Homecoming by Adib Khan Page B

will probably go, in the end, wondering: what was that all about?’
    ‘And?’
    There was nothing to add. Nothing further that he could reveal.
    Andrew looks at him thoughtfully. ‘Have the new tablets made a difference?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Martin replies truthfully. ‘I still tend to turn away from things that don’t have a direct bearing on me. I don’t mean to. But change panics me. I hate making decisions. I resent feeling unsettled…isolated. There are no fences any more to mark one’s territory. I would like to wake up every day knowing that nothing is different. I want to get out of this tunnel—find a windless landscape, where I can sleep without dreams for a hundred years.’
    ‘But there’s something else you want to say?’ Andrew murmurs.
    ‘It’s rather silly.’ Martin looks at the psychiatrist for reassurance. ‘I am having this dream about a huge ship.’
    ‘You’ve never mentioned anything like that before.’ A note of interest in Andrew’s voice. The notebook and pen reappear.
    ‘It’s only happened in the last few days. Several nights in a row. It began after a road incident with my ute.’ With clinical accuracy Martin describes what had happened. But he allows the two men who pursued him to slip to the periphery of his recollection. And sure enough, Andrew is curious about the attackers.
    ‘I barely saw them,’ Martin prevaricates. ‘Their faces were distorted against the windscreen. The lights weren’t bright enough. And then they were gone.’
    ‘Surely you remember some details. Brown hair? Colour of a jumper? Approximate height?’
    ‘Asians.’ The reluctant admission.
    ‘Aah…’ Andrew drums his fingers on the edge of the desk.
    The sound irritates Martin. This ‘Aah’ communicates a certain logical conclusion that is inescapably simplistic. Its tone conveys the triumph of discovery—as though Andrew is congratulating himself on a shrewd piece of deductive thinking.
    ‘Can you recall your initial reaction when you realised that these men were Asians? What did you think of first?’
    ‘They were Vietnamese,’ Martin confesses finally. He clenches his fists in an attempt to control the trembling. ‘I was afraid.’
    ‘Why Vietnamese? Why not Thai, Korean or Singaporean?’
    ‘Past association, I guess. Vietnamese are the only Asians I have ever really known.’
    ‘Why were you afraid?’
    ‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Martin retorts.
    Andrew stares at him. Expressionless. ‘Would you have been as fearful if they had been Caucasian?’
    Martin shifts uncomfortably and crosses his legs. ‘I feared for my safety. People are often assaulted in such situations.’
    Faint noises of the city filter into the room. Andrew’s pen glides smoothly over a page of the notebook. ‘Tell me about this ship,’ he says without looking up or pausing from writing notes.
    ‘It’s called HMAS Sydney! Martin is embarrassed by the revelation. It is the kind of unbelievable stuff that children might conjure up with conviction. Peter Pan, but without the wistful charm.
    HIS HANDS FUMBLED in the medicine cabinet, making a mess of the rows of bottles and packets. He found the sleepingtablets and swallowed one, washing it down with a cupped handful of water. He closed his eyes and shook his head vigorously. He could have sworn that the girl had appeared momentarily in the mirror above the washbasin, winking and blowing him a kiss.
    Martin lay in bed without switching off the bedside table lamp. That girl again. Flawless complexion, shoulder-length brown hair, wide hips and provocatively full breasts. A body that would continue to ripen for a few more years and taunt men. He wished that he could feel a ripple of desire. An urge to touch her. He thought about impulses and the nature of instinct. Beside him on the bedside table sat the bronze cast of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. Was thinking essentially an exercise in masochism? Martin regularly sought to justify the way he thought,