Ecstasy Lake (14 page)

Paul had come into the room, closing the door behind him. ‘He's right you know, dear,' he said.

Chris looked at me for a moment and nodded in acquiescence.

So I stayed. Between them they removed Melody's clothes except her underwear, covering her to the shoulders with a sheet. Chris asked me questions about the evening, how Melody had received the battering from Harlin, and her behaviour before she had fallen asleep.

‘Dragging her by the hair,' said Chris. ‘It's very primeval.'

‘Not what we might hope for from the modern male,' said Paul. ‘We think she's taken a barbiturate,' he said to me. ‘It would have numbed the pain for her. Do you know where she might have got it?'

‘Not for sure. But probably from the guy who beat her.'

Paul felt in her jeans, which Chris had folded neatly. ‘There's no more of it, anyway,' he said. ‘She's sleeping it off. Her blood pressure, heart rate and breathing are all normal, so we don't think she has overdosed, but we'll monitor her anyway. Is sexual assault a possibility?'

‘What do you call sexual assault?'

‘I suppose even pulling her by the hair would qualify. But I was meaning sexual penetration.'

‘She was still in her jeans when I found her. I don't think so. I interrupted him.'

They cleaned abrasions on her face, neck and chest, and one on her left leg. Chris manoeuvred the X-ray machine into place and took a couple of shots of her chest. Then they carefully rolled her onto her side and took a shot of her stomach. The two of them looked at the pictures on a computer screen.

‘Her ribs are only bruised,' said Paul. ‘No cracks, as far as we can see. Nothing much we can do, except be gentle with her.'

‘No pneumothorax,' said Chris. ‘No perforated viscera, no other fractures.'

‘All good,' said Paul, smiling at me.

Chris left the room and came back with what was possibly one of her own nighties, which, with Paul's help, she managed to put on Melody. The examination table doubled as a gurney, and we wheeled it to a bedroom with a queen-sized bed in it. Chris pulled back the covers and we transferred Melody to the bed. Chris arranged her limbs and drew the sheet over her. Her face was scratched and the bruises were starting to colour, but she looked peaceful and very beautiful.

‘She will be sore tomorrow,' said Paul. ‘All over.'

‘When will she wake?'

‘It wouldn't surprise me if she sleeps till midday. We can give her something for the pain when she wakes. Something legal. Let's leave her now.'

It wasn't yet eleven in the evening. We found Bert in the kitchen, brewing tea.

‘Teas all round, I would think,' said Paul. He raised his eyebrows at me. I had in mind a whisky about a metre deep.

‘That would be nice,' I said.

‘What about the police?' said Chris. ‘The man who did that to the poor girl should be locked up.'

‘He should be, yes.' I looked at Bert. ‘In the end I guess it's up to Melody. I'm not going to call the police on her behalf.'

‘Right,' said Bert. ‘Your role in the incident would also be scrutinised. As it is, you'll no doubt hear from the cops regarding events at the restaurant.'

‘I'm not sure I want to know about those,' said Paul.

‘I pencilled a guy,' I said.

‘Is that slang for something vulgar?'

‘No, I actually stuck a pencil in a guy's leg. And I belted another guy on the head. Knocked him out. And of course I also knocked out Harlin with a pistol.'

Chris and Paul exchanged a look. ‘Most of the time he's harmless,' said Bert.

‘You put three men in hospital?' said Paul.

‘I bet Harlin hasn't gone to hospital. Maybe none of them has.'

‘The man with the pencil in his leg should go,' said Paul. ‘He could get lead poisoning.' Bert and I laughed.

‘I suppose you have to do what you have to do,' said Chris. ‘Pencilling or whatever. I'm not a fan of king-hits, though. There are far too many of them these days. Do you still have that pistol? I'm not a fan of those, either. I wouldn't be happy having it in the house.'

‘No. We got rid of it.'

‘Well, thank heavens for small mercies.'

I looked at Bert and we laughed again.

It was decided that I would stay the night there and Bert would pick me up on the way to Parafield Airport at five the next morning. Chris showed me to a guest bedroom—the house had a good supply of them—and left me to it. I didn't sleep much.

