At least it was warm in here, and we moved towards the fire, a shivering group again, but Wilbur told us to sit down. He was very quiet: his strangely heady excitement about the paper planes seemed to have fled, leaving him a shell of a man.
I exaggerate, of course. It’s another flaw of mine. I just mean he seemed subdued.
Shedding our coats and scarves, we gravitated towards the same chairs we’d chosen earlier. School classroom training: those chairs were our new homes.
Wilbur spoke at serious-information level. ‘I’m going to invite each of you to come forward and tell us your name and a little about yourself.’
He expanded on this a while, but I was thinking about the fact that it was my birthday, and that I had spent the day very oddly, jumping along inside sacks or with my leg tied to a stranger’s leg, walking on walls, running down sand dunes, making paper planes. I’d done all this with a group of slightly hysterical yet good-natured strangers, under the tutelage of a tall, lanky man named Wilbur.
My mind wandered to Rufus and Isabelle, authors of The Guidebook, and I felt a sad yearning. Where were they, anyway? Too important to be here? Probably American. Vaguely, I wondered how significant our introductions would be, and whether they might determine whether we were chosen for the truth.
For the first time, I felt a jolt about that. Now, I didn’t think the truth would count for much, but I’d been assuming I’d be chosen. Of course I would: it was my birthday! I’d been receiving these chapters for the last twenty years! Tomorrow, however, would no longer be my birthday, and every other person in the room had also been getting these chapters for twenty years. In addition, most had been lively today, whereas I’d been mild and quiet. I’d laughed and smiled, of course, chatted now and then, but without really having much to say.
If this were a reality TV show, I’d be eliminated. Not right away. The quiet ones slip along unnoticed for a few episodes, but they never make it all the way through. I needed some pizzazz!
‘Also,’ Wilbur was instructing us, ‘explain why—why you said yes to these chapters.’
‘It’s my birthday today!’ I said suddenly, and to my own surprise. (I don’t mean I was surprised that it was my birthday. I knew that.)
There was a sort of uprising of laughter and turning heads.
‘So it is, Abigail,’ Wilbur agreed warmly.
People began exclaiming, ‘Happy birthday!’ The red-haired man said, ‘Happy birthday, Abigail,’ in his lovely, broad-shouldered, redheaded voice. I liked how he took my name from Wilbur so effortlessly and adapted it to his own purposes. This struck me as resourceful.
The woman with the frangipani flower in her hair spun around and scolded, ‘Why didn’t you say so earlier?’ I tried to see beyond the criticism to the humour, but could not locate this in her expression. I smiled, trying to come up with an answer, but I didn’t have one. Eventually, she swung back around, still frosty, to face the front again. Why did it disturb her so much?
She’s jealous! I realised. She thinks I have an unfair advantage! She wants to be chosen for the truth!
I hoped she was right to think that I had an advantage. It seemed a good sign, the warmth in Wilbur’s voice when he said: So it is, Abigail.
Wilbur took the reins again. ‘Introductions,’ he said. ‘Let’s begin with you.’ And he pointed at someone just behind me.
11.
Introductions. They seem like a fascinating idea at first, and then, what are they? Just a bunch of names and résumés.
I started off ready to listen carefully, and ended up gazing at a series of vacuum cleaners. (By this I mean they seemed to me to drone.)
A commercial litigator, an admin assistant, chief . . . I don’t know, someone was the chief of something. There was also an ENT surgeon, whose family had come to Australia from Nigeria when she was twelve years old, a project manager, and everyone else was in IT.
Initially, I was quite interested to hear people’s explanations for accepting The Guidebook. But people never really know why they’ve done a thing. Everyone seemed to have first received it in 1990 or 1991, like me, and they’d all been around fifteen or sixteen at the time, again like me. A few talked about being lost as a teenager—depressed, overweight, lonely—so The Guidebook struck them as a gift from the universe (or from God, two participants declared). But I had the sense that this was a contrivance, a post hoc reinterpretation, or possibly sycophancy.
