by Peter Corris
44
Lily and Leo's first child was a boy, born nine months after their wedding. They named him John Gulliver Kobi Clarke but he was never called anything but Kobi. His birth was easy and the child grew quickly into a strong, graceful boy on whom the many gods in his racial background seemed to have smiled. Kobi was light-skinned, with European features that had an Oriental or Melanesian cast according to his mood and expression. When cheerful his eyes slanted slightly and something of Lily's calm came over his face; when angry his thick lips curled back from his strong white teeth and he needed only a breastplate and nosebone to complete the picture of the Bougainville raider.
Leo was ostracized by the Europeans after his marriage. As Lily was colour-barred from the club, Leo seldom went there and when his membership lapsed no one urged its renewal. In the aftermath of the war, the 'mastahs' were conscious that they were sitting on a powder keg. To the south, in the British Solomons, an indigenous nationalist movement known as Marching Rule was challenging authority and disrupting administration. The main islands of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago were swept by cargo cults, some with a distinctly anti-colonial flavour.
"We must stick together," a planter would say in the club after his fourth drink. "Give 'em the right example. White an' superior in every way. That's the ticket."
This would draw nods from fellow-drinkers. The black barmen and waiters would mix drinks and serve them skilfully with their pink-nailed hands and say nothing. The whites were constantly on the watch for what they called 'cheek' from their employees, the punishment for which was the sack. Dismissal meant loss of income and prestige for the Melanesians. Few were 'cheeky' but they never conceded superiority. The better informed among them knew that these 'mastahs' were not the pick of the crop anyway.
Still, the whites were sticking together. What Leo had done by marrying a mongrel was to unstick himself. The stickers-together married white women from Australia or New Zealand or did not marry at all. Relationships with local women were kept secret, children went unacknowledged and irate kinsmen were bought off. Nothing was said to Leo, of course, but chaps with business in Kieta found occasion to take off their sunglasses and blink their eyes or stare into store windows when he was in view. Lily became 'Mrs Hong', rather than 'Mrs Clarke', to the whites who patronized her stores.
Lily was busy producing children and running the Hong enterprises that she had acquired when Harry Kobi Hong died within a month of her marriage. She had two daughters after Kobi and another son. Jenny, Sue and Harold seemed to be endowed with less vigour and personality than Kobi, but they were healthy, capable children who gave no trouble. Leo gloried in them, which was fortunate because his business languished from 1950 onwards. The supply of war materials dwindled in quality and quantity and some of the operations starting up in Bougainville demanded fresher goods.
"I'll be a rag and bone man the way things are going," Leo said to Lily, one night after she'd done a quick appraisal of his books.
"Wonem, Papa?" Jenny, who was eight, asked.
"Speak English," Lily snapped.
The girl's face crumpled and Leo bent to comfort her. They were in the living room of the big house, built of concrete bricks, to which they had moved after Sue's birth. Leo met the government charges and power bills but the Hong Company had paid for the house. Leo spent much of his time in the garden and Lily much of hers in the spare bedroom which she had furnished as a study. They still shared a bedroom but Leo often slept in one of his bush camps.
"Easy, love." Leo caressed his daughter's straight black hair. "She picks it up from the other kids. You know how it is."
"I do know," Lily said, "and I do not want my children growing up like kanakas."
"Right," Leo said. He still loved Lily, but had grown to fear her determination and persistence. He knew that he had given her an opening. "You're talking about their education."
Kobi, nine years of age, glowered in a corner of the room. Lily had used bribery and other forms of coercion to secure him a place in the Kieta school, the one attended by Europeans and the children of the most Anglicized Chinese. Though Kobi rapidly outstripped his contemporaries academically and was regularly beating boys years older than himself in athletic events, he was tolerated rather than accepted, and he was aware of it. Nevertheless, he did not want to leave Kieta and he knew that this was what his parents were coming around to discussing. His best friend was Mora, the son of a Buka man who worked as a labourer for his father, and a Vella Lavella mother. Mora was blacker than night and Kobi loved him and envied him his inky skin.
"Boarding school," Lily said firmly. "In Sydney if possible."
