August Falling

by Les Zig

  I need to digest everything that’s happened, and somehow, somehow, I need to make sense of it.

  At some point, I drift off, or at least I think I do—it’s hard to tell if I’m asleep for sure—but I become aware of a crick in my neck and a chill settling on my arms, and no covers to bury myself under. Everything is still. There’s no music from the neighbours’. There’s nothing but the emptiness of the early morning.

  This is life now. I’m certain of that. This emptiness. This darkness. This nothing. As bad as I’ve felt over the last few days, this is when it crashes down on me—this is my whole life, and as much as I know Gen makes sense, I have not even the smallest hope that anything will ever turn out differently for me. The truth may be simpler: maybe it’s not Lisa who’s the problem, or Julie, but me.

  Just me.

  I pick up the scotch bottle, start to drink, but then think that even that is pointless—heartbroken and getting drunk to dull the pain, downing a drink I don’t even particularly like.

  I hurl the bottle at the wall. It shatters and sprays me and the bathroom in scotch and shards of glass. A big piece of glass clatters into the tub and skitters up by my right hand. I pick it up, hold it before my eyes and examine it.

  Sharp. Jagged. Opaque. Sharp. Glass. Sharp.

  I press it to the scar on my right wrist. The scar leers at me. I shove the glass deeper until the pain rears up my arm. Blood squeezes out and runs down my wrist. Then I see Julie holding my hand in the car yesterday. I think about what she’s gone through, what she’s had to go through. The glass tumbles from my hand. I clamber out of the tub, my muscles stiff. Stepping carefully around the broken glass, I wash the wound in the sink and leave the bathroom.

  Bed becomes a refuge and mutes Gen’s plea that I’ve got to try. As morning comes and I hear the neighbourhood awaken around me, it still seems too hard, although I know I’m being petulant, and I tell myself I’m being petulant, but still I don’t want to move. I stay in bed until the afternoon, and only get out to use the toilet again and find my phone. The cracked glass on the face of the phone stares at me, but there’s nothing behind it, although I don’t know what I expect. I don’t know how I’d handle a message from Julie—and I’m honest enough to admit that I want to see some evidence of her hurting, of her wanting me, although I’d probably only rebuke her again because I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. An idiot.

  The afternoon whiles away and when my phone buzzes, my heart thumps. But it’s only Ronnie asking how I am. I tell him I’m okay, flip over, and glare out the window until it gets dark, which makes me realise that Gen hasn’t called at her usual time. I sleep again and when I wake everything’s still. It must be early morning. I grab the phone, but it doesn’t respond so it must be dead. Now I do get up, find the charger, unplug the clock radio—it’s 3.33am—and plug in the charger and the phone. I wait until the phone has enough power so I can reactivate it, but when it comes on there’s nothing—no messages, no missed calls. Of course; the world’s not stopping while I’m in here. I flip onto my back, sleep a little, wake at first light, get a drink of water, make a sandwich, then go back to bed.

  Now I see glimmers. What I need to do is find another job, although my savings can tide me over—for a little while at least. I could go somewhere. Maybe that’s a better idea. Do something. See something. Get away from it all. The possibility excites and terrifies me. Julie wanted to see things; how many of her plans were forsaken because she had to take care of her aunt? I’m unencumbered. I should just go. Maybe I will, although I’ve never travelled. I check my phone. Nothing from Gen. Again. She’ll be fighting a battle not to check up on me. Pat will tell her she babies me too much. She does. So maybe it’s just better that I go. I plot destinations—I could go overseas. Or maybe interstate. Maybe I could relocate. It might be worth starting fresh. Through the new day—what is it? Thursday?—I explore possibilities. I don’t think I’m being genuine, but at least there are other things in my head. I need to move. Literally. I need to get up and start doing things. I’m starting to smell, too. And my stomach cramps. Not to mention the light-headedness. When was the last time I ate? It was that sandwich. This is dumb. Lying here. I turn to the window. Dim light. Evening? No, early morning, because I can hear the birds.

