The Lapis

By Alasdair Macdonald

The mystery that surrounds the pyramids is put to rest in this novel. Or, at least, the footprints on the lost trail that lead to resolving the mystery are uncovered.
And, although life’s purpose remains perplexing, death’s final curtain is revealed for what it is; as non-existent as the invisible material of the emperors new clothes. It is not our gullibility, however, that materialises the final curtain, but it is the pollution of our senses that creates it.
Our world was infected by the scourge of human greed and self-interest over two millennia past. This novel tells of how fate conspired against the odds to allow an opportunity for that damage we inflicted so long ago to be put right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626756557

Book preview

9781626756557

Chapter 1

Daddy?

Yes Annie.

When will you die?

Oh … Albie Shalit stretches the word, I don’t know; but it’s further away than tomorrow, and we know tomorrow never comes, don’t we Annie? Albie looks at Annie and laughs.

They lay side by side on the lawn next to their house. The grass is newly cut and carries the sweet muted scents of lime and feijoa. The sun is low on a spring evening. The daisies begin to close with sleep. Albie looks at Annie through the thin forest of white petals growing between them. Annie, who is 4 years old, has her hands behind her head just as Albie has. She is staring up at a white wisp of cloud that floats, still as death, overhead.

When I was a big girl, did you love me? Annie asks.

Yes Annie. Love doesn’t have a watch, it is forever.

Come inside you two, it’s time to wash your hands for dinner, Suzanne calls from the kitchen.

Mummy has a watch, Annie says.

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Albie stared into the compost heap and recalled, as he often did, Annie asking when he would die. Tears swelled in his eyes as he sipped his coffee. The morning sun rose above the eastern horizon at Albie’s back. Its pulsing energy charged the air around him. The frost on the lawn was thick and he heard it crackle softly. Mesmerized by the life in the steaming compost heap in front of him, Albie wondered if he had missed the point; if he ever knew it. Albie pleaded, to any God who would listen, Please … let tomorrow come.

Chapter 2

Albie overtook the last four cars before turning off the highway. He listened with raw pleasure to the bass triple harmony of the 740cc engine of his 1975 T160 Triumph. He dropped down a gear and leaned left into the exit road. The trumpeting note of the three cylinder Trident climbed an octave. With deft precision needed to align cornering art with old engineering, Albie effortlessly pointed his motorbike towards the orange glow of sunset, homeward.

As Albie pulled the garage door down he heard his cellphone ring just a decibel louder than the clanking din of the roller door closing. He found his mobile finally. As he grabbed the phone from a zipped pocket inside a dome-buttoned flap of his armored brown leather jacket, it stopped ringing. The caller’s name flashed on the screen, ‘Noel D’. Albie cursed. He twisted the door knob of his unlocked house. Entering into the kitchen he walked straight to the fridge, took a beer from it, and twisted the cap off, throwing it towards a brown paper bag sitting on the bench across the room. His eyes followed the cap and he watched it dance in the air as it hovered forward. It spun flat and slow like a tilting gyroscope and then, as if an error of navigation took it too close to a black hole, it appeared to accelerate before disappearing into the bag with a satisfying clunk. Lifting the bottle to his lips Albie ambled through to the adjoining lounge and sprawled himself into an armchair. He drank his beer and stared blankly into the room as it turned to darkness.

As he always did when he was alone and idle, Albie thought of his wife and daughter. He tried to imagine Suzanne and Annie in the room with him. Albie’s glazed eyes moved across the lightless room, ‘Here, right bloody here … for five years we shared our lives … love … happiness’. It was three and a half years ago the accident killed his wife and child and each second since had been hungry for Albie’s soul. And not content with that, time had eaten into his mind; casting out the images like unwanted ballast. Albie couldn’t yet look directly at a photo of them. He colluded passively with time, not resisting its pillage. Distraction. Most nights a few beers could do it. Tonight it was Noel. Bloody Noel. He took his phone out of his pocket.

