*
Clem wakes to dishes clinking in the sink. He stretches out along the floor and yawns. He rolls over, stands, wraps the blanket around himself and heads for the kitchen. Rose is in his shirt, scrubbing the old blue pot. He walks quietly up behind her, places his hands on her hips. She spins around, soapsuds flying down to the floor.
‘Rose,’ he says, ‘I want you to marry me.’ And then he realises it’s come out all wrong and he has no ring and hasn’t done it on bended knee, hasn’t asked her dad and hasn’t even brushed his teeth and didn’t even know he was thinking about marriage at all.
Rose’s hands, foamy with suds, grip the sides of his face, and yes she whispers softly. Yes. She kisses his right cheek. ‘Yes.’ She kisses his left cheek. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’ And he reaches under her arms, hoists her high, her legs wrapping around his waist and the two of them are whirling around the kitchen and the turkeys and chooks are splitting the Sunday morning quiet.
Beth’s cleaning the sports shed, sweat trickling down her belly, and she stops, flaps her shirt to let in some air. She’s startled by Hosannah, who’s suddenly in the doorway.
‘Misis Beth,’ the girl says, stepping inside, a book in her hand. ‘It is for you.’
Beth takes the book: Black Writing from New Guinea. On the cover is a photo of a feather headdress alongside a typewriter.
Beth is puzzled.
‘It is from my daddy,’ Hosannah says. ‘Misis Lena asked if he had any books by PNG writers at home. He was at university in Moresby, then he studied medicine in Australia.’ She smiles. ‘We have many books.’
Beth turns the book over, then back again, runs her fingertips down the cover.
‘I don’t know what to say, Hosannah. Thank you.’ It’s inadequate, she knows, but the girl is looking at her, waiting. ‘Thank you,’ she says again. ‘I will return it.’
‘But Daddy said you must keep it.’
Long after Hosannah has run off to class, Beth stands in the sports shed, surrounded by cricket gear, baseball bats and gym mats, flicking through the yellowing pages of the book, sniffing its mustiness. She looks for the publication date: 1973. Just before Independence.
She goes to bed early that night and reads what she’s been given. There’s a tender story about village life, and Beth can imagine Abraham as the young boy learning about the totem of his clan. In another story, a cleaner is sick of being treated like a servant, a dog; his bitterness is palpable. In another, a former priest wrestles with the hypocrisy of the church: the writing is eloquent and clever. And then there are the poems, raw and angry, slamming colonial rule, encouraging violence against the masters. Wedged between autobiographies and stories, they burn with revolution.
*
Early next morning as they walk through the mission to school, Beth takes Lena’s hand and thanks her for finding the anthology. She’s been thinking, too, since last night: should she suggest Lena reads it, and use the stories in class? So the kids can hear those PNG voices, know their stories. But she pulls herself up short. A western woman, a white woman, deciding what should be read, learnt, told. And she feels snagged. Caught. Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t.
*
One Saturday Val drives Beth in the school ute, jumping over potholes and swerving around locals carrying vegetables, walking back from the markets. They head out past the airport and take the road south, hugging the coast. Beth’s keen to see the island, especially after a long week at school. The Year Eight newspapers have been printed and everyone says how professional they look, even though some of the ‘photographs’ are hand drawn and half the printing is missing on page seven. Twenty copies have been sold already. Dennis had run towards her after school, shouting how they’d made forty kina. We get that stereo real soon, Misis! he’d yelled, a fist punching the air.
She thinks of yesterday’s Mass. As if watching a film, she sees herself, Lena, Ruth and Delphon, the secretary, doing the gospel procession: a paddling kind of dance to traditional music, swishing up the river stone aisle to the Bishop. Lena and Ruth had tied fern fronds in Beth’s hair and brought a lurid orange meri blouse for her to wear. The kids were delighted. Even the Bishop had called her a natural PNG meri tru, Misis Beth.
