by Linda Jaivin
I didn’t know where to look.
‘Dear boy, before coming home to discover you collapsed on the front porch, I’d spent two hours in Salon Salon getting, let’s see…’ He ticked the list off on his fingers: ‘Manicure, pedicure, deluxe facial, shoulder wax and purifying seaweed and mineral mud body wrap. You’ve heard of Salon Salon?’
I shook my head.
‘Of course you wouldn’t. You’re still young and beautiful.’ He cocked his head. ‘Rather like Trimalkyo when he was your age. Not that I knew him then. But I’ve seen pictures.’
He clutched at my arm like it was the last life raft on the Titanic. ‘Once, I asked the Big T if he wanted to turn me in for a younger, prettier model,’ he confided.
‘What did he say?’
‘He replied “res petricosa est, Oscar, bellus homo”.’
‘All Greek to me.’ I shrugged.
‘Latin, actually, girlfriend. It’s an epigram by Martial. “A pretty fellow is a waste of space.” I wasn’t sure how to take it. Trimalkyo is like a club where there used to be a table reserved just for me but now the doorman demands to see my ID every time.’
The caffeine and sugar completed their circuit through my body and began gnawing on my nerve endings. A yawn fought its way out of my jaws.
‘This must be boring you,’ said Oscar.
‘No, no. I’m just a little tired. I ought to be going. I should get my clothes.’
‘You don’t want to be putting those back on for the moment, girlfriend. Come with Uncle Oscar.’
We went back upstairs and he led me into the walk-in closet, which was roughly the size of my studio. Every immaculately folded or neatly hung item of clothing in the entire closet was black, white or grey.
‘This is you,’ Oscar said, handing me a slate crew-neck pullover of cotton woven so finely it felt like silk. I hesitated.
‘I don’t know. I feel a bit funny.’
‘If you don’t like it, then there’s plenty of other choices.’
‘No, it’s just that it doesn’t feel right. Taking your clothes. You’ve done so much. You’re like a fairy god—’ I clapped my hand over my mouth.
Oscar laughed. ‘Yes, I am your fairy godfather.’ He handed me a pair of charcoal linen trousers. ‘Try these,’ he suggested. They were a perfect fit.
He picked up a hairbrush. ‘Trust me,’ he said, ‘I’m a hairdresser. Used to be, anyway.’ I felt kind of silly, but I sat down at the dressing-table and let him smooth my hair back. He added a dollop of sweet-smelling goo. I looked at my reflection. I couldn’t think how I usually wore my hair.
I stood up and peered into the full-length mirror. I looked like an artist as imagined in a Mills & Boon romance. ‘All I need now is a beret,’ I observed.
Oscar plunged into a drawer and came up with two.
‘Just joking.’
When I finally left Oscar, it was late afternoon. I clutched in my hand a David Jones bag with my old clothes in it. I promised to return in two weeks, bearing slides of my work. ‘Just for old times’ sake,’ he said. ‘I used to love looking at artists’ work, so long as it wasn’t too vaginal.’
I assured him my work was not too vaginal.
‘I’ll speak to Trimalkyo about whether we could seriously consider putting on another exhibition. Now that the rules have changed a bit. You never know.’
You never do.
Classical Greek
I arrived home to find ZakDot in the lounge, positioning his camera on a tripod facing the sofa. ‘Where were you?’ he demanded.
‘Do you care?’
‘Not really.’ He pressed his eye against the viewfinder. ‘It’s just that after you didn’t come back last night, I was tempted to call the police and report your brain as missing. Which reminds me, Thurston’s out looking for you.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Where’s Maddie?’
‘I think she’s got a band rehearsal. Either that or she’s starting work at the catering service today.’ The shopping channel had sacked ZakDot when they discovered him inserting anti-Clean Slate slogans into a Moo Cow Family Alarm Clock and Magic Motorcycle Wall Hanging arrangement. He then got a job with Dinkum Catering as a waiter. Dinkum Catering was a subsidiary of Dinkum Fair, a tourism conglomerate that specialised in package deals for foreigners who needed a break from their wars and strikes and natural disasters.
