The Memory Tree

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Penny’s face reddened. ‘So it’s inevitable that Matt has an affair the minute I turn my back? Is that what you think?’

  ‘It’s inevitable that he will feel deserted by his wife. Try to think like a man. I don’t doubt that Matthew loves you and, I suspect, neither do you. The question is, Penelope, do you want to repair the marriage? If the answer is yes, I’ve proposed a practical course forward.’

  This was outrageous advice, shallow even for Fraser. Did she want Matt? Yes. A thousand times yes. Had she thrown away her marriage on a whim?

  ‘It’s not quite so simple,’ said Penny. ‘Sarah’s made a breakthrough with her research. A percentage of Tuggerah’s devils may be tumour-resistant. She mustn’t leave before she’s genotyped all the samples.’

  Fraser beamed. ‘We understand each other then.’

  Penny swallowed hard, afraid that they did. Her smug certainty about right and wrong was fast deserting her.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Fraser, like he knew what she was thinking, ‘the right thing is just the wrong thing in disguise. Leave the details to me. Miss Deville will ship out whenever you say the word.’

  ‘You can do that?’ asked Penny.

  ‘You’d be staggered at the things I can do. Telling Matthew he is to be a father, however, is not one of them. Don’t wait, my dear. I learned too late that a life ruled by secrets is no life at all.’

  Penny hugged his skinny frame, not wanting to let go, and for once he didn’t stiffen. It felt good having him as an ally, despite his dubious ethics. ‘Now,’ she said at last. ‘My turn to help. If you want to please Matt, start by saving Pallawarra. It will mean a lot to him. It will mean a lot to this entire community.’

  Fraser looked blank.

  ‘You must know Pallawarra. The giant mountain ash above the old Charon River picnic ground? Local couples have carved their names on its trunk for more than a hundred years. Those two cops died trying to bring protesters down from it.’

  Penny sensed Fraser’s thoughts spiral off from the here-and-now. His eyes were unfocused. ‘Yes, I do know your tree, but by another name – the fairy tree.’

  ‘That’s what Margaret Murphy calls it,’ said Penny.

  Fraser shut his eyes, and rested his forehead on the heel of his hand. ‘My Charlotte’s name is on that tree,’ he said, ‘alongside my own, although I doubt I’d find it after all this time. Forty years.’

  ‘You can still read most of the carvings,’ said Penny. ‘Even the old ones.’

  ‘They’ll be so high up the trunk.’

  ‘Trees grow by forming new layers of wood at the top, not by pushing up from below. Your names will be exactly where you left them.’

  ‘Is that so? For somebody who’s made a fortune from forests, I don’t seem to know very much about trees. That should change, don’t you think?’ Penny smiled, feeling better, hungry even. She tackled a fat vanilla slice. ‘Do you know what my Charlotte used to say? That my wealth was like fairy gold. Fairy gold appears precious at first, but soon turns into coal or weeds or stale gingerbread. In the end, she said, it would be quite useless to me.’ He brushed a flake of pastry from Penny’s cheek. ‘We’ll save your tree.’

  ‘It’s already been measured,’ said Penny. ‘One metre too short to be spared under the big tree policy.’

  Fraser laughed, a not very pleasant laugh, and selected a square of bitter chocolate. Penny was glad she was on his side.

  ‘I predict a more favourable outcome for the new assessment. Tuggerah’s much-loved icon will receive the permanent protection it deserves. And do you know what? It makes me happy to say it. Happy,’ he said with an emphatic nod. ‘I haven’t been happy for a very long time.’

  Chapter 30

  Kate floated on her back in a tank at Hobart’s new Gravity Centre. The pitch-black, soundproof pod normally offered a rare sense of meditative calm, but today she couldn’t clear her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about politics. Wedge politics.

  That’s what she paid her hard-line backroom strategists for, and that’s what had always worked. It wasn’t about playing dirty, no matter what Robert Hellgrun said. It was simply about playing the game. Announce a big policy, back your enemies into a corner, leave them nowhere to run without being exposed as frauds and hypocrites. Then … checkmate. A tried and true recipe for success.

