Fishing for Stars

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘“You are a disgrace, child! You will leave Tasmania at once! We simply will not, cannot have the Babbage name sullied, dragged in the mud, as you have so heinously done! Your name has appeared in the Hobart Mercury with several other communists and leftwing agitators from the university. Who on earth do you think you are? What on earth do you think you are doing? You may have been an admiral’s wife but you have absolutely no right to come over here to make trouble. We know what’s best for Tasmania and we know what’s not best for it! We have spent five generations protecting Tasmania from people such as you. My dear departed husband, Sir Robert, spent his life serving this island. You have been here five minutes and have the temerity to tell us how to run our affairs! I will not have it! I shall write to the Mercury and tell them that we do not share your views and will have nothing further to do with you! That you are a disgrace! Now, what have you to say before you pack your things and leave Tasmania?”’

  Marg, completing the old lady’s tirade, laughed and in an almost admiring voice said, ‘It was an amazing performance, straight out of Bleak House. You were right, Nick, some families on this island are still in the nineteenth century. I swear, she didn’t draw breath once.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. As you say, it’s straight out of Charles Dickens. How awful for you!’

  ‘I suppose I should have been amused – in retrospect it’s very funny – but I was mad as hell, Nick. How dare the old shrew! So I’m ashamed to say I gave her the full admiral’s-wife treatment. I took them all in, lingering a moment on each face. Two grossly overweight men I recalled sat on the board of the Hydro-Electric Commission and were champions of dams and hydroelectricity, and several others were members of the Tasmania Club, a bastion of conservatism, bigotry and class prejudice. All the men had doubtless attended the Hutchins School, the women St Michael’s Collegiate. I must say, seen en masse like this, the Babbages were not a particularly prepossessing lot, and I realised that all the men shared a remarkable genetic characteristic – very large sticking-out ears. The light from a stained-glass window behind them shone through these flapjack-sized lugs, so that each possessed a pair of bright red stoplights, one on either side of a brow that protruded so far over their eye sockets as to hide their eyes. “Stop! Do not proceed until this blithering idiot has passed!” the stoplights seemed to command.’

  Marg, having completed her family inspection, leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, an affectation she told me she’d learned in response to endless squabbles between naval wives at meetings. ‘Sit back, half close your eyes, cross your legs, look bored and relax. People fight to be noticed, not to be ignored.’

  Finally, turning her attention to the old woman, and with a calm she claimed she didn’t feel, she announced, ‘Ah, the blithering, blathering, barking Babbages! Fortunately I was born a Hamilton and not a Babbage and take after that side of my family, so I have not been subject to the results of five generations of inbreeding with the unfortunate physical and mental results so readily apparent in this room. I happily divorce myself from all of you.’

  I chuckled. ‘I can’t believe you said that! That’s almost as bad a monologue as your Aunt Nettie’s!’

  Marg sighed. ‘It’s the kind of pompous archaic language you’re forced to use on such occasions. I’m afraid there’s more to come. I rose imperiously, chin up, shoulders squared, and walked towards the door, where I paused and said in my plummiest tones, “Furthermore, I shall not be leaving Tasmania until I’ve helped to save this beautiful island from being destroyed by the likes of you lot, the cretins and the barking mad!”’

  I laughed. ‘Bloody lucky you weren’t lynched on the spot. Did you run for your life?’

  ‘Oh, far worse than that!’ Marg grinned. ‘I was forced to walk the twenty miles back to Hobart. No hardship really. I’m fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ I laughed.

  ‘Fortunately I was wearing my sensible shoes and, anyway, a farmer with a truck full of pigs stopped and gave me a lift ten miles from town, a definite improvement on the company I’d so recently been keeping. A pity really – another ten miles of walking along quietly fuming and I’d have composed several quite brilliant and witty soliloquies to the blithering, blathering, barking Babbages. The mind never moves quite fast enough when it’s needed for withering and scathing responses,’ she observed.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ I replied. ‘I don’t suppose the Babbages will soon forget the withering and scathing they received at your hands. I only wish I’d been a fly on the wall. You always look sexy when you’re angry.’

