Zones. Damien Broderick

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      “Got any Pepsi?”

      “Come upstairs to my room, I’ve got some in the fridge.”

      One of my father’s lateral thinking breakthroughs was providing me with a small refrigerator of my own, the sort they have in hotel rooms. I keep Cokes and stuff in it, and ice cream and chocolate when it’s hot, and he figures this stops me from making a mess in the kitchen. Considering that I am preparing half the food in the house these days, this is pushing his luck.

      “Where’s the olds? Sorry,” she catches my look, “the old.”

      “Downstairs getting some report prepared. ‘Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,’ that sort of thing.”

      “Huh?”

      “William Blake or something.”

      “William who?”

      I give up. “A poet.”

      “Uh. Does he play with a band?”

      “Let’s start again from the beginning, shall we? Hey, Madeleine, ah jest lahhhv yo’ clothes.”

      “Whah, thank yo’, babba dorl.” She twirls, sending bits spinning outward. She throws herself backwards across my messy bed and tries hard to look like a frame from a video clip. “Music,” she cries. “Play music. I’ll go crazy if I don’t hear music.”

      I switch on K-Rock but it’s doing a retrospective on the era of the Beatles and the Stones or something. Not that I’ve got anything against John Lennon, or Julian for that matter. No, Julian wasn’t one of the Beatles, was he? Anyway, it’s Mick Jagger and the Stones who’ve just been here for their first tour in twenty-three years or whatever it is.

      Madeleine finds a Yothu Yindi CD and starts bouncing around the room, humming and pulling faces. “What kind of reports?” she asks, popping a big bubble of gum.

      “What kind of reports what?”

      “Is he writing? I mean, I never thought about it until just now. What is your father?”

      “Economist,” I mumble. Maybe I’m jealous. That’s what it feels like, a nasty little stab. But I couldn’t tell you if I am jealous because she’s paying attention to Poppa instead of to the fun time we are supposed to be having, or because I want to keep Poppa to myself. Having a mind like a steel trap isn’t all good times. It hurts. Maybe I just shouldn’t worry about it.

      Madeleine stops dead and stares at me with her jaw hanging open and the blob of gum stuck to her front teeth.

      “Jenny! Your father’s a communist?”

      I fall on the bed laughing, then fall off it laughing. I can’t help it. She’s such a jerk.

      “What did I say?” She’s giggling with me, and we are both snorting like fools and pounding our feet on the floor without really knowing why. There is a crabby shout from downstairs to please for the love of God get rid of those damned rhinos or leave me in peace. I choke and cover her mouth with a pillow. She fights me off and whispers hoarsely:

      “Tell me true! Is he a communist or what? I won’t hold it against him, Helen’s father is a bus-driver.”

      “Economist,” I hiss. “Money. You know, that paper stuff we wish we had some of so we could buy a— buy some—” I have to stop. I can’t think of anything I want to buy.

      “Clothes,” Madeleine is saying dreamily, “records, great beads, get our hair done every day, cars, trips to Disneyland and see Braincase playing in New York or Las Vegas or wherever and—”

      Downstairs, the phone rings. I think of going down to get it, but decide Poppa’s closer. It keeps ringing. I get up and go to the door. By the time I hit the landing he’s come out of his study and answers it. He glances up to me.

      “Are you the teenager with the mind like a steel trap?”

      I stare at him. I haven’t told anybody, not even him over lunch.

      “Is that Davy?”

      “I shouldn’t think so, unless his speech has improved markedly. Well come on, don’t dawdle, my computer’s probably having a melt-down while I loiter here.”

      I gallop down the stairs. He grimaces and mutters something about damned elephants should have been put out with the rhinos and hands me the receiver.

      “Yes?”

      “Don’t hang up,” the voice says.

      “You again.”

      “Oh, if only you knew. If you realized how much sweat and pain and bloody trouble you put us to, doing what you—” His voice cuts off suddenly, as if someone had covered the mouthpiece. A few seconds later he says in a much more controlled tone, “I’m not getting off to a very good start this time either, am I?”

      “I don’t have the faintest idea.” I see Madeleine peering down over the top banister with her eyebrows pushed up into her frizzy blonde hair, doing a question at me. I shrug back and wave my free hand in a circle. I add, “I suppose it depends what you’re trying to say and who you think you’re saying it to.” Whom.

      “Who am I saying it to? No, hang on, my turn. This is Rod Gianforte. You’ve never met me, but I guarantee that I’m of sound character and clean in mind and person. Please laugh, that was a friendly self-deprecatory joke.”

      “Ha ha,” I say. I hold the receiver away from my face and stare at it. When I get it back to my ear he’s saying, “...tremendously important.” The voice takes a deep and shuddering breath. “Listen, nameless teenager, I would beg your indulgence for just three more questions. Think of this as some kind of intelligence test, or a quiz, yes, that’s it, like a—”

      “What’s the prize?”

      “The prize? Golly, the prize...it’s just about anything you could ask for, I suppose, when you think about it.”

      He seems so enthralled with this thought that I start to hear a weird sound, in behind him, like a whole room of other people sitting and listening and holding their breaths. “Um, anyway, mysterious teenager, I really would be very grateful if you’d just give me the answers to these three—”

      “Jenny,” I say, on a sudden impulse.

      There is a sound like a wave going out late at night, low tide, gentle but powerful, like a roomful of ghosts brushing through each other.

      “Thank you, Jenny. Thank you very much. Now, this is the first question. You will think it sounds strange, crazy, nuts, but please just tell me the simple truth. What is the name of the president of the United States?”

      What kind of quiz is this? A quiz for cretins? A test for people who don’t know what day it is? Come to think of it, this guy sounds as if he doesn’t know what day it is. He’s already proved he doesn’t know what time it is.

      So I give up trying СКАЧАТЬ