Читать книгу How to be a Good Veronica - Michael K Freundt - Страница 8

The school library was smaller than she had expected with an alarmingly small collection of books. The reason for this became obvious as she then saw a bank of, at least, twenty computer screens. The open space had a few small windowed meeting rooms in the corner and in one of them she saw Mrs. Verlarny who waved. Veronica didn’t wave back but headed in that direction. Sitting with Mrs. Verlarny was another woman, the mother of Cinnamon Carmody she assumed - but wasn't the meeting with her father? - and therefore weighed her up as she approached the glassed-in room. The woman was brown-skinned, conservatively and elegantly dressed and about thirty years of age, although her conservative clothes looked a little strange against her severe haircut: extremely short and streaked set off by very large loop earrings. The hairstyle suited her, the clothes did not. Mrs. Verlarny seemed to be watching her approach and not paying attention at all to what the woman was saying. The woman obviously noted this too and turned around to see what Mrs. Verlarny was more interested in. Veronica smiled at her: a smile she hoped was one of understanding and camaraderie but given the distance and the angle it was probably lost.

The door was open and Mrs. Verlarny rose as Veronica approached but hesitated out of politeness for Mrs. Verlarny’s guest.

“Veronica, Hello! Come in!” said Mrs. Verlarny as she beckoned her in and held out her hand.

“I can wait,” called Veronica, as she stood outside Mrs. Verlarny’s door.

“No, no, come it. It’s OK. So glad you could make it.”

Veronica entered and took the hand and said, “Hi! Yes, working freelance does have its perks,” insinuating a lie: that she had had to move appointments to accommodate this one.

“This is Mrs. Fonseka,” said Mrs. Verlarny indicating the other woman and letting her smile slip away. “She’d like her three children to be joining us.”

“Hello,” said Mrs. Fonseka shaking Veronica’s hand. “Well, we’ll see. I’ll be in touch about that,” she said to Mrs. Verlarny pointedly, Veronica thought. She rose and added a smile to her face as she said “Nice to meet you. Bye.”

Veronica tried to catch her eye, “Nice to meet you; hope to see you again.” But she hurried out of the room and across the field of carpet.

“Is there a problem?” asked Veronica wondering, the instant she asked, if she should’ve.

“No, no,” Mrs. Verlarny said confidently. “Well, maybe,” she added with a sigh. Veronica took hold of the chair the departed woman had vacated but Mrs. Verlarny stopped her. “No, take this one,” she said as she pulled a chair from behind her. “It’s stronger.” And then hurriedly continued. “Her initial email wasn’t overt but she wants to send her three children here. I told her Singhalese wasn’t on the curriculum and she wasn’t at all perturbed by the weight of the fees and my clear language on the website hadn’t dissuaded her either. Maybe the language isn’t clear enough.”

“Right,” said Veronica, wishing to backtrack a little. Why do I need a stronger chair? It was clear to Veronica that this woman was trying to befriend her, but a stronger chair? She had assumed from their initial meeting at home that no kind of friendship was going to develop between them and she liked it that way. There was a dull wave of children noise from the scattered students throughout the open plan library. Mrs. Verlarny got up and closed the door, sat down again and leaned conspiratorially towards Veronica. The woman smelled of lavender and burnt sugar. "That woman," she began and Veronica knew instantly that something unpleasant was going to come out of her mouth, "has more front than Harrods."Not even an Australian cliché. "I've gone out of my way to make it clear on the website that this school is cultivating an exclusivity in this community: something for the people to look up to; a centre of excellence and aspiration." Mrs. Verlarny leaned back in her chair and raised her head as if to give a visual example of what she was talking about. "And now she comes in here and acts as if such a meeting is a mere formality. I don’t know what these immigrants can be thinking,” continued Mrs. Verlarny. “Her name certainly didn’t fool me. We can’t be too obvious on the website, although I’d like to be. But you know what these lefty tree-hugging bureaucrats can be like.” Her conspiratorial tone surprised and annoyed Veronica. “Sometimes I think they like being on the outer. It keeps them in the public eye, I suppose.” Mrs. Verlarny chuckled.

