The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor (19 page)

She sat at the kitchen table with a Twix chocolate bar and a glass of lemonade. These were for Nathaniel.

After a moment, she opened the wrapper and ate the Twix bar. She
had never eaten a whole one like that before, in big greedy bites, like a starving Charlie before the Chocolate Factory. Then she drank the glass of lemonade in one thirsty, greedy gulp. She had never done that before either. The fizziness, for a start, would have stopped her in the past. Now her mouth was chocolate sugar, and her eyes were startled red. She was so frightened it made her want to giggle.

She reached into the kitchen drawer and took out the corkscrew, and then she began to play with it, rotating the top so that its arms rose up and then down, up and then down, like a person crying out for help. Giving up, crying out, giving up, crying out, the long thin body in an anguish of perpetual twisting.

There was the sound of a key in the door. She dropped the corkscrew with a clatter. But then there was a tumble of voices in the hallway:
Listen was home.

“What happened?” Marbie called down the hallway. “What happened to Tae Kwon Do?”

“Canceled!” cried Listen. She danced, excited, and Nathaniel seemed excited too.

“Teacher left a note on the door,” he explained, opening the fridge. “We should have thought of it. Traffic was hell. We were skidding all over the road. There's
ice
out there, Marbs, you should go have a look. Still, we weren't the only ones, were we, Listen? There were other kids hanging around there waiting. They hadn't seen the note. They were all trying to hit on Listen. Hey, Twix. I love Twix.” He was staring at the wrapper on the table.

“I know you do.” Marbie felt terrible guilt. “I'm sorry. I ate it all. I'll get you another one tomorrow.”

“Ah well.” Nathaniel turned back to the fridge.

“I'm
hungry,
” Listen danced. “They were not
hitting on me,
Dad.”

“Well, that kid with the giraffe tattoo on his wrist was,” said Nathaniel, pulling up a kitchen chair. “He's got it for you bad, kid.” To Marbie, Nathaniel indicated how the giraffe's neck ran from the boy's wrist to his elbow.

“That's Carl Vandenberg. He's going for his black belt. No way he likes me.”

“What say we go out for dinner,” Nathaniel said. “We can walk down to that new Indian restaurant, to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“The ice storm. And the Zing Family Secret Meeting being canceled. Not that I don't enjoy the meetings, Marbie, of course. It's just a reason, see. And Tae Kwon Do being canceled,” suggested Nathaniel.

Listen pirouetted. “But I like Tae Kwon Do.”

Alone in the kitchen again, Marbie thought sadly about buying another Twix for Nathaniel, only it was too dark and icy outside. She had pretended she was too cold to join them at the restaurant, but now she was too frightened to do anything. She couldn't even make herself a curried egg sandwich for dinner.

“Come on to bed.”

Nathaniel sat up against his pillow, and Marbie stood at the foot of the bed, staring at him.

“You know how Arnold Schwarzenegger can kill a person by applying pressure to exactly the right part of their neck?” she said eventually.

“He's just an actor, Marbie,” Nathaniel said gently.

“And a governor,” agreed Marbie. “But, well, he used to play characters like that sometimes, and the thing is, Nathaniel, you know how I sometimes give you a neck and shoulder massage?”

“Not very often.”

“But
sometimes
I do, and the thing is, what if I accidentally pressed the bit that kills you and accidentally killed you?” Her voice broke.

“Marbie, I would tell you if you started killing me, and then you could stop. Okay? There's nothing to cry about. Look out the window, why don't you? I think it's snowing. I think I can see something white, and if I'm right, we should wake Listen and go outside.”

“It doesn't snow in Sydney,” said Marbie tragically, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “But I could accidentally kill you with one little touch of my finger. Or what if you developed a spontaneous allergy to seafood, and I gave you a stamp to put on an envelope, and you got a reaction from licking the stamp because they use tiny fragments of fish bones in the glue on the back of the stamp. They do, Nathaniel, I read that. Or anyway they used to. And that could happen, you could die from a postage stamp.”

“I'm sure that's snow.” Nathaniel was leaning forward. “Open the curtain.”

“It doesn't snow in Sydney,” Marbie said again, listlessly.

Finally, Nathaniel paid attention. “What's up, Marbie? Tell me what's wrong.”

“Okay, I'll tell you,” said Marbie, through her tears, and she did.

