Author Archives: Anna

25/02/2012

The Inklings: Chapter 24

By Anna

On Tuesday morning D’arby was in a rush to catch his train but John was taking ages in the bathroom. “Hurry up!” yelled D’arby and he banged on the bathroom door. There was no answer and ten minutes later John was still in the shower so D’arby decided he’d have to leave without having a shower or cleaning his teeth. It also meant that he couldn’t pack his toothbrush. D’arby left an angry goodbye note on the table for John and walked to the station. He was going to go and stay with his sister for a few days. She was staying with Ark, who happened to live in what sounded like a hippie commune – it was a community owned farm next to a river. Jinabu said it was a beautiful place, but had also mentioned that only two of the houses there had electricity (and Ark’s house wasn’t one of them). To get there D’arby had to take an eight hour train trip and then catch a bus to the closest town, where Ark would pick him up.

D’arby had only just found his seat on the train when the guard announced that the train was about to depart and that only “intending passengers” should remain on the train. D’arby took a red pen and some reading material out of his backpack (a draft of a thesis chapter, some scientific papers on psychopaths and the notes he hadn’t been able to read out at the meeting the night before) then put his back-pack on the luggage rack above his head and started thinking about what had happened the night before.

As soon as John had seen Vincent he’d wanted to leave Syafika’s place. John walked home at such a pace that D’arby couldn’t keep up. Not long after John and D’arby got home Fanta rang John to tell him what Syafika had just called to tell her – that Vincent had seemed more jealous than suspicious. Fanta didn’t pass on that Vincent had also ordered Syafika to keep away from John and D’arby though. John was relieved by this news, but had still had trouble sleeping, which was why he’d needed to have an incredibly long “wake-up shower” in the morning.

Although D’arby resented Vincent for having broken up their meeting he wasn’t upset that he hadn’t been able to talk about his ideas for saving the world because he thought they needed more polishing. He hoped that on the long train trip he’d be able to write something for the next meeting that he’d be proud of.

At the first stop D’arby’s plans for a productive journey were destroyed when the person who’d booked the seat next to him got on the train. At first things didn’t look too bad – the young man smiled and then sat down next to D’arby and got out a book. The book turned out to be just a prop though. The man pretended to be reading it, but was really trying to read over D’arby’s shoulder. This made D’arby uncomfortable. He put his plans for saving the world away and tried to read through his thesis chapter instead, but his neighbour seemed just as interested in his thesis – he didn’t speak though.

When the buffet car opened D’arby decided to go and see whether they sold toothbrushes or anything else that might take away his bad breath. When he came back with chewing gum, toast (John would be proud) and a very strange tasting coffee D’arby noticed that his neighbour was now wearing headphones and had a sheepish look on his face.

D’arby ate his breakfast and enjoyed looking out the window. He decided it might be better to spend the trip thinking rather than reading and writing, but his neighbour had other plans. He walked off somewhere and when he came back he had a guitar with him. D’arby and anyone else in the carriage who had seen this hoped in vain that this didn’t mean they were about to be treated to some music.

D’arby’s neighbour folded up the arm rest that separated their seats to make room for the guitar and began to play. First it was just some quiet strumming. D’arby would have been able to find this amusing if he wasn’t embarrassed that everyone in the carriage was looking at him as well as his neighbour. D’arby wished he was wearing a T-shirt that had an arrow pointing towards the seat next to him with the writing “I’m not with him” and thought about making a sign. Then the guitar man began to sing, quietly at first, but as he became more and more entranced by the music his singing got louder and louder. People started muttering – telling him to shut up. Some even complained to D’arby that he should ask his neighbour to shut up. Then a woman walked off in a huff towards the buffet car and not long after one of the train conductors came along and asked the guitar man to be quiet. This worked for about five minutes, but then the man started gently strumming his guitar again, and the music eventually escalated as it had done before.

The next time the conductor came back he brought with him the largest member of the train staff (the man who had made D’arby’s strange coffee). The guitar man was made to put his guitar back on the luggage rack at the end of the carriage. He tried to sit still and be good but it seemed to be making him itchy. He began to scratch his scalp, then his face, shoulders, arms and hands. The itchiness must have spread to his back because he spent a while writhing around trying to reach the middle of his back. Then his feet became itchy and he had to take off his shoes and socks. Watching the guitar man scratch himself made D’arby feel itchy too, and he wasn’t the only one. He noticed that other passengers were beginning to scratch itches too. The couple sitting behind D’arby started to discuss whether someone might have let loose some fleas. The guitar man must have had enough. He let out a scream “Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!” and got up, then came back with his guitar and the music soon started again. At the next stop two police officers forced guitar man off the train.

As the train pulled away from the station where the guitar man was arguing with the police, D’arby assembled his pile of reading material again and found that one of his papers on psychopaths and his plans for saving the world were missing.

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01/02/2012

The Inklings: Chapter 23

By Anna

Monday night had finally come around. John, Fanta, D’arby and Syafika were all going to meet at Syafika’s place. All four of them had a lot on their minds.

John’s preparation for the meeting involved writing one sentence on a piece of paper, but this wasn’t a sign of indifference. John was full of enthusiasm to do something good, and knew what he wanted to do – that’s why he only needed to write one sentence. The only thing bothering him about the meeting was that he wondered how he could discuss his idea without making two dangerous confessions.

Fanta was a lot less certain of her ideas than John. She knew that there were some big things wrong in the world, but for some reason she couldn’t identify them, and so she had no chance of knowing what could be done about them. All she had written down were some (probably minor) things that regularly made her angry. She was looking forward to hearing what everyone else had come up with though.

