Returning the binoculars to the bookshelf, I found my favourite photo lying facedown. The family is having a picnic at Mackerel Beach. Maëlle can be seen feeding a goanna, hair blowing across her face – which had now been crossed out with a red marker. Legit creepy, but at least Mum hadn’t burnt her eyes out.
I heard heels clicking on polished concrete – meeting done. I scooted back to reception just before Morgan came in, red-faced and shiny with sweat. ‘Hello, young man. Snappy outfit.’
‘It’s my school uniform.’ I unclipped Cupid and slid him into my pocket.
‘The preppy look suits you.’ He picked some fluff off my lapel and said to Mum, ‘Don’t worry, Charis. I’ll have this sorted by Monday.’
‘I know you will.’
On the drive home, I asked for the lowdown.
‘Nothing to be concerned about,’ Mum said, removing a tiny smear of lipstick from her teeth with the guidance of the rear-view mirror. ‘I’m leaving work in the office, where it belongs. This weekend is all about you, my darling. How was your day?’
I spoke briefly about school, suppressing my lingering annoyance at being sent somewhere I didn’t belong.
Halfway down Spit Hill, we got stuck in a jam.
‘Looks like a storm brewing,’ Mum said, and began texting.
‘You’re working,’ I said. ‘And you smell weird.’
‘You don’t smell so fresh yourself, mister.’
‘I mean different.’
‘New fragrance.’ She stretched her neck towards me. ‘“Prescience” by Caffarelli. Do you like?’
‘As long as it’s not made from the civet’s anal gland. Apparently they extract some pheromone from a cat’s arse that can make people attracted to you.’
‘Maybe a hundred years ago, but now it’s synthetically replicated. Who put that nonsense into your head?’
‘Nobody.’ It was Isa. She’d told the whole biology class that some of the most exclusive perfumes still contain the real thing, and that ambergris isn’t whale vomit, like most people think – it’s whale shit. Anyway, Mum didn’t smell or look like her old self. Her hair was shorter and darker and wig-like, and, knowing she’d soon ask my opinion, I turned on the radio.
I was four the first time we drove through the subtropical rainforest of the Bilgola Bends. Venn told me it was the entrance to Jurassic Park. This evening, beneath the building February storm, the area felt wild again. I stuck my head out the window and inhaled deeply.
‘What are you doing?’ Mum said.
‘Savouring the Earth’s most glorious fecundity.’
‘Pull your head in! You’ve been with your father too long.’
‘Exactly.’
Rain was bulletting the Volvo’s roof by the time we got to Signal Bay and, despite her new car having hill-descent control, Mum was too scared to go down the driveway. The year before, when she’d been driving up in the rain with me, her old car had lost traction, slid backwards and knocked the side wall over. The airbags almost killed us. So tonight we walked down the steeply pitched, slimy drive, Mum clutching my arm and tottering in danger heels.
Venn’s Burmese cat greeted me in the kitchen, purring loudly as he ground figure eights around my calves. ‘Hello, Oscar. Nice to see you too. Now nick off!’
‘Be friendly,’ Venn said, walking in from the living room. ‘He’s just pleased to have some male company again, and so am I, little brother.’ Venn had always worn her hair in a ponytail, so when she appeared in the kitchen with an asymmetrical pink hairdo I pretended not to be shocked and congratulated her on breaking free of the elastic band.
‘It marks a new phase,’ she said, running her fingers through her hair. ‘Come here and give me a hug.’ She gave me a much-tighter-than-usual embrace.
‘So when does uni start?’ I asked, partly to extract myself.
‘It doesn’t. Five years of law before doing my Master of Environmental Law would kill me. At the health retreat I realised that I want to be a naturopath instead.’
‘What does Dad think of Revati’s career advice?’
‘I haven’t told him yet.’
‘Perhaps he’d like to be kept in the loop?’
Venn rolled her eyes and said, ‘I think he forfeited that privilege last year.’
