Game Theory

by Barry Jonsberg

  I tried to remember what it was like to be in primary school, but I couldn’t. This made me sad. I had been to Phoebe’s school, for Chrissake, only a few years back, but now it was mainly lost to me. I could remember Mrs Griffin, who had a bad hip and bad teeth and a good sense of humour. God knows how many hours I spent in her company, but all that was left were fragments of memory and a few thin feelings. The past is like that. It dissolves and leaves you with a vague sense of loss.

  It was no good. I still felt like a pervert, so I got up from the swing and circled the block. I passed a woman who was taking her blue heeler for a walk. Neither seemed to be enjoying it. The dog was straining at the leash and the woman was straining against the dog. As I approached, it veered towards me, a low growl coming from deep within. The woman kept muttering ‘good boy’ to it, but that was fooling no one, least of all the dog. I stepped off the footpath onto the road but it tried to follow me. There were a few glistening threads of drool coming from its lips and the woman’s arms were bunched with the strain of keeping it in check. I told her g’day, but she didn’t bother replying. I hate it when that happens.

  I did two laps of the school and settled down to wait outside the main entrance. Parents had gathered by then, mainly women but a few men as well. The majority were parked in LandCruisers, Pajeros and other four wheel drives. It’s a prosperous neighbourhood. The women chatted among themselves. I guess if you see the same people five days a week, you’re bound to find common ground. I kept to myself, though I’d often thought about joining the discussion. That would be cool, to chat with women twice my age about . . . well, whatever they were chatting about. The weather, how great their kids were, the preposterousness of men. I could do that, but somehow I’d never found the courage. That was a pity. Game theory is all about understanding how other players think, so it would’ve been . . . educational.

  To be honest, the thing I loved most about picking Phoebe up was not so much seeing her come out – though that did give me a blast – but watching the other kids. Some dorky, some gorgeous and confident. Boys who wrestled each other because they were boys and couldn’t hug; girls who hugged because they were girls and that was okay. But mainly the backpacks. Is it just me, or is there nothing better in the world than seeing a small scrap of a human being with a canvas bag as big as them on their backs? Some of the kids were like pack mules. I could see their bags were leaden with whatever was in them. Bricks? Anvils? Others had bags that were shrivelled and loose, presumably because there was nothing in them apart from a lunch box containing Pringle crumbs and a shrivelled apple. But the bags were still huge. It’s really great.

  Phoebe came out with Corey, as always. She was talking to him and it seemed, from a distance, an earnest conversation. He had his face turned towards her and his nose was enormous in profile. I was reminded of a wading bird, particularly since he has stick-thin legs made more prominent by extra-short shorts. He is going to be an accountant when he grows up. I would put money on it. Phoebe is one of the anvil-in-the-backpack brigade. I have no idea what she keeps in there but it is really heavy. I’ve toted it a couple of times. Maybe it’s a piano. Corey was nodding. Phoebe was punctuating her words with extravagant wafting of her boater, which she carried in her right hand. Women talk, men listen. We learn this game at an early age and that’s okay by me.

  ‘How’s it hanging, Corey?’ I said when they reached me.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. He always said ‘Yeah’ to me, regardless of my comment. That always cracked me up as well, but I didn’t let it show. ‘Later,’ he added to Phoebe, and walked off to where his mum was waiting for him. She also had a beak of impressive proportions. Their car was a Mercedes. Maybe she’s an accountant.

  ‘Wassup small beast,’ I said to Phoebe. ‘How’s school?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What did you do today?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  Mum used to complain about my responses to those questions, which were exactly the same as Phoebe’s responses. Hell, she still complains. School is a private thing, though, even when there’s nothing to be private about. I respect that, but I still ask the questions. If nobody asked, you wouldn’t get the chance to stonewall.

  ‘Is Corey going to be an accountant when he grows up?’ I asked.

  ‘No. An astronaut.’

  ‘An astronaut?’

  ‘Yeah. He wants to go into space. He’s interested in space.’

  I considered this for a few moments.

