The reply took a few moments. ‘Sometimes he was okay…other times he was a giant pain in the arse.’
‘I suppose all brothers are.’
‘Did you have a brother?’
‘No. Just guessing. From what I’ve heard.’
A road-train thundered past. Moy held the wheel tightly, avoiding the edge, the gravel, the rollovers he’d seen, the flattened panels and crystals of glass in the dirt. ‘He was a year older than you?’
Patrick shrugged.
‘You don’t know?’
‘Of course I know. He was my brother.’
They passed close to a harvester busy on the edge of a paddock, its driver half-asleep at the wheel. Moy waved but he just sat forward, trying to work out who he was. ‘I don’t mean to be nosy.’
No reply.
‘I know I shouldn’t have taken you to your house. I just thought it would help. I just thought, the sooner we can work out…’
‘Who I am?’
‘Your family. It’s strange. You talk to me, but you won’t tell me anything.’
Patrick looked back in his lap.
‘But if you just told me, I could help you. Your mum, your brother…your dad. Where was your dad?’
‘I don’t want to talk about him.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t.’
Moy realised he’d done it again. ‘Fine, I can be your dad, for now.’
‘You’re not my dad,’ the boy shot back. ‘You’re nothing like my dad.’
‘How’s that?’
‘You said you wouldn’t do this. You said you were sorry.’
‘I was about to say
I can look after you
, for now. But at some point we’ve gotta sort this mess out.’
Silence; for a full minute, perhaps more, as Patrick turned his head and stared at the door handle.
‘I just think you’d be happy if we could sort it all out,’ Moy said.
But Patrick had retreated again.
A FEW KILOMETRES later they were inside Bundaleer Forest, the light and warmth of the day fading. The pencil-straight pines extended out in geometrically perfect rows, the bottom half of each tree shaved clean, its branches left to rot on the forest floor.
‘This is the stuff they use for house frames,’ Moy explained, driving slowly.
‘It’s spooky,’ Patrick said, searching for the last bit of sun through the tree tops.
They spent an hour driving around. Moy found a wrecked car but it was old, colonised by birds. He stopped at the rangers’ station but no one had seen anything for weeks. At the top of a hill, he stopped, switched off the engine and sat listening. ‘Hear it?’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Listen, absolutely nothing.’
‘You can’t hear nothing.’
A crow followed the curve of the road and flew into the trees, disappearing into darkness. As it went, so did its cry, and the sound of its moving wings.
Patrick was looking up into the auditorium of man-made nature, along the rows, through the blocks of cold air between the trees. ‘It smells like new furniture.’
‘The pine oil,’ Moy said.
They got out of the car, walked around and sat on the bonnet.
‘You know, this is as far as you can get from Guilderton, without actually…’
‘Escaping?’ Patrick suggested.
‘Come on, we’ll see what you’re like with a club.’ He walked around to the boot, opened it and produced a two-iron and a bag of golf balls. ‘You play?’
‘No.’
He found a clear spot, produced a tee from his pocket, set up a ball and handed Patrick the club. ‘Go on.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Of course you can. Just give it a big whack.’
Patrick took the club, stood beside the ball and swung. He missed, but tried again, and again, eventually nicking the ball, which dribbled through the leaf litter before stopping a few metres away.
‘Good shot,’ Moy said. He took the club, placed another ball on the tee and stood beside it. ‘Now, here are a few hints. Side on to the ball, thus far back. Hold the club further up, like so. Keep your eyes on the ball, extend all the way back and…’ He swung, contacting the ball’s sweet spot. It flew up, along the road, entered the forest and collected a tree trunk.
‘Not bad,’ Patrick said.
Moy handed him the club. He set up another ball and the boy got into position. Then he swung, and missed again. ‘I’m rubbish.’
Moy knelt down and adjusted the boy’s feet, turned his body to the correct angle, moved his hands and pushed his head down. ‘Now, keep your eyes on the ball,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter where it’s going, just whether you can hit it.’
Patrick tried again. This time he hit the ball with a solid
thwack
and it went flying. It descended, landed on the road and rolled down the hill.
‘Excellent,’ Moy said. ‘You’re quick on the uptake. Want to try again?’
Forty-five minutes later the bag of balls was nearly empty; the afternoon becoming darker and colder. Patrick had hit nearly every ball. There were little white dots littered across the landscape.
