Real Differences

by S. L. Lim

  ‘Oh, I bet she is.’ Andie and I exchanged glances. ‘How old are you these days, anyhow?’

  ‘Fourteen.’ He looked at us with a kind of shy pride. ‘Turning fifteen soon, actually.’

  ‘Congratulations. Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Nick! It’s none of your business. If he wants to, he’ll tell you when he feels like it.’

  Tony blushed. ‘No. I don’t really have time for one, anyway.’

  Andie snorted. ‘Time. Oh my God, Nick, do you even remember high school? There was always so much homework to catch up on – sometimes I didn’t have time to wash my hair, let alone have a boyfriend. Take it from me, Tony, being grown up is so much better.’ She swung the car violently to the left, causing Tony to be pinned briefly against my body in the back seat while I squashed my face against the window.

  I shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know. I think my high school experience was different from yours,’ I said, rather pointedly. Unlike Andie, who had been hothoused through academically selective schools, it was a point of pride with me that I’d attended an ordinary mixed-gender comprehensive. Really, though, my out-of-school hours had been packed with so many extracurriculars there probably wasn’t that much difference. By the end of Year Twelve I could write you a sestina, play the oboe and solve you a fourth-order polynomial, possibly simultaneously. I couldn’t do these things now, of course, even one at a time – I’ve only deteriorated over the years. Nonetheless the smell of middle-classness, of well-roundedness, remained.

  ‘How are your parents?’ I asked Tony.

  ‘They’re good,’ he said automatically. ‘They’re a bit stressed out at the moment though. Like, last month someone tried to break into the house. Nothing was actually damaged but there were these footprints in the back garden. My dad is going ballistic because the police won’t do anything. They say that unless an actual crime has taken place there’s no point investigating.’

  ‘Seems fair enough.’ Andie leaned over to inspect the rear-view mirror, then slid the car elegantly into the slot. ‘There! Who says I can’t drive?’

  We went into the restaurant, which served dumplings and noodles in the doughy and filling northern Chinese style. We ordered pan-fried dumplings, eggplant with garlic, and a serve of excellent oily things nobody knew the name of. ‘Oh, yes,’ Andie sighed when the dumplings arrived, filled with chives and minced pork and still crackling with the heat of their own juices. She applied herself to her food with such enthusiasm it felt indecent to interject. When the last wipe of sauce from the eggplant had been mopped up, she said, ‘I’m going down the road to the ATM. You guys can talk about … life. Tony said he wanted an opinion from an outsider, whatever that means. So, go ahead and … confide.’ She cast a meaningful glance at Tony and left us in a swirl of eggplant-induced satiety, accidentally knocking her fork off the table as she went.

  Once she had gone, Tony and I eyed each other up. It was a bit of a friends-in-law moment. I wasn’t really used to interacting with anyone under the age of twenty-five. It was unnerving to be up close with a real live teenager: eyes impossibly clear, skin plump with moisture, face scattered with pimples but still lovely and unlined. I could swear that he smelled like milk, like he’d just stepped out of the cradle.

  ‘So,’ I asked lamely, ‘how are your parents getting on?’

  ‘They’re good.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  We both fell silent, and I cursed myself for having thought there was any other possible response.

  ‘Actually,’ Tony said suddenly, ‘I do have something that I want to ask. I would ask Andie about it, but I wanted to get, like, a proper point of view. Somebody who can look at it objectively - from the outside.’ He looked at me critically, as if testing my willingness to perform this function.

  I didn’t know whether or not I should be flattered. ‘Well, I don’t know if I’m up to that. You have to remember, no-one is totally objective. We all have our biases.’ It was the most banal statement possible, and I wished the earth would open and swallow me up for having said it.

