The gallery erupted in cheering and clapping that spread in a wave through the lobby to those waiting outside. Hands wereshaken, hats were thrown, while at the back of the crowd the native men watching from the alleyway shook their heads in wearyresignation and walked away along the street.
* * *
Old Jim on the piano, the accordion player pumping his bellows, a beat pounded out on an improvised cask drum. The hotel heaving in revelry: dancing, drinking, singing; a handful of whores circulating, demurely leading their suitors upstairs. They roared each man his own send-off. Ten minutes later, they roared him down again. And part of it all: Noone. A head taller than the mass of bodies leaping to the beat, his face sweat-lathered, his tie loose, his collar open, boots stomping the wooden boards, his dark eyes twinkling in the gathering gloom.
The door opened. Nobody paid the young man any mind. In Percy walked with his dusty longcoat and rifle that came almost tohis chin. He went to the bar, ordered a beer, greedily threw it down. If Horace noticed the cuts on his knuckles, or the bloodstainson his hands and shirtfront, he gave no sign that he had. Percy propped his rifle against the counter rail and slid exhaustedonto a barstool. He picked out Noone in the merrymaking; Noone went on dancing but asked a question with his eyes. Percy nodded.Noone smiled. He announced to the crowd that the drinks were on him and, laughing, was carried barward in the surge.
Chapter 26
Billy and Katherine McBride
“Damn it, Katherine, wait!”
They had traveled in different coaches, one behind the other, each stewing separately on the long ride home. Now Billy chasedher up the homestead steps, Katherine running ahead of him, her skirt bunched in her hand. He caught her and grabbed her butshe shrugged him off and marched inside, Billy calling, “What the hell is wrong with you? What have I even done?”
She halted in the atrium and turned on him. “What have you done?” she shouted as Billy advanced along the hall, her voice echoing into the vaulted roof space, filling the entire house.“How can you even ask me that? Can’t you once in your life admit when you’re wrong?”
Billy reached the atrium but Katherine lunged for the nearest door, the library; she slammed it behind her but it didn’t catch.Billy sighed and doggedly followed, easing open the door to find her standing on the far side of the room, holding herselfand looking out of the window, a view of the hillside at the back of the house. The great jagged ridge that like a serratedguillotine had hung over them their whole lives, and the little fenced-off cemetery in which Mary was buried, and where Billynever bothered to pay his respects.
He ghosted into the room, skimmed a hand over the polished wood of the billiards table, took off his jacket and tie and slung them on the baize. He stood watching her, gripping the side cushion. She had taken her jacket off too—the bare skin of her shoulders and neck. “Katie,” he said softly, noticed the little shiver when she heard. He sighed and went to the cabinet and poured himself a Scotch, glancing at the wall of books above him, spine after leather-bound spine. He doubted he’d read even one.
“It only makes things worse, you know. There’s no such thing as drinking to forget. Believe me, I have tried.”
She was talking to the window, her back to him still. “What?” Billy said.
She turned. “You’re never without a drink. Now I know why.”
“We won, if you hadn’t noticed. We should be celebrating!”
“Won?” she scoffed. “I saw you in there, Billy. Guilt was on you like a rash.”
Billy sipped the Scotch. “Nobody’s guilty—that’s the point.”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Didn’t you hear the magistrate?”
“I did. And I heard you too, lying through your teeth.”
“I only agreed with what Noone said, it was him that—”
“It’s always somebody else with you, Billy. Noone, the stableboy, even William—when are you going to take responsibility forwhat you’ve done?”
He glared at her over his whiskey. “And what’s that exactly.”
“You heard the lawyer. Hell, you were there!”
“So were you.”
“But I wasn’t, though, was I? All I know is what I was told. And I asked you, remember, on our wedding day. You swore it hadn’thappened like that.”
Billy blew out dismissively. “Yeah, well, that lawyer’s full of shit.”
“And still you’re lying.” She stepped closer, away from the window. “You know, all these years I’ve assumed it was pain thattore you up, but it’s not—it’s lies and shame and guilt.”
Billy poured himself a refill, jaw set, eyes glazed, near-wringing the decanter’s neck. “You’re talking in riddles here. The magistrate just decided: they killed the family, we killed them, we didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“But they didn’t kill them, did they. You never saw any natives at the house.”
Billy paused. Whiskey dripped from the decanter lip. He set it down and drank with his back to her, his entire body clenchedlike a fist. “We found Joseph’s gun.”
“And that was enough for you, was it, to go and murder a hundred Kurrong?”
“I don’t remember you having such a problem with it at the time.”
The accusation stalled her. Stung, she said, “I was only a girl. I had no idea.”
He started walking, pacing in front of the bookshelves. “And I was even younger than you. Anyway, why are we arguing? Theinquest’s over, we won, we can get on
