White Throat

by Sarah Thornton

  The porch light flicked on. She froze. It spotlighted her as if on stage. Shit—a movement sensor. She snuck back to the other side of the car; scanned the house. Nothing. The whole street still silent. She waited for what seemed like ten minutes but was probably only two, brushing away the midges from the fleshy part of her thighs. The light went off. Everything dark again, eyes adjusting slowly.

  She weighed up the situation. Ralph and Selma’s bedroom might face the other side of the house. The light could be triggered often, by animals, possums, cats. She wanted to do that fourth tyre. It could be the one that held the best match with dirt from the quarry track. She didn’t know if the quarry dirt was distinctive, of course, so the whole procedure could be inconclusive. But being a quarry, she thought it might have unique characteristics.

  All these thoughts rushed through her head as she waited. It had been a few minutes since the light had switched off. The coast was clear, the moonlight still weak under a thin layer of cloud. She crept forward, slow, hoping not to trigger the sensor, made it to the hinge on the passenger-side front door. Snap! Light flooding the driveway.

  Bugger it. They’re not going to wake up. Just get it done. She worked quickly, trickling dirt into the bag, fumbling, spilling some of it, checking nervously for movement in the house. Nothing. Scraping, pinching. Almost done.

  Another light. Inside the house this time. She held her breath, watching. A shadow then a form, someone approaching the front door. Oh God. Where to go?

  She dived under the vehicle just as the front door opened. A pause, then the pad of footsteps down the stairs and along the path. Her heart was pumping so loud she could hear it pulsing in her ears. She rolled further under. The footsteps stopped. Bare feet, less than a metre away from where she lay under the car. Big, lumpy feet. Ralph the Resident President’s feet. He didn’t move. Then a slight shuffle, his feet wider apart. Then a noise like a tap. She turned her head ever so slightly but she could already smell it. Urine. Splashing onto the concrete and running towards her.

  The first customer for Saturday morning arrived in a metallic grey Chrysler with an enormous front grille. It pulled up outside the kiosk and a man wearing a bottle-green polo shirt and jeans got out. Medium build, beer gut, tan deck shoes and wraparound Ray-Bans. He walked over towards the beach, looked across the golden shallows and out into the stripes of aqua and sapphire across to Fraser Island, then stuck his hands in his pockets and walked back to the kiosk, sweeping the multi-coloured plastic ribbons aside at the doorway. He left the Ray-Bans on in the cool darkness within.

  The manager, sitting on his vinyl stool behind the cash register nodded at him, flicked him a ‘G’day mate’.

  ‘Got any cabins available?’ asked the man. He spoke in a languid, easy bass as if the world had never denied him anything he might have wanted.

  ‘Yeah, mate. Deluxe and standard. How many nights you after?’

  CHAPTER 7

  Marakai Mining’s Public Relations Director, Karene Bickerstaff, was pretty much what Clem had expected. Dyed-blonde hair, tied back tight with not a strand out of place, a stiff-collared light blue shirt that sat pertly at her neck and a string of tiny pearls.

  Karene picked up her chardonnay and sipped.

  ‘Ew,’ she said, plonking it down on the table. ‘That’s it, I’ve tried them all now. Every wine in every pub in this godforsaken town. All of them vinegar.’

  Clem was disappointed. She needed Karene to sink a couple more glasses, loosen those lips. Helen had said she liked a drop.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve tried the sav blanc? I had a glass here a week ago and I thought it was drinkable.’ Clem was making it up, still hopeful.

  ‘Not that dreadful Yalumba?’ Her face pinched like it was caught in a door.

  ‘No, no, something else. I can’t recall the name…’

  Karene persevered with the chardonnay, which would clearly have to do, and began recounting her day escorting a bevy of state MPs around the proposed mine site.

  ‘It’s like hosting a bunch of bored children on a school excursion to see a patch of empty dirt,’ she said, holding her head. ‘Draining.’

  Eventually Clem managed to shift the conversation to Helen.

  ‘Doesn’t matter what your politics are—sad, just sad,’ said Karene. ‘I guess the signs were all there, though.’

