by Alex Miller
‘Hello, Susan Bassett.’
Annabelle couldn’t speak.
‘Hel-lo!’
‘It’s Annabelle Küen,’ she murmured.
‘Annie! What a lovely surprise. We were only talking about you the other day. You’re not in Townsville are you? Are you coming up to see us?’
‘I’m in Melbourne.’
There was a pause.
Susan said uncertainly, ‘Are you okay?’ Her voice took on a note of concern, ‘Has something happened?’
‘Steven’s left me.’
‘God! When did this happen?’
‘Tonight. Just now.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘I don’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to talk to. I’m sorry to bother you.’
Susan said with gentle concern, ‘You’re not bothering me, Annie. I’m very glad you rang me. We have to think of what you must do.’
‘I’m scared he might come back. I thought I heard him at the front door before. I couldn’t bear it. I can’t bear the thought of seeing him or hearing his voice. He’s moved in with one of his students.’ Her voice broke and she began to sob.
‘O Annie! This is horrible. What can I do? There must be something I can do.’
‘Nothing. You can’t do anything. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have rung you. I feel as if he’s beaten me. I feel as if he’s turned on me and beaten me to the ground. Enraged. His teeth clenched. Not saying anything. Not giving me any reason. Smashing me as hard as he can. Steven,’ she said helplessly, ‘I can’t believe it’s him. It’s like he’s an insane stranger. I keep wanting to ring my old Steven, the kind one, the real one, the gentle one, and tell him to come home and help me.’ She wept, sucking her breath and gasping into the mobile. ‘He thinks I’m going to forgive him. I can’t bear the thought of ever seeing him again.’ The sobs engulfed her. ‘I’m terrified he’ll come home and I’ll have to face him. I’m scared, Sue. I know he’s going to suddenly come through the front door. I couldn’t face him.’
There was a long pause. Susan said firmly, ‘Pack some things and get on a plane at once and come up to Townsville. Do it now. I’ll ring and book you on a flight.’
Annabelle blew her nose and wiped at her face with her handkerchief. ‘Do you really think I should?’
‘You’ve still got Zamia Street, haven’t you? You and Elizabeth haven’t sold the old place, have you?’
‘No. We keep meaning to. We had tenants there for a while.’
There was a silence.
Susan Bassett said, ‘Pack some things and get a cab out to the airport. Pick up your ticket when you get there. I’ll ring them now. Don’t stay in that house a minute longer.’
‘He’ll follow me. He’ll track me down. He’ll know I’ve gone to Townsville.’
‘No he won’t. I have to go to Burranbah tomorrow. Come with me. The Burranbah job will take me at least a week. We can pretend you’re my assistant. It’ll give us time to think of something. He’ll have no idea where you are. Leave a message at work to say you’re sick. Do it now, Annie. I’ll meet you at the Townsville airport.’
Annabelle said, ‘I completely lost my poise then. I’m sorry.’
‘Poise for God’s sake! Christ, you’d have to be a bloody robot to be poised at a moment like this.’
‘I feel calmer already just talking to you. Thanks Sue.’
‘Hang up and ring a cab at once. I’ll be at the airport. Okay?’
‘Okay . . . Thanks. You always were incredibly strong.’
‘Nonsense. Just do it.’
Annabelle took a deep breath; behind her pain she detected a flicker of curiosity at the thought of what was happening to her life—the ghostly reflection of herself in the kitchen window, observing her distress from the incurious detachment of a future time. ‘All right, I’ll do it. You don’t have to be at the airport. I’ll go to Zamia Street.’
‘I’ll be at the airport. Hang up and ring a cab.’
