The Book of Ordinary People

by Claire Varley

  She really should be starting on dinner. Evangelia scuttled her chair back to the desk and shut down the computer. Her mother’s story would have to wait a little longer. She left the office and walked down the corridor to the open living area. As she’d suspected, Peter was sitting on a stool at the counter eating his way through a tub of dip. She pressed her lips together, emitting a soft click of disapproval, but he didn’t hear her over his ruminations.

  ‘Ten minutes of Greek practice or I’ll take your technology,’ she ordered Nick and Xanthe, who were draped across the couches on their iPads with the TV on in the background.

  They put them down begrudgingly and started calling across to each other in bored, put-upon voices.

  ‘Yassou, Niko.’

  ‘Yassou, Xanthe.’

  Evangelia opened the fridge and pulled out some leftover pilaf. She placed it on the bench and returned for the salad ingredients. Her meals were simple these days; it hurt to cook her mother’s recipes. To see the scratchy letters marking up alterations and improvements on the page. Prosthéste ládi. Always more oil. Twice the eggs. Leave out the dill if you are making it for Lydia.

  ‘PCOS,’ Peter said, not looking up from his phone. ‘It says that one of the symptoms –’

  ‘Keep scrolling,’ Evangelia interrupted.

  ‘Oh.’

  She started cutting the cucumbers and tomato. As she did, she listened to the children’s stilted Greek. This is what she heard:

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘I am Nick.’

  ‘What is your job?’

  ‘Australia I am.’

  ‘I’m carpets.’

  ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night.’

  Evangelia sighed. How many years of Greek School had they been paying for now?

  ‘Oi, Niko. Pós se léne?’

  What are you called? That shouldn’t be too hard. Nick stared at her blankly.

  ‘Nai.’

  ‘Yes? That’s your answer? Yes?’

  Nick glanced over at Xanthe, who gave her brother an encouraging nod.

  ‘Nai.’

  Evangelia sighed again. ‘Petro, ta paidiá sou eínai hazá.’

  Xanthe narrowed her eyes. ‘Hazá means stupid.’

  Evangelia snorted. ‘That word you know.’

  She finished preparing the meal and they sat down to dinner. She watched them as they bickered while eating, alternating between teasing and amusing each other. They’d waited years for these children, eventually needing IVF to get things going with Xanthe before Nick came along naturally. Her mother had prayed for them, lighting candle after candle in churches across the northern suburbs, even asking an acquaintance who was visiting Rhodes to visit the Panagia Tsambika on Evangelia’s behalf. Lydia, of course, had had no trouble at all, falling pregnant at exactly the moment she had planned to and saving their mother who knew how much in candles, though it probably had something to do with Darren’s decade-younger sperm.

  They finished eating and everyone went their separate ways. Evangelia sat on the couch next to Peter, who immediately drifted off. As she flicked through the TV channels, she also scrolled through her emails on her mobile. There was mostly junk but she sifted through it anyway, the way her mother used to study each of the supermarket catalogues when they came in the mail. There was an email from one of the local TAFEs where she’d done a bookkeeping short course years ago. As she scrolled down the list of new courses she noticed one titled HerStory: A Women’s Guide to Biography. Evangelia read through the description. By the time Peter had woken himself with the vigour of his snores, Evangelia was enrolled.

  4

  Rik

  North Facing Window: Gladys O’Reilly

  April 2016

  By Rik Lee

  Gladys O’Reilly has seen a lot of changes in the last nine decades. ‘I’m a northerner through and through. Fifty years in Northcote and it’ll be fifty in Coburg soon enough.’ She remembers the fuss and excitement when Northland opened in 1966, the first self-contained indoor mall in Victoria. ‘It was very European. We’d go down to gush over the fabrics in Buckley & Nunn and make a day of it.’ So enamoured was she of the new shopping hub, Gladys ended up securing work in the makeup section of Myer, where she stayed until her retirement in the mid-eighties. ‘Once the children were all grown – and with Barry’s blessing, of course – I put on my best dress and presented myself at the counter and gosh near argued my way into a job! It was the eye shadow that did it. Galactic blue. Done subtly.’

