How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling

by Martin Chambers

  ‘I have to go back and sort some things out. I’m in charge now and they are relying on me to be back soon. We have some serious shit to deal with but it’s no biggie. Life’s tough in the outback.’ I tried to sound cavalier, as if serious shit was something I was used to dealing with, as if perhaps this particular serious shit was only a little bigger than what I was used to. ‘Soon as it’s sorted, a month or so, I’ll be back.’

  ‘What sort of shit?’

  ‘I can’t say. Look, can you let Mum and Dad know? I asked Michelle to but if you talk to them as well.’ And then, to distract the conversation away from me, I added, ‘Married! She seems great.’

  But it didn’t work. It had taken him no time at all to know this was not about a girl and now he thought I was in trouble. We were alone by the van so we could have talked a bit more openly. What would have happened if I had confessed then and there?

  ‘Don’t try to deal with it by yourself. What’s really happening?’

  ‘It’s financial. Place is losing money and I’m trying to sort it out. I’ve been in charge of the books so I’ve known for some time. They rely on me to keep the place going.’

  ‘You are getting paid, are you?’

  I tried to laugh that off. No one got paid. Palmenter kept all the money to himself and as I now knew, kept most of it in a suitcase in the office.

  ‘I’ve negotiated a deal. I’m due over a million bucks. That’s why I have to get back, make sure this deal goes through and I get my share.’

  White lies. It is a lot easier to bend the truth than to ignore it. And once bent, it is a path easier to follow. When I enrolled at Charles Darwin University I wrote down that the success of Palmenter Station was because of my financial and business planning. I had to, because the MBA is reserved for postgraduates or businesspeople of some experience and I could hardly write I drove the bore run and kept the paperwork neat. Or that I had shot and killed the boss. Maybe that conversation with Simon was where it all began, with me pretending I was something more than I was.

  Things have a habit of not going how you plan them and having already said too much to Simon I got out of there as quickly as I could.

  13

  During the long days driving back to Palmenter Station I decided that I would try to find Lucy’s family and bring them in. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess it was that trip, bringing in Lucy’s family, that set Spanner and I on the road to being people smugglers ourselves. You sit by yourself driving the van and the road is dull and long and you get sick of singing along to the CDs so eventually you just sit and drive and the world outside rushes up and under and away behind and you start thinking, and while you are thinking the sun comes up on the right and then it swings overhead then it falls a slow decline to the left. Ever noticed how it takes longer to fall down from the top than getting up there in the morning? You stop and refuel and have fleeting words with other travellers or a truck driver. You buy food and pay the attendant who has the same conversation she has had with every other customer with that faraway look of those who are going nowhere.

  The real world rushed up with the tarmac and retreated behind and in my little world inside the van I thought of Lucy and what she meant. Had I loved her or used her? Had we used each other? Do we all use love to battle against loneliness? I don’t know. What I did know was it was because of me she was in that place and I had the power to help.

  And then I thought of Zahra, the way she took so much care cooking the food, about how you could tell from that that she cared about everything she did. I wondered how could that be, to continue to care for the smallest thing when all around is war and destruction and poverty and hunger and people living by whatever means they could.

  Then Tariq, his noble pride, his reserve. And Noroz. All of them. How we hadn’t shown any regard for them in catering their food. You are refugees, you are hungry, you will eat anything. Emma prematurely aged, her young eyes weary but clear, at once hopeful and afraid. What would the rest of her life be?

  Arif. Annoying as he had been, he deserved better. While Emma waited for what life would deliver to her, Arif had set out to find, to demand and demand until he got what he wanted. Or not – as Palmenter delivered it to him.

  All the girls who had come into the station, separated from the rest of the import and sent south to work until they paid off the cost of their passage. How much would that be? How long? Would they ever be free? They had no choice but to place their trust in others and hope for the goodness in people, a goodness denied to them in their home land. By bad luck they came across Palmenter.

  It seemed to me I had a duty to help, and the least I could do was find Lucy’s family and bring them to her. Because of me, she was in prison, a detention centre, while her family waited helplessly.

