Last Drinks

by Andrew McGahan

  I studied the yard. It was an empty space of sand and weeds. A chill breeze tugged at a loose flyscreen. And though it was not yet fully dark, a naked light bulb burned above the back door to the office. We’d arrived, this was my home, but there was no sense of welcome. Highwood felt like a town I’d never seen before.

  ‘Let’s get inside,’ I said, and we slipped across to the door.

  It was open. Gerry and Stanley were waiting for us in the main office. And the first one who spoke, to my amazement, was Stanley. His feet were on Gerry’s desk, he had a can of beer in his hand, and he lifted a finger in greeting.

  ‘Hello, May,’ he said.

  May considered him for a moment. ‘Hello, Stanley,’ she replied.

  I stared at them both. Stanley propped his hands behind his head and smiled at me.

  ‘You know him?’ I said finally, to May.

  ‘He was one of my lecturers at uni. Why didn’t you tell me it was Stanley?’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Relax, George,’ Gerry said. ‘We’ve been sitting here wondering who your friend could be. It wasn’t that hard.’

  ‘You haven’t told anybody?’

  ‘Not a soul.’

  I sagged. In the corner of the office was a small refrigerator. It served only the one purpose. I went over, took out a can of beer and opened it.

  Gerry raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ I said.

  ‘All right. But what’s the story, George?’ He indicated the computer screen behind him. ‘I’m getting the next issue ready. Are you telling me what I’m printing is wrong?’

  I looked at the headline. ‘Disgraced Minister Confesses to Highwood Slaying.’

  I sat down, hardly knowing where to start.

  It was only seven days since I’d left town. A simple week. Too much had happened. My head still wasn’t clear. I swigged on the beer, tasted the cold bitter flow, was hardly even aware of it. A simple week ago, I had finished with drinking forever . . .

  I did my best to explain. About Marvin and Charlie and the detox wards, about Lindsay and his house on the beach at Redcliffe, about the fisherman and his turning out to be a senior police detective, about bottles of vodka and a man with whom Marvin had once been in partnership, a man who had installed a substation for Highwood years before, a man losing his grip on the world. And at my side May waited and nodded, and Gerry and Stanley listened without saying a word.

  ‘Clarke,’ Gerry pondered, when it was all finished. ‘I remember the name. There were stories . . . especially during the Inquiry . . . but nothing ever happened to him, did it?’

  Stanley was opening a fresh beer. ‘I remember the bastard. The prosecutors didn’t even look that hard for evidence. They never did, with people like him. Still, it was fucking obvious he and Marvin were in each other’s pockets. Believe me, if I hadn’t been in jail, I would’ve been down on the picket lines during that power strike.’

  ‘I was,’ said May. ‘It didn’t do any good.’

  Stanley studied her. ‘What happened to you, May? How’d you get mixed up with people like this? You were smarter than that.’

  ‘Who was smart, Stanley? You ended up in prison on drug charges. I ended up working for one of the most powerful ministers in the government.’

  ‘He was corrupt.’

  ‘Everyone was. The whole state was a joke. What was I supposed to do? Join you in the street marches and get my head kicked in?’

  ‘Might have turned out better. Look at you now, looking for somewhere to take cover.’

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing up here? Wherever we started out, Stanley, we’ve both ended up in the same place.’

  He sipped on his beer, thoughtful. ‘We hardly got here by the same paths, May.’

  ‘Can we stay out at your place?’ I said.

  He frowned. ‘You’ve got a nerve, you’ve really got a fucking nerve. It was people like you who screwed me, and now that you’re screwed yourselves, you want me to help.’

  ‘They didn’t screw you,’ said Gerry. ‘Maybe they went along with it all, but it was people like Marvin and Clarke, they’re the ones who really made Queensland the way it was. They were the sort of people who were annoyed by you, it was their little deals you were interfering with, that’s why they set things up to send you to jail. Who were these two?’

