by Tim Buckley
“How’s she doing?” he asks, serious all of a sudden. “I mean, really? I see her around, of course, and I know Carly’s talked to her a few times, but she’s been keeping herself to herself. Even more than before.”
I think about that for a moment.
“Honestly? She’s struggling a bit, Nate. We both are, but she’s just not able to move on. Or she doesn’t want to. But I get that. It’s just so fucking hard.”
He nods.
“Of course it is. You’re not going to wake up one day and find it’s suddenly stopped hurting, are you? And you’ve had no more leads? Nothing about where Cara might be?”
I shake my head.
“No. I’ve been on a few wild goose chases, stupid ones, but there’s been nothing. The cops haven’t closed the case and I talk to them every few weeks. Carter finally retired and there’s a new bloke leading it now, good bloke actually. They say it’s ‘ongoing’ but I feel like they’ve given up.”
“And you guys are OK? You’re managing to be in the same house without killing each other?”
I smile a wry smile.
“We are. Who’d have thought, eh?!” I pause and take a swig of beer. “Actually, it’s been… nice, you know?”
He smiles at that and he’s not surprised. Of course he isn’t.
“And have you been back up to the lighthouse – or where the lighthouse used to be?”
“No, I haven’t, not yet. It’s not that I’ve been avoiding it, not really, there’s just so much to do here.”
“I get that,” he says.
“So it’s gone then? The lighthouse?”
“Like it was never there. If the state was half as good at building things as they are at knocking them down, this’d be a bloody great place to live!”
“Yeah, well,” I said, rolling my eyes, “the amount I’m paying for it, they can afford to do it right!”
We talk for hours, until they kick us out of the pub, and it’s the first time in a long time that I feel like I belong somewhere. I feel like I’m home, and I didn’t expect to feel that here. Not again.
62
I couldn’t bring myself to go out to the lighthouse when I got back from court and it was late afternoon anyway so I sent Nathan a text to tell him the news and that I’d be out the next morning to start tidying up. I couldn’t even begin to think about what that was going to involve and so I didn’t. I didn’t really fancy wallowing in my own self-pity either, so I went into town and headed for The Pantry. I’d been avoiding town as much as possible ever since our star had started to fall and I braced myself for the backward glances and the whispered asides from people on the street. I needn’t have worried, town was quiet and yesterday’s news was already garnering less attention.
The Pantry was quiet too and Bobby sat down at the table with me and with a coffee of her own. I was glad there weren’t many people around. After my own self-pity, noisy strangers or, worse, sniggering schoolkids, were next on my to-be-avoided list.
“Haven’t seen you around for a while,” Bobby said. “Everything OK?”
Despite myself, I couldn’t suppress a snorted chuckle at the irony of the question. Where would I even start? But I didn’t start because I didn’t know where that would end.
“Yeah, good thanks,” was all I said. “Getting settled in the apartment, you know, getting used to being on my own. I quite like it, actually.”
“That’s because you’re a miserable bastard!”
“Miserable and happy to be, that’s me!”
“How’s Emily doing?”
I had a stab of guilt at that. I hadn’t spoken to her for an age and I really should have known how she was doing, I really should have been keeping a better eye on her. But with everything else that was going on, I’d just been avoiding seeing her and the inevitable shouting match that was sure to follow.
“I don’t really know, Bob, to be honest. We haven’t been in touch much. Has Karl said anything?”
“Not really. I think she’s been away a bit, up in Perth, but I don’t know why. You can ask him if you like, he’ll be in later.”
“And Mitch? How’s he doing?”
She rolled her eyes.
“He took off yesterday morning. Not a word of warning, just arrived into the kitchen with his bag packed and said he was off. Something about a contract in Adelaide, I didn’t really catch it because I wasn’t really listening. I’ll be honest with you, I was glad to see the back of him – he’s been like a bear with a sore head for the past few days, I don’t know what’s eating him!”
A young couple came in with a baby in a pushchair and Bobby went to the counter to look after them. As she did, my phone rang.
“Hey, Wilde,” said Nathan when I answered it. “There’s a few things I’d like to go through with you – you got a few minutes?”
“Sure, Nate. Where are you?”
“I’m in the car, just coming into town.”
“Well, I’m in The Pantry, why don’t you come over here?”
“Better still, why don’t I meet you in the pub. We need a drink!”
***
“I got your message,” he said as I sat down, pushing a beer across the table to me. It was still early afternoon and the pub was quiet, just us, a couple of barflies and the smell of disinfectant. He raised a glass to me and I clinked it with an ironic “Cheers!”
“Is this where we console ourselves with clichés, mate?” I said with a grin. “You know the sort of thing, ‘We gave it a good go, didn’t we?’ or ‘The referee was a bastard!’ Or am I mixing my metaphors?!”
He smiled.
“We did give it a good go, Wilde. You just got a bit unlucky, that’s all.” He took a drink and picked some peanuts out of the bowl on the table. “So what now, do you think?”
