by Mark O'Flynn
‘Then we want you to commence Apologeticals next week.’
‘Visiting? Who?’
‘The Neighbourhood.’
‘But what about the blind and curtain shop?’
‘Sharon, we’re not asking you.’
12.
So, while my mother was being corrupted, I was out early Saturday mornings delivering copies of the Watch Tower and Awake! to people who slammed doors in my face. They paired me with a pimply boy called Denzil who did all the talking. He never said a single sentence that didn’t have the word Jesus in it somewhere. One hundred hours a month in religious service.
Meanwhile, Troy lay in bed while Mum whizzed about on the vacuum cleaner. He slept during the day while she went to her new job at the haberdashers and later borrowed her car to go out, doing this and that, here and there. He didn’t even ask anymore. Just stamped about yelling, Where are the bloody keys? and going through her handbag.
One Saturday afternoon, I returned early from doorstop preaching and unlocked our door. He was asleep on the bed, naked, dead to the world. He’d said he didn’t want to be disturbed and I could see what he meant. Underneath him, completely covering the bed was a thick blanket of cash. There must have been thousands. More. It was like a crust. He would not wake. There was a glass of water by the bedside, which I contemplated throwing over him, but Troy had warned me never to touch the water by his bed. He looked so peaceful, he didn’t even stir when I slid a fifty out from under him to make up for my miserable morning with Denzil and Jesus.
13.
The money was tidied away in a bag at the bottom of the wardrobe. When I mentioned it, he said: ‘I hope you didn’t try to spend any because it’s counterfeit and if you did try to spend it, that’s a federal offence, which would make you an accessory after the fact. And if you told anyone else about it, I’d have to cut out your tongue.’
14.
When Mum missed the sermonette one week with all the vacuuming and haberdashery, the Pioneers came again to pester her.
She had run away once. They didn’t want that to happen again. Once they get their hooks into you, these sects, they don’t like to let go.
They said it would be a nice gesture if she were to host a communion service in our lounge room the following Saturday, the thirteenth of Nisan, eve of the eve of Passover. To welcome the light back into her life after her lapse.
‘But I haven’t lapsed,’ she told them. ‘I’ve been busy doing the housework.’
‘Thousands now living will never die. Christ paid the supreme sacrifice as a ransom for the salvation of obedient witnesses. The prize of his life given for the 144,000 lucky souls. Don’t you want to be part of that, Elaine, at one with Jesus ruling in Heaven? Don’t you want to have a golden soul?’
‘Yes. I do. So much.’
When they left, she had to run around throwing sheets over the TV and getting rid of all the whisky and wine bottles Troy had brought home. It made quite a stack.
15.
When the Company began to arrive for the Bible studies reading, parking all over the nature strip, Troy was still in the shower. I quickly had to lock the door, so they wouldn’t see the tangled shemozzle in our room. Mum greeted them with a spread of bread and grape juice and ceremonial wine. I think she had already quaffed a few ceremonial wines to calm her nerves. We pushed the furniture back against the walls, like a siege. When the visiting Circuit Servants and Pioneers and their wives had all assembled, Denzil got the ball rolling with a report on how our Apologetical Visits had been progressing. Not well, unfortunately. Number of conversions: zero, although we had clocked up our hundred hours for the month. The visiting Circuit Servant commended him with: ‘Ye are my witness, saith Jehovah, and I am God.’
Just then Troy came marching into the room wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, the tattoos hanging off him. You could have heard a pin drop.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Hi.’ Then, ‘I forgot you lot were coming.’
Denzil looked flummoxed. The Pioneers all gave Troy an eyeful, and if you ask me he was a mighty eyeful to behold. Teeth like a flock of sheep and all that. Mum eventually came to the rescue.
‘Ah Troy, there was a phone call for you earlier. Max, I think it was. He said to tell you, er, what was it again? Oh yes, The pig is on the prowl.’
‘Max?’ said Troy. ‘Oh right. Max… Hmm… Pig on the prowl, eh? Thanks, Elaine. Shazza can I see you for a moment?’
He ducked out. I followed him down the hall.
