Gravity (13 page)

I stood in the shade beside the marquee and caught my breath. I almost laughed out loud when Col radioed through that one of the members of the east team had found a beanie. A grey polar fleece beanie that Dad had identified as Simon's. Emma Terry started crying and the other teams were radioed. The search was to begin anew in the area halfway to Hargate.

Bullant dived through the door of the tent, his clothes creased as though he'd dressed from the pile on his bedroom floor.

‘Adam!' he shouted, and shook my hand. ‘I tried to phone about twenty times. What happened to your phone?'

I shrugged. ‘Lost it.'

‘You right, mate? Have they found him yet?'

I shook my head. ‘They've just found a beanie. Si's beanie. Out near Hargate.'

‘Serious?'

I nodded.

Bully just stood there. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?'

Then a body hesitantly entered the tent. A body that I recognised before my eyes could discern her face from the daylight glare that followed her in.

‘Shit,' Bully whispered, and made himself scarce.

Mum and I stared at each other for the longest time. A silence descended in the marquee as those who knew the story held their breath.

‘Have they found him?' she asked.

I shook my head. ‘They found his beanie on the side of the Hargate road.'

‘Are you going out?'

‘Do you want a lift?'

Mum offered a single shy nod and backed into the daylight. I followed her to the ute and Bully jumped silently in the back like a kelpie.

‘There's room in the front,' I said.

Bully thumped my rolled swag and sat on it as reply.

Mum sniffed as I drove. She eventually found the tissues in the glove box, mopped her eyes and honked twice. Cars lined the road. It seemed like every driveable vehicle in the district was there. Hudson's old F100, Kent's Bedford tray, Sam Pliney's red Fergy.

Mum stiffened in the seat as we drew alongside. She spotted Dad and started shrinking under the dash.

I parked.

Mum and I looked at each other. Her eyes blinked rapid-fire but she said nothing.

I opened my door.

‘I might . . . I'll stay here.'

‘Fine,' I said, and gave the door a bit of extra torque as I shut it.

Dad strode up to me and hugged me tight. He looked manic and held the holy grail of Si's beanie in one paw.

It was Simon's all right. It smelled of Emma Terry's shampoo and sweaty hair.

The ute door closed behind us. Dad turned. He straightened and stepped from our embrace, sniffing and rubbing at his face.

Mum stood in the canopy-broken shadows clutching her red purse, lips curled inside her mouth, cheeks glossy.

They stared and said nothing.

Dad's short breaths turned to faint puffs. Mum barely moved, from foot to foot, the gravel grinding quietly beneath her city shoes.

She dropped her purse. She took a step, then froze. Her wet eyes scanned the road, the cars, the bush, and came to rest on my dad.

She opened her mouth, but Dad cut her off.

‘He's gone,' he said, and walked. ‘I . . . I've got to find him.'

Mum's hair moved in the breeze Dad made as he stormed past. She hung her head and fought to keep the sobs inside her mouth, first with one hand, then with two. The pain just flowed around her fingers and all over the afternoon, ugly and merciless.

I held her and our tears mixed on our cheeks.

‘I shouldn't have come back,' she said. ‘I knew it'd only make it worse.'

‘Don't be stupid, Mum. Coming back is gutsy. You did the
best that you could with what you had. It's all any of us can do. Even Dad.'

We held each other for the longest time and I knew things would never be the same. Mum would never be a stranger in my life. Dad would either open his heart or keep the lid closed and continue to believe that it was Mum's fault. My fault. His fault.

It was nobody's fault and everybody's fault. It just
was
.

In time, I left Mum on the roadside and took my place in a long line of searchers, an arm's length from my best friend in the world, locked in an awkward and sombre silence.

The hours passed and we walked over the bridge. We passed the white-painted boulder on the roadside that marked where Simon had stacked his car. Where Patchy had died. We walked right into Hargate.

Tori's ute wasn't in her driveway but Todd, her neighbour, invited Bully and me in for a drink. Beer, port or water. Bully chose beer. I went with water.

Good water. Clean water. Hargate rain in a glass.

Todd's rusty beard was powdered with sawdust. I remembered that he made bush furniture from salvaged branches and figured that he'd been in his workshop before we'd arrived. Todd was the same age as Bully and me. We went to school together until Todd left to do a cabinet-making apprenticeship in Bairnsdale. The apprenticeship didn't work out but, between odd gardening jobs and his bush furniture, he made enough to pay the rent and feed himself. We used to look down on him – a Hargate feral – but the world was a different place now. Now I wanted some of
the autonomy and determination that he had.

Todd told us that Tori was at her mum's place in Orbost. She probably didn't know about Simon's disappearance and she was due back that evening.

I felt envy for the fact that Todd knew things about her that I didn't. I could barely mask my disappointment, my longing. She would be able to make sense of what was happening. She'd be able to help me find the words to put my mind at ease. I knew then that she was a bigger part of my home than I'd ever imagined.

I was tempted to prop on her verandah and wait for her and Francis, just so I could give her the story myself, but my dad and a dozen others were already aboard Kent's Bedford, ready to be ferried back to our cars.

