The Enumerations

by Máire Fisher

  The little girl looks at her father and says, I am smiling, Daddy.

  There’s a long beeeeep and then a bright flash.

  The father says, Fucksakes I said smile, not talk. The father says he doesn’t know why he bothers. He gets up from his seat.

  The little girl stays standing, staring forward. The little girl is smiling.

  The photograph looks like this: Back row: Two adults seated, with a baby in the woman’s arms. Front row: A little girl standing on her own, looking up at the man behind her. The man’s right hand is on the little girl’s shoulder. The little girl’s shoulder tilts down on one side.

  Daddy says he’s going to attach the photograph to an email and send it to the grandparents all the way across the sea in Australia. Juliet doesn’t understand what that means, but when Granny speaks to her on the phone she says Juliet’s a beaut and how she loves the way she was looking up at her dad. Grandpa says, Isn’t she a cute little thing, blonde, just like her pretty mom.

  Such a happy snap, Granny says and Grandpa says mmmhmmm because he’s listening in on the other line.

  Dad brings home a copy of the photo. He slips it into a silver frame and puts it on the top of the piano.

  There Juliet is, dressed in her tutu and pink t-shirt. Mom is holding Lily and Dad is grinning with all his teeth. Juliet is looking up at Daddy, her mouth half open. Mom’s mouth is smiling, but her eyes aren’t squinched up like they are when she laughs.

  The piano gathers pictures year after year. Happy snaps for the grandparents. Juliet growing taller, Lily standing on her own feet, Mom’s lipstick red on her still pretty face, Dad growing a little less handsome with a little less hair.

  Cameras are magic, Juliet thinks. She still does. They keep secrets. They make things different to how they really are.

  191.

  Day 68 / 13:51

  ‘Hey, Noah. Can I tell you something?’

  He turns his head cautiously. ‘That depends—’ he starts, but not quite quickly enough.

  Juliet’s off. ‘You know how much I talk, how I can’t keep still?’

  ‘Yes.’ Yes, of course he does; it’s one of the things that makes her who she is. Non-stop, on the go.

  ‘Well, I have to do it,’ she says. ‘It’s my armour. I wake up every morning and I put that armour on.’

  Noah nods. He knows all about that.

  ‘So, anyway, the thing is, if I keep talking, laughing, putting people down even, I don’t give them a chance to get under the armour. Inside my skin. Does that make sense?’

  He nods again. It does.

  ‘So, there’s that, and I can also use my words against my father and even my mom.’

  Juliet pauses and takes a deep breath.

  ‘But the thing is, I also use my words to lie. Ellen knows it, of course.’ She laughs. ‘It’s getting so we have a routine. I lie. She catches me out. I lie again, she calls me on it, and so on. Finally, though, by the end of the session I’ve managed to tell her one thing that’s true.’

  Noah’s interested. Juliet uses words like weapons; he’s scared of letting his out.

  ‘The only thing is, Noah. I can’t lie to you. It’s like nothing I say or do can shock you … So what’s the point?’ Another laugh, a shrug of her shoulders. ‘You’re my truth serum. So everything I tell you about – mermaids, Smudge, dreamwords – it’s all true. I can’t bullshit you. Telling you stuff makes it easier to talk to Ellen. You know what I mean?’

  He shakes his head. He’s not entirely sure. And then, he opens his mouth. ‘I mean, I do believe you. It’s just I don’t know what you mean about using words.’

  Juliet nods, understanding. ‘Sure. I get that.’

  There’s a peaceful silence in the room for the first time since Juliet arrived.

  ‘There’s something I really want to say to you, Noah. Only thing is, it’s hard. You know all the shit you’ve heard, about me and, you know, the sex thing?’

  He nods.

  Juliet looks down, and even her hands are still. This time, when she starts talking, her words rattle out at speed.

  ‘It’s not true, Noah. I just make stuff like that up. To piss my father off, try to make my mom see me. I don’t know why I do it. Actually, that’s a lie. And I promised myself I’d tell you this straight. I do know. It’s because I’m so mad, Noah. At everyone. My father, my mother, all the stupid people who can’t see I’m lying. Who never say, “Juliet, why do you do this?”