  ‘Sexy? I’m fifty-five!’ She looked down at her boots and socks, khaki shirt and over-large shorts. ‘Positively the belle of the ball,’ she laughed.

  ‘You look terrific, Marg.’ She did too! She’d lost at least a stone and a half in weight, her hair was cut in a neat bob, she still possessed bosoms to make any man drool and in high heels a pair of legs you’d happily follow five city blocks in the opposite direction to the one you had originally intended taking. My great fear was that with all these weekend wilderness ventures in climbing boots and rucksack, she might abandon displaying possibly the best legs in stilettos in Australia. Marg, if no longer the beauty that Anna still remained, was nevertheless a great-looking woman at the height of her sexual powers who would turn the head of any man over the age of thirty. I lusted after her almost as deeply now as when, as a Naval Intelligence officer in Fremantle, she’d first helped herself to my virginity.

  ‘Nick, you’re not thinking of —? No, of course not!’

  ‘Why not? It’s eighteen months since you went into the wilderness to find out what you stood for and who you are, and you seem to have that pretty well sorted out.’

  Marg laughed. ‘Thank you, I hope you approve.’

  ‘Only if you never give up wearing stiletto heels,’ I grinned, attempting to lighten the moment.

  ‘Well, perhaps not for a while anyway. Although my sensible years are not that far off, I suppose.’ She gave me a forthright look as only Marg can, its meaning unequivocal even though she hadn’t said a word. ‘Nick, I’ve got two years to go to get my degree.’

  ‘I know, but no harm in having a round of preliminary talks. Never know your luck in the big city . . . er . . . wilderness.’

  Despite herself, Marg laughed. ‘And Anna? She must be accustomed to having you to herself by now?’

  ‘Oh, she’s agreed,’ I said airily, with a flick of the wrist.

  ‘She’s what?’ Marg exclaimed, surprised. ‘She’s a part of these preliminary talks?’

  ‘Well, sort of. We’ve had a long talk.’ I didn’t see any point in telling Marg this was months ago in Japan.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Her vaginismus . . . the situation hasn’t changed.’ I was skating on thin ice.

  ‘But I have!’ Marg said firmly. ‘Besides, I thought I’d made it perfectly clear?’

  ‘Yes, you did at the time, but you left the door slightly ajar. You said, and I recall precisely, “Perhaps later, when I’ve got my new life underway, when I know who I am, what I want.”’

  ‘You remembered that?’ I could see she liked the fact.

  I grinned boyishly. ‘Etched with a red-hot poker into my mind.’

  ‘You’re a bastard, Nick! Nothing changes. I told you before, I’m not going to be the surrogate fuck next door.’

  The use of the ‘f’ word I took to be part of her student and feminist emancipation but I could sense a slight softening. ‘Hardly. You live here, Anna is in Melbourne and I’m at Beautiful Bay.’ Then, taking a big chance I said, ‘I’d be your university vacation bonk.’ I realised at once that it was a cheap shot.

  Marg pressed her lips together, a sure sign that she wasn’t pleased. ‘Am I supposed to feel grateful, Nick?’

  I suddenly realised just how stupid the remark was. Should Marg refuse me she would naturally be reluctant to come to Beautiful Bay in future. I reached out and touched
her arm. ‘Marg, I guess I’m tired. That was a very stupid thing to say. I’m sorry if I offended you,’ I said, crawling like a salamander from a pond.

  Marg pulled away. ‘Nick, what you’ve just asked is outrageous! It’s also insensitive, disloyal and shameless!’ She paused, then grinned. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  My relief must have been obvious. ‘You will?’ I exclaimed, not sure I’d heard correctly, in my mind still copping the adjectival flak.

  Marg gave me a reproving look. ‘Nick, let’s get things straight from the start. You’re staying in your own tent tonight and there isn’t any room in my sleeping bag. When we get home tomorrow night don’t lie awake waiting for a knock on the door. I need time to think about all this. It comes as a bit of a shock.’

