Our Magic Hour (14 page)

‘Are you all right?'

‘I did something bad,' he said. ‘Outside the pub I ran into this girl I went to uni
with, and we went for a drink, and we hooked up.' Audrey caught sight of herself
in the mirror: black stockings, black bra, the ribs of a mean dog. Her chest made
her think of the chicken they bought at the market. ‘I don't know why I did it,'
he went on. ‘I'm not attracted to her. It was just really weird and intense. And
I'm so sorry.'

‘Nick. Stop.'

‘Then I was coming back down Condell Street and this older guy
stepped out of one
of the houses, and I imagined what I'd do to him if he pulled a knife on me, and
I was ready. This big
adrenaline
rush. I could have killed him.' He sounded as if
he were about to cry. ‘He just walked right past me. I felt sick that I'd even imagined
it. And I don't know why I hooked up with Georgia. I'm sorry.'

The panic strangled his speech. Audrey almost didn't recognise him. His brows were
drawn together; he might have been confessing a murder.

Sometimes when they fucked now she thought of other things. Not other men, but of
fields and waves and streams. She felt as though he were humouring her, that he was
touching her because he felt sorry for her or because he was daring himself to. The
joy had gone out of their bodies.

‘It's okay,' Audrey said. ‘It's all right. I get it. You didn't fuck her, did you?
You're wasted, you hooked up—I'm not missing anything, am I?'

‘Don't say it like that.'

‘Like what? I'm not upset, Nick. I get it more than you think. I know I'm not'—now
she faltered—‘You've been patient. I get it.'

‘Oh, don't be bloody
sacrificial
about it.'

She threw open her arms. ‘Well, I don't know what you want me to say. How should
I react? What do you want me to say?'

‘I want you to care! It's like you're saying
Go on
,
fuck whoever
,
I don't give a
shit.
'

‘Fuck you,' she said. She turned away. ‘I resent that.'

In bed they tried to salvage what they could.

Audrey pulled the sheet up over their heads like a sail. ‘When we were kids, we had
this ratty orange canvas tent. Maman used to set it up in the middle of the living
room. She'd let me and Irène eat lunch in there, bring our books and blankets in.'
Their breath was hot under the cotton ceiling. ‘You know how when you're a kid, you
think you're invisible because you can't see anyone else.'

Nick stretched the sheet taut overhead, let it slacken.

‘Sometimes you make it sound okay,' he said.

‘We were happy most of the time.'

‘I still don't understand it.' Nick went on pressing the sheet with his hand. A great
fold fell between their faces. ‘I still don't get what it was like.'

Audrey's phone sounded in the middle of the night but by the time she came to, Nick
was already switching on the light, licking his lips, climbing across her body to
answer the thing.

‘Are you all right? Where are you?' he croaked. ‘Listen, mate, it's not really a
good time. Isn't there—'

Audrey felt everything stratify.
Adam
. She hadn't imagined he could go backwards,
that this could start again. Nick was rubbing his eyes. She pulled on her jumper
and waited. Those endless nights spent with Adam, chasing his grief around their
kitchen table or his, all the late-night phone calls. She didn't know if she could
weather a second wave.

Nick tossed the phone onto the bed.

‘It's your brother,' he said. ‘He's off his tits.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Out the front.'

Nick pulled on some shorts. Audrey followed him to the door. Bernie stood on the
step dressed in a girl's school pinafore. In his hand he held a fluorescent-blue
tube and a shaggy wig.

‘The fuck.' Nick started to laugh. They stepped aside and Bernie staggered to the
kitchen.

‘Sorry,' he kept saying, even as he collapsed at the table, ‘sorry, mate. I'm really
sorry, Audie.'

‘Where've you been?'

‘I started off at this party in Carlton, one of Tom's friends. And we went for a
walk, to get more drinks, but I sort of got lost from
everyone else.'

‘What's with the lightsaber?' Nick asked.

