by Gary Crew
Lewis Carroll fared little better. I don’t care if nineteenth-century Victorian England did harbour ‘the age of innocence’, I wouldn’t allow a grown man who got his rocks off photographing naked girls to take my kid for a punt on the river, even if she did grow up to be Alice in Wonderland. Cohen’s Lewis Carroll A Biography featured page after page of naked girls, all of whom had been photographed by Carroll (alone in his study!), or Dodgson, I should say, his curiously conservative alter ego. As Cohen notes, here was a man who annotated his diary with the line, ‘I mark this day with a white stone’ every time he met a new model. And yet, Carroll looked so cute with his page-boy haircut and his bow tie. Shades of Sebastian Chanteleer, I shouldn’t wonder, as Lootie had no doubt observed.
For all of his mawkish effeminacy, Andersen was the one who got me in. Yes, he was physically repulsive; yes, he was socially ingratiating, and yes he needed his ego stroked daily, if not hourly (if not more), but for all of his failings as a human being, Andersen’s writing demonstrated the most honest portrayal of humanity in the work of all three children’s writers. Labelled as a teller of fairy tales, whereas the others are not, what struck me most about Andersen was the darkness in his stories: people die, people are executed—and the fact that he so rarely referred to children. Barrie’s children’s story (since there is really only one, that being Peter Pan) is teeming with lost boys and little Darlings, while Carroll’s work boasts Alice in her pristine pinny, the epitome of upper-class Victorian childhood. But Andersen used ducks, and tin soldiers, and mermaids, and old ladies, and murderous dogs, and witches—children hardly enter into them. I wondered if he respected kids too much to condescend to them. That he was saying, ‘Listen kids, you’re not the centre of the universe. Life happens to adults too and you had better get used to that.’ It was not for Andersen to state, ‘Nothing much happens after the age of twelve,’ as Barrie so rashly declared, or like Carroll, to go into raptures over every little girl he happened upon half-naked at the beach.
One chapter in Wullschlager’s Hans Christian Andersen The Life of a Storyteller, entitled ‘The Shadow,’ struck me more than the others. As I read, I thought again of Dickens, and coincidence, and why Lootie had put these books here, and why I had seen my reflection among the books that morning, and my shadow walking in the park that afternoon. And here I was reading about shadows, and other selves, and doppelgängers, and I thought of that stooped and simian Charlie Bloome who had walked beside me, and I wondered who I might become.
Might I come out ‘in full maturity’, as the shadow of the learned man in Andersen’s tale? Or might I cower and crawl away, my monkey suit at the ready, to hide beneath my mother’s bed? Or worse, in it?
Filled with these ideas, I put the books to one side, and late as it was, decided to write. A children’s story, you know, such as these men had done. But I had only drawn some circles, doodles if you like, golden soy sauce chains if you prefer, when I heard Lootie at the front door, and gave up.
16
Considering that Chanteleer might actually employ Lootie, I tried to keep with what was happening. To learn if anything had come of his promises. (His suggestions, at least.)
‘Where will you be working?’ I asked and, ‘When will he confirm the offer?’
Lootie had no answers. Nothing satisfactory. No details, anyway.
‘Sebastian’s working it out,’ she sometimes said, or ‘He has to give the other girl notice,’ or ‘We have to be patient.’
Circumstances mitigated against patience. Given that Lootie had withdrawn from Education and failed to enrol in another discipline, her student allowance had been cancelled leaving her no income. Worse, she was going out more, and for the first time spending money on clothes and cosmetics. She made no attempt to disguise this (it would have been impossible to do so), besides there were no secrets now, according to her.
But any man can see when his girl is dressed up, and apart from the cost (on my miserable income) the thing that bothered me most was the way Lootie took me for granted—like, didn’t she think I ever wondered who she was getting dressed up for, and why? The ‘who’ was easy—Chanteleer—she met him every other day, but the ‘why’ had me bamboozled.
‘Lootie,’ I said, ‘how come you’re getting dressed up all of a sudden?’
