The Art of Persuasion

by Midalia, Susan;

‘How were they rotten?’ she said. ‘I mean, what did they do?’

  ‘Well, my father was a businessman who—I can’t say this politely—fucked people over. And my mother was something called a socialite. Social-lite, who did fuck-all with her life.’

  ‘So—how did you get to be you?’

  ‘Good question. How does anyone escape their family?’ He gave her the warmest smile. ‘Maybe it’s the same as reading,’ he said. ‘You meet certain people in the same way you meet certain books, the ones who give you the words for what’s already inside you.’ He leaned back, as though ready for another drink, then suddenly looked at his watch. ‘Jessie,’ he said, and sprang from his chair. ‘I have to get home. His aunt—she picked him up from school because I had a meeting, and I have to get going.’ He tugged at his collar. ‘She has an important date.’

  Yet he wasn’t making a move, stood looking down at her, his hands on the table.

  ‘It’s early days for her, with a new man,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to cramp her style.’ But still he wasn’t moving. ‘Jessie adores his aunt. I’m very lucky to have her help.’

  Hazel saw the crinkles round his eyes; that mop of greying hair she wanted to run her fingers through.

  ‘Maybe it’s not luck,’ she said. ‘Maybe you deserve it.’

  She wished he would hold out his hand. Wished she could feel the warmth of his skin.

  ‘Thanks so much for…’ He trailed off, not taking his eyes from hers. ‘I had a good time.’

  He sounded nervous, even anxious, building up to something and then drawing back. Hazel felt her hands tighten under the table. Should she offer him her phone number? Give him her address? Leap up and kiss him on the mouth?

  ‘Maybe we’ll meet again,’ he said. ‘On the campaign trail, I mean.’ Then he said a hurried goodbye, turned, walked briskly to the door without looking back.

  A kind, sensitive, principled man. A man, not a guy.

  She tried to picture him but his face was already blurring and she didn’t know how this was possible: to have seen him so clearly, every curve and line and shadow on his face, and then watch him disappear. She thought about another glass of wine after all and how he’d said they might meet again. Remembering their words and glances and her flutters of emotion and wanting him to like her, like her so much, wanting him to make a move. And now some guy was asking for Adam’s chair and this made her feel even emptier, with couples all around and people trying to be coupled and here she was, alone again, naturally. Who used to sing that? Might still be singing it in some moody, wine-drenched bar?

  She knew what she had to do: message Simon.

  You said you’d send me details of the training. The Greens.

  Sorry been flat out

  So when is it?

  A couple of days

  Hell. Talk about disorganised. OK. Next step.

  Do you know a guy called Adam in the Greens? In his forties I guess

  Solid looking guy?

  Yes. And striking pale blue eyes

  Not very subtle but she wanted to be sure, as she watched the bubbles of an answer form slowly on the screen.

  Sure Adams a legend in the party

  He’s a trainer isn’t he? For doorknockers.

  Yeah training on Friday with you on his list with me and Felicia

  She could have kissed him. And Felicia. Anyone who happened to be passing.

  So how come you know Adam

  Not that she knew him, as such.

  We got talking on a train

  I bet he chewed off your ear about the Greens

  Something like that yes

  Yes and yes and yes.

  To speak or not to speak

  ‘She wasn’t home, was she?’ said Beth, stomping into the living room. ‘She sent me a text to say she forgot and didn’t even have the decency to say sorry.’

  Beth had been to see her mother. One of those you’re getting too kinds of mothers—you’re getting too fat, thin, lazy, wild, big for your boots.

  ‘Not a complete waste of time, though,’ she said, and plumped herself into the red beanbag. ‘I flirted with a very cute guy on the bus. And someone left a magazine on the seat in front and I got to reading about a bunch of celebrities, all the things they’re afraid of. Apart from losing their celebrity, that is. There was some B-grade actor who’s really afraid of antique furniture, which is seriously weird. I mean, why would anyone be afraid of a seventeenth-century chaise longue? And other weird stuff, like the fear of bellybuttons or holes in cheese. Apparently that’s some existential thing, about a hole being a nothing surrounded by a something, so whoever looks at the hole feels like they’re facing the void.’

