by Lisa Walker
‘I was a games host at Luna Park for three years.’
‘Games host?’
‘Laughing clowns, knock-em-downs, goin’ fishin’, you know…’
‘I’ve never met a games host before. Give me your spiel.’
Jay puts his spare hand to his mouth like a megaphone. ‘Come try your luck. Knock ‘em down and win a bear for your girlfriend.’
I smile. ‘That’s amazing. You sound so shonky and sleazy.’
‘Years of practice. Your turn now.’
‘What?’
‘Give me your crab larvae spiel.’
‘I don’t have a crab larvae spiel.’
‘You must have. What do you say to get them posing at their best? Yeah, baby, show us your…’
‘Mandibular palpus.’
‘Sexy. What else?’
‘Ooh, yeah, get those maxillipeds waving. Do it for Edie.’
‘Sounds like a riot. Does it work?’
‘Sadly, no. They’re dead.’
‘You draw dead crab larvae? That’s macabre. I’d imagined them swimming around in a fish tank. How do you kill them?’
I mime a pistol shot, blowing the tips of my fingers. ‘Formalin.’
‘You’re a scary woman.’
‘Someone’s got to do it. Damn critters’ll take over otherwise.’
‘Really?’ Jay effects mock horror.
‘You’ve seen Attack of the Crab Monsters.’
Jay smiles. ‘Best movie I’ve seen in ages.’
‘Too scary for me.’ Inside the house, Tanya giggles. ‘Do you think you’re much like him?’
‘Gary?’
I nod.
‘More than I want to be. But I’ve seen what it’s done to him. He lives in a bubble. No one tells him the truth. He’s got people he pays to be nice to him.’
‘You don’t want to be famous?’
Jay shrugs. ‘I used to think I did. He’d send me all these postcards. Played Seattle today. Huge crowd! What a night in Tokyo! Just got home. It seemed so far from life in the ’burbs. I totally bought it. I played guitar until my little fingers bled. Then when I was thirteen I stopped.’
‘What happened?’
‘I started to see through him. Every time I opened a music magazine there he was with a new girl. He got older, but the girls never did. He thought he was Peter Pan.’
‘Still does, by the look of things.’ I glance towards the lounge room.
‘Good old sex and drugs and rock and roll.’ Jay looks at me from under his fringe. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that.’ He smiles. ‘Giving up guitar was my form of teenage rebellion. I knew it would piss him off.’
‘What made you start again?’
Jay hesitates. ‘In Year Eleven, this guy… Ben, came to my school. We clicked. He wanted to start a band. He knew about Gary of course, but he never said anything. Just kept asking me to play with him. Eventually I did.’
‘How did that feel?’
‘Oh,’ Jay sighs. ‘Incredible. Like being able to talk again. But I was doing it for myself this time, not for Dad.’
Chapter Twenty-four
How bold one gets when one is sure of
being loved.
SIGMUND FREUD
Edaline and Jason talked about many things. They talked about love, they talked about sex, they talked about music and happiness and sadness. They also talked about words.
‘Relinquish is one of my favourite words,’ said Jason. ‘I’m planning on writing a song about it.’
Edaline considered the word. ‘What does it mean?’ She knew, but asked the question anyway, just to see what Jason would say. She was in the grip of a fascination with his mind which knew no limit.
‘To retire from, give up or abandon, to put aside or desist from, to let go, surrender, to cease holding physically.’
His words were like a symphony to her ears. She stroked his hand. It was soft, except for the roughened pads on the ends of his fingers which he used to play guitar.
‘Relinquish implies regret,’ Jason added, almost as an afterthought.
I turn from yesterday’s writing to the back of my notebook and contemplate my chart.
Wednesday: 53 days
Pain level: Non-existent
Location: Nowhere. A miracle!
Does this mean I have got over Daniel? My head feels fresh, as though a sea breeze has blown away those sad, repetitive Daniel thoughts. I feel almost happy. No, damn it; what the hell, live dangerously, I do feel happy. I smile. I had forgotten how that felt.
