The Dry (15 page)

He disappeared into the bushes, and the remaining three sat shoulder to shoulder. Aaron and Gretchen passed the bottle between them, and he could hear her humming tunelessly to herself. On his other side, Ellie had fixed the horizon with a thousand-yard stare.

The tranquility was broken by a heavy crash and a loud scream. It echoed in the silence. The three looked at each other, faces silvery and shocked, then Aaron was on his feet and running on rubber vodka legs toward the sound. He pulled ahead of the girls, and could hear someone's panicked, raspy breath behind him. He skidded to a halt at the edge of a sheer drop. The bushes were torn and flattened in a rough patch. Branches near the edge were snapped clean off.

“Luke!” Gretchen appeared by his side and screamed into the void. Her voice bounced back, crying his name on repeat. There was no reply. Falk dropped onto all fours and crept to the edge. He peered down, afraid of what he would see. The drop was more than a hundred meters. The bottom disappeared in the gloom.

“Luke! Mate! Can you hear me?” he yelled.

Gretchen was crying, her face a wet mess. Ellie arrived behind her, edging through the bushes. Walking, not running. Falk's breath was a deafening roar in his ears. Ellie's sober gaze wandered over the trampled bush. She turned and surveyed the bushland behind them, her eyes lingering on the shadows of the trees. Stepping toward the edge of the cliff, she peered once into the abyss. She looked straight at Aaron and gave a tiny shrug.

“The dickhead's faking it.”

She turned and picked something invisible off one of her fingernails.

“I actually wondered if you and Luke would stay together,” Falk said. “He was self-centered, but he always had a genuine soft spot for you.”

Gretchen's small laugh had a bite to it.

“And be a sidekick in the Luke Show, 24-7? No, thanks.” She sighed. Her voice lost its edge. “We did try for a couple of years, after you left. It felt serious at the time, but it was kids' stuff really. I think at heart we were both trying to keep the foursome together somehow. It fell apart, though. Of course.”

“Bad ending?”

“Oh. No.” She looked up and gave a tight smile. “Not especially. No worse than the usual, anyway. We just grew up. He got married; I had Lachie. Anyway, Luke was never right for me. I know that now.” She blinked. “I mean, even before all this with Karen and Billy happened.”

There was a clumsy pause.

“So Luke never spoke about me? After you left, I mean.” Gretchen's casual tone failed to mask her curiosity.

Falk hesitated. “We didn't really discuss Kiewarra at all if we could help it. Kind of made a point of it. I'd ask after you, of course, and he said you were well, that he'd seen you out and about. That sort of thing, but…” He trailed off, keen not to hurt her feelings. In fact, Luke had barely mentioned Gretchen unless prompted. Falk was surprised to learn now that they'd continued to date for more than a few months. Luke had always made their relationship sound like something soon abandoned.

“I was quite surprised Luke ended up staying in Kiewarra,” Gretchen said. “After you left, for a while all he talked about was getting out. He had plans to go to Melbourne and study engineering. Work on the big projects.”

“Did he?” That was news to Falk. Luke had never mentioned it. Never once asked for his help, a job reference, a place to crash in the city. “Why didn't he go?”

Gretchen shrugged.

“I guess eventually he met Karen. It's always been hard to know what Luke really wanted, though.” She paused. Repositioned her wineglass on the table. “You know, I reckon if she'd lived, Luke would actually have ended up with Ellie. She was more his type than me. Probably more his type than Karen even, for that matter.”

Falk sipped his drink and wondered if that were true.

Gretchen was hysterical. Her color was high, and her blond hair was damp with sweat. Falk realized she was drunker than she'd seemed. His own head was spinning. He kept creeping up and looking down at the drop, yelling Luke's name.

“Will you keep back from there?” Ellie called as he nearly lost his footing for a third time. “If you go over, there really will be something to worry about.”