Todd shook my hand and wished us luck. Bully and I climbed up and hung on.

‘Give her my love when you see her,' I called to Todd.

‘Hey?'

‘Tori. Give her my love when you see her.'

‘Sure, mate. I will.'

I watched Todd walking back up to his house as the truck departed and I prayed that he'd remember to pass on the message. I hoped that I'd have the courage one day soon to tell her with my own mouth. To let loose in the light of day that thing that had rattled mysteriously inside me for years.

The front door was open. I sat in the familiar shell of my bedroom and realised that the door was
always
open. I couldn't even tell you if it had a key or if the lock actually worked. I'd only noticed it was open because all the doors
in the city weren't. Everything was under lock and key. At home, on this little island of human habitation in a sea of wilderness, it felt safe to leave your keys in the car.

Just don't leave your brother alone.

Mum and Dad arrived separately just after dark. They looked beaten, but they were talking again, albeit in the shallow words of the unforgiven. It was a choice of baked beans or spaghetti for dinner, Dad informed us, and he was cooking. He ended up opening both cans and burning four slices of toast trying to do two things at once. I thought I saw Mum smile when the smoke alarm went off for the second time.

That was when the awkwardness began to fade. We sat around the small table and Dad said grace that turned into a prayer for Simon. He spoke about the feelings of hope that finding the beanie had given him. He mumbled an apology to Mum. His fork trembled against his plate until Mum rested her hand on his. It made him flinch, but he didn't pull away.

Mum mumbled her own apology and, for a second, the room seemed to float. The past hurts and the fears for the future had no bearing on the moment. They simultaneously withdrew their hands, but the feeling lingered.

Hope.

Mum collected her gear from the car. She and Dad retired to the lounge and I should have felt at home. I should have been happy to hear them talking from my room, but instead it made me feel like running. I didn't want to be a part of their awkwardness or their anger or their intimacy – whatever they found together was theirs. My home still smelled like home
but in the week I'd been away it had shifted and transformed inside me until it felt like a relic. A hologram of the place where I grew up.

Like everybody else, Mum and Dad didn't question me when I told them I had to go for a drive that night. They nodded as though they understood, as though it was a good idea.

I drove to Hargate. To Tori's house. It was nine-thirty when I got there and thankfully the lights were still on. Todd and Tori looked as though they'd seen a ghost when I arrived at the sliding door on the verandah. Tori squeaked a sad but excited hello and hugged me with all her strength. Todd hugged me, too, his beard alien but soft against my cheek.

‘I was really sorry to hear about Simon, mate,' he said. ‘If there's anything I can do . . .'

‘Thanks,' I said, and pointed to the door. ‘You can nip out and find him if you like. That would be awesome.'

They stared at me, incredulous for a minute, then laughing with disbelief.

‘What do you think happened?' Tori asked. ‘He's never done this before. He's never just walked off.'

I shrugged. ‘Where's Francis?'

‘In bed, asleep.'

‘Can I . . . ?' I asked and pointed to his room.

‘Of course,' Tori said.

The little poo-head was hanging half off his bed, his doona pooled on the floor beneath him. I gently rolled him back onto his pillow and covered him. His tongue clicked and his leg stretched, the toes scratching at the doona. I kissed his forehead.

Tori made coffee and we perched like serious grown-ups around the dining table.

‘I think someone has done something to Si,' I said. ‘He just never leaves the well-worn path. Not before, not after the accident. He's a creature of habit.'

‘I suppose there's always a first time,' Todd said.

‘If he had a reason,' I said.

‘Who would do that? Who would do something to Simon?' Tori asked.

‘I don't know. I honestly don't know.'

We talked about woodwork and Melbourne and Harry and Bonnie. And Bully and Harry. I told them that Harry swore blind that they'd just slept in the same bed. Todd laughed so hard that Tori had to shush him to stop him from waking the boy.

‘That's like
the
definition of irony,' Todd said when he'd regained his composure. ‘Bullant, the biggest homophobe in the Southern Hemisphere, wakes up in another bloke's bed. I love it!'

I told them about Mum coming home and how it didn't feel like happy families at my house but more like an episode of Jerry Springer – without the host.

‘You're always welcome at my place, Adam. You know that,' Todd said, and I thanked him.

Tori jumped up from the table and collected our empty cups.

‘That was last drinks, fellas,' she said, her face suddenly stern.

Through experience, both Todd and I knew not to mess with that look. The words that I was bursting to say would
have to wait. There was a hardness about that look that scared me, too. All my courage and confidence disappeared in its shadow. It was time to go. We took it in turns to kiss our hostess and picked our way down the verandah stairs.

It was Dad who called off the search. It had been six days since Simon had disappeared and the hope of finding him alive had faded with the light of each sunrise. The days were unusually bright and warm for springtime, but the nights fell below zero degrees. The passion for the search waned. The SES folks had gone home to distant towns. The chopper was long gone. Bully and the crews from the mill and the National Parks depot had gone back to work.

There were no tears from Dad. Mum cried, but Dad was just hanging there on hope, his emotions frozen by the faith that Simon would eventually turn up. He couldn't write him off.