I sigh, stretching my feet in bed, remembering yesterday afternoon. Jay and I had talked for hours, holding hands on the couch like teenagers. In the end, it seemed by mutual agreement, we had relinquished each other.
‘I’d better…’ said Jay.
‘Me too.’
We had got to our feet and drifted our separate ways.
At the time, this had been perfect — a comma, not a full-stop — the hand-holding more than enough. But now… I wasn’t so sure. There is a gravity about sex which makes you say, this has happened; we are now something to each other we weren’t before. Holding hands on the couch isn’t the same.
And while I know sex isn’t everything I want him to acknowledge there is something between us — we have meaning to each other. What if he never wants to hold hands on the couch with me again? But I know these kinds of thoughts are useless. Relationships are what they are. Even a marriage is not enough to keep some people together.
I’m pretty sure my favourite poet, Rilke, had something to say about this. The quotation lurks out of sight and then surfaces: We need, in love, to practice only this; letting each other go. For holding on comes easily. And I know this is what I need to do with Jay, open my hand, relinquish, let him come back if and when he wants to. Easier said than done.
I think about what he said, I’m in no position to start a relationship. But what do we have if not that? An ambiguous something or other?
My ringing phone distracts me.
I pick it up. ‘Yo.’
‘Yo? Since when do you say yo?’ It is Sal.
‘It’s part of my new professional erotic-writer persona, S-dog.’
Sally is very quick; she must have been listening to hip-hop too. ‘I’m down with that, E-dog, but what’s with this talking stuff?’
‘Huh?’ She’s lost me.
‘“Relinquish is one of my favourite words,” said Jason,’ Sally reads. ‘What’s sexy about that?’
I am taken aback. ‘I thought that was an extremely sexy scene. You are aware ninety per cent of sex happens in the head, aren’t you?’ I am making this up, but I’m pretty sure it’s a fair call.
‘Edie, the scene is great, beautiful — personally I love it, but my clients pay for erotica, not a high-brow discussion between two poetic librarians. As far as I can see,’ she shuffles paper, ‘no bodily contact beyond hand-holding happened in this scene.’
I can’t believe she doesn’t get it. ‘Oh my God, Sally, the whole scene is just dripping with sexual tension. I can’t believe you don’t get it.’
‘Edie.’ Sally is using her firm but fair voice. ‘I need sex. Not hand-holding, not even foot-rubbing, though that would be an improvement. Sex. S-E-X.’
‘Oh. I didn’t think it needed to be so literal.’
‘They can talk while they’re having sex if you want,’ says Sally, like this is some kind of compromise.
I consider this and decide it may have possibilities. Oh yes, darling, just like that. Now tell me, what do you think of the state of the economy? No, don’t stop…
‘Speaking of which,’ says Sally, ‘you’re not interested in some extra work, are you?’
‘What sort of work?’
‘One of my clients is interested in a bit more…interactivity.’
‘You interact with them, don’t you?’
‘Mmm, but not in the particular way in which um…’
Sally is being very circuito
us. This is unlike her. It makes me uneasy. Usually she gets straight to the point. ‘This work, Sal. Is it something…distasteful?’
‘No, no, no, no. Just phone sex.’
These last words are muttered so fast it takes me a while to process them. ‘Phone sex? You want me to have phone sex with your clients?’
‘Just one client at this stage. He’s really into your writing. He’d go crazy for a sexy chat with you.’
‘Sally! I am not having phone sex.’ Even the meek have their limits.
‘You could just read your writing to him over the phone. You wouldn’t need to make it up on the spot.’
Sally makes it all sound so reasonable. It almost seems mean not to oblige. But the trouble is, if I give in on this point, she’ll be asking for costumed re-enactments next.
‘I’d charge him a hundred bucks for fifteen minutes and give you sixty.’
‘No.’
‘Okay, seventy.’
‘It’s not about the money. I…am…not…having…phone…sex.’
‘I’ll talk to you about it some other time. When you’re in a better mood. I’m planning the next stage of your life coaching too.’