  ‘Really?’ Clem sat up straighter. Had she finally found someone who’d noticed something?

  ‘Oh yes, you see Marakai Mining are big donors to the Healthy Minds Institute. Big donors.’ She closed her eyes and nodded. ‘We sponsor the management training program they put on for businesses. The first day is all about understanding the symptoms, day two is how to manage them. That part’s a bit of a joke, though—I mean who can afford flexi-time and quiet spaces? The public service perhaps—hardly realistic anywhere else.’

  ‘What symptoms did you see in Helen?’

  ‘Oh you know,’ said Karene, flicking a hand in the air. ‘She seemed irritable, that sort of thing.’ She took another sip. ‘It’s the little things.’

  If Helen was irritable it might well have been Karene that irritated her, thought Clem.

  ‘She certainly took offence at anything I had to say, but you see all I could do was give her the facts: freshwater turtle habitat disturbance will be minimal. We engaged two independent consultants and they both say the same thing.’

  ‘Independent? Hired? Bit of an oxymoron, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh come on, Clementine, you must know the drill, you’re a lawyer’—another sip—‘Sorry, sorry…Were a lawyer. Do you still practise?’

  ‘Yes, but I only have one client—the white-throated snapping turtle.’

  Karene chuckled, ‘I expect you’d have trouble getting your invoices paid, then. But I guess the Galimore Foundation pays your fees?’

  ‘Nope. I’m pro bono. The foundation pays the law firm handling the appeal and, of course, for the independent scientific study that indicates catastrophic habitat destruction.’

  ‘Like I said, girlfriend, no such thing as independence.’

  Surprisingly, Karene had finished the glass of vinegar already. Great, thought Clem. Time for another. ‘How about I get you a glass of that sav blanc?’

  ‘Oh well, what’s the harm? I’m out of this hole tomorrow—good reason to celebrate.’

  Clem went to the bar, approaching from the side, away from the line of men in filthy jeans and high-vis work shirts. She ordered a soda water for herself and a glass of the house sauvignon blanc—‘Yes, a large one thanks’—flicking through her wine app as she waited. She found what she wanted and committed it to memory as the barman set the glass on the bar. She handed him her credit card to start a tab and carried the two glasses back to the table. Karene was scrolling through her Twitter feed.

  ‘Dear God, Canberra’s going mad today,’ she said. ‘I swear, if there’s a spill I bloody hope the leadership goes to someone who understands corporate imperatives. I mean, how the hell is this country going to survive otherwise? Fairy dust?’

  Clem put the glasses down on the round table. ‘There you go, 2013 Peringel from Margaret River.’

  ‘No! You’re kidding me. I didn’t see that on the menu.’

  ‘I know the barman. Told me he keeps a few specially,’ she lied. ‘But only for those that know to ask—wasted on the rest of these philistines.’ Clem glanced towards the rowdy bunch at the bar.

  Karene took a sip of the stock standard, no-name house wine, closing her eyes as she swallowed.

  ‘Oh my God, you’re a magician.’ She took another gulp. ‘Mmmm,’ she said, eyes still closed.

  Clem smiled to herself. ‘What say we order dinner?’ she said, hoping to extend the evening.

  ‘I could go a medium-rare rib fillet with a nice, full-bodied shiraz. Could you conjure one up, maybe?’

  ‘Think I might know the secret code.’

  Karene was drinking the house red like cordial. The rib fillet was
more well-done than medium-rare and the chips tasted like they’d been baked for two days, cooled and then blowtorched. Karene didn’t seem to care anymore. Now’s the time, thought Clem.

  ‘You know I’m totally with you, Karene, on the Federal leadership…you know…about corporate imperatives…’

  Karene forked another piece of steak into her mouth.

  ‘Mmmm, well, sadly very few in your environmental circles get it.’

  ‘…get industry moving, revenues flowing, wipe out the deficit,’ said Clem.

  ‘Absolutely! Healthcare, education, welfare…nothing happens without taxes and mining royalties.’ There was a pause while Karene chewed. ‘Gee, you’re different from Helen,’ she remarked, shaking her head. ‘I mean, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but tree huggers who believe in magic puddings are all too common.’

