Pool

by Justin D'Ath

  The church had been nearly full, and uncharacteristically there were nearly as many young people as over-thirties. Wolfgang was surprised by how many teenagers filled the pews, particularly weepy-eyed girls. He wondered where they had all been when Audrey was alive.

  Four people made eulogies, including Keith and Martine. Rather than make a speech, Martine read a poem by WH Auden that Wolfgang remembered from Four Weddings and a Funeral, by the end of which three-quarters of the congregation was busy with tissues. Wolfgang remained dry-eyed throughout. He was determined not to cry. She deceived me, he thought every time he felt the threat of tears. She told me she loved me just so she could get the keys.

  But in his heart he knew this wasn’t true.

  Sylvia asked him if he wanted to go to the bowling club for the wake, but Wolfgang said no. ‘It’ll be too much for Dad,’ he said.

  ‘I can drop you there then come back later to collect you,’ Leo said generously.

  ‘No, Dad. Thanks, but I don’t need to go. Really.’

  ‘Her parents might like you to be there,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘I’m sure they won’t notice. I’m not actually feeling too good,’ Wolfgang lied.

  As everyone began walking away up the grassy green slope towards their cars, Leo placed an arm across Wolfgang’s shoulders. ‘She’ll be able to hear in heaven.’

  ‘What will she hear?’

  ‘Lord only knows,’ the old man said. ‘They were supposed to be Beethoven’s last words. “I’ll be able to hear in heaven”. He was deaf, you see. Like your friend.’

  ‘She was blind, Dad; she wasn’t deaf.’

  ‘Ah.’ Leo rubbed his chin. ‘Well, it’s the same thing. She’ll be able to see now.’

  Wolfgang hoped it was true. Wherever she was, he hoped Audrey could see.

  61

  When they arrived home after the funeral, the message light on the answering machine was blinking. Wolfgang walked past it. He closed his bedroom door and flopped face-down on his bed. A few minutes later he heard the machine beep and then the low cadence of a man’s recorded voice. Floorboards creaked in the passage outside his room. There was a light knock on the door.

  ‘What?’ Wolfgang said, his voice muffled by the pillow.

  He heard the door open. ‘That doctor fellow from the museum phoned,’ his father said. ‘He wants you to call him back.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Wolfgang wiped his eyes on his pillow slip. ‘Yeah. I must have dozed off.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea? Mum’s just put the ... um ... the ... um, thing on.’

  ‘Kettle?’

  ‘That’s it. She put the kettle on. We thought you might like a cup of tea.’

  ‘Not right now,’ Wolfgang said. He rolled onto his back. ‘Dad, have you ever heard of a nocturnal butterfly?’

  Leo shook his head. ‘I can’t say I have.’

  ‘Is it possible, though?’ asked Wolfgang. ‘If a butterfly was nocturnal, that wouldn’t necessarily make it a moth, would it?’

  ‘I don’t suppose so. There are moths that come out in the daytime.’

  ‘So what are the other differences?’ Wolfgang asked. ‘I know most moths have feathery antennae, and nearly all of them rest with their wings flat, but is there any one definite way to tell a butterfly and a moth apart?’

  His father nodded. ‘The frenulum.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You find them on moths. They join the forewings and hind wings together.’

  ‘Butterflies don’t have them?’

  ‘No.’

  Wolfgang rose from the bed and hoisted his chair over to the wardrobe. ‘What about this?’ he said, opening the suitcase.

  ‘That’s a butterfly.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, look at it!’ Leo said, lifting the setting-tray out and holding it at arm’s length to admire the specimen pinned to it. ‘It’s obviously a butterfly.’

  ‘Can you be sure? Does it have ... um ... fremulins?’

  ‘Frenulum,’ his father corrected him. ‘No, it certainly doesn’t.’

  Wolfgang looked on doubtfully. ‘Are they that obvious?’

  ‘Are what obvious?’

  ‘Frenulum.’

  ‘No, they’re hidden by the forewings.’

  ‘How do you know it hasn’t got them then?’