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After the accident that killed his wife and daughter, Albie didn’t work for a year and a half. He couldn’t face the world and he could afford not to. A week after the funeral he told his three senior foremen that he wanted them to decide amongst themselves who would become the boss of his engineering business and that he would accept their decision. He told them he wanted to sell the business but was willing to wait to allow the three of them to consider buying the business from him together. He was 32 years old and had had enough.

For the next year and a half, except for the rare trip into town for necessities, Albie spent his time on his 20 acre property balancing the excesses of physical work and alcohol. He gardened and landscaped, reconditioned his tractor and his ute engines, cut firewood from his 10 acre pine forest, designed and created a prototype heavy-duty scissor-jack for raising loaded pallets onto trucks, and, in the evenings, reread Thomas Hardy’s novels and drank red wine and beer to distraction. Tung Taylor, his neighbor, routinely visited him on the last Friday of each month. Tung, a retired general practice doctor in the area for many years, would bring a bottle of scotch and together they would empty it.

After a year of seclusion Albie realized he may as well be dead too. He knew he had lost touch with the reality that existed beyond his fence line. He didn’t care, but he wanted to. For another six months he dwelt on how he could end his torment. Returning to his engineering business was not an option. It was too close to home. Albie knew that if he was going to pick himself up he would need a complete change. The day after he resolved to change his life, he received an intriguing job offer. When the phone rang early on a wet and windy summer morning in mid December, Albie was surprised. He had forgotten he had a landline phone and realized he must still be paying for it by direct debit. It hadn’t rung for over a year.

Hello? Albie’s voice was hesitant. He felt nervous and uncomfortable. He had lost his ability to engage with the world beyond the fence.

Albie? It’s Spike. Spike Hamilton. Remember? … school?

Albie had known Spike like a brother once and was glad, and surprised, to hear his voice. He had received a card of condolence from Spike after the accident, which had touched him because Spike had not met either his wife or daughter and Albie had always thought Spike had left school on bad terms with him. He had not seen him since. Spike avoided the topic of death. He explained that he was working in a university in Canada. Ancient history of all things, Spike laughed. Albie remembered with affection the child edition of that laugh from his school days.

Why did you leave school so … abruptly?

Spike cleared his throat, Yeah. That was a low point. Sorry Albie. A character flaw I’ve been working to fix. Spike laughed but he couldn’t mask his embarrassment of the memory. He changed the subject.

Albie, there’s a chap in Auckland I know vaguely from my varsity days, Bill Statten. He chairs a board of a company that consults on engineering and power projects and such like. I was speaking with him the other day and he was asking if I could help get his son into the university here in Canada. Anyway, we were talking about education in Canada and he told me how hard it was to get skilled people in New Zealand. He said he was having a hell-of-a-job finding a decent civil engineer … not the usual run of the mill niche expert … more a can-do-anything sort of person. I immediately thought of you. I gave him your name but then thought I should let you know so it’s not a surprise if they do call you. I hope you don’t mind Albie. Albie was surprised that Spike had managed somehow to be informed on what he had been doing since they both left school. But he was touched that Spike obviously still bothered.

Albie, Spike’s tone was serious, plaintive, you were the perfect person for the dux award. I wish I stuck around to congratulate you. I hope I can make it up to you one day. Spike hung up.

Later that day, in the early afternoon, Albie’s landline phone rang again for the second time that year.

Hello, Albie Shalit speaking. Albie’s telephone voice more practiced now. The female on the other end asked Albie to wait while she transferred the call. He then heard a click and a male spoke.

Hello Mr Shalit, it’s Noel Drummond speaking. I’m the CEO of the Pure Environment Power Corporation. Your name has been given to us as a well qualified engineer. Is this a convenient time to talk?

And so started in the new year, after a quiet Christmas, Albie’s employment with PEPC. It lasted two years. After a year at PEPC Albie was starting to resent the CEO and the Board. After two years he despised them. PEPC, it seemed to Albie, was led by white collar thugs who somehow were able to elbow their way into large infrastructure projects. They were, according to the CEO, ‘project facilitators’. As a corporation it was extremely successful; PEPC was the facilitator of choice for those with deep pockets; its Board had strong political and business connections; the employees were highly qualified and paid enough to buy their allegiance; the CEO was hands-on, driven and focused to a laser point. In his second year with PEPC Albie viewed the corporation as a mere mercenary, willing to compromise ethics to ‘facilitate’ any large project that paid them. PEPC provided biased pro-project designs, supportive engineering reports, and business cases that were belted and braced. The reports were littered with impenetrable technical engineering, accounting, and legal jargon that could withstand assault from detractors who might object to a project and pursue their cause through consent appeal processes.