  I said, ‘I was drunk most of the time. I don’t even remember half of it. And I never knew you existed.’

  But Stanley’s eyes were on May. ‘She did.’

  May didn’t answer.

  ‘Either way,’ Gerry insisted, ‘surely you don’t want someone like Clarke to get his hands on them? He walked away from the Inquiry without a care. If he makes George and May disappear, then he walks away from all this too.’

  ‘Everyone walked away from the Inquiry,’ Stanley muttered. ‘Everyone that mattered.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said May. ‘Not really. And it’s caught up with him now. All we need is some time, Stanley. To let the police work it out.’

  ‘The police?’ He shook his head, disgusted. ‘It’s none of my business.’

  Gerry was gentle. ‘How can you say that after all these years? Wasn’t that always what was wrong? No one wanted to make anything their business. Except you.’

  Stanley stared angrily at Gerry while May and I waited, silent supplicants.

  ‘All right, then. Stay if you think it’ll help.’

  I glanced out the window. It was almost night.

  ‘Do we need anything?’ I said. ‘We bought food.’

  He looked me up and down. ‘Have you got warm clothes? It’s still pretty cold up in the hills.’

  I blinked. All I had were the clothes from Brisbane. I turned to May. She shook her head. ‘I didn’t even think,’ she said.

  ‘Haven’t you got anything out there?’ I asked Stanley.

  ‘Not in your size. I live alone, you know. I don’t usually cater for guests.’

  ‘Get some stuff from your house,’ Gerry suggested.

  ‘I wanted to avoid going there.’

  Stanley thought. ‘Your house is on the way. We can see if anyone is hanging about the place and, if not, you can duck in for a moment.’

  We ventured out into the back yard. The sky was still glowing orange in the west, but down in Highwood the evening was deepening. Stars gleamed above and the streetlights were on. And it was getting colder, the breeze picking up, touched with a distant frost.

  ‘Is that your car?’ Stanley asked.

  May nodded.

  ‘Then I think we’ll all go in mine,’ he said, ‘Some of the creeks are still up and the track’s a mess. Gerry nearly tore his sump off, coming out this morning.’

  Gerry nodded. ‘Leave yours here,’ he told May. ‘No one will even see it in the shed.’

  So we transferred our gear across to the Toyota and climbed aboard. Gerry leaned in to say goodbye. ‘I’ll come out in a day or two. But you know you won’t be able to hide out there forever, George. You could talk to Graham. I don’t think you’d have any worries with him.’

  ‘Eventually maybe, Gerry, but not yet.’

  ‘Graham is still a cop,’ Stanley added, starting the engine, ‘and that’s never good.’

  We backed out into the lane, and then onto the street. There was no one about. It was only dinner time but already Highwood looked shut down for the night. Smoke curled up from chimneys. Summer might have been months away.

  We crossed the creek and climbed up the western slopes. A car passed us and then another, but they were only headlights sliding by. Then we were up above the town and on the gravel track that went by my house. It was the same track that ran on out of town, all the way through the bush to Stanley’s place, and it was deserted. We drove slowly by the cottage. It was dark and closed up, and there was no sign of anyone nearby, not a car or a person. Stanley continued a hundred yards or so further on, then switched off his lights. He u-turned and cut the engine, rolled silently
back to my driveway.

  ‘Make it quick, then,’ he said.

  I turned to May. ‘Come in and see what clothes of mine you want.’

  We stole across the front yard. The wind rattled in the trees, and down below the lights of the town glowed, little havens of warmth. The front door was locked as I’d left it. I dug out my keys and we were inside. We waited there for a moment in the front hall, but the house was silent. In the darkness I led May through to the bedroom, then I pulled down the blinds before switching on the bedside lamp. The room seemed like someone else’s, small and cheerless, but it was untouched. No one had been here, no one was waiting. I opened the wardrobe and the cupboards and, whispering to each other, we searched for clothes. Jumpers. Jackets. Boots. All too big for May, but warm at least, and at the bottom of one drawer we found a smaller woollen pullover that belonged not to me but to Emily. We folded them all over our arms and I switched off the light.

