The Art of Persuasion

by Midalia, Susan;

  ‘Not exactly hit them,’ said Molly.

  Adam nodded. ‘Every year we have this discussion about clothes,’ he said. ‘And every year there are different opinions. And, well, I’m with Hazel.’

  Who tried not to look triumphant.

  Neville was glowering now, said he wasn’t very happy with all this.

  ‘What’s the problem with neat, clean clothes?’ said Adam.

  ‘I mean doorknocking.’ Neville waved his hands about, suddenly agitated. ‘I’m feeling like a Jehovah’s Witness. I mean, what right do we have to go knocking on people’s doors? Invading their space, telling them how to live their lives.’

  Silence.

  Adam folded his hands on the table. ‘We’re not preaching,’ he said. ‘We’re meant to listen. And use the art of persuasion.’

  ‘Then it’s only a difference in method,’ snapped Neville.

  ‘Neville. What are the two principles that always guide us? Compassion and reason. How can it be wrong to—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ Neville drained his glass of wine, drew himself up. ‘You’re so bloody high-minded,’ he said.

  Hazel heard an edge in his voice of—what? Animosity? Malice? She felt tension ripple round the table, saw people looking down at the floor or through the window. And then Felicia laughed.

  ‘It is right to be high in your mind,’ she said. ‘My father is low in his mind because he is only thinking of his male organ.’

  Which made them all laugh, even Neville.

  ‘One more thing,’ said Adam. ‘This is a five-week campaign, so pace yourselves. Don’t let your emotions run too high and try to stay hopeful. The election’s a long way off, so people might not be engaged. Oh, and don’t forget to bring water. Keep up your fluids.’

  ‘That is five things you are saying,’ said Felicia.

  Adam gave her the warmest smile.

  But not once, thought Hazel, has he smiled at me, or cast me a meaningful glance. Whatever the meaning might be.

  ‘OK, time to organise partners,’ he said.

  Partners! Hazel’s heart thumped. Molly and Neville. Were they a couple? Simon and Felicia, of course, Simon gushing his thanks for her support, as though this was his first time doorknocking, or they’d just had bad sex and she was jollying him along. And how would Felicia manage, with English as her second language? But how good of her to try.

  ‘So that leaves you and me, Hazel.’

  Who wanted to place his head on her breasts, stroke his greying hair.

  ‘We’ll be doing one of the easier suburbs,’ he said. ‘Leafy Nedlands. A more educated demographic.’

  ‘That’s near my leafy suburb,’ she said. ‘Except I don’t live in a mansion, just a run-down flat. With a woman. Only we’re just friends.’

  Thank god no one was listening to her adolescent signals. And thank god for mobile phones, since everyone except Adam was glued to their screens as they rose from their chairs. Could she hang around without being too obvious? Did he even want her hanging round? Everyone was beginning to trail out the door and so she had to trail behind and onto the verandah, trying not to feel disappointed. Because what had she expected, after all? That Adam would lift her up and carry her to his bed? Offer ardent protestations of undying love? She must keep things in perspective.

  She heard a car pulling up and saw a figure leaping out onto the footpath, heard the blast of a horn, an excited shout at the gate, Adam waving. A blur of legs in red shorts hurtling up the steps.

  ‘Dad!!!’ In a tiny, gleeful voice, launching himself at Adam, being hoisted into his arms.

  Adam wrapped the child in a bear hug, then turned him round to face her. ‘This is my son, Jessie,’ he said. ‘And Jessie, I want you to meet Hazel.’

  A boy with a heart-shaped face and huge brown eyes, who didn’t look a bit like Adam.

  He eyed her cautiously. ‘I don’t know you,’ he said.

  What was she supposed to say? I won’t bite you? Is that what you said to very small children?

  ‘Well, I don’t really know me either,’ she said.

  The child screwed up his face.

  ‘You could look in a mirror then,’ he said.

  ‘I do when I brush my teeth. And then I poke out my tongue at me.’

  ‘Hey, I do that too.’

  He was wriggling in his father’s arms and she was waiting, unsure. Then he slid down onto the porch, plonked his hands on his hips and looked up at her. She’d never felt like a giant before, had never seen such a tiny child in close-up.

