On cue, the DJ started playing the old Pink banger. Heather came down and danced around David York like a duck snapping at the heels of a gazelle.
‘That’s seriously painful to watch,’ I said to Penny. ‘I’m sorry for dragging you along to this.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m having a great time.’
‘You’re being charitable.’
‘I think we should both be charitable and help them out.’ So we joined Heather and David on the dance floor. Penny was a very expressive mover and when I complimented her, she explained that she’d taken salsa and belly-dancing classes. To be honest, she could’ve made the Chicken Dance look sensual. We danced for almost an hour, me trying with limited success to emulate her, and gently steering her away whenever Pericles and Isa were in close proximity.
Heading to the entrance for some fresh air, we saw Nads, Mullows and Starkey arrive with Cheyenne Piper and the Petersen twins. The guys were in black sweats, reversed baseball caps and fake gold chains. The girls wore gold crop tops, black hotpants and thigh-length boots.
I bought Penny a Don’t Let Your Man-go at the mocktail bar and she told me all about how much she missed Curtis and how she’d thought he was the one even though they’d been together for a grand total of six weeks. Again she asked me if I had the Cupid she gave to me ages ago and I confessed I’d defaced him in solidarity, which made her laugh. At that exact moment, ‘Single Ladies’ started playing. Penny said ‘That’s me!’ and pulled me back onto the floor. Liliana Petersen and Cheyenne Piper suddenly flanked her, and the unexpected trio matched the moves of Beyoncé and her two dancers on the giant video screens as if they’d spent a week practising the choreography. A crowd including Nads and Mullows gathered to watch.
Feeling less needed than a fridge in Siberia, I surreptitiously tried to shuffle into the background. But Penny wouldn’t let me go so easily, and started dropping and fanning and twerking against me. Terrified she might inadvertently touch the tail and freak out like Nicole Parker had – but this time with spectators there to witness the destruction of my last skerrick of dignity – I excused myself for a pee.
All of the men’s cubicles were occupied and Starkey was leaning on the wall, so I turned to leave.
‘Can’t you piss in the urinal?’ he said, with scant whiskers twitching like those of a sewer rat sniffing an opportunity for trouble.
‘I like my privacy.’
‘Did you come in here for a tug or a slug?’
‘Neither.’
‘Loosen up, man – try this.’ He thrust a silver flask at my face and hit my teeth. ‘Fuck, sorry about that.’
‘I’m fine.’ I tried to get past but he grabbed my arm.
‘Not so fast.’ His breath was sour and smoky. ‘Where did you find the hottie? You’re punching above your weight with that one.’
‘She works with my mum.’
‘You got your mother to pimp for ya? I was expecting you to make some faggy statement by turning up with your boyfriend Pappas. You must be shat off that he stole the bitch you’ve been spading despite Nads warning you to stay away?’
There was no way I could pee in peace with Starkey there, but I was still aching for a leak so I headed for Old Block. Walking through grass that hadn’t been cut over the break, I felt the dew soak into the cuffs of my jeans and a breeze chill the sweat on my neck. Crickets stopped chirping as I approached Old Block, and a fruit bat swept low enough for me to smell its fecundity – the moon revealing the veins in its membranous wings.
The Old Block toilets were locked and there was nowhere else to go, so I walked down to the roped-off Port Jackson fig, trusting its girth would protect me from view. In its upper reaches a hundred or more of the bat’s friends were hanging upside down, conducting their own social event, eating figs, chattering and screeching. It was the first time tonight that I’d felt like I actually belonged. But the second my stream of piss hit the trunk of the fig, every dark and furry creature took flight, wings buffeting the air, making it thrum and shudder. It was the most terrifying wee I’d ever taken.
On my way back towards the auditorium I spied two figures cosy on a bench but couldn’t make them out. ‘Locke!’ Pericles called. ‘Leave those bats alone and come over here.’ As I approached him and Isa, I felt the tail shift into a new position, almost vertical, and begin vibrating, which I assumed indicated a perceived threat. But instead of jumping onto Pericles and sinking my teeth into his throat, which would have been a very literal example of overkill, I said, ‘Oh, it’s you two! Great night, eh? Heather and her crew really pulled it off. Just came out for some fresh air. I’ll leave you to it then.’