  ‘How long do you think this thinking will take?’ I said, grinning cheekily, knowing that a bit of crawling to the opposite sex never goes astray.

  ‘It needs considerable thought, and besides, first I’ll have to speak to Anna.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Nick, we have to believe that political movements are like the rivers we’re trying to save, first a trickle, then a rill, then a creek and perhaps finally a roaring river.’

  Marg Hamilton, Tasmania

  THE PROTEST MEETING I’D come to Tasmania to attend at Marg’s behest was the day after we’d returned to Hobart, feeling stiff and sore from the walk to Lake Pedder. While I wasn’t yet a convert to the cause, I was beginning to see that saving the magnificent Lake Pedder for future generations was not to be dismissed as mindlessly as the opposition seemed to be doing.

  Milo Dunphy spoke first, angry and disappointed at the adamantine refusal of the state government to consider saving even the unique pink quartzite beach, which could have been done relatively easily. It was clear that the Hydro people wanted to show the students and other upstarts that they and their resistance were inconsequential. It almost seemed as though drowning the lake was as much to teach the recalcitrants a damned good lesson as anything else.

  Dunphy, an articulate and reasoned speaker and far from the rabblerouser he was claimed to be, delivered an intelligent speech over a scratchy microphone to a captivated crowd who cheered loudly and frequently. He encouraged the protesters to be more professional in future campaigns (writing on toilet paper just meant the message went down the gurgler) and reminded them that this was not the end but only the beginning. Never give up the fight, he urged.

  No observers from the government or opposition attended except Louis Shoobridge MLC, whose voice crackled, squeaked, whistled and frequently disappeared altogether as he tried to tell us over the loudspeakers what we already knew – that his colleagues in state parliament were a bunch of irresponsible reactionaries, no-hopers and opportunists. He once again confirmed that the Hydro-Electric Commission was ruled by a bunch of anti-conservation nabobs who were a law unto themselves and answerable only to the devil. The lone politician received the second biggest cheer of the day. I guess one member of state parliament on the side of the angels is better than none.

  Perhaps these remarks in the white-hot atmosphere of the Lake Pedder crusade were to be expected, but in hindsight the state politicians of the day were merely falling into line with the prevailing pro-development ethos. I don’t think they were wicked or evil or even vindictive; they simply saw the Tasmanian wilderness as a God-given resource for the good of humankind. They were pragmatists who pointed out that unless the abundant rivers were tamed and harnessed, all that water would empty uselessly into the sea. Water that gurgled through gullies, over rocks and through ferny creeks, that tumbled into rivers and flowed silently through giant eucalypt forests, serpentining along valleys, could only have one possible use, couldn’t it, and if it was wasted, how bloody stupid was that?

  The island’s reactionary forces were quick to condemn as futile this gathering to protest over Pedder. Or to paraphrase the countless long-winded speeches in state parliament, newspapers and the halls of Hydro, it was the work of a bunch of radical students causing an unnecessary fracas over a few acres of ponds, scrubland, a handful of ubiquitous marsupials and a bunch or two of common wildflowers.

  It was obvious to me that it was already too late to save Lake Pedder, and after the meeting it was clear from the bitterness of failure on many faces that others realised that all their efforts had come to naught.

  The protest meeting seemed to me to be a call to arms and a warning about the ever-present dangers of the short-sighted Tasmanian government and hydra-headed Hydro. It was, in fact, the beginning of the world’s first Green movement.

  After the rally, we went with Marg’s friends to a barbecue in a beachside park near the Wrest Point Riviera Hotel owned by Federal Hotels, who had applied to the state government for the first casino licence in Australia. This proposal brought out an entirely different but almost equally vociferous protester. The deep leather armchairs of the Tasmanian Club were filled with old duffers and establishment types who, urged on by their wives, all of whom had sided with the Hydro over Lake Pedder, waved their fists and demanded that the plans be scrapped. They were furious at the audacity of the government, loudly proclaiming that, with the advent of a casino, the state would be overtaken by mafia gangsters and white trash would invade from across Bass Strait.

