The lunch JC had invited me to was held in a private dining room at a winery out of town. The food was impeccable, the wine superb, and no-one mentioned dead bodies. But I was still on edge. Rattled deep inside by the sound of a man falling to his death before the sun came up.
The meal was a twelve-course degustation that began with a seared Wagyu beef carpaccio with pickled baby vegetables paired with a local pinot, then wild abalone with braised mushrooms and samphire served with a pinot gris. And so it went on. There were eight of us in a private room: two Chinese investors, Senator Barney Viper, Andrew Wong (head of the China–Australia Relations Institute), May Chen, JC, me, and a man called Edward Lowe—Dr Edward Lowe—a government business consultant to JC.
I suspected someone had been bumped when JC included me. Maybe Frank. Opposite me was one of the businessmen, Henry Liu, and to my left another businessman also called Henry—Henry Xiang. Henry Liu spoke excellent English with an international school accent. Henry Xiang spoke English less well.
I can get by in Spanish, French and Arabic. Even a little Italian if you mostly want to talk food. We’d never been offered Asian languages back when I was at school, and I hadn’t worked in China or Japan or Korea, so I hadn’t needed those languages, but I regretted that gap now.
Henry Xiang, I learned, had made investments in Tasmanian salmon farming, and he had also bought the state’s biggest dairy farm. It was a heritage property, a flagship of Tasmanian agriculture for two hundred years. He intended to expand it. He flew fresh Tasmanian milk to China every day.
‘It was Mr Xiang’s planes that flew in the bridge workers,’ said May Chen.
JC was on my right. He explained how Henry Xiang’s farm had the state’s biggest wind power plant—the one Amy O’Dwyer had been all worked up about. Built by the Tasmanian government with taxpayer money, and transferred into private ownership when the heritage property was sold to Xiang. Xiang’s company’s major stakeholder was none other than the Chinese government. When I’d pointed this out to JC on the way to lunch, he hadn’t seemed at all concerned.
Through lobster risotto matched with a Tasmanian east coast chardonnay, Xiang talked of the roaring forties that whizzed about the planet, buffeting the west coast all year round. He also talked of the reliable rainfall in the north-west, and the fertile soil for the raising of cows, and the proximity to Asia for export. He lived in Hong Kong and he told me he had many investors. When I prodded him about the Chinese Communist Party’s stake in his company, he chuckled and said he didn’t know I was also a journalist. And then he engaged in conversation in Mandarin with May Chen, well aware I could not understand. Henry Liu and I began a conversation.
Henry Liu told me he’d been born in Hong Kong but had attended international schools. His family was in finance and he’d invested in this winery we were dining in. He was also the owner of the one-hundred-year lease that encompassed the entire beach and undeveloped foreshore of Stanley, on the northern coast of Tasmania—which, he said, was surely one of the most beautiful places in the world.
‘I didn’t know that had been leased,’ I said.
‘Your brother is very generous with Tasmania,’ he said.
I asked him what he intended to do with this parcel of land, and he said, ‘Maybe nothing. Maybe I will just take care of it so it stays exactly as it is. I do not have to make all my investments profitable.’
Here Henry Xiang laughed at him, then turned back to his conversation with Miss Chen. Liu continued, dismissing this interjection. He said he felt extremely privileged to have discovered Tasmania and to feel so instantly at home here.
‘So you are colleagues or rivals, you two?’ I asked of him and Henry Xiang.
‘We are speculators,’ said Henry Liu. ‘Perhaps I have a longer-term strategy … I am hoping to become an Australian citizen,’ he added.
Xiang said something in Chinese to May Chen and she interpreted. ‘Mr Xiang is telling Mr Liu that such a thing is not possible unless he marries an Australian woman, because it is not easy getting citizenship in Australia. He says maybe you can introduce Mr Liu to some suitable women.’
Xiang said something else, but May Chen did not interpret. So Xiang said, ‘I hear you are single, Doctor Coleman’, and guffawed.
Mr Liu smiled regretfully.
‘And you would live here?’ I asked, without missing a beat. ‘In Tasmania?’
‘I have built a home on my land at Cloudy Bay, on Bruny Island.’
At this Henry Xiang guffawed again. There was a quick exchange between the two men in Chinese. I looked puzzled but nobody translated.
‘Why Bruny Island?’ I asked Henry Liu.
‘It is a little bit of heaven,’ he said. ‘It’s good to acquire little bits of heaven.’
JC was exhibiting all the bonhomie of a man who had married off his daughters in spectacular matches. During a course of delicate dumplings, the director of the China–Australia Relations Institute, Andrew Wong, thanked me for all I had done to smooth the way for the workers. Senator Viper said, ‘It’s very good of you to come home, Astrid, and serve Tasmania in this way. We need our good people here at a time like this.’ There was something about his delivery that came across as a vague threat.
‘China wants to continue our long and very cordial relationship with Tasmania,’ said Andrew Wong. ‘We are very proud to be assisting Tasmania in this way, to realise this project of state and national significance with the help of people such as yourself, Astrid. To forward good relations between our countries. I feel there is much we all have to contribute in the coming years. I think everyone at this table agrees with that.’
