It's Not All About YOU, Calma!

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said finally.

  Her eyes slowly came into focus and she turned her head towards me. There were things in the morgue with quicker reaction times. The chewing continued, a cow-like rumination.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘I just wanted to check you weren’t some peculiar, life-sized logo or one of those human statues you see at the markets or if you were simply in a catatonic state. And as for perching myself at the customer service desk like a galah, well, my preferred leisure activity is to engage in stimulating conversation with an intellectual heavyweight in an area of unspoiled natural beauty.’

  Actually, I didn’t say that at all. I’ve gotten into trouble in the past by allowing my mouth off the leash. This time I restrained myself.

  ‘I want to enquire about employment opportunities,’ I said. She stared at me, the gum chewing as regular as a metronome. Maybe she was incapable of chewing gum and speaking at the same time. Maybe the number of polysyllables I had used confused her. I watched her tonsils for a while, but, to be honest, they were of limited interest. Finally, she pointed to a sign on the counter.

  I read it. I was half-expecting something like, ‘Abandon hope, all ye who wait here.’ But it said, ‘Recruitment for Crazi-Cheep Stores is now conducted by Mission Impossible, Australia. Please phone 8448 1011.’ The girl wore a small smile as if I was a moron for having missed the notice in the first place. I was encouraged. If she could get employment, then clearly the only criteria for acceptance were basic vital signs and sufficient physical co-ordination to chew without severing your tongue. I decided to get onto it right away.

  ‘Do you mind if I use your phone?’ I enquired sweetly.

  She reacted as if I’d asked to French-kiss her grandmother.

  ‘It’s not for customer use,’ she said, outrage in her voice.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ I said.

  It took a little while to sort it out. This was a scenario she had obviously not encountered before and having to use her initiative brought on a violent nervous reaction. She lost her gum-chewing rhythm entirely. In the end, though, common sense prevailed and I made an appointment with the recruiting agency for the following afternoon. As I replaced the handset, I was struck by a thought. Why hadn’t I considered this before?

  ‘Is Jason working today?’ I asked nonchalantly.

  ‘Late shift,’ she said, her eyes returning to their natural state of vacancy.

  Late shift, hey? Just the kind of shift that would suit me perfectly. Life is full of strange coincidences, don’t you think? As I went out the automatic doors I glanced back. The girl was in the same pose, her mouth opening and closing as if she was having a conversation with a goldfish. The queue at the open checkout had lengthened. To my unpractised eye, I thought I detected rigor mortis setting in for a significant proportion of the customers. The same CD was droning in the background.

  I was going to like this place.

  ‘So what brought this on?’ said the Fridge.

  I had come home and changed into board shorts and a T-shirt. I’d intended to clean up my bedroom, but decided I could leave it for a while, accustomed as I was to living in the environmental aftermath of a natural disaster. After another shower to wash off crusty bits of make-up, I went into the kitchen to make a snack and found the Fridge in residence. I was always surprised when I stumbled across her. We were like the trajectories of celestial bodies – once in a long while our paths coincided and the collision was often spectacular.

  ‘I thought it was a good idea. Help out with the finances, that kind of thing.’

  The Fridge looked puzzled, as if me helping with money was akin to Osama bin Laden offering to be Santa at the local day care centre. She didn’t say anything, though. She sat at the kitchen table and sipped her coffee. I sat opposite. To be honest, I was worried about her. She looked old, her hair splattered with grey. There were frown lines around her mouth that I hadn’t noticed before. In fact, her whole face sagged as if a weight was pulling and stretching it. I didn’t know what to say. We didn’t have a good history of communication.

  ‘Your father dropped in to see me at work today,’ she threw into the silence. She didn’t look at me and she was chewing the inside of her cheek.

  ‘How charming,’ I said. ‘What did you do? Reach for the Mortein or call security?’

  ‘He wants to talk.’

  ‘What would give him the impression he’s got anything to say?’

  ‘He was very serious. Said he needed to talk, and that he didn’t want to mess up your life.’

  ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ I replied. ‘Look. Be firm and polite and maybe he’ll get the message. If that doesn’t work I’ll arrange for a couple of musclebound footy players of my acquaintance to visit him with baseball bats.’

  Mum stared into her coffee cup and continued to chew on her cheek.

  ‘I will talk to him, Calma,’ she said.

  I got to my feet. I had a feeling this had been coming. I don’t know why. Just an awful realisation that the one option so obviously stupid and irresponsible was bound to be the option she would choose. I don’t know who I felt angrier with – my dad for his manipulative power or my mother for allowing him to wield it. However, she was the only available target.

  ‘Are you out of your mind, Mum?’ I said. ‘Have you finally lost it? Do you need reminding what a complete bastard he is? We might not have realised it at the time, but him walking out of our lives was the best thing that could have happened. And now he strolls back in and expects you to listen. He’s probably single again, wants to cry on your shoulder about – whatever her name was. He treated you like shit. Now, you can’t change that. But the very least you can do is make sure he can’t treat you like that again. Please don’t talk to him, Mum. Please.’

  ‘It was all a long time ago, Calma.’Her voice was quiet and infused with weariness.

  ‘So what?’ I said, my voice getting shriller. ‘What difference does that make? By that argument, if Adolf Hitler returned, we would all be going,“Hey, don’t worry. You might have exterminated six million Jews in the gas chambers, but it was all a long time ago. Have a cup of tea and a lamington.”’

  ‘Your father is not Hitler, Calma. You’re overreacting.’

  ‘No, Mum. You are under-reacting. Look what’s happened to us. Here we are having a bloody argument, and over what? Him. He’s been back five minutes and we are fighting. Doesn’t that tell you something?’

  ‘It tells me you like to argue.’

  I stopped my pacing.

  ‘What? You’re saying this is my fault? Oh, I see. Well, it’s pretty obvious when you think about it. Here’s me angry and upset because your low-life ex-husband is trying to worm his way back into our lives – and it’s all my fault. I tell you what, Mum, you start baking a cake and I’ll work on a big banner we can drape over the front door. “Welcome Home Shithead. Feel Free to Fuck Us Over Again.”’

  I never swear in front of my mother. Her eyes hardened and her hands clenched into fists. I could see tendons bunch in her lower arms. Then she relaxed and rubbed her fingers over her brow, a gesture that seemed to take enormous effort. She was exhausted.

  ‘I don’t want to argue with you,’ she said in a quiet, reasonable voice that only served to make me angrier. ‘But you need to understand that it’s not all about you, Calma. When I make a decision, I take your views into consideration. But the decision has to be mine. I will not be bullied. By him, by you, by anyone.’

  She pushed her coffee cup away and picked up the car keys.

  ‘I’m off to work.’

  I had my back to her as she left the house. I didn’t trust myself to keep my mouth shut and saying anything else wasn’t going to help. I heard the car start up and the crunch of tyres on the gravel as she reversed out. Only when silence settled over the house did I go into the front room and sit down. I tried reading Emma for a while, but couldn’t concentrate.


  Mum was right. It wasn’t fair of me to use anger to influence her. If my feelings were worked up by the return of my father, then hers must have been in turmoil. The last thing she needed was me churning them up further.

  Nonetheless, I couldn’t ignore my own emotions. There was trouble ahead. I could only hope we would both be strong enough to deal with it.

  Chapter 4

  Peace offering

  Dear Fridge,

  I’m sorry. I was wrong.

  Not as wrong as you, but a lot sorrier.

  I want to apologise also for using the word ‘F***’. I know

  you don’t like it. I admit it. I fucked up.

  Love,

  Calma

  Chapter 5

  All about relationships

  I got the job!

