by Justin D'Ath
A car passed along Millar Street and they all ducked down.
‘Let’s get inside,’ Steve whispered. ‘Where the heck’s that key, Wolfman?’
‘Dunno,’ he said. It seemed beyond his capabilities to search for it. He pushed the backpack in Steve’s direction. ‘In there thomewhere.’
Steve found the key and opened the gate. Mark helped Wolfgang to his feet and the four of them hurried inside. As he passed the ticket window, Wolfgang called ahead to Steve and Mark, ‘Have you got your Theathon Patheth?’ and both of them laughed. It was a good joke. He felt pleased with himself for being able to joke at a time like this – so soon after nearly dying. His skinned arm was killing him.
There was only one light on inside the pool enclosure and that was down the far end, near the men’s changing rooms. It provided just enough light to see by, but not so much that they ran the risk of being seen from outside. Only if someone came right up to the fence could they be seen, and that seemed unlikely. It was the middle of the night.
Wolfgang was the only one who’d brought bathers. Steve and Mark stripped down to their underpants, Merri went in fully clothed. The two boys whooped loudly after they’d jumped in. ‘It’s awesome,’ Steve said. Then he began swimming up the slope of the water towards the high end. Merri splashed Mark and he dived down and tripped her up. She shrieked and yelled ‘Stop it!’ as he dragged her beneath the water’s dark surface. Wolfgang could tell she didn’t mind. She was a nice kid. He felt happy watching them, happy and superior. I’ll phone tomorrow, he thought. First thing in the morning, I’ll phone Audrey.
‘Wolfie, are you coming in?’ Merri was calling to him.
He stripped off his T-shirt, then sat down on the side of the pool to remove his sneakers. He dipped one foot in the water. It was cool, but not too cool. Merri tried splashing him but she was too far away to pose any threat.
‘Jutht you wait!’ he said playfully.
The helmet was lying beside him, next to his backpack and T-shirt and sneakers. His lucky helmet. It had saved his life. Wolfgang put it on. His fingers were slow and uncooperative; it took him some time to align the stiff plastic catches and click them together. Finally he was ready. He’d intended to impress Merri and the others by diving in – he was quite a good diver – but now he wondered about the advisability of doing so while wearing a bicycle helmet. It might hurt his neck or something. Instead, he slid into the water feet first. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was the more prudent option. Someone whose judgement had been impaired by too much alcohol might have risked a dive, but not Wolfgang.
‘What’s with the hat?’ asked Mark, a dark head out near the centre of the pool.
Wolfgang bent his knees until the water came up to his chin. ‘It’th a new kind of life jacket,’ he said. ‘I’m going to patent it.’
That was clever, he thought. He felt pleased with himself. Happy. The water was wonderfully cool after the almost unnatural heat of the night air. He let it caress him. His head had stopped throbbing and his grazed elbow no longer burned. In the distance, he could hear the low thrum of the big electric motor in the pump house; it sounded almost like a heartbeat. Wolfgang yawned, blinked, shook his head. A grey mist seemed to have fallen over him; he found himself struggling to keep his eyes open. The sensation took him by surprise. It was the whisky. He’d had too much whisky. It would be so nice just to go with it, Wolfgang thought, almost surrendering to the urge to sleep. Be so nice to be home in bed.
Audrey came splashing towards him across the fountain pond in the botanical gardens. She wore shorts and a black bra. Her expression was fierce. ‘Wait for what?’ she asked, in the voice of someone much younger.
Wolfgang snapped his eyes open. Merri stood chest deep in the pool two and a half metres from him, her head and narrow shoulders silhouetted against the light in front of the changing block.
‘Whaa?’ he said.
‘I thought you were going to get me back.’
‘Get you back?’
‘For splashing you.’
‘Oh. Yeah. Thure,’ he said, finally catching on. He flicked a handful of spray in her direction. It barely reached her, but Merri squealed as if she’d been hit by a fire hose.
‘Right!’ she shrieked. ‘You asked for it, buster!’
