Sticks, Stones

  Allen & Unwin brings you short stories from some of Australia’s most respected contemporary writers, published only in ebook format. For less than the price of a cup of coffee, try one over lunch, or on your way home!

  Titles in the A&U Shorts program:

  Georgia Blain, Mirrored

  Tom Keneally, Blackberries

  Alex Miller, Manuka

  Peter Temple, Ithaca in my Mind

  Christos Tsiolkas, Sticks, Stones

  Charlotte Wood, Nanoparticles

  Christos Tsiolkas is a critically acclaimed novelist, playwright, essayist and screen writer. His bestselling novel The Slap won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2009 and in 2011 was adapted into an eight-part television series.

  First published in the Get Reading! collection 10 Short Stories You Must Read in 2010,

  (The Australia Council, 2010)

  This edition published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2012

  Copyright © Christos Tsiolkas 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

  recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior

  permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968

  (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book,

  whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its

  educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that

  administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited

  (CAL) under the Act.

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  ISBN 978 1 74269 869 4 (e-book)

  Ebook Production by Midland Typesetters Australia

  MARIANNE HAD WORKED ALL weekend at a trade fair in town. She’d risen just after dawn on Saturday morning, detoured to collect Darren and Aliyah on the way so they could help her set up the stall at the exhibition hall, and make sure their brand-new cyan and white T-shirts with the dark blue company logo had been delivered and were available to give out to any potential clients. As usual Darren had left the women to set up and had spent both days ‘networking’, slipping out for beers with Arnie from Northern Territory Travel, Marty from Travelworld and whoever else he could find to make sure he spent as little time as possible actually working. It had been exhausting but Marianne enjoyed the fair, chatting with colleagues, catching up with gossip, making contacts. Her effusiveness, her straight-talking honesty, had as always made her popular. Unlike Darren, she never pretended to be able to offer more than was possible. Aliyah found it hard to step away from behind their table; her attempts to overcome her timidity made her voice sound shrill and unconfident. On the Sunday, Siobhan, the head of sales and their immediate manager, had come to visit. Darren had butted in immediately to tell her about the deals he had nearly struck, the contracts just about to be signed. Siobhan had smiled politely and told the three of them they could take the Monday off. Then she had whispered to Marianne, You can take off the Tuesday as well; just keep your phone on. Marianne had smiled to herself. Siobhan could tell a bullshitter.

  Now it was Tuesday afternoon and Marianne experienced a frisson of guilt over how much she had enjoyed her time off. All Monday she had worked in the garden, pruning the apricot tree, weeding, spreading compost on the vegetable patch to prepare the soil for its slow-brewing hibernation and regeneration. She had put on and hung out two loads of washing, and on Tuesday morning had woken up just before six to take a long walk down to the Darebin Creek along the path that ran by the back of the high school, finishing off with a coffee at Carmen’s. She was back in time to wake Jack for school and to make another coffee for herself and Rick before he headed off to work. He had looked at her with a bemused grin when she brought in his work shirts off the line and piled them on the redwood dining table.

  ‘You going to iron my shirts?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  He pulled her close to him and kissed her. ‘But it isn’t my b-b-b-b-b-birthday.’

  She flicked her finger at the snub of his nose, made a face. ‘Just this once, boyo.’ She stretched, arched her back. ‘But I am enjoying being a lady of leisure. I think I might quit my job.’ The quick flush of panic that crossed his face made her collapse into laughter.

  He began laughing as well and slid up behind her, placing his large long-fingered hands across her shoulder, his left hand slipping underneath her gardening shirt, under her bra strap, his thumb lightly brushing her nipple. ‘Maybe I should take the day off as well.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Please don’t, she thought, I want another day just to myself. They heard Jack slam the bathroom door and Rick jumped back and sat down again to finish his coffee.

  ‘Mum, I can’t find my laptop.’

  She winked at her husband and called out to the hallway. ‘It’s in the lounge where you left it last night.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  No, she thought wickedly to herself, thank you.

