The Happiness Show (3 page)

 

Tom hadn't wanted to go Japan. He hadn't wanted to go anywhere, but he'd had no choice. Barking Mad Sophie (just plain Barking to his friends) wouldn't leave him alone if he stayed in England, and Barking was terrified of flying. You know that saying, ‘If you love something, set it free and if it comes back, it's yours'? Well, Barking believed a slightly different version. If you love something, clench it in your jaws as would a rabid dog and under no circumstance let it out of your sight or let anyone else near it. When the drinkers down at the pub started looking at their watches and saying, ‘Oi, young Tom, it looks like 10.30, about time Barking called to see if you're here, don't you think?' he realised it was time to do something drastic.

When he was sixteen he'd been chuffed when Sophie – or The Tit Girl, as she was then known – asked him to partner her in her debut. Who wouldn't be? TTG was the only girl at King's sister school to have both a magnificent set of knockers and parents whose benign neglect made it possible to fully enjoy said natural resources. Needless to say, he did.

At sixteen Tom hadn't realised that girls actually fancied him. He was under the impression that he was still a fat, pimply, orthodontically challenged wimp who had an unfortunate flatulence problem and a lisp. A misconception that his elder brother did nothing to dispel. ‘Oi, toad, get your pus-filled bollocks off the couch, the dog needs somewhere to sit,' Ned would say as their profoundly deaf grandmother shuffled in for her nightly dose of
Wheel of Fortune
and Mylanta.

‘Thank you so much, Thomas, you are such a thoughtful boy. If your mother were alive, she would be so proud of you.'

Yeah, right, Tom would think. Not if she knew I spent two hours after school today being tit-fucked by a girl in a g-string and spaffing all over her face, she wouldn't.

Sophie was looking for a bird with a broken wing in Tom. Perhaps it was reasonable to assume Tom was after a mother figure – but he wasn't. He was just after a girl with a nice set of jugs.

Everybody knew Tom's mother was dead. What they didn't know was that he was completely adjusted to the idea. Part brilliant preparation by his mother, part swift remarriage by his father and part naturally fast emotional processing. Some people are just better at moving on than others. His mother was one of them. When, aged thirty-nine, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told she had three months to live, she didn't cry. She didn't fight. She just didn't speak for a week. Then she announced that she would like to spend her final months doing yoga, eating cake, taking visitors and enjoying her sons. At one stage she spent an entire week lying in the bath, listening to Janis Joplin and eating pizza. She requested that people call her Queen Capricciosa.

She died in hospital. Broad daylight, no one in the room other than the cleaner, who didn't even notice she'd passed on. As Pamela Shorebrook, mother of Edward and Thomas and wife of Henry, drew her final breath, the cleaner said, ‘Lovely day for it, isn't it?' And then she rolled her mop and bucket out the door, muttering about these posh patients with their private rooms who pretend they're asleep just to avoid talking to the staff.

When Tom finished his law degree, he realised he did want to work, he really did, but not just yet. His mate Mad Will was in Tokyo, having a whale of a time and making a packet. They say the saddest thing a man will ever face is what might have been. But Tom knew better: an even sadder sight would be his face, watching Barking walk down the aisle towards him with a smile that said Happily Ever After.

 

*

 

‘ … And just remember what my nana always used to say: “If you can't be with the one you love, honey, turn over to SBS after 9.30 and you could see people doing stuff in the nude.” Thank you and good night. And by the way, put your pants back on.'

Lizzie put the microphone back in its stand, made her way back to the tiny graffiti-covered dressing room, cracked open a VB and lit up a Styvo. Despite the turmoil of the day, or maybe because of it, it was one of the best gigs she'd ever done.

‘Nice set, Lizzie,' said Owen, one of the other comedians.

‘My tits? Thanks,' Lizzie quipped. It was important as a female comedian never to seem too uptight.

‘Ha, ha. Is that stuff all new?'

‘Most of it. Hey, I loved your ET impersonation.'

‘Thanks. I've got to go. I want to watch Fleety.'

