Malcolm and Juliet Read Free

Kevin’s obsession needed. One day Brian would be his. One day, Kevin would cure him.
    ‘Kevin!’ Kevin’s mother’s voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘It’s Brian, on the phone.’
    Kevin’s heart gave the now familiar flutter as he raced to the extension in his room.
    ‘Bri man.’
    ‘Kevy!’
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘Party tonight. Charlotte’s place.’
    ‘Who’s Charlotte?’
    ‘You can’t have forgotten Charlotte. You know, Chaaaarlotte.’
    ‘Oh yeah. Mate.’
    ‘Mate. Might have a crack there tonight.’
    ‘Might beat you to it.’
    ‘You’re a sly one Kev boy. You’re a sly one.’

Video
    Malcolm had a plan, a very sly plan. Last year he came second. Second in the National Secondary Schools’ Science Fair, with his photo in the paper and an award ceremony at the Wanganui Town Hall. The year that followed had been a year of pain and frustration because second place doesn’t mean a lot when you know you’re capable of first. Second place isn’t a prize, it’s a torment. It is an award of might-have-been, of should-have-been.
    Malcolm knew where he went wrong, he had the official judges’ report to tell him. Brilliantly researched, they said of his study of genetic mutations in fruit flies, but weak on visual punch and lacking the all-important topicality. The winning entry, from Spotswood College, had both in spades: a continuously flowing, underlit volcanic eruption and lava stream, in the very year that Ruapehu went and blew its top again.
    Well not this year. This year there would be no second places. No bravery in the face of unsolicited condolences, no smiling for the cameras when all he wanted to do was vomit. This year Malcolm had a plan, and the plan was sex.
    Sex was topical. Sex lent itself to visual presentations. Malcolm had borrowed his auntie’s hi-def camera and tripod, and had arranged for the use of the school’s iMacs for the editing. The school was very keen to see him succeed. He hadn’t told them what his topic was of course, that too was part of his plan. Although his research was still in its early stages he had already discovered sex to be an area that aroused strong and often unexpected reactions.
    Malcolm checked his reflection in the mirror. He was wearing his favourite vibrant blue Hawaiian shirt—visual appeal again. The camera and tripod were set up at the end of the bed and after much experimenting he knew exactly where to stand. He liked having the bed in the background; it acted as a visual subtext. Malcolm ran through his opening monologue in his head. There was no real need. He could recite it backwards if he needed to. He faced the camera, eyeballed the lens, breathed in, then hit record on the small remote. No second takes, that was to be his director’s motto.
    ‘A recent survey of American women showed fifty-two percent of them would rather go shopping than have sex. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about American men. I’m thinking of emigrating. It might be a good place to begin my sexual career. There has to be less pressure, when all you’re competing with is the queue at Walmart.
    ‘Then again, England might be a better place to start. A survey there revealed that sixty-five percent of women would prefer a nice cup of tea. I don’t quite understand that. Maybe if I was a forty-three-year-old “Coronation Street” fan called Maude, trapped in a small Manchester flat with a seventeen stone football-fanatic-husband who smelt of lost hope and beer, it would make more sense.
    ‘I saw a programme on TV the other day, where they actually filmed the sperm from two different men, fighting it out in the race to reach the egg, pushing and blocking like Year 8 students in a corridor. It must have been a very small camera. I can’t think how they would have done the lighting.
    ‘On another programme I saw that all over the world there has been an inexorable and quite unexplained fall in men’s sperm counts. From Austria to Algiers, Paris to the