I shrugged. I’d planned to think that through when I got home, to get out a notepad and a pen and make a list. When faced with a job I don’t know how to do, I’m always comforted by a list. But he’d caught me off guard and so I just shrugged again.
“I don’t know, Nate. I haven’t really had time to think about it.”
“Look, I’ve been through this kind of thing before, you know, the end of a job. We’ll get it sorted quickly enough, don’t worry.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, thanks, Nate. So what do we have to do?”
“The main thing is to clear the site. Get the plant back to the leasing company and bring any unused supplies back to the merchants. I know the manager at Wilson’s, he’s always happy to take stuff back as long as it’s not opened. There isn’t a lot, we’ll get it in the trucks easy enough.”
“What about the machinery? Will they come and pick it up?”
He nodded.
“I’ll call them tomorrow, as well. They’ll check out the kit and we have the deposit to get back. That shouldn’t be a problem, it’s all good as new. Then it’s just a case of getting rid of the crap that’s left over. There’s some stuff we can sell – ladders, old tools like shovels, pickaxes, that kind of thing. There’s a trade site where I usually post that kind of stuff, it should go pretty fast. The rest, we’ll just have to take to the tip.”
“How long do you reckon all that will take?”
“It should be quick. End of the week, I’d say.”
“And the guys?”
“I told them today. Sent them home early. I said we’d pay them for next week – is that OK?”
“It is, of course. I feel bad for them, especially Robbie.”
“Don’t worry about that. I can make a few calls to some blokes I know who have jobs on locally. Those lads are all good workers, they’ll get sorted in no time.”
I looked him in the eye, hoping I could get through this without crying in the pub like a baby. That wouldn’t do a lot to improve my credibility around town.
<
br /> “And what about you? I’m really sorry it’s ended this way, Nate. With everything that’s been going on, I couldn’t have done this without you. You’ve been a rock.”
He shook his head. At times like that, Nathan would usually have a joke ready but there was no levity in his eyes.
“Don’t even think about it, Wilde. I’ve enjoyed this job, really enjoyed it. It was going to be something really special. I’m just gutted we didn’t get to finish it. But I wouldn’t have missed it. It’s been good working with you, mate.”
He raised his glass and we clinked again.
63
The thick silence is finally broken when she catches her breath and sobs softly. She tries to hide it, to cover it with a cough or a sniff but it escapes and it echoes around the room trying to find a way out. It’s a photograph that’s broken her, a picture of Cara on a beach in Queensland giving out to a small dog that’s wandered too close to her sandcastle. She’s waving a finger sternly at the little mongrel who’s staring up at her, head tilted at an angle and a confused look on his terrier’s face. I remember that trip, that day. I’d just finished a first draft of a manuscript and we’d taken a holiday to celebrate. We went up to Byron Bay in January like typical tourists and fried for a week in north of forty degrees, but we loved it. The heat, the ocean and the laid-back, hippy feel of the place. I remember we even talked about selling up and moving there, but then we did that in pretty much every beautiful place that we visited.
It was Cara’s idea of paradise. It didn’t really matter where we went, holidays were her favourite time just because she had the undivided attention of both of us, together and at the same time. She’d brought the usual legion of bears and big cats and a gorilla named Scone. We used to play a game where we would hide him and Cara would cover her eyes until we shouted “Cara, where’s the gorilla?” She’d take her hands away from her eyes and look around, then squeal “He’s gone!” Forever after, he would only answer to Scone.
The little mongrel that Cara was scolding in the photograph was with a local family who had set up a picnic not far from us on the beach. The father came over to make sure the dog wasn’t bothering us but by then Cara had dug a hole in the sand and was trying to convince the little mutt to get into it so she could “put him to bed”. We got chatting and, inevitably, the conversation got round to kids. How many, how old, what stage of school, that sort of thing. His two, he told us, had just turned teenage, a boy and a girl, and he shook his head with a rueful grin.
“If you think the ‘terrible twos’ are bad,” he said, “wait for the ‘traumatic teens’! You’ll be wishing a screaming toddler was all you had to worry about!”
He called the dog and went back to the family and Emily started packing up to go back to the hotel. I watched them go through the protracted process that is going anywhere with a small child, and I tried to imagine what she would be like as a teenager. Rebellious? For sure. Surly? With her two parents? No question. I imagined what it would be like when she brought a boy home for the first time; when she told us she was moving out of home; when she stopped assuming that whatever we said was right. I shuddered at the thought and swore I’d never let her grow up. What I’d give for those nightmares now.
“Let’s take a break, Em,” I say, “come on.”
I stand up and reach out my hand to her. She takes it and I help her up. She’s so light, so little. She was always small, but she seems to have faded a bit. She stands up but holds on to my hand for a moment, wiping her eyes with the other. I pull her to me and hold her, my hand stroking her hair. It feels so natural.
“I’m sorry,” she says, pulling away and smoothing down the front of her skirt that was already smooth. “I just…”
“I know, Em, I know.” I don’t mean to but it comes out as a whisper, so I cough and raise my voice pointlessly. “Come on, let’s get a coffee.”
