by Justin D'Ath
‘Now we’re in business,’ she said. ‘Latch onto my arm, blind-man, and let an expert show you how it’s done.’
Blind-man. Now he knew what it felt like. It was so dark he could close his eyes or leave them open, it made no difference. He was in Audrey’s world. With the help of the stick, she tapped her way confidently along the gravel path with Wolfgang dragging helplessly on her other arm. She was right. He would make a hopeless blind person.
After perhaps a minute they emerged onto a wide lawn bathed in starlight. It seemed surprisingly bright after the cave-like darkness of the trees. Wolfgang released Audrey’s arm.
‘There’s the fountain.’
‘I can smell it,’ she said, still tapping along the path.
Wolfgang couldn’t smell anything. He walked beside her, lawns on either side of them. Audrey used the concrete edge of the path as a guide, working the stick in a practised sweeping motion ahead of her. Now that Wolfgang could see again, he wanted to slip her arm back through his but was hesitant to suggest it. She scared him sometimes. Her self-reliance and the way she mocked him accentuated the difference in their ages – her nineteen to his sixteen. She made him feel like a boy again.
‘There’s a seat over there,’ he pointed, then dropped his arm. Why point? ‘Shall we sit down?’
‘I want to have a paddle,’ Audrey said.
Not until they reached the low concrete wall surrounding the fountain did Audrey allow Wolfgang to assist her. He took her hand and together they stepped over onto the rough-paved coaming. They removed their shoes and left them on the wall with Audrey’s stick. Wolfgang rolled his jeans up, then extended his right foot gingerly through the water’s star-stippled surface until he felt the pool’s silty concrete bottom.
‘How deep is it?’ Audrey asked.
‘Just below my knees.’
‘I’ll leave my shorts on then.’
He reached up with both hands and steadied her as she stepped into the water. She came into his arms and they kissed. Mouth to mouth. No bumping teeth or noses this time. It was Audrey who broke away.
‘I thought the fountain ran all the time,’ she said.
Wolfgang waded out to the nozzle, a small dark island protruding a few centimetres above the pool’s centre. ‘I guess they turn it off at night.’
‘Let’s have a swim,’ Audrey said behind him.
He turned to face her. ‘It’s not deep enough.’
‘I don’t mean a swim-swim, just a lie-down-and-get-wet swim. I feel like cooling off.’
‘I’m not sure how clean the water is.’
‘I’m going to swim in it, not drink it,’ Audrey said. Already she was climbing back up onto the coaming.
She unbuttoned her shirt and lay it on the concrete wall next to her shoes. She was wearing a black or dark-coloured bra. Wolfgang watched her reach around behind herself to undo it and his pulse quickened. But that was as far as she got. There was a sharp intake of breath. Audrey stood there, a motionless figure in the dark.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
Instead of answering, Audrey scrambled over the wall and set off towards the black line of trees.
‘Audrey? Where are you going?’ Wolfgang called after her.
She didn’t answer. Already she was twenty metres away, moving fast across the grey expanse of lawn. She didn’t have her stick! Wolfgang splashed over to the side of the pool and clambered out. He stepped over the wall into the gravel, feeling it sharp beneath his soft bare feet. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! It was a relief to reach the grass. Already Audrey was halfway to the trees, a pale shape gliding through the darkness. She seemed almost to be running. Wolfgang followed her at a fast walk, not sure whether to call out again or not. Not sure what to do. There was an air of unreality about the whole situation. Moments ago Audrey had been calmly undressing in front of him – how far would she have gone? – now she was zigzagging across the lawn wearing only her shorts and bra. What on earth was she doing? Every few paces she changed direction. Now she was moving directly away from him, now she veered left, now right. Suddenly she swung completely around and for several seconds she came directly towards him, before swerving abruptly to the right. Wolfgang turned too, and hurried after her. She had travelled in a big circle; now she was heading back towards the fountain.
‘Look out!’ Wolfgang cried too late.
