I stared at the date. There was something significant about that as well. What was it? Of course, the first of November: Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead. The year I’d spent with Nicole spanned from one of these macabre fiestas to the next. Now I realised my year in Australia had the same span—a bridge between two more of these decisive days. Today was terminal for my friendship with Mandu and any connections with my homeland; the end of the road for Malcolm Fraser, Australian entrepreneur, and a fresh start for Nick Kelly, as Brian Cowen, exile.
I looked at the ticket. Brian was booked on a one-way flight from Perth to Dublin on Friday morning at 08:00. Broom to Perth is 2,240 kilometres, about twenty-four hours driving, nonstop. I’d done four hours already and it was 4 pm on Wednesday afternoon, so it should be possible, with a couple of stopovers if I kept the pedal to the metal.
A few minutes Googling my new name revealed that it was again carefully chosen. I shared it with Ireland’s fifteenth prime minister (2008 – 2011), or the ‘Taoiseach’ as they called him there. Unlike my previous Australian namesake, their bloke Brian was still alive, so there shouldn’t be any “back from the grave” comments when I arrived in Dublin. But why on earth was I going there rather than London, as before? After all, the Master told me it was the “hub of his communications network”.
Thinking about his mixed Spanish-German name toggled something else buried in my memory. Didn’t he have some kind of Irish connection as well? I tried to unearth it, but I just couldn’t remember what it was. Perhaps it would pop back into my mind once I stopped trying to drag it from the depths of my consciousness. Nothing is ever really forgotten, just the links in our neural network are temporally broken, like a badly constructed web site. Once we focus on something else they often repair themselves.
A closer inspection of the ticket revealed that Alejandro had again included my windsurfing board. He’d realised, some time ago, that I didn’t go anywhere without her. I stared at the ticket and wondered about the windsurfing in Ireland. The waves were supposed to be world class and there were often storm-force winds. It was the most westerly edge of Europe, the Atlantic at its most extreme, and the conditions could be insane, ‘sick’ as we aficionados say. The more I thought about the destination on my ticket, the more excited I was to be going there, and there was another reason ...
I had my own connection with the Emerald Isle. My mother’s family had emigrated from there and my grandmother used to tell me stories about the “old country” when I was little. This journey would be another return to my roots—just as the past year had been a crash course in my Aboriginal cultural heritage.
Now I knew where I was heading and it was time to hit the road again. I rejoined the endless ribbon of tarmac that would take me to Perth and, ultimately, to the other side of the planet.
Several hours later I managed to piece together what I knew of the Master’s Irish connection. The light was fading fast, but we were making good progress south, the VW maxed out at a steady 100 kph. I rounded one of the few curves on that supremely straight highway to find a six-truck road-train juggernaut bearing down on my defenceless little camper-van. As I swerved, cursing the bastard, I had one of those whole-life-flashing-before-you moments, and one of the details that flashed past was the missing link.
When I was aboard his yacht he’d told me how he left Argentina during the dictatorship of the 1970s to study and work as an academic in Europe. Now I remembered where—in Dublin, of course! He said that he’d been perfectly happy in Ireland—until he read his father’s journal. It had “changed everything”, as he put it, and he left his life in Dublin to continue his father’s work. Now he was sending me back there. Why?
I had the uncomfortable feeling there were other links I was missing. Pieces of the jigsaw that linked Alejandro Langer, and his shadowy cult, with Ireland’s dark history. Apart from the world class waves, the only other thing I knew about Ireland was that it was a divided country with a troubled past. Could this final mission have something to do with ‘The Troubles’?
I pondered all this as I drove south. Mile after mile of black tarmac splitting the red desert. Hour after hour of emptiness. I’d been here before, moving in the opposite direction—travelling north, away from the catastrophe of Robo’s death towards my meeting with Mandu. Now I was on the run again, escaping from my past, that familiar country, my homeland.
Wednesday, November 1, 24:00—midnight on the Day of the Dead—day one of my escape. I’d been driving for ten hours, with just a few breaks for fuel, food, and a little rest. I was too exhausted to go any further, so I pulled off the highway onto a dirt track and stopped for a few hours sleep.
