The Slap

by Christos Tsiolkas

  Connie started to read.

  Dear Sister,

  I am writing to ask you to take care of my child, my daughter who is my life. I realise that it is years since you have heard from me but I am hoping that the love and affection you have shown me—and I know that I have not always been deserving of it—will also extend to your niece. She is a wonderful child, Tasha. She is a terrific kid.

  I am dying; I guess I have been for years. That’s one of the reasons I have kept my distance. I knew you would be kind but I was not very hopeful of understanding from Peter and Dad. It was 1989 that I was diagnosed as positive. If you remember you were just finishing your final year at high school and I had returned home for a visit. You were pissed off that my return had seemingly caused so much anguish and strife. I was abrupt even with you, and you told me later, in London, that you had thought me cruel and arrogant, that you thought England had done this to me. I should have told you back then that I was HIV positive but I was scared to, and Mum begged me not to. Yes, she knew. She was, apart from being ashamed, very good about it. And no, of course, she never told Dad.

  Connie is fine. She must have been conceived before Marina or I contracted the virus. Or, thank God, she was very lucky.

  Oh, Sis, even now my first impulse is to lie. Even nearing the end, hiding behind this letter, I am gutless. It was me who infected Marina. I’m sure I know the exact moment the virus entered my body. It was, appropriately, in bloody Soho. In a club toilet, somewhere deep in the bowels of fag London, and this man called Joseph fixed me with a shot of heroin. I was drunk, I was enamoured of his beauty, and I deeply wanted to fuck with a man that night. Well, we didn’t fuck—the drug took care of that—but as I watched him pump the syringe into my vein, I knew that he was poisoning me.

  This was always the hard bit to read. Always.

  For a year I fucked Marina hard and often, hoping, I guess, for some miracle to save us. She died, as you know, five years ago. I never confessed to her the above and she never blamed me. And maybe she wouldn’t have even if I had told her. Who knows what secret places her vices took her!

  This is really a confession to you isn’t it? Marina went Buddhist in her final years but I, unfortunately, am still too scared of our stern Monophysite God. I have not been a bad man, far from it, but though I know I am not destined for the final circle of hell I cannot completely do away with the idea that there is a logic and a truth to the ancient patriarchs. I have obeyed so little in my life. I am very unenlightened.

  Connie is nearly fourteen, and she attends a comprehensive school in South London. She is bright and does very well at study. She is, inevitably, quite mature for her age. She has certainly astonished me with her capacity to cope with her mother’s death and with my being sick. If there has been prejudice or ignorance among her friends she doesn’t let on, and I rather suspect that those she is close to have been supportive. Her friend Allen’s mum is a dyke and her closest female friend, Zara, is an unbelievably cool Turkish child. (Zara saved her pocket money for two years to afford a bloody T-shirt from Prada ! It’s not so much the wanting a Prada shirt that impressed me—the mania for labels is everywhere and I actually find it a little distasteful—but the fact that she was determined enough to save for so long.)

  I don’t know, Sis, if you have been spending any time with teenagers, but I am fascinated by them and encouraged by them. I don’t feel the same way about our generation at all. Not that I wish to romanticise today’s teenagers either. They are fucking cruel, this young mob, very very much the children of Thatcher, even though they might mouth all the right ecological and antiracist platitudes. They have little time for anyone who is not capable, for whatever reason, of being successful. Even the council boys sniffing around Connie are full of derision for those who are not dreaming of fast cars and of entrepreneurial futures. But they are not hypocrites and, unlike us, they do not pretend to know more than they do or wish to speak on behalf of anyone but themselves. Are they the same back home?

