Tom Houghton

by Todd Alexander

  The schmoozing of the powers that be went just as I’d expected, and feared. A lot of jokes about convicts and being upside down, and questions about the gay scene and theatre world in Sydney, mutual applause for Victor’s visionary uniqueness and extreme gratitude, humbling, fall-at-your-feet indebtedness for recognising it, and agreeing to allow me to come all this way to star in the thing when it would have been easier and more politically viable to get a local. Wine helped make me sound more genuine, English beers on top teetered me over the edge towards facetiousness. Victor always managed to find me before I turned into a devil, making excuses about a diva’s beauty sleep and morning rituals, et cetera, et cetera.

  One week of rehearsals was all he’d allowed, given that I was (or should have been) entirely familiar with every line, the set was largely the same and the rest of the cast had been rehearsing for three weeks without me – Victor salivating to step in and read Martha in my absence – so actually the six days we were given were more about my bonding with Grace, the fierce Invernesian who’d reached local notoriety for walking out of the highest paid job in television, a stupidly popular Scottish soap opera. This, we all recognised, was entirely responsible for our near sellout. I warmed to Grace immediately. She was one of those deeply wrinkled, yellow-skinned, foul-mouthed living legends – rough as bags, as Lana would have said. Grace had done an abysmal tour of Australia in the 1970s and had loathed every second of it, so we spent most of our bonding time taking the piss out of my country. She wanted to play George, she said, wholly unlike a Richard Burton type, insisting on losing weight for the role and dressing him as a dweeb, a wiry pencil dick of a geek (as she put it) who Martha could physically dominate more easily, allowing her to intellectually tower over me. It was never ‘Martha’ when she referred to my character, it was always ‘you’, as in: ‘I will demean you as much as I can within the bounds of the script.’ She took the role very seriously, it being her chance to shed the garb of her housewife screen role and besides, she loved a wine as much as I, so most evenings we method acted, as it were, and went on stage half cut.

  The rest of the cast was rounded out by Charlie Sumner, a rough and tumble lad who’d achieved some international exposure in one of those mega-books turned mega-films turned amusement park ride (‘hundreds of American girls line up to ride me every day’, as he so eloquently put it) and er, whatshername from Europe, who none but the most devout indie film devotees would have the foggiest idea about. No understudies, so any absenteeism would result in a cancelled performance, and no pay for anyone, cast or crew. I’d quickly sized up the crew and knew I’d be risking my life if I was the cause of lost pay – no pressure at all.

  Despite my initial impressions, I liked Edinburgh and its gothic eeriness. I explored it by day in a way I never did my own city, forcing myself out of bed in the darkness of early morning, enjoying cold toast and thick soupy tea in the communal dining room before pulling on what felt like twelve layers to stroll the streets and strip off ten after the first fifteen minutes. The sensation of having snow fall on my face for the first time was one of the more surreal moments, one of those This shouldn’t really be happening to me of all people realisations.

  Lexi caught the train up to see me on the first Saturday of the run. We’d chatted several times on the phone but always as I was coming and she was going, or vice versa, and it felt ridiculous that we were in the same continent, the same country (kingdom, as she rightly corrected me) and yet had not actually laid eyes upon each other. She sounded wholly grown up; leading a life I knew only millimetres of, a woman – woman! – whose humour and forthrightness I had naught to do with but was abundantly proud of, nonetheless.

  Her train was getting her in at six, which meant we were still unable to catch each other, as Victor insisted on a cast meal each night, and no backstage visits before the show began. Knowing my daughter was in the audience changed how I felt about the entire caper, made me inject more humility into the performance, imbuing what I could of actual life into Martha and steering clear of anything resembling theatrics. For some, that kind of delivery seemed lazy, a phoning in, as it were, but to me it created an honesty I felt I owed my daughter. Grace hated it, which added more of a spark to our exchanges and this, in turn, charged the audience like never before.