  Heading back out we paused for a second in the darkened kitchen. It was at the back of the house and there was a large window over the sink that gave a view of the mountains climbing away into the night. From here the town wasn’t visible, no sign of civilisation was, it might have been an unexplored world. Westward there lingered a greenish hue of sunset, and the rocky outcrops and the forests that crowded them were etched in a perfect line against the sky. And above, the multitude of stars were blazing.

  May stared at it all. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, looking up at me. ‘If I’d come here ten years ago, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘It was impossible then.’

  Her eyes were lost, her face only a pale blur. It was the May of my memories. A shadow, a voice in the dark.

  ‘I’m glad I found you again,’ she said. She leaned up and kissed me, her lips startling and warm in the cold air. I kissed her back.

  It was only a moment—it seemed that all of our times together had only been brief, just touches—and then we were at the front door again. But maybe it was true, maybe there was a curse over May and me, and it wasn’t done yet. For even as we opened the door the sound of an engine welled up, tyres crunched in the drive, and for the second time, the last time, we were caught in the untimely glare of headlights. We froze there hand in hand, staring at a car we couldn’t see. It might have been anyone behind those headlights and for an instant I knew it had all been for nothing, that they had found us anyway, and then another set of headlights clicked on. They were from Stanley’s Toyota and they shone across the first car, pinning the driver clearly. It was Emily, staring at us, open mouthed.

  I dropped the clothes, stepped away from Maybellene. Emily’s hands were working at her seatbelt, and then she was out of the car.

  ‘George,’ she said, coming towards me, then stopping. Her eyes went to May, to Stanley in his four wheel drive, back to me. ‘George, what’s going on?’

  And there were no words. ‘Emily . . . it’s a bad time . . .’

  ‘I’ve been trying to call you. I thought you were in Brisbane, but the motel said you’d gone, said you hadn’t even paid your bill. And I was at the school and I was driving home and I just thought I’d come up and check.’

  She was staring at May again.

  And I was thinking that this was how it must have felt that other time, for May, when it was Charlie who’d caught us and May was the one torn between her two loves. I’d only ever thought of it before from my point of view, from the third party’s view. But I was in the middle now, and this was worse, far worse.

  ‘This is May,’ I said. ‘She’s . . . she’s from back then. I can’t explain it all now, Emily.’

  And her face looked as fragile as ice. ‘I’m sorry, George. I should have left you to it. It’s nothing to do with me.’ She was backing away towards the car.

  ‘Emily, wait.’

  ‘No, George,’ and the anger was there now. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll go.’

  ‘I can explain,’ I said, not believing the words were coming out of me. But she was already back in her car.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she said, fumbling with the keys. I’d never seen her so frantic, wouldn’t have thought it could happen, not to someone like her, someone who’d already lost her husband and been burned and stayed forever in this town and survived. ‘I’ve always known. It was always going to happen. You don’t have to explain a thing.’

  Then the engine was revving. I could see she was still speaking but couldn’t hear what she was saying. The tyres sprayed gravel as she reversed away, and she was gone.

  Only moments had passed. I was still just five yards from May. She stood waiting on the steps, watching me, her whole body one sad, painful question.

  The lights of Stanley’s Toyota flicked off.

  The three of us hung in darkness.

  Then Stanley’s voice came. ‘Christ, George,’ he said. ‘Is there anything in your life you haven’t fucked up?’

  FORTY-FIVE

  I should have gone after her.

  There were plenty of excuses as to why I didn’t. I was numb, couldn’t think where to even begin an explanation. And May was there. Stanley. I couldn’t just abandon them to follow Emily home. We weren’t even supposed to be in town, there was no time . . .

  But I still should have gone.

