The Slap

by Christos Tsiolkas

  Within a few days she was safely back in the warm hearth of suburban first-world life. Clean streets and fresh air. Bangkok, Bali, all of Asia receded and all that had occurred there began to be forgotten. She found too that being at work excited her again, for the first time in years. She was glad of her assured, practised skill with the animals. The questioning and hesitations that were an inevitable aspect of diagnosis had not changed but they no longer filled her with trepidation. Those fears belonged to a young woman. She was not that. Tracey baked a cake for her first day back and even Connie biked down from school to attend the lunch. She distributed the little gifts and souvenirs she had picked up for them in the stalls and markets of Ubud and Bangkok. Later that day, in a brief moment of respite from the solidly booked afternoon—her regular clients had taken every available consultation with Aisha for her first week back—Brendan came in with pathology and blood results from the lab. Aisha quickly scanned them, noting the client’s name. She knew the animal, a goofy, sad-eyed Alsatian called Zeus. The results were quite clear. Brendan had removed two small lumps from its right foreleg and they had returned, malignant. But there were anomalies in the blood results as well. Her hunch was pancreatic cancer. It was Brendan’s case but they had both treated Zeus and they had both been concerned about recurring abdominal pain and vomiting, the reason the animal had first come in for a consultation. The owners were good people, Greeks, both on pensions. They loved the dog but in the Mediterranean way, not as part of the family. Zeus’s function was to protect them and their house.

  ‘Should I book him in for amputation and maybe get Jack in for an ultrasound?’

  He was a good dog, but already a good age for the breed. The owners could be guilt-tripped into more tests but the prognosis was not good.

  She handed him back the path reports and shook her head. ‘They can’t afford it and the costs could skyrocket. I think it’s time to put him down.’

  ‘I missed you.’

  She blushed, surprised. They worked well together but neither of them were demonstrative or affectionate within the workplace.

  ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she answered. ‘I’ve missed this place, I’ve missed being home.’

  And it was true. She hadn’t missed anyone individually as such—except her children, and even with them it had not been missing her son or missing her daughter, she had missed her children—but she was glad for the familiar textures, rhythms and shapes of her life. Family, work, friends. Brendan was an excellent colleague, smart, capable; she could leave her business confidently under his care for a fortnight. She enjoyed work, she enjoyed swimming eighty laps three times a week at the local pool, she enjoyed the bitchy, honest camaraderie she shared with Anouk, she enjoyed being married to a man who still made women’s heads turn, she enjoyed—most days—the quarrels and mischief of her children. She did enjoy her life.

  Nevertheless, something had changed. The first Friday back at work something snapped. She returned home drained, a slight pain at her temple; it had been a full schedule of consults with irritable, demanding clients. They happened, days when everyone seemed to be a shit. Hector had left her a message saying he was at the pub near his work in the city and could she pick up the kids from his parents’. She could hear him smooch a kiss to her on the message followed by a guilty, swift, ‘I love you, I’ll be home in time for dinner.’ She was meant to cook it, of course. She clamped her mobile phone shut and cursed. Fucking bastard.

  Something had changed for her in Asia and it had been brought back home. That change, she was sure of it, had more to do with her husband than it had to do with her. She had come to take it for granted that marriage was a state of neutrality between herself and Hector, that all the accommodations, negotiations and challenges had been met. Of course, there was accident, illness, tragedy; all that was still possible. But she had no idea that the properties of their very marriage could be altered. She had taken her husband for granted. She wanted what she had, she wanted him to remain a young, charming, attractive man. She wanted him to be content, with her, with the children, with his work. She was disturbed to find that the long nights of tears and confessions in Ubud and Amed had not led to resolution.

  A few nights before Hector had scared her by talking about leaving the public service, finding new work, gaining new skills; he wanted to return to study. She had been encouraging but the words that she dared not utter were these: What about the mortgage? Are we never going to move to a bigger house? You’ve got a great job, security, fantastic pay—are you expecting me to look after us all? She could not say it. He was sleepless, anxious. He rarely joked, made her laugh—he always looked exhausted when he got back from work. And it was true, he no longer was a heavy sleeper. How had she not noticed that before Asia? He barely communicated with Adam. Their exchanges consisted of a series of surly and suspicious grunts. This scared her. What resentments would a teenage Adam act out in the near future?

  Her husband hardly listened to music anymore, and of all the changes, this was the most disorientating. Their home had always been filled with music; their study, two walls of the dining room were packed floor to ceiling with the thin spines of CDs. In the past she had resented the amount of money he spent on his passion. But now she wished he would come home with the tell-tale canary-yellow bag from JB Hi-Fi, the thick paper package from Basement Discs or the garish plastic bag from Polyester. Hector rarely switched on the radio anymore. Aisha distrusted his unhappiness, she believed it to be a pose. But she dared not reveal her doubts. Instead, she was tender, tried not to snap at him. Just the other day she had read the music reviews in The Age—she never did!—and had slipped out from work to the small music shop in the plaza and bought Hector a CD from a band called Yo La Tengo. She was sure he had earlier records by this band and the reviewer had claimed that the CD would be one of the albums of the year. She had brought it home and he had been grateful, playing it immediately. But just that once. The disc remained in the stereo, the sleeve sat empty, desolate on top of the glass case that protected the turntable. Hector seemed unable to sustain happiness. That was what was unusual, what she had taken for granted. That is what she wanted back in her life. Let her take him for granted, let him do the same with her. This was marriage.

