My stylist is called Casey. She could be eighteen or thirty-five. I can’t tell, because she has that mineral make-up matte thing going on. I love the way that looks, but it’s hard to get the measure of a person that way. I have always wondered if the craggy, crinkly contours our faces make when we think deeply about things make the real shape that we are. If we ever allowed ourselves to get old, our faces would be a montage of all the most intense thoughts we had. What would that look like?
But we don’t do that. Why would we, when we can iron it all out, stretch the skin across our bones like canvas over a frame? Then we find a graphic that matches who we think we would like to be, and we ink that on our hide.
Casey has a frangipani on the inside of her wrist. She’s summer, and sweetness.
The girl in the chair across the room has faith on the back of her neck.
Faith.
Like, all faith? Pfft!
If I use some of my credit for a tattoo, I would want it to be words. Something I believe. Something I don’t want to forget, and something that makes me glow up from the inside every time I look at it, but I’m not sure what I believe that much yet.
Maybe I should choose doubt? That’s unlikely to escape me at any point, is it?
There are a hundred words that are more specific than faith. Fidelity. Constance. Promise. Courage. Zeal.
How can you sum up what you want everyone else to know about you in one word?
Faith? What does that mean? Unless her name is Faith and she has a short-term memory thing, in which case she should have put it on her forehead, or on the back of her hand.
Why has she put a tattoo where she can’t see it?
Do you know what I should get tattooed on my neck? ‘Apathy is like … whatever.’ But would it be funny forever? No. Because it doesn’t define me. In some respects I’m quite driven. Determined enough to have a nephrectomy for credit.
I catch the tattoo girl’s eye in the mirror.
‘Why have you got faith written on the back of your neck?’
She starts to answer, but the stylist next to me turns on the blow-dryer, and I can see her mouth moving, but I don’t know what she’s saying, so I just nod until she stops, and then check my phone for messages. There are none, but I squint intently and flick and tap as if I am super popular, and a little put out by the amount of correspondence I have to attend to during my me-time.
Casey hands me the weft. She’s letting me hold it while she starts the plait that will hold it in place on my head. It’s probably about seventy centimetres long. It’s thicker than mine – strong and shiny.
I ask Casey where it comes from.
‘Poor people,’ she says.
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘It has to be virgin hair,’ Casey explains. ‘Not hair from virgins – hair that hasn’t been coloured or permed before. Rich people don’t have virgin hair.’
I picture my hair donor to be about seventeen. There’s a toddler squatting on the floor, engrossed in some game, and a baby on her lap. She’s in a hut. She’s brushing her beautiful waist-length hair, and then she painstakingly plucks each strand out of the brush. With her callused hands she weaves the strands one at a time into the cotton thread that will bind them before sale. She ties the rest of her hair into a knot on her head, and then she carries her babies out into the fields to pick vegetables. From a distance, the wealthy farmer who employs her measures the width of her hips with a calculating eye.
‘Sometimes they cut off their hair in a religious ceremony to show their devotion.’
Now I see an altar. And the girls lined up, on their knees, heads bowed, their beautiful long hair brushing against their shoulderblades. There’s a priest holding some kind of ceremonial shears. All the hair goes into a basket, ready to be sanitised and have the colour stripped from it.
But at least it’s not a kidney, right? I mean, hair will grow back.
I rub my finger along the braid. It’s tight and feels like a scar.
‘Do they know where it goes?’ I ask.
Casey doesn’t answer.
While Casey works I look across the hallway where some ladies are using their credit for manicures. As if you would waste it on that! Nails I can do myself.
Casey reaches forward, takes my weft, and I give it up reluctantly. She must have been a good prospect, my hair donor. She’s called Anala, or Ananya, or Anushka. It’s an A name anyway.
Casey’s weaving Ananya’s hair into my hair. She’s using a needle and thread, binding me to her. Then she’s finished and she’s off to the little secret back room where they make up the colours.
Is it lying, having Ananya’s hair entwined with mine? Is it wrong to fool someone else’s caveman brain? Does my seaweed straggle tell the world that I am a burden, and is it true?
