The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee (2 page)

I don't like many things that other twelve-year-olds like. Computers don't interest me. Most music is boring. I don't have a mobile phone because hardly anyone talks to me in real life, so why would anyone ring or text me? I only like movies that make me cry. I don't have friends who think they are friends. Apart from Douglas Benson from Another Dimension, who I will tell you about in a later letter (see, I'm being mysterious)
.

What is it like being American? I only know from watching TV (another thing I'm not keen on), and it seems to me that being American must be very hard. Dad says Americans are arrogant and insular and can't name the countries to the south or the north of them. I'm not sure this is true, but if it is, the answer is Mexico and Canada
.

The TV shows I've watched give the impression that Americans are shallow and obsessed with image. Are you shallow and obsessed with image?

Albright is not like New York City, even if I don't know what New York City is like. It's a sleepy place. I've heard that New York City never sleeps, so we are a good match.
With your town never sleeping and mine constantly sleeping, we will be like yin and yang
.

Write soon. I very much look forward to hearing from you
.

Your pen pal
,

Candice

I never got a reply to that letter. Actually, I never got a reply to any of the letters I've sent (twenty and counting), and I've wondered about that. Either Denille has changed her address and didn't give the postie her new one or she is too busy to write back. I suspect it's the latter. Americans are busy people. New York Americans must be even busier. But I like to think my letters might brighten up her day, so I continue to write regardless of her lack of reciprocation.

Rich Uncle Brian says it's probably better she doesn't reply. He thinks this way I cannot be disappointed. It upsets him when I am disappointed.

I wasn't there at my birth.

Well, I was, obviously, but I am an unreliable witness because I can't remember a thing about it. So I must rely upon the reports of others who were present. It would have been wonderful if the actual witnesses to my birth

my mum

my dad (not actually a
witness
, as such)

Rich Uncle Brian

the midwife

had got together at some time to share their experiences. That never happened.

For one thing, the midwife was a hospital employee and may not have been available for a family discussion. For another thing, Rich Uncle Brian and my dad are no longer on speaking terms, for reasons that may (or may not) become clear. But I have spoken to all of them about it at one time or another. Well, not the midwife, obviously. I don't even know her name, so I'll have to leave her out, unfortunately.

A couple of years ago, I asked Mum. She was having a good day.

“Mum? What was it like giving birth to me?”

Mum sipped her tea and put a hand over her eyes. There was no particular reason for this, since we were sitting in the front room and the curtains were closed. Mum often has the curtains closed. The light hurts her eyes.

“Your birth? It was like passing a basketball.”

This puzzled me for a moment. I thought she was referring to the game where one player passes the ball to another so she can score a hoop. I think that's what it's called. I thought she meant it involved teamwork. I kept quiet.

“What do you want to know, Pumpkin?”

Mum often calls me Pumpkin for reasons that have never been made clear. What reading I have done on the subject of nicknames (not much, I have to admit) doesn't throw a great deal of light on the enigma. Apparently, in France it is common to call someone “
mon petit chou
,” which means “my little cabbage.” So it is acceptable, if you are of the Gallic persuasion, to refer to someone affectionately as a green, leafy vegetable. This is hard to understand. It is clear, however, that what with pumpkins and cabbages, people of different ethnic origins associate the world of gourdlike squashes and coleslaw ingredients with the warm and affectionate. It is strange.

Then again, many things are strange but still
are
. What would Jen Marshall say if I called her an asparagus
or a bok choy or a kohlrabi or a Jerusalem artichoke? She would slap me. Even if I meant them affectionately.
Especially
if I meant them affectionately. I once asked pen pal Denille if it was the custom to show affection in the United States by referring to people as potatoes (for example) but, like I said earlier, she hasn't replied, so I am still in the dark.

“Everything,” I replied.

“You were a tricky delivery,” Mum sighed. “I was in labor for eighteen hours, and when you finally arrived I was completely exhausted. I'd sworn that I wouldn't scream and carry on. I had done all my prenatal classes and had practiced the breathing, all the relaxation techniques.” She rubbed in a distracted fashion at her brow and closed her eyes. “But when the time came, all my good intentions went out the window. I screamed. I bellowed. I pleaded for an epidural. I had to fight Rich Uncle Brian for the gas and air, he was that disconcerted.”

“Where was Dad?”

“He was in Western Australia, attending a conference for the business. You arrived early. He thought he'd be back in time. He wasn't. Not for the actual birth. He made it to the hospital when you were about three hours old.”

“So Rich Uncle Brian stepped into the breach?”

“Yes. He held my hand while I screamed abuse at him and tried to tear the gas and air from his hand. You arrived in this world, Pumpkin, accompanied by pain, blood, and tears. It was a violent entry.”

