Wood Green

by Sean Rabin

  Would you like one? she asked.

  Maybe later. I think I need to wait a while before I try to eat anything.

  Come on then. I usually start to get the store ready while the second batch is cooking. First I light the fire. That way the store is nice and warm by the time you open up. If you’re smart you’ll get the wood and kindling ready the day before. Gives it more time to dry, and means you don’t have to go out into the cold. Then I wipe down the fridge doors. It only takes a minute or two and they look so much nicer without a build-up of condensation. Next I sweep the floor and empty the mousetraps. You don’t catch one every night but at this time of year they tend to come inside to escape the cold. Maureen saw Carl’s revulsion as she dropped three dead mice into a plastic bag. Glamorous, isn’t it?

  Carl nodded, fidgeted, and turned to the knock at the front door.

  Get that will you. It’ll be Bill.

  Carl said good morning and tried to smile, but the edifice of hospitality crumbled under a wave of nausea.

  Bill walked inside carrying a cup, returned Carl’s greeting with a hint of surprise, then softly called out, Maureen?

  She reappeared with two warm croissants wrapped in paper napkins and placed them on the counter. Coffee?

  Yes please.

  This is Carl. He’s taking over the shop. Carl, this is Bill. District Court Judge and local poet.

  Now, now, said Bill.

  Carl extended his hand, determined not to show any sign of nerves in the presence of the law. Nice to meet you.

  And you, replied Bill. Hope you’re paying attention. Big shoes to fill here. These are the best croissants in all of Tasmania. Bill was a tall man with wavy silver hair and a bulbous nose that indicated an enthusiasm for wine. It suited his friendly face, and the quiet voice with which he spoke slow, well-considered words.

  I’ll do my best. Carl tried to project an air of respectability, but knew it was a first impression he would have to mend at a later date.

  Of course you will.

  Here’s your coffee, said Maureen.

  Bill accepted the cup and hastily made his farewells.

  He’s up in Launceston this week, explained Maureen. So he has to leave early.

  He doesn’t pay?

  Of course he does. Didn’t Tim show you the ledger? Maureen pulled a blue notebook out from beneath the till and entered a date and amount on the page headed with Bill’s name. He settles up at the end of each month. Judges can’t just take things for free.

  No. Of course not.

  There are about fifteen people we extend a line of credit to. Their names are all in here. You’ll get to know them quickly enough. And we’ve never had a problem with people paying what they owe. Maureen switched on the store’s amplifier and inserted a CD by Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill.

  You seem to do an awful lot to make people feel welcome. I don’t see how I’ll be able to keep it up on my own.

  Just do what you can. You’ll figure it out. We’ve found that if you care about the people as much as their money they’ll respond with loyalty. Most people would prefer to shop locally. I can’t remember the last time I walked into a supermarket.

  Well I suppose it’s not too far ahead of you now.

  Maureen unlocked the till and checked the float. What’s that?

  Shopping in a supermarket. Unless you’re intending to open up another store?

  Not in this lifetime. But look, if you want my advice, you’ll need to decide pretty early on if this is going to be an investment or a way of life.

  Can’t it be both?

  Of course it can. Maureen looked around the shop with an expression of regret. But it’s a tricky balance to achieve. And even if you do, it’s a hard one to hold on to.

  69.

  Lucian knocked, then opened Michael’s office door. If I’m making lunch, you’re making dinner, okay?

  Michael swivelled in the captain’s chair. Pardon? He had been typing on Lucian’s spare machine and had not heard a word.

  What are you wearing those old things for?

  Michael glanced down at the ornately printed shirt and blue pinstriped trousers he had borrowed from the cupboard in his office. My clothes were wet from the snow, and I didn’t want to disturb you by asking for something to wear.

  Why didn’t you just get a cab home?

  The roads are closed. Remember? I told you when I came back in.

  Lucian repressed the urge to dispute such a claim and offered a perfunctory, Oh yeah, right, before changing the subject. I remember buying that shirt in Rome. I’ve no idea where I got the trousers from though.

