25

It was a relief to have my mother home. She knew all the right things to say.

‘What a waste of a Golden Microphone Moment. Pouch and Dingle in one hit and all your sister could do was tout used cars.’

‘It was broadcast state-wide.’

‘You should’ve been up there on that podium.’ Mum shook her head. ‘You’re the one with small-screenability. Norman still talks about that cub reporter show. He says you were brilliant.’

Norman’s makeover had completely transformed my mother. He’d cut and restyled her hair into a fluffy Olivia Newton-John and done a Debbie Harry with her eye make-up. Mum’s shoulders had widened while her waist was pulled in tight with a large belt. Her nail polish and lipstick now matched her handbag and shoes. She could’ve been an air hostess for Air France.

‘You look like an air hostess, Mum.’ I squeezed the shoulder pads.

‘Thank you, honey. Norm’s a miracle-worker.’

‘He’s put ginger in your hair.’

‘They’re called highlights and the colour is caramel.’

‘Very nice.’ I examined my own hair in The Ensuite’s mirrors. ‘Do you think I should get highlights?’

‘They’re all the rage in Melbourne. Norm says they completely revamp personal image.’

‘I’m looking forward to my revamp.’ I circled Mum, fluffing the back of her hair with my fingertips. ‘You’re going to cause a stir at the Wool Board.’

‘They were stirred before I left. Sheep have taken a dip. It’s the Common Market. Dezzie says the French are driving mutton prices down.’

‘I don’t see sheep in France.’

‘What do you think keeps those Frenchmen warm at night?’

I stopped fluffing.

‘Wool, Julian. The French are great wearers of wool. But they’ve overproduced. They’re dumping fleeces and meat. That’s what Dezzie says.’

‘Is your job safe, Mum?’

‘I make Dezzie’s tea, love.’

‘Good then.’

The receptionist did not look up when I entered the Brush Off. She was too busy painting her nails black to match her hair which was now black and white like a chequerboard.

‘You’ll have to wait. Philippe is busy with a client.’

The salon was empty and, apart from the faint tang of chemicals, there was no evidence of recent hairstyling activity. I walked over to a cutting chair and ran a hand over the scissors and combs in a utility tray. A thrill went through me. On the wall next to the chair was a photograph of a severe-looking man. I leaned forward and read the embossed metal name-plate: ‘Vidal Sassoon’.

Philippe wasn’t French despite his impeccable grooming. His eyebrows were two perfect tick marks and his hair was a fantastic construction in navy blue with red streaks. It rose in a column from the top of his head and exploded outwards like a mushroom cloud.

‘Love the red highlights, Philippe.’ I’d been wrapped in a plastic poncho and seated in front of a mirror. Philippe was standing behind me with scissors, studying my hair critically.

He rolled his eyes. ‘They’re called glimmers and they’re vermilion.’

‘Very nice. I think I’ll have exactly the same cut and dye.’

‘Style and colour.’ He sighed impatiently. ‘Midnight blue is not your colour. As for the style, your hair is far too floppy and your face is too…’ He stretched his hands like an accordion player.

‘Wide?’

‘Fat.’ He closed one eye and held up a thumb like an artiste.

‘Can you fluff it up like yours?’

‘I don’t fluff! I jizsch!’ He rolled his eyes again. ‘Hair like yours should not go up but out.’

Philippe had a peculiar way of cutting that I put down to artistic genius. He cut in rapid bursts with his eyes closed. After each flurry of scissor work he sighed and surveyed his handiwork. The cutting took less than five minutes.

‘Voilà, voilà!’ He did a flamenco flourish and clicked his scissors above his head like castanets.

‘That’s it?’ My hair looked like a wilted lettuce leaf.

‘I haven’t coloured or jizsched yet!’ He did the thumb trick again. ‘I see amber with nougat glimmers.’

‘Isn’t amber like ginger?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

My scalp was tingling from the hair dye and my hair was still wet when Philippe placed two adhesive strips over my eyes and assured me that surprise was part of the jizsch experience. My anxiety rose as the blow-dryer whirred to life next to my ear. I didn’t like surprises involving blindfolds and it was all Carmel’s fault. My one shot at blind man’s bluff had ended in disaster. Instead of hiding behind a bush or a chair, Carmel had lured me into Roslyn Scone’s garden and called out from behind a large cactus. It took Mum several days to remove all the cactus needles. The incident left me with a profound fear of all desert plants.

‘Voilà encore!’ Philippe removed the eye strips.

I looked at the mirror and blinked. Then blinked again. My hair was bright ginger and streaked with peroxide white. It had been teased into spikes but instead of standing up, the spikes stuck out sideways like two giant sea urchins. Even more disturbing, I could now see a resemblance to my brother John in my face. When I unfocused my eyes, I could’ve been John wearing the fright wig of a clown. I suppressed a wave of carsickness.

