Coming down the staircase, I saw the hall was filled with strangers talking in humorous voices. These were the accompanying adults – all of them female. Younger voices were coming from the Open Plan but the sliding doors had been pulled together, so Josie’s guests weren’t yet visible to us.
Josie, on the stairs in front of me, stopped with four steps to go. She might even have turned back if one of the adults hadn’t called out, ‘Hi, Josie! How you doing?’
Josie raised a hand, and then the Mother, moving through the adults in the hall, gestured towards the Open Plan. ‘Go on in,’ she called. ‘Your friends are waiting for you.’
I thought the Mother was about to say something further to reinforce this, but other adults had gathered around her, talking and smiling, and she was obliged to turn away from us. Josie did seem to find new courage then, and she went down the remaining steps into the crowd. I followed, expecting her to go towards the Open Plan, but instead she went through the adults towards the front door, which was open and bringing in fresh air. Josie kept moving as though she had a clear purpose, and a passer-by might have thought she was engaged on some important errand on behalf of her guests. In any case, no one impeded her, and as I followed, I heard many voices around me. Someone was saying, ‘Professor Kwan may be wonderful at teaching our children mathematical physics. That doesn’t give him the right to be uncivil to us,’ and another voice said, ‘Europe. The best housekeepers still come from Europe.’ More voices greeted Josie as she passed, and then we were at the front door, touched by the outside air.
Josie looked out, her foot on the threshold, and shouted into the outdoors: ‘Come on! What are you doing?’ Then she grasped the doorframe and leaned out at an angle. ‘Hurry up! Everyone’s already here!’
Rick appeared in the doorway, and Josie, taking his arm, drew him into the hall.
He was dressed as he’d been on the grass mound, in normal jeans and sweater, but the adults seemed immediately to notice him. Their voices didn’t actually stop, but the volume fell. Then the Mother came through the crowd.
‘Rick, hello! Welcome! Come on in.’ She placed a hand behind him, ushering him towards the guest adults. ‘Everyone, this is Rick. Our good friend and neighbor. Some of you already know him.’
‘How are you, Rick?’ a woman nearby said. ‘Great you could make it.’
Then the adults began to greet Rick all at once, calling out kind things, but I noticed a strange caution in their voices. The Mother, speaking above them, asked:
‘So Rick. Is your mother keeping well? It’s been a while since she came over.’
‘She’s fine, thank you, Mrs Arthur.’
As Rick spoke, the room became quiet. A tall woman behind me asked: ‘Did I hear you lived nearby, Rick?’
Rick’s gaze moved across the faces to locate the speaker’s.
‘Yes, ma’am. In fact, ours is the only house you can see if you step outside.’ Then he did a small laugh and added: ‘Aside from this one, I mean.’
Everyone laughed loudly at his addition, and Josie, beside him, smiled nervously as if she’d made the remark herself. Another voice said:
‘A lot of clean air out here. Good place to grow up, I bet.’
‘It’s just fine, thank you,’ Rick said. ‘That is until you need a fast pizza delivery.’
Everyone laughed even more loudly, and this time Josie joined in, beaming happily.
‘Go ahead, Josie,’ the Mother said. ‘Take Rick in. You should be hosting all your other guests too. Go on in now.’
The adults stood back, and Josie, still holding Rick’s arm, led him towards the Open Plan. Neither of them looked at me, so I was unsure if I should follow. And then they were gone, the adults once more filling the hall, and I was left standing near the front door. A new voice nearby said:
‘Nice boy. Lives next door did he say? I couldn’t hear.’
‘Rick’s a neighbor, yes,’ the Mother said. ‘He’s been friends with Josie forever.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
Then a large woman whose shape resembled the food blending machine said: ‘Seems so bright too. Such a shame a boy like that should have missed out.’
‘I wouldn’t even have known,’ another voice said. ‘He presents himself so well. Is that a British accent he has?’
