Tom Houghton

by Todd Alexander

  ‘Thanks, miss.’

  ‘Have you figured what you’re going to wear to our Hollywood day?’

  ‘I have, miss.’

  ‘Any clues?’

  ‘No. It’s a surprise. A big surprise.’

  ‘Oh good.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘I’m glad you’re getting into the spirit of things. Now . . . Tom? How’s your mother?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Coping, is she?’

  It took me a moment to work out what Mrs Nguyen was talking about. I found it awkward that she wanted to dwell on Pa’s death when, frankly, Mum and I had just got on with things as we should.

  ‘It was a terribly sad shock when he passed away,’ I said smoothly. ‘But life has to go on, doesn’t it? What with work, keeping house, studies . . . there’s really no time to mourn too deeply, is there?’

  Mrs Nguyen looked at me as though waiting for a punch line, reconsidered, then made her face appear serious. ‘Well, ah, give her my best, won’t you, Tom?’

  I carried a box to her car and bade her farewell. It was twenty past three but I still went to the back gate and walked the long way home.

  Mal was there, cooking dinner for us. Mum was still in bed. Despite this, Mal was behaving childishly, as though he knew some secret and wasn’t letting me in on it. I went about my chores, picked all the ready vegetables, gathered them together and washed them under the tap. I carefully collected all of the eggs in an old cotton-lined basket Mum had made specifically for the purpose and put it under the shade of the lemon tree. I scraped up all of the chook poo and spread it over the empty garden bed next to the garage, which was just about ready for its new crop. It was then I realised I’d not seen the angry bird for a while. I looked in all four of the small boxes, expecting her to be playing some trick on me and biding her time to launch a surprise attack, but she was not in any of those. I squeezed in behind the garage and checked among Pa’s building supplies to see if she was hiding in there.

  Under one of the makeshift shelves, I found her. She was dead. I couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of loss, our long-standing rivalry now complete, never again the adrenaline of attack and counter-offensive. I couldn’t bear the thought of eating her, so I decided not to tell Mum about her, choosing instead to bury her under the lime tree. I worked quickly and efficiently, digging a hole that was altogether too large for her, but at least it was deep enough that the other chickens would never be able to scratch their way down to her body. I paid my respects to a worthy opponent and carried the eggs and vegetables in to the kitchen.

  ‘Thanks, Tom,’ Mal said when I came back. ‘I’ve put your dinner in the fridge.’

  ‘Thanks. How’s Mum?’

  ‘She’ll be all right, mate, eh? Just needs her rest. Don’t forget to collect all of those rubbish bags from the garage, we’ll need to put them out tonight.’

  My stomach sank and I thought I might be sick. He’d found the magazines and now he was going to confront me about them, found it funny I was playing with myself up there alone. My face turned scarlet, my pulse quickened and I wished I could dig myself into that hole with the angry bird. I went up to the garage and noticed for the first time the roller door was closed – so Mal had been up here. I took a deep breath, rubbed my belly to try to calm it and slowly opened the door, fearful of what I would find.

  The first thing I saw was the couch. Not the stained, perpetually damp one from the yard, but a low, comfortable-looking plush couch, deep enough for me to have my feet up on. In the corner where the boat had been now sat a television on a milk crate. On top of it was a video recorder. I heard Mal behind me then, coming to share the surprise and see that everything was to my liking.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ I struggled to find the right words. ‘It’s not Christmas yet.’

  ‘It can be, today! My housemate was moving out, he went back home. Said he was going to chuck it all away, so I brought it over this afternoon in my van.’

  ‘Thanks, Mal! He was gonna chuck out a television?’

  ‘Well, actually, I bought that off him.’

  ‘How much do I owe you?’ I would have given him just about the whole five hundred for this.

  ‘I don’t want your money, eh, bro? My treat. Go have a look next to the telly . . .’ Mal tilted his head in its direction.

  There on the milk crate was a box set of films starring Katharine Hepburn.

  ‘I know she’s one of your favourites, thought maybe after the biography you would be interested in seeing some of her earlier movies.’

