What else did she learn, as they walked down their final street, where there were another ten No Shows in the middle of the day because people in this suburb were likely to be working or working out at the gym or working on their golf game. She learned it was marginally better than doorknocking on weekends, when people were often home but preferred drinking to thinking, recreation to investigation. The timing was always a toss-up, Adam said. She also learned that this was the worst round of doorknocking Adam had ever experienced; that he was relentlessly optimistic; that she was madly attracted and didn’t know what to do next. Because he wasn’t exactly rushing her, was he, and she was much too uncertain, even afraid, to make her feelings known. She’d made a fool of herself before, declaring her hand with guys she’d liked, and her ego had been wounded. Well, maybe for a week or two. But this feeling—whatever it was—with Adam: it wasn’t a matter of ego but of precious self-respect.
As soon as they arrived at his house, she saw another sign of difference: Jessie bounding down the steps and flinging himself at his father, Adam rubbing his stubbly face against his son’s willing cheek. Jessie had a mop of dark curls in need of brushing, and he was wearing a very grubby T-shirt. He slid down from his father’s arms, told Hazel in a bossy little voice to come see my animals.
‘Jessie.’ Adam placed a hand on his son’s head. ‘Remember your manners, please. Hazel has come to have lunch with us, and it’s polite to say hello first.’
The little boy shrugged. ‘Hello first Hazel,’ he said. ‘Now come see my animals.’
‘Of course, Jessie. I’ve come especially to see them.’
He scowled. ‘No, you didn’t. Dad said he was gunna ask you to come to lunch.’
Well. She’d learnt two new things today: that lunch was Adam’s secret idea, and that you should never lie to a child.
‘Where’s Aunty Candace, buddy?’ said Adam.
‘Doing a wee,’ said Jessie, loudly. As though this was a matter of great public interest.
Hazel tried to settle her nerves. She would be meeting the aunt, the great helper, who might look askance at a strange young woman walking in off the street. Because—ah, there she was now, drying her hands on her dress. No airs and graces there. A tall, slender woman with an intelligent, open face, and dark curly hair like Jessie’s.
‘Hazel, this is Candace. My wife’s sister.’
My wife. Because there was no other name for the person you’d been married to after that person had died.
‘Candace, this is Hazel. Our latest recruit for doorknocking, and a great one to have on board.’
They shook hands.
‘You must be terrific, then,’ said Candace, warmly. ‘Adam has very high standards.’
‘So you’ve been doorknocking with him?’
Candace threw back her head and laughed. ‘Not on your sweet life. I had enough after just one meeting with the Greens. Adam persuaded me to go, become a member, but the talk just dragged on and on and on.’ She laughed again. ‘At one point the people in charge of the meeting said—hang on, no one’s in charge with the Greens, they facilitate, or some nonsense like that. Anyway, whoever was meant to be facilitating realised they were running late and so everyone spent fifteen minutes debating how to speed up the meeting!’
Adam placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s called consensus,’ he said.
‘It still doesn’t change the fact that it’s so damned inefficient.’
‘You take care of Jessie. That’s your contribution to the cause.’
‘And because I love him,’ she said.
Adam began to clear the table, scattered with crayons and paper.
‘What’s consensus?’ said the boy.
His aunt bent down and cupped his face with her hands. ‘It’s when a whole bunch of people do a whole lot of talking,’ she said. ‘And then they all agree. It can take a very long time.’
The child nodded. ‘Like when Dad makes me go to bed. He feels like a whole bunch of people.’
‘And it can take a very long time,’ said Adam, and ruffled Jessie’s hair.
Candace kissed Jessie on the cheek, said she had to dash.
‘I have another date with The Bearded One,’ she said.
Jessie screwed up his nose. ‘Aunty Candace has a new boyfriend,’ he said. ‘He’s got this ginormous beard what goes way down to here.’ He pointed to his stomach and his aunt rolled her eyes.
