Forty Days and Forty Nights
Look, here’s Candice.
Shall we not share her
pain?
Why, you ask? There’s no
fasting in the wild for her; that belt is doing a valiant job. Give it an
award. Fly it a kitemark.
She
will hang off the glass plated office door. In the mornings. Her hands the
handle handling, but, you know, unsure whether to open or close, like her dreams.
In the mornings. That was when she began her hanging, her
dreaming, all Christmas bauble visions, Santa Claus and ‘a-ho-ho-ho-haram’ and
the hanging would continue through the day, on and off, usually prefaced by a
question.
Work related. Admin. Deadlines. Dates. Was there a
deadline for this; a deadline for that? Where were the due dates?
Had they fallen from the
palm tree yet?
Usually dressed in
something baggy that would just about meet the requirements of school dress
code. She’s South African, in her forties, but still twenty years between herself
and the object of her dreams.
Flip flops or sandals –
but not those strappy ones with pink pom-poms. Her colleague, Precious, had
been sent home for that, had slopped across the concrete concourse in the hot burning
desert heat, had tripped on a loose curb, twisting a shapely ankle. “You threw
me under the bus!” she had cried, after they’d sacked her for one transgression
too many, something to do with poetry, examinations, irate parents. Who can
remember?
They come, they go. Burn
in the memory for about the same time as a meteorite arcs across the sky.
Bitter cold when light has fled.
Peering at him, through
the glass. Her grizzled head of department. Tempted and yet undefiled.
Yet here he was, defiling.
Files into folders, decluttering the desktop with mouse-strokes, captain of a
very fine ship, the fastest on the sea.
Squinting his raw eyes at
the monitor.
Are they still called
that? Well, the screen then.
He would push his bifocals
upwards with a digit finger, left or right, he was not particular, so that the
bits of his glasses that still worked helped him focus as though using a
partially masked telescope.
Periodically swiping a
tissue from the box, drying a tear, wiping some snot. Sucking throat drops.
Strepsils. Blackcurrant and menthol. And
twenty years between them, if she gave it a thought.
Conjunctivitis
or just sheer bad luck?
The coffee was hot, already
in the pot, if you liked your coffee hot, I will be your John Cooper Clarke and
thanks. But no milk, you get used to it black, because the heat sours milk or
the cleaners pinch it – one of those - and no sugar; the cockroaches get at
that.
Candice wasn’t averse to
pushing the plunger on her own behalf. Perhaps one push out of the five weekly
plunges would result in hot liquid slopping all over the desk; dripping onto two
battered cardboard boxes full of ancient examinations from the days of paper
and ink, pre pandemic, pre quarantine, pre online, pre mask, pre every bloody
thing.
Today was one of those.
“Shit!” snapped Candice, wiping black streaks of oily, bitty liquid gritty stuff from
her pants and top, with practised fingers. It had spurted everywhere, of course.
Probably, when it dried, it would blend unnoticed into the dark material. Dark
shapes, like prowling beasts.
He looked up from defiling.
“What you do?”
“Sorry, Craig.”
“It’s OK, I’m pushing
these little white ones into these little yellow ones.”
“I can see.”
“Yes, very important.
Hides them, you see? Removes them. Crosses them off the job list.”
“You have one of those?”
“No. Not any more. Waste
of time.”
“I came for coffee. You
want one?”
Craig pulled his face into
such a gurn that it looked like a walnut.
“Why are you doing that?”
she asked, still mopping her chest with tissues that had taken on the colour of
gravy browning.
“I’m being inscrutable.”
Perhaps proximity dawned,
so close their breaths did mingle, that’s right - so he pulled on a mask - medical
ones from a box of fifty, you know the sort. Black or blue.
From constant use over the
past two years, his ears had begun to stick out and there was a red sting around
both of them from ringing elastic. Like those rubber things that farmers use on
bulls and a medical condition now so prevalent in the community, there were
articles on the internet and a mask strap mini-boom.
Fortunes found on Melbourne
grounds and pharmaceutical businesses the world over.
Craig used his legs to manoeuvre
his office chair the two feet between his desk and the coffee pot, took a
handful of tissues and helped with mopping her chest. It rippled. Like a pond
after stones had been thrown. For should they not the trials share?
