The flowers were delivered to Audrey at work, an overflowing bouquet of orchids, lilies, sunset-coloured roses.
‘Nick in trouble?’ Penny asked.
‘Not last time I checked,’ Audrey said. The other workers leaned over her cubicle to admire the extravagance, jiggling tea bags in their mugs.
‘Remember being a sweet young thing and getting flowers?’
‘Pete only buys me flowers when he’s really in the shit—once, he got me a vacuum cleaner for my birthday—’
Audrey fumbled with the card.
‘Hey baby, happy Tuesday, you’d better do my favourite thing tonight, love Nick?’ Josie said.
Audrey shook her head. ‘They’re just from a friend.’
‘Thought it was too good to be true.’
There was a larger envelope tucked inside the arrangement. Audrey tore it open when she was alone. Half a foolscap page fell out, lined with Adam’s ragged capitals.
Dear Spence, I don’t know how I turned into such a mean bastard but I’m sorry. I’ve been wanting to apologise about the other night but I was so ashamed. You and Nick and Mum and Dad have been telling me I should see someone for weeks. I’m sorry for being so stubborn. I think I’m scared I’m the weak one, when everyone else is getting by. I’m scared that if Katy got sucked under, the rest of us are on thin ice. I know what you’d say to that, but I can’t help it. Anyway I made an appointment. Just wanted to tell you I’d done it, and I’m sorry. I know you miss her too. Thanks for being patient with me when I’m no good. I love you. Adam.
Nick was at work. Audrey left the flowers on the sideboard and went to contemplate the fridge. There was a thumping at the door: Adam.
‘I was thinking of moving back over the north side, seeing how much I’m round here,’ he said, ‘but now I have a grief counsellor in Prahran so I might just stay where I am.’ The clouds moved fast behind his head. The sky was bruised.
‘Adam.’
‘I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve been an arsehole. Or hard work, or something.’
‘Don’t say that. I wasn’t trying to palm you off. I just think you might need someone more than me. For this.’
‘I know.’
Audrey stood aside and he moved past her into the house.
He was talking—theatrically, extravagantly—like he used to. ‘I had my first appointment last night,’ he said. ‘I had this idea it would be lying on a daybed surrounded by pot plants or something. But she’s nice. Pretty conversational. Her name’s Olivia. She’s funny, which is good. I just feel better already, having talked about it with someone who didn’t—someone outside of what happened. Mum and Dad have been trying, but I just couldn’t,’ he said. ‘I went round for dinner last weekend, when you and Nick were away, and Mum was asking me about placement this semester. I said I hadn’t been to uni since week two, and she started crying. And then everything was just horrible. And I’m not fair to them. I forget they loved Katy, too.’
‘I’m going to get changed,’ Audrey said when he drew breath at last. He followed her into the bedroom and sat on the unmade bed. It was exactly what Katy would have done. Audrey felt a hot new ache bloom in her chest. ‘I realised,’ Adam said, ‘I am very afraid of forgetting her, or how it actually was. I’ve been sort of fixated on commemorating her.’
Audrey thought of the photos spread on Adam’s table, his ceaseless interrogation of the past. He’d call her at work to tell stories, or confirm some obscure detail.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asked. ‘I was going to make risotto.’
He sat on the bench while she made the preparations. The flowers quivered on the sideboard.
Audrey did the right things: cut the tips off the stems; changed the water. On the third day she wrapped them up again. The coloured paper was still near the top of the recycling bin, just beneath the weekend newspapers. After Nick left for work she drove to the hills. Up in Beaconsfield the side roads were unmade. She counted three white crosses picketing the dusty shoulder. Everything was dry and grey and green. She found the reservoir. The dam seemed enormous. There was a pebbly embankment leading down to the water. Audrey parked under a gum. She walked down to the lower carpark, hands in her pockets. It was warm enough if you stayed in the sun. She could hear kids playing in the park below.
She walked back to the car, took the flowers from the back seat where they sat on top of the street directory. In the last parking space there was a velvety feather, full and black. She left the flowers there.
At home Nick asked How was work, and Audrey said Fine, and they did the quiz in the newspaper.
The pub was humming with gentle weekday noise when Audrey arrived. Emy was not there. She sat down at a table to wait. She watched the street outside darken through the tall window.
Emy swept in: bought a drink, dropped her bag and squeezed Audrey’s hand in a single motion. ‘I just found out before I came here,’ she said, ‘I’ve been offered a job in Tokyo.’
‘Congratulations! What an opportunity!’
‘Do you think?’
‘What do you mean? Of course it is. How long for?’
‘The contract’s for a year, with the firm. I haven’t even thought about it properly. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’
‘You know, with Ben.’
Audrey nudged her. ‘I didn’t know it was so serious! Is it lerve?’
