SIGMUND FREUD
A shiny, red, open-topped sports car with leather seats is sitting on the street outside our house when I get home. They must be visiting one of the other houses as we don’t know anyone with a car like that.
But as I reach the house, a voice I don’t recognise is booming down the stairs. Opening the door, I see a strange tableau. It is almost like a nativity scene. Taking the place of Jesus is a crop-haired, tattooed, middle-aged man in a tight black T-shirt. Arrayed in front of him, like the three wise men and hanging on his every word, are Dad, Rochelle and Jay. In the absence of sheep and cows a solitary black cat sits at his feet, gazing at him with lemon eyes.
The man looks familiar, although I don’t think we have met before.
Dad turns as I come in. He has an expression on his face I’ve seen before on only a few occasions — his hero worship gaze. ‘Eddie, this is Rochelle and Jay’s dad.’ He pauses. ‘Gary Jaworski.’ He pronounces this name as if it is preceded by a drum roll.
The man turns and I have that weird sensation you get when you meet a celebrity, like they are taking up more space than a normal person. The feeling comes before the recognition, which hits a fraction of a second later. ‘Gary and the Grafters?’
The man sticks out his hand and takes mine. ‘Just Gary now. The Grafters and I have gone our own ways.’ The face that has decorated many copies of Rolling Stone creases into a million wrinkles.
I smile (number three) and turn my gaze back to the nativity scene. ‘How come you never told me Gary Jaworski was your father?’ I say to Jay and Rochelle.
‘You never told her?’ Jay turns to Rochelle, then swings back to me, ‘I figured you knew.’ His voice is softer than usual, the hard-edged sarcasm vanished for now.
Gary Jaworski — the name brings back memories. I was too young for the first, or even the second, wave of Gary and the Grafters but their music was among Mum’s favourites.
‘Come on, Edie, let’s shake it.’ Mum, jumps to her feet as ‘Love Receiver’ comes on the radio.
I am five years old and dancing with Mum is one of my favourite things.
‘Oo, baby, can’t you feeeeel it?’ Mum jumps up and down to the raging beat, her red hair flying, her light summer dress floating up around her.
Dad strolls in, his hair wet from surf training. He smiles at his two redheads and joins in, holding us in his suntanned arms, jigging up and down.
A salty sea breeze blows through the house and the surf crashes. In my childhood it is always sunny.
‘Dad’s doing a gig at Lighthouse Bay tonight.’ Rochelle brings me back to earth.
I blink and lower myself onto a chair.
‘You’re going to come along, aren’t you?’ Gary directs this question mainly to Jay.
‘You’re not going to play that crap Grafters stuff, are you?’ asks Jay.
His father smiles; this is obviously a well-worn routine. ‘No mate, it’s all new. Why don’t you join me for a few numbers?’
Jay shakes his head, his hair falling over his eyebrow. ‘You know I don’t do that shit.’
Rochelle looks at him. ‘Why not, Jay? You never know who could be watching.’
Jay doesn’t bother to reply.
And then I remember one of Gary’s older songs. ‘Jaybird’. You are laughter, you are tears…
‘You’ll come though?’ asks Gary.
Jay lifts his shoulders, then glances at me. ‘You want to go, Edie?’
I am so surprised I don’t have time to think about my answer. ‘God, yes.’
Jay’s mouth twitches.
My voice replays in my ears. I sound like a starstruck twelve-year-old.
‘Okay, Edie. It’s a date,’ he says.
After Gary has roared away in his red sports car, I look at Rochelle and Jay again. ‘I can’t believe I never knew he was your father.’
Rochelle looks embarrassed. ‘Who wants to be known as Gary Jaworski’s daughter all the time? I had enough of that in Sydney.’
‘You knew?’ I ask Dad.
He inclines his head. ‘Rochelle asked me to keep it quiet.’
Jay doesn’t say anything, but there is an expression on his face I haven’t seen before.
The nativity scene dissolves. Rochelle retreats to the kitchen and Dad to his shed. He is now doing something to the boards that used to be the lounge-room ceiling. The ways of the home renovator are mysterious to me.
