by Lisa Walker
‘I can see well enough for this kind of thing.’
‘For discussions about Japanese literature, you mean?’
Professor Brownlow gives me a quizzical look. ‘Indeed. For discussions about Japanese literature with my talented research assistant.’
The giant crab snaps its menacing pincers. I retreat back into my chair.
Professor Brownlow smiles. ‘I haven’t heard of Nori Toyota.’ He pulls a laptop from the bedside table towards him and opens it. ‘Might just Google him.’
Damn Google to hell. Why wasn’t I born into an era where fact-checking required more effort? A three-day journey on horseback to a rundown library with no Japanese books, for example. Don’t these web nerds ever consider the consequences of their actions? ‘He’s not very well known.’
‘Hmm, no, can’t be.’ Professor Brownlow scrolls down the screen. ‘Who else do you like?’ He looks up, fingers poised on the keyboard.
‘No one else.’ I am sullen. ‘Only Nori.’
‘You know, I like your writing a lot, Edie.’ Professor Brownlow’s voice is mild. ‘You are an interesting woman.’
The giant crab attacks. Its pincers are sharp and strong. I gasp like a small fish being pulled towards its sandy burrow. I turn red, then white with terror. My mouth is dry and my hands are wet.
Professor Brownlow taps a few keys on his keyboard. ‘It reminds me of the work of the late Nagasaki. I think you’re filling a niche market there. You should do a pitch to the crab symposium. They’d love it.’
I am lost for words. Professor Brownlow is more deeply eccentric than I’d ever suspected. Lighthouse Bay could sink into the sea before I’d stand in front of an audience and discuss erotic literature. I tip my glass to my mouth, but there is no gin left. I feel as exposed as a crab larva under the microscope but not nearly so innocent.
‘I’m serious. We could use some light relief in the program. You could team it with your drawings.’ He double clicks on his mouse and an image fills the screen. It is my Hercule Poirot crab larva. He tilts his head to one side. ‘I’m still trying to figure out a way to slip them into my presentation.’ Looking up from his keyboard, he gazes at my face. ‘What? You thought I’d be shocked? I’m flattered you think of me like that. Here I am — a boring forty-two-year-old academic.’
‘It’s not you.’ I gulp. ‘It’s nothing like you. It’s fiction.’
Professor Brownlow smiles. ‘If you say so, Edie.’
I don’t know where to look. You could sauté crab sticks on my burning face.
‘I’m afraid I got you into my motel room under false pretences.’ Professor Brownlow focuses the beam of his cerulean eyes on me.
Oh help. Those eyes should be classified as WMDs — Weapons of Mass Desire. My heart palpitates and sweat breaks out in my armpits. This is it — he’s read my fantasies, now he wants to act them out. My eyes meet his and a tremor passes through me — I don’t know if it’s lust or fear. My body sways towards him like a charmed snake.
Professor Brownlow looks puzzled. He nods towards his laptop, breaking the charm. ‘I could really do with some help typing up my presentation for tomorrow.’
My heart slows, but my cheeks grow hotter. How embarrassing. I probably looked like I was about to throw myself at him. Embarrassment is followed by indignation. He lured me into his motel room with Japanese literature, not to seduce me, but just so I could type up his speech? The cad. How dare he? I should slap his face and leave. That’s what a Brontë heroine would do. That, or throw his laptop out the window onto the windy moors.
Instead I say, ‘Of course, Ralph.’ I hold out my hands for the laptop. ‘I’d be happy to help.’
I am woken by the sun streaming into my eyes. As I open them I find I am looking straight into Professor Brownlow’s face. I feel like I have hardly slept at all.
I am lying on top of the almost unruffled covers of his king-sized bed.
Professor Brownlow is sitting on the edge of the bed wearing his regulation short shorts and loafers. His glasses sparkle in the sun. Today he has added a tie to his button-up shirt. I wonder what Sally would say about this wardrobe addition. Personally, I find his lack of dress sense quite sexy. It shows he has more important things to think about.
‘You look like Botticelli’s Venus,’ he says.
