Odyssey In A Teacup (14 page)

‘Just slow your breathing down.’ Her voice was comforting. ‘Obviously this one’s not for you either.’

More clacking.

‘Is this one better?’ she asked wearily. Birds cheep-cheeped, wolves howled, possums revved like a malfunctioning chainsaw, owls hoo-hoo-hooed, frogs ribbited—
get off my llllily pad!—
and
sitars and flutes played along with them all.

Your taste in music is crap.
‘Yes, that’s fine.’

We were not off to a good start; Dee and I weren’t exactly harmonising. And it was about to get a whole lot worse.

I tried to tune out the forest babble, and focused instead on the squishy sound of oil being rubbed between her hands. Any reservations I’d had started to dissolve slowly with her long, powerful strokes along my back. And Dee did work methodically. She manipulated the lower region—calves and thighs—then softly, but firmly, kneaded her way north towards the shoulders. At times, it felt like she was using a small loofah. Because I’d never had a massage before, I assumed she was using some sort of exfoliating tool. I was reluctant to ask, though, because I didn’t want to aggravate her again. I wanted her to think well of me, so I allowed myself to slip into a dreamlike state. Dee’s magical hands moved down my left arm, circling the elbow once, twice. Her nimble fingers slid towards my palm and beyond, locating pinkie, then ringman, then tallman, and then …
fuck!
She was working pointer, and that tool was no loofah. It was a
wart
... on her thumbkin!

Slowing down my breathing this time wasn’t worth diddly-squat, as my mind hurtled back into the past and dredged up a distressing memory:

Primary school days, Adelaide. Grade two. His name was Dieter Baumschlager, an Austrian boy whose mother sent him to school every day in pale blue, knitted, goolie-hugging lederhosen. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Dieter Baumschlager had warts. No other kid in the class had been issued with them because he had them all! Three or four per finger, like free-living barnacles attached to his extremities and feeding off them (he must have started masturbating when he was a preschooler).

I remembered a particular incident quite clearly suspended in time. A school excursion, my class walking down Rowells Road. Mrs Russo, the teacher accompanying us, instructed us all to hold hands. The girls standing near Dieter baulked and deftly moved away, leaving me the one closest to him. Mrs Russo stared at me. I didn’t budge. Mrs Russo now gave me a dirty, filthy look (like Sylvia often did). I felt ashamed but was not prepared to buckle under the intensity of her disapproval.

If I was unlucky enough to get paired with Dieter on the days we had folk dancing at school, I managed to avoid holding his hand because I’d grab his shirt cuff, or his wrist if he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. There were always too many children in the yard for the teachers to notice. But this was a summer’s day and I was cornered. Still, I stared right back at Mrs Russo and defiantly folded my arms. She started tapping her foot (like Sylvia often did).

‘I said, hold hands!’ There was a menacing tone in her voice.

Only when Hell freezes over.

With all the courage a seven-year-old could muster, and now with arms akimbo, I refused point blank. I stood my ground. By God, I had moxie back then!

‘You’re a difficult child!’ said Mrs Russo. With that, she had found my Achilles heel (I had two feet, so I could have had two Achilles heels). She won. Shaken, I let Dieter take my hand. I was acutely aware of every little scratchy lump on his fingers. The experience traumatised me, and another phobia manifested: dermatosiophobia (fear of skin diseases and warts).

I was jolted back into the overdone pink present. Dee’s diseased thumb was now moving back up my arm, across my shoulders, and down towards my right hand. The outcrop seemed to have grown exponentially. I was being steamrolled by a wart and I was pissed! You should never have to pay to contract a virus, or even get one as a present! And if I’d celebrated my twenty-first birthday on my twenty-first or my twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, or even my twenty-sixth birthday, this wouldn’t be happening because none of these fell on a bloody Sunday!

I nosedived into another chilling flashback, fast-forward one year from that school excursion:

After that terrible day, I kept my distance from Dieter Baumschlager at all costs. But all those creative manoeuvres to avoid him had come to naught on the day I discovered three warts on the underside of my feet.

