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  “Which is?”

  “Forgiveness.”

  “Who’s forgiving who?

  “I think he’s decided to forgive you.”

  “Fat chance. What else is on offer?

  “That you come home, join the firm, start as the assistant manager, and he’ll accept that I’m your wife, and will put as much money in your bank account as you need to buy a house. In other words he’s capitulated.”

  “You reckon?” Steven sounded cynical. “I wonder how long that would last, once he got his hooks into me again?”

  “Not long, I suspect.”

  “And he’ll accept you’re my wife. How extremely gracious of him. As well as giving us money. The full bribe. I hope you told him to fuck off.”

  “No, darling. I said I’d relay the details to you, and you’ll consider it and phone him at the hotel tonight. I thought we must do that, at least.”

  “So I have to tell him to fuck off?”

  “Your parent. Your privilege.”

  Steven laughed. “I guessed it was him the moment I saw the panama hat. Pity we had to keep Mum in the dark all this time, but at least I can ring her now and tell her to come and visit. Would that be okay with you? ”

  “I’d really like it, as long as she comes alone.”

  It had taken them just on two hours, as the brother-in-law pilot predicted, to reach this isolated village set amid a vast territory of red earth and surrounded by spinifex. The total prohibited area, which included Woomera, Tallaringa Park and the Great Victoria Desert, was reputed to be the size of England. Planes and rockets had been tested here long before the atom bombs. Ground zero was sixteen kilometres away from the town of Maralinga, which was a blend of military compound and residential district. A link with the outside world was a long bitumen airstrip where a bulky Bristol Freighter and a tiny Cessna were parked.

  Once in the main township they drove past familiar sights that seemed out of place here; an occasional suburban red letter box, then a post office, several churches, a fenced-in Olympic-sized swimming pool, as well as a large community building that served as a dance hall and a cinema to screen the latest films. A large placard advertised the current Alfred Hitchcock thriller, The Birds, on its facade. In addition there were pubs and a beer garden, barber shops and corner stores, along with rows of neat fibro houses in streets signposted with homesick names: London Road, Edinburgh Crescent, Cardiff Arms Avenue.

  But there was also an air of dilapidation that puzzled Luke as they drove through, until he realised that some of the buildings were in the process of being dismantled, and much of their structure including timber, guttering and roofing was being salvaged and packed on trucks for removal. One entire house had been lifted from its brick foundations and was secured on a low-loader. That’s when they had started to notice other details, even more missing buildings, and the ant-capped brick foundations where houses had once stood. These were now vacant lots again.

  “What’s going on?” Todd had asked.

  “Start of an evacuation, would you say?”

  “Looks a bit like it. Creepy sort of place. No wonder Mick’s a head case, if he’s spent the past six years here.”

  They drove towards the administration building where the helicopter stood on a landing pad. On a platform in front of the main offices was Sergeant Major Jordan Woodridge, the warrant officer in charge of the British military police. Luke could hardly believe the sight. Immaculate in regimental uniform, complete with highly polished Sam Browne belt and gleaming bandolier, he was flanked by a squad of four armed MPs. Beneath his stiff peaked cap was a choleric face and a moustache that bristled with each word he barked. He was like a relic of the British Raj, Luke thought, a caricature from the works of Rudyard Kipling.

  Woodridge literally marched forward to meet them, until he was barely twenty yards away.

  “Get out of the motor and stand by your vehicle.” He roared the order in full parade-ground voice, then gestured to his escort of armed police to surround them and the Land Rover. “I’ve been told your story, and I don’t believe it. Not one fucking lying word of it,” he bellowed. “The information I received from Canberra is that you are a journalist who writes books, the worst kind of bloody troublemaker in my opinion. And you are in the company of a notorious rabble-rouser …”

  A man who excels in clichés, Luke thought, as the policeman called Woody went on berating them, fully living up to Todd Boyd’s description. While his rant continued, Luke realised this was the very same platform where Sir William Penney, Britain’s senior boffin, had stood to give a press conference before the program of atom bomb testing had begun ten years previously. Recorded by newsreel cameras, he had made his vow to a packed crowd of political leaders and journalists.

