Pacific

by Judy Nunn

  Sera tried to ply Jane with some of the special yam soup she had made for Pascal. And there was fish that Savi had caught that very morning. She would cook for Missus Tack, she said. She smiled at Savi, she too liked the nickname.

  Jane thanked her but apologised, saying that she didn’t have time to stay and eat, she was going to the village to examine the children. Whereupon Savi immediately announced that he would go with her and introduce her to his people.

  ‘I take Missus Tack my village,’ he said, ‘meet my people.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Savi,’ she replied, ‘I would be most honoured.’ She was delighted, it solved all her problems.

  The horse having been watered and tended to, Savi took the reins and, during the fifteen-minute ride to the village, Jane insisted he share the chicken sandwiches and fruit that Mary had packed for her. He ate a little but was far more interested in speaking English. Such an opportunity for practice was rare, and Savi didn’t intend to waste one minute of it. ‘No Bislama,’ he said, ‘we spik English, I learn.’

  When they arrived at the village, Jane could not have asked for a better reception. The moment they drove up to the cluster of huts and lean-tos, they were surrounded. Savi was obviously very popular amongst his people, and many called him ‘bos’, Jane noticed, another form of ‘masta’ commonly used by workers towards their employers, but the term was most affectionately applied in Savi’s case.

  Savinata Poilama was the villagers’ direct link with the ‘big bos’. In their eyes it was Savi who created employment. It was upon his direction that they harvested and delivered the coconuts. It was Savi who allotted the jobs at the smokehouse where the coconut meat was dried to become copra and packed into sacks. And it was Savi who organised the labour required to load the sacks and take them by dray to the Burns Philp warehouse. And they were rewarded for their efforts with homes and chickens and sometimes, most valuable of all, pigs. And once a month the village received a bullock. Savi was their hero.

  Furthermore, it appeared to Jane, Savi was related to half the village. Brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces and a multitude of cousins and their families were all introduced. And then he took her to his parents’ house. This was where she could examine the children, he said. He had given orders, upon Jane’s instruction, for all children under the age of twelve to report for examination.

  A queue stretched for a hundred yards as mothers obediently lined up with their babies and young children, and one by one they filed into the open hut which was larger and more accommodating than the shanty dwellings that constituted the rest of the village. It was not grander, however, no more opulent. It was the same mixture of thatching and hessian and rusty corrugated iron abandoned by the Europeans. But it was certainly bigger, as befitted the fact that Savi’s parents were elders of the village, and had a very large family. Many of the Poilama family remained housed in their parents’ home with their own children until it became so crowded that they moved out to build their own shanty huts.

  Savi’s parents were kind and most welcoming to Jane, but like the villagers who were now entrusting their children to her, they were simple people. And, as Savi continued to ask questions in his broken English about the examinations and what they meant, Jane was intrigued by his thirst for knowledge. Who or what had inspired him?

  Pascal’s illness, she explained, was easily spread. ‘Contagious,’ she said. It was a new word for Savi, and he practised it, he liked to learn new words. It was a disease that attacked children, she told him, particularly babies and infants, and she needed to make sure it was not going to spread through the village.

  ‘No con-tay-jus,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ If she’d had the time she would have explained in more depth, and she knew he would have understood. But as she examined endless ears and eyes and chests, at the same time fielding Savi’s questions, it was best to keep it simple, she thought.

  To her relief she discovered no sign of bacterial meningitis and, as in the other villages she’d visited with Martin, she found the children for the most part healthy and well nurtured.

  No thanks to Jean-François Marat, she thought as, several hours later, Savi gave her a guided tour of the village. She was not shocked by the conditions, she’d seen it before in outlying villages. Most had no access to education for their children, no fresh water supply apart from the local stream which, used for every necessity, could be a source of disease. And mostly their houses were constructed from the remnants discarded by Europeans and garnered from rubbish dumps. But this was the village that supplied Marat’s personal workforce and these were the people to whom he paid not one franc.

