Pool

by Justin D'Ath

‘You mean it’s like a cave or something?’

  ‘Look, just forget about it,’ Audrey said. She took hold of his hand, lifted it away from herself and let it go. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. Is there a stick or something I could borrow?’

  ‘A stick?’ Wolfgang said vaguely. A light had come on around the corner of the house, illuminating a section of the garage wall.

  ‘I need one to get home. I left my cane in the police car.’

  The light seemed to be coming from his parents’ bedroom. Damn! What were they doing awake again?

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ Wolfgang said.

  ‘Don’t bother. Just get me a stick, okay?’

  ‘Audrey, let me go with you. Please. I want to know more about your dream place.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ she snapped. He could see her silhouette against the lighted garage wall, the broad dark bulk of her. ‘You said I was crazy.’

  ‘I said dreams were crazy ... some dreams,’ he corrected himself. ‘My own dreams hardly ever make sense.’

  A muffled exchange of voices came from inside the house. They both paused to listen.

  ‘Who was with you?’ Audrey whispered. ‘The police said it was a girl who made the phone call.’

  ‘Steve Taylor’s sister.’

  Audrey’s shoulders seemed to sag a little. ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘She’s nice enough.’

  ‘I suppose she’s pretty.’

  ‘Audrey, she’s only thirteen.’

  ‘Oh,’ Audrey said. She rubbed her upper arms as if they were cold. ‘What was she doing there?’

  ‘She’s Steve’s little sister. We didn’t want her with us but she tagged along and we couldn’t really stop her.’

  Audrey felt for the seat and sat down again. ‘I’m sorry I brought the police here. I just had to know you were okay.’

  You could have phoned, Wolfgang thought as he resumed his seat beside her. ‘What did you say to them?’

  ‘Just that I was worried about you.’

  ‘Well thanks, I guess. You didn’t tell them I had a key?’

  ‘No. Don’t worry,’ Audrey said, ‘they thought it was just kids making prank calls. I didn’t tell them about what I dreamed.’

  It was a shame she hadn’t. They would hardly have come knocking on his door in the middle of the night on the strength of some crackpot dream.

  ‘Why were you at the pool, anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘Didn’t I say that already? I was looking for you. First I rang your place and you weren’t home, so I walked down there.’

  ‘From your place?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I was home when I had the dream.’

  ‘You walked all the way to the pool without Campbell?’

  ‘His foot’s still sore.’

  ‘How did you find your way?’

  ‘I go there nearly every day. Anyway,’ Audrey said, ‘I got there way too late and the police found me. I thought you were gone.’

  ‘I was gone,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Gone home.’

  Audrey leaned closer. ‘Tell me what happened in the pool.’

  ‘I don’t remember. I think I blacked out. The others reckoned I was underwater for about five minutes, but that’s impossible – I would have drowned.’

  ‘You were in the dream place.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘So you tell me what happened.’

  They heard the front door creak open and someone call his name.

  ‘Is that your mother?’ Audrey said softly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wolfgang?’ Sylvia’s voice carried clearly around the corner of the house. ‘Are you out here?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer her?’ whispered Audrey.

  ‘It won’t be anything important.’

  ‘Wolfgang?’ Sylvia repeated.

  ‘She sounds worried.’

  That was hardly surprising: it was one in the morning and her sixteen-year-old son wasn’t in his bed.

  ‘I guess I’d better find out what’s going on,’ Wolfgang said reluctantly. He found one of Audrey’s hands and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘So I should just ... wait out here?’ she asked.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said. He didn’t want his parents to meet her. They might tell her anything: his age; that he was still at school; that the last thing in the world he aspired to was becoming a vet like his father. ‘I won’t be long, okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ Audrey said, in a peculiar flat tone that should have warned him something was wrong.

  52

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ Sylvia said when Wolfgang emerged from the darkness at the end of the house. She was standing on the porch in her nightie, the front door wide open, moths swirling around the naked light bulb a metre above her head. ‘What are you doing out here? It’s past midnight.’

