Last Drinks

by Andrew McGahan

  I waited. I didn’t know what she was trying to say.

  ‘So I tried looking for work. I had plenty of experience. And there were jobs going, not in government any more, I wasn’t that stupid, other jobs . . . but whenever I mentioned my history, that’s when they’d realise who I was. After that, no one would touch me. I had to pretend I had no past at all, that I’d never worked anywhere.’

  I said, ‘You think any real paper in the country would have touched me either? We weren’t in prison, May. We were the lucky ones.’

  ‘I know that. I’m just saying I couldn’t get a job. All I had was the dole. I was living in a disgusting flat, I wasn’t doing anything, I wasn’t going anywhere, there was just the drinking, and I couldn’t see any way out. And then . . .’

  And I thought that maybe I knew what she was going to say. And it meant nothing to me even if it was true. Not after we’d spent so much time in those sorts of places, and with those sorts of women, all those years ago.

  But she didn’t finish. She looked at the door.

  ‘I’m sorry. This isn’t the time to be talking about this.’

  ‘May, you can tell me.’

  She shook her head. ‘Let’s just see Jeremy.’

  We went in. It was another twin room, and once again only one of the beds was occupied. Jeremy lay stretched out beneath a single sheet, sleeping. Tufts of bandages stuck out from under his back. A clear tube ran oxygen to his nose, and a drip fed into his arm. It was only a few days since I’d seen him, but this was a Jeremy visibly closer to death. I knew very little about leukaemia, how it worked or how it killed, but his naked arms were knobs of bones at the elbows and shoulder, and the skin was mottled with bruises. A reddish moisture stained his lips.

  There was a chair pulled up by the bed, and I imagined it was where Louise sat, when she was with him. There was no one there now. I pulled up another chair and May and I sat either side of him, watching his face. The way he was laid out he might have been dead already, but his chest rose and fell, and a wheeze piped in his throat.

  We waited for a moment. May’s eyes didn’t move from his face. At least I’d already seen him once and had known what to expect. For May it would be different. Would she be thinking of their first days together? It was Jeremy, after all, who had brought her into our whole world, luring her with wine and his distant, jaded charm. I wondered then, did May still drink? There was no smell of it about her, her eyes and skin seemed clear. But then it had always been that way.

  She smiled at Jeremy, almost fondly, but there was something else there as well, a wariness.

  ‘Should we wake him?’ she asked.

  ‘Jeremy,’ I said, my voice low. ‘Jeremy?’

  His eyelids flickered, opened briefly, but he wasn’t seeing us.

  ‘Jeremy? It’s George. And May is here as well. Maybellene.’

  That seemed to reach him. He drew a deeper breath, opened his eyes again, rolling them from me over to May. Air whistled faintly from his chest, the hint of a laugh. ‘Come for the funeral, May?’

  She took his hand. ‘You’re not dead yet, Jeremy.’

  ‘Close enough.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘That’s a stupid question . . .’

  His eyes went wide for a moment and he shifted slightly, groaning. Then he looked at May again, puzzled. ‘You’re not Louise? Where’s Louise?’

  I said, ‘This is May, Jeremy. Louise isn’t here right now. You remember May.’

  ‘I remember May,’ he repeated, but his eyes were drifting.

  ‘Jeremy, are you awake? It’s George. You said you wanted to talk to me.’

  May was watching me, worried. ‘I don’t think he really knows . . .’

  ‘May?’ Jeremy interrupted. ‘May and George? The two of you? That can’t be right.’ He studied May suspiciously. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come with George. I’m sorry, I should have come and seen you before.’

  He smiled at her. ‘I’ve got another one now, but she doesn’t compare to you. Have you found a home yet, May? I heard that you had. I couldn’t bring myself to tell George. Strange, May, very strange, but then you never could make up your mind . . .’

  A nurse came through the door, a fresh drip bag in her hand. We waited while she switched them over.

