The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Cath was so shocked she sat down and snatched the menu from Warren’s hands.

  That night, their knees touched under the table several times, and each time she moved away abruptly. She drank a reckless pitcher of sangria, and she made a little monster out of Warren’s bread roll, so he couldn’t eat it. Also, she told him the facts of some brutal murder cases, all the time glaring and glowering at him, while he leaned forward, delighted.

  When the Carotid Sticks began playing, she turned her chair around so she could see the band, and fell asleep against his shoulder.

  When she woke, she told Warren that the band was crap and that was a word she never used. “I only agreed to come,” she said, “because I was thinking of the Clotted Creams.” He shouted with laughter and suggested they see the Clotted Creams together some other time. “No,” she said, “because you have a bony, uncomfortable shoulder, and I hardly slept a wink.” He shouted again, and then apologized sincerely.

  While the band packed up, she asked a lot of ironic questions about the wife. What does she do for a living? Oh, and why does she live up the coast? Uh-huh, and where did you two meet?

  The wife was a psychologist, and was having trouble finding work in Sydney, so she lived up the coast during the week. She did relationship counseling up there. They had met through friends or something dull like that. Breanna had a late appointment that day, and would come down on the early train tomorrow. Usually, she arrived, Fridays, on the 7:53.

  “Ah,” agreed Cath, “the 7:53.” She felt wonderfully cutting.

  The next day, Saturday, she felt so vicious and vengeful that she phoned Suzanne and canceled their movie. Suzanne called back and said she had been so looking forward to a night without the kids, and her husband was all set to babysit and had the Ice Age: The Meltdown DVD ready to go. So Cath agreed, and sat through the movie with her eyes half-closed, pressing her fingernails into her palms, imagining each palm was Warren’s face. Suzanne, beside her, ate a choc-top.

  But the following week, back at school, Cath discovered the wife’s renown, and felt contrite. It was not Warren’s fault. He must have assumed that she knew about the wife! He had just kept her out of conversation!

  The weather shifted one shade down: The sky cast a light that was cautious and reserved, and the air took on a disapproving chill. Cath walked around in cardigans and in a dull, private shame.

  With Warren, she became gentle and polite, as if she had discovered he had a terminal disease rather than a wife. Sometimes he tried to liven her up, doing things like jogging on the spot in the playground and crying: “Cath! What’s happened to my legs? They’re moving too quickly!” But Cath just gave a sad little smile and continued walking, while the children fell about in hysterics. Some of them grabbed at Warren’s knees to help him stop.

  Often, he looked at her in a puzzled and disappointed way, as if to say, What has happened to my friend?

  But, she cried in the middle of the night, he is married! How can I continue as his “friend”? At the same time, she wondered what had happened to their friendship. Could it just end like that?

  Coincidentally, the day after one such sleepless night, Cath attended a law class on:

  Principles of Statutory Interpretation: Lesson 1

  She always began her law notes with a flamboyant heading. Begin as you mean to go on. After a while, though, the lecturer’s voice would drift, taking its own meandering path, and her notes in turn would grow drowsy. Today, Cath’s notes paid attention, at least for the first principle of statutory interpretation.

  Generalia specialibus non derogant: If a special Act is followed by a general Act, the special Act remains as an exception to the general.

  Dr. Carmichael explained: “For example. Let us say Parliament enacts the Care for Pigs Act. This is an Act requiring all pet pigs to be dyed a lurid shade of orange.”

  He paused, but nobody ever laughed in law class.

  “E.g.,” Cath wrote in her notes, “Care for Pigs Act. Must dye pigs orange.”

  “And one month later,” continued Dr. Carmichael, “Parliament enacts the Care for Animals Act. This Act requires all pets to be dyed blue. Okay, guys, let’s say you have a pet pig. What color do you dye your pig?”

  “1 mnth ltr,” Cath wrote. “Care for Animals Act. Must dye pets blue.” She waited with her pen poised for the lecturer to give the answer.

  “Come on, come on,” said Dr. Carmichael, looking around the room. “Take a guess! Do we dye our pig orange or blue?”

  Ask the pig, thought Cath, which it prefers.

  “Orange,” said Dr. Carmichael calmly. “You must dye your pig orange.”

