The Courier's New Bicycle (3 page)

During the post-pandemic fertility nosedive, this trio did a booming trade while other industries struggled. Now the steel structures gape where glass should be, and roofing dangles precariously. It's hard to believe this was once where busy manufacturers distilled their sought-after products.

When the hormone replacement business was a legitimate industry, the kit was made to order and
distributed through pharmacies. The government of the day had given the researchers and pharmaceutical companies
carte blanche
to do what they could to help restore ‘normal function' to the population; but in reality, help was only for those who could afford the premiums. For the rest, there were poor substitutes got over the internet or on the street.

Human physiology, however, is complex and fickle at the best of times — which clearly these were not — and five years on, the failure of the researchers opened the door to a number of lobby groups touting for change. With public opinion divided over the government-instigated surrogacy schemes and a relaxed immigration policy to reinvigorate population growth (an open door as long as fertility could be proved), the next general election brought out everyone from radical therapy proponents to social purity wowsers. It was a version of the latter, the Nation First party, that won, and their first act was to slam the immigration door and close down the surrogacy organisations. That their campaign was funded by an evangelical group called Saviour Nation was a fact largely underplayed — and underestimated — at the polling booths. But once they'd been voted into power, a raft of Saviour Nation's worship leaders were handed key political posts.

The first attack on the Fishermans Bend hormone manufacturers came soon after: a mob in a frenzy of NF-inspired retribution. That public ransacking set the tone in the community, and built dread in those of us who found
ourselves on the wrong side of the morality fence. Sex and gender nonconformists of all kinds were made pariahs for our ‘unnatural' ways and treated as a biblical plague, while those who worked in the hormone industry were routinely terrorised. When the B2N laws came into effect, the company owners were forced to ditch a thriving trade and go underground.

I shudder. The place is full of ghosts, even in daylight.

Further up Barrow Road, the newer buildings give way to older, dirtier industry and sagging fences, the rubbish accumulated like tatting in the chain-link. In some, only the concrete slabs remain, overgrown by thistles and tussocky grass, the structures above having already taken the plunge and gone to debris. I take a right, intending to dogleg back to Reserve and past Wolf Road where the drag racers meet, then on to the underpass. But as my body begins to release its tension and my breath quickens for home, something catches my eye: the last building on the street, with a sawtooth roofline and a brick chimney, and a flag of orange roadworks plastic hanging in a ground-floor window.

It's bright — too bright — against the gloom and fust, the marching dereliction.

I force myself to ride through gates that have graunched part-open, crossing the car park to a pair of industrial-height doors, chained and padlocked, rusted each to the other. I crane up. Announced in relief on the lintel is F
ERGUSON'S
P
AINTS
. Beside, in a cobwebbed window, the
orange flag dangles like a salmon lure. I try to argue away its significance, but it's deliberate and I know it. ‘In here' it's saying, brash and dangerous.

I ease past the front façade and make my way along the service road at the side before dismounting, then peer around the back wall. A padlocked roller door is first, set high with a concrete sill. There's another door, which I'm relieved is also locked. Unfortunately, the window beside it shows a finger's gap between the sash and frame. I sigh, not cut out for foot-slog sleuthing. The stress gives me gastric.

One shove on the sash and the window lifts, wood screeching on wood. I tense, thinking of my makeshift alarm at home, then clamber through.

First is an empty room, which opens onto a short corridor then the two-storey factory space. The roof is a series of forty-five-degree corrugations inset with vertical rows of multi-paned windows, the steel girders below it crisscrossed with a sprinkler system and air extraction pipes. A wide gantry makes a mezzanine level on which sit a row of tanks. Their plastic gravity feeds dangle above the factory fill line, their ductwork combining into a single flue to meet the brick chimney outside.

I stop to listen. Nothing but iron ticking in the heat and sparrows scuffling in the eaves.

Jutting above the corridor behind me is what looks to be an office, got to by a set of metal steps. I eye them dubiously; but the other set by the front entrance look worse, missing vital bits.

I walk over. The whole structure rocks, no longer firmly bolted to the concrete. A snoop could have an accident here and it would be a while before their boss came looking. I sigh again, then climb the steps to the door at the top.

