I Am Sovereign
Page 5
Avigail is perplexed. ‘So the broom is bad luck? Or am I now bad luck because I was hit by the broom which …?’
She is going to say ‘which you knocked over’, but resists the urge.
This is crazy.
She hands Ying Yue the phone.
Rather than answering Avigail’s question, Ying Yue says something, brightly, to Wang Shu, in Chinese, while pointing to the wall tiles.
Wang Shu (like a toddler who has been momentarily distracted from its tantrum by a small bag of Cadbury’s Chocolate Buttons) gazes at the tiles for a brief instant and then lets forth a loud stream of invective. Wang Shu plainly hates the tiles. The tiles have now come to represent everything about the falling broom that cannot be fully articulated in a European context. Ying Yue knocked the broom so is in disgrace. But the broom hit the Agent (Avigail). Yes! The broom hit the Agent! The Agent is jinxed! The viewing is jinxed. Then the Agent – with a complete lack of consideration and due care – allowed the broom to hit her toe! Wang Shu’s toe! So Wang Shu’s toe is jinxed! Which is horrifying! And disgusting! And the tiles are vile! Damn the tiles! They are jinxed. They are malodorous. They are despicable! The tiles are among the most revolting things Wang Shu has ever beheld in a life where much that is revolting has been beheld.
Wang Shu loathes the tiles.
Wang Shu continues this terrifying tirade, her lips flecked with spittle, her fists clenched (sometimes a fist briefly unclenches so a finger may point at her toe, then clenches again), for approximately a minute and a half.
When Wang Shu finishes speaking she promptly bursts into angry tears.
Yes. That’s how deeply, deeply offended Wang Shu’s very essence – her very core – is by the Alan Wallwork tiles.
Ying Yue bites her lip. Avigail looks at Charles.
Her eyes say: What the fuck?!
Charles shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
Wang Shu’s phone rings. Ying Yue immediately hands a sobbing Wang Shu the phone. Wang Shu takes the phone. Wang Shu instantly stops sobbing. Wang Shu answers the phone.
‘Ni hao?’
Priorities.
Ying Yue promptly turns to Charles, her eyes dancing.
‘Mother loves the tiles,’ she beams.
Richard Grannon’s sister once shared a piece of hippy-dippy shit with him – years ago – which he instantly discounted (having a residual suspicion of all things New Age) but later (against all his better instincts) felt compelled to re-evaluate, and then, eventually, to integrate it into his groundbreaking Inner Critic work. For no other reason than that it made a stupid kind of sense. Grannon’s sister had learned this piece of wisdom from someone selling crystals at a festival (or a yoga teacher). It was presented in the form of a question. The question ran as follows:
‘What is the story that you are living now about this situation?’
Again:
‘What is the story that you are living now? About this situation?’
Is your truth simply a fiction?
Is the story that you are telling yourself – this flimsy, fragile, hashed-together fragment – all that you truly have?
If your answer to the last question is in the affirmative (and Charles’s jury is currently still out on this), then it definitely needs to be a good one (a good story).
If the story is all you have –
then it needs to be a great story.
Charles looks at Ying Yue and he thinks, What is the story that you are living now about this situation?
Ying Yue must be aware of the fact that he is aware of the fact that she is lying about Wang Shu’s feelings with regard to the Alan Wallwork tiles, but still, still …
What is Ying Yue’s story? What story is she living now?
?
These people are morons?
If I just say the right things – make the right noises – it’ll all be okay?
The world is simply a wild and delirious phantasm (and I am a little feather floating though the cosmos)?
Charles scowls, and then wonders, What is the story that I – Charles – am living now about this situation?
Uh …
These people are morons?
If I just say the right things – make the right noises – it’ll all be okay?
The world is simply a wild and mysterious phantasm (and if I could simply find the perfect toaster/kettle/juicer it’ll all be dandy)?
How odd that he and Ying Yue (this strange, bedraggled, ill-drawn creature; this girl, part-stuffed, badly sewn, full of otherness) might actually be spinning the same story.
No!
No!!
Surely not?
He gazes at Ying Yue, owlishly.
There is something so plain, so empty, so smooth about Ying Yue’s face that it is almost otherworldly. It is the face of a mammal, though. Yes. Just about. Ying Yue is a mammal. But oceanic. Cetacean. More like a dolphin than a person. Giant forehead. Tiny, friendly eyes. Dolphin smile. No chin. And her torso. Dolphin-shaped. Little arms like flippers.
Charles focuses in on Ying Yue’s bandaged flipper.
‘What actually happened to your flipper?’ he wonders.
‘Sorry?’ Ying Yue’s smile wavers.
Charles starts.
DID I ACTUALLY JUST SAY THAT?!
‘ WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO YOUR FLIPPER?!’
DID I ACTUALLY JUST SAY THAT?!
