The Courier's New Bicycle (8 page)

Inez and I drive back to the hospital at 8 am. Up in the lift to level four and the maternity wing, we tread squeaky linoleum to the visitors' waiting room. We describe who we're here to see, and are directed along a corridor by a sympathetic RN.

Nurses are often vociferous opponents of the current government's anti-surrogacy policy, being those most often landed with the sad results. They get to keep their jobs because they're in such short supply, the only trained staff left to fill the skills gap that opened when a raft of medicos working in the fertility clinics and gene-research centres were struck off the register and hospital payrolls. Not that this particular part of the hospital is busy these days, and at the far end it's imbued with an almost suffocating quiet. No babies here.

We stand at the door of the share room, looking in. A woman — not ours — is asleep under the covers in the
first bed. The privacy curtains have been pulled around the second.

Inez calls a tentative ‘Hello?'

On a low answer, I open a gap in the curtain and together we step into the sanitised white space. The woman in the bed is propped up by pillows. Her long hair, now neatly plaited, snakes past her breast over the hospital gown. One thin brown arm lies above the bedcovers, the contents of a drip bag feeding into it. She won't look at us, and it's clear it wasn't she who spoke. Her expression, and that on the face of the woman sitting beside her, tells it all.

Short and capable-looking, the latter rises from her seat and extends a hand. A firm, no-nonsense shake. I'm guessing sensible shoes too.

Inez and I say our names, and she nods. ‘The nurse unit manager phoned me. I got your details from Admissions,' she says. ‘I'm Tallis Dankner, from SANE.'

The Surrogate Advocacy, Networking and Emergency team works out of the Red Quarter, and is another of the madams' innovations.

She sits again. ‘This is Roshani. She's doing fine, but she lost the baby.'

‘We're so sorry,' I say, Inez silent beside me.

Tallis leans close to the semi-prone woman. ‘Roshani?' Her voice is gentle, soothing. ‘These are the people who helped you last night.'

No response. Roshani's focus stays on some invisible
point on the powder-blue bedspread. One slow tear leaks below a lash.

I find Inez's hand and we stand there miserably.

‘We appreciate what you both did,' Tallis says, adjusting Roshani's hospital gown to cover a bare shoulder.

She nods towards the door. As we walk out together, she hands me a business card.

‘I made a few enquiries. Your name came up connected to Gail Alvarez,' she says quietly.

Makes sense my boss would be well-known to SANE.

‘I'm hoping you might pay a visit to my office in the next couple of days.'

‘Absolutely,' I say, and look to Inez not included in the invitation. ‘But I'm not sure I have anything useful to offer. I don't know how she got targeted like that.'

Tallis glances from us to the curtains obscuring her diminutive charge. Roshani had showed no sign of wanting to speak, and may not for a while. I suspect SANE's rep has seen this all too often before.

‘Leave that with me,' she says. ‘In the meantime, she'll be taken good care of.'

I don't doubt it. Surrogacy is big business, and SANE protects its own. But how they manage it amid the roving Neighbourhood Values Brigades and now attack prayer groups, I have no idea.

 

Outside my flat, Inez and I kiss a quick goodbye in the ute, aware of multiple eyes looking from the public high-rises.
We'll be seeing each other again in a few hours at the usual Monday APV meeting, which I expect to be a debrief on Friday's rescue and some discussion over what project we might tackle next.

Nitro greets me at the door, miaowing his disapproval at my many absences. I take him into the yard for a circumnavigation of the tundra before feeding him, then leave him stretched on his rather-too-ample side, washing his paws in a square of morning sun.

I wheel out my bike. Swinging a leg over the frame, I scoot from the back alley onto the main road, my sights set for Cute'n'Cuddly Pty Ltd. Along with a swag of rescheduled deliveries waiting to be couriered, I've some debriefing of my own to do. The ride, however, feels heavy, not the usual pleasure to be had in the smooth motion of muscles and steady pump of blood. I can't blame the day — perfect weather. It's my thoughts of Roshani weighing me down like a millstone, and bringing to the surface a renewed dread of things to come.

