A Distant Land

by Alison Booth

  About the book

  Back in 1957, nine-year-old Zidra Vincent met Jim Cadwallader for the first time. Fourteen years later, their bond of friendship – forged during a childhood in the beautiful coastal town of Jingera – is still strong. But is friendship all they dream of?

  Jim is now a respected war correspondent in Cambodia, though he has plans to come home for good. Because there is something very important he wants to say to Zidra.

  Zidra, meanwhile, is an ambitious reporter at the Sydney Morning Chronicle, and the seeds of a major story have just landed in her lap. Life is looking good, if only she could share it with the man who knows her best.

  Then, while at work in the newsroom one morning, Zidra catches sight of a wire-service bulletin. A story out of Cambodia.

  The body of a Western journalist has been discovered near Phnom Penh.

  And her world collapses around her …

  Alison Booth’s enchanting Jingera trilogy concludes with a heart-rending story of enduring love and the devastating twists of fate.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I September 1971

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part II Early October 1971

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part III Mid- to Late October 1971

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part IV Early November 1971

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part V Mid-November 1971

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Part VI Late November 1971

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also By Alison Booth

  Reading Group Questions - A Distant Land

  Reading Group Questions - The Jingera Trilogy

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  More at Random House Australia

  Time present and time past

  Are both perhaps present in time future,

  And time future contained in time past.

  If all time is eternally present

  All time is unredeemable.

  What might have been is an abstraction

  Remaining a perpetual possibility

  Only in a world of speculation.

  T. S. Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’

  For my family and in memory of PR

  Prologue

  8 October 1971

  A green parakeet with a red beak swoops above the four men, followed a few seconds later by half a dozen more. Their harsh squawks rise and fall over the liquid notes of some larger bird, endlessly repeated. In response the jungle sighs and rustles. The air, heavy with humidity, is an almost palpable barrier that Jim has to punch his way through. To the side of the trail vines interweave the undergrowth, creating an impenetrable wall. The towering trees form a canopy pierced by spears of golden sunlight.

  Jim’s hands are shaking, his nerves lacerated. Adrenalin courses through his body, propelling him forward. Occasionally he pauses, to make sure the others are keeping up. Over the sounds of the jungle he hears, from barely half a kilometre away, the renewed hammering of automatic rifles followed by a series of explosions that have to be mortar attacks. The pounding of the guns recedes. The sun is shifting, altering the shapes of the shadows. Sometimes they seem to be black pyjama-clad people and at other times figures in military clothing. At last, as the sun is sinking, Jim finds a waterhole ringed by vines and the four men slake their thirst with the rust-coloured water.

  When darkness falls, they halt in a small hollow to one side of the trail. As yet there’s no moonlight and it’s become increasingly difficult to see the way. Somehow they’ve taken a wrong turning in the rush to escape. But it’s too late to go back, at least for a while; Jim can still hear the sporadic thudding of artillery in the distance.

  Exhausted, they stretch out on the ground in the hollow, barely big enough for them all. The grumbling in Jim’s stomach and bowels is from hunger, he tells himself, and not from the stagnant water he’s just drunk. Tomorrow he and the other correspondents will find their way to the rear of all the action, and afterwards drive back to Phnom Penh. He longs to be at his desk in the wire-services bureau. Or better still, stretched out on the bed in his flat, listening to the whirring of the ceiling fan and the chirping of the geckos.

  The others sleep while Jim keeps watch. Mark begins to snore and gently Jim rolls him onto his side. After a while the moon bobs into view above the clearing. Kim stirs and sits up, automatically reaching for his camera. Almost immediately he whispers, ‘Voices.’ A few seconds later Jim hears them too. ‘Vietcong, I think,’ Kim adds.

  A group of murmuring figures passes, just metres away. By day the Americans and their allies control the air and can travel almost anywhere they want. At night the land belongs to the Communist guerrillas.

  By the light of the moon Jim can make out the time: nearly two o’clock. The forest shifts and shudders as small creatures move through the undergrowth. Once he hears the sudden scream of an animal that’s been taken, by a snake, perhaps, or a larger predator. His companions are as still as he is. Even the jungle is now quiet. He starts as a loud crash breaks the silence, followed by a rattling of leaves. None of them moves. After an eternity, Kim whispers, ‘Just some bamboo trees falling, or maybe a sambar deer.’

  The minutes pass, the hours pass. The moon moves across the sky like a drifting balloon and soon their hollow is in darkness again. At last Jim dozes. When he awakes, green light is filtering through the foliage. The others are already sitting up. They look startled, as if overnight they’ve forgotten where they are.

