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  ‘How about some payment guarantees to your suppliers, I reckon we’d all appreciate that. Then me and Les’s boys won’t be getting in your way,’ said Pritchett.

  ‘We?’ said Tom, straining to keep his voice steady and detached. ‘I know for a fact you haven’t laboured a day in your life. Yet you still have your snout in the BWIU.’

  ‘Pay guarantees, Tom-boy, that’s what we want. If things go belly up and your creditors come chasing after you, you need to stipulate that you make good on unpaid wages first. See, we reckon that if you don’t make the New South Wales Building Workers Industrial Union your friend … well, the alternative isn’t too nice.’

  ‘We’ve always worked closely with the BWIU. Isn’t that right, Les?’

  ‘There’s been good progress but we still have a way to go. We’ll want to talk with you about the wage guarantees before construction starts.’

  Tom nodded.

  ‘What I want to know is how you can be so sure that this project has legs over the long term,’ said Les.

  ‘Like I said, there are no guarantees. All I ask of you all is that you give this project a fighting chance.’

  ‘It’s worth the gamble,’ said Wendy from the Super-S Supermarket. She laughed and looked around. ‘Am I right?’

  Tom held his breath, waiting for a retort or derision from the humid thrum of bodies. There was no definitive response, simply the hum of several side conversations. The whole point of this exercise was to flush out the bad eggs, figure out who was going to create problems for him. A few hands rose up in the air.

  He patiently answered some questions about the proposed hotel and the new businesses created to support the hotel’s customers. Someone asked about the size of the planned car park; another about construction safety protocols. Yet, there were no objections, not really. A man rose from his seat abruptly, waving an arm about his head like his limbs were slack. Phil Rafter.

  ‘The design of this joint on Serpentine Heights is atrocious,’ barked Phil.

  ‘You’re entitled to your opinion. I happen to disagree. We commissioned world-class architects who—’

  ‘The way you have the designed it to sit on the top of the headland! On the highest elevation in the district! It’s going to stick out like an ugly wart on the end of a nose. My oath, it will.’

  ‘That’s what he intended, you drongo,’ someone called out, sparking hoots of laughter.

  Tom interrupted. ‘True, the elevation of the site makes it visible on the coastal road, just as an attraction should be. While I agree that ugly warts are, well, ugly, this’ll be something we can all be proud of. You have my word on that. The design is spectacular.’

  ‘The design has slayed all the bush and wildlife on the headland. Spectacularly awful, you mean,’ said Phil, fiercely.

  ‘Point noted, Phil … Anyone else?’

  ‘Mate, it’s been a long time coming, a project like this. No one’s had the balls or the know-how or the interest to build something of this scale. We need it. Good on yer,’ said Bruce Sawyer, a mechanic from an old Burraboo family. Bruce looked around at the crowd. ‘Let’s face it. It’s a gamble, but it’s Tom’s gamble. Maybe it succeeds, maybe it doesn’t. But c’mon. No one here has anything to lose, not really, no one ’xcept for Tom up there. For gawd’s sakes.’

  There was a patter of agreement followed by a gentle smattering of hands clapping. Soon, there was effusive clapping that extended the length of the decaying Great Hall. Tom nodded and contained a smile.

  ‘Thanks, folks, are there any more questions?’ Tom waited for a bellow, an arm raised, a defiant head rising from a seat. No one. ‘I think that’s it for the night. Reckon we should all head over to the Royal and toast on it. If any more questions spring to mind, you can ask me over a beer.’

  He stepped off the elevated podium and looked down at his wet, trembling hands. The night had been as successful as he could have hoped and though his stomach was still threatening regurgitation, his exercise in community relations had been worth the effort. You bewdy.

  * * *

  Tom pressed his right thumb into his left hand. The adrenaline of the night was still thick inside him. Even after a beer his hands shook like a loose awning in the wind. Hell, they were shuddering worse than his old man’s did before his first drink of the day. He kept his hands low beneath the table and pressed his fingertips together as though in prayer.