  ‘Don’t talk with him too long,’ she said. ‘He’s on very high doses for the pain.’

  Jeremy was staring up at her like she was an angel. ‘Can you send me a priest, please. I haven’t had the last rites yet.’

  The nurse felt his pulse. ‘I didn’t know you were a Catholic.’

  ‘I’m the last one.’ His eyelids were drooping, his voice fading away.

  ‘He might slip off again with the new drip,’ the nurse warned us, and left.

  ‘Jeremy,’ I said, ‘we can’t stay long. Louise said you wanted to see me.’

  ‘I did,’ he said sleepily, ‘but I suppose you know by now.’ A thought came to him and he roused himself a little. ‘Did you ever find Marvin?’

  ‘Eventually. But I’ve got some bad news. He’s dead.’

  He looked at me, perfectly coherent. ‘No, it’s Charlie that’s dead. Marvin’s writing a book, he’s not dead.’

  ‘Marvin died last night,’ I said, aware of May’s eyes on me, doubting.

  ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘But he told me what happened. To Charlie. They met someone else in that detox ward. Someone called George Clarke. You know who that is, don’t you?’

  He frowned. ‘George Clarke?’

  ‘You know. Back during the power dispute. You had to talk to him, to get May out of jail, remember?’

  He shrank away from me, confused. He looked from me to May and back to me again. ‘I know who he is. Of course I know.’

  ‘That’s who it was. With Charlie, in the substation.’

  ‘I don’t . . . understand.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m gonna leave Brisbane for a while. But the police will handle it.’

  Jeremy was still agitated. ‘May? May, what’s he talking about?’

  May’s head sank. ‘It’s all true, Jeremy.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you must . . .’

  I was missing something. ‘Why should she know?’ I asked.

  Jeremy turned back to me. ‘Hasn’t she told you?’

  ‘Told me what?’

  I looked at May, but her head stayed down, her hands clutching Jeremy’s.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jeremy breathed. ‘George, you have to remember how it was. I didn’t want him in the house. But after I made that deal for May . . . he was always around. He knew I didn’t like him, but he enjoyed that. I thought that’s why he kept coming. But then later, when I heard, I realised it probably wasn’t me at all. That’s why I wanted to see you. I should have told you the other night. I knew how badly you wanted to know about May. But I didn’t think you’d want to hear that, of all things.’

  I was baffled. ‘What?’

  Jeremy shook his head, his eyes closing again.

  ‘Jeremy?’

  It was as if he’d fallen asleep.

  May raised her head. ‘Leave him be, George.’ Her expression was calm. ‘You don’t need to pester him. I was trying to tell you, but I didn’t know how.’

  ‘May?’

  ‘It’s about where I’ve been for the last ten years. That’s what Jeremy is talking about. He knows, he . . . he must have heard somehow.’

  My world trembled on its last brink. ‘What’s this got to do with Clarke?’

  She took a breath. ‘That’s where I’ve been. With him.’

  She removed her hands from Jeremy’s, composed them on the bed before her.

  ‘I married him, George. He’s my husband.’

  And in his sleep, Jeremy nodded and sighed.

  FORTY-ONE

  We emerged from the hospital and this time there were no crowds on the streets, no fir
eworks in the sky, no government sinking into ruin. Only the afternoon peak-hour traffic and a sweltering sun descending into smog. Even the new government had come and gone since those days, governments came and went every few years in Queensland now, as fleeting as the seasons.

  ‘I’ll take you back to my place,’ was all May said.

  In her car we drove west, squinting into the sun. My mind was empty. The day had been too long, stretched too many nerves. All I felt was tired. I’d found May and it seemed she’d had the answers all along, but now I didn’t want to hear them. Not from her.

  ‘Will he be there too?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t live with him any more. I haven’t for months.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Wait till we get there, George. Not now.’

