The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  And there at last was Warren’s wife. She was moving forward to the front of the stage, and she was, on first impression, cheerful and breezy—but then, Cath realized, she also looked extremely nervous about being on a stage. This gave Cath the strangest stab, and she had to look away.

  After the assembly, on her way across the playground to her classroom, Cath felt terrified as Billson approached, beckoning Breanna to follow him. Breanna would surely see the truth in her eyes! Or hear it in her voice? Or sense it in the way she held her shoulders?

  “Oh, you’re Cath Murphy,” said Breanna, friendly. “I’ve heard so much about you!” She swung her right arm forward, as if to shake hands, but instead clapped her own hands together, as if she were very excited.

  Recklessly, Cath said, “I’ve heard a lot about you too!”

  “I was really looking forward to meeting you at the Carotid Sticks?” said Breanna. “Remember? It was such a shame I couldn’t make it down in time.”

  “I know!” exclaimed Cath, but Billson was bored by their chatter and wanted to whisk Breanna away to meet somebody else.

  “Do you want to have coffee after school today?” Breanna called, over her shoulder, to which Cath replied, “That’s a great idea!”

  Watching Breanna hurry away, Cath felt another strange stab. “I know!” she had said about the night when they almost met. And “That’s a great idea!” about coffee. It was all so cheap and deceptive.

  At coffee, Breanna chose a couch instead of a hard-backed chair, and slumped in it, as if determined to relax. They were in the shopping mall across the road from the school, with a view over the highway.

  “I’m so relieved to get this job,” Breanna said, stirring her coffee. “I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being away from Warren for the weekdays. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know if it’s good for a marriage, for a start.”

  Cath breathed in for a moment, her mind looping backward on itself as she tried to figure out a response. What would I say, in this situation, if this situation were what it’s meant to be?

  “Mmm,” she said, and then tried to change the subject. “So, you’ve worked with kids before, have you?”

  “A few years ago,” said Breanna. “And actually mostly with teenagers, but my thesis was on nine- to twelve-year-olds.”

  Cath prolonged this for as long as she could, asking after Breanna’s thesis topic, where she went to college, who her favorite teachers were, whether she took good notes. She enjoyed the conversation. She almost forgot who Breanna was, but the FEAR and SUSPENSE always buzzed just below the surface.

  “Anyway,” said Breanna, “Warren tells me—”

  “Oh, hang on!” panicked Cath. “Have you heard there are some Grade Seven girls at our school? Because their classrooms got flooded? Do you think you’ll be their counselor too?”

  Breanna knew about the seventh-graders, but she didn’t know if they were part of her job description. They probably had counselors of their own.

  “The thing is,” said Cath, “I’ve been watching one of these girls, because she’s somehow related to a girl in my class. And every time I see her she’s alone, and she looks sad to me. I think she might not have any friends.”

  “Well,” said Breanna, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t try to help. Do you know her name?”

  Oh God, thought Cath, there is nothing to dislike. She is kind and obliging, she has pretty eyes and nervous hands, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing to dislike.

  But then Breanna took the subject back to Warren. “Warren’s as excited as I am about me moving down to Sydney,” she said. “He’s like a little boy. You know what? He even secretly went and bought a new bed to welcome me! And he surprised me with it! A four-poster. He put a sign on it saying ’WELCOME HOME.’ Isn’t he gorgeous?”

  After these three distinct events, the week fell into a haze, and Cath walked around a step or two behind herself.

  On two separate occasions, she saw Warren take Breanna’s hand, and together they ran across the road. Once, she saw Warren beckon Breanna across the playground, and then tip up a small bag of chocolate sultanas, filling Breanna’s palm. She also saw Warren demonstrate the staff-room coffee machine. Breanna stood beside him, concentrating so hard that he laughed and told her this was not life or death. Breanna giggled, embarrassed, and shook her shoulders to loosen herself up.

