The Pause

by John Larkin

  Dad’s a total sports nut and he’s been miffed at me since I quit both soccer and cricket. He used to coach us in the under eights. I know I let him down and I kind of hate myself for it but the passion had gone. My passion for most things went south the day Great-Aunt Mary … well, the day Dad’s aunt did what she did. I don’t blame him for what happened. I don’t. I don’t. And I’m not trying to punish him. Or at least I don’t think I am. I love my dad. I really do. But he kind of hurt me when he didn’t believe me when I told him that Aunt Mary was nuts. And since then I’ve been kind of guarded with him, even though I don’t mean to be. We’re trying to find some sort of common ground but unless I take up accountancy, begin losing my hair, start wearing battery-operated Hawaiian shirts, or electrocute myself while hammering a hook into the wall, it’s hard to imagine just where that common ground might be. Dad thinks I’ve turned into the clichéd embodiment of a sullen teenager and he winds me up about it. He just doesn’t get what I’m going through right now. How could he? How could anyone?

  Dad takes a swig from a bottle of mineral water and, showing scant regard for those of us whose lives are falling apart, hits his first joke of the day. ‘What do you get if you cross a French dog with a rooster?’ I can sense Mum’s eyes roll back in her head. I stare at my coffee. KMN.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Kate, always eager to please. What happened that day with Aunt Mary united me and Mum, and Kate was left to be Dad’s favourite by default.

  ‘A cockadoodlepoodle,’ says Dad.

  Kate dissolves into paroxysms of laughter, though she probably doesn’t even get the joke. She’s pretending she does just so Dad’s ultimate dad-joke doesn’t fall flat.

  Dad went to Trinity College in Dublin and became, if you can believe it, an accountant. It doesn’t seem right, does it? You just don’t hear of Irish accountants. Writers: yes. Comedians, musicians, political activists, actors: certainly. But accountants? It’s wrong somehow. Kind of like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt being insurance claims assessors or Stephen Hawking working as a cinema usher.

  ‘What’s up, Dec?’ he says. ‘Girl trouble?’

  I can sense Mum slip into semaphore mode again, her arms waving about like a baton twirler.

  ‘Not to worry, pal,’ he says, ruffling my hair. ‘Plenty of other fish in the sea.’

  I push his hand away. ‘Well then, why don’t you go and fuck a tuna?’

  Mum gives me a look as if I’ve gone too far, but cuts me some slack and doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Looks like someone needs a happy pill,’ says Dad.

  ‘Give him a little space, Shaun,’ says Mum in diplomat mode. ‘He’ll be all right.’

  ‘He shouldn’t speak to Daddy like that,’ interjects Kate as if her opinion actually counts. I hate it when she calls Dad ‘Daddy’. She just does it for effect. To be all cutesy and cuddly, to the point where I want to beat her over the head with her My Little Pony. I hate myself for behaving this way to Dad and Kate, but I can’t help it. My nerves are screaming and they just don’t get it.

  ‘Could you go and check the pool temperature, darling?’ says Mum, to Kate. ‘Summer’s well on the way and I fancy having a dip when I get home from work.’

  Kate races out the back like a demented chicken and Dad follows when Mum gives him a nod. Mum comes over and gently puts her arm around me. It’s a half-hug. She knows the rules. But unfortunately I can’t hug her back, not even half. Life doesn’t work like that. I haven’t been able to hug her since I turned thirteen. And yet I really need to. I need her to draw me into her and let me cry like a baby. But that’s not about to happen.

  ‘Hang in there, Dec,’ she says. ‘The sun will smile on you again soon. I promise.’

  As she makes the promise, I feel it building in my chest, welling in my eyes, but I choke it down and blink it away. And apart from my screaming nerves, I’m okay. For now. At least Mum, Dad and Kate didn’t see me cry, and that’s the main thing.

  ‘I’m here if you want to talk about it.’

  I wish she hadn’t used that pronoun at the end. That tells us all that there’s a specific ‘it’ that’s bothering me, and we all know what ‘it’ is.

  I don’t even manage a grunt.