It was there, in that remote, desolate place, that I had the idea. Closure. Time to end it all. After all, I wouldn’t be coming back. This was goodbye Australia, for ever. Let’s do the job properly this time—do what I should have done when I skedaddled the first time with Alison: cut the ties cleanly, instead of leaving a sticky mess behind. There were so many people after me, or a piece of me, and simply running away again was not the solution. I needed them to believe I was dead. I needed closure, or else I’d spend the rest of my life on the run.
My first thought was to leave the van parked up on a cliff with a suicide note inside. I started working on a rough draft in my head:
I’ve had enough. There’s no future. I’m going to jump off this cliff (no that wouldn’t work—no smashed-up body at the foot of the cliff) … I’m going for one last sail, into the darkness (yes, that’s more like it) ... I want to disappear into the ocean.
Not bad. It might just work if the note was convincing enough. But then I had a better idea. I thought about the time I disappeared from El Médano—the day I should have drowned. My pursuers had no intention of leaving me to Rest In Peace until they stood over my grave, but I hadn’t given them that satisfaction. Instead, the ocean and a severed universal joint had intervened and cut the ties for me. They never found my body or my board. There was no note, but I gave them a broken rig to think about. I left Nick Kelly’s passport in the apartment, became Malcolm Fraser, and simply vanished.
Of course, none of that had been planned, but it had worked. When no body turned up most people assumed I was at the bottom of the Atlantic or in some lucky shark’s stomach. The story died and I was soon just a ghost again. That was the way to do it. Closure.
Thursday, November 2, 06:00—day two of my Great Escape. I woke at dawn. As the sun rose out of the desert I said goodbye to the emus, galahs and kangaroos; to that ancient red land, my homeland. Then I rejoined the highway and drove south, towards the horizon, towards the next chapter of my life.
Again I maxed out the VW for ten straight hours, hardly stopping for more than a few minutes until we reached Geraldton. I was shattered, but elated at having broken the back of my final epic Ozzie road trip.
It was around 16:00 when I arrived at Point Moore, the location of one of WA’s classic windsurfing spots—the aptly named ‘Hell’s Gates’, a left-hander that breaks fast and can hold a huge swell. Not for the faint-hearted. A locals’ spot. A connoisseur’s wave.
The Doctor was blowing twenty-five knots and a good crowd had skived off work that afternoon. Some knew me vaguely and nodded g’day as I rigged up, but nobody seemed keen to get closer. Perhaps they were discouraged by my intense expression. Anyway, it was fine by me—I’d always been known as a bit of a loner.
Once we hit the water the vibe was more friendly, super relaxed, party time. The conditions were excellent and everyone was firing on all cylinders, whooping and waving, sharing waves, cheering each other’s moves. My last session in home water was as memorable as it needed to be. We would all remember that day.
As the fiery sun sank into the ocean everyone else packed up. I sat there, next to my still rigged kit, gazing out to sea, receiving curious looks. The wind was dying, dusk was descending, and the looks became concerned. One of the last stragglers asked me what I was doing? Why wasn’t I d
e-rigging and coming to the pub with them?
“No worries, mate” I told him, “I’m going to have a sunset session, without the crowds, just me and the sharks ...”
I allowed my voice to tail off into an uneasy silence and gave him a particularly intense stare—an expression I was sure he’d remember. He shook his head, shrugged, and half-heartedly warned me to be careful, clearly deciding I was beyond help. They left me sitting there alone, in near darkness.
A few hours passed until I was sure they weren’t coming back and nobody was arriving for a spot of late-night fishing. There was no moon that night and everything looked good for my plan. I removed the rig from my board and attacked the UJ with a knife and some gusto.
After an hour’s work the UJ had been significantly distressed and no longer deserved the accolade: ‘universal’. As Monty Python might have put it: it was an ex-UJ. It had gone to meet its maker, suffered catastrophic failure and was in two pieces. I left one piece attached to the mast extension, buried the other piece in the sand, and chucked the rig into the shore-break.