There were a number of bench seats set on concrete pads in the lawn facing the fountain, and it was with one of these that Audrey collided. From ten metres away, Wolfgang heard her grunt of pain. He saw her topple forwards over the back of the seat, her momentum carrying her all the way across and rolling her onto the ground on the other side.
Moments later he was kneeling next to her. ‘Audrey, are you okay?’
‘Of course I’m not okay!’ she snapped. ‘It felt like a bus hit me. What did I run into?’
‘A seat. I tried to warn you.’
‘Help me up.’
Wolfgang hadn’t been sure if he should touch her – she was only half dressed. He awkwardly slid one hand beneath her back, with the other he gripped her far shoulder. Her skin felt hot and moist. Carefully he lifted her into a sitting position.
‘Where does it hurt?’ he asked.
Audrey pushed the hair back off her face. ‘All over. God, I’m such an idiot!’
‘What happened?’
‘I ran into a freaking garden seat.’
‘Before that. Why were you running round like that?’
‘Do me a favour, Wolfgang. Don’t ask.’
But he had asked. ‘Are you okay to stand up?’
‘Not yet. Let’s get me onto the seat first.’
Wolfgang helped her up onto the wooden seat. She thanked him and bent forward with her head in her hands. He crouched next to her, not quite sure where to put his own hands. He touched her bare shoulder. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Pretty stupid, actually.’
‘Does anything feel broken?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Audrey said through her fingers. ‘Just a few bumps and bruises. I’m embarrassed, more than anything.’
‘I’ll get your shirt.’
When she was dressed again, Wolfgang sat on the seat beside her. She fumbled sideways, taking hold of his hand. ‘You must think I’m a head case,’ she said.
‘I don’t.’
She squeezed his fingers. ‘You’re the only one, then. Did you bring your smokes?’
‘No.’
‘I forgot mine too,’ she said dully. ‘Wolfgang, you didn’t see anything, did you?’
‘No. It was too dark. Anyway, I was looking the other way.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘When you took your shirt off.’
‘Not that,’ Audrey said impatiently. ‘Back there on the lawn. Was anything there?’
‘Only you,’ he said.
‘Me and my imagination.’ She let out a long, low sigh. ‘Wolfgang, do you believe in God?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Sometimes I hate Him. I mean, why did He do this to me?’
Wolfgang gazed up at the stars and thought of his own cleft palate, his father’s dementia, Audrey’s blindness. ‘It was because of the coma, wasn’t it?’
She released his hand. ‘I stopped breathing for ten minutes. It damaged the part of my brain that affects sight. And they called it a miracle when I woke up.’
‘It was a kind of miracle,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Waking up after two years in a coma.’
‘Waking up blind,’ Audrey said bitterly.
‘At least you woke up.’
‘They should never have brought me back.’
‘I thought you came out of it on your own,’ he said.
‘I’m not talking about the coma.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The pool,’ she whispered. ‘They should have let me drown.’
Wolfgang knew she didn’t mean it. She was just feeling sorry for herself. He didn’t
blame her. Leaning over, her kissed her on the curl of her ear. ‘But then I wouldn’t have a girlfriend.’
‘A loony one,’ said Audrey, pushing him gently but firmly away. ‘One who sees angels.’
43
Audrey didn’t speak except to answer questions, and even then her replies were terse and often monosyllabic. She had become moody and withdrawn.
‘Just drop it, would you!’ she snapped when Wolfgang asked about the angels.
As she had on the way in, Audrey guided him through the forested section of the botanical gardens. But she refused Wolfgang’s guiding arm when they emerged onto Millar Street. She used her stick instead. He followed her along the footpath, feeling rejected and confused. Why was she taking it out on him? At the traffic lights he made the mistake of suggesting they cross Acacia Street first, since the lights were already showing green that way. Without a word, Audrey found the metal pole for the traffic signals with her stick and thumped the button for the Millar Street crossing. She led him all the way back to Ironbark Place without once having to ask him for directions.
Outside her house, Audrey mumbled good night and tapped her way up the stairs to the front door without kissing him.
