‘It was meant to be a romantic surprise but I guess I messed up. Also, in case you think I’m some kind of sexual pervert, I had no idea that this was your bathroom.’
He stayed lying, the patch of grass beyond the flowerbed was surprisingly comfortable and he calculated that it might be sensible to appear vulnerable until he gauged her emotional reaction.
‘Gabriel, it’s been a rough day and an even rougher evening. I really need my solitude.’
Julia started to close the window, but before she had a chance to pull
it shut he’d stretched his long leg out and jammed his left sneaker into the gap.
‘Julia, I stole my best friend’s car to drive here, Mom has no idea where I am and I’m missing my favourite band. You’ve got to let me in.’
‘Promise you won’t jump me?’
‘On Einstein’s grave and the whiskers of Schroedinger’s cat.’
Julia looked down: Gabriel resembled a cross between a fallen Renaissance prince—his shoulder-length black hair spread across the surrounding leaves—and a toppled circus clown, one foot still caught in the window. He grinned back, one of those eternally youthful smiles that split the world into optimists and pessimists; the smile of a beginner.
‘Besides, if I continue to lie here I’ll catch pneumonia, or maybe rabies from an angry squirrel, and you’ll have an incredible amount of explaining to do to my mother.’
Julia’s head disappeared. A minute later he heard the back door being unlocked.
‘Yes!’ he whispered, punching the air.
She threw on an old jumper of her father’s, which had been knitted for him by her grandmother—one of those early 1960s-style knits with a wide neck and loose cables that rippled down to her knees. Julia had had it since she was a child, having rescued it from the opportunity shop when her mother had given up darning it. Whenever she wore the jumper she’d imagined she could detect the faint aroma of tobacco and shaving soap on the neck—a scent that had instantly placed her back in his arms.
Wearing it now, she thought somewhere in the recesses of her mind how absurd it was to wear a ratty old article of clothing that was over thirty years old, however comforting. Unchaining the door, she peered into the darkness. Beyond the yard, the valleys and hills of Silver Lake were peppered with small oases of light and activity—other people’s lives. The view used to inspire her.
Gabriel appeared, shaking the leaves from his hair. Julia pushed open the fly screen and he stepped in.
‘Your eyes are all swollen.’
‘Today is Klaus’s birthday. I tried to ring him but…’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It was stupid really—it’s been a week of accidental confrontations. I ran into Carla, someone I once thought of as my closest friend. Everything feels as if it’s unravelling and I can’t seem to exorcise a terrible fight I had with Klaus. If only I hadn’t lost the baby things might have worked out differently.’
Julia turned away, hiding her face as it folded up in grief again. Pretending not to notice Gabriel pulled two glasses from the cupboard, then orange juice from the fridge.
‘What are you making?‘
‘Tequila sunrises—Mom taught me. It’s the only legal remedy to post-separation trauma I know.’
He handed her the drink, the blood-red orange juice settling to the bottom of the glass like honey.
‘Fighting is part of life. I used to hit Mom all the time.’
‘You did?’
‘Sure, and she hit me back. The classic was when I was about eleven and my parents were arguing about something—school fees, I think. Dad hit Mom, then I hit Dad for hitting Mom, then Mom hit me for hitting Dad.’
‘Gabriel! That’s terrible.’
‘No, that’s family. We live in this fucked-up politically correct world that suppresses nature,’ he said grandly, trying not to be distracted by the length of naked thigh that had crept out from under the pullover she was wearing.
‘It’s called civilisation.’
‘Whatever.’