Crooked Words Page 6

belt sighed again. “Then there is nothing for it. We go to the school and you begin your quest to become a swordsman worthy of me. Turn left.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “Yes, you do. You want to walk through the crowd and not have someone touch you. You want to be a man; you do not want to be a gangly boy laughed at by everyone you see. You do not want a sword; you want to be seen. You want to be somewhere else, away from home—you want to be, in point of fact, someone else altogether, or you would not have left on a fool’s errand to find something you know does not exist. Magic has not brought you what you want, or you would not be out here trying to find it.”

  Darius swallowed, struck by the horrible realisation that he had no way at all of countering that particular speech. “I…”

  “You want to be the man who went on an epic adventure and found the impossible and returned, glorious and triumphant. But all you did was talk to people and get knocked over and eat spit-roasted rat.”

  “Possum.”

  “I assure you that there are no possums in Rajad.”

  Darius stood very still and concentrated on not vomiting. “I … I was going to go home and go to the monastery,” he said, after a moment.

  “Hide away because you failed, you mean?”

  He sighed. Why did the damn thing have to be so right all the time? “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Okay—yes. I was going to go home and hide. Happy?”

  “So do something different,” the belt said. “Turn left.”

  Darius glanced down the alleyway. “You’re not going to let me give you to March, are you?”

  “When I have before me a project?” The belt’s voice rose in pitch, as if excited. “Of course not. Now turn, Darius. Turn left!”

  Darius sighed and, quite sure that he was going to live to regret it, stepped out into the laneway. Perhaps he could blame whatever happened next on the fact that he had a throbbing head-wound and was incapable of making a sound decision right now. How else could he explain the fact that he didn’t really want to go home? That the idea of becoming the kind of man who could navigate marketplaces and defend himself, the kind of man that wasn’t disregarded as a boy, the kind of man that someone might notice, was something he wanted more than magic? He was a magician, he shouldn’t want—but he did.

  “Good boy,” the belt said, almost whistling the words. “Now we start on the road towards getting you a penis.”

  Darius just flailed in shock, almost on the verge of putting his hands over his ears once more, but then he squared his shoulders. “I don’t need a penis to be a man.”

  “Exactly.” The belt broke out into a fit of babbling, incomprehensible, metallic laughter. “You just may learn yet, boy!”

  He had no idea, but he had the sneaking suspicion that the belt would ensure he figured it out anyway.

  Darius sighed, shrugged, and trudged down the laneway.

  The Art of Letting Go

  [Note: since the artifice of the play is that the kitchen setting is in fact the stage it’s performed on, directions refer to the stage setting as opposed to the kitchen setting.]

  A row of kitchen-type tables stretches across the stage, cutting it in two. There is enough space between two of the tables for a person to walk through, but this is blocked by a tall chair. Dotted across and around both halves of the stage are dining tables and kitchen stools. Odd kitchen assortments like cups, plates, kettles and muffin trays are placed on the tables; brooms and buckets, shopping baskets, and a plastic tub piled with dishes on a cupboard are scattered around the space. They’re all slightly out of style, inexpensive, and well used. Flowers are arranged in vases around the room; here and there drawings (ranging from childish to artistic) hang on the walls. A stool is placed, on the left-hand side of the stage, in front of the centre table, as if in front of a kitchen bench.

  MARIA (mother, sales assistant in her mid-50s, wearing an out-of-style apron bearing her work name-badge over a similar shirt and slacks, and sensible shoes) stands to the right of stage, wiping down the tables and chairs with a cloth. As DIANA (daughter, sales assistant, early 20s, wearing in-style casual jeans and shoes with a shoe-store-logo polo shirt, carrying a large over-stuffed sausage bag with a shirt-sleeve poking out from the top) enters from the door placed at stage left and lets it slam behind her, Maria pours two cups of tea and places two muffins on plates.

  Maria: Hi, hon. How was your day?

  Diana: [looks around at the stage, and then up at Maria] I, ah, well. Mum. I guess I lost my job.

  Maria: You guess you lost your job? What did you do, Diana?

  [Diana drops her bag to one side of the stage and sits on the kitchen bench stool.]

  Diana: I didn’t do anything. I mean that, well, I actually lost it.