  “Dye pig orange,” wrote Cath, and doodled a pig.

  “You see?” Dr. Carmichael had bright blue eyes and wisps of orange hair escaping from the edges of his turban. “The first Act was specific, so it stays on as an exception to the second. Your dogs and cats and turtles must be blue, but your pig has got to stay orange.”

  At this point, Cath’s notes faded into half-finished words—“dog, cat, turts, bl.” Then she wrote, “Surely it is wrong to dye a pig any color at all?”

  She drew a circle around the question mark, and added petals to the circle. The petals made her think of Warren. We have bought a DeLonghi Sandwich Maker together, she remembered sadly. If I can’t have an unfurling romance, why can’t I at least have the friendship?

  But she knew that the special little act, the purchase of a DeLonghi Sandwich Maker, had been eclipsed by his announcement: “My wife.” She could never be friends with him again.

  Generalia specialibus non derogant.

  Ah-hah! Cath realized, with a sudden thumping heart: If a special Act is followed by a general Act, the special Act remains as an exception to the general! So it’s all right! Her face was burning. The Sandwich Maker is allowed to carry on! It remains as an exception to the Wife!

  After that, with some relief, Cath returned to her jocular ways with Warren, and he also seemed relieved to have her back. They started having takeout lattes again, and sometimes hot chocolates with marshmallows. And they spent a lot of time kneeling in front of the staff-room radiator trying to turn it up.

  Since their sandwich-maker friendship had never included discussion of the Wife, Cath did not raise her in their conversations now. Nor did Warren.

  One Wednesday afternoon, they worked in the staff room until the sky was heavy with darkness. Walking to the parking lot, through the empty, echoing school grounds, cold fog curled around their ankles. “Like my cat,” suggested Cath. Warren gave a chuckle, and kicked a pebble toward Cath. She kicked it straight back.

  “Don’t our cars look lonely?” said Warren. “We should park them next to each other when we work late like this.”

  “So they can get to know each other,” agreed Cath.

  They were now at the edge of the parking lot—Cath’s white Mercedes sports car gleamed from the far right corner; Warren’s rusting Corolla glinted from the left.

  “Holy baloney, I love your car,” breathed Warren. “Remind me how you scored that again? Some wealthy former lover?”

  “I won it in a competition.”

  “Lucky girl,” whistled Warren, and then swiftly: “Remind me when you were planning to take me for a ride in it?”

  “Right this moment,” said Cath, clapping her hands together once like Mary Poppins. “You don’t have any plans, do you?”

  “Plans,” said Warren sadly. “I’m as lonely as our cars are tonight. I was going to see a movie actually. But what kind of a fool would choose a movie over a ride in your car, Cath? What kind of a fool, what kind of a tool, what kind of a drooling mule?”

  “I could drive you to the movie if you like. I’ll see it with you.”

  Warren leapt into the air. He was tall enough already: Cath imagined his leap would take him right into the stars.

  Then, suddenly, Katie Toby (teacher, Kinder A) was standing beside them. Cath shrieked, and Warren said, “Holy jaca
randa, woman, where did you come from?”

  They both stared down at Katie Toby, who was little, with a dimpled, round face and a reputation, among parents, teachers and children alike, as sweet as a toffee apple.

  “Hi, guys,” she giggled. “Sorry to scare you. I’ve just come from my classroom. Going to a movie, are you?”

  Cath nodded uneasily.

  “What movie?”

  “Ah, the Valerio retrospective at the Chauvel,” said Warren, after a beat. “It’s Pie in the Sky tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah, great. I’d love to see that again. What time? On your way right now?”

  “Well,” said Warren, “it starts at nine.”

  Then there was a silence as Katie dimpled at them, until Warren said, “You want to come along?”

  “Oh no!” cried Katie. “I’m off! My bicycle’s just over there! Stay joyous!” and she skittered away into the darkness.

  Cath and Warren approached Cath’s car in silence, but as soon as they had each closed the car doors, Warren said, “Thank Christ she didn’t accept,” and Cath felt such a gust of relief that she fell into a fit of giggles. She couldn’t get the keys into the ignition, she was giggling so helplessly. Warren sat beside her, laughing happily and looking around at the upholstery.

