Tom Houghton Read online

  ‘When you’re ready, I’ll show you some of the exercises that get the fastest results.’

  ‘Yes, Pa.’

  ‘What book you going to read, then?’

  ‘It’s one about Katharine Hepburn.’

  ‘Oh yes! A strange duck, that one!’

  I was offended by his choice of term. She was one of the greats, an icon beyond all icons. It just went to show how little Pa understood of the world outside his stupid garage. ‘I don’t know a lot about her . . . yet, but I like her movies. A lot.’

  Pa followed me into my room and invited himself to sit at the foot of my bed. ‘She was your grandma’s favourite, that Ms Hepburn. That’s what your Ma used to call her. Never Kate, never Katharine, always Ms. Like she actually knew the woman. Ma insisted I find the money for her to go see that damn expensive play with her in it. Just would not let up till I gave in.’

  ‘Shows how much she respected her talent, I guess.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah.’ Pa nodded his head in agreement. ‘I guess you’re right. She just about gnawed my arm off to go but then the play was not enough – she would not give up till she got to meet her.’

  ‘Who met whom, Pa?’

  ‘Ma! Ms Hepburn. Caught the train in and waited outside the stage door for hours but she never did show that first night. Wouldn’t give up that easily, but – went back night after night on her own and stood there with her paper and pencil.’

  ‘You’re not pulling my leg, are you, Pa? She really tried to meet her?’

  ‘More than tried, Tommy. She met the woman!’

  ‘Ma met . . . Ma met Katharine Hepburn?’ I jumped up onto my knees and leant towards Pa, egging him on.

  ‘Too right she bloody well did!’ Pa said and clapped his hands. ‘Only just remembered it now that you say you’re reading about her. Never understood your lot’s fascination with all that make-believe.’

  ‘Pa, tell me!’

  ‘Well,’ he said with a smirk, ‘it must have been about fifty-five, fifty-six?’

  ‘Forget about the year! What happened?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said to calm me. Forget Sundays at the movies with Mum, Pa was the closest I was ever going to get to the real thing. I could have hugged and kissed him, was hanging on every syllable like each was the greatest high. ‘So Ma made sure I got home early from work night after night so I could look after our Trisha. Well, that’s what she was known by then . . . before all this Lana business. Ms Hepburn – would you listen to me – Katharine Hepburn, was here doing a tour of Shakespeare. Some nimble fella brought her here . . . a dancer . . . Helpin or something . . .’

  ‘Helpmann? Robert Helpmann?’

  ‘Rings a distant bell . . .’ he said, gazing off as though he could indeed hear one. ‘Yeah, I think that’s it. Anyway, they did some touring around the country and your Ma went, managed to get backstage, and met the great woman. It was more than just a stage-door autograph, as I recall.’

  ‘So they actually spoke? They exchanged words?’ It was all too fantastic, almost impossible to believe. Why had I never known this before? Why had Mum never mentioned it?

  ‘The way your Ma told it, they became best friends! But no, not really. I can’t remember how she managed to get her way in, but they exchanged pleasantries and shook hands.’

  ‘What is she like? In person, I mean . . . what is it like to be that close to a Hollywood legend?’

  ‘Your Ma said she was – divine was her word. Not your typical Ma word so it sticks in my head. Well spoken, gracious enough to accept compliments from a theatre novice like Ma. That’s about all I can remember really, Tommy. Now, you should get some sleep so you don’t miss any more school.’

  ‘But Pa, this is just amazing! I can’t believe you never told me before.’

  ‘Well then, I’m glad you liked hearing about it. Enjoy your book tonight, but just for a little while and then maybe tomorrow after school we can have a go at the weights together?’

  ‘Okay, Pa, ’night.’

  ‘Ni’night, Tom. Maybe you’ll dream Hollywood dreams? I think . . . I don’t want to get your hopes up or anything, mate, but I seem to remember a signed theatre program among your Ma’s things. We’ll have a look for that tomorrow too, eh?’

  ‘Tops,’ I said, practically out of breath with excitement. And already my mind was beginning to race. I knew it would be another sleepless night.