  ‘Yeah, we-ell …’ Tony waved his hand as if wafting away a whole cloud of objections. ‘So, I’m choosing my subjects for next year. And Mum, she wants me to do Latin because my year adviser said that you get good scaling if you do the extension. But I don’t want to study Latin. Like, it’s all “Ecce Marcus” and “Ecce Sextus”, stuff like that. They say that it’s useful if you want to study law, but why would that be? The Romans are all extinct anyway, so it doesn’t make sense. Anyway, my dad told me that if I didn’t like it, I should go and lie on the road and wait for the cars to run me over.’

  ‘What!’ I said. ‘Tony, that sounds messed up.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t mean it.’ Tony shrugged, impatient that I’d missed the point. ‘It’s just, you know, words. It doesn’t bother me. The thing is, you should hear my parents. All day, every day: “You don’t know how lucky you are”, and “Do you know how much we’ve sacrificed for your sake?”. Oh yeah, and “Back home, if you spoke to us like that then you’d be caned”. I don’t know why they have to bring “back home” into it, because I did get caned when I was a kid. They still threaten to do it. One day I broke the cane into lots of little pieces and camouflaged it in this rattan chair, like, the ones they have in the living room. You couldn’t see it, because it looked just like part of the weave. They were stamping round, shouting, “Where is it? Where is it?” By the time they found it, they weren’t even angry with me anymore.’ We both laughed.

  ‘They’re hard to predict. Still, I’m getting tired. Like, people say that I’m smart, but they don’t get how hard I have to study. Some people are lucky – my friend Hasan does great at everything and he hardly works at all. I thought it would be OK once I got into this school, but now they say I have to do it all again for a good university. When does it end? It’s always “good future” this, “good future” that. Never about enjoying my life now. None of it seems very meaningful, anyway,’ he went on determinedly, ‘because it’s all about making money. My parents are meant to be Catholics, but they only pray when it suits them. It’s like buying lotto tickets – they pray just in case it might help them win. You’re meant to love your neighbour, but they hate everyone. You haven’t met them in private, but the way they speak about Indonesians –’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘Andie told me.’

  ‘Exactly! Like, I know I have to support my parents when they get older, and I’m OK with that. But there’s just so much pressure and I don’t know what to do, and they won’t get off my back. But I thought –’ he was looking at me with an almost heartbreaking expression of timidity and hope – ‘that because you’re Australian and all, you could tell me what to do.’

  I know it’s a huge compliment when someone trusts you enough to ask for your help. I never know what to do with it. ‘Well,’ I said weakly, ‘you’ll grow up, won’t you? And then you can move, and you won’t have to see your parents so much. That’s what it means to be an adult. Not caring so much what they think. They shouldn’t talk to you like that – they don’t own you. You shouldn’t feel guilty. Parents are supposed to look after their children. It’s not as if they’re doing you some special favour by giving you food and, I don’t know, not turning you out onto the street. Most families, healthy families, don’t exert this kind of control over their teenage children. So, you know, stick it out now, but when you’ve finished school you can get out and move away from them. And if they don’t like it, well, that’s their problem.’

  While I was talking Tony was staring at me expectantly. It was as if he was waiting for the clarifying wisdom that was sure to emerge from my mouth at any moment. When it became clear no such wisdom was forthcoming, a strange look flashed across his face – consternation mixed with curious intensity. Then it was gone, and he shapeshifted back into a high school student: melancholy, resentful and eager to please.

  ‘How are you two getting on?’ Andie slid back
into her chair and, with casual audacity, filched my after-dinner mint. She nibbled thoughtfully on a corner. ‘Hmmm. It’s a different experience when the mints are square. Normally they come in circles.’ She swallowed and leaned back, studying the two of us. ‘Did you ask Nick –’ she looked at Tony – ‘what you wanted to talk to him about?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Tony wore a look of blank politeness. ‘Nick was very helpful. He was very kind. He told me not to worry anymore.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Andie, casting a hopeful glance in the direction of Tony’s chocolate. ‘You know how ethnic parents are. Although that doesn’t really tell you how to deal with them. Batshit crazy, every single one.’