Aaron wished he could be as calm as she was. At first he'd felt a spark of hope she might be right—Luke could be faking it. But as the minutes ticked on, he became less and less sure. Luke knew his way around, but the cliffs were notoriously unstable. They'd been told that, warned to keep away. More than once. And the booze they'd shared was already rolling around in his stomach. Maybe Ellie was right, but what if…? Gerry's and Barb's faces sprang into his mind, and he couldn't complete the thought.

“We have to—for God's sake, Gretchen, shut up for a second—we have to go and get help,” he said.

Ellie merely shrugged. She walked to the cliff and lined up the toes of her boots right on the edge. She looked over for a long moment, then took a step back. She lifted her chin slightly.

“You hear that, Luke?” she called in a clear voice that echoed and bounced off the rock face. “We're heading down. Everyone's shitting themselves. Last chance.”

It felt to Aaron like nothing moved while he held his breath and waited. The lookout remained silent.

“All right,” Ellie called. She sounded sad rather than angry. “You've made your choice. I hope you're happy.”

The accusatory inflection rolled through the valley below.

Aaron stared at her for a moment, right into her cold gaze, then grabbed Gretchen's hand and started running down the trail.

“Sometimes it feels like you were the only person Luke was loyal to,” Gretchen said. “The way he stood by you around Ellie's death. He copped a load of grief for that after you left. All kinds of people were leaning on him to change his story, give you up.” She drained her wineglass and peered at Falk over the rim. “He never would.”

Falk took a breath. Now was the time to tell her.
Luke lied. You lied.
“Listen, Gretch, about that—”

“You were lucky really,” she cut him off. Her voice had lowered a notch. “Lucky you were with him, for starters. But the amount of flak he got round here, it would've been far easier for him to roll over and change his story. Without Luke, I reckon the Clyde cops would have pinned that on you, no question.”

“Yeah. I know. But listen, Gretch—”

She glanced around the bar. More than one or two watching faces hastily turned away.

“Look, Luke stuck to his guns—stuck by you, really—for twenty years,” she said, quieter now. “That's more or less the only thing standing between you and a whole lot of problems round here. So a word to the wise, I'd be making sure I was singing pretty loud and long from the same song sheet.”

As they rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill, Aaron couldn't believe it, then immediately could believe it. Luke was lounging on a rock, in perfect health, with a grin on his face and a cigarette in one hand.

“Hey,” he laughed. “What took you guys so long, you—”

Aaron lunged at him.

“Jesus, Gretchen, I am,” Falk said, trying to keep his tone light. But her message was clear. Don't ask, don't tell. “Why wouldn't I be?”

They stared at each other for a moment. Then Gretchen sat back in her seat and smiled at him, properly. “Good. No reason at all. I just want to make sure you're being sensible. Better safe than sorry.” She lifted her wineglass, realized it was empty, and put it down. Falk drained his own and went to the bar for two more.

“If everyone was so sure about me,” he said, when he returned, “I'm surprised they didn't run Luke out of town as well.”

Gretchen took the glass, her smile fading.

“Some tried, you know. At first,” she said. “Pretty hard. But you know how Luke was; he brazened it out. He didn't wobble, didn't waver. Eventually, they kind of accepted it. They pretty much had to.”

She glanced around the pub again. Fewer faces were watching now.

“Look, if they're honest with themselves, most people know Ellie killed herself. She was a sixteen-year-old girl who needed support that she obviously didn't get, and yeah, we should all feel guilty about that. But people don't generally like feeling guilty, and ultimately it was your name on the note. There never really was an explanation for that—” She paused and raised her eyebrows slightly.

Falk gave a tiny shake of his head. He couldn't explain it then; he couldn't explain it now. He had racked his brain over the years. Reliving his last conversations with Ellie, trying to decipher a message or a meaning. To her, he had been Aaron, not Falk. What had been going through her mind when she wrote it? Sometimes he wasn't sure what disturbed him more: the trouble it had caused or the fact he'd never know the reason why.

