Sex, Lies and Bonsai

by Lisa Walker

  ‘That’s a good one too,’ says Mr Sleazy. Then quoting from memory, ‘His usually sanguine air had been disturbed by something darker.’

  I am almost flattered that he knows my work so well.

  Belinda ignores him, drilling Professor Brownlow with her eyes. ‘It’s her, isn’t it? She’s written it. About the two of you. I don’t know why I didn’t realise before. How could you bring this, this…pornography home?’

  I sink onto a seat. If I dropped to the floor, rolled under the table and crawled out of the lab, would she notice?

  ‘Edie,’ calls yet another voice from the corridor. ‘I just can’t accept you’re not doing any more erotica.’ Sally’s face appears at the door. She blanches at the sight of the crowd inside. ‘Oh, sorry…’

  I scream with anguish. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, come in and join the party.’ Pushing past her, I run out into the night, leaving a smoking five-car pile-up behind me.

  Out in the car park I see a familiar shape striding towards the laboratory — Djennifer. At first I am baffled, but then I remember; Sally said she was a client. She must be looking for the Crab Sex Institute too. Make that a six-car pile-up.

  I turn and walk swiftly in the opposite direction before she sees me.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Life is not easy.

  SIGMUND FREUD

  Thursday: 54 days

  Pain level: 9.9

  Location: Everywhere

  The morning after the Crab-Lab showdown I wake thinking of Jay. I say wake, but I am not sure that I actually slept. I am thinking about the parallels between his life and mine.

  In Darling Head I’m pretty sure Dad’s name has a much higher recognition factor than Gary Jaworski. I might not have been made into a song, but the coffee table book Australian surfing Legends features a large picture of me as a toddler in my father’s arms. Dave McElroy with the next surfing legend? reads the caption.

  This book is as ubiquitous as board wax in Darling Head households. Even if I’d been a sporty kid it would have been hard to live up to. As it was, it was impossible.

  Here’s the next surfing legend, kids would snigger at the school swimming carnival as I hauled myself out of the water five minutes after everyone else had finished.

  I wonder if Jay got taunted with ‘Jaybird’ . I imagine he probably did.

  My legs scream as I pull myself out of bed. I lower them to the floor and stagger to the computer with difficulty. There is no way I am running today. I’m sorry Murakami, but I will have to find an alternative mentor.

  I check my emails. I am looking for a miracle — something to drag me out of the meltdown my life has become. After deleting five messages offering me Viagra and penis extensions (why can’t people think about anything except sex?) I come upon the reminder from Jetstar — I need to pay for my ticket to Tokyo today or forfeit it.

  Going to Japan now, are you? The bonsai sighs. Nice for some. Oh, to be back in Kyoto in autumn when the leaves are turning gold.

  ‘I thought you were, um, grown in Sydney?’

  Japan is my spiritual home, says the bonsai. The elegance, the simplicity, the refinement… You’re not going to fit in at all over there, you know.

  ‘Well, I don’t really fit in here either.’

  Oh, the tea ceremony, the parasols, the flower arranging, the origami…

  I leave the bonsai to its musing, whip out my credit card and punch in the details. Thank goodness I had the foresight to do something right. Only nine days to go until I Jetstar my way far from all my troubles. Perhaps I can stay in my room until then? Maybe I can order in takeaway and make quick trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night when no one is around. I glance around my room — I can wee in the wastepaper bin, that’s one thing taken care of.

  There is also a message from my beloved Nigerian, Philip of the very short memory. His inability to remember that we already know each other each time he emails is now explained. Poor Philip has suffered a stroke due to a brain tumour and his parents, who I thought were already dead, have now been brutally murdered by rebels. This certainly puts my problems in perspective. I should send him a message of support, but I haven’t got the energy. While my problems are nowhere near as devastating as Philip’s, they are still weighing me down.

  Professor Brownlow’s wife thinks I have been sleeping with her husband. This feels bad. It feels murky. Jay thinks I have been sleeping with Professor Brownlow too. I wish my life was less fucked up. I wish I was a singing nun with no need for male company. If I had been confined to a nunnery I might not have become the type of person who writes erotica about married men. How did that happen?

