Catherine Jinks TheRoad (29 page)

‘Could the map be wrong?’ his brother frowned.

‘I don’t know. Could the map be wrong, Alec?’

Alec shook his head. He wished that the two of them would progress beyond the doubting stage to the panic stage. He was in the panic stage himself – his heart was beating more quickly than it normally did. But the McKenzies didn’t look like panicky types. Their voices were quiet and their movements measured. They both had the same sort of wide-set, expressionless blue eyes wedged deep into long, thoughtful faces. Graham’s hair was more gingery than Chris’s, and Graham wore a goatee – unlike Chris, who was clean shaven. Even so, they could almost have been twins.

‘So you want to go back to the Coombah roadhouse?’ Chris asked Alec. ‘Is that what you want to do?’

Alec nodded. ‘They have a land line,’ he explained. ‘I could make a call.’

Chris pondered for a moment. Graham said: ‘There must be somewhere closer than Coombah. All the stations along here would have land lines, wouldn’t they?’

Alec had considered that. He didn’t want to say that he felt illogically unnerved at the prospect of leaving the main road. So he said nothing.

‘This is so stupid,’ Chris suddenly remarked, shaking his head ruefully. ‘I can’t believe this. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Well, sometimes things don’t.’ Graham smoothed out his map. ‘Where’s the nearest station? They’re marked on here, look.’

‘Do you
know
anyone living out this way?’ Chris asked Alec, who shook his head once again. He had a friend whose parents owned a quandong farm, but that was to the west of Broken Hill.

‘There’s no guarantee anyone’ll be home,’ he mumbled. ‘They’re big spreads out here.’

‘They’re still closer than Coombah,’ said Chris. ‘We’ll take a chance – if that’s what everyone wants to do? Turn back, I mean?’ He looked at Graham, who looked at Alec. There was a long pause. Chris sat with his hand on the gearstick, waiting.

At that moment, a steel-blue sedan rumbled past them, attached to a large white caravan. They watched it recede down the road, heading north. Alec’s stomach lurched because he could sense what the others were thinking.

‘They won’t get anywhere,’ he said sharply. ‘They’ll end up stranded.’

No comment from the front seat. Chris and Graham were staring at the bulky white rump of the caravan, which dwindled in size as it pulled farther ahead. Alec couldn’t see their faces.

‘You gotta trust your gut!’ he implored. ‘I know this road, guys. I
know this road
. Please – just go back. Please. I’ll pay ya. I will. I’ve got twenty bucks on me, and I’ll pay ya more when I get it. Fifty.’

Chris shifted, and fixed him with a pale, blank regard.

‘Look, I – I know what you think,’ Alec stammered. ‘You think I’m a nut. Well okay, that’s fine. Just take me back, and I’ll pay ya. Take me back to the roadhouse.’

Graham turned his head too. For a moment the brothers both studied Alec, before exchanging a long, pensive glance that excluded their passenger utterly. It was like being in the car with a pair of telepaths, and Alec’s heart skipped a beat.

Were
they
in on it too? Were they aliens in disguise?

No, no. He shook off this suspicion with a little gasp of horror. Get a grip, he told himself. Get a fucking
grip
.

Then the engine turned over, and Chris began to pull the wheel around. Graham said: ‘Back to Coombah?’

A negative gesture from Chris, who observed: ‘I saw a mailbox back there. A white mailbox. Will that do you, Alec?’

They want to get rid of me, Alec decided. He was pretty much resigned to the fact. They didn’t know the road. They didn’t know the country. They thought he was off his chump.

‘It’ll be a fair distance from the highway,’ he said. ‘Could be a long drive.’