I am familiar with the picture; the naked, golden-tressed woman standing in a shell. And lovely though the image is, there is one aspect of it which troubles me — the nakedness. I glance down at myself and find I am still wearing my complete outfit — skirt, tights, T-shirt, all intact.
‘I’m sorry.’ Professor Brownlow smiles. He doesn’t look sorry. ‘I meant your hair — the way it’s lit up in the sun.’ He holds one lock up to the light. ‘See what I mean?’ It is an intimate gesture, and although his manner is more scientific than personal, my heart still quickens.
Fuelled only by teabags and biscuits in plastic wrappers, Professor Brownlow and I had worked until two in the morning. By this stage driving home had all the appeal of root canal surgery.
‘You may as well stay. I’ll sleep on the floor if you like, Edie,’ he’d said, giving a big yawn.
‘No, no, it’s a big bed.’ The mood between us was so comradely, so businesslike; I knew sleep was the only thing which was going to happen in that bed. There had not been even the slightest frisson between us as we lay down. Well, that’s a lie, there had been a teensy frisson on my part, but I don’t think it showed.
And it was a very big bed.
Professor Brownlow stands; laptop under his arm. ‘Thank you for your help last night, Edie. I’m sorry I kept you up so late. I’ll pay you overtime, of course.’ He sounds brisk. There is no hint in his manner that our working relationship has breached any of the usual guidelines.
This is reassuring. Even though he has read my erotic fantasy about him, we have shared a bed, and he has compared me to a naked goddess, we are still all above board, shipshape and totally professional. Excellent.
He glances at his watch. ‘I’d better be going. Will you stay here for a while?’
‘No.’ I slide my feet onto the floor and stand up. ‘Things to do.’
This sexless bed-sharing seems to be turning into a pattern, I reflect. I yawn and follow him to the door. Am I really so unattractive no one wants to have sex with me? Apparently so. And I’d always been under the impression that men would have sex with anyone given the opportunity.
Anyone except me.
‘Yo, Edz.’ A voice hails me as we step out into the sun.
Tim the surfer boy gives me a thumbs-up as he rides by on his bike, surfboard under his arm. ‘Surf’s up in the Bay,’ he yells back to me. ‘See you out there.’ His eyes slide to Professor Brownlow and he winks at me.
‘Friend of yours?’ asks Professor Brownlow.
I look after him. ‘Kind of. I’m starting to think he might be stalking me.’
Chapter Twenty-two
If you can’t do it, give up.
SIGMUND FREUD
Sally is sitting on the verandah couch texting when I get home. She presses Send, then glances at her watch. ‘What time do you call this?’
I look at my watch. ‘Ten o’clock. Why?’
‘Life coaching. Nine o’clock.’
I had completely forgotten my appointment with Sal. ‘I didn’t think we made a time.’
‘Where have you been, anyway?’ She smiles in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink way. ‘Out on the town?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘You’re going to have to tell me sometime. May as well be now.’
I shake my head.
‘You’re giving me your stubborn look, Ed. It’s not going to work.’
‘Okay, I’ll tell you later. Some other time. Not now.’ My voice squeaks.
‘Bad night, huh?’ Sally gives me a long look. ‘I know what it’s like.’
I doubt that Sally’s bad nights are anything like mine.
‘
Some guys just don’t know how to satisfy a girl,’ Sally muses.
‘No.’ This is close to the mark but I suspect we are talking about two different things.
‘Did you know that in Victorian times doctors used to treat female hysterics with genital massage?’
‘Sally, I am not hysterical.’
‘Did I say you were? I’m just telling you an interesting historical fact. You’re the one jumping to conclusions. Later, they moved on to vibrators and water hoses.’
‘Really?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Good business to be in. I bet they made a motza out of that.’
‘Mmm, I think Victorian women were a pretty hysterical bunch. All that lie back and think of England stuff. So, did you get your ten smiles in?’
I’d forgotten about the smiles. I add them up. ‘I only got up to six.’
Sally frowns.
‘But they were good ones.’
‘I suppose that’s not too bad. See how easy it is?’