Lizzie loved the other comedians. Actually, that's not totally true. She was violently polarised by them. Half of them she would happily have taken a bullet for. The other half she wouldn't have crossed the road to piss on if they were on fire. But she was friendly with all of them because, let's face it, you never knew when they might start running a room or working on a show and you might need a gig.

She was so stuffed that after draining her drink she walked to her car without saying goodbye and drove back to Fitzroy. Usually she'd hang around for a few wind-down beers and stuff a couple of takeaways into her bag as well, particularly if she'd done a free gig. But tonight she just wanted to see her bed. And her car was the next best thing.

Lizzie was so happy in her mustard Datsun 120Y with its overflowing ashtray and the column shift with no synchromesh. Everyone called it Ivan 007 because the number plate was IVN007. It was such a comfort to close the door and be safely inside her little world on wheels. Someone once told her that the 120Y had been voted the most dangerous car ever made. She didn't care. It was her wings.

As she flew through the night in her little bubble she sang along to a mix tape her freshly minted ex Charlie had made for her. Died Pretty, Jonathan Richman, Underground Lovers and Frente. As she crossed the Yarra via the Punt Road bridge, she always took a deep breath, knowing she was almost home.

Safely inside, she had just taken off her makeup and brushed her teeth when there was a violent banging and a voice yelling, ‘Wake up, Lizzie, I know you're in there.'

It was Charlie. She ran down and opened the door before he could to wake up the neighbours.

‘Hey?' said Lizzie, ‘You might want to keep it down. Some people are trying to sleep.'

‘Premature ejaculator, hey? So I'm a premature ejaculator now?' Charlie was wild.

‘I have no idea what you are on about, you freak.'

‘Sure you don't. And by the way, if you're going to graffiti my car, you might want to learn how to spell. It's
O-R,
not
E-R
.'

‘I think you'd better go home. I don't know what you're talking about. I've just come back from a gig. I've been out all night.'

Charlie knew when Lizzie was bullshitting him and this wasn't one of those times. Lizzie picked up the gig guide from the paper and showed him her name in the comedy listings. He felt like a bit of a dickhead.

‘Well, anyway … while I'm here, can I have my copy of
Crime and Punishment
back?'

As Lizzie found the book for him, she resolved not to tell him she was going to Japan. If he didn't have the decency to tell her he was banging some bird who worked at Polyester Records, she wasn't going to tell him she was buggering off to the Land of the Rising Sun. The moment she handed the book back, Lizzie had a moment of soaring clarity. She realised that she
was
going to get over Charlie. It would take a while, but she would. She'd never felt that before. She'd always held on to the hope that whoever dumped her would come crawling back, no matter how big a douchebag or fuckwit he was.

After closing the door behind him, Lizzie wandered into the lounge room to check her answering-machine messages. There was one: a drunken, giggly Jules. ‘Hey, listen, if that slimy back-dooring ex-arsehole of yours starts rabbiting on about someone graffitiing his car, it had nothing to do with me.'

‘Or me!' screeched K2 in the background, before they both collapsed into waves of laughter.

 

The next day Lizzie went out and got herself sorted. Working visa from the Japanese consulate? Check. Ticket from STA? Check. New undies from Dimmeys? Check. K1's boyfriend worked at the Kathmandu down on Smith Street and he did her a great deal on a fire-engine-red backpack. He offered her 40 per cent off. But when she got it to the counter, they both realised one of the zips was broken.

‘Let's make it half price, then,' he said. ‘Don't let the boss know. And if anyone asks you how you got it so cheap, you never met me.'

‘Gotcha,' grinned Lizzie as she handed over her brand-spanking-new credit card.

‘Dr Elizabeth Quealy … I didn't know you were a doctor.'

‘I'm not. I just hate titles. I wanted one that was non-gender-specific and with the most possible clout. If shallow losers with status-anxiety are stupid enough to treat me differently because of it, more fool them. I got it to make a statement.'

‘And so you can get an upgrade to business class?'

