The Slap

‘I know, I know. I just want one fucking smoke in peace.’

  He thought Aisha would also join in the chorus of resentment directed towards him that morning but her face broke into a grin and she kissed his cheek.

  ‘Right, which one of them’s to blame?’

  ‘Adam. Definitely Adam.’

  He sat on the verandah and had his cigarette. He could hear Aisha talking calmly to his daughter. He knew that she would be on her knees beside Melissa, playing with the console. He also knew in a few minutes Adam would emerge from his room and sit on the couch to watch his sister and mother play. Within moments the children would be sharing the console and Aisha would have slipped back into the kitchen. He marvelled at his wife’s patience, felt the lack of his own. Sometimes he wondered how his kids would respect him when they were older—whether they even loved him at all.

  Connie loved him. She had told him. He knew that it had almost caused her physical pain to say the words, that she’d almost choked on them. Her agony underlined his own shame. Aisha, of course, often told him that she loved him, but always calmly, nonchalantly; as if from the very beginning of their relationship she had been sure that he loved her in return. Telling someone you loved them should never be dispassionate. Connie had spat out the words in terror, not knowing or trusting their consequences. She hadn’t dared look at him as she said it, and immediately flicked a lock of her hair straight into her mouth. He had gently flicked it away and then kissed her on the lips. ‘I love you too,’ he had answered. And he did, he certainly did. He had been incapable of thinking of much else for months. But he hadn’t dared speak the words to Connie. She said them first. She had to say them first.

  ‘Have you got any Valium left?’

  ‘No.’ He heard the reproach in Aisha’s answer and he noticed her quick look at the kitchen clock.

  ‘I’ve got plenty of time.’

  ‘Why do you need Valium?’

  ‘I don’t need it. I just want it. It’s just to take the edge off the barbecue. ’

  Aisha suddenly smiled, her eyes glistening and mischievous. He screwed his cigarette into the ashtray, walked through the glass doors and scooped his wife into his arms. ‘I’ve got plenty of time, I’ve got plenty of time,’ he sang. He kissed the fingers of her left hand, sniffed at the sweet tang of cumin and lime. She kissed him back and then gently pushed him away.

  ‘Do you mind that much?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ He certainly would have preferred not to have to give up Saturday evening to play host to a mixture of family, friends and work colleagues; he certainly would have rather spent the last day of his smoking life doing something just for him. But for Aisha, the evening’s small party was a way of repaying countless dinner and party invitations. Aisha believed they owed it to their circle. Hector felt no such obligation. But he was a genial host and understood the importance of the evening for his wife. And he had always been proud of the fact that they shared a respect and tolerance for family.

  ‘I don’t mind but I’d like some Valium. Just in case Mum decides to break my balls tonight.’

  ‘It’s not your balls she’s going to break.’ Aisha’s eyes darted back to the clock. ‘I don’t know if I have time to go to work and pick some up.’

  ‘That’s okay, I’ll drop by and get them after the market.’

  In the shower, with the warm jets of water falling onto his head and shoulders, and the steam rising around him, he looked down at his lean body, at his thick limp cock, and cursed himself. You are such a prick, such a fucking lying prick. He was surprised to find himself speaking out loud. A jolt of humiliation flashed through him, and he sharply turned off the hot water tap. The shock of ice-cold water on his head and shoulders could not banish his remorse. Even as a child, Hector had never had time for make-believe or rationalisations. He knew he had no need for the Valium and the only reason he was saying he did was so he could see Connie. He could simply choose to drive past Aisha’s clinic and not stop for the pills. He could, but he knew he wouldn’t. He did not once dare catch his own eyes in the mirror as he was drying himself with the damp towel that smelt of soap, of himself and his wife. Only in the bedroom, running a small squirt of wax through his hair, did he dare look at his reflection. He saw the grey at his temples and at his unshaven chin, the wrinkles at the edge of his mouth. He also saw that his jaw was still firm, his hair still full, and that he looked younger than his forty-three years.

