Slow Man

'Your mother and I are not having an affair,' he repeats doggedly. 'She would not dream of it, I would not dream of it.' What a lie! I dream of it daily. 'If you don't believe me, that is the end of it, I am not going to try to persuade you. What are your plans now, your immediate plans? Will you be staying at home or with your mother?'

Drago shakes his head. 'I'm not going back. I'll crash at a mate's.' He gives the rucksack a kick. 'I brought my things.'

From the look of the rucksack he has brought a great many things.

'You can sleep here if you like. There is a spare bed in my study.'

'I don't know. I told my mate I would stay with him. Can I tell you later? Can I leave my bag here?'

'Please yourself

He stays up past midnight waiting for Drago. But it is not until the next day that Drago comes back. 'I've got a friend with me downstairs,' he announces on the entryphone. 'Can she come up?'

A friend, a girlfriend: so that is where he spent the night! 'Yes, come up.' But when he opens the door he nearly cries out with exasperation. By the side of a grubby, weary-looking Drago stands Elizabeth Costello. Will he never be rid of the woman?

He and she eye each other warily, like feuding dogs. 'Drago and I bumped into each other on Victoria Square,' she says. 'That's where he was spending the night. In the company of some new mates. Who were inducting him into the fruits of the Barossa.'

'I thought you said you were staying with a friend,' he says to Drago.

'It didn't work out. I'm OK.'

I'm OK. The boy is clearly not OK. He seems sunk in dejection, which a bout of drinking cannot have helped.

'Have you spoken to your mother?'

The boy nods.

'And?'

'I phoned her. I told her I'm not coming back.'

'I'm not asking about you, I'm asking about her. How is she?'

'She's OK.'

'Take a shower, Drago. Go on. Clean yourself up. Have a nap. Then go home. Make peace with your father. I'm sure he is sorry for what he did.'

'He's not sorry. He's never sorry.'

'May I put in a word?' says Elizabeth Costello. 'Drago's father is unlikely to be sorry as long as he is convinced he is in the right. That, at least, is how I see it. As for Marijana, whatever she may tell her son on the phone, she is certainly not OK. If she has taken refuge with her sister-in-law, that is only because she has nowhere else to go. Her sister-in-law is not sympathetic to her.'

'This is Lidie? Lidie is Jokic's sister?'

'Lidija Karadzic. Miroslav's sister, Drago's aunt. Lidie and Marijana do not get on, have never got on. In Lidie's opinion, what is being dished out to Marijana is no more than she deserves. "Where there is smoke there is fire," says Lidie. A Croatian proverb.'

'How on earth can you know these things? How do you know what Lidie says?'

The Costello woman brushes the question aside. 'To Lidie it does not matter whether in truth Marijana is having an extramarital affair. What matters is that stories are being whispered in the rather narrow circle of the Croatian community. Pay heed, Paul, don't curl your lip with disdain. Gossip, public opinion, jama as the Romans called it, makes the world go round – gossip, not truth. You tell us you are in truth not having an affair with Drago's mother because you and she have not in truth (excuse me, Drago) had sexual intercourse. But what counts as sexual intercourse nowadays? And how do we weigh a quick deed in a dark corner as against months of fevered longing? When love is the subject, how can an outside observer ever be sure of the truth of what has gone on? What we can be a great deal more sure of is that whispers of an affair between Marijana Jokic and one of her clients have been released into the air, who knows by whom. And the air is common, the air is what we breathe and live by; the more loudly the rumour is denied, the more it is in the air.

'You don't like me, Mr Rayment, you want to be rid of me, you make that quite plain. And I myself am not exactly rejoicing, I assure you, to find myself back in this hideous flat. The sooner you settle on a course of action vis-a-vis Drago's mother, or visa-vis the lady in black who called on you the other day, or even vis-a-vis Mrs McCord, whom you never mention in my hearing, but most likely vis-a-vis Drago's mother, since she seems to be the light of your life – the sooner you settle on a course of action and commit yourself to it, the sooner you and I, to our mutual relief, will be able to part. What that course of action should consist in I cannot advise, that must come from you. If I knew what came next there 'would be no need for me to be here, I could go back to my own life, which is a great deal more comfortable, I assure you, and more satisfying, than what I have to put up with here. But until you choose to act I must wait upon you. You are, as the saying has it, your own man.'

He shakes his head. 'I don't understand your meaning. You make no sense at all.'

'Of course you understand. And anyway, one does not need to understand before one takes action, not unless one is excessively philosophic. Let me remind you, there is such a thing as acting on impulse, and I would certainly urge it on you if I were only permitted. You say you are in love with Mrs Jokic, or at least when Drago is not around that is what you say. Well, do something with your love. And, by the way, a little more frankness in front of Drago would not hurt – would it, Drago?'

Drago gives a crooked smile.

'Part of a growing boy's education. Better than sending him off to that pretentious college in Canberra. Give him a glimpse of the wilder shores of love. Let him see how one navigates the passions, how one steers by the stars – the Great and Little Bear, the Archer, and so forth. The Southern Cross. He must have passions of his own by now, he is old enough for passions. You do have passions, don't you, Drago?'

Drago is silent, but the smile does not leave his lips. Something is on the go between the woman and the boy. But what?

'Let me ask you, Drago: What would you do if you were in Mr Rayment's shoes, if you were Mr Rayment?'

'What would I do?'

'Yes. Imagine: you are sixty years old and suddenly one morning you wake up head over heels in love with a woman who is not only younger than you by a quarter of a century but also married, happily married, more or less. What would you do?'

Slowly Drago shakes his head. 'That's not a fair question. If I'm sixteen, how do I know what it is like to be sixty? It's different if you're sixty – then you can remember. But… It's Mr Rayment we are talking about, right? How can I be Mr Rayment if I can't get inside him?'

They are silent, waiting for more. But that seems to be as far as the boy, who despite his hangover still has the looks of an angel of God, will venture into the hypothetical.

'Then let us rephrase the question,' says Mrs Costello. 'Some people say that love makes us youthful again. Makes the heart beat faster. Makes the juices run. Puts a lilt in our voice and a spring in our walk. Let us agree that it is so, for argument's sake, and let us look back over Mr Rayment's case. Mr Rayment has an accident as a result of which he loses a leg. He engages a nurse to look after him, and in no time has fallen in love with her. He has intimations that a miraculous, love-born reflorescence of his youth might be around the corner; he even dreams of engendering a son (yes, it is true, a little half-brother to you). But can he trust these intimations? Are they not perhaps a dotard's fantasies? So the question to ponder, given the situation as I have described it, is: What does Mr Rayment, or someone like Mr Rayment, do next? Does he blindly follow the promptings of his desire as his desire strives to bring itself to fruition; or, having weighed up the pros and cons, does he conclude that throwing himself heart and soul into a love affair with a married woman would be imprudent, and creep back into his shell?'