The ship I’m on now is actually Dinkum’s flagship.
If only ZakDot hadn’t suggested to Maddie that she try and get a job with Dinkum as well, I might not be in quite the mess I’m in now.
But maybe I should stop trying to put the blame on everyone else. It wouldn’t matter who ZakDot and Maddie worked for if I hadn’t cocked everything up in the first place.
I watched ZakDot fiddle with the knobs on the old manual Canon. ‘Did Maddie come back last night?’
‘Nup.’ ZakDot shook his head. ‘My guess is she was bumping uglies with Gabe.’
I made a face. ‘Is it totally over between you two?’
‘Where have you been? It was over before it started. We agreed that it wasn’t really good for flatmates to fuck. More than once, anyway.’
‘What are you doing?’ I pointed to the camera.
‘I’ve found out about this retreat in the Swiss Alps that gives fellowships to foreign artists. Switzerland is just about the only place in the world besides Strayer that has yet to go up in flames, and I never had the chance to try for a grant here before they were abolished. I thought I’d give it a go.’
‘So what’s the deal with the camera?’
‘You have to document your work.’ ZakDot was now peering into a hand mirror and plucking his eyebrows. ‘They need a dozen slides. I thought I’d take some photos of myself thinking of projects. I don’t think I’m over irony after all. I felt a little silly after last night. Earnestness doesn’t suit me, to tell you the truth.’
This, I suspected, was as close as ZakDot was going to come to an apology.
‘Now, what do you think? Is it this one?’ He held up a burnished gold paisley smoking jacket. ‘Or that one?’ Laid out over the sofa was a red silk Chinese robe with four-toed dragons and bats and curly silver waves.
‘I’d go the Chinese.’ I felt a surge of affection for him. ‘They probably all have smoking jackets like that over in Switzerland.’
He fiddled with a setting on the camera. ‘Mind just sitting there for a tick so I can check the focus? Ta.’ He looked up from the viewfinder, as if seeing me properly for the first time. ‘Holy shit, Miles, classy threads. Where’d you knock those off from?’
I had my story ready. As tempting as it was, I didn’t want to tell anyone about my encounter with Oscar and Trimalkyo. I knew the revolutionary masses would view me as a collaborationist for even thinking about putting on an exhibition. Better to keep it my little secret for now. I had no idea that I’d be keeping a much bigger secret before long.
‘After I left here last night,’ I fibbed, ‘I hopped the train down the coast to see my mum. She took me shopping in Wollongong.’
‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’
I did my best to appear offended.
‘Well, it’s just that your mum called this morning.’
Oh shit.
‘She hadn’t heard from you for a while and wondered how you were going. I told her you’d thrown a complete and irrational spac attack in front of everyone we knew, then, after getting the crap beat out of you, you went huffing and puffing off into the night to lick your festy wounds.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘No, I didn’t, actually. But it was tempting. Instead, I made something up about you visiting a friend, said I wasn’t sure when you were coming back, yaddayaddayadda. She asked when you were going to get a real job. I assured her I was concerned as well and would encourage you to do something useful with your life.’
I gave him my you’re-a-little-cockroach-and-I’m-the-Flick-man look. ‘And what did you tell her your real job was?’<
br />
‘Actuarial scientist.’
‘Jesus, ZakDot,’ I said, prior to slamming my door, ‘sometimes you give me the shits.’ I flopped face down on my bed.
He pushed the door open. I didn’t look up. ‘If it’s any consolation you give me the shits more, Miles. In fact, with friends like you’—he jumped on my bed, straddled my arse, and poked me hard in the ribs with his fingers—‘who needs enemas?’
As I lay there squirming and gasping for breath, he curled his body down towards mine. ‘Miles, Miles, Miles,’ he said softly, his hands on my shoulders. ‘You know, I worry about you, you stupid little bugger.’
‘I worry about me too,’ I conceded.
We lay like that just a second or two too long, a second or two in which I became aware of ZakDot’s musky scent, of the heat and shape of his body next to mine.
‘I love you, Miles.’