  ‘Do you wanna see my train set?’ he said. ‘It’s got bridges and signals and heaps of animals and lots of ducks. Little teeny weeny ones.’

  ‘Do they stand and watch the train go past?’ she said. ‘Wonder where it’s going?’

  He looked puzzled. ‘How come you know that?’

  ‘Because if I was a duck, that’s what I’d do.’

  He nodded like a sage old man. ‘They’re going to a magic land,’ he said. ‘It’s a island wiv lots of purple mountains and big trees wiv monkeys in the trees and the monkeys swing around and make growly noises and eat bananas.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Hazel. ‘I really like bananas.’

  ‘Why?’

  How could you describe taste? ‘Because yellow’s my favourite colour,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I guess it’s a happy colour.’

  Jessie gasped. ‘It’s a duck colour.’

  ‘So ducks must be happy then,’ she told him.

  Was that a syllogism? Possibly. Jessie looked like he was thinking hard as well.

  ‘But you can’t tell if ducks are happy,’ he said. ‘They can’t talk.’

  Hazel searched for some kind of answer. ‘Sometimes you can tell just by looking,’ she said. ‘Like, right now, you look happy to me because your red shorts make you look cheerful.’

  ‘I got green ones too,’ he said. ‘But they make my bottom itch.’

  She tried not to laugh. She didn’t want to condescend.

  ‘Did you know about that?’ she said to Adam.

  ‘I certainly do now.’

  ‘Do you get an itchy bottom, Hazel?’ said the child.

  Adam put his hands on a pair of bony little shoulders. ‘That’s enough now, buddy,’ he said. ‘Say goodbye to Hazel and hop inside. I’ll run your bath in a minute.’

  Jessie ignored him, turned back to her.

  ‘I’m four,’ he said. ‘I’m gunna be five.’

  ‘In three weeks,’ said Adam. ‘I’m reminded every day.’

  ‘Well, I hope you have a very happy birthday when it comes,’ she said.

  What else could she say? Maybe it was better to say nothing. Did children always need to be talked at? Impressed?

  ‘You can come to my party,’ he said. ‘But I’m not gunna have balloons. My friend Aziz is really scared of balloons cos one bursted in his face and he cried.’

  Adam put his hand on Jessie’s back and moved him gently towards the door. Jessie began jumping into the house, hollering something that she didn’t understand.

  ‘Sorry about the itch,’ said Adam. ‘And all the questions. And the noise.’

  ‘He’s very sweet,’ she said. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

  He shuffled his feet on the floor.

  ‘He doesn’t look a bit like you,’ she said.

  ‘He looks exactly like his mother.’

  ‘Is that difficult? I mean, it must be painful.’

  He gave her that earnest look again. Chastisement. ‘Can I tell you something, Hazel? I don’t want to be treated as if I have a huge black raincloud hanging over my head. And I don’t want to dwell on the past. Or in it.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just thought—’

  ‘Yes, I know. And I appreciate it. But I’m not the only person who’s lost someone they loved. It doesn’t make me special.’

  All the time his eyes were fixed on hers, as though he were offering he
r a challenge. Nudging her into a new kind of space, a serious space, even though he was smiling now. She felt herself loosen as well, as though something had been settled between them.

  ‘Jessie certainly warmed to you,’ he said.

  ‘Well, there’s no pretending, is there?’

  He was looking at her intently. Did he even know that he was doing that? Then he suddenly looked away and out into the street.

  ‘I think your lift’s waiting,’ he said.

  She turned around. Simon and Felicia, sitting in a car. She’d completely forgotten their offer. When had they made the offer? She turned back to Adam, thanked him for all his help and advice and said she felt much better about doorknocking now, thanks to his guidance, and she was prattling on again.

  She didn’t want to leave. It was as simple, as difficult, as that.

  ‘I’ll see you on Wednesday, then,’ he said.

  ‘Definitely.’ Five whole days to go. ‘And please say goodbye to Jessie for me.’