You know the weird thing? We put on our faces each day, that make our eyes look bigger, and our lips juicier, and it’s all lies, but then we get mad when Mr Colossal-Lattisimus-Dorsi doesn’t love us for who we are. Or even Mr Borrowed-Kidney-Cheeseburger-Eater.
But have you ever tried not doing it? Have you ever gone out in trackies, with no hair and make-up? You go invisible. Eyes just slide over you as if you were never there. You could totally commit felonies. You could line up at the check-out of a supermarket on Christmas Eve, hold up the place, and make your getaway on a motorised scooter you have stolen from an octogenarian on the way out. Still no one would pick you in a line-up. It’s the bits we add to ourselves that make us memorable.
I know there are some naturally beautiful people, but I mean in real life. When was the last time you saw a genuinely striking unaugmented individual, in person, in your neighbourhood, during the day? Were you drunk?
I’m not talking about people who are naturally beautiful as a package of attributes. There are heaps of those. I’m not talking about little kids either. I mean a grown person who stirs your caveperson from twenty metres away, when you are sober, and before you know that they are generous, or funny, or artistic – someone who is not spending their credit being waxed, collagened and lasered, and lunge-walking backwards to the organic market to buy quinoa, coconut water and goji berries.
They are mythical creatures. They are bunyips. You’ve never come across a bunyip? This is my point.
But if you ever did see a bunyip, you’d go all cra-cra and gobsmacked, and extreme, like you’d been just a tiny bit tasered.
Do you think that’s why the celebrities look hunted and irritated and fraught when they get caught in the wild? Because there is a very high chance that any second they are going to be accosted by some caveperson who’s going to scream, and wet their pants, and thrash around, and maybe assault them? I would probably take cocaine and have all of the panic syringed off my face too, under those circumstances.
Real beauty is rare. It kind of runs the world, and we want it. We could go mad trying to make it happen. People do, and not just women.
I stroke Ananya’s hair. It’s stupendously long. It looks great already. It brushes against the small of my back. Faith smiles at me in the mirror. I think of asking her again about her tattoo, but I just don’t care that much.
I think about asking her what she gave for credit, but we don’t talk about that. Not in here.
Casey comes back and starts painting my scalp with the cold, thick purple chemicals that will make me and my weft the same colour. Dab, dab, dab. It has that funny astringent ammonia smell. Not virgin hair any more. Slutty, coloured hair now.
Casey rinses off my hair with scalding water in long strokes. She rubs at the binding scar. She dries my hair. It takes a long time, because Ananya’s hair is so thick and healthy and hydrated. Then she burns it into long, uncontrived ringlets. I’m tousled in a non-drowned way. It looks hotter than I had imagined. Even my own cavegirl brain is impressed.
She swipes my credit card casually, as though she doesn’t know how I earne
d it, and I’m wondering if the woman being exploited here is me.
Then Ananya’s hair and I flounce past the nail place. Flounce, flounce. I catch my reflection in a shop that sells soaps, candles and hand lotions. Who’s that woman with the great hair? Wait, that’s us! I give my hair a tug. It’s very secure. I hope Ananya got paid. I hope she has access to goji berries and coconut water, so her hair grows fast and she doesn’t have to marry the farmer.
But then, it’s just hair, right? It’s not a kidney.
Cat Calls
Margo Lanagan
‘But I can’t whistle!’ said Neddi. ‘My mouth is made wrong. I’ve tried and tried!’
‘I can’t whistle if I’m nervous.’ Shinna played with her fingers and glanced around. ‘Or if anyone’s looking at me.’ We all looked away.
‘I can’t if I’m laughing,’ said Kate. A big grin burst out on her face. ‘And I just know I’ll get the giggles, looking those fellows in the eye.’
Dipti threw up her hands. ‘Well, dammit, we’ll make a different noise. If you can’t whistle, hiss! Everyone can hiss.’
And they all hissed, like the sound of wind in dry grass.
