“You’re sorry about Matt,” I said. “I know. I get it. I’m tired of hearing about it.”
“Got to say something,” Geoff said gruffly. “I mean it, anyway. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”
“Do you?” I asked. “Really? Who have you lost? Because you still have your daughter and your brother and your sister-in-law. You’ve come out of this pretty well, really.”
“I lost Ellie’s mum,” Geoff said.
“Weren’t you divorced?”
“Ten years ago,” Geoff said. “You think that matters? I still loved her.”
I was tempted to make another smartass remark, trying to smooth over my own anxiety about coming back here. But there was something in his voice. The way he said it.
“Well,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that. But you don’t have to be sorry about Matt. He brought it on himself. Ellie’s mum didn’t bring it on herself. My dad didn’t bring it on himself. Alan, Anthony, Sergeant Varley – none of them brought it on themselves. But Matt did. He just didn’t know when to stop.”
Geoff wasn’t sure what to say to that. We walked in silence for a while. Colin and Liana and Tobias were still talking up ahead; I could see some labourers out in the fields, a couple of faces I recognised, most I didn’t. A magpie was trilling on a fencepost.
“Is it true what they tell us?” Geoff asked me after a while. “That there’s some plan – that they’re going to end this? The dead won’t come back to life anymore?”
“If it goes well,” I said. “That doesn’t mean we’re out of the shit. There’s other stuff going on, I don’t know if you’ve heard…”
“I’ve heard plenty,” Geoff said. “I just don’t know what to believe.”
“It might be better not to know,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I said that – not my normal attitude – but there was something about Reeve, the hot day, the distant sound of waves breaking on the beach, the peace of it all. It seemed like a very safe place, a long way from anywhere else.
“Just stay on the radio,” I said. “Learn what you can, keep doing your harvests, keep your eyes peeled for other survivors… keep what you were always doing, I guess. If there’s anything I’ve learned lately it’s that trying to deal with what Tobias has to deal with will send you crazy.”
Not that I really have a choice.
We came into the village at the centre of the island, that cluster of clapboard houses where I’d only spent a few days before the expedition back to the mainland that had led us to the HMAS Canberra, to Melbourne, to Puckapunyal and Jagungal. The enduring memory I had of the place was of skeletal trees and puddles and fog against the windowpanes, on that frigid winter morning when we left, so long ago. Now it was high summer, the main square was shaded with oak trees, a bunch of kids were playing foursquare with an old tennis ball. We’d approached from the wharf but off to the west, in some empty fields, I could see tents and crude shelters. Just like Jagungal: a swelling population, refugees arriving every week.
We arrived at the two-storey house I remembered as the one the Raes had claimed. A young man, maybe a year or two older than me, was waiting in one of the chairs on the verandah. He stood up as we approached.
“Ah… Aaron, this is Lucas,” Geoff said. “Lucas, Aaron.”
He was still up on the verandah; we were at the bottom of the stairs. We met each other’s eyes but didn’t move to shake hands.
“Major, why don’t we take a bit of a tour of the village?” Colin suggested.
Tobias met my eyes, and I nodded: it’s fine. He and Colin and Liana headed off.
Geoff hesitated. “Why don’t you go with them?” I said. “Don’t let them talk his ear off.”
Geoff looked up at Lucas – gave him a look I couldn’t quite read – then clapped me on the shoulder. “All right, mate. Back in a bit.”
He followed them off across the town square. I looked up at Lucas, and came up the stairs. I hated him. Wasn’t sure why.
I was about to ignore him and walk into the house, but he put a hand out and held the screen door shut. “Hang on a minute, mate,” he said.
“I’m not your mate.”
“Just talk to me for a tic, all right?” he said. “We’ve just got to sort some things out.”
“Go on, then,” I said.
He paused. “You guys left. Got that? I know what you were doing. It was before my time, before me and my brothers got here, but I know you were taking prisoners off to the mainland. No problem with that.”
“I’d hope not,” I said. “Wasn’t exactly our fucking idea.”
