Somebody Loves Us All

by Damien Wilkins

  Julie said she’d written a poem with them in it—Caleb, Paddy, Julie herself—and she hoped he didn’t mind. Paddy asked her to read it. The poem used her son’s language to tell the story so it was punctuated with the seeming nonsense of his earlier speech as well as celebrating finally his success. It was also sad somehow. The poem suggested, very lightly, that in getting better, something had been lost. She’d baked Paddy some ginger gems that were in a shopping bag inside a plastic container. ‘I don’t need the container back,’ she said. She had tears in her eyes and Caleb ran into the corridor. ‘Be careful, Caleb darling,’ she called after him. Then she looked at the wall. ‘But you took the picture down,’ she said. It had been in the poem. Paddy explained that it was getting remounted. ‘I made up a few things about the picture, I hope that was all right,’ she said. ‘Do you mind me asking what the real story is behind it. I hope it was you!’

  ‘It was me,’ he said. ‘And I liked your version better.’ In the poem the cartoon had been the gift of one of his clients, someone a bit like her son. This had surprised and pleased him, he said. The technique, the freedom to invent even with this most real of events, her son’s triumph. Paddy told her the cartoon had been done a number of years ago by a newspaper cartoonist, and that his partner, Helena, had thought it might be fun to hang it in the office.

  They were standing in the doorway to the apartment to keep watch on Caleb. He was putting an eye to the handrail that ran along one wall, trying to see into it.

  Paddy remembered how Bill Goldson, or W.G. as he was known, had been commissioned by the editor to do the portrait cartoon after some anniversary, Paddy’s first year or his second. The offer of the column had come in the same week that Paddy had officially been confirmed as divorced from Bridget and not long after he’d set up his private practice. One of his first clients had been the son of the deputy editor at the paper and the father had asked him whether he was interested in writing for them. There would be a trial period at first and there wasn’t much money. Paddy agreed to it because he thought it might help his business. Surprisingly the thing took off. There were a lot of letters to the editor as well as a steady stream of inquiries to use Paddy’s services. Having worked in hospitals, he’d had little more than a hunch about the market demand for more broad-based speech therapy. It happened that setting up his practice coincided with a growing anxiety among parents around their children’s abilities to communicate effectively. The question of whether it coincided with a matching increase in such problems was itself part of Paddy’s work. He did a lot of assessments that steered potential clients away from him into other more profitable areas for them, namely family guidance sessions, budgeting services, occasionally the family court. Still, soon he had a waiting list.

  The letters to the editor waxed and waned though he was assured that in reader surveys the column continued to be very popular. Then he was asked if he wanted a portrait done. This honour usually went to retiring long-timers but there’d been a mini-exodus of star columnists and some shoring up was in order, even involving rather arcane contributors such as himself. They would also use the cartoon, in miniature form, alongside the column each time in a design revamp. There’d previously been nothing except the column name and a by-line. It was a little sweetener and Paddy was touched. In fact the true sweetening was for W.G., who was just then being wooed by their rivals. The commission for drawing the cartoons was foolishly generous, as W.G., breaking his own confidentiality clause, cheerfully informed Paddy during the little presentation ceremony at the pub. ‘I’ll buy you a drink or seven, Patrick,’ he said.

  In one corner of the cartoon he’d drawn an object Paddy couldn’t identify.

  ‘Cards,’ said W.G. ‘Playing cards.’

  ‘But I don’t play cards.’

  He pretended not to hear this. ‘They also represent your fate.’

  ‘What is my fate?’

  ‘It’s in the cards, Patrick,’ he said, moving off with his whisky. No one at the paper knew that Paddy’s nickname was Card; the coincidence wasn’t amazing and yet it was the one stupid aspect that he grew to like about the picture, this accident.

  In those days of course he had a little more hair. Bill, W.G., had suggested through a few wavy lines, some abundance. The cartoon Paddy also had his mouth open, apparently making an ‘O’—reference to his profession, which W.G. had not the faintest idea about. His sister Margie had said that it made Paddy look like a slightly uglier Lord Byron about to receive some dental work. Open wide! He’d been given a collar that was too big—this may have been the Byronic echo—a collar on some puffy shirt he would never have worn. Was this some lab coat? He’d asked W.G. about it. ‘A cartoon exaggerates, Patrick,’ he told him. ‘Why choose my collar to exaggerate though?’ said Paddy. The rest of him was more or less Paddy. W.G. had no answer to that.

  Paddy stood holding the baking and the poem as Caleb’s mother smiled. She still had teary eyes. Finally they chatted about Elizabeth Bishop. He should read the letters, Julie said. Caleb came back to them along the corridor. She reached down to pick something off her son’s shoe. It was one of Paddy’s yellow stickies.

  *

  When the apartment doorbell rang around noon, Paddy had to check his watch. Sam Covenay wasn’t due for another hour. Then just as he was opening the door, he had a presentiment of some unwelcome news. Afterwards it felt too occult to be this, yet at the time he thought he heard it in his right ear, the tinnitus of trouble.

  The person Paddy wondered about most sharply in that instant was Tony Gorzo. He was coming to tell him why he hadn’t called. In all the years of their phone calls they’d only met face to face three or four times. Somehow it suited them. Voices down the line.

