The Second Cure

by Margaret Morgan

  He knew how to play his constituency. Inculcate fear and present the jack-booted solution. Queenslanders had fallen for it before, and he was counting on them falling for it again.

  Brigid dried off fast and didn’t even bother towelling her hair before firing up her computer.

  Synaesthesia Claims a Star … or Three

  Acclaimed New York chef Shimuzu Takahiro has announced his retirement from cooking. A recent thete, Takahiro says his synaesthesia has overwhelmed his aesthetic, causing food to emit noises during preparation and colours at the taste. ‘The subtlety and nuance for which my cuisine is renowned is now impossible to achieve,’ he said in a statement.

  His Greenwich Village restaurant, Shimuzu’s, is one of a handful of restaurants in Manhattan awarded the prestigious rank of three Michelin stars, and is one of the most expensive restaurants in the USA.

  Tokyo-born Shimuzu, who is fifty-three years old, plans to return to Japan. When asked what he would now do with his life, he replied, ‘I don’t know. It won’t be food. Cooking is dead to me. Food is nothing more than fuel.’

  – Global Gourmand Magazine

  23.

  Sydney

  The soil was so dry that it felt hard underfoot. The grass was brown and it crunched.

  ‘Just over here,’ said Winnie as she propped on her crutches and gestured with a nod.

  Charlie walked to a thicket of westringia scattered with ragged blue blossoms. Goblin zigzagged across the yard, sniffing the recent smells deposited by the local wallabies and possums, perhaps by the odd fox.

  ‘I spent so much time there. Reading, mainly. Or just sitting and watching the bush,’ said Winnie. It had been a long time since she’d been able to empty her mind like that.

  Charlie stood at the edge of dense foliage in front of the sudden drop of the escarpment. ‘The steps should be there, on your left,’ Winnie said.

  Shoving the branches aside, Charlie looked down. ‘Yes, I see them!’ She bent down and brushed away the leaf litter. ‘There’s a step here, chiselled into the rock.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. He did it all by hand. It took him years …’

  Charlie stood up and stretched. ‘How fantastic! How did it get all overgrown like this?’

  ‘Dad wasn’t too physical by the end. And I guess it never occurred to Richard to maintain it. So the bush just reclaimed it.’

  Her tone carried such a note of defeat. Charlie made a decision. ‘I’m going to clear it.’

  ‘Oh, not today, though. It’ll be far too hot.’

  ‘I’ll wear a hat.’

  Winnie looked doubtful.

  ‘No, really. After the week I’ve had, hot and sweaty hard labour is exactly what I need. I’ll come and get you when I’m done.’ Even to herself, she sounded brittle with exaggerated enthusiasm.

  Winnie’s smile was wan. ‘Just don’t be doing it on my account.’

  It was indeed a throne, carved into the rear of the sandstone platform, wide enough to seat two. In front of it was a flat semicircle of stone, bordered with hewn blocks cemented into place to form a crenelated parapet. The chiselled steps wound around the back of the throne up to the garden. Beyond the parapet, the graduated cliffs down into the valley totalled a good three hundred metres. Charlie imagined Winnie playing there as a child, and marvelled at the risks children were once allowed to take. It was magnificent, the river below shining in the summer sun. Charlie swept the final pile of twigs and leaves through an embrasure, tidied up her tools, and took a seat. To her right towered a vast Angophora, its thick roots buckling against the sandstone shelf and its flesh dimpled with faded orange and grey. It must be old, perhaps a hundred years or more. She reached over to it and pushed her palm against its bark.

  She would like to have known Patrick, Winnie’s father, the man who hewed this edifice from the rock face, who imagined and built their outlandish home, whose sense of whimsy must have been matched with practicality, competence and determination. She wondered if he threw himself into his physical work, as she had just done, as a means to shut out thoughts and worries.

