The Lost Man(25)

Across the yard, Bub was still standing by the grave plots, only his back visible. Nathan reached up for the next sheet, then stopped as Bub took a final swig from the can in his hand, placed it on the ground and dropped a hand to his fly. A second later came the unmistakeable sound of a long stream of urine cascading onto the ground. Nathan stood completely still. The noise ran on, steady before at last trickling away to nothing. Finished, apparently, Bub zipped up and sauntered towards the house without glancing in Nathan’s direction. A faint note in the air suggested he was whistling.

Nathan didn’t move until he was gone. The family plot was shadowy as he walked over, taking care where he put his feet in the growing dark. He looked at the ground where his dad was buried and where Cameron soon would be, then crouched and touched the soil with his fingertips. It was already dry. The thirsty earth had drunk in the moisture. It was impossible to tell which plot Bub had pissed on.





Chapter 9



It was still early but Nathan could see the two little girls already out in the horse exercise yard. Cameron’s daughters. He watched them for a minute before climbing into the passenger seat of Harry’s four-wheel drive.

Liz had lost the will or energy to protest, so Bub and Xander had both insisted on coming to meet the town’s sergeant out at Cameron’s car. No-one said it, but Nathan suspected everyone secretly hoped that Glenn McKenna would have a proper look and be able to tell them exactly what was what.

Bub didn’t speak to any of them as he climbed into the back seat next to Xander. Nathan had still been able to detect the faint whiff of urine when he’d left the graves the night before, but back at the house he’d found Bub already in his bedroom with the door shut. Nathan had been debating whether to knock when he’d heard Harry shout out the nightly warning call. The generator was going off. Nathan had lowered his hand. This was not a conversation to have in faceless pitch black. Instead, as the generator fell still and the property was plunged into darkness, he had lain on the couch rehearsing what he would say. By morning, though, he woke to find that his ideas had evaporated and what he’d thought he’d seen suddenly seemed a lot less clear.

Harry started the engine and set off down the driveway. As they passed the exercise yard, Nathan signalled.

‘Pull over for a minute, Harry.’

The eight-year-old, Sophie, was in the middle of the yard, guiding a horse in a circle on a long lead with one hand. Her other arm was in a sling. Lo, now five, was sitting by the fence, her head down as she drew something on a pad of paper. They were bigger than Nathan remembered, but then again, it had been a year. Nathan could see Ilse watching her daughters from the verandah. Cameron’s dog, Duffy, sat listlessly at her feet.

‘Hi, girls.’ Nathan leaned out of the window and waved to his nieces as Harry came to a stop. ‘I didn’t get a chance to say hello last night. How are you going? And you remember Xander, don’t you?’

Sophie tied up her horse and the girls took their time walking over. Lo in particular looked at Nathan like he was a stranger.

‘Come on, say g’day to your uncle,’ Harry prompted when they stood unsmiling.

‘Hi, Uncle Nathan,’ Sophie intoned. Lo, half a step behind her, didn’t say anything. They looked a lot like Cam, especially around the eyes, Nathan thought. Their matching dirty-blonde hair would probably go dark as they got older. Xander’s had been the same.

Nathan looked at Sophie’s sling. It was made from colourful fabric with ponies printed on it. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Fell off.’

‘Geez, you okay?’

‘Small fracture.’

‘That’s no good.’

‘No.’

Was that a mild hint of sarcasm? Nathan couldn’t be sure. She seemed a bit young for that. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Be careful. I guess we’ll see you later.’

The girls nodded and, after a glance towards Harry, ran back to the exercise yard.

‘They seem a bit stunned by everything,’ Nathan said as Sophie picked up the horse’s reins with her good hand. ‘Her arm doesn’t seem to have put her off, at least.’

‘No.’ Harry’s eyes were on the driveway. ‘Well, you know Sophie.’

He didn’t really, Nathan thought as they pulled away. They passed Ilse and she raised her hand in a wave.

They drove in silence while the homestead fell behind them. Harry took the road route rather than cutting across the paddocks and Nathan could hear the stones pinging off the bodywork, louder and more frequently than yesterday. Harry drove faster than Nathan tended to, but then again, most people did.

Nathan had been barely twenty-one when his dad had had the crash. He’d been practically living with Jacqui by then, at her suggestion, in the same house he now called home. It had felt very different then, the novelty still shiny and new, and the sex still on tap. Jacqui was good to look at and even better in bed and for a long time he’d loved her for it. Cameron had been away studying an agribusiness course, and Bub was still a little kid.

It had been the completely unremarkable nature of the accident that had shaken Nathan as much as anything. Carl and Liz Bright had been driving back from town, like they had a hundred times. A cow had stepped onto the track and Carl had swerved, like he’d also done a hundred times.

This time, though, he’d been too slow, or the car had been moving too fast, or he’d been too sharp with the wheel, or not sharp enough, and he’d clipped it. The car had rolled and come to rest upside down. Carl had been pinned between the steering wheel and the roof. Liz was knocked unconscious and had woken up in the dark to find herself bleeding from the head and her husband bleeding to death. She’d used the radio to call for help. It had taken forty minutes for the first person to arrive and another thirty for the ambulance. Roughly four hours had elapsed from the time of the accident to either of them receiving basic medical attention. Not one other car had passed by in all that time.