‘If you’ll let me go on,’ he says, and waits until we are silent. ‘There’s a second part to my presentation. Usually with DSC relocs it’s difficult to find the extra placements in a single council area, and to be honest the whole state’s looking a bit patchy right now. Desertification has been a huge issue, gas debilitation, groundwater. Not to mention the sinkholes opening up in the south. So it’s likely you’ll get a better deal up north. The territories are departmentally incentivised due to labour shortages, and some of the reclaimed land is available in good bulk lots. They shift whole communities all the time these days. A few small cities, even.’ He runs his fingers over the touchscreen. ‘You guys are fortunate, in a way, that we’ve taken our time getting to you. The Department has systems in place now, it’s not such a rush job.’
‘I thought you weren’t from the Department, Ned,’ Ken says. ‘Sorry, Greg. You said you were from that law firm.’
‘Legal engineering. Aquifer and Ink. We’re working very closely. The Department contracted us to liaise with its clients on its behalf.’
‘But you’re part of Sepia Holdings,’ says Jean.
‘Subsidiary associates.’ His eyes are focused on his screen.
‘But isn’t that who’s getting the compensation?’ She lifts her glasses down from her hair and puts them on.
‘Well, not directly. It’ll have to go to them eventually as part of the existing credit obligation. There’s a bailout program for unsustainable communities.’
‘That sounds like a conflict of interest,’ Jean says.
He smiles patiently. Such decent teeth. ‘It’s an innovative public–private partnership arrangement. But let me bring up the specific project we’re offering, and you can tell me what you think. There’s no point dwelling on how we got to where we are today. We need to start looking at the options moving forward.’
We look obediently at the screen, where Your Options Moving Forward has reappeared. The background has changed to a sunny yellow. The options are ours, but he has included himself in the looking; this could be a good or a terrible sign.
‘You sound just like your father,’ Jean says. And then she presses her glasses close, narrows her gaze. ‘What does he think of all this?’
He glances at us. Blinks. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Ed Williams and I aren’t in touch, so to speak.’ Perhaps there is a slight evasion, a lift of the eye in an odd direction. Perhaps it’s a personal question, and there has been some conflict between them. It doesn’t seem fair to push it, though we’re dying to know.
Back at his little machine, he finds what he’s looking for. ‘Here we go. These are the best we have. Fully equipped self-contained units in one of the new agricultural zones.’ He swipes his tablet, and we look up at the screen. ‘I confess I’ve called in a few favours to find them for you,’ he adds, a little smugly.
The place looks like a caravan park, its cabins a row of old portable classrooms in a dry paddock. Little air conditioners tacked on the tin, a block of showers. Inside, curtains that look like they’re made from old blankets and vice versa. Tiny little windows. The pictures are overexposed, their colours filtered; it looks quite cheerful, in a hot-place way. The reclaimed land is flat and nearly treeless.
‘There’ll be a pool by now,’ he says. ‘These were taken a while ago. It’s really quite a good set-up.’
‘How will we be able to afford these places if we still owe all that money?’
‘Oh, well, that’s the best part. They’re on a scheme.’
‘Oh.’ We wait, drumming fingers on our knees, as he works through the slides. A row of grey water tanks sink into the dry grass. A pair of uneasy sheep stare beyond the camera. A sprinkler ejaculates over a pea-green lawn. None of the pictures have people in them.
‘What sort of a scheme?’ asks Jean.
‘Long leases. They need skills for the land reclamation. It’s hard work, but I hear it’s very rewarding.’
A mess hall, plastic chairs and long tables. A flesh-coloured kitchenette, bright curtains open to the glare. All these empty rooms.
‘I thought they only used those schemes for migrants,’ says Jean.
‘It got expanded to the internally displaced,’ says Greg.
‘I heard there was trouble,’ says Candace.
We turn to her.
‘It was on the newsfeed. Some disease.’
‘That’s just a rumour,’ says Greg. ‘Really, most of them wanted to go back. It was voluntary. It’s always voluntary.’
