“Where are we going?” Shirley asked.
“I’ll give you a clue.”
“Oh, Edward, you know I’m not good at guessing.”
“No, come on, where can you find the Sydney Opera House?”
“Edward just tell me.”
“We’re going to Australia!”
Shirley kept silent. She wanted to ask, “Are you sure?”, but decided it wasn’t the right question. No, she shouldn’t ask anything at all.
“Australia is good,” she said.
“Yes,” Edward replied.
“We don’t have to speak another language. They all speak English there, right?”
“Yes. And these are return air tickets,” Edward said. “I’m glad we still have the camera. And you wanted to sell the camera.”
Shirley had more questions to ask, but kept them to herself. Why us? Why now? Why just one phone call to change everything?
“Edward, your game how?”
“What game?”
“Nintendo.”
“Just turn it off.”
“Okay.”
Shirley switched the television set off and then went to her dressing table. She dipped her fingers into a tub of cream and then rubbed some on her cheeks. Edward watched her very carefully. He had so many things to say, but knew it was best to say them once the lights were out.
In the dark, Edward inched closer to Shirley and ran his hand up from under her T-shirt. He could feel the warmth of his wife’s torso. Suddenly, he heard Shirley clear her throat. He withdrew his hand, not in frustration, and then decided to let it stay on her shoulder instead. He allowed it to cup and caress the slope of his wife’s shoulder. He gave it a gentle squeeze but by that time Shirley was already pretending to be asleep.
“We won something, Shirley,” he said.* * *Shirley had a dream. In that dream she was a salesgirl. Some time in the afternoon, she had served a Caucasian woman who wore one of those large, gold-framed sunglasses and who kept calling her “sweetheart”. The woman was also wearing a big batik dress with a cloth string around her waist.
It was the end of the shift and Shirley was at her lockers. Doreen had gone into the locker room to tell Shirley that the manager wanted to see her. She was wondering why as she walked down the narrow corridors towards the manager’s office. Had someone made a complaint against her? It couldn’t have been the Caucasian woman, because she had called Shirley “sweetheart”. Or maybe it was, you couldn’t tell with some people. Shirley still had her uniform on when she knocked on the manager’s door. She knocked with the knuckle of one finger.
“Shirley, come in,” went the manager’s voice.
The manager made Shirley sit on one of his enormous plush office chairs. Shirley didn’t know if she should place her elbows on the armrest, and when she did, it made her feel very small.
“Shirley, you know that everyone who works with us, we monitor his or her performance?”
“Yes.”
The manager was speaking with the same voice he had used to sell shoes for 11 years. He kept emphasising his T’s and S’s. He leaned forward across his desk and clasped his hands together.
“To cut the story short, I have evidence on camera that you have been stealing money during your cashier shifts.”
Shirley was getting breathless.
“I promise to pay it all back,” she said.
“But why did you take the money? I mean, if you needed any help, you could have asked one of us.”
Shirley let her hands drop into her lap. She had served the Caucasian woman really well, she thought. The woman had bought two pairs of shoes and had promised to bring her friends down.
“Shirley,” the manager said. “Now’s not really a good time to keep quiet.”
“My husband.” Shirley said. “His business didn’t work out. I was supposed to quit this job and help him. But things didn’t work out. We lost contact with this man who ran away with our money. My husband borrowed from a lot of people. Even my parents.”
“You’re married, Shirley?”
Shirley nodded.
“Because if you’re not married all this could be easier for you. You know that even if you pay me the money, I’m still obliged to report you to the police?”
“Please.”
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you come over to my place tonight and then we can talk about it. This is pretty serious, Shirley. Something like this can get you in a lot of trouble, you know that, right? I can drive you home after we talk.”
At the manager’s house, Shirley excused herself once to go to the toilet. She didn’t dare look into mirror. She sat on the edge of the bath-tub and took out a lipstick from her purse. She put it on, not knowing how it looked on her. She put on several layers. When she walked out the bedside lamps were on, and the manager was sitting on the bed completely naked.
“Shirley, no, don’t come near yet. I just want you to stand there first. Open the bathroom door so there’s some light on you. Okay, now why don’t you take that off?”
Shirley did as she was told. She was told to show her side profile, cross her arms, take a deep breath and hold it there, bend over, cross her arms behind her head and hold on to a bundle of her hair. Then she was asked to climb onto the bed. For the first time in her life she kissed a man with a moustache. She had her hands led by the wrist and then her grip corrected several times.
“Bigger than your husband’s one, right?”
After she had paid her debts, Shirley sat on the toilet bowl and wept. Her stomach was hurting. She had allowed her manager to force himself on her in another way because he insisted that she could possibly get herself pregnant if it was done the way she was used to. And he had then barked at her as he pulled
