50 Ways of Saying Fabulous Book 2 Anniversary Edition Read online

  Praise for 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous

  ‘I loved this funny sad tale of growing up a sissy in New Zealand. Graeme Aitken proves that even the most extraordinary events can occur to wonderfully ordinary people. If I knew fifty ways of saying fabulous, I’d use them all to praise this charming first novel.’ EDMUND WHITE

  ‘It has the fast-running clarity of a good yarn, yet this is a fresh telling of the story of a gay awakening. Infinitely real … grotesque and funny and moving by turns.’ PETER WELLS

  ‘An entertainment, a gentle, poignant story of a fat boy who fantasises romance and glamour without yet having a name for what he is … Aitken writes with a distinctive voice, one that is wonderfully evocative.’ DENNIS ALTMAN, THE AGE

  ‘A wonderful cast of characters, lovingly drawn and lightened with the right dash of maliciousness … Aitken manages to make something extraordinary out of the ordinary … (and) shows so much skill and gives so much pleasure.’ CAMPAIGN

  ‘50 Ways of Saying Fabulous is an honest, funny and sometimes painful read. Confidently and convincingly written, it is a welcome addition to the gay coming of age genre; the collection of works in which we see ourselves reflected and refracted, and find fifty ways of saying “me”.’ MELBOURNE STAR OBSERVER

  ‘Its humour will guarantee you stares as you snicker on the train. Aitken understands the hopelessly daggy and uncool nature of the 12-year-old and he reproduces it as if it were yesterday. Popularity and acceptance take a lot of time and pain to procure. I think he’ll be guaranteed it with this book.’ NEIL DRINNAN, OUTRAGE

  ‘… an important work … What Aitken has demonstrated fabulously is his skill in the art of telling a good story … his honesty and fearlessness in confronting those squirmy adolescent secrets is to be admired.’ CANBERRA TIMES

  ‘… one of the very best novels released this year. Witty, warm and original.’ CLEO

  ‘… a secret and magic story which is grotesque and infinitely funny … a zany book, highly entertaining, and with enough twists and turns to keep you glued to the end … 50 Ways is fabulous, whichever way you say it.’ BARFLY

  ‘Touching and sad, 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous also has some very funny moments.’ THE TIMES

  ‘A sort of gay Adrian Mole … There are laughs aplenty but also moments of agony … Told with bare-faced honesty, it is a warm, cruel, funny tale.’ THE SUNDAY AGE

  ‘A funny but also achingly sad first novel.’ THE OBSERVER

  50 Ways of Saying Fabulous Book 2

  20th Anniversary Edition

  Graeme Aitken

  20Ten Books

  Sydney

  This edition published in 2015 by 20Ten Books, Sydney, Australia.

  This book was first published by Random House Australia in 1995, reprinted 2000 and 2005.

  Copyright © Graeme Aitken 1995

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. The novel’s characters, incidents and dialogue are the product of the author’s imagination and are entirely fictional.

  Aitken, Graeme, 1963–.

  50 ways of saying fabulous book 2.

  ISBN 9780987329370

  Cover photograph by Craig Wright

  To my parents,

  Tom and Sue Aitken,

  who were nothing like the characters in this novel

  Contents

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  50 Ways of Saying Fabulous: From Manuscript to Movie

  Download Book One of 'The Indignities' ebook series FOR FREE!

  About the Author

  Many people helped me bring this book to publication and I am extremely grateful for their support, advice and expertise.

  Thank you to Craig Stevens, Dean Baxter, Rosanna Arciuli, Keith Buss, Laurin McKinnon, Gary Dunne, Jane Palfreyman, Julia Stiles, Rois McCann, Andrew Freeman, Geraldine Cooke, Paul Bailey, Olivier Colette, Mitchell Waters, Peter Wells, Stewart Main, Michele Fantl, Andrew Moors, and Kate Evans.

  Author’s Note about the setting:

  This novel is set in Central Otago, New Zealand, an area where I grew up and know very well. However, when this novel was first published, I decided in consultation with my Australian editor to fictionalise some of the place names. This was done out of respect to friends and family who still lived in this district and to lessen the impact of people reading the novel and concluding that the mother character Reebie was based on my mother etc.

  So for those readers who know this region and perhaps found this curious, I just wanted to explain why some place names are made up, while others (Dunedin, Palmerston etc) are not.

  The fictionalised setting names are as follows:

  Mawera – the farming community where Billy’s family lives

  Crayburn – a small village with a shop and a pub, located some 15 miles from Mawera

  Glenora – the major town in the district, located some 30 miles from Mawera

  Serpentine county – the district which encompasses all of these locations

  1

  Chapter 1

  It was a typical Sunday afternoon. Yet it turned out to be the day when everything changed.

  I was in the lounge reading while my father watched the sport on television. My mother was on the balcony in some complicated position. A car tore up the drive, a black Torana, stirring up a fury of dust, sending the farm dogs into a frenzy, barking and darting out to bite the car’s tyres. The commotion was enough to provoke my father’s attention away from the rugby match.

