Sex, Lies and Bonsai

by Lisa Walker

  ‘Oh, The Greatest Australian Ever, right?’

  ‘Yes. He’s like you and me.’

  ‘You’ve been giving this some thought, haven’t you, Edie?’

  ‘What about Jesus’s daughter?’

  ‘I didn’t know Jesus had a daughter.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Jay laughs. ‘Go on. You’ve got more, haven’t you?’

  A mischievous impulse seizes me. ‘Geena Khan?’

  ‘Let me guess. Daughter of Genghis?’

  ‘Great-, great-, great-granddaughter. She’s a timid, virgin, forty-year-old hairdresser in Ulaanbaatar.’

  Jay laughs. ‘You made that one up.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t make up Blanket Jackson or Lisa-Marie Presley.’ I pause. ‘Or Peter Pan.’ As soon as I say this, I wish I hadn’t.

  ‘Peter Pan?’

  There’s no going back now. ‘He threw himself under a train. The real life-Peter Pan, that is.’

  The sea is black, but the moon casts a path across it to the horizon. The guitar stops.

  ‘Yeah. Well, I guess I can relate to that too. That “Jaybird” song. I had to fight my way through primary school because of it. They still introduce me that way half the time when I perform. I almost gave up playing again, I got so sick of it.’

  ‘What stopped you?’

  ‘Seems like I don’t have a choice. The thing is, with the music…it’s when I feel most like myself. That’s why I do it.’

  ‘That’s how writing poetry is for me.’

  ‘It’s the only way I can let people see what’s inside.’

  ‘Do you think everyone has something inside that they’re trying to get out?’ I ask.

  ‘Probably, but some of them don’t know it.’

  ‘So it never comes out?’

  ‘Or maybe it isn’t there in the first place.’

  ‘It’s scary letting your inside out.’

  ‘But exciting,’ says Jay.

  ‘But what if people don’t like it? What if you hadn’t liked my tuna story?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Sometimes. If you care for someone.’ I think of Daniel and the rain in Glenorchy. ‘It can make you feel like…’

  ‘You’ve been sucked into a black hole.’

  Our eyes meet and I want to kick my legs in the air with delight. He completes my sentences. He gets me.

  Jay smiles. ‘We’ve got something, haven’t we?’

  This is now so obvious I don’t bother to reply. I let my breath out in a big sigh as I fling myself back on the sand. I run my arms up and down to make a sand angel. Gaze up at the stars.

  Jay does the same. Our hands brush at the top of our wings.

  ‘Do you want to go swimming?’ Jay asks this as if he doesn’t care either way.

  ‘Now?’ My voice comes out in a half squeak.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve waited long enough?’

  ‘What about…’ My mind searches for excuses. ‘Sharks?’

  ‘Well…’ Jay squeezes the top of my fingers. ‘We’ll have to fight them off, won’t we?’

  ‘Jellyfish?’

  Jay links his fingers through mine. ‘I’ll eat any jellyfish that dares to touch you.’

  ‘Aggressive sea hares?’

  Jay laughs. ‘You’re running out of excuses.’

  I roll my head sideways. His eyes are sparkling with mischief. And I don’t feel safe with him, not safe at all. I think he could break my heart in a million ways, but I don’t have time to worry about endings.

  I only want it to begin.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love.

  SIGMUND FREUD

  Jay and Edie swam. They swam naked, their bodies floating ghost-like beneath the water. They swam side by side, not touching. Edie had forgotten how it felt to be:

  Buoyed up,

  Immersed,

  Surrounded,

  Enclosed.

  It was a homecoming, a welcome. She was astonished she had stayed away so long. She was grateful. She floated on her back, tears running down her face. If Jay noticed he didn’t say anything.

  They came to rest in the shallows. Their hands brushed against each other like seaweed, fingertips touching lightly, shyly, eyes skating away from their nakedness. Edie had never felt like this with a man before. Never felt so alive, so intensely aware of another person.

  She thought she was probably in love.