‘Do you want me to pick them up?’ Patrick said.
‘Don’t worry. We can get more.’ He reclaimed his club, teed up and stood in front of the ball moving his hips. ‘It’s all in your posture,’ he said. ‘You’ve just gotta stick your bum in, like this.’ He stood straight, stretching his neck and sucking in his gut. Then he swung wide, missing the ball completely.
Patrick broke up. ‘It’s still there.’
‘That’s how
not
to do it.’ Moy took the last ball from the bag, placed it on the broken tee and hit it to the far end of the forest. ‘
See
.’
They set off, following a different track. Piles of harvested timber sat on churned-up ground between forest and bush. This scrub dropped into a valley that seemed to stretch for miles. The track took them to the lowest point in the landscape, and a waterhole at the end of a creek. Moy drove as close as he could, then stopped. ‘What d’ you say?’
‘What?’ Patrick said.
‘A swim?’
He wasn’t sure. ‘In there?’
‘Why not?’
‘Wouldn’t it be full of…dead stuff?’
‘Come on. This is our big adventure, isn’t it?’
Patrick almost grinned. ‘Yours, perhaps. It’ll be freezing.’
Moy could tell that Patrick liked the idea, but wasn’t sure about the logistics. ‘There’s no one for a million miles.’ He got out and ran down the hill towards the waterhole. He was thinking of stripping as he went, throwing himself in and splashing about, but then thought better of it. Arriving at the water’s edge, he slipped off his shoes and socks, pants and shirt. ‘Come on.’
Patrick was walking down the hill towards him. ‘You won’t go in.’
‘Wanna bet?’
Moy turned and walked into the water. Jesus. He stopped, eyes watering. He’d guessed it’d be cold, but not how cold. Still, he felt the boy’s eyes on him and willed himself forward. He got up to his knees before he stopped. ‘I’m not doin’ it alone.’
Patrick was standing at the edge, the brown water lapping at his shoes.
‘Come on.’
The boy thought about it, then took off his own shoes and socks. He stepped into the water; kept walking, up to his ankles, higher.
‘You gonna take your gear off?’ Moy said.
Patrick looked at Moy’s bowling-ball belly and meaty arms; the hair across his chest and his small nipples.
‘Well?’ Moy asked.
He walked in further.
‘Come on, take your pants off. I’m not lookin’.’
Patrick stopped, deciding.
‘You don’t wanna drive home in wet clothes.’
He turned and walked back to the muddy shore.
‘Come on,’ Moy said. He followed the boy out of the water, grabbed his shirt and tried to remove it.
‘No!’ Patrick said, pulling his shirt down, backing away.
Moy looked at him, confused. ‘I just thought…don’t you wanna come in?’
There was no reply.
‘That’s all I was doing.’ He stopped, remembering. The bathroom door being locked, checked, locked again. Patrick’s habit of doing up his top button, until he was told, ‘You’re gonna be hot like that.’
Patrick turned and headed back up to the car.
‘You can just swim in your pants,’ Moy called.
He reached the car and got in. Moy walked from the waterhole, gathering his shirt and slipping it back on, finding his shoes and socks, soaked brown by the lapping water.
On their way home, as the car glided along the empty road, as the sun spread itself out across the horizon, Patrick said, ‘My mum…’
‘Your mum?’
‘I suppose she was burnt, in the fire?’
Moy took a deep breath. ‘What makes you think—’
‘That’s enough.’
Moy drove on, waiting for an answer, a way out. ‘You’ve already guessed, haven’t you?’
Patrick returned to the mid-distance. They drove in silence until they arrived back in Guilderton.
Then Patrick looked at Moy and said, ‘I’d like to thank you, for looking after me.’
29
MOY CLOSED THE door and turned to face the toilet. There was piss on the seat, dribbling down onto the floor, where it had formed a yellow veneer. He used a fistful of toilet paper to wipe it clean. He dropped his pants and sat down. Looked at the streaks of dried shit on the wall. ‘Jesus.’
When he was finished he washed his hands using a wafer-thin slice of soap with a few greying pubic hairs embedded. Then he made his way out the front door, along the garden path to his car. ‘So, are we ready?’ he asked his father.
‘I’ve been waiting.’
Moy looked at Patrick. ‘How are your muscles this morning?’
‘Okay, I guess.’
