by Kim Westwood
Despite these detours, I arrive early at my destination — the shuttered backroom of a tiny Fitzroy gelateria — and wait for the rest of the Animal Protection Vigilantes to arrive. As the others find their various spots among the packaging and equipment, I lean gingerly on a stack of boxes purporting to contain sugar cones, and can smell their sweetness through the cardboard. The Nation Firsts have put many pleasures on the ‘forbidden’ list, but thankfully they still allow their citizens the sin of ice cream.
Lydia clumps in, looking harried. Silently I hope this isn’t going to set the tone of the meeting. When she’s settled, I close the door.
Max kicks off proceedings. ‘I’d just like to say well done to everyone for such a smooth operation.’
It must be a nice change for Lydia that this time no one even looks at her.
‘I spoke with the sanctuary owners this morning,’ he continues. ‘The horses are doing alright, considering. Not off the danger list, but we should feel lucky to have lost only one.’
A pall of silence settles momentarily on the group as we remember the Appaloosa mare. Uncharacteristically, it’s Lydia who sniffs into her hanky.
‘By the way, the news is all good from the foster farm that took our abattoir rescue foals a couple of weeks ago,’ Max adds to brighten us. ‘Apparently they’re injury-free and blooming. There’ll be no trouble rehoming them.’
The knackeries affiliated with the hormone farms make for very traumatic rescues. We’d heard one had taken delivery of ten CEO colts and fillies, all of them destined for the crusher the next day. It was in the drama of their rescue that something sparked between Inez and me, which then ignited into full flame — so I feel I owe a debt to the foals.
James gives his report next.
‘Big Russ arrived at the pub bang on eight fifteen,’ he says. ‘I gave him time to knock back the first few beers, then walked in and sat down with him like I was an old mate, and everybody, including him, thought I was. The ruphy went in his drink at curfew. The pub’s shutters came down and the conversation dived into the truly maudlin. When our friend toppled off his barstool, everybody assumed he’d drunk way too much, which he always does. We dossed him down in the ladies lounge — took four of us to shift him there. He’s a lot to carry, most of it covered in tatts.’
‘He must have felt like shit the next morning,’ Brigid murmurs.
‘Too right,’ James replies. ‘He’d have been comatose about six hours, then nursing a very bad headache.’ He snorts. ‘Apparently every Saturday, the dairy shift swings by the pub on their way to Greengate and load him, still drunk, into their vehicle.’
‘Not much of a caretaker,’ I say.
‘What’s he likely to remember?’ Brigid asks.
‘A blank — a blur at most. If any of his pub mates remind him, he’ll be racking his brains over who the “old acquaintance” was that he got drunk with. As for the horse rustling, hopefully, he’ll think it was just his bad luck it happened the same night.’
‘About that,’ I say. ‘I just heard from Gail his Rohypnol incident was logged with Drugs Watch.’
The group turn to me, serious-faced.
‘Russ must have got himself tested Saturday afternoon,’ says Max.
‘There was always a chance he’d twig,’ Inez responds. ‘This isn’t the first time that drug’s been used in a horse raid.’
‘Maybe he thought you messed with him, James,’ I joke.
‘Not my type. All those tatts …’
‘No more excursions to the Yarra Valley for you.’ I make it flippant, but we all know the risk of recognition is greatest with him this time.
My thoughts turn to Lars. It had taken a lot of courage to stick it to Greengate’s owners and do what he did. The alert will be out to find him, a suspected collaborator with the APV, but by now he should be winging his way to a new life somewhere else, a change of identity supplied by Gail’s trusty relocation agent, Harry Tong. Apparently Lars was promised a beach house in monsoonal far north Queensland, where the vaccination vans hadn’t made it to, and where, it’s rumoured, the weather-hardy residents still beget with the best of them.
‘So what’s next?’ Nagid asks, arms folded, one hip against a freezer chest.
‘Something that involves scaling an industrial chimney or surfing a battleship’s bow wave, so you can show us how,’ James offers.
