Slights (15 page)

  Maria had asked me not to attend the courses any more. She thought I was a distraction, that I upset people unnecessarily, but I said, "Maria, have you seen these people? They get upset if the bus comes three minutes late."

  Anyway, my counsellor said I should go to the courses. To see the fruits of my labour, even though Maria can't accept I had anything to do with it.

  I was locked (not locked) in amongst people who were scared of their past. I laughed at them then. I was fearless. Now I dream of having just one of them as a friend.

This is what should have happened:

  The person sitting next to me and I became firm friends.

  This is what did happen:

  Peter started out by saying quietly, "Is there anyone here who has painful memories of a past they can do little about?"

  One hand, then two, five, ten, then all of the fucking losers waved their arms.

  "Yeah!" they said. Solidarity. That's what they thought they had. That's what Peter had given them.

  He laughed. He was always good at faking a laugh.

  He said, "Perhaps I should rephrase the question. Who does
not
have painful memories of a past they can do little about?"

  Silence. No hands. The whole audience laughed, smiled at each other. I had been tempted to confess to only happy memories, but Peter knew the things of my life.

  He waited until they were quiet. He didn't shush them, raise his arms, anything.

  "The operative part of my question is, 'can do little about'. I think you know why."

  I was thinking, I didn't pay $500 to tell you your job.

  He said, "Because you can't do anything about the things you can't do anything about."

  There were a few laughs, but then a slide appeared with those very words.

  They chanted, led by Peter: "Yo
u can't do anything
about the things you can't do anything about!"

  Their shoulders twitched; it was clear they wanted to dance.

  Peter's face reddened and sweat dripped from his forehead.

  They loved it, loved his passion. He raised his arms and the chanting faded.

  He said, "You can't change it, let's scream it out, LET IT GO!"

  They all screamed, howled, shouted. The thunder of it shook my bones.

  I screamed the loudest, and Peter finally noticed me. He looked shocked, as if he was expecting me to ruin something. He leaned over and muttered to Maria, who looked up from her book. She found his seminars boring; she had heard them a hundred times.

  She rose from her chair; I sat down to avoid her look.

  They shouted out their shit, terrible stories. From behind me, a blackboard screech.

  "I was eight. I was fat. My mother said I was too fat. She said I was too fat to go to school. She made me stay home. She fed me dry toast for one week. I didn't get thin. She tried to cut some fat off but I only bled. I bled until I was sick."

  I tried to see the man talking. I guessed it was a man; it was hard to tell from the voice. They all had their mouths open, though. From the other side of the room, an orator's shout: "Can't say can't say can't say. Dark very dark bad smell can't say can't say don't tell broken nose no smell."

  Peter raised his hands. They stopped screaming. They all sat down so quickly I was left standing, I was seen. I sat down.

  "Look at the ceiling," he said. They looked. "Does it look darker to you? Dirty?"

  None of them had noticed it before, but still the voices said, "It is darker!"

  Peter said gently, "I think we've sent a lot of bad history away today."

  Then the doors were opened (and no one noticed they didn't need to be unlocked, I'm sure. They were too busy hyperventilating). I got out early and took a seat near the door to watch them come out. It was the satisfaction I couldn't understand. They came out, unselfconsciously beaming, unembarrassed about their shouting behaviour inside. And there I was, no longer incognito, caught by surprise.

  There were always people hanging around till the last minute, asking questions, wanting just a bit more for their money.

  These people who worship Peter think he's got some divine knowledge. They don't know the secrets I know. When he talks about "The Importance of Difference," he's not talking about race, colour, size, sex, though it works that way as well. He's talking about his odd feet. All those times a fuss was made, all that teasing.

  No one knows about his feet, apart from those of us close to him. He has shoes specially made, so his feet look perfect, just large enough so people think he's got a big dick. But take a look at his nose. Like a pretty little button.

  We had a special man to make his shoes. Sandy Boyle, the shoe man, who'd shown up at Mum's funeral, who cried at the mention of my name.

