The Art of Persuasion

by Midalia, Susan;

  ‘My girlfriend’s Kayla,’ he said. ‘Kayla Watts.’

  The spitting girl.

  ‘You remember, don’t you?’ he said, and reddened.

  Hazel tried not to toss her head. ‘You’re not likely to forget something like that, are you?’

  The boy clasped his hands and stared at her.

  ‘Kayla knows she shouldn’t of done it,’ he said. ‘And I should of done something too, you know, said something and that. But we all just like, sat there, the whole class, and we didn’t do or say nothing.’

  This, too, she remembered. And she’d resigned the very next day.

  ‘Afterwards, but’—the boy swallowed—‘afterwards, I said something to Kayla, how what she did was really gross and she like, burst into tears and started telling me stuff, all this really awful stuff about her dad. But that’s when we started being friends. Me and Kayla.’

  Hazel forced a smile. ‘And now you’re going to be parents,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. It’s cool.’

  ‘So the two of you can make a new start.’ No one could say she wasn’t trying.

  ‘That’s what I told Kayla. We can make it all better.’

  ‘What a wonderful thing to be doing.’

  The boy looked down at his hands, up again at her. ‘I told her to say sorry,’ he said. ‘I said, you have to go up to Miss and say sorry for the gross thing you done. But she couldn’t, she said she just couldn’t and she was crying so hard and that, so I didn’t want to push it. But, well, just so you know. We both felt really bad about it.’

  She thanked him for telling her. Was she meant to add something else? Gee, Brett, now I feel a whole lot better? To know that you both felt ashamed?

  ‘Is that why you left, Miss?’ he said, quietly.

  So he wanted relief, this tall, skinny, father-to-be. He needed absolution, he and his girlfriend with the made-up, sulky face. And so she sighed, dug deep. Gave it a shot.

  ‘I left for a whole lot of reasons,’ she said. ‘Because it’s never just one thing.’

  ‘We were a bunch of shitheads,’ he said. ‘I sure would of left if I was you. But we liked you,’ he said, smiling again. Absolved. ‘Even if we didn’t learn nothing, nothing I remember, anyway. But’—he looked down at the table, then up again at her—‘there was this kid in our class, Pete, he always looked real stupid and stuff, like a dog you’d wanna kick if you were into kicking dogs. Do you remember Pete?’

  She pretended that she did.

  ‘Anyway, he told me once, it was kind of weird him telling me, how your hands looked soft, like they’d be nice to touch. He didn’t mean anything wrong or nothing. It was just your kind hands, he said.’

  He stopped. Looked shocked. Because former teachers, especially those with soft, kind hands, weren’t supposed to cry.

  ‘It’s OK, Brett,’ she said. ‘Honestly. It’s not about what you said. Any of it.’

  He stood up awkwardly. Unsure. ‘I gotta start work,’ he said. ‘But it was real good to see you, Miss.’

  But still she couldn’t stop crying, and if she didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, the whole damned floor would be awash with tears streaming down her fake-jolly clown of a face.

  ‘Please tell Kayla that I wish both of you and your baby every happiness,’ she said.

  She sounded like Mother bloody Teresa, offering him her worthless blessing. But she saw his face light up with pleasure, because he was, after all, just a boy, soon to be a father, and was happy.

  ‘There’s like, one other thing,’ he said. ‘The whole class, how we all just sat there and didn’t say nothing. It was really weird cos everyone must have been thinking how bad it was but no one did nothing. And then you walked out of the room. How come that happened? Like, we just sat there.’

  She took his question, walked around it. Searched for some fatuous wisdom.

  ‘Maybe it’s about timing,’ she said, through her tears. ‘Knowing you should do something, but you don’t. And then it’s all too late.’

  He nodded, muttered something, then turned and loped to the kitchen. He’d been saving his money because he’d made a girl pregnant, or she’d made herself pregnant. Who knew how these things worked? Who knew how anything worked? Not I, said the sparrow, with my little arrow, that a man had shot into her heart.

  Someone brought her a cup of tea. ‘Are you sure you don’t want something to eat, Madam?’ she said.

