Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  "The usual path to destruction," he always said, because I always knocked over the high table, or stood on the cat, or something. That was the word he used; to. I remember it clearly. I wonder now. Why didn't he say path of destruction? Why path to? Oh, God, didn't I have a choice in anything?

  Our two Grannies had been friends before our parents ever met; they got Mum and Dad together. There was no jealousy between them; no competition. And when Dad died, and Granny Searle grieved, Granny Walker was such a comfort the two could comfort Mum. To them we must have seemed shocked but unaware of the real implications of our father not being around.

  They took over a lot of parenting roles. They even went to parent/teacher night so Mum wouldn't have to face it. Before, Dad did me and Mum did Peter. Dad never told me what the teachers said. He winked at me, "Good girl," and piggy-backed me around the house. Mum hated her children being assessed by strangers.

  "How do they know what sort of boy Peter is?" she said one time to Dad. "They see him as a student and nothing more. They don't see him the way we do."

  "What did they say?" Dad said. He stroked her hair to calm and comfort. He loved to touch her, stroke her. She was so very lucky. I didn't have hair like hers or else he would have stroked me too.

  "She said he lacked courage," Mum said. She pulled Peter to her, squeezed him. "We know that's not true, don't we, Peter?" He nodded, but wasn't sure.

  "He's weak," I said. "I can beat him up any time."

  "Of course you can. You're the toughie of the family. You'll have to keep an eye out for Peter, protect him sometimes," Dad said. He was teasing me. I loved it. I threw my chest out, stamped around the room. "Who goes there?" I shouted. "Who goes there?" I didn't know the meaning of the question; I had heard it shouted somewhere and liked the sound of it. I kicked an imaginary opponent.

  "Stay away from my weak brother," I shouted. Dad laughed and clapped. Mum laughed too, but she said, "Mustn't tease your brother."

  The year Dad died, the Grannies were proud to head off to the school to talk about us. We stayed home with Mum and ate chocolate mousse for dinner. "This is the life," Mum said. Some people use clichés, nothing statements, when they want to be reassured, when they know something is wrong but they won't admit it. "It's nice, just us three," she said.

  "I love it, just us three," Peter said. He sat with her on the couch. I can still summon the anger I felt, and the shock. They had forgotten.

  "I wish Dad was here and you were both dead," I said. "I wish you were buried and dead."

  "Stephanie!" Mum said. She was white. She always thought she was the favourite.

  I had made a tactical error; I didn't need to be a grown up to see that. I had aligned myself with a dead parent. It seemed hysteria and guilt would help.

  "I like Dad the best because you like Peter the best," I shouted, and ran up to my room. My last glimpse was of them looking like Siamese twins on the couch.

  Mum came after me minutes later. She climbed into bed with me and squeezed me. She said a hundred times, "I love you, Stevie." But I knew she didn't mean it.

  The Grannies came home while I was asleep, so Peter had the pleasure of giving me the news in the morning.

  "You're in so much trouble, Stevie,"

  "Am not."

  "Am too. Granny Searle said the teacher said you were terrible. My teacher said I was clever and likeable."

  "That's cos you give her all your lunch money."

  "As if. Anyway, your teacher said there were concerns."

  Neither of us were sure what concerns were. They sounded like something neither of us wanted.

  It was very quiet at breakfast. Usually the Grannies don't shut up. I heard how quiet it was and I decided to play in the park till school time. Mum came and found me. We sat in the car while they talked about me. Mum said, "What do they know? How could they possibly know what my daughter is like?"

  "But why didn't Alex say anything? Year after year. What was he thinking?" said Granny Walker.

  "Perhaps he thought he was protecting her," said Mum. "From their nonsense."

  "Who?" I said.

  "Don't worry, darling. It'll be all right," Mum said. I hadn't thought there was anything wrong. I was strapped tightly in my seat, the belt cutting my circulation off. I wriggled and kicked Granny Searle's chair.

  "Sit still, Stevie," Granny Walker said. She sat between Peter and me in the back seat. She slapped my leg; she loved to slap. I thrust my hands down the back of the seat, hoping to find a distraction.

  "Money!" I said. I found five cents.

  "Soldier!" I said. A plastic man with a big stick. It was what I needed.

  "That's mine," Peter said.

  "Mine now," and we fought across Granny Walker until we arrived at school. They never told me what the teacher said.

  The Grannies were around a lot for the first couple of years after Dad died. I hated it; there were too many people telling me what to do. And they didn't like me, anyway. Peter was the one getting all the attention.

  But we got all sorts of different food and there were three people to plead with, all softies, not strict like Dad. The Grannies helped Mum clean, they drove us to school, they told stories. I wanted them to leave. They smelt like baby powder, mothballs, shit.

  One weekend it was just us and the Grannies. Mum went away with one of the New Dads. Mum wouldn't take me, though I screamed. I cut up her best dress. I collected dog poo and put it in her shoes. But she left me behind with the Grannies.