  I was eleven or twelve when we went with Mum shopping to buy school shoes and it must have been January. Hot, and I was bored, once I had my shoes. Peter always took longer because of having one foot bigger than the other.

  We ended up at a speciality shoe shop, where there were no interesting shoes but they swore to fit all sorts of feet.

  The shop was dark, its window filled with old shoes no one dusted and no one would buy. We had driven a long way to this shop, and Mum was determined Peter would not leave unshod.

  Sandy Boyle loved a challenge, and he and Mum talked non-stop and I was ignored, as he brought out shoe after shoe. I was already wearing my new ones; we found them at the discount shoe place. Every year was the same; my shoes, cheap, we found in the first shop, then Peter's shoes we'd find at about the hundredth shop. This was our first year at this special shop. An assistant in the department store we went to said she used to work there, that the shoes were good but the boss terrible.

  "I had to leave," she said, leaning close to Mum, "because he used to try things. He had ideas."

  On the way there I asked Mum what ideas were, thinking they sounded interesting. She wouldn't tell me, and it wasn't until I was an adult I realised what that shop assistant had meant. Because I could remember her, very clearly. I thought she was the most sophisticated, mature woman I'd met, and I'd practise saying, "He had ideas," in the mirror for the day I could use it myself. Years later, flicking through a gossip mag I found in a box under an exhousemate's bed (sometimes they leave so quickly I inherit booty) I saw her face. She had married a lawyer, someone I'd heard of. I saw her face and stared for minutes, some internal scanner flicking, flicking. There she was; the girl who sent us to the place where Mum would meet the second man of her dreams.

  Sandy Boyle sold Mum some shoes, too. He was one of those ones who touch your feet when they put your shoes on. I thought he looked silly. His shoulders were stooped and he was very pale. I thought he must stay in the shop the whole time, never leave.

  Peter fell asleep, sitting up with his shoes on, while Mum and the shoe man began to talk about food or something.

  Both of them kept saying, "Oh, really, so do I." I touched everything in the shop. There were not many shoes on display; it was part of the speciality that they had to go behind and get your shoes.

  I took off my new school shoes, which Mum let me wear only inside the shops, and replaced them with a pair which looked like clown shoes, they were so big. I shuffled about the room.

  There was a small table with some grey sandals and a sign saying "SALE". The ink on the sign was pale, like invisible writing. I wrote "Poo," in the dust on the sign. There were shoe laces, long and short, brown and black. I swapped them all around so that the lines were all in a pattern. One long brown, one long black, one short brown, one short black. I opened some packs and tied lots of little bows in clumps of hair, to make myself look like a porcupine.

  It took ages, but Mum and the shoe man were still talking. She didn't like being at home as much as Dad used to.

  I had a look at all the different colours of the polish. I liked tan the best, because it made me feel like an American Indian when I striped it on my face.

  "Oh, well, we've taken up enough of your time," Mum said.

  "Oh, no, not at all. Part of the service." They laughed even though there was no joke.

  "Hardeharhar," I said. It was something I'd heard the older kids say and I knew it was very rude.

  Mum and the shoe man stared at me. His mouth was open; I stuck my tongue out at him. Mum said, "Right, let's go. Someone isn't mature enough to behave herself when she's out." She said to him, "I think she's having a problem becoming an adult. I'm hoping high school will snap her out of it." I started snapping my fingers in their faces. It angered me she couldn't tell I was acting, but that spoke good reviews about my ability.

  Peter was roused and he said, "What're you supposed to be? A fancy dress party?"

  "If I'm a fancy dress party, you must be little lunch," I said. The shoe man held the door open.

  "Out," Mum said. I slid along in my shoe boats, made it all the way to the car when the shoe man came running after.

  "I believe these are yours," he said, and Mum and he laughed again. He took away my big shoes and held my feet to put on my school shoes. Peter and I were strapped in and had to wait while Mum and Sandy Boyle talked even more.

  I knew just what to say to get out of trouble as Mum drove home.

