by William Lane
Maria slowed in her talking and paused in her unpacking.
‘But what’s wrong?’ she asked Kenric. ‘I’ve been chattering away – I’m happy to be back, you see. And I thought Heidi was – well, that she could help us. We need more people, a new project. But you haven’t told me what Tess said – is that what’s worrying you? Robert telephoned me and told me what happened last night at the beach house. He told me everything Tess said.’
‘It’s not what Tess said that hurt me,’ said Kenric. ‘What hurt was the others sat around and said nothing – including Robert. Krystal is the only one who has said anything.’
‘Oh, Robert is totally passive and cannot face any kind of conflict,’ said Maria. ‘I know he feels awful about it. But this is another reason why you have to resolve things with Tess.’
‘They are resolved,’ said Kenric, ‘that’s why she had a go at me. Now I only want to get away from them all, from it all – I want to leave. I want us to leave.’
Maria turned from him and resumed slowly putting away the shopping. ‘And me?’ she asked at last, while facing a cupboard. ‘What might I want? All you think about is The Word and your relationship to it. And I’m not leaving just because you had a fight with Tess.’
‘But what Tess said was right – I can’t pretend any longer, I’m sick of words, I want to be silent. I can’t stay here when I’m in that state. And I absolutely refuse to go on playing the guru.’
‘Don’t go mute on me, Kenric. I shouldn’t have gone away, should I? You still can’t look after things by yourself. You’re hopeless. The moment I’m gone, you let everything go to pieces.’
A Lightweight – with or without sleeves
Ideal for TV knitting
‘And you’ve had all these thoughts without telling me about them. You should have put Tess in her place last night. But you can’t, or you won’t. She’s got something over you still. And now you want to run off and throw away everything we’ve spent years creating together. Or is Tess the only reason you’ve stayed this long?’
‘The problem is not Tess, it’s The Word – and the Word!’ cried Kenric. ‘Let’s leave, Maria – let’s go to your old place out in the country. It’s too much company that makes us talk repetitive, prescriptive rubbish.’
‘I’m not going anywhere because of Tess,’ Maria replied, equally upset. ‘She can stay at Whale Beach and never come to this house again!’
‘It’s not about Tess! I don’t want to talk anymore. I feel like a stranger in language. It conveys nothing but error.’
‘I don’t want to believe it – I can’t believe you want to walk away! Who will you be, outside The Word? You’re not half the man you were.’
The words were causing too much damage, and they left off. He had wanted to say more – but Maria did not want to hear.
Heidi from the bakery arrived some days later. She moved into the upstairs room vacated by Ashram Teddy, who had moved into the granny flat. Heidi was healthily stout, with round limbs and an oval face. Her complexion was most striking – she shone as if basted. Her straight blond hair was always pulled back. Quiet, seemingly diffident, observing with wide eyes, she had an attentive air and held her face up, which accentuated her button nose. She put little stickers on her things. Six mornings a week she dressed in her striped bakery dress and polished black shoes, and walked to the bus stop to go to work.
Barnabus had been moping in the weeks before Heidi appeared; he could not say exactly what was happening at The Word, but he could not help noticing how empty and quiet the Pittwater house had become. He now lived alone downstairs with only Teddy’s peripatetic company. Barnabus missed his old friends Bruno and Justin; Justin had had some good CDs, which introduced Barnabus to a new musical world, and Bruno had been a master of ping-pong, darts and any number of card games. Bruno, too, had inspired Barnabus to use his video camera, if only once or twice.
Barnabus brightened immediately, however, at the sight of Heidi, and rejoiced to hear she was coming to live among them. Barnabus was assigned the role, to which he was most attentive, of helping Heidi.
On Heidi’s first day he took her on a tour of the house.
‘This is your room,’ he announced, speaking slowly and clearly, showing her Teddy and Krystal’s old bedroom. ‘This is where you can put your clothes, in this cupboard here.’
