The Find (18 page)

—
♦ —

THE IDEA, THE VISION THAT ANNA CARRIED,
was part treasure, part burden. It glowed, but at the same time it was invisible. She carried it out of the floatplane and through the airport, brought it with her into the aircraft. Holding it still, she watched through the small, scratched window the vast corrugation of grey and white mountain peaks below. Then the city was visible, a brown glint of towers, thrusting out of the surrounding plain like some strange crystal in a rock.

She buckled herself in. The elderly woman next to her offered a mint and Anna thanked her and accepted, sucked the sweetness as the city grew suddenly closer, larger, and then vanished, lost in the ordered spaces of the airport itself. The plane's wheels jolted onto the runway and the plane vibrated with frustrated momentum, came finally to a standstill.

It was bright outside and 27 degrees. She reached for her cell phone and switched it off, wanting to keep a clear head. Vik had said he would leave the car for her; she would be at the museum by noon. Could she make the others see what she saw? How much did she really count for there? Depending on the answers to those questions, her plan would be supported, or it would not: it was as wide open as the huge blue skies above, she thought as she set out on the familiar road that seemed suddenly strange, treeless, extraordinarily flat. She must keep her mind on what mattered and forget the rest. Alan Coxtis came unbidden to mind, sitting with his back against the rock. She must be like him, she thought.

It was a shock at first to see that even the overflow parking was full, and the constant parade of visitors streaming between their cars and the entranceway, threading their way over the nearby boardwalks. This was the other half of the museum's purpose: exposing millions of people filled with the wants and needs of their twenty-first-century human lives — their anxieties about status, work, love and the shape of their legs — to the past. They came, Anna knew, mainly to gasp at the reconstructed monsters, but in the course of their day some of them surely would begin to wonder at the intricacy of the ecologies the big dinosaurs were part of, to glimpse something far more terrifying than any T. rex: the sheer enormity of time, the terrible relentlessness of geological and evolutionary change.

She was not sure what people could do with this understanding, the vertigo it brought. But she did like to see people at the museum, spilling out onto the cafÈ terrace at lunchtime, or emerging, tired but wonderstruck, at the end of the day. At the same time, she was very glad of her designated space in the staff area at the back.

‘Everyone's doing their best to get here.' Brian told her, as he and Jan climbed out of one of the museum vans. ‘Had to pick up Jan from the field station, drag him away from his new fish! This is turning into quite the saga.'

‘Yes,' she shrugged. ‘Sorry!' He offered a brief hug and she took it gladly. Both of the men were grey with sand and dust.

‘Complaints have been flying around, apparently.'

‘I did omit to contact the St'alkwextsihn,' she told him, ‘But as I've said, there are precedents and I'm sure it can be sorted out.' They pushed through the back entrance, into the even indoor light.

‘Who is this young assistant of yours?' Jan asked, removing his sunglasses to reveal brown eyes sunk in sockets pale as twin moons. ‘Wish I had one.'

‘Scott?' she said. ‘He's helping out. A very useful member of the team.' The two men glanced at each other.

‘Well, I guess I may as well tell you: Swenson called us yesterday. He seems to think you've, quote, lost your mind over this young man,' Brian said, lowering his voice. ‘He's suggesting your loyalties are compromised and that's why the whole protest has got out of hand—'

‘I will, quote, lose my mind if he goes around saying things like that!' she said, willing herself past her own sensitivity to the phrase
lost your mind
, to keep on walking. All three of them laughed.

Brian and Jan went to shower while she waited in the boardroom for the others to turn up. Sheila was the first to arrive.

‘George is coming,' she said, opening the case and taking out her laptop. ‘He'll chair. And Susan from PR. Quite a business!'

‘Well, the timing is unfortunate,' Anna said, ‘but I think it's a very interesting situation. An opportunity,' she added, getting to her feet to shake the director's hand. Before long the room was full: ten men, two women.

‘Anna,' George said, waving his cuffed hand in her direction. ‘I'll need dinner and a drink within the next two hours, so please get us started.'

‘I have been thinking about the common ground, and I think I have come up with something that might work,' she began. She was nothing like the woman who had sobbed in the blue light of her nylon tent, and she acted as if both Mike Swenson and HD did not exist.

♦ ♦ ♦

Scott knew he would have to make the journey out again later in the day, but even so, he trudged back upriver. The camp and its concerns had become his world — he could not stay away.

They were getting ready to jacket.

Lengths of lumber and strips of burlap had been prepared. Buckets of plaster were dotted around and Jason in a cutoff t-shirt and filthy Carhartt shorts was mixing up another batch. Everyone wore rubber gloves — and there were more people than there used to be, because Mike Swenson and three of his team were there too, some of them chipping away at the rock, Mike himself among the group jacketing the top part of the head.

‘What are they doing here?' Scott asked Jason, who paused the drill he was using to drive the mixer.

‘Why not?' He used a rag to wipe at the sweat coursing down his face. ‘I don't understand Anna's thinking,' he said. ‘Don't we all want to get the job done? She's been acting very strangely, and to my mind, Mike has a point. This hasn't been professionally organised, right from the start.'

Greta nodded her agreement. Felix, listening to the animal or bird of the day, worked on. Lin looked tense, but her hands were gloved and ready too.

‘There's no harm,' said Maiko, and she and Akira both smiled and beckoned Scott to join them. ‘When she comes back, I think she will be pleased.'

‘Anna's responsible for this specimen,' he told them. ‘There is a reason why this site was divided—'

‘Scott,' Mike interrupted, looking up for the first time, ‘don't give me shit, okay? Getting the specimen out intact is the point. That's what I'm aiming for. Sometimes a few toes have to be trodden on is all. She'll get over it, or if she doesn't, that's her problem… Where is she?' he asked. ‘When is she coming back?'