  One of them was Christopher Strong, and it was a sign my plan was correct, my fate was sealed. I confirmed this by gently rubbing my fingers against the small square of material in my pocket.

  • • •

  The next day at school was unremarkable except for the fact that Spencer did not show. The rumours circulated excitedly again; so he had been expelled after all. I listened carefully to Simon Harlen’s role in their spreading, but it was clear to me, at least, he knew no more than anyone else. I doubted they socialised much outside of school, doubted that Simon Harlen had ever set foot in Spencer’s house and certainly would never have slept tip to toe in his bed. The mystery of Spencer’s absence seemed to distract the thugs enough for them to ignore me and I found it a comforting change, though perhaps it just meant the storm would be worse when it returned.

  Much of the afternoon was spent planning and designing the backdrop for the Hollywood theme. Mrs Nguyen projected one of her own photos of the Hollywood sign onto a wall and some kids were tracing the letters onto large pieces of cardboard. Fitz was busy making a fake movie camera out of empty boxes and cardboard rolls, and Belinda and I were tasked with making a stretch of red carpet by gluing scrunched-up balls of crepe paper down on a thick piece of linoleum. It was sticky, messy work, but we did not have to talk much as we were working on opposite ends of the three-metre stretch. I noticed Belinda’s balls were not as compact or uniform as mine and hoped my end of the make-believe carpet would be closest to the audience. In the background, Mrs Nguyen played a tape of mixed Hollywood-type songs that drove most of the kids crazy. Simon Harlen said they should put on a compilation tape he bought last week, but she was having none of that.

  I left via the front gate, after walking Mrs Nguyen to her car. She wasn’t very talkative as we walked and I figured she had more of the Hollywood planning on her mind. I walked home happily, un-teased for a change, and looked forward to watching my first movie in my new cinema. I thought Mum was working a double shift behind the bar, so there’d be no one home to greet me or make my dinner. I didn’t mind, though.

  As I approached the house, I saw what I thought was a package at the front door. For a moment my heart raced ahead of my mind and I imagined Katharine Hepburn had responded already and sent me some sort of package, some possession of Thomas’s, perhaps. But it was so unlikely she would have even received the letter yet, not to mention respond favourably to it. When the shape moved as I turned up the drive, I could finally see that it was Spencer.

  He sat with his head in his hands, his body slumped. It was as though some part of him had died: he had none of his usual aura, no cheeky smile or bright eyes to greet me. I guessed he was here to pick a fight, yell at me for the way I’d behaved. I walked cautiously towards him; saw he had been crying. I chose not to say anything but sat down next to him on the front step and waited.

  Spencer took a moment to regain his composure. He took a deep breath.

  ‘My dad . . .’ he began, ‘is not a very nice man.’

  As he spoke, his body began to tremble, but I was still too unsure of where I stood in the situation to reach out or try to console him.

  ‘He hits us kids,’ Spencer continued, ‘to teach us lessons. I can handle it, it doesn’t even hurt after a little while. But last night . . .’ He was difficult to understand, blubbering as he spoke, the moisture of despair overcoming him. ‘Last night . . . he hit my mum. Badly. I thought he was going to k
ill her. I’ve never seen him that angry, never!’

  Finally I felt it was okay to touch him. I lightly put my right hand on Spencer’s shoulder and patted it. I genuinely didn’t know what to say, thought the best thing to do would be to distract him from his pain, try to be there as a listener, a confidant.

  ‘She’s left,’ Spencer said. ‘Mum left in the middle of the night.’

  I thought of sitting next to my own mother at Pa’s funeral, imagining what it would be like for her to cease existing, simply disappear. I’d tried hard to create the emptiness, desperation, of a motherless life but even given the circumstances of death, I could not go close. I was shattered for Spencer; so remorseful for the way I had recently behaved. I found it easy to forgive him then, to accept we had both behaved poorly, but perhaps Spencer had better reason to. I helped him up, unlocked the front door and took him to the kitchen. I poured him a tall glass of milk and took some of Mum’s cupcakes out of the freezer. We ate the icy cakes in silence, dipping them into the milk to defrost them, slurping at the crumbs dropping onto our arms.