  Jane had been surprised when Sera had told her the villagers were unpaid for their labour. The government rate of payment for native workers was twenty shillings a month, and she had presumed the same payment rate had been adopted by the private sector. Which was probably naive of her she now realised. Perhaps if the villagers had been housed well, she thought, their needs tended to, their children offered some form of education, it might be a fair exchange. But, as she looked around at the primitive conditions, it appeared plainly evident that Marat cared nothing for the welfare of his workers. It was disgraceful, Jane thought.

  As they left, the villagers again crowded around, smiling and waving goodbye, and children followed the buggy down the track calling out ‘siyu Missus Tack’, until it disappeared amongst the trees.

  Savi was insistent upon travelling all the way back to Vila with her. He would stay the night at Sera’s village and hitch a ride home with a work dray the following morning, he said, and he refused to take no for an answer. It was a long trip and she would not reach town until after dark. It was unthinkable that Missus Tack should travel alone at night.

  Jane finally gave in, admitting to herself that she was thankful for the offer, she was thoroughly exhausted. They drove back to Savi’s house in order for him to tell his wife of their plans, and along the way Jane queried him about his knowledge. How had he learned French and English? she asked. Had he been to school?

  No, but a cousin of his had. ‘My cousin name Pako,’ he said, ‘that mean “shark”.’ Jane nodded, she knew the word. ‘Ah yes.’ Savi had been so carried away with his English that he’d forgotten Missus Tack’s Bislama was very good.

  Savi was proud of his cousin Pako Kalsaunaka. Pako was a sergeant in la police de Surete, he boasted. Pako had education. He could even read and write. Savi was a great believer in education. He would have liked to have gone to school himself, but no-one in his village ever had. Pako’s mother had moved to her husband’s village near Vila when she had married, and Pako had gone to a school set up by the French on the outskirts of town. Pako often visited Savi, they were very good friends. Pako was his inspiration.

  ‘Pako learn me French,’ Savi said. ‘And Bos, he learn me French, I work long time Bos.’

  ‘M’sieur Marat taught you French?’ she asked, thinking it sounded most unlikely.

  It was, and Savi laughed at the notion. ‘I listen Bos. And Bos friends, you know? I listen. Is easy. English?’ He shook his head. ‘English much hard. When I go Vila I listen English. Man spik English, I listen much, you know?’ He shook his head in frustration. ‘But English, much hard.’

  ‘When I come to visit Pascal I will give you an English lesson,’ Jane promised.

  Savi’s face lit up at the prospect. ‘You learn me English?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ He was instantly crestfallen and she laughed. ‘I will teach you English. I will teach, and you will learn.’

  ‘Ah.’ He grinned. ‘You teach,’ he pointed at her. ‘And I learn,’ he said, jabbing his chest with his forefinger as he slowly sounded out the words. ‘Is good. You teach Pascal along me?’

  ‘Yes, I will teach Pascal as well.’

  ‘Well?’ Savi was confused. ‘Well’ meant ‘not sick’. Missus Tack had already made Pascal well; what did that have to do with learning English?

  ‘As well,’
she explained. ‘I will teach Pascal too.’

  But ‘too’ was a number, Savi thought. One, two, three … He could count English good, right up to twenty.

  She registered his bewilderment. ‘Also?’ she asked hopefully.

  He remained puzzled, ‘also’ was a word he didn’t know at all.

  ‘Aussi,’ she said finally in French.

  ‘Ah,’ he nodded going over the words in his brain. ‘As well’ and ‘too’ and ‘also’ all meant ‘aussi’. So many words, he thought. ‘English much hard,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, very difficult.’ Again the brown eyes keenly searched hers, demanding a translation. ‘Très difficile,’ she said, wondering how long her limited French would see her through.

  ‘Ah.’ More nodding. ‘Yes.’ Then he spoke his newfound phrase with the greatest of care. ‘English verree diff-i-cult.’

  ‘Well done.’ They were pulling into the drive to Chanson de Mer and, as he opened his mouth to query the further use of the word ‘well’, she called a halt to the lesson and clapped her hands instead. ‘Bravo,’ she said, and he beamed with pride.

  Sera tried to force a meal upon them before they left but Jane was relieved when Savi said they should waste no time in setting off. Best they reach the roads into Vila before nightfall, he told Sera. It was not good for the horse to travel rough tracks in the dark, the animal might stumble.

