Green

by Nick Earls

  ‘Remember,’ she says, ‘when you told me your favourite film was The Graduate?’

  ‘The Graduate?’

  ‘Yeah. It was on TV a couple of weeks ago. Not long after you’d said it was so good. So I watched it. And that was around “Eye of the Tiger” time.’

  ‘There is no “Eye of the Tiger” time. Move on, idiot.’ She laughs, so that’s good. ‘Did you actually watch the film, or were you just trying to . . . Did you see those gestures, the expressions on Dustin Hoffman’s face, the little noises he makes? It’s a one-off. It’s amazing. He is simply a great actor. You give him a regular character and he makes it amazing. He’s not one of those guys who needs to put on a dress or play someone’s psycho brother to stand out.’

  ‘Yeah, but Mrs Robinson . . .’

  ‘It’s a great film. That’s why I like it. And Mrs Robinson is sad. I’m not setting out to copy The Graduate, with your mother or with anyone. Films are supposed to be about life. Life isn’t supposed to be about films. Get it?’

  A train passes, slowing down. The inbound trains always come by a few minutes after the outbound. A cat meows, somewhere on the other side of the line.

  Sophie lifts her head and says, ‘Hey, have you ever thought that cats don’t really go meow? They can’t do Ws. Their lips don’t do that. They don’t even do Ms. They just go yaah and then shut their mouths, or something, towards the end.’

  ‘Surprisingly, I hadn’t ever thought that.’

  ‘So there we go. One of life’s mysteries.’

  ‘And it’s so full of them, isn’t it? So much mystery that it’s the sensible bits I seem to go days without. I used to have them, you know. Back before I started recommending films to people, and getting over-involved. Or whatever.’

  The cat meows again. Or, more accurately, yaahs, shutting its mouth towards the end to draw the sound to a close that masquerades quite well as a W.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she says. ‘I wish I’d . . . been smarter. It’s been a shit of a day in too many ways. We should get to work.’ She holds her hand out for me to help her up. ‘How do you think it’ll go? Mum and Dad? Is it going to be all right?’

  ‘I think so. But it’s got to be up to them.’

  ‘Them and the guy who nearly picked up that psych medal.’

  ‘I should stop saying that.’

  We walk into the shop together and Frank, dealing with a couple of customers, says, ‘Ah, some help.’

  It’s lucky for him that I’m the chicken now, and heading for the street.

  *

  ‘Patched up another fallen soldier,’ he says when I’m with him at the counter after the next swap. ‘Where would they be without you? Clinton problems, was it?’

  ‘What the fuck do you think it was?’

  ‘She doesn’t know . . .’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. And I didn’t tell her.’

  Tonight, every zit on his neck annoys me, every minute we work together. His snuffly sinusy breathing, his stupid remarks, his cockiness with the tongs. Plenty of tiny things that don’t matter at all annoy me a lot. And so does Sophie, as I’m standing here watching her. I want to go up to her right now and tell her how hard I’m trying and how little she knows me, if she thought she could make those assumptions.

  Towards the end of my time at the counter, long after I’ve made myself stop watching her but haven’t stopped thinking about the whole mess, I go out the back for another bag of fries. She’s sitting on the steps in the costume, sniffing and trying to sing Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’. In very different circumstances, it’d make me laugh. She hears me, and turns.

  ‘Oh. Concentration problem,’ she says. ‘Remember your idea of singing to keep concentrating?’

  ‘That was for out at the road.’

  ‘The strobe kept getting in my eyes. I had to stop. I’m re-concentrating now. And I’m really sorry, you know.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sure we’ll get over it.’

  19

  When we’re in the car, I tell Frank what happened with Sophie. The way she’d added it up, the way she’d blamed me. I make it clear that I took some shit for him, and I covered. But that’s all I tell him, and it should be all I need to.

  Frank doesn’t say much.

  He calls me on Saturday, not long before dinner. He tells me it’s over with Zel, first making it sound as if it was all down to him, then admitting that she’d worked it out that way, too.

