by Judy Nunn
Jess was not in the habit of judging others, but she couldn’t help feeling a little critical: she abhorred violence.
He offered her a cup of tea or coffee, iced water or soft drink – they carried ample supplies, he said.
She declined the offer, explaining she’d had lunch back at the camp and, leaving the others to carry on with their work, the two seated themselves on the ground under the sparse shade of a desert oak and got straight down to business.
‘Not a boundary problem surely,’ Matt said, curious as to the reason for the negotiator’s visit. ‘We’ve stuck rigidly to all native title alignments. There’s been no deviation from the originally agreed route.’
‘No, no, not at all,’ she assured him, ‘no problem with boundaries.’ Then she told him of the concern circulating in the Indigenous community at Alice Springs since the locals heard about the intended use of explosives just north of the town. ‘They didn’t know this until recently,’ she said, ‘they’ve never been told. Word only just got around. I don’t know exactly how,’ she added with a shrug, ‘but it’s out on the grapevine now and the locals want reassurance.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘I can only presume the powers that be considered a general announcement might give cause for alarm,’ he knew she was thinking along the same lines, ‘but it’s true there will be rock cuttings blasted north of Alice Springs. The use of explosives will be quite extensive, but I’m told the blasting will be contained and well-monitored, and that there’s no cause for concern.’
She appreciated the direct, no-nonsense response to her query, but found his business-like manner a little off-putting. He was addressing her as he might a journalist. Why the formality? It was so out of place. They weren’t at a press conference. They were sitting in the dust just the two of them in the middle of a desert.
‘So when do you reckon the blasting will be, Matt?’ she asked, deliberately laid-back, perhaps as a hint for him to unwind a bit.
‘Not for some time,’ he replied briskly. ‘It’ll be the last major earthwork in the creation of the rail corridor. I’d estimate probably early in the New Year.’
‘Right.’ Well he obviously hadn’t registered the hint. ‘I’ll let it be known there’s no cause for worry then,’ she said and she smiled to show she wasn’t really having a dig as she added, ‘not that there’d be much they could do about it if there was.’
He finally returned the vestige of a smile, albeit a rueful one. ‘Which is why the announcement wasn’t broadcast in the first place, I’d say. But there really won’t be a problem, I can assure you. I know the engineer, and he and his team are experts.’
‘Good.’ He was so obviously sincere that she decided he wasn’t a bad bloke after all, just a bit stitched up. Oh well, he can’t help it, she thought. ‘There’s one other assurance I’m after, Matt,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid it involves a personal favour.’ She went on to tell him about the aunties and the secret site that was so important to the women of the community.
‘How far north of town?’ he asked.
‘Just under twenty Ks, I clocked it.’
‘The radius of the blast won’t reach anywhere near that distance,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘The rock cuttings are less than seven kilometres from Alice. The site will be perfectly safe.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought. But any chance you could tell the elders yourself?’ she asked hopefully. ‘I mean if it’s at all possible? It’d put them at ease to have some assurance from a higher authority.’ Jess’s tone was apologetic as she realised she was probably pushing things too far. ‘I sort of promised you’d meet with them.’ A brief pause followed. ‘And it’s very good for public relations,’ she added hastily.
This time the barrier was lowered, only fractionally, but the surveyor appeared faintly amused. ‘You’re wheedling, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘although I would have called it grovelling myself. Is it working? Will you come into town and meet the aunties?’
‘Sure. How about Saturday afternoon, would that suit?’
‘Absolutely,’ she agreed, delighted.
‘Let’s say three o’clock.’ He stood and she quickly scrambled to her feet to join him. ‘Whereabouts?’ he asked.
‘Why don’t we meet at my place and I’ll take you to the community.’ She gave him her address in Undoolya Road. ‘I’ll be waiting out the front,’ she said.
‘Right you are. Three o’clock your place it is.’