21

Before I left the next morning I went into Melody's room, leaving the door ajar to cast light into her room from the hallway. She was fast asleep and breathing deeply, looking peaceful and pretty in her borrowed nightie. Her hands were clasped together near her face. Chris was waiting for me outside, dressed in a similar nightie.

‘She can stay as long as she likes,' she said. ‘We'll look after her.'

It was still dark outside. Bert opened the door to the BMW for me.

‘Don't be a dick,' I told him. ‘I can open my own goddamn door.' He grinned. He didn't look tired.

‘How is she?' said Tasso. No doubt Bert had told him what had happened the night before.

‘Chris and Paul think she'll be fine, although she'll be sore for a week or two.'

‘She's in safe hands. What do you think of Piss and Crawl?'

I laughed at his spoonerism. ‘They're quite a pair.'

‘They're as straight as a line of Mormons. My godparents, by the way. I love 'em to death.'

‘I hope Harlin doesn't find out where she is.'

‘He won't,' said Bert. ‘We weren't followed and there were no tracking devices on her. And Piss and Crawl are a well-kept secret.'

‘Well, thank heavens for small mercies.'

The drive to Parafield is not particularly picturesque; block after block of one-storey bungalows, a suburban flatland testifying to the abundance of space that Australians have always felt necessary to waste. The suburbs looked unwell in the orange glow of the street lights.

‘This is where I come from,' said Tasso.

‘I can see why you left.'

‘There are good people here.'

‘Like Piss and Crawl.'

‘The northern badlands aren't so bad. Money is coming here at last.'

‘Thanks to the drug trade.'

‘Har har, maybe. But mining generates its fair share, too, even though we haven't had our boom yet. Middle-class welfare, courtesy of WA and Queensland, plus a shitload of debt.'

Parafield Airport was the city's hub for light aircraft and helicopters. Bert parked the car next to one of the charter operators and we headed onto the tarmac.

‘You coming with us?' I said to Bert.

Tasso laughed. ‘He's the pilot.'

‘I should have known.'

Fern had chartered us a twin-engine Piper Aerostar, a five-seater. Tasso sat in the co-pilot's seat and I looked out the window while Bert fired up the engines and chatted with the control tower. The sun was cresting the horizon and the day was dawning clear, yellow and hot. We took off to the west into the light breeze and veered northwest over the saltpans and mangroves. Bert levelled the plane at a few thousand feet as we cut across the first gulf, the water flat and deepening in colour as the sun rose. We crossed the top end of Yorke Peninsula and the second gulf and veered further north. Below us now was a brown, yellow and grey patchwork of paddocks of varying size and shape and hardly a tree to be seen in any of them. From time to time there was the dull eucalyptic green of a conservation reserve, but those were small. The paddocks grew bigger and then ended abruptly. We were now in the arid zone. It was grazing country, if that, and only rare dirt roads indicated a human presence. The land looked like the pelt of an old-man kangaroo, worn-out and brown. We crossed the southern end of Lake Gairdner, its salt gleaming white and dotted with islands, which must have been some of the bleakest bits of land on the planet. We crossed another, smaller salt lake as we started to descend.

We over-flew the airstrip. The windsock was limp and there were no camels in the way, so we banked and landed to the east. It was a perfect landing on a highly imperfect strip. There wasn't a terminal or even a building, just a solitary vehicle at the far end of the strip, and we taxied towards it. Bert cut the engines. I opened the cabin door.

‘Mind you don't walk into the prop,' said Bert.

I got out in a thick cloud of dust. An Aboriginal man was leaning on a Land Cruiser. He had frizzy black-and-white hair and a trimmed beard, and he could have been forty or sixty. He was laughing.

‘Next time, wait for the props to stop, brother.'

‘I know. I always forget. I'm just so happy to be on terra firma again.'

‘Just as long as you don't think it's terra nullius.' He laughed again.

The dust cleared enough for the flies to get through. Tasso was out now and he shook hands with the Aboriginal guy as if they were old friends. They grinned at each other. The stranger had a full set of crooked teeth.

‘You're looking good, you old rogue,' said Tasso.

‘Wish I could say the same about you, brother.' More toothy grinning. ‘Although it's true you look like an old rogue.'

‘Meet a friend of mine, Steve West. Steve, this is Joe Bettong.'