‘Sort of. I don’t know. Yeah, it is, a bit. God, listen to me. I ought to be euthanised.’ She kicked her legs under the table and finished her drink. ‘I can’t sit here, I’m too wound up. Can we go for a walk?’
They walked up Brunswick Street all the way to the Edinburgh Gardens, Audrey wheeling her bike, only stopping to buy a bottle of champagne, which they uncorked sitting on the grass. A group of boys were running football drills on the oval. Their loud calls cut through the traffic noise. Emy couldn’t sit still: she sprang to her feet, she paced, she rolled on the lawn in her expensive-looking jacket.
‘Mum and Dad’ll love it. All those years of Saturday Japanese school.’
‘Tell me about Ben,’ Audrey said.
‘You know there’s a word for it? For someone who’s a foreign-born descendant of a Japanese immigrant? It’s not as though I’m going home. I haven’t been there since I was twelve. I’ll look like I fit, but I won’t.’
‘Just do it. It’s only a year.’
‘Is it?’ Emy said, and thumped the empty bottle against the earth. ‘Is that all?’
Audrey rode her bicycle home and slept easily.
‘Beat this for a day at the office,’ Nick said, climbing in beside her at 2 a.m. ‘An eighty-two-year-old guy with dementia wanders into a closet and gets lost. Four days later staff find him, and Tim and I get the job of pumping him full of saline while he sobs for his wife. Who died ten years ago.’
Audrey opened one eye and rolled over to face him. ‘Ten-month-old baby who’s been sexually abused.’
‘How do you know?’
‘She has an STD.’
‘Fuck.’ He flicked off the light and dr
ew her to him. ‘You win.’
They made it through the front door blindly, laughing and clutching at each other.
‘But why Good Friday? Why is that the day when everything’s shut?’
‘It’s because we’re meant to be sad,’ Audrey said.
‘It’s because Jesus died on the Friday. Maybe we’re supposed to play at being dead by not being able to buy milk.’
Nick had her arms pinned above her head, but she felt the vibration of her phone in her pocket. ‘Hang on a second.’
It had stopped buzzing. They looked at the screen. ‘It was only your sister,’ Nick said.
‘I know, but I had about six missed calls from Maman. Hang on.’
Nick leaned against the door. Audrey set the phone on the sideboard, dialled voicemail on speaker. Irène’s voice filled the hall.
‘Audrey, it’s me. Have you spoken to Bernie? Maman and I can’t reach him. He’s not answering the phone. I’d go around tonight but I’ve got to pick up Zoe’s friend. She’s having a sleepover. Anyway, let me know.’ Audrey reached out and batted at the phone. Nick was kissing her neck.
‘How’s the expectation,’ he said, ‘that you’ll just drop everything and go round to Bern.’
‘Maybe I should.’
‘Come on. How many times has this happened? He’s always fine.’
‘Yeah.’ She shed her jacket. ‘I’ll go tomorrow.’
All night Audrey woke again and again, and every so often Nick would be awake, too, and their bodies would shift into new shapes, and once Nick reached for her as if in a panic, and once Audrey thumped to the kitchen half-awake and stuck her head under the tap to drink, and once she turned over to face Nick, who was open-eyed, and they began to kiss in a dream, bodies just coming to, and she saw the dull shadows from the streetlights passing over his face as he came, and he covered her body with his and she felt his breath in her hair, and they held each other, and the whole time they never said a thing.
Bernie was alone when Audrey went round the next day. ‘Your bell’s not working,’ she said. ‘I brought you some frozens.’
‘Thanks.’
She followed him into the kitchen. ‘Have you been going to school?’
‘Yeah,’ he said earnestly. She believed him. He was honest most of the time.
‘How’s your art?’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Do you want to see my folio?’
Bernie painted in oils and sometimes took pictures. His sketchbook was three-quarters full with digital photos he’d pasted in.
‘I’ve been using Dad’s old camera, too. Film’s so expensive.’
There was a series of prints from a party. Two boys passing a joint between them, sitting on a tiled verandah. Light streaming through a bathroom window. A girl talking. She was speaking with her hands, holding them up near her face: the fat fingers slightly curved, as though she were holding a pair of binoculars.
‘These are really good,’ Audrey said.
He looked embarrassed.
‘Bern, do you remember living in the Wellington Street flats?’
‘A bit. I would’ve been about seven,’ he said. ‘I remember what it was like inside—the lift and stuff. I don’t really remember the school, but I know we used to walk. Sometimes Maman took us.’ He closed the folio. ‘Why?’
‘Nothing. I had a dream about it a while ago,’ she said. ‘Do you want a coffee?’
Driving home she phoned her mother, then her sister. Later Nick laughed listening to her re-enacting it all.
