‘Good night, darling.’
‘Night.’
Caroline snaps off the light, and tiptoes out of the room. Julie lies on her back, gazing at the roof. She can hear the words coming out of her own mouth, when she speaks to her mother: being difficult. She doesn’t want to be mean to her, but it’s as if she can’t help resisting. She doesn’t want to be Caroline’s daughter again, not yet, not here. Not in this place where she is Tony’s daughter, even now that Tony has gone.
Nadine’s poster of a horse’s head looms over her, staring down with huge, liquid eyes. Murmuring voices float down the corridor from the living room; she strains to make out what they’re saying, but she can’t hear. The music has stopped.
There is a tap at the door. ‘It’s me,’ hisses Nadine.
‘Can I come in?’
‘It’s your room.’ Julie sits up.
Nadine bounds onto the bed. ‘Jeez, Ryan’s really pissed off with you,’ she announces cheerfully. ‘What happened to his nose? Did Simon Murphy punch him?’
‘No, I did,’ says Julie.
Nadine slaps her hands over her mouth to muffle a crow of laughter; snorts and snuffles escape between her fingers. After a moment Julie gives a reluctant giggle. She says weakly, ‘It’s not funny.’
She is very conscious of knowing something that Nadine doesn’t know; that the family is breaking apart, that this will be her last summer in New Guinea. The knowledge sits like an iron weight between them on the bed.
‘Do you want Roxy to sleep on your bed tonight?’
Julie is touched. ‘No, that’s okay. But thanks.’
Nadine wriggles closer, and lowers her voice. ‘Is it true what they’re talking about? That Tony had a native kid?’
‘Are they talking about it?’ Julie struggles out from beneath the blankets. ‘What are they saying?’
‘Don’t bother going out there,’ says Nadine. ‘As soon as you turn up they’ll stop talking.’
Julie recognises the truth of this. She lies down again, tormented.
Nadine hugs her knees. ‘I could sing to you, if you like,’ she says. ‘When I was a kid and I couldn’t sleep, sometimes Koki would sing to me.’
‘Thanks,’ says Julie. ‘I’d like that.’
She closes her eyes, and Nadine croons to her in Pidgin. After a few minutes she breaks off. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’ve forgotten some of the words.’
‘I don’t mind,’ murmurs Julie.
So Nadine sings again, her voice hardly louder than a whisper, until Julie falls asleep.
‘They are trying to move the natives — the nationals —’ Barbara corrects herself quickly, ‘— out of those awful huts. There’s a huge building program going on. But in a few years time, they’ll be slums, I expect.’
‘Oh, surely not,’ says Caroline. ‘If you give people decent places to live, they take pride in looking after them.’
Barbara gives a sceptical sniff. ‘Maybe you’re right . . . I won’t be here to see it, anyway, thank God.’
‘Oh, you’re leaving?’
‘Yes. Well . . .’ Barbara shoots Julie a sideways look. ‘We’re not sure yet. We’re still deciding what to do. It all depends if people like us will still be welcome here, after Independence.’
Still deciding? thinks Julie. Huh.
‘Eat up, darling,’ says Caroline. ‘You look peaky.’
Julie pokes listlessly at her egg. The smell of bacon reminds her so strongly of the motel in Goroka that she feels as if she’s going to choke. She mumbles, ‘I’m not that hungry.’
‘We should take you to the market, while you’re here,’ Barbara says brightly. ‘It would be a shame for you to come all this way and not do some sightseeing.’
‘We could go out to Keriga,’ says Julie. ‘So Caroline can see where Tony’s buried.’
‘I don’t think we’ll have time, will we?’ says Caroline.
Julie pushes on doggedly. ‘And we need to talk to Patrick Murphy. About setting up the trust for Helen.’
Caroline and Barbara exchange a swift glance. ‘Well,’ says Caroline. ‘We don’t want to rush into anything, darling.’
‘But her school fees for next term will be due soon.’
‘There’s plenty of time to talk about it, once we get back to Melbourne.’
‘But —’
‘Julie,’ says Caroline. ‘Of course we want to do what’s best for this girl, but we need to be sensible. I don’t want you to regret anything. You know I’m not rich, sadly. This money of Tony’s might be the only bit of extra help you’ll ever get. We need to think about it carefully . . .’
