Our Magic Hour (31 page)

‘It's just need.'

‘I know. I know what it is.'

The powerline hummed out the window. Adam went on stroking her hair, as gentle and
clumsy as a child.
Audrey had not been to the hairdresser in over a year. A sunny
girl snipped at her head until the floor around the chair was covered in straggly
dark locks.

At home Julian looked her over. ‘I liked it better before.'

‘I didn't do it for you,' Audrey said.

His chin was set in its impossible way. Audrey kept her face very still.

‘Okay,' Julian said at last. He gave a short laugh.

But in the morning he lay beside her. The day had begun. Pip and Frank were already
banging around in the kitchen. Little sprays of their conversation cut through the
bedroom door. The window was open; the air smelled like cut grass, like a Sunday.

‘Where'd you get that bruise?' Julian asked, stroking her thigh.

‘I don't know.' Audrey bent her head to examine it, an ugly blue-yellow inkspill.
‘Must have banged it on something.' She lay back. Julian traced its outline with
his fingertips, pressed his lips to it. Audrey was looking at the sky through the
window. She was thinking she had to get up and go to work.

‘I'll be home early tonight. Do you want to do something?' Julian asked.

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know, go out somewhere. Or we could just hang out here. Watch a movie.'

Audrey was surprised, but she said
Okay
. He seemed pleased.

They ate breakfast together in a burst of shyness. Julian rinsed his cereal bowl
and stood in the middle of the kitchen.

‘I'll see you tonight, I s'pose,' he said.

A patient died at work, and Audrey got home late. Julian wasn't there. She washed
her face and poked at her hair. She sat at the kitchen table. She called once, but
he didn't answer.

She took her towel from the clothesline, draped it around her
shoulders like a boxer
before a match. She went down to the baths. There were fires in the hills again;
the sky over the ocean was hazy, the air hot in her lungs. She made herself keep
going. Nothing hurt until she hauled herself out of the pool.

She dried off and pulled on an old T-shirt of Nick's, pausing to smell the fabric.
Of course it didn't smell like him any more. She'd been wearing it for years.

She heard someone moving around in the kitchen, but it was only Frank.

‘
Bonjour
,' he said.

‘Hello.' She dropped her bag on the table beside his. ‘Where are you off to?'

‘Townsville, actually,' he said, ‘for my sister's graduation. She's a PhD now.'

‘Oh, wow. What's she doing?'

‘Something about immunology in tropical health? I actually have no clue. I kind of
forgot I was going, things have been so busy.'

A horn blasted outside. Frank collected his bag and wallet.

‘Have fun,' Audrey said.

‘Thanks, mate. See you Saturday.' He started down the hall, and then turned around.
‘Hey, Julian was looking for you. I don't know where he's gone now, though. Maybe
call him.'

She called Sylvie instead. She helped her rehearse for a job interview, receptionist
for a motel in Frankston.

‘I don't think they're going to ask you these kinds of questions,' she said. ‘It
won't be like the bank.' But Sylvie made her ask again and again until she'd memorised
responses, like a schoolgirl sitting an exam.

‘I don't even have my
diplôme
at high school,' she said.

Audrey could imagine her skittish hand taking notes.

‘They'll just want to know that you're trustworthy, that you can read and write and
take bookings and stuff,' she said.

‘Don't be patronising to me. I need this job.'

‘I know you do. Okay. What are your weaknesses?'

She took a plate of toast to her room. There was a note tucked under the enamel mug
of water by her bed.

Fuck you
, she thought dimly.

Pip came home around seven-thirty. They watched a report on the bushfires together,
perched at either end of the couch.

‘March is late in the year, isn't it?' Audrey said.

‘It's been so hot, though. It's all so dry up there. All it takes is a lightning
strike.' Pip shivered. ‘Be an awful way to go.'

Audrey went out to water the garden. The heat was sticky. Pip leaned against the
bricks, keeping her company, twirling a hibiscus between her fingers. Before Audrey
turned off the tap, she said
Can you spray me with it, just quick?
and Audrey did
it obediently, without thinking. Pip scrunched up her eyes, opened them again. Water
was dripping from her lashes. She laughed.

