Inheritance

by Jenny Pattrick

  Stuart laughs then, makes a remark that infuriates Teo. Jeanie can’t hear what is said, but Stuart’s tone is scornful, taunting. Again that triumphant edge. She’s sure he doesn’t see her. Teo leaves his fiancée and stands facing Stuart who has his shorts up now and seems bent on a fight. He half runs over the sand, kicking over a bucket of palolo, barrelling into Teo and throwing him bodily into one of the paopao. Jeanie is terrified for Teo – Stuart is very violent when angry. He stands now over the sprawling Teo.

  ‘Think twice before touching my wife again,’ Stuart growls, ‘or I’ll do your precious village virgin again. And again! She’s very tasty.’

  Jeanie closes her eyes in shame.

  There is no need to fear for Teo. He rises from the canoe in a red rage, brandishing a bush knife. Silently, but with a fine accuracy, he slashes at Stuart, slicing at an ear and then a hand, grunting with each cut, before tossing the knife high in the air and away. The rising sun catches the turning bloody blade.

  Teo stands over the stricken Stuart. His eyes are bright. He pants out his words as if he’s been running.

  ‘You have raped the taupou of this village,’ he says, every word clear in the early dawn light. ’If they hear of this, they will kill you. Without doubt they will kill you. I should kill you – and would probably be excused by any Samoan jury. If you breathe one word of this, I will certainly denounce you. And so will she. One word!’

  Jeanie remembers thinking how quick he was to recover; how quick to plan ahead. Stuart groans on the sand, his face a sheet of blood, holding the ruined hand with his good one.

  And then, somehow, she’s further away, sitting on a log, watching the villagers decant the glistening palolo into bowls, laughing and dancing their pleasure. The dark violence a dream that perhaps never happened.

  But there is Teo and the other men shouting and dragging the wounded Stuart. No sign of Ma‘atoe. Jeanie can’t move. She doesn’t want ever to move again. Elena goes to the bloody man, calls out instructions, tears at material and binds. Those two – brother and sister – seem able to manage anything. Jeanie is shaking. She cannot seem to manage even her own emotions.

  Teo goes to the sea and slowly washes Stuart’s blood from his own body. He comes up and sits near her on the log.

  ‘I only spared your husband’s life,’ he says, breathing through his nose, ‘to save Ma‘atoe from dishonour. And the girls who should have been attending her.’ His hands are shaking. ‘Those girls would be punished severely for forgetting their duty.’

  He talks on, but Jeanie can’t remember the words. The villagers would be thinking he was comforting a palagi whose husband has had a nasty accident. He’s explaining something about his being a modern Samoan, not like Ma‘atoe’s ‘aiga. About being prepared to accept the fact that she’s no longer a virgin. He will try to hide what happened from her family. Jeanie is still seeing the rage on Teo’s face; the spiteful triumph on Stuart’s.

  His too bright eyes search her face. ‘Try to forget it all.’ Jeanie recognises the fear in his voice. ‘Stuart must forget it too. Persuade him if you can.’

  ‘Will you forget it?’ asks Jeanie. It all feels wrong to her. ‘Will Ma‘atoe?’

  ‘We will try,’ he says, looking down again at those violent hands. ‘It will be the best thing.’ As he stands he says, pointedly, ‘For all of us.’

  A few days later Ma‘atoe and Teo were married – very successfully, Elena reported. Many fine mats exchanged, many expensive gifts paraded, proclaimed and duly applauded, much food consumed.

  Jeanie stayed at home.

  Jeanie visited Stuart twice in hospital. The first time was when the police came with their questions. Stuart grumpily corroborated Teo’s report – agreed that it was all an accident. The police were clearly puzzled about the extent of his injuries. The traps were lethal, certainly, and should be outlawed, they said, but to almost sever a hand?

  ‘He’d been drinking,’ Jeanie said, as if that explained everything, ‘and he’s a heavy man. Perhaps he struggled too hard.’

  Stuart glowered at her, but made no further comment. The police nodded approvingly and left with good wishes for recovery. Jeanie thought they suspected a fight, but were relieved to have no complaint laid. Teo was about to be married after all.

