-faced and explosive, teasing the juniors and sexually propositioning female colleagues. There was some trouble with company credit cards that was difficult to smooth over, and a notorious late-night incident on top of the billiard table at the Services Club with the club treasurer’s seventeen-year-old daughter. After that, Greg’s second wife left him and they had to replace the baize.
Everyone had a scandalous Greg Holland anecdote. Then, when he was forty-two, he met a nineteen-year-old swimsuit model named Shauna, a flirtatious package with exquisitely defined features and a taste for expensive weekends on the Gold Coast. Greg cut back on the beer, joined a gym to try to regain his sportsman’s physique, and had his chest waxed. For Shauna he was happy to endure pain; he even had his tattoos altered and embellished. Shauna’s name, inscribed within a rainbow arching between his right and left scapula, now brought the earlier panther and great white shark harmoniously together. Greg’s shoulder blades told the world he was in love.
Was it inevitable that Greg, drugs and easy money would eventually come together? His own adolescence had preceded the era of dance-party drugs and, anyway, drugs generally had never been to his taste. But Shauna introduced him to certain people. He’d do anything for her, and the money was good. Before long, Greg was doing the Gold Coast run three times a week and was known around the coastal pubs and clubs as GoodHorse Greg.
Interestingly, he was never a user himself. When caught selling three grams of heroin to a Surfers Paradise cop who was dressed, unsurprisingly, as a surfer, he was shocked to discover that being a cleanskin didn’t impress the law. Indeed, not being a pathetic junkie who was forced to deal drugs to support his own habit made things worse. The court made an example of GoodHorse Greg, the lowest link in the east coast heroin chain, fined him $5000 and sent him to prison for two years.
Alf paid the fine. Obviously he was shattered by Greg’s crime and punishment. For the first time in his life he began to publicly question whether he had failed in his paternal role. With some reservations (he was a widower now, retired and seventy-two years old), Alf agreed to Greg’s plea to look after Shauna. Before long, to the astonishment of his old and equally hirsute cronies at the surf club, Alf experienced his first chest, back and shoulder waxing, started attending the gym every morning, and began singing the praises of Viagra. He also sported a pearl stud in his left earlobe, the earlobe that announced that, yes, Alf Holland was a heterosexual stud himself, and in love. Expensively so.
That had the whole town talking, too. As did the melange of misgivings that Alf faced on his son’s release on parole eighteen months later. In the interim, Alf’s life had dramatically changed. The Shauna question loomed uncomfortably ahead. What to say to Greg? Indeed, what to say to Shauna? What to expect? Shauna settled the question herself by announcing she ‘needed time to think’. To help clarify her thoughts she moved in with Hans, a twenty-four-year-old professional waterskier at Sea World. ‘It’s OK,’ she mollified her elderly mentor. ‘Hans is gay.’
Father and son were uneasily reunited. To each, the other had changed in discomfiting ways, but Alf organised a big welcome-home party for his son aboard his cruiser on the Brunswick River. Later, the party would be painstakingly discussed. Witnesses’ reports had to be gathered for the coroner. People said Shauna’s laughter seemed brittle, there were confusing undercurrents on deck, raised voices below deck, and various combinations of guests exchanging meaningful or questioning glances. But the champagne flowed and an expensive caterer from Byron Bay served delicacies as far removed from prison food as possible. (No, definitely no drugs. Of course no drugs were on offer or evident on board. This was Alf Holland’s party. Formerly of Alf Holland Motors.) At dusk, Alf anchored below the traffic bridge so if anyone wished they could cool off.
The suggestion was generally unappealing. The river was running red and frothy after weeks of rain on the volcanic soils of the ranges. For the possibility of reckless physical display, however, all heads still turned towards Greg Holland – and he didn’t disappoint them. Eighteen months on a prison diet had thinned him down. He seemed keen to show everyone, especially Shauna, that he was the lithe sporting hero once more – and that he was back.
