It was a strange combination of realizing I'd forgotten to pack Louis' gadgets - the laptop, the camera - and strikingly, suddenly, trying to fathom what the hell I was doing. I mean, here I was, midmorning sometime, having quickly packed the old car with a few things and with a feint pencil sketched plan to drive to Melbourne and find Albuquerque. What the hell was I doing? I had no idea where he'd be staying, a hostel of some sort was the extent of my knowledge. No contact details either. And my money situation was lower than low. The best I could say was that I had an old car which still ran well enough and a mattress in the back to sleep on. It was starting to feel a little like a dream, so I checked my legs for pajamas, and my belly rumbled as if in response. Jesus, did I even have breakfast? How long had I been driving anyway? Ah, about ten, maybe fifteen minutes down the highway from Katoomba. The town of Lawson was coming up. I remembered hearing how they were building a new town one street back behind the old, on account of widening the highway, so I took a right at the railway station, wound about here and there, and came to a clearing with some new streets and paths and a car park behind a building that looked like a hotel under reconstruction. I needed to think. I needed to think better. I needed some protein. On a concrete slab out back of the hotel, I saw an elderly couple chatting, seated upon a couple of milk crates, behind a mound of earth and rubble, an idle big yellow digger to their side. He was drinking a mug of something and she had a folded paper in her lap. When asked if they could recommend anywhere around here to eat, the man took another sip from his mug, jerked a finger behind him and said, Right here, if you can wait till noon, when the kitchen opens. While waiting, they told me a little bit more about what was going on. I'd heard right at least about the highway widening, and the strip of shops and businesses being relocated back a little. The hotel too was being completely refurbished. And then it was noon.
What am I doing here?
I start off with a dozen oysters, followed by a caesar salad. The oysters are not long out of the sea, and the salad is fresh and crisp and made as if seemingly determined to impress me. The dressing is superb, makes the taste buds dance. I check the menu again. Everything seems cheaper than what you'd expect, and of a far better quality than any pub I've come across since arriving in these parts. A bottle of pinot gris goes well with it all, that in turns goes well with an order of fish and chips and another bottle of pinot gris. The chips are big and cut by hand and cooked as if they couldn't be cooked any better. The fish is flathead and fine and lightly battered and the accompanying salad is firm and fresh and splashed with a balsamic type dressing that seems suited for competition, if there is a competition for that kind of thing, salad dressing king, or some such thing.
What am I doing here?
For dessert I have the creme brulee, which has real vanilla in it, and a couple of pistachio biscuits on the side. After I pay, and compliment the kitchen, I return to the car, and on the way back begin to remember Louis' aunt Annie making us biscuits when we were kids, the vast white walls of the penthouse where they lived, Charles the doorman who'd test our knowledge of the latest football scores, and other even more fleeting images that'd shoot past my inner vision as if in a race. Then unlocking the boot and climbing in the back of the car, I promptly fall asleep, with grateful thoughts of packing a mattress.
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