  “I can promise you there will be no danger whatsoever from radiation. Every weapon must be tested, even rifles and small arms need to be tested, trucks and tanks need to be tested, and that’s all we are doing here, testing weapons that we require for Britain and Australia’s future security.”

  It had sounded so safe and cosy those years ago, when Luke had seen the interview on the BBC and ITV news in Britain. Everyone had believed the eminent scientist. Politicians from both sides had roundly supported it, declaring this British venture with Australia’s assistance would take them into the nuclear age, painting visions of a Union Jack flying high and signalling to the world they were again members of the weapons club. Frozen out of the American program because of the treachery of Klaus Fuchs and a few other scientists, no hyperbole seemed too extreme for this renaissance. Since then Luke had seen frequent newsreels of the bomb tests that were continually praised as evidence of Britain’s preparedness for defence against aggression. He’d also viewed the government’s widely distributed documentary, Operation Hurricane, which declared the Maralinga agenda to be yet another triumph of Empire co-operation.

  Over the years since then he’d heard officials, and the scientists they employed, enthuse about the enterprise to a coterie of selected journalists. They, in turn, had faithfully reported whatever they were told, some of it demonstrably false. For instance, the declaration that the site of the first atomic device exploded on Monte Bello island was now ‘hazard free of all radiation’. Nakamura, who had been allowed a brief visit because of his status, had told Luke it was untrue. The island bombsite had never been swept of its lethal debris. There were signs everywhere stating: RADIATION RISK. Do not eat food in this vicinity. Do not stay longer than one hour. Do not drink this water.

  The warning signs erected on the island were in total contradiction of the hazard-free declarations. Even worse, here in the ‘Prohibited Area’ there were no warnings for the tribal people whose ownership of this land had been taken from them, and who had often stumbled, like the Warlapinni family, into dangerous hot spots. The region had belonged to the Aborigines, but the reconnaissance party who selected the site as a perfect setting — remote and safe from scrutiny, and thus idyllic for their purposes — chose to ignore local knowledge, chose to neglect contact with those who could have warned them that this was a place where tribes hunted — and thus could be in danger.

  While he was subjected to the rant, Luke also realised the site was now gradually being vacated. The main purpose of Maralinga was over and the place might soon be erased as thoroughly as Emu Junction. It was important the facts about it be revealed before that occurred. But he was unfortunately about to find out that among the remaining buildings was the army jail, a concrete structure that contained a row of single cells. It was there that Luke and Todd Boyd were confined, accused of illegal entry without a license to the government area. “And that,” Warrant Officer Woodridge assured them with some considerable satisfaction, “allows us to imprison you for an indeterminate period. Take the distributor lead out of their vehicle,” he ordered his men, “and clamp the wheel because that vehicle will not be going anywhere and nor will this pair.” He surveyed them as they were pushed into adjoining cells.
Each had a straw paillasse on the floor and a slop bucket. The front wall was open to the elements, but made secure by rows of iron bars tightly festooned with razor wire. It meant the occupants were visible at a glance from outside, but any escape through that wire was impossible.

  “In my own time I shall make enquiries, Mister Elliot, about your claim you were on your way to see the so-called Dragon, the widow of Private Morrison. And also your claim to have received privileged information from Pastor Nichols. It’s my personal opinion you may well end up being kept here indefinitely, while we investigate a charge of trying to infiltrate this operational headquarters by misrepresentation and subterfuge, which would then mean a long custodial sentence. As for you, Boyd, you will certainly be charged with attempting to pass an out-of-date document to gain illegal entry. You will have the vehicle confiscated and it will be destroyed if, as I imagine, you are not able to pay the substantial fine.”

