by Geoff Palmer
'You mean you really don't know?' I blurted and instantly regretted it.
'Know what?'
'Tom's been talking.'
'Tom? Coutts, you mean? What about?'
'About the weekend.'
'What about the weekend?'
'Seeing you.'
'Seeing me, yes, so what?' God, she was cool!
'About the weekend,' I repeated lamely.
'Sorry, I think I've got the wrong end of the stick here. What does me babysitting his kids have to do with this?'
'Babysitting?'
'Yes. Tom and his wife were off to some golf function and asked me if I'd look after their kids for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. I hardly think it's relevant ...'
'When did he ask you to do that?'
'A couple of weeks ago.'
'At their place?'
'Yes, Tom picked me up.'
'And dropped you home afterwards.'
'And dropped me home afterwards,' she said matter-of-factly. Suddenly a light of realisation showed in her eyes. 'Why? What have people been saying?'
'Not people. The man himself.'
'Tom? Well , . . ?'
'Well … er ...'
'Steven!'
'Everything. He's told everybody everything.'
'What's everything?' She fixed me with her eyes and I squirmed for a moment then came to a split-second decision. I didn't care any more. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to pay her back for hurting me. I wanted her to know that everyone in the building knew what she'd been up to and that she was beneath my contempt.
'What's everything?' she said again.
'About your flat, how he went inside and what it's like ...'
'Yes?'
'And about you two doing it. Up against the wall, then on the sofa,' I added gratuitously.
'What? He said that? The shit!' she muttered. 'The bloody little shit!'
Ha, that showed her. I gulped at my tea and made to leave.
'Hang on, Steven,' she said. 'Hang on a minute. It's not true, you know. It's not. He just came in to use the bathroom, that's all. Honestly. Did you actually hear him say that? With your own ears?'
I nodded. 'Yeah. Me and about twenty others.'
'But ... What ... Why ... ? I don't ...Why would he say something like? What have I done to him? It's not even as if he tried anything on. I can't ... Why would ... it’s ... it's just not true. Honest. You don't believe him, do you, Steven? Do you? Steven ... ?'
I just left her to it, returned my half-finished cup to the clear-up trolley and didn't even look back. I couldn't listen to any more. Of course she was bound to deny it, it's her only defence. But the biggest giveaway was what happened afterwards — that she didn't steam straight into Tom Coutts' office and have it out with him then and there. If it really had been a story that's precisely what she would have done. She's not the sort of person who'd take that kind of thing without a fight. But that's exactly how she took it. I saw her later, wandering round like a zombie, like someone who's had the stuffing knocked out of them. I heard that she even complained of feeling unwell in order to leave early. I'm not surprised. In fact I'd be surprised if she comes back at all. And I don't care. It serves her right for carrying on like a slut. That, I realise, is the difference between Julie and Marie: Julie is making the best of a bad situation, standing up to it, while Marie is behaving like a spoilt brat, acting as though she's really special yet taking to her heels at the first sign of adversity.
Cuckoo
When I was a kid I thought I was special. You know, in the crazy way that kids do sometimes. I used to imagine that I was the last surviving member of the human race and that I was being studied and protected by aliens who had recreated my surroundings from old film footage salvaged from the dying planet. Just as we do now in zoos with species that we've practically wiped out. My parents, teachers, schoolmates, even my brother, were actually robots controlled by these unseen aliens. Seconds before I walked into a room they would start up and when I left they would shut down again. My presence and my actions controlled everything, and everything happened for a reason.
Maps and the headline news, foreign people and places. How did I know they really existed? All I really knew was the small world around Palmerston North that was within easy reach of my bike. When we made the occasional trip to the beach or a riverside picnic spot I could imagine the scenery being hastily erected in front of our speeding car. If it broke down, as the decaying wrecks my father owned frequently did, it was just an excuse. The real reason was that someone had misplaced a tree, that the road had a tear in it or a house had been dropped and broken and they couldn't take the chance that I might notice. Beyond was terra incognita, a vast sound-stage of backdrops, props, scenery, flies and façades. Some claim the moon landings were staged in Hollywood. As a child I thought my whole life was.
Sometimes I'd catch them out. Like at the compulsory religious instruction that was inflicted on us at primary school every Thursday morning. Our teacher was known for his evolutionist views and there was a subtle battle of wits between him and the hapless volunteer with the colouring-in books of gentle Jesus and the aptly named Trash's Bible Stories for the Young. One morning she took the example of a collection of class artwork on the wall.
'Who painted these?'
Some reluctant hands went up.
'You mean they didn't just appear by themselves?'
Giggles and shaking of heads. We'd always suspected she was barmy.
'So they were all created by someone?'
Nodding now.
'And that's just like us, children. We didn't just appear. We had to be made by someone. God made us. Just like our lovely planet and the stars in the sky and the sun and the moon. You see children, things just don't appear out of thin air. Everything has to have a creator. And that creator is God.'
I raised a pudgy hand. 'Who created God, Miss?'
