Catherine Jinks TheRoad (45 page)

‘I can pay you –’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Obviously, Verlie decided, they were nice people. That offer of money had clinched it. Not that she’d had any doubts, really: the children were all nicely dressed, and the boy was polite. But it was reassuring to have her opinions confirmed. ‘Would you like something yourself, Linda?’

‘Oh – well – maybe just a couple of biscuits. Thank you
so
much.’

‘There’s spaghetti left. And some sauce –’

‘No, no. We’ve made a big enough dent in your dinner already.’

‘Oh, we’ve got
lots
. I just have to cook it up. Are you sure?’

‘I’m positive.’
And then someone tapped on the caravan siding.

Alec was hungry. He had eaten almost nothing since breakfast, and had put in a lot of work since then. He was fuzzy-headed – fading fast. Time had splintered into little shards of bright and painful images, each wrapped around with some gut-wrenching emotion: the half-severed wrist; the dusty outline of a rock, which he had been staring at while he hid behind the saltbush; the sight of his truck, waiting patiently where he had left it; the approach of Del’s old Ford, from exactly the wrong direction. But he had reminded himself that beggars can’t be choosers, and had flagged down the station wagon anyway, despite his irrational fear that he was hitching a lift with the gunman. What an effort it had been, waving his arms at the oncoming vehicle! All his instincts had told him to run and hide.

Fortunately, his instincts had been wrong. Del was no killer, despite the .303 in her possession. No killer would have handed someone else her gun. As for the Fergusons, they were about as threatening as a Devonshire tea. Dad, Mum and the kids – Alec found their presence reassuring, though he hadn’t quite sorted them out yet. His mind was on other matters, when it was working at all. Some things were clear in his head, as sharp as a jagged piece of glass (his first glimpse of the dead woman, for instance) but many of his thoughts were blurred, scrambled, full of vacant patches that prevented him from anticipating problems or arguing his way out of them. Events had slipped away from him, slowly but surely. He had merely reported the shooting, and had allowed Del to carry him off down the road towards Broken Hill, despite everything he knew, despite the fact that they would almost certainly never reach their destination. Perhaps a new driver had imbued him with fresh hope. Or perhaps he had sensed, deep in his gut, that if he had started to talk about time loops and returning to Coombah, he would never have been offered a lift in the first place.

Not that returning to Coombah would have made much difference, by the sound of things. The Fergusons had been heading for Coombah, and had ended up stranded, with an empty tank. Quite a familiar story by now. If Alec had been feeling better, he might have concentrated more on this vital bit of information – asked for further details, perhaps. Even tried to work out what it might mean.

But he wasn’t up to that. After a day of bright sun, high drama and low nutrient intake, his brain was turning to sludge. Falling blood sugar levels, probably. Drawn by the siren scent of spicy bolognaise sauce, he had surrendered the rifle to Del’s care, and with it the responsibility of explaining to Ross why, when they reached Broken Hill, they would be heading straight for a police station.

When
they reached Broken Hill? Hah.
If
they reached Broken Hill.

Alec had approached the caravan because he liked the look of Verlie. She was one of those women whose appearance always presaged things like hot dinners, clean sheets and tufted bath mats. His own mother had never been an assured source of homely treats; he had been forced to rely on his Aunt Bridey for the freshly baked butterfly cakes, the crocheted afghan throws, the soft toilet paper. In a way, both Bridey and Verlie gave him some idea of what Janine would be like in forty years. Could that be why he was so infatuated with Janine? Could that be why Daryl had
married
Janine? Daryl too, had spent a lot of time at Bridey’s as a kid. All the Muller boys had hovered wistfully on the edge of the warm, happy circle that seemed a natural extension of Bridey – a circle that her alcoholic sister had shunned.

Bridey was no more (she had died of a coronary) but Verlie had the same aura about her. Despite the fact that she was thinner than Bridey, and smaller, and more conservatively dressed, she had the same permed grey hair, the same soft voice, and the same ingrained promise of unending domestic comfort. Pursuing Verlie, in a hunger-induced daze, Alec hoped to benefit a little from any crumbs of food that the children might discard – even the smell of a freshly laundered towel or the yielding embrace of a sofa cushion would be welcome after such a terrible day.

It was immediately apparent, however, that Verlie wasn’t nearly as taken with Alec as Alec was with Verlie.

‘What is it?’ she exclaimed, her voice sharp, as Alec appeared at the caravan’s door. Inside, Alec could see a kerosene lamp casting a soft glow across a Laminex bench top. Floral curtains hung at the windows, and there was a kind of breakfast nook, into which the three children were crammed, sitting on cushions that matched the curtains. There was even a TV and a video player.

Alec’s soul yearned for a session in front of the footy, with a cup of tea and a bowl of popcorn.