Pool (3 page)
Authors: Justin D'Ath
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Health & Daily Living, #General, #Social Issues, #Juvenile Nonfiction
5
For the first time in the three-and-a-half weeks that Wolfgang had worked at the pool, the blind girl wasn’t there. He didn’t give her absence much thought. It was the black butterfly wing that preoccupied him. He had almost called in sick that morning, simply so he could be at home when Dr Karalis answered his email.
It was December twenty-first, the longest day in the year. And the slowest. Wolfgang must have looked at his watch a thousand times before – finally! – the display showed six o’clock.
He rode home in a hurry, pedalling all the way, and went straight to his bedroom. He switched on the computer. But when he went online, only spam came up in the messages box. There was nothing from Dr Karalis. Wolfgang’s shoulders slumped. He opened the ‘Sent’ box and re-read his email to the scientist; then, just to be sure, he sent it again. Clicking on the attachment, he brought up the scanned image of the black butterfly wing he’d made the night before. Enlarged four times, it filled half the screen.
‘Check your emails, Doctor Karalis,’ Wolfgang muttered at the computer.
Sylvia was in the kitchen making a rice salad. She looked up and smiled when Wolfgang came out of his bedroom. ‘I thought I heard you come home. How was work, darling?’
‘Okay.’ He took a glass from the draining rack and filled it from the cold tap. ‘Were there any phone calls for me today?’
‘I don’t think so. Have you asked your father?’
As if he’d remember, Wolfgang thought. He gulped down the water and refilled the glass. He was still hot from his ride. ‘I was kind of hoping Doctor Karalis might have rung.’
‘The butterfly man?’ Leo said behind him.
Wolfgang turned and saw his father standing in the doorway. ‘Did he ring, Dad?’
The old man pulled on one of his over-large ears. ‘Not that I recollect. Have a look on the pad near the phone – I might have written it down.’
Wolfgang slipped past him into the hallway to check the message pad.
‘Anything?’ his father asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said. And there were no messages on the answering machine. ‘Dad, have you got a minute? There’s something I’d like you to look at.’
He led the way to his bedroom. It was more than a day since he’d found the wing and he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer.
‘What do you make of that?’ Wolfgang said, a tremor in his voice – seeing the enlarged image of the black wing on the computer screen was enough to make his heart rate increase.
Leo spent some moments studying the image. Butterflies were the one thing he and his son had in common. Or
did
have in common, before he began losing his memory.
‘One of the crows?’ the old man asked finally.
Wolfgang shook his head. ‘It’s too black, don’t you think? And look at the shape of it.’
‘Yes ... yes. Very much like the ... like the ... what do you call them?’
‘The jays?’ Wolfgang suggested.
‘No, no, no, no,’ his father said impatiently. ‘None of the jays are black. Are you colourblind?’
‘I was talking about the shape.’ You silly old fool! Wolfgang almost added.
‘The shape. Yes. It’s very much like the ... what do you call it?’
This time Wolfgang wasn’t going to help him. ‘I thought it might be a new species.’
‘A new species? Good heavens!’
Wolfgang sighed. Why had he bothered? ‘I don’t know for sure if it’s a new species, Dad. I only found it yesterday.’
‘You found it? But here it is on the ... um ...’ Leo waved a hand at the screen.
‘Computer,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I scanned it. It’s like taking a photograph,’ he said tiredly, explaining it for the hundredth time. He opened a drawer and brought out a small cardboard box containing the wing on a bed of cotton wool. ‘Here’s the original. It’s a little battered. I cleaned it up a bit on the screen.’
His father held the box in his lump-jointed fingers. He adjusted his glasses. ‘Is there a hind wing?’
‘No, that’s all there was. I found it in the radiator grille when I went out to wash the car yesterday.’
Leo set the box on the desk beside the keyboard. He turned on his son. ‘You
didn’t
wash the car!’ he hissed, a bubble of spittle forming in the corner of his lips.
‘I started to,’ said Wolfgang, ‘but –’
‘Do you think, boy,’ his father shouted him down, ‘that just because I’m forgetful, you can ignore whatever I say?’
6
The next day there was still no response from Dr Karalis. Wolfgang considered phoning him. He went as far as dialling Directory Assistance, but as soon as the recorded Telstra voice asked, ‘What name please?’ he hung up. He and the scientist had only ever been in touch via email. In any case, Dr Karalis was probably on holiday. That would explain his silence. It was only three days until Christmas, a bad time to have discovered a new butterfly. Assuming it
was
a new butterfly. Most likely it was a variant colour phase of another species, a jay after all.
