10
Today there is only one pilot for the twenty-minute journey between Townsville and Palm Island. As the lightest adult passenger, this time I’m in the co-pilot’s seat.
We hit an air pocket and drop, a bottomless plummet. My hands clench into fists and I keep them as far from the controls as I can, just in case I bump the off button and we go spiralling into the sea. The full cabin of Palm Islanders bob up and down on the springs of their seats to the movement of the plane. Passengers gush ooohs and aaahs, as if we’re on an amusement ride.
Colin, the pilot, glances over from behind his mirrored aviator sunglasses. With green eyes and black hair, Colin is a handsome twenty-something engaged to my sister, Deborah. His father owns the airline.
‘You know, if anything happens to me, you have to take over the controls,’ he says.
I shake my head vigorously.
Colin grins. ‘You better watch what I do carefully. Just in case …’
My eyes glue to his movements.
Colin sees me watching and laughs.
I’d reach over and punch him in the arm, but he’s flying a plane.
The view from the cockpit is spectacular. Blue sky stretches forever. Down below the ocean is so clear I see shadows of dugongs floating above the sandy floor. Several yachts have their spinnakers up, skimming over the saltwater like swans.
Since the Daytona race two days ago, I’ve been the only lawyer running the Aboriginal Legal Service. It’s just a blur of work, trying desperately to get everything done and keep everyone out of jail. Yesterday I covered Duty Court, two trials, a committal and Children’s Court. Today, White Legal Aid agreed to cover Duty Court, so I could go to Palm Island. If I can last out the day, I will have survived until Matthew Spence, the new principal solicitor, arrives tomorrow.
I need time to focus on the boys and their murder trial. One of our field officers, Walter, went to see the two boys in the detention centre yesterday. He said Kevie Zander had cuts and bruises on his face. When Kevie was asked who had beaten him up, he glanced at Malachi Butler, but wouldn’t say a word.
Today, I’m hoping to find someone for Albert Pierce to stay with on bail. And the Butler family used to live over here so maybe I can find someone who will have Malachi and Dillon. Arriet says they can’t stay with Tanya Butler, only she won’t say why.
The landing strip lies between two green-forested hills. At the end of the tarmac is a small, yellow crescent of beach. As we descend, Palm Island looks like a tropical paradise in a Somerset Maugham novel, coral reefs extending outwards, bright flowers, a faded wooden boat lying on the sand. The wings see-saw as we bump down to land. Colin pushes the foot pedals to trim the plane and, outside, houses come into sharp relief, with bars on windows and walls scrawled in black graffiti. Small piles of rubbish, tins and empty beer bottles lie scattered on the ground.
Within an hour the clients are coming thick and fast. Most of the adults are charged with drunken offences: assaults, wilful damage, domestic violence. The kids are largely on a variety of stealing charges. We run a first-in, best-dressed policy, seeing cases in order of attendance. Roslyn stands outside the courthouse talking with clients.
‘Eh! You! Git back ’ere,’ she shouts at a departing figure, her deep, throaty voice full of the menthol she smokes every half-hour. ‘Ya not goin’ till ya bin ta court!’
Three young boys in their early teens sit next to me on the bus-stop style bench opposite court, giggling and swinging their legs.
‘Welcome to my office.’ Crunching on a sweet Granny Smith, I scan the summary of their charges on the QP9.
Grievous Bodily Harm. I glance at the boys in surprise. The littlest one twists a stalk of grass round and round his finger, glancing over his shoulder at a group of laughing children playing tiggy on the oval.
On October the first, twelve days ago, a visiting English doctor wandered down to the beach at sunset with his camera. He was an amateur photographer. He had told one of the nurses he would be back for dinner. He never returned. A few hours later they found him unconscious, his head bloody and swollen, his camera smashed.
He is still in intensive care. Specialists say he has permanent brain damage and will never practise medicine again.
‘Why?’ I ask the boys. ‘Why?’
They shrug and look at each other. ‘Bored, eh Miss,’ says a small fourteen-year-old with large eyes and curly hair.
