Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 15, Issue 2

by Susan Midalia

  Review of Australian Fiction, 15:2

  Volume Fifteen: Issue Two

  Susan Midalia & Josephine Clarke

  Zutiste, Inc.

  Review of Australian Fiction, 15:2 Copyright © 2015 by Authors.

  Contents

  Imprint

  Imagine Susan Midalia

  A Woman Who Went to Town Josephine Clarke

  Published by Review of Australian Fiction

  “Imagine” Copyright © 2015 by Susan Midalia

  “A Woman Who Went to Town” Copyright © 2015 by Josephine Clarke

  www.reviewofaustralianfiction.com

  Imagine

  Susan Midalia

  Everyone’s checking out their phones, as usual, eyes down, scrolling or texting, or eyes closed listening to their iPods. I reach into my I Survived Heart ofDarkness calico bag and take out my book, feeling out of place, out of time. But then again, since no one’s actually looking at me, maybe I don’t really exist. It’s a bit like that tree falling in a forest: does it make a sound when there’s no one there to hear it? I remember that from uni, and how the answer depends on the kind of question being asked. Because if the question is scientific, then the answer has something to do with the nature of sound waves and particles and things, but if the question is philosophical, then the answer has something to do with the nature of reality. Which raises even more questions, because that’s what philosophy does. Which is why I never scored more than a B. And none of this matters, anyway, because even if I’m like that tree in the forest and someone manages to hear me, to actually look at me, why would they even care?

  Still, sometimes I’ll spot another person reading a book, and if they’re close enough, I like to bob and duck on the sly, check out the title. Imagine some kind of life for the reader. Like the guy a few weeks back, eighteen, maybe twenty, wearing torn denims and a leather jacket in forty-degree heat, reading Huis Clos. He could have been studying French Literature, or maybe he was a French tourist missing his sophisticated culture, because anyone reading Huis Clos had to be sophisticated, or just plain masochistic. Or the middle-aged woman last week, with droopy eyes and a sagging face, reading Torn by Desire. No prizes for guessing that one: escaping from her passionless life, or trying to revive it. I once had a shot at writing one of those steamy romances, when I found out the publishers paid a mint for just one title. I thought, I can do that, easy. Torn by this or Shredded by that, Undone by the Sultan or Captured by the Sheik. But when they sent me the kit I couldn’t stop laughing: mandatory kiss by page 14, partial disrobing by page 30, definitely no orgasm until at least page 73, when the hero’s imposing organ would be on naked display. So I couldn’t bring myself to do it in the end. Or the beginning. And besides, I have enough deferred gratification in my own life without trying to imagine it in the life of a woman called Rebel or Flame.

  And I got lumbered with Hazel, didn’t I? Hazel. A nut. Or what my mother calls old-fashioned in a sweet kind of way. But then again, maybe I am old-fashioned because I like reading books and don’t check my phone every ten seconds and don’t use fucking as a filler when I speak. But still… I wish I’d been called something different, something burnished or windswept or operatic. Like Pilar. I’ve always been drawn to the sound of Pilar: exotic; alluring; conjuring a dark-eyed senorita leaning over a balcony, an importunate lover calling from below. Maybe I can write that romance after all. Lust in the Hacienda. A Hundred Things to Do with a Fan. Not that I’ve much experience to draw on. I’ve only had sex with three guys, all of them underwhelming, and you can’t really count the lungers and gropers, all of them unspeakable. Or the brain-dead members of the species who hang out of cars and shout disgusting things, most of them involving tits. The occasional snatch. Cunt if you ignore them.

  I look down at my book, having set myself a goal: to read the less well-known novels of very famous writers. Befriend the un-befriended. I’ve started with Persuasion because everyone in the entire universe adores Pride and Prejudice, the novel that always makes the list of the Top Ten Books in the World or the One Hundred Books You Must Read Before You Die (or is it a Thousand?), along with To Kill a Mockingbird, All Quiet on the Western Front and Cloudstreet. I mean, haven’t people read anything since they left high school? Even my old uni friends don’t read good fiction anymore, only political stuff online. And a lot of garbage as well, like the compelling fact that one of the Kardashian sisters has recently given birth, or another one’s about to give birth, or is super keen to regain her pre-birth body by working with a personal trainer for ten hours every day. I find my place in the book, careful not to bend the spine. A copy from the local library because I can’t afford to buy books and even if I could there’s no room in my crumbling, pseudo-art-deco but incredibly cheap flat. On a busy highway, with a bus stop right outside the door so I’m woken up by the sound of squealing brakes and drunks staggering on the road, shouting their desire for revenge or a woman called Lola or the end of the world as they know it.

