Augustine's Lunch Read online

  ‘Don’t waste too much of your time cooking, son. It’s not practical.’

  But that was typical of Mark—whose idea of practical was a state-of-the-art lawnmower for their six-square-metre patch of lawn—and Gus ignored it.

  Mark looked Gus in the eyes. ‘It did taste bloody good.’

  It was nothing really. Gus had just discovered that chops retain their moisture if you turn them once, rather than over and over as Dior did because she was always busy and distracted when she was cooking dinner and would forget where she was up to. He had also discovered that potatoes can be delicious if you cut them all to the same size so they cook at the same rate, and it you take them off when they’re soft but still firm—not way before or way after as Dior always seemed to do. That went for veggies too. Gus put them on after the potatoes so they could soften, but took them off in time for them to retain their crunch and flavour. This made quite a change from Dior’s method of putting everything to boil on the stove when she got home and taking it off when Mark was ready to eat. It was easy for Gus’s efforts to attract praise following cooking like Dior’s, but satisfying all the same.

  Now Gus looked down at his plate and the anxiety he’d been feeling since the sausage-roll incident at lunchtime lifted away. His stomach unclenched and he felt hungry. Hunger was such a good, uncomplicated feeling. There could be no doubts or second thoughts about hunger. He started to eat.

  Mark took his empty plate into the kitchen.

  ‘You’re not leaving, are you?’ asked Dior. Although not much interested in cooking, she loved ‘meal culture’ as she called it. She liked them to sit around and ‘be together, as a family’.

  ‘Course not,’ said Mark, opening a bottle of beer at the kitchen counter. ‘Want a beer, son?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Luke.

  Mark took two more glasses out of the cupboard and came over to the table. Gus watched the golden foam swirling to the top of Dior’s glass. That must be how Ambrosia, the food of the gods, would look, he thought.

  ‘Son?’ Mark offered him one.

  ‘He’s only fourteen,’ protested Dior.

  Luke winked at Gus. Their parents had this conversation all the time. ‘But he’s only five. But he’s only ten …’ His dad pushed his sons and his mother protected them Gus imagined them at eighty: ‘But he’s only sixty …’

  ‘Nah, thanks,’ said Gus. The truth was he didn’t really like beer, and the whole idea of beer and meat together was about as attractive as a sausage roll. Luke called him picky, but Gus thought he was just discriminating. They all clinked glasses.

  ‘Where to tonight, Luke?’ asked Mark after they’d all had a long slurp of beer.

  Luke always went out on Friday nights.

  ‘And who with?’ asked Dior.

  Luke hesitated. ‘I don’t think you’ll be letting me go anywhere.’

  Mark slowly put his drink down on the table. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve lost my bus pass and I’m banned from the school special for three months.’

  ‘What did you do this time?’ wailed Dior.

  Luke was exceptional at two things: attracting women and attracting trouble. He’d been suspended twice from school and banned from the local swimming pool all last year.

  ‘I’m just not allowed on the bus, okay?’ Luke put his beer down on the table and looked at them defiantly.

  ‘And who’s supposed to pay your fares, then?’ shouted Mark.

  ‘I will, won’t I!’ shouted Luke.

  If Luke had been waiting until this time because he’d thought they’d take it better on a full stomach, it didn’t do him much good. Dior and Mark worked on him until he admitted what he’d done. ‘Me and Groink hassled a girl on the bus.’

  ‘That all?’ said Mark suspiciously. ‘Do you know anything about this, Gus?’

  ‘He wasn’t on that bus,’ said Luke scornfully.

  ‘They’re taking your pass away just for that?’

  Luke wriggled in his seat. ‘We also did a bit of damage to the bus.’

  ‘What?’ Mark roared, and they were off again.

  Gus had to stop himself from laughing. They were a very dramatic family. Perhaps that was something they’d inherited from their Italian ancestors. Even Gus, although he never got in trouble, always enjoyed the energy of these occasions.

  ‘You’re grounded for a month!’ shouted Mark.

  ‘I know I am!’ Luke shouted back, denying him the satisfaction.