‘Dress-up party. Guess who I am.' He held up the mass of synthetic hair, and slapped
it on his head. The red fringe fell over his eyes. ‘Chrissy Amphlett. You know, like,
Boys in Town
-era. This is my microphone.'

‘So you got lost.' Audrey handed him a mug of tea. ‘Then what?'

‘Then I was smoking a doobie in a park somewhere, and this guy comes up to me and
says
he's
going to a party, so I got on the tram with him and it went a long way.
It went to fucken Thornbury. I didn't even know where that was. But when we got there,
to the house, I realised it was a sex party, and I got scared.' Nick rocked back
and clapped his hands together. Audrey looked at her brother, with his smudged makeup
and his lopsided wig, and she was laughing, too, an early-morning delirium. Bernie
drew the teabag up and down in the mug. ‘So then I slept in a bush for a while,'
he continued, ‘and by the time I wake up the trams have stopped running and my wallet's
gone and I can't get a cab.'

‘How'd you get here?'

‘Walked.'

‘What, from Thornbury?'

‘Yeah, it's taken a while, but it was okay. I didn't want to wake you up so I just
kept walking. Figured if I got here, I could crash on your couch. I just can't make
it back to St Kilda.'

Close to five o'clock he passed out on the living room f loor. Audrey put a quilt
over his body. She stood and watched him a moment.

In the bedroom she lay down beside Nick and opened
L'Assommoir
. Gervaise was losing
her mind on a sidewalk, her entire existence confined to the triangle between the
hospital, the abattoir and the railway. Audrey remembered the tragedy from years
ago, when she'd f irst read it. Her father had been pleased. She remembered a
conversation
she'd had with Katy. Must have been when her father was dying, around the time of
Sylvie's psychotic break. There were phone calls at all hours, there were long drives
to and from the peninsula, there were false preludes to death. Sylvie's behaviour
became ritualised in its weirdness. It was mostly too difficult to explain to people.
Once Katy had asked
Do you ever get scared you'll end up like them
? Audrey said
No
,
and Katy said
Sorry, sorry
, over and over again.
I should never have said that. You're
tough, Spence; you've built up immunity. You're the synagogue, you're Gilgamesh.

Still. Audrey had gone home to Nick. She said
What do you know about epigenetics,
and he might have laughed, but she was shaking. He sat up with her all night, reading
about heredity as if they were studying for an exam.

Gervaise was in front of the slaughterhouses. They were being torn down, but they
still stank of blood. Audrey closed the book and covered her eyes.

On Saturday night Audrey and Nick drove over to Malvern where Emy's parents lived,
near the private hospital. The houses were monstrously large. Their lights were just
coming on. Their iceberg roses trembled in the wind.

‘Who lives like this?' Nick said as they stood in front of the cavernous driveway.
Ben opened the door to them. His shoulders nearly filled the frame.

‘Come in, I'll introduce you to Em's parents, everyone's out the back—'

The garden swarmed with people. They huddled under the big gas heaters. Audrey could
see Emy, flushed and happy. She looked so alive that Audrey wanted to rush over and
kiss her, but Emy was busy talking. Audrey watched the scene. The music hummed in
her teeth. Her friend beamed. She thought of Emy saying
What's been happening with
you
. She turned back to Nick and Ben.

‘I might go and see if Emy's mum wants a hand,' she said.

It was quiet in the kitchen. Mrs Takemura gave her a colander full of snow peas and
a knife. They worked side by side. Their conversation was gentle and meaningless.
Audrey could see the party, the darkening sky, through the glass over the sink.

When the food was ready she sat between Adam and Nick at the long table.

‘Feels like the last supper,' said Nick.

‘Something's happened,' Audrey said to him in a low voice. ‘Ben's moving back to
Japan with her, or something.'

‘You reckon?'

‘I just have this feeling.'

Veiny leaves floated on the surface of the swimming pool. The air smelled of smoke
and damp soil. Audrey looked at the faces around the table. Beside her, Adam was
telling a story about an argument. His voice hurried to fill the air.

Audrey went to get her jumper from the car, and returned as Emy was standing up next
to Ben's chair, tinkling fork to wineglass.