 

On my knock, Gail opens the door to her private office and ushers me through. She motions me to sit in the only chair — an unusual act in itself — then leans across the desk and looks at me intently, taking in the bags under my eyes and my lacklustre vibe.

‘Anwar got caught up in a drag racers' dispute at Fishermans Bend last night and had all his tyres stolen,' she tells me. ‘It took the rest of the night to negotiate them
back, so I want one more go at surveillance there tonight. Are you up to it?'

I return her gaze. ‘Can't let him have all the fun.'

It's a poor attempt at enthusiasm, but I would walk over broken bottles for her if she asked.

She smiles briefly. I can see concern in it, and relief. Below her tough-as-nails façade sometimes I think she cares for me as she would a kid brother or sister.

She busies herself a moment at an electric kettle, then a coffee plunger, two cups and ingredients appear out of a filing cabinet. We go through the deliveries. It's the regular drops to the usual places, and a relief to be concentrating on something comparatively mundane.

When we're done, she surprises me by saying, ‘Let's check out the view from the roof.'

I've only been up once before, on my induction into the couriering business. To get there we have to go through her private quarters, the turret room where she sometimes sleeps if she's at the warehouse overnight. It's even more spartan than the office: just a camp bed and plain dresser, a single window looking south, and a fire-escape door.

We step outside and cross to the paint-peeled crenellations at the building's edge. I lean on the parapet, staring out. The day is gentle, almost balmy. A slight breeze frizzes the trees in the street below. South are the Melbourne rail yards; beyond them is Victoria Harbour and the Docklands. Further left, we'd be looking straight down the city grid if it weren't for a cluster of unfinished
apartment towers blocking our view. There are no sounds of construction, and not likely to be anytime soon, the developers in receivership.

I watch a girl being walked by a scruffy dog, stopping obediently at every tree for it to cock its leg. The dog knows where it's going: a square of dirt a couple of blocks away euphemistically called a park. A popular spot for the homeless as well as dogs, it's all benches full at night.

‘By the way,' Gail says casually, ‘I heard something interesting from a colleague of mine in Drugs Watch.'

That organisation is an information hub set up by Nation First to keep tabs on doctors and dispensaries, every medicine prescribed and script dispensed logged with them.

Her voice lowers. ‘On Saturday a doctor in the Yarra Valley reported a Rohypnol incident. The victim was a dairy worker. Nothing odd on the surface of it, but my colleague suspects the dairy's a front for a hormone farm, and so I'm thinking the incident has the hallmarks of an APV sting.'

Gail never asks about our forays. I glance at her, not sure what she wants.

‘EHg have just finished trialling a new drug,' she murmurs. ‘It's not traceable in the body like the benzodiazepines are. Tell Max to give me a call about it.' She angles me an encouraging look. ‘For next time.'

Her attention diverts to the street below as a brown eco-lite slows and swings into C&C's entrance. I hear the
electric gate grind back and the car drive in. I'm motioned to the turret door, our rooftop meeting over.

Back in her office, Gail hands me my pay packet. It's bulkier than usual: extra cash for the nights spent staking out Barrow Road.

‘About last night's attack.' She holds the door open. ‘Let me know if I can do anything.'

I know she means about Roshani's assailants, none of whom I think I'd recognise again.

‘Will do,' I say. ‘Thanks for the coffee.'

I collect my deliveries from the basement and wheel my bike through the secure yard. The eco-lite is parked in the visitors bay, someone waiting in the driver's seat. Two delivery hands are nearby, cleaning their already clean Cute'n'Cuddly van to an almost supernatural white. I nod hi to them, then I'm off into the day, my courier's bag packed full.

Despite the grimness of the night before, my spirits finally begin to lift. I have people — Gail, Inez and Albee, Max and Anwar — who care about me, and whom I can always call on for help. In this fucked-up world, I am not alone. I have
family
.

