Lloyd Jones on his disappointment that brother Bob Jones accepted a knighthood

In his new memoir, celebrated New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones remembers receiving a letter from his businessman brother saying he was about to become Sir Bob Jones.

I am nine years old when my older brother brings a sheep home for me. A lamb with a tight curly fleece like the Steelo we used to scrape off the meat stains left on the roasting dish. At first the lamb lives in my bedroom. Sleeps on a filthy old blanket. Drinks milk out of a baby’s bottle – my own, I learn. But soon it is shitting where it shouldn’t. It is moved out to the shed, where it bleats and wails all night, every night. In quick time the lamb has grown into a sheep. I walk it to school on a leash. Mum says she has never seen anything so ridiculous in her life. But the sheep does not look ridiculous or appear to feel that way at all.

The sheep trots happily along at my side, it’s true; it isn’t much interested in anything, including the passing cars and astonished faces turned to look at us. My brother’s sports car parked in the street is like a bit of moon dust. A miracle. The neighbours stand round it and stare.

Although what they think is impossible to know.

My brother is not interested in cars. He knows where the petrol goes and that’s about it. But he knows allure. He knows allure like he knows trout flies.

At school, the sheep stands patiently in a shower of admiration and wonder. The teacher says the sheep cannot come inside the classroom. It will be too disruptive. The sheep is tied to the school flagpole. There it passes the school day, its forelegs spread, its hinds tucked under, head raised, its jaw grinding emptily away.

Like the sheep, my brother can also look bored, as though the reflected world is a bit off or a disappointment.

After Dad can no longer bear the racket at night, my brother comes round in his red sports car to collect the sheep. It has grown since he last saw it. Even he is surprised. The sheep sits in the back seat. I sit in the front with my brother. We drive with the roof down.

Years later when I watched the film Thelma & Louise, I remembered the sheep and my brother’s sports car. I hadn’t thought about the sheep for years. Something about the blonde hair and sunglasses – and the wind riffling the back of the sheep’s wool.

We continue along the old Hutt Road, searching for a new home for the sheep. Eventually we find a paddock with sheep in it. Long grass, farm fences, a windbreak of macrocarpa. We park. I get out to open the farm gate for my brother to back in the sports car. The sheep in the backseat looks across the paddock. It looks as we do, as though the paddock is a view belonging to others and of no interest to itself. My brother cracks open the back door, and the sheep bounces out, then stands in the gate as if at the start of a catwalk, chest out, eyes flared. Up the top end of the paddock the other sheep quickly bunch to look back along their flanks at an interloper.

***

My older brother is hardworking, clever, sometimes devious, often bold.

He has found a way through commercial property to escape our cave and its humble furnishings.

Now, years later, he writes to me in France where I am on a writer’s residency to say he’s been offered a knighthood. No one in our family has ever received such an honour. Officially, it is amazing news.

In his very recognisable cursive writing style, his letter lists the reasons why he will accept it – none of which I believe, such as ‘for the perks’ since he already has abundance, in abundance – but I agree ‘Mum will be pleased’. That is true and later borne out in the photograph taken of the ceremony at Government House that same year. She looks happy, but also unsurprised, emotionally constrained, shall we say. Dad is dead. She won’t have to worry about him scattering ash everywhere at Government House or the endless hitching of his trousers above his paunch or his rocking up to ‘important people’ with his vulgar eagerness.

But after I put down his letter, I am left feeling disappointed at my brother’s acceptance of a knighthood. It feels like a capitulation to the absurdity of honours and their bright tinsel, and the toy soldiery theatre of it all.

How is a knight supposed to be? Humble? My brother isn’t, except when he tries it on, then everyone can see it doesn’t really suit him.

What is he supposed to do with his smirk? Tuck it behind his ear where our father used to park his cigarette?

I accept it is fun to try on a different persona, for a while at least, to see how it goes.

At primary school, I was Tom Sawyer in the school play. My best mate played ‘Ben’, who begs Tom for a turn at painting Aunt Polly’s fence. My schoolmate was quite funny, but unintentionally. The moment he opened his mouth one of my sisters in the audience burst out laughing.

Anyway, he ended up in jail. So, there is no telling where a role will lead.

My brother used to give me his shirts to wear as hand-me-downs. Their armpits smelt of historic deodorant. Pulled a bit tight across the shoulders. Their colours didn’t work either. In those days he had dark hair. Plum colours he could get away with. In the same shirt I looked like a beetroot.

Once from Peru he brought back two Aztec shirts for me. I put them on. In the mirror I looked like a twelve-year-old wearing an Aztec shirt. I might as well have worn chain armour. The role possibilities of wearing an Aztec shirt were unclear to me.

At the age of thirteen, I shamelessly badger my mother for a pair of Levi jeans. I don’t want the local-made Keans. I will look like a cunt in Keans. Twice I wear the Keans into the world and both times I am disappointed. Also, the guy in the poster with the Levi’s wears a black t-shirt. It looks cool. Even though I hate the word cool and anyone who aspires to be cool. I still want the black t-shirt. But my mother comes home with an orange t-shirt. She says it is all they had left. To please her I put on the Keans and the orange t-shirt. It’s all downhill from there.

The Beaded Curtain by Lloyd Jones ($39.99, Massey University Press) is available to purchase from Unity Books. out now. RRP:$39.99.