Our Magic Hour (10 page)

‘I'm sorry.'

‘We both are,' said Nick. He touched her hair. ‘Come on. We're here now.'

Audrey didn't know if she could face her mother, but they pressed on through the
gate.

Bernie was inside already. He'd brought Hazel, who was helping David pour drinks.
She sat back down next to Bernie on the couch and answered Sylvie's incessant questions
with a beatific calm, limbs folded neatly.

‘It's getting serious,' Audrey said, watching the three of them. ‘She's the first
girl he's ever brought home.'

‘Who'd want to bring anybody home to this?' Irène said. ‘Listen to Maman carrying
on. You'd think we were in a gulag.'

Audrey looked at her sister, but Irène would not lift her eyes. She worked the salad
servers like oars.

At the dinner table:

‘How was Perth, David?' said Nick.

‘Remember that time the car broke down in Kaniva, and there was a mouse plague, and
there were mice in the motel room…' said Bernie.

‘We wanted to renovate the kitchen, but it'd need to be done before the baby arrives,'
said Irène.

‘I want to do physiotherapy, but I don't know if my marks'll be good enough,' said
Hazel.

‘Nick, you have worked today?' said Sylvie.

‘Emy leaves for Chiba on Friday,' said Nick.

‘It's really incredible to just be surrounded by that much old stuff. We did a tour
of the Zapotec ruins,' said David.

‘What do you want to do for your birthday, Maman?' said Audrey.

‘Audrey, you drink too much,' said Sylvie.

Bernie smirked. ‘Runs in the family.'

Audrey felt something give. She set her wineglass on the table. ‘Fuck off, Bern.'

‘Don't talk like that
à ton frère.
'

‘Oh, nice,' Audrey said. Nick squeezed her thigh under the table. She turned to her
brother with his idiot grin. ‘I look after you. I cook you meals and pay your rent
when you forget. Don't insult
me
, you shithead.'

‘Hey,' Irène said, gesturing to Zoe, ‘can you just calm down?'

Bernie shrugged.

Later he asked for a ride. Hazel kept saying
Thank you
as she and Bernie got out
of the car. She stood on the nature strip, face politely turned, while Bernie tapped
on the passenger-side window. Audrey rolled it down.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Come on, Bern. You're not sorry.'

‘I am,' he said. He shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I feel bad.'

‘You feel bad because I lost it in front of your girlfriend.'

‘If I'd wanted to impress her with my acute masculine sensitivity, I would've apologised
in front of her.' He glanced over his shoulder to where Hazel stood, still looking
down the street. ‘I wouldn't have said it in the first place. It was just a goddamn
quip
. I'm an idiot. I'm
sorry.' He grimaced at the cold.

‘It's okay,' Audrey said. ‘Don't worry about it. We'll call it a night.'

‘Thanks for the lift home. See ya, Nick.'

‘Take it easy.'

Nick waited for them to wave from under the security light and disappear inside the
house before he pulled away from the kerb.

‘He really knows which buttons to press,' he said as they started up Punt Road. ‘You
never take the bait.'

‘He doesn't get it.' Nick had the heat on too high. She wondered if she'd feel sick
again going home or if that had passed.

In bed they fucked savagely, knocked tooth to tooth. Audrey pulled at his hair and
bit his lip and felt something had given way. Afterwards Nick lay on his back and
stared at the ceiling, and Audrey lay on her side and stared at him.

‘Just tell me what to do,' Nick said at last.

‘You don't have to do anything. It's all right.'

‘Yeah, you looked all right when we were driving to Irène's,' he said. ‘You were
all white around the mouth.'

‘I'm fine, Nick.' He shifted to face her. Their bodies mirrored each other. ‘I wish
I hadn't yelled at Bern,' she said.

Nick traced a finger down her arm, let it rest on her hip. She felt sharp and sexless.

Audrey caught the 86 tram to Nicholson Street when she finished at the office. She
waited for Nick in the Carlton Gardens, opposite the hospital. She walked in slow
circles around the pond. When he didn't come she sat on a bench and moved her toes
in her boots. First he sent her a message to say he was running late. Then he called
and told her not to wait.

