Our Magic Hour

by Jennifer Down

  She asked careful questions, but Helen wanted to know everything Audrey had been doing.

  ‘What made you decide on Sydney?’ she asked.

  ‘It was just where I got a job. I wanted to go somewhere new. There was so much context here.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s silly. Last year I re-read this old book of Dad’s, a Zola novel, L’Assommoir. Do you know it?’

  ‘I read it when I was a student. A million years ago. It’s all death and woe, isn’t it?’

  Audrey’s heart beat light and fast. ‘At the start, Gervaise explains what she wants. Simple things: a bed to sleep in, to make good citizens of her little boys, and not to be beaten. And in the end, she can’t achieve any of it. When you get to the end of the book, you realise she was never going to. She didn’t have a chance.’

  ‘How hopeless,’ Helen remarked.

  ‘I got so scared that it was true, though.’

  ‘Oh, Audie.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Nothing’s ever immutable,’ Helen said. ‘It wasn’t for Katy, either. Things could have got better for her. We just ran out of time.’

  Audrey reached across the table.

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ Helen said.

  They sat for a long time. Helen stroked her hand absently. Audrey could not pull away. She wished she had more of Katy, something left to give her mother.

  Adam and Minh went away for the weekend, to the country where someone had a house. Adam took his time over breakfast. Minh packed the car by himself. ‘We’ll leave when we fucken leave,’ Adam said blithely. He was helping Audrey look over ads for houses.

  ‘Remember that awful place in Flemington?’ Adam said. ‘What was that, first year of uni?’

  ‘Yeah. That was bleak.’

  ‘Feels like forever ago.’

  Minh was pulling on his jacket. The groceries were stacked by the front door.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re never going to get there. I told them lunch.’

  Adam stood up, bowl in hand, kissed Minh. ‘I was waiting for you.’

  In the evening she took the tram to the other side of the city. Factories and flats, leaves in the gutters, gold pas de deux of car headlights at the Hoddle Street intersection. Small clot of anxiety as she started up Charles Street.

  The house was just as she remembered, as though it had been holding its breath. Audrey had enshrined it in her head: the flailing clementine tree, the car parked out front, the awning over the front door. The front verandah with its couch, picked up from hard rubbish, where they’d sat to watch the sky change colour. Down the side, over the cracked concrete pavers, the camellia would still be there, and the fire pit, and the plastic lawn furniture.

  Audrey had always loved that house. It was a tomb for better times.

  Nick came to the door with a cautious face. They smiled at each other. ‘Hullo.’ Audrey stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. Nick took her close. They let go quickly.

  ‘Your hair’s short,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, really good. What about you?’

  ‘I’m all right. Just let me grab my coat.’

  Audrey stood on the step and exhaled. She didn’t know what she’d expected. If they couldn’t speak to each other now, they never would, and maybe one day they’d see each other on the same tram, or at the Empress, and they’d still be bruised and teenaged. Pinned down to the back step where they’d sat, catatonic, in the morning; pinned down to the nature strip where they’d said a meagre goodbye.

  She looked down the hall. She could hear Nick’s boots on the floorboards. He was singing in an easy voice, something about lighthouses. She didn’t know if he was relaxed or just making a show for her.

  The music in the pub was so loud it drowned out the noise of other people’s conversations, and Nick and Audrey leaned over the table to hear each other. It was nervous talk on newborn legs.

  ‘Why did you keep living by yourself?’ Audrey asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I thought about finding somewhere else. Paddy asked if I wanted to move in with them, but those guys—I just couldn’t deal with it. Anyway,’ he said, ‘I like that house. It’s close to work. I like riding around the river.’

  ‘I missed that in Sydney.’

  ‘What about you? How come you moved in with all those people? I thought you wanted to be by yourself.’

  ‘I sort of was. I didn’t know any of them.’ The beer was making her hands cold. She pressed her palms together between her thighs. ‘I spent the first week or so in my room. I thought they’d hate me.’

  ‘You’re a goose.’

  ‘I know.’

  He was wearing a shirt he’d had since she’d known him, a checked lumberjack flannel, sleeves rolled to his elbows. A hole in one arm that neither of them could mend. (‘I never learned how to sew anything,’ she’d said, bewildered, when he’d asked once.) His hair was clipped as though it had been shorn not long ago.

  ‘Adam said you were seeing someone,’ Audrey said.

  ‘I was for a while. A girl called Jo. She was nice. She works at that gallery up past Ivanhoe. What’s it called?’

  ‘Heide.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Audrey waited for him to say more, but he said again, ‘What about you?’

  ‘Sort of. My housemate. He was…’ Audrey pulled a face. ‘He was okay. Sometimes he could be such a prick. I don’t know if I just wanted to make myself feel bad, like punishment, some subconscious thing—’

  Nick looked puzzled. She’d lost him.