  True story: a little nuggety guy walks up to an extremely tall woman in a nightclub and says, ‘Hey, baby, what’s the weather like up there?’ The woman looks down at the guy in disgust, hoicks up a throatful of phlegm, spits on him and says, ‘It’s raining.’

  That would have to be, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst pickup line in history. Though I think mine runs it a pretty close second.

  It’s the last train we can catch to school without getting a late notice. Chris and Maaaate tell me to give up. She’s not coming this morning. She’s either sick or her parents have driven her. Besides, Smith Street Girls’ High is only two stops up the line: she can afford to catch a later train. With five stops to Redcliffe Boys’, we can’t.

  We scramble onboard, climb the stairs and grab a three-seater. Chris and Maaaate talk about an upcoming English exam. I zone out and stare out the window as the rain streaks down it. Each day I don’t see her is a day lost.

  ‘Mate,’ says Chris, elbowing me in the ribs. Maaaate looks over at us but then realises that Chris has omitted the extra ‘a’s.

  ‘What!’ I snap. They know to leave me alone to let me wallow in my pathetic, poetic misery on the days I don’t see her.

  Chris nods over to the far stairs, which Lisa has just wafted up. She sits down in a vacant two-seater but because we’re in the last seat we will be going backwards, so I can discreetly – or not so discreetly – gaze at her for the entire length of the journey, which is probably about one kilometre. Oh, lucky, lucky me.

  She takes a book out of her bag and finds her page.

  ‘Snap,’ says Chris.

  ‘What?’ I say, listening to but not looking at him.

  ‘To Kill a Mockingbird?’ says Chris. ‘Man, if that’s not destiny sending you a message, then my nephew is a simian.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ says Maaaate.

  ‘A monkey’s uncle,’ I reply. Our gags often lose a little impact when we have to explain their meaning to Maaaate.

  ‘Get in there,’ encourages Chris. ‘You’ll never have a better chance.’

  Although she’s at the far end of the carriage, we can see Lisa’s book cover and I know Chris is right. I don’t believe in that whole destiny crap any more than I believe that God has a tailored plan just for me – I mean, who the hell am I? – but I’m prepared to suspend my principles when it suits me.

  ‘Go on,’ says Chris. ‘Your fate awaits.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I hiss at Chris but he’s enjoying himself too much.

  ‘Don’t be a pussy all your life,’ chimes in Maaaate.

  ‘Pussy? Me?’ That’s it. I have no choice. Maaaate’s at the bottom of our friendship pyramid and Chris is at the top. If I chicken out now, Maaaate and I will have to swap places and that would just suck.

  My heart starts pounding in my chest like a set of bongos as I get up. By the time I’m halfway down the aisle the train lurches out of the station and I have to do that weird walk where it looks like you’re attempting to make your way forward in the face of a force ten gale. Very cool, Declan.

  There’s a Grosvenor Girls’ year eighter or something sitting diagonally opposite Lisa but the seat in front of her is vacant. They are both clearly aware of my presence, and as I’ve left my backpack with Chris and Maaaate, whose muffled catcalls and whistles are still reaching me from their seat (remind me to kill them later), it’s quite obvious why I’m here. I flop down opposite Lisa like it’s the sort of thing I do all the time.

  ‘I hope that’s not an instruction manual.’ And there it is. The second worst pickup line in history. It’s so bad I’m half-expecting Lisa to put down her book, rear up and spit in my face, and the Grosvenor year eighter to join in. The fact that neither starts spitting a
t me like a pair of puff adders is testament to the social graces taught at both Smith Street Girls’ High and Grosvenor Girls’.

  ‘Excuse me?’ says Lisa.

  ‘Your book. To Kill a Mockingbird.’ And then rather than attempt to climb out of the hole I’ve just dug myself, I opt to dig even deeper. ‘It’s not some sort of weird ornithological genocide kit, is it? I mean, you’re not going to spend the afternoon wandering around the park poisoning the pigeons, are you?’

  And there it is at the corner of her mouth. It’s just a suggestion but there’s no mistaking it. It’s the beginning of a smile. The beginning of a relationship.

