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The Word

Page 11

by William Lane


  ‘He’th pothethed. Let’th do a reading!’

  ‘I bags the cannibal,’ said Justin, adding in a low stage whisper, ‘I can play the villain.’

  ‘No, Bruno’s the cannibal,’ said Tess.

  ‘Why Bruno?’

  ‘He never says anything,’ said Tess, ‘while you talk too much, Justin, you’ve got a loose tongue. I want to give Bruno a voice.’

  As soon as Bruno returned from outside, he was informed of the role he was to play.

  ‘But you don’t really want to read a part in this play, do you, Bruno?’ asked Justin, as Connie started serving dessert. Bruno eyed Justin, then the others. ‘You do enough pretending and role-playing, don’t you, every day at The Word? In fact, you think it’s all rubbish, don’t you, Bruno – The Word, I mean. I don’t blame you. Don’t worry, I’m not having a go at you. You can tell us the truth – the old-timers aren’t around, so we can say what we want.’ They watched Bruno. ‘I mean, you don’t believe all that sentimental waffle, that moralistic drivel about truth and words and reality Kenric goes on with, do you?’ asked Justin. ‘The Word is a farce, a sham – but you’re too good to say. Or you don’t want to say. But you wouldn’t be the only one.’

  ‘Is this a set-up?’ asked Bruno.

  ‘Here’th Barnabuth,’ said Judith quietly, ‘thtop talking like that, Juthtin.’

  Barnabus strode in, well pleased with himself at having repaired something. ‘Gas is all good to go, Connie!’ he yelled over the kitchen bench at Connie, who started and dropped some cutlery.

  ‘I knew you’d fix it,’ said Connie warmly, untying her apron.

  ‘Anything for your cooking, Connie! It’s almost as good as my mum’s.’

  Connie beamed, folded her apron and patted down her clothes.

  ‘Aren’t we lucky to have this place?’ Barnabus cried, still talking loudly as he turned to the others. ‘I just had a quick look at the beach – it’s right there, only a stone’s throw away. I only wish everyone was here with us – won’t Kenric and Maria and Robert love this place? Can’t wait to hear what they’ll say about it. It’s a pity they didn’t come tonight, our first night here.’

  ‘We’re lucky, aren’t we, Barnabus,’ said Justin, clapping Barnabus on the back, ‘to have found The Word?’

  ‘Sure are,’ agreed Barnabus. ‘I admit I get homesick for the country sometimes, but The Word’s been a home away from home for me.’

  ‘Gives you something to believe in, to work for – you feel you’re part of something meaningful, a real community,’ said Justin.

  ‘It does. I was drifting before I found The Word. But now I know how to speak, how to act, how to interpret stuff – interpret things I hadn’t even thought of before. Cripes, I didn’t even know what the word “interpret” meant before.’ Barnabus had a laugh at his own expense.

  Krystal and Teddy, holding hands, reappeared from their walk along the beach.

  ‘We’re doing a play reading,’ Justin informed them. ‘It’s Tess’s play!’ cried Krystal excitedly, clapping.

  ‘About the cannibal?’ asked Teddy. ‘We’ve been waiting for this!’

  ‘Can’t we read this thing another day?’ said Bruno, yawning. ‘I’m tired, I need to look for work tomorrow.’

  Tess handed him a script. ‘You’ll like it,’ she said.

  Bruno considered her coldly. ‘Yes, Duchess,’ he replied. If he had to address her, he called her Duchess, or Countess.

  ‘You sit here to read your part, Barnabus, across the table from Bruno,’ said Tess. ‘If a word is italicised, you stress it. You, Barnabus, are playing the part of a psychoanalyst.’

  ‘A psycho what?’ asked Barnabus.

  ‘You’re the doctor. You have to show authority, Barnabus. You’re sitting behind your big desk; on the other side of the desk is you, Bruno, the cannibal. You start, Bruno.’

  ‘“This writer was a mad bastard,”’ began Bruno, squinting at Tess’s manuscript and reading woodenly, ‘“I’m telling you”.’

  ‘Slower, and more expression,’ corrected Tess. ‘Again.’

  ‘Okay, Countess, back to the start,’ said Bruno. He paused, then read loudly: ‘“This writer was a mad bastard, I’m telling you. Mad Doc.” Sorry, “Mad, Doc.”’