  ‘It’s been wild, you know?’ he says, but almost dismissively, making it sound as though he’s describing a better-than-average summer holiday. It’s enough to make me angry all over again. ‘But all good things must come to an end. It met a short-term need, I think. That’s what I think it did for both of us. And it was starting to get a bit intense, to be honest. Particularly for you—not that I get how that works, but, you know . . . And, jeez, she’d make demands, I’ve got to say that. I was in danger of getting rich, the amount she was calling. If we break it off now, well, that’s probably the way to do it.’ And I want to shout at every bland sentence he speaks, but I don’t. ‘She said it made her realise what a good man Ron is, and how she wants to work things out.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yeah. The shit was about to fly, wasn’t it? How do you think things’ll be between you and Sophie?’

  ‘How many times have I told you, there is nothing between me and Sophie?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant, dickhead.’

  ‘I’ve got to go. Things’ll be what they’ll be. Fine, I guess. She fucked up, not me. It’s a nice change, at least. Anyway, I’ve got to go and set the table. We’ve got people coming over for dinner.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. It’s Ness’s birthday next Friday night. Did I tell you that? Are you coming?’

  ‘Are we working?’

  ‘No. And she wants you to be there. She said. She wanted me to ask you.’

  ‘Then I’ll come.’

  I check with my mother that I’m setting the table for five, and I get the silverware out of the sideboard. Silver—I thought that was another symbol of affluence. Not that I craved affluence, but it’s where I thought we were—at the regular end of the affluent part of the spectrum (or the affluent end of the regular part of the spectrum). But the silverware was a wedding present given to my mother’s grandmother in 1895. All it’s cost in the twentieth century is the price of polish.

  I’m glad Frank called. Finally, something’s getting sorted out. For the first time in days, I feel myself relaxing.

  And relaxing, it turns out, is a big mistake.

  My mother’s friend Celia is a psychologist and her husband Roger is a law lecturer. They’re both in Pirates. We’re calling it Pirates tonight. That’s the kind of thing that happens once we’re well into rehearsals. I don’t know what parts they’re playing, but Roger does carry himself like ‘the very model of a modern major general’. Is that Pirates? Do I care? The evening’s all very pleasant but I’m used to these dinners offering me little more than that, and I’m used to blending into the background. Actually, maybe it’s not all very pleasant. Not at all unpleasant but stuck somewhere stiff and formal, waiting for someone to ease up and take the rest of us with them. With Roger and my father both here, there are too many major generals in the room.

  Also, it’s fondue, and Frank’s not invited. That seems wrong for a start.

  But it’s my mother—my mother who’s the problem, failing to relax. It’s her fault for inviting cast members round less than two weeks before opening. We don’t usually do that. So tonight we fake, rather than make, conversation. Obstetrics, gourmet chicken burgers. That’s my share of the topics, and No one should pretend it’s interesting.

  I clear the table when we’re finished. My mother brings in a homemade apple pie, my father offers our guests an appalling range of coloured drinks from memory. ‘She’s a psychologist, you fool,’ I want to say to him. ‘At least don’t recite them in alphabetical order.’

  Sadly,
I’m the one who triggers the conversation we’ve been on the fringes of all evening. And all of us knew that’s where we were, except me.

  Celia tutors part-time at uni. She’s an adolescent psychologist. So I ask her if she’s working on the new unit with my mother.

  ‘New unit?’ she says. ‘Which . . .’

  ‘Yes, the new unit.’ My mother interrupts her. ‘I hadn’t really got into the details with Celia yet. I’ve been going through the book first before getting her help.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ I’m being conversational, because I’ve been brought up well.

  ‘The book?’

  ‘The unit.’

  ‘Well, um . . .’ She glances at Celia, who nods. ‘It’s about young people who become mixed up in undesirable things. Not that there aren’t a very broad range of things that are desirable to some people and that are or should be perfectly acceptable as long as there’s consent and no coercion or money changing hands . . .’

