Addition (23 page)
On the Saturday of the fourth week after I finished therapy, it’s freezing outside so I delay the walk home by reading the entire paper (allowed in extreme weather conditions). Why is Saturday’s paper so big? Who buys all these houses? Who reads all these columns? And who on earth cares about all these actors?
I’m flicking mindlessly through the employment pages when in the corner I see a small ad pressed between Executive Assistants and Customer Service Operators. Part-time data-entry operator, it says. Work from home. Set your own hours—telecommute! It’s the workforce of the future! Beat the traffic! Casual rates [no holiday pay, superannuation, sick leave, parental leave, compassionate leave or any other benefits whatsoever] apply.
In my hurry to rip the ad out I almost spill my chocolate. I could do this. I could work from home. I could plan a schedule and work, say, 8.30 to 10.00 a.m. Then walk to the coffee shop. Then I’d start again at 10.45. I could organise my day exactly as I want. I could work out a certain number of pages to enter each, say, half-hour block. I could count something…anything…keystrokes or sheets or whatever. I can do this. I pick up my jacket and pay Roberto. It’s time to dare the weather, go home and fabricate a CV.
In the weeks that follow, I spend a lot of time talking with Mother. She’s fully recovered with lots of new pot-plants to tend—get-well gifts from the congregation. I’ve told her the plan to help her stay in the house and it’s working already. I’ve briefed her on what to say to Jill if she mentions a nursing home. It’s our own little conspiracy. I let her get settled again first, but eventually I have to tell her.
‘Mum, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. It’s Seamus. I…we broke up.’
She inhales sharply, a sound I mistake for shock. ‘And who was Seamus again dear?’
‘He was my boyfriend. You remember. The Irish one? The one who wasn’t a comedian or a terrorist?’
The breath comes out again, an old-lady sigh. ‘Oh yes, of course. I remember now. Well, well, dear. Have you decided you prefer girls?’
This time the inhalation is mine, even sharper. ‘What?’ How does she even know about that? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t invented in her day.
‘I was just wondering if you broke up with that Irish boy because you’ve decided you prefer girls. It seems to be so popular nowadays. Perhaps that’s the reason you haven’t been very successful with men. After all, you’re so pretty and funny and bright.’
I think of whiskers that catch under my nail when I jag my finger along a jaw. The cleft at the base of a throat, underneath the Adam’s apple. Chest hair tinged with grey. The lines of muscle along a shoulder blade.
‘Thanks for asking, Mum, but I don’t think I prefer girls.’
‘You should be beating them off with a stick, dear. I wish your father could see you. He’d be very proud.’
For a minute, I do no breathing at all.
‘I wish Dad were here too.’
‘Well, I still want you to be careful.’
The conversation is back on track. Impending disaster. Good.
‘Careful of what, Mum?’
‘Remember what happened to that nice Anne Heche when she split up with Ellen DeGeneres? She had a breakdown and then wrote that book where she said she was sexually abused by her father and she was the daughter of God and the half-sister of Jesus and she spoke to little green men from outer space. And she made that movie where she had to kiss Harrison Ford and he was old enough to be her grandfather. It was very unsavoury. That kind of thing is enough to warp young minds.’
I consider my mother many things, but not a bigot.
‘What are you saying, Mum? That lesbians are crazy? That gay women can warp young minds?’
‘Oh no, dear. Kissing your grandfather can warp young minds.
Don’t tell anyone at the church this, but I think girls going out with girls is quite sensible. Imagine not having to do all the housework, and if you found a nice girl the same size you’d have double the wardrobe and you’d never have to shave your legs or clean whiskers out of the sink. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it. No, it’s fine, provided you stay that way. It’s the changing back to men that sends you mad.’
It’s times like this (speaking to my mother on the phone) that I really miss my two brains, even though they were incredibly rude after all the hospitality I’d shown them. They didn’t even say goodbye. I didn’t notice them packing—no matching capillary-pink plaid suitcases, no neurone-grey duffle bags. One morning I woke up and they were gone.
