Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

by D. J. Connell

‘We do not use the H word in this house.’

  ‘A certain television star then.’

  ‘Hardly a star. The man’s a failure.’ She drew air in through her nose. ‘Ours was a childless marriage.’

  ‘But he’s won the Tassie Wallaby, many times over!’ I felt compelled to come to Dick Dingle’s defence. Prudence may have been his wife but I was definitely his biggest fan. I’d watched Dick Dingle go from the black and white of my childhood to the dazzling colour of the swamp walnut. His hair had thinned out over the years and then thickened up again. I knew Dick Dingle’s face better than the face of my own brother. He was a Tasmanian icon, a living legend.

  ‘He’s on the award committee.’ She sniffed triumphantly and then stood back to admire the dog. ‘It’s remarkable really. You haven’t done a bad job with Solange.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I was surprised at the compliment but she was right. The dog’s fur had lost its Rick Wakeman droop and gained a Dusty Springfield bounce.

  ‘Have you ever considered coiffuring?’

  My chest swelled. ‘I’d consider a career as a celebrity coiffeur but I’d need introductions from someone with industry connections.’

  ‘I don’t mean human hair.’ Prudence gave her own helmet of hair a protective pat and then did something unexpected and completely out of character. She removed a tiny box of chocolates from her handbag and held them out to me. The chocolates were like the soft toy, a reward for good behaviour.

  I selected the biggest in the box but it melted in my mouth before I had the satisfaction of chewing.

  ‘That beats Shelby’s any day, Mrs Jipper.’ I ran my tongue over my teeth and prayed that another was coming my way.

  ‘You people do not savour your food.’ The box was snapped shut and put back in her bag. ‘It’s a waste.’

  ‘I do savour. I just do it quickly.’

  High-speed savouring was a skill I’d learned in the Corkle household where dinnertime had always been an every-man-for-himself affair. The quicker I ate, the more steak, chips and desserts I got. The one person I could never beat for speed was my father. Friday nights had been hell when I’d done battle with him and Carmel over an open parcel of fish and chips.

  ‘One should never hurry a Belgian praline. It should be held on the tongue until it melts.’

  ‘I have a very hot tongue. Mine melted very fast.’

  Prudence sniffed and led the dog outside as a silver Mercedes made its way around the circular driveway. Harrison looked like all the other men who patronised Prudence: buttoned-up and wealthy. I didn’t understand her attraction but neither did women. Prudence had no female friends apart from Solange.

  I waited until they’d left the premises and then dialled my father’s number. We hadn’t spoken since the whiskey afternoon and it was about time he heard about my Dick Dingle connection. Trevor answered the phone.

  ‘G’day, mate.’

  ‘Hello, Trevor, how are you?’

  ‘Bonza. We’ve just set up a swimming pool, one of those aluminium and plastic jobs.’

  ‘I thought Dad didn’t like pools.’ He’d always said that a pool was a waste of money, that we could stop whining because we were never going to get one, ever.

  ‘He reckons it’s the best thing he’s ever bought. You’ll have to come around for a dip.’

  ‘I’ve moved up in the world, Trevor. I’m working for Dick Dingle’s wife in Battery Point.’

  ‘Come around after work then. Don’t worry about bathing togs. It’s all boys in together here.’

  ‘I can’t tonight.’ Skinny-dipping with Trevor Bland didn’t seem right. He was Dad’s friend and, as far as I knew, Dad never did anything nude. ‘Is Dad there?’

  ‘He’s gone to the track. The pool’s here if you change your mind.’

  I found a Sunshine Insurance pamphlet in the letterbox when I got home. On the cover was a photo of Frank wearing a dark maroon jacket with wide shoulders. Underneath was a caption:

  Frank Burger for all your insurance needs. Talk frank with Frank. You’ll find the sun shines out of his arsenal of insurance policies.

  There was also an official-looking letter for Miss Colleen Nolan, the maiden name Mum had used on all the divorce papers. The letter had a heavy, ominous feel. I put it on the mantelpiece in the dinette and stood looking at it. My mother and Prudence had very different ways of going about a divorce. For Mum, marriage had been the biggest mistake of her life. When it stopped working, all she wanted to do was shut up shop and move on. Prudence made a lot of noise but showed none of Mum’s haste. She liked to call her divorce ‘the Cause’ and talked about it as if it were a business deal. According to Prudence, nice girls finished last. I hoped, for Mum’s sake, she wasn’t right.