  My phone rings and my heart thumps again. Julie? Or Gen, finally giving in? But I don’t recognise the number. ‘Hello?’ I say.

  ‘August?’ A man’s voice. ‘It’s me. Boyd.’

  ‘Oh. Hi.’

  ‘I’m in a bit of a bind, August, and you can obviously say no because you no longer have any obligation to us—Harold Weekes, the man you shouted at?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘He’s lodged an official complaint. Now I don’t know how far he wants to take this, but it could all be solved with an apology.’

  ‘An apology?’

  ‘If I could arrange a sit-down,’ Boyd says, ‘where you come in—and I could coach you beforehand—and tell him you’re sorry, this’ll all be resolved. Again, there’s no obligation—’

  I sit up. ‘It’s okay. When?’

  ‘Monday, 11.30?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Thanks, August. I appreciate it.’

  I hang up, get out of bed, eat a sandwich, make some scrambled eggs, and drink some juice. Breakfast feels weird so early, and while it’s good to eat, the cramps in my stomach sharpen until I end up sitting on the toilet. Afterwards, I clean the bathroom, gathering up the glass and throwing it outside. Then I clean the floor with a series of damp towels, since I have no mop. Done, I shower, shampooing and scrubbing myself repeatedly. I emerge from the bathroom just as I hear the neighbourhood starting up for the day.

  I gather up my sheets, pillowcase, cover and dirty clothes and towels from the floor and the hamper, stick them in my laundry bag, and walk—among the people heading for work, and kids ambling to school—to the laundromat several doors down from the Carpet Duke. The stupid neon duke lauds over me, like it’s laughing, mocking me. I try to ignore it and head into the laundromat.

  The spin cycle of the washing machine has a mesmeric effect that’s almost peaceful. I check my phone. Nothing. So I message Gen, tell her I’m okay and thank her for always being there for me. But in writing that—and her response comes back shortly: Will always be there for you! X—I accept that it’s not since Lisa that Gen has been babysitting me, but since our parents died. Lisa relieved her of some of those duties. And even Julie did to an extent. As I think of Julie, I think of her smiles and excitement and the way she encouraged me.

  On Saturday, I’m so sure Julie will call, it twists me up until I’m hovering over the phone and can’t focus. I try to reason with myself, tell myself she’ll be with her Aunt Zoe now, and even if she does call what am I going to do? I need to let go. It’s that simple.

  Still, when the phone rings just after six—when Julie would be driving home from visiting her aunt—I’m almost too nervous to look at who’s calling. It’s Gen.

  ‘I’m sorry if I came down hard on you—’

  ‘It’s okay. I deserved it.’

  ‘Have you …?’ Nothing now but silence, pregnant with the unasked question: Have you heard from Julie? And, usually, Gen would leave the silence as bait that I’d take, but as if realising it’s imprudent, she fills it herself. ‘You should come over for dinner again soon,’ she says.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘No time like the present. You should get out. What do you say?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Then we’ll see you tomorrow. Around six or seven.’

  ‘Okay.’

  After she hangs up, I put on a movie and fall asleep on the couch, but that’s okay, because there are less memories of Julie on the couch than there are in bed.

  On Sunday, I resign myself to this being the way things are and tell myself I need to find a direction—it doesn’t have to be a good direction, just a direction. I
take another long walk, then over a sandwich for lunch, go online and check the classifieds, then look at holidays that I could take. Each prompts me to pursue the other, so begrudgingly, I decide I need another choice, although I don’t know what that would be.

  My phone begins vibrating in my pocket. I fish it out with the same anticipation of the last week, but again it’s a number I don’t recognise.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, August?’ A man’s voice, deep, cultured, and familiar.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘This is Don—Don Talbot. We met at my book launch and Julie gave me your book to read.’

  ‘Oh. Of course.’

  ‘I’ve read your book, I enjoyed it very much, and I would like to talk to you about it.’

  I’m aware I’m holding my breath, and let it out slowly. The anticipation grows into excitement.

  ‘When are you free? I have Monday and Wednesday mornings free, and Tuesday and Thursday after—’

  ‘Monday morning’s perfect,’ I say, thinking of having to apologise to Weekes. ‘I’m going to be in the city.’