  I opened that Hepburn biography like it was a map to secret treasure. I half expected there to be mention of her tour of Australia, and a chance encounter with a charming woman from Seven Hills, details of their meeting and what was discussed. I raced through it faster than any book I’d started before and I was less than ten pages into it when something quite unusual leapt out of the page at me: my own surname, staring me boldly in the face, the familiar word with its repetition of H and O. The skyline of the letters jumped out – so uncommon to see it in print – and my eyes darted ahead to the name. No doubt about it, there it was. I had to backtrack to find why it was there. Hepburn’s mother’s name: Houghton. My stomach was in my throat. It was more than a chance encounter with Ma; I was utterly convinced of it. They had met and exchanged more than mere words because we were related.

  ‘Pa!’ I cried out, jumping from the comfort of my bed, running to my bedroom door and bursting into the hallway.

  The house was silent, no muted light from the television in the living room. A thin line of yellow shone from under my grandfather’s door. Though I rarely entered, tonight I could not contain my excitement. I ran at the closed door like an invisible force was propelling me.

  ‘Pa!’ I cried out again as I burst into the room.

  There lay Pa, head flat against the pillow. His hands were outside the sheet that shrouded the rest of his body and they rested, clasped, on his chest. He looked asleep, only his eyes were open, and he did nothing to respond to my hurricane of energy.

  ‘Pa!’ I continued yelling, desperate to share my discovery with him. ‘Her mother’s name is ours! It’s Houghton. Katharine Houghton Hepburn! Can you believe it, Pa? Pa, what do you think the chances are that we might be related? I mean way back, distant maybe, but still a blood relative! Do you think Ma knew about it, Pa?’

  He had not moved. He just lay there, calm, totally unfazed by something as exciting, as hopeful, as this. His lack of response, I thought, was his way of telling me to get back to bed and go to sleep. Was this a new tactic, ignorance?

  ‘Pa, please . . . don’t ignore me, this is important. I promise I will go to bed now but I just need to know . . . Pa, do you think . . .?’

  Then it dawned on me. His chest was not rising. His eyes were not blinking. I knew then there was no point in talking any further, no use in shaking him. His was the first dead body I had ever seen. I was not scared, or saddened, did not panic about what to do next. I walked up to the flesh that once contained my grandfather’s spirit and I kissed his cheek – still warm – and forced his eyelids closed. I would never know now whether Ma had suspected that Pa was related to Katharine Hepburn.

   Five

  Damon was sprawled naked on the bed, my laptop providing the only hint of modesty. He didn’t look up when he heard me come in. I put my keys on the rack behind the door and pulled my wallet from my jeans, dumping loose coins in the bowl on the table. He was playing the blues, a Cyndi Lauper album he was newly obsessed with. I’d learnt every word and had grown to enjoy it too.

  ‘Lexi called,’ he said by way of greeting. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you have a daughter?’

  ‘Why the fuck are you answering my home phone?’

  ‘I live here too . . . don’t I?’

  ‘Do you?’

  We looked at each other awkwardly.

  ‘I had a good old chat to her, told her you’d call her back . . .’

  Before I could ask what they’d discussed, he removed the computer from his lap and I saw he’d tied a red ribbon around his fat cock. His foreskin collected around
the head of his knob like a fleshy button. Damon insisted on shaving his pubic hair but left a trail from beneath his belly button up the ridge of his torso to where his pecs went their separate ways.

  ‘What’s this, then?’ I asked. In the months he’d been staying with me, I could count on one hand the occasions he’d instigated anything physical.

  ‘Lexi said it was your birthday. She wanted to sing for you. Sneaky bastard, why didn’t you tell me you were turning forty?’ He gave a crooked grin and lifted his arms behind his head.

  ‘Did she say anything about Cairo . . . ?’ I asked.

  ‘Hello?’ he said impatiently and pointed to the way his dick was throbbing upwards with each beat of his heart. I removed the silk ribbon and tied it tightly around his balls.

  We made our sort of love. My head had finally stopped thumping and I was able to exert myself without feeling ill. Damon reached to unbutton my shirt but I moved his hand away, preferring to leave it on, as usual. His hands reached down beyond my balls but I pushed them away again. I kept my eyes closed except when I could look at him without looking at myself. I still had to pinch myself that he made himself available to me in this way. Damon was the kind of man I would have given anything for when I was younger. No, he was the kind of man I would have obsessed over and made a fool of myself for. But this, I knew, was temporary and I’d better enjoy as much as I could for as long as I was afforded. He reached beneath my bed and got the lube, then pushed himself between my legs, high enough to rub his shaft against my ball sack the way he knew I liked. He put his hands behind his head or across the top of mine like he was holding me down against my will.