  Fucking bastard. She had tears in her eyes as she drove the few short minutes to her in-laws. She could not bear Koula to know she had been crying. She fixed her face in the rearview mirror, breathed slowly and deeply three times. She was ready.

  She kissed her mother-in-law on both cheeks. Melissa dragged her over to the kitchen table and they sat together while her daughter, with a conceited cock to her head, proudly showed off her maths homework. She was so much like Hector. Aisha walked into the lounge room. Manolis was asleep in the armchair and Adam was watching some silly reality show on television. She kneeled and lightly brushed her lips on the tips of his hair. He smelled of olive oil, of his grandmother’s food; and there was a slight putrid stink, mangy, animal, boyish, that made Aisha wrinkle her nose. Adam neither recoiled nor accepted her kiss. He was becoming something that was not a boy anymore. She felt the world crush down on her. Everything was changing. Manolis let out a sudden harsh gasp and she quickly turned around. He was stretching his arms out, yawning. She kissed him. Manolis smelled the same as always, the comforting odour of the garden, the lemon and garlic and oregano: like her kids he smelled of his wife’s cooking. She smiled down at him. His eyes analysed her cooly.

  ‘How are you, darling?’

  She felt a pang of guilt. She still had not rung Sandi and it had been over a fortnight since their return. She had promised her husband. ‘I’m fine.’ She hesitated, then promptly lied. ‘I’ve lost Sandi’s number. I really need to ring her . . . and Harry,’ she added hastily.

  Manolis’s eyes were still unsmiling. She helped him rise from the armchair.

  ‘I’ll get you the number,’ he said.

  He wrote the number down on the back of a torn envelope, the nu
merals shaky, oversized, like a child’s writing.

  He handed her the envelope.

  ‘Thank you.’ This time his smile was genuine, real. She almost broke into tears again. Nothing more must change.

  She swiftly cut up the vegetables for a quick, simple curry. Hector arrived, drunk, and she stopped herself from snapping at him. While he was showering and the kids were squabbling over the television, she rang Sandi. She was trying not to think of Rosie. She scrolled down on her phone till she got Sandi’s name on the screen—thank God, Manolis did not understand mobiles or he would have seen straight through her lie about Sandi’s number. Sandi’s name appeared on the screen. Aisha paused, then pressed for the number. The phone began to dial. It did feel like a betrayal. The woman’s voice on the other end took her by surprise.

  ‘Hello,’ Sandi repeated her greeting. ‘Is that you, Aish?’

  Caller ID. Aisha composed herself. She would not hang up. She had done it, she had made a choice. Things were not the same, they would not remain the same.

  ‘Yes.’ She stumbled through her congratulations, and followed them swiftly with a quick apology, rushing the words. ‘I’m so sorry we haven’t spoken for so long. The circumstances have been trying.’

  She had actually rehearsed that line. It had come to her on the plane back from Bali. It was true but as a statement it did not apportion blame. Sandi’s laughter in reply was loud and genuine. I made the right decision, thought Aisha, I think I’ve done the right thing.

  ‘You’re not wrong, babe. It’s been a shit of a year but everything’s good now. I’m so happy now.’

  ‘I’m glad, I really am.’ And she was. ‘I know how important this is for you.’

  ‘For both of us.’ She was being reminded of Harry. Aisha flinched. That conversation would be much harder. ‘Rocco’s so excited, as well,’ Sandi continued, her voice airy. ‘He can’t believe he’s finally going to have a brother or sister.’

  ‘How is Rocco?’

  A chant, a snatch of lyric from a CD Hector played to death in the early nineties was in her head. This is a new day, this is a beautiful day.

  ‘He’s great. Bring the kids over for a visit.’

  Aisha did not answer at once. She called out Melissa’s name, pretending to admonish her daughter. She would have preferred to first see Sandi on her own, over coffee, outside their homes, away from their husbands. But Aisha knew that would not be possible. Sandi’s voice was friendly, sunny and inviting, but nothing would be forgiven till she stepped into their home and greeted Harry. She would have to shake his hand. She would have to kiss him. He would be unshaven, his cheek would feel coarse, he would tower over her. She realised he scared her. She hated that he scared her.

  ‘Sorry, Sandi,’ she lied. ‘Melissa was playing with some scissors. What were we talking about?’

  ‘When are you and Hector going to come over with the kids?’

  ‘Soon, we’ll be over soon.’

  ‘When?’

  This is a new day, this is a beautiful day.

  ‘I’ll talk to Hector.’

  Sandi laughed again. ‘He’ll agree to anything.’ The laugh ended brusquely. ‘So when?’

  The tone was steel. This is a new day, this is a beautiful day.

  ‘Sunday week,’ Aisha suggested cheerfully. ‘How’s Sunday week?’ How the fuck do you sleep with that monster at night? After what he did to you? I saw you. He broke your jaw. How do you forgive that?

