… Anyway, I digress. So, Charlie asked again today if we’d go round sometime. He didn’t specifically say tonight, but sometime. And Ben said, We must, we must … And we were both satisfied that Jess and Charlie accepted this as just the way we are. Like it was an automated response and not meant to offend. Everyone smiled because the pickings were good and that’s the main thing.
To tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind hanging out after-hours with them, and I’m kind of curious to see their place. We’ve heard so much about it. I’d like to see the treasures they’ve accumulated over the years. But Ben likes to consider things and do them in his own time – our own time – and doesn’t like a change of plan. And I should add that Ben has this thing about Jess getting a bit too keen on him when she’s had a few drinks, but I’ve always been there when that’s happened and it’s no more than friendly flirting. Women do that. It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t make something out of it. Ben looked sheepish when I said this to him once, but I know it’s an issue, if only a small one.
So the evening gets away from us all and we’re sitting and drinking and playing pool and darts and singing and drinking and laughing. I go to the bathroom and Jess follows me in and says, Why don’t you convince Ben to come around tonight … now? I could whip up some burgers for us. I go gently if tipsily to make an excuse and Jess lifts her index finger and touches my lips with it, and says, Now, now, girl … I know Ben’s the piker. I know you want to come over. We can have some fun – look at stuff, have a natter, eat and drink. It will be good. Now, you have a piss and go back and convince your man! She then laughs and goes off to a cubicle. I must confess, I am not one for coarse talk like that and it puts me off her a little. But I am tipsy and say to myself, Don’t be a prude, and decide on principle to convince Ben!
Back with the men, I catch Jess’s eye. She takes the cue and leads Charlie off to the bar. I focus on Ben. Ben, let’s go. I know you want to see Charlie’s shed. Want to see the boat he’s working on. What’s to stop us? Ben is annoyed and speaks harshly under his breath. Not here, darling, not now! Ben, you knew it was going to be asked. It’s always asked. There’s no logical reason why we shouldn’t go. Ben glowers and I know he is about to bring up the Jess thing when Charlie and Jess reappear, so he just lifts his glass and drains his beer instead. I take the opportunity to leap in and say, We’d love to come over! Before Ben can react Charlie pats him on the shoulder and Ben finds himself nodding yes to everything.
I go skipper. I’ve had much less to drink than Ben. We follow them out to the back of beyond. Didn’t realise they lived so far out of town. Charlie is driving their car, and though he knows he’s over the limit, he says the cops never come out that way. ‘Only risk is leaving the pub,’ he says. It doesn’t stop him.
Their place is a dream. Some might describe it as a tip in itself, but only those who lack the collector’s eye. Old cars, piles of wood, drums, this and that, all neatly sorted and spread over a couple of acres. Systematic, logical. Charlie shows us his workshop – we recognise a lot of his takings from the tip, all put to good use. And then inside the house! Every wall is covered, every shelf and spare cupboard top – A plethora of collectibles, I joke. We have reached nirvana or found heaven on earth, or both. Ben subtly nudges me in the ribs and I follow his eyes to a huge pile of adult magazines. You see a lot of them at the tip – we tend not to collect them, just the occasional bodybuilder mag. We’ve noticed both Jess and Charlie scooping up the odd one, but we’ve said nothing – that kind of thing isn’t anyone’s business. Maybe Ben’s nudge or our glances aren’t so subtle, as Charlie laughs his big-framed laugh, biceps twitching and straining his T-shirt, and says, Some beauties in there! Things people throw away – can’t imagine where they get it. Sure most of it isn’t legal.
This gives me a chill – a real shudder runs through my entire body … and I know Ben is shaken as well because he increases the space between his feet – spreads his legs apart – which is his defence stance. I’ve seen him like this when we were younger and he was about to fight some guy in a pub. Jess pipes up, Let’s all have a drink …, and takes Ben by the hand and leads him into the lounge.