If not the materials of a hormone-packaging operation, I'd expected office bric-a-brac behind the door. Instead is what looks to be a love nest. The light filtering through the roofline reveals a mattress and blanket beside a couple of half-burnt candles fixed to the floor with dripped wax. There's some clothing dumped in a corner, while the sliding door at the back of the room opens to a scurf-edged toilet and washbasin.

I return to the office, where the only bona fide piece of office furniture is a filing cabinet. In the top drawer I find a few empty jars, a stack of porn mags and some rat droppings. I think of my bike outside and want to leave. Chastising myself for such lily-livered sleuthing, I go to the mattress and gingerly lift the blanket.

No body parts. Excellent.

A sour smell wafts up, and I recoil. As I drop the blanket, a movement in the pile of clothes startles me. It's the owner of the droppings. We scrutinise each other.

‘Cosy?' I ask.

Its reply is to scurry around the skirting, so I inspect its bed — which turns out to be a penitent's sackcloth shawl. Something tiny glints. I lean closer. A sequin is embedded in the rough weave.

Staring at it, I can't help a rush of sympathy for those
who meet here — that emotion quickly flipping into anger at the bunch of compliant acolytes the population has become. Do they even remember there was a
before
, when the church didn't control the state, and street corners weren't for prayer groups, but for newspaper vendors and fruit stalls?

I make my way to the door. I've seen enough and am keen to go. While I may decry the laws that force tawdry trysts in industrial estates, that doesn't mean I want to bump into the people who've made this their special place. Not now. And not later, either.

It's nostril-squeezing cold and my finger ends hurt in their cycle gloves. My senses are zinging, but it's not just the wind chill and slippery road surface. At every corner I feather the brakes, scanning for the unexpected and ready to pedal like hell. It crosses my mind that there are surely better things to do in the middle of the night than this — just not as exciting.

Face it, Sal: on the bike you're an adrenaline junkie.

Glancing up, I can see a few stars beyond close-kissing eaves. Stars are one of the nicer things that have been returned to the city by the transport changes and power shortages, but right now not even the alley cats are out to appreciate them.

I lean into another elbow bend. What streetlights there are don't work this deep in the Red Quarter, but outside Number 137 a lamp is shining — the kind that used to advertise dentists and doctors to passers-by. That lone bulb is a welcome glow in the darkness. It'll give the prayer groups and muggers no anonymity.

Bike propped against a railing, I lift the flap on my courier bag and remove the parcel then sprint with it up the three steps to the door. As I reach for the buzzer beside the metal grille, I hear the tiny inset camera above me swivel. They've probably been waiting.

The grille clicks open. I pass my delivery to unseen hands through the mail slot in the door, then leap gratefully back down the steps, all three in one go.

I have no idea who I've just delivered Gail's expensive products to, and I don't care. Beyond the knowledge that I'm in fertility doctor territory, my mind is an information blank, and what's done behind these doors for the city's desperate inhabitants is nothing I ever want to know. Genderbent and happy, that's me. And now my duty has been done, my rent will be paid.

The subtle warmth beginning to leach from limbs to fingers is mainly my parasympathetics kicking in, but there's something else there too. It's the satisfaction of having played my small part in a greater insurgency; just one of the termite team munching into the behemoth structures of a regime that would have us all thinking the damaged fertility of a nation is punishment for our sins, and that praying for forgiveness — and preying on transgressors — will bring about our only reprieve.

I ride out of Cutters Lane feeling more relaxed despite the cold. Time to report to the termite queen.

I wish I could say I'm comfortable visiting my suave and sophisticated boss at her home; but I'm not. South Yarra and Toorak are still where most of the old wealth sits — the land alone worth a mint, not to mention the heritage mansions. Gail has always blended in well with the hoity-toity.

The route along the south edge of the Yarra beside the Botanic Gardens is one of my favourites, but this time of night the view across the water to the CBD is eerie. The power-saving measures put in place to force frugality means the city blocks are subject to rolling blackouts, the streets only minimally lit. I bump along a weed-infested cycle path that reflects the general downturn to Melbourne life, as if the whole city is suffering from the sort of depression that makes it hard to get out of bed each morning.