  They were learning to speak in ordinary sentences again. Audrey’s mouth was dry.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to—’

  She went up the carpeted stairs that led to the function room. It was quiet and dark. The bathrooms were empty.

  Nick had followed her. Audrey backed into a toilet cubicle, watching his face. She could still hear the music, the dull thudding of bass and drums. Nick reached behind, fumbling with the lock. He kissed her neck, below her ear, her mouth. She opened her eyes. A pale square of light streamed in from the window high up on the wall.

  How easy it was to come home again. Audrey tried not to think of anyone else he might have touched. She pushed herself at him harder at the thought. Nick was kissing her and mumbling something. There was salt in her mouth. They were as strong as each other. He fit himself into her and they fucked slowly: she worked to feel the rolling of his hips. Their bodies moved together, and as Audrey came she put her hands to the cold concrete walls of the cubicle and felt the vibrations of the music from outside.

  Nick kissed her hair. She started to laugh.

  ‘What? What’s funny?’

  ‘It feels like we’re in a bunker hiding from someone.’

  They were still clutching each other, but after a time Nick tucked his cock back into his jeans and said Are you all right, and she said Yes, and he said I’ll meet you downstairs. After he’d gone Audrey sat on the toilet lid and sobbed. She stepped outside and washed her hands. She was leaning against the vanity unit with her ba
ck to the mirror when a middle-aged woman came in.

  ‘Queue downstairs is atrocious,’ she said. She glanced at Audrey. ‘You okay, love?’

  For a moment she imagined Nick would be gone when she returned to their table, but he was still there. They shrugged back into their coatsleeves without speaking. Outside the sky was pricked with stars. Audrey looked at the window and saw Nick’s face reflected in the green glow.

  ‘Do you want to come home?’ he asked.

  The rain set in while they were on the tram. They sat opposite each other, knees just touching. The lights made everyone look sickly. Audrey could only see bits of Nick’s skin: his thin wrists sticking out from his sleeves, the parts of his face not covered by hat or hair or scarf.

  ‘When did the beard happen?’ she asked. She almost reached out a hand, but stopped herself.

  ‘When it got cold. I feel like a bear.’

  At Charles Street they went to the bedroom, and she undressed him, and they fucked again. The striped blue sheets were the same. The room was warm with their bodies. Afterwards Nick lay on the bed the wrong way, feet under the pillows, propped on one arm, and Audrey sat cross-legged beside him. They could not stop talking.

  ‘What was it like, in Sydney?’

  ‘There were sea baths at the end of the street. I got better at swimming,’ she said. ‘Not good like you, but I could do laps without stopping.’

  Something rippled across his face, sadness or surprise, and Audrey was sorry for them both. She started again. She told him about living with Claire, the long commute to and from Westmead, all the time she’d spent with a six-year-old boy, how tropical and lonely it was in October when she’d first moved. Nick listened. Whenever she asked what he’d been doing, he dismissed it. ‘Nothing exciting. You know, work, friends, the usual. I went and saw the Dirty Three with Pat last week. That’s about it. Keep talking.’

  She told him about the old house groaning on its stumps on New Year’s Eve, Elliott and Claire’s accident, the weekend at Jindabyne. When she got to the cold motel room—can of rum and cola, Julian at the door—Nick reached for her. Their knuckles brushed together. He said nothing.

  Audrey got up and made a sandwich. When she came back Nick was sitting up in bed like a good patient.

  ‘Did you think we were going to do this?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I just wanted to see you.’

  The rain had stopped.

  ‘Tell me what’s been happening here with you,’ Audrey said.

  Nick was quiet for a long time. He set his plate on the floor. He said, ‘My dad’s got cancer. It’s in his bowel.’

  ‘Shit. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘There’s nothing you could’ve done.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Not too bad, considering. He’s about to have his last round of chemo. Then they remove the diseased part of his colon.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Depends how he takes this last dose. It knocks him about a bit.’

  Nick held out an arm for her, and she lay down. She couldn’t see his face any more.

  ‘I wish you’d told me,’ she said. ‘Your poor mum. None of you deserve it.’

  ‘We’re through the worst of it.’

  Audrey was silent. She pressed her mouth to his arm. He fell asleep after awhile, and she lay awake thinking she’d remember it for a long time: the smell of him on her hands, his legs heavy between hers, the sepulchral bed, the turned earth of the sheets.

  By the morning they’d come apart again. Audrey took the train back to Adam’s. He arrived home late in the day, full of questions and speculation. She began to think she couldn’t stay with him much longer. His apartment had three rooms. Audrey slept on the fold-out couch when Minh stayed over. Every morning she folded the blankets like an amiable houseguest. They ate breakfast together and did the quiz in the paper. Audrey learned Minh’s slow, deliberate sense of humour.