‘Wait,’ Isa said. ‘Why have you been avoiding us all night?’
‘Penny, the girl I brought – chronically shy.’
‘She didn’t look shy on the dance floor,’ Pericles said.
‘She’s okay with dancing but doesn’t speak English very well. It’d be unfair talking to my friends when she can’t join in.’
‘Where’s she from?’ Isa said.
‘Croatia.’
‘I went to Croatia in Year 7. All the students there learn English. Bring her to the afterparty so we can talk.’
‘She has to get home before midnight. Anyway, I’d better get back.’ I walked away as quickly as possible, trying to look like I wasn’t.
I found Penny where I’d left her. She was now dancing with my Maths teacher and a cluster of students. Monaro was popping and locking to Daft Punk’s ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’, and everybody else was trying to copy his moves. ‘Show us your Lawnmower!’ Penny shouted. Monaro robotically mimed pulling the starter cord and pushing a mower along. I really wanted to disappear but Monaro pointed at me and shouted, ‘Robot Packing Boxes!’
‘What?’ I shrugged.
‘Like this!’ With stiff arms and a jerky pivoting motion, Monaro actually resembled an automated production-line worker, removing any doubt that he was the most massive tool in the faculty’s shed. Penny was clearly enjoying herself, though, and it would’ve been rude to pull her away, so I joined in and played Follow the Leader until we’d virtually exhausted all the animals, occupations, sports and famous people we could think of.
Mercifully there was no slow song to finish. Heather took the stage, golden beehive deflated and tilting, and introduced a short video of Fergus expressing his gratitude. She announced that $17,000 had been raised tonight, and >BOOM!< glitter cannons shot out golden hearts that fluttered down upon us all.
‘How beautiful!’ Penny said. ‘I’ve had the best night ever. Is there an afterparty?’ But I saw Pericles and Isa approaching, so I told Penny I had a headache.
‘I’ve got some Panadol in my purse. Let’s get you a cup of water.’
Pericles and Isa were almost upon us. The tail went fully vertical again, rigid and prickling.
‘I’ve got ukulele lessons in the morning,’ I said.
‘Right,’ Penny said. ‘Let’s blow this joint.’
On the cab ride to Surry Hills, Penny asked me why I’d been so edgy around my friends and I confessed that I’d wanted to ask Isa to the dance but was too insecure.
‘Take it from me, there’s no reason to be,’ she said. ‘You’re handsome and charming and any girl would be lucky to have you for a boyfriend.’
‘Thank you so much for coming with me,’ I said as the cab pulled up to the kerb.
‘My pleasure,’ she said, and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Anything for Fergus, eh?’
Sunday morning I walked to Centennial Park and sat by the Duck Pond, mulling over the level of anger and jealousy I’d felt seeing Pericles with Isa. Then I called him to say I couldn’t work at Give Me the Juice anymore. He forced me to admit it was because of Isa. I accused him of cutting my grass and he reminded me that I’d been emphatic about not liking her that way.
‘You still knew that I liked her. Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to ask her? Because you’re Shady McShitball.’
‘I can’t believe you just called me Shady McShitball. I’m the one who really needs a friend right now.’
‘You should’ve considered that before the dog act.’
‘You’re not listening to anything I say.’
‘Because your mouth’s dribbling shit.’
Hanging up on Pericles was quite a rush. But rushes by definition don’t last long, and as I walked home I felt terrible about losing a friend over the stance I’d taken. I called him back three times before he answered.
‘What do you want now?’ he said.
‘I’ve been thinking about what happened and I’m willing to forgive you.’
‘That’s really special but I don’t want your forgiveness. A friendship should be built on honesty. I tried to be open and you cut me off. I wanted to tell you something important because I value our friendship. Now I think it might destroy what’s left of it – if there is anything.’
‘This had better be good.’
‘There’s nothing good about it. You may hate me even more when you hear the truth.’
‘I don’t hate you now.’
‘Can we meet somewhere? I can come over your way.’
