Read Online Dissonance by Stephen Orr - Free Book Online Page B

support,’ Madge explained to them, not in the least bit embarrassed.
    Erwin looked back and saw her motioning to the group. What now, he wondered.
    Among the group of parents, Madge noticed a man who’d been a regular at their shop. He was tall, with a small nose and wire-framed glasses. She looked at his smugness, his unshaved face (because it was Sunday and he had no one to boss around). Jose, she remembered. Peter Jose. Although he’d spiced it up. Pieter, or Patar, or something crypto-Continental. Jose, what was that, French, Spanish, Portuguese? She remembered him coming into the shop and buying bread, fly spray and baked beans. She remembered him always asking for credit. Until one day she said, ‘Your tab’s full. This is a small business, Mr Jose. We need cash to pay our suppliers.’
    â€˜I’ll fix you up tomorrow.’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’
    And then he turned and walked out of the shop, never to be seen again. Madge explained to Erwin (who was helping out at the time) how it was always the way. ‘The most able are the least willing. That’s how they get rich.’ She explained how that made them little people, pathetic, like insects, scurrying around for a few crumbs, pushing others aside and attracting a world of bad karma.
    Madge put down her cup of soup and walked towards the group. She stopped short, fixed the man with the glasses and said, ‘Mr Jose?’
    â€˜Mrs Hergert,’ he replied, smiling, just as much to those around him.
    â€˜This may not be the best time,’ she continued, ‘but I’d like to discuss your account.’
    â€˜My account?’ He wasn’t sure if she was joking.
    â€˜Yes. You never paid it.’
    His expression changed. ‘How many years ago was that?’
    â€˜Nonetheless.’
    â€˜Madge, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜You can’t let it go for this long – ’
    â€˜Uh uh,’ she said, waving a finger. ‘ You let it go.’
    â€˜I assumed …’
    â€˜I’d forgotten? No. I’ll look up the amount and place the invoice in the post.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Mr Jose, I’m a widow, and I have very little money. I’m sure these other parents would understand.’
    One of the parents looked at him, smiled, and patted his shoulder. ‘Go on, Pete, pay up.’
    â€˜It’s not the point.’
    Then they all had a go at him. ‘Go on, you cheap bastard, didn’t you hear, she’s a widow?’
    Jose looked at her. ‘If it will make you happy, send me the bill.’
    A small round of applause broke out. The players thought it was for them and looked back. Madge refused to thank or even acknowledge Jose. As everyone watched she returned to her bench, and soup. Erwin noticed how the members of the group were laughing at her, pulling faces and blowing silent raspberries. Meanwhile, he’d let the ball slip past the centre line. He turned and watched an opposition player racing it towards the goal. Madge stood up and shouted at him, ‘Why are you standing there? Go.’
    A few days later Erwin was walking down Lange Street, Nuriootpa, looking for number seventeen.
    â€˜It’s a bungalow, painted white all over,’ the girl in his geography class had told him.
    So here he was, in his lunch break, when he should’ve been practising Chopin – walking through puddles of rotten leaves that stuck to his school shoes, watching rainbow lorikeets suck nectar from gum flowers, turning up the collar of his green blazer against the cold, watching for pedestrians or people in cars who might recognise him and tell his mother.
    He stopped in his tracks. I should turn back, he thought. She’ll find out. She always finds out, and then …
    He started walking again. He was just too curious. There was nothing worse than not knowing – what his brother was like, if his father’s