Fanta was also a bit distracted by a couple of things. One was a pleasant distraction – her uncle and aunt were in town and would be staying until after Christmas. The other distraction was a secret project, and Fanta was feeling guilty that she had to keep it secret from John and Syafika.

D’arby had written pages of dot points, but they weren’t a list of problems and solutions. Instead they were points he wanted to discuss as he tried to describe what he had decided might be the biggest problem in the world. D’arby was also excited that his sister had given birth to a baby boy, and that she had done so in unexpected circumstances. D’arby was going to travel to see his sister and his new nephew the next day.

Syafika had written her list based on the things she found most awful about the world and although she’d decided on solutions, she hadn’t really thought them through. She had spent a lot more time thinking about more T-shirt slogans though. She’d even come up with a special one for D’arby.

Syafika was still busy tidying her room when John and D’arby arrived. John had brought some cold pizza. Syafika was keen to know how the T-shirt give away had gone the night before but John was more interested in heating up and serving his pizza than discussing that. Syafika decided she’d ask again when Fanta had arrived and everyone had settled down.

“Will we sit around the kitchen table?” asked John, as he started looking in the drawers and cupboards for cutlery and plates.

Syafika had been hoping to have the meeting in her room, so that her parents wouldn’t hear what they were talking about, but was now trying to decide whether it would be more embarrassing for her parents to listen to them or for her friends to see her messy room. Then Rose and Fanta arrived.

“Syafika, aren’t you going to introduce your friends?” asked Rose. After Rose was introduced to John and D’arby Rose went on to tell Syafika how Festus was bringing home takeaway and they were going to have dinner in front of the TV so Syafika could have her meeting in peace. Syafika sighed with relief and went to get some napkins from the linen cupboard.

“So, did people like the T-shirts?” asked Fanta as Syafika helped John set the table.

“There was a mixed response” answered John. “Only one person was enthusiastic, but a few people took them – probably just because they were free. Most people looked confused at being offered a T-shirt or were offended by the slogan, or by me asking what size T-shirt they wore. People are complicated!”

“Well, if I see someone wearing one one day I’ll be happy.” said Syafika. “You will keep trying to give them away, won’t you? I have some more ideas for slogans. Some might be more popular than others.”

“Of course, I haven’t given up yet” said John.

As the four friends ate their pizza D’arby told everyone how his sister had given birth at the side of the road after having run away from her husband. Then Fanta told how her uncle and aunt were going to be staying with her for the next month and apologized to John that this meant she couldn’t go to his family’s Christmas lunch with him. John didn’t seem very upset about this.

Finally there were no more excuses – it was time to get out their lists.

“Can I go first?” asked Fanta. “I don’t think my ideas are very good so I better read them out before hearing any of yours or I might not want to read them out at all anymore.”

“Don’t be silly! I’m sure you have great ideas” said John. “But you go first if you want.”

Syafika couldn’t help hoping that Fanta’s ideas were bad. She didn’t want to have the worst ones. She already felt that she was the stupidest person in the room.

“Ok” said Fanta. “I couldn’t work out what the really big problems in the world are so I came up with two things that often bother me. First, I don’t like cars and secondly I don’t like smokers. I guess what I mean is that I would like to see cities and towns that were designed for people not cars (I mean pedestrians mostly, I suppose, but bicycles are probably ok too – I might even ride one if I wasn’t scared of being hit by a car) and I’d like to be able to enjoy outdoor spaces without having to passive smoke. I mean, at cafes, in parks, at the bus stop, at the train station, while walking down the street….”

“I know! We could print T-shirts with the slogan “How much does your freedom cost others?” said Syafika.

D’arby raised an eyebrow at Syafika’s suggestion, which made her feel foolish. She realized she wasn’t really concentrating on the task at hand – she was still obsessed with T-shirts. But D’arby wasn’t thinking that Syafika was a fool. He was actually impressed because he thought Syafika had very quickly compressed what Fanta had been saying into a single sentence. He didn’t know that Syafika was just using what Fanta said as an excuse to talk about T-shirt slogans.

Then everyone turned back to Fanta and she realized that they were waiting for her solutions. “I don’t know how to fix these problems though” said Fanta. “I was hoping one of you would have some ideas”.

“Can I go next?” asked John. “I think my idea goes well with Fanta’s. I think the solution to my problem might also be part of the solution to hers.”

And so John explained how he thought that the worst problem in the world was addiction, but not just to drugs. He included extreme behaviour like eating too much, or starving yourself, or accumulating too much money or too many shoes or gambling all your money away. “There are some things people become addicted to that you can’t remove from your life (like food) so I think that to avoid suffering and disasters people need to look for balance rather than seeking extremes and I think D’arby may have already found part of the solution to this.”

Suddenly Fanta and Syafika were looking at D’arby, waiting for an explanation, but before D’arby could work out what he was supposed to say John said “I need to confess something – two things” and Fanta and Syafika turned their attention back to John.

“Fanta, I only gave up drugs because D’arby gave me some pills and they fixed me. I didn’t want to give up before that and I’d never tried. I should have told you this but I thought it would have made you think less of me” said John as he looked pleadingly at Fanta.

“What’s the other thing?” asked Fanta. She didn’t really care how John gave up his addiction but was worried that the second thing was worse.

John looked at D’arby this time and said “I’ve been putting the same pills into pizzas at the restaurant.”

“I thought I told you not to do that!” said D’arby angrily, and he wished he was at home so he could check the state of his stash of special pills. D’arby had been so distracted by his thesis lately that he’d almost forgotten that John had intended setting a lab up for him at the back of the restaurant. Suddenly he had lots of questions.

“Where did you get the pills you used? You haven’t been trying to make any of your own have you?” asked D’arby.

