The Origin of Me

by Bernard Gallate

  I blocked his fearmongering by gripping the milk crate – gripping so tightly it cut into my hands, the lattice base almost bisecting my tail. I took Bert’s rubber ring and placed it under my butt. The donut shape nested my tail perfectly, way better than a regular cushion. Bert came out swinging an Eveready Dolphin® torch before I could jump off so I leant forward, trying to hide the ring with my forearms.

  ‘Bit young to be suffering haemorrhoids,’ he said and laughed. He banged the torch with the palm of his hand till it yielded a feeble glow. ‘Should hold out for a minute or two.’

  Bert led me to what I’d assumed was an old dunny shack, with a sloping corrugated-tin roof, then opened its creaky door. ‘In you go. I’ll hook it back to give us more light.’

  Suppressing my sense of imminent danger, I obeyed and got only two steps down before taking a crack to the front of my head. The front – not the back. Though stunned, I realised I’d walked into a beam.

  ‘Watch your noggin,’ Bert said. ‘Low clearance.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ I said, rubbing my forehead. ‘You’d better go first with the torch.’

  He led me down wooden steps hardly substantial enough to feed a family of white ants. The air at the bottom was mouldy and gassy. ‘Are you sure this is safe?’

  ‘Safe, my arse.’ Bert’s laugh crackled with phlegm. The door above banged shut, snuffing out the last trace of daylight. Instead of guiding us, he waved the torch around, spotlighting random paraphernalia. Eventually the weak beam rested on a beastly snouted face with tusks and piggy eyes, decorated with shells and a thatch of black bristles sticking straight up. ‘Sorry, old chum, didn’t mean to disturb you,’ Bert said to the thing. ‘He’s from Papua New Guinea. Made of wood and pig fat.’

  ‘I’ve seen enough now, thanks. I’m going back up.’

  ‘Don’t have a conniption. I’m sure he’s around the back here.’ Just when I thought he’d made the whole thing up, his torch exposed a hideously mangy creature made of what looked like the head of a giant rat attached to the body of a rooster.

  ‘What on Earth is that thing?’

  ‘The only known example of a potorooster. Half-rooster. Halfpotoroo. The species is now extinct.’

  ‘No wonder, if people hunted them to make those ugly things.’

  ‘Steady on. How would you feel if you were half-beast and someone spoke to you like that?’ The question, though rhetorical, made my head spin.

  ‘I feel terrible. I need to get out right now. I can’t breathe.’

  ‘Don’t you want to see the mount of poker-playing rabbits? It’s a hoot.’

  ‘I have to get to work.’

  The torch died and we inched our way back in the darkest darkness I’d ever known. At the top of the stairs, Bert struggled to push the door open until I added my desperate heft. It finally gave and we stumbled out, blinded by the glorious afternoon light. The potorooster was under his arm. Though I’d initially been frightened by the fugly thing, a golf ball of sadness lodged itself in my throat when I saw it in the light. It was a miniature animal version of Frankenstein’s monster – the dignity of the original creatures stolen and the combination less than the sum of its parts. I thought of Esther making small mounts for Madame Zora, but that crossbreed would’ve been terrifying perched on somebody’s head. ‘Where did that little beast come from?’ I said.

  ‘Cabinet of Curiosities. I bought the whole menagerie in one lot at auction. He and the bunnies are the only ones left. He’s yours if you want him.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  On my way out, I stopped to check the developer’s sign again as an A380 flew overhead and noticed the contact number ended in 380. Not an amazing coincidence in itself – but then out of nowhere I remembered that they were also the last three digits of the angry man’s phone number I’d called the week before. I checked my call history to confirm. So the guy I’d rung after midnight – the one who berated me and called me Chester Hunt – was also the agent for the Paradigm development.

  CALL KEN BARNSDALE TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST TODAY

  I wouldn’t be calling him again but I did take a photo of the sign, then hotfooted it to work.

  Sam was arguing with Manos when I arrived at Give Me the Juice. Manos wanted him to finish his accounting degree but Sam only wanted to race V8s. Sam pushed past me and flung his apron to the floor. Manos chased him, swearing in Greek.

