When the Singing Stops

by Di Morrissey

  ‘What sort of licences?’

  ‘Mining, logging, export.’

  ‘And one assumes a fee was paid for these licences?’

  ‘Yes, but the real income for the government will be from royalties. I don’t know the details. Of course, licences with royalties are licences to print money.’

  ‘And no names? Would any of the government officials here this weekend know anything?’

  Ernesto St Kitt nodded. ‘I’m sure they do, but getting these bureaucrats to admit to anything is another matter altogether. Still, one doesn’t know what one may just stumble across in chats on a weekend like this.’ He leaned back as if in resignation and put his hands behind his head. ‘This El Dorado business smells, Matthew. And it’s disappointing. I had such hopes that new and better days were upon us.’

  ‘What do you think is really going on . . . just between you and me.’

  St Kitt shifted in his seat. ‘This is pure speculation. But there has to be more than one important person involved. It must be a tight-knit group who have been milking funds and ruining companies like Guyminco. And I don’t believe those at the very top of government are fully aware how bad it is. And I suspect some new players have moved in for a slice of the action. All this talk of Guyana taking off economically and getting international aid must sound like the original El Dorado revisited to some of the crime barons of South America.’

  ‘Olivera? Is he clean?’ asked Matthew. ‘This place didn’t come cheap and you don’t make a fortune writing political commentaries about Guyana.’

  ‘Olivera is not alone in this development. New Spirit is owned by a group of business leaders from Georgetown. It was originally meant to be reserved by the government for the Amerindians, you know.’

  ‘Great!’ exclaimed Matthew. ‘I wonder if Lennie Krupuk knows anything about El Dorado? Surely he must because the payments El Dorado received from Guyminco occurred during his regime.’

  ‘I think it is appropriate to ask him. Now that he no longer works for the company, he might think he is off the hook.’

  ‘He is certainly not going to give me the time of day when it comes to questions like that,’ said Matthew. ‘Why don’t you give him a go?’

  ‘Of course. It’s worth a try. Now he’s planning to leave the country he may just be willing to feed me some crumbs from the table. Perhaps I may imply that I have a little leverage on the subject.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Ernesto. We have a saying at home, “someone has to keep the bastards honest”. You’re trying hard to do just that. I hope you succeed. There are probably too many well-intentioned blokes who gave up long ago and subscribed to the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” theory.’

  ‘You’re very kind. Thank you. Hopefully right will triumph. It sometimes does, you know. See you at dinner.’

  Matthew watched him break into a jog as he went across the lawn. There was something about St Kitt’s parting remark—‘Hopefully right will triumph’—that disturbed Matthew. The public servant didn’t sound too convinced when he said it.

  Dinner couldn’t have been more jovial. Several of the men were amusing raconteurs and their retelling of some high level diplomatic manoeuvres with Fidel Castro in Cuba kept the guests entertained. The meal lasted a long time with everyone adjourning to the verandah for liqueurs and coffee.

  Afterwards some settled down to watch a movie, relayed via Olivera’s satellite dish; others played billiards, and a small group including Lennie Krupuk, Antonio Destra, the colonel and some of the bureaucrats noisily played liar’s dice for substantially high stakes.

  It was the early hours of the morning when Madi awoke feeling thirsty and, wrapping her sarong about her, padded silently to the water bottle she’d left in the bathroom. She unscrewed the top, took a sip, then stepped out onto the dark verandah of her little cabin. She looked briefly into the sky, marvelling at the clarity of the stars, then absently took another drink, suddenly aware of the warm clammy air on her skin. At the same time she noticed that on the verandah of one of the guesthouses several people were talking in low voices, occasionally laughing lightly. Curious, she stepped quietly across the lawn, and listened, then moved closer. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the candlelit gathering came into focus.

  The activity around the table was deeply concentrated. On a second table closer to her, rows of white powder waited to be sniffed through a straw, a jar of tablets stood open and rolled cigarettes lay ready to be used. There was a cough, a snort, the striking of a match.