  ‘It’s about racial prejudice in the Deep South of America.’

  I want to play with this a bit more but with only two stops to Lisa’s station, I have to make it count.

  ‘So what was it with Harper Lee and birds?’

  Lisa gives me a quizzical look. ‘It’s not about birds …’

  ‘To Kill a Mocking bird? Atticus Finch?’

  She turns the book over and examines the back to see how I could possibly know this.

  ‘You’ve read it?’

  ‘It not only made me ashamed to be white, it made me ashamed to be human. Do you know there are some people who believe it was actually written by Truman Capote?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, he and Harper Lee grew up next door to each other. Can you imagine that? Two of the greatest figures in American literature playing together in the sandpit?’

  We’re pulling into Lisa’s station and this is a good bailout point as we’re sort of mid-conversation and this positively demands continuing tomorrow. But then Maaaate has to go and stick his big, fat, bulbous nose into it.

  ‘Tell her you won a prize for your essay!’ he yells from the back.

  Lisa looks at me. ‘You won a prize?’

  ‘A book voucher,’ I say. ‘No big deal.’

  ‘I have to do an essay on it next week,’ says Lisa. ‘Maybe you could …’ And if it wasn’t for the fact that Maaaate’s aftershave smells like essence of dead cat, I could kiss him.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘We could meet up at Ciao Latte after school.’

  ‘I have to go straight home,’ she says, deflating my balloon slightly. ‘My mother …’ But she doesn’t have to say any more.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Give me your number, and I’ll –’

  ‘I can’t,’ she says, and this time she looks deflated, which gives me hope. ‘It’s kind of difficult. My mobile’s only for emergencies.’ She thinks for a moment as the train comes to a stop. ‘Give me yours,’ she says. ‘Your home, not your mobile. My mother –’ sounds like a pain in the arse ‘– goes over the bill.’

  The doors are opening so Lisa quickly pulls a pen out of her bag while I rattle off my home number. She writes it on her hand. She writes my phone number on her hand.

  I try playing it cool by not waving at her through the window but I can’t help myself. At least, I try to wave to her but by the time we pass her on the platform, Maaaate has me in a headlock and Chris is ruffling my hair. The Grosvenor year eighter calls us losers and plugs herself into her iPod.

  And with that I’m officially in love.

  I follow Lisa’s directions to her leafy address in the burbs. The house is imposing, with huge skeletal gum trees looming up behind it like something out of a Maurice Sendak book. Actually, the house itself is quite ordinary; it’s what I’ve heard goes on beyond the front door that is imposing. And I’m not about to be disappointed.

  I take a deep breath and ring the doorbell. When I hear no dinging or donging coming from inside, I knock on the glass panel. Nothing. I try again, harder this time. It would be just my luck to temporarily turn into my dad at this point and put my fist through the glass and sever an artery. Fortunately both glass and arteries hold.

  I hear clomping down the hallway and if it’s Lisa, she’s not exactly light of foot. But I know it’s not. Seeing how tense and nervous Lisa becomes when she talks about her mother, she probably doesn’t have door-answering privileges. I think my being here might be the biggest risk she’s taken in a long time. Our daily phone calls over the last week were big enough, our Ciao Latte get-togethers huge, but this … this is taking things to a whole other level.

  The front door swings open and I have no option other than to immediately nickname Lisa’s mother The Kraken. It’s the look she’s directing at me. It’s not exactly hatred, more a glare of total contempt, the sort of look she might reserve for her husband if she found him in a compromising situation with a chicken. It reminds me of the way my mother once glared at a cockroach that was doing the backstroke in her bowl of cornflakes.

  She’s a lot older than I thought she would be. She must be at least sixty. I do the maths in my head and it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

  ‘Lei ho ma,’ I say, having googled a Cantonese greeting before I left home.

  Lisa’s mother looks at me as if I’ve just informed her that her pet goat is on fire and that I’ve sold her tennis racquet into slavery, and, I suppose, given that Cantonese is a tonal language, there is a very real chance I have.

  ‘I’m Lisa’s friend,’ I offer. ‘From school.’ And as soon as I say it I realise it’s a mistake.

