How it feels

by Brendan Cowell

  I said this to them: ‘I’m sorry, I know I had you all worried.’

  The entire cast (minus the dwarves and the unicyclists, who were in the foyer greeting the masses and performing) sat before me on the cold cement floor of room 2: adolescence.

  ‘The past few weeks and months have been so special to me,’ I said. ‘I’ve learnt so much from working with you people, and I hope to God you’ve learnt something from working with me.’ I looked up. Luke was nodding, the gaps in his pyjama shorts flailing open. ‘I know I scared you all, not turning up till one minute before the lights go up, but I want you to know something…’ I turned to face the foyer where, through a gap in the wall, I saw Chandra arrive in a pitch black dress only to be greeted by Swanna in a long white dress. Angels and devils. Swanna looked beautiful, her hair swept up off her face allowing her cheekbones to be all that they were; gloriously symmetrical. She looked poised and true in the presence of her adversary. Chandra appeared distracted, forlorn, as if she was attending a funeral. Ours, for instance.

  ‘Why are your pants wet?’ one of the second-year dancer girls asked me, wrenching me back into the reality of the space.

  ‘It’s just sunlight,’ I said. Then my stage manager called, ‘Beginners, Me Company!’

  ‘Come on!’ Luke grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the room just as the white squall of audience murdered into the space.

  20

  Such kindness lives in the hands of the young and free. Luke lifted my shirt up and over my lifeless upper body, dragged my piss-stained pants down, undid my shoes, socks off, then, with the cool and ‘done it a million times, love’ aplomb of a seamstress, dressed me in my neutral mask and trunks.

  We huddled together like kids about to be caught stealing. My breathing was loud and fast – I could not subdue it. Luke, the poor kid, was trying not to look at me like I was in danger, which made me realise I was in danger. I had a ninety-minute show to do, and I was only offstage for the first part, which was rapidly concluding. I could hear the applause of the audience as the unicyclists formed tableaux with the dwarves, and the Tibetan peace flags were set alight – ta-daaaaaah – voom!

  I was resting against the back of the set flats staring into the caverns of the steel mill walls when Luke appeared in front of me on his haunches. He held my face in his hands and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me.

  ‘You can tell me,’ he said, beaming through the softest skin. TV would love him one day.

  ‘Tell you what, Luke?’ I managed.

  ‘What’s wrong.’ This was afternoon television. Luke, the friendly teenager, concerned by the dark demeanour of the heroic older neighbour whom he looked up to, despite the community’s belief that I was ‘trouble’.

  ‘My best friend took his life three days ago. I just heard about it.’

  ‘How?’ Luke asked, without flinching.

  ‘He shot himself in the head.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Luke said, as if he had read about it earlier.

  ‘What do you mean “yeah”?’ I asked.

  ‘We had some guys at school do that. One guy did it in his dad’s bed. Another guy in the backyard. It’s always somewhere visible. Fuck, man, I’m heaps sorry. Suicide is like the fuckedest thing, like fucking why? Jesus, am I just raving at you? Neil, I’m so sorry! We’ve got a show to do!’

  ‘It’s ok, Luke,’ I said, ‘I appreciate it.’ And I really did.

  ‘I think you’re fucking awesome, Neil. Like this has been the most amazing experience for me, meeting you and Julien, you’re two really special guys.’ And then he kissed me warm and full on the mouth. Yes, this kid would be gay soon, but even more yes, this kid had temporarily lifted me out of my hell and into the spirit of art.

  ‘Let’s make waves, huh?’ I proffered, rolling up my body to standing. Through the cracks in the flats I could see the crowd. Every inch of the space was full, herds and gatherings of audience towering and shoving at each other on stairwells and through windows and broken inlets to other rooms.

  ‘Showtime!’ Luke beamed.

  In the centre of the heaving, anxious audience, Gordon had his arm around Courtney. They were staring silently ahead, seemingly oblivious to the wrestle of the throng around them. They looked frightened and I wondered what it was that scared them most about tonight?

  I have no recollection of anything that happened in the eighty-three minutes that followed my arrival on stage, except that I know the show went smoothly, despite the difficulty Julien and Swanna faced in herding the enormous audience from room to room, and my dad and his drunken friends heckling me from the stairs of room 3.