  Michael stood up and held out his arms. I expected them to be too small, but they seem to fit perfectly.

  I was probably bigger then. You tend to shrink a little when you get older.

  I’ll put them back as soon as my clothes are dry.

  No rush. It’s not as if I’ll be wearing them any time soon. Lunch’ll be ready in about ten minutes.

  Michael placed his two pages of notes about Lucian’s life on the coffee table, then began to eat from the platter of hummus, olives, flatbread, cold toast, grilled haloumi, fried zucchini, slices of salami, pickled eggplant and anchovies in olive oil. Lucian poured them each a glass of wine, and carefully draped three of the largest anchovies across a slice of luxuriously buttered toast. Tactlessly Michael winced at the sight, making Lucian grin mischievously while he chewed. The enchantment of the platter subsided only when a detritus of pips, bread scraps and smears of dip were all that remained. They had drunk their wine and sat docile on the couches, listening to The Khan Jamal Creative Arts Ensemble – Drumdance to the Motherland.

  Michael looked down and noticed a small stain of olive oil on his trousers. He wiped at it with a napkin, all the while reassuring Lucian that he would get them dry cleaned as soon as he returned to Hobart.

  Lucian sighed and shook his head. You know how long I’ve owned those clothes for? If they didn’t mean anything to me; if they didn’t possess some intrinsic value, even if it’s just sentimental, then why would I keep them? Lucian enjoyed watching Michael’s face cloud over with humiliation and fear. It’s about respecting other people’s possessions. Just because you don’t hold them in high regard doesn’t mean that other people are the same. If you can’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes when it comes to something as simple as that, then how do you expect to do it for a novel? Same goes for putting CDs back in their cases, and the butter back in the right compartment of the fridge. I’ve got a memory problem at the moment, unless you hadn’t noticed, and not finding things where I know they ought to be kind of fucks with my head.

  You’re right. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

  Lucian sighed. Well I suppose this is as good a time as any to come to a decision about our circumstances. After two weeks of having you help me with my leg I think we can both agree that this little arrangement isn’t working out. I won’t deny that in many regards you’ve been a big help, but I don’t believe things can go on as they did before.

  They’re just a pair of trousers, I can get them…

  Lucian held up his hand. This whole situation has become too incompatible with what I originally planned. I see that now, and I apologise for prolonging my decision. I just wanted to be absolutely sure before I said anything.

  Has something happened? Do you feel as though you’re getting worse?

  No, no, nothing like that. In respect to this issue my thoughts are refreshingly coherent. I appreciate you being so sensitive to my condition, however I have made my decision. You spending half of every day at my house has become too inconvenient. And I’m sure your expenditure on taxis must be financially crippling. Which is why I think you should move in permanently. Who knows how much more snow is going to fall this season, and if you can’t catch a taxi up here then no work gets done, and the whole plan falls apart.

  Michael’s woebegone expression instantly vanished.

  T
here is, however, one very important condition to this offer.

  All right.

  We go back to our established routines. Writing until 1pm, then you do your research for the rest of the day. Deal?

  Deal.

  70.