  He nodded, then took out his phone, gave her his number, asked for hers. She could barely remember it.

  ‘In case you get lost,’ he said. ‘Or change your mind.’

  ‘Oh no, I would never…get lost…’

  And now she was walking down some stairs and opening the door of a car, sorry to keep you waiting, doing up her seatbelt, falling back into the seat.

  ‘Are you OK, Hazel?’ Simon was peering into the rear-view mirror.

  ‘I just met Jessie.’

  He laughed. ‘Jessie runs poor Adam ragged.’

  Felicia swivelled round. ‘He is attracted to you,’ she said.

  ‘The child?’

  ‘No. Vladimir Putin. I mean the nice man, of course. The father.’

  Hazel swallowed hard, asked Felicia how she knew that.

  ‘I know what I was seeing,’ she said. ‘All through the meeting he couldn’t look at you because he felt no comfort with you. This is often a first sign.’

  ‘And what’s the second?’

  ‘I would have to be there to know,’ said Felicia. ‘But I know he is not a dog with his tongue hanging out because he did not look at my breasts. I know they are big but that is not who I am.’ She swivelled round some more. ‘Hazel, I think you must be moving first. He is very—how do you say it? He is not making the plunge.’

  ‘Shy?’ said Hazel.

  Simon laughed, again. ‘Look, Adam’s a great guy and all,’ he said. ‘But he’s way too old.’

  ‘Too old for what?’ said Felicia.

  ‘And that little kid,’ he said, ignoring her. ‘He’s full-on. You wouldn’t ever have time for sex. You wouldn’t even have time to take your clothes off.’

  ‘You would not have to undress,’ said Felicia, and began to stroke the back of Simon’s neck. ‘Sex with your clothes on is good. Very good.’

  Hazel tried to slow her racing heart, tried to piece together the fragments of that last encounter. Because a meeting was always a contest between the spoken and the silent, between the words that came out of your mouth in a stumble or a rush, and the words that you needed to keep hidden inside, anxious and afraid. Where might she begin with Adam? He was uncomfortable in her presence. Did this really mean he was attracted? Did Felicia have some kind of Latin intuition? Had she known hundreds of men? And what could you know about a man who’d lost a wife he loved, who’d been left to raise a son? All Hazel could be sure of were her own, brand new feelings: wanting to embrace him and yet see him from a distance. Try to work him out.

  He had a wriggling bundle of questions to care for.

  Jessie, I’d like you to meet Hazel. Not: Say hello to Hazel.

  Was there a difference? Was there a subtle kind of subtext? Was she going slightly crazy?

  Quite possibly.

  Knock knock, who’s there?

  It was time for a different kind of reading: the policies in the file that Adam had given her. The four Green pillars. The first was ecological sustainability, which made perfect sense for the Greens but not for the current government, intent on boosting corporate profits at the expense of the environment. The second pillar was participatory democracy. Which had to be better than representative democracy, given that one of the politicians who currently represented the nation insisted that coal was good for humanity and another who declared that we all had the right to be bigots. Number three was peace and non-violence: was there a substantial difference? She would have to find that out. Number four was social justice: OK, that was self-evident. So. The four pillars. She would keep that in her head in case people asked. She decided to check out the Greens’ website, and it took her by surprise as she scrolled down all the pages, tried to take in all the details: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Agriculture, Air Pollution, Animals, Arts and Creative Industries, Biodiversity—she skipped a few pages—Disability, Drugs, Education—this was hard-going—Health, Housing and Homelessness—skipping a whole lot more—Media and Communications, Multiculturalism (as opposed to the mono-cultural idiots in the government)—still more, this was endless—Overseas Aid—Sexuality—respected in all its variety, praise the lord—Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Planning and Transport—flipping through to the end now—Water, Women…

  Who said the Greens were a one-issue party? And how would she ever take this in?

  Then she remembered the importance of listening.

  So maybe, with a bit of luck, she wouldn’t have to talk at all.