  ‘Then we may as well have another beer,’ said Mark, subsiding, and that was the end of that.

  Or it would have been, if Gus hadn’t asked Luke later, ‘Which girl was it?’

  ‘Your friend Trinity Prakash.’

  ‘I don’t know if we’re friends,’ said Gus quickly. ‘We just talk on the bus sometimes, that’s all.’ The idea of anyone giving Trinity a hard time made him feel sick. ‘What did you do to her?’

  ‘Just mucked around a bit. I thought she was enjoying it, to tell you the truth. We wouldn’t have carried on like that otherwise. But her mum rang the school today and Winter had us up on the mat about it. Must have changed her mind.’

  ‘No one likes being picked on, you moron!’

  ‘Actually, Gus,’ said Luke, gazing at the flickering TV, ‘sometimes they do.’

  Gus balled his hand into a fist and, aiming it at Luke’s stomach, punched as hard as he could. Luke blocked it expertly and got him in a half-nelson.

  ‘Whoa, little brother! I have to teach you how to punch.’

  ‘What did you do that for, Lu?’

  ‘Stupid.’ Luke shrugged. ‘I thought I liked her.’

  ‘What about now?’ asked Gus carefully.

  Luke scowled. At St Patrick’s there was nothing worse than a dobber. At St Patrick’s, even a bully was better than a dobber, but the fact that Trinity disliked Luke enough to get him reported made Gus like her more than ever.

  3. Life Drawing

  The big art room was cluttered with easels going back in rows, and a little stage had been set up at the front. For the next few weeks they’d be doing Life Drawing, Brother Nicholas explained. Usually in Life Drawing a model poses nude, so that artists can learn about the anatomy of the body. But in this class, the students would take it in turns to pose. ‘In their uniforms,’ added Brother Nicholas. Gus’s friend Simon burst out laughing and for that he was sent up to pose first.

  Gus stood in front of his easel enjoying the creaminess of the paper and the soft smudginess of his charcoal.

  Brother Nicholas was touring around the classroom looking over people’s shoulders at their work. ‘What happened?’ he asked, when he got to Gus. ‘Is that food?’

  Gus squinted at his scribble. It certainly looked more like spaghetti than Simon, that was for sure.

  ‘By the way, what was the slight tanginess in that sandwich the other day, Gus?’

  ‘Capsicum. I marinated it in chilli.’

  Brother Nicholas shook his head in admiration. Gus fumbled in his bag and drew out his lunch box. ‘Try this. It’s the same idea but with zucchini and aubergine.’

  Brother Nicholas pretended to be studying Gus’s drawing and shook his head.

  ‘What will lunch be in the priory?’ asked Gus, resorting to cunning.

  Brother Nicholas grimaced. ‘Meat and three veg. Sliced white bread. Fanta and Coke.’ As he spoke he seemed to lose all resistance to the contents of Gus’s proffered lunch box. He picked up the sandwich carefully from its throne of lettuce and sniffed deeply before taking a little bite. He chewed slowly, his eyes dreamy. ‘You have a gift, Gus. Simple as that.’

  He handed the box back to Gus who stepped away from it smartly. ‘Don’t you want it?’ Gus asked.

  ‘We’re not meant to eat our students’ lunches, Gus.’

  ‘But I made it for you.’ That was a lie. Gus just wanted some appreciation from somewhere.

  Without needing to be told, Brother Nicholas seemed to understand. He tucked the lunch box under his arm. ‘I’ll have it with a cup of tea in the staffroom.’

  When Simon tired of posing, Brother Nicholas volunteered Gus. Gus stood with his arms crossed and his legs splayed, looking at the class down his nose as though from a great height.

  ‘Terminator!’ someone yelled appreciatively, but everyone else complained.

  ‘The old masters in Holland or Italy didn’t learn anatomy from painting clothes,’ said Bas.

  ‘Why not just stick a uniform on a hanger and put that up the front?’

  ‘What about doing an exchange with St Mary’s?’ suggested Gus. He always felt more outgoing and confident after talking with Brother Nicholas.