‘I don’t want to wait,’ says Julie. ‘I want to sort it out now.’
Caroline spreads her hands flat on the tabletop. ‘I love you, darling. I want what’s best for you. I know I haven’t always made the right decisions —’
Julie looks up in horror to see tears in her mother’s eyes.
‘— I should have encouraged you and Tony to meet sooner, I’m sorry about that. I was trying to protect you, I suppose. But I’m worried about your future. What if you need that money, what if something happens?’
‘You can’t stop bad things happening,’ says Julie. ‘No one can. What about Tony?’
Caroline looks at the table. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Life is short, isn’t it?’
There is a silence. Julie waits. She knows she is going to win this battle.
At last Caroline looks up. ‘All right,’ she says. ‘Let’s find out what we need to do.’
25
The Crabtrees’ telephone is in the kitchen, which means that all phone calls are more or less public. Julie waits until everyone is sitting out on the verandah after lunch on Sunday, then she slips away as if she were going to the bathroom. Koki turns around from the sink and gives her a friendly smile. Julie smiles back as she gingerly eases the door shut and takes the phone to the limit of its cord, into the corner of the room. She sits on the floor and dials the number for Keriga.
The phone seems to ring for a long time before someone picks it up. ‘Hello?’
‘Dulcie, is that you? This is Julie.’
There is a brief pause. ‘Hello.’
Suddenly Julie doesn’t know what to say. A mysterious lump has hardened in her throat. ‘Could — could I please speak to Simon?’
‘He’s not here. He’s coming back tomorrow.’
‘But I’m leaving tomorrow!’
‘He got some jobs to do in Goroka. Some shopping, you know. Business work.’
‘Okay,’ says Julie helplessly.
‘You find your susa, that’s good, ya?’
‘Yes. I’m so happy we found her.’
There is another pause. ‘Simon ring us; he tell us what happen.’
‘I’m sorry,’ whispers Julie.
‘What for?’ says Dulcie, in her matter-of-fact way. ‘Not your fault.’
Julie winds the coils of the phone cord round her finger and lets them spring away. ‘Dulcie? Would you give Simon a message from me?’
‘Mm?’
‘Would you tell him — tell him to write to me?’
Dulcie chuckles. ‘No need to tell him that.’
‘This is my address — will you give it to him?’ Julie begins to dictate, but Dulcie stops her.
‘You wait — my writing not so good. I get Mr Murphy.’
‘Oh! I didn’t think — sorry!’ But Dulcie has already put the phone down. A few moments later, Julie hears Patrick’s gruff voice.
‘Yes, hello? You still here, are you? We all thought you must have left town already.’
‘Tomorrow,’ says Julie. ‘Please, could you give Simon my address?’
‘Fire away.’
Julie dictates her address and waits while Patrick writes it down; then she carefully copies down the Murphys’ post office box number. ‘And tell him, if he’s ever in Melbourne . . .’ Her voice trails away.
There is a silence. Julie can hear Patrick’s wheezing bre
ath. She knows Simon won’t be coming to Melbourne. She says, ‘Allan Crabtree is going to call you. About setting up the trust for Helen.’
‘Ah, Simon mentioned something about that. Glad you’re going to do the right thing by the little girl.’
‘Well, we’re going to try.’ She leans her head against the wall. She says, ‘Our flight to Moresby is at twelve o’clock tomorrow. If — if Simon comes home in time —’
‘He thought you’d already gone,’ says Patrick. ‘I’ll tell him. He likes you, you know.’
Julie swallows. ‘I like him, too.’
On the final morning, Julie’s bags are packed, the carved head wedged inside her suitcase, Tony’s Pidgin phrasebooks in a paper carrier bag under her arm.
‘What are all those books, sweetheart? Are you going to take them on the plane?’
‘I want to start learning as soon as I can.’
‘Oh, darling,’ says Caroline. ‘Don’t you have enough to study at school?’
‘I’ll need it,’ says Julie. She takes a deep breath. ‘When I come back.’ She adds cunningly, ‘You said yourself, there’s so much to do here. Especially for women . . . I might be able to help. They’re setting up a whole new country, you know.’
