This was the first novel I actually completed. It's a Young Adult novel about two 17y.o. boys who both want to study art but whose families, for different reasons, won't allow them to. There's also a bit of a mystery element involving whatever happened to the baby that was famously snatched from a shopping centre 18 years ago and has never been recovered. I've pimped it quite a bit, but it's still unpublished. I love James and James though, they really are quite lovely boys…

Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Wanker

By Barbara Welton

Chapter Seventeen

Neville Westbury looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. He was unshaven and somehow hazy around the edges. He opened the front door of Shangri La, wondering who on earth would be rapping on the door unexpected on a Friday evening. The joy that careened through him when he saw the darkly clad young man on the other side of the fly screen very nearly knocked all his breath clean out of him.

'James!' he yelped. 'Oh, thank God!'

'I forgot to take my key when I left.'

'Doesn't matter! Come in! Come in!'

James stepped into the hallway and was immediately bundled up into Neville's crushing embrace. He was swayed this way and that, the older man almost snapping his spine in two in his enthusiasm at seeing him again.

'Is Mum home?'

Neville lifted his elated face from James' shoulder and shook his head. 'Shopping with your Aunt Sharon. Come through! Do you want anything? I'll put the kettle on. Have you had dinner already?'

James allowed himself to smile for the first time since getting on the train to come over here. He hadn't known at all what sort of reception to expect when he stepped onto his old front porch for the first time since he and Hawthorn had made their incredible discovery almost a month ago. He wondered what his mother had told his father about that day. Had it all come out now? As he watched his father splashing water into the kettle and fumbling with the power chord in his excitement, he concluded that his mother mustn't have told very much at all.

'You're looking well, James. Taking care of yourself, yeah?'

'Yeah. I guess.'

'And you've been going to school. I know, I checked. Just wanted to make sure.'

'They didn't think it was weird that you were asking whether or not I was going? Wouldn't they have thought that you should know?'

His father grinned at him. 'I told 'em I thought you might be wagging.'

'Gee, thanks!' They both laughed. James pulled a chair out from the table, took off his trenchcoat and sat down. His dad delved into a cupboard and came up with two mugs. He frowned slightly and put one back, replacing it with James' preferred drinking mug - the one with three reproductions of Andy Warhol's "cowboy Elvis" in three different primary colours. James had bought it at a Warhol retrospective at the National Gallery when he was fifteen.

'Ah. Here's yer favourite Elvis mug!'

James looked down at the table and tried not to laugh out loud. He suddenly realised he missed his dad.

'Where are you staying? I mean, you don't have to tell me the exact address if you don't want. That's okay. But, you know. I just wanna know you're alright. That you're okay.'

'I'm fine, Dad. I'm staying with a friend in Toorak.'

'Toorak?! Fuck me! I didn't know you had friends in such high places!'

James shrugged. 'I met him earlier this year. His name’s James, too.'

His father nodded. 'It's a good name.' Neville poured the boiling water into the teapot and set the mugs and milk jug on the table. 'Your mother's been worried we were never going to see you again, you know.'

'I'm not coming home...'

'I know, I know. I'm not assuming anything just 'cos you're here.'

'I just need to collect some more things. And talk to you.'

His father beamed at him from across the table. 'Your mother'll be sorry she missed you.'

'I'd rather not see her right now anyway.'

Neville nodded and hefted the weighty ceramic teapot off the table top. 'Do you feel like telling me what happened?'

'Mum didn't tell you anything?'

'She said you two had an argument. Wouldn't tell me what about though. It's not like her. She normally tells me everything.'

"Hardly", James thought to himself. He poured some milk into his tea and blew softly across the top of his mug. 'Dad... Can I ask you something?'

'Of course you can.'

'It might sound weird of me to ask about it but... can you tell me about when I was born?'

His father looked up at him nervously. James thought he suddenly looked scared. "Ah!" he thought, "He does know something after all!" He sipped some tea which was really still too hot to drink and gave his father a steady look. 'What hospital was I born in?'

'You, er... You weren't. You were born at home. The old place we used to live in. A really short labour, apparently. Your mother didn't even make it to the phone to call an ambulance!'

James frowned. '"Apparently"? You mean you weren't there?'

Neville shook his head, eyes down.

'C'mon, Dad, tell me. I want to know the truth.'

Neville drank some tea and swallowed loudly. 'I guess you had to find out sooner or later.' James nodded. 'I'm surprised you never found out about it from anybody else in the family, really. I thought someone would've slipped up and said something by now. But then, I s'pose it's nothing to be proud of, so maybe they're too embarrassed to say anything.'

'How many of them know?'

'Oh... all of 'em, really.'

James felt his lower jaw drop. 'The whole family knows?'

'Well, it's kinda hard to keep something like that quiet. It was only six months though, James. And I never did anything like that again, I swear.'

'Hang on...' James crossed his long legs under the table and leaned forward. 'Tell me exactly what happened.'

