by Les Zig
But I have to try.
Have to know.
When I get home, I open a beer, sit on the couch, and try Julie a couple more times, but still the phone doesn’t connect. The dog-eared photo of Lisa and Bobby draws my attention, just as it has so often. I pull my gaze from it, pick up my scene cards and flick through them, but the words on them are meaningless, so instead, I prop two cards against one another to form a triangle. Carefully, I build a house around it, pause to admire my handiwork, then begin working on a second storey. And then a third. First, the triangle. Then the walls. But as I’m putting on the ceiling, the house collapses, the cards splattering over the photo of Lisa and Bobby.
That’s all it takes—one misstep. Then what? I clench my right fist. Julie fought on, despite everything that happened to her. But she knows who she wants to be. I understand now why she chose the phoenix tattoo and how it personifies her instead of all those silly ways I saw her initially—born from the ashes.
I pick the photo of Bobby and Lisa out from the cards, stroke Bobby’s face, lift the dog-ear, look at Lisa, her smile, so genuine, so warm, so loving, but hiding a lie. I tear the photo, tear it again, and tear it again and again until I can’t make the pieces any smaller, then dump them in the kitchen bin. The picture of my parents, as always, faces the wall. I turn it, and see only the finite time they were unaware they had remaining.
There’s no dramatic race to Julie’s place, and instead I find myself at the station, bouncing on my feet, counting down the eight minutes until the train arrives. Then it’s cursing every delay at every station, while still trying to work out if I’m doing this for the right reasons.
Once I get into the city, I have to swap lines to catch a train to Julie’s, but the next train isn’t for eighteen minutes, meaning I must’ve just missed one. I wait all of two minutes, then leave the station and jump in a taxi from the rank outside—something I should’ve done to begin with.
I give the driver the address and think of all the movie clichés, like offering the driver extra if he speeds there. There’s no urgency—not as far as I know—but that my phone doesn’t connect when I try to ring her worries me. Maybe she’s picked up and gone, started doing things on her fuck-it list since she has nothing to keep her here anymore.
That fear explodes when I reach her place and there’s a FOR LEASE sign outside the building. I pay the driver, run up to her door and knock. Nothing. I thump now, then try the door but it’s locked. Certainty rises in me that she is gone.
But I need to be sure.
Her patio juts out from the wall of her place, about one metre from the stairwell. I hop over the stairwell’s railing and balance myself. The ground looms below. A fall from here would definitely break several bones, if not kill me should the wrong part of me hit the ground first.
I take a deep breath and, before I have a chance to think about it, over-think it, or even consider what I’m doing, I jump, catch the patio balustrade, and scamper over the top of it, collapsing onto the floor of the patio. Belatedly, my heart thumps—it’s only hitting me now what I’ve done. I get to my feet and catch a glimpse of the ground over the patio balustrade; it rushes up to greet me so I pull back.
I press my face to the glass doors, trying to peer through the slats of the blinds, and I think I can see something—movement? Or I could be imagining it. The blinds clatter as they jump up, the door’s unlatched and I rear back as the glass door opens.
It’s the guy with the goatee—Griffin, in nothing but a pair of boxers. He has the toned physique of somebody who hits the weights regularly, and a dragon tattoo sprawls over his right shoulder and down his right pectoral, the tail disappearing into the waistline of his boxers.
‘What the fuck, man?’ he says. ‘What the fuck?’
Behind him, the flat is bare. Everything’s gone.
Griffin shoves me in the chest. ‘I said, what the fuck, man?’
‘I’m looking for Julie.’
‘This look like Julie’s place?’
‘It was Julie’s place.’
‘It’s mine now.’
‘There’s a “for lease” sign out the front.’
‘It’s mine until they find a tenant.’
‘What about Julie?’
‘She’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Sold what she could, put everything else in storage.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Overseas somewhere. Got her aunt’s …’ Griffin points at me. ‘You’re the boyfriend, aren’tcha? You’re the cunt who broke her heart.’
‘Yeah, I gue—’
I should see the punch coming, given its execution has no grace, but I’m so surprised that it’s coming that I stand there. Griffin’s fist hits me in the top half of my left ear. I stagger back into the balustrade and clutch at the side of my head and brace myself for another attack, but Griffin holds his ground.
‘What the fuck?’ I say.
‘That’s for hurting her!’
‘Who punches somebody in their ear?’
‘I was going for your nose!’
‘You got me in the ear!’
‘I said I was going for your nose.’
‘You aim like shit.’
‘I’ve never thrown a punch before.’
‘So, me?’ I say. ‘That’s who you decide to hit?’
‘You broke her fucking heart. She didn’t trust anybody, but she was coming to trust you, and you broke her heart.’
‘We established that. Can you tell me where she went?’
Griffin shrugs. ‘She’s got her aunt’s service today, then she’s taking a plane out.’
‘Her aunt’s service? Where’s that? Can you tell me?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not gonna tell me?’
‘I don’t know. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you—you broke her heart, man. You broke her heart.’
‘Okay, okay, we’ve covered that.’
‘I want you to know.’
‘Can I use the door to get out?’
