pulled back the branch and let them in. Perk came in scowling but Jimmy crawled up to me and kissed me on the lips. Jimmy couldn’t get enough of my panache and I didn’t blame him.
All the JCJB Club members were thirteen years old except for David Perk who had been held back a year and just turned fourteen. It was an exciting time to belong to a boys’ club, especially one with a nudity theme. Fascinating things were happening to our bodies. We monitored each other with enthusiasm, noting growth spurts and key developments.
Our activities were conducted in utmost secrecy according to the golden rule: ‘What goes on in the club, stays in the club.’ I found this rule surprisingly easy to obey. My parents never asked what I did after school or noticed that I didn’t bring friends home. They were too wrapped up in their own misery. My mother shuttled between Tassie Textiles and home and was always tired. The only real quality time we spent together any more was The Dick Dingle Hour when Mum joined me on the couch to eat her dinner off a tray. If I worked hard enough at it during the commercials, I could get her talking about me.
It was during a commercial break that Mum mentioned the changes taking place in my body: the down on my upper lip and unpredictable voice. There was something else, too, she said.
‘You’re glowing these days.’
‘But I glowed before.’
‘Yes but now you glow in a different way. What’s going on with you?’
‘Just warming up for the Tassie Wallaby. I’ll need all the glow I can get.’ I knew what was going on with me. It was Jimmy but this was not something my mother needed to know.
Mum’s eyes lingered on me for a moment. Her hand reached out and swept the hair off my forehead as if to see me better. It was too much, her look. I turned back to the TV.
With a sigh, she got up and went to the dinette, closing the door behind her. I knew she was going to call Norman. She did this at least once a week, always in the evening and always before my father came home.
Dad shuttled between the newspaper office and the pub and only came home to eat, sleep and watch sports programmes. He’d become even more uncomfortable in the role of husband and father and was incapable of maintaining a consistent standard in either job slot. His efforts came in rare bursts of activity followed by long periods of disillusionment and apathy.
One night I was woken by a series of loud thumps that made the bed rattle against the wall. The thumps sounded dangerous, like an earthquake or a volcano blowing its top. I left a sleeping John to his fate and ran into the hall. Mum was running toward the lounge in her nightdress. We stopped at the doorway.
The floor was covered in rubble. The lounge suite and my mother’s ornaments were white with plaster dust and bits of mortar. My father was standing with his back to us with a sledgehammer in his hand. He’d knocked a hole in the wall between the lounge and the sunroom. This small room had begun life as a veranda and been glassed in by the previous owner. It was the storage room for things that were never used like the barbecue and the beach umbrella.
‘What on earth are you doing, Jim?’ Mum laid a protective arm over my shoulders. I leaned into her to make the most of it.
Unaware of our presence, Dad took another swing with the sledgehammer, knocking chunks of wall flying in all directions.
Mum raised a hand to her mouth like a megaphone and shouted, ‘Oy! Dumbo!’
Dad turned, removing a pair of sound-absorbing ear muffs that he’d obviously borrowed from someone. The muffs were clean and professional-looking. All Dad’s tools and equipment were old or rusty.
‘What’s all this?’
‘I’m converting the sunroom into a bedroom. The boys need separate rooms.’
I stood up straight. I was getting my own room! Dad did care.
‘John needs his own space for study.’ He flashed a small-toothed smile. It was his stupid lop-sided après-pub smile. Dad could be uncharacteristically generous and optimistic when he was pissed.
‘My Royal Albert is covered in dust.’ Mum pointed to the tea set on the mantelpiece.
Dad was leaning on the sledgehammer, still grinning. ‘Colleen Corkle, there are two frozen chickens in the deep freeze. Won the chook raffle tonight.’
Dad was a winner. The two chickens made up for the hole in the wall and the dust on the tea set. They gave their relationship hope.
‘Why the hole?’
‘That’s the new doorway to Julian’s room. I’m going to block the side by the dinette.’
It was true. I was getting my own room. Dad should’ve won the chook raffle more often. We definitely needed a colour television.
‘How long is this going to take?’
‘It’ll be all done in a week. Mark my words.’
It took over a month and a concerted effort on the parts of John and myself. It was the only time we’d ever worked as a team. We were both relieved when Dad finally put down his paintbrush and told us to wash it and put the tools away.
I finally had my own space. No more dirty football boots and no more of my brother’s foul personality. John never hit me; my mother made sure of that. But enduring his constant jibes and sullen moods was worse than taking a punch from Carmel.
My new room was going to be spotless and decorated in grand fashion. The first thing I needed was curtains. The sunroom’s large picture windows were nice but privacy was essential. Mum said she could get polyester off-cuts from work and run me up curtains on her Bingo sewing machine. I suggested I pay half and we buy real fabric from the Blue Gum Plaza department store. I wanted proper drapes with a bedspread to match. My decorating efforts at the club had sparked an interest in interior decor. If my stage and screen ambitions didn’t pan out, interior designer was an excellent back-up career.
The fabric department was one of the most inspiring places in Ulverston. It was stacked with bolts of multicoloured material and managed by a well-groomed man in tailored clothes. Every woman worth her Bingo bought her dressmaking supplies from Des. He had shiny white satin for confirmation frocks and large bridal gown patterns for last-minute weddings. Local women treated Des like a god in his fabric department and then walked out and gossiped about him behind his back. Most agreed he was one of those. This annoyed my mother who liked to point out that Des was married. The more malicious gossips would then remind Mum that Des didn’t have children. I observed the goings-on with a wary eye and didn’t add fabric floor manager to my list of back-up career possibilities.
I’d seen Des a few times and knew for a fact that he was one of those. He wore colourful shirts and a gold signet ring on his marriage finger. I recognised a kindred spirit when Mum took me to select the fabric for my bedroom.
‘How can I be of service today, Colleen? I see you’ve got a new man in your life.’
Mum laughed as he kissed her French style on either cheek and told her she looked as beautiful as ever. I’d done her hair before leaving home and matched her handbag and shoes. Des was wearing a silky kingfisher-blue shirt that was open at the collar. I noticed the glint of a medallion. Mum put a hand on my head and ruffled my hair.
‘Julian’s choosing fabric for his curtains and bedspread.’
‘What kind of theme do you want for your chambre de lit?’ Des looked directly into my eyes, something adults tended to avoid doing. ‘Are you a space traveller, a cowboy or a dandy, young man?’
I’d never had a grown-up ask my opinion before, especially not the French Way. Adults generally told me off or told me what to do.
‘I’d like something…’