That evening, Edward Lowe called me.
‘I have something for you from Becky,’ he said.
‘I’m in town if you want to meet?’
‘I thought we might make lunch this week instead,’ he said. ‘How’s tomorrow?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I can do that.’
‘Trio, midday?’ he asked.
‘Perfect.’
I don’t just gather information for the UN. I do it for my other employer. The CIA. Deep in CIA headquarters, people have been keeping a very close eye on the axis moving from democracy to tyranny in the United States. With the current president there’s been interference in our work at the highest levels. Everything has become political and there’s an agenda running that’s disturbed a lot of us. Our response had been to create black cells. Rogue units that are quietly protecting democracy wherever we see it being threatened. The blowing up of the Bruny Bridge and the passing of the foreign labour laws shifted something here in Australia. That’s why I had come. JC had asked, but the team back at Langley had instructed. Call back your brother. Say yes. Tell him you changed your mind. I had been sent home to see just what it was that had the Chinese government so very interested in Tasmania.
I chose to work for the CIA a long time ago. I was recruited during my time at Columbia and it fitted with the UN. It fulfilled something in me, this other part of my life that no-one knew about. No wonder Ben felt he never knew me. He didn’t, but he could have. If he’d watched carefully. But he wasn’t that sort of man. Maybe that was why I’d married him in the first place. Marriage can be a strange mix of hope and secrecy. Beyond loving Ben, our visibility gave me a veneer of invisibility. The very good-looking Jamaican with his flourishing academic career and his white Australian wife working for the UN. We were what we were. And not at all.
There had already been talk of sending me to keep an eye on this big bridge being built with Chinese money. I hadn’t wanted to go. I didn’t want to do surveillance on my own family. After the bomb, things changed. Enter the conflict resolution specialist stage right.
Those files I’d been amassing at Bruny, all of that had been going back to our team at Langley. Until Becky agreed to meet in a cave, everything I’d amassed was speculation. But now I knew. And I was about to know a great deal more.
Trio had booths and I had already discovered their benefits. It was one of the rare places you could be private in public. I wondered why more Hobart cafes and restaurants hadn’t invested in booths, so people could have the much-needed reprieve from always running into people they knew. Sitting in the farthest, quietest booth was Edward Lowe. I was on alert. This wasn’t going to be a simple thing. I could see that in the blandness of his expression.
‘Hello, Astrid,’ he said, standing up to greet me.
‘Hello, Edward,’ I said.
He kissed me on both cheeks and we sat down.
Edward ordered a white that was good and local. We ordered food. I might have done better with someone like him. A straight version of him. I was probably quite useless at choosing the right men, I decided. It may have been a lifelong weakness.
‘So Astrid Coleman,’ he said, ‘I want to know who you really are.’
‘In what way?’ I asked.
‘I’d like to know what the premier’s sister is doing playing the spy. Trading files with the prime minister’s senior adviser? It’s very intriguing.’ Had I been set up? What did he know?
I saw a cold, highly trained Edward, just under his skin. Analyst. Observer. Operative. Ah, I thought, not such a nice guy after all. Perfect. But dangerous.
I feigned innocence at his question. Was he federal police or was he ASIO? If he was ASIO did he have eyes on Becky or eyes on me? Without the file, there was nothing anyone could prove. But he might have been wearing a wire.
As if he sensed my thought, he said, ‘I’m not here to trap you, Astrid. If anything, I’m here to protect you. I could have had Feds waiting when I handed over the file.’
‘Becky and I go back a long way, too,’ he said. ‘We lived in a share house together in Battery Point when we were at uni. She was escaping her family and I’d come back to Tasmania after travelling for a few years. She used to talk about you, her friend who had left for New York. I first met JC then, too. She had him on the run.’
‘She did,’ I agreed.
‘Does she still have him on the run?’ he asked.
I had a feeling he knew all about JC and Becky. ‘It was a long time ago,’ I said.
He leaned back. ‘You’re a good sister, Astrid. Are you a good Tasmanian?’
‘Is this a job interview?’ I asked.
‘Maybe,’ he said. I wondered if he was going to ask me to work for ASIO. That would make things interesting.
He said, ‘Answer the question, Astrid. If we put aside world peace for the moment and we ask you to choose between your brother or Tasmania, what would you pick?’
So many of the most terrible conversations have taken place in benign settings. This one was accompanied by gnocchi with blue cheese and a delicious sauvignon blanc. Millions of lives have been decided over poorer fare.
‘Did Becky explain the contents of the file she wanted to give you?’ He observed me carefully.
‘You opened it?’
‘I didn’t have to,’ he said. ‘I am very familiar with that file.’
