The Grass Castle (40 page)
Her eyelids are heavy. She lifts them reluctantly then lets them slide shut. She is comfortable in darkness, doesn’t want to listen. But the voice is insistent.
‘Come on Daphne. No more sleeping. You’re okay now. Everything is fine.’
She tries again, and this time her eyes skip open and light floods in. There is a face, a nurse, leaning over her.
‘Oh, that’s great. You’re awake, Daphne. Can you hear me?’
Of course, she can hear. ‘Yes.’ Her voice is a dry croak that doesn’t belong to her.
‘That’s wonderful Daphne. It’s good to have you back.’
The nurse is smiling. Daphne sees a smooth round face, honey-coloured hair cut in a short bob that tucks with a kink beneath the nurse’s chin. The nurse stands up. ‘I’ll go and phone your daughter to let her know you’re awake.’
Daphne watches her walk away. She is weary, foggy. Around her, she hears the rhythmic pipping of machines. Other patients coughing. Muted conversation.
She closes her eyes and rests.
Abby’s mind was on other things when her supervisor Quentin suggested she go to the kangaroo cull as an observer. She was thinking of Daphne, back at home and recovering from surgery. She was thinking of Daphne’s husband Doug riding into the mountains and never coming back. She was thinking of her brother Matt and his trip to Central Australia—how he too might never have come back.
Sunlight was pouring into Quentin’s north-facing office and gathering around his head like a halo. He was sitting at his desk, hands folded in front of him, saying how important it was for scientists to understand the ramifications of their work. One day as a kangaroo ecologist, Abby might need to propose a cull herself. If she couldn’t see the job through, she shouldn’t recommend it.
They need objective observers,
Quentin had said, peering at her over his rectangular bifocals.
A country girl like you would be ideal. Practical, scientific.
Abby felt a cold knot weaving itself in her chest. She’d rather not go to this cull, would rather read about it in an official government report or even in one of Cameron’s articles in the newspaper. She tried to hide her reluctance, to appear professional.
There’s no-one else
? she asked.
A frown folded between Quentin’s eyes.
You’ d only be expected to go for one night. And I’ ll be there. The vet, too.
Abby couldn’t trot out the excuse of field commitments—her work was almost done and Quentin knew it. He was waiting for her response.
I suppose I can do it,
she said.
If it’s just one night.
He’d relaxed into an approving smile, and gave her the date and the time.
Now she crests the hill in her work vehicle and stops on the road to survey the reserve. It’s a bleak place, bare, dry, rocky, and the adjacent farmland is flogged and grey, grassless, scraped by wind. There’s nothing but sheep and a few sad farmhouses, hunching in hollows between hills. Abby can see why the farmers might want to shoot kangaroos that rove onto their properties. There is nothing to eat.
Her eyes shift to the reserve gate and she notices movement down there, a crowd of people. She sees lines of parked cars along the road, a thread of smoke coiling from a campfire near the entry, signs and flapping banners. She wonders what’s happening, maybe a demonstration . . . she hadn’t thought of that. She hesitates, watching people milling and scurrying near the gate like ants. There are so many of them, and the gate is shut.
Her heart rate climbs a notch and she wonders if they will let her in. She’s running late—she forgot her coat and beanie and had to go back for them. Now it is past the time Quentin told her to show up; he must have gone in without her. The shooters, the drivers and the reserve staff must have passed through the gates already. If they managed to get in, she hopes she can too. Quentin would have called if there was a problem, but her phone has been silent all afternoon. Everyone is too busy for phone calls, Cameron too—she hasn’t heard from him since the night of the public meeting. But she knows he’ll be at the gate with all those people. This is the biggest environmental story of the year, and she’s sure he wouldn’t miss out. She puts the vehicle in gear and starts down the hill.
As she approaches the gate, the crowd turns and tightens like a predator examining prey. The mass of bodies spreads, separating into small groups. Abby sees them snatch up items from the ground and bunch together before they launch towards her. She hesitates and her foot slips from the clutch, and the vehicle lurches, shudders and stalls. The protesters rush forward, leaping and jeering, pumping placards. She reaches to lock the doors.
They come at her armed with sticks and rocks, their voices raised in a battle cry. Swelling like a wave, they flow around her. She sits tight behind the wheel, cowering. She doesn’t know what to do. Should she re-start the vehicle and try to push through? It seems a mistake to stop, but she doesn’t want to hit anyone.
They batter the car with sticks and fists, yelling, shouting, their faces pressed against the windows. She sees mouths torn open with rage, eyes blazing, hands shoving against glass, ripping at the door handles. The vehicle rocks. There is banging. Thuds and crashes. A banner is plastered across the windscreen, Killer glaring at her in red capital letters. Her heart is thunder. She can’t see the way, can’t escape the shrieking, swearing, curses. She’s an animal in a trap. These people might smash the car, shatter the windscreen. They might try to drag her out. Is there anyone out there who can help her? Where is Cameron?
A deep voice sounds at her window, and a square grim face stares in at her, a man in uniform. Strong blue men are pushing the people back. The banner is dragged from the windscreen, bundled into a roll. Police guards shove through, ejecting protesters, yelling threats. The man at the window signals for her to open the door but she is gripped in a vice of fright, incapable of moving. She thinks perhaps she sees Cameron out there among the blur of faces. He will help her. He will take her away from all this.
‘Come on,’ the guard shouts. ‘Let me in. The men will escort you through.’
