Red Can Origami

by Madelaine Dickie

  Mandy’s hair’s been cut to a white-gold afro and lashed into place with hairspray. A croc-skin handbag sourced in Darwin and sold in Paris sleeps beside her perfect flat-heeled leather boots. You can understand why Watanabe keeps her close. She wields a weapon-like charm. Even now, on the drive to Boab Bluff, she’s lazily sharpening it on you, asking questions, playing to your ego, feigning interest, leaving strategic pauses so that you’re prompted to fill the space. She would have been a good journalist. People would have told her things they shouldn’t.

  And, of course, she knows how to sheathe the charm, too, as you’re about to be reminded at Boab Bluff during the first of Gerro Blue’s April community information sessions. While it’s not strictly in your job description, given the rising temperature of the protest against the mine, Mandy thought it would be good if you joined her—safety in numbers.

  The room at the shire office has a single window that opens onto a mudflat baked drab as a gluten-free cake. While you’re waiting for the first group, Mandy takes the air-con control off the wall and hits a button. A minute later, a man enters the room hesitantly.

  —Come in, come in! What’s your name?

  The bloke’s in high-vis; he mumbles through his beard.

  —And what do you do, Jarred? Mandy asks, with a touch of condescension.

  He tells her he needs a job. Behind him, another three people press into the room: an electrician, a designer and a woman in her mid-thirties, carrying a notepad and pen, who looks cagey when Mandy asks,

  —And what do you do?

  —I’m a housewife.

  —Why would a housewife be taking notes then, I wonder?

  The woman smiles tranquilly, her tanned face giving nothing away.

  You start talking through the slides on native title agreements, local employment and contracting, and possible no-go zones for fishing. Mandy watches every nod, every twitch of the lips, every frown. She watches the sweat gather in a dark musk at Jarred’s armpits. She even interrupts you to address the housewife,

  —I see you’re doing a lot of writing. Is that really necessary? We’ve got information cards on the table over there with everything that you could possibly need.

  And when the woman takes out her phone, she says,

  —I hope you’re not recording this. I’ll have to ask you to put your phone away, before we continue.

  By the time the hour’s up, the room’s a stew of perspiration and perfume. The housewife asks if you’ll send the slides through. No-one else sticks around. It’s too hot and the next group are already waiting …

  The next group, however, aren’t intimidated by Mandy’s aggression or dumbed by the heat. They heckle over every slide:

  —What if there’s an accident?

  —How can we be sure the tailings dam won’t overflow and poison the river?

  —What does this mean for our rivers, for recreational fishermen?

  Mandy coolly picks off the easiest complaint.

  —Now, stop right there. This is about the facts. Great white shark attacks are more frequent than nuclear accidents! If you spill petrol on the ground filling up your car or boat from a jerry can, that will do more damage to the environment than our tailings dam! We have some of the strongest legislation in the world, designed to protect—

  An old Aboriginal man, beard in a white cone down his chest, interrupts,

  —Western Australia has some of the worst regulations in the world. The WA Health Act hasn’t been updated since 1911. How can you possibly say this legislation is adequate protection?

  Mandy’s unruffled.

  —We’re really splitting hairs here.

  Later, on the way back to Gubinge, driving directly into the setting sun, she says,

  —I think that went well.

  You don’t agree. Gerro Blue has got to win the hearts and minds of the local community, not terrorise them. You wonder if Watanabe would be equally unimpressed.

  —I guess the only follow-up we’d better do is getting in touch with that woman.

  —No, says Mandy. Not yet. We’ll leave her hanging.

  Up ahead, the faint edge of a cloud appears, pale as a tracing paper outline. By the time you’re half an hour from Gubinge, it’s formed into a single, ballooning thunderhead, a single black fist. It looks like it will drop right down on the town. But it won’t. It hasn’t rained since the cyclone.

  Just as Mandy’s pulling into your street, you get a message from Noah. It’s odd, elliptical: Have you ever listened to Tanya Tagaq? Have you read Carpentaria? And Little Bird, tell me, why are the wicked so wily?