I put my face in my hands. Dipti threw her hard, skinny arm around my shoulders and shook me. ‘Oh, if only I lived over the river!’ I wailed. ‘Then my parents would buy me one of those Gran Sasso Devices, and I would be able to go wherever I wanted.’
‘It’d be wonderful, wouldn’t it?’ she said. ‘Just press the button and their filthy words fly right back into their mouths – never said, never heard.’
‘Why don’t they just say them again, is what I don’t understand?’ said Shinna.
‘It doesn’t feel nice, Fan’s sister says,’ said Kate, ‘having that little bit of time run backward, while the rest of it’s running forward all around you. It feels like you’re a sock, she says, being turned inside-out – because it’s running your mind backward too. But it’s better than being shouted at.’
‘Well, Melita.’ Dipti shook me again. ‘That kind of handy thing was never made for girls like us, was it? That’s a weapon for rich men’s daughters. And that’s okay. We have no need of it—’ She couldn’t stop grinning. ‘Because we have a plan.’
All the men were outside the teashop next morning. I felt sicker than ever with fear. Everything looked the same: the dusty road with not a soul on it, the closed-up church, the schoolhouse off in the distance. The air was still cool, and I was freshly bathed, and my clothes were crisp from laundering and drying in the sun, and there were the men all waiting, ready to attack. The big one leaned back in his chair. I had never seen him standing; perhaps he had grown into that straining chair, and sat there day and night? The two thin men lounged in the doorway, and Mr Red Shirt and Mr Fancy Boots perched on the edges of the other chairs. They were talking now, but as soon as they saw me …
Just run past them. Ignore them, my mother had said. The world is full of those men. They are not worth your time.
Of course they call out to you, said my father. They think you’re beautiful. Which you are. And a beautiful young girl should be complimented.
My mother had smacked his shoulder. You don’t know what you’re talking about. This made me feel hopeful for a moment – would she get angry enough to help me? But then my brothers had come home and my time for my parents’ attention was over. Take Otto’s bags, Melita. Bring Charlie some tea.
Walking closer to the teashop, I thought I saw a whisker of movement up near the church, but now as I stared, there was nothing. I was so confused – did I want my friends to be there or not? Had I been foolish to mention this, to say yes when Dipti offered to help? Would she make it better for me, or worse? Oh, whatever happened would be wrong and awful. I would be crushed and laughed at whether I was alone as usual or backed up by every girl in my class. These men, they didn’t look like monsters, but the words pouring out of their mouths fouled up my whole world, every morning and every afternoon. Girls had no chance against it, young girls like us, from this side of town.
One of the thin men saw me and whistled. The other turned and stared, gave a little whooping noise. I stared at the church. Had they come? Oh, please! Oh, please not!
One head popped out, popped back behind the church corner. Then two were quickly there and then gone. My heart lifted – and stuck in my throat for a moment, so that I couldn’t breathe. I wanted just to run, to run up and meet my friends and tell them, It’s all right. They didn’t say anything; there’s no need for you to be here. I could cope. I could be strong on my own.
The men began with their calling, with their crooning. Thin One and Thin Two got comfortable against the doorposts. Mr Red Shirt sat forward in his chair. They threw out little remarks, soft and mocking, about my hair, my school uniform, my legs. If I’d been a rich girl, I’d have taken my little silver Gran Sasso Device out of my pocket right then, and pointed it at them – which would mean pointing it at myself, because it was a two-ended thing. And I would’ve pressed the blue button, and the particles faster than light, faster than time, would’ve burst out either end, and pulled those remarks out of my memory through my ears and folded them back down the men’s throats. Of all the things scientists and corporations had found to do with neutrinos, the Gran Sasso was to me the greatest and the kindest. It was the one I could see a real use for, in my world, in my every day.
I was right in front of the shop now, and they were a chorus in my ear, gentle, awful, saying all their worst things, which they never got tired of calling out at me, at any girl who walked by on her own.
I stopped, my heart thudding so hard I was sure it would show, ba-bump, ba-bump, through my shirt. I turned to face them, which was my signal to the others, the one we’d agreed on. I stared boldly into the men’s eyes, one after the other. I was sure they could see my fear, in my big eyes and my tight-pressed mouth.
