For Everyone Concerned (6 page)

Before we had our own child, I had a sort of fantasy of adopting these two kids from down the street— brother and sister. They’d pass by our window, the father walking ten feet in front of them, yelling abuse, not even bothering to turn his head, just shouting stuff into the air. You never saw this guy with anything but the foulest look on his face. What sweet kids, maybe six and seven years old. The obvious thing here is that they weren’t eligible for adoption. The fantasy was very dodgy, I know. But their foul father required something. We’d say hello to the kids and they’d say hello.

That was three years ago. The brother is now nine or ten, puts product in his hair. I’ve got to go out again and tell him to stop throwing rocks over the roofs of
the parked cars. You can see the marks in his hair from the comb. He’s standing on top of a pile of dirt, chucking rocks. How many times do I have to tell him! Clods of earth and stones are all over the bonnets of the cars. I didn’t do that, he says. That wasn’t me. Who was it then? That was my sister.

Next day he’s back on the pile, chucking rocks. His sister is with him, dirt in her hands. The pile of dirt is from where our neighbour dug out his basement to create a new bedroom. He’s dumped it on the street, waiting for removal by a contractor who never shows up. Who did it this time? I say to the kids. Now get off there and go home or I’ll tell your parents.

There’s a crying child in the restaurant. The gay man I’m eating with has no patience with the child or the mother, who’s holding the child on her knee while trying to eat. She’s not with anyone else—just the child, who continues to cry. The mother is hunched over her plate, trying to scoop up her dinner as fast as she can. This is a meal she has to pay for and she wants to finish it. My companion drops his fork against his plate in protest. Just ignore it, I say. What’s the big deal? I’m trying to have a nice dinner, he says. It’s only a kid crying, just tune it out. Tune it out how? You can tune that out? Yes, I say. I’m lying. The meal is ruined—but only by my companion’s attitude. Is it because he’s gay he has less tolerance? But then there’s
the guy at the next table—sixties, hard to imagine him in bed with another man—who says in a loud voice directed at the mother, I’d have been knocked from here to kingdom come. I’d be
dead
by now.

Our neighbour hasn’t put curtains in his new bedroom, though he’s moved in down there. The walls are lined but the place still smells of clay. Sometimes at night, when I’m taking the recycling down, or carrying a tool up from the basement, sometimes I just want to be out of the house for a moment—everyone steps into the night, don’t say it’s just men hiding from the mothers of their children screaming in their baths, soap in their eyes—I see his girlfriend laying out her clothes on their bed for the next day’s work. It’s very exciting. Her—what is it—thoughtfulness? The composing— the blouse, the skirt. She is already wearing her white dressing-gown. She puts a version of herself down on the bed, looks at it, then changes the blouse or the skirt.

Once she told us, when our child was about to be born, she couldn’t imagine something growing inside her. ‘I’d feel too
full
.’

My father smacked us. I remember curling under a shrub at the side of our house and crying. He lies down on the floor and our daughter tells him she wants to look in his mouth. ‘It’s all right,’ she says, ‘you’ve been
a good girl.’ He cries out because she’s kneeling on his chest.

When he knows she’s coming to visit, he shaves. He combs his hair! His combs were always dirty— who would clean a comb? He used to chase my sister around the dining-table after she’d wound him up, the noise so great—her screams and his thunder—you could shout with joy and not be heard.

I used to go to a dentist who believed, wrongly I think, that his profession should make use of the so-called fifth wall. This is the wall that comes into view as one is lowered, always disconcertingly, into the not-quite-lying position in the dentist’s chair. Outside this profession we understand this wall to be, in fact, the ceiling. But since we are staring at it, the space provides a viewing area and therefore things can be stuck on it.

Personally I’ve never thought this was a good idea since any potential calming effect is quickly cancelled by the certain knowledge that the ceiling is a very odd place to stick pictures; the world we feel is not occurring in the usual places, and with my mouth full of someone else’s hands, this seems hardly a useful distraction. This illustrated ‘sky’ also has an unpleasant
side effect in that it can make you feel as though the ceiling is coming closer to you. Surely when I went into the dentist’s, you think to yourself, I only had the one terror and now I find I have several.

At first there were pictures from magazines: the Swiss Alps, a beach at sunset, an English meadow with horses. Later these were replaced by my dentist’s holiday snapshots: the Swiss Alps with my dentist in the foreground; my dentist at the beach; my dentist’s children riding horses or generally having a great time.