‘Dressed up?’ She turned in front of the wardrobe mirror to check her hem. ‘How do you mean, “dressed up”?’
I hated this crap. She knew exactly what I meant. All she was doing was buying time to frame an answer. ‘That skirt is new. And those shoes. And you never used to wear make-up.’
‘I want to impress Sebastian,’ she said. ‘He’s not going to employ some hag, is he?’
‘You? A hag?’ I laughed. ‘You’re crazy. Besides, you looked good enough for him to make the offer, didn’t you?’
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘but he hasn’t confirmed it, has he?’
‘You’re missing my point. When you were my Lootie, and not wearing make-up and not dressing to the nines every day, didn’t he think you were pretty good? You told me how he listened to your ideas. How he respected you. So how come you think he’s going to respect you more by dressing like this?’
‘You saw the way Eve presented herself,’ she said, ‘all shoulder pads and make-up. That’s what he wants, a business woman.’
‘So how come she’s been sacked?’
‘Because she stuffed up,’ she said, turning to me, her hands on her hips. ‘Because she didn’t know how to manage him.’
I had to smile. ‘Manage him?’ I repeated. ‘Manage Sebastian Chanteleer? And you do?’
‘We have an understanding.’
‘An understanding?’
‘We relate.’
‘Sorry?’
‘He needs me to help him. And I want to. Okay?’
‘He needs you?’ I said, trying very hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, ‘This internationally acclaimed writer needs you? What? To get him established? To lick his stamps? To sharpen his pencils?’
‘You just have to put me down, don’t you? So long as I was being a nice little school teacher, a proper little Jane Eyre, everything was all right between us, wasn’t it? But the minute I want to do something for myself, to have a go at being an individual, I threaten you. That’s the truth, isn’t it?’
She was worked up now, getting more and more unreasonable by the minute.‘You know you’re problem, Charlie?’ she demanded. ‘The only woman you could ever relate to was your mother. The needy invalid. That’s who you want me to be. Your mother!’
‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘You’re going too far.’
‘Well it’s true,’ she fired back. ‘Sebastian has faith in me. That’s all that matters.’
‘And that compensates for your lack of experience, qualifications, and any knowledge whatsoever of the publishing industry?’
‘You know, Charlie,’ she said. ‘Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this is simpler than I thought. Maybe you’re just jealous. Plain old-fashioned jealous. Yes, that’s what you are. Jealous of what Sebastian has achieved.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be jealous?’ I wanted to know. ‘He’s a famous writer and he’s going out with my girlfriend. I’d be jealous of him on either account.’
I guess this was too honest for her. She made a face and turned back to the mirror.
‘Lootie,’ I said, ‘I love you. I love you as you are. For who you are. You know that. I’m not even sure that I want to know this new person. Sebastian might, but he doesn’t live with you. He doesn’t love you. Does he?’
‘Now you’re being silly,’ she said. ‘Can’t we just drop this? It’s getting tedious.’
‘It’s paying the bills that’s getting tedious,’ I said. ‘You know how little I earn. And now there’s all this dressing up la-di-dah and the eating out. It’s not like I’m paying for the odd coffee. You’re running up bills for meals. Lunches. If Sebastian’s going to be your boss, shouldn’t he be paying?’
&
nbsp; ‘How can you accuse me of wasting money?’ she demanded. ‘You’re the one who sits outside every night guzzling wine. And all those beers while you’re watching TV. How about you explain that?’
‘So I like a drink,’ I admitted, ‘but I work.’
‘So riding a pushbike leads you to drink. Is that what you’re telling me?’
I shrugged. ‘So, I’ve got some issues, okay?’
‘Okay if you’re an alcoholic,’ she sneered.
How dumb was I? How could I let her turn this episode from her buying Chanteleer’s lunch to my being an alcoholic?
‘Lootie,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to turn this into World War Three. All I’m saying is, I can’t afford this lifestyle. Our income is based on my part-time job riding a pushbike and a shitty uni allowance. You know that.’
‘Right then,’ she said, ‘I’ll get a job.’
‘But you’re getting a job. You just told me that.’
