by Toni Jordan
Finally the bedroom is finished, and so is the bathroom. Everything counted on my hands, everything written down in my book. I am halfway through the kitchen when the door bell rings. At first I ignore it. It must be Jehovah’s Witnesses or something. Who else would ring someone’s doorbell at this time of the morning? I’ve a good mind to tell them to leave me alone to worship in peace at the feet of Satan, and by the way, remember Samuel 22: 28. That being, You save the humble but Your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.
Then I glance at the clock. It’s 11.52. Almost time to leave for the recital. It’s Seamus at the door.
I’m still in my pyjamas. I haven’t showered or brushed my teeth or had breakfast or been to the café. The contents of the kitchen cupboards are all over the floor. My notepad is filled with pages of tables, lines drawn and crossed through, and numbers. My right hand is sore and stiff.
I will have to explain it to him. I’m busy and I can’t come. This has to be done; I simply can’t live in a world if I don’t know its dimensions. Each breath makes my chest ache and the pain radiates down my arm and across my back. I’ll explain to him that, although I’ve obviously counted everything before, the word ‘digital’ comes from the fingers. It’s incomplete unless I count with my fingers. That’s all there is to it. I open the door.
‘You’re not ready,’ he says. He doesn’t sound surprised.
I lean in and close the door behind me so the kitchen chaos isn’t so apparent. ‘I’m not feeling very well. I’ll call Larry later and explain.’
Gently he moves me out of the way and comes inside. Every plate and cup and sponge and vegetable peeler from every kitchen cupboard is piled on the bench tops and on the floor. Two fry pans are balancing on the three saucepans and the five little nested plastic cup measures have rolled in to the hallway. One salad bowl holds the 10 knives, the other the 10 forks. The 10 spoons are in the strainer. The wine glasses, 2 sizes, 10 each, are on the kitchen counter, together with 9 champagne flutes. The remaining champagne flute is on the scales, because while I’m counting I’m also checking what everything weighs. Might save time later. Every door is open, the labels on the inside of each door clearly visible. Next to each label I’ve attached a piece of string tied to a pen with sticky tape, like they do at the bank. (I buy my pens in boxes of 100.) So if I take a plate out to make a sandwich for lunch, I can easily adjust the total number of plates down. And when I replace it after it’s been washed I can easily adjust the total number of plates up.
It looks worse than it is.
He stands still for a moment. He turns around, takes my hand and leads me to the couch. We sit.
‘Grace, this is never going to get any easier. We’re going to the recital.’
‘Look, Seamus, Larry will understand, really. It’s not that important, and as you can see I’m a bit busy…’
‘I need you to help me here, Grace. I need you to get me a pen and paper.’ I fold my hands in my lap.
‘Please, Grace. The notepad you write this stuff in’—his arm makes a sweep of the room—‘will be perfect.’
My notepad and pen are on the counter. I get them. I flip to a new page, and hand them to him. I stand in front of him.
‘I’m early, so we’ll make it. Now, two minutes for your teeth. Say five for your shower and ten for your hair.’ He’s jotting while he speaks. ‘Get me a clock.’
I hand him the digital clock from the top of the bookcase. I don’t have a lot of digital clocks; they’re useless for most things because they don’t show seconds. I just keep a few around because they’re easier to see from a distance. He sets it on the kitchen counter.
‘Grace, in two minutes it’ll be twelve o’clock. We’re going to start then. See this list? It says you’ve got ten minutes to pack up the kitchen. Then you need to get ready, but you must time yourself according to the numbers I’ve written down here. No longer, no shorter. Exact.’
He hands me the notepad. In his neat hand, he has made four columns. The first: tasks, like pack up the kitchen, and dress. The second: minutes. The third: time at the commencement of the task. The fourth: time at the completion of the task.
My hand swings down to my side, but I don’t let go of the pad. ‘I can’t. I don’t think I can…’
‘The clock’s about to tick over, Grace. You need to start at the stroke of twelve.’
The pain in my chest is gone. I look at the kitchen and for a second I can’t remember how it got to be in that state. I stare at the clock, and as I stare I can almost see each little light move from 11: 59 to 12: 00, as if in slow motion. And before I know it, I’m moving towards the kitchen.
Seamus drives with one hand on the wheel and his arm out straight. I fall in love with his mastery on the way to the recital. He always checks his mirrors like you’re supposed to. I’ve never considered driving to be sexy but I must be alone in this because people even consider those effeminate Formula One midgets appealing. The other cars on the road are doing their thing: stopping at red lights, keeping to the speed limit, indicating when they overtake. There’s a complex set of rules that keeps everything running smoothly. Someone made those rules up, every one of them, and in the end everyone gets to where they want to go.
‘Grace,’ he says, ‘I want you to tell me…about your counting thing. When you had treatment before, they must have had a theory. What causes it?’
‘Some people think it’s biological. An imbalance in brain chemicals in the same way that diabetics can’t make insulin. No one seems to know the exact reason—perhaps it’s genetic.’ I look out the side window. ‘The other theory is that it’s behavioural or environmental or caused by a trauma. I vote for the brain chemicals with a genetic cause, in which case I can blame my mother.’