  She and Beth always looked forward to their monthly Sunday lunch, especially since her mother’s sumptuous spread lasted them until Monday. The food was straight out of Pleasantville: meat and three veg, plus a homemade apple pie or cherry pie or lemon meringue pie, and once, when her mother decided to experiment in a highly alliterative way, a poached peach and pistachio frangipane. But what wasn’t Pleasantville at all was the genuine affection between her mum and dad. They didn’t play for the cameras, performing some 1950s version of sappy happy families. Not like so many of their friends: separated or divorced and onto their second marriage, sometimes their third. So much for marriage equality destroying the sacred institution of marriage, Hazel thought. The straights were doing a fine job themselves.

  And sacred institution? Hadn’t people read their Friedrich Engels?

  Today was the kind of lunch where her parents asked about employment prospects. Encouraged them. And for a change Beth kept it short, made a joke about the interviewer having curly red hair, so maybe she was in with a chance. Hazel’s parents wished her luck; Hazel knew she needed truckloads. She saw her mother stroke Beth’s arm.

  ‘If you get that job,’ she said, ‘tell your mother to go and jump in the river.’

  And she’d only had one glass of wine.

  She turned to Hazel’s father. ‘Hazel’s been talking about doing a nursing degree,’ she said.

  Which, strictly speaking, wasn’t really true. In fact, it wasn’t true at all.

  ‘It’s going to cost, of course, and she’s already finding it tough.’

  ‘But Mum—’

  ‘I know you can put off paying the fees, Hazel, but you’ll need some more to live on.’

  ‘We’ll look into it, then,’ said her father.

  The two of them all hearty cheer, like a pair of salt and pepper shakers: Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Master and Lady Chef. They were wonderfully generous, her parents, would do anything to help, but Hazel couldn’t help feeling embarrassed, unable to stand on her own two feet, the ones she couldn’t squeeze into those stylish red boots. Three hundred dollars, they’d cost her. These days she’d have to cut off a leg to afford a pair like that.

  Hazel the Stumbling Uniped, with barely enough money to pay the rent.

  ‘So, nursing, Hazel?’ said her father. ‘I didn’t know that was a passion of yours.’

  ‘It’s not. I just—I don’t want to keep failing all my life.’

  He gave her his stern-Dad look. ‘Deciding what you don’t want doesn’t mean you’re a failu
re. It just means you’re still looking, love.’

  She saw his hands spread out on the table. A carpenter’s hands: strong but supple. Dependable. He’d made all the floorboards in the house, and built the cupboards, their elegant, burnished dining-room table that he’d promised to leave her in his will.

  ‘Do you remember those wooden animals you made me?’ she said.

  ‘An owl, a duck, and a pig.’

  ‘Do you remember what I called them?’

  ‘Wise, Quack and Snort.’ He laughed. ‘You were always an odd little thing.’

  ‘Literal-minded, you mean.’

  ‘Hazie has them perched on her bookshelf,’ said Beth. ‘We found them in a box—’

  ‘And thought we should release them,’ said Hazel. ‘They remind me of your workshop, with its sawdusty smell and all your tools organised so neatly. The claw hammer was my favourite because you let me pull out nails.’

  ‘Your thumb seemed to like it as well,’ he said, and laughed.

  He’d wanted a tribe of children and ended up with one. Hazel hoped she wouldn’t disappoint him, or her mother.

  He was off on one of his Sunday rants now, all fired up about the government’s fact-finding mission to the south of France to research the bloody warthog industry.

  Hazel’s mother laughed. ‘It’s the truffle industry, Jim,’ she said.

  ‘Truffles or warthogs, it’s all the same, with their first-class travel and five-star hotels. Now they’re spending millions to bring out some royal git and gitess so we can all bow and curtsey like peasants. Having the hide to make us pay more to see a doctor, forcing people to wait six bloody months for the dole.’ His face was blazing now, turning to Hazel. ‘It’s you and your kids and your grandkids,’ he said. ‘What sort of a world are they leaving you?’

  Hazel could have said there might not be any world at all, just or unjust, kind or cruel, if climate change had its unstoppable way. But she didn’t want to make his face even redder. And he really was stacking on the weight. She tried not to think heart attack or stroke, wondered if her mother was having any more luck persuading him to look after his health.