Blank, p.5
Blank, page 5
“The sharks had got him.”
“Or he’d drowned.”
“You didn’t think to search the building anyway?” she inquired accusingly.
“Our engineers agreed with his assessment of the building. You heard Eddie – we’re under orders to stay away from all condemned buildings. The Army can’t risk losing a chopper and two men. They’ve already lost... too much. Pimford had been in the State Emergency Service. We took him at his word.”
She stared at Luckman long and hard, her expression telling him they’d been fools to trust Pimford’s word for anything.
“He was a good liar,” she demurred.
“What happened?” he asked her.
“There were six of us in the building who survived the tsunami. Phones were out, of course, and no-one could find a battery-operated radio – amazing how our lives had become so reliant on electricity – so we didn’t know whether anyone had survived to come for us. The size of that wave, my God. And it just kept going and going, sweeping inland like it’d never stop. There were two young guys with us who were surfers. They decided to make a break for it on their surfboards and we never saw them again. Don’t suppose they made it, or you’d have known Pimford was full of shit.”
Luckman shook his head. “The ocean’s deadly now. So much wreckage. So many sharks feeding on the...”
“The bodies. Yeah, I’ve seen that,” she said grimly. She shook her head to snap herself out of the memory. “We knew we had to find water. Pimford remembered that the penthouse had its own swimming pool, so we climbed the stairs and started banging on the door. I mean, we’d been banging on all the doors, looking for survivors. But it was just us. Until we got up the top. When no-one answered, we kicked the door in. And there were two people in there. A couple, in their 40s, just staring at us like we were aliens. It was... scary. We tried to talk to them and they just stared at us, eyes wide, like rabbits caught in the headlights. Like they didn’t even know how to talk.
“Totally blank,” Luckman concurred, nodding his head.
“You’ve seen it,” she realised.
“All too often,” he admitted.
“What is it, some sort of disease?” she asked him.
“No, I’m afraid it’s worse than that.”
She looked alarmed. “Is it catching?”
“No, no, you’re fine. We’re all fine. I’ll explain, I promise. But first I need you to finish your story.”
She paused, regathering her thoughts and suddenly finding it difficult to put them into words. “I... we didn’t know what had happened to them. They were fully clothed, but they had soiled themselves. And they made these terrible whimpering noises, like they were afraid or something. Then someone – Sherry – realised they were hungry. They were whimpering like little babies because they were hungry. So we fed them.”
“Who’s Sherry?”
“She and her boyfriend Paul were the other two people with us in the building. Pimford... they disappeared. They all disappeared. Except him and me.”
“And you think he killed them?”
She gasped at the word, but nodded slowly. “The older couple were the first to go. We were using their pool for drinking water. And they were fine. But they didn’t like him.”
“Carter Pimford?”
Again she nodded. “They didn’t like him going anywhere near them. They cowered, and yelled when they caught sight of him. And I could see in his face that he loathed them. Like he was afraid they’d infect him.”
“Yeah, a lot of people react like that.”
“A couple of days later I went to give them some food but they’d vanished. There were signs of a struggle. We think Pimford bashed them and threw them off the balcony. He admitted it – didn’t tell us the gruesome details, but said he’d ‘taken care of them’ for their own good. Said we couldn’t be expected to take care of mental cases. Said it was cruel to keep them alive. And, y’know, the awful thing is part of me knew he was right. How would they survive? But to do that to them...”
“What happened to Paul and Sherry?”
“They turned against Carter. Called him a murderer. Paul said if they made it out of there he’d tell people what Carter had done.”
“What about you? What did you say?”
“I saw the danger in Carter’s eyes. He terrified me, so I kept my mouth shut. He apparently took that to mean I approved of his actions – which I didn’t.”
“No, of course not.”
“I was scared. I should have stayed with Paul and Sherry after that, I should have, I know, but a confrontation was building with Pimford and I wigged out. I told Paul to back off. I said we were in survival mode and normal rules didn’t apply. But I’m not sure I really believed that. And he was so angry. I knew it would come to blows.”
“How’d you manage to get all that water into your apartment without confronting Pimford?”
“I’d already done that. Thought it made sense to have my own supply for washing, and the toilet and whatever. And then that night I heard the screams. I heard him killing them. And I did nothing. I blocked my door.”
She began to cry. Luckman gazed out the window, unsure of what to say. He reached over and held her hand, which she gripped like she would never let it go.
They were approaching Amberley. The storm had missed this area and the late afternoon shadows morphed the buildings into strange and impossible shapes but otherwise the RAAF base was untouched by the invading ocean’s destruction.
She noticed a camp south of the main runway set behind a high wire fence. It looked like a detention centre. “Why are you keeping prisoners?”
“They’re the Blanks. The ones like the couple you found. Most survivors we’ve found are like that.”
Horror pulsed across her face. The enclosure stretched for at least a kilometre away from the air base. Inside, thousands of people were wandering aimlessly. Some appeared to be fighting among themselves. Others simply sat alone in the dirt, watching all that went on.
Ten
“What are you going to do with them?”