  Despite the bitter disappointment at failing to save Lake Pedder, the barbecue was an upbeat affair attended by many of the locals as well as several hundred out-of-town protesters. The partygoers must each have drowned their sorrows in a half cask of wine or a sixpack of Cascade, which didn’t help when the pubs closed at ten and a hundred or so gatecrashers, the roughneck supporters of the Hydro scheme, descended on us.

  I was returning from talking to some of the locals when I heard, ‘Hey, lady, your name Marg Hamilton?’

  Marg’s ‘Yes?’ was uncharacteristically nervous, and I soon discovered why.

  ‘Bitch! I’ve got a message from your family!’

  I don’t remember a great deal more after that, except that I looked around to see a man holding Marg by her hair, a broken beer bottle poised above his shoulder, seemingly about to stab her in the face. She screamed, and the next thing I recalled was sitting in a police paddy wagon with my right hand hurting like hell and the siren of an approaching ambulance ringing in my ears.

  The following morning I was arraigned before a magistrate and charged with causing grievous bodily harm. It seems that despite the drunken state of most of us, there were several reliable witnesses who had seen the incident and testified that I had responded to an unprovoked attack on Marg. Apparently I had lifted the bloke with the broken bottle above my head and thrown him against a stormwater pipe, breaking his left shoulder, arm and pelvis. Another guy who’d tried to take me on had his jaw broken in three places, although I don’t remember either incident, just the scream from Marg and then finding myself in the police paddy wagon.

  The bottle was tendered in evidence, and Louis Shoobridge, who’d been sober and whose testimony couldn’t be easily dismissed, was called as a witness. Unusually and to everyone’s surprise, the police sergeant who attended that night was more than even-handed, corroborating the politician’s evidence in his report.

  I was fined a hundred dollars for being drunk and disorderly in a public place and released on a good-behaviour bond, but not before the magistrate lamented at length about how most of the trouble over Lake Pedder and the Hydro-Electric Commission was fulminated by irresponsible and ill-informed students and mainlanders, of which I was a prime example. Clearly he believed that both were a blight on the landscape. He went on to say that it was high time mainland people realised that Tasmania knew what was best for its own welfare. I took a quick look at his ears but they were small and snug against his head. Having thus delivered his lecture he dismissed me and wished me a speedy return across Bass Strait.

  Alas, the incident made the Hobart Mercury, where Marg Hamilton’s name appeared once again, I have no doubt confirming the ju
dgment of the recently scathed and withered, blithering, blathering, barking Babbages, who had demanded her transportation to the mainland.

  While I packed my gear to return to the islands, Marg didn’t say much, but her smiling and gorgeously unmarred face suggested that the date of the renewed liaison between us might have been brought a little closer. Certainly my chances hadn’t been harmed by the drunken incident in the park. At the thought of bedding Marg once more, my dislocated thumb suddenly seemed a small price to pay.

  We said our farewells just before I boarded the TAA flight to Melbourne, and she kissed me lovingly. ‘Nick, thank you for coming, it was wonderful.’ She touched her face. ‘And thank you for this. It may not be beautiful, but I like it the way it is.’

  ‘It’s a lovely face, darling, and I like it better than ever.’ Being Marg, she’d made no mention of the when question. I turned and started to walk across the tarmac towards the plane.

  ‘Nick!’ she yelled. I turned back. ‘Tell Anna I’ll phone her. It would appear that we have something in common and that we need to talk about him.’

  Marg and Anna may have decided to have me in common but in the years to come I sometimes wondered how central I really was to their lives, and whether each of these two strong and determined women clung to me so tightly simply as a matter of principle because each didn’t want to let the other have me. Or was it possible that Anna, who always loved a challenge, had agreed to share me with Marg so that the rivalry between the two of them became an even contest? I could do nothing about the real antagonism between the two of them and so I seldom, if ever, raised the subject, but their passionate pursuit of opposing goals was a different matter. Each hated the other for what she represented and I was to become a sort of perpetual trophy which they exchanged when they imagined that one of them had temporarily trounced the other.