Another morning I wake up and have to work out a new cleaning regime, and a new morning regime and a new night-time regime. And a new dinner regime, with new food (a complex, revolving menu taken from the recipes in the newspaper) because I can’t stomach either chicken with vegetables or cheese on toast anymore. And I love my new café; they fill me with confidence. For a start, they don’t have orange cake every day—their cakes have more variety and are fresher. They even have real maple syrup for their pancakes, unlike the toxic waste they gave me at the last place that day I had breakfast with Seamus. The first morning we woke up together.
I’ve refined and improved lots of things: for instance, I’m now starting with the cake that’s in the top left-hand corner of the display case and moving one cake to the left every day. I like this much more—it’s a better fit to my usual habit of clockwise table rotation. And it’s the number of words the teenage waitress says when she greets me that determines the number of bites. ‘Good morning! How are you today? Which cake would you like?’ is 11, but it’s amazing the variations she comes up with, including, ‘I like your skirt’, ‘I’d better write this down ’cos I’m a bit hungover’ and ‘I’d give the eggs a miss today if I were you’. This is much more fun than poppy seeds because I have to pay enough attention to respond naturally while counting at the same time.
I’ve found a new supermarket, too: again, not much further but in a rival chain. I choose the busiest night, Sunday, to pace it out. It’s less conspicuous than counting steps in an empty store with the staff staring and deciding whether to call security, but you mustn’t be waylaid by errant children and men staring aimlessly at the shelves. All my essentials are there and there’s even a new size of zip lock bag. Extra small. Perfect for my new afternoon snack of 10 almonds.
The same week I tell Mother, I decide to level with Jill. Sunday night, 18 degrees. I’ve been carefully avoiding the topic of Seamus and my therapy. But I can’t put it off any longer and just when I thought nothing could take me unawares, Jill leaves me hanging on the phone, stunned.
‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’
‘You’re not surprised I stopped therapy?’
‘Of course not. It was never your kind of thing. We all have problems, you know Grace. Every one of us. Harry…Harry don’t play with your football inside, please, darling.’
I loathe the way parents think they are so bloody indispensable. They never give you their full attention in person, either. Always one eye, one ear and half a brain on the bloody kids. Once you’re a parent, you sign away part of your brain for ever.
‘And also…I’ve broken up with Seamus.’
‘Not surprised about that either.’
This is really too much. I was expecting shrieking, crying, and an insistence that I have ruined my life. ‘Why? What was wrong with him?’
‘Nothing. Look, Grace, I really liked him. I thought he was a catch. But he wasn’t right for you.’
‘Why on earth wasn’t he right for me?’
‘I don’t know exactly how to say this. He was a lovely man, but…you’ve always hated people like him. Average people with average jobs. Ordinary looks. Average house in an average suburb. I suppose he was tall but that was really his only distinguishing feature. Remember what you used to say about the ants? “Racing in lines across my balcony as the sun is rising only to race back the other way as it sets.” Grace? Are you still there?’
Still here.
‘I’m not saying I didn’t like him. I did. But he was average. That’s all.’
She can talk. She’s stuck in wedded purgatory with that Blackberry-wielding ferret. He’s got the sex appeal of a hard drive. Seamus was hot. Jill wouldn’t know hot if she backed into it naked in the shower.
I’ve twirled my fingers through the phone cord and it takes me 10 seconds to get them out. ‘Larry liked Seamus too, right?’
‘We all did. Actually Hilly’s been a bit upset lately. She’s worried about you, Grace. She said the therapy was turning you into a…I think she said “tosser”.’
‘Can I talk to her?’
‘Hilly! Your Auntie Grace is on the phone.’ There’s some muffling and pretty soon…
‘Hello?’ Her voice is small. Did she always sound this tentative?
‘Thanks for nothing.’ Larry in that house with her brother, sister and parents reminds me of a tiny gladiator surrounded by lions. It’s so good to hear her voice; it’s hard to even pretend to be cross.
‘What? What did I do?’ I imagine her mouth in a pout.
‘Your mother says you thought I was turning into a tosser.’
She’s thinking that all adults are the same and she always seems to be in trouble and life is not fair and when she grows up she will move to Mars and never speak to any of us again. ‘Great. Thanks a lot, Mum.’
‘So why didn’t you say something? We’re supposed to be friends.’
I can hear squeaking, and Jill in the background. ‘For heaven’s sake Hilly, lift that stool—don’t drag it. You’re leaving marks on the parquetry.’