  ‘Better,’ said Tess.

  ‘“What makes you say that?”’ read Barnabus.

  ‘No,’ interrupted Tess, ‘say it in a considered way, in a doctor’s voice – with authority. Pretend you’re in a suit. Remember you’re behind your big desk, Barnabus – you’ve spent decades at various universities, you’ve read a library of books, and you earn a thousand bucks per session.’

  Barnabus smoothed down his shirt, ran his hands over the table before him, and rolled his shoulders.

  ‘Good,’ said Tess, ‘now you look the part. Remember you’re in control, and you’re going to write a report on this incarcerated cannibal. However, you are a little nervous under your professional veneer, because you know you’re sitting opposite someone who has known no boundaries. He’s eaten someone’s tongue. And he can talk.’

  Barnabus looked uncertainly across the table. Bruno grinned.

  ‘Right, I get it,’ said Barnabus, clearing his throat, wriggling in his seat. ‘I can do this, I was Pumpkin Paddy in a school play once. “What makes you say that?”’

  Justin and Judith clapped at Barnabus’s voice. Barnabus adopted a more erect posture and adjusted an imaginary tie.

  ‘“He was mad – he heard voices,”’ read Bruno, the cannibal.

  ‘“Voices?”’

  ‘“His head was full of voices; now mine is.”’

  ‘“His head?”’

  ‘“Yes, the writer’s – the one I told you about before, the one I ate. His head teemed with voices.”’

  ‘“And now yours does?”’

  ‘“The voices he heard, yes; now I’ve eaten him, you see, I have taken on something of him – don’t ask me how. But I certainly never heard voices before, Doc. I was sane before. So I must have ingested them with him – ingested the voices that lived in him, infested him. They say the strangest things, the voices – they seem to have a life of their own. They never shut up, and they’re distinct.”’

  ‘“Distinct?”’

  ‘“Different to one another. It’s almost as if they belong to different characters. I promise I never used to hear voices until I ate this writer, Doc. I don’t know how he put up with them, the poor bloke.”’

  ‘“And tell me, young man, what do they say?”’

  ‘Stick to the script,’ admonished Tess.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Barnabus. ‘“What exactly do these voices say?”’

  ‘“They tell me what they’re going to do, and what they have done; in essence, they tell stories. And they urge me to say certain things. They’re very persistent, I can assure you.”’

  ‘Bruno, don’t embellish,’ said Tess.

  ‘Yes, Duchess. “They’re very persistent.”’

  ‘“Hard for you.”’

  ‘“It is, Doc.”’

  ‘“And how do you feel about eating this writer?”’ asked Barnabus, psychoanalyst.

  ‘“Terrible,”’ answered Bruno. ‘“I wish it had been anyone else but a stupid writer. If I had my chance again – if I’d known he was a writer – I would never have done it, I swear.”’

  ‘“Eaten a person?”’

  ‘“Eaten a writer. By the way, you are a writer, right?”’ asked Bruno.

  ‘“No, I am certainly not,”’ stressed Barnabus.

  Barnabus and Bruno then sat mute, having come to the end of the script.

  ‘It’s very true-to-life,’ ventured Ashram Teddy after a few moments of silence. Krystal sat on his lap, looking perplexed, as they shared a large mug of herbal tea.

  ‘I’m happy to run through it again,’ offered Barnabus.

  ‘I want to be the analyst!’ cried Justin, putting up his hand.

  ‘Look, we can read Teth’th play again l
ater,’ said Judith, ‘but while we’re all here, we need to make thome houthe ruleth for the Pittwater houthe.’

  ‘And I want to remind everyone we have a class this week,’ said Krystal, ‘a session on the verb; my old work colleague Katie is coming especially to run it.’

  ‘But about the houthe ruleth – let’th make a rothter for the wathing up –’

  ‘Do we h-h-h-have to write a roster?’ protested Ashram Teddy, ‘I feel like I’m in p-p-p-primary.’

  Judith became angrier. ‘I want a roster, I want it put on the wall. All our names, written in large writing. The written word has authority. No one, no one in this community will do the washing-up unless it’s written down they should. That’s a fact, it’s been proven. If we have a roster, then all we need to do is point to their name on the night, and the person will end up doing it, believe me.’

  Krystal whispered to Teddy, ‘Why has your stammer come back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Teddy frowned. ‘It’s just st-st-st-st-begun again.’