‘What’s important,’ the food blending woman said, ‘is that this next generation learn how to be comfortable with every sort of person. That’s what Peter always says.’ Then as other voices murmured in agreement, she asked the Mother: ‘Did his folks just…decide not to go ahead? Lose their nerve?’
The Mother’s kind smile vanished and everyone who’d heard seemed to stop talking. The food blending woman herself froze in horror. Then she reached out a hand towards the Mother.
‘Oh, Chrissie. What did I say? I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s okay,’ the Mother said. ‘Please forget it.’
‘Oh, Chrissie, I’m so sorry. I’m so stupid sometimes. I only meant…’
‘It’s our worst fear,’ a firmer voice nearby said. ‘Every one of us here.’
‘It’s okay,’ the Mother said. ‘Let’s leave it.’
‘Chrissie,’ the food blending woman said, ‘I only meant a nice boy like that…’
‘Some of us were lucky, some of us weren’t.’ A black-skinned woman, saying this, stepped forward and touched the Mother’s shoulder kindly.
‘But Josie’s fine now, isn’t she?’ another voice asked. ‘She looks so much better.’
‘She has good days and bad,’ the Mother said.
‘She’s looking so much better.’
The food blending woman said: ‘She’s going to be just fine, I know it. You were so courageous, after all you’d been through. Josie will be really grateful to you one day.’
‘Pam, come on.’ The black-skinned woman reached forward and began to lead the food blending woman away. But the Mother, looking at the food blending woman, said quietly:
‘Do you suppose Sal would want to thank me?’
At this, the food blending woman burst into tears. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so stupid, I just open my mouth and…’ She sobbed, then continued loudly: ‘And now you all know it, know for certain I’m the world’s greatest fool! It was just that nice boy, it seems so unfair…Chrissie, I’m so sorry.’
‘Look, really, please forget it.’ The Mother, now making more effort, reached forward and held the food blending woman in a light hug. The food blending woman immediately returned the hug, and went on crying, her chin on the Mother’s shoulder.
There was an awkward quiet, then the black-skinned woman said in a cheerful voice: ‘Well, they seem to be managing okay in there. No sounds yet of an all-out brawl.’
Everyone laughed loudly, and then the Mother said in a new voice:
‘Hey, what are we doing still out here? Let’s go in the kitchen, please, everyone. Melania’s been preparing more of those wonderful pastries from her homeland.’
A voice said in a pretend whisper: ‘I believe we’re still out here…so we can eavesdrop!’
This brought another big laugh, and the Mother was smiling once more.
‘If they need us,’ she said, ‘we’ll hear about it. Please, go on through.’
As the adults started to move into the kitchen, I could hear more clearly the voices from the Open Plan, but couldn’t make out any words. An adult passed near me saying: ‘Our Jenny got quite upset after that last meeting. We spent the whole weekend explaining to her how she’d misinterpreted everything.’
‘Klara. You’re still here.’
The Mother was standing before me.
‘Yes.’
‘Why aren’t you in there? With Josie?’
‘But…she didn’t take me in.’
‘Go on. She needs you w
ith her. And the other kids want to meet you.’
‘Yes, of course. Then excuse me.’
The Sun, noticing there were so many children in the one place, was pouring in his nourishment through the wide windows of the Open Plan. Its network of sofas, soft rectangles, low tables, plant pots, photograph books, had taken me a long time to master, yet now it had been so transformed it might have been a new room. There were young people everywhere and their bags, jackets, oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces. What was more, the room’s space had become divided into twenty-four boxes – arranged in two tiers – all the way to the rear wall. Because of this partitioning, it was hard to gain an overall view of what was before me, but I gradually made sense of things. Josie was near the middle of the room talking with three guest girls. Their heads were almost touching, and because of how they were standing, the upper parts of their faces, including all their eyes, had been placed in a box on the higher tier, while all their mouths and chins had been squeezed into a lower box. The majority of the children were on their feet, some moving between boxes. Over at the rear wall, three boys were seated on the modular sofa, and even though they were sitting apart, their heads had been placed together inside a single box, while the outstretched leg of the boy nearest the window extended not only across the neighboring box, but right into the one beyond. There was an unpleasant tint on the three boxes containing the boys on the sofa – a sickly yellow – and an anxiety passed through my mind. Then other people moved across my view of them, and I began to attend instead to the voices around me.
