by Minnie Darke
“That was my twelfth birthday,” Roma said. “My mother let me stay home from school.”
“It was my tenth,” Alison said. “I made a snow mouse in the front yard. There wasn’t enough for a man.” She continued, “We share our birthday with Julian Assange, did you know?”
“A typical Cancer if there ever was one,” Roma said.
“Tom Cruise not so much,” Alison said.
“But we have Kafka! And he’s more our style, don’t you think?” Roma asked.
Alison nodded. “Elusive, mysterious, creative.”
And on it went, for quite some time, with Justine feeling like a tennis spectator, until Alison and Roma’s tribal affiliations had been explored and confirmed, and a small and contented silence had settled on the table.
At last, Justine ventured to say, “You know, Roma, I’m a little surprised. I wouldn’t have picked you as somebody who was into astrology.”
Roma smiled and shared a conspiratorial glance with Alison, as if the two of them had not, ten minutes earlier, been in a tense standoff about the contemporary value of Renaissance drama.
“I think you’ll find most people have a guilty pleasure,” Roma said.
“Reading romance novels?” Alison suggested.
“Stealing fairy bread at children’s parties?” Roma said.
“Listening to the Carpenters?” Alison said, and Justine had the sneaking suspicion that this particular choice may not have been entirely random.
“Mine is just a little harmless predilection for the stars,” Roma said, and Justine could hardly have been more surprised if her famously ferocious colleague had revealed that her weekend hobby was Morris dancing.
Justine said, “But astrology is so…”
“Unscientific?” Roma suggested.
“Illogical?” Alison said.
“Well, yes.”
“Perhaps it’s to do with a desire,” Alison said dreamily, “to enter a different space. A place with different rules.”
Roma said, “For me, it’s a way of acknowledging that there are forces acting upon us, every day, every hour, that could make our choices auspicious, or doom our plans to failure. That we decide, and act, and react, from within a great web of competing powers.”
“But—” Justine started.
“Astrology provides the comforting illusion that these external forces can be known,” Alison said. “While at the same time reminding us that they are far beyond us, and far greater than us.”
“It’s a mystery,” Roma added.
“With just a hint,” Alison said, “of magic.”
Driving back to the Star that afternoon, Justine had the sense that she was piloting a capsule of daydreams through the streets of the city. The inside of the car was warm and quiet, and Roma, in the passenger seat, seemed lost in thought.
In the notebook that lay closed on Roma’s lap was a record of all that had been said during her second and much more successful attempt at interviewing Alison Tarf.
“What I am after is a wild convergence of theatrical styles and traditions,” Alison had said passionately, once she had warmed to her subject. “I want anyone and everyone who can bring something to this endeavor to get involved—everyone from opera singers to musical theater stars. There’s a Japanese Noh actor that I have my heart set on wooing. Doesn’t speak a word of English! I want television actors, rock stars, puppeteers, rappers…”
Maybe even actual actors, Justine had thought, and before lunch came to an end, she engineered a moment to speak to the director alone.
Now, she smiled to herself as she imagined the look on Nick’s face when she handed him one of Alison Tarf’s business cards and said, “She’s expecting your call.”
* * *
In the days that followed, Justine—having failed to track down an externally mandated curtain protocol—developed her own set of window-covering guidelines. They prescribed that on weekdays curtains were to be opened at 7:15 a.m., and closed at whatever time Justine got home in the evenings. On the weekends, curtains were to be opened at whatever time she got up, and closed at 5:25 p.m. This, Justine realized, would most likely turn out to be her Eastern Standard Time protocol. Come Daylight Saving, she would need to adjust.
It became obvious to Justine, however, that Nick had no correspondingly clear pattern; he seemed hardly to close his curtains at all, night or day. Most evenings when Justine—inadvertently, of course—glanced through her French doors and into his apartment, she found the place all in darkness. Occasionally, she would see the rooms lit up, but no sign of anybody within them.
