eyebrows. ‘This is Maroubra. Please sit down.’
It felt very lonely, to all three, to be huddled at one end of a table for twelve with nine empty chairs staring at them with vacant seats.
‘Where are the others?’ She felt it was a question no one wanted asked, so she put it on the table before the pleasantries. Murray Ingham shifted in his seat. ‘The Pope said you were direct.’
‘Did he?’ She placed her hands flat on the table as if to steady herself. ‘I’m hoping you’ll be equally straightforward with me, Mr Ingham.’
Maroubra spoke for the first time. ‘We’re here to help, Louise. We’ve been trying to help already, and we’re going to press on if we can.’
She nodded and gave him a weak smile. ‘Where are the others?’
Murray Ingham leaned forward, perhaps to take one of her hands, but she drew back and folded her arms tightly across her chest. He spoke softly, almost in a whisper, in a room where there was no one to overhear. ‘I’m afraid we’re all there is. You have to understand, when we started it was agreed anyone could drop out if a conflict of interest arose.’
She waited for him to finish, but there was no more. Her eyes travelled over the empty chairs. ‘And a great number of conflicts have arisen?’
‘Yes.’ She seemed to press her arms tighter against her body and to draw back as if to protect herself. ‘The Pope said there was a lawyer in the group who would help us. Are either of you lawyers?’
‘No.’
She sagged almost imperceptibly. ‘I don’t really know much about the group. Jack doesn’t even know I’m here. Can I ask what the two of you do when you’re not lunching?’
Maroubra answered. ‘I’m a salvage operator. Murray is a writer-novelist, biographer, that sort of thing-as you probably know.’
She began to laugh, too hard. ‘God help us. A salvage man and a storyteller. That’s what we have left. We’re dead, Jack, we’re dead and buried.’
Now she was sobbing, and Murray Ingham rose and stood behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. No one spoke. Gradually she regained control and her hands flew to her face. ‘God, I’m so sorry. That was unforgivable. You’re trying to help us and I was rude beyond reason. Please…’
Murray cut her off and held her before she could draw away.
‘It’s all right. You’re entitled.’ He waited until she looked up at him. ‘You can call me a storyteller anytime. And Maroubra has been called more names than he can remember. The only insult you could throw his way would be coward, and I don’t think you’ll find cause for that.’ He smiled and released her hands. ‘We may not be much, but we’re here.’
When she finally began to talk, the words poured out, tumbling over one another in a disconnected series of scenes and snapshots: the death of the old lawyer, the ASIC raid, their meeting with Renton Healey, the document in the safe, the old lawyer’s wife, Jack’s determination, Jack’s lack of determination, her commitment. All were jumbled in a kaleidoscope of shifting pieces, out of context, out of chronology, beyond order. But they let her run on, allowed the catharsis of the outpouring to take its course. Finally she staggered to a halt, almost breathless, and looked around dazedly.
‘Is there water? Please, could I have water?’
Maroubra rose and disappeared through the kitchen door. Louise and Murray sat in silence until he returned with a glass. She drained it off. They waited.
‘The lawyer from the group, what’s his name? Why can’t he be here?’
Maroubra answered. ‘Tom Smiley.’ He paused. ‘He’s accepted a brief as Mac Biddulph’s barrister.’
‘Oh, God.’ Now her body slumped down. She shook her head. ‘The whole world’s against us, isn’t it? He said it would happen this way, the old lawyer. It’s just as he predicted. He told Jack everyone would run for cover once the bombs started falling, and they have, haven’t they?’
‘Not quite.’ Murray Ingham drew a small black notebook from his breast pocket and snapped back the elastic strap from its cover. ‘Why don’t you tell us the story again? Sometimes stories are more powerful than you imagine. Let’s see if we can weave a warm coat from what seems cold comfort.’
She shivered at the words, although the day was humid and the empty restaurant was airless and lifeless. ‘Did you meet him, Hedley Stimson, the old lawyer?’
