The Tunnels of Tarcoola (13 page)

‘The one where they're going to pull down that lovely old house?' asked his wife.

‘Yeah. I think I'll go along, make sure he doesn't get off too lightly.'

‘I thought you said your rabble-rousing days were over, Paul?'

‘Well . . . ' he winked at Kitty. ‘Gotta do something when greed rears its ugly head. Harold Buckingham thinks he owns this suburb, and someone has to tell him he doesn't.'

Martin got up abruptly and took his plate into the kitchen.

‘Can I come, Dad?' asked Kitty. ‘I wouldn't want to miss that.'

‘Yeah, why not? I'll show you what a real live villain looks like.'

‘Buckingham?' said his wife.

‘The same.
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes
.'

They both laughed. In the kitchen, Martin ran water and rattled the plates noisily. Kitty shivered.

THE
Town Hall was packed for the meeting. David's father had come home unusually early so that he could attend, eating his dinner standing up in the kitchen, a raincoat still flung over one shoulder and his briefcase by his feet. There were more people arriving as David walked up with his parents and Moshe, and no seats left by the time they had squeezed into a middle row. David caught sight of Kitty with her father on the far side of the room. In sign language he tried to enquire where Martin was. Her elaborate answer probably meant that Martin was sulking in his room and not talking to her. Or perhaps it meant that she wanted to talk to him, David. It was hard to tell.

As soon as the traditional acknowledgement of Aboriginal ownership was over, a rowdy group in the front rows jumped up and started waving placards and shouting. Andrea and her sister Celeste were among them.

Annoyingly, most of the placards were turned towards the front, so only the meeting convener and the handful of Council officials on the platform could read them. Fascinated but slightly embarrassed, David tried to get a better look. Among the slogans he could read were ‘Leave our park alone', ‘No more McMansions' and ‘Ban Buckingham Palaces'.

The meeting convener spoke into her microphone: ‘The Council does acknowledge your right to express a view, but I have to warn you that anyone interrupting the legitimate speakers will risk being ejected from the meeting.'

There were some boring speakers then, droning on and on about planning laws, zoning and something called non-conforming use. Then the architect for the development got up slowly. He was a small man in a soft grey suit, clutching several rolled-up plans that he occasionally attempted to flatten out on the lectern. The gist of his explanation was that, much as he would like to oblige residents, he needed to use all the space that the site provided, and he needed to demolish Tarcoola to make room for more apartments. He ‘could not,
could not
' build fewer apartments.

‘There is provision,' he said, ‘for the developer to make a cash payment to the Council in compensation for . . . for loss of open space.'

Hands shot up all over the hall. Someone shouted, ‘That's a travesty!' The protesters took this opportunity to jump up and wave their banners.

‘Order!' shouted the convenor. From the waving hands, she selected Kitty and Martin's father, who stood up and looked around the hall.

‘For a start,' he said. ‘That cash payment is for situations where there's no open space to work with, as you well know. In this case . . . '

The convenor interrupted him. ‘Could you please state your name and address, for the record?'

‘Sorry. Paul O'Brien, 39 Donald Street.'

‘And did you have a question, Mr O'Brien?'

‘Yeah, I do. When you say you can't build fewer apartments, do you mean you've got a target to make a certain amount of money? A profit you're aiming at?'

The architect spread his hands. ‘Well, that's not really for me to . . . '

Paul O'Brien bored on. ‘Can we hear from the developer? I see he's here at the meeting. Harold, suppose you tell us where you stand?'

All eyes turned to the back of the hall, where a balding man in a suit stood not far from the exit. He gave a little laugh.

‘Hey, I'm just the client here. I'm not across any of the numbers. Rudy here and his people are the ones with the big picture. You might want to give him some questions on notice or something. He could put some more FAQs up on the website.'

People were shouting and jeering, but the architect began talking rapidly, saying something incomprehensible about infill housing and the jagged edge. David craned his neck to see the man who must be Harold Buckingham, now heading for the exit. He had been joined by two more men in suits. One was tall and lean with red hair, while the other was short and thick-set, his dark head shaven and tattoos showing on the back of his neck. As soon as most people had turned back to the architect, all three slipped out.

When David turned back towards the front he saw the protesters were milling around, but Andrea remained rooted to the spot, gazing towards the exit, her face white with shock.

David looked in Kitty's direction. She was straining to catch his attention, pointing to the exit, nodding vigorously and attempting to express something in incomprehensible sign language. It seemed to involve pointy ears.

‘Order!' said the convenor again. The meeting resumed. Then David realised his grandfather was speaking.

‘More than seventy years ago,' he was saying, ‘a man came into our community. He came here to escape terrible oppression. He came here hoping to make a better life for himself. And in doing so, he hoped to enrich the life of this community.

‘My parents came from a different part of Europe, but they came here for the same reason as Josef Woolf: to escape from the Nazis. They didn't move in the same social circles as Josef. In fact, my father Isaac was a stonemason, and he worked on the restoration of that beautiful garden, which had been laid out in the eighteen-nineties. He used to talk with Josef in Yiddish, and Josef told my father he had made plans to ensure the house and garden would never fall into disrepair again. Ultimately, he intended to make a gift of the estate to our community for everyone to enjoy.'

