‘Can I tell you something?’ I ask.
Dad looks up, his glasses fogged by sweat, and pulls his headphones out of his ears. ‘Eh? What’d you say?’
I lose my nerve. ‘Nothing.’
I don’t know why this is so hard. It doesn’t make sense, but telling Dad feels like an admission to … myself. More than anything else.
Doing and being and saying are a hot tangle in my head. I can’t make last night fit with this yet. I focus instead on my hands, bubble-wrapping and taping, lugging stone into the van. This series are all mostly human, and mostly to scale – several are over six foot.
‘You still coming with me tonight?’ Dad pants, sliding the last statue into place and pulling the rope tight.
I try to wipe my forehead on my arm, but that just transfers arm-sweat into my hair.
Crap. I forgot that tonight’s the opening of his exhibition. I always go; it’s our thing. How did I miss that? There’s been too many other things crowding my head.
‘Um,’ I hedge. ‘I mean, I just got back, and everything …’
‘Oh, that wasn’t actually a question.’ Dad laughs. ‘I just wanted you to feel like you had autonomy. You’re coming.’
I bite down on my lip; he talks a big game, but he’ll be upset if I don’t go. Plus, an injection of everyday programming probably wouldn’t hurt, at this point.
‘Okay,’ I agree. ‘But I’m going for a shower first.’
‘Make sure you keep it to four minutes—’
I gape at him through my curtain of dripping fringe. ‘Are you serious? It’s a hundred degrees out here.’
‘Oh, please. More like thirty. I’m not even hot.’
‘If you insist on the disgrace that is only turning on the air conditioner at Christmas, I reserve the right to have the shower to end all showers.’
He shakes his head in pretend disappointment. ‘Dude. I thought you were cool.’
Dad’s exhibition is in his usual space up on Mt Coot-tha, twenty minutes of traffic and then a tree-hugged winding road out of the city. As soon as we get in the car he puts on The Very Best of Prince and starts singing along.
I draft and redraft a quick text to Len: Gonna b MIA 2nite. 1 of Dad’s bonding things. Sorry!!
At the cemetery roundabout I look out the window at the steep sloping hill of headstones, half-moons glowing blue in the dark, simultaneously stretching to the sky and slipping under the dirt. I haven’t been alone in my head for what seems like ages. It’s messy. A deep well that I drop right down into.
I think maybe I’m disappearing. I don’t know if it’s all the togetherness of the last few days, or what.
(I do know I already regret the jaunty exclamation points. A lot.)
I try to absorb some of Dad’s enthusiasm. He insisted we wear matching tie-dyed jackets.
‘Is this really necessary?’ I say when we park and get out. Said jacket feels like it’s made of chafe.
‘Yes! It’s a momentous occasion!’ Dad booms, hugging me around the shoulders to steer me forward.
We approach the gallery through the yellow picket gate. It’s a fairy house made of mountain, lit up and blinking warmly at us, already filled with the creatures Dad pulled straight out of his head. I’m sweepingly proud of him.
Then he whispers, ‘My butt’s sweating.’
‘Can you not talk about your extremities in public, please?’
I stand back while Dad goes to greet everyone, then I meander outside into the garden. It’s hot even in the dark when I stop and prop my foot against a tree.
I whip out my phone. Len may be rightfully ignoring exclamation-gate, but I am who I am – damned if that stops me from a rapid punch-and-send.
Feel crazy not seeing u.
Within a few seconds after it’s sent, I start to think it looks desperate.
I stuff my phone back away and cringe-cover one eye, breeze licking the gaps in my fingers.
Then my hip buzzes. I flip my phone open so fast I lose my balance and leave a shoe skid on the tree.
He’s sending a multimedia message, but the reception’s so crap it’s loading in wibbly thirds.
‘Henry! You all right, mate?’ Dad calls from the side door.
I walk back the way I came, hunting for reception. ‘Yeah! Be back in a sec.’
I hold my phone in the air, searching for more bars. Dad watches me from the doorway for a beat longer, before retreating inside.
