Halves

My father had a Roman nose.

Once looking in a magazine with him, I was focused on a picture of a homeless black man, surrounded by garbage bags of clothes he had acquired, his eyes stark and wild staring at the camera. Terence, then said, in the softest, most sincere possible way, ‘Oh, look at that! An Irish rose.’

I didn’t see the picture of the rose on the other side of the page. 

Robyn the other day at the Paddington Markets, I was browsing a chocolate store, and the man serving, tall in an apron, strolled towards her whilst whistling, put out his hand which had a small box of small piece of chocolate, and said nothing to her, just looked at her. Robyn, looked at his shoes first and slowly moved her gaze over the entirety of him, glared and waited for him to say something, he said ‘Try a chocolate’, to which Robyn smirked and refused, and then disinterestedly looked around for a moment, to see if she could find anything of value and then walked away. The confident whistling man now looked as though he had been rejected at a fundamental human level, and seemed more like a predator who had been defeated and exposed for the weak, unreasonably proud creature it was.

I cried with laughter when we got outside.

Robyn is just, so terribly unimpressed with people, particularly men but some women also, which makes for great entertainment. All of my friends that have met her are still scared of her, James, being basically a good-hearted engineer that enjoys fights, competition and arrogance. Brent, who is the very definition of a magnificent bastard, Nicholas who is quite fearsome when he wants to be, all scared by this 5 foot tall woman in her sixties. That, really amuses me. Best thing is, she knows it and she cultivates it. I’ve never seen Robyn back down from a fight.

This type of memory is pretty complicated, because it’s good and bad, but I remember one new year, where Terence was chasing me around the house, he had thrown a phone at me, which missed but not for wanting, I was terrified, real, proper terror, nobody is capable of scaring you, like your parents can, and of course the reverse applies to, I just, my mind couldn’t even comprehend standing up to him, it was too intimidating, it never occurred to me. Robyn, hearing this going on whilst asleep, came rushing out, and put herself between Terence and I, I still have that distinct memory, arms out at her side, legs planted to withstand a rush, she wasn’t trying to fight him, she was just trying to stop him, sacrificing herself, so I could get away. I suppose it’s obvious enough, but you really do understand the strength of people when it’s matched against the weakness of people.