Noel, the CEO, had no social filters. Empathy was a weakness, though he might feign it, poorly, if he thought it would give him an advantage. But he preferred the aggressive approach and was brutal in his style and choice of words with staff. Albie learnt this quickly on the afternoon of his second day in the office when Frank, an urban engineer, was receiving a farewell speech from a work colleague Dan, a senior urban architect, in the staff room. All the staff were in the room except Noel. Albie was surprised at Noel’s absence as Frank had been at PEPC for three years and was respected and liked by his colleagues. As Dan was in mid-speech, Noel walked into the room and said in a loud voice, Excuse me, Dan stopped speaking and everyone looked at Noel, I remind you all the draft Board Reports are due to me a 4 o’clock, I expect them all to me by then. Noel turned to walk out and Dan said, Ah, Noel? Noel stopped and turned towards Dan, raising his eyebrows quizzically. Dan continued, We’ll have the drafts to you by four. We’re just giving Frank a send off, you’re welcome to stay. We’ll finish here in a few minutes.

Noel’s eyes scanned the room as he looked at everyone except Frank. Frank who? I’m busy and I don’t have time for quitters.

That was his idea of team building.

In his first year at PEPC Albie had made some good friends. Being tall and athletic made him a key player in the various sports leagues that PEPC employees competed in. He often was able to become immersed in the interactions with his work colleagues and in these moments his thoughts of his wife and daughter were less keenly active in his mind. His first work tasks were mundane and process oriented as he adapted to the new office culture and the PEPC ‘way’ of doing things. He was surprised how the CEO personally controlled almost every aspect of the business, but it suited Noel’s rough, aggressive style and his need to be the sole conduit to the Board. Noel got his own way, always. Beneath the CEO the corporate structure was flat so most things were reported directly to him. Albie would read the reports that were fed to the Board each month. He once questioned some findings in a Report with the CEO, but he received a response that made him reassess his future expectations of a constructive debate with Noel. Listen Albie, I’ll make this real clear for you. You focus on what I pay you to do. That Report has nothing to do with you. I’ve got the big picture on all the projects and I don’t need your half-cocked input on them. Noel walked away and Albie simmered for an hour trying to understand how Noel got to the position he did. Albie decided to keep low for the moment.

In his second year Albie was given a lead road engineering role in a subdivision project sponsored by a large regional council. His colleague, Dan, was the project manager and the lead urban architect for the project. As was the case for each project this was treated as sensitive and confidential. The project focus was to provide the council with the mechanism and justification for making a particular low socio-economic residential area more attractive to middle class homeowners. The suburb, Becallo, was in a magnificent setting surrounded by high rolling hills and had extremely fertile soil. The existing houses had been built cheaply fifty years ago through a labor government scheme to house blue collar workers. At the time the suburb of Becallo was considered a long way from the city centre. However, with urban sprawl, it was now considered ‘proximate’, but was still being shunned by middle class buyers. Albie initially got immense satisfaction working on the project knowing that most of the occupants in the suburb owned their property, as the houses were still relatively cheap. He knew these struggling owners and their families, who represented the poorest in the region, would benefit from the development. Unfortunately, the project soured for him and he became more cynical about it as it drew to an end. Albie completed the roading report that was included in the final report for the Board approval. He mentioned his concerns to Dan, the project leader, who considered Albie had found serious issues in the directors’ behaviors but had thought it was not directly related to the project and they should simply ‘let it lie’. Albie persisted and Dan ‘unofficially’ told Albie he would not harbor any ill-feeling if Albie pursued it as he thought fit but not to involve Dan in any way. So Albie amended his own report to the Board after Dan had reviewed the original drafts, in order to keep Dan out of any trouble. He knew his decision to criticize the Board in his report would create some backlash. He was certain this was what Noel had rung about. The Board would have received their Board papers that day and no doubt had contacted Noel.