  Her second visit was a few days before Stuart was to be flown to New Zealand for reconstructive surgery. Jeanie told him flatly that she was staying in Samoa.

  ‘What?’ he cried. ‘You can’t do that!’ His colour was high; his skin a sheen of sweat; the wound infected. ‘What will people think?’

  A whirring electric fan wagged its heavy head slowly back and forth, back and forth.

  Jeanie steeled herself. He looked so desperate. And so ill. ‘I don’t want to live with you any longer, Stuart,’ she said as firmly as she could manage. ’I don’t respect you any more.’ When he said nothing she added, ‘Or love you.’

  ‘Jeanie,’ he cried. ‘What’s this nonsense? We’re married.’

  ‘Not any more,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry Stuart, but you must surely see why.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ he shouted. ‘That monster attacked me!’ Tears were pooling in his bloodshot eyes. Jeanie wanted to cry too.

  ‘Ssh, ssh,’ she whispered. ‘Go back home and forget it all.’

  ‘But why? Why, Jeanie? I’ve been a good husband, haven’t I?’

  ‘No,’ she said sadly. ‘No you haven’t, Stuart. I realise that now. Not even before the … the other night.’

  He shifted uncomfortably, moaned with the pain (or was he putting it on?) and looked at her again. Tears ran freely down his cheeks. She wiped them for him.

  ‘Jeanie,’ he said, his voice rising, ‘can’t you see how it is? You are my one good thing. The only worthwhile thing I have. I can’t lose you, don’t you see that?’

  ‘I’m not a possession,’ said Jeanie.

  ‘Yes you are! We possess each other. We’re married. You can’t change that!’

  Jeanie tried to keep her thoughts steady against the torrent of his need. ‘I can change it, Stuart, that’s why I’m not coming with you. You mustn’t come back here. Our marriage is over.’

  It must have cost him a great effort, sick and weak as he was, but he managed to rein in the panic then. He smiled at her. Reached a hand towards her. ‘Sweetheart, this is just a bad patch we’re having. Everything will come right, I know it will. You won’t be able to cope on your own – here all alone. And you deserve a break. Please come with me to New Zealand. I love you Jeanie.’

  He was so definite, so sure of the rightness of what he was saying. Jeanie could think of no further argument.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said, moving to the door.

  ‘Wait! Who will look after me back there? Jeanie, wait!’ The raw panic was back in his voice.

  Jeanie turned. ‘Your mother will. She knows when you’re arriving. She’ll meet you.’

  ‘Oh God,’ whispered Stuart, ‘you’re inhuman, Jeanie.’

  She felt inhuman too, running crying to the car. But after he’d gone; after the ambulance had taken him to the airport; when she heard the drone of the plane lifting him away from the islands across the Pacific, south to New Zealand, Jeanie felt a sudden stab of pure joy.

  Elena noticed the lightness in her step when she turned up to the filariasis clinic. ‘Don’t tell me it’s Christmas already?’

  ‘Stuart’s gone,’ said Jeanie.

  Elena straightened up. Looked at her shrewdly. ‘Want to talk about it?’

  Jeanie couldn’t stop smiling. ‘Not really. I should never have married him. I’ve told him it’s over.’

  ‘Ue! Strong lady!’ Elena did a little admiring dance, swaying around Jeanie. Then sighed and looked at the tub of warm plaster. ‘Can the new free lady still get her arms dirty I wonder?’

  They laughed together. Jeanie supposed she should feel bad, but the sense of freedom was intoxicating. She looked out, those next few days on a different, cle
ar world full of possibilities. Colours were brighter, sounds gentler, the world seemed warm and friendly. She didn’t mind being alone at the big house, or up at the plantation. No task was too difficult. Often she thought of her father. He should be here now to share this. But also, she realised, with a new clarity, that he had laid other burdens on her. His dark times had sometimes been difficult, his reliance on her, stifling. It was not easy, even now, to admit that.

  Jeanie looked over the plantation one day and thought, I can put all that behind me now. Stuart. And Dad. I can live for myself now. Make a good life here.

  The wonderful Women’s Committee show was the beginning of that new life.