  Meanwhile, the other teachers stopped talking about “Warren” and started talking about “Warren-and-Breanna.” Look at me, she wanted to shout, everybody, see what I have been to Warren! Everybody say “Warren-and-Cath.” But they kept telling Cath what a nice person Breanna seemed to be, and how fun it was to meet Warren’s “other half.”

  Cath began to feel that the ground was shifting slightly, and that the sky was not quite fixed to the earth. Now then, she thought, trying to stay calm, who am I? Where do I belong? Where are my family? Who are my friends?

  She phoned her mother and chatted about her dad’s middle ear, and her mum’s Tai Chi, and a girl in her own class whose ears were pierced three times. When her mother eventually asked, as usual, “Any young men on the horizon?” Cath wanted to dissolve. Or to pour herself into the holes in the telephone receiver, and sprinkle herself, like pepper, into her mother’s arms. She wanted to tell her mother everything, but what could she say? “I had an affair with a married man and now his wife has come to take him back.” Imagine her mother’s silence across the continent. Imagine the slide in her mother’s view of Cath.

  Cath’s parents thought of her as a well-behaved, innocent girl. A quiet girl, courteous, respectful of other people’s things.

  “Of course, his wife has come to take him back!” her mother would say, after the silence. “What did you think?” There would be such disappointment in her tone.

  She thought of her three best friends from high school, who, oddly enough, had all ended up in remote, exotic locations: Lucy in Nepal, Kristin in Mongolia, and Sarah in the Sahara. She wrote them a long e-mail with the subject: HELP! But Lucy, Kristin, and Sarah rarely got access to the Internet, so she did not expect an answer for a month.

  She tried to study her law notes, but could not concentrate. For example, when she read the chapter on “Larceny,” she decided to steal Warren from his wife:

  A asked B to lend him a shilling. B agreed and handed A a coin. Both thought it to be a shilling, but later it emerged to be a sovereign. A kept the sovereign.

  Ah-ha! (She looked up from her book.) She would ask Breanna for a loan of a sovereign, and by mistake, Breanna would hand over a Warren. Cath would carry him away on a white horse, wicked laughter echoing; too late Breanna would discover her mistake!

  There was one day during that week—possibly Wednesday—that she thought of as the Day of Letters. The first letter was handed to her in the playground before school had begun. Cassie Zing, sprinting past, suddenly skidded to a stop and said, “I forgot to give you Mum’s note!” She took an envelope out of her pocket and handed it over.

  Dear Ms. Murphy,

  Just a note to let you know how very much I am looking forward to meeting you at the parent-teacher night this Friday.

  Very best wishes and kind regards,

  Fancy Zing

  Cath looked up in surprise. This note was so warm and unnecessary! Such a kind, pointless thought from a stranger! She felt suffused with comfort—all would be well. But then she saw Breanna smiling at her, and she had to crunch the letter in the palm of her hand. You do not deserve such kindness, she thought.

  This was confirmed when she checked her e-mail and received a reply from Kristin in Mongolia: CATH!! YOU POOR BABY. DON’T FEEL GUILTY. THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT. IT WAS HIS CHOICE. IT’S ALL HIS FAULT. YOU DID NOTHING WRONG! YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS! WILL SEND LONGER E-MAIL SOON. AM RUNNING OUT OF MONEY!!!!!!

  But it is my fault, she said to the computer screen. And of course it was wrong. She was a grown-up, and had always known that affairs are wrong. While it was happe
ning she had told herself, There is no right or wrong. This is passion! It transcends morality! The rules do not apply! But why had she thought she could slip outside the rules just because she felt a powerful desire to do so? She’d been trying to steal Warren from the start. No wonder she could not tell her mother about the affair. You can’t tell your parents you’re a criminal.

  Then, in her staff-room pigeonhole, she found a large pink envelope, addressed in swirling purple. At first she felt excited, but then she opened it and read:

  Dear Ms. Murphy,

  I know something about you.

  Something secret and unforgivable.

  Meet me Friday, 1 p.m., at the Valerio Couch Potato Café across the road from your school.

  A Stranger

  So it was true. She was evil, and she could not be forgiven. Self-loathing crept down her spine.

