Red Can Origami

by Madelaine Dickie

  A good thirty seconds pass before you say,

  —Excuse me. Can I order a drink?

  He keeps at the glasses. The girls next to you stop their conversation.

  —What’s this about, sis? He served us our drinks without any drama … What are you having?

  —Schooner of Coopers.

  —Boy! shouts the woman. Do your job! Bring him one schooner of Coopers.

  Dreadlocks pours the drink without looking at you. Foam spills over the sides. You slide across a ten and he makes a languid track to the till, pelvis first.

  —Are you girls from Gubinge?

  —Nah, we’re from Stockmen’s, one of the women says. You been?

  —Coupla times. I’ve got a friend out at Devil’s Gorge.

  —Oh, yeah. Who’s that?

  —Noah Ishikawa.

  The bigger woman whistles, sour breath sieving between teeth.

  —You better be careful then, sis.

  —Why’s that?

  She adjusts a bra strap.

  —He used to be husband for my cousin Katherine. They got four kids together. He gives those kids nothing. They can barely afford school uniforms!

  She turns to the smaller woman,

  —You seen the car he’s driving round in? Big flash one? Only way he can afford a car like that is by robbing that station blind. Devil’s Gorge is nearly bankrupt. And now he’s gone and sold Burrika country to some Japanese mining mob, just to line his own pockets! You reckon Burrika will get anything out of this?

  —Nah, she says, turning her beer on its coaster. We’ll get nothing.

  —Burrika will only get nothing if they don’t sort out their governance, you say.

  —What do you mean by that?

  The mood’s turned dangerous and you realise you’ve overstepped a line. Dreadlocks inches closer, limpet pace, to listen in.

  —Just that the best thing Burrika can do, when faced by things like mining proposals, is to stand together. Otherwise, I think you’re right, you risk getting nothing.

  The bigger woman’s eyes are still narrowed and she’s wondering whether to hammer you further when Ash appears, dripping wet and with a cheerful, uncomplicated grin.

  —G’day girls!

  Within minutes, he’s discovered that he works with one of the women’s brothers at TAFE. You watch him charm them: the eye contact, the piss-taking. The tension wilts and there’s no further mention of Burrika’s governance, or why you, a kartiya, are cheeky enough to pass judgement.

  A wooden chair takes a ride onto the balcony. A couple of used napkins, sticky with tomato sauce, race after it in a gust.

  —How’s this? Ash says finally, settling into a seat opposite you.

  —Epic!

  —You look gorgeous tonight.

  —Bet Imogen wouldn’t be happy to hear that.

  —Imogen? Nah, it’s over.

  You’re not surprised. Imogen’s not the type to do long-distance. Or short-distance, for that matter. She wears men down like heels, grinds them until all you can hear is the sound of conflict, nail on cement.

  —Are you okay?

  Ash shrugs, says,

  —So, how’s work going?

  The wind spritzes your skin with tiny drops. It’s your turn to shrug off the question. But Ash isn’t going to let it go. He spins the stud in his ear.

  —Have you thought about it, Ava? I mean really thought about it? The bigger consequences of this work of yours?

  —How do you mean?

  —I mean when it fucks up. I mean what will happen to this uranium of yours after you’ve hauled it out of the ground.

  —Well, it’s likely it will go to Japan. And the Japanese are meticulous. If the uranium was going to India, then I might be worried …

  Ash leans back in his chair.

  —Y’know, when I was nineteen I did the big Europe trip. Started with a Contiki tour, God knows why, then I headed off on my own, through Eastern Europe.

  Over the bay, a sheet of lightning irradiates the dark cones of the clouds.

  —I got chased by wolves in Latvia, got robbed and spent a week sleeping rough in Hungary, ended up in Belarus. Was warned to steer clear of milk, was warned not to eat any fresh fruit or veg.

  You interrupt,

  —Chernobyl was, what, thirty years ago? The technologies have improved that much. Those reactors in Japan, they’re disaster-proof. And we’re not even dealing with the reactor side of things. We’re just mining the stuff. Whatever happens after that …

  —Ava! Just listen for once!

