by Hugh Breakey
A sprinkling of rain cooled my face as I set out. I walked fast, more spooked by worries about Julie than being caught outside when the forgetting struck. When I made it to her place, I strode up the hall and rapped on her door.
Nothing.
Rapping turned to thumping, and I called louder. Was she standing inside the apartment, arms obstinately crossed? Or lying unconscious on the bathroom floor? I pounded harder. I jiggled the doorknob in desperation. The door stayed locked.
I considered just waiting here on her doorstep. But there was no guarantee she’d return any time soon—or at all. And even if she did, the forgetting might strike long before then, leaving me lost in the world and useless to her. I thumped on the door, harder now. If she was passed out drunk, maybe she was in danger. Enough alcohol could kill a person.
I called her name, then yelled it. Part of me hoped that one of her neighbours would come out to see what the ruckus was all about. Then I could ask them if they knew anything about where she was. But there was nothing. No sound or movement except my own frantic knocking and calling.
Finally, out of ideas, I backed away down the dark hallway, blood pounding in my head, and my legs buckled under my weight. I crumpled to my knees. I’d tell a thousand lies, light a thousand fires, break a thousand laws, she’d said. What wouldn’t you do? I looked back at the door. I’d seen it from the inside. The lock sat just above the doorknob with the bolt sliding into a screwed-on bracket, not into the doorway itself.
I shut my eyes, flexing my body into a crouch. I could feel the distance to the door, not in metres or inches but in steps and breaths. My mind spanned the distance in a dozen different ways, working out how to take my body’s force and drive it into one small square of wood at the end of the hall.
I took off down the hall like a sprinter at the starting gate and launched myself off one foot, twisting as I hurled myself into the air. Spin, muscle and velocity came together as my foot struck the target, and with a surprising crunch the door burst open. Splinters flew everywhere. I hit the floor and bounced back to my feet almost in the same motion.
‘Julie?’
I would have settled for anything, an angry retort, a drunken groan. But the only sound was the rain unleashing against her apartment window. The storm had hit at last. I raised my voice. ‘Julie? Are you here?’
The whole apartment was trashed, not just the door. Furniture overturned, her little desk swept clean, the floor strewn with the shrapnel of a life exploded. Shattered glass crunched into the carpet under my shoes and I tried not to notice it looked like the broken pieces of the champagne bottle I’d given her. This was the violence of a life being forcibly reset. One vice at a time.
I went into the bedroom and then the bathroom. Maybe I’d find her lying passed out on the tiles in a pool of her own vomit, but at least she’d be alive. At least she’d be here.
Nothing. The apartment was empty and silent. The only noise was the storm raging outside.
My legs felt like lead. I sat myself down on the edge of Julie’s bed next to an open suitcase and a large canvas bag. She’d emptied out her wardrobe by the looks of it, but most of the contents just lay in haphazard piles. The two travelling bags were barely half-packed.
She hadn’t left town for good, then. Not yet, at least. But that meant she was outside somewhere. I wandered through the apartment, scanning the wreckage around me, not knowing what I hoped to find. Nothing in the livingroom. But in the kitchenette—a bottle on the floor in a corner.
Bourbon: empty.
Thunder cracked; my skin shuddered into goosebumps. Rain splattered in through the bottom of the livingroom window. The spot where Julie had sat and smoked. I slammed it down and the rain lashed the glass. Julie was out there in this storm, almost certainly with a bottle of bourbon or more in her. So where could she be? There had to be something, anything, that would hint at her whereabouts.
I paced through the wreckage, lifting, moving, uncovering. On the floor, half-hidden behind the couch I found her phone. Jagged splinters webbed its screen. I stabbed at the home button, but it was dead. That was why she hadn’t been answering my calls.
A little rubbish bin sat beside her desk, incongruously still upright. I upended it, and a used tissue tumbled out along with her six-months-dry medallion. Given everything else appeared to have been hurled around in fury, it felt significant that this had found its way into the trash. Wherever she was, she wasn’t on Day 356 anymore.