  It is raining outside and I am to be visited soon by a day nurse who eats up nearly half of my dole. I’m still on the dole—I guess that is another thing not to pass on to Dad. Has he retired yet or is he still building, building, building and drinking, drinking, drinking and complaining, complaining, complaining that his children do not know the meaning of hard work? What utter crap! I knew very early on the meaning of hard work and I promised myself that I would never work that way, never destroy my body and my back in that way, never become bitter like Dad. Well, I have become bitter, but not like Dad. Unlike our father, I don’t regret the things I have not done but rather the things I have done. So, no matter how at peace I say I am about this fucking disease, the reality is I keep going back to the moment I got it and wishing I hadn’t been in that club, wishing I’d never laid eyes on the man, wishing I did not share that needle, most of all, most of all, wishing I had not kept fucking with Marina, wishing I had not been such a coward.

  Pray for me, Sis. I do fear God.

  Nothing has been said to Connie. She knows about you all in Australia, and in particular she knows how much I adore you. But please believe me when I say that if you are unable to make a home for her then feel no guilt. It is not exactly your responsibility, is it? I know that. She won’t hear of me dying and so we have not spoken of the future. If you are unable to take her, Marina’s old aunt Jessica lives up in Lancaster and she is a generous woman who will do her best for Connie. I want her to know her uncle and her grandfather but I don’t want them to have any choice in her life and her future. Of our clan, I only trust you.

  Tasha, if you can’t, for whatever reason, take her in, please at least make contact with her? Marina and I have not been very successful parents but there is some money for her, five thousand pounds, that Marina and I managed to save and hang on to. All my funeral arrangements have already been made and paid for and there will be no debts outstanding. I will be cremated and buried here in London. I have no yearnings for Australia. In fact, from what we hear over here, some things about home seem to have changed very little. We’re still screwing the blackfella, eh? No, I’m more than happy to be buried here.

  Oh, Sister, I know five thousand pounds won’t go far, I know I am asking the earth. But I think you will love Connie. I remind her of when you last saw her, all those years ago when she was not yet five, and you told her how scared you were of taking the Tube at night. Remember what she said? ‘But Auntie Tasha, it’s better at night. There’s more light. It’s safer.’ She really requires little effort. The other night she surprised me by asking if I had any Simon and Garfunkel music. Her being a London kid, I thought all she knew was hip-hop and dance. But she is developing a taste for the hippie era. She has also been enquiring about Joni Mitchell and Fleetwood Mac. God knows where she hears it. Radio 2? Surely not?

  Yeah, Dad, Radio 2. Mum and I would listen to Radio 2 when you weren’t home. I fucking hated Joy Division, I fucking hated The Clash. I fucking loathed techno. I loved Fleetwood Mac.

  I am dying. I would appreciate you replying to this letter as soon as possible. Please, please decide what is best for you, for what is best for you will be the best for Connie and me. Of course, you can phone but I am so scared that on hearing your voice, dear sister, that I will break into long and terrible tears. Connie calls me a dinosaur because I do not use the internet-email thing but one of the few pleasures allowed the dying is the liberty to discriminate. As you know, I have always detested the television and the telephone: email and the internet sound hideous, a combination of the two. I obviously was not made for this new century and I have chosen my time for exiting quite well.

  Please write. I wish I could have been a closer and more attentive older brother. I did fail you miserably. I am crying now, writing this, and I am thinking of how we used to laugh at old Mrs Radiç next door when she would soliloquise on the pain of exile. And now I feel it so deeply myself. Poor Mrs Radiç, at least here they speak my language. She blamed
her exile on poverty and war. Have I only myself to blame for mine?

  Dear Sis, tell our brother and our father the truth. If my Connie at her age can bear it, so can those two. I don’t want lies around Connie, and since I want her to know my family, I want my family to be worthy of her. Don’t you dare lie to her.

  The nurse is here. She is asking me to whom I am writing and I replied, to one of the three women I have truly loved. There is Marina, my Connie, and there has always been you.

  I kiss you, Natasha.

  Your loving brother,

  Luke.