  Over the deck, there’s the oblique and glass-like fall of the rain.

  You listen as Ash tells you about the fireman, Vasily Ignatenko, one of the first on the scene at Chernobyl. For fourteen days, his wife nursed him. As sheets of radioactive skin came off in her hands, she nursed him. As he coughed up pieces of his own lungs, his own liver, she nursed him. She was six months pregnant. Her baby died at four hours old.

  You listen and finish your beer and think, Ash, it’s a stretch, this connection between Chernobyl and a small-scale uranium mine in the outback. In 2010? It’s a stretch.

  And then, as a wheelie bin flies across the car park, as one of the fishing club’s shade sails zips in half, he says,

  —Anyway, sorry to bring up work after hours, but there was something else, something you should know.

  —About Chernobyl?

  —Not about Chernobyl. About Noah Ishikawa.

  The evening’s unsettled. Gold-winged moths fluster the bulb and the wind peels wet maple leaves from your pavers. Around eight o’clock you get a call from Watanabe. You’re tempted to let it ring out but it’s early days and you’re still keen to impress. Watanabe instructs you to pack a bag for a mining conference over East in Newcastle. Mandy’s got the flu and he wants someone to field media enquiries. The plane leaves tomorrow morning at six.

  At first you’re pissed at the short notice and stressed by the extra work. But a quick rake through the conference website gives you reason to change your mind. Noah will be there. He’s delivering one of the keynote speeches. You’ll be able to pass on Ash’s warning. Posters, Ash had said. Tell Noah that in a week or so, there’ll be posters of him all over town, and that they’re gunna be fucken awful.

  Over the tin roofs, a wasp-sting of lightning; the tail of one storm.

  The freeway to Newcastle cuts through weeping wedges of sandstone. It cuts through national parks where you can’t light fires, shoot wallabies, or unroll a swag wherever you please. It crosses a wide river, luminous grey, and sheared by sideways rain.

  In Melbourne, you related to the city by identifying with certain landmarks: work, uni, Woolies, a handful of local clubs and bars. When you went on holiday to other parts of Australia, the map on the GPS mirrored a kind of concrete map in your mind, once again anchored by certain places in the built environment. A lighthouse, a servo, a café.

  But since you’ve been up north, your imagination ticks in unexpected ways. Through the window you see ridgelines, gullies and soap trees. Passing through this sombre landscape of muted olives and greys, you wonder: what would be the best tide to fish the river on? What did the mob use for bait? Where are the women’s places? Who knows the right songs for country? What do Wamberal and Woy Woy and Budgewoi mean? It’s as if this fresh map, thin as tissue paper, has been superimposed over your old way of knowing and relating to place.

  The feeling intensifies over the next few days. The density of the city’s concrete and asphalt is oppressive. The terraces are packed too tight, too tame. There are hundreds of four-wheel drives that have never seen soft sand or blacksoil. Everything works, the taps even run cold, and the temperature’s terrifyingly clement. Terrifying because another part of you recognises how easy it would be to live here. How much easier it would be than Gubinge.

  On the second day of the conference, which is in a five-star harbour-side hotel, there’s a lunch for the homeless. It’s a philanthropic gestu
re: mining executives dine side by side with homeless people and afterwards, everyone gets a show bag. They’re being handed out now. Green bags for the homeless, blue for the corporates. The queue shuffles forward.

  That’s when you see Noah. You kept an eye out for him all day yesterday, hoping to catch him in a quiet moment, hoping to share Ash’s warning. It’s not something for a phone call; it’s too vicious. Too much could go wrong in the silence. But despite rushing between sessions and speeches, you didn’t see him anywhere.

  Now he’s here in the queue, about five people in front of you and locked in an intense conversation with a woman. She’s over six feet tall and stunning, radiating the hopeful optimism particular to eighteen-or nineteen-year-olds. No-one can take their eyes off the couple. They have dignity, gravity; they’re like royalty.

  Behind a pile of show bags, the conference delegate sees none of this. She doesn’t see Noah or the girl’s corporate dress; she doesn’t see their briefcases. She sees only that they’re Aboriginal and, unthinkingly, she hands them the wrong show bags, she hands them green show bags containing a toothbrush, toothpaste and a meal voucher for the local RSL.