  I desperately need to do something to cheer myself up.

  My seized-up legs are a persistent reminder that I am no Murakami in either the writing or the running stakes. Who else can I turn to for sources of inspiration? I call on Google.

  Alcohol and drugs, it turns out, are a much more popular source of stimulation among poets and authors than running. No big surprise there. Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Raymond Chandler, Dylan Thomas… The list of enthusiastic drinkers goes on. Most of them died young, but they did produce a lot of good work before their livers packed up.

  Tolstoy favoured smoking to stupefy the critic within. Balzac, the famous French author, drank up to fifty cups of coffee a day. If coffee wasn’t available he would chomp on coffee beans. He died early, at the age of fifty-one, after suffering from an enlarged heart, stomach cramps and high blood pressure. In contrast, yoga and swimming are favoured by some lesser known, but probably longer living authors. My legs tell me I may be more suited to the debauched live-hard, die-young end of the spectrum.

  There is something attractive about that. Perhaps I will be the female version of Dylan Thomas, reciting poetry, whiskey in hand, a kerchief tied artistically around my neck. I will cultivate a Welsh accent and write poetry in a boat shed with —

  My phone rings. I look at the number. Sally — wanting erotica no doubt. Well, she’ll just have to find another supplier. This shop is closed, baby. I turn off my phone and put it under my pillow. This doesn’t seem decisive enough. The phone might be turned off, but it is still taking messages. I don’t want messages. I would prefer it if people could just forget I ever existed.

  I pull out the phone, put it on the ground and stomp on it, but it is surprisingly tough. I put it on top of a hardback book and whack it with another hardback, but it still sits there, no doubt taking messages from one of the many people who now hate me. I walk over to the window and look out. Beneath me is the Japanese garden and fishpond Rochelle has lovingly created. I take careful aim and let my phone go. A satisfying splash tells me it now lies among the fishes.

  Once I have done this I am, suddenly, extremely hungry. I remember the box of chocolates in my cupboard I got for my last birthday. I devour half, feeling the sugar and caffeine surge through my bloodstream. I haven’t heard of any writers who use chocolate for inspiration, but I know they’re out there.

  The chocolate stirs up a dark and sinful energy. Didn’t the Aztecs used to drink chocolate before killing their human sacrifices? I can almost imagine doing that myself right now. Already it is hard to remember the calm singing-nun persona I wore so briefly last night. I am angry, restless, ready to pick a fight with anyone. And, damn it, I am still hungry. No one is going to stand between me and something to eat.

  I open my bedroom door and feel even angrier. Gary Jaworski is laughing loudly downstairs. What is he still doing here? Doesn’t he have a hotel room to trash? Groupies to shack up with? Paparazzi to avoid?

  I stomp down the stairs, my legs screaming, my mind on food. I open the fridge and pull random items from the shelves. Cheese? Yes please. Chicken? Definitely. Mayonnaise? Absolutely. I am in the middle of creating an enormous sandwich when I hear Jay laughing in the lounge room.

  I freeze. I have been doing a fairly good job until now of not thinking about Jay. Not thinking about how he knew wha
t I meant about starting afresh. Not thinking about that feeling of falling into him. Not thinking about holding him in the laboratory and how good it felt. Not thinking about the way he looked at me after Belinda’s revelation. Not thinking that he is the only person I have ever told about the freckle on my hand and how I may never meet anyone else who wants to know this piece of trivia about me. I have been not thinking until it almost made my brain explode.

  And there he is. Laughing. Not thinking about me at all.

  It tears me up, the feeling I get when I hear him laugh. If this is love I don’t want it. It hurts and I hate it with a vengeance. How do I make it go away? Get angry.

  It isn’t hard. I am already angry. In fact, I am furious. Does he really think I was sleeping with Professor Brownlow? Shouldn’t he know me better than that? What’s it to him anyway? If he hadn’t let Tanya kiss him, I wouldn’t have even been there in that motel room. And why didn’t he give my name to the doorman at the pub? I never had any explanation for that. Now I think about it, this whole mess is totally his fault.

