Patrick put his arms around Moy’s waist, locked his fingers together and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why?’
‘I shouldn’t have left the hall, but he said if I came with him he’d take me to Tom.’
‘It’s okay, Patrick.’
‘I couldn’t bring you here, I couldn’t.’
‘I know.’
The sounds from the rest of the house had tailed off. Laing and Gary came back out, holstering their weapons and shrugging.
Moy gave the boy a squeeze and let him go. ‘Watch him for a minute, will yer, Gary?’
With his gun still drawn, Moy moved into the house. It was clean, neat, smelling of lemon. He went into the lounge room and the television was blinking with Xbox hockey. He stopped and looked at a pile of games sitting on a coffee table: racing, golf, football. Scooby Doo, different episodes from the ones he’d bought. He walked into the kitchen. The dishes had been washed, stacked to dry. There were Frosties and unopened Coco Pops and a bottle of Coke left open on the bench. Then he went into the farmer’s bedroom, his single bed, the cover tucked tightly, the smell of an old body, and powder.
Laing came into the room. ‘Patrick’s in the car.’
‘I’m coming. One minute.’
Laing went out and Moy sat on the bed. He opened a drawer, found a pile of papers and leafed through them. Bills, manuals, a holy card. Standing up, he approached a window that looked over a fence, across paddocks, towards a distant horizon. Peaceful and ordinary. Quite still.
No; there was a movement. He squinted. A squat figure, running, stumbling, correcting himself, stopping for breath and looking back. Moy opened the window and thought of calling, but realised the little man was too far away. Still running.
He ran from the room, out through the laundry, into what passed as a backyard. Grass, a few spent flowers, freshly turned soil, stubble. A moment to find his feet and stride, and he was sprinting, although he knew he couldn’t do it for long. He studied the humpty-dumpty man, and could make out his flannelette shirt and the shotgun in his left hand. Faster, moving through the air, barely touching the ground. He felt his heart pounding. Called, ‘
Humphris
.’
Jo Humphris stopped for a moment and looked back, then continued. Stopped, put the gun to his shoulder, thought better of it, turned and went on again.
There were only a few more strides. Moy launched himself, took Humphris around the waist and dragged him down into what was left of the crop. Looked up, spat dirt from his mouth, saw the gun, moved and extended his body and kicked it away. He watched Humphris to see what he’d do, but the man had no intention of resisting.
Moy fought for breath. He looked back at the house but couldn’t see anyone. He turned over, managed to get onto all fours, then sat back on his sore arse. Felt for his pistol, but it wasn’t there. Looked around and saw it in the stubble in the distance.
Just my luck
. He looked back at the shotgun. Humphris could make for it, but wouldn’t.
He was done, Moy could tell just by looking at him.
He studied the farmer’s fat cheeks, and the little capillaries on his nose.
Humphris said, ‘Why couldn’t you a left me alone?’
Moy didn’t respond.
‘It woulda …’ He stopped and met Moy’s eyes. As if that might do as an explanation.
Procedure, Moy thought. He crawled towards the shotgun, picked it up and opened it. Removed the cartridges; placed them carefully in the stubble. Closed the breech and rested the gun on his knee, pointing it at Humphris.
‘Go on,’ Humphris said. ‘Two more minutes, I woulda done it.’
Yes, he would have, thought Moy. He watched Humphris, the way he fought for breath, clawed at the dirt, the delicate finger trails on the worked earth. He wondered if the farmer was about to have his own heart attack. He said, ‘Where’s the other one?’
‘The older kid? What, you don’t know?’ Not making anything of it. Humphris had arrived at some place where he didn’t care anymore.
Moy stared. ‘Tom. That was his name. And you’ve dumped him in a hole like a sack of shit, haven’t you, and poured the slab for your new shed—’
‘It wasn’t me.’ Old anguish, worked like chewing gum, stretched across the defeated grey face.
Moy looked back at the house. Still no one. But he could see figures in the tractor shed, searching.
‘My stupid fuckin’ nephew,’ Humphris gasped. ‘None of it was me.’
