The Byron Journals (18 page)

She bit her lip and looked up at him. ‘I need to know that I can rely on you. That you'll help me—when the time comes.'

Returning to Adelaide to meet her parents was becoming more and more of a reality. ‘Of course I'll help you.'

‘You won't abandon me before we get there?'

She started crying and the sight of her so distraught filled Andrew with despair. He put an arm around her and drew her close. ‘Of course not. I'll do anything for you. I couldn't help you in the river, but I can help you with this. Anything you need—I'm here, okay? I promise.'

She sobbed and stared into the garden. ‘Do you want to know what the scariest thing was?'

‘What?'

‘When the river first pushed me under, there was this part of me—a part that I'd almost forgotten was there— that just told me to let go and be done with it.'

He felt queasy.

‘It just scares me…' she said, ‘how much power is buried in the smallest moments and the tiniest, most insignificant decisions.'

‘Everything's going to be fine,' Andrew said. ‘We'll record some songs in Sydney, sell the pot in Melbourne and visit your mum in Adelaide. Then go back to Byron and start all over again, I promise.'

She smiled weakly. ‘I feel like a joint.'

‘I'll roll one for you. Where's your backpack?'

She nodded towards the dorms.

‘Okay,' he said. ‘I'll go get it.'

He switched on the light and scanned the bunk beds. Some were carefully made, with sleeping bags rolled out, and neatly packed backpacks beside them. Others, like Heidi's, were a mess—the sheets twisted and all her possessions jumbled on top. He pulled the weed from the front pocket of her backpack, then paused. Inside the main compartment, he could feel the rigid outline of her journal. He looked at the open doorway, drew a deep breath and unzipped the bag. Tim saved her from the river, but perhaps Andrew could save her from herself.

The journal was jammed full of papers and photos. He'd seen it dozens of times before, but nothing inside, other than the newspaper article Heidi had showed him. He opened it to some loose leaf pages—poems and song lyrics. Abstract, dark, difficult to make sense of.

A couple of photos fell onto the floor and he bent to pick them up. They were professional photographs. Black and white. Both of Paul Cabritzi. One of him waving goodbye to a frail, old woman, probably his mother, outside a block of units; the other of him waiting tables in a busy café at what looked like the Adelaide Central markets. Andrew flicked through the journal and found a series of printed notes. It took him a few moments to work out that they were written by a private investigator: what time Cabritzi got up in the morning, what time he left for work, even what he ate for breakfast. There were pages and pages of notes.

‘Did you find the—' Heidi paused in the doorway, strangely off-balance, as though the slightest sound might knock her down. But the fragility and surprise in her expression quickly hardened into contempt.

She rushed in and grabbed her journal. ‘You arse-hole!'

‘Why are you tracking Cabritzi?'

She gave him a steely look and dropped her hand onto her hip. ‘They're old photos, Andy. Old notes.'

‘Okay, well why
were
you tracking him then?'

Her body tensed. ‘I tracked him for a little while in Adelaide—after the accident, because I needed to know that he suffered for what he'd done.'

‘You're not planning anything crazy when we get to Adelaide, are you?'

She glared at him, furious, and Andrew sighed, felt his body slacken.

‘Look, I'm sorry. I was looking for the pot and the journal fell out—'

She blinked back tears. ‘I'm not stupid, Andy—so don't treat me like I am.' She shoved the journal into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. ‘Can I have the pot, please?'

She snatched it from his hand, turned and walked out.

twenty-two

The bus coughed and spluttered up the main street towards the mountains. It was a hot, still morning and the road ahead was clear. Andrew looked at Heidi and Tim chatting in the front seats and frowned. They never seemed to fight or argue and, now that Tim had saved her from drowning, he could sense a deeper level of trust between them, a more obvious familiarity and physical ease.

Jade, seated at the table, caught him watching the other two. ‘You look like you could do with some distraction.' She opened her handbag, pulled out a deck of playing cards and climbed onto the mattress. Sitting cross-legged opposite him, she split the deck and passed him half. She was wearing a loose top without a bra. As she leaned forward to play the first card, he glimpsed the soft curves of her breasts. He imagined lifting her top over her head, a sigh breaking from her lips as he cupped and kissed her and slid his hand between her legs.