  But it was three rooms. If she’d lain in the bath to read, pulled the curtain across for privacy, Adam would’ve been offended.

  After a while she moved in with Bernie. Living with him was simpler. He was out a lot. Sometimes at night he’d eat the dinner Audrey made, and talk about art school.

  ‘You’d fucking love it, Audie,’ he said, eyes rolling. ‘There’s one girl who actually uses blood in her drawings. It’s like a caricature. What else. A guy in my studio documents his acid trips, and tries to paint them later, only they’re not very good. Last time he went tripping in the Botanic Gardens, and now he’s working on this enormous canvas of squiggly green lines. It’s horrendous.’ He made her laugh. ‘The words we use the most are process and documentation,’ he announced. ‘One of my lecturers likes to ask the international students whether they understand after every instruction. He goes, Now, are we all following here?’—slow, insulting tone—‘and even they laugh because it’s just too appalling.’

  She slept in his painting room, where the light was best, and the wind chimes made a silvery noise in the mornings.

  She went to a home visit in Fairfield. Vanessa said Are you sure you don’t want to ask a copper to come with? and Audrey said No, I know the family. I think I should go alone.

  The flat had been tidied: she could tell from plastic rubbish bags tied and waiting in the hallway, the filthy sneakers in a row by the door.

  ‘Zak’s at school,’ the father said as soon as she set foot inside.

  She smiled. ‘Good. How’s he doing?’

  He shrugged, spread his hands. He had a likeable, ravaged face. ‘Oh-h-h…they don’t like it much at that age, do they?’

  ‘He does Reading Recovery,’ said a voice from the doorway. A much younger woman stood with a toddler in her arms. He looked at Audrey, buried his face in the woman’s neck again.

  ‘This is my niece Kim. She’s living with us while her mum gets sorted out.’

  ‘Hi,’ Kim said. She shifted the baby in her arms. Audrey was sure she’d met her before. ‘This is Cade,’ she said.

  They moved down the hall to the kitchen. Audrey was careful. At the office Vanessa had said He’s a Scary Dad, as though the phrase had capital letters. Visits like this were like walking a tightrope. Audrey knew she looked young, partly because she was small. Sometimes it worked in her favour, made her seem non-threatening.

  There was a bad smell in the kitchen, but it was neat. The bench gleamed with dark streaks, the grotty sponge by the sink; Kim must have been cleaning it when Audrey arrived.

  ‘Mr Horsburgh—’

  ‘Mike,’ he said. A phone rang in another room, and he jogged off. The movement was funny, almost farcical, in the cramped flat. Kim glanced at her apologetically. The baby had begun to grizzle, and she was swaying from side to side as she held him. He looked heavy. Her arms were like young shoots.

  ‘Have you got a cot for Cade?’ Audrey asked.

  Kim nodded. ‘It’s just a portable, but it’s okay with—um, it’s SIDS-compliant.’

  Audrey’s heart squeezed at he
r earnest face, her rote-learned language. She was maybe eighteen.

  They crowded down the hall together as Audrey made to leave. Mike turned to her. He looped a finger through her lanyard. She kept her face still.

  ‘Listen, do you reckon you could take off that thing as you go? I don’t want the neighbours thinking we’re ratbags. Next door’s already pissed about Kimmy being here. Cunt’s threatened to call Housing.’

  Audrey lifted the ID tag from her neck, tucked it in her coat pocket.

  ‘I reckon they might work it out anyway, eh?’ Kim said. She laughed nervously. Audrey smelled sweat.

  Propped on a ledge above the doorway was a machete, impossible to see from outside the flat. Mike reached across to let her out. Audrey thanked him. The door closed behind her.

  Halfway back to the office she pulled over by a football field. She called Adam. Her fingers were shaking. She couldn’t stop giggling.

  ‘That’s fucked,’ he kept saying. ‘What are you laughing for?’

  ‘It was just so simple. So clever,’ she said. ‘And here’s me thinking I’ve done a good job with him.’

  ‘You’re nuts. That’s not funny.’

  ‘I know. I can’t explain it.’

  They hung up. She was calmer. Waiting to turn onto High Street, she realised she recognised Kim as a client from a couple of years back. She’d just started at DHS. That same small honest face, telling her she’d felt relaxed doing ice in the back seat of her friend’s mum’s car. I’ve never heard of anyone being relaxed on ice, she’d said seriously to Vanessa later. Vanessa had laughed.

  She met Nick at the Grace Darling, but it was packed and there was nowhere to sit or stand or prop. They started walking and ended up at the Tote where some kids were playing noise rock. The gig was almost over and the man on the door waved them through. They stood at the back of the crowd and looked away from each other. Audrey couldn’t see the band past the heads and shoulders.