After the Smoke Clears, page 5
‘If you must know, my father bought it.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course he did.’ His words were back to patronising, but his body language was still relaxed, like this was a game. He then disappeared beneath the bonnet before mumbling, ‘You still go to bed by ten with a glass of milk, too?’
How did he know that? ‘Perhaps I should mention this to your supervisor.’ I’d managed to match his tone, caustic with a side of whimsical, but I’d stepped down from the high horse I’d been on earlier.
His brow furrowed. ‘This?’
‘You, being a judgemental …’ I wavered, before ending with, ‘… arsehole.’
Now it was a real smile, and stifling it was futile. ‘Ooh, was that your first swear?’
My face pinched. ‘Judgemental much?’
‘Like you haven’t been judging me as some sort of dumb-arse grease monkey. Start her up, madam.’ He bent his head to the side. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’
I shot back in my seat, turned the ignition, my platinum engraved keyring dangling under the genuine walnut dash, and the newly named Frida sung like a nightingale. At least this grease monkey was useful. The penny clicked. Pia. Today. The thug mechanic. ‘Oh, God,’ I thought, then realised I’d said it out loud, eyes closing in embarrassment.
‘You praying, now?’
‘Um, no. Just curious, legend has it a local mechanic smashed a client’s car when they didn’t pay up. Know anything about that guy?’
He smirked. ‘Didn’t know I was the stuff of legends. What of it?’
‘No, nothing. Sounds like a reasonable reaction,’ I said, tongue in cheek. Otto. That adorable little boy spawned from this guy?
‘Fucking oath. I’m guessing you didn’t grow up running a small business.’
School parent or not, I was going to defend myself. ‘No.’ My father made his first million in technology before he was twenty-one. ‘But a business owner would know that manners cost nothing.’
He leered through the open door, his mouth opened like a goldfish, then hesitated before finally speaking. ‘Let Frida run for a bit. No stopping off for manicures, okay? Don’t stall it on the way home or you’re fucked.’
‘It’s an auto,’ I said in my best six-year-old voice and slammed the driver’s side door.
He nodded. ‘Of course it is.’ Even his tone said arsehole.
I wanted to reverse over his steelcap boots. See how robust they were. As I steered out of his way, he waved childishly. I was going to offer a sarcastic note of thanks but decided he already had an unhealthy dose of arrogance, best not make it terminal.
Chapter 4
AUGIE, 2009
Brookes was a human TARDIS, sending me back to 1988. The way he spoke, the immature terms, the smell of him – a mix of Lynx, bitter coffee and old socks. His uncanny blue eyes, trusting yet naïve, his perpetually oily hair. He spoke with a cigarette bobbing between his lips like a fishing rod as we sprawled over the patchy grass, our beers balanced between our knees.
I lifted my hand in front of my face. It was thicker now, more callused. But when I closed one eye and pointed to the big country sky above us, the waxy moon was still obscured by the nail of my thumb. Some things never change.
But some had. We’d parked clear of the cabins, down the back near the old sports ovals. Tops of gumtrees were swallowed by night. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness, scanned the fields. There were surveyor pegs and portaloos, which meant one thing: excavation. And as much as I wanted this place bulldozed to the ground, these were not good signs. I clued what this meant for us, what vagaries he’d mentioned on the phone, and turned back to Brookes, his face a little warped with the reflection of the flames dancing on his face. Or maybe it was something else. ‘What’s with the dozers? Who’d develop this place?’
The firelight danced along a bare patch on his temple, a scar I could claim responsibility for that involved a deadly combination of a pre-teen temper and a hoe.
‘I thought them mines were like, fucked for life, you know. Unsafe ’causa all the explosives ’n shit.’ He gestured to the dark- forever sky, the absence of anything before us. ‘But the fellas at happy hour reckon the mine’s tenure had run out, that they’d assessed it as safe. They’re doing it.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do ya reckon? My fat Uncle. Thought I’d come have a gander – spied on ‘em sizing up the place, pegging in markers… thought you should know, yeah?’
