August Falling

by Les Zig

  ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t lived out here long,’ I say. ‘And I haven’t had a car the whole time, so I haven’t really familiarised myself with the streets. I catch public transport everywhere.’

  She pulls up at the lights by the community theatre and the library, and I figure now she’ll just want to offload me as quickly as humanly possible. I picture her speeding towards my block of flats, spinning the car so I’m thrown out the door, and then accelerating away. The lights change, but still we don’t move. Julie studies the community theatre. A car behind us honks and Julie hits the accelerator.

  ‘You ever gone in there?’ she asks.

  ‘The community theatre or the library?’

  ‘The theatre.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When I was little—a couple of months before Mum was diagnosed—she took me to a community theatre like that to see Peter Pan. I fell in love that night.’

  ‘With Peter Pan?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. But by the magic of it all. That night, as I lay in bed, I decided I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be on the stage. I would’ve loved to study that—dramatic acting. But things have a way of changing.’

  I guide her until she pulls up on the curb in front of my place. Conversation possibilities again whiz through my head. Now that I’m home, I don’t want her to go. I’m calmer around her. I feel free and secure talking to her. Or maybe I’m latching onto something—or even concocting something—because I don’t want to face my quiet, empty flat. But she’s unlike anybody I’ve met—somebody unaffected by all my quirks. I’ve never experienced that.

  Julie kills the engine. ‘Well.’

  ‘Well.’

  She’s turned off the car. It takes a moment to sink in that if she wanted to make a clean getaway, she wouldn’t have turned off the car.

  ‘Want to come in for a beer or a coffee or something?’ I ask.

  Julie flashes a smile. ‘Sure.’

  8

  As we head up the stairs to my flat, the music thumps from the neighbours’ place and their shouting is a barrage of artillery. I will them to stop. I don’t know them, I’ve never seen them—although now I picture them as big and surly, in their thirties, the husband gruff with a thick beard, the woman brutish. They’re not my responsibility, but right now they’re a representation of me, because they’re a representation of where I’ve chosen to live, even if income and desperation didn’t leave me much choice, but Julie doesn’t know that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, as I stick my key into the door and unlock it. ‘They’re always at it.’

  ‘You should see—and hear—my neighbours,’ Julie says.

  ‘Also, don’t expect anything lavish.’

  ‘My place is a bigger dump.’ Julie laughs and covers her mouth. ‘Not to suggest your place is a dump, but—’

  ‘That’s okay. Keep the bar there.’

  I swing open the door, reach in to flick the light on, and usher Julie in. She walks slowly, eyes fixed on the framed posters. She approaches them, holds her hand over the glass. I close the door behind us.

  ‘These originals?’ she asks.

  ‘Yep.’

  Julie picks up a small model of the Millennium Falcon from the original Star Wars movie. ‘But you’re not a fan or anything?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  She drifts over to the pyramid of novels, picks up the top one. ‘Read much?’

  ‘Not so much anymore. You?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘Want a drink? Beer? Scotch? Coffee?’

  ‘Scotch is in the mix now?’

  ‘Just naming everything I have. There’s juice and milk, too. And water. From the tap.’

  ‘How about another beer?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Julie follows me into the kitchenette, but stops at the counter and turns the picture of Mum and Dad. ‘Your parents?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, as I grab a couple of beers from the fridge and hold them aloft. ‘That was taken just a week before they died.’

  I thrust a beer at her, then twist the picture back towards the arch as Julie goes to hover over the coffee table. She examines the printout of my book, the scattered cards, and the picture of Bobby and Lisa, all at once. She picks up the photo, but only to move it aside, then fans the pages of my book. ‘You write?’

  ‘I try.’

  ‘So you’re a writer.’ It’s not even a question.

  ‘I try to be.’ I take slow steps towards her.

  ‘You didn’t tell me that at dinner.’

  ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘Why?’