  Goblin leapt up next to her on the throne and sat sniffing the air. When she reached for her water bottle and took a swig, the dog looked at her expectantly. She poured some into her hand, and he lapped it up. The rest she poured over their heads. ‘We’ve done a fine day’s work, haven’t we, fella?’ It had been a demanding job, including a brief but startling encounter with a red-bellied black snake, which was as happy to get away from Charlie as she’d been to see it whip into the undergrowth. Tomorrow she’d be aching in muscles she’d forgotten she had, but the air and the exercise had cleared her head, as she’d hoped.

  She’d been putting off dealing with Effenberg’s offer. When they’d discussed it, Juliette had been ambivalent, seeing both the pluses and minuses. The money would be great, but what about the politics intruding into science? What indeed. What was Effenberg’s motivation? From what she’d seen of his brand of religion and his political stances, he was not someone she could ever support. She’d be tainting her own integrity by association, at the very least, and even worse by a loss of independence. Her work would be a prop for his political and religious empire. She knew she had to say no to him. Which meant telling Reed the department wouldn’t be getting the money. There was a real risk that it would put her job in jeopardy and he was right: the research and data weren’t hers to take with her. She’d be starting from scratch if she left.

  Goblin pushed his muzzle against her palm, wanting attention. She ran her fingers through the fur of his nape and shoved aside the swirling thoughts, instead admiring what her hard labour had won.

  ‘It’s amazing, seeing it again! It’s smaller than I remember, but more impressive. I guess when I was a kid I had no idea how much work Grandfather must have put into it.’ Richard sat next to Charlie on the throne. ‘You’ve done a great job.’

  ‘Careful,’ cried Charlie. Winnie had propped her crutches against the wall and was unsteadily putting a foot on one of the crenellated blocks, looking into the valley below.

  Richard leapt up. ‘Jeez, Mum,’ he said, guiding her back to the throne.

  ‘Fuss, fuss,’ she said, but sat down anyway. Her passivity was disturbing. After the flatness from this morning, Winnie now seemed to be shrinking away into herself.

  ‘I have work to do. You two got all you need?’ asked Richard.

  They had, with their Thermos of tea and their pikelets with jam, a spontaneous picnic Charlie had conjured. He whistled to Goblin, who stood up at his command.

  ‘Come on, mate. Secret women’s business.’

  Charlie heard them receding up into the garden and started unpacking the pikelets. She glanced at Winnie. Perhaps the injury was getting her down. She seemed somehow disappointed with the throne. Perhaps her recollection was infused by the happiness of her childhood, and the reality of the present could not rival it. Charlie poured the tea.

  ‘I hope you didn’t give yourself heat stroke,’ said Winnie.

  ‘It was stinking hot, but it was worth it. It’s beautiful here.’

  ‘Brigid loved playing on the throne when we came to see her grandparents.’

  ‘Maybe next time she comes down from Brisbane she can see it.’ But even as Charlie spoke, she regretted her words. Brigid rarely visited her mother, and who knew when she last came to Cowan. Well before Charlie met Richard, anyway.

  ‘I can’t help thinking this isn’t something either of my children would have done. Richard’s too impractical and it wouldn’t even occur to Brigid. I really do appreciate it.’

  ‘Honestly, Winnie, it’s my pleasure. I was curious, after what you’d said.’

  ‘Winnie?’ she asked, with mock-severity.

  It was years since Winnie had first told her to call her ‘Mum’, but Charlie still found the word hard to get her mouth around. ‘Mum’ had said that the relationship with Richard was as close to marriage as he’d ever get and had made an awkward speech about C
harlie’s dead parents. It felt like an anointing and, now that Charlie had met Brigid, a usurping.

  ‘Mum,’ she corrected herself.

  ‘Thank you.’ Winnie put her hand on Charlie’s and patted it. ‘Did you see Brigid’s article? About the riot?’

  ‘No. I heard about the demo, but didn’t see her piece.’

  ‘She was right in the middle of it. She could have got herself killed. I rang her to see if she was okay.’

  ‘Is she?’

  Winnie shrugged. ‘She was too busy to talk. She said she’d ring back. She hasn’t.’ Her voice was flat.

  ‘You must miss her.’

  ‘I think we’re past that. I did have my hopes, after her father died … They didn’t get on, you know.’