  Jeanie saw Teo after the show at the Tivoli Theatre. He stood a little apart, searching the chattering, excited crowd. Looking for her? For Ma‘atoe? He was dressed casually in a flowery shirt and lavalava. Most of the men – palagi and Samoan – were in white shirts; ties even. This was a formal evening. Teo looked somehow downhearted, distracted. He talked briefly to a triumphant and resplendent member of the cast, but obviously didn’t express sufficient enthusiasm for the performance. Jeanie watched the woman drift away and Teo stand alone again.

  In the months since the palolo rising, she’d hardly seen Teo. A couple of times he had come to the plantation with his family’s cacao for drying. But she had been busy and so had he. They had not talked about that night. Jeanie wanted to forget and supposed Teo felt the same. This evening, so full of pleasure and excitement, she had no desire to speak to him. She walked in another direction when she saw him approach.

  Then, a week later, he walked quietly into the room that was now her office, up at the plantation. The day was stifling. The big ceiling fan made no impression on the sluggish air. Jeanie had left the desk and was standing at the window, flapping at her face with a piece of paper.

  Teo smiled at her, a little uncertain, she thought. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘let’s hope the rain arrives soon.’ He mopped at his brow with a snowy handkerchief.

  ‘Would you like a drink? Tea? Something cold?’ Jeanie couldn’t find the right tone. Wanted him to go.

  Teo sighed, shrugged. ‘Whatever you’re having.’

  While Jeanie went to give the housegirl instructions, Teo stood at the door, looking out.

  ‘The boys have brought up twenty sacks of beans,’ he called to her. ‘Can you handle them just now?’

  ‘As long as they stack them under cover. Here comes the rain.’

  All so formal. ‘Shall we go out on the verandah?’ asked Jeanie.

  But Teo preferred to stay inside. They sat facing each other across the desk, the tray of tea and sandwiches between them.

  With the downpour came an ease in their tension.

  ‘How have you been, Teo?’ Jeanie asked. He was different. The old bravado gone.

  Teo smiled at her. ‘Not too bad. There is something though …’ He drifted into silence and then asked, abruptly, ‘Is Stuart coming back?’

  ‘No … No … I’ve told him not to. That’s all finished.’

  ‘Your marriage?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jeanie found that she was crying. Tears pouring down.

  Teo offered her the beautiful handkerchief, frowning. ‘You’re unhappy about leaving that man?’

  ‘No!’ she shouted over the drumming rain. ‘I’m extremely happy, Teo!’ Hiccupping, then, through her tears. ‘God knows why I’m crying! It’s good. I’m happy!’ The roaring, sheeting water seemed to her a blessing. After some hesitation, dabbing at her face, she added, ‘How is your wife?’.

  Teo waited while she cleaned herself up. ‘Ma‘atoe is not well,’ he said carefully. ‘Since that night. She has fears. Nightmares. I’m not – allowed – to …’ he shrugged helplessly. And then the words came out in a rush. ‘She can’t bear to have me touch her. Surely I could help her get over it but, when we try, she gets nearly hysterical and wants to scream. She stuffs the sheet into her mouth, to hide her fear from the family.’ Teo looks at her miserably. ‘Your damn husband.’

  ‘Can Elena help?’

  ‘Ma‘atoe will tell no one. Not her mother. Not her sister. She is so ashamed. She should have stayed with the aualuma. They should have stayed with her. She’s ashamed also that she can’t … you know, with me.’ Teo looked away.

  Now he is the one who will cry, thought Jeanie. He can’t talk to anyone else about this – and surely I am the wrong person.

  ‘Do you feel bad about what you did to Stuart?’ Jeanie was curious about this. Teo was so violent that night! The sight of him raising that great bush knife, slashing in the half light of dawn, kept recurring in Jeanie’s mind. Did he relive it too?

  He looked at her in amazement. ‘No! I should have killed him.’ His crooked grin tormented. ‘I’ve become too civilised, eh? But worse …’ The drumming rain stopped abruptly and the words came out too loud. ‘Worse,’ he said more quietly, looking sharply at the back room to make sure the house girl was not eavesdropping.

