Later, Jack barged in, phone to his ear, saying something about a charter flight. His eyes were bright with excitement.
‘Going to Yam Island for a stabbing charge. The victim’s in a bad way and about to arrive by chopper. The community policeman has got the offender in the council office.’
‘Restrained?’
‘No, asleep,’ he said as if it was obvious. ‘It’s all good.’
‘Since when is a stabbing all good?’
Jack checked his watch and sat down. ‘The victim, Sarky, and the offender, Pona, are cousins. They started drinking yesterday morning and daylighted. Today Pona stabbed Sarky with a fishing knife.’
‘How is that all good?’
‘Sarky is on his way to hospital, Pona is in custody and Pona’s family reckon he’d been maydh to do it. That’s just not like him to get violent. Not with his cousin-brother, his bala.’
‘Not even if he’s been drinking for 36 hours?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ The sonorous whir of a helicopter descended at the hospital. ‘Hey, that would be Sarky now. You’d better go and sort the maydh stabbing, but you’ll need to work out a way of using the criminal law that applies in Queensland. You know, the 729 sections of the Queensland Criminal Code we are employed to enforce?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ Jack was already at the door, shaking his head. ‘Don’t forget the Anzac Day Rotary raffle. Tickets are in the tearoom.’
I remembered the damper and went to the foyer. There was no damper, no jar of money and no sign. Bugger.
It was quarter to five. I couldn’t wait to meet Jonah. But we hadn’t discussed where and when we would meet. Would I go to his house, would he come to mine? I decided to walk home with Sissy and wait for him.
Although it was five, the sun burnt low on the horizon and basked everything in a shiny, blinding glow as I rounded the bend to Back Beach. I was thinking of what to wear and regretted not having a collection of whatever stylish women wear when they go night spearing on dinghies in the Torres Strait. I was conscious of the thin film of perspiration covering my skin and the wet patches under my armpits, and was grateful I could shower and get ready before Jonah saw and smelled me. I would blow-dry my hair again and use those combs and apply a bit of Captivate and Allure. A voice from across the road cut through the still heat and I jumped.
‘San e wireless.’
‘Sorry.’
‘That means you are thinking real hard.’ Jonah was sitting at a barbecue table in the park across the road from my unit.
Buzarr and Sissy rushed at each other and I was dragged across to Jonah, almost tripping over the exposed root of a giant rain tree.
‘Hello, Jonah,’ I said, using my in-control voice.
‘We didn’t talk about when or where to meet so I’ve been waiting here for you. I’ve noticed things I’ve never noticed before. The tap is leaking, the wheel on that trailer has rusted off and the kukwam tree is flowering. Here.’ He held out a large orange hibiscus. ‘In our culture, women wear kukwam in their hair to impress the men.’
‘How beautiful,’ I said, taking the flower and letting it hover between us, not sure if I should put it in my hair because I did want to impress him but I didn’t want him to know I was trying to impress him. My mind became confused by all this thinking and my cheeks flushed. I brought the flower to my nose even though everyone knows hibiscuses have no smell.
‘Kukwam have no smell. Don’t you know that?’ I couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘Here.’ He took the hibiscus and tucked it behind my ear and while I should have been thinking about my lank hair and sweaty skin, I found myself closing my eyes and inhaling him. I savoured the smell of soap and aftershave. ‘You can open your eyes now. Come on. The dinghy is packed. Grab something long-sleeved.’
‘Like a jumper or a rain jacket?’
‘No, Ebithea.’ He smiled and sighed at the same time as we walked across to my unit. ‘I’ve got a hard job ahead of me with your island education. This is the tropics. There are mosquitoes everywhere so grab something long-sleeved but light.’
‘So when do I graduate?’
‘When you can think in Broken English.’
‘Um. Okay.’
‘Not “um”. You should say uh. That’s the Broken English word for “um”.’
Jonah followed me upstairs and waited while I grabbed my backpack and an old business shirt that had belonged to my father. I also packed a camera, water bottle and a couple of muesli bars.
