Beat Not the Bones

by Charlotte Jay

  She had accused Trevor Nyall of deliberately hiding him but decided now that she had been unjust. Washington did look ill. It was not exceptionally hot, though the climb up the garden steps had made her skin prickly and moist, but Washington’s face ran with sweat. His eyes were pouched from lack of sleep and there were sharp, haggard folds around his lips that did not appear to belong to a face otherwise young.

  As soon as she entered the room she knew he was hiding something. He lay, making no attempt to move, languid as a Yellow Book poet, but she felt that the body under the silk gown was tense and defensive. She felt that he knew who she was and why she had come, and was prepared for her.

  ‘You will excuse me for not getting up.’ He spoke in rather high-pitched, drawling tones and waved a long, elegant hand at two cane chairs. ‘This damn fever leaves me weak as a chicken. Oh, hello there, Hitolo. Nice to see you again. Sit down over there.’ He pointed to the corner and Hitolo came quietly in and squatted down on his haunches.

  Stella, who had no idea that in Marapai it was a breach of etiquette to invite a Papuan to sit down in the same room as a white woman, took no notice of this. She sat down too, but Anthony remained standing. ‘I’ve brought Mrs Warwick to see you, Washington,’ he said. ‘She’s only recently learned that you went into the Bava valley with her husband.’ He spoke quickly, almost casually, as if to get this visit over as soon as possible. His words subtly deprived the meeting of emphasis. Stella did not know whether to be angry or grateful.

  Washington had turned his extraordinarily light eyes towards her, and in a manner as elegant as his dressing gown said, ‘Believe me, Mrs Warwick, you have my deepest sympathy. I knew you were here, of course, and I was going to get in touch with you. You probably think it unpardonable of me for not having done so. I should have written, but I am one of those poor wretches who go completely under in an attack of fever. It just prostrates me. I am useless. You will excuse my not getting up, won’t you? Perhaps you’d like something to drink. Hitolo, fish around behind that curtain and you’ll find a bottle of gin.’ His eyes returned to Stella. ‘I have no ice, I’m afraid. The boys used to carry it up from the freezer for me, but, alas, I now have no boys. So you must excuse the mess.’

  Stella said nothing. She was shocked to find him so charming. There was something light and brittle about the way he spoke that – against her inclinations – amused her, an inflection to his voice that made everything he said sound witty. She did not like being charmed, and she profoundly distrusted him.

  ‘What about Rei?’ said Anthony.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Rei … That’s right, Hitolo, and there are glasses there too and water in that jug. Put back the cover or the ants will fall into it.’ His voice faded. His eyes had wandered and were fixed now on the darkening doorway. He leaned forward suddenly in his chair and peered outside. Both Stella and Anthony turned to follow the direction of his gaze. The leaves of the creeper formed a sharp, serrated edge around the doorway. Night had fallen quickly, and behind the frangipani trees, the sky was pricked with stars.

  Washington’s unblinking eyes probed the dark shapes of the bushes. His face was tense and a small pulse throbbed in his cheek. ‘Hitolo, be a good boy and have a look outside, won’t you. I think somebody’s waiting out there.’

  Hitolo left the drinks and walked obediently outside. He stood for a moment on the verandah and came back in again. ‘Nobody there,’ he said.

  Washington leaned back in his chair. His face relaxed.

  ‘We’re keeping you from your dinner,’ Stella said, and struck at a mosquito on her leg.

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing. It’s inedible anyway. Are the mosquitoes troubling you? Hitolo, pass over that switch to Mrs Warwick.’

  Hitolo unhooked a long, horsehair switch from the wall and Washington picked up his plate and prodded a potato with a fork. Stella switched impatiently at her legs. She opened her lips to speak, but Hitolo forestalled her. ‘Taubada!’ He had moved forward into the centre of the room. He was staring at the empty meat tin by Washington’s feet. ‘Mr Washington, don’t eat that food. You die!’