  Then she read the note again and panicked: What was this letter about? Was it suggesting blackmail? She and Warren had been so convinced that nobody knew! They had even been proud of their subterfuge! How had they been caught out?

  It must be someone from the school. Who else could possibly know? She hunched over her pigeonhole, examining the letter, and then glanced furtively around the room. Heather Waratah was eating a blueberry muffin. Jo Bel Castro was reading the paper. They both looked innocent.

  She thought she should search for Warren, and show him the letter, but decided against it. The only thing that she and Warren had left now was their secret. Telling Warren about the blackmailer was like telling him there was no secret. Anyway, it would be unbearable to see him panic about Breanna finding out. She, Cath, would deal with it on her own.

  That night, Cath arrived home and found a fourth letter in her mailbox. This one was from her landlord, and said that the landlord had purchased the two apartments adjoining Cath’s. He intended to knock down the walls between all three, creating one grand apartment. Naturally, Cath would be welcome to continue living in the grand apartment, which would, incidentally, include a sewing room and a sauna. The letter continued:

  Of course, renovation can be noisy and inconvenient! We therefore offer you free accommodation in a penthouse suite at the Winston Hills Tudor Arms for the duration.

  Rest assured that, despite the additional comfort which we endeavor to provide with these alterations, your rent will remain as it is for the remainder of your lease.

  A sewing room! A sauna! What would she do with such things?

  But it was exciting, and she reached for the phone to call Warren. Of course, she remembered, she could not.

  It occurred to her that this was a common feature of breakups—the not being allowed. When boyfriends had broken her heart in the past, the worst of it, when she saw them again, was not being allowed to touch. Not being allowed to smooth their eyebrows, or take their hand at the traffic lights, or touch the end of their nose. Not being allowed to phone up and say, “Well! You’re not going to believe what’s happened!” Instead, you had to explain yourself. You had to say, “Hello, this is Cath, how are you?” And that was assuming you were allowed to phone at all.

  Of course, all along she had been denied the right to hold Warren’s hand in public—but now she was not allowed to see him on weeknights, and she was forbidden to phone.

  She reread the letter, to comfort herself—at least her landlord seemed fond of her—and noticed, as she did, a pale little footer in the bottom right corner of the page. “Project 78,” said the footer.

  Project 78. Now what did that remind her of?

  She ran into the kitchen, opened a few drawers, leafed through recipe books, and found it: a letter she had received a few months before, offering a free course in “Healthy & Delicious Cooking for the Young And Young At Heart.” (She had not taken the offer, had abandoned it in her recipe drawer.)

  And there it was—a pale little footer in the bottom right corner of the page. “Project 75,” it said.

  She had a strange, scary feeling for a moment—How was her landlord connected with a local cooking school?—but then she smiled. What a coincidence!

  The coincidence comforted her. It suggested a world in which everything was connected by faint dotted lines. There was a grand scheme to things, a gentle, controlling destiny. Life was a series of projects—Project 75, cooking; Project 78, renovations.

  She returned to the diningroom table, picked up the letter about proposed renovations, and traced her finger slowly around Project 78. Things that were meant to be would happen. Someday, somehow, it would all work out.

  She almost reached for the phone again, to call Warren and let him know.

  After the Day of Letters, Cath found that her week was clenching into RAGE.

  “What’s going on?” she said to Warren in his empty classroom, at the beginning of recess. He was tacking paintings on the wall, ready for parent-teacher night the next day.

  “I think,” said Warren, “I think it won’t be too much longer. Things are just falling apart. Bree and I are both sensing something’s wrong.”

  “Mmm,” said Cath. Then, as he continued tacking paintings to the wall, she said, “If it’s falling apart, why did you buy a new bed? And put a sign on it saying ’Welcome Home, Breanna.’”

  “She told you that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Warren was silent now, gazing at the thumbtack that was lying on its side in his palm.

  At lunchtime that day, Breanna found Cath in the staff room, sat down beside her, and said briskly, “I just wanted to let you know that I spoke to that seventh-grader, the one named Listen Taylor? The one you were worried about? I spoke to her yesterday.”