Toorak was divided into ‘estates' and gated several years ago, the residents not trusting in simpler measures to keep the riffraff out. ‘Checkpoint Charlie' is a guard box in the centre of the road. It has a window, an intercom and a bored and burly member of SOS — Service One Security — inside.

Straddling my bike, I punch in some numbers on the keypad then stare into the identity-check lens. The LED goes green and the gate slides open.

Beyond it, the street curves gently, my cycle lights picking out low stone walls and high hedges looming black in a grey-toned darkness. By day, grand houses can be glimpsed set well back in manicured grounds. But even old money can't bring the rain. The gardens are sad reminders of their former glory, many of the original lush-leaved
plants replaced by hardier specimens, and the lawns a dull, parched version of green. At least here they haven't yet resorted to the solutions of the more downmarket suburbs: faux grass — the bright emerald kind — or concrete.

I enter Salmon Close and catch the scent of jasmine still in bloom. To my right, pencil pines spear uniformly to the sky. Left, a thicket of hardenbergia hides a garden gate, and a tall brush fence makes an impenetrable barrier. I make for the end of the close, where an electric three-wheeler sits by the kerb. Built for inner-city use, these vehicles are really motorised tricycles with rain bonnets, and so gutless that a scooter rider can easily drag them off at the traffic lights.

I repeat the number on the keypad outside Number 5, and the metal gates swing slowly open.

Gail's residence smacks of old colonial behind its square-trimmed photinia hedge and imposing entrance. The house is two-storey villa style, a driveway leading to grand, curving steps and the modern addition of a glass portico. The French windows set along the front open onto gently sloping lawn — real grass, thanks to the majestic oaks each side of the drive that provide summer shade.

I lean my bike against the last in a line of chest-height terracotta urns that flank the drive. This one has large handles and a spout meant to channel water into the empty fishpond.

As I unclip the phonelink from my ear and take off my helmet, a sparkling apparition emerges from the house. Marlene makes her way down Gail's front steps as theatrically
as a Hollywood starlet stepping into the bulb-popping glare of the media. A fur stole wraps her shoulders above strapless lamé — some poor dead possum, or a whole furry family of them, stitched together for her comfort.

Gail appears in the portico. The two had a brief dalliance a while ago. For Marlene, it was an interesting sideways shimmy from her usual voracious pursuit of men, and with Gail's reputation for casual one-nighters being the stuff of legend, I assumed it was over between them. But it's none of my business who my boss decides to take to her bed.

As Marlene steps by, high heels crunching on gravel, she casts me a cursory, dismissive glance. As tall as her, I meet her eye to eye, but feel like one of the minions put there to wave or bow, or strew rose petals at her feet. Having missed all those opportunities, I lean against the urn and do nothing.

Sometimes Marlene really shits me.

Gail comes out to stand on the top step. She has a kind of classical Grecian beauty that I always feel a bit in awe of, a presence both lush and commanding. She motions to me. I lock the bike to an urn handle — you can never be too careful — and mooch up the path, the ill-dressed country cousin, courier bag trailing. I can't help hoping that Marlene is freezing her tits off right now.

Inside is a lot warmer. I strip off my wind jacket and a couple of thermal layers while Gail takes my dirt-streaked bag and puts it on a chair. One thing I'll say about my host, designer-neat as she is, she's not prissy about the upholstery.

‘I heard the knock & drop was successful.'

‘No prayer groups tonight,' I reply. Then add, ‘the first time was an ambush.'

Her expression hardens. ‘More and more of them in places they don't belong — and now this. Something's going on, and I want to know what it is.'

When Gail wants to know, she finds out. I just hope it's not me she chooses to play detective. Last night's attack really creeped me out. It's an occupational hazard, couriers getting mugged for their deliveries — but not by prayer groups.

Her gaze bores through me, unseeing, then belatedly refocuses. ‘Tea?'

‘Sure,' I say, a bit relieved, and follow her into the kitchen, an area about three times the size of my flat.

She's silent awhile, her movements from cupboard to sink a smooth, concise automatic: kettle on, cups and saucers out, the teapot warmed and tea spooned in. I watch, one hip against a benchtop, taking refuge in her assuredness and the doing of homely things. But I know she's thinking hard.