  Connie folded the letter and put it back at the bottom of the tin. There was a ting sound from the computer. Zara was online. She wiped away her tears and began to tell Zara everything about the party. She didn’t want to think about Hector tonight. She wasn’t going to think about Hector tonight. She told her about the stunning dress she had worn, about Richie and Jenna and Jordan, about taking the E. And she told her everything that had happened between herself and Ali, all she could remember about Ali in the finest detail, how he looked, and sounded, how he smelt and how he tasted. She told her everything.

  It was midday when she woke. Her head throbbed and she groaned when she looked over at the pile of schoolbooks on her desk. She shuffled into the kitchen. Tasha was cooking lunch and the room smelt of lemongrass and coriander. Fillets of John Dory were sitting on a plate.

  ‘I can’t eat.’

  ‘Yes, you can. God knows what you ingested last night, but fish is the best thing for you.’ Tasha tapped the side of her head. ‘Brain food. Good for your serotonin levels.’

  Connie sat at the table. She searched the front page of the newspaper, then pulled out the television supplement.

  ‘I’m not leaving the house today,’ she announced.

  ‘Rosie rang for you. She wants you to look after Hugo on Wednesday.’

  Connie nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I told her you couldn’t.’

  ‘I can do a few hours,’ she protested.

  ‘No. This is your final year, Connie. You have heaps of study, then exams. You do too much as it is. I told her you can’t do it. I don’t want them to get dependent on you.’

  ‘It’s hard for Rosie. She’s got no family here in Melbourne. They’ve got that hearing case coming up any day now. That’s all she can think about.’

  ‘Some people make it hard on themselves.’

  ‘He hit Hugo.’

  Her aunt did not answer.

  ‘There’s no excuse for an adult to hit a child. I hope they put him in jail,’ Connie finished sourly.

  Tasha started spicing the fillets. ‘You know, what I don’t like about adolescence is how brutal you can be.’

  Connie ignored her. Her head hurt and she didn’t want to get into an argument. She was thinking of Ali. She didn’t have his number and he didn’t have hers. Would he get it off Jordan? Would he ring her or would they just talk at school? She scanned through the television page for Sunday. There was just shit on.

  ‘Tash, if I do a couple of hours’ work this afternoon, will you drive me to the video shop later? I’ll need a DVD.’

  Tasha heated oil in the wok and threw in slices of ginger and garlic. Connie realised she hadn’t really had much to eat last night. She got up and put her arms around her aunt.

  ‘I’ll just have a quick shower.’

  ‘Three minutes. This will be done by then. And there’s no point in wasting water.’

  ‘Three minutes.’ At the doorway, Connie swung around. ‘Is there any chocolate left?’

  Tasha bit her bottom lip.

  Connie feigned outrage. ‘You ate it all last night, didn’t you?’

  ‘Okay, okay. We’ll pick up another block when we go and get you a DVD.’

  ‘Thank you, Tashie. You are a sweetheart. I’ll be ready for lunch in fifteen minutes.’ Connie turned, humming, on her way to the bathroom.

  ‘Brutal,’ she head her aunt say. ‘Just brutal.’

  ROSIE

  Rosie lowered herself into the bath, her hands gripping tight to the rim as her body slid into the scalding water. She slowly allowed her body to slacken in the enveloping heat, sighing deeply and closing her eyes to the world. One ear was cocked for any sound from Hugo. He and Gary were watching Finding Nemo. Hugo would be on his back, his legs whirring fast, pretending to cycle. Gary would be on his second beer, his overalls dropped to his waist. She had promised him that she would not stay in the bath for too long, would not allow the water to get cold. She could barely hear any sound from the living room, just the movie’s imperceptible chatter and music. Hugo had already watched it right through earlier in the day. It had become his favourite over the last few weeks and now she too almost knew it by heart. Sometimes she would pretend to be Dory to his Nemo. She wished he could be in the bath with her (except it would be too hot for him, the little fella). They could pretend to be Dory and Nemo, under the water, in the pretty sapphire world underneath the sea. She’d pretend to be Dory, forgetting everything he told her, trying not to giggle as Hugo got more and more excited and frustrated.