Bitch! Wolfgang mouthed silently after her as the door clicked softly closed on the strip of light from inside. And then felt guilty for thinking it. She’d hurt herself, that’s why she was in a bad mood. He hoped it was because she had hurt herself. Then he felt guilty for thinking that, too.
He was home by midnight. So much for his plans of becoming Audrey’s nocturnal companion. He was annoyed with himself for having Mrs Lonsdale rearrange his work timetable. Afternoons for the next week. He’d be losing three hours work each day; losing three hours pay for nothing. He would have to keep Keith’s nine hundred and fifty dollars, after all. As compensation. It didn’t seem fair that he should lose money over this. Over Keith’s loony daughter. Nocturnal. Sees angels. She’d done him a favour tonight by shutting him out of her life. He was better off without her.
But it took him nearly two hours to get to sleep. His mind would not close down. It kept replaying images of Audrey kissing him, of Audrey holding his hand, of Audrey unbuttoning her shirt on the fountain’s edge. And when he woke at ten minutes past ten in the morning to hear the phone ringing in the hallway, Wolfgang’s heart leapt in anticipation.
Please let it be her! he thought.
44
Wolfgang stood in the hallway in his boxer shorts, the phone pressed hard against his ear.
‘What do you mean, nothing was in it?’
‘There was a specimen envelope wrapped in bubble wrap, but nothing was inside it,’ Dr Karalis repeated. ‘You must have packed the wrong envelope by mistake.’
‘Impossible. I only had one envelope. Are you sure there was nothing inside it?’
‘I’ve got it right here in front of me. It’s empty.’
Wolfgang rubbed the corner of his left eye. He had been half asleep when his mother called him to the phone a minute ago, but now he was fully awake. ‘It must have fallen out,’ he said.
‘The envelope was taped closed,’ said Dr Karalis.
‘It could have fallen out after you opened it.’
‘I opened it here on my desk, Wolfgang. Nothing fell out.’
In his mind’s eye, Wolfgang saw himself at his own desk on Thursday morning, using a pair of white plastic tweezers to slip the wing into the envelope, and then sealing the envelope with a small rectangle of Sellotape. ‘I don’t get this,’ he said. ‘The wing was in there.’
‘Well it’s not there now,’ said Dr Karalis.
‘Someone at the post office must have stolen it. Did the package look like it had been opened?’
‘Not that I noticed.’
‘I sent it registered. Damn! Someone must have thought something valuable was in there and stolen it.’
‘Wolfgang, I really don’t think anyone would bother to steal a butterfly wing.’
‘It was in there,’ Wolfgang said stubbornly. ‘I’d stake my life on it.’
There was a short pause before Dr Karalis spoke again. ‘You could go down to the post office and talk to them, I suppose. You might be able to claim insurance.’
Wolfgang didn’t care about insurance, it was the black wing that mattered. Whoever stole it must have known something about butterflies.
Dad! he thought suddenly.
He tried to reconstruct the events of Thursday morning. What had he done between packaging the wing and posting it? His mother had asked him to put the recycling out, then on the way back in from the street he’d popped into the shed to sort out his collecting gear for later and had wound up fixing a hole in one of his nets. He’d been out of the house for how long? Fifteen or twenty minutes. Where was the package with the wing in it while he was doing this? On the bench in the kitchen. He had taken it in there looking for the heavy-duty parcel tape to seal the CD mailer, but his mother had interrupted him to do the recycling before he got the job done. Which meant the mailer had sat on the kitchen bench for all that time, unsealed. His father must have opened it, taken the wing out of the envelope, then replaced the empty envelope in the mailer. Sneaky old bastard.
‘Are you still there?’ asked a voice in Wolfgang’s ear.
‘Yeah. Sorry.’ The telephone felt sweaty in his palm. What did it matter anyway if the first wing was missing? ‘I’ve got another one, Doctor Karalis.’
‘Another wing?’ the scientist asked, surprised.
‘Another black butterfly – a complete specimen. I caught it in one of my traps the other day.’
‘Is it alive?’