Two bars. Two and a half.
The picture pops up, finally: his face framed in messy gold hair with one arm propped behind his ear. He’s giving me the finger with his other hand.
Now you do, it says underneath.
I do. My eyes get very stuck on the soft milk of his bicep for – longer than I’m willing to admit.
I look towards the laughter and voices inside, then down at Len again, and quickly type: O_o O_o O_o
He texts back straightaway. He never does that.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
ASDSDSDSHHSS&%#$
(Grip, Hamlet. As in get one.)
I snap the phone shut and leg it back up the path.
The gallery opening is a rushing success. I throw myself into it as best I can, standing among the statues and aggressively spruiking big pieces to every baby boomer in a well-cut suit. Dad sells all of the works except two, in record time.
Everything goes so smoothly that we’re done by seven with time to spare to go for dinner, since gallery food is notoriously inedible.
Dad finds me waiting by the door, sat on a table with my legs dangling. I’m checking my phone again. (Haven’t stopped checking it – whatever.)
‘Lads’ Night!’ Dad says with emphasis, handing me a drink. ‘We’ve tasted professional success, now let’s go get dinner.’
‘Mmm?’
Len’s replied to my gibberish. Properly. With: Yeah. Same.
‘Henry?’
I’m half-texting back, letters glowing as I punch them in.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What? Nothing.’
‘Mate.’ There’s genuine hurt in his face. ‘I feel like you’ve put all these walls up lately, and you won’t even tell us why. I thought tonight we could reconnect. Bond. Like old times.’
God. I close my phone, pick up the drink and grind ice between my teeth. ‘We’re already bonded. We are one.’
‘Is it a girl?’ he asks suggestively.
‘Dad.’ I grimace. ‘No.’
‘Because, you can tell me about girls. I used to be pretty good at girls. Very good, some might say.’
‘Dad.’
I crunch more ice savagely, staring again at my phone.
‘We could start with: who is it you’ve been texting all night that’s got you blushing this hard?’ Dad prompts a beat later.
‘Len!’ I snap without thinking about it, just because his name flashes up on the screen with another text.
Oh.
Shit.
Dad’s Hamlet-brown eyes lock on mine and go very wide. Searching.
Trust me to Freudian slip when we’re trapped up a mountain together.
He knows. I can see it.
I set my drink back down shakily – a bit sloshes onto my shoe.
‘Okay. If I tell you a thing, you … you have to swear you won’t cry.’
‘Swear,’ Dad lies immediately.
‘Okay,’ I say again, light-headed all of a sudden. ‘Crap. God. Okay. We’re really doing this.’
He waits.
I press my palm against my forehead and let it out in a rush. ‘Lately, I’ve … sort of … kind of, been with Len. Like, um… with him with him.’
Dad blinks. ‘Len. As in …’
‘I … Yeah.’
Saying it out loud feels good in the way too much air in m
y lungs does.
Dad’s careful expression starts to shift. ‘But you … you can’t be. I would’ve known. I wouldn’t have missed that.’
He doesn’t look surprised, exactly, but he is rubbing his jaw pretty vigorously. I can see the rapid moving clouds of his thoughts behind his glasses.
And I’m angry.
‘Well, I’m not a freaking artwork you made up in your head, okay?’ I jump up. ‘I’m a person. And I’m sorry if the final product doesn’t match your initial vision, but—’
‘Henry.’ He catches my sleeve before I can get away. ‘Wait.’
‘Why? So you can tell me why I can’t be?’
‘I didn’t mean that!’ he exclaims. ‘Please, sit down.’
‘No! I’m sick of trying to be the person everyone else thinks I should be!’
‘Sit,’ Dad pleads. ‘Stop pre-judging what you think I’m going to say, okay? It hurts. You think you’re the only one who feels things deeply?’
I reluctantly do as I’m told, falling back down with a huff.
Dad takes a breath. ‘I am … upset. Upset that you felt like you couldn’t tell me this earlier. Which is on me.’