  At curtain I knew I had done something to be proud of, or more proud of than anything Lexi had seen me in before. She came into my dressing room carrying an original signed edition of the play and three yellow roses, knowing they were my favourite.

  ‘Commendable job, Tommy,’ she said. I was removing my make-up and cleansing my face. ‘A step up from the high camp dud I’d been envisioning.’

  Here she was, my beautiful daughter. And my, how stunning she looked. Her face was angular, her exposed arms toned to the point of remarkability. She had her hair cut in a boyish, I’m gonna fuck you up, model kind of way. She exuded confidence, but I knew her well enough to see just beneath the surface even though it’d been so long since I’d seen her. Undeniably, she bore facets of both her mother and me, and a vulnerability just behind the eyes that betrayed her outer bravado. I couldn’t help it – seeing her, I began to tremble, though I liked to think I kept that hidden well enough. She was my greatest achievement. How foolish I’d been to turn my back on her. Lexi was everything I wanted to be, and then some.

  ‘Hiya beautiful,’ I said to her reflection in the mirror. ‘I’m so pleased you approve.’

  She bent down to kiss me on the top of the head and handed me her gifts. I hated that I had neglected to bring her anything, not even a jar of Vegemite, which was token, but seemed appropriately warm. Edward Albee had inscribed his name in the inside cover of the play she’d bought for me, and made notes throughout about Martha, as though he was intending to rewrite the role. I flicked through in amazement.

  ‘Lexi, this must have cost you a bomb.’

  ‘Add in train fares, drinks and hotel room, and I’d say you at least owe me dinner, old man. Please don’t tell me you’ve made other plans.’

  ‘I was hoping you would be free, actually,’ I said, rising from my chair to give her a peck on the cheek.

  I hadn’t seen her in what felt like an eternity. In the intervening years I’d survived a multitude of horribly constructed plays, reviews that could have obliterated careers, boys who should have never been mine, men who never were. And what of Lexi? I knew of so little. I wondered about her loves and losses, her chemical highs and emotional lows. Oh, but how she had a swagger, a cockiness I just could have wept for. I loved her for it, I wanted to be in her inner circle like I’d never wanted anything before. Talking on the phone these past two years since she’d moved to London had proved to be entirely inadequate. Listening to just her voice, I still pictured Lexi as a little naive girl, ill-equipped to deal with the temptations and stresses that a life in a city like London could serve up. But face to face it was clear I knew her less than I assumed, that she’d somehow crept into adulthood without me even realising.

  We stood looking at each other, unsure of what to say next. I’d been hoping against one of those moments that usually sent me into a spiral of over-the-top giddiness, anything to fill the void. A stranger intervened.

  ‘Tom, hi,’ he said, walking into my dressing room with his left hand outstretched. ‘I have to say, you’re nothing at all like I thought you would be.’

  I shook his hand awkwardly, hoping to mask my confusion. Had I met him before? My mind raced through a thousand performances, and triple that number of drunken nights.

  Lexi looked on bemusedly but said nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry, what I meant to say was that Lexi has said so much about you and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but anyway it’s a pleasure to meet her father after all this time, I –’

  ‘No, really,’ escaped from my mouth without a hint of humour.

  ‘Ah Tom, not everyone’s here to gush pathetically so don’t become a parody, for fuck’s sake. Dad, this is my,
um, boss, Eddie. Eddie, meet Tom Houghton.’

  Oh, he wasn’t my type at all. All tall and wiry, freckly-faced, a hint of auburn among his brown hair. Long fingers, dressed like a private school boy confined to the stand on game day, rounded accent and pink, puckered lips.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind if I tag along to dinner,’ he said. ‘I do hope I’m not imposing.’

  I looked at Lexi, who merely pressed her lips together.

  ‘It’d be my shout, I’d insist,’ Eddie added.

  ‘Well . . .’ I said breathlessly, ‘I suppose if my daughter says it’s all right then it’s all right by me.’

