Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

He started at a tap on the window. Julian’s cheery tanned face was smiling down at him — some grey stubble on the chin, the buzz-cut hair speckled salt-white at the temples, but his skin still smooth and his shining eyes still youthful.

Julian opened the door and the two men hugged awkwardly. Saverio couldn’t help thinking, what are we to each other? Not really friends; ex in-laws? Was there a new language, as yet undiscovered by himself and Rachel, that covered such relationships? He was relieved when Julian stepped back.

•

Within the first half-hour Saverio was deeply regretting coming up north. He was sure he wasn’t imagining the suspicion and disapproval directed towards him. He wished that Julian could have been the only one there; he alone seemed to bear Saverio no ill-will.

The others he had not seen for decades. Hannah Wiszler, who used to wear workers’ overalls and shave her head, was now a journalist at the ABC; Siobhan F, who had dropped all but the first letter of her surname in the late seventies when she was sixteen and playing electric guitar in a three-piece called Penis Envy, was now a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières. Dimitri Alexandropoulos he knew of, a playwright and scriptwriter; Ben Franks was a noted visual artist; Dawn Sallford was a parliamentary secretary; and Tom Jords was still a poet and still a drunk. They all had to be reminded of his name, and none of them were the slightest bit interested in him or his life.

Saverio took the wine offered to him by Julian and sat on the top step of the verandah listening in to their conversation, their reminiscences of Leo. Leo at university, Leo at protests, Leo as an artist, Leo’s jokes, Leo’s feuds, Leo’s insults.

‘Wasn’t he fabulous?’ That was Dawn Sallford, her voice a rasp from the cigarettes she still chain-smoked.

You’ll be dead soon as well, Saverio couldn’t help thinking. He hated himself for descending into the pettiness of the past, instantly transforming back into the unconfident, awkward older brother who never knew the right books to read, the right films to quote, the right music to have in his collection. They had all been so erudite, so opinionated, so intelligent. Even his father, who had despised the effeminacy and pretension of Leo’s university friends, had reluctantly granted them that. ‘They’re smart,’ he used to spit out. ‘That’s all they are.’

Dawn was launching into another story about Leo, some political meeting which had bored them both and in which she had dared him to strip naked. It seemed Leo had taken the dare, had stood up in the middle of the room and begun to undress.

The rollie in Dawn’s hand swung wildly as the tale unfolded. ‘And I’m going, Dah-dah-DAH dah-dah-DAH dah-dah-dah-DAH — you know, that frigging strippers’ music — and Leo is down to his jocks and he pulls them off and throws them at the facilitator, who was this dumb-fuck po-faced Stalinist who bored you shitless with quotes from Lenin and deadshits like that.’

Except for Saverio, everyone was laughing, Dawn so hard that she couldn’t continue.

‘And then? What else happened?’ Julian’s face was eager, expectant.

For Christ’s sake, Saverio thought, he must have heard this story, must have been bored by it a hundred times already. But no, he was like a child anticipating his favourite moment from a well-loved storybook. He was so young compared to them all, at least ten years younger than Leo.

‘Come on, Dawn,’ said Julian, ‘tell us. What was so funny?’

Dawn straightened up, sniffed, took a breath. ‘Now, what was that prick’s name? Nick? Nick Tate? No, that was the actor.’ She looked triumphant. ‘Nick Simmonds. Anyway, Leo’s white jocks are flung over Nick’s face, everyone is looking at him, so shocked, Leo’s standing starkers in the middle of the circle — getting a stiffie I might add. .’

‘Always the fucking exhibitionist!’ shrieked Tom Jords.

Dawn was coughing and chuckling again. ‘He loved getting his bloody cock out, the silly old poof.’ She took a swig of wine, finished the last puff from her cigarette, flicked it into the ashtray precariously perched on the bannister. ‘So there’s this silence and everyone is shocked and open-mouthed and I’m looking over at Nick and there’s this big pair of white Y-fronts covering his head. So Leo, starkers, turns to me and announces, “Dawn, I think we’re going to get purged.” ’ Dawn again collapsed into spasms of mirth.

They all did, except Saverio. He threw back his wine and rose to his feet. ‘Where am I sleeping?’

They were laughing so hard they couldn’t hear him.

He cleared his throat and repeated the question.

Julian, still chuckling, smiled up at him. He pointed inside. ‘You’ve got the main bedroom.’

‘Thanks.’ Saverio grabbed his bag off the verandah and walked into the house. They had all fallen back into laughter. He knew it was foolish, that it was not at all the case, but it felt like they were laughing at him.

•

‘You think that’s something to be proud of, do you? It’s not. You should be fucking ashamed.’

It was at Leo’s twenty-first birthday party and it had been Dawn who’d said it to him.

Saverio had recently completed his engineering degree and that morning had received the call to say he’d been accepted as a graduate by Shell. He was just about to turn twenty-three and was excited at the prospect of his first professional job.

Leo’s birthday had been held in rooms above a popular vegetarian North Indian restaurant in Carlton. It attracted students and it was said that if you knew the staff they would let you onto the roof to smoke joints while looking over the skyline of Melbourne. Not that there had been much of a skyline to Melbourne back then. Just the forlorn apocalyptic Bauhaus towers of the housing commission.

Saverio couldn’t wait to tell his brother about the job. Leo had already been living out of home for two years, having walked out after a final argument with their old man that had ended, as they usually did, with their father lashing out at Leo; but this time Leo had punched back.

It was the night Leo had told them all that he was homosexual.

‘ Finocchio ,’ their father kept repeating, confused. ‘ No, non lo sei !’

‘I am!’

‘ No, no, no. Finocchio no! ’ Saverio remembered the finality in his father’s tone, the distaste and denial firmly set on his face. He would not accept it. He would not have it.

‘You know, Dad,’ Leo had shouted, ‘you would have benefited from a good cock up your arse. It would have made you a better man. It would have made you a better husband.’

Saverio had not believed that his brother could say such things to their father. With a roar, their father had rushed over to Leo and started pummelling him with both fists. Saverio had been ready to leap up and defend his brother when Leo had raised a fist and struck back. It had been an ineffectual, weak hit, Saverio had thought, so fucking pansy, but it was enough to stop their father cold. A son had dared to strike back.

‘Go.’ Their father had pointed at the door. ‘You don’t live here no more.’

Leo had smiled, a cruel, gloating smile that had been directly passed down to him from their father. ‘I’m already gone, you ignorant shit. I’ve been gone for years.’

That, of course, had been Leo all over: throw a bomb, walk away and let someone else clean up the mess. It had always been that way; Leo and their father seemed to be born to battle. Leo refused to learn Italian, Leo wasn’t interested in anything to do with soccer, all Leo wanted to do was get lost in books.

At first it had been their mother who intervened, protecting Leo from her husband’s violence but also pleading, remonstrating, coaxing Leo into making his apologies. Then the cancer struck and she was dead within a year. Saverio had been fourteen and Leo just about to start high school. The younger boy disappeared deeper into his world of books and imagination, and Saverio had become the go-between, even years later, after Leo had left home and immersed himself in the stimulating intellectual and political life of university, discovering the pleasures of drugs and sex.