  Watanabe’s two chain-smoking older brothers wear immaculate suits. They have closely shaved chins. They’re rude to him, and disdainful of almost everything you show them on their three-day whirlwind tour of Gubinge. They screw their noses up at pearl meat entrees. They decline the offer of a sunset camel ride, and even remain politely disinterested during a croc-park tour. They won’t speak to you in Japanese. On the second night, they loosen up a little, pouring themselves and Watanabe lavish glasses of sake, and talking about their mistresses. But they forget about your glass, and place the bottle beyond arm’s reach. By the time you get to the Gubinge Historical Museum on the third afternoon, you’re fed up with trying to ingratiate yourself.

  Dinosaur-long croc skins hang vertical on the walls. Antique diving helmets prop up out-of-print history books. Cabinets display spear tips, coolamons and boomerangs. It’s the kind of treasure-trove you could spend hours in. You’re most drawn to the old photos, the evocation of nostalgia, impermanence. Many of the pictures are of Japanese, Malay, Chinese and Aboriginal pearl divers. The captions mention cyclones, shark attacks, bubbles in the blood. And then you come across a photo of two people who you could swear you’ve met before. A Japanese man and an Aboriginal woman. They share the sober, suspicious and staged look of the people in the other photos. Despite the poor resolution, you can see that they are both tall, very handsome—and familiar. According to the caption, they’re Kaito Ishikawa and Gubburra Sugarbell. Noah’s grandfather and grandmother.

  Much to Watanabe’s disgust and impatience, the heritage survey of the mine site doesn’t get off the ground until well into the dry season. On the first proposed date, July 30, Madge falls sick. The rescheduled dates don’t suit the anthropologist or Noah—Noah can’t get anyone to cover him at the station. And then old Honeybird Grey kicks up a stink, says she can’t be expected to share her cultural knowledge for such dismal pay.

  —But Mrs Grey! It’s over a thousand dollars a day! you say.

  —Yuway, but ’ee not exactly sitdown money. We gotta go footwalk all aroun!

  So you renegotiate the pays and find a date that suits everyone and now the vehicles are packed and you’re ten minutes from heading off when Honeybird Grey calls. She can’t make it. There’s something on at the church. She’s singing. She promised months ago. You call Noah.

  —Bad bloody luck, he says. We’re going. I’ll see you out there. Have you got Gaga?

  —I’ve got him.

  Clement has the haughty dignity of a boss: it’s in the firm spacing between his boots, the angle of his chin. But he’s not as boss as the gaunt-cheeked old man standing next to him, Henry, who sang at the Burrika native title determination. You remember Noah telling you the song cycle usually takes three days. Henry shortened it for the judge.

  You shake Henry’s hand without meeting his eyes, and then Clement gives you a gruff pat on the back.

  —So, manga, are you ready for this?

  A week on country walking between spots with kartiya names like March Fly Creek and King Brown Gorge. A week on country with Noah.

  —I’m ready!

  What you’re not ready for is Clement’s driving. He travels so fast it feels like the other cars and caravans on the highway are standing still. But his eyesight’s impeccable, and within the first fifty kilometres, he’s spotted and caught a metre-long barni. He swings the lizard by its tail,
knocking its brains blank against the bull bar. That night, you hook into the slow-cooked meat with the same relish as the old men.

  The old men sleep under blankets on what Noah calls scorpion stretchers, faces naked to the stars.

  —Not for me, Noah says. Mozzie dome all the way.

  You keep the door of the donga unlocked in case he changes his mind. He hasn’t. For two days he’s been pensive, withdrawn, answering the anthropologist’s questions politely, but not effusively, contributing little to the conversations around the fire in the evenings. At one point you mention the posters, Watanabe’s conditional promise of an apology, but he shuts you down, changes the subject.

  Tonight, as Noah and Madge scrub the dishes in a tub of greasy water, Henry tells you about the bush people—Aboriginal people who chose not to live on the missions or stations. Instead, they fled deeper into the desert, braving drought, walking between opal-ringed waterholes at the edges of song, talking the pure language for country; a language uncorrupted by English.

