The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor (29 page)

But the man was simply staring at her. She looked down, searching for other topics, but when she looked back up, he was standing, as if it was all decided. Or as if he was too excited to keep still.
Good heavens,
thought Cath, and also stood up.

“Look,” said Radcliffe, reaching into his pocket. “Here's my business card. Any time you need to talk about our little Cass, give me a call at work. My advice is to leave my wife well out of it. She's under a lot of stress at the moment—so best, by far the best, if you call me. All right?” He pressed the card into her hand. “Just
wonderful
to meet you!”

And then he was outside the classroom door, but facing inward and wiping his feet on the mat, confused. “Ha ha,” he said, pointing down. Then he spun around, waving, calling, “Looks like rain!” as he headed out into the night.

“Good grief,” murmured Cath, and glanced to the back of the classroom.

Warren did not have a parent with him yet, and had been bowing his head, listening to the interview. He grinned now, widening his eyes, and she widened her eyes in return. Then he pulled one of those faces of his, one side of the mouth down, the other side up.

Oh God,
thought Cath, laughing.
I am still in love. He is still in love with me.
Then a gathering of parents arrived.

Afterward, while the last parents were opening their umbrellas at the doorway, ready to run into the rain, Warren joined her at the front of the room. Outside it was dark and heavy with rain. Inside it was warm with a strange, orange light. Cath felt his breath and his body next to her, and believed he was going to kiss her. As soon as the parents' voices faded, he would close the space between them.

But when the voices faded, Warren remained apart, watching the rain. In a slow, heavy voice he said, “I don't know what to do.”

“No,” agreed Cath.

But she did.
Close the space, Warren, that's all.

Warren stood still at the edge of the space, and Cath stood beside him, her arms by her side, and waited.

There was something important in the jungle on the dentist's ceiling, but Cassie did not know what it was. Something about the two cheetahs, running away from the jungle.

“Can I go back to the dentist, Mum?”

“Whatever for?”

They had just pulled up outside the school gate on Monday morning, and the engine was running.

“Nothing,” said Cassie. “But can I?”

“Does your tooth hurt, darling? You must tell me if it does.”

“Which tooth?” said Cassie.

“Any tooth, Cassie. Any tooth at all. Have you got an umbrella? Have you got your note for Ms. Murphy?”

“Yes,” said Cassie listlessly.

“Yes, umbrella? Yes, note? Don't forget the note now, will you? Give it to Ms. Murphy the moment you see her, okay? Darling, your uniform's all funny!”

Cassie, standing on the footpath outside the car, untwisted her uniform until her mother was content. After her mother drove away, she twisted it back around again. It was warmer that way.

On Monday afternoon, outside the grocery shop, Fancy watched as a fat man in a charcoal suit strode along the street and spotted, in the opposite
direction, a thin man. The fat man opened his face and arms wide, stopping in the middle of the footpath. Simultaneously, the thin man called, “Hi!”—casual, unsurprised, although friendly enough—and continued his stride. In fact, the stride was so brisk that he had to glance back over his shoulder for the second half of the “Hi!”—and noticed only as he glanced back that the fat man had stopped and had both arms ready to embrace. The thin man
chose,
considered but
chose
not to stop, and instead strode on with a grin, slightly apologetic, slightly wry. The fat man readjusted his arms and carried on.

On the drive home from the grocery store, Fancy wept for the fat man.

In Fancy's opinion, a choice had to be made when your husband said something unkind. Specifically: be cruel, be strong, or sulk.

“Be cruel” by saying an unkind thing back.

“Be strong” by choosing not to mind. But to do this, you have to use up a piece of your love. You have to shave off enough of the love to forgive. After a while, the piece might grow back, but sometimes not. And if you shave off all the soft curves, you'll be left with a sharp-edged love.

“Sulk” by sulking. Sulking is simply delaying the choice to be cruel or strong.

On Tuesday morning, Fancy woke and remembered she had made a counseling appointment. She lay in bed sadly for a moment, realizing that she ought to have canceled it—there was now no point in going. Radcliffe was not having an affair. Still, she thought, it was odd she had
believed
it for so long.

And then, almost immediately, she found herself imagining a discussion with a counselor. “I set up this meeting because I started to think that my husband was having an affair. Stupid, isn't it? I had absolutely
no reason
to think it, but I just couldn't stop!”

In response, the counselor flinched slightly and said, “Oh,
Fancy,
I'm so sorry to tell you this, but women
do
know when their husbands are cheating. Even if there seems to be no evidence, you just
sense
it.”

