Pool Page 6

  ‘I guess we’d better get going soon,’ Wolfgang said as soon as the fireworks had ended.

  ‘Get going?’ Audrey withdrew her hand. ‘Wolfgang, we’ve only just got here.’

  ‘Yeah, well, the fireworks are over and it’s kind of late.’

  ‘It’s New Year!’

  He slapped at a mosquito that had come whining around his ear. ‘I’m pretty tired, actually.’

  Audrey sighed and sat forward and began rummaging through her backpack. ‘I brought all this booze,’ she said, sounding grumpy.

  ‘I’m thorry.’

  ‘Do you have time, at least, for a cigarette?’

  He thought of making a joke of it – New Year’s resolution number two: giving up smoking – but Audrey’s tone suggested she was in no mood for jokes. ‘Thanks,’ he said, reluctantly accepting a cigarette.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘We come all the way here and then you want to go straight back home. Is it because I’m blind?’

  If she wasn’t blind, Wolfgang thought, she’d be the one wanting to get away. No sighted girl would ever go out with him. At school they called him Hulk, and not just because of his size. ‘I told you – I’m pooped. I didn’t get much sleep last night, if you want to know the truth.’

  ‘Too much partying?’ she suggested.

  ‘No, just the old man.’ Wolfgang blew on the tip of his cigarette, making it glow bright red. ‘He came into my room at about one-thirty in the morning and started going through all my drawers.’

  ‘That’s bizarre. What was he looking for?’

  ‘He didn’t say. And then he accused me of stealing part of his butterfly collection.’

  ‘Did you?’ Audrey asked.

  ‘Of course not. He gave it to me two years ago.’

  Audrey blew an invisible spume of smoke towards the trees. ‘It’s probably rude of me to ask this, Wolfgang, but is there something wrong with your father?’

  ‘Like, is he losing his marbles? I don’t know. It’s probably just old age.’

  ‘Old age?’

  ‘He’s seventy-four.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘I’m not. Dad’s seventy-four.’

  ‘But that’s ... My grandparents are younger than that!’ Audrey found his free hand and lightly squeezed it. ‘Are you adopted or something?’

  ‘Sometimes I wish I was,’ Wolfgang said. He flicked his cigarette into the darkness. ‘My father was married before. He got divorced, then met Mum when he was in his fifties.’

  ‘Is your mother old too?’

  ‘She just turned sixty. A regular spring chicken compared to Dad.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ Audrey said. ‘Your mother must have been, like, in her forties when she had you.’

  ‘Forty-four,’ Wolfgang told her, then realised what he’d said. All Audrey had to do was a simple subtraction and she’d realise she was holding hands with a sixteen-year-old.

  ‘I haven’t seen Campbell for a while,’ he said, to change the subject.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Audrey struggled to her feet. ‘He’s scared of fireworks. I should have thought. Campbell!’ she yelled.

  They spent the next few minutes searching for him, walking back and forth along the edge of the trees calling his name. Soon the people at the party took up the cry, too.

  ‘Campbell!’

  ‘Campbell!’

  ‘Happy New Year, Campbell!’

  ‘Who the hell’s Campbell?’ someone yelled.

  Audrey cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘He’s a dog. A golden labrador. The fireworks scared him off.’

  The whole party broke into a frenzy of baying and howling and whistling.

  ‘They’re drunk,’ Wolfgang said quietly. ‘Of course they’re drunk!’ Audrey snapped at him. ‘It’s New Year.’

  As if, Wolfgang thought later, being sober at New Year was some kind of aberration.

  17

  Audrey phoned him shortly after ten the next morning to tell him that Campbell had come home during the night.

  ‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’ she said apologetically. It wasn’t like Audrey to sound apologetic. ‘I just thought you’d want to know.’

  She hadn’t woken him. Wolfgang had been up for several hours. Because he started work at eleven, he’d been to early mass. New Year, like Sundays, was one of those days when all good Catholics were supposed to attend church.

  ‘I’m glad Campbell’s okay,’ he said, wondering about Audrey: whether or not she was a good Catholic.

  ‘He said to say hullo to you ... Happy New Year, I mean.’