I was in luck—a combination of the offshore night-breeze and a strong rip current took it out to sea. I watched as it disappeared into the blackness, feeling liberated. The sail was old and battered, well past its sell-by date. Now it was ancient history, along with Malcolm Fraser. I left his passport in the camper-van and became Brian Cowen.
Leaving the VW splitty was harder. We’d covered a lot of ground together, seen the good times roll, and been to hell and back. Now it was time to say goodbye. One of the locals would find the empty van parked there and call the coastguard. My rig would be washed in down the coast, or be spotted by a fishing boat, or from the air. When they discovered the broken UJ Malcolm Fraser would be classified as missing, presumed drowned. Closure.
Thursday, 22:00. I packed a few essential possessions in my backpack, leaving everything else behind. Mandu had stashed Nicole’s painting of us: ‘The Kangaroo Kid and his Voodoo Child’ in the van. He’d told me it would somehow protect me and I was beginning to think he was right. Regardless of any magical powers, it meant the world to me. I strapped it to the rucksack, still rolled up in a piece of old sailcloth. Then I packed my wave-board in its fancy board-bag with wheels and set off on foot.
I’d initiated the first part of the vanishing act, but it wouldn’t be complete until I’d boarded the plane as Brian Cowen. Somehow I had to get to Perth airport leaving no trace of Nick Kelly along the way. That would be tricky. If I took a bus somebody would be sure to remember the scruffy mixed-race bloke with his coffin bag. Same if I hitchhiked. There was a solution, but it involved breaking the law again. So what? I thought, as I trudged along the deserted highway. I’m already a criminal on the run, an outlaw, like my namesake: Ned Kelly. What did I have to lose?
A couple of hours later, around midnight, I found what I was looking for: a farm, in darkness, with several vehicles parked in the yard. I got lucky when the second one I tried, a rusty old pickup truck, proved to be unlocked. I chucked my board in the back and hot-wired the ute, calling on skills from my misspent youth. A dog was barking as I drove out of the yard, but no lights came on in the house.
Friday, 00:05—day three of the Great Escape. My flight was due to leave at 8 am, so I had about six hours to do the last 440 k’s to Perth, dispose of the ute, and get myself to the airport in time. I drove nonstop, thrashing that ancient truck to the limit, light-headed from sleep deprivation, dangerously free.
I reached the suburbs of Fremantle at around five-thirty in the morning. It was still dark and I had no trouble finding a suitably deprived location (or “daggy shithole” as my mates would say) to torch the ute—an auto graveyard where it would be just one more burnt-out truck. Then I hopped on the bus to the airport.
It was 06:00 now and there were only a few passengers—tourists speaking a variety of languages, about to disappear, like me, to far-flung corners of the planet. They paid no attention to another backpacker with his surfboard.
I arrived at the airport with my well-travelled board-bag, a rucksack, and a whole lot of anxiety. I hadn’t slept for thirty hours and it was catching up with me. I was exhausted, disoriented, almost as if I’d been smoking the Plant again. So far my escape had gone to plan, but it could all go wrong at the last hurdle. Checking in could well prove to be the stumbling-block and paranoia was gnawing at me again. The Master may have taken care of everything, but I was carrying plenty of excess baggage in my head.
As it turned out, there were no issues with the ticket, passport, or my new identity, but it left me wondering who the hell I was now. I’d returned to Australia as Malcolm Fraser and I was leaving it as Brian Cowen. Somewhere along the way Nick Kelly, the Domino Dingo, the Kangaroo Kid, had grown up, become a contender, and suffered a spectacular fall from grace. I’d hit rock bottom and now I was a convict escaping from this land of convicts, my homeland. This land might be your land, but it was no longer my land. It was time to turn the page and start a new chapter.
19
Flight
Perth Airport. Friday, November 3, 2017, 08:15. The plane took off and a new chapter began. I was moving on. I knew where I was going—the destination on my ticket said: Dublin, but it wasn’t clear who, or what, was waiting for me there. I settled into my seat as we began the journey out over the Indian ocean. The flight to the other side of the world took a whole day and night—plenty of time to ponder these questions. Right then I needed to catch up on some sleep.