Now my ex-dentist was a nice man, and a skilled professional. And when one looked, from the not-quite-lying position, at these images on the fifth wall of his surgery, one was witnessing an effort at rapport. Also the provision of conversation starters. Had I been to the Alps? Had I ever been sunburnt? My dentist on holiday was proof of a life rather than just a set of fingers, or a close-up pair of eyes over the mask. He was sharing—his ceiling was a horizontal intimacy. Admirable—and yes, a bit galling and hard to take. Not just because I had paid for these holidays. I had a sudden nostalgia for the magazine photos.

In the end, you see, I could do nothing with the life up there. Indeed these harmless holiday snapshots were curiously bullying. I resented not just my placement but theirs as well.

I should say that he is not my ex-dentist because of
what he put on his walls. He was also—and remains so—my ex-wife’s dentist—the only dentist she’s ever trusted, she said. Shortly after we split up I remember getting a reminder notice from the dentist. I thought, here’s my chance to leave him. I’d been thinking for a while about leaving him, with the pictures and everything. He was a first-rate dentist though and whenever I complained about the pictures my wife had always said, where would you go? Who could you find who’d be as good as him? Just close your eyes next time. Close my eyes? The thought was terrifying. Don’t be a baby, she told me. I phoned the dentist and cancelled. And though his receptionist didn’t ask me for a reason, I said I was going overseas. I’d call when I was back.

Last time I went to that dentist—maybe a year later—I took my daughter for a check-up and there was now a TV above the chair. No pictures on the ceiling. We watched the reality show
Divorce Court
. Cue heavy irony.

You can change channels if you like, said my exdentist.

He was speaking to my daughter who couldn’t speak at that moment. Her mouth was full of his stuff. She made some sort of noise whose meaning was impossible to work out. I was standing behind the chair, holding her schoolbag.

The judge was there to make everyone laugh. I’m
tall and I had to bend slightly to see the tilted screen. The volume was turned low. Really you could only hear it when the litigants started shouting at each other.

Your new girlfriend is a vegetarian, which means you’re sort of one too, for a laugh. She’s Jewish too though this isn’t as significant as the vegetarianism—to your daily life at least, its patterns. You eat new food. You go without refined sugars for a day, two days. You go places you’ve never been before to eat organic produce and drink healthy shakes. She says, you don’t have to follow my way. I know, I know, you say. But it’s fun.

Give it a couple of weeks, you think, and you’ll knock it on the head.

She gives you a ceramic bowl for your birthday. The following week she puts fruit in it. You kind of like this. She says, I don’t mind if you eat steak in front of me or whatever. Watch me, you say, I’ll slaughter
a cow. But somehow you never do eat steak in front of her.

Your new girlfriend works as a gardener in the Botanic Gardens. On every day of the year she wears brown shorts and boots to work. She can name trees. She diagnoses the problem with the cactus you keep on your windowsill. Technically, she says, it’s dead.

I don’t want to take over your life, she says. You’re not, you say. But secretly you feel she is taking over your life and that you may want her to take over your life. This has never happened before. What’s so great about being in charge of your own life anyway?

Every lunchtime you meet her by the Begonia House, then you sit with her in the Rose Garden. You ask her the names of the roses and they go in one ear and out the other because all you’re watching is her mouth opening and closing. You’re not listening to a word I say, she says. Kiss me, you say.

Christmas is approaching, and you hear yourself asking your girlfriend if she’d like to come to your family’s place for Christmas dinner. She says she’d love it, she’s been dying to meet your family. The whole Jewish question around Christmas is something you’ve forgotten about. I’ll bring something, she says.

No, no, you say, you don’t have to bring anything. And I should warn you my family are very traditional. It’s always turkey. My father always carves.

On Christmas Day, you pick up your girlfriend
and she’s carrying a chilly bin. You ask her what’s inside but she won’t say.

Your girlfriend walks around your mother’s garden and they talk about plants. What a person this is, says your mother. I just want to pick her brain.

You’ve got a beautiful garden, says your girlfriend.

When you sit down to eat, your girlfriend goes to the fridge and brings over a large platter which she sets down in the middle of the table. It’s a whole salmon. Jewish? you wonder stupidly.

Beautiful, says your mother.

Wowee, says your father.

Where’s the turkey? you say.

Oh well, says your mother, we talked about that and with this amazing offer of the salmon, we thought, we always have turkey. Time for a change.

Your father nudges your elbow with his plate. Pass it along, he says, I’m starving.

Your girlfriend—she has great curly hair—stands at the head of the table and with the flat of a knife gently opens the fish. It is orangey pink. All at once you’re thinking of this: how with the fingers of one hand she holds open the lips of her vagina so you can munch in. Jewish girls! Why did no one tell you before. Next image: you think there’s a rose of this same colour. But of course you’ve forgotten its name. There is a rose exactly like this and the only person in
the room who knows its name is serving your father his Christmas fish.

Then you have it. You do remember. And you say it.