  The house was empty and very quiet. Since her promotion, Mum often worked late and Carmel never came home before eight. I wandered into The Ensuite and surveyed the cosmetics lined up on the Aussiemica vanity. Their number had doubled since the separation. Mum’s taste in underwear had improved. Drying on a coat hanger over the shower were a new lacy maroon bra and matching underpants. I examined the labels and was pleased to note that they weren’t from Cobber’s.

  I went back to the dinette. It was Friday night and I didn’t feel like watching television on my own. I should’ve been out partying with the likes of Philippe and Terrence Fig. I wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Mum’s Chardonnay clinked inside the door holder. She definitely wouldn’t miss a couple of fingers.

  The wine was surprisingly tasty, nothing like the sweet vinegar of Jackaroo. I helped myself to another glass and lit a cigarette, Hollywood style. Being alone wasn’t so bad if you had Chardonnay on tap. All the tragic stars drank alone. I thought of Judy Garland and took another glass.

  The Hobart Star was sitting on the table next to the fruit bowl. I slid it over and unfolded it, bracing myself for the inevitable front-page sports photo.

  I sat up straight and swallowed my mouthful of wine.

  At the bottom of the page was a small photo with the title: ‘Groomed for the Stage’. Sharon was done up like a circus performer in a ruffled dress and tiara. In her hands were the kazoo and tambourine she’d used to win the Hobart Little Aussie Rising Star trophy. Sharon was going to compete in the Tasmanian finals.

  Tears pricked my eyes. Something hard and urgent pressed the inside of my chest behind the sternum. I belched and thought of Dolly. It should’ve been me in the Star. What had Mum been doing? I couldn’t remember the last time she’d got me to sing and she never mentioned the Golden Microphone any more. I put the Chardonnay bottle to my lips and chugged back the rest of the wine.

  Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits LP was looking the worse for wear but the sound of his voice sent a thrill through me, especially with the volume dial on ten. I started off singing big to ‘Strangers in the Night’ and sang even bigger to ‘Something Stupid’. Julian Corkle hadn’t lost the old magic. I was still the Songbird of the South, Tasmania’s very own young Ol’ Blue Eyes.

  I was working my way through the LP a second time when a loud noise disturbed me. I turned off the music and recognised the sound of large fists pummelling pinewood. On the back step was a tall, stocky woman in a tight police uniform. She had her hands on her hips. Her thick arms were straining her shirt at the armpits.

  ‘There’s been a complaint about the noise.’ She slapped the truncheon attached to the belt of her trousers. ‘You’re upsetting the neighbours with your caterwauling.’

  ‘I was practising my routine.’ The only way to deal with authority was to pull rank. ‘They call me the Songbird of the South. I’m a blue ribbon champion, best in show and all that.’

  The policewoman narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that alcohol on your breath?’

  ‘No.’ I wasn’t going to fall for her tricks. ‘I just cleaned my teeth with methylated spirits.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen…more or less.’

  ‘Are you trying to be fun
ny?’

  ‘Ha-ha or peculiar?’

  The situation called for humour. I smiled at the policewoman. Her face hardened into a scowl.

  ‘I’m going to report you.’ She pulled out a flip notepad from her shirt pocket. ‘Name?’

  ‘The Songbird of the South, like I said.’ I fluttered my eyelashes. A little charm went a long way.

  ‘Right, you’re coming with me!’ Slapping her truncheon, she barged into the room like a battering ram.

  I jumped back, screeching out my name. The policewoman stopped and looked at me with surprise.

  ‘Corkle? You’re not Carmel’s brother?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The Locomotive?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ She smiled and took her hand off the truncheon. ‘She’s not home by any chance?’

  ‘No, she’ll be with the cricket team somewhere.’

  The policewoman looked disappointed. ‘Tell your sister Big Trish was asking after her. I haven’t seen her at the YWCA since she quit hockey.’

