Chapter Text
South Utah September 2015
Billy McKenzie parked his truck in the parking lot of Brady’s Bar. He was in town for a week and was surveying an area of land nearby for an environmental research company. He was tired, hungry and restless. That morning he’d had another row with his girlfriend, Lou and had driven off angry and frustrated without clearing the air.
Aside from the bar the town was not much more than a Main Street of empty-looking shops and clapboard houses that had seen better days. On the other side of the road to the bar was a group of run-down trailers with battered trucks and other junk scattered around outside.
Brady’s Bar was dark inside and almost empty with Patsy Cline playing somewhere in the background. It was like every backwater bar in every movie he’d seen.
The barmaid was a friendly woman in her sixties who introduced herself as Linda.
‘Is there somewhere to stay around here?’ Billy asked, ‘I’ve been on the road since this morning’.
‘Motel, two doors along’ Linda said, ‘should be plenty rooms this time of year.’
Thankful that he didn’t have to drive any further Billy sat down at the bar and ordered a beer and some food.
The food when it arrived was surprisingly good, and he ordered another beer.
After a while Billy became aware of someone watching him from the far end of the bar, an older man with a timeworn face sat studying him, nursing a tumbler of whisky.
Apart from his brief exchange with Linda Billy hadn’t spoken to anyone since that morning and after his fight with Lou and miles driven in angry self-recrimination he felt like some company.
When the man caught his eye Billy raised his beer bottle, ‘Hi’.
The other man grunted and gave a small tilt of his glass.
‘Food’s good in here.’ Billy said taking a long swallow from his glass.
The older guy just nodded, but Billy had the whole evening to kill and the only other people in the bar were a couple in a far corner, laughing together and he didn’t want to be reminded of what he’d left behind. So he tried again.
‘You from round here?’
The man fixed his gaze on him then gave a heavy sigh, clearly deciding that the night was long for him too and that this persistent young man was not going to give up.
‘No, but this is where I seem to have ended up’ his voice was raw but Billy could tell that this was an educated man. He wondered how he’d ended up spending his nights drinking in this back-of-beyond dive, his face etched with wariness and sorrow.
‘So how about you, what brings you to a place like this?’ the man asked.
‘I’m here for a few days for work, taking samples, measurements - I’m a land surveyor.’
Linda reappeared and Billy ordered another round.
‘Well you don’t look exactly happy about it’ the older man said taking the tumbler of whisky from Linda.
Billy smiled, ‘oh the job’s fine, It’s just..’ he hesitated, wondering how much to share,
‘I left Idaho…..Boise, this morning, had a row with my girlfriend and drove off without making up…I kind of think we might have broken up for good this time.’
‘I might have guessed there was a woman involved.’ the man said shaking his head with a wry smile.
The two men sat in silence until Billy broke it by offering his hand, ‘I’m Billy’.
‘Alan’ the older man shook his hand curtly. ‘So what were you fighting about?’
‘Oh it’s the same thing every time for months now. She wants to get married and have a baby.’
Billy expected the other man to nod in sympathy as his male friends had tended to do but instead he gave him a long appraising look and said, ‘yeah? So what’s your problem with that?’
Billy looked down at his beer.
‘I’m not ready for all that stuff, we have plenty time. But she thinks differently.’ For the first time his words sounded hollow.
Alan sighed and sat up straighter, looking at him intently. ‘Well, you may find this hard to believe, but years ago I also had a woman who loved me and we had exactly that same argument.’
Billy looked at Alan’s rheumy eyes and unkempt beard, his worn, ill-fitting clothes; it was impossible to imagine him as a younger, happier man with a young woman in love with him.
‘So what happened?’
‘Oh she left, a long time ago. I was like you, I thought I had all the time in the world. Biggest mistake of my life’ he said, suddenly thoughtful, staring at something only he could see.
‘You never made up?’
‘She married someone else, had the kids she wanted, moved on.’
‘And you?’