“Yes. I’ll take a coffee,”
he grunted, rubbing with more vigour, receiving his in a miniscule paper cup.
Candice had one of those
metal Starbucks jobs, always prepared. No stones for pillows, never earth for
bed.
For Craig, paper cups might
be like paper roses. They do a job. Bully Forbes could look for his Starbucks in
vain. Or in any stormy port.
Eyeing the simulated
leather chair from which he had not moved, Candice sipped her coffee. That
comfortable chair. Another sip. Conversational gambit. “What’s the deadline?”
“Is there one? Deadline?
What for?”
“Marking those mid-term
assessments. Is it before we go on holiday?”
“Ah, holiday.” Draining bitter
coffee, Craig pursed his lips, chucking the empty towards the bin. It bounced
off the rim. Hit the floor. Settled next to a discarded banana skin. But he was
now back at his desk, unconcerned, peering deep into the monitor or screen –
whatever. “Holy day. Check this out. The Marco Polo. Fastest ship on sea.
Captained by Bully Forbes.”
You couldn’t even see her
lips from behind the pouting N95, guaranteed to prevent 95% of all known viruses,
and she walked towards the door with a shrug, turned left and set sail south
for her classroom.
Oblivious, Craig continued
talking, “Beat all the records. The Australia run. The Blackball Line. I
wondered if she put into Zanzibar? There’s a poem in that, you know. I have a
plan.”
Humming to himself
contentedly, he clicked his mouse a couple of times, typing one fingered onto
the keyboard, “there’s a fortune to be found, beneath the ground, where the
eucalyptus grows.” Turning triumphantly in his chair, he clicked his fingers. “See?
Quarantine. Forty days and forty nights. Lying offshore. That’s where the word
originated. Italian. Quarantina.”
Scratching his poorly
shaved double chin, Craig frowned. “Candice? Where you go?”
Change of scene. A little
later in the day and Carlotta sees he’s hanging off glass, handling the handle
with his hand, staring in. Dreams, you know?
Another glass fronted
office, perhaps twice the size of Craig’s. It’s up to you to keep your crew.
But nothing work related. Him
watching for a while.
Carlotta’s behind her
desk, bent over her monitor (or screen) in a loose-fitting floral blouse with
haphazard buttons, twin peaks and an inviting valley. Dark, hair, hardly
brushed because why brush when it falls so free?
She’s flicking through
thirty six pictures with mouse strokes - hotel rooms, beaches, sands.
Indistinct portraits of fixed grin families, deck-chaired or submerged or
diving with not a mask between them.
Which dates them, doesn’t
it?
No wait, this one has a
mask, look, but it’s plastic fronted and set over the eyes, leaving the mouth
and nose free to gargle germs into sea water.
Let the fish have it. Let
all sea urchins sneeze.
Now he’s been hanging
around long enough, she gives a friendly nod, fastens buttons instinctively.
They do that here.
A dazzling Hispanic smile
beckoned him, so Craig shuffled in, rubbing his grey pate and managing an
almost-blush, avoiding the blouse and, as he pushed behind her desk, she,
mindful of social distance, shoved up her mask so her nose no longer peeped.
“Morning, boss. How is it?
All good?”
“Only three days until
Zanzibar,” she gushed, “I’ve finished the online visa. Did you do it?”
“Yesterday. It was a breeze.
Easy. On Zanzibar’s strand, we soon will land.”
“Eh?”
“Nothing. There’s that 24-hour
medical thing on the ‘travel and entry’ page, though.”
“Did you get your PCR
virus test, yet?”
“Just waiting for them to
buzz me with the result. Not worried. I care less. Quarantine. Thing of the
past. We’re all triple vaccinated. Time’s up. Governments the world over know
that we have to live with it. What’s the point of a vaccine if no one trusts
it?”
Carlotta nodded, swiping
through pictures of Paradise Beach before flicking back to an opened spreadsheet.
“Thing of the past.” She reached for a bottle of sanitizer.
Craig wasn’t really here,
his hands strumming an imaginary guitar, a bass guitar, his index finger on the
G fret of the D String, the middle finger on the dominant. Somewhere mid
position, his eyes told a different story, his mouth was jumping this ship in
Melbourne town. “Those wretched young ones won’t be there. Getting pissed in
Turkey, I’ve heard.”