‘I thought I’d finished.’
‘Life is a work in progress. How can you be finished?’ Sally sounds astonished.
This is a depressing prospect. ‘I was looking forward to graduating one day.’
‘It’s like playing sport. No matter how good you get, you can still get better.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Self-improvement is a personal journey, Ed. If the sport analogy doesn’t work for you, think of it as a road trip. Sometimes there are freeways and you go fast, sometimes you get stuck in traffic, sometimes there are crossroads and you have to make a choice…’
‘Sometimes you get sideswiped in a supermarket car park.’
‘Exactly. Keep that analogy in mind. We’ll talk about it next time.’
After Sally hangs up I look at my watch. It is seven-thirty. I don’t need to leave for work until eight-thirty so I have no excuse not to go for a run. My mind flutters around trying to find some urgent alternative, but I will not be distracted. Murakami says that it’s all about the pain. And Murakami is one of the world’s greatest living writers. If the pain is the point for him, then it will be for me too.
I pull on my shorts and lace up my runners. Murakami runs ten kilometres every day but that will take some building up to. Five kilometres might be achievable. A short road trip . I will run to the top of Darling Point and back. I walk down the stairs, thinking I should run. But a warm-up is important, after all. I walk down the street, thinking I should run. Finally, at the end of the street, I can put it off no longer. I start to run.
I am running. I am running towards the beach. I would like to say I feel inspired, free-flowing, at one with my body, but in fact I feel an almost overwhelming desire to stop. It’s all about the pain, it’s all about the pain, I chant inside my head. This hurts so much it has to be doing wonders for my erotic writing. I make it to the beach. I think my legs must be a lot heavier than Murakami’s. There is no way he could keep this up for ten kilometres if he had my legs.
A lean and sinewy man overtakes me as I run down the ramp to the beach. I am consoled by the fact that he does not know as much about pain as I do. I shuffle down the beach, only marginally faster than a walking pace. Darling Point seems to recede, mirage-like, as I approach it. I had planned to go to the top, but now even the bottom seems unlikely. This road trip would be easier if I had a better car.
As I run I think about Jay. What did we talk about for so long? Now that I think about it, I still know so little about him. I feel like I have been in the hands of a skilled interrogator. Jay knows everything about me, but what do I know about him? Almost nothing. He gave up playing guitar for a few years, then took it up again. That’s it.
Who are his friends? What is his favourite colour? What does he like to eat? I can never admit to Sally that I know none of these things. I am a failure as a conversationalist. And yet… We talked. Could it be that we skipped both shallow and medium and went straight to deep? Or did I go deep while Jay stayed shallow? Did I really tell him that Daniel never came first? Surely not.
These thoughts distract me and I am halfway to the Point before I realise that if I do make it there, I will never make it back. I make a u-turn, and push my trembling legs back to the house, panting and sweating. When I look at my watch I see I have been running for twenty minutes. I have to clutch the railing to help me climb the stairs.
Perhaps I have chosen the wrong role model with Murakami? I wonder if there are other writers I could model myself on — ones who are into chocolate, gin and spa baths maybe. Some research may be required.
Before I go to work, I summon my resolve and print off the love scene that Sally rejected.
I wouldn’t do that if I were you, says the bonsai.
I stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly.
Don’t say I didn’t tell you, it says as I walk out the door.
Jay’s door is still closed when I come downstairs. A crossroads. He likes my writing, I tell myself. My heart is thumping, but I am determined to take the road less travelled. Leaning down, I push the papers beneath his door. I will woo him with words.
Exercise daily. Walk with God. Run from sin, says the church sign today. The priest waves at me from the door as I drive past. I pretend I haven’t noticed, but I must admit he’s got me worried. Can the alarming relevance of his signs be mere coincidence? Yes, it must be. He knows nothing about me. But I can’t shake a feeling of unease. Am I a sinner?
Professor Brownlow is bent over his microscope when I come in. He looks up and smiles.