  ‘What are you gonna do?’ I finally asked, quietly.

  ‘I . . . I dunno.’

  ‘She’ll come back, I reckon.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want her to. Not if Dad is gonna hit her like that. There was blood, Tom, heaps and heaps of it.’

  ‘What about the police? Maybe we should call the police?’

  ‘And have my old man locked up again? He’d just get out in a while and then we’ll all end up dead, probably.’

  ‘You . . . you could stay here. For a while, I mean. I could look after you.’

  Spencer found the courage to smile. ‘I have to be home for my brothers,’ he said regretfully, ‘they’re too little to handle this on their own.’

  ‘Tonight then?’ I urged. ‘Stay here tonight, give us some time to think of a plan. Something . . . I dunno.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Spencer said, and reached for another frozen cake.

  As Mum was still in bed with all her shades drawn, we completed my chores together as silently as we could. While I turned the soil in the garden beds, Spencer collected the eggs from the chook pen. After, I made us cheese and salad sandwiches for dinner. We took it in turns to shower the grime of afternoon chores from our skin and I loaned Spencer a pair of pyjamas. He was embarrassed to be wearing them, too large for his skinny frame. Keeping us away from Mum, I took him to my new hangout in the garage. The mood between us was natural and relaxed and though Spencer remained somewhat distant, we spoke no more about his troubles at home. I wanted to talk to Mum about this, see what she suggested was the most sensible thing for us to do. Sometimes interfering in other people’s business was the last resort.

  I popped some corn in the kitchen and scooped together two ice cream cones, and took them up to the garage. Spencer looked over my video collection and saw nothing familiar, none of the action films or even the kids’ ones he was used to. I felt we were friends again now and to show how much trust I could place in Spencer, I decided to show him Christopher Strong. When I heard Spencer’s sleep breathing behind me, I decided to fast forward to the scene. Seeing it on film took my breath away once again, tears welled in my eyes. When the title character asked Hepburn the moth whether she ever got lonely and she answered at times, terribly I knew she was answering for me, for her brother Thomas and for the real Katharine Hepburn. I started to sob.

  ‘That should be me,’ I said aloud.

  ‘What. . . what should?’ My voice had woken Spencer.

  ‘The beautifully transformed moth, the movie star,’ I said. ‘It’s the moment she realised she’d changed from something ugly into the image of her more talented brother, a life so brief, just like that of a moth.’

  Spencer looked blearily towards the screen and squinted. ‘What? Why are you crying?’

  ‘It’s how I can keep him alive.’ I brushed the wetness from my cheeks with the cuff of my shirt.

  ‘What?’ he said again, suddenly impatient.

  I pulled myself together, tired of his ignorance.

  ‘My Hollywood costume, for school, Spencer, this is it.’ I was not thinking clearly, was so eager to keep our friendship alive this time. I pulled the folded picture from my pocket and held it up for Spencer to be amazed by.

  Spencer nodded his head and fell back to sleep.

  My disappointment was all-consuming. I wanted to shake Spencer awake again, make him pay close attention to the picture, let him feel the sheen of the material so he could appreciate the beauty of it. I wanted Spencer alert and chatting – we should talk more about what happened between us, why our friendship had crumbled so easily, make efforts to ensure it never happened again. But, asleep, his face was finally free of the tension he’d held on to it all afternoon, and the way his chest slowly rose and fell with his steady breathing encouraged me to leave him be.

  I walked up to the television and turned it off. It was hot in the garage all of a sudden and I dared to unbutton my shirt slightly just as Mal would have done. The image of Hepburn in my hand was mesmerising. That familiar dull ache started burning low in my belly; my insides stirred into motion. With my left hand I brought the material to my chest, rubbed it against my naked, clammy skin. It was like the tickle of butterfly wings. My right hand began to wander.

  I was exhausted, hot, suddenly uncomfortable. All I wanted now was sleep and I crawled back to the couch on all fours, climbed up onto it and curled myself into a tight little ball. The safety of having Spencer next to me helped soothe me to sleep but when I awoke some time later he was gone. Another midnight escape because I had repulsed him so. In the darkness, Katharine Hepburn as the moth lingered in a corner, watching over me.

