Zebra

by Debra Adelaide

  But today the insult hung in the air like the cloud of an atom bomb, slow moving and oppressive. Just two syllables, shouted loud and clear over the fence. How had he claimed that word? It was as if the word itself had opened up and swallowed all his fury then come mushrooming up and out with the intent to annihilate her. In her entire life, the PM could never recall using the word man in a similar way, nor anyone else doing so. Man was not an insult, and never could be. Even if she were capable of unneighbourly hostilities, she could not convincingly march up to a fence and yell, Man! Get away from this property, man!, any more than she could perform brain surgery on an elephant. The prospect was ludicrous. She imagined ticking off the kitchen hand or her driver in this way. Man! Clean that grease off the floor! Man, you’ve taken the wrong road! Turn around, man! Of course not. The man in question would be puzzled, not offended. Either that or she would simply be laughed at.

  She was not the type to admonish anyone, or be rude or aggressive. Even so, the fact that she was letting him get away with the insult troubled her. Countless men got away with it, every day. She should respond. Why did she not act? She was aware now that she had seen hints of his behaviour for some time, and that she had allowed her default approach to operate, one of cheek-turning. Now she was feeling the effect of his insult. In her heart. In her stomach, in fact. She felt it like a physical blow. It hurt. Having woman aimed at her in this manner was painful. She remembered then, when she was a child, overhearing the teenage sons in a neighbouring family speak to their mother this way. She recalled her astonishment at hearing boys speaking to a parent so rudely, then the added surprise when the mother reacted so submissively, blinking and tightening her mouth and turning back to the kitchen to rectify whatever it was that had caused the outburst. Cook the chops longer, or trash the omelette that had provoked such anger in those unruly sons.

  The word woman, she seemed to have to remind herself, was not an insulting one. Yet this man over the fence made it sound so. He made it sound as grubby as the soil he was apparently digging. And he was not by any means the first, she could admit that now. How many times had she copped the force of this, yet refused to allow it to insult her? Get out of the way, woman! (A man elbowing her in a crowded street.) Give us a break, woman! (A man remonstrating over a shop counter.) Listen, woman, I was here first! (A man in a queue, possibly at the bank, or at public transport ticket machines, a well-known site of customer hostilities.) And of course the ultimate, the commonest, the most familiar of all: Woman driver! She’d heard that a zillion times, despite the fact that she herself did not drive. She had considered reciprocating. She had called it aloud a few times to test its effect – Man driver! Bloody man driver! When are you getting your licence, man! – but it just wasn’t the same.

  The PM’s throat tightened, her usual response to stress. It was the same feeling she’d had when she was twelve and receiving a lecture in the school principal’s office for being late to class. The feeling she could only undo by proper breathing, which did not come naturally. She stood still and pressed her lips, drawing in a long slow line of air through her nostrils, before parting her lips and expelling the air just as slowly. She performed this small exercise three times before moving again and in a few steps, when she was standing right beside the fence, she felt her heart rate slow down, her throat undo. She breathed deep again. This woman was calm. This woman was in control.

  ‘What, man, are you doing to this fence?’

  It was not necessarily a question that required an answer, but it marked an opening salvo. She hoped it would not be a long, drawn-out battle. But it was better to initiate it now rather than leave it to someone else to work through, like Billy, or one of the Bobs. Or the property maintenance crew, who would cheerfully take action if she asked them. They would harness themselves up and bring in cherry pickers to tackle his monstrous trees, for starters. From what she already knew of Kerr, he and crews were predestined for incompatibility.

  And the question permitted her to gauge the temperature of the battle. It was in this spirit that she tossed the word man back over the fence. It was only a hand grenade compared with his comprehensive weaponry, but it was a good start.

  His head popped up. Yes, his mouth was open in shock, but only for a moment. Loose, fleshy mouth, pale skin but reddened from the heat, the anger boiling within. His eyes hardened as from his lips erupted a tsunami of abuse so strong that she stepped back, as if the ocean really had risen up before her.

  ‘Bloody interfering woman! You idiot, you fuckin’ idiot, that’s what you are, a complete fuckin’ idiot . . .’

  It was so unexpected that she stared in amazement and then, unable to help herself, began to laugh.

  ‘You loser, you stupid idiot bloody fuckin’ woman! Why don’t you go back to the country where you belong . . .’

  She stopped laughing, and looked around. Which country? she wondered. Or did he mean the outer western suburbs of Sydney, where she had spent her childhood, which then was semi-rural and so perhaps considered the country? Or was she visibly foreign in some way? She glanced down and surveyed her neutral shirt, trousers and shoes, inspected her torso, and arms. Her hair was light brown, cut in a straight bob, her eyes were blue, her spectacles inconspicuous. What country could she possibly be considered to have come from?

  ‘Fuckin’ upstart useless fuckin’ woman comin’ here and telling me what to do, fuckin’ stupid idiot, let me tell ya, you know fuckin’ nothing, ya hear me, fuckin’ nothing . . .’

