Hoi Polloi (24 page)

It’s half an hour before Genevieve says a word to me, and then it’s only to ask me to pass sandwiches around the room. “There’s a dear.” She does however ask me to do this with her fingers curling around over my wrist. She hasn’t as yet looked me in the eye. I pass the tray around then place it on a sideboard. I stand beside Winks who is trying to improve the radio reception by turning the antennae more west, north, west, south. I watch for Genevieve, wait for her to speak, to curl her fingers around my wrist again. Is she avoiding me, spending so much time at the other end of the lounge room?

“I’m thinking about heading home,” I say to Winks. “Can I have the house keys?”

The keys drop into my hands at the same moment Genevieve places her hand on the small of my back and rubs the hollow there, once, twice, up, down, up.

“You’re not going are you, sunshine? I was hoping you’d be a helper in the kitchen. Help me for a second?”

I nod that I’ll be pleased to help her.

I stand at the sink, arms folded as if about to be lectured.

“What would you like me to do?” Now it’s me who can’t look in eyes.

“I need to say something,” she whispers, tenderly scratching the hair on my arm. “I’m sorry if I bewildered you, or whatever the word is.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I whisper back, staring at the floor.

“Oh come on. Yes you do. We’re talking about last month. I was … I don’t know what I was doing. I led you on and that was very bad of me.” She lights a cigarette and empties the last of the gin bottle into her wine glass. She offers me a drag on her cigarette. I take it. A sip of her gin. I take it, wincing from the iodine fire.

She whispers some more, “I’ve been unable to get it out of my mind. And yet I wanted to get it out of my mind because I’m very flattered but … but …” She drags and sips. “Do you think I’m attractive?”

I lock my folded arms tighter and nod Yes.

“Everything with Mr Hush Hush is falling down around me but I’ve been distracted when I think of you. I don’t know whether I mean distracted or heartened or …” She drags and sips some more. We stand there, not looking at each other, but with her passing me the lipsticked end of her cigarette.

Out in the living room Winks calls out that the horses are going to the barrier. The radio is turned louder.

Kissing Genevieve isn’t how I thought it would be. For one, it isn’t taking place in the kitchen. It’s taking place in the laundry behind the kitchen with the white squares of washer and wall-dryer to squeeze past. I don’t even know who kissed who first. The door slid shut on its rollers and now she stands so close to me she’s under my chin. She holds my hands, her fingers pushing between my fingers so that they splay and she can grip and ungrip them deep into the webbing. She looks up and I look down at her, her eyes globed wide. They begin to water and shine. Her breath smells stale of cigarettes and many drinks, her body of soap perfumes. Her lipstick is cracked around her mouth and smeared on her front teeth. She suddenly stops gripping my webbing and flattens her palm against my back’s hollow, rubbing it low, down further and over my buttocks, down lower still, across my legs and up. Then she hugs me as if I’m about to leave and she’s trying to prevent me, or she’s in grief and needs to be held and comforted. She lifts her head so it nuzzles my throat. She whispers, “Please never let Brett know. Never tell.” I whisper back that I won’t tell anyone. I won’t tell at school.

She lifts her bra and I creep my fingers through the frill and soft wire to spongy skin, nipples like wrinkle-raisins. She flattens her hand against my back’s hollow and rubs up and down, lower, lower, over my bum and around the top of my thighs to the front where my cock’s stiff and hurting to push out of my jeans. She holds it through the material, squeezes and wiggles her fingers into the top of the jeans and onto its head and rim. I’m paralysed by the tingle and icy-burn of her doing it. She groans, butts my neck gently as if beginning to cry a small cry. She grips my hands again and pulls them down to be at my sides and keeps pulling as if she’s using me for balance or in pain and pulling on my hands will help. As she does this she parts her legs over my left leg and sits and pushes down on my knee and rocks on it as if riding. She cries again, a half-cry, not real crying but jerky breath-sobs.

She rests her head on my chest. She makes a fist and thumps it limply on my shoulder. Then she pulls away from me suddenly. She shimmies her clothing into place, tightens the laces of her top and surely now is crying for real.

She slides the laundry door open. She walks out, into the kitchen, head bowed. She’s coming back to me, isn’t she? I’m to wait here, she’s coming back?

She leans against the kitchen sink, silent, empties crackers onto a platter, chops squares of cheddar onto the platter, forcing the knife harder onto the board each time—even if I spoke she wouldn’t hear me over that. That’s the chopping of someone for whom something has happened that must never be referred to again.

Barracking blasts from the living room. A yeah-yeah shouting and cheering. Genevieve shakes her hair from her face and springs on her toes to serve her tray out there quick smart.

“Who won? Who won?” I hear her.

Winks shouts the shouting down. “Van Der Hum won it.

I was right. Didn’t I say he was a certainty!”

Heels congratulates him as the cleverest husband in Australia. When she gets home she’s going to fling those curtains open.

CRAIG SHERBORNE
’s books include
The Amateur Science of
Love
,
Bullion
and
Necessary Evil
. His memoir
Hoi Polloi
was shortlisted for two literary awards, and its sequel,
Muck
, won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. Sherborne’s journalism and poetry have appeared in most of Australia’s leading literary journals and anthologies.