Greg climbed on to the roof of the wheelhouse, the highest point of the boat, and, to general cheers, dived into the loamy water. With the tide’s assistance, he swam to the sandbank in the middle of the river and, without pausing for a breather, turned around. But now the currents were against him. The harder he swam, the further away the boat seemed. The murky currents swirled and tugged, and the unaccustomed champagne and his lack of stamina began to tell. He swallowed a mouthful of dirty water and began coughing. As the tide was pulling him towards the river mouth and the open sea, there was music playing on board and Shauna was on deck in her bikini, dancing and laughing, and he threshed even harder. It was then that GoodHorse Greg’s heart gave out.
All this was the talk of the town at the time, five or six years ago. Such was Greg’s notoriety and Alf’s former community standing that people hardly thought of Alan Holland, or connected him to the Hollands’ troubles. As I discovered at a Christmas party down the coast last year, this was partly because he’d long since shunned the family and changed his name.
Knowing few people at this party in another town, I had introduced myself to a group of people about my age. Successful-looking ex-hippies, most of them: Prometheus, Willow Wand, Aquamarina and Colin. Prometheus and Willow Wand looked like a couple, and the way Aquamarina and Colin were stroking each other’s arms it appeared they soon might be.
As we exchanged names, Colin remarked to Willow Wand that, sorry, babe, but he still saw her as Sunflower, her former name. By this time I was feeling pretty stodgy in the name department, although Colin was some consolation, his yellow satin pantaloons notwithstanding. During these vaguely uncomfortable introductions, I noticed that Prometheus was very quiet, with an edgy air about him. He’d frowned when we shook hands, as if anticipating some sort of crack about his name, and soon he and Willow Wand had sloped off into the garden.
Aquamarina shrugged. ‘Well, we tried,’ she said to Colin.
Colin nodded. ‘I’m worried about Prometheus, babe.’ But he didn’t look upset enough to cease fondling her.
Just to make conversation, I inquired, ‘Is your friend OK then?’ I’d stayed deadpan during the introductions but I couldn’t trust myself t
o say ‘Prometheus’ without smiling.
‘Not really,’ Aquamarina answered. ‘They won’t leave him alone.’
‘They?’ I said.
‘It’s not important,’ said Colin. ‘Excuse us.’ And he led Aquamarina away towards a large hammock in a jacaranda.
I sneaked a glance at the other couple, now in solemn conversation under a Moreton Bay fig at the edge of the party. Subtract the ponytail and the flowing garments, and Prometheus could have been an earnest Sunshine Coast accountant. Indeed, I realised that his eyes and manner reminded me of someone I used to know. There was the resemblance to Alf, but the put-upon frown was the giveaway. Perhaps I’d even been one of his tormentors years ago. Prometheus was no longer short and pudgy and rosy-cheeked, but tall and gaunt. Alan Holland had taken on quite a responsibility with that name.
An hour later I caught up with a tousled-looking Aquamarina while Colin was fetching drinks. She had shiny eyes, an uneven and rather fetching smile, and a keen interest in native American shamanic beliefs that she was eager to share. She recommended books to me by the authors Wolf Moon-dance and Sky Starhawk. I wrote the names down. Then I abruptly changed the subject: ‘I used to know Prometheus when we were boys at St. Joseph’s.’ I still had trouble keeping a straight face. ‘He’s changed,’ I added, unnecessarily.
‘Everyone changes,’ she said, and paused for that to sink in. She gazed around the party as if to check that our conversation wasn’t being overheard. ‘Some people haven’t forgiven him for running off with Willow Wand. Their affair broke up two long-standing relationships. Of course he was Vulcan in those days, and she was still Sunflower. They changed their names for their new life together.’
‘Vulcan. More fiery stuff,’ I said. I was having trouble imagining Alan, the class brain, straying from a conservative career in the law or medicine, much less little fat boy-soprano Alan having a fiery love life. ‘He seems to be sticking close to a theme.’