"Expensive," Leo murmured, "I was thinking about the schools in Moresby. They say . . ."
"No! Sydney for Kobi and Jenny at least. For Sue and Harry, well, we'll see." Lily had the Chinese habit of favouring the older children, regarding the others almost as understudies. Leo sensed a compromise and was willing to fall in with it. He certainly did not want all his children to leave.
"I don't want to go to Sydney," Kobi said quietly. "I want to stay here."
"The fact that you say that proves it's nearly time for you to go. There is nothing for you here, not yet. Anyhow, one day the business will be run from Sydney and this will be just one small part of it."
Leo nodded amiably although he regarded Lily's plans as fantasy. Knowing little of the Hong Company's financial dealings, he imagined them to be on no great scale. He hadn't married Lily for her money; no one could say that of him. He sometimes wondered about the quality of the furniture, the thickness of the carpets that kept the house hot and the cost of the fans that cooled it. But Leo wasn't one to worry for long about things not immediately apparent.
Kobi's face took on its stubborn Melanesian look. Jenny, precocious in her understanding of her family, knew the signs and stayed close to her father's solid legs. She had never seen her mother or brother give way on anything important and she sensed that an outright clash would come one day. This could be it.
Leo stroked his daughter's hair and lit a cigarette. He was singularly unable to pick up cues from people's behaviour and his insensitivity sometimes defused a situation. It did now. He got to his feet. "I'm going to surprise everyone and have a drink. Get you something, Lily?"
Lily smiled. She didn't want to fight Kobi until she had chosen and prepared her ground. "Yes, g'n't, please, dear. And give me a puff."
"Stunt your growth," Leo said, winking at his son. He knew that Kobi had tried smoking the strong twist tobacco rolled in newspaper, as favoured by the locals, having found Kobi vomiting behind a boatshed after the experiment. Kobi grinned at his father. Lily puffed smoke up towards the ceiling where the fan whirled it away. Jenny relaxed. Leo returned with the drinks and he and Lily chatted about a trip to Port Moresby to see 'the sights'.
"Wonem . . . what sights?" Jenny asked.
"Aeroplanes," Lily said quickly. She watched Kobi out of the corner of her eye. All boys are interested in aeroplanes, surely, she thought.
Kobi didn't react and Lily pressed. "You can fly to any part of the world from there—America, England, anywhere."
Leo had no inkling of Lily's strategy but he weighed in helpfully. "And ships," he said. "Big ships that sail all over the world."
"Like the one in Sydney?" Jenny said. "The one you were born on? The one with the sista who carried you in her bilum?"
"My mother carried me in the bag, but she wore the nurse's cloak wrapped around her and she pretended to be the nurse."
"Tell us the story again, Daddy."
Leo looked at Lily, who nodded, and at Kobi, who shrugged. He lifted his daughter into his lap. "There was a lot of sickness on the ship. Some people died. My mother and father tru died. No one was supposed to leave the ship, but they didn't even know I was alive. Except the nurse and my mother, not my real mother . . ."
"Mrs Violet Clarke," Lily said. "You've seen her name in Daddy's Bible."
Des
pite himself, Kobi acknowledged that with a nod. He'd read a good deal of the Bible and admired the copperplate writing on blank leaves at the back of the book. 'Violet Clarke née Sheehan dedicates this Holy Book to the life and soul of her adopted son, Leo Gulliver Clarke, baptised this day in St Matthew's Church, Woollo-omooloo, New South Wales.' Kobi's retentive memory included the signatures: 'Mary O'Halloran, witness; Joseph Brady, BA, Dublin.'
"They took me off in the busiest time of the day," Leo continued. "And the hottest. I was sweating like a piglet
"Daddy!" Jenny shrieked. "You were only a baby. You can't remember."
"I remember," Leo said.
Kobi was squatting in the native way, comfortably with his weight evenly distributed. He plucked at the pile of the carpet in a way his mother found infuriating. It reminded her of the old dark men her father used to squat with; they peeled sticks, picked at sores, bored holes through shells and chuckled over ancient sexual conquests. Leo's voice was droning on. Lily looked away from Kobi's busy fingers and tried to calculate her margins on diesel fuel.
