by Toni Jordan
I’m glad I have the Indian boys, because I miss the Germphobics. In some ways they were so right: their rejection of hypocritical greeting handshakes and kisses, their stylish gloves and flowing sleeves. Daria’s right; it’s not that hard to flush the toilet using your foot. In other ways they were badly wrong: never eating in cafés, never reading a public library book. And, as both my sexual fantasising and masturbating skills have returned with renewed vigour, refreshed after their little holiday, I wonder how the Germphobics survived without even the thought of sex. I may never hold another man in my arms, but at least I have my imagination.
Nikola stars in my fantasies again. He does. If, while I’m imagining myself as a tight-bodiced serving wench in medieval England, I notice the hair of the tall stranger astride his horse seems lighter than before, I resolutely darken it. And perhaps occasionally the mouth I imagine hot on my inner thigh is framed by sharp, unshaven whiskers instead of a clipped moustache. With some concentration, Nikola’s features remain fine and sculptured. But sometimes my visions need a firm hand.
Francine I don’t miss, because somehow she is still with me. I think of her when I see flowers or count rubber bands or hear a New Age guru on the radio. I wonder what will become of her; with her sweet, Swiss-cheese brain I fear the influence of years of Germphobics will pull her under. She’ll be sitting on the other side of the circle, scrubbing hands and chairs, in no time.
Sunday night. 8.30. 12 degrees. Larry is on the phone.
‘So,’ she says.
‘So, what?’
‘Do you have another boyfriend yet?’
‘Larry. Are you opening a dating service?’
‘I’m not nagging. But I’m in the school play next month. And it would be great if you could come.’
It would. I remember her violin recital. Holding hands. ‘The trouble is, no one can compare with Nikola.’
‘Are you still banging on about him?’
I curl my feet up on the couch. From here I can see his picture beside the bed. I could swear he was smiling.
‘Me? Never.’
‘Grace, he went broke. You told me yourself.’
‘Well.’
‘And that stupid tower? It never worked, did it?’
I stretch out on the couch, moving aside the book I’d been reading. ‘Not worked as such. During World War I the government blew it up. They thought German spies would use it to track American shipping. It was sold as scrap metal. For $1750.’
‘See? And what happened to Nikola?’
‘Well…not a lot. He lived the rest of his life alone in a hotel room, broke. He started releasing kooky statements about communicating with other planets, and told everyone he invented a death ray gun.’
‘That’s the only cool part of the story, a death ray gun. The rest is a downer.’
‘It isn’t a downer, Larry. This is a terrific story of the power and the burden of someone who thinks differently from the rest of us.’
‘Doesn’t sound like it to me.’
I try to think of a better way to say this. It’s important she understands.
‘Look, it’s easy to think that, if only Nikola had been more realistic and practical, his story would not have ended this way. He would have been wealthy beyond his dreams, and his fortune would have financed more research. If Nikola Tesla had been wealthy, the world today would be unrecognisable to us.’
‘That’s what I think. If he was so smart why couldn’t he get it together?’
‘An awful lot of smart people don’t have it together. The fact is this: if he had been more realistic and practical, odds are he would have stayed at home on the farm in Serbia and become a priest like his father wanted him to. He would have married a hard-working, practical farm girl, and raised sturdy, practical children.’
He would not have been the most famous man in the world for a time, or been honoured with a Yugoslav stamp and banknote bearing his face. He would never have invented radio—a claim vindicated by the US Supreme Court in 1943 when it ruled that Marconi’s patent was a deliberate copy of Nikola’s. He would not be remembered with a statue at Niagara Falls, where his genius allowed electricity to be captured, and the unit of magnetic flux density would not be known as the tesla.
‘But he died like one of those crazy recluses, like Leonardo DiCaprio in that movie. Howard Hughes. He…Look sorry, Grace, but he was a bit of a loser, wasn’t he. ’Cause he was so nutty.’
