The Byron Journals (24 page)

‘We can't leave him.'

‘Fuck him. Let's go.'

Andrew followed on wobbly legs. He looked back and saw Marcus trying to roll onto his side, gasping for breath.

Phil closed the front door behind them, looked around and made his way back towards the street. Andrew followed a few steps behind. They walked around the corner, unlocked Phil's car and got in. Phil started the engine, indicated, checked his mirrors and took off. It wasn't until they were a few blocks away that Andrew found the courage to speak.

‘We can't leave him like that,' he said, his voice quavering.

‘We just did.'

‘He'll die.'

‘The job's off,' Phil replied in a low, calm voice. ‘We can't deliver this shit to Melbourne—it's cut to fuck.'

‘But...'

‘But what?'

‘What should I tell Sam?'

Phil stared at the road ahead. ‘What the fuck are you doing in this business, mate? You don't know what you're doing or who you're messing with.'

Andrew was on the verge of tears. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘I don't know what Sammy was thinking sending you out on a job. Cousin or not. You're just a kid, for Chrissakes.'

Andrew stared at the dash to avoid looking at Phil— the blood on his knuckles and the indifference in his eyes. Phil pulled over. They were around the corner from the pub where they'd met. Phil nodded for him to get out.

Andrew stepped onto the footpath, closed the door and watched the Commodore's tail lights fade down the street then disappear around the corner.

There was a pause between songs on the jukebox, then ‘Kokomo' by the Beach Boys came in. Andrew stopped beside Tim, who was seated at a poker machine called
Queen of the Nile.

‘Tim?'

‘What took you so long?' Tim swivelled on his stool to face him. ‘Where's the gear?'

Andrew shook his head and walked towards the exit.

‘Wait,' Tim said, trailing behind him. ‘What happened?'

Andrew waited until they were outside before speaking. ‘Phil smashed him.'

‘Smashed who? What happened to the gear?'

‘Phil took the gear. It's gone.'

‘What do you mean he took it?'

‘Phil took the gear.' Andrew could hear his voice trembling, but he didn't care. ‘He wouldn't stop hitting him, he just kept smacking him and smacking him.'

‘But why?'

‘Fuck, I don't know, he was high on ice. Phil said the coke was cut, then he starting hitting him.'

‘Shit.' Tim checked over his shoulder then shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘What are we going to tell Sam?'

‘Who cares about Sam? When Phil remembers what he's done and that I'm the only one who witnessed it, he's going to come after me.'

‘He won't come after you.'

‘We have to get out of here,' Andrew said. ‘Tonight.'

‘We can't, it'll be too obvious. Just don't panic.'

Andrew looked over his shoulder as they crossed a road. ‘Maybe I should call Mum.'

Tim shook his head. ‘No. She can't help us unless the cops get involved.'

‘Well, what should we do?'

‘We'll head south first thing in the morning.'

Heidi and Jade were asleep on the couch in front of the television, an empty packet of Tim Tams on the table. Tim woke them and told them to come back to the dorm. Once they were inside, Tim locked the door and explained the situation.

‘Shit.' Jade looked away. ‘I better call Sam.'

‘Yeah, call your brother and tell him he's an arsehole,' Andrew said.

‘This isn't my fault,' Jade replied.

‘Whose fault is it then?'

‘C'mon, Andy,' Heidi said. ‘Let's get you in the shower. It'll help you relax.'

He didn't want to take a shower—he wanted to have it out with Jade—but he let Heidi lead him into the bathroom. She turned on the shower, while Andrew pulled off his clothes. When she had the temperature right, she turned and lifted his chin so he was looking at her. ‘Do you want something to calm you down?'

He nodded and stepped into the shower. He watched the water running down the drain and thought of Marcus's blood-smeared face. The shower door opened and Heidi passed him two pills. He took them and washed them down with a mouthful of water from the showerhead.

Heidi closed the screen, leaned against the bathroom sink and watched him through the frosted glass. ‘Is there anything I can do?'

‘Don't leave me.'

‘It's okay. I won't leave you alone. I promise.'

thirty

The sun melted over the steelworks and cast the sky a sickly yellow pallor. Despite the sleeping pills, Andrew had woken from nightmares throughout the night. Now, as they left Wollongong, Heidi gave him more sleeping pills and lay beside him on the mattress. The last thing he saw, before sleep swallowed him, was a huge Buddhist temple on a hillside, and he thought how strangely out of place it was on the highway outside of Wollongong.

