The Gulliver Fortune

by Peter Corris

  "Speak up," Lily said.

  Kobi's look was pure hatred. Lily almost stopped in her tracks. The boy's eyes burned under his heavy brows and his nose seemed to flare. Kobi was almost six feet tall and well built. Lily suddenly realized that things had changed. With a strong flow of capital assured through the agency of Richard McGregor, she was in a position to expand rapidly in New Guinea and beyond. The prospect excited her but she realised that she was seeing not just the few years ahead, but the far future. Kobi's future. She had determined to put some energy into controlling and influencing her son. That beetling look he'd shot her was therefore disconcerting. What did he know? And what did he care about? Lily decided that her first task was to get to know him.

  The drinking and eating back at the house—a still-bigger house now, high on the hill overlooking the town—were conducted quietly, but with no expense spared. Lily had invited certain members of the European community to attend and most of them, although Leo's choices in life had made them uncomfortable, found no difficulty in being polite about his exit. Lily circulated easily, talking generalities, and stopping occasionally in mid-sentence as if grief had cut in on her.

  Kobi sneaked a beer and admired her performance. He was hot, sweating and tired, having arrived in Kieta just hours before the burial after rushed flights from Sydney and Port Moresby. He wanted to find Mora but he doubted that he could stay on his feet much longer. Especially after the third beer.

  Sally Chan took Sue and Harry away after they had wordlessly met several of the guests and forced down some food. Kobi eyed her with interest. His approval was engaged by her kindness to his little sister and brother, but that soon changed to a different appreciation. Sally moved sinuously, with a sway to her lean hips that reminded him of the King's Cross whores, whom he'd often looked at but had not touched. Her hair was a glossy black and the fullness of her lips contrasted interestingly with her thin, slanting eyes.

  Kobi watched her, and Lily watched him.

  Sally Chan was naturally apprehensive after Leo's death. Her position on Rabi Island had been comfortable and agreeable to her. She was not of a sociable disposition, had something of the miser in her, and was inclined to be lazy about sex and other matters. She was not looking forward to the life of a schoolteacher which, she anticipated, was in store for her after Lily had given her her notice and, with luck, her last bonus. She sat apprehensively in Lily's study and was surprised to be granted a smile and a cigarette from Lily's gold case.

  "I understand Leo resisted seeing a doctor until it was far too late?" Lily fitted a cigarette into an ebony holder.

  "Yes, Mrs Clarke."

  "Most unwise. I hope you are not thinking of leaving us."

  Sally Chan puffed on her cigarette and said nothing. She was afraid of Lily's power and wondered whether, now that she could be of no further use, something worse than schoolteaching might await her.

  "I want you to continue your work with Sue and Harold," Lily said. "They are most promising."

  They were half wild, as both women knew. Sally Chan nodded. "There is room for improvement."

  Lily nodded. "Always. I won't be in Kieta very much in the foreseeable future, and with my husband gone your responsibilities will increase. You will live here with everything paid for. I'm considering a raise in your salary."

  If this was a bribe for her silence and inactivity over Leo's health, Sally Chan was very ready to accept it. "Thank you, Mrs Clarke."

  "And bonuses as before, of course. There is something I want you to do to earn the first bonus."

  Feeling more confident, Sally Chan stubbed the ciga rette out in the ashtray on Lily's desk. She raised her eyebrows, which had been plucked to a fine line.

  "You met my eldest son, Kobi. He's almost sixteen. I think he should know something about life apart from what he learns at school. Do you follow me?"

  Sally Chan had found the tall, clean-featured boy attractive. "I think I do," she said.

  "He is a nice boy, but secretive, and I suspect he harbours some resentment against me. I'd like you to get close to him and find out what he thinks. I'd like a regular report. Do you think you can manage that?"

  Sally Chan reached across the desk for Lily's cigarette case, opened it and took one. "How close?" she said.

  Sally Chan opened the door of her room in the new Kieta hotel to Kobi Clarke. She wore a white, tight-fitting cheong-sam slit to mid-thigh, with smoke-coloured stockings and white, spike-heeled shoes. Her hair hung thick and loose to her shoulders.

  "Hello, Kobi." She put out her hand. When Kobi took it he noticed the long red fingernails and felt them scratch lightly against his palm.

