Penny and Gabriel were in love and their romance, though peculiar, had its own poignant beauty.
At night, in the kitchen, Penny wrote while Gabriel talked. As fast as Penny wrote, Gabriel spoke. If she paused to rub her sore hand, he paused to stare at her. If she stopped to eat or drink, he did likewise. If she decided to sleep, he followed her and slept beside her, his body a warm coat that never left her until she woke to resume her ritual of showering, eating and writing.
‘Like synchronised swimmers,’ was Vivian’s assessment of their relationship.
When Gabriel wasn’t in her presence, he always needed to know of her whereabouts as though fearful she might disappear on him. But she gave him no cause for such paranoia. Though he tagged her with a persistence others would find unnerving, Penny had been born and raised in the shadow of another. She was comfortable with his constant closeness.
For Penny such ownership was security and she thrived on it; soon her stuttering began to fade away.
*
Ella was sitting up in bed with her book reading. In chapter twenty-eight she read, Its heart can be heard distinctly by the doctor.
A feeling of terror spread through her. It was a feeling she didn’t comprehend and didn’t want to share with anyone, even Vivian. Her sense of shame forbade it.
She got up and examined her naked body in the bathroom mirror and moaned with despair. The stranger within her was altering her shape.
*
Slow as Razoo was in learning to read, Helen matched his pace with her patience. ‘You’ll be a book reader yet,’ she exclaimed as way of encouragement.
‘It all looks like shit to me,’ he replied.
‘One day it won’t look like shit,’ Helen replied. ‘You’ll be able to read all these squiggly words, and it’ll be good and it’ll all be worth it. Books are wonderful.’
Razoo looked at Helen through smudged reading glasses. The left lens had a crack running along the bottom and was sealed with sticky tape; the bridge was padded with several bandaids. ‘Why are you so crazy about books?’
‘Because they take us to other worlds,’ Helen replied dreamily. ‘We can escape from the humdrum of everyday life. More than that, through books we can engage with the world.’ Although when she looked at Razoo hunched over his tattered Western with his large stained hands slowly moving over the pages she wondered if he would ever make it. Maybe some people were meant to be illiterate.
*
The frog woman with her herd of kids couldn’t get enough of crime. Ten books at a time, she always haggled over the price with Vivian, until she wore him, and the cost of the books, way down. Satisfied with her purchases she would sit and read while her kids bawled, misbehaved and generally drove other customers insane.
Vivian theorised that the woman was hooked on crime because she fantasised about getting rid of her brats. He thought it curious that Helen never reprimanded them. On the contrary, she would run and gather books for them. They were children, she told him, and in some ways reminded her of her own sons when they were young.
One day the woman approached Helen. ‘What happened to that poor fellow who bashed his head and had to be carted off to hospital?’
Helen, momentarily taken aback stammered, ‘To tell the truth, I’m not sure.’
‘Poor man. Dying of a broken heart,’ the woman lamented.
*
Ella was putting the dinner dishes in the dishwasher when she announced to Vivian, ‘I’m renaming my surgery.’
‘Oh?’
‘Tooth Fairy doesn’t suit. It’s dumb. I’m changing it to Tooth ’n’ Nail.’ Ella kicked the door of the dishwater shut.
She was waiting for Vivian to protest, but he was silent. She was angry with him, angry that he should be so lackadaisical about having a baby while her nerves seemed to audibly jangle.
‘I’ve organised new stationery and a neon sign for outside the surgery.’
‘I liked the Tooth Fairy.’
‘You would!’ shouted Ella. ‘I hated it. Tooth ’n’ Nail has got clout, it says I mean business.’
Ella was on her soapbox. ‘As your dentist,’ she proclaimed, ‘I will fight tooth and nail to save your teeth. After all, your teeth are my teeth.’ She paused, as if waiting for her standing ovation.
Vivian searched for something to say. ‘It sounds a little harsh.’
‘Harsh!’
‘Sorry. It’s perfect.’ He smiled convincingly at her, anything for peace.
Soon Ella’s surgery was sporting a huge neon sign bearing the new name, and though it looked subdued enough in the day, it glowered at night.
Ella opened her obstetrics book to chapter thirty-two. It was a Herculean task to stay ahead of her ongoing pregnancy. Through narrowed eyes she read, Its lungs have developed and can now support life.
Ella slapped the book shut and threw it under the bed. She could hear Vivian putting the dinner dishes away; he was whistling. He was happy; it was the baby making him happy. She walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. She wanted to express her fears to Vivian but held back. Instead she decided to tell him some other news.
Ella spelled it out to him as though he was a schoolboy. ‘I’ve decided to name the baby Paloma.’
‘Paloma?’ repeated Vivian, mystified.
‘It’s Spanish. It means dove. Pablo Picasso named his daughter Paloma, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.’
Our daughter, thought Vivian. Where was his part in this whole pregnancy and the subsequent raising of their daughter? He decided it was time to fight back. ‘And didn’t Picasso have a lot of mistresses too, right through his two marriages? And what’s good enough for him is good enough for me.’
‘Very funny,’ snapped Ella, but felt thwarted in her attempts to punish him.