“Nope, I just took the big jar of them that you had in the laundry. I don’t know if putting them in the cupboard behind the washing detergent was meant to be your way of hiding them, but if it was it didn’t work” said John.

D’arby wanted to ask what had happened to the people who’d eaten the special pizzas, but didn’t think it was appropriate for him to show that much interest while he was still trying to be angry. Fortunately Fanta asked for him.

“Have you been curing your customers?” asked Fanta.

“I wish I knew!” said John. “People come in and eat the pizza, pay and leave and I can’t really see any change, but I don’t know what I should be looking for. I don’t know who is an addict and who isn’t. I don’t know if the pills will work instantly if they are taken as part of a large meal. Does drinking alcohol with them stop them from working? I don’t know anything really. I just hope I’m doing some good and I’d like to be able to do more.”

Syafika had just eaten a bite of her fourth slice of pizza when she froze. “Were there any of these pills in this pizza?” she asked, with wide eyes.

“No, I wouldn’t waste them on us” said John.

“Good” said Syafika and was about to take another bite of pizza when from the corner of her eye she noticed something move in the doorway of the kitchen. Vincent was standing there. He was looking very angry. Everyone at the kitchen table turned to look at him and all of them were thinking the same thing – how long had he been standing there?

Vincent wouldn’t have needed his experience as a police detective to know that he’d interrupted a discussion about something criminal. The four very guilty looking faces around the kitchen table told him that.

John, D’arby and Fanta left immediately, leaving Syafika and Vincent alone.

“Who were those men?” asked Vincent. Syafika explained that John was Fanta’s boyfriend and D’arby was John’s flatmate. Next Vincent wanted to know what they’d been talking about. Syafika felt like a small child as she explained that they were thinking of ways to make the world a better place, but at least Vincent seemed to believe her.

“I think you should stay away from John and D’arby” said Vincent and then changed the topic. Vincent had come over as a surprise to give Syafika a CD that he’d been enjoying. He didn’t stay long. Syafika could tell that he was disappointed with her. As she closed the door behind Vincent tears welled in her eyes. Syafika turned and ran to her bedroom, where she sat on her bed looking at her list of T-shirt slogans and ways to fix the world while she cried.

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20/01/2012

New column coming soon: When Sparks are ignored

By Anna

Every month or so The Spark will tell us about a different time when the good advice of a Spark was ignored.

 

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20/01/2012

The Inklings: Chapter 22

By Anna

An hour later Ark and Jinabu still hadn’t reached a town and Jinabu wasn’t in a good way. She was pale, covered with sweat and couldn’t help bracing herself and gritting her teeth with every contraction.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ark, but Jinabu couldn’t answer. She just glared at him and tried to breathe deeply.

“Oh no!” said Ark and he stopped the truck in a shady spot on the side of the road, got out of the truck and opened the door on Jinabu’s side. Jinabu lay down across the seats and concentrated on her breathing. Ark felt like fainting and so he lay down on the ground saying “I’ll just be a minute”.

Ark woke up sometime later. He sat up. It took him a couple of seconds to remember what he had been doing. Then he noticed the silence and jumped up in fright. Jinabu was sitting up in the truck holding a sleeping baby and smiling. Jinabu and the baby were both covered in blood and Ark could smell vomit. The umbilical cord, still joined to the baby, disappeared over the edge of the seat. Ark imagined that the placenta was lurking somewhere on the truck floor and averted his eyes before he could confirm his suspicion. He went round to the driver’s side and saw that there was a pool of blood on the floor right next to the pedals, and that a line of ants was marching in.

“Are you both ok?” asked Ark. “Yeah” answered Jinabu. She looked tired but seemed happy and healthy. The baby stirred and made a few squawking sounds.

They had to get to a hospital so Ark took a deep breath and climbed into the truck. He tried not to think about what he was putting his feet in and started the truck. Jinabu couldn’t help laughing when she saw Ark’s face.

“Sorry about making a mess” she said, between giggles.

“Yeah, you really sound sorry” said Ark. He was annoyed, but that just made Jinabu laugh even more.

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07/01/2012

The Inklings: Chapter 21

By Anna

When Syafika got home from John and D’arby’s place on Sunday afternoon she was feeling tired but excited. She never would have imagined that she’d enjoy the company of people as unconventional as John or D’arby as much as she did. It was as if she’d spent the day in a parallel universe, one where her life wasn’t dominated by feelings of inadequacy, one where she could enjoy doing and learning things instead of having herself at the centre of her thoughts – and she didn’t have to think about herself because she knew she wasn’t being judged. Who’d have thought that Syafika would enjoy something as potentially embarrassing and dirty as scavenging and then learning to screen print? Not even the presence of Ousman and Binta at home could make Syafika angry that afternoon.

Ousman was sitting on the front steps when Syafika arrived. “What are you doing out here?” asked Syafika.

“Sulking” answered Ousman.

“Why?” asked Syafika. She was interested enough to stop and wait for an answer.

Ousman sighed and said “It’s a long story. You probably don’t have time”.

Syafika realized that Ousman was making an observation more than accusing her of not caring. If she’d been in a bad mood she still would have been offended though. Luckily for Ousman, today Syafika realized that what he had just said was true. She never did give him much time so why should he expect her to want to listen now? She was tempted to defend herself but decided it would be more productive if she just sat down and made it clear that she wanted to hear more.

“So?” said Syafika.

Ousman sighed again. He seemed to be having trouble working out what to say. Even this new, improved version of Syafika derived some amusement from this, but it was mixed with pity.

“Imagine if you’d never met your father and if you didn’t even know who he was” said Ousman eventually. “What would you do? Would you just accept it if your Mum didn’t want to tell you anything? Or would you try to find out?”