  He watched the iron bars being slammed shut, leaving them in their adjoining cells. It was not yet noon. He knew by early afternoon the sun would reach into the concrete cell block, and the temperature would soar. The heat would be intense. Later, with nightfall, it would become bitterly cold. The cells had been carefully constructed to make time spent inside them extremely unpleasant.

  That night in bed together, Claudia slept fitfully. Much as she’d enjoyed the discomfort of Pascoe after the way she’d been treated by him, she had a niggling feeling of concern at the way Steven had summarily dismissed his father’s offer. The last remarkable few months, his steady progression from floating and barely able to move his legs to almost full-scale swimming, and his painful walk across the sand that could now be made in some comfort with a walking stick, had filled him with a new confidence. He would always limp, but never again suffer full paralysis. His father, astonished by this, had made a genuine offer of a return to the family business, as genuine as a man like him was able, and Steven had mocked it. He had every right to do so — he’d been treated badly in the past — but she wondered if the day might come when he regretted his scornful rejection.

  Pascoe could hardly be expected to forgive this treatment, and he was not a man who’d make another offer. There were no other children in the family; if he were to die or be unable to run the firm, it was unlikely his wife would be left as the sole heir after siding with Steven. The control of the firm would doubtless then go to one of Pascoe’s brothers, and from there to that brother’s progeny, a nephew. At the moment, aged in his thirties, Steven could afford to be independent and rebellious, but the day might come when he’d be cut out of the Pascoe firm entirely, and would perhaps regret his defiance.

  On the other hand, she felt she could hardly remain with him if he were to become part of that family again. Tossing and turning, unsure of her own feelings, she quietly slipped out of bed and went to sit by the living room window. It was a near full moon, illuminating the spent waves as they rippled onto the empty beach, emphasising her loneliness, her strange feeling of insecurity after the pleasure of witnessing Pascoe’s humiliation.

  Was Steven prepared to be an employed accountant in a modest real estate firm for as long as he lived, instead of one day owning a wealthy firm? And was she content to work as a nurse at the cottage hospital and continue this kind of existence away from close friends, in this remote Queensland town? She did not know the answer to either question. It was an irony; the more he recovered and the closer she felt to him, the more uncertain their future appeared to be.

  Steven knew she was awake. He hadn’t been able to sleep either. But his insomnia was from a different cause. He had enjoyed the verbal clash with his father, had relished telling him home truths that he’d kept bottled up all through school years, had finally declared his hatred of having his life mapped out for him, and made it clear that he had no wish to ever inherit the timber firm on Tumbledown Dick Hill. He hadn’t even told Claudia yet, but he’d been offered a partnership in Warren & Cooper. They were expanding, and George Cooper was to take over the offices closer to Caloundra, while Ed Warren wanted Steven to become a partner so they could expand further north.

  He enjoyed the work, the pair had become friends, and he wanted to accept it, but felt afraid that Claudia would grow tired of living here. They’d come to this town to assist his recovery, and it had been a remarkable success. She had done it, fought his family, jeopardised her own future to live with him. He owed an enormous debt of appreciation to her, and to George and Ed, as well as others in this district. And yet, even after what it had done for him, after the many years they’d spent here, the town still felt in his mind like a temporary home.

  He didn’t mind that, now he was able to work. He could put down roots and live here. But what about Claudia? She’d never said so, but at times she must surely feel estranged in this town. Cut off from her closest friends, doing a part-time and mundane job. Caring for him had been a cause that occupied her mind. But if he took the offer and tied himself to the partnership, how would she feel? He could cope alone now, he knew it, but that was not the point. What he found hardest, almost impossible to bear, was the thought of losing her.

  It had begun with deep friendship, with joy and profound gratitude that someone was always there to care for him, and he could hardly identify the moment when it had changed to something else, and become a deep and enduring love.

