Our Magic Hour (23 page)

‘I see him all the time,' Julian snapped.

‘All right,' said Audrey, ‘I wasn't having a go.'

He looked like he didn't believe her.

Audrey went to the bathroom. The walls were papered with pages torn from old magazines,
and for a second she forgot where she was, reading, toilet paper bunched in her hand.
She wiped herself and saw she was bleeding. She was surprised. It had been a long
time. She'd almost forgotten that was how bodies worked.

She sat down opposite Julian again. He'd bought her another beer.

‘This is funny,' she said. ‘It feels like we're kids skipping school. Killing time.'

‘We're just hanging out,' said Julian.

Audrey ran her hand over the brick wall. It reminded her of the one in the motel
at Jindabyne. She was still embarrassed about it, about Julian being there, thinking
she needed to be
reined in
, maybe. She pushed her glass around with her finger, tied
her hair into a knot.

‘What, are you on speed or something?' Julian snapped. ‘Stop moving.'

‘What's the matter with you?'

‘Nothing's the matter.'

Audrey waited for him to tell her. She could feel herself bleeding into her jeans.

‘I had a big fight with Claire,' he said. ‘About Elliott. That's probably why she
asked you to look after him this morning, instead of calling me.'

‘Oh.'

‘She says I only see him on my terms,' he said. ‘But I work. We both work. It was
her choice to move out. We never wanted to do that “weekends with dad” bullshit.
He's still mine.' He dropped his head. ‘I'm embarrassed now. Don't tell anyone.'

‘Okay.'

Audrey left him there while she went to get another drink. Her hands were sticky
with heat. When she sat down again, he was calm. She handed him a schooner. Beer
sloshed onto the table.

‘Sorry,' she said, reaching for a napkin.

‘No, I am.'

They fell silent again. Audrey watched the bartenders mucking around.

‘Are your parents still together?' Julian asked after a while. ‘Mine are. It's sort
of nice. I mean, they hate each other, but they're pushing on anyway.'

‘My dad's gone. They were still married when he died, though.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘It's okay. He died of cirrhosis. We knew it was coming for a long time.'

‘Liver failure?'

‘Yes. He was an alcoholic.'

‘So was Churchill. Bukowski. All the big names.'

‘Fuck off, Julian. He was abusive.'

Julian gave a short laugh. ‘Sorry. I didn't realise. I didn't mean to offend you.'

‘I'm not offended.'

When he looked at her properly, when he wasn't hedging or turning from her, she saw
a flash of something like defiance.

‘I just want to
crack
you,' he said after a while, and Audrey thought
What about
you, the way you swing from charming to shitty
. When they finished their drinks they
stood without speaking and rode home, single-file, the way they'd come.

In November the days were longer and the baths stayed open until seven. Audrey started
swimming every night after work. She was not confident enough for open water, but
the sea baths were kind. There was a chalkboard by the entrance that read BLUEBOTTLES:
NONE TODAY and PLEASE K EEP AWAY FROM THE NORTH WALL AT HIGH TIDE. In the change
rooms the older women stood naked, talking and laughing and wringing out their hair.
Their bodies were sun-ravaged and healthy.

Audrey had the idea that she was not particularly graceful, but she toiled away,
stroking slowly but neatly, the way Nick had taught her. She tried to keep in a straight
line. Things shone pearly on the rock floor, beamed their milky light up at her.

Afterwards she'd sit on the rocks with a towel around her to get her breath back
before she climbed the steps to the change rooms. She liked watching the other swimmers.
The older men nodded at
her. Sometimes they'd ask
How is it, love?
or say
Evening
on their way in.

Some nights she sat out on the front stoop while she ate dinner. She read or watched
passers-by. If they sang out
Hullo
as they went, she called back. She'd never gardened
before, except for some straggling plants back in Melbourne, but she bought a second-hand
book and planted a few things. Her tomatoes flourished, her azaleas died. She took
her victories where she could.

Once a week she phoned her mother and sister. Conversations with Irène were splintered
by dinner or the crying baby. Audrey always called at the wrong time.

Sylvie sounded different, several hundred kilometres away. Audrey was more tolerant.
She felt ashamed when she thought of how she'd had to work up the energy to call
her mother, brace herself for a quick visit. She thought, again and again, of Sylvie
putting her in the bath, soaping her neck. She mentioned it to Irène once.
That sort
of sums her up
, Audrey said
. She's always got all this drama going on, but when it's
someone else's crisis, she knows exactly what to do.
Irène with a shrug in her voice.
Aren't all mothers like that?
Audrey let it drop.

She said she'd come down for Christmas. She said she'd stay with Sylvie.

In the house on Neptune Street, the windows and doors were always open. The beach
towels hung out to dry, flapping brightly on the washing line. The rooms smelled
of the sea and clean laundry and beer. The old floorboards were gritty underfoot
with sand.

