I Am Sovereign
Page 4
‘There’s a small issue with the bailiff,’ Charles explains, ignoring this.
As they walk up the road and approach Charles’s house they stroll past a tiny, elderly man who is wearing a giant pair of dark glasses and holding a white cane. He is standing next to a large, blue, waste disposal bin. He is perfectly still.
The blind old man is illumined.
‘I see. Yes. Isn’t that your cat?’ Avigail points.
A hairless Sphynx cat is mooching down the road.
It is Morpheus. Charles curses and trots after Morpheus.
Morpheus is illumined.
Morpheus makes no attempt to avoid Charles on his approach. He is passive. Charles picks him up.
Illumined man. Illumined cat.
‘I pulled the door shut behind me,’ he grumbles.
‘I’ve no idea how he got out.’
‘Let’s get inside,’ Avigail suggests (determined to snap out of her stupid, trippy head-space), ‘and try to salvage what remains of this viewing, shall we?’
Charles follows Avigail back into the house. He senses that Avigail thinks he is the problem when in actual fact she is the problem. Yes. Avigail seems to be exhibiting a mode of behaviour which Grannon may well call ‘blame shifting’.
Avigail’s ‘Reality Filter’ is all fucked up, Charles thinks.
Seriously.
She’s nuts.
Crouching behind the wall like that?!
He puts Morpheus down and shuts the door.
Hmm. He shoots a bolt, thoughtfully.
The ‘somatic’ body? What is ‘the somatic body’? What did Grannon mean by ‘the somatic body’?
Must Google.
They find Wang Shu and Ying Yue in the kitchen. Wang Shu is on the phone talking in Chinese. Ying Yue is poking an inquisitive finger through a small hole in a pair of Charles’s Y-fronts which are hung on a large, rectangular drying rack.
She seems to be holding her breath. Or if she isn’t, she exhales, sharply (for no discernible reason), when Charles and Avigail enter the room.
Charles ignores Ying Yue. Ying Yue is freaking him out. Instead he glances over at Avigail and wonders if there is anything about her – anything at all – that might be worth emulating. Avigail must be all of twenty-five years old (Avigail is actually thirty-five years old) and has a funny way of tensing her right cheek and glaring intently at a person when she’s concentrating. It’s a kind of grimace – almost a tic.
Her dedication to her work – her … passion? Drive? Focus? Diligence? It’s certainly notable – interesting – almost admirable. But no. No. That’s not something Charles would want to impersonate. He fleetingly wonders whether Avigail is a perfectionist. And whether Avigail herself has any role models; people she aspires to emulate?
There is actually someone.
Avigail aspires to be like Lucy Molloy, the Perth-based YouTube housewife/tattoo model.
Given a thousand guesses, Charles would never have imagined Lucy Molloy was Avigail’s role model. This is mainly because Charles has no idea who Lucy Molloy is. And he doesn’t know Avigail very well. But there are other reasons, too.
Ying Yue knows, though!
Ying Yue knows who Lucy Molloy is!
Ying Yue also worships at the altar of Lucy Molloy!
This is a powerful tie – a profound connection – between Ying Yue and Avigail, but unfortunately neither of them is aware of it or is likely to find out about it, either, during this brief, twenty-minute house viewing.
Such a shame.
Good enough is more than enough for me!
That’s the mantra. That’s the phrase that Grannon came up with as a perfectionist teen.
Good enough is more than enough. For me.
They are in the kitchen. The short entrance hall leads straight into a dark, poky kitchen. There is some rather astonishing 1970s tilework in here by the famous designer Alan Wallwork, although much of it is obscured by a random collection of stuff (some still unopened and in its original packaging) which litters the counters.
It has never struck Charles as remotely ‘ironic’ that a celebrated designer of tiles should be called ‘Wall-work’. Given Charles’s advanced grasp of this particular comic form/rhetorical device, such an oversight on his part could probably be seen as ‘ironic’.
Ah, but ‘the world is incorrigibly plural … crazier and more of it than we think’, as the great poet Louis MacNeice was oft wont to say (although not quite in that order).
These tiles are definitely an acquired taste. Charles doesn’t like the tiles but he is very, very attached to them for some inexplicable reason probably connected to his mother, Branimira. And, as luck would have it, Charles has recently taken the opportunity to do a load of washing. About five ironic T-shirts – one of which reads: Every time you make a typo, the errorists win – some baggy, black Y-fronts and some black socks are hung over the heated bars of a free-standing electric clothes dryer. A rack.
The room is consequently very hot.
Wang Shu is still talking on the phone in Chinese.
On the very rare occasions when Wang Shu isn’t talking on the phone in Chinese she enjoys watching YouTube footage of cats falling.
Someone or something scaring the shit out of a cat makes her laugh so hard and so loud that sometimes her loving daughter Ying Yue fears for her well-being. And her sanity. She laughs and laughs and laughs until she sobs. And then suddenly – in an instant – every inch of happiness is sucked – by a giant, black vortex – out of the world and Wang Shu is rendered inconsolable.
