Hinterland

by Steven Lang

  He went into the sleep-out, wrapped in his towel. Shaking with it. Never mind that Jaz had been the one insisted she leave that day – told Will to arrange it because she couldn’t be at The House because of the raid – Will knew what he’d seen. He rooted around for some clothes, but when he found them he didn’t know what to do with them, just stood there, looking down at the bed where she’d been with him these last two nights, not fucking him because she was sore, or because someone might hear and that someone was Jaz. The two parts of his life that had started to make any fucking sense, to make any of it fucking worthwhile, out there, in the kitchen, together.

  He wanted to break something, rip stuff off the wall. Pull the fucking cupboard over. Punch something. Scream. Curl into a fucking ball. This is the kind of shit that always happens. Stuff gets dangled in front of him just so it can get pulled away at the last minute. It’s happened before, time and again. Someone else always gets the things that were meant for him.

  But fucking Jaz.

  Ange came in. On her way to do something. It seemed he hadn’t moved. Was still holding his fucking underpants like he was strangling them. She put her arm around him as she went past, ran the flat of her hand across his belly. All he could do not to grab hold of her. Shake it out of her.

  ‘You all right?’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘You don’t look fucking right,’ she said, and laughed.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he managed to say.

  ‘I reckon I need to see a doctor,’ she said. ‘D’you know one in town? It really fucking hurts now when I pee.’

  On the way into town she asked him again. You right? Because he was only just holding it together and it must’ve been obvious. With her like that in the car he couldn’t keep it in anymore. He told her what he’d seen. She wouldn’t have a bar of it. Sometimes, she said, you are so fucked up. I wasn’t doing anything. Nothing. I’m drinking my coffee and your friend’s fucking all over me, asking me this and that. All kinds of shit. Nothing to do with me. You got a problem with him? Talk to him. Don’t fucking come to me about it. Be fucked if I know why I waste my time hanging around with you and your fucked-up friends.

  They’re all on the veranda. Everyone has a beer except Jaz, but then Jaz never drinks. ‘You got your girl sorted?’ Jaz says.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Will says.

  ‘Miaow,’ Garry says.

  He and Jaz both look at him. He holds his hands up in mock surrender.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Jaz says to Will.

  ‘Just surprised you need to ask,’ Will says. The aggro in him real high now. He’s just about ready to take Jaz on, never mind all his supposed murdering skills.

  ‘How’s that?’ Jaz says, as if he really doesn’t understand.

  Will doesn’t say anything. He fucking can’t.

  ‘I just asked if she’s found somewhere to stay, is all,’ Jaz says. ‘Didn’t like to have to kick her out. I know you like her.’

  Jaz’s very fucking calm. Trying to find a way to talk him down but it’s just making it worse. The other four watching, listening real close. For some reason Will feels like Clive is the one he has to speak to. That Clive’s on his side. Jaz is the one in the wrong, all the fucking way down.

  ‘But then, you know, also,’ Jaz says, ‘I was wondering who she’d been talking to?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Will says.

  ‘I’m just wondering if you’ve told her anything,’ Jaz says. ‘You know, about what we’re doing?’

  Turning it around. In a couple of words. Just like that. Making him think maybe he’d read the signs wrong, that when he saw Jaz in the kitchen he wasn’t into her, he was interrogating her. That maybe she’d said something to him about what she’d seen in the ute. Some stupid question about the drums. Not without the fucking realms.

  ‘Nothing. I haven’t told her anything,’ he says.

  ‘That’s good, then.’

  Maybe this was why Jaz was being so fucking pissed with them during the dry run.

  ‘What did she say to you?’ Will asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You boys done squabbling?’ Clive says, butting in. He has that little smile of his on his face. The one which lets you know he knows he’s putting the knife in but because he’s smiling you can’t say shit. If you say something he’s going to stick it further in and twist. Not so different from Garry after all. ‘You gonna tell us what we’re all doing tonight, then?’ he says.