  ‘Let’s go down to the beach,’ said Tess abruptly. They all rose together, as if only waiting for her word, and ran over the white sand, the sand impressed with overlapping footprints, prints that wandered in all directions in the night. No one else was about. The members of The Word spontaneously agreed to strip and swim. The men went a few paces in one direction, and the women moved a little apart to form a huddle. The men, and then the women, ran down to the water, where they flounced and splashed about, squealing, before meeting up in the waist-deep channel.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ cried Barnabus, looking back at the empty beach with its sea of lights on the steep incline behind. Many more sea-lights glimmered on the headlands.

  They swam beyond the breakers, and trod water in a circle.

  ‘Let’s sing a round!’ piped Tess.

  ‘No one would kn-kn-know the s-s-same song,’ chattered Justin.

  ‘Let’s play Chinese whispers then!’ squeaked Tess, keeping her chin up. So in turn they swam to the person on their right, to whisper in their ear. Connie, having left her hearing aid on the beach, did not play. Soon she could not be seen – panic seized those remaining, until her form was spotted floating on its back, a pale star-shape cresting a swell. ‘Connie!’ they cried, and had to swim to reclaim her. In their joy at reclaiming their lost friend, the group broke into whoops; and then the whooping became a chattering, a singing – a babble, if heard from the shore.

  The verb class was held at the end of the week. ‘Children just loved Katie,’ Krystal told everyone before Katie’s arrival, ‘she has that happy knack of presenting difficult material in ways appropriate to early learners, she knows how to tailor her language and present concepts effectively to the point of learning. The black art of teaching – that’s what she understands, the black art of teaching.’ It proved hard to assemble everyone at the appointed hour, however – Krystal had to go down to the beach to muster those scattered along the shore. Connie was sunbaking by the meshed-in pool. ‘Well, it’s true I’m beginning to burn,’ Connie said when Krystal reminded her the verb class was about to start, ‘and I was starting to feel a bit peckish, so I will come up. I’ll be there in ten or fifteen.’ Krystal spotted Bruno and Barnabus eating fish and chips, looking at Connie from the jetty that formed one side of the pool; they began to move off as Krystal approached.

  ‘Katie will be here soon,’ Krystal called to them, pursuing them along the jetty.

  ‘What’s this Katie like?’ Bruno called back.

  ‘What does it matter what she’s like?’ asked Krystal, catching up with the men. ‘She’s giving a lesson.’

  ‘Is that the Katie who visited you once at Mount Druitt?’ asked Barnabus. ‘The blond lady?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘She’s got huge knockers,’ Barnabus whispered to Bruno.

  ‘Okay, we’ll be there,’ said Bruno.

  Krystal had placed pencils, notebooks and dictionaries around the upstairs living room table; before the class, Connie added little cakes she had baked.

  ‘Teddy, out you come,’ called Krystal, opening the door to her bedroom, ‘Katie will be here any moment.’

  Teddy stopped playing the guitar and slowly appeared.

  Krystal then held a ‘word warm-up’ using the dictionaries: ‘Now, everyone, open up your dictionary to any page,’ she said, ‘any page you like. What do you notice, Barnabus?’

  Barnabus scanned a page, making faces of concentration and discovery. ‘The words appear to be in a certain order,’ he finally pronounced.

  ‘Correct. What order?’

  ‘Alphabetical,’ said Barnabus.

  ‘Exactly. And what information is given about the words?’

  ‘It looks as if this one has something to do with Greece –’

  ‘Ancient Greek. What word is that?’ asked Krystal.

  ‘“Epi … gown”?’

  ‘Everyone look it up. How do you spell it? I think it must be “epigone”. What does it mean?’

  ‘It means … “A flap of cartilage at the root of the tongue”,’ said Barnabus.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Hang on, that’s the one above –’

  ‘Above the tongue? Above what?’

  ‘The word above “epigone”; it’s “epiglottis”, which is something to do with “Anat”.’

  ‘A gnat? There you go,’ said Krystal, ‘it’s a type of wasp. What page are you on?’

  ‘I like this one,’ said Bruno, ‘“Epsom salts” – I remember them: “A preparation of magnesium sulphate” –’

  ‘And look at this one,’ said Connie, ‘“epizoon” – “an animal living on another animal” – and “epsilon”; do you know what an epsilon is, Barnabus?’

