Arms Race (7 page)

Archie's nasal voice booms out over the PA. We also offer compensation to veterans.
We offer point-zero-six per cent of turnover, shared among all veterans who can prove
an unbroken link to this hillock since seventeen eighty-eight. This will be about
six dollars each, and will rise even further once gold is found. We trust this generous
offer will be looked upon with gratitude.

This time the bellow of anger from the crowd is a
physical force. The police have
drawn their batons and fixed their visors. The light is beginning to fade, and shadows
pool in the shaft where the workers tunnel beneath the shrine. Up the front a TV
technician switches on a bank of halogens. Archie's tense form is a sudden island
of light among the seething mass of protesters. He begins to wind up his speech.

We look forward to working with the old soldiers of Victoria, contributing to the
wealth of the nation, and making a meaningful living for ourselves, like you've always
wanted. Thanks—and if you don't mind me saying, go fuck yourselves.

The crowd erupts. The noise is catastrophic. The police line stumbles back under
the onslaught. Two-dozen police horses thunder into action, charging the crowd from
either side. There are screams as pensioners go down beneath the hoofs.

Toff moves to Archie's side and it is just the two of them standing in the light,
the focus of the crowd's rage.

Shit, Toff says. We have to call this off. Look.

To their right a mass of burly men with crew cuts shoulder-charge the police line.
They look like off-duty soldiers. Old-timers beat the police back with their crutches
and walking frames. A catheter bag slices the air above Toff's head.

Toff looks back, afraid for the work gang's safety. They have emerged from the mouth
of the diggings in a
tight high-vis huddle and are shouting to him. He can't hear
them over the noise. They move slowly towards Toff and Archie and the brilliant halogen
lights.

From the opposite direction the soldiers lead the charge, bellowing and pushing at
the cops. Somewhere in the back a furious martial drumming starts up. The police
line disintegrates. The crowd is upon them.

They all reach the spotlight at the same instant. As the work gang enters the light,
the halogens' fierce rays catch their vests as if catching a huge mirror ball, and
the enraged crowd rears back.

Toff realises the workers are moving in a phalanx because they are carrying something
enormous. They lower the object carefully to the ground at Archie's feet, then peel
away. There is a hot, sharp intake of breath: first from the old man, then the cops,
soldiers and pensioners, and those watching live on TV across the country.

It is a gleaming slab of crystalline white quartz, prized from the earth beneath
the shrine. And running through it, like a bolt of lightning frozen into the rock,
is a seam of gold, as thick as Toff's enormous thigh. Half a million bucks' worth,
at least.

For one brief moment the crowd stands in silent awe, and in that glittering pause,
a microsecond before the Melbourne Rush begins, each of them feels the ripe slink
of blood in their veins, and something else too, something huge and fierce, welling
up inside.

SCAR

1

FAR BELOW the plane, the valley's one road twisted through the scrub, an umbilical
cord of raw red dirt. It was old gold-rush territory down there, broken and remade
by hand. From the Cessna's tiny window I watched our shadow dip and loom across the
hills' corrupted flanks. Then I saw it—the long dark slash of the mine. I'd studied
the surveyor's drawings, but from the air it looked different. The line of the cut
was flanked on either side by three clearings, six in all. There was something familiar
to that symmetry. I rolled the sleeve of my shirt and turned my arm to expose the
veins.

Look, I shouted over the engines.

Christie lowered her pregnancy book. I pointed to the faded scar on the inside of
my elbow. It was a pale line flanked on either side by three small punctures, where
the doctor had fumbled the stitches almost fifty years ago.

Christie frowned behind her sunglasses. I beckoned her to the window, and she leaned
across me to look. I caught her youthful scent, ripe with sweat, and I was glad I'd
asked her to come. It was a work trip, a long one. We were trying for a child.

Do you see that? I yelled in her ear.

She looked out at the mine's pattern on the land, then back at my scar. Strange,
she yelled. What do you think it means?

Nothing. Coincidence.