We stood at the top of the stairs, with both dogs at our feet.
‘The dogs can’t come night spearing. Buzarr would love to stay with Sissy, hey, bala?’
Buzarr wagged his tail and I put them both in the backyard. I refilled Sissy’s bowl with Krunchees but before we had left, Buzarr had already eaten the lot. Thanks to his company, Sissy wasn’t howling.
Any floor space in the dinghy was filled with an esky, plastic drums of either fuel or water, prawn baskets and ropes. Two long bamboo spears were tucked along the side and protruded from the back on the left, which I remembered was called port. Jonah sat to the right of the engine, with me on the port side. He pulled the cord, which I suspected had a technical name, and the engine came to life. After motoring out a short distance, he rearranged some of the items for stability and then turned the throttle to full speed. The water was proper mut-thuru – nothing like my racing heart.
I had no idea where we were, but Jonah pointed out Prince of Wales Island, P.O.W., on our right.
‘You don’t say right or left here,’ he shouted over the tinny buzz of the engine. ‘You say to the east or the north-west.’
After half an hour, Jonah slowed and headed right, no, west, towards P.O.W. Where there had been dark indigo sea, there was now a patchwork of pale reef. Jonah cut the engine and threw out the anchor. The water was about a metre deep, maybe less, so I could make out different types of coral, dark green and fiery red, and blue fish darting across the pale sand.
‘We’re waiting for the sun to set so we can spear in the dark on the falling tide. Let’s have tea.’ He passed me a flask and rested a plastic lunchbox on top of the prawn basket in front of me.
I made two cups of tea in large enamel mugs with stencilled designs. A tea towel was wrapped around a loaf of damper, not the white fluffy version cooked out west in a camp oven, but the dinky-di island type. I peeled back the banana leaves it had been cooked in and the smoky smell of the earth oven, kapmauri, filled my nostrils. I remembered when an aunty and uncle, whose names I have long forgotten, came to visit my family when I was perhaps ten. They made a kapmauri in our backyard and cooked turtle they’d brought down, as well as cassava and sweet potato they’d bought from Woolworths. I helped them prepare the feast. What I especially loved was the damper Aunty made of white flour, baking powder and powdered milk.
She wrapped the dough in banana leaves from the neighbour’s yard plus a layer of aluminium foil. The cooked damper had a shiny silken crust from the banana leaves. I ate slice after slice with butter and Vegemite, not interested in the turtle or root vegetables. I took the leftover damper to school for days afterwards and was at first teased by my white friends until they tasted it and begged me to bring them some. They were even willing to trade cake and packets of chips for it. I asked Mum to make some, but she said she was too busy. Jonah’s damper smelled exactly like the damper Aunty had made – heavenly!
‘San e wireless,’ he said. ‘You’re thinking hard again.’
I told him about Aunty’s damper.
‘There’s Vegemite in that basket,’ he said. ‘And butter in the esky.’
While the sky changed from a pale cream to magenta to purple to gold, we drank sweet milky tea and ate slices of damper. I was completely content; alone with a handsome man and scoffing some delicious,
albeit simple tucker.
Jonah had rigged a fluorescent light to the front, sorry, bow of the dinghy. When the first stars appeared, he sculled the last of his tea and clipped the leads to the battery. The fluorescent light came to life, illuminating an amazing reefscape. Jonah whooped with delight and pulled the anchor up. He grabbed one of the long bamboo sticks and jumped onto the bow, using the blunt end to push us through the shallow water.
‘When the water is mut-thuru like this, it’s good for night spearing. We pole over the reef as the tide goes down and comes up slowly on the quarter moon, which makes the current slower than new or full moon.’
He was silent, concentrating, the spear poised. Suddenly he struck and cheered. Impaled on the five prongs was a large silvery-green crayfish, flapping a few of its free legs. ‘Pan-fried in a creamy garlic sauce with capers.’
Jonah pulled it off and threw it into an empty prawn basket.