  Gladys fondly recalls the area’s shift in demographic. ‘Once the Greeks and Italians arrived, you couldn’t move without bumping into a fancy tailor! They did all of Barry’s suits and I found a woman who would create the most lovely dresses for a pittance. It was all the children you see, lots of mouths to feed. Big families, like us Irish Catholics. Lovely people.’

  After years crammed into a single-fronted terrace, Gladys and Barry built their new home on a large plot in Coburg, big enough for the whole family. ‘By that point most of the children were married and close to starting families of their own – except for Maureen, but that’s another story, bless her for trying – so there was plenty of space for when the grandchildren visited. It was quite the design – triple fronted, brick veneer, lovely castellated fence. We argued about if it would date but it’s safe to say it’s stood the test of time.’

  Gladys still gets about with the help of her walker and is a well-known presence along Sydney Road. Her favourite thing about living in the north is how easy it is to pop down to the shops now that there are so many Coles about the place.

  Rik Lee, failed hack and man-about-nowhere, carefully closed the pages of the small suburban newspaper, placed it to one side of his little plywood kitchen table-cum-desk, then gently folded himself face down as if performing a particularly graceful yoga move. He waited a moment then gently struck his forehead against the surface, firmly enough to elicit a satisfying thud, and turned his face to the wall. Outside car horns blared angrily and he pressed his ear into the table to block them out. His cheek squished into what he suspected was an errant splotch of oats from the porridge he had been eating, and he imagined it spreading out, contagion-like, into his pores.

  Of all the pieces, this one had been by far the hardest, and not just because she’d asked him repeatedly where he was from until he gave up and told her his paternal grandparents were born in Hong Kong, which had seemed to satisfy her. The old woman’s house had smelt like urine, the carpets stained in mortifying patches, and the hallway lined with cheery smiling photos of the family members who had allowed this. It was appalling, the state things got to when people were no longer able to care for themselves. When he’d tactfully broached the subject Gladys had shrugged her shoulders complacently while she dunked a milk arrowroot biscuit into her teacup. She told him that someone from the council popped by twice a week to help her wash and she occasionally had a nice chat with the young people who stopped by to enquire about her electricity provider. Then she’d rattled open a kitchen drawer to show him where she kept her painkillers, explaining that when the district nurse came to visit she’d ask Gladys to rate her pain from one to ten and would dole out quantities of tablets accordingly. Gladys had a nice collection as she always exaggerated the pain and was saving them for a rainy day when she was too much of a burden for people. He’d become quietly outraged then, imagining for a fleeting moment that this article would become a call to action for better services and companionship for the area’s elderly, but he’d just as quickly pushed this thought away. No, this was a nice simple story about a nice simple old woman who lived in a nice simple house in the north. As his editor had informed him on his first day writing the column a month or so back, rallying cries were not what people wanted when they sat down to North Facing Window of a Monday afternoon with their cuppa. What they wanted f
rom the column, she reminded him often, was a glimpse into the front windows of their fellow northerners, people not so different from themselves.

  ‘That piece you did on the couple with the vertical garden – people liked that. We got oodles of letters. That’s the kind of thing people want to read about. Keep those coming and you’ll make me a happy woman.’

  She had even supplied him with a simple dot-point formula to follow: Who are they? What do they do? Something fun and interesting other northerners might want to know! What is their favourite thing about living in the north?!! He wasn’t even entirely sure that anyone living this side of the river actually called themselves northerners but his editor, caught up in a George RR Martin fervour, seemed determined they would. And, as if by telepathy, he found that as soon as he phrased a question thus: ‘What makes you a proud northerner?’, people quickly adopted this, parroting it back as if they had been saying it for years.

  Rik stared at the paper folded on the table. Once, though who could remember these things now, he’d almost been a finalist for a Walkley (which he knew wasn’t the same as actually being a finalist), and he knew that was meant to count for something (though honestly deep down he knew it didn’t).

