Our Magic Hour (33 page)

‘That's all we do,' Vanessa said.

‘No, it's different.'

In the hospital there was no fight. Everyone was already on the kid's side. The parents
trusted her. And still there was no stopping metastasis. It didn't matter how hard
she worked: sometimes the worst still happened.

‘We miss you,' Vanessa said, ‘and I hope you come back, but I never expected you
to. And that's not a statement on you, it's a statement on the job.'

‘I want to,' Audrey said.

‘I want you to, as well, but that's selfish. Have a think about it.' Audrey said
she would.

By the end of April it was already winter in Melbourne. She went to look at a flat
in Yarraville. When she came out the sky was dusky. Walking back to the station she
cut through a park where the leaves shivered in the night. On one side, a train clattered
towards the western suburbs; on the other, the houses crouched meekly.

At home Adam was sprawled on the couch. He had a glass of wine waiting for her.

‘How'd you go?'

‘Okay.' She sat down next to him. He reached for the remote control, muted the television.
‘I don't know if I want to move into another houseful of strangers,' she said.

‘Wanna live by yourself again?'

‘Yeah. I think I do.' She fiddled with a loose thread at her sleeve. ‘It'll be all
new. I haven't lived by myself since I was nineteen.'

‘Have you called Nick?' Adam asked.

‘I don't think he and I are very compatible as flatmates anymore.'

‘To let him know you're
back
, you dag.'

‘I was joking.' Audrey was itching in her bones. ‘Do you want to come for a walk?'

It was the season for wet leaves on car windscreens. All the lights were doubled
on the wet bitumen. The council bins outside the block of flats had been knocked
over in the wind.

‘This is the sort of air that gets in your lungs,' Adam said grimly, ‘and makes you
cold from the inside out.' But he looped his arm through hers. They crossed the playground,
walking towards the beach. They went as far as the Esplanade, stood out the front
of the Novotel huddled together while Adam lit a cigarette.

‘You should come and live southside,' he said. ‘You, me, Minh, Bernie—it'll be a
party.'

‘I don't want to party with Bernie. I'm looking at a place in Clifton Hill tomorrow.
Until I get a car, it has to be somewhere close to work.'

‘So you decided? You're going back to your old work?'

Audrey pulled her scarf up over her mouth. She wished her coat had a hood. ‘I don't
know. I think so.'

‘Are you happy to be back?'

‘Yes. God, yes.' She told him about the gig she'd been to in Marrickville, that crippling
homesickness, calling Julian to pick her up.

‘You're a funny thing, going by yourself,' Adam said.

‘It probably didn't help. It just felt like something I should be able to do. I didn't
have anyone to go with.'

‘Come to the gig on Friday at the Retreat. That'll make up for it. You'll have so
many friends you'll be smothered.'

They'd started back up Robe Street, walking in the centre of the road.

‘It feels weird, being back,' she said. ‘I'm scared that if I go back to my job,
it'll be like I never left, and things will get bad again.'

She was embarrassed at how childish she sounded. They came to the roundabout and
separated instinctively: Audrey went left, Adam went right. He grinned at her.

She thought of bushwalks down at Wilsons Prom, her father singing
You take the high
road and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland afore ye
.

On the other side they fell into step once more.

‘It wasn't only your job that made you sad,' Adam said. ‘There were other things.'

‘I'm just frightened of patterns.'

‘I know you are.'

The gig was like Adam had said: an offer of asylum. So much love in the room, so
many good faces. Yusra took her hands, made to pull her close, stopped short. She
said
Oh, but you're so cold!
Johnny hugged her so hard he lifted her off the ground.
By the bar Ben put an arm around her, said
It's like you never left
. She crouched
at the front of the stage with a pint in her hand and watched Adam watching Minh
on stage. The lights flashed amber and blue. Adam was standing alone, sucking on
a wedge of lime, eyes fixed.

She ran into Tilly by the bathrooms.

‘Here,' Tilly said, pressing a packet of tissues into her hand, ‘there's no paper
left.'