‘Sure. Meet me at International Velvet. Do you know it?’
‘I’ve been there once or twice. I’ll be there at eleven.’
Pericles beat me to the café. He was sitting on the lips sofa, acting busy with his phone. All the outside tables were occupied by Sunday brunchers and their miniature dogs.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘I ordered you a macchiato.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Isa talks about you nonstop.’
I slid in next to him and a waitress with a bleached pixie cut and Bambi eyes set our coffees on the knock-off Brillo® box. ‘Thanks, Candy,’ Pez said.
‘You know her?’
‘Isa and I used to come here all the time. That was our table under the Edie Sedgwick photo – my favourite Warhol superstar.’ He nodded towards the large framed print. ‘Now that couple in matching Gucci tracksuits have taken over.’ He paused. ‘You’ve got a coffee moustache.’
‘Always happens. What did you want to tell me?’
‘Where do I start? Isa and I clicked the first day we met back in Year 7, and we’ve been tight ever since. Never anything more than friends though. Last year Nads was hounding her and one day followed us to her place. I told him to back off and it turned into a fight. It got me thinking there might be something more between us after all.’
‘I knew it!’ I said and whapped the sofa, drawing stink eye from the tracksuit couple. ‘Sorry, that was a bit much. You should’ve told me from the start.’
‘Hold on, let me finish.’ Pericles delivered a padded-out story about how much everybody in his family loved Isa, especially his father, who assumed they were together. It was the one thing that made him proud but it wasn’t true. When Pez convinced him that he and Isa were just friends, his father told him it was time to man up and ask her out. So he did.
‘She laughed and said I’d caught her off guard and needed time to think about it. Two days later she said no, because there was a huge obstacle in the way.’ Pericles was pouring a sachet of sugar onto the glass on the Brillo® box and shaping the granules into a circle. ‘She told me I was gay.’
‘That’s stupid.’
‘She reckons she knew.’
‘You can’t tell somebody else what they are. Gaydar’s bullshit.’
Pericles grinned crookedly and swept the sugar crystals into a serviette. ‘Promise me you won’t tell anybody this?’
‘People have asked me that a few times lately. Yeah, okay I promise. But no pinky.’
Pez took a deep breath, turning his gaze to the framed photo. ‘Isa was right,’ he said to Edie Sedgwick, then turned back to me. ‘I bat for the other team. Well, I haven’t really batted yet, except on my own.’ He half-smiled. ‘But I am gay.’
‘You’re stitching me up?’
‘I wish I was, but it’s true. I’ve been attracted to guys for as long as I can remember but had fooled myself into thinking I could have something romantic with Isa and it would change me. She knew me better than I knew myself. I’m a legit fag.’
‘Don’t even use that word.’
‘Legit? Sorry.’ He mimicked the screaming-in-fear emoji. ‘I’m just a fag. And you know what?’ he said with a theatrical hand flourish. ‘It’s liberating to own the word after being called it so many times by people who had no idea I was one.’ Pericles had raised his voice and I could see other customers registering the conversation. ‘I am a fag. F-A-G fag! Hello, everybody. I, Pericles Pappas, am a legit homosexual.’
The tracksuit couple fairy-clapped. I asked why he’d chosen this moment to come out to me.
‘Because you lost your shit about Isa. The only reason I’d asked her was because she was upset you hadn’t. That’s why I spoke to you first – to give you a nudge. I don’t want to lose our friendship, but I’m giving you the chance to distance yourself before it’s all out in the open.’
‘Give me some credit. Why would I do that?’
‘So people don’t think you’re a poof by association.’
‘Now you’re talking mad shit again.’
Pericles looked around the room, buried his face in his hands and pressed his fingers into his eyes, as if preparing to pluck them out.
‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘You’re going to hate me for this and I don’t blame you.’
‘I won’t hate you. Keep going.’
‘I was in the library messaging Isa when Starkey swiped my phone and locked himself in a toilet cubicle to read through our conversation. There was a part where she was talking about being jealous of your and my friendship, and wondering if you were gay too. I told her I hoped so and made a stupid joke about her being a fag-magnet.’