‘That’s your emergency?’ I said, a little relieved. This was not ideal, but the risk of us getting pinned for anything they uncovered now was unlikely. Brookes had the heart of Makybe Diva but his basket case mum’d pickled his brain with gin before he was born, and he was a little low on good judgement because of it. A little panicky for no good reason.
His brow furrowed. ‘You forgetting what’s down that mine shaft, you nuff nuff?’
My eyes flicked to our surrounds on instinct. After twenty years we were back to this. A conversation in the dark of night, taking the lead with this numpty as my only backup. He wasn’t the best wingman. The can of XXXX crushed beneath his fist and he threw it in the long grass beside the last block of cabins, then got up and started pacing the carpark.
I whispered just in case. ‘Think about it, mate. If diggers turn up anything weird, after twenty-odd years, there’s no evidence of us doing it. They didn’t even officially pin the whole thing on us, let alone what happened after.’
Brookes’ face fell and he sniffed in the way he used to when he’d snorted too much crack. Was he back on the blow? His face morphed from sheepish reluctance, to twisted, agonised fear. ‘I fucked up, man.’
And there it was. The fire roared, sucking the oxygen from the air.
My eyes narrowed and I put down my beer in case I needed to throttle him. ‘What did you do?’
His nostrils flared like Brother Malcolm’s when he found us spray-painting a cock-and-balls on his car. ‘It’s your fucking fault for not being around – you know I’m a dumb-arse. I was trying to help.’
‘Brookes?’ I stretched my neck, casually at first, nodded like this wasn’t a disaster. Like we weren’t fucked. He was always the weak link. If anything was going to happen it would be because Brookes blabbed – not intentionally, just through stupidity or getting high. Snitches get stitches. But he was overreacting. I knew from back when I was applying to build the garage on that commercial-lot land it took months for council bureaucrats to just tick a box.
‘I was just looking out for you, mate.’ He scuffed his shoe on the dirt. ‘Once I heard them pricks were digging up the place, I hung around, tried to get the inside story – keep a step ahead like Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing, right, but I s’pose I was around a lot, scratching my head and folding my arms and, you know, getting a bit sweaty about it. One of them guys in the high-vis even joked about why I gave a shit about the old mine. Said, “Mate, anyone’d think you stuffed your mother-in-law down there.” And His Mugs and his mates laughed till their bellies shook. Thought I’d stay away for a bit then, not make ‘em too suss, you know? But, fuck me, the next day them cops are on my case, following me ute.’
‘What the fuck for?’
‘They found bones.’
I swallowed. Weirdly, I’d dreaded this day my whole life. Now it was here I was calm. What could they really do to me that I hadn’t already faced? Like that game Margo’d play with me to calm me down when I’d hyperventilate myself into a stammer. When I was expelled from Year 10, just before everything turned to shit, she’d asked, ‘What’s the worst that could happen if you don’t finish school?’ and I’d replied, ‘I’ll never get a job. Starve to death.’ And she’d said, ‘Not my amazing Augie. He’ll always find his feet – and there’s always a roof and a hot meal at my place. You know that.’
The problem was, I’d believed her.
‘Pyro?’ Brookes’s agitated voice brought me back. Back to that name after ten blissful years of denying that part of myself. We’d checked out of Brightside, but we’d never left.
I shut my eyes to think better. They had come a long way with DNA since those bones were weighed down and shoved in that mine. ‘Do they know whose bones?’
His voice rose in a burst of confidence. ‘Nope, them pigs don’t know shit. Only got wind of me ’cause the high-vis blokes on the site gave ’em a heads up that I might’ve known the body was down there, help ’em figure that part out.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘’Cause I camped up in the bush, Gus, got my binoculars too, so I’d be less in their face, I went in all careful like, yeah?’ He tapped his forehead and gazed at me for recognition of his wisdom. ‘Heard ’em bag me out saying the “village idiot” was “sniffing around”.’
I shook my head at the stupid prick, but it wasn’t Brookes I was mad at. This was my doing. He didn’t know any better, but I did. I should have got him out of town when I left. I should have protected him. Brookes and I were a popular duo when we were young fellas. Our connection did not go unnoticed. I would be next on their radar, which is why I should have stayed clear, not raced towards the epicentre. At least Otto was left out of this mess. I didn’t want him anywhere near the Gus I used to be.