  Gary and Jay are playing guitar now. I bite into my sandwich and listen. They sound good together — very slick — but I like Jay by himself better. Men with guitars. There should be a law against it.

  ‘Not like that, like this, mate,’ says Gary.

  I edge around the corner where they can’t see me and watch. They are sitting close together on the couch. Gary leads, demonstrating some fancy finger work. Jay watches, then follows. Kafka the metaphysical cat lies on the coffee table, his yellow eyes intent on Gary.

  If I wasn’t so angry it would be nice to watch. For the first time I can see the father in the son. They have the same dexterous hands, the same look of concentration on the sound that flies from their fingertips.

  It occurs to me that this is what my father would like to be doing with me — passing on his knowledge. Not of guitar, of surfing. Nothing would please him more than to have me next to him in the line-up. He could show me where to sit, how to paddle, how to catch waves. It would be a basic fatherly pleasure. Seeing Gary and Jay together makes me realise more than ever how much my father has missed out on not having a child who follows his interests.

  ‘Yeah, good one.’ Gary nods as Jay executes what sounds to me like a tricky little number. I can see why Jay called him a Peter Pan. From a distance he could still be twenty.

  Jay doesn’t respond, but I can tell he is pleased.

  The tune to the Grafters platinum hit, ‘Crush Me Up in Love’ , blares out, interrupting them. Gary leans backwards in order to extract a tiny phone from his skin-tight pants.

  He barks out a series of sharp commands. ‘Yeah, Moët. Make it seven. Get Derek onto it. Okay, sound-check at six.’ He folds the phone and tosses it down beside him. ‘Fuck knows what I pay her for. I’ve gotta go, mate. Sorry. They need me in Sydney.’

  Jay looks up from his guitar. He has been practising a single riff over and over, while Gary was on the phone. He shrugs. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘That thing we talked about.’ Gary stands, picking up his guitar by the neck. ‘I’ll sort it.’

  Jay’s face is closed, guarded. He nods, then drops his head to his guitar.

  Gary punches Jay on the shoulder. ‘Good to catch up, eh? We won’t leave it so long next time.’ He struts from the room so fast I don’t have time to duck back in the kitchen. ‘Hey, Edie.’ He winks. ‘Take good care of my boy, won’t you?’ He is out the door before I can respond.

  Kafka leaps from the table and stalks after him, tail in the air.

  Jay looks up.

  I swallow my mouthful of sandwich and raise my hand in an ironic greeting.

  Jay looks at me for a long time.

  ‘What?’ I am in no mood for subtlety.

  If Jay’s face was closed when he was with his father, it is now boarded up, impenetrable and totally unwelcoming.

  I know I should just go away and leave him to it, come back when we both feel better, but for some reason I am unable to do that. I want to rip off those boards and make him show me what’s inside. How can he come and go like that? We held hands on the couch, damn it; don’t I have rights? ‘Have I done something?’

  The corner of Jay’s mouth rises, but it isn’t a smile. ‘Apart from fucking your boss, you mean?’ He sounds like no one I’ve ever met before. He sounds like all the other guys I’ve known. There is nothing in him that answers to anything in me.

  The breath rushes out of me. ‘What would you know? You think you’re so cool. You and your rockstar father…’ I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what I mean. I want to shake him until he stops looking at me like I’m someone he might have met once, but he isn’t sure where.

  Jay waits, like he is there to take my lunch order.

  ‘You’re just some guy in black clothes. I hate you.’ I stomp from the room before he can reply to my devastating critique.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The intention that man should be

  happy is not in the plan of Creation.

  SIGMUND FREUD

  After climbing the stairs, I sink onto my bed and gaze out the window, blinking back tears. I hate you. I hate you not. My brain is like a computer hit by lightning; its circuitry useless. Now I’ve told Jay I hate him and yet all I can think about is how good it felt to touch him. I open and shut my hand, put it to my cheek. I wish I had never held hands with him. Now I know what I’m missing.

