New Guinea Moon

by Kate Constable

  ‘But what about when you come back?’

  A pause. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘You might get lucky, his family might go finis. Then you’ll never need to see him again.’

  ‘I mean, I hadn’t thought that I might come back.’

  The wild daydream about leaving school and working at HAC is one thing. The idea of coming back, year after year, the way the Crabtree kids do, is something else: a solid possibility, something real. Now that she’s facing it head on, the thought of leaving New Guinea and never coming back blows a desolate chill through Julie. She isn’t sure that she can talk about it. She clears her throat. ‘Your dad never even tried to leave, did he?’

  ‘No, never. Even when his parents died, he didn’t go back for the funerals. He didn’t get on with his family. I’ve never met any of them. Dad says he made his own family here.’ Simon’s voice is sombre. ‘He says the only thing he’s ever missed is the sea.’

  Julie tucks her feet beneath her. ‘You’re so lucky, knowing exactly what you’re going to do, working at Keriga.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering if I ought to have a crack at politics, one day.’ There is a pause. ‘I’ve never told anyone that before.’

  ‘Wow,’ says Julie. ‘That would be amazing.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m cut out for all that arguing. Maybe what this country needs most is good businessmen, maybe I should just concentrate on that.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time. I mean, if you were going to become prime minister, it wouldn’t be for years and years . . .’

  ‘That’s true. What about you, anyway? What are your plans?’

  ‘I don’t really know what I’m going to do,’ says Julie. For a moment she considers confiding her running-away-from-school plan, but what if he scoffs at her, or tells her it’s impossible?

  ‘There’s plenty to do,’ says Simon. ‘Up here. A whole new nation, starting out. We can make it anything we want. If you wanted to come back — there’s medicine, teaching, journalism —’

  ‘I worked in the office at HAC. I quite liked that.’

  ‘You could be a public servant. When I’m in parliament, you can come and work for me!’

  ‘Hey, why couldn’t I get elected?’ says Julie. ‘I’ll be in parliament, and you can come and work for me.’

  ‘You’ll need to become a citizen first.’

  ‘Okay, I will . . . Maybe I could learn to fly! I’ll come up here and be a pilot like Tony.’ Excitement rises in her. She doesn’t have to just sit in the office; she can fly the planes! There are loads of things she could do! For the first time, rather than looming like a black hole, the future sparks with possibility. Maybe not actually flying, though; she’s still a little too nervous for that.

  They’ve been talking for almost two hours when the power goes out and cuts off the phone. Blinking in the sudden darkness, Julie hangs up. Tony hasn’t come home. So much for shouldn’t be too late. Suddenly she feels cross and abandoned. She quite likes the way Tony treats her as an adult, but that doesn’t mean he can leave her here alone while he stays out all night. She gropes her way around in the darkness, trying to remember which switches were flicked on, and turning them off, and feels proud of herself for thinking to switch on the porch light for Tony, in case the power is restored before he arrives home. It’s not worth digging out the candles. She brushes her teeth in the dark, and goes to bed.

  Julie wakes to a blaze of light in her face. She screws up her eyes against the light, thinking confusedly that she’s forgotten to turn off a switch, and the power has come back on. She blinks and focuses.

  But it’s the beam of a torch shining in her face. And behind the torch, the dim shape of a man.

  She has a split second of absolute clarity. It’s a burglar. He is in the flat, with her. And she forgot to check that the back door was bolted before she went to bed.

  The torch beam plays across her face. Then, unhurried, the dark figure turns away. The spotlight of the torch dips and swings over the walls of her bedroom, sweeping across Holly Hobbie, and Julie catches a glimpse of the man’s face. Casually, he turns and strolls through the doorway.

  It’s his nonchalance that strikes a shaft of white-hot anger through her. He couldn’t care less that she’s woken up and seen him; he isn’t scared of her at all! Without thinking, she snatches up the only weapon within reach — the hardback novel on her bedside table — and hurls it at his back. She misses; he is already out of the room.

  ‘Get out! Get out!’ Julie leaps from the bed and grabs the chair with both hands, by the leg and the back, and brandishes it. Swear words pour from her lips, as fluent and furious as Curry Crabtree himself. Screaming abuse, Julie throws herself after the intruder, and as she comes into the living room, she sees him run. He lopes toward the open back door (she knew it) and she chases him out into the backyard.

