by Susan Duncan
‘Then there’s quiet little coastal towns – not unlike the offshore clusters all over Cook’s Basin – and one morning, locals wake up to find there’s a swank hotel blocking their view and access to the beach. Or one day, the pristine wetlands rich with birdlife in your country-town backyard have suddenly been re-zoned for housing. Surely “wetlands” is a pretty strong hint that the location might not be ideal for a string of villas aimed at retirees. Not unless they’ve got webbed feet, anyway.’
‘Pressure of population, Sam. Too many people. Not enough land. And even the strongest dissenters can lose track of their scruples when a hefty cheque is waved under their noses.’
‘Maybe. But if we all stand back and let some shonky idiot rip into the heart of Island life for the sake of a few dollars, we’ll never forgive ourselves. Something’s got to give sometime. Or we’re all buggered in the end. But where do we bloody start when we don’t even have a name to call the enemy?’
‘Quis licit, Sam,’ Kate says, sounding resigned.
‘Not following you . . .’
‘Who profits? Track the money, Sam. You’ll find the culprits when you uncover the source of the money.’
It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask for her help. But suddenly he’s not sure where she stands. If he has to guess, he reckons she’ll sit quietly on the fence. A bull-at-a-gate man, he’d once asked her about her tendency to observe instead of act, hoping some of it might rub off on him. Turned out it was another of those journo habits she couldn’t shake. ‘Journos look at every angle, never take sides. It’s all about objectivity.’ In Cook’s Basin, he almost said at the time, the fence-sitters were regarded as a waste of space. ‘So all we have to do is find the source, eh, and twist his arm until he gives in and buggers off?’
‘There’s one other thing you need to check,’ she says. ‘There are often little-known and frequently changing state regulations that allow large projects to by-pass local councils and head straight to the State Housing and Development minister who can tick them off without even notifying parliament. Sadly, it doesn’t take much to buy a politician.’
‘Jeez, Kate, they’re bloody strong words.’
‘Trust me, if this is already a done deal – and in my view it probably is – you’ll be able to smell the rot all the way to the premier.’
Sam pulls from his pocket the brochure he nicked. ‘Found this in a drawer. What do you reckon? A bunch of unrelated bible-bashing happy clappers or the real deal?’
Kate gets up to turn on a light that casts a soft yellow glow across the water. It’s still hot as hell. The sea smells swampy. A swarm of insects hones in on the glow. Bang. Bang. Bzzt. Ducking the barrage every so often, she studies the front page for a long time. Breaks off to fish out a Christmas beetle that’s fallen down her shirt and latched on to her left breast. Sam sits waiting. He watches her face intently, like it’s a book he might be able to read. She catches him. Gives a quick smile. Opens to the inside blurb and reads every line. When she looks up, she’s frowning. ‘Could be dealing with a cult, Sam. I’ll check into it, if you like.’
He feels a swell of euphoria. She’s moved off the fence and onto the sidelines. It’s a start.
With a half-smile, she asks: ‘Your place or mine?’
In the dark, the cloud cover thick again, Sam follows Kate’s boat across a flat sea all the way to Oyster Bay, guiding the Mary Kay around the winking green shallow-water marker at Stony Point. Lamplight shines through the windows of the Misses Skettles’ home. Sleep, they tell him, eludes the aged. He politely refrains from revealing that he’s often arrived in the early afternoon and found the two of them dozing peacefully in their rosy armchairs, wearing their rosy pink outfits, rosy pink lips hanging slack. Out behind him, phosphorescence plumes and skitters like sparkling green goblins in the black wall of a merging sea and sky. The night feels syrupy.
Inside Kate’s sandstone house it’s much cooler but the air is still thick with moisture. Here and there, he notices condensation trickling down a wall. First it’s drought, he thinks. Six long anxious years of tapping tanks to check water levels and holding back from flushing the dunny until it verged on a health hazard. Now if a dry spell doesn’t kick in soon, everyone in Cook’s Basin will be wiping mould from nooks and crevasses and dragging their one good suit out of the cupboard before it shuffles off unassisted. He follows her into the whitewashed kitchen where the timber benches are scrubbed to paleness. The room holds the promise of warmth and succour but seems trapped in rigid, clinical order. Like Kate, he thinks, wondering – not for the first and he’s sure as hell it won’t be the last time – what strange, untrustworthy chemistry keeps sucking him back into her orbit; why a romantic confluence of two consenting adults can sometimes feel more like punishment than pleasure.
