The Art of Persuasion

by Midalia, Susan;

  Adam put an arm around her. ‘Shouldn’t be long now,’ he said.

  Long? It was already bloody interminable. After an admittedly joyful welcome to country, they’d had droning politicians, an incomprehensible unionist and a dozen community leaders sprouting clichés and motherhood statements. They’d also been rallied by people of faith, every damned faith in the world. She’d nearly lost it when the archbishop or bishop or one of those men in a frock had looked at the massive crowd and said he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Well, why are you wasting our time here, she thought, we hot and bothered earthlings. Can’t we just get on with it and march into the city?

  Then she looked at Adam and felt calmer. How she loved that face, especially when she woke in the mornings to see him lying beside her. Sixteen months of mornings. Although sometimes she had to peer over Jessie’s sleeping head to see him: this man who gave her such pleasure, her sensitive, passionate lover, who adored her. Who insisted on picking her up from school because he’d already lost her for so many hours and wasn’t going to waste another minute. And sometimes, as they sat in the car and she looked at him without speaking and he had to ask her to stop because her looking made him so aroused and he needed to focus on his driving, she would wonder if he’d ever been like this with his wife. Then she would tell herself it didn’t matter and put her hand on his thigh and feel the warmth of his presence and know that she was lucky.

  They never argued, either. Well, rarely. They did have a difference of opinion about Jessie’s teacher. Adam thought she worried too much and Hazel thought he should have worried more. But he needs to understand—it was like a mantra for Adam—Jessie needs to understand that it takes all kinds, he needs to accommodate to different personalities. Different personalities! Hazel had tried not to shriek, called the teacher completely unimaginative and regimental: making six-year-olds line up outside every morning and after lunch, making them do colouring in. Colouring in! But Adam insisted there was no way he was going to make a fuss or send Jessie to a private school like the one he’d been shipped off to. He wanted his son to mix with all kinds of people, for starters, not just the western-suburbs types. And what about those exorbitant fees—you could buy a new BMW every year with that kind of money—when everything he’d read about education said it wasn’t worth it. That the most important element in the intellectual development of a child was the encouragement of the family. And right now, his family needed a new roof to replace the leaking tiles, and it was going to cost a mint. Then he’d taken Hazel in his arms and told her that he loved her. Reminded her to be grateful for any kind of roof over their first-world heads.

  But they did, in fact, have the money. They had a truckload of money, inherited from Adam’s father. Hazel had been shocked when Adam told her. He was testing her, he’d said, to see whether you want me for my wealth or my astonishing sexual prowess. But now, having piles of cold, hard cash had become just one more thing to discover: Adam’s donations to charity, especially cancer research; an international peace movement for children; helping refugees settle into the community. And money for the Greens, of course, to help finance election campaigns, buy new computers and software, print booklets about renewables. So much effort to clean what Adam called his father’s dirty money; and no wonder he’d been able to retire. Money was also why Hazel didn’t need to keep working, but she’d wanted to stay on and Adam had encouraged her. Her second year at Cranfield and it was getting better all the time. Her students were becoming real to her: that gradual unfolding of an unknown self that could only come with time. A few of them were here right now, the ones she’d persuaded to join in. It was disobeying the rules, she knew, making political pronouncements, but she didn’t give a toss. She saw Magenta and Armina deep in conversation. Magenta was still writing poems—always free verse and often awkwardly confessional—while Armina kept insisting that the best poems used regular metre and rhyme because that required discipline. And there was Rita bouncing up to them, dragging a tall, lanky guy behind her. It had to be the boyfriend who, according to Rita, had to just get over the fact that she needed to study hard because she was going to uni next year, wasn’t she?

  Hazel spotted Mavis and Jamal in the distance. Mavis was training to be a primary school teacher and Jamal was waiting tables while dreaming of becoming a chef. Two graduates from last year, along with the other kids who’d made it: the bright, the dim, the prim and the skanky, the lazy, the aspiring, the bullies and the victims. The ones with such diminished lives who offered their kindness freely. All those kids who’d galloped or shuffled across the stage and were handed a certificate before stepping out into the world of casual work or part-time work or no damned work at all. But it had been their moment, and moments could teach you. Moments could modify. They might even give you the courage to fight for your difficult life.