  ‘They won’t be back,’ Pericles said. ‘Could you work up front with me and then stay for close?’

  ‘Sure. What’s up with the twins?’

  ‘They want to knock off a bit earlier tonight. Synchronised periods. Full moon makes it worse.’

  Later it seemed the moon must’ve been affecting some of my customers as well. One of them asked for a carrot, apple and beetroot juice, then complained it was red. I made them a replacement and they asked where the beetroot was. The twins stayed up the back and never resurfaced from the doldrums. At 8.45 they left Pez and I to clean up.

  Rinsing the dispenser units, I told him about my discovery of the matching phone number and showed him the photo.

  ‘Do you reckon the real-estate agent put the tongue in your bag?’

  ‘I think Starkey did it then used Barnsdale’s phone to send the text so I wouldn’t know it was him. No idea how he got it, though.’

  ‘He could just be some random who left his phone lying around?’

  ‘Doubt it. It’s no coincidence that Ken Barnsdale is involved with the apartment development and Starkey warned me to stay away from there. I’m not liking this at all.’

  ‘Me neither, man. It’s really fricking creepy. I could get my cousin Angelo to carry out some surveillance – find out if there’s a connection. He wants to be a private investigator.’ We began wiping down the benches.

  ‘Nah, I can do it myself. I’ve got Barnsdale’s website address.’

  ‘That won’t help. You should call the number from a different phone with a fake voice, pretending you’re interested in buying one of the apartments. Ask him if there are any good schools in the area and see if he mentions Crestfield.’

  ‘I couldn’t pull it off.’

  ‘You know, Isa’s an expert at playing characters.’

  ‘There’s no way I’d get her involved.’

  ‘Speaking of’—Pericles laid his cloth over the tap—‘are you asking Isa to the dance?’

  ‘Where’d that come from?’

  ‘It’s obvious you’ve got the hots for her.’

  I denied it, perhaps too defensively. But after pushing her away on Tuesday night, I’d lost any hope of starting something with Isa. Without probing further, Pericles turned off the lights, set the alarm and locked the sliding glass door, then we walked to the station.

  ‘Thanks for staying back,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to hassle you about Isa. We’re mates and you can be totally open with me.’

  ‘A hundred per cent.’

  ‘I really think you should ask her.’

  ‘We’ve become a bit closer working on the project, but nothing more than friends. I definitely won’t be asking her to the dance.’

  ‘Sweet. I just needed to check.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You’re both my friends and I want my friends to be happy.’

  I got home at 10 pm, chatted to Dad about nothing intense, ate leftovers and knitted till midnight. Too late to start reading, but I did anyway.

  The shock of my father’s sudden death was compounded by three successive blows for my poor mother. The first came when she visited the bank to withdraw cash for funeral expenses and was told there were insufficient funds. Later, in the office of my father’s accountant, she discovered that he’d mortgaged Ambleside, our home in Mosman. The accountant advised her to sell my father’s remaining share of the business to his partner. The following day she almost collapsed when Dimitrios told her that he already held ninety per cent. Over the years my father had sold portions of his sha
re to cover gambling debts, and the remaining ten per cent was still less than what was owed his friend.

  The funeral was a bitter formality lashed by rains that kept most of my father’s former acquaintances away. I struggled to maintain my composure throughout the service, no mean feat at the age of twelve with Loula tugging at my coat-tail, demanding to know when our father would return. The one saving grace was the heartfelt eulogy delivered by his friend and mentor George Pemberton, who’d covered the cost of burying him. My mother visited him a week after the event to reassure him that everything would be repaid in full.

  ‘Will you return to Fernleigh?’ Pemberton said.

  ‘No. My father has shown no contrition for rejecting William since his passing. We will find a small and cheery place of our own.’

  ‘How will you provide for your family?’

  ‘I was hoping you might be able to offer me some form of employment?’

  ‘Sadly, there is nothing befitting your station,’ he said.

  ‘I have no station and would do virtually anything, no matter how lowly, to save my family from destitution.’

