Our Magic Hour (34 page)

At Charles Street they went to the bedroom, and she undressed
him, and they fucked
again. The striped blue sheets were the same. The room was warm with their bodies.
Afterwards Nick lay on the bed the wrong way, feet under the pillows, propped on
one arm, and Audrey sat cross-legged beside him. They could not stop talking.

‘What was it like, in Sydney?'

‘There were sea baths at the end of the street. I got better at swimming,' she said.
‘Not good like you, but I could do laps without stopping.'

Something rippled across his face, sadness or surprise, and Audrey was sorry for
them both. She started again. She told him about living with Claire, the long commute
to and from Westmead, all the time she'd spent with a six-year-old boy, how tropical
and lonely it was in October when she'd first moved. Nick listened. Whenever she
asked what he'd been doing, he dismissed it. ‘Nothing exciting. You know, work, friends,
the usual. I went and saw the Dirty Three with Pat last week. That's about it. Keep
talking.'

She told him about the old house groaning on its stumps on New Year's Eve, Elliott
and Claire's accident, the weekend at Jindabyne. When she got to the cold motel room—can
of rum and cola, Julian at the door—Nick reached for her. Their knuckles brushed
together. He said nothing.

Audrey got up and made a sandwich. When she came back Nick was sitting up in bed
like a good patient.

‘Did you think we were going to do this?' he asked.

‘No. I just wanted to see you.'

The rain had stopped.

‘Tell me what's been happening here with you,' Audrey said.

Nick was quiet for a long time. He set his plate on the floor. He said, ‘My dad's
got cancer. It's in his bowel.'

‘Shit. I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be sorry.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘There's nothing you could've done.'

‘How is he?'

‘Not too bad, considering. He's about to have his last round of chemo. Then they
remove the diseased part of his colon.'

‘When?'

‘Depends how he takes this last dose. It knocks him about a bit.'

Nick held out an arm for her, and she lay down. She couldn't see his face any more.

‘I wish you'd told me,' she said. ‘Your poor mum. None of you deserve it.'

‘We're through the worst of it.'

Audrey was silent. She pressed her mouth to his arm. He fell asleep after awhile,
and she lay awake thinking she'd remember it for a long time: the smell of him on
her hands, his legs heavy between hers, the sepulchral bed, the turned earth of the
sheets.

By the morning they'd come apart again. Audrey took the train back to Adam's. He
arrived home late in the day, full of questions and speculation. She began to think
she couldn't stay with him much longer. His apartment had three rooms. Audrey slept
on the fold-out couch when Minh stayed over. Every morning she folded the blankets
like an amiable houseguest. They ate breakfast together and did the quiz in the paper.
Audrey learned Minh's slow, deliberate sense of humour.

But it was three rooms. If she'd lain in the bath to read, pulled the curtain across
for privacy, Adam would've been offended.

After a while she moved in with Bernie. Living with him was simpler. He was out a
lot. Sometimes at night he'd eat the dinner Audrey made, and talk about art school.

‘You'd fucking love it, Audie,' he said, eyes rolling. ‘There's one girl who actually
uses blood in her drawings. It's like a caricature. What else. A guy in my studio
documents his acid trips, and tries
to paint them later, only they're not very good.
Last time he went tripping in the Botanic Gardens, and now he's working on this enormous
canvas of squiggly green lines. It's horrendous.' He made her laugh. ‘The words we
use the most are
process
and
documentation
,' he announced. ‘One of my lecturers likes
to ask the international students whether they understand after every instruction.
He goes,
Now, are we all following here?
'
—
slow, insulting tone—‘and even they laugh
because it's just too appalling.'

She slept in his painting room, where the light was best, and the wind chimes made
a silvery noise in the mornings.

She went to a home visit in Fairfield. Vanessa said
Are you sure you don't want to
ask a copper to come with?
and Audrey said
No, I know the family. I think I should
go alone.

The flat had been tidied: she could tell from plastic rubbish bags tied and waiting
in the hallway, the filthy sneakers in a row by the door.