  ‘That boy drives too fast,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to have a word with him about that before I let him loose in my vehicles.’

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked.

  I’d forgotten about the farm boy arriving. I hadn’t paid much attention when my father announced he’d hired someone to help through the busy spring and summer period. There had been other farm boys in the past. Lou, Babe and I had always found reasons to criticise them. We disliked them as a matter of principle. We were the boss’s family and that endowed us with a haughty superiority. We scrutinised everything they did, eager to find faults, which we would then discuss in front of my father.

  ‘It’s the new farm boy. Now run down, Billy-Boy, and show him the hut and help him carry in his gear.’

  I reluctantly abandoned my book and the beanbag.

  ‘Hurry up,’ snapped my father, ‘before he wanders round and finds your mother on the balcony in one of her weird moments.’

  I was sliding my feet into my gumboots when I glanced up to see him for the first time, on the other side of the glass door. David Cassidy. I knew it was impossible but it looked so much like him – the hair, the smile – I couldn’t help but believe what my eyes were insisting was true.

  His hair was exactly like David’s. Long and dark. Centre parted. It hung glossily round his jaw with a fringe that swept down to his eyes. And his smile. He had David Cas­sidy’s exact smile. Dazzling. Dreamy. So full of joy. It simply transformed his face and made you feel transformed too, just from basking in its radiance a while. I was helpless in the face of that smile. All l could do was grin inanely back. If he’d been wearing a skintight satin jumpsuit the resemblance would have been absolutely undeniable. He was dressed casually. Cowboy boots, jeans and a checked cotton shir
t, only half-buttoned up. It afforded a glimpse of his chest, which was as tanned as his face, even though it was only September.

  I forgot to open the door. All I could do was stare and smile.

  Jamie had to open the door himself. ‘Hi there,’ he said. ‘You must be Billy. They told me I’d have a young helper and wouldn’t have to be doing everything by myself. I like having company.’

  He winked at me and I was enchanted. It suggested com­plicity and intimacy, which at this point was what I wanted with him more than anything else. I was staring but I couldn’t help myself.

  He stuck out his hand. ‘I’m Jamie,’ he said. ‘They prob­ably told you that.’

  I grasped his hand and we shook. I clung on a moment too long, relishing the feel of his skin against mine. He stared at me expectantly and I felt giddy with pleasure. Then I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. ‘I’ve come to show you the hut where you’ll be staying.’

  I was sorry that Jamie wouldn’t be sleeping over in the house. I liked the idea of having him under the same roof as me, and in the same room even better. But the boys that my father occasionally employed always slept over in the old railway hut that he’d bought cheaply when the trains stopped running from Dunedin. He didn’t want them in the house cluttering up his evenings. Babe and I were banned from entering the hut, though we used to peek through the window. The last boy there had confirmed all my mother’s reasons for making the hut out of bounds. When we’d peered into the room we’d seen overflowing ashtrays, cartons of beer and pin-ups from Playboy magazine all over the walls. All three of the most illicit pleasures in one place. Lou and I were fascinated by the hut, though not by its occupant, a surly, pale redhead called Dean, who kicked the dogs and was always showing off riding the motorbike. We loved it when he fell off.

  I ambled alongside Jamie back to his car. Jamie opened the back door and handed me a guitar. This seemed to confirm everything. ‘You’re a singer?’ I gasped.

  ‘I’m not much of a singer but I can strum along okay,’ said Jamie, tugging out two large suitcases. ‘Now, where am I going to be sleeping?’

  I led the way, the dogs padding after us, sniffing around Jamie’s heels. He didn’t kick them away. The hut was beyond the dog kennels. Dean had always complained that the dogs woke him up in the middle of the night barking at possums or the full moon. I hoped Jamie was a heavy sleeper and not going to complain and leave. When we reached the hut, I opened the door and Jamie strode in. It was simply furnished. An old double bed of my parents, a dresser and a small black and white television in the corner. It had always seemed more than adequate for any of the other farm boys. But for the first time I felt ashamed of the hut. There was only a long-drop toilet in a tin shed out the back. The shower was over in the wash-house.

  ‘The toilet’s out the back,’ I said vaguely, hoping he wouldn’t go and inspect it, find it inadequate and leave.

  But Jamie was smiling as he always seemed to be, and showed no inclination to fault anything. ‘I’ve never had my own place before,’ he said. ‘This is really something.’

  ‘How old are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Nineteen,’ he said. ‘How ’bout you?’

  ‘I’m twelve.’

  Jamie raised his eyebrows. ‘Betcha you’re your dad’s best helper.’

  I couldn’t lie, but I also wanted to impress Jamie, who obviously liked farm work, the only dubious quality about him. ‘I’ll be your helper. I’d like that better,’ I said, which was both ingenuous and true.

  Jamie grinned, and that was the beginning of my change of heart in regard to the farm. I discovered that all those chores could be tolerable if you had the right company. Previously, just about any job my father assigned me left me with a sinking feeling and a desperate desire to try to get out of it somehow. But all those jobs I detested became enjoyable once I had Jamie to joke around and talk with. I loved the careless masculine way he tossed his shirt off while we were working, showing off his smooth tanned chest. Sometimes the sight of him shirtless was just too entrancing and I’d find myself leaning on my shovel or a fence, doing nothing but stare.

