Addition

by Toni Jordan

  I don’t clean that way. I divide the tasks into smaller jobs, writing them down on a small pad.

  1. Remove articles from desk, 10 things at a time.

  2. Dust desk.

  3. Spray and polish desk.

  4. Replace articles on desk, 10 things at a time. The best way is to break this up so that the steps are quite discrete—either by reading 10 pages of a book, then doing a step, then reading another 10 pages, or rotating the rooms. Usually I love it but this week even cleaning was beyond me, except the venetians. I couldn’t figure out where or when to start.

  Thursday afternoon, fine, 36 degrees. 3.40 p.m. The phone rings.

  For a minute I stare at it. Either Mother is dead, or it’s Seamus.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Um…hello, Grace? It’s Seamus.’

  ‘Seamus, Seamus…Oh I remember. Kitchen-floor-Seamus.’

  ‘As opposed to whom? Drive-way-Seamus? Kitchen-benchtop-Seamus? You’re not making me feel special, Grace.’

  ‘Not my problem. There’s a veritable St Patrick’s Day parade of Seamuses over here.’

  ‘I see. Well, is there any way I can improve my standing among your Seamuses?’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Just a sec.’ He gets a bit blurry. ‘Mate, we don’t show those kind of films. Nope. Nothing with talking fish or cars or rats. It’s an anthropomorphisation-free zone. Try the multiplex at the top of Swanston Street.’

  ‘You’re at work?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s dead here today. It’s a shame. We all thought this Paul Cox retrospective would be huge.’

  ‘Imagine. Parents preferring talking fish to voyeurism and leprosy.’

  ‘Exactly. Just a sec.’ More mumbles ‘Mate, you go to any cinema in town and they all charge that. It doesn’t go into my pocket. Well you don’t have to buy it. You could bring a sandwich from home.

  ’ ‘You tell him. A small Coke should cost thirty-eight dollars.’

  ‘You’d be great in here. Any time you’re looking for a job…’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve been flat out cleaning today. In my French maid’s outfit and high heels.’

  ‘Let’s stop right there,’ he says. ‘Are you free Sunday, around eleven?’

  ‘I can be.’

  ‘Good. I’ll pick you up.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Chinese.’

  10

  It’s Sunday, 24 degrees. It’s 10.30 a.m. but I’m ready, because this is my usual going-out time. I’m wearing a black cotton knitted shirt and an olive-green peasant-style skirt with drawstring waist. And black-heeled sandals. In my mind I’ve substituted ‘go for Chinese’ for ‘walk to café’. I’m even prepared to visualise the whole café experience—walk, ordering, orange cake—while I’m at the restaurant.

  When I open the door, Seamus Joseph O’Reilly is standing there. Hawaiian shirt, pale blue jeans. Deck shoes. (I’m picking up a distinct eighties theme.) He looks gorgeous. He even smells gorgeous. I’m tempted to forget about going out and invite him inside, even though it’s now past my going-out time. But he kisses my cheek in a perfunctory way, and before I know it we’re in MDS 938, and we’re off.

  The restaurant is overwhelming: tables, people, carts. Wall hangings. Children running around. So many things to count. I take my mind off it by thinking about being Chinese. I love Chinese everything. Fireworks, noodles. The Wall. I love the way they don’t compartmentalise their numbers but integrate them into daily life. I like the way that zero is the most complex pictogram of all the single digits. A big fat 0 like we use doesn’t sum up the magnitude of the concept.

  I love lucky numbers. In Chinese culture they’re 6, 8 and 9. The reason they’re considered lucky is probably the sound that they make. 6 sounds like the word for ‘everything going smoothly’, lui. 8 sounds like fa, which means great fortune coming soon. And 9 sounds like jiu, the word for everlasting, especially when used about a marriage or a friendship. I remember reading about some Hong Kong millionaire who paid a fortune for a licence plate beginning with 888. These plates become a circular argument: everyone knows how expensive they are, so they treat you with more respect. And the more people bow down to you, the luckier (and richer) you get.

  Is it true that Monterey Park in the United States has the nation’s highest concentration of Chinese, because the area code is 818? That no Chinese would live in a house numbered 14 because it means instant death?