Caroline opens her mouth and closes it again. She gives Julie a long look, and suddenly Julie is sure that her mother can see right through her.
‘And I thought maybe I should learn bookkeeping.’
Unwillingly Caroline smiles. ‘Well, if you’ve got your heart set on it . . . I suppose I could help you find a good course, after you finish school. If you’re sure that’s what you want.’
‘I’m sure,’ says Julie. Impulsively she throws her arms around her mother and kisses her cheek.
Caroline wraps her arms around her daughter, and they rock gently in a silent embrace.
Julie props the carrier bag against her suitcase, by the front door. The fish hook that Tony talked about has lodged in her heart, and she knows that as long as she lives, New Guinea will keep tugging at her. But she also knows that, no matter how confidently she assures Caroline that she’s coming back, part of her is waiting for a sign. Waiting for Simon.
Barbara is driving them to the airport. Julie paces the living room, listening out for the sound of a Jeep crunching down the driveway. But there is nothing.
Caroline says, ‘Ryan? Are you coming to see us off?’
Ryan shrugs. ‘Nads wants to go. I won’t fit in the car.’
Since they’ve returned from Goroka, he’s refused to speak to Julie, though nobody but Nadine seems to have noticed this. Barbara would pointedly leave them alone together, whereupon Ryan would walk out of the room, much to Julie’s relief.
‘I’m sure the three of us could squeeze into the back,’ says Caroline helpfully.
Ryan scowls. Without answering, he picks up his guitar and stalks out onto the verandah. He throws himself into the swinging chair and begins to strum some melancholy chords, staring out across the misty valley. Julie follows him outside.
‘Ryan.’
He frowns down at the frets of his guitar.
‘Ryan, I’m sorry about . . .’ she wants to say your nose, but she changes it to, ‘. . . the way everything worked out.’
‘You should have told me.’ He still won’t look at her. ‘If you liked him better than me. You should have said something.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Julie swallows. ‘I was trying to be —’
‘You know what? It doesn’t matter.’ At last he looks up, angry green light flickering in his eyes. ‘Forget about it.’
‘I don’t want things to end like this,’ says Julie. She feels as if she’s reciting lines from a movie. This scene feels artificial, staged, but Ryan’s feelings are real. She has hurt him. She didn’t mean to, but she has. ‘Can’t we still be friends?’
‘No,’ says Ryan. ‘I don’t think so.’
He bends his head and strums at his guitar. After a moment, Julie says, ‘Thanks for looking after me. When Dad died.’
He doesn’t look up, but one shoulder twitches in a shrug.
She watches him for a minute longer. She supposes she should feel sad, but what she actually feels is mostly relief. She turns on her heel and walks back inside the house.
When she and her mother and Barbara and Nadine, all pile into the car an hour later, Ryan doesn’t come out to wave goodbye.
‘He’s a very sensitive boy,’ Barbara murmurs to Caroline as they head to the airport. ‘He hates goodbyes.’ She lowers her voice so that Julie can barely hear her. ‘First love . . . so difficult.’
Caroline twists around to throw a startled look at her daughter. Julie glares out of the window and pretends not to notice. Nadine nudges her, and makes a gagging gesture.
‘Don’t worry; he’ll get over it,’ she whispers. ‘Last summer he was in love with Lynette Spitelli.’
Julie nods, and turns her attention back to the window. The road to the airport has become a familiar landscape — they drive past the police barracks, down and up the dip in the road where the white line wobbles comically, past the Chinese trade store and the A-frame house. Time is running out.
And then they’re there.
She cranes out of the window, but she sees at once that there is no Jeep waiting in the car park. That was it, the last chance; it’s too late.
The smell of the terminal, coffee beans and cats, must and sweat, rises around her like a mist. Teddie rushes out of the office and envelops Julie in a vanilla-scented hug.
‘I’ll write to you,’ she whispers in Julie’s ear. ‘And I wanted you to be the first to know. We’re going to have a baby!’
Julie hugs her. She knows she should be thrilled, or at least that she should act as if she is; but she is struggling to feel anything at all. She has the sense that she’s trapped in a kind of dream which will play out without any assistance from her, rolling on to its conclusion whether she is there or not. In a few minutes they will be on the plane; soon she will be gone, a vanishing speck, spiralling into the sky, disappearing as if she’d never been here at all.
