It's Not All About YOU, Calma!

by Barry Jonsberg

  From: Miss Moss

  To: Calma Harrison

  Subject: Villanelle

  Calma,

  It’s time to try the villanelle form. This is a very rigid poetic structure and the basic rules are: 16 or 19 lines; iambic pentameter; four [or five] stanzas of three lines and a concluding four-line stanza; the first line of the poem is repeated as the final line of the second and fourth stanza; the third line of the poem is repeated as the final line of the third and [possibly] fifth stanza; the first and third lines come together as a final rhyming couplet; the rhyme scheme is aba aba aba aba abaa.

  Couldn’t be more straightforward!

  Don’t worry. It is a very difficult form and often used simply as an exercise in rhythm and rhyme. Very few villanelles are actually any good because the structure is so prescriptive. The magnificent exception to this is Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Read it and weep!

  Good luck,

  Miss Moss

  Villanelle for Jason

  Don’t think this silence speaks – that I don’t care For you, and draw dark shutters of the mind. Look in my eyes and read the message there.

  The spur is sharp, but not enough to dare Those words my tongue just cannot bear to find. Don’t think this silence speaks – that I don’t care.

  I cannot tell you all, I cannot tear Up stillness by its roots, but stumble, blind. Look in my eyes and read the message there.

  I think you sense a rift beyond repair, And to our parting have become resigned – Don’t. Think! This silence speaks that I don’t care?

  That is absurd. Trust grows, in time [like hair!] And bald resentments will be left behind. Don’t think this silence speaks, that I don’t care – Look in my eyes and read the message there.

  Chapter 25

  Thai died

  The Fridge hadn’t arrived when we got to the restaurant, but the waiter showed us to our reserved table. Jason still sported a mouth like a cat’s bum, so I took charge of the drinks order. I went for a house chardonnay. Okay, I was still a year away from the legal drinking age, but it was my birthday, and anyway, the waiter’s eyes were so transfixed on my chest he wouldn’t have thought to ask for ID. Vanessa was in a good mood, because she ordered something like a tropical rainforest. I half-expected David Attenborough to peep out over the rim of the glass, parting fronds and speaking in hushed tones. Jason had a beer.

  All well and good. But conversation wasn’t exactly zipping along. Nessa, as you know, wouldn’t have been out of place in a religious order bound by a vow of silence. She blinked occasionally over the foliage of her drink, doing a remarkable impersonation of a potted plant. Jason’s eyes slid all over the place, but managed to avoid mine. We had the animation of three paving slabs. I went for a subtle icebreaker.

  ‘Come on, you buggers,’ I said. ‘Give me presents.’

  But that didn’t work. Jason and Nessa refused to hand anything over until the Fridge deigned to make an appearance. They didn’t know her like I did. I just hoped they hadn’t got me anything perishable. My cheery gambit spurned, I opted for humility. Or maybe it was simple begging.

  ‘C’mon, guys,’ I said. ‘It’s my birthday. I know I’ve been strange lately, but . . . well, it’s my birthday.’ Lame, I admit, but the silence was getting to me. ‘Good cheer is customary. Animated conversation, the spontaneous chairing of the birthday girl around the restaurant to the lilt of amusing birthday songs. Frankly, at the moment, this could be the AGM of the local undertakers’ association. Perhaps we could start with a smile and, if no one dies, see where that gets us?’

  Jason finally looked at me. He had an ‘I’ve-been-treated-in-a-very-shoddy-fashion-so-I’ve-the-right-to-behave-like-an-anal-sphincter’ air of grievance, but my words had clearly chipped at his resolve. I could see a flash of light soften his eyes and it wasn’t just the reflection of candlelight. Once again, I felt a lurching in the pit of my stomach like the one I experienced when I first set eyes on him.

  Fact File

  Common name: Jason Evans

  Scientific name: Pommus Spunkius

  Habitat: Originally from England, the Pommus Spunkius is a rare example of a successful foreign invader. It has flourished in the climate of Australia and is regarded by all observers as a particularly magnificent example of non-indigenous fauna. Can be enticed from its regular habitat into the arms of human beings by careful manoeuvring and encouraging remarks about soccer.

