Going Out Backwards by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian Mcfadyen

Author:Ross Fitzgerald & Ian Mcfadyen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781925280449
Publisher: Hybrid Publishers

7

A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NAUGHT

An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A

pessimist is one who is afraid the optimist may be right.

– Anonymous

‘My God, I’m growing breasts.’

Normally, Grafton Everest avoided the sight of his naked reflection as much as possible, but an unfamiliar degree of movement in his pectoral region had puzzled him enough to face up to the bathroom mirror and bare his breast, which he found to be alarmingly plural. While he had always sported what were colloquially called man boobs, the upper reaches of his chest were now distinctly swollen and, most alarmingly, his nipples seemed to be twice as large.

‘It’s the medication, I expect,’ said Janet calmly as Grafton hunched at the kitchen table, consoling himself with more toast and jam than usual. ‘If you’d read the pamphlet you would have seen that it is basically a male hormone suppressant.’

‘What?’ said Grafton, his mind in a kind of fog as he contemplated the prospect of his own personal gender confusion.

‘Darling, the chemotherapy for prostate cancer is essentially chemical castration.’

‘Jesus wept!’ exclaimed the stricken androgyne. ‘Isn’t it enough that I’m impotent? Do I have to be castrated as well?’

‘Well, given the former, the latter doesn’t make much difference, does it?’ said Janet unflappably.

‘Except that I’m turning into a woman! ’ cried Grafton.

‘It’s not so bad once you get used to it,’ said Janet. ‘I’m off.’

As Janet departed to spend another day in the service of fibre art or something, Grafton pushed his plate away and shuffled into the living room, still in his black-and-white-striped Collingwood pyjamas. It was several days since his first sojourn in the Senate and he was still recovering. It was just as well that the bills for which his suborned vote was required were some time off and there was no reason before that time to subject himself to the torture of the Chamber. Luckily there had been no pressure from his office to do so, though his inbox still chimed continually with reminders for various other obligations.

He was just about to return to bed when the doorbell rang. Too depressed to even put on a robe, he ambled to the front door and opened it to be greeted by the sight of a woman in her thirties, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with a tumbling mass of red hair, carrying an art folio. His first assumption was that she was selling prints for some charity but she smiled broadly, stuck out her hand and introduced herself.

‘Delia Swanson,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to paint you.’

‘Oh,’ said Grafton, fumbling a handshake and stepping aside.

Delia strode in and surveyed the interior.

‘Love the house. Love the outfit. Is that in recognition of our convict ancestors?’

‘More my ancestor’s convictions. My father was a devout Collingwood fan.’

‘Ah. Sport, yes,’ said Delia profoundly and swanned around the living areas as if looking for structural weaknesses.

‘How about here?’ she said, indicating a wall near the French windows. ‘Good light.’

‘Whatever,’ said Grafton, realising that he had just had, possibly for the first time, recourse to one of his daughter’s favourite phrases.

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