13
13
I T’S LIKE THERE WAS an on–off switch somewhere in you. Before learning about the Manuscript, you were off. Since learning about the Manuscript, you are on – alive, kicking, and awake. You find yourself thinking about what words are. About what it means to understand words. About how weird it all is. Words are just ink on a page, arranged in a fashion dictated by convention – and yet they mean things because people have decided that they do. That’s weird.
Today, your mum is chopping up onions. Or perhaps ‘hacking at’ would be a more appropriate phrase, because your mum is chopping the onions not only at speed but also with carelessness. The pieces of onion are all different sizes. Your mum seems upset about this. She is crying about this. Or else, the onions are hurting her eyes. Or else, she is crying about something else. You can’t tell. She is a complicated lady. i
In any case, you decide to make her feel better by approaching her silently and wrapping your arms around her big, soft belly without warning. Your mum doesn’t appreciate this.
‘Jesus!’ she says. ‘Why would you do that?’
You don’t say anything. Instead, you squeeze harder, maintaining the hug.
‘I’m holding a knife,’ she says. An onlooker might interpret this sentence as a threat. You, however, know she just means that you should be careful around complicated people holding knives, that it’s not a good idea to startle them.
Despite this, you keep yourself wrapped around her. Because who wouldn’t want a hug from you? You are just so lovely. You look up at your mum. You can see the pores of her face skin and the hair up her nostrils. For reasons that escape both you and her, you sniff the knife.
‘Get off,’ your mum says, wriggling herself free. ‘What do you want?’
You shrug, say nothing. She gets back to cooking. She is cooking soup but also toast. This seems to be a stressful activity. Red-faced, she is leaning over the bubbling saucepan.
‘Mum,’ you say eventually.
‘Yes?’
‘What’s a manuscript?’
Your mum wipes her eyes and nose with the sleeve of her jumper. Behind her, you notice a dark spool of smoke rising from the toaster. You cannot be sure, but you think this means either the toast is on fire or will be shortly, or else the toaster is on fire or will be shortly.
‘It’s like a work in progress,’ she says.
‘And what’s a work in progress?’ you ask, your eyes now fixed on the toaster.
‘It’s like when something isn’t finished. A book that isn’t finished.’
The smoke alarm goes off. Your mum jumps, clocks the toaster, and curses. She unplugs it, shakes the black and smoking contents into the sink. The smoke alarm is loud, so much so you can barely hear your voice as you use it to ask another question.
‘So, would it be a manuscript if I wrote a load of—’
‘Urgh!’ Your mum almost drops the saucepan on the floor.
‘Would you – can you go find your dad, please?’
‘Where’s Da—’
‘Garage! He’s in the garage.’
Your dad is indeed in the garage. He is teaching your cousin how to put a new chain on an old bike.
‘What’s she doing here?’ your cousin asks. From his manner, tone, and stance, you can tell he considers the garage to be a space in which you are not allowed.
‘That’s not a nice thing to say,’ your dad says, before turning to you to ask the exact same thing. ‘What are you doing here, sweet pea?’
You temporarily forget what you are doing here in the garage: the room of half-used paint cans, boxes, bikes, things that are dusty and old, things that are miscellaneous, things that only exist to be packed up when you all move to another house or die.
‘What’s a manuscript?’ you say eventually.
Your dad blinks at you. ‘Sorry?’
You repeat yourself. ‘What’s a manuscript?’
‘Ah.’ Your dad is still looking at you weirdly. You can’t make his expression out, but it gives you a feeling in your chest you don’t like.
‘Like a book,’ he says after a while. ‘It’s just another word for a type of book.’
You nod, stay quiet.
He pauses. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason,’ you say. You are out of the garage already. You are on your way upstairs already. You are already up and up and up and up.
Further reading:
The Dictionary
Footnote
i Your dad told you this once. He was crouching next to you as you lay there in bed. He apologised for your mum’s earlier behaviour, even though it wasn’t his fault. Then he said, ‘She’s a complicated lady, that one.’