It quickly developed into a contest. Hands splashed, water flew. Soon they were both laughing, gasping, breathless. Wolfgang, much larger and stronger, began to drive Merri back. Finally she dived and came at him beneath the water, but he was ready for her. As soon as she surfaced, barely a metre short of him, Wolfgang hit her with a frenzied, two-handed barrage of flying water. Merri took a loud gasping breath and went under again. He stood, right arm poised, waiting for her to resurface, but Merri changed her tactics. Staying underwater, she grabbed him around the calves and tried to trip him up. Wolfgang braced himself, feet planted wide on the pool’s smooth concrete bottom, and waited for her to run out of breath. As soon as she came up for air he would let her have it. But Merri was determined. Discovering she couldn’t trip him, she moved her grip higher, digging her small sharp fingers into the backs of his knees. It hurt! Wolfgang shied away from her and felt his feet slip out from under him. He fell backwards. There was a jarring thump, his whole head seemed to explode, then the water rose up around him and extinguished the stars.
48
‘Let go of me!’ They were all around him. The night was filled with underwater hands, knees and feet bumping against legs, a cyclone of ragged, gasping breaths. He pushed someone forcefully in the chest.
‘Take it easy!’ cried Mark.
‘I’m sorry, Wolfgang,’ Merri said behind him.
‘This isn’t fair! Three against one!’
Steve’s mouth was right next to his ear, each word a warm rush of air. ‘We’re trying to help you, you prick!’
‘Trying to drown me, more like it.’
Someone’s toenail gouged him in the shin. He lashed out with his knee and felt a soft, satisfying impact.
‘Hey, take it easy!’ squealed Mark.
‘Just get your frigging hands off me!’
He felt himself released.
‘I’m sorry,’ Merri said.
Someone hawked loudly and spat.
‘Can you stand up?’ Steve asked.
‘Course I can frigging stand up!’
He had to extend his arms for balance. They were up the high end of the pool; the water came up nearly to his shoulders. He was half floating. Mark, Steve and Merri formed a semi-circle around him with just their heads above the surface; their faces were largely indiscernible in the semi-darkness of the unlit pool.
‘I’m sorry, Wolfgang,’ Merri said for the third or fourth time.
He blinked and saw a swirl of white flashing lights behind his eyelids. They seemed, in the half second they were there, vaguely butterfly-shaped.
‘You scared us half to death,’ said Steve, still short of breath.
‘I scared you? Hey, who was it that dragged me all the way up here from the low end?’
‘Not us, Mr Houdini, Sir.’
‘How did you do it?’ asked Mark. ‘You must have been underwater for, like, five minutes!’
Steve was treading water. ‘You completely disappeared, man!’
‘Into thin air,’ said Mark.
‘Into thin water,’ said Steve. ‘Where did you go? We spent maybe ten minutes looking for you.’
Wolfgang used a fingertip to clear water out of one ear. Both Steve and Mark seemed drunk. He was surprised at how sober he felt. He’d stopped lisping. ‘Mark said five minutes.’
‘Hell, who cares how long it was? You just weren’t anywhere, Wolfman. We crisscrossed the pool like a hundred times and we couldn’t find you. Then suddenly, after we’d all given up hope of ever seeing your ugly mug again, you popped up large as life here in the deep end.’
Merri had begun sobbing and was having difficulty speaking. ‘I was so ... scared Wolfgang. I didn’t mean to ... to
... to trip you. I’m sorry.’
‘It was five minutes, tops,’ said Mark.
Steve let out a loud, exaggerated sigh. ‘Okay, five minutes, Mr Timekeeper. Long enough, anyway, for a normal person to drown.’
‘The only thing ... left was ... was ... your helmet,’ sobbed Merri.
Wolfgang touched his wet hair. ‘Where is it?’
‘Where’s what?’
‘My helmet.’
‘I think ...’ Merri sniffed loudly, then swallowed. ‘I think ... I left it in the office.’
‘What office?’ he asked.
‘Where you work.’
‘You were in the office?’
‘When we couldn’t find you, Steve said take the keys and find a phone.’
‘That’s right,’ said her brother. ‘Blame me, why don’t you!’
