There was a noise in the hall and they both turned to see Bub in the doorway. He had a slightly unstable air that made Nathan suspect he’d already started drinking. Or perhaps not long stopped from the night before.
‘What are we doing?’ Bub leaned a supporting hand against the doorjamb. ‘Admiring Cam’s masterpiece?’
Liz flinched at the sarcasm. Definitely been drinking, Nathan thought.
‘We were talking about whether to take it down or not,’ he said.
‘Shit, no. You don’t mess with Cam’s picture. He’d bloody come back and haunt you for that.’ Bub almost laughed and Nathan felt Liz tense.
‘What do you want, Bub?’ he said.
‘Oh, yeah. Funeral guy just called.’
‘And?’
‘Body’s on its way.’
Nathan had to wear his dad’s old suit. Liz had dragged it out from somewhere and handed it to him without a word. It was twenty-five years old but had the stiffness of rarely worn fabric. It was black and fit well. Nathan put his hand in the jacket pocket and found a faded supply list written in his dad’s handwriting. He crumpled the paper without reading it and fought the urge to rip off the jacket.
Bub walked into the living room and dropped his beer when he saw Nathan.
‘Shit. I thought for a second –’ Bub took a step back before recovering. He bent down and picked up his bottle, swiping at the floor with a dirty tissue while he avoided looking at Nathan. ‘You seen yourself, mate? You look just like him.’
Nathan turned and stared at his dark and distorted reflection in the TV screen. He didn’t recognise himself. Carl Bright’s jacket was suddenly too tight and Nathan couldn’t breathe properly. He pulled it off and kicked it under the couch.
Xander wandered in dressed in Cameron’s only suit, then stalled in the doorway as Nathan and Bub both stared at him. The suit fit like it had been made to measure and Xander looked taller and broader and older than Nathan had ever seen him.
‘Grandma told me to wear it,’ Xander said, looking down. ‘But maybe –’
‘It’s fine,’ Nathan said. ‘Looks good, mate.’
Xander helped first Bub, then Nathan, fix their ties properly. Nathan stood face to face with his son, watching him looping the fabric around. Nathan could hear him breathe and see a tiny patch of dark stubble where he’d missed a spot shaving. He could see the small scar on his hairline where he had fallen off a horse when he was five. He watched the slight narrowing of eyes that had been blue like Jacqui’s when he was born, but had turned brown like Nathan’s within a year. Nathan suddenly wanted Xander to be small enough again that he could pick him up and hold him. Instead he stood there, feeling uncomfortable in his borrowed suit.
‘Xander, listen, about yesterday –’
‘Finished. Better.’ Xander pulled the tie tight and stepped away. He looked over at Bub, who was staring at Cameron’s painting. ‘Hey, do you think the painting might upset people today? With that story about the stockman wandering off?’
‘No-one believes that shit,’ Bub said, not turning around. He took a sip of his beer and pointed the bottle neck at the grave. ‘He raped an Aboriginal girl and got himself killed for it, everyone knows that. Don’t know why he gets so much bloody glory.’
‘Is that true?’ Xander said, looking to Nathan, who shook his head. It was true there were plenty of white blokes who had done all that, and worse, but not in this case. He opened his mouth but was cut short by a noise outside.
Bub turned to the window. ‘It’s here,’ he said.
Nathan and Xander joined him at the glass. Out on the driveway, the funeral director’s black four-wheel drive was pulling up. It had been modified to carry six-foot-long cargo in the back. The vehicle may have been shiny when it set off from St Helens, but the journey had branded it with the same grit and grime as everything else. At the homestead fence, Ilse stood watching its arrival, flanked on either side by her daughters’ small figures. Together, they looked like a flock of birds, all in black, the edges of their skirts catching feather-like in the wind.
Far beyond them, Nathan could just make out a distant billow of dust. The neighbours were arriving.
The service was brisk and to the point, conducted by a chaplain from St Helens who at least seemed to understand that however much Cameron Bright might be missed, it didn’t make the sun any less hot. The freshly turned soil around the grave was already dry and flaky, and the shade of the gum tree wasn’t enough for those sweltering in their once-a-year outfits. Nathan stood in his shirtsleeves and his fancy knotted tie and looked around the crowd with a strangely detached interest.
There were maybe forty there, he counted, as they all fidgeted in their town clothes and best hats. A good turnout. Excellent, in fact. He hadn’t seen most of them in years but he recognised about two-thirds. Old Tom, young Tom, Kylie from the service station – with a couple of kids in tow now – and Geoff who used to be her boyfriend and now looked to be her husband. That dickhead engineer who’d been based out at Atherton for years – Nathan couldn’t remember his name, there were so many dickheads over at Atherton. Steve from the clinic, of course. No Glenn, but no surprise there.
Nathan had phoned the police station that morning and been diverted again. Sergeant McKenna was still clearing up from that tour bus spill in the north. Did Nathan want to leave another message? ‘Just ask him to call me,’ he’d said finally, and hung up.
Nathan didn’t know the chaplain, and from the generalised phrases he was leaning on, felt sure the guy had never actually met Cameron. Nathan mostly tuned out the service and stared at his neighbours, taking in the greying hair and the extra kilos. Most of them stared back, curious and with a slightly bewildered air, like they’d almost forgotten that he really existed.
Liz nearly made it through. The dreadful keening started in her throat as the chaplain neared the end, and grew to an eerie crescendo by the time Sophie and Lo were invited forward to plant a small sapling at the head of the grave. Liz’s shoulders heaved and her cries were muffled as she buried her face in her sleeve. Harry whispered something, taking her arm and attempting to lead her away, but she shook him off violently.
Lo, eyes wide and trowel quivering in her hand, took one look and started to wail herself, followed quickly by Sophie. Ilse took a swift step forward, scooping them close to her and ushering them towards the house.
