Tom Houghton (16 page)

‘Well, she doesn't need to know . . . does she?'

It was the first sign of rebellion I had witnessed in Spencer. Could it be that he really had been sent to me as some sign? Just when I thought everything was hopeless, that every kid in school thought of me as a forgettable nobody, along comes this strange little kid and he thinks I'm worthy of lying for. I felt such happiness lying next to him, an all-encompassing feeling of calm. Spencer could be part of my turnaround, I knew that. With the right timing and careful planning, he would be there to revel in my rising from the flames. I wanted to keep talking, wanted to tell him of the pain I'd felt before he arrived and that I no longer felt so lonely, thanks to his friendship.

‘Thanks, Spencer,' I said, barely above a whisper. But if he did hear me he did not react. As I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't help smiling at the thought that my ship had finally come in.

•  •  •

On the night Spencer stayed over, Mum left for work later than usual, getting Kit to cover for her, because she wanted to make sure we were settled in for the night.

‘Are you sure your parents said it was okay for you to stay, Spencer? I think I should call to make sure.' Even Spencer could tell that Mum was saying this out of obligation; she had no intention of making the call.

‘My parents don't speak very good English,' Spencer lied (more rebellion!), ‘they would have a tough time understanding you. I explained everything, didn't I, Tom? About the phone and call button and all?'

‘Yeah,' I said, barely a whisper, fearing I'd be struck down immediately for out-and-out lying to my mother. But at the same time a little thrill shivered over my flesh and I welcomed it wholly.

‘Well, if you're sure they understand I won't be here . . .'

‘Honest, Mrs Houghton,' Spencer's dimple appeared, ‘I babysit my two brothers all the time. Boys of my age go bush on their own back home. My parents know we're old enough to look after ourselves.'

This was the justification that clinched it for us and we found ourselves alone.

Pa's garage was the best playroom Spencer could imagine. The vast space was now my exclusive domain and Mum was content to let me rearrange it any way I pleased. I wasn't sure that I wanted Spencer to be present when I went through my grandfather's things, but I knew I could do with the extra set of hands and besides, getting some of the boxes down from the rafters was no easy task. It took every ounce of strength in our muscles to lift some of them.

I busied myself with a box of magazines while Spencer was engaged with a wooden box packed with tools and engine parts. Scattered across the top of the pile in front of me was a mish-mash of old mechanical magazines. These were nothing of interest to me, and I figured they were too battered to be worth anything on the second-hand market. I started to make a pile of worthless things at the base of the boat's bow. The boat, I'd explained to Spencer, was the only thing in the garage we were not to touch because Mum and I had decided that, with a good clean, it would be worth something and if I managed the sale, I was allowed to keep all of the money. I looked over the dates and condition of the boring magazines and started piling them up. Next came two rows of knitting and craft publications that had obviously belonged to Ma. The models wore outdated knits and caftans and the price on the front page was still in pounds. I thought they might pick up a few dollars at the local used bookshop, but for the effort of trudging them down there, it was barely worth it. Besides, I had my money from the boat coming, so a few extra bucks was neither here nor there.

Over on the other side of the garage, silhouetted by the yellow globe behind him, Spencer was transfixed by his box of knickknacks. He held what looked like an oversized nut and bolt aloft, as though expecting some fantastic creature to emerge from it. We were not speaking to each other as we fossicked over our finds but I was glad to have included him in this chore, after all, to show him that outside of his own minimalist home, there were houses in this suburb brimming with the bounty of hoarders and one never quite knew what would be found.

While I was watching Spencer, bemused, my hand kept shifting aside the magazines I knew I would not want. Eventually, I looked down. I could not believe my eyes and my whole body flushed with the discovery of another secret. These were not the kinds of magazines I was expecting to find among Pa's collection! A woman was seated on a chair, her legs spread and her enormous milky white breasts dangling down to her belly. She looked about forty, certainly older than my mother, and her face was harshly made-up. Her hair was all bouncy and large, like something from a 1970s prison movie. She was looking straight into the lens of the camera and she was smiling, almost seductively, though giving more an impression of greed. I found this quite a feat, given that as well as smiling and posing for the camera, the woman had the tips of two penises poked into her mouth.

