Green Read online

  Allen & Unwin’s House of Books aims to bring Australia’s cultural and literary heritage to a broad audience by creating affordable print and ebook editions of the nation’s most significant and enduring writers and their work. The fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry of generations of Australian writers that were published before the advent of ebooks will now be available to new readers, alongside a selection of more recently published books that had fallen out of circulation.

  The House of Books is an eloquent collection of Australia’s finest literary achievements.

  Nick Earls is the author of fifteen books for adults and teenagers, including the bestselling novels Zigzag Street, Bachelor Kisses, and Perfect Skin. 48 Shades of Brown won the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award for older readers in 2000 and Zigzag Street won a Betty Trask Award in the UK. He is also the author of the children’s series Word Hunters.

  His work has been published internationally in English and in translation, as well as being successfully adapted for film and theatre. He worked as a suburban GP and medical editor before turning to writing. Nick Earls lives in Brisbane.

  HOUSE of BOOKS

  NICK

  EARLS

  Green

  Published by Allen & Unwin House of Books in 2012

  ‘Green’ was first published in Smashed: Australian Drinking Stories (Random House, 1996); ‘Sausage Sizzle’ in Penguin Australian Summer Stories (Penguin, 1999); ‘The Ekka Job’, ‘Losing it Least of All’ and ‘Back Soon With Fish’ in Headgames (Penguin, 1999); ‘World of Chickens’ (Penguin, 2001); ‘Running on Empty ‘ in Green: Ultimate Author Edition (Exciting Press, 2012)

  Copyright © Nick Earls 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National

  Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 575 0 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 1 74343 310 2 (ebook)

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  GREEN—1981

  SAUSAGE SIZZLE—1982

  THE EKKA JOB—1983

  LOSING IT LEAST OF ALL—1984

  WORLD OF CHICKENS—1985

  BACK SOON WITH FISH—1999

  RUNNING ON EMPTY—2012

  Author’s Note

  In around 1994, the author Matthew Condon called me to commission a short story. Neither of us could have guessed that it would lead to six stories and a novel, and now this book.

  At that time I was the author of one collection of short stories to which reviewers had mostly responded negatively. (Negative’s a mild word for their responses, but it was my book, so allow me that.) It was already out of print and my prospects weren’t great, so I was in the habit of saying yes any time anyone asked me to write for an anthology.

  Matt was co-editing ‘Smashed: Australian Drinking Stories’ and he probably called me twentieth. While I was grateful he was calling at all, being called twentieth came with its challenges. He wanted each story to feature a different drink, but he had already given away beer, white wine, red wine, champagne, scotch, bourbon, rum, gin . . . the list extended as far as Parfait d’Amour and absinthe. So I said, ‘Yes, I’d love to be in your anthology, and I’ll call you back if I can come up with a drink you haven’t covered.’ Within minutes, I remembered something about Créme de Menthe (it was seriously embarrassing, I was seventeen at the time, I’d just started uni . . .).

  When the right fiction came along to fit with that cringeworthy moment, I had ‘Green,’ the opening story in this book. It went into the anthology and readers responded to its three main characters—Phil the anxious med student, Frank his classmate whose confidence is never in doubt and Phoebe, Phil’s very British mother.

  Not long after that, Penguin asked me to write a story for their summer reading anthology, which had a working title of Sizzle. I applied that to these characters and came up with ‘Sausage Sizzle,’ a faculty orientation barbecue at the beginning of second year.

  Writing that second story made me realise it wasn’t over. I was up for more, with only one rule in mind: each story had to feature Phil, Frank, Phil’s mum and a green drink.

  By the time I started putting together my 1999 short story collection Headgames, there were four of them. The book was almost finished when my publisher lined up a meeting in Melbourne. I was expecting to tell her that I was close, but still one story short. The night before, I went to my first film premiere after party, and out came the green vodka jelly shots. I made a klutz of myself and the last piece of Headgames duly fitted itself into place. I had five Frank and Phil stories in there, four set in the early 80s and one in 1999.

  I thought that was it. I went off and wrote Perfect Skin. I finished it and told myself to take a break. For the first time in years there was no new idea buzzing around.

  The next day I was driving across town to meet friends for lunch and ended up stuck in traffic behind a truck from Ian Diffen’s World of Tyres and Mufflers. There was an outlet near me and I’d never thought much of it until then, when the sign was in my face. And it got me wondering, ‘World of Tyres and Mufflers? Who is there who thinks that’s some kind of world?’ And my mind turned to someone else’s World of Lighting and Horseland and I realised that, all over the suburbs, there were people dreaming planet-sized dreams and I hadn’t even noticed. So I wondered what would be the dumbest-sounding—but plausible—World I could think of. Dumb and succinct. And with a solid blokey name at the front.

  Along came Rod Todd’s World of Chickens. And I thought, ‘Who would work there? It’d be the 80s, a failing takeaway chicken place. It’s exactly the kind of place Phil and Frank from the ‘Green’ stories would work.’ By the time I got to lunch, I had to park the car and make two pages of notes.

