by Judy Nunn
‘Jess in her role as negotiator’s been thrown a curve ball,’ Matt said, ‘and we’re trying to figure out how to handle it.’
The remark was instant shorthand to Pottsy who, like Matt, was accustomed to fielding all forms of bureaucratic interference from those they both considered incompetent.
‘Some boundary claim that’s been overlooked, I take it,’ he said to Jess, aware of the disputes between local Indigenous groups and government regarding boundary lines and land ownership. ‘I thought all that had been sorted out years ago.’
‘It was.’ The reply came from Matt. ‘But this is something not altogether dissimilar in the way that it is a claim of a sort. Anyone want a cup of tea?’ He stood, a signal to Jess, who nodded. It was their plan she should have a little one-on-one time with Pottsy.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I’m up for another one.’ Pottsy gave a nod.
‘Right, won’t be a tick.’ Matt started to walk off to the self-service counter then turned back as if in afterthought. ‘Tell Pottsy about the ancestors, Jess,’ he said and left them to it.
Jess proceeded with the story she and Matt had concocted, which was very close to the truth. They were lying really only by omission they’d agreed, the one element excluded being Matt’s personal involvement.
‘I’ve been contacted by an Arunta mob, Pottsy,’ she said, ‘a large extended family, all of whom are very agitated about a sacred site of their ancestors being desecrated. They believe it lies directly in the path of the Ghan. Matt checked the location out for me yesterday and the family’s fears are justified: the rail corridor will run right through it.’
‘But all sacred sites were agreed upon ages ago,’ Pottsy was clearly puzzled, ‘they’ve been mapped and avoided accordingly.’
‘Yes, they have,’ she said, ‘all those with historical and ceremonial significance known and shared by the local people, but this is a slightly different case. This site is personal. It is sacred only to this particular Arunta family and has been for several generations, which is why its location didn’t come up for discussion in official meetings with Indigenous landowners. Until recently the family had no idea that the site lay directly in the path of the railway.’
‘How come they know now?’
‘The spirit world has made contact. The ancestors have told the family their sacred ground is about to be desecrated, and the family is desperate.’ Jess was aware the average white person would find the story implausible and that she was leaving herself open to ridicule, but Matt had instructed her not to hold back.
‘Be direct with Pottsy,’ he’d said. ‘He has a great deal of respect for Aboriginal beliefs. You’ll find far more empathy in him than you did in me. In fact,’ he’d added only half-jokingly, ‘if you’d asked me to come up with a white bloke who had blackfella blood in him, I would have picked Pottsy myself.’
‘The ancestors have become increasingly anxious,’ she continued. ‘They say time is running out, so the family has turned to me for help.’ Having stated her case Jess came to a halt, wondering whether Matt would prove right or whether she was about to be ridiculed.
Matt proved right. Pottsy did not ridicule nor did he even question the notion of contact from the spirit world. But he was gobsmacked nonetheless.
‘You mean they want us to change the route of the rail corridor,’ he said incredulously.
‘Yes. If it’s at all possible that’s what they want and that’s what I’m asking on their behalf.’
‘Pretty big ask,’ he replied in wry understatement. ‘What’s Withers got to say about it all?’
Pottsy was unaware that Matt had returned and was now standing directly behind him.
‘Withers reckons we should give it a go.’ Matt placed the three mugs of tea on the table and sat. ‘White and two sugars,’ he passed Pottsy his, ‘white and none,’ and passed Jess hers. ‘What do you say, Pottsy? The site’s not near any boundary line; there’d be no grounds for dispute.’
There was an element of suspicion in the flinty blue eyes that flickered from Matt to Jess and back again. Pottsy was wondering if the two were having an affair. They were very familiar with each other and Withers had been going into town a lot lately. Is this why he’s behaving so out of character? Pottsy wondered. Withers would normally be the first person to label the whole thing a load of superstitious nonsense: is he doing the girl a personal favour?