Neither was Carlotta,
though. “Excuse me, my dear, I must complete this,” sighed Carlotta, brushing
him off without any sort of broom; his turn to leave the room, sail south, a
smile upon his mouth.
He walked thirty paces and
the phone rang. In his pocket. Quiet mode, but it still did, anyway
If there is gold
underneath eucalyptus trees, it will not be silent.
Even now, long past the
days of walkie-talkies, defunct like silent films and many a piano player put
to pasture, retired by scurvy tars, intent on replacing Wurlitzers on rising
platforms with actors who can speak their lines directly to camera, even now, vibrating
pockets shake.
Do you reach within?
Depends on age. Some scowl
at the interruption, others feel disconnected without.
And realise we were once
only very small, but it flows on.
Craig stabbed at his life
with a chunky finger, swollen from a parrot bite.
“Yes?”
Candice’s voice issued
from the speaker. “Was cover set for Year 8 Girls?”
“Cover?”
“A couple of classes on
the girls’ side. No teacher.”
Craig bit his lower lip
with his upper teeth and twisted his mouth downwards. It was quite charming and
comely when he was twenty years younger. A habit he’d adopted and hadn’t
managed to shake off. Charming, that is, if anyone was around to see it. “Did you
check the cover sheet?” he muttered.
Had he checked the cover
sheet? I can’t remember.
“Well…er, no,” Candice
sounded surprised. It wasn’t her job, after all, I don’t think.
Anyway, he’s turned about
and was striding towards the girls’ side, over the bridge that spanned the gym,
through the double doors with a double palm push and swish; firmly cutting the
light behind him and panting into his mask. Yes, there she was, hanging off a
classroom door.
The stepometer had racked
up more metres, anyway, while he’s still kissing the phone, but he’s shoving it
back into his pocket now that he can see her.
“Well, who’s off sick this
time? Any ideas?”
You could hear the wasp of
teenage voices inside, some shrill, others more damning and incensed.
Candice bellowed through
the door and the hubbub washed away. “Did no one buzz in?”
Snorting, Craig checked
messages. “They never do, do they? No one does, these days. They just say ‘in quarantine’
and leave it at that. Too ill to set work. It’s endemic amongst the young ones.
They love it.”
The gold lures them away. The
young ones. Freshly minted, chucked out of sloppy UK training colleges, I’ve
heard, and on a jolly abroad for a couple of years. Still, not the sort of
thing he should have said, I agree, no matter how much truth might lie in the
suspicion that this pandemic is a jolly good thing for some. It isn’t. Is it?
Quarantine, I mean.
“Forty days and forty nights.”
“No. Usually only a week
these days. A week for what is basically a runny nose and a sore throat. Unprofessional,
I call it. I heard they were all kissing each other in the disco last weekend,
just to ensure maximum exposure.” Craig pushed past Candice, glaring inside, but
it’s hard to see the interior. His head reappeared. “Nearly the end. Of the
lesson. You’ll have to mind them.”
Craig fished in his other
pocket, removed his mask, pulled a tissue and blew his nose.
“I can’t. Forty Days and
Forty Nights’.
“What do you mean? That
maudlin hymn? And from worldly joys abstain? Fasting with unceasing prayer?”
“Well, it’s important to
me. It’s our rehearsal.”
“Well, yes. Suppose it is,
OK, I’ll do it, not as if I haven’t got a thousand things on my job list, though.”
“You haven’t got a job
list, remember?” Candice pointed out, fairly. You can see she is somewhat
shocked by her temerity, but she said it anyway.
“So I haven’t,” snapped
Craig, slamming the door behind him.
I guess it’s literally
five minutes later when that same door smashes open, almost tearing itself from
its hinges in rage and Craig’s sprinting back the way he came. Pretty impressive,
given his age and ancient bulk. The floor is taking a pasting. Out for the
count.
The phone’s back in his
right hand; he skids around the corner and straight into Carlotta’s office.
She’s still deep in
spreadsheets, deep in not being here but being in far off Zanzibar and on this
trip, you won’t leave the ship.
