Ecstasy Lake (15 page)

‘What you going to do with him?' said Joe.

‘I'm going to eat him,' said Jimmy. ‘I'm going to barbecue him tonight.' Joe produced a knife and took the goanna from the boy. Keeping hold of the neck he put the lizard on the ground on its back and pinned it with his foot. With considerable skill he cut its throat and gutted it. The guts spilled on the ground, a spectacular soup. Joe wrapped the carcass in an old newspaper and threw it into the back of the car.

We started back towards Parakilla.

‘Like to eat some goanna, Westie?' said Jimmy.

‘I'd be honoured.'

‘It's bloody tasty. You reckon Bert would like some, too?'

‘I reckon he would. Then he'll use one of its claws to pick his teeth.'

‘What do you think of our country, Westie?' said Joe.

‘I think your country is fine.'

‘All we ask,' said Joe, ‘is mutual respect. Respect for the community and respect for the land.'

‘Fair enough,' said Tasso.

‘No slimy deals.'

‘Agreed. No slimy deals.'

We were back at the Parakilla Hotel by about four. Tasso and I cleaned up and then helped set up for the party. This mainly involved lighting the barbecue, a forty-four-gallon drum cut longitudinally and mounted on four welded-on legs made of old railway line. The wood looked like it had been curing since the nineteenth century.

‘This'll burn all night,' said Tasso. In a couple of hours there would be a big pile of coals that would grill the steak and the goanna beautifully.

People started arriving at about five. In the end there was probably close to sixty, including kids, and we sat on logs and broken old chairs in the dust outside, drinking beer, and there was an impromptu game of Australian Rules football as the shadows lengthened and the day cooled off. I played but hardly got a kick, and every kid there, and many of the men, took pleasure in making me look slow and fumbly. It was fun.

‘I thought you were supposed to be good,' said Tasso when I withdrew, dusty and sweaty.

‘I was, once. These guys are too quick. I'll have a beer, if there's a cold one left.'

One of the players who had made me look stupid came up to me.

‘You played alright,' he said. He offered his hand. ‘I'm Anthony.'

‘Steve. You were brilliant. Man, you can play.'

‘Of course I can.' He downed some beer. ‘So you blokes doing some exploration out here?'

The smell of steak grilling on hot mallee coals was making me hungry. ‘That's the idea. We don't have the lease yet.'

‘Suppose Joe said we can all get on together in one big happy family.'

‘More or less.'

‘Fuck that.'

The sun had set, but from beyond the grave it was lighting up the huge sky with an intense red.

‘Why fuck that?'

‘Joe and most people think being able to negotiate is enough. Not me.'

‘What do you want?'

He took another swig of beer. ‘We still don't own anything. The Defence Department can tell us to fuck off anytime they want, and who gets the big windfall profit if a mine opens up? Some white-arsed miner. Not us, the traditional owners. We get a few crumbs, if we're lucky.'

‘Native title isn't enough?'

‘That's what I'm saying. Native title is just another bullshit whitefella thing. We already own this land based on laws going back thousands of years. Why do we have to negotiate with you, or anyone else? You should come to us
begging
to be allowed on our land. Whitefellas still have the power, and that's the big lie of native title.' He looked at his beer, which was empty. ‘You want another one?'

‘Sure.'

Jimmy came over proudly bearing a paper plate with some small chunks of meat on it.

‘Have some goanna, Westie.'

I took the plate and looked at the meat. It was white, except where the grill had scorched it, and it had a strong, clean, desert smell. Jimmy was watching me. I tasted it cautiously. It was good, I told him. He grinned. He took the plate and went to find Bert. The night fell and the stars appeared, startling in their intensity. Someone produced a guitar and someone else extracted a didgeridoo from the back of a ute. One of the girls was a fine singer and some of the lads did an informal dance and I had another drink and wished Melody was there. Which surprised me. Tasso was in the thick of it, laughing, drinking and making friends. I never knew anyone who could make friends in any social setting as well as Tasso.

Next morning, Bert and I had an early breakfast—Tasso usually didn't eat until about two in the afternoon—and Joe joined us.

‘Saw you chatting with Anthony last night,' he said to me.

‘Yeah, briefly.' I was struggling with a bowl of cornflakes and long-life milk. Bert had boiled the kettle and Myrna was brewing tea.

‘He's educated, Anthony. Got a uni degree and come back up here. Didn't like the city, too much fucken racism for his liking. Me, I never left this place. This is still a racist fucken country, Westie, you know that. Plenty of whitefellas still think they haven't hurt us blackfellas enough yet.'

‘Anthony said the community deserves more rights and more of the wealth. He said negotiation only gets you crumbs off the table.'

‘He's fucken right, we
should
have more rights. Our people have been here fifty thousand years, give or take. But I reckon we need self-respect more than money. Did you like young Jimmy?'

‘He's a ripper.'