  Outside, the young woman, with a final stinging look over her shoulder, splits to take a call.

  You rush forward, touch Noah’s shoulder. He turns, surprised. In his face, there’s a more acute version of your own discomfort at being here. You want to tell him, I don’t belong here either. Give me pandanus palms and appalling heat. Give me beers and barra for breakfast. Give me light like tinfoil and liquid pindan sunsets, the ones that seem as if a giant hand has pitched wet earth at the sky. Give me men monstrous on meat, fatly muscled and hairy; not these bland executives, or neat, thin hipsters, with their skinny jeans and trimmed beards and affectations of nonchalance.

  —It’s nice to see another face from home, he says warmly. First my cousin, now you!

  —That’s your cousin?

  Noah laughs at your relief.

  —Yeah, on Dad’s side. She’s a Gubinge girl, but she’s been studying law at Sydney Uni.

  David’s just exited the foyer, is closing in. You say,

  —There’s something I need to talk to you about. Do you have any time this evening?

  —How about after my presentation? I’m on at five in the Silver Room. Meet you after that?

  His tone’s casual; he’s missed the urgency. But it’s too late to stress it harder, because David’s pulled up next to you, he’s pumping Noah’s hand, sucking in his gut, and deepening his voice in a blokey way that means mateship and business.

  The room’s full of kartiya: mining mob from Perth, the Hunter Valley and the Pilbara, from towns where there’s a catastrophe of overpasses and the all-night baying of trucks, where open-cut canyons gulp red and everything’s designed to dwarf.

  The computer doesn’t read Noah’s USB. A message pops up on the screen. The USB is corrupt. No PowerPoint? No worries. Noah folds the computer shut and stands in front of the lectern. His session’s on native title, agreement-making, and the good working relationship Gerro Blue has with Burrika. David’s asked that you record the whole thing and send copies to Gerro’s lawyers. He’s next to you now and gives Noah a thumbs up. Noah ignores him, or perhaps he doesn’t see.

  —I’m a Burrika man, he starts. My country stretches from the saltwater in the west, through river country and then into the desert in the east.

  East and west of where? you want to prompt. They don’t know where you’re talking about, tell them where.

  —I manage Devil’s Gorge Station. My grandfather was a Japanese pearl diver. My grandmother was born on Devil’s Gorge, on Burrika country, under a boab tree. I was raised by my grandmother’s and my mother’s people. They’ve lived on Burrika country for over forty thousand years. I have three brothers and one sister …

  The audience, at first prepared to humour him, are already tiring. One man checks his wristwatch. Another checks his phone.

  Come on Noah, this isn’t about your family tree.

  —My sister, she’s got a good job at the local paper. And two of my brothers, they work with me out on the station. My other brother, the eldest, he’s no longer with us. And a lot of our old people, they’ve gone too. A lot of our old people were killed.

  Wristwatch stares out the window, then down at his program, as if wishing for a breather at the bar.

  —There was a massacre on Burrika country, at De Beer Downs Station, in the late sixties.

  Noah pauses, ready to challenge any disbelievers, anyone who would argue that the sixties is too close. But no-one says a word. No-one moves. Even Wristwatch is now warily attentive.

  —My grandmother survived. She hid deep in the belly of an ancient coral reef. She hid in the caves of our country.

  You realise where he’s going with this and turn your face to the window, to the nude rocks, washed out by rain, and to the clouds, like sticky tar; you turn so you don’t have to look at his face, that crude and violent grief.

  Noah tells the audience about the massacre site that was churned up by Gerro’s bulldozer, about the lack of apology from Gerro Blue’s CEO, and about the implications for other companies that don’t respect cultural heritage.

  —We will fight you, he says simply. You will not earn a social licence to operate. You will not get your native title agreement. And we will do everything to ensure your projects on our country do not earn you, or your shareholders, a single cent.

  That old cliché would be true, about the sound of a pin drop, except that the journos in the room, delighted, are madly clicking pics, and David, in the seat next to you, is letting out a whale-pitched strain of panic.