  Then, just as Cath had calmed enough to sniff and wipe her eyes, Warren’s phone rang.

  “WHERE ARE YOU?” cried a tinny voice.

  It was Warren’s wife, Breanna. Inside Cath’s car. Cath gave a little shiver.

  “I’m in a beautiful Mercedes sports car, next to the lovely Cath, and we’re going to the movies,” Warren explained promptly. “How about you?”

  “I’m here! At home! I’ve come down for a surprise visit! I’ve got candles and everything!” Breanna’s voice rushed along in a high-pitched gabble. It was unnecessarily loud, and was filling Cath’s car. She opened her window.

  “You’re joking,” said Warren, his voice deepening and softening at once. “You’re here? My beautiful Bree, within minutes of me? On a weeknight?”

  “I was starting to worry about you! What kind of a job does he have, I thought. I thought he was a teacher! A laugh of a job! I was wrong! Come home! Come on! I’ve got Indian!”

  “I’ll be there in five.”

  He returned his phone to his pocket. “Sorry, Cath. Another time?”

  As he walked toward his own car, he blew a passionate kiss her way, which she almost took for herself. Then she realized it was for her car.

  Driving home, Cath passed the ice-cream van that was always parked across the street from her apartment block, and thought, That van is NEVER open. What if she wanted an ice cream right now? Even if it was after eight, and a cold, foggy, blustery night. She would, in fact, like an ice cream.

  She walked into her apartment and the silence seemed to catch her like a hangnail.

  I like the way he walks, thought Cath, one late afternoon, watching Warren from her classroom as he crossed the playground. I like the way he kind of lopes along, scuffing at the fallen leaves. See how his head sits way up on top of his body there? I like that. He looks good in that linen suit, too, with the open collar. I wonder when I’ll get to kiss his collarbone?

  She watched as he approached their building. He had stopped to lean over and pick up a toy car.

  It’s not wrong to think about kissing his collarbone. That’s probably healthy. You have to fantasize about someone’s collarbone; it could be Brad Pitt, let’s say, and you know you’re never going to kiss his collarbone. So why not dream about Warren’s?

  Warren was now running up the steps to the second grade balcony, and Cath thought fiercely, Turn right, turn right toward my classroom.

  He did. He leaned into her open classroom door and said, “There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  “How come?” She busied herself away from the window. “I’m just taking down these pictures of polar bears.”

  “Because I want to take you out to dinner tonight,” explained Warren. “I’ve got a reservation at Tetsuya’s, and Breanna was coming down especially, but she just canceled, if you can believe it, so you’re not allowed to say no, okay?”

  Cath regarded him.

  “And also,” said Warren. “It’s my birthday today.”

  “Okay,” said Cath. “I’ll come.”

  After Tetsuya’s, they took a taxi to the Shangri-La Hotel for cocktails. The taxi nudged through traffic and gathering rain, and Warren Wishful Woodford unfurled his long thin body, and unfurled his words (“How much?” to the driver), and his body and his words were like a banner, or a long royal carpet, thought Cath, gazing through the steamy taxi window. He was standing on the pavement waiting for her, and she was inside the taxi thinking that his words were like a pathway through the woods.

  As she gathered up her handbag, he opened her door, taking the steamy taxi window with him, and letting in the traffic and the cold. She walked beside him silently, her legs moving smoothly like the wheels of a cart through the furling, ferny fronds of a forest. (At Tetsuya’s there had been a nine-course degustation menu, with a wine to match each course.)

  At the cocktail bar, it was so crowded they had to lean in close to hear one another. They talked for a while about how wicked it was of Breanna to cancel on Warren’s birthday, even if a pair of clients had phoned her to say they had made a joint suicide pact and were having trouble with the catch on the gun. “Birthdays come but once a year,” said Cath sternly, “but suicide pacts?” She gave a dismissive shrug. “A dime a dozen,” agreed Warren.

  “Hey,” said Cath, changing the subject, and looking up at Warren from her frothy strawberry cocktail (she reflected that her eyes would be shining in this light). “I need your teaching advice. You know Cassie Zing?”

