The Lost Man(34)

One morning, a few months after it happened, Nathan had woken up to a strange stillness on his property. He had lain there, anxious and unsettled, as it dawned on him. He was entirely alone. No staff. Nothing but static on the radio. Nathan stared at the ceiling. There was not a single other person near him for hours in every direction. He had been cast fully and completely adrift.

Xander was avoiding looking at the grave by rifling through the contents of Cameron’s glove box. Both cops had had a look, but Nathan hadn’t opened it up himself. It appeared well organised and practical. Much like the whole of the property under Cam’s dynamic leadership, he thought with a hint of bitterness.

‘Anything interesting in there?’

‘Not really.’ Xander shook his head. ‘But it looks like he was planning to go to the repeater at some point. He’s got a repair guide here.’

‘Really?’ Nathan reached out and took it. He turned it over in his hand. ‘Maybe just for show? So no-one would realise he was planning to come here instead?’

‘Maybe,’ Xander said. ‘But there’s a lot of info here. He’s printed out instructions and marked off all the equipment he’s packed.’

Nathan frowned. ‘I suppose he could have changed his mind on the way?’

Xander said nothing and shrugged, his eyes forward now and fixed on Harry and Bub.

Nathan had tried to call Ilse. He’d left it too long out of fear of what she might have heard, and at a loss himself as to what to say. Don’t believe the worst, perhaps. But why shouldn’t she? It was true.

He’d even looked for her at that terrible town meeting, and felt both giddy with relief and strangely disappointed when she wasn’t there. By the time he’d finally worked up the guts to phone the pub during her usual weekend shift, weeks had gone by. The manager had answered. He’d recognised Nathan’s voice and told him if he saw or heard from him again, it wouldn’t be the police he’d be calling to help solve the problem, if Nathan got his drift.

Nathan had, but still found himself driving towards town the next weekend and the one after that. He had tried to work out which door of the staff accommodation belonged to Ilse and slipped a note underneath. He didn’t know if she’d ever got it. If she had, he never heard. He found himself parking in the shadows off the road and watching the lights of the pub from a safe distance. Unable to go in, but unable to stay away.

He’d continued to do that for a while in the following years, maybe once every six months. Just to hear the sound of voices other than his own inside his head. He would park in a dark corner, listening to the muffled chatter and occasional music floating from the pub. He didn’t do it anymore. Nearly a decade on, he wasn’t sure who would be inside these days, and whether any of the faces would recognise him. They’d remember his name though, he suspected. The story seemed to have been handed down from ear to ear. He had become nothing more than a warning.

One evening, not long after it happened, he’d seen Cameron and Bub come out of the pub, laughing and shaking hands with a few of the same blokes who now looked straight through Nathan. Nathan had kept his distance from his brothers as much as he could since it had all blown up. They hadn’t spelled it out, but he knew what he’d done had stained them too. He kept away so they didn’t have to ask him to.

He’d watched them outside the pub and his initial flash of betrayal had slowly morphed into something more cautiously optimistic. But the call he’d been hoping for from Cam – ‘Come down, mate, I’ve straightened things out. I’ve explained. They know you’re sorry.’ – had never come. A week later, Nathan had driven in again, and this time seen what he realised he’d been waiting for.

Ilse had been illuminated by the single streetlight as she finished her shift. He’d had his hand on the door and a garbled apology ready, when the manager and two stockhands had followed her out, chatting among themselves as she locked up. They’d lingered in the street after she’d finished and Nathan had had to watch her walk away, the regret sour and sharp inside him. After that, he had swallowed his pride and asked Cameron straight out to put in a good word at the pub.

‘Mate, I’m hardly ever in there myself,’ Cam had said. It had sounded like he was frowning. ‘I only go so Bub has someone to talk to.’

‘Please, Cam. Ask if I can come back. There’s a girl. A nice one. Working behind the bar.’ He was speaking a language his brother would understand.

Cameron had laughed. ‘Oh yeah, I’ve seen her. She’s all right.’

‘Yeah, listen, so you’ll ask them? See if they’ll let me back?’ Nathan had held his breath until the answer came.

‘Mate, I’m sorry. It’s too soon. There’s nothing I can do, they don’t want you there.’

Nathan had hung up. He hadn’t spoken to his brother again for three months.

Xander returned the papers to the glove box and fidgeted in his seat. Nathan could tell he’d had enough and was anxious to go. Nathan was pretty keen himself. He wondered if they should drive on ahead but felt strangely reluctant to leave Bub and Harry lingering beside the grave. Their heads were down as they spoke in voices Nathan couldn’t hear.

‘We’ll head back in a minute,’ he said, and Xander nodded.

Nathan had always been privately gratified that Xander had never really warmed to his grandfather. Jacqui had told Xander her version of the story as soon as he was old enough, so Nathan then hadn’t been able to refrain from telling his. Immediately, he’d wished he hadn’t bothered. His version hadn’t sounded much better. Either way, Keith was dead now. He’d succumbed to a second stroke four years after the first, which was hardly Nathan’s fault but did nothing to help lift the finger of blame. Keith’s widow had moved to Brisbane to be closer to Jacqui and Xander and now lived in a nursing home. Nathan had hoped for a while that Keith’s death might bring an end to his banishment, but if anything, it had seemed to make it worse. As though having suffered the crime, Keith was the only one with the authority to lift the punishment. Now he never could.