Our Magic Hour

by Jennifer Down

  At home she took the postcard from its white paper bag and tacked it to the fridge. She knew Nick would ask about it the next day. She switched off the lights.

  Afternoon in court. Audrey arrived early and went to get a coffee. She walked to the Flagstaff Gardens. It was cold and hazy. She saw Katy standing by a park bench. She was smoking a cigarette, politely tapping the ash into a rubbish bin, wearing her navy work cardigan. There was sunlight in her hair.

  Audrey stopped herself from calling out just in time. She had thought all that was finished, or at least faded.

  She walked home afterwards in the thin sun. On the nature strip outside their house there was a dead possum, its blue guts blown open across the grass. Nick was sitting at the kitchen table eating a sandwich, flicking idly through one of her novels. She smiled when she saw him, and he held out the sandwich.

  ‘Tomato,’ he said, ‘worthless white bread. Salt and pepper.’ She shook her head and sat down beside him. ‘You’re home early.’

  ‘I was at the Children’s Court. Wasn’t worth going back out to the office. How was your day?’

  ‘I went for a big bike ride. Right round Merri Creek, down the CityLink trail and Footscray Road.’

  ‘Must have taken you ages.’

  ‘Five hours,’ he said, and she raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Impressive.’ She took off her lanyard and set it on the table.

  ‘How was court?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can do this job.’ She looked down at her ID tag: her own face smiled back at her. ‘It’s really bad right now. There are too many people who weren’t supposed to have children.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s how it works.’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course it is.’

  ‘People don’t think about whether or not you’re meant to have kids.’ Nick went to the sink and rinsed his plate. He spoke to her over his shoulder. ‘They just do it. And your job is full of people who need help to do it better. Not everyone’s like that. Nobody’s “not supposed” to have kids.’

  ‘There’s this dream I have,’ Audrey said. ‘I’m walking down a street and I can see a baby, a toddler, coming towards me. No mother, but I figure she’s coming, and I’m smiling at this baby. And then a few seconds later, the mother runs towards me and says Have you seen my baby? and she’s panicking. I turn to point her the right way and this truck zooms past, and it’s got a stroller hanging from its grille. And I just—I know what’s happened, but I don’t want to look down the street to see.’

  ‘Spence. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Of course it does.’

  Audrey went to the bedroom. She felt miserable and mean.

  Nick leaned in the doorway. His hands were hidden in his pockets.

  ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this,’ he said.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘It’s as though you’re saying We’re ending, something bad’s going to happen, we’re unhappy, and we’re not—but you go on saying it, so it becomes true. Fuck, Audrey.’ He kicked the mattress in frustration.

  ‘Fuck what?’

  She sat down hard on the bed. Nick crumpled next to her. He watched the floorboards. ‘I remember when we first started going out,’ he said. ‘When we started sleeping together I could see you processing. I felt so proud that I’d worked it out for myself. I always felt like I was doing the right thing by dropping back all the time, leaving you alone a bit.’

  ‘You were,’ Audrey said. Her eyes were leaking. ‘You were the first person to get it.’

  ‘But I think maybe it made me complacent, or something.’

  ‘We have not been happy for a long time,’ she said.

  ‘Do you want me to argue with you?’ he asked. ‘All right, then. All right. It’s okay, Audrey.’

  The screen door slammed behind him. She heard the car pull away. There was a sound coming from her that she didn’t recognise, a groaning she hadn’t known she could make.

  She thought to call Adam. He’d come to pick her up. She crawled to her side of the bed, where she’d dropped her handbag. But when she found her phone, her fingers dialled her mother’s number. Sylvie said Here’s what you’re going to do. I’m going to tell you. Her voice was calm and low. And you’re going to leave a note for Nick. He’ll be worried if he gets back and you’re gone. Audrey was weeping.

  Spring was coming, and everything was strange. Between Adam’s flat and the office, Audrey worked to find her forward motion. She felt turned around, coming from the other side of the river. She could hardly remember what things had been like in the summertime. All open windows and love, enough of it to go around. Audrey thought she remembered blinding happiness, ciders in the Darling Gardens, gentle fucking in the hot night, but maybe she’d built a myth of it. She couldn’t be sure.

  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 b
udgerigar’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?’