I met Janet Suvorov shortly after moving to Sydney. She briefly acted as my supervisor, before being promoted into another department. She was an unserious, welcoming person, close enough to me in age that there was no difficult generational divide. We spoke often, though we seldom saw each other outside of the office.
Late one afternoon, I bumped into her near the lift. She asked me what I was doing over the long weekend, which I’d forgotten. She and her husband were driving up the coast; when I confessed that I didn’t have any plans, she suggested I join them. Naturally, I was surprised. We were no more than colleagues, people who work together and happen to be on good terms; not even the most generous observer would’ve called us friends. I thanked her for the invitation but said I didn’t want to interfere with her romantic getaway.
“It’s hardly a romantic getaway,” she said as the lift doors glided open, “We’re just going for a drive. And you won’t be imposing. You’d be doing me a favour, actually.”
I asked what she meant, and she explained that her husband was mad about Australian history and that, despite her protests, he was determined to use the trip as an opportunity to visit a string of colonial sites. She needed me there to tip the balance of power in favour of beaches and cocktails and against crumbling ruins. She wanted an answer right away; the smallest delay would ruin things. Lingering between the lift and the exit, I couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse. Janet said she had to run, but the whole idea sounded great, and she was looking forward to it already. That night, she sent me a lengthy email, outlining the itinerary and informing me where I needed to book accommodation.
I’d met her husband, Peter Suvorov, once before then, at a work function, a barbecue to which employees were encouraged to bring their partners and children. Wearing a white shirt with a thin black tie, navy slacks and pointy black shoes, he looked as if he’d been hired to help cater the event or serve as an usher. Janet introduced us and then excused herself and walked away, saying she had to speak to her manager. Once we were alone, Peter Suvorov leaned close to me and whispered something about the packs of children roaming the park, a remark like makes you want to invest in birth control but not in those words. Grinning slyly, he said he was sure I’d rather be somewhere else. When I asked what he meant, he snickered and said I knew exactly what he meant.
He had an American accent and spoke a literary brand of English, punctuated with Australian slang terms like mate or servo, which he deployed in an oddly clunky manner, as if he’d recently overheard them and decided to make a point of using them himself. He was a professor of mathematics at The University of Sydney and looked at least a decade older than Janet, though his outfit may have accentuated the age difference. It was hard to imagine him being interested in Australian colonial history, but then it’s hard to imagine anyone being interested in that subject.
Peter picked Janet and I up from the office on Friday evening. Again, he was dressed formally, wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and a black tie, again resembling a hired professional, a chauffeur or a bodyguard, even donning a pair of maroon leather gloves, like those worn by drivers in the 1930s, with a row of holes curving across the knuckles and brass clasps fastened over the wrists. Apart from a curt greeting, he didn’t say much, while his wife spoke incessantly, ranting about the problems facing our company, the myopic management, the inefficiency of the bureaucracy, our lazy colleagues, and so on. At first, I thought Peter must’ve been upset, annoyed by my presence and annoyed at his wife for having invited me; but his mood changed entirely we’d arrived in Budgewoi and checked into the motel, and he became talkative, at turns reciting facts related to the central coast area and at turns plying me with questions that were somehow both banal and bordering on inappropriate, asking about my apartment and how it compared to the motel room (which I’d only glanced at), how firm I liked my mattress, what time I normally went to bed, and whether I preferred to sleep in silence or with a small amount of noise.
We walked from the motel to a restaurant on the shore of Budgewoi Lake, one of those cavernous venues found in country towns, capable of hosting thousands of patrons. Our table was outside, on the edge of the wooden deck. It was a warm night, and the lake was completely still. Janet ordered a bottle of wine, and the three of us toasted to our trip. Handing me her phone and slinging her arm across her husband’s shoulder, she asked me to take a photo.
“Janet says you’re interested in Australian history,” I said to Peter.
“Yes, very much so,” he said, “It’s a shame, while Australians are happy to learn about world history, particularly European history, they aren’t so keen on their own, either finding it too dull to read about or else so unnerving that it’s best forgotten. Since migrating here, I’ve become fascinated with the system of transportation. Last year, we visited Port Arthur, in Tassie.”
“That certainly was a relaxing holiday,” Janet said.
“She complains now, but I can assure you we enjoyed it very much,” Peter said. “There is a former convict settlement not far from here, near Monee. I was hoping to see it tomorrow or on Sunday.”