I have to run the gauntlet of a late-afternoon prayer offensive in Martyr Street en route to the APV meeting. It's a public show of faith, several dozen hands up and waving. Just up the road from them, I steer around a Neighbourhood Values Brigade spoiling for a fight outside a specialty grog shop, the owner probably dobbed in for Sabbath trading.

Despite these detours, I arrive early at my destination — the shuttered backroom of a tiny Fitzroy gelateria — and wait for the rest of the Animal Protection Vigilantes to arrive. As the others find their various spots among the packaging and equipment, I lean gingerly on a stack of boxes purporting to contain sugar cones, and can smell their sweetness through the cardboard. The Nation Firsts have put many pleasures on the ‘forbidden' list, but thankfully they still allow their citizens the sin of ice cream.

Lydia clumps in, looking harried. Silently I hope this
isn't going to set the tone of the meeting. When she's settled, I close the door.

Max kicks off proceedings. ‘I'd just like to say well done to everyone for such a smooth operation.'

It must be a nice change for Lydia that this time no one even looks at her.

‘I spoke with the sanctuary owners this morning,' he continues. ‘The horses are doing alright, considering. Not off the danger list, but we should feel lucky to have lost only one.'

A pall of silence settles momentarily on the group as we remember the Appaloosa mare. Uncharacteristically, it's Lydia who sniffs into her hanky.

‘By the way, the news is all good from the foster farm that took our abattoir rescue foals a couple of weeks ago,' Max adds to brighten us. ‘Apparently they're injury-free and blooming. There'll be no trouble rehoming them.'

The knackeries affiliated with the hormone farms make for very traumatic rescues. We'd heard one had taken delivery of ten CEO colts and fillies, all of them destined for the crusher the next day. It was in the drama of their rescue that something sparked between Inez and me, which then ignited into full flame — so I feel I owe a debt to the foals.

James gives his report next.

‘Big Russ arrived at the pub bang on eight fifteen,' he says. ‘I gave him time to knock back the first few beers, then walked in and sat down with him like I was an old mate, and everybody, including him, thought I was. The ruphy went in his drink at curfew. The pub's shutters came down
and the conversation dived into the truly maudlin. When our friend toppled off his barstool, everybody assumed he'd drunk way too much, which he always does. We dossed him down in the ladies lounge — took four of us to shift him there. He's a lot to carry, most of it covered in tatts.'

‘He must have felt like shit the next morning,' Brigid murmurs.

‘Too right,' James replies. ‘He'd have been comatose about six hours, then nursing a very bad headache.' He snorts. ‘Apparently every Saturday, the dairy shift swings by the pub on their way to Greengate and load him, still drunk, into their vehicle.'

‘Not much of a caretaker,' I say.

‘What's he likely to remember?' Brigid asks.

‘A blank — a blur at most. If any of his pub mates remind him, he'll be racking his brains over who the “old acquaintance” was that he got drunk with. As for the horse rustling, hopefully, he'll think it was just his bad luck it happened the same night.'

‘About that,' I say. ‘I just heard from Gail his Rohypnol incident was logged with Drugs Watch.'

The group turn to me, serious-faced.

‘Russ must have got himself tested Saturday afternoon,' says Max.

‘There was always a chance he'd twig,' Inez responds. ‘This isn't the first time that drug's been used in a horse raid.'

‘Maybe he thought you messed with him, James,' I joke.

‘Not my type. All those tatts …'

‘No more excursions to the Yarra Valley for you.' I make it flippant, but we all know the risk of recognition is greatest with him this time.

My thoughts turn to Lars. It had taken a lot of courage to stick it to Greengate's owners and do what he did. The alert will be out to find him, a suspected collaborator with the APV, but by now he should be winging his way to a new life somewhere else, a change of identity supplied by Gail's trusty relocation agent, Harry Tong. Apparently Lars was promised a beach house in monsoonal far north Queensland, where the vaccination vans hadn't made it to, and where, it's rumoured, the weather-hardy residents still beget with the best of them.

‘So what's next?' Nagid asks, arms folded, one hip against a freezer chest.

