Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 9, Issue 5

by Debra Adelaide

  After a good hour of perusing the collected works of Alan Bennett, he pressed the lever—it operated with the merest touch—to bring the next title down, and commenced reading a selection of fiction from the New Yorker. That was followed by a Tom Keneally novel, and as Dr Wheeler’s advisors observed from the vantage point of their CCTV security room, it seemed that the Leader was actually following a sustained narrative line.

  ‘We should be eye-tracking him,’ Jonesy said. ‘See if he’s reading every word or not.’

  ‘At least he’s not mouthing them,’ Helen said.

  ‘Look,’ Morrissey said. ‘He’s selected another Tom Keneally. This is getting better and better.’

  Tim stood up and peered closer to the screen. ‘It’s a Tom Something,’ he said, ‘but not Keneally. Oh yeah, Clancy. Tom Clancy.’

  Kendall sniffed. He drew the line at Tom Clancy. The guy didn’t even write his own drivel. It was produced like a franchise or something. He was the McDonalds of thrillers. Kendall doubted he was even still alive. It was probably a business in Baltimore—or Langley, more likely—churning out titles like so many beef patties.

  But it didn’t matter. It was the fact that the Leader of the opposition was sitting, not speaking, and possibly not thinking, or not thinking much, his only bodily movements around the eyes.

  ‘So long as he’s still,’ Dr Wheeler said, entering the room, ‘he’s not causing us any mischief. And if Professor Greer and Dr Ward are correct, then his brain will be doing all the exercise his body will ever need. His body will be tricked into thinking that he’s gone for that bike ride or run that marathon.’ The opposition Leader was a demon for iron-man events. ‘Or that he’s walked to the chamber, debated, voted, and walked out again. He won’t leave that chair for hours, trust me. By the time of the next election he’ll have no interest in campaigning.’

  ‘Or he’ll assume he’s already done it?’ Helen said.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So, what are you going to do about the President?’

  Dr Wheeler’s lips twisted. There was that small problem. Was it possible to read too much? The thought had never once occurred to her before this, but when she last looked, the President was working his way through all 209 of Nora Roberts’s romance novels and refusing to leave his room. Refusing even to walk his beloved terrier, Ralph. Refusing to eat a proper meal, anything that required two hands.

  Helen was giving her that look. She had always been a bit of a troublemaker, the minister remembered, right back when, as the young author of a slim but celebrated first volume, she had insisted on using the f-word in a high school speech. What troublemakers authors could be, generally.

  ‘At least,’ she said, ‘he remains a devoted reader.’ She spoke to all of them gathered in the CCTV room but it was directed especially to Helen. ‘And like the readers of Fossil Ridge, he remains a true consumer. He has no aspirations to write. Supply and demand, and all that.’ She left the room before anyone could take offence.

  Sao

  Eleanor Limprecht

  ‘The light is green.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Green light! Go!’

  Di’s voice was joined by the beeping of the cars queued up behind them in traffic. Greg dropped his phone into the centre console and stepped on the gas.

  ‘You’re not meant to text while you’re driving. It sets a bad example.’ She gestured towards the backseat, the boosters where Jack and Max sat.

  ‘They don’t have mobile phones yet. And they’re not old enough to drive.’ Greg swerved to avoid a rubbish truck reversing. ‘Fuckin’ hell.’

  ‘Greg!’

  ‘How much further?’ Max kicked the back of her seat.

  ‘Five minutes.’

  Greg sped through the last amber of a right turn signal as it changed to red. ‘Let’s all just have a nice afternoon. A nice barbecue with nice friends.’

  ‘Acquaintances,’ Di said.

  Greg’s phone buzzed in the centre console. He made a grab for it, but she blocked him with her forearm.

  ‘It can wait til we get there,’ she said. Her jaw felt tight. She turned and smiled broadly at the boys in the backseat.

  She walked across the lawn, carrying a plate of food and a bottle of beer. She sat on the outskirts of the party, her plate beside her and the bottle against the inside of her knee, so it wouldn’t spill.

