by Heather Rose
‘But if it is,’ I said, ‘what should we be talking about?’
‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘if this were the last hour of my life, I think it would be the time to confess to anything I’d never confessed before.’
I stayed silent. He waited.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘You go first,’ I said.
‘I think it’s a ladies-first moment.’
The wind was a moan now, a things-coming-apart kind of moan. I’d had all the edges knocked off me with death and falling trees and his body so close to me, the whisky inside me and the urge to be loved. I told Dan the thing I’d never told anyone, not even my best friend at the time, Becky Walton.
‘When I was seventeen, I got pregnant,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t get an abortion in Tasmania back then, so my mother took me to Melbourne. At the clinic, when they asked her to sign the forms for the operation, she wouldn’t let me have any anaesthetic. Usually they give you a general, or at least a local. But I wasn’t allowed anything. She told the doctor that she didn’t want me to forget it. So they stuck a hose inside me and there was this lovely nurse, an older woman, who held my hand and cried the whole time. It was really painful, but it was harder watching her. All the nurse kept saying, over and over, was: “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” Later that day, my mother took me to a fancy restaurant she’d heard about. She seemed surprised that during the meal I could think of nothing to say. I haven’t really had anything to say to her since.’
Dan seemed frozen momentarily, then he pulled me very close and held me.
‘Ace.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
He kissed my forehead. The first kiss he’d given me. He ran his hand over my hair and I felt the warmth of his face against my cheek. After a while, I said, ‘Your turn. Something you’ve never told anyone.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’d tell you I’m in love with you.’
I was now the frozen one.
‘And I’d wish I’d told you sooner, so that at least there might be the possibility of sex. But of course, you may not feel the same way. And now we’re in this situation where even if we wanted to, sex would be seriously awkward, and when the next tree comes down, we could be pinioned together when the rescue workers discover our dead bodies in the morning.’
I could feel my heart beating and the blood in my veins.
He said, ‘You going to help me out here at all?’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘Play the game, Ace,’ he said.
It made me smile, that.
‘Oh, God, don’t tell me it’s all me?’ he said, groaning. ‘You’re killing me here.’
There was another gigantic drum roll of thunder. The wind reached a top note of operatic shrillness.
‘I’m out of practice …’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I might be …’
‘In love with me?’ he asked. ‘A little bit?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Say it, Ace. You’re about to die. This is what people say to each other when they’re about to die.’
‘I might be in love with you, Dan Macmillan.’
‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we are going to die, by the way.’
‘Fuck you,’ I said.
‘I’m waiting.’ He grinned.
And then, as he was kissing me, really kissing me, the gum tree by the front fence surrendered its roots and came through the bedroom roof. Ceiling plaster, beams, all of it came crashing down on top of the wardrobe and the bed.
Rain began cascading onto the floor around us, and there was a vivid smell of eucalyptus. I reached my hand out beyond the bed and felt wet leaves with the tips of my fingers. The tree groaned and settled. The bed sighed above us, as if burdened by a great weight. One leg groaned in an almost human way, but the frame held. I realised, in the next flash of lightning, that I was looking into the yard.
‘The wall’s gone,’ I said. ‘Are you sure we aren’t going to die?’
‘I’m sure,’ he said. We both reached up and felt the mattress pushed hard between the slats. Wind was rushing into our cave in freezing blasts.
We took several more slugs of whisky. Then we pulled the blankets and doona closer about us, up over our heads. We huddled in there, and I thought of all the walls caving in. I thought of Tavvy and Paul.
‘Kiss me again,’ I said. So he did.
After some time, as the creaking and groaning of whatever was above us continued, I managed to turn over. I pulled Dan’s arms around me, and he curled his body against me, tightening the blankets about us.
‘Don’t let me go,’ I said. I prayed silently then, one of the only prayers I remembered. Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. And then I added, Just let us get through the night. Do whatever you have to do to me tomorrow. Just let us get through this.
Improbably, I slept. It might have been the whisky. It might have been him. It might have been the prayer. At some point, deep in the wee hours, as the storm was leaving, an almighty noise was heard across the channel. It woke me. I listened to it rolling on and on. It seemed to go deep into the core of the earth. There was a wild screeching and wailing, high-pitched and cruel. I wondered if those awake thought it was the storm giving its last hurrah. I lay there for a long time, listening to Dan’s gentle breathing, feeling him close to me, until sleep washed me away.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Dawn had come by the time we woke. The floorboards were awash. The bedding was half sodden. But I was warm in his arms. The quiet was eerie.
He squeezed me.
‘Did you sleep?’ I asked.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘It was actually kind of nice.’
We crawled stiff and sore from our quarters to discover a new skylight that was the whole of the roof. There was a turbulent clouded sky hurrying west, wind still blowing but with none of the force of the night. Everything in the house that hadn’t been destroyed was wet and harried. Pictures on the walls had fallen to the floor, windows were shattered, leaves and other debris had blown onto the furniture and into every corner, electricals were dangling from the roof remains.