Burranbah Coal
BURRANBAH WAS A COAL TOWN UP IN THE LONELY CATTLE COUNTRY west of the Carborough Ranges, three hundred kilometres inland from Mackay and a good eight or nine hours drive down the eastern seaboard from Townsville. Susan and Annabelle loaded the gear into Susan’s Pajero the night before and left Townsville in the dawnlight the next morning, heading south along the Bruce Highway, Susan keeping her foot down hard and swearing at the trucks and caravans that were slowing them. She held the trembling steering wheel with one hand, her back pressed hard against the seat, leaning her free elbow out the sidewindow, counting roadkilled wallabies along the verge. She shouted above the roadnoise, ‘You never see a dead crow. They feed out there near the wheels and never get hit. I’ve been looking out for one ever since I came up here.’ She was a big energetic woman, dressed in faded khaki overalls and walking boots. An old brown trilby hat, sweat stained and misshapen, set back on her cropped grey hair. ‘Crows!’ she yelled admiringly. ‘See them birds step aside!’
They had sat up until the early hours at Susan’s flat, drinking red wine and talking about Steven Küen and the evil ways of men, going over old memories of their time together in Melbourne and lamenting the deteriorated culture of universities and the decline of civilised standards in general. They had both done a lot of laughing and crying by the time they finally went to bed. After two hours sleep Susan woke Annabelle at five with a cup of tea. They gave breakfast a miss and were in the Pajero speeding down the highway before Annabelle’s dreams had faded from her mind. Riding beside her friend now Annabelle was in a state of heightened nervousness, a peripheral anxiety teasing her expectations—the events of the past forty-eight hours and the landscape speeding by too fast for her to keep up. She shouted across at her older companion—older than her by the same margin that Steven was older than her, ‘You haven’t told me about any of this yet. If I’m going to be your assistant, I’ll need to know what’s going on. I don’t even know why you’re doing this survey in the first place. Everyone will think I’m an idiot.’
Susan yelled back, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. There’s nothing to know. Before they can open up a new section of their coal lease the company has to survey the area for evidence of previous Indigenous and European occupation. Significant occupation, they call it.’ She laughed drily. ‘The idea is that they don’t obliterate any more history than they absolutely have to. Which can still mean they obliterate all of it before they’re done. Every development up here has to have an approved cultural survey before it can go ahead these days. That’s what I do. That’s the business. Bowen Basin Archaeological Surveys Pty Ltd. That’s me! The meat in the sandwich between the traditional owners and the multinationals. Everybody needs me. Everybody hates me,’ she yelled gaily. ‘The local Indigenous community hire me to help them do the surveys and write the reports. They send along a couple of their cultural field officers who are supposed to know the country and we search the area together for evidence of the old people. I record our finds on the GPS and the mine foots the bill. The cost is nothing to the mine. It’s the delays they can’t stand, the leisurely pace of life out here. The Murris don’t work to whitefeller schedules. That’s not the way it is.’ She fell silent, pulling out into the oncoming lane and concentrating on passing a semitrailer. ‘Come on, darling! Come on!’ she urged the Pajero. She made it past the semi and pulled back in, the oncoming truck flashing its lights at her. ‘Yeah, yeah, okay, I see you.’ She settled herself in the seat again. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘You were doing the survey.’
‘After we’ve done the survey, I eventually produce location maps of the artefact scatters from the GPS records, and whatever other stuff we come across in our search of the country, then I submit the written report to the Murris. It can all take a considerable while. There’s a lot of politics gets mixed up in it before it’s done. We’ll dignify this one with the title Burranbah Coal Cultural Heritage Study, and if the Japanese are still buying coal by the time ever
yone’s approved it, the company will get down there and dig out its little seam of black gold.’ She waved out the sidewindow, ‘Another scrub wallaby! That’s fifteen not including your side. This road’s a meatworks for the crows.’ She fell back into a singsong recitation, ‘The reports include an archaeological assessment of the significance of the finds and a management plan for any sites we think ought to be preserved or restored.’ She reached around behind her seat, feeling about among the litter of papers and empty soft drink cans, the speeding Pajero veering out into the oncoming lane then swerving in again. She pulled out a spiral bound wad of manuscript. ‘Here!’ She dropped the manuscript on Annabelle’s lap. ‘Have a look at that. It’s a draft of one we did for a cable rollout for Telstra last year. They’ve rejected the recommendations. It’s not settled yet. It’s a game we play. They can’t roll their cable till the Murris say so. There’s a lot of power in that.’
