guts grew and grew as she dressed, and finally she couldn’t contain it any longer. After checking on Anthony one more time, she shut herself into the toilet and stayed there, doubled up, for many minutes.
The diarrhoea took its sweet time as usual, and all the while her son was in the pool gasping blue water into his lungs, thrashing around under the surface in such a way that the others would think he was just playing, no different from when his mother had been in there with him. She was dizzy with pain and panic, considered staggering out there with her jeans around her ankles. Then suddenly the pain subsided. Something had rearranged itself inside her.
Back at the poolside moments later, she determined at a glance that none of the heads above water was Anthony’s, and she peered anxiously at the indistinct bodies underneath. In the outside world the sun was setting, so that the indoor light was all electric now, cold and brutal. Running sideways along the edge of the pool, Gail became aware of the social worker standing on the other side, looking in also, but she didn’t really care. She understood that if he was blaming her for Anthony’s death, this was less important than Anthony’s death itself.
‘Anthony!’ she called.
A hand on her arm sent a shock through her, like a stray electric spark. Anthony had emerged from the other changing room, dressed and dry, his hair neatly combed. Of course she’d imagined that when the time came for him to come out of the pool she would have to take him into the changing room with her, the way she’d always taken him into toilets when he was a baby, but she could see now that that was half a lifetime ago.
With an inarticulate noise of relief and effort, she swept him up into her arms, swaying a little, surprised at his weight out of the water.
Simultaneously she wished never to let him go, and yet longed to put him down; his intrusion into her was so shocking, deeper and more merciless than anything she had ever suffered from men or needles. How could they compare, those thousand shallow, anaesthetic penetrations, when here she was fully clothed at a suburban swimming pool, blasted open and infused by this little alien she herself had made?
She’d had enough for one day, she was ready to call it quits, to sleep alone in her empty flat for fourteen hours and hand this heavy, heavy child of hers over to the social worker, and on to Moira Whatsername, until she’d recovered and was ready to cope with this feeling again.
But as the social worker walked towards them, Anthony leaned close to her face and whispered in her ear,
‘That was fun, Mum. What next?’
EXPLAINING COCONUTS
The blood-red double doors swing open, sending a false breeze through the recycled tropical air, and yet another sweaty foreigner walks in. The desk clerks and cleaners and bellboys look up for an instant, then revert to their standby mode. Just another coconut man , they think.
Dozens of foreigners have been arriving from all over the world all day, many hours before the advertised starting time of the event. They are wealthy men, important men, not the sort of men who would usually sit around waiting for anything, especially not on ugly stainless-steel chairs upholstered in lime-green velour. They glance at wristwatches that resemble the counterfeits on sale throughout Indonesia, but are worth a hundred times more. They fiddle with gold and silver cuff-links that were gifts from business associates or absent spouses. Nothing will make the time go faster. They are determined – even the ones who are alcoholics – to stay sober.
The conference room is in a hotel in Jakarta that describes itself as world class. Of course the men know that any hotel which feels the need to describe itself as world class is not. Subtle faux pas in the brochure bear this out: misspellings, unnecessary capitalisations, references to ‘authentic atmosphere’ and the ‘lucious green paddy fields
The diarrhoea took its sweet time as usual, and all the while her son was in the pool gasping blue water into his lungs, thrashing around under the surface in such a way that the others would think he was just playing, no different from when his mother had been in there with him. She was dizzy with pain and panic, considered staggering out there with her jeans around her ankles. Then suddenly the pain subsided. Something had rearranged itself inside her.
Back at the poolside moments later, she determined at a glance that none of the heads above water was Anthony’s, and she peered anxiously at the indistinct bodies underneath. In the outside world the sun was setting, so that the indoor light was all electric now, cold and brutal. Running sideways along the edge of the pool, Gail became aware of the social worker standing on the other side, looking in also, but she didn’t really care. She understood that if he was blaming her for Anthony’s death, this was less important than Anthony’s death itself.
‘Anthony!’ she called.
A hand on her arm sent a shock through her, like a stray electric spark. Anthony had emerged from the other changing room, dressed and dry, his hair neatly combed. Of course she’d imagined that when the time came for him to come out of the pool she would have to take him into the changing room with her, the way she’d always taken him into toilets when he was a baby, but she could see now that that was half a lifetime ago.
With an inarticulate noise of relief and effort, she swept him up into her arms, swaying a little, surprised at his weight out of the water.
Simultaneously she wished never to let him go, and yet longed to put him down; his intrusion into her was so shocking, deeper and more merciless than anything she had ever suffered from men or needles. How could they compare, those thousand shallow, anaesthetic penetrations, when here she was fully clothed at a suburban swimming pool, blasted open and infused by this little alien she herself had made?
She’d had enough for one day, she was ready to call it quits, to sleep alone in her empty flat for fourteen hours and hand this heavy, heavy child of hers over to the social worker, and on to Moira Whatsername, until she’d recovered and was ready to cope with this feeling again.
But as the social worker walked towards them, Anthony leaned close to her face and whispered in her ear,
‘That was fun, Mum. What next?’
EXPLAINING COCONUTS
The blood-red double doors swing open, sending a false breeze through the recycled tropical air, and yet another sweaty foreigner walks in. The desk clerks and cleaners and bellboys look up for an instant, then revert to their standby mode. Just another coconut man , they think.
Dozens of foreigners have been arriving from all over the world all day, many hours before the advertised starting time of the event. They are wealthy men, important men, not the sort of men who would usually sit around waiting for anything, especially not on ugly stainless-steel chairs upholstered in lime-green velour. They glance at wristwatches that resemble the counterfeits on sale throughout Indonesia, but are worth a hundred times more. They fiddle with gold and silver cuff-links that were gifts from business associates or absent spouses. Nothing will make the time go faster. They are determined – even the ones who are alcoholics – to stay sober.
The conference room is in a hotel in Jakarta that describes itself as world class. Of course the men know that any hotel which feels the need to describe itself as world class is not. Subtle faux pas in the brochure bear this out: misspellings, unnecessary capitalisations, references to ‘authentic atmosphere’ and the ‘lucious green paddy fields
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