  THIRTY-NINE

  In their concrete prison cells sleep was barely possible. The sudden changes in temperature were extreme. By mid-afternoon the sun had been shining through the iron bars of the front portal, and the place was like a furnace. Later they’d been given a plate of greasy stew, a slice of bread and a mug of tea without milk or sugar. When darkness fell, the drop in temperature had made them shiver. The thin ragged blanket that was provided could not cope with the cold, but somehow Luke managed to sleep in snatches, and woke several times to lie there thinking about this folly in the Nullarbor, and some of the insane things that had been done here.

  From the start the English politicians and scientists had called all the shots and prevailed over their Australian counterparts. It had never been an equal partnership. They imposed the oath of silence that had kept this place and its bizarre experiments so secretive. Experiments like the shock waves experienced by platoons of troops who were commanded to ‘about turn’ just final seconds before the countdown ended, then ordered to turn and face the glare of the explosion and its black mushroom clouds. There were no words of warning about what the proximity might do to their skin or eyesight. Troops in khaki, sometimes in shorts, even bare-chested because of the heat; never clad in the safe protection anti-contamination suits.

  Lying on his uncomfortable paillasse in the dark, he thought about the crews of the Canberra bombers ordered to fly through that mushroom cloud straight after the bomb exploded. What kind of a mad scientific experiment was that? And where were those air crews now? Yuri had spoken of his concern that their eyesight would have been damaged by such a close dose of radiation. But he’d been unable to meet them, or have the chance to examine even one of them.

  “Not really your concern, Doctor. But if you must know, they’re all back in Blighty, fit and well,” one of the medical superintendents had insisted.

  It was towards morning that Luke finally did manage to fall deeply asleep, only to be woken less than an hour later by the noise of his cell being unlocked. A slice of bread and a cup of insipid tea was pushed inside, then the front wall was noisily slammed shut. He heard Todd’s complaint as he was similarly woken, and wondered how many nights they were going to be confined here like criminals.

  The only advantage of the razor-wired front wall was that Luke and Todd Boyd could at least converse with each other. Not that there was much to talk about. An escape was clearly out of the question. And the problem of what would happen when Woodridge contacted Rebecca Morrison did not make for comfort.

  “You were given her name by your Jap doctor mate, but she wouldn’t know you from a hole
in the ground. Am I right?” Todd asked.

  “Fraid so,” Luke answered.

  “She’s never bloody heard of you, in fact.”

  “Don’t make a federal case out of it, Todd, and I won’t complain or even mention your very slightly out-of-date permit. I admit when that fat bastard gets in touch with them, both she and Pastor Nicholls will say they’ve never heard of me. Nothing I can do about that. It was a spur-of-the-moment answer that I hoped might have a chance of working. But I was wrong.”

  “So we’re up shit creek.”

  “Looks like it. I don’t suppose,” Luke ventured, “that your sister might have any influence with her husband, the chopper pilot …?”

  “Unfortunately my sister and I fell out at the age of fifteen when she tried to pinch my pocket money. We somehow never managed to make up. She hates me as much as he does.”

  Todd’s admission brought a gloomy silence. Luke managed to restrain himself from a comment on families in general, and tried to think what he’d achieved so far. Not a lot. He had established the truth of the secret tests taking place, but needed additional detail to back up the family’s story. Luke himself could look at Ita’s tearful little face and believe her, but others would demand more substantial proof.

  He was uncomfortably aware his notes and tape recorder were not safe. If the Land Rover was searched they could easily be found. Todd had made a brief stop once the helicopter was out of sight, and Luke had hurriedly hidden the typed pages in the only moderately safe place he could find, beneath the jets of the portable barbecue. Or Woodridge might choose to destroy the vehicle, in which case the few scraps of proof would be lost with it.

  So the total sum of his accomplishments, he thought, could really be added up to bugger all. And to top that, Barry had apparently turned traitor and dobbed him in. Thirty years of friendship, even their uneven friendship, down the toilet. Their camaraderie had been erratic, but the betrayal was an unexpected blow that had shocked him.