The Origin of Me Page 2

Checking the mailbox a couple of months later, I found a bulky envelope addressed to me with AUDE ALIQUID DIGNUM in gold on the corner. I tore it open and read that I’d been offered an interview at one of the most well-equipped, academically prestigious and sportingly competitive schools in the state. Terrified at the prospect of going there, I took the letter out the back and set it on fire. Valmay Harris, our next-door neighbour, stuck her head over the fence and asked whether I was burning something.

  ‘No,’ I said, clapping the embers out. I thought I was in the clear until a few weeks later, when the school rang to find out why there’d been no response. Dad asked if I’d seen the letter and I lied.

  In that moment, the bitter seed of deception embedded itself in the soft pink tissue of my heart. Till that point in my life I’d been scrupulously honest with my parents, even when they confronted me about smoking grass. And that hadn’t even been pot – just lawn clippings wrapped in a banana leaf, which was more humiliating. It wasn’t so much the act of lying about the letter that bothered me as my father believing the lie. Even worse, I knew that my grandfather, Pop Locke, who used to be a postie, would’ve been mortified that I’d tampered with the mail – a federal offence if it hadn’t been addressed to me.

  In August I’d been interviewed at Crestfield, and a month later was offered a place in Year 10, which surprised me more than it did my parents. They’d still have to pay full fees, but, as they constantly reminded me, they could afford it, and only seven students were being given the opportunity. The idea of being separated from my mates to go to a school on the other side of the bridge prompted an immediate no. Dad told me to mull it over. In October he moved out of the family home at Signal Bay and into his recently vacated investment apartment in the city. The actual geographic separation of my parents after twenty-five years together, though incredibly sad, palpably reduced tension in the family home.

  Now to explain my ex-girlfriend’s pivotal role in this chain of events: Nicole Parker was a committed Christian who, having made some sort of personal purity vow, restricted our level of physical contact to handholding and the occasional snuggle, which drove my sexual tension to unbearable levels. Over the following months I progressed from casual to excessive masturbation, judging by the level of skin irritation and, on one occasion, actual bleeding.

  One night, at the height of my frustration and despondency, I went alone to a party at my best friend Tom’s place behind Avalon Beach. Nicole unexpectedly showed up and, even more surprisingly, we had our first kiss. It was incredible, but in the excitement she slid her hand down my back and touched the nub, which was by then slightly hairy. Nicole’s abject revulsion and swift departure propelled me into my first drinking binge with enough determination to obliterate myself.

  At 2 am, my sister Venn found me facedown, unconscious and soaking wet, near the water’s edge. The next morning, Mum banned me from any further association with Tom and his brother Blake, even though we’d been best friends for ten years, gone to the same schools, rode the same waves – and they’d had nothing to do with my blackout. Following a massive argument, she called Dad to settle the matter. They decided that at the beginning of the next school year I would attend Crestfield Academy and live with him during the week.

  So yes, Dr Limberg was right on the money. There was a degree of residual animosity towards my parents for sending me there.

  ‘Have your fellow students been welcoming?’ she said.

  ‘Bent over backwards.’

  ‘According to some feedback, this week you’ve spent almost every recess and lunchtime alone in the library.’

  ‘Are we under video surveillance or something?’

  ‘Mrs Deacon, our head librarian, noticed you sitting alone on consecutive days. She logged her observations on The Owl, the faculty network and student monitoring system, which automatically sent me a Hoot. Lincoln, why do you think you’ve been isolating yourself?’

  At that moment, a ladybird landed on Dr Limberg’s lapel. I have no recollection of my reply, other than evasive rambling, because I was focused on the insect taking the scenic route towards her neck, its orange-and-black markings a dramatic contrast to the cream material. It disappeared over the lip then re-emerged on her shirt collar. I didn’t warn her because I wanted to see how far the ladybird could get before she felt it.

  ‘There’s a lot going on in that head of yours. Experiencing anxiety is a natural response to all of your big changes. But I have a feeling there’s something else really bothering you.’

  I felt a distinct, almost electric tingle in the nub that made me flinch – as if it wanted to claim responsibility.

