Sex, Lies and Bonsai

by Lisa Walker

  I know she is thinking of the scars on his arms. I am thinking of them too, but I can’t tell her as I am not supposed to know. ‘Shall I go and have a look for him?’

  Rochelle’s smile is a vestige of her usual radiance. ‘Oh, would you, Edie? He won’t talk to me.’

  ‘I’m not sure if he wants to talk to me either.’

  ‘He likes you,’ says Rochelle. ‘I know he doesn’t show it much, but I can tell.’

  I think Rochelle may be kidding herself, but it’s the least I can do. I get up. ‘I’ll look at the beach.’ I don’t think Rochelle notices the catch in my voice.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Dad half-rises to his feet.

  ‘No.’ I put my hand out. ‘I think it’s better if I go by myself.’

  Dad’s forehead creases but he sinks back onto the couch. I walk down the stairs, ignoring the nervous quiver in my chest.

  It is very dark at the park. A sea breeze blows back my hair and raises goose bumps on my arms. I rub them, trying to warm myself up inside and out. My heart is now beating so hard I can’t ignore it. I know this is stupid. There is nothing to be scared of. But I haven’t been on the beach at night for a long time. Not since the night I followed Mum. I almost turn back but the thought of Jay pulls me on. Leaving my shoes on the grass, I set off. And I can’t help remembering.

  Mum is ironing sheets when I come home from school. I haven’t seen her do this before and I already know it is not a good sign. She has been doing a lot of housework in the months since she gave up her job at the newspaper — to have a rest, she said.

  I watch her through the window. She irons slowly, purposefully. Every now and then she pauses, gazes into nothing as if she has forgotten what she is doing.

  ‘Edie,’ she cries when she sees me. She envelops me in a hug and for a moment I think it might be all right. But then she straightens and wipes at her eyes. ‘I’ve had such a boring day. Look at me, ironing sheets.’ She laughs, but her laugh is high-pitched. ‘Why don’t we go swimming?’

  I reach behind her and lift the iron off the smouldering sheet.

  It’s a fifteen-minute walk to the boat channel and by the time I get there my eyes are growing accustomed to the dark. I can see him — an outline perched on the sand. He is holding his guitar, but not playing it.

  He looks up as I approach. ‘Roch sent out the huskies, did she?’ His voice has only the smallest twinge of sarcasm.

  I shrug and sit down.

  He plucks a string on his guitar. ‘It’s all right, I’m not about to top myself. My big sister worries too much.’

  I don’t say anything, because I haven’t been here in the dark for eleven years and the memories are too strong.

  ‘Thanks for coming, though. ’Preciate it.’ Jay says with an American drawl.

  For some reason this sets me off. ‘Why do you have to be so bloody…’ I search for a word, ‘ironic all the time. Why can’t we just…’ I trail off. I feel like crying. Damn, I wish I could untangle those tangled and unspoken thoughts between us. It shouldn’t be this hard. It wasn’t this hard on the couch.

  Jay plays a few notes. Stops. ‘So, where were you tonight?’

  He says this neutrally and I can’t see his face for clues on how to read him. ‘Was that an invitation, was it?’

  ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘A program. An announcement. Not an invitation. It looked like maybe you wanted me to come, but you wanted to keep your options open too. Pub, eight pm. What am I, a dog?’ I can hear the petulance in my voice and I want it to go away. I don’t want to be like this. I want to be honest, true to the way I feel… I take a deep breath. ‘Anyway, I was coming, but something happened.’

  ‘I can be a dickhead sometimes, can’t I?’

  I search the dark shadows of his face. I know there is something there I want to connect with, but I can’t find it, can’t find the words to bring it out. I know you’re in there, is what I want to say. You can’t pretend you’re not. I can feel you.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Jay’s fingers brush my shoulder. His touch is light and brief, but it is like he has said what I wanted to say. ‘Thanks for the tuna story.’

  ‘Oh.’ I twist my hands together. ‘I don’t know why I gave you that, I—’

  ‘It reminded me…of you. Of what a funny person you are.’