  ‘I don’t believe that, Beth. That has to be made up.’

  Should she tell Beth about the man?

  ‘It did sound pretty whacky to me,’ said Beth. ‘There was other bizarre stuff as well, about the fear of buttons and the fear of big words—no chance of you catching that one, Haze. But the one that really amazed me was the fear of gravity. They say it’s a phobia caused by a trauma, like falling from a very great height.’

  ‘I know you’re afraid of rats,’ said Hazel. ‘Which I totally understand because they’re so—’

  ‘Don’t go there, Hazel, or I’ll scare you with an image of sharks.’

  ‘OK, sorry.’

  ‘I won’t go on about those rows of teeth and—’

  ‘Stop. Please. I won’t mention rats, ever again.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Beth, ‘I just thought of something. What if gravity ceased to exist? You’d get to float around in space, feel at one with the universe. You might even see God.’

  ‘I thought you were a rational materialist,’ said Hazel.

  ‘WTF?’

  ‘It means you believe that everything comes down to the physical.’

  Beth laughed. ‘I wish I’d had the chance to get down and physical with the guy on the bus.’ She checked her phone. ‘Six o’clock. My alcohol gene just kicked in.’

  She stumbled out of the beanbag, headed for the kitchen, returned with a bottle and two of their biggest glasses.

  ‘I have to fill out my Newstart form after dinner,’ she said.

  ‘Me too.’

  Newstart, Hazel thought: it sounded like a cross between a self-help manual and Orwell’s 1984. No wonder she felt depressed.

  Should she tell Beth now? Wait until the wine charged her up? What would Beth make of her silly agitation over a brief encounter with an older man? Beth, who she always confessed to, told her everything there was to know.

  Beth started waving her glass about because she’d seen something truly disturbing, she said, an ad in the local paper, set out in huge pink font: WHAT’S THE DESIGNER VAGINA? She’d nearly toppled over when she read it, she said, all the stuff about tightening this and rejuvenating that, collagen and creams, making women feel even more ashamed of their bodies than they already did.

  ‘Cosmetic surgery,’ she said. ‘It’s—’

  ‘Ideologically pernicious?’

  ‘I’d call it a pile of crap.’

  Almost spilling her wine now, denouncing all the women, thousands there were, having surgery on their bums because they wanted a perky one like Pippa Middleton’s. That kind of thing drove her nuts, she said, and who the hell was Pippa Middleton anyway? Hazel tried to explain but Beth said she already knew and that’s not why she was angry. She was angry because Pippa Middleton was only famous for having a sister who was only famous because she’d married a prince who seemed like a nice enough guy, cheering up disabled kids and all that, but that wasn’t the point, was it, about the monarchy? An accident of birth, unearned wealth and privilege and the next girl who told her they adored Kate Middleton because she was so pretty and wore such stylish clothes and had such a cute baby was in serious danger of being punched. Hazel was confused for a moment because she thought Beth wanted to punch the baby, and then she wondered aloud what they could have for dinner.

 
; She took a gulp of wine. Now was the moment. To tell Beth.

  I met a man on a train, she might say. We talked. Went for a drink. But, well, he must be at least forty.

  But she didn’t want Beth to laugh at her. Not about something so serious.

  The next day Hazel took the train to see her mother, feeling…what was she feeling? That she wanted to see her mother. To ask about an older man. Except that nothing had really happened, had it? And nothing might happen at all. Still, it would be good to catch up with her mother. Have a coffee. Think about asking. About the idea of an older man.

  Hazel looked through the window of the train. Wished Adam were sitting beside her, with his messy hair and solid body and those pale blue eyes.

  She really had to get a grip.

  Her mother would probably be doing her father’s accounts, or pottering in the garden of their weatherboard house, bought in a distant decade when you didn’t have to sell your body to afford an ocean view. Well, a glimpse of the Indian Ocean, if you stood up on her parents’ roof, preferably on a trampoline, looking through a telescope. And now Hazel was beginning to puff because she wasn’t very fit. She was seriously under-fit, which was why she didn’t have a perky bum like Pippa Middleton.