Moy placed the gun on the ground. Humphris studied it, his tongue moving over his lips.
‘What did he do?’ Moy asked.
‘All I ever did was tell him to move ’em on. He fucked that up like he fucked everything up…next thing I got two kids in my shed. And I said, take ’em back.’
It rang true. Moy knew, he could see, Humphris had spent these last days and weeks looking for a way out of the mess Naismith had made.
‘When the little one got away, he went and got the other one and…’ Humphris looked down, ashamed of his own words, his voice, everything. ‘I tried to stop him.’ He dared to look up.
Moy could see his father’s eyes. The hundred times George had manufactured his own disasters. The hundred times, like all farmers, all country people, he’d devised his own solutions.
‘None of it!’ Humphris said again.
Moy knew he was right.
‘But I stopped him, before he got the other one…he was gonna. I stopped him, Detective.’
Moy sensed Humphris had worked out the easiest fix for the current disaster. You couldn’t continue the killing. Or take people away from the ones they loved. Make them do as you wanted, or even think as you did. Sometimes you just didn’t get rain. All you could do was stand and watch your crop perish. He wanted to say something, offer some consolation. Something like, I know how you feel but you just gotta carry on, don’t you? He knew this was the sort of phrase you taped on the back of the toilet door, not the sort of phrase you uttered to another human being. Instead, he said, ‘They weren’t hurtin’ you, were they?’
Humphris didn’t reply.
‘They had nowhere else to go.’
Humphris bowed his head, and waited. Moy thought about the mess, and the shame. And the harm. Past a certain point, he thought, life was just clinging to the few things you’d got right. George had taught him this. And Charlie.
Moy stood up, looked at Humphris, and decided there was nothing to say. He turned and walked away. He was aware that this was stupid, but it was the only thing he could do. Waiting, as he moved closer to the house, for the sound of the gun-shot. It didn’t come until he was in the laundry, and it didn’t surprise him, or persuade him to turn and look back.
He walked through the house and back out to the compound. Patrick was sitting in the front of one of the cars.
‘Was that a shotgun?’ Gary asked.
Moy shook his head. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘Ossie went to look.’
Moy approached Patrick and knelt beside him. ‘We can stop for dim sims on the way home.’ And looked up at Gary. ‘No…what time do they open?’
Gary checked his watch. ‘’Bout now. Don’t know if they’d have the fryer goin’ for a while yet.’
Moy took a deep breath. For the first time in a long time he felt that the life going on around him everywhere might somehow be relevant. He could even taste the stale oil. He looked at Gary and said, ‘I’ll take him home…to Dad. I’ll be back later.’
BART MOY AND PATRICK BARNES drove into a morning that had barely begun, despite the fact that the sun was already high in the sky. There was a breeze, like the first wash of tide on dry sand. The smell of hot bread.
Moy guessed Jason was right. It would be a warm day.
As he drove he looked at the boy, wrapped in a blanket, and noticed his wrists, red, from the deepest of the indentations.
Patrick looked up and said, ‘He told me to play the Xbox, and wait an hour, then call you. Then he said goodbye, he said he was sorry…and went out the back.’
‘And you just played a game?’
‘Hockey. I watched the clock. But then I heard the knocking…’
‘It’s all over, all done.
And
…’ He waited. ‘I promise, as long as I live, I’ll never ask another question.’
‘Never?’ Patrick replied, smiling.
‘Never.’
When Moy pulled into the drive George was waiting. As if he knew. He came out to the car, and without a word, took Patrick inside. Soon Mrs Miller would be there too, and Mrs Flamsteed, and half of Guilderton with the casseroles that would make things better.
Bart Moy stood in the driveway, waiting. He heard a child’s voice off somewhere, and turned, but then looked back towards the house. He took a deep breath.
Patrick was standing at the door. ‘Come on,’ he said.
45
A WEEK LATER they drove to Port Louis. Trawled each of its sandy streets, searching for the shack Patrick had lived in. They stopped at a fish shop. A few minutes later they continued, George happy in the back picking vinegar chips from a torn bag, offering them around, steaming up the windows.