I had. Sometime, around the third day of searching, my mind started to wander. I started thinking about the future that was pressing in around me. School resumed the following Monday and the big push for our final exams would begin. Yeah, and the study would feel like a holiday. I'd avoided quiet moments with Cappo, delaying the inevitable. Tori and Francis searched with us for part of every day. I ate
with them most nights and found it harder and harder to drag myself away.

Mum spoke to Dad about closure and eventually convinced him to organise a short service and wake for Simon. Father O'Donnell drove up from Orbost. He'd christened Simon; now he had to lay his ghost to rest.

That was when Dad lost it. I watched him clutch at his Bible and fight back the tears. When the floodgates finally burst, the whole church could hear his sobs. They weren't loud; they just had the soul-wrenching timbre of a broken heart. I put my hand on his back and the tears abseiled down my cheeks and onto my thigh.

I walked from the service to the police station. I slid my licence across the counter to Cappo.

Cappo slid it back.

Dad shouted a round for the bar that night. A retired couple from America who were staying in the hotel got caught up in the proceedings and must have wondered what they'd stumbled upon. The best part of the local population huddled in the bar and told stories about Simon. Emma Terry was inconsolable. She cried so hard and so long that she couldn't work. Col could only offer her a scowl in sympathy. He eventually snapped at her and mockingly kicked her out of the bar. She slumped next to Mum and Squid slipped behind the bar and pulled a few big-headed beers.

It felt as if we were commiserating the loss of a grand final before we'd finished the game.

Tori had brought Francis into the pub earlier in the night. I propped him on my shoulders and I could see him fanning the ciggy smoke from his face in the mirror behind the bar. Tori drank one rum and cola and the boy slopped lemon squash in my hair. It looked like Tori's smile was held in place by invisible tape and she left with Francis as soon as her glass was drained.

I wanted to leave with her. I wanted to help her put Francis to bed and I wanted to sit with her and use her sharp wit to help dissect my world. Cleave out all the mess and help me make sense of the whole debacle, like she'd done in Melbourne.

Instead, I stood at the bar and got pissed. I drank rum and had bullshit conversations with people. I had a bullshit conversation with Mick Fenton and he asked me what I was doing with my life. I wanted to tell him about all the things I had seen and done – about finding my mum and my work at The Hardware House, about discovering that I loved the feel of worked timber and finding a part of me that I didn't know existed. A part that secretly collected hope and wasn't frightened to say sorry.

‘Sorry,' I said. ‘Sorry I did a runner from work.'

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘That was out of the blue. Had blokes running around like headless chooks there for a while. Ended up working in the yard myself. Have to say I enjoyed it. Didn't realise how much my old body missed the work. Mind you, the first couple of days nearly killed me.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said again.

‘No worries, Adam,' he said, and slapped my back. ‘We're over it now. I'm sorry about Simon. Poor bastard. Makes you
wonder what was going on in his head. Maybe he was taking off after his little brother, hey? Maybe he did a runner? Maybe he's gone up to Sydney to look for a new car? I see you've still got your old man's ute.'

I nodded and part of me was squirming. Those lies had come home to roost. That part of me wanted to run but the part in control was doing other things.

Fess up. Own up. Take responsibility.

‘Can I buy you a beer, Mick?'

He looked at me sideways and clunked his empty onto the bar. ‘Just a pot of heavy.'

I drove to Hargate with a clear head and a light heart early on Sunday morning. Tori and Francis were already awake and dressed. Tori asked about Mum and Dad and I told her that finally losing Simon had brought them closer together. I thought about all the heartache and unsaid words that had been termiting at their life together and I wanted it to work. I felt they were going to have a go at rebuilding their lives. In steel.

‘You can take some credit for that,' Tori said.

We were turning over her vegie patch in tandem. High on the mountain, the sun felt closer than it had in a long time and I'd taken my shirt off.

‘How so?'

‘Well, if you hadn't followed your heart or your head or your dick or whatever it was you followed to Melbourne and found her, your mum would still be there.'

‘Yeah, but we don't know if that would be a bad thing, do we?'

‘All change is good,' she said.

I dug two more sods before the injustice of what she'd said hit me. ‘What a crock of shit. How can
you
say that? How can you say that the changes that happened for Patchy and Simon and you in the accident were good?'

She shrugged. She glanced at my chest and I saw her.

‘I'm here now. Francis is here. Caring for Simon might have been a shit job but it helped shape you into who you are now.'

‘Oh, and who is that, exactly?'

Her face coloured. She shrugged again and went back to her digging.

We both heard the car on the gravel and looked up. Someone was giving it heaps along the road into Hargate. A dust plume chasing a white four-wheel drive.

‘Shit,' I said, as I recognised the vehicle. ‘It's Cappo.'

He pulled in at Todd's place, then saw us standing in the garden. He drove across the paddocks, then pointed and beckoned to me through the windscreen.

I looked at Tori and dragged my shirt on, teeth clenched and heart staccato.

‘Hop in,' Cappo said.

I struggled to do my seatbelt up as we bumped towards the road.

‘Your dad and mum are on their way. They've found a body.'