Whipbird

by Robert Drewe

  But unlike Simon, those boys didn’t think they were dead yet. They might be troubled by the dreaded post-traumatic stress disorder but they badly wanted to live, thanks very much.

  However, he wasn’t a shrink or a neurologist. And of course where Simon was concerned he, Ryan Cleary, would always be a thirteen-year-old innocent demoralised by the sophistication of his three-years-older cousin. Demoralised by everything: his facial hair, obscene language, ability at adult card games (Simon was a shrewd card sharp at poker and pontoon), his musical expertise. Above all, his ease with alcohol, drugs and girls.

  A mid-’70s Christmas Day at Uncle Mick’s and Aunty Kath’s: Cousin Simon’s a cool and wily sixteen, entertaining Cleary and Casey oldies at the piano, amusingly turning carols into boogie-woogie, rocking ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Good King Wenceslas’, soaking up applause as the family’s ascendant star, his violent Brut after-shave masking the smell of pot on his clothes and the Bundaberg rum swigged in the laundry an hour before, the silver hipflask nonchalantly, sophisticatedly, bulging from his jeans pocket.

  After the turkey and ham, as the adults doze in chairs in front of the TV, Simon is noodling again at the piano while blithely crooning his Sly Cleary scoring system for sex with girls, to the tune of ‘Me and Bobby McGee’.

  How shameful, Ryan thought, that Simon’s mantra is still wedged in my brain as firmly as John 2:1-12. And I’m supposed to be a moral compass!

  He could have recited it – sung it! – right then on the vineyard dais: ‘Number one is holding hands, two is hugging, three is kissing, four is upstairs outside, five is upstairs inside, six is downstairs outside, seven is downstairs inside, eight is finger in the pie, nine is saddled up, and ten (triumphant ten) is riding bareback.’ Bareback!

  ‘Don’t waste your time with the numbers below five,’ Simon had airily advised young Ryan, tossing him a packet of condoms as he left for Catholic Youth Outreach summer camp. ‘You’ll be needing plenty of these for the Loreto molls. And watch out for Father Hughes in the showers.’

  Thea, disgusted, threatened to tell on him. But Simon could easily get around his older sister by making one of his jokey retarded faces and turning her name into a song. What luck that it rhymed with diarrhoea!

  And Ryan, appalled, amused and impressed by all this, stayed in his cousin’s thrall.

  3

  In the paddock beyond Ryan’s bleary congregation the Posh Nosh girl with the lovebites was now taking a cigarette break. Contemplating the night before? A stubbled, bare-skulled boy in checked cook’s pants joined her, patted her bottom, and they sat down together, laughing and smoking.

  As well as sorting out Simon, Ryan still had to shower some goodwill on the vineyard, and bless it, too. Meanwhile, his stomach burbled gaseously, and the blank faces continued to look up at him.

  ‘We beseech Thee, Almighty God, to bless the struggling souls amongst the family and grant them peace of mind. Turn them from destructive habits as you forgive them. Bring them back to the reality of Your love and to a love of life and of the family that loves them. Bless them just as you pour down Thy blessing on these struggling young shoots and sprouts which Thou has provided with sunshine and rain, and make them grow into mature fruit.’

  That’s done. Better give Hugh a plug for the weekend’s hospitality as well. Where was Hugh, anyway?

  ‘Grant to hardworking wine growers like our cousin, brother, son, father and nephew Hugh Cleary Thy blessing that they may always give thanks to Thee for Thy gifts, and fill the thirsty with Thy hospitable and joyous offerings which the fruitful earth produces so that the sad, poor and needy may praise Thy glory.’

  And better do one for bloody pinot noir grapes, too, he supposed. Even though there weren’t any yet, and the whole enterprise looked pretty risky and overcapitalised in the current economic climate. He preferred a good cabernet or shiraz himself. Perhaps a nice merlot of a winter’s night. Pinot noir? Too soft. Might as well say a blessing for rosé!

  ‘Bless, O Lord, the new fruits of the vine which Thou will bring to maturity by the dew of heaven, by plentiful rains, and by tranquil temperatures and favourable sunshine, so that we may receive with thanks, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, this top-of-the-range Whipbird pinot noir.’