She tagged along to parties, mostly with Julian. He stayed too long, but she was
getting better at sticking it out. She could remember the paralysis, trying to attach
reason to her emotions, so infected with sadness she was frightened of passing it
on, but she told herself she'd left it in Melbourne. She told herself she was getting
tough again, building up muscles. She could swim more laps than before. The nights
blended into one another. Arrive. Make small talk. Stand with whoever Julian introduces
you to. Get a drink. Stand alone. Relax. Relax. Relax. It's just people. Finish your
drink. Talk to someone. Talk to the sweet boy stuck in the never-ending postgraduate
degree. Talk to the girls you meet in the bathroom. Talk to Julian. They're all kind.
They'll talk to you. You might make them laugh, because sometimes you're funny. They
all say:
You remind me of someone. You're exactly like my sister
or
friend
or
girlfriend.
The everywhere girl. Have another drink. Go outside. Smell the cigarettes. It smells
like Sylvie, like Adam. Dance to whatever music is playing. Get stuck in a photo.
More conversation. Getting drunk. More listening, less talking. The Getting-To-Know-You
Game. Sit in a circle. Take it in turns to ask questions. What is your middle name.
Who was the first person you talked to tonight. Who was the first person you slept
with. Ever, not tonight. Have you ever hit anybody. What's your favourite film scene.
Make up the answers to most of these questions. Probably everyone does. Party begins
to end. Taxi back home, streaming streetlights out the window, hot head. Make a
cup of tea. Talk. Re-enact scenes of twenty minutes ago. Impersonate yourselves.
Laugh, laugh, laugh. Collapse on the couch. Watch a voluptuous late-night European
film. Crawl to bed. In the morning you will laugh about how you crawled to bed because
walking was too demanding.

Once Audrey and Claire lay out on someone's dry lawn, sweaty and exhausted from dancing,
and laughed until they couldn't breathe.

Once they took Elliott to see a burlesque show in Newtown, where a friend of Claire's
was performing. For weeks afterwards he drew bosomy ladies on napkins and hummed
sexy trumpety music.

Once there was a violent thunderstorm. The sky went grey-green before it split open.
Audrey and Frank sat outside collecting hail in plastic cups. They couldn't hear
each other speak over the rain.

Once Pip and Julian had an argument that lasted for six days. It climaxed in a note
on the fridge that read
Just because we live together, doesn't mean we have to be
friends.
Julian laughed so hard and so meanly when he saw it, and Pip got so shitty
and twisted, that eventually they just made up because it was simpler than being
angry.

Once a colleague of Audrey's, a paediatric nurse, was late to work. Her twenty-two-month-old
son was undergoing tests. They found a tumour along his spinal column. He died very
quickly, very peacefully, after complications from unsuccessful surgery, in the ward
where his mother worked. The whole climate changed: the grief was oppressive, they
were all breathing it. Audrey's debriefing appointment was almost a week after it
happened, at the end of the day. When she left the shadows were falling. She couldn't
believe everything outside the hospital was the same, that there were things going
on beyond its ruthless walls. On the train she sat with her handbag on her lap and
looked for the anchors, the things that meant she was on the right line. Parramatta
Park on the left, the cemetery on the right.

At home she lay on her bed in her dress and sandals. The plastic venetian blind tapped
against the window. When Julian came home he passed by her room and looked in at
her.

‘What are you doing, you weirdo?' he asked. ‘Are you all right?' She sat up. She
started to explain, but by the time she'd told him the worst of it, she said, ‘I
don't really want to talk about it any more.'

‘Shit, mate, that's the pits,' said Julian.

‘It's the pits for Sangita. It's not mine to be sad about,' Audrey said. ‘I'm just
in a funny mood.'

‘Yeah, but it's fucking rough. Don't underestimate it.' He scratched his head. ‘Can
you chuck a sickie tomorrow? Get out of there for a bit?'

‘I can't just flip off work. There's too much to do. Anyway, that's embarrassing.'

‘Go on. I'll do it too. We can hang out.'

‘And do what?'

‘Fuck, go to the aquarium, it doesn't matter.'

He made things simple. He did things for reasons she didn't understand.

She did call in sick, and so did Julian, and they did go to the aquarium. They moved
through the blue tunnels, not speaking much. Once Julian said
I bring El here sometimes.
Audrey turned to look at him, the shadows of light through water passing over his
face. He was watching an enormous stingray with rapt, uncomplicated attention.

A postcard with a picture of the Yarra on it, printed in Bernie's immaculate uppercase:

He sent photos.
Now that school is done I am terrifically productive
, he wrote,
and
I went through my art things and found these. Thought you might like them?? I don't
know how you feel about it. Send them back if you don't want them—don't chuck them
out—B.

Audrey spread the pictures out on her bed to look at them. They were all mixed in
together. Bernie, sixteen with pinprick pupils, in the backyard at Charles Street.
Audrey holding her toddler niece on her hip, Zoe's hair a blond cloud. Audrey and
Sylvie a few birthday lunches ago, both wearing black.

Frank knocked at the open door.

‘Is that your curry in the fridge?' he asked. Audrey shook her head.

Frank nodded at the photos laid out in a grid on the quilt. ‘Getting into decoupage?'

‘My brother sent them,' Audrey said. Frank stepped closer, stood over the pictures.
He scratched his neck. He pointed at a photo of Audrey and Katy at a music festival
a few years back. They were grinning, standing on dry grass. Katy in a sundress,
a rockabilly Venus; Audrey braless in a shirt that could have been Nick's. Dusty
ankles, arms around each other.

‘You look happy there,' Frank said. ‘Look at how you're smiling, both of you.'

Audrey thought he was going to ask about Katy, but she heard his feet on the stairs.

Early morning, already warm. Pip in her T-shirt and underpants, standing in the kitchen
doorway.

‘I think I'm going to have a beach day,' she announced. ‘Does anyone want to come?'

‘Oh, yeah,' said Frank. ‘I might call Tessy.'

‘I'll come with,' said Audrey.

Julian grunted his assent, already halfway up the stairs.

Audrey and Frank made dozens of sandwiches standing at the kitchen bench. They told
each other stories.

‘…and all he said was
I'm a Yuggera man
and they carted him off.'