I smile back. ‘How was the crab symposium?’
‘Dull. But I did have an interesting chat about Japanese literature in my motel room on the night of the opening. And thank you for your help with my presentation.’
We smile at each other again. I wait for the usual symptoms to strike. But wait — my heart isn’t pounding, my brain isn’t turning to jelly. I think, perhaps, he could even take off his glasses without overwhelming me.
I am over my infatuation. How strange — the rose-tinted aura of sexual longing has dissipated. How did that happen? Now he is a good-looking man in short shorts who is almost twenty years older than me and loves his wife. In a way, I am disappointed. I miss my crush. It was intense while it lasted.
‘You’re right about Nori Toyota,’ says Professor Brownlow. ‘A very distinguished author.’ His face is serious and I almost think I have lucked out with a name that matches up until I catch the twinkle in his eye. He laughs. ‘Did you even read the Murakami?’
‘Of course I did.’ I snort. ‘I lie, but only out of necessity.’
‘We all do that. I liked your last piece of writing; the Jason one.’
‘You’ve read that?’ I blush. I have got to tell Sally to take him off her client list.
Professor Brownlow nods. ‘It was more…intimate than the others; more romantic. You’ve changed subjects too. I think that’s a good thing.’ His eyes are intent and I know he has registered that I’ve moved on.
I am still more than a little uncomfortable discussing erotic writing with my boss, but he seems fine with it. It occurs to me I might be able to enlist his support against Sally. ‘Do you think just talking is sexy?’
Professor Brownlow nods. ‘Just talking can be very sexy. But…are you talking about erotic literature?’
I nod.
‘Well, I’m not sure if just talking would classify as erotic literature. Talking is intimate, often more intimate than sex, but erotic?’ He pauses.
‘It would be if they were talking about sex.’
He nods. ‘Talking about, but not doing, yes, that has potential; the growing charge never released, that sort of thing.’
In my mind a light bulb goes on.
‘The “Song of Songs” for example,’ Professor Brow
nlow continues. ‘But you’d know about that, of course.’
I rack my brain. ‘I’m not sure I do.’
‘You must do — it’s one of the earliest examples of erotic literature.’
My confused look prompts him to continue.
‘It’s from the Old Testament, a series of speeches between a woman and her lover. Some people say it is representative of God and Israel, but…’ He takes a deep breath, gazes out the window and lowers his voice an octave or two. ‘Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.’
‘For a zoologist you certainly have a way with poetry, Ralph.’
He turns back to me. ‘Does that sound like something God would say to Israel?’
I shake my head. ‘No way. It’s totally a guy with the hots.’
Professor Brownlow looks taken aback for a second, then he laughs. ‘Indeed.’
Suddenly I am desperate to get to work on my erotica. ‘The crab larvae await me.’
‘Take thee to thy desk,’ says Professor Brownlow. His gaze lingers on me. I remember the naked goddess comment and I wish, for a moment, we had met in a different time-space continuum and made passionate love. But that is something I will have to leave to our alter egos, Edaline and Professor Brown.
‘Why are you walking like that?’ he asks as I head for my desk.
I stop and turn. This takes a little while. ‘Like what?’
‘Like you’re wearing leg braces.’
‘I ran this morning.’ I say with a nonchalant air. ‘Went a bit further than usual.’
‘I didn’t know you were a runner.’ Professor Brownlow sounds surprised.
‘Yeah, I run. I like the pain.’
Professor Brownlow’s eyes meet mine. ‘Ah, yes — the pain. Only a runner understands.’
We are like two freemasons exchanging a secret handshake.
‘You run?’
‘Every day. Ten kilometres,’ he says.
‘Like Murakami.’ That explains the sexy legs.
‘Exactly.’ Professor Brownlow gives me a nod of complicity.
A glow of achievement warms my chest — my first comradely running chat. I hobble off and do at first continue with the job I am being paid for. One crab larvae, two crab larvae, three crab larvae, four… But then Professor Brownlow disappears to give a lecture and I dart to the keyboard.