He looked at me eagerly. Beside him, Janet was leaning back in her chair, shaking her head and crossing her arms diagonally over her chest. Seeing me glance in her direction, Peter turned to look; she dropped her arms to her side and the two of them laughed.
“Would you like to hear the story of how we met and fell in love?” Peter asked me.
Janet waved her hands in protest. “No, no!” she cried.
Peter reached across and pressed a straightened finger to her lips. Turning back, he grinned at me and rolled his eyes. “We met on a cruise,” he said.
“On a boat,” Janet interjected.
“Yes, a boat. Not a cruise, like the sort for old retirees and horny youngsters, no. Just a boat, travelling overnight from London to Copenhagen. On board were a few tourists and a few odd people like me, people who prefer sea travel to plane travel. There was a communal dinner, a sad affair.”
“It wasn’t that bad!”
“She misremembers. It was awful: awful tucker, awful odour, awful atmosphere. Hardly anyone said a word: we were too busy trying to force down our meals. Janet was seated across from me, but I didn’t speak to her. I wasn’t so confident in my English then.”
“And you were shy.”
“Yes, I was shy. Around this beautiful, boisterous woman, I was at a loss for words. I ate little and retired early. That night, in my cabin, I had a dream. I dreamed of this woman, this blonde Australian girl, whose name I didn’t know. We were together in a hotel room, the sort of cheap room that’s very common in Europe but not so common here or in the United States. Never fear, I won’t describe what happened in the dream. It is inappropriate. I woke up in the middle of the night and knew she was the love of my life. I sat there waiting until morning, thinking about her. I told myself that I would accost her at breakfast, bad English or not. Without introducing myself, I told her that I’d dreamed of her. I told her that we’d been together, that we’d been in a hotel, and… I won’t repeat it, but I told her everything, I recounted my dream in complete detail, and I told her that she was the love of my life.”
“A lot to hear over a bowl of stale cornflakes.”
“It wasn’t cornflakes, my dear. It was an English breakfast: burned sausages, soggy beans, undercooked eggs, cold tomatoes.”
“You’ve got a better memory than me,” Janet said, “As you can imagine, I was a bit shocked by this dream business. Hold on, let’s get another bottle.”
“That’s enough for me,” Peter said.
“Alright, old man. Sam, you’ll have more, won’t you?” Janet asked.
I shrugged. “Why not?”
“Why not, exactly?” Janet said as she waved to the waitress.
“You didn’t finish the story,” Peter said once the wine had been ordered.
“You’re right. Well, yes. I’d just met this man at breakfast. On the ship. And I’d just heard about this wild dream of his. An interesting dream…”
“Interesting,” Peter said.
“Interesting, strange, frightening, maybe appealing… No-one had ever spoken to me like that, so forthright, I guess? I was intrigued, but we were about to arrive in Copenhagen and go our separate ways. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, Sam, but I was younger then. We both were. When we got off the boat, I went with him, with this man I’d just met, who’d told me about his dream, I went with him directly to his hotel. And do you know what?”
“It was the hotel from my dream,” Peter said.
“I was going to say it was best decision I’ve ever made.”
“Right down to the smallest detail. And the things that went on in there: they were just like my dream as well. It was amazing. The realization of the fantasy.”
“When you’re presented with an opportunity, or not an opportunity, but a choice I guess, a strange choice… When you’re presented with a choice like that, you have to seize it, even if it’s frightening.”
“The carpet, the windows, the bed: all from the dream. The dream of a place I had never seen before. Of a woman I had never known. You don’t believe me, I’m sure.”
Peter Suvorov fell silent, and his wife smiled and rubbed his arm. The wine arrived and Janet poured glasses for me and her and we toasted again, this time to dreams and seizing opportunities.
After dinner, the three of us stumbled back to the motel. Our rooms weren’t next to each other; their double was downstairs, overlooking the beach, while my single was on the other side of the building, facing the carpark and the road. I didn’t realise how tired I was until we said goodnight and parted ways. My steps were heavy and unbalanced, and I almost passed out as soon as I entered the room, just managing to undress before collapsing on to the bed. I awoke early the next morning, feeling warm and queasy. Unable to return to sleep, I got up, showered and made a cup of instant coffee and drank it slowly while listening to music on my phone.
Janet knocked on the door a few hours later. She seemed surprised when I answered, already awake and dressed.
“Did you sleep okay?” she asked, “Not too noisy? Peter won’t be up for another hour or two. He likes sleeping in.”
We walked to a café we’d passed the night before but found it closed and instead walked along the shore of the lake. A cool wind ruffled Janet’s hair and blew fine ripples over the surface of the water.