“That is the million-dollar question. This isn’t all of them, not by a long shot. There’s a tad over 6000 people in that enclosure. They’re the ones we’ve managed to bring in. There are others still running around out there we can’t get to. They’re learning to fend for themselves. They’re afraid of the men with guns and big machines, and they’re harder to find.”
“How can that be? You’re the Army.”
“Brisbane has become a series of islands and peninsulas. With summer king tides and storms thrown into the mix with the rising sea level, the ocean and the land are still fighting to find a new equilibrium. Our rescue crews have combed much of Brisbane’s remnants for survivors. The people with identities intact are being billeted in the air force barracks, or in tents outside the barracks, because there’s not so many of them. About 1500 so far.”
“Is that it? For the whole of Brisbane?”
“No, this enclosure is for Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. There are other survivor camps in Queensland. Most of them are further west. Physically, Brisbane was spared a lot of the initial destruction from the tsunami because Stradbroke and Moreton islands acted as massive wave breaks.
“Most of the Brisbane population survived. But the overwhelming majority of those survivors – we estimate about 95 percent – had their minds and identities blanked out. Almost all of these poor souls were dead inside a week because they had lost the ability to fend for themselves. Most of them struggled to even stand upright.”
“So tell me again why the Blanks have been locked up?” she asked.
“For their own safety. At least that’s the official line. The fence is there mostly because people are afraid of them. It’s true they’re difficult to handle, because they don’t understand anything. They operate entirely on instinct, on base appetites and raw emotion. Some are more intuitive than others but the finer nuances of modern culture and interpersonal communication are lost on all of them. They react with fear to expressions of frustration and anger. And they can be violent when they feel threatened.
“In the worst instances they’re like wild animals, lacking restraint of any kind. The Army had decided they needed to go in a cage. But the longer they stay in that cage the wilder they become – and they outnumber us six to one.”
“Where are you taking me?”
Luckman realised he hadn’t actually explained his intention to the pilot. “Um, listen Eddie, I...”
“The Brigadier said no, Stone. He said...”
“I know what he said. I don’t care. Just take me home, will you? I’m sorry, but I’ll deal with the Brigadier later.”
Mel raised an eyebrow.
“You’re coming back to my place.”
It was only a five-minute flight from Amberley to Pullenvale. The chopper tracked loosely along the Brisbane River before continuing northwards over the suburbs on what was once the city’s western fringe. Luckman had bought two hectares of land in Pullenvale back when it was relatively cheap. Dotted between avocado trees were maybe a dozen tents in two rows behind an old weatherboard house. A tall cyclone mesh fence had been half completed around the boundary of the property.
“Looks more like a folk festival than a home. And what’s with that fence?”
He raised his eyebrows and nodded without offering further explanation. The chopper descended between the tents and a construction site at the far end of the block. Near the construction zone, Mel spotted what looked like a cage.
As they touched down Luckman flung the chopper door open and leapt out then helped Mel to the ground. “Five minutes,” he mouthed to Bell, holding up five fingers. The pilot nodded.
He led her past the tents towards the back stairs of the house. A soldier emerged and acknowledged her grimly. She nodded curtly then looked away. There were a few civilians out near the rear fence perimeter. They seemed to be digging a garden. One of them waved, and she waved back.
As they reached the foot of the stairs, she stopped him. “Why are they here?”
“We’re running a localised search and rescue operation. Looking for people, or food, or anything that could be useful in the near future. Come on, let’s get you settled in,” he urged, starting to climb the stairs.
She spotted a self-contained apartment underneath the house. Through the kitchen window she could see it was a mess. She was relieved to find Luckman’s place was quite the opposite. The house itself was old and charming; she could smell the age in the timber as they crossed the threshold of the back door. But the interior had undergone elaborate renovation. The lounge room was a large open space, painted brilliant white. A beam of dusky sunlight cut across the polished wooden floor in the direction of an old kitchen table. And nothing was out of place. Nearby striped linen ottomans looked comfortable and instantly inviting. Upon the wood-panelled walls hung a number of large Aboriginal art works.
The lounge room fed directly off the large eat-in kitchen, with another small table and chairs off to one side. To the other side, the kitchen led to a separate dining room tucked neatly in a corner of the house overlooking the front garden. A door in the dining room led to the front verandah.
Luckman’s expression gave nothing away, but he could see she was impressed and realised that pleased him.
“You do all this yourself?” she wanted to know.
“Well, I had a lot of help.” He was being coy. He knew full well what she was asking him.
“Friend of mine’s an interior decorator. Or at least, he was.”
“Boyfriend?” she inquired, apparently nonplussed.
“No. Never had one of those.”
“So how many other distressed dames are tucked away here?” she goaded.
“There’s no-one else inside the house. But you’re the first woman to grace our camp.”
“Sad truth of it is all dat neatness is a product of mental illness. He suffers from a category five OCD cleaning fetish,” declared a man behind them.
Luckman laughed, turned around and playfully slapped the dishevelled man on the top of the head, quickly following that up with a warm hug punctuated by lots of powerful back slapping lest it be viewed as anything other than a strong and manly show of affection.