(From Minutes of ZFS Meeting, November 1986)

• M
  RS
  . Z
  ASKS
  : “H
  OW DO WE GET RID OF HER
  ?”
  
• R
  ADCLIFFE MAKES A JOKE
  : “A
  BROKEN ANKLE OR WRIST MIGHT DO THE TRICK
  ” (
  E/BODY LAUGHS
  ).
  
• G
  ENERAL TALK
  .
  
• R
  ESOLVED
  THAT SUBCOMMITTEE BE FORMED, CONSISTING OF
  

The first day of the winter holidays, Cath woke up in a ruffled, empty bed and thought,
Of course, he has already left.
She wondered if there would be a single red rose on his pillow as a poignant good-bye, but there was not. Instead, looking around her bedroom, she noticed a strange, almost exquisite light.

Then, as she watched, Warren Woodford appeared in the doorway. There was snow woven into his eyebrows.

“I've been for a walk,” he said, hesitating. “If you can believe it, there's still snow on the ground outside.”

He was carrying a cardboard tray of takeout coffees. His face was gray and frightened.

“It doesn't mean a thing,” Cath reassured him, sitting up against the headboard. “We were drunk, and it didn't mean a thing.”

Warren raised an eyebrow.

Then he moved into the bedroom, closing the door with his boot. He put the coffee cups onto her bedside table and sat down on the side of the bed. He placed one cold hand on her forehead, as if he was checking her for fever, and his gaze was so troubled and so searching, she realized that it did mean a thing.

The first day of the winter holidays, Fancy woke when Cassie jumped onto her bed.

“There's
snow
outside! THERE'S SNOW OUTSIDE! MUMMY! THE WORLD'S GONE
WHITE
!”

Radcliffe muffled his voice straight into his pillow: “Cassie, just lie down, honey, and have a little sleep.”

Cassie bounced on her father's ankle, and he yelped.

Fancy blinked in the strange, almost secretive light of the room. Could there really be snow outside? Her daughter's shouts faded into a curious middle distance, and Fancy stretched her arms like a ballerina. Why did she feel so poignant and so graceful? Then she remembered,
My husband is having an affair.

She had not yet confronted her husband about his affair. He had arrived home early the night before, and found her sitting on their bedroom floor, the sock hidden safely in her pocket. He stage-whispered, “If you're working on a book idea, I'll leave you to it,” and tiptoed out of the room.

One day, soon, she would tell him that she knew. In the meantime, she would consider this poignant, graceful mood. Actually, she recognized the mood. It was the same strange, detached feeling that she had experienced at all secret yet significant times of her life:
I am not a virgin any longer; I am on the Atkins diet!; I think I may be having a child.

“COME OUTSIDE AND PLAY IN THE SNOW, MUMMY!” Cassie's shouts began to penetrate. “MUMMY, CAN I GO OVER TO LUCINDA'S PLACE AND THROW SNOW AT HER AND SHE COULD THROW SNOW AT ME?”

“Well,” began Fancy, slowly and gracefully, but then the telephone rang.

The first day of the winter holidays, Marbie woke to a strange, almost haunting light which clouded her vision. For a moment she lay flat on her back, trying to see.

A buzzing sound gave her a flurry of hope:
It was all a dream! I never slept with the aeronautical engineer! I never told Nathaniel about it! Nathaniel and Listen are out in the kitchen making banana milk shakes!
But then she realized it was the sound of a leaf blower somewhere outside.

Slowly, she wandered the apartment, gazing at the empty spaces: the doorknob where Listen's coat belonged; the shower rack where Nathaniel's shampoo should be standing. How thoroughly they had packed in the middle of the night!

She opened the front door and gasped at the strange little patch of white on the porch. It must be a message from Nathaniel. But what did it mean? She crouched down and touched it: It was icy cold. Had he hacked at the ice in the freezer, scraped it into a bucket, then tipped it out onto the front porch? Meaning what? That her heart was as cold as an ice patch? That he would return
when the ice had melted?

Then she looked up and saw that the white patches were everywhere. The white had dabbed at fence posts, mailboxes, tree branches. It sat on car roofs and bonnets, spread itself across front lawns, and tipped over the edges of the gutters. Across the street, two little girls were aiming at the white with a leaf blower.

Panicked, Marbie backed through the door into her hallway and reached for the phone. Her fingers shook as she dialed her sister's number.

