PERCEPCIÓN SOBRE EL MERCADO ORIGINARIO, POR PARTE DE LOS EMPRESARIOS

Filthy black cunt. Fucking black bitch. Lying in the dirt where they chucked her out of the car. Reliving it night after night, over and over. She remembers the bottle in her hand, pain relief, lifts it to her lips, fills her mouth, swallows.

‘Hey, Frankie, guzzle the lot, why don’t ya.’ Billy snatches the liquor and drains the last of it in one long gulp.

‘No worries, girlie,’ the whitefella says. ‘Plenty more where that came from.’ He’s been eyeing her all night.

‘Let’s go. C’mon, Frankie,’ Margaret says. ‘School tomorrow.’

She’s a good girl, Margaret. True sister, that one. When she came down, those first few weeks when she knew nobody except her stupid cousins, Margaret took her in, even though she’s Yamatji, not Noongar. She’d be lost without Margaret.

‘You’re not leaving?’ Billy says. ‘Max here’s buying another round.’ The whitefella’s waving a handful of dollar notes. ‘You stay here. Keep ‘im entertained, sisters. Joey and me’ll go get it.’ He grabs the money. ‘Won’t be a sec.’

‘We’re going home,’ Margaret yells at their disappearing backs.

‘Aw, come on, where’s the fun in that? School, eh? You’re kiddin’ me. You look way too grown up. What you wanna do when you leave school?’

‘As if you give a shit,’ Margaret says, yanking Frankie’s arm. ‘Come on.’

Jack ignores her, looks directly into Frankie’s eyes. ‘You’re gorgeous. You know that? You could be a model, or in the movies. Nothing mundane and boring for you my lovely.’

‘Never seen no Abos in the movies, or parading in the magazines, have you Frankie?’ Margaret says.

‘You could be the first,’ Jack says.

‘Are you coming or not?’ Margaret says. Frankie does not move, but smiles across at Jack half-hidden in the shadowy light. He produces a small bottle of liquor from his coat pocket. She doesn’t even notice Margaret stalk off.

62

63

Boom Town

The plane is late and by the time Stephen is in the cab heading towards the office, it’s well after one o’clock.

‘Sorry mate,’ the driver says when they stall again in traffic on the main freeway into the city. ‘Can you believe this crap, so much money, the way they tell it, and they can’t even build a decent road.’

Stephen considers not going in to the office, but what for, what else would he be doing if not working? Caly looks just the same. But she’s not. She’s changed. Any fool can see that. Her mother’s accident maybe, but he’s guessing there’s a man behind it somewhere, too.

A message comes through. More talks. The company was having second thoughts but is showing renewed confidence, now they know that the government does not intend to budge. At yesterday’s meeting, Cyril had them rolling with laughter at his perfect parody of a well-known mining tycoon’s poem on a brass plaque outside a shopping centre. But brass plaques aside, the project is likely to succeed. Embrace multiculturalism, and in the same breath Welcome short-term foreign workers to our shores; this is what they are up against. As if anything short-term can offer what the community needs.

Back at the office, he ties up a few loose ends in the report. He thinks he has something reasonably settled for the feature on AUREN, but when he shows it to Terry Willmot, the editor passes it back, saying, ‘Everything’s changed now. Get your arse over to the meeting. Don’t you get it– they’re not going to let this go. I reckon they’ll push it through today.’ Willmot looks intently up at him from under a bush of white brows and hair. ‘So what’re you waiting for?’

‘The Premier’s interstate,’ Stephen says.

‘All the better. Doesn’t need to be implicated. He can always come back and claim the credit.’

‘Is there no stopping it?’ Even to his own ears he sounds naïve. He wonders if Caly really means to make the film, if she means to stay in the Gascoyne for a while. Willmot’s glaring at him. ‘You’ve no idea Terry, the mess they’re making. When it comes down to it, getting Yamatji to sign agreements by twisting their arm isn’t that different from all the other land grabs they’ve been through. Why can’t it be shelved?’

‘What the hell for? It’s win-win for everybody. Lots of jobs for the Yamatji community if it goes ahead.’

64

‘I’ll remember that,’ Willmot snaps, ‘if you don’t pull your head out of your arse and start telling it how it is. There’s just so much of this culture crap I’ll take, Steve. Father or no father.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘And we’ll have none of that sort of fucking language in here neither. Piss off!’

In a cab again, Stephen feels the tiredness that’s been lying in wait, deep in his bones. When he comes back to the city he notices things like the patterning of the afternoon sun on the glass towers, concrete, cars, clumps of people stopping and starting and stopping and starting, clinging together in shoals as they cut across the lines of vehicles that thread under and over the city’s freeways. Earplugs, earphones, eyes downcast, waiting for the signal, waiting for the cars to pass. No-one laughing.

Yes, Cyril had them in stitches yesterday, even when it meant so much to them all. The lawyers, of course, not laughing, dragging them back to the realities of the matter. But really, what did it matter if they laughed or cried? He has no illusions– mining’s got the country by the short and curlies. Perhaps it always did. It’ll be a miracle if anyone succeeds in changing that. Not for the first time, he thinks he should not be in this job. Perpetuating, influencing, doing their bidding. Caly’s work, now that is something. She may not get the message out on a regular basis, only two films in the past decade, but the impact they’re making is ten times greater than anything he’s ever done. But she’s not his father’s child, that’s the difference. He tries to imagine Vin’s face. ‘Stephen’s doing what?’ Even his angle on the hub at Stark Bay flies too close to Willmot’s fine line. Willmot watches his every move, polices him as if he has a direct line to Vin Satler’s mind, Vin Satler’s agendas.

