—I’d say it’ll concern all of us if it leaks.
Watanabe sighs.
—What you didn’t see, he says, is the feedback from the state government. Although not perfectly constructed, the design doesn’t break any state legislation. It’ll be closely monitored. Now, I happen to be rather busy, so if there’s not anything else …
—Actually, there is.
Afterwards, you feel lighter than you’ve felt in months.
The following day, Kerry unexpectedly intensifies and the Bureau of Meteorology predicts she’ll make landfall as a category four. Residents have been urged to evacuate and hundreds of cars are burning south. You haven’t finished cleaning, are undecided, call Ash.
—Evacuate? He laughs. No way, we’re gunna get shitfaced!
Ash tells you the TAFE has been built to withstand a Tracy and that a bunch of locals will be kicking it there until Kerry’s exhausted herself.
—They always over-exaggerate these things, he says, in an unconscious echo of Lucia.
You pack the car anyway and, squinting past the slalom of the windscreen wipers, you wonder why it is that the BoM always gives cyclones Caucasian names: Cyclone Tracy, Cyclone Rex, Cyclone Larry, Cyclone Kerry … Where’s the Cyclone Fatima or Fu? Mohammed or Minh?
Although it’s only nine in the morning, when you get to the TAFE, you find a crew of about twenty people charging up on camp chairs. Ash greets you with a wolf-whistle and a beer-brazen kiss to the neck.
—Just look at her, will you?
He’s talking about Kerry on the BoM’s radar: those hula hoops of blue and yellow projected movie-size on the wall. Despite the wind and sluicing rain outside, about a dozen people are gazing narcotised at the screen. You’ve cracked your first beer and are about to join them when your phone vibrates. It’s Lucia.
—We just got a tip-off. The army’s flown in two thousand body bags. You’ve got about half an hour to leave before the river cuts off the road south. If you leave right now, you’ll make it.
—Hang on, what do you mean? How do you know?
She ignores you.
—And Noah just called. He’s heading out to the mine site.
—What? Why the fuck is he going out there?
There’s silence at the other end of the line.
—And your kids?
—The kids left with Mum an hour ago. It’s gunna be serious.
It’s like driving into the smoking barrel of a gun. You hunker over the wheel, as if being closer to the windscreen will make it easier to see through the rain. Outside, the trees bend like seaweed and everything’s colourless, everything’s underwater, including sections of the road. You cross the first floodway at eighty. The windscreen becomes a waterfall. The car glides sideways. You take your foot off the accelerator and have the presence of mind not to slam on the brakes. Then you ease the car back into a straight line, tasting blood. You’ve bitten an ulcer into the side of your cheek.
It’s still fifty kilometres to the access road. You’re worried Whipsnake Creek will have swallowed the bridge. Dread chokes your throat. You try Noah’s mobile, but without hope. It’s off. You imagine an accident, Noah glissading into a dam of toxic sludge. His skin will lift, tar-sticky; his nose will swell to three times the normal size; his eyes will wander in different directions.
Enough.
Up ahead, there’s another sign for a floodway, a sudden, triangular yellow warning. The water’s like black ice, impossible to see. You slow.
The mob at TAFE laughed when you mentioned the body bags. Thought you were lying. You ignored them and told Ash that a friend was heading out to Fortune, that you were going after him. Ash looked mystified. You left before he could ask questions.
Now, driving north toward the periphery of Kerry, you’re buying yourself just a little extra time. Given the forecast map, the cyclone won’t hit the tailings dam head-on.
Whipsnake Creek’s a churning maelstrom of mudslides and debris. A cow with stiff legs swirls past, then is sucked into a whirlpool downstream. The river’s still a good six metres from the bridge so there’s probably time to coax Noah back to Gubinge, maybe even to pin it to Boab Bluff.
With each kilometre, your anxieties compound, compress: what if he’s not there, what if he’s turned around, what if Lucia was wrong? You pass the service station. The doors are locked and the lights are off. The Aussie flag’s been lowered.