Syafika was very tempted to tell Ousman what she’d heard about his father, but for some reason she hesitated. She remembered the day she’d heard her mother and father discussing this issue in the kitchen. That was way back when Binta was still pregnant and Syafika was only 13. Festus had been talking about Binta’s anonymous donor so Syafika had asked what that meant. She could still remember the embarrassment she felt when Festus explained how a woman could go to a special kind of bank if she wanted to have a baby without a man. Rose had been so annoyed at this discussion that she’d left the room. At the time Syafika couldn’t understand why her mum was angry, but now she realized that it was probably because Festus had been making up stories as a joke.

“Well?” said Ousman. He was still waiting for Syafika to answer his question.

“I’d want to find out” answered Syafika.

“Me too!” said Ousman. “I wanted to find out, and I did, and now Mum is very angry with me”.

“How did you find out?” asked Syafika, with some strain. What she’d really wanted to say was “What did you find out!”

“I read Mum’s diaries” replied Ousman. “I think that’s the main reason she’s angry, because she doesn’t…” Ousman stopped talking and looked at Syafika as if he’d just realized who he’d been talking to and had decided that he couldn’t trust her enough to tell her any more.

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28/12/2011

The Inklings: Chapter 20

By Anna

Jinabu didn’t ask Ark where he was going and Ark didn’t ask Jinabu where she wanted to go. They were just both happy to be sitting next to each other. Jinabu felt safe and was glad to not have to think about where she was going or what she was going to do. Ark was grinning because he’d found someone stranger than him. They sat in silence until they got out of the city because Jinabu didn’t feel like talking and Ark needed to concentrate on the city traffic.

It was going to be a long drive, especially in the slow old truck. That was the first thing that Ark told Jinabu when the traffic had thinned enough for him to be able to talk. Jinabu said she didn’t mind, but that she would need lots of toilet breaks. What she didn’t tell Ark was that she already needed a toilet break and that she was getting a headache because she was so hungry, or that she didn’t have any money to buy food. When Ark noticed Jinabu’s change in mood he began to feel less happy. He thought she must have been bored with him already.

So they both sat in silence, staring ahead with grey faces, until Jinabu’s stomach began to growl. It was so loud and persistent that Ark couldn’t help himself, and he had to laugh.

“You wouldn’t be hungry, would you?” he managed to ask between chuckles. Jinabu didn’t answer, she just looked daggers at Ark. She always became grumpy when she was hungry. Ark parked outside the first place that looked like it might sell food and have a toilet and Jinabu sighed with relief. While Jinabu went to the toilet, Ark bought some food. Jinabu then went back to the truck to wait for Ark because she was feeling too weak to explain that she didn’t have any money to contribute to the food.

Ark had a few minutes of panic in the shop because he wanted to buy exactly what Jinabu needed, but didn’t know what that was. He couldn’t buy lots of things either, because he didn’t have a lot of money and they still had a long way to go. For some reason he thought that pregnant women liked icecream and so he bought a small container of that. Then he saw some fruit juice with added folate, which he’d heard that pregnant women needed. Finally he bought a fruitcake, because he liked them.

Jinabu’s eyes lit up when she saw what Ark had bought and her headache disappeared after a bit of orange juice. The next bit of the trip was much more fun. Jinabu did all the talking and she fed Ark fruitcake and ice cream as he drove. Ark ate more than he had room for because he didn’t want to upset Jinabu by telling her to stop feeding him.

As the day progressed, Jinabu and Ark got closer to Arks place, but it was a long way in a slow truck and in the afternoon they still had three hours of driving left. Jinabu had begun to feel really uncomfortable. Ark had been generous with toilet and food stops, but something else was bothering Jinabu now. At first she thought it was the truck seat that was giving her a sore back, but she began to recognize a pattern in the pain. Jinabu felt angry with herself. She’d been told so many times by friends and relatives that the baby would probably be overdue that she’d never considered that two weeks early was also possible. Jinabu began to think about the birth centre she’d booked back in Sydney, with the candles and relaxing music. The truck wasn’t much like that. Jinabu considered telling Ark what was happening, but decided to wait until they were approaching a town, as she didn’t want to make him panic and there wasn’t anything he could really do to help (they had no phone, the truck couldn’t go any faster and there was scarcely any traffic on this stretch of road). Anyway, thought Jinabu, there’s probably hours and hours of this to go.

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19/12/2011

The Inklings: Chapter 19

By Anna

It was a boring Sunday morning and Syafika and Fanta were not doing much, just sitting around at Syafika’s place and wishing that something would happen. They were both looking forward to their Monday night meeting with John and D’arby. Both of them had already done their homework for the meeting, which was to write a list of things that they thought were wrong in the world and things they could do to make everything better. It was hard to resist discussing these lists before the meeting, but so far they had both managed to avoid the topic.

Then the phone rang. It was John. He said he needed Fanta and Syafika’s help urgently and that it had something to do with T-shirts. Then he said where to meet him and hung up.

Fortunately Syafika and Fanta were in the type of mood where they would volunteer for anything rather than stay at home doing nothing and so they left to meet John immediately. After a bit of walking Fanta and Syafika found John and D’arby right where they said they’d be – in the alley behind an old warehouse. Someone had left an enormous box of T-shirts out on the street, with a cardboard sign saying “Free to a good home”. John was sure that his place was as good a home as any. As soon as he and D’arby had come across the T-shirts they had thought of a way to use them. D’arby had once been a fan of screen printing and still had all the equipment. He and John were going to print T-shirts and give them away at the restaurant. They just had to get them home first.

Fanta and Syafika were assigned the task of convincing a taxi driver to come up the back alley and let them fill the taxi full of T-shirts. It was easy enough to stop a taxi on the busy road nearby but when the taxi driver got to where John and D’arby were sorting through the T-shirts he had to be offered double the fare to let them stuff them in the taxi.

