August Falling

by Les Zig

  ‘Hey,’ Julie calls from the bedroom, ‘you coming back?’

  I don’t know how long I’ve been in the bathroom, but obviously long enough. I take a deep breath, puff out my chest, and open the bathroom door. Light filters into the hallway from the TV, which remains paused on the movie we were watching. I scramble around for the remote, find it on the couch, and switch off the TV. Darkness engulfs me, and it’s quiet except for the muffled music from my neighbours’ place. I welcome the dark.

  It hides me.

  When I return to my bedroom, I find Julie under the covers. The streetlight is a spotlight on me. She pats the side of the bed. I wait for her examination of me, the painful appraisal of my nakedness—and particularly my flaccid penis—but she holds my gaze unwaveringly.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Had to turn the TV off.’

  I hurry around the bed, draw the curtains, and stumble back to my side of the bed. Julie’s a shadowy blur now, but I hear her draw the covers aside. I get in, lie back. She’s immediately against me, body warm, face nuzzled into the nook of my shoulder, her hair soft. I’m unsure what to do with my hands, with my arms, so I cradle them around her.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘It’s okay. These things happen.’

  We hold one another, feeling the rhythms of our chests, basking in our mutual warmth, until a peacefulness falls over me. This feels good. Right. Even the disaster of messing up sex can’t undermine it—well, at least not for me. Maybe she doesn’t feel that. Maybe this is pity cuddling. Surely she wouldn’t be the first woman to humour a partner who didn’t perform.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  Julie grabs my wrist and runs her thumb up and down my scar. ‘Life’s too short to be stewing over things,’ she says. ‘Let it go.’

  ‘I’m not a good letter-goer.’

  ‘You should learn. It’s how you get by. Hold onto the things that are dear to you, and let everything else go. Otherwise, you go mad.’

  She’s right. Of course she’s right. And I don’t want to be negative, but I think of Lisa, of that picture on my coffee table. Every day since we broke up, I’ve waited for the morning I’ll wake and everything connected to her will be gone: the anger, the pain, the conviction that I screwed up—that my inadequacies drove our issues—and the vividness of all the memories. Every day.

  ‘Some things are scarred into you,’ I say.

  ‘I have scars you won’t believe,’ Julie answers, her voice growing soft, drowsy. ‘But you know what? Scars are evidence of a wound that’s healed. Wear them proudly—a badge of honour that tells everybody you survived.’

  ‘Do you really believe that? That you can wear them proudly?’

  ‘Better than the alternative and you carry them like an open wound.’ Julie releases my wrist and runs her hand up and down my chest. ‘And you keep them open.’

  ‘I’ve never thought about them like that—about wearing them proudly, I mean.’

  ‘You have to believe you can—whatever it takes.’

  ‘Whatever it takes,’ I say, and close my right fist.

  9

  I wake as I always do—slowly, with trepidation, and not wanting to let go of sleep. But then the trepidation’s gone in a wisp and I blink at the light fixture hanging from the ceiling as I orient myself. Today’s Saturday. There’s no rush to get up—no work, no obligations, nothing.

  But, of course, today is different.

  Julie lies curled up, her back to me, the covers drawn up to her hip so just the edge of her tattoo shows—something serrated and orange. Flames perhaps? I reach for the covers. She rolls onto her back and her breasts splay alluringly. My morning erection stirs, although I don’t know if it’ll last now that I’m conscious of its presence. Last night’s embarrassment flashes into my head. I wince, disguise it as a yawn.

  ‘Hey,’ Julie says, as she faces me.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I slept so well. Usually, I don’t sleep at all.’

  She scrambles on top of me, kisses me. My hands close around her waist. She pecks me on the lips.

  ‘I enjoyed last night,’ she says.

  ‘Really?’ I say it before I can censor myself.

  ‘Dinner was nice, company was good, and it’s always fun to mock a movie with somebody like-minded.’