Out loud?!
‘Have you ever considered covering your drying rack with a sheet?’ Avigail interrupts. She is re-hanging the arm bears T-shirt. The offending broom has already been placed neatly out of harm’s way. Avigail has a terrible feeling that the oyster shell hit and the broom fall may now spell disaster for the sale.
Yes.
Um …
Hang on a second …
Did Charles (illumined Charles) actually just utter the word ‘flipper’?
Flipper?!
Avigail tries to re-run Charles’s last sentence in her mind with a series of other words replacing flipper. But she can’t. There aren’t any other words to replace ‘flipper’.
Hipper.
Chipper.
Clipper.
Tipper.
Flipper is a fairly particular word.
She visualises her commission going up in smoke.
Pouf!
Charles should actually be issued with a public health warning.
Charles is a fucking menace.
Flipper?!
Ying Yue touches her bad arm with her good hand and opens her mouth to speak but then defers, automatically, to Avigail.
Yet underneath …?
She is seen!
Ying Yue is seen!
And with flippers!
Ying Yue’s spirit animal is the dolphin.
Ying Yue is seen!
By this strange-looking gentleman with his long, pale face and his holey, black underwear!
Flip-pers.
What mean this word?
La la la.
Charles glances over at Avigail.
What is the story that Avigail is living now about this situation?
he wonders.
Avigail is actually quoting the Tao Te Ching to herself.
There is no calamity
Like not knowing what is enough,
she thinks.
Fuck you, Charles,
she thinks.
Flipper?
she thinks.
The oyster shell?
she thinks.
The broom?
she thinks.
Avigail is living at least five different stories. And they are all running in her head, consecutively. And none of them fit perfectly together or make absolute sense.
But that’s okay.
Yup. That’s absolutely fine.
Because good enough is more than enough. For Avigail.
Ha.
Yeah.
If only.
4.
CAT HAIR IS LONELY PEOPLE G
LITTER
But Lucy Molloy …? Who? Who she? Who Lucy Molloy? Heh?
Lucy Molloy doesn’t own a cat. No. Lucy Molloy owns a tiny, ferocious Boston Terrier called Athena. Athena enjoys torturing small animals and large insects in Lucy Molloy’s paved back garden in Perth, Australia. Lucy Molloy’s current home is unfussy, white-walled and open-plan. She has a swimming pool. Lucy Molloy is in her mid-twenties and has glossy, straight dark brown hair. Lucy Molloy is very thin with larger than you’d expect, natural breasts. Lucy Molloy loves make-up. She obsesses over her brows and her lashes, although she isn’t an especially girlie girl. Lucy Molloy relaxes at home in oversized T-shirts. She rides a motorcycle, but in a way that seems utterly devoid of swagger. Lucy Molloy wears glasses sometimes even though it’s unlikely that there’s anything wrong with her eyesight. Lucy Molloy is married to the celebrated tattooist Dan Molloy. Dan Molloy tattooed her back with a huge, beautiful black and grey goddess Kali (the eyes staring, the tongue poking out). He also tattooed a knife on to her face. The handle hangs on her forehead, the blade disappears behind her eye and re-emerges on her cheek.
Dan Molloy’s own face is also covered in tattoos. They’re quite a startling couple to look at. But Lucy Molloy is, to all intents and purposes, one of the most conventional people you’re ever likely to come across. Watching her posts on YouTube – about her collection of Harry Potter memorabilia or her online tube dress purchases or her love of stickers or how she makes vegan brownies (Lucy Molloy isn’t vegan), or her trips to the beach or how she wants to get back into horse-riding – is like entering a realm of normalcy that is way beyond normal(cy). Lucy Molloy – she of the facial tattoo – celebrates an exquisite blandness. This is a real life that is utterly lacking in real-life anxieties. A drab, hallowed, exalted world that is strangely effortful in its effortlessness.
Oh, I promise I’ll blog about my trip to the supermarket.
Oh, I didn’t get around to it.
Oh, I can’t be bothered putting any make-up on today.
This is how I dye my hair.
This is what I eat for breakfast.
I am dropping off my dry cleaning.
Is that a pimple on my cheek?
I am in the car driving to my husband’s tattoo parlour so we can go out to dinner when he finishes up for the day …
Lucy Molloy is everywoman.
Yes. This is the life Avigail should be living. This is the life she longs to live. The life of everywoman. But Lucy Molloy is already living this life, damn her. No existential anguish. No obsessive thoughts on global warming. Did that amazing cream blusher arrive in the mail from America yet? Shall we go out for waffles at the mall?
Avigail suspects Lucy Molloy’s life feels rather like you’re a large bluebottle happily drowning in a deliciously glittery pool of pineapple-flavour lipgloss.