“Mel, this is Seamus. He’s...”
“Your long-time personal companion?” she suggested.
“He wishes,” Seamus replied.
“No,” said Luckman, still laughing, “Seamus is the lodger who doesn’t clean and as of two months ago stopped paying rent.”
“Boyo, ya can’t be worryin’ about rent at a time like this. It’s a brave new world.”
Seamus held out his arm to shake Mel’s hand. Noticing her injury, he shook her left hand instead, somewhat awkwardly.
“Any day now I’m coming down to hose out your hovel,” Luckman insisted. “Then I’m doubling the rent.”
“Double nottin’ is still nottin’. Didn’t your daddy teach you that?”
“Pleased to meet you Seamus,” said Mel.
“Mel’s going to be staying for a while,” Luckman explained.
“Another stray,” she admitted, smiling meekly.
“She’s got a nasty bit of rope burn. Can you take a look at it for me?” Luckman asked.
Seamus nodded. “Sure. But where...?”
“Debrief. Mel, you can have the room at the end of the hall. Make yourself at home, I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Tears welled in her eyes and she hugged Luckman tight like a child who didn’t want to say goodbye.
“Oh come on now, it’s not that bad,” Seamus comforted. “I’ve got whisky, and I might have a bit of Mary Jane lyin’ about somewhere. You won’t even know he’s gone.”
Eleven
Seamus bandaged her hand slowly and gently while she sat at Luckman’s breakfast nook. The vantage point gave her a broad view of the lounge and Luckman’s impressive art collection.
“Is that one up there a Rover Thomas?” she asked.
“I believe so,” Seamus replied.
“It has to be worth a fortune.”
Seamus smiled. “So its previous owner thought.”
She raised an eyebrow at his implication.
“We’re fairly certain it’s a fake. Its former owner was a wealthy Greenpeace benefactor. Once she worked out the painting wasn’t worth anything like the 70 grand she paid for it, she offered it to Stone.”
“As forgeries go, it’s a pretty good one,” she said. “But wasn’t Stone insulted by her back-handed generosity?”
Seamus shook his head. “Believe it or not, this was a good deed. The woman could easily have passed it off as genuine to another art rube – turns out the provenance on a lot of Aboriginal paintings is pretty thin. Of course, the arse had begun to fall out of the Indigenous art market by then.
“People used to think anything the big auction houses sold had to be genuine. But there was a court case a few years back about forged Rover Thomas paintings. A so-called auction house expert admitted they took on a lot of Aboriginal art at face value – in other words, no checking. Everyone was making so much money it was a golden goose they didn’t want to pluck.”
“What about all these other paintings here?”
“The fake Rover whet Stone’s appetite. These other ones he bought direct from the artists themselves. They are the real deal.”
“So you’re saying Captain Luckman worked for Greenpeace?”
“We both did. We were activists up until a few weeks ago. Then the world ended and Stone re-enlisted.”
“He’s a dark horse. Um, that is, I mean...”
Seamus smiled. “Honey, you have no idea. I’ve known Stone for over a decade, but sometimes I think he’s a total stranger to me.”
“I’m usually quite good at reading people,” she said.
“He’s no open book. Full of secrets. Good man though, good man.”
Mel couldn’t take her eyes off the painting. “You ever heard the legend of Rover Thomas?”
Seamus remained intently focused on her hand. “No, can’t say that I have.”
“But you’d remember that in 1974 the city of Darwin was wiped out by a massive cyclone, yeah?”
He nodded. “I was just a kid.”
“The rains that year sent water flooding inland,” she continued. “An old Aboriginal woman died in that flood. It’s said after she died her spirit came to Rover in dreams and gave him the sacred songs of her country. Those songs are a map of the landscape.
“Rover wasn’t from her clan. She was Warmun, he was Kakatja, from Gija country in the East Kimberley. The woman’s songs – the events and places they describe – aren’t from Gija country. Apparently the dreams made old Rover sick. But after many months of visits from the woman’s spirit Rover was able to sing an entire corroboree.
“They call it the Gurirr Gurirr. It was the sacred ceremony of the Warmun people. Rover didn’t know their country, but in that corroboree he could describe it all. At first the Warmun elders didn’t want to know about it, ’cos Rover wasn’t one of them. But eventually they had to acknowledge that the songs were genuine.
“Years afterwards, Rover started painting that landscape. He said he wanted to illustrate the nightmare of the Rainbow Serpent’s fury when that cyclone hit – the mysticism of the forces at work. Someone once described the paintings of Rover Thomas as the bones of that northern country. But the songs – that corroboree – were given to him by the spirit of an old woman for everyone to hear.”
Seamus stared at the fake Rover. The brush of the man himself may not have touched the canvas yet it remained a brilliant rendering of the real deal, drawing upon the same colours, tones and patterns Rover imbued in his work. On the other hand, its meaning remained unspoken to him. It was a map he couldn’t follow, as indecipherable as any of the hundreds of Indigenous languages once heard across the continent.
“That legend – if you care to believe it – is a modern miracle,” she declared. “It’s out in plain sight, yet it’s one of those things people never talk about.”