  That should do it, thought Father Ryan. He’d covered the family, Hugh, straggly vines, ‘dead’ Simon, non-existent grapes and pinot noir. Everything was blessed. Now he had bring it to a close and hurry to the portaloo.

  ‘What about a blessing for global warming?’ yelled the boy in black.

  Young mischief-making bastard! About to step down, Father Ryan paused for a moment on the dais, swallowed a coleslaw belch and took a deep breath. But maybe...‘Yes. Thank you.’ Josh, was it? Declan? ‘I’m grateful to my interjector for reminding me of something too important to let pass.’

  He chose his words carefully. ‘As a grateful guest I wasn’t going to mention this, but as a Catholic as well as a citizen of the earth I must respectfully disagree with our generous host, Cousin Hugh, on the alleged benefits of global warming, and support the call by Pope Francis for greater action to curtail it.’

  The crowd fell silent. More family dissension!

  ‘In Afghanistan the meaning-of-life questions arose for me every day. When I came home I realised there were moral questions that concerned me in the wider world as well. Unfortunately there’s rather more to the problem of global warming than the selective advantages climate change might bring to a particular region. Whipbird ’s luck comes at a price – the Great Barrier Reef ’s destruction, for example.’

  He let that sink in.

  ‘As you might know, the Pope will soon release the first encyclical on ecology, focusing on the damage caused by climate change to humanity and ecosystems. The encyclical charts a direction for everyone in the church: the cardinals, the bishops, the clergy, laypeople – and everyone here today. No offence to Whipbird ’s pinot noir grapes – I pray for their successful harvest – but the time is ripe for the Cleary family to push for greater action to curb global warming, whether it’s good for Whipbird wines or not.’

  People looked at each other, unsure of what to do next. Was he saying Hugh was selfish? Self-centred? Environmentally unsound? Evil? The sun slanted over the creek and as the day got warmer an atmospheric mirage began to quiver above the homestead roof like a shallow sea. People began to wipe sweating brows.

  What sort of a blessing ceremony was this? Off-colour jokes. Global-warming lectures. Thea and a few women in her vicinity were clapping vigorously. Several other men and women, feeling loyalty to Hugh was necessary after all the trouble he’d gone to, glared at the clappers, frowned at Father Ryan, grumbled, shuffled, and scuffed the gravel. Was this a case of Hugh versus the Pope?

  Ryan went for broke now. ‘As a member of Catholic Earthcare, I can only remind you to follow the example not only of Pope Francis but of popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They also spoke out on climate change. If you remember, Pope Benedict installed solar panels on church buildings in Rome and made the Vatican the world’s first carbon-neutral state. Let us, the fortunate members of this great Australian dynasty, follow their example.’

  Whew, he’d done it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hugh striding towards the dais. He couldn’t look in his direction. His stomach was about to explode. Thea was still clapping. Ryan left the dais and the confused hubbub of his relatives and hurried towards the lavatories.

  Behind him sounded a loud and angry voice. Hugh had grabbed the microphone.

  ‘May I have everyone’s attention? The painting I mentioned yesterday, Sidney Nolan’s Miner with Pan and Shovel, has mysteriously vanished. I’m hoping its removal from the dining-room wall is just a questionable family joke and not a real robbery, which obviously I’d have to report to the police. Being of such well-known provenance in the art world, it’s of no resale value illegally. So if anyone here has taken it, I would like it returned at once.’

  4
>
  The stolen Nolan had Hugh prowling the vineyard in a strange restive state all morning, an agitated host stomping around the paddocks with a thin, fixed smile, peering into cars and tents, and interrupting conversations to fire off questions, leaving bewildered and ruffled relatives in his wake. A warm wind had sprung up and little willy-willies of dust and dry tussock grass spun around the paddocks and twirled around his boots.

  He could see that Christine was in a foul mood of her own, angry at Liam for partying in town and for his continuing phone silence, and for some reason also disturbed about the twins (11.30 and they weren’t up yet), and furious at the mystery male who’d disobeyed her bathroom embargo and pissed on the floor.

  ‘Who could be so disgusting?’ she’d fumed. ‘Which of your relatives deliberately disregarded my notice? Some sick reprobate of an uncle? A puddle that size has to be malicious.’

  He sighed. ‘Do you want me to line up and question all the old prostate sufferers?’