“What’s the matter, dear?”
Because she really, really likes him. As far as that goes.
Craig sounded like a man
who cannot believe the words coming from his mouth, but come they do and they
tumble out like the Angel Falls. “It’s off. I can’t go. I can’t go. Can you
believe my fucking luck?”
“Now, of course you can.
What do you mean?”
“The result.” Craig shook
his phone as though strangling it. “My result. It’s ‘inconclusive’.
Inconclusive.”
“What do you mean, dear?
What is ‘inconclusive’?”
Well he means that now we
lie in Salthouse Dock, he’ll go no more to sea sir, that’s what he means. There
is some sort of scurvy, isn’t there?
“’Inconclusive’. I don’t
know what it means. Yes I do, it means quarantine. Forty days, forty nights.
Bloody quarantine. I’m no better than those bloody kids, am I?”
Craig stabbed his phone
with his parrot bite. Sure enough, the reassuring green had been replaced with
a flaccid yellow fevered screen that jumped out at him in mockery. He blew his
nose almost spitting onto the floor the throat drop he was sucking. “There’s
nothing bloody wrong with me. A runny nose. That’s all. A runny bloody nose.”
“Yes, dear, just move a
little away from my desk, though, will you?” Carlotta bit her bottom lip with
her front teeth and pulled a comical expression, which was rather comely and
charming. Craig was not in the mood for it, so it fell upon stony ground.
But she pressed on anyway.
“Those kids. Yes. All off to Turkey. Know what I think? They pulled the
quarantine early in order to be clear for the holidays. That’s why we have too
much cover this week.” She frowned. “Do you know, don’t repeat this, I heard
they were all kissing each other in the disco.”
“Were they? Bastards.”
“Clever, though. It’s that
young way of thinking. They can see all the…wrinkles.”
“Well punish them, then,
let them suffer. Put out to the ministry that they’ve come into contact with
the virus.”
“But they haven’t. They’ve
been in quarantine.”
“Dock their pay, then. We’ve
been carrying them all bloody year.”
Carlotta tittered. “Well,
we could do that, but because they’ve been in quarantine, they get paid sick
leave anyway. What would be the point? We take away with one hand; give back
with the other.”
“I don’t believe in
quarantine, I won’t have it,” blustered Craig, but you could see the light
dawning, the scales falling from his watery, wrinkled eyes.
Conjunctivitis or just
sheer bad luck?
Nodding, Carlotta licked
her lips, and, to be fair, her expression was not without sympathy. “A shame. So
sorry, my dear. Like me, you come to school with a runny nose for a week. But,
unlike you, I got lucky.”
“You’re not Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers, you know.”
“Who?”
At this point, I have to
report that Candice was hanging off the door, handling the handle in her hand,
unsure whether to come in or not. Dreaming.
As he pushed past her, I
think she hummed, “then if Satan on us press flesh or spirit to assail, grant
we may not faint nor fail,” but I wouldn’t place 500 riyals on it.
Look, here’s Craig.
Shall we not share his
pain?
Why, you ask? Well, even
though you might think it, it’s not quite the end of his story. Perhaps a month
later and he will hang off the glass plated office door. In the mornings. His
hands the handle…well, you know how it goes by now.
Candice, looking up from
her job list, sees him there. She smiles, but what kind of smile is hard to
say. Younger than his smile, that can be proven, but older than a dozen,
woebegone, hungover teachers, lately arrived from Turkey.
Now drifting past the
office, they glance in, see her sitting in that comfortable, simulated leather
chair, perhaps they straighten their hair, check dress and become altogether
more brisk as they hurry to class.
And they see him, not averse
to pushing the plunger on his own behalf.
Perhaps one push out of five
would result in hot liquid slopping all over his shirt - post pandemic, post
quarantine, post online, post mask, post every bloody thing.
Today was one of those.
Wiping black streaks of
oily, bitty liquid, gritty stuff from his trousers and his shirt, because It
had spurted everywhere, of course, he might have stared at and muttered to dark
prowling shapely beasts, “you threw me under the bus.”
And, in turn, Candice
would take tissues in order to rub his chest, which rippled like a pond after
stones had been thrown.