Mum cooked a paella for dinner, a masterpiece of fiery colours with prawns, mussels, capsicum and chorizo on crispy toasted saffron rice. Before we ate, I asked why Nana Locke hadn’t come. Venn told me that she’d bought a rescue dog – a Jack Russell–Chihuahua mix that was afraid of cats and would need exposure therapy.
‘Or you could lock Oscar in your room?’ I said.
After wolfing down two massive helpings of delicious paella, I scraped the chewy bits from the bottom of the pan, prompting Mum to ask if Dad was feeding me enough.
‘He’s doing his best,’ I said.
‘We all know he’s Gordon Ramsay without the cooking skills.’
‘You are looking a bit undernourished,’ Venn said.
‘Thank you. It’s all the compulsory swimming.’
After dinner, I carried my bags to my room and instantly sensed that somebody had been in there touching my things. Examining my bed, I discovered a long blond hair on the pillow and took it downstairs to investigate its source.
Seeing the disgust on my face, Mum said, ‘Lincoln, what’s wrong?’
‘I know beyond reasonable doubt that somebody’s been sleeping in my bed.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘THIS!’ I drew the hair from my pocket. ‘It was on my pillow.’
The women glanced at each other and Venn shrugged, her nonchalance unconvincing.
‘What is this, CSI: Northern Beaches? It’s just a piece of hair.’
‘Except it’s blond, and nobody in this family is.’
‘Okay, Sherlock. My friend Jessie stayed over last night.’
‘I knew it. Why couldn’t he sleep in the spare room? That’s what it’s for. I suppose you wanted him closer so he could sneak into your room without Mum hearing? You never made it any secret that you and Elliot were shagging, so why start now?’
‘Jessie is a girl.’
‘Oh.’ I was momentarily stumped by the possibility that my sister was a lesbian. But my righteous indignation kept rolling with its own momentum. ‘Does she suffer from alopecia or something? You could’ve at least changed the sheets.’
‘Good God, Lincoln, when did you become so neurotic?’
I didn’t think I was, but I did walk back upstairs and give my bed a thorough hair inspection before getting in – and found three more! Lying awake, I analysed my reaction and came to the conclusion that I’d become jealous when I wrongly assumed Venn had a new boyfriend to replace Elliot.
We met Elliot six years ago at Mackerel Beach. He was staying in the cottage next to ours and we instantly became a gang of three, running wild in the bush, paddling boards to little beaches beyond the safe distance set by parents, and playing games invented by Venn to test our courage or stupidity. Three years later, she and Elliot had got together. And a tiny unspoken rift had started growing between us.
Anyway, last year my sense of isolation had reached an all-time low when I was rejected by Nicole Parker and by my crew shortly after. I should probably explain why it all hit me so hard. In his retirement, Pop Locke had started attending a charismatic church called the Fire Station, but he couldn’t persuade Nana to join him – she said she wasn’t into all the ‘happy clappy’ business, so he dragged me along. Nicole was playing guitar in the worship team. She had a beautiful voice and was totally hot. I was singing praise to Jesus, but it was really Nicole I was worshipping.
After a month of flirting with her at the church’s youth group, Fired Up Friday, I drummed up the courage to ask Nicole out. She said yes immediately, but from there things progressed at a glacial rate. Our physical interaction was kept in check by her rule that we only meet in groups comprising other zealous youth who’d taken an
oath of purity, which didn’t impress my friends. My best mate Tom, fellow surfer and generally loose unit, couldn’t help taking the piss out of the Fired Up Friday crowd.
At the peak of my frustration, I broke free and went to a party without Nicole – a celebration of Tom’s older brother Blake scoring a sponsorship from Thurston® surfwear. Mr and Mrs Nugent were at a real-estate conference up the Goldie, so the party was going off – completely hectic. Their house is enormous and sits just above the northern end of Avalon Beach on Marine Parade. When I walked in the front door, Blake tossed me a beer. ‘Get amongst it!’ he said. ‘Tommy’s out the back.’ I dropped the can in an esky on my way through the kitchen.
Out on the back lawn, at least a hundred punters were dancing around a huge bonfire and a white guy with dreads playing an African drum. Tom and Coops spotted me from Mr Nugent’s new cabana and waved me over.
