Julien

Julien wore his office suit like a teapot wears an old fashioned tea-cosy. As if it spoiled his appearance rather than enhanced it. As if his real self was bone china, not foolish woolen stuff. So he felt. Julien rode on the train as if he was getting something over with. When would his real life begin? He read interesting books on the way home from work, to pass the journey, about wars in foreign places. But he would not wish to kill anyone. Sometimes he looked at young women in the kind of way that made his willy tingle. Occasionally he saw an astonishingly beautiful one, talking on her mobile phone, perhaps, while carefully smoothing the skin under one eye with the tip of her finger, or removing a fleck of lipstick from her front tooth. When he got home he flung his briefcase down and grabbed the remote for the television, almost in one movement.

His mother loved him to distraction, which only made his situation worse. She had his meal ready for him, messages from his friends, a ripe nectarine and gently shining eyes. He regretted his dissatisfaction particularly when he saw how good she was. What he wanted was to leave her far behind.

At the pub, in response to his complaints, his best friend, John Tewksbury, told him he was a pussycat. That did not help either.

‘Do something, fuck you,’ John said, and maybe he was right. It takes another man to know what is needed. But Julien still did not know what to do.

‘Or be something,’ John said, ‘other than a pussy. Be a tom cat. Be a dog. Be a horse.’

Julien knew this was good advice. Tom cat, dog and horse were all more exciting metaphors than his current life. He started frequenting night clubs, which worried his poor old mother as it should, getting into competitive relationships of all kinds with other men, which worried him, and galloping about the city. Imagine what that was like. It meant he spent a lot of money on new clothes, not necessarily intended to keep him warm. He undertook journeys eager to reach his destination.

But it was at work, in his business suit, in broad daylight, that his life actually changed for the better. One of the young women, Alison, asked him which of the many bosses was Alan Saunders, so he drew her a picture on a scrap of paper.

‘I know exactly who that is,’ she said. ‘How did you do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘’How did you draw such a good likeness with only a few lines? Could you do it again?’

So he drew a picture of Alison.

‘That is too like me for comfort,’ she said, but was obviously pleased.

Alison was a talkative member of the team, and word quickly spread of Julien’s remarkable ability. Others approached him, wanting drawings of this person or that, or mostly of themselves. In a few lines he could just do it, and there they were on paper, recognisable to all. Word spread beyond the office. He became famous in a limited way. He joined a life-drawing class but was not particularly good at figures. Drawing faces was his thing, and his fame spread. He bought a spiral-back notepad which he kept in his pocket with his pen at all times

After a few months he had strangers approaching him, saying, ‘You’re Julien Bowman, aren’t you? Will you draw me?’ So he did.

‘Can you make money out of it?’ John Tewkesbury asked.

‘I don’t want money,’ he said. ‘But I have had a promotion. So I suppose it has made me money indirectly. There is nothing like being well known for attracting attention.’

‘You old dog,’ said John.

He gave money away, in fact. To Oxfam, Medecins Sans Frontieres and World Vision, because he was happy. He drew his mother’s face several times. And, because he was happy, he soon had a beautiful girlfriend all of his own, and drew her picture so often she had to tell him to stop. Now half Melbourne knows who he is, and his little drawings flutter about everywhere.