  Jaz stands up, shakes himself off. Like a dog out of a creek.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Now, this is the sitcho.’

  Will leans in to listen, but he’s not hearing. Jaz is talking about effective action, about surgical fucking strikes. If Will’s wrong about what the two of them were doing in the kitchen then he’s pissed Ange off for nothing. Maybe pissed her off so badly she won’t come back. That’s the thing with her, you never know. Which means he’s fucked, completely and utterly fucked. Only himself to blame. The reason there’s nothing good in his life’s because, like she said, he’s screwed up. Because he’s nothing, never going to be anything at all.

  But then again, maybe he was right about what he saw. It’s not like Jaz is going to tell him he wants to fuck her. It’s not like Jaz is going to own up to any laying on of hands. Maybe, too, she did think more about the drums than she let on. There’s another fucking thought. Maybe he should come clean and tell Jaz she saw them yesterday. But that would mean calling it all off. Not getting to put it to those arseholes at the camp. To the whole of fucking Winderran. The thoughts spinning in his mind, round and round, none of them better than the other, nothing he can do about any of them, but none of them good for him either, and the anger that’s been with him all day comes back to the surface again. The anger feels like his only fucking friend. He’ll do this thing with Jaz tonight and he’ll try not to take a swing at any of these cunts he’s along with, but in the morning he’ll piss off, he’ll just get in the ute and go. If Ange’s there she can come with him, if not, then too bad. That’s what he thinks. He thinks he hasn’t got any fucks left to give.

  seventeen

  Eugenie

  Lindl was coming in from the paddock when they arrived, drawn up by the sound of the cars, demanding to know what the fuss was about and, in the same breath, typically, announcing she’d make scones, asking the girls if they’d like to help. Ange somehow including herself in this formula, as if the difference in age between her and everyone else relegated her a place at the children’s table.

  ‘I could help do that if you like,’ she said. ‘I mean, if you want to talk to the others …’

  ‘Well, that’d be nice,’ Lindl said, pulling jars out of the pantry, clearing a space on the bench.

  They were older. In the end only five people gathered around the table on the veranda – herself, Marcus, Lindl, Geoff and Alt. Everyone else either too busy or become disinterested, the tensions within the group starting to affect participation. Eugenie the youngest of their makeshift committee by a couple of decades. Not something she’d previously paid much attention to. Marcus fussing about with wine and glasses, arguing with Lindl as to whether it should be wine or tea. Geoff, in an apparent attempt to smooth over this minor domestic, launching into a convoluted story about drinking at inappropriate hours during his early years at CSIRO. His voice quavering. Probably no coincidence he’d spent his life up to his waist in watercourses. Alt in his usual position over by the railing, watching, holding his peace, smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, one of the few remaining martyrs to the cause. When Ange came out behind Lindl with the biscuits and cheese Alt nodded to her, saying only her name by way of greeting. No love lost there, it seemed.

  Eugenie holding off until everyone was settled. Telling them what she’d learned.

  ‘How do they even know about the frogs?’ Geoff asked.

  ‘Everyone knows about your frogs, Geoff,’ Alt said, giving one of those barks t
hat served him in place of a laugh.

  ‘How come?’ Geoff said, not amused.

  ‘Word gets round.’

  Neither Lindl nor Eugenie choosing to remind Marcus about the meeting with Ange and Will down by the creek.

  ‘I’ve only sent the preliminary findings to the Minister, the report’s not published until next month. It’s supposed to be under wraps.’

  ‘Supposed to be,’ Alt said. By choice he dressed in a weird suffusion of Indian garb, American and subcontinental, as if attempting to correct historical errors, loose drawstring pants and a collarless working-man’s shirt, a soft leather waistcoat with tassels on the shoulders, his hair cut short except for a small braid at the back with coloured thread woven into it, offset by a rather beautiful tattoo of a beast eating its tail that ran around his bicep. Important not to be confused by appearances, he was a man of some authority, a Canadian–Australian who’d worked on more environmental campaigns than she could count. His attention now focused on the story Ange had told her about the drums in the back of Will’s ute.