‘You sent it to her?’
‘We are the Tasmanian diaspora, Astrid. We go out into the world and sometimes we come home again. Believe me when I say this thing has stayed inside a tiny bubble of people in Canberra. Fewer than ten.’
‘Meaning … ?’ I said.
‘Meaning, do you understand the counterintelligence laws?’
‘I think so,’ I said.
‘Twenty-five years without parole for having this information in your hands. Twenty-five years for me handing it to you.’
‘And if I said I knew nothing?’ I asked.
‘Do you have any idea what an interrogation feels like?’
I nodded.
‘They train you for that?’ he asked.
I nodded again.
He said. ‘If I thought you were a threat, or that I couldn’t trust you, I would never hand over this file.’
I wanted to say, ‘Edward, I don’t just work for the UN. Just like you are clearly not just a consultant. I’m almost certain you work for ASIO. I gather information for the CIA. We are both keeping an eye on the same thing. That the good guys win. We just work for different agencies.’ But I didn’t. While ever I could fly under the radar, I would. This thing didn’t need to get any more complicated. An Australian agent handing top secret government information to a foreign agent—we wouldn’t just get twenty-five years without parole. We’d be gone forever.
‘You know one ridiculous thing the Chinese want in all this?’ he asked.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘They want to compete in the World Cup. They can’t find eleven players from a population of more than one billion people to beat the rest of the world at soccer. The Chinese are good at individual, repetitive sport. They can do a million perfect dives. Win a million ping-pong games. But soccer is creative. No matter how much they’ve poured into it, they’ve failed. They understand that they have to manufacture creativity. It’s never been done in China. They have had an education system that’s dampened any such inclinations. So this is part of the experiment too. Giving their people, their high-value people, the chance to raise their children a little differently, and see what comes of that. Free them from some of the Communist strictures. Not many but a few. But don’t think for a minute any of this is altruistic. China is, and will be for a very long time, a communist regime with supreme control over its citizens.’
‘That’s in the file?’ I asked. ‘About the soccer?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘And the selection process for high-value citizens. The dangerous ones who’ve sniffed the cocaine of capitalism. It’s all in there.’
‘I’m still incredulous,’ I said. ‘I mean, we’re part of the Commonwealth. We’re part of Australia. It’s never going to fly.’
‘That’s where I went,’ said Edward. ‘Surely the King will save us! But the Brits are a basket case. We both know they’ll never recover from Brexit. The King might have a fondness for us but, really, if the Australian government think it’s a good thing, then he’s not going to step in. The Queen might have been a different story. I think she was very fond of her Commonwealth—but he won’t keep that vision alive in the same way.
‘Hong Kong built a bridge too, a few years back,’ he continued. ‘From mainland China to Hong Kong. It killed the Hong Kong locals. And that was Chinese against Chinese.’
I thought of Hong Kong with its shabby high-rises, an air conditioner in every window, washing hanging from the balconies, the sea of people at every pedestrian crossing and one and a half billion people right across the bridge in China.
‘India will outstrip China in population in a few years,’ said Edward. ‘Its need for food security will become pressing. Africa, too, but that will always be a basket case. China, they see the future and they take action.’
‘Food production,’ I said. ‘Food security before India cottons on.’
‘Indeed. And if you were looking for somewhere clean, green and pristine, out of the way, easy to defend … and you might solve an almost unstoppable urge from certain elements in your country for more freedom at the same time. Dangle a fabulous carrot for good behaviour.’
‘It will never work.’
‘It’s a done deal,’ he said. ‘The flag goes down and everything goes into action once the bridge is completed. Is it any worse than the British who’ve been using their influence here since they invaded the place? Or the US and the UK dismantling the Whitlam government?’
‘Your model train farm is going to be hard to relocate,’ I said.
‘My land is on Bruny. At Simpsons Bay. I thought my slice of heaven was well preserved. But it turns out it is not. People thought I was mad relocating to Bruny. In the deal, all current Bruny landowners will be given the right to subdivide. Imagine the building industry. This is a peaceful way to inspire a boom. And we didn’t have to have a war first. Name one other way that has ever happened in the last five hundred years.’
‘Tulips?’
He smiled then. ‘Unlike the Dutch, the Chinese will ensure market stability. At least while it suits them.’
‘You don’t think economic theory has gotten in the way of pure common sense? I cannot believe for a moment Tasmanians will give up their homes to live on Bruny Island.’
