When the Singing Stops

by Di Morrissey

  ‘Well, somewhere a little quieter certainly would be in order,’ said Connor.

  ‘I am busy with all this, but let’s stay in touch. And you, Miss Wright, what are your plans?’ Xavier asked.

  ‘I’m supposed to put a proposal together for the casino complex. Amazonia, you know about it?’

  ‘Indeed I do. It is not a project I favour.’

  ‘Everyone is doing it you know. Casinos are the flavour of the nineties it seems,’ said Madi with resignation. ‘Back in Australia, Sydney has just got one. It’s created lots of jobs.’

  ‘Ah yes, but at what cost?’ queried Xavier. ‘We must question whether it should be high on the agenda of a country like ours when there is so much to be done in other areas. And you can be almost certain that foreign interests will be involved, and that in itself is questionable, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Bain?’

  Connor was evasive. ‘Depends on what else is around to attract free enterprise capital really. Progress can happen on many fronts at the same time.’

  Xavier smiled. ‘Ah yes, of course. You almost sound like a politician rather than a banker.’

  Connor responded. ‘Perhaps it’s inevitable that bankers have to be political as well, given that aid financing is so closely related to politics.’

  Xavier nodded in agreement. ‘Perhaps you might find it diverting and profitable to look at some other aspects of our country that don’t have a high profile at this stage. You too, Miss Wright. I can recommend a visit to the Rupununi plains in the south of our country. You would be welcome to stay with my friend Kate McGrath. A most unusual woman. She is known by my people as the otter lady. She has a rather interesting place called Caraboo not far from where your casino is planned.’

  He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a small notebook. ‘I’ll write down the details of how to get there and how to make arrangements. Please give it some thought. Now will you excuse me, this little battle has a long way to run.’

  Xavier shook hands with them and followed by a trail of Amerindian supporters left the dining room.

  ‘Well, what do you make of that?’ asked Madi, somewhat taken aback by the obvious planned approach.

  ‘It’s an invitation too good to refuse, I’d say.’ Connor pecked Madi on the cheek. ‘It’s going to be hard to hang on to my holidays, given this bloody mine disaster, but I’ll work out something. By the way, wherever did this guy get his education?’

  ‘London School of Economics, according to Lester,’ said Madi.

  ‘Oh, well that explains it. Very smart as well. That man is as tough a wheeler-dealer as you’re likely to come across. Don’t be fooled by the casual gear and backwoods associations. He knows exactly what he’s after.’

  Madi glanced at the notepaper in her hand. ‘What, do you suppose, is an otter lady?’

  SIXTEEN

  The Columbus goldmine disaster put Guyana on the front pages of papers all over the world. Newspapers ran graphic accounts of the polluted rivers and TV pictures of dead animals beside Amerindian villages were wired around the globe. Foreign correspondents and environment writers were soon pounding out stories of potential disaster on a massive scale.

  As it turned out, the damage control plan implemented by the miners and the government worked well and, at an undisclosed cost, the leaks were being plugged and the tailings dam wall strengthened. Water from the dam had been pumped temporarily into open cut pits to facilitate the work and ease pressure. All production at the goldmine had been suspended. Troubleshooting engineers from the United States were flown in and, using equipment hired from Antonio Destra, led a repair operation to bring the spill to manageable proportions.

  Connor Bain was closely involved in monitoring the whole operation for his organisation, which was keen to see the country’s mining industry reputation propped up as much as possible. Later in the year, it could have a major influence on the final price obtained from the sale of Guyminco.

  For more than a week Connor saw little of Madi, spending most of his time at the goldmine. But as soon as the crisis was under control he telephoned head office in New York and got the green light to resume his holiday for a few more days. Anxious to spend more time with Madi, he proposed they take up Xavier’s suggestion to visit the mysterious otter woman.

  Lester drove Connor and Madi to Ogle airport outside Georgetown to catch one of the light aircraft that serviced the Rupununi region of south-west Guyana. Matthew had sent them off with a light-hearted plea to make it a danger-free excursion for a change. ‘I think that one more dead body, Madi, will be enough for the immigration department to deport you as an undesirable influence. If Inspector Palmer doesn’t get you first on suspicion of being a serial killer.’

