Louis Beside Himself

by Anna Fienberg

  Shivering with terror and relief, my dad said he’d wished he’d paid more attention to wrestling, and that he’d been the one to floor the manager instead of his mother.

  ‘I think I must have pushed the whole thing out of my mind until I had a son,’ Dad said, smiling RUEFULLY. ‘Unfortunately for you, it made me determined that my boy would learn to wrestle like The Demon himself – that way, I reckoned, you’d never be placed in the same situation as me.’

  The thing he said next made me feel so sad. He said that privately, deep inside, he’d thought that losing his voice at thirteen was a kind of punishment for not speaking up and ordering the coach out of the house.

  He looked right into my eyes then and said, ‘That feeling stayed, Louis, even though in a little while the cracking stopped and my voice settled on an octave lower. It stayed because none of us ever talked about it. Dad stopped being a wrestler, took Mum on that trip to Spain, and I went to stay with a friend for a few weeks. It was all fine, but somehow, well, it wasn’t. I just stayed feeling . . . weak, or not strong enough, or something.’

  Dad took my hand in his. Normally we’d be squaring up to arm-wrestle when Dad did this. Now it felt different. His hand was warm and gentle – it didn’t ask for anything. It was just there. I remembered how my hand had felt in his when I was little, maybe crossing the road or watching TV. It had felt so good, so right, that I hadn’t noticed. Now I did.

  ‘But Dad, you were only thirteen, what could you have done with a gigantic, AMOROUS wrestling coach? You were only a kid!’

  Dad nodded, and we both looked down at our hands. My hand was almost as big as his. We both had square nails, and long fingers. If you were shown photos of those hands, you’d know they were from the same family. Dad said that, looking at our hands, you might conclude that I’d end up being even taller than him, and wouldn’t that be interesting to see?

  LATER in the week, when I was feeling a bit better, Dad went back to work and Rosie brought me tea in the afternoons. She talked to me differently, too, as if I’d suddenly grown enough to catch up with her – as if now we were looking at the same view. She told me that Cordelia had transferred to our school, so she and Rosie were seeing a lot of each other, and wasn’t Cordelia an interesting person? And didn’t she have a cool sense of humour?

  Rosie studied me for a second from under her eyelids, the way you do when meeting a new person. ‘Cordelia told me a funny thing. She said you’re her hero.’ Her voice had something hushed in it. After a moment she added that she wished I’d let her in on what was happening and maybe she could have helped. But then she shrugged and screwed up her face. ‘I was kind of in my own world, though, wasn’t I?’

  When Rosie came to sit on my bed, it was like tuning in to a regular news bulletin. I heard about Agnes, who was enjoying her visits from Meals on Wheels, and Miles, who was getting tutoring in biology and working Saturdays at the gym. And I heard about Doreen. We smiled together about Doreen. Rosie said that she’d caught Dad jiving in the living room to ‘Dancing in the Dark’.

  She leaned forward then and took my hand. One thing I’ve noticed, glandular fever has brought a lot of hand-holding and intimate conversations into this family. On the subject of Doreen, Rosie said she was a really good person and pretty much in love with Dad, and that she, Rosie, was very happy for them, and how did I feel?

  I thought for a moment. I told her I was happy if Dad was, but it was going to take a little while for me to adjust to so many changes. After all, I said, she knew Doreen better than I did, so probably it would be easier for her, and she wasn’t going to tell me anything else new, was she, like how she was going to run away and marry Miles . . . because I was in a very weakened state and my throat still hurt and my head felt floaty every time I got up to go the bathroom.

  She said she wasn’t, and she wouldn’t have to run away to marry, anyway, because that only happened in books, and she reckoned I should start writing one, about real things, like what happened to me and Cordelia this summer. She said she would read it, for one.

  So that is what I did. I started the next day, when she bought me a brand-new exercise book. I love the smell of stationery. It’s about the best smell in the world, so sharp and clean and brimming with possibilities.