‘Shit, Pericles!’
‘I’m not attracted to you. I was being smartarsey because I was jealous of Isa spending more time with you. It’s all good now because you like each other. God – I completely hate myself right now though. I want to melt and disappear through the cracks in the floor.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up. Things must’ve been really difficult for you in ways that I can hardly imagine. But I can relate to how you feel because I’ve felt that way as well. I’ve got a problem that I’m disgusted by, and it means I’ll never be able to date Isa, or any other girl.’
‘What is it? You have to tell now.’
And just like that I’d reached the point of no return. I took Pericles through a similar build-up, swearing him to secrecy and making him promise that he wouldn’t laugh at me. Dr Finster and Nicole Parker were the only people who knew about my unnatural extension – assuming that Nicole hadn’t told anybody, that is. ‘Unnatural extension’ was the term I used instead of tail, and I could see Pericles struggling to keep a straight face. But instead of being repelled he seemed fascinated, which made me feel a small degree less uncomfortable. I finished my tale of woe by saying, ‘It’s been quite a mission to keep it hidden. And I want to keep it that way – but your coming-out will probably make you feel freer than you’ve ever felt before.’
I leant over and hugged Pericles on the lips sofa, then felt him shuddering in my arms. ‘Love you, bruh,’ I said, and hugged tighter. The waterworks fully opened. The Gucci couple were staring, so I blew them a kiss over his shoulder and they went back to their eggs. After calming down, Pez told me it was the best day of his life, which made me think the rest had been one extended stay in Shitsville. Turns out Starkey had been blackmailing him. Against my wishes, Pez had confronted him about his uncle. He’d asked him directly if Ken Barnsdale had paid him to harass Bert. Starkey initially denied everything but then contradicted himself by revealing he’d taken screenshots of Pericles’ messaging session with Isa, and threatening to out him if he told anybody about Barnsdale.
‘Everything will be okay.’ I went to pay the bill. On our way out I said, ‘Ou
r generation’s way more accepting than our parents’.’
‘That’s who I’m afraid of. I don’t want them to find out about me from somebody else.’
‘There’s only one way of preventing it.’
‘I could tell Mum. But it would kill my father.’ His eyes widened. ‘Unless he actually kills me first.’
‘You might be surprised.’
‘And I might be thrown out.’
‘I’m sure that won’t happen – and you can stay with me if it does.’ I gripped his shoulders.
‘Serious?’
‘I’ve got your back, no matter what.’
‘Same.’
Once we’d parted ways, I walked up Bayswater Road, kicking the orange and brown leaves, happy that I’d patched things up with Pericles and even happier that I might be able to do a little patchwork with Isa as well.
Instead of going to Signal Bay this afternoon, under Mum’s direction I took the L90 to Palm Beach Wharf, then caught the little ferry Myra across to Mackerel Beach via Bonnie Doon and The Basin. Venn was waiting on the sofa in the jetty’s shelter, reading The Wonders of Lichen, which she’d picked up from the community library there. ‘Hello, stranger,’ she said. ‘Mind if I finish this first?’
‘That’s a brick. What are you up to?’
‘Second page.’ She laughed and slid the book back onto the shelf. Walking along the shore to Amphitrite, the Partridges’ sculptural black-steel, glass-fronted ‘beach shack’, we reminisced about a game we used to play called Fifty Steps. Standing back-to-back on the beach, each holding a stone, we’d take fifty steps away. Then we’d turn and, with eyes closed, take fifty steps back towards one another and lay our stones on the sand. Their proximity was supposedly the measure of our connection. Often the stones were less than one metre apart, but strangely, we’d never bumped into each other.
‘I hope you’re up for a Rummikub marathon tonight!’ Maxine called from the deck as we approached. The Partridges had hosted us at Amphitrite through ten Easters, most nights involving three or four rounds of the tile-based game, followed by Dad and Don’s whisky-fuelled philosophy hour. This afternoon Mum and Maxine were on the champagne. ‘Glass of bubbly, sweets?’ Maxine said as we joined them.
The Origin of Me Page 29