  ‘I forgot to lock my bike up,’ he said, yet another entry in the Lie File.

  ‘Your father said he heard voices.’

  ‘You know what Dad’s like.’ Wolfgang walked up the three concrete steps, still warm from yesterday’s heat. ‘He could have heard them anytime – last week, or even a year ago. There’s a moth in your hair, Mum. No, on top. Here, let me.’

  His mother inclined her head forward. Her fine auburn hair was surprisingly sparse once he parted it to free the moth (did women go bald?) and completely white at its roots.

  ‘I think it’s some kind of hawk moth,’ he said, showing her.

  They both watched the insect flurry its wings and spiral up to renew its attack on the light bulb.

  ‘You’re hard on your father, Wolfgang.’

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said. He didn’t want Audrey hearing this.

  Sylvia followed him in and shut the door. Her feet were bare. Her small pinkish toenails made him sad for some reason.

  ‘I’m sorry I woke you.’

  ‘Wolfgang, I hope you aren’t growing up too fast.’

  She could probably smell the alcohol on his breath. He edged away from her slightly. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘We haven’t spent much time as a family recently,’ his mother said.

  ‘Well, there’s my job and everything,’ said Wolfgang. His jobs. As soon as he could, he would have to sneak back out to Audrey. ‘I don’t have to be at the pool till after lunch tomorrow. Maybe we could all do something in the morning – go out somewhere?’

  ‘You could come to mass with us.’

  That wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind. ‘But it’s Saturday.’

  ‘It’s Uncle Brendan’s anniversary,’ Sylvia said. ‘I know it would mean a lot to your father if you came with us.’

  Wolfgang suppressed a sigh. There was no way out of it. ‘Well, okay,’ he said unenthusiastically. ‘Sure. What time is it?’

  ‘Mass is at nine. But we want to get there by eight-thirty if we can. There’s reconciliation beforehand.’

  Mass and reconciliation. Oh happy day! Wolfgang looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get to bed then. Can you make sure I’m up by eight?’

  His mother smiled. ‘You’re a good boy, Wolfgang. Good night, God bless.’

  ‘Good night,’ he responded, and left the God bit hanging.

  His bedroom door was open and the light switched on. He couldn’t remember whether he had left it on or not when the police knocked. In any event, his mother would have looked in his bedroom first before trying outside. He shut the door behind him and pulled on a pair of sneakers, then crossed to the window, unsnibbed the flywire and lowered it carefully onto the pavers below. Then he switched the light off and climbed out the window, pulling it nearly all the way closed behind him.

  ‘It’s only me,’ Wolfgang whispered as he pushed none-too-quietly between the fence and the rattly thicket of bamboo at the southern corner of the house. He couldn’t see anything, nor could he hear anything, either.

  ‘Audrey?’ he said, slightly louder this time, but there was only the jingle of
a chain on the other side of the fence as the neighbours’ dog came over to investigate. Please don’t bark, Elsie, he thought. ‘Audrey, are you there?’

  Still no answer. It was completely dark now that his parents’ bedroom light was turned off. Wolfgang bumped his head on one of his mother’s hanging baskets, then nearly tripped over a bucket. This was what it would be like being blind. He found the picnic setting and ran his hand along the bench where she’d been sitting. Gone. Why hadn’t she waited? He’d only been five minutes.

  She won’t have got far, he thought.

  He felt his way round to the front of the house, ducking down as he passed his parents’ window even though the curtains were drawn. The porch light was still on; he could see all the way down the driveway. No Audrey. There was no sign of her, either, when he reached the street. He ran to the corner and looked up Lithgow Road, but still he couldn’t see her. Which side would she be on? The right hand side, probably, but he couldn’t be sure. There were no cars about, so Wolfgang jogged up the middle of the road, searching both sides as he went. Every forty metres or so, on the left hand side, a streetlight lit up the footpath and road. In the gaps between them, or where an overhanging tree cast a particularly deep shadow or a parked vehicle obstructed his view of the footpath, Wolfgang veered from one side of the road to the other to make sure he didn’t miss her.