Out of ideas, I slumped against the desk. Despite everything, I was no better off than I’d been on the other side of the door. Perhaps I should just wait here for her. She’d have to return eventually, but that might be hours, days. Time I didn’t have.
I put the medallion back in the bin. Stuck in the bottom was a scrunched brown paper bag, the type used by bottle shops. I tore it open. Inside was a crushed receipt for a bottle of Jack Daniels with a name at the top in faded print. South Brisbane RSL: I knew it from my neighbourhood walks. A huge building with dark booths and poker machines. A bottle shop on one corner. The date was from yesterday morning.
Maybe she’d gone back there when the bourbon ran out. Or maybe not, but it was the only lead I had. I leapt into action, racing around her apartment, grabbing anything I thought might be helpful. The one thing I didn’t find was an umbrella. Given the way the rain was belting against the window, my backpack would be soaked through in minutes. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around the plastic bag, then made a stab at closing the apartment door. The latch was smashed, so it wouldn’t shut properly, but it felt better than leaving the place wide open to the world.
Outside on the doorstep, the rain made me pause. Despite the awning I was getting drenched, and I shivered. The right side of my torso was freezing, pallid wet skin exposed to the world. My shirt was split beneath the arm; I must have torn it as I kicked Julie’s door down. I pushed aside a last moment of hesitation and stepped into the downpour. Before I’d reached the end of the block, my shirt and the front of my jeans were soaked through. If it kept up like this, the journal, buried deep in my backpack, wrapped in two plastic bags and my jacket, might be in danger.
I shielded my eyes and ploughed on. The rain poured into tiny rivers down my neck and inside my collar; my too-long fringe kept falling across my eyes. Heart in mouth, I turned the final corner. The RSL’s lights gleamed like a beacon. Within hours, perhaps minutes, all the memories that had got me here would be gone—but at least they’d survived long enough to find this place.
I pushed my way into the bright, dry warmth. The place was huge. One enormous room filled with black tables and seats led into a larger one with rows of poker machines. There weren’t many people—it was still only early morning—which would make Julie easier to find. Flicking the water from my hair, I searched through the place at double time. No Julie.
Gritting my teeth against the possibility she might not be here, I ploughed on into the adjacent room. The light was dimmer here, lit mainly by the glow of the pokies. I searched the ranks of the machines: row after row yielded nothing after nothing.
My breath laboured and my mouth felt dry. My chest seemed to be collapsing in on itself. Maybe this wasn’t disappointment or cold or exhaustion, maybe this was the first stage of the forgetting. I wouldn’t know, after all. Whatever happened to me when it struck was by its very nature hidden from future knowledge.
I pushed it aside. I had to get home, and before that, I had to find Julie.
The bartender was a woman. In her fifties, maybe. She looked at me with narrowed eyes.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘How can I help you, love?’
‘I’m looking for someone.’ I pulled off my backpack and rummaged through it. Cocooned inside my jacket and the plastic bag, the journal and mementoes were dry. Small mercies. I pulled out the phone, and showed her the picture of Julie and me. ‘Has she been here?’
She took the phone from my hands and looked down at the picture, then back up
to me. ‘Who’s she to you?’
‘She’s my best friend. She’s not home. Or answering her phone. I haven’t heard from her since Friday, and I’m worried.’ My mind was racing. Julie would know what to say. ‘When we took that photo she was three hundred and fifty-one days dry.’
The woman pursed her lips. ‘Well, it’s back to zero now.’
‘She was here? This morning?’
‘I had to move her on.’ She gestured to a sign behind the bar: Patrons will not be served if visibly intoxicated.
‘Where would I find the nearest pub? The nearest place to get a drink.’
‘That’s what she wanted to know.’ The woman handed my phone back to me. ‘I told her maybe she should give it a bit of a rest.’
I wanted to scream at her to tell me something, anything, but I kept my voice as steady as I could. ‘Please.’