Every single thought flashing through Pottsy’s mind was readable to Matt. ‘Uh uh,’ he said shaking his head, ‘we’re just friends, mate – very good friends I admit,’ he added, his smile including Jess, ‘but that isn’t why I believe we should do this. I believe we should do this because it’s right. Exactly why it’s right I don’t know,’ he added with a shrug. ‘I guess only the ancestors can answer that. I’m afraid this is one of those situations that requires a leap of faith, Pottsy.’
Matt and Jess shared a smile of recognition, which led Pottsy to suppose it was Jess’s influence that had wrought the change in Withers. During the long years of their friendship Withers had always been the cynical one.
‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘it’s their faith, isn’t it? Their faith and their land. Seems only right to me. I’m willing to give it a go.’ He took a swig of his tea. ‘So where’s the site?’
‘About a half hour’s drive from where our team’s currently working. I’ve marked the location on the map, it’s around thirty Ks north of Alice.’
‘We’d better take a look at it then, eh?’
They downed their tea and set off in Matt’s Land Rover, Jess in the front passenger seat and Pottsy in the back.
‘Are you happy to have a late bite of lunch in Alice after we’ve shown you the place?’ Matt asked Pottsy. ‘I’ll need to take Jess back to town.’
‘Sure,’ Pottsy agreed amiably, ‘good idea.’
They chatted comfortably during the drive, keeping the conversation general, the tacit agreement being there was no point in planning a course of action until they’d seen the site. But as the rock formations came into view, Jess could sense Matt’s trepidation. She found it understandable for she was thinking very much along the same lines. Would he have another blackout? Would he start yelling in Arunta? If so it would be a difficult situation to explain to Pottsy.
Matt wasn’t thinking of Pottsy at all. As the rocky outcrops loomed closer and closer, Pottsy’s reaction was the last thing on his mind. The prospect of undergoing a repeat experience brought with it a mounting wave of anxiety. The events of the previous day had had a profoundly unnerving effect on Matt Witherton.
He pulled the vehicle up, the three of them climbed out, and as they walked the twenty metres or so to the site Jess took over, striding on ahead.
‘The site encompasses these two granite outcrops, Pottsy,’ she called back over her shoulder and upon reaching the rocks she marched into the centre of the clearing. Once there, she turned to face them arms outstretched, an authoritative figure in the desert surrounds, and the men came to an automatic halt. ‘The family is very specific about its dimensions,’ she said, ‘these two rocky hillocks and this clearing where I’m standing. This is the site that is sacred to their ancestors.’
Her eyes met Matt’s and he returned a nod of gratitude. He couldn’t possibly stand in the clearing. Even where he was on the periphery the place gave him a sense of unrest, a sense that anything could happen at any moment.
Nothing untoward did happen, however. They took the maps from the car, referencing the position of the site, then Pottsy roughly paced out its measurements, jotting down notes in a work pad while Matt disappeared to explore the surrounding area where the route would be redirected.
A half hour later he rejoined Pottsy, who was by now studying the map laid out on the Land Rover’s bonnet and jotting down further notes, Jess standing quietly to one side, careful not to disturb him.
‘There’s a watercourse with a rocky embankment nearby,’ Matt announced. ‘It could p
rove a problem in flood.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Pottsy’s reply held an element of ‘so what?’ as he looked up from the map. He didn’t quite get Matt’s drift.
‘So that’s our story should there be any questions asked,’ Matt went on to explain. ‘We made a deviation to the route in order to avoid a possible floodwater problem. Hell,’ he added when Pottsy was slow to respond, ‘we can hardly say we altered the path of the Ghan because some anxious ancestors got in touch with their family, can we?’
‘Ah,’ Pottsy’s grin was laconic, ‘yeah, point taken. I don’t reckon we’ll cop too many questions though,’ he added carelessly, ‘this is the Northern Territory, mate – nobody’s doing things strictly by the book. Hell, half the time they’re making it up as they go along.’
Matt rather envied his friend’s cavalier attitude, but he wasn’t so complacent. ‘This might be the Territory, Pottsy,’ he cautioned, ‘but progress checks are made and construction reports sent through nonetheless. We want to hope like hell that any questions asked don’t come from down south.’