  ‘He had a fish!’ Dad yelled out as I dropped a dead goldfish into the toilet bowl. The whole night, in retrospect, arrived in sections, blurred and skidding, like I barely dreamt it.

  Backstage the air was light with kisses and sweaty hugs. Actors, dancers, designers, stage managers, lighting technicians, dwarves, unicyclists, sound artists and collected hangers-on threw off their months of tensions/anxieties/expectations/emotions in warped exultation.

  I sat on a busted orange children’s chair in the corner of the room. I was not ready to put my suit on, I just wanted to sit here and drink the bottle of beer Paul had given me.

  ‘We did it!’ I heard Julien say. ‘Seriously! People want to buy this show, Neil, and tour it – and they loved my programs!’

  I couldn’t go out there yet, so I stood and wandered through the cast and crew to the walls and around to the windows behind the green room.

  The town was charcoal through the smudge-rubbed window-sills flecked with paint. I lit a cigarette and waited for the engine of my charisma to erupt and says yes, let’s go. But it didn’t. I was not beautiful or exciting anymore. I was like the town. Charcoal and small and cold in the winter.

  Where did my friend go? Was there a place they all gathered, the lost and self-destructive? Was there a room they put them in? Necks burnt with rope or holes in their skulls. Beach-water bloated. I will know this at the end of my conversation with life. I will speak and laugh until my tongue falls out and then I will know this. I will know this because he will tell me when I see him. How will I enter that theatre? With a hole in my head or exploded by sea. Wrists.

  Allegedly, it was a ‘fabulous thing’ when people lingered after a show. It meant the piece had got to them in some way; they wanted to be near it still, even though it was over. To remain here was to hold on, for as long as one could, to the reaching hand of magic.

  We entered the buzzing foyer and felt all eyes dart our way. I guess we had moved them from wherever they were before. The farmers and the newsagents, the mechanics and the steel workers, the teachers and the butchers. The landscape gardeners, the bakers and the rapists. If I could move them, I thought, I could move anyone.

  ‘Nelly, my boy!’ Dick pushed through the foyer, his ruffled white shirt unbuttoned to the ribs. He was hanging out of himself with pride.

  ‘Hey, Dick,’ I said, in my new black suit. Swanna was beside me and I liked this, she knew I needed her but she did not know why or where to from here. Only Luke and Dick knew why I had pissed my pants.

  ‘Oh my boy,’ Dick said. ‘Come with me! I want to introduce you to some of the talent and theatre agents who’ve come out to see the show. Rachel, Cliff, Miles, this is the one and only Neil Cronk – creator and star of ME!’

  Rachel, Cliff and Miles stood in a semicircle clutching their programs. Rachel looked young and hungry for success, while Cliff and Miles almost looked alike, dressed in corduroy everything.

  ‘Hooray!’ Cliff said, shaking my hand.

  ‘Bravo,’ Miles added.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I said, spinning to include Swanna. ‘This is Swanna, she designed the show. It is as much hers as it is mine.’

  ‘Oh, I just painted the walls,’ Swanna said.

  ‘Two very big talents.’ Dick raised his eyebrows at Rachel.

  ‘We see so much theatre,’ said Rachel, her voice
in such a hurry. ‘But nothing like this. I don’t even know what I would call it, if I was to explain it to someone.’

  ‘A fucken good night out!’ Dick bellowed, guffawing into his beard and then slapping me hard on the back.

  ‘We would be very interested in talking to you if you make it to Sydney.’ Cliff held out a business card.

  ‘Are you guys all from the same place?’ I asked, scanning the card but not really scanning it at all. Where were my friends? Why was I speaking to the Corduroy Club? I couldn’t give a fucken fuck.

  ‘Miles and I are from Piggott and Frost Management in Woollahra. We represent artists. Rachel is a buyer, she buys shows,’ Cliff informed me with an elaborate swish of his striped scarf.

  ‘Meaning we can all take a chunk out of you – joking!’ Rachel kicked her hips towards me. She was about as sexy as four litres of phlegm.

