Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  She laughed. "If you were a guy I'd think you were trying to pick me up."

  "No, it's just that you've got a really expressive face. I'm a casting agent, so I see a lot of people who think they can act. Some of them can. And then I see some who I think should be acting."

  "Really?" she said. She would never have enough dedication or motivation to do it. But it didn't hurt to tease. I changed lanes, horns blaring behind me.

  Auntie Ruth muttered and chuckled. "Husband!" she said. "George Glass!" She liked a good story.

  "Looking forward to your party, dear? Lots of George's friends expected? Lots of yours, too, I imagine. Hundreds of them. No room for a maiden aunt." She chuckled away, well-pleased at her joke.

  "You're no maiden," I said. "She's no maiden," I said to Lacey. I turned to face her to talk to her.

  "Watch the road!" Ruth said. The traffic was thick and needed my attention.

  "She had a lover, didn't you, when you were young?"

  "A lovely man. Clever, you know, always a quick word," Ruth said.

  Ruth was changing history as she became senile. She had no lover; it was common knowledge she was a virgin when she married Uncle Mike. Mum used to talk about what a fuss she'd made about it. It was Auntie Jessie who was the wild one. She never died a virgin.

  We reached home and I idled the car.

  "I'll see you later, Ruth. I'm taking Lacey into town."

  "But what about your party?" she said. Her crestfallen face, her sad face, made me believe for a moment that she had conjured up some people for me. I wondered if there were people inside, a husband even, waiting for me to come home, "Surprise" and presents and I'll drink a little too much and tire of their foolish faces and stand on the stairs. "Fuck off! Get the fuck out of my house."

  Auntie Ruth laughed. "I'll save you some cake."

  Lacey climbed into the front seat.

  "What about your party?" she said.

  "There's no party. Ruth thinks it's funny to make me think there is."

  She nestled her perfumes in her lap. I drove us to town.

  "Which one's your favourite?" I said.

  "They're all nice," she said. I looked for sarcasm but found none. She scrabbled in the sack she carried. "Thank God the old bitch's gone. Wanna fag?"

  I don't really smoke but can do if I need to. Thanks to Lee and his careful lessons.

  As I parked the car, I said to Lacey, "Where are you meeting your friend?" She stared at me blankly, had completely forgotten her lie. "Feel like drinks and dinner?" I said. "I'll pay."

  She nodded.

  I paid for Lacey's dinner, to see if she could tell who would be in her room. She thought I was such a sweet listener, asking her about the slights, letting her talk over dinner so her food went cold and she fell in love with me.

  "So tell me about yourself," I said. "I'm a stranger – perhaps we'll never see each other again. You can tell me about that little scar on your cheek; who disfigured you, sweetheart? Who would do such a thing to such a sweet face?"

  You'll tell me, I thought, and later I'll remember the name, the face, and there they'll be, waiting with knives, fists, to hurt you again to all eternity.

  I won't need to kill you slowly; they are waiting, ready in an instant.

  You'll die for me. I'll watch your face in those final moments; see it wrinkle and age, no matter how many years you had left in you. I'll watch and you'll see me. You'll think, "Give me privacy, leave me alone." But the whole point of killing you is so I can see your face.

  You'll show me nothing.

  Lacey, Lacey, blah blah blah. She said she had dreamt about the sort of life I had. This, knowing nothing about me. Parents, siblings, a family home, school. She would have been angered to hear that I wanted to die; had tried to die three times before. Lacey had feared for her life at times, but had never considered hurrying fate along.

  There had always been violence in her life; and fear. I ordered another bottle of wine, some cake, it was a lively restaurant and people showed no sign of leaving.

  "I've got an addictive personality," Lacey said. "That's what people say. I get addicted to things and can't give 'em up. They reckon I started wrong cos Mum was an addict when I was born so what hope did I have? I don't know if Mum was an addictive personality but when she had me, she couldn't stop taking drugs long enough to love me. What do you think about that? I don't hate her, but. Even though she didn't keep me, she had me, she didn't kill me like she could of. Some women do, kill their babies before they're born. At least I got a chance to grow up.

  "She didn't leave me in a basket. She tried to keep us, me and my brother, but one day she went to work and couldn't leave us at home so she left us in the car. Mum said I cried a lot when I was a baby and pissed the neighbours off. And her sister would look after us sometimes too but that pissed her off as well. She would only do it if she had to. I was only a few months old but my brother remembers. He says he was hot and couldn't breathe right. He still hates being locked up. Only reason he works instead of pinching things, if ya wanna know.

  "We were in the car all day. My brother says he thinks I died for a while and that he finally figured out how to open the window. He was only five and Mum said she'd kill him if he moved. He said he forgot about that; that he wanted to play outside. So he wound the window down. He thought he'd push me out first then follow himself. He didn't think about my landing, flat on the concrete. He was only little. But I had my only one single bit of good luck in my life. Never had any since. Oh, but meeting you was good luck, wasn't it?" She smiled at me. Her lips were stained burgundy. A drunk man from across the room thought she was smiling at him and came to talk to us. "Fuck off, loser," she said.