  And so… Persuasion. I’d have to confess, if anyone asked me, that it’s not really grabbing me. The opening chapters are really clunky, and so overstated. And a bit on the gloomy side, as well: unfulfilled love, the heroine no longer in the bloom of youth. There’s none of the elegant wit, the light and bright and sparkling, of the beloved P and P. But I know what my mother would say: that everyone makes bad starts and we’re all entitled to make them. Except that I’ve already made three, and I’m already twenty-five. Quitting my job as a teacher because I failed to control the unruly, motivate the lazy and transform the lives of the socially disaffected. Next, dropping out of an Arts Management course because the legal material was way too hard and the other students were way too cool. And after that a few months of selling real estate, for which I still haven’t forgiven myself. But things might be picking up, now that I’m thinking of nursing. Doing something helpful in a non-teaching kind of way. I’ve checked the course online and know I have the required academic score. It’ll be a hard slog, though. Three and a half years of study, all those exams, the training on the wards, where I’ll have to apply my knowledge. Try not to make the patients dead.

  I’m up to Chapter Four and all I’m getting are long-winded backstories and boring character sketches. And not a hint of an erotic sub-text… like Elizabeth and Darcy, talking about playing the piano… We neither of us perform to strangers. Making themselves known in a metaphoric kind of way, and so damned sexy, their talk, much more subtle than imposing organs. I sigh. Maybe I won’t like Persuasion after all. Maybe there’s a reason it’s not in the Top Ten or even the Top One Hundred.

  Next stop Cottesloe. The beach stop. The train comes to a halt and young guys in boardies and girls in tiny strapless dresses begin to pile out, nudging, chattering, flirting, with the confidence of youth. So I’ve come this far: I’m twenty-five years old, and fifteen, sixteen, is starting to look really young. The train starts up again and a man bundles on, just in time, slumps into the seat next to mine. A solid, middle-aged guy wearing baggy grey trousers, with stubble on his face, like a man who’s not in a hurry even though he nearly missed the train. He shuffles round a bit, then reaches into his satchel. Takes out a book and smiles at me brightly, as if to say Snap or Kindred spirits. I look down, embarrassed, and well… vaguely aroused, by his dark brown eyes and almost cruel kind of mouth and he must be heading for thirty-eight, forty. Not my age and definitely not my type, not one of the delicate, more feminine guys I usually go for.

  Not my type. As if I have a choice.

  I try not to look at his thighs, his body. He’s a big man, craggy in a Ted Hughes kind of way. Ted
Hughes. The first time he met Sylvia Plath he bit her mouth so hard that he drew blood. Or was it her neck? Or did Plath take the first bite? Whatever happened, it was pretty damned tempestuous. But the book-man beside me isn’t looking stormy at all: he’s calm, lost to the world, and I can’t help doing my surreptitious bobbing-over-the-shoulder trick. Just to see. The Man Who Loved Children. I’ve never heard of it.

  ‘The title’s ironic,’ he says.

  I swallow hard. Because he’s caught me snooping and because of his wry smile and because his eyes are even darker than I remember, with long, blunt lashes that make him look… well, different. I glance at his left hand. No wedding ring. Which doesn’t tell me anything, and what am I thinking anyway, as I mentally duck my head. But now he’s actually talking to me and I swallow hard again.

  ‘Do you know The Man Who Loved Children?’ he says.

  I shake my head.

  ‘But you like to read, I see. Persuasion, is it?’

  I nod. Feel a bright red flush spreading from my neck to the roots of my hair.

  ‘And who wrote that?

  ‘Jane Austen.