He woke with a start, out of breath and disorientated. He'd dreamt that he was at an extravagant banquet dinner, everyone feasting themselves on Marcus's body, fighting each other and tearing at him with their bare hands.

‘Are you okay?' Heidi asked.

He sat up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘Where are we?'

She shrugged. ‘An hour or two south.'

Andrew forced himself to stay awake. He watched the ocean flashing between the trees on one side, and a low mountain range thrumming by on the other. The highway snaked past surf beaches, dairy farms, rocky bays and eucalypt-covered headlands. They passed surf clubs, football fields and cemeteries. Heidi's hand felt good on his back. He focused on it and drifted towards sleep.

He was bumped awake and looked up to see that they were edging along a sand track surrounded by thick bush. The suspension creaked and groaned and branches scraped along the sides of the bus. Andrew yawned and turned to Heidi. ‘Where are we?'

‘Not sure. Tim turned off the highway somewhere near the border.'

They jolted along for another ten minutes before the track opened into a secluded clearing. Tim parked the bus and they got out to stretch. There wasn't a tremor of wind and, after being on the road for most of the day, everything seemed eerily still. In the distance, a kangaroo looked up, its ears twitching. There was a narrow track through dunes leading to the beach and, behind them, thick eucalypt scrub.

‘Do you think anyone followed us?' he asked Tim.

‘There's no way anyone followed us.'

Andrew caught the kelpy smell of the ocean on the breeze. ‘Are you sure?'

‘What's wrong with you, man? You're getting all paranoid.'

‘Why wouldn't I be?'

‘Stop worrying. The roads were pretty much deserted after we turned off the highway.'

‘So we're in the clear?'

He nodded.

Andrew watched Heidi and Jade wandering towards the beach, towels slung over their shoulders—it was as though they'd completely forgotten what had happened in Tamworth. He marvelled at their talent for blocking out the past.

‘We picked this up at a service station while you were asleep.' Tim passed him a folded newspaper and tapped his finger on one of the articles. ‘The girls didn't want me to show you—but I figure you'd rather know now than later.'

He scanned the article. Authorities were on the hunt for the culprit of a vicious bashing in Wollongong. The victim had been stabilised but was in a critical condition. It was suspected to be a drug-related crime. There was a number for
Crime Stoppers
at the bottom, asking anyone with information to come forward.

Andrew nodded and passed the newspaper back to Tim. What if Phil got caught and dragged him back into the whole mess? Or even blamed him for it? What if Marcus described him to the cops? He thought of calling his mum. He thought of calling Benny, too. Benny always found humour and lightness in heavy situations. Andrew reached into his pocket for his phone. But his pocket was empty.

He clambered onto the bus and searched everywhere. Then he remembered his phone was still on the charger in the hostel in Wollongong. That meant he only had three numbers of people outside of this bus: his mum, his dad and Benny. And he'd cut ties with all of them.

Tim collected wood and started a campfire while Heidi and Andrew chopped vegetables for a curry. In the distance, Jade was talking on her mobile and pacing back and forth, while she explained to Sam what had gone wrong. She was still on the phone when the other three sat down to eat. The fire whistled and popped, and a bright swirl of splinters rose into the night. Andrew realised that his drama in Wollongong had won him a partial reprieve for Tamworth. Jade ended her call and came to sit with them by the fire.

‘What did Sam say?' Tim asked, his face flickering in the light.

‘He doesn't know what's going on. He's been trying to contact Phil, but Phil's not answering his phone.'

‘And what's going to happen?' Andrew asked.

‘To Phil?' she replied.

‘Yeah.'

Jade stared into the fire. ‘He didn't say—but Sam's just a runner. There're guys higher up who decide.'

‘What do you mean: decide?'

‘I don't know. Decide what to do with him.'

That night, Heidi offered to sleep beside Andrew in the bus. Lying with her in his arms, it almost felt like old times in Byron. He thought that if he could kiss her, their problems would dissolve, they'd end up forgiving each other—and everything would return to how it was, how he wanted it to be. Tentatively, he kissed her neck and inhaled her familiar scent. He kissed her cheek and tried for her lips but she pulled away and shook her head. He rolled onto his back and they lay for a long time without talking. He almost started crying, but steadied his breath and held back the tears. Heidi adjusted herself beside him and stroked his hair. ‘Do you want to talk about what happened?'

