Peter Carey - Illywhacker

Once I persuaded Charles to stand in my window while I went downstairs to look at him, framed by it. He would only do it once. He was busy with government departments who kept banning the export of his birds. I would have asked his wife to stand there but we were not on speaking terms. So it was Hissao whom I persuaded to stand there instead. I would have him stand on my Danish Deluxe. He would jump up and down on it -I didn't mind that – and I would make that interminable journey down the stairs -I always forgot what floor I was on – and go and stand and look at him.

I was using him, of course, but not in any way that was harmful to him. I was looking at him, but imagining myself as a passer-by and looking up to see me in there. The question is: how would you take me, sitting there in my chair, neon lit, surrounded by these swirling signs? Am I a prisoner in the midst of a sign or am 1 a spider at its centre?

Hissao and I had a natural affinity. We had lots more to do than pose in windows and I suppose Charles was pleased to see his father get on with at least one member of his family. The truth was that we both had time on our hands.

So while Mr Lo played his imaginary baseball and Emma occupied herself with her courtesan arts, my grandson and I explored the city of Sydney. We ate waffles at the Quay and raspberry lemonade at the Astor in Bondi. We walked miles at a time and he did not complain when his sturdy little legs were tired. He did not grumble or want drinks when there was nothing but sea water available. We visited Phoebe for dry biscuits and mouldy cheese. We went, hand in hand, round the winding paths of Taronga Park Zoo, through the deep drifts of sand at Cronulla.

We criss-crossed the harbour in ferries and knew the tricks of all the wharfs; the treacherous current, for instance, at Long Nose Point where the water from the Parramatta rushed at the turn of the tide like water roaring out a plughole. We travelled up river past Drummoyne inside the wheelhouse of theKaringal. We crossed the heads to Manly in the South Steyne, riding the big August swell while tourists vomited their pies into the grey-slicked harbour. We took the creaking Lady Woodward to Cockatoo Island and were given a special tour of the dockyard. We saw the innards of a submarine, and afterwards, at smoke-oh, I entertained the men with my story of the bagman's battle with John Oliver O'Dowd. At the time I was fascinated by my grandson's appearance – it seemed to change with the light, or the company. In any case none of the men at Cockatoo Island expressed anti-Japanese feelings towards him.

No one at home seemed very interested in our excursions or what we did. We tried to tell them, but they had other things to think about. They had done nothing to fix up the mess I had made with my opening out and they would not let me do anything to remedy it. The RSJ still bridged the ragged arch. The sink was reconnected but there were still piles of bricks on the floor. In the middle of this mess Charles now cooked the family meals. They did not have time to hear that Hissao was a genius.

You see, I had discovered he could draw. I do not mean like you imagine, not with little red houses and bright yellow suns and a doggie and a chookie in the corner. No, I mean draw, in perspective. He was a prodigy, but no one in the mad house had noticed.

He was only six years old but he did a drawing of me standing in the window. Then I had him do a drawing of the gallery with all the opening out completed. Anyone could tell he had talent.

I knew I did not have a lot of time. I knew they would take him away from me. Some days I did not shave, I was so keen to get him out of the building and on to the streets. He was only six years old, but he understood everything I showed him and when he talked and discussed what we had seen he did not mumble or lose his way in a sentence or forget what it was he was trying to say. I showed him how to look at Sydney and also how to change his walk etc., etc. Goldstein heard all this and paid me a visit to change my mind. She said it was not necessary for the education of an architect, but she knew nothing. An architect must have the ability to convince people that his schemes are worth it. The better he is the more he needs charm, enthusiasm, variable walks, accents, all the salesman's tools of trade.

I showed him, most important of all, the sort of city it was – full of trickery and deception. If you push against it too hard you will find yourself leaning against empty air. It is never, for all its brick and concrete, quite substantial and I would not be surprised to wake one morning and find the whole thing gone, with only the grinning facade of Luna Park rising from the blue shimmer of eucalyptus bush.

I began his education in April, on the day I marched him up the five hundred and eighty steps inside the South Pylon of the Bridge. We were both knocked up when we reached the top, but we were not doing it for pleasure. I was showing him that the pylon was a trick, that while it appeared to hold up the bridge it did no such thing.

Then I took him down to Martin Place to show him the granite facing on the Bank of New Zealand. I was keen for him to see that the granite was only a face, a veneer, and that behind this makeup was a plain brick building, but when I dug around with my pocket knife I discovered that the granite was not granite at all but terracotta tiles, clever forgery by the Wunderlich Brothers who made their "granite" from soft dirt they quarried at Rose Hill.

Hissao could smile and laugh. He did not appear bookish or dull, but he was the equal of the subject. I bought him a blue book with unlined pages and I had him do drawings, of buildings that lied about their height, their age, and most particularly their location. There was not one that did not pretend itself huddled in some European capital with weak sun in summer and ice in winter.

The family looked at his drawings and were pleased, so they said, although I could see they were uneasy. But it was not the drawings that gave them their reason to take him away, but another matter.

You see, the little fellow was the spitting image of Sonia in certain lights, and you can say it was mad, but I bought him a little blue dress and a pinny and I had him put them on. There was no danger in it. I got him to do it in the privacy of my room. Then I got him to stand up on the chair and I went down to the street to have a look.

I arrived on the footpath. I turned, pretending the sign had just caught my eye. I looked up, and there she was. What a pretty little girl my Sonia was. She tugged at the long sleeves of her dress and then waved her hand. I was still standing there five minutes later when Charles and Phoebe Badgery appeared beside my little girl. Then they all looked down at me but it is Charles whose figure now comes most strongly to mind – I will not easily forget the beckoning finger he put my way.

I was not myself. I was not as calm as I would have wished. I knew they were within their rights, but I thought it unnecessary for them to take him away from me so soon. I know they meant to do their best for the boy, but I had not hurt him. I showed them the book of drawings, but Charles was grim and pale and he said Hissao was going to a boarding school in Melbourne.

Boarding school. He was so young. It was painful to think of him in his little cap and uniform, by himself, six hundred miles from home.

I went to Charles's office and begged him to reconsider. He was not nasty to me. He was very gentle. But he would not change his mind.

There was nothing left for me but to teach myself to be an author. It was the only scheme available.

Dear Mr Badgery, she wrote, her head on one side, her pencil crooked between her finger, her handwriting so tiny and exact you would never believe she had once danced so fluidly.