‘Jessie’s inclined to be hyperbolic,’ she said.
‘What’s hyper—that thing.’
‘It means that Derrick’s beard only comes down to his shoulders.’
Candace was jangling her car keys now, gave Jessie a quick hug, a peck on the cheek for Adam, and nice to meet you, Hazel, hope to see you again. What did that mean, anyway: nice to meet you? And would she actually see her again?
Adam brushed back his hair. It seemed to be a nervous habit.
Jessie suddenly grabbed her by the hand and dragged her away, into a little boy’s room scattered with blocks and Lego. In the middle of the mess she saw a train set surrounded by a zoo of plastic animals. Jessie told her to sit on the floor while he pointed out the tracks and lights and every single animal, making animal noises and train noises and when lunch was finished, he said, his dad would turn on the train and make everything happen all over again.
He had the darkest brown eyes and a rosebud mouth. He was a very pretty child. His mother must have been a very pretty woman.
‘Pick your favourite animal,’ he said. ‘Go on, go on, pick one.’
Hazel surveyed the zoo. ‘OK. The cat.’ Because kids always like cats, didn’t they?
‘My friend Martin has a cat,’ said Jessie, ‘and all he does is sleep sleep sleep on the couch or his special rug wiv stripes all over and he only ever wakes up to eat. And one time he got really mad at me when I went to pat him.’
He struck out a hand and made a loud hissing noise.
‘Pick another animal,’ he said.
‘OK. A dog.’
‘One day this dog ran after me and bounced up at me and made me really scared. Only Dad said it wouldn’t hurt me cos you could see the waggy tail.’ He gasped. ‘If we all had waggy tails, then no one would get scared.’
‘That’s an excellent idea, Jessie. As long as the tail doesn’t give us itchy bottoms.’
He puzzled up his face. ‘You’d put your tail on the outside of your shorts and then you wouldn’t feel itchy.’
‘Well. That’s another excellent idea. You’re full of them.’
‘I’m not full cos I’m hungry and I’m waiting for my lunch.’ He pointed to his animals again. ‘Go on. Pick another one.’
‘OK. Let me see.’ She took a closer look. ‘I’m keen on the dinosaur.’
Because kids always liked dinosaurs, didn’t they? She’d been fascinated as a child, knowing that those huge, scary creatures had once ruled the world.
‘Dinosaurs are dumb,’ said Jessie, waving his arms about. ‘They’ve got big fat legs and really tiny flappy arms what couldn’t hurt no one and they look really stupid.’
‘You’re right.’
‘So go on, pick another one.’
Hazel sighed. But then she saw the boy’s pout.
‘The pig,’ she said.
Jessie pinched his nose. ‘Yukko. Pigs are really dirty. They roll around in the mud and their noses are full of snot.’
‘Pigs are actually very clean animals.’
He looked at her, suspiciously. ‘Have you ever seen a clean pig?’ he said.
‘Seven,’ she lied.
‘But I haven’t seen one for me so I don’t want you to pick the pig.’
‘Alright then. I think—on reflection—I like the elephant best of all.’
‘What does on reflection mean?’
‘It means I’ve thought about it again, more carefully. Harder.’
Jessie took this in. ‘So why did you pick the elephant when you tried more harder?’
‘Because’—she thought of the obvious—‘I like its long, swaying trunk. It makes the elephant different from all the other animals.’
‘But if everyone was different, everyone would be the same.’
Well, what an interesting, curly-haired child. A philosopher in the making.
He suddenly looked up and shouted. Hazel turned to see Adam standing in the doorway.
‘Dad! Dad!’ Jessie scrambled to his feet. ‘Hazel likes the elephant best and I told her all about the dog what nearly bited me.’
‘I’m sure you did. Now go and wash your hands, please. And how about changing that shirt while you’re at it?’
‘But Dad…’
‘It’s good to be clean when you’re eating. You don’t want to look like a pig.’
