My mother was unconvinced. ‘I think it’s more likely that they’ve argued over something.’
The worst part of continuing to meet Roy at the gaol was having to ride past Lou’s house to get there. Once I’d passed her house, I kept glancing back all the way there to make sure she wasn’t following.
But despite my anxiety and guilt, there was never any doubt that I would meet Roy. Especially once he’d introduced me to my own orgasm. I wanted him to show me how it was accomplished. I had tried at home without the same spectacular result. I wore my cow’s tail, the next time, tucked under my cap. Roy didn’t even seem to notice my ‘hair’. At least, he didn’t remark on it. But it was so dark and he was intent on other things. After a few minutes I tugged the tail out from beneath my cap and let it drop to the floor. I didn’t want him to be startled and interrupt what we’d begun if his fingers happened to brush upon it. An explanation would’ve been awkward. I was no longer sure why I’d even worn it. Suddenly it seemed a childish prank.
‘Can you do what you did to me last week?’ I whispered in his ear.
He said nothing but his hand gripped me with authority.
Afterwards, when we’d finished and he was dressed, about to walk out the door, for no reason, he turned back to face me. ‘I’m too young to shave,’ he said plaintively. ‘Thirteen is too young to shave.’
I said nothing. I didn’t want to encourage him to linger and chat, even though the topic of his facial hair was one that the entire school was obsessed by. Arch reckoned that if he didn’t start shaving soon he’d end up with whiskers like Santa Claus. The Hammer brothers were always hiding disposable razors where Roy would come across them: in his desk, in his school bag, in the pocket of his parka that hung out in the cloakroom. Yet Roy managed to ignore all these subtle hints and the more blatant enquiries and insults.
‘When you gunna shave your mo off?’ Arch had finally demanded one day.
Roy simply looked through him as if he hadn’t heard the question.
That afternoon was the first time I’d known Roy to even admit knowledge of his moustache. It was a rare moment. His hand was on the door knob as he shyly turned back towards me, mumbling a little as he spoke. His vulnerability demanded a sensitive response, but I failed to recognise that. I said nothing. I stared at the dirt floor, wishing him gone. Roy hesitated, pulled the door open and I felt a rush of relief that he was leaving. Yet he continued to linger. He stood there, framed in the doorway, his profile spotlighted by the afternoon sun. The hairs above his lip glittered in the sun. They had never seemed more prominent. A shiver of revulsion flickered through me. It was too dark for Roy to see my expression, but he may not have needed to. For suddenly he was gone, slamming the door after himself. I was surprised he slammed the door. We were supposed to be discreet. Not draw attention to ourselves. Anyone could be about. Quickly I slipped my clothes back on.
Walking up to reclaim my bike, I felt a pang of guilt. It wouldn’t have cost me anything to spare him some kind words. Even if I didn’t mean them. Five minutes earlier, as we’d strained against one another, I felt as if I would’ve done anything for him. It intrigued me that my feelings towards him could sway so greatly. But then, in the dark, when we were touching one another, it wasn’t as if I was touching Roy. My mind was filled with the faces of other more handsome boys. That vivid glimpse of his face as he left cruelly reinforced the fact that it was only Roy I’d been with. Roy Schluter. Roy the freak. Roy who was far too hairy, much too young. The thought disgusted me. I told myself that I’d never come to the gaol again.
But that was a resolution I’d made and broken many times before. I always felt that way afterwards. Early in the week it was easy enough to maintain my resolve. When I saw Roy at school, the sight of him repulsed me. I felt ashamed at what we did together. But by the time Thursday and Friday came round, Roy’s blank stares had become highly suggestive. My resistance crumbled. I couldn’t deny myself. I would get hard on and off all day Friday, just knowing what the next day meant.
Those encounters with Roy never developed into a friendship. I told him that we should avoid each other at school, so that no one would ever suspect us, and he agreed. That was partly true. I did occasionally feel guilty about the illicit nature of what we were doing, and nervous of being found out. But those fears also added to the thrill of our meetings. It had to be managed so sneakily, so stealthily. It had the elements of an adventure about it, like the ones in my books and on television, adventures that never materialised in real life.