  Already she had run out of people to talk to. A family from Max’s new school had invited them, Sue and Sam. He was some sort of lawyer, and she was president of the school P&C. Greg worked with one of the dads but she had only chatted briefly with the other parents, of teacher gripes and play-date logistics while the children swung from the monkey bars after school.

  The kids were nearly all on the trampoline, shrieking and leaping, throwing themselves against the netting. A few were in the cubbyhouse. At least Jack and Max were playing happily, she thought, taking a long gulp of beer. Not tugging on her shirt or needing to use the toilet. Whatever they wanted, they’d get it quicker if they asked her, and so Greg was ignored unless she wasn’t there. He was engrossed in some conversation with his work colleague – about barbecues, or boat engines or battery packs for electric drills. The boys would have to whinge at him for five minutes before getting his attention and by that point the littlest would have wet his pants and the older one would just give up and give him a sharp kick in the shins. Take that, Dad. Sure to end in tears. Easier to ask Mum.

  She loaded a forkful of quinoa salad and tried not to spill it in her lap on the way to her mouth. One of the dads came over and sat on the lawn beside her.

  ‘G’day Di.’

  She waved with her fork, a gesture that probably looked more like ‘get lost’, and then brushed little grains of quinoa from her jeans. She’d forgotten his name. She knew his kids’ names, Rupert and Quentin, yet she couldn’t remember his. Probably Jim, or Joe, or John.

  ‘Gorgeous weather,’ she said, taking a purposeful swig of beer. It would make her lightheaded and sleepy later. She hoped Greg wasn’t drinking too much so that he could drive them home.

  ‘Anyone decided on a table for the school fete?’ the dad asked.

  ‘Last I heard it was a draw between making us all hand roll sushi or someone’s beautician mum offering eyebrow tints and leg waxes to a bunch of primary school kids.’

  ‘Whatever happened to how many lollies are in the jar, or pin the tail on the donkey?’

  She shrugged. ‘I suggested letting the kids do the work—like, let’s make them roll sushi or give people leg waxes. Wasn’t too popular, though.’

  ‘Can’t imagine why.’

  She took another sip from the bottle and let the bubbles roil against the inside of her cheek. Rupert and Quentin’s dad had eyes that were like pond water, which sounds shitty but is actually a lovely colour. If only she could remember his name. He looked as though he had just shaved that morning and there were those tiny dark stubble hairs just beginning to emerge through skin that would otherwise be smooth to the touch. He was always the one at pick-up and drop-off, so if he did work, she imagined it to be some sort of creative pursuit. His wife must have the real job.

  He started talking about something that Quentin had done to his brother that morning with the cricket bat. She scraped her fork against the last morsels of food on her plate and laughed at the right moment.

  Her previous conversations since they arrived had been about someone’s new timber flooring and another’s ability to turn chickpeas into chickpea flour in their brand new German-made Thermomix.

  Rupert and Quentin’s mum sat down on the grass beside them and placed a hand on her husband’s knee. ‘James, would you mind checking the baby’s still asleep?

  James! Di knew it was something like that. Only now he was going to walk off and leave her with his wife, whose name she couldn’t recall either. His wife looked pleased that she could still publicly tell her husband what to do. James ducked his head and struggled to his feet.
Greg would have nodded and said ‘Sure thing’, but then taken so long to do it that she would have given up and done it herself. We all have our tricks, she thought, smiling at James’s wife.

  ‘How old is your little one?’

  ‘Four months,’ the woman said. ‘Clarice. I’m just relieved that I’ve finally had a girl.’

  Di nodded. How could a person name their child Clarice and not think The Silence of the Lambs? ‘Have you seen—’

  She stopped herself at the last moment.

  The woman had her eyebrows raised and was looking at Di strangely. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Have you seen the boys?’ Di said. ‘They were on the trampoline a moment ago, maybe they’ve gone inside.’

  ‘Probably.’ She waved over Di’s shoulder. Her gaze had shifted. ‘Lisa’s here, I’d better go say hi. She’s been so unwell, did you hear? Some sort of food poisoning she picked up in Bali.’