  29

  ‘There, Julian! More filth!’ Prudence tapped the window with a fuchsia fingernail.

  I was crouched under her arm following her fingernail taps on the glass slider with a plastic scraper. This behaviour bothered me. Brian Keith never made Sebastian Cabot get down on all fours.

  ‘No, no, no. Over here! Use your eyes! You people just don’t see fly droppings, do you?’

  ‘One of those jeweller’s loupes might come in handy.’

  ‘Are you being brazen?’

  I was most definitely being brazen but it wasn’t a very clever thing to do. It gave the advantage. The best way to deal with Prudence was to appeal to her sense of self-importance.

  ‘After your divorce, should I address you as madam or lady?’

  Prudence fanned her nostrils and drew breath before answering. ‘I’ve given the subject considerable thought and decided on miss, comme la jeune fille.’

  ‘Miss it is then.’

  ‘Jipper.’

  ‘Jipper.’

  ‘Miss Jipper.’

  It was thoroughly enjoyable to annoy Prudence but I had to be careful. It was day five of her diet and her mood swings were ferocious. She’d started on the diet with no fat to lose and was now running on empty. Prudence hadn’t chosen a normal method of losing weight like the cabbage diet. She was on the fresh pineapple diet, an exotic choice for Tasmania where pineapple was bought in tins and used for decorating ham steak and cheesecakes. Fresh pineapple was for foreigners and luxury hotels in places like Copacabana Beach. When I discovered that Prudence had bulk-ordered her fruit from Queensland, I decided to join her. I’d discreetly eat my way to weight loss and it wouldn’t cost me a thing. The garage was stacked with crates.

  Day one was thoroughly enjoyable. I managed eight pineapples and never felt a twinge of hunger. The next day, my mouth felt as if I’d eaten a packet of razor blades but I still tucked away six. By day five my trousers had loosened but my nerves were shot and my digestive system wouldn’t stop bubbling.

  ‘Is that you making that infernal noise?’ Prudence took her eyes off the linen skirt I was ironing and screwed up her nose at me.

  ‘It’s my musical intestines.’

  ‘Control them.’

  ‘I can’t. They’re like my kidneys. They’ve got a mind of their own.’

  ‘Of course you can control them! You people just don’t try.’

  With an aggressive sniff, she removed the skirt from the ironing board and left the room.

  Prudence had an appointment with the bishop at the Anglican cathedral. Officially it was a private interview about the divorce but earlier that morning I’d overheard her talking to someone about a press photographer. I pitied Dick Dingle but I still wished I was going to the cathedral with her to fight off the press.

  My parents’ marriage had been dismantled without any such fanfare. The divorce was now official. Mum and I had celebrated with a roast chicken and chocolate log but it was a confusing anti-climax for me. After years of belonging to something called a family, I was suddenly a free agent. I couldn’t think about this freedom too much because it made me feel empty, the sort of emptiness I felt when I tried to understand a car engine or outer space.

  Prudence came back downstairs looking like a model churchgoer. She’d teamed the skirt with a beige twin set and pearls and was wearing a beige hat shaped like a sausage roll. My mouth watered. I loved sausage rolls almost as much as I loved chips. My intestines gurgled. Prudence screwed up her nose.

  ‘I’ll wait for Percy on the terrace. You will kindly lock up when you leave.’

  ‘I don’t have a key.’

  ‘Of course you don’t have a key. I cannot hand out keys to just anyone. I have valuables, a private life.’ Prudence sniffed. ‘People without a net worth or reputation simply do not understand the importance of security. You people have nothing to lose.’

  ‘How do I lock up?’

  ‘I’ve set the lock on the kitchen door. Simply pull it closed behind you.’

  ‘And Solange?’

  ‘She will be fine in her chalet.’

  I watched the white Bentley disappear out of the driveway before making my move. I breached the second floor feeling like Vasco da Gama and headed straight for the fancy double doors of the master bedroom. I’d imagined the room a thousand times: the four-poster hung with gauze curtains, the pink satin comforter and tasselled throw cushions. With a smile, I pushed open the doors. The smile died on my lips.