My real reasons for resisting a friendship with Roy were complex. He provoked such contradictory feelings in me. I found him both repellent and alluring. I loathed how adolescence was ravaging his face, yet I was fascinated by how it had transformed what he had between his legs. I found him physically unattractive, yet in the dark would do intimate things with him. Most telling of all, I noticed physical changes in Roy that I wished I hadn’t. Roy was a symbol of my own fate. A reminder that puberty lurked on my horizon. Inevitably, it would claim me and render a cruel metamorphosis upon me too. The awful truth, the truth I couldn’t bear to contemplate, was that I feared it had already begun.
Riding home from the gaol, these confusing feelings swirling around in me, I came upon Lou and Babe, doubling on Uncle Arthur’s black mare. I stopped and dismounted from my bike, and held up my hand in greeting. But as soon as she saw me, Lou kicked the horse up into a canter and they flashed past me, without any greeting, without even a glance from up high. I ambled home half-heartedly, pushing my bike. There was nothing for me there except chores and more chores that I now had to do on my own.
That night I felt devastated. Ready to say anything, fulfil whatever penance Lou demanded of me. But the next day, everything changed.
I fell in love.
To be continued…
50 Ways of Saying Fabulous
Book 2
By Graeme Aitken
‘A funny but also achingly sad first novel.’ OBSERVER
Download from your favourite retailer.
Billy-Boy has always loathed farm chores, until his father employs Jamie, a sexy farm worker, for the summer. Suddenly Billy has not just a work mate but a buddy, who is cheerful and enthusiastic company. Being with Jamie completely eclipses the burden of the chores. They even become a pleasure. After all Jamie looks like David Cassidy and likes to work shirtless!
But Billy’s idyll with Jamie proves all too brief as other people intrude and interfere. Belinda Pepper, the most notorious girl in the entire district, utterly enthrals him with her wicked ways. Then Lou, Billy’s estranged cousin, discovers Jamie and goes all-out to win him away from Billy for herself.
But Billy is not the only one who feels lonely, jealous and frustrated…
With something illicit growing in an abandoned toilet, clandestine goings-on down at the old gaol, a bloody murder, and a theatrical finale with a dozen costume changes, Billy-Boy’s life is even more dramatic than his favourite TV show Lost in Space.
Praise for 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous:
‘ If I knew fifty ways of saying fabulous, I’d use them all to praise this charming first novel.’ EDMUND WHITE
‘It has the fast-running clarity of a good yarn, yet this is a fresh telling of the story of a gay awakening. Infinitely real … grotesque and funny and moving by turns.’ PETER WELLS
‘A wonderful cast of characters, lovingly drawn and lightened with the right dash of maliciousness … Aitken manages to make something extraordinary out of the ordinary … (and) shows so much skill and gives so much pleasure.’ CAMPAIGN
‘50 Ways of Saying Fabulous is an honest, funny and sometimes painful read. Confidently and convincingly written, it is a welcome addition to the gay coming of age genre; the collection of works in which we see ourselves reflected and refracted, and find fifty ways of saying “me”.’ MELBOURNE STAR OBSERVER
‘… one of the very best novels released this year. Witty, warm and or
iginal.’ CLEO
‘… a secret and magic story which is grotesque and infinitely funny … a zany book, highly entertaining, and with enough twists and turns to keep you glued to the end … 50 Ways is fabulous, whichever way you say it.’ BARFLY
Download from your favourite retailer.
50 Ways of Saying Fabulous: From Manuscript to Movie
50 WAYS OF SAYING FABULOUS: From Manuscript to Movie
By Graeme Aitken
The film, 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous, is based upon my first novel which was published in 1995. Developing the project and raising the money to get the film made was a very long and sometimes frustrating process. Ultimately, it took ten years and there were plenty of disappointments and setbacks over that time. I was extremely fortunate that producer Michele Fantl and writer/director Stewart Main didn’t give up on bringing 50 Ways to the screen. Though to start the story of this gestation from book to film at the very beginning really means going back to how the book came to be published. That, in itself, was no mean feat.
