You dump the phone back into its cradle and take a few shaky breaths. An email appears from Mandy, head of PR at Gerro Blue:
Gerro Blue recently donated a range of infrastructure to De Beer Downs ahead of the dry season muster. We are committed to supporting our regional community and economy …
Bullshit. And anyway, how would a bulldozer help with a dry season muster? Just as you’re pondering a response, Lucia bursts through the door. She’s tossing her tote like a yellow grenade, she’s charging toward you.
—What the fuck, manga!
She stops within striking distance. You quickly rise to your feet.
—What part of ‘don’t call the police’ don’t you understand?
She pushes her sunnies onto her head. She looks like she’s been bawling for hours.
Oh, shit. You’d spoken to the cop, your mate Jamie, described the ‘hypothetical’ situation. But he wasn’t stupid. ‘You’re talking about De Beer Downs, aren’t you?’ That’s when you’d spilled the beans.
—Lucia, he was shooting at us! He shouldn’t get away with this! If it’s not reported, then nothing will change. And besides, it’s a powerful story. It’s in the public interest …
—Fuck the public interest. And fuck you. Police turn up, and before they ask any questions about the White Namibian, they bust my cousin for breaching an AVO—which, incidentally, he didn’t deserve in the first place. So, thanks to you, he’s going back to jail for two years …
The sunnies come back down.
—I’m sorry, you say. I didn’t know about your cousin … or … I’m sorry.
—You’re on! shouts Ash.
You might be on, but you’re also halfway through slicing a soft wedge of brie from the wheel. The handline’s unspooling on the floor of the tinny.
—Quick, Ava!
You forget about the brie, grab the pink plastic frame and clumsily try to wind the line back around it. Peer into the creek. See if you can see it.
—No, not like that! Just pull the bloody thing in!
Ash’s standing now; the boat rocks with his excitement.
—Hand to hand combat! he yells.
You feel its weight on the end of the line. Feel the line slacken.
—I think it’s gone, you say.
—It’s not gone!
The weight’s back, pulling so the line leaves a purple burn across your fingers. When it slackens again, you go hand to hand, like Ash said. Your heart’s thumping. You want this. Moments later, the bloody thing’s beside the boat, mouth ajar, tail banging tin. Ash scoops it up in the net.
—What a beauty! he exclaims.
—What is it?
—Thready. Check the size! Hang on a sec, let’s measure it.
He holds the fish against a sticker on the inside of the tinny.
—See here? Sixty centimetres. The minimum for a thready’s forty-five. God, what a lovely fish. Good on ya, Ava. First fish, eh?
He places the salmon on the floor of the tinny and you skim the sticker. The names are unfamiliar. Amberjack, blue groper, spangled emperor, coral trout. Even this one—you’d never heard of a giant threadfin salmon. Weren’t salmon supposed to be creamy and pink, not whiskered and white?
Ash pins it and wrestles the hook from its sandpaper lip. Then he saws into its throat with a shitty, yellow-handled knife. The acid tang of blood’s surprising. Do fish always bleed this much? Within a minute it’s lost lustre, lost the incandescent flush of blue along the spine. Throat cut, Ash dumps it in the esky atop a cold slab of beer.
—Righto, need some more bait?
You liked the chase, but aren’t sure about the kill. Aren’t sure your own hands could hold the knife steady, saw without shaking.
—Might just sit for a bit.
And so you do, leaning back against the side of the tinny with a beer. You were glad for the invite. Between Imogen’s dramas and Lucia’s freshly incarcerated cousin, it’s been a shit of a day.
Ash’s half watching, and you can feel the dangerous crackle of his desire. You ignore him, gulp down some more beer. The air’s swimming with fish blood and a sweet, fragrant smoke.
—What’s that smell?
—That smoke?
—Yeah.
—Cypress pine. Keeps away the mozzies and midgies.