‘Listen, babe,’ he said, over his shoulder, ‘I gotta skedaddle for twenty minutes, then I promise I’ll be back for the rest of your prayer meeting.’
‘I don’t want to stay here. Can I come with you?’
‘Sorry, babe.’
He peeled off the towel as he reached the doorway of our room. Underpants everywhere. Man and wife? Not likely.
‘Who is Max?’
‘Max? Oh, Max isn’t his real name.’
He threw on some clothes, slipped on his boots. Reefed out the bag with the money and squashed it into a backpack.
‘They’ll ask where you’ve gone,’ I said.
‘Make something up. Look, they’re good for an alibi but this is a bit much, in a man’s own lounge room. Jesus. See you in twenty, babe.’
He tried to give my cheek a peck but I turned my face away. I watched him sidle, that’s the only word for it, out the back door and disappear. Then I walked back into the lounge room where the sermonette was really warming up—how after Jehovah’s victory there would be no more poverty or war or old age or sickness or crime. Mum in a corner with a beatific smile on her face, rocking slightly. I took my place, pretending to listen. How measurements of the Great Egyptian Pyramids gave proof to predictions of the second coming of Christ’s invisible return. How, after a thousand years of peace, Satan would be loosed upon the world for a last crack at seducing mankind. The Pioneer had a little froth at the corners of his lips. White light humming. We were just getting started on Isaiah 43, chanting under our breath, when there was an almighty crash at the front door.
PING-PONG PRINCIPLE
The highlight of my week, sad to say, is the game of ping-pong I play with Lionel Hegarty. I am not sure if, by calling it ping-pong, I might be committing some political indiscretion. Lionel prefers to call it ‘table tennis’, which feels far too cosmopolitan for me. Ping-pong, table tennis—all this alliteration. We have a regular game, which I look forward to, to the detriment, frankly, of my other duties, which do not concern us here. I am hoping I shall be able to make a metaphor from this.
About Lionel: Lionel talks a lot. In fact, he never shuts up. This would be all right if what he said was not so inappropriate, so socially inept. He has a great, awkward knack, of which he is completely oblivious, of putting his foot in it. In short, Lionel hates lying. There is the nub of the matter. He never lies. When I first met him, he made a rather grandiose declaration that he was the sort of person who never lied. I did not believe him, of course. What sort of person never lies and then boasts about it? Lionel strives to tell the truth even in the face of dire unpopularity. He does this with a smile and a coy tilt of the head, as if he were starring in a butter commercial. There is something slightly galling about such relentless optimism. I dare not ask anymore how his weekends have gone, for fear of unleashing a torrent of endless enthusiasm. Life is always great. The weather sensational. The weekends have been fantastic. A further dread is that he may ask me about mine.
It is hard to deal with a person who never lies, whose weekends just get better and better. Once he told us of a fabulous party he had gone to in his twenties where, in accordance with the mood of the times, candles were lit. There was incense. Music. Atmosphere. Lionel described how he had leant over the table to pass the joint and the candle flame leapt up, setting his handspun alpaca wool jumper ablaze and rushing up his chest. He flapp
ed his hands in recollection, patting out the remembered flames. Our supervisor, a straight-laced woman of sixty with affiliations to Scientology, listened to this story with an expression akin to the apperception of a bad smell. (We had been talking about dinner parties, catering, and so on.)
As I said, Lionel does not know when to shut up. You could see the supervisor file that bit of information away for later reference. I cannot see myself admitting to an employer that I had taken drugs in my youth, even if she asked. Lionel cannot see, in his quest for veracity, that it might be more discreet to pick and choose his moment, if not his audience. He cannot see that naked revelation is not an end in itself.
‘Serve.’
I have surprised myself at the level of skill with which Lionel and I play our ping-pong. I did not know I had such reflexes. The pace is fierce and frenetic. It is no leisurely backyard swat; it is competitive and sweaty. Lionel keeps score. He never cheats. I said before that it is the highlight of my week. This is not exactly so. To be perfectly honest it is the highlight of my day, so empty is it otherwise. We play every lunchtime after scoffing our sandwiches. On Mondays, after a weekend of not playing (of having a life), I am irritable and cranky. I put this down to a dearth of ping-pong, but there may well be other reasons that do not concern us here. Life.