“Isn’t this lovely?” she said, throwing her head back, “I miss going for long walks like this.”
By the time we returned to the motel, the sun had risen, and the air had grown warm and thick. Janet asked me to check on Peter; she didn’t want to appear to be hurrying him. While she waited at the reception, I went to their room and knocked on the door, which was open and slightly ajar. Peering through the gap in the blinds, I glimpsed the bed, unoccupied and freshly made. There were no sounds coming from inside the room, and I wondered if Peter had gone somewhere and forgotten to close the door on the way out. Knocking again, I pushed the door open and peered into the room, immediately spying the spotted, olive-coloured mass of Peter Suvorov’s back, flanked by stacks of medicine packets and plastic bottles. He was seated at the small steel table on the far side of the room with a pair of headphones clamped over his head and a laptop propped up on a faded phonebook in front of him, its screen showing grainy footage of a man kneeling over a woman on top of a bare mattress in the middle of a dim room, the man moving slowly backwards and forwards and up and down, the woman digging her fingernails into the mattress’s tight latex cover, the scene filmed from diagonally above the bed, from which angle the couple looked like a fat, fleshy stapler. The poor lighting combined with the fixed perspective and the fuzziness of the picture gave the video a seedier quality than ordinary pornography, creating the impression that it was filmed without the couple’s consent (which may have been a directorial choice).
Moving the door to its initial position, I backed out of the room and returned to the reception. I told Janet her husband was still getting ready.
“He’s very particular about his appearance,” she sighed, “I’m sure you’ve noticed. Still, I suppose that’s better than being married to a slob.”
Ten minutes later, Peter came around the corner, dressed less formally than the day before but still more formally than you’d expect from a man on holiday, wearing a silvery silk shirt, a pair of grey trousers and brown leather shoes, the sort of outfit when men wore casually at the turn of the last century. Janet was wearing a white linen dress, a girlish summer dress, further emphasising the age difference between them.
We drove to The Entrance, ate breakfast at a café and wandered around looking at shops. In the afternoon, we went to the beach. Upon arriving, Janet and Peter headed to the showers to get changed. Already wearing my bathers, I spread a towel on the sand and lay down on my back and stared up at the midday sun with closed eyes. After waiting for longer than seemed reasonable, I peeled off my shirt and walked into the sea, wading and paddling until I was far from the shore, away from the families and children splashing and playing games in the warm shallows, out with the few other loners, bobbing and floating serenely in the depths. When I turned back to check on my towel and bag, I could see Janet and Peter waving from the beach. Janet was wearing a blue bikini with white polka dots, and her hair was tied in a loose, curly bun. Through the heat and the haze, she looked much younger, even younger than me, a young girl on vacation with her parents, her blonde hair and unblemished skin glistening in the sun.
I plunged my head under the water and swam back to the shore.
“You’re getting out already? I was just about to go in. I bet the water’s lovely,” Janet said.
I told her I was taking a break and flopped down beside Peter, who was sitting on a towel, holding a book. Lying on my stomach, I turned my head away from him and furtively glanced towards my feet, pressing my warm, wet face to my shoulder and almost curling my body into a C-shape in order to watch Janet make her way to the water. Once she disappeared from view, I straightened out, dug my head into the ground and closed my eyes. I was so tired I thought I might fall asleep.
“My wife looks very young, don’t you agree?” Peter said, his sharp voice piercing my cocoon of drowsiness. I rolled over and pushed myself up on my forearms. Wearing tan shorts, a pale green shirt, dark sunglasses and a broad-brimmed hat with mesh flaps hanging from the back, he looked like a beekeeper or a gardener. The book he’d been reading, Walden Two by B. F. Skinner, was resting on his chest. I lay down and pretended not to have heard him, but he repeated himself, this time asking if I agreed that his wife was sexy and beautiful, in addition to looking young. There was a moment of quiet. I rose from the towel, told him he was a lucky man and said that I was going back in the water.
We stayed at the beach for the remainder of the afternoon and then returned to the motel to have a rest. My room was warm and stuffy and took on the atmosphere of a greenhouse once I’d run the shower. I lay naked on the bed and tried to think of Janet but quickly fell asleep. I dreamed that I was lying supine in a room with wavy pink walls and a salmon pink carpet, unable to move. Ghostly figures towered over me, shifting and swaying, whispering to each other, passing their long black hands above the bed, lightly brushing my skin, casting a spell or consecrating my body. A mirror hovered in the air, showing a sparse and shadowy scene, like the reflection of a brightly lit room in a dark window. I woke up gasping for air; the bed was soaked with sweat. I reached for my phone; only ten minutes had passed since I’d finished showering. I made another cup of instant coffee and drank it slowly, waiting for Janet to knock on the door.
