How to be a Good Veronica. Michael K Freundt

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      “No, I know that, but maybe he was using that as an example: you go to them, they don’t come to you.”

      “Oh, I see. Did he say anything else?” asked Veronica trying not to sound too eager.

      “No, only that you don’t talk much about your work, but he understands that: he knows you can’t talk about your patients.”

      “Patients? Did he use that word?”

      “Yes, he did,” said Rosemary and then as if she had always wanted to ask her next question, she said weakly, “are they?” Veronica looked sharply at the girl and could instantly see how hard it was for her to ask an adult a question like that. Was she growing away from her cloistered and strict Chinese family or was she just growing up?

      “Well, in a way,” said Veronica. “I like to call them clients. I’m a psychologist so I don’t treat the health of their bodies, I treat the health of their minds, their behaviour, their idea of themselves and how they fit and operate in the world.” She liked her off-the-cuff description but what still worried her was what she had not said, and could not say.

      "I see. Yes,” said Rosemary. And Veronica could see how her words were forming a meaning in the young girl’s mind and a meaning that she understood and seemed pleased with.

      “Good,” said Veronica with a smile and an understanding that the conversation was over.

      “Thanks for the coffee, Veronica. I’m not allowed to drink coffee at home.”

      “Why not?”

      “Oh, you know, old fashioned parents who think coffee is too stimulating for a girl.”

      “Are they that strict? You poor thing.”

      “Oh there’s no need to feel sorry for me. They love me and I love them but” and she leant forward conspiratorially, “I have my strategies.”

      The two women laughed knowingly at each other, but Veronica was not quite sure that their understandings matched. Rosemary left and Veronica, remembering Jack’s comment about her tidiness, rinsed the cups and put them on the draining rack. Jack was in his room and Veronica decided a talk was in order. As she walked to his room she realised that it had been weeks, months, since she had been in his room. She knocked on his door.

      6

      Jack looked up as she entered. He was sitting on his bed with a hand-held computer game.

      “What’s the matter?” he asked defensively.

      “Nothing, I...” but she was halted by what she saw. She had expected tidiness but not this, this fastidious tidiness. The room looked like a window display in David Jones; an ad in a furniture magazine. She was taken aback. There was a little pile of books on his bedside cabinet, arranged in order of size, largest on the bottom, smallest on the top; and the left edges of all the books were level with the edge of the cabinet. His bed was made and his old stuffed teddy bear, with a Sydney Swans, red and white, jumper, sat on the pillow. There was a little bud vase containing a fern leaf sitting on his desk. His laptop was open and on and showing a colourful aquatic scene: fish swimming and air bubbles in thin wavy lines, like in champagne.

      “Does Mrs. Danuta clean in here?”

      “No. I like to know where things are, not where they were.”

      “There are many things here I don’t recognise. Where did you get that bud vase?”

      “I bought it at Vinnies Op Shop.”

      “How did you pay for it?”

      “With my pocket money.” But Veronica could see on his face that this was not true, or not the whole truth.

      “Jack?” she asked enquiringly and endeavoured to keep her voice calm.

      He put down his computer game and looked at her with the resigned face of a caught-out boy. “Mrs. Danuta gives me money each week out of her pay because she doesn’t have to clean in here anymore.”

      “How much money?”

      “Ten dollars.”

      “Ten dollars!?”

      “I save most of it,” said Jack.

      “And whose idea was this?”

      “Mine. But Mrs. Danuta seems happy about it.”

      “And what are you saving for?” Running away from home flashed alarmingly through her mind. “Jack?”

      He didn’t answer.

      “Jack?!”

      He gave a huge exasperated sigh. “For your birthday present.”

      She was suddenly very wary. Jack was very intelligent but ‘intelligent’ can sometimes mean ‘cunning’. Or was he telling the truth? Veronica thought for a moment and decided the warmth she felt from his reply was reason enough, and she chided herself for thinking ill of him. “Jack, that’s very sweet. But I wish you had told me.”

      “Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

      “I still don’t know what you’re going to buy for me. It’s still a surprise. It’s just that when it comes to money we all have to be very careful. Dealing with money is very tricky. It takes time and energy to deal with it. I still don’t think I’ve got the knack of it.”

      “Really?”

      “Not completely.” He looked at her as if she was incompetent, lacking a skill that he finds easy. He looked away and back to his computer game as if this was the only way to deal with disappointment at this particular time and in this particular situation.

      “Well, please don’t say anything to Mrs. Danuta,” he said as an afterthought.

      “She should’ve told me.”

      “I made her agree not to say anything.”

      “I see”. And she suddenly felt as if she was intruding. Perhaps he was right about his oft announced maturity. But he still wasn’t even ten yet. “Well, your room looks very nice,” she said as she backed out and closed the door. She had forgotten why she wanted to speak to him in the first place.

      7

      Next day was for her. She had no appointments that afternoon, nothing to prevent her from attending the meeting with Mrs. Verlarny, but she checked her schedule anyway, in the hope that she may be wrong and that some appointment had mysteriously appeared. She smiled at herself and her own wishful delusion. She liked looking at her schedule. No, Thursday afternoon was free. She sent a text to Mrs. Verlarny asking for details of where and when and got an immediate response, as if Mrs. Verlarny was hovering over her screen waiting to pounce on Veronica’s and judge her every move. The School Library, 3pm. “Fine,” she curtly texted back, put her phone in her bag along with her iPod and ear-phones, and left for the СКАЧАТЬ