  Sitting in the restaurant, looking at the silver trolley covered with little bamboo steamers, I’m feeling very unlucky indeed. I probably need to get a shirt with an 8 on it. He’s done the gentlemanly thing all morning and now he’s waiting for me to choose. And I know I should. I need a system. A pattern. I’ll even eat the chicken feet if it’s called for.

  But I’m defeated. Too many carts, too many steamers. ‘What should I try?’

  He leans closer and points to a few dishes with his chopsticks. The smiling waitress puts three steamers on our table. He doesn’t smile back. Instead he looks down and stabs at a green dumpling. Prawn and chive, I think. He eats it. 2 bites.

  A waitress arrives with a white pot in each hand. ‘Tea?’

  What, no drinks menu? What other choices are there? How can I decide just like that?

  ‘Grace? Do you want some tea?’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, a little too firmly. ‘Yes, tea. For both of us.’

  The waitress pours the tea. When do I sip? Now? Or should I alternate between bites of the dumpling? Actually, how many bites in one dumpling? 10 would be ridiculously small. Even 5 wouldn’t look right. Seamus had 2 before, but his mouth is probably bigger than mine.

  ‘So…I hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of anything when I phoned on Thursday.’

  ‘No, no. A spot of nuclear fission in the kitchen, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re not…working at the moment?’

  ‘No. Not…at the moment.’

  ‘Haven’t found the right job? Or taking a break?’

  I don’t answer. I can’t answer. I can see where this is going. Oh God. I shouldn’t have come.

  ‘Don’t you like Chinese food?’

  ‘Um…yes. It all looks so good. I can’t decide what to have first.’

  I sit silently for another moment while he stabs another dumpling. But he doesn’t eat it. He lays the skewered dumpling down on his plate.

  ‘Grace, we need to talk.’ Why is it that when men have something on their minds, they revert to clichés?

  ‘Hang on, I’m the chick. That’s supposed to be my line.’ He lays his chopsticks down flat on the table. His nostrils flare out, and he takes a deep breath and lets it out.

  Under the table, I ball my hands into fists.

  ‘I really like you, Grace. I really do. You’re funny and sexy and…great. You’re great.’ He pauses and sips his tea.

  Oh God. I should have known. Men love to dump you in public places so you won’t make a scene and there’s nowhere more public than this.

  ‘Can I ask a personal question?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve always been a woman. I should probably wax more often.’ I absolutely refuse to get upset. I refuse to let a man I’ve known for 22 days hold that kind of power.

  He doesn’t smile. I try again.

  ‘Never before, I promise. You were the first.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Only once, but I didn’t inhale?’

  Tough audience.

  ‘Grace, can you stop joking for a minute? I want to know what’s going on with you.’ The crinkles around his eyes turn into furrows. He sucks on his bottom lip.

  I can feel a blush coming up my neck and across my face. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ I look down. He has chosen one steamer of prawn dumplings, one of wontons and one with a radish cake. The bamboo steamers are in a circle and because there is no beginning and no end I don’t know where to begin. Usually in this situation I try to picture a clock and choose whatever is
just past noon but the radish cake is kind of in the middle and I can’t work that into the scheme. Instead I sip my tea.

  ‘Look, I know this is none of my business, Grace, but…Why did you take that banana at the supermarket? You had lots of bananas already.’

  I don’t say anything. I can’t.

  ‘Grace? When we hold hands, your fingers twitch. When we walk, your lips move.’

  ‘I didn’t realise about my fingers. It’s only a habit. If you had told me when I was doing it I could stop it.’

  His voice drops to near a whisper and he leans forward. ‘It’s not just that. Why don’t you order your own food? Even now you haven’t eaten anything—you didn’t even know if you want tea. And why haven’t you got a job? You’re obviously intelligent and capable. What’s going on?’

  I close my eyes for a moment. I’m not worried. I refuse to be worried.

  He leans back in his chair. ‘God…look, you don’t have to answer. Okay? Forget it.’