  Jay and I sneak up to the house. There is a charge, an energy, a bubble around us. We are holding hands but we still haven’t kissed, haven’t hugged. We are co-conspirators in a journey towards a mystery. I wonder if he is planning to make love to me. Personally, I don’t have plans. I am in the moment, poised within a perfect pearl of possibility.

  I feel powerful after my swim — an Antarctic explorer, an astronaut, a lion-tamer. I can do anything now. It hardly matters what happens next. I know I will handle it perfectly. I am invincible.

  Well, almost…‘You’re not into earthworms, are you?’ I ask as we go up the stairs.

  Jay stops and considers this question. ‘No. I have an open mind about most things though.’ He gives me a mischievous look. ‘Earthworms have possibilities. What did you have in mind?’

  My face goes hot. ‘Nothing. Forget I ever mentioned them.’

  Jay smiles. ‘Whatever you say.’

  I am hoping Dad and Rochelle have gone to bed; that they have given up their verandah vigil. But we do not have such luck.

  Jay drops my hand as he sees them, but not quickly enough.

  Dad takes in my wet hair. His eyes flicker from me to Jay and back again.

  I can feel the energy blazing in an aura around us and wonder if Dad can sense it.

  He probably can because now he looks like a duck whose swan baby has taken up high-board diving — surprised, alarmed and cautiously impressed. ‘Have you been swimming, Eddie?’ he asks.

  I want to laugh because his voice is so casual, but that question is so loaded it could explode on impact.

  I respond in kind. ‘Yes. Jay and I had a dip.’ This is a bit like saying the Titanic had a minor mishap.

  Dad and Rochelle look from Jay to me, from me to Jay. They have the same smile. They look like people whose plans have come to fruition but are now wondering if they were such good plans after all. I think maybe they wanted Jay and me to be friends but now something else has happened.

  Rochelle scans Jay’s face.

  I follow her eyes. His hair is plastered back from his face and he looks younger, less world-weary than before. His sleeves hang over his wrists and his feet are bare.

  ‘Don’t worry so much, Roch,’ he says.

  She smiles and frowns at the same time, but doesn’t say anything.

  The energy between Jay and me is fizzling out. I can hardly bear it.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ asks Rochelle.

  No, no, a thousand times no.

  Jay reaches out, takes my hand. As he squeezes my fingers the glow reignites and spreads through my whole body.

  ‘No thanks,’ he says.

  Jay and I sit on his bed, side by side, not touching. The possibilities between us make me shy. I feel as if I have never done this before. In a way I never have. I have always let desire paper over the awkwardness, the strangeness of these close encounters.

  But I don’t want it to be like that with Jay. I want to approach this with caution. I want to be mindful, conscious of every moment. This is not from lack of desire, far from it. It is from respect, closeness and another word I hardly dare to say in my head, let alone out loud. But it enters anyway.

  I have been thinking a lot, lately, about love. It’s a funny thing the ‘l’ word. It can sound like a claim, a demand. I love you, said out loud rings bells of alarm. That isn’t how I mean it. I mean I want the best for him. I want him to take what he needs; for us to connect unconditionally. I want to land with a light touch, not to gras
p, hold, cling like a vine. There are so many different types of love. You can be smitten, fall and lose control. You can be selfish or selfless, choose what is best for someone else or think only of yourself. Even murderers can justify their actions with the word love.

  Sometimes it’s best not to talk when words are so inadequate.

  ‘I feel quite dreamlike, here with you,’ says Jay.

  It is the perfect thing to say. ‘I feel the same, like I’ve made you up inside my head.’

  We are holding hands again; I am not sure how this happened. I wonder if this is as far as we will ever go. If so, that seems fine, because holding hands with Jay is much, much better than anything else with anyone else.

  Our heads are close. We gaze into each other’s eyes, lean forward, touch cheeks. I rest my head on his shoulder, feel his heartbeat through my chest.

  He moves his head away, wraps his free hand around the back of my head, touches his lips to mine. His breath is warm on my face.

  I am no longer sure which body is his and which is mine.

  Being with Jay has a lightness to it; a playfulness I haven’t felt for a long, long time. Bubbles of joy float up through my body; explode in tiny bursts.

