Chapter Four

"Say that again."

"¡Es un caballo!"

"Ayes oon ca-bayo!"

Emily giggled. "You say it wrong!"

Alex sighed dramatically and leaned back against the old wood fence that lined the paddock in which Stevie's horse was calming down. His brother was just coming over from the house.

"Daddy!" His daughter ran over to him and he picked her up.

"Hey, Nick!" Alex spread his arms festively. "Ayes oon ca-bayo!"

"No, that's a meadow, actually" the addressed one stated matter-of-factly, approaching him. He set Emily down again. "I need your help, honey. Would you run over to Jodi and tell her that dinner's going to be ready in about half an hour?"

"But I wanna stay with Uncle Alex" she complained in a whiny voice.

"Uncle Alex won't leave so soon, he's staying for dinner."

"That's right, Em."

"O-kay." She spurted across the meadow towards the former shearer's hut, the lodge Jodi was sharing with Chloe, into which she had moved back after living in the main house for a while.

Alex looked after her, shaking his head. "Kinda disturbing that your four-year-old daughter knows more foreign languages than I do."

"Well, it's not that hard, is it? You don't speak any foreign languages."

"That's right, Mr. University Degree. I have other…qualities." He grinned ambiguously.

"Like what? No, don't tell me, I don't wanna know."

He laughed. "Don't worry, I won't compete for the position of family nerd."

"I'm glad, that was my greatest concern." Nick leaned against the fence, too, studying the horse thoughtfully and for a moment, both remained silent. It was easy for Alex to see that he was pondering, perhaps looking for the right words to express his thoughts.

"Nick, if you wanna tell me something, just do it." His brother looked back at him and hesitated for a moment, a serious expression on his face. "Oh no, so it's worse than I thought. Either that or you've been living in female company for too long. Listen, mate, I don't 'read between the lines', I'm not your wife."

"Now that's a loss…no, seriously Alex, can we leave the wisecracking aside for a moment?"

"Sure." He knew that a good joke was often able to take the tension out of situations like this, but sometimes, it was just time to stop. "What's up?"

"It's Charlotte."

Alex froze, he had known that the questions would start at some point; actually, it was surprising that they were only asking about it now, but he had always sort of locked away that unpleasant section of his life. His fists clasped the bar a little more tightly, resembling the motion of the fist that seemed to squeeze his heart. His throat was dry when he spoke again. "What about her?"

"Come on, you know that very well. What happened between you and Peter?"

"I…it doesn't matter…"

"How could it not matter!" Nick exclaimed impatiently. "It's the reason why Charlie wasn't allowed to come here for years, why she doesn't know you or Jodi, or Meg…!"

"All right", he raised his hands in defence, trying to stay calm, "all right, supposing Peter and I did argue about something, supposing he wouldn't let me see Charlotte afterwards and had a good reason for it, supposing I made a mistake-a huge one-what would it change to dig all of that up again? It's in the past-"

"Oh, that makes it convenient for you, doesn't it? It's in the past, lets hush it up and it will be like it never happened! But life's not like that-"

"Thanks, I feel so enlightened now you told me! You…always being the perfect one with the university diploma, that damn research project and whatever else…never made a mistake in your life, did ya!"

"I've never abducted a child, if that's what you mean!"

"Don't you judge me…you, of all people", his voice was shaking with rage, "standing there-"

"This is not about you and me, Alex! You can't just get out of it like that, there's Charlotte, too. You see, she remembers a hell of a lot more than you think…"

"How would you know?"

"Because she told Tess!" Nick forced himself to lower is voice a little, realizing that this wouldn't get them anywhere. "She kept going on and on about how you promised Charlotte you'd visit her, but never did. And…she also said a lot about elephants and ice cream…"

Alex' face assumed a softer look, his heart cringed when he remembered the respective things. "The beach day…" He could still picture it in all colours and tunes, the animals, Charlotte's laughter, the melon that had burst on the fence, the sound of the waves and the shouts of the children who had let a kite fly. Even the salty smell of the ocean appeared to have lingered.

Nick was still staring straight ahead; the pain he saw in his brother's eyes nagged at him and placated him further. "Good God, whatever did you do? It can't have been that bad. You'd never hurt her on purpose. Did some kind of accident happen while you were supposed to watch her?"

"Of course not!" he shouted back angrily.

"Well, you didn't harm her, you didn't kidnap her…" Alex suddenly flinched, something he never did, his glance speaking a different language. Nick gasped. "You…didn't…no, please…you didn't…!"

