The Pyramid of Needs

by Ernest Price

Genres: Satire

Synopsis

Darkly funny family drama about transphobia, political identity and family dynamics. Perfect for fans of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and The Dinner by Herman Koch.Cover Blurb:
Linda Taylor is livestreaming her glamourous life as an alternative health guru when she trips over in front of her followers ­‑ and can't get up. When Linda's children, Jack and Alice, find out she's broken her hip and can't care for their ailing father or pay her bills, they decide to help. There's just one problem: Jack hasn't spoken to Linda since he came out as a trans man over a decade ago.

As the family gets together in Noosa and thunder clouds gather overhead, will family ties be enough to disentangle years of hurt, prejudice and pyramid-scheme brainwashing? Or will Jack have to cancel his mother for good?

The Pyramid of Needs is a dark, wry and deeply illuminating examination of family dynamics in a world full of division and misinformation.

Release date: March 26, 2024

Publisher: Affirm Press

Print pages: 288

Sample

ONE

Linda Taylor was not the kind of seventy-year-old who had catastrophic falls, a weak core or an unbalanced diet. These supposedly inevitable horrors were not for her, because she was the kind of seventy-year-old who completed weekly Advanced Pilates classes without breaking a sweat; who replaced every second meal with Supreme Self supplements; who was routinely mistaken for a 65-year-old.

And yet here Linda Taylor was, facedown on the concrete path in her backyard, unable to get up. She knew this because she had tried, twice. Both times she managed little more than a half-hearted attempt at a push-up before collapsing, a victim of the pain. She could feel the cool evening breeze catching on the raw skin of her elbows. There was grass in her hair and dirt on her face. This was the indignity of a fall.

The kookaburra on her back fence called out a loud warning, sending two faint-hearted rosellas scrambling. The rain wasn’t far off. If she couldn’t figure out how to get herself some help soon, the indignities would only continue.

She had been so keen to showcase the Noosa lifestyle for her clients – the autumn evenings never failed to put on a show. The subtropical clouds created a pink and purple sky better than anything that a Supreme Self graphic designer could dream up. The eucalypt in the Taylor backyard was the perfect perching place for a host of birds, their majestic silhouettes compensating for their infernal birdsong.

Her backyard sold more Supreme Self products than any other sales strategy. You could talk about financial freedom and the lifestyle it afforded all you wanted, but people needed to see what that meant in real terms. When you lived small, like the harried women on Linda’s client list, you could barely register what money could buy you. She needed her future downline to see their true potential, the full scope of what their lives could be if they learned how to dream.

She had started the day’s livestream at the outdoor setting, with a glass of white wine and a tastefully arranged plate of cheese and crackers. While making small talk with the most eager of her team, she cycled through a short slideshow, exactly as the Supreme Self Build Your Own Brand training suggested.

The first step to success was bringing the viewers into her life. She opened with a picture from two Christmases ago, of Peter and her feasting on a seafood platter at the local surf club: voluptuous prawns offset by brilliant orange mango flesh, an open bottle of bubbles in a sweating ice bucket.

Next were some shots of the grandkids that Alice had sent through, reluctantly, belatedly. Their smiles were cherubic, if grubby. There were babycinos, gym classes and abandoned artworks. It was a more eclectic collection than Linda would have liked, lacking a clear narrative structure, but it was what she had to work with.

After the family shots she moved outwards: holiday snaps from locations around the world. She curated the seasonal balance of the images. There were secluded beaches and jet skis for the go-getters, and fireplaces and bookcases for the sedentary types.

No one needed to know that the images were mostly stock fodder, or repurposed from some unknowing Facebook friends. It was over ten years since Linda and Peter had last been overseas, and she didn’t want to share images from the days when he was at his heaviest, carrying the weight of ill-discipline in his stomach. Despite her explicit art direction, he always insisted on lumbering into the frame, rendering most of the pictures from their trips unfit for public consumption.

The Supreme Self trainers had alleviated her concerns. They said that once the viewers were connected to their upline’s family values, all they needed was a canvas on which to paint their vision of their future. It was easier for potential clients to see themselves projected right onto that beautiful background if you took the people out of the images. It was the start of the dream. People wanted more for themselves; they always did. More excitement, more experiences, more freedom. They just had to be shown how to manifest it for themselves.