She bit her lip. ‘Okay, okay. The truth is, there’s been a stuff-up. My appointment isn’t entirely in Sebastian’s hands. He would put me on tomorrow, I know that, but apparently Eve had some sort of contract that has a few weeks to run. And Sebastian can’t confirm my job until that’s all settled. So…’
‘So you won’t be seeing any income for months. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Not unless I find casual work myself, no.’
‘Lootie,’ I began, but she put her hand over my mouth.
‘Don’t worry about it, Charlie,’ she said, ‘I’ll find a job. Waitressing or something. We’ll make ends meet.’
Why did Charlie Bloome, so newly formed as a man, feel that he was being taken for a fool?
Since I rode through the city two days a week, I made it my business to stop at one of the big bookshops. I chained my bike to a post and was just about to go inside, when I remembered that I was wearing my Spandex bike pants. I stopped on the footpath, thinking, I couldn’t go into a bookshop wearing Spandex, especially not to the children’s section. What would the shop assistant think? And what if there were kids there? The thought occurred to me that maybe I should nick into a menswear shop and buy some ordinary shorts to pull over the Spandex, or maybe a pair of jeans. And then I thought of the money lecture that I had given Lootie (ironically about buying clothes) and decided to have a coffee and a think about things.
I ordered a mocha with toffee and a jam doughnut. Charlie Bloome and I needed to talk.
Here was an issue. Was there something sacrosanct about childhood? Or was there something sacrosanct about books? Or was there something especially sacrosanct about children’s books? In short, how come I could walk into a coffee shop wearing Spandex and not a bookshop? Especially the children’s section of a bookshop?
Charlie Bloome attempted an answer: Coffee shops are used to walk-in street trade, he explained. They take all comers, no questions asked. Bookshops like to put on the dog a bit, cultivating a certain intellectual ambience: big name titles, money, quiet.
So, I wanted to know, would it be socially acceptable for me to have walked into the bookshop to buy an adult title wearing Spandex?
Charlie Bloome considered this, and thought that the answer was yes, provided the title purchased was by a popular potboiler author. Nonetheless, Charlie harboured doubts that it would be appropriate to buy an adult literary title wearing Spandex, although it could be done if that title were being sold from a dump bin at the front of the store.
But buying children’s books wearing Spandex?
Charlie had his doubts. There were protocols to be observed. In the twentieth century, he argued, childhood had become a peculiar space. Once, he said, according to Philippe Aries, children had been treated as no more and no less than young human beings, which is what they were. Living in huts and cottages under the crowded circumstances of the nuclear family, children had experienced the life of the adult from conception, to birth, to death. Nothing was hidden. Nothing was too adult. But during the nineteenth century, especially in the Western world, childhood had been constructed as a life apart, a special time, imbued with the attributes of innocence and imagination which were not necessarily proven. And so, he suggested, out of respect for these protocols (rather than a belief in them), it was probably not a good idea to go into the children’s section of a bookshop wearing Spandex.
I was beginning to enjoy the idea of argument, and given that I needed to brush up my skills in handling my confrontations with Lootie, I put the case that when I went to the local swimming baths, I often saw fathers wearing Speedos (far less modest than Spandex) playing with their kids—and nobody was remotely intimidated.
But, Charlie Bloome reasoned, the children’s section of a bookshop is not a swimming pool. Would a mother wearing a bikini go into the children’s section of a bookshop? Would any woman wearing a bikini go into any section of a bookshop?
I accepted Charlie’s argument (he had grown so much) and finished my coffee. I then nicked into Woolworths and bought a pair of elastic-waisted shorts. Since they were cheap, and I could wear them around the house, I didn’t feel that I had compromised my stance in any argument with Lootie over the cost of clothing.
I admit however, that when I entered the children’s section of the bookshop I would have been more comfortable wearing a bow tie, long trousers and brogues (would that make me Sebastian Chanteleer?), but the shorts were an arguable concession.
Not wanting to spend too much time nosing around (I was on work time), I took a quick look on the shelves for Chanteleer’s titles. Finding none, I asked at the counter.