Jay and I are left alone in the lounge room. The cat jumps up on the chair where Gary was sitting. It curls itself into a ball and licks the cushion. Its air of self-possession reminds me of the despondent cat on the cover of the book Professor Brownlow lent me, Kafka on the Shore.
‘Why didn’t Gary take his cat?’ I ask.
‘It’s not his cat. It just turned up here. Haven’t you seen it before?’
Now that I think about it, the cat does look familiar. ‘I think it lives around here, it’s never come in before, though.’ I click my tongue at it. ‘Hey, Kafka.’ The cat coughs, then makes a vomiting noise and expels a furball onto the cushion. This done, it leaps from the chair and slinks from the room with its tail in the air. ‘Guess it just came to see Gary,’ I say.
‘He has that effect on people; maybe it works on animals too. You know its name?’
‘It just seemed to fit.’
Jay nods. ‘Good name.’ He eyes the bare beams above us. ‘I like this look. It’s minimalist; very New York warehouse; very hip.’
I ignore the small talk. I am awkward with our changed dynamic; unsure why he has asked me out; suspicious of his motives. ‘I still can’t believe I didn’t know Gary Jaworski is your father. That’s so weird.’
‘I can’t believe you didn’t know either. I thought that was what it was all about…’ he trails off.
‘What what was all about?’
‘You know, the stalking.’ The side of his mouth pulls up in a half-smile.
‘No way. You thought I was stalking you because you’re Gary Jaworski’s son? That is so…’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘Why would I do that? Why wouldn’t I stalk Rochelle? Anyway, how was I stalking you?’
Jay smiles, like he’s enjoying this. ‘You just kept popping up all over the place, at the beach, here—’
‘But I live here. I was here f—’
Jay talks over the top of me, ‘…the university.’
‘But I work there,’ I squeal. ‘You, you’re such an arrogant… Why would I stalk you? Like you’re something special.’
Jay laughs. ‘Okay, I was wrong, you weren’t stalking me. Sorry.’ He holds up his hands, palms out. ‘It’s happened before, that’s all. You wouldn’t believe how many crazed Gary Jaworski fans are out there.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, really. Some people are just weird.’
‘I’m flattered you thought I was one of them.’
‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’ He gives me a mock-rueful puppy-dog look.
‘Jaybird. That’s you, right?’
Jay grimaces. ‘Can we not talk about that?’
‘But, isn’t that nice? Having a song—’
Jay’s eyebrows lower.
I stop, perhaps I am getting into Evel Knievel territory. ‘Why isn’t your name Jaworski?’
‘Well, old Gary didn’t hang around. He left soon after I turned two. Got famous and started shagging models. Why would I want to use his name? Rochelle feels the same.’
‘Wouldn’t it help, you know, with…’
‘I don’t want to be announced as Gary Jaworski’s son all my life. If that’s what it takes, I don’t want it.’
‘Yeah, I don’t want to be announced as the daughter of a former Australian surf champion every time I go in surf comps either.’
‘Your father?’
‘You didn’t know? I thought that’s why you were stalking me.’
Jay laughs. ‘Touché. Australian champ, huh?’
‘Former Junior Champion, former Australian Champion, World Number Two.’
‘Try top of the charts in Australia, top 40 in America, top 10 in the UK, ARIA Hall of Fame.’
I smile. ‘You win. Your father is way more famous, so I guess I was stalking you.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ says Jay, ‘but you don’t actually surf, do you?’
‘Correct. I don’t surf. I am what is known in breeding circles as a runt.’
Jay smiles. ‘Never underestimate the runt, I say. So, you’re coming to the show tonight?’
Our eyes meet. I feel that vibration again.
‘Okay.’ I glance at my watch. ‘I’d better write some erotica first.’
‘Tough life.’
‘You have no idea.’
Jay smiles and my chest hums. I want to touch his cheek. I want to run my fingers down those scars and ask him why he did that. I want to open his mind like a clam and see inside.