When an unknown writer submits an unsolicited novel to a publisher, it’s consigned to what’s known as ‘the slush pile’. This unappealing term refers to the manuscripts that don’t come with the endorsement of a literary agent, but have been sent in by would-be authors along with their best hopes and dreams. It was quite rare back then in 1994 for an unsolicited manuscript to end up being published. Obviously, a manuscript needs to be of a publishable standard and commercially viable, but also to possess that elusive quality which captures the imagination of a commissioning editor. Occasionally, magically, everything falls into place and this is what happened with my book. I had a manuscript that was a contender, but I was also determined enough to keep persisting despite numerous rejections. Still, I don’t discount the importance of timing and luck. Both were integral to 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous finally being published.
I wrote 50 Ways over a period of a year by getting up at 6am and working on it before I started my day job at 10am. Sometimes, I’d grab some time on weekends and evenings. My self-imposed deadline was to have the novel finished in time to enter in the first novel competition run by Reed Books in New Zealand. I was living in Sydney, but had grown up in New Zealand, where the book was set. I work well to deadlines and it was helpful to be working with something concrete in mind, rather than just the vague hope that someone might publish what I was writing one day.
I entered the competition and to my enormous delight, in early 1993, I was advised that my book was one of five shortlisted titles. I didn’t end up winning but nevertheless it was still very encouraging. The publisher, Ian Watt, expressed a strong interest in the book, but declined to publish it as he was already committed to several other gay-themed books. I didn’t have an agent, so I submitted the manuscript to publishers myself, knowing that it was destined for the dreaded slush pile. But it helped that my book had been shortlisted for the Reed competition as that indicated a certain quality and meant the manuscript was looked at more quickly than it would have been otherwise. I’d been working for several years as a bookshop manager by then so I knew the Australian industry: in particular which publishers had previously published gay-themed work. Some of the sales reps who called on me were also very helpful and gave me tips and leads.
Though the first response I received wasn’t encouraging. A publisher at a major house (who I’d considered my ‘best bet’) read it extremely promptly, within a week, but rejected it with a very firm no. His view was that the book was written ‘out of a repressed adolescence’ and should be put in a drawer and forgotten. He suggested I write about issues that were relevant to contemporary relationships, not where we were twenty years ago. Thankfully, other publishers were more encouraging. To my surprise, Pan MacMillan, who I’d thought an unlikely prospect were the most enthusiastic. I had only sent it there due to the encouragement of my sales rep. The book went through to a final acquisitions meeting but was ultimately rejected as the editors who liked it couldn’t convince their colleagues. My consolation was that BlackWattle Press, the small Australian gay and lesbian press, who had published my short stories, were keen.
Submitting the book had also provided me with some very useful feedback. I’d received some very detailed reader’s reports and I set to work fixing the problems that had been pointed out or that I had realised myself. I also employed a freelance editor to work on the manuscript so that I could polish it to the highest possible standard. Then my break came: I read in the newspaper that Jane Palfreyman, the editor who had liked my book at Pan MacMillan, had been headhunted and promoted to publisher at Random House. She had the brief of creating an Australian fiction list. I wrote her a letter of congratulations and asked if she would reconsider the revised manuscript. She promptly replied that she would and after a month or so, Random House made an offer. This was incredibly exciting, though there was one problem: it meant withdrawing the book from BlackWattle Press. While Jane had been considering the book, they had firmed up their interest and we’d even had an initial meeting. But there was no contract, and though I felt terrible to be letting the publisher down who had been so supportive of me in the past, the Random House offer was simply too big an opportunity to say no to.