  Kate had followed the winning formula, announcing a multi-million-dollar assistance package for timber companies and their workers. If Hellgrun and his dimwits didn’t back it, she’d accuse them of abandoning jobs and the Tasmanian economy. If they did back it, she’d accuse them of having no ideas of their own. Win-win. And as it panned out, it ‘appalled’ the Premier that Hellgrun refused to match her party’s commitment to industry. She branded the Opposition Leader as anti-development, anti-logging and anti-worker. But, for some reason, the strategy had backfired, at least that’s what the darn polls said.

  For years Kate had ridden high on those polls. She’d lost a few deputies to scandal, but she herself had always remained unsullied. Critics unkindly called her Teflon Kate, but that wasn’t who she was. She was Tasmania’s golden girl, the queen of feel-good politics, off on a never-ending honeymoon with the electorate. No Iron Lady. She had grace. She had style, flare, all the editorials said so. Her first two terms oversaw a rise in employment and a real estate boom. A by-product of the buoyant national economy, the Opposition said, but her constituents knew better.

  ‘Our economic fortunes,’ she’d famously said, ‘reflect a new era of optimism and growth that makes Tasmania Australia’s own Camelot.’ She later regretted that remark, having been accused of hubris, of comparing herself to the charmed Kennedy administration. Her reference was to the vaguely remembered 1967 film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. All that happy-ever-aftering in rousing chorus. The music had blared from loudspeakers at her rallies ever since.

  But recently, for whatever reason, the polls kept tracking downwards. They still showed her winning, of course, but by a narrowing margin. She’d probably lose a few ministers this time around. Always difficult to find replacements from such a poor gene pool, and it didn’t help having Drake running around hugging trees. Silly boy. He could have inherited political power, been preselected for a safe seat. He could have gone far, but he was too pig-headed, too critical. And he wasn’t the only one. There were rumours that even her own environment minister privately disapproved of her forests policy. Though he hadn’t disapproved when she raised politicians’ salaries by 20 percent. He had no balls.

  The most astonishing thing was that her personal approval rating was also down. It was so hard to please everybody. The party room had run their focus groups and blamed her presidential style. It smacked of elitism, they said, and was beginning to alienate voters. A humiliating series of political ads and photo opportunities followed. She frowned to think of them. Kate on a bus. Kate in an apple orchard, at a school, visiting tiresome children in hospital. Lots of sparkling white teeth, promises to listen, to share the pain, to admit mistakes. Mistakes? She hadn’t made any. All this phony contrition was embarrassing, and not at all what the electorate expected from their leader.

  What she needed was a showcase for her policies, and that’s exactly what Inquest was. The question-and-answer style panel program suited her, as did the live studio audience. Tonight she’d appear alongside her old friend, Fraser Abbott, and the Opposition’s Robert Hellgrun. With only a week until election day, this was the perfect opportunity for a popularity boost. Kate almost pitied Hellgrun. She and Fraser would wipe the floor with him.

  Chapter 31

  The girl stroked Sassy’s hooded head. She kept asking questions, although it was already late afternoon and the final flight demonstration had ended.

  ‘What’s the lure for?’

  ‘It brings the falcon back. I feed her from it each day.’ Matt let the girl hold the lure. ‘See? It’s made of leather, filled with rice, and a pair of pigeon wings attached.’

&
nbsp; ‘Real pigeon wings? Wow. What does stoop mean? You said Sassy was learning to stoop.’

  ‘That’s falconry language. It means to dive down on prey with closed wings. When she circles overhead she “waits on”. When she catches birds in mid-air she “carries”. When she climbs high above her prey, she “towers”.’

  The girl stood on her toes. ‘What’s the hood for?’

  ‘To keep her calm. Without it, she might become scared by the strange people, flutter about and break her feathers. Broken flight feathers are a death sentence for a wild falcon.’

  Penny walked down from the mews. ‘Enough for today,’ she told the girl. ‘Sassy needs her rest.’ The girl ran off to find her parents as the last park visitors wandered to the gate. ‘You’re good with the children,’ said Penny.

  ‘With some of them,’ said Matt, carrying Sassy back to the mews. ‘Those that aren’t idiots.’ He settled the little falcon on her perch, then turned to find Penny’s eyes upon him, studying him. ‘Is Drake coming over tonight?’