“Can you meet me at Mum's place,” she whispered, “right away?”

In Grandma Zing's kitchen, Marbie hyperventilated, her mother baked a carrot cake, and Fancy sipped wisdom from her coffee cup.

“He will return,” was Fancy's wisdom. “He won't be long.”

“I suppose he will.” Grandma Zing measured a teaspoon of dried ginger. “But Marbie, darling, what were you thinking?”

“That's the thing.” Marbie sat back up, wide-eyed. “I don't think I was thinking.”

“Someone as special as
Nathaniel
—”

“Stop it, Mum,” interrupted Fancy. “Nathaniel will come back eventually, Marbie.”

“No, he won't,” murmured Marbie, turning to her sister. “You didn't see his eyes. He was so
calm.
He listened to what I said, and then he got out of bed, and took out his suitcase, and packed. He folded his clothes like they were going on display in the window of a shop. And then he slept on the couch, and in the morning when I got up, he and Listen were gone.
And the snow was here.
”

“Never mind,” Grandma Zing comforted her, “the carrot cake won't be much longer now. I'm about to put it in the oven.” She glanced over to confirm that the oven was preheating. “We'll leave your dad in the TV room for the moment. He loves that game show of his, doesn't he? And he's spent all morning in the shed.”

“Look,” said Fancy firmly. “It was just once, wasn't it, Marbie?”

“Yes,” agreed Marbie. “Just the once.”

“And you don't plan to see him again, do you? This aeronautical engineer of yours?”

“No,” insisted Marbie. “Never again.”

“Well now!” It was settled. “Nathaniel will come back.”

“No, he won't.” Marbie shook her head, with tears blurring her eyes. “No, he won't.” Then she dried her eyes, looked thoughtful for a moment, and added, “I admire his resolve.”

“Gosh,” said Fancy, “it's still
here.
”

They were standing at the front door staring at the snow, which was,
she thought, like icing on a wedding cake, or cappuccino froth. It stared back at them, a little defiant, as if it knew it shouldn't be there at all.

“Honestly,” said Grandma Zing, “I think you should both stay put now that you're here. I think it was dangerous of you to drive over unless there was an emergency.”

Then she looked at her two daughters and added politely, “Of course, I understand that this
is
an emergency, Marbie.”

“If you drive slowly it's okay, I found,” said Fancy. “Although I was skidding all over the road. Really, everywhere.”

“It's safe,” declared Marbie, “because no one else is driving.”

“Yes, well, they're saying on the news that you should stay in your own homes, and only come out to get necessary supplies such as flashlights and blankets and so on,” Grandma Zing confirmed.

They stood quietly on the porch for a moment, considering this, while up and down the street, children and adults shrieked and played in the snow. Snowmen grew, snow fights flourished, and one or two people wandered around their gardens in their skis.

“I might stay here for a while,” conceded Marbie eventually.

“I have to meet Radcliffe for lunch,” Fancy declared.

“I'm going to go and lie down,” said Marbie.

“What are we going to do with that girl?” said Grandma Zing in the driveway, at the window of Fancy's car.

“Look at that!” said Fancy, surprised. “The windshield's completely frozen! The wipers aren't making a difference. I suppose people in cold countries have some kind of a scraping device for situations like this.”

“Let me see if I can get it with my fingernails,” offered Grandma
Zing. “Ouch, turn off the wipers will you, darling? Fance, who on earth is this aeronautical engineer? And Nathaniel will forgive her, won't he?”

“I don't know,” admitted Fancy. “He's so nice and sensible, so—then again, men can be funny about affairs.”

Her mother gave a sharp breath of laughter, and said, “Still. At least we don't need to worry about Nathaniel and the Secret.”

Fancy was playing with the vents in the dashboard, but at this she said, “I completely forgot about the Secret! It must be because you're right. He's not that type.”

“It was going along so nicely,” sighed Grandma Zing, “what with Project 78 getting under way. Oh, and Fancy, I suppose I shouldn't bring this up now, but you know, it happened again. Just last night.”

“Again!” exclaimed Fancy. “It's blurry?”

“No, it's just slipped. I don't suppose you and Marbie would be interested in another Intrusion for some Maintenance just now?”

“Not in the middle of a snowstorm,” said Fancy firmly. “We'll wait until it melts.”