  Presumptuously, he’d made a late reservation at a fine-dining restaurant just down the road, one famous for its after-theatre menu. One of the wait staff recognised me and complimented me on my Martha, then the maître d’ sat us in one of the (apparently) sought-after booths at the back of the room. Eddie suggested we order champagne but I knew this would set me off on the wrong road, so suggested instead we begin with a cocktail, which I insisted I would pay for, though as it transpired Eddie paid for everything surreptitiously.

  I excused myself to go to the bathroom before the drinks arrived and stood staring at myself in the dimly lit, designed-within-an-inch-of-its-life bathroom. Checking that the room was empty, I said aloud to my reflection: ‘Tonight is about Lexi. You will not talk about yourself. You will not talk about yourself.’

  Back at the table, the drinks were being served and I took a slurp of my kamikaze. It tasted good and strong.

  ‘How’s work?’ I said at the same time as Lexi asked: ‘How’s Lana?’

  ‘You first, my lovely,’ I encouraged her. ‘News of home can wait, it’s going nowhere fast. I want to hear all about your chaotic London life.’

  Lexi and Eddie clearly did not share a typical boss–employee relationship. I thought they might be lovers, or at least, might once have been. She touched him on the shoulder affectionately whenever he qualified one of her statements, even ruffled his hair when he said something stupid (though I’d missed it). I was pleased that, once on a roll, Lexi had no trouble talking about herself, telling me of all the places in Europe she’d been since she arrived, many of which I’d barely even heard. She worked to travel, reminding me so much of the younger Hanna that I knew the two of them would one day be fast friends. She’d managed to get two promotions at the sales company and had only recently started working with Eddie – always with, never for – a crack team employed to deal with the prestige clients. Eddie chimed in effortlessly, as though he was a boyfriend here to charm the visiting out-of-town businessman dad. It was working. He was older than Lexi, but furiously intelligent, clearly very adept at navigating his way through the corporate world when I would have been in my red hood marching straight into the jaws of a hungry wolf. I admired that skill, and the way he let Lexi be herself without any hint of hierarchy. She was clearly in very good hands (and my how long those fingers were).

  We got to talking of Lana’s condition – stable but infuriatingly vague. I found myself lying and telling Lexi she asked after her on many occasions when it seemed, to me at least, that Lexi’s existence was one of the things that had definitely been erased by my mother’s latest turn. Lexi hinted she should return home to be with Lana and I reached across the table to physically slap her hand.

  ‘That would be throwing your life away for a life that’s already been thrown,’ I said, and Eddie raised his glass (we were on to wine) to salute my wisdom.

  I asked Lexi about her mother, though hearing about that wretch made me want to retch. I knew it was the right thing to do and had silently kept reminding myself to make tonight about Lexi and stop with the predictable lambasting of her mother. Bouts of rehab, another declaration of bankruptcy, a new boyfriend, sobriety, job helping disadvantaged youth, theft and drugs and the spiral (ah-ha!) was in freefall all over again.

  While we were talking of Lexi and her mother, it was Eddie who most surprised me. He had a sensitivity not common in men, and a forthright matter-of-factness I found refreshing. He was unafraid to express his view, regardless of how it may have come across. And this directness was also turned to me on numerous occasions throughout.

  ‘So tell me, Tom, why did you ever have a child with the woman in the first place? I mean, what were you thinking, if you were thinking at all?’ and ‘But surely, if you knew you wanted to be an actor your whole life, you knew that you would never have the chance to be a decent full-time parent? Don’t you need a licence to own a dog these days? Yet any pair of fuckwits can rub funnies and create a child and to hell with what that means for the poor kid’s future.’

  These weren’t as accusatory as they might sound, and I responded with poise.

  ‘Lexi knows about my confusion in those days, my reticence to be who I knew I really was. I was hiding behind others, afraid to let too many people in. And I suppose I’m still a bit like that – even with you, wouldn’t you say, Lexi?’

