Naive Psychologist

The Christmas cards from her best friends were still on the mantlepiece. One of the cards had come in November, and here we are in May. She saw the cards every day, but she looked at them only every now and then.

This morning she picked them up, one by one, but she did not put them down. She held them in a small pile in her hand. The dust from the cards brushed against, then settled in, her fingertips. It was a sensation she had never liked and when she was young she used to lick the tips of her fingers then rub them against her thumb. It was something that had annoyed her mother.

She used her other hand to rub her eyes then scratch her hair. She had showered as soon as she got out of bed, but there were nights which could not be washed away.

Now that she had them in her hand she did not know what to do with the cards. She could see the dust on the mantlepiece, and it felt wrong to put them back.

The window rattled in the way it had started to do. The top window pane was still cracked and had that small, inexplicable hole. It was old, thin glass. And rattling like that. It was the kind of thing you should fix.

It was a good place to put the cards though. Over there on the window sill. She could move the rocks and the broken cup. And the paint was light, so you couldn’t really see the dust.

If the cards were there, then from her desk, she would only have to turn her head a little and she would be able to see them. All lined up.

And she could remind herself to be the person her friends thought she was.

Adelaide lifted the lid of the toilet seat only to find that it had already been cleaned.

And people say romance is dead.

After checking all the normal hiding spots, both hers and the mister’s, Adelaide wished the mister had either:

a. bought more chocolate when he did the shopping over the weekend

or

b. not eaten it all while he was home by himself over the weekend.

It would be good when the children were old enough to be sent off to the shops.

The best thing about the mister’s shopping was that it always contained generous numbers of not-bad dips; a good quantity of a good class of blue vein cheese; olives toward the better end; and a packet of soy sausages for the nights no one wanted to cook.

All of which Adelaide had now consumed. And she’d barely been back in the house one full day.

Adelaide opened the letterbox to find that her genius remained unrecognised – in fact, rejected – by all but her children. And a few others who were highly supportive, but lacked influence outside their own spheres.

And anyway, this wasn’t about genius. It was about skills and knowledge and experience, her possession of which she had most clearly demonstrated.

She took a deep breath, walked out of the post office and looked both ways before she crossed the road.

Adelaide sat. Waiting for things to change.

It seemed not to matter whether she crossed her legs, uncrossed her arms, smiled or scowled.

Nothing changed while she sat.

She had not noticed that there were towels in the hall; glitter and pancakes all over the floor; a cushion on the bookshelf; a cereal box on the lounge; a pile of sticks with string strung around; coffee cups galore; a line of brown apple cores on the bottom stair; a wine bottle with the cork off; and pyjamas in the sink.

Until her neighbour walked in.

It was the kind of day made Adelaide think of the university lecturer who had written, on every one of the essays Adelaide handed her, generally lucid, but occasionally diffuse.

Having reached a significant milestone by working freaking hard at it for three full days – and one of them a public holiday – Adelaide opened a bottle of wine before she started the tea.

One glass later, she thought they might have pizza tonight.

She took another gulp of the red, then waved – not unkindly but without nostalgia – at the woman who had believed that every meal she fed her children should be a nutritionally balanced one.

‘I still feel a bit shy about this,’ her little boy said. He used one hand to wipe quickly at his eyes, the other to squeeze her hand.

They were only half way across the playground and the door was closed. Either of them could still change their minds (except for the pile of work she simply could not put off for another single moment).

‘But I’m going to give it a try, and I’ll get used to it, and then I’ll have fun,’ he said.

And it was good to know that you weren’t getting everything wrong.