By the time you get to the access gate, the rain’s backed right off to become a high, light drizzle. To your relief, Noah’s ute’s parked at the edge of the protest camp, alongside a kombi and an old Ford Laser, about fifty metres from the gate. You’ve still got the work keys. Just as you’re fumbling the first padlock, a hand lands on your shoulder. Startled, you swing around, nearly knocking the bloke’s teeth loose with an elbow. It’s Dreadlocks. The one from the fishing club, who ignored you at the bar. He’s not ignoring you now.
—Yeah, sorry, he drawls. You can’t go in there.
You’re nodding comprehension, holding his eyes, letting your fingers work the key into the lock. He continues,
—We’ve just been instructed by a Traditional Owner not to let any trespassers through.
He enunciates the words ‘Traditional Owner’ smugly, as if he’s got some sort of moral superiority over you.
The key doesn’t fit.
—I work for Gerro Blue, you lie. So, legally, I’m not trespassing.
You try to ease the key in on a different angle. Still, nothing.
Three girls wander over to join their mate. While he’s running passive aggressive, they’re just passive, with dreamy, pierced, seventeen-year-old faces. Their dresses smell of pot smoke and burnt cypress pine.
—Oh, you’re trespassing alright, he continues. This is Aboriginal land. You’ve got no right to be here.
—The Burrika Traditional Owners gave their consent.
There’s panic now, in your chest. You check the key. You’re sure this was the one.
—Not their free, prior and informed consent, he says.
For fuck’s sake, you think. Now’s not the time to be talking politics on a picket line. Each second, Noah’s moving further away, toward some crazy, reckless act. You want to scream at Dreadlocks, ‘You lunatic! This is serious!’
But instead, you sprint back to the car. Maybe you can bounce the gate open off the bull bar. The hippies, guessing your plan, have made a human chain across the gate. Seriously? No-one would be dumb enough not to dodge a moving car.
You close your eyes and put your foot on the accelerator.
The airbag hurts like hell when it explodes against your chest. The hippies scream. The gate hasn’t given.
Dreadlocks opens the driver’s door and tries to haul you out, but the seatbelt’s cinched tight and you’re caught sideways. He’s got a mad, bad look in his eyes and the girls—unscathed, they scattered—are saying,
—Leave her, Dave, leave her. Let her go, at least let her get out.
That’s when you realise things are about to get ‘more worse’ as you’ve heard Lucia sometimes say. The brain’s shock-laced but you’re still present enough to undo the seatbelt, topple sideways, watch as Dreadlocks’ leather sandals move in.
A fight, ten years distant, comes back to you. She was from a neighbouring school, same bus, donkey-long teeth. She insulted Imogen about something, hair, uniform, something, and it felt good when you swung at her, until she swung back, harder.
This isn’t shaping up to be a fight, though; you’re about to get belted, down in the pindan on your hands and knees, unable to move or scream, like those concrete-limbed dreams, and the shitbag’s arcing his leg and the girls are pleading now, almost crying,
—For fuck’s sake Dave, what are you doing?
You hear the wind pick up; it fretfully fiddles the rim of a rusty can.
You think of Noah out there alone, and you wonder what he’s doing, why he’s out there at all. Whatever it is, you wish you were with him,
could share it.
The first kick’s to the belly and it stuns.
The second lights up your left shin.
And you forget about Noah, focus only on the sound of a car engine drawing closer, and the bellow of an old troopie’s horn.
It’s Ash. He’s left the car running, he’s shouting,
—Get the fuck away from her!
The girls melt fast but Dreadlock Dave looks like he wouldn’t mind a farewell kick. Ash lunges for him and he takes off into the shrub.
—Ava, Ash says. Are you okay? Do you think you can move? We’ve gotta go, we’ve gotta get out of here now. The cyclone’s changed track. C’mon, she’s heading straight for Fortune!