‘There’s a club at the end of Musgrave Street? Charmers. It’d be open now. Take a right outside, then right again at the crossing. Three blocks down.’
‘Thanks,’ I called, already making my way to the exit, stuffing everything back in my backpack. I shoved the phone into my back pocket. Maybe the picture would come in handy again.
Outside, the rain thundered down in full force. I was shivering again, worse than before. It didn’t feel right. I took a deep breath. Just a little longer, I prayed. Give me this last shot at seeing her. I shielded my eyes and pushed forward into the maelstrom. By the time I saw the place, my shoes were squelching with every stride. If this kept up, the only thing I’d be passing on to my future self would be pneumonia.
Inside, the club was dark: mood lighting only. There was a dance floor and sunken booths. Music throbbed softly. I scanned the room urgently as my eyes adjusted to the low light. My eyes went from one stranger to another with a growing dread. This was my last chance. She had to be here.
There. Near the bar, a glimpse of cropped-short hair. She was sitting on a tall stool at a high table. Her pale neck and shoulders shone against her black dress in the dim light. A stranger sat beside her. Male. Close, almost in her space. Julie seemed oblivious. She was leaning forward, cradling a tall glass on the table.
‘Julie!’ Relief flooded me.
She looked up, her gaze drifting from my face down to my soaking shirt, then back up to my face again. She didn’t speak.
‘Who’re you?’ The guy beside her was older, in his forties. Thickset. He too looked me up and down, and I realised how I looked. Drenched to the bone, shirt torn, skin flushed, eyes wild.
‘I’m her husband.’ I kept my eyes fixed on her. ‘Well, I’m her—’
‘I’m not married.’ Julie’s voice sounded slurred, thick with alcohol.
‘Divorced?’ the guy asked her.
‘Widowed.’ Her eyes met mine.
‘Yeah, about that,’ I said. ‘I need to tell you something.’ I took a deep breath. If only we could have had this discussion back at her place, or mine. Everything felt out of place. Her drink. The guy next to her. The distant beat of generic music. But this place and time was all I had.
‘I lied to you,’ I said. ‘At the dance when I said I didn’t remember. I promised you I’d try, and I didn’t. Not truly.’
‘So you lied.’ She shrugged. ‘Now you can live with the consequences. Alone.’
‘Fuck that.’
Julie blinked as the word rolled off my tongue. She couldn’t have done better herself.
‘Come back with me,’ I said. ‘I’ve got something to show you. Something you wanted to know. I can show you now.’
She glared at me, her glazed eyes hardening. Maybe a little anger was a good thing. Better anything than indifference. ‘So show.’
‘What, here?’
She shrugged.
‘I need to show you at home, back at the apartment.’
‘Then forget it. I don’t care anymore. That’s what I’m doing here. Not caring.’ With her eyes still fixed on me, she put the glass to her lips and swallowed two mouthfuls.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Here.’
I turned and strode to the bar. Perhaps it was better this way anyway—to do it here, rather than at home. My past self would have done it this way.
‘Can I have two large glasses of water and a song request?’ The bartender didn’t look particularly open to the idea, but I pushed on. ‘There’s a tip in it. I’ve got—’ I emptied the contents of my sodden wallet on the bar. ‘One hundred bucks and…some change. For one song.’ One more thing I could bequeath to my future self: destitution.
The bartender stared at me.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘This is life or death for me right now.’
‘We don’t normally do requests.’ He looked around the room briefly, then shrugged. ‘But if it’s life or death.’ He scooped the pile of cash off the counter and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Julie had turned herself away, shifting a little towards her companion.
I plonked the two glasses of iced water down on the table in front of her. Her eyes moved from the water to me. ‘Your shirt’s torn.’
‘You were right about the letter,’ I said. ‘And right to be angry. But you need to know the whole truth, because you can’t make a proper decision without knowing how things really stand. It’s late, but you deserve to know.’
‘Late?’ Julie sat up straight. ‘Wait. What’s the day today? What’s the date?’ She punched at her companion’s phone, sitting on the table near her drink. ‘The twenty-fourth. Fuck. This is the day.’