  ‘Probably a wise career choice, then. Bet he ends up as an accountant, though. Astronaut. Accountant. They have a lot of letters in common.’

  ‘You’re dumb.’

  ‘Takes one to know one.’

  Phoebe took me by the hand. Many other kids of her age don’t do stuff like that. They find it embarrassing, I guess. But she doesn’t care. She’s very tactile. Her hands were cool and dry. Mine weren’t, probably as a result of that close encounter with the dog and a brisk two laps of the school

  ‘We going shopping?’

  ‘Yeah. Mum needs some things for dinner.’

  This was another of my jobs. Mum worked as an assistant in a child-care centre and she often wouldn’t get the chance. She stayed way behind normal school hours, looking after tackers whose parents were out at work until five or later. I don’t mind shopping. And Phoebe loves it.

  ‘What are we getting?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, poo face. It’s on a need-to-know basis. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’

  ‘You’re dumb.’

  ‘So you say.’

  We walked in silence for another five minutes. I kept glancing down at Phoebe at my side for no other reason than I liked to watch her when she wasn’t watching me. I liked the way she put one foot in front of the other, lost in her own thoughts, like a proper human being, rather than someone in training for it. It never fooled her, though. She always knew when I was examining her. She glanced up.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I nearly got savaged by a blue heeler today,’ I replied. ‘It wanted a piece of me, so I killed it.’

  ‘You did not.’

  ‘No. I didn’t. You’re right. I lied. Sorry.’

  ‘So it didn’t try to savage you?’

  ‘Well, it would have done if there hadn’t been a woman attached to it. My life flashed before my eyes. It was just as boring the second time around.’

  There’s a large shopping mall about fifteen minutes’ walk from our house and we normally go there for groceries. Phoebe liked the supermarket best – the very supermarket that Summerlee used to work at – even though there were other shops that you’d think a kid of seven going on eight would prefer. She was a whiz with the fruit and veg. She’d squeeze avocados, sniff melons and inspect broccoli heads for signs of insect damage. I was always prepared to take my chances, but Phoebe wasn’t. How did we, in our own ways, become gender stereotypes? It’s a mystery. One area where she broke that, though, was in steering the shopping trolley. She wouldn’t let me do that and it had been years since she’d actually sat in one. I remember one time when we were doing the shopping after school and I got in the trolley instead. I couldn’t get my legs through the gaps and let them dangle, which was a shame. That would have been a blast. So I sat in the trolley and Phoebe wheeled me around, all solemn. Squeezing avocados and sniffing melons, while I stuck my thumb in my mouth and occasionally pleaded for a lolly. Eventually, an assistant made me get out for reasons she couldn’t articulate. Summer was doing a shift that day and she gave her colleague shit for it. Pointed out that we weren’t doing any harm and Phoebe was a really good driver. It didn’t do any good, though. Sometimes people just don’t like watching other people having fun. I don’t know why.

  ‘Do we need anything from the deli?’ she asked after we had found a trolley and entered through the little swing gates that remind me of batwing saloon doors in old westerns. The deli was Phoebe’s favourite and she insisted
on doing the ordering. Sometimes the assistant had to crane over the big curved glass frontage to see her. I normally stood a distance off and watched. I didn’t this time.

  ‘Four salmon fillets,’ I replied.

  ‘Risotto,’ said Phoebe.

  I nodded. It was one of Mum’s staple recipes. Risotto with mushrooms, dill and peas, topped off by grilled salmon steaks. Phoebe would be in charge of grilling the fish, a task she took very seriously. Mum would do the risotto, since it took a lot of stirring and constant attention to get it just right. I was never required in this process but I would sometimes watch Phoebe and the salmon. She’d check about every ten seconds, turning the salmon with tongs to make sure the fillets were cooked evenly, her tongue poking slightly out of the corner of her mouth, totally absorbed in the task. She was the salmon. In the zone.

  ‘I’ll get the herbs and the mushrooms,’ I said. We had peas at home and there was plenty of arborio rice. ‘Meet you at the chocolate section.’ Occasionally I would buy Phoebe a Mars bar or something. Not always, because she was an addict and you can’t feed addicts, but I was in the mood this time. I left her with the trolley, mainly because she wouldn’t have given it up even if I’d wanted it.