We walked to a nearby pub for dinner. It was crowded with families and young children, and we had to sit at a picnic bench in the corner of the beer garden. Looking more out of place than ever, Peter Suvorov struggled to slide into his seat without catching his slacks on the rough wood. He dabbed his face with a handkerchief and complained about the heat and the noise. He would have to have an early one tonight, he said as Janet took a photograph.
Each of us ordered a schnitzel with chips, and we shared a jug of beer. Peter made to leave as soon as we’d finished eating.
“Alright, just give me a second,” Janet said. She weaved through the beer garden, returning five minutes later with another jug of beer. Her husband produced a long, low murmur, a mixture of a grunt and a sigh. He held his hand over his glass as Janet poured the beer and watched as Janet and I drank, hardly speaking as she told stories about backpacking in Europe and South America. Once her glass was empty, he rose from the table. Janet protested: it was too early, and the weather was so warm and lovely.
“I’m afraid I’m tired, my dear,” he said.
“We’re on holiday. You’ll keep going, won’t you Sammy?”
“I’m pretty tired as well,” I said.
“Come on. Look if you don’t have another drink, you’re fired!” Janet cried. She cackled with laughter, then added, “That’s just a joke, of course. You can do whatever you like.”
I said I would stay a while longer. Peter Suvorov curtly said goodnight, barely concealing his anger. Janet followed him through the beer garden, saying she’d come back with another jug of beer. I offered to buy a round, but she insisted on paying.
“I know how hard it is for young grads when you first move to Sydney. Everything’s so expensive,” she said.
She bought cocktails and jugs of beer. She spoke about work, office politics, university politics, her lack of understanding of her husband’s work, and why she’d never had children. The beer garden grew quiet.
“I’m sorry about Peter. He’s always tired and fussy,” she said, “That’s one of the drawbacks of marrying an older man.”
She broke into peals of laughter. She asked me if I’d ever visited a brothel. I told her I hadn’t, and she said she’d always wanted to see one, but no-one would go with her. She asked me if I’d ever had sex in a public place. It was a great fantasy of hers, she admitted. She would like to try outdoors, in a location frequented by families and children, like a park or a square. Or like this pub, she added, and laughed. I said I was willing to try anything once.
We drank together until the pub closed, and then stumbled through the winding suburban streets, losing our way in the dark. Just when I thought we were about to arrive at the motel, we found ourselves standing at the top of the beach. Janet removed her shoes, tossed them aside and raced down the path, which seemed much steeper than it had during the day. I wobbled over the soft sand, undid my pants and urinated into the sea. The beach had the same pockmarked grey texture as the surface of the moon. Giggling like a schoolgirl, Janet leapt up behind me and threw her arms over my shoulders, taking me off balance and almost pushing me into the water. Staggering into the seafoam, I glimpsed her smooth pale shape just before she ran screaming into the ocean.
I awoke abruptly the following day, sticky with sweat and unable to remember walking back to the motel. Overcome by nausea, I rushed to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. I had a shower, drank a cup of instant coffee and went downstairs. Peter Suvorov was sitting on a steel chair next to the door to his room, reading a newspaper. The blinds were lowered, and the door was closed.
“It will just be the two of us today,” he said, “My wife isn’t feeling well. Too much to drink, you understand? I’m surprised you’re not feeling the same way. You must have a stronger constitution. I was hoping you might like to take advantage of the situation by accompanying me to the site of the convict prison. It’s not far from here.”
I nodded, and we got into the car. I asked about the night before, what time Janet went back to the motel and what condition she was in, but Peter only responded with a murmur, keeping his gloved fingers wrapped around the top of the wheel. I stared out the window, at the endless grassy footpaths and low suburban sprawl.
The prison was on the coast, on the bank of an inlet north of Budgewoi. Although a chain-link fence surrounded the site, there was no entry fee, and nor did there seem to be any guides or other staff present. The visitors – there were about ten or fifteen, all of them dressed like Peter Suvorov, that is, more formally than the weather or the location warranted – were directed across the prison by a series of signs and placards nailed to the walls and hammered into the ground. Of the four identical red stone buildings spread at intervals around the grassy plateau, laid out as spokes around a central hub where a guardhouse had once stood, only one was accessible. The roof was missing, and the floors had been replaced with raised steel grates, like those found in an abattoir.