  “How could anybody not know Cassie Zing?”

  “Well, today she said ‘tax audit’ five hundred times.”

  “Of course she did.”

  “Well,” agreed Cath doubtfully. “She does this all the time, you know, she chooses a word or a phrase to say five hundred times, and sometimes I think the best thing is to ignore it, and she’ll get over it, but she doesn’t.”

  “What other words?”

  “You know, negative things. Like ‘eczema’ or ‘garbage disposal’ or ‘penalty notice.’ Kind of negative in a small, itching way. Things from around the home that you don’t usually talk about—anyway, now that I think about it, maybe she’s casting a kind of spell over the classroom, I mean a good spell, where she’s taking all the evil out of the world by chanting away the ugly, little things, so there’s nothing left for us but good, so maybe I should just, you know, let her cast her spell.”

  “Does she take requests? Because I’ve got an ingrown toenail.”

  “Seriously, do you think it’s a spell thing? Or do you think maybe I’m drunk?”

  “Well, she’s either casting a spell or she’s obsessive-compulsive, and you are gorgeous when you’re drunk. And you’re the experienced teacher—I’m just making it up as I go along. Do you want me to ask Bree about Cassie? She used to work with kids before she got into relationship counseling.”

  Bree was in the conversation a bit too much tonight, Cath thought, disgruntled.

  “Oh no,” she said, “I’ll ask Lenny. Good idea! Professional help! I always forget that Lenny’s the school counselor as well as the sixth-grade teacher. I’ll ask her advice.”

  “She’ll be distracted,” said Warren, signaling for the bill. “Sleeping with Frank Billson must be very—distracting.”

  “You can’t pay for this too, Warren. This will be me paying. This will be your birthday present from me. Watch me pay, okay? And HEY, HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT LENNY AND BILLSON? IT’S A SECRET!”

  Warren slid the bill from underneath her hand and said, “You coming out with me tonight? That is my birthday present from you. And I know about Lenny and Billson because Lenny and Billson are blindingly obvious. Everybody knows about them, Cath Murphy
.”

  “Do they?” Cath said wonderingly, enjoying the way he just said her full name, and scraping at the sides of her cocktail glass with the straw.

  “Maybe not Heather Waratah,” conceded Warren. “Heather Waratah probably doesn’t know about Lenny and Billson. She’s too busy baking muffins. Don’t forget your jacket there, eh? Here, let me take your arm.”

  Later that night, Cath lay awake replaying Warren’s sentence: “You coming out with me tonight? That is my birthday present from you.”

  The next day Warren passed on Bree’s “eternal gratitude” to Cath, for taking care of Warren on his birthday.

  Zooming from school to her law lecture, and then from the lecture to a Feminist Discussion, Cath felt she had a full life. Her windshield wipers dashed back and forth, trying to keep up with her full life.

  She ran through the rain to the café and sat in the comfortable plum-purple chair. “Hi,” she whispered, and, “Sorry to be late,” and Leonie mouthed back a quick, “No worries!”

  Leonie Marple-Hedgington was an old friend of Cath’s from teachers college. She had purple hair, polar-white skin, and the settled, mistaken belief that Cath was the kind of person who would want to go to Feminist Discussion. Cath did not like to correct her, and so attended every session.

  Leonie leaned forward bonily, cardigan pushed up to her elbows, to say, “I thought today”—a little shy to start—“I thought today we might find a way to deconstruct the rational/irrational duality?”

  Everybody nodded, including Cath, but as she nodded she thought of Warren Woodford and his own special nods. His own sideways, thinking nod; his own hearty, rapid nod; his own slow, perhaps nod; his nodding nod-nod.

  “As you know, there’s a crit group who call themselves the Irrationalists so as to reclaim the word irrational, and invest it with something powerful and good,” continued Leonie.

  Irrational, thought Cath, and she thought, immediately, of the word affair.

  How irrational an affair would be! Even, let’s say, if Warren planned such a thing. I would NEVER let it happen! It would be wrong, but more to the point: IRRATIONAL. I’ve read the books, I’ve seen the movies, I’ve read the magazine problem pages! Don’t even worry about it. He’ll keep promising to leave his wife, but he NEVER EVER will.