Griffin thinks about that for a moment. ‘Yeah, sure.’
I step inside Julie’s lounge—or what was once Julie’s lounge. No pictures. No furniture. Nothing. Just like that, people go from your life, and you never know when it may happen.
As I run down the stairs from Julie’s place, I already have my phone out. The first call is for a taxi; the second call is to an operator to get the number for the home Zoe was in; the third call is to the home, where I pose as a friend of the family and ask if they have any details for the service. Fortunately, they have. They give me the name of a church and tell me the service is at 1.30.
It’s 1.42 now.
I pace back and forth on the street corner, waiting for this taxi, cursing every false alarm, then I type the address into my phone. It’s not as far as I thought—twenty minutes to walk.
I sprint.
It’s only one hundred metres before I’m struggling to breathe, and the next one hundred my throat burns. I push myself until my feet ache, my right calf threatens to cramp, and a sharp pain cuts below my right ribs. I whiz across the road and zigzag through traffic; cars honk at me but don’t slow. Sweat streams from my temples and my body screams for me to stop, but I ride it, ride it from sheer stubbornness, until everything’s a blur and it’s just me and my pounding feet.
The church is small and ancient, shrouded in overgrown greenery. The rear parking lot is empty except for Julie’s car. I stop when I see it, chest heaving, and push my hair back over my head. I double over and cough and smell the sweat thick on my body.
This is it—now or never.
I quietly enter the church, into a foyer filled with candles, and duck into the last pew. Julie stands at the front, behind a podium, in her trademark leather jacket and a pair of jeans, her head down as she talks. A silver urn and a picture of her aunt sit on a pedestal to her right. There’s nobody else here, nothing but Julie’s sniffles and quavering voice as they
echo through the church, and shafts of sunlight that flicker through the stained windows.
‘“… something that’s a cliché but true about life, is that life isn’t fair”,’ Julie says. ‘“You can want things so badly that you can feel them, you can feel them so deep inside that you’re a breath away from willing them into existence. You can work for things so hard that it seems inevitable that they should happen for you, but the world doesn’t work like that. Sometimes, all you get is the unfairness, the bad luck, the tragedies and pain and heartbreak, and you’re left with nothing but the misery, and all that you have in the end are the people who help you get through it, who stand with you, are there for you, and always want to be there for you. That’s when things don’t seem so unfair, don’t seem so bad, and when you go to bed, before you drift off, you think about that g–glimmer of hope that might be the dawn of something new. That’s who A–Aunt Zoe was to me. I’ve done th–th–things I’m not proud of, that I have to live with, but without her, I don’t know what I would’ve done, or if I … if I would’ve … would’ve lived at all …”’
Julie folds in on the podium and sobs. I move quietly down the aisle, and put a hand on her back. Red eyed, tears staining her face, snot from her nose, she shoves me back.
‘G–g–get a–away!’ she says. ‘I’ve g–got to …’ A fresh bout of sobs wrack her chest.
I try to fold one arm around her again and again she pushes me away, but she does let me guide her to the first row of pews, where she sits down, and drops her face in her hands. I try once more, tentatively now, to put a hand on her back, but she absently swipes at me, even as she cries—cries I recognise, because I made them once, after accepting what Lisa had made of my life, and what I decided to do with my life that night in the tub with a utility knife.
Julie’s tears show no signs of abating, and maybe this isn’t solely about her aunt but everything she’s been through. If we hadn’t broken up—if I hadn’t broken us up—I’d be sitting by her side now, cradling her to my chest, the way a partner does at a time like this, but since I know she won’t let me do that, I go up to the podium, and look at her eulogy, scribbled in red pen, amendments everywhere in various other colours, the paper so crinkled she must’ve started this thing years ago.
‘“… or if I would’ve lived at all”,’ I read. ‘“We meet so many people through the course of our lives, and they all contribute to the people we are, and the people we become.”’
Julie, bleary eyed, starts to get up, but stops.
‘“Only a few people are special enough to help us become who we aspire to be deep in our hearts”,’ I read. “Life isn’t about what we are. I’ve met so many people with lofty titles who probably think they’re deserving of sainthood, or knighthood, or deification. It’s about who we are. I came to Aunt Zoe fractured and rebellious but she taught me to love and to accept and to see the good in people, instead of … instead of focusing on the bad. Aunt Zoe helped make me the person I am. I will always love her for that, and while nobody else will remember her, while nobody else is here with me to celebrate her and honour her, I will always remember her and treasure her. I love you, Aunt Zoe. You will always be a part of me.”’
That’s it. I fold Julie’s speech. She glowers at me, although some of the stiffness has gone from her body.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
Julie sniffs, pulls a handkerchief from her pocket, blows her nose and wipes her eyes. ‘I don’t blame you,’ she says. ‘You responded like everybody does. It’s just the way things are.’
‘I want to prove that I’m different to everybody else.’
Julie leans back in the pew. ‘That’s sweet, but I just don’t think it’s you.’
‘Don’t tell me who I am.’ I come around the podium to stand before her. ‘It might’ve taken me a while, but I know who I am.’