“Was I worth it?”

Mum opened her eyes.

“Every second, Pumpkin. Every second.”

Rich Uncle Brian's version was different. He picked me up from school and took me to a fast food restaurant for something lacking in taste and nutrition. This happens a couple of times a month. I nibbled on a burger of dubious origin while he looked out the window and jingled coins in his pants pocket. Rich Uncle Brian does that a lot. It's a nervous habit.

“Rich Uncle Brian?” I said.

He turned his light blue eyes on me and stroked his mustache. He does that a lot as well.

“Yes, Pumpkin?” RUB is also keen on gourd allusions.

“Mum said I came into this world accompanied by pain, blood, and tears. Is that how you remember it?”

He frowned.

“I do not, Pumpkin. I most emphatically do not.” He reached over the table and tickled me in the ribs. I think it was the same hand he used for coin-jingling. I pointed out to him that coins are the worst carriers of disease, since they have so many owners in their lifetime, and I did not relish being poked with a disease-carrying hand. He appeared slightly puzzled, but stopped. “It was the most wonderful experience of my life,” he continued. “You
sailed into this world on a sea of love. You cruised through calm waters and berthed, with scarce a ripple, into our hearts.” He started to reach over again, but thought better of it. “And there, my sweet mariner, you remain. Docked in love.”

At one time Rich Uncle Brian was just Uncle Brian. But then he became rich and bought a yacht. Since then he occasionally uses nautical imagery, some would say to excess. I'm surprised he doesn't call me his sea cucumber.

I finished my burger and digested his remarks. They were easier than the burger.

“Dad?” I said. “Mum says I came into this world accompanied by pain, blood, and tears, yet Rich Uncle Brian says I cruised through calm waters and berthed in everyone's hearts. Who is right?”

I'd had to tap Dad on the shoulder and get him to take off his headphones. He was sitting in his office in the shed.

Dad spends a lot of time in the shed. He leaves for work at seven-thirty and doesn't come home until five at the earliest. Dad is self-employed. He has a white van with
HOME BYTES
custom-painted on the sides. Underneath there is a picture of an electronic gizmo and smaller letters:
COMPUTER UPGRADES AND REPAIRS. I COME TO
YOU
. He sometimes does work for the local government, but mostly he visits people's homes and fixes their computers.

When he gets home he heats up his dinner in the microwave (Mum is usually in bed by this time) and then sometimes he takes his remote-controlled airplane to our local park. He likes his remote-controlled plane. Dad says he enjoys the way he can control everything that it does. He says it is a welcome contrast to the rest of his life, but when I ask him to explain further he never says anything.

Occasionally I go with him and watch the plane as it ducks and weaves around the branches of the trees. It is relaxing. Most of the time, though, I don't watch the plane. I watch Dad. His head arches back as he follows the flight pattern and his hands move quickly and with assurance over the control pad. He never talks and his eyes are always toward the sky.

Normally Dad's muscles are tight and his eyes are sad, like those pictures of abused puppies you sometimes see in advertisements for the SPCA. They look resigned to the harshness of life, as if ill-treatment is an inescapable fact. But when he flies . . . when he flies, his muscles unknot and his eyes soften. He has the appearance of someone entirely at peace.

Most evenings, however, he heads out to his office in the shed. It is a cozy office, even though every surface is littered with machine bits. There is a bar fridge in a corner, and he often has a beer while he types away on one of the computers. He has two huge screens on his desk. I don't know why he needs two. To be honest, I don't really
know what he does in there all the time. But sometimes I like to watch while he works.

The computers don't have the same effect on Dad as the plane. His shoulders are hunched and one foot taps away on the concrete floor. So I don't really watch him. One of his machines has a clear plastic case with lights that flash on and off and I fix on that. The colors are red, blue, orange, and green and they make patterns that don't repeat. They are beautiful and much better than television.

Dad looked at me. His headphones hung around his neck like strange jewelry.

“Your uncle Brian . . .” he said. If I was being particularly literary, then I suppose I should write “he spat.” But I couldn't see any phlegm, so I think I will err on the side of precision. Dad took a deep breath and started again. “Your uncle is not the most reliable person in the world.” Dad never refers to Rich Uncle Brian as his brother, or Brian, or even Rich. It's always “your uncle.” They have a history.

“Yes, but what's
your
view, Dad?” I asked.

His eyes flicked to the side and his foot tapped even harder.

“I wasn't there when you were born, Candice,” he said finally. “I was too late.”

Then he put his headphones back on and returned to his typing. I thought I heard him mutter “The story of my life” under his breath, but I might have been mistaken. I am sometimes.