  So we drove in silence, out into the western suburbs, away from the Valley and New Farm and the centre of it all, out to where the hills rose and the television transmission towers blinked their warnings. We drove through The Gap and up along winding streets overhung by trees, then down a gravel driveway that didn’t seem to have a mailbox or a number. There was a house there, surrounded by bush. Behind it the land dropped away to treetops and stone, and further below were the roofs of more houses, spreading down the lower slopes to join the city again.

  May parked the car. The sun had already passed behind the hills, casting shadows. The house was made of grey cement and glass, so dark it blended into the trees. I took my bag from the back seat and we went inside, where it was all white furniture and polished wood. A long wall of glass offered the eastward view, and May opened windows and sliding doors to let in air that smelled of eucalypts. I sat at the table and waited. There was nothing in the house that spoke of her. It was as anonymous inside as it was out. Rented, maybe, under whatever name she was using now. And secret from anyone who might want to find her. Police. Or old lovers.

  She was at the refrigerator. ‘Do you want anything to drink?’

  ‘I gave it up.’

  ‘Really,’ she said, empty. She let the fridge door swing shut.

  My bag was at my side. I dug into it and pulled out Charlie’s urn, set it on the table.

  ‘Do you want this?’

  She looked at it, then came over and sat at the table, across from me. She reached out one hand and rested a finger against the lid for a moment, took it away.

  ‘You keep it, George. He was your friend first.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do with it.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  We considered the urn.

  May said, ‘I didn’t have anything to do with Charlie dying, if that’s what you think.’

  I closed my eyes. Is that what I’d been thinking?

  I opened them again, found May observing me. I said, ‘Marvin told me Charlie blamed himself for the way it all went. He wanted to see you and me, to apologise, but he thought we’d hate him too much to listen.’

  May’s control faltered only for an instant. ‘I . . . I knew he’d see it that way, sooner or later.’

  ‘It’s a pity your husband got to him first.’

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘So why?’ I asked. ‘Why did it happen?’ And it seemed I’d been asking that question forever, never getting an answer.

  She studied the urn. ‘Believe me when I tell you this, George. I don’t know. I didn’t know he had anything to do with Charlie or Marvin until you told me in the car this afternoon.’ She thought. ‘No. Until I saw that detective, outside your motel. That’s when I knew.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘His name is Jeffreys. He’s been taking money from George—my George—for years. From before the Inquiry even. They met years ago, when the police were breaking up the picket lines, during the power dispute. Jeffreys is a thug. He was then, he is now. And he does what he’s told.’

  But all I heard was her George. That’s what she said. Her George.

  I said, ‘And I’m supposed to believe you knew nothing about Charlie until then?’

  ‘Believe what you like, but it’s true. I told you, I left George months ago. What happened in the detox ward, the way he behaved in front of Marvin and Charlie, that sounded bad, it would upset him. And God knows he wasn’t well when I saw him last, but to do what he’s done . . . don’t ask me to explain it.’

  ‘You haven’t seen him in the past two weeks?’

  ‘He doesn’t know where I am. I’m not hiding or anything. I just . . . left that life.’

  ‘Which was?’

  Her hands moved restlessly on the table. She noticed them and caught one hand in the other, stared at them both.

  ‘I gave up drinking too,’ she said finally.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Years ago. I still don’t know what to do with my hands.’

  She intertwined her fingers and held them there, on the table.

  ‘How did you end up with him, May?’

  ‘I was trying to tell you. I couldn’t get a job, I didn’t know what to do, I was on the verge of giving up altogether. And then he came to see me. I . . . I already knew him fairly well. All those visits he made to Jeremy’s, and then of course, even more when I was working for Marvin.’

  ‘How come I never met him?’

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to be public, him and Marvin. I wasn’t supposed to talk about it. And I didn’t. But it was hardly ever that secret, George. If you’d ever really taken any notice of things . . .’

  I stared at her hands. It was laughable. I’d never noticed anything, never understood anything, not until it was too late.