‘And how do they treat it?’
‘Behavioural approaches, like relaxation exercises and being forced to not count. They seem to have a reasonable success rate. Also anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants.’
He reverse-parks in front of the school with insolent confidence. I would have hit a tree. He switches the engine off and turns to face me.
‘My brother Declan’s wife, Megan…she’s a doctor. I’ve asked her about it. About you. That’s what she told me. She also told me she knows a fantastic psychiatrist and a clinic that does wonderful work. You could go to your GP on Monday and get a referral.’
I open my mouth but he speaks again.
‘Don’t say anything now. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up but I want you to know you have options and that I’ll support you every step. Promise me you’ll think about it.’
I can see the fair spread across the oval: lots of kids running around, stalls everywhere. A jumping castle. Normal families, normal Saturday. White folding seats set out in front of a stage for the recital. I am here today. I made it out. I will hear my niece play the violin, because of Seamus.
‘I’ll think about it.’
We walk through the school grounds, past children with fairy floss on sticks chasing each other. Children in their best clothes: designer jeans and pastel dresses. I feel a little self-conscious: I’m dressed in a white skirt and a white top. Not the outfit due today, but Seamus picked it while I was in the shower. It’s okay except the bra (also chosen by Seamus) is black, and visible under the white shirt. The white shirt, too, makes my breasts look bigger. This is how women would dress all the time if men chose their clothes, like pneumatically enhanced tea ladies. My hair looks ratty because the 10 minutes he allowed for hair wasn’t enough.
At the side of the stage is a group of giggling girls holding musical instruments. At the edge of this group, not giggling, is Larry. I send her a royal wave, and walk slower so I can point to Seamus without his seeing. Larry slaps her palm to her forehead.
We sit and almost straight away 35 children in uniform file across the stage with their instruments. Nikola didn’t have children. His friends wanted him to, knowing the world would be a smarter place if he passed his ge
nes on. If he had been alive today Nikola could have sold his sperm on the internet, thereby improving mankind without the awkward realities of actual babies. Back at the turn of the century there was no stigma about trying to improve humanity.
Nikola knew that the demands of his work were too encompassing to allow for a wife and children. But a demanding job isn’t the only reason to be childless. There’s overpopulation. Global warming. Think of the environmental impact of disposable nappies—8000 nappies per baby and 500 years for each one to decompose; in Australia, a baby is born every 2 minutes, so 262,800 per year. Times 8000 nappies is 2.1 × 109. And that’s not the worst bit. Feeding it. Clothing it. Being responsible for another person’s life. For their whole existence. Get your head around that. There are a million great reasons not to have children.
But sitting here at the recital, holding hands with Seamus and watching Larry play the violin, it’s easy to forget them all. She’s at the back of the stage, and now that she is lined up with her orchestra-mates, it’s apparent she doesn’t look like the rest of the girls. Her hair is messy and still its natural colour, a sandy straw. She doesn’t wear any eye makeup or lip gloss. She’s not grinning at parents in the front row. Her tongue is between her teeth. Every stroke of her bow is deliberate, precise. She’s wonderful.
The recital finishes and miniature black belts flood the stage for a kung fu demonstration. We stand and move to the side of the stage. After a few moments she sees us and rushes over, violin case in one hand. Now they are standing next to each other. Seamus and Larry. She is about 7 centimetres shorter than me, but he towers over us both.
‘Larry, this is my friend Seamus. Seamus, the famous Larry.’
‘Larry, what a pleasure to hear you play. You were clearly the best violin. Rather embarrassing for all the other parents.’
She laughs, head down and looking sideways, but doesn’t speak.
‘Now for lunch. Your choice is hot of dog, in a hand-sliced roll, or burger of ham with tomato sauce garnish.’ Seamus says, in a horrible French accent. Larry laughs. Seamus offers me his arm. I take Larry’s hand.
As we walk, the three of us, I think about all the times I’ve been sick and no one has believed me. Like the time that I caught a train (never doing that again) and someone in the carriage was sneezing and I thought I had meningococcal because I had a terrible headache and could’ve sworn I had purple spots and the nurse at casualty barely looked at me. It can be very hard to convince someone you’re sick.
It can be equally as hard to convince someone you’re well. But, as we wander off to blow the fifty bucks Jill gave me on 3 packets of chocolate fudge, 3 hotdogs with mustard and 15 tickets (C17 pink to C31 pink—everyone knows consecutive tickets are luckier) in a raffle for a lurid patchwork quilt that seems the conception of someone born colour blind and the execution of someone with three fingers, I wonder what a baby with Seamus’s eyes would look like.
12
I am quiet during the drive home. The strange place, strange food and seeing Larry and Seamus together have left me heady and exhausted. Perhaps I’m coming down with something. Seamus is quiet too, until he parks in front of my flat.
‘Did you have a good time?’ he says.
I lean back in the seat. ‘Amazing. The best thing I’ve done in ages.’
‘There’s a whole world out there, you know Grace. A school recital really shouldn’t be the best thing you’ve done in ages.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘It’s really not. Prisoners in minimum security have more freedom than you. You deserve more from life than this.’