Put that paddle in my hand.
‘Serve.’
More about Lionel: Lionel is the IT guy. As such, given the tenets of his general attitudes and behaviour, I see him as somewhere or other along the autistic continuum. And this is in no way meant to be disparaging towards autistic people. This is the only way I can put up with Lionel’s interminable cheeriness. I could accept such ebullience from a born-again Christian, but not from someone I have to work with every day. (Please don’t ask me about my weekend.) Sisyphus had only the potential for happiness, not the guarantee. Perhaps I am what they call a grumpy bastard. Lionel is the type of fellow who cannot understand why other people do not, for example, cut their own hair. He has it down to a fine art. He saves himself ten dollars every time he does so, and this all adds up. He even cuts his wife’s hair. Lionel is good at everything. He does not, for example, understand why I do not change the oil in my car myself. Think of the saving! He has offered to help me do this in his own garage, which is set up for just such purposes. There are other things he knows about that might save me money, which I cannot bear to think of at the moment.
Lionel jogs. Lionel cycles. Lionel kick-boxes. He says that the reason he has to stay trim is so his wife won’t tire of him. I am not sure if I am meant to take this as a joke or not, so I do. I laugh. That is the trouble with the truth, it can be so slippery and ambiguous. Lionel can do one hundred push-ups on his knuckles. Why can’t everyone? Lionel is the go-to man if you want your computer fixed over the weekend when it starts not doing all those things you really need it to do. It is a great opportunity for him to explain what you are doing wrong. Of course, you take all this with a grain of salt because he is doing it for nothing.
About Lionel’s wife: Trudy, herself equally trim and buffed, is just as optimistic about life in general, though the strain of living with Lionel is showing. Happiness surely cannot be so contagious. Once I saw her at a summer barbecue and her muscles were defined and brown as potatoes. I asked, in some amazement, if I could feel them and she said yes and they felt like steel and I told her so. Admittedly, I had had a few drinks by then. I am not normally the type who would ask to feel a strange woman’s biceps but on that occasion it felt like the right thing to do and I was not rebuffed. Lionel tells me how he does everything for his wife. The cooking, the cleaning, the washing. He dotes on her. He’s a liberated guy. Trudy, he says, is so kind and generous. She has a lot of projects. The house is paid off. Their kids are well-adjusted.
‘Serve.’
I learn all this about Lionel’s family while we are playing ping-pong. I learn, for instance, they have a friend who is having marital difficulties. Trudy feels sorry for him, Brad, the lost lamb whose wife has run off with a speedboat repair mechanic. Suddenly, in that moment, 19—18, I have lost track of who or what Lionel is talking about. Who is Brad? What are you talking about? What’s the score? Is it not 18—19? There are too many characters in his life. I wish he would just serve the ball. When he talks to himself like this I feel I have an ever so slight advantage; however, Lionel has a terrific backhand smash that I find intimidating and which more than makes up for his distraction.
Brad is Trudy’s current project. (I’m lost again. Is he the speedboat mechanic?) She likes to include him in their family activities. Lionel gets on with Brad. They are modern blokes. They take him to the kids’ soccer games. They take him to the Eagles Reunion Tour concert and sing ‘Hotel California’ together. They buy him clothes (or rather Trudy does, because Lionel has no fashion sense and would wear the same T-shirt until it fell off him, that’s just the kind of guy he is). Listening, I think this arrangement does not sound quite tickety-boo. It sounds more like a recipe for disaster. However, it is something I do not really want to know anything more about when all I want him to do is serve.
We are evenly matched. Sometimes the contest is tight. Deuce, deuce, deuce. Sometimes he thrashes me. Sometimes I thrash him. When we play, there is no time to think. Once, he beat me thirteen games to zero. I barely made double figures. In thirteen games! I despair that I might never win another game of ping-pong again. I grieve that this is symptomatic of all else that seems to be going wrong in my life. I do not mention this to Lionel for fear of the advice he might offer. I tell myself, it’s a confidence thing. In a spasm of shame it dawns on me that, because of my reticence, I have no one else that I can mention it to. It is probably a sad reflection on the emptiness of my own soul that I can expend so many words on the hitting of a little ball over a nylon net, although I acknowledge that plenty of souls before mine have probably been emptier.