‘Zak's at school,' the father said as soon as she set foot inside.

She smiled. ‘Good. How's he doing?'

He shrugged, spread his hands. He had a likeable, ravaged face. ‘Oh-h-h…they don't
like it much at that age, do they?'

‘He does Reading Recovery,' said a voice from the doorway. A much younger woman stood
with a toddler in her arms. He looked at Audrey, buried his face in the woman's neck
again.

‘This is my niece Kim. She's living with us while her mum gets sorted out.'

‘Hi,' Kim said. She shifted the baby in her arms. Audrey was sure she'd met her before.
‘This is Cade,' she said.

They moved down the hall to the kitchen. Audrey was careful. At the office Vanessa
had said
He's a Scary Dad
, as though the phrase had capital letters. Visits like
this were like walking a tightrope. Audrey knew she looked young, partly because
she was
small. Sometimes it worked in her favour, made her seem non-threatening.

There was a bad smell in the kitchen, but it was neat. The bench gleamed with dark
streaks, the grotty sponge by the sink; Kim must have been cleaning it when Audrey
arrived.

‘Mr Horsburgh—'

‘Mike,' he said. A phone rang in another room, and he jogged off. The movement was
funny, almost farcical, in the cramped flat. Kim glanced at her apologetically. The
baby had begun to grizzle, and she was swaying from side to side as she held him.
He looked heavy. Her arms were like young shoots.

‘Have you got a cot for Cade?' Audrey asked.

Kim nodded. ‘It's just a portable, but it's okay with—um, it's SIDS-compliant.'

Audrey's heart squeezed at her earnest face, her rote-learned language. She was maybe
eighteen.

They crowded down the hall together as Audrey made to leave. Mike turned to her.
He looped a finger through her lanyard. She kept her face still.

‘Listen, do you reckon you could take off that thing as you go? I don't want the
neighbours thinking we're ratbags. Next door's already pissed about Kimmy being here.
Cunt's threatened to call Housing.'

Audrey lifted the ID tag from her neck, tucked it in her coat pocket.

‘I reckon they might work it out anyway, eh?' Kim said. She laughed nervously. Audrey
smelled sweat.

Propped on a ledge above the doorway was a machete, impossible to see from outside
the flat. Mike reached across to let her out. Audrey thanked him. The door closed
behind her.

Halfway back to the office she pulled over by a football field. She called Adam.
Her fingers were shaking. She couldn't stop giggling.

‘That's fucked,' he kept saying. ‘What are you laughing for?'

‘It was just so simple. So clever,' she said. ‘And here's me thinking I've done a
good job with him.'

‘You're nuts. That's not funny.'

‘I know. I can't explain it.'

They hung up. She was calmer. Waiting to turn onto High Street, she realised she
recognised Kim as a client from a couple of years back. She'd just started at DHS.
That same small honest face, telling her she'd felt
relaxed
doing ice in the back
seat of her friend's mum's car.
I've never heard of anyone being
relaxed
on ice
,
she'd said seriously to Vanessa later. Vanessa had laughed.

She met Nick at the Grace Darling, but it was packed and there was nowhere to sit
or stand or prop. They started walking and ended up at the Tote where some kids were
playing noise rock. The gig was almost over and the man on the door waved them through.
They stood at the back of the crowd and looked away from each other. Audrey couldn't
see the band past the heads and shoulders.

She thought how strange it was to say
Yes
to his tentative text message when they'd
taught themselves to be alone. She did not know what he wanted. She remembered the
way he'd looked telling her
We can fix this
. Him saying
I love you and it's not enough.
She'd said
You like me when I'm weak, is that it?
and he'd snapped
Don't be fucken
ridiculous
.

It was different now. She was trying to make sense of it.

The band finished and the smokers emptied into the courtyard. Audrey and Nick sat
on the carpeted stair in the middle of the floor. They were not talking. The room
was colder without all the bodies. Across the room a couple leaned against the bricks,
kissing. Clinking glass and laughter came in gasps with the opening and closing of
the door, and there was music playing over the speakers.