He’s still smiling at me from beside the bed. He’s okay with this. He was never ashamed of how he was. Nikola died of a coronary thrombosis on January 7 1943, alone in his bed at the Hotel New Yorker. Suite 3327. He was 86 years old and so obsessed by a fear of germs that he received few visitors. But his eulogy was read live over the radio by the mayor of New York and thousands of people came to his funeral. Serbs sat on one side of the cathedral and Croats on the other, all there to farewell the greatest of their countrymen.
‘Larry, Nikola was not a loser. He was different. That’s what made him special. It was his gift. Unlike those average people, he will never be forgotten.’
‘What do you mean by average? We’re doing that in maths.’
I don’t know. Medium looks, works at the box office, likes football and barbeques. Lives in Carnegie. ‘You know. Average. Normal.’
‘Average doesn’t mean normal.’
I sit up so quickly that Guyton’s Textbook of Medical Physiology clatters to the floor. ‘What?’
‘Average doesn’t mean normal. The average means you divide the total of something by the number of things in it. So the average can actually be unique.’
I can feel a vein throbbing in the side of my face where I’m resting the phone. Of course. She’s right. ‘“The average can actually be unique.”’
‘I just said that. I’ve got an exam in this tomorrow. Do you mean the median, which is the thing that’s in the middle? Or the mode, which means the most common thing?’
All this time. It wasn’t only that he was taller. It was all the little things, like the way he made me laugh and how his eyelashes fluttered when he slept. How he put up with living with his brothers. The way he tasted. The way time would slow down when I was waiting for him to come over. How he was always so proud of me.
‘Grace? Are you there?’ I can hear a wobbly elation; all these years of being told things by adults, of asking questions, of listening, and now she has taught me something. Something important. Yet I don’t know whether to be grateful.
The next Saturday morning, 9.15 a.m. 15 degrees. I walk home from my new supermarket with plastic shopping bags slicing my fingers. This is the worst of my shopping days, a day that comes rarely but I still dread. Washing powder. 10 boxes of washing powder, 5 in each bag, as well as my food for the week. Every 100 paces I stop and release my fingers so the blood can return to the red strangled flesh.
I am walking High Street when I see him. Seamus. He’s standing at a tram stop on the other side of the road.
For a moment I stare as though he was an actor from a medical drama I used to watch on TV: familiar, but so out of context that I couldn’t place him without his lab coat. For another second I don’t believe it’s him, I’m that used to seeing his doppelgangers wherever I look. Now his face jolts me and my heart thuds. He is wearing a navy polo shirt and those pale denim jeans with the faded knees.
Boat shoes fresh out of ‘21 Jump Street’. Someone should tell him it’s no longer 1988. Perhaps I should, but my legs barely move. I lean against a fence. At first he does not see me. Perhaps I fall outside his field of vision or he’s concentrating on something else. But the human mind has a talent for ignoring what is inconvenient for it to notice. A built-in delete key to soften the blows of regret or guilt.
Or, and this is more likely, he doesn’t see me because I look fabulous. Had I still been fat, frumpy and half-asleep, he would have spotted me straight away.
His tram comes and he climbs on, solicitously allowing an old lady in front of
him. Through the windows I watch him find a seat. It isn’t until the tram begins moving that he sees me. He stares and his mouth opens wider. Then he holds up one palm against the window, fingers spread. The tram rattles away.
I lean against the wall, head in my hands. It takes a few minutes before I can pick up the groceries again.
Exactly a week later, 27th of August, it’s my 36th birthday. Jill hosts a family dinner. Somehow I manage to attend. In the morning I walk to Glenferrie Road and buy a party dress: a dark green jersey wrap with long sleeves. This is now my official Winter Function Dress, to be worn during the months of June, July and August to all events that are outside of my normal routine. Not that there’s a lot of these. I’m glad I bought it too; everyone dresses up. Even Harry strives to reflect his personality. He wears a suit.