  He had gone nearly four blocks before he slowed to a fast walk. He was out of breath and had the beginnings of a stitch. Could she have come this far in so short a time? Okay, he’d given her a four or five minute head start, but she was blind. Blind and overweight. Hippo-girl. Stop it! Wolfgang scolded himself. She was his girlfriend. He loved her, even though she didn’t love him. Or said she didn’t – she’d been jealous about Merri. Even if she was a bit strange.

  Did Audrey seriously expect him to believe there was some kind of other world at the bottom of the pool?

  Wolfgang walked another block and a half before he stopped and turned around. It was a hot night. He used the front of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. She must have taken a different route – Lorimer Street, maybe. Or Rogan Avenue. She could be lost. No, he thought, she isn’t lost. Blind or not, Audrey wasn’t the type of person to become lost. When she told him she didn’t need Campbell to find her way around, he’d believed her. Even if he hadn’t believed some of the other things she’d said.

  ‘Where are you, Audrey?’ Wolfgang muttered.

  From where he stood in the middle of Lithgow Road, Wolfgang could see all the way down into the dip and up the other side to Acacia Street. It was down near the bottom that he’d run over the cat. He gently rubbed his fingers over his right elbow and the smooth, soft skin of his forearm. Tonight had been one of the strangest nights of his life.

  53

  It took Wolfgang fifteen minutes to walk home. According to his watch it was just after two in the morning. He couldn’t remember ever being so tired. He climbed back in through his bedroom window, stripped off his sneakers, T-shirt and shorts, and fell into bed without turning the light on. But within five minutes he was out of bed again. He knew where she was.

  This time Wolfgang took a torch. He wasn’t superstitious – he no more believed in ghosts than he did in angels – or in make-believe worlds under swimming pools – but he had always been slightly afraid of the dark. And a cemetery at night was no place to be on your own if you were scared of the dark.

  He found her in the lawn cemetery, in the same place he and her family had found her on the morning of her birthday. Audrey was sitting up this time, with her legs drawn close to her chest and her arms wrapped round them, her forehead resting on her knees. Wolfgang came cautiously down the slope, looping out to the right so he wouldn’t come up behind her and give her a fright. But how could he avoid startling her? She probably thought she was the only person in the cemetery – the only living person. Wolfgang flashed the torch in a wide arc around him. The wide sloping lawn was studded with plaques, many with little tributes of dead or dying flowers. There were flowers on the grass beside Audrey, too, a fresh bundle of white and yellow daisies, yet she was sitting in a gap between the graves, a vacant plot. Wolfgang stopped ten metres away.

  ‘Audrey,’ he said softly.

  When she raised her head the torch beam reflected in her eyes, turning them silver like those of an animal in a car’s headlights. It made her seem unearthly, frightening. Wolfgang lowered the torch.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, her voice perfectly calm.

  ‘You left without saying goodbye. I walked halfway to your place looking for you.’

  ‘Well, you’ve found me now.’

  ‘You could have waited. I was only inside for five minutes.’

  ‘I didn’t want to spoil your little secret.’

  ‘What secret?’ he asked.

  Audrey reached down beside her and held out a short length of bamboo. ‘I borrowed this from your place. Can you take it back for me, please.’

  ‘What little secret?’ Wolfgang repeated, ignoring the bamboo.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me,’ she repeated, louder. ‘It was pretty obvious you didn’t want your mother to meet me. Do I embarrass you?’

  ‘Of courthe not.’

  ‘You’re doing that lispy thing. It’s a dead giveaway. Does it embarrass you that I’m blind?’

  ‘I’m not embarrassed by you,’ Wolfgang said, working hard on his esses. ‘Tonight was just awkward. I wasn’t sure if my parents knew the police had been round and I didn’t want you getting caught in a family slanging match. But I’m sorry for just leaving you out there.’

  Audrey lowered the bamboo. ‘I’m sorry too – for running off like that.’

  ‘We say sorry a lot.’

  ‘You must think I’m kooky, spending my nights in a cemetery.’

