Our Magic Hour

by Jennifer Down

  Fifteen, in the schoolyard, the athletics carnival. Katy with one hand over her eyes, watching the boys jump hurdles. Audrey had a cracked rib. When Mr Spivelli had asked why she wasn’t participating, Katy said, ‘Have you ever had to run the 1400 metres with cripplingly bad period pain, sir?’

  ‘Why didn’t you just say she’s got a busted rib?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Because then people ask questions, dickhead,’ Katy said. Audrey was so grateful she forgot to say thank you. She put her hands to the grass, watched the tufts sprout between her fingers. She was used to the two of them speaking for her, or over her.

  Sixteen, late at night after the party. Katy crawling into bed beside Audrey, legs thrashing, hissing Do you know how ugly penises are? She’d seen Dylan Ford’s cock in the back of a car. She wasn’t sure how to hold it but Dylan didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t want to do anything else after, Katy said. Do you think it was me?

  Seventeen, on the back porch at Adam’s parents’ house, watching an electrical storm roll in. Katy imitating their dance moves. And Audrey dances like this—bobbing and twisting, thighs pulsing, limbs flying. Textbooks strewn uselessly on the porch. Biscuits for your afternoon tea, a braid for your hair, washing on the line, wind in the lemon tree.

  Eighteen, stretched out on the oval at school. Katy grinning, saying Anyway, no men are ever good enough for your friends, grass stuck to her woollen jumper.

  Audrey power-pedalled up High Street against the tepid wind. She stopped at the lights by the tram stop at Ruckers Hill. Did not look back at the city.

  Steve was out in the front garden tying stakes to the roses.

  ‘Hullo, love,’ he said. ‘Hellie said you’d call round. Good to see you.’ He didn’t move to touch her. ‘She’ll be inside.’ Audrey gave him a smile that she hoped was not apologetic.

  Katy’s mother was a woman who showed her teeth when she laughed. She asked you what you meant when you were lazy in conversation. She looked much the same as she always had, only tired, and Audrey didn’t know why she was surprised. What does the mother of a dead girl look like, anyway? When Audrey left home at seventeen she’d stayed with the Shields for a few weeks, sleeping in Katy’s double bed. Banana pancakes for breakfast, television late at night, Katy sneaking cigarettes between the front door and the tram stop on the way to school.

  Helen set out biscuits and switched off the radio. Audrey asked after Katy’s sister. They talked about Nick, about Audrey’s work, her mother. Helen talked about the holiday that Steve wanted to take.

  ‘One day I’m keen on it, the next I can think of sixty reasons why we shouldn’t go. I suppose it’s all part of the process.’

  ‘Of course it is. You’ll get through it.’

  Helen gave a heaving laugh. ‘This isn’t fair on you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s not your job to make it fair.’

  Helen’s chin trembled, but she recovered. She looked from the table to Audrey, cleared her throat. ‘What about Adam?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been worried about him. I wasn’t sure if he’d come with you today.’

  They told each other to take care at the front door.

  Steve was on his knees in the garden bed. He straightened up as Audrey wheeled her bike to the front gate.

  ‘Thanks for coming by,’ he said. Clumps of earth and weeds were strewn across the brick path. The garden smelled of things uprooted, earth turned over.

  ‘I wish there was something I could do. I’ve always loved it here.’

  ‘None of us can go back,’ said Steve.

  The sky was a deep lavender when she rode home. It was all downhill, all green lights, sweeping into the Hoddle Street bus lane, flying past the train station. When she pulled into Charles Street she saw Adam’s little Datsun parked outside the flat, and her guts lurched.

  She went through to the backyard. Nick and Adam sat opposite each other in the dark. She flicked on the floodlight and chose a seat next to Adam. Nick offered her a beer.

  ‘How was your day?’ Adam asked.

  ‘It was okay.’ Audrey fiddled with her earring. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I can’t sleep. I think I’m going nuts.’

  ‘Do you think maybe you should see someone?’

  ‘That’s great fucking advice, isn’t it.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Nick. ‘She’s trying to help you, mate.’

  Adam’s hands fluttered helplessly. ‘I just want her back,’ he said. ‘I just really want her back here, with me.’

  ‘I know,’ said Audrey.

  ‘We slept together once.’

  It was so absurd that Audrey felt she’d missed something: he couldn’t be talking about Katy. When she realised he was serious, she felt left out. It stung that they’d never told her.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

  ‘It was the summer after we finished school, and we were bored, and she just really didn’t want to be a virgin any more. She came around one day and we fucked in my parents’ house. You reckon I should see someone.’ He was hoarse. ‘Sorry, Spence. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I can put you in touch with somebody, if that’s what you want. It might be for the best.’

  ‘For the best,’ Adam echoed. He stood. ‘Fuck off.’

