Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

Outside the day was grey, windy, what we call a ‘Mongrel Day’, hot wind, always changing. Inside: my mother was a flickering luminous vision in her yellow dress, her red hair. The hair had been cut since she visited me the evening before. It was shorter, tidier. She wore glasses, which she most certainly did not need for anything other than her ‘Character’.

As I sat down at the table, Wally put porridge and a glass of milk in front of me. He said nothing, but nodded his head towards the screen. His face was aglow with pleasure, Roxanna’s too.

‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ she said. ‘Who wouldn’t vote for her?’

Rox herself was wearing an oversize midnight blue T-shirt with ‘Stand Back Voor Stand’ stencilled on the back.

Rox was now alight in the way people get when they are close to fame. It does something to them, smooths their skin, brightens their eyes. Roxanna stood with the remote in her hand flicking channels. It seemed as if my mother was on every one.

‘She isn’t even formally preselected for the seat,’ she said.

‘She’ll get it,’ Wally said. ‘Vinny’s got it fixed.’ He had a pile of pale meat in a white bowl, and as he spoke he was browning it in a big copper pan, four or five pieces at a time. The room was rich with the smell of browning butter, the smell of raw onions.

When the telephone began to ring no one answered it. It was as if this was our family business, us and the vid, the luminous blue and yellow picture, the flickering fire, the sweet hot butter, the frying meat.

‘She’s good,’ Roxanna said. ‘Your maman is awful good. Listen to how she speaks.’

The phone rang and rang, and then the actors — for it had been they who had been calling — started to arrive. Sparrowgrass first, but then all the others — Annie, Claire Chen, Moey Perelli. It was only half past eight in the morning but they were all excited to be associated with my mother, offering their services, phone numbers etc. They stood around the table, patting and fondling me like in the old days, already imagining the possibility of a Blue victory. I wanted to tell them I was going to be an actor, but it was not the time, and instead I held my good news, my fortune, held it tightly and secretly against my chest.

‘All your maman’s friends work on the vid,’ Moey said to me. ‘All those sold-out hacks and spin driers. You watch the space she gets. You hear the noise.’

Wally put the lid on his copper pan and left it simmering. He washed his hands, lit a cigarette and was leaning against the wall, supporting the elbow of his smoking arm with the palm of his left hand. He had about him the air of an organizer, as if he, through his own secret methods, had put my maman on the vid and encircled me with actors. This was not so, of course, but when the handsome messenger arrived — a young, muscular man, in a body-hugging blue suit — Wally did not look at all surprised but merely nodded his head to where the messenger stood at the open doorway, dimple-chinned, solemn-faced, holding out a silver and blue box.

‘Tristan Smith?’ the messenger asked.

I turned my face away from the stranger, but Roxanna signed and brought the box to me.

Then she took my chair and I climbed on to her lap and nestled my head into her breasts. She smelt sugary and alien, but she was soft and welcoming. I held the box in my lap, and no one asked me what was in it. They were drinking sweet Efican tea and staring at the vid. It was that sort of day. You could feel the world shifting its axis.

‘I wanted to be an actress myself,’ Roxanna said, spooning more blackberry conserve into her tea. ‘That was my big dream before I met Reade. I would have given anything to be an actress, but my ankles were too thick.’

We both looked at her ankles. As for me, I would have given anything for ankles like that. Her feet were small, perhaps a little flat, but her ankles were full, generous, like her calves. For me, whose own legs were little more than bones, Roxanna’s ankles had always appeared to be perfection itself.

‘You need thin ankles,’ she said.

‘I … have … thin … ankles,’ I said.

This made Roxanna pause a moment.

‘Well, mine are thick,’ she said at last. ‘And I’m stuck with them until they bury me. Your mother has very nice legs. She could do well in almost anything. Thick ankles are a real disadvantage, for a woman particularly. Today I really have to find my suit for the auction.’

‘You … don’t … have … to … buy … a … suit … for … an … auction,’ I said. ‘I’ve … been … to … auctions … with … Wally. I’ve … been … to … lots.’

‘For this one, I need a suit,’ she said. ‘All I’ll be thinking about is my boobs and my ankles, make the most of the one, the least of the other. Oh God,’ Rox said, ‘look at her. How can she lose? She’s just so beautiful.’

My mother was now on a panel discussion, surrounded by men in suits.

‘Oh God,’ Roxanna said. ‘Oh God. I didn’t know — she is just so beautiful.’

Wally was now separating the small bones from what looked like chicken. He worked deftly, shredding the meat with his big fingers as he went.

‘What’s for dinner?’ Sparrow asked.

‘Nothing for you,’ Wally said. ‘Something special for Roxanna, for tomorrow.’

‘For me? For dinner? I won’t be here.’

‘Oh.’ Wally smiled. ‘I think you will be when you know.’

I felt Roxanna’s body harden.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Mollo-mollo,’ Wally said, smiling, but strangely. He turned to place the bowl of meat in the refrigerator and then began to tidy up the kitchen table.

‘What?’ Roxanna insisted.

It was at about this stage — as Roxanna said what? one more time — that the actors began to vanish. They wrote their numbers or addresses on the refrigerator with magic marker. Neither Roxanna nor Wally said goodbye to them. Roxanna slid out from under me and walked across the kitchen to Wally.

‘What the fuck have you done?’ she asked.

Wally held out his hands, so his fingers touched her elbows. Roxanna flinched.

‘What?’

Wally put his foot on the kitchen tidy. I heard the lid fly up, saw Roxanna look down and her chin drop.

I scampered off my chair and looked in too. It was filled with feathers.

‘No!’ she said, angry.

Wally’s face was pale, waxy.

‘No!’ she said; she touched his face with her hand.

Wally’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

‘I can’t eat,’ she said. ‘I’m going to an auction.’

I was still confused as to what had happened. I put my hand into the bin and plunged in amongst the bed of soft grey and brown feathers — pigeon feathers. When I looked up I saw Roxanna’s face, tears flooding her cheeks, her mascara running like spilt ink.

‘You crazy man,’ she said, ‘you crazy ballot …’ And then, without a glance at me, she took him by the hand and led him from the room. In their absence I could smell the feathers, like wet ashes.

I climbed back on my chair and, in the empty kitchen, with the stove still burning and my mother’s image still shining from the vid, I carefully undid the box the messenger had delivered.

There was a small ivory card with hand-torn decalled edging. On it was written: ‘For my favourite actor.’

Inside was an object — wrapped in pale yellow tissue paper which, even though I tore it impatiently, did not reveal its secrets easily. What I found was a surface, burnished like a tea pot, lacquered with eggshell white, deep, lustrous blacks and greys.

Only when the last paper fell away did I realize that my maman had sent me not merely a Bruder Mouse mask, but one far superior to the one I had destroyed. It was heavy, not light. It felt like porcelain, or wood, but — in any case — not papier-mâché. It was hard as the fender of Vincent’s Corniche, and glazed. On its inside, in the centre of the forehead, was a little red sticker with the phases of the moon in yellow — symbols of a Voorstand import.