resting on the windowsill. I pick up the binoculars again. She isn’t looking at me, she is looking down. At the backs of her hands, maybe? Then she picks up that same question and, without looking at it or me, slaps it up against her window.
—YOU WANT TO TOUCH IT?
I can’t decide if this repetition of the question is confrontational or desperate. Or both, or neither. All I know is that it makes me uncomfortable. The way Maud leans against the windowpane, the way her shoulders slump inwards as if she’s been pierced in the chest by something sharp, the way her face is obscured by a tent of hair. I want to see her eyes. I need to see her eyes,to work out what to say back to her. What if I don’t respond the way she wants? What if I don’t respond at all? Is this our first stalemate? Will this same question keep appearing again and again like that uneaten dinner my mother told me would be placed in front of me, meal after meal, until the plate was clean? (I was seven and it was tripe, for god’s sake!) Is this question Maud’s tripe?
Eventually, Maud pushes herself away from the window, letting her question skid down the pane and behind her little desk. That’s when she goes to the portable CD player on the floor next to her bed and starts playing Disturbed. And I give in to her. I hold the binoculars in one hand, write my answer with the other, and flatten it against the glass. The binoculars have never felt heavier. My wrist is shaking. Maud comes back to the window and puts her glasses on.
She just stands there, looking. Then she draws her curtains across and shuts me out.
I didn’t even know she had curtains. And they are hung the wrong way around. You know how the pattern on the curtain is supposed to face into the room? Hers face out. So when she pulls them across, she must be looking at the wrong side of the fabric. Maybe that’s why she never draws them. They are bright yellow, headachy yellow, with little blue Thomas the Tank Engines all over them. Come to think of it, maybe that’swhy they’re hung the wrong way around.
Initially a tiny bubble of sad begins to rise in me—worry sad, deep sad. That doesn’t last long. Know where it goes? It rises to my throat, tasting of tripe, and falls back into my guts as solid anger. It occurs to me then that there’s no way to win the tripe issue—eat it, don’t eat it, it’s the hesitation that damns you from the get-go. I had written:
—Yes I want to touch it
THIRTEEN
How many greedy epicures would think themselves happy, amidst such a variety of delicate viands as I now carry!
But to me this bitter, prickly Thistle is more savoury and relishing than the most exquisite and sumptuous banquet.
Let others choose what they may for food, but give me, above everything, a fine juicy thistle like this and I will be content.
—Aesop, ‘The Ass Eating Thistles’
We had a cat named Fluffy a while ago. Doomed from the start with a name like that. I believe the names we give our pets are an unequivocal indication of our level of commitment to them. That poor bald thing next door is called Sylvia. That cat is obviously loved. There’s a dog up the street called Antoine. That name’s got substitute child written all over it. And of course there’s our ownDobie Squires (naming accolades to previous owner). The best my mum could come up with for our cat was Fluffy. Not a lot of thought went into that one. Fluffy is the name you give to a disposable cat. A cat that, should it end up tyre gravy, is replaced by the time the kids get home from school, with nothing said. Half the cats in the street are named Fluffy. When Mum called our Fluffy in for tea, they all came. It was like a feline version of The Birds.
Fluffy got old and thin and blind. Started walking in tight circles and howling in the middle of the night. Got to the point where I just wanted to hit her with a rock to put her out of her misery. She must have
—YOU WANT TO TOUCH IT?
I can’t decide if this repetition of the question is confrontational or desperate. Or both, or neither. All I know is that it makes me uncomfortable. The way Maud leans against the windowpane, the way her shoulders slump inwards as if she’s been pierced in the chest by something sharp, the way her face is obscured by a tent of hair. I want to see her eyes. I need to see her eyes,to work out what to say back to her. What if I don’t respond the way she wants? What if I don’t respond at all? Is this our first stalemate? Will this same question keep appearing again and again like that uneaten dinner my mother told me would be placed in front of me, meal after meal, until the plate was clean? (I was seven and it was tripe, for god’s sake!) Is this question Maud’s tripe?
Eventually, Maud pushes herself away from the window, letting her question skid down the pane and behind her little desk. That’s when she goes to the portable CD player on the floor next to her bed and starts playing Disturbed. And I give in to her. I hold the binoculars in one hand, write my answer with the other, and flatten it against the glass. The binoculars have never felt heavier. My wrist is shaking. Maud comes back to the window and puts her glasses on.
She just stands there, looking. Then she draws her curtains across and shuts me out.
I didn’t even know she had curtains. And they are hung the wrong way around. You know how the pattern on the curtain is supposed to face into the room? Hers face out. So when she pulls them across, she must be looking at the wrong side of the fabric. Maybe that’s why she never draws them. They are bright yellow, headachy yellow, with little blue Thomas the Tank Engines all over them. Come to think of it, maybe that’swhy they’re hung the wrong way around.
Initially a tiny bubble of sad begins to rise in me—worry sad, deep sad. That doesn’t last long. Know where it goes? It rises to my throat, tasting of tripe, and falls back into my guts as solid anger. It occurs to me then that there’s no way to win the tripe issue—eat it, don’t eat it, it’s the hesitation that damns you from the get-go. I had written:
—Yes I want to touch it
THIRTEEN
How many greedy epicures would think themselves happy, amidst such a variety of delicate viands as I now carry!
But to me this bitter, prickly Thistle is more savoury and relishing than the most exquisite and sumptuous banquet.
Let others choose what they may for food, but give me, above everything, a fine juicy thistle like this and I will be content.
—Aesop, ‘The Ass Eating Thistles’
We had a cat named Fluffy a while ago. Doomed from the start with a name like that. I believe the names we give our pets are an unequivocal indication of our level of commitment to them. That poor bald thing next door is called Sylvia. That cat is obviously loved. There’s a dog up the street called Antoine. That name’s got substitute child written all over it. And of course there’s our ownDobie Squires (naming accolades to previous owner). The best my mum could come up with for our cat was Fluffy. Not a lot of thought went into that one. Fluffy is the name you give to a disposable cat. A cat that, should it end up tyre gravy, is replaced by the time the kids get home from school, with nothing said. Half the cats in the street are named Fluffy. When Mum called our Fluffy in for tea, they all came. It was like a feline version of The Birds.
Fluffy got old and thin and blind. Started walking in tight circles and howling in the middle of the night. Got to the point where I just wanted to hit her with a rock to put her out of her misery. She must have
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