by William Lane
The Word was now with the women, it was agreed. They thought it only a matter of time before the Pittwater arm dissolved.
Soon after Judith moved in, Tess announced they were to hold a dinner party at Whale Beach for all current members of The Word. Her Aunt Tessa and Tessa’s bosom friend, Deirdre, were invited. Tessa had been pestering Tess to meet Kenric and the others again, and she wanted her friend Deirdre to share the experience.
Connie grew more excited by the day at the idea of cooking for a party; she began to prepare almost a week in advance (she could now afford to buy the best ingredients, Tess having inherited quite a bit of money when her grandfather died). Some dishes had to be left to the day, of course, and on the afternoon of the event she could be found in the kitchen loudly repeating a recipe. Connie always memorised recipes rather than cook while reading them – she thought reading while cooking destroyed the rhythm and spontaneity essential to producing delicious food.
‘“Use a large, heavy pot … cook until onions become slightly translucent … bear in mind the mussels will still have salty sea water in them … fennel should be soft and fresh tomatoes broken down … add the mussels and about fifty millilitres of the liquid from the mussel bag … at first sign of mussels opening, add fresh herbs … cook on high heat until all mussels opened … add the lemon zest and juice” – right, got it.’
Teddy and Barnabus were the first to arrive, with their guitars.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tess, frowning at the instruments. ‘We meet together as a group so rarely nowadays, I expect we’ll want to talk. Don’t you?’
‘Oh, there’s not much to talk about,’ said Barnabus, ‘it’s been pretty quiet at Pittwater lately. And how come only Connie ever visits us now?’
‘Because she’s obliged to prepare food,’ answered Tess.
‘Oh, that reminds me – Maria won’t be coming for dinner, Connie,’ shouted Barnabus. ‘She had to fly to Brisbane. Family business.’
‘She says,’ muttered Tess.
‘What’s that meaty smell?’ asked Barnabus.
‘That’s Connie’s wonderful cooking.’
‘You’ve flashed up the joint,’ said Teddy, looking about. ‘New curtains, new sofa and the walls painted coral,’ announced Krystal, appearing out of a little hall that lead to the bedrooms and toilet. ‘So don’t dare make a mess, you men. Don’t touch anything. And to top it off, we’ve got a new stove and fridge and dishwashing machine, although you two, being men, wouldn’t have noticed that.’
A black cat ran through the house.
‘Hey – is that the cat from the industrial estate?’ asked Barnabus.
It was, confirmed Connie. ‘I adopted her when we moved from the warehouse – she’s too good a ratter to let go.’
Tessa and Deirdre arrived, Tessa immediately congratulating Tess on the improved look of the house. ‘It’s feminine, darling,’ she declared, trailing her hand over the benchtop.
When Kenric arrived with Robert, Tessa accosted him – before even greeting him, she said, ‘You can run away early from my drinks party, you rude man – before I’d even introduced you to half my guests – but Deirdre and I are absolutely not going to let you off the hook so easily, are we, Deirdre? You’re too interesting to us. Deirdre’s absolutely fascinated by your word project, Kenric. She was always good at English at school, and she’s read a novel or two. And isn’t this little house the perfect new venue for your enterprise?’
‘Dinner!’ sang Connie, carrying a dish to the table – she had so many to come it was best they start immediately.
In a lull between courses, after a lot of drink, food, talk and laughter, Kenric found himself unexpectedly intercepted by Tess as he was leaving the bathroom. Giggling, obviously tipsy, she met him around the corner from the living room, where the others could not see them, and grasped him by the collar, pressing against him. ‘Now,’ she said, steering him towards a bedroom, ‘with Judith and Tessa and Connie – I know you like her – with all of them here.’
Kenric shook his head and would not budge.
‘But why not?’ asked Tess.
‘It needs to stop. Too much is left unsaid and skirted around. It’s creating lies.’
Tess looked uncertain, then angry: ‘So the mother’s behind this?’
For a moment he could not speak.
‘What’s up?’ Tess said, smiling. ‘Has the cat run off with your tongue?’
‘I say it has to stop.’