Alan ran his hand over his face and sighed. ‘I guess I never got over her. I stopped caring about my work, stopped looking after myself, let my friends go….I stopped living.’ He spoke softly as if talking only to himself. ‘She took everything I had when she left, she didn’t mean to but she did.’
‘What was her name?’ Billy asked and when Alan didn’t answer he assumed he’d gone too far in his questioning.
But Alan’s thoughts were far away, he could feel the hot sun on his neck and smell the dust. He heard the laughter of a young woman and could feel the touch of her hand on his back.
‘They’re ready to go again, honey’. He stood up and she wrapped his bandana round his neck, patting his chest when she was done.
‘God, I hate computers.’
‘I think the feeling’s mutual’
He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, his lips close to her ear. ‘Can’t we just go back to the trailer and have wild, abandoned sex instead?’
She laughed and kissed him, ‘later! Now behave yourself, come on.’
‘Ellie.’ He said, ‘Her name was Ellie.’
They passed the evening together, exchanging stories. At one point Alan slipped off the barstool and made his way towards the bathroom.
While he was gone Billy asked Linda, ‘so what’s his story?’
‘He lives in one of the trailers across the way, has done for years’ she said.
‘People say he was a scientist, worked at the university for a while but he never talks about his past. He just sits there every evening, he’s never drunk, sometimes he makes one glass of whisky last all night; he just seems sad. I’ve only been in his trailer a few times but it’s full of books and the most beautiful drawings, you should see if he’ll let you in, he seems to have taken to you.’
Alan reappeared before Billy could ask any more.
At closing time the two men left the bar together. Alan held out his hand to Billy and said ‘been good to talk to you’ he hesitated as if to say more but just muttered ‘goodnight kid’ before sloping off in the direction of the group of battered trailers.
Billy turned in the other direction towards the motel.
The next day Billy spent out in his truck, taking samples and measurements, walking up through the surrounding hills, photographing the rocks.
That evening he was back in the bar, he’d tried to phone Lou but had no reply and he was starting to feel anxious.
Alan was at his place at the bar and Billy sat down beside him passing him a glass of whisky.
‘You called your girl yet?’ Alan asked.
‘I tried but no reply’
‘Well keep trying.’
‘It’s not that simple’ Billy was becoming a little annoyed at the man’s insistence.
‘Oh it is’ said Alan putting down his drink. ‘It really is that simple. You know Billy, you remind me of myself at your age so let me give you some advice. You may think you have all the time in the world but time isn’t worth a damn without love.’
He hesitated, ‘do what she’s asking you to do and you’ll almost certainly find that it’s what you want too’ his voice was barely a whisper. ‘Don’t be an idiot and a coward like I was. Hold onto love and don’t let it slip away.’
The following evening Billy was getting out of his truck when Linda called to him from across the road, she was frowning as he approached. ‘It’s Alan, no one’s seen him all day, his trailer’s locked, he does this sometimes but….I’m worried’
They hurried over to the trailer, Billy knocked on the door, ‘Alan, hey, are you ok? Just wondered if you want to come for a drink?’
Pressing his ear against the door he heard a moan from inside, he glanced at Linda then wrenched the door open, the lock flying apart.
Alan was slumped in a chair, clutching his chest, he looked feverish and seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness.
‘Call an ambulance!’ Billy shouted and Linda hurried out.
At the hospital they gave the basic details from the driver’s licence they found in Alan’s wallet and Linda put herself down as his next of kin. She and Billy sat together in the waiting room until eventually a doctor came to tell them that Alan was stable but they were going to keep him in overnight.
‘What if something happens to him? He must have family somewhere.’ Billy said on the drive back.
‘What about Ellie?’ Linda asked.
‘He told you about her?’
‘He never talks about her but there are lots of drawings of the same woman on the walls of his trailer, when I asked him who it was he just said Ellie but wouldn’t say any more.’
‘She was his girlfriend, someone who loved him’ said Billy ‘but how do we contact her? We don’t even know her surname, never mind how to find her.’
When they arrived back in town Billy went to the motel to freshen up and Linda went to work. They agreed to meet the following morning at Alan’s trailer.