  Washington lifted his eyes and stared at Hitolo. His lips were half parted to receive the food. Then he glanced down at his feet. When he looked up again his eyes were bright and angry. ‘Don’t talk such nonsense!’ he said. ‘Go back and sit down this instant!’ Digging his fork into the bully beef, he scooped up a large piece and thrust it into his mouth.

  ‘No eat ’im, taubada,’ chanted Hitolo. He appeared not to have heard Washington’s rebuke. He stood with his arms hanging at his sides, his eyes wide and glazed. There was a strange, whitish flush around his lips.

  Stella looked down at the can. Its lid was rolled back round a key. It had a scarlet label with yellow lettering. Washington spoke again. His voice rose, a note of hysteria in it now. ‘Do as I tell you! Sit down and be quiet or you can get out!’ He ate a little more and pushed his plate away, grimacing. ‘There!’ he said defiantly to Hitolo, who had slunk back into the corner again. ‘Do I look as if I’m going to die? My God, you’re a spoiled crowd. There used to be a time when a piece of smoked magami was good enough for you. Now you scream for tinned meat and fish. And if you strike an off tin that gives you a belly-ache you wail about that and want fresh beef from the freezer at five shillings a pound. That’s where we’ve gone wrong with these people,’ he said to Anthony. ‘All we’ve done is to create unnecessary needs without developing a sense of discrimination.’

  ‘Mr Washington!’ said Stella desperately.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Warwick, you were wanting to ask me some questions. I’m sorry I was not more prepared for you. Oh, dear, that doesn’t seem to be agreeing with me.’ He ran his hand over his stomach. ‘I shouldn’t eat with fever. I never feel I can touch a thing.’

  As he spoke Stella became conscious that the room was becoming filled with more and more tiny flying insects. The circle fluttering about the lamp was slowly thickening. They seemed frenzied and pelted about like snow. The table all around the glass bottle was littered with fine, shining wings. They had settled on the ceiling, too, and scratched and whispered in the thatch. Two or three large cockroaches joined them and flopped about the room. In the confined space they looked as large as birds. The geckoes waiting on the rafters were darting to and fro, and a lean black cat that Stella had not noticed before was sitting on a rafter directly above her head cracking something between its jaws.

  Desperation seized her. Somewhere here, she believed, hidden in this house, in the body and mind of this man, was the truth, the justice she sought, but the hut was equipped to distract and bewilder her. The masks, the string of dogs’ teeth and the curved half moons of the boars’ tusks caught and mesmerised her eyes; the amusing elegant manners of Washington trapped her; Hitolo with his talk of deadly meat had momentarily banished David Warwick from her mind, and now nature itself, the sky with its hordes of winged insects, had rallied to attack her. She felt that her sight, her senses, her passionate purpose was blurred in the flutter of myriad wings.

  ‘Mr Washington,’ she said again, leaning tensely forward. ‘When you went to Eola …’

  ‘Just a moment, Mrs Warwick. I’m afraid we’ll have to turn off the light or we’ll have these things in hordes. They’ll pass over in a moment.’

  She lashed at her legs with the horse-hair switch in a sudden revulsion against the tiny pricking, tickling creatures. Along the arm of her chair they had settled in a thick, wriggling, greasy patch. She looked up and her eyes met Anthony Nyall’s. He was staring a her with an expression of grave sadness. Washington put out a hand and snapped off the light.

  There was a moment of silence, at least of human voices. In fact the little hut was filled with sound. The flying ants flopped and battered their wings against the lamp; through the open louvres they could be seen, a twirling, spinning multitude against the night sky. The thatch was alive with scraping, cracking, creeping insect life, and from the ceiling above Stella�
�s head swayed a cluster of strange, bamboo objects – some sort of musical instruments, she guessed – that tinkled in the breeze like wind bells.

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Washington sharply, and they heard him move forward in his chair.

  ‘There’s no one there,’ said Anthony in a flat, tired voice. ‘It’s only the flying foxes. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing can come in. You’re well protected. You have magic hanging on your door’

  Washington laughed. It was a strange high, dry sound. ‘Oh, so you noticed it. Now don’t expect me to be ashamed of myself. I can’t help it, you know. All the nicest things I have are pinched. My fingers itch and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. You’re not going to take it away, are you?’