‘No. I killed it and set it,’ Wolfgang said. There was no need to mention his father’s involvement – the silly old fool wouldn’t remember anything about it anyway. ‘It’s in perfect condition, Doctor Karalis. No scale loss or anything. It’s completely black, forewings and hind wings. There’s nothing like it in any of my books. I’m positive it’s a new species.’
‘Can you send it to me?’
Wolfgang scratched his armpit. ‘I ... I ... I’d really rather not take the risk. Not after what happened to the wing.’
‘Wolfgang, if you want this butterfly of yours identified, I really need to see it,’ the scientist said.
‘What if I bring it down to you?’ Wolfgang asked. ‘I could come down tomorrow on the train.’
‘You could, I suppose, but it’s a lot of trouble to go to.’
‘It might be a new species, Doctor Karalis.’
‘Let’s just wait and see, shall we?’
Wolfgang tried to ignore the scientist’s condescending tone. ‘I’ll catch the early train because I have to be back for work in the afternoon. I should be there by about ten o’clock.’
‘That’s fine,’ Dr Karalis said. ‘Find your way to the science department and leave it at reception.’
‘Won’t you be there?’
‘I’m going away for a few days. Just leave it at reception and I’ll take a look at it when I get back.’
Wolfgang felt diminished. Dr Karalis didn’t even want to meet him. ‘When will you be back?’
‘Next Monday.’
‘I’ll come down on Monday, then.’
‘If that’s what you really want to do,’ said the scientist. ‘But you could save yourself a lot of bother, Wolfgang, by simply putting the thing in the post.’
It wasn’t a thing, it was a butterfly. A butterfly that had never been seen before. A species unknown to science. Lepidoptera Mulqueen.
I want to see your face when you first lay eyes on it, Doctor I-know-every-butterfly-in-the-world Karalis, Wolfgang thought as he put down the phone. I want to see you eat humble pie.
45
There was nobody in Audrey’s spot beneath the peppercorn tree that afternoon. Wolfgang wasn’t surprised. The weather had changed. After two weeks of fine, settled weather, a hot northerly wind had sprung up. Sweeping down from the drought-ravaged Mallee to the north, it
carried with it a fine cumulus of dust that turned the sky brown and reddened the sun. The air tasted gritty and smelled of dirt; it stung the eyes. By mid-afternoon fewer than two dozen people, nearly all of them children, remained at the pool. The only adult was a one-legged man wearing a yellow life vest kicking himself in monotonous circles out near the centre.
‘Do you think he’s hoping his leg’ll grow back?’ Michael Hobson asked snidely.
Because there were so few patrons, Mrs Lonsdale had set him and Wolfgang the task of cleaning debris from the pool.
‘It’s not the leg,’ said Wolfgang, leaning out over the edge to chase a gum wrapper along the bottom with his long-handled pool net. ‘He’s got bowel cancer.’
Michael screwed up his face against a gust of wind. ‘Gross! It beats me why they don’t close the place down. All the germs and diseases that must be floating round in this water.’
‘Cancer isn’t contagious.’
‘Nah. But a lot of other stuff is. Did you see that chick yesterday with scabs all over her face and neck?’
‘Those were burns,’ Wolfgang said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Her mother told me. She and some friends went camping and some idiot threw petrol on the fire.’
Michael pulled his net out of the water and bashed some debris out of it onto the grass. ‘You’re incredible, Hulk. Where do you get all this stuff?’
‘People talk to me. Pilgrims. I’m the first person they see when they get here and a lot of them want to know about wheelchair access or what they’re allowed to wear in the water – things like that. Sometimes they tell me a bit about themselves.’
‘So what’s with hippo-girl?’ asked Michael.
‘She’s blind.’
‘Well, we all know that, Einstein. Why does she come here every day? I’ve never seen her go near the water.’
Wolfgang scooped up a dark triangular leaf floating against the padded edging at the bottom of the pool’s fifty-metre slope. ‘She likes it here.’
‘I think there’s something else that makes her come here,’ Michael said.
‘And what’s that?’ asked Wolfgang, turning his net inside out to free the leaf.