‘Hazel says pigs are clean.’
‘Then I stand corrected,’ said Adam, solemnly. ‘Now go and clean up, please.’
‘Because you said to?’
‘Got it in one, buddy.’
Jessie nodded, then scampered away, and Adam was smiling like, well, a cat.
‘Thanks for putting up with him,’ he said.
‘Not at all. I liked talking with him.’
‘You mean you did a lot of listening.’
‘Well, you know what they say. We’re not learning anything when we’re talking.’
‘Still. I can’t seem to stop him running at the mouth.’
‘Have you tried industrial strength gaffer tape, then? It worked a treat with my year eights. Or try putting a bag over his head. It’s more humane, although not nearly as effective.’
Adam was smiling as she hauled herself up from the floor, wishing he would offer his hand—it would make life so much easier—but he was keeping his distance, gesturing for her to pass. And then she felt him touch her lightly, ever so lightly, in the small of her back. A courtly gesture to guide her, a new erotic charge.
She tried not to buckle at the knees.
Lunch was wholemeal bread, cheese, olives and salad, plus some peanut paste and Vegemite for Jessie. She couldn’t have asked for a more lavish spread.
Jessie shoved a piece of bread in his mouth and turned to her, said something incomprehensible.
‘Jessie, please.’ Adam leaned across the table. ‘You know not to talk with your mouth full.’
‘Why not?’ he said, sloppily.
‘Because people can’t understand what you’re saying.’
Jessie mumbled something else, food spilling onto his chin. Adam picked up a piece of bread, slapped on a hunk of cheese and stuffed it into his mouth. Chewed roughly, then opened his mouth for Jessie.
‘Yuk. That’s really gross, Dad.’
‘That’s what other people see when you eat and talk at the same time.’ He turned to Hazel. ‘Excuse the display,’ he said. ‘Sometimes showing works better than telling.’
‘Exactly like teaching. And you were pretty yuk, I have to say.’
Jessie held up a piece of bread for inspection. ‘Why are you called Hazel?’ he said.
‘Because my mother liked the name.’
‘But Hazel’s a nut, like a peanut. It’s my favourite ice-cream what we get from the shop.’ He suddenly threw back his head and laughed. ‘You could be called Pea. Ha-ha.’
‘Jessie. Hazel might not like being called that.’
‘Sorry, Hazel.’ He shrugged his skinny shoulders. ‘Dad’s always telling me to say sorry,’ he said. ‘I like him much better when he tells me stories, really good ones about the sea and the stars and buckets and things.’
‘Buckets?’
Jessie sat up. ‘He pretended to be a bucket so I could pick him up and take him where he wanted to go.’ His big eyes grew bigger. ‘Dad could be Superbucket. I could make him fly through the air and he could see all over the world and come down and rescue people what get stuck in trees or if their house was on fire.’ He waved his hands about. ‘Whoosh! Fire!’ he shouted.
‘That’s a great story,’ said Hazel. ‘Maybe you could make up another one about your friend Martin’s cat.’
‘Well, you could pretend he does.’
Jessie’s eyes widened again. ‘I could take him for a walk,’ he said, ‘and he could scare the dog what nearly bited me.’
‘Did you ever think about teaching primary school?’ said Adam. ‘You’re a bit of natural.’
‘No way. I had enough trouble with the older kids. Good thing I wasn’t a brain surgeon, otherwise there’d be a lot of people walking round with lobotomies.’
‘What are lotomies?’
‘Oh. Well. It’s a special kind of animal, Jessie.’ Which was a whole lot better than a special kind of doctor cutting out a piece of someone’s brain. ‘It’s a really big animal, bigger than a dinosaur, and it walks very slowly and never makes a sound and only opens its eyes when you pull its tail. Which has a loud bell on the end of it.’
‘Is it as lazy as Martin’s cat Frisky?’
She decided not to define frisky. Or try to explain irony.