‘Astrid, it is shocking. I know that. But you know better than anyone that economic theory got in the way of common sense a long time ago. Very soon twenty-five per cent of the world will be over sixty-five years of age. Tasmania will reach that sooner than most places. People are tired. They’d like to stop. The Gold Coast has always been very attractive to Tasmanians. I think you’d get a fair few moving to the warmth. You can buy a pretty nice apartment for a million dollars on the beach in Queensland and you’d have a very stylish retirement. It’s the people who don’t move away I’m more worried about. The people who take the Bruny deal. A contract with the Chinese is always opaque. This deal, all the new infrastructure they’re promising to build on Bruny … China do things on terms that will greatly benefit them down the track. They’ll compromise you. They lend you the money but you’ll never be able to pay it back. When the agreement suits them, they’ll enforce it. Like Sri Lanka with their ports. There are Chinese warships in the harbour now, because Sri Lanka couldn’t meet the repayments.’
‘These are Tasmanians. There will be outrage. Did nobody notice? We don’t go down without a fight …’
‘The Aborigines got moved to Cape Barren Island. The government got away with that.’
‘But half a million people? High-rises on Adventure Bay?’
‘Yes, and schools, medical facilities, arts centres. There’s sensitive technology that the Chinese want to ensure is no longer kept on mainland China. Too vulnerable. Safer out of the way. Tasmanian kids are assured of work in those businesses. Free university too, I believe. And the universal basic income for anyone over eighteen earning less than the minimum wage. Right now, we’re looking down the barrel of Tasmania being the Australian Detroit in five to ten years. Unemployment for people under thirty is at twenty-five per cent and growing. Growing unemployment overall. Automation is coming and smart businesses know it. Everyone from doctors to drivers can be replaced with the right programming. There isn’t enough left to cut down or dig up here to save everyone. Zinc smelting won’t do it. Nor fish farms. I think you’ll find most people could be pretty adaptable under the circumstances.’
I pictured the bridge and its six-lane capacity. I wanted to scream.
‘How did this happen?’ I asked. ‘We’re Tasmanians. We’re never going to surrender this island. We’re the most reluctant people in the world to embrace change …’
Edward tilted his head to one side.
‘Have you heard about the TasInvest conference?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Do you know the greatest mistake I think they made, your brother’s government?’ he asked. ‘They disregarded the arts. There wasn’t a single cultural reference. No Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. No theatre. No films. No dance, poetry, art. It was all PowerPoints and economics. The Chinese saw this place as a cultural wasteland. And that makes you a prime target for anything like this. The Chinese know they haven’t done Hong Kong well. It was a jewel and now it’s not. It’s become tarnished and chipped under their rule. Some would say cracked. Anyone who dares to talk of independence is howled down as a heretic and bundled back to the Chinese mainland for re-education. This is a different experiment. This is a different sort of re-education. This is a toe in the water of capitalism under communism. It’s never been attempted before.’
‘I hardly believe a play or a symphony could have made the difference,’ I said.
‘Nobody with a strong culture looks like they can be bought,’ he said. ‘There’s no price high enough for people who have land and community in their blood. Haven’t we learned that from every indigenous culture that has clung to their ways and their land to the death? This government, at a state and a federal level, they’ve hammered the arts for years. They’ve eviscerated it. How the ABC have hung on is a miracle, and now, with all these hyenas circling, they’ll almost certainly be forced to privatise. And then it’s over. No national public broadcaster. The right-wing press will win. Every theatre company or film production company in this country—unless it’s making a Marvel movie—has been defunded. That’s our cultural expression, and if we don’t have that, it weakens everything. It’s a bit like leaching. We’re wilting with cultural anaemia. The sheer determination of artists, practitioners and administrators—that’s what’s keeping Australian culture going. But in so many cases, it’s been death. Organisations and festivals, magazines and journals and, ultimately, possibilities. This is where it’s got us. Selling this little island to prop up the rest of Australia. What next? Norfolk Island? You can bet those people would go down fighting. Fraser Island? Rottnest Island? Why not the whole of Western Australia? I mean, would anyone really notice? Easy enough to make a border across the desert. Build a wall.’
‘I think this is the worst lunch I’ve ever had,’ I said.
‘Astrid, don’t get me wrong. I’m not telling you this so we acquiesce. Do you understand that?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t understand that. So what are you suggesting? We start a revolution?’
‘Let me tell you something. A few years back I was commissioned by your brother to assess the role sea changers could play economically in Tasmania’s future.’
‘And … ?’
‘Well, this didn’t go in my report. Every person I interviewed had some kind of spiritual undertone to their move to Tasmania. I interviewed hundreds across the state. All of them felt that they had found a place that was good for their soul. They might not have used that word, but they all referred to a sort of spiritual wellbeing. This wasn’t about religion, I might add. It was something bigger than that.’