  ‘Tell him Happy New Year from me, too.’

  ‘I will,’ Audrey said. There was a pause. ‘Wolfgang? Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Do you ... ? Why have you been, you know, taking me out and things?’

  Ask your father, he thought. ‘You took me out latht night,’ he reminded her. He heard her fiddling with something that made a metallic clinking noise – keys perhaps. It reminded him: he still hadn’t returned the pool master key to Mrs Lonsdale.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ Audrey said. ‘But those other times when you came to talk to me? That trip to the zoo?’

  He tried to think of a truthful way to answer. ‘I don’t have many friends and I gueth you kind of imprethed me when you found out what that butterfly was.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, still fiddling with the keys. Clink, clink, clink. ‘Do you ...?’

  He waited. ‘Do I what?’

  ‘Do you ... like me, Wolfgang?’

  ‘Of course I like you.’

  He heard her softly exhale. She’d stopped fiddling. ‘Because I wouldn’t want to think that you were treating me like a ... like a charity case.’

  Charity case. Her words haunted him for the rest of the day. It certainly wasn’t charity. Wolfgang did the maths on the calculator function of the electronic cash register at the ticket window. Every time he took Audrey out, he was earning roughly fifty-seven dollars and fourteen cents.

  ‘How’s it going with the blind girl?’ Michael Hobson asked him after lunch.

  Wolfgang’s eyes were drawn automatically to her spot beneath the peppercorn tree. She hadn’t come to the pool today. He was partly relieved, but another part of him felt disappointed.

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘You and hippo-girl. I’ve seen you chatting her up.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ Wolfgang said, blushing. ‘Thhhe left her hat behind the other day and I took it back to her, that’th all.’

  Michael grinned. ‘You’re a sly one, Hulk,’ he said, and walked away, shaking his head knowingly.

  Wolfgang wondered how many other people had noticed, and whether they had drawn conclusions similar to Michael’s. Mistaken conclusions. He decided to keep away from Audrey when she came to the pool in future, to confine their meetings to after-hours, and preferably to places where they wouldn’t be seen together and recognised. There were only four days left in the ‘contract’ he had with her father. Three, really, because technically he had already spent more than an hour with her today (ending at ten past one in the morning, when they’d said goodbye in the shadows at the bottom of her driveway) and he’d spoken to her on the phone. Already done his fifty-seven dollars and fourteen cents worth.

  ‘No, you aren’t a charity case, Audrey,’ he could have said to her when she asked. ‘I’m doing it for the money.’

  18

  There was a near-drowning the following day. A middle-aged man – a pilgrim with a heart condition, it would be revealed in Monday’s newspaper – suffered a stroke in the centre of the pool. Paralysed, unable to call for help, he floated face-down, drifting slowly with the slope of the water, for perhaps a minute or more before anyone noticed he was in distress. It was a young woman standing on the crowded lawn area fifteen metres back from the pool who drew attention to his plight.

  ‘Help her!’ she shrieked, fluttering her pale hands
out in front of her like two frantic butterflies. ‘Help her! She’s drowning!’

  Mrs Lonsdale was first to react. Wrenching off her shoes, she jumped into the pool fully clothed and threshed out through the gawking swimmers in an untidy but efficient freestyle. She rolled the man onto his back, tilted his mouth clear of the surface, and stood there, chest deep in the sparkling, twitching water, giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until Michael Hobson and Declan arrived. Between them, and with the belated help of one of the swimmers, they carried the unconscious man to the side of the pool and lifted him out onto the wet concrete apron. Mrs Lonsdale and Michael kept up the resuscitation while Declan ran to phone for an ambulance.

  Wolfgang, who had watched from his vantage in the office, was secretly ashamed. He’d had a phone at his elbow throughout the crisis, but had not thought to use it.

  When the ambulancemen arrived – less than eight minutes after they’d been called – Michael had taken over the resuscitation and Mrs Lonsdale was kneeling beside the patient applying heart massage. They had saved his life.

  Michael and Mrs Lonsdale were heroes. They both appeared on the local television news that evening, and on Monday they would be on the front page of the Advertiser.