“See you back at our place!” said D’arby as he left in the taxi. Fanta and Syafika were beginning to wish they were still sitting around doing nothing as they began the walk back with John. All three of them were carrying large piles of T-shirts that hadn’t fitted in the taxi.

“At least this pile is so high that nobody passing can see my face” said Syafika. She was embarrassed. She didn’t want to be seen scavenging.

“Yeah, the disadvantage is that I can’t see where I’m going” said Fanta and then walked straight into a post. After that, John insisted on carrying all of Fanta’s T-shirts, as well as his own. Fanta walked in front and guided John and Syafika past any obstacles on the footpath.

“Dog pooh coming up” said Fanta “At the third step, take an extra large one.” She was enjoying herself. There seemed to be a lot more dog poohs on the walk back than John or Syafika had ever remembered.

——————————-

“So, what are you going to print on them?” asked Fanta when they were all back at John and D’arby’s place.

John and D’arby were arranging the T-shirts in piles on the floor of the lounge room.

“Something risqué” said D’arby. “The point is to see what ridiculous slogans we can make people wear by making them free.”

“Free to a good home?” asked Syafika

“I’m free, take me?” said Fanta

“Discarded” said John

“I was thinking about something to do with money” said D’arby. “Only I can’t think of a way to say what I want to say”

“Try” said Fanta

“Something distilling how I feel about the importance we give the economy not being justified – that it has become a beast that we are slaves to” said D’arby

“Why don’t you just say ‘Fuck the economy’” said John.

“Ha ha, won’t people get arrested for wearing something like that?” said Syafika

“I wonder” said Fanta. “Why don’t you ask Vincent?”

“Why don’t we just try it!” said John “Lets print some up now and I’ll give them away at the restaurant tonight.

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11/12/2011

The Inklings: Chapter 18

By Anna

It was early on Sunday morning. D’arby’s sister Jinabu woke up and made herself a cup of peppermint tea. She sat on the sofa, enjoying the warmth of the cup in her hands and the smell of peppermint. She stared out the window and started thinking about what she would do that day. It looked like it was going to be a sunny day, and probably not too hot to be outside. Jinabu decided that she would put a load of washing on and then go for a walk in the park. Then she’d make a nice lunch and read baby books all afternoon. Then her husband Andrew appeared. He was dressed for a day out shopping. He wanted to buy all the baby stuff in one go.

“Aren’t you even dressed yet?” complained Andrew when he saw that Jinabu was still wearing her nightie and hadn’t brushed her hair. “Have you got that shopping list I asked you to write? Why have you become so lazy?”

Jinabu didn’t really feel like answering. She hadn’t made a shopping list and didn’t want to go shopping. “Do we need to buy anything?” asked Jinabu. “I’m not even sure of what we will need. I’ve got some second hand stuff from my friends anyway. Can’t we just wait and see if we need anything else when the baby is here?”

Andrew shook his head and frowned. “I don’t want my child to be a bludger before it is even born. How do we know that the stuff your friends gave us is any good? You might not care about using other people’s cast-offs but I do. Why don’t you care what people think of you?”

Andrew turned his back to Jinabu and looked out the window, watching the neighbours put their kids into their big, shiny car. He decided it was time to put his foot down.

“I know you can’t help having been born into a family of useless hippies, but as the mother of my child you will have to make more of an effort to be a normal person. I don’t have to stay married to you, you know. There are plenty of other women who would happily take your place. I don’t want to have to make up excuses for you for the rest of my life. See how the neighbours are? I want us to be like them. They know how to be respectable.” said Andrew.

Jinabu felt that she should have been more shocked than she was. She stared into space and wondered how she had got here. How had she married this man? How had she moved into this big house? How had she ever considered that a relationship with someone who hated everything she believed in could ever work? She didn’t understand anything. Her thoughts were cloudy.

Jinabu didn’t pack a bag. She just told Andrew that she needed to go away and think about things and then she wandered out of the house and down the street in her bare feet, still wearing her floral cotton nightie.

Jinabu was out the door before Andrew could respond. He really didn’t want Jinabu going out of the house dressed like that, especially not without shoes on. There was a strong chance that some of the neighbours would see her, especially as he expected that she would go and sit in the nearby park to do her thinking. Andrew started to follow Jinabu, but then stopped, deciding it would probably be less embarrassing for her to go alone than for anyone to see him trying to get her back inside – they’d probably argue.

So, Andrew let Jinabu go outside to be embarrassing on her own. He stewed for a while and then picked up one of Jinabu’s baby books. In the back of the book there was a list of essential baby equipment. “How easy is that?” thought Andrew and he set off to buy everything on the list.

Jinabu’s messy hair was hanging down her back and around her shoulders. All she could bear to think about was how nice and warm the sun was and how cold and hard the footpath was. Jinabu didn’t care where she was going or what she was going to do. She just followed her feet down the street, and that was how Ark’s eyes first found Jinabu. When Ark saw Jinabu he couldn’t believe that she was real. Then when she turned and looked at him he lost control of his limbs and stalled his truck.

Jinabu was focusing on enjoying the way the sun fell through the leaves of the trees that lined the street when she thought she could smell popcorn. The smell became stronger so she looked around to see what it could be, but the only sign of life was an old, open truck full of furniture coming along the street. As the truck passed her it stalled.