‘The reason we're having this party is because I wanted to see you all before I go
back to work next week,' she said, and gave a cough, ‘but also because Ben and I
got married yesterday.' She grabbed his hand and held it up as proof: one thick finger
was bound in gold.

‘Well, fuck me,' Adam said. He clapped a hand over his mouth.

‘I'm still contracted in Chiba for another eight months, but Ben's staying here,
so it'll be a bit tough, but we'll survive.' She glanced at Ben. ‘Anyway, that's
all, I didn't want to make a speech…' She sat down anticlimactically, and there was
hooting and noise and applause.

‘I thought they split up!' Adam said.

‘Guess they got back together again.'

‘They must've moved fast. Emy's only been back for ten days.' His gleeful eyes wandered
to the head of the table. ‘I'm going over
to get the goss,' he said.

Nick shook his head. He looked sideways at Audrey. ‘Wanna dance?' he asked.

She couldn't remember the last time they'd danced, but he took her hand and they
crossed the shadowy lawn to the far corner where coloured bulbs were strung between
trees. They swayed from side to side in the cold. Audrey watched the holiday lights
quivering across Nick's face. He bent his head.

‘Give me
something
,' he said. His breath made a warm puff of air in her ear. She
looked up, smiled. She squeezed his fingers lightly.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Just give a little,' he said. She put her head on his chest. They rocked back and
forth.

In the morning they walked to work together down Gertrude Street. Audrey came with
Nick as far as the ambulance bay. She said she'd buy his father a birthday card on
her lunch break.

‘What's on for you today?' he asked.

‘I have to go out to Port Phillip again,' Audrey said.

‘What, the jail?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Same client?'

‘No, different. It's weird, I'd never done a prison visit before this year and now
I've done it twice. It's like that thing where you learn a new word one day, and
then read it in a book or whatever the next day.'

‘Baader-Meinhof,' Nick said.

‘What?'

‘The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. The thing with the new words. That's what it's called.'

He was smiling shyly, the way he did when he knew he'd surprised her.

Audrey stared at him. ‘Nick Lukovic, font of knowledge.'

He grabbed her wrists, pulled her close. He tasted of coffee.

It was an access visit, a five-year-old strapped into the back seat of the work car,
Audrey making quiet talk with him.

‘He looks tired,' Penny had said. ‘He might drop off on the way there.' But every
time Audrey glanced in the rear-view mirror he was staring out the window, absently
stroking his hair.

He held her hand while they stood in the line for security, while she relinquished
her handbag and mobile phone and the rice crackers she'd brought for him, while they
shuffled into the open walkway with the other strangers, all there to see different
people. There were no concessions for children. They were herded through the series
of barren chambers in the same frightening, humiliating way as the adults. The air
whistled through the cyclone-wire walls. The other visitors peeled off into rooms.

In the family visiting room everything was bolted to the floor. There was a plastic
slide for toddlers. There was a low circular table set on a supporting pole. The
chairs were fixed to the ground. They could not be moved closer. Audrey saw that
small bodies could never sit at a comfortable distance from their drawing, or whatever
modest distraction was laid before them.

She felt exposed without her phone or handbag. The room was cold. She bent to zip
the child's parka to his chin.

At last the father appeared, flanked by an officer. ‘Joey. Mate,' he croaked. He
reached for the boy. He was shaking. The child threw his arms around his father's
neck. It was only the two of them in the whole world.

Audrey glanced up at the correctional officer, watching by the door. His face was
blank, but she thought she detected a masculine sympathy, a current in the air.

In the afternoon there was a team meeting. Audrey took the minutes. She was
still wearing her coat. The cold from the visiting room was in her sleeves. When
everyone filed out, Vanessa said, ‘How was this morning?'

‘All right.'

‘Those access visits are shitty.'

‘It's the most hopeless place. It could not be any more terrifying for a child. That
poor kid today. I hope he forgets it,' Audrey said. ‘I hope his memory destroys itself.'