Read Online My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Peter Carey
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went, he said firmly, back to Gordon Featherstone’s place in Collins Street.
A very hospitable man, Gordon, said Slater.
You wish to hear why Weiss went so queer in court, but perhaps you know already?
I scowled at Slater but he would not shut up.
Gordon’s place, he said, was in what was laughably called the Paris end of Collins Street. It’s very posh these days, Micks, but after the war all sorts of reprobates were living there. And that gorgeous creature. He turned to Chubb. God, what was her name?
I don’t know.
Oh yes you do.
That would be Noussette, I suppose.
Whatever did happen to Noussette? God, she was beautiful. I could have married her.
Chili-padi
type, no? Isn’t that the expression? Hot like a chili. He kissed his fingers.
Cheh!
You talk too much.
Wasn’t Noussette a girlfriend of Weiss’s before she was with Gordon?
You know nothing about her, mate.
Mate?
Slater folded his arms and smiled delightedly.
Mem! Mate!
Weiss climbed the fire escape, Chubb told me. Came in through Gordon’s bedroom window. Drunk-
lah
. Had the wobbly boot on, as they say. There was a great ruckus. I slept right through. I woke up to find myself being shaken.
Weiss, Chubb told us, was very fastidious, known for his habit of changing his shirt twice a day and carrying a toothbrush in his pocket at all times. But there was no toothpaste on his breath as he shook the sleeping hoaxer, waking him to a noxious effluvium of garlic and red wine. Why are you trying to destroy me? he said, seizing Chubb by the shoulders and slamming him back down in the bed.
By now Chubb felt he deserved almost any punishment. He was completely responsible for Weiss’s nightmare and so did nothing to protect himself. When Weiss clambered onto the bed and lay with his muddy boots upon his pillow, he did not protest. Indeed he took this opportunity, once again, tooffer to accept whatever public blame he could for the so-called obscenity.
The trouble was, Weiss was an editor. He loved those poems. He would stake his life on them. On the one hand he would not concede that Chubb had written them, they were far too good; on the other he blamed him for publicly humiliating a friend. Weiss’s voice rose higher in complaint. Why? He pushed his muddy boots against Chubb’s head. Why did you do it, Christopher?
To prove a point, Chubb said.
It’s sheer jealousy, Weiss said. I am more intelligent. I am better-looking. I am better-known. I understand that you were jealous but why, when you finally had me in the bloody dock, would you keep twisting the knife? You are mentally unwell, Christopher. You are a sadist.
David, what on earth are you talking about?
I mean your bloody little theatre piece this afternoon. Did you pay that appalling actor? If so, you were robbed.
What actor?
What
actor?
The bloody giant! In the front row of the court. Author, author? I have already been humiliated like no-one has ever been humiliated, but that is not enough for you, is it? You must employ this creature to taunt me.
What creature?
Ask the bloody author, mate
. There has never been a decent actor over five foot eleven and this one’s a fucking ham. You found someone to look like McCorkle’s photograph. It was very clever, but so malicious. It is the malice, Christopher, that sickens me. You came to my home. You had Seder at our table. You take my breath away.
Only now did Chubb understand that Weiss had seen the interjector in the court as his hired assassin, but in Melbourne you did not need to imagine conspiracies to explain this character.That part of the city was always filled with drunks— derelict, unstable people from the Salvation Army home on Victoria Avenue. You saw them in the reading rooms of the public library and Chubb, earlier in his history, supplied one of them with a daily buttered bun. So the big man with the long hair concerned him not at all. What was shocking, though, was that Weiss should imagine his own motives were
A very hospitable man, Gordon, said Slater.
You wish to hear why Weiss went so queer in court, but perhaps you know already?
I scowled at Slater but he would not shut up.
Gordon’s place, he said, was in what was laughably called the Paris end of Collins Street. It’s very posh these days, Micks, but after the war all sorts of reprobates were living there. And that gorgeous creature. He turned to Chubb. God, what was her name?
I don’t know.
Oh yes you do.
That would be Noussette, I suppose.
Whatever did happen to Noussette? God, she was beautiful. I could have married her.
Chili-padi
type, no? Isn’t that the expression? Hot like a chili. He kissed his fingers.
Cheh!
You talk too much.
Wasn’t Noussette a girlfriend of Weiss’s before she was with Gordon?
You know nothing about her, mate.
Mate?
Slater folded his arms and smiled delightedly.
Mem! Mate!
Weiss climbed the fire escape, Chubb told me. Came in through Gordon’s bedroom window. Drunk-
lah
. Had the wobbly boot on, as they say. There was a great ruckus. I slept right through. I woke up to find myself being shaken.
Weiss, Chubb told us, was very fastidious, known for his habit of changing his shirt twice a day and carrying a toothbrush in his pocket at all times. But there was no toothpaste on his breath as he shook the sleeping hoaxer, waking him to a noxious effluvium of garlic and red wine. Why are you trying to destroy me? he said, seizing Chubb by the shoulders and slamming him back down in the bed.
By now Chubb felt he deserved almost any punishment. He was completely responsible for Weiss’s nightmare and so did nothing to protect himself. When Weiss clambered onto the bed and lay with his muddy boots upon his pillow, he did not protest. Indeed he took this opportunity, once again, tooffer to accept whatever public blame he could for the so-called obscenity.
The trouble was, Weiss was an editor. He loved those poems. He would stake his life on them. On the one hand he would not concede that Chubb had written them, they were far too good; on the other he blamed him for publicly humiliating a friend. Weiss’s voice rose higher in complaint. Why? He pushed his muddy boots against Chubb’s head. Why did you do it, Christopher?
To prove a point, Chubb said.
It’s sheer jealousy, Weiss said. I am more intelligent. I am better-looking. I am better-known. I understand that you were jealous but why, when you finally had me in the bloody dock, would you keep twisting the knife? You are mentally unwell, Christopher. You are a sadist.
David, what on earth are you talking about?
I mean your bloody little theatre piece this afternoon. Did you pay that appalling actor? If so, you were robbed.
What actor?
What
actor?
The bloody giant! In the front row of the court. Author, author? I have already been humiliated like no-one has ever been humiliated, but that is not enough for you, is it? You must employ this creature to taunt me.
What creature?
Ask the bloody author, mate
. There has never been a decent actor over five foot eleven and this one’s a fucking ham. You found someone to look like McCorkle’s photograph. It was very clever, but so malicious. It is the malice, Christopher, that sickens me. You came to my home. You had Seder at our table. You take my breath away.
Only now did Chubb understand that Weiss had seen the interjector in the court as his hired assassin, but in Melbourne you did not need to imagine conspiracies to explain this character.That part of the city was always filled with drunks— derelict, unstable people from the Salvation Army home on Victoria Avenue. You saw them in the reading rooms of the public library and Chubb, earlier in his history, supplied one of them with a daily buttered bun. So the big man with the long hair concerned him not at all. What was shocking, though, was that Weiss should imagine his own motives were
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