Some talked about being plain curious, which was probably more honest, but dull.
A few acknowledged they had no answer. The disgruntled guy with the shoulder seemed incensed to be asked at all. ‘Why did I accept this book?’ he demanded, as soon as he stood up. He frowned fiercely. ‘How should I know?’ He was in pest control, he added. Pete Aldridge. That was it for his introduction. He sat down right away, which made me like him.
The man with the sonorous voice, spectacles and smoky eyes also claimed he had no idea. But he claimed this in a friendly, gentle way. When he rose, ready for his turn at introductions, I realised I’d forgotten all about him. Earlier, I’d been willing to have sex with him, but then he’d completely slipped my mind. I felt ashamed at my lack of commitment.
Now I took the opportunity of his introduction to reassess.
Beautiful, wise, self-deprecating smile . . . Okay, I remember you now. I’m in.
‘My name is Daniel,’ he said. Daniel, I thought, pleased. That’s a fine name. Just step into the lion’s den, Daniel. Daniel Boone was a man, he was a big man. I tried to think of a third Daniel and came up with Daniel Day-Lewis, and what an actor he is!
Also, Daniel said that he restored stained glass for a living. That struck me as very limited, and I worried about how he paid the bills, but he went on to explain that there was plenty of work around Sydney—many old houses have leadlight windows, he said—and that he loved the freedom, the solitude, the craft of his work. His passions included his volunteer work with some environmental agency and his brother’s yacht. (Chuckles.) Everything he said was thoughtful, as if he was very interested in where his sentences might go next, and then gently pleased with where they went. I saw that, if we made love, it would be one of those beautiful, slow, tender experiences and he would treat me as a fine piece of fragile window glass. Which, when you’re in the mood for that sort of thing, is brilliant! The best! If you’re in that sort of mood.
One person said her mother had instructed her to say yes to The Guidebook chapters, because she (the mother) was highly suspicious about the whole ‘endeavour’, and wanted to keep an eye on it.
This was the petite, cartwheel-turning woman. Her name was Tobi, which made me jealous. I love a boy’s name for a girl, especially a girl who does gymnastics.
‘Yeah, Mum was ready to report it to the police the moment it took a step wrong,’ Tobi told us, grinning—she was very self-assured and forthright for one so petite, I thought, but that was petitist of me.
‘But the letter told us not to tell anybody about The Guidebook,’ frangipani woman called—urgently, smugly, triumphantly—all three of those things. ‘And yet you told your mother!’
Whoa. Frangipani made a good point. Petite Tobi had just admitted she’d broken the first rule. If this was a test, Petite Tobi had just blown it. Of course, I’d told people too. Probably we all had. But I wasn’t confessing to it.
One person who stood out in the introductions was the glossy-purple-shoe woman. She walked out the front in a lively, bouncing way that made me think: That must be good exercise, walking around like that all the time!
Her face matched the bounce, freckles scattered everywhere. She wore a huge knitted jumper and she twisted her hands into this as she began to speak.
‘About me,’ she said, with a suddenly shy smile. ‘Well, my name is Nicole and when I was sixteen years old, a fortune teller at a fair told me my future.’
She paused, and we waited with interest.
‘She told me I would meet a man with golden hair, have
two children, develop a serious illness in my early thirties, and raise goats.’
That got a laugh. She had a good, straight-faced delivery.
‘None of those things happened,’ she continued. ‘Although, of course, I’ve met men with golden hair. They’re around!’
Some laughed again; others were a little too intense and/or confused to laugh.
‘But the implication of the fortune was that I’d marry the golden-haired man and have two kids with him, right? But no, I did not. I married a Polish guy with black hair and brown eyes, and we have four kids. Again, you could say I fulfilled the prediction, in that I did have two children—but then I had two more. Still, the implication . . .’
People nodded, agreeing. Others stepped up their puzzled expressions, anxious for the point.