  Audrey heard him bang through the house. She didn’t have the energy to get up and make sure he was all right. Underneath the tugging panic there was guilt.

  ‘You couldn’t have done any more,’ Nick said.

  Audrey watched the back fence. ‘How long was he here for?’ she asked.

  Nick squinted at his watch. ‘Hour and a half.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m rooted,’ he admitted. ‘It’s hard.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do for him.’

  ‘You said the right things. You couldn’t have done any more.’

  ‘I just want him to feel better.’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s tough,’ Nick said.

  Audrey moved across the table and kissed him. She ran her fingers up under his shirt.

  ‘What do you want to do for your birthday? ’ she asked suddenly.

  Nick shifted. ‘I haven’t thought about it,’ he said. ‘Should I do something?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know if anyone feels much like celebrating.’

  ‘It can’t be like this forever.’ Audrey wished she hadn’t turned on the floodlight. It was making sharp, ugly shadows. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Do what you like.’

  Nick shrugged. ‘Maybe just get a few people down to the Stando.’

  ‘Today her dad said None of us can go back.’

  Nick looked surprised. His arms went around Audrey again.

  ‘I’d forgotten you were going to see them this afternoon,’ he said into her hair.

  The phone began to ring inside. Audrey moved to get up.

  ‘Just let it go,’ said Nick. ‘They’ll leave a message if it matters.’

  Yusra�
��s birthday, their loose anniversary that they never celebrated. When she sent around a message saying Come to the Great Northern! Nick sent one back that said Yus, you didn’t have to do that for us.

  It was long dark by the time they left the house. They walked down Gipps Street swinging their hands.

  ‘Yesterday we picked up this guy playing footy,’ Nick said, ‘and he had a depressed cheekbone. The pain was so bad he was spewing.’ Audrey said nothing. She could tell he was being careful. ‘How old were you when your dad—’

  ‘Twelve,’ she said. Nick winced. A quick shake of the head, a squeeze of the hand, as though that could undo everything. ‘We waited till the next morning, then Maman drove me to Emergency. She told them I’d been playing soccer. I was terrified the doctor would ask what position I played.’

  She remembered crying when her sister touched her face with a tissue. Her jaw felt wrong when she opened her mouth. Everything’s double, she’d said. Her sister said It’s probably just the pain, but in the morning Audrey’s face was lopsided and her eye was sunken. She was still seeing double. At the hospital they said it was from the fracture. The doctor drew a diagram of the muscles around the eye, explained what had happened. When she thought about it now her eyes watered.

  ‘Weren’t they onto you?’ Nick asked. ‘Didn’t they call for a social worker that time?’

  ‘We got the story straight in the car on the way there. We didn’t look like—you know, like clients. Dad would have been polite. Asked all the sensible questions.’

  ‘He was a prick.’

  ‘I don’t really remember it,’ Audrey said. ‘It’s okay, you know.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’ he asked.

  ‘I never did.’ They leaned into the gritty wind. Audrey tried to explain it. ‘It’s not static,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Sometimes I’m so filled with rage, it’s like—if I could go back and see him doing that stuff to us, I’d kill him on the spot. Sometimes I’m still scared. And then sometimes I have this weird sad feeling, because you can call him a prick, but I still disappointed him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘When I was little I read so much. I was so determined about everything.’ She dug a knuckle into her other palm, the fleshy part between her thumb and forefinger. ‘He wanted me to be more.’

  ‘More,’ Nick said.

  ‘He used to teach us about history. The Spanish Revolution. Steve Biko. The end of the Ottoman Empire. I thought he knew everything. He’d talk about the fall of the Berlin Wall and I thought he’d watched it happen. Irène used to get bored, but I loved it.’

  ‘You were probably just happy he was doing normal dad stuff.’

  ‘I know that now.’ Audrey went on kneading her hand. It was releasing a strange, sicky pain. ‘But I used to remember the names and dates for him. I read everything he told me to. I got put in those gifted programs at school. And then by the time I was sixteen, when we moved out to Tyabb, I’d dropped my bundle. I think at some point I realised girls like me didn’t grow up to be foreign correspondents or barristers or whatever he was hoping.’

  ‘You did the best you could,’ Nick said. ‘It was survival, not the-world-is-my-oyster. You were commuting hours to school on the other side of the city.’

  ‘That was all I had.’ The pain in her hand was exquisite.

  ‘I know,’ he said gently, ‘I just can’t understand why you cared so much about what he thought.’

  He glanced down at her fingers, still working away furiously.

  ‘What are you doing, you goose?’ he asked. He took her hand in his again. The ache stopped.

  They were ill-prepared for a weekend away. The weather forecast was erratic; Audrey threw beach towels and coats in the back of the car. Nick had come home from work in the middle of the night, gone to a union meeting in the morning and slept the rest of the day, only waking when Audrey got back from her work. He stood in the kitchen and watched her pack yoghurt and beer into a bag.

