Our Magic Hour (6 page)

Sixteen, late at night after the party. Katy crawling into bed beside Audrey, legs
thrashing, hissing
Do you know how ugly penises are?
She'd seen Dylan Ford's cock
in the back of a car. She wasn't sure how to hold it but Dylan didn't seem to mind.
He didn't want to do anything else after
, Katy said.
Do you think it was me?

Seventeen, on the back porch at Adam's parents' house, watching an electrical storm
roll in. Katy imitating their dance moves.
And Audrey dances like this
—bobbing and
twisting, thighs pulsing, limbs flying. Textbooks strewn uselessly on the porch.
Biscuits for your afternoon tea, a braid for your hair, washing on the line, wind
in
the lemon tree.

Eighteen, stretched out on the oval at school. Katy grinning, saying
Anyway, no men
are ever good enough for your friends
, grass stuck to her woollen jumper.

Audrey power-pedalled up High Street against the tepid wind. She stopped at the lights
by the tram stop at Ruckers Hill. Did not look back at the city.

Steve was out in the front garden tying stakes to the roses.

‘Hullo, love,' he said. ‘Hellie said you'd call round. Good to see you.' He didn't
move to touch her. ‘She'll be inside.' Audrey gave him a smile that she hoped was
not apologetic.

Katy's mother was a woman who showed her teeth when she laughed. She asked you what
you meant when you were lazy in conversation. She looked much the same as she always
had, only tired, and Audrey didn't know why she was surprised. What does the mother
of a dead girl look like, anyway? When Audrey left home at seventeen she'd stayed
with the Shields for a few weeks, sleeping in Katy's double bed. Banana pancakes
for breakfast, television late at night, Katy sneaking cigarettes between the front
door and the tram stop on the way to school.

Helen set out biscuits and switched off the radio. Audrey asked after Katy's sister.
They talked about Nick, about Audrey's work, her mother. Helen talked about the holiday
that Steve wanted to take.

‘One day I'm keen on it, the next I can think of sixty reasons why we shouldn't go.
I suppose it's all part of the process.'

‘Of course it is. You'll get through it.'

Helen gave a heaving laugh. ‘This isn't fair on you,' she said. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be sorry. It's not your job to make it fair.'

Helen's chin trembled, but she recovered. She looked from the
table to Audrey, cleared
her throat. ‘What about Adam?' she asked. ‘I've been worried about him. I wasn't
sure if he'd come with you today.'

They told each other to take care at the front door.

Steve was on his knees in the garden bed. He straightened up as Audrey wheeled her
bike to the front gate.

‘Thanks for coming by,' he said. Clumps of earth and weeds were strewn across the
brick path. The garden smelled of things uprooted, earth turned over.

‘I wish there was something I could do. I've always loved it here.'

‘None of us can go back,' said Steve.

The sky was a deep lavender when she rode home. It was all downhill, all green lights,
sweeping into the Hoddle Street bus lane, flying past the train station. When she
pulled into Charles Street she saw Adam's little Datsun parked outside the flat,
and her guts lurched.

She went through to the backyard. Nick and Adam sat opposite each other in the dark.
She flicked on the floodlight and chose a seat next to Adam. Nick offered her a beer.

‘How was your day?' Adam asked.

‘It was okay.' Audrey fiddled with her earring. ‘How about you?'

‘I can't sleep. I think I'm going nuts.'

‘Do you think maybe you should see someone?'

‘That's great fucking advice, isn't it.'

‘Hey,' said Nick. ‘She's trying to help you, mate.'

Adam's hands fluttered helplessly. ‘I just want her back,' he said. ‘I just really
want her back here, with me.'

‘I know,' said Audrey.

‘We slept together once.'

It was so absurd that Audrey felt she'd missed something: he couldn't be talking
about Katy. When she realised he was serious, she felt left out. It stung that they'd
never told her.

‘What are you talking about?' she said.

‘It was the summer after we finished school, and we were bored, and she just really
didn't want to be a virgin any more. She came around one day and we fucked in my
parents' house. You reckon I should see someone.' He was hoarse. ‘Sorry, Spence.
I'm sorry.'