It’s what Lucia’s family were burning on the fire the other night. You find yourself staring at the mob on the far bank of the creek. They’re just a little too far to distinguish faces. You wonder if Lucia’s brother’s there, wonder if you’ll see him again. Maybe you could borrow the key to the gate from Ash and make a duplicate for Lucia. If the family were camping at the river and the White Namibian appeared, they could jump straight into the troopies and take off. A small gesture of reconciliation. When you broach the subject with Ash, he says,
—Wanna talk about it over baked salmon?
—Sure, you say, and give him a smile, alluring and provisionally true.
After dinner, key safely pocketed, things get awkward.
Ash has told you about the time a saltwater crocodile hid in the grass next to his swag; about racing the first winds of a cyclone back to the boat ramp; about getting stung by a box jellyfish,
—It was like being whipped with molten bike spokes!
The stories are riveting, but it doesn’t take long to realise you don’t have much in common. He plays footy and fishes religiously, brags about loafing in TAFE’s bureaucracy and says,
—So up here everyone falls into one of two categories: deadwood, or driftwood …
As far as you can tell from his lounge room, he hasn’t picked up a book since high school. These are just things. The real truth has got nothing to do with what you don’t have in common.
—Let me wash up.
—Later, he says, voice husky.
There’s no music, just crickets and the creak of the boards as he dances you back toward the couch. It would be so easy. Let him kiss you, let him slide up your skirt, lower you to the couch … But the instant he touches you, you’re repelled, and he senses it, pulls back.
—There’s someone else, isn’t there?
How to answer? How did he know? Maybe it’s like the dark smell of smoked tobacco on breath: it lingers.
—Well, sort of. But not. But, I mean, yes, I guess you could say …
He groans, grinds his fingers into his eyes and doesn’t walk you out.
Without Jeff in the office, there’s serious slack to pick up and you only just manage to escape for a halfy at lunch to get a new key cut. Lucia’s out all morning, covering the netball trials for the region’s state teams, and it’s not until around four that you get a chance to ask her about lining up an interview with one of the Burrika mob about this so-called ‘farming’ infrastructure.
—I was thinking your aunt Madge might like to talk? You filled her in on what we saw?
Lucia’s barely spoken a word to you in days. She’s writing an email to someone now and her fingers don’t slow.
—My brother should do it. He’s free tomorrow, I’ll text you his number.
Thank fuck he’s okay.
—I just wanted to say again how sorry I am … about the other day, about your cousin. If there’s anything I can do to help …
Her fingers freeze. Her voice is low and loaded.
—We don’t need your help. Too many kartiya come up here with a ‘we wanna save the blackfellas’ attitude. You spend, what, two, three, maybe five years, then you fuck off back down south, back over east, back overseas, telling everyone what a great job you did for the ‘Aborigines’. Well, Ava, you haven’t done a great job. All you’ve done is make humbug.
It hurts. The key’s hot in the pocket of your jeans. You take it out, hand it over.
—For the gate.
—The gate?
It clicks.
—You didn’t have to do this!
—Why not? I’m here to save the blackfellas, aren’t I?
Lucia shakes her
head and grins and something softens. Just a little.
The jetty juts into the bay like a radial bone, the slightest curves to its edges. On a fleshy spring high it’s almost buried, but this afternoon the tide’s ten metres below the wooden planks. Lucia’s brother hasn’t arrived. There’s no-one else around.
You walk to the end, heart tapping a high, giddy key. It’s hardly like you’re on a date. Maybe it was only the fidgets of imagination—the warm intimacy. Should you have pushed for an interview with Madge instead? You’d have a cooler head, the questions queued. Did Lucia definitely say four-thirty? Maybe she meant five-thirty …
The bay stirs, a lukewarm tea. You close your eyes. What Lucia said bit deep. You don’t want to be like the other kartiya on their two-to five-year stints, know you’re different. Before coming here, you’d asked your family, was it worth it? Moving north, reporting on Indigenous issues? Your sister said she’d heard it takes a long time to build relationships, to build trust. Your mum was appalled.