  ‘Lisa goes to a girls’ school. You’re a boy.’

  There’s no fooling The Kraken.

  ‘We catch the train together. We’re friends …’ Oh, Lisa. Where the hell are you? Save me from this … this thing. Lisa certainly wasn’t exaggerating when she told me about her mother. In fact, now I can see that far from exaggerating, she was actually holding back. ‘We talk about English.’

  ‘Of course you talk in English. Do you speak Cantonese?’

  Evidently not. At least as far as goats and tennis racquets are concerned. ‘I mean the subject, not the language.’ For eff’s sake, Lisa, get out here and rescue me.

  And then I hear her padding down the hallway. A gentle hypnotic glide across the earth like a cat, not the steady, heavy, pre-lunch stomp of a Komodo dragon.

  ‘Oh, hi, Declan,’ she says, all sweetness, but we both know she’s going to be in big trouble for this. ‘I see you’ve met Mummy.’

  ‘Mummy’? Seriously? Hearing Lisa call this woman ‘Mummy’ just brings out the difference between them even more. This thing gave birth to a child? A human child? And an angelic one at that. Jeez! Evolution works fast around here. From Morlock to Eloi in one generation.

  ‘Mummy, this is Declan. Declan – Mum.’

  Lacking any high-calibre firearms with which to shoot me – and with an almost breathtaking show of magnanimity – The Kraken proffers a talon, which I tentatively take hold of. It has all the warmth and texture of a three-day-old dead fish. I don’t know whether to shake it or batter it and serve it with chips.

  ‘Come in, Declan,’ says Lisa. Well, of course it was Lisa. These were not words that were about to spring forth from The Kraken’s spittle-flecked lips anytime soon.

  Now that Lisa has invited me in, The Kraken has to step aside or put on a scene. And if she puts on a scene she will lose face. And from what I’ve heard from Lisa, face is paramount to The Kraken.

  The three of us stand there in the entrance. You could cut the tension with a chainsaw.

  ‘I’ll just grab my books,’ says Lisa. She heads off towards her bedroom.

  Oh no. Left alone in the vestibule with The Kraken, my heart rate begins to quicken. This is what it must feel like when you’re alone at sea, being circled by a shark. I smile at her. A sort of well-isn’t-this-nice smile, but she just glares at and through me, as if I’m the spawn of the devil. For a moment I’m sure I can see flames dancing in her eyes. She continues to look me up and down.

  ‘Have you been here long?’ I ask, breaking the silence. Lisa told me that her family had bought this house a few years ago, so I latch on to the fact to make conversation.

  ‘About twenty years.’ She thinks I mean how long since she moved here from H
ong Kong. ‘You?’

  ‘I was born here, like Lisa.’

  ‘Lisa was born in Hong Kong.’

  Again I do the maths. Lisa was born in Hong Kong but they’ve been here twenty years. It’s not quite adding up. ‘Oh, but I thought you said that you’d been here …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ snaps The Kraken, and I wonder if I’ve inadvertently stumbled onto something.

  ‘My parents are from overseas,’ I add in some sort of bizarre hope that being the child of a fellow immigrant will make me appear slightly more acceptable.

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘My dad’s from Ireland and Mum’s Italian. Well, her parents are.’

  ‘You speak Italian?’

  ‘I understand some, but when they all get together for Christmas and stuff they speak too quickly.’ Arms flailing around like those bendy-balloon guys outside car yards.

  ‘What do you want to do, after the HSC?’

  I’m going to go out with my mates and get completely shit-faced. ‘Go to uni and study English.’

  ‘Why English? You already speak English.’

  ‘To teach. I want to be a high school English teacher, or else work overseas teaching English, in Shanghai or Beijing perhaps.’ I throw in this last bit hoping that my altruism towards her countrymen (women, persons …) might change her initial opinion of me.

  ‘Teachers don’t make much money,’ says The Kraken.

  Oh, please hurry up, Lisa.

  ‘But Lisa wants to be a teacher, too.’

  ‘Lisa is a girl. It doesn’t matter too much what she does. It matters what her husband does.’