  Maria: [hands Diana a cup] How did you actually lose your job, then? Is it because you’ve been turning down overtime? I said you shouldn’t be doing that—I don’t know why you want your Fridays free. You’re not doing anything but go out with your friends, anyway.

  Diana: No. Mum, I told you—David’s cool with me not working Fridays. It’s just that centre management jacked up the rent again, so he’s closing the shop. Since I was only casual … well, first to go and all that.

  [Maria picks at her muffin as if buying for time to think. Only after she’s taken a sip of tea does she speak.]

  Maria: I told you, Diana. You should have tried for the full-time job.

  Diana: Why? What would’ve that done? David’s closing the store. Everyone’s leaving. Anna says we could get jobs at the chicken shop, but I don’t know. The hours suck and … well, food.

  [Diana reaches over for the second muffin.]

  Maria: No, I meant that receptionist job. You know, the good one. You should have gone for that.

  Diana: You know I don’t like that sort of thing. Phone calls.

  Maria: You wouldn’t be in this situation now, though, would you?

  Diana: No. I guess.

  Maria: Well, you can now go and look for a better job. You were far too good for that place. It didn’t matter how hard you worked—you were never going to get ahead there. Now you can go somewhere decent.

  [Maria picks up the muffin plate and places it, crumbs and all. into the sink. She then picks up her cloth and polishes any item in her reach.]

  Diana: It wasn’t bad. David’s been really good to me. And the staff discount!

  Maria: You never went full-time, though. You should have. You’re far better than that Anna girl.

  [Diana makes a non-committal grunting noise.]

  Maria: You go and polish up your resume, put some effort into a real career. Such a shame about that receptionist job, though. That would have been fantastic for you.

  Diana: Mum. I don’t like receptionist work. I don’t like phones!

  [Diana takes a bite from her muffin. Crumbs splatter over the table-top.]

  Maria: I’m just trying to help. There’s no need to get all shirty at me.

  Diana: Sorry.

  [Maria wipes at the crumbs.]

  Maria: Are you going to give me a hand instead of sitting there like a princess?

  [Diana gets up and heads toward the closest chair. She carries it toward the table.]

  Maria: In any case, won’t doing that kind of work help you get over it? I’d think that’d be a good thing. Look at me! I couldn’t even use a computer three years ago, and now I can send emails and find things on Yahoo. I’m almost as good as all those young things they bring in, and it all it takes is a little bit of effort.

  Diana: [mutters] But you still haven’t figured out capslock.

  Maria: What was that?

  Diana: Just saying that I don’t like that kind of office work.

  [Maria puts down her cloth and brings the closest chair over to the tables.]

  Maria: Well, what can you do, then? You’re wasting your skills, working in a shop. You can use a computer!

  Diana: So can everyone
else, Mum.

  Maria: You’re still far too talented to be working in some shop. I didn’t raise my girl for that.

  [Maria stacks the chair somewhere on top of the row of tables. Neither woman looks or behaves as though this is out of the ordinary. Diana follows with her own chair.]

  Diana: You work in a shop, Mum.

  Maria: But that’s me. What else was I supposed to do, after I was left—anyway, you don’t want to end up like me, do you? You have your whole life ahead of you, so shouldn’t you be aspiring for something better?

  [Both women go and fetch another chair.]

  Diana: I don’t know.

  Maria: [stacking her chair on the table] What about going back to school? I think you could be a good teacher. Or what about a librarian?

  Diana: Me? In a library? Get serious, Mum.

  Maria: I am. Mrs Johnson said that her daughter’s studying something at school to become a librarian, and you’re good at computers. If she can do it, you could.

  Diana: No. I don’t want to be a librarian. Mum, can we not do this now?

  Maria: What’s wrong with right now? You’re not working, are you?

  Diana: [places her chair on the table] I … Mum, I just got fired—like, half an hour ago. Can’t we do this later? I have to call Suze, and tell her I can’t go out on Saturday, and ring Josie about Friday, and…

  [Maria picks up her cloth and starts scrubbing at one of the chair legs.]

  Maria: When are you going to talk about it, then? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Never?

  Diana: [turns away to grab another chair] What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

  Maria: You really mean you don’t know?

  Diana: Do I look like a mind reader?

  Maria: You’ve spent the last