Richie, who believed the world was spiralling out of control, that it had dislodged from its axis, that the ether could not expand fast enough to contain the implosion, that it was all leading to a violent, catastrophic and, for the human species if no other, a deservedly sadistic end, was certain of only three things in his life. He had counted them down in the short time his father had left the table to go to the toilet. One, that his mother was the best mother on the planet. Two, that the American television series Six Feet Under was an alternative universe, a better universe, and the one in which he wished he existed. And three, that he was in love with his mate, Nick Cercic. These three things were the only certainty. Everything else was just bullshit, fake, a con. Everything else did not matter. Wait. He counted one more certainty. Connie was the best friend a young art-fag boy could have.

It was the middle of the morning when he awoke. He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and walked into the lounge room. His father had left, his cigarettes weren’t on the coffee table. Richie put the kettle on to boil, and munched on a half-eaten bar of chocolate he found in the fridge. There was no bread. He sat on the sofa and looked at his mobile. No messages, everyone was probably still asleep. Should he drink his tea and leave? Did he just close the door behind him? The bag of dope was still on the table. Quickly, Richie pulled out four or five heads and wrapped them in cigarette papers. He stuffed them into his pocket. The kettle started to whistle. Richie made a tea, sat cross-legged on the floor and switched on Rage. He drank tea and watched music videos till his father returned with a loaf of bread and some more milk.

Craig dropped him off at Ringwood station. Richie went to fling open the door but Craig reached over, grabbed his shoulder. He seemed agitated.

The Friday night before that crucial Tuesday they went to see Marie Antoinette at the Westgarth. Nick had been suspicious about it, thought that it sounded chick-flicky, gay. ‘Anyway,’ he complained, ‘I’ve got too much on my mind. I can’t concentrate on a movie.’

As soon as he was in his bed he reached underneath it and pulled out three notebooks and flicked through them. The oldest, its once vibrant indigo vinyl cover now faded to a pale cyan, held his maps and notes for Priam. This was a small island continent, half the size of Australia, that lay far east of Madagascar, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The second notebook, A3, a present from his mother when he had turned fifteen, a Green Day sticker fading on the black binding, contained all the maps for Al’Anin, an archipelago of four hundred and seventeen islands off the coast of California and Mexico. The third notebook was full, and contained his sketches and designs for the city of New Troy, the capital of Priam and one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring cities in the whole world. Its deep, natural harbour ate into the lush tropical coast. The harbour city with its ancient temples once dedicated to the old Greek gods stopped at the imposing cliff faces of the Poseidons, a mountain range that had collapsed into the ocean, leaving a sheer escarpment that ran for hundreds of kilometres along the coast. Towering hundreds of metres above the city, on the enormous plateau that stretched to the horizon beyond the cliff face were the dazzling skyscrapers, mosques, churches and temples of New Troy, a shimmering jumble of silicon and marble and concrete and brick—all gold spires and silver minarets and bronze domes shining in the cobalt tropical sky.

He had asked his mother to wake him at seven and her voice cut into his sleep like nails screeching down a blackboard. He groaned and tried to toss himself back into sleep. He must have succeeded because he was woken again by his mother coming into his room and clapping her hands close to his ear. He shot out of bed. His mother laughed at him cruelly.

He didn’t need to be at Hugo’s till nine-thirty, and he was determined to swim for at least forty minutes. Richie had decided at the end of school that he wanted a new body, a fit, strong body. Eventually, like Nick, like Ali, he would join the gym, but he wasn’t ready for it yet. He’d never been particularly good at sports or Phys. Ed. He was too scrawny, felt too weak.

They played in the park for an hour, kicking the ball and occasionally alternating it with some rougher ball play when Hugo got bored. In the physicality of the play, in his alertness to Hugo’s moods and sensitivity, Richie found that he could forget the morning, put it aside.

It was at the traffic lights on Gold Street that Hugo spat at the old man. He was one of those elderly gentlemen who would soon become extinct. He looked like he’d stepped out of an old Australian movie, wearing a tie and an ironed white shirt, a jacket, even in the heat, and an old-style brimmed hat on his head. They were standing next to each other, waiting for the light to go green. The old man’s back was straight, even though he looked ancient. The old man looked up at Hugo, and smiled.

