The Art of Persuasion

by Midalia, Susan;

  ‘Did you ever think about teaching primary school?’ said Adam. ‘You’re a bit of natural.’

  ‘No way. I had enough trouble with the older kids. Good thing I wasn’t a brain surgeon, otherwise there’d be a lot of people walking round with lobotomies.’

  ‘What are lotomies?’

  ‘Oh. Well. It’s a special kind of animal, Jessie.’ Which was a whole lot better than a special kind of doctor cutting out a piece of someone’s brain. ‘It’s a really big animal, bigger than a dinosaur, and it walks very slowly and never makes a sound and only opens its eyes when you pull its tail. Which has a loud bell on the end of it.’

  ‘Is it as lazy as Martin’s cat Frisky?’

  She decided not to define frisky. Or try to explain irony.

  ‘Frisky is most definitely the laziest cat in the world,’ she said.

  ‘But you didn’t see him. How do you know?’

  ‘Well’—some quick thinking—‘it was the way you described him. You made him sound like you’d need a huge steam shovel to lift him from the sofa to his food bowl.’

  Jessie screwed up his face. ‘You’re funny,’ he said. ‘Only you didn’t ask me about school. I go to school, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t ask.’

  ‘That’s OK. Everyone asks me all the time and it’s boring.’

  ‘Do you mean school’s boring? Or are you bored by everyone asking you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Both,’ he said.

  He turned to his father, asked if he could go and play. A skinny, knock-kneed child sliding off his chair, in a hurry to find something new, or return to the old: wherever his imagination might take him.

  Hazel toyed with some lettuce on her plate.

  ‘Do you know why he thinks school is boring?’ she said.

  ‘Well, they seem to do a lot of cutting out and gluing. But I’m not one of these parents who think their child’s a genius. There are some like that at his school, and they’re, you know…’

  ‘A pain in the arse?’

  ‘Yes. As soon as I hear that word gifted I run a mile.’

  ‘But what if Jessie is gifted? There is such a thing, you know. He seems very smart to me. Very curious.’

  ‘I just want him to feel loved,’ said Adam. He looked down at the table, then up into her eyes. ‘I remember when I first saw him. His tiny fingers and flawless skin, and such a peaceful little body, as though he’d already decided it was good to be here. I had no idea I could feel that way.’ He was smiling now, with the memory. ‘I was enchanted. And then I became besotted. Utterly transformed.’

  She’d never heard a man talk like this before, about a baby, and she was touched by his words, by his wanting to give her this moment. This epiphany, you might call it. But it seemed to come from a distant country of which—she could have said no conception, but she didn’t want to make light of this baby business, couldn’t bat it away with a joke.

  ‘Anyway, enough about me,’ he said. ‘I really wanted to say, about the doorknocking: try not to feel discouraged. I’m sure it will get better.’

  Hazel pulled a face.

  ‘It’s early days,’ he said. ‘And if nothing else, it’s something to tell your kids. Your grandkids. That you stood up to be counted.’

  She tried not to bristle. ‘I numbered exactly one,’ she said.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to people when they trot out their clichés. Like the shark woman, who wants to send refugees back to where they came from. If I hear those words one more time…’

  ‘It might be different if people actually met refugees,’ said Adam. ‘Got to know them at work or through their kids at school. Talked to their neighbour when they were taking out the rubbish.’

  ‘Like Jessie’s friend? Not putting out the rubbish, I mean.’ She rummaged around for a name. ‘The little boy who cried when a balloon burst in his face.’

  ‘Aziz. Yes. He’s a—’

  ‘Dad. I wetted my pants. I forgot to listen to my penis.’

  A worried face peered up at his father. A little boy tugging at his shorts. Adam took Jessie by the hand, quietly led him from the room, without scolding or fussing or even jollying him along. Should I stay, Hazel thought? Of course she should stay. It was only a pair of wet undies. She looked around the room, saw the bookshelves on the opposite wall. Did she have time to take a peek? See what else she could discover? And picturing Adam’s beauty, hearing and seeing his kindness, she felt an ache in her breasts, longing for his return so that she could look at him again and think: you’re a very good person and I admire you deeply and I’d like to take off your clothes and have sex.