  I look at him. ‘Funny ha, ha? Funny peculiar?’

  ‘Funny is the wrong word. Unusual. Different. Unique. It made me want to talk to you again.’

  I smile in the darkness. ‘Well, it worked then.’

  ‘It was brave of you. Especially when I was being so…’

  ‘Mean.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I missed your gig. I wanted to come. I’m just not good with that stuff.’

  ‘There weren’t many people there. And those that were had better things to do than listen to me.’

  ‘Do you take that personally?’

  ‘How else could I take it?’

  ‘So, how does it make you feel?’

  ‘Like the worst kind of idiot. But, hey, I’m still getting paid. I’m playing music. I just try to finish as quickly as possible.’

  We are silent for a while. The waves on the reef remind me of the last time I was here at night. ‘I used to come here with Mum. With Jenny.’ I can hardly believe I have said her name.

  Jay strums a soft chord. ‘Tell me about her.’

  My heart quickens. I have never talked to anyone about this, but now I want to. It is scary, but I am heading for the precipice. I can’t stop. ‘We always went swimming in the boat channel.’ While it is hard, at first, the more I talk, the easier it gets, like water rushing through a hole in a child’s sand dam, breaking away the barriers as it goes.

  ‘She wanted me to come swimming with her that afternoon. But Ninja Turtles was on. I was going through a phase. I was crazy about those guys. I thought she’d be back by the time the show was over. But she wasn’t.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Yeah, I was into the turtles too. Who was your favourite?’

  ‘Donatello.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ Jay smiles. ‘Gentle, clever… Guess who mine was?’

  ‘Raphael.’

  ‘Right. The sarcastic one.’

  ‘But also funny and loyal.’

  ‘You see the best in everyone, don’t you, Edie? So tell me about your mum.’ He plucks his guitar again, while I talk.

  ‘When she didn’t come back I came down here to look for her. Her towel was on the sand. I couldn’t see her, but I waited and waited.’ As I tell Jay, I feel like I am there.

  Behind me the sun is dipping below the horizon and still she is not here. The beach is almost empty.

  A hundred metres or so away, a fisherman is casting a line. I should talk to him; ask him for help. But I don’t know him and the thought of the explanations I would have to give cramps my tongue. How can I explain that I think my mother is out there? Maybe it’s all a mistake. Maybe she is swimming in somewhere else. Maybe that isn’t her towel. The thought of starting a train of panic I can’t control panics me. My heart pounds. I couldn’t talk if I had to so I say nothing. I strain my eyes. I crouch on the sand.

  If I don’t look for her for five minutes she’ll be there.

  If I don’t look for her for two minutes she’ll be there.

  If I don’t look for her for one minute she’ll be there.

  I look. She isn’t there. Maybe she’s:

  At home,

  Gone for a walk,

  Gone to the movies,

  Gone to meet Dad at work.

  Perhaps she’s:

  Cooking dinner,

  Playing tennis,

  Writing poetry,

  Playing hide and seek.

  And one hundred possibilities later, when it is dark, when the fisherman has gone, that is where Dad finds me.

  ‘I haven’t been swimming sin
ce then.’

  Jay has been playing his guitar the whole time I’ve been talking. He stops now. ‘What was she like? Your mother?’

  ‘She was funny. She used to make me laugh and laugh. She was interested in big questions, not small ones. She operated on a different level to most people, connected things up in different ways. I see that now; I didn’t at the time.’

  ‘Like you then,’ says Jay.

  ‘You think so? Yes. I guess she was. Like me. Sometimes that scares me a bit.’

  ‘Do you think she meant to go?’

  ‘I don’t know. There wasn’t a note. She kept a notebook though.’ Wanting everything. Wanting nothing. ‘She said nothingness was all she wanted.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t think there was a reason. It wasn’t that things had gone wrong. It was the way she was. I was just a kid, I didn’t realise. She had pills, but she didn’t like taking them. They made her feel stupid. I think Mum had a fascination with the edge of things.’