‘I don't know how long I'll be stuck here,' he said. ‘Don't sit in the cold.'

She walked over to the university to meet Adam instead. He was waiting for her at
the corner where the old Women's Hospital had been, bouncing from foot to foot, wearing
a Christmas jumper and his spectacles. Audrey felt a rush of tenderness for him.

‘You look well,' she said.

‘I feel fantastic at the moment.'

They started walking without deciding on a direction.

‘Have you seen Olivia this week?' Audrey asked.

‘Yeah. I was a bit of a fuck-up last Tuesday, so I went back this morning. But we're
making the appointments fortnightly from now on. She's pretty sharp. We cover a lot
of ground.' He shifted his backpack. ‘I don't know if it's sort of psychosomatic,
or something? You know, I ought to feel better, since I'm spending all this money
and time on a
mental-health plan
. Maybe I've almost tricked myself.'

‘Do you think that matters, though? If you feel better?'

‘You're probably right. Hang on, where are we?'

They stopped. They'd walked as far as the cemetery. On the other side of the road,
light from the residential colleges glowed in yellow squares. ‘Come on,' he said.
‘Let's get something to eat. I'm starving.'

They ended up over his side of the city. It was almost like old times. Adam walked
quickly, in grand strides; he was finishing his teaching placement, he'd gone out
every night that week, he had lungfuls of stories to tell, he reached across the
table to pinch a slice of pizza from Audrey's plate. Once he stopped mid-sentence,
and she turned to follow his gaze. Bernie was standing outside the restaurant, waving
at them through the window, hand-in-hand with Hazel. They stepped inside. Bernie
made the introductions like a gentleman, and then they left.

‘What's Bern doing looking so normal? And who's Hazel? You didn't tell me he had
a girlfriend.'

‘Yes, I did,' Audrey said, watching them through the glass. ‘I
don't know if they're
really together. But she came to dinner at Irène's.'

‘That probably constitutes togetherness.' Adam, too, watched their departing backs.
Bern glanced over his shoulder, saw them looking, and gave a little fingery wave.
‘He looks like you. It's funny, because you don't have the same mannerisms at all—he's
getting bizarrely Warholesque—but physically, he could be your twin.' Audrey emptied
a sugar sachet onto the table, and began tracing a fleur de lys with her fingertip.

‘I was one of twins,' she said. She hadn't known she was going to.

‘What? I didn't know that.'

‘Well, there you go. Fun fact.'

‘How come you're not a twin any more?' Adam asked.

‘Just one of those things. Maman always said it was Darwin's theory.'

‘What?'

‘Natural selection or whatever. Some things are better adapted to their environments,
and they outlive the things that aren't. The others just disappear. It happened way
before I was even born.' She went on pushing the sugar crystals around on the tabletop.

She couldn't sleep.

At night, when Nick was setting up the coffee pot for the next morning, and the traffic
noises dropped away, she felt that desperation start to set in, the plunging sadness.

When she did doze it was under a light and patchy gauze. She had strange dreams—of
dead dogs frozen in the kiddie pool in the backyard; of making confessions in front
of old high-school teachers; of kissing Nick and feeling his teeth crumble in his
mouth—and she would lie awake for hours. She dreamed she was driving with her father.
It was back when they were living in the New Street flats in
Gardenvale, and in the
early mornings the rabbits were crouched by the side of the road. In the dream Audrey
and Neil were driving, singing crazily, and then all the rabbits ran out from the
grass and onto the road, and Audrey and her father killed them all.

‘We should have Ben over,' she said to Nick. ‘I bet he's missing Emy.'

It was an odd evening. The three of them were not quite familiar with one another.
Audrey made soup. After dinner Nick washed the dishes, and Ben stood and excused
himself.

‘Do you mind if I have a smoke outside?'

Audrey put on a scarf and jacket, and they sat on the back stoop.

‘Have you heard much from Em?' Audrey asked.

‘She called me on Friday night. She was pretty drunk. Sounds like she's having a
good time.'