There was applause and some people stamped their feet. The convenor leaned forward, an expression of long-suffering patience on her face.

‘Moshe, it pains me to interrupt one of your stories, but are you asking a question or moving a motion?'

David's grandfather held up a hand.

‘One minute. I'm getting there. This is the point of the story: officially, Josef Woolf died intestate, but the residents' action group is not convinced that he didn't make a will. Even today, the ownership of this property is quite unclear. Mr Buckingham is said to have inherited the property but, although he would not like this widely known, the original title deeds are missing. That's at least two vital documents that should have been among Josef Woolf's effects when he died. Now, whether they were lost, destroyed or merely hidden—'

A growing hubbub forced the convenor to shout ‘Order!' again.

‘ . . . we are of the belief that there should be a concentrated effort to find them. The title deed is necessary to clear up the question of ownership, and the will should tell us once and for all what Josef Woolf's intentions were regarding this property. Therefore . . . therefore!' He raised his voice above more excited chatter. David exchanged glances with Kitty.

‘Therefore I move that the Council further delay consideration of this application . . . '

Now the architect was scattering his plans in agitation. The rest of the meeting was a blur of unimportant detail as far as David was concerned. His mind was racing and he just wanted to get outside and confer with Kitty and Andrea.

After the meeting, while people were shaking Moshe's hand or clapping him on the back, Kitty and Andrea both reached David's side at the same time.

‘Those men with Buckingham,' said Andrea. ‘They're the ones who tried to grab me!'

‘Tried to grab you?' said Kitty. ‘When?'

‘On Friday, after school. I had to hide out at David's house.'

Kitty grabbed Andrea and started to shake her. ‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Hey, Kitty! Chill! What's wrong?'

Looking round nervously, Kitty told them about her ordeal of the night before. The others were horrified.

‘You're sure those men with Buckingham are the ones you saw?' David asked Andrea.

‘Positive. What did your men sound like, Kitty?'

‘I don't know. Scary.'

‘Did they have New Zealand accents?'

‘I don't know, I can't really tell. But I'm sure now that Buckingham's the wolf boy.'

‘How come?' asked Andrea.

‘I went to see Miss Gordon one day and she was upset, because the wolf boy had been there. And the nurse told me she'd just had a visit from Mr Buckingham, and he pays for her room. If Mr Buckingham is supposed to have inherited the property he must be descended from Mrs Woolf. The Woolf boy, see? It all adds up. He's got her there so he can keep asking her about the treasure. She said, “He's at me and at me, but I won't tell.” '

David glanced over her shoulder, then looked around desperately for an escape route. Bearing down through the crowd was the unkempt figure of Roger Mason.

‘Dear boy!' he carolled. ‘I've got something that might interest you.' He shoved a piece of paper at David, then was carried off in a wave of people.

‘What are we going to do?' said Andrea. ‘We can't risk you going to the house again, Kitty.'

David was skimming through the tattered pamphlet. It was about the coal mine.

‘Look,' he showed the others. ‘There's a bit of a map here. The tunnels actually go out under the harbour. Look at this: “Sinking of the first shaft, named the Birthday, started in June 1897” . '

‘Let me see that!' Kitty grabbed the pamphlet. ‘Birthday! The other shaft was called Jubilee. Look, Andrea. Look, it's marked on the map. Birthday is just north of the house. That must be where that locked door in the shaft leads. That's where it is!'

‘What makes you so sure?' asked David.

‘The first day I met her, the first weird thing she said . . . I asked her about her birthday, and she got all paranoid, and wouldn't tell me. She must have thought I was asking her about the Birthday shaft!'

‘I still don't get it,' said Andrea. ‘What did she hide, and why?'

‘We can't be sure until we find it,' said David. ‘But hey, it's got to be these missing documents. Maybe there's something in the will that explains everything. I bet Buckingham wants to find it so he can destroy it.'

‘Maybe there's treasure as well,' said Kitty hopefully. ‘Can we go tomorrow?'

‘Not you,' said David. ‘Not after what those men said.'

‘David's right,' said Andrea. ‘He and I can do it. Hey, if they're watching you it'll keep them off our backs, won't it?'

‘There's one more thing, though,' said David. ‘We've got to find the key to that door.'

‘I'll get it,' said Andrea, her eyes sparkling. ‘Miss Gordon will tell me where it is. I'll go and see her tomorrow.'

‘But I don't think . . . ' Kitty protested.

‘Kitty!' Her father was beckoning, and she turned to go.

‘We'll get the key tomorrow and do a proper search!' hissed Andrea. ‘I'll call you after we've been down, okay?'

David ran to catch up with his own family and fell into step beside Moshe.

‘So, where are you going to look for this will?' he asked, fishing.

‘No idea.'

‘Do you think it might be in the house somewhere?'

‘Behind a secret panel in the library?' His grandfather smiled and ruffled his hair. ‘That'd be nice.'

‘I heard someone say there was a second wife,' David ventured. ‘Someone Josef Woolf married while he was living here. Has anyone asked her about the will?'

