The White Guinea Pig

by Ursula Dubosarksy

  ‘I’d better be going then,’ suggested Simon.

  ‘Well, yes,’ agreed Violetta. ‘I suppose Ezra will be wondering where you are.’

  Still carrying her plate of cold pizza, she saw him out the door. If she had stayed to see him out the gate, she would have noticed, and been rather puzzled, that Simon did not proceed to Ezra’s house, but headed straight up the road in the direction of the bus-stop.

  But Violetta was too hungry to wait. She took her pizza into her bedroom and lay down in bed, wrapping herself up in her orange floral sheets like a baby in tight swaddling.

  14 · Discovery

  The Sunday morning of the party, Ezra was up early. As he poured himself some muesli for breakfast (the toasted, very sweet kind that was like eating a bowl of crushed up Anzac biscuits with milk), he looked out over the garden next door in surprise. There were people out there; strangers, warmly dressed, marching about and setting up tables and chairs. Geraldine’s party, of course.

  Strange, to have a party when her father was going bankrupt, and worse by what he had read in a thin, grey column in the dull financial pages of the Saturday paper. He hardly understood what he read, but he recognised the name of Geraldine’s father and that it was bad. It wasn’t just that he had gone bankrupt, it was worse. He had broken the law. He was in league with criminals. He had stolen money. There would be a court case.

  Ezra walked out the back door in his socks with his bowl of cereal and sat on a picnic bench on the porch and stared over the fence. Geraldine’s backyard was big; twice as big as his, just as her house was twice as big. He supposed it would sell for a lot of money, and then her father would be rich again and pay back all the money he had stolen. Who had he stolen it from? It was not at all clear. It seemed to be from buildings rather than people. How do you steal money from a building? Could a building own money?

  Money was something of a mystery to Ezra. It seemed to him that once you started getting rich, all it did was cause you trouble and get your name in the newspaper, like in ancient Greece, or was it Rome, when notorious citizens were ostracised, and had their names put up in public places and were sent away from the city for years and years and years. His own parents never talked much about money. Not that sort of money. They might mention that the price of milk had gone up, or how much did Ezra need for his textbooks. Perhaps, thought Ezra, you only found money interesting if you had a lot. Otherwise, really, it was rather dull …

  ‘Hey! What’s this?’

  One of the women lugging the tables around was bending over Geraldine’s guinea-pig cage, peering at the blue blanket.

  ‘Rabbits?’ said a man with a pile of chairs on his shoulders. He plonked them down on the dew-wet grass and came over to the cage. He pushed the wire slightly with his boot, to see if there was life inside, and one of the pigs—Milly?—poked out her moist trembling nose and squealed.

  ‘Guinea-pigs,’ he said. ‘Give me a hand, and we can move them over to that corner.’

  Just then, Geraldine emerged from the back door in her dressing-gown and moccasins, and scurried over to them. ‘I’ll move them!’ she said, anxiously. ‘Sorry!’

  ‘That’s all right,’ replied the woman, looking at Geraldine kindly. She had huge dark pink cheeks and Ezra couldn’t help thinking again how very yellow Geraldine was, as he held the cereal bowl to his lips and drained the last sweet drops of milk. The pink-cheeked woman helped Geraldine shift the cage over to the far back corner of the yard.

  ‘Did we wake you?’ asked the woman. ‘You better go inside, you’ll catch cold dressed like that out here.’

  Geraldine said nothing, but pulled from her dressing-gown pocket some pieces of carrot and brown-edged, slimy lettuce, and put them inside the cage. From her other pocket she emptied a cascade of guinea-pig pellets. Geraldine shivered, the wet ground soaking her slippers. Her toes were so cold, it almost hurt to move them. She should go inside.

  Ezra watched her, but she did not see him, not even look his way. Who would move in after they’d gone, he wondered. Was it possible that he would miss Geraldine? You got used to things, even things you didn’t particularly like. Like a battered old car they’d had once; it was always breaking down and making his mother cry at traffic lights. Now when she saw the same model pass them on the street, she would sigh sentimentally and say to Ezra, ‘Remember that terrible old car we had?’ Perhaps in time he would come to feel this about strange, freckled, yellowing Geraldine.