She opens the fridge door, her eyebrows raised. ‘A beer?’
He nods. Senses her mood has slipped a little. Can’t think what to do about it. He goes back to square one. ‘Track the money, you say?’ He takes the frosty bottle, feels the cold on his hand like a blast of air-conditioning, twists off the top. Watches as she grabs a bottle of white wine from the fridge, a glass from a high shelf so she has to balance on tiptoes, stretch her arms. Dark hair falls across her face for a second and it’s all he can do not to reach out and tuck it behind her ears. ‘You need to start by forming a committee,’ she says. She opens a drawer near the sink, rummages for a pencil. She rips a sheet of paper from a notepad near the phone. Returns to her chair. Sam leans in: is she moving in from the sidelines now? He watches her chest rise and fall. Wonders at the pulsing softness of women.
‘You’ll need a spokesperson. Passionate but cluey, who understands libel laws. A media liaison person who can write press releases. Of course a few celebrities on board is essential. It guarantees media attention.’
‘You’re kidding, right? What am I supposed to do? Call Nicole Kidman? Hey, Nicole, got a little problem you might be able to help out with. God, Kate . . .’
‘Celebrities make good copy. Soon as they open their mouths, ratings soar, newspapers sell. Doesn’t matter whether they’re smart or dumb as long as they can learn a few lines. And you’ll need a strategist to organise rallies and demonstrations. Also a website and a web master to keep it updated . . .’
Sam feels his optimism drizzle away in the cacophony of foreign jargon. What the hell is a web master? How do you find a spokesperson? Where in god’s name do strategists appear from? Why does she keep using the word you when he was hoping desperately to hear we? Christ, she has all this knowledge at her fingertips. If she put her mind to it, she could orchestrate a campaign single-handed. ‘This is starting to sound like Swahili, Kate,’ he says. ‘We’re a small community . . .’
‘A long time ago, I interviewed a man who saved a national treasure. He wasn’t a genius, he didn’t have much money and he didn’t have contacts in high places. He had nothing going for him except an unshakeable belief that his motives were pure and his fight was for the greater good. Every time he was pummelled to the ground, he laughed in their faces and bounced back. That’s the weird thing about the rich and powerful. They’re so used to stomping on the well-meaning poor until they cave in, they have no idea how to handle idealists.’
‘Jeez, Kate . . .’
‘You might as well know, I don’t think you have a chance of winning. Men like the one I just described come along once in every four lifetimes. Mostly, people just plain get worn out and walk away. Or someone breaks from the ranks and lets the enemy in.’
‘Never! Not in Cook’s Basin . . .’
‘Don’t be too sure. Here’s how it happens: you’re getting old. It’s becoming harder and harder to look after your house and pay the bills. One day, someone turns up on your doorstep, offers you a magic price for your property and guarantees ownership of a brand spanking new unit in a tasteful little development right where your house is
. Bottom line: easy-care home, money in the bank, and you don’t have to make new friends. Happens all the time. And you know what? It’s a good deal. Even the neighbours see that. They’ll all line up for their share and – snap! – the foreshore has a new identity. Times change, Sam. And there’s sweet Fanny Adams you can do about it.’
‘So you wouldn’t bother fighting this if some old bloke was getting a golden handshake and a change of lifestyle opportunity?’
‘We all have to adapt. Cook’s Basin can’t hold out forever.’
Sam slumps, the foot he’s been tapping so hard that the table rattled, goes still. The enormity of the job overwhelms him. He’s a bargeman, for chrissake. He cruises the waters of Cook’s Basin with the sun on his face, the tide coming and going under his feet. He does a job, he gets paid – well, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. He loves his life. He may not be a genius but the people he cares about understand the skill and concentration it takes to judge times, tides, loads and weather so no one’s life or property is ever at risk. They trust him. What if she’s right? What if this is a mad, pointless and potentially painful folly? What if the community bursts its collective gut and comes out with nothing to show for it but cracked heads and busted noses? Then he remembers reading a newspaper story about a cattle farmer from Burrell Creek who took on the state energy giants to stop construction of a huge new power grid in a pristine valley. Against all odds, he won. Sam leans over the table, his face close to the list, straining to read the words in the dim light. ‘Give me one job at a time.’
