Dad says, do you know Shirley Bush?
Joe looks at his scab very hard and tries to lift its lid. He says, yes. Then he scratches his brown skinny arms and leaves white scratch marks behind.
Dad says, I hear she was abused.
Joe says, I never abused her. I don’t think Dad made himself too clear. Joe has bare feet. He starts hunting for things between his toes.
Doreen says, don’t do that, Joe.
Joe looks a bit startled and says, what?
Jack says, don’t pick at your tinea.
Joe says, I haven’t got tinea.
I say, none of us have got tinea, Jack. No one in the family has got tinea. If one of us had it we’d all have it.
Joe says, you get it from not drying between your toes.
Doreen says, it’s a fungus, it grows in the bathmats.
Exactly, I say, that was exactly my point.
Dad lights his pipe again and we all be quiet and watch him to see what he will say to Joe.
Dad says, were you familiar with Shirley Bush?
When?
Answer the question.
Joe looks around at all of us and sees we all know. I feel a bit sorry for him.
Joe looks at Mother and Father and Doreen and Jack and me and then he grins from ear to ear like he’d just won Tatts.
He says, yes, last night during the interval.
He looks happy. Obviously, he has not understood the meaning of the question or, alternatively, of his answer.
Dad says, do you know what rape is?
Joe grins and says, yes.
Dad says, did you rape Shirley Bush?
Joe laughs and Doreen gets up to walk out. She drops the knitting for Alice Craig’s baby and bends down to pick it up. When she bends down I can see she doesn’t have any pants on. Doreen walks out with her feet scuffling on the floor and her legs rubbing together; I can hear them.
Dad says, did you?
Joe is going a bit red at last and he tries to put his skinny brown arms somewhere comfortable. He unbuttons his shirt and hugs his chest. He says, I don’t think it was.
Dad says, how do you mean?
Joe looks sort of embarrassed. He begins to pick at the scab again. He bends his head to look at it closer, so all we can see is the top of his head. He says something we can’t hear.
Dad says, what?
Joe says, is it rape … if you do it standing up?
Jack says, only if she didn’t want to.
Dad says, did she want to Joe? You can tell us.
Joe says, no.
No one says anything for a bit. Dad looks at Joe as if he was seeing him for the first time. Joe looks up and grins.
Dad says, well?
Joe rolls over and lies on the floor on his stomach. He looks at some pages in Modern Motor. Then he says, she wanted to do it lying down … but …
Mother has been counting a row of stitches for some time. She appears to have been losing count. She says, yes … go on …
Her voice sounds high and tense, like it does when she wants to go to the lav and someone is already there.
Joe says, she wanted to do it lying down, but I said there wasn’t time during the interval.
Then he cries, looking around at all of us. His grinning mouth melts like a wax doll in an oven. His face slowly caves and he cries without noise.
No one moves for a while. We sit and watch Joe crying.
Then Jack turns the TV off and Dad goes over to the phone to get in touch with Phil Cooper, the solicitor.
The Puzzling Nature of Blue
PART 1
Vincent is crying again. Bloody Vincent. Here I am, a woman of thirty-five, and I still can’t handle a fool like Vincent. He’s like a yellow dog, one of those curs who hangs around your back door for scraps and you feed him once, you show him a little affection, and he stays there. He’s yours. You’re his. Bloody Vincent, crying by the fire, and spilling his drink again.
It began as stupidly as you’d expect a thing like that to begin. There was no way in which it could have begun intelligently. Vincent put an ad in the Review: Home and companionship wanted for ex-drunken Irish poet shortly to be released from Long Bay. Apply V. Day Box 57320.
I did it. I answered it. And now Vincent is crying by the fire and spilling his drink and all I can say is, “Get the Wettex.”
He nods his head determinedly through his tears, struggles to get up, and falls over. He knocks his head on the table. I find it impossible to believe that he hasn’t choreographed the whole sequence but I’m the one who gets up and fetches the Wettex. I use it to wipe up the blood on his head. God save me.
Yesterday I kicked him out. So he began to tear down the brick wall he’d started to build for me. Then he gave up and started crying. The crying nauseated me. But I couldn’t kick him out. It was the fifth time I couldn’t kick him out.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not emotionally dependent on the drama he provides me. What other reason is there for keeping him here? Perhaps it’s as simple as pity. I know how bad he is. Anyone who knew him well wouldn’t let him in the door. I have fantasies about Vincent sleeping with the winos in the park. I refuse to have that on my head.
“How many people answered your ad?” I asked.
“Only you.”
Thus he makes even his successes sound pitiful.
Tonight I have made a resolution, to exploit Vincent to the same extent that he has exploited me. He has a story or two to tell. He is not a poet. He was never in Long Bay. But he has a story or two. One of those interests me. I intend to wring this story from Vincent as I wring this Wettex, marked with his poor weak blood, amongst the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.
Before I go any further though, in my own defence, I intend to make a list of Vincent’s crimes against me, for my revenge will not be inconsiderable and I have the resources to inflict serious injuries upon him.
Vincent’s first crime was to lie to me about having been in Long Bay, to ask for sympathy on false grounds, to say he was a poet when he wasn’t, to say he was a reformed alcoholic when he was a soak.
Vincent’s second crime was to inflict his love on me when I had no wish for it. He used his dole money to send me flowers and stole my own money to buy himself drink. He stole my books and (I suppose) sold them. He gave my records to a man in the pub, so he says, and if that’s what he says then the real thing is worse.
Vincent’s third crime was to tell Paul that I loved him (Vincent) and that I was trying to mother him, and because I was mothering him he couldn’t write any more.
Vincent’s fourth crime was to perform small acts that would make me indebted to him in some way. Each time I was touched and charmed by these acts. Each time he demanded some extraordinary payment for his troubles. The wall he is propped against now is an example. He built this wall because he thought I couldn’t. I was pleased. It seemed a selfless act and perhaps I saw it as some sort of repayment for my care of him. But building the wall somehow, in Vincent’s mind, was related to him sleeping with me. When I said “no” he began to tear down the wall and call me a cockteaser. The connection between the wall and my bed may seem extreme but it was perfectly logical to Vincent, who has always known that there is a price for everything.
Vincent’s fifth crime was his remorse for all his other crimes. His remorse was more cloying, more clinging, more suffocating, more pitiful than any of his other actions and it was, he knew, the final imprisoning act. He knows that no matter how hardened I might become to everything else, the display of remorse always works. He knows that I suspect it is false remorse, but he also knows that I am not really sure and that I’ll always give him the benefit of the doubt.