  Mating habits: Devoutly to be wished.

  Appearance: Tall, rangy and athletic in appearance, the Pommus Spunkius is a splendid physical specimen. Beautiful skin tone, finely toned musculature, deep brown eyes liquid with sensitivity and eroticism, dribble, dribble, dribble.

  Toxicity: Non-toxic. Pleasurable feelings of wellbeing can be achieved if rubbed against skin.

  Status: Divine.

  Jason opened his mouth – probably to say something along the lines of, ‘Calma, you are a person of taste, refinement and sensibility, while I have been behaving like a horse’s rear end. Will you ever forgive me?’ – when the Fridge materialised dramatically at his side. It was unnerving. One moment there was a large gilt elephant looking past its use-by date occupying my line of vision, the next thing the Fridge was hovering.

  It was unnerving in other ways as well. The Fridge took off her jacket like it was an unaccustomed action. Her fingers were shaking and her face was so lined it looked as if it had been slept in. There was a small tic near the corner of her right eye and her mouth was pulled down. She got rid of the jacket and didn’t even glance in our direction. Jason was on his feet, showing manners more at home in the late nineteenth century. It was clear the Fridge didn’t know who the hell he was. She even gave him the jacket, probably expecting him to exchange it for a wine list. Jason arranged it carefully on the back of her chair.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Harrison,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  The Fridge blinked. I could see her summon her willpower, in an attempt to occupy the time and space the rest of us filled. It was as if she was returning from some place far away.

  ‘Jason,’ she said. ‘Yes. You too.’Her voice was overly cheery, with little fault lines at the edges. She was shoring up emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. In that moment I felt intensely sad. It was silly. I knew what had happened. It was written all over her. And it was what I had been praying for. Yet sudden tears stung my eyes and they had their source in sadness.

  The Fridge sat down and pulled her chair towards the table. She smiled, but it was nothing more than a series of muscle stretches.

  ‘Hey, birthday girl,’ she said, finally making eye contact. ‘Sorry I’m late. I . . . I had to make a phone call. Have you ordered? Ah, drinks. Yes . . . Jason, be a love, will you, and attract the waiter’s attention. How are you, Vanessa?’

  But she didn’t take her eyes from me.

  The Fridge ordered a bourbon and Coke and didn’t stop chattering. I took the opportunity to get another glass of wine. I had a feeling I was going to need all the artificial courage I could find this evening. A large part of me wanted the silence back.

  ‘Well, seventeen. Who would have thought it? It only seems like yesterday . . . Oh, by the way, your present. I hope you like it.’

  She reached into her bag and pulled out an oblong package. She handed it across the table and it felt solid and heavy in my hands.

  ‘I didn’t know what to get you. It’s so difficult. I mean, you’ve reached the age where I can’t get you clothes. I have no idea what kind of music you like – it all seems foul-mouthed nowadays and chanted by large people with an unhealthy interest in drive-by shootings. That’s if you can have a healthy interest in drive-by shootings. Anyway, if they haven’t got a criminal record, they just record one. Hah! Calma, don’t just sit there like a brick. Open your present!’

  I wanted to get up and hug her. Instead I pulled away the wrapping. It was a book.
A leather book, with gilt on the edges. I could smell its age. I opened it to the flyleaf. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, dated 1821, with a foreword by the Reverend Bowdler. It was perfect.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ I said. For once, I was lost for words. I ran my hands over the leather binding and put it carefully on the table, well away from the pools of condensation puddling by the water carafe. Then I got up and the Fridge stood and we hugged. I squeezed hard, my arms around her waist, my head on her left shoulder. She smelled of Givenchy and defeat.

  ‘Mum, I’m so sorry,’ I whispered. The words felt like something solid lodged in the back of my throat.

  She increased the pressure of her arms around me, before putting her hands on my shoulders and stepping back. Her smile was small and broken.