  ‘The liminal.’

  I look at him.

  ‘You don’t know that one? It means the border, the transition point.’

  ‘Good word. Yes, the liminal. She liked to see how far she could go and still return. Whether she meant to come back that night, I don’t know.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have saved her, Edie.’

  ‘What if I’d spoken to the fisherman? What if he’d organised a search? What if I’d gone swimming with her? She wouldn’t have done it then.’

  ‘If she was determined to go, I mean. You couldn’t have stopped her. She would have done it sometime.’

  ‘I’ve been looking for that fisherman my whole life. I want to ask him how she looked when she went in. Then I’d know…’

  ‘Do you think it would make any difference?’

  ‘I want to know if she was crying or if she looked happy.’

  ‘Do you think you can tell how someone feels by looking at them?’ Jay’s eyes settle on mine.

  I shake my head.

  ‘No, so…’

  ‘But he’s like my guilty conscience. I keep thinking I see that fisherman everywhere. I should have known she was so sad. Why didn’t I know?’

  ‘Edie.’ Jay’s voice has a sharp edge. ‘You can’t blame yourself. You were a kid. She made a choice; a bad choice, but it’s not your fault. If someone wants to leave, they’re checking out regardless.’

  And I know I shouldn’t say it, but I can’t stop myself. I accelerate, fly out into midair, start to freefall. ‘Did you? Want to leave? Really?’ My voice is small and squeaky. It is an apology of a voice. A cry into the wind.

  Jay’s face is dark. He doesn’t talk.

  I have done it again. He will leave now. And this time we will never talk again. I feel like a damp weight has settled on my chest, but I am resigned to it. I know I couldn’t have done anything else. I had to ask.

  ‘Yes.’ He plays a chord or two, ‘And no. So, I guess that means no.’

  I take a breath. The damp weight lightens. We are still talking. ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘Artistic angst,’ he drawls, plucking at his strings.

  I bite my lip. ‘You can’t be ironic all the time.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s hard to stop. Bear with me, Edie.’ He gives a rueful smile. ‘I’m trying. Why did I do it? My music was shit, my life was shit. There was a girl…’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Being entirely honest with oneself

  is a good exercise.

  SIGMUND FREUD

  ‘Her name was Caroline.’ Jay strums a chord or two and hums a tune I recognise as that old one, ‘Sweet Caroline’. ‘She auditioned to be the singer in our band. She got the gig.’

  I wait. Wanting to hear. Wanting not to hear. My stomach doing strange things at the thought of what he might say next.

  ‘You know how some people seem to have the knack of seeing into you straightaway? She was like that. She saw me. She wanted me. She made me feel I was like no one else she’d ever met before. When I was with her I was smarter, funnier, wittier.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I was like that with Daniel at first. I became someone else.’

  ‘I was obsessed with her. Could think of nothing else.’ He glances at me, stops plucking his guitar. ‘You want to hear this?’

  I nod. It’s hard to listen to, but I want to know.

  ‘Then I found out it wasn’t just me. She was with…the drummer too. Same deal with him. He thought he’d found his soul mate.’ Jay plays a few chords.

  I listen, enjoying the melody, the sense that this is him talking too.

  ‘When I think about her now, I think she was a chameleon. She changed her colour to reflect the person she was with. I thought I was getting her, but I was getting a reflection of myself. I don’t know what it says about me that I fell in love with my own reflection.’

  I think about that. ‘Maybe that’s what we all do. Look for someone who mirrors us, so we don’t feel alone.’

  ‘She was an unusual person,’ says Jay. ‘I think using her sexual power was what gave her life meaning.’

  I bite my lip. ‘She would have made a good lead singer then.’ I hope Jay doesn’t notice the twinge of jealous pique I am unable to keep out of my voice.

  ‘The band broke up, but Caroline and I…I couldn’t give her up, even though there was nothing positive left. It was sucking me up, but I was addicted to her. I felt like losing her would be losing myself, losing the person I was when I was with her. Seems strange now, but that’s how it was.’ His guitar stops. ‘It hurt.’