  First she was Miss, now she was Madam, with no Adam, and she knew that she’d been slightly mad.

  ‘The muffins are really good,’ said the girl. ‘We’ve got five different kinds.’

  Hair

  Hazel woke up feeling refreshed. Not broken. Not bereft. Not jolted into worthlessness by another miserable rejection. Pulling back the sheets, stretching her arms, she felt a welcome looseness in her limbs, a release from whatever had been gripping her, fogging up her brain. She must have been genuinely mad, if madness meant not seeing the way of the romantic world with a necessary clarity. She must have been under some kind of spell, both magical and deranged. She couldn’t even name the desire that had driven her. And had it only been three weeks of feeling this way? She could hardly believe this either.

  She rubbed her eyes. What day was it? Sunday. Question and answer and purpose, because she had lessons to prepare for tomorrow. She must have slept very deeply, undisturbed by dreams, by wrenching sobs of self-pity. She made her way to the kitchen, in need of a cup of tea. No sugar. Wondered how her father was getting on. Or not. And then she saw a note on the kitchen bench, in Beth’s copperplate writing. The woman with the speedy mouth, but with an elegant script straight out of finishing school. Another one of life’s mysteries.

  Hazie, I hope you don’t mind me spending so much time with Felicia because you’ll always be my dearest friend even though I find her so interesting and funny and so clever with her maths you should see the stuff she has to know for uni, it’s like a foreign language with a whole heap of brackets. And even though she’s so beautiful she’s not in the slightest bit vain and being so rich too you should see her apartment. It is unbelievably sumptuous. Turkish rugs and so much space and even chanderliers. I mean, can you believe that? But Felicia doesn’t flaunt her wealth which is great cos you know I’ve never liked flaunty people and nor do you which is one of the reasons we’ve always been friends and always will be friends true blue like your dad likes to say. Did I ever tell you about your dad at our Dip Ed graduation? How we were waiting for the photos and my mother was carrying on about not liking the way her hair had been done and how she’d look awful in the photos and your dad took me aside and put his arm around me and told me he was so proud of me and how my father didn’t know what he was missing. I can’t remember if I ever told you that cos we’ve told each other so many things over all our years but it doesn’t matter if I’ve already told you because you need to say it loud and clear don’t you when people are doing good. And I’m glad you’re enjoying your teaching Hazie which I think is nothing short of amazing although now I think about it you’ve always had a lot more patience than me. So I’m on my way out again and we’ll be back around Sunday lunchtime and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but Felicia wants to cut your hair. She said she wants to transform you and I think that’s really cool. But like I said before I hope you don’t mind me spending so much time with her lately because there’s no one like you Hazel there’s no one like you in the world and of course there never will be.

  Heaps of love from Beth

  Her sentences rambled and circled and jumbled, and then circled back again. Hazel loved every one of them. And then she read them all again. Circled the mis-spelling of chandeliers.

  Felicia swept into the flat, cast her eyes around the living room and didn’t look disapproving. Because even though she lived in a sumptuous apartment, apparently, and this place was only a squeezed-in flat, she didn’t seem like a superficial snob. Even if her intuition about men had been right off the mark. Not that
one case was statistically valid.

  ‘Your place is so charming,’ she said, and took a pair of scissors from her massive leather handbag. They were pointed, shining scissors that looked more alarming than charming. Then she flourished a jumbo bottle of champagne.

  ‘For the fridge,’ she said. ‘You call it a fridge here. You people are always chopping up words. Vegie and bikkie and barbie and lolly, it is like living in a country full of children. How do you say it?’

  ‘Infantile,’ said Hazel.

  ‘There are men who are wearing short pants all the time.’ Felicia turned up her nose. ‘The knees are ugly, very ugly. And there are people who call me Flick. This is ugly too. That is what I tell people, which makes them laugh when I am not trying to be funny.’

  She handed Beth the champagne.

  ‘For later,’ she said. ‘When we will celebrate the new Hazel.’ She turned to look at her model—her victim. ‘I am a professional,’ she said. ‘In Italy, I cut the hair of my two brothers and they are in magazines. The fashion magazines.’

  ‘Felicia’s brothers are models,’ said Beth, knowingly.