Annabelle put on her glasses and opened the report. She squinted at the print trembling and dancing in front of her eyes: Before the conquest by the white man, all of Australia was land owned under Aboriginal terms by Aboriginal people. Within this context, the Birri Gubba people were and still are the traditional owners to the area bounded (in proximity) by Ross River in Townsville, the Valley of Lagoons north of Charters Towers, the Great Dividing Range west of Pentland, the Great Dividing Range being our western boundary, down to Alpha, across to Emerald, across to the junction of the Mackenzie and Dawson Rivers and across to Marlborough north of Rockhampton. The Birri Gubba people have never conceded ownership of this land to the white man. This land is still ours and will remain ours for all time.
She closed the report and took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. It was too difficult to read with the Pajero jumping around. She needed a cup of coffee.
Susan was yelling into her mobile, arranging the rendezvous with the Indigenous cultural officer and the mine representative. Susan shoved the mobile back into the chest pocket of her overalls. ‘I’m way behind schedule. I promised to have this job done six months ago. I’ve got too much work coming in. That’s the trouble.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘There’s six surveys, not including this one, either part done or not even started yet. You saw the mess back in the office.’ She nodded at the report on Annabelle’s knees. ‘What d’you think of that? Don’t tell me. It’s a load of crap. I know. God, I must sound cynical to you. I need a rest, Annie.’ She waved at the interior of the Pajero. ‘From all this. I need to pull back a step or two from black politics and white greed and take another look at little old me. I’m fifty this year.’ She tucked the speeding Pajero in perilously close behind a caravan, watching for her chance to pass. ‘Come on! Come on!’ she murmured. ‘Let’s go!’
They reached the place of rendezvous at three o’clock in the afternoon. A clearing in the brigalow scrub twenty kilometres beyond the mine entrance at the end of a fresh bulldozer scrape. Two men stood talking beside a green four-wheel drive, the white and gold mine insignia on its doorpanel. A white Ford truck parked a short way off in the thin shade of a stand of sandalwood trees. Two people sitting in the cabin. The windows wound up. Their faces impassive behind the screen reflecting sky and trees.
The two men talking by the mine vehicle turned and watched the Pajero drive up. One was wearing a white hardhat with an empty lampclip, a site ID clipped to the pocket of his shirt. As he turned to watch them come up the plastic site ID caught the sun. The other man wore a pale cowboy hat set back on his head, a stripy shirt and blue jeans, his pointy-toed riding boots turned over at the heels. Annabelle recognised in him the style of man who had worked for her father; the itinerant stockmen who stayed a season, mustering the scrubs then rode out with a polite goodbye and were not seen again, or who maybe reappeared a year or two later to muster the scrubs again, greeting you as if they had not been away and no time had passed. Independent, gracious and modest horsemen. Silent for the most part. Respecting the mysterious ways of the scrub cattle. Going about their business, then leaving with their cheque when they were done. Leaving you with the impression that although they were hired hands they worked for themselves, seeking some higher purpose of the brotherhood to which they belonged and acknowledging their equals only in each other. Annabelle smiled to see him. ‘A Queensland ringer,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen one of them for a long time.’
‘Yeah. They’re getting to be a scarce breed up this way too,’ Susan said. ‘He’s a good man. We’ve done a lot of work together. Some of these so-called cultural officers they send up have never been in the bush. I’ve had them ask me if there are snakes in the grass. Oh yes, I say, there’s snakes in the grass and you’d better watch out for them. Some of them will sit in the truck drinking Coke and watching me do it for them, complaining about the heat and the flies. Not this feller. He’s okay.’ She pulled in alongside the mine vehicle and switched off the motor. She swung her door open then reached back into the cabin and put her hand on Annabelle’s arm, ‘You sure you want to do it this way? You can still be a visitor if you like? You don’t have to get involved.’
Annabelle opened her passenger side door. ‘I’m already involved,’ she said. She smiled at Susan. ‘Let’s stick to the plan.’ She was wearing a pair of new green overalls, not dusted yet from travelling, the creases still showing from the shop. On her head one of Susan’s old wide-brimmed felt hats. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said and she reached and firmed the hat.