Tess frowned. ‘You moron,’ she said at last, ‘you’ve just lost it.’ She tightened her grip on Kenric’s shirt a second – then let go, thrusting him back. ‘I don’t need you anymore anyway,’ she said. ‘And you’re beginning to look ugly, with all your lies.’ Before going into the bathroom, she wiped her mouth of lipstick and smeared her stained fingers down his shirt front.
He took a deep breath – there was nothing more to say – and returned to the table.
‘We’re just discussing your Pittwater abode,’ said Tessa as Kenric sat, her eyes immediately on the lipstick, ‘we hear it’s become a branch operation! And darling Barnabus has been telling us about your naughty night raids on poor defenceless advertising hoardings! How direct action! You’re so high- minded, you’re still such idealists!’
‘There’s something so real about The Word,’ said Deirdre fiercely, ‘I love it – it’s so raw and – well, real, so brave – to live for an idea!’ She was smaller and fairer than Tessa, but dressed to the same general idea; the friends frequented the same shops and hairdresser.
‘But will you ever go back to advertising, Kenric?’ asked Tessa. ‘After all, you had such success there.’
‘I won’t go back,’ Kenric muttered, smoothing his shirt, trying to ignore the stain.
‘How can you be so sure? You’re such a funny little darling of a man, with your quaint notions.’
‘I’ve thought about it long enough,’ he said, collecting himself, starting to remember his lines. ‘I’ve said it before: advertising is too much about provoking desire – it causes suffering, because suffering is nourished by desire.’
‘He could talk like that for hours on end,’ said Tess, who had come back to the table with a fatal air, ‘once upon a time. We could listen to him talk all day and night, couldn’t we, everyone? Isn’t it insinuating – and with that deadpan voice he employs, and his line in self-deprecation? But then he gave up talking. You must admit you’ve fallen off lately, haven’t you, Kenric? When all was going well with The Word, you believed in yourself and your enterprise.’
‘Our enterprise,’ said Kenric.
‘But when things faltered,’ said Tess, ‘it all became too hard, and we heard no more of your philosophy of words. In the hard times, you weren’t prepared to say the difficult things or make the hard calls – and we got the likes of Bruno, and we put up with Justin, and all the others who have come and gone.’
‘Tess,’ said Krystal, ‘why are you saying this? Why here?’
‘Perhaps it’s not so much a personal failing on your part, Kenric,’ Tess went on, ignoring Krystal, ‘but a failing of the organisation. If Maria were here, she might be able to talk more about that.’
‘It seems to work!’ cried Tessa, who looked even livelier at the centre of her mischievous self; something was up, she could sniff it.
‘Everyone here agrees with me, I think,’ said Tess, ‘when I say some things have been on the slide lately at The Word, or at least at Pittwater. Over there, the members lie around in the sun, eat ice-cream and pursue idle love affairs. At Pittwater, the acolytes only want to eat, sleep with one another and dream.’
‘Sounds ideal,’ drawled Tessa, leaning her large face on her hand.
Carefree
Holiday
Coastline
‘Once they had an ideal,’ said Tess, ‘but now they are like children, so many children with adult appetites. Now, nothing is being learned or done, or seen for what it is. On the contrary, everything there is
being unlearned, unravelled and clouded. It’s not working; it’s not revealing truth or reality or any of those things Kenric so naively asserts – it’s not revealing anything except folly, self-interest and confusion. It’s not dispelling illusion, it’s creating illusion. It’s all lies there. One of the members turned out to be a wanted criminal –’ the police had turned up with a photo of Bruno some days after his departure, explaining that he was wanted for outstanding warrants in several states – ‘and another was a nasty, misogynistic, self-serving parasite. We put up with that one seemingly forever, although none of us can now understand why we hosted him. We lost perspective – it became the norm for Justin to abuse the women, and so all the women left the Pittwater house. Look what you have reaped, Kenric. The only authority you have left is that you once made money for The Firm, you once were successful. You still have products sitting on supermarket shelves. But even as I talk about it, I begin to think this mess really is a failure of leadership, so it is a little personal after all – for The Word was yours, Kenric.’
‘Ours,’ said Kenric.
‘You always urged us to tell the truth, so I’m telling it. You’ve lost your authority because you don’t believe in The Word any longer, or your own authority either. Aren’t I right? You can’t keep pretending, you can’t maintain the performance. Because you don’t believe in it, it is passing from you.’