‘Sebastian who?’ the sales assistant wanted to know.
I enunciated more clearly.
‘Never heard of him,’ he said.
‘Could you check please?’ I asked.
Begrudgingly, he checked. ‘Not coming up on the screen,’ he grunted.
‘Sebastian Chanteleer is one of the world’s most acclaimed children’s writers,’ I assured him. ‘Someone must know.’
‘Shop!’ the assistant called, rolling his eyes in my direction meaning, The dick in the shorts wants something we haven’t got. A middle-aged man came over, white shirt, grey tie, polished black shoes. ‘I’m Col,’ he said, ‘the manager. Can I help?’
‘I was wondering if you had anything by Sebastian Chanteleer in stock?’
Col thought for a minute then indicated to the assistant that he could waste somebody else’s time. ‘Chanteleer, eh?’ he said. ‘To tell you the truth, nobody has asked for his stuff in years.’
‘Sorry?’ I said, disbelieving.
Col shrugged. ‘Authors go out of fashion. I’ll take a look out the back. You might be lucky,’ and he disappeared.
I hung about for a bit, idly looking at covers, until Col returned.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘This is the best I can do,’ and he held out some book marks. ‘These were part of the promo package for the Aryon trilogy a few years ago. His publishers did a sort of Chanteleer retrospective. Are you a fan?’
I took the cardboard book marks and gave them a glance. Elements of their design were much the same as the covers on Chanteleer’s study wall. Not what I would have called arresting. ‘No,’ I said (perhaps too abruptly), ‘the books were for a friend.’
‘There was some interest a couple of months ago,’ Col volunteered. ‘A sales rep or some PR person came in, talking his books up. But it came to nothing.’
‘A girl?’ I said.
Col looked at me suspiciously, running his eyes over my weird get-up. ‘A girl?’ he repeated.
‘A young woman, sorry.’ I was beginning to lose my cool. ‘Red lipstick. Power dresser?’
‘Yeah. Sure,’ Col said.
‘Name of Eve?’ I said, hopefully.
But Col was backing away. ‘Don’t remember,’ he said, with a kind of piss-off wave. ‘By the way, the price tag’s hanging off the back of your shorts.’
17
Isometimes took the tram home from uni. I’m
not the most sociable person and always carry a book as protection against that horror of public transport, the ear basher. This day, when I glanced up to check on my stop, two little boys were sitting opposite, staring at me. They were the kids from over the road. Little fair-haired boys, about five and seven. The father was there too, and the mother. They looked nice, the entire family, so I played up to the kids by making the goofy face. The mother looked away, conscientiously ignoring me; the father smiled. The boys wanted to laugh, I could tell, but since my making faces evidently presented a serious case of stranger danger, they were afraid to.
I made the face again.
This time the father laughed, squeezing the hand of the biggest boy to let him know that it was okay to respond. The boy smiled, and leaning forward, encouraged his younger brother to do the same. I made the face again. The big boy made a face back and we all laughed, including the mother. The ice broken, I said, ‘I know you. I live over the road.’
‘I know,’ the father said. ‘This is Tim,’ and he raised the hand of the biggest, ‘and this is Nicky,’ and the smallest gave me a toothless grin. ‘We see you out the front sometimes.’
I made the goofy face (again), this time not intending to make them laugh, just to acknowledge, as it were, that under the elm in the front yard was my second home. Nicky, thinking I was still playing the clown said, ‘You’re funny.’
I didn’t like being told that I was funny. I would rather be told that I was smart, or cool, or goodlooking. But since this never happened, and since this person was, after all, hardly five years old, I took his remark as a compliment. ‘Thanks,’ I said, and presuming that our contact was over, I returned to my book. But the bigger boy wanted his say.
‘What’s your name, mister?’ he asked.
‘Charlie,’ I said.
‘What’re you reading?’ he said.
I was catching up on some uni work, a prescribed novel, so I said, ‘I go to university. This is my homework. Do you get homework?’
‘Some,’ he said, ‘I’m in Year Two.’