Red Can Origami

by Madelaine Dickie

  —We’ve had six break-ins in the area tonight. But you didn’t think to report this?

  The officer, an older man, maybe a Burrika man, gestures to the graffiti.

  You shake your head. What if it got leaked to the local press? Jeff’s too dumb to join the dots but the local ABC might. It would look terrible for Gerro Blue if their Aboriginal liaison officer was chased out of town two weeks into the job. The ABC would want to know why and Watanabe would learn about yesterday’s fuck-up.

  —Anyone else home tonight? asks the younger one, a policewoman probably your age.

  She’s eyeing the front door. The handle has almost been kicked out of the wood.

  —Just me.

  The older man looks concerned, slips out a card.

  —Any other trouble, call me on my mobile, he says. Gemma and I will be here right away.

  You keep vigil with Tom Waits, a black coffee and a kitchen knife.

  You think about David’s offer.

  No, it’s not an offer, Ava, David said. It’s an opportunity.

  More like a trap. The company’s buying out the White Namibian. In early January you’ll drive out with the paperwork for the transfer of the station. David’s supposed to be doing it, but he can’t be fucked, or is perhaps too busy, or maybe he’s got a sweetheart lined up in Gubinge. With a growing sense of terror, you think of those eel-thick lips and freckles the colour of sponge and bullets tripping up tussocks. What if he remembers you?

  Turn left at the waterlilies, right at the salt flats, engage four-wheel drive. Following Ash’s directions, it takes two hours to get to the camping spot. In six, you’re sitting in a rock pool fast filling with bait and the tiny studs of jellyfish. The sun slings spears, white and sharp as barra bone.

  —There’s gotta be a scale, Ash’s saying. At one end of the scale, we’ve got a purely saltwater barra. Let’s call it a one. One hundred per cent saltwater. Then at the other end, we’ve got a freshwater barra. Let’s call that a five. Might have been trapped in a muddy pool for a coupla seasons—might’ve been in the main river and tastes pretty creamy. But shit, how bad are those fives that taste like mud?

  Everyone agrees there’s nothing worse than when sweet barra flesh is spoiled by stagnant water. Everyone being Ash’s mates—a porous, easygoing group of teachers, nurses, enviroscientists, a physio and a pharmacist. All twenty-or thirty-something. All welcoming. All on the piss since brekky.

  —Nothin’ wrong with beer and bacon for brekky, Ava!

  In a sibilant mimic of an opening red can, he goes,

  —Psk … ahhhhh!

  So, back to the barra. It’s agreed that number one barra are too lean and salty. And number five barra, always carry that shadow of mud. But the numbers in between, the perfect point between salt, mud and cream, is more contentious …

  It’s nice to be out of the glacial air-con, to gulp down humidity, and feel the sun bronzing your cheeks. A whole weekend on country is bliss.

  Earlier this morning, a few of the guys and girls went for a spear and came back with bluebone, Spanish flag, and a tale about an agitated reef shark.

  —Reef sharks don’t usually bother people …

  —I’m telling you, this thing was fucken going me!

  The conversation’s shifted to catfish. The physio, Harley, a serious blond in glasses, says,

  —Coupla years ago in China I was fishing with some locals. I got the first hit. It was a catty, about this big.

  Harley measures out about a foot and a half with his hands.

  —One of the local boys cut it open. In its belly was a perfectly intact human turd.

  Everyone howls disgust, washes away the image with long gulps of beer and champagne. Ash says,

  —In America, you catch catties by noodling them. You wiggle your fingers like …

  He demonstrates, digits half submerged in the tepid water.

  —They get curious, swim over and suck on your fingers. Then, just like that, you pull them up.

  —Who the fuck would wanna eat catty? asks one of the teachers.

  Later that night, with a blizzard of insects in the beam of your head torch, you’re bending over the esky for another beer when something tickles your bum. You cry out, startled.

  —You just got noodled, says Ash, laughing. Do you mind grabbing me a four-ex?