One evening, while accidentally catching a glimpse into the next-door apartment, Justine saw a slender dark-haired woman showing two delivery men where to position a new and very comfortable-looking two-seater couch—a woman Justine recognized instantly. She stepped sideways so that she was concealed by the green damask, and twitched back a section of the fabric so she could peer between its edge and the window frame.
Verdi had been right. Even when wearing nothing more exciting than a pair of dark blue jeans and a bat-wing T-shirt, and even with her hair pulled into a messy bun and her face apparently au naturel, Laura Mitchell was stunningly beautiful.
Guiltily, compulsively, Justine watched as the delivery men took their leave and Laura kneeled down on the floor to cut away the plastic from a tightly rolled floor rug. She gave it a shove and the rug unfurled—wheat-colored and plush—to meet up with the edge of the new couch. There was no sign of Nick in the apartment.
When Laura disappeared out of the frame of the window, Justine knew that this was the perfect moment to close the curtains and stop snooping. Instead, she hovered for long enough to see Laura return with an armful of cushions in elegantly neutral shades, which she placed on the sofa, trying out several different formations. When she was satisfied with the cushions, Laura smoothed the pile of the rug with her bare feet. Then she reached up and let her dark hair out of its bun so that it fell down around her shoulders, and Justine watched as Laura stretched herself out on the couch, arranging her limbs every bit as artfully as she’d arranged the cushions.
Justine knew that she should look away, but before she could make a move Laura got up and walked to the window, as if Justine’s presence had somehow made itself felt. Laura peered through the glass and across the gap. Justine froze.
Justine: Shit! Can she see me?
Brain: Well, if you close your eyes, it’s going to be hard for me to tell, isn’t it?
Had Nick mentioned to Laura, Justine wondered, that his next-door neighbor was someone he knew? Had Nick ever mentioned Justine to Laura at all? And, if he had, would Justine’s existence bother Laura in the slightest? Justine doubted it. For another few seconds she stood still and held her breath, then watched with relief as Laura closed the curtains, concealing herself from view.
Soon, Justine supposed, Nick would arrive home to this surprise: new couch, new rug, new cushions, exquisite girlfriend. Justine further supposed—and experienced a little spike of envy at the thought—that the plush new floor rug would obviate any need for Nick and Laura to venture as far as the bedroom. And she knew, with a sinking heart, that all the horoscopes, mushrooms, toadstools and Katherine Mansfield in the world were going to fail in the face of that.
* * *
Another week passed and for all that time Alison Tarf’s business card waited, propped against a coffee jar on Justine’s kitchen counter. Then came a squally evening when Justine arrived at the twelfth-floor landing of Evelyn Towers having walked through the park without an umbrella. Her damp hair straggled over her forehead, and her feet squelched slightly in her low-heeled pumps. It was, she thought as she searched out her keys, one of those nights when she most wished she was coming home not to a cold and empty apartment, but to a warm house, a cooked meal and signs of life.
It
was, therefore, slightly magical when she opened the door of her apartment to find that the lights were on and the air was full of the rich smell of braising. The scent was unmistakable: her mother’s famous Moroccan lamb shanks. Further, there was a huge bunch of white roses in a vase on the dining-room table, and the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen.
“Mum?”
“Oh, she’s back,” Justine heard. And then, “Hi, honey!”
Mandy Carmichael, short and beaming, appeared at the kitchen door in stockinged feet and a cloud of recently applied perfume. A tea towel was tucked apron-wise into the waistband of her glittery evening skirt, and she had a flute of sparkling wine in her hand.
“Oh my Lord, you’re drenched,” she said.
One-handed, she tugged Justine’s wet coat from her shoulders and tousled her daughter’s hair. Satisfied that she had made an improvement, Mandy kissed Justine on the cheek. “Shit, I’ve lippied you,” she said, then rubbed vigorously at Justine’s skin with a practiced maternal thumb. “Now, come and see who’s here. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, you rat. Living right next door!”