  Jim’s mouth is so dry he can hardly swallow. As he struggles into a sitting position, he sees on the lip of the hollow three pairs of feet. Three pairs of feet wearing sandals fashioned from rubber tyres and inner tubes.

  Slowly he raises his eyes and sees three rifle barrels. Holding the rifles are three soldiers. They are not the allies. They are not the Cambodians either. These young men are wearing the belted green uniforms of the North Vietnamese Army.

  Casually lifting his gun, the tallest soldier directs it at Jim. His stomach lurches and his heart begins to flap wildly. The youngest guerrilla motions the journalists out of the hollow and pushes them roughly into the centre of the trail.

  The sharp pang of regret Jim feels is like a bullet piercing his chest.

  Part I

  September 1971

  Chapter 1

>   It was only early September but the sun felt hot on Zidra’s face. The centre of Sydney was cordoned off, the traffic diverted elsewhere, the streets occupied by anti-war marchers. It was a fantastic turnout, she thought; there had to be tens of thousands of people demonstrating. Narrowing her eyes against the harsh glare, she peered at the stream of bodies flowing towards the Domain, bodies holding up so many placards and banners that sometimes it was hard to make out the faces of the people carrying them. The messages were unmistakable though: ‘Nurses For Peace’; ‘Miners Against Massacre in Vietnam’; ‘Youth Campaign Against Conscription’.

  There was almost a carnival atmosphere, in spite of the violence at the last moratorium march, in spite of the gravity of the common cause. And in spite of the police presence: burly men arrayed like wooden figures in a game of table football waiting for the start of play.

  After scribbling some words in the notebook she was carrying, Zidra’s attention was caught by an enormous banner bearing the message ‘End the Unjust War’. It was held aloft by five middle-aged women, all wearing pretty floral dresses and hats as if they were attending a formal garden party. The fabric of the banner billowed in the breeze, and a sudden gust filled it like a spinnaker and threatened to lift the women off the ground. Zidra nudged Chris but he’d already seen it. Snapping everything, he’d taken hundreds of photographs of the marchers, of the ranks of observers, and of the impassive policemen too.

  Chris hoicked his camera equipment onto his shoulder and grabbed Zidra’s elbow with his free hand. Their plan was to take a short cut through the side streets to reach the Domain, where the speeches were to be made. At that moment she heard someone call her name. It was her best friend, Lorna Hunter, marching only metres away. Wearing a T-shirt with the Aboriginal flag on the front and a red bandana tied around her shoulder-length black hair, she was at the front of the group under the banner of the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign.

  While Zidra was waving back, her attention was caught by light reflecting off a telephoto lens on an expensive-looking camera. A rival newspaper, she thought, although she didn’t recognise the man holding it. He was of average height with an unremarkable face: the nose was snub, cheekbones appeared absent, and his hair was so nondescript that you’d only describe it as mousy if you were being kind. A Mr Ordinary, whom she would never have noticed if it hadn’t been for that shaft of sunlight glinting off his lens.

  She watched him sidle along between the line of police and the onlookers on the other side of the road. He was keeping pace with Lorna. Photographing Lorna. The police presence didn’t seem to stop the progress of Mr Ordinary, who was still taking snaps of the marchers bearing the Vietnam Moratorium banner.

  ‘Get a shot of that man, Chris,’ she said, pointing.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The guy with the telephoto lens, see?’

  Chris obligingly snapped a couple of shots in the few seconds before Lorna was carried out of sight in the surge towards the Domain. Then he grabbed Zidra’s hand and began pulling her through the crowd of onlookers, people peeling apart as soon as they saw the gear he was carrying.

  ‘It’s Zidra Vincent, isn’t it?’

  She stopped, while Chris loosened his grip on her arm and forged ahead. She recognised the voice. Hank Fuller was smiling down at her. Suddenly conscious of her dishevelled appearance – her curly brown hair was escaping from the ribbon she’d tied it back with and her face was devoid of make-up – she smoothed her crumpled dress. Better looking even than she remembered, Hank had the oval face and deep-set eyes of a saint from an early Italian painting. This was an illusion, she knew. The way he’d kissed her on the balcony at that cocktail party two weeks ago was far from saintly. Moments afterwards she’d gone inside and soon after left without saying goodbye. She’d felt wary about Hank the Yank after learning he worked for the American Consulate. And anyway he’d come on to her too fast. Yet she was pleased to see him in spite of that.

