by Heather Rose
‘You rescued me,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said.
And we didn’t talk after that. Not until the ferry, when he handed me a pouch of rolling tobacco.
‘How did you know?’ I asked.
His blue eyes regarded me. ‘Anyone who rolls a joint as well as you do has clearly had practice. Thought it might be time.’ I had smoked for years, until I had the children. After Ben and I split, I’d often rolled a cigarette or something stronger when I poured a glass of wine at the end of the day. Coming back to Tasmania, I’d determined that it was a slippery slope, and I needed to give it up. But it was perfect right now.
I went through those familiar motions of paper, tobacco and filter then I got out of the car. There on the top deck, I lit, inhaled, and looked up the channel to the bridge. It was getting precariously close to being finished.
They’d completed the roadworks from the Hobart end, too. Not opened—but all ready to go. The final stretch of the Dennes Point road from the top of the hill down to the bridge would be finished next week.
The nicotine and the salt air rushed through me, along with the despair. My father was the first person I would have told about the deal with China. He was the first person I’d rung with any news. Passing my uni subjects. Getting engaged. Being pregnant. First steps and words for Paul, first steps and words for Tavvy. When a UN mission did or didn’t go well. Getting divorced. Now I couldn’t. There was no-one to confide in. I tried to imagine what he might have said, but there was only silence and the breeze.
Dan came and stood beside me. ‘You going to be okay to come down and watch the last section go in? I’d like to see it, but we can stay home if you need to.’
I shook my head. He put his arm around me and pulled me close.
‘I’m really sorry about your dad,’ he said.
And then I leaned into Dan Macmillan and cried on the Bruny ferry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dan offered to whip us up some food. His house was fascinating inside. I hadn’t expected that, and then I didn’t know why I hadn’t expected it. I’d sat on his deck. I’d seen beyond the windows into the dimmed interior. I had known that it had bookshelves. But I didn’t know it had so many novels, military history, political history, philosophy, poetry. And curiosities. Several pieces of carved scrimshaw. A very old set of backgammon made with inlaid Huon pine. It was peaceful and rustic in the way houses can be when they’re uncluttered and unpretentious. There was a view from every window and nooks that I was sure were perfect suntraps during the day. I asked him who had designed it all, and he said he had, and I was surprised. He put on Nick Cave and I was surprised. He made cheese on toast. It was a delicious Taleggio and he served it with a mug of tomato soup, and it was just what I wanted. We went out on the deck with wine and tobacco and it wasn’t cold, but he brought me a light blanket anyway and I wrapped myself in it. Day two of life without my dad.
‘What time’s the section being delivered?’ I asked.
‘We’ll see it come across,’ he said, looking towards North-West Bay. ‘Around seven pm, I’m told.’ The money shot at golden hour, the perfect light for the camera crews and media. I’d discussed it with JC’s team.
‘Dan,’ I asked, ‘why aren’t you in a relationship?’
‘Who said I’m not?’
‘Are you?’
‘I was,’ he said. ‘On and off. Until recently.’
‘What happened?’
‘Jeez, you ask the questions.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Let’s just say I met someone who clarified my thinking.’
‘Ah,’ I said.
‘You leave someone in New York?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said.
There was a pause.
‘See,’ he said. ‘I know when not to ask the next question.’
I nodded. ‘You might have to teach me that.’
He smiled.
‘I have to go to my house at six,’ I said. ‘But I’ll be back. It won’t take long.’
‘Sure,’ he said, and he didn’t ask why.
‘Tell me about your dad,’ he said. ‘He always seemed like a nice bloke. Old school.’
So I told him about my dad. How he loved being with us as children. How he read us poetry from as early as I can remember. How he took us to all sorts of functions and events that children might not normally have attended, but it was there we all learned about public life. How his enduring question at dinner every night was: ‘Who did you help today?’ How, despite their differences in politics, he was so proud of JC and Max. How he’d officially adopted Max when he married our mother and, even if she’d had a different father, he’d never, ever treated her as anything but his beloved eldest daughter. When she entered politics ‘for the right party’ he campaigned for her, walking the streets for months handing out leaflets and telling people about her, and what excitement there was when she was elected. How he came every year to New York to see me and came twice a year when the children were little, and how he’d come right away each time I gave birth because he believed that, if he got in early, they’d always know him. And how they didn’t just know him, they loved him. And how he had taken them to the Met, and the Guggenheim, and the opera, and the orchestra, and for walks in Central Park, and how he’d taught them to love Shakespeare too. How he’d worked as a carpenter in the theatre, and then took bit parts, and how even when all he could do was talk in Shakespeare quotes, he still knew just what to say. And how he’d stayed with my mother for nearly sixty years, even though she’d had affairs, which must have made his life so tough, but despite everything he’d kept loving her, until the strokes, when a less compliant Angus had showed himself. How he’d gone to the nursing home. How the last thing he’d said to me, the night before he died, was, ‘My crown is called content, a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.’ And I had really known, then, that he was ready to go.