He stared at me. “No. But you still went. And Matt told Ellie a lot of stuff, before he left. Stuff she told me. Stuff about why you wanted to go.”
I stared back at him. “And?”
“You could have come back,” he said. “Both of you. In the last couple of months. I mean, today – I know you’ve come from Christmas Island, I know you’ve got planes, I know you’re a big shot and the military shifts stuff around for you. So: where were you a few weeks ago, when Ellie was having the baby? Where was Matt?”
I was tempted to ask who he was. Not exactly who he was, I mean; I knew I was talking to the guy who’d been sleeping with my brother’s girlfriend while he was off saving the world. But I wanted to ask who he thought he was to question me.
I didn’t, because there was a ring of truth to what he was saying.
“Matt is dead,” I said. “Okay? You know that. So you don’t need to worry about the ex swooping back in here and knocking you off your perch. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m here to see Ellie and my nephew. So you can fuck off.”
“Nephew? She’s a girl, Aaron.”
I was surprised at myself. Not sure why I’d assumed it would be a boy. Because Matt had assumed that? Because Matt was still lurking around in my brain? Was that also why I’d felt a strong urge, ever since seeing him, to wrap my hands around Lucas’ throat?
Lucas took his hand away from the door, went back down to the chair he’d been sitting in before, lit a cigarette. The cicadas were still singing in the trees. Out in the square, some of the kids shouted in excitement as a ball went astray.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside the house. It was dark and murky compared to the glare outside. “Ellie?” I called out, as my pupils began to narrow.
“Down here, Matt,” she called out.
Oh jeez. I made my way down the hallway, past a few empty rooms, and found her sitting in what had been turned into a nursery. They’d even painted it pink. Ellie was standing by the window, looking out across the dusty fields towards the blue shimmer of the ocean. There was a cot in the corner.
I hesitated in the doorway, feeling terrible, and Ellie turned to look at me.
“I’m sorry,” she said weakly. “Slip of the tongue. I know you’re not him, I know that he’s…”
Her face screwed up in misery. I crossed the room, she held her arms out, I wrapped her up in a hug and felt her tears slowly wet my shoulder.
We stood there for a while, the curtains drifting in the breeze. I was holding Ellie tight, looking over her shoulder, at the cot: there was a tiny little bundle of fragile pinkness inside that, slight suggestions of movement, of life.
Ellie pulled away after a while. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” I said, feeling a horrible mix of emotions, fighting the urge to stroke her hair. I love Ellie – of course I do, after what we’ve been through together, after everything, she’s like family – but I was being constantly assailed with memories of what it felt like to press my lips against hers, what it felt like to have my hands on the bare skin of her back and her shoulders and her breasts. Get out of my head, Matt! I thought.
I went over to the cot and looked down into it. And there she was: a tiny little thing, sleeping peacefully, impossibly small. A tiny little human being that Ellie and I had made together.
Ellie and Matt. Ellie and Matt.
“What’s
her name?” I whispered.
“Claire,” Ellie said. “It was my mum’s name. Dad thought it was nice.”
“Can I hold her?”
“Of course. Just – put one hand here, like this, support her head…”
Ellie guided my hands. I reached in and gently picked the baby up, held her against my chest. She stirred but didn’t wake up. She was so tiny, so soft. She smelt like washing powder and flowers. I was suddenly aware of the grime under my fingernails, the scars across my hands and arms. The fact that these same hands had shot people, strangled people, dragged rotting corpses across a yard…
“What happened to him?” Ellie asked softly, as I held Claire close, instinctively rocking and bobbing her, even as she slept. “I need to know.”
This was what I hadn’t been looking forward to. We sat down – Ellie took her rocking chair, I sat on top of a toy chest. I told her what had happened in New England. What had happened when he came back to Jagungal. I told her about Canberra, and the nuclear warhead, and the terrible fight through the ASIO building which ended with Matt bleeding out in my arms on the rooftop.
