Slights (2 page)

  I sat up, causing a ripple through the room. There was the waiter from the restaurant Mum and I had eaten in, his face full of acne. The food he had served me was still in my belly.

  "Acker Face," I said. Miaow. He wrinkled his nose, lifted his arms, pushed the sharpened tines of a fork into the meat of my thigh. I could feel the idea of pain but not pain itself. A thin clear liquid ran from the holes, like the cooked blood of a well done chicken.

  Behind him were more strangers; from the restaurant? Had they been there, seen my mother's last meal?

  I wanted to ask them about her face. Was she happy? Was this the best time of her life? Could things only get worse?

  It was lucky then that she died.

  Someone tied knots in my hair, tugged at it. The skinny hairdresser. "I paid you," I said. She pulled harder, ripping out clumps of my hair out by the roots and tossing them to the floor. She wasn't listening.

  None of them listened.

  Another kid from school, a shitty little bore, Ian, Ian Pope, was there and some young kid in cricket whites, "You're out," I said, and he swung his bat flat onto my nose.

  I heard a crunch and felt blood cover my chin.

  This was no sun-dappled heaven. These people did not love me. The driver of the other car – was he dead too? Did we all die? But there was no other car. A wall. A box which looked like a child. Another car. Opposite direction. Stopped to help. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I shouldn't be here. I should be at home.

  I shouldn't be here. This is not where I belong, stinking weakness waiting for something, pain. I moved my limbs, opened my mouth to scream, leave me, leave me. They seemed to exist for me.

  Somebody saved my life. Rescued me from the dark room.

  In hospital, the smell of jasmine saved me. The nurses brought it in when they realised it made me smile. I lay with jasmine under my nose, I sucked it in, because my nostrils were full of shit and mothballs and the woman in the next bed began to choke and moan. I sat up to comfort her, but I could not sit up. I could not move. Then I felt myself lift, my body turned over, and I looked at the two of us. She was writhing, dying, and there was nothing I could do. I realised then that I had died too, and I closed my eyes and waited to be taken to the cold room. It's time to go back, I thought. They're waiting.

  This second death, so soon after the first, surprised the nurses, I think. They did not expect me to go into arrest once I was in the safety of the hospital. Once they had brought me back from the dead at the scene of the crime. Scene of the accident.

  It surprised them in the dark room, too. But I was not there for long this time.

  Someone came along and saved me.

  "Stephanie? Stephanie? Are you with us?" The stink of shit and mothballs was gone. It was the hospital, antiseptic, starch, medicine and blood. I returned from the room and there were people surrounding me, but they were medicos doing their job, watching tensely for me not to die so they wouldn't be blamed.

  "Mum?" I said. I knew the answer. One of them sat by my bed and took my hand. There was kindness in the touch, and pity, but no respect.

  "Your mother died instantly. She didn't suffer," the nurse said. I knew that wasn't true. I remembered her screaming. I didn't want to say that. The scream was on me and I didn't want anyone to know about it.

  Peter said, "God, you gave us a fright."

  "He's been shuddering like the Nazis were goosestepping on his grave," my nurse said. I quite took to her. She could shock a room full of patients without blinking.

  "I've been somewhere terrible," I whispered to Peter, but he didn't want to hear it. To distract me, he told me about Mum's funeral. His eyes were suitably red and swollen. He looked cold, almost blue.

  "I reckon all the would-be Dads were there," Peter said, making me glad I'd missed it. "Remember that one with the red hair we called Bozo? He got really fat. And there was that one we quite liked, who got pissed on Crème de Menthe so his breath was minty. And remember that total dickhead, the shoe-shop guy?"

  "The one you really liked?"

  "I didn't like him. He was a dickhead." Peter frowned.

"You liked him."

  "Well, anyway, he was there. They all asked about you. None of them knew what happened. There were some cops there, writing notes, making everyone feel guilty, even if they hadn't done anything."