‘That's not exactly it,' said Moshe. ‘From what I've heard, he was living with the housekeeper at one time. In those days there would be a sort of pretence of marriage, just to look respectable, and it seems she lived in the house for a while after he died. But eventually his wife came back and kicked her out, and she was never seen again.'

‘She'd be over ninety if she was still alive,' chipped in David's mother. ‘I doubt if we'll be hearing from her.'

David smiled a little to himself as he trailed after them in the dark.

MARTIN
was sitting at his desk doodling when Kitty and their father came home. He could hear them all talking in the living room, and he resisted the urge to creep to the top of the stairs and listen in. A few minutes later Kitty peeped around his door.

‘Are you talking to me yet?'

‘Who said I wasn't talking to you?' said Martin tersely.

‘Well, not you, because you haven't been talking to me.'

He threw a rolled-up pair of socks at her, and she edged into the room and sat on the bed.

‘Do you want to hear about the meeting?'

‘No.'

‘Marty, you're not really being friends with Samantha Buckingham, are you?'

‘Why shouldn't I?' He could feel the heat coming into his face, and he willed it away.

‘You do know that her father is the one who's going to do that development, and pull down Tarcoola?'

‘That's never going to happen.'

‘It is, Martin, if we don't stop it. And anyway, I have to warn you . . . There're these scary men, and I think they . . . they want to hurt us because we're getting too close.'

‘Scary men? You've been watching too much television, Kit.'

‘No, it's true, and we're ninety-nine per cent sure they tried to kidnap Andrea the other day. They're Mr Buckingham's goofs, you see, and . . . '

‘His what?'

‘You know. Men in suits with dark glasses. They know stuff about us.'

‘Goons. Get it right, Kitty. And you don't expect me to believe any of this, do you?'

‘That's probably why she's chasing after you. Samantha, I mean. Her father's probably making her do it, to spy on us.'

‘Shut up, Kitty!' Martin's face was bright red now.

‘Well, why else would she . . . '

‘Get out!'

Martin resisted the urge to slam the door after Kitty. Her story was ridiculous. Was she making it up to get him interested in that stupid old house again?

He packed up his homework things and mechanically got ready for bed, his thoughts on Samantha. They had met after school that day. ‘For coffee', her email had said, which made him nervous. He had only tasted coffee once or twice, and it was horrible, even with lots of sugar. But when he got to the cafe in Rozelle she had already bought and paid for a hot chocolate for herself, so it was easy for him to follow suit. This also allayed his other fear, that he would have to pay for her and that he wouldn't have enough money.

Samantha was great. For a start, she was really interested in soccer. Her mother was English, she explained, and a fanatical Tottenham Hotspurs follower, so she was genuinely enthusiastic and agreed with him that there was nothing hard to understand in the offside rule. Then they got onto games. In her house, she told him, they had a special games room, with every game, electronic and otherwise, that he had ever heard of.

‘My dad buys them for Oliver,' she said, ‘and he loses interest after about five minutes. So then I get to play whatever I want, whenever I want!'

Martin realised his mouth was hanging open.

‘It's a pity, though,' she said. ‘None of my girlfriends are into that kind of thing. They just want to swap makeup and stuff. So sometimes I wish I had someone who'd come over and play with me.'

He couldn't quite form the words. So he said, ‘I thought you'd be into makeup too, not games.'

‘Oh no, I've always wished I was a boy. I'd much rather run around and climb trees and stuff than be all girly.'

He stared at her manicured hands and her perfect hair. It was hard to imagine.

‘You don't know how lucky you are,' she said wistfully. ‘We've got all these things at home, but we're hardly allowed out, except to go to school. It's all “Don't do this, don't do that. It's too dangerous, there's germs, blah, blah, blah.” I bet you and your sister get to run wild, all over Balmain.'

‘Well, we don't exactly run wild.'

‘But I bet you're allowed to go to parks and places like that without your parents?'

‘Well, sure.'

‘Well, then, you've got lots of places where you can have fun and do stuff we'd never be allowed to do, right?'

‘Yeah. It would be awful if we had to stay at home all the time.'

‘Like, you know, that old house and garden near the park?' she persisted. ‘I always imagine it's like Sleeping Beauty's castle, because the garden's so overgrown. Or some other place in a fairytale. And me and Oliver, we've always wanted to go and play games in there, and hide and – oh, I don't know – look for secret passages and stuff.'

‘There are secret passages!' whispered Martin.

‘See!' She was thrilled. ‘You get to find out this stuff. Oh, I'd love to see something like that. Are they in the house?'

‘Yeah, I guess there's one in the cellar, but the really cool one is in the garden, and it was me who . . . '

He became uncomfortable all of a sudden, aware she was staring intently at him, her hot chocolate forgotten.

‘But it's not a secret if I talk about it, right?'

‘Right!' She laughed. ‘But maybe you'll show me some day? We could go exploring together.'

The idea of Sam spying on him was ridiculous. But thinking about it now, he wondered how they had got onto the subject of the house and the secret passages so easily. Had she been pumping him? And had he given anything away? He fell asleep wondering.