‘My early thirties have passed without an illness more serious than a cold or swimmer’s ear,’ Nicole carried on, still ticking off predictions. Now she might have been stretching the point. But she was so friendly and warm, I found that I loved her. ‘And no, I don’t raise goats, although we do have a guinea pig.’
She assumed a dreamy expression. ‘Whenever I feel low, I google raising goats,’ she said. There was more laughter, but she continued in the same distant tone: ‘I have this strange feeling that if I just implemented that part of my fate, I could unravel the last twenty years and have them again: the golden-haired man, the two kids, even the serious illness—I’ve never been properly sick, so I’m drawn to that idea.’
Wow, I thought. Watch out, fate might be listening. I admired her recklessness, though.
‘But which of your children would you give back?’ called a voice. It was disgruntled shoulder guy.
Nicole gave him a startled look.
‘If you are going to unravel your life and have only two children, you must return two of the four, no?’
‘Right. No. I’m kidding. I wouldn’t give any of them back, obviously.’
‘You wouldn’t want to get sick,’ someone else said. ‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I mean, I get that impression. It was a crazy thing to say. Sometimes I just speak without thinking.’
There was a knock on the door. Wilbur, who was standing to the right of Nicole, took a sharp, surprised breath. ‘We’re out of time!’ he said. ‘We’ll have to finish introductions tomorrow.’
So I had a reprieve. There was a minor commotion in the doorway.
It was the hotel manager, Ellen, with a giant birthday cake on a tray. Candles were alight, tiny flames swaying madly together, as she strode in. Oh, it’s somebody’s birthday, I thought, and then I saw people smiling at me, glancing from the cake to me and back, and Ellen and Wilbur both started singing, Ellen in a high, sweet voice, Wilbur in a low rumble: Happy birthday to you!
I was, too. Happy, I mean.
12.
The next day, Wilbur forgot about continuing the introductions.
So we never heard from me. We also didn’t hear from the red-headed-broad-shouldered guy, or Frangipani.
I know those were the missing ones because the first thing that happened that morning—while we were still drifting in, tired and hungover, helping ourselves to the fruit and pastries, relaxed and friendly in the manner of people who have been drinking and joking until late the night before—the first thing that happened was this.
Wilbur began to list the activities he had planned. They were along the same lines as the previous day, so I wasn’t concentrating—I was standing at the table, studying the fruit platter—but halfway through Wilbur’s speech, Frangipani raised her hand and called, ‘Don’t forget we haven’t finished introductions!’
‘Oh yes,’ Wilbur said. ‘Thank you, Sasha.’
Why is he calling her Sasha? I wondered, but then I recalled that frangipani was the flower in her ponytail, not her name.
‘It’s just, a few of us haven’t had a turn yet,’ Frangipani/Sasha expounded (redundantly).
She still wasn’t finished. ‘There’s Abigail, for one,’ she said. ‘The birthday girl!’ And she turned and pointed. I had a slice of honeydew melon gripped in tongs now, and I felt as if she’d caught me stealing it, the way she pointed. She beamed in a truly alarming way. I assumed she was implying that I was no longer the birthday girl? Which made her mad with delight?
Her beam settled into a smirk and she shifted her pointing finger towards the redheaded guy (whose expression, in response, was a masterwork in blank) and then she paused, gasped and pointed at herself: ‘Oh yes, and me! We haven’t heard from me!’
I suspect she had planned this speech and, in her head, the pause and gasp had sounded genuine. Also, I suspect she’d been working on her introduction, finessing it, all through the night.
‘I won’t forget,’ Wilbur promised.
But he did.
At that point, however, he lowered his chin so he was looking at the floor—rather than at us—and spoke in a quick, almost breathless voice: ‘Between three and four pm today, you will each receive a notice underneath your door. The notice will tell you whether you have been chosen.’
The room grew still. Wilbur’s voice had been so quiet and quick that we were waiting for his words to settle into themselves.
He looked up. ‘Or not,’ he added.
‘Not chosen to hear the truth,’ Frangipani clarified.