  "This is my second bit. My first bit was, some guy came along and grabbed me as my brother was pushing. Then he opened the door for my brother to get out. Turns out, the guy was wearing blue. Turns out he was a cop."

  "What was his name?" I said.

  "Who knows? He was a nice guy, though."

  I don't know, I thought. It could be. It could have been my father who saved Lacey's life.

  "So the cop wondered how long we'd been there, but my brother was too shy to talk. The cop looked in the car to find stuff out, stuff which got my mum into trouble. She got put in jail and we got looked after by different families. She hated my brother for that. Said he got her in trouble. You might say sure, sure, heard it all, but we were treated like shit in those places. I'd go on the telly to say it. We came out of it okay, though. Mostly because my brother's so smart, and he's really good to me. Cos I'm not all that smart. Not at school and not in the world. I'm supposed to trust too much, but it's mostly because people offer me stuff and I want it, so I forget what sort of person offered it. I'm not very good at looking after myself. I can't even pick my own clothes without looking silly. I have to pretend I do it on purpose, to look trendy. Half the time people believe me. Hey, no, third bit of luck. I found a brooch once, a really nice one, and the person who owned it was too gutless to get it back. I still got it at home. But I try not to have too much to do with people except for my brother. They expect too much. If I cut off from them they won't expect anything at all, then I won't feel bad when I don't give it to them."

  On the way back to the car we saw the old lady with her table full of free food.

  "Come on," Lacey said. "I always get something here."

  "But we just ate."

  "It's free."

  We jumped in the queue; people grunted around us. They were pretty smelly. These were the regulars, the people who came every night for a feed. I couldn't see why; the soup was only lukewarm and a bit too healthy for me. I took one sip and threw it out.

  I took Lacey back home to my place. She was very insecure. She acted careless and tough, but she was always ready for someone to hurt her. She caught her fingers in the car door and merely shook them, looking away, her eyes glazed.

  "It's nothing," she said. I hadn't planned to hurt her, but I
knew there would be people waiting in her dark room. I could see her dark room so clearly, see the faces of the people she'd slighted. Neighbours kept awake by her crying. An auntie forced to baby-sit. Jealous fellow students, because she was pretty and would have been a lovely child. A bereft true owner of a cheap brooch. People she had elbowed aside. The sleazebag she had just slighted at the bar. And all those other faces she would not recognise.

  It was very different to watching a person die when I was in control. The hospice was a wonderful place to work, but this. This.

  I hadn't planned to hurt her. I don't think she felt any pain. I crushed up the multi-coloured pills I have about, and I gave her wine.

  "I'm not a wine person," she said. Her voice was soft, now, almost pleasant.

  "This is nice wine. My father had it. It's really old."

  "You're supposed to drink wine when it's old. I know that much," she said. Softer still, like a small breeze carrying words from far away. I liked that. I liked watching her leave.

  "I feel ill," she said. I knelt on the floor and rested my elbows on her knees. She felt no pain. I held her chin up with my hands and watched her eyes. Propped her eyelids open with my fingers, so I could see.

  "Where are you?" I whispered. "What can you see?"

  "I feel sick," she said. Her eyes rolled back.

  "Is it dark or light?"

  "Light. Too bright. My eyes hurt. It's like a knife, like a stabbing. Who's there? Who's there?"

  She slumped. I was good at revival; one of my many talents. I cleared the vomit from her throat and breathed life back into her.

  "What did you see?" I said. I felt like a terrorist interrogator.

  "Bright lights. People. Mean people. Let me up now. Let me go."

  No. A small pressure on her temple and it was done with.

  She drooled, a kind of greenish drool she hadn't vomited up. I turned to get a washer and I heard her death-rattle spasm. Woof. A dog dying.

  It was one way to celebrate my birthday.

  I buried her in the yard. I had to dig up a patch of my beautiful night blooming jasmine to do it, but I had to put her somewhere. I thought of my father as I was doing it, and the thought gave me strength. He did this, I thought. He did this again and again, and it made him a better person.

  I didn't feel any better. I felt weak. Sickened. My limbs ached and I couldn't dig any more. I knew I had to get her into the dirt, get her covered. It's what dad would have done.

  I had a long, long, hot shower afterwards.

  I sat on the back step, surveying my work. Mostly I dig at night. It's cooler, and I feel less under scrutiny. And I feel like I am treading in my father's footsteps, because he was out here at midnight, too.

  Dancing beneath the stars.

  The front yard was too galling to me; the symbol of sanity in this street.

  I had been digging out intermittently for eight years and I had made discoveries about myself and my past, as well as muscles. I had turned over the soil, over and over, and I found little treasures, and then I found bones.

  Muffy's bones, my little puss-puss. But there were more; Muffy was small. These bones were big. We had always thrown our bones up the yard but these weren't chop bones. There were no teeth marks.