  He was whistling as he kissed his wife. He grabbed the shopping list and his car keys from the kitchen table.

  When he started up the car, an appalling bleating pop song assailed his ears. He quickly changed to another radio station, not jazz but comfortable acoustic drone. Aisha had picked up the kids from school the day before and allowed them to choose the station. He never let them dictate what was to be played in the car, and Aisha often mocked his sternness.

  ‘No,’ he would insist. ‘They can play the music they want when they develop some taste.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Hector, they’re kids, they have no taste.’

  ‘Well they’re not going to get any listening to crap top-forty shit. I’m doing them a favour.’

  This would always make Aisha laugh.

  The market carpark was packed and he weaved slowly in and out of the crammed lanes before he managed to find a space. The Commodore—reliable, comfortable and dull—had been a concession. Their previous family cars had included a rusted late-sixties Peugeot that was missing a hand-brake and which they ditched as soon as Adam was born; a sturdy Datsun 200B from the seventies that had given up the ghost somewhere between Coffs Harbour and Byron Bay when Adam was six and Melissa just a baby; and a monstrous late-model Chrysler Valiant that was seemingly indestructible and which had taken the family back and forth across the country a number of times to visit Aisha’s family in Perth. The Valiant was stolen by two young men high on alcohol and petrol who smashed it into a phone box in Lalor and then poured petrol all over the interior and set it alight. Hector had almost cried when the police told him. Then Aisha had declared that she was no longer interested in any car older than ten years. She wanted something safe and less expensive to run. Reluctantly Hector had agreed. But he still dreamed of another Valiant—or a two-door ute, or an old EJ Holden.

  He stretched out in the car seat, rolled down his window, lit a cigarette and pulled out the shopping list. As usual, Aisha was thorough and meticulous, listing the exact quantities of the ingredients she wanted. Twenty-five grams of green cardamom seeds (she never bought spices in bulk because she believed they became stale too quickly). Nine hundred grams of squid (Hector would ask for a kilo; he always rounded up, never down). Four eggplants (then in brackets and underlined, she had indicated European not Asian eggplants). Hector smiled as he read down the list. His wife’s orderly habits sometimes made him frustrated, but he admired her efficiency and he respected her calm manner. If left to him, the preparations for the barbecue would have been chaotic and resulting in panic. But Aisha was a marvel at organisation, and for that he was thankful. He knew that without her his life would fall apart. Aisha’s steadiness and intelligence had a benign effect on him, he could see it clearly. Her calmness assuaged the danger of his own impulsiveness. Even his mother—who had initially bitterly resented his relationship with an Indian girl—admitted as much.

  ‘You’re lucky to have her,’ she would remind him in Greek. ‘God knows what gypsy you could have ended up with if you hadn’t found her. You have no control. You’ve never had control.’

  His mother’s words came back to him again after he’d loaded the box of vegetables and fruit into the boot of the car and was strolling back to the delicatessen. The young woman walking in front of him had denim jeans tightly cupping her round, tantalisingly small buttocks. She had long, swinging straight black hair and Hector guessed she was Vietnamese. He walked slowly behind her. The noise and clamour of the market had fallen away; all that existed was the perfect sashaying arse befor
e him. The woman darted into a bakery and Hector awoke from his fantasy. He needed to piss.

  Washing his hands and staring at the grimy mirror, he shook his head at his reflection.

  ‘You have no control.’

  He sat in the car outside the clinic, smoking while he listened to Art Blakely and the Messengers. He always found the sharp discordant horns of ‘A Night in Tunisia’ both sensually charged and calming. When he found himself reaching for a third cigarette, he abruptly switched off the music, jumped out of the car and walked across the street.

  The waiting room was full. A thin elderly woman was clutching tightly to a cardboard cat box that emitted regular distressed, pitiful cries. Two young women were sitting on the couch, flicking through magazines as a black Pomeranian sat desolately at their feet. Connie was on the phone. When she saw him walk in, she offered a small, tight smile and then looked away. She placed another caller on hold then resumed her conversation.