“Really?” Fancy said tearfully.

“Really,” the counselor confirmed.

With a flutter of hope, Fancy called to Radcliffe in the bathroom: “Radcliffe! I need to ask you something. Are you busy today? I need to talk to you.”

Radcliffe was surprisingly cheerful about the marriage counseling, even at such short notice. “Huh,” he said, naked, both hands on the shower taps. “A
refresher
course for the marriage, eh? Why not?”

But in the apple green office of the Winston Hills Family Counseling Center, it did not go according to plan. For a start, the counselor was a pale, thin, bald man who crossed his legs, and then twisted his ankles as well. As if he wanted to braid his legs.

Bravely, Fancy began her speech: “Well, I set up this meeting because I started to think that my husband was having an affair. Stupid, isn't it? I had absolutely
no reason
to think—”

Beside her, Radcliffe was gaping. “
Fance,
” he began, “what on
earth
—”

The counselor interrupted by slowly unplaiting his legs. “Well,” he said, smiling kindly at Fancy, “that's
one
thing for us to work through. First, let me assure you, Fancy, that irrational fears like this are common at this stage in a marriage. You're approaching middle age, and I'd guess you're fearing that your husband is losing interest in you. You fear that he may be growing bored, looking elsewhere—am I right?”

Radcliffe and the counselor both gazed at Fancy, waiting for her response. “Approaching middle age,” she murmured. “I'm only thirty-four, you know.”

The two men took this to be a joke, and laughed appreciatively.

The counselor spent some time asking Fancy about her days, and about her coping mechanisms.

“My coping mechanisms?”

“The place you go to when you start to panic about things like approaching middle age?”

Fancy admitted that she liked to imagine herself calming a pair of angry seagulls. Also, she liked to imagine herself in a hotel lobby. Finally, she sometimes liked to remember Radcliffe's marriage proposal.

The men were very quiet as she listed her “coping mechanisms,” and when she reached the marriage proposal, she felt a hand squeezing her shoulder. It was Radcliffe: She turned and saw that his eyes had become misty.

“This is just the opener session,” the counselor reminded them. “Please don't expect
everything
to be solved today. Fancy, we will work through your stresses, be assured, and we'll work on your coping mechanisms. For now, we're just laying the table.” Then he gave them each a notebook and pen and asked them to write letters, which they would then exchange, explaining the things they disliked about each other.

“
Dis
like?” cried Fancy.

“Dislike. Trust me, okay?”

Fancy and Radcliffe sat side by side in the counselor's office, resting their notepads on their knees. Radcliffe chewed on the end of the pen, chuckled quietly, and began to write. Fancy hesitated. This could not possibly be right. Her own method—writing Irritating Things in a secret notebook that Radcliffe never saw—was surely superior. Afterward, she might take the counselor aside and suggest it as a new technique. Did he not realize the impact that exchanging these letters would have? Radcliffe would have to choose to be cruel, be strong, or sulk. As would she. If either chose to be cruel, the cycle could go on forever.

Maybe you were supposed to answer cleverly, pretending to say what you disliked, but actually revealing the depth of your love. Like a job interview, when asked about your weaknesses.

On the other hand, the counselor wanted the “table laid.” Perhaps he meant them to “express” their irritations, for their own good? Very well, she would express herself, but she would do so in such a way that Radcliffe could never understand.

Dear Radcliffe,

Leave it! Leave it! I'll do that.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

Fancy! Ha! My dog—

Fancy!
Grrr,
just clear my throat!

Leave it! Leave it! I'll do that!

Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

Lots of love,

Fancy

Dear Fancy,

I would much prefer to say the things that I like about you, Fance. But unfortunately the assignment is the things that are annoying. So, here goes.

• To be frank, I am not fond of your moles.
  
• Occasionally, you don't ask me how my day was.
  
• You shouldn't sigh so much while washing up. Either do it or don't, but don't sigh.
  
• I don't like your sultana cake.
  
• It's wasteful the way you don't drink all the wine that I pour into your glass. Is it hygienic to tip it back into the bottle? No.
  
• You are sometimes a bit boring and repetitive.
  

All my love,

Radcliffe

On Wednesday, Fancy dropped her car off at Valerio Auto for a wheel balance and alignment, and caught the bus home.

While she was waiting on the bus stairs to pay her fare, she noticed the driver's ID photo, hanging from his rearview mirror. The photo showed a man in his fifties with a handsome, well-structured face, and a winning smile. But when it was her turn to pay the driver, Fancy saw a
different
man. That is, she saw the same man with the handsome, well-structured face—only the face had a glowering scowl.