The big man sneered and jerked his head at me. The thin men’s grins stiffened on their faces. Mr Red Shirt looked at the others to see what he should do, and Mr Boots crooned on about what he might find under my uniform, then checked whether the big man approved. I didn’t look away; I finished meeting all their eyes and went back to the big man and started again. My classmates were coming, my friends. First I heard their wolf-whistles, their woo-hoos, their hisses; then their shoes pattered on the dusty road.
I took one slow step, then another, towards the men. Thin One and Thin Two, they glanced up the road and looked actually afraid for a moment. I could hear it was a big crowd, bigger than Dipti had called together yesterday. There were boys’ voices in it; boys had come, too! Girls and boys pushed in behind and either side of me, and they whistled and hissed at the men.
Mr Red Shirt laughed loudly. ‘All these girls for us! Some of them are pretty, too!’
I despaired at his confidence, and at the big man’s easy way of sitting there. The other men would gather courage from it, I was sure, and hurl more words.
But Dipti got in before them. ‘Some of them are hand-some, too!’ she exclaimed, in exactly Mr Red Shirt’s tone.
‘All these fellas for us! Aren’t we lucky?’ cried out a boy behind me.
‘How about a kiss? Or just a smile?’ someone else called coaxingly. ‘You’d be so pretty if you smiled.’
And everyone else hissed and whistled.
‘What do you think you’re about, you kids!’ Mr Fancy Boots jumped up from his chair, and I flinched.
Someone put her hand on my shoulder and called, dreamily, ‘What do you think you’re about?’
‘What do you look like, without that uniform?’ cried out a girl to Mr Boots.
‘Bring some of that over here!’ That was Shinna.
‘Yes, me and my friend would like a piece!’ That girl could hardly speak for laughing.
‘You’re a hot little number!’ said Dipti fiercely.
‘Nice bottom, too!’ someone piped up at the b
ack. ‘See when he runs. Oh-ho! Bouncy-bouncy!’
‘How about a kiss?’
And one by one they called out all the things the men had ever said, that I’d told them yesterday and Dipti had written down. Against a background of hoots and hisses they called them out. They chanted some of the sayings over and over, and they brought in new ones I was sure I hadn’t told them, because I’d have been too embarrassed. They called out sayings I’d never heard myself, things these men had never said, words so foul I didn’t know what they meant.
‘That’s enough!’ shouted Thin Two. ‘You girls shouldn’t talk like that.’
‘Girls shouldn’t talk like that!’ Dipti laughed.
But they did talk like that, all the girls behind me, and the one or two boys. They said all those embarrassing things. I said a few myself, a couple of the big man’s suggestions – but I said them in that cool, dreamy way we were using, as if they were song-words or poem-words, or just interesting noises made by birds, or cats in the night, or elephants trumpeting. They filled the air all around, the words I’d tried to push out of my head so often, thinking that no other girl was tormented as I was. Everyone knew them – and some knew worse, so much worse! Everyone who’d heard them wanted to unhear them, to have them unsaid the way the Gran Sasso let you unsay them – but if we couldn’t do that, the next best thing was to throw them back at the men with all their power gone out of them, like shucked-off snakeskins or dead balloons.
And the whistles and the hoots and the hisses – and some growls, even some dog barks! – they were like a nest made of sound. Inside that nest, I was protected right up to my ears. People who were too shy or scared to utter the horrible words, they could hiss; the hissing was a constant rushing all round me. The whistles were on different notes, and so were the calls – all the pretty-pretties and kiss-kisses and where’s-your-lovely-smiles. It sounded beautiful, in a weird, wild way.
I felt like laughing, under cover of all our noise; I felt like crying, but I was too busy throwing ugly words back at the men. I didn’t care what they did; it felt good to sing and shout out these things, from this big safe group. I could almost understand the men, why they did what they did. They must want this wonderful feeling. They must like being in their group, outside the teashop. Whatever horrible things they called out, it made sense that they too wanted to be among friends, gluing their group together better with every call.
Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean Page 5