  Felicia nodded. ‘Now. I want Hazel to look like more of her,’ she said. ‘More sexy.’

  Hazel’s panic was rising but she made herself calm down. It was only hair, wasn’t it, and hair grew very quickly. It even grew after you were dead. Or was it only your nails?

  Felicia looked at her sternly. ‘There is still nothing with your shy man?’ she said.

  ‘Not a thing. And I won’t be seeing him again.’ She saw Beth’s face, waved away her concern. ‘Anyway. I’ve just met a really nice guy who, well, he seems interested.’

  ‘Then my task is urgent,’ said Felicia, and raised those lethal scissors. ‘You will show me a mirror and bring a chair to the bathroom. A towel. A dryer. And Beth, you will assist me, no?’

  It was the closest she’d come to softening a command.

  There was a flurry of movement: Beth pushing Hazel into the chair, covering her shoulders with a towel, dampening her hair, and then—those deadly scissors, poised. Hazel closed her eyes. Heard a decisive snip. Another snip. An eerie calm descending. More snipping, slowly, carefully. Murmurs from the stylist and her willing assistant and it seemed to take forever and then finally she could hear the whirring of the dryer and all she could feel was mounting trepidation.

  ‘I am done,’ said Felicia. ‘Look.’

  Fuck. She’d been clipped. Shorn. She barely had a wisp of hair on her head. It wasn’t so much a radical change as a disappearing act.

  Felicia put an arm on her shoulder. ‘Very sexy,’ she said. ‘I knew you would be like this.’

  Hazel turned this way and that, anxiously peering. What did she look like, really, her eyes adjusting to her reflection. It had to be her, underneath the cropped little spikes, and—yes, it was OK. It was good. In fact, it was very good. It made her eyes look bigger. It showed off the curve of her neck. Beth put her arms around Hazel’s shoulders, told her she looked amazing, and who was the new guy, by the way? Groaned when Hazel told her that Lucas was a teacher. Hazel laughed and told her not to denigrate such a venerable profession and she laughed again because she liked what she’d seen of her haircut, which admittedly was only from the front. Other people saw you from the sides and the back. Took one look and desired you, or didn’t.

  Felicia returned to her oversized bag, pulled out a hand mirror and showed her what others would see.

  Hazel nodded. ‘Thank you, Felicia,’ she said. ‘You’ve done an amazing job. I love it.’

  Felicia ran her fingers through her latest triumph. ‘And you will be delighting your teacher,’ she said.

  Hazel stood and gave Felicia a hug. It was like being enveloped by a pillow.

  ‘Your English is really coming along,’ she said. ‘I mean, improving. Getting better.’

  ‘It’s because we talk a lot together,’ said Beth.

  ‘Now there’s a surprise,’ said Hazel.

  Felicia placed a hand on her chest. ‘My heart is exploding with my excellent work,’ she said, then held out her arms to both of them. ‘Now my dears, we drink the champagne. It is only second best champagne but it is still very good.’

  Hazel was greeted by a gush at reception: your hair…fabulous…ooh la la…where did you get it cut?…and then by all her colleagues: wow and chic and glamorous. The Head of Department told Hazel that she looked like a boy in a way that made looking like a boy sound irresistible. Darren did the groin-thrusting caper again and told her she looked adorable. By now she was tiring of all this silly praise as she dashed to her first class, running late, hearing the kids chattering and laughing, a few shouts, hurrying in and then: silence. Every mouth fell open. Then someone began to clap. A slow handclap. More clapping, everyone grinning, and then the whole class rising like a wave, giving her—WTF?—a standing ovation. For a moment she’d wanted to shout at them: It’s only a haircut, guys. I’m not the mousy heroine, miraculously transformed. But then the impulse passed and she felt what they were telling her, so she made a sweeping bow and thanked them.

  ‘Why did you do it, Miss?’

  ‘A friend persuaded me, Ahmed. And I wish you’d call me Ms, all of you. I keep telling you—’

  ‘Are you one of them feminists?’ That was Bobby.

  Hazel nodded. ‘Let me tell you about the word Ms,’ she said. ‘Let me give you the history.’