  He slips the beer into a stubby holder covered with Widawurls and you settle in camp chairs around the fire. Ash says,

  —It’s pretty special, isn’t it?

  You look to the silhouetted pandanus, in their whorled neck braces of bark; to the shore break turning wrists of white beads; to the freshwater soaks behind you, alive with mozzies; and finally to the fire, slowly chewing the frames of fish.

  —It’s incredible.

  Ash twists his beer in the stubby holder.

  —Y’know, people don’t move up here to be part of some oil and gas or uranium boom. They move up here for this.

  He’s dangling the bait and you suck it down.

  —Gerro’s got good leadership. The CEO’s bright, a really big thinker. I reckon it can be done safely.

  —Safely? mocks a young woman, pulling her camp chair closer. I’ve just spent the last five years in the Northern Territory …

  She’s freckled, with white, bony elbows.

  —And do you know what the mob up there call country where there’s uranium? They call it dead country. They call it sickness country.

  The young woman’s charged up and ready for a rip. While you get the feeling Ash wants to press you further, he doesn’t want to do it around her.

  —So, Olivia was working as a nurse at Emergency in Katherine. Tell Ava what you told me the other day … about the worst thing you saw up there.

  Olivia’s not keen to be dissuaded from an argument, but she does seem keen on Ash. She backs down.

  —Yeah, so on one of my last shifts, a bloke came into emergency without any pants on. It was late, maybe midnight. He had a vacuum cleaner hose jammed up his arsehole …

  Mum puts the hard word on you to come home for Christmas.

  —I don’t have the money, Mum.

  It’s sort of true. But, to be honest, you’re also enjoying being in Gubinge: the resident kartiya have fled south, the tourists are long gone, and the restaurants have stuck Closed for the wet signs in the windows. There are no queues in the post office, or at Woolies, or at the roundabouts. The town belongs to Burrika.

  —Oh Dio mio! You work for a mining company, they’re flying you around the world, and you don’t have the money to come home to your mother?

  With the approach of the wet, the poverty has become more acute. How do you tell your mum about the hundreds of homeless people that spend their nights on the footy field, under the mangroves, under the awnings of the shops in Chinatown? How do you tell her about what you saw the other morning, a Burrika man, perhaps dead, with a red feather of blood between wrist and elbow crook, with two other men standing over him, glaring at you, glaring at the fluvial sky?

  —Greedy girl! What did I do to have such a greedy daughter?

  That’s why you’re here, working for Gerro. It’s got to be better than writing stories no-one reads, that will change nothing. If you can lobby Gerro to commit to funding language, culture, training, employment … If the agreement is strong and Burrika vote in favour of it then maybe you can turn some of this around: the homelessness, the hopelessness, the drunkenness.

  —I’m sorry, Mum, you say. But Imogen will be there.

  —Of course she will. Imogen’s always here for me. Imogen appreciates her mother.

  —Mum, I’ve gotta go.

  And you hang up, feeling tears like tiny cinders, feeling the driveway unsteady under the soles of your feet. It still holds the heat of the day.

  You’re expected at the work Christmas party in Perth; Gerro Blue pays for a seat on the lunchtime flight. Whoever’s in the window seat hasn’t boarded yet, so you sit poised to get up. You’re still dr
essed in the company shirt and heels and are hoping to knock out an hour or so of work before you get to Perth.

  —Excuse me.

  Here she is, an older woman with the kind of sun-savaged skin that’s common up here.

  You smile, and start to rise, but upon inspecting the logo on your breast, the woman jerks back, bumping the person behind her.

  —Oh, I don’t think so.

  The people on the stairs come to a sweating halt. The vents in the cabin spew white gas. A flight attendant approaches, nimbly slipping past a couple of passengers still stuffing their bags into the overhead lockers. It’s a small plane, three seats on one side, two on the other, and everyone hears the woman say,

  —You should be ashamed of yourself, working for that mob. I don’t know how you sleep at night.

  The unexpectedness of the attack leaves you mute.

  —I refuse to sit here, the woman says loudly. You’ll need to find me another seat.

