Animal People (22 page)

He had to get a grip.

He took command of himself, marching to the fridge. But somehow, in a single smooth movement Richard got there first, reaching in and taking a beer from the six-pack—Stephen's six-pack—all the while keeping his gaze on Stephen. Richard flipped the fridge door; it closed with a soft sucking sound. He levered off the cap with an opener and put the Heineken bottle to his mouth, fondling the cap in his other hand. Stephen dangled his empty bottle. He could not be sure that Richard wasn't smiling as he drank.

Richard swallowed, still watching him. Then he said, with exaggerated politeness, ‘Would you like a
drink
, mate? Let me get you one.' And he reached inside the fridge again, took out one of Stephen's beers, and handed it to him in his great footballer's mitt. Stephen had to pull slightly to take the bottle from Richard's grasp.

‘You alright, mate? You look a bit stressed.' Richard flicked his eyes over Stephen's sweaty clothes. Once more Stephen had the feeling Richard knew things about him.

But who cared, he chided himself. Who cared what this fucking Neanderthal thought of him? Richard was an oaf. Words like this were comforting:
boor
.
Lout
. But today they were not enough, faced as he was now with the expensive suit, the knowing, malevolent smile. The fancy watch around the thick, tanned, hairless wrist. The
size
of the man. Even the features of Richard's face were aggressive: slightly bulging, almost lashless eyes, the way the flesh of his face pressed outwards against the skin. The nose, broken in some long ago enactment of violence—rugby, or a college punch-up—healed, but left crooked as a reminder of what he might be capable of. His dark furze of hair, soldier-short to show the severe, perfectly symmetrical arches of his widow's peak. When he was silent his chin jutted, his lips pressed firmly shut. Richard had learned the power of keeping silent, while his cold, surveying eyes took everything in. Stephen hated his guts.

‘I'm fine thanks,' he said, prising the lid off the beer and walking away, swallowing a long cold draught of the drink. For these remaining hours, he knew now, only beer would save him. He went over to Maureen, and asked her how old her kid was. She answered, and then began to speak about her husband, but Stephen did not listen. He watched Richard taking possession of the room.

Richard and Belinda began chatting about the all-ordinaries, and then about something Stephen couldn't hear. Belinda laughed out loud and then stifled it. She glanced at Stephen and then back to Richard, who was grinning nastily.

Stephen wished he had never bought the fucking Aldi trousers.

Belinda whispered something else to Richard. They were no longer smirking. Richard stood up again, shaking his head slowly in a disgusted way. Stephen turned away from watching them—he was being paranoid, he knew. Those two always made him feel like this.

He drained his beer and looked around the room.

Maureen had drifted away, and Pat now had her bailed up in the corner. She sipped her tea and nodded in weary silence under the barrage of his voice. He was sick of all the people coming to this country who thought Australia owed them a living. Did she know what he meant? Now and then Maureen sent a fretful glance through the window.

The paramedic fairy had the children arranging themselves on the purple blanket for pass-the-parcel. She had a battered black ghetto blaster next to her on the grass, its handle wound with pink tinsel. The little boy Joshua, the crumpled wizard's hat slipping sideways and its shiny green elastic tight at his pale throat, sat neatly on his knees at the edge of the group of the girls. Ella's crisp, arch voice soared over all. She pointed, flung orders. ‘You sit there, Jessica. Sophie: next to me. Joshua—
move
!' She shoved him. Her cheeks were highly coloured, her lips wet. But the other children seemed to accept her reign without question. It was Ella's house, and Ella's birthday. Joshua, whose large, watchful eyes appeared permanently on the verge of tears, scrambled as he was bid; they all did. The little girls, apart from Ella and Larry, were virtually indistinguishable: all were head to toe in pink or purple, their soft hair fuzzing in the humidity, ribbons and hairclips slipping, sweaty tendrils plastering to their cheeks. They bickered and jostled, clambered about the blanket as directed. They were named Sage and Paris and Sophie and Emily and Taylor. Ella was the ruling force. They shouted commands, repeating her directives, pushed each other out of the way to obey them. If any child dissented she was rounded on by the others.