Soon after, the case is adjourned for committal, and the boys wander away. I stare after them with a feeling of unreality. We just went into court, I sought an adjournment, the prosecution agreed, the magistrate stamped the file and the boys moseyed off. And, out there, is a man whose entire life has been ruined. Maybe this is some parallel world where such things are ordinary and I’m like Alice down the rabbit hole.
From the shelter outside court, I notice police leaving the station, grinning. The prosecutor leans against the door, watching them go, fresh breeze ruffling his hair.
‘What’s going on, Tony?’
He shrugs. ‘Billy’s birthday.’
‘The police are going to a birthday party?’
‘Not a party exactly,’ says Tony. ‘Billy’s turning ten today.’
I’m mystified. His tenth birthday? Why would the police be going to his tenth birthday?
‘That Billy Seaspray, he a bloody pest,’ Roslyn’s raspy voice rings out. Lit cigarette in hand, she stands with several Islanders nearby. ‘Always sneakin’ and stealin’. Palm Islanders sick of ’im.’
‘It cause he little,’ says another woman.
Tony nods. ‘The big boys use Billy to break into places. He’s so small he can fit through the bars on windows, through cat flaps and small openings. He crawls in, opens the door to let the big kids in. The police haven’t been able to do anything about it. Till now.’
Ah. Ten is the age of criminal responsibility. They’re going to charge him.
Still, they have to catch him committing an offence today. Surely, that’s not likely. He can’t be committing offences every single day.
Frail, malnourished Olivia is due back at court today. She screams as she’s dragged up the street by her mother, Wendy, and leans backwards, her feet digging into the ground.
‘C’mon, Livi!’ Her mother speaks roughly, pulling her along.
I step forward. Olivia looks up and sees me. Her eyes light up. She changes the direction of her movement, runs towards court and breaks the hold of her mother.
‘Caffey!’ With a broad smile she approaches and I’m reminded how undersized she is. At eleven she’s no bigger than a five-year-old, with big sad eyes, and still those ringlets of greasy black hair bobbing on her shoulders. Behind her, Wendy breaks into a trot, her large body flopping over stick legs.
Olivia stops suddenly, reaches down to grab something from the verge of the road, and then runs on again, not stopping until she envelopes my waist in a hug as high as she can reach.
Then she stands back, a proud smile on her face and presents me with a small flower. A tiny purple bud ripped from a roadside weed. I take this precious gift and brush the velvety softness of the petals against my cheek, then place it carefully between the pages of my criminal code, where it will always remind me of her.
She takes my hand and stands in my shadow, defiantly facing her mother down. The run has left Olivia ashen. Her breathing heavy and laboured. A spark of trust burns in her dull, knowing eyes, and I smile at her.
Once we are seated in court, Olivia pleads guilty to several counts of stealing. She sits as close to me as she can, her arm pressed against mine. Her nose runs continuously. She rubs it on her sleeve, which is stained green. I hand her a tissue, she looks at it in bewilderment. On the other side, Wendy sighs and shakes her head. Today there is no ripe, sweet smell of alcohol on her breath and her words are not slurred.
At the other end
of the bar table, the prosecutor tells the court that Palm Islanders have had enough. They want Olivia off the Island. She is a menace to the community. She continues to steal. Unlike the other kids, Olivia’s been working alone. Only eleven years old, yet causing havoc in the small community. He asks for a prison sentence.
Sitting between us, the Family Services officer reads out her report in a cold, impersonal voice. ‘We are working with the mother and have seen considerable improvement in the past few days, although she continues to offend. We would support the application to remove Olivia from Palm Island as part of the conditions of a probation order. We are aware she has been prostituting herself on Palm Island, having sex with men in order to gain cannabis, cigarettes and alcohol.’
Prostituting herself? She’s a little, little girl. My chest tightens. I can hardly breathe, looking at the tiny, trusting child beside me.