  ‘Because I’d have noticed when I was setting it,’ Leo said, handing the specimen back. ‘By the way, that doctor phoned – the one from the museum.’

  Wolfgang didn’t return Dr Karalis’ call. He didn’t feel like explaining why he hadn’t delivered the black butterfly to him the previous day. Or, more precisely, why he hadn’t left it at reception. I’ll let him stew for a bit, Wolfgang decided. It would teach the scientist not to be so offhand with him in future. As far as Wolfgang knew, Dr Karalis didn’t have a butterfly named after him. Not that fame, or even butterflies, held much appeal for Wolfgang at present.

  That night, when finally he fell asleep, Wolfgang dreamed he was back at the cemetery. The plot where Audrey had been buried was undisturbed by the gravediggers’ shovels and backhoe. A small posy of daisies lay on the grass. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was Audrey.

  ‘I can see!’ she whispered, fluttering her huge white butterfly wings.

  62

  Wolfgang returned to work the following afternoon. It was harder than he expected. His eyes were continually drawn to Audrey’s spot beneath the peppercorn tree. He couldn’t look at the pool itself without picturing her shuffling down the wheelchair ramp the first and only time he had seen her in bathers. He remembered how she had bent forward and pushed her face under the water and held it there for nearly half a minute, her red hair fanned out around her head like a halo. And then her disappointment when she’d come back up. She had been disappointed, Wolfgang realised now, not because her sight hadn’t been restored, but because of what she hadn’t been able to find beneath the water. He hoped she’d found it now.

  At three o’clock Wolfgang asked Christie to relieve him and went looking for Mrs Lonsdale. He found her washing the dishes in the staff kitchen.

  ‘I have to go home, Mrs Lonsdale.’

  She set a teaspoon in the drainer and turned around. ‘Are you sure? It might be better to keep busy.’

  ‘Not here,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I keep getting reminded of her.’

  Mrs Lonsdale’s eyes became moist. ‘Do you have someone you can talk to?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll be okay.’

  ‘It might take some time, but things will get easier. Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No.’

  She sighed. ‘Take all the time you need, Wolfgang. Your job will still be here. Give me a call when you feel you’re ready to come back, or even if you just want to talk.’

  Everyone wanted him to talk, but talking about Audrey only made it worse. He didn’t want to be reminded of her. It would have been better for everyone if she had drowned properly the first time. Then he would never have met her and fallen in love with her. And she wouldn’t have had to endure sixteen years as a blind, fat, mixed-up girl whose only friend was a fraud and a liar.

  Wolfgang spent the next week and a half at home; he didn’t go anywhere except to mass on Sunday. Various people came to visit – Steve Taylor, Mark Cowan, Martine Babacan (that was awkward, now that she knew the truth about his age), even Michael from the pool. Wolfgang knew his mother was behind it. He had overheard her one evening on the phone, saying to someone how much Wolfgang would appreciate seeing them. Ha! The only person he would appreciate seeing was dead. But he was polite with his visitors; they were only trying to help. He offered them Coke or juice or cups of tea or coffee, and he laughed dutifully at their jokes and funny stories and tried to appear friendly and interested in what they were saying, but always he was secretly relieved – as no doubt they were, too – when they left.

  The only person whose company w
asn’t a strain on him was his father. Wolfgang wasn’t sure if Leo had forgotten Audrey had died; the old man acted as if nothing had changed. He was as absent-minded, as grumpy, as unpredictable and as frustrating as ever, but Wolfgang found a strange comfort in this. After all the kid-gloves treatment he was receiving from everyone else, it was nice to have someone treat him normally. His father had his failings, but at least he was real.

  The only time Leo revealed that he might have known more than he was letting on occurred nearly two weeks after Audrey’s death. It was Friday morning and Wolfgang was in the backyard pegging out the washing for his mother, who had put a load of coloureds in the washing machine before she went shopping. The back door opened and Leo beckoned Wolfgang over.

  ‘That new priest’s here,’ he said in a loud whisper.