  ‘So, not Pride and Prejudice, then?’

  I nod again. Or should I shake my head? Shake shake nod nod nod… like one of those toy dogs with bobbing heads that people put dumbly on their dashboards.

  ‘So are you reading it for study or pleasure?’

  ‘Pleasure.’ I try not to choke on the word.

  ‘And are you enjoying it?’

  ‘Well… I wouldn’t exactly say enjoying. It’s… well… autumnal in tone.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says, then looks puzzled. ‘I thought Jane Austen wrote comedies.’

  I clear my throat. Tell him that’s correct. Except that comedy in this instance doesn’t mean funny ha ha, it means that everything turns out alright in the end. The good are rewarded, the bad are punished, and the heroine finds Mr Right. Well, in romantic comedies, anyway, like Persuasion. It’s a structural thing, I say, a literary definition of comedy, and then I peter out. Hoping I don’t sound too pompous, giving him a lecture. But he’s nodding too, listening attentively, or at least doing a good imitation. Just being nice. Not attracted to me at all.

  Nice: the name of those biscuits from my childhood, the ones that tasted like cardboard, with a sprinkling of sugar on top.

  ‘So you already know the ending, then?’ he says.

  ‘Oh, definitely. The happy couple and all that. But, well, that’s not the point. It’s not what happens in the end that matters but the getting there… why things happen, and how.’ I give him the kind of smile that hurts because you’re trying too hard, rabbiting on like an idiot trying to impress and I must look so damned obvious because I can feel it on my face: the longing. Wishing I could touch him. Wishing he’d lean down and kiss me.

  ‘So… you learn something new every day,’ he says. ‘Even an old man like me.’

  ‘But you’re not old, not at all.’ I blurt it out. I’m suddenly a blurter… sounding even more damned obvious, watching him shrug his shoulders.

  ‘I’m considerably older than you,’ he says, and returns to reading his book.

  I’m an idiot… absurd… completely ridiculous… Gauche and beetroot red and mildly, embarrassingly, flirtatious with a dark-eyed stranger on a train. Who’s given me the brush-off. Understandably. I put my face in my book, try to breathe more steadily. Try to be normal again. But then everything suddenly goes a bit strange because I can see his body tightening, his book trembling, a throbbing in his throat.

  ‘Are you alright?’ I say. ‘You look—’

  ‘A spider.’ He shudders. ‘It came from nowhere, just scurried across my book. But it’s gone now… I think.’ He looks a bit shaken, trying not to show it

  ‘Oh, I see. You have arachnophobia.’

  ‘Crazy, isn’t it? And it was such a tiny thing, really. Completely harmless, I’m sure.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t call it crazy,’ I say. ‘I want to sound professional. It seems important to sound professional. ‘A phobia is a strong, persistent and irrational response to an object, event or situation that poses no real danger. If you put it like that, you’ll sound less crazy.’

  He laughs. Not quite the effect I was aiming for but better than being ignored.

  ‘So, do you know why you have this fear?’ I say. Professional again.

  ‘No, not a clue. It would make more sense with big spiders, you know, the…’ He makes himself stop. ‘It’s not very manly, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, I’m a bit claustrophobic,’ I say, ‘so I guess that makes me very womanly. In need of masculine protection.’

  He gives me that wry smile again and I’m inwardly swooning again and Persuasion’s gone right out the window.

  ‘Did you know there are some really wacky phobias out there,’ I say. ‘I mean, totally weird.’ Did I just say totally? ‘There’s fear of belly buttons and garlic, and the holes in cheese. The fear of antique furniture and every colour you can think of except pink for some unknown reason. And the fear of peanut paste sticking to the roof of your mouth, only someone made that up. But the one I think is really neat…’ Did I just say neat? ‘The fascinating one… is the fear of gravity. The fear that gravity could either crush you or suddenly disappear. You know, cease to exist.’ Rattling on like a nervous machine that doesn’t know how to stop rattling.

  ‘I like that idea,’ he says. ‘Not being crushed, I mean, but the idea that gravity might cease to exist. You could float around in space and have a spectacular view. You know those pictures you see, taken from outer space? Where the earth looks so shimmering and blue? You’d fall in love with the planet, wouldn’t you? Want to take care of it.’