  ‘Good. It’s going to be tough trimming it down to a two-line course summary though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Money changing hands,’ she says, in case the point wasn’t made well enough the first time. Whatever the point is. ‘That twenty dollars you had the other day, Wednesday . . .’

  ‘I did say I was saving money. It’s not surprising if I’m in possession of some, is it?’

  ‘Yes, but that particular twenty dollars . . .’

  That particular twenty dollars. The Ron Todd money. The money that changed hands in a cinema foyer in the middle of the city three days ago. This, I fear, could be going to a very bad place, and dragging me right there with it.

  ‘Who gave you that money Philby?’ my mother says, and the question comes at me like a mike in the beak. I’m stuck again. She looks strained. ‘Was it Mister Todd?’

  ‘I work for him . . .’

  ‘Was it Mister Todd, in the foyer of a cinema, after a matinee?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have a friend who was at the Forum on Wednesday at lunchtime. She said she saw you there, with a man who I think might be Mister Todd, and I think he might have been . . . forcing some money on you. She called me that evening.’

  ‘Well, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. It was Ron . . .’

  ‘So, you took the money from Mister Todd. Yes, there’s been a misunderstanding, Philby, hasn’t there?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s been a misunderstanding and it’s all our fault. We tried to instil values in you. We tried to show you that a person has to work for their money, and we never talked about boundaries. It was all that infernal dollar-for-dollar deal.’ She glares at my father.

  ‘I’m sorry, lad,’ he says.

  ‘And I’m very sorry too, Philby. You so wanted that video camera and you came up with the money very quickly, and you were seen there that afternoon, and you came home that night so proud of yourself for having earned the money for the camera, and you pulled the cheque out of your pocket and out came that twenty dollar note. And my worst fears were confirmed.’

  ‘Phoebe,’ Celia says in an excessively calm therapist’s voice that she’s been saving until now. ‘We talked about catastrophising.’

  ‘And you’ve always been a good boy. You’ve always kept your money in your wallet, not loose in your pocket. Haven’t you Philby? And that twenty dollars was loose in your pocket . . .’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Does he give you drugs, Philip?’ Celia says. ‘Does he buy you drugs?’

  ‘Drugs?’ Okay, that’s got me. I’m annoyed. And I know it’s proving easy to get me there these days, but Celia manages it in one move. ‘Only to heighten the orgasm,’ I tell her. ‘He bought me a coffee once. So that’d mean caffeine. It’s a drug.’

  ‘You never wanted me to meet that girl, did you?’ my mother says. ‘You really wanted me out of the house for lunch. Was it a girl, Philby, or . . .’

  ‘Or did Ron Todd take me from behind in your bed for money? Is that the whole question? Correct me if I’m wrong, but that seems to be what we’re talking about here, even though No one’s exactly coming out and saying it. I didn’t want you to be here that day because of how totally ridiculous you can be. You want an example? Tonight’s good.’

  Celia, quiet most of the evening, can’t stop herself butting in now. ‘Would you like to tell us about the night when you got fifty dollars for dancing wearing a glow-in-the-dark boa?’

  ‘I didn’t even get the . . . I was working on the bar. That was a drunk girl who looped it round my neck for a couple of minutes.’ I turn back to my mother, since this started with her. ‘I can’t believe you. What’s this about? I happen to get twenty bucks from Ron, I happen to get lassoed by a drunk girl, and this is how you add it up? Are you insane? How could you even think that way? How did those ideas even get in your head? You’re going to have to do a lot better than that to back it up, if you’re going to go round thinking that’s what I’m into.’

  So that’s when the photos come out. The photos that I thought even the lab in Tweed Heads wouldn’t develop. Celia has them, and she places them on the table in a row, in order. First, photos I’d forgotten about, the ones we took for our axed revue sketch. And, until now, it was no problem at all that they were photos of me in a dress with rosy cheeks and plaits, playing with dolls. Then there’s Frank and the Tim Tam, all slightly out of focus but his face clear enough in one, others just arse and biscuit, as required. And Celia puts each of the doll photos down with a decisive snap, like a blackjack dealer, but she handles the Frank shots only by the edges.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I tell them. ‘The dress photos with the dolls are for a revue sketch that we decided not to do, the ones with the Tim Tams . . .’

