Reading Madame Bovary Read Free Page B

extended lunchtime and went to David Jones. I go there often. Frank says it’s my temple.
    Leaving aside all the deep and meaningful contributions of my career path (more of that later), my job means that I can walk into David Jones and buy two pairs of shoes at the one time. Not that I do this very often – in fact I’ve done it twice in the last ten years. The point is: if I want to, I can. Something my mother could never do, or her mother before her. And if my shoes are good, I feel powerful, so that no matter how badly things go in other spheres, there is some part of me – the shoe part – that can’t be humiliated.
    Shopping can turn into mania. Some people buy on impulse. Not me. I am a member of the school of exhaustive research. Come the new season I cannot buy one pair of shoes until I look at every pair of shoes in the city. I must survey the field. I must not make a mistake. It’s my professional training. I have a reputation at work for being thorough. I am.
    I can’t understand Frank. When he goes shopping he buys the first thing he sees that he likes and goes home. Don’t tell me it’s a male trait because my sister is the same.
    I have to conduct a complete reconnoitre, a thorough evaluation of available resources. I cannot go home at night haunted by the nagging thought that something better might have been just around the corner.
    Yesterday I went to buy a lipstick. I tried one colour on my bottom lip, one on the top, choosing from the testers.
    â€˜I’ll just leave these on and see how they look outside in the natural light,’ I said to the sales assistant, a girl with short, spiky blonde hair and heavy blue eyeshadow, expertly applied. ‘The colours are so misleading under these lights.’ She murmured her discreet assent.
    â€˜Do they really last?’ I asked, with the knowing scepticism of the practised, indeed, jaded buyer.
    â€˜They’re a drier formula,’ she intoned, with all the solemn aplomb of a research scientist explaining the latest breakthrough in genetic engineering, and then she streaked, first, an orange-pink frosted and then a scarlet slash on the back of her hand, just above the thumb – which is where they always do it. Where I do it. Where all women do it. Why there? Is there a lipstick-testing gene in all females? One Perfect Coral, Mister Melon, Rio Mango, Sherry Pepper , and a new range with names like Lust, Vanity, Ambition . Before I know it, I’ve spent ninety dollars on two lipsticks.
    I pay with one of my credit cards.
    Our credit cards are precious. They sustain morale. Every time I hear someone on the radio droning on about the perils of credit, I turn it off. Once I found a credit card in the gutter on Glebe Point Road. When its owner came to pick it up she brought me a cutting of African violet, taken from her own garden and earthed in a small decorative pot to express her relief and gratitude. Her son had broken his arm that day but she had taken the time to show her appreciation.
    Credit cards are our life-blood.
    I work at keeping the African violet alive.
    The zoo
    Let me tell you about work. I call it the zoo.
    I am a project officer in the Human Resources section of a medium-sized company that does (mostly) outsourced work for government agencies. I won’t say who or what: somebody might sue. My director is a young man called Winton, a psychologist by training with an MBA and an infatuation with all things Japanese, especially their approach to corporate management and decision-making. He goes to ikebana classes. I am fond of Winton, and it’s probably because he’s such an unpredictable blend of the fey and the fly. He’s short and stocky with fair curly hair, square practical hands and rimless glasses, and is so improbable a blend of corporate style and winsomeness that it can be disconcerting. He is quietly spoken with a reserve that is neither stiff nor shy but is a kind of