Zach doesn’t consider himself to be trespassing. He does have some claim over this. The Cummings’ land was a part of the original holding. Zach’s grandfather once walked this land, no doubt covered all areas – knew each low gully, each crest, each dip, each dry creek bed, and even every rock and every stone – enough so as not to be surprised by the topography, or by a wombat hole, a sudden ravine. A good farmer should know his paddocks, and the treed areas as much as the fertile grassland, so as not to risk coming unstuck, especially after dark.
Zach stumbles over an uneven section of ground. He stops to catch his breath, to wipe his eyes, to cover his mouth and think for a moment why he’s crying … It doesn’t bear thinking about. He keeps on his way. In country like this, you have to walk a long way to feel like you’ve arrived somewhere else.
Up ahead, through the trees, Zach sees a tin shed.
He makes his way towards that.
Next to the tin shed is a crop of marijuana. There’s a fence around it, made of corrugated iron. There’s a small muddy dam down from it. Zach stands on tiptoe looking over the fence. The plants are tall and healthy. There are water pipes running down to a pump, a single tube of poly pipe between each row of plants, with feeders running out from that, and drip lines resting at the base of each individual plant. The crop is not far off harvest, or so Zach thinks: the heads on the plants are full and heavy.
Zach walks up to the shed. The door is ajar, but not wide enough to stick his head in. He inhales. He smells sun-warmed eucalypts, wattle blossoms, and not much else. Or does he catch a whiff of something sour? He breathes in again, his nose nearer to the gap. It’s a faint trace of that same smell from Rebecca’s backyard – rotting garbage. Not unusual – the type of people tending to a marijuana crop would leave their rubbish lying about, and Zach read somewhere that the smell of death is distinctive, surely not as everyday as the smell of garbage. A blowfly buzzes past his head. Zach looks at the corroded door handle, and then down at his feet. He eyes the flattened ferns and grass. The shed door is not opened very often – the grass grows right up to the base – but the door’s used enough for there to be a slight arc indicating where the tin scrapes across the earth, crushing any foliage in its way.
It looks to Zach as though the door hasn’t been opened for a week or so. He wets his lips and thinks. He likens the moment to a scene out of a horror movie, those clichéd couple of frames where the action slows and the audience frowns in preparation for the character’s foolish choice – what good can come from opening the door? Don’t open the door, you idiot. If something causes you to question going in to a place, well, don’t go in, especially if you don’t need to. It’s not rocket science. Yet Zach’s head spins as though with astrophysics calculations. Or is he spun out because he never thought he’d be faced with these movie moments, or that he’d ever have to consider the things he’s had to consider over the past week? His heart beats with the strangeness of that, most of all, as he contemplates what might be inside, under a blanket, in a box, half buried maybe, or just slumped … When did life stop being about when next to see Rebecca, how to initiate a kiss, and become about when next he’d see his mother, and if she’d be a rotting corpse when he did?
Zach opens the door.
29
Rebecca closes Nigel’s bedroom door firmly behind her.
‘Why do you live with those two dropkicks, anyway?’
Nigel goes across to a locker on the far side of the room. He opens it and takes a key from the top shelf. He then goes to the bed and crouches down beside it. He unlocks a drawer. ‘They help pay off the mortgage.’
‘Do you own this house?’
‘Yep.’
Rebecca looks through into the bathroom. It’s the second house she’s been in with an ensuite attached to the main bedroom – Zach Kincaid’s was the first. Zach gave her a guided tour of his place once – the visit where she’d learnt the Kincaid scent, and where she’d been left in awe of wealth, old money, family roots. She’d followed silently behind him and discovered the imposing nature of a family portrait, the untouchable aura of antiques, the decisive
clunk
of a solid timber door. Going to the loo at Zach’s house was a lesson in the smooth glide of expensive tapware. If at all possible, the water at his place fell with elegance from tap to basin. Even the toilet flushed with pizzazz. Nigel’s house has none of that, but it is a step up from the everyday. It’s the first time she’s seen a walk-in robe. Rebecca leans forward to have a better look.
The small room is filled with marijuana plants hanging upside down, drying. There’s a heat lamp shining on them and a small low-mounted fan turning.
Rebecca straightens.
Nigel has pulled out a deep and heavy drawer filled with labelled brown paper bags. He fossicks through the different-sized packages.