After the slideshow was a short business presentation. The Supreme Self guidelines were clear: less is more. This was a session for those considering joining Linda’s downline. It was pitched at people who had been clients for at least six months. They already knew the benefits of the products themselves, and had a sense of how Linda’s lifestyle was almost solely attributable to her Supreme Self business.

She used the prepared talking points, but she liked to add her own emphasis. She started with the basic facts about financial freedom, working from home, high-quality supplement products. After that she always liked to spend time talking about how the model was especially important for mothers like her, who wished they had more time to spend with their kids. She found that connected particularly well with the 35-plus demographic, who were relatively late to motherhood. They seemed riddled with anxiety, in Linda’s estimation, and liable to make big investments if they thought it would make them better parents. Their anxieties typically peaked on Wednesday nights, as they stared down the barrel of an unending work week, their children already sickly and exhausted after three days at childcare. It was the perfect time to strike.

The questions were always the same. There were queries about the science behind supplements, often posed by uptight women who looked like they worked for government services. These women loved to relay stories that they heard on podcasts produced by the nation’s public broadcaster. Linda learned to patiently counter their talking points, and offer them a list of alternative podcasts, which were better aligned with Supreme Self’s vision.

Following that, someone would ask about the financial structures of the business, inquiries that Linda suspected were provided by husbands seated just off screen. These were the passive-income sceptics, who seemed to think it was somehow impossible or unethical to make money while you slept. Linda had graphs and charts to take care of them.

The best questions were always the ones about her personal life. What it was like to be financially free, what it was like to have more time with your family, what it was like to make your way up the Supreme Self hierarchy. When the conversation took this direction, Linda knew the message was landing.

It was an easy transition from the question-and-answer session to the tour of the backyard and the local wildlife. This was a crucial part of the livestream. A stylish home was a sign that Supreme Self wasn’t just about holidays once or twice a year. It was about building an enviable lifestyle that was yours every single day of the year. A sign that, no matter your age, you could live the vibrant, fulsome life that always seemed so out of reach.

Today she had timed things perfectly, capturing the moment that the sun bounced off the windows of the street’s most spectacular mansions. She managed the camera angles too, despite the limitations of her ageing laptop. Showing off the neighbourhoor was important; she was well aware that while the Taylor home was big enough, and in an idyllic location, it wasn’t their forever home. Once they made it to the next level, they could relocate into an iteration of the more modern places that their friends called home – huge glass windows juxtaposed with impeccably stained cladding. One of the clients unmuted their microphone just to gasp when they set eyes on the newly built masterpiece to the Taylors’ left. It was award-winning, profiled on the front page of the local paper. Linda was planning to use the same firm for their new house. It would be the ideal setting for the next evolution of Supreme Self livestreams.

But then, the fall.

As she emerged from the surreal slow motion of her tumble, Linda’s first thought had been to assess the damage to her laptop. She had managed to cushion it from impact as she hit the path, but this complicated manoeuvre ended the meeting abruptly. She used the last of her energy, the last of her mobility, to push the computer back onto the grass, where she judged it safe, at least until the rain.

She dearly hoped that the afternoon’s work wasn’t all lost. There had been a few viewers from India, very active in the livestream chat, whom Linda had been trying to convert for months. The window for closing the deal was always small. If this fall put her out of action for a few days – well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

Still unable to stand up, and avoiding speculations about the increasingly insistent pain in her hip, she considered how she had ended up in this position. She turned her head left and right, finally settling on the culprit: Peter’s rake. It sat abandoned in the middle of the path next to a small pile of leaves, also abandoned.

The worst part was that she knew she should have cleared the path herself. She’d been so absorbed in perfecting her pitch that she somehow convinced herself that Peter could be trusted to complete his one chore without supervision. He had been following her all morning, barely a metre behind, waiting to be assigned a task.