‘He is. But if he follows in the footsteps of his older brother and sister, he'll be sniffing petrol in a year or two. And when that happens, all the joy of life you see in him today will fuck right off. Our kids, blackfella kids, they're twenty-eight times more likely to end up in prison than whitefella kids. That was on the news the other day.
Twenty-eight
times
. Can you imagine? The life-expectancy of a blackfella is not much more than fifty. This is the Third World out here, brother, we got disease, we got malnutrition, we got illiteracy. We need to change things now, not keep fighting the system for another hundred years. Native title is just a piece of paper, Anthony's right about that. But it's enough to start a change. We know we have to live by the whitefella law, and that piece of paper at least gives us a bit of power. Legal and symbolic.' Myrna poured the tea. ‘Thanks, dear,' said Joe. I still hadn't heard her say anything. ‘And self-respect,' said Joe. ‘It's part of that, too. It's growing. You just watch.'

‘So you don't need money?'

‘I didn't say that neither, brother.' Joe laughed and looked at Bert for support. ‘He's having me on, isn't he?'

‘Hard to tell with Steve,' said Bert.

‘You're fucken having me on, Westie,' said Joe again. ‘Of course we need money. It's not right that a few fat whitefuckers own almost all the wealth in this fucken country. Actually in most of the world. We gotta share it round for sure. That's basic. I'm just saying it's not the only thing, or even the main thing.'

‘Well, you never know. You might get a mine.'

‘But Hiskey never found anything out here, right? Only I don't know why you're so interested in this one particular lease.' Joe was still smiling, but he was watching me closely. He punched my arm. ‘It's alright, you don't need to say nothing. All I ask is that you blokes don't disrespect me or me people. The rest'll take care of itself.'

I sipped my tea and made an executive decision. ‘We think Hiskey found gold in the lease,' I said.

Joe's eyes widened. ‘
Gold
? Nice. How much?'

‘Enough to go round, I'd have thought.'

‘Go round what? My dick?' Myrna, busying herself by the stove, laughed. Her eyes weren't sad when she laughed. I thought she and Joe probably got on alright.

‘I'm not sure there's that much gold on the planet,' I said. ‘We don't actually know if Hiskey found anything and we don't even have the lease yet. That's why Tasso is being cagey. So don't get carried away. It could be nothing.'

Joe let his eyes relax. ‘Alright, Westie. I'll keep a lid on it. I'll keep me dreams of a gold-plated dick to meself for a while. But thanks for being upfront. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.'

We sipped our tea in silence for a bit. ‘What happens if you get the lease?' said Joe.

‘The first thing we'd do,' I said, ‘is a fair dinkum drilling program so we can understand the geology. We need to do that so we can plan a sampling and testing program. And once we've done that, we might know if we have an ore body that's worth digging up. It's a bloody long process and it's a pain in the arse. You might not enjoy it much, and that's only the start.'

‘You're not selling it to me.'

‘A bit of cash will fix that.'

Joe laughed. ‘It's not about cash, Westie. I already told you that.'

‘Sure.'

‘How
much
cash?' he said, with mock cunning. We all laughed.

‘I like it out here,' said Bert.

‘You like flies?' said Joe.

‘I like the solitude.'

‘That won't last, if we start a mine,' I said.

‘I like not having to scan a crowd for homicidal maniacs,' said Bert.

‘You're welcome here any time,' said Joe.

‘You might not get rid of me.'

‘We wouldn't want to, brother. Long as you behave yourself.'

We flew back later that morning.

22

Bert dropped me at Chris and Paul's.

‘I probably won't come into the office this afternoon,' I said to Tasso.

‘That's alright. Good luck.'

Chris answered the door.

‘She's quite a bit better,' she said.

I found Melody in a small living area at the back of the house. She was lying on a couch, dressed in a simple shirt and a pair of trousers that were a little old-fashioned and no doubt belonged to Chris. Her hair was tied back and almost all her exposed skin was coloured by bruising. She was reading a book.

‘Hi.'

She looked up sharply, then smiled. It looked like a sore smile.

‘Hi.'

‘What are you reading?'

‘It's just something Chris gave me.' She showed me the cover. ‘It's a novel about an abusive relationship. Chris thought I should read it.'

‘How do you like it?'

‘It's hard going. It's good. It's based on a true story here in Adelaide. I almost could have written it.'

‘Let me know how it ends.'

‘I will.' She closed the book and put it on the floor. She sat up, with care.

‘How are you feeling?'

‘Sore.'

‘You look sore.'

‘I look awful.'

‘You could never look awful.' I sat in a chair near her and she reached out and our hands met and stuck.

‘Thank you,' she said.

‘What for?'

‘I don't exactly know what you did the other night, but I think you helped me break free of that place.'

‘I hope so.'

‘What happened to Chad and Kane?'