We managed to clamber out to the balcony. There we took in the scene before us. Dan’s truck had escaped the tree but the forest beyond looked as if someone had banged about with a large stick. Flattened patches of trees were dark against those still standing. Across the street I could see another house missing part of its roof. There was a caravan rolled over in the street and the power lines were ripped and dangling. The sky and the sea were a violent mauve. And the Bruny Bridge was gone. It was a glaring omission in the landscape. Or, rather, the seascape. No bridge. All that remained were two roadways reaching out high above the water, but everything in between—wire, cable, caisson, roadway and railing, all of it, every screw, bolt, rivet, every last metre and tonne of it—had disappeared.
Dan said, ‘What the …’ He rubbed his face and looked at the gap again, as if expecting that it was a trick of the light.
‘No way. Fuck. No way.’ He started along the deck. ‘Come with?’ he asked.
‘Shouldn’t we check your house first?’
‘It can wait,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to see this.’
On the foreshore other residents, as dishevelled as we were, stood staring at the absence of the bridge across the channel.
‘I think it’s the first time I’ve ever believed in God,’ said Gilbert Farris.
‘Where the hell did it go?’ Dan asked. ‘There’s no way …’
‘I guess it’s all down there,’ said Farris.
‘It’s not possible,’ said Dan. ‘The thing was over-engineered to buggery. Unless the steel …’
‘The steel,’ said Farris.
‘Chinese steel,’ said Dan. ‘Quality issues. We had problems early
on. But we were testing constantly.’
‘It sleeps with the fishes,’ said Farris’s wife, Barbara, coming to stand beside her husband.
‘I think, whatever it was, Angus got the better of it,’ said Farris.
‘How did you fare up there?’ Barbara asked me.
‘Not great,’ I said. ‘You?’
We all turned to look at the Farris’s. Two gums had come down right beside the house.
‘Four inches to the right and we’d have lost the eaves,’ she said.
‘Five feet to the right and we’d have lost the TV,’ said Farris. And we all laughed.
The BFG camp was tossed and scattered along the beach. Fragments of the temporary buildings were visible all the way up the hill.
‘We better check on everyone,’ said Dan.
There was still no mobile coverage. If there was going to be any help, we were it. We went from house to house, searching for survivors. We clambered over debris and tree branches, called out for any sign of life under flattened walls and caved-in roofs. Dan and Farris used chainsaws to cut away branches and free doors and driveways. The people we found had the bright eyes of survivors and the conversation of those who’ve escaped the firing squad. Farris had a complete inventory of residents. Apparently he’d gone from house to house in the days before, confirming who was here on North Bruny and who wasn’t. It occurred to me, then, that he had taken this notion of Bruny Friends very seriously.
Eventually we came to my house again. By now there were eight or nine of us, a small troupe of dishevelled islanders, hoping against hope that the only thing we’d find today was wreckage, not dead bodies. And so far, we’d been in luck. Other than bruises, scrapes, wide-eyed children and a dog with a broken leg who had been seriously terrified by the storm, there were no casualties. My house looked like something from a disaster movie. The highest house on the hill, it had taken the full force of the storm.
Farris shook his head. ‘My,’ he said. ‘You won’t be sleeping in there any time soon.’
Dan took my hand and we all walked down the hill to his house. There was a fair bit of debris in the yard and on his deck. Someone’s plastic bucket was caught under the steps. A cover from a boat had blown against the side of the house. But somehow the macrocarpa hedge and the random effects of weather had saved it.
‘We’ll leave you two to it,’ said Farris. ‘Get some rest. We’ll take a couple of cars and see how things are further afield.’
‘I’ve got a freezer full of fish that’s been defrosting since the power went out,’ said Dan. ‘I can get a fire going. Everyone’s welcome for a feed in, say, an hour?’
Farris and the others nodded, and they went on.
Inside the house the carpet was wet where rain had blown in under the door. Dan set about getting the wood heater going. When it was burning brightly, he said, ‘You think someone might have come back and finished it off? Whatever they began back in November?’
I sighed. ‘Another bomb? Hard to say.’
‘Could have laid the charges before the storm came in,’ he said. ‘Could have laid them any time, I guess. Might have been down there for a week. Or more. Until someone pressed a button.’
He went to the gas stove and lit it with a match. He filled the espresso maker, put it over the flame, took down two cups. Took down a bottle of brandy. Put a measure in each cup.
The coffee steamed, the cups were filled. He put milk in his and handed the black one to me.
‘You’re very quiet,’ he said.
‘My house is destroyed,’ I said.
‘My bridge is destroyed,’ he said.
‘Well, cheers,’ I said.
‘Well, cheers,’ he said.
The clean-up after the cyclone was immense. Cars had been upended and blown into fields. Roofs and walls were missing off houses and shed. Boats had fled their moorings. The Brooke Street Pier in Hobart had sunk, leaving just the rear end above sea level, like a moment from Titanic. School buildings had been flattened. The Tinderbox worksite had been right in the path; the BFG farmhouse over that side looked like it had been split for firewood.
