by Mark O'Flynn
‘All right, all right. Put a sock in it. What’s that in your pocket?’ he asks.
‘Where?’
‘There.’
‘That’s toilet paper.’
She sniffs and runs the length of a finger under one moist nostril.
‘What for?’
‘In case I’m caught short, officer. Do you really need to ask? I have an old woman’s nephritic complaint, not to mention a fistula the size of—’
‘I don’t want to hear about it!’ Officer Fowler raises his voice along with his palm.
Ava takes a few sheets of toilet paper from one of the boxes and blows her nose into them as if she is playing the reveille. Her cheeks go red. It’s a discomfiting sight and the policeman looks away. Ava expects he’s wondering why all the shitty little jobs come to him. Surely he’d be happier behind a desk? It was going to be a quiet day.
She sees him glance at his partner still sitting in the car, grinning. A couple of pedestrians have paused to watch the exchange. And is that the priest, Father So-and-so, loitering on the other side of the road, under an awning? Off in search of his holy lunch. Ava spits again on the footpath – make clay of that!
‘Please don’t spit on the footpath,’ says Officer Fowler.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I say so.’
‘Not even if I have a fly in my mouth?’
‘What sort of a fly?’
‘A tsetse fly.’
A moment’s thought: ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I say so.’
‘I’m talking hypothetically here,’ says Ava.
‘Then hypothetically no.’
She’s talking in circles. She’s talking him in circles. Soon he’s going to have to count to ten.
Ava doesn’t know what to do with the damp toilet paper and so puts it back in her pocket. She knows they’re both wondering – am I – is she – worth the hassle? We are symbiotic, thinks Ava, this young man and I: without one, the social contract collapses, the collective flies apart and all is lost. We are no more than vapour.
She takes a deep breath, preparing to explain all this to Officer Fowler.
‘All right,’ he cuts her off. ‘This is taking far too much of my time. Listen, if I give it back will you promise not to go waving it around in public?’
Ava considers this.
‘This is non-negotiable,’ the young man continues. ‘You frightened the little kiddie and her mother. I could have you arrested for creating a disturbance.’
‘Well,’ concedes Ava, ‘I didn’t mean to frighten anyone. I only meant to inspire.’
She scratches her chin. She notices the gun in the holster at the policeman’s bony hip. So shiny and black. A part of her wonders how feasible it would be for her to pluck it out and have a look – however, there’s that little press-stud she’d have to release first – and the other part of her errs on the side of caution. Though how dearly she would like to feel his bony hips.
‘Miss Langdon?’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘Hard not to, around here.’
Ava calms down. Appeased. Flattered.
‘You’ve read one of my books.’
‘No.’
‘Where then?’
‘We’ve met before.’
‘My reputation precedes me. Very well, officer. For you, I promise.’
‘And when you get home take it off and leave it there. Dogs or no dogs.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.’
‘Please,’ says Ava, ‘you can do better than that. I thought you were going to suggest you might come round to my house and tickle my toes.’
The policeman takes his own deep breath. Ava wonders, why not flirt? He’s only a man after all, a simple enough creature.
‘Are you propositioning me?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
She gives a coquettish little turn. He quickly hands back the machete and turns to the police car where his companion has continued watching the whole charade with an amused expression. Ava sheathes the machete and wraps the wing of her coat over it like Wyatt Earp.
‘Goodbye, Officer Fowler.’
Officer Fowler doesn’t reply, merely slams the car door. Ava takes a step forward and fancies she can read their lips, catch their voices through the windshield.
‘How’s your girlfriend?’ asks the driver, and Officer Fowler seems to say:
‘I think she was trying to crack on to me.’
‘I’m sure glad she’s not my mum,’ says the first.
‘Yeah.’
This is what they leave her with: I’m glad she’s not my mum. She stumbles back to the footpath, feeling desolate. Her life’s zoetrope flickering from moment to moment. The heart at the periphery, there’s a nice little paradox to be going on with. She spits again because she can, and the spit flies forever and is still flying.
The police car pulls out and slowly drives up the hill.
Ava looks up at the sky. Drizzle. She looks around at the street. Desolate. I am the mother of no one, and maybe that’s a good thing. She looks down at the ground. Click click click goes Zeno’s arrow across the firmament. On the footpath she spies a lost twenty-cent piece. She bends and picks it up. Beneath it a little dry patch of cement, the ghost of a coin. This is an omen, she thinks, her lucky day, and in a moment her mood is lifted. But is it the same day? Is it not another day merely repeated? Has she not already found this coin? How would you solve such a riddle? Standing there like a stunned mullet she seems, for the moment, to have exhausted her infinite options. Her choices are, in fact, profoundly limited. She could go and spend some quality time in the library, surrounded by other people’s books – yes, that’s where she’s seen the young officer before; it all comes back to her. She knows they don’t like her in there. In fact she’s banned. Persona non grata. That’s what he was referring to. Ever since she took her machete to an infuriating bestseller, right there in the general fiction section. There is nothing by Langdon, A. Nothing by Kant, I. Just all these bestsellers. She knows there is nothing like a library to puncture the bubble of a writer’s sense of self-worth.