  Listen. I have been over what happened next at least forty times. To the police, to my parents. To anyone who cared to hear. But that’s nothing compared to the number of times I have rewound and reviewed it in my head. And each time something else came back to me, real or imagined. A glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye, a snatch of conversation as I passed through the aisles. The supermarket was crowded. There were small children who’d stop right in front of you, oblivious to your presence, so you’d have to swerve around. That definitely happened. There was an Indian woman in brightly coloured clothing who apologised to me when her kid – a little girl with enormous brown eyes and jet black hair that shimmered like silk – skidded to a halt and nearly bailed me up. I smiled at her, but I didn’t say anything. The police interviewed the woman, much later, but she couldn’t recall anything, not even the apology. I walked to the vegetable section and picked up a pack of pre-sliced mushrooms. There was an assistant – a guy with receding hair, around forty years old – stacking the shelves with broccoli. I remember thinking he was an unlikely employee. And I also remember thinking I was being ageist for thinking it. I guess I believed that when you hit middle age you’d have some kind of career and stacking vegetables wouldn’t be part of it. Did he have dreams, when he was at school, of becoming a surveyor or an airline pilot or an inventor or a writer? And what brought him to this point, this balancing of vegetables on steel shelves? I shoved those thoughts away and asked him if they had any fresh dill. They didn’t. He told me a delivery was expected tomorrow. He had good teeth and watery blue eyes.

  I bought a tube of processed dill – a herb pretending to be toothpaste. It wasn’t ideal, but I had to get something. The fruit and veg section was large and full of people. There was a woman scolding her child, who was whimpering about something. She was kind of yelling but pretending not to, as if bawling at a kid was a shameful action in a public place. I guess it is. Her face was doughy and she had a tattoo peeking above her T-shirt at the base of her neck; some kind of Celtic symbol. She grabbed the kid by the arm and gave him a little shake, and then he really started to cry. Her mouth was twisted in annoyance. I remember praying she wouldn’t smack her child on the back of the leg. She didn’t, but I think it was because she was in a supermarket. There was a guy in a suit on a mobile phone. He kept saying ‘Uh huh’, ‘Yup’, ‘Uh huh’, over and over again while checking out asparagus. They were the only people I remember from that part of the store – the woman with the tattoo, the man in the suit and the broccoli stacker – even though there were probably dozens of shoppers milling about.

  I walked past the bread section. Someone’s voice came over the loudspeaker asking for all available staff to come to checkout. I remember that because I knew we would probably have to join the end of a long queue, even though we’d only have a few items in our trolley. The confectionery aisle was three-quarters of the way back to the deli and I got there first. I wasn’t surprised that I’d made it before Phoebe. There were about five people ahead of her in the queue at the deli and she sometimes gets forgotten about, which is not surprising when the assistants can’t see her. It really annoys me when someone who comes after her gets served first, but Phoebe isn’t fussed. She can be very patient when it suits her. I have never been very patient.

  To while away the time I checked out the specials. Turkish Delight were two for two dollars so I picked up a couple and tried to balance them against the mushrooms and the tube of dill. There weren’t many people in the aisle, which was a surprise, given that’s where kids normally congregate. I walked down to the end and looked across to the deli, but it was difficult to see. I wandered back. I considered getting Mum a bar of dark chocolate but thought better of it. Where was Phoebe? I walked back down, but this time I went all the way to the deli. After all, Phoebe had nothing else to buy. Where would she go after buying the salmon except to the chocolate aisle?

  She wasn’t there.

  There were only a couple of people waiting to be served at the deli. An assistant was ladling out a tub of potato salad. I walked up to the counter and gazed along the section that housed the frozen food. She wasn’t there.

  I remember this very clearly. I felt annoyed. It wasn’t unusual for Phoebe to take off by herself in a supermarket. There had been a good number of occasions when I’d had to trek most of the way around the store before I found her. In particular, it used to irritate me that I would spy her going along the central aisle and she wouldn’t spot me at the top end. I could never bring myself to shout out her name. Not in a supermarket. How dumb is that? So I’d feel like some dickhead in a sad comedy, tailing her across the aisles, trying to get her attention.

