[A short story]
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We file in, looking bleak. I don’t think Aunt Grace has noticed how on-edge we all are, but she must know something’s up. There’s a ten-minute buffer where we all talk about what we’re going to order - then the waiter comes back, writes down what we’re all having, and takes the menus away. The bastard.
‘So,’ Aunt says, cheerfully starting a conversation that feels like a fuse. ‘What have you all been up to this year?’
Same question every time. Aunt Grace visits us once a year around the start of summer. We always go out to dinner, and she always gets her update. We all used to go up and visit her in Consett, but that was an age ago, back when Mum was still here. When she died of cancer a few years back, there was no-one left to force us up to her sister’s house in the icy north. So we’re left with the annual meal, and its annual questions.
As usual, we mumble evasive responses. Playing hard-to-get, as if there’s any chance Aunt Grace won’t needle everything out of us. Any moment now, she’ll -
'Oh come on. Joe, what about you?’
Yeah. This is the bit where we go round the table, and see one-by-one who can get away with talking for the shortest time. I suppose at least we’re not talking about….the other thing. Yet. It’s got to happen; that’s why we’re all sweating.
“Joe” is my Dad. I think he was a bit shocked when he found out he had to keep seeing his sister-in-law when his wife died. Dad runs a local cleaning business, so he jabbers about that for a while, and it seems to satisfy her.
So she turns to us - ‘And how about the Shy Guys?’
Oh god. Yeah, that’s what she calls me and my brother. Even now. I guess she wishes she had more exciting relatives. I look away so my brother will talk first.
‘Come on Elvis-Aaron, how’s the job?’
I watch my brother wince. No-one calls us by our full names except her. It’s because Dad’s called Joe Smith – the most boring name in the world. He decided to give us more “interesting” names, which is fine in theory. He just screwed it up.
The job she means is El’s paper-pushing position downtown. By all accounts he seems to be the one who makes the tea, even for the work experience boy. I‘d bug him about it, but it’s not like I’m setting the world on fire, either.
‘Blah blah accounts, blah blah marketing,’ El says, or something like that. Aunt Grace nods and smiles.
It was too easy. El and Dad’s victories mean she’ll want something juicy from me.
‘Last but not least,’ she says. ‘Got a girlfriend, Nebuchadnezzar?’
No, and there go my chances with anyone in earshot, I nearly say. Having had their turns, my teammates betray me.
‘Yeah Neb,’ El says with a raised eyebrow. ‘How is the lovelife?’
I’m squirming enough to feel saved, at first, when our sister arrives. But this is what we’ve been dreading. Our table shuts up.
Venezuela Smith makes her way over to us, turning heads and catching eyes. She wears clothes of intricate black lace, with black ribbons in her black hair. Dark, in every sense of the word. She’s the only one of us that uses her full name – and wields it like an axe. Venezuela’s the opposite of me and El. She has an immovable confidence made of ice, and you can feel its chill as she walks past. We’ve never been the best of friends. I can’t feel comfortable with someone who moves like she owns the world. Even when on crutches.
‘Venezuela! Dear!’ Aunt Grace cries out in surprise. ‘What have you done?’
My sister looks uncharacteristically awkward as she maneuvers herself into a chair. Then she’s back to her usual regal composure, as she surveys the gaunt mood at our table. Even Aunt Grace notices it, at last. Our time just ran out.
‘Venezuela….?’
‘My leg is broken,’ Venezuela states plainly.
‘She fell down the stairs,’ says Dad.
‘Ahhhh, my dear!’ Aunt Grace prepares to go into a lecture about safety. ‘You must make sure you’re careful….’
‘No Aunt. I was pushed.’
Aunt’s jaw drops, as the rest of us look uncomfortably away.
‘Venezuela has fallen down the stairs three times in the last six months,’ Dad tells her.
‘And each time I was pushed.’
Aunt doesn’t know what to do with herself. ‘Where does this happen?’ she asks, managing to splutter out a question.
‘Downtown. Once at the station steps, and twice in the Market Square. I don’t know who did it.’
I’ve never seen my Aunt so bewildered. ‘But what…why…’ Then she notices us, and how we look. ‘What’s going on?’
We wriggle horribly in our seats, as Venezuela stares at each of us in turn.
‘They think I’m lying.’
Two months later.
I catch sight of Venezuela while I’m shopping in the Square. The whole family’s been a bit distant lately, which is why I don’t rush over and say hi. I don’t really have anything to say to her.
After the first injury, we were concerned and sympathetic. After the second, we were confused. After the third, we were just suspicious. She didn’t come out with the “pushed” stuff until recently, after number three. Apparently at first she thought she was imagining the hands in her back – but three times isn’t a coincidence. I think we all agree with that.
Personally, I’d say that yeah, maybe the first one was an accident. Then she got the extra attention - and liked it. Venezuela has always loved being the focus of a room; just one look at her tells you that. So when she healed, and the crutches had to be put away, she wanted to feel it again. She threw herself down those stairs. The “pushing” story came later, when she realised it wasn’t working any more.