JC raised his glass and everyone followed suit. The matched wines were beginning to have an effect on everyone. The waiters were discreet and very efficient.
‘To you, Ace, for getting us this far without any more bombs!’
And everyone laughed and we toasted again. I caught the eye of the man beyond JC. Edward Lowe. JC’s bulk almost entirely obscured him, but in that moment, as he smiled and raised his glass, he caught my eye and something passed between us.
JC suggested I swap places with him, so Edward and I could get acquainted.
‘You two have things in common,’ JC said. ‘America, I think, for one.’
‘Tell me something about you that would surprise me, Edward,’ I said.
‘I’ve been creating a model train park. A folly,’ he said.
‘As a tourist attraction?’ I couldn’t help smiling.
‘Oh, no, it’s a personal thing. It’s in the … well, the backyard—for want of a better term. I have forty acres.’
‘Like a Hornby thing?’
‘No, they’re all ride-on miniatures.’
I looked at Edward Lowe. With his greying hair, dark eyes and rimless glasses, he reminded me of Colin Firth. I thought of ride-on model trains. I assessed his impeccably ironed shirt, the suit that was possibly Tom Ford. And a model train park. Eccentric. Good looking and eccentric. Probably gay. I like gay men. They make excellent friends, in my experience. As do gay women. They seem to know themselves.
In Tasmania, I had discovered, most everyone had a hobby. The protection of hooded plover nests on beaches; the training of racing pigeons; the knitting of convict bonnets; the quilting of Aboriginal stories; the use of feral cat pelts to line Antarctic vehicles. You name it, it went on in someone’s backyard, sun room or garden shed, or on a plot of land they had in the bush.
Like me, Edward had grown up in Tasmania and then left. We talked about Harvard. He’d done a PhD there in economics. We talked about Manhattan, where he’d lived on the Upper West Side while he was working at Bain. His parents had both died a few years back, and his brother was suddenly in charge of packing up an enormous house in Hobart and dealing with the estate. Edward had come home to help and realised, once he’d returned to New York and found the plants dead on his balcony, that he really didn’t want to leave Tasmania again, so he flew back.
‘That was six years ago,’ he said.
‘Should I take that as a warning?’ I asked.
I’d drunk a little too much. But at the same time, I wasn’t sure I cared. I felt like I’d been in control a very long time. We all are, more or less. Some days it’s hard to keep pretending that it matters.
‘Tell me, Edward,’ I said. ‘What’s the next big economic opportunity for Tasmania, then?’
‘This may surprise you, but we need a football team,’ he said. ‘We need a Tasmanian team in the AFL.’
I laughed. The Australian Football League. He was right. That was not what I’d expected him to say. Australians are mad about football. More so even than Americans. It’s the true religion. A funny-shaped ball, four goalposts and eighteen very big, very agile men a side. There was even a women’s league, finally. But Tasmania was the only state without its own team in the national competition. Tasmanian players played for every other state, but they couldn’t play for Tasmania.
‘It stacks up,’ Lowe continued. ‘The economic case is very sound.’ Within five minutes he had convinced me.
We had arrived at the first dessert—a vanilla bean panna cotta with a berry compote matched with an iced riesling.
‘How is America doing, do you think?’ he asked. ‘You must get a unique perspective from the world stage.’
‘Right now, America has an isolationist, neo-conservative president who doesn’t believe in American strength being used to stabilise the world. Quite the opposite. He considers it the chief weapon to assert dominance. And he’s in his second term. He’s turned his back on America’s allies because he doesn’t believe in that framework. Now we’re seeing the fallout of that approach and it’s crippling international relations, the global economy, the American economy.’
‘And Russia? China?’ he added, quietly.
‘Russia isn’t a threat to anyone. It’s a nation that’s been in decline for many, many years. It’s weighed down by sanctions. It depends heavily on oil. Its military power is not in the realm of the US or China. But it’s a convenient and familiar enemy. And China?’ I considered the company I was in and said, ‘Maybe ASIO agents are feeding the left-wing press conspiracy theories … stirring up trouble with what they know …’
He gave me a very particular look, and the waiter came around and refreshed our glasses.
‘You’re not worried about the Russian intervention in elections?’ he asked.
‘At last count,’ I said, ‘I think the United States has interfered in forty-two elections, that we know about. Since the Second World War. Demonstrable, actual evidence. Allende in Chile. Iran. Guatemala. We’ve plotted assassinations and supported brutal governments—anti-communist, of course—in Latin America, Asia, Africa. Right now, we’re seeing the decline of the empire and the rise of a multi-polar world. What people don’t like is that the US is no longer the boss.’
‘So you do think of yourself as an American,’ he observed. ‘You said “we”.’
‘If I could have a Tasmanian passport, I think I’d prefer that to anything,’ I said. ‘How do you think America is doing?’
‘Like you, I don’t think democracy, in general, is doing particularly well,’ he said. ‘Maybe better in some countries. Scandinavia always seems to do things better. The last Tasmanian election was an interesting test case,’ he said. ‘The next federal election will be telling.’