‘Frisky is most definitely the laziest cat in the world,’ she said.
‘But you didn’t see him. How do you know?’
‘Well’—some quick thinking—‘it was the way you described him. You made him sound like you’d need a huge steam shovel to lift him from the sofa to his food bowl.’
Jessie screwed up his face. ‘You’re funny,’ he said. ‘Only you didn’t ask me about school. I go to school, you know.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t ask.’
‘That’s OK. Everyone asks me all the time and it’s boring.’
‘Do you mean school’s boring? Or are you bored by everyone asking you?’
He shrugged. ‘Both,’ he said.
He turned to his father, asked if he could go and play. A skinny, knock-kneed child sliding off his chair, in a hurry to find something new, or return to the old: wherever his imagination might take him.
Hazel toyed with some lettuce on her plate.
‘Do you know why he thinks school is boring?’ she said.
‘Well, they seem to do a lot of cutting out and gluing. But I’m not one of these parents who think their child’s a genius. There are some like that at his school, and they’re, you know…’
‘A pain in the arse?’
‘Yes. As soon as I hear that word gifted I run a mile.’
‘But what if Jessie is gifted? There is such a thing, you know. He seems very smart to me. Very curious.’
‘I just want him to feel loved,’ said Adam. He looked down at the table, then up into her eyes. ‘I remember when I first saw him. His tiny fingers and flawless skin, and such a peaceful little body, as though he’d already decided it was good to be here. I had no idea I could feel that way.’ He was smiling now, with the memory. ‘I was enchanted. And then I became besotted. Utterly transformed.’
She’d never heard a man talk like this before, about a baby, and she was touched by his words, by his wanting to give her this moment. This epiphany, you might call it. But it seemed to come from a distant country of which—she could have said no conception, but she didn’t want to make light of this baby business, couldn’t bat it away with a joke.
‘Anyway, enough about me,’ he said. ‘I really wanted to say, about the doorknocking: try not to feel discouraged. I’m sure it will get better.’
Hazel pulled a face.
‘It’s early days,’ he said. ‘And if nothing else, it’s something to tell your kids. Your grandkids. That you stood up to be counted.’
She tried not to bristle. ‘I numbered exactly one,’ she said.
‘Meaning?’
‘I don’t know what to say to people when they trot out their clichés. Like the shark woman, who wants to send refugees back to where they came from. If I hear those words one more time…’
‘It might be different if people actually met refugees,’ said Adam. ‘Got to know them at work or through their kids at school. Talked to their neighbour when they were taking out the rubbish.’
‘Like Jessie’s friend? Not putting out the rubbish, I mean.’ She rummaged around for a name. ‘The little boy who cried when a balloon burst in his face.’
‘Aziz. Yes. He’s a—’
‘Dad. I wetted my pants. I forgot to listen to my penis.’
A worried face peered up at his father. A little boy tugging at his shorts. Adam took Jessie by the hand, quietly led him from the room, without scolding or fussing or even jollying him along. Should I stay, Hazel thought? Of course she should stay. It was only a pair of wet undies. She looked around the room, saw the bookshelves on the opposite wall. Did she have time to take a peek? See what else she could discover? And picturing Adam’s beauty, hearing and seeing his kindness, she felt an ache in her breasts, longing for his return so that she could look at him again and think: you’re a very good person and I admire you deeply and I’d like to take off your clothes and have sex.
But she had to keep that thought in her head: the sex part.
‘Hazel.’
That chirpy little voice again. Jessie, now wearing a pair of yellow shorts.
‘My friend Alice knows lots of riddles,’ he said. ‘She knows lots about elephants, only I can’t remember any.’
Hazel had a million of them. ‘Does Alice know the one about the elephant and the fridge?’
Jessie shook his head.
‘OK, how do you know an elephant’s been in your fridge?’
Jessie turned to his father. ‘Have we ever had a elephant in our fridge?’