  —Bush blackfella still out there, Henry says.

  He tells you that once, driving home from a meeting at the Land Council in Alice, he saw footprints crossing the Tanami. The grader had just been through. The sand was undisturbed by tyre tracks. They were hundreds of kilometres from the Western Australian border, hundreds of kilometres from the closest community. There were two sets—the footprints of an adult and the footprints of a child.

  It’s a cold night and you move closer to the fire. A tin cup of Bushells warms your thigh.

  —Another time, one bush woman bin come for alla married man. Him trickyone, that bush woman. Him bin grabem man. Onefella grabem la wrist part. Try pullim from wife! Morning time, that man his wrist bruisedup.

  Clement rubs his whiskers and grins.

  —Good thing we brought razors!

  —What for?

  —So we can look good for the bush woman. Might be able to trick him into thinking we’re youngfellas!

  Even Noah cracks a smile at that.

  Up at five, cup of tea, a fistful of damper. Boots on. The six of you sweep the country on foot, heading from the mining camp each day in a different direction, as if walking along bicycle spokes, listening as Henry or Madge identifies bilby burrows, sugarbag, grinding stones and no-go zones, watching as the anthropologist makes notes, takes photos, marks maps. Noah steers you clear of a tree, tells you when they were kids, he and his brothers would give themselves tattoos with the caustic sap. Once, he saw a stockman ride his horse, unknowingly, through a whole low-lying branch of it. The man went blind for a week.

  This is the only thing Noah says to you all day. Mostly he’s ten paces ahead with Henry. You watch the tight roll of his shoulders, the odd cowboy swagger, feet too far apart. You think about what Lucia and those women said at the fishing club—about the station going bankrupt. All day you’re peripherally conscious of him and, while you don’t make eye contact, while you feign indifference to hide your growing obsession, you wish there was some way to plumb that inwardness, some way to understand that geometry of darkness behind the eyes.

  You stop for lunch by an ossuary of white house frames.

  —Asbestos Alley, says Madge. A cyclone ripped through in the seventies and a heap of the stockmen got asbestosis when they moved back in.

  That evening, when you’re almost back at camp, when the sun has turned the stones into rose lozenges of glass, Clement gestures up toward a rocky outcrop and indicates you all should follow.

  It’s a good half-hour climb. At the top, water drips its surd sound and there’s that damp smell indigent to caves. My God, what a cave! The walls are as tall as a church, tall as the walls in the National Gallery of Victoria, and the art, though faded, is exquisite. There are freshwater crocs with shotgun eyes, turtles, barramundi and floor-to-ceiling Widawurls.

  Henry tells you the first Widawurl was found in a dream at the bottom of a whirlpool. When the world was still soft, the Widawurls built great stone houses for themselves and they lay down, leaving their outlines. Men are responsible for keeping the outlines fresh, keeping them bright.

  No-one’s freshened the pigment on these Widawurls for many years. Henry tells you the old man who used to do it has died. And he couldn’t pass the knowledge on to his sons—they were in jail, they were drunks, they couldn’t remember the stories.

  —Nobody can’t paintim up today. All finished. Rain can’t fall down. Can’t catchem barramundi. I bin tell thisone, ‘You gotta take over. I get old now. My leg buggerup now.

  Noah commits nothing. He’s distracted, barely receptive to the power of these paling images. He keeps sneaking looks over country. Everything’s bitten red in the evening light. You see the river knifing the saltpan and Gerro Blue’s dongas, Lego-like. Then, in your imagination, you see the mine, the tiers of earth stepping down like dead industrial rice paddies, the pool of green spit at the bottom. You guess Noah sees it too.

  Hipsters have refurbished the old leprosarium: lots of blond wood, books on whisky, and bespoke magazines for city boys. It’s sort of bizarre in the bush, but the coffee’s creamy and has reasonable kick. Watanabe’s on green tea and is less impressed. In Japan, the variations of green tea are endless. It’s grown in sun or shade, hand-picked or machine-picked, tastes of sweet straw, or roasted rice, or grain … When it comes to food and drink, Australia definitely isn’t up to Japanese standards. You’d never eat wasabi-licked raw chicken in Melbourne, but wouldn’t think twice about it in Tokyo. You always feel culturally inferior around Watanabe.