  But it wasn’t me. It was Palmenter. Palmenter who had killed and casually kicked sand, who had watched the van and those five bodies burn and said no one would miss them. It was Palmenter who took their money and then their freedom and at some point started taking their lives. Was Arif the first? I had thought so, but Lucy said she heard someone named Sami being beaten. Screaming. And then it went quiet. Who was Sami? A girl or a woman who was maybe dead and did not even have me to remember her. She was one of the many girls who came and left the station, most of whom did not even get a name.

  Everyone should have at least a name. I tried but could not remember her. I did not recall Lucy having any particular friends. In my mind all the girls became one crowded memory of people who came and went with the musters, people who would all have someone somewhere. If Sami were dead – or alive and working in a brothel with all the others – there was nothing I could do about it. But what I could do was help Lucy and her family.

  As I tried to find individual faces all I saw was the looks of the men and older women, the mix of fear and hope as they climbed into the vans with their new names and new friends, the strangers we sent them off with. And I remembered then the recent looks on the faces of Spanner and Cookie, Charles and even Simms as we sent people off with new hope. For that was what it was: we supplied not food or vans or maps or driving lessons. We supplied new hope. What had Newman said to me? ‘Can’t say that I disagree.’ These blokes I worked with were not bad people.

  I must have crossed in the Northern Territory but I didn’t notice when. At some point it got dark and I must have turned the lights on but I couldn’t remember doing it. I kept driving, and then later I woke up and the car was still driving itself. Luckily there was no other traffic and I had slowed to a crawl before the roar of the gravel shoulder woke me. I pulled off the tarmac and crawled into the back but I lay there unable to sleep. In my confusion of leaving Melbourne I hadn’t thought to buy any food. I wasn’t hungry anyway. I made black coffee and drank it sitting on top of a collection of boulders. The moon was rising over the far-off ranges and spreading its soft light over the desert and far far away to the north I could see the lonely lights of another car. It was cold and I pulled the sleeping bag around myself and lay down on the rock to watch the stars. I felt sad and happy at the same time. I remembered all the good times we had at the station and, for what it was, these people were my friends. As I fell asleep I decided that a feel-good delivery such as Lucy’s family would be a good way to end it.

  I might make it sound as if it was all bad all the time, but in reality when Palmenter was there we learned to be invisible and we did our jobs and kept out of his way as much as we could. When he was away we entertained ourselves with picnics and barbecues, waterhole swims, drinking beer and smoking Cookie’s power weed or munching on his magic biscuits. I got good at table tennis but I could never beat Spanner at pool.

  ‘My misspent youth got me something useful,’ he’d say. Because we had no cash, and none of us ever got paid by Palmenter, we would bet stupid things. Cleaning roster for a week, or to wash the grader, a task as pointless as it was impossible. Simms collected a group of small rocks and called them his p
ets, and he would bet with them. Funny thing is we all began to covet his pets even to the extent of having favourites. You could simply walk out beyond the perimeter and pick up as many as you liked, but they were all wild, feral, not house-trained. Eric was the favourite. He was a rounded grey riverstone with flecks of white quartz across his back. He was the perfect size and shape to fit in your palm where he would lie sleeping.

  Usual thing was, I’d win Eric from Simms in table tennis, Charles would win him from me and then Spanner would win him off anybody in pool, then after making Simms stew for a while Spanner’d let him win again. Then, the whole thing would start again.

  During the windy season, the time after the wet when the east wind blows relentlessly from far across the desert, we went land yachting.

  Spanner had welded some old car wheels together onto a triangular frame, a single at the front and two sets of doubles at the back so it would not bog in the sand. It was steered with a big tiller, a length of pipe that ran back from the front wheel, although steering is not an accurate word to describe what it actually did.

  He had welded a long mast to the frame just behind the front wheel, and made a sail from tarpaulin. This was stitched with a hollow hem that slid down over the tapered mast and a rope that led from the rear corner of the sail overhead and around a second shorter mast at the very back. In the shed it was easy to roll the sail around the mast and this was the theoretical way it would be done in the field. For a seat he had welded one of the kitchen benches across the back and then laid an old mattress so that you sat on the mattress leaning back against the bench and holding the tiller in one hand and the sheet rope in the other.

