The Grass Castle

by Karen Viggers

  ‘I’ve got other things too,’ George says. ‘A seal skull, one from a wedgetail eagle, even a crocodile skull. Ever seen one of those? They’re amazing—all this thick, hard bone with holes in it.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’ Abby asks.

  ‘A mate found it on a fishing trip in the Kimberley. It was sitting in the mud. Bit of a risk to get it, I suppose. Must have been other crocs about. But it’s one of my trophies. I was stoked when he gave it to me.’ He leans forward and lowers his voice. ‘I’ve got a human skull too.’

  Abby regards him with distaste. ‘That’s not something to show off about. What is it, a model or something? From the medical school.’

  ‘No, it’s real,’ he says.

  Abby is unsure whether to believe him or not. She tries to imagine his house with shelves of skulls, and a strange smell, stale and slightly rank from lack of fresh air and the musty stench of bone. She pictures a different skull on one of the shelves. A human skull. ‘You’re not serious, are you? Where did it come from?’

  ‘My mate found it in the bush. I gave him five slabs of beer so I could keep it.’ He sits back, smug.

  Abby’s skin crawls. ‘You mean you haven’t handed it in? That’s probably illegal. It could be someone’s father or brother or something.’

  ‘Nah, it’s just a skull.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  George ignores this and takes a sip of his coffee. He seems very self-satisfied. ‘You should come to my place and see it,’ he says. ‘I live just round the corner.’

  Abby doesn’t buy his sleazy line. Nor does she want to see his damn collection, especially not the human skull. She downs her cappuccino and checks the time. ‘I have to go. Got work to do.’

  He looks downcast. ‘When can I see you again?’

  ‘You can’t,’ she says. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I thought we could be friends.’

  ‘Look, I’ll pay for your coffee—you seem to think I owe that to you. Then we’re even.’ She takes some money out of her wallet and stands up.

  ‘Well, make sure you call if you’re ever in trouble again.’ He reaches into his pocket ‘Here’s my card.’

  ‘You already gave me one.’

  ‘Have another,’ he says with a grin. ‘So you won’t forget me.’

  She pays the bill and heads quickly out the door. Once she’s in the car and gone, she will delete him from her life like a file from her computer, and that’s a good feeling. She doesn’t want to see him again.

  A few days later in the office at uni, one of the other students, Nathan, calls out to her: ‘Hey Abby, there’s been a guy called George ringing to catch up with you.’

  Abby shuffles her papers and tries to suppress a sudden tightness in her throat. How did George track her down? Perhaps on the university website. It’s absolutely too creepy, and she wishes she’d never had that cup of coffee with him. She glances at Nathan. ‘I don’t want to speak to him.’

  Nathan seems surprised. ‘He sounds keen. He’s rung here, I don’t know, about ten times. That’s pretty bloody enthusiastic if you ask me. Everyone in this room has spoken to him, and he chats away like he’s mates with us all.’

  ‘Don’t be deceived,’ Abby says. ‘He’s an idiot.’

  Nathan shrugs as if to indicate that Abby is the weird one here. And for the first time, Abby sees that perhaps she should have made more effort to befriend her fellow students. They have all occupied this space for two years and she has failed to fit in.

  Nathan places a slip of message-paper on her desk, along with a pile of other similar notes. ‘Here’s his number in case you change your mind.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Abby slides her hand over the notes and collects them in her hand.

  ‘Give the guy a chance,’ Nathan says. ‘He didn’t sound that bad.’

  When Nathan leaves the office, Abby shreds the messages into little fragments and drops them in the bin like a handful of confetti.

  PART IV

  27

  Abby is en route to her study site when she hears an announcement on the radio about a kangaroo cull, and she turns up the volume to listen. Apparently there is a nature reserve near the city where the number of kangaroos has been increasing for some time. What’s new, she thinks—wherever there’s a suggestion of feed, kangaroos will breed, even in a drought. That’s what they’re designed to do.