  ‘Did Charlie know about him?’ I asked.

  ‘Charlie knew. Charlie was the only person I told. It worried him. He didn’t like the sound of George. He knew all that stuff between Marvin and George was a whole lot more serious than anything we had going in the clubs. Even Charlie saw that.’

  ‘So he would’ve known who Clarke was, when they met in that ward.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know how much Charlie remembered.’

  I watched her for a moment, her eyes downcast.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘after the Inquiry, Clarke came to see you.’

  She nodded. ‘He said he’d heard I was still in town, and that I needed a job.’

  ‘And you said yes?’

  She looked at me, fierce. ‘What was I supposed to say? I didn’t have anything else. I was alone.’

  ‘You burnt down his offices, May. You hated everything he stood for.’

  ‘I hated everything Jeremy stood for, and Marvin. Even you. It didn’t stop me then. Christ, George, the way my life had gone, it made a crazy sort of sense to end up with him. It was a full circle.’

  Her tone was still defiant, but there was a pulse of such unhappiness in it that, despite myself, I felt the coldness in me starting to thaw. I knew how May’s life had gone, how people had worked on her, and what it had done to her, inside. And I hadn’t been there in Brisbane. I’d been safe up in Highwood, working out my conscience on a small-town paper and dating Emily. How was I any better? What would have happened to me if I’d stayed, if the rain and the night and the mountains hadn’t intervened? And I was tired, too tired to hate May, who I’d never hated in my life.

  I said, ‘But you didn’t just work for him.’

  ‘At first that’s all it was.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I know it’s hard to believe after everything that’s happened, but I liked him. Even when I first met him, at Jeremy’s place, when I wanted to hate him . . . I didn’t. He wasn’t like I thought he’d be, when we lit that fire. It’s true, he couldn’t care less about the union or what he was doing to them but, really, he’d barely noticed them at all. They were just people getting in his way. And he seemed so focused. So calm. He wasn’t like the rest of us.’

  ‘Jeremy sounded like he hated him.’

  ‘They hated each other. George wasn’t charming or stylish like Jeremy. He hadn’t grown up with money. He thought Jeremy was . . . I
don’t know, spoiled. He didn’t really like Marvin either. He thought Marvin was a fool. A con man. George was more serious. He didn’t seem interested in flaunting things the way we did. He thought all that stuff we did with the clubs was just a distraction. And dangerous too.’

  ‘He was right.’

  She nodded. ‘The Inquiry didn’t bother him at all. All he had to do was dump Marvin. That was no problem. And of course what happened to Charlie, or to you or Jeremy, that was irrelevant. For George it was like the Inquiry never happened. Business as usual. A little . . . slow . . . for a while, maybe. But he still had all those contracts. No one seemed to care about that.’

  ‘So you joined up with him.’

  ‘You don’t know what that was like. After those horrible two years, to be with someone who wasn’t traumatised by the Inquiry, who wasn’t looking backwards all the time, who wasn’t just giving up. He was confident about the future. He could still see opportunity everywhere. It was like fresh air.’

  ‘And what were you for him?’

  ‘What was I for anyone? Even for you? I don’t know. But do you know what he demanded I do before I could start working for him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stop drinking. He was the one that made me give it up. No one I’d ever met wanted me to do that before. Not even Charlie.’

  And pain ebbed through me because, no, I would never have wanted May to stop either.

  I said, ‘Marvin told me he was a big drinker.’

  ‘He was. He is. But back then, it didn’t seem to affect him. I’ve never seen anyone drink the way he could and not get drunk, not change.’ She laughed. ‘I was actually impressed by that. That wasn’t like Charlie either. Or you. But he didn’t think I should drink. He thought drinking was nothing but bad for me.’

  ‘So you were sober and working for him.’

  ‘And grateful, I was grateful. I had a life again. You did the same thing. Tell me it doesn’t feel good.’