‘Usually the sager, south-easterly wind, is blowing in April. It means the water is too rough. We probably won’t be able to night spear again till November or December. I see kibbim, blackfish. You like them?’
‘I’ve never heard of them.’
He wasn’t listening. He was poised to strike again and I was torn between gazing at the flexed muscles in his forearm and his serious, focused expression, accentuated by the ghostly light beneath him. Eventually I turned my attention back to the water. The dinghy pitched as he struck.
‘Did you say you liked kibbim?’ He pulled off a small dark fish, patterned with flecks of white, and tossed it in with the crayfish.
Jonah spent the next couple of hours poling over the reef and thrusting the spear at fish, crayfish and squid, cheering or cursing. I was intrigued by his unfailing enthusiasm. It was like each throw was his first and he was able to relive the initial thrill, over and over.
We came upon a school of squid and Jonah challenged me to have a go. Just standing on the bow was an achievement in itself, let alone holding a piece of bamboo, perhaps seven feet long, which was much heavier than it looked. A long thick twine was attached from the end of the spear to my wrist. After what seemed like ages, I was finally balanced and ready to strike, the prongs close to the surface of the sea. Jonah touched my calf. ‘Now,’ he whispered, so close I felt the soft spirals of his hair brush my leg.
I wavered, disoriented, but threw my might behind the spear. The water fractured like ice. Certain I was victorious, I retrieved the spear, but it was as clean as a whistle.
‘You’ll need some practice.’ He was laughing. ‘Better gut all this now. More tea?’
He started gutting the first fish, slicing along the belly, snipping here and there and somehow extracting the intestines. Then he leaned over the side of the dinghy and rinsed it in the solwata. He picked up another fish and attempted to explain the process to me. I was frowning.
‘You don’t get any of that, do you?’ He threw the fish to me and passed over a knife. ‘It’s a snapper. Have a go.’
I copied what he did, almost shuddering at the touch of the cool, spongy flesh and squishy guts.
‘Tell me about the man you’re running away from,’ he said.
‘Um . . . er . . . uh,’ I said, correcting myself, nearly slicing my hand.
‘Good Broken English.’ He threw a gutted fish into the esky and it landed with a wet slap. ‘I’m waiting.’
‘Mark and I were together for three years and broke up six months ago.’
‘How come?’
I wasn’t used to being interrogated.
‘I went home from work one day, sick. His car was there. I figured he had the same bug I had. Except he wasn’t sick – he was in bed with his young secretary.’
‘Ya gar.’
‘Oh, well, the relationship had been over for a while. I figured I deserved it, because I should have left him two years earlier.’
‘Stop being so down, no, negative . . . there’s a word.’
‘Critical.’
‘Yes, that’s the word. Stop being so critical. Things happen for a reason.’
‘Like what, that I was meant to come to TI to learn how to gut fish?’ I was trying to shove the point of the knife up a fish’s bum so I could slit it to the gills, except its scales were bloody tough.
‘Maybe. And maybe you don’t know yet. Things work out so you get to where you’re meant to be and then you see the reason. You wait for the reason to come to you.’
‘Like courtesy of the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus,’ I said, laughing. ‘Surely there needs to be some logic and planning for things to happen the way you want them to?’
‘Maybe they’re not meant to happen the way you want them to. You have to, what’s the word, faith, no, trust, yes, trust that things will work out and then the reason, the explanation will come to you. Too many words for the same thing in English.’
‘I’ll have to think about that one,’ I said. ‘Anyway, what’s your story?’
‘I don’t have one,’ he said, too fast. There was a long silence while he tensed his lips and looked into the sea. He then quickly rinsed his fish over the side, took mine and finished gutting it. ‘It’s nearly one. We better go.’
We pulled into Back Beach at 1.30am, me as gutted as the fish by Jonah’s response to my question. I must have offended him. Maybe Jenny was right – maybe he wasn’t over losing his wife. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to see me again. My mother’s voice echoed in my head: That’s enough questioning, Ebithea. I offered to help Jonah with the esky, but he said he was fine.