  Wolfgang fingered the blue and white tea towel he’d been about to hang up. ‘Father Nguyen? What does he want?’

  ‘The same as all the others, I expect. Do you want me to send him away?’

  It would seem rude. Wolfgang didn’t want to speak to the priest, but he knew he would have to do so eventually. ‘No, Dad. I’ll just get the rest of this washing out.’

  By the time Wolfgang went inside, his father had made their visitor a pot of tea and set it, along with four cups and saucers and a jug of milk, on the kitchen table. The small Vietnamese priest stood up and formally shook Wolfgang’s hand. His fingers were as soft as a child’s and barely larger.

  ‘How are you, Wolfgang? Your father was telling me of your butterfly collection.’

  ‘Would you like to see it?’ he asked. Anything to distract the priest from why he had come here.

  ‘I would like to, very much.’

  Wolfgang led Father Nguyen to his bedroom. It was a mess but he didn’t care. There was nothing in the Ten Commandments about tidiness.

  ‘They are very beautiful,’ said the quietly-spoken priest, admiring the display case closest to the door. ‘You caught these yourself?’

  ‘Dad caught those ones.’ Wolfgang pointed to the case above his desk. ‘These are mine here.’

  Father Nguyen came over to look. ‘You must be very skilful to make them look so alive.’

  ‘Dad’s better at it than me,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I’m still only learning.’

  ‘Where do you find them?’

  ‘I caught most of those around here. The big green one’s from Queensland. I had to buy it.’

  ‘You can buy butterflies?’ asked the priest.

  ‘I bought it as a chrysalis.’

  ‘Chrysalis? I don’t know this word.’

  ‘It’s the stage between a caterpillar and a butterfly. Here, I can show you.’

  Wolfgang pulled a book from the shelf beside his desk and leafed through it until he came to a diagram showing the life cycle of a butterfly.

  Father Nguyen studied the page intently. He seemed genuinely interested. ‘How do you say this word?’

  ‘Imago. It’s the final stage – the butterfly.’

  ‘Imago,’ the priest repeated. He looked up and smiled. ‘This is how we will be in heaven, Wolfgang: like the ugly caterpillar that changes to the beautiful butterfly.’

  63

  ‘You’ve had visitors?’ Sylvia asked as Wolfgang cleared away the remains of their morning tea to make way for the two bags of groceries she’d carried in from the car.

  Leo clutched the teapot possessively. ‘That new priest,’ he said.

  ‘Oh. What did he want?’

  ‘You know what he wanted, Mum,’ said Wolfgang. ‘You phoned him.’

  She sniffed. ‘Well, someone’s got to shake you out of your cocoon.’

  Cocoon, he thought. It was a strangely appropriate metaphor, in light of his conversation with Father Nguyen.

  ‘What happened to Father Frazer?’ asked Leo, pouring the last of the tea – a dark brown dribble – into his cup.

  ‘He died,’ Wolfgang said.

  Sylvia flashed him an exasperated look. ‘He did not die. He moved down to Korumburra. No, don’t look in the newspaper, dear.’

  Wolfgang had pulled the Advertiser out of one of the shopping bags. He stood there holding it. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I meant to leave it in the car. There’s something in it you probably shouldn’t look at.’

  His mother reached for the newspaper but Wolfgang lifted it playfully over his head and moved away from her across the kitchen. If there was something in the Addy she didn’t want him to see, it was probably a photo of a semi-naked woman or something equally interesting.

  ‘No, don’t open it, Wolfgang.’

  ‘Too late,’ he said.

  Staring out of the front page, and thankfully fully clothed, was a photo of Mrs Lonsdale. A second photo showed the pool, inset with two small close-ups of the waterline, each with a spirit level demonstrating its variation from the horizontal. One inset was labelled 1990, the second had yesterday’s date printed below it. The accompanying article filled the rest of the page.

  On the Level

  Rumours that New Lourdes’ famous sloping swimming pool is losing its gradient were confirmed yesterday evening when pool manager and former mayor, Shirley Lonsdale, held a press conference in the pool grounds.