  ‘Piss off! Raus! Get out of our house!’ she screams, incoherent with rage.

  A grumble of dry thunder rolls around the horizon, and by a flicker of lightning she sees him scramble over the sagging back fence, a dark shape, clumsy as a bear.

  ‘And stay out!’ she yells. Her hands are shaking as she lowers the chair.

  Then Gibbo is running across the grass, faster than she’s ever seen him move. ‘Jesus wept! You all right, Julie?’

  Tony races up behind them. ‘What happened? Bloody hell!’ He throws his arms around her. His breath is warm and beery.

  Julie leans into the hug. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Dimly, as if through thick morning mist, she processes the sounds she’d heard a moment before: the crunch of gravel as the car pulled up, the sweep of headlights at the front of the unit. Maybe that was what had made him run, not her chasing him at all — or maybe it was Gibbo running outside —

  Gibbo says, ‘You sure you’re all right? He didn’t — you know — touch you?’

  Mutely Julie shakes her head. She feels Tony flinch. He puts his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Thanks, mate, I’ll take it from here.’

  ‘Okay.’ Gibbo shrugs, and retreats to his own unit, throwing worried looks over his shoulder.

  Tony leads Julie inside and sits her down at the table while he bolts the front and back doors, and checks all the windows.

  ‘I left the back door unlocked,’ she says.

  He shakes his head. ‘You just can’t do that, love. You have to —’

  The white-hot anger flares again. ‘It’s not my fault! You should have been here! You said you wouldn’t be late!’ She spreads her hands flat on the tabletop. ‘What if he’d attacked me? What if —’

  ‘I know, I know! Shit, I’m sorry!’ Tony drops into a chair. More quietly he says, ‘I thought you could take care of yourself.’

  Julie says, ‘I’m only sixteen.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tony runs his hand over his head. He says, ‘I’m no good at this. This dad stuff.’

  Julie stares at the table. Thunder growls around the valley. The power is back on.

  ‘Hot drink,’ says Tony. ‘That’s what we need.’

  Slowly he stands and makes his way to the sink to fill the electric jug. His face is grey beneath its stubble, and the hair that fringes his bald pate is all fluffed up like a frightened bird. He makes two steaming mugs of Milo and pushes one across the table to Julie. He says again, ‘I’m so sorry, love.’

  Julie looks up. ‘I should have locked the door. It was my fault.’

  Tony shakes his head. ‘And I should have been here.’

  They sip at their Milo without speaking for a few moments.

  Julie sighs and looks around. ‘I think he got the radio. And my purse is gone.’

  ‘The beer from the fridge. And that frozen chook.’

  Their eyes meet and they give a weak laugh at the idea of a burglar who’d stoop to stealing a frozen chicken.

  ‘Poor bugger,’ says Tony. ‘Almost feel sorry for him.’ He flattens his hair with his hand and blow
s out a gusty breath. ‘Do you think we could put off ringing your mum until morning?’

  Julie stares at him blankly. ‘Why do you want to ring her?’

  ‘You’ve had a fright — don’t you want to talk to your mum? Anyway,’ his voice sinks so low she can hardly hear it, ‘you’ll want to go home now, won’t you?’

  ‘No! Of course not! And I didn’t really have a fright. I wasn’t frightened. Not while it was happening.’ This is true, she realises. Chasing the burglar, whirling the chair in the air, she’d felt more excited than scared. Even now, her heart is banging in her chest and adrenalin races through her veins. She says, ‘I was just — angry. I chased him. I wanted to hit him.’

  Tony shakes his head. ‘You want to be careful, love. That’s how I got this.’ He runs the tip of his finger down the channel of his scar. ‘That was from an axe. Because I lost my temper.’ He looks at her. ‘Next time, Julie, promise me — don’t do anything silly. Though touch wood, there won’t be a next time . . .’ He raps on the tabletop.

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘If you promise me you won’t tell Caroline about tonight.’

  Reluctantly he smiles. ‘Deal.’

  ‘I don’t want to go home.’ She sighs out a long breath. ‘It’s like — everything is more alive here. I feel more alive here.’

  ‘Must be all the electricity in the air.’

  Right on cue, lightning splits the sky outside like the flick of a whip.