How'd you get it?

School. Going down a slide. Bolt.

I mimed the head of the rusty bolt slicing the vein. Christie pulled a face.

Buckle up, the pilot shouted. Here we go.

The plane sank down among the treetops. We bumped along the landing paddock and came
to rest beside a dusty LandCruiser. The pilot opened the hatch and folded out the
steps, and the warm drone of the bush flooded in. Christie tied back her tangled
black hair. She stepped down and stretched, and my eyes grazed the smooth olive jut
of her hips where her top rode up. Behind his mirrored aviators the pilot was staring
as well. He'd been flirting all day,
trying to guess: was she part Spanish or Aboriginal
or what?

There's no one here, Christie said. The truck's empty.

Sorry, darl, I should have warned you, the pilot said. They had an outbreak of the
plague round here.

Right, Christie said, but she wasn't really listening.

I stepped down into the heat. We'd only left Perth an hour ago, but already the city
felt a world away. Six cows watched us from the end of the paddock. Beyond was the
olive and gold of the bush, clicking and singing to itself.

I walked to the truck. There were keys in the ignition, and a note on the dashboard.

It's okay, I called. The surveyor got called into town. The truck's ours for the
month. He's left directions.

From the airstrip we drove back up the valley through stands of fledgling karri gums.
Fingers of light strummed across the truck. When we got to Enmore, Christie stepped
down and looked to the scattering of empty houses, and the scrub and hills that rose
beyond.

Christ, that's not a village, she said. There's not even a pub. Nothing.

There's the mine.

There's the collapsed mine.

We'll see. I nodded at the parched playing field beside the road. What about cricket?

She turned and her smile was brilliant. There's no one else to play with, mister.
It's perfect. We've got nothing else to do.

For a whole month.

Better get started, then. The book says now's the best time.

I came round to her side of the truck and kissed her. She looked up at me and I placed
my hand on her stomach, then eased it down between her thighs. Her eyes half closed.

Sometimes these things make me feel young. Sometimes they make me feel like a dirty
old man.

It was sunset when we pulled into the steep driveway. The company had rented us the
house, a bungalow fronted by huge windows overlooking an arc of scrubby hills. There
wasn't a neighbour in sight.

I killed the engine, and the playful squabble of parrots sounded in the trees above.
Someone had built a rough rock cairn atop the slope to the west. Christie stepped
from the truck and climbed towards it. She stopped abruptly.

Oh, Christ. Look at this.

I clambered after her and drew up short. The ground cleaved open before us, dropping
sharply into the cut of the mine. Bands of silver greys and ochre stains ran down
towards the floor. The bottom lay deep in shadow, but I could make out the debris
from the collapse.

My god, I said. I didn't know the house would be so close.

Christie looked from the mine back to the clearing
that held our new home. Show me
your arm, she said. Show me that scar again.

I turned my arm to the day's last light. She placed her finger over the first puncture
mark below the line of the scar.

It's a map, she said. This one's us.

2

At seven on Monday I pulled myself away from Christie's gentle breathing. I scoured
the tang of sex from my skin, shaved and walked to meet the surveyor at the mouth
of the mine. A faint mist trapped the sun between the trees. I was pleased to hear
my boots upon the road, and to see parrots launch their bodies through the air, and
to know that Christie, lying warm inside the house, might already be pregnant. I'd
spent my youth in fear of procreation. I could barely comprehend this new pleasure,
to hold her close and shut my eyes and let life flow unhindered. I wore my shirt
half unbuttoned under my high-vis vest and did not care if I looked foolish.

I reached the road at the bottom of the gully and then the mouth of the open-cut
mine. One side remained sheer. The other had collapsed utterly, its viscera spilled
onto the floor. Among rocks the size of cars, mature trees reached for the light.
I stood and studied the mess.

Just on eight the surveyor pulled up. He was very young. He had a clean-shaven, undercooked
face and an ambitious handshake that made me embarrassed for him.