  She has been to the reserve in question. It’s a haunting, bare, windy place with no grass and too many kangaroos with nowhere to go. The country surrounding it is heavily grazed treeless farmland supporting cattle and sheep. The farmers dislike having kangaroos intrude onto their land from the reserve. They see kangaroos as competitors for feed, especially in this drought. Abby’s kangaroos in the mountains are equally numerous, but there’s no farmland nearby, and hardly anyone goes there, so it’s largely unnoticed. Because it’s a national park—a natural system—the kangaroos are left to do their thing. Animals die, but it isn’t close to the city, so it’s overlooked. Down on the plains, it’s a different matter. Farmers want to get rid of kangaroos, but there’s more to the issue than that. The grasslands in the reserve also provide habitat for endangered species which the government is obligated to protect.

  The radio presenter is interviewing an animal rights activist called Martin Tennant. They keep referring to an article in the morning paper by the science and environment journalist—presumably Cameron. From the content of the interview it seems Cameron has taken the side of the activist, which doesn’t seem right to Abby. Cameron usually explores both sides of an argument. It would be out of character for him to align with a particular point of view, especially when he knows she supports culling to save habitat for other species—she told him that the first time they met . . . unless, of course, he’s angry with her and he’s trying to make an obscure attempt at pay back. But he doesn’t seem the vengeful type, and from his regular phone messages, it’s obvious he’s still hopeful they might get back together.

  Abby has been avoiding telephones as much as possible, both her mobile and the office phone. She doesn’t want to speak to the ever-persistent George, who keeps trying to catch her at uni. And she also doesn’t want to hear the sorrowful twinge in Cameron’s voice when he asks her out and she turns him down. No to coffee. No to dinners. It’s the easiest and safest way. Sure she misses him, misses the intimacy. And he seems like a knight in shining armour compared to George. But she can’t help remembering the ownership tendrils Cameron kept looping around her wrists. Now she’s had some time away from him she feels more herself again, just getting back to normal . . . if she can ever feel normal with George lurking in the background. Still, she’s keen to make sure Cameron doesn’t snowball this kangaroo issue into some media behemoth, so she decides to give him a call. It’s the first time she’s initiated contact since they broke up—but there’s no answer. The phone switches to mailbox and the sound of his voice sets her heart knocking. She had thought she might be immune to him—not as yet, it seems. She leaves a message to let him know she’s trying to get in touch. Then she’s out of range; the walls of the valley block the signals out.

  It’s a beautiful clear day in the mountains, early winter, with cerulean cloudless skies. Abby walks up the valley uplifted by the aura of peace. Out here, it’s easy to forget all the things that are troubling her. She notices there’s more grass than in the reserves near the city. If any rain has fallen at all, she supposes it has fallen in high alpine places like this where the clouds graze the ridges and shed their moisture involuntarily. Even so, it’s hardly grazing nirvana. There’s a subtle suggestion of green, but mostly the landscape is transitioning from brown to grey. The bite of frost has nipped away all colour.

  She remembers walking here with Cameron when they first met, her anxiety about that silly interview. It was the beginning of all things between them—she hadn’t envisaged that at the time. Back then, she hadn’t even met Daphne, and now she and Daphne are fri
ends. She supposes she has come a long way since then, but in other ways she hasn’t changed at all. This is the shape of her life, she thinks, and it’s not entirely unpleasant. She’d be better off if she could permanently discourage George, but on the whole she feels okay. Since she’s stopped seeing Cameron she’s been ringing Matt more often, and it’s been good to hear his news. Matt is doing better. He’s talking more, occasionally cracking jokes. Abby enjoys his attempts at casual banter; it has its roots in the casual comfort that comes with knowing someone all your life, growing up together. There’s no awkwardness in silences between them, and there’s a soothing sense of mutual support. If nothing else, their mother’s illness and death has bonded them in some strange, incomprehensible way. She and Matt are similar: both navigating their solitary paths, and prone to fleeting relationships which end as soon as a suggestion of commitment rears its ugly head. This is all they can manage, the two of them burdened with the past. Abby can progress quite merrily like this, and without too much pain—which is what survival is about, after all.