‘Verrucas!’ proclaimed Dr McGinty. Didn’t know what it meant, didn’t care. Verrucas weren’t warts, right? Dieter Baumschlager had warts. I had verrucas. Besides, they were on my feet, not my fingers. Dieter never touched my feet and I knew about hygiene. I used to scrub my hands with lots of soap and water straight after any contact with him. And there was no connection between my feet and my fingers, right?

‘Verrucas are warts on the sole of the foot, Ruth,’ Dr McGinty explained, kindly. ‘And yes, there is a connection. You know that song, “Dem Bones”?’ He was talking to me like I was an idiot. Sylvia laughed and the two of them broke into song—each one taking turns to sing and botch every line of it.

‘The toe bones join up with the metatarsals that connect with the ankle ones ... ’
♬

‘And then they connect with the thigh bones ... ’

‘The femur attaches to the rib bones ... ’

‘The rib bones connecting to the head bone ... ’

‘The cranial bones connect with the scapula, that connects with the ulna, and that then connects with the finger bones ...’
♬

Her cock-ups I could understand, but how the hell did he become a doctor if he couldn’t understand basic anatomy? They laughed heartily when they finished. If what they’d said (or sung) was right (even as it was all wrong), then it had taken one year from the point of contact—Baumschlager’s and my fingers—for the warts to work their way down through the network of bones to reach my feet. But what they’d said (or sung) was bullshit, because the spread of a virus has nothing to do with the way bones connect. An eight-year-old doesn’t know that, though. Surely, a forty-something doctor should. Who’s the idiot, then? He now took a serious tone:

‘She needs to soak the affected parts in a preparation of salicylic acid.’

I had a vision of the flesh of the sole eaten away by the solution, eventually exposing the metatarsals. I was crushed, overcome with a devastating sense of loss at the prospect of never being able to wear red jelly sandals.

‘ARE YOU OKAY?’ Dee was bellowing.

I felt disoriented. It took a while to register where I was. Caught between past and present, mouth dry with fear, I was hyperventilating again and sweating profusely.

‘Actually, I’m a little queasy. Are you nearly done?’

‘I think we can finish up now. Would you like a glass of water?’

What?
Wart-a?
Shit!
I was in a wart-centred state of mind, connected to it like dem bloody bones. Any attempt to disconnect was ... thwarted.
See!

‘Er, yes please.’

I sat up. She handed me a half-full glass as I gave her a glass half-full silent appraisal: disfigurement aside, Dee was a pretty redhead. Twenty-something, diminutive but relatively busty (probably a Dee-cup), nipples straining like a pair of peas against her tight, monogrammed T-shirt.

So that’s what the flake looks like
, she transmitted, but asked, ‘Well then, what have you got planned for the rest of the day?’

I’m doing laps in a vat of salicylic acid.
‘Um … nothing really.’

‘Good idea. Take your time now, don’t rush.’ Dee handed me a pink terry robe and then left the room.

In ten seconds flat, I’d donned the robe, grabbed my clothes and thongs, took five sizeable strides to get to the door, and ripped it open with such force, it didn’t have time to squeak. I lunged into the passage and nearly bowled Dee over. She looked like a Dee caught in headlights—‘Ooh’—but she quickly collected herself.

‘How are you feeling now?’

‘Er, like I could easily go to sleep.’
You have no idea how much fear can drain you.

She smiled smugly like as if her massage had had such a soothing effect: ‘It would be a good idea for you to have a warm shower now.’

No shit.

‘Or maybe hop into the spa.’

Oh yes, let’s spread the joy!
‘Good idea.’

‘See you again,’ she waved.

Uh-huh, let’s do lunch sometime. But not unless you get that wart cauterised!

I bolted for the bathroom.

The water cascading over my body was very hot. Hotter than your average frog could bear. I wasn’t about to jump out, though. I needed to reduce the viability of a potential virus. I scrubbed with a face cloth and used up half a little cake of hotel soap. It smelled like vanilla, but under the circumstances, who cared? I circled my stomach, then my chest, left shoulder, arm, palm, one finger, then another, and then ... what the
fuck
is that? A small, unfamiliar lump on pointer, left hand. Could it be?