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Albie returned to the kitchen and took another beer from the fridge. His body moved in harmony with his lethargic mood. Heading back to the lounge he flicked the light switch on and pressed Noel’s number. He sprawled back into the arm chair and took a sip from his beer.

Albie, you got my message?

Hi Noel, no, I didn’t check. Thought I’d just return your call.

Look, I got Board members abusing me telling me they were insulted by what you’d written in the report. What the hell were you thinking? The report you gave me last week wasn’t the same as the one that ended up going to the Board. That’s shonky process Shalit and I’m not putting up with it. Just bloody shonky!

Albie took a sip of beer as Noel talked.

Hey hey hey, settle down Noel. You prattle on about what a great corporate citizen PEPC is, now just listen to yourself! You’re angry only because the Board aren’t happy. Of course they aren’t! But they’ve all got their snouts in the trough on this project and I wanted them to know that I know and that they should think about their ethics. It stinks and you know it!

Look … we’re not achieving anything here. Come in to the office early tomorrow. We’ll talk about it then. See you in the morning, at seven. The phone disconnected abruptly. Albie threw it across the room, the phone hit the back of the opposite armchair and bounced to the floor.

Albie swiped his card and entered the plush 17th floor office of PEPC. He noticed the light in Noel’s office was on. It was 6.45 am on a Friday. Albie had intended to get in early and check his emails before Noel got in, but instead he walked straight towards Noel’s office. The door opened as Albie approached. Noel’s short rotund body filled the lower gap in the door. He was impeccably dressed in a navy blue suit and blue and pink checked shirt with a darker pink tie. His straight orange-red hair was combed down and looked more like a toupee than usual, which made Albie smile. Come in, Noel snarled with a twitching grimace as he made way to let Albie enter. Albie walked past Noel and looked down at the top of Noel’s head. Albie stood head and shoulders above him and this morning decided not to diminish the contrast with a concealed stoop, as he had done in the past. Inside the office Albie noticed a stocky pinstriped-suited middle-aged man with short black and grey hair seated on a sofa along the back wall opposite Noel’s desk.

Albie, this is Rex Tonkin. He represents the Board on legal matters. Rex looked towards Albie but seemed to focus on a point behind him. He made no effort to get up and maintained his cross-legged and arms-folded position. Albie nodded at Rex and sat on the only remaining office chair, placed between Noel’s desk and the sofa that Rex sat on. Noel sat behind his desk and cleared his throat.

I do not want to see you again after this meeting. Do you understand? I want you to take whatever personal belongings you have from your desk and be out of here before anyone else arrives. Noel looked at his watch. That gives us half an hour. Clear?

Albie had expected to receive cutting threats of dismissal at the meeting but nothing so sharp as this. He gave himself a few seconds to collect his thoughts. The first rays of the morning sun shone through the window behind Noel striking Albie in the face. Albie momentarily closed his eyes. He could feel the stares on him, taste the bitter aggression, smell the repulsive pheromones steeped in the sickly-sweet branded deodorant in their armpits.

Albie stood and picked up his heavy office chair. Rex and Noel cast a glance at each other and straightened their bodies briefly until they realized Albie was merely repositioning his chair so that the sun would not hit his face. Albie sat back down, folded his legs and arms and faced Noel. Some of our Board members had recently bought properties in Becallo and paid a lower price for them than their already low market values. Twelve properties, last count. They went to a great deal of effort to hide any trail that might lead to them. A company owned by a company owned by a trust and so on. I had noticed a rash of real estate activity about four months ago when I was checking council rating records. The trend of property sales in Becallo were flat for twelve months before that with maybe an average of two a month. So I had a closer look and … well … you know the rest. I spoke with a real estate agent I know about a purchasing company part owned by a trust that Mr Statten, the Chair of our Board no less, is involved in. The agent told me that the company had bought several houses and told me of one that was owned by a solo mother who had to sell quickly as her daughter was ill and she needed cash immediately – she was offered cash and took it, but it was only 85 percent of the market value of her house! Our Board don’t give a rat’s arse that they are screwing any chance that struggling house owners might have of selling for fair market values, which will be more than double the values they are now. It’s insider trading, pure and simple. Is that being a good corporate citizen Noel? Is it wrong that I highlighted in my report the adverse social and economic impacts that this sort of plundering has? Not to mention the ethical and legal implications of it, hell, I bet it’s exposing PEPC to huge compliance and reputation risks! Albie stared into Rex’s eyes as he finished his sentence.