  When it came to mildly shocking exposés into corrupted local identities, the paper had Lotti. Lotti wrote pretty much everything that wasn’t the North Facing Window column or the pre-packaged items for syndication across all the state’s suburban mastheads. She was approximately half Rik’s age and spent much of her time chasing down leads about dodgy dealings among the local councillors and championing the community’s abiding need for more CCTV. This was the exact position Rik had held when he’d started out at this very newspaper nearly two decades before, fresh out of university and ready to change the world. Now, older and wiser, he knew this was a young person’s game, and required the naïve belief that the world could ever be changed with words. Leave him to his reminiscent geriatrics and his innovative modern-living home-gardening techniques, thank you very much. Besides, he was lucky enough to get this gig, what with the state of print media and everything that had happened. Thankfully only Lotti seemed to know, her investigative nous leading her to the simple google click that told the tale of the mess he’d made of his career as Rik watched on in horror from his desk nearby. Only, she’d never said anything to anyone, which meant she was either so embarrassed on his behalf that she felt it better not to mention any part of the catastrophe, perhaps in fear that he might once more lose the plot, or else she’d stored it away for safekeeping and future stand-overing, which was more likely as this was exactly what Rik would have done at her age. Come at me, Rik thought, staring around the cramped little apartment where he had preferred to work since the google incident. Take what you can find. There was nothing much of any worth in the apartment, save for the monstrous sideboard he’d inherited from his grandmother and felt too guilty to give to charity with the rest of it. It sat there, a relic to a once glorious past, housing IKEA cutlery instead of antiquities, and catching his toe as he wandered the small apartment at night.

  He glanced at it now, and from nowhere a voice cried into the silence. Stop, please, I only want to help! No! Rik squeezed his eyes shut, his hands flying to his temples. The headaches were getting worse – migraines more likely, for they throbbed and blinded with equal abandon. He took some of the foreign painkillers from the indecipherable packet in his pocket, then splashed his face with cold water at the sink. He sat back at the table, head in his hands, and eventually the pressure subsided. He thought about the next few hours, took a cavernous breath, then levered himself up from the sticky table, reaching for his jacket. There was no rest for the wicked and right now the wicked was running late for an interview about a man and his bluestone cobblestones crusade.

  5

  Nell

  Reference: 3284/16BA

  Williams & Williams

  Queen Street, Melbourne 3000

  11 April 2016

  Jolly Jumping Jungle Gym Pty Ltd

  Plenty Road, Bundoora, 3038

  Dear Mr Nigel Miller,

  Re: Jolly Jumping Jungle Gym Corporation

  We refer to your initial appointment of 5 April 2016 and confirm your instructions to act in the above matter.

  Confirmation of Instructions

  You have asked us to advise you on the contractual validity of the Terms and Conditions of Entry Form in protecting Jolly Jumping Jungle Gym Corporation (JJJGC) from any action by all parties. We have been informed that possible negligence on behalf of JJJGC employees in maintaining adequate and responsive provision of cleaning services may have contributed to an incident that occurred on the slip’n’dip tunnel slide during the occasion of a joint birthday/confirmation party in March 2016.

  Summary of Advice

  JJJGC may owe a duty of care to minors even with the terms and conditions of entry, if foreseeable risk can be established outside the scope of exclusion clause.

  In this case, duty of care may cover provision of adequate training to employees in maintaining hygienic regulation.

  The Contract

  The Terms and Conditions of Entry Form appears to have present the main features of a validly formed contract, including agreement expressively reached between JJJGC and clients to provide a safe environment and equipment for all events held at the premise including hygienic regulation

  Nell paused mid-sentence and looked up from her computer, frowning. On the opposite site of the partner desk, DB’s eyes were glued to his own screen, his fingers jabbing at the keyboard with furious purpose like a titan pummelling a tiny organ.

  ‘Do we have to say “hygienic regulation”?’

  DB’s brow was already furrowed as he cast his eyes towards her.