The men standing either side of the woman were completely naked. Both were younger and their poles were thick and cumbersome, their ends purple and swollen. The one on the left was hairy all over, almost no skin to be seen without thick, dark sprouts, while the one on the right was completely bald, even down between his legs. This image utterly entranced me and I wondered where the photographer had found two men so completely different. I could not stop staring at the image, so private and bold, so dangerous in my possession. I knew I shouldn't, knew this was none of my business, but I lifted the magazine out of the box with a trembling hand and I began to turn the pages. The sights were almost too much for me to grasp. My heart leapt into my throat and again I felt nauseous, but not in the way I did if I ate too much food, just that my entire being was about to be emptied of all of its weight. Images of men shoving thick pink willies into women's wet holes littered the pages. I thought I heard Spencer speak, but as much as I wanted to hide these things away again, pretend I'd never come across them, I was too mesmerised to move or respond. Before I knew it, Spencer was at my side, an excited puppy, panting over an unexpected new toy.

‘Ha!' he said with a chuckle, ‘Check out her boobs! Herr herr herr herr.' He laughed like a machine gun, the first time I had heard this. ‘She's a real dog!'

I wanted to laugh but could not. I was uncomfortable, uncertain what the natural course of events should now be. Was it right to continue rummaging through Pa's things like this? I should tell my mother and she, as the adult, could dispose of the magazines. I thought this was perhaps robbing Pa of some of his dignity, revealing him as a dirty old man. But if that was the case, then surely the last person I should share these with was my mother.

‘Man, that's bloody massive!' Spencer continued his running commentary of the obvious.

As we neared the end of the first magazine, I thought again of what had happened in the money room. So unexpected, so inexplicable . . . I hadn't dared mention it to anyone else. Now I wondered if that were a normal thing. I knew men could do this with their things, knew this was how babies were created, but did other boys manage to do it in such bizarre moments? Did it feel the same for everyone, that low, deep burning followed by a complete sense of shame?

‘Can you make yours do that?' I pointed at the photo on the last page.

‘My dad's got a magazine like this one.' Spencer seemed to deliberately ignore me.

‘Can you?'

‘Yeah. Can't you?'

‘Prove it,' I blurted without thinking.

‘What?'

The reality of my request soon set in. I knew it was an alarming thing to say, but I was so desperate to see if I was normal. I just wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted confirmation that what had happened in the money room was nothing at all to be concerned about.

‘I'm tired,' Spencer said, forcing a yawn.

‘Yeah, let's . . . let's finish up here for the night.' I rearranged the magazines just as I'd found them, my heart beating faster than I'd ever felt it before.

Spencer did not want to stay up. He'd asked about a spare mattress in the garage and together we had dragged it down to my room to place it on the floor next to my bed. ‘It's a bit dirty,' I had said, but Spencer said he didn't mind. Then, when we'd made it up and Spencer lay down upon it, I said: ‘Doesn't it smell a bit musty, that mattress?'

Spencer did not answer. He was pointing under my bed. ‘What are they?'

‘They're my cards, the ones I told you about.' I had spent nearly the entire lunch hour on Thursday telling Spencer about my collection.

‘Not those, these.' He pulled two clear boxes out from under the bed. One of them contained a doll replica of Vivien Leigh in
Gone with the Wind
, another of Judy Garland in
The Wizard of Oz
.

‘Tom . . .' His voice was one of confusion, disbelief. ‘Tom, these are dolls.'

‘No, they're not . . . I mean, not like that. I don't play with them or anything. These are part of history, Spencer, they're from the movies.'