  The bedroom was a wasteland of clothes, shoes, handbags and discarded packaging, more like the Ulverston Municipal Dump than the girly room of Barbara Cartland. My eyes picked out the gay purple wrapper of Tiffany biscuits and the gold foil of Shelby’s fruit and nut among empty ice-cream cartons, sweet wrappers, soft-drink cans and cigarette butts. I let out a cry of outrage and joy and made for the bathroom.

  The door was open and giving off the humid smell of fridge fungus. I poked my head in and did a double take. The marble vanity top was strewn with potions and pills and defiled by dirty tissues, cotton pads and ear buds. The brass fittings were crusty with tarnish and the porcelain sink was dull brown and clogged with hair. Even the shower curtain over the bath was black with mould. I stepped over the carnage of clothes and wrappers to pull it back.

  The pain that seized my chest was the sort that accompanies a cardiac arrest. Solange was crouched in the bath looking up at me. Her eyes were narrowed. I was already stumbling backward when the dog reared up and hurdled the bath rim like a gymkhana pony. By the time I hit the kitchen floor, its jaws were opening against a buttock. I heard the dog’s nails lose traction on the marble as it skidded across the floor behind me. With a yelp Solange thumped into the cupboards under the sink but I was already out of the door. I slammed it shut with a laugh as the dog threw itself against the glass panel. I would’ve kept on laughing if I hadn’t remembered that my jacket and bus fare were inside. So was the key to the garage.

  A cramp tore through my abdomen. I hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day’s pineapples and was starving. My only source of nourishment was under lock and key. Cursing Prudence, I circled the garage, then went back to the house and made a circuit. Everything was closed and locked up tight. When I returned to the front of the house I noticed Solange in the window of the parlour. The Afghan was watching me with narrowed eyes. Its eyes widened as I stooped down to tear off a yellow bloom from a flowerbed. It yelped as I stuffed it in my mouth.

  I’d recognised the bed of nasturtiums from one of Brother Punt’s field trips. The flowering plant was edible, a trick worth keeping in mind for times of potato famine or religious persecution. The flower tasted like raw cabbage and candle wax but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I filled my mouth and swallowed without chewing. I refilled it. Solange could go to hell. So could Prudence with all her dirty secrets. When I set off for home, the flowerbed was a denuded tangle of stalks.

&
nbsp; I didn’t need to walk past Sidney Merle Memorial Park but I always made a point of doing so whenever I was near the city centre. The park was another place my father had warned me about. I was walking past it slowly, peering into the gloom of the shrubbery, when an elderly man suddenly emerged. His head was down and he was doing up his fly. We collided and the point of his elbow hit my stomach, releasing with a loud bang a fart of pineapple gas I’d been holding. The man gave a cry of alarm and backed away as if he’d been shot. I picked up the pace and hurried toward the shopping centre.

  Philippe was sitting in one of the cutting chairs examining himself in the mirror when I got to the Brush Off. I tapped on the window and he turned, his eyes automatically flicking to my hair. He blinked as if trying to remember something and then shook his head. With a frown, he looked back at the mirror. My stomach gurgled and I hurried on.

  By the time I got to Echidna Avenue, the hunger had returned with a vengeance. I burst into the kitchen like John Wayne entering a saloon. The packaging on a loaf of bread was ripped apart and two slices were shoved in the toaster. Before they had a chance to warm, they were popped up, buttered and shoved in my mouth. The feeling this gave me was fantastic, something between panic and euphoria. I flicked the switch on the deep fryer and plugged in the electric frying pan.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ Mum surveyed the wreckage of the kitchen and shook her head. She took off an orange jacket I hadn’t seen before and laid it over a chair back.

  I belched and smiled. I’d just consumed a loaf of bread, packet of sausages, block of cheese, bag of frozen chips and six eggs.

  ‘I take it the pineapples are old news?’ She smiled and I noticed she was wearing a different shade of lipstick: silvery tangerine. It made her teeth look whiter and added dazzle to her smile.

  ‘Don’t make me move. I’ll be sick.’

  ‘Stay where you are. I’ll make a cup of tea.’

  ‘I have no intention of moving.’

  ‘Drink this.’ Mum handed me a cup and sat down opposite with one for herself. She was a great believer in the healing power of a tea bag. ‘I see you haven’t washed your overalls yet.’