  She could see the garden up ahead, with the native bushes she’d persuaded her parents to plant. She’d told them that natives looked beautiful, would reduce their water bills and celebrate Australian fauna. The trifecta, her father would have called it. He liked saying things in groups of three. Like: a glass of red with dinner helps your digestion, lowers your cholesterol and supports the local wine industry. Her mother had hit back in one go: Far too many calories, she’d warned him, but he’d waved her away because it’s just what happens when you get older, a couple of kilos here and there. Unlike her mother, Hazel was lousy at maths, but she reckoned her dad had added fifteen kilos to his middle-aged frame.

  Walking up the path, she felt that tug of connection again. It was the only house she’d ever lived in before moving in with Beth. All the emblems of her childhood were there, proudly displayed on shelves or kept safe in boxes. School certificates and badges, a trophy for winning some debating competition, the reports full of comments like Hazel is a pleasure to teach, always tries her best. Talk about a loser. Still, it was sweet of her mother to preserve these ancient achievements. Not like Beth’s carping mother, and a father who’d taken off because he decided he didn’t like kids. Shame it took five of us to find out, Beth had told her. The first time Hazel had gone to her friend’s house she’d seen and heard the damage. The mother’s sour face and sarcastic voice, yelling at them to go outside and play. Later, shoving a plate of biscuits across the table and snapping that she didn’t do Tim Tams. Nice biscuits, they were called. They’d tasted like cardboard but tried to trick you into pleasure with a sprinkling of sugar on top. And the noise: Beth’s four bellowing siblings prodding with eight sharp elbows and calling Hazel names, their mother slapping them round those elbows, and the ears as well. When it was time to leave, Beth had walked Hazel to the letterbox and cried, while Hazel clasped her hand and felt her friend’s shame and wished she could take her home forever.

  Years later, she’d asked Beth what she remembered about her father, and her friend had pulled a face. She remembered how he’d looked at her as if she wasn’t there.

  Hazel rang the doorbell. A work day, and her father’s car wasn’t in the driveway, but she wasn’t going to take a risk by letting herself in. Last Saturday she’d opened the door to see her parents scrambling out from their bedroom, smoothing down their clothes, rosy with that telltale afterglow. A bit embarrassing, really, but still, it was kind of nice to know your parents desired each other after nearly thirty years of marriage. She rang the doorbell again, and there was her mother, opening the door and—she saw it straight away. The tears. Her mother wiping her face. Hazel was aghast. She hadn’t seen her mother cry in years.

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  She ushered Hazel inside, steered her to the sofa. Hazel took her hand, asked her what was wrong. Her mother pointed to a magazine on the coffee table.

  ‘It’s this article I was reading,’ she said. ‘About babies.’ ‘Babies?’

  ‘They died from SIDS. Do you know about SIDS?’

  Hazel nodded, unsure.

  ‘It’s heartbreaking,’ said her mother. ‘To bring a child into the world and then…’ There was a tiny throbbing in her throat. ‘It wasn’t quite like that for me, but I had a baby who died inside me, just before she was due to be born. Three years after you were born. We called her Juliet.’ She took a raspy breath. ‘And then everything just kept getting worse. I lost three more babies. Three miscarriages, two early on but the last one—I was over four months pregnant.’ Her tears welled again. ‘I didn’t even give them names. I should have given them names but it was too hard, just all too hard.’ Picking up the magazine, putting it down again. ‘Your dad wanted a tribe of children, but I gave up in the end.’

  ‘You didn’t give up, Mum. It wasn’t your fault.’ Hazel watched her mother closely. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

  ‘But there was nothing to be done, was there?’

  ‘At least I would have stopped pestering you for a sister.’ ‘You didn’t pester, Hazel. And besides, I didn’t want to put you off having babies. It’s bad enough when mothers carry on about the tortures they go through when they’re giving birth. Those women who wear their pain as a badge of honour, when all it does is scare the living daylights out of their daughters.’ She patted Hazel’s hand. ‘I didn’t want to burden you, sweetheart, that’s all, and I’m sorry for burdening you now. It’s just that sometimes it comes back to you. It’s like a pocket of sadness in my heart that I’d almost forgotten was there.’