  ‘Please be assured that you can tell me about anything at all and it will remain confidential.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can think of.’ Again the tingle and flinch.

  ‘I’d like to see you in a month’s time, just to touch base.’

  Bad choice of words. ‘But I don’t have to?’

  ‘Coming under duress would be counterproductive – ooh!’ This time Dr Limberg flinched. She reached to her neck and brought the tiny insect close to her face. ‘Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home! Your house is on fire, your children are gone.’ She blew the bug onto the white orchid.

  ‘It’s after three-thirty. Can I go now?’

  ‘Of course.’

  A ladybird is supposed to be a sign of good luck, but that nursery rhyme was hardly brimming with optimism for the little bug’s future.

  Escaping the interrogation room and the Crestfield grounds only brought partial relief because it was thirty-eight degrees outside and Edgecliff Station was closed. I stared at the sign directing commuters to the replacement bus, thinking it heralded the end of the world instead of a minor inconvenience. A rail employee with high-vis sweat patches bellowed, ‘System meltdown, mate. All lines are affected.’ So I walked home.

  I’d been living in the city with Dad for ten days and it sucked more audibly than a Dyson – especially in this heatwave. For one, I couldn’t surf with my mates after school anymore. Bondi’s not far but public transport’s a bitch. We’d brought my bike over on Sunday and it had been stolen outside a convenience store on Monday. Dad had spewed, saying I was stupid for leaving it unlocked.

  ‘That’s the neighbourhood for you,’ I’d said.

  He said I needed to start taking responsibility for myself so I stuck my hand in front of his face and said, ‘Mirror!’

  It didn’t go down well. I now had an 8 pm curfew and had to answer Dad’s constant video calls for him to make sure I was doing homework. Gold star for vigilance, Lance. Maybe there’s an opening for a warden at Long Bay?

  As I passed through the lobby of our apartment building, Frank the concierge said, ‘Hot enough for you this afternoon?’

  ‘Hot enough to fry an egg on my forehead.’

  Frank is the gatekeeper, the concierge station his gate. T H E E Y R I E is hermetically sealed from anyone or thing that isn’t welcome – probably one of the most appealing factors for the type of people living here.

  I pressed my thumb to the elevator’s sensor pad and exactly eight seconds later arrived at level twenty-seven. Inside my room I dumped my satchel, changed into Speedos and boardies, grabbed a towel and rode up to the unsupervised fitness centre and pool on thirty-three. Marble columns, a tiled mosaic and an enormous overflowing urn – very ‘lost city of Atlantis’. There was nobody around, so I peeled off my boardies and slid into the cool water. Refreshing, but it didn’t clear my mind like surfing does. The narrow twenty-five-metre strip demanded laps. Ten down, I was joined by a woman in a daisy-covered bathing cap who, despite her age, soon caught up to me. Paranoid that with goggles on she might spot the nub, I got out.

  The phone was ringing back at the apartment and, assuming it was Mum checking up on me before she and Venn left for their girls’ retreat in Bowral, I let it ring out and went to the balcony. Beyond the CBD, the Corporate Bandits’ Domain, the Blue Mountains were turning purple
beneath synthetic-looking pink clouds. My phone plinked. A text from Dad, saying he was on the verge of sealing a deal and couldn’t make dinner. A second instructing me to order home delivery because it was past lockdown.

  I called Big Tony’s Oven™ and ordered a large Roman Holiday. Half an hour later, Frank buzzed to tell me the pizza boy was in the lobby. The pizza boy turned out to be a solid fifty-year-old dude with no discernible neck, a shaved head, gold tooth and a nose you could build a viewing platform on. ‘One piping-hot Roman Holiday,’ he said, pulling the box from its vinyl pouch. ‘That’ll be thirty bucks for you, champion.’

  ‘I thought it was twenty-five?’

  ‘Five for delivery.’ I gave him forty bucks and the big lug said, ‘Cheers!’ and turned to leave.

  ‘Hey, what about the change?’

  ‘Don’t carry any. You can have one of these instead.’ He handed me a fridge magnet with a caricature of Big Tony on it.

  ‘Is that you?’ I said.