  ‘I’m not talking about Ellen – she’s paid to try and understand me. It’s my mom, Noah. Why didn’t she ever lift her head out of it for just five minutes and ask me what was going on. My father … Especially him. He can’t be bothered to care.’

  She’s still staring at her knees and her bright hair is hiding her face. ‘I’m good at that, making him see me in the worst way. But I want you to know, Noah. A lot of what I say and do? It isn’t me at all.’

  192.

  2001

  Something else happened when Noah was 5 years old, right at the end of the year when they were all getting ready to leave Ms Jonas and go into Pre-school 2. It was something really bad. No one told him what was going on, but a big voice reached right inside him and said, Look, Noah. Mom’s crying and Dad’s face is like someone hurt him.

  Dad came home in the middle of the afternoon. He never did that, not unless they were having a Special Family Day. Mom loved Special Days. She’d spring them on Dad, and he’d say, Really, Kate. Tomorrow? and Mom would say, Yes really, Dom, otherwise when will the kids and I ever get to see you? Then he’d laugh and say, Fair enough, you win. He’d kiss Mom and she’d smile at him and he’d pick up the phone and say, Cancel all my appointments for tomorrow, please, Ms Jonkers, I have a personal engagement.

  Then they’d all do things like go to the beach, or out to the farm to see Ouma and Oupa, Mom’s mom and dad. They’d sit under a big tree there and eat bread and cheese and Oupa would let Noah sip his wine but first he’d have to sniff it and say what it smelled like, even if it was like when Ms Jonas sharpened all the crayons, ready for drawing.

  But not that day.

  When Dad walked through the front door, Mom rushed up to him and he held her really tight.

  She said, Oh Dom, Dom, and he hugged her and she said, There’s another one. Another one’s been hit.

  Go and play, Noah, Dad said. Off you go. Play with Maddie.

  And ask Sibongile to make you a sandwich, said Mom.

  They went into the sitting room and closed the door, but not before Noah heard a lady saying, This is an attack on the American way of life. Behind her, on the tv, there was a tall tower, taller than any building Spiderman ever crawled up, but this one had smoke and fire coming out of it on the side near the top.

  Sibongile looked after them all afternoon and when Noah asked her if they were going out for a Special Day, she said no.

  That afternoon, instead of vacuuming and dusting and cleaning the showers, she played games with Maddie and him, and she even allowed them to go into the kitchen and help with the washing up. They were very careful, but it was quite safe, Sibongile said, because the water was warm and the plates were plastic.

  Sibongile told them about her brother who used to be a postman, riding up and down streets like theirs, delivering letters, only one day he fell off his bike and broke his knee. It was a very bad break, and now he can’t ride his bicycle or walk very far, said Sibongile. She told them he couldn’t find a job and that she was helping him to look after his family and now they all lived together in her small house.

  Noah and Maddie had so much fun that afternoon, it was almost as good as a Special Family Day.

  And then it was time for Sibongile to catch a taxi and then a train and then another taxi, which was how she got home.

  Mom said, Thank you so much, Sibongile. I couldn’t have … and then she looked like she was going to cry again. She stood at the door and her face was white and sad, and Dad was standing inside the sitting
room. The TV was switched off, but its big green eye looked straight at Noah.

  193.

  Juliet has only told Noah some of it. It’s not that she doesn’t trust him – he’s the safest person she knows right now. The best friend she has, really. Girls at school defintely don’t trust her; she’s sharp-tongued and flirty, their boyfriends are vulnerable and if they let Juliet too close, who knows what she’s capable of.

  Boys at school?

  As if, Juliet wants to say to the ones like Kyle Blake and his grubby little band of alpha-male losers. As if I’d want anything to do with you. She sends the disdainful message out, loud and clear, and they hate her for it. They let the stories about her grow unchecked, adding to them when they can.

  Juliet’s trained herself not to care. She’s counting down the days until she finshes Matric, and until then she’s going to hold it together for Lily, and for herself.