  The fug of smoke in the Royal was pleasant enough to make him consider bumming a cigarette from ‘Bargearse’ Barry, who’d been chuffing on them all night. Bargearse sat across the table from Tom with that contented, sleepy look on his face that always made Tom irritated. If you didn’t know Bargearse, just by the look of him, you’d swear he’d been dropped on his head as a baby, or that he’d smoked too much weed in his life. He was a happy chappy. How some people got to be so bloody happy was a mystery.

  The Royal was packed. It seemed that everyone who had listened to his presentation at the cricket club was now at the Royal. The bar was lined with elbows. It was just like the old days, when the Burraboo footy or cricket team used to win games. Celebrations would go on for hours. In those days, his dad would declare the pub open for ‘special’ extended hours. Now the call was Tom’s to make. It wasn’t as though Sergeant Barry Bargearse was going to close the joint down on a licensing breach. Bargearse’s eyes were half closed even when they were fully open.

  Tonight, Tom had instructed Davo to keep the Royal open for as long as the money and good feeling kept flowing. He figured they’d be busy pulling beers for at least another hour. He looked over at Davo behind the bar, working up a bit of playful banter with some of the blokes, his efficient hands always moving to collect money or deliver drinks. Davo’s wife, Tina, who had the sauciest, tightest little bum, collected empties and wiped down tables. Her fingernails were always painted blood red. Her nails and bum alone were capable of getting you pretty excited but only her nearest and dearest could love her face. Still, she was good for business, Davo too. The Royal was one operation he didn’t need to lose sleep over.

  Looking around the saloon, he felt scrutinised. As his gaze moved across the room, people acknowledged him with raised eyebrows or a slight nod of the head. He’d done enough, tonight. He reached for his car keys, which were sitting on the table in a puddle of spilt beer.

  Bargearse Barry nudged another beer towards him and reclined a clenched butt cheek against a stool. Barry’s arse was a freeway and his butt cheeks were its lanes, pushed apart by a wide median strip that gave him the look of a woman from behind. With that sort of arse it was hard to take Barry’s authority seriously.

  ‘No, mate, I’m leaving,’ said Tom.

  ‘Come on, Tom, have another. Tell me how you think it went.’

  Tom gave a wry smile and eyed the cigarette in Bargearse’s hand. ‘For one of those, I’ll stay.’

  Bargearse Barry slid the cigarette packet across the table. Tom pulled one out and jammed it between his lips. Someone tapped his shoulder.

  ‘Good turnout, Tom. Yer must be pleased. I know I bloody well am … and good on yer, too.’

  ‘Thanks, Kev.’

  ‘If Serpentine Heights does half of what you’re expecting it to do then this town of ours will be crowing again. It’ll be good for us all. Good for my bakery, too.’

  ‘I’m glad you share my vision.’

  ‘My oath I do,’ said Kevin, striking a match and offering it to Tom before lighting his own lumpy hand-rolled. It was good of the old guy to show up. Kev had been running the Burraboo Bakery since Tom was a kid.

  Tom took a couple of drags before noticing that the burning stick between his fingers made the quiver in his hands more noticeable. He placed the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and took a large swig of his beer.

  ‘You’re thirsty. Lemme get you another of those,’ said Kev with a hearty slap on Tom’s shoulder. He scampered to the bar before Tom could object.

  Tom looked around. There mus
t have been thirty bodies standing in the cramped saloon swaying, telling stories, smoking, swearing. At the table next to his, he noticed a woman with a wavy mass of red hair. She wore her hair down, save for a few twisted braids that circled the top of her head like a crown. He dragged his eyes away from the strangeness of her hair to her smooth, high forehead. Her face was pale. Her eyes were large and green. Eyes that caught his own as he stared at her. She smiled. How had he missed this beauty sitting no more than a couple of metres away from him?

  Kevin returned from the bar with more beers. Tom shot another look at the red-haired lovely. She was waiting for one such glance. She arched an eyebrow and winked at him. Cheeky minx. He finished the rest of his beer in a single gulp.

  ‘Excuse me, gents. I’ve something important to attend to,’ Tom said to Bargearse and Kev, and tapped his finger against his temple in a half-salute. He made his way to the redhead.