Mr Shalit, Rex’s voice was deep and authoritative, I do not think you are employed, or indeed qualified, to represent PEPC’s interests regarding these sorts of matters. If we receive any indication that your baseless allegations are being spread anywhere outside of these four walls, you had better be prepared for the biggest defamation suit against you of the likes never brought before in this country!

Albie laughed aloud and looked at Noel, I’m not just talking about PEPC’s interests here! It’s immoral and completely disregards the interests of the community, on whatever scale of community outside of the corporation you wish to choose! Albie turned and fixed a penetrating stare into Rex’s eyes, You’re full of shit, whoever the fuck you are …

Noel stood up, quick as a jack-in-the-box, Now look here Shalit, that is unacceptable. Foam had appeared in the corners of his mouth as he pointed to the door and hissed, Get out! Get out!

That evening Albie received a call on his mobile from Noel.

Yep, what is it? Albie determined to keep the call to the point. He made a mental note to return his mobile to PEPC.

Hi Albie. Look, sorry I had to deal with things the way I did this morning but I was acting under legal advice. I hope you understand.

Albie could hear a faint slur, a hint of too much alcohol perhaps, in Noel’s voice. He knew it wouldn’t have been easy for Noel to take this unconfrontational approach, so a bit of booze beforehand was understandable. Whatever Noel was saying, Albie was sure the call was solely to mitigate any risks to the Board and himself.

Noel continued as if he was talking to his best friend, I spoke with the Board members today and they’ve agreed to forget the whole thing. I mean, you have nothing to worry about when it comes to getting a reference from me or any Board member Albie. I just want us all to get on with our lives. Okay?

As Noel talked Albie looked out the window of the lounge watching dusk throw a long shadow of the posts of the swing Annie used to play on. He contrasted two realities: that of Noel covering PEPC’s arse and the greed, the self interest, and the slime corporations like PEPC attract: and that of a child whose world was fun, in the present, and trusting and loving. Just then he hated everything Noel stood for.

Yeah, I think I understand Noel. Really good of you to call me and let me know that. I’ve got some good news for Rex if you wouldn’t mind passing it on?

Sure, what is it? Noel’s laughter tailed off, as if he realized, too late, that Albie’s response was ambiguous.

Well, I think he’s going to have a good year. Let him know I’ll be filing a claim for unjustified dismissal. We’ll all be able to get on with our lives after that. Oh, and I promise I won’t mention you’re an arse-hole to the judge, okay Noel? Albie’s voice was controlled but under his skin he seethed with anger. Earlier in the day Albie had rejected the idea of pursuing any legal remedy as he simply wanted to forget about PEPC. But, hearing Noel just then, he recalled his conversations with Tung about the behaviors he witnessed at PEPC. They had agreed with each other that what was happening at PEPC was not the problem but a symptom of a general moral cancer in the commercial world. They had had long and heated discussions about whether corporations should be abolished. Albie’s repulsion with the concept, the legal fiction, of corporate bodies and the economic model that supported them was amplified after his meeting with Noel and Rex earlier in the day. Hearing Noel tonight only reignited his feelings. Although still unsure whether he would actually file proceedings, it was enough, for now, to make the threat.

Look Shalit, you son-of-a-bitch …. Noel was now himself and Albie was happy to score the first points.

You haven’t heard the last of this Shalit, you hear? Come hunting with me mate, just you and me; let me know when you pluck up the guts for it. Watch your back in the meantime you bloody greenhorn! Noel hung up.