  He stood in front of Paddy, holding out his hand. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I am Iyob.’

  Paddy shook his hand. ‘I know. I’m Patrick, Paddy.’

  Why did Paddy not then say, ‘Come in, Iyob’? For some reason, he found himself waiting for the other man, Helena’s ex-student, now employee. He’d come from Syria with some business training apparently and Helena had been very pleased to have him on her team. Apart from his skills, the presence on staff of a graduate was itself a great advertisement for the place. Yes, he had worn a bow tie, though not today. He wore fawn-coloured trousers, a white shirt and a blue zip-up windbreaker. Running shoes. He was a neat and compact man, with a black moustache, cropped hair greying at the temples. He was any age from forty-five to fifty-five. Also, as Paddy remembered, he was the source of some recent problem.

  Paddy stayed there in the doorway, waiting as if Iyob was trying to sell him something. Except Iyob also seemed to be waiting. As if Paddy were the one who’d dragged him out here, as if it were Iyob’s door they stood at.

  Finally Iyob spoke again. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘Helena’s not here of course. She’s at the school.’

  ‘Yes, I know this.’ He lifted a finger, pointing it at Paddy’s chest. ‘I am sorry to arrive but you are the one I would like to see.’

  ‘You want to see me?’ Paddy began to explain that he worked from home and that he had a client coming soon. Maybe if Iyob rang later.

  Iyob held up his hand, showing Paddy five fingers. ‘Five minutes. If you are available.’

  They sat in Paddy’s office. Immediately Iyob was looking at the space where the cartoon used to hang, now marked by the dirty lines on the wall. Paddy felt drawn for a moment to explain, but he held out. Iyob didn’t need to know.

  ‘Where is this picture of you?’ he said.

  ‘I’m getting it repaired,’ said Paddy. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘At the party, we leave our coats here. I see this picture.’

  ‘Do you mind me asking how you got in the building, Iyob? Only we’re supposed to have this security system.’

  ‘A man in the other apartment.’

  ‘He let you in?’

  ‘The architect.’

  ‘He was an ar
chitect? How did you know that?’

  ‘On the buzzer I pushed. I say I make a mistake.’

  Meaning he’d done this in a calculated way or that he really had made a mistake? ‘You pressed the buzzer for Harley Architects and Geoff Harley let you in?’ It seemed wrong to mention Geoff by name, as if Paddy were exposing him to some risk, but this was his fault after all.

  ‘I don’t see the name of Helena there. I looked for her name.’

  For some reason only Paddy’s name had been put on the buzzer panel at the time they’d bought the place and they’d never got around to fixing it. ‘We have different names, surnames.’

  ‘Because you are not Dora’s father.’

  ‘Dora? No. But how do you know Dora?’

  ‘From the school. She works there.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This is the reason I am here. A problem with Dora at the school.’

  ‘Iyob, I really think this is something to take up with Helena, your employer. I’m not anything to do with the school. Helena is the total boss. I’m not involved.’

  ‘Sorry but you are involved with Helena, true?’

  ‘That’s true, with Helena, not the school though.’

  ‘Not the school. I understand.’

  ‘So you see I can’t be of help here. If you have an issue which is employment related, you must take it up with Helena. She’s a very fair person, you know.’

  ‘I know. She is very fair. She has been so kind to me. But she is the mother to Dora. It’s difficult.’

  ‘I think you’ll find her very fair even in matters which concern her daughter. Dora’s temporary anyway.’

  Iyob looked puzzled.

  ‘Not forever,’ said Paddy. ‘She’ll be at the school for only a short time.’

  ‘You know this, you are involved with the school.’

  ‘Not involved in any official way. Helena just mentioned to me, casually you know. We chat about her work sometimes.’ This wasn’t the line to go down.

  ‘About me? Do you chat, do you know?’

  ‘About you? No.’

  ‘Already I tell Helena, her daughter is not the best for the school.’

  ‘So you’ve discussed it. Good.’

  ‘Not so good. Because she won’t listen too much. Helena is too busy, she is too worried for all these things.’

  ‘The review.’

  ‘The review, yes. Very stress.’

  ‘Stressful.’

  ‘Stressful with everything. Not a good time for another problem, I know.’

  ‘Perhaps after the review, you should bring this up again. Helena has a lot going on. Plus maybe by then Dora will not be there.’

  Iyob sat back in his chair, studying the floor. ‘You know she makes movies, films? Dora.’

  ‘I know.’ Surely she hadn’t been having screenings in the lunchbreak.

  ‘You seen?’

  ‘Seen her movies? A little.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Silly. Funny.’ Paddy shrugged, at a loss. He thought of the prize they’d won in Sydney.

  ‘Comedy?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘I can’t believe this. Dora is not very comedy.’

  Paddy laughed. Iyob was no fool, no slouch. ‘This is true.’

  Iyob clasped his hands together and drew a sudden short breath. Was he asthmatic? ‘At work she points the camera on me.’

  ‘At work?’

  ‘She puts the camera on her desk and points it on me but I don’t know. Is it on, is it off? She says off but I say show me the camera and she says no. She doesn’t let me look to check.’