‘Get yourself a committee, Sam. Then take it from there.’
All through the night, the temperature stays stubbornly in the low thirties and the humidity is as thick as pea soup. Prime conditions for a cracker storm to rise out of nowhere. Sam and Kate lie side-by-side but not touching, too hot, too wired, for sleep. In the end, with eyes wide open but shielded by the dark, they talk to each other in soft tones. She asks him about his mother, his father, his boatshed life. Who built the barge? What timbers were used? The Misses Skettle – what were they like when they were much younger women? Tough eh? But oh so girlish with it. Ettie and the chef? Has he noticed Ettie seems more anxious lately? The roof of The Briny needs replacing or does he think it will see out the winter? Isn’t Jimmy’s pup well behaved? So roly-poly sweet. Once or twice, he questions her on subjects he considers safe but, like a good journo, she flicks them back. He retreats with grace, holding back from gushing on about love, marriage, kids, an ordinary life together. He’s forty years old and in a rush to pin down the future. His problem, not hers. Her responses drop to a slurred murmur and her breathing grows deep and rhythmic. Using a corner of the sheet, he dabs gently at the sweat gathered in the hollow of her neck. Careful not to wake her.
*
Not long after dawn, the heat wears him down and he gets up to brew a cup of tea. Pours another when he hears Kate stirring. He takes it in to her. An ancient, dinted cash box of the kind his father once kept hidden up the chimney in the boatshed where they lived, takes up most of the space on her bedside table. He’s never seen it before. She reaches for the tea with a smile that tears his heart. Just in time, he swallows what he was about to say, knowing she’s not ready to hear that he’d be happy to bring her a morning cuppa for eternity. A cool breeze sneaks in from nowhere and skates across the floorboards. In the distance, thunder rumbles. The air is thin and feverish now. The first few drops of rain hit the roof like the tap of a hammer. ‘Want to fill in time till the rain stops?’ he asks, grinning.
‘I might get fired if I’m late for work.’
‘That’s the beauty of being a boss. You call your own shots.’
She slides easily into his arms where she stays until long after the tea goes cold.
After she’s gone, he takes his time showering, washing their mugs and making the bed, pulling the sheets tight as a drum, tucking the corners neatly. He finds he enjoys the process of completing these small domestic chores to the best of his ability when, mostly, he used to race through them.
Outside, the morning sky is dull and low. The rain-swollen tail-end of a cyclone that’s already hammered northern Queensland is on the way. In the wheelhouse, he finds a note weighted with a small shackle. Have a favour to ask. Could you bring a writing desk from Emily’s unit? It belonged to my father. The pick-up address is written in block letters. Below, there’s a PS. Deliver it to Frankie at the boatshed. No signature. Short, sharp and to the point. For a former journo, he thinks wryly, she’s bloody frugal with words. Sam carefully folds the paper and places it in his back pocket. He points the duckbill bow of the Mary Kay towards Cutter Island, which climbs out of the deep blue sea like an upended cone, wondering why he suddenly feels like his engine’s blown and he’s adrift on a rising sea without even a piece of canvas to rig to bring him home.
Chapter Six
The rain sets in steadily and heavily right up to Saturday morning, when it eases off until it’s light enough to be mistaken for a sea mist drifting in from the tropics. The bush, flattened for so long by the drought, rises in the heat and damp and runs rampant. Cissus vine curls upwards looking for light, bringing down weak young trees that collapse untidily across paths. Lantana reaches new infestation levels despite last year’s backbreaking weeding weekends (even the most dedicated bush regenners are feeling defeated). The land is awash with ticks, sand fleas and every other kind of garden pest that stings, bites or just plain aggravates. In backyards all over Cutter Island and the Cook’s Basin area, washing hangs limply on Hills Hoists, wetter than when it was first put out to dry. Soon, it will stink of damp and need washing again. One or two mothers with large, dirty broods of tear-away kids begin to hanker for a few weeks of drought – though they keep their thoughts to themselves, knowing to voice them would be sacrilege.