  ‘Um, Ezra?’ He started and raised his head quickly from his father’s cactus garden, which he had been staring at while he thought. It was Violetta, very warmly dressed, perhaps even overdressed, in what appeared to be purple ski clothes. She was not wearing her glasses, but still managed to look preoccupied.

  ‘Gerry told me she’d invited you to the party today.’

  Ezra nodded. ‘Well, my parents, but I suppose she meant me as well.’

  ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘I guess so,’ he replied cautiously. Violetta seemed anxious, and other people’s anxiety always made him suspicious.

  ‘Oh, great!’ Violetta beamed in relief. ‘Because, you see …’ She sounded embarrassed. Ezra waited. ‘Well, I invited Simon and his aunts, you see, and I was worried they wouldn’t know anyone, you know, to talk to.’

  ‘Simon and his aunts,’ repeated Ezra in amazement.

  ‘But if you and your parents are going to be there, well, that’s all right then. You’re all friends, after all.’

  ‘Well, colleagues, really,’ began Ezra, fearing rightly that the word ‘friend’ in this instance might have unfortunate consequences. But Violetta had disappeared down the side, leaving only the squeaking sound of her ski clothes rubbing against their various surfaces as a reply.

  Should he tell his father about the aunts? Definitely not, Ezra decided. Then he might very well refuse to go to the party, leaving it to Ezra and his mother, while he enjoyed an afternoon dozing in front of Paint Your Wagon.

  But Ezra had little idea of the forces of curiosity that drew adults to each other at times of scandal and crisis. Nothing, almost, could have made Ezra’s father stay at home that afternoon, not even the prospect of Simon’s relentlessly humane aunts.

  Violetta, skipping out the front gate, did not notice the grey car that had been parked outside her house next to the caterer’s van. Thank heavens for Ezra and his parents, she thought. She dashed up the street towards the shops on the next corner block.

  She needed a pack of cards. Because she realised that all of their playing cards were packed away in that mysterious warehouse, and how would she ever get Marcus and Simon’s aunts playing gin rummy without them?

  The newsagent, she hoped, would have cards. That was the sort of useful emergency item you might expect to find in a newsagent, along with tubes of coloured glitter and tin boxes of fishhooks. They would have a pack, tightly wadded in plastic, made in China with a coloured picture of a fox-hunt on the back.

  But she never got in the front door to find out. Because outside the shop lay a pile of yesterday’s papers, waiting to be collected or thrown away. The various lobes of the thick Saturday paper had become confused, and on the top of the pile sat the fierce financial section, without photographs, cartoons or even advertisements to lighten the weight of the type. As Violetta stepped up to go inside, her eyes fell down on the page, for no reason other than they had to look somewhere. But it was long enough for her to see it.

  She saw her own surname, in the black letter of the narrow headline. If you see your own name, it’s natural to take an interest, even if it can have nothing to do with you. So Violetta stopped.

  And she read the words, her fingertips trembling.

  15 · The Party

  The guests began arriving at about half-past twelve. Geraldine was in her room. She peered out her window at them, hiding. Her father was booming away as people arrived, welc
oming, kissing, grabbing hands between two of his. Geraldine had noticed before how noisy her parents’ friends were. They had deep, intrusive voices that reached into every crevice of the house. Even saying hello, they shouted.

  People say children’s parties are noisy, but in Geraldine’s experience, children had nothing on her parents’ friends. Children arriving at parties she had been to were usually too intimidated even to say happy birthday, but disappeared into the garden soundlessly as snakes. They yelled and screamed later on, of course, but at least when the food appeared they became silent again, like babies sucking at the breast. Whereas food and drink only seemed to pep adults up.

  She wondered what her guinea-pigs would make of all this activity. Would they be scared, like dogs on fireworks night? And what about Alberta, if she was still alive, that is. Lurking in some deep, deep, dark burrow, where her pink eyes shone and she rolled herself up in a ball, chewing on a delicious vegetable salvaged from a garbage can, pausing to belch from time to time in general self-satisfaction. It really didn’t bear thinking about.