  We drenched sheep together, repaired fences, shifted the irrigation water, crutched sheep, even cleaned the sheep shit out from underneath the gratings at the woolshed, the most vile task of all. I found myself enjoying these things, even looking forward to getting home from school so I could join Jamie at whatever he was doing. My favourite moment was pressed up against him on the motorbike, with him letting the throttle out and tearing across the paddocks. I would encourage one of the old dogs to jump up on the bike’s carrier, so that I had an excuse to press even closer against him, feel my legs hard up against his, my face crushed into his back.

  My father was amazed. I heard him talking on the phone to Grampy about me. ‘Billy-Boy’s come right,’ he said. ‘We’ll make a farmer of him yet.’

  My mother recognised that it was Jamie’s company and not the farm work that had motivated me, but she didn’t bother disillusioning my father. She liked Jamie too. He was very diplomatic and always insisted on sampling her latest vegetarian concoction as an ‘entree’ before launching into his massive plate of roast dinner. He didn’t stick Playboy pin-ups all over his walls either, which she was grateful for when she vacuumed over there.

  Jamie’s arrival was uncannily timely for me. He filled the void Lou had left in my life. What’s more, I was secretly pleased not to have to share him with her. From the moment I first met him, I was spellbound, too distracted to give Lou more than a fleeting thought. Whenever her and I were obliged to be in each other’s company, I acted as downcast as possible. If our eyes met, she would give a brash, nasty smirk. She was so confident that I was suffering without her, struggling with all the chores around the farm that she used to relieve me of. I did nothing to correct this impression and prayed that neither Babe nor our parents would disillusion her. I wanted Jamie all to myself.

  Right from our first meeting, he treated me as an equal, even though he was seven years older and in a league of his own in the looks department. A few days after his arrival, he started inviting me over to his hut in the evening. I was thrilled and asked my mother if it was alright. ‘As long as he invited you and you didn’t invite yourself,’ she said. ‘And if he offers you a glass of beer, say no. You’re too young for that sort of thing.’

  I adored those evenings with Jamie. We never did all that much, just sat around talking or watching television which was nowhere near as good as the colour set over at the house. But we were away from our parents, who represented authority for both of us. Over at the hut we were free. One night after a couple of bottles of beer, Jamie looked around the hut and grinned with appreciation. ‘It’s good to have a place that’s all my own, that the old man can’t poke his nose into and tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing.’

  Jamie had fallen out with his father. He was vague about the actual reason for their big fight. ‘It was bad,’ was all he’d say. ‘Real bad.’

  Jamie had left home straight after, packed his belongings into his car and driven off. ‘Left right in the middle of shear­ing. Pissed him off no end I bet. Busiest time of the year. But perhaps he’ll come to realise how much work I do round his pissy farm without much in the way of thanks or remuneration.’

  I couldn’t imagine Jamie ever fighting with anyone. He was always so affable and even-tempered. His father I decided must be a real mean old bastard, even worse than Old Man Sampson. ‘Does he know where you are?’ I asked, worried for a moment that this tyrant might suddenly turn up and reclaim him.

  ‘I rang and told Mum. She reckons it’s the best thing for both of us. Have a bit of time apart. She’s had enough of us fightin’ all the time. Glad to get some peace I reckon, though she misses me. I promised to write to her. Billy, make sure I write to her.’

  I nodded gravely. I loved it when he asked me to do things for him. His expression was so earnest, like he couldn’t do without me. He was stretc
hed out on the bed. I was on the floor alongside, as there were no chairs. I leaned my head back against the bed and Jamie tousled my curls affection­ately. I preened into the touch of his hand, wishing he’d run his hand through my hair forever.

  I was always trying to provoke some life into my fantasies about Jamie. When he shot outside to use the toilet or grab a beer from the creek, where he left them to cool, I’d claim his bed. I loved lying there. The smell of his sweat rising in the sheets when I sniffed them, the thought of his naked body lying between them at night. I had checked under the pillow and there were no pyjamas. This excited me tremendously. I often imagined some emergency, a fire or a flood, where I would have to sprint over to the hut, and rouse Jamie out of bed, and urge him into his clothes. I longed to see him naked.

  Stealing his spot on the bed became like a game between us. He’d wander back in, half-expecting to find his position supplanted and it always would be. He’d act surprised, bellow his protests and then proceed to throw me off, back onto the floor. I loved this tussle. The chance to grip onto him. Feel his skin beneath my fingers. The firmness of the muscles in his arms. I always fought hard, trying to prolong those playful wrestles for as long as possible. Of course, Jamie was much stronger, but I was also more determined about staying there on the bed with him than I was about just about anything else. I was also a significant weight to shift. I wanted nothing better than for Jamie to simply declare me the victor and curl up alongside me on the bed. Unfortunately, this never happened.