‘Never. Even though I’ve looked very hard.’
Jessie threw up his hands. ‘See. If Dad’s never seen one, then a elephant never got inside our fridge.’ He turned away, started walking to his room, called back over his shoulder. ‘If anyone wants me, I’m talking with my animals,’ he said. ‘They need me to tell them what to do.’
Hazel turned to Adam. ‘He’s, well, unexpected, isn’t he?’
‘Indeed.’
‘And he clearly worships you. You’re the fount of all knowledge.’
‘Except I don’t know how you can tell there’s been an elephant in the fridge.’
‘You’ll see footprints in the butter.’
‘Well. Who would have thought?’
He offered her tea or coffee and of course she said yes. To both, before she realised her mistake. She would happily have swallowed litres of anything so that she didn’t have to leave, didn’t have to go back to her pokey flat and a view of the dismal car park.
‘I do like this room,’ she said. ‘There’s no fuss and bother.’
‘Well, I threw a lot of fuss and bother away after my wife—Thea—died.’ He rose from his chair, went to turn on a kettle. ‘People seem to give you things over the years. Knickknacks and geegaws. Whatever a geegaw is.’
‘A trinket. A knick-knack is more of an ornament.’
‘Now, how could I not know that?’ he said, and grinned. ‘There was one thing I really enjoyed throwing out. You know those china figurines from France or Germany or wherever? Hideously expensive, and, well, just plain hideous.’
‘Like a shepherdess without any sheep?’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Not an ovine in sight.’
‘But ovine isn’t a noun. It’s an adjective…pertaining to sheep.’
He leaned back on the bench. ‘Is that right?’ he said.
He was watching her closely. Was he flirting with her now?
‘I used to know a word that meant the fear of big words,’ she said, trying not to fluster. ‘It’s hippopotomon…something or other phobia.’
‘You mean you’ve forgotten? You’re not infallible?’
‘Infallibility’s reserved for the Pope,’ she said. ‘And for the gullible people who believe him. Religion is the opium of the masses.’
‘Opiate, actually,’ he said.
She would have said fifteen-all, except that she was losing count and trying to listen to what he was asking, offering her a glass of wine instead of tea. Or was it coffee she’d asked for?
‘I have some very good bottles of red,’ he said. ‘It’s one of my indulgences.’
‘Just one?’
‘Well, there’s Jessie, of course. I do like to buy him stuff now and then. But just small things, you know, like his plastic animals. And plenty of books, of course.’
‘And that elaborate train set?’
‘Oh, that’s from Candace and her two boys. They spoil him rotten.’
‘But it’s a coal-fired train, Adam. What happened to your principles?’
He laughed. ‘So: tea, coffee or wine?’ he said.
‘Coffee, thank you.’
He turned on the kettle, apologised for only having instant. And then, turning back to look at her, he asked if she wanted children. Just like that.
‘It’s not on my agenda,’ she said. Keeping it matter-of-fact.
‘Ah. Well. You’re still very young. You have plenty of time to decide.’
Still very young? ‘I’ve pretty much decided,’ she said briskly. ‘The world already has too many people and the planet’s resources are running out. It would be an ethical decision not to reproduce.’
‘You sound very sure of yourself,’ he said.
‘I’m simply mounting a case. A case based on reason.’
‘But what about felt experience? Things will happen to you, and you might feel very differently. And like I said, you’re still very young.’
Hazel drew herself up. ‘And I’m intelligent enough to know what I want.’
‘But the world needs intelligent, decent parents,’ he said. ‘Think of it this way: it’s also an ethical choice for people like you to—as you put it—reproduce.’
‘Well, having a child isn’t the only way to make a contribution,’ she said. Now that they’d started, now that she was saying what she’d never said before.
‘I didn’t say that. I—’
‘In any case’—she could feel her hands clenching—‘people don’t ask a man that question, do they? But they keep doing it with women, all the time. It’s the big question for us, always the big question, and I wish it wasn’t. I wish we could get past it.’
