Geoffrey Cousins - The Butcherbird

‘I’m sorry I’m late, Louise. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’

He slid into the chair opposite her and she found she was unreasonably glad to see him. ‘You’re not late. I was early. Remind me, it is John I use on Thursdays, isn’t it?’

The Pope smiled. ‘Yes, it is.’ He waved a waiter to the table. ‘Will you eat, or just coffee? A glass of wine?’

‘I’d love something. I haven’t eaten today. The pattern of life is a little confused at the moment.’

She watched him order, take charge, and relaxed back into the chair. That was what she wanted-for someone to take charge. Everyone assumed that inside she was as strong as the shield she wore externally. But to have someone else command, take over, what a relief to be able to cast off the burden of care.

‘How is Jack?’ He saw the disappointment on her face. ‘More to the point, how are you? It must be very hard.’

She began to speak, but the tears came before the words. It was impossible, to be crying in a public place, with a man she barely knew, but it was impossible to stop. He slipped around into the chair alongside and took her hand, not speaking, just a strong hand holding hers. The waiter placed the food and water on the table and glanced at her as he did so, but still she cried. Finally the hand was withdrawn.

‘The pasta will be cold and the wine will be warm.’ He passed her a white handkerchief from his pocket and she took it gratefully. It smelled of sun and she could see his initials in blue in one corner.

‘It’s a beautiful handkerchief. Thank you.’ He laughed. ‘Please keep it, although you’d better unpick the initials or your husband might get jealous.’

‘I don’t think he’d have any case on that score, do you?’ He glanced at her quizzically. They ate in silence for a while. ‘We need help. It’s too much. Hedley Stimson’s death, ASIC, Jack’s suspension. You heard about that?’

‘Yes, it was on the screens this morning. Along with a beautifully crafted press release from Sir Laurence. The company makes no presumption of guilt regarding the investigation of the actions of its CEO, but believes the suspension of his duties pending the outcome of such investigation is in the interest of shareholders.’

She let her fork fall into the remains of the pasta. ‘I notice they didn’t suspend Mac Biddulph.’

‘You can’t suspend a director of a public company. The shareholders can vote him out in a general meeting, but the board has no power to oust a director.’

She folded her napkin and placed it beside the bowl. ‘Can you help us? I mean, can you help us more? I know you’ve already contributed a great deal, but now we need a new direction, a new lawyer-I don’t know. This is all beyond my experience.’ She leaned forward, trying to hold him with her eyes. ‘I feel we’ll never recover from this if we don’t fight. Jack’s reputation may never recover anyway. Mud sticks, doesn’t it, even though you wash it clean. It sticks in people’s dirty minds.’

He watched her carefully as she spoke and saw the turmoil beneath her struggle for composure. ‘There are enough people who know Jack’s real character to outweigh the others, if he holds on.’

‘You really believe that?’

‘Yes.’

‘So will you help us?’ He took the bowls and stacked them with the side plates and gestured for the waiter to clear the table. Her heart sank as she watched him. ‘I can’t help you any longer. I’m deeply sorry.’

Somehow this seemed the worst blow of all. He’d been her secret hope, the mysterious, powerful boundary rider who would make it all come right.

‘I’m ashamed to say this to you, but I must say it.’ He reached for her hand again, but she drew it away. He nodded resignedly. ‘It’s difficult to explain, I-’

She cut in. ‘Don’t bother. You can’t help. Let’s not confuse matters with unnecessary explanation.’ She took up her handbag from the spare chair, but this time he grasped her arm before she could withdraw.

‘Please. Don’t go. It’s not like that. I’m not a fair-weather friend.’ He held her to the chair. ‘Will you answer one question for me? If you could save a child of yours or a friend of yours, but not both, which would you choose?’

She looked into his eyes and saw the pain and knew it was real. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘And I can’t explain.’ He stood and placed money on the saucer with the bill. ‘Go to the group. Go to Jack’s friends. I’m not a member anymore, but they’ll help you.’ He held out his hand. ‘One day, I hope you’ll forgive me and want to see me again. I’ll always want to see you.’

When she stumbled out into the glaring sun, she was blinded and confused. She crossed the busy road with cars hooting at her. She wandered into Hyde Park without reason or purpose. She felt old and unattractive and lost. She was a woman in an expensive suit with eyes red from crying, stripped bare of artifice or mask. She came upon a giant chess board cut into a corner of the park, with a group of men moving the pieces about the squares. She sat on a stone parapet nearby, to watch, without seeing. An old man smiled at her, but it was a smile of pity.

She walked back to the street and past a newsstand. The poster had the letters HOA and a picture of Jack with some other word, and she hurried away from it. She tried to hail a taxi but none stopped, so she just stood there, for how long she wasn’t sure, watching the traffic roar by. And then she heard the voice and focused on the taxi with the driver calling to her through the open window.

She was going home. chapter sixteen

Mac was already seated in the wicker armchair on the verandah when the dawn chorus greeted the promise of first light. First came the raucous laughter of the blue-winged kookaburras-a satirical parody of the bigger laughing kookaburra he was used to hearing in Sydney. Then the single-note contact calls and territorial screeches of the galahs, followed by the loud yodelling of the secretive black butcherbirds. He’d never seen one of these birds despite years of trudging through creek beds with binoculars at the ready. He wondered if they sometimes impaled their prey on a thorn before devouring it, like their cousins, the grey butcherbirds. But then there were so many conflicting calls ringing out through the eucalypts and bouncing off the rocky outcrops that he couldn’t distinguish one from another.

He sat very still in the chair. He loved this time of day in this place. He loved being alone here. He smiled inwardly at the thought. Most people wouldn’t believe Mac Biddulph was a nature lover, but of all the things he stood to lose, the loss of Bellaranga would hurt the most. Fishing in the rivers for barramundi, hunting for rock art in the helicopter, riding into palm-filled valleys surrounded by red rock cliffs, the dawn chorus. And the people. There was no pretence in these people; they were straightforward, blunt, as tough as the landscape. They were his sort of people-honest and hardworking.

Well, who would ever see him as honest again? All they had to do was charge you with something and your reputation was shredded forever. Not that they’d charged him with anything yet. But they would.

What would happen to his people here? Who would look after them if he lost this place? When he lost it. It was when, not if. He had to be realistic. Even if the banks didn’t take it, even if they couldn’t navigate their way through the reefs of dummy companies and legal atolls littered in their course, he couldn’t pay the bills anymore. Simple as that. Now the cash tap was turned off it was frightening how quickly the pipes blocked up. So who would look after his people?

In the half-light he saw a shadowy figure making its way slowly to the windmill. He was always first up, old Frank. Too old to ride, too old for mustering or even cutting out. Reduced to gardening, but still one of his people. There were no Aborigines working the cattle anymore, all that magic horsemanship lost to welfare cheques and booze, but old Frank stayed and worked and rose at first light everyday. He was going blind now, but he could see enough.