  But she had to keep that thought in her head: the sex part.

  ‘Hazel.’

  That chirpy little voice again. Jessie, now wearing a pair of yellow shorts.

  ‘My friend Alice knows lots of riddles,’ he said. ‘She knows lots about elephants, only I can’t remember any.’

  Hazel had a million of them. ‘Does Alice know the one about the elephant and the fridge?’

  Jessie shook his head.

  ‘OK, how do you know an elephant’s been in your fridge?’

  Jessie turned to his father. ‘Have we ever had a elephant in our fridge?’

  ‘Never. Even though I’ve looked very hard.’

  Jessie threw up his hands. ‘See. If Dad’s never seen one, then a elephant never got inside our fridge.’ He turned away, started walking to his room, called back over his shoulder. ‘If anyone wants me, I’m talking with my animals,’ he said. ‘They need me to tell them what to do.’

  Hazel turned to Adam. ‘He’s, well, unexpected, isn’t he?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘And he clearly worships you. You’re the fount of all knowledge.’

  ‘Except I don’t know how you can tell there’s been an elephant in the fridge.’

  ‘You’ll see footprints in the butter.’

  ‘Well. Who would have thought?’

  He offered her tea or coffee and of course she said yes. To both, before she realised her mistake. She would happily have swallowed litres of anything so that she didn’t have to leave, didn’t have to go back to her pokey flat and a view of the dismal car park.

  ‘I do like this room,’ she said. ‘There’s no fuss and bother.’

  ‘Well, I threw a lot of fuss and bother away after my wife—Thea—died.’ He rose from his chair, went to turn on a kettle. ‘People seem to give you things over the years. Knickknacks and geegaws. Whatever a geegaw is.’

  ‘A trinket. A knick-knack is more of an ornament.’

  ‘Now, how could I not know that?’ he said, and grinned. ‘There was one thing I really enjoyed throwing out. You know those china figurines from France or Germany or wherever? Hideously expensive, and, well, just plain hideous.’

  ‘Like a shepherdess without any sheep?’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Not an ovine in sight.’

  ‘But ovine isn’t a noun. It’s an adjective…pertaining to sheep.’

  He leaned back on the bench. ‘Is that right?’ he said.

  He was watching her closely. Was he flirting with her now?

  ‘I used to know a word that meant the fear of big words,’ she said, trying not to fluster. ‘It’s hippopotomon…something or other phobia.’

  ‘You mean you’ve forgotten? You’re not infallible?’

  ‘Infallibility’s reserved for the Pope,’ she said. ‘And for the gullible people who believe him. Religion is the opium of the masses.’

  ‘Opiate, actually,’ he said.

  She would have said fifteen-all, except that she was losing count and trying to listen to what he was asking, offering her a glass of wine instead of tea. Or was it coffee she’d asked for?

  ‘I have some very good bottles of red,’ he said. ‘It’s one of my indulgences.’

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘Well, there’s Jessie, of course. I do like to buy him stuff no
w and then. But just small things, you know, like his plastic animals. And plenty of books, of course.’

  ‘And that elaborate train set?’

  ‘Oh, that’s from Candace and her two boys. They spoil him rotten.’

  ‘But it’s a coal-fired train, Adam. What happened to your principles?’

  He laughed. ‘So: tea, coffee or wine?’ he said.

  ‘Coffee, thank you.’

  He turned on the kettle, apologised for only having instant. And then, turning back to look at her, he asked if she wanted children. Just like that.

  ‘It’s not on my agenda,’ she said. Keeping it matter-of-fact.

  ‘Ah. Well. You’re still very young. You have plenty of time to decide.’

  Still very young? ‘I’ve pretty much decided,’ she said briskly. ‘The world already has too many people and the planet’s resources are running out. It would be an ethical decision not to reproduce.’

  ‘You sound very sure of yourself,’ he said.

  ‘I’m simply mounting a case. A case based on reason.’

