Last Drinks

by Andrew McGahan

  She drank again, grimacing.

  ‘And now you’ve got her back. She’s not good. You and her, you drank and you cheated on your best friend and you ran brothels, and you liked it. You decided she’s the only one who can give that sort of thing to you. So of course you could quit drinking, if she wasn’t around. But you never even gave me a chance. All I was allowed to be was good. Jesus, it’s such a fucking pointless word.’

  ‘Emily . . .’

  ‘Get out of here, George. I don’t want to talk about this now. I’m drunk.’ She gave a sour laugh. ‘Now, finally, I’m drunk.’

  I stared at her. ‘It’s not as simple as you think.’

  She emptied her glass, not looking at me. ‘I know. I’m not as simple as you think either.’

  I bowed my head. There was no answer, and the sight of Emily drunk disturbed me. Maybe she was right, that it was a side of her I didn’t want to see, and that wasn’t fair. But fair or not, it wasn’t like it was when May and I drank. There was no invitation there, no link, no kindred pull towards alcohol, no core of darkness in Emily that echoed my own. Maybe it was there, if I’d ever let myself look, but I hadn’t, and it was too late now.

  I stood up. ‘All right. But we still have to talk about this.’

  She was pouring the dregs of the bottle into her glass. ‘Goodbye, George. And tell your police friends not to bother me any more. It’s your business, not mine.’

  I paused. ‘Police? What police?’

  ‘They came round tonight. They’d got it all wrong. They thought you were here.’

  I sat down again. I put my hand on her glass before she could lift it. ‘Emily, what police are you talking about? Are you talking about Graham?’

  She blinked at me vaguely. ‘No . . . no, the Brisbane police.’

  ‘No one is supposed to know we’re here. Not even the Brisbane police. Who was it? Was it Detective Kelly and his partner, the ones who came up when Charlie died?’

  My alarm was getting through to her now. ‘No. It was another detective. I don’t remember his name, but he showed me his badge.’

  The world seemed to be slowing to a single moment.

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Was he a big man, fairly old, white hair?’

  ‘That was him.’

  I was scarcely breathing.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He said he was looking for you and May. He said that you’d told them you were coming to Highwood and that you’d said you’d be staying here with me. He expected you to be here.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said as far as I knew you were at home.’

  ‘And did he believe that?’

  She shook her head. ‘He said he knew you weren’t home, that you were supposed to be staying somewhere else. So I said that maybe you were at Stanley’s place. I’d seen you three together. He said, oh, the plans must have been changed. It didn’t seem to be any big thing.’

  ‘May, when was this?’

  ‘A couple of hours ago. Why, what’s wrong? I saw the badge, George. He was a detective.’

  I was on my feet. I stepped towards the door, came back.

  ‘Police,’ I said. ‘You said there were police.’

  ‘That’s right. There were two of them.’

  ‘And the other man?’

  She thought. ‘I didn’t see him, really. He stayed in the car. They were parked right out front. I could tell there was someone else in the car, but I didn’t really see him.’

  I grabbed her hand, hoping against hope. ‘Emily, did you tell them where Stanley’s place is?’

  She was staring back, not understanding, but knowing that something was wrong. ‘Yes, I did.’

  And I was running out the door.

  ‘George,’ she yelled after me. ‘What is it? What have I done?’

  But I was in the street and the wind had me and I didn’t stop to answer.

  They were here.

  I started up the four wheel drive, revving the engine madly as I searched for the gears. Then I was in motion, u-turning, racing back down through the sleeping town, past the staring windows of the houses and the pale light over the police station. There was nowhere else to turn, no one to help. Highwood may as well have been a graveyard. I was utterly alone, a single speeding vehicle, tyres shrieking on a corner, a wail in the night.

  They were here.

  How had it happened? So easily, so quickly. I’d been so sure they would still be combing the streets of Brisbane for us. Eventually, I’d assumed, they would try Highwood again, but even then they would only have found my empty house. There would have been nothing to suggest they drive an hour up into the hills to find us. No one else would know, no one else could tell them. And where could they have gone from there? It should have worked, we should have been safe.

  Unless they were already here. Waiting.

  My mind worked, a blur of terrible thoughts. Maybe they’d left Brisbane even before we had, Clarke and his fisherman. Detective Kelly had told me that Jeffreys had taken leave the previous morning. Maybe they’d abandoned the search in Brisbane even then and come to lie in wait in Highwood. In that case I’d run right into their arms. And I’d led May into the trap with me. They could have spent yesterday and today watching the town and then, finding nothing, turned to Emily. Why would Emily hide anything if a policeman came knocking at her door? Especially if he pretended to be a friend, to be expecting to see me.

  But Emily shouldn’t have known anything. If she hadn’t caught May and me on the steps of my house, she would’ve thought we were still in Brisbane. Or if Stanley hadn’t been there then at least she wouldn’t have known it was his place we were using. There would have been nothing for her to tell.

  Or if I’d gone after her straightaway, if I’d explained the need for secrecy, that no one was to be told where May and I were, not even the police, especially not the police.