My eyes flash up.
‘Len, though,’ he says after a while, earnest and emphatic. ‘That’s … That makes … Yeah. I see.’
He’s looking dead at me. Sweaty. Anxious. Loving. My dad.
‘So you don’t think it’s, like, a really bad idea?’ I blurt out, needing to know. ‘That I never … and because he’s him, and I’m just …’ (Not good enough, maybe. Not enough.)
Dad watches me for another long minute. ‘Did you hear how I introduced you to everyone tonight?’ he asks.
I shake my head. My brain sloshes around, matching the hard da-dum in my chest.
‘“That’s my son – best person I know.”’
I rest my chin on the heel of my hand, wincing.
‘But you don’t think—’
‘I think,’ he says, ‘life is so short, champ. It probably seems long now, but really it’s a handful of shots in the dark, and then you’re done. Anything that makes you happy is great. Both of you. I also think you’re great, and I love you. For telling me. And for many other reasons.’
‘No crying,’ I remind him, not entirely steadily. ‘You promised.’
Dad lets tears roll down his cheeks. They’re turning the studio lights off, but neither of us moves. Not for the longest time.
When we’re home and I tell Mum, she doesn’t say anything at all. She just studies me as if I’m a house she built, and the lights are switched on at night while she’s standing on the street outside. Watching it be.
There’s a lot of hugging. I confirm that she is not, under any circumstances, to ask him about it when he comes over. Then Ham screams, hugs my legs and asks if we can get KFC.
19
On Sunday, I’m in a bone-chillingly cold shower when Ham calls, ‘HENRY!’
I switch off the tap and wrap a towel around my waist. ‘What?’
‘LEN’S HERE.’
‘Okay!’ I call, throwing open the bathroom door. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
‘No need,’ a voice to my left says.
He’s standing at the top of the stairs wearing jeans without a drop of sweat on him, his hair immaculate. I’m aware mine is plastered into noodles on my forehead.
‘Déjà vu,’ Len says softly, leaning back against the banister.
‘Yeah. It’s like I think I have a good body, or something,’ I joke, pulling the towel tighter at my hip. ‘I don’t think that,’ I feel the need to add.
Len rolls his eyes.
‘Team Hamlet,’ he says after a while. ‘Downstairs, they were … They know, right?’
I am going to kill them so dead.
‘Um … Totally. That okay?’
There’s a kind of wistful look on his face. He reaches across and pushes my hair back from my forehead. He arranges it for a bit – until I stop breathing and it looks, presumably, less like an outward expression of the mess that I am.
‘Yeah,’ he says, and his mouth quirks, right up.
I told Emilia to meet us at South Bank, which feels like a safe distance, and then not once we’re actually driving there.
We’re both nervous. I reach out to touch his hand and then stop. I don’t know whether he wants to tell Ems – he’s dead quiet. He doesn’t even complain about the hourly rate for parking.
Ems is sitting on the grass when we walk towards the river. She’s wearing a yellow skirt and a smile that ripples like the water behind her. She stands up and hugs Len first, then me.
‘Happy birthday to you!’ she sings at him, handing over a card. ‘I panicked and just got you money.’
Len squeezes her around the middle. ‘You know you didn’t have to get me anything.’
Ems taps the dimple on her chin. ‘Oh, please. I’m celebrating! We are all, officially, standing on the literal cusp of adulthood.’
‘Literally,’ I tease.
‘And you guys look like you’re finally ready to admit you’re cheating on me with each other.’
I start to cough like I’m choking. Len stuffs his hands into his pockets.
Ems scans our faces for a minute, then screams. ‘WHAT?! I was fishing! I mean, I was pretty sure, but … Oh my God. Oh my God!’
‘You’re the worst.’ I shake my head at her, blushing for gold. ‘The best,’ I qualify. ‘But also, the worst.’
Emilia screams again and squishes us both into another hug. ‘This is the best! It’s the best news I’ve had all holidays – nay, all year. I want to know everything. No wait – I don’t. Actually, yes. I do.’
