4
I sat next to Silky on the veranda as the sun came up, listening to last night’s events being endlessly dissected on the radio as I cut orange after orange for her to put through the juicer. Getting the Tindalls breakfast seemed the least we could do to repay their hospitality, and I hoped it might help put a spring in their step. The atmosphere had been pretty subdued after Hazel switched off the TV. We’d helped clear up in near silence, then gone to bed. Hazel hadn’t been at all happy about the way the real world had come in uninvited, and Charlie had been tense, preoccupied.
‘Hear that?’ Silky whispered. ‘They now estimate about sixty dead and a hundred and sixty injured.’ She poured another few oranges’ worth of juice into a jug. ‘That’s over half the people who were in the building. It’s terrible.’
‘It’s not so bad, you know, as sieges go.’ In the corner of the paddock, the old bay was treating himself to an early-morning dust bath. ‘You have to work on the basis that they’re all dead from the beginning anyway. Even a single survivor is a bonus in a situation like that.’
She stopped squeezing and straightened up. ‘I keep thinking about that poor child. The one who’d been burned. Did you see the soldier holding him?’
I cut another couple of oranges and passed them across. It seemed to be taking an awful lot of fruit to produce not very much juice. ‘The place was probably rigged with explosives. We saw one lot go off. I’m surprised there aren’t many more dead.’
‘But all those soldiers looked out of control. They didn’t know what they were doing.’
‘You know, if twenty per cent or fewer get dropped it’s a success. What those soldiers were doing was reacting to what was happening, whether it was the correct thing to do or not.’
‘Dropped? What is dropped? Killed? For a panel-beater, you seem to know an awful lot about these things . . .’
‘Don’t you box-heads read Time magazine?’
Silky pulled a face before going back to her task. ‘You certainly don’t. The only magazines you read have parachutes on the cover.’
I was still laughing when Hazel appeared in the doorway in her dressing gown. Her hair was a mess and her eyes were red and shiny.
Silky jumped to her feet. ‘Hazel, are you all right?’
Atear rolled down her cheek. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ I said. ‘What are you on about?’
‘He’s not here.’
A lot of thoughts raced through my mind in the next split second, and all at a thousand miles an hour. Charlie had withdrawn into his shell after the news broadcasts. ‘That stuff really seemed to get to Hazel,’ I’d said. ‘She’s been like that ever since Steven died,’ he’d replied. ‘She wants to shut out the real world, keep us all from being hurt like that again. That’s what this place is all about.’
He’d been very morose all evening, come to think of it, but I’d put that down to the Toohey’s; it had been looking more and more like he had a drink problem. And all that stuff about shooting horses . . . f*ck, he wouldn’t have taken it into his head to drive off into the night and top himself, would he? He wouldn’t have been the first.
Silky wiped her hands on her jeans and wrapped her arms around Hazel. ‘Charlie has gone somewhere? Would you like some coffee, or maybe some tea?’
I glanced across at the parking area at the side of the house. The Land Cruiser was missing. ‘Maybe he’s gone to fetch some croissants.’ I gave her my biggest smile. ‘I noticed a little bakery about a thousand miles back.’
Silky glared at me as she comforted Hazel. ‘It’s not funny, Nick.’ She was right; wrong time, wrong place.
‘I’m sorry. You sure he hasn’t left a note or something?’
She shook her head. ‘He didn’t say anything to you? You two were talking together a long time out here.’
Silky’s head bounced between the pair of us as she tried to get Hazel to sit down. ‘Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?’
I touched her hand. ‘Later.’
She got the hint. Hazel finally sat down and Silky disappeared inside the house to make that tea she’d promised.
‘I’m scared that something’s happened, Nick. He wasn’t himself when he came to bed. You sure he didn’t say anything?’
Silky was back in the doorway. ‘Hazel, the telephone’s ringing. Do you want me to—’
Hazel was already moving. Silky stared at me quizzically but I wanted to listen, not speak.
I started through the door, but Hazel was already on her way back. ‘That was Julie. The Land Cruiser’s at the train station. What’s happening, Nick? Everything’s going to fall apart again, I just know it . . .’ She buried her face in the front of my shirt, and clung to me like a woman drowning.
At last she raised her head. ‘Please help me find him, Nick. Please . . .’