  That was supposed to make me feel guilty, I suppose. I said, "So what did the shoe-guy have to say?"

  "He asked me how my feet were. That's the first thing he said, how are those feet of yours? Sounds like he went a bit down hill after Mum kicked him out. He got a job in the shoe department of some big shop, but he said they sold mainly vinyl shoes, and people tried them on without socks. He said it was disgusting."

  "He was pretty disgusting, don't forget."

  "He's married now, to a woman with tiny little angel's feet. He said to me, 'Not as lovely as your Mum's.'"

  I shrugged. I'd received Dad's big plates o' meat. "He told you all this in how many minutes?"

  "Oh, I gave him a lift home. He got there by public transport, can you believe it? A train, two buses and a long walk."

  "I'm sure he had the right shoes for it."

  "Oh, ha ha. He lives in a flat with his wife and kid. Ugly kid. The wife doesn't speak English very well but he likes that. They don't talk; everything's non-verbal. He said it made him very happy."

  "Yeah, and makes it harder for her to get away. So the kid was ugly?"

  "Yeah, bit of a slug. You know. Just sat around not talking. I smiled at it and it blinked like I was insane."

  "Poor old shoe man. Were there lots of shoes in his house? Did he have a shoe tree?"

  "They take their shoes off at the front door and leave them there. I didn't do it but they didn't say anything."

  Peter hated to take his shoes off. There is no deception to be had in socks or bare feet.

  "He asked me to stay for tea and I said, 'I've got family to get to.' He said, 'Oh, Little Stevie. Little Stevie.' It was like his wife recognised your name. She came over, rested her hands on his shoulders. He started crying, Steve, I swear. Tears ran down his face and he's going honk honk. I said, 'Oh, well, must be off,' like I was there on a social visit. 'Thanks for coming,' he says, snot running down his face. It was pretty disgusting."

  "Who else was at the funeral?"

  Peter looked away. "I wasn't going to tell you about her."

  "Who?"

  He coughed. "The garden lady. Do you remember her? Eve?" It was astonishing he would imagine I could forget her, when he was the one who threw me to her in the first place. Peter never warned me about Eve. I'll ask him why one day. I'll ask him how he could have led me into that woman's clutches. Was he so terrified he was happy for me to go in his place? That didn't work well; she had us both, then.

  I followed Peter home from school one day when I was ten, hoping to catch him at something disgusting. Doing detective work to find out why he was always so late.

  He collected stones, ate some Twisties. I picked up the packet he discarded. When Mum was cooking the casserole, I asked her to put the Twistie packet on a tray and put it into the oven for a few minutes. It shrank beautifully. I told her I wanted to make a collection and the kids at school would give me their empty packets. That was okay, Mum said. So long as I wasn't eating the rubbish myself.

  Every time I followed Peter after that he had a packet of something. He'd stop when he rounded the corner from school, shuffle through his school bag and pull out his treasure. I collected and shrank them all, then presented them to him in a pile.

  "I know plenty," I told him. I told Mum I was training to be in the softball team so had to practise after school. Ages later, Mum said, "Whatever happened to the softball thing? You were so keen for a while there. Didn't you get in the team?"

  "Yeah, they picked me," I said. This was a good answer.

  "I'll come and watch you practise one time."

  I knew where I was on those missing afternoons, and I didn't want her finding out. "Nah, don't worry, Mum. It's pretty boring if you're not playing."

  Peter went to the same house every afternoon, a neat one, not like ours. Nice flowers in lines and the lawn all green and even. As I got older, I heard gossip about the woman who lived there, though I never added our stories, Peter's and mine.

  In high school, the boys talked about mowing her lawn; she had a different boy every week, made them strip their shirts off and work in the garden till they glowed with sweat. Then she summoned them inside, where she gave them an envelope full of money and a glass of beer, regardless of their age. Before they were allowed to enter and drink their beer, they had to clean the tools; rake, spade, shovel, mower, and stack them in the garage. I heard of rebellion just once; a boy who said, "That wasn't part of the deal." She said, "And we must stick to deals," paid him his money, sent him away, never hired him again. Peter and I put the things away and took a bubble bath afterwards.