Julie gets up, sidesteps me, and takes the urn and the picture of her Aunt Zoe from the pedestal, and her speech from the podium. ‘I’m going to walk the Camino de Santiago.’ She starts down the aisle. ‘Scatter my aunt’s ashes. Plane leaves in a couple of hours.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘I’ll get the soonest flight out and meet you there. We’ll do it together.’
‘Very funny.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘So, suddenly, you can accept what I’ve been, what I’ve done, who I am?’
I grab Julie by the arm and she spins around. Anger flashes across her face. I know now—seeing her angry, having seen her snotty and bawling and vulnerable, having seen her laid bare in a way I never have, standing here before her with her eyes ablaze, poised to fight and beat me senseless if she needs to get past me—that, yes, no matter what, I accept her.
‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ I say. ‘It’s me. I’m a freak. I ask you to be patient with me—me and my freakery.’
The anger seeps from Julie’s face. ‘August, you’re sweet,’ she says, ‘you really are, and you say all the right—’
I seize her and kiss her, holding her tight in my arms. Her body is rigid, but she doesn’t fight me off, and at first, her lips are pressed thinly together and she holds them that way for what must be all of ten or fifteen seconds, but then she begins to kiss me back.
‘Well?’ I say when we break apart.
Julie smiles the tiniest of smiles. ‘It’s just a kiss.’
‘What’ll convince you then? Sex? Is that it?’ I pull my jacket off. ‘You need a grand gesture?’ I pull my shirt over my head, drop it on top of my jacket. ‘Okay.’ I’m halfway through pulling my T-shirt over my head when she grabs my arms.
‘We’re not going to have sex, in a church, just after my aunt’s service,’ she says, and her eyes dart behind me.
Through the fabric of my T-shirt, I see a priest has emerged from one of the doors at the top end of the church. He makes the sign of the cross in front of himself, and then moves on. I turn back to Julie, look at her through the material of my T-shirt, still veiled over my head.
Julie picks up my shirt and jacket, then tugs my T-shirt down. ‘All this other stuff aside,’ she says, ‘we haven’t known each other that long. You might discover you don’t like my attitudes on politics, or you might object that I’ve always wanted to own a Leonberger.’
‘Don’t care about politics, and don’t know what a Leonberger is.’
‘It’s a dog.’
‘I love dogs.’
‘The point is, you mightn’t like who I am—who I truly am. There are times recently I’ve wondered if I even like who I am, or who I’ve become.’
‘You mightn’t like who I am,’ I say.
‘Do you like who you are?’
The question takes me by surprise and I blink at her. ‘Sorry?’
‘Do you like who you are?’
I almost say Yes, because that would be the natural thing to say, but Julie’s big eyes are so earnest—that right one just a little bit narrower—that I can’t help but stop and think about the question, truly think about it, and what unravels is a history of fear, of the way I became so twisted up when I was with Lisa, how I’ve become so neurotic and frightened and taken a path that’s meant nothing to anybody, let alone myself, like all I’m doing is marking time, waiting for something, waiting to be saved. I know I’m heading the right way now, but I also know that it’s not going to be easy, that there’ll be missteps, but I’m determined. It’ll be life as it should be, no matter what hits next.
‘I’m okay.’ I shrug. ‘I guess I could be better.’
‘I think we both need to take a little bit of time to find ourselves.’ Julie strokes my face. ‘I have stuff I need to do—for me. And I think you do, too. You seem different today. You are different. Everything you’ve said is sweet and I’m sure deep down, you mean it, and I do really like you, but I think this is what each of us needs to do right now.’ She leans in, kisses me, but now it’s a feather on my lips. ‘Somewhere, sometime, I’m sure we’ll see each other again. Right?�
��
I don’t know what to say.
‘Right?’
‘I hope so,’ I say.
She walks past me and down the aisle. Things leap through my head, stuff I can say to try hold onto her. But the thoughts fizz out as a melancholy takes hold, a reconciliation about the truth, that she’s right, and all the sadness and anger and hopelessness diffuses until it washes over me and something closes in my mind—a door on the darkness and self-pity that’s been cast over my life for who knows how long and shadowed every decision I’ve made.
Then, a spark lights up inside my head, and it’s not because of some great, final epiphany about myself—I think I’ve explored myself as much as I can and now, from hereon, it’s new territory. This spark is about Julie: I see that her greatest strength, the thing I should learn from her, is that she doesn’t need me to complete her or accept her or approve of her. No matter what anybody thinks of her, she’s an unsullied flame, pure and brilliant and burning, and that’s what fuels her strength.
‘Hey!’ Julie says. She’s a silhouette in the afternoon sun that blazes through the church doorway. She taps the back of her head. ‘Cute ponytail.’
Then she’s gone.
30
So here I am ten weeks later in the community theatre, sitting in the third row. I have a job in a bookstore (the Independent, no less) because that helps pay the bills, but right now, my play sits on my lap, and I watch a parade of actresses get up on stage and audition for me.
Now it’s a young woman with frizzy red hair and a crescent smile that’s all teeth but wholly honest—she’s not smiling because that’s what’s expected of her, but because she’s excited and happy to be here, to be given a chance, and this is probably the first step towards pursuing her dreams.