  ‘Great. I’ll get Harry to fire up the barbecue.’

  ‘Great,’ Aisha echoed falsely. ‘I’ll see you then.’ She switched off her phone.

  ‘What should I tell Rosie?’

  They were sitting at the front bar of the All Nations waiting for a table to become free in the dining room. Anouk was the centre of the largely male crowd’s attention. She was wearing her thigh-high black leather boots and a faded suede cowgirl jacket over an old New Order tour T-shirt that Aisha remembered her friend buying in 1987. It still fitted her perfectly. Anouk’s hair had been recently cut radically short into a masculine buzz cut and also dyed a glistening blue-black. Aisha had also dressed up, in a delicate soft cotton burgundy two-piece she bought on impulse, but what had looked cute in the David Jones window suddenly seemed drab and bourgeois and middle-aged next to Anouk. It’s because the bitch doesn’t have children, she thought spitefully to herself when she’d walked into the pub and seen her friend smoking at the counter. But Anouk’s excited, grateful smile on seeing her made Aisha feel terribly guilty for her ungenerous thought. It did not do justice to her friend. Even with kids, even if she had a brood of half-a-dozen, Anouk would still look a knockout.

  They had ordered a bottle of sauvignon blanc and Aisha watched the bartender pour them a glass each. He’s almost a child, thought Aisha. He was thin and pale, with unkempt swampy hair. His attempt to grow a beard had stalled; the thin straggles of hair on his cheeks could not quite meet their fellow tufts on his chin. He was very attractive and very young. But he was keenly focused on Anouk who pretended to ignore him.

  ‘Cheers.’ They clinked glasses. Anouk lit a cigarette and mischievously blew smoke towards Aisha. ‘You don’t have to tell her.’

  Aisha had thought of this option, but she had reluctantly decided that it was not possible. She did not want to be fearful and deceitful towards her oldest friend. At some point Rosie would discover that she had made peace with Hector’s cousins and she would feel betrayed. Aisha prided herself on the longevity of her friendships with both Rosie and Anouk. They were just like family except, unlike family, she hid nothing from them.

  She gave voice to this. ‘I don’t want to be in a position where I’d have to lie to Rosie.’

  Anouk cocked a disbelieving, sarcastic eyebrow in her direction. ‘You’ve already lied to her. You didn’t tell her that your sweet cousin-in-law beats up on his wife.’

  ‘He only did that once.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. They were cowardly, an unconvincing defence. She would never have let Hector get away with them.

  Anouk struck. ‘Once that you know of.’ Aisha turned her face away, distraught. Anouk took her friend’s chin and forced Aisha to look directly at her.

  ‘I don’t care, sweetheart. You know I don’t give a fuck about Rosie and Gary’s vendetta. You know I think Hugo deserved all he got.’ Aisha was about to protest but decided not to. She would not change Anouk’s mind. ‘The point I wanted to make is that you have already lied to Rosie. What’s one more little lie?’

  ‘I did not lie to her.’ She was not being disingenuous; she almost felt indignant at Anouk’s casual accusation. ‘Sandi would have denied that anything had happened. It would have been no good for her to know about it. She couldn’t have used it at the hearing.’ Anouk seemed unmoved, her gaze was still sceptical. Aisha shrugged in frustration. ‘Anyway, if I had said anything Hector would never have forgiven me.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Anouk flicked her cigarette towards the ashtray but she missed and ashes plunged to the floor. Aisha impatiently tapped her foot. This is why Anouk always wanted to meet at a pub rather than a café or restaurant. So she could bloody smoke. Aisha smiled to herself rebelliously. Well, the laws were changing any day now and Anouk would have nowhere to smoke indoors. Maybe she’d bloody well give up.

  ‘Christ, Aish, don’t work yourself up about this. Rosie doesn’t need to know everything about your business. And don’t encourage her to play the victim. You spoil her.’

  Anouk was right. Aisha did indulge Rosie. But Anouk was also intolerant.

  ‘She’ll find out.’

  ‘Okay, then tell her.’ Anouk’s firmly stubbed the end of the cigarette into the ashtray. ‘But she’ll be guilt-tripping you for months. Don’t bore me about it if she does.’

  Yes, you are intolerant. ‘It’s still raw for her. She’s never going to forgive Harry.’

  ‘So what? What do you care?’ Anouk fell silent. The bartender was refilling her glass.
It was Aisha who thanked him.

  ‘Rosie and Harry have got nothing to do with each other,’ Anouk continued, watching the young man walk away. ‘And it’s no business of hers what relationship you have with Hector’s cousin.’ Anouk took a quick sip. ‘Are you ever going to forgive Harry?’

  No. Never. Aisha finished her drink and placed the wine glass on the counter. I wonder if he’s going to fill my glass, she thought sourly. But the bartender did promptly come over and poured her another. He had such lovely soft features, his beard was like down, not yet hair, not bristles. He was not yet a real man. He went back to serving a couple of businessmen at the other end of the bar.

  She lowered her voice and shifted closer to Anouk. ‘He’s young enough to be our son,’ she whispered, grinning. ‘Isn’t it awful?’