by Judy Nunn
'What are they like?' Mike asked half an hour later when they were all tucking into their meals.
'Absolutely fantastic.' Allie was loving every mouthful. 'But they don't go with the orange juice.'
Mike leaned over and grabbed a fresh wine glass from the nearby table. 'They'll go with this.' He poured her a small measure of riesling, then raised his own glass in a toast.
'To Eltville and riesling and matje herrings.'
'I'll drink to that,' Allie said. 'Prost.' And they clinked.
Watching the exchange between father and daughter, Jo felt relieved of all doubt. Mike plainly had no regrets at all about missing the America's Cup. How could he, she thought. This day would live in his mind forever.
Allie caught her mother's eye and gave her a wink, sharing the moment. She knew all about the America's Cup offer and she knew exactly what her mother was thinking. Allie herself had only one misgiving. Matje herrings would never, whenever or wherever she ate them, taste quite the same as they had today.
The official dinner at the Intercontinental that night was a grand affair. Delegates' partners had been invited and over five hundred people were seated to table. The dress was formal but the atmosphere relaxed; they'd come to know each other during the conference.
Mike, Jo and Allie had been placed at the VIP table down the front near the podium, along with the Honourable Klaus von Gottfried, chief executive officer of CONCAWE, Dr Matt Shipman of the US EPA, Hans Bauer of Deutsche BP, and representatives from BP and Shell International. Also at the table were delegates from the American Petroleum Institute, the BP Oil Spill Training Centre at South Hampton in England, and the Oilton Field Studies Centre at Pembroke in Wales.
Seated at the head was an elderly gentleman whom Jo recognised. He was Professor Morris Stanton from the University of Miami's Mangrove Studies Centre and he was famous in his field. She'd met him when she'd accompanied Mike on a trip to Florida where he'd delivered a paper at the university.
'Johanna.' Morris rose to greet her with his customary old-world charm. 'How delightful to see you again,' he said, taking her hand in both of his.
Jo smiled. 'Morris.' He was very entertaining and she liked him, although she had a feeling he'd been a bit of a roué in his day. 'This is our daughter, Alana.'
'Enchanting,' he said as he took Allie's hand in both of his.
Several of the men were accompanied by their wives, and when introductions had been made all round, talk turned to the America's Cup. Mike, being an Australian, was congratulated as if he'd won a personal victory.
'I guess we'll never live it down, eh?' Morris said with a good-humoured smile.
'Well, it was high time someone took the thing off you, Morris.' Mike returned the smile. 'I'm just glad it happened to be the Aussies.'
Klaus von Gottfried rose to make a brief welcoming speech from the podium, and announced that after the main course there would be an address from their special guest speaker, Dr Mike McAllister of the McAllister Research Institute in Western Australia. Upon his return to the table, entrées were served and the topic amongst the men reverted to oil-spill procedures and the conference in general.
Mike was having trouble concentrating on his colleagues' conversation as he looked across the table at Jo and Allie seated opposite. He felt inordinately proud of them. The elegant blonde dressed in beige, patrician, intel-ligent, listening attentively, and the raven-haired girl in her simple black dress, chatting away, lively and animated. They were the most beautiful women in the room, he thought. Then he realised, with a sudden sense of shock, how very womanly Allie looked. He could see men's admiring glances. His instinctive reaction was to take a punch at every one of them, but he knew he was over-reacting. Well, well, he thought, his little girl had grown up and he hadn't even noticed.
Allie, having engaged two of the wives in conversation, was busily telling them all about her day. Neither of them had been to Eltville am Rhein, but they agreed it sounded delightful.
'And have you ever eaten matje herrings?' she asked. They hadn't. 'Well, you'll have to give them a go, they're absolutely fantastic.'
One of the women decided the young Australian was gauche and garrulous, but the other found her a breath of fresh air. She'd been bored witless by the complexities of oil-spill behaviour.
After the main course, Professor Morris Stanton was called upon to introduce Mike. Morris, well known to most of the delegates, took to the podium with panache, rambling for several minutes before launching into his introduction.
'I've known Mike McAllister for several years now,' he said, finally getting to the point. Then he went on to give Mike a huge rap: '...recipient of the Order of the British Empire ... in my firm opinion, and that of many, the world's foremost expert on oil-spill management ...' In true form, Morris's introduction was overly theatrical, and Jo sensed Mike cringe. He himself never mentioned the OBE he'd received three years ago.
'Need I say, there is none better qualified to sum up the whole purpose of this conference,' Morris concluded dramatically. 'And so, my friends, fellow scientists, regulators, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you . . . Mike McAllister.'
The room applauded and as Mike crossed to the podium, Allie nudged her mother. 'He looks great, doesn't he?' she said in an audible whisper.