Gary opened two tinnies and handed one to Richie. Rosie had the kettle on to boil. She had also started singing to herself, as if the incident had not happened.

‘Drink your beer.’ Richie wiped his eyes and cheeks. He did not dare look at either adult. He obeyed Gary but the alcohol tasted sour, curdled. He took a sip and put it down.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion but also in an instant. Was this what was meant by relativity, quantum physics, all those ideas and calculations that were so hard to get his head around? It all seemed to happen so deliberately, as if their movements were all rehearsed and preordained, that it would be impossible to stop any of it. Getting into their car, buckling Hugo into the child seat, fastening his own belt, driving down High Street, parking, walking into the clinic. The waiting room was full, smelt of dogs and air freshener. His mother was at the counter, she was looking up, surprised, then scared. She rushed to him.

He ran and ran. He was in his street, he was at his house, he was through the door. He was in the bathroom, searching through the cabinet, jars smashing on the floor. He found a bottle of pills, did not bother to read the label, poured them all out in his hand. He took them all, gulped them down, flushed water from the tap into his mouth, down his throat. He sat on the edge of the cold bathtub and that’s when he found he could stop. He stopped. He let it go, he was in the zone. He’d wait for death now that he was in the zone.

There were three things that made him not want to die:

Richie pulled his mobile from his pocket. He started to dial. 0—0—0. He heard the front door slam open.

She made him vomit, bent him over the tub, her fingers forced down his throat. He resisted, gagged, then chucked, thin bile running down his chin and his mother’s fingers. His body convulsed and lumps of half-digested toast, pills, more bile flew onto the enamel, splattering across the bathtub. He was grateful for his mother’s calm. Now that he knew that he did not want to die, he feared the poison he had taken. She drove fast, but she drove carefully, all the way to Epping Hospital, cursing every red light, cursing the politicians who had sold the old hospital he had been born into, the one that had been just around the corner from their house. She stroked his head from time to time, asking him to describe exactly how he was feeling, what he was experiencing, whether he had begun to feel any numbness or pain. What he did feel was an astonishing peace, an awareness of the complex structure of light and of sound. His mother weaved and overtook the traffic on Spring Street.

He awoke to a too-bright white room. The light hurt; he had to close his eyes, and it seemed to take an eternity to open them again. He did, carefully, taking in the room, the world around him. He felt woozy, and dropped his head to the side. His mother was sitting on a chair, reading New Idea. Someone took hold of his hand. With effort he forced his head to turn to the other side. Connie was standing beside his bed.

‘Does it hurt?’

He had to see the hospital psychologist before he could be discharged. The man, in his early forties with a thick Ned Kelly beard, had sparkling eyes that reminded Richie of Nate in Six Feet Under. The man was forthright. He wanted to know why Richie had wanted to kill himself. The boy struggled to find words. It all seemed too hard to explain. Maybe this was what Connie understood, that the truth did not always have words. What was important was that feeling that had been so potent straight after he had taken the pills. He had not wanted to die. That was important, maybe the only thing that mattered. The man was waiting expectantly. He was sincere, warm, a nice guy. Richie didn’t want to disappoint him. He told him that he had wanted to die because he was having trouble coming to terms with his sexuality. It wasn’t true but it was exactly the right thing to say. The man eagerly leaned forward and began to talk about the rich diversity of sexuality, how being gay was normal, that human culture was a broad church. Richie nodded, trying to look interested. He was a nice guy. He talked exactly like one of the good teachers. A little too earnestly. The man wrote down a few numbers for him, the emergency counselling number at the hospital, the number for the gay and lesbian switchboard. Richie pocketed the numbers, thanking the guy, and meaning it. He was only trying to help. But Richie was glad when the session was over. The psychologist signed a form and Richie joined his mother in the waiting room. He was free to go home.

