The Grass Castle (33 page)
‘I’m Ngunnawal,’ the old lady says. ‘People south of the Murrumbidgee were Walgalu and Ngarigo. I can only tell her ’bout people who lived in Hollywood Mission up by Yass. Maybe that’s not what she wants to hear.’
‘I think she’d be interested,’ Abby says. ‘Would you talk to her sometime? I could pick you up, or bring her to meet you, whatever you like.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ The old woman glances towards the building. ‘See what happens here first, eh? Plenty of business to go down yet today, I reckon.’
After the break, Abby follows the old woman inside. She hadn’t intended to go back in, but when the old woman clambered slowly to her feet, Abby felt obliged to accompany her. Now they walk together through the foyer, some sort of gentle respect settling between them. Abby helps her to her seat then returns to sit beside Quentin down the front.
The meeting dives immediately into dangerous controversial territory with a presentation on options for kangaroo population control, and Abby can’t see how the audience will agree on anything. The government scientist outlines several possibilities, including supplementary feeding, surgical sterilisation, fertility control by immuno-contraception, and translocation. Then he rejects all these as impractical.
Supplementary feeding could avert starvation, he says, but it would promote breeding and lead to a further increase in numbers. Surgical sterilisation is possible, but animals would have to be captured and subjected to a painful procedure. With so many animals, the cost would be too high, and there would also be significant risk of injury. Plus there would still be too many mouths eating too little grass. Immuno-contraception might be an option for the future, but a suitable fertility control vaccine for wild animals isn’t yet available. He ticks these things off the list then moves on to translocation. This option is superficially attractive because it could reduce grazing pressure, he says, but it is only approved for threatened species, which these kangaroos are not.
Martin Tennant loudly protests that these kangaroos are indeed threatened, even if the government doesn’t see it that way. Shooting, he says, is without doubt a threat to life.
The government official counters that there is no logic in moving an abundant species from one place to another where they might be subject to later culling anyway. This leaves shooting as the only viable option. The government doesn’t want to kill kangaroos, but there is no realistic alternative.
Protest ripples through the crowd, and Abby senses the meeting is about to get ugly. Martin Tennant is on his feet pointing a finger as if to cut the air. ‘It’s a public disgrace that we, as caring and concerned members of the community, have been subjected to today’s agenda of lies and manipulation,’ he shouts. ‘There is a sensible and humane approach to dealing with this problem. With the assistance of a number of well-recognised scientists, we’ve drafted a plan for moving these kangaroos. But no-one is listening. Instead we have a gun-happy government that would rather kill animals than fork out money to shift them.’
Restlessness surges through the gathering, and Abby is wondering what will happen next. Then the lanky government veterinarian mounts the podium. His name is Alex Franklin, and he’s the one who helped Abby put radio-transmitters on her animals out at the valley. He’s a gentle and reasonable man, patient, considerate, non-confrontational, and widely respected. He stands awkwardly at the microphone, hands in pockets, tentatively leaning forward to speak. Nobody heckles.
‘We’ve looked at translocation and there are a whole lot of issues with it,’ he says quietly. ‘Animals would have to be corralled, which isn’t easy. Then they have to be darted from close range. It’s frightening for them, so you get some pretty reckless behaviour. They fling themselves at fences and sometimes break their legs. Also their muscles can cramp up or they can die of heart attack. It’s not very nice. Darted animals don’t go down straight away either. They fight and thrash and scare the others. It’s not pleasant and it’s stressful for the animals. After that you have to find a way of getting them to a new site and holding them there till they get used to it. Once you let them go there’s no guarantee they’ll stay. If they wander onto other properties someone else could shoot them.’
Martin Tennant is unconvinced. ‘Here’s an opportunity to conduct an important scientific experiment,’ he says, ‘and you’re all running from it. We could find out how animals respond to translocations like this
and
solve the problem in one simple act, but nobody will consider it. What’s wrong with you people?’