‘Your play,' she said.

Why couldn't he stop these thoughts? ‘What are we playing?'

‘Snap.'

He stared at her.

She shrugged and waited.

They began playing, taking it in turns to put down cards, and there was a certain rhythm to her movement that began to turn him on. He put his cards down faster, and she responded by keeping pace. He could imagine that her breasts would bounce like this if they were fucking. He let her win the first game. It was worth it to see her lunging forward, laughing and getting more excited the faster the game became.

Midway through the second game, she paused and sat back. ‘You know what we should do tonight?'

‘What?'

She grinned. ‘Get ridiculously drunk.'

‘But I don't drink,' he replied. ‘You know that.'

She leaned forward and played a card. ‘C'mon, it'll be fun…and it'll give us something to look forward to.

It's the best thing after an Ecstasy binge. Trust me, it will help.'

‘Do you think?'

She nodded.

They played a few more cards before he put down a three and she snapped the pair. She started laughing, scooped up the deck and held it out to him. Her shirt opened and closed and he started laughing too. She was pleased to have cheered him up. ‘Tonight, we're getting drunk—okay?'

‘I'll think about it.'

Jade nodded and grimaced. ‘I need a break.' She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. ‘I'm starting to feel a bit sick.' She swung her legs over the edge of the mattress and sat there for a few moments, then dropped to the floor and returned to her seat.

Andrew rolled onto his stomach and shuffled the cards. Heidi and Tim were still talking up the front, but he didn't feel so bad about it now. He watched the paddocks give way to eucalypt forest then, as they rose higher, dense, canopied rainforest. Ferns clung to the embankment beside the road and water trickled down a cliff face. The bus strained and slowed as the road steepened and wound higher.

At the top of the hill, the land flattened out and became dry. Close to the coast, near so much water, it was easy to forget that the rest of the country was in drought and that inland Australia was arid and inhospitable. They cruised between faded hills and shot across small bridges over rocky creek beds. They passed abandoned towns. The vast space around them was desolate.

It seemed to go on forever.

The road steepened as they dropped down the other side of the mountains into Tamworth, and Tim accelerated, weaving through the traffic. He screamed that he loved them but that they were all going to die. Stunted eucalypts and road signs hurtled past on either side. Andrew clung to the edge of the mattress and panicked, wishing he was strapped into a seat with a belt. But the road levelled out and Tim slowed down, laughing hysterically. Heidi cracked up too, fell quiet, then looked at Tim and cracked up again. Jade turned to Andrew and held his gaze. He remembered what Jade had said about the post-Ecstasy blues. It had been a long time since he had done it, but maybe getting drunk
would
help; anything was better than feeling like this.

They pulled past Tamworth's famous Golden Guitar. So what? The Big Prawn, the Big Banana, the Big Lawnmower. Who cared? Everything seemed out of whack and pointless anyway, without oversized landmarks warping his thoughts even more. A sign welcomed them into town. This was supposed to be the real Australia: the wide ‘sunburnt' plains. Jacked-up utes and four-wheel drives. Holden Commodores with bull bars, spotlights and huge two-way aerials. Bullet holes in street signs. Tim turned up the stereo, wound down his window and shouted along to James Brown,
I Got
the Feeling
, raising his voice whenever people turned to look.

They pulled to a stop opposite a hostel on a main road and the heat climbed.

‘What exactly are we doing here, Tim?' Jade complained.

He turned to her and replied matter-of-factly: ‘Blowing people's minds.'

‘It's a country festival.' She opened her bottle of water and took a sip. ‘They're going to think you're weirdos who play weird music.'

Tim looked away. ‘What's your problem, babe?'

Jade's eyes were glassy. ‘My problem,
babe
, is that you've completely ignored me the entire trip.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘You're being an arsehole,' she said, her voice weepy now. ‘You never used to treat me like this.'

‘You can't just expect everything to go back to normal straight away.' He shouldered his backpack and paused on his way out of the bus.