  ‘And the way the light looks, after it rains,’ she says. ‘It’s so — intense.’

  He laughs at her earnestness. ‘Yeah,’ he agrees. ‘Sometimes I feel as if I lost a layer of skin when I moved up here.’ He takes a gulp of Milo. ‘Beautiful people, too.’ He gazes into space for a moment, then rouses himself. ‘You shouldn’t let that idiot tonight spoil it for you.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Julie wraps her hands around the mug. ‘Do you ever think about going home?’

  ‘Down south, you mean? That’s the thing, isn’t it? I reckon this is home now.’ He looks into his Milo. ‘Gets a bit lonely sometimes. I can’t deny that. But I wouldn’t want to leave.’

  ‘What if the Crabtrees go finis?’

  He shrugs. ‘I’ll get another job. They’ll always need pilots in the Highlands. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else, that’s the truth.’

  ‘What about Independence?’ Julie hesitates. ‘It’s so confusing. Simon Murphy can’t wait; he’s so excited about it. But everyone else says there’ll be riots in the streets and everything will fall apart.’

  ‘I dunno, love. The people will be the same. And the electricity in the air. And the light, after it rains.’

  Julie reaches out to squeeze his hand. Tony looks startled, but after a second he gives an awkward squeeze in return. She says shyly, ‘Do you think I could come back? Could I visit you again?’

  His face lights up. ‘Of course you can!’ Then his eyes drop. ‘If you want to. I don’t expect you to make any promises. You’re getting older, you’ll be busy with your own life soon, boyfriends and study and work and all that. I don’t expect you to keep running up here to see your old man, at the arse end of nowhere.’

  Julie laughs. ‘I thought we just agreed it was the best place in the world.’

  ‘Yeah, I think we did.’

  ‘Anyway, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I might come back and work here — be a teacher, or — work in an office or something . . .’ She doesn’t quite dare yet to bring up the possibility of giving up school and staying on here; she’ll work up to that gradually. Or perhaps she already knows, deep down, that it will only ever be a daydream. She says in a rush, ‘You’re so lucky, that you’ve found the place where you belong.’

  ‘They say once this place gets into your blood it never lets you go. Like a fishhook in your heart. It keeps tugging away at you, like it or not.’ He smiles shyly. ‘I had an idea the other day. I was thinking we could take a little trip, a weekend away, after Christmas, you and me and the Crabtrees? A weekend in Wewak, up on the coast. It’s bloody beautiful; you ought to see it, like bloody Paradise. You could call it a Christmas present if you like. I didn’t know what else to get you. What do you reckon?’

  ‘Oh, Tony, thank you!’ Julie flings her arms around his neck and kisses his shiny red cheek. ‘I’d love it!’

  It flashes through her mind that she could say, I don’t need to ring my mum when I’ve got my dad here. But she’s too shy to actually say it aloud.

  Later, lying in bed, wriggling her toes between cool sheets, adrenalin still coursing through her blood, she has a brilliant idea. She’ll invite the Murphys to come to Wewak too, Simon and Patrick and Dulcie — so that Patrick can see the sea. She’ll ask Tony in the morning.

  Julie rolls over and cuddles the blanket under her chin. She marvels at herself. She never knew she had such courage in her: to stare down an intruder, to actually chase him out of the house! Caroline would never believe it . . .

  And then a cold trickle of shame runs down her spine. Brave enough to face a burglar, but not brave enough to break up with Ryan. Why hadn’t she rung Ryan tonight when she wanted someone to talk to? Wasn’t that what girls with boyfriends were supposed to do? It isn’t that she doesn’t like him; maybe she just doesn’t like him enough . . .

  She thrusts that thought aside. For now, she wants to feel proud of herself, and she won’t let Ryan spoil that, not tonight.

  13

  In the week before Christmas there is a film night, a fundraiser for the Lions Club. Nadine tells Julie that the arrival of a new film is always a cause for excitement. ‘But then everyone gets hold of it, the Lions, the golf club, somebody’s birthday party, the fleapit — that’s the cinema. One year I saw Cat Ballou five times.’

  Julie has been to the cinema, where the expats sit upstairs in the gallery, in padded seats, while the nationals sit on rough wooden benches down below. She says uncomfortably, ‘So what film is on tonight?’