‘What did you say to them?’ I asked.
‘Nothing, mate! I swear on me daughter’s life. Snitches get stitches, right? I told them pricks I just needed a job, was just sussing the site out for work.’
I nodded. His explanation was sound, but Brookes was as gifted an actor as Pamela Anderson. And something about the way his eyes avoided mine told me there was more to this story.
‘Some crazy shit, hey? I think we should tell Margo. About what happened that night. I stayed with her after them pigs came for me, and she knew something was up like she always does. She’s suss,’ said Brookes.
I felt the surge of heat flush my neck, move up to my face. I’d spent twenty years hiding these details from her, and he wasn’t going to blow it all up. ‘Nah, mate. Let’s keep her out of it, like we said.’ Aunt Margo was once my favourite thing, and Mum’s only sibling left, with her easy laugh and endless jam drops. She had a heart of gold but was also big on her goddamned principles – like forgiveness and taking responsibility for your actions – and citing them to justify hers.
My eyes were drawn to Cottage Nine and my jaw tightened.
Ward of the state, which everyone knew was official talk for the pound for humans. That’s what she made me into. Aunty Margo, world’s biggest traitor. I could see her standing tall on the verandah in her posh Sunday clothes, sucking up to the staff when she dumped me here like a stray mutt, jabbering on about how a stint in Brightside would be character building, how the teachings of Jesus were ‘never easy on the ego but good for the soul’.
‘Keep telling yourself that,’ I’d spat back at her, hurling a golly on the pathway to the cabin, arms stiffly folded across my scrawny chest. The head brother had given Aunty Margo a look as if to say, ‘That’s the sort of attitude we’ll guide out of him, here.’ As baby-faced Brookes had stumbled over to welcome me through the gates of hell, my aunt had exhaled in relief. ‘And look! Your best friend is here to help you settle in!’ The twist in my gut did loosen a little at the sight of his goofy grin. Being able to have his back, make sure he was okay, was the only reason I hadn’t run far from this town and Margo’s good intentions.
It’s not as if I hadn’t thought about the possibility of what we did being discovered, the potential unravelling of a knot we twisted into place when we were sixteen, and pulled tight on ever since. And was there any point wiggling the frayed edge, twenty years later? Things like alibis and fingerprints didn’t really come into play decades on, but new threats like DNA just might.
‘I’ve put together a list,’ Brookes said.
‘Jesus, Brookes …’ I turned to him with a frown more severe than usual.
‘In my head, not written down, don’t worry. So, like, the only people that know are like you and me, right? And we don’t have any of our stuff, right?’
I thought about it, that night, what we did. He was probably spot on about that. I had nothing from back then. Not the clothes, not the bike, not that FM104 Rock in Stereo bag with the broken zip.
‘Only other clues been lost long ago,’ Brookes said.
‘My bag reeked, so I dumped it in the bins outside the shops,’ I recalled. What else could potentially turn up in their dozer scoop? ‘You had that baby-turd-brown kit bag …’ Brookes used to think it looked like an army duffle bag. Like he was an SAS deployed to save the world.
He looked confused, then nodded. ‘Yeah, got rid of that. Chucked it in the lake the next day, I reckon it was.’ It probably had his name and address written in Nico pen on the flap, so I hoped the rot had destroyed it by now. Besides, that bag meant nothing on its own.
‘Okay, so what now? Why am I here? Just so you can warn me about this all coming up? Okay, I hear you. Thanks for the heads up.’ My voice was nonchalant, but my body felt as if worms filled my veins, swimming, endlessly swimming.
There was nothing to be done other than sticking to the plan and going about our normal lives. I was a little relieved. I wanted to get back to Otto and Lotti and my garage. I had a box of carbies and two mufflers arriving the next day and figured if I stopped drinking now, I could sober up and make it home by dawn. But the dark truth of exhaustion had me worried.