  Maybe she had gone to the fruit and veg to find me.

  She wasn’t there.

  I walked along the central aisle and glanced up and down each row. Twelve rows, bisected by the central aisle, making twenty-four possible locations to check. Less than a four per cent chance that she’d be in any one at any particular time, given that there are other supermarket areas like the bread and vegetable sections that are not part of an aisle. But the odds would increase exponentially after each Phoebe-less row.

  I reached the end. Nothing.

  Let me be clear. I was a long way from panicking. This had happened before as well. And the supermarket was busy. It was distinctly possible that I had missed her in the throng. So I retraced my steps. When I got back to the veg area I was feeling . . . well, this is difficult. I distinctly remember the panic that swamped me, but I can’t exactly remember when it kicked in. It wasn’t then. I think it came later, maybe when I found the trolley. If I was feeling anything other than that vague sense of irritation, it was probably confusion. How could I have missed her? Phoebe was not the kind of kid who would pull a practical joke. She wouldn’t deliberately hide from me. She had to be there somewhere.

  How much time had elapsed? The police asked me this later and even now I’m not sure. It could only have been a couple of minutes. I even retraced my steps, afterwards, but that didn’t really help. For one thing, I couldn’t remember how long I’d spent in the confectionery section. Not long. But how long? Two minutes? Five? And how fast was I walking then, when it all happened? From when I left her at the deli to when I really started to feel that hard knot of panic? Between five and ten minutes. That is the best I can do.

  This time I was really methodical. I searched each aisle.

  I found the trolley in aisle five, right next to the dog food and opposite the toilet paper. There was just one thing in it. A rolled-up package of white, greaseproof paper. I picked it up. The barcode sticker said ‘salmon fillets’. Now, as I relive the moment, I realise that wasn’t when I panicked. I don’t think it was. She had to be close. People don’t leave their trolley t
o go exploring the further reaches of the supermarket. They take it with them. This aisle was deserted, apart from a woman who was examining a tin of dog food. She was scrutinising the label as if it contained the key to the secret of the universe.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said. We remain polite, even when the world is in the process of falling apart. She glanced up reluctantly, her face creased in suspicion as if I was about to say something offensive. ‘Have you, by any chance, seen a small girl, about eight years old? School uniform. Blue. She was pushing this trolley.’ I indicated it as if that would clear up this confusing situation.

  ‘Sorry, no,’ she replied, and went back to her tin.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s okay.’ I have no idea why I said that.

  Maybe it was at this point that I became worried. Seriously worried. I didn’t want to run. I think I was still keeping hold of a sense of decorum, obeying social convention. What was I going to do when I ran into Phoebe in the next aisle and I’d been screaming her name? Who would be more embarrassed, her or me? This is one of the things that haunted me later. If I had yelled. If I had bellowed at the top of my voice, back there in the confectionery aisle, might she have heard me? Might the person who took her have panicked and run, leaving her behind? Was my determination to stay cool a contributory factor in the tragedy that unfolded? Others have told me this is a foolish line of thinking. I agree. It is monumentally foolish, but that doesn’t stop me.

  I compromised. I moved briskly down each aisle, increasing pace as I covered the supermarket. Even then, I believed she was going to appear around the next corner. I’d be angry that she had given me the slip. She would raise her eyebrows as if I was a moron and point out that she’d been waiting for me, exactly where I’d told her to go. But she wasn’t in the confectionery aisle. She wasn’t at the deli. I went to the checkouts and she wasn’t there either. I went past the checkouts and to the front of the supermarket. At some stage I dropped the mushrooms and the dill and the Turkish Delights. The car park was busy; folks loading their groceries into the backs of cars, returning trolleys to the bays. I caught a glimpse of a girl – the back of her head, the briefest hint of a profile – at the far end of the car park. I ran through the ranks of vehicles. Someone swore at me as I nearly collided with a trolley.