  The flight attendant carefully paralyses her features.

  —I’m sorry ma’am, you’ll need to sit in your allocated seat for take-off. It’s to do with the balance of the plane.

  —I told you, I’m not sitting here.

  Heading to the CBD from your hotel on Mounts Bay Road, you’re overcome by the car fumes, and the arsehole who blasts his horn when you cross too slowly at the lights, and the maddening Christmas carols.

  Retail therapy’s not as thrilling as going hand to hand with sharks, but there is something exciting about finding the perfect dress and heels for an event, and you’ve got a boutique in mind. Inside, the racks are crammed with hundreds of expensive confections. You click your way through heavy silver hangers, flick through price tags.

  —Hot, isn’t it?

  There’s no-one else in the shop. The assistant’s bubbly and bored. You slip a couple of dresses from the rack.

  —It’s not too bad. I live up in Gubinge.

  The assistant looks impressed.

  —It’s gorgeous up there!

  You smile warmly, a note of pride creeping into your voice.

  —Sure is.

  —Let me take those for you.

  She carries the dresses to the change room while you select another three. Low necklines, no backs.

  —It is a shame though, she continues. With that mining company … What’s it called? The one that’s been on the news.

  She waves her French nails,

  —It’ll destroy all that pristine wilderness … I mean, there’s obviously plenty of mining in the Pilbara. But that’s the Pilbara.

  —Do you mind if I try these as well?

  —Please.

  Jesus, you think, as the curtain swishes closed. Are a couple of hours of dumb retail therapy too much to ask for? You unbuckle your sandals. That would never have happened in Tokyo. Probably not in Melbourne, either. It must be a WA thing. You pull your shirt off. Perth is basically just a country town.

  Then there are more immediate concerns.

  You can’t zip up the first dress. Can’t button the second. You recall someone telling you that most people come to Gubinge looking like gum trees, and leave looking like boabs—they said the heat, meat and beers are to blame.

  —Can I give you a hand in there?

  You need more than a hand. A corset’d be a good start …

  After the shops, after dumping the new dress at the hotel, you climb a set of stone steps into Kings Park. What starts as an obsessed and slightly crazed desire to lose five kilos before the party turns into something more meditative. The vegetation is so different to Melbourne, and yet it shares something with up north. Perhaps a sense of the desert. The soil is sandy and spinifex grows in thick, sharp crowns. The air is drenched with eucalypt, lovely enough to bottle.

  A woman approaches in a clenched-bum power walk.

  —G’day, you say as she passes you.

  She frowns, looks down.

  A man approaches with a sweat-slick brow.

  —Hi, you say.

  At least he manages a surprised grunt.

  You come across a park within the park, where dozens of gums grow up from a mown lawn. It’s been months since you’ve seen a proper lawn, proper trees! The late afternoon sun slants through their branches and, though it’s summer, the light is auburn, autumn, the light of dreams, the light of longing.

  On the walk back, a boab catches your attention. It’s on a cliff above the deepening blue of the Swan River, above the escalating roar of the road below. For a moment, your heart warms and you get that feeling of home when you’re somewhere strange—like seeing eucalypts in Timor-Leste, Vegemite in Tokyo. Then you realise something’s wrong. The boab’s bark is cracked, its leaves are withered, and its roots strain from the soil, as if it’s planning on splitting town, hitching north.

  Empty hundred-dollar bottles of Cullen’s chardonnay loll in wine coolers on the table. The waiters and waitresses replenish the wine and start clearing plates that had held lightly lemoned oysters and buttery boiled lobster. One of your younger colleagues quickly attacks a decoration of fried kale before the plate’s swept away.

  You’re still on your first glass. It’s alienating, being sober. The women on either side talk across you in an exhaust of mahogany and black violet. Their accents are flat, their breaths boozy. You lean back.

  —Yes, well, we’re off to Aspen next week, says the woman to the left.

  She’s got blonde hair, bobbed like Grug’s, and dark pouches under her eyes.

  —Rob and I did Aspen with the kids last year. We’re off to Italy at the end of Jan.

