What seemed to bug him most about the rest of us horny teenage boys was the
disorder
that sex brought into our lives. The shrieks, the futile moans of passion, the furtive swapping of magazines under the desks. It was too wild, too likely to bring the authorities down upon our heads. And his attitude persisted even after we’d finished school and enrolled in uni. By then, he was free to do pretty much whatever he liked (it was the late sixties, for fuck’s sake), but I still never saw him with a girlfriend. Oh, he had female acquaintances. Dour-looking girls from his economics tutorials, and stiff blue-blooded daughters from the Young Conservatives Society that he joined and later chaired. But a woman he was fucking? A woman who might ruin his life and cast shame upon the family name? No way.
But, man, let me repeat, the late sixties!
I was in my element. I moved straight out of home into a filthy share house in Carlton and took gleefully to drink, drugs and debauchery. I have to say that I never really bought into the philosophy of those times. I was never a hippie. I was never into incense, meditation or gurus. But I was certainly into free love and good times. Bernard could have his dreary business degree, I was a free-wheeling arts undergraduate, out to impress the chicks. I grew my hair long, packed myself into the tightest, widest-flared jeans available, stuck some anti-establishment badges on my denim jacket, and posed as a tall dark radical sex god. It was bullshit, mainly, and I failed utterly in mystudies, while Bernard succeeded in his stolid way . . . But then Bernard hadn’t even moved out of home.
That’s right, he stayed with Mum and Dad for his entire university career. (I know that this is the done thing for kids now—but in those days, it was unheard of.) And we had rather different attitudes to our parents, Bernard and I. For all that I thought they were a little dull, I did have genuine affection for them. And they returned it, despite my evil ways. Indeed, from both of them I detected the merest whiff of envy for the way people my age had it so swell. A hint that my father, given a chance, might have liked some similar sort of fun in his day. And a wistful look in my mother’s eye, as if she were considering other lives she might have lived, given the pill and permission to burn brassieres. But maybe I’m just making that up, maybe they just tolerated their wayward son for love’s sake. Still, they were no arch conservatives, even though they voted for Menzies and Co all the way through.
In theory, they should have approved of Bernard more. He was the good son, the earnest son, the son with his eyes on the future. And yet I think they were dimly appalled by him, skulking quietly around their house. Surely parents want a
little
rebellion from their children. (I was always quite proud when my own various offspring told me to bugger off out of their lives. The misery of it aside.) And who knows, left to an empty nest, my mum and dad might have loosened up a bit and really
swung,
man. Other people their age were doing it, getting with the times. But with Bernard always frowning about the place, what chance did they have? He
did
see them as arch conservatives, and expected them to remain that way forever. They, and their generation, who fought the war and rode the boom and obeyed the rules, written and unwritten, who never complained or marched or caused trouble—they were his fixed inspiration.
So forgive me if I declare I was the better son. Sure, I didn’t call, I hardly visited, they had to bail me out with money timeand time again. Indeed, I was a shame to them in nearly every way. But ah, how their faces lit up when I entered the room! Bernard, I think, suspected all this, and resented it.
But then, he resented almost everything he saw. Nothing had changed since school really, and the same kids who had mocked him for not smashing windows were now long-haired layabouts mocking him for his
disorder
that sex brought into our lives. The shrieks, the futile moans of passion, the furtive swapping of magazines under the desks. It was too wild, too likely to bring the authorities down upon our heads. And his attitude persisted even after we’d finished school and enrolled in uni. By then, he was free to do pretty much whatever he liked (it was the late sixties, for fuck’s sake), but I still never saw him with a girlfriend. Oh, he had female acquaintances. Dour-looking girls from his economics tutorials, and stiff blue-blooded daughters from the Young Conservatives Society that he joined and later chaired. But a woman he was fucking? A woman who might ruin his life and cast shame upon the family name? No way.
But, man, let me repeat, the late sixties!
I was in my element. I moved straight out of home into a filthy share house in Carlton and took gleefully to drink, drugs and debauchery. I have to say that I never really bought into the philosophy of those times. I was never a hippie. I was never into incense, meditation or gurus. But I was certainly into free love and good times. Bernard could have his dreary business degree, I was a free-wheeling arts undergraduate, out to impress the chicks. I grew my hair long, packed myself into the tightest, widest-flared jeans available, stuck some anti-establishment badges on my denim jacket, and posed as a tall dark radical sex god. It was bullshit, mainly, and I failed utterly in mystudies, while Bernard succeeded in his stolid way . . . But then Bernard hadn’t even moved out of home.
That’s right, he stayed with Mum and Dad for his entire university career. (I know that this is the done thing for kids now—but in those days, it was unheard of.) And we had rather different attitudes to our parents, Bernard and I. For all that I thought they were a little dull, I did have genuine affection for them. And they returned it, despite my evil ways. Indeed, from both of them I detected the merest whiff of envy for the way people my age had it so swell. A hint that my father, given a chance, might have liked some similar sort of fun in his day. And a wistful look in my mother’s eye, as if she were considering other lives she might have lived, given the pill and permission to burn brassieres. But maybe I’m just making that up, maybe they just tolerated their wayward son for love’s sake. Still, they were no arch conservatives, even though they voted for Menzies and Co all the way through.
In theory, they should have approved of Bernard more. He was the good son, the earnest son, the son with his eyes on the future. And yet I think they were dimly appalled by him, skulking quietly around their house. Surely parents want a
little
rebellion from their children. (I was always quite proud when my own various offspring told me to bugger off out of their lives. The misery of it aside.) And who knows, left to an empty nest, my mum and dad might have loosened up a bit and really
swung,
man. Other people their age were doing it, getting with the times. But with Bernard always frowning about the place, what chance did they have? He
did
see them as arch conservatives, and expected them to remain that way forever. They, and their generation, who fought the war and rode the boom and obeyed the rules, written and unwritten, who never complained or marched or caused trouble—they were his fixed inspiration.
So forgive me if I declare I was the better son. Sure, I didn’t call, I hardly visited, they had to bail me out with money timeand time again. Indeed, I was a shame to them in nearly every way. But ah, how their faces lit up when I entered the room! Bernard, I think, suspected all this, and resented it.
But then, he resented almost everything he saw. Nothing had changed since school really, and the same kids who had mocked him for not smashing windows were now long-haired layabouts mocking him for his
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