Pool (5 page)
Authors: Justin D'Ath
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Health & Daily Living, #General, #Social Issues, #Juvenile Nonfiction
12
Wolfgang was waiting outside the station when the moss-green Mercedes pulled up. The driver’s door opened and Keith stepped out onto the road. He spotted Wolfgang and waved as he walked around to the footpath. Audrey climbed out, holding a black and mauve backpack. As she slipped her arms through its shoulder straps, her father leaned into the car and removed a white cane from between the seats. He gave it to Audrey and closed the door behind her.
‘Wolfgang, good morning!’ he said heartily as Wolfgang approached.
‘Good morning, Keith. Hullo Audrey.’
Audrey smiled in the direction of his voice. She was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and a pink cloth hat he hadn’t seen before. ‘Hi. Have you been waiting long?’
‘Five minutes,’ Wolfgang said, although it was closer to twenty. He looked at her cane. ‘Where’s Campbell?’
‘Staying home. He’s a wimp when it comes to lions. See you later, Dad.’
‘Have a good time, sweetie. Did you bring your phone?’
‘No, the battery’s flat.’
Keith rolled his eyes for Wolfgang’s benefit. ‘I buy her a mobile phone and she never uses the thing.’
‘I didn’t ask for a mobile,’ Audrey said tiredly.
‘They only got it so they could keep tabs on me,’ she told Wolfgang when her father had gone. ‘They treat me like a baby. I’m nearly nineteen, for Christ’s sake.’
Nineteen. Wolfgang shouldered his backpack. He’d thought eighteen,
hoped
seventeen. ‘Let’s get on the train,’ he said. ‘I’ve got our tickets.’
‘You bought me a ticket? Shit, Wolfgang, I get enough of this crap from my parents.’ She held out her hand. ‘Here, give it to me.’
‘The ticket?’
‘Yes, the ticket. I’ll get you a refund.’
‘Why not just pay me for it?’
‘Because I can get a concession,’ Audrey said. ‘Point me in the direction of the ticket counter.’
Not a good start, Wolfgang thought as he watched her tap her way over to the counter. There were three people waiting but they stepped courteously aside when they saw Audrey’s white cane. He wondered if she was aware that she was queue-jumping.
‘Can I get a refund on this, please?’ she asked sweetly, placing her ticket and the cane on the counter, then rummaging through her backpack for her purse. ‘My friend bought it for me but he didn’t have my concession card.’
Friend.
For the first time since he had made the agreement with Audrey’s father, Wolfgang felt a stab of guilt.
Audrey slept almost all the way to Melbourne. Sitting in the aisle seat beside her, Wolfgang wished he had something to read. But he hadn’t brought a book, imagining the two-hour train trip would be a good time for him and Audrey to get to know each other. He’d even researched his role as a university student and found out which Melbourne universities offered veterinary science, along with some of the study units they offered.
As the train swayed into Southern Cross Station, Wolfgang touched Audrey lightly on the elbow. ‘Audrey, we’re here.’
She came awake in a moment. ‘Melbourne? Already? Oh God, I’ve been asleep, haven’t I?’
‘Only for the last ten minutes or so.’
‘And then some,’ Audrey said, yawning hugely so he could see almost to the back of her throat. ‘I’m not much of a morning person. Sorry.’
‘You say sorry a lot.’
‘Touché.’
‘Actually, I owe you an apology,’ Wolfgang said.
‘Do you?’
‘Yeah. For what I said when I was leaving your place the other night.’
‘What did you say?’
‘How I was glad I wasn’t blind.’
‘I don’t even remember it,’ Audrey said. She touched his arm. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you aren’t blind, too, Wolfgang. I’m kind of relying on you to be my eyes today.’
As soon as they were out on the platform, Audrey lit a cigarette. She offered him the packet. Wolfgang almost told her he didn’t smoke, but changed his mind and took one. It would make him seem more worldly. More like a university student. He lit up and took a single light puff, then exhaled immediately, before the smoke burned his throat – before he choked and gave himself away as a non-smoker.
‘What about your cane?’ he asked, noticing the folded shaft still protruding from Audrey’s backpack where she had stowed it when they boarded the train.
‘Don’t need it.’ She changed her cigarette to her left hand, then threaded her right hand through the crook of his elbow. ‘Lead on, McDuff.’