‘I love you too,’ I mumbled into my pillow. I recalled Oscar’s question—you are straight, aren’t you, girlfriend—and considered the unspoken tension that had informed my friendship with ZakDot ever since that night I had to disentangle him from Maddie, though, if I was to be honest, that tension had existed long before Maddie ever came into our lives.
Lying very still, I listened to the sound of our breathing. I could feel his cock swelling against my thigh. He kissed the side of my neck. His mouth was softer than I’d imagined a man’s could be. My heart beating madly, I twisted my face towards his. He pressed his lips onto mine. I felt his tongue slide inside my mouth. His stubble grazed my cheeks and chin.
My nerves felt like they were sandpapered back. When he felt under my shirt for my nipples and scratched them lightly with his nails, I jumped like I’d been electrocuted. I had a raging hard-on.
ZakDot tugged my new jumper over my head. Feeling self-conscious, I folded my arms over my chest. ZakDot checked out the label on the jumper. He whistled, impressed, and looked as though he was about to say something. I covered his mouth with my own.
‘Ouch!’ ZakDot had grabbed my thigh right where it had been turned black and blue by pink princess shoes the night before.
‘Sorry.’ ZakDot moved his hand up towards my groin. What did this mean for us as friends? Was I gay? Bi? How did this fit in with my vision of the future? ZakDot’s hand slid over my fly. I imagined him folding his hand over my cock, twisting round the head, bending down and licking it. He stroked me through the fabric, and Little Miles strained up at him. I closed my eyes. Two images popped unbidden into my brain: Caravaggio’s young Bacchus and Destiny Doppler. I was one confused boy.
‘I…I need time to think,’ I panted.
ZakDot, who was pressing his face into my crotch, looked up and raised one tweezed eyebrow. He went to stroke me again, but I grabbed his hand and held it away from me. He took a deep breath. ‘And I was going to show you how the guards used to do it.’ Rolling onto his back, he stared at the ceiling.
We lay there for a while, both of us on our backs, our knees up and touching. Little Miles settled down reluctantly to await further instructions. I grew aware of sweat stinging me wherever I was scratched or cut, which was just about everywhere.
I broke the silence. ‘What are you thinking?’
Zak removed his beauty spot, stared at it, stuck it back on. ‘I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always, forever, now.’ I couldn’t believe he was quoting Damien Hirst’s book title at me. He knew I hated Damien Hirst. He rolled over in my direction and leaned on his elbow. ‘Where did you get those duds, anyway?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ I sat up.
‘Where you going?’
‘To the studio,’ I replied. At which point, the blood rushed out of my head, I keeled over, moaned and fell sound asleep. I didn’t come to till nine o’clock the next morning when Bacon, hungry for breakfast, roused me by nibbling on my toes. I was alone in my bed.
‘How’s it going, you little faggot?’
Who’s calling me a faggot? I open my eyes. I didn’t even hear him come in. Must have been daydreaming. He pinches down over the tip of his nose with his thumb and forefinger a few times as he observes me straining and struggling.
‘Uhhuhhuhhaw!’ I cry.
‘I guess you’re cuwious how I knew.’ He starts doing a Marvin Gaye imitation, snapping his fingers, wiggling around in his cassock and pursing his lips. It’s painful to watch. I hate it when middle-aged men start trying to get all groovy. Besides, he’s got the words to the song wrong. Even a post-seventies kid like me could tell him that.
Then I focus on what he’s saying. What does he know? He couldn’t know about the bomb, could he? There’s no way. Only ZakDot, Maddie and Thurston know about that. I rack my brains. He must mean…He’s not going to start in on me for what happened this afternoon with Destiny, I hope. ‘Ahhahahey,’ I whimper.” I can explain. I can’t, actually, but it seems like the right thing to say.
‘You can thank your fwiends. Kca kca kca.’
But they didn’t know about what happened today. I’m puzzled. I’m more than puzzled. What the fuck is he talking about? ‘Heephhahihaho,’ I plead.
Ignoring me, he pecks out some numbers on his mobile, goes into the toilet and shuts the door. I can just hear him say, ‘It’s snowing in the Bwindabellas.’ The cabinet door opens and closes. Verbero emerges, winks and leaves.