  Grug, trumped, touches your arm, slurs,

  —Honey, can we swap seats?

  —Sure.

  She moves in for a wine-wobbly kill.

  At the other end of the table, Liam is engrossed in conversation with Watanabe and David. He flew down a week early with Susie. You wonder if they were spared on the plane.

  Would it be rude to bail? You should wait for the mains. The only person who’d notice would be Chris, one of the skinny young lawyers who’s been sneaking you shy looks all night.

  More plates appear: saffron-infused squid and miso-glazed barramundi.

  Sick of comparing shares, wedding rings and holiday houses, Grug turns back to you. Three tiny squid suckers slide behind her coral lipstick.

  —So, we hear you’re the Abo-lover. What’s it like then, living up there? Must be tough.

  —The climate’s tough. But it’s an exciting place to live.

  Grug favours contradiction.

  —Exciting? More like the end of the fucken earth.

  She guzzles another glass of white and smothers a burp. The other woman chips in,

  —We don’t envy your job. The Aborigines sound like hard work. One minute, they’ve got a moratorium against uranium. The next minute, they’ve got their hands out for royalties. So what do you like about it anyway?

  You tell them about the night crabbing and the bull riding and the build-up storms and the sunsets. Their eyes glaze. They fish out their phones.

  Outside, on the restaurant’s balcony, the cold evening air takes the sting from the insult. Lights roll along the river like white marbles. There’s the faint smell of half-crushed cigarettes. Watanabe comes up behind you, quietly. For a moment your breath quickens and you steal a look at David, wondering if he’s said anything to Watanabe about the information session or about how he’s stooged you into doing the contract run to the White Namibian’s. But David’s not paying any attention. Instead, he’s looking at Grug with mild disgust. Watanabe says in Japanese,

  —You’re not enjoying yourself?

  He’s got that right. Not the pretending, the excess or the smiling through remarks like ‘Abo-lover’.

  —Not really.

  It’s easier to admit in a second language. As though once-removed from the actual meaning.

  —I don’t blame you.

  Watanabe switches back to English.

  —I was pl
anning on catching you tomorrow at the airport, but we may as well talk now. We’ve got a busy few weeks ahead. The exploration phase of our operations is complete, and on Christmas Eve, we’ll be announcing the location for the mine.

  Your head’s clicking into gear.

  —Lalinjurra?

  —Near Lalinjurra, though we’ll be calling the mine Fortune. Inside, the noise has completely died. Grug’s standing at the head of the table, hands on hips, squinting in disbelief at the crotch of her white silk pants. She’s cackled so hard she’s pissed herself. There are a full five seconds of silence, then everyone laughs and keeps drinking.

  —Australians, Watanabe says, appalled.

  —Some Australians, you modify.

  —A soon-to-be-unemployed Australian, he says, drawing a cigarette from his shirt pocket.

  Over to the right, a bike path parallels the river. A cyclist passes, headlamp pulsing, legs moving with graceful celerity.

  It’s a smart move, announcing the site for a uranium mine on Christmas Eve. There’ll be no greenies in town, the regular journos are on holiday, mob are on country, fishing …

  —So, Burrika will need to be filled in early in the New Year, and I expect we can tie this in with one of the first rounds of negotiations.

  Watanabe touches a flame to his cigarette.

  —We’ve got a big year ahead, but I’m feeling confident, he says. You’re not heading home for Christmas?

  —No, I thought I’d work through. What about you?

  —No, no holiday, just meetings with potential investors and clients.

  Watanabe draws deep and his cheekbones are thrown into relief. He exhales, says,

  —I’ve got a lot of family and business connections in Fukushima prefecture. Have you visited?

  —No, not yet.

  —There’s a famous sulphur hot spring on the coast that draws water from the old Jōban Coalfield. People have been visiting the spring for over one thousand years to cure burns, skin problems. If you ever get the chance …

  You’d like the chance to jump into a hot spring now, it’s freezing out here. The edge of Watanabe’s jacket touches your arm.