Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  I was a little stunned. I knew they'd done me a favour; the cops would give up the idea that maybe it wasn't an accident after all. But it shocked me they would think it was necessary. Did they have discussions and decide I needed saving? What had they seen which made them think I was capable of killing my mother? I missed the babysitting, but we kept in touch. I liked being with those two. They thought I was something special; always did. That was worth plenty.

  at nineteen

  I was still a child at nineteen. Up until the day my mother died she looked after me. Shopping was the worst without her. I never even watched her do it, never went with her. Now I didn't have my car, or my licence. How could they take my licence away? And tell me I was supposed to be grateful for it? I could never find the right change for the bus and I hated sharing transport. To quote Prince Charles, "People do that." And I could never figure out the protocol of the aisles in the supermarket. There's a certain end to start at, a certain direction you're supposed to go, or else people glare.

  I wondered how Mum had done it every week; she was not a clever woman, yet somehow she returned home with bread and tins, ham, spices, fresh chicken, eggs. She only shopped in the supermarket, and she always said, "If you learn nothing else from me but this, it's okay. Supermarkets have high turnover of fresh food. They can afford to buy the best. You can't get that from those grubby little shops." Her joy increased as supermarkets grew. She'd come home with bags of jars and new vegetables, three different cuts of beef, herbs to crush, cheeses, "Would you look at this?" I never found it very interesting.

  Which is probably the thing. If I was interested in the details of food, buying, cooking, perhaps shopping wouldn't be such hell. I just like to eat the food. On the days when there was not much food left, before she did a big shop, she'd make golden syrup dumplings. I never have golden syrup, or flour. I can't remember to buy them.

  I miss her golden syrup dumplings. She did them just right.

  Shopping really was a bore, and so irritating I pulled half my hair out. There seemed to be some sort of politeness I wasn't interested in. You were supposed to shuffle quietly behind the people in front; but that's just time wasting. On one visit, the man in front was so slow I trod on his heel and he stepped half out of his shoe. When I finally made it to the check out, an old woman was there before me, and she fumbled in her bag, fumble fumble, so I stepped in front, saved myself probably twenty minutes. I left the right money on the counter and walked away. Perhaps the check-out chick sighed at me; perhaps not. If I used a credit card people sighed and huffed, so I used a credit card. I can't help but feel angry at my mother whenever I have to shop. I'm too busy to fend for myself. I've got too many important things to do to shop amongst the nobodies and keep my place clean. Carpets are meant to be dirty; that's what they're made for. Filthy feet, rolling about. Not to eat off.

  My activities caused some interest in the street. Mrs Di Matteo stuck her nose about, watching me dig, looking for clues that I was crazy, until I called her an old bag. She was not impressed; I don't think she's much more than forty.

  We had never kept up with them all. We had no swimming pool. These appeared like dominos falling once the people at number two put theirs in. I could never understand why they didn't just all swim in one or two pools, then realised it was because they didn't actually swim.

  The kids in the street were really scared of me and my house after Mum died. I was often discussed in the papers as the girl who killed her mother, as if it was deliberate. When I went to the corner shop I saw mothers draw their children closer. I wanted to say, "I have no interest in your boring, brainless children." I think I muttered it once or twice, because people said, "Pardon?" Hearing their voices shocked me; once I dropped a jar of golden syrup on the floor and walked away. The shitty looks people gave me. That was as close as I ever got to making golden syrup dumplings.

  And I was never very popular, but after Mum died adults in the street were scared of me, too. They began to treat me like they would a stinking killer dog. The man across the road, Gary, was very aware of my existence. He liked the idea of me being lonely. Gary, such a friendly name, such a mean man. He was huge in a bean bag way, his flesh as bumpy as one and a very yellow tan. No one would take him seriously.

  He said, "Would you like to borrow my pen? It's pink and I keep it in my trousers."

  No one even offered me token invitations. I began to feel like an outcast. I didn't mind it. I never liked any of them anyway. They thought I was strange. I had a big pile of shit on my front doorstep that'd been there almost a year. I had lived with these people for most of my life and they had had no effect on me. There was anger about me now, and the kids came and stared up the path, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl who killed her mother. The newsagent banned me, but more because I read the magazines without buying them than because my mother was dead.

  They all seemed to forget I was only eighteen when it happened. I didn't feel grown up. I felt like a daughter still, but my mother was gone.

  The people in the street wanted me to clean the shit off my front step. They left notes in my letterbox or shoved under my door. Early on they sounded like this: "Dear Stephanie, would you mind doing something about your front lawn? It's only that the rest of the street is so neat. Perhaps you'd like some help from one of the men."

  Peter used to do the gardening about every two months, when he lived at home, because he's as lazy as I am. Then he moved out, then Mum died, and no one does it. It isn't something I notice.