I open the car door, and lean across and kiss his cheek. ‘Thanks for the ride.’ I’d like to stay in the car and talk, but I need to go. I have to start preparing dinner in 16 minutes.
After dinner I sit on the edge of my bed and pick up Nikola’s photo—he’s right side up at the moment, but he’s spent a lot of time face down over the last 6 weeks and 1 day since I first met Seamus at the supermarket.
Nikola was sick several times. When he was twenty-five he became so hypersensitive that he could do nothing but take to his bed. A sound of a bee buzzing in the garden outside his room would explode inside his head—an enormous, cavernous sound. If someone walked in the house the vibrations would magnify up his body until he could hardly bear the shaking. A train travelling through the countryside miles away would rattle his teeth and the roots of each hair in his head. His parents installed rubber matting under the legs of his bed so he could sleep. I feel like this sometimes, like each time a number hits me my head recoils and if I were to squeeze one more number into my body they would seep out from my eyeballs and my nose and drizzle from my ears.
This wasn’t Nikola’s only strange symptom. Since childhood, whenever he became excited he would see bursts of light before his eyes that momentarily blinded him. Sometimes he actually believed the room in which he stood was on fire. Nikola also had visions, images of things he had seen that were unwilling to lie quietly in his memory. These flashes were often cued from conversations, so if, while chatting to him, you mentioned the word ‘hammer’, he would be confronted by the image of a hammer so vivid it blocked the rest of his sight and took him some time to decide if it was real. If he stretched his hand out in front, the image would close in around it and remain in place. He knew it was unusual. He was worried. He saw doctor after doctor, but none had any idea what made his mind so special.
It may have upset him at the time, but in typical Nikola style he made the most of it. Every invention he made throughout his life, he visualised first. He rarely made models because the images in his head were complete in every way. He could mentally switch on engines and generators and watch them run. He could manipulate them, turn them over and test them. This was one of the reasons he had no partners or colleagues—other engineers wanted blueprints and scale drawings. Nikola had no need.
The images themselves gave him the idea for another invention, one he never made. He believed that his visions were some kind of projection from the brain on to the retina, and, logically extending this, it should be possible to devise a machine to capture and project them on a screen. In the late 1800s, before the rise of the motion picture and decades before television, Nikola envisaged sharing the scenes from your life with another, like a holiday slide night without the camera.
Just as well Nikola wasn’t alive now. Imagine a child these days telling a doctor they saw pictures in front of their eyes, pictures so vivid they couldn’t differentiate them from reality. Not to mention the counting. It’s easy to see what would happen to that poor little boy. Psychiatrists. Behavioural therapists. Drugs. They’d probably say he was schizophrenic or psychotic or something. They would treat him, and all the strange workings of his brain would stop. He would no longer count or have visions. He would never grow up to become an inventor. All that matters to doctors now is that we humans become closer to being the same. Closer to average.
I know about this pressure to conform and have managed to withstand it. When I was in the hospital 25 months ago I was prescribed all kinds of medication. I told the doctors I took it, but I rarely did. Rarely enough for it to have no effect on my personality. Some of the nurses were conscientious and would watch me swallow, but I learned quickly how to tuck the tablets under my tongue. Others couldn’t be bothered checking. They had so much to think about—how many packets of hospital gloves they could slide into their handbag before anyone noticed, the whereabouts of their teenage daughters, the oozing of last night’s semen on to their already-stained underwear. It was easy to tip the pills down the sink in my privately insured room.
They told me back then that taking the pills could stop me counting. Perhaps it could have. But I didn’t take the pills because you can never tell—that’s the lesson. You never know what is meant to be, what is right, what will eventually save you. I remember sitting in my hospital bed thinking: What would the world have lost if some hospital had ‘cured’ Nikola?
If I change myself, how will I be diminished?
But right now, sitting on my bed, I’m not thinking about what the world might have lost. I’m thinking about sitting in a car for as long as I like, going out to dinner, sleeping in on Sundays. I’m thinking about how much I have to gain.
It all happens very fast. In a little over two weeks I have appointments with a psychiatrist and a behavioural therapist. I meet the psychiatrist first. Professor Segrove’s office is the size of my whole flat but furnished only with a serious bookcase, an enormous oak desk with a green top, two bucket chesterfields and a chesterfield couch. There’s no way I’m lying on the couch. Seamus offered to come up with me, but there’s not a chance I’ll let him. Instead he waits in the car.
Professor Segrove is shiny bald with ferocious eyebrows and wears a red polka-dot bowtie and red braces over a white shirt. His grey trousers must be tailored because they are a snug fit around his spherical tummy yet taper down to his skinny ankles and rest atop his tiny handmade shoes. ‘So, Grace. What brings you here?’ He grins mercilessly and pulls on his bowtie. This is a disconcerting habit in a psychiatrist, especially since I’ve always considered bowties to be a sign of mental illness, a kind of subliminal desire to garrotte oneself.
‘Just wondered if you validate parking.’ 75 books on the top shelf.