1999 - 2002
In 1999 I opened a second-hand bookshop in Mosman. I was attending university but I had reduced my progress to a crawl so that I could concentrate on my business. For some reason living and working in Mosman inspired me to begin a novel about what, as a society, we choose to value most. The working title was The Beautiful Boy. At first it felt as though the narrator, the hero/villain of the piece, was dictating his story to me. I had never written anything like it before. It came so quickly and easily. But then the book began to explore the question - what does it take to make a person beautiful on the inside? And I lay down my pen. I wanted to give this story all of my attention and as my time was divided between the bookshop and university I postponed the attempt. I would love to return to this story.
The Beautiful Boy
I am beautiful again. Last week the symptoms cleared up. All of them. I was cured and nobody can give me any reason as to why. My natural form, perfectly proportioned, unblemished, glowing and firm was returned to me as though some external influence had corrected a bureaucratic blunder. My long exile, my life sentence has been revoked. My backward metamorphosis from butterfly to grub undone. My horrid disease with no name which turned my skin into a substance resembling bubbling melted cheese has deserted its post. My mother, of course, is put out. My tutor Jacob can’t bear to look at me and his father, Dr Heady can hardly hide his confusion. We all know that Dr Heady is a good man, who else would have put so much effort into finding an answer to my problems. His love of my physical perfection was the birthplace of his dedication to my mental development. When the physical beauty he loved was marred he tried to bring out what he supposed was the beauty within. Dr Heady is a modest man and he is very aware of his own limitations when it comes to regions beyond his particular expertise. The doctor mends the physical ailments of the body and has done so for more than thirty years. He wisely decided that my inner self, my life within the mind was outside his jurisdiction. He sent his son, Jacob, to discover the inner regions of my beauty.
I sat in Dr Heady’s office, the physical ordeal now over, the disease having left and this new mind of mine, this mind of Jacob’s making, now permanently established within this beautiful frame. Dr Heady, looked at me with distrust. It amuses me to give him the impression that I believe he misjudged the situation. I don’t believe this. I am normal again. That is to say, I am beautiful again. I don’t think much about his medical role in all this, he never discovered what my disfigurement was a symptom of. Nobody could tell me that. All the white coats we visited on Dr Heady’s recommendation shared the same glee on seeing me for the first time; it seems no one really challenges these glorified tradesmen, so my grotesque symptoms were a delight to them. I was a cryptic crossword made of flesh and blood. Each new player was allotted a few weeks for testing their particular theories, prodding me, sticking me with their needles and draining my sores. Some X-rayed, some cat scanned, one performed some very intrusive examinations convinced that I had some form of bowel cancer and another, in his frustration, cut me open for reasons no one has been able to ascertain. And uniformly the childlike glee of our initial meetings descended into the same look of confusion and embarrassment as all their efforts to diagnose my affliction came to naught.
The Beautiful Boy
I am beautiful again. Last week the symptoms cleared up. All of them. I was cured and nobody can give me any reason as to why. My natural form, perfectly proportioned, unblemished, glowing and firm was returned to me as though some external influence had corrected a bureaucratic blunder. My long exile, my life sentence has been revoked. My backward metamorphosis from butterfly to grub undone. My horrid disease with no name which turned my skin into a substance resembling bubbling melted cheese has deserted its post. My mother, of course, is put out. My tutor Jacob can’t bear to look at me and his father, Dr Heady can hardly hide his confusion. We all know that Dr Heady is a good man, who else would have put so much effort into finding an answer to my problems. His love of my physical perfection was the birthplace of his dedication to my mental development. When the physical beauty he loved was marred he tried to bring out what he supposed was the beauty within. Dr Heady is a modest man and he is very aware of his own limitations when it comes to regions beyond his particular expertise. The doctor mends the physical ailments of the body and has done so for more than thirty years. He wisely decided that my inner self, my life within the mind was outside his jurisdiction. He sent his son, Jacob, to discover the inner regions of my beauty.
I sat in Dr Heady’s office, the physical ordeal now over, the disease having left and this new mind of mine, this mind of Jacob’s making, now permanently established within this beautiful frame. Dr Heady, looked at me with distrust. It amuses me to give him the impression that I believe he misjudged the situation. I don’t believe this. I am normal again. That is to say, I am beautiful again. I don’t think much about his medical role in all this, he never discovered what my disfigurement was a symptom of. Nobody could tell me that. All the white coats we visited on Dr Heady’s recommendation shared the same glee on seeing me for the first time; it seems no one really challenges these glorified tradesmen, so my grotesque symptoms were a delight to them. I was a cryptic crossword made of flesh and blood. Each new player was allotted a few weeks for testing their particular theories, prodding me, sticking me with their needles and draining my sores. Some X-rayed, some cat scanned, one performed some very intrusive examinations convinced that I had some form of bowel cancer and another, in his frustration, cut me open for reasons no one has been able to ascertain. And uniformly the childlike glee of our initial meetings descended into the same look of confusion and embarrassment as all their efforts to diagnose my affliction came to naught.