Dan listened to all of that without interruption. Then he went inside and got me tissues. He said, ‘I don’t want you to go, but it’s ten to six, Ace. Do you want me to walk up with you?’
I said, ‘No. But I’ll come back.’
I went up to my house and waited. Edward Lowe pulled up in a car. He came down the path and I opened the door and let him in. He was carrying a manila envelope. It was bulky and had no name or address.
He said, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Put it there,’ I instructed, referring to the hall table. Then I took out a scanner and assessed that he was not wearing a wire. I asked for his phone and checked it was off. I took it into the kitchen with mine and ensured neither could send or receive signals.
When I returned, the cool pragmatic Edward met me. ‘Why didn’t you tell me at lunch?’
‘I wasn’t sure I needed to, but I think we’re beyond that now.’
‘How long have you been … ?’ he asked.
‘Since Columbia in the early nineties. You?’
‘1994.’
He studied me for a moment.
‘So this whole thing?’ he asked. ‘You’ve been here as … ?’
‘As a conflict resolution specialist. And to observe. I would never have taken the job on its own terms. The timeframe, the politics, the family connections. I turned JC down. But orders. You understand.’
‘US foreign policy isn’t doing Australia any favours right now …’
‘US foreign policy is downright dangerous to global security. So some of us are doing what needs to be done. I felt it important you understand the resources I could make available if the circumstances arise.’
We had walked into the lounge room and were looking down at the bridge, waiting for the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place.
‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘The bombing?’
‘The PM needed a way to introduce the Chinese. Slide them in under the radar. Get people comfortable. Make them appreciative. Nothing to fear. Your brother never knew. Only a handful of top people. Incredibly q
uiet. There was a submarine down south that picked up the boat and the crew.’
I nodded. Of course it had been our government. The whole thing was our government. People might fear the Russians, the Chinese, even the Americans, but when you were at home, it was wise to keep a sharp eye on what was happening with the government you voted for. ‘There’s no darkness except ignorance …’ Twelfth Night. Shakespeare.
‘That’s when I came across the whole thing,’ Edward said. ‘I sorted the money. That’s what I do. I watch money, I move money and, from time to time, I stop money. Once I got hold of the file, I sent it to Becky because I trusted that she would not stay silent. She would find a way of getting it out. And she did. Turns out, I could have just handed it to you.’
‘Edward,’ I said, ‘how brave are you feeling?’
‘I’m not sure brave is the word,’ he said. ‘More an absence of fear.’
We continued to look at the bridge.
‘We are both thinking the same thing,’ I said. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘We are thinking the same thing,’ he said.
‘You know what to do? What to organise?’
‘I do.’
‘You won’t have second thoughts?’
‘No, I won’t,’ he said. ‘As soon as I read that report, I knew what side I was on.’
‘I always wondered if I could be like them. I was never sure. But I am sure now,’ I said. ‘We spend our days trying to stop conflict, but when it’s your place, your people, I see their perspective entirely.’
‘You are willing to live with the consequences?’ he asked.
I took in the bridge, and beyond the bridge I absorbed the sky, the channel, the hills, the sea, the idea of dolphins and the reality of Pacific gulls and the smell of gum trees and wood smoke and the sheer quiet, unpopulated beauty of it all.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Strange how it feels like sanity. Like the only clear, reasonable thing to do,’ he said. ‘It’ll take time to organise. But the story needs to break soon, well before the election.’
‘I’m on it,’ I said.
He handed me a card which bore only a phone number. ‘Send me a list,’ he said.
The warmth came back into his eyes.
‘Have you got good people around you now?’ he asked. ‘Losing a parent is very hard.’
‘I do. It is,’ I said. I appreciated that he didn’t conflate the two things. The death, and what we were planning on doing.
Then we walked to the front door, and he got in his car and drove away.
I locked the envelope in a safe I’d had installed months ago in my bedroom and went back to Dan’s. We walked down the road and passed through security. On the bridge, the workers were hard at it. It was noisy and floodlit. An immense structure that, any moment now, would bridge the entire D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
We arrived at the gap over the water. A barge was by the side of the bridge. Men on the barge had the final section of roadway ready to go. The crane on the barge lifted it into the air and, as it was swung in towards the bridge, the riggers guided it down.
It was the Chinese night crew, but to ensure a PR win they’d created a mix of Tasmanian and Chinese workers. Everyone not on the shift was being paid to turn up. This was the moment. The media was there in full force. Golden hour was beautiful, the channel calm. The horizon was beginning to offer up tangerine and pale rose, and the whole thing might have been a Spielberg movie. The Bridge of Lies. The last section was fixed into place and it was done. Everyone cheered, the sirens sounded. When the signal was given, the crowd on the Tinderbox side and the crowd on the Dennes Point side walked towards each other until we all met in the middle.