  Her mother was out the back with the caterers. Last time Geraldine looked, the long tables had been laid with blue and white tablecloths with hard papery corners, and food, plates and plates of food spread about on top. Vegetables, bowls of green and white dip and odd-shaped crackers, rolls of red meat with toothpicks through them, huge olives like plums, mussels on biscuits, caviar, little bits of scrambled egg on tiny pieces of toast, like something for a doll’s tea-party.

  And there was more food waiting in the kitchen. Hot dishes in great big pots, bread buttered and sprinkled with herbs. Not to mention the cakes. Flans with glazed fruit, cheesecakes with glazed fruit, and just plain glazed fruit. How many people were going to come? It seemed an incredible bounty, like something out of a fairy-tale.

  Only once before had her parents had a party with a caterer like this. It was years ago, something to do with a business triumph of her father. She remembered how much food had been left over, how she and Violetta had crept out after everyone had gone and their parents were in bed, and attacked the scraps (well, you could hardly call such delicious, thick remains ‘scraps’) with their bare fingers.

  There had been something magical about that food: enchanted, colourful and aromatic. Would it turn them into toads or statues? Would it make them dissatisfied with everything else they ate afterwards? Of course, none of these things happened. The next morning they simply felt sick from too full, too small stomachs. But Geraldine had not forgotten it, and the sight and smells of this feast reminded her again, and made her nauseous.

  She heard Violetta leave her room and go down to the corridor to the toilet. Why wasn’t she out the back with the guests? Violetta liked parties; she could always think of things to say to adults. She was so polite, she had the most well-mannered laugh and people inevitably liked her and thought her charming. That Violetta found being charming something of a perpetual strain never entered Geraldine’s head, and this was a tribute to Violetta’s gift, really, that she appeared to be enjoying herself when secretly she wasn’t at all.

  But Violetta, after washing her hands, went straight back to her room, shutting the door quickly and firmly, turning the key in the lock. It was definitely odd. Had she even changed her clothes, wondered Geraldine? She would have to come out when Marcus and his parents arrived, not to mention Simon and his aunts.

  Geraldine had not changed her clothes—at least, she had changed out of her pyjamas and soggy slippers into jeans, a jumper and desert-boots. But she hadn’t put on any party clothes. She didn’t have any, really, not since she had abandoned the party dresses of three or four years ago. No one would be missing her out the back, anyway, she had no charm at all. But Violetta …

  ‘Violetta!’

  It was their mother. She sounded strained. Geraldine heard footsteps treading down to Violetta’s room, and her white hand knocking on Violetta’s door.

  ‘Violetta, Marcus is here.’

  The key turned, the door opened, and a wordless Violetta emerged, closing the door behind her. Geraldine could sense through the plaster and brick of their walls their mother’s puzzlement. She poked her head out to the corridor, but saw only the retreating back view of their mother’s thick golden plait, bouncing off her shoulders like the beautifully groomed tail of a prize pony.

  In the hall, Marcus was reintroducing his parents to Violetta, and three additional guests—Oliver, Joseph and William—he’d brought with him, doubtless mindful of Geraldine’s assurance that they’d been told to invite everyone they knew. Marcus was wearing traditional Nigerian dress, a long striped multicoloured shift reaching down to his feet. Well, further than his feet, as Marcus was not particularly tall, and this dress had presumably been designed for long, lean Nigerians.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ said Violetta to Marcus’s mother. Marcus’s mother produced from her handbag a small pink plant in a pot and said, ‘And happy birthday to your mother, my dear. I’ve brought her a little gift.’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’ said Violetta, close to tears. ‘I don’t know where she’s gone …’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Marcus’s mother, patting Violetta’s pale upper arm. ‘Just put it aside and she’ll find it later.’

  They stood in the hallway for a moment, awaiting instructions from Violetta, as the hostess, to direct them to where ‘it’ was happening. But poor Violetta stood there blankly, as if she were waiting for them to tell her what to do, so at last Marcus, who could not be subdued for long, clapped his hands together and said, ‘Well, let’s move through, shall we?’ And for once, Violetta was grateful for Marcus’s so often grating mastery of things.