  ‘Yes, can you find it, Barnabas?’ urged Krystal.

  ‘They all kind of look the same to me,’ Barnabus admitted, ‘these words –’

  ‘That’s because they have the same root!’ cried Krystal triumphantly, banging the table with her fist, ‘“Epitome”, “epitomize”, “epizoon”, “epode”, “epsilon” –’

  ‘Oh look, “epoxy” – now, that’s interesting,’ Barnabus said to Bruno, ‘I grew up thinking that was a product name, a glue – surprisingly, they’ve actually got it right in here when they say it’s “a synthetic thermosetting resin” – I happen to know that’s a genuine fact. This dictionary is an amazing book. Would you call it a book? Or the book? Every word ever invented is in here. Everything is in here, the whole world …’

  Katie appeared, businesslike, dressed in a suit, her face made up, her dyed-blond hair stiff. Her anatomy did not disappoint, and at first she had the men’s full attention.

  ‘Here at The Word,’ said Krystal, after introducing Katie, ‘we have a program of studying language. We believe language contains truth and is a source of revelation, and must be held in reverence –’

  ‘We are studying the verb, correct?’ asked Katie in a no-nonsense manner. ‘That’s what I prepared, on your instructions.’

  ‘Yes – the verb,’ said Krystal. ‘Some of us remain unclear about sentence structure, and it would benefit us to be refreshed with regard to the nuts and bolts of language. That’s why we want to study the verb. We know it’s the engine of the sentence – the energy source, as I think I’ve heard you describe it to your pupils before, Katie.’

  Katie had settled at the head of the table; at the far end sat Bruno, with Barnabus to one side, and Teddy the other, where they were closest to the window with a view. Connie sat near Katie, perhaps the better to hear her.

  ‘Now, I like to get to know my pupils a little first,’ began Katie. ‘So, what do you do, Bruno, and what are your hobbies? … You’re a forklift driver, who likes graffiti art? Good, that’s good. And you – Petronius, is it?’

  ‘Barnabus. I’m a pretty ordinary kind of guy, I like hanging out with my friends. I like a chat, darts, pool. I enjoy company. I come from –’

  ‘Wonderful. And Connie?’
r />   ‘I like food.’

  ‘Oh, we can all relate to that!’

  ‘No, I mean I really like it.’

  ‘Connie’s our wonderful chef here at The Word,’ said Krystal. ‘And that’s Teddy, my husband. He likes playing the guitar.’

  Judith had appeared on the verandah, where she sat listening to them through the glass while pretending to read.

  ‘Well, let’s start then, shall we?’ said Katie, who was sounding increasingly forbearing, having adjusted her expectations of the class, perhaps. ‘Now, never fear, there’s no assumption you will learn all about verbs by heart all at once. As with any other element of written English, there’s nothing mysterious about the verb – soon enough you will get it. Now, remember, we all use verbs quite correctly when talking, don’t we? We don’t even realise they are changing – the verbs, I mean – we don’t have to think about it, do we? Just let me know if I’m going too fast and when you’d like to stop for a cup of tea.’ Bruno was already looking out the window at the beach. Barnabus had begun taking notes. Connie adjusted her hearing aid. Teddy’s eyes were closing. ‘But what a lot of dictionaries you have!’ exclaimed Katie, noticing the bookcase full of dictionaries. ‘Now, all the words in those dictionaries do eight basic jobs in speech, but you really only need to worry about two – nouns and verbs. If you are super keen, we might do some extension work into the others, but in reality most of us never need to know about more than those two very important ones – and the verb is the most important of them all.’ Bruno had begun to nudge Barnabus, indicating he should look out the window. ‘You might recall from school, verbs are often defined as “doing” words. Most verbs do describe an action: to cook, to drive, to lift, to graffiti. Now, let’s try identifying them in sentences – Bruno, are you listening? Write these down: “Connie cooks well”; “Bruno drives a forklift”; “Katie teaches English”; “Teddy plays guitar”. There, now – where are the verbs in those sentences? Underline them. I think you’ll get most correct; if you don’t, don’t stress. Making mistakes is all lart of the prearning process – part of the learning process, I mean.’

  ‘You’ve explained it so well,’ said Barnabus, ‘I get it now – so in “Bruno drives a forklift”, “lift” is clearly the verb.’

 

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