  To Wolfgang’s relief, his failure to summon help went unnoticed. From the beginning of the drama until the patient was carried away on a stretcher, nearly everyone’s attention had been focused on the stricken man and his rescuers. They forgot about the young woman who had first called attention to him. She was left standing on the towel-strewn lawn while the rest of the crowd surged forward for a better view.

  When a straw-coloured labrador trotted up behind the young woman (who, unlike most of the others at the pool that hot Saturday afternoon, was fully dressed) and nuzzled her leg, she absently patted its head. She seemed dazed. Her face, mostly obscured by her pink floppy hat, was turned not towards the commotion in front of her, but to a point near the wheelchair ramp at the end of the pool. After perhaps a minute, she gripped the dog by the collar and spoke softly to it. Then, together, Audrey and Campbell turned away from the pool and walked slowly up the slope into the shade of the big peppercorn tree by the fence.

  19

  When he rang Audrey that night, it was Bernadette who picked up the phone. Wolfgang mistook her for her daughter – their voices were similar.

  ‘Hi, Audrey.’

  ‘This is her mother. Is that Wolfgang?’

  Blood rushed to his face. ‘Yeth, Mrs Babacan. I’m thorry, I thought you were Audrey.’

  She laughed. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. She isn’t home at the moment, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Um, could I have her mobile number, pleathe.’

  ‘I can give it to you,’ Bernadette said, ‘but it won’t be much help. She never takes her phone with her.’

  He wondered where she was but thought he probably shouldn’t ask. ‘Could you tell her I called, Mrs Babacan?’

  ‘I certainly will.’ There was a brief pause. ‘Wolfgang, I’m glad you phoned. Are you free next Saturday night?’

  ‘Um ...’ he said.

  ‘It’s Audrey’s birthday. We’re having a surprise party for her and we hoped you could come.’

  Wolfgang chewed his lower lip. His week as Audrey’s paid friend ended in two days time. Saturday wasn’t part of the deal. ‘I’m not sure, Mrs Babacan. I might be going to Melbourne next weekend.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Bernadette said. There was another pause. ‘Would you mind hanging on for a minute, Wolfgang?’

  He heard the phone being put down, followed by a muffled conversation in the background.

  ‘Hullo, young Herriot!’ Keith boomed in his ear. (Herriot? Wolfgang wondered.) ‘When exactly are you going to Melbourne, hmmm?’

  Put on the spot, Wolfgang improvised. ‘Um ... Thaturday morning.’

  ‘Leaving on Saturday morning,’ Keith muttered softly, apparently talking to himself. ‘I think we can work around that. What are you doing Friday night?’ he asked, his voice back to full strength.

  ‘I ... um ...’ Wolfgang’s brain seemed frozen. ‘I gueth I don’t have any planth.’

  ‘Rotary hoe!’ Keith said heartily. ‘We’ll move the party to Friday.’

  ‘But ... ithn’t her birthday on Thaturday?’

  ‘What would be the point in throwing a surprise party for Audrey if her boyfriend wasn’t there?’

  ‘I’m not actually her boyfriend.’

  ‘I know that.’ Keith lowered his voice again. ‘Just between you and me and the gatepost, son, you’re doing a great job.’

  Wolfgang twisted the phone cord around his thumb. ‘Mr Babacan, Keith, I’ve been thinking about what you’ve asked me to do, and I don’t think it’s exactly fair.’

  ‘Fair? We agreed on four hundred dollars. But if you want –’

  ‘It isn’t fair on Audrey,’ Wolfgang interrupted.

  ‘Tell me,’ her father said. ‘Be honest with me, son. Do you like her?’

  ‘Y-yeth, of course I like –’

  ‘And do you like money?’

  ‘It isn’t about the money, Mr Babacan.’

  ‘Let me put this another way,’ Keith said. ‘Is an extra four hundred and fifty dollars a week over the summer going to be helpful to you when you go back to university?’

  Wolfgang heard but barely registered the additional fifty dollars. What stuck in his mind was university. He could tell the truth – that he still went to school – that he was sixteen! – and then even Keith would see the absurdity of Wolfgang being his daughter’s friend, much less her boyfriend.