‘A crisis is not the time to undertake something like this,’ Quentin says, rising from the front row. ‘It would have to be carefully planned and replicated to have any worth as an experiment, and it would have to be justified. We’re talking about a common species here, not an endangered one. This is also an animal welfare issue. We can’t be trying these things out and have animals panicking in new locations and hurting themselves.’
‘Too right it’s an animal welfare issue.’ Martin’s face is purple with fury. ‘And the only solution you lot can come up with is shooting, which is a serious welfare issue in its own right.’
He goes on to attack the vet, the government and the RSPCA. It’s out of hand, and Abby wishes it was over. The arguments are circular and repetitive and no traction is being made in any positive or constructive direction. The facilitator obviously agrees; soon afterwards he closes the meeting. The issue is far from resolved, but Abby supposes they have at least gone through the motions of public consultation, which was probably all the meeting was meant to achieve. That would have been the government directive, she assumes. This is a rather tragic perspective, but she can’t suppress her cynicism.
She files out of the auditorium with the rest of the crowd, listening to their hostile murmurings. Nobody is happy—this was always going to be the case. In the foyer she sees Cameron talking to Martin Tennant again, overhears him offering the activist a ride to the airport. For a moment their eyes lock and Cameron nods at her apologetically. Then he looks away and not long after he is gone, striding out through the doors with Martin.
Abby hovers among the dispersing crowd, waiting for Quentin. She feels lost after seeing Cameron, but she knows this is a situation of her own creation. It could have been very different. If she had reconciled with Cameron she could have been sitting with him today. He could have held her hand and discussed the proceedings with her.
Directionless and unsure what to do with herself, she asks Quentin to drop her in the city. It’s on the cusp of evening and the walkways have thinned out, everybody has gone home to dinner. She visits the bottle-shop then wanders into a Thai restaurant and sits at a table with her bottle of wine. It’s cheap rubbish, but it’s all she can afford and tonight she doesn’t give a damn—she has bought it for effect, not for quality . . . the meeting has left a bad taste in her mouth. She waves the waiter over to open the bottle and take her order.
‘How many glasses?’ he asks tactfully.
‘Just the one, thank you,’ she says, trying to appear comfortable in her aloneness, but in fact feeling small and isolated and sad.
He delivers a glass and she fills it, starts swigging; what else can she do? It’s a stupid strategy but she sits at her solitary table by a small flickering tea-light candle and works her way through half a bottle.
When her food arrives—spring rolls and curry puffs and a bowl of white rice—she is unable to eat. She feels herself crumpling, a well of ridiculous self-pitying tears rising. Seeing Cameron today has unhinged her again, it has reminded her of her loneliness. She had good reason to end their relationship, an important inescapable personal cause. But it was good when she was with him. He was supportive and accepting, and she liked the feel of his body in bed, the smell of him, his deferential attention. Fact is, she wants him but she can’t have him, and her rational self knows why. He was digging too close, cleaving to the needy parts of her soul, so she pushed him away. But it’s too confronting, too raw to see him moving on with his life. He’s managing without her—of course he is. She simply has to get over it.
She empties her glass of wine and leaves the rest behind, goes to the counter and pays her meagre solo bill. Involuntary tears well again and she bats them away. She’s had enough of herself for one day. She has to go home.
Dazed and only marginally sober, she leaves the restaurant. Outside, the world ticks on—the city has come to life again after dinner. Couples drift by, arm-hooked, raucous groups of young men guffaw at their own pathetic humour, and late-night shoppers waltz along, strung with bags.
Abby moves uncertainly among them, seeking the nearest taxi rank. On auto-pilot she finds herself at the roadside near a café. Cars flash their white eyes at her as they plough past, and jaywalkers flit through traffic. Across the road, in glass-fronted restaurants, people chat and laugh over dinner. Watching them, Abby feels a stab of regret. That could have been her with Cameron tonight, wining and dining together, if she’d played her cards differently.
She chokes on the sour taste of disappointment, and when she sees an empty taxi her hand shoots out. It slides to the kerb and she gets in. The driver swivels to look at her, his eyes gleaming in the muted light. He is tall and dark, and for a moment he reminds her of someone. The tangle of the day roils in her like a brewing storm. She gives the address, leans back and closes her eyes.