We drop down into deep armchairs and Jess disappears for a minute to return with a tray of nibbles that she must have prepared earlier, expecting our visit … Have a canapé, says Charlie, as he pours us a riesling in beautiful stemmed glasses. We take a sip, running in auto mode, and Charlie flicks on the television and DVD. I feel really woozy; things are wavering.
***
Jess chatters to me through the door constantly. She tells me nonchalantly that Charlie has killed Ben and dumped him at the tip – he knew exactly where to put him in time for the bulldozing. He was like an expert. Jess is proud of her husband. And now Ben is landfill.
I don’t believe her though, because in the same breath she tells me that Ben is as hot as she thought he’d be, and He’s up for it, so why not you? – that you being me. Well. I am underground. A bunker, apparently under an old car. Jess says it is quite comical going through the back doors of the car, opening a hatch, then another hatch, then climbing down to a small chamber, then another door through to me. It’s very elaborate. There’s little air, but enough. I wonder if Ben is in a bunker like mine. If it’s nearby. I yell and yell and bang on the walls but hear nothing back. I always wait for that tap tap morse code contact from him. You know. I love you. Save Our Souls.
They ‘confessed’ they ‘made love’ to me while I was unconscious, but would be happier if I were a willing participant. I have refused their love and their food, so the jury is out on all counts. I am shackled, and can only move as far as the bed and the waste can. There’s an urn of water and a cup. There’s a single light bulb. I know no one can hear me when it’s all shut up. It’s stifling. Otherwise, as I weep, I look up at all the bric-a-brac, all the rubbish Jess has collected from the tip and asked me if I liked over the months, the years. Every item I approved of or desired is in here. Even that late entry, the ceramic ducks. They are flying up the wall to an imaginary, eternal freedom. Every piece of shit of which I politely said, at the time of finding, I am happy for you coming across it first … but resented, is in here: on the walls, in piles, filling the corners. Refuse. Refuse. Refuse.
ABACUS
Abacus set up her tent away from the rest of camp. She liked to do things her way and to have a little space around her, even when sleeping out in the forest. She cleared a small area among the ferns, and listened to the flock of Carnaby’s cockatoos high in the canopy. She touched the skin of an ancient karri, feeling its strength run through her body. She loved the forest. She felt part of it. The last rays of the sun rearranged the shadows, and the trees and understorey spoke their strange secret language.
She was late to the protest, but she’d been caught up in family stuff. Why bother with them? her comrades asked.
Abacus’s family were thoroughly ‘middle-class’. Her dad was a lawyer, and her mother was a French teacher at a private girls’ school in the city, the same school Abacus had been to. Her nickname had come from her schoolmates because she wore so many beads around her neck, even at school. The headmistress had given up chastising her, and the beads stuck.
Her mother had been ill with breast cancer, so Abacus had left the last protest at the Big Karri Block, and hitched home to help out. In the three months she’d been back at home, the battle had moved to a different section of the forest.
It’s gettin’ hardcore here now, the others told her. Been fights with the loggers, and the cops have been in cahoots with them. Gerry and Dave were arrested last week, and we’re expecting more soon. Charlie, Ben and Moongirl have locked onto machinery. Plenty of media around but not much making it onto television. Abacus was listening at the camp fire. It was night, the guitars were out, and stories were being shared. There were about twenty of her mates and a few new faces she didn’t recognise. A dozen tents of varying sizes, plus a number of tarpaulins strung betwee
n trees. Though it was unlogged old-growth forest, they’d found a small clearing. Because it was wet and cold, lighting camp fires wasn’t risky. Dogs ran around the place, making Abacus wince – she loved them, but knew it was bad to bring them into the forest where they chased the native animals and generally got neglected. They barked at the sound of chainsaws because it distressed them.
It’s dangerous at night in the forest with the loggers in work camps, or in town, not too far away. Some of them would be drinking; others at home, getting worked up about the feral protesters over dinner. Private security would be guarding the logging equipment, and the police would be patrolling. Some protesters were posted as sentinels around the camp, in case a group of loggers or their mates came in to beat the shit out of them. It was not uncommon. Sometimes, when a protest was long-haul, a kind of unspoken amnesty would occur every now and again and the ferals would drink with loggers in the town pub, like the Turks and the Australians at Gallipoli, Abacus thought. Mostly, though, they’d be driven out of town under a barrage of abuse and spit. Supplies had to be brought in from further afield.