Let’s make a deal
Almost immediately after our little liaison, ZakDot took up again with Maddie, pissing off Julia, devastating Gabe, and leaving me at loose ends. I thought they’d agreed that flatmates shouldn’t fuck more than once. I felt, to be frank, a fraction jealous.
I was also worried. I knew that, even though they had defended me, both he and Maddie disapproved of my behaviour the other night. I suspected that they’d be thinking of ways to keep me from painting. Painting was my life. Keeping me from painting was tantamount to—killing me. Sativa, meanwhile, moved in, staking out the lounge and observing me with what I grew convinced was malicious intent. The paranoia returned.
When no one was home to overhear, I called Oscar and made an appointment to show him and Trimalkyo slides of my work. He seemed especially interested when I mentioned that I was very much into doing portraits.
It took me a full day to make a good selection of my paintings and document them. I’d have liked to have asked Julia or even ZakDot for a hand. But politics aside, I wanted to keep the whole thing to myself. I wouldn’t have been able to bear the humiliation if Trimalkyo rejected my work.
Genius is commonly overlooked or undervalued in its own time. It’s always been within the bounds of possibility that my extraordinary gift might escape the notice of my contemporaries. That the spotlight under which my work is destined to shine may, in my lifetime anyway, take on the appearance of a dim torch.
Yet until the moment came to show my work to Oscar and Trimalkyo, this knowledge was hypothetical. I was beside myself with anxiety. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of Jean Tinguely’s sculptures, all cogs and wheels and bits and pieces of suspended, rusting junk, which he called ‘selfconstructing and self-destroying works of art’, but that’s what my stomach felt like—Tinguely. I put on the trousers and pullover that Oscar had given me, felt like too much of a suck, and discarded them for a pair of paint-stained cords and one of my own skivvies instead. I did attempt to back-comb my hair the way Oscar had. Then, I mussed it up again. They could have me as I was or forget it.
As I walked towards Surry Hills, I reflected on the fact that Trimalkyo had always exhibited artists like Lynda Tangent, Finn, and Hu Lüexin, a dour fellow prone to declarations like ‘I have felt oppression, I know the Tao’ and whose work, with the single exception of that execrable portrait of Trimalkyo, consisted of gum leaves dotted with sperm.
I was wasting my time. People had stopped appreciating true artistic talent well before the collective hallucination that produced Clean Slate. Maybe ZakDot was right when he claimed that, since the�
��air-quote—‘meaning of life’ was a moot—air-quote—‘construct’, it made no sense to search for it in art. Perhaps Maddie was right too, carrying out her project of destruction, so that a new culture could arise from Ground Zero. Maybe Clean Slate was right, but not for the reasons it thought it was.
‘It’s called “Gaea”, darling. You’ve heard of the designer Simone el Phulia? No? She was in the last issue of Black & Blue, posing in barbed wire with that gorgeous little Thai chef? No? Anyway, it’s Trimalkyo’s latest acquisition. Go on, try it, it’s actually more comfortable than it looks.’
I sat down tentatively on the green plastic excrescence. It looked liked something Godzilla had sneezed into a hanky. Oscar was wrong. ‘Gaea’, the designer stool, was actually less comfortable than it looked. Before I had a chance to make my excuses and shift to something else, Trimalkyo entered the room, rolling a cigarette. He did it one-handed, just like I do.
‘Ah, you like za new seating implement-o?’ He looked pleased.
I nodded helplessly, thinking that ‘implement’ was an excellent word for the furniture in this place.
‘Vere’d you say you vere from?’ Trimalkyo asked.
‘I grew up on the south coast,’ I said, ‘but I was born in Wollongong.’
‘Vullengoong? Really?’ Trimalkyo settled his bulk into the only comfortable-looking chair in the room, an upholstered swivel chair with a high back split down the middle like an unzipped frock. ‘Charles Vilson designed this.’
I knew as much about Charles Vilson as I did Simone el Phulia, but I nodded politely.
‘Vullengoong’s a nice leetle town,’ he murmured, as though to himself.