The two discussed the matter further during the drive into Alice, Matt’s principal concern being not so much the redirection of the route itself, but how well they could keep it a secret.
Jess, having insisted upon taking the back seat, remained very quiet while drinking in their every word.
‘We’ll have to run it by Fritz,’ Matt said. ‘I’ll tell him you and I have done an advance recce and that we’re in agreement the watercourse could prove a bit of a problem.’
Peter ‘Fritz’ Jermyn was the Senior Surveyor, who worked hand in glove with the teams of engineers and designers employed on the construction of the southern rail corridor section. A fifth-generation Australian who hailed from Brisbane and specialised in outback projects, he’d never been to Germany, his one experience of overseas travel having been a week’s trip to Fiji, but as surnames were always fair game he’d been stuck with the label ‘Fritz’ for the whole of his working life.
‘Fritz won’t give a shit.’ Pottsy’s attitude again was distinctly laissez-faire. ‘He’ll just say “That’s your department, up to you, mate.” You can bet on it – the bloke’s doing a juggling act as it is.’
Matt tended to agree, Fritz was certainly laid-back, and certainly busy serving many masters, but again he couldn’t help wishing he had Pottsy’s supreme confidence.
‘And what about the boys?’ he asked. ‘What do I tell the boys?’
‘What do you tell the boys?’ Pottsy’s sandy eyebrows shot up comically as if dumbfounded by the question. ‘You don’t need to tell the boys a bloody thing, mate! Even if they guessed what was going on, and they very well might, Baz and Mitch’d never question a decision of yours, and Gav wouldn’t understand even if you tried.’
Matt grinned. He knew exactly what Pottsy was doing. Pottsy was going out of his way to put him at ease, knowing only too well that, as leader, Matt was bound to question every element of the undertaking. He shared a smile with Jess in the rear-vision mirror.
‘A good man to have on our side,’ he said, to which she returned a vigorous nod.
‘Actually, Jess,’ Pottsy swivelled about to face her, ‘your Arunta mob got in touch with us in the nick of time. We’ll be surveying and defining that area in just a couple of days: if they’d left it any longer they would have dipped out altogether, we wouldn’t have been able to go back and change things. Isn’t that so, Withers?’ he queried, turning to Matt.
‘Yep,’ Matt agreed. ‘They were running out of time all right.’
‘Just as well the ancestors made contact then, isn’t it?’ Jess said. ‘No wonder they were getting anxious.’ She directed her comment to Pottsy, deliberately avoiding the rear-vision mirror now.
As they drove through Heavitree Gap, the men discussed venue options for a late lunch. The Tavern, Bojangles, the café in the Mall …? Somewhere they could spread out their maps and discuss the route redirection …
‘My place,’ Jess interrupted. ‘It’ll be quieter and you’ll have more space. Besides, I’ve got beers in the fridge and I make a bloody good steak sandwich.’
‘You’re on,’ Matt said.
Back at the flat, they cleared the dining table, Matt and Pottsy laying out their maps and sitting to make notes over a beer while Jess defrosted the steaks in the microwave and fried up some onions.
She was impressed as she listened to the men, although she found their muttered calculations something of a mystery. After agreeing the route redirection should be at least fifty metres sideways to the east to allow space for access tracks, they went off at a tangent that lost her altogether.
She heard from Matt ‘… total length of deviation I’d say around fifteen hundred metres, wouldn’t you?’ and from Pottsy, ‘Yep, first curve seven-fifty before the site, final curve to finish seven-fifty after. That should about do it, I reckon.’
There seemed to be quite a bit of chat about curves, all of which was a little confusing. ‘Does everyone want tomato sauce?’ she asked as the toaster popped up a third round.
‘Yep,’ Matt answered, ‘and hot mustard if you’ve got it.’
She waved a jar of Hot English triumphantly in the air.
‘Same for me,’ Pottsy said and within seconds the table was cleared, the smell of fried onions reminding the men they were ravenous.
‘Would somebody like to explain what all that was about?’ Jess sat, placing three dinner plates on the table, each sporting a huge toasted sandwich untidily bulging steak and onions from its sides.
