really abusive comment,’ Haley said.
‘Oh, piss off,’ said Jason.
‘No, Jason, it’s typical: I make a new friend and so you have to put me down. Is it because you find it threatening? Jason losing control of Haley, is that what you dread?’
‘Oh, go abuse yourself,’ he’d shouted, slamming the door.
‘King Baby!’ she screamed. ‘You’re the archetypal King Baby.’
The terrible truth was that he did find it threatening, knowing that the price of admission to the inner circle of self-empowerment and ill temper was the freshly dripping head of an ‘abusive’ lover or parent or employer.
Nowadays, when he reached for his Nirvana Unplugged tape in the car, so he could sing along in sweetly tortured emulation of Kurt Cobain, his hand had to push aside a clattering heap of Pia Melody tapes, about chucking your boyfriend on to the street, as he paranoiacally imagined, not having heard any of them, but just knowing that they were muscle-building exercises for Haley’s determination to boot him out.
He would willingly have donated his dole cheque to a minicab in order not to be driven to the airport by Panita. She was arriving in a couple of hours and that morning he’d been unable to resist complaining to Haley.
‘Don’t you think it’s “totally sick” of her to want to drive us to the airport when you’ve known her for less than a month?’
‘No, Jason, I actually think it’s typical of the sort of kindness you can expect from a person who’s really trying to get their life together, not that you’d know much about that…’
And so another argument had started, and he’d had to take Barny out of the house for another walk.
* * *
‘Your partner doesn’t seem to understand what you’re going through at the moment…’ Haley read the words with mixed satisfaction. The trouble with finding her private thoughts figured in the dance of the planets, as reported in Aromatherapist , the magazine for professionals like herself, was that Jason had the same Sun sign as her. It was so true, he didn’t understand her, but if the horoscope was true, she didn’t understand him either. Anyway, Sun signs weren’t real astrology. Mars and Venus, morbid Pluto and dissolute Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon all told their vast symbolic stories. The Moon was enthroned beside the Sun, Mercury was their chamberlain and Mars their chief of staff. So many influences, cardinal, fixed and mutable, evolving through their progressions, blocked and amplified by their aspects, acting through different signs in different houses, could describe the potential and the waste, the weakness and the strength, the obsessions and the ignorance of any shade of personality. When a fiery sign could be in a watery house, or an earthy house filled with planets in an airy sign, anything was possible. Her own chart afforded moments of solemn reflection. Her Saturn was conjunct her Sun. Either she would crumble completely or develop a strong identity through overcoming Saturnian challenges and frustrations. Saturn was also conjunct her Mercury, which might mean that she was very stupid or – like Einstein, whose Saturn was conjunct his Mercury – that she would prove to be a deep thinker. Haley tended to favour the second interpretation.
They were both Aries, but Jason had Libra rising, that mask of facile charm hiding the thoughtless and immature energies of spring. If only she could persuade him that he needed a radical change to get his career going, an internal change, a – yes, she was going to use the word – spiritual change.
She knew it was humiliating for Jason to be living in the house that her father had bought her and off the income she made from her aromatherapy business, but it was annoying for her as well. It was certainly a confusing time to be a woman. Of course she was into challenging stereotypical gender roles, but it would be nice to be taken out to dinner for a change. In any
‘Oh, piss off,’ said Jason.
‘No, Jason, it’s typical: I make a new friend and so you have to put me down. Is it because you find it threatening? Jason losing control of Haley, is that what you dread?’
‘Oh, go abuse yourself,’ he’d shouted, slamming the door.
‘King Baby!’ she screamed. ‘You’re the archetypal King Baby.’
The terrible truth was that he did find it threatening, knowing that the price of admission to the inner circle of self-empowerment and ill temper was the freshly dripping head of an ‘abusive’ lover or parent or employer.
Nowadays, when he reached for his Nirvana Unplugged tape in the car, so he could sing along in sweetly tortured emulation of Kurt Cobain, his hand had to push aside a clattering heap of Pia Melody tapes, about chucking your boyfriend on to the street, as he paranoiacally imagined, not having heard any of them, but just knowing that they were muscle-building exercises for Haley’s determination to boot him out.
He would willingly have donated his dole cheque to a minicab in order not to be driven to the airport by Panita. She was arriving in a couple of hours and that morning he’d been unable to resist complaining to Haley.
‘Don’t you think it’s “totally sick” of her to want to drive us to the airport when you’ve known her for less than a month?’
‘No, Jason, I actually think it’s typical of the sort of kindness you can expect from a person who’s really trying to get their life together, not that you’d know much about that…’
And so another argument had started, and he’d had to take Barny out of the house for another walk.
* * *
‘Your partner doesn’t seem to understand what you’re going through at the moment…’ Haley read the words with mixed satisfaction. The trouble with finding her private thoughts figured in the dance of the planets, as reported in Aromatherapist , the magazine for professionals like herself, was that Jason had the same Sun sign as her. It was so true, he didn’t understand her, but if the horoscope was true, she didn’t understand him either. Anyway, Sun signs weren’t real astrology. Mars and Venus, morbid Pluto and dissolute Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon all told their vast symbolic stories. The Moon was enthroned beside the Sun, Mercury was their chamberlain and Mars their chief of staff. So many influences, cardinal, fixed and mutable, evolving through their progressions, blocked and amplified by their aspects, acting through different signs in different houses, could describe the potential and the waste, the weakness and the strength, the obsessions and the ignorance of any shade of personality. When a fiery sign could be in a watery house, or an earthy house filled with planets in an airy sign, anything was possible. Her own chart afforded moments of solemn reflection. Her Saturn was conjunct her Sun. Either she would crumble completely or develop a strong identity through overcoming Saturnian challenges and frustrations. Saturn was also conjunct her Mercury, which might mean that she was very stupid or – like Einstein, whose Saturn was conjunct his Mercury – that she would prove to be a deep thinker. Haley tended to favour the second interpretation.
They were both Aries, but Jason had Libra rising, that mask of facile charm hiding the thoughtless and immature energies of spring. If only she could persuade him that he needed a radical change to get his career going, an internal change, a – yes, she was going to use the word – spiritual change.
She knew it was humiliating for Jason to be living in the house that her father had bought her and off the income she made from her aromatherapy business, but it was annoying for her as well. It was certainly a confusing time to be a woman. Of course she was into challenging stereotypical gender roles, but it would be nice to be taken out to dinner for a change. In any
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