Chapter One
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AIRHEAD
THE FIRST THING he ever uttered was “Marmaa”. Or so his marmaa said. The first thing he ever gurgled was “Daadaar”. Or so his dadaar said. The first thing Nathan ever said he said was this: “Who are these people?”
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Not much had changed in the proceeding years. Or so he claimed, contending he was still surrounded by friends who thought they knew him. But didn’t. Drawing Wander to eye level, he checked her batteries. Finding she was as full as he wanted to be, Wright began typing:
“.... My life is certainly not what it was.
I’ve got wealth. So I don’t need wisdom. Or looks. Or integrity apparently. Rich beyond my wildest, most avaricious dreams, I’m the mercedes porsche him of my fantasies.
I’ve got bodyguards. So I don’t need biceps. I’ve got fame and fortune so I don’t need friends. I’ve got women from the pages of Penthouse offering to do things with me in positions only the seriously deranged, or seriously supple, would contemplate...”
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With the swift violence of an obsolete lover going for the throat of the once loved them one, the aircraft leapt into a darkening sky. Stretched out by a tiny freeze repelling window now protecting him from an extraordinarily frigid exterior (only the odd Eskimo and the husbands’ of all too many unhappy spouses had hitherto encountered) Wright was busily waffling into his electric insanity sponge, a slate grey Macintosh lap top.
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“But I’m not happy. Somehow I’m still managing to achieve first degree tedium. How? Why? Christ, I’m bound for London and hope and the tawdry joys of the rampantly wealthy ...yet? Somehow I’m still courting mind-numbing monotony. Hell, I’m surrounded by champagne, caviar and the fast curves of an angel eyed airhostess and I’m still managing to bore myself into premature hibernation. How? Why?
Just what on God’s desecrated earth could possibly be so extraordinarily dull amongst such delicious distractions as to send me to sleep for the next few millennia?
Truth is I’m attempting fate and tempting coma.
Fact is I’m writing about myself... ”
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As was his habit, for Nathan N. Wright gave an identity to everything he begged, borrowed or threw against the nearest wall when it decided to malfunction, the computer had been named in honour of his dear demented Grandmother. Or to be more specific, the behaviour his dear deranged Grandmother had so diligently displayed. When he erred; when he touched the Mac in all the wrong places (an all too common occurrence the females Nathan knew nagged) it would do a Gran.
And forget everything he’d just told it.
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Just like his Gran did. Although her memory did seem as selective as the machine’s for Wright had often told her she was crazy. But she forgot about that. Once some-one told her Wright was crazy. She didn’t forget that. Consequently, she kept knitting him white coats with overly long sleeves that buckled at the back in evidence of her retarded recall.
She was also a chronic wanderer. An ever shuffling, blue dressing-gowned escapee from the home for the aged where she was supposed to be staying. PUT. Such assiduous ambling, of both mind and bent body, gave Wright the idea.
He called Mac - Wander.
THE STORY: With the demise of any semblance of sanity, Wright’s Gran would, walking frame supporting the hunched her, saunter the streets as lost as her brain was.
Such rogue behaviour forced the local constabulary to give up the more onerous duties such as catching crooks or chasing child molester's. Or getting the phone numbers of good looking girls in fast cars to go pensioner hunting. Guns drawn, patience exhausted, they’d search the suburbs for this shuffling refugee (from anything resembling reality). Unfortunately, thus-far anyway, the plods’ better instincts had prevailed. They hadn’t done an Oswald and blown her away. They’d merely arrest the stooped stray and swear at her. Loudly. (Which was bloody pointless because she was as deaf as she was dumb). Bound and gagged, they’d return her to the home for the tremendously old farts from whence she’d escaped. Nightly. Or so it seemed to the local upholders of law and order for she’d simply continue her habitual meanderings.
Using oxyacetylene equipment borrowed from Ted, the pyromaniac ex-plumber in the next room (who had a crush on her, so would lend her anything. Even his teeth. Which were as false as her promise to give him head one-day) she’d cut through the steel bars Wright had personally installed to contain the idiot Houdini. Awkwardly, she’d fall out the window, usually landing face first and so appearing to the plod, when they finally nabbed her, face caked in garden dirt, like Al Jolsen reincarnate.
Undeterred though by any earthy collision, she’d happily totter off in search of her lost youth and the twenty year dead, now cemetery sited, husband. (Once called Norm. Now called only via seance). There seemed to be no way of stopping such determined wanderings. (Nail her to the bed, Wright said). In desperation, Wright’s parents (Wright’s mum being Gran’s daughter), weary of this gypsy streak and worried that some-day she’d stay lost forever, took action. They fixed a pulsing homing device around the old girl’s throat so that the Australian Airforce could find her if the Victoria Police couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
Fortunately for Gran, the Airforce was never called upon to find her. (Had they, the old girl would have been history. Target practice actually for the local constabulary had supplied squadrons of the RAAF with several thousand rounds of armour piercing bullets - an absolute necessity if the lethal slugs were to pierce the thirteen layers of Gran’s armour plated under-garments).