“I see,” was all Veronica could think of to say.

“It never ceases to amaze me, what lengths these people will go to rub everybody up the wrong way. I told her the school is full. What more can I do? And I gathered by her parting words that she’s thinking that all she has to do is decide to send them here and that’s it! End of story! As if the decision is hers and hers alone.”

Veronica couldn’t help herself. “I suppose she feels some kinship since all of us come from somewhere else. And most probably by boat.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Verlarny as her smile turned a little sour.

“Well, unless you’re indigenous, of course you came from somewhere else. My family came from northern Europe and I assume yours did as well.” Mrs. Verlarny stared at her and Veronica took advantage of the pause to add with a look of concern, “I’m sorry, are you indigenous?”

“I most certainly am not,” indignation oozing though the woman’s voice.

“Well then, you know what I mean,” and before Mrs. Verlarny could say anything at all, Veronica changed the subject, confident that she has had the last word. “I thought she might’ve been Cinnamon Carmody’s mother.”

Mrs. Verlarny dropped her cordial tone, “No, it’s her father we’ll be talking to today. I don’t think there is a mother; well, there was, of course, but not anymore.” Mrs. Verlarny stared at Veronica who held her gaze unflinchingly. The woman seemed to be weighing up what to say next; and then she decided. “He lives with another man,” and her face took on a look of someone tasting sour milk. “A bit of a.... and here he is!” Mrs. Verlarny rose to open the door, and Veronica turned in her seat to see a man walking across the library floor. He was tall, dressed simply in jeans and a polo shirt. A handsome face, thought Veronica, but not traditionally so; it was his hair that forced the ‘handsome’ tag. It was soft brown, shiny, luxuriant, and collar-length with a bounce in it that you only saw on shampoo commercials. Women would kill for hair like that.

“Hello Mr. Carmody! How are you?” said Mrs. Verlarny as she opened the door and extended her arm like an usherette.

“Fine thanks,” he said almost at the door. He had a charming little gap in his front teeth. He forced a smile and he was a little obscured from Veronica’s view by Mrs. Verlarny. “And you?” she heard him add.

“Oh, I’m fine, given the hour of the day. I’d like you to meet Veronica Souter, Jack’s mother; this is Ben Carmody.”

He bent forward, peeked around the door to get a better look at her.

“Well, Hi!” he said shaking her hand and without warning Veronica was propelled into a split moment of confusion. His “well, hi” was said in such a cheeky, inquisitive, surprised and risqué tone that for a moment she thought he had said, or meant, something else. Her briefly formed assessment of him, given her limited knowledge, all supplied by Mrs. Verlarny only moments ago, and his appearance as he walked towards her was totally at odds with what came out of his mouth; or was she completely mistaken and a victim of her lack of experience at meeting men socially? Her mental impulse was to query what he said (I beg your pardon? ) but that would’ve sounded weird; she was forced to reply to what she thought he had actually said so when she spoke, both impulses collided and caught in her throat which triggered the urge to swallow which caused a violent coughing attack.

“Dear me, Ms. Souter, whatever's the matter?” said a worried Mrs. Verlarny.

“It’s OK,” Veronica managed to say in between coughs but forcing words from the discomfort going on in her throat caused her eyes to water and her nose to run. She took her hand from Ben’s grasp and rummaged in her bag for a tissue, all the while coughing as if her throat would split.

“I think you’d better sit down,” said Ben as he beckoned her to her chair. “Here,” he said and handed her a handkerchief.

She coughed violently, and unattractively, into his handkerchief as the others could do nothing but watch. Mrs. Verlarny moved to go. “I’ll get you a glass of water,” she said as she left the room seemingly anxious to get away from the uncomfortable scene. Veronica could feel her neck warm from embarrassment and tried purposefully to calm down and to restore her breathing to normal. Despite the guttural mayhem she knew her hair was a mess, her cheeks red and burning, her eyes puffy, and her face contorted.

Eventually she calmed down and took two very deep breaths. “Wow,” she said quietly, “I don’t know where that came from. How embarrassing. I’m very sorry.” And she flicked her head like a model in an attempt to gain control of herself.

“Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone.”

“Oh, I hope not. How weird!” Veronica then realised that his hand was on her back. “Thank you. I’ll be fine.” She rearranged herself in her seat and he removed his hand.

“Is it OK for me to call you Veronica?” he asked. ”It’s just that I got the feeling that you two seem to be on a very formal basis.”

“Well, yes,” explained Veronica, “our first meeting was a little ... problematic.”

“Hideous, isn’t she?” he said. His candour surprised her again.

She threw him a glance and he made a face. You’re being very friendly, very quickly. “Well, yes. She makes a lot of assumptions that seem to me to be very risky when meeting people for the first time.”

“She’d make Hitler wince.” That made Veronica laugh and the coughing threatened to return. “Sorry. Sorry.” And he rubbed her back.

She was breathing normally again.

“We did get off on the wrong foot when she came to see me about the, er, problem.”

“You mean about our children?”

“Yes. She had, I think, jumped to conclusions. It seems to be a habit of hers.”

“Well, Cinnamon was very upset about it. I’d never seen her cry like that before.”

“The explanation is very simple really: Jack likes Cinnamon very much.”

“Well, he’s got a strange way of showing it.”

“Yes, well, little boys aren’t very experienced at that sort of thing.” She wanted to add that some big boys weren’t that good at it either but thought better of it: she didn’t know him. “Jack completed a project on religions last month and we talked about how Sikh men don’t cut their hair. He asked me about plaits, which I believe Cinnamon wears.”

“Yes,” he said and then added rather sheepishly, and which aroused Veronica’s professional interest, “well, it was her mother’s style, actually.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, when a little boy likes a little girl and wants to talk to her but can’t think of what to say, he says the first thing that comes into his head.”

“Have you spoken to him about this?”

“Of course,” she said, and then remembered that although she had intended to talk to him about it, she hadn’t. “He doesn’t remember exactly what he said but his words or tone must’ve been very clumsy and ill-chosen because her reaction was a surprise to him as his words were to her. I think she misunderstood.”

“That doesn’t explain the bitterness of her tears? It seemed more than a misunderstanding.”

“Would you believe it?” burst in Mrs. Verlarny, ”not a clean glass, or a dirty one for that matter, in sight. I had to search everywhere for one and then wash it. Here,” she added proffering the glass of water, “I hope this helps.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Verlarny,” she said as she took the glass,” it’s just what I need.” And as she drank a little she was aware of Ben watching her. She put the glass down, resisted saying ‘I must look a fright’, but ran her hands through her hair, instead.

“Veronica seems to think our little problem is due to a bout of puppy love,” said Ben.

“Really?” said Mrs. Verlarny with a note of incredulity and a feeling of ‘how stupid!’

“Well, yes, actually,” was Veronica’s rather lame reply.

“Cinnamon was very upset,” said Ben.

“Maybe the attraction is shared,” suggested Veronica, “and she was more upset by what she mis-heard because she too wanted to talk to him but didn’t know what to say.”

“Yes, but...” began Ben.

“And now,” interrupted Veronica, “she’s afraid that the moment’s been lost and the relationship’s ended before it’s began.”

“Is this your professional opinion?” asked Mrs. Verlarny with an edge of sarcasm that wasn’t lost on Veronica. Mrs. Verlarny continued for Ben’s benefit, “Veronica’s a kind of psychologist.”Kind of ?!

Ben chose to continue with the point at hand. “But it was Jack who, I think, we all agree, made the first move. He must’ve said or done something to elicit such a bitter reaction.”

Veronica noted that this was the second time that he had used the word ‘bitter’ so she asked carefully, “Is Cinnamon a little ... sensitive about her plaits?”

“She wears a single plait and always has, as her mother did and as her mother showed her how, so..” and he gave Mrs. Verlarny a resigned look and then turned to Veronica,”...yes, I can see your point.”

“Would you like me to talk to her about this?” asked Mrs. Verlarny, a little aggrieved that she seemed now to be in danger of being no longer needed.