We’ve been working on Cara’s room all day but we’ve just moved things around. The boxes that we brought up sit empty on the floor. We haven’t talked any more about what we’re doing with the house but dealing with Cara’s room seems like the right thing to do.
“I know you’re mad with me,” she says, as I hand her a coffee and sit down beside her on the deck, “but I really don’t think I can sell this place. I know we’re out of money, I know we should sell it and split the cash so we can get on with our lives. I know all of that. I just can’t bear the thought of not being here. Of losing that last part of her too.”
I’ve got past getting mad with her. I have no right to, just as I have no exclusive right to the pain. We’ve always handled it in different ways and I have no right to take away any small part of what helps her to cope. But we’ll have to do something about the money. Apart from anything else, this place has been a money pit. The upkeep alone is more than we earn in a year and there are always the “exceptionals” – the boiler that breaks down or the pump that packs in or any of another thousand gremlins that cost the earth to put right. So I’m not mad. I’m just out of ideas.
“I know,” I say eventually. “I know you can’t. But what are we going to do? The wine business isn’t going to generate enough money, if it generates any at all. We could lease out the vines, I guess, or maybe we could turn the house into a guest house. But that might just about make the place break even. We have to be able to get on with our lives and for that we’re going to need money. And this place is the only asset we own.”
“I got a job teaching at the college, in the Wine Studies department,” she says. “It’s only part-time and it’s not much but…”
Her voice tapers off, it’s not even worth finishing the sentence.
“I’ve got a bit of freelance writing work,” I say, “for magazines mostly. But same thing, it’s never going to make me rich.”
“And the book?”
Ah yes, the book. I’d had a few goes at editing the manuscript that took us to Byron Bay but it was still a work in progress the night Cara disappeared and I’d done nothing more with it for months. When I went back to it, it was like it was a different book. I hated it. It was shit. I tried to fix it but the more time I spent on it, the more I hated it and eventually I deleted it from my computer. I actually destroyed it, the one thing I swore I’d never do. I always kept old work, no matter how bad I thought it was, but this time I cracked and pushed the button. “Are you sure you want to delete?” my computer had asked. Fucking right I am, was the reply. I regretted it immediately, of course. I searched for old versions, or even for a hard copy, but there was only an old file with the storyboard and character outlines. There was nothing left.
“I canned it.”
“What, you stopped working on it?”
“No, I canned it. Deleted it. It’s gone.”
“Shit, Wilde, you can’t do that? You must have a copy?”
I shake my head.
“Nope. It’s gone.”
She’s about to tell me I’m an idiot, that I should never, ever delete my work, that I’ve spent countless hours backing up and uploading to virtual servers and printing hard copies just so that I would never lose a word and yet I’ve just binned a whole manuscript. She’s about to but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to fight and, anyway, she doesn’t need to say anything. I could take out a pen and write down every word she’s about to say.
“I’ll get more coffee,” I say.
I know I shouldn’t have deleted it, but to be honest the regret only lasted a day. I had grown to hate that book. There were mornings when I would have gladly hacked off my arm with a nail file rather than sit down in front of it on my screen. It made the teeth grind in my head. It had started off well, but by the time I eventually got to finish the manuscript, it had become ten different stories and the characters were unrecognisable from the ones that I had created on page one. It was convoluted and it was all over the place. Worst of all, I didn’t even know w
hat it was really about anymore. It wasn’t the smart thing to do, but deleting it had set me free.
“Did you tell Brendan?”
I shake my head. I went to make coffee but I’ve come back with a bottle of wine. There’s going to be no more staring at Cara’s things today; we need a time out. At least I do. The sun’s about to drop behind the mountain and the cicadas are in full song. There’s the fresh start of a chill in the air and Emily wraps a blanket around her legs.
“I’m pretty sure he’s given up on me anyway,” I say, handing her a glass. “I haven’t heard from him in a while.”
“He’s probably just giving you some space. Brendan wouldn’t give up on you. He probably knows you have nothing to give him and he doesn’t want to put pressure on you by asking.”
I’d been fairly good about keeping in touch with Brendan after we moved away, before Cara disappeared, but since then I admit I’ve let things slip a bit. I called him just after it happened, ostensibly to tell him the manuscript would be late but really because he was the only person I could talk to, the only one who wouldn’t plamás me with unfounded optimism or bullshit reassurances. And he didn’t. He told me not to worry about the manuscript, he’d handle the publishers and it wasn’t like there was a contract or any financial pressure, was there? He told me he was there “if I needed any help or any oul’ bit of advice”, but not to worry about calling him if I didn’t need to, he understood. I called him again to see if he could set me up with any work when I realised we had no money but I haven’t called him back since then and it’s not like there’s any reason to call him now. I have no manuscript, there’s no good news about Cara and there’s fuck all he can do to help. So I’ve left him alone.
“Maybe,” I say, “but he knows I’m nowhere near finished and he probably won’t be too surprised to hear that I’ve abandoned that ship. Nor too disappointed, either.”