Our Magic Hour

by Jennifer Down

  Julian allowed her to be mean. He picked away at her weakest spots. He was triumphant when she eventually snapped. She never felt confident around him. She was not interesting or clever enough. ‘Let me see you,’ he’d say. She hid under the sheets, too pale, too sharp. She could have cut him right back, but he wouldn’t have cared. He left behind little alluvial deposits of anxiety.

  Audrey wanted to think it wasn’t about control, but there were hundreds of small struggles.

  They kissed each other through the plastic shower curtain. It was like suffocating. Audrey could feel his teeth.

  She took care to remember that it was convenient. She worked to be unsurprised when he came home late with a woman from the office, the same one as before. She told herself it cut both ways. She could do the same. Julian fucked in a hurry. He almost always came before she did. Sometimes when she knelt before him it was with a horrible feeling of supplication. Sometimes she did it without looking up at him once, testing how remote she could be. He didn’t notice. She’d clutch at the meat around his hipbones and feel it was just that—meat—and by the time he was finished her knees were tattooed with the impressions of the rug.

  A few times he got home from work early enough to walk down to the baths, where he knew she’d be. He never paid to get in. He walked straight past the unattended window where Audrey dropped her coins, or explained to the kid standing there—surf lifesaving uniform, open face—that his friend had forgotten something, and could he please just run down and give it to her. When she told him she liked to be alone when she swam, he snorted. Do you wanna piss on the rocks? Mark your territory? but he stopped coming.

  There were easy times, too. Morning, she was in her bedroom, scrabbling in her handbag for her Opal card. Julian hanging in the doorway, toast crust in his mouth. ‘Can you drive manual?’ he asked.

  She looked up. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wanna help me do something tonight?’

  ‘What, move a body?’

  He was looking at a bike, an old Yamaha. ‘Sounds like it’s almost clapped-out, but the guy reckons he’s got a roadworthy on it.’ Julian was going to fix it up. Audrey imagined it decaying in the shed in the backyard. He was saying something about a piston kit and timing chains, and Audrey almost laughed—Do you know anything about timing chains?—but something bright and childlike in the way he was talking made her think of her brother.

  She said she’d come. The bloke selling it was up in Budgewoi. Audrey couldn’t have found it on a map.

  ‘What time?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno. We just started a new case. I’ll try to get away as quick as I can.’

  The traffic was heavy. Julian drove with the window down, elbow resting on the sill.

  ‘Ev-er-y-one is fucking off out of the city for the weekend,’ he hummed. The music was down low. His face was tired and cheerful. He was concentrating.

  Audrey wondered if they were friends. She’d thought the highway would follow the coast, but they were travelling inland, and it was all green through the windows. Once in a while Julian would say This is the Hawkesbury or point out a turn-off. She couldn’t work out how far away they were from the sea.

  The bike was in the front yard of the guy’s house. It was more slender than Audrey had expected. She’d imagined something ostentatious.

  Julian stood with his arms crossed asking questions, looking it over. Audrey didn’t know if he was bluffing or if he actually knew things about motorcycles and their mechanics. The seller was a guy in his fifties, Audrey guessed, full in the face, easy smile, broad chest. She toed the pebbles edging the dry grass, half-listening to their conversation. Julian went to test it. She stayed behind in the yard, made small talk with the owner, drank the glass of ginger beer he offered her, scratched his dog’s belly.

  Julian came back. It was decided. He paid cash for the bike. He gave Audrey his car keys. ‘Come on. Let’s get dinner before we drive back. I’m buying.’

  She followed him, parked facing the creek, sat looking at the water while he ran into the shop. They drove in convoy to the beach. Audrey was turned around by the lakes, the inlets, the ocean, the creeks, surrounded by water on every side.

  He’d bought crayfish, wrapped in newspaper. They sat on the beach and ate with their hands, cracked open the claws with his Swiss Army knife.

  Audrey looked at him sideways and he said What, what?

  ‘Crayfish, motorcycles. It feels extravagant. It’s nice.’

  ‘That bike is a piece of shit.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the bike.’ She wiped her hands on her thighs. ‘The other day Pip said to me, “Julian does exactly what he wants to do.”’

  ‘Yeah?’ He folded up the paper into a loose square. ‘That’s good. Philippa, the ideologically pure altruist. Julian, the young libertine.’

  ‘Don’t twist it. I’m not passing judgement. I said it’s nice.’

  They drove home separately. Julian was in front, riding in the centre of the road. Audrey turned up the radio in his car and sang to herself all the way home.

  Flint

  Audrey saw a poster for a gig, a band she knew from home. They were launching an EP. Claire grimaced.

  ‘Sorry, comrade,’ she said. ‘I’ve got no one to look after El. I can’t ask Julian this week. He’s being an arsehole. And my parents are in Cairns at the moment.’