Although someone had said as I’d come in, ‘Oh, here’s the new AF, she’s cute!’ almost all the voices I now heard were discussing Rick. Josie must only recently have been standing beside him, but her conversation with the guest girls had caused her to turn her back to him, and he was now by himself, not conversing with anyone.
‘He’s a friend of Josie. Lives nearby,’ a girl was saying behind me.
‘We should be nice to him,’ another girl said. ‘It must be weird for him, being here with us.’
‘Why’d Josie ask him? He must feel so weird.’
‘How about we offer him something. Make him feel welcome.’
The girl – who was thin and had unusually long arms – picked up a metal dish filled with chocolates and went towards Rick. I also moved further into the room, and heard her say to him:
‘Excuse me. Would you care for a bonbon?’
Rick had been watching Josie talking to the three guest girls, but now turned to the long-armed girl.
‘Go ahead,’ she said, raising the dish higher. ‘They’re good.’
‘Thank you very much.’ He looked into the dish and chose a chocolate wrapped in shiny green paper.
Though the voices continued all around the room, I realized that suddenly everyone – including Josie and her guest girls – was now watching Rick.
‘We’re all so pleased you came,’ the long-armed girl said. ‘Josie’s neighbor, right?’
‘That’s right. I live next door.’
‘Next door? That’s a good one! Only your house and this one, that’s all there is for miles!’
The three girls Josie had been talking to now joined the long-armed girl, all the time smiling at Rick. Josie herself though remained where she was, her eyes watching anxiously.
‘I suppose so.’ Rick laughed quickly. ‘But that still makes me next door.’
‘Sure does! Bet you like being out here. Must be peaceful.’
‘Peaceful is correct. It’s all quite perfect until you want to go to the movies.’
I knew Rick hoped everyone listening would laugh as the adults had done about the pizza deliveries. But the four girls just continued to look at him in a kindly way.
‘So you don’t watch movies on your DS?’ one of them asked eventually.
‘I do sometimes. But I like going to a real movie theater. Big screen, ice cream. My mother and I enjoy that. Trouble is it’s such a long way to go.’
‘We have a movie theater end of our block,’ the long-armed girl said. ‘But we rarely go.’
‘Hey! He likes movies!’
‘Missy, please? Sorry, you have to excuse my sister. So you enjoy movies. Help you relax, right?’
‘I bet you like action movies,’ said the girl called Missy.
Rick looked at her. Then he smiled and said: ‘Those can be fun. But Mum and I like the old movies. Everything was so different then. If you watch those movies, you can see the way restaurants were once. The clothes people wore.’
‘But you must like action, right?’ said the long-armed girl. ‘Car chases and stuff.’
‘Hey,’ another girl said behind me. ‘He’s saying he goes to the movies with his mom. That’s kinda cute.’
‘Doesn’t your mom like you to go with your friends?’
‘It’s not like that exactly. It’s just…it’s something my mother and I like to do.’
‘Did you go and see Gold Standard?’
‘No way his mom would like that!’
Josie now stepped forward in front of Rick.
‘Come on, Rick.’ Her voice had anger in it. ‘Tell them what you like to watch. That’s all they’re asking. What do you like to watch?’
Several more guests had by now gathered around Rick, partially blocking my view of him. But I could see at this moment something change within him.
‘You know what?’ He spoke not to Josie, but to all the others. ‘I like movies in which horrible things happen. Insects coming out of people’s mouths, things of that nature.’
‘Really?’