  The hyperbole annoyed me. I didn’t like how Andie liked to exaggerate stuff - picking battles just because she wanted to have something to rage against. ‘Oh, come on, Andie,’ I said. ‘It’s not such a big deal. What’s the worst they can do? They’re only parents. It’s childish to go on about it now that you’re grown up. If you were more mature, you would have gotten it out of your system by now.’

  Andie and I were used to speaking harshly to each other, and then getting over it within the hour. This time, though, was different: I knew immediately I’d said something I shouldn’t have. An expression of hope had been creeping across Tony’s features while Andie was talking but dulled instantly when I responded. I realised that he hadn’t necessarily wanted me to provide a solution to his problem; he just wanted to be heard, and here I was telling him that no-one ‘normal’ would ever want to listen to him. I saw myself momentarily through his eyes: hearty and clueless, applying consoling second-hand banalities to a situation I had never had to face. He and Andie exchanged a look which drew a circle round the two of them. I felt obscurely abandoned, like I’d been cheated out of the ending of a story I was entitled to.

  #

  Afterwards I sat alone with Andie on her balcony. Half an hour before, we had deposited a reluctant Tony back at his parents’ house. Daisy had said hello to me with a dubious expression. She had always disliked me, for reasons unknown. Andie said it was because she thought my arms were too long. We listened to the rustling of fruit bats, and to cars going past; once a plane went overhead, a dull vibrating roar which seemed to pulse against my sternum. The aircraft noise was why the house had been so cheap, although Andie said she was used to it now. You got used to anything after a while, she said. I let the statement hang before us, drawing significance from the lateness of the evening, rolling up into a ball a meaning far more profound than the original arrangement of words.

  ‘Did you have a good chat with Tony?’

  ‘Um, yes. Sorry I was rude to you before. I was just frustrated that I couldn’t be more helpful.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Andie handed me a glass. ‘You were probably way more helpful than you realise. Sometimes, I think, just having someone hear them out is all people need. Also, Nick, I don’t know if I ever told you this before, but you’re a really good listener.’ She paused, screwing up her face as if to evaluate the truth of her own statement. I was touched by the familiar mannerism – how anxious she was to reach the truth of things, so that she paused to self-edit even as she was speaking. ‘Actually, maybe it’s your face. Some people are just born with a listening face. It’s a genetic thing.’

  I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with Tony. Just garden variety teenage angst.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Actually, it’s pretty impressive how together he is. Like, I spent two years living with Arwin and Daisy. I was nearly an adult and they weren’t even my parents, and even I almost went up the wall. You exist all the time at this crazy pitch … Did you know that most murders happen within families?’ Andie tipped her drink back so that the ice cubes clinked, and then put the glass down carefully on the coaster. ‘So, Nick - how are you, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, I’m pretty good.’ I wondered whether to reveal more but decided against it. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting to reveal. ‘I mean, I don’t think you should be so harsh on Tony’s parents. Looking after kids is like figure-skating, or cooking. Anyone can tell where you’ve screwed up, but that doesn’t mean they’d do it better themselves. Every other day I see some little kid whining at their mother in the supermarket, and I think, Can’t you just make him shut up? But then I realise, wow, if that’s my internal monologue, imagine how dangerous I would be in charge of an actual living human.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Andie sighed. ‘My mum asked me when I was going to start having kids, and I went, uhhhhhh! She says I’m getting old, look at the lines on my face, etcetera. Speaking of, Nick, it’s almost your birthday. What are you now – twenty-nine? Twenty-eight?’ She hesitated. ‘Are you seeing anyone?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ I quashed the impulse to make an excuse, as if I had something to apologise for. ‘It’s not that I’m against it, but I’m not actively looking. I mean, that could change. Everyone keeps telling me it will.’

  ‘I see.’

  I wanted to ask her about Benjamin but had a feeling that it wouldn’t go down well. I asked anyway. ‘How is Ben?’

  ‘Good,’ she said reflexively, and then flipped the conversation back to me. ‘So, how are you enjoying work?’