  I hear pages being turned. ‘I can squeeze you in at ten. How does that sound?’

  ‘Sure. Sure, that’d be great.’

  We work out the details and hang up. Then I sit back and look at the cracked glass face of my phone. Questions I should’ve asked barrel through my mind and I’m tempted to call back. It’s an opportunity that exists thanks to Julie. I see her face, her smile, her hurt, and guilt wells up inside me.

  That’s when the phone vibrates again in my hand and begins ringing.

  26

  I lift my trembling hand to the door, brace myself, then knock.

  Nothing.

  I knock again. None of the neighbours are outside, and everything is deserted. The wind whips across me, blowing my hair in my face, right over my eyes. I wait for the wind to clear my hair, but the same clumps of it keep beating at me.

  I brush them back, knock one final time and decide that’s it, but then I hear them: footsteps coming to the door. I take a step back. The door swings open. Her hair’s wet and she’s in a crimson silk bathrobe, with black trimming and an elegant floral pattern on it.

  She smiles at me, draws herself up straight, almost imperially, then sighs, and as the air goes out of her, her shoulders slacken and it’s like the defensiveness is gone too. She’s pretty then—pretty in that way she first appealed to me.

  ‘Hey,’ Lisa says.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I’ve been running behind all day. I thought I could sneak in a quick shower.’

  She holds up her hands, like she’s about to hug me, but I don’t respond—not because I’m trying to send a message, but because I don’t know what the etiquette is in a situation like this, or whether I’m crazy to be here.

  ‘Come in.’

  Lisa steps aside and I enter the house. It’s warm. That’s the first thing I notice—Lisa always had the internal heating on higher than it needed to be, like she operated in a different climate to the rest of us. Then it’s the floors. They’re hardwood. When I lived here, there was an ugly floral carpet.

  ‘Let’s go into the lounge,’ Lisa says.

  Everything’s different. There’s a new leather couch that curls around the room, a glass coffee table (it used to be this big, clunky wooden one with drawers), a curved plasma, and a couple of abstracts hanging on the wall that are just gaudy enough to be expensive, whereas we never had anything. In one corner, Bobby’s toys are packed neatly into a mesh toy basket. They used to be everywhere—you couldn’t take a step or sit down anywhere without hitting one.

  ‘What do you want to drink?’ Lisa says. ‘Tea? Coffee?’

  ‘Coffee’s fine.’

  Lisa goes into the adjoining kitchen to make a coffee, while I scour the pictures on display: most are of Bobby, usually playing; some of Lisa hugging Bobby; a couple of Lisa and Alex, stiff, almost uncomfortable; and just one of the three of them, although Bobby’s pulling away from Lisa and Alex’s mutual embrace. The thought jumps into my mind that he’s coming to me.

  ‘I came to see you the other week,’ Lisa says, from the kitchen.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I came to see you. Where you work.’

  ‘Worked.’

  ‘What?’ The kettle boils, and Lisa pours water into two cups.

  ‘I’m not there anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Stuff.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lisa frowns as she digests that. ‘So you don’t have a job?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I’m talking to a professor tomorrow morning about my book.’

  ‘Your book?’

  ‘The one I was writing when we were together.’

  ‘Who’s this professor?’

  ‘He’s a published author I met,’ I say, trying to downplay it. ‘He said he liked it and he wants to talk to me about it.’

  ‘Where’s that going to get you?’

  I shrug.

  ‘What about an actual job?’

  Lisa brings the two cups of coffee over. I lean across to the coffee table, grab two coasters, and put them out. She smiles at me and rests the cups on the coasters, then sits beside me.

  ‘Even I’m working school hours now,’ she says.

  It takes more than a few moments for my memory to scramble together that Lisa had been the events coordinator for a caterer—not that she’d enjoyed it. It was a path she’d fallen into, looking for something out of school, her dad driving her to find a career.

  ‘You’re back with, um, the caterer?’ I say—his name escapes me.