Don’t get your hopes up, Wolfgang warned himself. You’ll only be disappointed.
7
The blind girl wasn’t at the pool again on Wednesday. That was three days in a row. During his lunchbreak, Wolfgang took her hat to Mrs Lonsdale’s office.
‘How do we return lost property to people?’ he asked.
Mrs Lonsdale looked up from the romance novel she was reading. ‘You can make an announcement over the PA, if you like.’
Wolfgang was terrified of the PA. He would start lisping for sure. ‘The owner isn’t here today.’
‘Then put it in the lost property box.’
He rotated the hat by its brim. ‘I thought maybe I could take it round to her place after I knock off.’
‘That’s up to you, I suppose.’
‘I don’t know her address.’
Mrs Lonsdale gave him a quizzical look.
‘She’s got a season pass,’ he explained.
‘Ahhh,’ Mrs Lonsdale said, eyebrows raised. She put her book down and swivelled her chair around facing her computer. ‘What’s the young lady’s name?’
Wolfgang blushed. ‘I don’t actually know her name. It’s that blind girl – you know, the one who comes with her seeing-eye dog every day?’
‘B-A-B-A-C-A-N,’ Mrs Lonsdale said, her fingers tapping the keyboard. She waited a moment, then read from the screen: ‘Audrey Babacan, 16 Ironbark Place. Would you like me to write that down?’
‘No, I can remember it,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Babacan. Isn’t that the name of the guy who does the furniture ads?’
‘That’s her father.’ Mrs Lonsdale shook her head. ‘Poor girl. As if being blind isn’t bad enough.’
8
Sixteen Ironbark Place was the largest house in the street. Two storeys, triple garage, a fish pond out the front with waterlilies and a fountain. Strung between the satellite dish and the chimney, an almost life-sized Santa Claus rode his sleigh behind a procession of plastic reindeer. Wolfgang leaned his bicycle carefully against one of the fake-antique gaslights that lined the driveway. He patted his sweat-damp hair into place, then made his way up the six white concrete steps to the front door.
The Furniture King himself answered the door-chime. He was smaller than he appeared on television, and not as friendly.
‘Yes?’ he said, his familiar face framed by a wreath of plastic holly tied with white cotton to the security door.
‘I brought Audrey’th hat,’ Wolfgang lisped – it often happened when he was nervous. ‘Th-the left it at the pool on Thaturday.’
Mr Babacan stared at his lip. ‘You know Audrey?’
It was a mistake to have come. He should have listened to Mrs Lonsdale and left the hat in the lost property box.
‘I thee her at the pool. I ... I ... I work there.’
‘And your name is?’
‘Wolfgang Mulqueen.’
Mr Babacan’s expression became thoughtful. ‘Dahh-dahh-dahh duuuum!’ he sang, raising his eyebrows. ‘Dahh-dahh-dahh DUUUUM!’
Wolfgang reddened. What on earth?
‘Mozart – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!’
‘Oh. Yeah. Sure,’ Wolfgang stammered. It wasn’t Mozart who wrote the famous Symphony No. 5, it was Beethoven. ‘I was never much good with classical music.’
Mr Babacan laughed sportingly. His whole demeanour had changed – from suspicious father to jovial Furniture King. ‘Give me Shania Twain any day,’ he said, winking as he unlatched the security door. ‘Come in, come in.’
Wolfgang smelled roast vegetables in the cool air that tumbled out of the house. ‘I’m actually expected at home, Mr Babacan.’
‘Call me Keith,’ said the Furniture King. ‘Come in for one minute. I’m sure Audrey will want to thank you in person.’
The dining room was at the rear of the house. It had a wide bay window that looked out over a forested valley. Audrey, wearing a blue halter-top, her red hair in plaits, sat with her back to the view while her mother, the same prim blonde woman Wolfgang had seen at church, ladled soup into three bowls.
‘Audrey, you have a visitor,’ announced Keith.
His daughter turned towards his voice, her brows knitted. ‘A visitor?’
‘Your friend Mozart from the pool.’
‘
Who?
’ she asked.
‘Wolfgang. From the ticket office,’ said Wolfgang.