  "Hello, Miss Chan. You wanted to see me? Is it about Sue and Harry?"

  "No." Sally Chan drew him into the room and pushed the door shut. "It's about you."

  "Me?"

  "Haven't you seen me looking at you? Didn't you wonder about it?"

  Kobi had not seen. After the rituals, a genuine grief for his father's death came and preoccupied him for several days. Then he had set about getting to know his younger sister and brother again. More recently his thoughts were of Mora, who was due in Kieta in a few days on holiday from his job in a timber mill in Ysabel in the British Solomons. Kobi was too polite to say so to the woman, so he smiled and said nothing.

  "How old are you, Kobi?" Sally Chan was backing away slowly towards the bed. It was natural for Kobi to move towards her.

  "Nearly sixteen."

  "Good." She stopped; Kobi stopped. She took a step towards him and put her arms around his neck. Even with her high heels she had to reach up. She kissed him, pressing her thick lips hard against his mouth. She moved her slim, firm body so that it pressed against his groin.

  Several years of sexual longing rose up in Kobi. Clumsily he returned the kiss; the feeling of her lips on his sent thrills through his body. He put his hands on her buttocks and ground himself against her, feeling the hard bones and the softness between them.

  "Oh, yes," she said. "What a big boy. What a man."

  Her dress was fastened on one shoulder and she reached up and undid the hook. Kobi saw her smooth, ivory-coloured skin rise from the falling white silk. His groin was aching. She undid hooks below her arm, moved the top of the dress away and pulled it down. Things began to blur for Kobi. His mouth went dry. He felt her hands on him. She guided his hands as he touched her. His fingers went to the catch of her brassiere and slid under the band of her panties. She used him to undress herself slowly and then she worked his clothes off jerkily and impatiently.

  He'd been swimming several times and was dark except where his trunks had covered him. Sally Chan took his penis in her hand and felt it slacken. Kobi looked at her with stricken eyes.

  "First time?" she said.

  Kobi nodded.

  "Don't worry. Lie down."

  They sank onto the bed and Sally put her mouth close to his ear. "The first time isn't easy," she said. "It's not like in the books. Girls go dry and boys go soft. It's normal."

  Kobi nodded. He felt ashamed of his softness and wanted to run away. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "Silly. Have you ever seen a woman's nipples go hard?"

  Kobi shook his head.

  "Look. Look closely. Touch."

  Kobi did. His long fingers touched the taut, erect flesh. "Nice?"

  Kobi nodded. Sally took his hand and guided it to her mouth; she kissed his fingers and made them wet with her saliva, then she put his hand between her legs and showed him how to stroke her. She moaned as his fingers moved and began to squeeze his penis gently. She took his free hand and put it on her breast. Kobi was entranced by the feel of her, the smoothness. Before he was aware of it he was hard again, and Sally Chan had spread herself and guided him inside her. "Try to hold it," she whispered. "Stop if you have to."

  "I can't," Kobi gasped.

  "Try, but if you can't . . . Oh! Yes. Yes. Go on. Yes!"

  Afterwards she told him how wonderful it ha
d been for her. Kobi wanted to do it again; he was sure he could last longer. Sally held him off and got him talking. He told her about Mora, although his friend was now a long way from his thoughts. Sally probed gently into his feelings for his family and for his mother in particular. Kobi was guarded. He was ardent, but Sally claimed she had things to do and that he'd have to wait until the evening. She sent him away feeling like a god or a worshipper, or both.

  Kobi's meeting with Mora wasn't satisfactory. His head was full of thoughts of Sally's body and Mora was disappointed to find Kobi inattentive to his talk. He had worked throughout the Solomons in a variety of capacities and had met some of the Marching Rule leaders in the south. He was angry about the exploitation of his people.

  "We work and get nothing. The white men don't work and get everything."

  Kobi was rusty in the language and pidgin. He stumbled and made half-hearted responses. Mora had grown and wore a beard; he could drive a truck and had got drunk in Honiara and Gizo. He invited Kobi to drink with him in the hot room behind one of the Chinese stores, where the locals were served beer in paper cups.