  She kisses me again and runs her hand down my chest. I try to drive thoughts of being unprepared, losing preparedness, or being premature again from my mind. But Julie pulls up abruptly, eyes going to the LCD clock radio that sits on my bedside table.

  ‘Is that time right?’

  I check the time, like that’ll confirm it’s correct. 7.44am.

  ‘I guess,’ I say.

  Julie springs up from me and searches for her clothes. Within a breath, she’s pulled on her jeans, and as she wiggles to zip them up, her breasts bounce. She hunts for her bra.

  ‘You need to be somewhere?’ I ask.

  ‘My aunt—Zoe, who I grew up with after Mum died—I visit her on weekends. I need to be there when visiting hours open at ten.’ Julie finds her bra and puts it on. ‘It’s a ritual. She gets distressed if I’m not there. I need to get home, have breakfast, shower, change—’

  ‘You can have breakfast here.’ I clamber out of bed, find my clothes, and get dressed. ‘As long as you’re not a fussy eater. I have, like, juice. And eggs. And bread. And the bread can become toast—I have this special way of making it: I put it in the toaster and it becomes toast. I’m sure it’s going to catch on, if it hasn’t already.’

  ‘You should patent that.’

  ‘You think?’

  She stops in the process of pulling on her jacket. ‘You want to come?’

  ‘Come?’

  ‘With me? It’s not as bad as it seems—my aunt sleeps a lot. Usually, I sit there, and flick through a book until she wakes up. But I’d love the company. Don’t feel obligated. Sorry, of course you’re going to feel obligated now that I’ve asked you. If you don’t want to come, we can do something tonight.’

  The whole day unravels through my head if I said no: I’ll see her off, skulk around my laptop, obsess that I should’ve gone with her, count down the time until she’s back, restrain myself from bothering her, talk to Gen, and otherwise get nothing done.

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Julie frowns. ‘Okay, what’s the best way to do this? You shower and change, and I’ll make breakfast. Then we can go back to my place and I can have a quick shower and change.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  In the shower, I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into—the second date, and I’m already meeting family, although her aunt doesn’t sound too lucid. Still, it’s a big step. Julie herself called it an obligation. She’s right. It is an obligation. I should back out, tell a white lie—maybe that I forgot I was meant to catch up with Gen. No. I shouldn’t build the relationship on any lies. No good will come of it—I should know that. I do know that. Either I tell her outright I’m uncomfortable about going, or I go and deal with it. No, I’ll deal with it. I want to deal with it. It’s been a single night, but already I’m relaxed around her—or at least more relaxed than I usually would be. Of course, finding somebody who’s not bothered by all your shortcomings will do that.

  When I get into the kitchen, I find Julie’s made toast, scrambled eggs, and has a glass of juice out for me. She stands over the sink, washing the pan.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,’ I say.

  ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  We zip through breakfast, I order Julie not to wash the dishes, then quickly brush my teeth, only to find she has washed the dishes in my absence.

  ‘I needed something to do,’ she says.

  ‘I feel horrible.’

  ‘I have unwashed dishes at my place. You can do those.’

  ‘Don’t think I won’t.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re in for.’

 
‘That’s me—a daredevil.’

  Julie picks up my book from where she left it on the couch. ‘Let’s go.’

  As we drive away, Julie’s car rattling along, we fall back into the rhythm of our small chat about meaningless things—wishing we could leap right into the day instead of worrying about stuff like breakfast, whether any other vegetables are as objectionable as tomatoes (none), and what we’d do if we could write a new science fiction series. The conversation is always flowing and never feels forced.

  Julie lives twenty minutes from me in Gardenview, which, less than a decade ago, was middle-class suburbia, but due to the development of areas closer to the city and the difficulty of getting public transport out here, has deteriorated to lower class, with antiquated strips of stores, and small, ramshackle weatherboard homes with rampant gardens.

  We turn into Golino Court—I check the sign that hangs askew from the pole. At the end of the court, dumped on greenery that slopes down towards a creek, sits a block of flats, untidy with toys, kids in dirty clothes playing, while mums in bathrobes and moccasins stand outside chatting.