  ‘Ha, ha. Very funny, Matt,’ said Madi.

  Lester, who seemed to know practically everything about Xavier’s activities, briefed them on the destination. The owner of Caraboo ranch, Katherine McGrath, was ‘one swell lady’, he said. In his opinion, she was ‘a legend’. The Rupununi comprised extensive grasslands, cattle country and attractive waterways including the legendary El Dorado lake. But in Lester’s opinion it was not in the same class as his jungle hideaway. But then, he admitted, perhaps diamonds made him biased.

  Ogle airport, used mainly by light aircraft, was basic in a quaint sort of way. The set of scales for weighing passengers looked like a bathroom reject. The plane, in Madi’s eyes, looked like a flying cane toad. A small ramp dropped from its rear behind the high stubby wing. Passengers and freight were loaded together. A man in navy shorts and white shirt with gold-coloured wings over one pocket, licked the end of his pencil and added Madi’s weight, including her baggage, to a list of figures, toted it up and drew a line. ‘No more,’ he called to the freight handlers. ‘We be over.’ Madi eyed Connor nervously.

  They climbed up the ramp to find the interior was very open plan, a single row of seats on either side, freight stowed wherever there was space and the pilot and co-pilot perched up front. Madi found her seat belt broken, so draped it across her lap and leaned back in her seat—which promptly collapsed.

  ‘You could sleep all the way,’ shouted Connor jovially above the engine noise and helped her secure the seat upright.

  They were headed for Letham, the administrative centre of the Rupununi district, and close to the Brazilian border. In little over an hour they landed with a bounce and bumped along the dirt, engines screaming as the plane raced towards a rusted chain-link fence at the end of the runway. A thud and a shudder went through the aircraft as it slewed and the pilot seemed to momentarily lose control, then the aircraft steadied, slowed, did a U-turn and headed towards a few small buildings.

  After quickly looking out of his window, Connor turned to Madi. ‘Well, that’s what the bang was.’

  ‘What, did a propeller drop off or something?’

  ‘No, but it must be bent. We just decapitated a goat.’

  It looked as if they had stepped into a wild west frontier town. On the perimeter of the red dirt airstrip was a ramshackle building with a bell tower that leaned precariously. Faded and peeling paint proclaimed ‘Airways Office’. Nearby was a rum shop, a general store, a hotel, a scatter of houses and cattle yards. Goats and dogs snuffled in the litter and broken bottles. Yet beyond this there was a sense of space as the open grassy savannahs stretched to low hazy hills in the distance. Both Madi and Connor found it a refreshing relief from the coastal humidity and bustle.

  A stocky, smiling man came forward to greet them. ‘You must be Madison . . . the only blonde in this part of Guyana. You’re easy to spot. I’m Joseph. I’m taking you to Caraboo,’ he said with a natural informality.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, this is Connor Bain.’

  ‘I hope we’re not taking you out of your way,’ said Connor, shaking his hand.

  ‘No. I was going to take some supplies out to Caraboo anyway. So when Xavier contacted me I said no problem. You’re welcome.’

  Joseph supervised side
s of beef wrapped in wet sacks and plastic being loaded in the main cabin of the plane alongside passengers for the return flight.

  ‘Yours?’ queried Connor.

  ‘Some of it. It’s all been sold. Chilled prime beef for the hotels.’

  Amongst the casually dressed passengers flying back to Georgetown, two men in suits with loud ties and sunglasses looked incongruous as they walked out to the plane carrying small but expensive cases, securely locked. Connor looked at Madi and raised a questioning eyebrow. Joseph caught the look and grinned. ‘Brazilians. Probably carrying gold and illegal cash down to unload in Georgetown.’

  ‘So Brazil is just over there somewhere?’

  ‘Boa Vista is about an hour’s drive. It’s a big city over the border in Brazil. My wife likes it for shopping. Lots of action over there. Here it’s sleepy, except when we have the big rodeo at Easter. Now that’s something to see.’

  The plane lumbered out onto the strip for take-off.

  ‘Come and have a cold drink,’ Joseph grinned. ‘And take in some of the local colour.’

