Hazel checked what she’d written: you’ll forget what you started out trying to say. Changed the word trying to wanting because it sounded less condescending. And it told them that wanting was permissible, that wanting was important, because if you gave up wanting you might as well sink into the muck of life and die. We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde. One of Chloe’s fridge magnets. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. Henry David Thoreau. For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Virginia Woolf. Chloe had dozens of fridge magnets, so many that you couldn’t see her fridge, in a flat so messy with research papers that you couldn’t see her floors. I should get in touch, thought Hazel, see if she’s gone back to her thesis. Maybe see a movie, eat a giant box of popcorn. Have a couple of drinks and try not to blubber as we have a heart-to-heart.
But for now she must focus on her classes. Which weren’t, strictly speaking, her classes, but she could try to nudge, even sow the odd seed. Because she couldn’t change the world, just as Adam had said. Which was, of course, a cliché, but she wouldn’t hold it against him.
Longing. She could begin a story with Longing.
Hope
She barely saw Beth on the weekend. She was out with Felicia, showing her the sights that Simon had been too busy to offer. At least that’s what Beth’s exhaustive note had implied. They’d been to the Freo markets, where Felicia bought a boomerang, then on to the wildlife sanctuary, because Felicia had never seen an Australian animal except back in Rome, where she’d loved to watch ‘Skippy’, dubbed in Italian, and wonder how a country could be having such crazy creatures.
Hazel tried not to feel resentful. Left out.
But she did feel pleased about the prospect of school on Monday. It was a structure, at least, for ten more working days, and she’d had another idea to keep the year elevens writing: a bag full of objects to spark their imagination. One of her primary school teachers had used it, and she’d loved the experience, the whole class had loved it, because it was like a lucky dip. After half an hour of rummaging round the flat, she’d found seventeen items, one for each student, including her father’s three wooden animals, a blank notebook, a shell, a lipstick, a lollipop still in its wrapper (how long had that been sitting on her desk?). She’d given the students’ memories another look as well, and been surprised by what she’d read beneath the surface mistakes. For while most of the memories were ordinary—the first day at school, a beloved grandparent, a favourite pet—some of them reminded her that nothing was ordinary: that everything was extraordinary if we could only find the words. Like Magenta, who described her first cat, now long gone, as crouched black on the fence, ready to leap across the night. Jaxon, whose triumph at learning to tie a shoelace was a case of me fingers trickin me brain. Percy, a Noongar boy from the country, remembering his first view of the city: Them towers were stuck in the ground not reaching the sky cos they aint got the spirit inside em. And Jamal from Afghanistan: I am missing the mountains.
She told the class that their memories had been interesting. It was a teacher’s cop-out word, a book-reviewer’s cop-out word, but as Hazel’s mother would say, there was never an excuse for being cruel. Her mother. Hazel wondered if she should call, tell her about her job. Her dad, too. But it might make them anxious, remembering what a mess their daughter had become the last time she—but now a couple of boys were scuffling in the front row and Hazel had to have a word. Then she took out her bag of objects, walked among the rows of seats, told the class what she had in mind. But it seemed there was nothing on their minds right then but mockery and mayhem: she saw a dolt of a boy grab the lipstick and smear it on the boy next to him, saw a girl doing something obscene with the lollipop in her mouth, and before Hazel could stop them, objects were being thrown about, a notebook flung in the air, her father’s animals skidding along the desks, kids making animal noises, laughing out loud. Hazel was stunned. Enraged. Told the offenders to grow up, you’re behaving like idiots. Which did nothing but make them sneery and snarly and everything was collapsing now, everyone staring at her, glowering, as she marched around the room, collecting the objects, ordering them to work on their memories and she didn’t want to hear another squeak out of them or they’d all be staying back after school. She sat down heavily with her useless bag of tricks, wished that her cheeks would stop burning.
But at least they stayed more-or-less shut up until the siren blasted and she snapped at them to leave.
As they trailed out, muttering, she caught Percy’s eye and told him that his memory writing was beautiful. Told Jacinta that hers, too, was beautiful. Told Jamal she was sorry he was missing those mountains. But the boy was in a hurry to eat my lunch, Miss, then go play soccer. He started walking away, then turned back.
‘You can come and watch,’ he said.
Percy looked back too, gave her an enormous grin. ‘Come watch me play Aussie Rules,’ he said. ‘Soccer’s stupid.’
Hazel smiled in return, and was grateful.
She took her sandwich to the oval and watched both the boys at lunchtime. Percy was a flash of long skinny legs and a fiendish tackler; Jamal was a weaver through countless legs, hugged by his teammates when he scored a classy goal. Sport: the Great Australian Leveller, she thought, pleased to see Martha approaching her now, giving her a wave. Martha wasn’t keen on either form of football, she told her. Cricket was her game, although she loathed the current Australian team, a bunch of self-important bullies, she called them. She was also a huge fan of crime fiction, featuring kick-arse smart women detectives, and had an undying reverence for country and western music. Did Hazel know the longest ever title of a C&W song? ‘It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long’.