‘You have no right to be here.'

‘Right?' he said, and looked around at the rest of them and shot out something between a laugh and a growl. ‘That's rich, coming from you. I'm here is what matters. I'm focussed on the work, and I'm going to get it done, despite the idiocy that surrounds us.' He gestured at the cliff.

‘Let me tell you something,' he continued. ‘I believe in going for what I want, otherwise what is the point of wanting it? You take what chances come your way with both hands, and if you need to fight for your chance, of course you do it. Otherwise, someone else is going to get what you could have had, or mess it up for you. The best thing that could happen around here is if everyone forgets their damn grudges and pulls together.'

‘I believe she found it, but offered to share it with you,' Scott said. There was something about Mike Swenson in this triumphant mode that made him reluctant to give the man even the used air in his lungs.

Mike stood.

‘Scott,' he said, ‘it's not playtime. You don't know diddlysquat about all this. Believe me. We need this out of here so we can get to the other one. That's what we are here for, okay? Come and help.'

‘I don't think so,' Scott said, and walked away, knowing that the others would continue working, chipping away the last fragments, pressing the plaster-soaked cloth into the layers beneath.

The project worker, Brianne, let Scott into Phoenix House, pushed aside his apologies about being in his work clothes.

‘You are our very first dinner guest. Mac will be thrilled!' she said as she led him to the kitchen at the back of the house, explaining on the way how important it was to teach life skills such as purchasing healthy foods and cooking balanced meals.

Scott had not seen his father in an apron before, and he had never seen him so clear-eyed and well put together: beneath the apron was an ironed shirt, very clean, tucked into new, neatly belted denim jeans; his feet gleamed in the new sneakers, still so white they almost hurt to look at. He had his hair cut. His skin was still blotched red over the cheeks and nose but it was well washed and shaven.

‘Scotty!' Mac put the wooden spoon down on a plate and offered a hug. A
hug
: it felt very strange, the feel of him sober, engaging one to one and emanating a waft of soap or aftershave that mingled with the tang of the bolognese sauce bubbling on the stove. Not slumped, but standing. Present.

‘Dad,' Scott said, which felt strange, too.

The table was almost ready. Plates, glasses, and in the middle several jugs of iced water, two bowls of salad. A woman in a long brown skirt, with hair dyed a dark red colour, was putting out the cutlery and Mac called out to her:

‘Orianna! This is Scott!' She approached, bracelets clinking at the wrist, to shake his hand. Beneath the shoulder-length hair and straight-cut bangs, her face was rounded and somehow childlike, but wrinkled and red with burst capillaries. Her t-shirt had a picture of a tiger on it, with sequins around the eyes.

‘Your father's a wonderful man,' she squeezed his hand, and then held it. ‘And he wouldn't have got this far without you taking care of him like you have.' She gave him a long, deep look in the eyes and then bustled over to help drain the spaghetti.

‘You shake the dinner bell, Scott,' Brianne told him. Other people began to appear and settle around the table: older people mainly, but there were some who might have been in their twenties or thirties. Steam rose from twelve plates.

‘Thank you for this good food that we share,' Orianna declared and there were a few muttered amens before those who had waited rushed to catch up with those who had already started their food. Everyone ate as if they were making up for meals missed and the bolognese was good, Scott thought, though something, maybe basil, or even red wine, would help it out.

He tried to fill Mac in on the dig and the protest, gaining in return a few nods, a twitch of the eyebrows and a comment to the effect that it would probably take fifteen years to sort out. Mac's interest, Scott soon realised, was at best intermittent. Most of the time, when his father's eyes were not on his plate they were on Orianna, who sat across the table, smiling now and then at the skeleton of a man who sat next to her.

‘Smart woman. Used to have her own floristry business,' Mac told him. ‘Jackie would have liked her,' he added next time his mouth was free, ‘wouldn't she?'

‘I don't know,' Scott told him. He didn't like to think of it, and even if he did, he had no idea who, apart from him, his mother had liked. She was gone before things got that sophisticated.

‘She would,' Mac insisted, colouring. ‘I'm telling you, she would.'

‘Sure,' Scott said, helping himself to the salad passed to him.

And after the dinner, he tried to leave, but no one wanted to let him go and they all trooped into the recreation room to watch
Antz
. Movies and TV, Brianne explained, were only
allowed in the evenings. Residents had to discuss and agree earlier in the day what to watch from the limited selection available. At this stage, most of the movies were family entertainment, but if there did turn out to be any on-screen drinking or drug abuse, then they'd pause the movie to discuss it.

Mac, Orianna and Scott sat on the same oatmeal-coloured couch. The lights were low. Scott let his eyes close, half-
listening to the voices and soundtrack, and then occasionally willed them open when stirrings or laughter in the room signalled that there might be something worth seeing, though of course, he was always too late.

Beside him, his father and Orianna were holding hands in her lap. Her head rested across his chest, his free arm circled her shoulder; neither of them was looking at the screen.

Scott did not so much as glance back to his right until the lights came on again. He passed on the tea, thanked everyone and left. An hour later, in the trailer, he opened all the windows and doors before stretching out on top of his bed. He could think of nothing but the dig, how he did not want to tell Anna what had happened, how things were about as bad as they could possibly be, though of course in that he was wrong: Barry Sutherland and another officer were in the carpark the next morning, leaning against the side of a single squad car, smoking. A piece of yellow tape had been strung across the head of the trail.

‘The area's been cleared,' Barry waved in the direction of the river. ‘Some Native kid is threatening to jump off the cliff if your lot don't back down by the end of the day.'