  The excited chatting of the restaurant has settled in a background hum. At the table next to us 5 people sit with 10 chopsticks in their 5 hands. They have 14 bamboo steamers, which seems ridiculous because that is 2.8 steamers each and by the time they work their way around some dumplings will be cold. Why would people order like that? There are 4 carts after all and they come around every couple of minutes—too often in fact. How do they expect you eat when you have to say ‘no thank you’ every two minutes? Each cart has 7 rows of steamers; on the one nearest us the first 4 rows from the front have 4 steamers across, the fifth row has 3 and the last two rows have 4. Some are 3 high, some are 5 high, some are singles. The cart nearest us has 87 steamers; the other carts are hidden behind diners and I can’t be sure how many they have. Still, there’s no excuse for 14 on one table. Even if there is only one left of something you really like, say the oysters with the cheese sauce on top, you can always ask them to make more.

  ‘Is that really important?’ I say. ‘Is it really important that I don’t have a job?’

  ‘Maybe not. Maybe it’s not important. But fuck it, Grace, I looked in your fridge last Sunday morning. What’s with all the plastic bags full of stuff ? I’ve never seen a fridge where nothing—I mean nothing—is in its original packaging. A fridge full of bags of onions and beans and God knows what else all in little individual zip-lock bags. Yoghurt, even. And all your drinking glasses have lines drawn across them, like glasses in wine bars.’

  I think he’s finished, but he’s just warming up. ‘You don’t even have a roll of toilet paper, just a pile of lengths already ripped. There’s a ruler next to your dental floss and there’s a little measuring cup in the shower next to the shampoo. God, I’ve never seen so many clocks in my life. It’s like a clock store. And let’s not forget the toothbrushes. Why on earth would anyone buy seventeen toothbrushes?’

  All of a sudden the room is quiet. The tea has spilled because of that sloppy way they pour it in Chinese restaurants and there are 3 stains on the table cloth: the first quite small, the second bigger and the third an irregular middle-sized splodge in the shape of Tasmania. There are 3 prawn dumplings going cold. Why do they serve them in 3s? 3s is probably the most inconvenient serving size possible. How often do three people go out together for brunch? Two, yes. Four, yes. But three? Perhaps they know you can’t split them evenly so you’re forced to get another steamer, the way small packets of potato chips are a tiny bit too small to satisfy but the big ones are just a bit too much. Another minor evil of the capitalist system. The prawn dumplings have 12 little twists along the top of the dough, probably made by hand.

  ‘Grace? Shit, I’m sorry. Really. Come on. We don’t have to talk about it.’

  ‘14,’ I say.

  He looks at me blankly.

  ‘I bought 14 toothbrushes.’ I take my second sip of tea.

  Then I feel a twinge in my stomach. It can’t be the food because I haven’t eaten anything yet. It’s not that I’m frightened of serious conversations. Not long before the execution of Kemmler, Nikola and Westinghouse had a very important conversation about a deal. The kind of conversation that had been brewing for a while and was painful while it happened, but ultimately for the best.

  Nausea flows through me like a wave, starting in my mouth and sweeping down my torso. I’m definitely sick, very sick.

  ‘Grace? Are you okay?’

  Possibly I look a little pale.

  ‘I…I don’t feel very well.’ Possibly I’m going to vomit all over the cute little bamboo baskets.

  ‘Do you need some air?’

  I don’t reply.

  ‘Would you like to go outside?’

  I nod, holding my stomach. My mouth tastes of acid.

  Seamus looks at the bill, and leaves some notes on the table. He takes my arm. I can barely keep my feet as we walk to the door. You see, the problem with the deal was this: Westinghouse offered Nikola a royalty payment of $2.50 per horsepower of electricity sold. Even the great Westinghouse did not foresee exactly how generous this was and exactly how many horsepower he was going to sell.

  Across the street there’s a park; we sit on the swings. I am doubled over in pain. It’s unlikely to be appendicitis because that would begin with constipation and some general, low-level gut ache. Could be some kind of inflammatory bowel disease, but then I’d have diarrhoea. It’s probably not an aortic aneurism. Although it could be. Maybe it’s last night’s chicken, or it’s a virus and I’ll be over it in a day or so.