  Di widened her eyes in what she hoped looked like horror. ‘Poor thing,’ she said. ‘I’ll go see if I spot the boys indoors.’

  She stood and put her paper plate and empty bottle in the bin. Greg was still deep in conversation, and Clarice’s mum was flapping her arms and shrieking at a woman like a demented bird. Di never understood the commotion when certain women saw their friends in public. The louder the commotion, the less genuine it appeared. Conversation paused while everyone turned to watch the women air-kiss.

  Di walked up the steep timber staircase onto the veranda that led indoors. The house was a renovated Queenslander and she could look down on the party from above, the tops of heads gathering and parting, the plume of smoke rising from the barbecue, the children’s small bodies rocketing on the trampoline. The grass had gone crispy from the heat. There was a bed planted with button grass and a bed filled with herbs and scraggly vegies. Di thought briefly of the gardens of share houses when she was a student—the patchy lawns, the abandoned furniture, the bins that overflowed because no one remembered to put them out. She sniffed the air. She could have sworn it was pot she smelled, briefly, but perhaps it was the smell of her memory.

  She walked inside, through the kitchen, pausing to wash her hands at the tap. The liquid hand-soap smelled herbal; expensive, like rosemary and lavender. The house was silent and suspiciously clean. The boys must be elsewhere. She looked at the refrigerator and the kikki.K family calendar charted with everyone’s activities—colour-coded for each person. Flapping beneath magnets were reminders for swimming carnival and sports day and mufti. There was an invitation for a birthday party that her son hadn’t been invited to. She recognised the boy from his class. Her hand went to her chest, the tightness there, the coiled spring of unfair.

  There was a photo of the family on a ski holiday, their faces obscured by helmets. Di had never been skiing. She thought she should mention it to Greg. Something they might do for the boys.

  The smell of marijuana became strong again, unmistakeable, this wasn’t just her memory. She followed her nose through the house. Off the kitchen and living room was a long hallway with bedrooms through open doors. In the last bedroom she saw the source. It looked to be a guest bedroom from the absence of personal items. On the double bed was a sleeping baby swaddled in pink muslin, arms free, fists beside her head. Clarice, surely. There was a careful square of pillows around her. Beside the open window stood James, a lit joint between his thumb and his finger. He was blowing the smoke out of the room.

  ‘The breeze is just catching that and blowing it back through the house.’

  James glanced over. He looked for a moment as though he would flick it out the window, but then paused and offered it to her instead. She sat on the edge of the floral quilt and grasped it gently. Her lips were dry and stuck to the paper. She inhaled. It burned, dry and sharp against the back of her throat. She held it in and looked at Clarice, who was actually quite cute. Not a bit like Jodie Foster.

  She exhaled and passed the joint back to James, who pinched the lit end and put it in his shirt pocket.

  ‘I don’t think this is what your wife meant when she asked you to check on the baby.’

  He shrugged. ‘Fast asleep. Do you need another drink?’

  Di nodded. She was glad to leave the baby and the bedroom behind. She led the way to the kitchen. James opened the fridge.

  ‘Beer, sav blanc, or something stronger?’

  ‘Beer, thanks.’

  They walked outside onto the verandah.

  ‘So, how do you know Sue and Sam?’

  ‘Just through the kids’ school. What about you?’

  James took a swig of beer before answering.

  ‘Sam and I went to school together. Eastbrook.’

  She recognised the name. It was one of the most expensive boys’ schools in Brisbane.

  ‘So, you’re old mates.’

  ‘Not really. Not at all.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘He was a raging dickhead.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yep. Let’s not dwell. Grow up here?’

  Di shook her head. ‘Sydney.’ She wasn’t going to offer him where she went to school. She could keep that to herself.

  ‘I’m curious, now, what did Sam do?’

  She tilted her head so her hair fell against the bare skin of her shoulder. The tag of her sundress itched at an unreachable point in the high middle of her back. They were both looking down at the party now: she could see Greg and over by the garden bed her boys, squatting in the dirt, looking at something.