Oh yes. The normal life. The sanctified life. This is the life Ying Yue should be living. If only Ying Yue could somehow contrive to wade across the perpetually gushing river of difference that appears to separate her from just about everyone else on the planet (and even from herself), then she too could have a life just like Lucy Molloy’s. All her decisions so hugely small. All her challenges so magnificently minimal. All her thoughts so deliciously curtailed. This gorgeous, shimmering myopia. This weirdly disgruntled bland-happy-different-same-pretty-unchallenging-modern-unthinking-blinkered-independent-unblinkered-sort-of-free-unfree-impossibly-possibly-laundry-Disney-Channel-waxing-friends-tapas-fill the car with diesel etc. life.
Does Lucy Molloy know that your true peace and your true joy are uncaused?
Huh?
Does Lucy Molloy know that life consists of beauty-terror-knowledge (aka desire-suffering-enlightenment)?
Huh?
It’s unlikely.
She has no need to know.
Because she is blessed.
Blessed.
If only Avigail and Ying Yue knew that they were both worshippers at the altar of Lucy Molloy – that the diverse/magical/complex patterns of their individual lives converge and are conjoined within the singular persona of Lucy Molloy – how different this all might be. The vibe. The mood. The exchanges. The atmosphere. Everything. But they don’t know. And they are unlikely to find out because there are now only eight short minutes still remaining of this particular house viewing.
Oh my.
7.59
And counting.
Richard Grannon likes to repeat the phrase ONLY DEAD FISH GO WITH THE FLOW.
Richard Grannon believes it’s good to buck the system. To think out of the box.
Richard Grannon does not approve of religion. He thinks religion is just an excuse not to take ownership of your own life and destiny. He loosely associates it with the dread concept of ‘magical thinking’. Although he does believe in something he calls ‘semangat’ which is a Malay word that refers to a kind of mind energy, a sort of positive, humming, joyful inner song.
Hang on …
It’s that time again! Charles really needs to check in on his emotions (even if he doesn’t really believe that he has any – even then).
How is Charles feeling?
How are you feeling, Charles?
Um.
Charles feels:
Weird.
Flustered.
Open.
Warm.
Creaky.
Itchy.
Confused.
‘A sheet? Why would I hang a sheet over the drying rack?’ he wonders.
Slightly snarky.
Flippers?!
‘That’s kind of the whole point,’ Avigail sighs (Oh the boredom of explaining the sodding obvious: This is my whole life, she thinks, just explaining the sodding obvious. Over and over and over. WITH BASTARD WORDS). ‘For the rack to work efficiently the whole thing needs to be enclosed.’
‘But it works perfectly well without a sheet,’ Charles persists. ‘My mother never used a sheet.’
‘It’s just common sense, Charles.’ Avigail smiles (with terrific insincerity). ‘If you do your bedding in the first wash you can hang it over the rack and create a vacuum to hold in the heat. Then, after you’ve done the remainder of your laundry, in a second wash, you can place your T-shirts and vests etc. inside and not only keep the heat contained – which is more environmental – but save money and speed up the drying process to boot.’
The electric drying rack is illumined.
Everything is illumined.
Even the T-shirt Ying Yue is currently gazing at, dazedly, which reads: Cat hair is lonely people glitter.
Even that T-shirt is illumined.
‘If the manufacturers wanted you to cover it then surely they would’ve provided a cover with the rack?’ Charles argues.
Charles thinks Avigail is one of the least sincere people he has ever met.
‘You don’t need a cover,’ Avigail explains AGAIN (He has to be kidding. Honestly. He has to be kidding).
‘You use your sheets – your bed linen to cover the rack. Wet or dry. It’s just lateral thinking. It’s just basic common sense.’
Charles glares at Avigail.
Basic common sense?!
‘And I think you’ll find it’s actually more decorous to do it that way,’ she adds. ‘More modest.’
Decorous?
Avigail winces the instant she finishes speaking. She winces at herself.
Modest?
Who is this stranger person mouth talking?
What the heck?!
Am going losing mind totally.
Charles glares at Avigail.
Decorous?
Modest?!
Is Avigail actually standing there, in his kitchen, accusing him – Charles – of being indecorous? Of being immodest?
(Angry voice.)
Um.
Perhaps Avigail is simply standing there, in his kitchen, advising him (Charles) of a better way – a more efficient way – to use his electric drying rack?
(Rational voic
e.)
Pause.
No. Seriously. Is Avigail actually standing there, in his kitchen, accusing him – Charles – of being indecorous? Of being immodest?
Finding fault with him? Undermining him? Ridiculing him?
HOW DARE SHE?
HOW DARE SHE?
HOW DARE SHE?!
This seemingly disproportionate response to Avigail’s comments re the rack is no longer really about Avigail – or the drying rack – is it?
No …
Oh. um … Hello? Hi! It’s lil’ ol’ me again!