  ‘He’ll be here,’ said Matt. ‘They should rename tonight’s show A Family Affair. He’d invited Penny and Drake around to watch the Inquest election special on television that evening. The program was to feature Fraser and Premier Kate Logan, Drake’s mother.

  ‘You should stay tonight,’ he said, ‘so you can have a few drinks.’ Penny said nothing. She watched Sassy tear a mouse apart, before heading for the house.

  Matt sighed, and settled the other raptors. It would be fun seeing Kate squirm tonight in response to the latest polls. He was even prepared to suffer Fraser. Fraser – once so predictable. Not anymore. What about that tree business? Pallawarra was being fast-tracked onto the Giant Tree Registry. Fraser had sent him a copy of the assessment, a with compliments slip attached. The envelope contained something more. A black-and-white polaroid of names carved into a tree trunk: Charlotte and Fraser. On the back of the photo Fraser had written Pallawarra. Strange, confronting even, to think of his parents all those years ago. Not so different to him and Pen back in the day. Young, romantic, anticipating a shared future.

  Matt had never thought of them that way before, and he liked it. Liked to think of his mother in the context of something other than her death. Liked to think of his father as more than the man to blame. So Matt had gone to see for himself. Flowers and cards from well-wishers spilled out around Pallawarra’s trunk. Protecting this particular tree had been a popular move, even among forest contractors, many of whom had their own sentimental attachments. He’d found his parents’ names, and those forty-year-old scratches had moved him more than he could have imagined. Helped to place things in perspective. Made him more determined than ever to put his own marriage back together.

  His life was currently a mess. Sarah was in Hobart, all caught up in her work, genotyping devil samples. But she still wanted a romantic involvement with him, her flirty texts made that clear. And she was still trying to convince him to go public with Theo. Matt was avoiding her, without being too obvious about it. He posted Sarah her phone, so that she wouldn’t come and pick it up. When she offered to spend a weekend in Hills End, he invented a camping trip. But Sarah wouldn’t be put off forever. Eventually he’d have to deal with her.

  And Penny was still living at Ray’s. The reconnection that he’d been so excited about last week, hadn’t happened as he’d hoped. Penny was friendly, but distant. Something was holding her back.

  Matt’s life remained on hold, in limbo. Maybe that would change tonight. Drake’s presence would help keep things emotionally light while Matt gauged Penny’s mood. When Drake left, Matt would have a heart-to-heart with his wife.

  The early part of the evening passed in a happy blur. Drake brought fish and chips from town, and beer. This was like old times. Penny laughing, teasing Drake, playing daggy eighties power ballads. But she was cool with Matt, and wouldn’t drink the wine he’d bought her, sticking instead to lemonade. At eight-thirty they turned on the television and settled down to watch. Drake snagged the spot beside Penny on the frayed couch. Matt made a face and sat in an armchair. He turned off the lamp as the host appeared on the screen.

  ‘I’m Tom Munro and this is Inquest. On my right, Premier Kate Logan. On my left, Opposition Leader Robert Hellgrun. Also joining us tonight is a man whose critics call him The Puppet-Master. CEO of the Burns conglomerate, Fraser Burns Abbott.’ Enthusiastic applause, but some boos as well from the audience. ‘With the election only days away, polls indicate a mood for change. Everything depends on the undecided voters and there are still plenty of them out there. Tonight, you have a final chance to ask the big questions.’

  ‘Mum can’t smile properly,’ said Drake. ‘I reckon she’s had another facelift.’

  ‘Shush,’ scolded Penny. ‘Let’s listen.’

  Kate was a consummate performer, hogging the limelight right from the start. Even Munro’s expert hosting skills were inadequate to prevent her from seizing the initiative on every question. Hellgrun complained about Kate’s interruptions. Fraser sipped his water and listened.

  ‘… so according to our internal polling, the momentum remains with the government,’ said Kate, with a confident smile.

  ‘We must move on,’ said Munro. ‘Let’s hear from the gentleman at the back with his hand up.’

  ‘Can the economy keep growing forever?’ the man asked.