  She works a full day collecting data: measuring pasture, locating her collared animals, following their movements around the valley. At dusk she packs up and drives home. She is nearing the parks office when her phone beeps and, expecting to hear from Cameron, she pulls over in the fading light to check her messages. There are three from him. Yes, he would like to meet her. Sure, he’d like to discuss his article with her. Please, could she ring back to make a time.

  She sits for a while wondering what she should do, whether she should simply let this kangaroo thing pass. The day in the valley has been cleansing, and she realises now that it may not be healthy for her to see him; she regrets her impulse this morning to ring him immediately after the radio interview. Perhaps she should have waited till her blood had stopped stirring, then things would have been clearer, as they are now.

  Somewhere off in the scrub, she hears a kookaburra calling into the darkening sky. It’s the laughter that does it—as if the bird is mocking her. She calls Cameron’s number and this time she gets through. He sounds pleased to hear from her, but busy. They arrange to meet at a pub that evening—eight o’clock so Abby has time to go home for a shower and something to eat. He’s thoughtful, she concedes, not caught up in his own needs like most men she’s met. George comes to mind, with his sleazy manners and insensitive pushiness.

  Near home she stops at the supermarket to pick up a frozen meal for dinner and a newspaper so she can see Cameron’s article. In her bungalow, while the meal is whizzing round in the microwave, she sits on the couch among a scatter of scientific papers she’s been reading, and unfolds the newspaper.

  There it is on the front page.

  A government report released last night recommends a cull on public grasslands where kangaroos are apparently on the rise. Scientists who have been monitoring the site claim there has been a decline in legless lizards and earless dragons due to overgrazing by kangaroos. These reptiles, which are listed as endangered, are dwindling across the region, and government intervention is required to safeguard against their extinction. For this reason, the cull is likely to go ahead despite community opposition. The report suggests that up to four hundred kangaroos are likely to be removed.

  Animal rights activist Martin Tennant says government reports are exaggerated and politically motivated. He says kangaroos are not out of control, and culling is inhumane and unnecessary. ‘Our advanced society does not need to shoot animals,’ he says. ‘There are many options before resorting to murder.’

  Mr Tennant has been involved in many previous campaigns against kangaroo culling and he says government rhetoric is easy to recognise. ‘“Drought” and “starvation” are bureaucratic terms to soften the public prior to a slaughter,’ he says. ‘By definition, “cull” means shooting, and shooting is not humane. Animals suffer and joeys are clubbed to death. We must not accept this treatment of our national emblem.’

  Efforts were made to contact the relevant government agency, but no-one was available to comment. ‘This is typical bureaucratic behaviour,’ Mr Tennant said. ‘They plant the seed then run and hide. But we’ ll dig them out and force them to examine this issue properly.’

  Abby sets the paper on the coffee table and goes to fetch her meal. Then she sits down with a fork and hoes in. It’s not particularly inspiring—the taste of plastic permeates the meat, and the vegetables look limp and wilted. But she needs to eat, so she forces it down while reading Cameron’s article for a second time.

  He has definitely sided with the activist, it seems, but government ceded the right of reply, so it’s hard to confirm his bias. She wonders where he’s planning to take this. It’s an emotive issue—she’s sure he’s aware of that—and it would be so easy for him to stir the pot, especially with activists like Martin Tennant waiting in the wings. But Cameron needs to be careful he isn’t used as a mouthpiece. Then again, he likes controversy, doesn’t he? And strategic pot-stirring may be just what the newspaper wants, to swell the issue and inflate readership.

  After a shower she cycles into the city and D-locks her bike to a signpost outside the pub where smokers sit in tight clusters around gas heaters, pretending they are warm. She pushes through the filmy haze of smoke and through the swing-doors into the pub. Several sets of eyes lift to examine her with vague curiosity as she enters—humans are not so different from kangaroos.

  The pub is busy. It’s public-service payday and everyone is out. Restaurants will be hectic too—it’s part of the culture of this town. Abby looks around but can’t see Cameron, so she goes to the bar and orders a drink. She watches the barman draw the beer, his practised hand pulling the tap then letting it go with a thud. He plonks the foaming beer-mug on the bar and she pays then goes in search of a table.