‘Thanks, Matt. I’m most grateful, really I am.’ This time it was she who offered her hand. He accepted it and once again they shook.
He pulled his hand back smartly. ‘See you Saturday,’ he said then he turned abruptly and walked off, the barrier well and truly back in place.
She looked after him for a second or so. What a strange man, she thought, not exactly hostile, but apart from that one brief exchange completely withdrawn. And not once did he call me by name, she realised as she crossed to the Toyota.
He didn’t watch her drive away, but returned to his work, appearing not to give the negotiator a second thought.
‘What did she want?’ Pottsy asked. ‘Any problems?’
‘Nup, just a meeting with some elders in Alice on Saturday.’
Pottsy waited for a little more information, but none was forthcoming, which was not unusual for Withers, so he didn’t push any further. The negotiator’s visit had clearly been of no importance.
But the negotiator’s visit had been of vast importance. Jess Manning had had an extraordinary impact upon Matt. What had happened? Both times as they’d shaken hands it had seemed as though an electric current had run from her fingers into his. Hadn’t she felt it? She certainly hadn’t appeared to. He’d tried to fob it off as a normal reaction, just some form of static electricity, but throughout the whole of their meeting he’d continued to feel an inexplicable connection to the woman. So much so that he’d found it necessary to put up a wall. Stick strictly to business, he’d told himself, don’t let your guard down whatever you do. But why? he’d wondered. Why did he feel vulnerable? What was going on?
The more Matt pondered the question, the less he could come up with an answer. Jess Manning was an attractive young woman, certainly, but the compulsion of his feeling toward her had not been sexual. It had been something magnetic, a force, a field of energy he’d felt himself being drawn to. And when they’d shaken hands that last time, the connection between them had extended well beyond the touch of their fingers. A tingling sensation had run right up his arm, yet she’d appeared to notice nothing. What the hell was going on?
He wondered if the same thing would happen when he saw her on Saturday, and the more he wondered, the more he looked forward to finding out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Matt slept fitfully that night, which was unusual. He was a good sleeper as a rule and not given to dreams, not ones he was particularly aware of anyway, just vague images that faded shortly after waking. But he dreamt that night. And the images, vivid as they were, stayed with him long after waking.
In his dream he saw, as if from far above, a long line of surveyors’ pegs hammered into the ground, but the ground was not the dried red earth of the Northern Territory: the ground was mud, thick, black mud. And the flora was not the flora of the Northern Territory. In place of spinifex and acacias and groves of mulga were ferns and giant teak trees and thick stands of bamboo. This was not desert country: this was jungle.
Men were working in this jungle, hundreds upon hundreds, possibly thousands of men, it appeared from on high where he soared with his eagle’s-eye view. Emaciated and half naked, the teams of men slaved with the most basic of tools – axes and ropes and bars – grubbing out giant teak trees and breaking up rock, following the endless line of surveyors’ pegs. They were being beaten as they laboured, their persecutors mercilessly whipping them on despite the seeming impossibility of their task. Here and there a man succumbed to the beatings and fell into the mud,
but his companions hauled him to his feet and side by side they continued to work on down the line. These men, Matt realised, were building a rail corridor.
The images were disturbing and remained with him throughout the day as he pondered their meaning. He could come up with only one conclusion: he’d been dreaming of his grandfather. The men in his dream had been working on the Death Railway, he decided, the infamous line over four hundred kilometres long that the Japanese had built from Siam to Burma during World War II. Prisoners of war had been used as slave labour to build the railway and thousands upon thousands of lives had been lost in the process. His grandfather’s had been one of them.
Matt could see the connection: it made sense. His father’s stories about the heroism and mateship of those men who had suffered so terribly had made a deep impression upon him as a child.