‘Any Chinese?’
‘Twelve. The rest were from everywhere else. Iceland to Argentina.’
‘Hippies?’
‘Not at all. Most are affluent, older, middle-class people wanting a quieter lifestyle.’
‘Why didn’t you put it in your report?’
‘I didn’t know how to couch that language,’ he said. ‘It seemed to be inappropriate somehow. But I think they’re emblematic of the greater Tasmanian population.’
I thought of Dan Macmillan saying that Tasmanians had already given up a lot to be here. To stay here. But did Tasmanians see more than money? Surely some of them must. Would there be a tipping point? If, say, fifty per cent of Tasmanians took the deal, made three times the value of their homes, moved to Bruny or Queensland or wherever they thought life looked good, would the other half roll over?
‘I think they’ll fight to the end,’ I said. ‘And what about Bruny landowners? What if people don’t want to develop their land? Compulsory acquisition?’
Edward smiled. ‘Remember the resident population is only six hundred people. There’s a great deal of state forest and Parks and Wildlife land on Bruny. That will be reassigned for development.’
‘How will the government force relocation to Bruny? I mean, they’re not going to get out the army, are they?’
‘It must have been considered. But clearly they’re relying on the money to make people docile, compliant, supportive of the whole thing.’
I shook my head.
‘You’re the expert. How do we fan these flames of protest?’ he asked. ‘And, most importantly, how does it happen without anyone going to jail?’
‘I’m meant to stop it?’
Edward said, ‘I would guess, over and above your loyalty to country and family, you came home because the world was wearing you down, Astrid. The conflict is endless, isn’t it? At least here no-one is going to murder your best friend and put their head on your doorstep. You don’t have to see women who haven’t had the right medical help after their genitals were cut away. You don’t meet young men who’ve been trained to be suicide bombers but mucked up and lost their arms or legs. Or had them hacked off by militia. The wars, the bombs, the rapes, the children, the sex slaves, the refugees, the families trying to rebuild a life together … all the horror in this world. It’s no wonder you’re spending as much time as you can on Bruny. You’re getting a sense of what you left, and probably you’re considering whether you’ll go back to New York at all. Because waking up here in Tasmania, you’re hoping you are a long, long way from the next terrorist attack. You are a long way from rush hour in almost any form. You rarely have to queue. You don’t have to park and ride. You can park right outside most anything you want—even Salamanca, if you get there before the tourists. Every time there’s another mass shooting in the world, we all become a little more numb. But here, in Tasmania, it’s as if we get some feeling back. The sky is beautiful at night. The light is magical. Sunrises, sunsets, the sea—it all works on you, doesn’t it? And, like me, you want to believe it can stay this way.’
I wanted to cry. How had he done that? Had he accessed my file from the UN? I hate the world sometimes. I hate how you can’t escape it and you can’t escape yourself.
‘Astrid, you’re maybe the one person on this island who can make this thing go away. But time is of the essence. I think Beck was very clever when she chose you. You have connections. Anyone who can settle conflict down must have a pretty good idea of how to start it as well.’
I wasn’t going to correct him. Let him think Becky chose me, not that I gave her an impossible choice.
‘I’ll deliver the file to you at your house on Bruny. Wear gloves. No-one is getting prosecuted over this. When’s a good time?’ he asked.
It was Friday. ‘I’m there tonight. Tomorrow night, too.’
‘Tomorrow night is good. I’ll come by at six o’clock.’
‘Edward, do you think the person who sent Becky the file also knows who blew up the bridge?’ I asked.
It was the first time I’d seen his eyes sparkle.
‘You’re rather clever, aren’t you?’ he said.
I walked out of the restaurant with Edward.
‘We are two friends,’ he said. ‘We know nothing. We just had a delicious lunch. Look happy.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
My phone was buzzing in my bag. I reached for it and saw that both Max and JC had been calling. Twelve missed calls. Texts saying: Call me.
I wondered if we were about to be swooped upon by federal agents. I wondered if something had happened to our mother in hospital. ‘Oh no,’ I said, and called Max.
‘Shall I wait?’ Edward asked.
‘No, of course not.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, ushering me to a bench in the public space by the fountain.
‘Ace … Ace, I’m sorry to have to do this on the phone. Are you sitting down?’ Max said.
‘Yes, yes,’ I said.
‘Where are you?’
‘In Salamanca Square. What happened? Is it Mother?’
‘No, no, no …’
‘What happened, Max?’
‘It’s … it’s Dad … He had another stroke and, Ace—he died. I’m so sorry. Just half an hour ago. We’re coming to pick you up, okay? JC is with me. We’re coming to get you.’