  It was sooo easy. I took along a résumé, filled out a form and had a short interview with a balding bloke who smelt of tobacco smoke and essence-of-dead-dog cologne. I’d given some thought to the interview. My dealings with the gum-chewing zombie at the customer service desk led me to believe that my best chances might reside in lolling in the chair, tongue sticking out the corner of my mouth and drooling down the front of my blouse. The ability to use joined-up writing or read simple sentences without moving your lips was clearly not on the list of essential selection criteria.

  I nearly choked when he told me the pay rate. I was under the impression child slavery had been abolished. A sudden vision came to me – a muscled manager in a loin cloth whipping cowering employees for not keeping up with the rhythm of beating drums. I didn’t say anything, though. I even tried to manufacture an expression of unbridled joy at the prospect of working for an hourly sum you’d expect to find down the back of a sofa.

  I was due to start on Saturday. Late shift. I’d get a uniform and after three months I would be entitled to a staff discount of five per cent. Riches beyond my wildest dreams.

  I was excited and a little nervous.

  English continued to be great. I’d done some serious thinking about Miss Moss. I’m not sure how accurate a picture you might have of my personality yet, but I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m not the sort of person to take criticism very well, particularly if it’s criticism of my intellect. Miss Moss had been hurtful. But no matter how hard I tried to feed resentment, I couldn’t get over the fact that she was right. The poem I had written was awful. It occurred to me that I had two options – I could spit the dummy big time, curl my lip whenever she was around and bag her to other students, or I could talk to her about how to improve.

  Mature, or what?

  She was terrific when I approached her. She gave up a free period to go over the basic principles of poetry writing. And the more she talked, the more excited I got. I wanted to write proper poetry, to express ideas and emotions in powerful and concise language. Miss Moss made it clear this would require work because writing poetry was a frustrating process that involved grappling with words in ways I hadn’t yet experienced.

  The more difficult she made it sound, the more determined I was to succeed. She said she would be delighted to provide constructive comments about anything I wrote.

  I tell you, Miss Moss was so good I was terrified she would wake up one morning and wonder what she was doing in a school where students copying out of textbooks was considered state-of-the-art educational practice. It was a matter of time before she took her skills elsewhere, so I had to take advantage while I could.

  It wasn’t just Miss Moss who made English enjoyable, though.

  You see, I have a new friend.

  Now, for most of you, having a friend is probably not an earth-shattering event. You’re undoubtedly the sort of person who gets invited to sleep-overs with thirty-eight other people and buys birthday presents at least twice a week. Well, I’ve always been a loner. I don’t make friends easily. Maybe the Fridge is right – perhaps I put people off with sarcasm and what she calls my ‘love affair with my own intellect’. Who knows?

  [Roll intro music]

  Presenter: Good evening. This is the six o’clock news and I’m Anton Enus. In breaking news tonight, Calma Harrison has found a friend. Details from our correspondent in northern Australia, Penny Forum. Hello, Penny, are you there?

  Penny: Good evening, Anton.

  Anton: What’s the latest, Penny?

  Penny: Well, Anton, as you can see, I’m outside Calma Harrison’s house. I must stress we have no official confirmation as yet, but all the indicators are that the rumours sweeping the nation have some basis in fact. Calma Harrison, loner, Nigel-no-friends, total loser in the friendship stakes, seems, finally, to have found someone willing to be her buddy.

  Anton: Do we know who this mysterious ‘friend’ might be, Penny?

  Penny: The name ‘Vanessa Aldrick’ keeps cropping up, Anton. A girl in Calma’s Year 11 English class.

  Anton: And what do we know about her?

  Penny: A picture is emerging. Vanessa is tall, willowy and, according to reliable sources, a genetic throwback to the 1960s. She wears paisley kaftans and beads and her hair is long, limp and features a severe middle parting. I cannot, as yet, confirm that she also wears a peace symbol around her neck. Indications are she spends most of her time on a different level of existence to the rest of us, making only brief appearances on the planet Earth.

  Anton: So, in short, a dysfunctional adolescent?

  Penny: Exactly.

  Anton: Has Calma made any comment yet? Can we expect a press conference in the near future?