‘I’m going to walk to the oval,’ Rebecca says.
‘No need, I’ll take you.’
He doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. Rebecca watches him a moment; she looks away.
In the ensuite there are more marijuana plants hanging above the bath. A sheet of plastic covers the bottom of the tub. There’s a narrow window above the sink. It’s part-way open. A toothbrush and green plastic cup are on the floor, and a can of shaving cream. Not that she’s sure anyone’s knocked them down on their way through the window: lots of unusual items lie scattered on the floor. There’s a bottle-opener by the dresser, a ceramic dish at the foot of the bed, and an unplugged toaster near the bedside table.
‘I’m only having boarders till the end of the year,’ Nigel is saying, ‘then I’m gunna move all that sort of thing’ – he must have seen her looking at the plants – ‘into a room fitted out for drying.’
‘Right.’
Rebecca looks at the full cup of tea beside an open notebook on the desk. There’s a half-eaten packet of Twisties beside it. Two $100 notes lie in an open drawer. ‘You must have heard me knocking,’ she says. ‘Why did Aden have to go so quickly?’
Nigel sticks his head up from the other side of the bed. ‘Make yourself at home.’
‘I thought the match didn’t start for another half-hour?’
‘Sit down, Rebecca.’
The bed has been roughly made, the blankets pulled up hastily over the pillows. She shifts her gaze from it. Beside her is a chair. She moves a baseball cap from the seat and perches on the edge. ‘What are you looking for?’
Nigel ignores her question. He uses his foot to push the drawer closed, and the action reminds Rebecca of Aden. It makes her aware of how closely aligned the two friends are – they mimic one another; either that, or they unconsciously act the same. She wonders what aspects of Nigel’s character Aden has taken on as his own.
She eyes Nigel. He holds nothing in his hands, and seems to have taken nothing from the drawer.
He walks around the bed towards her. He leans against the dresser with his hands either side of his hips. ‘Oh,’ he says looking at his cup of tea. He comes forward to take it. His body is close as he picks up the drink. ‘Almost forgot about that.’
His face is bruised and misshapen from the fight. His demeanour is controlled, not calm, as she’d first thought on seeing him. Far from being at ease, he’s on some kind of internal loop-the-loop. The straight face is there to hide it.
He returns to his spot. He takes a sip of tea. There is the sound of laughter out in the hallway. Someone barks like a dog. The music has been turned down. It’s as though they are out there listening.
‘This is cold,’ Nigel says, referring to his cup of tea. ‘I’ll get a fresh one. What do you want?’
She stands. She wipes her palms on the sides of her pants. ‘I’m just gunna go.’
‘What’s wrong with waiting until I’m ready to drive you?’
‘Nigel,’ Rebecca says with honesty in her voice. ‘I’m not going to say anything – if that’s what you’re worried about. I know you must be nervous.’
Nigel glances at the door.
Rebecca says in a lower voice, ‘I know you think something might have happened to Joanne.’
‘You do realise, don’t you, that if you wanna be taking off around Australia with Aden you’d better get used to this sort of thing?’
‘What sort of thing?’
Nigel walks to the door. He opens it slightly. ‘Fuck off,’ he says through the crack.
There’s the sound of the boys laughing, barking, howling. They lairise their way back down to the living room.
Nigel shuts the door.
‘I am going to say you were both there that night,’ Rebecca says, after a pause. ‘What I’m not going to say is I was … with both of you.’ She sits a little straighter. ‘I don’t see why I’d have to say that. I don’t know why you said it in the first place. Do you know how hard it is to live down something like that?’ She holds his gaze. ‘I will say you were there, though, if I’m asked.’
This statement doesn’t have the effect Rebecca thought it would – it doesn’t reassure like it was meant to. Nigel’s body stiffens. He runs an agitated hand through his hair and scratches his scalp, possibly the only part of him not sore and tender.
‘That’s fine,’ he says, ‘but we
were
there.’
‘You were in the car – yes.’
‘No, I was where you could see me, all night.’
It’s hard to know how to respond to this. The truth still rolls too freely off her tongue. Judging by the steely way Nigel watches her, he has some clue as to how she struggles.
Rebecca gives up being brave and looks imploringly at him. She wraps her arms tightly around her body and draws in a breath. ‘Am I going to be questioned about it?’
