Somebody Loves Us All

by Damien Wilkins

  ‘I know that. We’re getting an MRI.’

  ‘A tumour!’ said Paul. ‘That’s bullshit for you, if it’s a tumour.’

  ‘Nothing showed up,’ said Paddy.

  ‘She hasn’t got a tumour, Jeremy, so why say it?’ said Paul.

  ‘I didn’t. I was asking.’

  ‘Then don’t ask such bad luck questions as does his mother have a tumour.’

  ‘It’s not bad luck to ask a question, Paul. Not since the Middle Ages. His mother starts talking French, you ignore it?’

  ‘People always think it’s a death sentence. I have a pain in my stomach, it’s a death sentence, I’m dying! It’s negativity’s the real killer.’ Somehow Paul managed to spear his chop with the broken fork. He brought the meat in one piece to his mouth, preparing to bite. They both watched Paul twist the fork around, looking for the best angle to attack it. He looked like some animal given cutlery for the first time.

  Paddy didn’t think it was just he alone imagining the fork piercing Paul’s cheek.

  Paul was a figure of fun, always had been. Obtuse, transparent, immature. This was what Stephanie had fallen for, somehow perceiving Paul’s desperate display as a simple and attractive desire to please. He was puppyish, she’d thought. He was straightforward. In high school she’d gone out for a year with a prick who’d actually bashed her on what she later confessed was a ‘semi-regular basis’. Paul Shawn had seemed at least a respite from that. From time to time she saw Paul clearly enough and talked of the fourth child she had, aged forty-two.

  Teresa in her undemonstrative way had always loathed Paul Shawn. Characteristically she refused to take anything at all he said seriously, and she achieved this by appearing to listen to him with deep respect. She never contradicted him, since even that would have been a kind of compliment.

  He began to chew the chop off the fork.

  Lant was about to speak but then they heard him being called over by one of his band-mates. Paddy looked for Helena and finally found her over by the fort, talking on her phone. Her briefcase was on the ground between her legs. She’d put her plate of food and her drink on the bottom of the slide that came down from the fort. They’d had the briefest conversation when she arrived, small talk only as they were in a group of parents and children. The Ministry person was arriving the following day. Paddy wanted to ask about Iyob and Dora but there wasn’t an opportunity then. Nor had he told her about biking out to the Hutt and meeting Tony Gorzo’s son. A vast web of unfinished business held them—together and apart, since clearly they occupied different parts of the web. They could only wave at each other, which they did now in the school grounds.

  Paul and Paddy looked out over the concrete playground where a game of soccer was being played between the staff and the senior students. One of the male teachers tried to dribble around a girl and knocked her over. She landed hard on her backside on the concrete and looked up and laughed, her eyes starting to glisten with tears. The game went on beyond her while she remained sitting. It was Crystal, Lant’s twelve-year-old daughter. He was on the sidelines of the game, unmoving, staring at her. He turned to look in the direction of his band-mates and actually walked a few paces in their direction, seemingly oblivious to his daughter. Lant’s ex-wife, Melinda, who stood a few yards from them, called to him to attend to Crystal and it was only then that he seemed to remember her.

  Paul made a sound with his tongue. He was sucking at the bone of his chop.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pussy-whipped,’ said Paul. ‘No offence of Steph.’

  ‘You’re an idiot, Paul.’

  Paul Shawn dropped the chop in a rubbish bin beside them and ate some more rice. ‘Lucky she’s got you, Paddy. Teresa’s lucky. You’ll therapise her then?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Whatever you do, you’ll treat your Mum. She’s lucky. Keep it in the family.’

  In Paul’s mouth this sounded somehow obscene. He must have seen Paddy’s look.

  ‘By “keep it in the family” I don’t mean hide it or anything,’ he said. ‘Why hide it?’

  ‘Why hide it? Because it’s embarrassing, Paul. Because it’s really fucking silly. Like you said, one day you could wake up and sound like a Nigerian, Paul. Which would be absurd. You’d be a laughing-stock. A skinny white guy walking around sounding like that, are you kidding me? You think you could do your job like that? You wouldn’t have a friend by the end of the week.’