‘Now do me,' Audrey said.

Julian came home alone after midnight. Audrey had fallen asleep hours before. He
walked straight in, collapsed on the end of her bed.

‘Did you have a good night?' she asked.

‘It was fun,' he said. ‘You could have come, you know. It wasn't some exclusive thing.'

‘Claire probably wanted to spend time with you.'

‘We were just hanging out.'

She watched him pull his shirt over his head, kick off his jeans.
She turned back
the quilt. He climbed in beside her and she turned to him.

‘When I got your note I was disappointed. You said you'd be here tonight, and you
weren't.'

There was a pause, and Julian laughed. He scratched his head.

‘Fuck, Audrey. I didn't mean to
disappoint
you.'

‘It's all right. I shouldn't have waited.'

‘You don't sound mad,' Julian said.

‘I'm not.'

‘Do you want to sleep with me tonight?'

‘No,' Audrey said, ‘and it's not because you went out with Claire. I just don't feel
like it.'

‘All right.'

Somehow they fell asleep. It was the simplest thing to do.

Train home from work past the mason's, MON-U-MEN-TAL-MEMOR-I-ALS, the stadium, the
RSLs, the open drains, the water tower. Claire called.

‘El's got tennis and then we're going to the Warren View for ten-dollar parmas. Are
you still on your way home? Do you want to come?'

Claire picked her up at the station. Audrey said
Hi, Mum!
as she climbed into the
van. Elliott held up his racquet as though he were about to hit her. Audrey flinched.

‘Don't do that,' Claire said sharply. She swatted his arm.

Elliott looked wounded. ‘I was only joking.'

They parked on Sydenham Road, and Elliott ran across the grass to join the other
children. Audrey bought two cans of Coke from the servo next door. She and Claire
sat on one of the vacant courts.

‘I know this is awful, especially after the accident,' Claire said, ‘but he's such
hard work at the minute. We've just been at each other's throats.'

‘It's not awful. What you're doing, with him and the shop—that's tough on your own.'

‘We've both been out of sorts for the last month or so. I've been wondering if the
anaesthetic did something to him.' She looked at Audrey hesitantly. ‘It's silly.
I'm not some anti-medication hippy. I just keep thinking, maybe it messed with his
little brain.'

‘There's the trauma of it, too,' Audrey said. The synthetic grass itched her thighs.
‘It must have been terrifying. And he was very sick. He'd have a memory of it all
somewhere. I believe in that stuff.'

‘Julian doesn't. I tried to talk to him about it the other night. He was so dismissive,
and I got to that irrational point of frustration, where you open your mouth to argue
back and burst into tears.'

‘Then you've lost all emotional credibility.'

‘Yes!'

They smiled grimly at each other.

‘He mentioned you the other day,' Claire said. ‘He said you two had a bit of a thing.'

‘We're only fucking.'

‘I just wish you'd told me! I don't care.'

‘That's what Julian said you'd say,' Audrey laughed, ‘and Pip.'

‘I don't! He's always going to be El's dad, but we do our own thing. He's the sort
of person where you
can't
care what he does, or you'll have hurt feelings every day
of the week.'

‘I don't know why we're keeping on,' Audrey said. ‘He makes me feel like I'm needy.
I can't be bothered engaging with his shit, but if I turn him down it's like I'm
playing into it.'

‘I used to hit him. Really belt him. He can be such a deadshit. He'd go out for days
and I'd be left with El, and I'd get so mad. I used to pummel him, and he'd just
let me, as though he was accepting some kind of punishment.'

‘I guess he was.'

Claire shook her head. ‘Nothing punishes him. He's like flint.'
On the news they'd
said it would be a cool night because there was no cloud cover. Audrey walked home,
hugging herself for warmth. Soon it would be April and the baths would close earlier,
and she'd only be able to swim on weekends.

The others were in the lounge room. The television was on, but Audrey sensed they'd
been talking to each other, not watching it. Frank was sitting on the floor, a plate
on his thighs. He offered his beer to her. She took a mouthful, handed it back.

