The Word Page 3

  ‘I’m not sure I have a “style” – a man like me …’

  – with or without sleeves –

  ‘So why are you in this game?’ asked Sylvie. ‘Is it the money? The challenge? The power? Or something else?’

  ‘To tell the truth, I’ve never really thought about it in those terms,’ Kenric confessed. ‘I think it’s because I love – yes, I’m beginning to realise I love words. In fact, words are all I think about; they’re all-important to me. I don’t take them for granted, see –’

  Sylvie broke into a smile and spontaneously clapped, which made Kenric glance towards the kitchen; sure enough, Paloma appeared in the kitchen doorway and gave them an enquiring look, waiting a moment before withdrawing.

  Sylvie drew closer to Kenric and said, ‘You’re a poet, Kenric. It’s what I’ve always thought, what I’ve always known. Do you realise you’re a poet? I know all your brands and messages by heart.’

  Kenric laughed.

  ‘You don’t think I’m serious, do you?’ said Sylvie. ‘But why not?’

  ‘My work is anonymous, Ms Parsons.’

  ‘Call me Sylvie. You say it’s anonymous, but I recognise your touch. Anyone can, once they’re familiar with it. Consumers certainly can – as the sales show. Not that they’re conscious of it. Now, Kenric, to business: my firm has been doing some research on you, and we’ve found a consistent pattern in The Firm’s products. Put simply, those products you title and message sell far in excess of those anyone else works on. In short, your work is astonishingly successful.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Sylvie rubbed salt crystals between her fingertips.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘You are quite a phenomenon.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Either I don’t understand your sense of humour, Kenric, or you are refreshingly naive.’

  ‘I’m naive.’

  ‘They’re very protective of you, you know,’ Sylvie told him.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Firm. They’ve offered me no information on you at all – I’ve had to work very hard for what I’ve got. I think your last secretary didn’t even pass on my messages. But there’s a new one. She’s either –’

  ‘What is this all about?’ asked Kenric.

  ‘Put simply,’ Sylvie continued, her voice dropping again, ‘your brand names inspire people to buy, and you seem to be leading – personally, it’s my view that you are its cutting edge – a trend towards exquisite and substantial messaging, a trend that is proving, despite long-held views to the contrary, to be genuinely persuasive. That moment you name a brand – that moment is inspiration. And that moment is worth a lot of money, since you can sell anything, Kenric, any old thing, because you understand the power of words.’

  Paloma placed their orders on the table – rather huffily, Kenric thought.

  ‘I don’t sell “any old thing” –’

  ‘Kenric, you do realise that I’m making you an offer? My firm will give you complete conceptual liberty,’ said Sylvie, ‘and whatever you’re being paid now, we’ll pay a good deal more. We’ll look after you.’

  Sylvie was the first person in Kenric’s life to pay for his lunch.

  Kenric strode back to the office, filled with impatience to tell Maria – of all people – about his startling conversation with Sylvie. He felt superhuman at that moment: anything might happen, and he could do anything in response.

  Maria was not about, however. For a long time Kenric sat gazing out the window, waiting for her to appear in the office. Three, four, five ferries came and went, the day grew darker – still he kept looking out the window.

  At last Maria came to the door. ‘All well, I hope?’ she asked, and snapped shut her handbag, preparing to leave. ‘Still at work naming things?’

  The office felt empty.

  ‘It’s true I have never had so many words running through my head,’ Kenric said, ‘only, for the first time I can remember, the words are not related to my work.’

  Kenric was tempted to ask Maria – what are words, and why are they powerful? Somehow he knew she would not laugh or dismiss these questions. But they would be odd questions to pose to a person he hardly knew, after all – and a work colleague at that. Nevertheless, he heard himself ask, as he went to stand by the window, ‘Why is it that certain words, in a certain order, can make us cry, or laugh, or lead us to a decision and alter us in some way, Maria? How can they shape reality like that?’

  He faced the darkening water and its neon city. Maria did not reply to his questions. But he felt he had touched something in her, and she had come to stand beside him. He considered her image in the glass, where her eyes appeared large and swimming, with gold in them, a honey kind of gold. The cars below nudged and beetled through reflection, and he could not tell what was himself and what was her – only where she was full, he was hollow.