"Tell the truth," Kobi said suddenly.
"I don't know the truth, son," Leo said. "Only what my father told me."
"Mr Rusty Clarke," Jenny said.
Leo nodded and sipped his drink.
The corners of Leo's mouth turned down. "I wish I knew the truth," he said.
Lily was about to speak, to say something about writing to England to learn something about the Gulliver family, but Kobi spoke first. He'd bided his time to exact revenge for the talk of schooling in Sydney. He'd learned as much about his family from conversations with the islanders as from reading the Clarke Bible. "Tell us about your grandfather, Mum," he said. "The one who raided the west coast and killed the missionaries."
If Leo's business was in decline, the Hong Company was not. Lily had spent money on all aspects of the enterprise—refitting ships and stores, rebuilding jetties, hiring and training staff. She made it a point to discuss business with every outsider who came her way. She pumped them for information on products from outboard motors to battery-powered radios to laxative pills. She talked to a woman who had attended the Olympic Games in Melbourne and had been impressed by the rubber thong sandals worn by the Japanese swimmers. Lily had the first consignments of rubber thongs in the islands and she sold a great many at a heavily marked-up price. She also had the first chainsaws to be seen on Bougainville, and the first Polaroid sunglasses.
"Japan's the key to everything," she told Leo.
Leo was sceptical. "We beat 'em hollow," he said.
Lily smiled. "The Americans are pouring money in. They're afraid of Japan going communist. If we'd been on the Japs' side they'd be shovelling the money our way."
"Lily. Fight on their side?"
Lily was careful not to affront Leo's few principles too directly. "I'm joking, of course. But Japan's going to outperform everyone economically, mark my words."
"Australia'll see us right."
"Australia! Australia does what Britain and America tell her to do. The only time Australians show independence from Britain is when they play cricket."
Leo grinned. "And tennis. Beat the Yanks in the Davis Cup, didn't they?"
Lily wasn't listening. "Vehicles're the coming thing. I wonder if I could get the franchise for the Japanese four-wheel drives?"
"Old Land Rover's good enough for me," Leo said. "Never lets you down. The Japs can't make cars, can they?"
Lily smiled indulgently. "I think they can do anything, darling. And a clever person would be wise to follow along behind them for the crumbs."
"Don't like the sound of that much. I was wondering about planting. Your people've got some bits of land here 'n' there, haven't they? Think copra could make a comeback?"
Lily studied Leo over the top of her reading glasses. She had changed very little over the ten years since they married. Expenditure of physical and nervous energy kept her trim, and her Chinese genes gave her smooth, unlined features. She bought good clothes from Australia, ate and drank sparingly, and had never had a day's illness in her life. She was in her prime. Beer, gin and inactivity had thickened Leo considerably. He carried a paunch and moved slowly. Poor teeth made his breath rank and he snored when he slept. Lily was still fond of him; he was a patient and indulgent father and, in business matters the term 'silent partner' fitted him like a glove. Leo's name was on many of the documents—loans, leases, options, applications—that were the charters of Lily's commercial kingdom, but he signed everything that she put before him, and his will was in order.
"You never know," she said. "There's an island down the coast that could be right for planting. House on it, too. Do you fancy yourself as the ruler of an island kingdom, darling?"
Kobi was dismayed when he heard of the plans for his father to take up residence on Rabi Island. Leo had supported his resistance to Lily's plan that he should go to Australia for schooling. Now he was in his final year at the Kieta school and this change was brewing. Kobi knew his mother; he doubted that any coincidence was involved.
"She's too strong," he told Mora. "I'll have to go."
"Nogat," Mora said. "Stap long hia. Yumi go long bus."*
Kobi shook his head. "She'd find us. She has people everywhere. Spies. People owe her money for motors and rice and tobacco and . . . everything."
Mora nodded. He took Kobi's hand and squeezed it. The boys squatted on the sand and looked at the peaceful water of their small inlet south of Kieta. It was their place. They took their outrigger to it whenever they could; they fished, swam, looked their catch and slept on the beach. His friendship with Mora, and going to this place, were Kobi's major defiances of Lily. All the tensions he experienced at school and at home fell away from him here. He welcomed the sun that darkened his skin and he lapsed into the local language and pidgin as he shared the fun and work with Mora. He spoke the language now as he watched Mora roll a cigarette.