  Audrey asked a woman from work, shyly; she asked Julian, but he was lethargic about it, and she would not cajole him.

  She went to Marrickville by herself. It was a warm evening, still light when she got there. The smokers were clustered on the pavement outside. Audrey could only dimly remember what it felt like to be a part of a group like that: the walks to friendly pubs where she’d always run into someone she knew, struggling into stockings at the last minute to go and see Minh’s band on some filthy stage, saying goodbyes on the cold street afterwards.

  Being alone made her timid. The girl at the door did not smile. Audrey got drunk while she watched the support acts, standing by the bar, then wriggled her way between shoulders to the front. Being alone made it easier. The crowd was gentle; it was a Thursday. Everyone stood patiently under the red lights.

  Audrey had seen the band play before, an earnest, jangly garage rock that made her sentimental. Songs for drives on sunny days, windows down; songs for nights at the Corner, where she’d drink to get loose in the limbs; songs playing from the radio in the afternoons when friends came round. Audrey kept watching, kept her body moving in mild agreement with the drums, but she was bereft.

  The room emptied out quickly. Audrey had another glass of wine. In a mirror she saw herself, drunk and blurry, and was glad she was alone with her hazy grief.

  The buses had stopped running. She stood on the footpath trying to hail a taxi, and finally called Julian. He came to get her at once.

  He watched her as she fastened her seatbelt.

  ‘You didn’t have to go by yourself,’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to come along because of that. I just wanted to see some rock and roll.’

  ‘Have you been crying?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wiped her nose and
laughed. Julian switched on the interior light. She said, ‘Oh, don’t,’ and he turned it off again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  A groan forced its way up out of her chest, an ugly sound. She looked out the window at the unlit buildings. ‘Thanks for picking me up.’

  He edged away from the kerb. The streets flickered by, slow and yellowed under the streetlamps. Audrey saw signs for the airport. When they got to Anzac Parade he turned left, instead of down Rainbow Street, and she asked where they were going.

  ‘I want a thickshake,’ Julian said.

  ‘Can’t you wait till we get home?’

  ‘Nah. I want chips.’

  The McDonald’s opposite the university was lit up. Its Australian flag flicked limply in the fuggy night. Julian paid for his food and they sat out on the stair at the entrance. He fished fries from the paper bag, saying, ‘God, this is so good,’ and Audrey watched him. His legs sprawled out on the asphalt.

  ‘Don’t you want any? You must be hungry. You’re pretty fucked.’ He wiped his hands on the cheeseburger wrapper. A bit of lettuce hung from his top lip.

  Audrey began to laugh. ‘I’m fucked,’ she said.

  He stood and held out his hand. ‘Come on. Let’s go home.’

  Her supervisor asked if she’d be interested in a five-day intensive family-therapy workshop. Audrey said yes. She was still photocopying pages from psycho-oncology journals to read on the way home. They had titles like ‘Transitioning to Survivorship’ and ‘Psychosocial Inventories for Siblings of Children and Young People with Progressive Malignant Diseases’. It all made sense, but sometimes she still felt clumsy. In a family session earlier in the week, the child’s mother and father had ended up just talking to each other, with Audrey barely facilitating. At the end they’d both shaken her hand and thanked her graciously, but she felt as if she’d done nothing at all. That’s okay, one of the other workers had said. Sometimes you just need to be there, providing the context for discussions they wouldn’t have at home. But Audrey wasn’t sure.

  ‘There’s also a clinical skills course,’ Henry said. ‘It’s not a professional development requirement, and I know you’re on contract, but if you’re looking at doing this longer term it might be worth a thought.’

  Audrey hadn’t thought past the end of her contract. He smiled. ‘You’re doing a really good job,’ he said. ‘You came into it with no warm-up. It’s different from child protection.’

  ‘I guess it’s still child-focused,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, but the goalposts are pretty different.’ They were standing in the social work department, Henry with a hand on the door. He had a neatly trimmed beard, thick brows, eyes that made him look perpetually consoling. It was the right face for his job, Audrey thought. He reminded her of a German shepherd.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘let me know.’

  On the train she thought about her old job. She was careful not to remember it as easier than it had been. She’d felt out of her depth for a year, maybe more, at the Preston office. But eventually everything was easier. Whatever meagre reputation she’d had was of a nonjudgemental, dogged worker. She’d felt capable until she hadn’t, at the end.

  She got off the train early, hoping to catch Claire and Elliott at home. They were blundering through the front door. ‘I’m glad it’s you!’ Claire said. ‘I’m about to drop El at tennis near Mum and Dad’s, but I’ve got to go to the wholesaler after that. Do you want to come for a drive? I can shout you some baby’s breath.’