Tessa and Deirdre exchanged a thrilled look across the table.
‘Don’t let what may or may not have happened between us destroy The Word, Tess,’ said Kenric.
‘You have destroyed it, at least for yourself, over the last few months, Kenric. But the idea lives on here, here at the Whale Beach house, and I don’t wish you to damage it with your hollow presence. That’s why I want everyone to hear me telling you, Kenric, that you are no longer welcome in this house. You are not to return here.’
‘Oh, Tess, you were always so extravagant, darling!’ cried Tessa. ‘So dramatic, so black-and-white! So pure! What’s the poor little harmless creature done?’
‘He’s hollowed out, Tessa, and now he’s infecting us all with his cynical silent emptiness. Maybe he doesn’t even know it himself, although I think he does, but he doesn’t believe in his own idea anymore – not that it was ever really his idea in the first place –’
‘That’s right,’ said Kenric.
‘I dare you to say, Kenric, that you are still happy as the leader of The Word,’ said Tess, ‘that you still believe in the enterprise.’
‘Stop this, Tess,’ begged Krystal.
‘Let her go on,’ said Kenric.
‘He’s a harmless enough creature, darling,’ said Tessa, ‘a kind of poet, we think, don’t we, Deirdre?’
‘We do!’ said Deirdre. ‘That’s what people say.’
Tess had stood up, and began pointing at Kenric while leaning over the table. ‘It’s what he has said, and hasn’t said, Tessa, over the years, and what he has allowed, and the world he has created at The Word, by which he is judged, and by which he fails, and becomes an embarrassment. He’s the guru who really only wanted to shag all the poor, unwitting, admiring believers – the pretty, gullible ones. He realised at some point in his advertising career that people – women especially, who are given an ear for authority, the heart for it – just want to believe. They want to be told what to believe, and that means what to consume. “Open your hearts and minds to what I say”, you used to say to us, Kenric – and bless us, we did! And we opened our legs too, but you didn’t mention that.’
‘Tess, darling, you’ve gone too far,’ scolded Tessa. ‘We find Kenric amusing – where’s the harm? You may have had a lovers’ tiff, but you’re taking things so awfully seriously, darling.’
Kenric left the table and walked towards the door.
‘You’re a hypocrite,’ said Tess, pursuing him. ‘You moralise and put yourself on a pedestal,’ she shouted into the night, for Kenric had gone, ‘but all the time you’re an old-fashioned lecher – that’s what motivates you, and if you were honest and true, you’d admit it!’
Tess became quiet, looking into the night. Those sitting at the table listened to the breakers.
‘Some of the worst lechers have had some of the best ideas, darling,’ admonished Tessa as Tess came back to the table. ‘That a niece of mine should be such a prude – I never would have thought it. And is he really such a lecher?’ she asked, smiling.
‘But Tessa, he staked his idea on integrity, transparency, truthfulness – and the real intentions, the lust, muddied everything. It obliterated words – his lust ate out The Word from the inside. He’s not interested in ideas, only their power to enchant people. He’s not interested in truth, he’s interested in pussy. That’s his truth. It’s the old story – the most seemingly holy are the most rottenly.’
‘You may have coined a word, Tess,’ said Robert wearily.
‘Now here’s the main dish!’ Connie happily announced, striding over to the table with an enormous iron pot – a pot newly christened, she hastened to tell them.
‘Ithn’t the aroma thplendid!’ cried Judith. ‘Muthelth.’
‘Tomato chilli mussels!’ Connie told them. ‘Cooked in their own sea juices.’
‘Should we go?’ Barnabus whispered to Teddy. ‘That was pretty serious, wasn’t it?’
But the food was too tempting, so they stayed, as did the silent Robert – for the wine was excellent, too.