  "So we can't break the glasses when we fight," Mora said. "Also because they hold less than a proper glass, so the Chinese bastard makes more money."

  The beer was warm and made Kobi feel sick. He refused a cigarette; he wanted to keep his breath sweet for Sally. "My father died," he said.

  "I heard. I'm sorry. He was all right, for a white man."

  Kobi was suddenly aware that Mora had disparaged the whites and the Chinese. That left only the Melanesians. Kobi wasn't feeling particularly close to his big, black friend at the moment. I'm much darker than Sally, he thought. I wonder what she thinks.

  Mora came back with four cups. "How's your mother?"

  Kobi looked at the beer and felt sick. The only thing he wanted to do was get between Sally's legs, but the question made him think. Chinese like my mother. Maybe like me. "She's all right," he said. "Getting richer."

  Mora scowled and drank one of the cups in a long gulp. "It's all wrong," he said. "It's one of the things that's going to change around here."

  Kobi spent every possible minute of the next three days and nights with Sally Chan, and it wasn't enough for him. They made love six times a night and he was ready for more in the morning. Sally enjoyed her assignment; after his initial clumsiness, Kobi proved to be a good and considerate lover and the intrigue involved added to the spice. She talked to the boy between bouts of lovemaking, and after swimming and eating; she had beer in her room and she loosened Kobi's tongue with it.

  "I saw her with a white man in Sydney," Kobi told her. "Fat. Disgusting."

  "Your father was sick," Sally said. "Women have needs."

  "All she needs is money and power," Kobi said. "I hate her."

  Sally's reports to Lily were edited. She was intelligent enough to know the threat to the messenger who brought bad news. She spoke of 'disaffection', 'feelings of confusion and desertion', and gave Lily the impression that Kobi's attitudes to her were adverse but not irreversible.

  "He seems much less fierce than before," Sally said. "I think I'm a good influence on him."

  Lily nodded. She regarded Sally Chan as a slut with a short-lived usefulness. "Try to find out what he sees himself doing, say, five years from now," she said.

  One of Sally's sessions with Lily was overheard by Jenny, who had read all the signs accurately anyway. She had talked a lot with Sue and Harry and had pieced together from their guileless chatter a clear picture of Sally Chan's role in Lily Kobi Hong Clarke's grand plan.

  "She's spying on you," Jenny told Kobi as they worked over some of the school exercises they had been set by the Sydney teachers. Both were going to miss the early weeks of the first term.

  "Who?" Kobi said.

  "Sally Chan."

  Kobi blushed under his tan. "I don't know what you mean."

  "It's time you learned something, Kobe," Jenny said. "Women have brains too, they're not just . . . cunts."

  Kobi's head jerked up. He had never expected to hear such a word from his convent-educated sister. "Jenny, don't . . ."

  "Bullshit, Kobe. Don't you think Mum has brains? Don't you think she can plan things out, try to get her own way?"

  Kobi nodded. He pushed his exercise book away, sensing that Jenny was going to tell him something important. He was as hot for Sally as ever, but he had wondered about some of the questions she was asking him lately.

  "I'm sorry, Kobe. I can see that you like her. But she's Mum's spy. I heard them talking. She reports to Mum on everything you say. And Mum gives her money."

  Kobi's brain seized. He felt a blind rage that was directed towards his mother, Sally, even Jenny. He snapped three pencils and tore up every piece of paper within reach. Jenny got a bottle of beer from the fridge and opened it. Lily was in Lae talking business. Sue and Harry were asleep. The servants slept in separate quarters at the bottom of the garden. Jenny poured a glass of beer and handed it to Kobi.

  "You're going to see her later tonight, aren't you?"

  Kobi drank some beer and nodded.

  "Harry says she stopped Dad from going to a doctor."

  "Jesus," Kobi said. "You mean they killed him—Sally and Mum?"

  Jenny poured herself a small glass of beer. "I think so. Sort of."

  Kobi finished his beer and stood. His forehead was wrinkled with pain and concentration; his brows seemed to hang heavily over hooded, troubled eyes. He passed his hand over Jenny's sleek, straight hair and touched her cheek.

  "What are you going to do?" Jenny said. His heavy, menacing look frightened her.

  "Don't worry, Jen," he said. "Nothing silly. I'm going to see Mora."