Half an hour later, they arrive at The Lagoon, a resort run by an Australian man and his Japanese wife, both in their fifties. They specialise in dive tours to the extensive coral reefs and shipwrecks, and big wave surfing trips; travellers flock to the island because of the package tours. Beautiful bamboo and leaf bungalows line the bay, their sturdy balconies extending over the green water. When Beth peeks inside she sees Balinese furniture, woven floor rugs and crisp luxurious sheets on the beds, turned down with a yellow orchid on the pillow. The louvres are open to the breeze and salt air, and mosquito nets, giant meringues, puff above the beds. So different from the world she now lives in.
Behind the huts is the bar: a vast circular gazebo with sand floor, constantly swept by a local woman. A wide flat screen TV hovers on a wall. Off to the left of the bar is a sign: an intricately carved Bird of Paradise wrapping around ornate lettering, Haus pispis, with an arrow pointing to another hut beyond. Carved pigs, fish and masks are displayed on shelves. A set of shark jaws, two turtle shells bigger than pillows and the arced spine of a dugong hang above the bar. Beth wanders around, touches a shell, a bone, flicks through postcards: the Hula men; women in traditional dress at the Mount Hagen Show; the shark callers of New Ireland. In another corner there are books scattered on a glass top coffee table: tropical coral, shipwreck dives of the Pacific, the birds of Polynesia. In every direction she looks there’s a poster or photograph, a carving or shell. The last unknown, a poster proclaims. But then she catches herself in the act, feels unbalanced, as if she’s in a museum, peering at all these items poached from the place. In that moment she sees herself: a white woman looking at all these amazing things. Exotic things. And though she lives with the locals and doesn’t stay in resorts, doesn’t do touristy things, it unsettles her: this business of looking. Like teaching Romeo and Juliet at school, she thinks: a white man’s story for a class of black kids. It had given them pleasure, given her pleasure, but was it, in the end, the right thing to do?
And then she sweeps the thought aside. The days at school are long, she works into the night. She needs a break. She and Val order toasted cheese sandwiches and gin and soda served in tall glasses, and sit under a fan, looking out past the bungalows to the sea. There’s a reef break off shore and a couple of surfers sitting on boards, the waves rolling beneath them. Beth kicks off her sandals, rubs the sand over her feet. She and Val play cards: first rummy, then Val teaches her crib. The more gin they down, the louder they shriek And one for his nob. It’s a long time since Beth has felt so relaxed, even wanted such easy fun. She’d almost forgotten the feeling.
Mid-afternoon she dives into the ocean and swims out, out into the deep, far from the eyes of town or the rollicking laughter of students. She swims halfway to the reef, over blue starfish bigger than Clem’s hands. There’s a chunk of dead coral, a few tropical fish still scavenging its carcass. Every so often she looks back and waves at Val, who’s stretched out in a hammock sagging between two coconut palms. When the sky begins to turn orange, Beth takes long, dreamy strokes to shore. Her arms feel looser, her legs stronger; she could swim for hours.
There’s a crowd of people in the bar now—Germans, Swiss, Japanese and Australians in from a dive trip—and the different accents wash over Beth, making her feel light and giddy. She is so far from home. Val and Beth read their books and more gin arrives, with pink paper umbrellas sticking out the top.
‘Special treatment,’ Val says. ‘I never get this on my own.’
They order pizza dripping with cheese, olives, bacon and tomato—costs-half-a-week’s-pay pizza—savouring every bite. Two older men sitting at the bar raise their glasses.
‘Sister Val,’ one calls out, making the sign of the cross with his glass.
; ‘Bill, Ned, hello,’ she calls back, and turns to Beth. ‘If you ignore them it gets worse.’ Then more firmly: ‘But don’t encourage conversation with them, either.’
Beth steals another look at the bar. Just at that moment the smaller man picks up his thong from the ground and throws it at the barman, hitting him on the shoulder.
‘I said two more mate,’ he says loudly. ‘Pronto.’
‘They work down the highway—the new part further south,’ Val says. ‘The smaller one, Ned, he’s in charge of construction, and Bill’s putting the mobile network through.’ She sips her gin. ‘Between them, they’ve been in PNG for sixty years and they wouldn’t survive anywhere else. Live the good life. Plenty of money, most of it gone on drink.’
‘Do they have families?’ says Beth.