  Closer, he could see she was wearing a cheesecloth cotton skirt, long and flowing and white, slung low on her hips, teamed with a short, tight top that showed most of her stomach. Beads, dozens of them, were strung around her neck and wrists. Cripes, she’s a bloody hippy.

  She welcomed him with a wide smile and dreamy eyes. He noted the group she was with: one woman and two men. They were young looking, probably in their early twenties.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, staring directly into her green eyes.

  ‘You’re Tom,’ she said.

  ‘I am … Were you at the town meeting?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘That’s interesting … going to a community meeting when you’re not from here. Strange, even.’

  ‘Strange is underrated.’

  ‘Perhaps you fancied the free barbeque?’

  ‘I don’t eat meat.’

  ‘Then this conversation just got even stranger.’

  She smiled. Her pale lips had the smallest suggestion of colour, like a pink parasol left out in the sun too long.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Sydney. We’re heading up the coast to Budgewoi. We’ve got friends from uni hanging there, they’ve got a shack, real close to the beach … real chill after exams, know what I’m saying?’ She smiled at him languidly.

  ‘Yup, I’m pretty sure I do. So why stop off here?’

  ‘Life’s about the journey and well, you see … the journey is the destination. Catch my drift, baby?’

  ‘Nah. Not at all.’

  ‘Figures.’

  ‘So what’s your name?’

  ‘Cherie. Cherie Blossom.’

  Tom didn’t try to hide his amusement. He laughed straight into her green eyes.

  She pushed her hair to the side of her face, causing an eruption of tinkles as her beads and bells moved. ‘It seems that my name is hilarious.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Not as hilarious as that farce of a meeting you just held at the cricket club.’

  ‘Is that so? Care to tell me what was so farcical?’

  ‘Of course, baby.’ She moved her face closer to his and circled one of his shirt buttons with her index finger.

  Oh, he could get to like this hippy girl, very quickly.

  ‘It was so interesting to me that no one thought to mention that the Serpentine Heights area is an important Aboriginal site. Sacred, some might say,’ she said.

  Tom was taken aback. ‘Who’s been feeding you that rot?’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Are you selling all my secrets?’

  ‘Just the most sensitive ones, baby.’

  ‘Who’s buying … the communist party, the building union or the papers?’

  The hippy girl winked and looked around the room as though scanning for spies. ‘Can’t reveal.’

  ‘You’ll be pretty disappointed if you’ve come hunting for secrets on the Horizon.’

  ‘Are you saying that Serpentine Heights is not an area of importance to Aboriginal people?’

  He stared at the fine, downy, ginger-coloured hairs on Cherie’s forearms. ‘I’m saying that the Horizon is not destroying any known sites of value.’

  ‘But the general area of land is considered to be important.’ She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Why don’t we talk over a drink at my place?’

  ‘I thought this was your place, baby.’

  ‘My house. It’s just up the road.’

  She smiled and looked at him with those slow, hazy, dreamy eyes. ‘Sure. I’ll read your palm and tell you all about the fate of your Serpentine Heights project.’

  ‘Thing is though … I think it’s best if we don’t leave here together. Would you mind if I exit first? Maybe you can wait a couple of minutes—take your time saying goodbye to your friends. I’ll be waiting for you in the car park—it’s out the back. It won’t look good, you see. There are so many people still in here, gagging for some gossip. Country town.’ He shrugged sheepishly.

  ‘There’s my first sensitive secret.’ She threw back her head and laughed and turned back to her group at the table.

  He stared at the exposed skin of her tiny waist and the lovely sway of her back, and the beautiful pattern of her vertebrae against her flesh and wondered if there was something dangerous about this beautiful, inquisitive hippy.