This has made Ying Yue suspicious of pleasure. Ying Yue has not been raised in a faith tradition but she senses that pleasure often has dire consequences. The Christians were completely right about that.
‘Do you have a bin, Charles?’ Avigail asks.
Avigail could happily punch Charles square in the face for opting to do his washing today and for hanging it on a sodding free-standing heated rack in the tiny kitchen and then loitering next to it, hugely, and draining all available light and air from the room.
Avigail’s mother actually used a rather more antique version of this particular kind of dryer when she was a girl. It brings back bittersweet memories for Avigail. Whenever Avigail was home from hospital as a teen she would sit in the kitchen, gazing at her plate of gefilte fish patties (she was a slow eater until she stopped eating altogether) and imagine that the dryer was some kind of Tardis. A time machine that she could climb inside and use to travel to distant epochs/different galaxies. Yes. Away.
AWAY FROM FAMILY.
AWAY FROM GOD.
Charles has neglected to cover the rack in a sheet or duvet cover. Avigail believes that this is key. The idea is to do your sheets and duvets – your household linens – in the first wash so that when you do your personal items – your vests, smalls etc. in the second wash they can be hung within a modest curtain of fabric, the warm air is contained, and the dryer is therefore rendered both more cost-effective and more productive.
Charles is standing next to his kitchen bin with his foot applied to the little pedal so the lid is standing proud.
‘Would you like to dispose of your tissue in Charles’s kitchen bin, Ying Yue?’ Avigail asks, pointing.
Ying Yue is still clutching the bloodied tissue. She looks over towards the bin. She frowns and focuses very hard. Then she screws the tissue up into a tight ball and lobs it towards the bin. The overall distance between Ying Yue and the bin is about three feet, in total. There is no discernible reason for Ying Yue not to step forward and gently place the tissue into the bin. But she throws the tissue. And she misses the bin. The tissue hits Charles in the groin area and then ricochets on to the kitchen lino and slides across the floor. Before anyone can move to retrieve it, Morpheus, who has been loitering around in the hallway, darts into the kitchen to attack the tissue and play pitter-pat with it between his funny, naked, pink paws. Because Wang Shu has been talking on the phone (in Chinese) all the whil
e, she has only been partially aware of the transaction re the tissue and is completely unaware of the existence of Morpheus. When Morpheus suddenly darts into the kitchen, Wang Shu (who is still talking on the phone) takes him – in his hairless state – to be some kind of bizarrely distended rat. A terrifying, supernatural creature. She screams (of course Wang Shu does not scream – she is constitutionally incapable of anything as feminine and pointless as screaming – she yells, she squawks, like an irate raven) and springs away from Morpheus into the gap between the fridge/freezer and the door. Unfortunately any sudden movement in a room so full of stuff is liable to cause a measure of disruption. Wang Shu knocks into the fridge/freezer on top of which Charles stores not only his kettle, but a tea tray full of tea accoutrements, and a second and a third kettle (which he has reason to believe will be more ergonomic/faster/cheaper to boil/less prone to producing limescale etc. than the one he currently uses), plus a collection of black teas, white teas, green teas and smoked teas, and teas to aid the promotion of digestion, sleep, liver and kidney regulation, nasal decongestion, calm, serenity etc. etc.
Avigail moves (her lightning responses are something Charles does find enviable) to support Wang Shu, although she finds herself actually unable to touch Wang Shu in the final instant because Wang Shu seems to have an inviolable space around her which it is absolutely impossible to penetrate (this is an essential part of something which – in informal lingo – you might call Wang Shu’s ‘personality’), so Avigail diverts to catch a couple of the items currently falling from on top of the fridge/freezer (a tea for menstrual cramps, a silver-plated cream jug).
Ying Yue (as Wang Shu’s mirror) is compelled to mimic her mother’s reaction (but with a little more finesse) so also springs back, in shock, against the surface behind her and accidentally knocks into a broom that happens to be leaning there. The broom falls forward. The broom’s handle knocks into Avigail (first), then hits the very tip of Wang Shu’s trainer (after). Wang Shu yells again – even louder (if that’s remotely possible) – and drops her phone.
Wang Shu’s sacred phone!
Where is Wang Shu without her phone?!
Who is Wang Shu without her phone?
Can this really be happening?!
As she catches the jug Avigail has a sudden – unconnected – thought. She thinks.
Oh. I see … Everything is illumined. Of course. Everything is illumined –
speciality tea, cream jug …
Everything is illumined. Always. Constantly. Perpetually. Ineffably. Illumined. All of matter. Illumined. It’s just a question of quietly glancing down, focusing …
Ein Sof, in everything, NOW.
Ein Sof is always in the present tense.
Ein Sof never was. Ein Sof IS.
The broom clatters to the ground. The broom is illumined. Ying Yue makes no attempt to grab the broom because being hit by a broom (even an illumined broom) is considered INCREDIBLY BAD LUCK to the Chinese. Charles – who has very slow reflexes – does nothing. Morpheus is thoroughly traumatised by everything (the squawking, the sudden movements, the phone, the illumined broom) and piles straight into the illumined drying rack. The rack teeter-totters (Charles – finally spurred into action – stills it with a single, calm movement of the hand) and Morpheus performs a quick 180-degree turn, exiting the rack (head and torso obliterated by a T-shirt that reads: I support the right to arm bears).