  ‘But what about felt experience? Things will happen to you, and you might feel very differently. And like I said, you’re still very young.’

  Hazel drew herself up. ‘And I’m intelligent enough to know what I want.’

  ‘But the world needs intelligent, decent parents,’ he said. ‘Think of it this way: it’s also an ethical choice for people like you to—as you put it—reproduce.’

  ‘Well, having a child isn’t the only way to make a contribution,’ she said. Now that they’d started, now that she was saying what she’d never said before.

  ‘I didn’t say that. I—’

  ‘In any case’—she could feel her hands clenching—‘people don’t ask a man that question, do they? But they keep doing it with women, all the time. It’s the big question for us, always the big question, and I wish it wasn’t. I wish we could get past it.’

  ‘But it’s biological, surely.’

  She hated people saying surely.

  ‘A woman’s fertility is limited by time,’ he went on, ‘and so by definition the question arises. But a man can father a child until well into his nineties. Look at Charlie Chaplin.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ she snapped. ‘I hate slapstick.’

  How they had come to this, and so quickly? She felt an ominous thud inside her. Because their debate, this batting back and forth, was beginning to feel uncomfortable, oddly personal, as though he was pushing her down a road she had no desire to travel. Fucking roads. The one less travelled. All that folksy Frosty wisdom that had bored her to sobs at school.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Us. Arguing.’

  He reddened. ‘We’re just having a difference of opinion,’ he said.

  If only he would take her hand. Everything would feel right if he just took her hand.

  Then, to her relief, Jessie scooted back into the room with questions and commands, wanting his father to make the trains go round and Hazel had to come and watch, right now. Please.

  ‘I’m afraid I have to go home, Jessie.’

  ‘I haven’t made your coffee,’ said Adam.

  ‘I really should be going.’ She rose from the table.

  Adam stood too but didn’t make another move. ‘Maybe Hazel can see your train another time,’ he said.

  ‘Or we could go to the zoo,’ said Jessie. ‘We could see all them real animals and I could show Hazel the bears.’

  Hazel was strongly opposed to zoos.

  ‘Why do you like the bears?’ she said.

  ‘Cos they’re big and scary and you can see them look big and scary but they can’t hurt you cos they’re in these really big cages.’

  ‘There’s an elephant as well,’ she said.

  ‘They got three at the zoo,’ said Jessie. ‘The first elephant got lonely so they found him other elephants to play wiv. Dad said.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure your dad is right.’

  Fucking lonely elephants.

  ‘So will you come wiv me? To the zoo?’

  She told him she would try.

  ‘Would you like a lift home, Hazel?’

  She said no, politely, her mother’s model child, then said she’d like to walk because it was such a nice day. And yes, she would wait for the details of time and place. And yes, she was sure it would be better the second time around. And then, out of nowhere, Jessie gently took her hand, as if—and this was very strange—he felt the need to comfort her. She looked down at his bright little face.

  ‘You have quiet eyes,’ he said. ‘Dad’s girlfriend had shouty eyes and I didn’t like her one little bit.’ Then he released her and ran back to his room.

  Adam cleared his throat. ‘You don’t have to go to the zoo,’ he said.

  She nodded, unsure.

  ‘So. Next week, then?’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘And, well…thanks for listening to Jessie.’

  They seemed to be locked into something she couldn’t understand, that made her feel lost when she wanted to be found. So all she could do was to pick up her bag, say goodbye, make her way to the door.

  As she walked along the street, trailing her hands along a white picket fence, she couldn’t help wondering—how could she not—if there’d been other girlfriends with different kinds of eyes. Did she think he’d been monastic since his wife died? Even if having a young child meant having little time for sex. That’s what Simon had declared: staunchly ethical Simon, whose words struck her now as rather crude. Was it only sex that men wanted, while women were longing for love? Were men from Mars and women from Venus, as some guru had declared, with his half-baked degree or no degree at all but with a nose for making money? Millions of people had bought his message and yet she felt it wasn’t true. Didn’t men fall madly, profoundly, in love with one particular woman and long to make it last? Mr Rochester for Jane, Heathcliff for Cathy, Abelard for Heloise? Didn’t men, too, yearn to be known and loved for who they were, with all their imperfections?