  There were cries of agreement. St Mary’s was the sister school of St Patrick’s, and most of the boys had a crush on someone who went to St Mary’s, including Gus. Trinity went there.

  Gus watched the heads of his classmates bobbing up and down behind their easels as they drew. His feet hurt in a way he’d never felt before. His need to move was like a thirst, or an itch.

  ‘He moved!’ someone moaned.

  Brother Nicholas looked up. ‘Another five minutes.’

  Gus’s legs were killing him but he nodded. ‘No problem.’

  ‘He moved again!’

  Gus tried to distract himself. He thought about St Mary’s … and then he thought about crushes … These were promoted by the two schools, who were great at organising debates and musicals and special events. What wasn’t well organised was the distribution of the crushes. Most of the boys liked the same small group of girls, and this state of affair
s was reciprocated—most of the girls at St Mary’s had a crush on Luke.

  It was a mystery to Gus the way he and Luke looked similar, yet Luke’s features were arranged to equal handsome and Gus’s were arranged to equal … Gus. Not handsome or ugly, just … unresolved. Luke had curly brown hair with blond bits in it, whereas Gus’s hair was a lanky sandy colour that went almost white in summer. Luke was tall and thin but strong-looking from surfing. He never spent more than five minutes getting dressed and yet somehow he always managed to look cool in a careless, grungy sort of way. Dior said Luke had bone structure that was wasted on a boy, but Gus couldn’t see how it was wasted. Girls from Year Seven to Year Twelve—and over—pursued him, ringing him, sending him letters.

  Gus acted as Luke’s personal assistant, answering the phone, reading the letters when Luke couldn’t be bothered. They wrote things like ‘I love you’ and ‘you’re my fantasy’. One girl wrote, ‘I’ll do anything you want me to do. Tell me what you want.’ To Gus that was exciting. To Luke it was boring. ‘No more letters,’ he made Gus write in his reply. Gus tried to soften the harshness of these words with some observations about the weather and best wishes at the end. Anyway, she was lucky to get a response. Mostly Luke didn’t even bother to reply.

  ‘Why don’t you tell them where they stand?’ Gus would ask.

  ‘Because I can’t decide,’ Luke replied.

  For Gus, Trinity hadn’t felt like a decision. He had known he liked her before they’d even spoken. He had first seen her when she came to their school for a debate as part of the St Mary’s team. With attraction like that, there was nothing to decide. Suddenly it was just there, a new fact about him like the fuzzy patch on his chin.

  Perhaps that was how Luke felt about Judy—in a twisted way. Judy had been Luke’s official girlfriend for almost two years. Gus liked Judy, a lot. All his family did. The only thing wrong with her that Gus could make out was that she put up with Luke.

  There was nothing wrong with Trinity. As far as Gus could tell, she was perfect. She wore her school uniform like a model. She had brown skin and glossy black hair that hung in a swinging curtain just above her shoulders. Her eyes were large and brown, shaped like big fish lying on their sides. During the debate she had argued without notes, demolishing the opposition and winning the debate for her team calmly and efficiently in her clipped English accent.

  Gus had accidentally hit her on the head with his bag two months ago while they were getting on the bus. He couldn’t let such a perfect opportunity for meeting her pass him by, and he’d sat next to her on the pretext of checking she was all right. After that they’d become friendly. Gus had learned that her father had been born in India, that the Prakashes had lived in England before coming to Australia a year ago, that she didn’t have a boyfriend, and that it was impossible to talk with her about food without having to discuss the calorie content of everything.

  ‘Brother Nicholas? Could we really do an exchange with St Mary’s? Not in the nude, of course,’ Gus added hastily.

  ‘Then what do you suggest, Gus?’ asked Brother Nicholas.

  ‘Swimming costumes,’ yelled Simon.

  ‘It could be a different girl each week if you want, we don’t mind,’ cried Andy.

  ‘What about your girlfriend?’ asked Liam.

  ‘It’s for Art, isn’t it?’ grinned Andy. ‘She’ll understand.’

  ‘And who’d volunteer to pose for them in return?’ asked Brother Nicholas. ‘Fair’s fair.’