Things are odd and cringey at first, but also pretty much just like always, except Ems stares at us when she thinks we’re not looking a few times and trills, ‘You guys!’ when she gets caught. Len’s hand is resting right next to my leg, palm up.
I can touch it (that hand near mine) if I want (I do) and it’s okay. More than okay.
Ems goes to get us ice creams after a while, and insists on paying.
‘How are we feeling re: the countdown to graduation? Pumped as a skunk?’ she asks once she’s back, nibbling a cone dipped in hundreds and thousands.
‘Ergh.’ Chocolate gelato drips onto my shorts.
Len tips his head back. ‘Don’t listen to him – he’s already made flashcards.’
She giggles. ‘Hey now. Not all of us plebs have photographic memories.’
‘Exactly.’ I shove him a bit, until he topples backwards onto the grass in a blur of jeans and bare arms.
‘Or lurve feelings to keep away the dread,’ Ems continues mock-despondently, looking at us. ‘Only … sugar, and regret.’
I freeze, waiting for Len to baulk, move away from me, but he smiles.
‘Chin up, Captain Studypants,’ he says. ‘Eamon Matthews is ready to fall on his sword for you.’
Ems rips up a handful of grass savagely. ‘Yes, well – I’m a career woman. Or at least I will be, if things go to plan.’
‘You will be,’ I tell her.
‘And what’ll you be?’
‘God knows,’ I joke. (But I kind of wish I did.)
We accidentally stay out late, until the sky spits pink and Emilia has to go. She hugs us again, me first this time while she whispers, ‘Yes yes yes!’ in my ear.
I don’t want to go.
‘Should we walk a bit?’ I ask him.
‘Yeah.’
Len pulls me silently along the path. Not quite holding my hand but not quite not.
We don’t rush. For once the arbour feels grand – purple flowers canopied above our heads and lights switching on in strips as if just for us.
His eyes are pools reflecting everything back.
(‘Mine’ i
s the word I think in a flare.)
We get chips for dinner but take them away, him driving while I stare across the water at yellow-and-black Rubik’s cube buildings.
Len watches me watching and winds all four windows down, wind-blasting the city through us.
Lacey is out with school friends when we get back to his place and eat, Scott’s Corner empty-ours.
After, I clean up the plates while Len showers.
A pointed edge of something sticks up from the bin, and pokes me in the wrist. I put down my fork and pluck it out.
It’s ripped a bit and covered in cold coffee grounds. They stick in coarse lumps to my fingers when I smooth it out.
A photo. Landscape of the riverfront, in black and white.
Len is a minimalist about most things, but he never throws his photos away. Ever. There’s a dozen portfolios stuffed full of them upstairs.
I push more rubbish out of the way. There’s a stack of them, from different days and locations, shove-scrunched so deep and covered in enough goo it’s like someone doused them deliberately. The artist’s son in me recoils.
I pull one out that’s my face, pissed off and covered in sun. The back of my neck prickles. I stare at it for several shock-cold seconds.
I don’t realise Len’s in the room until he’s standing in front of me, wet haired and frowning. ‘What’re you doing?’
I look with wide eyes, from him to the bin and back again. ‘What are you doing?’
He’s stricken for a minute. Then his face smooths. ‘Calm down.’
‘You’re throwing your stuff away?’ I say. ‘Wrecking it? Why?’
‘I didn’t.’
I tilt my head to the side. ‘Even you can’t spin the evidence while I’m actually holding it.’
‘They’re …’ Pause, shrug. ‘Rejects, I don’t know.’
He’s so casual it makes me almost furious.
‘What is going on with you?’
Len’s pupils dilate. He’s wearing fresh navy tracksuit pants with pockets, into which he plunges both hands. ‘Nothing.’
‘If you’re gonna bullshit me,’ I spit, ‘at least do it well.’
I’m not aware until it’s already coming out that I’m actually upset. The thought that I’m not inside, not special, is bigger than I can hold.
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