  ‘You haven’t told me what Ms Sylvie Parsons had to say for herself,’ said Maria, smiling.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ sighed Kenric. ‘No doubt it was mostly lies. Although she could talk.’

  After a moment Maria began to dab at her cheeks with a tissue. She had been weeping, quietly.

  On the train home that evening, Kenric’s eyes inexplicably prickled, and everything outside him began to blur. The other commuters nodded off, their heads lolling about, like so many overgrown children coming home from an excursion. He could not put words to the feelings that welled up inside him, he did not have the words, and he beseeched his reflection in the train window, Why can’t I say what I am feeling? Why won’t the words come?

  Then Kenric became irritably aware that the sweater Janis had insisted on knitting him was too small and constricted his breathing and movements.

  ‘KENRIC’

  – in three sizes –

  He slipped out of it, immediately relieved.

  That night he reached out to touch Janis, felt the turn of her shoulder, and withdrew his hand.

  With just a peck on the cheek, they said goodbye the next Monday morning. She would be gone a week – Janis’s job at The Foundation occasionally required her to travel interstate.

  Kenric found it hard to look at Maria that day, and she seemed especially busy. This continued throughout the week. They were avoiding one another. On the Friday he wandered to the Spanish restaurant for lunch, arriving there without even knowing he had been heading that way. Kenric sat by himself in what might now be considered his corner, and there began fondly to recall the nice things Sylvie had said to him the last time he had visited the restaurant, and also the things he unexpectedly began to say back. ‘You’re a very, very talented man’ – hadn’t Sylvie told him? At the memory of these words, Kenric ordered a bottle of wine, although he rarely drank. What else had they said?

  ‘Yes, I’m beginning to realise I have a power, Sylvie, a power with words.’

  ‘It goes without saying, Kenric – words are your thing.’

  ‘I spend my life thinking about words. You know, I hadn’t realised there was anything unusual about that. Now I know other people don’t have that sort … that sort of focus.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Yes, it seems I am somehow unusual in that.’

  Kenric, still recalling that conversation with Sylvie, was soon pouring himself a second glass of wine. To Kenric’s surprise, Paloma brought him his usual order without him having to ask. He beamed full into her face. She was instantly reduced to confusion, and struggled to top up his glass.

  Soon Paloma reappeared to stand by the table, from where she openly, almost defiantly, inspected him. ‘You almost knocked me down the other day,’ she unexpectedly scolded, ‘you wicked man.’

  ‘I’m so dreadfully sorry.’

  She laughed, and poured the last of the bottle. Kenric looked about and saw they were alone in the restaurant. Lunch hour was over, perhaps long over.

  ‘You’re a funny one,’ said Paloma, ‘I’ve been watching you lately. I can tell a lot by h
ow and what a person orders, and by how they eat and drink. You eat like someone who never stops thinking – you hardly notice what goes in your mouth. I pity your wife, if you have one.’ For a moment she considered her pointed dancing toe. Paloma had a parchment look about her yellow cheeks and long eyes; she had the woman she would become shadowing her. ‘I’ve seen you sitting here with those advertising types,’ she continued, ‘but you don’t seem to fit. You’re thinking about something else while they talk and drink and eat – yes, you don’t fit. So, what do you do?’

  ‘I’m a poet,’ Kenric replied, lifting his glass. At that, Paloma pulled up a chair and sat opposite, the better to regard him. ‘Well, a poet of sorts,’ he added.

  ‘Have you published anything?’ asked Paloma.

  ‘Oh yes, it sells.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kenric assured her, ‘people buy it.’

  ‘What do you write about?’

  ‘Oh, whatever moves me at the time. My last piece I called “The Dove” – after you.’

  ‘You’re having me on.’

  ‘Paloma!’ cried a thickset man from the kitchen doorway. The man’s tight shirt was partly undone; his hairy, hachured chest gleamed. Paloma cried back in another language, threw her arms in the air, and demanded of Kenric, ‘There’s no one about, is there – so can’t I rest my feet?’