At the two BFG camps, a steady drumbeat started up, but someone switched on two big loudspeakers on the bridge and Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ erupted, drowning the protestors out. Workers began twirling in their fluoro on the completed roadway. One took another in his arms, and soon a whole lot of men were dancing. There was much laughter. Mick Feltham had come across from Tinderbox and he looked so proud. He seemed surprised to see Dan and me standing together, but neither of us explained. Then the media moved in on him, and he was lost behind cameras and journalists.
It should have been a great moment. It was a great moment in engineering. In architecture. It was a great moment for the men who had built this thing. For everyone involved. Even those, especially those, who had died. But the bridge was a death sentence for Tasmania. I had a file that proved it. How could I even begin to mobilise action? Who could I trust, so that nobody ever knew it was me who leaked the story? So nobody would ever trace it back to Beck, or Edward, or me, when I took the action I knew I had to take?
On the way back up the hill, Dan said, ‘It’s not just your dad, is it? Something else is worrying you.’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘How did you get good at that?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been watching you for months.’
‘I can’t talk about it.’
‘That’s okay,’ he said.
After a while he said, ‘When’s the funeral?’
‘It’s going to be state funeral. They’re planning it for next Friday. JC’s people, Max’s people—there’s a whole lot of protocol that goes into action now.’
He nodded.
‘My children are both flying out. They arrive Wednesday,’ I said.
Back at my house, on my deck, he hugged me again and he smelled so good that I wanted badly to invite him in. To take him to bed. But there was a terrible secret in my bedroom and I had to prioritise it. This wasn’t the time for romance.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’ve been … so great, Dan.’
‘You need to go over in the morning?’ he asked. ‘Sunday lunch?’
‘Can I borrow your car?’ I asked. ‘Early?’
‘Tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘I’ll be back by mid-morning.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave the keys in the letterbox at my place.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘If you need me in the meantime, you know where to find me,’ he said, as he stepped down off the deck.
‘I’ll try not to need you,’ I said.
He looked up at me. ‘Well, I think that’s a start,’ he said with a grin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I read the documents. There, in black and white, I read the plan outlined across one hundred and ninety-four pages of a central document and an accompanying one hundred and eighty pages of appendices. It was thoughtfully done—in the bureaucratic way that things are thoughtfully done, without any regard for the real world.
Thirty per cent of Tasmanians live below the poverty line. Ninety-two per cent of all working Tasmanians rely on government in the form of employment or for government contracts. Fifty per cent of Tasmanians are functionally illiterate and innumerate. This reflects a mendicant state. And a state that will offer little educated resistance to the project. We believe that, with a concerted public relations campaign, the Tasmanian people will welcome this transition from economic hardship to economic certainty.
The living precincts planned for Bruny Island will offer residents an unparalleled lifestyle, making them the envy of the Australian people. We envisage negative migration with an increase in the sea-change population wishing to take advantage of the many benefits the Bruny lifestyle affords.
Laid out was the injection of capital into the Australian economy by the sale to the Chinese. Over a hundred billion dollars was to change hands through the course of the ten-year transition. The metrics of Tasmanian exports (negligible after zinc) against the cost of supporting all those Tasmanians on welfare, pensions and in the public service (substantial and getting worse into the future). The projections were compelling. The federal government came out ahead. Significantly ahead.
Some thought had been given to the strategic nature of Tasmania in the Southern Ocean. Th
e People’s Republic of China, it said, was an ally of Australia. A joint presence in the Southern Ocean and the Pacific would prove beneficial in protecting Australia from the arrival of illegal immigrants, which Australia was not sufficiently resourced to do on its own.
Australia will maintain a naval presence in Bass Strait. While diplomatic in nature, it is felt that this safeguard will reassure mainland Australians concerned by the Chinese presence on their border.
The secession of Tasmania from Australia is seen as a win-win. Landowners with a turnover in excess of $1 million per annum will be given the opportunity to remain as employees on their land, while enjoying the significant benefits from receiving three times the property value, a share of profit and the universal basic income as a safety net. It is thought that all Tasmanians will transition from the island within the next ten-year period, resettling on Bruny Island, or moving to mainland Australia or a foreign destination.
And on it went:
The Tasmanian people are benign in character. Activism, while given a lot of media coverage, has involved a very small percentage of the population …
Tasmania’s secession as a state of Australia will have little bearing on the Commonwealth alliance …
Tasmanians who have experienced a significant gap in wages and living standards over the past thirty years in comparison to mainland Australia can expect a significantly higher standard of living …
And this:
A random ballot will determine the first wave of homeowners offered relocation. Sale and relocation is the basic eligibility requirement for receipt of the universal basic income. All other Australian government subsidies and pensions will cease. Two further ballots will complete the process over a five-year period. At the end of the five-year transition period, any remaining residents will have their property compulsorily acquired by the incoming administration. Any legal challenges will become a matter for the incoming authority. Tasmanian residents unwilling to relocate beyond the five-year period will lose all Australian government benefits. (See Strategy for Relocation Appendix H, Managing Resistance Appendix M).