"Not in the usual sense…" he sighed deeply and rested his head on his arms in exhaustion. He felt like he was falling, falling again, falling deeper than ever before, it felt strange…but good, also, too seductive to resist. For the moment, he was safely enveloped in a cushion that saved him the effort of having to think, having to feel. Things were so complicated, why did things always have to be so complicated? Why didn't anyone understand? He could hear Nick talking from a distance, but that was so far away, so insignificant. His whole body went numb…

"Alex! C'mon, Alex!" His brother had seized him by the shoulder, shaking him violently. Alex raised his head with a start, confused for a moment. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Huh? Yep…umm…sure…"

"You scared me there for a moment!"

"No need to worry." He forced a lopsided grin, but Nick didn't respond to it.

"Maybe you should…I don't know…sit down, have a glass of water. It might be dehydration."

"Nah, I'm fine, really. But if you mention this to anyone, I'm not so sure if you'll be."

Nick shook his head at this reply and once more, a strange silence lingered over them. Alex kept watching the tired horse; a couple of minutes passed during which each of them was lost in thought. When Alex spoke again, he sounded unusually quiet. "It was that day, you know…just that day. I'm not even sure why. Fiona had left for good, Sandra had just come back after two months to claim Killarney, it was an ugly fight, things were just going downhill. And I couldn't see…there was this moment…my life…" He realized he had told Nick more than he had intended to already. "Anyway, Peter let me take BOM to the zoo and suddenly, everything…I mean it was like 'wham!', everything was back in perspective. It was the best day in a long time. And I wanted it to last. So when it was time to drop her off, I couldn't, just couldn't get myself to do it. I drove on and on for I don't know how long and sooner or later, I was at the beach. I took a hotel room, but later that night, Charlotte woke up and…" He paused to swallow down the tears that were forming in his eyes. "…and she was asking for her daddy. So I took her back and we arrived in the early morning hours. The police was already there."

For a moment, Nick just stared at his brother, dumbfounded at the new information. He didn't quite know what to think…should he be compassionate, understanding, or furious? This was definitely something he never would have expected of Alex, not at this point at least. "They didn't file an action against you, though, did they?"

"No, I wasn't sued. Peter was fuming of course, but he still made a favourable statement at the police post and the case was dropped later."

"Alex, do you have any idea how lucky you were? You could be in prison right now!"

"I wouldn't have cared" he muttered, gazing into the distance.

"But.don't you see the consequences! You know, your problem has always been that you think in terms of minutes, or days."

Alex rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Please, save your breath."

Nick sighed. "Look, I know things were tough for you back then-"

"Ha, now that's a good one!" he spat out contemptuously. "What do you know? You were busy planting grain in Argentina, as far as I remember!"

"I was here as often as I could."

"Were you here when Sandra tried to squeeze every cent out of her potential inheritance? Or when Killarney was threatened by fire? When your son was in the hospital, maybe! Not even for your own father's funeral-"

"You know I tried my best to come!" he yelled. This was a sensitive subject. "Tess was in the hospital, should I have left her alone!"

"Oh, bullshit, you never gave a damn about Killarney or anything that had to do with Harry!"

This was too much, Nick grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him against the fence forcefully, not caring that his brother had always been the better fighter. Strangely enough, Alex didn't defend himself, he merely smirked bitterly, the bar hurting his back. "Go on…hit me like you've always wanted to…" Nick hesitated without releasing the firm grip. Something was wrong about this, deeply wrong. Perhaps it was the way Alex was provoking him.

"C'mon, just do it! Are you scared? Hit me, this is your chance!"

Nick was on the verge of giving in to his strong urge, but changed his mind at the last moment. He let go of his older brother, pushing him to the side. "I won't give you that satisfaction."

"Aw, that was everything?" He laughed hysterically. "You're pathetic, Nick, do you know how pathetic you are! You…you…" Alex was trembling, his eyes glistening with tears of enragement and something that ran deeper, deeper than any transient emotion. He stumbled back into the direction of his car-it had to be somewhere around here. His mind was a blur, he was mad, mad at Nick, mad at everything, but most of all, mad at himself.

Nick walked after him as fast as his bad leg allowed him to, full of concern. He hadn't seen him like that in a long time. Actually, he had hardly seen him like that ever before. "Wait, Alex! Let's…go inside and talk about it."

"There's nothing to talk about!"

"You can't drive like that, you're gonna-" Too late, Alex had already turned the ignition key. The wheels dispersed dust into every direction when he drove away at full throttle.

Nick shuddered inwardly, it was all too clear to him what place his brother was heading for- the pub. Alex would probably get as drunk as one could be and he didn't want to imagine what might happen. There had been too many car accidents in this family as it was. "Shit!"