‘Ned does. His wife, Lotta, she’s a wild one, she’s from a village further south. They just drink and fight. Three kids who bring themselves up. Think he’s got another wife in Moresby too. And Bill, Bill’s harmless, I just don’t think any woman’s stupid enough to have him!’ Val takes a sip of her gin. ‘When he’s on his own he’s completely different. He came to school once to talk to some students about the telecommunication network—how it operates, you know. He was funny and really engaging.’ She stops suddenly and laughs. ‘I said to him later, Bill that was great but next time do you think you could put your cigarette out before you begin? The kids in the front row were covered in ash!’
A loud cheer erupts from the bar. A tall, sinewy man has joined Ned and Bill and they’re standing looking at each other, swollen with self-importance.
‘God,’ Val says, and crosses herself. ‘I don’t even need to look around. I bet that’s Roo Tick.’
‘Roo Tick?’
‘He’s the third of the musketeers, sent to prosper and pillage Papua New Guinea.’ Val shakes her head. ‘Or suck the life out of it. Everyone calls him Roo. I just add the Tick.’ She grins. ‘He’s a manager on the gold mines, based on the mainland now. Don’t ask me what his real name is, I don’t think anyone knows.’
‘How’d he get Roo for a name?’ Beth thinks Clem would love it.
‘Who knows. Jumpy and lean? Strips everything bare? A national treasure? Take your pick.’
Roo Tick. Beth thinks. Prick.
Ned and Bill are gesturing in their direction and Roo looks around. He’s younger than the other two but his face looks weathered by the sun. He has a mean, hungry look and when he dips his cap at Beth, his smile more like a snarl, Beth sees a busted front tooth. She feels nervous, focuses again on Val, on what she is saying.
‘He’s worked his way through most women on the island, possibly the whole country.’
Roo calls something from the bar but they ignore it.
Beth asks, pretending to be serious: ‘How do we get out of here alive?’
Val winks. ‘You head to the ute round the beach way, I’ll sort the bill.’
Beth quickly gathers her things and heads for the water. And as they get into the cab, ready for home, she can still see the three past-it expats—they must have looked bewildered as she and Val escaped out the door—and she whoops long and loud, as Val drives in the middle of the road, high beams setting the highway a-glimmer, all the way back to town.
*
Beth walks into the school office and sees a small body piled high with blankets, quivering on a foam mattress in the corner. A plastic bucket is alongside and Mrs Samin sits on a chair at the foot of the mattress, a bible in her hand.
‘We are trying to contact the mother,’ she says softly.
‘What’s wrong?’ says Beth.
Malaria. Mrs Samin mouths the word. Suddenly the blankets are violently tossed back and a young thin girl retches once, twice, three times into the bucket as Mrs Samin holds her up, muttering softly in her ear. The child is soaked, smells rotten with fever and can’t stop shaking. Mrs Samin settles her back on the pillow. Guttural, deep moans are slipping from the girl.
Val walks in, shaking her head. ‘Still no answer,’ she says. ‘These people send the child to school, expecting us to deal with it. She should be in the hospital.’
Later, walking from the sewing room across the grass, Beth sees Val help the girl hobble toward the school ute. She runs to them quickly, pushes the gate, opens the passenger door of the ute.
‘I’m not taking any chances,’ Val says. ‘She’s very bad.’
She climbs in the driver’s side while Beth steadies the girl, feels her go limp, sees her eyes roll back in her head.
And walking back to the office, she sees the statue of Mary, whispers Please let her live, let her live.
She drags the mattress and the soaking pillow out behind the bamboo staffroom to dry in the sun. She throws the watery green vomit from the bucket onto the grass. It stinks. She swills it out again and again with water from the hose. Keeping busy, trying to block out the girl’s wretched face, her horrible gagging. She gathers up the sheets and scrubs them with bleach, then hangs them over the fence to dry.
She remembers having fever only once. She was ten: her tonsils red-raw and the glands in her neck the size of golf balls. It was still dark when Clem bundled her into the ute and drove her to Eva’s before he went shearing. Eva was waiting under the light of the verandah when they came over the last hill and she’d opened the door as Clem carried Beth, half-boiled from fever, to Eva’s big bed down the hallway. Eva had sat with her after Clem left, tucking the quilt in so hard it hurt, and stroked her hair.