It took days to work out what had happened to the bridge. The weather was erratic and diving too dangerous. People assumed it had been the storm. Suspension bridges had a history, after all.
When divers assessing the wreckage discovered the bolts hadn’t given way, the metal cables hadn’t snapped, the caissons hadn’t fallen, that in fact the bridge was lying in a million tiny pieces across the bottom of the channel, the government went crazy trying to pin it on the Greens and on Farris. Maggie Lennox came in for some harsh interrogation. Farris was held for three days for questioning. Every member of every protest group was hauled in. They found chemicals in Farris’s shed capable of making a bomb.
I was called in too; no-one had better contacts with all the protesters. I spent two days with the federal police going over everyone on their books. It was hard to tell if they thought of me as someone providing useful information or as a possible suspect. They were very polite. They called me back a few days later, but after an hour clarifying some details, they let me go. On the way out, I saw Edward Lowe in a meeting room. He made a show of coming out to speak to me, kissing me on both cheeks.
‘A terrible business,’ he said. ‘So lucky no-one was killed. I hear you lost your house too?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You will rebuild?’
‘I will.’
‘Good,’ he said.
He introduced me to the senior detective from Sydney, whom I had met briefly on the previous visit.
‘No-one worked harder to make the bridge happen for this community than Astrid,’ he said.
I said goodbye, and after that I didn’t hear from the feds again. The feds were sure to know Edward was ASIO. If he was vouching for me, they knew he’d done his homework.
Meanwhile the Chinese workers disappeared. They all got back on their planes to Shanghai and Beijing. The Chinese Buddhists lay low. They weren’t out helping to rebuild. They disappeared to their property on Bruny behind the gates with their lion statues, and were not seen for weeks.
In the national media, there were endless theories. Dams and forests and fish farms had taught Tasmanians well. Separate, divided, they were like any other rabble. Disorganised. Ill-informed. Not enough money or resources. But when they coalesced—in this instance around a plan by both the federal and state governments to move them from their homes—they were unstoppable.
Gilbert Farris was quoted as saying, ‘There’s nothing more formidable than island people.’ He was still awaiting formal charges, but word was they had no case. Apparently the chemicals were the same as those most landowners had in their sheds. Put together, they could never have done what it took to destroy a bridge that size. There were no large transfers of money from his accounts. No evidence of any activity that suggested he had friends or allies capable of such a thing.
There have been a few famous underwater sabotages. The Rainbow Warrior in Auckland in 1985, bombed by French frogmen. The Waal Bridge in 1944, attempted by German Special Troops. And the VC campaign against South Vietnamese and US forces in 1967, which had mixed success. But there had been nothing like the Bruny Bridge.
It took a lot of experience, skill and money. The dive sets needed to do the job were twenty thousand dollars each. The three propulsion vehicles to get them in place were five thousand dollars each. The delivery craft cost forty thousand dollars, including the specialist crew with four divers. The extra equipment cost some two hundred thousand dollars, including firing devices, diving gas and pumps. Plus military-grade explosives. All done covertly. That cost more still.
But we had good information. We knew exactly how deep the caissons were. The exact strength of the cables. Exactly where the stress points were. Exactly how to avoid security.
The boat dropped the divers and all their equipment in the water four hundred metres up-current from the bridge, below the Tinde
rbox cliffs where Frank Pringle and I had first stood admiring the view. Tide and shipping had been researched meticulously.
The divers had to change their sets to a mixed-gas mode at about eight metres below, then they descended to the thirty-metre mark. They used inflation bags to make the bombs neutrally buoyant, and walked them towards the caissons. The main risk was that the current might separate the primers from the main charges. Empty sandbags were filled to hold the charges down. It was dark when all this happened, just to add to the complexity of the task.
The primary firing device, connected to a phone, was activated remotely. The secondary was manual, but it hadn’t been required. On land, the cables were severed on the Tinderbox side. Without them tensioning the structure, and with the towers blown, it all went down as one. It was timed to the second.
The team we employed came in the week before the storm. Bearded, urbane, well built. It’s impossible to tell a smart terrorist from an art enthusiast these days. It took them three nights to prep everything and lay all the charges. They were gone days before the storm hit, by plane from Hobart and Launceston, and ship from Devonport. They’re people who don’t leave a trace. It just needed the remote signal. One phone call. And they had a perfect cover, thanks to a super storm bearing my father’s name.
There had been no risk of sightseers. No security either, thanks to the storm. No casualties had been the first order, other than the fish, crabs and sharks caught in the explosion. Collateral damage, but still, I did feel bad about that.
Edward had sorted the money. Edward is a money man. He knew how to find it and he knew how to hide it. I ran the international team.
Gore Vidal was right: the US is a corrupted democracy, but it’s still the best chance humans have of living peacefully. Regardless of who’s in that chair in the Oval Office, there are interests that need protecting. Interests beyond America. As they say in the real estate game, location, location, location. The US is still the biggest economy in the world and it’s the heartland of democracy. There was no way our black cell at Langley was letting a competing foreign interest that close to Australia. That’s all I can tell you.