Several uniformed guards have circled her vehicle now. She opens the door and scrambles into the passenger seat, shaking. The man climbs in, taut and grim-faced. He settles in the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel. ‘You have ID?’
‘Yes. I’m here as an observer for the cull.’ She scrabbles for her wallet in the glove box to show her driver’s licence.
The guard starts the vehicle and clunks it in gear then he eases forward. The line of uniformed men forces the protesters aside as the car inches through. At the gate they are buffeted by a renewed surge of jeering and screaming, insults pouring down. Protesters break the line and dive at the car. A rock cracks the rear window leaving a streak of lightning. Then the gates swing open and they are through. The gates close behind them, thrust by guards leaning into the desperate force of the demonstrators.
The guard drives a short distance into the reserve then he hauls on the brake and steps out. ‘Nasty lot,’ he says. ‘You’ve copped a few dents, but that’s getting off lightly.’
Abby’s insides feel pummeled. ‘Thank you,’ she says. It’s the understatement of the year.
He flashes a grisly smile then slams the door and strides back to the gate.
For a few moments Abby sits there, trying to subdue her battering heart, then she crawls into the driver’s seat and opens the window. Beyond the gate-hysteria, the reserve is bathed in a vast, incongruous quiet. She breathes in, seeking composure. Around her everything seems hushed, connected to another world, separate to conflict. Her heart slows. On the road, a willie-wagtail flaunts its tail and chitters. In the grass, thornbills and fairy-wrens bob. There is normality here after all. She slips the car into gear and trundles along the road.
The depot car park is bristling with four-wheel drives, all crowded in neat rows. Among them are Troop Carrier tray-backs decked out with panels bearing hooks, and topped with the silver orbs of spotlights. These must be the shooters’ vehicles. On the back of one, in a wire cage, a large mongrel dog fixes Abby with a restless eye and growls as she passes on her way to the depot. Her stomach clenches—after the encounter at the gate it doesn’t take much to escalate her adrenalin.
Inside the depot building it is warm and quiet. Abby follows a hum of voices to a room where men sit on orange plastic chairs facing a whiteboard to which a map of the reserve has been tacked. The reserve manager is drawing lines on the map with a texta and a ruler. He stops as she enters and waves her to a seat. From the front row Quentin nods and smiles.
Abby sinks onto a chair. She is the only double X in a room pulsing XY. In jeans and a fleece, she’s a stranger among this gathering of overalls and gumboots. Girl-neat, she sits among splayed legs and hairy arms, probably thirty kilograms lighter than the smallest of them.
The reserve manager is dividing the reserve into units and assigning areas for shooters. The aim is to remove as many animals as possible in one night; the shorter the time frame, the less headache for everyone. Each shooter will start in the north of his zone and work south. There is a designated buffer area between each zone to prevent accidents. Everyone has communications equipment to use if in doubt.
Female kangaroos are to be pouch-checked and any live joeys slipped into cloth bags until they can be examined by the vet; Abby sees him sitting down the back on the other side of the room. Each vehicle will have an assistant/driver to help lift carcasses onto the truck, and also an observer. Extra staff will be spread around to help pick up bodies. They are to count animals as they are shot and make a tally. When vehicles and trailers are full, a cease-fire will be called so teams can drop off carcasses at the pit.
Abby is assigned to a shooter named Kevin. When her name is called, the men turn like folding hinges to examine her. Down the front, a stocky, clean-shaven man with a square jaw and short-cropped brown hair gives her a nod, his blue eyes flashing beneath solid brows. This must be Kevin. He looks friendly, doesn’t seem to be annoyed at being lumped with her.
One of the shooters asks what they should do if protesters manage to gain access to the site—he doesn’t want to shoot anyone. Grunts of concern echo among the men. The manager explains there will be an immediate cease-fire if any demonstrators breach security lines. Guards posted along the boundary will alert him if any problems arise. A discussion ensues about security protocols and procedures; the men are clearly worried about possible tactics from the activists. Abby is impressed by the attention to detail. Apart from the fact that she was somehow left out of the loop, the safety of the shooters and reserve employees has been carefully protected. While the demonstrators were performing at the front gates, the shooters entered hours ago via another access point, using side-roads where nobody could see them.
After the briefing, Quentin tells her that he came in the back way too. He says he tried to call her so she would know where to go, but she didn’t answer. He left messages to warn her. She checks her phone and is embarrassed to find she has forgotten to turn it on; it’s no wonder Quentin couldn’t contact her. Cameron might have tried to call too. But it’s too late now. She decides to leave her phone off for the duration of the cull. She doesn’t want Cameron ringing when she’s in the thick of things.
At dusk, they head out into the car park, dividing into teams. Abby watches Kevin pull his weapon from a locked metal compartment in the back of his truck. It’s a .223 target-grade rifle, with a thick stainless-steel shaft and wooden stock. Abby has seen guns before, but nothing like this. Guns were part of her life, growing up on the farm. Sometimes her father had to shoot sick stock—the vet’s call-out fee was more than the price of a sheep. Cattle were more valuable, but if hope of recovery was minimal, it was better to end the struggle sooner.
Her brother Matt used to go out shooting rabbits sometimes. He would head into the hills behind their farm, fading into the bush with his shotgun over his shoulder, the dog slinking at his heels. Afterwards, it was rabbit stew for dinner—the skinned carcass simmering in a pot with carrots and potato. Once the meat was falling from the bones, it was ready to eat, dished with gravy onto a pile of rice. Occasionally she would bite down on pellets in the flesh, grimacing at the shock of metal against teeth.