  I hurriedly made my way back down to the house, my skin shivering with night-time threats. Mal was not in Mum’s bed, so I climbed in next to her. It was soft and enveloping, and its comfort welcomed me back gratefully. We fell asleep as we had before Mal came along – with me curled and facing the window, my mother arched tightly against my spine.

   Twenty-three

  Eddie wasn’t interested in coming to see the play a second time. His train got him into Edinburgh just after lunch and as I wasn’t busy doing something with the company he checked into my hotel then arranged to meet me in the lobby. We walked the freezing streets to find a nice, warm café to just sit and talk. The banter was easy, never an awkward moment, and for the first time in my life I felt I did not have to censor myself, or second-guess his words or actions. There was no veneer with Eddie and I liked that immensely. He was not scared to disagree with me, or point out the fallibilities in my own views but when he did, it was never in a derogatory way. I got the distinct sense that he was not going to let me get away with any of my hoity-toity theatrics and this was sobering but rather addictive.

  When it came time for me to go to the theatre, he chose not to walk with me, preferring instead to stay in his hotel room and nap until I came home after midnight. I called him from the theatre and asked if he’d care to join us for after-performance drinks, which I said I was obliged to attend, but he dismissed the idea immediately and arranged instead to meet me for a very late supper.

  The very first Saturday we stayed up all night in the hotel bar, convincing the young handsome night watchman to keep serving us drinks long after the bar had closed. He kept protesting it could lose him his job but in the end he came around with another two glasses, then another two, then a bottle he encouraged us to keep well hidden.

  ‘Sometimes I think my whole life is a lie,’ the alcohol in my fifth glass prompted me to say. I was barely even aware I’d been feeling this way.

  ‘Isn’t that the life of an actor, though? Half the time you’re pretending to be someone else, another quarter of the time you’re immersed in a world that’s about as fake as they come and the last quarter you’re trying to convince everyone else in your life that you’re not acting.’

  His words had a stimulating effect, a little sl
ap to the face that I’d needed for the gods only knew how long. Eddie was not being malicious, I could tell, so my response was not antagonistic.

  ‘Have you always had your own life so together?’

  ‘Fuck no, of course not! You might find this hard to believe but the expectation of privilege can be just as suffocating as the perceived doom of suburbia. I couldn’t wait to get out of that world, to rebel against my father. Once I’d travelled the world and seen as much poverty as I could stand, and shed as many of my skins as I could, only then was I ready to come back to reality and make a go of it in . . . get ready for it . . . sales. Not exactly a nominee for sainthood, but it pays the bills and I made a vow to myself never to treat my customers like arseholes. I like what I do but I play games with it, to keep me interested. Selling is amateur psychology. Not in that bullshit HR way, just in the way you can really get to observe, and predict, human behaviour.’ He poured me another glass of wine. ‘So what would you be if you weren’t an actor?’

  ‘Oh Jesus, I dunno. That’s a good question. I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at writing – I mean, I’ve dabbled a bit over the years, but give it a real good shake, you know?’

  ‘So why don’t you?’

  ‘Life gets in the way.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a cop-out isn’t it? Life should be the fuel for your creativity. So go on then, tell me your idea.’

  I couldn’t capitulate that easily, could I? ‘What idea?’

  ‘The one I know you’re thinking about right now.’

  I took a sip of wine in an attempt to stall for time. ‘I don’t have a strong idea, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Utter bullshit!’

  ‘Guilty as charged. But it’s not ready to share . . .’

  ‘Tom, this is me. You’re safe with me and always will be. Tell me.’

  I told him about Thomas Houghton Hepburn, and his role in the emergence of his sister’s career. Eddie sat, rapt, as I went into detail about his horrific hanging, and the family’s aftermath: first the father’s vague assertion that Tom had been sick in the head, then his capitulation with Katharine’s idea, that it’d been some stage trick that backfired. I told Eddie of the strength – both physical and of will – that would be required to strangle yourself while always having the ability to touch the floor with your feet, and then the kicker: the family’s refusal to ever discuss their son and brother, to have never visited his grave.