Authors: Justin D'Ath
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Health & Daily Living, #General, #Social Issues, #Juvenile Nonfiction
51
‘I thought you were twenty,’ she said.
Wolfgang watched the police car’s red tail-lights disappear down the street. ‘I got a bit confuthed – all the questionth they were athking.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘You’re
thorry?’ he said.
‘I guess I kind of brought them here.’
They were standing near the top of the driveway, less than half a metre apart but no longer touching. The pale light from the porch behind her made copper highlights in Audrey’s hair.
‘You brought the police here?’ Wolfgang said, his heart rate rising.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. Was that the glint of a tear on her left lower eyelid? ‘Wolfgang, I was so scared! I thought you were gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘You’ll think I’m crazy.’
Crazy? This was someone who claimed she was nocturnal. Who said she saw angels. ‘Just tell me what’s going on,’ he said.
Audrey rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, first the right eye, then the left. ‘Is there somewhere we can sit down?’
‘Come with me.’ He took her by the hand and led her round to the picnic setting beneath a vine-entangled pergola at the rear of the house. They sat side by side on one of the hard bench seats. Audrey let out a long, slow breath.
‘You don’t have any cigarettes, do you?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Not even inside? I really could do with one now.’
‘I don’t smoke,’ Wolfgang heard himself say.
‘Since when?’ asked Audrey. And then she said, her voice slightly querulous: ‘You didn’t tell me you were giving up.’
‘I never took them up in the first place. I just pretended I did.’
‘You pretended to take up smoking?’
It was completely dark under the pergola. Wolfgang felt as blind as Audrey. ‘I know it was kind of dishonest,’ he said into the confessional quiet that surrounded them, ‘but I wanted you to like me.’
‘What’s smoking got to do with me liking you?’
‘I was scared you’d think I was ... I don’t know ... immature.’
He waited nervously for her response. When the silence had stretched to seven or eight seconds, he moistened his lips and said he was sorry.
‘No, don’t apologise,’ Audrey told him. She found his face with her fingertips and kissed him softly on the cheek. ‘I’m flattered. Nobody’s ever taken up smoking for me before. You’re very sweet.’
Wolfgang slapped a mosquito away from his ear. There was something mildly disappointing about being called sweet. ‘What happened with the police?’ he asked.
‘They found me at the pool. Someone had called an ambulance or something and they thought it was me.’
‘You were at the pool?’
‘Not
at
the pool exactly. I was outside the fence.’
‘What were you doing there?’
‘Looking for you.’ Audrey lowered her voice to little more than a whisper. ‘Sometimes I have these dreams about the pool. They’re not dreams exactly, they’re more like visions. I can have them when I’m awake. The weird thing is, I think they’re real; I think they really happen. Tonight I had one about you.’
Wolfgang found himself nodding; he wasn’t sure why. Was she claiming to be psychic? ‘So you
dreamed
I was at the pool and you went down to say hullo.’
‘Don’t laugh at me, Wolfgang.’
‘Well, it is all very
Medium,
you have to admit.’
Audrey let out a big weary sigh. ‘You were wearing something on your head – some kind of helmet?’
Wolfgang peered at the slight fault in the darkness that was Audrey’s face. ‘Who have you been talking to?’
‘Nobody. I told you, it was a dream.’
‘Okay, so who was with me?’
Audrey was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know. I only ever see the person that goes through.’
‘Goes through where?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ She sounded disappointed.
‘What am I supposed to remember?’
‘You went to the dream place.’
‘The
dream
place?’ he said uncertainly.
‘It’s like this whole other world that’s kind of under the pool,’ explained Audrey. ‘You must remember something?’
Wolfgang shrugged. ‘It was your dream, not mine.’
‘But you were there – I
saw
you!’
He looked up through a gap in the vine at a single shimmering star almost directly above where Audrey sat. It would be awful being blind. He didn’t blame her for imagining some kind of fantasy world where she could see.
‘I knew you’d think I was crazy,’ she mumbled.
‘I guess all dreams are kind of crazy when you think about it.’
‘Not if they really happen.’
Wolfgang brushed a tickling insect off his leg. ‘Okay. There’s this underwater world at the bottom of the pool. What am I supposed to have done when I went there?’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘It was a
dream,
Audrey!’
She said nothing. He heard a rustle of clothing and realised she had risen to her feet.
‘Audrey?’
‘I think I’ll go home now.’
Wolfgang stood up, too. He reached out and his fingers felt fabric and the soft give of flesh beneath it. ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘I’m just having a bit of trouble getting my head around what you’re telling me. Where exactly is this place?’
‘Under the pool.’
‘You mean it’s like a cave or something?’