—A nice place for a holiday, but darling, you can kiss your career goodbye. I don’t know why you’d waste your time writing about … those people.
Your mum hasn’t been to northern Australia. Hasn’t even been to Bali. It’s Paris, Madrid, Milan, to see the old country, or nothing.
Lucia’s brother’s still not here. A sinker of disappointment slides from your throat into your stomach. Just as you’re standing to go, a turtle breaks the surface. The lines on its shell are as detailed as a nautical chart.
—Goolil, a voice says.
You turn.
—Turtle’s my totem, so I don’t ever eat them, but I hear they’re good. Have you ever tried one?
Those slightly Japanese eyes are warm, calm, a complete counterpoint to the shame racing to your cheeks.
—Not yet.
—Lucia will have to sort you out.
The first two buttons of his shirt are undone. There’s a gold chain bright against his neck.
—Ava. That means bird, doesn’t it? Like the birds here, the Siberian ones. They’re a long way from home too. Shall we?
You slide back down against the pylon, pull out your phone, remember his leg.
—It was lucky the guys put on a tight tourniquet. Otherwise I would have pissed blood all over the car. But it’s all good now and I gotta get back to the station in a couple of days. Mustering starts next week.
Down below, there’s the faintest ghost of a jellyfish, maybe even a boxy. He extends his good leg. His thigh touches yours.
—Now these questions, he says. What have you got for me, Little Bird?
His answers are considered and clear. He tells you he’s concerned about the disruption of a massacre site, concerned the infrastructure isn’t for the White Namibian, but for Gerro Blue, concerned that the company has already begun exploration without native title consent, says,
—But to really understand this, you’ve gotta understand the history.
The sky’s darkening, marked by a single, smoky thumbprint.
—My dad and uncles worked their guts out on that station. My gaga, my uncle Clement, was a real good horseman. But back then if anything went wrong the punishments were fierce. Clement once saw De Beer Senior nail horseshoes onto a man’s feet.
You imagine the stinging grass and the cattle drinking at the trough and the sun twisting down like a pestle. You imagine old De Beer’s looming silhouette on the balcony of the homestead.
—The women copped it too. They’d start in the kitchen at three-thirty a.m., boiling water for tea, making damper. If De Beer wanted a woman, he’d take her. If the woman tried to flee with her husband, De Beer went after them, shot the bloke and hauled the woman back. A lot of those early day whitefellas were bad. But he was the worst.
The lights along the jetty flick on: a mercury vapour hum.
—And so the massacre site … that must have been De Beer then?
—He was complicit. But the old people say it was police. They were after a youngfella called Jimmy Juniper, who they reckon had assaulted a police officer. Said the women were hiding him down at that spot.
Further along the bay you can hear the crowd at the pub.
—We’ve asked the White Namibian to fence the site off, to protect it from cattle. He’s ignored our letters. But I guess we’ve got bigger things to worry about.
The water puckers around the poles of the jetty.
—Anyway, what’s the time there, Little Bird? My nieces have got netball. Lucia will kill me if I don’t turn up.
You walk back along the jetty, feeling the give of the wood under your sandals, feeling Noah’s fingers brush yours.
—Unbelievable. What the fuck were you thinking?
The story’s online. It’s in the local and state editions of the paper. It’s balanced: there are comments from both Burrika and Gerro Blue, though nothing from the White Namibian. He didn’t return any of your calls.
Jeff’s in a Hawaiian shirt and thongs. He looks like he just lumbered off the plane from Apia. His face is taut with anger or sunburn, and he reeks of beer and fish fried in sunflower oil.
—Unbelievable, he says again. Gerro Blue’s this paper’s biggest sponsor! The one week I’m away …
—It’s a good story.
—It’s defamatory! roars Jeff. They’re threatening to pull all their advertising money from the paper unless the online story’s removed!
—Why would Gerro Blue donate infrastructure to a farm if they’re keen to explore there for uranium? They’re clearly trying to cut corners, speed up the process.