  I had seen him building something in his shed. He was often constructing things and I hadn’t asked him what it was for. One day – Palmenter had just left and was unlikely to return for a day or two – Spanner came and got me. It was a cold morning but by later in the day it would be hot, and a strong wind blowing. The tamarisks around the garden echoed and haunted, doors slammed and swirls of dust rose and fell across the compound.

  ‘Wanna see my new girl?’

  ‘Yeah?’ I was doubtful. ‘What is it?’

  We stood in the shed admiring it. The thing was ridiculous. It must have weighed a ton. Once rolling, not much would stop it. I wanted to laugh but I knew not to laugh at anything Spanner made, not because he would be angry or upset but because I would be proven wrong. Whatever it was would turn out to be magnificent. Perhaps not elegant or stylish, but more than capable of doing whatever Spanner had set out to do. In this case it was to sail across the sandplain powered by the wind. Harmless fun.

  We towed it out to the disused landing strip that was behind the helipad. Helipad is a nice way of saying bare bit of ground. Disused landing strip is a nice way of saying the scrub here was marginally smaller, but we needn’t have bothered. As soon as Spanner rolled out the sail, the thing started moving, slowly at first, slow enough that we could walk beside it, then run, then he jumped onboard and I couldn’t keep up. I followed in the grader as he bounced across the sand, over shrubs, up and down small gullies trying desperately to steer away from the bigger trees and holes. Trouble was, the front wheel bounced and dug in in equal measure. Steering was so erratic. I should say it was hit and miss. Mostly miss. One hit. He hit a tree. It was a small tree that sort of folded over in slow motion as he drove over it, bent under the frame and then stood up again from underneath. The land yacht was snagged. Spanner rolled up the sail.

  ‘I was aiming for it,’ he explained. ‘It wasn’t going to stop.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Why not just let go the sail?’

  ‘Well, you try it.’

  He reached in under the seat and pulled out the chainsaw. Spanner thought of everything.

  As he cut down the tree I was calculating how far and how fast the wind was blowing. About thirty kph, all the way to the Gulf. Then into the sea. Be sort of funny to escape this place and end up drowned in the sea. Pass the refugee boats on their way in. If we could veer a bit to the left we might miss the Gulf, end up in Broome. We’d have to jump off onto Cable Beach as we went past. Camels and sunbathers jumping aside as this rumbling shuddering rolling monster tore past. They’d hear it well before it arrived. I had an image of Cable Beach, serene, midmorning, tide out, and people slowly sitting up, saying, ‘What’s that noise?’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Spanner after my attempt, as if he was reading my mind. ‘But let’s go get Charles. He can grade the landing strip for us.’

  The land yacht was christened Matilda, King of the Desert. I forget how the name came about but Matilda was a she, despite being a king. We spent afternoons when we could, towing her to the upwind end of the old airstrip and then sailing it back. We set up drums as an obstacle course, then as a demolition derby. If you hit the drum a glancing blow with the rear wheels you could set the drum flying, or spinning across the sand. Each time when we had finished we would tow it up to the top and park it ready for the next session that might be in a week, a month.

  One time we all crowded onboard and sailed at no diminished speed across the spinifex until we found the creek, and we picnicked on the sand in the shelter of trees growing in the creekbed.

  We dreamed of using it in the wet, sliding and slewing our way across the mudflats, but it needed the strong trade winds to move it and they only came in the midyear. In the wet, wind came in short sudden bursts before the rain. The day would be full of wet heat, clouds gathering in the north and rolling around the sky until out of somewhere came a wind, cool, strong, sweet, and then the sudden hard din of relentless rain that left mud puddles and impassable roads.

  I think Palmenter only ever asked what it was once, and I heard Charles tell him it was a wind indicator. From the homestead all you could see was the mast of it when it was parked out on the airstrip. Cookie had tied a bra to the masthead so it looked a little like a wind sock.

