cupboard. Trash relaxed her and he wasn’t to scoff. Nor was her pleasure ironic. Dora gave the magazines to her after she’d finished with them. It was a vital and ritualistic connection between mother and daughter. They bonded here. Whatever was fraught and difficult and shifting between them seemed insignificant, soluble almost when they regarded the star system, its eternal dilemmas, its alcoholism, its abandoned love children, its surgeries. The relentless sinking of hope. They were briefly lifted. It also meant Helena was free to talk with him while still reading. As she’d pointed out, were she ever to open the 700-page journal of Christa Wolf which Paddy had given her for her birthday in a burst of highbrow Germanic fervour shortly after they got together and which delighted her so much she kept it permanently beside the bed, then all conversation would have to stop.
Sometimes, to prove this, she opened the book at random and read a sentence in German aloud to him. It was like being in bed with someone else.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s possible. I feel so useless with this kid. He sits there in a black heap of unresponsiveness and occasionally I make stupid statements which hang in the room.’
‘But he likes coming and his parents support it.’
‘They might just be clutching at straws.’
‘You’re the best straw there is,’ said Helena. She’d turned the magazine towards the light better to examine someone’s unwanted pregnancy. Paddy could read the headline from his side. Helena studied the photo, shaking her head. Did she believe the pregnancy or not? Often Paddy looked at the People pictures, lying beside Helena. Even though she’d assured him the candid photos were mostly set up by the stars’ agents, the furtiveness of the famous carried a charge. As they ‘rushed’ from restaurants where they’d been ‘spotted’ or made ‘flying visits’ to ‘anonymous’ suburban shopping malls in big hats and glasses and wigs, their hauntedness seemed real rather than performed. After all, these were not, as a rule, great actors. They couldn’t pretend all that well, could they. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said. ‘I could use that in my advertising. “Looking to clutch at a straw? Ring Patrick Thompson.”’
‘You don’t advertise,’ said Helena. ‘Jeremy Lanting seems premature to me anyway.’
‘Fine, you might be right.’
She flicked over another page. Paddy read the words ‘Rehab Horror’. The thought didn’t flow directly but it came nevertheless. To what extent could it be said that Sam was acting? He came to the sessions so that Paddy could be his audience. ‘Can I ask you one other thing, unrelated,’ he said. ‘What part of your body do you prefer not to show?’ He was thinking of Sam’s mother mostly, of Sam too, Bridget and her ears, but also the general furtiveness of the human race. He was not excluded.
For some reason he was also thinking about the tree full of young tui they’d come across on their walk in Mount Victoria.That was the opposite, wasn’t it. Where you expected hiding, you got display. There was a performance angle, though the birds seemed unaware of being watched, if that were possible. Often a bird’s life had figured as a mind-bendingly anxious business, alertness without rest, the flicking head, the almost ceaseless flight from predation. He was taking as his sample the birds around them, in the city and the hills. No doubt his theory was garbage when you considered—what? Some long-legged creature, wading on a beach at sunset. He didn’t know names. Or an albatross. Anyway, birds had never seemed to him strongly connected with beauty. Careworn, he thought. Small engines of fright, who, when they stopped in trees to recharge, were still charged. They were always plugged in to a current of crisis. They darted around, thinking what next, what next? It was terrible they had to know the present was over, the future was dire.
Sometimes, to prove this, she opened the book at random and read a sentence in German aloud to him. It was like being in bed with someone else.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s possible. I feel so useless with this kid. He sits there in a black heap of unresponsiveness and occasionally I make stupid statements which hang in the room.’
‘But he likes coming and his parents support it.’
‘They might just be clutching at straws.’
‘You’re the best straw there is,’ said Helena. She’d turned the magazine towards the light better to examine someone’s unwanted pregnancy. Paddy could read the headline from his side. Helena studied the photo, shaking her head. Did she believe the pregnancy or not? Often Paddy looked at the People pictures, lying beside Helena. Even though she’d assured him the candid photos were mostly set up by the stars’ agents, the furtiveness of the famous carried a charge. As they ‘rushed’ from restaurants where they’d been ‘spotted’ or made ‘flying visits’ to ‘anonymous’ suburban shopping malls in big hats and glasses and wigs, their hauntedness seemed real rather than performed. After all, these were not, as a rule, great actors. They couldn’t pretend all that well, could they. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said. ‘I could use that in my advertising. “Looking to clutch at a straw? Ring Patrick Thompson.”’
‘You don’t advertise,’ said Helena. ‘Jeremy Lanting seems premature to me anyway.’
‘Fine, you might be right.’
She flicked over another page. Paddy read the words ‘Rehab Horror’. The thought didn’t flow directly but it came nevertheless. To what extent could it be said that Sam was acting? He came to the sessions so that Paddy could be his audience. ‘Can I ask you one other thing, unrelated,’ he said. ‘What part of your body do you prefer not to show?’ He was thinking of Sam’s mother mostly, of Sam too, Bridget and her ears, but also the general furtiveness of the human race. He was not excluded.
For some reason he was also thinking about the tree full of young tui they’d come across on their walk in Mount Victoria.That was the opposite, wasn’t it. Where you expected hiding, you got display. There was a performance angle, though the birds seemed unaware of being watched, if that were possible. Often a bird’s life had figured as a mind-bendingly anxious business, alertness without rest, the flicking head, the almost ceaseless flight from predation. He was taking as his sample the birds around them, in the city and the hills. No doubt his theory was garbage when you considered—what? Some long-legged creature, wading on a beach at sunset. He didn’t know names. Or an albatross. Anyway, birds had never seemed to him strongly connected with beauty. Careworn, he thought. Small engines of fright, who, when they stopped in trees to recharge, were still charged. They were always plugged in to a current of crisis. They darted around, thinking what next, what next? It was terrible they had to know the present was over, the future was dire.
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