Morning, I said. I'm Steven.

Pete. Sorry about Saturday—I got called away. You guys settle in all right?

I nodded. Thanks. Great place. I hadn't realised we'd be so close.

Yeah, the only houses round here are on mining land.

We saw the clearings from the plane. Neighbours?

Nah, Pete said. Ruins mostly. They were all bought from the mine by the one family
but they're gone now. Not much missed, either.

So it's just us?

Yeah. The cave-in finished the town. Everyone left for Kal.

And that was—?

Nineteen sixteen. Have a look at this.

Pete returned to his ute and fetched an old black-and-white photo of the mine before
the collapse. The cut was narrow and twice as deep as now, its dark expanse latticed
with props fashioned from whole trees. A crew of serious-faced men looked from their
century into ours.

Lot of men working that, I said.

It was a miracle no one was hurt. Happened on a Sunday. All the old machinery's still
down there.

And you live locally?

Market Road. Family's been here forever. My grandparents still talk about getting
this place reopened.

Well, it doesn't look—I said, but then I saw the expression on Pete's face. It doesn't
look easy, but we've got a month to figure it out.

Pete nodded slowly. So, is that your daughter you've come with?

I stared at the man, but there was no malice in his eyes. If anything, a trace of
bovine hope. I felt embarrassed again, and that made me spiteful.

Yes, I said. My daughter.

Nice. Family time?

Family time. Let's get started.

When I got back to the house that afternoon there were six .22 calibre bullets of
faded brass strewn across the kitchen table. Someone had cut the tips off with a
hacksaw.

Christie, I called. Christie?

The sliding door to the bathroom rolled open. Christie was wearing running shoes
and shorts, and an old T-shirt of mine she'd shrunk in the wash, the week she moved
into my place in Mandera. Her face was glowing. Hi, she said.

Where did these come from?

I found them in an old ute. Why are they like that?

Do more damage. Where's the ute?

You want to go for a walk?

We strolled down to the road among slender saplings the colour of ash. Blackberry
sprawled from the ditches. The track went past our lone letterbox and climbed the
other side.

Christie held my hand. How'd you go today? she said.

Not too bad. Pete's a nice-enough bloke. It doesn't look good for the mine, though.
The lateral subsistence is much worse than they made out.

What'd Pete say?

I shrugged. The locals are all keen to make it work… You know, he asked if you were my daughter.

Christie groaned. What'd you tell him?

I said you were.

Christie pulled her hand away and rabbit-punched me in the shoulder. You're kidding,
right? She looked me in the eye. Steven! What the hell for?

I don't know. Avoiding small-town gossip? I'm more than twice your age.

That's not avoiding gossip! What if he saw us kissing on the road?

What if he saw me do this?

Stop it, she said. Stop it.

Through the trees I caught a glimpse of white. We broke from the track and stepped
over a collapsing fence of hand-cut posts. The ute sat ringed by slag heaps and the
telltale humps of open shafts.

There, Christie said. The bullets were in the glove box.

The ute had no plates and the ignition had been hotwired. A scribbled nest of leaves
and string lay on the driver's seat. The bonnet was up, and someone had prised the
serial plate from the engine block. I looked around at the destroyed landscape and
the rusted car and Christie standing with my T-shirt fitted tight across her breasts.
I pressed myself to her.

All those bullets, I said. Great place to make a mess.

You know, old man, you don't perform and I'll throw you down a mineshaft.

I laughed, and tried to sit Christie on the tailgate of the ute. It was just the
right height.

Quit it, she said. You have to tell Pete I'm not your daughter.

I nodded, caressing the back of her neck. Of course. I'll tell him first thing.

You better. What do you think happened here?

No idea.

Do you think this is one of the clearings? The ones we saw from the air?

I stepped back and looked reluctantly down the hill. Yes, I said. I rolled up my
sleeve and looked at the scar. The second one. Here.

That's so weird, Christie said. I wonder what it means?

Who cares? Right now I have to get you home.