‘They're gonna sell the house,' said Pip.

Audrey dropped her bag. ‘Wow.'

‘We've got plenty of time,' Frank said. ‘It'll take them months.'

Audrey glanced at Julian, expecting his face to be tight, but he grinned. ‘It was
too good to last, this place.'

‘We had it cheap and easy for a long time,' Pip said.

‘Reckon they'll knock it down and build apartments?' Julian said.

‘Oh, don't,' Pip said, ‘that's too sad.' She put a hand to the wall like it was a
dog about to be put down.

Later Audrey sat on Julian's bed and watched him peel an orange. He could do it in
one go, puncture it with his thumb and leave a curly corkscrew behind.

‘My ex could do that,' she said. ‘He used to peel them in the morning, then put them
back in the skin to take to work.'

‘Your ex.'

‘Mm.'

‘It's funny. I never thought about what you did before you came here. I mean, I know
about your mum and your sister and your old job, but—I don't know. It was like you
just appeared.'

‘Sprang fully formed from someone's forehead like Athena.'

He stared at her.

‘That's something else about Nick,' Audrey said. ‘He knows all of this stuff about
Greek mythology because his mum made him study classics in high school.'

‘Did he become a teacher?'

‘No. He's a paramedic.'

‘Is his mum a teacher?'

‘She works in a pharmacy,' Audrey said. They were both cross-legged, in their underwear.
Julian held out half the orange to her and she took it.

‘Where do you reckon you'll go after here?' Julian asked.

‘I don't know. I guess it depends on what happens with work. Maybe somewhere around
Marrickville or Newtown, if I stay at the hospital. What about you?'

‘I've got no idea,' he said.

‘You've got money. You could live anywhere. Double Bay.'

He looked at her, saw she was joking. She didn't want to fuck him any more. She went
to the window, scissored open the blinds with her fingers. The black-and-white waves
rolled in.

She turned back to Julian. ‘Maybe you'll get a place by yourself.'

‘I couldn't do that,' he said. He looked helpless, in pain.

‘You are twelve years old.' She lay beside him, picked up the spiral of orange skin
where he'd left it on top of the sheets. He watched her stretch it between her fingers.

‘Go and get one from the kitchen,' he said, ‘and I'll show you how to do it.'

Everyone was crawling. Audrey and Pip polished off a cask of wine in the backyard.
After midnight Julian came and stood at the back door. The whites of his eyes shone.

‘Me and Frank are going out.' He stuck his hands into his pockets. ‘Come if you want.'

Pip sat up and looked from his face to Audrey's. ‘That might be okay.'

‘I'm drunk. I'm ready for bed,' Audrey said.

‘Come on. It'll be good to get out.'

Julian stood there, looking at her from under his hair. Audrey shrugged.

Pip got ready quickly. Audrey caught a flash of her down the hallway: bare thighs,
dark eyelids, loose hair. Audrey sat on the end of her bed and looked at her boots,
at the cuffs of her jeans. She did not want to go. She felt nervous in a way she
hadn't for a long time. Pip stuck her head around the doorway.

‘Come on, you can't go out like
that
,' she said, but gently. ‘See if I've got something.'

Pip was about Katy's size, but Audrey followed her into her room anyway.

‘What are you two doing? It'll be morning before we get going,' bellowed Julian from
the kitchen. Pip laughed and hissed. Audrey stood in her underwear as Pip fussed
around her, pulling the clothes this way and that. She looked at herself in the mirror,
ridiculous dress made to fit with tucks and safety-pins. Her shins stuck out like
saplings. She was still wearing her flat R.M. Williams boots and woolly socks.

They took a cab. Audrey didn't know where she was; she wouldn't have known even if
she'd been sober. The streets were unfamiliar to her in the dark. It began to rain.
Water dribbled down the window. She watched the lit-up clinics and bars and theatres
and peepshows running past in a stream of neon, backlit shopfronts, a church. Young
girls ran out on stalky legs. They huddled together under awnings, cigarettes dangling
from fingers, wearing identical dresses and matching grimaces. Beautiful boys with
long eyelashes, moving like phantoms.