  48

  Vila, Vanuatu, October 1986

  Kobi Hong Clarke read again the letter he had received from Australia that morning.

  Dear Dr Clarke

  I thought you might be interested in the enclosed items from the Australian press.

  You will recall that, when you so kindly granted me an interview last year, we reached an agreement that I would not publish the results of my researches into your antecedents. In return you were to place me in a privileged position in respect of any information I might seek with regard to movement for the independence of the Northern Solomons of which you are the leader.

  I hope you have found this a comfortable arrangement, as I have.

  However, Mr Cromwell's quest for descendants of John Gulliver appears to me to place things in a different light. From sources I am not at liberty to reveal, I have discovered that a great deal of money is involved. I imagine that you will wish to make a claim on the estate in order to secure funds for your Movement.

  This will involve you in certain revelations which may not, at first sight, seem to be to your political advantage.

  May I suggest, Dr Clarke, that my services as a Public Relations Officer might be of use to you at this time.

  I await your reaction with interest while extending to you my very best wishes.

  The letter was signed by Roderick Boon whom Kobi Clarke, in middle age and after more than twenty years in politics, regarded as one of the most oily characters he had met. He dropped the letter onto his desk and got up to pace about the room. His office was on the top floor of a building on Charles de Gaulle Avenue. From its large windows he could look down on Vila and observe politics, finance, history and race in action, Pacific style. He was an exile, a thousand miles from Bougainville, and he remembered every step on the path that had put him there.

  After learning of his mother's machinations, Kobi sought out Mora and spent the next month with him. He travelled, talked to miners and boatmen, bushmen and plantation workers. He emerged from the month as a radical Bougainville nationalist. He was anti-European, anti-Chinese, anti-capitalist and very angry. At Mora's urging he made an apparent peace with Lily and went back to Australia to finish his education.

  "We'll need men like you," Mora said. "After men lik
e me throw the bastards out."

  Kobi returned to school and channelled his anger. He was a sports star, a school prefect and captain of the debating team. He matriculated with honours in economics, mathematics and history. He documented every racial slur he suffered and he took a keen interest in his mother's burgeoning business affairs. Lily imagined he was preparing himself for an active role in the firm. Only Jenny knew that Kobi was planning to bankrupt her.

  On Kobi's holiday visit to Bougainville at the end of his last school year Mora, now a forceful member of-several subversive political organizations, managed finally to convince Kobi that Lily was too small a target. Kobi had his revenge on his mother by refusing to take up the scholarship he had won and the place he had earned in the law school of the University of Sydney. Instead, he went bush; he worked on boats around the islands, in the mines and in the massive timber felling and milling operations that proliferated in the 1960s. As a share-owning member of the Loloru Co-operative Society, he was bound in brotherhood to other Bougainvilleans who wanted an end to European commercial and political domination.

  The Lolorus' ideas were eclectic. They borrowed from the Marching Rule movement, from Black power, from the John Frum cargo cult in the New Hebrides and from the writings of Marx and Mao. Kobi was one of the number of Lolorus who attended the University of Papua New Guinea in the late 1960s. By this time Lily was based in Sydney. She was spared the shame of seeing her son attending classes in quonset huts and wading through mud to hear lecturers who wore Hawaiian shirts and plastic sandals. Kobi was an activist on the new campus; he was frequently suspended for breaches of discipline, and took leaves of absence to work on village projects at home. It took him five years to gain his BA degree in economics but he was awarded first-class honours and his dissertation on the self-sufficiency of subsistence economies was accepted for publication in an influential Australian academic journal.

  Kobi did not attend the graduation ceremony. He refused the tutorship he was offered by the Economics Department of the university. After consultation with Mora and other Loloru leaders, he joined the administration as a clerk in the Department of Finance. Kobi sweated in hot offices while his white counterparts lounged about with one-third of his workload, in air-conditioned comfort, at twice his salary. He remembered this as the most frustrating period of his life. He was learning daily how the system operated to the detriment of the local people and to the advantage of the expatriate residents and the foreign capitalists. He longed for action but Mora and Timothy Keriaka, a part-Tongan Bougainvillean who was one of the chief spokesman and policy formulators of Loloru, urged caution.