  Jeanie waited but it seemed Teo could not bring out the words. She knew, then, what the dreadful news would be. Teo finally told her that Ma‘atoe was pregnant and that the baby could only be Stuart’s. Ma‘atoe had not even told Teo, it seemed, but had gone, in desperation, to an old lady, known to her family, and asked for an abortion. The old woman had examined her and given her a potion which had not worked. Now it was too late. Ma‘atoe was five months pregnant.

  ‘She hates what is growing inside her,’ Teo whispered fiercely, ‘and so do I. She’s sick at the idea of this baby and says she will kill it when it comes. She pushes and punches at her stomach, but it remains inside. She says I must take it away when it’s born and smother it, and we must say it died. She says that’s what the old custom was, and now she understands the wisdom of it.’

  Jeanie was horrified to hear his savage words. ‘But Teo, you can’t do that! Not these days!’

  He looked at her. ‘It seems wrong to you?’

  ‘Of course it does. It is wrong. You know that.’

  ‘But abortion would have been right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jeanie admitted. ‘Yes. But a baby born alive … that’s different.’

  Teo nodded then, miserably. ‘I feel it too. I wish I felt like Ma‘atoe but I don’t. I don’t think I could smother a baby.’ He slapped hard at his chest, as if punishing the heart within. ‘I’m too modern, see! Too much palagi learning! But if I don’t she will want to. Or maybe get that old lady to. The old one might do it secretly.’

  There was silence in the room. Teo watched her. Jeanie knew what was coming and wanted desperately to avoid the words.

  ‘Will you take the baby?’ he asked. ‘If I bring it secretly to you, would you take it away – get it adopted, whatever, back in New Zealand? Where my wife would never know?’

  He asked such a huge thing simply, as a child might ask a parent. Take this trouble away from me. You deal with it.

  ‘Teo,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry but it couldn’t be done. Not in any secrecy. People would have to know.’

  ‘Just think about it,’ Teo pleaded. ‘There’s time yet. After all it is Stuart’s child.’

  She wondered when he would get around to that.

  ‘I don’t know that I could live with ending a child’s life,’ he said, watching her.

  Jeanie caught that look – manipulative, calculating. ‘Go away!’ she shouted, too angry to carry on; too appalled at his demand. ‘You could live with nearly killing Stuart! That was not a problem to your precious scruples. Just go away please. And don’t you dare dream of hurting the baby.’

  ‘Just think about it anyway,’ he said. And was out of the door before she could throw something at him.

  But of course she had to think about it. At times she railed against Teo, cursed him for laying this burden at her door. Her new-found freedom, so precious, so fresh and intoxicating was suddenly threatened. At these times she thrust Teo’s request savagely from her mind, tried to recreate the sense of lightness she enjo
yed only a few days ago. But the idea, the possibility was seeded and she could not ignore it. Could she somehow smuggle a new-born baby away? Have it adopted elsewhere, where no one could discover its dreadful conception? Its rejection?

  She thought, of course, of her father, and wept for him all over again. Granny Stella had told Jeanie how she had adopted little John – the little Chinese orphan nobody wanted. Perhaps Granny Stella knew all the awful circumstances – the rape and the suicide – and didn’t care. Granny Stella had been expecting a child of her own, and yet she had adopted Jeanie’s father and loved him – given him a good life. Jeanie felt an increasing weight of duty and fought bitterly to escape it.

  Sometimes the temptation of adopting the baby herself crept in to haunt her. A little half-Samoan baby! But that would be madness. Jeanie was too close to all this mess. The child must have a start in life that could never be traced back to the night of the tapalolo. If Stuart found out …

  No. Jeanie buried that idea.

  Elena was standing in the shade of the banana trees calling up to Jeanie. Her dusty Mini Moke parked below the verandah.

  ‘Come along madam, we have work to do! And bring your cheque book.’

  It always lifted Jeanie’s spirits to see Elena. Was that big woman ever downhearted?

  ‘Quick, no time to waste!’ called Elena, dancing a few steps in her impatience. ‘Already the queue will be stretching onto the pavement.’

  Jeanie ran down the steps laughing, ready for whatever new adventure Elena had dreamed up.

  ‘No picnic today,’ Elena shouted over the growling engine, her hair escaping its usual neat bun in the rush of air as they bounced down to Beach Road. ‘You have a duty to perform, and so do I. A lesson for you on Samoan custom.’