New Guinea Moon

by Kate Constable

  Suddenly she is jolted from sleep. The moon has slipped down the sky, and a deep rumbling, like thunder, has replaced the frogs’ chorus. Her bed is rocking gently to and fro. The window louvres chatter above her head. She puts her hand to the flimsy wall and it shivers beneath her palm. She must have let out a startled noise, because there are footsteps outside her door, and Tony’s gruff voice calls out, ‘It’s all right, nothing to worry about. It’s just a guria, an earth tremor. Happens all the time.’

  ‘Okay — I’m okay,’ she calls.

  She lies down again as the tremor subsides, and feels her bed shaking, trembling, then gradually falling still. The distant grumbles fade away. On top of everything else, now an earthquake! She’ll have to tell Caroline about that when she writes her first letter; though her mother won’t believe it. Julie is still smiling into the darkness when sleep mows her down.

  5

  When she wakes, it takes her a second or two to remember where she is. Then anticipation fizzes through her and she shoots out of bed. She can hear Tony moving about in the bathroom; it was his alarm that woke her. It’s barely light; a glance out of the window shows her a misty, chilly morning. She shivers into her clothes and out into the kitchen.

  ‘You don’t need to get up, Julie. Have a lie-in. I’ll be off to work in a minute.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’m awake now.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She opens the fridge. ‘Is this long-life milk all there is?’

  ‘That’s it. Just UHT,’ says Tony apologetically. ‘There’s no fresh — no dairy in Hagen. Not enough bulmakaus. Cows,’ he adds.

  ‘Yeah, I guessed.’ She adds a splash of the milk to the mug that Tony offers her and takes a cautious sip.

  ‘You get used to the taste,’ says Tony.

  ‘Really?’ says Julie.

  Tony grins. There’s a tap at the door and he unlocks it. A tall thin man with sunken cheeks and a drooping moustache inserts one long leg through the doorway, like a stork. Julie recognises him as one of the pilots she saw at HAC yesterday.

  ‘Gibbo lives in the unit next door,’ says Tony. ‘You’ll probably hear him snoring through the wall. You after a lift, mate?’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’ Gibbo peers at Julie. ‘Everything has beauty,’ he says. ‘But not everyone sees it.’

  ‘What?’ says Julie.

  ‘Confucius,’ says Gibbo.

  Tony rolls his eyes. ‘Gibbo thinks he’s a philosopher. Just ignore him. Well, I guess I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Bye,’ says Julie.

  There is an awkward moment while they both decide that they don’t know each other well enough yet to kiss goodbye. Julie lifts her hand, and Tony nods. ‘Spare key is on the bench,’ he says. ‘Don’t forget to lock up when you go.’

  ‘Okay. See you. Nice to meet you, Gibbo.’

  Gibbo’s voice floats in from the front steps. ‘He who chooses a job he loves will never work a day in his life . . .’

  ‘You’re full of it, mate, you know that, don’t you?’ says Tony, closing the door behind them.

  Julie toasts some bread under the griller, washes up the few dishes, straightens her bed and tidies up the unit. She wonders why Tony doesn’t seem to have a meri, if Nadine says that ‘everyone does’. Then she makes another cup of instant coffee, and carries her mug outside into the fresh clean air of the garden. The mist has cleared and the sky is pale, scattered with puffy clouds. The grass is soft underfoot. The glossy leaves of the bushes gleam in the weak sunshine. The two units share the backyard; Julie wanders across into Gibbo’s half of the garden, where she can see a well-tended vegetable plot. What is he growing? Carrots? The lush leaves look familiar, but she can’t quite recognise them . . . All at once she realises they’re marijuana plants.

  ‘Good morning!’

  Julie starts back guiltily. A middle-aged woman is waving and smiling at her across the fence on the other side of the garden.

  ‘You must be Tony’s little girl!’

  ‘Yes, I’m Julie.’

  ‘Hi there! I’m Robyn.’ Robyn has an American accent.

  As Julie walks over to the fence she can see that Robyn wears a gold cross on a slim chain, and her hair is cut short in the unflattering style that she always associates, perhaps unfairly, with Christians.

  ‘So we’re neighbours now!’ Robyn sings out cheerfully. ‘Would you like to come visit a while? I have cookies.’

