Pool by Justin D'Ath Read Free Book Online

owe you an apology,’ Wolfgang said.
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘Yeah. For what I said when I was leaving your place the other night.’
    ‘What did you say?’
    ‘How I was glad I wasn’t blind.’
    ‘I don’t even remember it,’ Audrey said. She touched his arm. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you aren’t blind, too, Wolfgang. I’m kind of relying on you to be my eyes today.’
    As soon as they were out on the platform, Audrey lit a cigarette. She offered him the packet. Wolfgang almost told her he didn’t smoke, but changed his mind and took one. It would make him seem more worldly. More like a university student. He lit up and took a single light puff, then exhaled immediately, before the smoke burned his throat – before he choked and gave himself away as a non-smoker.
    ‘What about your cane?’ he asked, noticing the folded shaft still protruding from Audrey’s backpack where she had stowed it when they boarded the train.
    ‘Don’t need it.’ She changed her cigarette to her left hand, then threaded her right hand through the crook of his elbow. ‘Lead on, McDuff.’

    They caught a tram to the zoo. The trip took about twenty minutes and most of it they travelled in silence. Audrey wasn’t talkative. She would answer any questions Wolfgang put to her, and do so cheerfully enough, but she initiated no conversation of her own. Wolfgang found it hard work and eventually stopped trying. For the final twelve or fifteen minutes of their journey they sat in silence, side by side like two strangers.
    I can’t do this for five weeks, Wolfgang thought. Not even for two thousand dollars.
    As soon as they alighted at the zoo stop, Audrey became a different person. ‘You know, Wolfgang, you really took me by surprise,’ she said brightly, clinging to his arm as they made their way towards the entrance.
    ‘How do you mean?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, the zoo! It isn’t exactly the most obvious place to take a blind person.’
    ‘I thought you wanted to come.’
    ‘I did. I do !’ She squeezed his elbow. ‘I’m just amazed that you asked me. Amazed and, well, grateful.’
    Now it was Wolfgang’s turn to be silent.

13
    Audrey got to smell the lions. And, thanks to her disability and the kindness of the zoo staff, she also got to hold an orphaned wombat, feed the baby giraffe and pat an elephant’s trunk. But the highlight of the day, and Wolfgang’s main reason for bringing Audrey to the zoo, was their visit to the Butterfly House.
    He didn’t tell her where they were as they entered the exhibit. They followed a group of foreign-speaking tourists through the quarantine chamber with its spring-loaded outer door and its inner barrier of heavy plastic strips, then into the enormous tropical hothouse.
    ‘My God it’s hot!’ Audrey gasped. ‘I can hardly breathe. What is this place?’
    Wolfgang drew in his breath as a female birdwing, as big as his hand, spun a silent pirouette around them. He had been here perhaps twenty times, but the magic never dimmed.
    ‘You know how you said the other day that you weren’t sure if butterflies really existed?’ he said. ‘Today I’ve brought you to meet some.’
    Audrey let go of his arm and stopped on the wooden walkway. ‘I’ve heard about this. Are there butterflies here?’
    ‘All around us. There’s one flying between us right now. And there’s a big blue Ulysses circling your head. I think it’s got its eye on your hat.’
    A wide childlike smile broke across Audrey’s face. She stood transfixed, a party of elderly zoo-goers threading their way past on either side. ‘Is it going to land?’ she whispered.
    ‘I don’t think so.’ Wolfgang watched it dance off into the simulated rainforest behind her. He realised now what gave the exhibit its aura of unreality – it was the silence. Butterflies swirled around them in a dizzying kaleidoscope of colour, movement, life, yet they didn’t make a sound. If you were blind, they might not have been there. He took hold of