  ‘Yes or no?’ Keith prompted him.

  ‘Well ... yes.’

  ‘Okay. It’s a done deal,’ said the Furniture King. ‘And as far as it being fair on Audrey, son – in the few days the two of you have been seeing each other, her mother and I have never seen her so happy.’

  20

  Someone had clipped out the article and pinned it to the noticeboard in the staffroom.

  ‘How does it feel to be a hero, Mrs Lonsdale?’ Wolfgang asked when she came in at lunchtime to make herself a pot of herbal tea.

  She laughed. ‘They’re a bit free and easy with their accolades down at the Addy. It used to be you had to do something brave before you were called a hero.’

  ‘You saved his life.’

  ‘Brought him back from the other side,’ Mrs Lonsdale said, giving the final two words a theatrical emphasis. ‘I hope he doesn’t sue us.’

  Wolfgang turned away from the noticeboard. ‘We’re covered, aren’t we?’

  ‘Against loss of life, yes.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘But not against loss of eternal life.’

  Mrs Lonsdale saw Wolfgang’s uncomprehending look. ‘Have you read the whole article? Apparently our Mr Cooper had a “near-death experience”. Went to heaven and came back again – so he claims. I’m hoping he doesn’t hold us accountable.’

  ‘For what?’ Wolfgang asked, feeling foolish.

  ‘For bringing him back from heaven. How could you compensate someone for that?’

  While Mrs Lonsdale attended to her tea making, Wolfgang returned to the clipping. According to the article, Mr Cooper had lost consciousness and found himself beside a pond surrounded by fruit trees and flowers and swirling white butterflies. ‘Paradise’, he’d described it. But he was only there for a few moments before he felt himself pulled backwards into the pond. Underwater once more, he travelled down ‘a long dark tunnel with a bright light at the end’. When he emerged into the light, Mr Cooper awoke in an ambulance being rushed to hospital.

  Wolfgang read the account a second time. He’d seen a program on TV about near-death experiences. A frowning man with huge eyebrows and a European accent, some kind of shrink, had explained how the human brain hallucinated in the face of death. It was a coping mechanism, the expert said. Images of gardens, angels and the smiling faces of deceased loved ones were common. They calmed the dying person and made the whole experie
nce peaceful, even euphoric.

  ‘Swirling white butterflies,’ Wolfgang noted, reading Mr Cooper’s version of paradise for a third time. There would be butterflies in his paradise, too.

  21

  When Wolfgang opened his email account that evening, there was a message from Dr Karalis.

  Greetings Wolfgang,

  Apologies for my tardy response. This place was closed down over the festive season.

  Always good to hear from you. Unfortunately your attachment won’t open. If you like resend in another format.

  Seasons greetings etc

  Jonathan Karalis

  Wolfgang re-read the message slowly, a sense of disappointment dampening his accelerated heartbeat. It was hardly the response he had been anticipating for the past fortnight. Okay, so the attachment wouldn’t open. But for Dr Karalis to suggest he resend it if he liked suggested he wasn’t interested. Didn’t he take Wolfgang seriously?

  ‘I’m not just some amateur!’ Wolfgang muttered to his computer screen.

  He lifted the lid off the cigar box, exposing the battered black wing lying on its bed of cotton wool.

  It didn’t look like much, but to a lepidopterist it was possibly the discovery of a lifetime.

  Doctor Karalis will be sucking up to me! Wolfgang thought, as he carried the box over to his computer scanner.

  22

  Audrey’s father must really love her, Wolfgang thought. Moving her birthday party from Saturday to Friday night, just so her ‘boyfriend’ could be there. And upping the payment from four hundred dollars a week to four hundred and fifty. Ignoring the protests of his guilty conscience, Wolfgang had agreed to another week.

  ‘But I’m not giving up my job at the pool,’ he’d insisted.

  ‘Not a problem,’ Keith said. ‘In fact, it’s in the evenings that I’d most like you to keep her company.’

  That complicated matters. What could a blind person do in the evenings? Movies were out. Ten pin bowling was out. Wolfgang was under-age, so they couldn’t go to a bar or a club.