Patrick wasn’t hungry. ‘Right here,’ he said, sitting forward. But it wasn’t the shack. ‘I thought this was it…no, left, left here.’ And there it was: fibro, iron roof and a fishing net strung across the porch.
They left George in the back seat complaining about the scallops, still frozen in the middle, and approached the front door. They knocked, but no one was home. Walked around the back, through a mess of toys, bikes and fishing rods. Patrick said, ‘Wait.’
He ran behind the shed, then called, ‘Bart!’
Moy joined him. He was holding a surfboard. ‘This is it.’
It was smashed up, but usable. The fin had snapped. Patrick said, ‘It got Tom, just there.’ He indicated a spot on his own forehead. ‘Mum said he was lucky it didn’t get an eye.’
Moy ran a hand over the surfboard, as though it might help him understand, or know Tom. ‘Did he need stitches?’
‘No. Just bled. Then he had a scar.’ He stopped, looking into the weeds between shed and fence. ‘But it healed okay, and Mum said…’ Moy took the surfboard from him and walked back to the car. Patrick followed. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s yours. Come on.’ He opened the back door and said to George, ‘Put the window down, will yer?’
‘You’re not puttin’ that thing in here.’
‘Go on!’
George looked at Patrick and guessed he’d better. Once it was down, Moy adjusted the surfboard so it rested horizontally through the back windows. Then he looked at Patrick and said, ‘Wipeout!’
They drove to the beach and got out. Patrick said, ‘Should I?’
Moy smiled at him. He realised, somehow, this boy meant everything. Love, whatever. He had no idea what that was all about. There just wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for him.
‘Come on.’ He grabbed the board and ran down to the breakers. Patrick came after him, and George sat on the bonnet, eating the last few chips, licking his fingers, watching them.
Moy and Patrick stood on the hard sand. They looked out at the Southern Ocean. They’d driven hours to get here, and Moy was determined to make the most of it.
Patrick said, ‘It’s a bit cold.’
Moy looked at him. ‘Rubbish.’
So Patrick smiled, sat down, took off his shoes and socks and pants and took the surfboard. ‘This is where we came,’ he said.
Moy took a moment to think of the right words; he knew he was bad at finding them. ‘You two must’ve had some…adventures.’
Adventures
? No, not right, he thought. But he saw from Patrick’s face, it didn’t matter.
Patrick looked at him. ‘I thought…if I waited…But I’m not gonna see him again, am I, Bart?’
Moy moved closer and took him around the shoulder. ‘No.’
George watched as he tipped the last batter crumbs into his palms and knew what they were saying, and thinking: his son, and the boy, who reminded him of a younger Bart.
Patrick was crying, and Moy held his body tightly; felt ribs, and little lungs, gasping, and bony shoulders. ‘If I could do anything to get him back for you…’
But Patrick said, ‘You can’t.’
There were no more words. But luckily the sea: singing in their ears.
George screwed up the paper and started thinking about what they’d have for tea.
Patrick wiped his eyes, but the spray made them wet. ‘It’s too cold,’ he said.
‘Bullshit.’ Moy sat down, took off his shoes and socks, his pants, stood up and almost tore off his shirt.
Patrick looked at him and smiled. ‘You first.’
Moy ran in. Patrick was right, it was way too cold, but he knew he had to keep going. He stopped and looked back. ‘Come on!’
Patrick hitched the board and followed him. ‘It’s freezing.’
And they both laughed, and then Moy sank in the sand, overbalanced and fell and grabbed Patrick and took him with him. And cleared the long fringe from his face and said, ‘What are we gonna do with a surfboard?’
But it didn’t matter. It had drifted too far out for them to retrieve.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to all at Text, particularly Mandy Brett, Michael Heyward, Anne Beilby, Rachel Shepheard, Kirsty Wilson, Shalini Kunahlan, Chong Weng Ho and Michelle Calligaro.