He was just as tough on Joe. On one of the nights when Tom lay talking to Georgie, she tried to explain it. “I think Bill had a harsh upbringing. He doesn’t talk much about his father and spent a lot of time at Tom Finch’s house, according to Great-Auntie Margie Finch. Auntie Margie always said that Bill wanted to be a Finch. We thought he did the next best thing and coveted his family.”

Their coffee arrives and they drink it in silence. Dominic has two short blacks before Tom finishes his. Tom understands addiction, but even when he was getting high all that time, it hadn’t seemed to attack his system like his father’s. And then he’s walking home behind both men and he can’t help notice how they walk alike for two people with no blood ties. Although there’s silence between them, they seem to want to stay side by side. Once in a while Bill makes a comment about a tree. He’s a tree freak, Bill is. “Wait till these jacarandas flower,” he says in wonder. “Any day now.”

Inside, Tom can hear Nanni Grace and Georgie chatting in the kitchen.

“Want to show you something,” his father says. Tom doesn’t know whether he’s talking to Bill or him, but he follows them into the study.

There are maps all over the place. All over the floor, all over the study table. Vietnam. He’d know the shape of the country in his sleep. He could pin the tail on the donkey of the exact spot his father claimed Tom Finch was left. Behind enemy lines. How could such important words to his family sound so clichéd? But that’s what happened to Lance Corporal Tom Finch. His mates knew he was dead. One even crawled through the entangled mass of roots, over and over again, to try to free his body. By that time it was riddled with holes and to remove him would have been suicidal because the attack was coming from all sides. Those poor bastards never got over leaving Tom Finch behind. Tom had met them. They’d told him to his face when he was twelve years old that you never leave your mates behind.

“They’ve got a portable X-ray machine out there, a navigator, field engineer, forensics. There’s seven of them and they swear they’ve got the location,” Dominic says.

Tom is still stunned by the amount of detail around the room.

“They know the body’s there,” his father is telling them. “All they need to find is contextual evidence. A dog tag. A map.”

“Won’t it be damaged?” Tom asks.

“Tiny Parker’s was found pristine and once they got Peter Gilson’s under the right equipment, they confirmed it was his,” his father says, referring to the two who had been returned to their families in July.

Both Tom and his father are looking at Bill.

“If they’ve got it all wrong and we think Tom’s coming home . . . for burial . . . and he doesn’t . . .” Bill’s shaking his head and Tom can see he can’t speak. “Don’t let me have to put Grace through this all over again, Dom. Not after the way they’ve fucked things up with Joe.”

Tom’s father sighs. “Jim Bourke and his guys have done the work for them. This is the real deal. I know it. I’d bet my life on it.”

Bill is shaking his head, eyes closed. Tom recognizes that look. He’s seen it on his own father’s face. Too many people to worry about.

“I’m going to go over there when the time comes,” Dominic says quietly. “I’m going to bring my father’s body home.”

Tom feels sick. Bringing a body home. How many families get to hear those words twice in their lifetime?

“You don’t even have a passport,” Tom mutters.

“I do now,” his father says, but it’s Bill he looks at. “You’re going to have to start preparing Mum. Soon. They’ve returned Parker and Gilson to their families. I think it could be us any day.”

No one says anything for a moment.

“Georgie knows?” Bills asks quietly.

Dominic nods. “But Sam’s not happy. Doesn’t want this happening now. Doesn’t think Georgie’s ready for what it all means.”

“Are any of us?”

“You are,” Dominic says emphatically. “You’ve been ready for this all our lives. Shit, Bill. Let’s bury him. He deserves it. We all fucking do.”

It’s way too tense. Someone’s either going to get into a fight or cry. Neither option is preferable. Tom points questioningly to another sticker.

“If the body was left there, why would they be digging here?” he asks, pointing to another spot.

“Because he would have been . . . disposed of properly because of hygiene. They would have buried him because of their religious beliefs,” his father explains.

Bill sighs, standing up, and he looks at Tom. “How much do you know about this?”

Tom rubs his eyes tiredly. “Joe used to write to me about it.”

It was Joe’s obsession, as much as theirs. Tom didn’t know what was worse. Growing up children of a soldier who doesn’t come back from war, or growing up the only sibling who didn’t belong to Tom Finch. His uncle had always been fascinated with the idea of Georgie and Dominic’s father. When he taught Tom guitar as a kid, he told him that Tom Finch had been obsessed with Bob Dylan. “He wrote poetry, you know, Tom Finch did,” Joe had told him. “And your pop Bill reckons that on the train they heard ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ on the trannie when they were traveling down to Sydney from the Burdekin. Before they met Mum. It always reminds Pop Bill of hope, regardless of the lyrics.”

Tom loved those stories because Joe seemed to have all the information. Nothing could hold Joe back when he was intrigued, and the recovery of Tom Finch’s body became his fixation. He taught history. He worked with evidence, and as far as he was concerned, there was no reason why they couldn’t bring Tom Finch home.

Bill was looking dazed.

“Joe was always talking about him and Dominic going to Hanoi together,” Tom says.

“Dominic, is it?” Bill asks, unimpressed. “We’re on first-name terms with your father now, are we?”

“Yeah, we are, Bill. Do you have a problem with that?”

And there’s the look. The first one Tom has received from his father in years that reminds him of normalcy. The one that tells him that if he uses that tone with Bill ever again, he’ll be seeing stars.

“Don’t upset Georgie,” Bill mutters to Dominic before walking out. “I’ll talk to Grace when we get home.”

There’s something inside of Tom that makes him want to stay in this room. Look at everything his father’s collected. Talk to him about how he feels about Tom Finch. About what it’s like having to say the words disposed of when talking about the body of the father you never knew. And to talk about Bill, to point out, “Can’t you tell that the poor bastard loves you all like crazy?” But he can see that Dominic is cut.

“Go make sure he’s okay,” his father says gruffly.

To: taramarie@yahoo.com

From: anabelsbrother@hotmail.com

Date: 17 August 2007

Dear Finke,

I’ve been thinking of your comment about what you and Lenina Crowne have in common, and have to argue that exclusivity in a relationship is slightly overrated and tends to cause complacency in one partner and lack of ambition in the other. Take Francesca for example, who’s sitting on a useless degree and sewing with her granny while Trombal enjoys a single guy’s life away from her, probably getting pissed and having sex with whoever he wants over there. I’m not saying I don’t understand exclusivity. But at our age, some may say it’s a trap. It’ll stop you from doing what you want to do in life, because one person is always going to miss out or feel held back. Just a warning in case you’re getting in too deep, exclusively dating one person.

Tom

To: anabelsbrother@hotmail.com

From: taramarie@yahoo.com

Date: 17 August 2007

Dear Tom,

This may be difficult for you to understand. Your longest relationship lasted four weeks and only because for three weeks of it, her low IQ prevented her from understanding that “I don’t want to go out with you anymore” actually means “It’s over.” I’m presuming that the length of that relationship was superseded by the one with your flatmate Sarah What’s-Her-Face for no other reason than that you didn’t actually have to pick up a phone or make an effort to walk to her place. Was it a holler from your room or hers?