SIGMUND FREUD
The Top Pub in Lighthouse Bay is pumping. A naive over-confidence has carried me from the house to the car to the pub, but it wilts as I gaze at the crowd. Everyone here looks cool, with-it and dauntingly extroverted. Those ants in my brain, which I thought I had vanquished, turn out to have been taking a light nap.
You’re dressed all wrong, says the scout ant.
It’s weird coming here by yourself, says its friend.
What if Jay isn’t here? asks the next one. You’re going to look pretty stupid then, aren’t you?
He likes me, I retort. I take a deep breath, flick the ants aside and give my name at the door as Jay told me to. The doorman doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I shell out twenty dollars to enter. I am two metres past before I remember that I am supposed to smile. I turn around and smile, but he must be looking at someone else as he doesn’t smile back. I count it anyway (number four).
Cool smile, says the first ant sarcastically.
Jay’s forgotten all about you, says the next.
Name at the door, says the sarcastic one. As if.
As I push my way towards the bar I find myself face to face with a guy I went to school with. He is blond, broad-shouldered and good-looking in a generic surfie way.
‘Hi, umm…’ he says.
‘Edie.’ I smile (number five). These smiles are starting to seem like very hard work.
‘That’s right.’ He looks over my shoulder. ‘Good to see you.’
‘You too, um…’ I know his name, but why would I let him know that?
He frowns. ‘Josh.’
The main thing I remember about Josh is that his girlfriend, Candy, was six months pregnant at the end of Year Twelve. ‘How’s the baby? Was it a girl or a boy?’
Josh looks panic-stricken. I have over-stepped the boundaries of small talk. ‘Gotta go.’ He wends his way past me into the crowd.
I am used to it, but it is still deflating. The evening hasn’t started well. People jostle me and I wonder what I am doing here. This is not what I do. I am not a going-to-bars kind of person.
I make it to the bar, order a drink and smile at the barman (number six). He is too cool to smile back. Sipping my drink, I search the medley of faces. Where is he? Why didn’t he leave my name at the door? Is he busy telling some other girl he likes her? Hordes of people, most of them rockstar chic, mingle with no effort at all.
I thought when I was getting dressed that maybe I would fit in for once. I thought I’d find Jay and feel at home. Instead, I feel the way I always do when surrounded by people — like I want to escape. At times like these I often think it would be nice to have a box to climb into. If I could erect an Instant Shy Shelter and get inside I’d be happy to stay here all night.
Then I see a tattered blue denim jacket. My stomach takes a high dive.
Jay is up near the stage. Unlike me, he looks relaxed. His hair is falling over one eye and he is smiling in a way he never smiles at me: broadly, flirtatiously. A pale hand with long, black fingernails is draped over his shoulder. The owner of this hand has dark hair which hangs halfway down her back and long legs that emerge from a leopard-print miniskirt and pour themselves into stiletto boots.
Now that’s the kind of girl Jay would really like, says the chief ant.
As I register this, she leans over and plants a long kiss on his lips.
I drain my drink, fight my way to the door and leave my glass in a pot plant on the way out. He likes me not.
The streets are teeming with the usual mixture of backpackers, surfers and middle-aged hipsters. I am empty from the sudden loss of joy. The ants have gone, their job is done. No one looks at me. I am almost convinced I am invisible until I hear someone call my name.
I look around, but can’t see anyone.
‘Edie.’
The voice is coming from the other side of the road. I peer through the cars. A man is waving at me from the other side of the street.
It is Professor Brownlow. How extraordinary. He makes his way between the cars towards me. He isn’t wearing his glasses. As he approaches I am caught like a rabbit in the headlights of his astonishing blue eyes.
His legs are hidden in a pair of faded jeans and an untucked Hawaiian-print number has replaced his usual business shirt. Thongs instead of loafers complete this startling costume change. His hair is sticking up from his head in salty wisps and a towel hangs over his shoulder.
‘Hello. What brings you here?’ He stops as he reaches me.
‘Oh, I was going to a band, Gary Jaworski, but I changed my mind.’
‘Gary Jaworski?’ Professor Brownlow lifts his eyebrows. ‘I love his music. What was that one, “I’m Your Love Receiver, Baby?” Great stuff, but you’d be too young to remember.’
‘No, I know that one. My mum was into him.’ I eye his towel. ‘Have you been swimming in the dark?’
‘Yes.’ Professor Brownlow smiles. ‘I don’t get to the beach often enough, so, while I can…’
This night swimming hints at a reckless streak I hadn’t suspected. ‘You came down here just to swim?’
‘No. There’s a crustacean symposium at the Sands Resort; starting tomorrow. I’m giving my Libnia paper. You remember.’
‘Oh yes, the Libnia.’ It rings vague bells. ‘So, a crab symposium, huh?’ I visualise an excitable group of crabs seated around a table. ‘Sounds, um, fun.’
‘Not as much fun as you might think.’
‘Are you dissing the crab symposium?’
Professor Brownlow laughs. He looks much younger and…naughtier than he does in the lab. ‘No, you know I’ve got a thing for crabs.’
His voice is neutral, but I am pretty sure I’m catching a whiff of sexual innuendo. No, I mustn’t be paranoid. Sally wouldn’t give him my writing. Would she?
‘I’m staying just here.’ He points at the pink stucco-rendered motel we’re standing next to. ‘The conference is putting me up. I’m the keynote speaker.’
We both look at the building.
‘Very Mediterranean,’ I say.
‘Mediterranean with an outback influence.’ Professor Brownlow points at the old carriage wheel suspended over the entrance arch. ‘I’m supposed to be at the dinner, but, well…’
‘You’d rather go swimming?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is Belinda with you?’ I am pleased with myself for remembering her name. Usually I think of her as Professor Brownlow’s wife.
Professor Brownlow shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate.
I hear a miaow and look down. A black cat winds between my feet. ‘Kafka? Is that you?’
The cat miaows again, looking up at me with its lemon eyes.
I bend to stroke it. ‘Gary’s in the pub if you’re looking for him,’ I murmur, ‘just up the road there.’
‘Kafka?’ enquires Professor Brownlow. ‘As in Kafka on the Shore?’
I stand up and our eyes meet. For some reason I blush. ‘It seemed to fit.’
‘Do you want to come in for a drink?’ asks Professor Brownlow. ‘I’d like to talk to you some more about Japanese literature.’
He says this as if it is the obvious thing to do when running into your research assistant on the street. As if it is a natural extension of our pleasant working relationship. We talk about Japanese literature at work, so why not in his mock-Mediterranean/outback motel room? It seems churlish to refuse. What is more, I am grateful for the diversion. I don’t want to be left alone with only my spiteful ants for company.
So even though I know going into your married boss’s motel room is heavy with meaning and despite the fact that I have no more to say on the topic of Japanese literature, before I know it I find I have said, ‘Yes. Why not?’
When I look down, Kafka has vanished.