  ‘Smartarse. Enjoy your Roman Holiday.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll send you a postcard.’

  I ate the pizza on the balcony, watching the action heating up on Darlinghurst Road twenty-seven levels below. Thrillseekers arriving from the other side of town. British rugby lads singing their club anthem and getting blasted from the gridlocked cars and taxis. The wail of sirens and the parting of traffic to let a fire engine, ambos and cop car through. Exploiting their slipstream, a stretch Hummer limo pumping gangsta rap for the benefit of the street crowd. Was it Jay-Z and Beyoncé bouncing behind the smoked glass? More likely chicks from the sticks on a hen’s night. Exciting either way.

  The pizza made me thirsty. I had ten dollars to blow and there was a Vietnamese bakery across the road that sold Cokes® for a buck. Time to defy the curfew and walk on the wild side.

  Frank’s less vigilant son, Vince, was on the concierge desk and didn’t look up as I passed. Waiting on the corner for the green man, I heard >MEEP! MEEP!< behind me and stepped aside. Different breed of road-runner – a bald guy on a mobility scooter. He charged past and straight into the traffic. Tyres screeched and burnt, but it wasn’t enough to stop the black BMW E93 from hitting him.

  >CRANG!<

  The old man received a nasty jolt but his chariot remained upright. Behind reflective sunglasses the BMW driver’s face was doughy, his girlfriend’s crumbling. The old guy dismounted, walked to the driver’s side of the BMW and kicked in the door panel with his bare heel, then remounted his thunder cart and zipped off. Two cops arrived on motorbikes. Having been the closest witness but not wanting to be questioned while breaking curfew, I skulked back to the apartment without my Coke®. Hey Joe, the wild side will have to wait.

  The incident with the BMW and the scooter brought back memories of the other big event from last year that I haven’t mentioned, the demise of Pop Locke. Everybody loved my grandfather, especially my dog Gus and his mate Dougal, who would trot along next to Pop’s little red Honda CT110 under the delusion of being his official escort. A few years back, my grandparents had closed their bakery in Blacktown after a franchise stole all but their most loyal customers, and moved to Dee Why to be closer to us. Unable to bear the tranquil inertia of retirement, Pop Locke found his second calling delivering the mail and ‘having a yarn to the good people’ he met on the route. Last year, on the twelfth of February, one of those adoring customers accidentally killed him.

  Distracted by her kids fighting in the back of the Pajero while reversing down the driveway, Brenda Morris didn’t see Pop Locke tootling along, and knocked him over. Apparently he got up, dusted himself off and somehow managed to lift his bike, mailbags and all. Despite his protests, Brenda called the ambulance. Halfway to the hospital, Pop Locke suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. Even more devastating, he died on my fifteenth birthday. It was difficult to cop, but I told myself that accidents don’t make appointments.

  Pop Locke had established a tradition of posting our birthday cards and delivering them on his mail route – a ritual that transcended logic, as many rituals do, but always delighted my sister Venn and me. Though he never reached our mailbox that day, I hoped someone from the post office might find my card in his bag and deliver it. Every day I checked our box before and after school, finding only bills and junk mail. A week later I called Australia Post and they told me that everything had been delivered. There was nothing left.

  In the middle of my emotional turmoil, Homunculus made himself known. Everybody has thoughts constantly running through their minds, but early last year mine started speaking to me in voices. Some were calm and reasonable, offering wisdom and encouragement. Others were sarcastic and critical, madly superstitious or seemed to possess knowledge beyond my experience. Those ones became more insistent after Pop’s death and throughout the next few months amalgamated into one distinct bossy voice.

  Its first directive was to continue checking the mailbox for a birthday greeting from Pop, with a promise that my vigilance would be rewarded. Obediently I checked the box every day for a month, but there was never anything addressed to me so I stopped. A week later, the voice piped up again: ‘Pop Locke can’t communicate from where he is, but he’s severely disappointed that you’ve given up on him.’ Regardless of whether the voice rose from a guilty conscience, my grief, or a more general anxiety around death, I feared that I was going mad. I googled ‘the little man inside my head’ and found my way to articles on the Homunculus. As I was reading them, the voice said, ‘That’s me.’ And the name has stuck.