On Tuesday afternoon they all got their results. His ENTER score was 75.3. He was not going to Melbourne Uni. He could probably get into Deakin, maybe RMIT, on second-round offers. Connie got 98.7. She’d get into Vet Science. Nick got 93.2. It was a brilliant score but not good enough for Medicine. Richie had rung his mum with the news, who had cried, said she was proud of him, and then he had walked around with his results to Nick. His friend’s parents had both left their jobs to come home and celebrate with their son. Mr Cercic had poured his son and Richie a whisky, shouting out repeatedly that Nick was the first Cercic to get to university. But Nick was morose, disappointed with himself.

On the morning of the Big Day Out he was so excited that he got out of bed before the alarm. He spent an hour deciding what to wear, putting on and taking off every single item of clothing he owned. He decided against a button-up shirt because all of his looked too daggy. But every single one of his T-shirts seemed wrong. Finally, he asked his mother for her old Pink Floyd top. It was ripped at the left shoulder, long-sleeved, a little tight around his chest—maybe the swimming was finally paying off—and the cartoonish logo of an elongated screaming man was faded to a ghostly impression; but he liked the look of it on him, and it was cool without being too cool. Richie protested when his mother entered the bathroom and pushed two twenty-dollar notes into his back pocket.

They were leaving. A workmate of Gary’s had started a job on a project at Hepburn Springs, the renovation of the spa complex, and had managed to score some work for Gary as well. They had rented a house in Daylesford for a year, Rosie explained, her excitable chatter so similar to Hugo’s, and she was looking forward to leaving the city, to starting Hugo in a country school, to Gary doing more painting. As she was talking, Gary walked into the kitchen. He lit a cigarette, sat down, nodding at Richie but saying nothing. Hugo was sitting on the boy’s lap, occasionally interrupting his mother’s monologue. Richie listened but he had to struggle to concentrate on the meaning of Rosie’s words. There was a buzzing in his head. He kept glancing up to the film poster on their kitchen wall. The man in the poster looked like a better-looking Gary and the woman like a less-beautiful Rosie. He was conscious of the unsmiling man sitting across from him. He couldn’t meet Gary’s eyes. He felt scrutinised, spotlit. He quickly gulped down his tea. ‘I have to go.’

It was one of the best days of his life. Ali had scored the speed from his brother, Musta, and for the first time in his life, Richie shot up drugs. Ali had the syringes prepared in his pockets and he took Connie and Richie into the bathroom. Connie’s aunt Tasha was making them lunch in the kitchen. Richie panicked, wondered if he was going to die as Ali wiped his forearm with a swab of alcohol, ordered him to flex his muscle, tapped the thick blue vein rising on Richie’s arm. Richie held his breath as the needle slipped under his skin and watched as a slithering scarlet thread of his blood entered the chamber. Then the drug flowed through the needle and into his vein. ‘Let go,’ Ali hissed, and Richie released his wet grip on the belt around his forearm. He was sweating, the world buzzed. Then, his hair seemed to be tingling, an electric current was flowing through his whole body, and he was thrust into a new world: light seemed to dance all around him, brighter than he had ever known, sound rushed through him, he could feel sound. His body was singing, his mind alert, his heart racing, his mood joyous, ecstatic. He watched as Ali carefully, lovingly, shot the magic into Connie’s vein, and when he was finished the three of them looked at each other in stoned wonder. They broke out into such delirious laughter that Tasha knocked on the door. Ali quickly pocketed the syringes, the swabs. Still laughing, they fell around Tasha. She looked at each of them, shook her head resignedly and herded them into the kitchen.