  ‘Um . . .’ says Julie. Caroline has brought her up to be suspicious of any organised religion. But it’s only a biscuit; a biscuit can’t do any harm, if she’s on her guard. Hesitantly she says, ‘Okay . . .’ But then she remembers. ‘I don’t think I’ve got time, actually, someone’s picking me up at nine o’clock.’

  Even as she speaks, she hears a car pull up at the front of the unit, followed a moment later by hammering at the door.

  ‘Next time!’ cried Robyn, flashing a toothy smile. As Julie runs back inside, she is still smiling and waving over the fence.

  Nadine is hopping from foot to foot at the front door. ‘Ready?’

  Barbara leans from the car window. ‘Make sure you lock up properly!’ she calls. ‘Bolt all the doors, and don’t leave any windows open! You have to be so careful here.’

  Julie runs back and checks all the windows and doors, then runs out to jump in the car. Ryan is in front beside his mother, and Nadine’s in the back.

  ‘You haven’t left any washing on the line, have you?’ says Barbara, as she reverses swiftly out onto the road. ‘Because they’ll steal from the clothesline, too.’

  ‘Once, we were driving back from the shops,’ says Nadine, ‘and there was a meri walking down the street wrapped up in one of our sheets!’

  ‘Striped flannelette,’ says Ryan gloomily. ‘It was my favourite sheet.’

  ‘I haven’t washed anything yet,’ says Julie. ‘So our sheets are safe. For now.’

  The market is a revelation. It’s a crazy, chaotic festival. Barbara marches up to the gate, where a row of snot-nosed, barefoot urchins are perched on a fence, gnawing sticks of sugarcane. As they approach, the little boys spill off the fence and jostle around them, grinning and wriggling. ‘Mi, misis, mi!’ Barbara gives one boy a copper coin and hands him her wide, flat-bottomed basket.

  Julie feels a twinge of unease, watching him struggle with the outsized basket as it whacks against his scabbed, bony shins. Ryan could carry it easily. But then the boy would have missed out on the coin.

  ‘Watch out for betel spit,’ says Ryan over his shoulder.

  ‘Ryan doesn’t usually come to the market,’ Nadine tells Julie. ‘We’re so-o-o honoured.’

  ‘I had a craving for salty plums,’ says Ryan loftily. ‘For your information.’

  ‘What are salty plums?’ says Julie.

  There’s so much to look at. Small heaps of vegetables are piled on colourful cloths or woven mats, spread on the stony ground, or arranged on benches. Half-naked women preside over the stalls, giggling behind their hands as they gossip together. Julie sees one woman casually nursing a baby, her flat, stretched breasts flopping against her chest like a pair of brown socks. Just like National Geographic, she thinks, and she looks away, embarrassed.

  There are pyramids of purple taro roots; hands of green and yellow bananas; knobbly sweet potatoes; glowing tomatoes; pineapples; bunches of peanuts tied by the stems, straight from the ground, dirt still clinging to their shells; long, lacquered sticks of sugarcane; plump pea pods; delicate baby carrots with their froth of foliage; severed heads of lettuce and cauliflower and broccoli; lemons, passionfruit, sweet corn, swollen yellow cucumbers.

  An old woman with toothless gums and a face like a map of wrinkles sits behind sheaves of tobacco leaves. There are wooden carvings, necklaces of shells and strings of tiny coloured beads, folded piles of loose, brightly patterned tops. Julie shakes one out and holds it against herself.

  ‘That’s a meri blouse,’ says Nadine.

&nb
sp; ‘Oh!’ Julie lays it down.

  ‘But they’re not just for meris. Everyone wears them, Europeans as well. You can buy one if you want to.’

  ‘Of course I could,’ says Julie hastily. ‘But it — it wasn’t really my colour.’

  Somewhere in the distance, piglets are squealing in distress. Scrawny chickens flap in cages of split bamboo; puppies squirm and pant. The scent of wood smoke mingles with a musty odour. Julie wrinkles her nose and recoils a little as she realises that it’s the smell of unwashed human bodies. For a minute she feels almost faint as two men strut past in traditional dress, resplendent in wide belts with rear skirts of bunched leaves, like bustles, over their naked buttocks.

  Ryan follows Julie’s gaze. ‘You know what they call that? Arse-gras.’

  ‘No,’ says Julie. ‘Really?’

  ‘A beard? Mausgras — mouth grass. Hair? Gras bilong het — head grass.’