  She liked working, appreciated her job and the freedom it gave her. Most days she was on the road, visiting clients, travel agencies and tourist bureaus; once a month she would fly to Adelaide to take agents on a tour of the South Australian wine districts or beaches. When Jack and her daughter, Kalinda, were young, she hadn’t worked for five years and had thought she would go a little mad. It had been just before Jack started at primary school that she’d mutinously informed Rick she was not ever going to iron his shirts again. More than any other of the myriad household chores, it had been the ironing she focused on to distil her rage. Rick hadn’t put up a fight, an anticlimax that had annoyed her no end. It had been the worst period of their marriage – they had just taken out the mortgage on that first house in Watsonia, Kalinda had been diagnosed with dyslexia, and Jack couldn’t adjust to going to school, was still wetting the bed. Her life seemed a constant cycle of washing, cleaning, mopping up, drying tears, intervening in squabbles, driving, driving, driving. She had come to hate the family car, the smell of it, the metallic trace of Kalinda’s vomit that they could never seem to wash out of the back seat, the stereo trapped forever on Gold FM. There had been three months back there when she would wake up every night from a nightmare in which Australian Crawl’s ‘The Boys Light Up’ seemed to be playing endlessly on an infernal loop. It was Rick who had suggested that she go back to study and it had been the best advice. In the short term the two evenings at college had seemed to only add to her exhaustion but she had completed a diploma in tourism in three years and by the time Kalinda had started high school she was working full-time for Harvey World Travel. She and Rick could now joke about her aversion to ironing; for the last few years Rick would bounce out of bed on his birthday and announce, taking off Cartman from South Park, It’s my b-b-b-b-b-b-birthday, you have to iron my shirts.

  She didn’t want to retire, didn’t even want to think about it, but these days she appreciated the rhythms and meditative pace of housework, the pleasure that came from cooking and organising the running of a home. She and her girlfriends would chuckle and complain about the laziness and unreconstructed apathy of their suburban husbands but she was always a little annoye
d when Rick wanted to cook or thought it a good idea to reorganise the lounge or bedroom. No, damn you, she would think, that’s my terrain. She went to the gym twice a week, had recently joined a Pilates class. Housework was part of her relaxation. It had ceased to be a job long ago.

  She had baked an upside-down pear and caramel cake, washed the dishes, scrubbed the stove top, got rid of the out-of-date bottles of tomato sauce, chutney and plum jam gone grey at the back of the pantry, when she glanced at the clock and realised it was time to pick up Jack and drive him to soccer. Her hair, unwashed, silver at the roots, was a mess. She quickly tore off her gardening shirt, put on a blouse, tied a scarf around her head and ran out to the car. She knew the boys would be waiting for her outside the school gates, checking the time on their phones. She texted her son a quick message, keeping her eyes out for the police. The woman in the four-wheel drive in the next lane beeped her horn at her and Marianne threw her a tight grimace. Come on lady, you’ve got kids. The lights went green, she pressed send and took off.

  Jack was waiting with his mates Stavros and Bill and they didn’t seem at all concerned about the time. As she made her way slowly up St Georges Road, she could see them kicking a soccer ball around. Freda Carlosi’s daughter Amelia was with them. As always happened, Marianne couldn’t help but feel a small tremble of sadness go through her on seeing the girl. Amelia had been born with Down syndrome, and even though she was Jack’s age, Freda and Anthony still dressed her in a pink and lavender hoodie and track pants that were more appropriate for a girl half her age. The one she was wearing today had Walt Disney bunny rabbits printed on it, but her body was scarcely able to be contained in children’s clothes: her breasts were enormous, her bottom fleshy and prominent. As Marianne drew closer to the gates, she could see that the girl was trying to get the boys’ attention. Bill, the tallest of them, was holding the soccer ball high above her head and Amelia was trying to grab for it. Her son and Stavros were laughing. Marianne pushed the button to wind down the passenger window and call out to them, tell them to stop teasing Amelia and stop fooling around, when the girl’s fingers hit the ball and it bounced back off her hand and flew onto the road. She felt a jolt of terror, thinking Amelia would rush into the traffic, but Bill reached out and pulled her back. The ball had gone under a car and unleashed a torrent of horns. It was then she heard Bill’s voice pierce the noise: ‘Freakin’ hell, Mels, watch what you’re doing!’ She saw the girl’s face blush red and then she heard her son: ‘Yeah, Mels, why are you such a dumb mong?’ Stavros broke out into mocking giggles and Bill gave her son a slap across his back. ‘Mong,’ Jack repeated, even more loudly, and that was when he looked up. His face broke into a grin and he grabbed his schoolbag off the ground. ‘Come on, Mum’s here.’ The traffic had come to a complete halt and Bill took that moment to dash across the road and scoop up the ball.