‘Tom . . .' Again he was hesitant, and though I wished against it with every ounce of strength in my body, I knew what question was coming. ‘Is there . . . are you . . . a queer?'

The word pierced the darkness in the room and that one simple syllable turned my new world upside down. I'd seen enough movies to know what the term meant, and how people usually reacted to it. The boys at school had called me poofter often enough for me to know that's what most of them thought of me. But none of them knew me, not like Spencer did, so anything they called me I dismissed as stupidity. Now Spencer, my best friend, had come to the same conclusion. In truth, I had never really thought about sex in any real sense of the word. It was true that sex scenes in movies sometimes made my willy go hard, but that had nothing to do with what I was, that's just what happened to all men. I'd never once participated in the petty love games around the playground, and while I'd overheard snippets of who had pashed who at Fitz's party on the weekend, none of that appealed to me. I was not the same, but I was not
that
. I felt I was hanging in limbo, in a strange void of uncertainty.

I still hadn't answered Spencer. I was so petrified I could not speak.

‘Tom, I want to go home.'

I pretended I did not hear him and made my standard pretend sleep sounds.

‘Tom, are you awake?' he whispered.

I sighed heavily. I wanted to cry, to talk to Spencer about the thoughts playing havoc with my mind. I lay there with my eyes closed, faking rapid movement. I realised it was inevitable this would happen when I'd done something as stupid as allow an outsider into my private world. The possibility of repercussions was already beginning to rear its ugly head.

A few hours later I heard Mum come in from work, sighing her familiar concessions to exhaustion. I got into her bed and pulled her arm tight around me. When I woke the next morning and saw the bedroom door ajar, I knew Spencer was gone.

•  •  •

Sunday was movie day. Mum was awake before me and made us some Bircher muesli. When I yawned my way into the kitchen, she gave me an accusatory look.

‘What happened last night with you two?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Where's Spencer? Why did he leave without saying goodbye?'

‘I dunno.'

‘And why did you end up in my bed? Did you have a fight?'

‘No, Mum, honest. He said something about church this morning.'

‘Maybe I should give his mum a call?' '

‘Said they'd be at church just about all day.'

We sat and ate our muesli in silence. When we'd finished, Mum talked about Pa, and how much she missed him. There were no tears as she spoke, but her eyes were off somewhere in the distance and I wondered what scene from her childhood she was replaying.

‘I think,' she said, ‘that Pa would want things to go on as they were, don't you? Are you up for the movies today? We'll go in Pa's honour.'

‘I . . . I guess so, Mum.'

I thought that perhaps there should be more to grief than a week off school. Now, not even two weeks after his death, here we were pretending like he was never here in the first place. I thought about using this moment to tell Mum about the magazines we'd found but the very thought of them ignited that fire down in my belly. Mum had spoken of Pa's honour, so I decided to keep this information to myself.

Mum had to get to work earlier than usual, so we only went to the matinee double feature. Usually the midday movies were G-rated, kid-friendly flicks but today we were pleased to see a slightly more grown-up offering:
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
and
On Moonlight Bay
. The projectionist obviously had a penchant for Doris Day, said Mum. Surprisingly, I had seen neither before and I enjoyed the escapism, munching on the cupcakes Mum had baked after breakfast, and stuffing handfuls of salty popcorn into my mouth. It delighted me to hear Mum laugh aloud at the fun parts of the film, and I listened intently as she hummed along to the tunes she found familiar. Though the movies and my mother's mood worked in unison to keep my spirits buoyed, at irregular intervals throughout the afternoon, a stab of dread coursed through my veins: Spencer was an unknown quantity.

Later that night when my mother came home from work, she made her way to the shower then slinked into bed behind me. She sobbed lightly, gently stroking my hair.

‘Tonight Steve told me he was with Kit,' she whispered. ‘I don't ever want you to grow up. The adult world is a shitty place.' At this she heaved a heavier sob. ‘Bastards, the lot of them.'