What now?
She could find another park and finish off the sherry, but then the whole repetitious palaver of her urination. These crippling rituals of the body, will they never leave her in peace? Would she just swallow sand and be done with it. In any event she will need the sherry later to keep the night at bay. For the moment she has to get out of the weather.
She hears voices, though in what language she can’t be sure. At first she thinks it could be bluebirds; then it could be devils. From the primary school halfway down the hill she sees a horde of children being marshalled by a teacher up the street towards her and the railway station beyond. A horde? A throng. A lynching party. Although well ordered in two lines, all chattering at once. In English, it would appear. English gibberish. Logorrhoea. Off on an excursion. They’re marching on her. Too late to scamper back into the post office. Where are the police when you need them? She cannot hide anywhere. Her heart rate is speeding up. In a moment they are all about her, like starlings, pecking at her. Or hyenas. A column either side. High-pitched chittering. She is drowning in children. Ava is swept along with them, a leaf in the tidal undertow. There are too many. Some of them are touching her. Infectious. Ava catches the eye of the teacher, who gives her a knowing smile. What is there to smile about? Ava is floundering. Her hand on the hilt. One swipe would give her breathing room. Why is it so hard to be good?
‘Come along, children,’ calls the teacher, the stragglers trotting to catch up. ‘Stay together now.’
And the current passes …
… although the rain has increased. At the top of the hi
ll a bus idles opposite the Savoy cinema. The bus’s door is open and Ava seizes the chance. She jumps aboard and sits in the first empty seat. The schoolchildren have moved mercilessly towards the railway station, running through the squall to the shelter of the next shop awning, their voices gradually fading. It’s warm in the bus. It smells of hamburgers.
‘You got a ticket, love?’ asks the driver.
‘I don’t need a ticket.’
‘No ticket, no ride,’ he says. He’s seen her around town, this old trouble-maker; the other drivers all talk about her. Is she an old trouble-maker? Is that how they see her? Does he wonder how difficult it will be to get her off the bus? She’s cadged free rides like this before, not going anywhere, just a round trip back to where she began, and management don’t like it, eating into their profit margin. It’s the futility of it they don’t like. There have been lectures back at the depot. More than his job’s worth.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Ava is not above stating the obvious. She knows how the system works.
‘I have to return to the depot.’
‘When?’
‘In a few minutes.’
‘Then in a few minutes I’ll alight. Surely I don’t need a ticket to sit here out of the rain. Excuse me while I compose myself.’
With that Ava closes her eyes and sleeps. Or at least gives the correct impression of sleeping. She needs a moment to recover from her conniption. The children fade from her. They’ve gone. Calm. For a while the sound of rain types on the roof of the bus. She imagines the bus driver’s sigh. He knows it’s not worth causing a fuss, and she’s right, he’s not going anywhere. Management can like it or lump it. How would it look? Kicking an old lady off his bus in the rain. Others would, he knows. Bus driving and being a stickler for the rules are surely not the only things in his life – although what else there may be is not immediately clear to Ava with her eyes clamped shut.
A couple of other passengers poke their heads into the bus and enquire about the trip to Medlow Bath. The bus driver beckons them on board but, seeing Ava slumped in the front seat, mouth agape, thighs agape, they hover between bus and shelter on the footpath, muttering to themselves.
‘Hey, lady,’ says the bus driver.
Ava snorts. A grampus.
‘Hey. You’re scaring my passengers.’
‘I thought you had to go back to the depot,’ says Ava, her eyes firmly closed.
‘I do. Eventually. Look, lady, you’re going to have to get off unless you buy a ticket.’
Revitalised, at least in principle, Ava rises to her feet. The rain has eased. The schoolchildren have gone. She’s sure they’re not intentionally evil, it’s just the impression they give.
‘You are a naughty bus driver,’ she says, stepping down. ‘I know the likes of you. Your sort. No more bullshit.’
And approaching the wary passengers on the footpath, wagging her finger, she repeats:
‘No more bullshit.’
AFTERNOON
It must be the smell of hamburgers that reminds Ava she is hungry. Where can she get a feed at a time like this? If the librarians will not stump her up a sambo then she is pretty sure the next-door council-run soup kitchen for pensioners and old folk will. It’s quite the community service. Not that she considers herself a pensioner or an old person, but one seeks advantage where one finds it. Not so? So. She is a chameleon. Adapt and survive. She wonders if they serve hermaphrodites. However, the prospect of having that conversation again is exhausting. All she wants is some tucker. She marches on. March or fall, as they say in the Foreign Legion. Darwinian. Do they still say that? she wonders. If they don’t then they ought to. Sort the sheep from the cacti. Beau Geste, he was the fellow. A manly man. Ava thinks about the Foreign Legionnaires she has known and loved. The way they strut, heading off into the desert with a carbine over their shoulders. Ava envies a man his capacity to strut.
She struts back down the hill, retracing her steps. The soup kitchen is located in the hall off the square next door to the treacherous library. Pigeons congregate on the courtyard flagstones outside. She is half tempted to go into the library and make a nuisance of herself again, ask for a copy of Beau Geste, the 1923 edition, talk the hind leg off a cooking pot till they get that glazed-over look in their eyes. However, she has learned her lesson, if not the error of her ways. Vandalism is all very well, but you’d really rather want it to be for something more meaningful than the latest bestseller. Plus she had had to pay for the book.