One day, Lionel tells me, whether I want to hear this truth or not, that he has not had sex for over a year, he who has such a deep craving for physical affection.
‘Serve.’
Each night, after he has washed the dishes and checked that the dog has enough water and the house is locked, he enters the marital bedroom to find Trudy feigning sleep on the far edge of the mattress. If he touches her, she groans and shrugs him off. So he has learnt to keep his distance across the no-man’s land of the cold bed. It’s a scene I can imagine with far too much alacrity.
He tells me, in comic exasperation, that Trudy has racked up a credit card debt of twenty-five thousand dollars, and he the only breadwinner. What do I think about that? I do not know what to say. I tell him it doesn’t sound good. What does she buy? He doesn’t know. Things for Brad—to cheer him up because he’s so depressed. Lionel laughs at how ludicrous this sounds. I see now that Lionel is the sort of chap who giggles under pressure; that is, he deals with tension by smiling. There’s a mixed message floating around here that I’m too depressed to untangle for him.
‘Serve.’
I go through a winning patch. He cannot beat me. It’s a confidence thing. Ace, ace, ace. My forehand smashes are unplayable. We analyse each game, where our strengths and weaknesses lie. It’s like a dance. He tells me that, of the last eight nights, he has had only four hours sleep. What? He draws me a little equation: 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0. (The two being because he took a sedative and half a bottle of red.)
‘Do you think that’s healthy?’ he asks. I say it doesn’t sound good. How is it possible, he wonders, someone can survive on so little sleep? This raises the question, so I have to ask it: ‘Why?’
He explains that, while servicing his numerous computers at home he has discovered some strange email traffic between his wife and (it isn’t hard to find out) their friend Brad’s computer. Investigating further, he finds there are dozens, if not hundreds. They are quite spicy. He tells me this as if I should be as surprised as he is; however,
he does so in such a nonchalant, happy-go-lucky tone that it is hard to feel anything other than wryly amused. It’s a joke, right? I make sympathetic noises. Mmm, mmm.
This is how his heart breaks, with a smile and a chuckle.
Because he is the IT guy, it does not take Lionel long to discover the photographs in the memory of her phone. Her pubic hair decorated with the seashells found on a recent excursion to the beach. It had been a lovely day. They’d had a picnic. He would recognise that pubic hair anywhere. Then the erotic movie Trudy has made of herself—herself and a hairbrush. Not the bristly end, he says, wanting me to get the complete picture. He is not sure if erotic is the right word; what word would I use? I’m the word guy. I say it sounds euphemistic, and he says exactly.
Do I want to see the movie, just to make sure? It’s rather graphic.
There is a reluctant separation. There is talk of property division.
Fortunately, all this has no bearing on the ping-pong, other than putting Lionel off his game, which is to my momentary advantage. But I know he’ll bounce back. The tide will turn. There is my metaphor. Resilience. Already he has started going out with one of our colleagues, who must feel sorry for him, although I should not presume her motives.
I saw Lionel sketching out an equation for her: 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0. From that it was easy to predict the outcome. She seems a nice girl, who looks remarkably like Trudy, but without the biceps. Far be it for me to pursue that comparison. This affair is skating along rapidly, so much so that I have to admire his quick work. Lionel is bouncing back. There is talk of their moving in together, of property amalgamation. I have to admire how adherence to the truth, something I am not very good at, or so I have been told, has given Lionel a particular way of being in the world—a moral principle, he has that at least, by which to live his life.
THE ISTHMUS
Hector and I are on a touring holiday of the south. Since his retirement we have seen quite a lot of the country in our campervan, home away from home. Hector has a story for every place visited. He is a mine of information. Yesterday, we saw the bottomless, blue lakes of Mount Gambier and now we have arrived at the famed Twelve Apostles (although there are only eight), on Victoria’s rugged south coast.