  ‘Tim Tams?’ Celia says, and looks more closely at one of the photos. ‘That’s not a Tim Tam. That’s a young man in the midst of a bowel movement, I’d swear it.’

  ‘What kind of dirty perverted photos are you used to looking at? It’s a Tim Tam, for god’s sake. It was a prank. There was this surgery tutor . . .’

  ‘There’s always a story,’ Celia says, with a voice so calm it’s sinister. ‘You’re quick on your feet Philip, but there’s acting in the family, isn’t there? You can tell us how it really adds up. Remember, we’re all on your side here. Whether that’s a biscuit, or something very different.’

  ‘And what about . . .’ my father says hesitantly, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that music you were taping a few weeks ago. That song about touching and heat that you were taping over and over.’

  ‘Oh, et tu, Allan? That was an idea of Frank’s. It . . . oh, what’s the use?’

  ‘Does Frank give you money too?’ my mother says, fear on her face now like a permanent stain. ‘Or is that a matter of affection?’

  ‘Frank can’t afford me. He’s always telling me how poor he is. Some days he can’t even afford enough roughage to make it worth carrying a camera. You could not be more wrong with this. I’m a fumbling hopeless heterosexual who doesn’t even use his bullworker enough to change his lot. I have chosen the Charles Atlas way, but I have fallen. I haven’t had sex for fourteen months and that was with someone you never liked, and the closest I’ve got this year was when I went off early in my own pants and therefore didn’t get paid for my job on the Paradise. Bad timing in all sorts of ways, but that’s my life. And it was with a girl, and in the amateur capacity that I so richly deserve. And when I got another chance with the same girl and she came over here, I cut myself shaving, I got a bit tense, I played my tape, I bled in her drink, I accidentally gave her the impression that I’d slept with you and she ran away. Is that the kind of thing you want to know? Because I’m sorry for not keeping you up to date, and accidentally giving you the impression that I was a prostitute and a pornographer and at least some kind of success at something. Not that there’d be anything wrong with me being a prostitute, blah, blah, blah. I don’t know about the pornographer bit, but most o
f my friends pick up some hooker money here and there and everyone goes home happy as long as safe sexual practices are observed.’

  And just when it looks as though things can’t get any worse, Celia says, ‘Now, setting aside all that for a moment, why don’t you tell me about Mister Wilson?’

  My mother interrupts. ‘Perhaps this isn’t the best time . . .’

  ‘No, I’m doing this properly or not at all,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you tell me about Mister Wilson, Philip?’

  ‘Mister who? There’s no Mister Wilson?’

  She fixes me with a look that works the way a pin works when it attaches a butterfly to a board. Mister Wilson. Oh no.

  ‘Mister Wilson didn’t even have genitals, damn you,’ I shout at her. ‘He was more like Buddha.’ My mother looks down at her plate, at the last crumbs of apple pie. ‘But I made him up, anyway. I copied from one of my friends at preschool. I’m like that. I even cheated when it came to imaginary friends. I’ve got no fucking life at all, so I had to cheat to imagine one. How about that?’

  ‘Oh yes. And what was the preschool friend’s name?’

  Name? What was the bloody name? I look down at the table. I’m being done in by that name business again. My hand has a tight grip on my water glass and I’m stuck again on a name. And the whole Mister Wilson thing is about to turn ugly—even uglier—and he really was just a nice old imaginary friend who deserves much better than this, and was gone, anyway, by the time I’d turned six.

  ‘George,’ I tell her. ‘George Glass.’

  I look up at my mother. She knows the look I’m giving her. It could best be described as imploring. And when your only child implores, you should go with it. You really should. Or you will probably go to hell when you die. Bear that in mind, Mother. Bear it in mind now.

  ‘Oh, George, yes,’ she says in a spindly lying voice. ‘I remember George. He always was quite a strange boy. He’d hide behind the geraniums whenever the dogs barked.’