  ‘I know.’ I wait. The sea roars louder in the silence.

  Jay coughs. ‘She was killed in a car crash. Six months ago.’ His voice is so soft I have to strain to hear him. ‘The drummer was driving. He survived. He’s in a wheelchair now.’

  There is something about the way he says the drummer that makes me ask. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Ben.’ His voice is flat.

  ‘Ben who you met in Year Eleven?’

  ‘Yeah. We don’t see each other anymore.’

  I want to ask more, but his voice warns me off.

  ‘She was supposed to be with me that night; I’d been waiting for her. Everything kind of spiralled out of control. It was too intense — her… Ben — I needed to escape.’ He touches his wrist. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ He pauses. ‘It was the only idea I had at the time.’

  ‘Do you still feel like that?’

  ‘I don’t at the moment. Not while I’m talking to you.’ And there is just enough light to see him smile.

  ‘So, after, when you realised you weren’t dead, did that feel like…’

  ‘A resurrection?’

  I nod.

  ‘No. I felt tired. I had to face all that hard work I thought I’d got out of. I was still down there in the underworld, trying to find a way out. I never decided to live; it was more that it was too much trouble to try again. It seemed easier to let myself be rescued.’

  ‘So, you didn’t care either way?’

  ‘I thought I may as well go with the flow, for now.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I found someone who made me feel less alone.’

  I wait.

  ‘You were so kooky and yet, at the same time…honest. I thought maybe, maybe you’d be someone I could talk to.’

  ‘I thought that too.’

  He meets my eyes and I am suddenly shy.

  ‘Do you feel weird that you’re going to be answering questions about those scars all your life?’

  ‘I’m working on a bear mauling story.’ Jay fingers his scars. ‘In a way, I don’t mind them. They’re kind of like a souvenir.’

  ‘From the edge.’

  ‘Souvenir from the edge. Good name for a song.’

  ‘Tangled web’s a good name too. That song’s about you and Caroline, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. I guess the Caroline thing is why I acted
like a dickhead with you, Edie, after that laboratory hoe-down. It’s no excuse, but it’s a reason. It brought back feelings I didn’t want to feel. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I was only helping Professor Brownlow with his typing.’

  ‘I believe you. And even if I didn’t, well, maybe it’s none of my business.’

  ‘No, it is your business. I want it to be your business.’

  Jay is quiet after I say this. I wish I could see his face, get a clue of what he is thinking. Maybe I have said too much again, presumed too much. Turned holding hands on the couch into something it was not and never will be.

  The silence goes on, but it doesn’t feel like a strained silence. I know this from the way the air is calm between us. I sense it in my bones. Not all words are spoken. So when I do speak, it is not from awkwardness, but to extend the conversation already running between us.

  ‘Do you ever feel like you’re a child failure?’

  ‘Because my father is a big success and I’m not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Is that the way you feel?’

  ‘Mmm, always have.’

  ‘Because your father’s a surfing legend and you don’t like swimming?’

  I nod.

  ‘Yeah, I feel like that. Doesn’t everyone? Look at the Lion King. I’ll never be able to fill the paw prints of my father.’ He puts on a corny voice. ‘The spirit of Gary Jaworski lives on in me, but I’m not half the guitar legend he was.’

  I laugh. This time I am grateful for the irony. It cuts through the seriousness like a puff of warm wind.

  He smiles back at me. ‘I like it when I make you laugh.’

  ‘I like it when I make you laugh too.’

  ‘You know someone’s on the same wavelength as you if you can make them laugh.’

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, how we use humour,’ I say.

  ‘When we get too close to something sensitive, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The comic mask,’ says Jay. ‘I do it too much, don’t I?’

  ‘Mmm, maybe. I do it too. It can be good, but sometimes you need to let people know how you feel. Otherwise they’re never going to know.’

  Jay plucks at his guitar.

  ‘Have you ever heard of John Bradman?’ I ask.

  ‘No. Should I have?’

  ‘Son of Donald.’