  They waved goodbye to Sera, and Savi drove the buggy down the main drive away from Chanson de Mer and out onto the coastal track.

  They had travelled less than half a mile when they heard the vehicle coming towards them. Savi heard it first and knew exactly who it was. He gave a loud, piercing whistle, startling Jane. And then she, too, heard the vehicle. It was travelling fast, considering the state of the road, and the track was narrow and winding, there would be no room for it to pass. She gripped the side of the buggy and stared, terrified, at the bend up ahead.

  But Savi assured her there was no need for fear. ‘Bos come,’ he said. The Bos would have heard his whistle, it was a regular signal they used.

  Then the black Peugeot sedan appeared around the bend. It slowed to a more reasonable speed before stopping a mere ten yards in front of them, Savi having pulled the horse up to a halt. He shushed the nervous animal with a few soothing words and alighted from the buggy as Jean-François Marat got out of his car.

  ‘Bonjour, Bos.’ Savi joined his master, and the two men exchanged several words, which Jane couldn’t hear, but Marat’s eyes were focussed upon her. Then the Frenchman walked over to the buggy.

  ‘Madame Thackeray,’ he said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

  He was smiling, but was he angry? Jane wondered. It was impossible to tell. ‘I do hope you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘but Savi has kindly offered to drive me back to town.’

  ‘So he told me. He is a good man,’ Marat redirected his smile briefly in Savi’s direction, ‘mon ami Savi.’

  Savi was surprised that the Bos should refer to him as his friend in front of Missus Tack. The Bos never called him ‘friend’ in the presence of Europeans. He did so quite often in front of the villagers, though, and Savi knew why, he’d worked it out a long time ago. At first he’d thought the Bos was giving him face and it had pleased him. But then he’d realised that the Bos wasn’t paying him respect or being friendly at all. The Bos wanted his workers to fear Savi, to be afraid that Savi might report them to his ‘good friend’ if they didn’t work hard. It was not necessary and Savi didn’t like it, but he always smiled when the Bos called him ‘mon ami’. No-one could afford to offend the Bos. They needed the Bos, not only he and his family, but the people of his village.

  He smiled now, but the Bos was no longer looking at him, he was looking at Missus Tack.

  ‘I will drive you to your home,’ he said to Jane. ‘It will be far quicker and far more comfortable, and Savi will follow in the buggy in his own good time.’

  ‘No really, I couldn’t possibly put you to so much trouble.’ Jane cursed the fact that her heart seemed to be pumping at twice its normal rate. It was merely the shock of the Peugeot’s appearance, she told herself.

  ‘It is no trouble at all, I assure you, Madame Thackeray, any gentleman would do as much, allow me.’

  And she was compelled to accept his outstretched hand as he assisted her from the buggy. He held on to it for just a fraction too long, or so it seemed to Jane.

  He barked an order to Savi in French and opened the car door for her, taking her elbow as she climbed into the passenger seat, quite unnecessarily, she thought. Then he backed the Peugeot around the bend to a clearing where there was sufficient space to turn and they were off at a healthy speed, despite the rough track, Savi and the horse and buggy already out of sight.

  Marat made no enquiry as to why she was on his property, which surprised her, she’d expected him to. Instead, his conversation was relaxed and casual.

  He’d had this track purpose-built for his work drays, he said, but it was useless for motor transport other than four wheel drive vehicles. He intended to build a proper road one day so that he could use trucks for the copra transportation, so much speedier.

  ‘The roads on Efate are non-existent. One of the prices one pays for a Condominium government,’ he smiled, ‘the French and the English can never agree upon anything.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jane said, ‘the one consistency in the Condominium is its state of continual disagreement.’ Her mild panic had been overreactive, she’d decided. Much as she disapproved of the way Marat conducted his business, there was nothing to fear personally, the man was no threat to her. And, for the next ten minutes, they chatted convivially about the more ludicrous aspects of the joint colonial government.

  ‘I must admit,’ she said finally in the silence that followed, ‘this is a far more comfortable mode of travel, I do appreciate your trouble.’