As luck had it, the signal emanating from the radar necklace riveted about Grans’ neck lured dogs like a well sprayed lamp post. So Gran soon forgot about lonely walks in search of the dead. To become a living lure instead. So the deranged canine Pied Piper was no longer a defence or police concern. Now she was the RSPCA’s problem. These days, she’s returned to the Shady Pines Rest Home for the Probably Deceased locked in a cage at the back of the municipal dog catcher’s bright yellow van where she sits, happy as a pig in shit, crazily baying at an invisible moon; a pack of frenzied hounds all going for her buzzing throat.
Sometimes senility is a positive asset.
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‘Drink Sir?’ Chanel daubed ever so lightly, skilfully, the perfume was arresting. Based on the scent and pitch of voice, Wright guessed it was an airhostess. (Either that or the Vienna Boys Choir had lost a member... who’d lost a member). Wright thought about asking for the first few bars of “Silent Night” but ignored the impulse. Too involved to glance up, he declined the offer with a grunt and continued wrestling with Wander until another voice interrupted. Dior this time.
It was Claire, Wright’s private secretary. She was trying to wrest his attention away from the computer screen to a note dangling from her left hand. Smiling, Wright congratulated himself that he’d become so adept at recognising his staff by each individual’s particular perfume. (Women staff anyway. The men could wear a distinctive brand of horse shit but he’d still refuse to know them).
Gentle, shortish, sweet Claire Morgan hovered over the seated Wright. (Poor sad Claire whose only brother Brett had decided to gas himself to hub-cap heaven several years earlier by attaching a green garden hose to the exhaust of his ‘66 Falcon Tri-matic and expired without so much as a note of exit explanation).
Wright was suddenly worried. Maybe this was IT. Brett’s last will and waffle. Unsure he should accept any note that may have originated in the here-after, Wright glanced up, eyeing Claire for any tell-tale, face-worn reflection as to what the piece of paper contained. As her expression was quite blank, there was no alternative but to read the thing. Grasping the limp sheet, he scanned it to reassure himself. Though it wasn’t from Claire’s buried brother, it was almost as deadly. As deadly boring anyway.
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It was a facsimile from mum:
“Nathan dearest, have you packed enough warm things? Have you taken enough handkerchiefs? Have you remembered the gloves your grandmother knitted especially for you...”
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Nathan frowned. What? The green left glove with eight fingers? The bright pink right one with a file, a lighter and a sock puppet of Hannibal Lechter for fingers?
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If dreams had wings, this was his. (And if cliches could fly, Wright was their wind). Banking right, gaining height, the aircraft headed inland. With its spread of suburbia and infantile delusions of adequacy, Melbourne dissolved from Wright’s blinkered view like light frost from a warming spring leaf.
He loathed the place. Mainly, he claimed, because the place had always seemed to loathe him. Leaning on the armrest, face to the window, he watched intently as city became country. As the remnants of suburbia passed under the port wing, he found himself smiling in refugee relief as a censoring blanket of low cumulus engulfed the houses, hopes and misguided assumptions of a now dismissed home-town. Enveloping weather that soon chased off any malingering remnants of a past which had so stoutly refused to measure up to Wright’s desperate dreams.
Until recently anyway.
Sipping coffee from a bone china cup, wearing a white leather sleeved but otherwise blue baseball jacket over a white shirt Wright, Wander glued to a denim lap, finally relaxed. An old (as in ancient) school tie, also blue but with fine yellow diagonal stripes, hung lazily from the collar and worn to cover the fact that two shirt buttons were missing. Sinking back into the seat, feet up, head tilted back, he wondered if the long overdue meeting with the long over there ex-girlfriend would be go as he hoped.
Would Kelly greet his arrival with open arms? Or a closed fist?
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Until SHE arrived. Sexism has its place. Currently, that was the patch of fire resistant, dew green carpet that SHE now occupied. Standing by the video screen in the lounge where Wright sat busy being oblivious to everything, SHE tried to attract his attention. With the airport a recent blur, it was time for the obligatory safety lecture that Wright never took any notice of. Unless. Unless they were recited by a fantasy flown first class from one of his filthiest dreams. Which this one was. So Wright stopped courting oblivion to make like he was interested in what SHE had to say. Which he wasn’t. That he could look at her while SHE said what he wasn’t interested in. He was.
Ever the imbecile, Nathan wanted to assist HER in HER endeavours by adding some helpful suggestions of his own. Asinine comments like: if the plane explodes, pray you’re not on it. Or if the plane turns submarine, make sure your soul’s waterproof. But he restrained himself. Clammy palms resting in a now agitated lap, he stared, riveted by this stunning assembly of female features. SHE was tall, slim and very beautiful.
And, even more remarkable, SHE was telling him how to save himself.
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Funny. When he was poor, most seemed more intent on dispatching him.
Back then, no-one aside from the Mormons - and the Lord Jesus that November night three years ago when Nathan swore Christ spoke to him from the depths of a mid-sinners night dream - had ever seemed the least bit interested in saving him. Lately this had changed though. Now that he was filthy rich, it seemed that every-one wanted to save him.
From spending his savings on any-one but them Wright said.