  Jack and Stavros scrambled into the car, Bill following with the ball tucked under his arm. ‘Hey, Mrs P’, ‘Hello Marianne’, ‘Why are you late, Mum?’

  She ignored them. Her eyes were fixed on Amelia waving at them. She waved back uncertainly.

  She looked over at her son. ‘Who’s picking up Amelia?’

  ‘I don’t know – her mum.’

  ‘We can’t leave her here alone.’

  Jack rolled his eyes and pointed to the groups of boys and girls at the tram stop, straddling the school fence, drifting down the school drive in pairs, in trios, in groups of four and five.

  ‘She’ll be fine, Mrs P,’ Stavros called out from the back, wrestling the soccer ball off Bill. ‘She knows she’s to wait for Mrs C.’

  ‘She nearly ran out on the road before.’

  ‘Mum! We’re going to be late.’

  Marianne put the car into drive and hit the indicator. As the car pulled into the traffic, she could see the girl was still waving at them. The boys ignored her.

  ‘I heard what you called her.’

  ‘What?’ Jack shrugged his shoulders. He was pulling off his jumper and white shirt, fumbling in his bag for his soccer shirt.

  ‘I heard what you called her.’

  In the back, Stavros and Bill had fallen silent.

  She could smell her son’s day-long musty pong. All sweat and boy. It appalled her, the overwhelming vigour of his stink.

  ‘I think it is disgusting, calling her names.’

  Jack mumbled something.

  ‘What did you say?’

  He was struggling to pull his soccer shirt around his chest, his middle, wriggling in his seat, all sinewy arms and sprawling legs. ‘I said, whatever.’

  I could smack you.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs P. ’ Stavros was leaning forward. ‘It’s just a word – she doesn’t mind. It’s like when they call me a wog.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Bill leant forward as well. ‘Or when they call me a Maco dickwad.’

  ‘You are a Maco dickwad.’

  Bill grabbed the ball off Stavros and threw it hard at the back of Jack’s head.

  ‘Stop it!’ It felt good to scream at them. She wished she could stop the car and order them out onto the traffic on St Georges Road, force them to walk all the way to the game. She felt overwhelmed by the stench of them, the size of them, their vanity and arrogance. Bill was eyeing himself in her rear-view mirror. She glanced over at her son. He had his arms crossed and his neck and face were flushed. She had embarrassed him in front of his friends. Good. He should be ashamed. No one said a word all the way to the oval at Pascoe Vale.

  All three boys played well that afternoon and their team won 3–1. At one point Jack took the ball all the way up the field, kicked it across to Bill, who then flicked it expertly with his left foot back across to Jack, who kicked it long and smooth into the corner of the goal. The boys wrapped themselves around her son, their screams filled the air. Jack emerged from the scrum with his hands held aloft, his eyes searching the stand for her. She looked down at her feet, pretending to studiously observe a small streak of mud on her heel. She would not catch his eye. She had wanted him to miss that goal, had wanted him to be disappointed, to feel nothing more than shame.

  She continued her silence on the drive home, dropping off Bill first and then Stavros. Both boys thanked her but neither apologised for teasing Amelia. Her goodbyes were short, gruff. She did not congratulate them on the game.

