Our Magic Hour (17 page)

She walked home from the station in the rain. The sky looked like something out of
a painting, billowing pink clouds. She couldn't stop crying.

She slept beside Adam every night. They watched old films. In the dark they talked
a lot about being younger. Audrey had expected him to fuss over everything, but he
was surprisingly calm. When she sat at the bottom of the stairwell one evening and
watched the sky flood blood orange, he crouched on his haunches beside her. He said
nothing for a long time. They drove all the way out to Arthurs Seat, where the bitter
wind felt like Vicks on their skin, and visited Sylvie on the way home. They caught
the tram to the South Melbourne Market for fresh bread and cheese and fruit, and
ate their feast sitting on the balcony, rugged up against the cold. Adam
practised
his freestyle rapping and made up songs about the
mad bitch
who lived in the apartment
across from his.

Audrey went along with him to Minh's gigs. Bar Open, the Curtin, Cherry. They played
sleazy cowboy rock. Wednesday nights they had a residency at the Espy. Audrey liked
the view from the wide windows in the front bar, right round to the Newport power
station; she liked the sober light in the bathrooms. She liked to see Adam's face.
In the crowded rooms, at the foot of the stages, he was so full of helpless love.
Minh might have been playing only for him. Audrey understood it when she saw him.
Hair falling over his face, the clean angles of his cheeks, his shirt rolled at the
cuffs. He played bass, standing at the side of the stage. He sang backing vocals
but he never spoke. Audrey wished he'd seek out Adam and give him something, just
eyes or a smile, just once. He never did. Adam was in thrall watching him. Afterwards
they'd clink their gin glasses and step outside for a cigarette. They always went
back to Minh's place. The three of them would stand on the pavement outside whichever
pub or bar it was, Adam or Minh saying
Are you sure you're right to get back
, Audrey
laughing and saying
Yes, yes
, and it only ended with somebody getting in a taxi.
It felt wrong sleeping alone in Adam's bed, so she'd drag his quilt to the couch
and lie with the television on until she fell asleep. In the morning her neck was
stiff. The coffee plunger made too much for one person. She was afraid that she couldn't
be alone.

She went to dinner at her mother's house. Sylvie made chicken. She played an old
Pete Seeger record that had belonged to Neil. She talked about Irène while she stirred
and chopped and smoked. Audrey listened. She opened the door of the budgerigar's
cage wide enough to fit her hand in, and let the bird peck at her finger.

The two of them ate at the square kitchen table. When the record finished it was
too quiet but Audrey couldn't stand to hear that music
again, those songs her father
had sung, so she washed the dishes and covered the leftovers with plastic wrap. Sylvie
served vanilla ice-cream and tinned peaches like she had for every dessert of Audrey's
childhood. She said
Can you just eat a little, can you just try. You're skinny like
a nail
, and somewhere between the butchered idiom and the sweetness in the bowl,
Audrey started to cry. Sylvie took the spoon out of her hand where it was dripping
sticky stuff onto the table. She put her arms around Audrey and kissed her cheek,
her hair.

‘
Mon pauvre lapin
. I never wanted you to be like this.'

Audrey was slack-mouthed with grief.

In the bathroom Sylvie ran the water. Audrey sat on the tiles and let her mother
tie her hair into a knot.
Skin a bunny
, said Sylvie. She tugged Audrey's shirt over
her head, just like Nick had done.

‘Do you remember I used to do this when you were little?' Sylvie said. ‘It's what
my maman told me. What you do for children. They like to be in the water when nothing
else works. You make a bath.' Audrey didn't want to shake her head, didn't want to
tell Sylvie she remembered no comfort. She didn't want to make her sad.

Sylvie sat her in the bath. She began to soap her back and shoulders with a washcloth.
The water smelled of lavender. Sylvie was saying
Ma pauvre petite, mon pauvre petit
lapin
over and over again.

Fever Dream

Adam was dragging her out to the Green, Meredith's birthday drinks, where their friends
would be. All day at work she had the cold sweats thinking about it. Adam phoned
late in the afternoon, said he was having beers with Hannah or someone, he'd meet
her there. Audrey raked her hair into a plait.