Keith, still smiling at his Mozart joke, led their visitor to the table. ‘This is my wife, Bernadette. Wolfgang has very kindly returned Audrey’s hat from the pool.’
‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ said Bernadette. She made a small gesture with the ladle. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘My mother’s expecting me home for dinner.’
‘At least have a drink before you go,’ said Keith, pulling out a chair and practically pushing Wolfgang down into it.
‘Thanks. A glass of water would be good, Mr Babacan.’
‘How about a beer?’
‘Well ...’ Wolfgang said. It was the first time he’d been offered alcohol by an adult.
‘VB or a Crownie?’
‘Um. A Crownie, thanks.’
When Keith left the room to fetch his Crownie – What was a Crownie? – Wolfgang passed Audrey her hat.
‘I’m afraid it got a bit bent up in my backpack,’ he apologised.
‘What did?’
‘Here, let me take that,’ said Bernadette, whisking the hat out of Wolfgang’s hand. He felt foolish. For a moment he had forgotten Audrey was blind.
‘I haven’t seen you and Campbell at the pool for a few days,’ he said.
‘We’ve had visitors – my sister and her fiancé came up from Geelong.’
Wolfgang was relieved. He had been worried her absence might have had something to do with what had happened on Saturday afternoon.
‘I found another butterfly,’ he said.
‘Another
Polyura sempronius?’
That was impressive. ‘No, a different one. I haven’t been able to identify it.’
‘Did you –’ Audrey wrinkled her nose,
‘collect
it?’
He smiled. ‘It was already collected. I found it on the radiator of Dad’s car. Just a wing, actually.’
‘Gruesome!’
‘It’s quite beautiful, actually. Completely black.’
‘My favourite colour.’
Was she joking? Her face seemed serious. ‘I’m not sure yet,’ Wolfgang said carefully, ‘but I think it might be a new species.’
‘Wow.’
‘Can you know that just from a wing?’ asked Bernadette.
‘You should be able to, Mrs Babacan. There’s nothing like it in any of my books.’
‘Wolfgang’s a butterfly expert,’ Audrey told her mother.
‘So I gather,’ said Bernadette. She caught his eye. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like some soup, Wolfgang?’
‘No thanks, Mrs Babacan. I’d better leave room for Mum’s dinner.’
Keith came back with a 700ml bottle of Crown Lager – a
Crownie,
of course! – and a tall chilled glass. ‘We can’t have you going home dehydrated.’
Wolfgang looked at the bottle in dismay. He wasn’t really a drinker and had expected a stubbie. ‘Aren’t you going to have some, Mr Babacan?’
‘I’ve already had my quota,’ said Keith, patting his rounded stomach as he took a seat at the head of the table. ‘Don’t be shy, son, get stuck in.’
Wolfgang had never poured a beer and filled the glass three quarters full of foam. A floe of bubbles slid down the outside of the glass. He caught most of it with his fingers and surreptitiously wiped them on his shorts.
‘I’ll get you a serviette,’ Bernadette said.
‘So what do you do when you’re not at the pool, Wolfgang?’ asked Keith.
‘I ... um. Just the usual things, Mr Babacan.’
‘Keith,’ his host reminded him. ‘You’re a student, I take it? New Lourdes Pool isn’t your life’s work?’
‘It’s just a summer job.’
‘What are you studying?’
Wolfgang moved his glass in circles on its ceramic coaster. He was built like a football player and he’d been shaving since he was fourteen; people often said he looked older than his age. ‘Veterinary science,’ he heard himself say.
‘I’ve heard that’s a difficult course to get into,’ said Keith.
‘I was lucky, I guess,’ Wolfgang said, already regretting his lie. Why had he done it? To impress Audrey?
Keith leaned towards him. ‘Here’s what I believe, Wolfgang. We make our own luck in this life.’
‘What about bad luck?’ asked Audrey.
Her father scowled but said nothing.
Bernadette brought Wolfgang a serviette and sat down with her family. To Wolfgang’s surprise, the three of them said grace. He bowed his head and stared at the crisscross weave of the white linen tablecloth in front of him. A university student wouldn’t say grace – and anyway it seemed wrong to pray over a beer. He waited until Audrey and her parents had started their soup, then picked up his glass and sipped some of the foam.
‘Would you like a fresh glass?’ Bernadette asked.