  She goes to her cupboard and opens her suitcase. There, tucked into the elasticised compartment in the lid, is her folder. It’s the most precious thing in her life. No one knows about it, and there’s no way she’s going to show it to Ellen. Not even to Noah, for that matter.

  A sheaf of photographs slides out and she gathers them back together carefully.

  Some were taken during the day, but the majority are night shots.

  The camera can lie – Juliet learnt that early in life – but not always. It can also reveal truths that would otherwise remain unseen. If people don’t know you’re there, hidden behind a parked car, angling a lens from a street corner, that’s when it happens. Catch a man leaning from a car window, negotiating with a prostitute; a bag lady trundling her shopping cart festooned with the portable essentials of her life; a mother pulling a toddler along by the arm; a boy leaning in for a sweet kiss; girls at a cosmetic counter pouting into mirrors. The mayhem of a city nightclub; a rendezvous on the common on a Sunday afternoon, a balding, middle-aged man meeting a girl young enough to be his daughter.

  Outside of Greenhills, Juliet carries her camera whenever she can. Here, it’s on the list of restricted items, along with any electronic device that can take photos. So no phone, either. She misses being able to slip her mobile out of her pocket for the odd quick pic. But way more than that, she longs for the precison and complexity of her slr.

  She’s taught herself everything she knows, from books, from the Internet, through trial and error. She could have signed up for the photography club at school, taken advantage of all the programmes on offer, but Juliet’s a loner, roaming the streets, capturing life as it happens, not as it’s been arranged. She steals moments from other people’s lives, gets as close to the truth as she can, as far from the manufactured lies that adorn the piano top in the living room at home.

  194.

  Dominic has no family. That’s what he told Kate in one of their first getting-to-know-you conversations. ‘I don’t know anything about my parents,’ he’d said.

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  Kate can’t begin to imagine what his childhood must have been like. No one to call his own. Her family is large, extended – aunts and uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, in-laws, step-cousins, nieces, nephews – relatives by the dozen.

  Dominic has no one, not one single relative he can claim, no way of looking back into the past, no one to take after, or wish he could discard.

  He was abandoned by his mother, he tells Kate, and he knows nothing about his father.

  ‘But don’t you want to look for them? Find out who she was, where he is. They might still be alive, Dominic.’ Kate’s seen the the TV programmes about lost siblings, lost children, lost parents. ‘You could go to the—’

  ‘No,’ he’d said. ‘I made up my mind long ago. If she doesn’t want to find me, then I won’t look for her. I’d just be asking for a world of trouble.’

  ‘So you were adopted, then?’ Kate had asked.

  Dominic shook his head. ‘Care.’ His mouth twisted on the word. ‘I was in care.’

  Kate reached for his hand, but Dominic slid his away. ‘That’s about it,’ he said. ‘A children’s home until I was eighteen. And from there, out into the world and on my own.’

  195.

  Dominic’s life is a tower of lies, and it’s crumbling around him. Brick by brick, the tower is falling, but he can’t escape. He’s trapped, locked in his turret. He threw away the key long ago, when he didn’t tell Kate about his past. And now, when she begs him to, he daren’t tell her a thing.

  Kate doesn’t give up though, not when it’s something that might benefit her son. Their son, he reminds himself.

  ‘Dom,’ she says, ‘we can find her. We can get a history from her. Even if you don’t want to know, what if we can help Noah?’

  Dominic refuses to take it any further. ‘Leave it, Kate. She abandoned me.’

  ‘But if we knew more, we might be able to—’

  He cuts her short. ‘What good would it do, Kate? Noah is what he is, who he is. Don’t we have enough to deal with without bringing my mother into the picture? Besides, who’s to say she’s even alive?’

  196.

  2012

  Gabriel’s getting feedback from Sebastian Crown, the man hired to track down his sister. He’s given him all the information from the brown envelope they handed him when he left the home. Gabriel keeps it locked away, hidden from prying eyes, this past he cannot throw away. The past he hates to remember but cannot forget. Lately, over the last year or so, when he’s had a drink, he’ll open the envelope. Mainly to hold a small photo in his hands. If he’s had two drinks, or sometimes three, he’ll murmur, ‘Where are you, Mum? Where are you, Harry?’ Then he’ll phone Sebastian Crown and ask if there’s any news.