‘I never knew my dad, but his name was Charles Matthew Witherton and they called him Charlie,’ Dave had said. ‘Mum didn’t know she was pregnant when Charlie went off to war. She reckoned I was probably around a year old when he died on the Burma Railway, but she couldn’t be sure. My God, Matt, you’ve only got to read about the hell those men went through …’
Here he was working on the Ghan and his grand father had worked on the Burma Railway. It would appear his subconscious mind had associated the two, but why now? He’d been working on the Ghan for well over eight months – why hadn’t he made the subconscious connection earlier?
The mystery deepened that night when he was visited by a further dream, and this time the images were far more than disturbing, this time they were horrendous. No longer floating safely above the scene: he was now in the thick of the horror, moving down the line, an invisible spectator walking with the men. He could hear the wheeze of breath in throats and the rattle of lungs in chests as weakened, emaciated bodies were forced to perform feats far beyond their capacity, yet amazingly enough and through sheer will succeeding in their tasks.
Here men were clearing jungle, there men breaking rock, and further back down the line, like beasts of burden, were men carting sleepers and iron rails on hunched, bony shoulders. And every last one had the look of death. Cadaverous bodies with skull-like faces, jaundiced eyes that bulged from sockets, ulcerated flesh rotting through to the bone, yet still these men worked on. And still where they could they helped those of their comrades who had fallen under the frenzied clubs of Japanese guards – the guards themselves driven by the fanatical order of their Emperor. It seemed master and slave shared one common obsession: the line must keep moving forwards.
There were some though unable to move at all, men beyond help who lay dead or dying in the monsoon mud, their mates forced to leave them where they had fallen.
Matt wondered which of the soldiers might be Charlie and moving unseen among them he started his search. Was Charlie one of those still clinging to life or had he succumbed to the mud? The dream, already horrific, quickly reached nightmare proportions as he peered desperately into men’s faces, seeing close-up the pus of their sores, smelling the foetid breath from their rotting guts, seeking somewhere among them a likeness to the one faded photograph he’d seen of his grandfather.
No answer was revealed and, after another fitful night, Saturday morning found him as tired as if he’d not slept at all; the images of his dream were still etched in his mind. He was annoyed that they should remain to haunt him and did his best to dismiss them – what purpose was served by dwelling upon the hell those soldiers had experienced? Nothing could be gained except sleepless nights. Why was this happening to him?
The weekends were layoff time for Matt and his team, and while the others drove over to Aileron for a day at the roadhouse, he spent the morning doing paperwork. Then after lunch in the canteen he set off for Alice Springs, as had been his intention even before he’d agreed to meet Jess and the aunties. He would book into the Heavitree Gap Hotel for the night as he always did during his brief visits to Alice. The hotel was cheap and comfortable and, situated at the base of the MacDonnell Ranges beside the Gap after which it was named, only a few minutes from the town’s centre. Heavitree Gap itself, a natural breach in the MacDonnell Ranges, formed the impressive gateway to Alice Springs, allowing entry through the mighty rock edifices that protected the south of the town like a fortress.
Matt planned his day as he drove. He’d book into the hotel first, then after his meeting with Jess and the women elders, he’d have a drink at the Todd Tavern followed by dinner at a restaurant. It was good to get away from the donga camps now and then.
She was waiting outside the block of flats in Undoolya Road dressed again in khaki shorts, sleeveless shirt and boots much the same as his. Regardless of gender, theirs was the uniform of the outback worker.
He pulled the Land Rover up and jumped from the driver’s seat. ‘G’day, Jess,’ he said, circling the car and extending his hand, interested to discover whether there would be another frisson upon contact. There wasn’t, just the pleasurable experience of a strong firm handshake.
‘Hello, Matt.’ Jess was a little surprised by the handshake, it seemed unnecessary, but was pleased they were now on a mutual first-name footing. She noted the Elastoplast had gone and the eye was no longer puffy – just a small nick below the eyebrow remained. Perhaps the fight was the reason he was so uptight, she thought, he’s certainly more relaxed today. ‘Your car or mine?’ she asked.
‘Mine,’ he said, opening the passenger door for her. ‘Hop in and show me the way.’