She was silent for a long time after I finished telling her. I didn’t mind. God knows it took me long enough to process. I was happy to sit there, holding my niece, the sea breeze coming in through the window.
“When was the last time you talked to him?” I asked. Because I’d known we had radio contact, with Reeve Island, back at Jagungal. We’d had a good coverage network for a long time.
“Before he went to Brisbane,” she said. “I don’t know… it was before I knew he’d be going. I didn’t think it would be the last time I’d ever talk to him. But… there was stuff going on you don’t know about, Aaron. It wasn’t all perfect. Back here, back in Eucla… we loved each other, but it wasn’t as easy as that.”
“Is that how Lucas happened?” I said, trying to keep a note of jealousy – of Matt’s jealousy – out of my voice.
“Yes,” she said. “And because I didn’t think he’d ever be coming back. I mean, would he be? If he was still alive? Would he be here now?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She nodded sadly. “Matt was a good person, Aaron. So is Lucas. Don’t let him be a dickhead to you, he’s just… he’s just being protective.”
I looked back down the hallway, down the glare of morning sunlight through the front door, where Lucas was still waiting on the porch. “Seems like a dickhead to me.”
“Yeah, well, what would you know?”
“Sorry…” I said. “I just…”
“You’re Matt’s brother,” she said. “I understand.”
You don’t know the half of it, I thought.
I eased Claire down into the crib, stood there looking at her a moment longer. “I’d better go,” I said.
“What’s going to happen?” she said. “When are you going to come back?”
That surprised me a little. That she took it as a foregone conclusion. “Um… I don’t know. To be honest I wasn’t sure you’d even want to talk to me.”
“Jesus, Aaron, why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I got Matt killed.”
That sort of slipped out of me, and then I was crying for a while, sitting on the toy chest, Ellie crouched down beside me with her hands clasped in mine, whispering reassurances. Hit fast forward. I hate this shit. I should be over this shit. I doubt Matt would be tearing up about me a month later, if it had been the other way around.
But of course it wouldn’t have been the other way around. Because I wasn’t the adrenaline junkie. I wasn’t the crazy fuckwit.
Ellie whispered all those reassurances at me, told me it wasn’t my fault. Which I know, really. She told me to go do what I had to do, and then come back. I sat there looking at her wispy blonde hair, her striking blue eyes, her post-pregnancy glow, and felt the part of me that’s now Matt surge up and want to kiss her. Oh, my God, fuck off! I thought to him. I’m trying to have a familial moment here!
He’s not really there. It’s just a bundle of memories and instincts and urges. He’s not conscious. Christ, if he was, that would be awful.
I hugged Ellie. I promised to come back again soon. I lingered by Claire’s cot, stroked her head, and then went back out down the hallway and onto the verandah.
Lucas had been sitting out there chainsmoking, the ashtray stuffed full of butts, standing with his hands on the railing looking at the kids playing foursquare. “Hope you’re not smoking around Claire,” I said.
He glanced back at me, the screen door swinging shut. “Don’t fucking give me that,” he said. “You think you care about that kid more than me? Who do you think’s going be around more?”
I didn’t say anything. Lucas ground his cigarette butt out into the tray. “I’d quit, you know. Last year. Filthy fucking habit. Then we were drilling through the Maersk containers and we found a clean fucking tonne of Winnie Blues. And excuse me if I’m a bit fucking stressed these days.”
“Just don’t smoke around the kid.”
He turned around. “Like I said. I don’t. And like I said: fuck off. Fuck off back to your mountains or wherever you’re going, all right? We don’t need you here. We don’t need you stirring up shit from the past. Got it?”
I stared him down. He was maybe nineteen or twenty years old – not much more than me, really, and whatever he might have been through, I doubted he’d had to talk to an alien spaceship or limp his way through a deserted Canberra or had the Australian government try to assassinate him. I had that on him.
But that was Matt. Swirling up through my gut, wrapping his fingers around my heart, ghosting his way into my brain. It was Matt that wanted to swing his dick around: make a snide remark at the very least, and ideally punch this guy in the throat.