  ‘Not so bad – well, I’m a public servant. I don’t save anyone’s life but I don’t harm anybody, either. People at the office are friendly, and I can tell that they’re good people, but … all we talk about is politics, all day, every day. It gets really old.’ Only the other day there had been a supposedly groundbreaking interview with one of the Prime Minister’s former staffers. The staffer had said that the office was dysfunctional, that the Prime Minister used to throw sandwiches around the room and go on psycho rants when trivial things hadn’t been done to his satisfaction. It was just gossip, really, thinly dignified with a veneer of political relevance. ‘I wish I could do something like you. Some of what you do actually does save people’s lives. Or gives them years of meaningful life, instead of being hungry and sick all the time. That’s pretty –’ I hesitated – ‘pretty inspirational.’

  Andie smiled. ‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far,’ she said, but you could see from the way she glowed that she agreed with me. ‘We can’t help everybody, but we do what we can, which is often quite a lot. Although sometimes I think I get even more benefit out of it than they do. It’s an incredible privilege – I really feel very lucky to do what I do. And then I feel guilty, because it’s like I’m using my clients and not the other way round. I have to remind myself that no-one cares about my personal sacrifices - they care whether the work we do makes things better. And I believe that we accomplish that at Real Difference.’

  The ‘we’ made me uncomfortable. There was something evangelical about it. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s a school night, so I should probably head off. Thanks for the orange juice and the dinner and for inviting me to the debate.’

  Andie tilted her head quizzically. ‘That’s a weird verbal tic,’ she remarked. ‘Have you noticed how we always say “probably” when we actually mean “certainly”? I should “probably” go home now, we should “probably” turn left here. It’s like being certain about anything is kind of arrogant and unacceptable. Even if it’s something you have every right to be certain about.’

  ‘Hmm, well. That’s too deep for me.’ I followed her to the door. We hugged awkwardly, and I heard Ben moving around in the background. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ I said, detaching myself and moving towards the car.

  #

  What a boring person, you must be thinking. What a pathetic waste of a human being. Why doesn’t he say what he really thinks? Why doesn’t he move to change his life? To which I ask: have you never woken up and been unable to find pleasure in anything? Felt inside your emotional pockets, so to speak, and come up with nothing? Not that it’s painful to be like this – I suppose I should be grateful for that, at least. Nothing hurts; there’s just a general vagueness, interspersed with food and
the occasional physical stimulus. Ambition – what does that even mean? Friends, lovers, family – did you ever have them, or did you just dream them up? It’s not the fire that gets you, it’s the entropy. Heat flows from warm places to cooler ones; equilibrium reigns throughout the universe. Nobody’s happy, but no-one’s miserable, either.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Shortly after that I went to England for my little sister’s wedding. I had no interest in the ceremony, or indeed in my younger sister, who had been an annoyance and a puzzle to me for the whole of our respective lives. I thought that her ‘destination wedding’, expensively organised in London, was a peak in a pattern of vulgarity she had been working towards ever since she was a child. (I really did refer to it out loud as a ‘destination wedding’, and never without implied quote marks.) My sister was beautiful and accomplished, but insincere. She had dozens of hobbies – cross-stitch, coding, playing the viola – but she had never done anything where there wasn’t something in it for her, some eventual material reward. Nevertheless, she got everything she wanted: medals, money, and now a husband she had probably collected the way she used to pick up Pokémon cards, finding the rarest and best and then flaunting them in front of others, so what should have been a private pleasure was turned into yet another badge of her personal superiority. On the rare occasions she was thwarted, her rage would bubble forth in toxic spurts which scarred the flesh of anybody unfortunate enough to be near her.

  Her fiancé seemed nice enough, though. At first I disliked him on principle – anyone who would attach himself to my sister must have some hidden defect – but as time went on, I had to concede that there was nothing obviously wrong with him. Either my sister had tricked him somehow, or there was more to her than I gave her credit for. People can change, I know, even if our feelings for them don’t. A part of me hoped she would stay horrible forever so I wouldn’t have to put in the work of changing my attitude.