  Jack combated her silence with his own, his eyes fixed on the world rushing past the window. As soon as she had driven up their drive, Jack was out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

  She caught the word he muttered as he heaved himself out of his seat.

  Bitch. He had called her a bitch. Another word they refused to admit hurt.

  You called her a mong. A mong? What kind of animal are you?

  Rick was home and cooking a stir-fry. She kissed him curtly on the cheek, annoyed that he had taken the ritual of preparing the meal from her. She’d been looking forward to the calm of chopping the vegetables, grinding the spices and chillies. Jack was already in the shower.

  Rick turned to her and gestured with his chin towards the bathroom. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘I heard him call Amelia Carlosi a terrible name. I’m not speaking to him till he apologises.’

  Rick started to laugh and then, wary of the look in her eyes, he stopped mid-chuckle. He turned back to tossing the beef and vegetables. ‘You two are exactly the same.’

  I am nothing like him. Nothing.

  ‘He’ll calm down, you’ll calm down, then he’ll apologise.’ Rick lifted the wok off the flame. ‘He’s a good kid, he wouldn’t have meant anything by it.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re defending him.’

  ‘Can you check the rice-cooker?’

  Check it your fucking self. He looked over his shoulder at her, sighed, put down the wok and moved over to the cooker. He turned around with a wounded smile. ‘It’s ready.’

  She knew it was childish, pathetic really, but she couldn’t help it.
She kicked off her shoes into a corner.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she growled as she walked out of the kitchen.

  She tried reading a book but couldn’t concentrate. Amelia’s distorted babyish features, the old woman’s eyes in the young girl’s face, kept appearing in and out of the words, flooding the spaces between paragraphs and sentences. She turned on the television instead. Hunger scraped at her insides but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the bedroom. In a while there was a knock. Jack walked in with a bowl of food in one hand, a fork in the other. He laid them sheepishly on the bureau beside her and then sat awkwardly at the foot of the bed. An episode of Seinfeld was playing, a rerun they had both seen two or three times before. ‘I’m sorry,’ she heard him mutter. She knew exactly what she should do. She should reach out to him, rub his shoulder. She should. But she couldn’t. She picked up her bowl and started eating, her eyes fixed on the screen. He sat there till the ad break, then left the room.

  Marianne woke just after four, the bedroom in darkness, Rick snoring softly beside her. She couldn’t recall a dream, there was dryness in her throat. She gently got out of bed. Rick turned, called out for her and she whispered to him to go back to sleep. She pulled on a T-shirt and walked out into the kitchen. Let it go, she kept whispering to herself, let it go. But she couldn’t. The dirty word kept repeating itself around and around her head. Mong. Mong. Mong. Wog. Maco. Nigger, slope, bitch and cunt and slut and fag and poofter and dyke. She did not trust their ease and dexterity with words that hurt so much, so viciously. She refused to believe that they had been exorcised of their venom and their cruelty. She squinted, tried to make out the hands of the clock. It was four-twenty. She switched on the light and put on the coffee.

  She was at the gym just as the morning staff were switching on the computers. She spent forty minutes on the treadmill, running on an incline at a tremendous speed. She did fifteen minutes of weights, swam twenty-five laps. Exhausted, she drove home and showered. She woke Rick and called out to Jack to get up. She dressed for work, brewed another coffee and, while Rick was dressing and Jack was showering, she went into her son’s room and looked around. The photos of Beyoncé and Gwen Stefani, of Harry Kewell and Ronaldo, tacked on the walls, the poster of True Blood, the shelf of soccer and swimming trophies, his books on a pile by his bed, his laptop on the desk, his clothes strewn across the floor. She quickly snatched up his soccer shirt, his socks, his track pants, lifted the lid off the cane basket, tossing the clothes inside. But not before she noticed the handkerchief rolled into a ball at the bottom of the basket. She jumped when Jack entered the room, a towel around his waist. The hairs around his belly button inching down beneath the towel were wiry, thick and black. There was a sprout of thin curls around his nipples. When had they appeared?