Neville chipped at an imaginary blob on the side of his mug while he gathered his thoughts together. 'I was just driving the car. Honest. These other guys, these mates of mine that I had back then, they're the ones who actually did the job. I stayed round the corner with the engine running. That's all. I was stupid, I know. But your mum and me were just starting out and we wanted to buy our own place around here and you were on the way and we really, really could've done with the cash...'

'You robbed some place?!'

'Not me, James! I just drove the car, I swear! Terry, this bloke I knew, he was the one that planned it all. I didn't even know he had a sawn-off shottie in that bag of his. Me and Dave thought the whole thing was gonna be done with knives. Truly.' He stopped to drink some tea. 'It was a pub way out north. The Diamond Creek Hotel. It'd been done over a few times over the years. Terry and Dave went in and I kept the car running in the side street. Fucking stupid thing to do. Of course we got caught. The judge went pretty easy on me, really. I'd never been in trouble with the cops before - well, nothing I'd ever been caught at, anyway! And seeing as I'd stayed in the car... I got six months. Your mum was three and a half months gone with you when I went in. Broke our hearts, it did. Only got myself to blame though.'

James was staring at his father incredulously. He couldn't quite work out which fact surprised him more. The fact that his father had been to prison? The fact that the entire family had conspired to keep this from him all his life? Or the fact that his father was obviously convinced that he was his son?

'So... Mum had me while you were in gaol?'

Neville nodded. 'It was tough on your mother. She had to go through the rest of the pregnancy and the birth on her own. Wasn't an easy pregnancy either, apparently. She had a bit of a scare soon after I went inside. Almost thought she'd lost you. Probably all the trauma I'd put her through. After that she took it pretty easy for the rest of the time. Didn't go out much or see anyone much. Sort of closed herself off from everybody, really. I should've been here for her, to help her. I'm ashamed to this day that I put her through all that.' He stopped and looked at his son, interpreting James' stunned expression as surprise at the news of his father's felony and incarceration. 'I'm sorry I've never told you before, James.'

'That's okay. I guess. Sorta all makes sense, really...'

'Huh?'

James ignored the questioning sound and returned to his own interrogation. 'So Mum had me just before you got out?'

Neville nodded.

'So how old was I when, arrr... you and I first met, Dad?'

They both grinned a little at the thought. 'About four weeks. I gotta tell ya, James, you were one fine lookin' kid. And when I held you for the first time...' Neville looked down at his open hands as though expecting to see the tiny baby there once more. 'You were so perfect. I'd never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Coming home to you and to your mother... I knew I was the luckiest bloke in the world. It's not money that makes people rich, you know.'

'Yeah, I know.'

The both drank their tea in silence for a moment, Neville unable to drag his eyes away from his only child. He'd felt like an amputee while James had been gone, like a part of himself was missing, giving him phantom itches he could never scratch. He'd spent hours on end sitting in James' room or napping on his son's bed, finding comfort for the first time in the black walls and po-faced posters of James’ favourite bands. He'd even taken to sitting in the garage for long periods of time, surrounded by James' paintings and works-in-progress. He'd forced himself to sit in front of the abstract James had entered in the school's first semester Seniors Art Show until he got it. He had laughed himself to tears when the painting had finally slid into focus for him, when its colours and shapes finally revealed their deeper meaning to him. He got it. And he loved it. He laughed big, fat tears for a good ten minutes or more, sitting on an upturned toolbox on his own, feeling closer to his son than he ever had before, and having no idea where his only child was.

James appeared to be listening to something in the house. 'How're the fish?' he interjected into Neville's thoughts as he got up from the table.

'Oh, fine. Brilliant.' Neville followed James into the living room and watched his son crouch down in front of the fish tank. He wanted to take in every detail that he'd never noticed before, from an estimation of how far down his back James' ponytail stretched, to the natural pattern the scuffing on the boy's combat boots formed. James splayed his left hand gently on the wall of thick glass in front of him as he mouthed a greeting to his fish. Neville had never noticed how large his son's hands were before; there was a callous on the middle finger from James holding his pen or his paintbrush too tightly and there was black paint lodged under every fingernail.

'You've got somewhere to paint at this friend's house?'

James was genuinely shocked by the question. 'Um... yeah. We both paint in the lounge room. Don't seem to get in each other's way, somehow. Well, not yet anyway.' He stood up straight. 'Funny you should ask about my painting. I wanted to ask you something...'

'What?'

'My final assessment for Art's due next week. They all go on show in the school canteen on Friday night. I want you and Mum to be there.'

'Wild horses couldn't stop me!'

'Serious?'

'Serious. Hey, there's something I want to ask you, too.'

James lifted one eyebrow quizzically; Neville vaguely wondered where he'd picked that habit up from. 'It's about your birthday,' he said.

'Oh, shit!' James bit his bottom lip. 'I totally forgot about it!'

'It's your Eighteenth, mate! How could you forget that?'