This is what Richie remembers of that day: meeting up with Jenna and Lenin at the bus stop on Victoria Street, the boy wearing a black T-shirt with the Australian flag across his chest except that the Union Jack had been replaced by the Aboriginal flag, Jenna in a baby-doll dress and Goth make-up; Jenna dealing out the pills at the back of the bus, Richie watching the placid face of a veiled Ethiopian woman sitting in front of him as he slipped thirty dollars to Jenna in exchange for the ecstasy; the incessant laughter and talk talk talk on the bus; the crowds of youth walking to the gates of Princes Park, music thumping all around them, the sun bright and burning in the sky; a German Shepherd dog, held tight on its leash by a young blond stud of a cop, the dog’s eyes seeming to follow Richie, making the boy panic, making him raise a sweat, until Richie saw that the dog had turned to look at other humans and that he was forgotten; handing his pass over to a young Indian-looking guy at the turnstile who had dyed his hair albino-white; wandering around the park, peeking into the Boiler Room, listening to music, watching the crowd; Connie holding his hand; rushing to see Lily Allen, he and Connie and Jenna shouting out the words to ‘LND’; Ali sneaking them vodka and cola in a Pepsi bottle, the five of them sitting in a circle, laughing, drinking, smoking; pushing through the thick crowd to get to the front of the Peaches gig, going demented at the end, all in one voice, everyone jumping in one body, chanting the chorus to Fuck the pain away; taking the pill straight after, swarming through to the bright daylight outside the tent, sucking on it like a lolly, scabbing a mouthful of water from Jenna’s bottle to wash it down, sitting on the grass, listening to My Chemical Romance; Ali and Lenin and Connie in the cage, waiting to enter the mosh pit, he and Jenna sharing a cigarette; trying to get in to see The Killers but the cage is full, the light screaming red; he and Connie wandering to the edge of the crowd, lying on their backs on the lawn, holding hands, the first chords of ‘When You Were Young’ seeming to rip through into his body as he and Connie belt out the words; the first wave of the drug kicking in, starting to shiver, freezing, thinking he might be sick but then concentrating on the blue sky above, the music all around him but seeming to be coming from so far away, the cold and the fear deserting him and he suddenly submitting to the warm, lush seduction of the chemical; his arms around Lenin and Ali, the boys walking off to see The Streets, the girls going to Hot Chip, trying to walk normally, without stumbling, knowing that everyone could tell he was on drugs, grateful for Lenin’s firm arm around him; standing at the entrance of the Boiler Room, listening to the band, the hard beats of the music entering his body through the soles of his feet, suddenly drunk on the beats, rushing to the front of the stage, Lenin right behind him, pushing past bodies, the crowd parting for them, everyone all smiles, no anger, no hate, all smiles, and then they were there, right in front, the music exploding around them, he and Lenin in a new world, dancing, jumping, thrashing; closing his eyes as The Streets break out into ‘Blinded By the Lights’, hearing Lenin’s voice, distinct, clear, rising above the song, above the crowd, above the music, Lights are blinding my eyes, people pushing by, they’re walking off into the night, and as the rap reached its climax the crowd, as one, dropping to its haunches, and then the tent is drenched in light, the beats break into a ferocious, frenzied crescendo and him leaping up into the air, weightless, beyond gravity, beyond his body, it is his soul dancing, at one with his body, lights are blinding my eyes, people pushing by, they’re walking off into the night, and Lenin dancing there with him, their arms around each other, the boy has taken off his shirt and his pale chest, studded with thick black curls is wet, shiny, how had he never seen how sexy his friend was; Ali finding them and the three boys now a circle, their hands punching the air, going spastic to the music and when it finally stops they stand cheering, Richie thinking he will lose his voice, and then they are walking, shivering, back out into the park, Ali screaming in his ear, What did you think of that, and him screaming back, That was fucking amazing, Lenin laughing, uncontrollable, delighted laughing; night falling, watching the stars, seeing half of Tool, not enjoying it, the drug beginning its slow reversal; going with Connie into the mosh pit to see Muse, his arms outstretched, bringing the night into himself, the stars, the moon, the boys and the girls, the music and the band, all of it through him and with him and about him; dancing to the close of the night, dancing to anything, not caring, just wanting the movement to never stop, dancing with Connie, their eyes never leaving each other, feeling her body next to his, leaning over to kiss her, her kissing him back, then apart again, dancing, Ali there, Lenin there, Jenna, but what is most important is that kiss, a kiss that feels like an apology and also like forgiveness; and then the night is over.

They ended up back at Ali’s house, sore from the dancing and the long walk to Royal Park station. His parents had a bungalow at the back, where Ali lived. It had its own kitchenette and shower. Mrs Faisal was up, waiting for them. She had prepared them a meal of roasted vegetables, a whole chicken floating in a rich almond sauce, a spicy potato salad. Richie had not thought of food all night, but as soon as he sat at the table he began to attack the food voraciously. Mrs Faisal watched him eat, laughed, and said something in Arabic to her son.