And there, in Justine’s kitchen, leaning against the counter, also with a glass of sparkling wine, was Nick Jordan.
“Hey,” Nick said. He was wearing his slouchy jumper.
Mandy, while searching out a third wineglass, filling it and handing it to Justine, said, “Can you imagine? I went out onto the balcony to water that poor bloody fern you’ve got dying out there, and who should I see, right there on the balcony opposite, but Nicholas Mark Jordan! I held this boy in my arms the day he was born. Now look at the size of him.”
“Hi, neighbor,” Justine said.
“I’m so sorry, kids,” Mandy went on, slipping her feet into a pair of shiny high heels. “I’m meeting some girlfriends for dinner, and if I don’t get my skates on, I’m going to be late. Darling, I’ve made lamb shanks for you. Give them another half hour, though.” She stabbed at an earlobe with the hook of a dangly jet earring. “There’s couscous in the pantry. Why don’t you see if Nick’ll stay and eat with you? There’s enough here for an army. I have to watch her, you know, Nick. She hardly ever eats. She can go all day and outright forget to eat at all.” She subtracted the tea-towel apron from her outfit and fluffed her hair. “That never happens to me, worse luck.” She patted her rump to illustrate the point. “So sorry, Nick, love, but I have to go. Next time we’re in town”—Mandy paused briefly to swipe on an extra coat of lipstick, and squiggle her lips together sideways—“let’s have dinner. Hm?”
Nick opened his mouth to reply, but Mandy said, “Drew would so love to see you. And I want to hear all the news. Do give my love to your mother, won’t you?”
Nick tried to squeeze in a response, but only ended up looking like a goldfish. Justine smirked; perfect timing was required if you were going to get into a gap in a Mandy Carmichael monologue, and Nick was out of form.
“You know, I couldn’t count the times I’ve thought I must ring Jo, and then I think this is a terrible time, and so I think I’ll do it later, but of course later is always just as terrible. Tell her I’m sorry for being such a rotten friend, will you?”
Nick settled for a nod.
“It is so good to see you, Nick. You look wonderful,” Mandy said. “Really wonderful. I can’t believe it. Right next door! And she didn’t even tell me. Makes me wonder what else she’s hiding, hm? Right. I’m off.”
She kissed Justine goodbye, leaving another lipstick mark, and stretched up to land a smooch on Nick’s cheek.
“I won’t be back until late, so I most likely won’t see you until the morning, girly-bird. I’ll make breakfast, all right? I tell you, Nick, the girl never eats. Seriously, I’ve got to go. Bye!”
The kitchen, once Mandy had left, felt to Justine like a patch of desert in the wake of a whirlwind’s passing. She could imagine disturbed leaves and twigs twirling back down to the ground in the suddenly still air, leaving an empty, awkward silence.
“She hasn’t changed,” Nick offered.
“That is so,” Justine said.
And when that opening didn’t go anywhere, Nick said, “So, how’s work? Any more big stories in the pipeline?”
“Not this month,” Justine said, and then silence fell over the kitchen again.
“Shocking day,” Nick tried.
“I think the rain’s over, though.”
“At least your place is warm. Mine’s like the inside of an Esky.”
Justine ventured, “You really would be very welcome. To stay for dinner.”
“I’d love to,” Nick said. “I really would. But I have rehearsals starting in half an hour. It’s one of the drawbacks of semiprofessional shows, all these weekend and nighttime rehearsals.”
Ah, Justine thought, of course. That was why he was so rarely at home.
“Speaking of the theater,” Justine said, picking up Alison Tarf’s business card. “I have something for you.”
Nick took it. Squinted at the fine print. “Alison Tarf? The Alison Tarf?”
“Yes,” Justine said. “I met her last week. Through work.”
“And…?”