  The stickiness on my thigh told me he was finished so I took care of myself and got up to have a shower, shirt hanging down to stop any come dripping on the floor. I turned to look at him. His eyes were closed and I suddenly felt ridiculous. I hurried into the shower, praying he would not follow me as was his latest little habit but this time I was pardoned. Tonight I would want to go to bed early and he would want to stay up late watching bad television, so this was it. Happy birthday to me.

  When I came out of the bathroom wearing a towel and my come-stained shirt, he was still lying there naked, semen pooled at his now gathered foreskin. He could stay like this for hours, never in a hurry to wash off the sex-stink I chose to scrub away as soon as possible. He touched his finger to the liquid there and licked it like he’d scratched a mosquito bite and was sucking away blood. He smacked his lips.

  He asked me how my morning had been. I filled him in briefly on my time with Lana and Hanna, keeping the details short, because I knew he didn’t want more. I’d ducked around the corner to my dressing area and changed quickly into shorts and a T-shirt, one of his baggier ones. By now the music had stopped and I could hear he was watching porn on my computer and slowly getting erect again. Lucky bastard.

  I made us cups of tea while he wanked and came again, using the crusty rag beneath the bed to wipe himself clean. He walked naked into the changing area and wrapped my wet towel around his waist. We sat at the table beneath my kitchen window, craning our necks to catch a glimpse of the sparkling harbour. A brief memory of Pa’s boat came to me – Mal sitting across from me with his shirt off. I brushed it aside. Now here was Damon, whose beauty far exceeded anything I thought I would ever access.

  ‘Beautiful day,’ he said and I sighed in agreement. ‘So, what are we going to do for your birthday?’

  It took me close to an hour to convince him that actually we would not be doing anything. I was a little annoyed at Lexi giving the game away when she knew I hated birthdays, but I suspected she’d done so on purpose. Frankly, I didn’t see the point in celebrating them: cards that would only be recycled the same day, presents I didn’t need, nor yet another hangover. But forty . . . he tried to plead. Is just another number, I countered. He insisted I would regret it, rejected my rejection and then moved towards offence, suggesting he was going to organise something for after the performance whether I liked it or not. When I promised him – by looking squarely into his eyes – that I would not renege and he would have to throw a party without the guest of honour, he got all huffy and ended up storming out of the flat with his swim gear, saying he’d see me later at the theatre.

  I bathed in the silence of my bedsit for another hour or so, letting the early afternoon sun caress my face and drifting off occasionally to the sounds of the hundreds of apartments around me, the sea birds off in the distance and the regular hum of cars and buses weaving their way through narrow streets. Someone was playing classical music on a piano and a woman sometimes sang along in harmony, an uncommon mix of ahs and mms that I would never be able to recreate. A shower ran two floors down and someone else in the building was frying spicy food.

  To stop myself falling asleep, I went to the bed and retrieved my laptop and brought it back to the kitchen table. I looked through today’s history. Porn, porn and more porn – gay and straight. IMDb searches for Australian actors Damon had gone to drama school with, people who were achieving more successes than he. Information on play-writing and script-writing courses, his agent’s website, two modelling websites and Gumtree . . . searching for rooms for rent. Good luck affording any of those.

  I checked my emails and saw a cryptic one from Victor, who was over in Europe pitching his ideas to international producers.

  Happy 40th old man, be good to catch up soon, want to talk to you about something, run an idea past you, hope Puppy is giving you a birthday blowjob, yummo, sorry I can’t be there to celebrate, or watch, ha, ha.

  I wrote back ignoring his questions and wishes and suggested a time for a Skype chat.

  Another email was from my agent asking me to come in and update my headshots, which she’d been requesting I do for over a year because my current ones were taken when I was in my late twenties. I deleted the email but sent my photographer friend Andy a note asking if he could do me a favour and spend an afternoon with a glamorous model. He’d get back to me in a few weeks but that could certainly wait. The last email was from Lexi – it contained no subject or body, just a photo that, when finally downloaded on my slow connection, revealed a close-up of the head of the Sphinx, its nose melted away like a has-been daytime soap star’s.