  Julie pulls up outside the block and parks the car. ‘Come on.’

  She’s grabbed my book from the back seat and is already moving while I’m still wrestling with the seatbelt. I get it undone and step out into a world of eyes. People smoke on the patios of the flats. Somebody wolf-whistles. One of the mothers, a big woman in a gaudy floral dress, looks me up and down.

  I hurry to follow Julie, self-conscious of the way I walk, the clothes I wear, and my shaggy hair, hearing comments that aren’t made and flinching at barbs that exist only inside my head.

  Julie springs obliviously up a stairwell that splits the block in two and I almost bump into her as I sprint to catch up. The smell of smoke wafts past. At first, I think it’s cigarette smoke, but there’s a rich textured smell about it that suggests otherwise.

  We reach the top of the zigzagging stairwell—the fifth floor. Julie pulls opens the screen door, then unlocks the door to her flat and leads me in. The blinds are drawn, so it takes me a while to discern the mess from the darkness: clothes strewn over a lumpy couch, bookshelves jammed with books (a combination of novels and self-help books), as well as books that litter the kitchen counter, the coffee table and television cabinet.

  ‘You must really like to read,’ I say.

  ‘All the time. After Mum passed away, reading became my best friend.’

  ‘I guess you could have worse best friends.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there.’

  Julie unceremoniously dumps my book on the coffee table, drops her keys on top, then opens a set of venetian blinds to a sliding glass door that adjoins the small concrete patio. Sunlight shoots greedily through the room. Julie picks up loose clothes, throwing them over one arm.

  Pictures sit in a neat line on a cabinet—most of them of a younger Julie, with a toothy smile, or Julie with a grey-haired woman whose triangular face drips into a pointed chin, and with those same big eyes. Paintings—well, prints—of seascapes hang on the walls.

  ‘I’m gonna have a really quick shower, okay?’ Julie says. ‘Be like ten, fifteen minutes tops. Make yourself at home. Don’t mind the mess. Feel free to help yourself to anything.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Julie heads off into a hallway, and a door slams closed. I sit on the couch and pick up one of the self-help books, flip it to the back cover and start to read the blurb. A clanking from the walls startles me; then the roar of water—the pipes. I put the book down, kneel by the television cabinet, and check out the DVDs. Most of them are classics—Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and other old movies. Julie went straight for a stupid romantic comedy last night. Perhaps these are her aunt’s—unless she didn’t want to appear the sophisticate in front of me, but she hardly seems pretentious.

  I get up, put my hands on my hips. The room rotates around me as I take it all in. I don’t know what I expected: Julie is—or has been so far—so composed and purposeful, but the flat is a mess. It doesn’t mean anything. Gen is a slob, and has gotten worse since the birth of Oscar—despite Pat’s best efforts. But at least Gen’s house feels like her.

  In the kitchen, the sink brims with dishes. I go over and turn on the taps. The pipes jangle so much I can almost see the walls shake. The water remains cold for almost a minute before anything hot comes out. I rifle through the cupboards under the sink and find soap and a grotty orange sponge. Fortunately, there’s a pack of four that’s been torn open. I tug out a new green sponge and get to work on the dishes, stacking them in the dish rack. By the looks of it, Julie hasn’t washed anything for days.

  I’m just finishing up when there’s a knock on the screen door, the figure behind it a shadow. I turn off the taps. The roar of a hair dryer funnels down the hallway from the bathroom. The knock comes again, but this time accompanied by a call.

  I go to the door and try to make out the visitor through the screen, but he remains a shadow.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I say.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  I know I shouldn’t, and even as I’m doing it I tell myself I shouldn’t, but I open the screen door. The caller’s my age but shorter, head shaved close, and he boasts a pointed goatee he must gel every morning to get it into shape. He wears a shiny mauve blazer and carries a takeaway cup of coffee in his hand.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I say again.