"What will you do, brother?"
Mora sighed. "I'm older than you, bigger and stronger too. Soon I'll be able to get work at the mine."
"I'll come back," Kobi said. "In the holidays and when school is finished."
Mora stirred the fire, took out a stick with a smouldering tip and lit his cigarette. A fish, wrapped in leaves, was baking in sand under the fire. "You'll change." Kobi grabbed Mora's big, black fist and wrapped his own smaller brown hands around it. "No, brother," he said fiercely. "I'll never change."
45
Leo's last assertive act before he went into virtual seclusion on Rabi Island was to oppose Lily's wish for a Catholic education for Kobi. "Went to those places m'self," he said. "Terrible. Full of sadists and mumbo-jumbo. Send the boy somewhere else if he has to go away."
Lily reviewed the comparatively few options and decided on Newington College in Sydney. It was Methodist but liberal in outlook in all respects, except in regard to alcohol. Strict Rechabitism was written into its charter. In view of Leo's ever-increasing intake, Lily felt that some instruction in the evils of strong drink might be beneficial for his son. The Methodism was not a problem; the Clarkes' nominal Catholicism sat very lightly on Kobi. Lily did not fear spiritual confusion for him.
Kobi and Mora paddled to their beach one last time, baked fish and smoked cigarettes. They farewelled each other tearfully at the wharf. Lily and Kobi boarded the Solomon Star, a Hong vessel, with Jenny, who was also going to school in Sydney. The Solomon Star took them to Rabaul where they made a connection with the Burns Philp steamer.
Leo was on Rabi Island with Sue and Harold. He supervised the clearing and planting and worked his way through a case of beer every day. He was puzzled more than angry about the way his life had developed. His love for the children more than compensated him for the cold shoulders that were turned to him in Kieta. But after Harold's birth, Lily appeared to have no further sexual use for him. This saddened Leo and left him intermittently randy, but he knew so little of women that he imagined it to be normal. Certainly, i
n Leo's narrowly circumscribed world, it was normal for a man approaching fifty to have his first beer early in the morning before giving the boss boi his orders for the day. After that he had a beer almost hourly until sundown, when it was only reasonable to switch to something stronger and increase the pace.
Sue and Harry became accustomed to seeing their father dropping off to sleep earlier and earlier in the evening. Sometimes he slept on the verandah that overlooked the jungle-filled valley to the south of the plantation, sitting upright in a chair from late in the morning until sunset. They ran wild on the island, mostly defying the civilizing efforts of the young part-Chinese woman Lily had hired to act as their governess. After a time Miss Chan began to join Leo in his afternoon drinking, particularly after a frustrating morning session with the children. She played cards with Leo and laughed at his jokes.
"Up to the four times tables with 'em yet, Miss Chan?"
"I spent most of the morning arguing with Harold, Mr Clarke."
"What about? Care for an ale?"
"Just a small one, thank you. He insisted that six times six was sixty-six. I couldn't budge him."
"What about Suzie?"
Miss Chan sipped her beer and smiled. "She has learned bad habits from you, Mr. Clarke."
"How's that?"
"You know how you say to split the difference when there's an argument about money?"
Leo grinned and nodded.
"Suzie wanted us to split the difference between thirty-six and sixty-six."
Leo laughed. "Did she get the sum right?"
"Yes."
"You're doing a good job then. What're they doin' now?"
Miss Chan had no idea. "Sketching," she said.
"Good, good. Drink up. Lily, their mother, can draw a treat, did you know that?"
"No, Mr Clarke. I can draw too. I must show you some of my work sometime."
"Yes, yes, I'd like that." Through his beer haze Leo looked at Miss Chan. Not a patch on Lily, he thought, but not bad-looking. Nice legs. And it's been so long and Lily's so far away. I wonder? Leo poured more beer and touched the young woman's hand as he passed her the glass. "Where d'you keep your drawings, Miss Chan?"