  Penny: Well, as you can see, Anton, representatives from all the world’s major media are camped outside Calma’s house. We have CNN, ABC, BBC, Sky, newspaper reporters from the Age, the Australian, the Financial Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, le Monde and Skateboarders Weekly. As yet, there has been no sign of Calma, but she is definitely inside her home and we expect a statement shortly.

  Anton: We’ll return to that story as soon as there are new developments. Meanwhile, in other news, an intergalactic war craft from a small planet in the constellation Ursa Minor landed today in Sydney, crushing the Opera House and threatening the destruction of the Earth within the next twenty-four hours . . .

  If I’m going to be strictly accurate, I should say I’ve got two friends. You see, we signed up for cable.

  I have no idea why. I mean, the Fridge never watches television. She just dusts the screen occasionally. But I was excited. We couldn’t afford the movie channels, but, even so, my viewing options had increased enormously. The first night, I sat down with the remote control and two kilos of popcorn. It was terrific. It was hypnotic. Four hours of surfing later and I knew that instead of four channels of undiluted sewage, I had thirty-five to choose from. There was a documentary on the history of lead-miners’ wives in the early twentieth century, an American soap opera in which no one could act but everyone’s hair was immaculate, a sports channel featuring international synchronised tiddlywinks and a shopping channel where, apparently, viewers were scrambling for their credit cards to buy ghastly jewellery at inflated prices.

  And then, like a gold nugget in a bucket of diarrhoea, there was Discovery. Did you know the male seahorse gets fertilised, carries the babies to term and looks after the offspring? The female, I imagine, goes to the pub with her mates to watch AFL on a plasma screen.

  I was hooked.

  It would be an exaggeration to say my first evening at work was an unqualified success. But the near-hospitalisation of a customer strikes me as an accident that could happen to anyone, particularly a trainee, and, anyway, Heinz Baked Beans should take some responsibility. Nonetheless, the incident was not one I would have chosen to be witnessed by my supervisor. On the credit side, though, there was Jason . . .

  Okay. I’ll just tell you what happened.

  I fronted up to Crazi-Cheep at seven-thirty, half an hour before my shift was due to start. The timing was fortunate because I had to get a uniform and suffer a twenty-mi
nute induction on what the job entailed. This was delivered by my supervisor who, I was dismayed to learn, was none other than the gum-chewing bump-on-a-log who had ignored me on my first visit. Her name was Candy, which struck me as appropriately lightweight. She ran through the basics in a monotone, her eyes never making contact with mine. Whenever she came close to looking at me, her gaze would slip away to a point somewhere over my right shoulder.

  Basically, I wasn’t going to be operating a checkout until I had proved myself stacking shelves. I got the impression that being on the till was considered the dizzying height of career ambition – not something I could even aspire to until I had three degrees and fourteen years experience. You probably had to be honoured on the Queen’s birthday list before you could cut ham in the deli. I tried to look suitably serious, as if being promoted to the checkout was a distant goal, like winning an Oscar for best supporting actress. Not that my expression made any difference – my face was a non-stick surface as far as Candy was concerned.

  I was given a uniform that was too big. Then we went to the warehouse area behind the aisles. I must admit I had always wondered what was behind those big plastic curtains, which shows you what a sad life I’ve led. Without wishing to destroy the romantic dreams of those who’ve been similarly curious, the answer is: rows and rows of toilet paper, pasta and jars of stir-fry paste.

  My job for the evening was to check stock on the shelves and replenish any items that were dwindling. I was hoping to get a pricing gun so I could go around yelling, ‘Give me all the money from the tills or I’ll mark down everything in the store.’ But it seems they don’t use price stickers anymore.

  Anyway, I set to with enthusiasm. Before long I discovered the shelves were woefully low on baked beans. I tell you, it was a good job they had employed me. I was right on the case. A woman with a mission. No customer was going to leave Crazi-Cheep with a cold lump of disappointment stemming from a fruitless search for cheesy-cheddar-flavoured baked beans.