  Wolfgang hadn’t known she spent whole nights there. ‘I guess it’s peaceful,’ he offered.

  ‘Rest in peace,’ Audrey said softly. She patted the grass beside her. ‘Are you going to sit down?’

  Wolfgang lowered himself onto the cool, slightly damp grass next to her. He picked up one of the daisies. ‘Did you bring these flowers?’

  ‘I stole them from someone’s garden. Aren’t I bad?’

  ‘I guess if you brought them to put on someone’s grave ...’

  ‘Yes.’

  He shone the torch. The closest grave was several metres away.

  ‘Whose grave?’ he asked.

  Instead of answering, Audrey slid her hand down his body to his shorts. Her questing fingers rested for a moment on the bulge of his keys in his pocket, then moved on. ‘Do you still love me, Wolfgang?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, surprised she had asked, but more surprised by what she was doing. ‘D-do you love me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Audrey whispered.

  He leaned over to kiss her but she withdrew her hand and pushed him gently away. ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘Not yet. First I have to tell you something.’

  54

  It was nearly daylight when Wolfgang climbed back in through his bedroom window. Elsie barked at him from the other side of the fence and he called over his shoulder at her – loudly – to shut up. He didn’t care if his parents heard him; he didn’t care who heard. Audrey loved him. What did it matter if she was a little strange and had some seriously wacky ideas? He could live with that. The important thing was how they felt for each other: she loved him and he loved her. He was covered in mosquito bites, some in places he had never been bitten before, but for once the itching wasn’t a discomfort; rather, it served as a reminder, as proof that what had happened tonight in the cemetery hadn’t been a dream.

  Who knows, you might have a chance with a blind one, hey?

  Wolfgang undressed and fell onto his bed wearing just his boxers. It was still very warm. He lay face down on top of his doona with one hand trailing on the floor. A fine dew of sweat covered his body. He had walked Audrey back to her place
afterwards, then jogged all the way home. His fingertips played with the squashy pile of the carpet, drew an A there, then a B. He felt much too energised to sleep but knew he had to. In three hours he had to be up again. Mass and reconciliation. How had he allowed himself to be roped into that? Still, he did have something to confess now. He traced a heart around the A and the B. It hadn’t felt like a sin, though. It hadn’t felt as bad as the lies he’d told her, nor pretending to believe her when she’d told him her loony-tunes story.

  Had he taken advantage of her? No way, she was three years older than him. A woman. Physically she was a woman, but mentally?

  I’d better go to reconciliation, Wolfgang decided.

  Already the room was growing light. He should have shut his curtains. Should have shut the window, too, he thought, listening to the nagging whine of a mosquito somewhere in the room. The flyscreen was still leaning against the weatherboards outside his window. Wolfgang lay on his doona and debated whether or not he could be bothered getting up to drag the curtains closed. How long would it take him? Five seconds to stand up, another five seconds to cross to the window and pull the curtains together, five more to get back to bed. Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds tops, he thought, and it’d be done. But he felt very relaxed now, his body pleasantly drained of energy, even if his mind was still racing.

  It wasn’t dishonest, exactly, pretending to believe Audrey’s loopy ideas; it was part of loving her. It made her feel better about herself, as it did when he told her she was beautiful. Yet afterwards, as they walked back to her place, she’d seemed quiet. He wondered if she regretted what they’d done.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she’d whispered when they hugged at the bottom of her driveway.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. For keeping you out so late.’

  Wolfgang had the impression she had been about to say something else. ‘It’s Saturday,’ he said. ‘I can sleep in. Anyway, I wouldn’t have missed tonight for anything.’

  Audrey squeezed him very tight for perhaps five seconds. ‘Neither would I,’ she said into the front of his T-shirt. ‘Not for the world.’

  The mosquito found him. It began buzzing around his head no more than two or three centimetres away. Wolfgang lazily opened one eye and peered over the mound of his pillow, hoping to see his tormentor against the rectangle of dawn sky in the window and perhaps – an optimistic thought – swat it out of the air. He saw, instead, a big moth in silhouette fluttering against the glass, trying to get out.