She got to the pub first, couldn't stand to see anyone she knew. In the bathroom
mirror she saw herself: damp skin, shaking fingers, bulging eyes. She locked herself
in a toilet cubicle and opened a book on her knees. She tried to work the words into
shapes, to make sense of the sentences. She sat in the cubicle until Adam messaged
her to say he'd arrived. He met her by the bar, hugged her close.

‘You look relieved,' he said. ‘You all right, Spence?'

‘I think I might go,' Audrey said.

‘I just got here!'

She wondered that he couldn't hear the noise she was making.

‘Come on,' Adam said, ‘I'll get you a drink.'

Everyone was crowded into the back room, squeezed onto couches, cross-legged on the
floor. The windows were fogged with their breath. Meredith said
You made it!
and
jumped up; she kissed
Audrey's cheek and squeezed her until Audrey remembered to
say
Happy birthday
. She looked to Adam. He was sweeping their seated friends in greeting.
How are
you
doing
, Meredith said, and Audrey said
Okay, actually
. She hoped her smile
didn't look sick. Her whiskey was gone. Johnny's face, his halo of blond hair, his
rough cheek by hers,
Sorry to hear about you and Nick, how are you holding up?
Audrey
had nothing to say. How many more condolences? All the friendly faces, more tender
than before,
Sorry, sorry
, kind smiles with no teeth showing,
We should get coffee
next week
, and all the while she was gulping down air. She went back to the bar and
finished her drink quickly. Back to the bathroom. Same cubicle. She re-read the graffiti.
She checked her watch. It couldn't last forever.

Ben was outside the bathrooms. He eyed her. ‘Do you want to come for a walk?'

She would have gone with anyone. They started down the street. Ben stopped at a cash
machine.

‘Are you all right?' he said, punching in his numbers. ‘I'm only saying this as a
mate. You're looking pretty pinned tonight.'

Audrey thought the noisy breathing had stopped, but as soon as she opened her mouth
her lungs heaved again.

‘Sorry. I'm sorry,' she said. She was crying and she was ashamed.

They sat down on the stoop of an unlit shop.

‘Breathe through your nose,' Ben said. ‘Do the out part slowly.'

She kept trying. He put a hand on her forehead as if he were taking her temperature,
pressed gently. He counted to ten over and over again. Audrey made the air go in
and out until she was done.

‘Tell me what you need,' Ben said. ‘What can I do so you feel safe?'

‘I think I want to go home. I want to—not be conscious.'

‘It'll pass, you know. If you can ride it out.'

‘I don't think I can wait that long,' she said. ‘I don't want to be here.'

‘Okay. Let's get a cab.'

‘You go back to the pub,' Audrey said. ‘Please. I don't want them to know I've left.
I don't want to make a fuss. Can you just go back?'

Ben was steady. ‘I'll turn around and come straight back here. I just want to make
sure you're home safe.'

‘I promise I'll be all right. Please. Can you just go back.'

They stood.

‘I used to get them too. When I started chefing,' Ben said. ‘It fucking sucks.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Stop saying sorry. Nothing to be sorry for.'

He waved down a taxi, waited until she was buckled. ‘Can you message me when you're
home?' he said through the door.

She nodded. ‘Thanks, Ben. I'm really sorry. Thank you.'

The cab driver made polite conversation with her. When they pulled up outside Adam's
apartment and she looked at the meter, she saw it was only ten-thirty. She fumbled
in her purse. A tram clattered by.

‘You can hear the trains from anywhere in this city,' the driver said. Audrey handed
him the money.

Adam came home early the next morning. Audrey was still in bed: not asleep, but looking
out the window at the white sky. Adam sat beside her, offered her a bite of toast.
She sat up. ‘How was your night?' she asked.

‘Good.' He kicked off his shoes. ‘It was okay. I ended up back at Hannah's. I just
wanted Minh to invite me home. He's so cool about it all. I'm scared I'm coming on
too strong. But I'm jealous of his flatmates and the guys in the band. I want him.'

