The Windy Season (31 page)

After an hour the sky was a pale, washed pink. The ocean oily smooth. Swallows skipped across the surface.

About eighteen miles from shore the engine sputtered then stopped. The tender skated across the sea for a moment and sunk low in the water. Michael swore. The main tank out was of fuel. The German switched the fuel line to the spare. They exhaled with relief when the outboard moaned back to life.

When they reached the
Delft
wreck there was no sign of what had been tied to the marker. Nothing to suggest it had been a crime scene. The ropes that had tied the body to it had been removed. The centre marker was just as the two either side of it; striped black and red paintwork bubbled and peeling. The iron cradle at its peak, where the light was fitted, was rusted through.

Michael idled the motor metres from the marker, the four hundred year old Dutch wreck somewhere on the shallow coral
shelf beneath them. The German said nothing, giving Paul the moment. But Paul didn't know what it was he was trying to do. Maybe he hoped he might sense him there, in some way. Commune with Elliot's spirit, or whatever people might do at the place someone had died. But he didn't sense him there. There was no communion in that moment, no presence of his brother. Just the feeling they were somewhere they shouldn't be.

They had only been idling there a couple of minutes when they felt the first hint of the breeze, the soft tug on their clothes, in their hair. They looked at each other.

Michael nodded. We should get back now, he said.

I thought I might find something, Paul said loudly, attempting an explanation over the noise of the outboard.

I know, Michael called back to him. I understand it.

I'm sorry.

Don't be. Not yet. We might actually survive this. The German grinned at him.

No, I mean how I've been. You were right. What you said. I have been a coward.

Yeah. You have.

Paul nodded. Head down.

But you are out here, Michael said. Searching for him. In the middle of the fucking ocean on a tiny boat.

Yeah, and for what?

Exactly. It is crazy shit. But it is not what a coward would do.

Soon the ocean had changed. The sea breeze was still only light but the swells had grown and begun to whitecap, standing up on the deep banks. The horizon gone. Water slapping over the bow. They held their breaths when the dinghy surfed down each ridge of water. Cursed when the boat bottomed out in the
trench before each swell. They were convinced they would roll, sure every time that they were done. But Richard's tender held fast, somehow. They went like that for an hour or more, the gale pursuing them, always strengthening.

They were three miles short of the inlet when the outboard finally ran out of fuel. The boat skated for a moment and then stopped, low in the sea. They looked at each other. Silent. The wind in their ears. The tink and thunk of water against the chines. Michael put his head in his hands. For a moment Paul thought he was crying, but the deckhand threw his head back and hooted before giving into lunatic laughter. On his back in the pitching tinny, making the sounds of a madman.

When Richard came up on them in
Hell Cat
and saw his stolen tender Paul thought he would be wild with rage. But the old skipper just shook his head at them and muttered things to himself that they couldn't hear over the cray boat's diesels, and when he tossed them the towrope he almost looked amused.

They're all ghosts

IT WAS THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY AND THE
tavern was quiet, being a Sunday night and with most travellers from the city returned to work or school. Most of the fishing crews would be already to bed, set for 3 am starts. A couple in their fifties or sixties sat at a table over lamb shanks. Pemberton pinot noir. They had bought the bottle. Kathmandu hikers' jumpers. Paul thought he should tell them that they had been duped, that Stark was no place to find yourself. He would have told them that if he had the energy. He figured they would work it out for themselves.

Paul felt for the knife in his jumper pocket. The blade was cool against his palm. He eyed the doors, listened for the sound of boots on the tavern steps.

This doesn't look good, Jules said as she walked her way up the bar towards Paul. It's late, she continued.
Arcadia's
not going out in the morning?

Yeah, he replied. We are. Just can't sleep.

You heard from her?

Kasia? He shook his head. Got her on the phone for a few seconds. She wants to be left alone.

Backpackers, mate. Farts in the wind.

You're not going to tell me where she went, are you?

She wouldn't be happy with me if I did.

Well she
hates
me.

There are things worse than hate.

Like what?

Indifference. Not giving a shit.

Paul looked at his empty pint. Can I have another? he asked.

Go to bed.

Yeah. Okay.

How you getting home?

I'll walk.

I'm driving you, she said.

The inlet glowed under what must have been a full moon. Jules turned into his street, pulled the car up on the kerb in front of the house.

You've got to take better care of yourself, she said.

Paul felt for his seatbelt buckle.

You were waiting for them, Jules continued. Weren't you? Back there, alone. You were waiting for Roo Dog and the rest of them.

Paul shrugged.

You could have got hurt.

Maybe not.

Was that the plan? Paul, were you trying to get hurt?

He contemplated the question. He didn't know the answer.

I mean, you might have killed them, too. Jules sighed. I swore it was like looking at Jake, all crazy eyes.

Paul looked at her. How can you work in that place? he said.

Working a boat is hardly a dream job, Paul.

I know. I just mean Roo Dog. And Anvil. Arthur . . .