  Pemberton poured them each a glass of whisky and revealed the details of his new plan. The Waxworks and Hall of Mirrors were to be replaced by the Cabinet of Curiosities – no mere chest, but an entire pavilion full of wondrous objects: crystals, skeletons, a Roman coin embedded in lava, an Egyptian mummy and a dragon’s egg. The ceiling would feature a tromp l’oeil of clouds parting to reveal a glimpse of Heaven, while the floor would be splitting open to reveal the Earth’s fiery bowels. And the pièce de résistance, the Hybrid Menagerie, would display fantastical combinations of diverse creatures. Pemberton offered Esther the job of manufacturing them.

  ‘Forgive my candour,’ she said, ‘but your scheme sounds slightly deceptive.’

  ‘Fooling someone in order to create a sense of wonderment is a noble pursuit in these gloomy times.’

  ‘My father would be mortified to discover I was responsible for creating something so unnatural with the skills he taught me.’

  ‘Are you still beholden to his opinion, even in your estrangement? I’d pay handsomely to exploit those skills. I already have many fine mounts, including a potoroo and rooster. Conjoined, we would make a potorooster! Imagine the delight on children’s faces when they see it?’

  ‘Or the horror.’

  Or the horror on my face when those words wrapped themselves around me and pulled me back down into that dark subterranean place.

  ‘Even better,’ Pemberton said. He told her that new creatures would be required monthly to retain the public’s interest, and guaranteed my mother at least two years’ employment creating them in the old millinery studio. Despite my mother’s distaste for the proposal, concern for our survival prevailed and she accepted Pemberton’s offer. She wrote of that moment in her diary, ‘It was most unnerving when shaking the hand of my saviour to feel a chill run through my entire being, as if I’d just made a pact with the devil.’

  Most unnerving? Boy, that was an understatement. Reading that Esther had been employed to create the hybrid creatures and had probably made the potorooster that Bert had found in his underground storage facility gave me more than a chill. Was Bert connected to all of this to a greater degree than he was letting on? Or was I slowly losing my grip on reality?

  On Friday afternoon I went down to Bondi to train. The sky was uniformly grey and the ocean was rough, so I walked around to Bronte Baths instead. I lowered myself into the shallow water, wearing board shorts, and swam. With an incoming tide, waves were breaking over the wall and the spume was invigorating. I swam harder and further than ever before. Not because I wanted to win at the Invitational, but to wash the troubles from my mind – or at least make sense of them. Climbing out two hours later, I saw a dad wrapping his shivering son in a towel. The kid was a miniature version of his father. I thought again about the possibility of my tail being a genetic endowment. There was no way of researching my father’s family history, but maybe, just maybe, it could’ve come from Mum’s side.

  Saturday mid-morning, I walked into the kitchen of the Signal Bay residence to find Grant Marsh operating the espresso machine that had once been Dad’s sole domain. ‘Good morning, Lachlan,’ he said. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ No, I didn’t want a coffee, and I didn’t correct him because allowing him to continue misnaming me would be a more effective way of allowing the dickhead to shine. ‘We’ve been apartment-hunting in Dee Why,’ he said.

  ‘Are you and my mother moving in together?’

  ‘God, no!’ He laughed. ‘Helping your sister on the hunt.’

  I found Venn in the lounge room playing with Oscar. ‘Are you moving out?’ I said.

  ‘If Jessie and I ever find a place.’

  ‘Are you taking the cat?’

  ‘I’ll have to. Mum’s selling the house.’

  Angered at having been left out of the loop yet again, I went upstairs and barged into Mum’s room. She was wearing new orange, yellow and brown tartan golf pants and pretending to putt in front of the mirror. ‘What do you think?’ she said.

  ‘I think you’re about to sell the house.’

  ‘The place is far too big for one person, darling.’

  ‘That man in the kitchen is orchestrating this.’

  ‘Nonsense. Your father and I decided to sell the house and divide the assets last year, well before I started seeing Grant. And, for the record, I won’t be moving in with him or any other man. I’m looking at buying a small place in Paddington or Surry Hills. Closer to work . . . and you.’

  I ignored her plastic olive branch. ‘The pants? They look exactly like Coach Simmons’ chair.’