Murray shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Nor did I. But Jack put all his trust, all his hopes, in him and I came to also. And then, when he died, I turned to Clinton Normile.’ She saw their vague expressions. ‘The Pope. And he brushed me aside. Now this other lawyer abandons us for Mac Biddulph. Where am I to go?’
Maroubra spoke. ‘Try us. We’re not sloping off anywhere. I know a bit more about this than you might imagine. I had people working on it for the Pope. Tell Murray the story again. His brain works differently. You might be surprised.’
And so she began. The sun patterned the yellow floorboards as the pen moved relentlessly across the lined pages. On and on she went, only stopping to clarify in response to a question or to drink when Maroubra returned with more water. As she watched the notebook fill with her words, with their life, her hopes rose. Unreasonably, illogically, she began to believe there was a power in those pages that would save them. When she stepped out into the sun again, leaving the two men at the table as they had been when she’d entered three hours earlier, her spirits lifted with the roar of the surf and the smell of salt. She wanted to run down onto the sand, into the breakers, fully clothed-to feel the grip of the water, to wrestle with the waves. But she turned away, to the car, to Jack. What news did she have to bolster him with? Pages in a notebook. She’d make something of it.
Jack wasn’t at home when Louise returned to Alice Street. He was deep in the paperbark forest in Centennial Park, staring blankly at the peeling sheets of white-pink bark, listening to Joe sloshing through the reedy swamp. The dog was where it shouldn’t be, in the pungent mud of Lachlan Swamp, but then so was everything else where it shouldn’t be. He walked slowly along the raised boardwalk, counting the slats as he went, for no reason. He had nothing else to do, no office to go to, no speeches to make, no conferences to attend, no meetings to take, no plans to draw, no colleagues to converse with, no accolades to accept, no reports to read, no orders to give-nothing. Just the trees and the swamp and a dog mired in rotting compost. He came to a clearing in the forest and leaned against the pulpy surface of an ancient trunk. The sheets of fibrous bark compressed under the weight of his body and he let his head fall back into the softness. The tree was alive in its skin, welcoming, comforting, giving. You could strip great sheets of its bark and make vessels or carrying bags or wrappings as the Aborigines had, or just hold the skin and let the life flow into you, as he was now. He spread his arms around the trunk, three trunks really, melded together in a fluted pillar. He closed his eyes and let the sun fall through the dense canopy onto his hair and face.
When he opened his eyes, both Joe and a small group of Japanese tourists were staring at him with some interest, obviously intrigued to see a genuine Australian tree-hugger in a native forest. He wondered if they’d taken pictures. He called to the dog and they emerged from the paperbarks, heading towards a wooden bridge.
As they did so, he noticed the figure of a man he remembered seeing earlier in their walk. He was wearing a dark tracksuit and a peculiar cap with an unusually long brim. Jack glanced at him quickly then strode off at a brisk pace towards the ponds. He didn’t look back until they’d reached the kiosk where the bike-riders came to refuel on Saturday mornings. He couldn’t see the man and was relieved. Somehow he’d felt he was being followed. Paranoia was creeping into his psyche. He had just clipped the malodorous dog back onto the lead, when he noticed a familiar shape near the queue at the kiosk. There was the peaked cap.
He tugged at Joe’s lead and they almost ran between the two ponds and into a dense palm grove. Why he should be running from anyone he wasn’t sure, but panic was upon him. The dog sensed the change in mood and whined and pulled at the lead. He released him now they were clear of the waterbirds and the animal darted in and out of the palms, chasing shadows and sunbeams, looking back now and again to check if his master was still intent on a mad dash through the fallen fronds. Jack couldn’t see the dark tracksuit behind him, but he could hear someone crashing through the brush. He was sweating, panting, dry in the mouth and, he suddenly realised, a ridiculous figure. What was he running from? Who could be following him? What harm could they do him in a public place? Well, not so public here, in this lonely dark grove, but who would want to harm him anyway?
He stopped, breathing heavily, and stood behind one of the palms to wait for whatever was coming. The dog also halted its insane careering about and stood to one side, a gothic hound covered in a coat of drying mud and