  ‘Steady on, Paddy.’

  ‘Then there are your kids. You think they’d adjust very quickly to their new Nigerian-sounding Dad? They’ve got to think you’ve lost your mind. A nutjob father.’

  ‘In time they’d make adjustments.’

  ‘You reckon? They’d get used to it? Good luck with that.’

  ‘No, Paddy, but all I was meaning was just that you’re well-placed to help your Mum, and it’s great to be able to use what you know to help family. Because of my job, I got Steph and the kids a good discount on tickets to Christchurch.’

  ‘Why would they want to go to Christchurch?’

  ‘It’s a gateway.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘In two hours you can be in the mountains.’

  ‘To what purpose?’

  ‘Or the lakes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Water-skiing, boating, fishing.’

  ‘Steph has three small children, Paul. She can barely crawl out of bed in the mornings.’

  ‘I’d like them to be safe in the water, to learn the skills.’ The statement emerged with the wounded tone he could summon at will. He was charging Stephanie with a dereliction of duty. When the youngest girl, Niamh, was two months old, he walked out on them, claiming he’d never wanted a third child, he’d been tricked into it. It coincided with a development course for real estate agents in Queenstown and he stayed down there for six months. Even during this initial period of abandonment he made sure that the signals and the interpretation of those signals were horribly contradictory in a very Paulish and manipulative way. Either he was completely through with being a family man and had gone forever—good riddance—or he was making an extreme sacrifice for his family’s benefit, attending the tough Queenstown course and learning skills in a highly competitive market which would eventually secure them all a better life. Stephanie herself didn’t help matters by failing to settle on a single version. This was still the case several years on. She claimed Paul was capable of great kindness. Or that he was a jelly and the question was finding the right mould to pour him into, to set him in the optimum shape. Steph thought he’d never had the right guidance. And perhaps this was Paul Shawn’s greatest accomplishment, to persuade people that they could, indeed were obliged to, save him.

  Paddy always argued for the clean break. ‘But he’s their father,’ Stephanie told him. Let him be that, he told her, but nothing else, with no other prospects. ‘It sounds so simple, Paddy,’ she said. It was simple, he said. Time to move on, he said. ‘Yes!’ Steph always said, grinning. Time to stop forgiving him. ‘You’re completely right, Paddy!’ Okay, he told her, good. Okay then.

  Next he’d hear Paul was staying for a month at the house because his flat was being painted or he’d arrived for dinner and stayed the weekend. Proper reconciliation would be threatened but it always evaporated. Paul would leave again or he’d be chucked out. Stephanie would ring her mother in tears. Could she come round with the girls?

  Given current circumstances with Teresa, this seemed intolerable. Yet it was exactly the sort of situation that Paddy expected Paul to take advantage of in some way. Even his presence at the fundraiser was tactical surely. Paul Shawn specialised in acts of ingratiation, and he savoured a Steph who was upset since in a low state she became available to him again.

  ‘Take them yourself, Paul,’ he said. ‘Go water-skiing with them.’

  ‘Paddy, I’ve made offers, I have. I just keep getting turned down.’

  ‘Maybe something in your past record doesn’t inspi
re confidence.’

  ‘We’ve all fucked up once, Paddy. Me, you, Lanting. Everyone.’

  This was also familiar. Paul thought bad behaviour was a bond between all men. ‘Maybe once is okay,’ said Paddy. ‘It’s repeat offending that starts to grate.’

  The sound of a snare drum being struck pulled their attention over to the improvised stage where Lant’s band was strapping on their instruments. Lant was still with his daughter, though now he was looking across at the band. The soccer game had finished.

  Two big boys were riding tiny bikes in tightening circles around the netball poles, trapping a group of girls who’d been shooting goals. A female teacher was walking over there.

  ‘Maybe you should meet Camille anyway,’ said Paul.

  The name meant nothing to Paddy. He forced himself to look questioningly at Paul.

