‘Go on then, I’ll have another one if you insist, Dee,’ China said cheekily.
‘What about you, Tim? Anyone ever caught your heart?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Tim answered. ‘My girl was the best. Beautiful and hot-headed. She was part Italian, you know.’
‘Fiery then?’
‘I used to call it passionate,’ he said with a faraway smile.
‘Did you have any kids?’
‘We did, but they died. They’re buried out on my plot. I go and talk to them occasionally, but it’s years and years ago. You get used to living without them, and living with the pain instead.’
There was a pause and Dave wasn’t sure how to frame his next question. As it turned out, he didn’t have to.
‘Gee, in all my time here I never knew that. What happened to your wife?’ Dee asked, leaning on the bench with a sympathetic look.
‘Don’t like to talk about it, so I don’t usually. She died.’ Tim put his beer down and looked at her.
‘Ah, shit, Tim, I had no idea. I’m really sorry.’ Dee looked horrified at her own question. ‘I’d never even thought about you having a woman—you, China and Killjoy have just always been here by yourselves. Assumed it had always been that way.’
‘Not for me,’ Tim said quietly.
Dave knew it was time to throw his hat in the ring.
‘Do either of you know a bloke called Glen Bartlett?’
China was shaking his head before he’d finished saying the name. ‘Don’t know anyone called Glen, do you, Tim? What’s he do?’
‘He’s the body down the mine,’ Spencer said and held Tim’s gaze.
Tim looked down at the table and pressed his lips together. ‘I know him.’
The silence stretched out and Spencer dropped his head. ‘You silly old bugger,’ he muttered to himself.
Dave wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or Tim.
‘How do you know him, Tim?’ Dave asked.
Dee and China were looking from one person to the other, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
‘I answered his ad.’
‘What ad?’
‘I saw an ad saying he was looking for the family of a woman who’d gone missing in 1945 from the Barrabine area. I’ve been trying to find Marianne since the day she walked out of our camp and never came back. I saw his ad and answered it, hoping he’d have the answers I’ve been needing for fifty-two years.’ He looked down at the bar.
‘Trying to find…I thought you said she died?’ Dee said.
Silence again.
‘Want to tell me about it?’ Spencer asked
‘Not really, but I guess I don’t have a choice. I figure you know everything already.’
Spencer paused before answering. Finally, as if it hurt him, he said: ‘We know enough, Tim, but you can fill in the gaps for us.’
Dee leaned forward to say something but Dave shook his head.
‘Marianne didn’t die,’ Tim said eventually. ‘I’ve always told everyone she did because I didn’t want to think she could just walk away. But she did. One morning she was at camp, smiling and cooking breakfast. Although her smile was never the same after the children died. Kenneth, Pammy and Kelly—they were her world. More than me, but I could live with that because I knew she loved me too, just not as much.
‘I’d wanted a good breakfast because I had a big day underground. Mari cooked me bacon, eggs and beans with damper. I told her I didn’t know when I’d be home, but it would be after dark. She kissed me goodbye and when I came home she was nowhere to be found.’
Dave stole a look at Dee, whose mouth was beginning to tremble.
‘How did the children die, Tim?’ Dave asked.
A look of pain crossed his features. ‘Kenneth and Pammy fell down a mine shaft. One I hadn’t covered. They weren’t supposed to stray far from camp and they didn’t usually. I don’t know what happened that day, why they went outside their boundaries and why Mari didn’t realise. She always kept such an eagle eye on the kids. You have to out here. So many things can kill them. Her screams were enough to bring me home. I found them about half an hour later. They must’ve died on impact.’ He blinked.
‘Kelly, that was another matter. I still to this day don’t know how a brown snake got into her cot. By the time we found her, she was cold.’ He looked up and stared at Spencer. ‘She had three puncture wounds to her body.’
Tears were streaming down Dee’s face and Dave decided he’d better put the closed sign up on the door. He didn’t want anyone coming in and interrupting.
‘Six weeks after we buried Kelly, Mari went missing.’ His voice became loud. ‘I couldn’t believe she’d walk out on me. I was grieving too—I wanted us to do it together, but she turned away from me every time I went to comfort her. It was like she blamed me for their deaths.’ His fists clenched in and out, then he let out a deep breath and seemed to shrink into himself.
‘I supposed in a way I was to blame. I wanted to be out here. Wanted to find gold. I didn’t have the fever as bad as some, but I had it. I’ll admit it. It was my fault.’
‘Tim, I need to ask,’ Dave said, ‘you answered an ad in the paper because you thought she walked away from you?’ ‘I think the pain she had to bear was amplified every day she woke up and looked at the country, our mines, their graves! I never believed she killed herself but I did think she moved away because she couldn’t be here.’ He sat ramrod straight and shook his head. Then his voice dropped. ‘And because she couldn’t look at me anymore. Marianne didn’t want to be around me because she blamed me for the children’s deaths and the torment she was enduring.’
There was a pain-filled silence, broken only by the fridge’s motor kicking in and out.
‘So how did you meet Glen?’ Dave asked, his voice sounding loud.
‘I saw his