That night, Kenric dreamt of a man he had only met once – Tessa’s husband, Gerard. In the dream, Kenric was Tess, and he dreamt Tessa had summoned him to her house to bear witness to her husband, who had become gravely ill. It was most important Kenric’s dream self should go to Tessa’s house, urgent he should see Gerard; Kenric had the strongest feeling Tessa wanted him to pronounce upon Gerard’s condition in some way. Tessa, who had been waiting at the door, called Kenric-as-Tess ‘Kess’. Tessa looked distressed, and hastily explained – as they walked through the expansive rooms, then up a wide staircase painted blue-green with white flecks like waves – that Gerard was acting peculiarly. Tessa led Kess to a room where Gerard sat by the window. Gerard was slumped to one side in his chair. The suddenly darkened board director, whose hair was now long and free as a hippie’s, appeared oblivious to the harbour view. A knitted blanket covered his knees, and on the desk before him blew loose sheets of paper. Some papers lay on the floor about his slippers. As Tessa stooped to pick them up, Kess saw Gerard was continually writing with a thick pen, but awkwardly, largely, illegibly, for what he wrote overlapped and went all over the page. It was an attempt at writing, but it was not writing. Gerard did not turn his head and in no way acknowledged them, and in his concentration said nothing. ‘What is it, Kess?’ asked Tessa, handing a sheet of the illegible scrawl towards the dreamer.
In the morning, still enveloped in the dream, Kenric descended the steep path leading from the house towards the water. On the steps that ran through a passage of thick bracken (or was it fern?), a large spider, a wolf spider or a huntsman, flipped or leapt from an overhanging frond onto his arm, his shirt. He heard himself squawk, and jumped, and a surge of something like light pulsed through his body.
Calming as he reached the shore, Kenric walked lightly, observing many things for the first time – he was part of the place as never before. He entered the shadows under an overarching wharf, remembering the coldness as it fell on him. Yes, he had been here before, as a child. From the wharf ’s shadow he saw a fish stranded in a bucket on the sunlit shore beyond, the fish’s mouth and gills blood-flecked. Kenric was not sure if he was witnessing a childhood memory or looking at a present scene. A child standing in the sun had caught something in a fine mesh net – but whether a snake, or an eel, or some kind of finless fish, the people who had gathered could not say; only that the sea thing had bitten the boy, and he bled too, from his fingertip.
Kenric turned and walked back along the shore. The tide was low, and along the way he suddenly thought to walk out ove
r the rocks, still dark from the retreating water; kneeling by one, he felt under its damp overhang and found the blobby anemone, and felt it close about his finger. The sensation was indescribable. Knowing now he had left The Word, he went to the corner shop and bought a little celebratory treat. He watched a few cars come and go. The stickers on their rear windscreens did not concern him; nor did the advertisements covering the shop, or the little ice-cream signs standing about on the pavement.
Then he saw a familiar yet changed figure on the sand, peering at him from under a large hat. It took him some moments to realise he was looking at Krystal.
‘I’ve been searching for you,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to apologise for last night. Tess shouldn’t have said those things.’ ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Kenric replied. ‘Do you want an ice-cream?’
‘It doesn’t matter?’ Krystal repeated mechanically.
‘No, almost all of what she said was correct,’ said Kenric.
‘But that’s exactly what I had hoped you wouldn’t say,’ lamented Krystal, turning and walking away, so that he wished he had said nothing.
Maria had returned, and was in a happy mood when Kenric joined her in the kitchen. ‘I did some shopping on the way back from the airport,’ she said brightly, unpacking things on the kitchen table. She was distracted, brimful of some new idea. Kenric found himself watching what products she placed on the table as she talked. None were his. ‘But I want to tell you about the strangest girl I met in the bakery here the other day, Kenric,’ Maria continued, ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you about her. I saw her again today, just then. Her name’s Heidi. Whenever I go to buy bread she’s always there, standing so still and silent you’d think she was part of the building, like a statue or a prop, just waiting to serve you, and concentrating as hard as she can on what you say. It’s clear she’s not quite normal, not all there. Today I had a chat with the lady who owns the shop, and she told me that although Heidi is nineteen, she can’t read. She still cannot read a word. She can count only a little, the poor thing, so she’s all right with small amounts of money, although anything larger than a twenty-dollar note and she has to get someone else to give the correct change. But everything else Heidi can do by sight or memory, so she’s perfectly capable at her job, it seems. Anyway, the girl has nowhere to stay – her family’s dysfunctional, apparently, and she’s been living in different boarding places awhile now. I thought she could come here, to The Word, and I could teach her to read – or one of us could. Krystal could help. I’m sure the girl would be no trouble. She’s curiously placid, a doll of a woman.’