‘Look, just forget about it,’ Audrey said. She took hold of his hand, lifted it away from herself and let it go. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. Is there a stick or something I could borrow?’
‘A stick?’ Wolfgang said vaguely. A light had come on around the corner of the house, illuminating a section of the garage wall.
‘I need one to get home. I left my cane in the police car.’
The light seemed to be coming from his parents’ bedroom. Damn! What were they doing awake again?
‘I’ll walk you home,’ Wolfgang said.
‘Don’t bother. Just get me a stick, okay?’
‘Audrey, let me go with you. Please. I want to know more about your dream place.’
‘No you don’t,’ she snapped. He could see her silhouette against the lighted garage wall, the broad dark bulk of her. ‘You said I was crazy.’
‘I said
dreams
were crazy ... some dreams,’ he corrected himself. ‘My own dreams hardly ever make sense.’
A muffled exchange of voices came from inside the house. They both paused to listen.
‘Who was with you?’ Audrey whispered. ‘The police said it was a girl who made the phone call.’
‘Steve Taylor’s sister.’
Audrey’s shoulders seemed to sag a little. ‘Is she nice?’
‘She’s nice enough.’
‘I suppose she’s pretty.’
‘Audrey, she’s only thirteen.’
‘Oh,’ Audrey said. She rubbed her upper arms as if they were cold. ‘What was she doing there?’
‘She’s Steve’s little sister. We didn’t want her with us but she tagged along and we couldn’t really stop her.’
Audrey felt for the seat and sat down again. ‘I’m sorry I brought the police here. I just had to know you were okay.’
You could have phoned, Wolfgang thought as he resumed his seat beside her. ‘What did you say to them?’
‘Just that I was worried about you.’
‘Well thanks, I guess. You didn’t tell them I had a key?’
‘No. Don’t worry,’ Audrey said, ‘they thought it was just kids making prank calls. I didn’t tell them about what I dreamed.’
It was a shame she hadn’t. They would hardly have come knocking on his door in the middle of the night on the strength of some crackpot dream.
‘Why were you at the pool, anyway?’ he asked.
‘Didn’t I say that already? I was looking for you. First I rang your place and you weren’t home, so I walked down there.’
‘From your place?’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I was home when I had the dream.’
‘You walked all the way to the pool without Campbell?’
‘His foot’s still sore.’
‘How did you find your way?’
‘I go there nearly every day. Anyway,’ Audrey said, ‘I got there way too late and the police found me. I thought you were gone.’
‘I
was
gone,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Gone home.’
Audrey leaned closer. ‘Tell me what happened in the pool.’
‘I don’t remember. I think I blacked out. The others reckoned I was underwater for about five minutes, but that’s impossible – I would have drowned.’
‘You were in the dream place.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘So
you
tell
me
what happened.’
They heard the front door creak open and someone call his name.
‘Is that your mother?’ Audrey said softly.
‘Yes.’
‘Wolfgang?’ Sylvia’s voice carried clearly around the corner of the house. ‘Are you out here?’
‘Aren’t you going to answer her?’ whispered Audrey.
‘It won’t be anything important.’
‘Wolfgang?’ Sylvia repeated.
‘She sounds worried.’
That was hardly surprising: it was one in the morning and her sixteen-year-old son wasn’t in his bed.
‘I guess I’d better find out what’s going on,’ Wolfgang said reluctantly. He found one of Audrey’s hands and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘So I should just ... wait out here?’ she asked.
‘If you don’t mind,’ he said. He didn’t want his parents to meet her. They might tell her anything: his age; that he was still at school; that the last thing in the world he aspired to was becoming a vet like his father. ‘I won’t be long, okay?’
‘Sure,’ Audrey said, in a peculiar flat tone that should have warned him something was wrong.
52
‘Ah, there you are,’ Sylvia said when Wolfgang emerged from the darkness at the end of the house. She was standing on the porch in her nightie, the front door wide open, moths swirling around the naked light bulb a metre above her head. ‘What are you doing out here? It’s past midnight.’
‘I forgot to lock my bike up,’ he said, yet another entry in the Lie File.
‘Your father said he heard voices.’
‘You know what Dad’s like.’ Wolfgang walked up the three concrete steps, still warm from yesterday’s heat. ‘He could have heard them anytime – last week, or even a year ago. There’s a moth in your hair, Mum. No, on top. Here, let me.’
His mother inclined her head forward. Her fine auburn hair was surprisingly sparse once he parted it to free the moth (did women go bald?) and completely white at its roots.
‘I think it’s some kind of hawk moth,’ he said, showing her.
They both watched the insect flurry its wings and spiral up to renew its attack on the light bulb.