  ‘I’ll make sure I call you guys when I get home,’ I said, with the smile of the now-to-be-departing.

  ‘I hope you make it back to Sydney alive. I hear there is a big after party planned. Don’t get too carried away!’ Miles joked, looking for an invite.

  ‘Oh we like to party us lot!’ Dick confirmed.

  ‘Nice to meet you all.’ And just like that I walked away.

  To breathe salted air would have been nice; to have been swept up onto a yacht and sailed right out of there, sailed all the way to Jamaica without mention of the show or ‘the night’ would have been a gift from Utopian Travels. But no.

  ‘Hello,’ Chandra said, with a small shot of disdain. Despite her avowed feminism, she hated other women, especially talented ones. Swanna could not help bright-shining tonight.

  ‘Hi there,’ I said, not kissing her – not anything her.

  ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’ she said, her arms as open as her eyes.

  ‘Sure.’ I kissed her with a dry zap on the forehead.

  ‘Congratulations. Both of you,’ Chandra said, holding on to my neck.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Swanna. ‘We’re really happy with it.’

  Chandra and Swanna and me. A triangle of inevitable hurt. We all felt it, regardless of what we knew or what we hoped for.

  ‘Neil, come with me over here,’ Chandra said. ‘My friends from the Dark Room want to meet you. They loved the show and they have all these questions.’

  ‘Can we… look I gotta meet Mum and Agatha and everyone for dinner – I don’t want to mingle. I just want to get the fuck out of here basically, Chan.’

  ‘You can’t just leave. There’s a hundred people who want to eat you! You have to oblige –’

  I had had enough of what I was meant to be; I just wanted my mum.

  ‘I don’t have to fucken oblige shit. I just did a fucking show, I wanna go!’

  ‘But they want to meet you,’ Chandra said.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Chandra, I just… Can you think of someone else for a second?’

  ‘Fuck you, I am thinking about you!’

  ‘There’s an exit door through the ladies’ toilets. Follow me,’ Swanna said.

  ‘Hang on a fucking second,’ said Chandra. ‘Is she coming with us to dinner? I thought it was just family and friends.’

  ‘Swanna is my friend, and my designer.’

  ‘Doesn’t she have her own friends and family here?’ Chandra asked.

  ‘I invited them to come along too,’ I replied.

  ‘It’s fine, I can meet you later,’ Swanna said.

  ‘No, Swanna. You come with us. The car’s just outside.’ And I led both girls through the toilets and out of there.

  21

  The Marigold Garden Chinese restaurant was like a brochure of old Asia on steroids and my father loved it. Every time he drove up to see me we would visit ‘the Mari’. Dad rarely went anywhere unless he had been ‘tipped off ’ about the place by some important guy he knew. Dad loved being on the inside, he truly loved it. He loved striking up a connection with the waiter or waitress. He aimed high, asking for the chef or manager, but settled for the floor staff, and happily. Rarely did we depart an establishment without Dad exchanging first names with some member of the team. This thrilled him no end and the drive home would consist mostly of Dad reliving some of the great moments shared between him and the staff: the witty banter, the wine knowledge, the small business situation, the food the food the food. Dad would finish the debrief remarking on how they must have really liked him to have shown him that amount of attention. ‘Not every Joe Blow gets the treatment!’ Dad would say, drunkenly running a red light.

  As my love triangle entered the overlit, overdecorated caricature of a Chinese restaurant, Dad had his arms wrapped tightly around the manager’s neck. Duc, a forty-four-year-old immigrant from Shanghai, remembered, or at least made a strong go of pretending to remember, my father, as Dad ruffled his hair and face. Dad had not been to the Mari for nine months, but this was his restaurant still. Dad believed that Chinese restaurants were the best place for a big group, which really confused me when he insisted on taking me there for a one-on-one dinner the previous May. Out of the blue a phone call from a payphone with Dad saying, ‘It’s Thursday night! I’m in Lithgow! Put some dress pants on – we’re going to dinner at the Marigold!’

  ‘What?’ I had responded, still reeling from the space cakes Chandra had baked earlier that morning using female buds from Mullumbimby and goat’s butter.

