It's Not All About YOU, Calma!

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘I like your head,’ said the Fridge, as I was buttering my toast. ‘Very chic. Very shiny.’

  ‘For leukaemia,’ I said. I wasn’t in the mood for banter.

  She cupped her hands around the coffee mug and blew into the steam. I sat opposite her at the kitchen table. Under most circumstances I can read the Fridge. She was thinking about whether she should be proud of me for what I had done last night or angry at me for putting myself in danger. I was curious which tack she’d take. The silence stretched and she glanced at her watch. My irritation grew.

  ‘So,’ she said finally. ‘My daughter, the heroine, huh?’

  I kept quiet.

  ‘Do you know?’ she continued. ‘I don’t know whether to be proud of you or angry.’

  I kept quiet.

  ‘Calma. Why don’t we talk anymore?’

  I wasn’t prepared for that, but I recovered quickly.

  ‘You’ve got to go, Mum, haven’t you?’ I said, dropping the piece of toast on my plate. ‘You keep checking your watch. You’re going somewhere. Aren’t you?’

  She looked embarrassed.

  ‘Well . . . yes,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.’

  ‘You know,’ I said, pushing back my chair. ‘I’ve no idea why we don’t talk anymore, Mum. It’s a real mystery. Maybe we’ll figure it out one day.’

  And I left. I went back to my bedroom, until I heard the front door close, the car start up and the sound of the engine fade into the distance.

  I didn’t know how to spend the day, mainly because there was nothing I wanted to buy with it. I wandered around the house, thought about doing school work but quickly discarded the idea. Then I thought about ringing Jason, but I wasn’t comfortable with that either. It wasn’t so much the stick insect. I decided I had overreacted, though I would rather die than admit it to Jason. I just thought I should wait until he rang me. I didn’t want to appear over-dependent. Anyway, that smug remark he had made about jealousy was sticking in my throat and I didn’t want to feed his ego.

  In the end I turned on the telly and surfed channels. There was a soccer game on SBS and I flicked past it, then thought better and skipped back. A scorecard in the top left of the screen told me it was Manchester United versus Liverpool.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Call yourself a freethinking, independent woman with a mind like a steel trap? As soon as a guy comes on the scene, you watch footy! Pretty soon, you’ll be dyeing your hair, if you had any, measuring up material for homemade curtains, window-shopping for time-saving domestic appliances and taking embroidery night classes.’ Yeah, well, I can understand this cynicism, but I want it placed on record that I’m the kind of person who is open to new experiences, who believes that minds are like sharks – if they stop moving, they die. Now, I’m not suggesting a soccer game will change your life. But I’d never seen one, and that’s an omission. I had nothing better to do, after all.

  Okay, smart-arse. I had remembered Jason supported Liverpool. And that I’d said I was prepared to learn about the game.

  It’s a strange business, soccer. At the final whistle I wasn’t any wiser. As far as I could understand, to be a player you either had to have flowing locks, honed leg muscles and a face with chiselled features or a stubbled pate and the kind of appearance that causes small children to wet themselves. There were plenty of these. At times, they formed a line and put their hands over their private parts. This explained the general group ugliness. The ball, smacked at high velocity, must have rearranged a number of features that had previously been in tolerable condition. Being thumped in the face repeatedly with a hard round object is, I imagine, going to take its toll. Still, there’s a balance. Their private parts, afforded protection, were undoubtedly in mint condition. I didn’t dwell on this idea for long, obviously. It crossed my mind that some of them would have been better leaving their gonads alone and putting their hands across their faces.

  I know I would have felt better.

  The good-looking ones were good-looking, mind. They ran at full speed, kicking the ball towards the ugly ones, who would gently tap finely-honed legs, causing the hunky guys to scream in agony, roll over twenty times and writhe on the ground, apparently in the last stages of disembowelment. This would result in the line-up of willie-fondling ugly buggers previously mentioned. Getting injured at soccer is drastic, if short-lived. I mean these guys react as if they’re experiencing an anal probe with a red hot poker, but within moments they are running around again, locks flowing and chiselled features intact.