‘Am I allowed to wear my shoes inside?’ Heidi asked.
‘You are. But clean them outside. And this is the ladies’ bathroom. Only you and Maria are allowed in here.’
‘Do we have to do anything as a group?’ The girl had been told she was joining a community.
‘We are learning about advertising, but don’t worry too much about that now. It’s taught as you go, in ways you don’t have to think about. Everything we do here is about learning to talk and write – about words.’
After rather a long silence, Heidi asked, ‘What about them?’
‘Where they come from, and how they work.’
‘Where do they come from?’
‘They come from Greece, and other faraway places.’
‘And they do work?’ asked Heidi, looking frightened.
‘They work in different ways. It’s hard to explain. But don’t worry about it now.’
A few days later he said to her, ‘Maria told me you can’t read so well.’
‘I can’t read at all,’ Heidi corrected.
‘Would you like me to teach you?’
‘Yes, please.’
They started there and then. ‘Just let me know when you get tired of learning,’ said Barnabus, a few minutes after getting the girl to repeat written vowel sounds. ‘Just put up your hand, then we can stop, and maybe we can go down to the seaside. They have the best ice-creams in the shop down there.’
‘Oh yes, I know the place,’ said Heidi.
‘Oh – you know Pittwater?’
‘I grew up here. My old school is on the water. I’m not ashamed of not being able to read. I just never wanted to. I think people look idiotic when they read. But if you treat me well, I’ll promise to learn.’
Then she put up her hand.
Every day, Barnabus waited for Heidi to return from work, and together they studied simple books and lists of words.
Connie still came over sometimes with a dish, and Heidi was always particularly interested in whatever Connie had made. Heidi wanted to know about every recipe, and how Connie cooked, mixed, whisked, basted, browned, sliced, simmered – everything. Heidi’s memory in regard to these matters proved phenomenal, and she could repeat back any recipe to Connie immediately – then reproduce the dish the next day, so that it looked, smelt and tasted precisely as Connie’s had. Connie was astonished, delighted.
About a fortnight after Heidi’s arrival, Tess and the other women visited Pittwater unexpectedly and began to question the girl. Heidi had just got in from work, and sat on the living room couch eating a hundreds-and-thousands sandwich while watching Robert’s newly acquired television.
‘Do they treat you well here?’ asked Tess.
‘I’m happy here,’ answered the girl, continuing to watch a children’s show – she did not understand Tess also was a member of The Word. ‘It’s not far from the bus stop, and my mattress is very comfortable. They let me wear shoes inside. I can do my hair any way I want, and I only have to share the bathroom with one other person.’
‘But you feel safe here?’ asked Tess.
‘I was born by the water.’
‘There is another place you can go to, where you will be safe and welcome,’ said Tess. ‘Do you want me to tell you about it?’
Through the closed glass doors that led onto the verandah, Maria and Robert stood facing one another, gesticulating. Their voices began to pass through the glass.
‘This other place is at Whale Beach,’ Tess explained.
‘I know it – I sunbake on that beach,’ said Heidi.
‘I have a house there,’ said Tess, ‘where you can liv
e with other women, only women. Everyone there will treat you respectfully. You have a job, don’t you?’
‘In the cake shop. I was told I should work in some food outlet, because my gift is with food.’
‘You could help Connie, then. Connie, as you know, is a wonderful cook, and she’s starting her own little catering business.’ Connie nodded. ‘She has been impressed by your ability to cook, and to cook without following a recipe. She would like to work more with you.’
Kenric appeared from his bedroom then halted, looking towards the verandah, where Maria and Robert were arguing.
‘I want to tell you, Kenric, that we’ve formed The New Word,’ said Tess, ‘Connie, Krystal, Judith and I. You are expelled from it, insofar as it is an incarnation of The Word. It turns out you, of all people, are not a stayer.’
‘Tess,’ said Krystal, ‘don’t start this again.’