  ‘Christ, they’re into drugs. Hard stuff,’ she whispered to herself as if the sound of her voice was necessary to determine reality from a nightmare.

  Frightened, she shrank back and stumbled as she hurried to her cabin and locked the door.

  She sat on the bed in the darkness, hugging her shoulders to stop herself shaking and tried to replay the scene she’d witnessed, trying to put faces to the figures she’d been unable to see in the shadows.

  Eventually she calmed down enough to crawl back under the sheet but it was some hours before she fell into a fitful sleep.

  EIGHT

  Like a bad dream shrinking in sunlight, the scenes of the night before seemed less scary to Madi when she awoke. But she still couldn’t shake a sense of something sinister. While not feeling threatened herself, the knowledge that so many of the people sharing her weekend holiday were associated with hard drugs was deeply disturbing.

  She wondered if she alone knew about it as she went to Matthew’s room to suggest they walk over to breakfast together. Her brother was quick to see her mood. ‘So what’s bothering you?’

  Madi quickly described the scene on the verandah the previous night. ‘What do we do, Matt?’

  ‘Do? We do nothing, Madi. It’s nothing to do with us. If that’s their scene, let them be. It’s not our bag, that’s for sure, and they probably know that. They come up here to get into this sort of thing, I suppose. They’re not inflicting it on us so don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Do you think anyone else knows?’

  ‘In our group? I doubt it. The girls went to bed before us and Connor, Kevin and I weren’t far behind. It’s best we carry on as if we know nothing. It’s their country, their scene and, as I said, they didn’t try to inflict it on us.’

  ‘It made me uncomfortable though. I’ve never had anything to do with drugs. Have you?’ Madi asked.

  ‘I smoked some pot in my wild youth and in Mexico a few years back I tried some sort of magic mushroom which was such a horrible experience it turned me off completely.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘A bad trip—hallucinations, weird and ghastly visions, no idea of time or space or place or who I was. I kept looking at my body and seeing parts of me melt or explode. It was like turning inside out—my skin was sucked inside and my entrails fell outside and sort of blew up and splattered. It was like drowning in your own innards.’

  ‘Ugh!’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t recommend it. But these people are obviously snorting coke and using hip designer drugs. More socially acceptable than injecting yourself in a public loo,’ Matthew grinned.

  Madi digested this for a moment, pausing to pick a flower from beside the path and smell it. ‘I guess there is a big drug scene here. You hear so much about drug cartels in South America, drug war lords and the like. It’s just that I simply hadn’t given a thought to the idea that I’d find it on my doorstep, so to speak.’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘I don’t know how big it is. You don’t get offered drugs in clubs or in back streets from what I’ve seen. I’m sure I would have been approached by now. But we are in South America and Colombia isn’t all that far away.’

  They reached the main house which was quiet, sun dappled and welcoming. Matthew squeezed Madi’s arm. ‘Let it go, Madi. Forget what you saw and enjoy yourself. And say nothing to the others at all.’

  ‘Not even Connor?’

  ‘I’ll talk to him later, when we’re back
in Georgetown. By the way, do you remember exactly who was there, taking part?’

  They paused at the bottom of the wooden staircase. Madi closed her eyes, trying to visualise the shadowy scene of the night before. ‘Not really. I recognised two of the government guys. I heard a girl laugh.’

  ‘Was Lady Annabel there? Or Ernesto?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell.’

  The house boy Rohan approached, full of morning freshness, his hair slickly oiled in place. ‘Good morning. You are the first awake. Will you take breakfast now?’

  Matthew and Madi settled themselves at the table set for breakfast on the verandah as Aradna appeared with a shy smile and put papaya juice in front of them.

  By the time they were eating their banana pancakes, Kevin, Connor and the girls had joined them and they all began describing how well they’d slept despite the barrage of mites and mosquitoes outside their mossie nets.