  Her eyes flung open. Damn. It was around lunchtime that she received the letter, just after she had come back from the park with Hugo. Rosie had gone pale as she read the dry words stating the date and time for the hearing to be held at the Magistrates Court in Heidelberg. She had quickly sat down, feeling faint. Luckily Hugo was watching the movie and didn’t have to witness her anxiety and fear. Rosie immediately phoned Legal Aid and fortunately Margaret, their lawyer, was in the office. This is great news, the young woman assured her, this means it will all be over soon. Rosie put down the phone, in a daze. Four weeks. It would all be over in four weeks. She was about to call Gary on his mobile and then quickly decided against it. It was then that she composed herself. She decided she wouldn’t say anything to him till Friday. It was only two days away and it would be better that they spoke about it at the end of the week, with him having the weekend to look forward to. If she told him today he would just get drunk and not be able to sleep and be in a temper for days.

  She had felt calm as she made the decision, but that had not lasted long. She couldn’t help thinking of what lay ahead. Margaret had explained that they would not have to speak unless the presiding judge asked for clarification from any of the parties. She wished she could get up on the witness stand and tell the world how that animal had hurt her child. That’s not the way it works, Margaret kept explaining, over and over, this is a matter between the police and the accused.

  As the water released its delicious heat, Rosie allowed herself a small smile as she remembered what Shamira had said to her. Let me get on that witness stand—I’ll tell them all how cruel that man was, the pleasure he took in hitting Hugo. The bastard enjoyed it, I was looking straight at him. He enjoyed hitting Hugo—he got off on it, everyone should know that.

  She rang Shamira straight after receiving the letter. Her initial impulse, as always, had been to ring Aisha, but it was early in the afternoon and Aish would probably be still finishing surgery, not able to talk. In any case, it was too complicated to ring Aisha. Maybe Hector already knew; his cousin, that bastard, might have already spoken to them.

  So she’d called Shamira. Her friend had responded exactly the way she had wanted her to, with warm, uncompromising, unquestioning support. That was what Rosie needed at the moment.

  Damn, she mouthed again, sinking further under the water so it lapped over her chin, her lips, her brow. She could open her mouth, let the water flood into her, take her over, fill her lungs and guts and cells till she exploded. She jerked her body upright, splashing water across the floor and the tiles. Fuck that animal. She couldn’t relax—she didn’t want to. This was her fight, her battle. Fuck him. She hoped he would be crucified, that the world would know the crime he had committed against her son, against her, against her family. The waves of fury and righteousness were intoxicating. She gently squeezed her right nipple and a thin ooze of milk
slithered across the surface of the water.

  There was a loud rapping at the door. ‘The water’s going to be fucking freezing.’

  She dipped herself under one more time and then stood up in the bath. Gary had shoved open the door. She turned around and faced him, her smile innocent.

  ‘Can you pass the towel?’

  She caught the desire on his face. It was like a reflex, animal in its urgency. The water was dripping off her. She flattened her damp hair against her scalp, took the towel he offered her and stepped onto the bathroom mat. She enjoyed him watching as she dried herself.

  ‘Get in,’ she urged him. ‘It’s just going to get colder.’

  He stripped quickly. She pretended to ignore him, bending over the sink, drying her arms, neck and shoulders. His work overalls had dropped to his feet and she could see he had the beginning of a hard-on. He pulled off his singlet and underwear, tossed them on the floor, and stepped into the bath.

  Rosie turned around. ‘Warm enough?’

  He nodded, a sly, boyish grin on his face. That grin was Hugo’s, exactly the same. And just like Hugo, it came across Gary’s face when he wanted something from her. His cock was jutting out of the water. He touched her hand and pointed towards his groin. From the lounge room she could hear Hugo calling her. She hesitated; Gary’s touch had become a grip, his fingers beginning to twist around her wrist.