  Settled on stools covered in cowhide in the wire-meshed annex to the general store, they met Joseph’s wife, Christine, and a local identity who described himself as a ‘businessman’. Looking at his old shorts, grubby T-shirt, leather sandals repaired with twine, Madi dismissed him as a barfly passing the time of day. It was only later she learned the pudgy scruffy fellow at the bar was one of the richest beef barons in the south-west.

  After spending the night as guests of Joseph and Christine, they waved goodbye to their hostess and were on the road an hour after dawn. Joseph drove them through magnificent beef country, dotted with occasional outstation huts, some livestock yards and scattered herds of grazing cattle.

  There was something about it that made Madi think of the Australian bush. Strange, she thought, that a herd of cattle should trigger a twinge of homesickness. But a glance at the man riding behind the cattle made the picture of home fall apart. The horse was short-legged and squat, the rider wore leather chaps. The saddle was high backed and ornamental—silver glinting in the sunlight—as the rider sat back, his legs far forward, a straw hat rolled up at the sides at a rakish angle.

  ‘The vaqueros . . . cowboys, they’re good horsemen,’ said Joseph. ‘But I’ve seen Kate outride most of them during round-up.’

  ‘Tell us about her.’

  ‘Kate’s grandfather started Caraboo. He was an English prospector who took up ranching. His wife hated it and went back to England leaving her baby son, so the old man took an Amerindian mistress. He established an extended family and they all worked for him and their descendants are still there. The stories about Kate’s grandfather are legendary. Her daddy married an Englishwoman and they lived at Caraboo although they spent a lot of time in the UK. Kate also went to a good school and lived over there. Apparently she mixed in high society. She never married and came back when her parents died.’

  ‘So why would she come back here?’

  ‘Ask her. No one else was going to keep it going, I guess.’

  ‘What’s she like . . . as a person?’ asked Madi.

  ‘She’s in her sixties but strong as an ox. She still rides with the vaqueros, and a few months back when her car broke down she had to walk twenty-four kilometres in the dark, some of it across a flooded plain. It took hours before anyone came across her. Everyone has a Kate story.’

  ‘She sounds formidable,’ said Connor.

  ‘She’s tough like rawhide, but has a gentle soul. A very smart lady. I don’t always know what she’s talking about, the poetry and stuff.’

  ‘We’re looking forward to meeting her,’ said Connor, then added for Madi’s benefit, ‘Lester was right, it seems. She is a living legend.’

  They drove in silence for a while, Madi enjoying the scenery while Connor dozed fitfully in the back seat of the Land Rover. The spacious scrubby grasslands stretched to a long line of low hills in every direction. They bounced on log bridges over creeks, passed stands of unusual trees that Joseph said had leaves just like sandpaper. They glimpsed a distant glint of water. ‘That’s the famous Lake Parima. You heard about Sir Walter Raleigh’s El Dorado?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘That’s supposed to be the lake where the gilded man appears.’ Joseph drove on without another glance.

  ‘And do you think it’s true, the story about a secret golden city?’ asked Madi, trying to imagine a casino and hotel out here by the lake, a modern El Dorado of gambling for the high rollers.

  Joseph grinned and took his hands off the wheel briefly in a gesture of uncertainty.

  ‘Who knows? Guyana still holds many secrets. Many places probably never explored. But it’s a good story for the visitors, eh . . . the lost Golden City of Guyana.’

  ‘Joseph, have you ever heard of a plan for a place called Amazonia, a casino to be built near that lake?’

  Joseph gave her a curious glance. ‘I heard a rumour over the border in Boa Vista, but you hear a lot of wild stories down there. What do you know?’

  ‘Nothing, just a rumour too, I guess,’ said Madi realising if she said more she’d breach the confidence she’d promised Sasha St Herve when he had asked her to work on the project.

  ‘A casino that would recreate the city of gold, eh?’ mused Joseph. ‘Sounds like someone’s pie in the sky dream that one.’

  Two hours later the countryside changed. They drove into a jungle thicket and the rough road became little more than a trail. It was slow going but finally they drove into open country again. ‘This is the start of Caraboo,’ said Joseph.