For the entire bus trip, Fancy watched the driver, and his expression remained the same. She imagined to herself the time when the photograph was taken—how the man was perhaps delighted to get the job, how maybe all his life he had wanted to be a bus driver, and here was his dream come true! They were giving him his uniform, and taking his ID photo; he was joking with the photographer and grinning in joy!

And then, what happened? Was it a personal tragedy? Or was it just the daily grinding of the gears, the folding and unfolding of the doors, the beeping of buttons telling him to stop, tickets, inspectors, teenagers pretending to be younger than they were, people leaning forward to ask where to get off, feet on seats, and spilling Coke cans. Was it just the day-to-day that did this?

Fancy cried the whole way home. She tried to comfort herself by recalling that this Friday she would meet Cath Murphy.
For the first time ever, I am going to talk to Cath face-to-face.
But this made her cry all the more.

Thursday afternoon, Fancy was working on her prize-winning novel.
Look for characters from everyday life.
She remembered reading that somewhere.

She thought of the scowling bus driver and wondered if he could be a character. It could be a sort of public-transport novel.
Transport
could be the language that she taught her readers! Excitedly, she began to research
transport
on the Internet. She scribbled down the addresses of various useful-sounding Web sites: Why not just list the URLs at the start of every chapter? Why not—and here she became even more excited—
why not just refer her readers to Google
? “If you are interested in any of the topics raised in this novel, please enter the following search terms in Google: bus, train…”

“Hmm.” Fancy paused in her frantic scribbling and looked up, frowning to herself.

A faint sound caught her attention. Cassie, she realized, had been standing at her office door knocking gently for some time.

“Hello, Cassie!” she said.

“Hello, Mum,” replied Cassie, nodding. “Can I paint my bedroom ceiling, please?”

“What color would you like to paint it?” said Fancy, spinning around in her office chair.

“A lot of colors,” Cassie explained. “It has to be like a jungle. There have to be two cheetahs. But also monkeys, elephants, zebras…” Cassie listed the animals on her fingers, but her voice drifted away.

“Well!” said Fancy. “Why not?”

She and Cassie drove to the hardware store and bought paint, brushes, and a small stepladder. Fancy persuaded Cassie that they should put the jungle on one of the walls, rather than the ceiling, so they would not have to strain their necks.

She was painting stars in the jungle sky, while Cassie added ladybugs to the jungle grass, when Radcliffe arrived home.

They heard his car in the driveway.

Then they heard his voice at the front door: “Fancy that! My Fancy is at home!”

Cassie held her paintbrush still for a moment, and looked up. “Mum?” she said. “How come he never says 'Fancy that, my Cassie is at home?'”

Fancy looked down at her daughter.

“Or else,” said Cassie, painting again, “‘
Cassie
that, my Cassie is at home.' How come he doesn't say that?”

“That's a good question, Cassie,” Fancy replied.

Friday afternoon, Fancy was choosing earrings to wear to the parent-teacher interview, when Cassie appeared at her bedroom door, sneezing to herself.

“Hello, Cassie!” said Fancy, seeing her in the mirror. “I thought you were playing outside.”

“Hello, Mum,” said Cassie, and coughed.

Fancy continued to hold various earrings against her ear.

“Mum?” said Cassie, after a moment.

“Yes, darling?”

“Can I show you my foot?”

“I've already seen your foot!” Fancy joked, and then, when there was nothing but quiet wheezing from Cassie, she turned around and looked at her daughter. “All right then, let's see your—my
God,
Cassie,
what have you done?
”

Cassie's right foot was the size of a loaf of bread. Her face was swollen like home-baked banana muffins. She was scratching her arms and her stomach.

“I got stung by a bee,” she explained. “And I'm allergic to bees, aren't I?” Then she slid down the doorframe to the bedroom floor, whispering, “I can't really breathe very well.”

Radcliffe arrived home from work just as Fancy was carrying her daughter out the front door.

“Bee sting,” she called, jogging across to her car in the driveway. “I'm taking her to the hospital.”

Radcliffe slammed his car door. “Did you give her the injection?” he said.

“And she's had an antihistamine,” Fancy nodded. “She's already feeling better, aren't you, darling? We'll just get the doctors to make sure.”

Radcliffe approached and opened the car door for Fancy. “But her eyes! Cassie, are your eyes are all right?”

“They're just a bit itchy,” said Fancy breezily, closing the door on her daughter.

“They're getting better,” Cassie called through the window.