Time stops as I try to process what I’ve just heard. It’s like there are facts, floating in the ether, outside my brain, that won’t sink in. There is a child, no bigger than a kindergartener. A sick child with one lung. And there are men who have sex with her. Men who give her alcohol and drugs and cigarettes.
And the proposal is to send the child to prison.
I glance at Roslyn, a question. She nods slightly, a frown on her face so deep that the edges of her mouth reach her jawline.
Requesting a short adjournment, Roslyn and I huddle up outside the courthouse. She lights up. I don’t want to smoke. Roslyn lights a second cigarette and hands it to me.
‘I heard all about it,’ says Roslyn, speaking for the first time in a soft voice. ‘She suck them big men dick for a smoke of gunja.’
My hands shake. Ash from the cigarette falls on my skirt.
‘She creep on them verandahs at night. Big men waitin’ for ’er. When she finished, they give ’er grog or smoke of weed. Then they kick ’er off. Them big, fat, smelly bastards.’
The foul taste of the cigarette does not erase the bitter taste in my mouth, or the despair at the back of my throat.
‘Can’t they do anything about these arseholes?’
‘They can’t catch them,’ says a voice behind us. Tony, the prosecutor, leans against the wall and takes a long drag from his cigarette.
‘Why not?’ Pressure in my head is building into rage. ‘Why can’t the police toss them in jail? They seem to have no problem locking Olivia up.’
‘Hey. Take a breath,’ says Tony. ‘The police know it’s happening. They want to put a stop to it. But it’s her word against a few well-known men round here. It would never stand up in court. You’d get them off in five minutes. Any lawyer would.’
I grit my teeth as the truth of what he’s saying sinks in.
We have got to get her off this Island. Today.
And so, shortly after, Olivia and her mother are on their way to pack their things. Tony and I linger outside, just as the police hand a small boy down from the police wagon.
‘Billy Seaspray,’ says Tony.
‘They needn’t look so pleased about it.’
‘They’re not really. It’s just, you don’t know the hell that he’s put this Island through. There’s probably not a person here that hasn’t had baby-faced Billy crawling through their house.’
‘I can’t believe they caught him in an offence so soon,’ I say.
‘I can’t believe it took them forty minutes,’ says Tony.
Roslyn jumps in the battered white Legal Service Land Cruiser and crunches it into gear. ‘I’m gonna go and find Billy’s grandma,’ she yells through the driver’s window at us. ‘I might be a while. I hears she’s on the—’ Her words are lost as she takes off in a spray of gravel.
Tony and I smoke.
‘What’s wrong with this Island, Tone? Can’t they see what’s happening? Their kids are suffering, so are the women. And the men. Why don’t they band together and do something? Stand up for themselves?’
Tony shakes his head slowly. ‘Wish they would. But in the meantime, the sly-groggers are fucking everything up. They’re the real bastards.’
He takes a drag, blows out grey smoke. ‘They bring over dinghies loaded with grog. During the night they leave it on the verandah’s of the alcoholics. In the morning, it’s like Christmas. But on pension day, the sly-groggers send round their heavies, forcing the alkies into paying at least ten times the value of the grog. So there’s nothing left to feed the kids. Or sometimes, they take it out in sexual favours.’
‘Why don’t the cops arrest them?’
‘They’re too sly. No one’ll give evidence against them.’
‘Bastards. Could we line ’em up and shoot ’em?’
‘Not today,’ says Tony.
‘Psst.’
Tony looks around. ‘What was that?’
‘Psst.’ Louder this time. The sound is coming from just inside the courtroom louvres.
We turn and see the magistrate beckoning with his index finger. Blinking in surprise, I follow Tony inside.
The magistrate stands behind the door as we come in. ‘The police said they can arrange a tour of the Island for us.’
I hesitate. The Islanders might get the wrong impression if I’m with the police.
‘If you don’t come, we can’t go,’ says the magistrate. ‘It has to be both of you, or not at all. I can’t have the Islanders see me consorting with only the police.’
‘Okay.’