  ‘Not if it gives you any comfort,’ said Anthony. His voice was low, and it was difficult to tell whether it was menacing or gentle.

  Stella struck a desperate blow at the mosquitoes that were attacking her legs. She was beginning to feel hysterical. The whole evening – this strange, elegant, unstable man, his fantastic house, Hitolo, the flying ants – seemed unreal, dreamlike.

  ‘There is someone there,’ said Washington tensely.

  Now Stella had heard the sound. It was a low, scuffling noise that seemed to come from under the house. Then there was a subdued yelp.

  Washington leapt to his feet. She saw his tall body dart across the room to fill the doorway that looked out towards the boy house. ‘Koibari! Koibari! Where are you? You there! There’s a dog under this house. Get it away, I tell you! Get it out here. I won’t have dogs scratching around in this place!’

  Her first thought was, There’s somebody there. And he said there was no one. He’s a liar too.

  Washington’s voice rose almost to a scream. ‘Get him out of here! Kick him! Stone him! Get him away! I won’t have those damn Kerema dogs in this place!’ The yelping and scuffling increased and Washington’s voice screamed on. ‘Get him out of here! I won’t have those damned dogs!’

  He’s mad! she thought. The scene had changed abruptly from dream to nightmare. The walls of experience shot back and she found herself glimpsing into regions of the human heart that she had never dreamed existed. The flying ants were still thick in the air, brushing her face as they passed. They had poured down the hillside in a united stream, using the house as a tunnel, sucked in through the louvres on one side and out through those on the other. Stella sat motionless in her chair, her hands clenched at her sides and her heart beating violently.

  A voice spoke quietly in her ear. ‘Look at the glow-worms,’ said Anthony Nyall. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’

  She looked up. In the thatch above her head pale, soft lights were breathing on and off. They were not sparkling, hard, metallic like the firefly, but bright, soft and tender. She felt an immediate sense of relief. She smiled and moved instinctively to hold out her hand, then collected herself and drew it back.

  ‘You must excuse me, Mrs Warwick,’ said Washington in a more normal voice. He was feeling his way back to his chair. He flopped into it and fanned himself. She could smell the faint sour odour of sandalwood. He was breathing deeply, and though she could only see the outline of his head and one rapidly moving hand beating the fan, there came from him a suggestion of almost desperate exhaustion. ‘I’m not at all well,’ he said. ‘Fever always puts my nerves on edge and those damn Kerema dogs come over and root up all my vegetables.’

  ‘Mr Washington, when you went to Eola …’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Warwick. What were you wanting to ask me? I’m sorry about the interruptions.’

  ‘Please can you tell me what happened?’

  Anthony Nyall spoke now. ‘Mrs Warwick believes that the trip to Eola might have had some sort of bearing on her husband’s suicide.’

  Stella’s lips tightened at the word ‘suicide’, but she said nothing.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Washington quickly. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘What happened?’ said Stella patiently. Nothing would come from this man, she knew. He was not attending to what he said. She had a strong impression of his thoughts flitting about the room like the flying ants, and only returning now and again to give the briefest check over the words he was speaking, which sounded forced and mechanical, perhaps rehearsed. But she was not discouraged. She felt she might learn what she wanted to know, not from what he said, but from what he did not say.

  ‘Well, we went by flying boat to the station at Kairipi. It’s on the coast, at the mouth of the Bava River. The district officer took us up the river in the station boat to Maiola, which is the end of his patrol. Here we picked up a couple of guides and we had eight carriers with us from the station and Hitolo, and …’

  ‘… Sereva,’ said Stella.

  ‘Yes, and Sereva. It was rather a crowd to take, but we were carrying some trade goods for the Eolan people, who haven’t got much of a reputation for friendliness. Nobody knew anything much about them, but we were considered rather foolhardy going in – by the natives that is. So we took cowries and pearl shells from the coast. We had trouble getting the natives to go with us. But two of them ran away as soon as we got near the village and the others wouldn’t go any further.’