‘Something that involves scaling an industrial chimney or surfing a battleship's bow wave, so you can show us how,' James offers.

It's Max who makes the first real suggestion.

‘I've heard from an old client of mine the battery hen farm that borders his property is going into production again. He says the stench is wafting over to his place already.'

We're all surprised. This means the government must be lifting the restrictions on factory farming.

‘They wouldn't dare.' Brigid voices everyone's thoughts.

We all remember what happened when bird flu became a highly pathogenic new strain, transmissible human to human. The virus spread like wildfire through the poultry
sheds first, and the factory then free-range farmers were ordered to destroy their stock — not just chickens and turkeys, but ducks and geese too. Even the carrier pigeons kept by racing enthusiasts and the caged budgies in suburban homes weren't exempt. Max was deeply affected, vets being called upon to supervise the gassing and decontamination of aviaries, dovecotes and chicken coops. And his loft of racing pigeons was his pride and joy.

The farmyard pyres burned and the wild bird colonies dwindled, their presence no longer viewed with pleasure but alarm and fearfulness. Nobody kept birds of any kind. Meanwhile, the health teams were mobilising across the country for the most comprehensive vaccination scheme in Australia's history. Auto-immune overload and mass endocrine disruption followed soon after.

‘What short memories people have!' Inez exclaims. ‘Everybody knows it was the conditions in those factories that created the problem in the first place.'

It transpired that the methods used to force faster growth and higher productivity had created a crucible for infection and disease, while the industry's slack regulatory codes, along with diabolical conditions in the hen sheds, had contributed to the virus being transmitted to the workers.

Max turns to Lydia. ‘What does Animal Justice know about the factory bans being lifted?'

‘I'm not really in touch with any of them …'

Lydia has never explained why she left that organisation, but I get the feeling it was something personal. When the
Nation Firsts took power, the Animal Justice activists freshly arrived from overseas were speedily deported back there, and the local organisers — including Lydia — were jailed on blasphemy charges. They'd dared to argue it was human conceit to think we had a monopoly on the domain of the soul, and that if there were such a thing, then animals would have one too.

Max addresses the rest of us. ‘There's a vet I know in one of the rebuilt settlements beyond the Yarra Valley bushfire line. His community mainly comprises small bio-organic holdings and hobby farms. As long as he gives the birds the all-clear first, I'd say the people there would be glad to take a crate or two each, no questions asked.'

For all the damage the vaccine did, at least it put an end to the panicked extermination of birds, rural households now allowed to keep certified virus-free chickens.

‘How many sheds are we talking about, and what can we expect to find in them?' Nagid asks.

‘They seem to be using only one shed in the row of five so far. But there could be thousands of debeaked pullets in there, jammed several to a cage. The ammonia levels will be toxic.'

I feel my jaw tighten. This shit is hard to listen to.

‘It goes without saying,' Max continues, ‘that the less time they spend in those conditions the more chance they'll have of living through the rescue. My ex-client says if we're planning anything unmentionable, we can do it via his place. His boundary fence runs right behind the row.'

‘What about all the noise when we try to get them out?' Brigid asks. ‘They'll squawk the place down —'

Lydia rounds on her. ‘And you think that's a reason not to try to rescue them?'

Brigid stops, shocked.

I glance at Inez and Max. Lydia is getting more and more erratic, and we can't afford a loose cannon in our midst. Brigid, on the other hand, has the sort of constitution that suggests she burns calories through anxiety — which Lydia isn't helping any.

‘I don't think Brigid meant that we
not
do it …' says Inez.

James steers the conversation back on track. ‘Do you think your farmer friend could take some photos from his side of the fence?' he asks Max.

‘Yep,' is the ebullient reply. I can tell Max has already taken this project on one hundred per cent.

‘We're going to need cages for transport,' I say, ‘and Brigid actually has a valid point about the noise.' I shoot a quick warning look at Lydia.

Nagid adds his thoughts. ‘The battery farm won't be expecting opposition this soon. I doubt they'll have even bothered with an alarm system other than a smoke detector.'