‘Shame about the misogyny, though,’ said Martha, even as they laughed together.
And then Len appeared, rubbing his hands, telling Hazel he’d had two year twelve parents call him that morning to offer their praise. Their kids actually wanted to come to school, he said, thanks to the relief teacher. Hazel was pretty chuffed. Very chuffed. Inwardly made a promise to try harder with the elevens. As the principal strode away, Darren sauntered up, then quickly thrust out his groin as if to say I have the perfect cock for you. Hazel stifled a laugh. Did men do this consciously? Well, some men, anyway. Or was it a reflex action, some kind of evolutionary thing to ensure the survival of the species? But men who thrust their groin at women didn’t deserve to reproduce. There ought to be a scientific law against it.
So the day hadn’t turned out so badly after all. There were things to laugh about and some much-needed boosting of the fragile ego. Because everyone was saying it, weren’t they, even if they didn’t use the words? Tell me, please tell me, that I matter. That what I do, who I am, has worth.
The next two days went quickly. Only one lesson on Tuesday, with the twelves. She’d checked out Poe’s ‘The Premature Burial’ online and cribbed some notes, discovered that people had devices fitted into their coffins in case they needed to let someone know that they weren’t actually dead. So why had this fear held such sway? Was it the decline in religious faith? That you couldn’t trust god to resurrect you? She hadn’t had time to research it: i.e. look up another website. When she read it aloud the kids were enthralled, wanted another one, and so the next day she tried out ‘The Telltale Heart’ on the unsuspecting year elevens. At first they seemed stunned by the novelty—a teacher reading them a story! but then they listened attentively enough (a bit of chatter and one hefty shove notwithstanding). When the siren sounded and because they’d been well behaved, she promised to show them a video of Frankenstein. She told them it was inadvertently funny.
‘It means the movie didn’t mean to be funny,’ she said, not wanting to miss a chance. ‘It means doing something you didn’t intend to do. That it was accidental.’
Was that Richie with his hand up?
‘Miss, is that like when I’m taking a piss at the urinal and some fuckwit next t
o me inad…that word…pisses on my leg?’
Everyone laughed, of course, and how could Hazel scold him? He’d certainly understood the meaning of the word, and was probably making a valid point about the male of the species. But she did make it clear that swearing wasn’t on. Someone shouted out too fucking right, and before she could object, someone else asked about saying the c word.
At least he’d had the decency to ask.
She told them that neither word was acceptable and why would you want to use them anyway when the English language was so rich and vast and their eyes glazed over and she made herself stop.
And then it was Wednesday. Doorknocking day. She’d tried to file it away and slam the cabinet door, but Beth asked her over breakfast why she looked like the sky was falling down. Was teaching really that bad? Hazel had reassured her it was fine, going well in fact, because she didn’t want to talk about Adam, even to herself. But all day at school she was distracted, as though a mark on a calendar, Wednesday 21st May, made the day any different from all the other days she hadn’t seen him. Those days when he’d advised her, encouraged her, aroused her, without knowing his effect on her. The day he’d argued with her about having children and then apologised for upsetting her. Those days they had made together, when she’d wanted to be closer but felt him drifting away: to a meeting in the city, to caring for his child.
When her bus pulled up at last and she hurried onto her street, she already knew she would call him, because throughout her busy days he had always been there, like a plaintive melody humming in her heart. She opened the door to the flat, glad to be alone, and took out her impatient mobile. Willed him to answer.
‘Adam?’
‘Hazel? Is that you?’
‘Yes. It’s me. How are you?’
‘I’m…fine. And you?’
‘Fine.’
‘That’s…well, good. And how’s the teaching going?’
‘OK. Good, actually.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
Would they ever get past these banalities?
‘I was just wondering about the doorknocking,’ she said, her own heart knocking in her chest. ‘How it went today.’
A pause. Then a truck roared past and thundered across his words and she had to ask him to say that again. Good, he said. Encouraging. Four people of varying ages had warmed to the Greens’ policy on climate change, no pun intended.
‘And there was one man,’ he continued, ‘a Labor voter all his life, who said that a lot of people in the party want to close the offshore detention centres but they’re too afraid it’s a vote-loser. He’s hoping they’ll change their policy if they win government.’
‘So what did you say, Adam?’
‘I suggested he didn’t take that risk. And then…’ A long pause. ‘I don’t want to bore you,’ he said.
‘But I want to know. That’s why I phoned.’
Silence. A long one. And then his voice again, faltering.
‘I wasn’t implying that the day went better without you,’ he said.
‘But I didn’t think that for a moment. You’re…you have to stop doing this.’
‘This?’
‘Worrying about offending me. And in any case, with the doorknocking, the whole thing, it’s not about me, is it? I’m just pleased it went well today.’
Another long silence.
When all she wanted was to see him, touch him, tell him he could never offend her, tell him how much she longed for him.
‘So school’s going well, then?’ he said. ‘Tell me all about it.’
She stumbled out her minor triumphs and told some jokes and made him laugh.
‘And you’re on your own now?’ she said. ‘Doorknocking, I mean.’