  ‘We had little geckos all over the walls,’ said Viti. ‘Presumably they feasted on the mosquitoes.’

  ‘Noisy little things though,’ said Sharee, breaking into an imitation of their ‘chuk-chuk’ call.

  ‘Are we the only ones up?’ asked Connor, finishing his juice.

  ‘The others must have partied on a bit,’ said Matthew, working his pancake around in the brown sugar syrup. ‘Well, they’re missing the best part of the day. I just love these tropical mornings before the heat and humidity start sapping the energy.’

  Madi leaned back in her chair and looked out into the jungle around the resort and sighed. ‘You’re right, Matt. It is a lovely part of the day, but more so up here than in Georgetown. Absolutely enchanting really. It’s the closest I’ve come to being in the environment that captured Gwen’s imagination and I can understand how easily she was seduced by it.’

  Matthew laughed. ‘That’s what I like about you, sis, always the romantic.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Okay, while you’re finishing Sharee and I’ll get Handy Andy organised with the boat to take us up the river for our day out with John and Ann da Silva. Everyone down on the stelling in forty-five minutes. Okay?’

  As they threw bags of swimmers, towels and bottles of drink into the boat, Lady Annabel appeared on the balcony of the guesthouse. She gave them an Aussie cooee call and waved furiously.

  ‘She’s a real card, that one,’ observed Connor as they waved back, laughing at her gesture to multiculturalism.

  ‘I feel a bit sorry for Lady A,’ said Viti as Kevin helped her aboard the launch. ‘She must be lonely. Seems to belong to an age that left her behind.’

  ‘I think she was quite a party girl in her time,’ added Matthew. He turned to Madi. ‘You should get her to show you through the old family home. She knows the scandal about most of the families in town.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll do that,’ said Madi seriously. ‘I’m finding this place more and more fascinating by the day.’

  It was a half-hour trip in bright sunshine and as they rounded a bend in the river they came across John da Silva waterskiing behind a boat driven by Ann. Their speedboat raced across alongside and John swung dangerously close. Calling out a cheerful greeting and lifting a hand, he pointed out the small wooden A-frame house close to a high bank.

  There was a small strip of grey sand in front and Handy swung the boat towards it, cutting the engine and letting the momentum carry them gently to shore where they leapt out into the shallow water. Handy dragged the anchor up onto the beach as John spun in almost to the shore, stepping out of his skis.

  ‘Morning and welcome. Who’s next for skiing? Water is perfect but, be warned, Ann drives boats only marginally less dramatically than racing cars.’

  ‘I’ll have a go,’ said Kevin quickly as he pulled off his shirt. ‘Got my cossie on ready to blast off. Did my apprenticeship on the Hawkesbury River in Sydney,’ he said, grinning at Matthew and Madi.

  Ann called from the boat, telling them to drop their stuff in the cabin and help themselves to food and drink.

  ‘We just had breakfast,’ Connor shouted back.

  ‘Right, then come and meet the others and have a cold beer,’ said John as they reached the house. Madi was amused to find that he wasn’t joking about the beer so early in the morning. As they relaxed on the verandah of the house where the da Silvas were staying, John made sure they all had drinks, then fell into an easy chair.

  ‘All very romantic,’ he said. ‘As tourism takes off here, a place like this would be a top spot for visitors.’

  ‘Will tourism really take off here?’ asked Connor of no one in particular.

  ‘Has to,’ replied John confidently. ‘Everyone is on the lookout for the new tourism experience, trying to find the last unspoiled frontier. It won’t be long before the operators discover that we’ve got something different in this country that’s worth flogging to travellers. Despite its shortcomings, Guyana is still relatively stable and safe, you’ve got to agree.’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be much infrastructure to support large-scale tourism,’ observed Madi. ‘It’s no good promoting a destination with a difference if you don’t have the right accommodation and services that tourists demand.’