In these toilets Audrey had squished into a cubicle with Katy so they could go on
talking without interruption, holding each other's handbags, knees pressed together
in the stalls. In the courtyard at the Great Northern they'd spat cherry pits into
the ashtray. In the courtyard of the Catholic school on Otter Street they'd posed
beneath the icon, made up names for new saints, canonised each other.

Audrey hitched up her dress. The pub noise was dull through the walls.
Is this how
it'll be here from now on?
she thought.
You and me everywhere
.

Yusra was outside waiting for a cubicle, fixing her lipstick. Audrey handed her the
tissues. ‘Here. You'll need these.'

Katy's mother still lived in the house in Northcote with its view of the city, but
she and Steve had separated. Audrey had read about it happening to couples who'd
lost a child. Your youngest daughter turns into dust, and you turn into strangers.
Not even your grief is common ground. Audrey thought she could understand.

She asked careful questions, but Helen wanted to know everything Audrey had been
doing.

‘What made you decide on Sydney?' she asked.

‘It was just where I got a job. I wanted to go somewhere new. There was so much context
here.' She hesitated. ‘It's silly. Last year I re-read this old book of Dad's, a
Zola novel,
L'Assommoir
. Do you know it?'

‘I read it when I was a student. A million years ago. It's all death and woe, isn't
it?'

Audrey's heart beat light and fast. ‘At the start, Gervaise explains what she wants.
Simple things: a bed to sleep in, to make good citizens of her little boys, and
not to be beaten. And in the end, she can't achieve any of it. When you get to the
end of the book, you realise she was never going to. She didn't have a chance.'

‘How hopeless,' Helen remarked.

‘I got so scared that it was true, though.'

‘Oh, Audie.'

‘I know.'

‘Nothing's ever immutable,' Helen said. ‘It wasn't for Katy, either.
Things could
have got better for her. We just ran out of time.'

Audrey reached across the table.

‘It's all right, darling,' Helen said.

They sat for a long time. Helen stroked her hand absently. Audrey could not pull
away. She wished she had more of Katy, something left to give her mother.

Adam and Minh went away for the weekend, to the country where someone had a house.
Adam took his time over breakfast. Minh packed the car by himself. ‘We'll leave when
we fucken leave,' Adam said blithely. He was helping Audrey look over ads for houses.

‘Remember that awful place in Flemington?' Adam said. ‘What was that, first year
of uni?'

‘Yeah. That was bleak.'

‘Feels like forever ago.'

Minh was pulling on his jacket. The groceries were stacked by the front door.

‘Come on,' he said. ‘We're never going to get there. I told them lunch.'

Adam stood up, bowl in hand, kissed Minh. ‘I was waiting for
you
.'

In the evening she took the tram to the other side of the city. Factories and flats,
leaves in the gutters, gold pas de deux of car headlights at the Hoddle Street intersection.
Small clot of anxiety as she started up Charles Street.

The house was just as she remembered, as though it had been holding its breath. Audrey
had enshrined it in her head: the flailing clementine tree, the car parked out front,
the awning over the front door. The front verandah with its couch, picked up from
hard rubbish, where they'd sat to watch the sky change colour. Down the side, over
the cracked concrete pavers, the camellia would still be there, and the fire pit,
and the plastic lawn furniture.

Audrey had always loved that house. It was a tomb for better times.

Nick came to the door with a cautious face. They smiled at each other. ‘Hullo.' Audrey
stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. Nick took her close. They let go quickly.

‘Your hair's short,' he said. ‘How are you?'

‘Good, really good. What about you?'

‘I'm all right. Just let me grab my coat.'

Audrey stood on the step and exhaled. She didn't know what she'd expected. If they
couldn't speak to each other now, they never would, and maybe one day they'd see
each other on the same tram, or at the Empress, and they'd still be bruised and teenaged.
Pinned down to the back step where they'd sat, catatonic, in the morning; pinned
down to the nature strip where they'd said a meagre goodbye.