‘I can put you in touch with somebody, if that's what you want. It might be for the
best.'

‘For the best,' Adam echoed. He stood. ‘Fuck off.'

Audrey heard him bang through the house. She didn't have the energy to get up and
make sure he was all right. Underneath the tugging panic there was guilt.

‘You couldn't have done any more,' Nick said.

Audrey watched the back fence. ‘How long was he here for?' she asked.

Nick squinted at his watch. ‘Hour and a half.'

‘Are
you
all right?'

‘I'm rooted,' he admitted. ‘It's hard.'

‘I don't know what to do for him.'

‘You said the right things. You couldn't have done any more.'

‘I just want him to feel better.'

‘It's okay. It's tough,' Nick said.

Audrey moved across the table and kissed him. She ran her fingers up under his shirt.

‘What do you want to do for your birthday? ' she asked suddenly.

Nick shifted. ‘I haven't thought about it,' he said. ‘
Should
I do something?'

‘Why wouldn't you?'

‘I don't know if anyone feels much like celebrating.'

‘It can't be like this forever.' Audrey wished she hadn't turned on the floodlight.
It was making sharp, ugly shadows. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘Do what you like.'

Nick shrugged. ‘Maybe just get a few people down to the Stando.'

‘Today her dad said
None of us can go back
.'

Nick looked surprised. His arms went around Audrey again.

‘I'd forgotten you were going to see them this afternoon,' he said into her hair.

The phone began to ring inside. Audrey moved to get up.

‘Just let it go,' said Nick. ‘They'll leave a message if it matters.'

Yusra's birthday, their loose anniversary that they never celebrated. When she sent
around a message saying
Come to the Great Northern!
Nick sent one back that said
Yus, you didn't have to do that for us.

It was long dark by the time they left the house. They walked down Gipps Street swinging
their hands.

‘Yesterday we picked up this guy playing footy,' Nick said, ‘and he had a depressed
cheekbone. The pain was so bad he was spewing.' Audrey said nothing. She could tell
he was being careful. ‘How old were you when your dad—'

‘Twelve,' she said. Nick winced. A quick shake of the head, a squeeze of the hand,
as though that could undo everything. ‘We waited till the next morning, then Maman
drove me to Emergency. She told them I'd been playing soccer. I was terrified the
doctor would ask what position I played.'

She remembered crying when her sister touched her face with a tissue. Her jaw felt
wrong when she opened her mouth.
Everything's double,
she'd said. Her sister said
It's probably just the pain
, but in the morning Audrey's face was lopsided and her
eye was sunken. She was still seeing double. At the hospital they said it was from
the fracture. The doctor drew a diagram of the muscles around the eye, explained
what had happened. When she thought about it now her eyes watered.

‘Weren't they onto you?' Nick asked. ‘Didn't they call for a social worker that time?'

‘We got the story straight in the car on the way there. We didn't look like—you know,
like
clients
. Dad would have been polite. Asked all the sensible questions.'

‘He was a prick.'

‘I don't really remember it,' Audrey said. ‘It's okay, you know.'

‘Do you miss him?' he asked.

‘I never did.' They leaned into the gritty wind. Audrey tried to explain it. ‘It's
not static,' she said. ‘It doesn't make sense. Sometimes I'm so filled with rage,
it's like—if I could go back and see him doing that stuff to us, I'd kill him on
the spot. Sometimes I'm still scared. And then sometimes I have this weird sad feeling,
because you can call him a prick, but I still disappointed him.'

‘How?'

‘When I was little I read so much. I was so determined about everything.' She dug
a knuckle into her other palm, the fleshy part between her thumb and forefinger.
‘He wanted me to be more.'

‘More,' Nick said.

‘He used to teach us about history. The Spanish Revolution. Steve Biko. The end of
the Ottoman Empire. I thought he knew everything. He'd talk about the fall of the
Berlin Wall and I thought he'd watched it happen. Irène used to get bored, but I
loved it.'