‘No cattle trucks for us then?’ says Carl. He shows his teeth, but nobody’s laughing.
‘There’ll be a bus,’ says Greg. ‘It’s all paid for. It’s a good offer, you know. Given the company’s restructure you probably won’t even carry the remainder of the debt. They’ll consolidate after they absorb the reparations, plus the federal compensation for investments of this kind, and then the company will decide whether it wants to proceed or rebrand. Sepia Holdings has a strong record of philanthropic debt forgiveness, you’re lucky they bought you out. They have a lot of experience administering emergency relief, you know. It’s really just a matter of saying the word and letting me make the arrangements.’
‘And if we don’t say it?’
He pulls at his tie, stretches his jaw so that we see his Adam’s apple move in the dark. ‘I don’t see that happening. You’re intelligent people, and you’re unlikely to get another offer this good. I mean, what else is there? The tents, or who knows what. We have to be realistic here. The kind of population distribution we’re used to just isn’t viable any more.’
There are only twelve of us. Too few to start a new town. It makes sense to join up somewhere else, with something bigger, with everything prepared. We are resilient, we are the strong ones. We adapted before, and we can do it again.
‘We put a lot of work into this place.’ Bob kicks at the empty chair in the row in front of him, which unleashes a small cloud of dust just visible in the blue dark. We wince at the sound of fabric tearing, at the age in his voice now, the sorrow.
‘It was supposed to be a long-term investment,’ says Jean. ‘Property. It’s supposed to be solid.’
‘That was true enough at the time,’ says Greg, his voice calm and kind. ‘But the world is changing rapidly, as you know. Long-term projections aren’t easy. You have to recalibrate your expectations moving forward.’
We watch the slides, which he’s left on a loop. Dim heat. Flat land, young palms. Back to the temporary buildings, their vacant cots unfolded.
‘Like cells,’ says Roger.
There’s an awkward quiet.
Greg lifts a hand. ‘People are lining up to get into these places. Hold up. There’s some more recent ones on here.’ He fidgets with his tablet. We turn our attention to a patch of green grass, feel a surge of hope as we await the swimming pool. It could be a holiday camp, with a bit of imagination.
‘Very mild winters up north, you know. Migrating rainfalls,’ he says. ‘Less impacted than the temperate zones. Which are now less than temperate, as I’m sure you’re aware.’
‘What about Hummock?’
‘Oh, they were priority C. You always get a few that won’t budge. They can do without services for a while, but it’s hard on them when the utilities go.’
We consider this. The emptiness we witnessed. The mattress in the burnt garage. Have all those people left now? Or were they the ones who weren’t convinced?
‘What’ll happen here if we go?’
He shrugs and disconnects the tablet. The screen turns blue and No Signal bounces around in place of Your Options. The outline of his face, the squares in our eyes, all change to match.
‘I can’t say on the record, but given the outlook modelling there are a range of risk management options available for the site. Extraction, of course, if it’s viable. Or they might decide to det
onate.’ He presses something on his remote control and the lights come on. Our faces appear, startled like the faces of woken animals. No Signal hangs there, shifting its position in the air. When we close our eyes it bounces around against our retinas.
‘Detonate,’ says Roger.
‘That’s the general process for sites with high underground volatility,’ he says. ‘After that the company can make a fresh start, once the dust settles. See what’s left, what’s practical. But I don’t want to be premature. None of that has been costed and, anyway, it won’t be your problem.’ He’s handing out papers. ‘Have a read before you sign, of course,’ he says. ‘But, like I said, the departmental budget is diminishing rapidly, it isn’t safe here, and I’d hate to see you get yourselves into a situation because of a lot of unnecessary prevarication.’
We take the papers in our hands. We remember other papers, other times. We have grown so used to this place; we’ve made a kind of life here. Now that’s threatened, all of a sudden, and it’s a punch in the gut. But we know he’s right. We have to be realistic. Unsentimental. There are worse ideas than leaving.