‘Promise me one thing,’ he said when I turned to go.
‘Yes?’
‘Have dinner with me tomorrow night. I’ll cook you some of the crayfish.’
I was confused. ‘Sure,’ I said before I could remember that I should have politely declined his offer.
‘Tomorrow night,’ he said and hoisted the esky over the side of the dinghy.
I was bone-tired. And it wasn’t till I walked in and heard the scratching at the back door that I remembered Buzarr was with Sissy. I let them in and when I got into bed, Sissy jumped up and so did Buzarr. Curling up with two dogs, feeling them snuggle against me, went some way to making me less sad about how things ended with Jonah. A bucket of cookie-dough ice-cream would have helped even further.
Chapter 22
I woke to the pale grey of dawn on Friday. I decided I had another hour or so of shut-eye left and I drifted off into that delicious lucid state, between consciousness and sleep. And that’s where things turned nasty. I could feel my limbs and the crisp sheets, so I knew I was alive but there was a vile stench, like carrion, suffocating me. I was sucked into wakefulness and faced the mouths of two gently panting hounds, their fetid breaths enveloping me and their beady eyes willing me to take them for a walk. I dragged myself out of bed.
A couple of buff women bolted past as we crossed the road. For a few seconds, there was puffed chatting, the pad of their feet and then silence. The beach was empty so I unleashed the dogs. We walked along the shore, around the hospital, past the helicopter pad and emerged at Front Beach. By the time we passed Georgia’s flat and the Boating and Fisheries complex with the massive antique anchor that did, indeed, make an attractive garden feature, the 6.30am ferry for the mainland was leaving and there was a steady stream of people out walking, running and cycling. I passed Maggie, who was jogging with the doctor Carla Dimaggio, and gave them a big wave. Out at sea were dinghies, the Horn Island ferry and the pilot boats, transporting captains to and from the container ships passing through the Torres Strait.
When I got home, Jonah was waiting at the front door.
‘Something has come up about dinner tonight,’ he said.
I knew the let-down was coming. ‘That’s fine. I’ve just remembered I’ve got something else on. And I’m going to the markets with Maggie early tomorrow morning.’
‘Really? I was going to invite you to the cottage on Friday Island for the weekend instead.’
‘I’ll come.’
‘What about Maggie?’
‘We can go to the markets next month. What time?’ I was trying not to sound too keen, but was rushing the words.
‘I’ll meet you here about five.’
‘Great. I’d better head upstairs and get ready for work.’ I was holding the door open.
‘You could ask me in for a cup of tea,’ he said.
‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘Thanks for asking. White and two,’ he said as he walked past me.
‘I just need to have a shower,’ I said.
When I came out dressed, he had made two cups of tea and said he couldn’t find any cereal or bread for toast. ‘What do you eat for breakfast?’
‘Coffee.’
He tutted and said if we left the dogs in the backyard, they would keep each other company during the day. After our tea he walked me to the station and said he couldn’t wait to see me. All I could do was smile and think, He can’t wait to see me and he’s taking me to Friday Island!
Just after I got to work Amanda Small, the head of department of the special education unit, phoned me, fearful of reprisals from Dave if she made a complaint about him. At the same time, she wanted to support Robby and do the right thing by the children.
‘When we’ve drawn up the formal complaint,’ I explained, ‘I’ll subpoena the information from the department and it’ll be out of your hands.’
‘Thank God,’ she said.
‘Make sure you advise your union.’
There was damning evidence against Dave for fraud, but as far as Melissa’s murder was concerned, we had to wait till forensic results were back.
‘Ya gar,’ said Lency, breaking my train of thought and handing me a piece of paper. ‘This came in the mail.’
The note was addressed to The head policeman and written in a childish scrawl. There are drugs coming into this community and youse are not doing nothing about it. Our children are in danger. You need more policeman to do the job properly. This is very serious matters.
My Island Homicide Page 14