  She looked up at the bright blue sky and those fluffy white clouds that, when you were a child, you would turn into pictures. Flying saucers and castles, and so many different animals: birds and dragons, monkeys and tigers, the occasional kangaroo. She and Beth would lie on their backs in Hazel’s garden and float along with the clouds, call each other sisters and swear they would always be sisters and believe they would never be happier.

  Pricks

  By the time she made it home, Hazel was feeling stuck again. She’d had more time to think along the way, about Adam’s lecture: more or less saying she was obliged to have kids because she was intelligent. Telling her she was too young to know what she wanted. Putting her in her youthful place, and no doubt out of sight, out of mind. She opened the door of the flat, relieved to see that Beth was home. Sitting on the kitchen floor and polishing her shoes, looking up and smiling.

  ‘Did it get any better?’ said Beth. ‘Did you make a lot of converts?’

  ‘Well, maybe we got a couple of people to start thinking. Adam did, anyway. Pretty much the only time I spoke, I messed up.’

  She sat down next to Beth, tucked up her knees.

  ‘I’m sure you did your best,’ said Beth. ‘You always do.’

  ‘And I want to give you a gigantic hug. Because you’re very clever.’

  ‘Don’t forget confident and prepared to work hard.’ Beth grinned. ‘Wait til I’ve finished these shoes before you give me that hug.’

  When was the last time she’d polished a pair of shoes, she said, or worn a uniform, chirping now about a prim white blouse and a prim black skirt which wasn’t very cool but it would save a lot of money.

  ‘And I feel like saving money now I have a job. Which doesn’t really make sense, but there you go.’ Her face suddenly fell. ‘I’m sorry, Hazel,’ she said, quietly. ‘I didn’t mean to be, you know, about me having a job.’

  Haz
el placed her hand on Beth’s shoulder. ‘I’m pleased for you,’ she said. ‘Really pleased.’

  ‘Thanks. I just wish you could find something too.’ Then she gave one shoe a vigorous rub. ‘I’m making them really shiny,’ she said. ‘Someone told me—when I was a kid—that you should shine your shoes so much that you could see your knickers in them. I think it was the local shoe fixer-upper man who told me that.’

  ‘A cobbler,’ said Hazel.

  Beth laughed. ‘Which now that I think about the knickers, is a bit gross. That cobbler must have been dodgy.’ She went back to buffing a sensible black shoe. ‘Anyway, I think I’m going to like my new boss. Wilhemina. She said to call her Willy but I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face.’

  ‘Does she seem OK?’

  ‘Relaxed. Friendly. Although she did let me know she’s sacked three workers in the past two years. So I’m on notice, aren’t I?’ She held up the shoe to inspect it. ‘I remember my father spitting on his shoes to clean them,’ she said. ‘Which was pretty much how he treated us.’

  Hazel moved in a little closer. ‘Have you told your mother about the job?’

  ‘Yep. Do you know what she said? You’d better not quit like last time.’ Beth slammed down a shoe, picked up the other one. ‘She told me once she was only happy when she was pregnant. Which is why I guess she kept popping the whole damned lot of us out. I used to think she was longing for a girl after four idiot boys but’—she shrugged—‘it was never me she wanted. She just wanted to fill that hole in her body to match the fucking hole in her heart. Head. Or something.’

  She groaned her way off the floor—she wasn’t fit either—and then pulled Hazel up with a hand.

  ‘Enough about me,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your man.’

  ‘He’s not mine, Beth. What can I say? One minute he seems to like me and then he backs right off. And, well, we had a bit of a disagreement. He asked me if I wanted children.’

  ‘Holy shit. On a first date?’

  ‘It wasn’t a date, Beth. Please.’

  ‘So what did you tell him?’

  ‘It was more like him telling me. He thinks I should have kids and I’m not even thinking about it. I don’t even like babies. The idea of them, anyway.’

  ‘So is he one of those parents who wants everyone to experience his pain?’