  Nadine shrugs. ‘I dunno, but it’s newish. Science fiction, I think.’

  The Crabtrees offer to take Julie with them, but she goes back to the unit to wait for Tony. The rain is roaring down, drumming so loudly on the tin roof that she can hardly hear the telephone when it rings.

  ‘Julie, it’s Allan. Just wanted to let you know, it looks like Tony might be a bit late back.’

  She jams her finger in her ear to mute the noise of the rain. ‘Do you mean he’s not back yet? He didn’t get in before the rain started?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about. It’s not that unusual, getting rained in. He’s probably stuck on the airstrip at Koinambe.’

  ‘So — will he be back tonight, or not?’

  ‘He might be marooned overnight, he might have to spend the night in the plane and fly back in the morning. Depends on the weather. Look, it happens from time to time. I’ll bet he comes swanning in first thing tomorrow, howling for a coffee and a plate of bacon and eggs.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says in a small voice. After the burglary, the prospect of spending a night alone in the unit is not hugely appealing.

  ‘Tell you what,’ says Allan, his voice faint and distant. ‘You’re going to the Lions’ movie night, aren’t you? I’ll get Andy and Teddie to take you along. Then if Tony does turn up, he can take you home. Okay?’

  ‘You think he might still turn up then?’ she says hopefully.

  ‘N-ah. Not while it’s pissing down like this. And if he does, by God, I’ll give him a bollocking he won’t forget in a hurry.’

  About half an hour later, Teddie arrives on the doorstep, gasping and half-drowned, her hair plastered to her head. ‘Look at my umbrella, totally useless! I might as well have put a hanky over my head . . .’

  She comes inside, dripping all over the floor. ‘Have you got water coming in? Andy and me had to put towels under our door; it was flooding in. I think our gutters must be blocked . . . You really know you’re in the tropics on a day like this! Got your overnight bag? Curry says you may as well st
ay the night with us, if Tony doesn’t make it. Andy had to sleep in the plane once, at Mendi, he said it was the longest night of his life. He was fine, though. Just uncomfortable . . . And at least he was dry. Dryer than we are, probably. Tony must have a raincoat somewhere . . .’

  She wanders into Tony’s room, where Julie has never dared to enter, and emerges with a huge cracked old Driza-Bone. It’s like draping herself in a pterodactyl’s wing. Julie locks up carefully, clutching her overnight bag, and follows Teddie out into the deluge.

  ‘Will they call off the film night if it keeps raining like this?’ Julie yells, as they slip and slide up the street to the Spargos’ house. Water pours in rivers along the ditches by the side of the road.

  ‘Oh, no. A little drop of rain won’t put anyone off.’

  She smiles at Julie, blinking the water out of her eyes, then reaches out to grab her hand, and they swing their hands and shriek as they run through the rain.

  They eat a cheerful, improvised meal of grilled cheese on toast, then the three of them pile into Andy’s car. The rain has eased off slightly, and Julie begins to feel more hopeful that Tony might actually make it back tonight after all. It isn’t dark yet, and how far away is Koinambe anyway? If it’s a half-hour flight, he could easily sneak in before sunset. Andy and Teddie have made up a bed for her on the floor of their spare room, with a sleeping bag and a thin foam mattress, but Julie would prefer her own bed, with Tony’s snores reverberating through the thin wall, the now-familiar shadows playing on the ceiling, and the croak of frogs in the water tank. Andy seems convinced that Tony will be spending the night in his plane; he tells Julie how, when he did it, he made himself a nest from rice sacks and bolts of cloth and slept quite snugly.

  ‘That’s not what you told me,’ says Teddie.

  ‘Well, of course I told you I’d rather have been at home in bed with you.’ Andy winks at Julie over his shoulder. ‘We’d only been married for a month. Now I’d appreciate not getting kicked in the ribs all night — ow!’

  Teddie has slapped him on the arm.

  When they arrive at the crowded wooden hall that the Lions are borrowing for the night, Julie looks around for Simon Murphy. But although the entire white population of Mt Hagen seems to have turned out for the occasion, she can’t see him or Patrick anywhere. Julie supposes this is one of those events that the Murphys are not invited to. Robyn Johansson gives her a cheery wave from the other side of the hall, and Julie waves back.