  The afternoon light was beckoning and there were a few sections of the play I wanted to test myself on, so I took my weather-beaten script and headed to Rushcutter’s for a few laps around the park and shore. Strangers might assume I was certifiable as I walked, gesticulating, reciting the important scenes from memory, my lips moving in silence. Middle age was fast making me invisible, however, and where I used to wonder what observers thought of me as I walked along in my own little world, now I invented scenarios for the strangers I passed. Here, for example as I paused in my work, was a fabulously wealthy Darling Point widow who’d been wearing the same make-up for sixty years and who employed an endless array of hot young men to tend to her mansion’s chores. She had a reputation for being an old flirt but in reality she missed her late husband so much that every morning she woke with tears in her eyes because Death hadn’t come in her sleep to reunite them once more.

  On my return journey I saw Damon ahead of me and hurried to catch up.

  ‘Good swim?’ I asked, resting my hand on his still-cool shoulder.

  He jumped a little and turned to face me. ‘Fuck! Give a guy a heart attack, will you? Yeah, it was good. The water was pretty clear for once, so it was nice.’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to come home so early.’

  ‘Not much talent at Redleaf today. Nothing to look at, no reason to stay longer than I needed to.’

  ‘You were probably talent enough for everyone.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ He pursed his lips and let out a high-pitched raspberry. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So I was thinking this afternoon . . . it’s probably time we had a conversation about you paying some rent?’

  He stopped walking and stood still, nodding his head in compreh
ension. ‘Oh right,’ he sounded confused. ‘I didn’t realise . . . I mean, I didn’t think you wanted to charge me anything.’

  ‘I don’t. Well. Actually, yes I do.’

  ‘So I’m a tenant?’

  I looked out at the boats moored in the marina and wished I could be on one of them with those people chinking their champagne glasses and laughing joyously. I scrunched up my face in thought, considering my next words.

  ‘Well, you’re not a tenant but you’re not . . . I mean . . . we aren’t anything. Are we?’

  ‘We just fucked. I don’t really do that with landlords . . . actually.’ I hated being mimicked and this must have shown on my face. ‘So you’re kicking me out, breaking up with me and taking my money all at once.’

  I laughed out loud because I wasn’t sure what else I could do. ‘I’m not arguing with you, we are not fighting, just so you know. I thought we could have a mature conversation about you living with me and paying some of the rent.’

  ‘So you’re asking me to move in with you and share the bills? You’re making this more, what? Official?’

  ‘That wasn’t how I was thinking. Fuck, I wasn’t thinking at all. Sorry. It’s all coming out making me sound like a complete and utter cunt.’ I couldn’t confess that I’d been snooping on his internet activity no matter how much easier that might make this conversation. He should have cleared the browsing history if he didn’t want it this way.

  It didn’t surprise me when he agreed I was being a cunt and no amount of explaining that I was trying to have an open conversation could take back that I had begun it by asking for money. Everything about his body was different: the way he walked slightly further apart from me than usual; how he failed to hold the door open for me; did not walk up the stairs with his butt poked comically into my face. We had become flatmates in an instant and nothing was going to bring back . . . whatever it was that had been there before.

  When we got to the flat he stripped down to his damp Speedos and I thought, heart beating loudly, that he might forgive me by getting physical but he walked into the bathroom and got naked in there, closing both the door and (I could hear) the shower curtain behind him. I mourned not the loss of him, but the thought that I would never again get to see his incredible physique, would never be sexual with a beast as near perfect as that. Oh, I knew there’d be more petulance to endure, perhaps even a heated argument or two, before he got his shit together and moved out, following through on a threat he’d never know he’d made. I wanted to go into that bathroom, pull open that curtain and kiss him, sit at his feet as he bathed and pour my heart out to him in an apology he’d be unable to refuse: Nervous, is all, uncertain. Hate not knowing what’s on your mind; wish I could share what was in mine. But instead I poured myself my first pre-performance glass of wine and walked up to the shared rooftop terrace so he could get dressed without my lascivious gaze.