Jill throws together a simple meal of paté de campagne with cornichons, saffron seafood pot-au-feu and passionfruit crème brulées with poached quince. My single crème brulée has a single sparkler sticking out of the top. Jill must believe I would find a cake with 36 candles depressing. I bring a bottle of wine I found in the wooden bin in the front of the liquor store on Burke Road. When I give it to Harry, he grimaces and tries to hide it down the back of the wine rack without my noticing. Jill gives me a jar of vanilla-scented bath salts wrapped in soft pink tissue paper from her and Harry and Bethany. It has escaped her that a) my flat has no bath, b) even if it did, in these times of water rationing it would be immoral to take one, and c) I would be the last person on earth who would want to smell like vanilla. What does she think I am? A gulab jamun?
Larry, glorious, wonderful Larry, gives me a new biography of Nikola she ordered on the net. Perhaps she is a little sorry that she judged him so harshly last time we spoke. Harry junior gives me a gorgeous clutch purse in reds and golds made from an antique kimono material. He is proud of his choice, pointing out the detail in the fabric and the design of the clasp while his father squirms. I am so delighted I whisper later that if ever he feels like sewing he can come over to my flat and no one need ever know. I have been meaning to buy a sewing machine anyway—anything to avoid visiting shopping centres. He hugs himself with excitement.
Mother gives me a magnificent purple flowering orchid she grew herself. A greater gift from Mother is the gratitude she shows to Jill as we leave, hugging her and thanking her for the lovely dinner, and who would have guessed meatloaf, fish soup and blancmange could go together so well. Jill drives me home, her cheery face unusually glum.
It is 10 past 10 (allowable birthday variation to routine) when she drops me off. As I walk along the top floor balcony I almost miss it. In the shadows, propped up against my door is a small box around 10.5 centimetres square and 3 centimetres high, wrapped in orange/ tan paper with an orange/tan ribbon. No card. I put down my plastic bag of gifts and the orchid, and pick up the box. I feel the weight of it, the shape of it. It has been a long time since I have held something like this, but I remember. I know what this is.
I unpeel the tape a piece at a time, one from each end and one from the middle, unwrapping it without tearing so I can keep even the paper. At last the box lies heavy in my hand. The dark green plastic box. I open the lid to make sure they’re all there. The top layer is full, and when I put my hand flat they slide around a little. My fingers trace the embossing: NUMBER-RODS-IN-COLOUR (FOR CUISENAIRE MATHEMATICS). It is a complete set of vintage rods, identical to the ones I threw away. I can see myself sitting on my bed and playing with them like I used to—tossing them and listening to the almost-metallic tinkling of their mid-air collisions. Waking in the morning to the sight of coloured rods scattered across the quilt, some still clasped in my hands. It’s only now, holding them like this that I realise how much I’ve missed them. A second-hand child’s game. My eyes fill with tears.
There’s no one on the landing. I peer over the railing. From here I can look down to the atrium. There are some struggling trees and 12 mismatched pot-plants belonging to flat two. There is a figure down below, looking up at me.
For a moment I stare at him.
‘Seamus Joseph O’Reilly. Hi.’
18
‘Grace Lisa Vandenburg. Happy thirty-sixth birthday.’
I’d like to grip the railing but I can’t let go of the box. ‘And I don’t look a day over thirty-five, right?’
‘Fishing for compliments? I can’t see your face from way down here. To tell you how wonderful you look I’d have to come up.’
No. Go away. I told you to piss off 15 weeks, 6 days and 16 and a half hours ago.
‘Or I could stay here,’ he says, ‘and we could do the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.’
Any moment now one of the Indian boys will hear us and stick his head out to see that I’m okay. ‘I think you know the way.’
I watch him take every step. 44. He arrives on the landing. He takes 7 steps towards me.
‘You’re a hard woman to catch. I came around a few times. And I’ve rung.’ He reaches out and holds the railing with his right hand.