‘Well, he’s not the man I remember,’ said Tess. ‘And we need to speak the truth.’
Heidi had been flicking through the channels, the volume creeping up.
‘We acknowledge our debt to The Word,’ said Tess, ‘but at The New Word we will separate desire from language, so there won’t be any smoke and mirrors – words will not serve as the mere vehicles of desire. That’s where you fell short, Kenric.’
‘You’ll speak like scientists at a conference,’ he mumbled.
‘We’ll be more down-to-earth than hitherto, less metaphysical in our language and theories. Our language will be embodied in everyday usage.’
‘Good luck.’
‘It’s a matter of intent and management, not luck,’ replied Tess. ‘What is it in women that is so seduced by the metaphysical? Why do they fall for it? Anyway, we won’t be like that, we’ll be more practical. We’ll be learning Spanish – Judith speaks it. Surely the best way to get a new angle on one’s own language is to learn another. Why did you neglect other languages, Kenric? You were so parochial, so suburban. On that failed sortie of yours you had nothing to say about the signs in Persian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Chinese, did you? Oh, and Connie will no longer be coming to cook here. You men treated her horridly, you were like pigs to her.’
At these words Connie stiffened; she looked wide-eyed at Kenric. Her hearing aid began to – not whine, but grizzle.
‘What do I do?’ she whispered to Kenric, holding out her palms.
‘Don’t come to us here any longer, Connie, with the food,’ he said loudly. ‘It’s over.’
Barnabus, who had been standing in the kitchen doorway, listening and looking on, sighed heavily. ‘I’ll sure miss that food,’ he said, grinning, then unaccountably added, ‘Oink oink!’
Connie glared at him – then ripped off the hearing aid and flung it across the room, hitting Barnabus in the mouth; the little abandoned device started a horrid shrieking. ‘You’re all revolting people!’ Connie cried, with sudden clarity and good – actually perfect – articulation, ‘and I’m sick of the lies. I can hear perfectly well! I can hear! And I always could! So I have heard everything said about me – everything! Everything said behind my back, although I pretended otherwise, and I have heard a lot of other things that I wish I never had. No more! The comments on my appearance – if Justin were still here, I’d wring his scrawny little neck. I’d stamp on his glasses!’
Connie spoke this, with increasing rage, to a bewildered Barnabus, who stood stuck in the doorway, open-mouthed, clutching the hearing aid, which still emitted an ailing sound, as though it were running out of power.
‘And you, Barnabus, were sniggering always, while the other men insulted my battle with food. You had no right – calling me fat. God knows I hate myself enough.’
‘What? I never said that – and in fact, Justin thought you were hot, Connie!’ cried Barnabus, flushed with sudden indignation for his misrepresented and absent friend, ‘he used to tell me so himself. He was just a bit girl-shy, I reckon. He thought you were hot, I promise –’
‘That’s what I’ve had to put up with – smutty schoolboy talk about me behind my back, in the kitchen, while I was cooking your dinner! All the time I was living in the warehouse, I could hear you all – and the things I heard. Oh, how Tess loved Kenric. “Oh – how intuitive and elusive he is!” That’s what she used to say when she thought I couldn’t hear.’
‘Excuse me?’ exclaimed Tess.
‘You’d talk on the phone to some friend, in the kitchen, thinking I couldn’t hear. I could hear. And the countless times you and Regina bitched about Maria –’
‘Connie, stop!’ cried Tess.