But Matt’s not the only thing inside me. There’s me as well, and that includes what we got from the Endeavour, that includes the ability to read, to gauge, to evaluate. More than the ordinary person. Not just reading their faces. Lucas had been here a few months, maybe; he was worried about his place here; he was worried about his younger brothers, and they really genuinely had been through awful things back on the mainland in Adelaide, as bad as what me and Matt went through in Kalgoorlie. He loved Ellie – was besotted with her. He felt threatened by me, and by Matt, or Matt’s history. I could tell all that, just from looking in his eyes, and I know I owe most of that to the Endeavour and the Telepaths. Ellie was right: Lucas was being a dick, but he wasn’t a bad person. Not at all.
“Look,” I said. “Ellie clearly cares about you. Frankly I’m not sure what she sees, but she’s like a sister to me, so, sure, whatever. You and I are going to have to get along, whether you like it or not.”
“Are we?” he said. “Are you ever coming back here?”
I thought about what Ellie had said. She’d almost begged me to come back.
“I hope so,” I said. “But I don’t know. Frankly, what happens in the next few weeks is the only thing that matters. About whether any of us are going anywhere, other than heaven or hell, if you know what I mean.”
He was lighting another cigarette, but listening to what I was saying. “If half of what we’ve heard on the radio is true…” He took a draught, thought, shook his head. “It’s fucked. The whole thing’s fucked.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
“Is that why you came here?”
“It just sort of matched up,” I said. “But… I guess. Yeah.”
“In case it doesn’t go well?”
“Yes.”
Out in the foursquare court the kids had, apparently, just had another amazing hit-out, and went screeching and hollering at each other. Lucas passed a cigarette across to me. “Want one?”
I had a sudden image of him and Ellie, their naked bodies wrapped around each other – but that was just Matt. That wasn’t my problem.
Down in the depths of my mind, something screamed at me, urging me to take a swing at this guy.
<
br /> “No thanks,” I said.
We stood there at the edge of the verandah in silence for a while, watching the kids playing, before Tobias, Geoff, Colin and Liana came back from their walk around the village and the closer fields. “How’d you, uh…” Colin said.
“It was lovely,” I said, without looking at him – looking at the kids playing, the leaves in the breeze, the distant glare of sunlight on the ocean. “Let’s go.”
We walked back down the path towards the wharf. Colin was still talking to Tobias, speaking loudly, clearly feeling awkward, running through Reeve Island’s long-term survival plans, the harvest and the patrols and the scavenging missions to the mainland, asking him for advice. Geoff and Liana had dropped back down beside me. “Are you going to come back?” Liana said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean – maybe. Not really thinking that far ahead.”
“You know you always can,” she said. “No matter what happens. This is always home for you. And Jonas and Simon too – I know they’re only out there because they want to look out for you.”
“They – that’s not it,” I said. “I don’t know. It’s more complicated than that.”
I didn’t want to say it, but: sure, Jonas and Simon had been swept up in what happened. But they both liked it over there. They liked being at the heart of things. They’d formed friendships and relationships. They’d both been loners in Eucla – very different to me and Matt, who’d arrived and more or less been adopted into the Rae family.
“Well, as long as they know,” Liana said. “I mean, God, feels like a bloody long time ago you guys sailed off. Bit sad to see just you coming back, and only for a morning. Tell them we miss them.”
“They know, all right? I’ll tell them. They’ll appreciate it.”
“But what about you?” Geoff said quietly. As we crunched along the sandy path he made eyes with Liana, and she quickened her pace to join the conversation with Tobias and Colin. So it was just me and him.
“What about me, then?” I said.
Geoff looked straight ahead as we walked. “Are you sure you want to be over there in the mountains? After this… whatever it is you’re doing. This attack on Ballarat. Let’s say it all goes to plan – because as far as I can tell, if it doesn’t, we’re all fucked anyway. Let’s say it works. What are you going to do then?”
End Times Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 181