  ‘You’re making this up.’

  Ryan shrugs. ‘Cross my heart . . . I used to speak fluent Pidgin when I was a kid. But I’ve forgotten most of it now.’

  Julie can’t take her eyes off the villagers. Short and sturdy, they stride through the marketplace, feathers swaying in their hair. The moons of seashells from the far-off ocean glow pale against their dark chests. One man has thrust a cigarette casually through his pierced nose, and another has tucked a plastic lighter into his headdress, among strings of grass-seeds and slender cassowary feathers.

  Ryan offers Julie his bag of salty plums, and cautiously she takes a small, hard, pinky-orange nugget. She says, ‘It looks like a poo from a Technicolour rabbit.’ She grimaces at the peculiar sour-sweet-salty tang, and Nadine laughs.

  ‘Urgh!’ Julie shudders. Then: ‘Can I have another one?’

  Sometimes Barbara stops to greet someone, or to wave and smile at an acquaintance. These friends are mostly women, and all of them are white. There are locals all around, but the Crabtrees don’t seem to know any of them. Julie keeps a lookout for Simon Murphy, but she doesn’t see him.

  Slowly Barbara’s basket fills with fruit and vegetables. Using the money her mother gave her, Julie buys a string bag. ‘That’s a bilum,’ says Nadine. ‘You’ll have to wear it hanging off your forehead like a native.’

  Julie shoots her an uneasy look. She is pretty sure that native is a word her mother would disapprove of. But maybe the rules are different here. And what should she say instead? Papua New Guinean? Indigenous person?

  Ryan catches the look. ‘We don’t say native any more, Nads, remember? It’s national.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Nadine. ‘I forgot. Anyway, it’s not as rude as kanaka.’ She darts away to her mother’s side and begins to beg for a puppy.

  Well, that answers that question. ‘I was just wondering what the right word was,’ says Julie. ‘Native sounds so . . . colonial.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ says Ryan. ‘This was a colony.’ He squints at her. ‘A word to the wise? Just be a bit careful what you say. I mean, we know you’re not a snob or anything, but you don’t want people to get the wrong idea.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with being a snob?’ says Julie. ‘It’s about —’ She stops herself. She remembers how much she hates it when Caroline lectures her on Women’s Liberation or civil rights. She says, ‘I’m going to buy some fruit to put in my bilum.’

  She buys a pineapple, some passionfruit, bananas and tomatoes, a bag of salty plums and a stick of sugarcane, just to see what it’s like. Nadine shows her how to strip off the tough outer casing with her teeth, then chew on the fibres to release the thick, sweet, sticky juice.

  Barbara sniffs. ‘That will be the first fruit ever to cross Tony McGinty’s doorstep.’

  Julie doesn’t even try to imitate Barbara’s imperious haggling; she pays whatever the women ask. ‘They expect you to haggle, you know,’ Barbara warns her. ‘They’ll take you for a fool.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ says Julie. ‘It’s all so cheap, anyway.’

  ‘The market is cheap. But the shops are so expensive . . .’

  Julie closes her ears to Barbara’s complaints. Drinking in the smells and colours, the rise and fall of voices, like a song whose words she can’t quite catch, with the cool clear sunshine falling on her bare arms, she feels as if she’s been asleep and is now waking up, blood tingling through her veins. But the sensation of coming to life is painful, too. The snotty, grubby children with their distended bellies, the dirt and poverty, the puppies with their rheumy eyes, the terrified shrieking of the pigs — the Crabtrees seem not to notice these things. Julie can’t believe that a place so intensely beautiful can be simultaneously so distressing.

  ‘There’s Teddie Spargo!’ exclaims Barbara. ‘Teddie! Teddie! Over here!’

  Julie sees the young woman with the long red hair who was in the HAC office the day before. She turns in her flowing caftan, gives them a dreamy smile and floats over in their direction.

  ‘Did she say Teddie Spargo?’ says Julie to Nadine. ‘Is she related to Andy?’

  Nadine’s face is tight and unhappy. ‘No,’ she says bitterly. ‘She’s his wife.’

  ‘They just got married a few months ago,’ says Ryan. ‘Poor old Nads. She’s in lurve with Andy. When she got home from boarding school and found out he’d got married — well, poor old Nads.’

  ‘You’re a pig, Ryan,’ says Nadine fiercely, and stalks away.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ says Julie. ‘Should I go after her?’