  She got up, however, with a sigh as pointed as her nose and her elbows, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Kenric was aware it was long past the time he should have returned to the office. Yet he was afraid that by moving he might lose something he had found stirring within him. It seemed he was waking from half a lifetime of sleep. He looked about. The restaurant was a drab, dingy little room, with rows of wooden tables and walls hung with faded, spotty prints of mountain vistas. A thickly knotted net was slung high across one corner, the net studded with large shells. Kenric was reminded of some seashore moment from his childhood, a moment he could not bring into focus.

  Then he noticed the sign inside the door read Open. The little restaurant was closed.

  The man with the exposed chest reappeared. ‘So you’re a poet!’ he bellowed, wiping his stubby hands on a striped apron hanging nearby. ‘You never said.’ The man introduced himself as Pete, and with a swift movement drew up a bottle of red wine in one hand and a cluster of green glasses in the other. ‘Have a drink with me, my friend,’ cried Pete. ‘My people are lovers of poets.’ Pete placed himself opposite Kenric with a thud.

  ‘That’s very kind,’ Kenric said, ‘but I must be going –’

  ‘No, no, no, you’re a regular customer, aren’t you? Then stay awhile. Stay and have a drink – it’s on us. Our poet! A poet must pause to reflect. I can see you’re a shy man, but so are most poets. You see, I’ve met your type before. You can’t surprise me.’

  Pete poured two glasses of wine, quaffing his in a single draught. Paloma crossed from the kitchen to the front of the restaurant and closed the curtains of the front windows, lowering the light to sepia. Two stout women appeared in the kitchen doorway, their skirts belted high, their blouses full. The women made asides as they watched Kenric and Pete talk. Then a pair of small children burst from the interior, rolling a pink plastic hoop between the tables.

  ‘Sitting in your corner by yourself, day after day,’ mused Pete. ‘How do you do it, Kennie, eh? I’ve always wanted to be a poet. To sing of this life we lead –’

  ‘I really must –’

  ‘But why? It’s Friday afternoon. Don’t you ever relax, my friend? Drink! You work hard, Kennie. Too hard. Learn to enjoy life – drink! Drink will clear away the cobwebs and allow new light to shine on your words. And what is time to a poet?’

  Kenric drank.

  At that moment a number of shadows gathered at the frosted glass of the front door. Paloma let in a band of revellers, men and women, who shouted with laughter and cried out hello. Some of the newcomers brandished musical instruments, which they struck and stroked in passing, producing random trills and twangs. The room seemed to turn. A copper light traced the frayed curtains.

  ‘They come every Friday,’ Paloma explained to Kenric. ‘You’ll stay, won’t you? I dance.’

  More visitors arrived. Tables were swept back. An arc of musicians, who had arrayed themselves in a corner, suddenly struck up playing, loudly and in instant accord. People began to dance; Pete and the stout women busied themselves pouring wine and handing about trays of food. The room became ever duskier and closer, and a circle formed. Kenric found himself swaying and clapping along to the music, and after Paloma had danced, he stood and clapped loudest.

  ‘And now,’ cried Pete, turning around in the middle of the room, the music abruptly halted, ‘our honoured guest, the poet Kennie, man of words, shall recite for us some verse. Bring that chair here, Paloma – stand here, Kennie, on this table, go on, up you get. My friends, I present to you – Kennie!’ Kenric had been helped up onto the tabletop, his head bumping a lightshade and dislodging a shower of desiccated moths. Vague shadows like marionettes passed beyond the glass door, and Kenric heard and faintly felt the muted surge and gasp of traffic from the street; the faces arrayed below waited for him to speak. Fixing his eyes upon Paloma, Kenric recited his brand names and their accompanying product messages, randomly stringing together those he most loved. The audience listened raptly, smiling inwardly as each phrase rippled through their collective memory.