  They started by feeding me a lot, like you do with a vicious cat to slow it down. I ate so much I threw up; watching them mop the puddle made me feel better. We sat in the kitchen and I listened to them talk. There was an old butcher's block, with a sunken middle where they chopped, chopped, wearing the wood away with chopping and scrubbing. As a child, I imagined any dirt caught in the many deep scores was the blood of long-devoured creatures. I scraped it out with my knife and threatened to wipe it on Peter's arm. Chased him around the house and no one told me not to run with knives until Granny Walker came stomping down the stairs, and she was livid.

  "You little savage," she called me. This was three days into their visit; I had vomited into her suitcase after finding her store of chocolate mints there, devouring the lot, then leaping about on her bed, because she'd brought her thick woollen throw and it felt delightful between clenched toes, and against your cheek.

  I refused to eat the stew she cooked, giving Peter the excuse not to eat it either but I took all the blame. Granny Searle didn't eat it either; she spent so long calming things down it went cold. She said she'd heat it up later but she never did. It could even be still in the fridge. She brought me some potato soup, at midnight, and she explained about politeness and little white lies.

  Granny Searle hugged me irrationally, squeezed me till I couldn't breathe. "I love you, Steve, and so does your mother." Peter came in and tried to tug Granny's arm away.

  "Peter doesn't love me," I said. I stuck my tongue out at him. Granny pressed my face into her small, soft belly and I couldn't breathe. I tried to tell her; thumped my fists against her backside. She thought I was struggling against her love and she squeezed me all the harder. Later I told Mum that Granny Searle had tried to strangle me.

  "Peter loves you in a special boy's way," Granny Searle said. Years later, when I realised sex was not the glue which bound Peter and Maria together, I called him a Special Boy.

  "Peter's a real Special Boy, isn't he, Maria?"

  "He is rather special, yes."

  "And he loves you in that Special Boy's way."

  "I guess so."

  Peter called me a little savage sometimes, but I liked it. The Grannies talked about the new dad all weekend.

  "So soon after Alex's death," Granny Walker said.

  "Some women need release. It's like they've been let out of prison."

  "But he was your son."

  "I know. But he was her husband."

  "I know." Peter and
I shrugged. All we knew was that she had left us with two weak old ladies who only noticed what was right before their eyes. We stayed up half the night watching horror movies – my first ones, I'd say. We ate rubbish. We swore, words we'd only heard before. The Grannies lost their temper when we played stair races after the movie had finished, but their shouting didn't scare us.

  The next day Granny Searle said, "We've got a few things to do today, so you just sit in the back seat and look at your books." They forgot how clever I was at noticing. That I was going to be a detective. I noticed these things.

  They were so close, they even seemed to breathe together. I thought married people held hands, and mothers and daughters. Not grannies. I told Peter and we watched them. They held hands a lot.

  "Why are you holding hands? Girls don't do that," Peter said.

  "We don't hold hands," Granny Searle said, a foolish lie, because now we knew it was supposed to be a secret.

  They slept in Mum's room; I knew she hated that. Her room was private. When she came home I told her all my observations. She didn't mention it to the Grannies, not in my hearing or in Peter's, anyway, but we hardly saw the smelly old bags again. Not at our place, anyway.

  I don't think either of them trusted me after that.

  Maria insisted Peter keep my employment with them professional, so I had to go through an interview process. The other candidates were so desperate; I saw one guy waiting to go in with a side part. Who'd hire him? He didn't have a chance. So I got the job, of course. I think Maria was secretly hoping I'd fuck up and she'd have an excuse not to hire me. I ended up doing a lot more than Peter imagined I would. I helped him develop the shows (Maria called them lessons, but they were shows).

  I knew his little tricks as well as he did. He liked to cook as he talked. "Using your hands is so positive," he says. "Creating life, movement, energy. Whether you are silent or talk the roof off, sparks will fly."

  I liked going off to buy my lunch every day; there were so many choices. I didn't get how you were supposed to be so grateful for people doing their jobs, though. In one sandwich shop, this guy with a straggly ponytail always left something out, cos I never said thank you.

  I explored the city, finding my way. I hate to feel lost. I thought I had it made. I worked in an office, like a professional, I received a pay cheque, I lived alone but had enjoyed a live-in lover. I thought life was normal.

  One part of the city I loved, because everybody else said it was the arsehole of the place. There were only two restaurants and one was condemned by everyone who ate there. There was one sorry bar, a place which no longer tried to seduce patrons. There had been an enthusiastic manager years ago who had theme nights, foreign beer, meals. It made no difference, and he was a painful man. He liked to talk to you, ask you about your weekend, and no one was happy with that. I stopped in there to have a beer quite often.

  It was the perfect place to meet with Dougie Page.