You’ll come good, Bethy love, she’d crooned. You just rest up. You’ll see.
Eva had brought her chicken soup and toast drenched in butter. Beth had lost days in that bed, burrowing down in damp sheets, shivering cold, head on fire, and somewhere in the yard the sound of Eva chopping wood, slowly fading.
*
Although Val asks her over for dinner, Beth wants to be alone. She’s unhinged tonight, feels out of her depth somehow. She’s never seen anyone with malaria, never seen a child so sick before. In the stifling kitchen, she tries to distract herself by making pizza dough, remembers reading somewhere that you should bless the dough or say a prayer so it rises and the meal is good. She tries to think good things about this flour and yeast and water, but she offers up thoughts for the malaria girl instead. She can still smell bleach on her hands.
1975
‘Well you’re not giving me much time, Clem.’ Eva scowls, stirring barley soup on the stove. ‘How am I meant to get the house and garden ready and the dress made and the food done in a month?’
‘Mum,’ Clem says. ‘Rose’ll do most of the food. We want to keep it simple. We can just live in sin if that’s easier.’ He winks at Tom.
Eva whirls around. ‘A month is fine,’ she says quickly. ‘Let Rose know we can go to Midland next week for fabric.’ She gives the soup a vigorous stir, and then Clem sees her face soften. ‘And her parents aren’t coming, is that right?’
‘That’s what I said, Mum. Rose ...’ He stops, clears his throat. ‘I’ve asked her a couple of times, about her mum and dad, but she says they don’t get on.’
Eva shakes her head. ‘Still. A wedding,’ she says. ‘It’s not every day a girl gets married.’
Tom laughs from behind his Sunday Times. ‘I sure hope not,’ he says.
The inside of an egg: that’s what it looks like to Beth. One of Clem’s double yolkers. She looks down at the garish yellow meri blouse, a gift from Lena yesterday. She feels like a giant yellow clam. Meri blouses make her look fat, and foolish. But the locals whoop and cheer every time she wears one, and she has plenty now. They come delivered to the school, wrapped in newspaper, tied up with string. It’s as if the town has a roster; Beth’s sure she can clothe an entire village down the highway. The first meri blouse she wore was bottle green and patterned with grey and purple flowers: a gift from Moses’s wife. It fell below Beth’s knees and she’d felt like the garden at a nursing home. And now, walking to school through the mission, she feels st
randed under all that yellow fabric, as if she were trapped inside a tent or treading water as if it was honey. Grace comes skittling across the grass and takes her hand, insisting that Aunty a PNG meri now, tru. And then she runs towards the classroom, Beth’s bilum, a bright red cape flapping behind her.
At lunch, Raymond, a boy with scars from yaws, his skin ravaged by pale welts the size of fifty-cent coins, walks to the desk where Beth sits reading. He nervously thrusts a parcel wrapped in banana leaves before her.
‘Sorry Misis.’ He fidgets from one foot to the other. ‘No wrap.’
Beth carefully peels back the leaves, expecting tapioca or fish. Inside is turquoise, a little folded sea against green, and she hides her surprise, touching the cool, soft fabric. It’s exquisite. The colour reminds her of Clem’s eyes and she feels her throat tighten.
‘Misis Beth, you like this one?’ Raymond says, concerned.
‘I like it, yes, very much,’ she says. She takes each leaf and folds it back over the meri blouse, carefully packing the parcel down. ‘Thank you.’
‘Match your eyes,’ he says, and runs outside to play.
*
One Saturday at The Lagoon, Val and Beth are having a Pimms when Bill walks in, orders a beer and heads their way.
‘Okay if I join you?’
‘Sure,’ Val says.
Beth met Bill the week before when he’d helped mark the mission oval for the sports carnival. And he’s just arranged ten computers through Rotary for the school. Val told her that he’s better than the rest of the white men in this town put together.
‘Another awful day in paradise,’ says Bill, looking out at the flat blue sea and the sky, clouds pooling at the horizon. ‘Honestly, why would we live anywhere else?’
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