I was similarly lucky in placing my novel in the UK with a publisher who was developing a new list. The novel was in its final stages of being prepared for Australian publication when I met the British author Paul Bailey. We were hosting an author event for him at the bookshop where I worked and I asked him if he could recommend an agent in the UK. He wasn’t prepared to put it forward to his own agent without taking a look at the book himself. He valiantly read it, liked it enough to give me his agent’s details and also suggested I send it to his friend Geraldine Cooke who was the publisher at Review, a new list at Headline Publishing. Geraldine ended up buying the book, though she confessed that the reason she had picked it up in the first place to take home with her to read was because the Random House proof fitted inside her handbag!
As I was a debut novelist and unknown, my publishers were keen for me to obtain a couple of quotes from established writers that they could use to promote the book. The American writer Edmund White was touring Australia around this time and was also published by Random House, so I asked him for a blurb which he kindly provided. I also approached Peter Wells, New Zealand’s leading writer of gay-themed fiction who I had met before. He also wrote me a very complimentary quote.
Then in the month of publication, Peter got back in touch to say that he thought the book would make a good film and that he was interested in the film rights. He saw it as a continuum of the films he and his partner Stewart Main had made about childhood and sexuality (Little Queen, My First Suit). I was delighted and flattered. From my point-of-view they were the absolute perfect people to make a film of 50 Ways. I had loved their films, in particular A Death in the Family and their feature Desperate Remedies which had been made on a tiny budget but looked sumptuous.
The contract for the film rights was negotiated and signed late in 1995. The film enjoyed the support of the NZ Film Commission early on, and over the next couple of years Peter wrote several different screenplay versions. By early 1998, things seemed on track. The screenplay and project were very highly regarded at the NZ Film Commission and there was even overseas interest. We were under the impression that the Film Commission had funding earmarked to make the film. Then, their attitude changed. Possibly, this related to a change of members on the board who made the decisions and didn’t know the history of the project. Whatever the reasons, the film fell out of favour and communication with the Commission also dried up for a period. Peter was particularly disappointed by this. He had concentrated on the film at the expense of his fiction and prose writing, and he felt disillusioned by the film medium. He decided to move onto other non-film projects. Luckily for me, producer Michele Fantl remained committed to getting the film made. Stewart also reconsidered the project and decided that he would persevere, take a m
ore central role and write a new screenplay himself. The tricky process of winning support from the NZ Film Commission began all over again.
There was never any talk of me being involved in writing the screenplay and that suited me. I had never written for film and it was a completely different medium. But I also felt that it was best to be somewhat removed from the process. A fresh, experienced eye would be better equipped to decide what belonged and would work in the film. I also had my own new writing projects to pursue. Peter Wells wrote the early versions of the screenplay. I admired his fiction and had complete confidence in what he would do with my book. I was asked to consult on his various screenplays and answer the occasional question – usually on some farming issue where I would refer to the expertise of my family. I was happy with this level of involvement.
Once Stewart took over the writing duties, I began to contribute more than I had in the past. He was interested in my feedback and I provided very detailed notes on his screenplays. I always approached this task trying to be as open and accepting as possible of Stewart’s vision and ideas. The only issue that I felt extremely strongly about was when the screenplay called for a character to be killed off. One thing I always liked about the novel was that it was a gentle story, and although there was ‘a murder’ in it, the victim was a bull. On a farm, the death of a farm animal is somewhat commonplace. However, for film a murdered bull did not deliver the necessary dramatic tension and various readers of the screenplay were pushing for something bigger. This resulted in a rewrite that went a little too far in ‘the action stakes’ in my view. The climactic scene where Roy comes to the farmhouse during the fire had Billy, Lou and Roy all wielding shotguns and firing them. Roy later accidentally shot himself. I really objected to my young characters toting guns and was uneasy about Roy’s death. But when I expressed my view, Stewart was very responsive. He amended the screenplay, softening the action and permitting Roy to live.
50 Ways of Saying Fabulous Book 1 20th Anniversary Edition Page 13