  In retrospect, Andrew regretted the sense of amusement with which he had accepted Michael’s invitation to join him for breakfast. His plan to listen to Michael’s stories about finding true love in the arms of a local girl, before explaining how the rent for his room could no longer be discounted, had gone awry almost immediately. Instead he had heard Michael reveal that he would be vacating his room that very day so he could move into his ‘employer’s house’ up in Wood Green. The underlined date in the register confirmed that Michael’s second month was up, and Andrew had presumed that his presence at breakfast for the first time in two weeks was little more than a cynical ploy to re-establish their friendship before renegotiations began for the next four weeks. But Andrew quickly learned that Michael had come home only to pack; that he was ready to leave straight after breakfast, and did not intend to make any gesture to indicate their friendship would endure beyond the boundaries of the B&B. There was to be no offer to exchange phone numbers or email addresses; not even a half-hearted agreement to meet for coffee some time in the future. How cold, thought Andrew. How calculating. While calmly performing the conventional smiles and nods his profession had taught him to execute, the B&B proprietor wondered how much more friendship he needed to bestow before he received some in return. Exactly what defects did he possess that seemed to invalidate every effort he made to form a meaningful relationship? This was not some game he was playing. His motives were genuine. Sincere. Surely Michael could distinguish how authentic he was compared with everyone else in Hobart. And yet once again he had failed to forge a connection. Well Andrew refused to believe it was his fault. To think of oneself as always in the wrong was macabre. And it was out of proportion with the evidence. Michael had never been sympathetic to his needs. Instead he was always talking about himself. Obstinately, habitually reverting to the idea that he was the centre of the universe. It was so unsophisticated. Nothing more than a persistent self-infatuation that lacked all introspection, and proved to Andrew that, like so many of his guests, Michael was emotionally retarded. A lost soul isolated from the rest of humanity; skirting the periphery of society without ever managing to actually participate in it; viewing every interaction as simply a transaction to be conducted with as few scruples as possible. Andrew understood how humiliating it would be for Michael to realise how transparent he was being. And it was not his job to pull the wool from his customers’ eyes. If Michael could not perceive his own limitations then whatever Andrew did or said was unlikely to help. No, there was nothing amusing about this situation. It was sad and tiring, and Andrew could ill-afford to expend any more energy upon such a person. He drained his coffee cup and explained how he needed to get back to work. Just leave your key at the front desk if I’m not there, he said as a goodbye. Then set about collecting the plates and bowls that had been abandoned on the other tables. A faint regret that he would no longer see Michael in the halls or in the breakfast room twinged somewhere inside Andrew’s chest, but he pitilessly quashed such a useless sentiment and disappeared into the kitchen.

  71.

  Airport? Oh, okay. Sorry. Just saw your bags and thought you were flying out. Wood Green it is then. Buckle up. Nice day for once. It’s meant to get a lot colder later on though. Hope you brought your woollies with you. They’re predicting we’re in for some more snow tonight. You know, in ratio with the rest of the country, Tasmania gets more snow than…

  I don’t mean to be rude, said Michael. But I can feel a bit of a headache coming on, and I’d really appreciate just a quiet drive.

  Sure, sure. No problem. I understand. I’ve been to Sydney too.

  72.

  Tim armed himself with another empty box and set about extracting the business books and Bryce Courtenay hardbacks that Maureen had relegated to the bottom shelf behind the reading chairs. She had explained that such heavy volumes needed to be placed low to stabilise the shelf, but Tim knew that his wife hated the sight of his books and was terrified a visitor might mistake them for part of her collection.

  As he stood in the lounge room looking for what else needed to be packed, Tim caught himself making small farewells to objects Maureen owned and that he had grown fond of during their marriage. The aromatic candles were not part of this process, however Tim was surprised to find the Toby cup on the mantelpiece was. Along with the orange glass vase. Goodbye to the hatstand, he thought. Goodbye to the magazine rack. Goodbye to the tiny metal horse that stood on the windowsill. Goodbye to the reading chairs that Maureen had bargained for when he had claimed the desk in the office. Goodbye to the cushions she had sewn using the old curtains that had come with the shop. He checked their bedroom. Goodbye to the triptych of strange paintings, full of ferocious, gnashing figures that Maureen had bought in Budapest on her first trip overseas and hung in every bedroom she had lived in since. Goodbye to Alexander Trocchi’s Thongs. Being free of Maureen’s books was something Tim was eagerly anticipating, but there were a few volumes he knew he would have to buy his own copy of, and Thongs was one of them. Maureen kept it in the bookshelf beside the bed, and even though it had been years since she had read it aloud, Tim often revisited the most explicit pages whenever he found he had the room to himself and was confident of not being interrupted. Goodbye to the mechanical fish his father-in-law had played with as a boy. Goodbye to the perfume that lingered in the bathroom. Goodbye to Maureen’s hairbrush that made such an excellent back scratcher. Goodbye to her footsteps on the stairs. The delicious biscuits she baked. Goodbye to her calm, problem-solving mind. And good riddance to the arrogance that came along with it.