  ‘To see ya! I’m here to see ya, son!’ Dad yelled in my ear. ‘Is there a golf course? I’ve got me fucken clubs in the boot! Nine holes?’

  Mongolian beef, fried rice, san choi bau, sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken, three Singha beers and two bottles of Rosemount shiraz later, we drove back to my place. I set Dad up on the pull-out sofa. I said goodnight, kissed him on the forehead, smoked a fag out the back with my balls freezing off, and then went to sleep, exhausted from the pot, the wine, the food, the challenge. Over dinner we had covered the surface topics, filing through the administration of our lives, but nothing more, nothing to do with how we were both feeling about this thing called living. Why had my father driven all this way merely to say ‘hi’ and make sure my wagon was running and full of oil and that I had enough warm clothes and wasn’t on heroin or gay? My incredulity was validated when he appeared in the doorway of my bedroom at 3 am.

  ‘Neil,’ he said. ‘Neil?’

  I woke up a thousand miles down the deepest well where dreams of huskies and black and white flowers wrestled, and there he was, my father, in yellow underpants and a stained white singlet, staring down at me.

  ‘Dad?’ I asked, wiping my eyes and wondering how on earth a flower could choke a big dog like that. Then my father spoke, with the clean timbre of truth and disclosure. I had never heard his voice sound so sweet.

  ‘I’m not entirely… proud… of everything I did. And if I had my time again, with your mother, probably would’ve… done some things different. Righto.’ And then he was gone, and there was just the black rectangle of the doorway.

  Chandra woke up and asked me what the fuck had just happened. I told her not to worry and she fell asleep. But she did not snore. The snoring was all my father’s. I could hear it all the way from the living room, and I loved it, just lying there listening to it, I loved it so much.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ Chandra whispered sharply as we approached the table.

  ‘There they are.’ Is there anything more beautiful than the open warmth of a mother’s face when she sees you across the room?

  ‘Neil!’ she implored.

  ‘I’m so hungry,’ I said, and I was not lying. I had literally eaten nothing that day and my body was now having a word to me about it.

  My father had booked a large, round table with close to twenty seats, and most of them were filled as we approached. Gordon and Courtney looked snug and smug in the corner near a plant, each gripping a schooner of beer. Seated next to them were my father, who was still standing and clapping, his new girlfriend, and his friend from
the Kelso, Brian, who was incredibly fat in the middle but not at all in the face. Julien and his mother were to the left of Courtney, and beside Gordon were Mum and Agatha. Swanna’s dad was there too, but not Rhonda – she was at a conference in Bali or some made-up bullshit. Beside them were three empty chairs. I took the middle seat, with my girlfriend and my designer on either side of me.

  I was not capable of this, I couldn’t even look up for too long, all I could do was pour beer into my glass from a jug and look down into the menu. I wished the lazy Susan would stop spinning and I wished Stuart was here, talking big and making me laugh, making plans for after, commanding and just… being here. Love is in the attendance.

  I looked up, caught Gordon’s eye, then looked back down again. He knew I knew. He knew I knew he knew and did not tell me. Cunt.

  I needed someone to order for me and Swanna was too involved in a conversation with Julien’s mum about the musical theatre course in Western Australia. I could not simply ask Chandra to order for me either, it would mean so much in the subtext. The entrees. The prospect of not sharing or sharing. The meats and the vegetables. The rice steamed or fried. The conference would kill me. I was dead already. But still so hungry.

  Across the table, over the cutlery and through the amber of the beer trapped inside the glass jugs, I caught my mother’s eye. She would bring me food. She had done so for so long. I felt safe looking at my mum. Her calm eyes and her deep wrinkles. She smiled at me and raised her eyebrows, her maternal radar ever active. She knew I needed something and was ardently trying to communicate this with her, without communicating at all. I was one thought away from standing up and going to the kitchen to order direct from Duc when my father shot up, banging his fork against the fat empty beer jug.

  ‘Welcome everyone to the Marigold Garden Chinese Restaurant, good to see you all gathered round the… round table, so to speak. People I haven’t seen for years – Gordo, Courtney, look forward to sharing beers with you. My daughter, and of course my son and his friends – all of youse.’