  My short-circuited mind returns to Gary — Peter Pan.Peter Pan was one of my favourite books as a child. But I didn’t know the story behind the story then. That terrible masterpiece is what the book’s namesake called it. Peter Pan is not a good story to be thinking about right now.

  At times like this I understand how Mum felt — how your brain turns against you. What would it be like to feel so sad all the time, not just when things go wrong?

  I only heard Mum crying once. It was late at night and I’d got out of bed to go to the toilet. Her sobs carried up the stairs. She sounded wounded.

  ‘It’s all right, Jenny; it’s all right.’ Dad’s voice was a low murmur.

  I peered over the banister and saw them sitting at the table. They were holding hands.

  I wanted to go down, to find out what was wrong, but I sensed it was private so I sneaked away. The next morning Mum was smiling and laughing again and I thought perhaps I’d dreamt it.

  She must have been trying so hard.

  I go over to my chest and pull out her notebook. Being in a melancholy mood, I open it near the end and read:

  When the black dog sits on my shoulder, the colour washes out of the world. Relationships I thought were working are revealed to exist only in my head. My whole life feels like a complete waste of time — like I’ve drifted through experiences others would have made something of — slid past people I should have connected with, somehow missed the whole point. It seems to me that everyone else does it better — finds meaning in things that are meaningless to me. I don’t want to feel this way.

  That is exactly the way I feel right now — like I’m missing the whole point. It worries me to find my thoughts are so close to Mum’s.

  On the other hand, Jay was in the wrong too. There was no need for him to go all cold and hard. He should have let me explain. Perhaps I let him off too easily? Now that I think about it, I almost feel ready for another round.

  There is a knock on the door and before I can snarl, go away, it opens. Sally comes in.

  I stuff the notebook away and sit up straight.

  ‘Hi.’ Sally sounds wary.

  ‘Hi.’

  Sally sits down on the bed next to me. ‘What’s up with Jay?’

  I shrug. ‘Why are you asking me?’

  Sally touches my arm. ‘Hey, I’m your friend. I know you two have got something going on.’

  ‘No we—’

  Sally talks over the top of me. ‘So why’s he down there, looking like Doctor Evil and you’re up here…’ she glances at the che
st, ‘doing a Sylvia Plath number.’

  ‘I’m not doing a Sylvia Plath.’

  ‘Yes you are, you’ve got that no-one-understands-me look.’

  I glare at her. ‘This is not a no-one-understands-me look. This is a don’t-mess-with-me look.’

  Sally raises her eyebrows. ‘That time of the month?’

  ‘That has nothing to do with it,’ I snap. ‘He thinks I slept with Professor Brownlow. Not that it’s any of his business, seeing as we—’

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’

  ‘Slept. I slept. That’s all. Just slept.’

  ‘So… You slept with him, but you didn’t sleep with him.’

  ‘Exactly. We talked about Japanese literature. I helped him with his crab conference presentation. Then we got tired.’

  Sally looks sceptical.

  ‘It was the same with Jay.’

  ‘What, the crab conference or the Japanese literature part?’

  ‘No. I slept with him, but I didn’t sleep with him.’ I flap my hands. ‘We were bed buddies.’

  ‘Bed buddies?’ Sally’s brow creases.

  ‘Yeah. You got a problem with that?’

  ‘No, no, no problem. Bed buddies is cool.’ Sally’s voice is soothing. ‘It’s just that this is a new concept you’re presenting here. How does it work, this bed-buddy thing?’

  ‘It’s like a sleepover. Without the pillow fight.’

  ‘Lollies?’

  ‘No lollies.’

  ‘Chick-flick DVDs?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Hmm.’ Sally looks thoughtful. ‘Gee Ed, I don’t think I’ve had a sleepover with a boy since I was ten. If I sleep with a guy these days, I sleep with him.’

  ‘Well, I like to mix it up a bit. Sometimes sex, sometimes just sleep. It keeps things interesting.’

  ‘Ed, I’ve got to say, this bed-buddy thing — I don’t relate to it.’

  ‘I think being with me makes men sleepy.’