Chapter 6

“What are you doing today?” Rachel asked.

“Thinking and writing. You?”

“I’m off to the ‘Our lands’ show at the Gallery. It’s in its third or fourth week.”

“What’s it about?”

“The blurb says: Works from the Gallery’s collection that explore the tensions, conflicts, suspicions and political struggles that are central to any discussion about rights to land in Australia. I know that works by Gordon Bennett, Daniel Boyd, Brenda L. Croft, Destiny Deacon, Gordon Hookey and Djambawa Marawil are included.”

“So the Art Gallery of New South Wales doesn’t hesitate to mix media?”

“Don’t be snarky! Want to come?”

“Want to? Yes. Will I? No. This is what I was asking about. Because I’m here, you think my time is free. If I were in an office somewhere, you’d have gone off to the Gallery.”

“You’re right. I’ll work on it. I can always get a research space at the Gallery.”

“Interesting idea. We’ll both have to work on it.”

“Before you go, you might think of Flood’s ‘Explanation of the landscape and everything in it’ as a sort of motto. Maybe that’s what your dissertation is about: Dupain and Williams as two ways of explaining the Australian landscape. Aren’t the people in Dupain’s photos part of the landscape’s ‘everything’?”

“Interesting. Very interesting. Thank you. I’m off.”

Patrick devoted several hours to Flood’s Archaeology of the Dreamtime. He’d gotten to Kangaroo Island when he recalled the Dreamtime story of the flooding of the Backstairs Passage.

Long ago, Ngurunderi’s two wives ran away from him, and he was forced to follow them. He pursued them and as he did so he crossed Lake Albert and went along the beach to Cape Jervis. There he saw the wives wading across the shallow channel which divided Naroongowie from the mainland. He was determined to punish his wives, and ordered the water to rise up and drown them. With a terrific rush the waters roared in and the women were carried back towards the mainland. Although they tried to swim against the wave they were powerless to do so and were drowned.

Explaining the landscape? No. Explaining the geophysics. The water rose about 10,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. Before that, Tasmania and Kangaroo Island were connected to the mainland. Ngurunderi is one of the great ancestral Dreaming beings of the Ngarrindjeri people. It was his following those wives that created the Murray River and its features. The Dreaming explained what each of us could still see. Even the cod.

What would there be in a thousand years? Certainly none of the big coastal cities would survive. Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth would be under water. Even Darwin and Hobart. Alice Springs would survive. Canberra? Maybe. Patrick looked up the elevations.

1. Armidale, NSW (980m)

2. Orange, NSW (860m)

3. Bathurst, NSW (670m)

4. Goulburn, NSW (640m)

5. Toowoomba, QLD (600m)

6. Canberra, ACT/Queanbeyan, NSW (580m)

7. Alice Springs, NT (580m)

8. Ballarat, VIC (450m)

9. Tamworth, NSW (400m)

10. Kalgoorlie, WA (380m)

As he wasn’t opposed to Canberra per se, it meant that it alone among the most populous places would be there after climate change struck. No point in fretting. If the Ross shelf and the Larsen shelf vanished, much of Sydney would be under water in mere decades. What would happen to all those islands Henry was interested in? And most of Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia?

Back to work. Less day-dreaming.

He ate a nectarine and a piece of cheese around noon and made coffee a bit later. Around 15:00 Patrick got to the end of Flood’s Chapter 16 and read: “The pace of change was quickening – who knows where this initiative and creativity might not have led Aboriginal society, had not those ships of doom sailed into Sydney Harbour in 1788.”

“Ships of doom.”

He’d never thought of it that way.

Was that what Hari Seldon was trying to avert: the descent into barbarianism and savagery? But certainly the English, with Christianity and the Law and guns and medicine weren’t barbarians and savages! Or were they? They had the material benefits, but until a few years ago, they thought they could break up families and take a woman’s children. Without those “ships of doom” there would still be Tasmanians.

Alice had married Angus, and fled to northern Queensland; the twins had dropped out and married Gordy. They rejected our superior civilization, as did the band now in Sturt.

The cell-phone interrupted his train of thought.

“Patrick? This is Olwen.”

“How was your day?”

“Just wonderful! Really wonderful! I can’t begin to tell you. Sarah Mitchell was so nice! She spent over a half-hour with me. And then we walked to Parliament Hill together. And she pointed me at the coffee bar when she went off to a meeting. And I sat through three hours of the LA.” She paused for breath.

“Are you back at the hotel?”

“No. I’m sitting in the park. I’m on a bench near the fountain.”

“Have you plans?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, if you can stand us again, we could take you our for dinner again.”

“Ooh! I’d love that.”

“How about classic French?”

“It sounds wonderful, but I don’t know what it means.”

“Too much cream, too much fuss, many aromas and tastes.”

“Wow!”

“Did my dad talk to you?”

“Yes, I’m meeting him at the Museum tomorrow.”

“Good. I’m going to try to get a booking and then call Rachel. I’ll ring you back in about half an hour.”

“OK.”

“And thanks for calling.”

“Thank you. You got me the appointment with Mrs. Mitchell.”

He phoned Rachel. She was nearly home, on her way from the stop near Queen Street. He then called La Guillotine on King. They could accommodate us at 19:30. Patrick waited till Rachel was in and told her that he’d booked the trio into La Guillotine and hoped she’d not had much lunch.

“A sparse salad and two teas all day,” she said. “I’m ready for something with cream and mushrooms.”

“OK. I’ll call Olwen. You get into the shower.”