  One of the funniest times was when we had been at the waterhole all one afternoon, smoking some of Cookie’s finest, and swimming, relaxing. Simms might not have been so bright but he was a great swimmer and, as we were to discover, he had a talent for mimicry. Palmenter used to bully Simms around a lot, he was his lapdog, so I guess Simms had a lot to imitate. Simms was a decent bloke. So was Charles.

  I was lying in the shade and Spanner was next to me drinking a beer. Charles had made a small fire and Cookie was barbecuing meat on it, slowly, the way he used to get this fabulous smoky flavour into the meat.

  The conversation, sporadic though it was in the late-afternoon cannabis haze, always turned to Palmenter. Palmenter had been away for a few weeks now, hence the relaxed picnic. We were wondering why he had been gone for so long.

  ‘I reckon he’s been arrested. He’s never coming back. Cops locked him up and have thrown away the key,’ said Spanner.

  ‘Nah. He’s found a girl. Shacked up with her over on the Gold Coast.’ Cookie didn’t raise his head from where he was resting as he said this. He giggled at his own joke.

  ‘Girl! Why would he want one of them when he can have all the ones he wants. For free.’

  Something in the way he said this compelled me to look up. Simms stood up on the flat rock at the edge of the waterhole. He walked up and down exactly as Palmenter did, that strutting busy self-important way that Palmenter had of walking, as though everything he did was urgent and you were in his way, distracting him.

  ‘Madam, line the girls up.’

  Simms paused, pretended to be choosing. Despite Simms being thin and Palmenter fat the imitation was uncanny. He stood as Palmenter would have stood.

  ‘Mmm, this one. Come!’ Simms pretended to lead her away, still walking exactly as Palmenter did. ‘Now, suck my cock.’ He stood thrusting his hips out, hands on hips and looking across at something in the distance. It was the posture that Palmenter had whenever he stood on the verandah watching the goings-on of the camp. Gazing into the distance but seeing everything that was happening nearby. S
imms was hilarious.

  ‘Palmenter’s cock is too big,’ said Spanner.

  ‘You know, do you?’

  ‘Well you suck his cock more than any of us. How big is it?’

  It was true, Simms was browbeaten and bullied more than any of us by Palmenter. It was when Spanner said this that Simms became even funnier. He stood up as if he was Palmenter angry, advanced threateningly towards Spanner, not far, but enough to show the walk, then he turned back and dismissed the girl with a wave of his hand.

  ‘It’s this big!’ Simms was Palmenter boasting of his massive size in that exact tone that Palmenter had that could say something as both a boast and a threat. ‘You’re no good, go back to where you came from. Simms, suck my dick.’ Then, ‘Simms, wipe my arse, what am I supposed to do, do it myself?’ Simms danced and gyrated, swapping between being himself kneeling at Palmenter’s feet or bent over wiping his arse, and Palmenter standing and bending over to receive.

  We were all giggling and laughing in that infectious dope way. I had tears in my eyes and couldn’t see properly. Spanner too. Cookie was laughing out loud, crying and wheezing and asking them to stop.

  ‘Yes-men. You are all just yes-men. Why can’t I get people who can think for themselves?’

  Charles stood up and joined Simms, and their posing and gyrating became a dance.

  ‘Not like that. Like this.’ Simms was Palmenter insisting Charles move his way.

  ‘Yes boss.’

  It wasn’t at all funny. It was too real. But how we laughed. I was aching, could hardly breathe.

  Charles followed Simms in the dance, chanting in time with the beatbox, ‘Yes boss, yes boss, yes boss.’ Then he suddenly stopped, stood up hands on hips and arched back and yelled, at the top of his voice, out at the trees and the sky and the birds and whatever else was listening.

  ‘You can go fuck yourself, Palmenter!’

  It was as if something had shattered. The spell had been broken, both the drug-induced hilarity of the moment, and the long, slow, oppressive spell that Palmenter had cast over us. Things would not change, but Charles had spoken the truth. Palmenter could go fuck himself and we all wanted rid of him. There was suddenly a silent understanding between us.