  He looks at me, at the number on the door, then at the door to the neighbour’s flat behind him, and back at me. He frowns and runs a hand over his head. ‘I must have the wrong place, man,’ he says.

  ‘Who’re you after?’ I ask.

  But he’s already jogging down the zigzagging stairwell. ‘Sorry, man!’ he calls over his shoulder.

  I close the screen door as Julie emerges from the hallway wearing a modest floral dress, a denim jacket folded over her right arm. Her hair’s in a plait.

  ‘Somebody here?’ she asks.

  ‘Some guy.’ I shrug. ‘Said he had the wrong place.’

  ‘Happens around here all the time.’ Julie checks the kitchen. ‘You did the dishes just like you said you would. You are a daredevil, aren’t you?’

  ‘I aim to please. The plumbing doesn’t sound too good, though.’

  ‘That’s why I wait until there’s a whole stack of dishes before I do them. I’m sure those pipes are gonna burst from the wall. Ready to go?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  10

  It’s not long before we’re back in Julie’s car. I fidget with the lever to get the chair to recline, and then find myself staring at the ceiling.

  Julie laughs. ‘Sorry—should’ve warned you that doesn’t work too well.’

  I sit up and pull the chair back until it’s almost perpendicular. It takes some jiggling and going back and forth—the chair creaking and protesting all the way—before I get the seat back the way it was.

  ‘I should also warn you,’ Julie says, ‘I’m a tightwad. I get every last ounce of mileage from everything I own. And then some.’

  ‘Saving up for something?’

  ‘Paying for my schooling, my aunt’s care, stuff like that—the insurance doesn’t cover it all. It adds up.’

  ‘And your flat?’

  ‘That’s under my aunt’s name. I probably should’ve even downsized that.’ Julie shrugs. ‘But it’s my aunt’s. I can’t get rid of it. I had enough trouble putting her in the home, and that was only because she needed around-the-clock care and this place is meant to be the best for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Are they her DVDs?’ I ask, and as this reveals I was snooping, I add quickly, ‘I saw them in the TV cabinet.’

  ‘She loves the classics. I do, too. But I don’t watch them without her. There are some at the home, too. If she’s having a good day, we might put one on.’ Julie sniffs, rummages through the centre console and pulls out a pair of oversized sunglasses. She puts them on, and lowers her sun visor. ‘We haven’t
watched one for a while.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘I pry. I get curious about things.’

  ‘It’s okay. Stop apologising.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Julie lowers her sunglasses and mock scowls at me.

  We leave the suburbs behind and follow the road through an area filled with new developments, estates that are skeletal frames, each the mirror of its neighbour, some with dirt roads that will one day become their drives.

  Development recedes to nature and I’m sure there’s nothing else out this way, but as the road rises up, a town unfolds before us. At first, I think it’s a matrix of farms spread out on greenery that’s like a rumpled tablecloth, but the houses are palatial with sprawling yards, and aside from pets, there’s no livestock.

  ‘You haven’t said much,’ Julie says.

  ‘I’ve never been out here before,’ I say. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Hidden Vale.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Grew from some other small town or something—it’s been here a while. Actually reminds me a bit of where I grew up with Mum—before she met Dream Guy.’

  ‘Dream Guy?’

  ‘It was me and Mum until I was eight. Then Mum met Dream Guy. He had two sons about my age. Dream Guy and Mum dated, a year later they were married and we’d moved into his house. Four years later, Mum had cancer, six months after that she was dead.’

  ‘So you went to live with your Aunt Zoe?’

  ‘I wish. I lived with Dream Guy. Dream Guy.’ Julie snorts. ‘Until he came into my room about a year after Mum died and started molesting me.’

  Julie’s eyes are fixed on the winding road. Her tone is flat—she could be talking about the weather.

  ‘Went on a while,’ Julie says. ‘Until I was fifteen. I saved up, ran away, came and lived with Aunt Zoe. She didn’t have much money, her health was always a bit fragile, but she worked and saved as much as she could to support us.’