‘Right.’ Wilbur frowned down at the papers in his hands. ‘If you are not chosen, you may prefer to go home at once, rather than to wait until tomorrow. That is your choice, of course. A shuttle will be available to take you to the airfield, and a few flights are scheduled to depart around five pm. For those who are chosen, we meet here at five thirty for the truth.’
There was a thoughtful pause.
‘Out of interest,’ someone—Daniel—asked, ‘how many will be chosen?’
Wilbur’s face was suddenly profoundly sad. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let’s begin our program for today.’
13.
The night before, there’d been the birthday cake. I’d been handed a large silver knife and told to slice it.
High pressure: everyone watching, slices tipping sideways, inconsistency in portion size, anxiety about whether there’d be enough to go around, and so on. I felt offended by a woman who said, ‘No thanks,’ to a slice, then ashamed when I overheard her mention she was diabetic.
Life! It’s just a series of humbling lessons.
Over cake, we chatted in our bright-eyed voices. Then Wilbur wished everyone a grand good night (that’s what he said, ‘Have a grand good night’; it put me in mind of both leprechauns and pianos), and he left the room. A moment later, Frangipani also darted from the room, calling over her shoulder: ‘Bye, everybody! Happy birthday, birthday girl!’
We watched the door close behind her.
‘She’s sleeping with the teacher?’ the guy with the flat cap mused. ‘Well played.’
There was a beat of shock, and then everyone fell about laughing. That was the moment that cracked open the charade, split the day from night. We laughed so hard! Honestly, it was a smooth transition from Flat-cap’s joke to phoning in an order to Lola’s Woodfired Pizza and uncorking several bottles of wine.
It’s a beautiful thing to peel a slice of pizza from an oily cardboard box and realise that you are not alone in being bemused about what the fuck you are doing here. That’s a quote. ‘What the fuck are we doing here?’ someone said, and everyone laughed even harder.
A lot of people swore! This added to my elation. Maybe you tense up when people use bad language, but my whole body relaxes. Lean back, slouch, there are no rules, these are my people. Also, people who curse tend to be funnier than those who don’t.
(Although swearing every second word? That’s swagger, or power play, or lack of imagination.)
Everyone was joking about our teacher, Wilbur, and how he seemed just as confused as we were.
One guy confessed he’d thrown away every single chapter of T
he Guidebook he’d received the moment it arrived, and the only reason he’d never cancelled was because he could not be arsed. So he was here under entirely false pretences, he said. ‘Am I right?’ And everybody agreed, very happily, that yes, he was right.
Others told funny stories about the tasks they’d tried to do—I can’t really remember the stories, so possibly they weren’t that funny and it was more the wine and the relief. Nicole, the friendly, glossy-shoed woman who had four children (not two), and did not raise goats, said that, when an early chapter instructed her to teach herself to juggle, she’d used fresh eggs.
What?! we all said. You taught yourself to juggle with eggs?! We laughed and laughed, but the story wasn’t done. She’d taken them out on the balcony, she said, and most had smashed, causing a slippery mess to form, so that she’d skidded, at one point, the egg in her hand flying over the balcony railings and landing on the head of a passer-by. No joke. Smack onto a man’s head.
She had a good, deadpan delivery, Nicole.
A few people said they had read the chapters but never did the tasks, and also, what was up with the notes pushed under our doors the night before?
So then I felt even happier. It turned out almost everyone had got a note like mine (You missed three. Now what?), only most had ‘missed’ more than three. Redheaded-guy-with-broad-shoulders, whose name turned out to be Niall, said he’d missed nineteen!
It could have been the wine, but we laughed uproariously at that. He warmed to the story, saying he got mad as hell about the note. ‘I missed nineteen?! I did not! I did every single one!’ he insisted, without having a fucking clue what it was about.
Which was exactly my reaction, I said, and I’d only missed three; others laughed at both of us, and said they’d just shrugged, assuming the note was meant for someone else.
Oh, it was like a therapy group for people who get notes under their doors.
Gravity Is the Thing Page 4