‘May I just ask,’ Rick said, ‘why all this curiosity about what kind of movies I like?’
‘It’s called conversation,’ said the long-armed girl.
‘Why doesn’t he eat his chocolate?’ Missy said. ‘He’s just holding it.’
Rick turned to her, then held out the chocolate still in its wrapping. ‘Here. Perhaps you’d care for it yourself.’
Missy laughed but backed away.
‘Look,’ said the long-armed girl. ‘This is like a friendly encounter, okay?’
Rick glanced quickly at Josie, who was staring at him, her eyes filling with anger. The next second he’d turned again to the guest girls.
‘Friendly. Of course. I wonder if it would please you all to hear I like bug movies.’
‘Bug movies?’ someone else said. ‘Is that like a genre?’
‘Don’t taunt him,’ said the long-armed girl. ‘Be nice. He’s doing okay.’
A voice said: ‘Yeah, he’s doing okay,’ and several people giggled. As Rick turned quickly towards them, Josie reached forward and took the chocolate from him.
‘Hey, everyone,’ Josie called out. ‘I want you all to meet Klara. This here’s Klara!’
She was signaling to me to come closer, and as I did so all the eyes turned my way. Rick too looked at me, but only for a second, then he walked off into a small clearing beside the corner desk. No one seemed to pay him further attention because they were now looking at me. Even the long-armed girl had lost interest in Rick and was staring at me.
‘Now that’s a smart-looking AF,’ she said. She leaned towards Josie in a confidential manner, and I thought she was going to say something further about me, but what she said was:
‘See Danny over there? First thing he comes in, he announces how he got detained by the police. No greeting, nothing. When we told him he had to greet correctly first, he still doesn’t get it. Just keeps boasting about him and the police.’
‘Wow.’ Josie looked to the boys on the modular sofa. ‘So he thinks it’s smart to be a criminal?’
The long-armed girl laughed, and Josie became part of a shape the five girls made together.
‘Then his brother over there gives it away. Too much beer, that’s a
ll it was.’
‘Shush. He knows we’re talking about him,’ someone said.
‘So much the better. The cops found him passed out on a bench and took him home. And he’s telling us like he was arrested or something.’
‘No greeting, nothing.’
‘Hey, I didn’t hear you give Josie a greeting just now, Missy. So you’re just as bad as Danny.’
‘I did. I said hello to Josie.’
‘Josie? Did you hear my sister greet you when you came in?’
Missy became visibly upset. ‘I did say hello. It’s just that Josie didn’t hear me.’
‘Hey, Josie!’ The boy called Danny – the one on the sofa with his leg extended over the cushions – was calling from the rear of the room. ‘Hey, Josie, that your new AF? Tell her to come over here.’
‘Go on, Klara,’ Josie said. ‘Go say hello to those boys.’
I didn’t move at once, partly because I’d been surprised by Josie’s voice. It was like the one she sometimes used when talking to Melania Housekeeper, but not like any voice she’d used before to me.
‘What’s up with her?’ Danny got up off the sofa. ‘Doesn’t she take commands?’
Josie was giving me a stern look, so I began to make my way towards the boys on the sofa. But Danny, who was taller than anyone else in the room, came swiftly through the other guests and, before I was even halfway to the sofa, grasped me by both elbows, so I could no longer move freely. He looked me up and down, then said:
‘So. Settling in?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
One of the other boys from the sofa at the rear shouted: ‘Hey! She speaks! Rejoice!’
‘Shut up, Scrub,’ Danny shouted back. Then he asked me: ‘So what do they call you again?’
‘Her name’s Klara,’ Josie said from behind me. ‘Danny, let go of her. She doesn’t like being held that way.’
‘Hey, Danny,’ Scrub shouted again. ‘Throw her over here.’
‘You want to see her,’ Danny said, ‘get up off that sofa and come over here.’
‘Just throw her over. Let’s test her coordination.’
Klara and the Sun Page 7