  ‘It does sound splendid,’ I say. Splendid? Like an English matron sipping tea from a delicate china cup. ‘I mean, if you’re going to have a phobia, you might as well make it a grand one. Not like boring old claustrophobia, or the fear of spiders…’ I rush in… ‘Not that being common makes it any easier to deal with. I wouldn’t want to… you know… diminish your suffering.’

  ‘Well, that’s very good of you.’

  I feel stung. Glance at him warily. ‘Are you making fun of me?’ I say.

  ‘No, no, not at all,’ he says, all flustered. ‘It was… very kind of you to help me settle down.’ He settles into a smile. ‘My name’s Adam, by the way,’ he says

  I think for just a second. ‘I’m Hazel.’

  ‘And what do you do, Hazel? Are you a student? You seem to know a lot about comedy. And phobias.’

  He makes my name sound hypnotic. Dreamy. I gather myself up, tell him I used to be a student, literature and psych, and then I used to be a teacher. But now, I say casually, not wanting to puff myself up, I’m thinking of doing a nursing degree because employment prospects are good and I don’t faint at the sight of needles or blood. I wouldn’t dream of saying I’m not smart enough to be a doctor. Or that I’ve spent months applying for millions of jobs while living on the scrap heap. That I’m lonely and looking for enduring love.

  I’m a walking, talking textual construct.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful nurse,’ he says. ‘You’re smart, and very calm.’

  Smart? And calm? When I’m feeling so unsettled. When I’m wishing he’d take me in his arms. I need to say something again, to keep him interested… something interesting. Different.

  ‘Do you have something you really love?’ I say. ‘One thing in the world that you couldn’t live without?’

  Can I get any more clichéd?

  He gives me a strange look, as if he’s just slid open a drawer and found himself staring at a curious object. Hardly surprising, since I don’t really know what to make of myself.

  ‘Am I permitted only one thing?’ he says. Teasing me now, in a friendly kind of way.

  ‘Two, then,’ I say. ‘But only two. Otherwise it makes the point of loving them less meaningful.

  ‘Very well. So… my first love is my chil
dren. There are actually two of them but I’ll count them as one. A collective. And the second is playing my piano. In fact my wife used to say that I loved my piano more than her.’

  ‘Oh… so you’ve split up, then?’ Out before I know it.

  ‘She’s dead.’

  I flush. All the words I know are stuck inside my mouth.

  ‘It’s alright,’ he says. ‘Honestly.’

  It’s like blundering into a crime scene and not knowing how to get out. But I want to get out, need to say something to let him know… something. So I ask him what kind of music he likes to play.

  ‘Mostly jazz. Some classical music as well. A bit of Beethoven, Chopin, Ravel. The usual.’

  ‘And do you get lost when you’re playing?’

  He smiles into my eyes.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he says. ‘And, well, I’ve become a bit rusty. I stopped for a while, when my wife was very ill.’

  ‘What did she die of?’ Because I want him to know that he can tell me.

  ‘Cancer. It took a long time.’

  ‘So she tried to battle on?’

  His face tightens. ‘I hate that word battle,’ he says. ‘It’s an injunction to put up a fight and if you lose, it’s your own damned fault.’

  I try to speak… to say sorry for being… being what? But he hasn’t finished… looking me straight in the eye.

  ‘You see, cancer’s not about winning and losing,’ he says. ‘It’s just terrible, rotten bad luck. All those people cheering her on, urging her not to give up. When she already had so much to deal with. I’ve never forgiven them.’

  I sit blankly. Wordless, mortified. Deeply ashamed. I see him take a deep breath, hear him mumble an apology for lecturing me. His voice is flat. Resigned. As though he’s given up on me, or just given up. We sit in silence. I look up at the map and see that the next stop is mine. I didn’t know it was already time, feeling the train gliding to a halt and I’m sorry for this too, not wanting it to end on such a gloomy note, not wanting it to end at all, this sitting together. The talking. But I stand up, I have to stand up, and almost take a tumble. Steady myself, make myself look at him.