'We don't know. We don't know and will never know, with certainty, what is really going on in this story: whether it is about a man speaking to men or an ape speaking to apes or an ape speaking to men or a man speaking to apes (though the last is, I think, unlikely) or even just a parrot speaking to parrots.

'There used to be a time when we knew. We used to believe that when the text said, "On the table stood a glass of water," there was indeed a table, and a glass of water on it, and we had only to look in the word-mirror of the text to see them.

'But all that has ended. The word-mirror is broken, irreparably, it seems. About what is really going on in the lecture hall your guess is as good as mine: men and men, men and apes, apes and men, apes and apes. The lecture hall itself may be nothing but a zoo. The words on the page will no longer stand up and be counted, each proclaiming "I mean what I mean!" The dictionary that used to stand beside the Bible and the works of Shakespeare above the fireplace, where in pious Roman homes the household gods were kept, has become just one code book among many.

'This is the situation in which I appear before you. I am not, I hope, abusing the privilege of this platform to make idle, nihilistic jokes about what I am, ape or woman, and what you are, my auditors. That is not the point of the story, say I, who am, however, in no position to dictate what the point of the story is. There used to be a time, we believe, when we could say who we were. Now we are just performers speaking our parts. The bottom has dropped out. We could think of this as a tragic turn of events, were it not that it is hard to have respect for whatever was the bottom that dropped out – it looks to us like an illusion now, one of those illusions sustained only by the concentrated gaze of everyone in the room. Remove your gaze for but an instant, and the mirror falls to the floor and shatters.

'There is every reason, then, for me to feel less than certain about myself as I stand before you. Despite this splendid award, for which I am deeply grateful, despite the promise it makes that, gathered into the illustrious company of those who have won it before me, I am beyond time's envious grasp, we all know, if we are being realistic, that it is only a matter of time before the books which you honour, and with whose genesis I have had something to do, will cease to be read and eventually cease to be remembered. And properly so. There must be some limit to the burden of remembering that we impose on our children and grandchildren. They will have a world of their own, of which we should be less and less part. Thank you.'

The applause starts hesitantly, then swells. His mother takes off her glasses, smiles. It is an engaging smile: she seems to be relishing the moment. Actors are allowed to bathe in applause, ill deserved or well deserved – actors, singers, violinists. Why should his mother not have her moment of glory too?

The applause dies down. Dean Brautegam leans into the microphone. 'There will be refreshments -'

'Excuse me!' A clear, confident young voice cuts through the Dean's.

There is a flurry in the audience. Heads turn.

'There will be refreshments in the foyer, and an exhibition of Elizabeth Costello's books. Please join us there. It remains for me -'

'Excuse me!'

'Yes?'

'I have a question.'

The speaker is standing up: a young woman in a white-and-red Altona College sweatshirt. Brautegam is clearly nonplussed. As for his mother, she has lost her smile. He knows that look. She has had enough, she wants to be away.

'I am not sure,' says Brautegam, frowning, peering around for support. 'Our format tonight does not allow for questions. I would like to thank -'

'Excuse me! I have a question for the speaker. May I address the speaker?'

There is a hush. All eyes are on Elizabeth Costello. Frostily she gazes into the distance.

Brautegam pulls himself together. 'I would like to thank Ms Costello, whom we have gathered tonight to honour. Please join us in the foyer. Thank you.' And he switches off the microphone.

As they leave the auditorium there is a buzz of talk. An incident, no less. He can see the girl in the red-and-white shirt ahead of him in the throng. She walks stiff and erect and seemingly angry. What was the question going to be? Would it not have been better to have it aired?

He fears that the scene will repeat itself in the foyer. But there is no scene. The girl has left, gone out into the night, perhaps stormed out. Nevertheless, the incident leaves a bad taste; say what one may, the evening has been spoiled.

What was she going to ask? Whispering, people huddle together. They seem to have a shrewd idea. He has a shrewd idea too. Something to do with what Elizabeth Costello the famous writer might have been expected to say on an occasion like this, and did not say.

He can see Dean Brautegam and others fussing around his mother now, trying to smooth things over. After all they have invested, they want her to go home thinking well of them and of the college. But they must be glancing ahead too to 1997, hoping that the 1997 jury will come up with a more winning winner.

We skip the rest of the foyer scene, move to the hotel.

Elizabeth Costello retires for the night. For a while her son watches television in his room. Then he grows restless and goes down to the lounge, where the first person he sees is the woman who interviewed his mother for the radio, Susan Moebius. She waves him over. She is with a companion, but the companion soon departs, leaving the two of them alone.