‘Yes, and so I can get an upgrade.'

 

*

 

When she arrived in Tokyo she stood waiting for her luggage to appear, fractious after getting off her head the night before, spewing all over Jules's new car-seat covers and boarding the plane with the worst hangover in history. When she saw the familiar red lump slide down onto the metal carousel she felt an incredible sense of relief. It was as if she'd been reunited with a lost pet. She was proud that they'd both made it so far – until a guy walked up and grabbed her bag's handle. She'd heard about this sort of thing.

‘Hey,' she said firmly but not too hysterically. ‘Hey. That's mine.'

The bleary-eyed guy turned around and looked at her. He looked at her but he didn't let go of her beautiful new backpack. ‘I think you're mistaken.'

Check out the balls on this one, thought Lizzie.

At that very moment, an identical backpack shot out onto the carousel.

‘Oh, we're both right, then. I'm so sorry,' said Lizzie. She felt as if she was about to burst into tears.

‘Not at all,' said the guy. ‘I'm sure some factory in China teeming with five-year-olds made a million of these.'

Lizzie remembered the broken zipper. She searched down the side of one of the bags. ‘This one's mine. It's damaged.'

The guy zipped his open to check. ‘Right you are. All the best.'

And with that he was off. And Lizzie had had her first conversation in Japan. She picked up her pack, swung it onto her shoulder and walked through the automated doors into Tokyo, her home for the next year. Tom did the same.

 

Scarlet's party was unadulterated madness. Red-faced kids dripping with sweat, running in and out the back door between water fights, bouts on the jumping castle and pleas for soft drink. Sticky mums breastfeeding babies, swapping war stories about Christmas shopping, and hovering around the table of party pies, fairy bread, cocktail frankfurts and Cheezels. When it came time to blow out the candles, Scarlet was as pink as her cake. Jim directed a game of pass-the-parcel and, as usual, the little boy from next door with the harelip won. Jim was always trying to positively discriminate.

‘Time for musical statues,' he yelled, cranking up Midnight Oil's ‘King of the Mountain.' The mums were so stuffed they didn't even bother getting off the couch to watch the kids dance. They just sighed and agreed how wonderful it was that they wouldn't have to cook dinner.

Then the phone rang. It was Trev. Pissed Trev.

‘I told that husband of yours to have you call me back.'

‘Yeah, tomorrow,' said Lizzie, her mouth full of fairy bread. ‘Since when do I listen to him, mate?'

‘No wonder he's rooting your sister, Lizzie. You and your smart mouth.'

‘I thought you'd be off your head with jetlag. I'm knee deep in kids at the moment.'

‘I never told you to breed.'

‘Didn't you only get back yesterday?'

‘This morning, actually. Five o'clock. Is your passport current?'

‘What? I think so.'

‘Well, we know the bad news is that the ABC has passed on the happiness series. But the good news is that thanks to my tenacity and a chance meeting in a beat on Hampstead Heath, the BBC wants it ASAP and they need you to go and discuss it. Next week. In London.'

‘Next week? As in England? Are you sure?'

‘There's a meeting booked for Tuesday.'

‘You're shitting me.'

‘I shit you not, Liz, I shit you not.'

Lizzie's head was spinning. The combination of the joint that morning, three Carlton colds that afternoon, twenty kids and 40-degree heat was not conducive to clear thinking.

‘I'll talk to Jim and call you back in two hours. When would I have to leave?'

‘Saturday at the latest. But I've booked you a ticket for Friday arvo.'

 

Jim didn't hesitate. ‘Absolutely. No questions asked. Perfect timing – I'm on holidays and you'll be back by Christmas. If the show gets up, I'll take leave during the shoot. Lucky you did all that Christmas shopping last week.' Jim was thrilled. If Lizzie was a creative success, it took the heat off him. He could sit back and be Denis Thatcher.