Your girlfriend turns to you and smiles.

And you think in wonder, you are living for the approval of this person. This person has this power. It is Christmas and it is remarkable.

And when she leaves you—that green-fingered, fishy princess—do you think I’ll have you back? Do you?

I was at work with my friend Alamein. We were on the front desk, wearing headsets. On the counter there was a jar of lollipops where once had stood a bowl of jellybeans, victim of a health and safety review. At this point there’s probably no need to say we work for the government.

I got a call. It was my aunty saying my uncle was coming home soon. My uncle was in the army. He never fought anyone. He was an observer. It was too dangerous to observe any more so he was coming home. Great news, Aunty, I said. Because I worked in phones, people thought they could ring me any time—and they could. I didn’t mind. I was on the Internet too, so they’d ring me and say, What’s the other ingredient in a Bloody Mary? I’d look it up and
say, Tabasco sauce or whatever. Took seven seconds. Alamein was the same. We’re public servants, aren’t we? she’d say. We serve.

Then my aunty burst into tears on the phone. She said, What if he doesn’t get out in time? They could drop bombs tomorrow, they could be dropping bombs right now, they don’t care that some silly old man is observing them. I said, calm down Aunty, nothing’s going to happen to him, he’s coming home.

My friend Alamein opened the newspaper on the desk and it said, WORLD ON BRINK, and there was a picture of soldiers, much younger than my uncle, marching in the desert.

Great timing.

When I got off the phone, I told Alamein about my aunty and my uncle. She said her grandfather had been in the war. Terrible. He had blackouts and lay in bed for weeks and everyone had to creep around and not make a noise. If you dropped something, he jumped out of his skin.

What war was this? I said.

Two, said Alamein.

Uncle is just an observer, I said.

Alamein shrugged. They’ll get him home, she said.

Sometimes Alamein, I thought, had a devastating way of ‘going through the motions’. It’d happened before that she thought I dwelled on the negative.
Then she turned over the page of the newspaper. There was a big ad for a new takeaway place just across the road from our work. Even the people behind the counter wore white gumboots and hairnets. We’d been talking about going but we hadn’t. Today’s special was oysters.

Oysters, said Alamein.

I’m afraid I was still resenting the change in topic. Had enough attention really been paid to my uncle? Often at such moments a call came in and that would deflect my feelings. Nothing came in. I was thinking about phoning my aunty then. I would drive her to the airport or wherever and we’d welcome my uncle back home. Maybe it would occur in a big hangar somewhere. And the Prime Minister would speak and there’d be tears, soldiers’ tears. I thought of saying this to Alamein but she was showing me the paper again.

Seen this? she said.

I nodded.

Bit pricey, said Alamein. Been another bad season.

Then one of the IT guys from the seventh floor walked past carrying a paper bag with the logo of the new place on it. What’s in the bag? said Alamein.

Fish fingers, he said.

Fish fingers? I said. You can get them there?

Sure, he said. They do them for you if you ask.

Oh, I love fish fingers, said Alamein. I put them in for the kids and I always eat a couple. Can’t resist.

You think? I said.

Yeah! said Alamein. What’s wrong with them?

Fish fingers? I said.

What’s your problem?

Nothing, I said. But what’s in them, is my question.

What’s in them? said the IT guy. He pulled one out and bit on it.

I said, What I heard is they sweep up the floor at the end of each day and that’s what’s in them.

Believe that? said Alamein.

I don’t know, I said.

That’s just some story.

Read the thing on the box, I said. Even what they admit to putting in them. They’re not that healthy.

Whack some T sauce on them, they’re all right! said Alamein.

I looked at the telephones, praying for a call, something. World on Brink. I didn’t want to fight with my friend. She’d been a great friend to me.

All that sugar and salt, I said.

Yeah, I’m sure they’ll put me in prison soon.

The IT guy was standing in front of us, eating.

Well what’s in them? said Alamein accusingly to the IT guy. If we’re going to the horse’s mouth, which is what you are.

He was chewing, smiling. What’s in them? he said.

Exactly, said Alamein. We’re waiting here.

Comfort, he said. That’s what’s in them. And as he walked off, he gave us a little salute with his fish finger. Good natured? Who knew? IT was a different world naturally.

Alamein turned away from me. She took two lollipops from the jar and put them in her bag. She had a couple of kids in after-school care.

Suddenly I knew what I had to do. Obvious. I had to get the oysters for us. I had to walk across the road and get the oysters. Of course they were pricey but it’d be worth it. A day like today, it’d be worth it.

Then we both got calls, bang, at the same time. We spoke into our headsets in those strange voices we’d been trained in. Good morning, I said, though maybe it was already afternoon.