  ‘That’s a question for the fiscal philosophers among us,’ said Munro. ‘Fraser Abbott. You’ve been called the Gordon Gekko of Tasmania. Is economic growth always good?’

  ‘No,’ said Fraser. ‘It’s not.’ A low murmur came from the audience.

  ‘Perhaps you can explain your answer,’ said Munro. ‘Your pro-growth views are on the record.’

  ‘If I may paraphrase David Attenborough …’ Penny gave a small delighted cry. Munro’s brow furrowed as Kate Logan shifted in her chair, glaring at Fraser like he’d lost his mind. ‘Someone who believes in infinite growth is either a madman or an economist.’

  A louder murmur from the crowd this time and some scattered applause.

  ‘With respect,’ said Munro, ‘that seems to be a total abrogation of your former views.’

  Fraser shrugged. ‘A man can change his mind.’

  ‘Indeed he can,’ said Munro. ‘Let me ask the obvious question. Why have you changed your mind?’

  Kate cut in. ‘My government does stand on the principle of continued economic growth. Growth equals jobs. Growth creates wealth and opportunity for the people of this state. Record investment, record population increase, record employment and record consumer confidence. These are the trademarks of my leadership.’

  ‘Fraser is quoting David Attenborough now?’ said Matt with a shake of his head. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Your old man’s changed.’ Drake grinned. ‘He’s opened his mind, man.’

  ‘Unbelievable. First Penny and now you? Am I the only one who still can’t stand him?’ Drake and Penny exchanged smiles. ‘What, so we’re all one big, happy dysfunctional family now, are we?’ He hurled a cushion at Drake. It hit Penny.

  ‘Shut up, you two,’ she said. ‘I want to listen.’

  Munro waited for Kate to finish speaking, then went straight back to Fraser. ‘I must ask you again, Mr Abbott. Why this remarkable change of heart?’

  ‘Let’s just say I’ve done my homework.’

  Munro must have been dying to question Fraser further, but he couldn’t ignore the sea of raised hands in the audience. ‘A question from the lady in red.’

  The woman stood up and waited for the microphone to reach her. ‘Is it true that Pallawarra will be permanently protected?’

  ‘Ah. That’s the tree used by conservationists as a focus for their anti-woodchip campaign,’ Munro told the broader audience. ‘It was earmarked for felling. A very unpopular decision, I might add.’

  ‘A new measurement shows the tree’s volume to be two hundred and eighty-five cubic metres,’ said Fraser. ‘Any tree over two hun
dred and eighty cubic metres must be protected. The government will breach its own policy if the tree is felled.’

  The audience clapped, with a few cheers thrown in. ‘Sounds like you’ve won some friends,’ said Munro. ‘Next, can we have the gentleman here in the front row.’

  The man read self-consciously from a sheet of paper. ‘When will we see an inquiry into the shadowy role played by lobbyists in securing lucrative contracts and subverting proper planning processes?’

  ‘I think the questioner is referring to calls from the Opposition for an independent anti-corruption commission,’ said Munro. ‘Premier?’

  ‘These calls are a cheap political stunt,’ said Kate. ‘My leadership is, and has always been, completely transparent.’

  ‘Ha,’ said Drake. ‘Mum’s about as transparent as a round of lead. And just as deadly.’

  Kate went on. ‘We already have in place a comprehensive set of checks and balances to prevent any improper influence on government business.’

  ‘We’ll go to the Opposition Leader for a comment. Robert Hellgrun?’

  ‘This government is riddled with a culture of secret deals for mates,’ said Hellgrun. ‘The Premier and Mr Abbott here are prime examples. They’re as thick as thieves.’

  Kate tried to interject, but Munro stood firm. ‘We’ll hear from Fraser Abbott himself. Have you or your companies ever received improper favours from this government?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fraser.

  Kate’s smile fled. The audience gasped collectively.

  ‘You’re saying yes?’

  Fraser sipped from his water glass. ‘I’m saying, yes.’

  Munro sat forward in his chair. ‘What sort of favours?’

  Fraser reached beneath his seat and dropped a fat brown envelope on the desk. ‘For years I’ve transferred money into a chain of trusts whose ultimate beneficiary … is Kate Logan.’