  ‘Right on,’ agreed John enthusiastically. ‘We’ve got to get that into the minds of our politicians. Most of their thinking is limited to mineral resources. Cut it, dig it, export it, seems to be their basic policy.’

  At that moment the peace was shattered by the boat roaring into shore with Kevin giving a long triumphant shout as he glided stylishly across the water to reach the beach. The group on the deck cheered his performance and he acknowledged them with an exaggerated bow.

  Sharee took up the tourism theme. ‘This country may never be a Sun City, Miami or Hawaii, that’s for sure, but it has a lot to offer that’s different. The environment, for one thing. It’s still largely unspoiled and we’ve got more rivers and rapids and waterfalls than you can count. Sure, there’s little in the way of tourist infrastructure yet, but that takes investment. And there’s plenty of ready cash here, even if it’s not obvious,’ she observed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Madi.

  ‘Certain people here have access to big bucks—mostly gained illegally of course—but they don’t spend it or invest it here. They’re quick-dollar people who take the money and run or live lavishly on long holidays.’

  ‘They look out for Number One,’ observed Madi with a hint of cynicism. ‘Just like the colonel’s creed.’

  ‘Ah yes, Olivera the unpredictable, the great survivor,’ observed John, pausing to acknowledge the arrival of his wife and Kevin, carrying the skis. ‘How’s your visit with the great party-giver across the river?’ he asked with a grin, pressing a finger to the side of his nose and sniffing. ‘Any . . . you-know-what going on?’

  ‘John!’ admonished Ann with mock seriousness. The others laughed. ‘

  It’s not exactly a secret,’ her husband responded.

  ‘What?’ asked Viti.

  ‘Drugs,’ said John. ‘A lot of the folk who weekend across the river are into snorting coke.’

  Viti gave a little gasp of surprise. ‘I haven’t seen any drug-taking at New Spirit. But then there are drugs everywhere these days. But I can’t say I have noticed it getting any worse of late in the city.’

  Matthew and Madi said nothing as John launched into anecdotes of the fast-developing drug scene in Guyana. ‘The Colombian cartels are having it tough, so new routes have to be developed,’ he said. ‘If we’re not careful Georgetown will become a gateway for cocaine and heroin dealers from other South American countries. In our back door and out our front door to Miami.’

  Ann nodded. ‘It has the potential for a local disaster if the police don’t stop it soon.’

  ‘Trouble is, some of the big boys in high office are involved as well, at least according to local gossip,’ said John.

  ‘It’s not obvious on the streets,’ remarked Kevin.

  John leaned back in his deck chair and flicked the
top off another bottle of beer. ‘Haven’t you seen those big black guys dripping gold and driving flash cars? Where do you think they get the cash?’

  Madi was glad the subject of drugs had moved away from the drug-taking at New Spirit.

  As she took in the beauty of the river, the bordering jungle, the mountains rising in the distance, the thought of this lovely country being taken over and controlled by drug lords appalled her. She resolved to talk to Lester about it. He was street smart and would probably have an accurate picture of the real scene.

  ‘What do you think, Madi?’ Connor interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Boy, you were far away. I mean about waterskiing . . . want to brave it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  They took turns skiing and falling up and down the broad Essequibo, everyone’s efforts accompanied by shouts of good-natured derision or applause.

  They finally pulled the speedboat onto the narrow beach and headed for the house for pre-lunch drinks. John was first to break the bad news.

  ‘Friends, we have a crisis. Due to a discrepancy in logistics for the weekend, we are almost out of booze.’

  The men looked at each other with bemused expressions. This was serious. ‘No booze, on a Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere,’ exclaimed Matthew.

  ‘Fear not,’ announced John with authority. ‘We will sally forth to the nearest village and replenish our stock. Volunteers?’

  Matthew and Kevin instantly put up their hands. Connor glanced at Madi.