‘Maman said Be patient, he’s just being a teenager. When I moved out I had to phone her twice a day, sometimes more.’ Nick handed her a mug. ‘Thanks. So then I call Irène. Thanks, Audrey, I know I never visit our brother and I have six hours of spare time each day when my only child is at school, but somehow I just can’t find the fifteen minutes to drive to Bernie’s house. You’re a lifesaver.’
‘It’s weird when you get nasty. I think I’m getting turned on.’
‘Hang on, I haven’t told you the best bit. At the end, Irène goes You’ve never seen Bernie high, have you?’
‘Wow.’
‘I didn’t tell her I accidentally paid for his pills the other day.’
‘What about when he was stoned at your dad’s funeral?’
No one else but Nick would have found it funny.
Audrey’s phone rang. He looked at her, daring her not to answer it.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Hey, Adam, how did the session go yesterday?’
‘Good, really good. Listen, can I drop around now?’
‘This is all so intrusive!’ Nick hollered when she hung up. He made a joke of it, but Audrey knew he was frustrated.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. But he was already kissing her forehead, heading for the shower.
He came out dressed in his uniform, hair wet.
‘We might get to see each other one day,’ he said, fastening his watch.
‘Everything’s stranger than normal.’
‘It’ll swing around again.’
Audrey touched the back of her hand to his. They linked fingers.
Sylvie phoned four times while Audrey was with her client. Audrey knew better than to worry, but she left work and drove out to Tyabb all the same. The sun was low in the sky, the houses huddled together. The wind flattened the long grass by the foreshore.
Sylvie had a head cold. She was flushed and unhappy. She sat at the table in a dramatic slump. She fiddled with the cord at the waist of her dressing-gown. Audrey boiled the kettle and kept her hands busy slicing lemon.
‘I had coffee with Helen,’ she said.
‘Oh, que t’es sympa, going to see her before you came to see your own Maman. I’ve been so lonely here, I feel like nothing is worth it.’
Audrey found the honey and spooned some into her mother’s cup. ‘We organised it a while ago. I just wanted to know how she was doing.’ She knew she sounded defensive. ‘It’s hard to get out here during the week.’
‘You don’t have to visit me like I’m some vieille bique in a home. Just call me.’
‘I do.’ Audrey set the cup of tea in front of her mother and sat down. ‘I called you on Tuesday. I told you about Emy, remember?’
‘Yes.’ Sylvie poked at her hair. ‘Why don’t you do something like that?’
‘What, work in Japan?’
‘Something exciting, at least. Take a risk.’
‘There’s not a lot of scope for overseas travel with child protection.’
‘Why don’t you try something else? Do something you like.’
‘I like my job.’
Sylvie lit a cigarette. Audrey reached for the ceramic ashtray.
Nick phoned while she was stopped for petrol coming home.
‘I got caught up with Maman,’ Audrey said. ‘I’m still on my way.’
‘It’s okay, I haven’t left work yet. That’s why I’m callin
g.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s not a big deal.’ A pause. ‘Some fruitcake held Tim at knife-point today. They made us go to debriefing.’
‘What?’ On the bowser there was a sticker prohibiting mobile phones. She fumbled with the petrol nozzle. The foul-smelling liquid trickled over her hands. ‘Were you there?’
‘Yeah, I had to intervene. Nobody was hurt or anything. The debrief ’s taking longer than I thought. I just thought I should call.’
They arrived home at almost the same time. The house was cold. Audrey kept her coat on as she flipped through the mail. Nick went to the fridge.
‘I don’t want to go to the gig tonight,’ he said, reaching for a beer. ‘I want to drink this quickly, so I can’t get called back to work later. Then I’m thinking burritos. Then maybe some Sopranos or sloppy sex. Either way.’ He gulped a mouthful, offered the bottle to Audrey, and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. ‘It’s like we don’t stop any more. I just want to stop for a second—’
‘All right,’ Audrey said.
They walked to Gertrude Street to pick up the food, and stood waiting outside the restaurant. Audrey watched Nick’s face. He saw her looking.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. It was a long day.’
‘Was the guy with the knife charged?’
Nick nodded slowly. ‘He had Tim’s collar, and he kept saying I’m gunna fucken kill yerrr, and Tim was just waiting for something to happen—for the guy to stab him, or for me to do something.’
‘He was lucky you were there.’
‘I was scared.’
The waitress waved at them from inside.
Walking home, Audrey imagined it without wanting to: blood springing from his neck, the blade cold and mean. She sunk her face into the collar of her coat.
‘How was your day, anyway?’ Nick asked.
‘I got my flu shot,’ Audrey said. ‘I had a scary dad on the phone. When I was leaving I asked for a security escort to get to the car and they sent a woman my size. What else. Vanessa said we can expect our caseloads to double by December.’
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