There was a time when he would have organised the whole set-up for her, after preparing their Supreme Smoothies and hosing down the backyard for the presentation. In those days he was the organisational force behind their business. She would have been at the gym, or meeting with clients. She was the big picture and the face of the business; he was the detail. He took care of the boring stuff, the budgets and the inventory, the mailouts. They’d been clear about the division of labour from day one. He had played to her strengths.

Lately, she had been forced to pick up Peter’s slack. She was both the face and the detail these days. The house was a little dirtier, and bills were slow to be paid, but she was getting everything done.

He was the one having the most trouble adjusting to the new order. He still thought he was the same man, but these days he was more likely to break glasses than clean them. He scratched the right side of the car after taking himself to the shops in search of milk that they didn’t need. Today, clearing the leaves was the only job she could think to assign him that wouldn’t result in either damage to the property or an hour’s worth of work added to her day. More fool her.

Linda raised her head; Peter was trying to open the back door. It took a moment to register: he would have been watching her livestream from his desk and then come to ‘assist’, at a snail’s pace. Thank god. She had wondered if she was going to have to yell for help, like some blue-rinsed ninety-year-old trying to summon the postie’s attention after lying on the kitchen floor for three days.

She lowered her head again, realising that her excitement was premature. Even though Peter conquered the door, he struggled to walk with the appropriate haste for the aftermath of an accident. Linda wondered how it was her and not Peter who was lying prone. He appeared ancient from a distance, much like his father looked right before he passed. His gait was that of an old man. Gone were the strength and height that once made her feel safe; all that remained was the fat that had always repulsed her. When you added his stomach to his bald head and Coke bottle glasses, he resembled one of the villains on those awful crime shows.

If he was going to shrink, why couldn’t he have started with his oversized gut? He had never been thin. In fact, his weight was one of the reasons she’d struggled to form an attraction to him initially. In those early days she’d put her energy into visualising Peter’s wealth creation while they were having sex, determined to make the best of the situation. She could have been thinking of another man – she wasn’t cheating, she was merely focusing on Peter’s best attributes.

They were capable of building something great together – an asset base that neither of them could have conceived of before meeting. And besides, what he lacked in body and skill Peter made up for in effort. After some vigorous opposition – citing an affront to his ‘manhood’ – he had been a surprise star participant in the tantric sex workshop they attended in Bali. They made good use of those learnings when they returned home.

Linda had tried everything to get Peter to lose weight over the years. His body was not good for the brand. He ballooned after he quit smoking; she’d never been able to decide if the weight gain was worth the clearer lungs. The nicotine cravings only sharpened his temper, a side effect that seemed to linger thirty years later.

The old-faithful cabbage soup diet helped him shed some kilos every six months, but the weight went right back on each time. He was such a terrible advertisement for the Supreme Self supplements that she was forced to ask him to stop wearing promotional shirts – that walking billboard was never going to be of any use. She was always trying to crack the retiree market for Supreme Self, hanging around the surf club’s cafe morning and night, but Peter’s grotesque appearance undermined any small gain that she made. Lately he couldn’t even make up for his appearance with small talk. Soon after she’d stopped him wearing the shirt, she had started to leave him at home when she went to the beach.

Now, from her position on the ground, she could see him coming. He eventually arrived at her side, out of breath and without any words. Linda scanned his face, wondering about his response to this unfolding crisis. His brow was certainly creased, his mouth turned downward. It was frustration at best, anger at worst. He seemed to relax a little when she offered him a smile. She may have intervened early enough.

She raised her hands, hoping that he would take the cue and help her to her feet. If she could get inside the house, she could call their neighbours and have one of them take her to the hospital. Peter would want to drive, but she didn’t have the patience.

Perhaps the Johnsons would be home. The Taylors’ neighbours were cheerful types, and probably would have wanted to help if they could. Tony Johnson still lifted weights; Linda saw him most mornings at the gym. He winked at her, every time. He always had a nice comment about her gym wear, or her stamina on the treadmill. She wondered what it would be like to be lifted to safety by Tony.