  Geraldine had no wish to talk to Marcus, his friends or his parents. She was hungry though, and now Violetta was out there, her father was likely to be occupied introducing her to people, and he would leave Geraldine alone, perhaps not even notice her skulking about the laden dishes.

  Geraldine avoided the hall, where guests continued to arrive, but squeezed through the laundry, out the side wire-screen, and jumped down the couple of concrete steps leading to the garden.

  To her surprise, Ezra was already there, salvaging food slyly from the tables himself.

  ‘How did you get here?’ she asked, rather rudely, Ezra felt, as she had been the one to invite them.

  ‘We came down the side,’ he replied, spitting an olive stone into his hand. ‘Do you mind if I drop this on the ground? It might grow into a tree one day.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be here to see it,’ said Geraldine, sniffing, picking up a slice of rolled meat and putting it quickly into her mouth. Ezra was very well dressed, she noticed, with a clean white shirt and even a tie, and shiny brown shoes visible under his long khaki trousers. He looked like he was going to be awarded a prize by the Duke of Edinburgh.

  Ezra knelt down and pushed the seed into a patch of dirt. There were many such patches on the grass, because of the guinea-pigs.

  ‘Do you know who’s moving in when you leave?’ he asked, conversationally.

  But Geraldine was as uninterested in talking to him as he was to her, and she only shrugged. She wondered, though. Could it really be Howard who was buying the house? Like Violetta, she had her doubts about that man. Perhaps he was buying it for someone else to live in. She did not think they would see him at the party. When Geraldine closed her eyes, she saw rows of yellow and red questionmarks, shuffling up and down in the blackness. They made her head ache. So she made a point of keeping her eyes open, and picked up two more slices of meat. He’d better not say anything about being a vegetarian, she thought, chewing ferociously.

  Geraldine’s parents were standing together. Normally at parties they moved about from guest to guest, chatting, laughing, talking about food, but not today. Geraldine’s father was holding tightly onto her mother’s hand, like statues on married people’s graves that only a chisel could bre
ak apart. In his other hand he held a glass of sparkling water, almost as tightly. His long hair fell into his eyes, but he wouldn’t take his hand from her mother’s to wipe it back.

  At the opposite end of the garden, Ezra’s father was staring at Marcus with a mystified expression on his face.

  ‘Who’s the guy in the dress?’ he asked his wife, in a voice not quite as soft as it might be.

  ‘Shhh,’ she murmured. ‘That’s Violetta’s boyfriend. Marcus. You know.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ezra’s father.

  Geraldine, with a handful of chips, went and sat under the willow tree, leaning back against the trunk, watching. Marcus’s friends had very rapidly and sensibly abandoned him, and were talking with guests of her parents, while Marcus had launched himself upon Ezra’s mother, addressing her on some serious subject apparently to do with his outfit, for he was holding the edge of it for her inspection between his thumb and forefinger. Ezra’s father had disappeared.

  What was wrong with Violetta? wondered Geraldine. She was dressed up in her normal party way, but her face, her hands, her eyes were not Violetta, not the Violetta that presented on public occasions. She was hardly smiling, she was not nodding and agreeing. She seemed to strain even to hear whatever it was Marcus’s father was saying, despite the fact he had such a loud voice it must have been clearly audible three houses down.

  ‘Of course, in the late nineteenth century, the rapid development of the rudder was not in any way unforseen …’ said Marcus’s father, in the tone of a person making an obviously controversial pronouncement, for which he knows he will be immediately shouted down and derided.

  Oh, why did I bring the subject up, thought Violetta desperately. Why didn’t I stick to the weather, or the garden? And why does she just stand there saying nothing? How can she put up with it? There’s no rule of etiquette, is there, that says you have to be just as patient with your husband after you divorce him as you did before? But then—and the thought burst through her distracted melancholy—perhaps she didn’t want to get divorced, perhaps it was him. Perhaps she loves him terribly, and he broke her heart by moving upstairs. Violetta’s own too-gentle heart heaved with flowing blood, and she felt overcome with a terrible generalised pity …