Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  "Nothing," I said. I didn't want him to know of the things I found in the back yard. That was my information; knowledge to keep safe.

  I got home from work at 3am, unable to sleep. I thought I should sort through some papers, destroy things, destroy stuff I didn't want people to see. But I didn't really know the difference.

  One thing I did find was the card my old English teacher had sent me for Mum's memorial. I hadn't thought of her, although she called me periodically and tried to make me talk about stuff I didn't want to talk about. She wanted the details of things she didn't need to know.

  I called her, anyway, and she said, "Come to visit, Steve." I arrived there, thinking I'd stay for a day, thinking that would be plenty. She admired my car. It was a good day; she read poetry, some she'd written herself. One was about me, she said, but I didn't recognise myself.

  She was mad, but fit, and she lived in a log cabin, built by numbers, out in one of the new plastic suburbs. She was surrounded by strangers who thought she took up room, but they left her alone. She liked that; left her time to write. She was working on her autobiography. I wondered how much her obsession with suicide and death would feature. I thought I'd call her, see her, but I hadn't got around to it.

  We ate and drank.

  She had bought a meat pie, home-made tomato sauce, shortbread.

  "I haven't found another student like you, Stevie. It broke my heart when you left school. We could have got you to Uni. I know it."

  "I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go," I said. "I wanted the bucks. Studying is for the birds," I said. "Anyway, I love nursing. It suits me."

  She laughed. "For the birds," she said.

  I told her about the jasmine in my back yard.

  "Sounds lovely," she said. "I must come for a visit." This was too much; I didn't want her in my home. I was cold and she didn't move to turn the lights on.

  "Look, I'd better get going," I said.

  "Oh," she said, waking from a dream. "I thought you'd stay. I thought you'd stay the night. I've got a spare room. I thought we could go for a drive tomorrow, see some sights, you know."

  "You know. You know. I thought cultured people didn't say you know."

  "I know." We giggled. "I've got so much to tell you," she said. "And you me. We can talk about whatever it is that's bothering you."

  That was my big cue to fuck off. Analysis by amateurs; everyone wanted to do it to you if you were an orphan.

  "Not much to talk about," I said. It was like some magnetic force drawing words out.

  "Why don't we get a nice plate or two of Indian food, sit around, talk into the night. We have a certain affinity, Steve. I don't know if you feel it. I certainly haven't felt it for another student, but then you were not like any other student I ever had." I worried for a moment she was being sexual; that was not my desire. But she just liked me. She liked me as I was.

  "I'll go up the road and get some," I said. It would be nice to sit on her front lawn, sniff the jasmine.

  I thought it was simple, an offer to buy Indian food. I didn't know what would happen. I would have let her go, if I'd known. Let the teacher get picked up in my place.

  I wandered out, her money jiggling in my pocket. Let her pay. It's the least she can do.

  I was walking, walking, because the restaurant was close and the parking bad, and a car slowed behind me. I thought it was her; I stupidly thought it was her. So I turned with a smile on my face, my thumb out, ha ha hitching.

  It wasn't her. It was a guy, and he stopped. He had a baseball cap on. He said, "Get in, I'll drive you." Pauly, I thought and all the others. All the missing children, condemned to life in a room eating dog shit. I picked up a rock and threw it at his window. "Fuck off," I screamed. I ran back towards Alice's house, but I couldn't find it, I was lost. I didn't want to know if he was following, I knew he was; I knew I was going to be raped and locked in a cold dark room, cold and dark with people who hate me. All the streets and houses looked the same. I found my car, climbed in, drove home. Money in my wallet. Didn't ring Alice. She rang me. Where are you? Fuck off. Fucking hate you. Fuck off.

  My car is a special family car. We got it when I was eight. Sandwiched between my appendix and Dad's death, eight was a good year.

  I loved the new car smell. A smell without history. Peter and I would hang our heads out the windows, letting our mouths dry out so much we could hardly breathe.

  Gradually our smells took over. Dad drove it for a year, then Mum, though she hated driving at all, Peter when he got his licence, then me. I insisted Mum give it to me; I needed it. I was a courier. Peter said to me once, "If you hadn't pinched the car off me, Mum might be alive right now." What would he want with an old car like that? Doesn't fit his image.

  Peter and I both learned to drive in it. Dougie Page taught us on Sundays. Mum didn't want the responsibility. I could lean my head back and feel the dent where Dad used to rest his head. If I closed my eyes I felt like him.

  My dad loved looking after me, getting me things no other little girl got. We were at the pictures once, a very special event because Dad hated the movies. Mum said, "But our second date was at the movies. Didn't you like it then?"

  "And what movie was on?" Dad said, and Mum laughed, and they started kissing and wouldn't stop. I hugged their four knees to my chest so hard they tripped over.

  "Do you want to go to the pictures?" Dad asked me. Oh, yes, I did, I wanted to sit between Mum and Dad, and Peter has to sit way up the front because he's half-blind.

