The Children's Writer by Gary Crew Page A

said that. My life would be different because my sexy blonde mother and maybe my yellow-haired father (wearing a businesssuit or a white shirt and tie), would walk me to school and stop at the gate, and give me a little box with my lunch packed inside and bend down to kiss me. And Father Steven would see us and smile and take my hand and lead me into class. That’s what I dreamed in chapel. Imagining my life. Imagining how my life might be.
    But one week Father Steven didn’t turn up; some sour old priest came in his place, and that night over dinner my mother told me that one of her clients had told her that Father Steven had yielded to the devil and left the Church. That he was a whited sepulchre.
    I looked down into the pile of mashed pumpkin on my plate, all fiery orange, and saw this temptation very clearly. There was Father Steven in his brown robe, with his wavy blond hair and straight nose, being tempted by a red-skinned devil with black horns stepping out of a mountain of flame. This devil was holding out to Father Steven a chest full of golden coins and Father Steven was smiling.
    It was only after my mother died and I was wandering around Victoria Markets one Saturday morning that I saw Father Steven again. This time he was in jeans and a T-shirt pushing a baby in a pram and talking and laughing with a goodlooking blonde on his arm. She was also wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Blind Freddy could see that they were in love, and happy. Which made me think about chapel, and whited sepulchres, and what I had believed to be true was probably not.
    So years later I sat in uni lectures alone and thought long and hard about what was told to me. What was preached there, if you like, although not preached exactly.I had never considered myself an intellectual but I did hive away what I thought might prove valuable.
    One afternoon, after a very long day of lectures, I came home busting for a beer.
    I kicked off my shoes and when I rearranged the cushions on the sofa I saw a pile of books. Putting my beer on the occasional table, I saw that these were all novels by Sebastian Chanteleer. I sure as hell wasn’t in the mood for him, but something made me stop and take another look. For a start, not one of the books was new. Their dust jackets were torn around the edges, the designs old fashioned. ‘Corny’ was a word that came to mind, what with their images of armoured knights brandishing lances and swords in the fire-breathing faces of triple-headed dragons.
    I plonked myself down, ripped my beer, and read a bit of one.
    I fell asleep.
    ‘How come my books are on the floor?’ Lootie wanted to know when she got home.
    ‘Guilty!’ I yelled from the kitchen. ‘I must have dropped them.’
    ‘Those books are expensive,’ she said. ‘You need to take more care.’
    ‘Expensive?’ I said, coming into the living room. ‘They look pretty tatty to me.’
    ‘Tatty?’ she yelled. ‘ Tatty? I bought these off the net. Every one is a first edition. Complete with dust jackets, see?’
    ‘Sorry,’ I said.
    ‘So you should be,’ she shot back. ‘They cost money.’
    I worked too hard for XPress Couriers to let this pass. ‘I thought your money was my money and my money was your money,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t that the deal?’
    ‘You’re pathetic,’ she said. ‘You have no idea of the value of anything.’
    ‘I value my time,’ I said. ‘Especially the time I spend on that bike.’
    ‘Get used to it,’ she said, reverentially stacking Chanteleer’s books. And she shot me a look saying, You’ll never amount to anything.
    I did not respond. Why deny it? I was a fat-arsed Monkey Boy, born and bred. The truth was, I probably loved Lootie all the more for reminding me. For affirming who I was.
    That weekend, the Saturday after the garden party, we were both at home working when I noticed the VISA receipt for Chanteleer’s books lying on Lootie’s desk. The price was $232.
    ‘Lootie,’ I said, ‘those books you