‘But it’s biological, surely.’
She hated people saying surely.
‘A woman’s fertility is limited by time,’ he went on, ‘and so by definition the question arises. But a man can father a child until well into his nineties. Look at Charlie Chaplin.’
‘I’d rather not,’ she snapped. ‘I hate slapstick.’
How they had come to this, and so quickly? She felt an ominous thud inside her. Because their debate, this batting back and forth, was beginning to feel uncomfortable, oddly personal, as though he was pushing her down a road she had no desire to travel. Fucking roads. The one less travelled. All that folksy Frosty wisdom that had bored her to sobs at school.
‘I don’t like this,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Us. Arguing.’
He reddened. ‘We’re just having a difference of opinion,’ he said.
If only he would take her hand. Everything would feel right if he just took her hand.
Then, to her relief, Jessie scooted back into the room with questions and commands, wanting his father to make the trains go round and Hazel had to come and watch, right now. Please.
‘I’m afraid I have to go home, Jessie.’
‘I haven’t made your coffee,’ said Adam.
‘I really should be going.’ She rose from the table.
Adam stood too but didn’t make another move. ‘Maybe Hazel can see your train another time,’ he said.
‘Or we could go to the zoo,’ said Jessie. ‘We could see all them real animals and I could show Hazel the bears.’
Hazel was strongly opposed to zoos.
‘Why do you like the bears?’ she said.
‘Cos they’re big and scary and you can see them look big and scary but they can’t hurt you cos they’re in these really big cages.’
‘There’s an elephant as well,’ she said.
‘They got three at the zoo,’ said Jessie. ‘The first elephant got lonely so they found him other elephants to play wiv. Dad said.’
‘Well, I’m sure your dad is right.’
Fucking lonely elephants.
‘So will you come wiv me? To the zoo?’
She told him she would try.
‘Would you like a lift home, Hazel?’
She said no, politely, her mother’s model child, then said she’d like to walk because it was such a nice day. And yes, she would wait for the details of time and place. And yes, she was sure it would be better the second time around. And then, out of nowhere, Jessie gently took her hand, as if—and this was very strange—he felt the need to comfort her. She looked down at his bright little face.
‘You have quiet eyes,’ he said. ‘Dad’s girlfriend had shouty eyes and I didn’t like her one little bit.’ Then he released her and ran back to his room.
Adam cleared his throat. ‘You don’t have to go to the zoo,’ he said.
She nodded, unsure.
‘So. Next week, then?’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘And, well…thanks for listening to Jessie.’
They seemed to be locked into something she couldn’t understand, that made her feel lost when she wanted to be found. So all she could do was to pick up her bag, say goodbye, make her way to the door.
As she walked along the street, trailing her hands along a white picket fence, she couldn’t help wondering—how could she not—if there’d been other girlfriends with different kinds of eyes. Did she think he’d been monastic since his wife died? Even if having a young child meant having little time for sex. That’s what Simon had declared: staunchly ethical Simon, whose words struck her now as rather crude. Was it only sex that men wanted, while women were longing for love? Were men from Mars and women from Venus, as some guru had declared, with his half-baked degree or no degree at all but with a nose for making money? Millions of people had bought his message and yet she felt it wasn’t true. Didn’t men fall madly, profoundly, in love with one particular woman and long to make it last? Mr Rochester for Jane, Heathcliff for Cathy, Abelard for Heloise? Didn’t men, too, yearn to be known and loved for who they were, with all their imperfections?
She looked up at the bright blue sky and those fluffy white clouds that, when you were a child, you would turn into pictures. Flying saucers and castles, and so many different animals: birds and dragons, monkeys and tigers, the occasional kangaroo. She and Beth would lie on their backs in Hazel’s garden and float along with the clouds, call each other sisters and swear they would always be sisters and believe they would never be happier.