can't afford to take you to Hawaii.”
“That's not necessary.”
“What, your father's can't afford to take you to Hawaii either?”
“He's very busy at the moment.”
“What's it now? Cryogenics?”
“He's working on an idea for public bicycles.”
“Really! What's he doing? Making them or marketing them?”
“I’d rather talk about Hawaii, the project, not public bicycles. If the project was on public bicycles I'd be with him, wouldn't I?”
“Yes, I suppose. We haven't got off to a good start here, have we?”
“It's that sarcasm of yours. You can't let it go, can you?”
“Sorry.”
“So let's get to it.”
“What? Now?”
“Why not? I’ve got an assignment for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to research the islands’ discovery. James Cook and all that.”
“And what will you be doing?”
“Its formation, vulcanology, geographically speaking.”
“I’ll have to take a break to get dinner.”
“You help me with this, I’ll help you with that.”
She knew it was a cliché but the idea of mother and son getting dinner together warmed what cockles of her heart she had left. ”OK. So let’s get to it.” He stared at her as if something else was on his mind. “What?” He kept staring. “Jack?”
“ ... Do you use sex in your work?”
The direct and abrupt question made her return his gaze with equal force, gave her courage, and demanded a reply of reciprocal honesty that far outweighed the reticence that might be implied in such a question from a teenage son to his mother; but before she answered her eyes flickered over his darkening cheeks and his broadening shoulders and a mother’s sense of time gave her that universal tinge of sadness, “When I believe it necessary, yes, I use sexual techniques. The only time this policy went seriously awry was when I was raped by Melvin Verlarny five and a half years ago.”
“I see.” She could see in his eyes that he got more than he bargained for.
“Why do you ask?”
“Something Ray said. He disapproves.”
Something wise and feminine stopped her from saying sarcastically, ‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ so she said instead with a little over-compensation, “That’s his right.” She could see, however, that he had more to ask: he was studying her face. What a wonderful man he is becoming, she thought.
“Why don’t you hang up your shingle in Macquarie Street?
“To preserve the anonymity of my clients.”
“And yours.”
She let him continue as her brain sought a meaningful path through his questioning.
“Anonymity is preserved in a building full of professionals: dentists, doctors, psychologists.”
“The cyber-world is the world of the future,” she said confidently.
“You’re not on facebook or any other social media; you don’t have a twitter account, nor an iPad. An online business needs all of these things.”
She couldn’t help a feeling of ambush and that meaningful path was proving elusive. “And your point is?”
“It sounds as if anonymity is more about you than about them.”
“I try to put my clients first.”
“Why do you call yourself Susan?” She now knew he had been on her website and her face must have shown it because he added. “I Googled you.” He followed this with a knowing, cheeky, and son-like smile of admission, which greatly pleased and relieved her and gave her permission to reciprocate.
“Maybe I’m a little guilty of sub-conscious self-preservation,” and then added self-deprecatingly, “Just because I study the sub-conscious doesn’t mean I’m immune to the shenanigans of my own.”
His smile disappeared as he said “Your anonymity didn’t save you from Melvin Verlarny.”
“You’re right there,” she said and then took the lead. “Not all my clients have been about sex; in fact they are in the minority, so when asked you can honestly say that your mother is a psychologist, a consulting psychologist.”
“But I know you use sex.”
“Sexual techniques,” she corrected him; “there’s an implication with the word ‘sex’ that I want you to be clear about.”
“Sexual techniques. You use sexual techniques.”
“Yes, when appropriate. But there’s no need to explain my techniques when you tell people what your mother does for a living.”
“But I know.”
“You’re not a client of mine, how do you know?”
“Because you told me.”
“Yes, because you’re my son and you asked me. And if you were a client I wouldn’t say anything to anybody: client confidentiality and all that.”
“What if they ask me?”
“Give them my website address. Maybe their curiosity has deeper reasons.”
“Get an office,” he said as he looked back to his project putting a definite end to the conversation. "Now! Hawaii!”
6
Veronica, in all the years she had known Max, had never contacted him; he had always contacted her because, it had to be admitted, he had an affection for her that Veronica felt could not be tolerated, and certainly not encouraged. Diane was her best friend and even if the friendship was now more history than affection, the fact remained that Veronica was Diane’s friend; her only friend, certainly her only female friend and any dent in her loyalty would be a knife in Diane’s back. However, Veronica found Diane’s bizarre revelation, false though she was sure it was, a serious development in Diane’s crumbly mental state. Diane had always had a slim and grim clutch on reality, and her constant conspiracy theories were all due to Diane’s mainly empty days, or so Veronica thought, and consequently harmless. The more Max was with her the better she was but he had to maintain a married home life with a wife (that, in reality, no longer existed): an arrangement that Diane sincerely believed in and relied on to maintain the life she believed she had and wanted.