‘If she never turns up, what do you think? It could be dragged up any time in the future. Out of the blue, cops could turn up on your door. They
will
ask questions. The only reason you haven’t been asked already is because of Teddy’s involvement with Kara. He won’t pull strings forever. It’s going to look bad for everyone if the story suddenly changes. Cops from the city could come in and take over at any time. It has to be the way it was – you have to remember it like that. If you start messing with it, it starts to fall apart.’
‘How am I meant to answer questions if I’m asked?’
‘That’s a good point, Rebecca. How are you?’
‘Did Aden ask you to talk to me about this?’
He sighs. ‘Look, you’ll have to say we were both there but it was a blur. You can’t remember exactly what happened. You can say you’d had a bit to drink …’ His gaze softens a little. ‘We feel bad about it, okay – Aden feels bad. He didn’t want to get into this with you. We were just helping her out. It was no big deal. It’s only with what has happened that it’s turned out like this. No-one is questioning the story, as long as you don’t start going around saying it’s not true. It’s all gunna look pretty right if you don’t say much. And we’ve got the cops on our side, don’t forget.’ As an afterthought he adds, ‘And we’ve done nothing wrong.’
30
In the shed there’s a kerosene lamp and a card table and a couple of fold-out chairs. There’s an esky and a few crushed beer cans in the corner, and a small plastic bag of rubbish. The dirt floor is littered with cigarette butts. Zach walks across and looks down at the pile of cans. Something down in the dust catches his eye. At first he thinks it’s a biro, but on closer inspection he sees it’s a cigarette holder. He bends down and picks it up. He avoids touching the end where anyone’s lips would have been. He rests the slim plastic holder in the palm of his hand. It’s not even this, though, that confirms his mother’s presence here – it’s the colours of the place, the browns and dirty reds, the dark yellows. It’s the atmosphere she’s tried to capture in her paintings: the underside of life. Most people spend their time avoiding exposure to this, but it seems Zach’s mother sought it out. His father believes her to be dreamy, caught up in her own world, unable to separate reality from make-believe, but this would suggest otherwise. Zach takes a seat. He does a strange thing – he puts the cigarette holder between his fingers and thinks to slip inside his mother’s bones, beneath her skin, behind her eyes, to see the world as she might, but just as he feels on the edge of some kind of increased understanding, a chill goes through him.
There’s a flash of light blue as someone walks past the door.
Zach doesn’t move. He hears the person’s footsteps in the long grass beside the shed, and hears the brush of a shoulder against the tin, the dry rasp of clothes. The person stops, fiddles – snagged on those galvanised nails that so often work loose on sheds like this one. The footsteps fade, in the direction of the crop. Zach blinks. He breathes. He puts the cigarette holder down and carefully stands. There’s no further movement outside the door or around the shed. No-one else is out there, from what Zach can gather. The rifle is propped up, leaning against the table, the stock digging into the dusty floor. It crosses Zach’s mind to hide the gun in shadows beneath the table, because the weapon
is
dangerous – the most dangerous element in this, regardless of who is out there. And Zach has a strong suspicion that the person out there has a weapon of his own, in a holster on his belt, one he’s legally allowed to carry, aim and fire. The light-blue shirt gave it away.
Zach stands a moment, thinking about what to do. He’s loath to even touch the rifle with a member of the constabulary so close. He tosses up the likelihood of being found if he stays put. He walks quietly to the shed wall and peers through the nail holes in the tin. As peepholes, though, they are hopeless, no more than frustrating pinpricks of tunnelled vision. He listens. There’s the faint sound of a bag being unzipped. Zach looks again at the doorway and thinks about sneaking out and around the side of the shed and off into the bush. He’d have to leave the rifle though – he can’t risk being caught creeping off with that. He clasps his hands beneath his chin and waits a moment. He hopes that while he stands there the cop will leave.
He doesn’t.
Long minutes pass. Zach gets impatient. He gets some bravery back. He looks around. The only thing of any interest or possible importance in the shed is the esky in the corner. It has a white top, silver handle and coloured psychedelic 70s swirls on the sides. It’s not as dusty and dirty as everything else in the shed. There’s suddenly a conspicuous air about it. Zach imagines a bundle of money inside it, a stash of drugs. He goes over to the esky. He pauses. What if there’s a severed hand or something of that nature on ice inside it? What if his mother upset the Aussie equivalent of Don Corleone, and in the esky is confirmation of the
knock?
Or not.