James made an exasperated gesture, all hands and hunching shoulders, and shook his head. How was he supposed to tell his Dad that his eighteenth birthday had already been and gone? 'I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous. But I honestly did. Shit, it's tomorrow...'

'Robbie's been asking if we're gonna have a party.'

'You haven't told him that I'm not living here now?'

Neville looked sideways fleetingly. 'Haven't really told anybody. Was kinda hoping we wouldn't have to.'

The two Westbury men sighed and couldn't meet each other's eyes for a few moments. What Are We Gonna Do? they both thought.

'Look,' said James, 'I wanna get outta here before Mum comes back. I'll just grab some more things, okay? And how about you tell Robbie and anyone else in the family who desperately wants to spend my birthday with me that I'll be in the back bar of the Rising Sun tomorrow night from about seven onwards, okay?' He looked at his father long enough to receive the older man's nod of assent, then he moved off toward his bedroom. Nothing appeared touched or interfered with in the ebony surrounds of his former inner sanctum. He dug around in the bottom of the wardrobe until he came up with his old kit bag from soccer and emptied the goalie's shirt and studded boots out onto the floor.

Neville came and leaned in the doorway, watching James with a miserable expression. He watched as his son opened drawers and cupboards, removing some clothing from this place and a textbook from that, a few novels from this shelf and a pile of photos from that. James then dropped to his knees on the floor and groped blindly under the bed until he came up with the black hardcase that fitted his bass guitar. Neville stepped over to the instrument leaning against the wall, picked it up and walked it over to his son. James, still kneeling on the floor by the open hardcase, accepted the bass silently from his father and placed it lovingly into the moulded foam recess inside the transporter, closing the lid over it and snapping the bright chrome locks with a loud metallic tattoo.

'You need any money?'

James shook his head as he stood up and dusted the knees of his jeans. 'Nah, I'm okay.'

Neville already had his wallet out anyhow. 'You must need some cash, James. Whaddya living on?'

James took the question as rhetorical and didn't answer it. His dad removed a hundred dollar note from the selection of notes in his wallet and held it out to James.

'I really don't need it, Dad. I'm okay. James is taking care of me.'

Neville waved the note at him. 'You can't bludge off yer mates, Jimbo. Here, take it.'

'I really don't need it,' James repeated. Then he suddenly realised that it wasn't so much the money that was the important thing here, but rather his acceptance of his father's help. He lifted his hand toward the hundred dollar bill, then reached instead to his father's wallet and removed a fifty from the money that protruded there. 'I don't need anymore than this,' he said, folding the fifty over and putting it into the front pocket of his jeans. Neville nodded, put the hundred away and put his wallet back in his pants. The compromise had made them both feel okay.

James hefted the soccer bag up onto his shoulder then bent and picked the bass hardcase up in his right hand.

'You don't need anything from the garage?' Neville asked him.

'Not yet,' James said. 'I think everything that's still here can wait 'til the end of term now. Get all this sorted out after school's finished, yeah?'

Neville nodded heavily. 'So... you won't be moving back at all?'

'No. Sorry, Dad.'

Neville swallowed. 'I wish I knew what had happened between you and your mother. Wish I knew if there was anything I could do to make the peace between the two of you.'

'You'll find out soon enough, I promise.' It suddenly occurred to James that his plans for the installation showing at school next Friday night, in front of his parents and the entire school community and God knows who else, was going to publicly humiliate not just his mother but his father, too. In fact, his father's heart would probably break inside his chest within about a minute and a half of the artwork's unveiling. He hadn't realised, until speaking to his dad over that cup of tea just before, that Neville Westbury knew nothing of the truth of how James had come to be a part of this family. He hadn't taken his father's innocence into consideration before now - and now it was too late to do anything about it.

Fuck. What a mess. He decided he needed to get back to Hawthorn quick-smart. And get very, very drunk.

'This friend of yours,' Neville ventured as he followed James out of the blackened bedroom and down the narrow hallway of Shangri La. 'This other James... he alright?'

'Yeah, he's a great bloke. I reckon you'd really like him.'

'So do I get to meet him?'

'If you make sure you come to the art show at school on Friday, yeah. He'll be there.'

'James?'

James stopped on the porch and turned to face his father, the guitar case banging against his knee painfully. He'd have a bruise next morning. 'Yeah?'

'Are you gay? Is that what all this has been about?'

James felt his face crease. 'Daaaaad!' He laughed over the top of his blush. 'No, I'm not gay, alright?'

'I love you, son.'

Was Neville telling him he loved him because he missed him and wished he hadn't left home? Or was he telling him he loved him because he'd just assured him he wasn't gay? It hardly mattered.

'Love you too, Dad. Remember that, okay? No matter what happens?' He held his left hand out to his father.

'No matter what happens.' Neville shook his hand with his own left, feeling weird shaking hands with his son and even weirder for shaking with his left hand. 'See you at the pub tomorrow.'

'Yeah. See ya.'

End of extract.