I could almost hear the whirring of strained gears and see the puffs of smoke from overheating circuits. It must have thrown my keepers into a state of panic and confusion. Alarm bells must have rung furiously, whole consoles of lights flashed red in danger. Finally, they transmitted the only answer they could think of within a reasonable time limit. She told me to stop being silly, to sit down and be quiet. And the rest of the class laughed.
So it wasn't something you could confront them with. If there were holes in their schema, flaws in the veneer, you daren't point them out. After all, they held all the aces. They could humiliate you or punish you in any way they liked. But then again, perhaps that's what you were supposed to do. Perhaps that was part of the test, part of the moulding. It was so hard to know.
I suppose at that point I could have turned precocious. The arrogant child, questioning everything, demanding, bossing, ordering. But I didn't. I turned inwards. I decided to note these things mentally, but just keep quiet about them. To take whatever I was told with a pinch of salt.
Even then I was vaguely aware of how dangerous this notion about being a cuckoo amongst aliens could be. Like religion itself, it was full of all the necessary justifications and self-delusions that made disproving the premise impossible. A narrow miss while crossing the road was simply further proof that I was being looked after; the death of the budgie or an unjust punishment were really meant to toughen or test me. And if I were to run from the stalled car on one of our attempted family picnics and rush up to one of the fake farmhouses and burst inside and find not just a façade but a proper house and real inhabitants, why, that would prove how important I was to them, that they should go to all this trouble on the remote possibility that I might do what I just did.
It was a game I played with myself. I was only ever half-serious about the idea anyway, but for a while it was fun imagining things starting up or shutting down as they entered and left my circle of influence. Or looking at the horizon and imagining it as a vast painted canvas. Or seeing my classmates as a collection of motors, gears and connecting rods that
operated in response to some far off instruction, receiving and transmitting information, but in themselves just empty vessels.
Perhaps it was just a childish notion or perhaps it was rather percipient. An awareness that I was, in some part, being shaped by the world around me whether I liked it or not. Anyway, like any game, I soon tired of it and found other distractions, but it's an idea that has remained with me for years and tends to re-emerge every time something unpleasant, unexpected or unanticipated happens. That fatalistic notion that it was meant to be, that someone had willed it, that it was directed at me in particular for some special purpose, perhaps to test or toughen me.
I can see that acceptance of life's vicissitudes is not a reasonable way to handle them, that mute acquiescence, whether it be to the will of Allah, part of some god's unknowable plan or couched in the comfort of a catch phrase like que sera sera is too easy, too pathetic, too weak. That, in a way, it reverses the concept of my childhood and makes the accepter the automaton. But I've never really known what to do about it.
Thursday, May 7
I've been looking back over the gaps in this journal and wondering how to fill them in because, with the exception of the last few days, it's something of a discontinuous narrative. In that sense, I suppose, I'm not a true diarist. If I was, I would fill in every day religiously whether or not anything of significance happened.
Of course that begs the question of significance. What is significant? The fact that I had a pie for my lunch today? It could indeed be significant if I were to keel over with a thunderous bout of campylobacteriosis in three days time. Or significance could stem from who I saw on my way to the pie shop, or who I saw in there, or what happened on the way back. And the significance, like the food poisoning, might only become apparent in the future, in future entries in this journal. So how do I know? What do I record? What should I record? .
Anything short of placing you exactly where I was — inside my shoes, inside my head even — is a form of selection and therefore of censorship. How can you know about another person's life unless you live it as they do? See and feel things the way they see and feel them? Understand the significance that they attach to things? Anything else is just a form of lying. Telling stories is, after all, a childish euphemism for telling lies.
So here we are. I'm selecting out stuff for you to further sift and filter, and in your turn you pick out a few shiny gemstones of your own. It amazes me sometimes that human beings actually manage to communicate anything at all.
Talking of significance and insignificance, I was wrong in my prediction yesterday that we might not see Marie at work again. She was back today, and back with a vengeance. The business look is gone again and it's now short skirts and cleavage. In fact, the way she dressed today she wouldn't have been out of place on the back of Donny's motorbike: high-heeled boots, leather skirt, skimpy blouse and back-combed hair hanging loosely round her head like a shaggy mane.
Dressed like that, she didn't need to say or do anything else to cause a major disturbance in our area, her mere presence at the filing cabinets was enough, but she threw a little petrol on the blaze by remarking to Tom as he returned from a meeting, 'Is that a cellphone in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?' There was a chorus of sniggers and Tom gave a nervous laugh before shutting himself in his office.
Before lunch this anecdote was exchanged for another, hotter rumour. The girl who relieved Marie while she was at morning tea had noticed her desk diary open at tomorrow's date and contained the entries; "Don't forget: pill & condoms" and against the 7:00pm column, "TC (yum!)". The sighting was verified by two others and photocopied proof was promised after lunch.
More evidence came from Philips who, collecting the afternoon mail, found two sealed envelopes addressed to Tom marked "Private and Confidential" in Marie's handwriting. One them had a tiny heart drawn in one corner.