Jo nodded. He certainly did. More so than ever, she thought; age had lent him an added dignity. But then, she remembered, Mike had always looked unbelievably handsome in a dinner suit, much as he hated wearing them.
'When we close our eyes and envisage an oil spill,' Mike said in opening, 'we, and certainly the general public, picture something like the Torrey Canyon spill of 1967 or the Amoco Cadiz of 1978. Rocky shorelines and sandy beaches inundated with a black, tarry, sticky mess: oil coagulated, seals gasping for breath, dead or dying sea-birds covered with a black, homogenised ooze. It's a graphic picture, isn't it? But as we've come to learn, spills that appear less damaging can have equally disastrous results . . .'
Jo glanced at her daughter, but received no response. Allie, her face glowing with child-like adoration, remained gazing at her father. Jo returned her eyes to the podium. Mike was a commanding presence and had the audience in the palm of his hand. She was proud of him, she thought. It had all been worth it. Hadn't it? She remembered when she'd had her doubts.
There had been times when she'd missed the Pilbara almost unbearably. During that first year or so in Perth, how she'd ached to be back in the little cottage at Point Samson. She'd missed her early morning walks along the deserted beach, watching the first rays of the sun rise over the ocean, and she'd missed Ash and Beth and their raucous weekend barbecues. But most of all, she'd missed working those long, grinding days at the community centre clinic in Roebourne, feeling that her life served a purpose.
She'd adjusted eventually. She'd had to. And as Mike's wife, her life did serve a purpose, she'd told herself – indeed, a purpose greater than her work at the community centre.
Johanna McAllister had been invaluable to her husband during the founding days of the McAllister Research Institute. Mike, with funding from the Department of the Environment and a number of commercial sponsors, had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the enterprise, and Jo, aware that he needed all the allies he could get, had given up medicine to lend him her full support. Mingling in government circles, she'd discovered that she'd developed quite a flair for diplomacy – it was a little like being a politician's wife, she'd thought. And she'd become skilled at fundraising events, her charms of persuasion winning many a benefactor and many a sponsorship. She'd refused a position as a founding member of the board, but it had become quickly evident that, even in her unofficial capacity, she'd embraced a whole new career.
When the Institute had become established, however, her career had taken yet another turn. Her medical back-ground and contacts had provided the perfect foil to broaden her husband's consultancy yet further, into the field of human ecotoxicological research. The study
, devoted to the health implications and accumulated effects of environmental stresses and contaminants, had received huge amounts of research funding, particularly from the government.
Not altogether the 'hands on' medical career she'd planned, Jo thought ruefully as she watched her husband at the podium, but certainly a worthy one. Mike's work and the Institute were of the utmost importance, and now, given his international reputation, the Institute was thriving.
'It is imperative we fully understand not only the ecological sensitivities of our local environments,' Mike was saying, 'but also the ecotoxicity, and the spreading and evaporative behaviour of our oils . . .'
Glancing once again at her daughter's rapt face, Jo cast aside any remnants of regret. She would always miss the Pilbara and her work there; they'd been the happiest years of her life. But of course it had all been worth it, she told herself. Mike was an inspiration to his daughter, just as his own father had been an inspiration to him. Allie would be facing her matriculation next year and she had her sights firmly set on university. She was planning to study marine biology, and wanted to become an environmentalist like her father. Perhaps even, like him, a world-renowned expert, who could tell? But Allie had set her sights high, Jo knew that much.
'The north-west coast of the state of Western Australia is proving to be one of the next great hydrocarbon provinces of the world.' Mike was nearing the completion of his speech. 'But here the crudes are all light – no waxy component and virtually no heavy tarry end to the product. Which brings me to my overall point . . .' He smiled as he looked around at the audience. 'I'm sure Castrol Oil won't mind if I conclude by quoting their popular advertising slogan: All Oils Ain't Oils. And that's a fact.'
He left the stage to a healthy round of applause. He'd covered the salient points and spoken just long enough. Succinct and authoritative was his forte.
Allie was bursting with pride as her father returned to the table. She wanted to jump to her feet and hug him and yell out at the top of her voice, 'You were fantastic, Dad!' But fighting back the impulse, she retained her composure.
They skipped the coffee following dessert. It had been a big day and all three of them were tired, even Allie, so they made their farewells.
As they headed for the lift, Mike put his arm around his wife and whispered in her ear, 'You drifted off a bit, didn't you? I could tell.'
'Just a bit,' she admitted.
'You're allowed to – you've heard it all before.'
'I wasn't bored,' Jo said, 'I was watching her.' She nodded towards Allie, who'd gone ahead of them to the lift. 'You should have seen her face while you were talking, Mike. She worships you. She's so very proud of you. And so am I.'