Despite Edward’s discretion, Viper pricked up his ears at this. His pale face was a little sweaty and his eyes had grown small and glassy.
‘The ABC made outrageous allegations about the last Tasmanian election. They’re a leftist front paid for by this government. I doubt they’ll survive past the next federal election. The Tasmanian people supported strong leadership in 2018. Your brother can’t provide that unless he wins this next election too.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ I said, smiling.
As we were making our way out, Edward Lowe said, ‘I look forward to the next conversation. We must have lunch.’
‘That would be good,’ I said. ‘In the new year.’
He handed me a card. I could almost hear my mother saying, ‘Such a handsome man.’
JC and I travelled back to Hobart together.
‘So is Edward Lowe working for ASIO?’ I asked him.
‘What on earth makes you say that?’
‘There’s got to be one floating about you, you do know that, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yes, Ace, I forgot, every premier has a spy in their midst.’
‘Well, you do have Frank.’
‘You’re funny when you’ve drunk too much. You don’t think it’s because he looks like George Clooney that you think he’s a spy?’
‘Not Clooney,’ I said. ‘I thought … oh, I can’t remember now. Not Colin Farrell. Colin Firth! Is it very obvious I’ve drunk too much?’
‘Only to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve put him on my team leading into the election. He’s good on strategy. He’s an old friend of Becky Walton.’
‘Becky Walton! Now there’s a name from the past.’
‘Anyway,’ said JC, ‘Edward might be useful to you. Understands a lot about Tasmanians.’
‘I got a bit carried away talking to him.’
‘Give away any state secrets?’
‘Nothing anyone will miss,’ I said.
‘I like having you on the team, Ace,’ he said.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because I can trust you.’
I nearly said, ‘What a shame I can’t trust you.’ Which surprised me, because until now that may not have been true. Sometimes I wonder what will happen if I ever get Alzheimer’s. Will I begin confessing all the things I have learned over my lifetime? All the secrets I’ve kept? It’s probably best that people like me take ourselves out, if dementia ever threatens. Save a lot of people a lot of trouble.
‘JC, what will become of Tasmania if Tasmanians no longer own the parts of it they love?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You sold a lease to the beach at Stanley. What were you thinking?’
‘Jobs and growth, Ace. That’s what keeps people happy. Jobs and growth. That’s how elections are won.’
‘And what’s with closing the camping grounds at Freycinet? Is that true? Someone mentioned it yesterday.’
Freycinet is a peninsula of pink granite, white sand, tiny coves and she-oak forests, the playground of wealthier Tasmanians. It’s also home to the world-famous tear drop of Wineglass Bay.
JC stretched out. ‘Campers are low-value tourists, Ace, let’s face it. Let them hire a cabin and at least contribute to the economy. The world’s got more crowded. And tourism infrastructure costs money. Tasmanians have to accept that.’
‘But if there weren’t so many visitors, we wouldn’t need more infrastructure.’
‘So shall we tell people not to come, so a few locals can camp? It’s not their God-given right,’ JC said.
‘It is their God-given right, those campers. You think Spring Beach is your God-given right,’ I said. Spring Beach, where JC and Stephanie had built their very glamorous beach house.
‘We pay rates, Ace. We’re landowners.’
‘These camping grounds are places families have been going for generations. Not everyone can afford a cabin, let alone a shack.’
‘Shhh,’ he said, taking my hand and waving his other at the rolling hills of grapevines through the tinted windows. ‘This is what prosperity looks like, Ace. The place is pumping.’
‘Am I here to create better relations between Tasmania and China?’ I asked.
‘Jesus, Ace. They’re pouring a fortune into the place. Would it be so much to ask? Whatever you’re doing, it’s working, anyway. We haven’t had a protester in The Mercury for weeks. Did you really get Farris and the salmon industry in the same room?’
‘I did.’
‘And why, exactly?’
‘Well, the BFG are against more fish farms in the channel. So if I can get them to feel like they’re getting somewhere on that, it distracts them—momentarily, perhaps—from the bridge.’
‘Thanks, twin,’ he said. ‘It can’t have been easy to drop your life and come home. Hey, do you want a little fun over summer? I’m sure we could set you up with someone. Stephanie will know who.’
‘Need I remind you that I have a huge job to do for the premier, our mother is dying of cancer and our father is very fragile?’
‘It’s been three years, Ace. Got to get back on the horse one day.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ I said.
‘Do you think she really is dying? She always seems like she’s going to get away with it, somehow.’
‘I’m taking her to chemo on Wednesday,’ I said.
‘You’re a good person, Ace.’
‘I may be, but I’m not a very good daughter.’
JC shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You came when we all needed you. You sure we can’t interest you in staying? Couldn’t you base yourself here? There’d be work, too … if you wanted it.’
‘I’d die of claustrophobia. Everywhere I go, it takes people about one minute to work out who I am. It’s all so close. I need my anonymity.’
He nodded. ‘Is that why you’re down at Bruny so much?’
I shrugged. ‘Well, it is my job … but yes.’
‘Thought you might have found a bloke down there …’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said, and giggled.