You take a last look beyond the gate, imagine a single set of boot prints, just starting to slip with drizzle. As Ash helps you into the troopie, everything aches, is turning violet with bruise: your ribs, your shin, your heart. Would it be different if you’d told Noah about the report? Would it have stopped him? Ash is saying,
—We won’t make it back to Gubinge; we’re going to have to aim for Boab Bluff … Ava, are you …
But his question trails off. Because climbing the sky toward you, dark as some giant wolf spider, is the lightning-haired edge of the storm.
That night, you and Ash bunker down in a donga turned motel room at Boab Bluff.
—It should be fine, said the Dutchie who checked you in. The cyclone’s not going to hit us. But we’re expecting more than three hundred mils, so if it starts leaking, let me know.
The room, two-twenty a night, is cramped, with a metre between single beds, a bleach-reeking bathroom and a rain-shadowed window. Looking out the window at the flooded, empty car park, your thoughts lurch again to Noah, to the risk of radiation, and finally, to Hiroshima.
You remember the stories of children, lifting their tiny faces and opening their burning mouths to swallow black rain.
It only takes a couple of days for the water over the road back to Gubinge to subside. Ash tells you that in previous cyclones, kilometres of bitumen were leavened by rain and washed away.
—We could have been stuck at Boab Bluff for weeks, he says.
He looks disappointed that you weren’t.
Your car is where you left it, miraculously intact. There’s no sign of the hippies. You follow Ash back into Gubinge where the streets are streaked with palm fronds and the air smells of drenched earth. Just as you’re pulling into your driveway, checking your phone for the thousandth time to see if Noah has messaged, Lucia’s name flashes on the screen.
—Can you meet me at the shopping centre in halfy for a coffee?
The centre’s packed, with countrymen and kids, station mob and early season backpackers. No-one’s shopping; instead, people are yarning about the damage, or drifting listless, or simply luxuriating in the free air-conditioning. It’s delicious, like stepping from hell into a giant chest freezer. All the seats inside the shops are packed, and you get the last table in the café.
Lucia’s five minutes behind you, swinging her tote stamped with Frida’s trademark brow.
—A long black, Lucia tells the waitress.
—Make that two.
Though nothing’s broken, you’re drugged up to the eyeballs on painkillers and hope coffee will cut the fog.
Like her brother, Lucia’s not one to waste time, talk small.
—The tailings dam has burst, she tells you. Noah was out there. He saw it.
—What does that mean? Did the tailings go …
—Into the river? Lucia finishes for you. Yep, looks like it.
—Oh, fuck.
—Oh, fuck, alright. And the Widawurls up at the cathedral cave have been vandalised. Graffiti. We’re going out there in an hour—me, the old men and Madge. Whipsnake Creek’s just dropped below bridge level. Will you come with us?
—I’m not working for Gerro Blue anymore.
The coffee’s bitter, unbearable. Lucia screws up her nose when she tastes it.
—I know, Noah told me. He’s already talking about making sure Gerro don’t get away with this, said something about a report that proves the dam’s deficiencies?
You take a deep breath and say,
—Yeah, so that report.
There’s solace in confession.
The Widawurls now have penises. Ramming up invisible arseholes, bristling from their headdresses. One Widawurl’s been gifted a mouth: two rows of crude, chainsaw teeth, the kind that children draw. The penises and teeth are in spray-paint. The initials and the year are carved into the rock: MW. PV. TA. 2011. You move closer to the paintings, then cover your nose to stifle the smell. The cave wall reeks of piss.
Henry begins to sob.
—Country’s angry, Madge says.
You’re fighting back tears yourself, and know it’s not just about the cave, but about the mine. You’d been dumbstruck by its size at ground level, especially during construction—the earthmovers, so high you needed a ladder to reach the driver’s seat, the tailings dam, so wide you could line up two or three footy fields across its width. But from this aerial perspective, it’s even more astounding; you can see how much earth has been gouged for the open pit. When you were a child, you used to have nightmares in which everything around you suddenly grew large, beyond recognisable proportions. That’s how you feel now: the afternoon has the surreal, opaque quality of a nightmare.