He’s wearing brown boots, his pale jeans and a green check shirt. Brown leather jacket unzipped, hands deep in the pockets. Perhaps he’s on his way to a rodeo. His hair is a little shorter than I remember. I wonder if it feels different. I wonder how long he’s been standing down there.
‘Only 23 times,’ I say. ‘Quitter.’
The air is cold and because I was only walking from the car I haven’t put on my jacket. With my spare hand I rub my arm.
‘I hope they’re right,’ he says. ‘I tried to remember. I wanted them to be exactly the same. Yours were a collector’s item.’
I hold the rods under the light outside my door. The green box glistens. ‘They’re perfect. How did you possibly find them?’
‘Ebay. It’s amazing the things people hold on to.’
Some child, somewhere, learned to count with these. Perhaps many children. Tiny hands, making pyramids and lines and stacks. ‘Thank you, Seamus. It was very thoughtful of you.’
He brings one hand to his face and rubs his chin. ‘So, to clarify. You’re grateful?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said, are you grateful? For the rods?’
I don’t recall anyone ever asking me that before. It takes a while to find a response. ‘Um, I suppose, yes. I’m not giving away my first-born child or anything, but yes, I suppose I am grateful.’
‘So, you know what gratitude feels like?’
‘Um, yes. My parents fed and clothed me. Sent me to school. I’m 36 now; that’s a lot of birthday presents. I’ve actually been grateful before.’
He nods. ‘And I know you know what guilt feels like.’
This is stupid. I’m cold. I could just say goodnight. I could say, thanks for the gift, Seamus, and go inside and stop this inane conversation. It would be so easy. I’m only 5 paces from my door. Walk, and put the key in the lock. Turn it. Open the door, go inside. But his lovely eyes have an intensity I’ve not seen in them before.
I turn my head to the side and look over the railing again. ‘Yes, Seamus. Yes, I know what guilt feels like.’
‘And you know what it feels like to try to be someone you’re not.’
I put the rods in my bag of presents and fold my arms. ‘Yep. Lots of experience at that. Considering doing my PhD in trying to be someone you’re not.’
He takes 2 steps towards me. He holds on to my arms. I can feel his hands warm through the fabric of my dress.
‘So, we’ve established that you know what gratitude, guilt and pretending feel like.’
He’s so close to me now. At first all I can do is nod.
‘What do you want, Seamus?’ My voice is too low.
‘I don’t want any confusion about what happens from here.’
Those beautiful eyes. ‘What…what happens from here, Seamus?’
Slowly he lowers his head and he kisses me. A soft kiss. I had forgotten how this meeting of lips liquefies my bones. It’s been
centuries since I’ve been kissed by him. I close my eyes.
‘I…I need to tell you…’
‘Hmm?’
‘I…therapy…I dropped out. Stopped the medication. The counselling. Everything.’
‘Honesty. Good start. I know, Grace. I spoke with Francine. She said something about carnations. Don’t change the subject.’
‘What was the subject again?’
‘Was there any gratitude, guilt or pretending in that kiss?’
I realise I’m gripping his shirt, my fingers threaded through between the buttons to touch the skin of his chest.
‘I’m not 100 per cent sure. Can you do it again?’
This time my hands leave his shirt and twirl around his neck. I remember the feel of his hair, the way the curls go in different directions. I remember the feeling of my breasts pressing against his chest. I remember everything. When he stops kissing me, my lips chase his. I open my eyes.
‘Well?’ He’s frowning, staring.
‘Let me see. Nope. No gratitude. No guilt. No pretending.’
‘No more lies, Grace.’
‘It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t meant to be a lie, but I can’t talk about it. I can’t think about it. I can’t even remember what I was doing, you know? That’s the worst part. The thing I was doing that was so important that I didn’t close the door—I don’t even know what that was.’
‘It’s okay, Grace. It’s okay.’
‘It’s almost his birthday. We’d be planning a party for next month. He could have been a builder or a sailor or a chef. He might have loved skiing or cycling. Everything would have been different.’