  When Dad heard what I was doing, he bought me my own updated Roget’s Thesaurus. The crisp black words brought a spiral of energy humming up my spine. I still kept Mum’s Roget in its special place in my drawer, though. In my opinion it’s a wiser version, with its scrawled comments in the margins and mysterious underlinings. It has history, it has personality – it’s my mother’s. Even if it isn’t updated.

  At lunchtime one day I wandered around in the garden, which felt a bit UNCANNY, as in eerie and strange, after being horizontal inside all that time. The mess of burnt tent had been cleared away but there was still an oval of scorched earth, as if a small meteor or spaceship had landed.

  I wobbled over to examine the ashy ground and rub a bit of charcoal between my fingers. In a way I felt glad that a mark was left on our lawn. It showed what we had been through – that night when everything transformed and life on earth was never quite the same again. Near the flowerbed where Cordelia’s begonias were flourishing, I lay down. The grass under my back felt springy and damp with dew. I rolled over and put my nose to the ground and it smelled wonderful, like the beginning of things.

  That afternoon, when I told Dad I’d been out for a wander, he said there probably wasn’t much point in my going back to school as there were only another couple of weeks before the summer holidays. But I told him that a writer’s life could be a lonely life unless, every now and then, he strode out VALIANTLY to experience the full rainbow of human society.

  Dad said he saw my point, and I could go back for the last week.

  It was good that I did, as it meant I could witness first-hand Bobby’s part in the school concert. He did his impression of The Undertaker, rolling his eyes up into his head, flaring his nostrils and poking out his tongue, which was the right dead-looking blue because he’d sucked a leaking biro just minutes before on purpose. Bobby got a loud round of applause, but Elena said he just looked like a crazed person, and why would someone practise for hours in front of the mirror to look like that?

  By the time Dad’s birthday came, a couple of days before Christmas, I was feeling fine. Which was lucky, because it was Dad’s fiftieth, and we were all invited to Mady’s restaurant for dinner.

  22

  THE END

  Mady greeted us at the door. He was dressed in traditional costume with a long thigh-length shirt, and loose-fitting trousers. I felt shy suddenly, but when he smiled at me the odd feeling vanished. I asked him if it was cooler wearing a loose tunic, and he said yes, it was good for hot deserts as well as sticky Sydney nights.

  He led us to a long low table in the middle of the room. Traditionally, Afghans sit on the floor to eat, like we all used to do I suppose, before outdoor furniture and Play Stations were invented. Scattered on either side of the table were silk cushions – orange, crimson, yellow – stitched with little sequins that reflected the dancing light of the candles.

  Mady put Dad at the head of the table, with Doreen on his left, and me on the right. All down the line, people were settling themselves on their cushions. Rosie sat with Miles and Agnes, who was given three extra pillows to support her, and further up there was Hassan and Elena, Singo and his mum and dad, Cordelia and Anne.

  Amongst all the chattering and exclaiming, I noticed one empty space at the table. A white napkin and wine glass sat silent on the cloth. Strange. It didn’t seem possible that Mady would have counted the guests wrongly. I sought his eye but he was busy filling wine glasses and telling people about the menu, and then the exotic atmosphere made me forget anything else.

  Red velvet curtains and squares of Persian carpet decorated the walls. Candles were set in burnished-copper holders, flicking light and shadow against the rough stone. And when you look
ed up, the ceiling was painted dark-blue like the night sky, spattered with stars. In the smoky candlelight, it was as if we were gathered near a camp fire – particularly if you slitted your eyes and used your imagination (which Mr Mainprize said grows EXPONENTIALLY, like any muscle, if you use it a lot).

  It was very loud at our camp fire. Everyone talked at once, except for when the little dishes arrived, so many of them, up and down the white embroidered tablecloth. There was mourgh, which is Afghan chicken – delicious! – and lamb kebabs, stuffed vegetable turnovers, yellow split peas, eggplant and goat. In my opinion the goat was the best, so tender it melted on your tongue.