  She tilted her head a little, considering. There was a trace of accent in there, eastern European, possibly. Was he projecting something of himself in that demand to go back to the country she came from? She knew about families that kept so close they maintained their language and accents. Families that were tight with an equal mix of suspicion and loyalty, whose children were often taught at home in order to keep them belonging to the family alone, and whose social activities were restricted to necessary shopping and church attendance, if these could be counted as social. It was possible that Kerr’s entire life was spent in a ten-kilometre radius, its limits embracing the closest shopping centre (for he was clearly a hardware-store addict), but that he still spoke, ate, worked, dressed and even dreamed – when he slept, which she suspected was not often – like his forebears. Whoever they were.

  The baseball cap designed to protect his head from the alien sun, so unkind to that complexion – European, she was sure of it – had now fallen off. His face was shiny and damp, his broad receding forehead (completely bald within the decade, she estimated) bubbling with sweat.

  ‘. . . godless, evil, fornicating, fuckin’ useless . . .’

  A religious angle. That was bound to emerge in this one-sided argument, this dysfunctional debate, this monocourse. Apart from his swearing, it was sounding more and more like an afternoon in parliament. Religious men could be very passionate about some things, in a fierce and decidedly Old Testament way. Parliament still had its fair share of them. Generally backbenchers, generally from the extreme, often ragged, edges of the Country Alliance Party. Though one could always be surprised. The Leader of the Opposition had recently been outed as an unreconstructed creationist. He all but denied the existence of dinosaurs. Critics had drawn a direct line between this and his conservative life. It was true that his wife had been quoted in a recent magazine interview as saying her husband did not know how to use their washing machine. She had been photographed icing cupcakes. The PM had felt the ensuing media mockery of this was unfair. She wouldn’t have minded an afternoon in the kitchen making cupcakes. It would be innocent and relaxing, she thought, amid a world of inescapable complexity.

  ‘. . . drunken lying whore of a woman . . .’

  And, yes, of course there would be strict wowserism in there as well, completing the picture. She frowned, recalling an incident back at the start of the year. At the time she had not registered it as significant. It was N
ew Year’s Day, midafternoon, and the remains of a house party, four others, had been strolling through the grounds while she caught up with the news bulletins in her office. It had been a hot day. Her neighbour was celebrating the new year with a spade and a wheelbarrow, and one of the guests had mentioned something about the strangeness of working on such a day, in such conditions. He had stuck his head above the fence then, her guests had reported. She wondered how he’d done it, just appeared like that, so quickly. She couldn’t elevate herself like that, even if she had wanted to peer over the fence into his property. Perhaps he carried an empty milk crate with him, up and down the fence line, wherever he was working, in case of imminent disputes.

  He’d accused her guests of a series of offences and character flaws ranging from violation of his property to communism and cultural pretentiousness, until one of them – fed up and mischievous – invited him over the fence, for a relaxing new year drink. That guest was then called an alcoholic.

  But now he had also called her a lying whore. Coming from the back of his throat, the words sounded like they were on fire, ignited by outrage and disgust of her shameless disregard for decency. Drunken, lying whore . . . She shook her head. Still, he was an amateur compared to the member for Hancock, in the nation’s midwest, the Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, who in yet another mulesing debate had likened her to a suppurating wound on the backside of the pastoral industry. It had been nasty but metaphorically apt, given the matter under discussion.

  Anyway, she drank very little. Always had. Even the night before, she had not drunk. Her series of evening obligations had commenced with a five-thirty address to an invited media delegation, with the object of defusing the imminent launch of the Opposition’s proposed Higher Education Paper. The audience of media and academics drank, she noted, quite a lot. Then she appeared at pre-dinner drinks with the Japanese Industry Association, drinking apple juice while they had Sapporo and Asahi, before moving to appearances at three separate functions within the capital where she was expected to converse on topics from concrete formwork and swamp preservation to dog training, all of which demanded sobriety. She celebrated the opening of the capital’s first dedicated cattle dog trial stadium with a mineral water rather than champagne.

  But woman. The word alone seemed weighted with more venom than the honourable member for Hancock could amass in a lifetime of political warfare. If she could move closer she might open up a proper conversation. The PM’s conversational charm was famous. But she could not see how that might be done. The insults had been yelled rather than spoken, from a safe distance. She had seen his head sticking up over the fence. While previously she had spotted him halfway up one of his trees with a bush saw, they had never been within normal conversational range. She had never managed to look him in the eyes. She did not know what colour they were.