Billy rang Lou again and this time she answered, sounding relieved to hear his voice.
‘I’m sorry Lou’ Billy said, desperate to make amends. ‘I’m so sorry, I feel terrible about our fight, I shouldn’t have left like that. You deserve better and I hope you’re willing to forgive me’ he could still hear Alan’s words Hold onto love, don’t let it slip away.
Minutes later Billy broke into a wide grin, Lou had missed him too, she was also sorry, things were going to be okay.
Next morning when Billy got to the trailer Linda was already there rifling through the piles of papers. There had been no news from the hospital.
He looked around in amazement, every surface was covered with beautifully rendered pencil sketches, they were either of fossilised parts of dinosaurs or of the living creature with trees and landscape backgrounds. The other drawings were all of the same young woman, mostly portraits but a few of her reclining nude. Some had the word ‘Ellie’ and a date written at the bottom. This was clearly the work of a talented artist.
Pinned to the fridge was a faded photograph, it showed a good-looking man in his late thirties wearing a fedora and a plaid shirt, he was smiling at the younger, blonde woman beside him. The love between them was plain to see.
‘Look at this’ Billy said in a low voice, Linda came over and peered at the picture.
‘It’s him isn’t it?’ she said ‘and that must be Ellie. Oh it’s sad, they look so young and so happy.’
Billy felt uncomfortable invading Alan’s privacy like this but he knew that he would regret it if something happened to him.
After an hour or so Linda said ‘here we go!’ she held up a card and read, ‘Dr Ellie Sattler, there’s an email address and phone number.’
Billy spoke to Lou again that afternoon, he told her about Alan and that he and Linda planned to contact Ellie.
‘But what if you open a can of worms Billy, what if she doesn’t want to know? It’s none of our business.’
‘Lou, he has nobody. Ellie is someone who cared about him and he still cares about her. Don’t you think she’d want to know, particularly if something happens…’
‘But Billy…’
‘What if it was me Lou, what if we broke up and lost contact, wouldn’t you want to know if I was ill?’
‘That’s different’
‘Is it?’
Despite Lou’s misgivings Billy sent off an email to the address on the card with bare details and a contact number, he didn’t hold out much hope of a reply.
The following morning as he was about to set out Linda called across to Billy to say that the hospital had been in touch. Alan’s heart was fine but he had a chest infection, he was being discharged with medication but the hospital wanted assurance that he would be looked after.
Later that day when Billy was out taking photographs his phone rang.
A woman’s voice asked ‘is that Billy McKenzie?’
‘Speaking’
‘This is Ellie Sattler, you sent me an email’
Billy held his breath, ‘yes, I hope you didn’t mind…I..’
‘What’s happened? Alan, is he ok?’
The worry in her voice told Billy that contacting her had been the right thing to do.
He told her what he knew and that he would be picking Alan up from hospital that evening. The relief in her voice was palpable.
Alan was silent for most of the journey, gazing out of the car window with his head pressed against the glass. Billy was concerned about how ill he looked.
When they got back Linda tried to persuade him to stay with her for a few days but Alan refused and insisted on going back to his trailer. Linda shook her head as he walked away ‘stubborn old goat!’
The following evening Billy sat at the bar with a beer. Linda brought him a plate of stew and potatoes. She’d just come back from delivering the same meal to Alan.
‘How is he?’ Billy asked.
‘Up and about, not doing as he’s told, he looks terrible.’
At that moment an attractive, well-dressed woman came through the door of the bar, and stood looking around, suddenly Billy realised who she was, he stood up to go and greet her.
‘Dr Sattler? I’m Billy McKenzie, we spoke on the phone.’ Ellie shook his proffered hand but her eyes roved around the bar.
He knew what she was looking for. ‘He’s not here he’s just come out of hospital he should be in his….’
At that moment the door opened and Alan walked in. Billy saw the look of utter shock which flashed across his face.
Just as Ellie stepped towards him Alan turned on his heel and walked out.