Susan held her gaze, questioning her.
‘I’ve hardly given him a thought, Sue. Honestly.’
‘Good for you!’
As she stepped down from the Pajero, Annabelle caught the trampled smell of the bush. She drew in a breath of the elusive fragrance, tantalising and familiar. The smell of life up here. There was no wind, a silvery membrane of palest blue shimmering in the remote stratosphere high above them. She was moved by recognition, something of memory and of curiosity and excitement in this apprehension. It was true: it astonished her to realise that she had scarcely thought of Steven all day. Perhaps she may even have begun to feel that the Steven she had loved and believed herself cherished by was dead or had always been an illusion. That man was still somewhere. In her mind. In her memory. That was not the man who had betrayed her. The man who had betrayed her was another man. A stranger. For the moment she did not feel required to consider Steven Küen or her own future, when she would undoubtedly once again be in Melbourne and would have to deal with the realities of her situation there. For the moment she found herself at liberty to be in the present, distracted from her fear of that other reality.
Susan said, ‘Annie, meet David Orlando. David, this is Dr Annabelle Küen, from Melbourne University. Annabelle’s going to be doing some casework up here with me for a while. I had to start from scratch when I came up here, but Annabelle’s a native of this part of the world.’
Annabelle stepped up and shook the mine man’s hand and said hello.
He smiled into her eyes, ‘Welcome to Burranbah, Annabelle. If there’s anything we can do to assist you while you’re up this way, you just let us know. Whereabouts are you from originally?’
‘Mount Coolon,’ she said, aware of the ringer’s interest. She pointed. ‘Mount Coolon’s about a hundred Ks through the ranges northwest of here.’ If the ringer was familiar with this Isaac River country around Burranbah, then she was confident he would have mustered the scrubs of her home country at some time in the past, so she added for his sake, ‘My parents had a cattle station on the Suttor before they sold up and moved to Townsville.’ She glanced across at him. He was watching her.
‘I don’t know Mount Coolon,’ David Orlando said. ‘But I do know there’s no coal deposits up that way. Have you ever seen a longwall operating?’
Annabelle said she hadn’t and confessed she did not know what a longwall was. She could feel the ringer examining her, figuring out who she was, placing her among the people of the remote cattle stations along the Suttor.
; David Orlando indicated the ground where they were standing. ‘The longwall’s operating right here under our feet at this very minute.’ He pointed to the perimeter of the clearing. ‘If you’d like to step over here I’ll show you the subsidence cracks.’ He might have appointed himself their tour guide. He spoke as if he disclosed privileged information that must astonish them. ‘We’re taking out a seven-metre seam three hundred metres below us here and this surface is subsiding less than a metre.’ He looked at each of them in turn, ready to acknowledge their mystification. ‘Mining’s not what it used to be. These subsidence cracks are the only disturbance to the landscape, Annabelle. No mullock heaps. No removal of overburden. No open cut. She’s clean green coalmining.’ He grinned. ‘That’s longwalling. If you have a morning to spare for the induction while you’re up this way, I’ll take you underground and show you her operating. She’s an awesome sight.’ He held a hand over his head, palm flat to his hardhat and he bent his knees, making scooping motions in front of his belt buckle with his other hand. ‘She holds the overburden up while she rips out the coal and slips it back along the conveyor, and she walks forward as she clears the seam ahead of her.’ He stayed crouched, taking small scuffling steps forward. He looked back over his shoulder, still crouched, one hand still over his head, the other scooping, being the longwall. ‘And she lets the roof collapse in behind her.’ He straightened and wiped his palms, as if he really had been the machine digging coal. ‘And that’s how we get these subsidence cracks on the surface. The Burranbah machine’s the biggest in the world. Eighty million dollars worth of hydraulic hoists and conveyors down there thundering through the seam twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.’ His eyes shone. He turned to the other man. ‘I’m sorry Bo, I’m forgetting my manners.’