  ‘Do we have to use that term?’ Nell repeated, clicking her thumbnail impatiently against the nub of her index finger. ‘Because it doesn’t really convey a child urinating at the top of a slide and another child slipping on it.’

  DB brought a hand to his forehead and pressed it firmly, as if to contain his brain.

  ‘Yes, that’s the term we use. It’s still the term we use. No matter how many times you ask, it will remain the term we use. And before you go on, remember what I said last time – it is a semantics thing, yes, but it is the law, and we are nothing but confined to the rule of law, and there is no room in the law for empty platitudes or emotional appeals, and I feel that the number of occasions you ask me questions like this suggests that we could perhaps save ourselves an abundance of time by simply not asking these kinds of questions of our superiors because the law remains ever so clear on them, to the point of tedium, despite how we generally feel about it all.’

  Nell bit down on her lip, then gave him a short nod. DB returned to his work and Nell resumed staring at her computer screen. Hygienic regulation . . . It sounded so . . . well, it didn’t say what she wanted it to say. Really, it needed to be clearer . . . Straightforward. Plain English. Because the law may indeed be black and white but the terms they bandied about never seemed to be, and DB was a pedant for legalese. And if everyone just said exactly what they meant then the world would be a much easier place for everyone to navigate, and people wouldn’t get themselves into these kinds of situations to begin with. It was frustrating – always so fist-clenchingly, jaw-splittingly frustrating – and seemingly more so as each day went by. She remembered what it had been like all those months ago when she had first started. Hovered over the sink, bracing herself against the walls of the toilet stall, willing herself not to throw up. Holding her hand under the cold tap for a moment before pressing it against the back of her neck, careful not to touch the top of her new business blazer or the bottom of her carefully pinned blonde bun. Glancing in the small mirror above the sink, as she breathed in and out, excited, terrified, and with an energy she could now only faintly recall, like a long-gone lover whose features have faded and fu
zzed. Here she was, finally, part of the coveted Williams & Williams graduate solicitor program. How thrilling it had all seemed back then. Sitting bolt upright as the interview panel – headed by Mr Arthur Williams AO himself! – had smiled warmly as they worked through her CV, ticking off each item.

  ‘Sandstone University,’ Mr Williams had murmured. ‘Very good.’

  She had waited tensely, her eyes dancing from the white walls to the white office furniture to the white orchids arranged stylishly in the centre of the table. It was like a meeting in heaven with Marie biscuits. She’d reached for a biscuit out of nervousness, then panicked at the thought of eating it in front of the panel. It had spent the rest of the interview peeping up from where she’d stowed it on her lap out of sight. Meanwhile, they’d nodded approvingly at her credentials which carefully hid her twelve months of post-university job-seeking – an internship up in the Northern Territory and volunteer stints with several community legal centres, including one working with women escaping their abusive partners.

  ‘We’re very much about corporate social responsibility,’ Mr Williams had commented, and Mr Blake, another panel member, had told her about their commitment to a yearly Christmas dry goods drive as well as their inter-firm football and netball teams.

  Williams & Williams specialised, among other things, in commercial law, they reminded her. Was this something she was interested in?

  ‘Absolutely,’ she’d lied, and they’d nodded approvingly.

  ‘Very good, Helena,’ said Mr Williams, placing the emphasis in the wrong part, but Nell hadn’t corrected him. To Mr Williams she was Helena. The only other place she was Helena was on her birth certificate and in the occasional frustrated sigh from her mother. Mr Williams sat back, satisfied, his generous belly straining against his expensive cotton shirt. And then, with a handshake, Nell was no longer part of the great teeming masses of inexperienced, overqualified graduates desperately seeking employment. Her first days had passed in a blur of introductions, inductions, office equipment demonstrations and stretches of time spent huddled over the various forms required to receive pay, accrue superannuation, and contribute at an appropriate rate to the great taxation system from which everything seemed to emanate, circumnavigate and evade. At one point Nell sat back, documentation spread before her like a paper trail leading towards adulthood, and felt a rush of excitement and dread. So this is what it feels like in the real world.