Venezuela’s walking now, but who knows for how long. We’re all waiting for number four.
She’s still looking around the Market Square. Without even thinking about it, I’ve been following her. It feels pretty creepy, but I guess I am interested in how she behaves when we’re not with her. At the moment she’s striding around with a straight back and a queenly expression, just like always.
It’s getting to the stage where I’m feeling too weird to carry on spying – when I pause. Venezuela is approaching the top of the Market Square staircase. And I know……I know I should go to her, but I can’t. Because if she falls, I have to see.
She stands at the summit. It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon, and the square doesn’t get much busier. Any one of the people swarming around her could just nudge her in the back……
And someone does. A man with a baseball cap and an upturned collar hurries past and just eases her off the edge. She’s falling, and gone, down and out of sight.
My eyes widen as I rush over, towards the cacophony of wails and gasps. I join the group of horrified middle-aged women and curious teenagers, at the lip of the drop. We all look on at her crumpled form. I see red.
As I see several onlookers reach for their phones, I scan the crowd for the pusher. He’s there, still in sight. That’s when I surprise myself. Let’s say I’m still in shock. Let’s say I’m not myself, and it hasn’t sunk in yet. God, I hope it’s something like that. I push through the crowd, follow the man in the baseball cap, and abandon my injured sister, who was telling the truth all along.
The pusher leads me down a few busy streets, then a couple of quieter ones. It doesn’t take long; he’s a fast walker, and we’re not far from the city centre.
Our destination turns out to be a tasteful-looking hotel called “The Executive”. I’m not even thinking as I go inside. Most of my brain is still pretty much switched off. I’m not angry yet. I’m not feeling anything. I’m just on autopilot, knowing it’s important to see where this man goes, and who he is. I haven’t even seen his face yet.
I step in, just in time to see a baseball cap disappear around a corner to the left. Someone with a badge that says “Lobby Manager” asks me if I’m here for the 4 o’clock meeting too, so I nod.
‘Just down there, to the left, sir,’ he says. ‘It’s just starting.’
The corridor to the left contains a series of doors. The one marked “Meeting Room B” is ajar. Peering through the crack, I can see a projection on the wall, and a man who must be the speaker.
‘…… let’s make a start,’ he’s saying.
The hubbub from the unseen audience falls away. I try not to breathe.
‘Let’s begin as we always do, by remembering why we’re here.’
An image flashes up on the wall. There’s a bird-shaped logo, and a title that reads: “Confident Sparrows”.
‘When you came here, you were each as meek as a sparrow. You were afraid of the world; fluttering away if it paid you even the slightest attention. But this isn’t a world for sparrows. You can’t be afraid to do what you always knew you should. If people look at you, you must preen your feathers and meet their gaze proudly.
‘Learning this is why you’ve come. For many, it’s the last resort – but that’s okay, because unlike similar courses, we can make you a bold promise – if you follow our instructions, you will succeed. It’s why you chose us.’
The speaker rubs his hands together. ‘Right, this week we’re doing feedback on our latest negative displacement exercise.’ The projection changes accordingly.
My eyes explode. The slide explains that negative displacement is the idea of shifting depressing feelings onto others. In jaunty colours, it instructs the group to hurt people they dislike. “Perhaps a push down the stairs!” suggests a happy-go-lucky sparrow character via a speech balloon. The last bullet point reads: “You are superior! Never be afraid!”
All this, I’m taking in while listening to a man in the audience talk animatedly about poisoning a workmate’s coffee, hospitalising him for a week.
The stories come thick and fast. Another man threw a brick at a neighbour, and a woman dropped hot coffee out of her sixth-floor office window. I hear about thumbtacks in shoes, scalding-hot saucepans left in kitchens, and bedsheets scattered with broken glass. Tale after tale told in smug, chirpy voices. But just when I start to feel cold and detached, I realise someone’s halfway through a story about staircases. And I know him.
The speaker’s been sprinkling out compliments like a proud parent at a wedding.
‘Excellently done, Elvis-Aaron,’ he says, and I can feel the grins from behind the door. ‘You’re making some fantastic progress. Are you feeling the difference?’
He is. He’s spectacular. El’s sitting on top of the world, like it’s his own personal leather recliner. Just like the one in his spacious new office, at his glorious new job. Not just a paper-pusher now; he’s flying high, pushing expensive, executive papers. Everyone asks about his job, and he always has something interesting to say. El smiles now. We all noticed, and we all wondered.
After a while I’m vaguely aware that the meeting has ended, and I move away before they open the door and find me. I’m starting to get a throbbing headache. I don’t think about it as I wait for El around a corner, and start following him again.
He’s not going anywhere unusual this time; just the train station, to go home. He stands at the busy platform, and waits. I move forward, meaning to talk to him, but what could I possibly I say? I thought I knew this guy, a man who’s pushed my sister down the stairs, four times to date.
And that’s when I remember – I don’t even know if she’s still alive.
I’m standing right behind El on the platform, as the crowds close around us. The approaching train is screeching to a halt. Everyone’s heads are turned away.
And all it takes is a little push.