  Because Brigid was gay, thought Charlie, but said nothing.

  Winnie picked up a gum leaf that had fallen on the stone next to her. She twisted it in her fingers. She’d heard Charlie’s unvoiced thought clearly enough. ‘The word “homophobe” didn’t even exist back then. Or, if it did, we hadn’t heard of it. But that’s what he was, ultimately.’

  Winnie had never spoken so bluntly about her husband, not to Charlie. She was gazing across the valley, but she wasn’t seeing it. She was remembering.

  ‘One night there was a terrible fight. We’d done a fine job of pretending, all of us, up till then. Hector and I knew, of course, but we didn’t want to know. But Brigid being Brigid, that wasn’t going to last. She “came out” to us. He couldn’t ignore it any more, so, well. He told her he’d pray for her, pray for her “cure”, pray for her to be rid of sin. She left that night. I couldn’t agree with him, but … what choice did I have? He was a minister. I could defend her and lose my marriage. Instead, I lost my daughter, and he lost my respect. I lost my respect for myself.’

  ‘But now …’ began Charlie. Was that a tear on Winnie’s cheek?

  ‘Sometimes you can’t go back. I tried to tell her it was her father, not me, but she has always blamed me. And she’s right. I was weak. I am weak.’

  Together they sat, looking out at the valley as dusk approached. There were clouds building to the west, the first they’d seen in weeks, catching the sunlight and glowing pink. A flock of black and yellow cockatoos wheeled above them, their raucous calls splitting the sky.

  ‘My father put in his will that he wanted his ashes scattered here. When we threw them over the edge, the wind suddenly came up and blew dust back in our faces. I was coughing for hours.’

  Charlie swallowed a laugh. ‘Sorry, it’s not funny. Not really.’

  ‘Oh, it was! We decided he’d changed his mind and wasn’t ready to go after all. He always was stubborn.’

  ‘I’d like that to be done with my remains. Let all my atoms find their way back into nature, into trees. That’s a real afterlife.’

  ‘The only one you believe in?’

  Charlie didn’t mean to raise religion with Winnie. It was a subject she knew she should avoid, but she wasn’t going to lie to her. ‘I don’t believe in a spirit … or in a soul. Once our bodies stop working, I can’t see how anything else can be left. I know that’s not how you feel about it …’

  They fell silent again, looking across at the clouds, then Winnie said, ‘Do you think we might be going to get some rain? They said there was a chance.’

  ‘Sure hope so. Those clouds look promising.’ They were growing heavier, closer. The pink was fading into a darkening grey.

  ‘Actually, I’m not sure I do believe in an afterlife, Charlie.’ Winnie turned to her, her face twisting in pain. ‘I’m not sure I believe in God any more.’

  Charlie felt a rising panic, a sense of being ill equipped for what was coming.

  Winnie took a deep breath and then her words came out in a rush. ‘When I was in hospital, they tested me. For Toxoplasmosis, the new one, the cat one. Because I’ve been so accident-prone lately. I’m covered in bruises, so they asked. Not just falling over in church. I’ve been breaking things, walking into things. I even reversed the car into a fence post last week. And I have been doing things I’d never normally do – no, don’t ask, don’t. Anyway, the results were positive. I’ve got it. And I saw your ex-husband on the television, saying that losing faith could be a symptom.’

  ‘Well, yes, it can be. But not always …’

  ‘I’ve had my faith all my life, Charlie. I’ve believed in God more than I’ve believed in anything. It’s been real to me, always, His presence. His voice. I’ve just known. He’s helped me through everything, my father dying, Hector’s cancer, losing Brigid. I’ve always known He had reasons for what’s happened, even if I didn’t understand.’ She was talking softly now, in a broken, defeated tone. ‘My faith survived no matter what life threw at me. Always. But now? Nothing. He’s just gone.’

  ‘The parasite is having horrible effects, I know. Death, miscarriages, and … what you’re going through.’

  ‘How long till you find a cure?’

  ‘Soon, I hope.’