  Jamal’s father had come to the school, at her invitation, to tell the staff his story. His hazardous journey from a village in Afghanistan, attacked by the Taliban one too many times. How he’d run through the mountains, been hidden in a series of trucks and ended up in Pakistan, made two failed attempts in a leaky boat setting off from Indonesia before finally reaching Australia. He’d told them, too, tears running down his face, about the six years of waiting for the family he’d had to leave behind: his wife and five children, and his mother. But now they were all together, except for his mother, which grieved him still, would always grieve him, because he wanted her to come to this brand new country he was learning so much to love. A land where people were so good, always helping. Where his children, including his small daughters, could go to school and never have to see a gun. He’d spoken in the stumbling English of a man from a different culture, a world of violence and terror and the arduous journey back to hope, but Hazel had felt the power of his words. Because sometimes, she knew, simplicity was eloquent and deeply, ethically, necessary. Then she’d looked across at the staff and seen the tight face of Lecherous Paws. The big fat arse man. Well, at least he’d heard the story. At least he’d seen the tears. And maybe one night he would wake up from a terrible dream of dangerous mountains and merciless guns, of leaking boats and mothers left behind, and understand the suffering of a single family, of hundreds of thousands of families, of the millions of people all over the world who were desperate and powerless and lost. Or maybe he wouldn’t.

  But some of the teachers had been visibly shaken. A few of them had cried.

  Hazel saw her mother bend down to adjust Jessie’s hat, keep the sun from his eyes. She had embraced him, she and Hazel’s father (looking much trimmer these days, as well as shamelessly glowing). They’d welcomed Jessie, just as she had, as if he was their own flesh and blood. It made her feel rich and expansive and content when they all sat down to dinner and Jessie would chatter away, and then later her mother would put him on her lap and read him stories and her father would show him how to carve animals out of wood, setting him up on his workbench, teaching him how to handle the tools. Sometimes her parents would simply stare at Jessie in amazement, as though he’d had just landed in a rocket ship and said Take me to your leader. And of course they loved Jessie’s father. How could they not? The man who loved their daughter, had given them a grandchild and worked assiduously for the Greens. The trifecta.

  Now baby Jasmine was starting to howl and Dora was starting to fuss. Again. She was the world’s biggest fusser and cooer, and Jazz was of course the most gifted baby ever to have emerged from the womb. Jessie adored her, too, pulling faces to amuse her, kissing her plump arms, stroking her tiny fingers. Todd was coming round as well but waiting for Jazz to talk, because babies, he’d whispered to Hazel, still didn’t really do it for him. They still didn’t do it for Hazel, who sometimes looked into the chubby, dribbling face of speechless Jazz and wait for that baby spark that never seemed to ignite. And what did it matter, when she already had a child, one she loved with such tenderness and ferocity that she hardly recognised the woman she’d become. So when
Jessie had spent months pestering for a sister, she’d had to bend down and look him in the eye—because he was still a little boy you needed to bend to, to comfort or explain or sometimes chastise—and told him she could be his big sister if he liked. But you could be my mum, he’d said, his face lit up. So she’d reminded him of the woman who’d made a home for him in her body, kept him safe and warm until he was ready for the world. So just call me Hazel, she’d said. You know, like a nut.

  He was tugging at her dress now and asking for water, his green-painted face looking up at her. Her funny little leprechaun, who still woke up in the night sometimes so that she and Adam had grown used to fucking quickly, sometimes sneaking sex in the shower while Jessie was asleep, their bodies slippery with water and desire. Hazel smiled to herself, remembering how Adam had hoisted her up last night and they’d nearly toppled over, crashed onto the tiles, but he’d hoisted her up again and they’d tried again and it was very quick, strong, coming together and gasping for breath and she’d murmured into his ear tell me something special, and he’d whispered that having sex in the shower is an environmentally sound use of water.