“And she’s launching a new company. Called Sideways Shakespeare. In the next few months, she’ll be looking for her core troupe. I hope you don’t mind, but I told her. About your Romeo. She said, and I quote, ‘I’ll expect a call.’ ”
Justine had played out this moment in her mind numerous times, but now that she was in the middle of it, she felt slightly exposed and embarrassed, as if she had overstepped some kind of invisible mark.
Nick didn’t say anything. He just looked at the card in his hand.
“I mean, if you don’t…” Justine began. “If it’s not your…I just thought it might…”
“Look, it was a really nice thought. An amazing thought,” he said. “And Alison Tarf—wow. I’d love to work with Alison Tarf, but…”
“But?”
Nick took a deep breath.
“I promised, you see. I promised my girlfriend. I promised her that once Romeo and Juliet was done, I’d look for more steady work.”
“Oh,” said Justine.
“Laura’s a Capricorn. And her rising sign is Leo. So you can imagine what kind of taste she has. In clothes, in wine, in jewelry.”
In floor rugs, thought Justine. And couches.
“I’m sorry, Justine,” Nick said. “I am really grateful that you bothered. With Alison Tarf, I mean. I should be so lucky as to audition for her.”
Justine nodded, and turned away from him in case her disappointment showed on her face. She slipped her hand into an oven glove and took the lid off Mandy’s huge Le Creuset casserole dish. Inside, thick juices were simmering, giving off a mouthwatering smell.
“I understand,” Justine said, poking ineffectually at the lamb shanks with a wooden spoon. “You made a promise.”
“Speaking of promises,” Nick said. “You promised to show me your mystery view. Can I see it?”
“What…now?”
“I don’t have to leave for, oh, quarter of an hour?”
Justine replaced the pot lid and thought for a second. “It might be a bit breezy.”
“Please?” he said, and the smile he gave her was vintage Nick Jordan. It could easily have been straight out of grade two: the sort he would deploy when she still had a Freddo frog in her lunch box and all he had left was a bundle of carrot sticks.
* * *
It seemed implausible that Fleur Carmichael had not known about the rooftop, but in all of the childhood summers that Justine had visited at Evelyn Towers, her grandmother had never once taken her there.
The door that led to the rooftop was not an obvious one. It was hidden in an alcove on the twelfth-floor landing, painted the same cream as the walls, and had only a small keyhole�
��no handle. Justine supposed that she had always assumed it was the kind of door that hid nothing more exciting than mop buckets, brooms and broken ladders.
When Justine had moved in to the apartment, her father had given her quite a large bunch of keys. There was the key that opened the front door to the apartment block, the one that opened her own front door, and the one for the French doors, but the purpose of the rest was a mystery. Then, on an idle Sunday, Justine had discovered that one of them opened the door on the landing, and that behind the door was a steep metal staircase.
The air in the stairwell this night was cold and still, but as Justine opened the door at the top, she was hit by a gust of freezing wind. Neither her shirtsleeves nor the thin knit vest she was wearing offered much in the way of insulation.
“Holy shit,” Nick said, following Justine out onto the rooftop. “This is awesome.”
In fact, the rooftop was nothing more prepossessing than a square of concrete, slick and shining from the evening rain, and furnished with a tilting clothes line, two empty planter boxes and a floodlight with a shattered bulb. Much more impressive was the view, which took in the city, the river and even the twinkling lights of the distant hills.
“I usually come up here for the fireworks on New Year’s Eve,” Justine said. “And it’s a pretty good place to watch the Alexandria Park film festival, too, just quietly.”
She had long intended to zhoosh the place up, she told him—get some outdoor furniture, put some herbs and flowers in the planter boxes. But so far, she hadn’t even managed to replace the bulb in the floodlight.
Standing at the roof edge, Justine shivered. Almost absentmindedly, Nick pulled his jumper, neckband first, over his head, and passed it in her direction. Underneath, he was wearing only a T-shirt, and Justine saw the skin of his arms immediately pucker into goose bumps from the shock of the cold.
“No, don’t,” Justine protested. “I’m fine, really.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re cold,” Nick said.