She directed him to the Aboriginal community on the outskirts of town, a cluster of cottages and shacks for the most part, village-like, with a communal open area in the centre. There was junk littered about and bombed-out cars here and there and the houses were in various states of disrepair, but Aunty Pam’s where they were to meet was tidy and trim and complete with front garden. Even the most delinquent of youths did not dare desecrate Aunty Pam’s property.
The meeting with the aunties was a resounding success. Pam, Jill and Molly were pleased that the surveyor boss had seen fit to pay them a personal visit and welcomed him with open arms, making cups of tea, and introducing him to the various grandchildren they were babysitting before getting down to business.
Then two hours later … ‘We appreciate you going to all this trouble,’ Pam said formally at the conclusion of the meeting. She was speaking for the three of them, Jill and Molly equally formal nodding their agreement, ‘and we’d like to thank you on behalf of the women of our community.’
Pam was the first to offer her hand then vigorous handshakes ensued all around. The aunties were far more than pleased. The aunties were proud, very proud, that the surveyor boss had paid them a personal visit, and on their home ground, where his arrival had been witnessed by all. It showed great respect.
Following the handshakes, Jess was embraced by each of the women in turn.
‘You done good bringing Matt here, Jess,’ Pam said, sharing a broad grin with the surveyor boss now that the formalities were over, ‘you done real good.’
During the drive back to Undoolya Road, Jess offered her own vote of thanks. ‘Well I scored a big win there,’ she said. ‘I owe you one, Matt. It really was good of you, thanks a lot.’
‘All part of the service,’ he said and he added with a smile that was genuine, ‘they’re a great bunch, your aunties.’
‘Yes, they are, aren’t they?’ She was glad he’d noticed.
They pulled up outside the flat. ‘Want to have a drink at the Todd Tavern?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’ She didn’t hesitate for a moment. ‘Hang on, I’ll just grab a jumper.’ It was approaching dusk and soon the cold would set in.
Jess dashed into the flat and reappeared seconds later with a woollen sweater. She was pleased he’d suggested the tavern. She’d thought that by way of thanks she should really invite him in for a drink, but she hadn’t wanted him to get the wrong idea. Not that he appeared the type who would, but she remained wary nonetheless. She was alwa
ys wary these days.
They drove back across the river into town. They could have left the car outside her place and walked across the footbridge as she normally did, but she didn’t suggest it as an option for the same wary reason – she wanted to avoid the need to return to her place.
‘So where do you come from, Jess? Are you a local?’ Seated in the front bar with the beers he’d bought them, Matt opened the conversation. As usual he was far more interested in talking about others rather than himself, and he found Jess Manning a most intriguing young woman.
‘Yep,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t grow up here. My mum was Western Arunta, my dad’s Irish …’ He noted the tense and wondered whether her mother was dead or simply not around. ‘… which makes me Aboriginal-Irish.’ She grinned as she added the catch-phrase from her childhood: ‘An exotic mix, as Dad likes to say.’
‘Dad’s right. You are.’
‘Hardly exotic.’ She gave a derisive snort.
‘Intriguing though,’ he said, ‘very intriguing.’
She wondered what the comment signified and searched for a hidden implication. She’d been doing that a lot lately, well, ever since Roger: she no longer took people at face value as she once had. Was Matt Witherton flattering her or was he patronising her? Neither, she realised, watching him as he calmly sipped at his beer. He was just saying what he thought.
‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘Intriguing’s much better than exotic.’
‘Where did you study, Jess?’ Matt was equally intrigued by her academic background. He’d met professional negotiators before when he’d been working on mining operations in Western Australia, and as a rule they’d been white and male, highly qualified anthropologists and linguists employed by government and private enterprise to conduct Aboriginal site surveys and confer with Indigenous landowners. A female negotiator was rare in Matt’s experience and an Aboriginal female negotiator unheard of. He was both intrigued and impressed.
