Peter Carey: Amnesia

A large car, a black Ford LTD, entered from the direction of the factory, driving very fast, steering directly at the cage of gnomes. The starving horses scattered. The girl’s throat was dry and she wondered would she even be able to talk when her moment came. She turned to face the Ford as its front right wheel dropped in a ditch and the whole pitched sideways. The roaring engine seemed quite distant. She clearly saw the driver crawl up an incline to the passenger-side door. He was very wide-shouldered and although not tall, possessed by a powerful fat-necked big-chinned fury. As he came he shouted something. She saw he had fat thighs and a distinctive pigeon-toed walk. He was carrying a rod, or tyre lever.

She thought, he does not know I’m just a kid. He will bash my head.

He was using the word trespass. She had time to think, good handle. I am Trespass. I own you.

The crowd of men and women in blue Hazchem suits shuffled and crinkled and now enfolded the Agrikem executive in what the Chinese call a cabbage defence, that is they wrapped loosely around him like the leaves of a cabbage, at once passive and impenetrable, so he was locked in the place where his effluent streamed back into the sewer.

The ABC picture had a cool aesthetic quality. The viewers saw the blue plastic petals open to reveal the Agrikem man. At Patterson Street Coburg, the local member sat on the floor before the television, waiting to hear the angle on the nurse’s strike.

The yellow figure removed her hood. The cameras became agitated. The girl was too shockingly young. She had blonde curls and thoughtful soft grey eyes. The manufacturer was broad-faced, thick-necked, his face unexpectedly sensual. His lips were bows, his cheeks buffed like apples. When he saw the girl he laughed in disbelief.

In Patterson Street, Sando watched his daughter read aloud the chemical analysis her boyfriend had stolen from MetWat. As she recited the contents, he thought, she has made a huge fool of herself. At the same time the ABC rolled the analysis like film credits. He thought, this has taken hours to set up. In all that time not one of the stations had sought a comment from the government.

And where did you get this information? the Agrikem executive asked. He was a hard-nosed bastard, Sando knew.

Gaby said, The state government has a zero tolerance for dioxin. Is that right?

This is all a nonsense. We have MetWat analysis. Talk to them.

This is the MetWat analysis.

Where did you get these?

The girl had a small pimple on her tumescent upper lip. It only emphasised her beauty.

She said, Will you promise to stop this poisonous effluent?

I’m calling the police.

So you won’t turn it off?

Of course not.

Very well, she said, then we will.

How could you do that you idiot? he asked. Clearly he had not really taken in the nature of the plumbing. Now he watched as Mervyn turned the brass valve and the flow was stopped completely.

The man later identified as Ken MacFarlane walked to his beached car, paused, and proceeded to his manufacturing facility. Simultaneously the Premier of the state was being called by all of Melbourne’s media. Gaby Baillieux appeared on the television, again and again, on the huge screen in City Square, on Swanston Street. The Premier of the state cancelled all appointments and spent the morning in conference with MetWat and his environment minister.

This was how Gaby and Frederic and Cosmo and other unnamed individuals closed down the Agrikem plant. Her later exploits would be less visible and more far-reaching, but this was the first, the intoxicating spectacle that would lead her, eventually, to the Koala Lodge.

NONE OF THE FOLLOWING was available when the first edition was rushed so urgently to publication.

Woody Townes had burst into the Koala Lodge, dragging Celine Baillieux after him. The great bull danced and pranced, enraged that the journalist, in a state of fright, continued typing, transcribing lines of dialogue written as spoken. This was not intended as provocation.

Felix Moore was not noble. He feared for his own safety first of all. The connecting door had crashed open. He was finally unprotected, exposed, as vulnerable as a rat fleeing across a ballroom floor.

Woody Townes wore that premeditated jacket with all its useful zips and pockets. He snatched loose pages from the writer’s desk and shoved them into a plastic shopping bag which already held the great bulk of this manuscript. Meanwhile Celine was signalling desperately. She nodded and grimaced. What did these signals mean? Was Felix Moore meant to give Woody what he wanted? Yes? No? He handed him twelve numbered pages in a manila folder. Then he rolled a fresh sheet of paper into his machine. He wrote because he could do nothing else. He wrote to tell his wife what was transpiring. Woody Townes read over his shoulder as if he owned him every word.

Woody said, Tell her you are sorry to have been a coward and a waste of space.

Felix Moore reported this, and made gnomic notations on all the abuse that followed. This was not his usual style.

Gaby Baillieux then entered the room and he was moved, again, by the small bare feet the chipped nail polish. He experienced a deep and complex familiarity with a woman he had met only once before. At her side was a wiry whippy man, perhaps thirty-five years of age with deep-set eyes and sunken cheeks. The barcode tattoo on his wrist identified him as Frederic Matovic, but could this man have ever been the girl-boy with the eye shadow? If so he had been distilled, reduced, burnished and he confronted Woody Townes like a hard man, with his right hand held down along the seams of his jeans. Felix Moore had never seen an actual “shiv,” but the whole of Frederic’s body suggested he held one in close against his thigh.

OK, famous Frederic said to Woody Townes. What you got?

The property developer’s eyes were small, pouchy, bloodshot, dangerous. They settled on Frederic and stayed on him throughout the following silence. When he reached into his jacket he produced two Australian passports and tossed these on the desk.

Using an aluminium jeweller’s loupe Frederic inspected one and then the other. He took his time.

Judith, he said, delivering the first passport to Gabrielle Baillieux.

If this was a joke, no-one smiled. Woody offered a fat brown envelope. Gabrielle Baillieux counted the contents and Frederic’s eyes did not leave Woody Townes.

OK, said Gaby.

Airline tickets, said Frederic.

Celine was already searching in her handbag in the manner of a woman who fears she has lost her keys. Shit, she said, I put them in the glove box in the car.

Woody groaned.

I thought they would be safer, the actress said.

OK, said Frederic, this is what we are going to do. Gaby and Celine will stay here. You will give me your keys, mate. I will go and get the tickets.

You’re joking I hope.

All right, you tell me how to do it.

Woody narrowed his eyes and Frederic held out his left hand, leaving the right down by his side.

Flashlight too, he said.

I haven’t got a flashlight.

Bullshit.

Woody paused and when his hand emerged from inside his jacket the writer was relieved to see only a flashlight.

Frederic departed with key and flashlight. The writer typed. Woody Townes instructed him to cease. He was unable to comply and was abused. Woody Townes then turned on Gabrielle Baillieux to whom he delivered a sarcastic lecture on the future of the earth: the planet had always been going to die; there was nothing she or anyone could do about it. In 5 billion years the sun would go cold and the story would be over. So save the fucking whales. Was she such a spoiled superior up-herself cunt to think this would not apply to her?