  Tom walked briskly through the crowded room to the main doors, nodding the odd goodbye on his way out. The humid, quiet night wrapped around him as he walked to the car park. Gravel crunched below his leather shoes. A quick inspection this way and that confirmed no one was around. Small bloody mercies. He unlocked the door of the Dodge Charger, noticed a bit of oil on the paintwork and started to rub it clean with an old rag he kept in the boot. He heard the gravel crunch suddenly under even steps, then a stumble, a giggle. It was dark in the car park, and it took a second for him to be sure it was Cherie Blossom that was dipping cautious steps into the darkness. He jiggled his keys and called out, ‘Over here.’

  She giggled again, and once she reached him, she took the rag out of his hands and pulled his head towards her. Without a word passing between them, they kissed. He could smell sandalwood on her neck and something stronger, more pungent. Hang on. Was that cigarette smoke? He pulled abruptly away from Cherie Blossom and sniffed, scanning the darker corners of the car park in a panic. Under the back awning of the Royal, in the shadows, he could just make out a person seated on a crate, and the glowing cherry at the tip of a burning cigarette.

  ‘C’mon, let’s go,’ he whispered. He pressed his finger against her mouth and opened the car door for her. Everyone knew that the Dodge was his. He’d been sprung.

  Turning on his headlights, as he drove slowly towards the awning, the figure on the crate stepped out from the shadows and purposefully into the path of the headlights. With one hand, the figure puffed on his cigarette and with the other he waved to Tom, with a smear of a smile on his face. Dammit. Frank Pritchett. Oh, this moment with the hippy girl would come back to bite Tom when he needed it least. Of that he was certain.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The sweet trill sent Nayeema running to the front garden. It came slowly, at first, and softly, as though warming up, then built and expanded, louder and faster. The pitch was ethereal, sorrowful and joyous all at once. The cawing currawongs were not capable of such complex song—this was a different bird altogether.

  The bird song stopped the moment she was outside. Tchhh. She sat herself down on the top step of her verandah, feeling her energy deflate with disappointment. The concrete was already hot beneath her bare feet but she kept her body still as she scanned the branches of the melaleuca for the bird. Behind a cluster of shrubs she noticed her neighbour, Joan, waving to her. ‘Allo,’ Nayeema called out.

  ‘Hello,’ Joan shouted back, cheerily.

  This was how it was between them. A polite hello shouted out from one to the other. Nothing more. When Nayeema and Fawzy first moved into Number 4 Hungerford Place, Joan and her husband Greg had knocked on their door and offered them a welcome gift: a two-layered vanil
la sponge cake with jam and cream that Joan had made.

  ‘Most cordial,’ Fawzy had pronounced, once they had left.

  In return, Nayeema had baked an almond cake with a honey and pistachio glaze, and offered this to them when she returned their plate. From that encounter, Nayeema learned that Joan and Greg had two boys, all grown up and living in Sydney. This was all Nayeema knew about them. They had barely spoken since. Polite hellos and enthusiastic waves were all that passed between them.

  The melodic whistle started again. Nayeema cocked her head, and as the notes quickened she looked intently at each tree in the garden, trying to locate the source. She stood slowly and with small tentative steps followed the sound, her eyes cast upwards along the line of trees and shrubs in the hope of catching a glimpse of the bird. There it was. On the tallest branches of a high-growing, woody shrub, she saw a grey-backed bird with a white underside. The small black face and black eyes of the bird were distinct. What startled Nayeema was the bird’s disproportionately long beak, which tapered into a sharp hook. The creature regarded Nayeema, its body tense and poised to fly. Nayeema took a step backwards. To her delight the carolling resumed and she discerned the slightest suggestion of a lisp in the sweet melody.

  On the other side of the shrub, Joan shouted out, ‘Yeah, he might be gorgeous to listen to, but he’s a little devil, that one.’

  Nayeema peered through the foliage to look at her neighbour.

  ‘We used to get lots of lorikeets, galahs, all sorts,’ Joan continued. ‘But now it’s mainly just them and the currawongs and the Indian myna. The problem with them grey butcherbirds is that they like to help themselves to the food we leave out for Pebbles, ’specially the meat. You wait long enough and you’ll see them flying off with bits hanging off their beaks. That’s what they do, them cheeky butcherbirds. Sometimes they’ll spear the meat on the ends of a tree branch for safe keeping and eat it later.’