“These prisons were designed to deal with an interesting optimisation problem,” Peter said quietly, “How to control the maximum number of prisoners with a minimum number of overseers? As you can imagine, the first answer to that question was brutality. Whippings, beatings and so on. You can see that if you visit earlier settlements, such as those in Sydney. This turned out to be not very effective, so later prisons were based around a different answer: surveillance. Observation. Look there,” he said, gesturing towards the open end of the building, “From the guardhouse, they could see simultaneously into this wing and the other three. A single guard was assigned to patrol each of these wings, to periodically investigate the cells. Under such a system, only five guards are needed to observe nearly one hundred convicts. The prisoners have no way of knowing when the guard in the guardhouse is looking into their wing, and they can only see the guard on patrol when he passes directly in front of their chambers. That is another aspect of the design.”
Cells lined the walls of the narrow building, each containing just a single bench, about as wide as an ordinary park bench but only long enough for a man to lie across with his legs curled behind him or pressed to his chest. The benches looked as if they’d been carved into the brick, as if the building had originally been constructed with some other purposes in mind and the cells and the bars installed at a later date.
“The system imbues the prisoners with a sense of fear. Not knowing the likelihood punishment, they obey the rules always. The spirit of compliance it engenders lingers in this country today. Observe how people behaved during the pandemic, immediately abiding by the government’s absurd mandates. This is a nation of conformists,” Peter said.
I was hardly listening. It was hot, and I was tired and queasy.
“Here, mate,” he said, passing me a bottle of water, “It’s important to stay hydrated in this weather, particularly in your condition. Still,” he said, leaning close, “There’s something perverted in it. These poor fellows had urges as well. Do you think the observation helped or hindered?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I wiped my brow on my sleeve.
As we followed the signs through the prison, Peter spoke about transportation, the penal colony, settlement and Manus Island, his voice drifting in out of my consciousness like the hum of distant traffic. Yellow light spread across the sky as if the sun had exploded. Struggling to hold myself upright, I rushed to the public bathroom and vomited again, splashing water from the sink on to my face while Peter Suvorov called my name from outside. Suddenly, he was standing next to me. He said I wasn’t looking too good and that we better leave. Taking my hand, he led me to the car, and I fell into the seat, crossed my arms and closed my eyes. I saw spurts of red and thought I heard murmuring or whispering.
When I opened my eyes, Peter Suvorov’s hand was on my shoulder. We were parked in front of the motel. I remained seated as he got out of the car. It felt as if a huge, heavy blanket had been thrown over me. The door burst open and beams of hot light struck my side. Peter reached across, unbuckled my seatbelt and yanked me from the car.
He said he was going to check on his wife. If she was up to it, the three of us would dine together. He was speaking slowly and clearly, and his instructions were precise: he told me to go to my room, shower or use the bathroom and meet at their room in twenty-five minutes. I nodded and trudged upstairs. I didn’t shower or use the bathroom but made and drank another cup of gritty instant coffee. Although still unbearably sleepy, I lurched out of the room, my thoughts hazily centred on dinner and sustenance and Janet. I stumbled on the stairs and had to grip the banister to support myself and, as I reached the final step, I tripped and fell forward, just managing to brace myself before I crashed into the wall of the motel. Standing there, breathless and panting, hands pressed against the wall, I closed my eyes.
I realised I needed to find help before I collapsed. Slinking against the crusty cream wall, I hobbled forward. There was no-one in sight. I knocked on the door of the nearest room, but there was no answer. Rounding the corner, I thought to head to reception but decided against it and slowly made my way to The Suvorovs’ room instead, intermittently pausing to catch my breath and regain my balance. There were noises coming from inside. I tried to call out to Janet and Peter, but my voice was silent. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Pushing away from the wall, I flung myself towards their door, which was either already open or came open as I collided with it. My vision swung rapidly around the room, registering snapshots: blankets and sheets piled neatly on the table; an old video camera on top of the TV; the crown of Peter Suvorov’s head; nails digging into a mattress; red drapes; a dim portal, replicating the scene in miniature. I grabbed the doorframe and tried to steady myself. Janet’s gaze met mine and she smiled and her eyes rolled back in her head. I’m sorry, I said. Grinning. Don’t worry. The edge of the bed. Rough latex. Carpet hard as stone, salmon pink.