Audrey rubbed her face. ‘You've got to stop thinking in terms of
possession
like
that.'

‘That's so typical of you to say,' he said. ‘You've never been the
one who loved
more.'

‘Oh, come on.'

They sat there in the grey light: Adam with the plate in his hands, and Audrey hugging
her knees to her chest beneath the blankets.

‘How are you feeling, anyway?' Adam asked.

‘Better than last night.'

He nodded. He went to the kitchen. Audrey heard him drop the plate in the sink. He
returned, dove belly-first onto the bed beside her. The mattress bounced. ‘You got
crumbs in the sheets,' Audrey said.

‘I didn't. I wasn't even fucking
eating
up here.' He propped himself up on one elbow.
‘Everyone was worried about you last night.'

‘It's my fault, not Nick's. I was the one who called it off.'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘I don't know what's happening to me. I've never been a crier in my life. And I just
can't stop at the moment.'

They were quiet. Audrey looked at the dead maidenhair fern by the door.

‘I'm so mad this is happening,' Adam said.

‘Well, you can be mad.'

‘What does Nick always say to you when he knows he's right?
Remember the pneumonia
?'

‘Don't, Adam.'

‘No, I just mean—it's not going to be like this forever. I
know
that.' He lay beside
her, his hands tucked under his head. ‘Give me some blanket,' he said. He tugged
at the quilt. ‘I'm cold.'

Audrey made herself useful on the floor in Irène's house, surrounded by drop-sheets.
The room was at the back of the house. Its window looked over the neat garden: daffodils,
Zoe's scooter against the chook pen, jacaranda tree. It was good to do small, productive
tasks; to concentrate on inches at a time. Audrey puttied holes in
the walls, smoothed
them over. She wore an old shirt of David's. Irène had a roller brush and a tray
of paint. They worked in comradely silence. The little blow heaters sighed on and
off.

‘Have you spoken to Nick?' Irène asked.

Audrey was on her hands and knees rubbing at the skirting board. ‘We spoke on the
phone a few days after I went to Adam's. It was hard to talk.'

‘When I broke up with Marty we went out for coffee. We tried to be civil about it,'
Irène said, ‘and we both just ended up bawling in the middle of the café. That really
snotty, ugly crying.'

‘Marty,' Audrey said. ‘That seems like a different lifetime.'

‘I was twenty-one.'

‘And you had Zoe two years after that.'

‘It seems nuts, doesn't it?' Irène toed the drop sheet. She set down the roller and
picked up a smaller brush. ‘So how's Nick taking it?'

‘I guess he's okay.'

‘Better than you?'

‘I don't know.' The sandpaper made a rhythmic, chafing sound. ‘I sort of don't know
what to do with myself. It's like I've forgotten how to do normal things.'

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know. Like Nick. I don't know what I'm doing at Adam's. I don't think I
can go back to my job right now. Everything sort of feels contaminated.' She sat
back on her heels. Irène had stopped painting. She was looking at her from across
the room. ‘I'm going in circles,' Audrey said. ‘This whole city.'

‘Maybe you need a bit of emotional quarantine. You don't have to stay here. You can
leave.'

‘I can't. You know that.'

‘Bernie's almost there. Maman isn't going to get any better or worse.'

‘That's so easy for you to say.'

‘No, don't
do
that. You're being…ascetic about it.'

Audrey stared at her. ‘That is exactly something Dad would say.'

‘We're talking about adults. Maman's gas isn't going to get cut off the second she
forgets to pay the first bill. Bernie can feed himself. You're spent. Maman's worried
about you.'

‘I don't want anyone to be worried.'

‘How could we not?' Irène said. ‘You're ridiculous. We could stick you in the middle
of the Pacific and you'd start swimming. I remember when you had the cheekbone fracture.
That whole side of your face was a mess, and you were trying to make Dad feel better.
That's why it's scary.'

‘That's not resilience,' Audrey said. ‘He hit me so hard I needed plates to hold
my eye socket together. Making him feel better wasn't resilience. That's how abuse
works.'

‘I know. I was there.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘But that's years ago,' Irène said. ‘It's finished. It can't happen again.'