  Clem ignored the slur. ‘So I imagine there’s a lot riding on the port development—’

  ‘Well, there is a little thing called the share price…’

  ‘And if that gets a lift, there’ll be a decent bonus all round, I’d guess.’

  ‘And well-earned too.’ Karene plonked her wine glass down clumsily onto the cardboard coaster so the glass toppled and half the remaining wine sloshed over onto the table. Clem quickly had it replaced, with a wave and a wink to the barman.

  ‘So I suppose Scott Stanton-Green will do pretty well out of it.’ Clem had researched him: Marakai’s Director, Infrastructure and Operations, the senior executive in charge of the port project. His performance plan would be heavily weighted towards port milestones: EIS acceptance, government approvals, construction commencement, on-time completion of each phase. Before Marakai, he’d been at Meatco. There’d been a scandal—brown paper bags to foreign officials in return for contracts. If he’d been involved in that sort of skulduggery who knew what else he might be capable of. Clem had lined up a meeting with him the next day but she hoped Karene would know something.

  ‘Hey, it’s been a good night so far, why spoil it by mentioning the Hyphen.’

  ‘Not a fan?’

  ‘Look, I’m used to being the only female around the executive table and I expect a level of boorishness, I’m not precious, but, oh, Clementine, SSG takes it to a new level.’

  ‘I wonder how involved he was in the Meatco scandal…’

  ‘I’ve heard a few whispers,’ she said, leaning towards Clem with her fork in the air. ‘None too savoury, either.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Up to his eyeballs.’

  The door to the donga opened directly into an open-plan area. Clem looked to her left: rows of workstations that stretched down three lengths of shipping-container-width office. The air was chilled and everything was plastic. Grey vinyl floor, grey furniture, large windows and the light of a cloudless summer day drowning the unnecessary glow from the fluorescent light boxes. Coal miners’ offices—wouldn’t be too worried about saving energy, she supposed.

  A woman got up from her desk to show Clem through a door to a meeting room on the right. Table and chairs to seat about ten, a bench just inside the door with a kettle and a tray of coffee mugs, a map rack and satellite photos Blu-tacked to the walls. A television attached high on the far wall, sound muted, was playing the lead-up to the One Day International against the Kiwis, due to start shortly at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

  She sat and waited, fully expecting the royal brush-off from Karene’s king of boor. She set herself a goal: make it to five minutes and you never know what might happen.

  But how? She couldn’t steal the mayor’s thunder by mentioning the deal she’d suggested: that had to be a victory for the mayor if she was going to get any further down that road. She had Karene’s hearsay on Stanton-Green but nothing substantive. Make it up as you go was not her preferred approach, it made her uneasy, but none of the plans she’d dreamt up on the drive out seemed to stack up.

  She waited another two minutes, got up and poured herself a plastic cup of water from the bubbler in the corner, stood looking at the satellite photos. The first couple looked like they might be the mine site area at different zoom levels. The next two followed a winding line of thick trees—Piama Creek, the proposed route for the railway and road. She moved along the row of photographs, the creek widening to become a river until she came to a sharp kink, the one just after Helen’s house about a kilometre before the river met the bay. She took a step closer and peered into the photograph. She could make out Turtle Shores’ roof and the large WAGSS headquarters shed in the backyard. A lump rose in her throat and she sat back down.

  Everything about this room—the maps already prepared and draped neatly on the rack, the fresh new office chairs, the upturned tray of mugs ready to go—all of it screamed inevitability. And the photographs tracing the creek from a satellite in space were like the view from a fighter plane—an armoury in Iraq, a Taliban base in Afghanistan—she almost expected a pilot’s voice over the static: ‘target locked’. Her stomach sank at the sheer scale of the task that had fallen to Helen and her plucky little band. And what the hell was Clementine going to do about it? What the hell could she do about anything? And who in this metal capsule of an office, this outpost of empire, the spreading dominion of Marakai Mining, even cared the slightest fig that Helen was dead?