Jeff ignores your suppositions, says,
—They want you down there.
—What are you talking about?
—Gerro Blue are flying you to Perth tomorrow afternoon to meet their executives. You’ll get an email from them today. And let me be clear, when you’re back, you’ll be on the arts stories, community events, horoscopes and fish of the week. No politics. No business. No real news. Now get the hell out of my sight.
You do as he says, bury yourself in press releases, bury yourself until an email comes through close to five. It’s from your girlfriend in forensics: The bones are human, she writes. Most likely, they’re part of a child’s collarbone.
When you lived in Tokyo, the approach of dusk in winter was freighted with dread. You dreaded the cold that came with night, and the cold was constant. It lodged damp in the toes of your Italian leather boots. The first winking eye of a streetlight was a sign to run for the train, rush the last story, skip the third drink. In many places there’s a similar sense of trepidation about the falling night, but it’s different up here. After the astonishing heat of the day, the air is suddenly cool, offers relief.
This evening, the temperature up at the fishing club car park’s perfect. Noah’s already waiting for you in the back of his ute tray. You’re worried about the fictional Noah, brightening your imagination, worried he won’t match it.
—Ava!
He jumps down from the tray and gives you a hug. His skin’s charged with a heavy scent, like smoke, like sex. His biceps are dense with muscle. When he pulls away, you keep your eyes down, afraid of the intensity they might reveal.
—Reckon the story turned out pretty well. Were you happy with it?
You like this, the absence of small talk.
—I was pretty happy with it, but the boss wasn’t. Gerro Blue’s threatened to withdraw their advertising money from the paper.
—You’ll probably want a glass of wine, then?
He unlatches the esky, pulls out a bottle of semillon sauvignon blanc and two glasses, which turn a chilled sodium-white. You recognise the wine.
—This is good!
—I did a couple of summers on vineyards down in Margs. When I was studying. Come on, let me give you a hand up.
In the tray he’s propped up a swag for each of you to lean back against. The view is of the bay, now lit with a pale loam and oyster light. The tide is one, maybe even two kil
ometres out, the furthest you’ve seen it. Behind you, a grove of pandanus obscures the fishing club. It’s closed tonight. Noah continues,
—So, do you think they’ll pull their advertising?
—We’ve taken the story offline, so perhaps not. But they’ve also asked me to fly down tomorrow …
He shakes his head. The scar on his cheek curves indigo.
—You’ll know what to do, Little Bird.
—Do you reckon you’ll be able to stop them exploring on your country?
—There’s a chance.
As you settle back against the swag, Noah places a hand on your thigh, sending a throb straight to your pelvis. You’re hoping he’ll shuck your undies, draw creeks with his tongue from your bellybutton south.
Instead, he gestures to the bay. The moon’s rising, throwing silver rungs down the mud.
—The old people say that when the moon makes a ladder like this, the souls of the dead pearl divers, Japanese and Aboriginal, walk to shore and visit their children and wives.
—How long do they stay?
—Just for the night.
You can hear dew falling from the eaves of the fishing club in a tricky imitation of rain. Enough talk, you want to say. Just lean over and kiss me. But he doesn’t. Instead he tilts his head back to take in the stars, scallop-soft, whole wheeling galaxies of them.
When you see the police tape, you let your sandals graze the concrete to slow your bike. Jeff’s on the other side, talking with the sergeant, nodding and scribbling, face sallow from last night’s binge. An ibis yawps from atop a wheelie bin. It’s lost its usual perch. Someone’s blown up De Beer’s stone bust.
Shit.
You dump your bike on the grass and duck under the tape. As you approach, Jeff excuses himself and capers toward you.
—Art. Horoscopes. Fish of the week.
—I thought you might need a hand. You don’t need to be a fucken prick about it.
Oh no. You didn’t mean to say that. Jeff’s eyes pop white, like fish eyes in the oven. You backpedal,
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