  Anyway, tonight when I returned to the apartment, Homunculus was taunting me for breaking the curfew without actually buying a Coke®, so to block him out I checked the landline for messages. I expected the earlier call would be Mum apologising for leaving me stranded in the city, bravely enduring a week at my new school. But nope. Only Steve, Dad’s business partner at The BrandCanyon, inviting him for tennis and a picnic tomorrow with his new girlfriend and her sister, a ‘topnotch bird’. Who even uses the word ‘bird’ like that, or still calls on the landline? Steve, when he’s being ironically retro.

  Saturday morning I woke with Ms Tarasek’s 2000-word essay question on my mind. ‘What is art?’ she’d said, floating around the studio in a peacock kaftan. ‘What is its purpose? I want you to think inside the box. Find a box and climb inside. Feel the boundaries imposed on self. Remain in darkness until an answer comes.’ She squeezed my shoulder. ‘Hello, new student. Don’t frown. Embrace contradiction. Two thousand words.’

  So this morning I crawled into an IKEA box left over from a recent mission to furnish my room and closed the flaps. The confined darkness got me speculating on whether burial or cremation would be less damaging to the environment. Then I accidentally gave myself a Dutch oven of unmitigated potency that made a mockery of my concern, demanding immediate evacuation and an alternative approach.

  On my way to the art gallery I stopped across the road from the Coca-Cola® sign at a sculpture that resembled seven lumpy balls stuck on black poles. Though I’d seen them before, I’d never stopped to look properly so I sat on the steps and began sketching. Two minutes later, a woman in a grubby lime hoodie and liquorice allsorts tights came and stood behind me. Ignoring her was close to impossible, especially when I heard a burst of aerosol spray followed by the smell of solvent. I turned to see she had the can in one hand and a paper bag in the other. There was blue all around her nostrils and mouth.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘I’m drawing the sculpture.’

  ‘No shit. What for?’

  ‘An art assignment.’

  ‘I used to be an artist,’ she said. ‘They call that thing Poosticks.’ She laughed and walked away, coughing.

  I finished my sketch, labelled it Poosticks and walked down to Woolloomooloo, up past Brett Whiteley’s giant matchsticks and into the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Thinking it might be helpful to observe people observing art, I stood near a couple who wore only black and had geomet
ric DIY hair, botanical tatts and facial piercings, and were scrutinising one of Jeffrey Smart’s urban landscapes.

  ‘Hyperrealistic,’ the woman said. ‘Bleak but beautiful.’

  ‘Just like you,’ the guy said.

  They turned to a huge colour field painting, an indigo rectangle, on the opposite wall. When the attendant wasn’t looking, the guy ran his hand along the surface. ‘That’s not art,’ he said. What a disrespectful nob.

  Down the escalator I found my favourite thing in the entire gallery – a circle of huge smooth stones suspended from the ceiling by wires, making them appear to float just above the floor. Suspended Stone Circle II by Ken Unsworth. Tension and equilibrium, nature and artifice, everything being held perfectly in place. The beauty plagued by an undeniable fear that one day it all might suddenly come crashing down. It reminded me of my family and life in general.

  I sat on the floor and sketched. Five minutes later, I sensed somebody watching me from behind again. I prayed it wasn’t Blue Lady, and closed my book to avoid another encounter with a stranger.

  ‘Don’t stop on my account,’ a familiar voice said.

  I turned and saw Isa, the girl who was playing receptionist at Student Welfare yesterday, taking a phone shot of the sculpture. I remembered her surname: Mountwinter. Evocative – picturesque, even. Though she was smiling, her expression was icy. My face burnt with the jarring embarrassment of seeing a fellow student in an unfamiliar setting.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Drawing the sculpture for the art assignment.’

  ‘I was going to write about the same piece.’

  ‘You still can. By the way, my name’s Lincoln.’

  ‘We established that at Student Welfare.’

  Lost for words, I said the first thing that came to mind. ‘I saw a weird lady sniffing blue paint from a paper bag.’

  ‘Raina Bramble. She used to be an artist.’

  ‘She obviously still enjoys the smell of paint.’