Joe looked me over and reached out his hand. ‘A friend of Tasso's is a friend of mine.'

‘He means it,' said Tasso.

‘Course I mean it. As long as you're not a fucken dick.' He was still looking at me. ‘You played for them Crows, didn't you?'

‘I did, for a while.'

‘You were pretty good.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Not as good as me in me heyday, but pretty good.' He laughed. He had a laugh like a car trying to start. ‘That mark of yours, when you won mark of the year standing on some poor prick's shoulders? It was pretty fucken good, but if I'd been playing I would of been on
your
shoulders.'

Bert had been checking the plane and tying the propellers, and now he joined us. He and Joe had met before, and they shook hands and grinned at each other. We piled into the Land Cruiser.

‘I was sad about Mick Hiskey,' said Joe. ‘He was crazy, but he never caused us no trouble.'

‘He loved it here,' said Tasso.

‘He knew the place almost as good as I do.'

‘You would've stood on his shoulders, wouldn't you?' I said.

He laughed. ‘Not Mick, Westie, not Mick, God rest his soul, poor bugger.'

‘The pub open?' said Tasso.

‘No, but I got the key.'

‘What idiot gave you the key to a pub?'

‘Maybe the same idiot who gave you a mining lease.'

It was Tasso's turn to laugh. ‘Joe always gives as good as he gets,' he said to me. ‘The lease isn't mine yet, Joe.'

‘Pub's not mine yet, either,' said Joe.

We came to a T-junction and turned right.

‘Welcome to Parakilla, brother,' said Joe, to me.

‘Where is it?' I hadn't seen a building yet.

‘This is the main drag right here. We want to turn it into a mall.' He gave his car-starting laugh. The road ran along the side of a railway track. I supposed it was the Indian–Pacific railway, which stretched for about two thousand kilometres westward to Perth in almost a straight line. We passed a couple of houses, both of which looked deserted, and pulled up at a larger brick building with a low, corrugated-iron roof. There were no other cars.

‘This is the best hotel in town and the worst,' said Joe as we entered the front bar. ‘And you're the only guests. Therefore I am at your service.'

‘Good man,' said Tasso. ‘Let's have a party tonight and I'll foot the bill. Invite everyone in town.'

Joe thought that was funny, as most things seemed to be. ‘You cheapskate,' he said. ‘There's
no one
in town. But I do got a few brothers and sisters down the road.'

‘Invite them. You got enough beer?'

‘Yeah, and we got plenty of steak in the freezer.'

Tasso put a wad of hundred dollar notes on the counter. ‘Hope that'll take care of things.'

Joe's eyes widened. ‘Jesus, brother, that'll buy me a new car. I'm not open to bribes, you know.'

‘It's not a bribe. It's party money.'

Joe's missus was a quiet woman with kind eyes that had seen plenty, perhaps too much. Joe introduced her as Myrna. She cooked us a big breakfast and we ate in the main dining area. We were joined by half a dozen children of various ages, who called Joe ‘Uncle Joe' and wolfed down their food with enthusiasm and laughter.

‘This is delicious, Myrna,' said Tasso. Myrna laughed but didn't say anything. A boy in a red T-shirt, who couldn't have been older than five, took a liking to me and sat on my knee.

‘You've already got a friend for life there,' said Joe. ‘Jimmy, let Westie eat his breakfast in peace, for Christ's sake.' Jimmy shifted to Tasso's lap, and looked like he'd been there before. Tasso patted his head affectionately. Joe finished his breakfast and rolled a cigarette. ‘So you're serious about this mining lease,' he said to Tasso.

‘Yeah, think so. Hiskey believed in it.'

‘But never found anything?'

‘Nothing definite.'

‘You've just been out here, Tasso. But I guess Westie here wants to check it out.'

‘Yeah, we just want a quick look-see.'

Bert opted to stay behind. Myrna stayed, too, and was starting to clean up as we left, helped by a woman of indeterminate age whose name I hadn't heard. Tasso, Joe, the kids and I piled into the Land Cruiser and headed west along the railway line. I was in the back seat with several of the youngsters, and a couple more were in the very back. Joe smoked a cigarette.

‘This is the Perth line, right?' I said.