They caught a tram to the zoo. The trip took about twenty minutes and most of it they travelled in silence. Audrey wasn’t talkative. She would answer any questions Wolfgang put to her, and do so cheerfully enough, but she initiated no conversation of her own. Wolfgang found it hard work and eventually stopped trying. For the final twelve or fifteen minutes of their journey they sat in silence, side by side like two strangers.
I can’t do this for five weeks, Wolfgang thought. Not even for two thousand dollars.
As soon as they alighted at the zoo stop, Audrey became a different person. ‘You know, Wolfgang, you really took me by surprise,’ she said brightly, clinging to his arm as they made their way towards the entrance.
‘How do you mean?’ he asked.
‘Well, the zoo! It isn’t exactly the most obvious place to take a blind person.’
‘I thought you wanted to come.’
‘I did. I
do
!’ She squeezed his elbow. ‘I’m just amazed that you asked me. Amazed and, well, grateful.’
Now it was Wolfgang’s turn to be silent.
13
Audrey got to smell the lions. And, thanks to her disability and the kindness of the zoo staff, she also got to hold an orphaned wombat, feed the baby giraffe and pat an elephant’s trunk. But the highlight of the day, and Wolfgang’s main reason for bringing Audrey to the zoo, was their visit to the Butterfly House.
He didn’t tell her where they were as they entered the exhibit. They followed a group of foreign-speaking tourists through the quarantine chamber with its spring-loaded outer door and its inner barrier of heavy plastic strips, then into the enormous tropical hothouse.
‘My God it’s hot!’ Audrey gasped. ‘I can hardly breathe. What
is
this place?’
Wolfgang drew in his breath as a female birdwing, as big as his hand, spun a silent pirouette around them. He had been here perhaps twenty times, but the magic never dimmed.
‘You know how you said the other day that you weren’t sure if butterflies really existed?’ he said. ‘Today I’ve brought you to meet some.’
Audrey let go of his arm and stopped on the wooden walkway. ‘I’ve heard about this. Are there butterflies here?’
‘All around us. There’s one flying between us right now. And there’s a big blue Ulysses circling your head. I think it’s got its eye on your hat.’
A wide childlike smile broke across Audrey’s face. She stood transfixed, a party of elderly zoo-goers threading their way past on either side. ‘Is it going to land?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t think so.’ Wolfgang watched it dance off into the simulated rainforest behind her. He realised now what gave the exhibit its aura of unreality – it was the silence. Butterflies swirled around them in a dizzying kaleidoscope of colour, movement,
life,
yet they didn’t make a sound. If you were blind, they might not have been there. He took hold of Audrey’s hand.
‘We’re in the way here,’ he said softly. ‘Come with me.’
Wolfgang led her to an out-of-the-way corner, where the walkway broadened and made a ninety degree turn to the right. Standing her in the angle of the railing beneath the dew-dropped foliage of a six-metre bangalow palm, he dug a small plastic bottle from his backpack.
‘Hold your hand out.’
‘What is it?’ asked Audrey, grimacing as he smeared a sticky paste on her wrist.
‘My secret love potion,’ Wolfgang said, then blushed when he realised how that must have sounded. ‘For butterflies,’ he added quickly. ‘It’s a mixture of beer, rum and jam. They find it pretty much irresistible.’
Audrey raised her wrist and sniffed it. She screwed up her nose. ‘Smells rank,’ she said.
‘Butterflies love it, trust me. Hold your arm up a bit. That’s it. It shouldn’t take too long.’
The first butterfly arrived within thirty seconds. It darted twice around Audrey’s hand, then landed on the base of her thumb. She tensed.
‘I can feel something,’ she whispered.
‘Feet,’ Wolfgang told her. ‘It’s an Australian lurcher. Orange and brown. Quite pretty.’
‘It tickles!’
‘Butterflies taste with their feet, did you know that?’
She shook her head.
‘Do you want to touch it?’
Audrey shook her head again, her face tight with concentration. ‘Tell me what it’s doing.’
‘It’s feeding. You don’t have to whisper.’
‘Can’t they hear?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Wolfgang, watching a female orange lacewing flicker overhead, a smaller male dancing attendance around her. ‘But noise doesn’t seem to bother them.’
‘This is
so
cool!’ Audrey said.