  ‘No,’ Lisa says, then grins. ‘I’m working for Dad now—to earn a little bit extra. He pays me in cash.’

  ‘That’s nice … I guess.’

  ‘You looking?’ she asks.

  ‘Looking?’

  ‘For work.’

  I nod.

  ‘For?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Maybe you could go work for Dad again,’ Lisa says, exactly in that offhand way she did when we first married and she suggested I work at the Carpet Duke. ‘He’s got five stores now. There’s one not far from where you live.’

  My mouth drops open. She doesn’t take a backwards step.

  ‘Yes, I found out where you live because I wanted to talk to you. Imagine working there. You were good at it. And it would be convenient. Even like old times.’

  ‘Like old times?’

  ‘I could arrange it so you start tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Wait, I just told you I’ve got something on tomorrow morning—’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon then—’

  ‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘Wait. Stop. You need to explain what’s going on. After what happened, it’s crazy that I’m even here, but I wanted to hear what you had to say.’

  ‘I wanted to apologise.’

  ‘Apologise?’

  ‘An apology’s not enough. How can it be enough?’

  Now I do get up. ‘You’re right—how can it be enough? You cheat on me for five years. You give me a son who you take away. Then you call me, like all we did was fight over the colour of the curtains.’

  Lisa reaches out for my hands but I pull back. She sniffles, which is not Lisa’s way.

  ‘I can’t change the reality of who Bobby’s father is,’ she says. ‘I can’t—’

  ‘Can you change fucking another man for five years?’

  ‘I can’t change any of it, okay? I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Bobby misses you. He’s never bonded with Alex; Alex barely tries. The day he moved in, I knew it was all wrong. You and I got together so young, and everything was so regimented. I was stupid because I fell for the allure of something that was different, that had no rules—’

  ‘So I bored you?’

  ‘It wasn�
�t about you. Not in that way. It was about the situation. It was about me being messed up.’

  ‘Lisa, what do you want?’

  Lisa rises and takes a step towards me. I step back, right into the red silk curtains—they used to be brown and velvet. Lisa steps forward again and I have nowhere to escape, short of jumping out the window. She takes my hands and squeezes them.

  ‘I made the biggest mistake of my life with Alex,’ she says. ‘But sometimes you have to lose something to realise how much you appreciate it.’

  I pull my hands clear and hold them away from her. ‘So you think after everything that happened, this is it? What about Alex? Where’s he in all this? Have you broken up? Is that why you’re doing this?’

  Lisa’s jaw sets and her eyes flare. ‘Is that what you think? He dumped me, so I come running back to you?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a good possi—’

  ‘For your information, we’re still together. He’s on a work trip for the week, so I thought this was the best time to talk to you—I came to see you at work, but then decided that wouldn’t be fair on Bobby, or you, to see each other for just the day if things didn’t work out. It’s been hard on Bobby. I’m sure it’s been hard on you.’

  Lisa’s eyes dart to my wrist. With my hands held up, my shirt cuff has slid down to reveal the gleaming scar, as well as the small scab where I pricked myself. I snap my hands down.

  ‘I’m not expecting things to be fine just like that,’ she says. ‘But I thought maybe we could try seeing each other. Like dating.’

  ‘Like dating?’

  ‘Like dating.’ Lisa smiles, then unties her robe and lets it fall from her body.

  She’s naked underneath. Of course she is—she’s just gotten out of the shower. Maybe she even planned it all this way. Her body is familiar yet alien—pale, her breasts full and round, her pubic hair a designer strip, and her legs and hips taut from exercise.

  ‘Whoa, hang—’ I say.

  Her lips are cold on mine, her right hand a feather on my cheek, her left hand at my crotch, unzipping my pants, and reaching in. In her eagerness, she pulls my pubic hair and I yelp into her kiss, but she finds me soon enough and runs her hand up and down.

  I lose myself for several seconds and enjoy the feel of a woman against me, kissing me, the way her tongue intertwines with my own, the swell of her breasts as they push into me, the way her hand closes around me and, the feeling as I lower my own hands to her hips, her softness, her warmth, and the way she yields to me.