  I bite my lip, as she waits for my answer. Her eyes are big, earnest. She could be alarmed that I’m a writer—in Lisa-speak a dreamer, a no-hoper—and be preparing to fake food poisoning to get the hell out of here.

  ‘What if it’s no good?’ I say.

  ‘It could be a masterpiece.’

  ‘It could be crap.’

  ‘You don’t have to write well to be a writer. Plenty of crap out there. To be a writer, all you actually need to do is write.’

  ‘That’s another thing—I haven’t written a word in a year. I’m stuck.’

  Julie sits at one end of the couch, crosses her legs, and opens her beer. She places the cap on the corner of the coffee table. I sit opposite her.

  ‘So what’s it about?’ she says.

  ‘It’s stupid.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer what it’s about.’

  ‘A man wakes up with no memory of his wife; the only thing he knows is that he is married to her. Then he tries to piece together his life from what others tell him—his parents, his friends, the people at his work. But all the information jars. Then there’s this magical realism element. I think that’s what’s got me stuck. The more he gets to know her, the less he’s sure he does know her, and the more he struggles to reconcile his reality.’

  ‘That sounds interesting.’

  ‘You’re just saying that.’

  ‘No, it does. Where are you stuck?’ Julie runs her hand over the printed book. ‘There’s quite a bit here. You must be well into it, if not near the end.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I was a bit distracted for the last few chapters … But … I don’t know. I’ve gone over and over and over it, but I can’t work it out. That’s what these are.’ I pick up a handful of playing cards and pass them across to Julie. She flips them and frowns at what I’ve scrawled across their backs.

  ‘“He leaves her—final scene”,’ she reads. ‘“He drives at night, trying to work out who she is if she’s not his wife”.’ She holds the last one close to her face, trying to decipher the scrawl that is my handwriting. ‘“He sees parallel futures: one in which he doesn’t exist, one in which she doesn’t exist”.’

  I sip from my beer. ‘I don’t even think some of them are scenes, but random thoughts where I’m trying to get something happening.’

  Julie puts the cards back on the table and pulls the printout towards her. ‘Can I read it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know? Read it? It’s a thing people do with books—that and swat spiders, the two primary functions of books.’

  My hand jerks, about to shoot out and grab the book from her.

  ‘Not now, of course. It is a big book. But I’d like to.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘No, this is part of an elaborate joke I play on unsuspecting writers after we’ve gone out together for dinner. I’ll send you a message later saying, “Gotcha”.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘Yes, I’m serious. Have a bit of faith in yourself.’

  ‘It’s just no one else has read it.’

  ‘Your sister?’

  ‘She read the first couple of chapters when I was toying with writing it, and said she liked it so much she wanted to wait until I finished it. But she’s my sister so, you know, that’s what family do.’

  ‘Your family maybe. Family’s usually the cruellest.’

 
‘No, that was my ex—she thought it was a waste of time.’

  It comes out before I can stop myself. Julie’s gaze flits to the photo. But that’s her only acknowledgement of what I’ve said. She hoists the printout onto her lap. ‘So, can I?’

  If she reads it, that means I’ll definitely see her again, although if she dislikes it, it might turn her off me. The indecision closes in on me until I’ve elevated, watching myself and Julie sit on the couch. I can’t be sitting here with a beautiful woman who’s offering to read my writing. Those things don’t happen—at least not to me. Likelier, I’m still at the Palladium, unconscious and hallucinating in the toilets after doing too many shots.

  ‘Sure,’ I forced out. ‘But …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you don’t like it, or if it’s not any good, let me down easy, okay?’

  Julie’s sigh is greatly overdone. ‘Oh, all right, but you’re taking all the fun out of it.’

  ‘Oh thanks.’

  ‘So what’ve you got?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To watch.’

  I grab the remote, turn on the TV, and flick to the hard drive. A list of movies runs down the screen.

  ‘You pick something,’ I say, ‘and I’ll get snacks. What do you feel like?’

  Julie takes the remote and settles back into the couch. ‘Got popcorn?’