‘You were probably just happy he was doing normal dad stuff.'

‘I know that now.' Audrey went on kneading her hand. It was releasing a strange,
sicky pain. ‘But I used to remember the names and dates for him. I read everything
he told me to. I got put in those gifted programs at school. And then by the time
I was sixteen, when we moved out to Tyabb, I'd dropped my bundle. I think at some
point I realised girls like me didn't grow up to be foreign correspondents or barristers
or whatever he was hoping.'

‘You did the best you could,' Nick said. ‘It was survival, not the-world-is-my-oyster.
You were commuting hours to school on the other side of the city.'

‘That was all I had.' The pain in her hand was exquisite.

‘I know,' he said gently, ‘I just can't understand why you cared so much about what
he thought.'

He glanced down at her fingers, still working away furiously.

‘What are you doing, you goose?' he asked. He took her hand in his again. The ache
stopped.

They were ill-prepared for a weekend away. The weather forecast was erratic; Audrey
threw beach towels and coats in the back of the car. Nick had come home from work
in the middle of the night, gone to a union meeting in the morning and slept the
rest of the day, only waking when Audrey got back from her work. He stood in the
kitchen and watched her pack yoghurt and beer into a bag.

‘Can we stop at Mum and Dad's?' he said. ‘It's on the way.'

‘We could drop in coming home on Sunday.'

‘Nah, I want my wetsuit for the weekend.'

She looked up. Her heart turned over at his sleepy expression. ‘We're not in a hurry,
are we,' she said.

It was raining so hard it looked like dusk. Nick fell asleep while they were gridlocked
on the bridge, rolling out west. On Radio National they were talking about cities
at risk of earthquake.

Audrey stopped for petrol before Geelong. Nick woke. They stood on either side of
the car and shouted over the wind.

‘Do you want me to drive the rest?' he said.

‘You take the corners too fast around the cliffs.'

‘I'll be careful.' He was unshaven, smiling. His was a goodhearted face.

‘You tired?' she asked.

‘Not any more.'

He went into the servo as if to prove his use, came out with coffee and a bag of
lolly snakes. Later his kisses tasted of artificial raspberries.

The bad weather blew over them, the sky a fleshy colour. When they hit the coast,
Nick pulled into the first carpark and they stood looking at the ocean, a couple
of surfers bobbing gamely below.

As they approached the lighthouse Audrey turned off the radio and looked sideways
at Nick.

‘I know what you're going to do, you bloody nerd,' he said, and she was already singing
the
Round the Twist
theme song as loud as she could, shouting it through the window.

‘Maybe we should watch that when we finish
The West Wing
,' Nick said.

‘I think it's one of those things that wouldn't date well. It was really good when
we were ten.'

‘I reckon it'd be great if you were Bernie.'

‘It'd be terrifying to watch when you were high.'

They dropped their things at the cabin and went to the pub. They wore coats and sat
outside to eat dinner. The light faded. Car headlights inched their way around the
shoreline. Nick said
They're like a string of pearls
and then looked shy about it.
Audrey would have given him anything at that moment.

In the morning he was up early, moving around the room. He made Audrey a coffee and
set it on the bedside table. He joked about the tiny motel cups.

‘You're so awake,' she mumbled. ‘Come back to bed. It's dark.'

‘I'm going to the beach. You wanna come?'

‘I want to sleep. Come and be a bed slug with me.'

‘I'll be a bed slug tomorrow.' He pushed some hair from her forehead. ‘Sure you don't
want to come? I brought Will's wetsuit. I'll teach you.'

‘I'll meet you down there later. I'll bring proper coffee.'

Audrey could not sleep after he left. There was a sliver of light on the wall, falling
through from the edge of the thick curtain, and
she watched it turn from grey to
gold. Eventually she got up. The shower faced an enormous mirror. Something about
Katy's hatred of her body had dulled any feelings Audrey had about her own. On a
bad day she might be ashamed at its flat lines, childlike proportions. Mostly she
didn't think about it. Still, she was glad when the glass fogged over and she couldn't
see herself any more.