  They drove through suburbs Audrey didn’t recognise. She tried to map it all out in her head, but the city was still a stranger. The van’s air conditioning cut in and out. Audrey felt sweat collecting behind her knees.

  Claire knew everyone at the market. Audrey moved idly up and down the aisles, scanning the flowers, saying their names to herself. She could hear Claire’s laugh. Once her face appeared above a bunch of gladioli. Come here a sec, she said, and tugged at Audrey’s arm. She led her into a refrigerated storeroom. Audrey felt the chill of the concrete floor through the soles of her sandals.

  ‘Isn’t it better in here?’ Claire said. She put a hand to Audrey’s head like she was checking for fever. She crouched down by a bucket of carnations, white spattered with red. ‘Once, when I was in TAFE,’ she said, ‘I pulled out a bunch of hyacinths, I think. They had fat stems. And I felt something against my hand, and it was a rat. It had gone stiff in the bottom of the bucket.’

  Audrey came home to an empty house. She ate a nectarine right down to the stone, juice spilling between her fingers. She waited for Julian. She lined up her nectarine pits on the table. She made dinner. She lay on her bed and talked to Emy: her heart contracted when she saw the pixelated face on her laptop screen. She waited for hours.

  When he finally arrived he was wasted. He collapsed on the couch and asked for a drink of water. Audrey filled a glass from the tap, but by the time she returned he’d already gone upstairs to his room.

  She pushed open his door. His limbs were flung out at odd angles, the sheets puckered around his groin. Face crumpled into the pillow, lips parted, eyes half-open.

  ‘Move over,’ Audrey said, shutting the door behind her. ‘I’m getting in.’

  ‘Not tonight,’ Julian grunted.

  ‘Nice try.’

  ‘Not tonight,’ he said again. ‘I’m really fucked.’

  Audrey stopped short, arms poised to strip off her singlet.

  ‘Oh—all right.’ And he was asleep.

  Her hands f lew apart in frustration. She felt ugly and base, standing there in her underwear.

  She was in the change rooms at the baths, peeling off her bathers, when her phone rang. She let it go, thinking she’d call back when she got home, but the ringing started again.

  ‘Hello?’ She held the thing away from her dripping hair, her face.

  ‘Oh, thank Christ, Audrey, listen, do you know where Julian is?’

  Claire was crying.

  ‘No, he’s probably still at work, or—what’s happened? Are you all right?’

  ‘We’re at the Children’s. We’ve been in an accident. Elliott and me. Someone ran a red light and slammed straight into the side of the car. They’ve taken El into surgery, and I can’t get on to Julian.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’ The blood had drained to her feet. She tried to think of what to do. ‘He said he was finishing up on a case this week, but I can’t remember when. He could be working late. What if—I’ll come and meet you. We can keep trying him.’

  Frank was in the kitchen cutting up vegetables. He lifted his face to smile at Audrey as she lurched through the door, but he saw her face. He’d turned off the stove, grabbed his car keys before she’d even finished the sentence. She dialled Julian’s number again and again as they drove up Dudley Street.

  ‘Where’s his office?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I don’t even know. Up near the state library, I think.’

  ‘Right in the guts. I’ll never get there in the traffic.’ He pulled up to the kerb. ‘Better if I just keep trying to call.’

  He leaned over the console and gave her a quick, awkward hug.


  Inside Claire was pacing. A cut above her left eye had been sutured. When she saw Audrey she stopped walking and held out her arms.

  ‘Oh, Clairy.’

  Claire’s weight fell against her. They sat down on a bench.

  ‘He’s okay. He’s okay,’ Claire said. ‘He’s in recovery. It just took so long, and I didn’t know what was happening, and I can’t reach Julian. He was on the side that was hit.’ She dragged her sleeve across her face. ‘We were in the little Honda, not the shop van.’

  ‘What did they say? Is he conscious?’

  ‘Not yet. He ruptured his spleen. They had to remove a kidney. When the ambos took off his T-shirt his tummy was all purple.’

  She put her head between her knees. She said Fuck, I’m going to be sick, but she didn’t move. Audrey handed her a polystyrene cup of water. In the carpark she tried to call Julian again, reached his voicemail.

  ‘Listen, Julian—’ The anger evaporated the minute she started. She began again. ‘Everything’s okay. Elliott’s come through it all really well. If you get this, don’t worry. Everything’s okay.’

  When she went back inside, Claire was talking to a young woman in surgical scrubs whose voice was too low for Audrey to hear. Claire had a hand over her mouth. Eventually she said, ‘I’m really, really grateful, but I don’t want to hear everything right now. I just want to see him.’

  The doctor nodded, murmured something else. Claire glanced up at Audrey.

  ‘Still can’t get on to him,’ Audrey said.

  ‘It’s okay. My parents are on their way. I can see him now.’