Miraculously, the rain eases at lunchtime and in the clammy afternoon, the residents of Cutter Island shuffle along steaming pathways and tracks mined with puddles towards the community hall, to plan a strategy to fight the development of Garrawi Park. There’s a record attendance that has nothing to do with the fact that Ettie and Kate have volunteered to provide a light early supper of roasted potato, zucchini, capsicum and pumpkin frittata – considering the enormity of the problem, the meeting is certain to flow into dinner time.
To combat what they all agree is a bad dose of heat fatigue, the crowd – covered by only enough clothing to remain decent in public – pounces on the crusty scones provided by the Three Js and anointed with the Misses Skettles’ homemade strawberry jam. Most of them skip the cuppas and move in soldier-crab formation towards the bar. Gasping for a frigidly cold, they insist it will only take a couple of quick swigs until they are sufficiently resuscitated to be of some practical and intellectual (heh, heh) use to the proceedings, which have been delayed anyway by the late arrival of Bill Firth, who finally appears full of apologies. He’d lost track of time, apparently. Paradise, eh? Who could blame him? As it turned out, paradise had nothing to do with it. His septic tank was overflowing and he couldn’t leave before he’d organised and overseen an emergency pump-out. Given the inclement weather, he suggests it might be advisable for the community to get together to make a group booking with the pump-out barge to keep the cost down should the rising water table plunge more of them into a similar deeply odourous and undesirable situation.
By the time the scones have been demolished and the crowd is well into the third beer, feelings are running as hot as the oven-like temperature in the hall. The president calls for order, aware that a move towards a fourth stubby might end all hope of rational discussion.
‘Right now, we’re all angry and upset. We feel like our park is being stolen . . .’
‘That’s because it is, mate,’ shouts Davo, one of the old Island hippies, whose two kids – according to rumour – were conceived like many others on a hot summer night under the spreading arms of the ancient cheese
tree. Wearing nothing but a yellow sarong accessorised with a beer, he rises purposefully from his seat.
Bill Firth smoothly cuts him off. ‘A good point, Davo, but before we go any further, we need a few facts. Let me give you a quick outline of the history of Garrawi Park before we get started.’ He clears his throat, shuffles around a few pieces of paper until they form some sort of order.
‘The park was left in trust to the people of Cutter Island in 1946 by Teddy Mulray.’ The crowd begins to murmur. Bill Firth holds his hand up for silence. ‘Yes, yes, I know we’re all aware of this fact.’
‘There’s a bloody engraved plaque with all the details under the cheese tree, for chrissake, Bill. Tell us something we don’t know!’ Davo reties his sarong grumpily. Anyone within eye-line turns his or her head sharply in the opposite direction, acutely aware of what lies under the fabric. Davo is renowned for attacking his wild and woolly garden buck-naked except for a hat and a chainsaw. How he’s remained un-castrated is one of the great local mysteries.
‘The point I’m trying to make – if you’ll let me, Davo – is that the park is actually controlled and cared for by a private trust –’
‘Oy, oy oy, back up, Bill,’ shouts Davo angrily. ‘Islanders have always looked after the park . . .’
Bill wipes a fresh outbreak of sweat from his brow. ‘Yes, yes. But the point is, technically and legally, a private trust has the last word on what happens to the park.’
‘Get the names, mate. We’ll deal with them in our own way and it won’t cost a penny,’ Davo shouts, shaking a fist.
‘Hear, hear!’
‘The real enemy, Davo, is the developer, not the trustees. Although I suppose neither could function without the other.’ He breaks off, aware that going down the long and convoluted path of explaining the rights of trustees and developers, combined with the heat and booze, would send the crowd straight to sleep. ‘Anyone ever fought a development proposal before?’ A hand shoots up at the back. ‘Not your neighbour’s plans for an extension that’s going to block a corner of your view, Ernie, I mean a full-on campaign against bona fide, large-scale developers.’ The hand sinks. ‘Right, well anyone got any sensible ideas about where to start with all this? Do we want to hit the legal trail and wear the costs – and frankly it could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars? Or do we want to come up with a program of what I can only refer to as our unique and traditional Island way of handling a problem? By that I mean we find a way to handle it ourselves.’