A green triangle came next, then another lurcher, then a big blue Ulysses. Wolfgang named and described each butterfly as it arrived. Soon, six insects had settled on Audrey’s hand and wrist; several more circled. A man with a small boy on his shoulders stopped to watch.
‘Here,’ Wolfgang said, and gently took some of the weight of Audrey’s raised arm. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
With his other hand he bent her elbow, bringing her scented wrist within centimetres of her face. When a big male birdwing flew down, its flashing green and yellow wings brushed across Audrey’s eyelashes and cheek.
She drew in her breath. ‘Was that –?’
‘Wings,’ Wolfgang told her.
Audrey’s mouth quivered and two tears gathered on the lower lids of her sightless blue eyes.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I’m just happy.’
Twenty or twenty-five minutes later, when finally Wolfgang was able to coax her away from the butterflies, Audrey stopped him in the middle of the road outside the Elephant Village, felt along his arm for his hand and gently turned him towards her.
‘Thank you, Wolfgang,’ she said up into his face. ‘That was the loveliest thing anybody’s ever done for me.’
14
Wolfgang wished he hadn’t taken Keith’s four hundred dollars. The whole thing felt wrong. Dishonest. It wasn’t fair on Audrey. She’d been so grateful to him on the way back from the zoo. He didn’t want her gratitude, didn’t deserve it. Part of him wished he could simply give Keith’s money back and forget the whole deal. But it was too late for that. He and Audrey’s father had an agreement. Wolfgang had taken the money, now it was up to him to keep his end of the bargain. It was only for a week, he rationalised. Less than that – six more days. Then he could tell Keith it wasn’t working and walk away with a clear conscience.
And
with four hundred dollars.
At lunchtime on Wednesday, Wolfgang made his way over to the shade of the peppercorn tree by the fence. He patted Campbell on the head, then reached carefully across Audrey and pulled the earphone jack out of her MP3 player. She didn’t move.
‘Audrey?’
She gave a start. ‘Huh?’
‘Hi, it’s me. Do you want to go for a walk?’
Audrey reached up under her hat – it was the new pink one today – with both hands and touched her earpieces. ‘Hi,’ she said, sounding distracted.
‘It’s unplugged.’
‘What?’
‘Your MP3,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I unplugged the earphones as a joke. Would you like to go for a walk?’
‘A walk.’
‘Yeah. It’s my lunchbreak. I thought we could walk into town and get something to eat, then maybe take it to the botanical gardens or somewhere.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Audrey. Her face was flushed nearly as pink as her hat; perspiration beaded her upper lip and hairline. ‘I don’t actually feel hungry at the moment.’
‘Fair enough.’ Wolfgang met the sad brown eyes of the labrador lying listlessly on the bare ground beside her and gave a little shrug. He felt sorry for Campbell. What sort of life was it for a dog, forced to stay in one spot all day, doing nothing? ‘I, um ... I’d better be getting back.’
Audrey sat up and stretched, revealing poorly shaved underarms. Today she wore a blue sleeveless top with a matching blue skirt, and black trousers under the skirt. ‘I thought you were on your lunch-break,’ she said, unscrewing the cap from her water bottle.
‘I am. But I have to go and buy it – my lunch, I mean.’ He waited while she drank. Probably he should make one more effort. He owed it to Keith. ‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked.
‘No thanks.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you later.’
That was it then. Wolfgang left her and walked out into the sunshine with its palette of green grass and multi-coloured towels and pale oiled bodies. He had fulfilled his obligation for the day. Given it his best shot. Two days down, five to go.
‘Wolfgang,’ Audrey said behind him.
He pretended not to hear, aware of all the eyes on him. Of all the ears listening.
‘Wolfgang?’ she repeated, louder.
Quickly he retraced his steps. ‘What is it?’ he said, his voice lowered.
Audrey twisted the pink hat in her fingers. ‘I guess you’ve already made plans for tomorrow?’
‘I’m working.’
‘I meant after work,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow night.’
New Year’s Eve. ‘There’s a party I’m thinking of going to,’ Wolfgang said. And immediately regretted mentioning it. She might expect him to invite her. How would he explain Audrey to his friends? More importantly, how would he explain his friends – a bunch of fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds –
schoolboys –
to Audrey?
‘But I’m not much into parties,’ he added. ‘What are
you
doing tomorrow night?’