‘Yep. Indian–Pacific comes through four times a week, and there's also freight trains,' said Joe. ‘It's how we know there's still an outside world.'

We stopped and walked up a small rise and looked out over the vast plain to the north. The day was already unbearably hot. The vapourised oils from the leaves of the mulga, the myall and the mallee blended with the hot dust and the salt; it was the unmistakeable smell of the arid zone in high summer. The flies were thick and the vegetation blue. Heatwaves blurred the line between land and sky.

‘All this is our land,' said Joe, sweeping his hand from west to east in a grand gesture. ‘Traditionally and legally.'

‘They just won their land claim,' said Tasso, to me.

‘So you mining boys have to deal with us now.' Joe looked at me. ‘For two hundred years, you white bastards screwed us over. You did a real good job.' He paused as he rolled another cigarette. ‘Now we got the land back. These days we don't take no handouts. We negotiate.' He said ‘negotiate' slowly, the way he was rolling his cigarette. ‘As equals, or better than equals.' He put the cigarette in his mouth but didn't light it. He nodded towards the kids, who were digging for something in the dirt. ‘There's hope for them youngsters now.'

‘This is part of the Woomera Prohibited Area,' said Tasso. ‘There are also pastoral leases. Setting up a mine out here is not straightforward.'

‘We negotiate with all of them,' said Joe. He leaned towards me. ‘But if you ask me which ones I prefer, I'd say you miners. You're the ones with the money. And these days you blokes got to be respectful because you can fuck off if you aren't.' He grinned at me. ‘But I don't expect no trouble from Tasso.'

‘I'm going to make your mob rich,' said Tasso.

Joe held up his hand. Then he paused as he struck a match and lit his cigarette. ‘Let me correct you slightly, brother,' he said through a cloud of smoke. ‘My mob and yours are going to get rich
together
, as partners.'

‘You bet.'

‘If we find anything,' I said.

‘You'll find something, brother.'

We drove further along the railway track, the air conditioner blasting away and all windows wide open. The dust and the flies were only problems when we slowed down.

‘The most important thing,' said Joe, ‘is that we understand each other. And, especially, that you understand our culture. This is our country, it's part of us. You can't separate us or we die.'

We kept going for a couple more hours, on various tracks and half-tracks through scrub and across bluebush plains. I had no idea where we were.

‘We're here,' said Joe, eventually.

‘Where?'

‘Here.' He pointed out the window. ‘This is the southern end of the exploration licence area that was held by Black Hills and explored by Hiskey.'

It didn't look like much. We were on a dirt track barely wider than our vehicle, in head-high scrub.

‘The scrub thins out after a while,' said Tasso.

We continued driving and, as foreseen by Tasso, the scrub thinned out. We stopped on the crest of a small rise in the track and Joe killed the motor. Before us was a bleak plain, the end of which, if it ever ended, was beyond the shimmering horizon. I got out of the car, followed by the kids, who had quietened considerably in the last hour; a couple had fallen asleep. The ground was hard and stony. The sun was directly overhead and the air was hot and still over a quiet land. Jimmy gave a high-pitched yell and ran off among the bluebush and saltbush, pursued by a couple of others.

‘This is it, eh?' I said to Tasso.

‘Yep.'

‘Where's Ecstasy Lake?'

Tasso gestured vaguely northward with his hand. ‘Over there somewhere. I've never actually seen it.'

The plain was punctured by dozens, maybe hundreds of rocky outcrops, and a plateau to the west was about fifty metres above the rest of the plain. I could see no evidence of exploration drilling.

‘What do you think?'

‘So far, so good.'

‘Picture a mine out here?'

‘Sure I can. There's a little bit of work to be done before that happens, though.'

‘Of course.'

‘First we have to win the lease. Then we'll need a fair dinkum drilling program to tell us if Hiskey has been pulling our legs.'

Joe wandered over. ‘Seen enough?' he said. Tasso looked at me and I nodded.

‘It'll do for starters.'

There was some excited chatter and I turned to see Jimmy wandering towards us through the scrub, proudly bearing a two-foot-long goanna, one hand round the creature's throat and the other holding the base of its tail. The two of them were wrestling, but the boy was winning.