We look around at what we might be giving up. We try to see it as he does, see its market value. There are cracks and cobwebs visible in the stark light. Damp damage. Subsidence. The accumulation of minor disrepair. The utilities would go. Without running water, without power, could we manage here? We hold the papers in our hands and try to see things clearly. We need time to think about it. About what we can afford, and what we want. We want to take our time to make a choice. But it isn’t a choice, is it?
The doorbell rings.
‘Fuck,’ Roger says, standing quickly. We turn our heads to look at the security screen in the corner. We forgot all about Ivy. We had assumed she wasn’t coming, and then the dogs, and then this.
The young man looks suddenly afraid. ‘Does she know?’ We put our papers down on our laps or hold them against our chests. They seem to demand this kind of closeness.
‘Know what, Ned?’
‘Greg. She didn’t tell you, did she.’ The kindness has gone out of his voice, replaced by a soft panic.
‘She didn’t tell us anything. She didn’t get the letter.’
‘I didn’t think she was still here,’ he says. ‘I thought she was long gone.’
We lead him out of the dark and into the courtyard. His tension has calmed us. We feel in charge again. We make him sit down, and Jean goes to let Ivy in.
She comes in, wary as a cat; she hasn’t changed. In one hand she’s carrying a six-pack of something green in a plastic bag. When she sees Greg, she reaches for the back of a chair and grips it. Her arms are almost as thin as the chair’s frame, but somehow it looks like the furniture will break first.
‘Ned,’ she says. ‘You fixed your teeth.’
That’s it, we realise. Why he looks so different. He’s had them straightened.
‘It’s Greg now,’ says Candace, ‘he changed it.’ She reaches to help Ivy at the elbow, but Ivy pulls away.
Ned fidgets on the end of her glare. ‘Actually it was always Greg,’ he says.
Ivy sits on the chair, pulls a bottle out of the bag and twists it open, then puts the bag on the floor beside her. She takes a long drink, straightens the chair.
‘Explain,’ she says.
26
Sam’s nausea persisted unpredictably. It came and went in sudden waves that built in her feet, rose up her body, and crashed before they reached her head. She wanted to skip the meeting, but Ed insisted. He said she was good for morale. The Clapstone Development Association had been re-formed just for this. It was only a few of her neighbours getting together in a back room of the pub.
There were more than a few of them, and they didn’t seem to need help with morale; when she arrived the room was already buzzing with spirited discussion. The town’s population had shrunk since the flood; some had moved to Hummock, or further afield. The people who had stayed were the optimistic ones, the kind who would always pride themselves on their resilience. They were the type that Ed found easiest. She let him do all the talking; he derived such pleasure from it, and she was not quite ready to take the risk of speaking for herself. While she listened, she tried to see the park as they would see it, as a single, fully formed plan.
‘I have a feeling we’ll be able to attract external investment for a project of this scale. Of course, we’ll have to incorporate. Have proper office bearers, that sort of thing. If you think you’re ready to take this to the next level.’
Their expectant looks turned on Sam. She nodded her approval, and they moved away again, flowing wherever Ed’s current of talk carried them. This ability to inspire people was a kind of gift, too. Natural charisma, maybe, or a skill he’d learned somewhere in his opaque past. Without promising much, he was able to make them feel their lives were on the cusp of something wonderful. And maybe they were. If anyone could renovate Clapstone’s destiny, it would be him.
‘It sounds like a lot of extra work,’ said Jean, who was good with accounts and had already been proposed as secretary. She had come straight from the bar, a towel over one shoulder, her glasses on a chain around her neck, and her doubt was merely a formality; her eyes sparkled like the rest.
‘Not at all,’ said Ed. ‘If you’ll let me take care of the financials, it’ll be my pleasure.’ He threw his pen in the air and caught it in a fist. ‘We can’t go wrong,’ he said. ‘Not with our little oracle.’ Under the table, one of his hands patted Sam on the leg. Her stomach growled, unsettled. There was a sprinkling of happy applause.
Across from her, Bob shifted his bulk. ‘So I get that it’s a theme park. But what’s the theme?’