  ‘Popcorn? Really?’

  ‘It’s a movie.’

  I have popcorn, although I don’t remember buying it, so it must be courtesy of Gen. After I burn it in the microwave, I sit on the couch with Julie as she scrolls through my movies, and finally settles on one: a romantic comedy—what I’d call a Lisa movie.

  ‘You seen this?’ Julie asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I saw the second half one night and it was so-so, but I keep wondering if that’s because I missed the first half or because the movie is so-so. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Turn off the light, huh?’

  I switch off the light as the opening credits begin. It’s ten minutes before I’m shifting on the couch and gulping from my beer. All the movie’s done is introduce the leads—he a handsome lecturer, she a gorgeous college student.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll end up together,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be a spoilsport.’

  ‘You said you saw the second half.’

  ‘I don’t want that at the forefront of my mind, though.’

  ‘It’s a romantic comedy.’

  ‘I know it’s a romantic comedy, and I know they all pretty much end up happily ever after, but you still want to believe—or at least I still want to believe—that anything’s possible, that things might turn out in a totally unexpected way from the one all the evidence suggests.’ She frowns. ‘This was a book, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  She points at the TV.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  The couple meet when she comes to his office to implore him for help with a personal issue. Both leads are stunning. The female lead is meant to be neurotic, but lacks the edge that would truly make her vulnerable, so instead she comes across as quirkily cute; the male lead is meant to be odd, but his oddness grants him an insight and mastery over almost any situation.

  ‘I don’t believe she’d be single,’ Julie says. ‘Him, yes, because he’s weird. But her, no.’

  ‘Maybe she’s crazy or something.’

  ‘I’ve seen the second half; she’s not.’

  As the movie progresses, Julie’s remarks grow more and more caustic, which encourages me to join in. By the time we get halfway through, we’ve mowed through the popcorn, as well as two beers each. I pause the movie so she can go to the bathroom while I check the fridge. No beer left. When Julie comes back, I’m still standing by the fridge, leaning on the open door, silhouetted in the fridge’s light, and wondering what I should do.

  ‘Getting another beer?’ Julie asks.

  ‘Actually, I’m out,’ I say. ‘But I have some scotch—’

  ‘I shouldn’t, I’ll be over the limit—although I probably am already.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I swing the fridge door closed and Julie becomes a silhouette. ‘Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t think. Want to finish the movie?’

  Julie takes a step towards me, the light from the TV coming over her face. Her perfume is now sweet and heat radiates off her until I can imagine it shimmering between us, expanding to encompass me—or maybe that’s just my nervousness.

  I’ve seen this look—not for a long time, but I’ve seen it: the almost shy smile; eyes bright, but coy; the intangible boundary that once existed, the definition of each of us as we exist in our own space, now eroded, and all it would take is one word, one movement, one step. Everybody else does this so easily, so naturally, but my arms are stone welded to my shoulders.

  Julie grabs my left hand, tugs it. ‘You have a bedroom?’

  ‘A bedroom?’

  ‘Sound out the name: bed-room.’

  Julie’s grip on my hand tightens and she must figure that given the size of my flat, and the two opposing doors in the short hallway (she just came from the one to the bathroom), the course to the bedroom is just a process of elimination.

  I remain a deadweight, our hands linked, arms a bridge between us. Julie tilts her head, maybe unbelieving I’d resist. Ronnie’s voice shouts in my ears, mocks me—not now, but as he’d behave on Monday morning if I told him this, which I wouldn’t, but the scene unfolds all the same.

  ‘You don’t want to?’ Julie asks, her eyes so big, so startled, that she looks hurt, possibly even offended, if not humiliated. But then she smiles, a crooked smile, and her hurt is just what I read into the situation. She tugs my arm once, one heave to get me going, and I stumble forward. She backs to the one untried door, and swings it open. My bedroom faces the street. The curtains are partly drawn, so a single shaft of light from a streetlight cuts across the bed and veers across the room to the door—a plank to be walked.