  To give me an idea where the bones might have come from in my back yard, I called the man dad had died to save. The man who'd been in our lives for a while after dad died. Who looked like becoming a new dad for a while. I called him to do the dirty work, to track down the antecedents of the property.

  He walked into the pub, straight up to me and said, "Stevie, you look great. How's your Mum?" He was very clean in a good suit, but his face was twisted wryly; he didn't take anything seriously.

  I told him what I needed; he said it would be a simple matter to trace ownership. He didn't ask why I wanted to know, and I didn't take him home to show him my neat pile of bones.

  We talked for a while, then he said, "You need to be sure about this. Sure you want to keep digging. Most people would rather not know the truth."

  He'd floored me, talking about digging. It took me a minute or two to realise he wasn't talking specifically about my backyard. He meant the past; what's gone.

  "I want to know. I'm not afraid of it. I wish people had told me when I was younger."

  He laughed. "Younger? How old are you now?"

  "Twenty." I said.

  He said, "I like your voice. It's very restful. I feel like you know something about the world." I realise now he was probably laughing at me; he would report my pathetic attempts at wisdom to his friends, who waited at another place, a restaurant I would not be invited to.

  I said, "Maybe I do. I think I've had a near-death experience, but it was nothing like people say."

  We shook hands. He left me there, in the bar, and I bought whisky and thought about what Dougie Page had seen in me. I had two more beers, drank them slowly, breathing in the smoke from a man's pipe. It was unusual to smell such a thing, and I watched him in the mirror. He smoked the pipe like he was reading a book; with that same intent. There were only three other people in the bar, all alone, and they didn't complain about the pipe. It began to irritate me that he was allowed to smoke; it was such an intrusive thing. All of us were watching him; we were hypnotised by his action.

  The barman smiled at me every time I looked at him. I don't know what he expected; I wasn't a certain sort of person just because I was in the bar alone. I wasn't what he thought I was.

  I said, "Surely it's illegal for that man to stink up your place."

  He looked at the pipe-smoker then smiled at me. "He's not hurting anyone."

  "He's hurting me." I blinked at him. "It makes my beer taste funny."

  He walked to the man's table, watched by all. He leaned over, wiped the table, cleared the empty glasses away.

  "Sorry, mate," he said. "You're going to have to put that out."

  I don't know much about pipe-smoking but I know they're hard to keep alight. Auntie Jessie gave me an outdated Guinness Book of World Records, full of achievements, scribbles in the margins in faded grey lead, complex swirls I couldn't read. It said in there that the world record for keeping a pipe alight was less than two hours. This man had been smoking for an hour or so. He sighed as he tapped his pipe out and looked sharply at me. His eyebrows were a yellowed grey, as if his infernal smoking had dyed those overhanging arches.

  I collected my things and left the bar.

  It was cold. There would be a mist later on, and frost in the morning. I walked up the centre of the road, because it was deserted. Everyone was at home.

  I didn't tell Dougie Page everything. I didn't say: I have to make the most of life now, because I know what's coming later. All that shit about the afterlife, those people who wait for you in the light, it's shit. What's waiting is a bunch of people who want revenge. That's what everyone sees. I have never seen the golden path, the sun-dappled air, the faces of people who love me. Anyone who says they do must be lying. There is no journey; I awaken in the place I am going, like a kidnap victim blindfolded until the prison is reached, so the escape route is lost. I am in the centre of a cold, damp room; I can feel mildew sinking into my lungs, though I can never remember breathing. I've been there three times. Once, when the car crashed. Not long after, I was there briefly when my heart arrested in hospital.

  And at seven, I nearly died. That's when I went to the room for the first time.

  Even at seven I knew what the smell of death was, because of what Peter did when I was five.

  I was already, at five, considered very tough at school, mostly because of the scar over my right eye from a terrible fight Peter and I had. It seems hard to believe, that a girl of three and a boy of five could have such a war.

  I had been given a felt picture set by our kindly, childless Uncle Dom.

  He gave us plenty of presents. I also had a wonderful happy face clock, which Mum kept high up in the kitchen because it had too many sharp edges. That's why Dom gave me soft felt this time. Peter got a squishy car which didn't do anything except squish.

  Dom was Dad's brother.

  The felt set is long gone, though I found strands of it buried in the backyard.

  He was our favourite uncle, and we were not supposed to see him.

  I w
as playing with my felt picture set, seeing how many pieces of felt I could fit flat on the base. It was difficult work, because if I put a star in the wrong place, a triangle may not fit across the page. I believed that every piece should fit. Regardless of the number of times I am proven wrong, I continue to desire the pieces to fit.

  It was minutes, at least, that I worked. I was left with too much blue space; nasty cracks, shapes, expanses which I wanted to cover. I remember clearly the disappointment I felt on seeing that blue space.

  I raised my head from the board, preparing to shout for my mother. She would come and fix things, as we all imagine our mothers will do when we are very young.