‘What’s this, then?’ My mother tapped it with her fingernail.
‘Private and personal.’
I picked it up and took it into the bathroom. I could feel my heartbeat in the back of my throat as I locked the door. The package had cost me all my pocket-money savings. It was worth it. I needed to start making preparations now if I was going to win the Little Aussie Talent Quest. I had four years to prepare myself. Mum said that the talent quest was a stepping stone to the Golden Microphone and advised me to keep my eye on the prize. It didn’t matter how I applied my pizzazz, she said. The important thing was to make full use of my star quality and one day I’d end up on television.
As an incentive, Mum had taped a photo and caption from the Companion to the door of the fridge. It showed a smiling teenage girl from Geelong, Tania, holding the Golden Microphone trophy. Her cheeks were bright pink and her teeth had braces. Mum said I would be a Tania one day. It was just a matter of doing the right thing in the right place at the right time. She called it the Golden Microphone Moment and warned me not to squander my talent as she’d done. Marrying my father just after the Tasmanian finals had been the biggest mistake of her life, she said. She never made it to the nationals.
I opened the package. It contained an instruction sheet.
Remove all items of clothing including undergarments.
Wash your body thoroughly to remove skin toxins.
Towel your body dry.
Slip the SlimQuik Body Skin on underneath your regular clothes.
The body-hugging SlimQuik Body Skin is worn against the skin and is not visible under clothes.
I took off my school uniform. The SlimQuik was made of stiff pink plastic that crackled and was designed like a Charlie Chaplin bathing suit with short legs and a sleeveless top. I climbed into it and pop-closed the row of domes running down the chest. It was too big. I’d ordered an adult medium to be on the safe side but it was hanging off me. I put my school uniform back on and looked at myself in the mirror. Apart from the suit bottoms hanging out of my shorts, no one would ever know. I rolled the legs up, stuck the instruction sheet in my pocket and opened the door. My mother watched me from the back step as I put the empty packaging in the rubbish tin.
‘You going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘It’s scientific, Mum, for the good of mankind and all that. You’ll see in ten days.’ That’s how long it would take me to lose five kilograms.
I gently nudged Mum on my way back inside. The suit crackled as we bumped.
‘Snap, crackle, pop!’ She laughed and ruffled my hair.
I ignored her and headed back to my bedroom without moving my arms. A new Celebrity Glitter had arrived and I had research to do. The magazine had an exposé on Elizabeth Taylor’s secret second marriage to Richard Burton, a good move in my opinion. Burton was a generous man. He’d given Liz all her best necklaces and didn’t seem to mind her plumpness.
My own body was supposed to have projections and hollows like the bodies of other boys who were now elongating and sprouting. But puberty was not so kind to me. I was increasing in density and getting softer and rounder. My father did nothing for my confidence. I was foolish enough to walk past him one day without a shirt. He’d looked at my chest and laughed. ‘Look at those bottle tops! Ha, ha.’
This was rich coming from him. The pair he had on his chest talked to each other when he climbed the three steps to the back door. I knew where the bottle tops on my chest came from and I resented him for it. His other physical deformity I didn’t want was body hair. I desperately wanted pubic hair but I feared what adolescence might do to my back. Dad’s hairs marched their way north from his bum crevice like a hungry army, fanning out at the top of his back and sweeping over his shoulders. From there they worked their way south again, over his chest and down past his stomach. Carmel said if we rubbed him along our nylon carpet we’d generate enough static to attach him to the back of the couch.
My body density would’ve been unbearable if I’d suffered it alone but it was reassuring to suffer it along with Elizabeth Taylor. The Celebrity Glitter article was particularly unkind. It referred to Liz as a bejewelled porker. I decided to write to her personally through her fan club.
Dear Liz,
Don’t worry about being a little on the big side. You’re the world’s best ambassador for big people because you’ve still got a beautiful face and anyway, you could be a lot bigger. So don’t worry. You’re a big star, big and shiny like a real star in the sky.
I just wanted to tell you that.
By the way, is the Cartier diamond heavy? Sixty-nine seems a lot of carats even for a big diamond like the Cartier. Those carats must be heavy. That’s what I think anyway.
Liz, you and I have a lot in common. I’m sure we’ll be good friends after I move to America. I just have to win the Golden Microphone or equivalent trophy. Mum says it’s a sure thing. I first have to win the Little Aussie Talent Quest but I can’t enter this until I’m fifteen. So you will have to be patient. In the meantime, why don’t you visit Ulverston? You can stay at our house. Our couch is a four-seater so it should be big enough.
Love from YOUR BIGGEST FAN,
Julian Corkle
The Songbird of the South
There, that would make her feel better. I licked the envelope flap several times and pushed it flat. It curled up again. The sticky tape was in the dinette where Mum was entertaining our neighbour, Roslyn Scone. Roslyn was a sharp woman with a pinched face and limp blond hair that sat on her head like wet seaweed. She could have done something to remedy her looks but Roslyn wasn’t the type to invest money in something important. She was proudly describing her husband’s new Ford Escort when I entered the dinette. The Royal Albert tea set was out and a cake plate with three chocolate Tiffany biscuits was sitting in the middle of the table. I loved Tiffanies almost as much as I loved Shelby’s chocolate. My idea of happiness was sharing a packet of Tiffanies with Mum while I did her hair and she talked about my career. This we could do only when Dad and John were off the premises.
I sat down next to Roslyn with a crackle. She didn’t look in my direction or even acknowledge me. Roslyn didn’t like me and it was all Carmel’s fault. The papers and television had been making a lot of noise about a Scottish stripping sensation touring Australia called Gladys McGinty. Gladys had enormous breasts that sat on her chest like two Russian icebreakers. The media referred to her as Gladys Maximus and got a lot of mileage out of jokes about her massive tartan bagpipes. According to Carmel, our neighbour Roslyn had a sunken treasure chest with grains of sand for breasts. One day I was sitting with my sister behind the hedge when she called out, ‘Roslyn Minimus, the scrawny tart and bag!’ Carmel had run off and left me to my fate. I was cowering behind the hedge, smiling foolishly, when Roslyn found me. She hadn’t forgiven me.
‘Mum, can I have a Tiffany?’ I took a biscuit as I asked.
‘Just one, Julian, then go outside and play.’
‘I need some sticky tape.’
‘You know where it is.’
I got off my chair and found the tape in the drawer. I sealed the envelope and returned to the table, crackling as I sat down. It was getting hot inside the suit. I could feel sweat tickling down the backs of my knees. I reached out and took another Tiffany as swiftly as possible. The suit crackled again. Roslyn looked at me suspiciously.
‘What’s that rustling sound? The boy’s got something in his trousers.’
The sweat was now running down my legs. Roslyn made me nervous but I couldn’t leave while there was still a Tiffany up for grabs. If I let the biscuit slip through my fingers, it would haunt me all afternoon.
‘Everything inside my trousers is normal, Mum.’
‘Colleen,