It’s Max who makes the first real suggestion.
‘I’ve heard from an old client of mine the battery hen farm that borders his property is going into production again. He says the stench is wafting over to his place already.’
We’re all surprised. This means the government must be lifting the restrictions on factory farming.
‘They wouldn’t dare.’ Brigid voices everyone’s thoughts.
We all remember what happened when bird flu became a highly pathogenic new strain, transmissible human to human. The virus spread like wildfire through the poultry sheds first, and the factory then free-range farmers were ordered to destroy their stock — not just chickens and turkeys, but ducks and geese too. Even the carrier pigeons kept by racing enthusiasts and the caged budgies in suburban homes weren’t exempt. Max was deeply affected, vets being called upon to supervise the gassing and decontamination of aviaries, dovecotes and chicken coops. And his loft of racing pigeons was his pride and joy.
The farmyard pyres burned and the wild bird colonies dwindled, their presence no longer viewed with pleasure but alarm and fearfulness. Nobody kept birds of any kind. Meanwhile, the health teams were mobilising across the country for the most comprehensive vaccination scheme in Australia’s history. Auto-immune overload and mass endocrine disruption followed soon after.
‘What short memories people have!’ Inez exclaims. ‘Everybody knows it was the conditions in those factories that created the problem in the first place.’
It transpired that the methods used to force faster growth and higher productivity had created a crucible for infection and disease, while the industry’s slack regulatory codes, along with diabolical conditions in the hen sheds, had contributed to the virus being transmitted to the workers.
Max turns to Lydia. ‘What does Animal Justice know about the factory bans being lifted?’
‘I’m not really in touch with any of them …’
Lydia has never explained why she left that organisation, but I get the feeling it was something personal. When the Nation Firsts took power, the Animal Justice activists freshly arrived from overseas were speedily deported back there, and the local organisers — including Lydia — were jailed on blasphemy charges. They’d dared to argue it was human conceit to think we had a monopoly on the domain of the soul, and that if there were such a thing, then animals would have one too.
Max addresses the rest of us. ‘There’s a vet I know in one of the rebuilt settlements beyond the Yarra Valley bushfire line. His community mainly comprises small bio-organic holdings and hobby farms. As long as he gives the birds the all-clear first, I’d say the people there would be glad to take a crate or two each, no questions asked.’
For all the damage the vaccine did, at least it put an end to the panicked extermination of birds, rural households now allowed to keep certified virus-free chickens.
‘How many sheds are we talking about, and what can we expect to find in them?’ Nagid asks.
‘They seem to be using only one shed in the row of five so far. But there could be thousands of debeaked pullets in there, jammed several to a cage. The ammonia levels will be toxic.’
I feel my jaw tighten. This shit is hard to listen to.
‘It goes without saying,’ Max continues, ‘that the less time they spend in those conditions the more chance they’ll have of living through the rescue. My ex-client says if we’re planning anything unmentionable, we can do it via his place. His boundary fence runs right behind the row.’
‘What about all the noise when we try to get them out?’ Brigid asks. ‘They’ll squawk the place down �
��’
Lydia rounds on her. ‘And you think that’s a reason not to try to rescue them?’
Brigid stops, shocked.
I glance at Inez and Max. Lydia is getting more and more erratic, and we can’t afford a loose cannon in our midst. Brigid, on the other hand, has the sort of constitution that suggests she burns calories through anxiety — which Lydia isn’t helping any.
‘I don’t think Brigid meant that we not do it …’ says Inez.
James steers the conversation back on track. ‘Do you think your farmer friend could take some photos from his side of the fence?’ he asks Max.
‘Yep,’ is the ebullient reply. I can tell Max has already taken this project on one hundred per cent.
‘We’re going to need cages for transport,’ I say, ‘and Brigid actually has a valid point about the noise.’ I shoot a quick warning look at Lydia.