Jinabu looked at the driver of the truck, and at the same time she noticed her own reflection in the passenger side window. It amused her how similar they looked. His hair was long, wild and wispy and he too looked like he was just drifting along without thinking much. Ark was always like that though. He did what he thought was the right thing at the time but hardly ever made plans for his future. He was usually too busy helping someone or fighting for some cause to think about himself much. At that moment, he was moving a friend’s furniture. His friend Ian had been sent to gaol for becoming violent at a protest. Today Ark was moving Ian’s furniture from the flat Ian had been renting and was going to keep Ian’s stuff at his place in the country until he could come and get it.

Jinabu walked over to the truck and Ark leant over and opened the passenger side door.

“Can you smell popcorn?” Jinabu asked

That was when Ark noticed Jinabu’s huge stomach. She looked like she could give birth at any moment.”Not another one.” thought Ark. He was always meeting lovely women who wanted to have kids, but he didn’t want any more kids, or to have to look after them. He’d been a teenage Dad and was content with the one son he had. “It’s probably the truck” said Ark, trying not to look disappointed, and when Jinabu looked confused he got out and showed her a drum in the back of the truck. “Smell this” he said as he opened the drum. “The truck runs on biodiesel that is made from old cooking oil”. Jinabu smelt it and remarked that the exhaust smelt better, then she asked Ark if he had made it himself and if it wasn’t bad for the engine. Ark was always ready to defend biodiesel and began a spiel about how it is actually good for diesel engines when he realized that he was blocking the traffic so he got back into the truck. Jinabu got in too and they drove off together.

 

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29/11/2011

The Inklings: Chapter 17

By Anna

Fanta’s sisters Nancy and Ruby had been helping her cook since they came home from school. They were trying to make sushi. The rolls weren’t very round, the seaweed was probably too chewy and the sushi rice was probably too wet. Fanta could see that dinner wasn’t going to be perfect, but she didn’t know what to do about it so decided not to care.

Somehow D’arby managed to get John to Fanta’s house exactly on time. Neither of them was in a very good mood though because they had just had their first fight. It was over the iron, or the lack of an iron. D’arby had discreetly gotten rid of it. D’arby was already ready to leave when John began searching the flat for the iron. D’arby could see what was going on, but didn’t say anything. After John had looked everywhere that it was possible for the iron to have been put he began to get suspicious and turned to face D’arby.

“Where’s the iron?” asked John

“Not here” said D’arby. “I got rid of it because I hate irons.”

After swearing for a while John said to D’arby “Why didn’t you tell me? ….it wasn’t your iron! Now what am I going to wear?”

“Wear the same clothes, just don’t iron them” said D’arby.

John considered his options and despite wishing that he could avoid taking D’arby’s advice, he put on his wrinkled clothes and allowed D’arby to lead him out the door.

When John and D’arby arrived at Fanta’s place they both felt nervous. It wasn’t a big house, but it was pretty. It was the type of terrace house that was typical of the suburb. It had been painted white, but still had the original iron lacework balcony and arched windows. The small front garden was full of flowering plants and the front door had a stained glass panel.

“How does a uni student afford something so nice?” asked D’arby, but John was too busy being miserable over his wrinkly clothes to answer. He felt so inadequate that he wanted to run away and hide, but rang the polished brass bell anyway. John and D’arby heard footsteps in the corridor and then Fanta opened the door.

Fanta had obviously dressed up for the occasion. That made her seem even more grown up and D’arby and John became even more nervous. John wished he’d brought a bigger box of chocolates, but it was too late. Fortunately Fanta hadn’t seemed to notice how wrinkly his clothes looked.

Syafika was already there, sitting at the dining table. Ruby and Nancy were enjoying having visitors. They were pretending that they had a restaurant and that Fanta and her friends were the guests. They had set the dining table and put on some relaxing music. Ruby pulled out a chair for Fanta. “Take a seat” she said to John and D’arby. “We have a set menu tonight. The starter is a sushi platter for four. That will be followed by spaghetti bolognaise with garden salad, and for dessert we have a seasonal fruit salad with vanilla ice cream and your choice of tea or coffee. Would anyone like to order a drink?”

While Ruby was trying to impress John with her hospitality, Fanta and Syafika were trying not to laugh. Nancy wasn’t even trying though. Her giggling could be heard from the kitchen.

The sushi plate soon arrived, and it turned out to be edible, although poor John got the piece that Nancy had deliberately added too much wasabi to. It was looking like being a pleasant but unremarkable evening. Then Syafika and D’arby started talking to each other.

As soon as Syafika saw D’arby she decided that she didn’t really want to talk to him. She found him unattractive and thought he would probably just want to show her that he was smarter than her. D’arby wasn’t particularly interested in talking to Syafika either, but felt like he had to.

“How did you meet Fanta?” asked D’arby.

“We met in first year at uni, in a maths lecture” said Syafika.

“Are you still at uni?” asked D’arby.

“No, I have been working for almost two years” said Syafika.

“Where?” asked D’arby.

“In the city” replied Syafika.

“I mean, what do you do? Who do you work for?” said D’arby

“I try to do as little as possible, I live for the weekends” said Syafika “and I don’t really like talking about work when I’m not there”. She noticed that she was having no trouble saying what she meant and wanted, which was rare for Syafika. She decided it was probably because she didn’t really care what D’arby thought of her, and because she didn’t feel like she needed to impress him she wasn’t getting flustered and shy. “What about you?” Syafika asked D’arby. “What do you do?” Syafika already knew that D’arby was doing a PhD, but wanted to pretend she knew nothing about him. John had told Fanta that D’arby was a genius and the only other gifted person Syafika really knew was her cousin Ousman so she had had decided that D’arby must be like him.

“I’m struggling to finish my PhD thesis” said D’arby. “I often wonder why I even started the project, but now it is too late to stop so I just plod along.”

“Why don’t you like it? Is it too hard?” asked Syafika.