Albie had heard about Noel’s mercenary tendencies. Rumors circulated in the office that Noel had sent some ‘heavies’ to scare a protest leader who had organized large community demonstrations against a roading project being implemented by PEPC. The protest leader was hospitalized after an altercation with a motorbike gang during an anti-road protest, but the incident looked unconnected to the project and it was never linked to PEPC or the project. Twenty houses were demolished to make way for the road and it was built on schedule. As if to satisfy himself there was sufficient smoke to confirm the violent fire in Noel’s character, Albie recalled witnessing Noel garishly laud his own hunting abilities. He would often amuse PEPC employees with his dismal attempts to feign modesty describing vivid details of his prowess on several of his African safari adventures. Noel seemed oblivious to people’s sensitivities when recounting the grim and bloody details of his hunts.

Albie knew Noel was capable of anything he thought he could get away with. He resolved to take Noel’s advice and watch his back.

Chapter 3

Albeano Shalit was raised on a dairy farm in the Taranaki province in New Zealand. His birth took place, customary for the Shalits, in the kitchen of the big old family homestead that had been the focal point for four generations of Shalit farmers. He was born moments before dawn 34 years ago by a warm hearth. His mother had her back to the wall for two hours; her head lay against two large kapok cushions; her feet pushed against two 4x4 blocks of wood nailed to the floor where her contorting body writhed on the mattress of woolen blankets … pushing … willing him out. Beads of sweat cascaded down her ruddy face as she sighed and heaved. She was surrounded by a multitude of her female kinfolk milling busily in silence but for the rubbing of oilskin coats, clanking jugs, the trickle of running water, and the quiet hiss of steam from the big black pot on the large enamel green iron stove. Sounds of bloated frogs and the morepork’s calming hoot floated in through the thin glass window panes and rough-sawn rimu exterior walls.

Until he went to boarding school at the age of 13, Albie knew no life other than that which existed for him bounded by the 450 hectare farm and the local community and school. He had no brothers or sisters and his father stopped treating him as a child when Albie ceased to wear nappies. His father was taciturn and his mother talkative and sociable. Each expressed their affection for Albie differently, but he could discern it from both. He understood at an early age the terms of engagement. For any advice on farm or sport related matters he asked his father. When he wanted to explore topics intellectually, to investigate subtle observations and drill down to at least the third level of the ‘why’ of things, he would turn to his mother. To an outsider Albie’s childhood might have seemed harsh, but he knew no other life and he lived his boyhood happily. He milked cows at four in the morning, threw out the cattle feed every day, dug ditches, chain-sawed trees, axed firewood, planted trees, broke and fixed every type of farm machinery, and mended fences winter, spring, summer, and fall. He knew every square inch of the farm and had traversed it regularly on foot or on a farm bike ever since he could remember.

When he went to boarding school he initially found boarding life easy. Albie did not have to try to fit in; it happened naturally. He had a farmer’s strength and initiative and he was agile in mind and body; all the guardian traits needed to weave his fierce sense of independence seamlessly into the conformist straightjacket of the school.

By the middle of his second year at boarding school Albie was getting little satisfaction spending so much time on the sport’s field. He dreamed of going to university. Although academic pursuit was not in the school’s culture he wanted more than just to use the credit that his natural sporting abilities provided in abundance. An opportunity arrived for Albie in the form of Spike, a new boarder who came to the school from a large city school in the second half of Albie’s second year.

Spike’s parents were university professors, one in ancient Greek history and the other in mathematics. Spike was physically a large, not extremely coordinated, boy who had unique depth and breadth of knowledge and an uncanny ability of explaining things simply and to the point. Spike’s parents had decided a boarding school attended by pupils of a down to earth farming community would give their headstrong son the grounding he needed.

Albie and Spike hit it off right from the start. Spike was intrigued with Albie’s incongruence; his natural sporting ability mixed with an abrasive and terse conversation style but having the ability to understand Spike’s finer points in discussions. Despite Albie’s limited experiences within the tight confines of a farming community, somehow against the odds of that environment, Albie was inquisitive and had a keen and open mind.

Albie was academically energized by their friendship and was in no doubt it had refocused him away from sport and towards academic pursuit.