Because Morpheus is unable to see where he is going, but is terrified, he (illumined cat) careers straight into the fallen (illumined) broom, panics still further, continues his forward momentum, smacks into the (illumined) fridge and is now moving at such high speed that he just keeps on going, runs approximately a foot, vertically, up the fridge, then performs an impressive loop-the-loop, or a back flip, or whatever it is.
Wow.
A cat falls.
A shocked silence.
Wang Shu starts laughing.
Oh shit.
3.
ASK ME ABOUT MY VOW OF SILENCE
Avigail is – and has always been – fascinated by the power of silence. Over time this fascination has expanded – quite naturally – into an important, secondary belief in the comparative pointlessness of words. She quickly noticed how her sole designation in the noisy, chaotic home of her childhood (as the middle child of five) was simply to peep-peep-peep like a bird. She’d open her mouth to speak (that deep inhale on the cusp of the first syllable) only to be stuffed full of worms (and ignored). Children, she discovered, were sometimes listened to yet rarely heard.
And the emotions? Fruitless things – hurtful, burdensome things – always standing in the way of progress.
Another revelation was her capacity to befriend – better still, to harness – the very thing that was once imposed (un-heard-ness). Her power – such as it was – quickly became a defiant holding-in. A refusal to engage. But expressed so meekly, at first. A gently tipped head. A cocked ear. Ah, to hear! To listen and remain quiet. To be lost-in-your-own-thoughts but still in charge of the map of meaning. To dumbly observe. To be hush hush hush! So exquisitely small! To take up such a tiny amount of space. To be so thoroughly modest and discreet and unassuming and … and … la femme n’existe pas … il n’y a pas la femme.
There is so much room in silence. It’s so generous! It expands around you like a giant woollen blanket. Soft wool. Cosy. Quiet wool. Ah, the gorgeous feeling of semi-breath-holding. The sensual alertness of not. The resigned sigh of shhhhhh. The regretful silence. The watchful silence. The keen silence. The ambiguous silence. The mystery of silence. The infinite possibility of silence.
Everything so subtle. So gentle. Nothing stated, everything suggested.
Oooh, and the naughty waywardness of simply pointing, dumbly, when you could speak, but choose not to …
Avigail learned how to own her silence – how to protect it and to nurture it. She loved it. She hated the leaving of it – the bored croak of speech, the sudden colour and hurt and smash of language. Silence was thick, smooth cream. Words were a furious, fiery chilli sauce that hissed and raged and burned on the throat.
She once read a quotation by Max Picard about animals and silence: about how animals carry around a dense silence within them on behalf of man. Of how they are constantly placing down this silence in front of man.
A gift. An offering. A hope. A burden. A rebuke. An expectation.
Ahhh. Silence.
The thrill of it.
Avigail suspects that the great mission of her life will be to one day discover the full extent of this strange gift of hers – this amazing aptitude – for quiet. To test the seemingly endless parameters of …
Ah, this calculated regression!
This unanswerable no!
Although before all that, she needs to stop trying so determinedly to be normal.
But she’s worked so hard for it – starved for it. So she can’t relinquish it. She must keep on pretending because she is so proud of her adaptation, of how good she has become at fitting in.
Seriously!
You would never know what a freak she truly is!
Surreptitiously.
Hidden away.
Underneath.
Perhaps the performance (the normality) is merely the set-up, and the punchline, the denouement, is unpronounced, is wordless?
Jouissance.
Even in the midst of tumult, there is quiet.
It hides in the top of her head. It is like a little golden frog, perpetually waiting to jump. It is ever watchful but makes no decisions. There is no ‘do’ or ‘don’t’ here, no moral imperative. It is thoroughly dispassionate.
Tranquil.
‘How about the tiles?’ Charles asks. ‘Do you like them?’
Charles’s question can barely be heard above the desperate, harsh bark of Wang Shu’s laughter.
Avigail stares at Charles, dumbfounded.
Wow.
Wow.
He really is a piece of work!
Charles is now attempting to show Ying Yue the tiles, clearing away some of the assembled detritus. The tiles are quite repulsive. Over the terrifying howls of Wang Shu’s laughter, Charles is pointing at the tiles and saying, ‘These are the work of a celebrated designer called Alan Wallwork. My mother was very attached to them. It would be a great shame if whoever buys the house …’
Ying Yue is pinching her tiny, hardly chin and listening intently while nodding, thoughtfully.
‘Beautiful!’ she eventually pronounces.
Wang Shu suddenly stops laughing. Avigail (relieved) tries to pass her the phone again but Wang Shu flinches at Avigail’s approach. Ying Yue (fighting the instinct to mirror) puts out her hand for the phone.
‘Mother is afraid of the broom,’ she gently explains. ‘Being hit by a broom is very bad luck to a Chinese person and you were hit by the broom.’