‘Nicole let you off the leash for the night?’ Coops said, handing me a beer.
‘Yeah, but I’m not drinking.’
‘Want a pinger then? They’re so good. I’m defo going another.’
‘Blake organised them,’ Tom said. ‘You can have one for twenty. Family discount.’
‘Let me explain,’ Coops said, gripping my shoulders. ‘Imagine you’re lost in the car park of a giant shopping centre and you find a map. And there’s an arrow on the map that says YOU ARE HERE! Well that is so true right now, eh? Because I am SO here. The arrow is pointing down at me. And I’ve never been more here. And it’s so TOP LEVEL!’
‘I am so with you,’ Tom said, hugging him. ‘We’re on a different plane.’
‘Exactly!’ Coops said. ‘A private jet. And you’re flying Jetstar.’
‘Not that sort of plane. But the metaphor was ideal.’
Witnessing my friends’ chemically induced elation filled my heart with a mix of fear, sadness and jealousy. My relationship with Nicole had driven a wedge between us that would cause a gap too wide to breach if she kept refusing to associate with them. So when I turned to the ocean, she was the last person I expected to see. She beckoned me over to the back of the yard and I left the boys to their fun.
‘I thought you were busy saving the world?’ I said.
‘Only you, by the look of things.’ She took my hand and we walked to the end of the lawn, then down wooden steps to a secluded nook above the rocky shore.
‘Are we really together, or just friends?’ I said.
Nicole reiterated her stance on purity and its supposed rewards for the seven hundredth time as a light rain began to fall. I suggested it was time to bail.
‘Why?’ she said, wide-eyed in her pale-pink hoodie.
‘It’s getting cold and I’m only wearing a t-shirt.’
‘Poor baby. You’re shivering. Come over here and I’ll warm you up.’ I slid across and she wrapped her arms around me, then drew me so close our noses touched. Her breath was sweet from raspberry-and-cream chews, the longing in her eyes contradicting the purity spiel.
I closed my eyes and waited, afraid to make a move but praying she would. When her lips brushed mine they were incredibly soft, yet every cell of my body felt electrified. We breathed in time with each other, savouring the ecstatic agony of delayed tongueage. And when they finally did touch it was like a flickering flame to a marshmallow, and nothing less than divine. Right in that sweet moment I felt truly born again, and saved from being ordinary.
Unsure whether the kissing was a one-off or a welcome amendment to the rules of engagement, I kept my hands strictly to myself. Nicole slipped hers inside my shirt and began exploring my chest, causing me to flinch and tremble. Her hands ventured around to my back and, without warning, slid just beneath the waistband of my jeans. And then – ‘Sorry!’ she said, suddenly withdrawing.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ Her fake denial couldn’t hide something worse than revulsion in her eyes. She’d touched the nub. The tiny little thing that was about to change everything in my life. ‘We should stop now.’
‘Definitely.’ I held up my hands.
Nicole looked to the heavens then lowered her head, eyes closed, lips moving as if she was asking God for the quickest way out. Finally she took a deep breath and said, ‘Lincoln, have you read the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation?’
‘Parts of.’
‘I need to ask you a very serious personal question, but I don’t want to offend you.’
‘Spit it out.’
‘Lincoln, are you the beast?’
Being asked by my girlfriend if I was the most heinous thing ever written about in the history and future of the world was difficult to comprehend because it was so preposterous. I was pretty certain that I wasn’t evil incarnate, but having a minor deformity interpreted like that certainly made me feel like the ugliest person on the planet. We argued. She said I was scaring her. I begged her not to tell anybody. She cried. I offered to see her safely home. She left. Instead of chasing her, I walked back to the cabana to find my mates. They’d gone somewhere else but had left behind a half-bottle of vodka and some Coke®. I mixed a cup and drank it. Nothing. I took a slug of straight vodka and it burnt my throat. I slid to the floor so nobody could see me and drained the bottle.
Linkin Park was booming from the balcony. Chester Bennington singing that he’s tired of being what somebody else wants him to be. I could totally relate. I made my way up to the house and pushed into the centre of the crowded living room. I shouted the chorus with Chester and danced with abandon. Everybody was smiling at me, pumping their fists. And then Coops’ arrow appeared.