We pile into the police four-wheel-drive. Dave, the officer in charge, is white, mid-thirties. He drives, with the magistrate sitting alongside. There are jokes about putting me in the rear lock-up cabin and I quickly snap on my seatbelt in the back seat next to Tony. In the front there’s a CB radio and other equipment linked up with black, snaky wires.
We travel through the township. As we pass, black faces stop and stare, shooting malevolent glances my way when they recognise me with the police. I scrunch down, shaking my head with regret and annoyance at myself. My mistake. But it’s too late now. Eventually we head away from town and up a narrow, sandy mountain track. We travel through a forest. Shafts of sunlight pierce the green canopy, on the forest floor is a vast carpet of pine needles. The trees are enormous, shooting up as far as the eye can see. Big, rough brown trunks. We stop, deep in this magical place. Silence, except for the singing of birds. It’s cool here and there’s a musky, clean smell. We all breathe deeply.
Dave stands watching, a proud smile on his face.
‘Pretty great, hey?’
‘Wonderful,’ says the magistrate, shaking his head.
We get back in the vehicle reluctantly.
‘There’s plenty more to see,’ says Dave. ‘The waterfall and creeks, remote beaches with crystal clear water. It’s a big island, you know. Beautiful. We go exploring whenever we get a chance.’
‘Do the Islanders make it up here?’ the magistrate asks.
‘Yeah. Some of them. Not very often. A few families live this side, but they generally keep to themselves.’
The CB crackles. ‘Unit Two, are you there? Over.’
Dave picks up. ‘This is Unit Two. Over.’
‘Roslyn’s back with old Mrs Seaspray. Over.’
‘Received. We’ll be right back. Over and out.’
11
Mrs Seaspray sits at the back of the courtroom. Her hair is white, her hands are folded over her walking stick. She squints as I approach. Her grandson, ten-year-old Billy, sits beside her and stares vacantly into space.
‘Mrs Seaspray.’ I take a seat beside her. ‘We’re going to have to adjourn this case because the Family Services officer has gone back to Townsville. Apparently she had something more important to do over there. The police have agreed to let Billy go on bail, but only if you promise to keep him with you at all times, except when he’s at school, or at home. Do you understand?’
; ‘Yes.’ Her head is bent so that her right ear directly faces me.
I raise my voice. ‘You have to keep Billy with you all the time. He’s not allowed to be out without adult supervision.’
‘Yes.’ She nods.
‘Do you understand, Billy? You’re not allowed out of Grandma’s sight, except when you’re at school or at home.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘Okay.’
The magistrate comes in, and we make the bail application, but he’s reluctant to grant it. He knows Billy’s been causing trouble for years.
But he is only ten. ‘This is his first time before the court,’ I remind the magistrate.
‘I just want to make sure you understand, Mrs Seaspray, Billy is to be supervised at all times. He is to be by your side, except when he is at school or at home.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She bobs her head.
Court is adjourned, and I tell Billy and Mrs Seaspray to wait to sign the bail forms.
I gather my papers and turn a moment later to see Billy sitting alone in the back of the courtroom.
‘Where’s your grandma, Billy?’
‘She gone shopping, eh Miss.’
The magistrate rubs his forehead and re-zips his black robe.
‘Court re-convened,’ he announces as he sits back at the bench. ‘I revoke the special condition I made earlier in this case and order he be released on his own undertaking. Any objections?’
Tony slowly shakes his head. The magistrate makes a huge slashing motion on the file with his pen, and scribbles something in.
‘Billy. Try to stay out of trouble,’ he says, wearily.
Roslyn waits outside with the dirty white Land Cruiser humming. ‘C’mon, Caffey. Let’s go hoonin’!’ she shouts, revving the motor. ‘We’ll go find the Pierce family, see if we can sort out some homes for those four kids charged with murder.’
Grabbing the handle, I hoist myself onto the passenger seat. Roslyn clunks into gear and we bounce off. As we pass the oval, I see Billy running towards the beach. Old Mrs Seaspray hobbles off in the opposite direction.
Saltwater Page 8