‘The amber-nougat is superb!’ Philippe narrowed his eyes and leaned back from his bony hips. ‘I’ve followed the natural horizontal plane from the crown of your head.’

I was too stunned to say anything. My hair was too flat on top to be a Terrence Fig and too ginger to be taken seriously. He may as well have called me Art Garfunkel and be done with it. I was holding back tears as I was unwrapped and bustled toward the unfriendly girl at the counter. Her face lit up when she saw me.

‘Fabulous! Love the horizontal effect. Très originale.’

‘Really?’ I touched the outer perimeter of the urchins. The hair had been reinforced with something powerful and felt like fibreglass.

‘That amber is très David Bowie.’

‘Très?’

‘Very très.’

I had to admit, Bowie’s hair had been ambery on the cover of Aladdin Sane. On Scary Monsters he’d gone all the way and done bright orange. I examined myself in the mirror over the counter. There was no doubt about it, the colour was très David Bowie. And the horizontal plane was très originale. I’d never seen anyone in Hobart with hair as horizontal as mine.

I stepped out of the salon feeling très revamped and walked briskly to the bus stop, monitoring my image in shop windows along the way. I had agreed to visit Dad’s place and was now running late. The visit was Carmel’s idea. She’d talked me into meeting her there to see his new car. The hairstyle must’ve upped my credibility because the bus driver didn’t say a thing as I bought my ticket. He just stared hard and raised his eyebrows.

‘You’ve missed them, mate. He’s taken Carmel out for a spin.’ Trevor Bland glanced at my hair and smiled. Compliments weren’t his style. ‘Come in and have a drink while you’re waiting.’

This was a turn-up for the books. I’d never been offered a drink by an adult before, especially not by a friend of my father. Trevor led me to the kitchen, a Spartan room painted pastel yellow. ‘What’s your poison, mate?’

‘What time is it, Trevor?’ I had to be at work at five.

‘Beer o’clock, I reckon.’ Trevor flashed me an eager smile and consulted the digital Casio on his wrist. ‘It’s three-thirsty.’

Trevor’s fridge contained butter, sausages, a bottle of milk and beer. Three of the four shelves were stacked with Tickworth lager. This arrangement must’ve pleased my father. ‘You can’t go wrong with beer’ was one of his stock phrases. He believed beer-drinkers never became alcoholics. A drinker only became one of those if he drank the hard stuff. Dad also insisted that beer was an excellent deterrent to drug use. He liked to warn against drinks that came in large open glasses. ‘Drug peddlers slip things into the fancy stuff and get you hooked but they can’t get the drugs down the neck of a beer bottle so easily. Stick to beer. You can’t go wrong.’ Dad thought he knew everything.

‘Have you got whiskey, Trevor?’

‘So it’s whiskey you want.’

Trevor put down the two opened beer bottles and took out a dusty old bottle of Spirit of Cork. I recognised the bottle from our china cabinet. Dad had won it in a Christmas raffle years ago. He didn’t drink spirits but out of spite had taken the bottle with him when he left. Trevor filled a regular beer glass with the whiskey and handed it to me.

The whiskey was like nothing I’d ever drunk. It tasted like the smell of perfume and sent a jolt of alarm across my shoulders and down my arms. The inside of my mouth shrivelled. My tongue stiffened and felt like a wooden clothes peg. I swallowed with a shudder and took another. By the fifth mouthful I’d neutralised my nervous system and my eyes had stopped watering. I looked over at Trevor. He’d quietly finished his first bottle of beer and seamlessly moved on to the second. Trevor Bland was a benign, shadowy person to me. I’d known him all my life but had hardly exchanged a word with him. I now noticed he wore glasses. They were dark, old-fashioned frames that gave him the look of Mr Potato Head. He saw me looking and smiled.

‘I hear you’re working down at the docks.’

‘At the waterfront. The hotel.’ The whiskey was sending out heat waves. I felt as if I’d swallowed a hot-water bottle and it had lodged in my chest. The second glass was going down easier than the first.

‘Lots of nonsense goes on down there.’

‘The hotel’s got four stars. The place is a magnet for VIPs. It’s a career stepping stone.’

‘You ever been into those public facilities?’

My hand froze halfway to my mouth. I looked at Trevor and shook my head, downing the rest of the whiskey. The hot-water bottle exploded behind my ribs. I broke into a sweat.

‘Just wondering.’ Trevor refilled my glass and expertly popped the top off another beer bottle with a knife handle. ‘Lot of rough trade, I hear.’

I nodded and continued drinking.

‘You ever considered the priesthood?’

‘No.’ I shook my head. Conversation with Trevor Bland was a minefield. I knew where this was leading and had to put a stop to it. ‘I’ve never wanted to be a male nurse either.’

‘I’d never tell your father this, but I almost took up the dog collar once.’ Trevor looked into the distance and smiled. ‘Imagine, I could’ve been taking your confession right now.’