Those boys? They're full of shit. And they know it. They wipe themselves out. Ice, benzos, they fucking destroy themselves with that stuff. They talk all loud and hard. But they've got nothing in them. Nothing good, anyway, and they know it. It drives them crazy.

Don't tell me you feel sorry for them?

I'm just not afraid of them, Jules said. Arthur's boat, they're all ghosts. They are all scared shitless. You can see right through them, Paul. You, on the other hand, you've got something to you. You're not your average smelly Stark prick.

You coming on to me, Jules? Paul said.

You wish, you little dickhead.

There was a brief silence.

Still, Paul said. Why stay? Michael said you've always been here.

It was my father's. He built that place, ran it for forty years, almost. It was his whole world. And I grew up in it. The tavern was my first job. The only job I've ever done. She snorted a laugh. Jesus.

You stayed for him?

Everyone loved Dad, she said. He was a good man, and that was his whole world. He was a great barman. Real funny fucker. But a bloody lousy businessman. Got himself into debt, not huge, but a bit. Started gambling, trying to double backflip his way out of it, like an acrobat, you know. That's how it always was with him. It was going to be some big event. A big win. And
it'd be all good. More than good. He'd leap us all out of hell and land us in heaven while he was at it. The two-for-one deal. He lost the house. The boat. Lost Mum. Poor bastard couldn't live with the shame of it.

He ran off?

She shook her head. It was me who found him, in the coolroom. Hanged himself.

Fuck.

Yep, she said. Jules put a short smile together, but Paul could see the sudden reflection of the streetlight in her eyes, like fire behind glass. Everything went underwater with him except that fucking pub. Banks didn't want a piece of it, not back then. It was worthless. There was no way Mum wanted it, so I got it. I was seventeen. I've had it ever since.

Do you regret it? Paul asked.

I wish I'd done some travelling, maybe saw some more things. I always wanted to go live in Spain, Barcelona or somewhere, look east for a change, she said, and glanced out her window in the direction of the sea. The Mediterranean seems nice, from what I've read, you know. Just warm and calm, less in the mood to sink and drown things. She laughed. I don't know.

It is as far as you can get from Stark, he said.

Yeah, she said, smiling. It probably is. Not as windy, I imagine. And better-looking men.

It's not too late, Paul said. You're not that old.

Oh, thanks. Jules laughed. Of course I'm not past it. But it is what it is.

What does that mean?

It can be tough loving someone so much. It is damaging loving damaged people. Not too late for you, though, mate. You know, being loyal to people who aren't here anymore is a fucking
average idea. I can see that now. There's no point going under with them. You can waste a whole life doing that.

Yeah, he said. I just don't know where to go.

There's always the city. Go learn something other than crays.

I don't know if I want to go.

It's always easier where you are, she said. Or where you've been.

Yeah, I know. Rear-vision syndrome. I know I've got to move on. Same for Mum. Dad has got his own stuff to work through.

You're a good kid, Paul. You're an idiot, but you're a decent guy.

You sure you're not coming on to me?

She screwed up her face and pushed his upper arm. Get the fuck out of my car, she said.

Thanks, Jules.

Yeah, she replied.

When we near the turnoff I tell the President I need to piss and ask him to pull over. He says that I should have gone at the roadhouse. I say I'm sorry and he shrugs and says he might as well stretch his legs. He turns the ignition off and gets out, still holding his jam doughnut, and shuffles around the bonnet.

I grab the rifle and step out of the car.

When I shoot him the President stops and makes a sound like a thought has just occurred to him. Not a scream but a sort of grunt. He turns and looks at me and I can see it in his face, how puzzled he is. He has the look of an innocent man who has just been slapped. He looks at the doughnut for a second and then drops it. He puts his left hand to the bonnet of the car and sits down and coughs twice. He says, Swiss? like it is a question.

I shoot him again and the sound he gives then is a long sad noise and I think that it is the sound of the dead speaking through him.

It is the hardest thing I ever did, dragging him off the road. If there wasn't gravel all over the bitumen I never would have been able to do it. I cough up blood for five minutes. Pick up the keys from the bitumen in front of the car where the President fell down. Drive some ways before I see that turnoff to Notting.

Troy

FRED CAME TO THE HOUSE LATE IN THE
afternoon to tell him the body wasn't Elliot. It felt like another death, the way she gave the news. The results from forensics had come back. She wanted him to know before it all came out in the media. She looked him hard in the eye until she was sure it had sunk in. And he stared back like it was sinking in, nodding as if he was feeling those things a person should feel, whatever they were.

Paul asked her what she knew and she told him.

Troy Little had been missing eight months. He was sixteen, a kid from Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory. His only guardian, his grandmother, had died when he was twelve. He was a known meth cook, under the thumb of an outlaw motorcycle club. Moved all over the country. Town to town.

Forensics found a bullet graze on the spinal column. They were diving the wreck underneath the marker, looking for the
bullet. Fred said it was hard to know if he'd been tied to the marker alive or not. She guessed he had. Looked like punishment to her. Shot in the stomach, left to bleed.