Wolfgang ignored him. ‘Did you phone anyone, Merri?’
‘I dialled triple zero. They’re sending an ambulance, I think.’
He swore softly.
‘I’m sorry!’ she wailed. ‘But we couldn’t find you, Wolfgang! You, like, completely disappeared!’
‘It’s okay, Merri,’ he said. He didn’t understand any of this. How could they be so stupid as to call an ambulance? ‘We’d better get out of here before anyone shows up.’
‘But I’ve never been in an ambulance,’ said Steve.
‘Do you think they’ll give us a lift home if we ask nicely?’ asked Mark.
‘You’ll get a ride in a divvy van,’ Wolfgang said. ‘We’re not supposed to be here, remember. I can’t believe you called an ambulance!’
‘We thought you’d drowned.’
‘Well I didn’t, did I? Let’s get out of here.’
‘Evacuate! Evacuate!’ cried Mark.
There was a scramble to reach the side of the pool. Steve and Mark got there first, hauled themselves out and went dashing off into the darkness making siren noises. Pair of galahs! Wolfgang thought as he followed Merri up the ladder. He felt surprisingly calm. Already he was composing a list of things to do on the way out: collect his clothes, his sneakers, his backpack; find his helmet; lock up. If they left anything behind, or if he left the door to the office or the gate open, Mrs Lonsdale was sure to remember the spare key she’d given him and he’d lose his job. My day job, Wolfgang thought. He wondered, in the peculiar state of self-composure that had settled over him, what Audrey was doing at that moment.
‘You didn’t tell them who we were, did you?’ he asked Merri as they hurried, dripping, along the strip of pale concrete beside the pool.
‘No. When they asked me, I just hung up.’
Good, he thought. They might think the call was a hoax and not send anyone.
He was wrong. Wolfgang had just pulled the gate closed behind them when a pair of headlights swung into the car park off Millar Street. The dazzling beams swept across the front of the building as he and Merri dashed for the cover of the trees. They barely made it. Wolfgang flattened himself behind a broad-trunked ironbark and pulled Merri in next to him. Tyres crunched to a standstill no more than ten metres away. A car door creaked open.
‘No sign of anybody.’
‘Check the gate.’
Two men. They were just around the other side of the tree. Wolfgang pressed his back against its rough bark as a torch beam darted here and there. He had one arm around his backpack and helmet, the other around Merri. He could feel her heartbeat.
‘It’s police,’ she whispered.
‘Shhhh!’
Footsteps moved away from them across the gravel. The gate rattled.
‘Locked,’ said one of the policemen.
‘Better check round the side,’ said the other. ‘They might have climbed in over the fence.’
‘Bloody kids! I told you it’d be a prank.’
‘You told me? What did I say when the call came in?’
They walked right past the tree. Wolfgang and Merri had to shuffle their way around its trunk, keeping it between them and the two policemen. He still had his arm around her. She was like a stick compared to Audrey. He loosened his grip.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Shhhh!’
Wolfgang peered cautiously around the tree. The policemen were forty metres away, flashing their torches through the wire at the pool. He felt an irrational stab of guilt. It was him they were looking for – his body, since he was supposed to have drowned – yet here he was in perfect health.
‘Merri,’ he whispered. ‘How long was I under water?’
‘I don’t know. Ages.’
It was weird. He must have blacked out again, some sort of delayed reaction from his bicycle accident. Concussion. But he felt okay now. In fact, he’d never felt so alive. So exhilarated. He poked his head back around the tree. The policemen had gone around the far end of the pool enclosure.
‘It’s all clear,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s get out of here before they come back.’