  Mrs Lonsdale told an audience of local and national press that the change had been taking place for approximately two weeks.

  Formerly the water’s surface inclined 5.75 degrees from the horizontal, Mrs Lonsdale said. By 5:00 p.m. yesterday the incline had diminished to 2.05 degrees. If this continues, the pool will be completely level by the end of next week.

  ‘This could have a devastating effect on the economy of New Lourdes,’ the former mayor said yesterday.

  New Lourdes Pool, called by many the Eighth Wonder of the World, first came to prominence in 1990 when its surface tilted overnight to its former level 5.75 degrees from the horizontal. Scientists have been baffled by the phenomenon for nearly eighteen years ...

  Wolfgang lowered the newspaper and stared out the window.

  ‘I warned you not to look,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘Why? Does it say something about Audrey?’

  ‘No. But I thought it might remind you.’

  ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ he said softly, watching a pair of white cabbage butterflies performing a pre-mating pirouette above the grevilleas. His mind was whirling faster than they were. ‘It doesn’t bother me to be reminded.’

  He remembered how Audrey had zigzagged erratically around the lawns that night at the botanical gardens. It had seemed almost as if she was following something. ‘I can see angels,’ she’d said afterwards.

  White, he thought, his eyes following the erratic dance of the two white butterflies outside the window. In a photographic negative, a black butterfly would appear white.

  What if ...?

  ‘This tea’s cold,’ Leo complained in the background.

  Wolfgang turned around. ‘Dad, would you be able to drive me somewhere?’

  ‘I can drive you,’ Sylvia offered.

  Leo scraped his chair backwards and rose stiffly to his feet. ‘Is there something wrong with your hearing, my love? Wolfgang asked me to drive him.’

  64

  It was going to be another very hot day. Already the temperature must have been nearly thirty degrees and it was still an hour before noon. This time Wolfgang had remembered the umbrella. He held its shade over his father as they made their way slowly down the wide grassy slope. In his other arm he cradled a shoebox and a bunch of white carnations wrapped in tissue paper and cellophane. The flowers were Leo’s idea. He had paid for them himself.

  ‘You’ve got to take flowers,’ he’d said when Wolfgang told him where they were going, so they had made a slow detour to the supermarket.

  Leo hadn’t asked what was in the shoebox.

  There were already flowers on her grave: a bunch of yellow and white daisies – they looked fresh – and a wilting red rose in an empty glass. The dirt had been cleared away but Wolfgan
g could still see the cuts in the turf where the sods had been replaced. There was no plaque yet, just a small numbered wooden marker.

  Leo bent stiffly and picked up the glass with the rose in it. ‘I saw a tap back there,’ he said, and started back up the slope.

  Wolfgang hurried after him. ‘Here, take the umbrella.’

  ‘It isn’t going to rain,’ his father said, crotchety as ever.

  ‘For the sun.’

  ‘I know what it’s for. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘I know you aren’t stupid, Dad.’

  Without another word, Leo took the umbrella and shuffled off.

  Wolfgang returned to Audrey’s grave. He placed the carnations beside the daisies. They had buried her in the exact spot where she used to spend her nights. ‘Whose grave?’ he’d asked her two weeks ago. Now he knew.

  Wolfgang opened the shoebox. As he lifted the setting-tray out, the umbrella’s wide shadow fell over him.

  ‘Isn’t that the one Doctor What’s-his-name from the museum keeps phoning about?’ his father asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you were taking it down to him.’

  ‘I’ve got another wing – I’ll send him that,’ Wolfgang said. Although he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t disappear like the first one. ‘Dad, do you think there are other places besides this world where people can live?’

  ‘That’s a strange question,’ Leo said.

  ‘There have been some pretty strange things happening lately.’

  Leo knelt beside him and replaced the wilted rose in its refilled glass of water on Audrey’s grave. ‘It’s hard when someone close to you dies,’ he said, his voice slightly hoarse. ‘I’m sure she’s happy.’