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Spring rain thudded playfully against the windows of a top floor penthouse. It was three months ago, two in the morning and Sydney Harbour was a dull mass beyond the wind swept glass. Scratching his head, Nathan was trying to dislodge some ideas hunched over a large Italian marble topped desk that, the size of Madonna’s ego, stood in the far corner by the lines of humming facsimile machines.
Bent over an a large pad, pens and coloured pencils scattered across the desktop, he’d finally settled on what he imagined was the most likely of the designs he’d drawn. He was creating the various uniforms his crew would require. Leaning back in the chair, he tried to imagine what the chosen alternatives may look like on. On something other than a page.
Eyes closed in deep deliberation, he wondered if his outfit ideas would look good on.
Or better off - in the trash.
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Better off, completely off, Wright grinned. Avoiding a direct stare, he did his best not to make it too obvious his lurid imagination was unwrapping her. Surely, if SHE was any evidence of his skills as a designer, Wright was a genius.
If she was any indication of his talents, standing there elegantly aloof in his creation, he was couturier the equal of Chanel, Dior or Lagerfield or Yves StLaurent.
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Or his mad Aunt Bessie, also the designer of many fabulous creations. Usually dressing as a side salad, she sold herself at sleazy night clubs to wealthy vegans as an expensive entree to support her broccoli habit.
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Who’d have believed such simple lines scrawled so freely back then could have sprung to life quite so perfectly? Certainly, Wright had been dubious. Chanel, Dior, Lagerfield, Yves StLaurent had been dubious. (And Aunt Bessie had just been certified).
Wright had showed them. SHE looked sensational. Blonde hair, pronounced breasts, a grip tight waist and moist lips. Too blue eyes positively aglow, smouldering with a pure luminescence only the young radiated, she was perfect. Wright smiled at the combination of elements. At his and God’s creation. His was the outfit, SHE God’s infit. Suddenly, heaven seemed closer than he’d ever dreamed he’d get.
Realising his attentions were becoming a trifle obvious, he reluctantly dressed her again, then, sliding back in his seat, pretended to be utterly disinterested.
Expertly, deftly tying one cord over the other, SHE demonstrated to Nathan how he should secure, then inflate, the life (immediately prior to death by drowning) jacket. In her left hand, where a portion of Wright had suddenly decided it wanted to live, SHE held aloft a cartoon card pictorially explaining the futility of attempting to survive should the aircraft decide to hurtle toward wall earth or shark swimming seas. Two sterling silver W’s were attached to either collar of her black shirt. An embroidered winged silver eagle was woven into the tie. Gliding about the lounge, firm thighs rippling feline beneath the impeccably tailored, all black two-piece suit, SHE went on to point out the various emergency exits, speaking casually of what to do in the unlikely event of a maybe death dive to the first off the plane, screw the women and children, chicken shit Nathan N. Wright.
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While quite stunning, her outfit looked like it had been copied stitch for stitch, ornament for ornament from the ‘43 Waffen SS Catalogue (£12.95 postage and packaging). It was all eagles and icons.
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SHE left, so with the show over, Wright started assaulting Wander again with his dysenteric diary:
“I have attempted this exercise in ego only once previous. I was ten at the time; it was sometime pre-history. About the time dinosaurs roamed the earth, pterodactyls ruled the skies and the primordial soup was still on simmer. Or so my friends claim.
Anyway, way back then, when men were Neanderthal’s and women could be had for a barbecued slab of Tyrannosaurus, I couldn’t be condemned for any lack of expertise in English. Heck, I was only a kid so it wasn’t surprising that the extent of my vocabulary was on a par with that much more important of subjects. Sex. Basically ten under particularly bright. Back then, my understanding of the mating habits of humans consisted of a single rumour. A rumour which to my eternal embarrassment, I firmly believed. This was it: that babies were made by kissing any female over three foot three inches in height. I was hopelessly misinformed.
The result of such a shred of chronic disinformation was that I was to proceed to waste my formative years carrying a measuring tape - and dating midgets in a spectacularly successful effort to avoid premature parenthood. C’est le moron.
My sexual naivete aside, aged ten and a bit and due entirely to the fact that I was only aware of a staggeringly limited number of words, my diary was full of infantile stammerings. Immortal entries such as ‘the cat sat on the mat’ or ‘my dog has big ears’ were the best I could do.
I was no prodigy.
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Ain’t that the truth. And things don’t seem to have improved much either.
Take it from me the man needs counselling. I inhabit his every fibre so I should know.
Oh, and as for that business about this being only his second attempt at detailing his delirious past - it’s crap! (As, take it from me and save yourself any further eye strain, is his writing).
Wright, the would be if he could be John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Martin Amis. Or Homer, Dickins or Tolstoy. Shakespeare, Herbert or Donaldson. Or Bozo the Story writing Chimpanzee for that matter, has been at it for years.
Since childhood, his poor, long suffering mother has warned him to leave it alone, (and she wasn’t referring to the circuits of a slate grey plastic machine then). But he won’t listen so you can bet your wife’s parents silver that when Wright’s mum reads this putrid effort, she’ll begin afresh.
Tell him what I’m continually telling him. Leave it alone!
(‘Cos this time, it’s you lot who’ll go blind!)