  Gary across the street offered to do it, but I didn't need that kind of obligation. His wife was very nice, good looking, according to the men's talk I heard over the fence whenever there was a barbecue going on. But he came over and pretended he had important things to tell me, when all he wanted to do was to see me in my home clothes. He pressed me up against the fridge and told me he'd paint the house, too, if I wanted him too.

  I said I didn't. I said, "Tell your friends to stop sending me notes," because I'd got one under my door saying "CLEAN UP THE FUCKEN MESS, PIG."

  He said, "It was never like this when your father was here. You're nothing like him."

  I threw a glass of beer at him, and he grinned. "Like 'em passionate," he said. But he left me alone after that.

  I felt adrift, even in my own home. All I wanted to do was dig up the backyard. The backyard was mine, now, to do with as I would.

  It was large, an area twenty metres square. Somewhere at the back was a see-saw; I can remember playing on it for a short while. I found it so boring, just up, down, up, down, nothing to look at but Peter's silly face.

  He loved going up, didn't like going down.

  "Going up you might be able to fly, you can lift your arms and might be a bird. Going down you land with a bump or squash your legs, and then you have to push up again." I watched his face, swapping joy for anticipation and as I was only three, I copied him.

  I dug and dug and I found eight marbles and a small plastic bucket resting next to an indentation in the ground.

  I remembered the leaving of the bucket. It was Christmas Day. Peter was riding up and down the driveway on his new bike, too scared to take it out onto the footpath. He learned to ride months before, on a secondhand bike a cousin had given him. We always got stuff from Auntie Ruth's kids. Luckily this one was from cousin Diana – she always looked after her things, like Peter did.

  The old bike should be mine, now, but the formal ceremony had not yet been held. That required Peter to say the words, "You can have my old bike, Stevie." Until then it wasn't mine, and my parents wouldn't take it from him.

  The new bike was far more enticing, but I had at last tired of standing in the garage begging Peter for a turn each time he came near me. He made the most of it; had me fetching and carrying, never actually saying, "Get me a glass of cordial and I'll give you a go," but why else would he demand such a thing?

  "Gimme a go, Peter," over and over, and he just pedalled up and down the
driveway, thriving in my attention. He took his hands off the handlebars once, but the bike wobbled so he quickly put them back.

  When I realised he wasn't going to give me a turn I started daring him to do things.

  "Go out on the street. Take your feet off the pedals. Drive fast over that rock. Lift the front wheels up." He did none of them, just pedalled up and down the driveway.

  It was such a great bike. The old bike was a girl's bike, with no bar across the front, and Peter was always getting teased about it. This one was a boy's bike, with gears and a bell which wasn't rusty. His feet didn't touch the ground when he sat on the seat. Maybe he didn't want me to ride it because he didn't want the kids in the street seeing a girl on it. Or he was just being mean. Or he knew I'd ride it on the footpath and down the street, over rocks, probably scratch it.

  I watched him all Christmas afternoon. Mum came out to entice me with my own gifts, "Come and play with your felt set," or whatever I got that year. But I was patient. I got up early on Boxing Day, thinking if I was first there I'd have to get a turn.

  Peter surely must have been bored with the game. Up and down, up and down, because if he stopped one of them might say, "Why don't you give your sister a turn on the bike, if you're not using it?"

  Finally I realised he was never going to relent and went and got my new bucket and spade.

  "That'll be good for the beach," Dad had said when I opened it. The beach wasn't far from where we lived but still an expedition.

  "What sort of things can you do with a bucket and spade?" Dad said. He liked to make us think. "Dig in the sand, what else?"

  "Collect water and shells and creatures," I said. "Make sandcastles and move the sand away."

  "Anything else, Peter?"

  "Dig in the sand?" Peter said. I remember it so well because I loved it when Peter acted stupidly.

  We had good Christmases when Dad was alive. He never worked on Christmas Eve, but stayed home and cooked the dinner. He always made fried rice, very delicious, and heaps of it.

  I pulled on my new bathing suit, got a towel out of the cupboard, took some cake from the tin and wrapped it in grease-proof paper. I collected my bucket.

  "I'm going to the beach," I said. Mum and Dad were lying down, even though it was morning.

  "We'll go to the beach later," Dad said.

  "Only pretend," I said, and marched downstairs.

  The backyard was a jungle even then. Dad had tired of working in it. He was never too keen anyway. He'd never provided a good crop of veggies, and must have hated mowing the lawn, because it always made him grouchy, as grouchy as he got. I loved the smell of him, though, that mixture of cut grass and sweat. I wanted hugs but he was too grouchy for hugs.

  With the sound of Peter in the background, riding up, down, up down, I settled myself where I couldn't see the house and began to dig. In my mind I designed a trench so that when it rained, all the rain which flooded in our back door would lead up to the centre of the yard and into a hole.

  I dug the hole first; quite deep it was. Then I began to dig out my trench. I got lost. I thought I was heading to the house but I was at a 90 degree angle from there. I realised this when I ran into my Dad's legs.