There’s a message from Ruth. Dinner tonight with Andrea Stepaneki and her new husband. She’s probably Andrea someone else by now, changed her name. Stepaneki’s a mouthful. And now that she’s given Nick the flick… He says yes, he’ll be home, but it’s the last thing he needs. Stephen watches from the cab window the development along the foreshore. Cranes dip and nod against the skyline, diggers gouge deep where there was once a wetland. The banks of the Swan River look vulnerable, and there are, of course, no swans. No bird life to see at all, except the shrieking gulls that wheel overhead. The water swirls with brown clouds where the disturbed soil spills into the river. Another of the Premier’s monuments to himself. Not that there’s anything new in that. It’s always bemused him, ever since hearing in primary school how Mrs Dance cut down a tree to mark the city’s founding. Then, and now, the wetlands have been drained and filled with the landfill of flattened hills, limestone rubble trucked in from miles around, and human garbage. It’s upon these foundations the city is constructed. The Noongar were displaced as soon as it became evident that living side by side disadvantaged the settlers and inhibited progress. These stories, of course, are not the stuff of newspapers. Oh, he is definitely in the wrong job.

65

Nick Stepaneki is taking photographs now, has given up his job working with heritage sites. Too hard, Stephen guesses, when you really care about the consequences of your reports. Years of Nick’s work with the mob to preserve the Burrup in its entirety has come to virtually nothing. As the tycoon’s poem says, billions are crying out for resources. How can the value of a million 30,000 year old petroglyphs compete with that?

Stephen says nothing at the meeting. That’s not his job. He nods at Benson and Taylor, the Yamatji Council lawyers. After the meeting, they go to the bar for a quick drink.

‘Is it really as hopeless as it sounds?’ he asks. ‘I thought AUREN were reconsidering the Pilbara option, but this sounds almost fait accompli.’

‘Unless the Feds intervene. And that’s not going to fucking happen, is it?’ Miles Benson doesn’t look much older than thirty, but he has been around a long time, must be pushing fifty. Stephen’s always glad to be on his side. Not that they’ll win this case, considering what they are up against.

‘What’s your next move?’

‘Can’t really say, Steve. It’s a fucking mess. I don’t think the Yamatji mob understand how close they are to losing any say in the matter.’

‘Is that why they signed?’

Benson hesitates, chooses the words carefully. ‘It was the best we had– or compulsory acquisition and fuck all. At least this way we have a foot in the door.’

‘But AUREN can do what they like?’

‘Well, not entirely,’ Taylor says. He removes his silver-rimmed glasses, shakes out a handkerchief and wearily wipes his eyes.

‘But pretty much.’

‘Yep, pretty much. Our concern is for comp. At least the mob will walk away with some dollars.’

‘If not their country,’ Stephen says. ‘Not much, is it? After tens of thousands of years of custodianship.’ Taylor begins to explain, to make excuses. Stephen puts his glass on the table. ‘Gotta go,’ he says. ‘I told Ruth I’d be back by seven.’

‘You won’t make it,’ Benson says. ‘The traffic’s a fucking nightmare.’

–––––––––––

Andrea’s new husband is a short, thickset man with a trimmed moustache and beard. Nothing like Nick, and younger than Stephen’s expecting. They remember meeting somewhere before.

66

‘Very inbred, WA. Everybody knows everybody,’ the new husband says.

Everybody fucking everybody, Stephen is tempted to say, thinking of the time with Andrea before he and Ruth married. Andrea makes a few jibes about his thinning hair. She looks the same as always, slim and sleek. When they were young, she was always the odd one out. He wonders why Ruth persists with the friendship. Ruth comes in from the kitchen carrying a platter. She’s gained weight since the kids, and her love of cooking hasn’t helped. But in candlelight her skin and auburn hair are burnished and full of life.

‘I thought I’d give paella a go,’ she says, placing it in the centre of the table. Steam and flavour waft from the dish. She serves them, offers the salad. ‘A terrible year for prawns but I did manage to get some from Exmouth.’

‘Yes, I heard that. No abalone to speak of and the crayfish have carked it,’ Andrea’s husband says.

‘I hear the incomparable Caly Bell is back,’ Andrea says. ‘How is she, Stephen?’ ‘You saw her?’ Ruth asks.

‘Well, yes of course I did. She’s staying at the homestead.’ ‘Cosy,’ Andrea says.

‘Not particularly. It’s a very big house.’

‘What’s she going to do?’ Ruth looks at him carefully. ‘Another drop?’ He waves the bottle of red.

‘Is she up there for the protest?’ Ruth asks. ‘I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.’

‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.’ The new husband is pleased with his joke.

‘Stephen. It’s a simple question. I thought she was coming to Perth for the launch of her mother’s biography,’ Ruth says.

‘If you know, why keep asking.’ He sees her eyes narrow.

‘Silk and Silver. Madeleine Bell inside and out. Definitely worth a read I’d say, especially knowing her,’ Andrea says.

‘I’m surprised Caly can spare the time, that’s all… I don’t expect she’ll be around for long,’ Ruth persists.

‘Cynthia is going on eighty. Of course she wants to spend some time up there.’

‘I bet she’ll get roped in,’ Andrea says. ‘Nick says that the Yamatji mob are going to talk to her about making a film.’

‘You’ve been talking to your ex-husband?’ the new husband says.

67 spill in New Mexico but the funding was canned.’

‘After New York, working in this little parochial backwater?’ Andrea says. ‘Whatever, I can’t see it doing much good for Stark Bay,’ Stephen mutters. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘I’ve just come from a meeting. AUREN are back in the game. They’re not called Australian Uranium and Energy for nothing. Benson and Taylor reckon there’s little chance of stopping it now.’

‘Oh, no! That’s awful,’ the women say in unison.

‘You’ve been talking with Nick?’ the new husband says. ‘Oh, shut up,’ the women say in unison.

68