  World of Chickens came out in 2001. Phil and Frank had themselves a novel.

  It subsequently came out in the US as Two To Go, and work began to adapt it into a film. Then another idea started bugging me. I wanted to put all the Phil and Frank stories together.

  Then I decided I wanted even more. I wanted a brand new story—Phil, Frank and a fleeting appearance by Phil’s mum, three decades after Phil and Frank were chem prac partners in first year. They’re facing fifty, each in his own way, each still dreaming his own dreams.

  All I needed was publishers to come to the party, and I found them in Exciting Press (whose Will Entrekin started calling this the Ultimate Author Edition) and Allen & Unwin’s House of Books. Thank you both for seeing that there was life in these characters and in this idea. And thank you Will for suggesting that we make this the Ultimate Australian Edition too. Since 2001, when a photocopy of Perfect Skin arrived with 256 Post-Its on it, my work has been Americanized for the US market. With the passage of time, and editors, the process has become more subtle and fewer changes have been made. This time Will wants to keep the Australian tone, and so do I. But t
rust us, America, you’ll hardly feel a thing—other than feeling that you’re reading it all in an authentic voice.

  GREEN—1981

  In our year at uni, Frank Green is it. The style council, the big man on campus, the born leader. From day one, Frank Green has been the definition of cool. Frank Green, frank in all colours, shameless and sure as a peacock. Peach jeans, pink jeans, Frank Green.

  Queensland Uni, Medicine, 1981. Nothing counts here if Frank’s not a part of it.

  Frank Green juggles so many girls he’s nearly juggling all of them. He juggles so many girls they all know. They all know and don’t care. It’s the price to pay, if it’s a price at all. Frank Green has magic in his hands, the poise of a matador, the patter of a witless, irresistible charm.

  I juggle girls the same way possums juggle Ford Cortinas. I’m road-kill out there, bitumen paté, seriously unsought-after. Quiet, dull-dressed, lurking without impact on the faculty peripheries. Lurking like some lame trap, like a trap baited with turd and I’m not catching much.

  I have—my mother says I have—a confidence problem.

  Frank Green has bad bum-parted hair, mild facial asymmetry and teeth like two rows of dazzling white runes, but he ducked the confidence problem like a limbo dancer.

  Frank Green makes entrances. I turn up. When Frank Green is the last to leave I’m still there, but No one’s noticed. Frank Green dances like a thick liquid being poured out of something. I dance like I’m made of Lego, like I’m a glued-up Airfix model of something that dances. Better still, I don’t dance. I retreat quite imperceptibly like a shadow in bad clothes.

  My mother says I have lovely eyes, and just wait, they’ll all get sick of Frank Green. My mother thinks he has no staying power, but I beg to differ. Frank, those pants and Countdown, I’ve told her, are three things that are here to stay. And she says, If you say so Philby, if you say so.

  And I’ve told her there’s no more Philby now, but does she listen? I’ve told her I’m Phil, this is uni, I’m Phil. And I’m sure I was only even Phillip for about five minutes before Philby surfaced in Moscow loaded up with Orders of Lenin. Philby the Russian spy. Philby the Third Man. Philby the bug-eyed, black-haired baby just born in London. Me. Seventeen years of Philby now. And what chance does a philby have? Philbies sound so pathetic you shouldn’t let them out. Philby: a soft, hopeless marsupial that without a great deal of mollycoddling will drift into irrelevant extinction. A philby. A long-nosed, droop-eared wimp of a marsupial with lovely eyes, destined to die. Inevitably nocturnal, and very afraid.

  Outside the house you don’t call me that, I tell her. Okay? Outside the house, no Philby.

  On weekends I lie on my back with my physics book open over my head and I dream of girls. Girls who come up and talk to me at faculty functions. Who approach quite deliberately and talk to me with a calculating seductiveness. Glamorous, desirable girls who tell me quite openly that they crave me with a painful urgency, that Frank is all style and no substance, that they hope they’re not making fools of themselves, but they know what they want. And in the dream under the physics book I don’t shake with fear and lose the grip on my burger, I maintain calm, I sip at my plastic cup of Coke, I let them have their say and I acquiesce to their outrageous desires. In my dreams, I am a peach-jeaned man of cool. I am lithe and quite elegant. I am all they could want, I am highly supportive of their expectation of orgasm and I treat them kindly.

  And unlike Frank, I’d be happy with one, though admittedly any one of several. I have a list, a list of four girls I would be quite unlikely to turn down, should I figure in their desires. I have spoken to one on three occasions and another once. Other than that, nothing happens. But that’s okay, I’ve got six years in this degree.

  Chemistry pracs begin on Fridays, and this is where things get weird. I’m in Frank’s group (alphabetically) and his friends aren’t. Week Two and the group divides to do titrations and I’m standing next to Frank and a little behind him when the division occurs so I’m his partner.