The two of them sat surrounded by party debris and let it all sink in, washing the news down with the dregs of a lukewarm Coopers Red. It was so quiet outside that with the back door open, even above the hum of the fan, they could hear a tram rattle along Sydney Road. Lizzie thought of the puff of sand that came up through the tracks as the tram hurtled towards the city.

She had been dreaming of this moment, of the end of Scarlet's birthday party, all year. She had pictured herself sitting amid the wreckage with a drink in hand and nothing to think about but what to have for dinner tomorrow night. It had been the light at the end of the tunnel, the dangling carrot, the well-earned beer after the long hard year. A year of overlapping deadlines and back-to-back commitments only a mother could love. Her stand-up show, doctor's appointments, publicity, bump-ins, rehearsals, the pilot, babysitting, tax returns, speaking gigs, articles, backyard barbeques, meetings of the creche fundraising committee, et cetera, et cetera. The more that was thrown at her the more she would take on, just to see if she could do it. Bring it on, she'd think. I've always considered parenting an extreme sport.

She cast her mind back to one night in the middle of winter. Shivering, tapping away at the computer at 3.30 a.m. with a feverish, sputtering child on her knee, she'd googled the words
happiness augmentation
,
only to be faced with over a million hits, most of them porn. As she squirted paracetamol into Scarlet's sticky mouth, she thought, What am I thinking? I can't do this. She'd wrapped Scarlet in a blanket and rocked her back and forth, singing ‘Hey di, hey di ho, the great big elephant is so slow' as tears streamed down her face. And then she had written Scarlet's birthday, the official end of her crazy year, on a piece of paper:
16 December, 9 p.m. Finished. 167 sleeps to go.
She'd Blu-Tacked it above her computer and looked down to find Scarlet asleep. And when she'd padded into the kids' room to lay the pale damp bundle of toddler down, Scarlet had opened her eyes and said, ‘Happy.' As clear as a bell.

She'd never imagined that at this moment, the moment she'd longed for, she would be wondering where her leather jacket, her raspberry beret and her thermals were. She picked up the phone and left a message.

‘Trev? Lizzie here. I'm in. Email me the flight details.' Then she hung up and wrote, ‘PASSPORT, TICKET, CLOTHES, CAMERA, MONEY, PHOTO OF CHILDREN' on the blackboard where they usually wrote their shopping list. ‘Have I forgotten anything?'

Jim had fallen asleep with a beer in his hand and the fan blowing in his face. She sat on the back verandah, willing her brain to slow down. This was her peacock moment. The BBC wanted her. Shit, she'd never thought it would actually happen. Making a television series from her one-woman show had been all Trev's idea. It was funny, Lizzie mused. When we fantasise about these moments of triumph, we forget that we'll be too swamped with stress and self-consciousness to enjoy them. It's basking in imaginary glory that's the real thrill.

She dropped her empty beer bottle into the overflowing recycling bin and prodded Jim into bed. She peeled off his Bombay bloomers and unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt. His cock looked deflated. It suddenly hit her that this might be the last cock she'd ever get up close and personal with.

As she was about to close the door, Jim muttered, ‘Lizzie?'

‘I've put a bucket next to you, if you're going to spew.'

‘You're the best, Lizzie.'

‘And you're pissed, Jim.'

It was 9.40 p.m. She picked up the phone. ‘Jules. Can't make it to your sister's hen's night on Saturday.'

‘Oh, you massive piker. What nancy-pants excuse do you have for me?'

Lizzie could hear Jules packing the dishwasher in the background and she savoured the moment. She loved dropping a bombshell. But even more, she loved the seconds beforehand.

‘I'm going to London on Saturday.'

‘Fucking bullshit.'

She heard cutlery smash on the end of the line.

After so long working in the media, Lizzie had stopped mentioning projects until they were dead certs. You only knew for sure you had a job in this industry when you got sacked from it. But Jules knew vaguely about the happiness pilot, so Lizzie just filled in the gaps.

‘Can you get me some duty-free?'

‘As long as you don't mind if I drink it. I've got to go clean up and process – this place looks like a crack house. See you.'