  Instead May and I climbed back into Stanley’s vehicle and we headed out west into the hills. I was hardly aware of the journey. I pulled cans of beer out of the back and drank. A sickness had possessed me, and all I noticed were trees and rocks in the headlights, the black glint of water as we splashed through creeks, and the lurching of the vehicle as Stanley ground gears and swore at the road. We seemed to wind into darkness forever. May sat wordless in the back seat. All I could think of was the expression on Emily’s face, staring at us through the windscreen.

  What had I been thinking? Where had the ten years between Emily and me gone? Was that all I thought she deserved?

  But of course I wasn’t thinking, hadn’t been thinking since the phone had rung that morning weeks ago and I’d first learned Charlie was dead. All I’d been doing since was responding, reacting, running. Nothing had changed. Maybe I had given up the drinking once, but I was still a fool, still a disaster to my partners and my friends and my lovers.

  And if that was so, then what was the point in not drinking anyway?

  The beer seemed too thin. I thought of the bottles of wine in the back, dark and full of their liquid balm. What had I been staying sober for? Who had I been staying sober for? For myself? For Emily? For May? No, not for May. For May I didn’t need to do anything, didn’t need to fight anything. With May I could simply surrender and descend . . .

  We were at the gate to Stanley’s property.

  ‘Well,’ he said, looking at me, ‘make yourself useful.’

  I got out. The night was full now. There were no lights, no other houses for miles. On all sides the hills reared as black shadows crowned with stone. Water trickled somewhere below, and from far up on the ridges there came a muted roar like distant surf—it was the wind, grown stronger up here in the hills, surging and ebbing though the forest. It was a night wind in a jagged sky, hemmed in by the mountains, bright with stars. I opened the gate, Stanley drove through, and I closed it behind him. Then we climbed on up the last rise.

  I heard the dogs barking, and they loped into the headlights, five or six of them, black shapes with shining eyes and red mouths.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Stanley said, opening his door. ‘They won’t do a thing if I’m here.’

  Then he was amongst them, stroking and murmuring. May and I got out as well, and for a moment the dogs milled about us before Stanley moved off, calling them behind him.

  ‘I’ll lock them up,’ he told us. ‘Get your gear unloaded.’

  May was gazing around, studying the place. Stanley had left the headlights on, but it was still too dark to see much. Only a stretch of ground and the outline of the house. Everything else was night and cold and the ho
llow thrum of the wind. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  ‘It’s like we’ve fallen off the earth,’ she said.

  ‘That’s the idea. And don’t wander too far. The land drops away over there.’

  ‘God, what a place.’

  ‘Wait till morning. It looks better by daylight.’

  She nodded, but she seemed haunted and small.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ I said.

  She looked up at me. ‘About before . . . I’m sorry she had to see that.’

  ‘So am I.’

  I wanted May to ask me what it all meant with Emily, to make me say something at least about what I felt for her, or about what I felt for May herself, and about what I hoped might happen if this was ever finished.

  But all she did was stare around the darkness again. ‘I don’t like this place, George. I don’t know if we should have come.’

  We unloaded our gear. By that time Stanley had the dogs locked away and had lit a kerosene lamp. He took us inside. The living room was dim in the lamplight, but otherwise much as I remembered it. In fact it was exactly as I remembered it. The gun rack was still there on the wall, laden with weapons.

  ‘I thought you buried them,’ I said.

  Stanley was lighting some candles.

  ‘I dug them up. Graham won’t be coming out here again. And don’t tell me you aren’t glad they’re here.’

  ‘No . . . I just hope we don’t need them.’

  ‘That’s the thing with you, George. You hope for the best, but you never prepare for the worst.’

  We tried to settle in. The spare bedroom held two narrow single beds squeezed in amongst piles of boxes and books. May and I unpacked and donned jumpers and thick socks. When we came out again Stanley was using a cleaver to chop up meat and bone for his dogs. A kettle was hissing on the hotplate of a wood-burning stove, but the house was still cold.