I think of the doorman, Josh my school mate and the barman. Perhaps I was doing it wrong, but I don’t want to repeat the lesson. ‘Easy peasy.’
‘Let’s go,’ she says.
I am confused for a moment, but then I see the cue cards on Sally’s lap. Could I perhaps stage an epileptic fit or a stroke?
‘Don’t even try it,’ says Sal.
Sally has seen my tricks before. There is no escape. ‘Lead on,’ I say.
Fifteen minutes later, Sally and I are leaning on the fence at the beach. I have been briefed on my strategy.
‘The fifth stranger.’ Sally sidles away, just far enough to look like she’s not with me.
A couple of joggers go by. It’s lucky I don’t have to talk to them as I’d have to catch them first. Next comes a mother wheeling a baby in a pram. It is a pity they’re number three and four as I do a good line in baby talk. But perhaps Sally hasn’t been counting? I glance over at her.
She gives me a stern look. ‘Next,’ she mouths.
‘A pleasant social interchange. A pleasant social interchange,’ I mutter to myself. I practise my smile, but a smile without spirit is like a dance without music. Or a capella singing. I’ve never seen the point of that.
A surfer picks himself up out of the water and begins a lazy stroll towards me. Sally and I have workshopped a number of opening lines. How old is your baby? would have been perfect for the last two. Do you know where the toilet is? was my all-purpose suggestion, but Sally gunned that one down.
‘Too bogan, boring, personal and difficult to move on to something more interesting,’ she said.
I disagreed. You could comment on the location. Oh so convenient/inconvenient! Compare it to other toilet locations you have known. But not nearly as inconvenient as going to the toilet in India, so I hear. Or alternatively, Not nearly as convenient as going to the toilet in Japan. The toilet conversation would demonstrate my knowledge of other cultures. I was holding it in reserve.
As the surfer comes towards me, recognition dawns. No way. I turn to Sal and make a slashing motion across my throat. We haven’t rehearsed, but I’m pretty sure this is a universally recognised abort mission signal.
Sally shakes her head and gives me a thumbs-up.
Is she mad? I shake my head and ramp up the slashing actions, like a scuba diver whose air-supply hose has been bitten in half by a great white shark. Sally doesn’t realise who this surfer is.
There is probably one in every town — a person whose aura screams that they find you beneath contempt. Simply put, unfriendly-goatee-beard-man is my nemesis. There is no reason to this, no shared history of hostility; we are not Israel and Palestine or Serbia and Croatia. We are more like Sydney and Adelaide. I’ve never been to Adelaide and I’m sure it’s a very nice place. Just like I’m a very nice person. But I can sense that unfriendly-goatee-beard-man thinks otherwise. I am nerdy Adelaide and he is cool Sydney.
Sally gives me her laser-beam stare. If I was a superhero I would be putting up my plutonium defence shield now. I am powerless to resist. Unfriendly-goatee-beard-man is coming closer. I give Sally my possum in the headlights look in a last plea for mercy.
She scribbles something on a piece of paper with a marker pen and holds it up. SURF!!! it commands.
Goatee-beard-man is five metres away, four, three, two…
‘H…how was the surf?’ I ask.
He keeps walking. I feel a bit sick as I watch him go past. I knew he was unfriendly, but I didn’t realise he was that unfriendly.
A couple of metres past me he stops and turns, pulling a yellow ball out of each ear. ‘Did you say something?’ He holds up his hand. ‘Earplugs.’
His voice is not what I expected; it is neutral, maybe even friendly.
Sally waves her sign behind his head like she is meeting an unknown guest at the airport.
‘How was the surf?’ I ask again.
He looks surprised. ‘Good.’ He half-turns to point at the break. ‘That’s the spot. You goin’ out?’
Behind his head, Sally has changed her sign. It now reads BOOK. She jiggles it in an assertive way.
‘I… I would, but I’m in the middle of a very exciting book.’
He smiles.
This is good. I feel a surge of exhilaration. We are having a conversation. Or about to. We will talk about books! I can’t wait. Books are my forte.