  The game involves getting the ball between the goalposts. Given most players were trying to do this, it amazed me no one succeeded. In fact, the ball seemed to go everywhere except between the posts. Basic communication and elementary team-building skills should have enabled twenty-odd young blokes to achieve this modest task. They were hopeless.

  One part of the game I enjoyed enormously involved individual spitting contests. The players had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of phlegm. Every time the television camera was on them, they’d produce a huge slimy ball and blow it with considerable force into the ground. Sometimes they’d create divots. The more skilled were able to do this out their noses. They’d stick one finger against a nostril, closing it – presumably for maximum explosive potential – and send a tracer into the turf at the speed of sound. If they’d hit an opposing player in the leg it would have had the same effect as a round from a .44 Magnum.

  I enjoyed the game – in the same way as I’d enjoy watching an Italian opera. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, but it was all very exciting. At least I’d have something to talk to Jason about. He could explain the snot-hurling. Were there judges in the stands, awarding points for force, accuracy and artistic interpretation? I’d ask him.

  When the game was over I tried Discovery, but it was a repeat so I turned the television off and attempted to read. I gave up after five minutes. I couldn’t concentrate. I paced. I even thought about tidying my bedroom, but I hadn’t yet reached the absolute pits of boredom, so I went into the garden and sat in a plastic chair, weathered into off-white streaks by years of fruit-bat crap.

  I looked out over wilting palm trees and thought. My insides were a knot of anxiety. Or rather, a number of knots, all churning and mixing together. The Fridge, of course. And Vanessa. And Jason. My dad. But the more I thought, the more anxious I became and the more inextricable the mess of my personal relationships. I spent the rest of the day out there. I didn’t even get anything to eat or drink. I didn’t trust my stomach to keep it down.

  Darkness fell abruptly, like it always does in the tropics, and I didn’t budge. The stars freckled the sky and I watched. The more I stared, the more stars I saw – not directly, of course, but crowding the periphery of vision. If I concentrated on one spot, kept my gaze fixed, then stars appeared at the edge, one milky dot after another, until the sky became impossibly full. Apart from the black well, with its light dusting, in the centre of my gaze. It occurred to me then that I spent too much time looking directly at things. Maybe I would see more if I watched less.

  It seemed a profound realisation at the time, but I had no idea how it could help.

  I went to bed early. I unplugged the phone, took it with me, and plugged it into the phone point in my bedroom. For some reason, I was incredibly tired. Maybe it was the emotional exertion of the night before. Maybe I was simply tired of thinking. But as I drifted off to sleep, I wondered why Jason hadn’t rung to see how I was. He’d been so concerned the night before, yet I had heard nothing from him all day. But if I’m honest, that wasn’t the most important thing. What I really wanted was for Vanessa to ring. I knew she would be home late from her dad’s. If her mum gave her my message, and I wasn’t convinced she would, then I wanted to be close to the phone when it rang.

  It didn’t. When the alarm went off at six-thirty, the first pale streaks of dawn were filtering through the curtains. They gave a sickly light and I didn’t
want to get up. The day offered no promise.

  The phone, resolutely silent, lay on the floor beside my bed.

  Chapter 18

  The seal on the Fridge comes unstuck

  Dear Calma,

  I’m sorry. You’re right. I can’t complain about a lack of communication when I’m rarely around. Things are difficult at the moment. There’s a lot going on. I’ll tell you about it soon. Just give me time, please, and don’t judge me too harshly. I love you, you know. I might not show it too often, but I do.

  Keep Wednesday evening free, if you can [or you want]. Birthday girl! I thought I’d take you and Jason for a meal. Invite Vanessa, if you like.

  Love,

  Mum

  P.S.What do you want for a present?

  Dear Fridge,

  It’s funny, isn’t it? You want so badly to stay mad at someone, but as soon as they apologise, all those resolutions evaporate. I would love to have a birthday meal with you. Particularly at your expense. I’ll ask Vanessa, and Jason if the bastard ever deigns to ring me.