I reclined the seat and was just drifting into blissful unconsciousness when I was jolted awake by a tap on my shoulder. Irritated, I opened my eyes expecting it to be one of the staff. Instead, I found another passenger had occupied the seat beside me. As I looked up I was astonished to lock eyes with the captain of the Master’s yacht, Pablo Rodrigues Vasquez. Without a word, he handed me a package.
I stared at him, trying to make sense of his presence. It was as if he’d just been teleported onto the plane, ‘beamed aboard’ like a character from ‘Star Trek’ and materialised in the seat next to me. Questions jostled for space in my brain, vying to be the first out of my mouth. The winner dribbled out:
“What the hell are you ...”
He silenced me with a finger to his lips, shaking his head like a deaf-mute advising that conversation was futile, and pointed to the package, motioning me to open it. Then he reclined his seat and closed his eyes.
I sat there for a while, staring out of the window, sneaking occasional glances at Pablo. There wasn’t much to see in either direction—clouds, glimpses of water far below, and Pablo’s serenely composed features, enigmatic, like a bearded Buda. He was already asleep and I was desperate to join him, but curiosity overcame exhaustion. I opened the package and found seventy pages of typed A4. The title page was familiar, and I was relieved to see that it had already been translated into English:
The Journal of Dr Ludwig Langer, Psychotherapist.
An Account of his Life, Experiments in Morality, and Research into the Human Condition.
Translated by his son: Alejandro Aidan Langer
The cogs turned slowly in my tired brain and eventually meshed in a moment of cognition. Now I knew what the other ‘A’ in the Master’s initials stood for, but it made him an even stranger mix: German father, Argentine mother, and perhaps some kind of Irish connection to explain Aidan?
I began reading Dr Langer’s journal, silently thanking A.A.L for saving me from spending the rest of the flight struggling through seventy pages of German text. The first few pages were familiar—I’d already read extracts on the Master’s website. A few hours later I’d reached page thirty-five and was fast asleep. In between, the journal filled in the historical background, explained Dr Langer’s theories, and took me to the halfway point in his incredible life-story.
He begins with an account of his studies with Carl Jung, in Zurich. It’s an exciting time for him. Ludwig is in his late twenties, and Jung opens up a brave new world of ideas
. His fellow students are a gifted bunch—some of the brightest young minds of their day. Together they explore the frontiers of their mentor’s intellectual universe and are soon taking his ideas far further than he’d envisaged. Their discussions form the theoretical framework for the Group (it’s always written with a capital ‘G’ in Alejandro’s English translation).
Langer is one of the founding members, and their archivist. He documents their history and their ambitions—nothing less than the evolution of our species to the ‘next level’: Nietzsche’s ‘Übermensch’. He describes how they develop their own system of morality, a new way of living and working together, an alternative to conventional society—what we might now call an ‘alternative lifestyle’. By 1932 (and page ten) the Group is well established, with Langer as their leader—although he accepts the role reluctantly:
Of course, we all wanted Carl (Jung) to lead the Group, but he declined. This was disappointing, but he has his position in society and his reputation to protect, while we are unencumbered by such responsibilities. Eventually, it became clear he considers our views and behaviour to be too “experimental”.
The Group gradually distances themselves from Jung’s circle, both theoretically and, in 1933, physically—moving their base from Switzerland to Germany. When the National Socialist party begin to dominate German politics they find themselves increasingly marginalised.
By the mid-1930s intellectuals must confront a crucial dilemma: whether to collaborate with the Nazis and function within their system or oppose their repugnant ideology. Some choose the path of least resistance—a charge that has been levelled at Jung himself, others leave the country, a few stay to fight the propaganda and perish. Langer’s Group abandon mainstream society altogether, establishing what might now be called a ‘commune’ in the Bavarian countryside. He writes at length about this moral dilemma, and throughout the period (1933 – 1939) the journal is full of prescient anxiety:
Too Close to the Wind Page 23