The words sounded like an accusation. She reached for the water glass and took a slug, looked at me again, and sculled the rest. ‘Okay. First, for the record, I cannot wait to get you out of my life. But second, Robbie, what the fuck? You can’t be out on the streets now. Of all days.’ She stretched her legs to the floor, pulling herself clumsily to her feet. ‘I have to get you home.’
‘I don’t think that’s important right at this minute.’
‘That is the only thing that’s important. This is not going to be some repeat disaster ending with you in a fucking hospital.’ She turned to the guy next to her. ‘Listen…Pete, right?’ She placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I have to get this guy off the streets. It’s a medical thing. You don’t want to know. Honestly, I wish I didn’t.’
She wobbled a little and leaned on the table. A few more mouthfuls of ice water and she glared at me over the top of the glass. ‘What the hell were you thinking? You spend half a year alone in your room and then on the one day—the one day—when you really need to be at home with the door locked, you take to the streets?’ She took another slug, and then poured the rest of the water into her hand and splashed it on her cheeks. It slopped over the table and down her dress.
‘If you’d spent half a year living in fear, is that how you’d spend the one day you had left?’
She shook her head and stretched out her hand to me, like an exasperated mother demanding the hand of a naughty child. ‘Come on. We’re going.’
I stepped forward, slipping down onto one knee and taking Julie’s hand in mine. She stopped in her tracks.
Well, I had her attention.
‘I love you,’ I said, looking up at her. ‘I love how you chose what you wanted and went after it with everything you have. I love your conniving mind and its twisted sense of humour. I have no idea how I could once have been worthy of you, but I love you anyway. Part of me loved you the moment you arrived at my door.’
I pressed her hand. ‘There. Now you have all the power.’
Julie looked down at me. About five different emotions seemed to flash across her face. She blinked and swallowed. ‘Are those new shoes?’
Not the words I’d been hoping for. But perhaps not the worst response possible. I raised my hand slightly: listen.
The song had started, its slow opening pulse just audible. Julie looked down at me in surprise. ‘How do you know this song?’
‘I know more than this song.’
Releasing her
hand, I backed away from her, towards the empty dance floor. My shoes were still damp but the soles had dried out: they glided nicely on the smooth floor. I set myself, poised and centred, feeling the dance floor’s symmetry around me. The music began to take hold, and the coloured lights shone down on me. In my mind’s eye, I could see the stepping stones. I searched for one last glimpse of Julie, but the lights around me made shadows of everything else.
The beat began almost before I was ready, but the reflexes formed by practice took hold. My body swooped forward, my leg striding out in search of the safe footfall.
For a moment, everything else fell away—the apprehension and exhaustion, the chill of the wet silk shirt clinging to my chest, and the forgetting itself. All of it disappeared, leaving me alone on my little stage, accompanied only by the lights above and the music around me. The sound swelled, and I flowed into it. My body sang through the steps and turns. All the months of strain and stretching, the hours of practice over the last day, focused into this present moment.
I could sense eyes on me, but all that mattered was the audience of one, and whether she’d see something in the man before her of what she’d once loved.
The jump approached. I needed to concentrate if I was to get the landing right. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I would have to reimagine the space around me, rotating my mental map of the stepping stones.
But just as I prepared myself, a sudden flurry of activity came from outside the dance. All I could do was to concentrate harder. Control the dance before me.
I leapt into the air and—
A burst of movement, a swish of black cotton, a shock as Julie’s knee slammed into mine. I spun in mid-air, past full circle, until my feet slammed down onto the floor. Onto the little circles of safety carved into my mind.
Perfect.
There it was: the force that could move the world.
Julie had landed safely, too, one knee dipped so low the hem of her dress almost brushed the floor. In that one movement, the dance transformed and I could see her. The water she’d splashed on her face and hair shone in the coloured light. Her eyes met mine, almost in challenge. As if daring me to know this dance. To know how it ended.