‘So …' Max eyes the six of us. ‘Are we all agreed this is our next project?'

We assent variously, Brigid with a baleful glance Lydia's way.

Max, the logical choice to coordinate, hands out our
tasks for the next meeting: research, and sourcing rescue equipment. Only Lydia doesn't get something to do.

‘You seem like you could do with a break for a bit,' he says to her matter-of-factly.

‘I'm alright,' she mumbles, not looking at him. ‘Just having a bad week. I'll be fine next meeting.'

‘Well, that's when I'll give you something to do,' he says, gentler.

Proceedings winding up, I take the opportunity to draw her aside. ‘What's going on, Lyd?'

‘What do you mean?' Her eyes shift nervously from mine.

We're in a storage area beside the toilet cubicle. I shut the connecting door to the rest of the group.

‘Come on,' I say. ‘That was more than your usual enthusiastic response.'

She looks for a moment as if she might spin me some bullshit line, then shrugs. ‘I did something I shouldn't have, and now I'm paying the price.'

She leans her head against the doorframe, and I wait as she struggles to get it out.

‘I met someone I really liked. Do you know how long it is since that's happened to me?'

I don't say. I know how she feels.

‘He's a Canadian geologist working for Austral-Uranium. He emigrated to Australia on the previous government's fertility initiative. Amazingly, he's still trying to find Ms Right to start a family with, and he thought I might be that person.'

The dam holding Lydia's big secret having burst, her words tumble out. ‘I lied a little, said I ovulated every once in a while. I made it sound like conception was possible for me, when really I haven't had so much as a bleed for two years. I could picture us happy together, and didn't want to lose him to the next wide-hipped fertile who came sashaying around the corner. So I ten-timesed the dose of my usual hormones and took a pituitary stimulant on top of that. I figured a hormone hit might induce ovulation before he changed his mind.'

I don't voice my dismay. She could have done worse things to herself.

She continues bitterly. ‘Everything seemed fine: I got soft and squishy in all the right places, like how I used to be. But then it hit me like a steam train and ramped me up like you wouldn't believe. I felt like I'd been taken over by a monster. I was getting upset at the tiniest thing, crying or shouting for no reason. He said I was too volatile to be anybody's fertility partner and called it quits. I was so angry with myself that I cold-turkeyed. I'd pretty much run out of money to get more kit anyway. So now I have oestro flux big-time.'

I try to say it as tactfully as I can. ‘You didn't …?'

‘Not a hope in Hades.' She sniffs.

‘I'm very impressed that you held it together last Friday,' I tell her, and I mean it. Considering what she must have been going through, physically and psychologically, she did amazingly well on the raid. ‘No one would've known.'

This elicits a sad smile. ‘Thanks.'

‘If you don't mind me asking, whose stuff did you use?'

‘NatureCure's.'

An Ethical — something I'd assume with her; but desperation can do terrible things, even to an APV idealist. I make a mental note to talk to Gail about it after the meeting, then realise I forgot to tell her earlier in the day about my spur-of-the-moment manoeuvre with Mojo Meg. I make a second mental note.

‘Lyd, I'll find out what you can take to help ease you through this,' I say, and she looks up tearfully.

‘I'd appreciate that.'

Her whole body is drooped in defeat. This is not the gung-ho vigilante we've come to know and fret about.

‘Just do me one favour,' I add. ‘Apologise to Brigid for snapping at her. And whatever it is that sets you two off, sort it or shelve it. The group can't handle the tension.'

She nods, subdued for once.

I walk her back to the others. We set another location for next week, then people begin to filter outside and along the narrow walkway between the gelato shop and its neighbour.

A hand goes on my shoulder.

‘Nitro is due for his shots,' Max says quietly. ‘I've got some free time around twelve thirty Thursday, if you can bring him in.'

I make a quick calculation. Depending on what deliveries Gail needs me to do first, I can organise a Cute'n'Cuddly van over lunchtime and pick up the cat.