‘The dogs? We had to leave them, sorry. Don't you remember? Were they yours?' She nodded. ‘We'll get them one day. How are the ribs?'

‘They're okay unless I cough. And don't make me laugh.'

‘Have I ever?'

‘Maybe once. You're kind of corny.'

We spent the afternoon talking. Chris brought us a pot of tea and some quaint little sandwiches, and later in the day we found a cool place in the garden and sat together on a bench and she told me her life story. Her parents were Chinese Malaysians; they had come to Australia to escape what they said was institutional racism in Malaysia. They had chosen Adelaide because her father had studied medicine here, and they had settled in a nice suburb and her father had had a good job and Melody and her younger sister had gone to a good school and life had been fine. But the two girls had become part of the nightclub scene, and they had fallen in with the wrong crowd.

‘I was quite a bit older but more reserved,' said Melody. ‘Elsie had no fear. She tried different clubs, different drugs, different men. She just wanted a good time. You might think I'm wild, but I was nothing in those days compared to her. And one day she vanished.'

‘Vanished? What do you mean?'

‘She disappeared. She's never been seen again.'

‘Jesus, Melody.'

Two blue wrens were tweeting to each other in a nearby shrub. Melody was staring at nothing. Perhaps the swelling in her face made it difficult for her to show emotion. ‘She was only seventeen,' she said. ‘She would be twenty-four now.'

‘There was no trace of her?'

‘There were signs of a struggle. The police found her handbag. At least the cops were upfront. They said the most likely thing was that she had been abducted, raped and killed, and her body buried somewhere outside the city.'

‘Melody, I'm so sorry.'

‘Everyone was sorry.'

‘You met Harlin about then, right?'

‘Yes. Harlin was a drug dealer. He could get me anything, and he did. I wanted to escape the pain. I tried every drug there was—crack, heroin, meth, E, dope, speed. You name it, I tried it. I drank and I took drugs. It was the alternative to suicide.'

‘Or a slower form of it.'

‘I guess.'

‘What do you remember about the other night?'

‘Most of it. I remember being dragged out of the restaurant. I remember Harlin hitting me and throwing me into the car. But by the time we got to his place he was calm again.'

‘You took something.'

‘Yes, a Chrissy tree. He gave it to me. To ease the pain.' She gestured at the bruising.

‘That was nice of him.'

‘He's like that. He gets angry and lashes out, and when he cools down he regrets it. I know you were worried he would have raped me, but I don't think he would have. It's not something he does.'

‘I know, he's just a sweetheart.'

She made a sudden, angry movement and then gasped and grabbed her side. ‘This is the worst beating he's ever given me. You think I like it?'

‘I don't know.'

She stared at me, and muscles quivered on her face.

‘How often does he beat you?'

‘Not daily, not weekly.'

‘Why do you put up with it?'

She took a while to reply. ‘I was in love with him.'

‘You loved an arsehole.'

‘They were my therapy. The beatings.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘I introduced Elsie to the nightclubs and I should have looked after her better. When she disappeared … I can't even describe what I went through.'

‘You felt guilty?'

‘
Of course
I felt guilty. My father had begged me to look after her. She was so young. He was worried. But I was young, too. I was careless. I didn't keep an eye on her, and I should have. I have
unbearable
guilt. My father never said anything, after she'd gone. But I just couldn't face him. So I turned to Harlin and tried to self-destruct. I moved in with him and stopped seeing my parents. And then Dad died.'

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I stayed quiet.

‘And I blamed myself for that as well, of course,' said Melody. ‘I had single-handedly destroyed my family. You probably can't imagine the sort of place I've been, the last seven years.'

‘What about your mother?'

‘We didn't see each other. Neither of us could bear it, I think.'

We sat, side by side, for a long time.

‘We've started talking again, Mum and me. A couple of times. Which is good.'

‘Yes.'

Slowly, she rested her head on my shoulder and I let her, not moving. ‘I'm tired,' she said.

‘Have a sleep.'

‘Steve?'

‘Yes?'

‘I'm over the beatings. I don't think I deserve them anymore.'

We ate a simple dinner with Chris and Paul. I helped clean up and then joined Melody on a couch while the elderly twins watched television in another room. By now it felt natural for us to hold hands.

‘I could use a drink,' said Melody.

‘I think Piss and Crawl are teetotallers. Ironically, given their names.'

‘They're unbearably virtuous. Not a drop of booze or a single meth pipe in the whole damn place. But they're very sweet.'

‘How
much
could you use a drink?'

She was quiet for a long time and I looked at her to see if I had upset her. I couldn't tell.

‘I think about drinking a lot,' she said, eventually. She was whispering. ‘I don't want it to control me.' There was another silence, and then another whisper. ‘Will you help me?'

‘Sure.' She leaned on me again. We were quiet again for a long time. ‘How?'

‘Just be good to me.'

‘Alright.'

‘Don't hurt me.'

I left soon after.