  ‘There was this game they used to play, soggy Sao. They’d put a Sao in a dish, like a plastic takeaway container. All the guys would wank on to the Sao biscuit, and the last one to come had to eat it.’

  Di gasped with a mouthful of beer, which travelled up and out of her nose.

  ‘Are you serious?’ She mopped her face with a tea towel that was hanging from the railing. It smelled like sausage grease. ‘That’s revolting.’

  ‘Did you just spew beer out your nose?’

  ‘No. Who would do that?’

  ‘What, spew beer out their nose or eat a soggy Sao?’

  ‘The Sao.’

  ‘Mate, you didn’t have a choice. Ever heard of peer pressure?’

  ‘Did you ever?’

  James shook his head. ‘You’re sick. You think it’s hil-arious.’

  ‘You did, didn’t you. That’s why you hate him.’

  He was looking up at the sky and for a moment she thought he was going to cry. It wasn’t until the sound escaped his mouth that she saw he was laughing.

  ‘God it was disgusting. Haven’t been able to eat a Sao since.’

  They stood there in silence watching the gathering below.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell.’

  ‘I won’t. At least not until I make a toast later.’

  There were fast, light footsteps on the staircase, and a snuffle as Jack appeared at her waist.

  ‘Mummmmmy,’ he wailed. His face was streaked with dirt.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He had his arms around her waist, his little body pressed against her. His chin poked into her pubic bone.

  ‘Mummmmmy.’

  ‘What is it?’ She lifted him up and sat on a chair, settling him into her lap.

  ‘I can’t help if you don’t tell me what happened.’

  ‘They called me baby because I wouldn’t hold the spider. A boy threw dirt and it got in my eyes.’

  ‘Let me see. Blink for me. You’re okay. You’re not a baby, Jack. You know that.’

  ‘Who was it?’ James said. His eyebrows looked heavy. She could see, then, the lines beside his mouth, the beginnings of jowls.

  ‘The boy in the green shirt.’

  One of James’s boys, the older one, Rupert, wore a green shirt.

  ‘Him?’ James pointed.

  Jack nodded.

  ‘I’ll go sort him out. You wait here.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Di put her hand on his arm. ‘Jack’s fine. Don’t worry.’

  He shook
his head and stepped away.

  ‘Wait here. He’ll come say sorry.’

  She held her son as James marched down the steps. She felt an odd sense of distance from it all. ‘Rupert!’ she heard him bellow. She needed not to drink anymore. She couldn’t lose her grasp in a place like this, with her boys to look after. Jack snuggled into her and she inhaled the smell of his scalp, felt his elbow poking into the soft bulge of her stomach, his chin against her breast. His snuffles grew quieter, she was stroking his back and thinking perhaps he would fall asleep, how lovely if they could both sleep here, a little nap in the afternoon sun.

  The shouts from beneath broke her daze. James had his son by the arm, his face was blotchy and red. Rupert was crying, snot and tears and a high whine, cowering. Their mum was shouting.

  ‘That’s enough, James. Leave the boy alone.’

  ‘I won’t. He’ll come and apologise or he’ll see what it’s like to get dirt in his face. He’ll see how it feels.’

  ‘Mate,’ Sam was standing beside them now, just the top of his head visible to Di. ‘Leave him alone.’

  James turned towards Sam and let go of his son’s arm. ‘Don’t tell me how to raise my kids. I’m not going to let them act like little fucking princes who think everyone’s here to do their bidding.’

  ‘Get over it. Stop scaring the kid, hey? Go back to your pot. Smoke another joint. I thought that shit was supposed to mellow you out.’ Sam looked at the crowd that had gathered for approval, smiling at his own joke.

  For a moment, Di thought that James was going to hit Sam. She saw his fist clench and pull back, she felt the desire as though it were her own. God it would feel good. The knuckle against jaw, the snap of his neck, the flesh and bone beneath. She knew how good it would feel. Rupert was in his mum’s arms now, and Jack was still in hers. He watched the men closely.