  I undo the buttons on his shirt and slip it from his shoulders. His chest is pale, sinewy, beautiful. I can’t resist touching the scars on his wrist.

  Jay watches me as I run my finger along them. ‘Do you find them ugly?’

  ‘No, the opposite. I find them…part of you.’

  He smiles. ‘I’m going to have to work on that cover story.’

  ‘Crocodile attack?’

  ‘That should do it.’

  I touch my cheek to his shoulder.

  He sighs, holds me tight, then slips his hands under my T-shirt, running them up my back. ‘You’re very soft,’ he says.

  I lift my arms and he pulls my T-shirt over my head.

  He looks into my eyes; smiles. ‘This feels different with you, Edie.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘Like coming home.’

  At first I like the analogy, but then I’m worried. ‘Is home a sleeping-in-a-comfy-armchair kind of place?’

  Jay laughs, runs his hand down my arm. ‘No, home is a very, very sexy place indeed.’ He pushes me with a gentle touch and I fall backwards onto the pillow.

  Sex with Jay is much different to sex with Daniel. For a start, he comes first.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, Edie,’ he moans, pressing his face into my shoulder.

  A giggle rises in my chest and although I know it is inappropriate, I can’t stop it exploding out my nose.

  Jay raises his head and searches my face. He looks wary.

  ‘I’m not laughing at you.’

  Jay glances over his shoulder. ‘Is there anyone else here?’

  ‘No, it’s just you coming first.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it was just so…’

  I stroke his face. ‘I know. I appreciate it that you felt that way. I love how you’re so…uncontrolled.’

  I can see he still thinks I’m having a go at him.

  ‘I’m not saying I want it that way all the time. But I don’t mind. It’s a compliment.’

  Jay presses his face into my shoulder again. It is cool and wet.

  I tilt my head and look at him. Run my finger under his eyes.

  He smiles. ‘I’m all right. I’m more than all right. I don’t know what that’s about. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay, I feel the same way.’

  ‘What does it feel like to you?’

  ‘Like my heart is too close to my skin.’

  He nods, then presses his nose to mine. ‘Can we try again? Maybe in a few minutes?’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Like the physical, the psychical is not

  necessarily in reality what it appears to

  us to be.

  SIGMUND FREUD

  I am nude hiking in New Zealand. The sun is shining. The usual man approaches.

  ‘I made you a possum skin coat.’ Strangely, he doesn’t have a New Zealand accent anymore. He slips the coat over my shoulders. It is soft and warm.

  I notice his face for the first time. He is Jay.

  In the morning I wake with a start. I am in Jay’s bed. Alone.

  The clock on the bedside table tells me it is nine o’clock. My flight to Tokyo leaves at one and I have to get to the airport two hours before. Sally is coming around at ten to drive me.

  I sit up. It seems crazy, but I haven’t told Jay about Tokyo. I can’t believe I haven’t told him about Tokyo. First we weren’t talking, then I thought there was time. And now I am leaving.

  A note is propped up on the table next to the bed.

  Edie, my father just texted me to say the guy from the record company wants to hear me play this morning. His flight was delayed so he didn’t make it last night. I’ll be back about ten.

  There is a gap and I can imagine him thinking about what to say next.

  My brain’s kind of shot and anything I say is going to sound all wrong in writing so I won’t even try. See you soon,

  Jay

  I read this last part several times, but it is unyielding. My paranoid side reads it as that was nice, check you later even though I know rationally it is nothing like that. I sit up in the bed, clutching the note, a lead weight settling on my chest. What am I going to do? Stay here and wait for Jay? Miss my flight? Try and find him?

  There is a knock on the door. I clutch the sheets to my chest, sit up, hoping it is Jay, although, of course, he wouldn’t knock.

  Rochelle peers around the door. ‘Oh, Edie.’ She looks taken aback.

  I blush. ‘Jay’s gone out. To see a record guy.’

  She gives a tentative smile. ‘Great. Dad was just on the phone, checking he made it. Amazing, first time in his life he’s come through.’ She looks at the clock. ‘Aren’t you going soon?’ Something about my face must show the state I’m in. ‘Are you still going?’ Rochelle comes over to the bed, sits down and gives me a big hug. ‘So, you and Jay, huh?’ she says over my shoulder. It’s hard to read what she thinks about this.