Stephen was horrified by Ella's tyranny, their obedience. Even Larry, who normally greeted Ella's orders with a sneer or silence, leapt to attention or fetched whatever Ella ordered. But Larry looked strange, too—both the girls did, with their too-bright eyes and red cheeks; their high, artificial laughter was weird in the air. They seemed to Stephen—he felt a stab—like someone else's children.

The fairy squatted by the CD player, and barked at them to get into a circle. ‘Orright,
go
.'

The parcel crept from child to child, as if pushed through water. All eyes hungrily followed the parcel. Once a girl wrenched it from another's grasp into her lap, it moved glacially until it was torn from her grip. The fairy stood sweating above them, hands on her hips. She punched the ghetto blaster's buttons on and off with a fat big toe.

The adults all gathered at the doorway now to watch. Each time the music stopped, a present fell from the wrapping and the child scrabbled to catch it. Pat snorted. ‘Every bloody time, they get something these days. These kids'll never learn what the real world is like till it hits 'em between the eyes.'

Nobody responded except polite Maureen, who began to signal a mild disagreement by tilting her head, then gave up and nodded in assent.

‘So what's your husband do?' Pat demanded. It would not occur to him to ask about a woman's work.

Fiona appeared at his side. ‘Dad, could you help me get the seats organised for musical chairs?'

Pat looked suspicious, and nodded at Stephen. ‘What about him, or is he too useless to pick up his own dick?' He had not been fooled. ‘Whatsamatter with asking about 'er husband?'

Fiona smiled apologetically at Maureen and said, ‘Eric's sick, Dad, so he's not working at the moment.'

Pat was filled with new enthusiasm. He turned back to Maureen. ‘What, has he got cancer!'

Maureen nodded, blinking fast as her eyes filled. ‘Dad,' begged Fiona. At the mention of cancer Chris turned too, met Fiona's eye and then sent a look of sympathy Maureen's way.

‘What stage?' said Pat. There was no way he was budging now.

A wail rose from the circle outside, and Fiona hurried towards the door. As she passed Stephen she glanced at his empty beer bottle. ‘Can you do something to help?'

He was stung. ‘Like what?'

‘Like, anything! Save Maureen, for a start.' She shoved past him, out towards the wailing.

He looked across the room. If she was going to keep talking to Pat the woman would need a drink. He pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge door.

‘Sixteen years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer,' Pat was announcing. ‘I woke up out of me operation and I looked around at the other blokes and I thought, these people are my enemies.'

‘Maureen?' Stephen urged her with his eyes to say yes to the bottle he held over a fresh glass, to come across the room to him and escape. But she shook her head, immobilised.

Stephen tried to interrupt Pat, gesturing with a beer bottle and the wine. ‘Refill? Pat?'

Pat ignored him, deep in memory. ‘I thought, I'm stuffed if that pansy crying over there's gunna beat me to the finish line.'

‘So Maureen,' Stephen tried. ‘Joshua's your little boy, is he?'

But Pat, whose voice did not falter, shifted a little to place himself between Maureen and Stephen, and went on. Stephen smiled helplessly at her; he had tried. All he could do was keep her company now. He filled the empty glass to the brim and took a big swig of the icy yellow wine.

‘I thought, eff-you mate, excuse the French, darling.' Pat cleared his throat with the liquid snort again. ‘I thought, you weak bastard. I thought, good! You go ahead, take the easy road out and die. Gives me more chance.'

Maureen reared back at this, eyes blinking fast. Stephen took another deep swallow of the cold wine. Why was it that when you most wanted to get drunk you remained most offensively sober? Through the open window came the sound of a helicopter. Stephen and Maureen turned to watch it, following the aircraft's effortless glide through the skies, away across the city.

‘He's gotta stand up and
fight
it, darling, is what I'm saying.'