  I dug and I found what I had to admit were people's bones. There were too many bones. I dug holes and put them back in the earth. That's where I found them. I covered them with dirt, but I felt like I could still see their outlines.

  I felt like I could see them all creeping towards one another, to make the skeleton of a giant, with the dirt for flesh and all the chains, belts, wallets, earrings, shoelaces in a tangled ball for the head. The giant would rise and pick me up in a pinch at the scruff of the neck, and he'd drop me straight down his graveyard throat, and I'd live in his cold, dark belly forever.

  I found a cheap watch, the arm of a pair of glasses, a decaled knob from a chest of drawers, and three false fingernails. I knew they were fake when I saw the manufacturer's name, in miniature, etched on the underside.

  Lacey broke a barrier for me. I knew I could do it. I knew I was capable of sending people to the dark room. I didn't want to do it again, not even Maria, but then, as I was sorting things, deciding what I needed to burn or throw out, I found the silver bangle Eve had given me when I was eleven.

  I knocked on Eve's door a week or so after my no-surprise twenty-sixth birthday.

  There was a boy doing her lawn and he was no older than the boys had been when, as a child, I was a regular visitor to the garden woman.

  I could never quite forget Eve and that house. It would come back to me in shocks of memory; I could see her pale body, her hands out, begging, pleading, "Come on Stevie, come to Eve."

  And I did go to her. I needed to talk, to tell someone what I'd seen, to tell her about Lacey. And I knew she'd listen. Her husband Harry had died in an accident when I was nineteen; apparently he was drunk and tripped over the rake, landing his temple on the corner of the front step. She didn't find him till she opened the front door to let the morning sun in. She said she never expected him home if he wasn't home by ten at night, so she had slept soundly.

  But I knew her garden pretty well. There was never a tool left about to rust. Peter went to Harry's funeral and handed out business cards. Did he think he would hurt her that way? She didn't speak when she opened the door. Just wept; tears pouring, goose honks, an unattractive performance. I had not seen her since I was thirteen.

  "Oh, Steve, Steviesteviestevie." She couldn't leave my name alone. She always got it right. On the kitchen bench was a beer glass, and she caressed the beer bottle with stroking fingers.

  "I hear Harry had an accident a while back," I said.

  "Yes, terrible," she said. She smiled at me, false white teeth too big for her mouth. She smelt of stale perfume.

  "Did you tell them how he used to hurt you?"

  "Oh, no need to drag his name down."

  "What name? He wasn't famous."

  "Oh, no, but his family, you know. They don't need to know."

  "But he was cruel. He deserved to die."

  She took my hand and kissed it. "Oh, my darling daughter." She opened a bottle of wine – the beer was just for men. She poured two glasses; I took one and nursed it. I was an adult now. I could share her wine.

  "You lost your mother, didn't you? Another terrible accident."

  "That really was an accident," I said. I put down my wine. "Which of your boys was careless enough to leave the rake out? How long was it out for? What time did Harry come home?

  She said, "There's something I've always wanted you to have," and fetched a large, Chinese black lacquer jewellery box. She scrabbled through it; she clearly had no particular piece in mind and had never done so.

  She plucked out a brooch which glittered white and blue.

  "This is for you. It was my mother's," she said. I realised at that moment she had no one to leave things to. I took the brooch, smiled. I knelt on the floor and put my head on her lap.

  "It's beautiful," I said. "I wish I really was your daughter."

  "Oh, my darling," she said. "Steve and Eve," she said. She was good with sympathy; she had seduced Peter and I with it, a year after our father died.

  I visited her a lot, after that. I wore the brooch often, until she said, "That's a little precious to wear about the house."

  "But I love it so much. It's safer to wear it here, anyway. If I lose it, at least I'll know where to look."

  Eve took my hand and led me to the bedroom. She fetched down the jewellery box again. I hoped it wasn't obvious how many times I had rummaged through.

  She pulled out a long necklace of green glass beads.

  "How about you have this for every day, and save that for special?" she said. I agreed. In my mind I wore it all, every last bit. I was laden down with the weight of it. I wondered if she remembered the jewellery she'd given me years before, or if she imagined it was stolen.

  Birthdays were i
mportant in our house when I was a child. Eve started my jewellery collection on my eleventh birthday and she gave me a little something for my twelfth then my thirteenth birthdays. Peter had long since stopped visiting Eve. He said I was sick for going there; that there was something wrong with me. I never told him about my jewellery collection, in an old shoe box pushed way under my bed. Where it sits to this day.

  In later days, I was there when her husband Harry got home, and he would always make sure I was all right and offer me a lift home. I always said no, because I was terrified of lifts with strangers. Always had been.

  I can't remember if it was a friend of mine, or someone else, but somebody, somebody got in a car near the school and they were never seen again. Was it Pauly? Pauly was never seen again but I thought it was because he didn't like me.