  ‘Can we stop at Mum and Dad’s?’ he said. ‘It’s on the way.’

  ‘We could drop in coming home on Sunday.’

  ‘Nah, I want my wetsuit for the weekend.’

  She looked up. Her heart turned over at his sleepy expression. ‘We’re not in a hurry, are we,’ she said.

  It was raining so hard it looked like dusk. Nick fell asleep while they were gridlocked on the bridge, rolling out west. On Radio National they were talking about cities at risk of earthquake.

  Audrey stopped for petrol before Geelong. Nick woke. They stood on either side of the car and shouted over the wind.

  ‘Do you want me to drive the rest?’ he said.

  ‘You take the corners too fast around the cliffs.’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’ He was unshaven, smiling. His was a goodhearted face.

  ‘You tired?’ she asked.

  ‘Not any more.’

  He went into the servo as if to prove his use, came out with coffee and a bag of lolly snakes. Later his kisses tasted of artificial raspberries.

  The bad weather blew over them, the sky a fleshy colour. When they hit the coast, Nick pulled into the first carpark and they stood looking at the ocean, a couple of surfers bobbing gamely below.

  As they approached the lighthouse Audrey turned off the radio and looked sideways at Nick.

  ‘I know what you’re going to do, you bloody nerd,’ he said, and she was already singing the Round the Twist theme song as loud as she could, shouting it through the window.

  ‘Maybe we should watch that when we finish The West Wing,’ Nick said.

  ‘I think it’s one of those things that wouldn’t date well. It was really good when we were ten.’

  ‘I reckon it’d be great if you were Bernie.’

  ‘It’d be terrifying to watch when you were high.’

  They dropped their things at the cabin and went to the pub. They wore coats and sat outside to eat dinner. The light faded. Car headlights inched their way around the shoreline. Nick said They’re like a string of pearls and then looked shy about it. Audrey would have given him anything at that moment.

  In the morning he was up early, moving around the room. He made Audrey a coffee and set it on the bedside table. He joked about the tiny motel cups.

  ‘You’re so awake,’ she mumbled. ‘Come back to bed. It’s dark.’

  ‘I’m going to the beach. You wanna come?’

  ‘I want to sleep. Come and be a bed slug with me.’

  ‘I’ll be a bed slug tomorrow.’ He pushed some hair from her forehead. ‘Sure you don’t want to come? I brought Will’s wetsuit. I’ll teach you.’

  ‘I’ll meet you down there later. I’ll bring proper coffee.’

  Audrey could not sleep after he left. There was a sliver of light on the wall, falling through from the edge of the thick curtain, and she watched it turn from grey to gold. Eventually she got up. The shower faced an enormous mirror. Something about Katy’s hatred of her body had dulled any feelings Audrey had about her own. On a bad day she might be ashamed at its flat lines, childlike proportions. Mostly she didn’t think ab
out it. Still, she was glad when the glass fogged over and she couldn’t see herself any more.

  She walked to the beach at Fairhaven. There were five or six surfers out. She couldn’t tell which was Nick. His old car was parked by the foreshore, and she sat in the driver’s seat to wait for him. After a while he came loping up from the beach, elated, dripping from his hair and earlobes.

  ‘Oi, Spence, are you aroused by my neoprene?’

  ‘You look like a tadpole. Or a sperm.’

  ‘I don’t know what your mother told you,’ Nick said, peeling off his wetsuit, ‘but I covered the reproductive system a bunch of times at uni, and sperms do not look like this.’

  ‘I know. I read Where Do We Come From? They’ve got top hats.’

  Nick spread his towel on the car seat. Audrey could smell the sea on him. ‘How’d you go?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m pretty rubbish at it,’ he said. ‘It just feels really good. You forget how good. Me and Will learned at Breamlea, but this is still my favourite beach. I wish I got to do it more.’ Audrey thought of the photos in the hall, the boys on the sand, joyful faces, that insane physical energy. She’d heard Nick and his family talk about those holidays so many times that the memories had almost become hers.

  ‘Want to drive round to Apollo Bay?’ he asked.

  They stopped at every lookout along the way. It was a thick steel sky; a mean ocean.

  ‘I reckon you did well to get out there this morning,’ Audrey said, ‘before the change hit.’

  On the beach their figures were reflected in the wet sand. They stood over the rockpools with their shoes in their hands. The wind had picked up. Audrey kept pushing her hair from her face. Her jeans were wet at the ankles.

  ‘You all right, Spence?’ Nick said. ‘You’ve gone quiet.’

  She felt suddenly deflated. ‘I don’t want to go home.’ She looked up to the foreshore. The soft sand was flying in a grey haze. She thought of deserts.