J. Coetzee - Slow Man

'Forty-nine ninety-five.'

'I am in addition, if you will agree to drop charges, prepared to buy goods from you to the value of, say, five hundred dollars. As a sign of good will. And all entirely above board.'

Young Mr Matthews shakes his head. 'It's company policy,' he says. 'Every year we lose five per cent of turnover, all branches, to shoplifting. We've got to send a signal to shoplifters out there: steal from us and you get prosecuted. The full weight of the law. Zero tolerance. That's our policy. I'm sorry.'

'You lose five per cent but you build that five per cent back into your prices. I'm not criticising you, I'm just pointing out a fact. You have a policy aimed at shoplifters. Fair enough. But Blanka isn't a shoplifter. She is just a child thinking as a child thinks, stupidly. Bad luck is what happens to other people, she thinks, it won't happen to me. Well, now she knows bad things can happen to her too. If you wanted to teach her a lesson, you have taught her a lesson. She won't forget it. She won't steal again, it is not worth it, it has made her too miserable. So back to my offer. You make a phone call, retract the charge; I pay for the chain and in addition buy five hundred dollars worth of stuff, right here, right now.'

Mr Matthews is wavering visibly.

'Six hundred dollars. Here is my card. The police don't enjoy prosecuting these cases. They have better uses for their time.'

'It's not a decision I can make, like, unilaterally. I'll speak to the manager.'

'You are the manager.'

'I'm just the manager of this outlet. There is our area manager. I'll speak to him. But I can't promise anything. As I say, it's company policy to prosecute. That's the only way we can send a signal we are serious.'

'Speak to your area manager now. Give him a call. I'll wait.'

'Mr DeVito is out of town. He'll be back Monday.'

'Mr DeVito may be out of town but he is not unreachable. Give him a call. Settle this business.'

Young Mr Matthews retreats behind the till, turns his back on him, and brings out his cell phone. Young Mr Matthews is in the process of having his day spoiled, and by a cripple too. He is not a bully by nature, but probing for weakness in the boy, and then putting pressure on him, squeezing him, has been a not unpleasurable experience. Blanka Jokic: Matthews will not forget the name soon.

The assistant, a girl with ghastly white make-up and violet lips, has been watching them covertly. He signals her to come over. 'Help me pick out some gear,' he says. 'Up-to-the-minute. For a fourteen-year-old.'

A friend of the family. That is how he presents himself to Happenstance, that is how Happenstance sees him: as an elderly gent with a disability who for God knows what reason chooses to watch over the welfare of a girl with a funny name. And it is true. He is indeed that elderly gent, that good-hearted benefactor. True, but not the whole truth. If he battles the crowds on Rundle Mall, if he bargains and cajoles and pays for stuff he does not need, it is not, or not just, for the sake of a child he has never laid eyes on.

What does it look like to Marijana, this will to give with which he so doggedly pursues her? Has she had other clients like him, other doting old men? Surely you must know. Surely a woman always knows. I love you. How it must have jarred and irritated her: words of love from an object of mere nursing, mere care. Irritating but not, in the end, serious. The fantasy, working its way to the surface, of a man cooped up too long alone; an infatuation; not the real thing.

What would it take to make Marijana see him as the real thing? What is the real thing? Physical desire? Sexual intimacy? They have been intimate, he and Marijana, for some while now – for longer than some love affairs last, start to finish. But all the intimacy, all the nakedness, all the helplessness has been on one side. One-way traffic; no exchange; not even a kiss – not the merest peck on the cheek. Two ex-Europeans!

'You OK?' says a voice.

He is staring into the eyes, the entirely kindly eyes, of a young woman in blue uniform. A police officer.

'Yes. Why should I not be OK?'

She casts a glance at the man by her side, another officer. 'Where do you live?'

'In North Adelaide. On Coniston Terrace.'

'And how are you going to get home?'

'I am going to walk to Pulteney Street and take a taxi. Is there anything wrong with that?'

'Nothing. Nothing wrong.'

He hooks the Happenstance bags over an arm, grips his crutches, and heaves himself up from the trash container against which he has been resting. Without a word, holding his head high, he picks his way through the crowd.

'SHE CANNOT HAVE it,' says Marijana. 'No. Is impossible.'

He could not agree more. It is impossible. One is caught stealing a silver chain that is not even silver, no more silver than what one can get in the Chinese market for one dollar fifty, and what happens? One is rewarded with six hundred dollars worth of gear. Where is the justice in that? What will Drago say when he learns of it?

Blanka the black sheep of the family. Drago the shining light, the angel with the sword, defender of the family's honour. Commander Drago Jokic, R.A.N.

'Lock the stuff away in a cupboard,' he says to Marijana. He is in high spirits. He and she are on the phone again, like old friends, old gossips. 'That is what I would do. Bring it out as an incentive, piece by piece, if she will agree to go to school and so forth. But you will have to hurry. It will all be out of fashion in a month's time.'

Marijana does not respond. He cannot remember her ever responding to his humour. Is he too frivolous for her taste? Does she find him too light, too lightweight, too much of a joker? Or is she simply not sure enough of her English to bandy words? It is just a game, he should tell her. Badinage it is called in some quarters. You should join in. It's not hard to play, it doesn't require a change of soul.

Marijana's soul: solid, matter-of-fact. Miroslav less earthbound. Miroslav, who spent a year of his life putting together a duck out of cogs and springs, and appeared with his pet on Croatian television, must surely have a sense of humour. Drago too, with his wild, constrained laughter. Drago tossed between father and mother. A good tennis player, Marijana says. Back and forth. Three Balkan types. Three Balkan souls. But since when has he been an expert on lightness, or on the Balkans? 'Many Croatians,' says Peoples of the Balkans, 'will deny that Croatia belongs to the Balkans. Croatia is part of the Catholic West, they will say.'

'Always fighting,' Marijana is saying on the telephone.

'Fighting? Who is fighting?'

'Drago and his father. Drago say he want to come stay in your store room.'

'In my store room?'

'I say no. I say Mr Rayment is good man, he have enough trouble from Jokics.'

'Mr Rayment is not a good man, he is just trying to help. Drago can't take up residence in my store room or anyone else's, that is nonsense. But if relations are strained between him and his father, and if he has your blessing, tell him he is welcome to come back and stay here for a few days. What does he like to eat for supper? Pizza? Tell him I'll have them deliver a giant pizza every evening, just for him. Two giant pizzas, if he likes. He's a growing boy.'

That is how it happens. In a flash, in a flesh. If there were any clouds, they have fled.

'They are what we call albumen prints,' he tells Drago. 'The paper is coated with diluted egg white in which silver chloride crystals are suspended. Then it is exposed to light under the glass negative. Then it is chemically fixed. It was a way of printing that had only just been invented in Fauchery's day. Look, here is a pre-albumen print to compare it with, on paper that has been soaked rather than coated – soaked in a solution of silver salts. Can you see how much more full and luminous the Fauchery is? That is because of the depth of the albumen coating. Less than a millimetre of depth, but that millimetre makes all the difference. Take a look through the microscope.'