They are there in less than ten minutes. It is shadowy and quiet among the towering apartment blocks, the light subdued. She hesitates then pays the driver, gets out and watches him pull away. Her feet are leaden as she walks to the door and presses the buzzer. No response.
She swings away, semi-relieved, walks twenty metres up the street, turns back reflexively and presses the buzzer again. There is a click then Cameron’s voice: ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Abby.’
Silence then another click. ‘Come on up.’
Tight with misgivings, she takes the lift and walks the hushed carpet to his door. In the dim light of the corridor she pauses and considers, almost turns and leaves, then lifts a tentative hand and knocks. Emptiness spreads around her. There is nothing behind the door. She wavers, gathering the internal momentum to walk away, then the door swings open and he is there, arm crooked against the architrave, his face dark and unreadable.
‘I just wanted to talk,’ she says.
He leans his head against his arm, sagging slightly, and emits a slow sigh, his eyes swinging away from her then sliding back. She smells muskiness on his breath, the tang of alcohol.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I can go away.’
‘No.’ He stretches like a waking cat and steps back. ‘Come in if you like.’
Up close to him like this, she realises she has once again forgotten how big he is, how tiny she feels beside him. His gaze is brooding, deeper and heavier than she has seen it before. She slips by him into the apartment, unsure whether she should be here, aware of his eyes on her skin. The door closes behind her. Swallowing her anxiety, she stands tall and walks through to the lounge where the dim lights glow yellow on the artwork. The carpet absorbs all sound and when she turns he is standing closer to her than she realised. Something in her stomach contracts.
He lifts a tumbler from the chunky wooden coffee table and takes a deep swig of drink. The ice rattles and his hand curls around the glass. ‘Do you want one?’ he asks, raising his glass and his eyebrows at her.
‘What are you drinking?’
‘Bourbon. You can have it with or without Coke.’
‘With, please.’
He strolls into the kitchen, something unreadable about him, and clunks his glass on the white stone bench, pulls another tumbler from an overhead cupboard. He crackles ice into both glasses from the dispenser in the stainless steel fridge. Then he sloshes in generous portions of spirit, topping hers with Coke before thrusting the glass at her. Task completed, he glides by her and slumps on the couch. ‘Sit down,’ he says.
She deliberately chooses an armchair diagonally across from him and sinks into the soft leather, but she’s unable to relax. His vibes are less friendly than she’d expected, and there is something raw and restrained about him, as if he is curbing buried anger. ‘You’re not very happy to see me, are you?’ she says.
‘You’ve interrupted my private binge.’
‘Why are you drinking?’ she asks, even though she already knows.
‘Stress relief,’ he says.
The words
seeing you
hang unspoken in the air. Dodging his eyes, Abby sips her bourbon.
The apartment is quiet. In the past when she’s been here, the TV has usually been on or there has been music playing. Not tonight. She hears the slow huff of his breathing and the sound of ice clinking in his glass as he takes another swig. Her heart rate ratchets up.
‘Why are you here?’ he asks.
She’s disarmed by his directness and her courage evaporates—she shouldn’t have come. ‘I wanted to talk.’
He exhales as he leans forward to set down his glass. Then he sits back, his arms spread along the top of the lounge. His eyes darken as he looks at her. ‘You didn’t just come here to talk, did you?’
Her voice catches in her throat and there are no words she can glue together. She’s suddenly shy and fluttery. Why
is
she here? Something about that taxi driver.
‘Come here.’ He pats the couch beside him.
She shakes her head, a small attempt to assert herself, and he gives a semi-exasperated sigh and stands up. He holds out a hand, and she accepts his warm grasp and lets him draw her up out of the chair. He takes both her hands and holds them in his upturned palms while he studies her. Then his hands slide up her arms and he moves close, touching his lips to her neck.
Yes, he is right. She isn’t just here for a chat. She is here for losing and forgetting, surrender and release. When he holds her and kisses her and slides his tongue on her skin, her blood hums and her body sings and she gives herself over to the crush of desire.