The Lost Man(101)

Lo was hopping from foot to foot, equal parts thrilled and horrified.

‘Okay,’ Nathan said. ‘Lo, you hold up your best picture. Let’s compare.’

With a grin, she chose one.

‘Sophie, you be the judge. Which is better?’

Nathan flipped Cameron’s painting over in his hands. He held it up in front of his face, the painted side facing away from him. And all at once, the world tilted. Sophie’s laughter was muffled by the pounding in his ears.

‘I judge that Lo’s is better,’ Sophie was saying. ‘Ten out of ten.’

Her voice seemed very far away and when Lo cheered, it sounded like she was underwater. Nathan tried to nod, but his head felt heavy and unbalanced. He realised the girls were watching him.

‘I agree,’ he said, his tongue thick in his mouth. He saw Lo smile, but only in his peripheral vision. His gaze was trained on the back of the painting. Specifically, on something taped there. Something worn and opaque with fine red dust in the plastic creases. Nathan felt the ground sway a little.

‘It’s hot out here, girls,’ he managed to say. ‘Go inside and grab a drink of water.’

‘Okay.’ He heard their footsteps and the door slam behind them.

Nathan’s hands were shaking as he laid the painting face down on the verandah. The plastic envelope was taped carefully in the centre of the frame. He fumbled at it, not caring about any damage to the front of the picture, and wrenched it free. He stood up.

Beneath the dust, he could see the coloured edges of banknotes, the etched lettering of a passport cover and several folded official-looking certificates. Nathan felt his heart skip, as though there was a sudden hollow in his chest. He had not actually expected to find it, he knew in that instant. Not really.

Don’t touch the painting.

Nathan shot a glance around the deserted yard. There were no sounds of cricket ball against bat any more from the other side of the house. He couldn’t hear Bub cheering now.

Shit, no. You don’t mess with Cam’s masterpiece.

In the distance, Harry’s cabin stood dark and secluded, its door firmly closed.

Don’t you bloody touch it. You’ve done enough damage.

Behind Nathan, the house loomed over him, as though holding its breath. He could not hear Liz or Ilse moving around. The windows to the kitchen and office were still and blank.

It belongs on the wall.

Somewhere behind him, Nathan felt rather than heard the creak and tread of footsteps on the hall floorboards. A moment later the screen door gave its soft shriek. He didn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself to look around.

Golden rule in this house.

Who had warned him?

Don’t touch the painting.

Everyone. Everyone had.

The footsteps were close now.

‘I tried to tell you,’ a voice said. ‘You never listen, Nathan.’

He turned.





Chapter 38



‘I tried to tell you.’

Nathan knew the voice as well as his own. He turned around. A few steps away, face partly shrouded by the shade of the verandah, stood his mother.

Liz’s eyes darted from the painting on the ground to the plastic envelope in Nathan’s hands. She looked up at him. Her gaze was steadier than he had seen it in days.

‘That was nice.’ Her voice was low. ‘What you told the girls about the stockman. I could hear from the kitchen.’

Nathan’s hands felt numb, like the envelope could slip through his fingers. ‘True story.’ His voice broke a little on the words.

Liz met her son’s eye. ‘Can I tell you another one?’

The rattle of a girl’s footsteps rang out from the hall, and immediately Liz took a quick step forward and plucked the plastic envelope from his hands.

‘Not here. Walk with me, Nathan.’

She took his arm, her grip firm, as she propped the painting against the house and slipped the envelope into her apron pocket.

In the midday light, Liz’s shadow had shrunk to a tight dark spot beneath her feet as they crossed the yard. They walked towards the gum tree and stood under the gentle sway of its branches. At their feet, the graves lay side by side.

Nathan could hear the blood rushing in his ears as he looked at the ground. Old dirt next to freshly turned earth. He had so many questions, he couldn’t find just one to ask.

‘I’d gone out riding,’ Liz said, finally. ‘After Sophie hurt her arm, and told us all that her horse threw her. We couldn’t have that happening. Not with her wanting to do gymkhana. So I wanted to take her horse out myself.’

Nathan suddenly didn’t want to hear. But he closed his eyes and made himself listen as she spoke. On the day Cameron would fail to come home, Liz told him, she had done what she did every day. She saddled up. It was a habit she’d formed during her marriage. On a horse, she was taller and faster and for a few hours at least, no-one could touch her.

That day, she was on Sophie’s horse. It needed the exercise while Sophie’s arm healed. Liz had ridden for longer than usual, feeling for any problems with the animal. The riding seemed fine, and the horse was responding well. Liz thought about Sophie’s arm and rode on, trying harder now to sense the faults. She’d already gone further than she meant to when the thought first crept in, slick and dark.