Nagid adds his thoughts. ‘The battery farm won’t be expecting opposition this soon. I doubt they’ll have even bothered with an alarm system other than a smoke detector.’
‘So …’ Max eyes the six of us. ‘Are we all agreed this is our next project?’
We assent variously, Brigid with a baleful glance Lydia’s way.
Max, the logical choice to coordinate, hands out our tasks for the next meeting: research, and sourcing rescue equipment. Only Lydia doesn’t get something to do.
‘You seem like you could do with a break for a bit,’ he says to her matter-of-factly.
‘I’m alright,’ she mumbles, not looking at him. ‘Just having a bad week. I’ll be fine next meeting.’
‘Well, that’s when I’ll give you something to do,’ he says, gentler.
Proceedings winding up, I take the opportunity to draw her aside. ‘What’s going on, Lyd?’
‘What do you mean?’ Her eyes shift nervously from mine.
We’re in a storage area beside the toilet cubicle. I shut the connecting door to the rest of the group.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘That was more than your usual enthusiastic response.’
She looks for a moment as if she might spin me some bullshit line, then shrugs. ‘I did something I shouldn’t have, and now I’m paying the price.’
She leans her head against the doorframe, and I wait as she struggles to get it out.
‘I met someone I really liked. Do you know how long it is since that’s happened to me?’
I don’t say. I know how she feels.
‘He’s a Canadian geologist working for Austral-Uranium. He emigrated to Australia on the previous government’s fertility initiative. Amazingly, he’s still trying to find Ms Right to start a family with, and he thought I might be that person.’
The dam holding Lydia’s big secret having burst, her words tumble out. ‘I lied a little, said I ovulated every once in a while. I made it sound like conception was possible for me, when really I haven’t had so much as a bleed for two years. I could picture us happy together, and didn’t want to lose him to the next wide-hipped fertile who came sashaying around the corner. So I ten-timesed the dose of my usual hormones and took a pituitary stimulant on top of that. I figured a hormone hit might induce ovulation before he changed his mind.’
I don’t voice my dismay. She could have done worse things to herself.
She continues bitterly. ‘Everything seemed fine: I got soft and squishy in all the right places, like how I used to be. But then it hit me like a steam train and ramped me up like you wouldn’t believe. I felt like I’d been taken over by a monster. I was getting upset at the tiniest thing, crying or shouting for no reason. He said I was too volatile to be anybody’s fertility partner and called it quits. I was so angry with myself that I cold-turkeyed. I’d pretty much run out of money to get more kit anyway. So now I have oestro flux big-time.’
I try to say it as tactfully as I can. ‘You didn’t …?’
‘Not a hope in Hades.’ She sniffs.
‘I’m very impressed that you held it together last Friday,’ I tell her, and I mean it. Considering what she must have been going through, physically and psychologically, she did amazingly well on the raid. ‘No one would’ve known.’
This elicits a sad smile. ‘Thanks.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, whose stuff did you use?’
‘NatureCure’s.’
An Ethical — something I’d assume with her; but desperation can do terrible things, even to an APV idealist. I make a mental note to talk to Gail about it after the meeting, then realise I forgot to tell her earlier in the day about my spur-of-the-moment manoeuvre with Mojo Meg. I make a second mental note.
‘Lyd, I’ll find out what you can take to help ease you through this,’ I say, and she looks up tearfully.
‘I’d appreciate that.’
Her whole body is drooped in defeat. This is not the gung-ho vigilante we’ve come to know and fret about.
‘Just do me one favour,’ I add. ‘Apologise to Brigid for snapping at her. And whatever it is that sets you two off, sort it or shelve it. The group can’t handle the tension.’
She nods, subdued for once.
I walk her back to the others. We set another location for next week, then people begin to filter outside and along the narrow walkway between the gelato shop and its neighbour.
A hand goes on my shoulder.
‘Nitro is due for his shots,’ Max says quietly. ‘I’ve got some free time around twelve thirty Thursday, if you can bring him in.’