  Seamus is kneeling beside the swing, frowning. He wants to know about me. He wants to know who I am.

  Eventually Westinghouse was drowning in debt. So he went to Nikola and said, simply and plainly, ‘Nik, mate. We’re in a bit of trouble. Mind if, instead of $2.50 per horsepower, I pay you nothing?’

  I made this bit up.

  If this had happened today with a lesser man, it’s easy to see what would happen. Lawyers. Litigation. You read about the smallness of people every day: people who blame the council when their car hits a traffic light when they are driving drunk. People who sue restaurants for not warning them that coffee is hot. This packet of nuts may contain traces of nuts. People who can’t accept that it’s their own fault.

  It is, you know. It’s all your own fault, everything, everything, everything.

  Nikola was not small. His reply was recorded and is probably the most beautiful speech ever uttered. Above anything it shows the intrinsic goodness of the man.

  ‘Mr Westinghouse,’ Nikola said, ‘you have been my friend, you believed in me when others had no faith; you were brave enough to go ahead when others lacked courage; you supported me when even your own engineers lacked vision to see the big things ahead that you and I saw; you have stood by me as a friend; you will save your company so that you can develop my inventions. Here is your contract and here is my contract—I will tear both of them to pieces, and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties. Is this sufficient?’

  ‘I want to help you, Grace. I do. If it’s a religious thing where you can’t drive or use a mobile phone or if it’s a food allergy thing… I need to know what I’m getting into.’

  This man I’ve met 4 times is kneeling at my feet. His hand is on my knee. He has not spoken about the weather. He has not spoken about the football. Against every social instinct he has spoken from his heart. Most people say, ‘Too much information.’ Not Seamus.

  ‘Grace?’ He sits on the swing next to mine. He’s waiting.

  If I told Nikola, I know what he would say. He would say ‘Grace, you have been my lover. Tell me your troubles, and I will tear them to pieces, and you will no longer have any troubles. Is this sufficient?’

  I take a deep breath.

  ‘It’s not a religion. It’s nothing like that. It’s just that I like to count things. I need to count things,’ I say, digging the toes of my shoes into the pulverised rubber below the swings.

  ‘Count things? Like what?’

  ‘Like steps and sy
llables and bites and things. Food. Brushes of my hair. Brushes of my teeth.’

  He’s frowning. Fuck it. Keep going.

  ‘Volume of shampoo. Number of beans for dinner. Bananas. Number of items in a load of washing. I make lists of the number of dishes I wash and the surfaces I’ve dusted to make sure I don’t lose count. I check the time a lot. You know. Things.’

  ‘Like those people who wash their hands all day? Obsessive compulsive, is that what they call it?’

  I snort. ‘Christ no. Nothing like those crazy handwashers. There are 182 different species of bacteria on the human skin. They’re all there for a reason. Trying to scrub them away is illogical.’

  ‘And counting is…logical?’

  ‘Of course. Counting is what defines us. Listen, Seamus…the only thing that gives our lives meaning is the knowledge that eventually we will all die. All of us. That’s what makes each minute important. Without the ability to count our days, our hours, our loved ones…there’s no meaning. Our lives would have no meaning. Without counting, our lives are unexamined. Not valued. Not precious. This consciousness, this ability to rejoice when we gain something and grieve when we lose something—this is what separates us from other animals. Counting, adding, measuring, timing. It’s what makes us human.’

  ‘I see. I…hadn’t thought if it like that. This explains the rods.’

  My rods. I wish I had them with me right now, just to hold in my pocket. I try to smile. ‘My most prized possession. If my flat was on fire, the rods would be the only thing I’d grab. I spend hours playing with them.’

  In about ten minutes he’ll leave and I’ll never see him again. I look over to where he’s sitting and focus. I need to memorise everything—the way his limbs arrange themselves on the swing. The silhouette of his head against the trees. His Hawaiian shirt is bright yellow flowers on a black background; I can count 8 whole flowers from here, plus 15 part flowers. His jeans are worn to white on the left knee. The exact timbre of his voice. I shut my eyes for a second to see if I can recreate him.