Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar
The funniest debut novel since Tom Sharpe’s Riotous Assembly, only it’s set in Tasmania!Julian Corkle's got small-screenability. His mother tells him he'll be a star one day. 'Twinkle, twinkle,' she says, giving his hair a ruffle.Not everyone shares Julian's dreams of stardom. Television is too much like hairdressing for his father's tastes. A Tasmanian man wants a son for sporting purposes. 'Boys don't like dolls,' he tells Julian, 'They like Dinky Toys.' Not this boy, thinks Julian, who knows better than to tell the truth.Besides, the family already has a sporting hero, Julian's sister Carmel aka 'The Locomotive'. Julian likes his sister, but knows better than to tangle with her bowling arm. It's the same one she uses for punching.Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar is the ultimate feel-good novel, a book that will have the reader laughing out loud on the back of a bus as it follows Julian's bumpy journey through adolescence, fibbing his way through school and a series of dead-end jobs, to find his ultimate calling as creator of 'The Hog'. It's as if Crocodile Dundee has crashed Muriel's wedding and run off into the desert with Priscilla.
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Julian Corkle
Is A Filthy Liar
D.J. Connell
To my mother Marion, who first got me interested in funny
business, and to my sister Jocelyn, who’s never stopped laughing at me.
Table of Contents
Dag: 1. Australian for the dung that collects on a sheep’s backside. 2. An unfashionable, unappealing person. 3. A fool.
‘Look at that dag with the mullet cut!’
Ulverston
Colleen Corkle knew her son had star quality from the moment he appeared. She was straining forward on the delivery bed when his head popped out. The baby’s eyelids flicked open, and in the instant before the nurse scooped him up, his eyes locked on hers. Colleen recognised the spark in the murky depths of the new irises and smiled. As the baby was whisked away, he started wailing.
‘Listen to those lungs!’ The doctor finished examining the newborn and handed him back to the nurse. ‘Another Sinatra!’
The baby continued to wail as he was carried to a room down the corridor where the nurse wiped him clean and dressed him in a muslin gown.
‘For goodness’ sake, shut that baby up!’ A nursing sister poked her head in the doorway. She was frowning. ‘We’ve got a woman in labour next door.’
The nurse hurriedly wrapped a blanket around the baby and carried him back to the birthing room. Colleen was still on the delivery bed being cleaned up. She was exhausted but the hormones surging through her system made her smile when she heard the baby’s cries. He was thrust into her arms.
‘Will you be breastfeeding?’ The nurse had to shout to be heard.
‘No, there’ll be none of that. Formula like the others.’
‘Right then, I’ll get his bottle.’
The nurse scurried out of the room. Colleen held the baby up and looked into his eyes again. The spark was still there. Something hot and liquid stirred behind her ribs. She pressed her lips to his forehead and drew in the new animal smell of him. With expert hands, she placed him face down on her chest and began rubbing his back. He kept crying.
‘That’s my boy.’ Colleen giggled. ‘You show them.’
The nurse reappeared with a bottle of formula and the baby was flipped over into the fold of his mother’s arm. Colleen tested the warmth of the liquid on her wrist and then thrust the teat into the open mouth. The baby’s lips moved against the rubber and encircled the tip. They tugged tentatively. The cries stopped abruptly and he began to feed.
The nurse wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and let out a sigh. ‘Thank goodness he’s a strong sucker.’
Jim was at the sports desk of The Bugle when the nurse called to say he was the father of a healthy baby boy. In 1965, a new father’s place was not at the side of his wife. His place was down at the King’s Arms. Jim made an announcement and was patted on the back by his colleagues. He arranged to meet them later at the pub and knocked off work early.
He was standing at the bar studying the Punter’s Gazette when a small, elderly woman eased herself on to a barstool beside him. He hadn’t seen her in the King’s Arms before. She was dressed in a floral frock and multicoloured hand-knitted cardigan. The knitted hat on her head resembled a tea cosy. Jim was idly looking for spout and handle holes when the woman spoke.
‘If you buy me a drink, I’ll tell you something interesting.’
The woman’s voice made him smile. She had an Irish accent. He wondered if she was from County Cork, like his parents.
‘My pleasure. I’ve just had some good news.’
‘Ah, that’d be your baby.’
Jim had just told the barman about the new arrival. He looked over at Midge and winked. The barman shrugged and claimed the Gazette.
‘What’s your poison, madame?’ Jim said it the French way to make the woman laugh.
Her expression didn’t change. ‘Oh, I could take a whiskey, yes I could.’ She turned to the barman. ‘I’ll be having an Irish drop. None of that bilge water from the Tay of Dundee.’
Midge reached above the dispensers and took down a bottle of the Spirit of Cork. He shook two nips into a small glass and placed it gently on a Tickworth Ale coaster in front of the woman.
‘To your health, sir, and to that of your son.’ She lifted the glass to Jim, then pushed her head back and let the whiskey run down her throat. She banged it down empty and wiped her lips with the back of a hand. ‘Nothing like a rare drop of Irish sunshine.’
‘Anotherie?’ Jim was feeling generous. He turned and nodded to Midge who refilled the woman’s glass. ‘So, how do you know I have a son?’ He hadn’t told the barman it was a boy.
‘You now have two sons and, by the look of you, there’s also a girl.’
Jim felt a prickly sensation along the band of his Y-fronts. An electric current ran from the elastic up his spine and did a circuit around his shoulder blades.
‘Do I know you?’
‘Depends what you mean by knowing. There’s things I know that I can tell. I know your son’s not what you expected. You’ll try to change him but you can’t. This will give you heartache.’