  ‘He doesn’t know I’m going.’

  ‘What?’ Rochelle backs off and looks me in the eye.

  ‘We haven’t been talking. I didn’t get around to telling him.’

  ‘Oh, Edie.’ Rochelle gives me a long look. ‘You can’t make plans around Jay. He’s just not ready.’

  I shrug her hands off my shoulders. She is probably right, but something about the way she says it makes me angry. How can she know what it is like with us? Hadn’t he said it was different with me? ‘I never said I was. I need to pack.’

  ‘Hey.’ Rochelle gives another tentative smile.

  I wait.

  ‘Happy birthday.’

  ‘Oh. I forgot.’ It doesn’t feel all that much like a happy birthday.

  ‘Konichiwa,’ yodels Sally up the stairs at ten o’clock.

  I have been in my room alternately packing and crying for half an hour and have now reached a kind of washed-out acceptance.

  Mum’s notebook has been sitting on my pillow while I pack. It is only a small notebook and there is room for it in my bag. I pick it up, hold it for a moment, then open it at the last page. I read the end one last time and return it to my bedside chest. It will still be there when I come back.

  Lifting up my backpack, I trudge down the stairs. I don’t know if I want to see Jay coming in the door or not. What would I say?

  ‘Hey, babe,’ says Sal.

  ‘Yo.’ I look her up and down. ‘Hey, new hair.’ Her blonde tips have been replaced by streaks of red and copper. ‘Let me guess. New guy?’

  ‘You remember the sexting guy from the supermarket?’

  I nod.

  ‘He’s been upgraded from the virtual to the real world.’

  ‘He must have been a good sexter.’

  ‘He was, but he’s even better in the flesh.’ Sally gives a lewd wink.

  Sh
e makes it all seem so easy.

  Sally pulls something out from behind her back. ‘Ta da.’ She hands me a parcel and gives me a hug. ‘Happy birthday.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’ I unwrap it. It is a paperback edition of Wuthering Heights.

  ‘I figured it was time you re-read it, seeing as you’ve forgotten all the good bits.’

  ‘Thanks, Sal. I’ll read it on the plane. Too much Heathcliff is never enough.’

  Sally looks me up and down. ‘You look like shit, Ed. Burning the candle at both ends?’

  ‘Crab larvae emergency.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Think what you like. Crab larvae drawing is a fast-paced field where rapid response is sometimes necessary.’ Jay is a secret I want to keep to myself for now.

  ‘You make it sound like a commando-type thing.’

  ‘It’s exactly like that. I am a crack crab larvae drawer, called in for surgical strikes in the laboratory.’

  ‘Is there abseiling involved?’

  ‘I can be inserted by land, sea or air, pencil in hand. In this case, I drove.’

  ‘What’s Ralph going to do without you?’

  ‘He says he’s keeping my job open for me. Maybe he’ll get a five-year-old in to hold the fort. Hope they don’t show me up too much.’

  ‘ANT.’ Sally smacks me on the shoulder. ‘You’ve got to stop that. You are an expert and highly valued staff member.’ She nods at me.

  ‘I am an expert and highly valued staff member,’ I repeat.

  ‘It’s a pity you’re going,’ says Sal. ‘I think you’re getting the hang of this. Hey, I wonder what your dad’s got you for your birthday.’

  My father’s inappropriate birthday presents are a running joke between Sal and me. On my fifth birthday my father gave me my first surfboard. It was pink and soft. It made a nice shelf for my picture books. Undeterred, he followed up over the years with:

  A body board and flippers;

  A wetsuit;

  A book called The Girls’ Guide to Surfing;

  A short fibreglass surfboard;

  A longer fibreglass surfboard; and

  A surf mat.

  After that, he got creative.

  ‘Remember that pink lycra bodysuit?’ asks Sal.

  Possibly deciding that the reason I wouldn’t surf was that I didn’t want to get sunburnt, on my twelfth birthday Dad gave me a full-length bodysuit and a hat with straps to hold it on in the surf.