  The disappearance of Miner with Pan and Shovel was his main concern. Had anyone spotted anything suspicious? Maybe an idiotic act of piracy by the swashbuckling Sheens? In an assortment of bandanas they were standing in a self-protective clump drinking coffee, coughing and muttering. With a hook protruding from his left sleeve, a skull and crossbones on his black bandana, and an eye patch, Darryl Sheen had gone full pirate this morning.

  ‘Look, you guys,’ Hugh said as he joined them. ‘I get the pirate stuff.’ He didn’t, not for a second. ‘A bit of family fun and games. I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but if for a joke you pillaged my painting in one of your buccaneer raids, just borrowed it for fun, please return the plunder. I don’t want to get the law involved. We can nip that embarrassment in the bud.’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ said pirate captain Darryl. The unpatched eye frowned and blinked. Darryl was a retired insurance household claims adjuster and, as Hugh recalled, had little to do with the sea or boats. Nor did the rest of the Sheens, although Darryl did have a son-in-law, Boris, for whom piracy came naturally. Boris, however, was well and truly absent.

  ‘Nothing personal, Captain Hook,’ Hugh said. ‘I’m telling everyone the same thing. That if it’s not returned by this afternoon it’s a police matter.’

  Darryl shook his head as if he was coming out of a coma. ‘I beg your pardon!’ he repeated, his unpatched eye still blinking furiously. ‘Let me get this right. Are you accusing us of theft?’

  ‘No piracy accusations, Blackbeard. Just trying to recover my property. You’d appreciate my point of view from an insurance perspective.’

  ‘My goodness!’ said Darryl’s wife Beverley, her cheeks flushing. In her horizontally striped red-and-white sweater, gumboots and ragged jeans she was no taller than a cabin boy. No bigger than Treasure Island’s Jim Hawkins, overhearing Long John Silver’s mutinous plot while hiding in the apple barrel. As Hugh pointed out to her now, she also resembled Wally from the Where’s Wally? brainteaser books. The twins had loved them when they were little.

  ‘Why is everyone being so mean and standoffish this weekend?’ Beverley whimpered.

  ‘Yo-ho-ho,’ their daughter Shelley interrupted, grinning humourlessly. Her emotions were already tightly wound following the recent sudden and much-discussed – on two seaboards – vanishing act of her husband. This was Boris, a West Australian real-estate developer and self-styled film producer.

  Boris had bolted from private and institutional investors, from Shelley and their three children, and from Australia, for a new life in the Philippines. The Sheens’ version of his disappearance wavered between a midlife existential crisis and an extended holiday. Hugh’s legal view was common-or-garden con man.

  ‘Shiver me timbers,’ Shelley added, staring vacantly into the vines. Drained of expression and make-up, her face seemed to be all forehead. Acres of forehead. Her hair was pulled back tightly and a sewn-on green cloth parrot drooped from a shoulder. ‘Pieces of eight!’ Shelley squawked.

  ‘Getting a bit wearying, that pirate stuff,’ said Hugh.

  Beverley’s tiny pink eyes brimmed with indignant tears. ‘See! So mean!’

  ‘Aarrgh!’ Shelley said, indifferently. ‘Fifteen fucking men on a dead man’s chest.’

  ‘See what you’ve done to Bev and Shelley?’ Darryl complained. ‘And Shelley’s not well, as you can see.’

  Hugh could see. Although in no doubt that Shelley’s emotional state could be entirely sheeted home to Boris, he mumbled, ‘Sorry, sorry. Unfortunately this theft is affecting the whole weekend.’ If Boris Ilic was here, he’d know who nicked the bloody painting. Boris even looked like a pirate, even without his display of pectorals and religious medals.

  After Boris fled the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for Manila and, word had it, bought a strip club in Makati with the film investors’ funds, Hugh was more than ever glad he’d passed on the ‘guaranteed profitable opportunity’ to buy investment units in Boris’s first (and only) film project, a reworking of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Set in the Pilbara mining country, involving rival biker-gang fortune-hunters, it was now in its seventh year of pre-pre-production.

  Eight years, two ASIC investigations and three little Ilics ago, Shelley had introduced her new boyfriend Boris Ilic to him at the Parmelia Hilton. Just a quick drink. Hugh was in Perth on legal business – a mining client was in native-title trouble – and Boris wanted to meet him. Seeking pro bono legal advice, Hugh imagined. Not so. Boris wanted him to invest in Blood in the Sand.