  Back at your room, fingers of salt-diffused light play on the carpet. The clouds are clearing. You call Mandy.

  —I know you’re sick, but …

  She gets it. With a reputational blow this heavy.

  —If you can send me the audio, I’ll take it from here.

  Watanabe calls, says,

  —We’ll publicly apologise if they sign off on the agreement. Let the Burrika boss know.

  Noah doesn’t pick up, so you text him your room number, tell him it’s urgent. Then you flip open your lappy. There are a couple of requests for interviews which you forward on to Mandy, and an email from Lucia, containing three proofs of advertisements that will run in this week’s Daily Gubinge.

  I got the heads-up on these. I thought you might be interested.

  The first ad is a full-page photo of half a dozen infants of Chernobyl. Children with huge black eyes and heads moon-bald from chemo. The second is of a cowering child with rhinoceros-large feet, all mottled with bulges and blood clots. The third is an image you recognise from Hiroshima, an appalling photo of a woman’s naked back and arms, skin ridged red with keloid scars. It’s as if the skin has been flensed, or turned inside out.

  On each advertisement, there’s Green Gubinge’s logo, the slogan Use your cranium, no uranium.

  Something rolls sour and scared in your gut.

  Then, cynicism kicks the brain into gear. These ads are totally dishonest. Gerro Blue isn’t setting up a nuclear reactor with cooling systems that might melt; they’re simply digging up the uranium. All of the checks and balances are in place so that workers won’t be exposed to radon decay. And Australia doesn’t supply uranium for nuclear weapons, only for energy, so the Hiroshima photo is wilfully deceptive.

  You check your phone again. Still nothing from Noah.

  When he hasn’t replied or come over by eight you consider dolling up and hitting the harbour-side bars—clicking along the decking in white heels with the confidence you get in cities where you don’t know anyone. The glass bottles of liquor will be lit in a moody disco of blues and purples, and you’ll get flirting with a well-groomed man in his forties. He’ll have the chiselled jaw of an ex–footy player, and soft lines of heartbreak around the eyes …

  Yeah, nah.

  In undies and an oversized t-shirt, you crunc
h down minibar nuts, hard as bullets, and turn on ABC News 24.

  Ash’s half right. He’s right about there being posters of Noah. But when you get back to Gubinge you see there’s also a second target: Watanabe. The men’s faces, blown up large on hundreds of corflute signs, look like the eerie wanted photos papering Tokyo’s buses and noticeboards.

  Noah’s features are pixelated, his skin’s sweating. It looks like he’s leaving the pub, like his profile’s been caught in an unflattering flash. He doesn’t look forty-something; he looks much older. Odd, what the camera sees and the eyes see past. Across his face is the word ‘coconut’.

  Watanabe looks smug and cold and cruel. He, too, is caged behind the bar of a single word: ‘criminal’.

  You call Lucia. She comes right away. She’s in tears. As you rip out the first few poster pickets, she confesses,

  —I’m worried about him, Ava. He hasn’t been himself lately. Even without this shit …

  A pedestrian passes, gawking, and Lucia jabs a picket at him.

  —Hey, you! Give us a hand or fuck off!

  The pedestrian fucks off. You don’t tell her you heard this would happen.

  —How do you mean, he hasn’t been himself?

  —Ever since this deal with Gerro came up. He’s carrying it, you know? I think he’s worried that Katherine’s family won’t sign off on the agreement because he’s Katherine’s ex, and he’s the one pushing for it. The Greys will do anything to make his life miserable. And I think he feels that if the agreement is good enough and it doesn’t get over the line, it’ll be his fault.

  You wonder if she’s heard about Noah’s speech in Newcastle. From Noah’s public comments, it’s uncertain whether he’ll recommend the agreement.

  —Is there anything I can do for him?

  —Sis, I don’t know that there’s anything either of us can do for him. But I reckon ripping out these fucken things is a good start.

  It takes hours to track down all the signs. By the time you get home, it’s all over the Gubinge First Noticeboard. You read a few remarks, then can’t bear to read more. No-one picks up the landline at Devil’s Gorge.