“Yeah, I guess so. It is hard for other reasons than I would have expected though. I think it is mostly because I don’t like my supervisor and he doesn’t like me” said D’arby.

“So you need to improve on your people skills then?” said Syafika. It was not a very nice thing to say, but she didn’t seem to notice that. D’arby felt a bit upset by it but more because Syafika didn’t seem to care if she upset him than because it did upset him. D’arby knew he had put all his eggs in one basket. He was a nerdy type of person and didn’t expect to be Mr Charming as well. He decided to change the topic.

“If you don’t like work, what do you like to do when you aren’t at work?” asked D’arby.

Syafika was beginning to soften to D’arby. She still didn’t like him but had decided he probably wasn’t as full of himself as she had expected.

“Probably my favourite thing is eating” admitted Syafika.

“Cooking too?” asked D’arby.

“No, just the eating part really” said Syafika.

“What do you do when you aren’t at uni?” asked Syafika.

“I’m almost always at uni, really. I guess I don’t really have a chance to do anything else, not for fun anyway…” answered D’arby.

“Well, what would you like to do if you weren’t always at uni?” asked Syafika. She was beginning to be interested in the conversation.

“What would I like to do?” D’arby asked himself. Then he started thinking out loud. “That’s an interesting question. I don’t really have an answer. There are lots of things I’d like to achieve, but I’m not sure what I need to do to achieve them. There isn’t anything I’d really like to do just for fun either. It is all about getting something done.”

“Oh” said Syafika. She was disappointed with that answer. D’arby might be humble about his brilliance but he was full of himself in other ways. Here was someone who wanted to get something done but would probably never get further than talking about wanting to.

“What’s this ‘something’?” asked Syafika. She was challenging D’arby. D’arby wasn’t offended though. He was really very happy that Syafika was making him think. She made him realize that not only did he not have a plan, but he didn’t even know what he wanted the plan to achieve. Without knowing it, D’arby was thinking the same thing as Syafika – that he wasn’t going to get anything done at this rate. Until recently D’arby had supposed that getting his research (official or secret) out into the world was what he wanted to get “done”. But what was that going to achieve, really? What was the underlying purpose of that? D’arby couldn’t articulate one. Fortunately Syafika had tuned into the conversation between John and Fanta, so D’arby was free to sit quietly and think for a while.

Fanta was talking about her part time job as a real estate agent. She’d become a real estate agent while working for her uncle, who was also a real estate agent, but she said that country real estate agents like her uncle were so much nicer than city ones.

“In the town I grew up in being a real estate agent is one of the most respectable jobs. You can’t rip people off or trick them because the place is so small that everyone will know about it. I haven’t found it to be the same here though!” complained Fanta.

“My current boss Lenny can be so awful to people. Finding yourself a house is such an emotional thing and I think Lenny enjoys making it a miserable experience. He is especially unkind to renters. He makes them jump through hoops to get a place. He gets them to fill in the same forms twice (to check that they give the same answers the second time), demands more proof of identification than you’d need to get a loan, never returns calls and always pretends there have been more applications than there have been. Then the lucky ones who get the place are rewarded with delayed repairs and if they decide to leave Lenny will try to charge at least a few days extra rent (which he keeps for himself) and never lets anyone get their entire bond back if they leave, not without a fight anyway. He can’t be the only one doing this though. Surely everyone would go elsewhere if there was a better alternative.”

“I’ve never really understood why Lenny gets you to do the selling while he deals with the rentals. I thought everyone wanted to do sales not rentals” said Syafika. “But it must be because he gets pleasure from being awful!”

“Maybe, or maybe he is just trying to maximise his income. He gets a slice of sales commissions, of course, and I am better at making sales than he is – I don’t really understand why though. I don’t have any tricks.”

“It is probably because you don’t have any tricks” said John. “I bet people can trust you to be fair”.

“Perhaps” said Fanta. “At least I try to be fair. I try to find buyers something they will like and can afford, and I try to get the seller a fair price, which isn’t hard in this market. Prices just keep going up! Everyone thinks I must have predicted that when I bought this place cheap, but I didn’t know. I just liked this house and was so pleasantly surprised to be able to afford it that I bought it without much thought. The only downside was that having a mortgage means I’ve had to continue working for Lenny, even when I’ve been tempted to quit. I can’t wait to find a real job now that I’ve finished uni.”

Syafika was looking at John while Fanta was talking. She could tell he thought Fanta was the most amazing person in the world. Syafika realized that John was a pretty nice person and felt bad about having tried to discourage Fanta from seeing him. Still, there was something about John that worried Syafika. Something she hadn’t been able to completely work out yet. He seemed familiar somehow, but where had Syafika seen him before? She strained her mind (something she rarely did) and a few minutes later she was rewarded with the realization that John was the grotty man who had rubbed a dog’s pooh into its owner’s hair all those months ago (on the day that Syafika had walked to work in the rain carrying a cake for Anthony). If this memory hadn’t made Syafika start thinking about Anthony (she had to admit to herself that she still missed him) she might have asked John about that episode, but instead she kept quiet and started comparing Anthony to Vincent and this meant that D’arby had a chance to speak.

“I’ve had an idea” said D’arby. Everyone turned to listen to him. Even Nancy and Ruby stopped preparing dessert and looked out of the kitchen door. “There’s a lot about this world that I would like to change and I’ve always wanted to do something about that. I’ve always expected that I would do something. But now, thanks to Syafika, I realise that the way I’m going I’m never going to get anything good done. I can’t because I don’t have a plan or even an aim. But I still HAVE to do something. Not doing something is the same as agreeing with the things I don’t like! So I have to do something, but I can’t do anything on my own. I’m just not capable. Not yet anyway. What I think is that if we all worked together, the four of us, maybe together we could come up with an aim and then a plan and then….” Suddenly D’arby felt that his idea was pretty lame. He didn’t even know whether these people wanted the same world as he did (and suspected that they didn’t). All he knew was that they seemed to have complementary talents.

