Hartnett - Golden Boys

With their father, theres always a catch: the truth is enough to make Colt take a step back. Theres always some small cruelty, an unpleasant little hoop to be crawled through before whats good may begin: here is a gift, but first you must guess its colour. Colts instinct is to warn his brother Bastian,dont as if away from a cliffs edge or some quaggy sinkhole, but doing so risks leaving him stranded, alone like someone fallen overboard in the night, watching a boat full of revellers sail on. Bastian will want to play. Their mother will say, in her voice of reined-in dismay, Its just a bit of fun.

As the eldest he gets to guess first, so he guesses, Blue.

Their father shakes his head happily. Nope! Bas?

Bastian is prone to birdiness, his whole world one of those plastic kitchens in which girls make tea from petals and water. He guesses, Yellow? as though its perfectly possible their father would bring home for his two boys a bicycle coloured yellow.

Nope again! Their father is cheered, rather than nonplussed, by the attempt. Colt?

Already Colt feels theyve run out of colours. Green?

Not green. Your guess, Bas.

Colt lets his shoulders fall. He looks at his mother, who is lingering by the leather recliner where their father would be sitting if he wasnt standing by the mantelpiece conducting this game. She wears an apron, like a mother on a television show, and doesnt look at him, although she surely feels it, his stare that is leaden even to him. And it happens again, like the clear tinging of a bell, the eerie moment when a truth breaks from the green depths into sunlight: shell ignore Colt for the rest of his life, if the choice is between her husband and her son. His mother will cling tight to the rail of the boat. Bastians saying, Spotty? and Colt, dazed, stares down at his own feet. He wonders if this is what growing up is this unbuckling of faith, the isolation. He is only twelve, but hes not afraid. He is old enough. He looks at his brother, laughs rustily. Spotty? Bas.

Bastian lifts his face. Why not?

Have you ever seen a spotty bike?

I mean, all different colours

Colt shakes his head; his brother can be unbelievable. Its not spotty.

Who knows? cries their father, reeling them back. Who knows whats possible? But it isnt spotty. Your guess, Colt.

Colt rummages for colours he cant remember any theyve already nominated, feels only an indignation which, if it had a colour, would be a swampy scarlet. I dont know. I give up.

If you give up, you mightnt get the bike...

Dont give up, Colly! Bastian bounces on his toes.

Colt draws a breath. He wants to shout at his father that he doesnt care, that no bicycle is worth this humiliation, that hes not some prideless puppet. His mother has turned to him, her gaze reaching across the water, willing him to guess again: he swallows, as if it were icy air and salt water, her refusal to share or even acknowledge his affront. It doesnt matter, he wants to yell. I can be alone. Hes not yet that courageous, but he will be. Black?

Not black. Bastian?

Oh, I know, Dad! Purple?

Purple it is not. Colt?

Red, Colt snaps.

Not red. Its difficult! Your turn, Bas.

Is it brown? asks the boy.

Sorry, Bas, not brown. Colt?

This cant go on all night, but it threatens to. The time has come to draw a knife through it. Colt digs his toes into the carpet and thinks about all the bicycles hes seen. At his old school already it seems a place from a lifetime ago, although if he returned now his friends would hardly have missed him, familiar books would be open, the same papers would be pinned to noticeboards in the corridors, it would be as if hed never left the boys had hooked their bikes to the chain-mesh fence, posing them like skeletal carousel horses with their front wheels bucked off the ground. Expensive bikes, all of them, and when they were not the most costly they were still the most fashionable, racers with curved handlebars and tyres as thin as plate. Colt and Bastian have, in fact, such a bicycle each already, neat speedsters which at this moment are safe in the shed and in perfect working order, as their father maintains them. Two boys, two bikes, no need for this mysterious third; but their father heaps gifts upon them, there is nothing the brothers dont receive. Everything they own must be the biggest, the better, the one which glitters most. Suddenly convinced of it, Colt says, Silver.

And although hes sure his father must shout yes! silver! what he actually says, with no sign of wearying, is, Not silver. Bassy? Frustration rears crazily, before Colt can crush it. Dad! Just tell us! Bastian cant guess anymore!

Of course he can

I can!

No! Colt storms. Just say it!

Is it green? Its green

You already guessed green!

That was a different green! Dad, is it green? No, orange? Is it orange?

Colt claps his hands to his face. He hears his mother laugh sympathetically, but her sympathy is useless, insulting, a leaf thrown into ocean. It is stuffy behind his hands, airless in the lounge room where the sun has shone through the big window all afternoon. The walls of the house are freshly painted in a shade of sand-dune beige, and smell like something plastic lifted out of a long-closed cardboard box. From the newly-laid carpet rises an odour of chemicals and glue. There had been a different smell when hed seen the house for the first time, the day on which hed been told it was to be his new home a papery smell, like a wasps nest, and the walls had been the palest blue. On the mantel had been arranged a picket-fence of keys, each attached by a short string to a cardboard label. Front door spare, screen door original, side door, garage door, laundry overhead cupboard: hed never known a house in need of so many keys, as if each corner concealed a secret. His father had swept the keys and their cards into his jacket pocket. Colt has no need for keys: his mother doesnt work, so when her sons come home from school she is there; whatever shes done that day, she has finished doing. She has a car key, and a duplicate of the front-door key. All the other keys Colt has never seen again. At the mantel, their father is laughing. Isnt that what postmen ride, orange bicycles? Do you want to be a postman, Bas?

Bastian screws his face up merrily. Dad! No!

If I gave you an orange bike, you might turn into a postman! Maybe thats how postmen become postmen?

Dont be silly!

Thats red bikes, Colt thinks into his hands: its red bikes postmen ride, you... moron. Because on this night when truths are rising to the light, hes seeing this too: his father can be absurd. Hes been a god and then a man of miracles and of late he has sometimes seemed a stranger to Colt, or someone he wishes were a stranger, but through all this downhill metamorphosing his father has remained a man of dignity: absurd comes to Colt like the scratch that makes the record players needle skim. He lowers his hands to consider his father in this new, diffuse light. Hes amazed that its taken him so long to see it, and wonders how much else he is missing. The evening is warm, but Colt feels cool. As if to halt what hes thinking dead in its tracks, their mother finally speaks. Dinners almost ready, Rex.