  Agnes called down the table to Mady for the recipe of each dish. Every now and then she’d swing her legs out to the side, lean on the table with her elbow for ballast, place her other hand firmly on the person’s head next to her and launch herself up from the floor. Then she’d wander off unsteadily into the kitchen to see all the ingredients for herself, and wash up a pot or two.

  There were all kinds of interesting conversations going on. Maybe it was the candlelight painting our faces, or the heavy spice-filled air, or the cushions under our bottoms, but it was as if, at Mady’s, we’d been lifted right out of our separate, normal lives. We all looked different, somehow, and yet more like our selves. Does that make sense?

  With all the talk, I’d forgotten about the empty place at the table. Cordelia and Rosie had spread out into it, their elbows pushing away the untouched plate and cutlery. But suddenly a huge hulk of a man loomed up behind us. The talk grew quiet, the girls drew back, and the man came to a halt right in front of the empty place. I jumped with fright, knocking my glass over.

  Orange juice streamed across the table and into my lap. I leapt to my feet just as the man started to sit down. We came eye to eye in the middle of our journeys.

  Then Dad called from the head of the table, ‘Hey, old man, glad you could make it! Everyone, this is The End.’

  ‘But we haven’t even had dessert!’ cried Agnes.

  Dad came hurtling down the table and grabbed The End in a bear hug. They made grunty, wrestly noises, pushing each other with their chests like bears on their hind legs. Rosie rolled her eyes at Cordelia in furious embarrassment, but Miles’s jaw had dropped open with awe.

  The two of them sat down at an empty table for two, locked in an arm-wrestle. They were staring deep into each others’ eyes.

  ‘The end is nigh!’ bellowed The End.

  ‘This is only the beginning!’ cried Dad.

  ‘Go, Monty!’ cried Miles.

  Only moments later there was a resounding crash and the cutlery flew off the table.

  ‘Smack down!’

  NEAR the end of the meal, when most of us were sitting with our hands contentedly resting on the full mounds of our stomachs, Rosie tapped her glass with a fork for silence. She raised her glass to Dad, to make a toast for his birthday and wish him many happy returns. We all cheered, and Doreen leaned over and gave him a big kiss on his ear, which must have been loud as thunder and a bit annoying. He didn’t look annoyed, though, just pleased, as he beamed all round the room.

  We wished him a happy birthday, and he probably thought that was it. The End even picked up his fork again to finish his eggplant. But now I tapped my glass, and stood up. I had a pile of pages in my hand, as I’d been working all day on a little speech. An important birthday like this required a small mountain of carefully considered words to make it special.

  As I cleared my throat, I couldn’t help noticing Rosie’s shoulders sink. She was looking at the thickness of my notes, and gauging how long I would take. I decided to ignore her. And so I began. ‘Monty, you are a wonderful dad and my favourite father.’

  This was my opening sentence – it’s good to start a speech with a little joke – and I had planned to expand on the theme of Dad’s wonderfulness. But I suddenly realised this was enough.

  It was the truth.

  Less is more, Mr Mainprize once said, in some circumstances. Of course this is true when the less or few words you choose are exactly the right ones. My trouble is, I’m never sure if people know exactly what I mean, and if there’s any doubt I always think it’s best to clear it up. But, in this circumstance, I was absolutely sure. And it was a good feeling.

  Maybe everyone was so stunned by the BREVITY of my speech that total silence followed. Then Dad began to thank us, and we began to thank each other, and even if I’d wanted to I couldn’t have got another word in, what with the multitude of syllables flying around the table. It was amazing, as if a giant liquorice all-sorts bag of words had been tipped upside down, scattering sounds around the table. Then the talk drew itself into one focus like an all-sorts tornado, and Cordelia stood up to raise her glass for another toast.

  She was so tall standing there, with the candlelight glowing around her golden head and blazing in her eyes, that I got a crick in my neck and had to look down, as if she were a light too bright in the sky. She told the story of the last week, acting out all the parts – she even did Singo’s germ-phobia and my crack-up voice, and made us laugh until we had tears in our eyes. She said meeting all of us had changed the worst week of her life into the best, and it felt like now she had a big fold-out family.