In the same batch of mail I, too, had a letter from Marie, though my envelope was typed. The note read:
Dear Steven,
Thanks for telling me about what was going on yesterday. I did a little more digging and learned about the bet. It made me feel sick to my stomach. I went home yesterday and even thought briefly about suicide. But you know me, I'm a fighter.
There is no truth in what he claims but, as I learned yesterday, denying it is useless as the damage has already been done. I have an excellent case for a charge of sexual harassment, but that could take months and I now just want to get out of here as quickly as possible so I’ve decided on another plan and am embarking on a little scheme of my own.
I know I can trust you and would really appreciate it if you keep the contents of this note to yourself for the time being. Besides, you can be my spy 'on the inside' and tell me how things are going.
Thanks, M.
PS: Just to set the record straight, he dropped me home after the babysitting and came in to use my loo. That's all. I presume Fletcher's little 'souvenir' came from my laundry basket, which is also in the bathroom. I can't be 100% certain. Who keeps a count of one's underwear?
So what was I saying about perception and significance? I think I see the game she's playing (but to what end, apart from giving him a taste of his own medicine?). And do I believe her? I don't know any more. It could be true or it could just be revenge for a lovers' tiff. Who knows? God, I certainly don't. I'm the least qualified to judge these things. At least it's making for interesting times at work at the moment. There might be a few more contiguous pages in this diary yet!
And a postscript of my own to the day: in the middle of all of the above Pid phoned and invited me out to lunch tomorrow. It's an unusual occurrence in itself and simply oozes potential significance, especially as he's being cagey about the whys and wherefores of it. Knowing Stuart, it just has to be dodgy.
Garçon!
Some people seem to think tardiness is a virtue. Some people seem to think it makes them look as though they've got hectic, important, event-filled lives. And maybe they have, but when they're consistently late, and always by about the same margin, it actually only makes them look as if they can't set their watch correctly.
Pid arrived at 1:30 for our 12:30 lunch date. He phoned from his mobile about twenty-eight-and-a-half minutes past to say that he was running late. (Too late. I'd guessed.) It was all right, though, he said, because he was only a hundred yards down the street and would be outside in a jiffy.
'Oh,' I said. 'I thought you'd be in the BMW.'
'Rolex still playing up?' I asked when he arrived. 'Or forgotten about daylight saving again?'
'Sorry about that,' he said, snatching his purse off the passenger seat as I swung myself in. 'I've called the restaurant and told 'em we're running late. They'll hold our table.'
'Table? Has the pie cart gone upmarket?'
Pid swung the car out into the traffic and got a sharp blast for his pushiness. He waved arrogantly, as though he'd just been tooted by an admirer. Where other couples have his and hers bath towels or "I'm hers / He's mine" T-shirts, Pid and Betti's crassness knows no bounds. They have his and hers BMWs, identical in every way except for their personalised numberplates; "Luv u" says Pid's and "LUV U2" says Betti's.
'We're eating French,' he said. 'That all right?'
'French?'
'There's a new place on the bay — La Trines. It's very good.'
'You know I always thought that apéritif was French for a set of dentures?'
Stuart glanced at me distantly for a second, nodded to himself and muttered, 'Good. We might be able to use that.'
'Pardon?'
'I'll tell you later...'
In anyone else, such disconnected mumblings would be thought disturbing — the early onset of Alzheimer's, perhaps — but with Stuart it's a way of life. He does some of his best thinking, he claims, while thinking about something else. With very little prompting he'll tell you how he got his first big break in the business, with a jingle that popped into his head while standing under an um
brella at the rain-sodden graveside of our mother. That, it can be revealed, was the birthplace of the famous Bumsuckas advertisement — an ad that's still regurgitated from time to time on those 'best ads from around the world' shows. Of course, whether he conceived the whole thing — the choir of singing babies, the one in the front conducting and falling backwards onto his or her derrière in time to the final beat, and all the other little touches that people still remember — is open to conjecture. What isn't open to conjecture is the fact that, instead of casting a rose onto the lid of our mother's coffin as he was supposed to do, he looked up at the grey sky and was heard to mutter those immortal words, 'When I feel dry, it makes me feel happy. I'd much rather be in a Bumsuckas nappy.'
La Trines was a restaurant with sub-text. From the nonchalant whitewashed exterior, the elegant eponymous neon tube above the door, and the door itself — dark green and panelled with inserts of bevelled glass bearing stickers of every credit card ever invented — the sub-text said, 'Expense accounts.'
Inside, one wall was given over to a wind-swept patio with harbour views defended by, appropriately, French doors, while the wall opposite bore a huge, artistically arranged and suitably wind-ruffled tricolour.
Pid, of course, was on first name terms with the maître d' and insisted on introducing me. To make matters worse, he introduced me as his brother. The maître d', Jean-Paul, was a small, upright, somewhat disdainful man with a pencil-thin moustache and an accent straight out of a British farce. He bowed mechanically and murmured disingenuously about how his 'umble restaurant was doubly 'onoured to 'ave ze deux of us dine with 'im at hwonce. He walked around so stiffly he looked as though he had a poker up his burn and I made a mental note to avoid the kebabs.