  "He was a nice man, wasn't he, Mum?" I said. Peter snorted. Mum looked at me in the rear view mirror.

  "Yes, he was rather, wasn't he? Did you really like him?"

  "Oh, yes," I said. "He was lovely," and we stopped to buy pizza for tea.

  On Auntie Ruth's birthday, which is in June, the shoe man showed up at the restaurant.

  "This is Sandy Boyle, the one I've been telling you about," Mum said to Auntie Ruth. We had been staying at Auntie Ruth's more, lately. We didn't know about Sandy Boyle. I said, "That's the man who gets ideas." Peter snorted. "You're an idiot, Steve."

  "No, it's the man from the spastic shoe shop where you have to get your shoes." He thumped my thigh under the table, I thumped back, he pinched me and I said, "Mum, he pinched me."

  "Stop it, Peter," Mum said.

  "You own a shoe shop, I hear," said Auntie Ruth.

  "Oh, no, I just work there," he said. He turned to me, then. "You've got a good memory for faces, Steve."

  I said, "I always remember a face which looks like a bum." Only Peter heard, and he couldn't stop snorting the rest of the night. But it was a phrase I never forgot. A good memory for faces. If I saw someone standing at a street light, I could recognise them later at the supermarket. I saw lots of familiar faces and I could often pin them down: a kid from a younger class, someone at the pictures, a mother who picked her kid up, someone who nearly tripped. If I saw them again I knew where I'd seen them first.

  My feet have never been as comfortable as they were the year Sandy Boyle was with us. He bought shoes from the shop for me as well as Peter, so we missed that dreadful shopping experience. If I were Mum, I would have been very bored with him.

  As the months closed, he began to think he was required to discipline us; he was a foolish man.

  I was making quicksand at the back step one afternoon. It was warm. I had taken my dress off, because it constricted my movement and because I knew Mum would be pleased if I didn't get it dirty.

  I squatted in my undies and singlet, digging, filling the hole with water and dirt, massaging the lot to make it dangerous. I thought the sun had gone behind a cloud, though the day was hot and cloudless. I tutted at the shadow, ignored it, then glanced at the sky when it didn't pass over.

  "Don't you think you're a little old for playing in the mud?" It was Sandy Boyle, standing behind me, blocking my sun.

  He was very hard to upset. I'd scuff my shoes, kick them off without undoing the laces; he'd just tell me I was hurting a piece of art.

  "Don't you think you should shut up?" I said.

  He sat down on the back step to talk. He gave me a little compass as a bribe. I threw it up the back.

  "Stevie, you have to accept the fact that you're growing up. Your body will be changing in the next year or so. You shouldn't be parading around the yard in your underwear."

  I had mud up to my elbows; my legs were covered with it. My singlet was loose and my underpants had nearly lost their elastic.

  "You shouldn't be staring at me, then," I said. He reddened. He continually made the same mistake; because I acted like a child, he assumed I was childish. He forgot how adult my brain was. And he didn't know about Eve, my garden lady. No one really knew about her.

  "Trying to see if I've got boozies yet? Well, I haven't, see?" I lifted up my singlet, showed him my chest. When I lowered my arms he was gone.

  Mum and he had sex that night. I went into Peter's room and we got the giggles, listening to his grunting, his whimpering. Peter told me a terrible story he'd heard at school, about a man who had sex and got dirty, and had to have a spiky umbrella inflated in his penis and dragged out, and it dragged out all the stuff inside so there was only skin left.

  "Mum isn't dirty, though," he said, and we nodded.

  I fell asleep in Peter's bed, and that's where Sandy Boyle found us in the morning, when he came to perform his little task, wake the kids for school.

  He threw the covers back, waking us with a jolt. I had been dreaming about swimming in a nice warm pool and suddenly the water turned cold.

  "Get lost," Peter said, and reached for the covers.

  "This is a disgrace. A disgrace!"

  We giggled at him; he couldn't shout without his voice shaking and spittle flying.