Mark and Steve were waiting in the shadows. They had hidden his bicycle in the shrubs at the edge of the car park where the police wouldn’t see it. The four of them walked together along Millar Street, Wolfgang pushing his bicycle, click-click-scrape, at the rear. He kept looking over his shoulder. When a taxi swung out of Elliot Street, they ducked down an alley beside the newsagency and waited for it to pass. Steve threw an empty drink can out onto the street just as the taxi swept by. Wolfgang told him not to be an idiot. The others laughed about it but he saw nothing funny in drawing attention to themselves. It was his job that was on the line, not Steve’s or Mark’s or Merri’s. All three of them seemed drunk, yet Wolfgang felt surprisingly sharp and clear-headed, as if he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol all night. Weird. At the Acacia Street intersection, where normally he would turn too, Wolfgang said goodbye to the others and continued along Millar Street, just to get away from them.
49
The kitchen light was on when Wolfgang wheeled his bike into the driveway. What could that mean? Perhaps his father had woken up and decided it was time for breakfast. The silly old bugger was inclined to lose track of time. A few weeks ago he’d gone missing at three in the morning and Wolfgang’s mother had found him in the middle of the back lawn with a pair of binoculars, searching for Halley’s comet; he thought the year was 1986.
Wolfgang’s parents were seated at the kitchen table in their pyjamas. They had teacups in front of them. A game of cricket was showing on the small television above the microwave, with the sound turned very low. Wolfgang didn’t know what to make of it. Why were his parents watching television in the middle of the night? He tried to sneak past the open doorway but his mother looked round at just the wrong moment.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Come and sit down.’
It was a command, not an invitation. Wolfgang glanced at the clock. Twenty-one minutes past eleven. Oops. He got himself a glass of water and joined his parents at the table.
‘Who’s winning?’ he asked.
‘It’s the first innings,’ said his father, engrossed in the game. ‘Ponting made another century.’
‘How many is that now?’
‘A hundred and five.’
‘I mean how many centuries has he made?’
‘It’s only the first innings.’
‘In his test career.’
‘Who?’
‘Ricky Ponting.’
‘He made another century,’ Leo said.
Wolfgang sighed. It was like talking to a two-year-old. He met his mother’s eyes across the table. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘At Steve’s. I had a run-in with a cat on the way home and smashed my bike up a bit. That’s why I’m late.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t lie to us.’
‘I’m not lying, Mum. Look, when I came off my bike it took half the skin off my ...’ Wolfgang’s voice trailed away as he gazed incredulously at his elbow. There was not a mark on it. ‘I ... I ... I’ll get my helmet �
� it got really thcratched up.’
His mother looked tired. ‘Don’t bother,’ she said. ‘Just tell us where you’ve been.’
‘At Thteve’s!’ He lightly touched his elbow. It had been dark, but he’d been sure the skin was broken. He hadn’t imagined the burning pain. ‘I already told you about the party.’
‘Wolfgang, I happen to know you left the party several hours ago. Stephen’s mother was on the phone.’
He lowered his arm. ‘You rang Mrs Taylor?’
‘She rang here.’
Wolfgang’s father dragged his eyes from the television. ‘She told me you were at the pool.’
‘Leo, you didn’t even speak to her,’ Sylvia said.
‘Who said I was at the pool?’ Wolfgang asked.
‘The girl,’ said Leo.
‘It was her mother,’ Sylvia said, exasperated. ‘She was looking for the girl.’
‘You mean Merri?’ said Wolfgang.
His mother nodded. ‘She’s only a child, Wolfgang. Her parents were worried sick.’
‘We only went for a walk. Steve was there, too.’
‘Had you been drinking?’ Leo asked abruptly.
‘No.’
Sylvia glanced in her husband’s direction. ‘They found a whisky bottle in Stephen’s room, Wolfgang.’
‘Dimple Fine Old Scotch Whisky,’ Leo said, as if he was reading from a label. ‘Your friend has expensive taste.’
Wolfgang felt his heartbeat accelerate. His father could do this – switch from doddering old fool to fully lucid in the space of two seconds. Wolfgang wasn’t sure which version he preferred. ‘I wouldn’t know anything about what Thtephen’s got in hith room,’ he said. ‘We were outthide the whole time I was there.’
‘Here’s a coincidence,’ Leo said. ‘There’s a bottle of Dimple in the liquor cabinet. A retirement present from Joseph. Why don’t you go and get it for me, Wolfgang?’
‘Leo –’ said his wife.