  ‘Me too, sweetie,’ she said. ‘Me too.’

  ReWND™

  Mrs Aldrick was surprised to see me, which I suppose was understandable. She’d seen Vanessa off to school. She knew I should have been there too. Lessons had already started. I couldn’t have come to pick her daughter up; it was too late for that. Maybe, as we faced each other on the doorstep and I stared her straight in the eye, she knew why I had come. I suppose I’ll never know.

  At first she didn’t want me to come in. She made excuses, but I was having none of it. She was the only solution. For Vanessa’s and Mum’s sake, I needed her to listen and I wasn’t leaving until I’d given it my best shot.

  We sat in the unnervingly spotless kitchen. She looked at me as if I was the manifestation of all her fears – a past she hoped was dead and buried that had quickened and returned to haunt her. As I talked, she ran her fingers over the polished surface of the table, her eyes darting around as if for aid.

  I told her everything I suspected and the doubts gnawing at me disappeared. Mrs Aldrick didn’t have to say anything. It was in the way the sinews in her arms moved, the slump of her shoulders, the relentless flickering of her eyes. It was all true.

  When I got to the marks I’d seen on Vanessa’s body, she inhaled sharply and her face twisted. I got the impression she’d hoped against hope that what had been in the past had remained there, that her daughter was safe. Wishful thinking. Maybe deep down Mrs Aldrick knew, but it was a knowledge she was desperate to avoid. I forced her to face it.

  I begged her to keep Vanessa at home from now on, to stand up to her ex-husband for her daughter’s sake. I explained the research I had done on exclusion orders and the process by which you could apply for one. It seemed bizarre – I was barely seventeen, yet I was advising someone over twice my age on issues that left my tongue coated with distaste. Neither of us wanted to have this conversation. Yet I floundered on, pushing words through the barrier of her silence. I told her about the Fridge, that there were two people she could protect if she summoned the courage. I gave her Mum’s shift times for today. I’d got them by ringing the casino. I couldn’t force her to do anything. I didn’t try. I just gave the information, sprinkled the seeds, hoped for germination.

  When I left the house she was sitting at the kitchen table, dragging her fingers over the surface, eyes fixed on the pattern of smudges she’d created. Mrs Aldrick had made no promises. She had barely spoken. But I felt an irrational hope and it warmed me all the way to school.

  FastF™

  At least the Fridge’s handing over of her present liberated Jason and Nessa from their smug self-discipline. Vanessa passed me her package, a lumpy and appallingly heavy object. I nearly pulled a muscle as I took it from her. For a moment, I thought she’d bought me a boulder. But it turned out to be a sandstone Buddha, intricately carved and full of tranquil flowing lines.

  ‘Put it in your bedroom, Calma,’ said Vanessa. ‘In the corner where the chest of drawers is. It should counteract the strong yang energy in the room, as well as dissipating the shar chi, the killing breath, caused by the inauspicious juxtaposition of your wu xing.’

  ‘You couldn’t run that by me again, could you?’ I replied.

  ‘Feng shui.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ I said. ‘I thought there was something wrong with you. It’s lovely, Nessa. Thank you.’

  ‘And here’s mine,’ said Jason. At least his present was small and didn’t look like it might induce a hernia just opening it. I moved the Buddha to the edge of the table where it threatened to tip the whole thing over, catapulting the water jug into the laps of diners over my shoulder. I ripped at the packaging on Jason’s gift. I’m not the kind who patiently peels back sticky tape and methodically unfolds wrapping paper. I’m more the rampaging rend-and-shred-with-the-nails type, scattering paper like confetti.

  It was a mobile phone. A lovely, shiny mobile phone – the kind that flips open. There was a small lens at the back. I’m not technically-minded, but it looked like a phone with a still-image manipulator, video capture card, wireless internet and espresso-making facility.

  I was stoked.

  Now I could do what everyone else did at school – develop weak eyes by fiddling with the settings or installing ring tones of execrable taste.

  ‘Thought it’s something you could use,’ said Jason. ‘You can be a very difficult person to get hold of.’