‘No, August, I haven’t told you the reason I called. There’s something else, remember? Come here …’
I pulled myself up from the splintery log and followed Brookes past the remnants of the rec room and the barn, and around the back of the amenities block that still held dark scars from that night. My face flushed like that time when I was eleven and Margo spent hours pressing washers on my burning forehead till the fever broke. The Heat. It got to me, crawled up my throat. It was as if I was battling something every cell was fighting off but still couldn’t manage.
‘Mate, it was good to see you, but I really could do without the trip down memory lane,’ I said.
He paused at the old pole the plaque used to be fixed to, looking over a flat section of sunken, faded pavers. Flashes of 1988 splintered in my mind; bright terracotta bricks in a herringbone pattern bordered by maroon-and-yellow pansies. A dozen scruffy-looking boys standing around with their arms crossed, kicking gravel with their worn shoes, and some shiny politician talking about the Bicentennial as they lowered the time capsule into the damp clay, not to be opened for thirty years. It was meant to be a cache of historically significant artefacts to share with our future selves, a way to communicate with the next generation about life, about preserving how we lived in 1988. It was a cornerstone of the new recreation shed, but all that got destroyed, so it would now be commemorating something that was already gone.
‘I never told you, but I read what youse all put in there. When I went round all the dorms to collect everyone’s letters the night before Brother Daniel welded it shut. Remember?’
I didn’t. All I remembered was not wanting to preserve anything from that chapter of my life. It could all go to hell. But that was the funny thing about Brookes. His processer was a laggy old Pentium, but he had the RAM to remember everything – yet this time he must have had it all wrong. I looked at the pavers, sunken but undisturbed.
‘Mate, that capsule was sunk well before that night. How could there be anything incriminating down there?’ It was all crap – a video cassette of the fat kid breakdancing, a jar full of Simon Barker’s chewing gum, a broken Rubik’s Cube Frogger had pulled apart trying to solve and ruined in the process, and a few old Neighbours cards with Scott and Charlene’s headshots defaced. How was any of that junk relevant to all this now?
‘The letters we put inside. We all had to write something, or we didn’t get supper, remember?’
I flexed my shoulders, feeling uncomfortable and stiff but I didn’t know why.
‘I read yours,’ Brookes said, a little sheepishly. ‘I knows what you wrote.’
Chapter 5
LOTTI
With white knuckles and dirt under my broken fingernails, I steered to escape that place and whatever happened there. ‘What was that big deep hole for? Was that a grave where zombies sleep? Why are you pulling my arm? Are the walking dead going to eat our brains? Where are we going? Why can’t we camp too, like Daddy did? I need to wee. Did you know all the bodies that went overboard on the Titanic are still in the ocean with the fishes?’
It was probably just Otto’s obsession with all things tragic that had me yank his arm, drag him back to the car and engage central locking. But now all these questions were only deepening my concerns about what that ditch was about. I wasn’t going to loiter around to find out. One thing I knew for sure – there was nothing in it, no dead body or coffin or anything sinister. But the disturbing thing is, there was absolutely nothing – not even a few broken pipes the developers might have damaged with the equipment. Or soil-test markers. Or any explanation for digging a human-shaped hole in the centre of a circle of old cabins in the middle of nowhere. Whatever Augie and his ‘friend’ Brookes had unearthed – it was long gone, and so were they.
What now? How did that eerie place form part of the history of the man I’d shared a bed with? I couldn’t reconcile it. Stay calm, stay clever. I told myself this Brightside was just a rest stop, and that grave just some drunken challenge they dared each other to do after a few drinks. Who could dig the quickest? Who could chug three beers the fastest? That’s the sort of bravado guys like Augie got up to with their mates. The only person who could explain this was Augie, and the faster he did, the quicker my life would go back to its normal, predictable pattern.
I didn’t need to refer to my phone to know where Augie had headed next – I’d cyber-stalked him on playground duty every day since he’d left. The next stop was a tiny township not far from here, an old mining settlement built on the banks of a lake – this whole area had goldfields and opal mines from bygone days. Augie had tripped around (maybe catching up with family?) but then his phone had lost signal yesterday. Perhaps he was camping remotely or had no power to charge it. Was he off-grid, fishing? Drinking? Burying the cash he’d unearthed from a coffin hidden in that ditch in a new secret location? This was all becoming ludicrous. This was Augie!