  She finds two vacant bar stools at the bench along the side wall and settles herself in, claiming the second seat with her helmet. It’s fascinating to people-watch when you’re sitting in a pub, drinking alone. Patrons passing between the bar and other tables eye her warily, as if being solo defines her as a social leper. Most people don’t even notice her—they huddle in their insular groups, shouting and laughing and showing their teeth like hyenas.

  Cameron is late. When he arrives Abby spots him through a sea of faces, standing at the door, scanning the room. When he finds her, his face lifts, and he makes his way across the room, parting groups of chatting people as he comes.

  ‘Hey, g’day.’ He grins down at her, eyes dancing with pleasure. She senses he would like to sidle close and kiss her, but she doesn’t encourage him, so he stands back with a degree of tension, hands in pockets. After a while, he shrugs off his coat and slings it over the bar stool she has reserved for him. He notices her beer is almost empty and goes to fetch more, returning with two brimming mugs. Then he sits down and smiles at her. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, it’s been a while.’ She crinkles her eyes at him in a half-smile. She can’t deny she has missed him—her body tightens in his presence. Even in these few weeks, she has forgotten how tall he is, the way she is drawn to him.

  ‘I’ve been worried about you,’ he says. ‘You haven’t answered my calls.’

  ‘Preoccupation with work,’ she explains, off-hand, knowing this is an inadequate excuse.

  ‘How’s it going?’ He swigs his beer and sets it on the bench, his eyes resting on her face.

  ‘I’m doing okay. I’ve almost finished my fieldwork. Then the final analysis and writing begins. That won’t be much fun.’

  ‘Remember, I’m good at delivering cups of tea. And I can cook too. When you’re working hard, you have to eat properly.’

  She flushes. He has homed straight in on her inadequacies: her frozen meal this evening was about as nutritious and appetising as the cardboard it was packaged in, but convenient.

  ‘How’s Daphne?’ he asks.

  ‘She’s good. I’ve been seeing her quite a bit. She likes to talk. She has lots of s
tories to tell.’

  ‘And your brother?’

  ‘Matt’s fine. He’s back working at the vineyard. That always helps. Keeps him busy. No more disappearing stunts. How are your folks?’ she asks.

  ‘They’re still alive. You know how it is.’

  ‘I saw your article,’ she says, cutting to the chase.

  He looks at her expectantly, eyebrows raised.

  ‘I wondered what you were trying to do with it.’

  His eyes darken a little. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Whether you were taking sides. Perhaps favouring the animal rights groups.’ She knows it’s a bit harsh of her to go for the jugular like this, but she wants to hear what his angle is going to be. If he’s heading on the wrong trajectory, maybe she can gently redirect him.

  ‘I wasn’t siding with anyone,’ he says quietly. ‘It was just a preliminary report. I thought it was good to present a controversial perspective. It was hard to explore the government line when they wouldn’t even speak to me.’

  Abby has to agree with this. If the government hides from the media, it’s difficult to paint their point of view. ‘Don’t forget the science,’ she reminds him.

  He shrugs. ‘Government will trot out the science. We don’t need to go through all that in the paper.’

  ‘Of course you have to,’ Abby insists. ‘You need to interview a few kangaroo experts, like my supervisor Quentin. He’s the guru of macropod management.’

  Cameron grins with the pleasure of someone who finds themselves ahead of the game. ‘I’ve already rung him and he’s going to do an opinion piece.’

  ‘That’s a start,’ Abby concedes. She’s a little embarrassed. Perhaps she’s making this into something bigger than it is.

  He chuckles as if enjoying some private joke. ‘This isn’t really about kangaroo management, is it?’ he says cryptically.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asks, confused. What else could it be about?

  ‘Think about it.’ He smiles encouragingly. ‘Is there really a right or wrong in this? Some people think it’s wrong to degrade the environment and others think it’s wrong to kill kangaroos. It’s an argument about values, not management. The bottom line is that my editor’s excited. He’s expecting a rush of letters over the next few weeks, a good debate.’