‘I read a book once,’ he says. ‘It was about all these people killing each other.’
‘Oh.’ My mind goes blank. That’s the trouble with this conversation thing, it’s so unpredictable. You think you are proceeding happily in one direction then, whammo, they throw you a curve ball.
‘Have you read it?’ he asks, like it’s the only book in the world.
‘I don’t think so.’
Behind him Sally is smiling and nodding like she thinks this is going swimmingly. That’s because she can’t hear what we’re talking about. She doesn’t realise we are now stuck in a conversational version of the Bermuda Triangle.
‘Well,’ he says.
‘Well.’ It now occurs to me that he has no idea how to extricate himself from this awkward social situation I have created. Could he be as socially deficient as I am? If so, this is a very dangerous state of affairs. We are in a quicksand from which neither of us has the skills to escape. We could be stuck here forever.
He coughs.
I smile like he has made an excellent point. That cough reminds me of another cough I once encountered in South America… They could make a movie about us. You’ve seen Die Hard, now coming soon to a cinema near you — Die Shyly and Awkwardly. If I come out of this alive I want my part played by Scarlett Johansson.
We both shuffle our feet. I should have made a contingency plan when Sally and I were discussing this. Ear scratch means ring me now. But it’s too late for that. I cast Sally a beseeching glance. She has abandoned me, leaning over the railing to chat to a surfer on the beach below. Their words flow like the Amazon in flood.
‘Well.’ A small drip escapes my conversational tap. Well, well, well.
‘Hmm,’ he says, displaying a wider range than me. He is a virtuoso of the monosyllables.
‘Hmm,’ I echo. I’m sure he is wishing he never took those earplugs out. I want to tell him he is dismissed, but it is beyond me. My mind scrabbles for something to say.
I don’t know how long we stand there. It feels like forever — like I could have read War and Peace twice over . I have no idea how to break this deadlock and, apparently, neither does he. I have met my match. Like two tongue-tied cowboys, we are trapped in a duel. This town ain’t big enough for both of us and it isn’t me who’s going to leave.
‘Edie,’ Sally calls at last.
Her voice comes to me like a life raft. ‘Gotta go,’ I say apologetically, like I would so love to stay and chat some more.
‘Nice talking to you.’ He sounds like he means it. It must be the relief of escaping.
‘You too.’ Alread
y I have reframed the encounter in my mind as a pleasant social interchange.
‘How did that go?’ asks Sal when I wander over. ‘Sorry, I got a bit distracted.’
‘It was cool. We talked about books and surfing.’ If I don’t make it seem like a big success she’ll force me to do it again.
‘You see. All you need to do is give it a go.’
Sally and I walk home across the football field.
‘I heard you on the radio yesterday,’ I say as we reach my street. While I had been horrified at the time, given that the sky hasn’t fallen, it is possible I may have been over-reacting.
Sally shows no sign of embarrassment. ‘Oh yeah, that was great. I got a new client out of it.’
‘Erotic writing?’ I still find it a bit hard to believe that people are getting off on my writing.
‘She’s an interesting one. She wants the erotic writing, but she also wants creative coaching. She says her inner muse has deserted her. She needs to reconnect.’ Sally drawls this last word.
The inner muse thing rings a bell. ‘It isn’t Djennifer, is it?’
The way Sally looks at me, I know I am right. ‘Client confidentiality, Ed.’
I smile. ‘Djennifer with a D, right?’
But Sally’s mouth is locked tight.
When I get home it is eleven o’clock. The house is quiet. I sneak past Jay’s room. His door is closed. Maybe the long-legged leopard-print mini girl is in there with him. I wonder why he invited me to the gig. He must have felt sorry for me.
I continue upstairs and sit down at my desk. Today is an erotic writing day, so I switch on my computer and fill in my chart.
Tuesday: 52 days
Pain level: 8.5.
Location: Left side of chest
As the computer boots up I remember I was supposed to go running.
Today still doesn’t feel like a running day. Murakami must have a much more structured life than me. I haven’t given up on the idea of running though. Absolutely not.