“No!” answered Ben quickly: he obviously thought the offer was presumptuous too. “I’ll talk to her about this; maybe I should’ve done so a little earlier.”

“It’s just that I thought a woman may....”

Ben cut her off sharply, “No, no Mrs. Verlarny. I’ll talk to her. We’ve talked a lot about her mother but obviously there’s a little more to cover. And Jack?” he inquired of Veronica with raised eyebrows that disappeared under those floppy curls.

“I’ll have another talk to him and I’m going to suggest that he try again but this time with the help of a little coaching in ‘schoolyard small talk’”.

“In my view, I think we should keep them apart for awhile,” offered Mrs. Verlarny keen to still be considered ‘on the team’.

“Their own embarrassment and reticence may do that for us,” said Veronica without worrying if she was belittling Mrs. Verlarny’s advice. “We know our children, Mrs. Verlarny, and we may miss things from time to time, but we both seem to have a history of parent-child chatting so I think we need to continue this and encourage them to talk; maybe not right away, but soon.”

Mrs. Verlarny wasn’t prepared to let go so easily, “What about the three of us talking this over?”

Veronica was pleased when Ben jumped in. “That’s what we’re doing now, isn’t it? Let’s try the parent-child chat first. We don’t want to make this into anything bigger than it really is. The four of us”, he added making it very clear that Mrs. Verlarny wasn’t included, “will handle it. I’m inclined to agree with Veronica’s puppy-love theory. Us big boys get it wrong sometimes too,” he said with a knowing look to Veronica who felt a few cockles of her heart warming up a bit. “And so for little boys it must be a mine field.”

The meeting ended. It hadn’t been planned, not by Veronica anyway, but Ben walked with her to the school gate. He asked if he could give her a lift home, indicating his car with Cinnamon sitting in the passenger seat. Veronica thought she looked very neat and prim, sitting with a straight back, a buttoned-up collar and that plait, but Veronica politely declined his offer of a lift: she had her own car with her. As they neared the school gate she saw Jack waiting for her and realised that a meeting would ensue and wondered if that was a good thing but her worry was soon allayed.

“Hi Mum!” said Jack as he watched her approach.

“Hi darling! How was today?”

“Fine.”

“Jack, this is Cinnamon’s father, Mr. Carmody. Ben, this is my son, Jack.”

“Hello Jack,” said Ben holding out his hand to the boy. Veronica looked over at Ben’s car and saw Cinnamon watching.

Jack stood looking at the ground.

“Jack?” asked Veronica with a frown, “Where’s your manners?”

“Hello, Mr. Carmody,” said Jack still looking at the ground.

“Jack, Mr. Carmody wants to shake your hand.”

Jack finally looked up at the man. “I’m sorry I made Cinnamon cry.” The little boy’s face was wrinkled with concern.

“Thank you Jack,” said Ben with a little surprise in his voice. “I accept your apology and Cinnamon, I’m sure, will too when I tell her.”

“I...” began Jack not quite knowing how to continue, “I mean...you know...”

“Yes Jack?” encouraged Ben.

“I like her hair,” he said in a little boy voice.

“And so do I, mate. It’s exactly the way her mother wore her hair.”

“Is she beautiful too?”

“Jack!” reprimanded Veronica.

“No no,” hushed Ben, “It’s OK. Yes, she was very beautiful.”

“Sorry?” said Jack not sure what the use of the past tense meant.

“Cinnamon’s mother died a few years ago; in a car accident.”

“Oh,” said Jack and looked at the ground again.

“Oh Ben,” said Veronica. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Why would you? It’s OK. It happened. It’s over.” And then to Jack, “I’ll pass on your apology to Cinnamon. OK?”

“OK.”

“Shall we shake on it then?” Jack looked up, smiled, and Ben held out his hand again. Jack took the man’s hand in his and Ben pumped the little boy’s hand three times. “Done,” he said.

“Jack, would you wait in the car for me?” said Veronica.

“OK,” said Jack.

“Here’s the keys. I won’t be long.” Jack took the keys and lugged his backpack over to the car. Veronica turned to Ben, “I thought I should.......”

Ben interrupts her, “Would you have dinner with me one night next week?”