  ‘It’s brilliant. Thank you. I don’t deserve it, Jason.’

  ‘Too right. You don’t.’

  He didn’t say it in a nasty way, though, and I knew we’d be all right. Later on, when there was just the two of us, I’d explain. I’d explain everything. And he’d kiss me and tell me he understood and that he thought I was a brilliant girlfriend and a wonderful friend and caring daughter, and we’d download ring tones until our fingers ached. I wanted to use it right away, but he explained I’d have to call the service provider to activate the sim card.

  ‘How can I do that?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have a working phone.’

  He took out his mobile and gave it to me.

  ‘There you go, Miss Impatient,’ he said. ‘Follow the directions on the card.’

  It took a while to work out how to turn his bloody phone on, but I managed to get through all the steps for activation. The service provider guy told me it would take a minute to do whatever he had to do, but basically I would be connected almost immediately.

  ‘Course, you need to charge the phone up for about two hours before you can use it,’ Jason chipped in.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m pulling your plonker! I’ve already charged it. Calma, I think you’re ready to join the world of electronic communication. Who you gonna call?’

  I realised I didn’t have anyone I wanted to ring. The only people I cared about were sitting a metre away. Jason suggested I ring him, but that was just too sad. Can you imagine it? Our phones would be virtually touching. I wouldn’t be able to hear what he said on the phone because he’d be talking too loudly. Anyway, I had a better idea.

  I punched in the number and there it was. My first call. Someone picked up after three rings.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello. This is table twelve. Any chance of someone taking our order?’

  There was a puzzled pause, but it did the trick. A young man was over before I could flip my phone shut. We ordered and I took the opportunity to get another glass of wine. Despite the expression on the Fridge’s face, a strange combination of happiness and misery, like she’d been violently sandbagged from behind in the middle of a wedding party, I was feeling fine. And it wasn’t only because of the alcohol suffusing my bloodstream and buggering around with electrical impulses in my brain. It was good to be with these people.

  Once we’d ordered, Jason showed me how to use the camera on the phone and I snapped away happily. I took pix of the three of them, the Fridge in the middle with her arms around Jason and Nessa. I took pix of my pressies. I even got Jason to take one with his phone of my phone. I balanced it up against the Buddha so it appeared that the divine one was ordering a pizza. Boy, this wine was strong.

  My father arrived halfway through the entrees.

  I was di
pping the last of my fishcakes into a small puddle of sweet chilli sauce when I became aware of someone standing next to the table. He ran a hand over his scalp and glanced nervously around. I swallowed the final morsel and took a sip of chardonnay. I was cool.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I said.

  His eyes flitted everywhere and I saw more clearly than ever what a weak, contemptible creature he was.

  ‘I’m going,’ he said. ‘Back to Sydney. Thought you’d want to know.’

  I brandished my new phone.

  ‘Would you like me to call a taxi?’ I said sweetly.

  That shook him. He struggled to keep his temper and failed. Typically, what followed was bluster.

  ‘You’ll be sorry,’ he said, his voice rising in pitch. ‘She’ll take me back, you know. I don’t need you. Oh, no. And when I’m gone, it’ll be too late for you to change your mind. There’ll be no point crying to me then. You’ll be sorry.’

  I raised my glass in a mock toast.

  ‘Have a good trip,’ I said cheerfully.

  He left then. The last I saw of him was a drooping figure slinking off into the darkness.

  Vanessa’s father arrived halfway through the main course. A shadow loomed over the table and I froze with the fork poised. To be honest, I don’t know whether there was actually a shadow at all. But the effect was there, a chill in the atmosphere, a pall cast over the meal. Conversation was sliced off.

  Nessa’s dad didn’t look as if he was about to add his personal best wishes to the celebration. Watery blue eyes washed coldly over us, before settling on the Fridge. Nessa nearly choked on her vegetable stir-fry.

  ‘Dad!’ she said, her voice thin and timid. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He ignored her.

  ‘Jean. A word. Now,’ he said.