‘Let him be,’ said her husband. He gave Wolfgang the exaggerated wink made famous in his Furniture King ads, then mimed drinking straight from the bottle. ‘Don’t bother with the glass, son.’
Son.
Wolfgang self-consciously lifted the bottle and had a small sip. Then, because no one seemed to be taking any notice of him, he took a long pull. He wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. Finish it and leave. The Babacans ate their soup. Spoons clinked against china, lips made soft sucking noises. He didn’t dare look in Audrey’s direction. She couldn’t see, but he knew she could see through him. Veterinary science. What had he been thinking?
Across from him, Bernadette took a small dinner roll from the basket in the middle of the table. ‘Would you like some bread, Wolfgang?’ she asked, tilting the basket towards him.
‘Thanks, Mrs Babacan,’ he said politely. It would help soak up the beer, which already, after just two or three swallows, was going to his head.
‘How well do they pay you at the pool?’ Keith asked a minute or two later.
‘Eight dollars fifty an hour.’
‘I pay my delivery boys more than that.’
‘Dad!’ said Audrey.
‘It’s pretty easy work.’ Wolfgang took another swallow of beer, then set the bottle down very carefully on its coaster. It was less than half full – roughly three eighths. Or five-eighths empty, he thought, pleased with his agility of mind. Despite the bread – he had eaten three rolls in quick succession – he was feeling disconcertingly light-headed. But not so light-headed that he couldn’t perform mental arithmetic. ‘And I get tips from the pilgrims,’ he added.
Keith furrowed his brow. ‘Who or what are the pilgrims?’
‘The people who come to be cured.’
‘That’s another rip off, if you ask me.’
‘Nobody asked you, Dad,’ Audrey said.
Keith ignored her. He leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Wolfgang, has anyone
ever
been cured?’
‘Marceline Flavel.’
Keith dropped his spoon dramatically against the side of his empty soup bowl. ‘I rest my case.’
Puzzled, Wolfgang caught the eye of Bernadette, who smiled apologetically. ‘Keith is the world’s greatest sceptic, Wolfgang. He doesn’t believe Marceline Flavel was cured.’
‘She was in the newspaper,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I saw her on TV. She was walking.’
‘But who
was
she?’ asked Keith. ‘Where did she come from?’
‘France.’
‘Exactly. And how convenient. Nobody had ever heard of her until she blew into town in her wheelchair, and then she very conveniently disappeared back to France – to
old
Lourdes, perhaps? – as soon as all the fuss was over.’
‘Crutches.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Marceline Flavel had crutches, not a wheelchair.’ Wolfgang raised the bottle to his lips but discovered it empty. ‘They’re in a display cabinet down at the pool,’ he said, setting the bottle down. ‘People take photos of them.’
Keith reached for the empty bottle. ‘I only wish,’ he said, ‘that Shirley Lonsdale worked for me. Would you like another beer, son?’
‘No, thanks. I’d better go home. Mum will have tea ready.’
Audrey surprised him by rising from her seat. ‘I’ll show you to the door.’
It felt strange being walked to the door by a blind person. She led him back through the house as if she could see exactly where they were going. She didn’t even touch the walls. Wolfgang wondered, as he followed her bare heels down the hallway, where Campbell was.
‘Sorry about Dad,’ Audrey said, opening the front door.
‘You say sorry a lot.’
It took her a moment to catch on, but then she laughed. She turned to face him. ‘You know, Wolfgang, I thought you were younger.’
‘It’s the way I talk,’ he said, emboldened by the beer. ‘I was born with a cleft palate and, you know, a harelip. Even though I’ve been operated on, it still affects my speech sometimes.’
She tilted her head to one side. ‘I’ve never met someone with a harelip. May I touch it?’
‘Well, I guess so. It’s been fixed though.’
Audrey reached up and ran her fingers gently over his top lip. ‘There’s a bump,’ she said, concentrating.
He waited for her to lower her hand. ‘I could have had another operation – you know, plastic surgery? – but I chickened out.’
‘Would that have fixed the way you talk?’
‘Probably.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But after my second time in hospital I didn’t want to go back there. I was only three.’
‘Poor Wolfgang,’ Audrey said.
‘Hey, I’m all right,’ he said cheerily, an echo of the Furniture King in his tone. Which should have warned him not to say anything further. But the words just came tumbling out: ‘At least I’m not blind.’