  Because they needed to know it, whether they liked it or not. And so she gave them a short lecture about the politics of naming and the necessity for choice, at the end of which Allie raised her hand and said: Does your boyfriend like your new hair, Miss? Did he get mad at you?

  The year elevens gave her haircut a more raucous treatment. Catcalls and who was the drunk who did that and girls wanting to touch. But you weren’t allowed to touch, not even tiny wisps on your head, and so Hazel told them instead about changing social attitudes to hair, ideas about being female or male, and eyes began to dim and the first yawn of the morning told her to give it a rest. Because they were tired of being talked to. Lectured, instructed, advised. They just wanted someone to listen.

  What had she once told Adam? That we’re not learning anything when we’re talking. It was in the context of Jessie’s chatter, and what would happen to a little boy who liked to prattle as he advanced through the school. He’d be one of those children with their hands always waving in the air, begging or demanding to be heard, told to wait his turn and let other people speak. All of which was right and proper but which might be hard for a child who liked to prattle.

  ‘Go on, Miss, just quickly.’ Rita, wanting to touch.

  Hazel relented. Which meant nine other girls wanting to do the same.

  ‘Right, now that you’ve all had your sensorial experience…’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Ahmed.

  ‘An experience that uses one of your senses. And since you have five senses—’

  ‘Jaxon’s got no sense,’ said the female Beckham.

  ‘Right.’ Hazel put on her stern voice. ‘Which two rules did Beckham just break?’

  ‘She wasn’t kind to me,’ said Jaxon.

  ‘And I interrupted you,’ said Beckham.

  ‘Correct. Now. You have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Which one would you least like to lose, and why? You have ten minutes to write and then we’re all going to listen.’

  ‘I don’t wanna lose my dad,’ said Teneelle. ‘He’s going down for six months this time.’

  A hand waved from the back of the classroom. Tex. A name from a movie with wide-legged cowboys and guns in manly holsters. And why were they called cowboys instead of cowmen?

  ‘Miss, what do you think about the Muzzies?’

  A few sniggers, a female voice sneering: They’re Muslims, you moron. Don’t you know anything?

  Was that Clara? Cara? And so much for being kind.

  ‘Do they bite?’ said a different male voice.

  ‘Mu
zzies, not mozzies, Tex.’ Clara or Cara was indignant. ‘And anyway, they’re people. They just believe in a different god from us.’

  ‘I don’t believe in no god,’ said Tex. ‘But my old man, he says the Muzzies here are gunna start throwing bombs and mowing people down with semis.’

  A barrage of voices about Muslims and terrorism and cutting off heads. And what was it with all those women covering up their faces, those guys wearing white dresses…robes, you moron…how they called Aussie women sluts and—Hazel held up a hand.

  ‘Enough,’ she said. ‘Just stop, all of you. We’re going to have a rational discussion. No insults, no opinions.’

  ‘What da ya mean, Miss, no opinions?’ Shayna, who had one lazy eye. It was easy, alas, to put a name to her. ‘My mum says we’re all entitled to our opinion, and she reckons that Muzzies cut women up inside.’ She giggled.

  Hazel kept her cool. ‘Everyone has the right to an opinion,’ she said. ‘But everyone has a responsibility to make sure their opinions are based on fact. Wild emotions don’t get us anywhere.’

  She knew she was sounding preachy. And she didn’t know if there were any Muslims in her class.

  Where, then, to begin? By planting a seed, or turning on a switch. Even if she wouldn’t be around to see the bloom or the spark.

  ‘Why do you think Muslims are terrorists?’ she said. ‘Let’s start with that one, shall we?’

  But then the siren blared and the kids stood up on cue, began jostling to leave, for maths or Home Ec. or science: another forty-five minutes of jam-packed instruction. Dead time for many. Filling in time. Killing time. Just like a prison, really.

  On Wednesday, someone else touched her hair in the staffroom. But he asked her first, politely.

  ‘It feels even softer than I thought,’ said Lucas. He grinned. ‘And you now look very cool. For an English teacher.’

  Hazel gave him a flirty kind of smile. ‘So science teachers are very cool?’