  And he had still not answered her question. It appeared he had departed. She examined the ground around the fence more carefully. And then she noticed the chalky white of new concrete footings, the cuts deep into the lawn, and evidence of recently turned soil. She squatted down close to one of the fence joins and looked along the line down to the south of the property, until she spotted it, small but definitely there, a dogleg, where the line blurred back. She walked down to where the dogleg appeared, trailing her hand along the fence until she reached the join that represented the end – or more likely the temporary stay – of his endeavours. Then she turned around and stared back along the fence. It was not an optical illusion. Panel by panel, he was shifting the fence forward. He was encroaching on her property. Well, not hers, but the government’s. No, the PM’s residence belonged to the Commonwealth, not the government; it was owned by the entire nation. He was stealing land from the citizens of this country – she crouched down and examined the last seam – by six, no, a good eight inches. He was slowly moving the fence eight inches across. Months, perhaps, had gone into these endeavours. She imagined the furtive digging, planting, uprooting, sawing, bricking and raking all along the fence. She had not the slightest idea why. The result of all his labours being a few extra inches of land, though the long fence line could yield extra square metres. Skinny ones, but significant all the same.

  ‘Spy! Spying on me and my land.’

  He had not left. He was almost right above her.

  ‘Get away from me, woman! Stupid fuckin’ loser drunken whore woman . . .’

  She stood up, deliberately dusting off her dustless hands and smoothing her trousers. Breathe, breathe. In through the nose, out slowly through the mouth.

  ‘Isn’t there enough excitement up your end, woman, that you have to come down here to spy on me!’

  It was the most coherent and the least abusive thing he’d said all morning, and yet it made no sense at all. Asking him to clarify what he meant was out of the question. As for excitement, did he imagine this was entertaining? True, it was more interesting than the current health report she had abandoned on the garden table. But did he honestly believe that she came roaming along the fence out of boredom and the desire to inject drama into her days? No, she could not, she would not respond to that, would not bat the question back with anything that constituted an answer. First, that would be an acknowledgement of the existence of a scrap of logic in his assertion. Second, it would represent an admission of the general dullness of parliamentary life, a palpable untruth even now when parliament was in recess. And third, it would only provoke more abuse.

  She stepped closer, though it meant risking the line of enraged spittle that was gathering, ready to shoot forth. It might be preferable to withdraw and let him vent his rage until its natural evaporation, like a kettle boiling dry. But apart from almost enjoying seeing his anger percolate, she decided that he was tossing her a gauntlet, perhaps several, that could not be ignored.

  ‘And my family, woman! You come to spy on my family. Leave us alone!’

  He had procreated? Now the PM was intrigued. What woman cohabited with a man who looked like Noddy but was more bad-tempered than Mr Squiggle’s Blackboard? Who spent his days scrabbling in the dirt beside a seven-foot-high security fence. Whose loathing of women was as powerful as it was illogical. She looked around for a milk crate of her own; she had to get up there and look over the fence, she had to see this for herself. She opened her mouth to speak. And then he yelled again.

  ‘Why don’t you get a life! Why don’t you get a real job!’

  Malcolm had ambushed her. He was waiting at the table when she returned for morning tea. Therese had brought out a tray with Earl Grey and homemade biscuits.

  ‘It’s going cold,’ he said, handing out her cup.

  ‘Yes, I know I’m late. There was a bit of an altercation.’ She took a cautious nibble. Therese’s ginger nuts were exceptionally hard.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Security was not his responsibility. ‘No one has come in, have they?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just that man.’

  ‘What, the one out the front?’

  ‘Oh no, not him.’ Now that Malcolm had mentioned it, that man was the last person she expected to offer hostilities. He was aloof, yes, but serenely so. ‘Kerr. The neighbour. Down at the back fence. Nothing, really, though I might have to get someone to look into it. He seems to be behaving oddly.’

  ‘I’ll call one of the Bobs.’ He took out his phone, in which the front guards were listed under Favourites as Bob I and Bob II.

  ‘No, really. Don’t, please. It’s nothing. I’ll deal with it later.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. Because we do have a lot on.’ He placed his iPad on the table in front of her. Her appointments diary for the week was open, time slots all filled in with different pastel colours according to type of event, like a geometric world map. ‘Now there’s the Treasurer at one on the dot, and he’s only got fifteen minutes, so you can get to the Indonesian trade function over at Kingston where you’re the after-lunch speaker.
Your speech is here.’ He tapped his top pocket. ‘Nine minutes. Actually I’ve slotted you in between the main course and dessert. Better that way, so you can leave before questions.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that? I like questions.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll like them today.’ He placed an email printout marked Confidential on top of the diary. ‘This came in this morning from DFAT. It’s looking very bad for our Mr Song.’

  She put down her cup and picked up the page. Mr Roland Song, an Australian national of Indonesian background, and chief executive of a large livestock business, had recently been arrested in Jakarta on charges of falsifying documents to pass off freshly slaughtered lamb as halal compliant, to maximise his profit margins.

  She scanned the text. Roland Song had now been tried and found guilty, but an appeal would be mounted by his lawyers. Her government had so far resisted pleas to intervene, though the growing popularity of the meat in the country’s closest neighbour had been considered a great success, lamb not being part of a traditional Asian cuisine.

  ‘The export lamb industry is fragile at the moment. If Indonesia pulls out . . .’

  Lamb. Not a meat she especially liked, though it would seem unpatriotic to admit it. ‘What else?’

  ‘A radio interview, scheduled at one-fifty, we can do that in the car. Then there’s the address to the –’