“Yes!” said John “Let’s do it!” John was sure D’arby would think of something good for them to do and he was always keen to do something (he conveniently forgot that he had his own problems plus a busy restaurant to look after).

Fanta felt strange. She wanted to hug D’arby. Despite a hard childhood she’d managed to build herself a comfortable life but lately she had started to wonder whether there was meant to be more to life than comfort. Then here was D’arby offering her something more. Just at the right time.

Syafika would have been completely against such a flimsy idea if she hadn’t been given some credit for it. She liked to know that she had made D’arby realise something about himself. She decided to go along with the idea because she’d win either way. Either D’arby wouldn’t go through with his plan to change the world, in which case Syafika wouldn’t have to do anything to help. Or D’arby would change the world and she would know that it was all because of her.

 

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21/11/2011

The Inklings: Chapter 16

By Anna

John had a roller coaster of a week. On Tuesday morning he and his father organized the transfer of the pizza restaurant over to John. Then on Tuesday evening, while working at the restaurant, John realized what that really meant, and it frightened him. Now the future of the restaurant was in his hands. There was nobody watching over him to catch his mistakes. All the people working there now depended on him to get things right. He could understand why his parents had decided to give the restaurant to him though. Now it was him who had to worry about his competence, not them. They’d given away a lot of money but also a source of worry.

John’s father had given him something else on Tuesday too – an invitation to Christmas lunch. It was the first time since he was a teenager that John wasn’t being excluded from a family event. This was another opportunity that placed enormous pressure on John. He was happy to have earned back some trust, but also aware that he did not yet deserve forgiveness. He hadn’t even asked for it yet. Then he realized he’d be expected to bring Christmas presents for all his relatives, but which relatives would be there? Which ones had gotten married or had kids since he last saw them? He’d need his sister Emily’s help!

On Wednesday John was feeling exhausted. He met Fanta for a coffee before heading off to work. She invited him to her place for dinner on Monday night. D’arby was invited too. John was going to meet Fanta’s sisters and her best friend Syafika. John knew this meant a lot. Fanta must really trust him now. More trust placed in him! John felt like he was carrying even more weight. He didn’t even have the energy to tell Fanta that he’d been given the pizza restaurant. He also realized that he should probably invite Fanta to come with him to his family’s Christmas lunch, but how could he expose her to that? How could he cope with her seeing him spend the day asking his relatives for forgiveness?

On Thursday morning John was feeling lighter. He’d started to get used to the idea of holding responsibility and it made him feel important. That was until D’arby asked him when he was planning to do his Christmas shopping and what he was going to get for Fanta. D’arby hadn’t meant to make John stressed. In fact D’arby was hoping that John might be able to help him choose a suitable Christmas present for his sister, who was expecting a baby around Christmas time. D’arby didn’t know much about babies and wasn’t very happy that his sister was having one anyway, because D’arby really didn’t like his sister’s husband and couldn’t bear the thought of that man’s genes being passed onto a child, especially not his sister’s child. If John would agree to choose a present for the baby then D’arby knew it would save him a lot of angst.

Sweat began to pour from John’s temples as he contemplated choosing a suitable Christmas present for Fanta. Being able to afford something nice was not much consolation. It just meant fewer constraints on what he could buy. More options meant more stress.

“Hey, don’t worry” said D’arby. I just thought you’d make a better choice than me”. He was surprised by John’s reaction, but also relieved that he wasn’t the only person scared by the thought of Christmas shopping.

“No, I can buy the baby a present. That will be easy compared to choosing one for Fanta” said John

“Why don’t you just ask Fanta what she would like?” asked D’arby.

“You have no idea!” said John, shaking his head. If only things were that simple.

“I can choose a present for Fanta, if you like” offered D’arby. For a few seconds John was tempted to accept D’arby’s offer.

On Friday John called his sister Emily and caught up on all the family gossip. At the end of the conversation he had a list of people to buy Christmas presents for as well as Emily’s hints on what they would like (even what she would like). Emily also gave John a strong direction to buy jewellery for Fanta. “Take note of what she wears and choose something similar, but nicer” suggested Emily. “Similar, but nicer… what does that mean?” wondered John, but he did appreciate the advice.

John’s weekend was full of despair. He remembered something he’d pushed to the back of his mind. “I’m so stupid!” John thought. “Here I am running a restaurant and planning my Christmas shopping like a respectable person when I’m the man the local police most want to catch! How did I forget that?”

On Sunday morning John discussed the possibility of his arrest with D’arby. “I know how you feel” said D’arby. “It is when my life is going well that I’m most likely to remember that everyone has to die.”

John stared at D’arby as he took in what D’arby had just said. “You mean that it is inevitable that one day I will be arrested and charged over all the things I’ve done wrong and that I’ll go to gaol and lose everything?” he asked.

“I was talking more about the contrast of good and bad things becoming more apparent when things are going well” said D’arby “But you do have a point. Perhaps you should make a list of all the crimes you’ve committed and we can estimate how long they’ll want to lock you up for. Do you know any good defense lawyers? We should put some money aside to pay one”.

The mention of money made John realize that he hadn’t given D’arby his allowance that week yet. John opened his wallet and counted out some money, which gave him a few seconds rest from thinking about his future. D’arby reluctantly took the money. He wished he didn’t have to rely on John that way and planned to pay John back (with interest) when he finally finished his thesis and got a job.

On Monday John couldn’t help feeling happy again. That evening he was going to see Fanta, and meet her sisters.

 

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