Abacus didn’t mind toking on a joint before crashing out for the night, but she was sceptical of getting stoned ‘on the job’. For her, protesting wasn’t a lifestyle, but a political choice. She was part of the scene, sure, but she had a bit of a reputation for being stuck-up, because she stayed secretive and didn’t much share her feelings with the others. Moongirl and Ashram were big on feelings – they had plotted everyone’s horoscopes, and saw significance in everything from tea leaves, dope smoke, and the characteristics of people’s shit. Abacus said, You’ll get us busted having that dope around, and then there’ll be no one here to stop them. In fact, that was a favourite tactic of the loggers – who were nonetheless known to sell dope to the protesters. Good dope grown in karri loam, the best dope-growing medium in the world. But Abacus did like being with the protesters, and would smoke just a little and laugh at their stories, always helping out with the cooking and other chores. She’d even been arrested three or four times – the true measure of authenticity. She had earned her stripes. She often joked that they sounded as militarised as the loggers, the ‘enemy’, but for pointing this out, she earned herself some stern looks.
Today had been a long day resisting the loggers. All of those who’d locked on had been cut free, or cut off, and arrested. Two others had been taken in by police for abusive language. It frustrated Abacus. Have some control, people! she said. But the moment overwhelms all else. She knew that better than most. They debriefed around the camp fire, over plates of veggie stew.
Bobo, whom she recognised but barely knew, jumped out of the shadows and crouched by the fire, his dreadlocks glowing in the dark. He hopped around Cossack-style (another irony, thought Abacus) and made dog-like growls. No one wondered. They just waited. And eventually, he spoke … I was around the loggers’ camp this morning … I went out early, when they were just arriving … and I heard them talking about cleaning the forest out … tonight … about gettin’ rid of the scum … we need to be ready … they’re coming in.
Abacus was familiar with the responses: call the cops, no; move camp, no; hide in the forest, no; place more sentinels and have cameras ready to film the brutalities, yes. But there was no raid that night, nor the next, nor the next. Each day, more of the forest went and the logging got closer to the camp. The protestors were edgy but tired.
Then there was a lull. The loggers didn’t appear for days. A couple of the protesters risked going into town. No one said anything to them. They were ignored. Even in the supermarket they were served without aggression or abuse. They went to the bottle shop and bought three casks of red wine.
There were only a dozen of them in camp that night. The mainstays and a few hangers-on – transients, it would be fairer to say. Sustained protesting takes organisation and dedication, and few of those with the urge to help out ever stayed for long. Numbers in the camp would swell after frontpage coverage of a screaming protester shoved into the back of a police van, more if there was TV footage of struggles on the barricades with massive karris in the background. But the nights were cold and the mosquitoes bad, and few ‘visitors’ wanted to catch Ross River virus. And when the dope ran out, so did most of the blokes. But that night they drank and enjoyed themselves. They felt they’d had a victory but weren’t quite sure of the nature of it.
Bobo danced around the fire and had everyone laughing, even Abacus, whom he barked at a few times before dancing back to lick the flames. Abacus stuck to two glasses of Kirup Syrup, and feeling warm against the cold, said she’d retire. She tracked back to her tent, just out the glow of the camp. Fully dressed, as always, she crawled into her sleeping bag and curled up tight. It vaguely crossed her mind that she should have said something about sentinels, but she was feeling too relaxed from the wine, and fell asleep before the thought could spur her to action.
Eventually, the flagons and casks were dry, and bodies were strewn around the camp. Few made it to their sleeping bags, and certainly none tidied up or looked to the dogs, or posted sentinels. And when the dogs started to bark like crazy, they only half heard. The odd ‘shut up!’ snaked its way up along the tall trunks, not even making it as far as the canopy.