  ‘When, though? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Charlie. ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘No,’ said Winnie. ‘I didn’t think so.’

  And then, finally, after three months and five days of drought and heat, it began to rain. Thick splats of water hit the warm sandstone and evaporated instantly. The air was thick with petrichor.

  ‘We’d better get inside,’ said Charlie, standing, and reaching for Winnie’s crutches.

  ‘I don’t mind getting wet. Let’s stay.’

  And so they did.

  24.

  Brisbane, Sydney

  Brigid had been expecting a backlash after the demonstration and it came swiftly. The government’s spruikers in the tabloids and among the shock jocks cried for action against ‘lawless rioters’ and the ‘rent-a-crowd’. The government responded by ramming through legislation, late at night, repealing the Queensland Peaceful Assemblies Act, effectively returning the state to the street-march bans of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era. When the leader of the opposition had the temerity to remind the government benches that Queensland, like the rest of Australia, was subject to international laws of freedom of assembly and association, Effenberg gagged the debate and it was put to the vote. It passed on party lines.

  In the morning, when a small group of unionists had spontaneously gathered outside Parliament in defiance of the new laws, they were arrested by the QSSA and bail was refused. Brigid had spent the last few hours interviewing constitutional lawyers to get opinions on whether the ban was in breach of the constitution’s implied right of freedom of political speech, which seemed to be the best hope for the unionists and for civil liberties generally. A High Court challenge to the government was being launched urgently, along with an application for an injunction against the Effenberg regime. None of the lawyers had much hope of success.

  Just as Brigid had started writing all this up, news came through that one of the imprisoned unionists had suffered what was being called a fatal heart attack. She put a call through to the Department of Corrections, who referred her to the Attorney-General’s Department, who referred her to the QSSA, and then she knew she was going to get nothing of use from any of them.

  She had started her piece from scratch, using the death as the lede, when a pop-up on the screen told her that she had a video call from her brother. She was tempted to ignore it, but it might be about their mother, who’d apparently hurt her ankle.

  ‘Hey, Richard.’

  ‘Hear that?’

  She was in no mood for guessing games. She tried to give attention to the image of him on the corner of her screen, but her focus was on the words she’d been writing and those that were still in her head, waiting to be typed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That noise. It’s rain! And wind. The southerly buster came through yesterday, the temperature dropped fifteen degrees in half an hour, and the rain hasn’t stopped. First proper rain in months that hasn’t petered out.’r />
  ‘Send it up here to Brisbane, will you?’ she said absent-mindedly.

  ‘So I heard on the news things are turning to crap up there?’

  So that was it? He just rang to tell her it was raining? Jesus. ‘Yep. I’m writing a piece about it right now.’

  ‘Look forward to reading it.’

  Brigid knew he wouldn’t. He rarely engaged with politics, let alone what she wrote about it. ‘So, how’s your work going?’ she asked him, then frowned. That last paragraph wasn’t right. She needed to rejig it.

  ‘Oh, better than ever. Seriously. I’m just bursting with the stuff. Music, painting: it’s all just coming together.’

  ‘Weird shit’s going on, isn’t it? That business in the Opera House?’

  ‘And the rest. But it’s great, Brigid. I don’t know how it’s happening – that’s Charlie’s bag, all this brain stuff – but there’s this energy, this creative spirit. I’m making connections, you know, between ideas, and it’s all just meshing. And it’s not just me.’

  ‘Fantastic. Look, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to file this piece. All hell’s breaking loose up here and I can’t get overtaken.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries. Oh – Charlie wanted a word, if that’s okay?’

  ‘What? Yeah, all right.’ It wasn’t, but Brigid didn’t want to be rude.

  She watched the image jostle about as he carried the laptop to Charlie. The kitchen came into view, then Charlie appeared, holding a glass of red wine.

  ‘Hey, Brigid!’

  ‘Hi, Charlie, how’s it going?’

  ‘Bit crazy, but nothing like what’s going on up there, I gather?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Brigid didn’t have time for this.

  ‘Look, I’m just a bit worried about Mum. Your mum.’