  ‘She’s got to get over it,’ says Ryan. ‘No point mooning round after someone you can’t have. You’ve got to be realistic.’

  Julie wonders if Ryan yearns for someone too. Maybe he is in lurve with Teddie . . . She walks over to where Teddie and Barbara are deep in conversation.

  Teddie sweeps back her hair with a languid gesture. ‘. . . literally no food in the house,’ she is saying. ‘I was trying to explain to Mary — the girl who comes in — I wanted her to stop cooking dinner for us, she makes horrible food, just disgusting, so I want to take over. But my Pidgin is pretty lousy, well, just about non-existent actually. I asked Andy but he was no help, he only knows how to say “unload the plane” and “get out of the way”. So I looked up the phrasebook and I told Mary, no kaikai, no kaikai, thinking that meant no cooking, right? But she must have thought I meant no food, because when we got home from work all the food was gone.’ Teddie rolls her eyes dramatically. ‘The cupboards were empty, the fridge, everything. We had to go to the Highlander for dinner. She totally misunderstood me.’

  Barbara frowns. ‘You need to be careful, Teddie. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.’

  ‘You think she did it on purpose?’ says Teddie, wide-eyed.

  ‘Oh, Teddie, of course she did! They’re not stupid.’

  ‘Well, it’s my own fault,’ says Teddie. ‘I gave Mary the excuse.’

  Nadine reappears. She says scornfully, ‘You do realise that Mary isn’t a name?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Meri — it means a maid — it’s not her actual name.’

  ‘No!’ says Teddie doubtfully. ‘I’m sure her name’s Mary. I can’t have been calling her “Maid” all this time.’

  ‘It means woman,’ says Ryan. ‘Actually.’

  ‘That’s even worse!’ wails Teddie.

  ‘Would you like me to have a word with her?’ says Barbara. ‘That might be for the best. You really can’t let them —’

  ‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Teddie interrupts. ‘There’s a kind of do this arvo, at Colditz. A pool party, barbie kind of thing. Andy thought Ryan and Julie might like to come along.’

  Nadine opens her mouth to protest, then shuts it again.

  ‘Well,’ says Barbara stiffly. ‘Of course you don’t want the boss hanging over you all the time. I can understand that.’

  ‘Oh, you can come if you like!’ exclaims Teddie. ‘But, you know . . . you’d probably be . . . bored —’

  ‘Why can’t I go?’ demands Nadine.

  ‘It’s not
for kids,’ says Ryan. ‘There won’t be lemonade and fairy bread.’

  Teddie looks at him and Julie. ‘So you guys are coming?’

  ‘Sure,’ shrugs Ryan. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Julie. ‘I’d better check with Tony.’

  ‘Oh, he won’t mind,’ says Barbara. ‘He’ll be relieved, he was wondering how on earth he was going to keep you entertained.’

  Oh.

  Julie says, ‘What’s Colditz?’

  ‘It’s the flats where the guys live — the other HAC pilots,’ says Teddie. ‘It looks like a prison block.’

  ‘Those flats are perfectly good accommodation,’ says Barbara.

  ‘How come you and Andy aren’t living there, Teddie?’ says Ryan.

  Teddie wrinkles her nose. ‘I don’t know,’ she says vaguely. ‘Curry gave us the yellow house when I came up. He’s such a sweetie . . . See you later . . .’

  She waves, and melts into the crowd, with her basket boy trotting after her.

  Barbara gazes after her. ‘She really is the most exasperating girl. I don’t know how Andy stands it . . . We rented the yellow house for them. Because we assumed there must be some reason why they got married so quickly.’

  Ryan whistles. ‘Up the duff?’

  Nadine squeaks. ‘They’re having a baby?’

  ‘Well, there’s no sign of it,’ says Barbara. ‘I suppose they might have been mistaken — or she might have —’ She stops. ‘Anyway, I expect they will have one soon enough. There’s not much else to do.’

  ‘And we do make our own fun,’ murmurs Ryan, so that only Julie can hear.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ says Nadine. ‘I never get to do anything.’

  ‘I could walk you round to Colditz, if you like,’ Ryan says to Julie. ‘It’s not far.’

  ‘Okay — thanks.’ Caroline told her not to bother bringing her bathers, because Tony lived so far from the sea. Had she thrown them in, after that last repack, or not? She can’t remember.