  The movie was wonderful. I still have the poster on my wall, a girl in army gear, mud on her cheeks. I'm the only one who got one. Dad talked the woman behind the counter into pulling down the advertising one behind her. For me. Mum slapped him all the way home. "Big charmer! What a charmer!" Peter snuck in one night and drew a moustache on the girl; I snuck in the night after that and drew a moustache on him.

  At work, Ced said, "How was your visit to the old teacher? What's she like? Does she still think you're a genius?" He said this while we were washing a woman covered with pustules. We were used to it. She listened to us, distracted, enjoying a glimpse of real life.

  "She's turned into a lesbian. She tried to have a go at me," I said.

  The patient gasped. I took her mind off her suffering just for a minute or two.

  at twenty-six

  I'm thinking surprise party. I'm wondering, how dumb do they think I am? No one mentions my twenty-sixth birthday, no one wants to know where the party is?

  I thought I'd let them play their little games. Every one of them should have known I'd rather be amongst it, planning, anticipating, deciding who wasn't going to be fucking invited.

  This is what should have happened:

  My friends were so good at keeping secrets I had barely an inkling. They called me through the day with birthday wishes, to put me off the scent, and asked what I was doing to celebrate.

  "Oh, not much, you know, just a quiet drink at home with Peter, I think. After all, he's the one who's known me the longest."

  This is what should have happened:

  Peter picked me up from work in his Mercedes and it was nice and cool inside because it's always hot in February, my birthday, too hot for people to care.

  The car is cool and he has champagne. Maria isn't there because both children are sick.

  Peter starts talking about all the great birthdays, how it's important the two of us are always together.

  He says, "We don't need third parties," meaning Maria.

  "Or fourth or fifth," I say, meaning the kids, and he laughs. He agrees.

  We have a drink in the beer garden of the one real pub in town, then another. Peter leaves me alone for a few minutes and I shut my eyes to the sun, because it sets late here in summer and is at its most benign now.

  "I ordered take away from Alla Bussola," he said. "I thought we'd go home and eat it."

  Neither of us like to eat in at restaurants. It's the one true thing we have in
common. It's much harder for Peter, in his job, because he has to do it often. I never do it.

  We both love food, love to eat it quickly, chew loudly, slurp, not talk, taste everything, lick the plate. When we have our happy moments we talk about being rich enough to own a restaurant just for us, where we choose off the menu and behave as badly as we like. I still think about it sometimes.

  We pick up the takeaway and I can't resist eating the garlic bread. I wipe my greasy fingers on the seat and Peter says, "Oh, Steve," but nicely, as if he's glad I'm like that.

  The owner of the restaurant hates us taking his food away. He doesn't let anybody else, but we talked him into it. We lied to him about being agoraphobic and he's a lovely, trusting man, and a wonderful cook. He does the cooking himself, and he serves.

  We take away the garlic bread, and this fried cheese which makes my tongue melt. There are garlic prawns on the thinnest, strongest garlic pasta. There is pasta with salmon and vodka, chicken with the greenest asparagus, there's tortellini so tender you don't have to chew. And there's zuppa inglese, a potent, marsala-drenched cream-whipped heaven.

  We eat it all in the car up the road from his place.

  "Come in for coffee," he says, or should have said, and I do.

  If I'd been suspicious, all the cars parked by his house would have confirmed it.

  But I say, "Looks like someone's having a party and didn't invite you."

  "Bastards," he says.

  I still don't get it, even at the front door where someone has strung some streamers.

  Peter unlocks the door and pushes it open. He nods for me to go first. I step inside.

  "Surprise!" How can I name the hundreds of people who were there, when they only exist in my fantasy? Certainly a good time was had by all. And there, how frustrating my lack of experience in these things is. My imagination fails me. I cannot get beyond, "Surprise!" then all is a blank until I am at the front door, my throat sore from speaking so many farewells. Peter is in the back toilet, helping Maria be sick.

  This is what should have happened when I got home:

  "Happy Birthday!" The cheer is off-key; it makes me laugh.

  "No singers here, I take it?" I said. "No out-ofwork performers getting in some practice?"

  They ignore me and continue with their blessings. I can see they carry presents; some held in mock secret behind backs, others waved tantalisingly.

  "Very nice," I say, "what a surprise!" They look at each other, clap, shake hands. Oh, they are proud of themselves. Such pathetic plans: "Oh, Steve," says Auntie Ruth, "will you drive me to the chemist? I've forgotten to fill my prescription, and I'll be in terrible trouble by the morning if I don't have it?"

  Of course I agree – do I have a choice? I have no desire to hear her detail the physical result of my refusal. If I say no, my brother Peter would do it, and suddenly he's the hero again. It is his normal place in life. Somehow he received all the nice genes in our family. I am the lucky one, though. I am the lucky one. People like me in spite of myself. Look at the turn out for my party.