‘I have nothing to confess.’

‘Don’t worry, mate, your secrets would be safe with me.’

‘What secrets?’

The front door opened and Dad’s laughter filled the house. It had been years since I heard that sound. Carmel called out something from the front step as he walked up the hall. Dad entered the kitchen and his laughter stopped like a turned tap.

‘What the hell have you done to your bloody hair?’ His mouth stayed open at the end of his sentence.

‘I’ve had it amber-nougated.’ I wanted him to laugh again. I tried to stand but my legs were rubbery and elusive.

‘That’s my whiskey!’

‘Spirit of Cork for a corky Corkle.’

Dad didn’t laugh.

Trevor got up and started doing something at the sink.

Carmel came in and whooped. ‘Hey, it’s Coco the clown!’

‘David Bowie.’

‘It’s ginger.’

‘Amber.’ I’d lost the desire to be funny. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Joy riding. Dad let me drive the Holden. You missed lunch at the Red Rooster.’

The Red Rooster was my father’s idea of quality dining. The helpings were large and the prices cheap. It was furnished with plastic seats and tablecloths and its windows were permanently steamed up. The salt and pepper came in old instant coffee jars with holes punched in the top and you ordered your meal through the service hole over the deep fryer. Half a chicken and chips was the same price as a whole chicken and chips. Dad said only stupid people took the half-chicken option, and on this we agreed. The chickens were preboiled and thrown into the deep fryer as ordered.

I felt a wave of carsickness at the thought of deep-fried chicken. My stomach was turbulent and watery. Trevor’s kitchen was suddenly very small and hot. There were too many people and too many uncomfortable unspoken things. I had to get out. No, I had to get to work! It was ten to five. I looked at Carmel. ‘We’ve got to go.’

‘Keep your hair on, Ginger Nuts.’ Carmel winked at Dad. ‘Nothing stops the Locomotive.’

I heard Dad’s voice as I stumbled down the hall, ‘He’s as pissed as a newt on my whiskey and didn’t even look at the car! And what’s with that bloody hair? He’s as bad as that brother of hers.’ I swung out of the house and into the blinding white of an overcast Hobart afternoon. Carmel’s hand landed between my shoulder blades and propelled me into the Hub’s ute in the driveway. The journey passed in a sickening flash with ‘My Sharona’ belting out of the cassette player. It was five to five on the ute’s clock when we jerked to a stop at the rear of the hotel. Carmel bundled me out and took off with a screech of tyres.

The effect of the whiskey seemed to expand exponentially as I entered the hotel. I followed my usual route to the service bay but found myself directing action from outside my body. I fumbled into my uniform, leaving half the jacket buttons undone. The hat wouldn’t sit on my hair so I gave up on it and scurried out.

A Merino Casino tour bus was pulling up as I got to the front of the hotel. I put on a sprint to reach the door and was almost there when my foot caught on a kink in the carpet. I tripped and fell headlong, skidding the last two metres on my stomach like a bobsledder. My chin came to rest on the foot of a large woman. She shrieked and clutched at the buttons of her cardigan.

The driver appeared. ‘What the bloody hell?’

‘I saw ginger fur.’ The woman removed her foot from under my chin. ‘I thought it was one of those Tasmanian wombats.’

‘Debble.’

I wanted to explain that it was a Tasmanian devil not a wombat but my tongue had hardened and the inside of my mouth had shrunk. I realised I was thirsty, thirstier than I’d ever been in my life. The idea of water cut through the murki-ness of the whiskey. I pushed myself up and lost balance, latching on to the driver. We locked arms at the elbow and I swung him around like a square dancer.

‘Get the hell offa me, you clown!’ He shook me loose at high speed.

Stumbling to stay upright, I crossed the road and mounted the kerb at a gallop. I made for the fountain in the middle of the roundabout, a large cement structure of a naked woman in a clamshell. Throwing the front half of my body over the clam rim, I scooped water with my hands, drinking greedily until the rage of thirst abated and my head cleared. The front of my uniform was saturated but I was beyond caring.

When I turned, I saw thirty people staring at me from the tour bus. Bevan Bunion was standing on the kerb next to the driver. His face was crimson. He pointed to me and despite the distance and haze of whiskey I could see two fingers. His index finger was doing the pointing while his pinky stood out in self-righteous imitation.

‘You’re fired!’

‘Ha?’ Fired? My mind whirred. I shook my head.

‘I’ll ha you!’

‘And I’ll hardi-ha you!’

‘Clown!’

Firing me was one thing but calling me names was pure spite. I sat down on the clam and cupped my hands around my mouth like a megaphone.

‘And you’re a…’ I tried to think of something that would really hurt, something personal and below the beltline. ‘…an onion head. Bunion the Onion. That’s what everyone calls you.’

There, I’d said it.

Satisfied, I rocked back on the edge of the clam and experienced the dread of freefall. I heard a splash. Everything went dark.