‘Sorry, babe. It's gonna take time.'

twenty-three

After checking into the hostel, they walked down the hill to the main street, a shopping precinct that had been blocked off to traffic. Plane trees lined either side of the footpath in front of the shops and there were buskers stationed at regular intervals up and down the strip. The hot evening air was awash with the smell of barbequing meat and onions, and the sounds of country music: plodding basslines, synthetic drumbeats and dippy vocal melodies. Soldiers in camouflage uniforms recruited young men at an Army Reserves Tent and Andrew spotted a National Parks guy pull a snake out of a hessian bag and hold it up to the crowd.

‘This is so messed up!' Tim exclaimed and led the way towards a busker performing on the far side of the street.

Andrew put his arm around Heidi, but she slipped free and walked after Tim. Jade and Andrew glanced at each other, the crowd passing around them in a jumble. Across the street, a large audience had gathered in front of a middle-aged woman wearing a short pink skirt, high heels and a pink cowboy hat. She danced slowly, her hips swaying and arms swinging to a prerecorded backing track. It was an old Dolly Parton song. A sunburnt man wearing a flannel shirt and Moleskins wandered up and threw a tenner in her collection hat. Another man walked forward and dropped in a handful of coins. This wasn't busking; it was glorified karaoke, and yet money poured into her collection box.

Tim turned to them, his eyes wide. ‘Let's get our gear,' he said. ‘Right now!'

They rushed back up the hill to the bus, loaded their instruments onto the trolley and headed back to the main street. They were about to start playing when Jade withdrew a digital SLR camera from the bag she was carrying and snapped a shot of the gathering crowd.

Tim stared at her, lifted the shoulder straps over his head and put down his drum. ‘Where'd you get that?'

‘I bought it.'

‘Bullshit,' he said. ‘It's the same one that got stolen.'

‘No, it's not, babe.'

‘Did you go and see that bikie again?'

‘No.' She shook her head. ‘Of course not.'

Just then a council ranger wandered up and asked to see their busking permit.

‘Where can we get one?' Heidi asked.

‘There are only a certain number of permits given out.' The ranger sucked his teeth. ‘Usually they're all gone about six months in advance.'

Heidi continued talking to the ranger and Tim argued with Jade while Andrew walked off in search of someone with a licence. He spotted the Dolly Parton cover-singer packing up her equipment and rushed over. ‘I'd love to help,' she said. ‘That's what these festivals are all about. I'm Sue, by the way.'

‘Andy,' he replied, shaking her hand.

The ranger waved when he saw her. ‘These guys with you?'

She smiled. ‘They are now.'

‘It's not really regulation,' he said.

‘Oh, don't be such a Nazi,' she replied. ‘They seem like nice kids.'

The ranger smiled, tipped his hat and walked off.

Andrew gave Sue a brief explanation of what they were going to play and she nodded intently. Her boyfriend, a bearded, heavy-set man wearing a blue Bonds singlet and dirty work jeans stopped to talk to her, before merging with the crowd.

They played and Sue sang her Dolly Parton covers over their music, laughing and enjoying herself. The crowd thickened, and people started line-dancing double time, getting right into it. Andrew watched, impressed, as Sue captivated the audience. He had to admit, she was good at what she did. Tim, however, still riled from his argument with Jade, began dancing behind Sue and pulling faces. Her partner stepped to the front of the crowd, arms crossed, but Tim kept going— eventually running around Sue in circles beating his djembe as hard and fast as he could. And that was when Sue stopped singing and dropped a hand on her hip.

‘What are you doing?' she complained.

Sue's partner pushed Tim in the chest and Tim punched him in the mouth, hard—but not hard enough to knock him down. Sue shrieked and dropped the microphone. Heidi and Andrew stopped playing, confused, and the crowd booed and cat-called while Sue's partner chased Tim around Heidi's kit. When he caught hold of him, the two fell onto the concrete, brawling. It took three men to separate them, by which time Tim's knee was bleeding and his face was grazed. When the commotion had died down, Sue pointed out that someone had stolen their money. Andrew worried that Sue might think it was a set-up—using the fight as a distraction—but she just packed her gear and left, reprimanding her partner for fighting, as they walked down the street.