YOU ARE HERE!
It flashed in different colours and pulsated, pointing down at me.
Yes, me
!!!
!
Ten minutes of euphoria played out before the gears shifted. A fuzzy heat rushed to my head and, desperate for air, I staggered outside. The world tilted and I lurched with it, like a sailor on a foundering ship. Up it came the other way, turf slamming face, driving grass and dirt into my nose and mouth. I pulled myself to my knees, tried to find the axis, tried to stand, but the moon split and refused to reunite. And the ground received me.
The next morning, I woke up in my own bed in a state of almost complete paralysis. The only thing I could move was the granite block that had replaced my head, and doing that induced nausea. So I lay still and focused on a crack in the ceiling. Venn walked into my room with Mum, who fired off a barrage of questions I couldn’t answer because I had no memory beyond the moon’s division. She huffed and left to call my friends’ mothers.
Venn filled in some missing pieces. At 2 am, she’d gone to the Nugents’ place to look for me. Nobody had seen me for hours. Tom took her down to the beach and eventually they found me facedown near the water. They roused me and helped me up to the car.
‘Does Mum know all this?’
‘You vomited three times in her car and the smell was impossible to eradicate, so yes, Lincoln, she knows.’
The mere mention of vomit provoked an encore of such ferocity that the gastric acid burnt my nasal membranes. Luckily someone had left a bowl next to my bed. ‘Please take that away from me,’ I said, passing it to Venn.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘And while I don’t expect any gratitude for saving your life or cleaning the car, I’d suggest trying to cooperate with Mum.’
Thirty minutes later, Mum returned, demanding to know if I’d taken drugs. I denied it – because I hadn’t. Then I lied, telling her that in my brief time with Coops and Tom they’d appeared completely sober. But Mum had done the parental ring-around and gleaned incriminating information from Coops’ mother.
She drew a deep breath and let out an exasperated whistle. ‘Cooper admitted to purchasing ecstasy from Blake Nugent and said he took the drugs with you and Tom.’
‘That’s not true! They were already well munted when I arrived.’
‘You’ve just contradicted yourself, mister.’
‘Of course. You chose the high road and walked away, which means you’ll find it easy to follow the course of action that I’ve decided on. I’m forbidding you from any further association with the Nugent boys. You are not to surf with them or visit their house. You are not to communicate with Blake or Tom in any way.’
As it turned out that measure was hardly necessary, because I turned up at school on Monday to discover myself the new Year 9 pariah. Coops said that Mum had told his parents I’d ratted on him and Tom, and they were both in deep shit. I tried to defend myself by recounting the conversation, but they wouldn’t have a bar of it.
‘Apparently you told your mum we were already “well munted” when you arrived,’ Coops said.
Unable to explain my reason without accusing Coops of implicating me in the drug-taking session when he told his parents, I shrugged. He and Tom shook their heads and walked away.
And, as if being rejected by my crew wasn’t bad enough, Nicole Parker fully ghosted me.
Tonight, unable to sleep with the rain battering my bedroom window, I ruminated over how strange it was that people who were once prominent in your life could suddenly play no role in it. I’d hardly spoken to Tom or Coops since the end of last year – but they’d probably be out surfing tomorrow if the low-pressure cell generated a decent swell. What would happen if they found me on their break?
‘Don’t worry,’ Homunculus said. ‘They’ll never be your friends again.’
‘What are you, a life coach with a mean streak?’
Five-thirty am Saturday I was woken by magpies cawing and a sharp pain at the base of my spine, as if one of the bedsprings had pierced the mattress and drilled into my back. I pulled off the fitted sheet and ran my hand along the mattress but detected nothing. I felt the hairy nub at my coccyx. It was tender and swollen, and a little bit larger than usual. Maybe it had been bitten or I’d banged it against something? I laid a tissue over it and traced around it with a pen, then measured with a ruler. The nub’s diameter was 1.7 centimetres. Mildly alarming.
The Origin of Me Page 6