  Within their first five minutes in the Hilton bar, as Boris, already playing the Hollywood producer, loudly ordered a double bourbon for himself, a chardonnay for Shelley, a Scotch for Hugh, and flirted with the blonde bar attendant, Shelley proudly announced, in Hugh’s opinion, bizarrely, ‘Did you know Boris is Serbian for snow leopard ?’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Boris spun on his bar stool, agitating a spicy pong of hair product.

  ‘Also Serbian for godlike.’ He was still in his crucifix-and-chest-curls period back then.

  Seriously? thought Hugh. Oh, Shelley, Shelley. Get out now.

  Boris turned back to the barmaid, tendering his business card with both hands, like a precious offering. ‘I’m a film producer.’ His voice capitalised FILM PRODUCER. ‘Have you done any acting? You’d be perfect for my FILM. Let’s talk later. Call me.’

  Eighty kilos, smitten Shelley Sheen nudged Hugh in the ribs. ‘Look at that profile,’ she said. ‘Godlike.’

  Boris spun back from the barmaid. ‘Also a snow leopard.’

  Hugh took in the tailored eyebrows and the dark glasses reclining on the sleek crown of combed-back hair. The jacket slung loosely over the shoulders, sleeves dangling, Orson Welles style, completed the picture. Hugh’s drink tasted of Boris’s pomade. Boris was the sort of man who exuded. The courts were full of Borises.

  Shelley nudged Hugh. ‘He must have a role in his own movie. I’m insisting on it.’

  Boris ignored her and shone his whitened smile on Hugh. ‘Cousin, listen, we’re family. As good as. Mates rates apply. Have a look at this. How much can I put you down for?’

  He handed Hugh a glossy pamphlet: Blood in the Sand Investment Agreement. ‘The producers,’ Hugh read, ‘are seeking $5 million in units of $100 000 (or part thereof over $20 000) from sophisticated investors for development and pre-production of this significant project. These funds will allow the development of the script, the attachments of key cast and crew, production budgeting, and presentation and marketing of the film to the world’s leading studios.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t think I’m a sophisticated enough investor,’ Hugh said, passing the document back.

  ‘Cuz, a little bird told me you’re loaded.’ Boris displayed his over-whelming white teeth, then assumed a sombre face again as he read aloud from the prospectus. ‘Listen to this. “At the commencement of principal photography the investor will be entitled to recoup their full investment plus 30 per cent.” Gener
ous or what? “But the investor can choose to roll over their initial investment, including the 30 per cent return, into the production funding as an equity investment participant on the same basis as the producer.”

  ‘That last bit is what I strongly advise,’ Boris said. ‘Rolling over your investment.’

  Hugh hurried through his drink. Call it Blood from a Stone instead, he thought.

  ‘You’ll be really interested in the optional benefits,’ Boris listed them. ‘A rolling end credit, two one-day passes to visit the film set, two tickets to the wrap party. Ever been to a wrap party? High jinks galore there.’ He winked lasciviously. ‘And another two tickets to the premiere. Red carpet and all. Plus a DVD of the completed movie.’

  ‘Very showbizzy,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Spot-on, my friend. But what I’m guessing is right up your particular alley, barrister’s ego and all that,’ Boris said, grinning irritatingly, ‘being an extra in the film.’

  ‘Not my scene, sadly,’ Hugh demurred, finishing his drink.

  ‘For a double investment, let’s say fifty grand, you’ll have a speaking part, an actor’s credit and get to kiss a gorgeous actress.’ Boris winked again. ‘Guaranteed. It’ll be written in the script.’

  Hugh said his goodbyes then as Boris called after him. ‘The scene can need many takes! As many as you want!’

  Oddly, Shelley hadn’t forgiven Hugh for declining the Blood in the Sand investment opportunity. Declining to be burned, like half the population of Perth had been. As she’d been herself, for God’s sake. As he strode off now, waving a placatory hand to the Sheens, Hugh muttered, ‘Yo-ho-ho.’

  He headed towards Rosie Godber and Bronwyn Donaldson, sharing a morning champagne with miscellaneous L’Estranges.