  ‘Do you know my first memory of you, Mum?’ Hazel nestled in close. ‘I was sitting by a window and it was raining. I can’t remember how old I was but I remember the feeling. As if the world had suddenly turned grey, as if it might stay like that forever. Then I heard your voice and there you were, standing by the doorway and smiling at me and everything turned into colour again.’

  ‘And my first memory of you?’ said her mother. ‘Holding you in my arms just after you were born, your eyes looking into mine, and I felt so peaceful and content.’ She laughed, softly. ‘You have all this ahead of you, Hazel. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world, to raise a lovely child.’

  This desire that Hazel had never felt, had only read about, heard women talk about, that drove them to clinics and donors, or to use another woman’s body. It smacked of desperation, she thought, or some egotistical need to replicate the self. But remembering her mother’s pain—those four, sad babies who never came into the world—how could she possibly protest?

  Her mother rose from the sofa. ‘Let’s have coffee,’ she said, and headed for the kitchen. ‘How are things with you, anyway? Been on any dates lately?’

  Now was the moment. But Hazel couldn’t take it.

  ‘I’d tell you, Mum, you know that.’

  Her mother tut-tutted. ‘I don’t understand it,’ she said. ‘Any male with half a brain would snap you up. What about that young man you mentioned, Simon, wasn’t it? The young man from the Greens?’

  ‘He has a girlfriend. Who seems very nice.’

  Her mother set out cups, began to slice some fruitcake. ‘What about going to their meetings, then? There must be lots of intelligent young men in the Greens. Or have you thought about online dating? June King’s daughter, Sasha, she met a very nice boy online. They both like cats and Italian food.’

  ‘And sunsets.’ Hazel laughed. ‘Plus walking in the rain. And jogging. I bet they both go jogging while they gaze at the sunset and knock back tubs of ravioli.’

  Her mother frowned. ‘You’re not taking this seriously, Hazel.’ She stood by the kettle, waiting for it to boil. ‘June’s other daughter, the younger one, Billie—they were obsessed with h
aving a boy, of course—Billie’s just enrolled in a nursing degree. Have you thought about nursing? It’s only a three-year course, or maybe it’s three-and-a-half. Anyway, they have bridging courses. You know, if you haven’t done much science. Biology and things.’

  Trying to sound casual.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ said Hazel. Thinking: more years of slog, more essays and exams. Not to mention wading deeper into debt. But her mother was pressing her, saying she’d make such a fine nurse because she was smart and thoughtful, with a great sense of humour, which was a blessing in a hospital, apparently. And kind.

  ‘Kindness goes a long way, she said.

  Not very far, thought Hazel, when you were trying to keep people alive.

  ‘You could specialise in looking after babies,’ her mother said brightly. ‘That would be so rewarding.’ She pointed to the magazine. ‘Mind you, I’m sick to death of baby George. There’s a million photos of him in there, with all the carrying on about the trials and tribulations of being his mother, when she must have a whole fleet of nannies. I bet she has a nanny just to wipe his royal bum.’ She sipped her coffee, set down her cup. ‘I have to tell you, Hazel, I’m worried about your father,’ she said. ‘You must have noticed he’s been piling on the weight but he won’t do a thing about it. Smaller portions, I said, no snacks, and why don’t you come for walks with me? But do you know what he said? I could have killed him—he said that sex uses up a lot of calories. As though that would solve the problem.’

  ‘That reminds me of an ancient Greek play,’ said Hazel. ‘Lysistrata.’

  ‘Ancient Greeks?’ said her mother. ‘They didn’t have a problem with their weight, did they?’

  ‘It was something much more serious, Mum. The women threatened to withhold sex if their husbands went off to war.’

  ‘That was a great idea.’

  ‘A much better one than getting slaughtered in Peloponessia. The men invented astronomy, philosophy and algebra, but they couldn’t negotiate for peace.’

  Her mother nodded, took a delicate bite of cake. She was still what old people called a looker, with golden lights in her hair, slim hips and slender legs. Not like me, thought Hazel, with hips and bum too big for the rest of me, like a woman in a medieval painting.