  “Wow,” said Cath. “That was quick.”

  Breanna looked pleased, so Cath continued to praise her: “Seriously, thanks so much for doing that. That was really nice of you. You’re so efficient!”

  “Anyway,” said Breanna, opening up a packed lunch, “I think you were right. She seems unhappy to me—she didn’t want to talk about her friends, but she’s going through a tough time with her home life at the moment. Her dad brought her up, you know—apparently, her mother ran off to explore the world and have adventures when she was just a little baby. Poor kid. You wonder what effect that has, losing a parent when you’re a baby. I mean, do you rememb—”

  Breanna stopped, gasped slightly, and said, in a low voice, “Oh, sorry, Cath. You lost both parents when you were a baby, didn’t you? They died in a house fire?”

  “Right,” said Cath, frowning slightly, and trying to turn the frown into a smile. “But it sounds weird to me, hearing you say that. My adoptive parents are my parents, really, and I haven’t lost them. I don’t remember my biological parents at all.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Breanna. “The only thing you’ve got left of them is a faded photograph? Is that right?”

  “Mmm.” Then Cath remembered that she should be back in her classroom preparing for tomorrow’s parent-teacher night.

  When Warren saw Cath at the doorway to his classroom, he said, “You okay?”

  “Sure,” said Cath, with a snap like a ring binder. “You told her I was adopted. You told her about the photo of my parents.”

  “I’m sorry, Cath. I didn’t know it was a secret.”

  “You didn’t know it was a secret? I got out the photo from a locked jewelry box. We both cried. And that didn’t seem like, I don’t know, a confidence?”

  “Cath, all I can do is say I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying my name,” snapped Cath. “You both keep saying my name. You and your wife, she does it too.”

  Warren looked surprised, and Cath said, “You can’t do this”—her voice became trembly—“you can’t have an affair with me, and then go back to your wife, you can’t say that it’s coming apart at the seams and then buy a four-poster bed. It’s not allowed.” She reached toward him, and he took one step back.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I can’t do anything about it now—it would kill Breanna. I know this sounds arrogant,
but the fact is she’s really in love with me.”

  “Oh, cut it out,” said Cath. “She’s not in love with you. She doesn’t even know you.”

  “Well,” he said gently, “we’ve been married for three years.”

  “She doesn’t know you,” Cath repeated. “You’re a man who cheated on his wife. She doesn’t know that, so she doesn’t know you.”

  He bowed his head, while Cath’s shaky breathing filled the room.

  “I can’t leave her,” he whispered, after a moment.

  “I’m not asking you to leave her,” she almost shouted. “I like her, she’s nice. I don’t want you to leave her. You said it was falling apart.”

  “It is,” he said. “I swear, we just have to wait.”

  “Well, while we’re waiting, do you have to keep touching her? Do you have to keep holding her hand? I saw you massaging her feet. Have you thought about how that makes me feel?”

  “Please don’t cry,” he said.

  “This doesn’t make me cry!” Haughtily, she stalked out of the room.

  That afternoon, she tried to study Criminal Law but decided, instead, to murder Warren Woodford. She would smother him with cross-stitched bookmarks, or watch, with a smirk, as he drowned in the syrup of his words. She chose her defense in advance: Provocation (Chapter 5). The accused, transported by passion, was simply not mistress of herself.

  Later that night, sleeping on the couch, she dreamed that Warren told her he was in love with Breanna again. “It’s over between you and me!” he confided, warmly, happily. “I’m in love with my wife again!”

  She shouted at him and punched his chest: “You are not in love with your wife! You’re in love with me! Warren, don’t you understand? It’s not real! You think you’re in love with your wife, because she’s so happy and so bright and so nervous and so sweet, whereas me? Look at me! I’m so cold and angry and bitter and sad, but I’m not, Warren, if you’d just come back to me, I would be the happy person that you want, if you’d just, if you’d just, I’m not this brittle, this—Warren, this does not count.”