‘All what?’ Matt asked, unceremoniously wolfing into his.
‘All that business about curves,’ she said, just as hungry, picking up her own sandwich and applying herself to it with gusto.
Matt gave Pottsy a nod that said ‘over to you’ and Pottsy, through mouthfuls of steak sandwich, offered a detailed account of the transition and circular curves essential in the design of railway tracks. When he’d finished she still appeared a little baffled, so he added by way of explanation, ‘The straight centreline transitions into a circular curve with a radius of sixteen hundred metres, which is needed to allow proper curves, you see, and after that it transitions back to the next straight.’
Jess cast a mystified look at Matt, but nothing was forthcoming: he was too busy concentrating on his sandwich.
‘Some well-designed roads follow the same principle, although it’s not necessary,’ Pottsy continued, ‘because a motorcar’s front wheels change direction progressively. Are you with me?’ She wasn’t really, which didn’t matter as he went on regardless. ‘Transitions are absolutely vital in rail design, however, because a train’s wheels are fixed and it’s the tracks that need to change direction progressively.’ Another huge bite of sandwich, ‘Of course we’re only making rough notes at the moment,’ he said, chewing away vigorously, ‘the changes will be made using the theodolite and prism.’
‘I see.’ Jess was left wondering why she’d bothered to ask, but fascinated nonetheless. ‘I’d love to come and watch,’ she said, loath to be on the outer at this stage of the proceedings. ‘Can I, Matt?’ she pleaded.
‘Nope.’ The answer was brisk and unequivocal. ‘Sorry, no way. We don’t want anything that arouses attention and your presence would be definite cause for comment. You’ll have to stay well away for a while, Jess, but I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Sure. I understand.’ Disappointed though she was, Jess felt a thrill of anticipation. It appeared the unimaginable was about to happen. They were about to alter the course of the Ghan.
The reaction from Fritz turned out very much as Pottsy had predicted. In fact Fritz’s opening comment was virtually Pottsy’s prediction verbatim.
‘No worries, mate, go for it,’ the gangly Queenslander said when Matt approached him, ‘the advance survey’s your area, you’re the expert. And if some local bureaucratic prick wants to stick his nose in and hold up proceedings,’ he added, ‘you’ll have my backing.’ Fritz det
ested the bureaucrats in much the same way Matt and Pottsy did. But he made a further comment that touched upon the area of most concern to Matt.
‘Course it’s those pricks from down south I can’t help you with,’ he said, ‘those pricks who arrive on site to run a spot check or those pricks who study reports trying to catch us out when they can’t run a fucking country dance themselves.’ He gave a laconic shrug that said it all. ‘Can’t help you with them, I’m afraid, Withers. Ball’s in your court there.’ And Matt was left with his major concern still looming large on the horizon.
Jess kept well out of the way as instructed. Much as she longed for a progress report she didn’t contact Matt, but concentrated on her own work, boring phone calls, emails and paperwork at the Central Lands Council offices for the most part, work she’d been avoiding for some time. These days she seemed to negotiate as much with government departments as she did with local communities, the Central Lands Council being a sea of bureaucracy. Even serving in the diplomatic position she did, Jess, like the surveyors, found the bureaucratic process intensely frustrating.
Then ten days later Matt rang. It was a Thursday.
‘We’ve completed the route redirection,’ he said. ‘Everything’s in place. Now we sit back and wait for the contractors to set out the final rail design and then the construction teams arrive and get on with the job.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘Oh several weeks yet; nothing’ll happen until then. What are you up to this weekend? How about lunch at the Tavern Saturday?’
‘Great. See you around one o’clock.’
But she rang him back just the following day and cancelled lunch. ‘I have to go to Hermannsburg,’ she said. She didn’t say why and he presumed it was business, but it wasn’t business at all. She’d received the phone call that very morning.
‘Aunty May asked me to ring you, Jess,’ Millie’s voice down the line. ‘She says she’s going to die tomorrow and she wants to watch the sunset with the family around her. She wants you there particularly.’