  Then the music struck up again, and Kenric clambered down from the table. Paloma, standing at the kitchen door, inclined her head. As if drawn on a line, Kenric followed her, through the kitchen, up a honey-coloured stairwell, behind a cream door, a door Paloma quietly locked. Then she stood by the window, facing him. He remembered the restaurant’s white painted balcony – he had often seen it from the street, with its wrought-iron railing and chair, and its rows of pretty painted pots. They had nice shapes and colours. Kenric could see over Paloma’s shoulder, through the cast iron to the street, as the city grew dark, and ever more people filed head-down, past grimy sandstone walls. He laughed at their oblivion, and the woman laughed with him, and he concentrated on breathing, evenly. No words were spoken.

  ‘Kenric! Where the hell have you been?’ cried Quick. ‘I want a word with you – it’s long past six o’clock!’

  ‘I want a word with you, too,’ said Kenric, brushing past Quick in the corridor. Kenric slammed shut his office door and sat at the desk, head in hands.

  Maria, stranded near the filing cabinet by this abrupt entrance, began tiptoeing towards the door.

  ‘You’re still here?’ said Kenric, looking up. ‘Wait, don’t go –’

  ‘Where did you get to?’ asked Maria. ‘The boss was getting angry – he said you were sometimes late in the morning, but that you never had long lunches … I went down to the restaurant to look for you, but it was closed.’

  ‘I was inside.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Drunk,’ said Kenric. ‘I got drunk.’

  Maria raised her eyebrows in amusement.

  ‘There was music, a party –’

  ‘I could hear.’

  ‘Then I … I slept with a woman there, the waitress.’

  Vagabond

  Maria made her way softly to the window.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maria –’

  ‘Don’t say sorry to me!’

  ‘I seduced the waitress with words,’ said Kenric. ‘I could feel her falling for the words, feel the words – the slogans, the messages – go to work on her, on everyone in the room. It worked. But it was an abuse of my products. And it was an abuse of words. Now I realise I have been doing that with words, one way or another, every day of my life. I seduce and trick people with words!’

  Quick entered.

  ‘I think you owe us an explanation, Kenric. We’ve been working. What have you been doing? You have projects overdue. You’re behind. Where have you been?’

  ‘I have decided to resign, Quest,’ announce
d Kenric.

  ‘Resign? What will you do?’

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve thought this through,’ said Quick.

  That was true. ‘I’m still leaving,’ said Kenric.

  ‘This is completely out of character, Kenric – a man like you –’

  – with or without sleeves –

  ‘A man like me,’ said Kenric, ‘can do what he wants.’

  ‘But you can’t just spring this on us,’ said Quick. ‘We had no idea you had an issue with The Firm. You can’t let down the team. And you still haven’t told me – what is going on? What is the problem?’

  ‘The problem is this: the purpose of words is not to delude, but to reveal – to illuminate, not to obscure. It’s not to engender appetite, but to provide meaning. Having made this discovery, I find my life’s work thus far pretty hollow and rather pointless.’

  ‘I don’t recognise you,’ said Quick. ‘Is this some kind of religious conversion?’

  ‘No. It’s purely philosophical – it’s ethical.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘Not any longer.’

  ‘Then spare us the glib righteousness,’ said Quick. ‘You will continue to work here.’

  ‘I can’t. Rationally, I can’t.’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Kenric,’ said Quick, lowering his voice while gritting his teeth, ‘if you leave The Firm, you will be wasting your talent. You’re a dreamer. Being a dreamer, you need structure – otherwise you won’t perform. Outside The Firm, you will be nothing, Kenric – a nobody. The Firm has nurtured and protected you, fostered your talent. We’ve put up with you and your quirks. You should see us as patrons of a sort. You should be grateful. You will not find others as sympathetic. For your own good you will continue to work here.’

  Kenric began emptying his desk drawers.

  ‘What do you want?’ cried Quick. ‘Do you want a raise?’ ‘I want to leave, that’s all. I have to leave.’

  Quick went red in the face and yelled, ‘You don’t defy me!’

  Kenric slid objects from his desk into the waste-paper basket. Quick took a step forward and grabbed Kenric’s shirt. For a moment, an excavated sliver in Quick’s face revealed the still-forming messenger boy he had been – before Maria stepped between them, facing Quick, who blinked rapidly, and seemed to wake and resume his current form. Shaking his head, he stalked from the office.