  It was the curse again, the doom that plagued May and me wherever we went. There’d been only those few hours of opportunity. If they’d called on Emily earlier this afternoon, if they’d waited until tomorrow, they would have missed us. If I’d gone straight to Emily and told her the truth, told her everything. If things had happened any other way . . .

  But they hadn’t.

  And now they knew. And May and Stanley were sitting out there, shut away in the house with the marijuana and the wine, and no idea what was coming their way.

  I was on the track, the Toyota bouncing and lurching as I pushed it too hard and too fast. Two hours . . . what had they done in those two hours? I hadn’t seen any other cars on my drive into town, but what did that mean? Once they knew where we were, would they wait till morning, or would they go straight out to the property? And in that case, why hadn’t they arrived even before I’d left?

  Or had they been waiting again? For the night to get deeper, for the hour to get late, like they had with Marvin. So that when they arrived we wouldn’t be eating dinner or sitting around the fire, we wouldn’t be listening for a noise at the door. We would be asleep. Defenceless.

  They wouldn’t know that Stanley would have loosed the dogs by then.

  They wouldn’t know about his guns.

  But if they were on their way there now, or if they were there already . . . Stanley was going to keep the dogs locked up until I got home. He and May would be waiting for a car in the drive. For a knock on the door. The guns would still be on the wall.

  I was hunched forward in the seat, staring out through the windscreen. The Toyota whined and roared with every ditch, but it was too slow. Trees and rocks stood out as the headlights slewed crazily, and beyond them the darkness waited. But something was different. I could see the shadows and folds of the hills, where before all had been black. I glanced behind me and saw, barely creeping into the sky, the moon. It was riding the wind over the high eastern ridges, waning and yellow, and framed against it a far ro
cky point angled upwards like a fang. The sight chilled me. I was too slow. I would not get there in time.

  Water splashed around the wheels. The eyes of some animal glowed red on the track and I caught a glimpse of grey fur as it bounded aside. On a switchback curve I felt the back tyres slide out and the side of the vehicle lightly kissed a wall of stone. Leaves and branches smacked against the windscreen. All of it lurid, a cinema screen unrolling before me. They were ahead of me somewhere, always ahead, as they had been from the beginning.

  Then finally through the trees there came the reflective flash of white paint. Stanley’s gate. I slowed down, ready to leap out and unchain it. Then I saw that the gate was already hanging ajar, and in my memory came the clear certainty that I’d closed it when I left.

  I rolled to a stop, staring stupidly. And as the engine fell away to idle, I heard it. The barking of dogs. And gunfire.

  I would never be able to explain what I did next. Later it would come to me that I should have revved the Toyota again and charged through the gate and up the hill, headlights blazing. It might have made a difference if I’d done that, right then. I didn’t know what was happening up at Stanley’s house at that moment, and I would never really know . . . but it might have made a difference.

  Instead I turned off the engine and lights, and I sat there, half out of the door, listening. I didn’t know what it was that made it impossible to reason or decide or act . . . but all I did was sit there, paralysed. Frozen by the sound. Fascinated, in a disbelieving, shrinking sense. Not even thinking about cowardice or fear, although that’s all I would think about later. Right then I wasn’t thinking at all. Just listening, as if this was something distant, unconnected to me.

  There was nothing to see. The shots were coming from up on the hillside, over the last rise. As the wind rose and fell the sounds rose and fell in unison. Dogs barked ceaselessly. And the shots, like the wind, came in gusts. A flurry, a rattle of loud cracks fading away to individual reports, then bursting out again. Different tones, some high, some low. And yelling. Male voices, indistinct and hoarse. In my mind I could see Stanley’s vast array of guns, but I could go no further. How much time had he had, what warning?

  I looked behind me, back down the track towards town. I could go . . . I could go for help. Back to the nearest house, the nearest phone. Call Graham and the police. Call someone. And anyway, couldn’t anyone hear? There were neighbours in the distance. The shots were loud and the wind would carry the sound. Someone would hear.

  But even if someone did hear, what would they do? It was Stanley’s place. He was always firing his weapons, day or night. No one would care.

  I could still go myself then . . . now . . . I could get away.

  I realised I was shaking.

  And above me, the gunshots had stopped.

  I cocked my head, but there were only the dogs now, yelping and howling. And the wind. It streamed down the hill and sighed in the trees, unperturbed. And that was worse.

  Something up there was finished.

  I waited, tense and straining to hear. The stars swung in their slow arcs, paled by the moon. Nothing happened. No one came down. And I didn’t go up. Time was an agony. All I wanted to do was drive away. Whatever had happened up there, whoever was still waiting—what use would I be now?

  I had to command my legs to move. They felt weak, drugged. I got out of the Toyota, took a step towards the gate, then another. I eased past the signs and the posts. Then, just visible in the faintest of moonlight, I could see the track climbing up. I crouched low and followed it.

  It was only a hundred yards, but it stretched out like eternity.