“Well,” Gretchen said. “It doesn't really matter. She was thinking about you in some way around the time she died, and for anyone looking to point the finger, it was enough. Like it or not, Luke was a big character. He was involved in the community. He became a bit of a leader in this town, and we couldn't afford to lose many of them. I think by and large people just chose to put it out of their minds.”

She shrugged. “It's the same reason everyone round here puts up with morons like Dow and Deacon. It's Kiewarra. It's tough. But we're all in it together. You were gone; Luke stayed. You got the blame.”

Aaron lunged at him, and Luke stepped back.

“Watch it,” he said as Aaron grabbed his shoulders. They stumbled, falling backward to the ground. They landed with a thud, and Luke's cigarette rolled out of his fingers. Ellie stepped over and ground it out.

“Watch the sparks, will you? You've already managed to scare them. Try not to burn us all to death as well.”

Aaron, pinning Luke under his own weight, felt him bristle at her tone. It was one he'd heard her use on farm animals.

“Jesus, Ellie, what's crawled up your arse? You can't take a joke all of a sudden?” Luke aimed for lighthearted bravado, fell short. Aaron could smell the alcohol in his sweat.

“Did no one tell you?” Ellie snapped. “A joke's supposed to be funny.”

“Christ, what the hell's wrong with you these days? You don't like a drink, don't like a laugh. You hardly come out, you're always working at that stupid shop. You're so boring now, Ellie. Maybe you and Aaron should just get together and be done with it. Perfectly bloody suited.”

Boring. As the word landed, Aaron felt like Luke had hit him. He stared at his friend in disbelief, then grabbed the front of his shirt and pushed him away so hard Luke's head hit the ground with a smack. He rolled away from Luke, his breathing ragged, not trusting himself to look over.

Ellie stared down at Luke sprawled in the dust, her face showing something worse than anger. Pity. All around, everything seemed still.

“That's what you think?” She stood over him. “You think your friends are boring because they're loyal to you? Because they show some sense once in a while? The only joke round here is you, Luke. The fact you think it's OK to use people for your own amusement.”

“Get stuffed. I don't.”

“You do,” Ellie went on. “You do it to all of us. Me. Aaron. Your girlfriend over there. You think it's normal to frighten the people who care about you? To play people off against each other?” She shook her head. “And to you it's all just a big game. That's the scariest thing about you.”

No one said anything for a long moment. The words hung between them in the air like mist as each of the four avoided looking at the others. Ellie moved first, turning sharply, and without a second glance, she walked off. Luke and Aaron stared after her from the ground, then clambered to their feet. Aaron still couldn't bring himself to look at Luke.

“Bitch,” he heard Luke mutter at Ellie's back.

“Hey. Don't you call her that,” Aaron said, his voice sharp.

Ahead, Ellie gave no sign whether she'd heard either of them and continued walking at a steady pace. Luke turned and flung his arm around Gretchen, whose sobs had been stunned into silence.

“I'm sorry if I gave you a bit of a scare, babe. You knew it was meant to be a bit of fun, didn't you?” He bent his head and pushed his lips against her cheek. His face shone with sweat and was an angry red. “But fair enough. Maybe things went a bit far. Said a couple of things I shouldn't have. Maybe I owe you guys an apology.” He sounded like he'd never meant anything less.

“You certainly owe them something.” Ellie's voice drifted back in the night air.

None of them had mentioned the argument again, but it had clung to them like the heat. Ellie spoke to Luke only when she had to, and always with the same polite but distant tone. Aaron, embarrassed around Ellie and pissed off with Luke, kept to himself a little more. Gretchen found herself cast in the role of middleman, and Luke simply pretended not to notice anything had changed.

It would probably all blow over, Aaron told himself, but in reality he wasn't sure. The cracks had been exposed, and they were deeper than he'd realized. He never found out whether he was right or not. Ellie had only another two weeks to live.

Gretchen reached out across the scarred table and touched the edge of Falk's fingers. The noise of the pub faded a little into the background. She had hardworking hands. Her nails were bare and clean, and the pads of her fingertips were rough against his own office-blanched skin.