Moy had hired a twelve-foot trailer from the local BP. He’d spent the previous evening (as Patrick kept him supplied with coffee) loading it with bed-slats and boxes, drawers and a few pot plants. He’d loaded his two wardrobes, fridge and washing machine using a sack truck from work. When he’d finished he tied the whole lot down with a too-short rope that had come loose on the journey.
‘The big day,’ he said.
‘What?’ George replied.
‘The prodigal son returns.’
‘Who?’
‘Me. Don’t I get a welcome home? It’s been a long time.’
George didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘What, you think I bought champagne?’
‘Did you?’
‘Christ…Where do we start?’
Moy loosened the wing-nuts on the tailgate. ‘You’re not doing anything,’ he said.
‘My arse. I’m not useless.’
‘I didn’t say you were, but I got it all on, so I can get it all off.’
He dropped the tailgate and unhooked the wire doors to the cage that surrounded the trailer. Then he used a board to make a ramp. ‘How about you supervise?’ he said to his dad. ‘Give Patrick the small boxes and tell him where to put them. I’ll take the big stuff.’
‘Nonsense, I can help. My brain might be shrinking, but I’ve still got muscles.’
Moy opened the boot and retrieved the sack truck. ‘I don’t want anything broken, or strained. Let’s just keep it simple.’
‘Come on,’ George said, shaking his head.
‘Listen, Dad, now I’m back you can take it easy. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?’
‘I thought it was so you could stop paying rent?’
‘No, it’s to help you. What’s the point if you’re gonna…’ He stopped. ‘You need to
listen
, Dad.’
‘It’s my house.’
‘Ours.’
‘My rules.’
‘No.’ Moy lifted the first box onto the sack truck. ‘Compromises.’
‘I’m not changing a thing. What’s in that box?’
Moy read the words Patrick had scribbled on the top. ‘Utensils.’
‘In the kitchen.’
‘Some of it we can work out for ourselves.’
‘You asked.’
‘Fine.’ He turned to Patrick. ‘Maybe you could start with the bed slats. Two at a time.’ He pulled two lengths of wood from the trailer and balanced them in the boy’s arms.
‘The back bedroom,’ George said, and Patrick walked down the drive, carefully avoiding a wind-chime hanging from the porch.
When he was gone George said, ‘You never told me there was another kid.’
Moy loaded a second box. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘I just did.’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t take long, does it?’
George didn’t seem surprised. ‘You’re the one going around asking people.’
Moy wondered who: Rebecca Downey, Mrs Flamsteed? Perhaps Jason’s wife or girlfriend. Any one of a dozen people who’d let something slip in the café, the Wombat Inn or Fred Hoyle’s yoga group at the Institute.
‘His name is Tom,’ Moy said. ‘Patrick won’t tell me anything else.’
‘Why don’t you make him?’
‘What, smack him around the head with a phone book?’
‘You say, I need to know, and I need to know now.’
Moy adjusted the sack truck. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘Tell him if he doesn’t help you’ll send him to town, and they’ll find a place for him to stay.’
‘Dad…’
‘What?’
‘He’s screwed up. We don’t know what happened.’
‘All the more reason.’
Moy studied his father’s face, but couldn’t work him out. ‘His mother’s dead.’
‘So?’
‘He knows we found her, in the house. Listen, if you’re gonna live with him you’ll have to show some compassion.’
George looked surprised. ‘I do show compassion. Plenty of it.’
‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.’
‘You wanted to do it.’
They stared at each other. Eventually Moy said, ‘I’m trying to think of you.’
‘I’m all right.’
Another long pause.
‘No, it’s sensible,’ George said. ‘No point payin’ for that place when there’s room here.’
Patrick re-emerged from the house and returned to the trailer. He stood with his arms out, waiting for more slats. George loaded him up with another two. ‘How you coping?’
‘Fine.’
‘Can you manage three?’
‘Two’ll do,’ Moy said.
‘He can manage three,’ George insisted, taking another plank and placing it in the boy’s arms. ‘It’ll make the job quicker, won’t it, Patrick?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Off you go.’
Moy followed him in with his first load of boxes. ‘If there’s anything George says that you’re not happy about, you tell him… or me.’
‘I can carry three.’
‘Not just that. Anything. Sometimes he’s pig-headed.’
‘I’m okay.’
Moy unloaded and returned to the trailer. ‘That toilet of yours,’ he said to his father.