Now Joseph is weighing their bags on the big scales; now Allan comes marching toward them with his pilot’s cap pushed to the back of his head. And then, all too soon, Barbara and Nadine are hugging her, and she is walking, dazed, out onto the tarmac, following Caroline across to the plane. She is climbing inside. This is it, the final moment. She says to Allan, ‘Can I sit up front?’
‘Don’t you want to sit with your mother?’ says Caroline in mock — or genuine — hurt.
‘I can see better from here,’ says Julie. ‘Please, Mum. It might be my last chance for a while.’
Caroline nods. ‘All right, darling. I understand.’
Then it’s the smell of the upholstery and the shadowy odour of all the human bodies and all the cargo that has shifted in and out of the balus. Julie buckles her seatbelt and twists to stare out of the window, for her last look at the mountains, and the painted cloud backdrop of the Highland sky. Allan slams his door and starts up the engines.
Suddenly Julie grabs his arm. ‘Wait! Wait!’ she shouts, and points to where Nadine is racing across the tarmac toward the plane.
‘Shit!’ yells Allan. ‘What the hell is she playing at?’ He switches the engines off, the propellers hum and slow down and stop. Allan flings open his door. ‘You bloody little idiot! Do you know how dangerous —’
‘Sorry, sorry, Dad,’ pants Nadine. ‘I just had to give Julie this. He said she’d know what it meant.’
She hands up an envelope through the doorway, spins around and sprints back to the terminal building.
‘Jesus!’ Allan bangs the door shut again. He tosses the envelope onto Julie’s lap. ‘What the hell was all that about?’ Scowling, he restarts the engines and the propellers whir into life once more.
Julie presses her face to the window. In the HAC car park, a battered Jeep is pulled up at an angle which suggests the driver screeched up in a hurry, t
he front door flung open. On the narrow grassy slope between the car park and the asphalt, a figure stands, staring anxiously toward the plane. Julie raises her hand; she waves frantically. He has to see her —
Nadine is on the grass, jumping up and down. Allan had stopped the plane for her; he wouldn’t have stopped for Simon.
The figure raises one hand — not waving — it’s a salute. The plane begins to taxi forward, swinging toward the runway, carrying her away.
Desperately, Julie rips open the envelope. There is no letter inside, no note, no card. She draws out a single slender feather, a lacy feather, tipped with a blue-and-white eye, like a peacock’s tail.
A sob tears at Julie’s throat. She presses both hands against the perspex of the window, her eyes locked on the figure on the grass, drawing further and further away with every second. ‘Yes!’ she shouts. ‘Yes, yes!’ She nods vigorously. Half-laughing, half-crying, she blinks away tears. The plane’s engines rev and roar, and now they are racing along the runway. The figure stands on the grass, as motionless as the mountains. And now the plane is lifting into the sky, and the figure is dwindling smaller and smaller, but he is still there, gazing steadily into the clouds, as if nothing could ever move him, as if he would always be there.
Caroline leans forward between the seats. ‘What’s that, darling?’ she shouts above the drone of the engines. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ Julie yells back. ‘It’s a feather from a Victoria Crowned pigeon.’ She holds it up to show her mother. ‘They’re very intelligent birds,’ she shouts. ‘Very faithful.’
She turns away from her mother’s puzzled face, and touches the tip of the feather gently to her lips. Below them, the clouds are drifting, as noiseless as a dream; and the mountains are waiting.
But Julie’s head is full of the image of Simon, standing there, staring upward.
And this is one of the pictures that will come into Julie’s mind in the months to come. Every time she looks at the feather, every time she touches it with her lips, morning and night; and when she sees the Independence parades on the television news, and pins one of the new nation’s flags to her bedroom wall, with its stars and its bird of paradise; whenever she creases open one of Tony’s phrasebooks to memorise another few words of Pidgin; and every time she deposits her weekend waitressing pay into her bank account: she will think of him, standing on the verandah at Keriga; and of Helen, her head bent over her books in a classroom in Goroka; and of Tony’s grave, in the sunlit valley, under the waving grass; and of the planes trundling over the tarmac to the HAC terminal.
New Guinea Moon Page 18