  ‘Why were they frightened?’ asked Stella.

  ‘Vada, Mrs Warwick. Vada. Eola has a reputation for vada men.’ He had lowered his voice and spoke with an inflection of awe, almost of reverence. ‘It’s a type of sorcery. A very powerful type of sorcery. You’ve probably heard a little about sorcery but …’ his voice was slow and eager, and Stella, fearing another digression, interrupted.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Well, we were at this village Maiola, which is the end of the patrol. The river narrows there and you can’t take a canoe up it, so we struck out on foot, following along its bank.’

  Stella listened and stared outside through the open doorway; the sky was now clear of flying ants and showed a deep, washed blue between the frangipani trees.

  Anthony had sat down and lit his pipe and the white smoke moved slowly out through the door.

  ‘I think that the flying ants have gone,’ Stella said.

  ‘So they have.’ Washington stretched out his hand and switched on the light. They blinked at each other, their faces for the first few moments white and strained, their eyes pinched and drowsy. The cat above Stella’s head had disappeared, the geckoes had crept into the corners of the rafters. The flying ants had dropped their wings on the table and just a single cockroach still banged against the lamp.

  Washington had looked first at Stella, but now his eyes surveyed the room. Then his body grew rigid, his hand clutched the fan, and he sucked his breath in sharply. Stella glanced quickly into the corner, but she could only see Hitolo squatting on the floor, his long exquisite hands hanging limply down between his knees. There were two white spots of light on his burnished cheeks and his eyes glimmered like jewels.

  Washington fluttered his fan. ‘You startled me, Hitolo,’ he said with a nervous laugh that broke into a giggle. ‘I thought you had white paint on your face. I couldn’t imagine what you would be doing with a painted face. Let me see, we went on till we were half a day’s march from Eola, and then the two guides decided to run for home. We weren’t yet really in Eola country but fairly near it, and they weren’t taking any chances. But the carriers, who were mission boys and just one degree less idiotic than the two guides, agreed to go further. After a while they got the wind up too, so we went on alone. They made camp and waited for us outside the village. We were right in Eola country, and when we came back they were huddled together over a fire, nearly ill with fear, though they hadn’t seen a soul. Everyone was in the village at a dance festival.’ He paused and mopped his face with a handkerchief. ‘My God, it’s hot, isn’t it? Hitolo, pass Mrs Warwick a fan.’

  ‘I don’t find the weather any different from Australia,’ said Stella.

  Washington laughed. ‘You don’t at first. This is a place, Mrs Warwick, that doesn’t gi
ve itself away in the first five minutes. If it did it would be uninhabited, at least by white men. You stick around till it gets its claws into you and then starts spitting in your face. But it’s too late then, you’re no good for anywhere else.’

  Stella, fearing from the tense eagerness of his tone that he had arrived on another of his favourite subjects, said, ‘You went on. Who went with you?’

  ‘Your husband, Sereva, myself.’

  ‘And was there any gold?’

  He did not seem surprised that she should know about the gold. ‘Very little that we could see. Just a few neck ornaments, probably traded from some other part of the country.

  He’s hiding something, thought Stella. She was certain that Washington was lying, but just when he had started lying she could not tell. She felt that the questions she asked now were vitally important. She had a sensation of stalking – a bird, or an animal – creeping up slowly, sliding her questions through grasses and bushes noiselessly so as not to disturb the elusive truth within. One wrong step, one cracking twig or fluttering leaf and it would be off and gone. She felt that Washington knew he was being stalked. She could sense his nerves fingering the air around him.

  ‘Like the ones that Jobe brought back,’ she said. She clasped her hands to stop them trembling. She had lost consciousness of the strange hut where they sat, and of the dark, melancholy eyes of Anthony Nyall. She had a feeling of power that she had never known in her life. She saw the situation as important and dangerous, and she was dealing with it herself. No one was telling her what to do. She was actually pitting her wits against an older, and more experienced, man. She moved in her chair, her eyes shining.