  I couldn’t help interrupting to suggest that the word she was looking for might be EXTENDED, and there was a general groan of exasperation. But Cordelia held up her hand and said no, fold-out was right because . . . See?! And from her bag she brought out a pile of what looked like pieces of coloured paper but were actually birthday hats, cut out from a chain of people-shapes joined at the hands and feet. We all had to put a hat on, and I could tell everyone felt a bit silly at first, but after a while we saw that we all looked the same.

  And suddenly Hassan got to his feet, pulling up the person on either side of him until we were all standing, holding hands like the paper people. Mady started singing an old Persian happy birthday song, and everyone seemed to know the words, or maybe we just knew the tune, which actually seemed like the same thing, so we sang like the wind whistling down the mountains in Afghanistan or across the red deserts of Australia, and I knew, right then, that this was the place to end my story, at the best moment of my life so far, here in Mady’s restaurant.

  THE END

  LOUIS MONTGOMERY’S WORD BANK

  Word | Meaning | Synonyms

  ABRUPT

  Unexpectedly sudden

  Brusque, curt, truncated

  AMOROUS

  In love; from the Latin, amor (says Elena)

  Enamoured, loving

  APPALLED

  Filled with dismay

  Horrified, repelled

  AROMA

  A pleasing odour (unlike Gus’s brother’s farts, or mine)

  Smell

  BESIEGED

  Surrounded aggressively; laying siege to

  Harassed, hemmed in

  BLACKGUARD

  A bad person without morals

  Villain, scoundrel

  BREVITY

  Of short duration

  Being really concise

  BUOYANT

  Being able to float or rise in a liquid; bounce back emotionally from disaster

  Cheerful, optimistic

  CAJOLED

  Coaxed or wheedled; tried to persuade

  CATAPULT

  Sprung up; from the ancient military machine for hurling stones; a slingshot

  Leapt out, hurled

  CLARIFY

  Make clearer

  Elucidate

  COMPANIONABLE

  Sociable; of good company

  Friendly

  COMPASSION

  The deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another and wanting to help; show mercy

  Sympathy, empathy, concern

  CONCISE

  Summing up your points precisely, without unnecessary detail

  Brief

  CULINARY

  To do with cooking and the kitchen

>   Gastronomic

  DELETERIOUS

  Something harmful

  Negative, injurious

  DERANGED

  Disturbed; in Italian, pazza (says Elena)

  Upset, crazy

  DEVASTATING

  Appalling, unbelievably shattering

  Defeating, ruinous

  DILEMMA

  A dreadful problem, a very awkward situation

  Difficulty

  DISILLUSIONMENT

  The painful state of having your illusions and hopes dashed

  Disenchantment

  EBULLIENT

  Overflowing with excitement

  Extremely enthusiastic, exuberant

  ECSTATIC

  Buoyantly happy; in a state of ecstasy,

  Euphoric, blissful

  EMPATHY

  Entering into the feelings or motives of another person

  Pity, sympathy, compassion

  EXCRUCIATING

  Unbearably painful

  Agonising

  EXQUISITE

  Beautifully made or designed; acutely perceptive or discriminating

  Spectacular, magnificent

  EXPONENTIALLY

  Multiply GIGANTICALLY – by heaps (Rosie says the word is a Maths term, to do with logarithms, but feel free to use it to describe anything that’s multiplying rapidly, like bacteria in a wound, or the imagination, with exercise)

  FLATULENCE

  Too much air in the stomach

  Wind, gas, farting potential

  FORTIFYING

  Securing a position with fortifications

  Strengthening

  FUNEREAL

  To do with funerals

  Morbid, really sad

  GARBLED

  Distorted sound, making a message hard to understand

  Scrambled

  IMMORAL

  Without morals, principles, or ethics