Goodbye Lullaby. Jan Murray
in those hateful forms. She had used her fifteen minutes of fame during the previous registration fortnight to torment the Government, exposing their Birthday Lottery for the sick joke it was. But had he seen it? And would it have made him question his country’s involvement in the war if he had? Or like everyone else in Australia who didn’t want to get on the wrong side of good old Uncle Sam, would he have written her type off as the idiot fringe, hippy protesters?
More importantly, how would she ever know?
She squatted down on her haunches and scooped up a handful of the fine sand, holding it in her palm for a time before she spread her fingers and watched as the grains slipped through and were lost among the myriad others on the beach. ‘All our somewhere children, Bernie? Where do you suppose––?’
‘Let it go!’ Bernie heaved herself up onto her feet, not as adroitly as Miki had done but a graceful enough effort for the large woman she was. She brushed the sand from her backside. ‘You’ve gotta let it go, Mik. You just plain gotta let it go sometimes.’
Bernie was right. Cultivate a mind that clings to nothing, said the Buddha. Easier said than done, though. ‘Why should we let it go?’
‘Because it bloodywell kill’s you if you don’t.’
Yes, it kills you, alright.
She checked the skies before leaving the cover of the mangroves and started down to the water’s edge. Today was a day of trepidation, of dark feelings. Resentment. Shame. Regret. Bitterness. Anguish. Longing. Let her at it, she could write the thesaurus on the darker emotions.
‘Think about it,’ Bernie said, coming up to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. ‘We’re making fools of the bastards, girl. We chip away at things. At their power. We’re like bloody termites. An army of white ants, that's us.’
Despite her mood, she cocked an eyebrow at her friend and grinned. ‘White ants?’
Bernie got the joke.
‘Well, yeah, some of us aren’t so bloody white but y’know what I mean, you ratbag.’
Bernie ground the heel of her bare foot into the wet sand, twisting it so that tiny bubbles surfaced around it, betraying a secret universe. ‘They can’t see us. Don’t mean we’re not there, though. We’re doing the damage, Mik. With our marches ‘n things.' She pointed up to their transfer camp inside the rainforest. 'With all this ... the kinda stuff we’re doing up here.’
Bernie waved her arm to the sky, to where the choppers had been. ‘We got 'em worried, that’s for sure. Canberra’s gonna have to rethink what they doin’, I reckon. Jus’ can’t keep sending our kids over there. Waves of ‘em come’n back dead or ruined. The country’s over it, fair-dinkum. The buggers are gonna wake up one day ‘n find their game’s up. Whitlam’s gonna wipe the floor with ‘em. End the whole bloody mess, I reckon.’
'You’d like to think so.’
‘Honestly, Mik, we’re the secret army. The bloody secret army and they better watch out ‘cause we’re coming for ‘em!’
Bernie locked fingers with Miki and they walked along the water’s edge, trailing their feet in the coolness of the sea. ‘We’re making fools of the buggers, alright. You more than anyone.' She slapped Miki's backside. 'Oh, yeah, sister. You, more 'n any of us, my famous friend.’
‘Infamous friend.’
‘Notorious friend.’ Bernie laughed. ‘I can just see ‘em, the stupid buggers! Kaper Kops!’ She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.
Miki wasn't laughing. ‘Yeah, and now that young man back in there, and the other two, and all the others we've shipped off ... they're heading for God knows what kind of life now, Bernie.’ She kicked at the wave as it washed over her feet. ‘And I’ve got a price on my head. So you tell me; whose the stupid bugger? You tell me. Tell me who’s the idiot. Sure, I made fools of ‘em but now that boy … and me … are on the run.'
The pair walked on in silence for several minutes, each away with her own thoughts. Miki put an arm around Bernie's shoulder. ‘I did strike a blow for him though, didn’t I?’
‘Him? Yeah. How else was you gonna reach out to your boy, Mik? You got it right, I reckon.’
‘And make other mothers think about their sons' call-up.’
‘You had to do it, girl. And that kid in there, he was up for it anyway. You didn’t twist ‘is arm. And the Gov’ment had it coming to ‘em, I reckon.’ Bernie put her arm around Miki's waist. ‘Sorry I laughed back there but sometimes you have to, don’t you? Just thinkin' about those Sydney coppers running around like chooks with no heads, it cracks me up ... it fair-dinkum cracks me up, Mik. You and the kid already out the back door and on your way, and them chasin’ their bloody tails!’
‘Those blokes up in the sky, Bernie? They're no laughing matter, though. They’re the real thing.
She slowed her pace, dropping back from Bernie to dawdle along the shoreline, her mind drifting back to March and the rush of blood to the head that had made her risk hers and young Jamie Richardson’s freedom.
Bernie might be right; James Richardson had been up for it.
She had met him through their network and he had been full of idealism and youthful bravado. But as the adult, she ought to have tempered that, tried cautioning him that he would be making himself a massive target. She ought to have warned him but instead, she jumped at the idea.
~~~
Emanuel Sachs could loosely be called a colleague. She had used Manny when she put her Mauritius documentary together four years ago and they had occasionally bumped into each other at rallies; she holding up banners and marching, he directing an ABC camera crew.
In more recent times, he had become the enfant terrible of Australian current affairs, the producer responsible for political reportage on This Day Tonight. Along with Adrian Clarke, Sachs was the reason the ABC was off-side with the hawks in government. Clarke had jumped at her interview idea, according to Manny. Nothing in advance for the media, however. ‘If the guys upstairs in Mahogany Row get a whiff of the set-up, I’ll be out the door on the end of a large boot.’ It had to appear spontaneous. Gate-crash the studio, that was the deal.
They were let in through the back entrance of the studio and asked to wait in the dark behind a Playschool prop. The segment on the plight of farmers in the Riverina was winding up. She looked sideways at her young charge and saw the eagerness. And something else. James Richardson’s mother had died eight months ago. He told Miki he thought his mother would approve, that she would be on Miki's side, the Save Our Sons side. Not like his father, of course.
That was enough. She was confident she was doing the right thing, despite putting the youth’s freedom at risk.
While her hands sweated and she laboured to stay calm, she observed Adrian Clarke.
The star of the show was doing facial calisthenics and lip-reading from his rolling autocue, ignoring the make-up woman fussing around him with her powder brush. When the woman leant across to tame a stray lock back from his forehead with her tail comb he nudged her out of his way.
‘Perfect,’ he said impatiently, bringing the autocue back into his line of sight and continuing to rehearse his lines.
Why? He knew about the so-called ambush. Maybe he felt secure in having a planned segment ready to fall back on if his surprise guests chickened out of the stunt at the last moment.
They would not renege. This was a precious moment, an opportunity to reach out.
She cast another sideways glance at the tall youth standing beside her. This was something they both had to do, each for their own reasons. But young James Richardson was no doubt feeling every bit as terrified as she felt and dreading