‘I dunno…Dad said it was good. They were going to make you more normal.’
‘Normal shnormal. I dropped out.’
‘Oh.’
‘This is so typical of you. I remember when I got that perm and I thought it looked fantastic. Did you say anything? No. I looked hideous, I looked like a white chick pretending to be a black chick and did you tell me it looked awful? Did you tell me I’d look better bald? No. So thanks for nothing.’
She thinks hard. ‘What perm? When was this?’
‘1985 of course. When else would I have had a perm? I was trying to look like Madonna. In her perm period.’
‘Der. I wasn’t born then?’
‘Typical bloody excuse. You are supposed to be my friend. You are supposed to tell me these things. If I was Jennifer and I’d told you Brad was making this new film with Angelina, would you have said anything? Like perhaps, “That’s a really bad idea and before you let him go you should restrain him using all available means including tying his testicles to the bedhead”?’
She’s sniggering. ‘Of course I would.’
‘And if I was Lisa-Marie Presley and I’d told you I was going to marry Michael Jackson because I liked the shape of his nose, or rather, noses, and he’s just a sweet boy who loves children, I mean really loves children, and his dramatic change in appearance was undoubtedly a result of a genuine bona fide skin disease, would you have said anything?’
She stops sniggering. ‘Wait a minute. Are you saying Lisa-Marie Presley was married to Michael Jackson in the olden days?’
Cheek. ‘Don’t they teach you kids anything in school these days? Yes. Lisa-Marie was married to Michael. Before Nicolas Cage.’
‘Get out! Nicolas Cage was married to Michael Jackson? Really? Is that legal? That so explains
Ghost Rider.
’ I’m surprised Jill doesn’t sue. There was a mix-up at the hospital. There’s no way this clever, funny adorable child is related to Jill, Harry and Harry junior. She is, of course, related to me.
My body is back.
Weight gain is a common side effect of drugs, and usually considered a minor one. I would suggest that those who consider it minor have not experienced blowing up so big that, when you step on a talking scale it says, ‘One at a time, please.’ When there’s not just a thin person inside you trying to get out, but several of them. I’m not talking about vanity. I’m talking about your sense of self.
Consider the number of times you see your body. In the mirror and in windows as you walk. Your hands as you type or sort the washing; your legs from the corner of your eye. Showering. Dressing. Putting on your shoes, or rings or makeup. All these times, to be confronted by the sight of someone who is not you— not-your hands at the end of not-your arms—can fill you with a sense of dislocation each second of each minute of each day.
Once I stopped the medication the weight vanished like I had exfoliated it away with 100 brushes of my extra-scratchy loofah. Without layers of fat insulating me I can feel more, sense more. Now, instead of a small gasp each time I see myself, I feel nothing but a gentle sense of knowing. ‘Relax,’ it says, ‘That leg/arm/hand/ tummy is self, not a foreign invader. Stand down.’
To tell the truth, the weight didn’t vanish entirely of its own accord; I did help. I walk, thousands and thousands of paces. The first Sunday in August, 8 degrees despite winter being almost over, I walk all the way to Chapel Street and north to the river. Then I turn and walk back again. I count the paces in each block and the paces as I cross each street, but I don’t write them down. No need to record them. This is not my home. At 12.08 p.m., I see a tall blond man from behind, walking out of the Jam Factory with his arm around a woman’s shoulders. When I look closely his hair has not the right curl, his shoulders not the right shape. I think about Nikola until I feel better. Things didn’t turn out exactly as he expected either.
By September 1902, Wardenclyffe towered over Long Island at a staggering height of 180 feet. And this was only the building—the iron shell of a tower. There was still no transmitter on top. Nikola planned an enormous copper-plated ball that weighed 55 tonnes at the top of his tower to conduct radio waves and electricity right across the Atlantic. But he had one small difficulty: he had spent the last of Morgan’s money.
I walk down Chapel Street, past shoppers whose only dreams are owning more stuff. For Nikola it was never about money or possessions or status. He wrote, pleading, to Morgan who refused to advance another cent. He became depressed and despairing, and avoided his old friends. Nikola’s most important work had come to an end. My work is yet to begin.