He finds Susan Moebius attractive. She dresses well, better than the conventions of the academy usually allow. She has long, golden-blonde hair; she sits upright in her chair, squaring her shoulders; when she tosses her hair the movement is quite queenly.

They skirt the events of the evening. Instead they speak about the revival of radio as a cultural medium. 'An interesting session you had with my mother,' says John. 'I know you have written a book on her, which unfortunately I haven't read. Do you have good things to say about her?'

'I believe I do. Elizabeth Costello has been a key writer for our times. My book isn't about her alone, but she figures strongly in it.'

'A key writer… Is she a key writer for all of us, would you say, or just for women? I got the feeling during the interview that you see her solely as a woman writer or a woman's writer. Would you still consider her a key writer if she were a man?'

'If she were a man?'

'All right: if you were a man?'

'If I were a man? I don't know. I have never been a man. I will let you know when I have tried it.'

They smile. There is definitely something in the air.

'But my mother has been a man,' he persists. 'She has also been a dog. She can think her way into other people, into other existences. I have read her; I know. It is within her powers. Isn't that what is most important about fiction: that it takes us out of ourselves, into other lives?'

'Perhaps. But your mother remains a woman all the same. Whatever she does, she does as a woman. She inhabits her characters as a woman does, not a man.'

'I don't see that. I find her men perfectly believable.'

'You don't see because you wouldn't see. Only a woman would see. It is something between women. If her men are believable, good, I am glad to hear so, but finally it is just mimicry. Women are good at mimicry, better at it than men. At parody, even. Our touch is lighter.'

She is smiling again. See how light my touch can be, her lips seem to say. Soft lips.

'If there is parody in her,' he says, 'I confess it is too subtle for me to pick up.' There is a long silence. 'So is that what you think,' he says at last: 'that we live parallel lives, men and women, that we never really meet?'

The drift of the conversation has changed. They are no longer speaking about writing, if they ever were.

'What do you think?' she says. 'What does your experience tell you? And is difference such a bad thing? If there were no difference, what would become of desire?'

She looks him candidly in the eye. It is time to move. He stands up; she puts her glass down, slowly stands up too. As she passes him he takes her elbow, and at the touch a shock runs through him, dizzying him. Difference; opposite poles. Midnight in Pennsylvania: what is the time back in Melbourne? What is he doing on this foreign continent?

They are alone in the elevator. Not the elevator he and his mother used: a different shaft. Which is north, which south in this hexagon of a hotel, this beehive? He presses the woman against the wall, kisses her, tasting smoke on her breath. Research: will that be her name for it afterwards? Using a secondary source? He kisses her again, she kisses him back, kissing flesh of the flesh.

They exit on the thirteenth floor; he follows her down the corridor, turning right and left until he loses track. The core of the hive: is that what they are seeking? His mother's room is 1254. His is 1220. Hers is 1307. He is surprised there is such a number. He thought that floors went twelve-fourteen, that that was the rule in the hotel world. Where is 1307 in relation to 1254: north, south, west, east?

We skip ahead again, a skip this time in the text rather than in the performance.

When he thinks back over those hours, one moment returns with sudden force, the moment when her knee slips under his arm and folds into his armpit. Curious that the memory of an entire scene should be dominated by one moment, not obviously significant, yet so vivid that he can still almost feel the ghostly thigh against his skin. Does the mind by nature prefer sensations to ideas, the tangible to the abstract? Or is the folding of the woman's knee just a mnemonic, from which will unfold the rest of the night?

They are lying in the dark, flank to flank, in the text of memory, talking.

'So: has it been a successful visit?' she asks.

'From whose point of view?'

'Yours.'

'My point of view doesn't matter. I came for Elizabeth Costello's sake. Hers is the point of view that matters. Yes, successful. Successful enough.'

'Do I detect a touch of bitterness?'

'None. I am here to help – that is all.'

'That is very good of you. Do you feel you owe her something?'

'Yes. Filial duty. It is a perfectly natural feeling among humankind.'

She ruffles his hair. 'Don't be cross,' she says.

'I am not.'

She slides down beside him, strokes him. 'Successful enough -what does that mean?' she murmurs. She is not giving up. A price has yet to be paid for this time in her bed, for what counts as a conquest.

'The speech didn't come off. She is disappointed about that. She put a lot of work into it.'