Scattering the pigeons, she wipes her feet on the mat. There, that’s responsible; that’s community-spirited. She pushes open the door and enters the hall. There are a dozen old people mumbling over their sandwiches and cups of coffee. Some are playing cards. Others knitting. A few look up at her entrance. At least it’s warm, and it smells nice. She takes off her helmet and hangs it on the hat rack by the door. The other hats on it are all beanies or cloth caps. She joins the queue. She thinks calm thoughts. The man in front of her turns and embarks on a conversation with himself seemingly for her edification.
‘Keeping out of the weather? That’s the spirit. Lovely day earlier. I saw a currawong carrying a pine cone, would you believe it? I hope it’s stroganoff today, they do a grand stroganoff. You like stroganoff?’
He’s wearing a vest the colour of stroganoff, so perhaps that’s where the connection comes from. He has a nose to be proud of, like a turnip gone to seed. Ava sizes up the strength of his hand and declines to shake it. Strogawhat?
The queue moves forward and people take their plates of food and disperse. In a while she is being asked another question. It’s slightly alarming to be asked a question so directly by a stranger. It’s the sort of question one might ask of God, if the opportunity arose. She has to check the palpitations in her spleen for symptoms, but there are none. God is silent. Again the question from a friendly-faced man wearing a paper hat: ‘What would you like?’
Ava prevaricates. There is an issue of pride here.
‘What would I like? What would I like? Some soup, please. If that’s at all possible. If I can’t have world peace, then some soup.’
‘Sure,’ says the man, who does not, Ava knows, care a fig for world peace or whether literature exists, ladling up a generous splash into a china bowl, a creeping vine of bluebells about the rim. A bread roll to boot.
‘Butter?’
‘Merci.’
‘There you go.’
He wipes a slice of butter onto the side plate with her roll.
‘Thank you.’
It’s such a simple gift. And no questions asked, apart from the practical ones. Nothing too abstract or philosophical. What would she like? If not world peace, then how about a gun? A gun for everyone. Her stomach rumbles impatiently. She wonders how many lunches has she had in her life? That would require some complicated arithmetic. Do bees stop for lunch, or do they eat on the wing? There’s a question. If you told them to stop working so hard, would they?
Ava takes her soup and finds a seat at a table away from the old crustaceans and their complex desperation, amongst which is a need to avenge themselves on the world, or perhaps their own younger selves. Some of them stare at her. She takes off her coat and hangs it on the back of the chair. Her bag on the table. She smooths her grey hair. Where is her helmet? It’s over there on the hat rack. She’ll forget her head one of these … The steam from the soup and her salivary glands combine to do their business. She blows on it like a man practising how to whistle. It is just the right temperature. There are vegetables. And bits of chicken. She dunks her bread roll into it and sucks the limp crust with an energetic purpose that she did not, until that moment, know was in her. She sucks it like she’s sucking the entrails from a sparrow flung down by the hand of God. She feels the equation bubbling in her belly. Appetite equals life. It’s a mathematical law.
Suddenly an impulse strikes
her with a laugh and she grabs a couple of paper napkins. Burrowing at the bottom of her bag she finds the stub of a pencil, and her muscles know what to do, her body remembers. Her handwriting is beautiful.
At the end of the crayon road
Sits the memory-fuelled house
Daubed with the old threnode
Of stone monuments and loss.
The centre comes at great cost
Where all thought is aborted.
Ghosts of the past denounce
Their former lives diverted.
Once the house all golden hope
Resided in, now winter’s amnesia
Locks it out, and the climber’s rope
Linking him to solid earth, that treasure,
Is nothing but a tangle, an imbroglio
Of ambition thwarted by fools.
A storm exhales its jumble
Of clouds that disobey the rules.
At that moment a cold wind blows the door open and she glances up momentarily. A figure walks in and the currents of air in the room seem to slow right down. It is the alien from earlier this morning. Or at least one similar, with a motorcycle helmet and a space suit, or perhaps it is a jacket, the sort they use to keep out the wind. Ava has the eerie feeling that the figure is looking for her. How else can she explain this coincidence? By chance, darling, that’s how, she tells herself. God’s hiccup. One motorcyclist likes grog; another likes soup. They’ve as much right to sustenance as anyone else. But then, she considers, not everything revolves around her. The threads of coincidence are a makeshift tapestry. There, that’s nice, she thinks. The threads of coincidence. From the edge of her attention she notices the man slowly take off his helmet. Even from this distance she can see he’s handsome. A handsome man is a deceptive gift. And yes, he does remind her of the fictitious Engels. She can see he’s got an Adam’s apple to be proud of, and, while she’s aware of what they say about the significance of the Adam’s apple, she knows they’re not all they’re cut out to be.
Nevertheless, she keeps her head down over her napkins, behind a little vase with a plastic daffodil sticking up out of it like a periscope, camouflaging herself amongst the old people—