‘I’m with a young man called Tom,’ he said. ‘He’s very keen. But he’s not nearly as much fun. I mean—I don’t mean…We had a great two weeks, didn’t we?’
She could hardly breathe.
‘I’m really hoping I can make week five,’ she said.
‘And I’m hoping you can make Jessie’s party,’ he said quickly. As though he’d been holding this back for hours. ‘He said he’d really like you to be there and…well…I promised I would ask you…if you have nothing better to do, I mean…On Saturday. This coming Saturday, I mean…if you don’t mind a bunch of small children…’
‘Oh. Of course. Yes. Of course.’
She gathered herself up, took in the details of time and place, before collapsing onto a beanbag, exhausted with emotion. But what could she buy for Jessie, who really wanted to see her? And what would she wear, so that Adam would see her as he’d never seen her before? And how could she possibly wait until the party?
Three days to go. She checked her watch. Three days, less two hours. Which was marginally better than three whole days.
What had she heard in his halting rhythm and clumsy repetitions? In the spaces between his words? And had she sounded offhand? Should she have sounded more excited? Ecstatic?
She checked her watch again but the numbers hadn’t changed. How was that remotely possible?
It was the longest two days of her youthful, hopeful life. She felt impatient, increasingly annoyed, openly frustrated. Angry. Ready to throttle those bullies, girls as well as boys, in her year eleven class, with their cheap shots and sneers, their blatant, nasty put-downs. Retard. Waste of space. Dumb-arse. Moll. She knew they were itching for the weekend, restless, as hard-edged as flint, but she didn’t care about their itching or wanting or longing; she just wanted the unkindness to stop. She didn’t care that they sulked and shot her dirty looks when she kept them in after school, when they moaned how they’d be late for whatever it was she chose not to care about, because they needed a lesson in respect. But as she surveyed the rows in front of her, saw the sullen or hostile faces trying to stare her down, she panicked. What should she do now, having seized the power to detain them? She breathed in deeply, breathed out, breathed in deeply again.
‘Do any of you like feeling hurt?’ she said.
No one said a word, or raised their hands.
‘I don’t like feeling hurt,’ she said. Waited. ‘So. Do any of you like feeling hurt?’
A few mumbled words.
‘So you shouldn’t hurt other people,’ she said.
Could she possibly get any lamer?
She sensed a thrumming in the room, of simmering rebellion.
‘Kindness is important,’ she said, trying to sound decisive. ‘It means understanding that other people might be struggling, that they need people to be sensitive to their problems, give them a helping hand.’ She looked at the crowd of mostly blank faces. ‘There’s a famous saying about that, you know: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’
Like me, right now, she thought. This was going nowhere fast, while the kids were going nowhere at all and probably wishing her dead.
‘OK. Let’s try a simple rule,’ she said. ‘From now on, count to ten and see if you still want to call someone stupid or a loser or a shithead.’
Some of them laughed. Because a teacher saying shithead was funny.
Someone raised a hand.
‘Can we go now, Miss?’
‘No.’
More mumbles and grumbles.
‘I want you all to promise me,’ she said. ‘Count to ten.’
‘Then can we go?’
She nodded.
And of course her strategy was universally accepted. Lauded. Because she’d finally released them into their weekend: the booze, cigarettes, sex, maybe the harder drugs.
She didn’t know a thing about them.
She’d tethered them in a room and given them a patronising lecture about kindness. Which didn’t prevent poverty, she knew, didn’t stop war or child prostitution, the trade in illegal arms, all the structural, systemic problems she’d learned about at uni. But kindness was important; derived from kindred, of the family. What kind of families did those young people dwell in? And why were s
ome people luckier than others?
What had Adam said about his parents? And how did you get to be you, she’d said.
The you she would be seeing tomorrow.
She picked up her bag and checked her watch. She would have missed the bus, and who knew how long until the next one? It was much too far to walk from this land of the rude, the crass and the socially disaffected to the privileged refinements of the western suburbs. She’d have to sit at the bus stop and wait. Read a book. Except she’d forgotten to pack one, in the rush of Friday morning and not one clean pair of knickers to her name. Friday night would be handwashing night, because she couldn’t wear unclean knickers to the birthday party. Not that she planned on removing them, or any item of clothing at all. Unless she got very lucky.
‘Hazel.’
She stopped, startled. Lucas. Sitting in an office, swivelling on a chair.
‘You’re working very late,’ she said.
He waved at her to come in, offered her a seat.
‘I’m applying to do a masters,’ he said.
‘More qualifications?’ Her mind flipped back to her year elevens. ‘Are you trying to get out of this place?’
‘Not really.’ He grinned. ‘I just need a challenge because I’m naturally lazy.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘It’s true. It’s easy teaching science. Well, in this place, anyway, because you mostly have to keep it pretty basic. But I like the kids, even if they don’t always like science.’ His eyes suddenly brightened. ‘Say, can I impress you?’
‘Sure.’ He didn’t sound boastful, or threatening.
He scribbled quickly on some paper and handed it to her with a wink.
‘My honours dissertation,’ he said.
The Art of Persuasion Page 16