  She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath.

  Helen had sat here and not been daunted. She had met the challenge head on.

  Clem breathed out to the count of ten, snapped her eyes open, lifted the water to her lips and drained it, crushing the empty cup in her fist. Then the Hyphen walked in.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ he said in a voice way too big for the room.

  She jumped. Stanton-Green was glaring at the television, standing there in a chambray shirt, camel moleskins and brown steel-capped boots—huge, out of proportion to his height, which she judged to be just under six foot.

  ‘Finch. First ball! Fucken loser.’

  On the screen the Black Caps were getting around the bowler, back-slapping and hooting in their dinner suit uniforms. The camera flicked to Aaron Finch, on the long walk to the boundary, head bowed.

  He likes cricket. The boor likes cricket. It was something. A start, at least. She reached across the table and grabbed the remote, flicking the mute switch off. The roar from forty thousand fans filled the little meeting room in the grey donga on this nondescript piece of dirt a thousand kilometres away. The Hyphen barely even glanced at her, eyes glued to the screen. The replay showed Finch pushing forward, an inside edge and the ball cannoning into his leg stump.

  He slumped into a chair opposite Clementine, swinging it around towards the television so she was looking at him in profile. A little overweight, not a lot. Tightly curling hair clipped into submission, tiny ears.

  ‘Shit. That just cost me five hundred.’

  ‘You had Finch for top score?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Jesus.’ She let out a low whistle. ‘One ball, five hundred gone.’

  ‘Still got a thou on Australia for the match,’ he growled as Steve Smith made his way out to the crease, kicking up his heels in a jogging burst, shadow-batting at phantom balls, adjusting his eyes to the light, a gathering wall of concentration.

  ‘Early days, early days,’ said Clem. ‘Plenty of talent to come, including this guy.’

  Stanton-Green was a big punter. And apparently not averse to a bit of corruption—a man who would play the odds, take a risk, give in order to get…even if it was outside the rules. A plan began to take shape. A conversation she could manoeuvre somehow: risk and return…angling towards payment for favours…you scratch my back…She didn’t know the detail, but she had the broad outline.

  They sat there while Smith soaked up the rest of the over. During the ad break Clem made some comments about team selections to keep him interested, then Smith and Warner began to crank it up, keeping the strike turning over, boundaries starting to flow, a run a ball for the next six overs. She’d long pa
ssed her five-minute success threshold and even though they hadn’t spoken a word about the turtle or Helen, Clem could sense the longer she bonded with the Hyphen over the game, the greater the chance she had of learning something.

  She made a comment on the field-setting—‘not sure why the Kiwis don’t put a third man in’—and as if they’d heard it, the commentary team began to express a similar opinion. The Hyphen looked at her properly for the first time. A slightly bewildered look.

  Finally Warner was out in the ninth over, playing on to Ferguson, but Smith was well set at the other end and progressing with trademark intensity. She’d been sitting there sharing the cricket with the Hyphen for over half an hour. He’d probably have to go shortly, actually do some work, so when the ads came on she flicked the remote to mute, reached across the table, hand extended and announced herself, ‘Clementine Jones,’ for all the world like she was meeting him in the Marakai corporate box, beer in hand and a platter of beef bourguignon party pies in front of them.

  He gripped her hand. ‘Scott Stanton-Green,’ he said. ‘You’re the new turtle woman, then?’

  The way he spoke, the cursory question—it seemed he hadn’t bothered to look her up, didn’t know her past. She found herself wondering if this would always be the first thing she thought of whenever she met someone. Regardless, she kept her game face on—time to front up to the first delivery.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, trying to sound uninterested in all things turtle.

  ‘Hmmph,’ he sniffed. ‘Bit different to the last one.’

  There was something about the way he said it, it was subtle, but it seemed like he’d been offended somehow by Helen, some sort of personal affront. Had he been rebuffed by Helen in some way? Or was she just overthinking it?

  ‘Helen didn’t like cricket?’

  ‘Fucked if I know. Barely spent two minutes with her, thank Christ. Looked like she’d be as much fun as a wet sock.’