  This did happen: I cruised slowly past the chemist looking for a parking spot, then snagged the last spot, sneaking in front of a red-faced arsehole.

  Auntie Ruth, of course, took an age at the chemist. I am rarely in these shops – I can't stand the smell. That chemical smell, cough medicine, soap, cheap perfume. I would have realised Auntie Ruth was up to something sooner, with her foolish delays, her questions, dropped coins and sampling of hand creams. But a woman stood at the perfume shelf and fascinated me.

  Her hair was an unlikely blonde. She wore a bum-length spotted fur which looked like it had been sucked by her cat. Fishnet stockings, not laddered. And sneakers with purple laces.

  She was selective. Out of the twenty types of perfume there, she made a neat stack at her feet, never looking down, but stepping carefully over as she discovered another shelf of perfume. She picked six bottles of perfume for a total cost of $12.

  I walked her aisle twice, both times knocking her pile of cheap scent over.

  "Sorry," I said. She tutted. I wondered how someone so much on the outreaches of society could be bothered by such a small thing.

  It astonished me that anyone could look so bad and care so little. She fascinated me, the way she didn't know I existed, didn't know who I was.

  "Can you wait in the car a minute? I have to get something," I said to Auntie Ruth. She was in no hurry. She knew we had nowhere to go, no party, no cake, not a present or a surprise.

  "Go on," I said. I gave a push in the small of her back, because she was an irritating woman who would not get moving. She wanted to try a sports bandage on to see if it itched, because Uncle Mike, her useless husband, had a bad knee and couldn't get out to mow the lawn anymore.

  "If you come to visit, you'd see the forest I live in," Auntie Ruth said.

  "Jungle. People usually say jungle."

  "I've never seen a tiger yet." She stretched the bandage around my arm, squeezing my veins till I felt them popping. I glimpsed her spy at her watch and realised she had something planned for my birthday.

  "You know I don't want any fuss today," I said.

  She said, "Okay," and meant it. She was one of the many who forgot my birthday.

  I watched until she settled heavily into the car, then turned to the perfume woman. She had finished with her selection and had balanced each box gracefully along one arm which she held out as if she were shaking hands.

  She bent to stare closely at a table of men's underwear. She realised what she was looking at and jerked her head up, embarrassed. She was short-sighted, vain, and she cared more about what people thought than I originally imagined.

  She's not what I want, I thought, then I saw her elbow a woman aside to reach the counter.

  The woman tutted. The perfume girl didn't notice, just plunked her things on the counter.

  "Are you a stranger?" I said to her. She noticed me then; someone potentially less stable than she was.

  "My mum told me not to talk to strangers," I said. I felt coy. My face was puckered like a child's.

  She said, "Everyone I know is a stranger."

  The cashier held out her change and stared at us, wanting us both to leave.

  "My husband is not a stranger," I said. I held my left hand tucked under my jumper. "My husband is an intimate friend."

  She walked to the door.

  "I need to talk to a stranger," I said. It was a gamble. People are either repulsed or attracted to need.

  "Go pay a counsellor, stupid bitch," she said, and I knew she was perfect, that she would see what I saw when she died, and if I brought her back she'd tell me about the people in the dark room, waiting to take little bites of her skinny arse.

  "Come on, Steve," said Auntie Ruth through my car window. "Never give money to a beggar. They might find your address and rob you."

  "Is this your car?" said the perfume girl.

  "Car, house, money. I've got two houses and three cars. I've got a wall of stereo and five thousand CDs. Do you like music?"

  She knew I was engaging her in conversation and she smiled at me. She pitied me now and was superior; although I had the clothes, the face, and I didn't have ugly fishnet stockings, she was the stronger, now. She was better than me

  I offered her a lift. She didn't trust me enough to ask me to drive her home; she said she was going into town to meet a friend. I didn't believe there was a friend. Ruth sat there in the passenger seat, waiting to be delivered home. Ruth did not drive; driving was beneath her. Beyond her, I would say.

  "It's Stevie's birthday," Auntie Ruth said. "She's twenty-six."

  The girl laughed. "How'd you get a name like Steve? I thought you were a girl." She laughed, and I almost felt slighted.

  "What's your name, then?" I could hear my childhood playground voice coming through, my "so what if I'm a girl, I can still beat you" voice.

  "Lacey," she said. She was staring at Auntie Ruth, sitting there all
over lace and frills.

  "And my husband's name is George Glass," I said. I guessed she hadn't seen that episode of The Brady Bunch, where Jan invented the name of a boyfriend by looking around the room.

  "Steve Glass, ay?" she said. She laughed. She picked at her nose with the finger stall I had not noticed her wearing on her index finger. She placed the tip of it in one nostril, and I imagined the leather warming there.

  "I don't usually take lifts with strangers," she said. I nodded. "But guess I can trust you," she said. I nodded again, and fate began its fat roll again.

  "Are you an actress, Lacey?"