Albie first spoke with Spike the first evening Spike arrived at the boarding school. He overheard Spike discussing the American Constitution with another boarder at his dinner table. Spike had been allocated a permanent seat at Albie’s table, diagonally opposite him. There were 250 boarders at the school and mealtime, like everything else, was highly regimented. Albie overheard Spike say to the boarder opposite him that the American Constitution was misguided because it assumed that people could be given rights without first taking them away. Spike’s premise was that in the natural and primitive world animals, and that included humans, were able to do as they pleased when they pleased. He added that was only subject to the mores of the group in which the animal was in at the time. Spike argued that when the Constitution gave the citizens the right to bear arms, it was a nonsense because people could do that anyway; and, he said, it was not a right, it just was. Albie was stimulated by the conversation he overheard and a rush of thoughts swirled in his mind. When silence fell in Spike’s conversation, Albie looked at Spike and told him that modern society could not operate the way that primitive societies did and that the concept of a right was valid. Spike took up the challenge and suggested that they should write their own charter for boarders and the first thing on it should be the right to breathe. He asked, Don’t you think that would be a waste of time? We have the freedom to breathe anyway. For it to work we would have to first make a rule that disallows everything except as permitted under this charter.

Although Albie could see the point made he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead he played devil’s advocate and accused Spike of playing with semantics and that a ‘right’ was a useful concept that provided clarity and legitimacy, and protected citizens. As their discussion moved onto the differences between a moral right and a legal right the other four boarders at their table lost interest and began to flick peas around the room with their spoons. Soon the whole dining room was thrown into turmoil with boarders at all 36 tables throwing food around at each other while Albie and Spike remained intensely focused on their discussion. All six of them at their table were assessed by the dining room supervisor to have been the cause of the food fight and they were ordered to report to the Dean without finishing their meals. The students each had to line up in front of the Dean and, when their turn came, they had to turn around, drop their shorts to expose their underwear, and bend over, whereupon they received six sweeping cuts across their buttocks with a thick narrow strop of densely layered leather.

His last few months as a senior student was not pleasant for Albie. He studied hard for finals and, although not directly competing with Spike, Spike treated Albie as an opponent heading towards the final national scholarship exams.

At the Senior Students’Award ceremony the dux of the college was announced. The dux was the school’s ultimate all-rounder award for scholarship, leadership, and sportsmanship. The college students stood and all but two cheered and clapped as Albie stood to take the prize. On his way up to the podium he noticed Spike slide quietly out the exit door at the side of the building. Albie did not see Spike at college again. Spike took his belongings and left the school by taxi before the presentations were concluded that evening. A month later the exam results arrived. Spike was top national scholar. Albie made the top 5 percentile, which he was happy with. Albie called Spike at his home to congratulate him but his mother, who answered, said he was unavailable. Albie told her he would not try to call Spike again but he hoped Spike would call him. Spike didn’t call.

Chapter 4

After Noel’s phone call that Friday evening Albie walked outside. He looked up to the star-filled sky. It was crystal clear and a near-full moon had begun to peep over the eastern hills. He looked for the three points of Orion’s belt. Above the belt he found the high chair, starting with the points of Bellatrix and Betelgeuse, that he and Annie had often looked for. He recalled their games of spotting new shapes in the sky. A half eaten ice block was hard to beat but Albie had tried.

As he stared at the stars he remembered it was the last Friday of November. Tung had not called. Albie decided to check if he was alright and began walking towards Tung’s house. The moon scattered a soft yellow hue, enough to make out all he needed to traverse the paddock. A closed orange curtain radiated inside the house. The side door was open and Albie knocked and stepped inside. Tung, it’s Albie. You there? He heard a murmur and followed the sound to the lounge. Tung was sprawled on the sofa with an empty scotch bottle on the floor next to him. Albie, good to see … Tung groaned and held his head, God … my head. Albie smiled and took a blanket and put it over Tung, Get some sleep mate. As Albie walked out of Tung’s house, closing the door behind him he noticed a light was on in the barn behind the house. He entered the barn through a side door and looked for the light switch. It was large and Albie estimated it could probably fit four large cars side by side, even though the main barn