‘Her emails are amazing.' Emy's missives were sprawling, self-deprecating tales of
her petty triumphs and failures. Audrey read them at work, and wanted to write something
pithy back, but never knew what to say. ‘She's clever, isn't she.'

‘She's really smart.' Ben glanced at her. ‘I don't know where that leaves me.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘I met her parents before she left. They live in this big house, all landscaped,
staircase, big cars. They were nice.' He tapped the end of his cigarette lightly.
The ash quivered, did not fall. ‘I'm a cook, you know? I'm sort of waiting for her
to realise I'm a boring dickhead.'

‘That's not true, Ben. That's not how it works.'

‘Thanks, mate.' He stubbed out his cigarette.

Audrey looked at his hands. They were big and able.

‘I can't believe you met her parents,' she said at last, and corked his shoulder.
‘You two don't muck around.'

‘I've never done that before. Dinner. It was weird.'

After he left Audrey and Nick fucked on the couch with the lights down low. She could
hardly see his face. His hips could have been the ocean or a horse beneath her.

Sleep Too Light For Dreaming

Audrey was awake reading when the phone rang, but it still gave her a fright. It
was shrill, the wrong sound for five-thirty in the morning. Nick didn't move.

‘Hello?'

‘Audrey?' The voice was tentative, female.

‘Yes?'

‘It's Hazel. Dawson. Um, Bernie's girlfriend. I'm sorry to be calling so early…'

‘We're awake,' Audrey said. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Bern's been up all night, sick.' She sounded very young and very frightened. ‘Sorry
to bother you, but I remembered Nick was an ambo. I thought he might know what to
do.'

‘What's wrong with him?'

‘He hasn't stopped vomiting. I think he's got a fever. And just before he walked
out into the kitchen—I was getting him a glass of water—and he passed out. He just
went down. He's awake now, but he's raving. I can't get him to stay in bed.'

‘Has he taken anything?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Hazel. Just say.'

‘No, I really don't know,' the girl said. ‘He was sick when I got here last night.
I stayed over to look after him, but I have to go to school. I can't stay.'

Audrey pressed her fingertips to her eyes. ‘We're both working. I can't get there
before tonight.' Nick stirred. She lowered her voice. ‘How sick is he?'

‘I don't know. Maybe I'm overreacting.'

‘No, I didn't mean that. He's lucky to have had you there with him. I'll come as
soon as I can tonight.'

Audrey sat on the edge of the bed in the dark room, waiting for direction. She went
to the kitchen and made a cup of tea.

She drove out to Port Phillip Correctional Centre to visit a client. She rehearsed
her lines.

Mr Stanley, I've recommended that Maddie be placed in permanent care.

No use calling Irène and asking her to check on Bernie. Better not to tell their
mother at all.

This means that your daughter will be raised by another family. She won't be moved
from one foster family to another. She'll have a permanent family who will raise
her as their own child. The family who has been caring for Maddie since she was removed
have applied to care for her on an ongoing basis. This is the best possible outcome
we could ask for, Mr Stanley. She's been with them since she was six weeks old.

She thought about the other questions she should have asked Hazel. Should have asked
her to leave him with lots of fluids, have him take paracetamol. But Hazel was seventeen.
Bernard was the boy she fucked around with. It wasn't fair to ask her to do anything.

You can appeal the decision, but if I'm being honest, it's very unlikely that she'll
ever be returned to you permanently.

The traffic rolled and stopped, rolled and stopped. Audrey phoned Bernie, but he
didn't answer.

At the security checkpoint she couldn't find her lanyard with her identification.
She dropped to her haunches and scrabbled through her handbag. The blazer she'd worn
specially, thinking it made her look bigger, more professional, felt foolish. She
was clammy.

‘I'll have to go back out to the car. It must have fallen out,' she said.

The security guard watched her. ‘It's all right, love.'

She felt in her pocket. ‘Oh! Got it.' Her things were all over the floor where she
knelt, her feet slipping from her shoes.

Later, back into the city, back into the office.