  Tim found himself standing at the bottom of the staircase. He could hear Maureen serving a customer in the shop, and smelled soup simmering in the kitchen. Such trances of nostalgia were occurring more frequently as the day of their departure drew closer. And each time he woke from one Tim felt the real world to be more pronounced; more raw. Fuelling the fear, somewhere at the back of his mind, that his readiness to leave Maureen was not yet fully established. And reigniting questions about whether he had chosen an incorrect path for himself; if the decay of his marriage was as irreversible as he had presumed. Was he guilty of exaggerating their problems? Even if he was, such self-questioning was too frustrating. Years of uncertainty in regards to whether they had done the right thing by moving to Hobart had left him desperate to make a decision and just live with it. Right or wrong, in less than a week, he and Maureen would no longer be together. And clothing that fact in uncertainty was not going to change the course he had set for himself. Nor would regret the loss of Maureen’s possessions. Tim was tired, and he knew it always made him susceptible to fear. What did it matter if was leaving things behind. It was the prospect of what he might find in the future that had given him the courage to accept Carl’s offer for the shop. Tim ladled himself a bowl of soup. Nothing ventured, he thought as he sipped, nothing gained.

  73.

  I bought you a housewarming gift.

  But aren’t you the one who’s moving in?

  Well then I bought it for both of us.

  Another CD. Two!

  I couldn’t decide so I ordered both. I’ve been reading about them online and I thought they might be of interest. You don’t have them do you?

  No. Never heard of either of them. Shall we put one on?

  You go ahead. I’m going to finish unpacking, then I’ll start lunch.

  Lucian tore off the plastic wrapping and put the CD in the player. From the cover he could not identify if it was a band or solo musician, and whether they called themselves ovalprocess or that was the title of the album.

  As soon as the music started Lucian knew it was going to be unlike anything he had heard before. Electronic. Unharmonic. Full of unruly clicks and ti
cks and beeps. All bubbling up with no discernable melody or structure. For a moment he thought the CD was skipping, but then the suspect glitch became incorporated into the composition and Lucian realised a strange, untutored creativity was at play. One with a significant ingenuity at its core that could recontextualise microscopic fluctuations and digital hissing into a ritualistic noise as oddly tender as it was astonishingly futuristic. At first the effect was disorientating. Like an electrical storm erupting inside the house. Setting off waves of overdriven static and whistling fireworks in all directions. But as the album progressed, and Lucian’s ears acclimatised to the astringent alien electronics, he began to notice a sculptural technique at work, and a maverick chamber music. One where regular metre was obliterated, and margins were redrawn using murky melodic threads and pulsating dissonance. It was a psychedelic experiment by an unforgiving machine. A sensory overload of combustible details and digital scrapings welded together with an abstract logic to deliver a radiant drone. A delineation of sound. A volatile spasm. Harmonically complex and elaborately constructed, the album seemed formless and unfiltered until the polyrhythmic atmosphere congealed into a sonic realm of oscillating vibrancy: unpredictable salvos; nettled tones; software eruptions and snaking voltage. Not a single noise betrayed traceable ancestry with traditional instrumentation. The rattling compositions sounded entirely computer generated, yet were nonetheless capable of conveying genuine moments of ache and bliss. Lucian realised it was as much about unlocking the rhythms hidden within the torrent of sound as it was about absorbing the mercurial forms and tonal fanfares. He observed the interminable repetition of squawking, snarling and squealing gradually shift in nature to unveil the secret orchestration of the inner machine. And comprehended how the sweeping imagination inherent in the cyclical patterns and interlocking algorithms heralded the arrival of a stunning mutant beauty.