  Eve the garden lady was in control of her boys; had them terrified. Most were strangely coy about the activities which followed the beer drinking. I think perhaps nothing at all happened, that perhaps she talked to them, or asked them questions, perhaps embarrassed them with her interest. I think perhaps the more boys who visited her without saying what happened, the more boys were too frightened to admit nothing went on. I imagined whispered conversations between two boys, one sleeping over, restless on the floor, one comfortable in a known bed.

  "You know when you went to mow the lawn?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did you ever tell anyone what happened?"

  "Nah. Did you?"

  "Nah. I didn't know what to say."

  "Me neither."

  "Because I didn't know what happened to the others."

  "Me neither. So what
did
happen to you?"

  "I dunno. What happened to you?"

  "Nothing, really."

  "Me neither."

  That's what should have happened. I don't know what did happen to those boys. I know the woman's garden was very neat for many years. She became a joke as we all got older, as she became elderly rather than middle-aged.

  I think perhaps she mostly liked children.

  I followed Peter to her house three times.

  He was crying the third time he came out of her house. He managed to control himself before he got to our street. He stopped on the corner and seemed to be stroking out the wrinkles in his clothes.

  I teased him at dinner. Teased and teased until he began to cry again. He wouldn't look at us and he hardly ate a thing.

  "Ate too many Twisties," I said. "Ate another mother's tea. Don't you like Mum's tea any more? Don't you love Mum?" I swung my feet till my school shoes kicked the underside of the table. Every second word I kicked and plates and glasses rattled.

  "Tell her to stop it," said Peter.

  "Tell the lady? Tell the lady to stop what? Stop doing bad smells?"

  Mum giggled. She loved crude jokes; now she could laugh at them without Dad stopping her with a grown-up's look.

  Then I blew raspberries at Peter till he was so angry he stopped crying.

  Mum had been laughing; she always thought I was funny. She said, "Oh, Peter. Do you think your father would have cried at the table like that?"

  "I never cry," I said.

  "Yes, Stevie's my little strong girl," she said. She smiled fondly at me, her eyes crinkling in a way Peter never got to see. She had to work for my love; Peter's she got just for being alive.

  After dinner, I followed him to his room and jumped on his bed.

  "Peter's got a girlfriend, Peter's got a girlfriend."

  "Shut up."

  "Is she a nice lady?"

"None of your business."

  "Tell me or else I'll tell Mum you go to a lady's house."

  Peter said, "I'll take you to meet her if you like. She's very nice."

  With those words, he offered me up for sacrifice. One day I'll ask him why he did that. He should have protected me no matter what.

  On my first visit to Eve, she was very nice. Peter left me alone; snuck away. She stared into my eyes, looking for something.

  She gave me lemonade to drink. We sat down on her pretty bed and she held my hands.

  "You're much sweeter than your brother," she said. She tore open a brown paper bag; lollies spilled out.

  "Your brother eats many of these. I'm surprised he can eat his dinner."

  "Sometimes he doesn't. He eats too many Twisties."

  She laughed. "Too many Twisties. Peter's a good boy, though. Very kind. He makes me very happy. Does he make you happy?"

  I shook my head.

  "He does lovely things to me. He rubs powder into my feet. My husband doesn't like to do that. And he washes my hair in the bath. And I wash his hair, too. Sometimes he arrives here a little grubby from school. You look like you might be a bit dirty, too."

  I couldn't smile; I had a face full of lollies.

  Peter and I never discussed the things which happened to us at Eve's house.

  We had to dance around in these special clothes and she took home movies of us. The clothes she dressed us in were too small. We looked like we had doll's clothes on. Her children had died when they were younger than us.

  She told us to wave at Daddy but our Daddy was dead.