—Rain should transform country, Madge says. In the wet season, country gets a long drink and there’s this shimmer of living water over everything. The grass grows up to head height, barni and turkey get fat. Country runs fat. But this …
Country’s all diagonal trees, all tideline of bloated dugong and barra. You can see where the embankment has slumped, can see the tailings’ track to the river. Do you imagine the headache? A pain in the temples, like the first hit of daylight with a hangover. Radiation, or imagination?
When you get back into reception, you see you’ve got a voicemail from Noah, asking if he can come over for tea at seven. He says he’ll bring dinner—Madge made a curry last night and he’s pretty sure there are leftovers.
Listening to his message, an instantaneous balm of relief gives way to a guilt-sick heart. There’s so much snagged high and tight in your throat.
That evening, the air has the dense, oily quality of soup stock, and the humidity doesn’t dissipate, even after the sun has set over the battered frangipanis. You’re coaxing a couple of damp citronella candles to life on the balcony when Noah pulls up.
There’s a jaunt to his step and his eyes are bright.
—Little Bird, he says, gathering you to him, smelling your hair, the nape of your neck, making you forget, almost, that for the last few months you’ve been moving in wide circles around each other, never quite overlapping.
—You smell delicious, he says.
The bedsheets are fresh. He undresses you slowly. He’s appalled by the bruising; his fingers skim the stains.
—What the fuck happened, Little Bird?
And when you tell him you went looking for him, were stopped by the hippies at the gate, he kisses your mouth, your eyelids, your mouth, as if hearing it is too much to bear.
Later, over curry and a fumé that’s smoky and light and white, you gather the courage to say,
—I’m so sorry, Noah. I should’ve told you about the report. I should’ve said something.
Noah gives a slight, dismissive shake of his curls.
—I knew about the report. It wouldn’t have made a difference.
—I feel terrible. I shouldn’t have been loyal to this company.
Noah just smiles, as if it’s not an issue, as if he’s forgiven you, and you wonder how it is that he so clearly perceives the spirit’s struggle, and sleep.
—We’ve gotta look forward now, he says. We’ve gotta fight them. We’ve both seen it with our own eyes. Gerro can’t cover this up.
But Gerro will try to cover it up, especially with the breaking news from Japan.
> In a lounge room of half-packed boxes, in a suburb where the streets are stained red with cyclone-loosened soil, you’re watching the television. There’s smoke over the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant; it billows black, grey, poisonous.
You learn of an earthquake, that the plant’s cooling systems have failed.
You learn of a tsunami.
Aboard a US Navy ship one hundred miles downwind of the plant, the sailors taste metal in their mouths. Later, they’ll grow tumours. Later, white blood cells will multiply in their marrow. Later, their government will deny they were in danger. But for now, no thought of this, only thought to contain it, to cool it. In suits and masks, on fast, kamikaze rotation, dozens of workers are dispatched into the reactors.
On the television, the Pacific is surging cold, spinning ships, shifting buildings. The camera catches a man on a rooftop, yelling down at a crowd of spectators transfixed by the rising water of a canal.
—Hey, hey! You’re going to be washed away!
But the spectators don’t have the acuity of an aerial perspective, and they only start to run as the first slap of water ricochets black off the canal’s wall, folds back on itself. The second slap swallows them whole. And the water’s thick; it’s pouring endlessly, as if the whole ocean’s waging war on the land.
The loudspeakers crackle over the panicked streets. They’re tested daily with chimes and information, sometimes messages about a missing old person, sometimes a reminder to speak kindly to children. Now, there’s only one message: ‘Evacuate to higher ground immediately.’
The ABC runs a short piece on the clean-up from Cyclone Kerry but there’s no mention of Gerro Blue and when it’s over, the news shifts back to Japan, where a handheld camera’s trained on the grey skeleton of a ferris wheel, static in the falling snow.
—My throat’s sore, you tell the doctor.
He rolls his eyes. Arrogant, young. As he prepares to take a look, he says,
—Need a doctor’s certificate for work, do you?
He peers in.
—Yeah, okay. You’ve got tonsillitis …
Red Can Origami Page 18