Nooooooooooo!

I was screwed. With a separation in geography and time—two states and eighteen years since I last touched Dieter Baumschlager’s cursed fingers, he had finally got to mine ... through Dee. The wart himself was probably now wartless. The metallic taste of fear rose in my mouth. So many questions: was this a sign—one of the divine trumpetings before my personal doomsday (plague, maybe)? Did this mean that God was
not
chilling out on this Sunday? Did I have reason to fear my birthdays that fell on a Sunday? Was Dee Dieter’s sister?

CHAPTER NINE:
WIND BENEATH MY MINGE

‘Ruthie, breeeeeeeathe,’ Ralph said calmly.

I’d just finished relating the experience to my three friends, and was hyperventilating a little.

‘Show me the finger.’ Maxi grabbed it, examined it closely and dug her nail into the side of the lump.

‘Ouch!’ I pulled my hand away.

‘It was just a fluid blister.’

‘I feel bad,’ said Vette. ‘Some present, huh?’

‘No, no, no! Look. Thank you, guys. I actually do feel relaxed ... now that I know this is nothing,’ I said holding up my finger.

Ralph was staring at me, his brows drawn together in thoughtful contemplation. ‘You’ll be thirty.’

‘Huh? W-what are you talking about?’

‘Your next birthday that falls on a Sunday will be your thirtieth.’

‘Cool. You can stop stressing. For the next five years, at least,’ said Maxi.

‘Hmm ... I could do with a little de-stressing right now. I think I might book myself in for a massage.’ Obviously, Ralph was still preoccupied with my physical description of Dee.

‘Are you crazy? She’s got a wart on her that’s like another limb!’

‘I don’t have any problem with extra appendages, only missing ones.’ Still, Ralph shelved the idea. Sticking with swimming and sunbaking as a means of de-stressing was cheaper.

After having washed off the massage oil in the shower, I re-oiled with tanning lotion, and smelling like desiccated coconut, I stretched out on the sunlounger in between Vette and Ralph. I couldn’t completely relax, though. Pity I hadn’t been able to wash the memory of Baumschlager down the drain. I blamed him outright for my dermatosiophobia, but that
Scheißkerl
was also indirectly linked to the birth of yet another one of my obsessive fears.

‘Do you remember that bus incident with Baumschlager?’ I asked my friends.

Ralph and Vette snickered. Maxi said, ‘No.’ She looked at me blankly. Strange. We shared all our memorable experiences.

‘Grade seven. Twelve years old. Summer. Swimming lessons. You don’t remember me telling you about it?’

‘Er, vaguely. Must have been the summer I was away with the fam. Anyway, remind me.’

So I did.

It was sports day. During summer, sports day entailed compulsory swimming lessons for all upper primary school children. Each Thursday morning, we were bussed to Henley Beach Public Pool for our lesson. At the end of one of these, I was in the change room with all the other girls. We were getting out of our wet bathers and back into our uniforms, but I couldn’t find my underpants. I distinctly remembered rolling them up and putting them in my bag when I changed into my swimmers, so clearly, someone had taken them. Who the hell steals someone else’s underpants? Dowdy, grey, school regulation bloomers at that. The three upper primary teachers who accompanied us that day were male, so I wasn’t about to approach them to find out if there was a lost property box at the pool.

‘Nope, no lost property box. Why? What have you lost?’

‘My underpants.’

‘What colour are they?’

‘Grey.’

‘HAS ANYONE SEEN A PAIR OF GREY UNDIES FLOATING AROUND?’

Even as only an imagined exchanged, it was too terrible to contemplate. I was upset and agitated, which might have been why it never occurred to me just to slip my bathers back on and put my uniform over the top. Hard to think rationally when you’re bummed out. Sharon Wilson, one of the girls in my class, noticed I was near tears.