  As I approached the top I was almost crawling. The first thing I saw was the dark shape of a vehicle. It was just over the crest—another four wheel drive. Both its front doors were open, and though within it was all darkness, I could sense it was empty. I crept on. Then I was over the rise. I could see across the patch of level ground, a network of restless shadows, to the bulk of the house. The windows were lightless, but halfway back towards me a small flame burned on the ground, flaring in the wind. I couldn’t tell what it was. There was nothing else, and all the while the dogs barked in their kennels. I longed for electricity, for a spotlight to ignite and throw everything into stark relief so I could see. But there was no electricity here. This had all started with a power failure, with groping in darkness, and now it was ending that way as well.

  I stared and waited. The wind sang and trees swung back and forth and shadows fled across the earth. But one of the shadows didn’t move. It was a few yards in front of the four wheel drive, and as I stared I knew what it was. I inched forward. I made out arms and legs, spreadeagled. There was a hint of a white shirt beneath a suit, white hair crowning a face that was invisible, buried in the dirt. A fisherman cast up from the sea. Motionless.

  I was very close to him now, crawling, and my hand touched moisture in the soil. His own hand was barely a foot away, streaked with what looked like ink, seeming to reach out towards mine. Between our fingers something densely black and small lay on the ground. I stared at it, not daring to touch.

  Someone coughed.

  And across from the little fire, in the jumble of darkness under the tarpaulins, someone moved. Glass glinted. And then shapes resolved themselves into a man, sitting against the trunk of one of the trees. For a moment I caught a profile—a hard face, unrecognisable from the photo I’d seen of it decades before—then it was gone again. But the man remained. And the glint of glass was from a bottle. I watched as he lifted it to his lips and drank. He was barely fifteen yards away.

  My hand jerked forward of its own accord and touched steel. For the first time in my life, I picked up a gun.

  His head turned.

  ‘Hello, George,’ he said.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The flame on the ground flared again, and finally I recognised what it was—a broken kerosene lamp. The glass was smashed, but kerosene was pooled in the base and it was dripping to the ground, burning. The wind plucked at it and blue fire danced in a tiny circle of grass, illuminating nothing.

  Clarke spoke again.

  ‘That is you, isn’t it?’

  I stared, but he was still only a voice and a shape. The moon was no help. He could see me, perhaps, by its light, but in amongst the shadows of the tarpaulins, he was a phantom.

  I lifted my arm, the gun feeling giant and obscene in my hand.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I said.

  He seemed to peer my way, then he gave a low laugh, rested his head back against the tree. ‘I’m a ghost, George. Bullets have been passing right through me all night.’

  His voice had a weary air to it, faint over the wind.

  I was too far away. I edged around the fire, avoiding its small circle of light, keeping my arm as straight as I could, the gun wavering in his direction. Closer, until I was under the tarpaulins myself, hidden in the darkness again, my back to the door of the house. There was no way to be sure, but I knew he was watching me, silent.

  ‘May?’ I called out. ‘Stanley?’

  The dogs set up a new round of howling, but there was no other response.

  ‘They’re not in there’ he said, close by now. ‘I’ve already looked.’

  His voice was low, and not young. Hoarseness frayed at the edges. I recognised what it meant. He was exhausted, and drunk. Very drunk.

  ‘If they’re gone,’ I said carefully, ‘then what are you doing here?’

  The bottle was in his left hand. He raised it and took a mouthful.

  ‘Waiting,’ he said.

  It wasn’t a vodka bottle, it was a wine bottle. Perhaps it was even one of my own. It didn’t matter what he was drinking. It was all the same in the end. A poison. I thought of everything May had told me about him, everything Marvin had told me. What had the last few weeks done to him? If he was a sick man when Marvin and Charlie had seen him in detox, what was he now? What was happening inside his head? And what did he se
e, in all the wind and darkness?

  ‘Your friend is dead,’ I said.

  There was no reply, only a watchful shadow.

  I searched for a sign of May or Stanley, but the world was all shifting shades of grey. Where had they gone? What had happened up here? The wind rose again. Leaves spattered like rain on the tarpaulin above us, and out in the yard the kerosene sputtered fire. The lamp . . . had Stanley heard a vehicle driving up the hill and come out to meet me, lamp in hand? And instead of me it was someone else . . .

  ‘Just don’t move,’ I said again, not knowing what else to do.

  He gave no sign he’d even heard, or cared.

  I yelled names into the night and only the dogs answered. I thought of the house behind me, the hills all around, and no ideas came. I wished for light, for day, for anything. But it was just me and him and the gun in my hand.

  ‘We gave your name to the police,’ I said. ‘The other police. They’ll work it all out eventually. You should get away from here while you can.’

  Then, in the endless shifting of shadows, I saw his eyes for a moment. They were wide open. Fixed on me.

  ‘I’ll tell you something about names, George,’ he said, and he was more than just exhausted, the words seemed empty of any emotion at all. ‘Until recently, I’d completely forgotten yours.’

  ‘So what do you want with me now?’

  ‘You? I don’t want anything with you.’

  ‘Who then?’

  But he only laughed, and tilted the bottle.

  ‘May doesn’t want to talk to you,’ I said.

  ‘Really, George? We’ll see . . .’

  There was something about the way he said it. His right arm swung up slowly, languid almost. I caught a glimpse of his mouth, smiling, and I saw it in his hand, a short black gun barrel, pointed directly at my head . . .

  And I pulled the trigger.