  Another speaker. Hazel sighed, tried hard to listen. A firefighter this time, giving them more facts. Deadly facts: fires were becoming more frequent, more dangerous…just bloody awful…devastating. And then his voice went a bit quivery, as if he were remembering the charred bodies, the ruined homes, the ruined lives. Until he pulled himself up, pumped his fist, and shouted: The government keeps saying we’ve always been a country of fire, but don’t believe their lies…there’s no climate sceptic on the end of a fire hose.

  A wave of applause, shouts and cheers: the momentum rising, like a tide.

  ‘Preaching to the converted,’ said Chloe.

  Simon glared at her. ‘Well, you should have gone to the pub and hung around with all the other dummies,’ he said.

  Then he flushed, smothered Chloe with apologies. His friends suspected he was smothering her with kisses as well. No one was really sure. But he and Felicia had faded, as young love often did, Hazel thought. Not like her love for Adam, which was strong and true and made to last. Unshakeable.

  Was she becoming smug? Beth thought so. Beth had expressly told her. So, yes. Smug. Very.

  Beth was ensconced in Felicia’s apartment and overjoyed with her latest plan: her own travel agency—oops, consultancy—with Felicia handling the books, her father having agreed to finance the venture because according to Felicia, he was pity in my hands. They’d become staunch friends: madcap Beth and resolute Felicia, who must never be called Flick. Hazel wasn’t sure if they were lovers, had been lovers, would one day become lovers, and kept waiting for Beth to confess her desire. But it seemed she was a work-in-progress; her garrulous, slaphappy friend whose silence spoke of something serious. Maybe in time she would tell her, when and if she discovered the shape of herself. All that Hazel could be sure of, with a blazing, steadfast clarity, was that she, Hazel West, twenty-six, going on twenty-seven and happily, usefully employed, would never become one of those women who ditched their female friends when Mr Right/the Chivalrous Knight rode up on his trusty horse and swept her…well, onto his horse. Hazel disapproved of such women. It was a crucial weakness in their character. They met every week, she and Beth, over coffee or wine, when they would laugh and gossip and ponder the state of their work or their friends, the world at large or small. And no, Hazel had once replied, she and Adam had never once discussed marriage. In any case, it wasn’t going to happen until Australia dragged itself out of the dark ages and legalised marriage equality. Although you’d make the perfect bridesmaid, Beth, Hazel had teased her. At which point, the thought of Beth in a frothy pink dress, her bouncy red curls all sprayed and stiff, had made both of them fall about laughing.

  Now Simon was beginning to shout above the noise of the crowd…pleased that people had come out en masse…anyone could go online and press a button to protest…how it took physical effort to…and they were off, debating the pros and cons of social media versus taking to the streets, as Hazel took a long drink, patted water on her face and neck. Water in bottles, water from the tap, water water everywhere nor any drop to drink. She remembered that from a uni quiz night, the line from ‘The Ancient Mariner’. Most people thought it was not a drop to drink, but did it really matter? A single, misplaced word? Although words remained a passion in her teaching, and when she could find some time for her own private reading. She was currently immersed in The Man Who Loved Children because after years of reading Shakespeare and stories from many other lands, it was time to focus on Australia. Adam had never finished the book, though, because as soon as Hazel moved in with him, Molly had insisted on having it back. She’d been hoping for something in return, he’d said, having thrust the book upon him. Hazel had given him a very dark look, told him that trying to make her jealous was unworthy, and so he’d rushed in to say that he’d only been teasing and she’d rushed back that she didn’t want him teasing about such things. Ever. She’d made that very clear. Then he’d taken her to bed and done a lot of thrusting and she’d felt a whole lot better.

  He was keen on her new reading glasses too. Big red frames that made her look even more appealing, he said. Jessie thought she just looked weird.