  ‘Looks like pretty good grazing land,’ said Connor, but soon they were driving into something between a swamp and a flood plain. There were pools of water everywhere, including over most of the track, which Joseph happily splashed through as comfortably as if he were driving down a superhighway.

  Connor leaned forward and curled his hand at the nape of Madi’s neck, smoothing a tendril of her hair as he peered out of the muddy windscreen. ‘We’ll never be found,’ he whispered.

  ‘You won’t be if you keep making cracks like that. It’s a wonderful adventure. Beats playing banker, surely?’

  A short distance ahead was a small hut on a slight rise where an Amerindian stood waiting for them. As they splashed towards him, something rose out of the long grass, leaping from behind a tree. For a moment, from a glimpse at the edge of her peripheral vision, Madi had the impression of a gazelle, a deer, some long and graceful creature. She turned to see, and there, running through the watery scrub, was a tall lanky woman, laughing and waving her arms in great sweeps as she came closer.

  Joseph grinned. ‘That’s Kate. God knows what she’s been doing.’ He stopped by the thatched shed and greeted the Amerindian warmly. Connor and Madi leapt out to watch Kate McGrath lope out of the scrub. ‘Madi,’ said Connor as he took in the spectacle, ‘I think I’m really going to like this. Have you ever seen anyone like her?’

  She was nearly two metres tall and thin as a reed, brown-skinned with khaki trousers rolled to her knees, a fawn shirt tucked into a wide leather belt and stout leather sandals. Her hair was tied on top of her head with a bright red bandanna. Her laughter echoed as she splashed through the watery grass.

  ‘Welcome to Caraboo.’ She held out long fingers and shook hands with a strong clasp. Her voice was deep and throaty, her speech beautifully enunciated, but Madi was mesmerised by her face, which her mind immediately classified as magnificent. A wide square jaw, impossibly high cheekbones, and hazel eyes set wide apart. She had a broad smile and white, even teeth. There seemed to be no spare flesh on her and the tautness of her fine-boned face stretched away any wrinkles or sagging skin. Squint lines under her eyes and between her eyebrows and two furrows on either side of her nose to her mouth, hinted at her mature years. She wore no make-up and Connor thought what a beauty she must have been, and still was.

  ‘I’m so glad you are here, and you’ve brought mail! Good news i
ndeed—well, one hopes it is.’ She chuckled, and, as Joseph began pulling bags from the back, she gestured to the stoic-looking Amerindian man who hadn’t moved. ‘Dali, come. Help with these bags.’ Turning to Madi and Connor, she gave a wide smile. ‘We are flooded in, so you are lucky. While it’s a longer way in, the boat trip is the scenic route.’ She waved to a wooden longboat pulled into the bank with an old outboard motor on the stern.

  With their bags stowed, Kate dragged out some kapok-filled life vests in faded orange canvas. ‘Regulations. Now settle yourselves. Joseph, you can steer; Dali, you sit in the bow and be lookout.’ Then in an aside to the visitors added, ‘He’s the only one who knows the way.’ She stepped gingerly into the longboat which could have held a dozen or more people.

  Connor and Madi sat beside each other and faced Kate who began delving into a cooler as they set off along the marshy waterway. Out came a rum bottle filled with punch. She passed them plastic cups of a powerful fruit and rum concoction. ‘Have you had lunch?’

  ‘I had a chocolate bar,’ said Madi.

  ‘I slept,’ said Connor. Kate reached for a plastic container. ‘Some biscuits to go on with. We’ll have a nice dinner.’ She lifted her cup. ‘A toast—welcome to Caraboo, may you leave enriched.’

  Madi and Connor touched plastic cups and exchanged soft smiles. Kate beamed and passed a cup of punch to Joseph, and the tin of biscuits to Dali who squatted in the bow, his eyes scanning the way ahead. Silently he took a handful without looking back.

  They carefully navigated across the flooded landscape of channels and small lakes into a creek that soon became a river. Madi could see how it had overflowed and simply made the land around part of it.

  Connor was enchanted by the off-beat way in which the trip was developing, much to Madi’s delight. ‘I think I feel a bit like old Sir Walter, plunging into the unexplored depths of the continent.’ He turned to Kate. ‘Is all this yours? How do you cope with the isolation and the work?’