Read Online Pool by Justin D'Ath - Free Book Online

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