He remembered the wet crack of the gun against Marcus's face. ‘I just can't believe that someone could actually do that to another person.'

She continued stroking his hair. ‘At least it didn't happen to someone close to you—someone you love.' She hesitated. ‘After Mum's accident, all I wanted was to have someone to hold me. We couldn't contact Dad because he refused to carry a mobile, so all we could do was leave messages on the home phone. My aunty and one of my cousins got there eventually. But for a long time, I was alone in the Emergency waiting room. There was this woman. I don't know who she was, or what she was doing there, but she sat beside me and let me rest my head on her lap. And she stroked my hair. I can still remember the smell of her wet woollen jumper, and I can remember closing my eyes and listening to her soft voice repeating to me over and over again, “Everything's going to be all right…it's all going to be all right.”'

‘And was everything all right?'

‘No.' She paused. ‘But I knew that I could bear it— just so long as I had someone to hold me and comfort me like that.'

‘Heidi?'

‘Yeah?'

He drew a breath. ‘We're still planning to go to Adelaide, aren't we?' He couldn't make out her expression in the dark.

‘As long as everything works out in Melbourne,' she said.

‘With the drugs?'

‘Yeah.'

She yawned, rolled over and was asleep within a few minutes. Andrew lay awake listening to the sound of eucalypts creaking in the wind, waves crashing on the shore, and the irregular rhythm of Heidi's breathing.

thirty-one

Andrew woke before dawn to the sound of magpies cawckling in the trees. Heidi was snoring lightly beside him with her hand on his chest. He drifted back to sleep and woke a few hours later, alone and sweating in the mid-morning heat. He sat up and glimpsed Heidi walking towards the beach in her bikini.

She was at the water's edge by the time he'd changed into his shorts and caught up to her. His skin prickled and tightened when he dived in.

‘God! It's freezing,' Heidi said, when she surfaced beside him. ‘How are you? Better?'

‘Kind of,' he said, ignoring the tingling nervousness in his guts. ‘A bit anxious.'

‘You'll be okay,' she said. ‘I've got a big fat joint waiting for you on the beach.'

Ten minutes later, they were sitting on Heidi's towel and the joint was almost down to the roach when Tim appeared at the edge of the dunes.

He wandered over, stopped beside them and stretched his arms above his head. ‘Either of you want to go fishing?'

Heidi groaned. ‘Nope.'

‘Yeah,' Tim looked out over the ocean. ‘But you'll eat the fish I catch, won't you?'

She laughed. ‘Assuming you catch anything.'

Andrew watched the smoke leave his mouth. ‘I'll go.'

Heidi glanced at him, bemused. ‘Since when did you like fishing?'

‘C'mon,' Tim said. ‘Let's go.'

Andrew stood, passed Heidi the joint and brushed the sand off his shorts. This was just what he needed to help him relax.

Andrew and Tim twisted their feet into the wet sand until the pippie shells rubbed against their soles. They dug up the shells and dumped them into a plastic shopping bag. As soon as they had enough bait, they walked towards the headland, fishing rods tucked under their arms. The effect of the pot had intensified and Andrew felt jumpy, his thoughts cascading in unpredictable ways. Maybe Tim was taking him out here to give him bad news. And the girls were in on it too. Perhaps they were sick of him and had decided to kick him off the bus. He imagined how Tim would tell him. Kind of matter-of-factly, as though there was nothing he could do about it. Andrew shook his head, tried to clear his mind.

They weaved between the rock pools at the base of a cliff that had been lashed by ocean and weather, found a flat rock shelf at the water's edge and set themselves up. Andrew squatted and smacked a pippie with a rock the way he'd seen Tim do it, then he stood and stared at the fractured shell and its splattered innards. He looked over the chopped surface of the ocean, picked up his rod and cast his line without any bait. Tim looked at him like he was an idiot, but he didn't care. He didn't want the excitement of catching a fish; all he wanted was to feel the sun's warmth on his shoulders and the breeze rippling his shirt. Again and again, however, his thoughts turned in on themselves. When he finally opened his mouth, it felt like neither of them had spoken for hours.