  "What are you doing?" he said.

  "Digging a trench to the door." I didn't stop.

  "But you're nearly at the garage."

  I stood up and surveyed my position

  "Oh, well, I'll have two trenches," I said, and took a step towards the hole.

  He clutched my shoulders with such strength I dropped my bucket and spade.

  "You don't dig up the yard," he said. He picked me up, dumped me in the garage, freed Peter's old bike from the clutter it rested amongst.

  "Peter said you could have his bike," he said, one of those adult lies I was happy to hear. Mum stood with her hands on her hips, watching him.

  "Alex." That was all she said, but we both knew Dad was in trouble.

  I was feeling tough and angry and I wanted to show off my new bike so I went next door to scare Melissa. She was older than me but terrified of storms, dogs, the dark, her dad, school and all. She was playing dollies, with little tea cups and fancy dresses.

  She had a little dolly grooming set, with brush, comb and mirror. She loved the mirror most of all, because it was real glass. She thought it was magical.

  "Let me brush Margie's hair," I said. She rarely had anyone to play dollies with, partly because she was so bossy.

  "You have to comb first, then brush, then let her see if she likes it."

  I combed and brushed under Melissa's careful eye. I picked up the dear little mirror, placed it between my teeth and crunched. It served me right; I cut my tongue and lip and had to go to the dentist to get the bits of glass out of my teeth.

  But it was worth it. She was always terrified of me from then on, and would do anything I asked.

  She never seemed to grow up. She was always little, even when she went away and got married. She never said no when asked for a loan, and she always invited me to parties she had. I always declined. She wasn't my speed.

  I should have sorted through all Mum's things, but didn't feel like throwing anything out. Uncle Dom called to offer help sorting. When Dad died, we thought we'd see more of Dom, but Dad's cop mates kept him away. Peter and I didn't know why; loyalty to Dad, was my guess. They didn't want his own brother moving in on Mum. It was a shame, cos Mum could've done with some help. And we could've done with some presents.

  "Hey, Steve. You've done a lot of work back here," Dom said. He looked a lot older than last time I saw him. A bad haircut and really ugly shirt didn't help.

  "It's my obsession," I said. I didn't want to speak to him. He'd ask about Mum, questions I didn't want to think about. There was nothing he could do for me. He should've been around earlier.

  "I'm not feeling well, Uncle Dom. You might have to come back another time." I shut the door half in his face.

  "You're just like your father, Stephanie. I can see him in you clear as day."

  "Thank you," I said. I shut the door on him. Go away, you old fuck. I thought. You stupid, ugly, useless old fuck. Go away.

  "I'll just leave this for you," he called, and slid something under the door. It was an envelope full of money.

  Nice of him.

  I enjoyed my empty house, but it was hard to pay the bills, and it was too big for me. So I advertised in the classifieds, and I found Mark, who was lovely at first, and another guy, Jason, who was too demanding right from the start. He had great clothes, though. I borrowed his green t-shirt and said I lost it. I couldn't wear it until he moved out, but it was worth it. They couldn't cook golden syrup dumplings, the liars.

  Mark was okay for a while, as long as he kept to his own room. He was curious, wanted to know about the house, the room he slept in, details. It bored me very quickly, but he cooked well, did the shopping. One night I was feeling ratty, rebellious; I'd been fitting into the square, a frustrating way to live. Jason was interstate, with a lover, somewhere. Mark cooked dinner and insisted we eat at the table, talk to each other, look at each other in the candlelight.

  It was seductive, having such attention. Not that I starve for it, but it was nice to be listened to.

  So we had sex. It was pretty disgusting; he was very eager, his mouth was too soft, he was so skinny his bones poked at me. After it was over I said, "That won't be happening again," and I sent him slithering into his own room.

  I ignored him so completely after that I wasn't surprised when he announced he was moving out. He must have been practising the words for days. They came out stilted, a bad actor in a filthy soapy.

  Love, love, blah blah.

  It gave me the giggles, yet he was so serious.

  He didn't like my twitching mouth. He said, "I thought that night was special."

  "Oh, but it was," I said. "It was so special I don't think we should repeat it. We may ruin what we had."

  I loved it. He didn't cry, but he didn't lo
ok at me, either.

  Then he turned nasty. He said, "Someone as covered with scars as you shouldn't be picky."

  "What could my scars possibly have to do with it?

  "It just says what sort of person you are."

  I stood in front of the mirror, trying to feel his revulsion. True, I was scarred, a white slash across my forehead from the accident which killed my mother, the scar over my right eye, scars on my arms, my shoulders. Scars on my knees and thighs. Scar tissue thick on my fingers. The back of my neck. The top of my ear. And the neat, stitchy scar across my stomach, from when I lost my appendix. My scars were real.

  Oh, the pain, the pain. I burnt the sheets we slept in. Jason left soon after, so I got to wear his green t-shirt.