‘Want another drink?' she asked.

Nick murmured a thanks. She looked back at him from the bar. He was rubbing his neck
with one hand, watching the room's dim drama.

She crouched beside him. ‘What are you thinking about?'

He took the glass. ‘Do you remember when you put Katy's coat on?'

‘No.'

‘You wore it once, one night, you put it on—'

‘What,' Audrey said, ‘after she—'

‘Yes.'

Audrey shook her head. She meant to say
I don't remember a thing
, but she said
I
don't feel a thing
instead.

‘I was really sort of appalled by it,' he said. ‘I felt…disgusted? I think that was
the first time.'

Audrey sat down properly. She wanted to touch him but she was afraid.

‘What else?' she asked.

‘Remember when we made the fort?'

‘You made it,' she said. ‘You did it for me.'

‘I don't know if I can do that again. If that's what you want. And I'm sorry.'

‘I'm not asking for anything.'

‘I know you're not. You never do.' He was smiling like a sick child. ‘It's hard being
in love with the saddest person in the world.' Audrey said nothing. Her hands were
in the prayer position between her thighs.

‘I know that's a dick thing to say. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm the
one who couldn't help you out of it. But it's hard. Or I'm not very good at it.'

‘I want it to be different,' she said.

‘So do I.'

The bandroom was almost empty. Everyone had disappeared into
the front bar or the
courtyard.

‘We're the last ones here,' Nick said.

Outside they started walking in the direction of Hoddle Street, towards the house.

Audrey turned to him at the traffic lights.

‘Will it be like this forever?' she asked.

He kissed her gently. He said
I'm sorry.

‘We're both very sorry,' she said. ‘I am going to get a cab.'

He's sad
, she said to her sister. It was a Saturday afternoon. They met at a café,
sat out in the courtyard because it seemed too sunny a day to waste, but they were
both rugged up.

‘Relationship break-up and dad cancer—they'd be high up there on the list of awful
life events,' Irène said. ‘I don't imagine either of us'd be cracking funnies, either.'

She had the baby on her lap. He was teething on a piece of celery, looking right
at Audrey.

‘He said
I don't know if I can do it again
, like I'd drained him,' Audrey said, ‘and
I understood it, because that's how I've felt with Maman. It's hard to be that person.'

‘It's hard to be the sick person, too,' Irène said calmly.

They ordered a bagel to share. Audrey finished her half in the time it took her sister
to manage a bite. She held out her arms for Lucas, bounced him on her lap. Irène
reached across the table. She pulled the knitted hat down over his ears, smiled at
them. She sat down and began to eat.

Nick phoned that evening. He apologised. His voice was threadbare. Audrey was alone
at Bernie's, reading in bed to keep warm. She said
Do you want to come over
, and
she heard him think about it, and he said
I'm pretty knackered, mate
. He said
Listen,
Dad's last round of chemo's on Thursday. I know it's weird, but I just thought I'd—
and
she was saying
Yes, yes, of course
before he'd got the words out.

She hung up and wondered how long they'd keep running to each other, now that they'd
started.

Audrey left the office at midday. It was raining lightly. She met Nick at the corner
of Victoria Parade.

At the entrance to the Freemasons she paused. ‘Maybe I shouldn't come. I haven't
even been around, and your poor dad—I don't want to intrude.'

Nick looked at his feet. ‘Honestly, he'd be happy to see you. But if you don't want
to come, I get it.'

‘It's not that,' she said.

It was warm inside. Nick knew the corridors. He paused outside one of the rooms and
she dropped back. He put a finger to his lips.

‘Sh. Wait here a second,' he whispered. He opened the door. ‘Hey, old man.'

‘Hullo! I didn't know you were coming in.'

‘It's your last dose. We should celebrate.'

‘Yeah, I told the doc to pump some champagne through the cannula, but she didn't
listen.' Audrey leaned against the wall. There was a gentle mechanical humming, a
sour hospital smell that reminded her of Sydney. She ran her fingers over the plaster
and listened to their muffled voices.