  ‘Gus … I mean, Augustine,’ said Bas, and everyone laughed.

  Augustine! Gus couldn’t believe it. Augustine! He’d been called by his wrong name in front of the whole class, by his best friend, and everyone was treating it as a joke. Bas had caved in, Steve was getting his own way, and Gus had to stand here, grinning like a maniac, pretending nothing was wrong.

  The bell rang and Gus jumped down from the dais. He collected his bag and ran after Bas, who had sprinted from the room.

  ‘What do you mean, Augustine?’ he panted, catching up with him near the stairs.

  Bas stopped walking and turned around to face Gus. His cheeks were flushed. ‘Come on, Gus, what difference does it make?’

  ‘What do you think? A big difference!’

  ‘Keep it down!’

  Boys and teachers were thronging past them up the stairs, and a few turned to look at the immobile pair as they went past.

  ‘Steve’s a psycho, Gus.’

  ‘I know that! You think I don’t know that?’

  ‘Shhh!’ hissed Bas. ‘Do you want to attract even more attention than you already have?’

  ‘What do you mean, attract attention?’ Gus hissed back. ‘Do you mean eat-my-lunch-not-bothering-anyone-just-sitting-there-in-the-quadrangle kind of attention attracting?’

  ‘It looks funny, this whole cooking thing, don’t you realise that? It creates a funny impression.’

  ‘Funny peculiar or funny ha-ha?’

  ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  They glared at each other.

  ‘Your mum’s not too busy to have visitors after school, is she?’ said Gus finally. ‘You just don’t want me coining round anymore.’

  Bas shrugged. His cheeks were redder than ever.

  ‘You don’t just abandon your friends when a moron like Steve comes on the scene.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ muttered Bas.

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  Bas stared at the floor. His cheeks were flaming. ‘I have to put more time into study now,’ he said lamely. ‘You know what a high mark you need to get into Law.’

  ‘The exams are three years away,’ said Gus. The fight had left him. He felt terrible, shaky and unsteady on his feet.

  He started walking down the hall and Bas came hurrying after him. They stood side by side opening their lockers without a word. The silence between them grew bigger and heavier until Gus couldn’t stand it.

  ‘How would you like to be called Sebastian?’

  Bas smiled weakly. ‘I’d be lunch meat. Ha ha.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Gus. He couldn’t think of a thing more to say.

  ‘See you at lunch?’ asked Bas casually, as though they hadn’t been talking about anything particularly important at all.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Gus, as though everything was normal, boring and everyday. He didn’t want to make it any harder for Bas to be his friend than it evidently already was.

  ‘Good,’ said Bas, turning away.

  ‘See ya … Sebastian,’ Gus called out after him.

  Bas went down the stairs, holding one finger in an ‘up yours’ to Gus as he went.

  4. Falling In

  ‘Hey, Gus! Wait here.’

  Luke was leaning against the warm bricks of the school building just around the corner from the school gates, sunbathing. His eyes were closed, his tie was off and the first three buttons of his shirt were undone.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Judy’s waiting for me at the bus stop. She’ll ask about me if she sees you, and you know how bad you are at lying.’

  ‘Don’t stand her up again, Luke!’

  ‘What can I do? Surf’s up.’

  ‘Oh well then. Of course,’ muttered Gus, giving up.

  It was so hot out here because there weren’t any trees. The last thing Gus felt like doing was hanging around to be boiled to death. He dropped his bag and sat down on it. ‘Maybe Judy will find out about this afternoon and drop you,’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Nah. Been doing a lot of thinking about Judy actually.’ Luke scratched at his stomach and then stretched his arms above his head. Gus stared at the hairs on Luke’s stomach making a snail’s trail down past his belt buckle. ‘I’ve decided I really like her.’

  ‘You just decided that you like your own girlfriend?’

  ‘Really like her,’ corrected Luke. ‘They’re very different things.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Gus.

  ‘Wow is right,’ Luke replied, refusing to see the joke.

  ‘And it’s taken you this long to work that out?’

  ‘Hasn’t been that long.’

  ‘It’s your second anniversary this weekend.’