  ‘I’m going through,’ he whispered to her, pointing down the corridor.

  She nodded. As he walked past the closed door of the consulting room and into the surgery, he felt breathless. The girl made him anxious. Seeing Connie was always difficult, confusing, as though seeing her peeled away the years of his maturity back to the shy, tongue-tied boy he was at school. But he was also aware of a deep and satisfying pleasure, a warmth that flooded his whole body: when he was with her it was as if he had stepped out of the shade and into the warm invigorating sunshine. The world felt colder to him now when Connie wasn’t around. She made him happy.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ There was nothing menacing in her question. Her arms were crossed and her blonde hair was tied back in a thick ponytail.

  ‘It looks busy.’

  ‘Saturdays always are.’

  She moved over to the X-ray table, and started picking pieces of lint off the pale blue sheet that covered the machine. He could hear a dog growling in the consult room.

  She was refusing to look at him. She had no idea how to treat him when they were together in public and it always made him acutely aware of her youth: the ridge of pimples below her bottom left lip, the freckles on her nose, the awkward droop of her shoulders. Stand up straight, he wanted to say to her, don’t be ashamed of being tall.

  ‘Aish asked me to pick up some Valium.’

  At the mention of his wife’s name, Connie looked at him and sprang into action.

  ‘They’re in the consult room.’

  ‘It can wait till Brendan’s finished with the client.’

  ‘It’s alright, I’ll get them.’ She rushed down the corridor and returned with five tablets in a small plastic bag. ‘Is this enough?’

  ‘Sure.’ He took the bag and as he did so he rubbed his finger softly across her wrist. The girl looked away, but did not pull back her arm.

  ‘Can I have a cigarette?’ She was now looking straight at him, her sharp blue eyes daring him with the request. Brendan was notorious for his objections to smoking and he would disapprove of Hector giving a cigarette to a teenager. No, not a teenager, Connie was a young woman. Connie’s dare seemed deliberate, provocative; her insistent stare aroused him. He gave her a cigarette. Connie opened the door to the back verandah and he was about to follow her.

  ‘Keep an eye out for Brendan, will you? Or if someone comes through the front.’ When she gave instructions she still sounded like a Londoner. He nodded and she slammed the screen door behind her.

  Through the surgery window he watched her smoke, drinking in every aspect of her. The thick, fair hair, the plump bottom and long, strong legs in too-tight black jeans. The gracious curve of her neck. The phone rang and she pitched the cigarette onto the ground, stubbed it into the earth, picked up the butt and threw it in the industrial bin. She brushed by him to answer the phone.

  ‘Good morning, you’ve called the Hogarth Road Vet Clinic, Connie speaking. Do you mind holding?’ She turned back to him. ‘Is there anything else?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon.’

  A look of confusion shadowed her face and again he was struck by her youth, her adolescence, the naivety she so detested about herself. He wanted to praise her for throwing her cigarette butt into the bin but stopped himself because he knew she would interpret any comment as patronising. Which in part it would be.

  ‘The barbecue, at our place,’ he reminded her.

  Without a word, she turned her back to him.

  ‘Thank you for holding, what can I do for you?’

  Back home he helped Aisha unpack the groceries then went to the toilet and, over the bowl, he masturbated furiously. He was not thinking of Connie. He was picturing the luscious buttocks of the Vietnamese woman he had spied at the market. He came in a minute and he wiped the semen off the seat, chucked the toilet paper in the bowl, pissed and flushed it all away. He had no need to fantasise about Connie. Connie was inside him. He looked into the bathroom mirror as he was washing his hands, and again he noticed the grey amid the black bristles on his chin. He wanted to smash his fist into the face staring back at him.