  ‘What do you reckon he’s got there?’ he asked Geoff. ‘Arsenic? Cyanide? I mean if they’re pouring that sort of shit in the creek they’re going to kill everything.’

  Geoff shook his head, dismayed at this show of ignorance of what he regarded as basic science. ‘You don’t need things like that to kill them,’ he said. ‘Which doesn’t mean they mightn’t try, of course, but you’d have trouble buying them in quantity. It’s actually pretty easy to wipe out amphibians. Some of the algaecides on the market would effectively kill every frog in a creek.’

  ‘Algaecides?’ Eugenie said.

  ‘Pool cleaner,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Copper sulphate normally, but also lo-chlor,’ Geoff said. ‘You can buy it pretty much anywhere. The thing about algaecides is that they’re virtually untraceable in flowing water. I don’t know the exact quantities you’d have to use, but I wouldn’t have thought you’d need much, a couple hundred litres maybe, and you’d get a massive kill. What’s more, you’d never know what caused it, where it came from or anything.’

  ‘Even after this rain?’ Marcus said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Geoff said. ‘Certainly the more flow you’ve got the more you’d have to use. But because the water’s up the vertebrates will be in it, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past them,’ Alt said.

  ‘The thing with these frogs is …’ Geoff said, starting in with an explanation of receptors and non-competitive inhibitors in the family mixophyes, the sort of thing which, after a year of campaigning, could make Eugenie’s ears start to bleed. Fortunately, though, redirected by a question from Marcus about chains of approval for his research paper.

  ‘The thing is,’ Geoff said, bringing himself round. ‘If I know what algaecides can do, it’s almost certain others do, too. I think it even says it on the label.’ Pausing for effect. ‘But you understand, if my research ever reaches Corwen’s desk it’s going to put a halt on the whole project. Corwen can’t override the EPBC.’

  Eugenie wondering aloud about this, the importance academics such as Geoff and Marcus put on documents like the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. As if bits of paper had real weight in the world.

  ‘But they do,’ Alt said. ‘These bastards, no matter how corrupt they are, want all the documentation correct. They’ll do anything to get power and hold onto it, as long as it has some basis in law. There’s to be no comebacks later if things go against them.’

  ‘This is only my research,’ Geoff said, ‘The team who did the environmental impact assessment found nothing. If the Commonwealth decide they can’t ignore me – and that’s a big if – and if they follow up by sending someone here to see this population of frogs and, well, they aren’t there … well … we’d be fucked, wouldn’t we?’ The obscenity clumsy and unusual coming from him, an indication of how strongly he felt.

  ‘Even Guy Lamprey wouldn’t kill off an endangered species,’ Eugenie said.

  ‘Lamprey mightn’t know anything about it,’ Marcus said. ‘And it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. There was a mine in Virginia that was going to be stopped because of some kind of shrew. The company got around that by simply killing it off.’

  ‘When a project’s worth billions, people’ll do all kinds of shit,’ Lindl said. ‘After all, it’s only a fucking frog.’

  Now everyone had started.

  ‘The trouble is we don’t know what they’re going to do, or when they’re going to do it,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Ange seems to think it’s tonight,’ Eugenie said, craning her neck to see into the kitchen where the hippie girl was rolling out dough with her daughters. Sandrine so ready to be influenced. Possibly there were worse role models. Eugenie just couldn’t think of any right then.

  ‘So, what d’you suggest we do?’ Geoff said.

  ‘We’re not going to do anything,’ Lindl said. ‘We’re going to call the police.’

  ‘And say exactly what?’ Marcus said. ‘That someone says someone else’s going to do something to the creek, on the basis of the fact she saw some unidentified drums in the back of a ute?’

  ‘Well it’s a start, isn’t it?’ Lindl said.