  There’s only one thing I want from you for my birthday. More time. More conversation. More honesty. Sorry, I guess that’s three things. I know I sound corny, but it’s true.

  Love,

  Calma

  From: Miss Moss

  To: Calma Harrison

  Subject: Free verse

  Calma,

  As you know, free verse poetry follows no set rhythmical pattern. The writer uses her judgement to establish a pattern on the page. It is not an easy form to get right! You must be aware of the sound quality of individual words and how they can be put together to create music. And sense, of course.

  Take a memory from childhood – any memory – and write a free verse poem which captures that memory and shows its effect upon you now.

  Miss Moss

  The night my father left

  The night my father left, he cried;

  So mother says – I don’t recall.

  The memory I possess predates that

  A holiday, the three of us in snow,

  Happy and powdered in laughter.

  I lay on a bed of winter and watched

  As, far above, a snowflake

  (Individual as a poem in the oneness of its pattern)

  Was minted, pressed from water and cold

  In the stillness of the sky.

  It crowded towards the gathering white below

  Where, settling on the landscape of my face,

  It fell in upon itself, shrank to a drop

  I wiped away with my hand.

  It is intensely sad,

  The ease with which we brush aside

  Something that can never be again,

  With the semblance of a tear.

  Chapter 19

  Vanessa and the stars

  Vanessa sat next to me in English, but we didn’t get a chance to talk. Miss Moss set a close reading to do under timed conditions and it was a tricky little beggar. In fact, once I got into it, I forgot everything else. It’s what athletes call ‘the zone’ – an area of such concentration that a small incendiary device could be detonated next to you and you wouldn’t blink. That’s how I was with this piece of writing – totally absorbed by the ways the writer created atmosphere.

  All right. You can smirk. Some people get fascinated with Justin Timberlake’s facial hair, others with the relationship between sentence structure and characterisation. To be perfectly frank, I couldn’t give a rat’s bottom if old Justin sprouts a Persian rug once every lunar cycle and bays at the moon. But a good piece of writing . . . Hey, everyone’s different. So shoot me!

  Anyway, the time flew and then it was Maths. Vanessa isn’t in my Maths class, so I didn’t catch up with her until recess. I went down to our stamping ground by the canteen and there she was, gazing into the distance and nibbling another banana. I plopped myself beside her and followed her line of vision. As far as I could tell, she was staring at a rubbish bin on the edge of the oval. Even by the general standards of rubbish bins, this wasn’t a particularly interesting one, but everyone has their personal ‘zone’. We sat in companionable silence for a minute or two, while I thought about the best way of broaching the subject of Friday night. Unfortunately, my thoughts were interrupted by Jamie Gallagher passing by and making an observation about my head, which was gloriously and unashamedly bare.

  ‘Hey, Calma,’ he said, with the kind of smirk that is often a prelude to a comment the perpetrator finds uncommonly witty. ‘Love the head. You know what would look good on it? A cue stick.’

  ‘Thanks, Jamie,’ I replied. ‘Do you know what would look good on your head? A pitbull terrier.’

  His eyes took on that pained glaze of concentration people get when they’re searching for a clever response, but can’t find it. He scurried off, still thinking, and I turned to Vanessa.

  ‘Hey, Nessa. What did you think of the film on Friday?’

  She turned her head so slowly I wondered if her neck mechanism was in need of a service.

  ‘Okay,’ she said finally, investing the judgement with no emotion whatsoever.

  ‘Johnny Depp was hot, hey?’

  ‘Okay, I guess.’

  ‘The parrot was the best actor of the lot of them, mind.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How was the weekend with your dad?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I was used to Vanessa’s monosyllabic style of communication, but this was ludicrously unforthcoming, even by her own standards. Under other circumstances, I would have poked her in the eye with the non-mushy end of her own banana, but I was considerate.

  ‘Did your mum give you my message?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Too late to ring, though. Sorry. I was really tired.’