  ‘You think Dora’s been filming you secretly?’

  ‘Secret, this is right. For this secret film, I go back to fucking Syria, you know?’

  He looked up at Paddy in a sort of challenge, leaning forward as though about to leave his chair. Paddy saw that Iyob was wearing a gold chain around his neck and that it held a cross. Was he a Christian? What difference did that make, were the Christians persecuted in Syria? He’d have to Google it. Syria was next to Iraq. Suddenly Paddy’s hideous ignorance about Iyob’s life must have been deeply apparent to that life’s owner.

  ‘Right. But why would she do that?’

  ‘This girl.’ Iyob threw up his hands.

  Paddy told him he’d done the right thing, he’d told her he didn’t want it to happen, he’d talked to his employer about it. That was all good. He couldn’t do any more than that.

  ‘Maybe I break the camera,’ said Iyob.

  ‘Oh, sure, break the camera! Why not. But no, not a good idea.’

  ‘I ask her this, please don’t put the camera on the desk. First time I look over and start smiling, saying cheese. Good mood from me, you know. Stop, she says. She don’t want that. I say, I don’t want this film. Fine, she says. No sound on the camera, she says. Okay but don’t film please. Sure, sure, she says. Next time she puts the camera in her bag with a hole.’

  ‘Peephole?’

  ‘Peeping! If she was not Helena’s daughter, I should take this bag and throw it out the window on the street.’

  ‘Probably you don’t want to do that, Iyob. She’ll have the message by now, I think.’

  Iyob looked around the room. ‘Mr Thompson, it’s not Eyeob. Iyob.’

  ‘Sorry, Iyob. Call me Paddy.’

  ‘Piddy?’

  ‘Paddy, with an a.’

  Iyob slumped back in his chair. ‘When will she leave the school?’

  ‘Dora? I’m not sure.’

  ‘She tells me, what do you want to hide? Why are you afraid? What is the reason you don’t want this film? You work at this desk, what is wrong if I film this? It’s life. I make a film of life.’

  ‘You have your privacy.’

  ‘A man from Syria comes to work in a new place. It’s interesting she says. There’s no smiling. She says I look sad when I work. Perfect like this. Sad man from Syria. Homesick and lonely and suffering. But hey, listen to this. Paddy, I’m not sad! I have my wife, my son. A place to live. I work hard, I like this. I’m very happy to work. New Zealand is a great country.’

  ‘She’s making assumptions.’

  ‘She says, I film you, you look very lonely, lost. Lost? Me? You kidding me, I say. But she won’t believe it. Incredible, this girl. I say, okay, I make a film too. Girl comes from Thorndon, not happy. She’s very angry about something. I don’t know, maybe she needs a boyfriend.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘She says, no, she don’t think so. And I say, a boyfriend to make her happy. Get married. No, no, she tells me. Because she has a girlfriend, she tells me. This girlfriend makes her very happy. Then I say, well, this is not the same thing. Paddy, what I believe is it’s not right for this to happen. Homosexuals. See, it’s my beliefs. You have different beliefs maybe, or the same.’

  ‘Different.’

  ‘Sure. But you are not homosexual.’

  ‘No. But I don’t have your beliefs.’

  ‘Okay. And you stand up for your beliefs. Like me. But Dora, she says, no, because I’m a—bigot, she says. A bigot. I know what it means. In my upbringing, I think she has a perversion, okay. I say this.’

  ‘This is where it went wrong, I think.’

  ‘I don’t tell her what to do but I believe it. No, she gets mad, says I am harassing her. I can’t work here if I have this belief. So on, so on. Shouting, whatever. Goes to her mother, tells her I’m a terrible man. You think I will lose my job now? I think so. But before Dora comes, everything is very nice at school, very good work, very happy people. Dora doesn’t like happy people. If you are very unhappy, you try to spread this. What everyone is, they try to make this the same in everyone. I’m mad so my English goes fucked. But you try to make the same as you, this is what’s happening everywhere. These terrorists, you know, it’s like it. They love death, so it’s easy for them to say, you can be dead like me. Boom! Now I lose my job. Fair or not fair? Ask me.’

  He’d finished this speec
h standing up and pointing his finger, his face coloured with the effort. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth.

  ‘I don’t think Dora is a terrorist,’ said Paddy.

  ‘Not what I mean,’ said Iyob.

  ‘I understand.’

  Iyob gave a brief noise, like a laugh. Then he held up five fingers. Five minutes. ‘What you can do?’ He shrugged. Was he asking Paddy what he could do, or was he expressing the notion that there was nothing to be done. Having spoken so forcefully, he now seemed almost at once to be completely deflated. Perhaps he was simply exhausted. It had cost him an enormous amount of energy to come to the building, to find Paddy, and then to say all of this. He shook Paddy’s hand and thanked him. Paddy muttered something about talking to Helena and how he hoped the situation could be resolved. Iyob barely took this in.

  Paddy looked at the bag that was beside his desk and remembered the gift from Caleb’s mother. He took the container out and opened the lid, passing them over to Iyob. ‘Please,’ he said.