Ed removed his hand. ‘Some of the details are still being finalised.’
‘Remembered,’ said Sam. All the heat in her body moved to her face.
‘Of course. Sam will tell us if she gets any more, ah, information,’ Ed said. ‘But we have enough to go on. I think we can make a start.’ He paused, and turned to her. All eyes followed, stared. Waited.
‘Cuttlefish,’ Sam said.
She hadn’t been certain what it was, that big white creature on its naked slab. It had seemed to be part squid, part tree. The way its limb had crashed to the ground behind them, that wasn’t going to work. That moment surged at her through the layers of the visible. It made her dizzy now, seeing the movement cut through the gauze. Like vertigo.
‘They’re supposed to be dying out, aren’t they?’ Jean said, polishing her glasses on a corner of the towel. ‘There were maybe half as many this year as last.’ She put the glasses on, looked through them at Sam.
‘Well, if you listen to the greenies, everything is doom and gloom,’ Ed said.
Jean leaned an elbow on the table. ‘I don’t get to choose who I listen to, Ed. The scientists get just as thirsty as the rest of you.’
‘They don’t know anything for sure yet. It’s just theories, speculations. Anyway, even if they do die out, that’s not the end of the world,’ he said. He glanced at Sam. There was some edge in his expression she could not interpret. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t be certain what she would say, so closed it again.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ken.
Ed rubbed the back of his head with one hand. ‘There’s more interest in them, isn’t there? The less cuttlefish we get, the more attention. So maybe it’s about how you tell the story. Conservation. A statement of custodial intentions moving forward. Or if it comes down to it, a memorial.’
‘Yes,’ Sam said. The room fell silent, every eye upon her. She swallowed. There was a pause. ‘I mean.’
A memorial to the other future. The one this one would hide behind its camouflage.
Of course she couldn’t say that.
‘Nothing. Sorry,’ she said.
Ed clapped her across the shoulder blades and grinned. That
shadow she had seen in his expression had lifted; he was getting ready to stand. ‘Right, well, everyone take a look at those preliminary numbers,’ he said, ‘and if you like what you see, I’ll get the ball rolling.’
‘We like it,’ said Jean, still staring at Sam.
‘Not that it makes much difference,’ Curdie said, to no-one in particular.
Leaving the meeting, people were subdued. They shook Ed’s hand, but were wary of touching Sam, even to pat her shoulder. Things were different after the flood. People were shyer now, more grave around her. Respectful.
When they had all filed out, Sam and Ed packed up the chairs without speaking. Her hands were shaking, and her body felt cold. There was something not right about this, some contradiction, if she only had time to think it through. It was nothing so simple as dishonesty. Ed was noisily collecting photocopies, snapping pages, whistling his bright whistle. When she set down a stack of chairs in the corner she was surprised to feel his breath against her hair. She turned, and the room whirled awkwardly around her, distorting his face. For a moment she did not recognise him.
‘This cuttlefish,’ he said.
‘It’s there,’ she started, her voice unruly. ‘I know it’s there. I’m not sure how, but I can see it.’
Ed placed a hand on her elbow and began herding her towards the door. ‘We need to get our story straight,’ he said. He walked her out to the car, bundling the papers under one arm. ‘We have to be really careful now, Sam. We don’t want to spook them. We’re so close.’
‘Okay,’ said Sam, wriggling free. And wondered: close to what?
Backhoes ambled like genial dinosaurs, levelling an area where the school and the Scout hall had been before the plant shut down. Soon, only the metal rocket was left standing. Sam watched as it was crushed into a tangled cage.
Ed followed the machinery, unrolling his plans against the wind; Ned kept to Ed’s side, holding his phone for him while he battled the papers, or simply nodding whenever he spoke. And Sam stepped carefully after them, always a few paces behind, watched by little kids through the cyclone fences that had been hastily rented and erected around the site. It was like one of those plains zoos. She was the exhibit, and these her keepers. As she passed, some of the children reached tiny hands through the wire. She made a tigress face at them, but they just laughed.
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