  I went back down and told Venn I’d confronted Dad about Maëlle, and that after coming up with a hundred excuses he’d shown signs of remorse.

  ‘Did he try to get your sympathy by trotting out the whole adoption story?’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘He told me on the phone. Personally I think face-to-face would’ve been more appropriate.’

  ‘Except that you wouldn’t agree to see him.’

  ‘Please don’t start defending him now.’

  ‘I’m not, but I can understand how badly Pop Locke’s death affected him.’

  ‘Yeah, look at how many times he’s come to visit Nana since. She wants to stay in the flat but she’s going to need a bit more help occasionally. That’s why Jessie and I have been looking for a place somewhere in Dee Why.’

  ‘That’s really kind.’ And it gave me the perfect opening to talk about Bert. ‘There’s an old guy in my neighbourhood who wants to stay in his place too, but developers are forcing him out. He’s been there forty years.’ I told Venn all about Bert’s massive antique, vintage and junk collection and about the unlikely friendship we’d forged. ‘Some kids at my school have been harassing him and I suspect one of them might be connected to the developers.’ I explained my plan to get someone to call Barnsdale posing as potential buyer and asked if she could be that someone. With a little arm-twisting she agreed. I knew she wouldn’t be able to turn down a chance to defend a frail and elderly David against those arrogant sons of Goliath.

  After Mum and Grant left for golf, I gave Venn the number and went upstairs to listen on the other phone. Sounding scarily like Mum, well spoken and insistent, she easily convinced Barnsdale that she was a legit buyer and he suggested she come in for a virtual-reality walkthrough. There was a moment of silence where I feared she might hang up. But then she said, ‘Before we do that, I have a question you might be able to answer. Our eleven-year-old son has received an offer from Crestfield Academy and I’ve heard varying reports. Have you had any personal experience with the school?’

  ‘It just so happens that my nephew attends Crestfield and loves it there. They have a magnificent pool and gymnasium. Does your boy enjoy sports?’

  ‘He’s more the academic type.’

  ‘Evan tells me that his teachers are
all very dedicated, going the extra mile to ensure optimal results. If you choose Crestfield for your lad, the Paradigm Apartments are very close. Give me your details and I’ll send you the prospectus.’

  >CLACK!< Venn hung up.

  I bolted down to the living room. Venn’s face was glistening, her neck red. ‘Oh my God!’ she said. ‘That was so nerve-wracking. I didn’t know what to say and I panicked.’

  ‘No, you totally nailed it.’

  So Kenny Barnsdale is Starkey’s uncle. The plot was getting thicker, and harder to swallow than a bowl of cold porridge.

  Before heading back to the city on Sunday, I asked Mum what she knew of her ancestry. ‘Why the sudden interest?’ she said.

  ‘If you don’t know where you came from you can’t know where you’re going.’

  ‘Very true. My Aunty Dot was the family historian. Lovely lady, she died about five years ago. But she drew up our family tree and sent everybody a copy. I’ll see if I can find it.’

  A few minutes later Mum returned and handed me a piece of yellowed paper. On it was a big tree with roots that went back to my eight great-great-grandfathers all born in the 1860s and 70s, but no further. There was Harrison, Cornelius, Theodore, Edmund, Johnathon, Gideon, Festus and Floyd. There was no Edwin. Edmund was close, but his surname was Snook not Stroud. The disappointment outweighed the relief.

  Back on the eastside I went for a final training session in the building’s pool before the Invitational on Wednesday. Mulling over the Starkey–Barnsdale family connection while I swam, I wondered if Starkey and the goons’ dedication to the task meant Barnsdale had paid them. One way or another, I was determined to untangle the cords of their involvement in the sinister operation.

  Monday morning, the goons swaggered into the squad briefing session with freshly shaved heads. Their commitment to gaining even the slightest edge over their opponents won applause from everybody except Pericles and me. The look almost suited Nads, but Mullows looked bereft without his ginger mullony and Starkey resembled a newborn ferret. Simmons read the final list of contenders for each event, with Pez in the individual butterfly and me to swim fly in the relay – Crestfield’s glory event.