  She looked down to see the child leaning against his father’s legs. The good father, the one who had chosen to stay. She had asked him once, in the early days, if he’d ever resented his wife pushing him to have a vasectomy, but he’d insisted that people always had a choice. But didn’t you feel cheated, she’d said, pushing him herself, wanting him to show her his wounds. Didn’t you feel angry and deeply hurt when you learned she was carrying a child? When you couldn’t have one of your own? Adam had spoken calmly, told her that of course he’d felt hurt, how could he not? But then he’d made another choice: to release himself from bitterness and all that might have been, because bitterness was a waste of a life and what mattered most was the child. So Hazel let her questions go, just as she’d learned not to pry and prod about Thea. Adam would give her only fragments: a wife who’d been generous…smart…a florist with a knack for pleasing arrangements…she could be difficult sometimes. For while Hazel longed to know Adam’s feelings more fully, she had come to learn this, too, about the nature of abiding love: that it must accept the limits of intimacy, honour the separateness of the loved one, in his difficult, unique opacity.

  Adam had come to her school to talk to the staff in the middle of a busy day. To give them the shameful story he had once given her, the tale of a leaking boat all but erased from history. But this time he’d offered something else as well, something uplifting and essential: the story of the SIEV X Memorial, built in the nation’s capital in the face of strenuous government opposition. It hadn’t been easy to find, he’d said; there were no glossy brochures or conspicuous tourist signposts. He’d taken a bus past a marina crowded with sleek white boats, then past a sports club for BMWs and the banality of a kiosk selling Coca Cola, until he’d finally seen the memorial laid out before him. Hundreds of white poles curving up a grassy incline, stretching out like a wave in the ocean on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. Three hundred and fifty-three poles, he knew, one for each of the dead. He’d stepped out of the bus and begun to walk, studying the poles carefully; each one bore an Arabic name, in stark black print. Immediate, insistent. Then Adam’s voice had faltered as he remembered, relived, walking up the hill and seeing how the dead, known by those who loved them, had become simply, and terribly: A Father. A Mother. A Husband. A Wife. A Child.

  Then, as he’d looked around the staffroom, at teachers being attentive or wolfing down their lunch, he’d told them what had sustained him on that long and difficult walk: a painting on each pole, created by children from all around Australia. Images of suns and moons and stars, rainbows, birds, flowers, neat little houses, bicycles and kites, dolphins, trees and oceans. Each painting saying that while we mourn your loss of a joyful life, we believe that love is st
ronger than fear. That compassion is stronger than hate.

  He’d promised to take his own family to see the memorial. Because everyone must see it, he’d said.

  The crowd in the park began to shuffle about, preparing to march into the city.

  Beth turned around to Hazel. ‘How many people do you reckon?’ she said. ‘A few thousand?’

  ‘Five,’ said Felicia, decisively.

  Chloe laughed. ‘Any more than fifty people is great turnout for Perth.’

  Hazel looked around at all the thousands in the park: three or five, maybe even more, who’d come from the sprawling suburbs and from distant country towns. There were members of staff, Martha and Lucas among them, her precious sources of support. There was Elsa and Max, Abdul and Nahiri: Adam’s friends, fast becoming her friends, her world expanding with her love. And all around her so many couples and families, elderly people and middle-aged people, jiggling children and whining children, a little girl doing a handstand against her father’s legs. There were people from different races and cultures. Defiantly happy gays. People wheeling bikes. Hippie dresses and neatly ironed shirts, painted faces, weathered faces, baby faces. She looked across at Adam again; he was wearing a green T-shirt, like her, to symbolise the ecosystem. Some of their friends were wearing red, in support of people already damaged by the effects of climate change. Hazel’s parents were in orange, to celebrate jobs that helped the environment, while her students in the distance were decked out in blue for the future generations. Jessie was in his yellow T-shirt, for people inspired by creative solutions. Yellow: the colour of ducks. Jessie had told her, in his piping voice, about the ducks watching the train as it went choofing past. He’d put his hands on his hips and sized her up and decided that he liked her.