  He’s here in Gubinge for the second meeting with the Burrika board.

  —Investors are waiting and it looks like we’ll be the principal supplier of uranium to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. I can’t afford any hold-ups. This agreement must be presented and agreed to in December.

  You take a hit of your coffee. He takes a sip of his tea, scowls, says,

  —So, how did the heritage survey go?

  —All the heritage sites have been recorded.

  All except the cathedral cave. Clement was adamant the cave be excluded, said it was far enough away from the mine site, said he didn’t want its location pinned on a map where any old kartiya could see it. The anthropologist reminded him of the confidentiality agreement, said the maps wouldn’t be shared outside the company, but Clement was firm.

  —Excellent. And what’s the feeling about our activities in the wider community?

  Since the poster blitz and the anti-nuclear ads in the paper, things have been unnervingly quiet.

  —People hear the word ‘uranium’ and they think of nuclear bombs, nuclear power plant accidents, radiation, sickness country. They don’t necessarily equate uranium with energy, or nuclear energy as a cleaner solution than coal.

  —And you? What do you think about nuclear energy?

  It’s as if he’s feeling for cracks in your loyalty.

  The first time you seriously considered nuclear energy use was in Japan, after covering the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant incident for the Japan Times. Todd, a mate from uni, was teaching English in Kochi, about six hours south of Tokyo, and he invited you down for a long weekend. On the shinkansen you marvelled at the train’s streamlined white snout, the smoking compartments, the luxuriously spacious seats, the beer-drinking businessmen. You marvelled at everything except the view.

  There was no break in the urban sprawl, no place for country to breathe, just an endless stream of cement, of vending machines and flashing pachinko slot parlours and biotech factories and Soviet-grey apartments toned dark with rain.

  Occasionally, the elegant lines of a traditional black-tiled roof.

  Occasionally, rice paddies and pockets of pines.

  But even as the eye moved toward the mountain ridges, it snagged on the complicated webs of power lines, tore on the telecommunications towers.

  It was on this trip that you got a real sense of the density of Japan’s population and its energy consumpti
on. You say to Watanabe,

  —I understand how important nuclear energy is to Japan. My concern is not so much the risks associated with the mining of uranium, but the risks to the local people. I don’t want to see Burrika people exploited as part of the process.

  Watanabe nods, apparently satisfied, and pushes aside his half-drunk tea.

  —Good, he says. You should be concerned about that. It’s what I’m paying you to be concerned about.

  You prefer Watanabe the poet.

  The unnerving quiet doesn’t last; it breaks that afternoon with a phone call from Noah. He says to meet him at the netball courts at six-thirty.

  —Bring a camp chair. And a couple of beers. I’ve got something to show you.

  The courts are floodlit, a hard, green cement, the kind that bites instant bark when a kid goes down. The sidelines are crammed with prams and eskies and skateboards and dogs. Lucia’s towering over a group of girls in sweaty bibs and pleated skirts. It brings back unpleasant memories of the season you played in high school. The scratches from blunt nails, the elbows in ribs, the hierarchy on the court, the biased or blind umpires, the mad netty mums. You went back to tennis.

  Noah’s waving from the opposite side of the court. He looks dreadful, as if he hasn’t slept in days. You shake open your camp chair, umbrella-like, and squash in next to him. The crushed ice in the Woolies cooler bag has melted but the beers are still cold. You slip one into a stubby holder and pass it over.

  —Bloody need this, Noah says. You will too.

  A whistle blows the start of the next quarter. Lucia’s stalking the sideline, clapping and shouting encouragement. You slide a second beer into a stubby holder, pop the can and sink into the chair.

  —So, I’ve been getting letters, Noah says. Some from Green Gubinge, others from musicians heading up for this protest concert in December …