Fancy drove away from her parents' place, skidding on the snow and listening to the radio. It was a State of Emergency, the radio said, the roads and public transport were in chaos. Also, some areas had lost power, and there were concerns about homeless people freezing to death. Still, things were in hand because Sydneysiders were battlers. “If there's one word to describe a Sydneysider,” the Premier was saying in a recorded message, “it's the word
battler.
I didn't say bullheaded there. We're not too proud to turn to our countrymen for advice—Aussie battlers in colder climes than ours. Tasmanians. Canberrians. We're not too proud to turn to
other
countries for advice either. Norway. Finland. Trust me. We have this in hand.”

“There you have it, people,” said the announcer, coming back on the air. “And let me say this one more time: Have as much fun as you can in your own back gardens, but stay
off
the roads!”

“Oh blah,” said Fancy, stabbing at the radio buttons. Four centimeters of snow! What must
immigrants
be thinking about this hullabaloo! She blushed to think of the Canadian next door—how he must hoot as he sliced his kiwifruit.

Fancy kept her own secret, Radcliffe's affair, buttoned up tight in her cardigan. She hadn't told anybody yet, but it was affecting the way that she moved. Her elbows, for example, as her hands gripped and skidded with the steering wheel, stuck out at a curious angle.

“What's happened? What's happened?”

Radcliffe was excited as the waiter led them to the table. The restaurant's lunchtime crowd was spilling out the door. It was the only place open in the neighborhood, and people wanted to bustle into public spaces and chat with strangers about snow. “Magic, isn't it?” a man said to Radcliffe, shaking his head at the picture windows. But Radcliffe only half nodded: He wanted to know Fancy's news.

“Something has happened,” Fancy had said mysteriously, when she phoned from her parents' place to suggest that they meet for lunch.

“Well!” said Fancy, then paused as the waiter took her coat for her, and paused as he drew out the chair for her, and paused as he swooped out the napkin for her.

“Well!” she repeated. Then the waiter jutted the menu at her nose, and she had to pause again.

“Can I start you off with a drink?”

Radcliffe ordered champagne.

The waiter allowed her a moment to continue by setting off to fetch their drinks.

“It's not a
celebration
!” she remonstrated, on account of the champagne. “Something
awful
has happened!”

“Well, I wasn't to know,” Radcliffe grumbled. “You didn't tell me what it was. You
sounded
like it was something exciting on the phone. Besides, we could celebrate the snow. Look at it out there! With the sun sparkling! It's like diamond-flavored ice cream, isn't it? Don't you think?”

“Hmm.” Fancy pressed her hair behind her ears, and announced: “
Nathaniel
has
left
Marbie!”

“He has not!”

He was so perfectly sure of this, that Fancy began to doubt.

“He has!” she exclaimed, remembering. “Marbie's been crying all morning. It turns out she's been having an affair.”

“Ah,” said Radcliffe, “that I would believe.”

“Radcliffe!”

But Fancy had to stop because the waiter was back and wanted them to decide what to eat. Radcliffe chose braised lamb in oyster sauce. Fancy wanted the Atlantic salmon.

“It wasn't an affair, really, anyway,” Fancy said, as soon as she was permitted to continue. “It was just once, yesterday. With an aeronautical engineer, if you can believe it. And she told Nathaniel about it right away, that very night. Last night.”

“Good for her,” said Radcliffe.

“Yes,” agreed Fancy, staring at him carefully. “It's the right thing to do. To tell. You should always tell.”

Radcliffe smiled slightly and looked down, which at first set off a panic in Fancy's chest (
He's about to tell me!
) until she realized he was thinking back in time. He had always been proud of himself for telling Fancy, when they were teenagers, that he had kissed another girl.

“But he
left
her!” Radcliffe exclaimed. “Whatever for?”

Fancy regarded him shrewdly. “You know,” she said, “confession isn't everything.”

Radcliffe nodded.

“He moved out right away.” Enthusiastically, Fancy tore her bread in half. “And she thinks they've moved back to the campervan where they used to live. You know, the one behind the Banana Bar?”

“Good God!” Radcliffe was impressed. “Back to the
campervan
?”

“Yes,” agreed Fancy. “Just when the renovations were practically done.” Something occurred to her. “Poor little Listen,” she began. “Imagine how it must be for her, just when she's starting at a new school—”