‘I’m only telling what I heard! And I don’t agree that Piers claimed Mama Cass had perfect pitch; he said no such thing – Piers was too precise for that. He said she had such a good sense of pitch she couldn’t help show up the musicians around her – but it was not so much that, he said, but something else which made her voice float apart from the music: it was the tone, he told me. That’s actually what Piers said. So don’t go misquoting people – don’t rewrite the past. It was beautiful how Piers spoke, he could describe the indescribable, and none of you understood, you just laughed at his turn of phrase and called him Mr Pitch Perfect. But he articulated music to me, when I thought music was beyond words. It made no sense on the surface, what he said, yet it made perfect sense, if one really listened to the music: every word Mama Cass sings, he said, is fully wrapped up in its own parcel; she takes every song by the scruff of the neck and puts it in its right place. I remember all his words on music – he had a whole new language for it. I wrote it down and I re-read it. And Mama Cass always gives the same amount of thought to every line in each song, he said; she never favours one line over another – and he is right, I can hear it now. Piers was a good person, and intelligent, and I miss him. And all the time you men were laughing and criticising and misrepresenting people, you never washed up!’
‘It wasn’t only me!’ protested Barnabus.
‘Do you really want me to stop cooking for you?’ asked Connie in a suddenly softened voice, turning to Kenric with opened hands again. But Kenric was watching Maria and Robert on the verandah – two figures beyond the glass, motioning jerkily, reduced to a pair of shadow puppets – and he turned to attend to Connie only with difficulty.
‘Yes, it’s over, Connie,’ he shouted, before he recalled what she had just said, and dropped his voice. ‘I’m sorry, but we won’t be meeting here again, Connie. There’s no money to pay you to cook for us any longer.’
‘I didn’t mean it when I said you were all horrible people,’ said Connie, already forlorn with regret, her head drooping, ‘and I didn’t mean to trick everyone for so long about my hearing. I got stuck in the role, somehow. It all started from good intentions, I promise – it started when I decided I never wanted to hear any more ill words. I took literally some words I heard you say, Kenric – I heard you speak them the very first day I joined The Word – and the idea entranced me: “Hear no evil, and speak no evil” –’
‘Oh, Connie, you must have heard those tired old words a million times!’ laughed Tess.
‘But only when Kenric said them did they make sense. It was different, the way he said them. And I adopted them. I took them to heart.’
‘But you are right,’ said Tess, beginning to rally again, ‘the main issue here is that Connie has been treated disgracefully by the men at The Word. That is one thing I am not going to let happen at The New Word –’
‘Oh, I’m a cad, I’m a cad,’ lamented Connie, turning to the door. ‘I lived a lie – and everyone believed me! And then it became too late to change!’
The door to the verandah opened and Maria marched into the room, Robert following a few steps behind. They made towards the front door but kept stopping to fling words at one another.
‘It’s time you stepped up!’ begged Robert, staggering a little – he may have had a few too many – ‘you can do it!’
‘You don’t know how it is for me – I can’t, I can’t lead like that. I’m
no good with words.’
‘You’re the heart and soul of it, Maria, but you’ve been away –’
‘I can’t!’ Maria, who never raised her voice, almost shouted.
‘He’s given up –’
‘No, he has not, but he has been continually undermined, and that’s why –’
One by one the Whale Beach women followed Maria and Robert out the door.
Kenric, hands over his ears, instinctively moved in the opposite direction, out onto the verandah and then down the stairs, following the path towards the water.
‘Don’t worry about all that too much,’ said Barnabus, who had gone to sit next to Heidi once they were alone in the room, ‘this sort of thing happens sometimes.’ He squeezed the girl’s hand reassuringly. ‘It’s quite normal for there to be little tiffs, but they always blow over. Do you want me to read you something?’ Heidi nodded. Barnabus had begun to read to her from his book of collected sayings of The Word, as a way of teaching her about the community. He picked up an exercise book from the arm of the couch, and read: ‘“Happiness can only come from thinking and imagining and remembering, it cannot come from the external world. We can remember everything we need – it is inside our memory and imagination – and we have to remember the best of ourselves, and live accordingly.” Do you understand that?’
Heidi shook her head. No.
‘What about this, then, this is an interesting one: “Into the past we will pour the healing qualities of the correct usage of the Word; let correct language, and thinking about language, heal with verbal sutures the open wounds of the past.” How about that, do you understand that? A suture is a stitch.’