  ‘We love each other but we don’t really know each other. You’re the gay man who left my mother to a drug-fucked existence and I’m the thing that reminds you of a truth you weren’t prepared to embrace, back in the day. I’d say we’ve found a medium, happy or otherwise.’

  ‘But don’t you want more from each other?’ Eddie pressed. ‘I love Lexi more than anyone else I’ve met and you seem like a bit of an enigma, Tom. Drop all the acting shit and beneath that there’s a man who has a story to tell. It’d be fascinating.’

  He had a discomforting way of maintaining eye contact, the intensity of which was hard to decipher. It may have been that he saw straight through me, or perhaps it was his form of self-protection, or then again, perhaps confident projection.

  ‘Well, thanks for obliterating my reason for being –’

  ‘Now, now, don’t get precious, we’re all friends here.’ And with this questionable statement he punched me lightly in the arm. ‘We’re all screwed up, it’s just that some of us don’t pretend we’re not.’

  No one had ever spoken to me like this. It was shocking and thrilling in equal measures. I didn’t know whether to psyche him out or try to kiss him. I kept looking for intimacy between him and Lexi but if they were together, they were doing their best to keep PDAs to a minimum. Despite his verbal cockiness, however, his mannerisms betrayed some sort of nervous energy. The way he constantly fingered his wine glass, then wiped away his smudged prints with a paper napkin. The tearing of the napkin between thumb and forefinger, a slight trembling of his left leg – he was not without his insecurities, I was sure.

  The meal, as promised by all the reviews printed inside the menu, was exquisite. The prices matched. It was an evening of which I was proud, an interviewer genuinely interested in the responses to my probing. By its end, I realised that we’d not once mentioned the play, or other plays I’d been in, or famous actors I’d met, or reviews I’d received – for these topics, it seemed, neither my daughter nor her would-be suitor gave a solitary shit.

  As they were staying in the same hotel, we agreed to end the evening with a nightcap in the lobby. This time I did put them on my tab. Lexi chose a black coffee, dismissing my concerns she would never sleep, while Eddie introduced me to warm Benedictine. Lexi told me of her plans to move to the company’s headquarters in Dubai within a year and promised she would come to see the play again before it finished its run. We agreed to reignite the plan for me to sleep on her couch before I flew back to Australia and Eddie granted her time off work to show me about London. I suggested another round, but Lexi insisted she was tired and Eddie excused himself at the same time. I envied the ease they shared and wondered what their sex would be like. Lexi gave off nothing short of supreme sexual confidence and he would have been complicit. Martha and George, perhaps.

  I ordered myself a glass of Hunter Valley Shiraz – for the price of a bottle back home – a guilty treat, but the first sip alone made it worth it. Halfway through the glass, Eddie walked back into the lobby.
Assuming he’d forgotten something, I looked about the table where he’d sat.

  Before I could say there was nothing here, he eased himself into the chair next to me (where Lexi had been), saying, ‘On second thoughts, I’m not that tired. Mind if I join you for another?’

  More of my salary was spent ordering him a glass of the same but it was the least I could do given the meal was probably ten times that amount.

  ‘Have you ever been married?’ I asked, suddenly fearful that Lexi was his office affair and she’d throw her life away on a man constantly promising, though never intending, to leave his chaste and wealthy wife.

  ‘Ah, no,’ he said into the bulb of his glass, which made me suspect that, though he had no wife, Lexi was no more than his mistress.

  ‘She’s a good girl, my Lexi,’ I said, deliberately placing the possessive.

  ‘None better,’ he said. ‘She helped me through my last break-up like the most seasoned trouper. I doubt I’d have made it through without her sage fuck-you to reality.’

  ‘Ha!’ I said.

  ‘I think you’re a remarkable individual,’ he said out of the blue.

  ‘Eddie, you really do know how to flatter. I thank you, and take the compliment. If you don’t mind me saying, though, you have done enough.’

  ‘Enough?’

  ‘That was your intention, wasn’t it? To win me over?’

  He blushed. Since when does a man of his age blush? ‘Am I really that transparent?’