She looked down the hall. She could hear Nick's boots on the floorboards. He was
singing in an easy voice, something about lighthouses. She didn't know if he was
relaxed or just making a show for her.

The music in the pub was so loud it drowned out the noise of other people's conversations,
and Nick and Audrey leaned over the table to hear each other. It was nervous talk
on newborn legs.

‘Why did you keep living by yourself?' Audrey asked.

‘I don't know. I thought about finding somewhere else. Paddy asked if I wanted to
move in with them, but those guys—I just couldn't deal with it. Anyway,' he said,
‘I like that house. It's close to work. I like riding around the river.'

‘I missed that in Sydney.'

‘What about you? How come you moved in with all those people? I thought you wanted
to be by yourself.'

‘I sort of was. I didn't know any of them.' The beer was making her hands cold. She
pressed her palms together between her thighs. ‘I spent the first week or so in my
room. I thought they'd hate me.'

‘You're a goose.'

‘I know.'

He was wearing a shirt he'd had since she'd known him, a checked lumberjack flannel,
sleeves rolled to his elbows. A hole in one arm that neither of them could mend.
(‘I never learned how to sew anything,' she'd said, bewildered, when he'd asked once.)
His hair was clipped as though it had been shorn not long ago.

‘Adam said you were seeing someone,' Audrey said.

‘I was for a while. A girl called Jo. She was nice. She works at that gallery up
past Ivanhoe. What's it called?'

‘Heide.'

‘Yeah.' Audrey waited for him to say more, but he said again, ‘What about you?'

‘Sort of. My housemate. He was…' Audrey pulled a face. ‘He was okay. Sometimes he
could be such a prick. I don't know if I just wanted to make myself feel bad, like
punishment, some subconscious thing—'

Nick looked puzzled. She'd lost him.

They were learning to speak in ordinary sentences again. Audrey's mouth was dry.

‘I'll be back,' she said. ‘I'm just going to—'

She went up the carpeted stairs that led to the function room. It was quiet and dark.
The bathrooms were empty.

Nick had followed her. Audrey backed into a toilet cubicle, watching his face. She
could still hear the music, the dull thudding of bass and drums. Nick reached behind,
fumbling with the lock. He kissed her neck, below her ear, her mouth. She opened
her eyes. A pale square of light streamed in from the window high up on the wall.

How easy it was to come home again. Audrey tried not to think of anyone else he might
have touched. She pushed herself at him harder at the thought. Nick was kissing her
and mumbling
something. There was salt in her mouth. They were as strong as each
other. He fit himself into her and they fucked slowly: she worked to feel the rolling
of his hips. Their bodies moved together, and as Audrey came she put her hands to
the cold concrete walls of the cubicle and felt the vibrations of the music from
outside.

Nick kissed her hair. She started to laugh.

‘What? What's funny?'

‘It feels like we're in a bunker hiding from someone.'

They were still clutching each other, but after a time Nick tucked his cock back
into his jeans and said
Are you all right
, and she said
Yes
, and he said
I'll meet
you downstairs
. After he'd gone Audrey sat on the toilet lid and sobbed. She stepped
outside and washed her hands. She was leaning against the vanity unit with her back
to the mirror when a middle-aged woman came in.

‘Queue downstairs is atrocious,' she said. She glanced at Audrey. ‘You okay, love?'

For a moment she imagined Nick would be gone when she returned to their table, but
he was still there. They shrugged back into their coatsleeves without speaking. Outside
the sky was pricked with stars. Audrey looked at the window and saw Nick's face reflected
in the green glow.

‘Do you want to come home?' he asked.

The rain set in while they were on the tram. They sat opposite each other, knees
just touching. The lights made everyone look sickly. Audrey could only see bits of
Nick's skin: his thin wrists sticking out from his sleeves, the parts of his face
not covered by hat or hair or scarf.

‘When did the beard happen?' she asked. She almost reached out a hand, but stopped
herself.

‘When it got cold. I feel like a bear.'