Outside the pass-the-parcel had disintegrated, the children had scattered and were coming back inside. Fiona bent over Ella, gripping her wrist, as they walked.

‘But
I'm
the birthday girl!' she howled.

Behind them a girl called Amy squatted in her fairy skirt over the pass-the-parcel prize, a cheap imitation Barbie doll in a cellophane bag. Amy studied Fiona and Ella, the doll wedged firmly between her thighs in case Fiona might be unjustly swayed and come to claim it back.

Fiona steered Ella by the shoulders into the kitchen, calling over her noise, ‘Listen, El, shush, in a minute we'll have the cake!'

Ella screamed as if stabbed: ‘I don't
want
any
cake!'
The adults stopped talking and turned toward her. Fiona smiled ruefully at them and then turned back to speak to Ella in low, calming tones. But she was beginning to grow frantic, holding tight to her daughter's wrist, trying to protect her from the shame of her own bad behaviour. Now and then over Ella's head Fiona called to the little girl still crouched outside, ‘It's okay, darling, it's your prize, nobody's going to take it,' only to raise another round of shrieks from Ella.

Stephen watched, pained. This panting, bellowing creature was not his girl, not thoughtful, telephone-snuffling Ella. Her face was stained red from some lolly, her hair was damp and matted and the fairy skirt wrenched sideways. She snarled into her mother's face, alive with hatred, but also, Stephen saw, with fear. She was on a precipice; she needed rescuing.

Three girls stood by, captivated. One of them said ostentatiously, 'You can have my prize, Ella', and held out a plastic bangle. Ella lunged and screamed, flinging the bangle to the floor so it bounced and wheeled away.

‘Ella!' shouted Fiona. The three girls began to smile slyly at each other, thrilled by this unravelling.

Fiona steered Ella, still howling, into the living room. The girls followed, riveted.

Stephen turned back to Pat and Maureen, the bottle still in his hand. Pat, who had not paused in his lecture but only raised his voice to compete with Ella's bellows, held out an empty glass to Stephen without looking at him. ‘Nobody owes your husband anything, is what I'm saying, love. He wants to cure himself, he's gotta work at it like everything else in life.'

‘For Christ's sake,' Stephen muttered, filling Pat's glass and then pouring the dregs of the bottle into his own.

‘What's your problem?' Pat growled.

Stephen shook his head and gulped wine. ‘Nothing.'

He was finally feeling something from the alcohol. At last. He felt his edges loosening. ‘You were saying. Please continue. No free lunches, was it?'

Maureen looked at Stephen anxiously.

‘What would you know about it?' sneered Pat. ‘I didn't give in to my disease. I fought it.'

‘You also had surgery and radiotherapy. So maybe medicine saved you,' Stephen said. He pulled at the neck of his t-shirt, trying to create a breeze. ‘Or maybe you were just lucky.'

Pat's lip curled. ‘This lady's husband is in deep shit, mate.
Deep
shit. I'm tryna help her keep him alive, you dickhead.'

‘Please,' said Maureen. She looked as if she might be sick, or sink to the floor. Stephen felt the alcohol spreading all along his clenched spine, his jaw; he felt the blessed, liberating release of it.

‘In that case, while you're at it, Pat, you better get Belinda on board,' he said. ‘You see, cancer only kills you if you don't eliminate the
toxins
, Maureen.' He honked a laugh.

Belinda was looking at him, along with Chris and Richard.

‘And,' Stephen said—sailing in the open now, how good it felt!—‘Belinda reckons only control freaks get it anyway. So your husband's getting what he deserves, see, but that can all be fixed if he pops along to one of Belinda's spas for a six-hundred-dollar frigging
coffee enema
.'

He turned to laugh in bitter sympathy with Maureen. But he saw then that she did not welcome his help. In fact she had begun to cry.

Pat took hold of Stephen's upper arm in a vicious grip, and hissed into his ear, ‘You're a
stupid
little turd.' He turned back to the softly weeping Maureen, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on darling, let's get you home.'