  197.

  Day 69 / 05:12

  Noah wakes up early.

  He stretches. Checks. Everything’s fine. The still-rising sun throws dappled light onto the chair by the window, turning it from midnight black to blue.

  Nobody else is up. The corridor outside his room is silent.

  He throws back his cotton sheet, gets out of bed and checks his timetable. 6.30 a.m. is when it all begins – the list of things he has to do. He looks back at his bed. According to his timetable, he should still be sleeping. And, when he does wake up, he should check his pulse immediately, then flex each of his muscles in order. But he’s awake now.

  He stops. Closes his eyes, checks again. No, he’s not tired. If he goes back to bed, he’ll just lie there. He’ll waste a full hour.

  The lawn at Greenhills, this home of no hills, glows in the early light. Noah moves over to the window, puts his hand on the latch. If he pushes the latch down (up-down-up-down), the window will open and all the sounds of the early morning will enter his room. He hopes there might also be a breath of cool early morning air. Soon the temperature will rise; last night the ewn weather forecast promised another steamy day, with temperatures in the high 20s. Rain’s been forecast, but so far it hasn’t arrived.

  As he stands there, he sees a flick of light. And then another and another. The Greenhills sprinklers activating, one by one, in the cool of the morning. Noah watches them spurt, throwing water into the air, letting it fall onto thirsty warm ground. His toes curl into the roughness of his sisal rug. And then, with a quick look at the clock on his wall, a quick check of his timetable, a quick listen to the regular, so-no-need-to-worry-about-that beat of his heart, he walks to the door. Down goes the handle, only down, and then he’s hurrying along the corridor, past the Rec Room and the Visitors’ Lounge, through the lobby to the doors of the main entrance.

  They won’t open. Noah stands, looking to where the spray is playing with rainbows in the early morning sun. He moves, faster now, to behind the desk. How does she let people in, Sally-Anne, who sits here all day, every day, controlling the flow of people in and out of Greenhills?

  He runs his hand along the underside of the desk, finds a button and presses. With a click, the large glass doors open slightly.
He hurries, his feet making no sound on the warm tiles of the lobby floor. He slips through the gap in the door, then stops, strips off the t-shirt he sleeps in, folds it into a very neat square and wedges it between the two doors.

  And then he’s on the move.

  On the lawn, regular arcs of water mist the air. The grass under his feet is prickly – and cool.

  Noah stops and listens. No one is awake. No one is moving. Only the birds in the trees make a sound, and as he waits, silent, they begin to fly in and out of the spray, ducking and diving close to where Noah is standing, his face turned to the sky. His dark hair is plastered to his skull, water is falling onto his bare chest, his cotton pyjama pants are wet, clinging to his legs.

  Everyone’s forever talking about the heat and how it’s never cool, not even at night. His duvet’s taking up a full shelf in his cupboard. The thought of it makes his skin tight. But right now he’s wet, from top to toe, dripping with water, and wonderfully cool. Around him the birds fly, catching water on their wings, swooping to the lawn to sip in small drops.

  Then, over the sounds of the birds and the soft murmur of sprinklers, he hears another sound – the crunch of tyres on gravel. He stands there, unmoving, his toes digging into the wet grass.

  ‘My God.’ Noah hears a voice, but he ignores it.

  ‘Noah, is that you?’

  He doesn’t turn his head. He needs this air that allows him to breathe deeply, without once feeling he has to count in and out.

  Noah closes his eyes and turns in a slow circle. Water runs down his stomach, it courses down his back. Mr Bill’s calling his name again, telling him to go inside. He smiles. He has absolutely no intention of moving.

  198.

  Day 69 / 13:10

  It feels like the hottest afternoon on record, one of those clammy, muggy days when everything feels sticky to the touch. Noah and Juliet have been over their plan again, making sure that they haven’t overlooked a single detail. Or rather, Noah has, while Juliet calms him down.