  ‘Had I known you were contemplating a visit to Undine Bay I would have insisted upon driving you,’ he said. ‘I am appalled to think that you made that long trip in a horse and buggy.’

  He sounded neither critical nor accusatory, but Jane realised it was time she offered an explanation. Had his preamble been designed for that purpose, to place the onus upon her? Once again her guard was up. She must tread carefully, she thought.

  ‘I wish to continue my husband’s work in his absence,’ she said, ‘and I have taken it upon myself to visit various remote villages and offer my medical services.’ As she said it, she realised it wasn’t a lie. It was her intention to do exactly that.

  ‘On your own? Unaccompanied?’

  She glanced at him expecting to see scepticism, but was met with admiration.

  ‘If I feel I will be welcomed, yes,’ she answered. ‘Of course it is advisable to have a contact, the villagers are unaccustomed to a European woman travelling on her own.’

  ‘And who was your contact at Undine Bay?’

  There was no interrogative edge to his voice, he appeared merely interested, but Jane knew she was walking on thin ice.

  ‘In a roundabout way, my housemaid Mary,’ she said, ‘surprisingly enough,’ and she was astounded at the ease of her response. It was after all, the truth. ‘She is a very close friend of Sera Poilama, they come from the same village.’

  ‘Ah yes?’

  Here was the tricky part. ‘Mary had heard that Sera’s little boy was not well, and I decided I would pay him a visit.’

  ‘How very kind of you,’ Marat said. How had the housemaid heard? he thought. Who had told her? Who was talking behind his back?

  ‘Little Pascal was extremely ill, I discovered.’

  He seemed surprised. Surely it was a performance, she thought. He had been told of the child’s illness. Jane started to feel insecure; was the man playing games with her? But she had no intention of backing down now. Jean-François Marat should know of the dire consequences that could have resulted from his own inaction. She steeled herself.

  ‘I feared, from the child’s s
ymptoms, that the illness might be contagious and that, if it was, it could result in an outbreak amongst the village children, perhaps even a localised epidemic. So Savi very kindly offered to take me to the village in order to examine the children. Upon my request,’ she hastily added, realising, as she did, that it was the only outright lie she had yet told the man.

  ‘I am most indebted to you, Madame Thackeray.’ As he had listened to her, Jean-François had slowed the vehicle to half the speed they’d originally been travelling in order to give her his full attention. ‘And how is little Pascal now?’ he asked.

  ‘He will recover.’ Jane was bewildered. The man’s concern seemed genuine.

  ‘And the children of the village?’

  ‘Healthy. I found no symptoms of the disease, thankfully enough.’

  ‘I am most relieved to hear it,’ he said. ‘How shockingly remiss of me.’ In response to her querying glance, he added, ‘You see, I was told that the child was not well.’ Behind his facade of guilty concern, he watched her keenly; did she know he’d been told?

  ‘Really?’ Jane feigned surprise. ‘You were told?’

  Oh yes, she knew all right, Jean-François thought. Jane Thackeray was intelligent and had spirit, both of which made her more desirable than ever, but she wasn’t a particularly good actress. He could read her like a book. But then he found most women eminently readable, which made them so easy to manipulate. It all came down to sex, and Jane Thackeray was no different. He had known from the moment he’d first met her that she was a woman as yet unawakened and ripe for the picking, although she herself was unaware of it. And the fact had been confirmed when he’d met the good doctor: he could sense no passion between them. He must be wary of deliberately communicating his desire, however; it frightened her. Pity. Many women responded quite differently to the knowledge they were desirable. But it had been a misjudgement in this case. He must try a different tack.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Sera herself told me that her son was not well.’ Obviously it had been Sera who had summoned Jane Thackeray’s assistance, he thought, but he would take no action. He was grateful to Sera, she had handed Jane Thackeray to him on a platter. ‘I visited the boy of course, but to my shame,’ he shrugged regrettably, ‘I thought that the mother was overreacting. Even the boy’s own father, my good friend Savi, didn’t seem to believe it was too serious.’ Well, of course that’s what Savi believed, Jean-François thought. Savi believed everything the Bos told him.