  ‘She’s Thierry’s mother, you know. The little French boy in Isabelle’s class.’ Isabelle was Paul and Stephanie’s oldest daughter.

  Paddy nodded. It was unbearable for Paul to know such things. ‘Where is Camille? Can you see her?’ said Paddy. They both looked around, then Paul pointed out a shortish woman with dark curly hair. She was standing next to the bookstall, flicking through a book. ‘Oh yes,’ said Paddy, moving off in that direction.

  ‘Good luck with everything,’ Paul said behind him.

  Paddy had no idea what he was going to say to this woman. Did he imagine she could help them? Mostly it was to escape Paul. For a moment he considered turning away, leaving the school without talking to anyone and going back to the apartment. He could text Helena and say he had to go. Lant didn’t need him in the audience. He’d already said hello to Steph and her kids. He’d eaten off the paper plates and paid his four dollars. It was a mistake to leave his mother alone in her state.

  When Paddy introduced himself, Camille took a step away from him and her head made what seemed like an involuntary movement backwards. She waited a moment, and then they shook hands. Paddy thought she was simply trying to work out what he’d said. He was so full of conflicting thoughts that he’d garbled stuff at her, about Stephanie, Helena, the fundraiser, the food. He slowed down. He told her that his niece attended the school. Again there was hesitation from her. Was ‘niece’ a common word for non-English speakers to know? Perhaps not, although from what he remembered of his school French, they’d spent a lot of time on relations: frères and soeurs and oncles. Ma tante me donne un baise—there, a phrase! Aunts were always arriving from Londres to kiss you. The train station was a crucial site for affection. He had no idea what ‘niece’ was. He pointed to Stephanie who was serving behind the food tables. ‘My sister,’ he said. ‘Ma soeur.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Camille. ‘I know Stephanie. I know Isabelle, she’s with Thierry, my son.’

  ‘Yes!’ he said, foolishly excited at the breakthrough. ‘My niece is Isabelle.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Camille flatly. ‘You’re her uncle.’ She spoke excellent English with a slight American accent, otherwise she sounded a lot like his mother. She replaced the book she’d been looking at on the stand. ‘Do you know the good ones here?’

  Paddy glanced at the display. ‘No, sorry. I don’t have kids, just nieces and nephews.’ He didn’t know ‘nephew’ either. What was the mechanism by which people accumulated some nouns but not others?

  She shrugged. The shrug was difficult to interpret. It was close to ‘who cares’ but it wasn’t quite that dismissive. Perhaps it simply meant, ‘I understand, now let’s move on.’ It was, he considered, an especially French gesture. His mother may have had the sounds, now here was the body, or the entire culture vibrating through the body. Paddy started to ask about her son but the band was making more tune-up noises and they both looked over. Lant had his violin ready. He had a red spotted handkerchief or a piece of silk to rest his chin against the instrument. ‘My friend,’ he said, pointing at Lant. ‘Violin.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Camille.

  ‘What’s it called in French, violin?’

  ‘Violon.’

  ‘Violon. Close to English, eh.’

  ‘Your word is from the French, from viele, Old French, then from Provençal, viola. The Italian violino is … how do you say? A smaller type—’

  ‘Diminutive?’

  ‘Okay, violino which then becomes violin, the English word.’

  ‘Interesting. But what are you, a musicologist or something? Music specialist?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

  ‘I teach.’

  ‘Music?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The use of this ‘sure’ was vaguely idiomatically wrong. It gave Camille’s manner an offhandedness he wasn’t sure she fully intended. Then again, she did appear rather brusque.

  ‘Where do you teach?’

  ‘No, not here, not now.’

  Again, what did this mean exactly? Not now because of something that had happened? Or just not at this time?

  The band wasn’t quite ready. The drummer was out of his seat, rearranging the position of his cymbals. Lant used his spotted silk to wipe his brow. ‘Very nervous, my friend,’ he said to Camille, who nodded. ‘Do you play as well?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘What do you play?’

  ‘Many things. Piano, flute, I don’t know. Violon.’