I remember back to when we met. She'd made me tea then, too. Not to dwell on the sordid details of seven years ago, but I'd just had a few fingers broken. The person who did the breaking had taken exception to my appearance and chose a very painful way to show me. I was working for a cleaning company at the time. It was one in a series of casual jobs to make ends meet while I tried to figure out what the hell else to do with my life. Among their select client list (the properties of the well-to-do) was Gail's house. She came home unexpectedly and found me crying like a baby over a
vase I'd managed to drop because splinted and bandaged hands don't work properly. She helped me pick up the pieces — Ming Dynasty for all I knew — then sat me down and gave me tea, and, after a relatively painless interrogation, offered me better-paid work. My bank balance calculated in cents not dollars, I didn't have to think. I took it. Later I heard she found the guy who did the breaking and had him relocated. Much later I heard it was to somewhere underwater. Certain things are best never to know for sure. My fingers work fine now, thanks to sessions with the physio (billed to Cute'n'Cuddly), but I won't be taking up petit point or bead threading in the foreseeable future.

We sit in Gail's orderly living room, me on her large white couch, spooning in sugars, and her folded elegantly into an armchair.

‘Number 137 has been warned they're a mark, and I've revised the schedule for all C&C couriers, starting now,' she says. ‘Even if yours was a freak event, everyone needs to take extra precautions on their delivery routes until we know what we're dealing with. I'll enquire around the other Ethicals — see if they've had any similar incidents with the prayer groups. Now tell me about your fishing trip.'

‘Nothing there to catch,' I reply. ‘All I found was a love nest inside a paint factory off Barrow Road.'

Gail's well-shaped eyebrows rise, then fall into a frown. ‘We're missing something,' she mutters.

I look at her. Two mornings ago this was about a casual recce.

‘What makes you think they're setting up shop in that area?'

‘A little birdie told me.'

Gail doesn't divulge her sources. As one of them, I know it's safer that way for all of us. I take a slow sip of tea, savouring the sweet liquid, letting its warmth course deliciously down my gullet. My boss makes a mighty fine brew. Imported contraband, I assume.

Gail refolds her legs. ‘Something more serious may be happening out at Fishermans Bend,' she says after a bit. ‘There's a murmur the opposition is moving into town. There's no sign yet of their product on the street, but I'm getting a bad feeling about this. Stay vigilant.'

The Ethicals and Non-ethicals have waged war since day one of the pandemic. Early on, Gail formed an exclusive business relationship with EHg, one of a handful of companies, including NatureCure and BioSyn, that guaranteed their customers a free-from-cruelty plant-derived mix. That, of course, was when the compounding was done in pristine facilities, each company operating under licence and subject to regular Good Manufacturing Practice inspections.

After Nation First won power, things went downhill fast. Quick to respond to the forced closures and sudden dearth of supply brought about by the B2N laws, the unregulated industry spawned the return of a number of internationally outlawed practices, including harvesting hormones from live and dead animals, and milking oestrogen ‘the old way' from pregnant mares. These practices are the domain of the
hormone farms, ugly windowless complexes housing abject animals that will never again see open ground. Much of what's produced there is snake oil; but not all of it. The products from the CEO — conjugated equine oestrogen — farms are loaded with impurities, but also high yield and effective because pregnant mares make very good oestrogen factories. Meanwhile, their doomed foals get slaughtered for endocrinal supplements. So now hormonal help can be bought in a variety of forms, like any other illegal drug, coming to the buyer straight from the mare's bladder or the dead foal's pituitary. Poor bloody horses.

Gail's never dealt in the stuff — she's kept her ethics and her association with EHg. But the rest of the world want their hormones on tap, including the two-faced Nation First politicians. It means only token effort has been made to shut down the thriving black market industry that operates outside city limits, its well-connected and carefully anonymous owners protected from prosecution by an endless series of parliamentary filibusters. Complicating the situation is Neighbourly Watch, the community arm of Nation First, which runs extortion rackets, squeezing distributors and farms alike for hush money. If one of the Non-ethicals is trying to forge new territory, you can bet NW will be interested. Either way, it's a provocative act to set up where the Ethicals used to be — and a warning they have their eyes on the inner city.

‘Take me through Fishermans Bend,' Gail says abruptly. ‘Everything you saw and heard and smelled.'