‘It's not a crack house. Your place is a crack
home
. Hey,' said Jules urgently. ‘Before you go: are you gonna see Tom?'

There was an audible beat. Now that was a blast from the past. Lizzie was taken aback. His name always hit her like a slap in the face.

‘Tom? I haven't thought about him in ages. I have no idea where he is. I think he moved to Boston. Gotta go.'

Lizzie vacuumed, picked up, loaded the dishwasher and Spray-and-Wiped the whole place, feeling like Paula Duncan in those commercials. Cleaning in the quiet was a great way to think things through. She looked around and realised that her world was perfect. Then she put on The Blue Nile's album
Hats
and thought about Tom.

Tom Shorebrook was ten years, fifteen kilos, eight countries, two kids and at least four hairstyles ago. The last she'd heard he was in America, working as a lawyer. But the mere mention of him was enough to send a cocktail of sex, danger, youth and desire surging through her. Smoky bars. Flirtation. Travel. Newness. She was a whirligig again.

The Blue Nile. Such a crap name but such a great band. The first time she'd heard them, she'd felt as if she were tripping. As if she were in love. It was as if she had suddenly discovered there was a soundtrack playing under her life; it had been there all along, but only now was she hearing it.

It had happened on the Trans-Siberian Express. They'd left Beijing at some ungodly hour and as soon as she'd found her cabin she'd conked out on her bunk. The next thing she knew she was waking up to this glorious, magical music. It pulsed through her like a beating heart. She didn't want to move for fear of making it stop.

Eventually she swung her legs over the side of the bunk and looked out the window, and there she saw the Great Wall of China crumbling into the sea. A boy with dark hair stuck his head out from the bunk below. ‘Oh, I'm sorry. Is it too loud?' He was British.

‘No, it's magic. What is it?'

He handed her the CD and said, ‘I envy you, hearing this for the first time. It's The Blue Nile, the greatest band. I'm Tom. Let me know if you'd prefer to be underneath.'

‘Hi. I'm Lizzie. Actually I like it on top.'

Tom laughed his deep dirty laugh. And that's how Lizzie met Tom … for the second time. They spotted their matching red backpacks, remembered their chance encounter at the Tokyo baggage carousel and struck up an instant rapport.

She'd listened to this record hundreds of times and every time she felt as if it were the first. She was standing next to him again and feeling wet, just before he whispered in her ear, ‘I can smell you.' No need for food or sleep. The sky so dangerously blue. So far away from the ordinariness and predictability of parenting and long-term relationships. The bone-grinding boredom.

When you were single and travelling, you could edit yourself. You could be the hero of your own novel. You could be a movie trailer of yourself every day. When you were married with kids, things weren't so easy. It was like living your life in the front window of a department store. It was great, it was what grounded her, but there was no privacy. Not only did you have your own internal chatter to deal with, but you were constantly picking up the frequencies of your partner's and kids' internal lives.

The deliberateness of Tom Shorebrook. The stillness of him. That intense stare that would fracture into a laugh. Languishing in sweat after sex that was more like dancing; the heat of Asia; summer in London and kissing in the back of those cabs, with what always seemed like an extra from
EastEnders
driving them home. Their sad farewell at Heathrow. So cliché. And Tom saying, ‘This isn't over, Lizzie. We'll finish this, maybe this year, maybe in thirty.'

She couldn't even remember whether they'd said they loved each other. She wondered if they had been in love, in lust or just in London midsummer. What a fucking shit hole that place was in the winter, but how it transformed in the summer. Nights you never wanted to end, pubs with overhanging baskets of flowers. Londoners pouring out into the street and acting like tourists in their own city. The smell of the grass on Hampstead Heath and the sweet, sweet breeze. For those five weeks in London she didn't see any television or read any newspapers. It was as if the world were on hold.

It had been so long since she'd visited that little island in her mind where only she and Tom lived. She hadn't heard his voice or seen his face in over ten years. It was all too much; she lay back on the couch, put her hand between her legs and made herself come. And as she did she gently breathed, ‘Tom.'