I make a quick calculation. Depending on what deliveries Gail needs me to do first, I can organise a Cute’n’Cuddly van over lunchtime and pick up the cat.
‘Perfect,’ I say.
‘The appointments either side will be clear,’ he adds. ‘No pesky waiting-room conversations.’
‘Thanks.’
I watch his solid frame depart. I can always trust him to think of everything.
When everyone else has left, Inez pulls the back door to. We emerge together onto the busy street and detour via the gelato counter. Inez decides on vanilla while I choose caramel swirl, my favourite.
‘All the perverts are going for that one,’ Phyllis, the owner, says, and winks.
I make a face at her, privileged with the information that when Phyllis goes home at night, it’s to a tank full of glow-in-the dark seahorses and a five-watt orange ferret.
11
It’s Anwar’s and my final shift together at Fishermans Bend and the coldest night so far. The van heater keeps the windscreen from icing up and us from freezing, but outside, everything is growing white dendritic fronds. This time, at least, I’ve come prepared with a thermos of hot chocolate and a bag of raspberry muffins.
We munch hungrily. Having finished our round of the streets to check the flow of traffic and activity in factory yards, we’re holding off for now on another stint at the Ponds. But it’s funereally quiet: no mean machines rumbling by Enzo’s, and the wraith-like figures of the cruisers and bruisers few and far between. It could be that the onshore southerly shivering in from the sea has kept everyone away, or maybe it’s just that the denizens of the Bend need a night off occasionally.
‘How did you persuade the racers to give back the van’s tyres?’ I ask.
‘By appealing to their finer sensibilities.’
I look at him.
‘I promised to deliver them something they want much more.’
‘And that would be?’
‘A set of racing fats off a stock car.’
I laugh. ‘Can you?’
‘They’re in the back. We’ll drive down after this and hand them over.’
I love the thought of my neatly attired co-worker making deals with a bunch of leather-and metal-clad street racers. Trust him to come up with a bargaining chip so coveted by the latter.
At midnight we make our delivery. There are only three vehicles on the roundabout, and no spectators. Clearly, tonight’s affair is a private one. I should have predicted it would be Skinny and a rival lounging nonchalantly
against their street machines, waiting to receive the goods. The pair in the third vehicle stare at us, but don’t bother to get out. There’s no sign of Lola or her friends.
Skinny turns his best cheeky smile on us. ‘The offer of a ride still stands, Andy Pandy. Mr Suit can sit in the back if he wants.’
I have to laugh. His good-natured bantering is hard not to like. His rival, however, seems to think differently.
I help Anwar unload the tyres, rolling them onto the traffic island.
‘So who gets the set?’ I whisper.
‘I believe they’re going to duel it out.’
Skinny’s competitor gets in her car. The third vehicle leaves down the racetrack, presumably to adjudicate at the finish line.
‘Care to do the honours?’ Skinny hands me a red-spotted kerchief.
Obediently I stand at the head of Wolf Road as they start their engines and proceed to rev the hell out of them. I raise the signal and wait a count of three, then let it drop. The roar is ear-splitting; I’m enveloped in a blast of exhaust. I bend to retrieve the kerchief and cough pure carbon monoxide.
As brakes screech down the road, Anwar shepherds me off the verge. ‘Let’s not wait for the result,’ he says.
I suggest to him that he might like to take Skinny up on his offer sometime. He swings me an inscrutable look, then says, ‘Show me the paint factory.’
The van left outside the gates, we scan the factory’s front windows with our torches, then walk quickly down the side, hands stuffed in pockets and collars up against the chill, boots crunching on icy ground. At the rear of the building, I slide my fingers in the gap between the window and the sill and push up. Scraping through first, I turn to help Anwar, but he’s already half in.
Ferguson’s paint-making machinery sits in gloom and fust at the end of the corridor. I point out the office with my torch, but Anwar just nods and makes his way across the space to the far wall.