  ‘Ah, the same as my friend. La même chose.’

  ‘Yes before any concert I am like him.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. I’m sick a few times. Feeling dizzy, all this.’

  ‘That will make my friend feel better.’

  ‘No, because this is normal. This is the pain of the art. From the art? I don’t know how to say this thing.’

  ‘The pain of the artist?’

  She wasn’t convinced. ‘Maybe, yes.’

  ‘Let’s not call it art before we hear it though.’ He smiled at her.

  Camille remained earnest. ‘Amateur is art, I believe. The arts. I think the arts are very important.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who is doing it.’

  ‘Right.’

  She half turned from the band to look at him. ‘What do you do in your job?’

  Camille’s question made him think immediately of Bridget and her advice about fielding this question all those years ago. Don’t tell people what you do. He’d never forgotten it. How did one forget what was said over a lifetime? He’d tried to write about this in a few ‘Speech Marks’ columns over the years. What was memorability in speech? Why should we retain some things in great detail that are said to us while forgetting most of it?

  There were plenty of theories to do with the mind and memory. But what was this thing called talk and why was it so inefficient? Was it a numbers game? Did we have to listen and listen and listen, or talk and talk and talk, just to produce the material in sufficient bulk to allow our brains to sieve the good stuff? But then clearly we were still in danger of retaining not the good stuff but apparent dross also. It was dross Paddy was drawn to.

  He’d asked readers to send in examples from their own lives of things that had been said to them or which they had said, perhaps a number of years ago, which seemed to lack any obvious qualifying features—beauty, wit, poetry, context of speech, valued speaker and so on—but which they nevertheless held firmly in their heads. It was not a line of inquiry that pleased the paper at first. He received over two hundred replies. They were for his research mainly. But kindly, grudgingly, the newspaper printed a few of these.

  One woman described how she couldn’t remember her son’s last words with any precision. He’d died of cancer ten years before and she’d been there with him at the moment. He’d been an academic and was lucid and articulate until very near the end but she’d forgotten what he said. Well, she’d been overcome of course. Hardly in a good state to take notes, to gather her thoughts. But she had an idea he’d been wanting to relay messages for other family member
s through her and the loss of these was shaming, a matter of regret always. Did he say anything? This was what everyone wanted to know. The answer was yes, but then she drew a blank.

  Yet here was the thing. She remembered with utter and pointless accuracy what a neighbour had said to her when she was a child and they were picking lemons together. This neighbour had only lived beside them for a couple of years before moving on and she’d not been close to the woman’s family in any way. On this day she’d come over and asked whether one of the children could help with her lemon tree. That was all. The neighbour wasn’t full of the poetry of lemon picking. She had nothing earthy or strange or memorable to say. But it had stuck for more than sixty years: not only the sound of her voice but her unremarkable talk. You picked the yellowest ones, you left the rotten ones, you didn’t throw them in the bucket, you could make marmalade. The talk now ran in the woman’s head as if she were listening to a bad radio play. She could turn it on, or it would turn itself on, and it was there again. Most weeks she had to hear it. Why? The neighbour had a ginger cat, the woman wrote. And while they worked, the cat watched them. The column Paddy had written had made her wonder, for the first time, whether this connection—lemons, marmalade, a ginger cat—was enough to make her remember forever that day. Lots of people called their ginger cats Marmalade.

  Paddy didn’t have an answer to this. But now he remembered in detail the woman’s story. He couldn’t forget it.

  Once at intermediate school—the one burned down—a boy he didn’t really know had said Paddy had a fake face. The boy had been sitting along from Paddy at assembly, presumably studying Paddy’s face. His judgement was mysterious but it also chimed with something in Paddy’s twelve-year-old self and perhaps still did though he’d never been able to say exactly how. The boy was a person who never figured again in Paddy’s life, and that school morning was their only contact. Yet he lived on. A look in the mirror while shaving might readily bring him back. Hello, old fake face.

  ‘I’m a speech therapist,’ he said to Camille. ‘I work with children who have difficulties.’