‘You’re hard on your father, Wolfgang.’
‘Let’s go inside,’ he said. He didn’t want Audrey hearing this.
Sylvia followed him in and shut the door. Her feet were bare. Her small pinkish toenails made him sad for some reason.
‘I’m sorry I woke you.’
‘Wolfgang, I hope you aren’t growing up too fast.’
She could probably smell the alcohol on his breath. He edged away from her slightly. ‘I’m okay.’
‘We haven’t spent much time as a family recently,’ his mother said.
‘Well, there’s my job and everything,’ said Wolfgang. His
jobs.
As soon as he could, he would have to sneak back out to Audrey. ‘I don’t have to be at the pool till after lunch tomorrow. Maybe we could all do something in the morning – go out somewhere?’
‘You could come to mass with us.’
That wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind. ‘But it’s Saturday.’
‘It’s Uncle Brendan’s anniversary,’ Sylvia said. ‘I know it would mean a lot to your father if you came with us.’
Wolfgang suppressed a sigh. There was no way out of it. ‘Well, okay,’ he said unenthusiastically. ‘Sure. What time is it?’
‘Mass is at nine. But we want to get there by eight-thirty if we can. There’s reconciliation beforehand.’
Mass
and
reconciliation. Oh happy day! Wolfgang looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get to bed then. Can you make sure I’m up by eight?’
His mother smiled. ‘You’re a good boy, Wolfgang. Good night, God bless.’
‘Good night,’ he responded, and left the God bit hanging.
His bedroom door was open and the light switched on. He couldn’t remember whether he had left it on or not when the police knocked. In any event, his mother would have looked in his bedroom first before trying outside. He shut the door behind him and pulled on a pair of sneakers, then crossed to the window, unsnibbed the flywire and lowered it carefully onto the pavers below. Then he switched the light off and climbed out the window, pulling it nearly all the way closed behind him.
‘It’s only me,’ Wolfgang whispered as he pushed none-too-quietly between the fence and the rattly thicket of bamboo at the southern corner of the house. He couldn’t see anything, nor could he hear anything, either.
‘Audrey?’ he said, slightly louder this time, but there was only the jingle of a chain on the other side of the fence as the neighbours’ dog came over to investigate. Please don’t bark, Elsie, he thought. ‘Audrey, are you there?’
Still no answer. It was completely dark now that his parents’ bedroom light was turned off. Wolfgang bumped his head on one of his mother’s hanging baskets, then nearly tripped over a bucket. This was what it would be like being blind. He found the picnic setting and ran his hand along the bench where she’d been sitting. Gone. Why hadn’t she waited? He’d only been five minutes.
She won’t have got far, he thought.
He felt his way round to the front of the house, ducking down as he passed his parents’ window even though the curtains were drawn. The porch light was still on; he could see all the way down the driveway. No Audrey. There was no sign of her, either, when he reached the street. He ran to the corner and looked up Lithgow Road, but still he couldn’t see her. Which side would she be on? The right hand side, probably, but he couldn’t be sure. There were no cars about, so Wolfgang jogged up the middle of the road, searching both sides as he went. Every forty metres or so, on the left hand side, a streetlight lit up the footpath and road. In the gaps between them, or where an overhanging tree cast a particularly deep shadow or a parked vehicle obstructed his view of the footpath, Wolfgang veered from one side of the road to the other to make sure he didn’t miss her.
He had gone nearly four blocks before he slowed to a fast walk. He was out of breath and had the beginnings of a stitch. Could she have come this far in so short a time? Okay, he’d given her a four or five minute head start, but she was blind. Blind and overweight. Hippo-girl. Stop it! Wolfgang scolded himself. She was his girlfriend. He loved her, even though she didn’t love him. Or said she didn’t – she’d been jealous about Merri. Even if she was a bit strange.
Did Audrey seriously expect him to believe there was some kind of
other world
at the bottom of the pool?
Wolfgang walked another block and a half before he stopped and turned around. It was a hot night. He used the front of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. She must have taken a different route – Lorimer Street, maybe. Or Rogan Avenue. She could be lost. No, he thought, she isn’t lost. Blind or not, Audrey wasn’t the type of person to become lost. When she told him she didn’t need Campbell to find her way around, he’d believed her. Even if he hadn’t believed some of the other things she’d said.
‘Where are you, Audrey?’ Wolfgang muttered.
From where he stood in the middle of Lithgow Road, Wolfgang could see all the way down into the dip and up the other side to Acacia Street. It was down near the bottom that he’d run over the cat. He gently rubbed his fingers over his right elbow and the smooth, soft skin of his forearm. Tonight had been one of the strangest nights of his life.