  We walk it slowly, as my consciousness plummets into my crotch. I don’t want it to, but there it goes all the same—the expectation that I won’t be ready, that I have this beautiful woman who wants me, and I won’t be able to perform. Now the thought’s there, it’s impossible to get it out, like a flare that illuminates all my inadequacies.

  Julie steps up to me, her arms linking around my neck as she stands on her tiptoes. Her skin is soft on mine, and not just warm, but hot until I’m sure I’ve melted into her and all I want to do, if I could—if I were that sort of guy—is take control and ravage her.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she whispers, or at least that’s what I think she says. I’m still trying to work it out in my head when her lips feather mine.

  She pushes me backwards to the bed. I move as if I’m weightless. My thigh strikes the bedside and I plonk onto my bed and into the shaft of light.

  Julie straddles me, pulls off her jacket, and tosses it aside. She then yanks her top over her head. I clunk my hands onto her hips, run them up her sides. She leans over me, kisses me, her tongue parting my mouth. She tastes of beer and popcorn and salt, and her lips are fuller than what I’m used to. My eyes close instinctively, then open to see if hers are open—they’re also closed. I run my hands up her back to her bra and struggle with the latch. The more I try to do it—the more I want to do it with proficiency—the more tangled it becomes.

  ‘Wait.’ She unlatches the bra in an instant—an embarrassing instant, that only highlights my incompetence with bras, which must suggest incompetence elsewhere. Her breasts are small and arc into her swollen, pointed nipples. My hands run up her sides and I want to cup her breasts, but then don’t want to appear too eager or clumsy, which leaves me doing nothing.

  ‘You okay?’ Julie asks. The light that streams through the window makes it easy to see her wry smile.

  ‘I never—’

  ‘I would’ve thought the only answer could be yes.’

  Before I can protest, she falls on me,
kisses me. Her tongue fills my mouth as she pulls apart my shirt, then hikes up my T-shirt. I lift myself enough so she can hoist my T-shirt and shirt over my head. She drops them to the floor, kisses me again, her hands going to the buckle of my jeans.

  My earlier fears return, that I won’t be ready, or that I’ll be incapable of becoming ready, but I am. Now the thought’s in my head, I try to drive it away. Julie tugs my jeans and underwear down my legs and takes me in her mouth.

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘Wait! Wait!’

  She lets my erection fall from her lips and takes it in her hand, maybe thinking I’m having a cramp, or a seizure, or a heart attack, or something along those lines, but instead I come—I can’t help it—and spray over my belly.

  ‘I’m … sorry.’ I want to bury my head under the pillow, or flee the room, or fake a heart attack.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Julie says.

  She edges up to me. I don’t know the etiquette now. She runs a hand up my arm, kisses my shoulder, then nestles her chin there.

  ‘That’s never happened to me before,’ I say.

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Let’s just lie here.’

  ‘Lie here?’ I’m unbelieving she hasn’t already found the door.

  Julie flips onto her back, lifts her legs and kicks off her boots. She yanks off her socks, then raises her legs straight up, toes pointed to the ceiling, and pulls off her jeans—she doesn’t seem to wear underwear. Her pubic hair is tiny, just a triangle, and the inside of her thighs glisten. She tosses her clothes to the floor and rolls back onto her side.

  ‘Well?’ she says.

  I sit up, leaning back on my hands, too embarrassed to face her. My jeans and underwear are bundled around my knees. Cum drips down my stomach, cold and damning.

  ‘I should get cleaned up.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I kick off my jeans and underwear, pull off my socks, bounce from the bed and hurry out to the bathroom. I use toilet paper to wipe myself, then clean myself with a damp towel. When I’m done, I cringe in the mirror. A beautiful, naked woman waits in my bedroom, I humiliated myself, and she hasn’t fled. The silence around me is thick and a chill creeps over my body. None of this seems real—not even the mortified me in the mirror.