  Just before the guests were due to arrive, Adam and Melissa started a fight. Aisha had laid out a feast on the kitchen table: a lentil dahl, samosas and curried eggplant, a potato salad and a salad of dill and black beans. He was standing in front of the stove, waiting to throw calamari into a sizzling pan, when he first heard his daughter’s angry scream. He was about to yell out when he heard Aisha running from the bathroom. She started to mediate between the children but Melissa’s cries were rising in intensity and he could hear that Adam too had begun to wail. His wife’s voice was drowned out in the commotion. Hector threw half of the calamari rings into the pan, lowered the heat, then went to investigate.

  Melissa had her arms around her mother’s neck and Adam was sitting on his bed, sulking defiantly.

  ‘What happened?’

  It was the wrong thing to ask. Both children started shouting at once. Hector raised his hand. ‘Shut it!’

  Melissa immediately went silent, except for a series of low, sad moans. Tears were still running down her face.

  He turned to his son. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She called me a fat pig.’

  You are fat.

  ‘What did you do to her?’

  Aisha stepped in. ‘Listen, I want both of you to behave this afternoon. I don’t care who started it. I want both of you to go and sit in the lounge and watch TV until the guests come. Deal?’

  Melissa nodded her head but Adam was still scowling. ‘Something’s burning ,’ he muttered.

  ‘Fuck!’ Hector raced into the kitchen and quickly began turning the rings. Oil splattered across the front of his shirt. He swore. Aisha was standing in the kitchen doorway and started laughing.

  ‘What’s so bloody funny? I just changed into this shirt.’

  ‘Maybe you should have changed after cooking the calamari.’

  For a lightning moment, he imagined throwing the frying pan straight at her. She came up and slipped her hand under his shirt, her fingers cool and soothing.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she whispered. ‘You go change again.’

  It tickled where she had touched him.

  His parents were the first to arrive. He watched them from the bedroom window as they unloaded bags and boxes from the boot of their car. He went out to greet them.

  ‘Why did you bring all this?’ His father was holding a tray of chops and steaks. ‘I bought all the meat we need at the market this morning.’

  ‘It’s alright, Ecttora,’ his mother answered in Greek, kissing him on both cheeks, two large bowls of salad in her hands. ‘We’re not barbarians or English to bring nothing to a barbecue. What we don’t eat today, you and the children can have tomorrow.’

  Have tomorrow? They would be eating the leftovers till the following weekend.

  His parents put their trays and bowls onto the kitchen bench. His mother gave Aisha a small pet on the cheek then rushed into the
lounge to greet the children. His father hugged Aisha warmly.

  ‘I go bring the rest of food from car.’

  ‘There’s more?’ Aisha’s voice was warm and cordial but Hector noticed the tightness around her mouth.

  ‘Just dips and things?’ Hector queried.

  ‘Yes,’ answered his father. ‘Some dips and drinks and some cheese and fruit.’

  ‘There’s going to be too much food,’ Aisha whispered.

  Just leave it, he wanted to say, they have always been this way. They will always be this way. Why are you still surprised by it?

  ‘It’s alright,’ he whispered back to her. ‘What we don’t eat today we can have for lunch through the week.’

  Within an hour the house was full. His sister, Elizabeth, arrived with her two children, Sava and Angeliki. Aisha popped Toy Story into the DVD; the film was a durable favourite. Hector had lots of time for his nephew Sava, who was only a year younger than Adam, but already seemed more assured and knowledgeable, more daring, than his own son. Sava was lithe, agile, secure in his body. He was sitting close to the screen, mouthing the dialogue off by heart, pretending to be Buzz Lightyear. Adam was sitting cross-legged next to him. The girls, Melissa and Angeliki, were sitting side by side on the couch, watching the movie and whispering to each other.

  ‘It’s a beautiful day, you should be outside playing.’

  The four children ignored their grandmother.

  ‘It’s alright, Koula, let them watch a movie.’

  His mother ignored Aisha and instead turned to Hector, speaking in Greek. ‘They’re always in front of that damn television.’

  ‘So were we, Mum.’

  ‘That’s just not true.’ And with that, his mother brushed him aside and went into the kitchen. She took the knife from Aisha’s hands. ‘I’ll do that, love.’