  ‘The police won’t be interested. You know that,’ Geoff said, full of surprises this afternoon. Eugenie glanced at Marcus to see his reaction but could detect none. Maybe there were hidden depths in Geoff she didn’t know about. ‘This is one of the government’s pet projects. D’you really think they’re going to post officers here to protect a creek they want to dam? On the say-so of a green group?’

  ‘But we can try, can’t we?’ Lindl said. ‘I mean look at us.’

  Five people around a table on the wide veranda of a Queenslander, wine and cheese spread out before them. A tiny group of men and women opposed to a dam. There must be a thousand groups like them at any given moment across the country. Older people, generally. Meeting on the second Tuesday of the month in each other’s kitchens and old Scout Halls, doing publicity stunts, speaking to the media, writing letters, calling politicians. They weren’t soldiers. The only thing they were good at was talking.

  ‘The way I figure it,’ Marcus said, standing up and moving things around on the table, drawing an imaginary map of the creek amongst the glasses and plates, ‘in this weather, if they want to get twenty-litre drums down to the water they’ll need a four-wheel drive. Even then they’ve got to be on a track. You put a wheel off road at the moment and you’re in trouble, doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle you’re in. There’s only three places where they can get access to this stretch of creek by road: the camp, our driveway, and the track that runs along the fence on Mal Izzert’s place. Well there’s Mal’s road too, but to get to it you’ve got to pass through the farm. I’d doubt anyone’s going there.’

  ‘You’re enjoying this,’ Lindl said. ‘Aren’t you? You men. I see you. You’re getting all fired up about it. It’s like an episode of Dad’s Army.’

  ‘We’re just facing up to the problem,’ Marcus said, affecting to ignore the Dad’s Army bit but clearly offended. ‘This is our creek we’re talking about. We have to protect it.’

  ‘Seal the borders!’ Lindl cried out. ‘Shut down the airports! Call out the National Guard!’ Flushed and infuriated, some hidden tension in their marriage suddenly on display.

  Alt raised a hand. ‘Listen, Lindl’s right, we need to contact the police, at least tell them our suspicions. But Geoff’s right too, they’re not likely to do much. What we can do is keep a watch on the creek, give them a call if something happens. What d’you reckon Lindl? Would that make you feel better?’

  ‘Don’t fucking therapise me, Alt. This isn’t about me feeling anything.’

  ‘I’m not trying to, I’m just alert to your concerns.’

  ‘My concerns are that you old farts are going to get yourselves hurt,’ she said.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Taking a breath. �
�But listen, I’ve got a few people I trust at the camp. Not all of them are as old as us. We can set lookouts at various points.’

  ‘What will they do if someone comes?’ Lindl said. ‘Take it up to them? Armed with scythes and pikes?’

  ‘Make a phone call,’ Alt said. ‘We can all gather at one place pretty quickly. I don’t figure anyone’s going to want confrontation. And if someone does turn up we’ll know they’re planning something … we can work on that. Take some licence plate numbers, stir things up a bit.’

  ‘If that’s what they do,’ Geoff said.

  ‘Well we don’t know, do we?’ Marcus said.

  ‘It could be nonsense. This girl,’ Alt said, glancing towards the kitchen, ‘she’s not a reliable person.’

  ‘There’s an understatement,’ Eugenie said, quietly.

  ‘But we have to do something, don’t we?’ Marcus said, still in field-marshal mode. ‘You go back to the camp, Alt. I figure the rest of us can stay here. Keep an eye on things. Call us if you hear anything.’

  ‘What about Ange?’ Alt said.

  ‘What about her?’ Marcus said.

  ‘I think it’d be better if she stays here.’

  The late afternoon sun burnishing the ridges. Everything lush and green, the sound of the creek filling the valley. It might rain for two months during the wet season – until just about every bit of ground was a bog and everything was starting to rot – but here was the upside: when the sun eventually came out you could feel the growth as a tangible force.