Abacus did hear the dogs, and sat up in her sleeping bag. As she tried to wake herself up, she felt the front of her tent collapse. She screamed out, but a weight barrelled in on top of her and smothered her face. The loggers! It rang through her head as she struggled against the weight which was crushing her. Hands were tearing at her sleeping bag and clothes. Her hands were pinned to her side, so she bit the hand that now held her mouth and screamed again as her attacker yelled out. She was exposed to him. He was trying to force his way into her. She felt her teeth crack as a fist smashed into her face; then emptiness.
The loggers’ attack was fast and brutal. They destroyed everything, and beat some of the blokes with sticks. It made the news, and the police said charges would be laid, but none ever were. Reports of the assault on Abacus prompted a modicum of outrage, but evidence was lost, and samples didn’t match those of any of the loggers. Even her father, whose influence went far, couldn’t prevent the accusations that she was trying to take advantage of the situation. In the hell she had descended into, she wondered how a mass beating could be shown in a good light, against her supposed sin of false accusation. She knew she’d been raped. That was a fact.
It was some years before Joanne, no longer Abacus, was able to stand against loggers again. But she did. Law degree in hand, she threw herself into the ‘war’. She used such words openly and unapologetically now. Her old comrades were still around, but wanted little to do with her. Always knew you were a sellout, said Moongirl and Ashram. They were an on-and-off-again item now, with a three-year-old son they took from protest to protest. The loggers would say ‘dragged around with them’. That didn’t bother Abacus – Joanne. She knew what she had to do. When they called her Abacus, she pointed to her neck – no beads there now. The rapist took them, she said. A trophy, no doubt. Her old comrades, unable to share her anger, put their heads down and ignored her. That stung, but she coped.
One of Joanne’s new tactics was to look through old television footage to identify loggers or pro-logging agitators who appeared at protest after protest, whether or not they were working in the area. She was using police and security tactics against the enemy. And she did notice patterns … a pattern.
She came across it in an early bit of footage, the first protests in the karri forests she could find – she saw Bobo. He was much younger but he was with the loggers. She wasn’t sure what drew her attention to him, as he looked quite different. She’d noticed him on the fringes of a few recent protests, but had only glimpsed him dancing about. When she looked closer, he disappeared.
The environmental group she was working for had been filming all recent actions. She went through the footage carefully. With a fine-toothed comb. There she was, and there was B
obo, looking on. Watching her. She zoomed in on a clear picture of him. He was in the shadows of the great karris. Late afternoon. She could hear the trees speaking to the understorey. There was no mystery – she could hear them speaking to her. She was there, putting her tent up again, Carnaby’s cockatoos unsettled overhead. Then it was night. Days passed. She was watching Bobo dancing. She was warm and heading to her tent. Then curling up in her sleeping bag. Time collapsed as the forest collapsed.
There! There it was! There! About his neck. Around his neck! The beads. Her beads. Abacus. And her comrades around him. Her comrades who knew her sign so well.
SHINE YOUR LIGHT ON ME
Damien first noticed her at church. He’d come in late, as usual, slipping into the half-space at the end of the pew next to his family. She was across the aisle and three places in, but he could see her well enough if he delayed kneeling to pray, and if he delayed getting up after he’d prayed. His dad gave him a disguised clip under the ear for dawdling, and he grinned when he saw that she’d noticed. The manner of gaining her attention had been established. He was an adept class clown.
School started again, and they were in the same class. Second-year high school. Though it was a district high school and went to Year Ten, Damien overheard her telling other girls that she would only be at the school for one year – her parents were sending her to a private school in the city. I couldn’t get in this year because it was too short notice, she explained, with just the right tone … my dad didn’t know he’d end up here. That opening speech brought her equal admiration and enmity according to the social split that had existed among the girls since the first grade. Damien knew that she was not in his league (he hated that expression) – and anyway, the up-themselves girls wouldn’t allow it now, no matter what she actually thought of him. The snob thing was a fortress that could not be breached.
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