  I learn things about Frank. Close-up things. Unglamorous things, but quite okay things just the same. Frank twiddles his pencil when he doesn’t know much. Frank says Hey several times whenever he has an idea, or has something he thinks is an idea. Frank is very distractable and has no great interest in organic chemistry. In the first prac we talk a lot about bands we like. Frank sings like someone with terrible sinuses and fills beakers up with varying amounts of water and plays them with his pencil with no concession to the dual concepts of rhythm and melody. Our titration goes very poorly. Our tutor takes us aside and says, Listen guys, I’m worried about your attitude, that prac was piss easy. Frank sings several lines of ‘The Long and Winding Road’ but all on one note, and the tutor doesn’t know what to do.

  Frank says Hi to me three times over the next four uni days. Frank actually says Hi to me, and people notice every time. People look at me and I can see them thinking, Hey, he’s Frank’s friend.

  Friday in the chem lab, Frank says, I think I can get it right this time, and he sings ‘The Long and Winding Road’ again, but still all on one note. We spend the first forty minutes of the prac (Caffeine Extraction from a Measured Sample of Instant Coffee) discussing how profoundly the death of John Lennon has affected both us as individuals, and society as a whole. The tutor asks if we could please do the chem prac and I tell him he should treat Frank’s deeply held feelings about the death of John Lennon with respect. The tutor says he feels really bad about the death of John Lennon too, and agrees that the implications are undeniably global, but could we please do the chem prac. And he says ‘The Long and Winding Road’ is actually one of his favourite songs and could Frank please possibly never, ever sing it again, because Frank’s version of it makes him very angry. Frank starts to sing ‘Hey Jude’, all on one note (the same note as that used for ‘The Long and Winding Road’), and then thinks better of it.

  We take a look at the chem prac. Frank admits he’s done none of the prep we’re supposed to and apologises to me, saying he’s not really doing his bit for the partnership. I tell him I spent a few minutes on it last night, and as I see it we have two options. The first is to do the prac the way the book says, bearing in mind that this involves several titrations and the result will be very bad. The second option has two parts, which I explain to Frank quietly. The first part is the maths. I have done the maths, and I know exactly what our yield should be. The second part is the extra instant coffee in my pocket.

  Frank chooses option two. We end up with 120 per cent of the caffeine we are supposed to, and we tip just enough down the sink to give us an impressive but subtle 96 per cent yield.

  After the prac Frank asks me if I’m doing anything tonight, not realising how unnecessary the question is. He says, We’re going down the pub if you want to join us. I say, Sure, but I try so hard to be cool when I say it that I gag slightly. I try to disguise it as a cough, but that only makes things worse. Frank looks at me. It seems I have to say something, so I say Mucus, and he says, Sure, I’ve got these sinuses, you know? So I get away with it. When Frank’s not looking I take my pulse. It’s 154. I hate the confidence problem.

  So I go home after the chem prac. I have to think about this and I can’t do that in lectures. This is it. This is a big moment. This is tribal. This is right out of our anthropology subject, not out of my life. This is the bit where the anthropology lecturer said, All tribes have rituals, and if you don’t know them you’re not in the tribe.

  There are problems with this. It took me seconds to realise I’d never had a drink in a pub before (and this is where the gritty issues of ritual will come into play), but it wasn’t till I was in the backyard thrashing the guts out of the Totem Tennis ball at 4.20 that I realised I didn’t know which pub to go to. With the Yellow Pages and a map I work out the half-dozen pubs nearest uni. At some point this evening I will enter one nonchalantly, and probably fashionably late (if late’s still fashionable), and say Hi to Frank and whoever he
drinks with, and I won’t say a word about the other pubs I’ve been to first. I understand ritual. Step one—appear to know which pub.

  I shower and put on a lime green shirt with a yachting motif and regular jeans. Will there be girls? I wish my teeth were straighter, my lips more full. I lace up my white canvas shoes and my mother stands me in front of the body length mirror and I just can’t believe this is as good as it gets. I don’t know what she expected, standing me here. I don’t know if she thought I could still go out after seeing this.

  I think I’ll tell Frank I came down with something, some bug. If I was a real contender I could tell him I got a better offer. Sorry I didn’t make it Friday, Frank: girl trouble, you know? I’ll go with the bug. I’ll see him Monday morning and affect some queasy face that suggests a whole weekend of gastric discontent, and this’ll all be fine. And no prep for chem pracs in future, that’s where this trouble started.

  My mother will have none of this. She’s seen the map and tells me I’ll need a driver. I’ll drive you round till we find the right place, and I’ll give you the money for a cab home, she says. And even though I’m protesting and telling her I’m really not feeling well, we seem to be having this conversation in her car and I seem to be taking ten bucks from her when we’re stopped at a traffic light.

  This is really bad, this whole thing. I’m aware of that. Imagine if Frank sees me, being dropped off by my mother, my mother fussing over me before I’m allowed out of the car. I say none of this, but she knows it, anyway. This the plan, she says, slipping on sunglasses even though it’s early evening, driving faster than she needs to, braking late, talking with maybe just a hint of an accent. And I think it’s a hint of the accent she used sporadically but to good comic effect in a minor role in the Arts Theatre’s recent production of Uncle Vanya.