  I decided a change of topic might loosen her up – you know, the stars on the periphery of your vision and all that – so I told her about the incident at Crazi-Cheep on Saturday night. I tried to make it as funny as possible. I guess, in a way, it was funny, but I really hammed it up, exaggerated it to bring out all the comic details. I was pleased with the way I told it. Vanessa even laughed at one stage, though I got the impression the laugh escaped unwillingly. But at least I broke through her reserve, the barrier she constructed without even being aware of it. By the time I finished she had relaxed slightly. Physically, she was carved from a single piece of mahogany, but I could tell that emotionally she wasn’t as inflexible.

  I followed the hilarious incident of the runt and the frying pan with the invitation to dinner on Wednesday night and she agreed to come, though not without considerable urging after I told her Jason would probably be there. She trotted out all the reasons about not wanting to be a gooseberry, but I persuaded her that under no circumstances would I consider her a fruit of any description. Unless she actually turned into a banana.

  The conversation went so well I pushed my luck. The bell had gone and we were wandering over to our Legal Studies class.

  ‘Nessa?’ I said. ‘I saw you Friday night. After the film. You were sitting on a bench by the river and you were upset. I was going to come over, but you took off. Is everything okay?’

  As soon as I asked, I knew it was a mistake. I wasn’t looking directly at her but I knew she stiffened. You can tell these things. And the atmosphere – I’m good at atmospheres – well, it suddenly became arctic. It was thirty-three degrees in the schoolyard, but we were walking in our own refrigerated capsule. I didn’t say anything else. I shoot too often and too wildly from the lip, but even I realised damage limitation was best achieved through silence. When Vanessa spoke I knew she was lying. I also knew I couldn’t confront her with it.

  ‘You must have been mistaken, Calma,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Oh? Yeah. I must have been. Sorry,’ I replied.

  We sat together in Legal Studies and I worked on defrosting the situation. By the end of the class I’d made some headway. We were down to cool,
but to my mind that was better than frozen.

  Jason was waiting for me at the end of the day. He was smiling and leaning up against an old, but neat-looking, black sports car in the student car park. I couldn’t help it. I gave a loud whoop and ran, dragging Vanessa behind me.

  ‘Cool,’ I said, not even bothering how unoriginal I sounded. ‘Is this yours?’

  Jason’s smile broadened. He was beaming so much that if his grin got any wider the top of his head would drop off.

  ‘Like it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s great!’

  ‘Got it yesterday. Had to go out of town, down the coast a ways.’

  I thumped him on the arm.

  ‘Bastard!’ I said. ‘So that’s why you didn’t come to see me?’

  Jason rubbed his arm ruefully.

  ‘God, Calma. For a chick, you pack a hell of a punch. That’ll bruise.’

  ‘Good. You deserve it.’

  He put his arm around me.

  ‘I know. I meant to come round. But the motor negotiations took longer than I thought. My dad and I didn’t get back until gone ten in the evening. I was going to give you a bell, but . . . here I am. Fancy a spin?’

  I’d forgotten Jason and Vanessa didn’t know each other. They’d been briefly introduced at the cinema on Friday, but Vanessa was hanging back now, sidling off into the distance and giving a convincing impression of a gooseberry. I grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her back.

  ‘Can Vanessa come? You remember Vanessa, from the cinema?’

  Jason smiled again, all flashing white teeth and gleaming olive skin.

  ‘Yeah, of course. There’s room in the back.’

  Vanessa went scarlet.

  ‘No. You guys go. I’m fine,’ she spluttered.

  But I wasn’t letting her get away with that. I had to repair the earlier damage.

  ‘No chance. You’re coming with us, isn’t she, Jason?’

  ‘Sure. Hey, what about going to Waterworld? We could get there in twenty minutes.’

  Now this made me more excited, if that was possible. Waterworld had only just opened, a week ago, and I wanted to check it out. I’d heard it was brilliant, with scary slides and fountains and waterfalls and everything.