'The feeling's mutual.'
They paused for a moment, watching their daughter.
'She's grown up, hasn't she?' he said. 'It shocked me to see men looking at her tonight.'
Jo smiled. 'They've been looking at her for the past year.'
'Really?' He was plainly surprised. 'God, how life's moved on.'
Yes, Jo thought, life had certainly moved on. But Mike, in his obsession with his work, rarely seemed to notice the fact.
'And tomorrow it's London,' she said, kissing him lightly. 'London and Muzza and Olga. I can't wait.'
'Hurry up, you two,' Allie called, 'the lift's here.'
They'd booked into 22 Jermyn Street, a boutique hotel just around the corner from Piccadilly Circus. It boasted a 'home away from home' atmosphere and Mike regularly stayed there. Jo, having accompanied him on two previous trips to London, also enjoyed the cosy familiarity of the place.
Mike had no official duties in London. This leg of their holiday had been arranged to coincide with Muzza's big day – two of his paintings were to be hung in the National Portrait Gallery. As a result, Mike had no valid excuse to beg out of the marathon walk demanded of him, and they'd barely unpacked before he found himself marching along Piccadilly on his way to Buckingham Palace. From there, it was down the Mall to St James's Park, on to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, then back up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. Allie, once again in seventh heaven, seemed inexhaustible.
'How the hell do you do it?' he said to Jo when they finally returned to the hotel and he collapsed on the bed.
'I've been in training,' she laughed. 'I copped the same thing in Frankfurt.'
'Thank God tomorrow's the gallery,' he said. The National Portrait Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, was a brief ten-minute walk from the hotel.
But he wasn't about to escape that easily. After her first day's exploration, and having made a thorough study of the map she'd bought, Allie had discovered the layout of the West End. She'd planned very thoroughly the route for tomorrow, and she showed them on the map.
'See?' she said. 'If we go up Shaftesbury Avenue, we can branch off here to Chinatown, and then further up here there's Soho, and then we can go along here to Charing Cross Road and cut through here into St Martin's Lane, and then down to Trafalgar Square. Isn't that fantastic – we can look at every single one of the theatres along the way.'
'I think we'd better leave at nine o'clock,' Jo said. The ceremony at the gallery was scheduled for midday.
Having walked for well over two hours, with a brief coffee break in Soho, they arrived fifteen minutes early, Mike vetoing Allie's suggestion of a quick detour via the Covent Garden markets. They were to meet Muzza and Olga outside the entrance to the National Portrait Gallery at eleven forty-five, and he refused to be late.
Muzza was already there, as baby-faced as ever and neatly spruced up in a suit and tie. Olga was standing beside his wheelchair. Her black hair, now dramatically streaked with grey, was tied back in a severe bun and she was wearing a trim skirt and jacket. They shared hugs all round.
'We're a bit under-dressed, aren't we,' Mike said apolo-getically. Jo, looking svelte as always, was wearing a trouser suit, but he was in corduroys and Allie in jeans. 'I thought you said it was casual.'
'It is. Blame Olga. She made me get all tarted up – the suit's brand new.' Muzza pulled a face at his wife, who remained supremely unruffled.
'He's the guest of honour, I thought it only right he should look the part,' Olga said.
They made their way into the gallery and headed for the modern section, where Muzza's paintings had been hung earlier that morning, and where the official ceremony was to take place.
When they entered the large gallery room, Mike was relieved to find that, amongst the many suits, quite a few were in casual gear. He quickly realised, however, that although casual dress was acceptable, the function itself was no modest affair. Trays of champagne were being handed around, more and more guests were arriving, and the official party had already gathered on the small dais at the far end.
'Jeez, Muz, I didn't know it was going to be this big.'
'I didn't either, mate.' Muzza's eyes were darting around at the rapidly burgeoning numbers. He was a little jumpy; he didn't like crowds.
Allie was paying no heed at all to the people; her own eyes were trained dead ahead. She was staring at the portrait.
'It's you, Dad.' She hadn't even known of the painting's existence. She was transfixed. Her father as a young man!
Jo was equally taken aback. She remembered how she'd gazed at the portrait in the New South Wales Art Gallery all those years ago, and how it had so vividly brought back the past. She'd not seen it since.
'My God, you didn't tell me,' Mike said.
Muzza grinned. 'I thought I'd leave it as a surprise. I've had it under lock and key for years. You gave it to me, remember? You said, "It's your creation, do with it what you want," and I have.' He looked towards the portrait, although through the crowd and from his wheelchair he could see only glimpses. 'My best work. Incredible, isn't it? Virtually my first portrait, and yet it's my best. Amazing, really.'