A few more awkwardly mimed lifting motions and Peter seemed to follow her train of thought. They had developed a sign language of sorts, as he retreated further into himself. She had read about couples who went so far as to learn Auslan, in case one of them lost their speech. She wondered if Peter would be capable, if there was a course she could find online. Even if he were able, he would never admit he needed it. Maybe she could tell him it was part of the business, a new market for the hearing supplements she’d seen in the latest Supreme Self e-bulletin.

Peter bent down slowly, reaching for her middle. She felt a rising panic as it became clear that his plan was to simply throw her over his shoulder, like one of the 44-gallon drums he used to haul forty years ago. Predictably, he knocked both her skinless right elbow and her hip before he could even get a firm grip. She squealed, sending the last of the birds scattering and causing Peter to recoil, clenching his fists.

She lowered her forehead to the ground, taking a moment to catch her breath. She might have to resort to a plaintive cry for help after all.

Linda raised her head again. Peter replaced his frown with a familiar expression, one he adopted when he tried to fit all of their shopping in the car boot. She wondered what strategy he was considering for getting her to her feet, and if he had the capacity for strategic thought at all.

She sighed. Her hopes of being able to organise a lift with the Johnsons were fading. Peter was frozen, all out of ideas.

There would have to be an ambulance. She had no idea how much they cost, but it surely wouldn’t be cheap. Their doctor had suggested an ambulance membership, but Linda had convinced Peter that it wasn’t worth the money. Cost aside, someone would likely spot an ambulance coming – they didn’t use a siren for falls, did they? That Beckett woman down the street was always staring out her window, waiting to broadcast the most mundane happenings on the Noosa Neighbourhood Facebook page. That was the last thing Linda needed. There were members of that group that she was halfway to recruiting.

The ever-present kookaburra let out another warning cry, this time from the safety of the palm tree just over their fence. It was a hideous tree. The owners of the Airbnb property put it in fully grown before they did their marketing photo shoot. It seemed to have the desired effect: the place had been full of twenty-somethings partying every weekend since. She wondered if the owners could be convinced to add to their portfolio of online businesses.

The pain in her hip flared again. She knew she had to bite the bullet.

‘Go inside and call the ambulance, Peter.’

He fumbled in his pocket, feet unmoving. The phone had been on him the whole time, of course. He stared at it, having forgotten his passcode again. She suppressed a scream and extended her arm. He handed over the phone immediately.

‘Ambulance, please.’

Linda dealt with the formalities of the call, then dispatched Peter to pack her a bag for the trip to the hospital.

‘Toiletries, underwear, Supreme Self supplements. Toiletries, underwear, Supreme Self supplements.’ Linda had him repeat the list back, his shaky voice growing with confidence each time. She watched him make his way back towards the house, repeating the list softly to himself. He barely registered a speed above a waddle. His mouth was still moving, affording her some hope for her luggage.

As she waited, she considered how she would appear to the paramedics. Her mother had been the ultimate pessimist, telling Linda to wear clean underwear in case of an accident. Linda put her own spin on this dark mantra. She always wore the latest style panties, in the most vivid colours. She had even sold lingerie for a few years, throwing parties for friends and colleagues. They were a great success, mostly because she went the extra step and modelled each of the looks herself.

She prided herself on her physique. Her doctor insisted that she was too thin, as if there was such a thing. She laughed at him, tickled at the thought that she managed to keep her weight down, but he stared back at her, stony-faced. No matter how many times she told him about the nutritional profile of a diet supplemented by the full Supreme Self range, he always returned to a monologue about home cooking.

She still visited the gym, on top of Pilates. Tony Johnson didn’t seem to think she was too thin – if anything she was probably a nice antidote to his wife, Angela. People were always shocked to hear Linda’s age, given the muscle tone in her arms and legs. It wasn’t all going exactly to plan, though. Despite her twice-daily Supreme Self skincare routine, her arms and legs were becoming papery to the touch. Her neck worried her too, accumulating rings. It was always the neck that betrayed you, at least according to the cosmetic surgeon who did the work on her face back in 1999. At the time she had thought he was just trying to upsell her. Hindsight was always so clear. She should have been more trusting.

At the very least her hair was freshly done, not a grey in sight. The light brown she had chosen last week was a new, softer blend, one the colourist assured her would spa. . .