  ‘Hurry up, Zidra. We haven’t got much time.’ Chris was yelling at her from several paces ahead and she could see that the crowd was already folding back over the opening he’d created.

  ‘Are you with that big blonde guy with the camera?’ Hank said. ‘He’s a man in a hurry.’

  ‘Yes, we work together. I’m with the Sydney Morning Chronicle.’

  ‘I know. You told me that when we met before. And I’ve read your articles.’

  She stiffened. ‘You can’t know which are mine. None of the local news is attributed.’

  ‘You cover anti-war marches,’ he said lightly. Under the merciless sunlight she could see the mesh of fine lines around his eyes. He looked older than she’d first thought; probably in his early thirties. He added, ‘And I know your style.’

  ‘I don’t have a style. I just observe and record.’

  ‘In a particularly stylish way.’

  She refused to be flattered. ‘I can’t stop now,’ she said. ‘We’re covering the moratorium.’

  ‘Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?’

  She hesitated but only for a second. ‘Yes, why not? Meet me at the Gladstone pub in Paddington at seven o’clock. I’m seeing some friends there, and you and I can have dinner after that.’

  ‘Sure.’ He shouted some more words after her but they were drowned out by the chanting of the marchers from the Rubber & Allied Workers’ Union and she thought no more of him.

  After stuffing her notebook into her shoulder bag, she ran in the direction that Chris had taken, although he was out of sight now. Pressing through the crowd, she emerged at last into an open space and glimpsed Chris disappearing down a side street near Sydney Hospital. Overweight though he was, and burdened with various pieces of camera apparatus, he still managed to maintain a cracking pace, and she struggled to catch up with him.

  At the same time, she was mentally composing her article and filing, in another part of her brain, a different story, a story based on the conflicting messages of those various placards that she’d seen, a story that would win her accolades and a weekly column, if only she could get her editor to publish it.

  Today everyone was united by their shared purpose, she thought, in spite of their different narratives. It was the waging of war on the warmongers. The marchers’ battle was glorious, their zeal was almost messianic.

  ‘Who was your mate?’ Chris said when she was within speaking distance. They began to negotiate their way around the sea of bodies towards the platform at the far side of the Domain. It was a relief to be out of the unrelenting light and under the dense canopy of the Moreton Bay fig trees encircling the vast grassy area. Already the people who would speak were seated on the dais, six in a row, and someone was fiddling with a microphone in front of the lectern.

  ‘Hank Fuller. He works for the US Consulate.’

  ‘Yeah? He’s CIA then. Be careful what you say.’

  She’d had the same thought but she laughed at Chris. Though he was only three years older than she, he liked to pretend he was more. Liked to pretend he was in charge too, even though she was the official storyteller in this duo. His photographs were good, and sometimes so brilliant that they didn’t need a story, the image told it all. ‘Hank probably just issues visas,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you don’t really think I have secrets, do you?’

  He grinned. ‘Nah, that’s your problem. Too open. Apart from when you’re bottling up a story – then you’re like a clam. Got to be cagey with CIA types though. Why else do you think he’d be attending a moratorium march?’

  ‘Observing, Chris. Like us. But there’s a difference between spying and observing, you know.’

  ‘Too bloody right,’ he said and started unpacking his gear. ‘I guess that camera he was toting was just for tourist snaps. Photos to show the folks back home rather than for work.’

  ‘He had a camera?’

 
‘Yeah, didn’t you notice? I reckon you were too caught up in his handsome face.’

  ‘Everyone watching the marchers has a camera. Didn’t you notice?’

  ‘I don’t call a Polaroid Instamatic a camera. He had a Hasselblad. Bloody expensive, those things.’

  ‘All that means is that he’s rich. It doesn’t mean he’s using it for work. Maybe you’re becoming just the tiniest bit paranoid, Chris.’

  ‘We’ve got to be suspicious nowadays. You should know that more than anyone, my budding investigative friend. And anyway, why did you want me to photograph that other bloke, the one with the Leica?’

  ‘Is that what it was? He was taking rather a lot of pictures of my friend Lorna.’

  ‘A white bloke snapping an Aboriginal girl right under the banner of the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, eh? He’s either another journalist or police, I reckon. I took a couple of her myself. You can have copies of them if you want.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d like that.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by a piercing whistle from the amplifier on stage. When it had stopped, Chris said, ‘If you want a nice-looking Yank, go to the Cross and pick up one. They’re a dime a dozen up there and no strings attached. That’s what I’d do. Not go fishing in the US bloody Consulate.’

  ‘That’s terrible advice, Chris.’ It was a doctor who’d told her about the venereal disease infection rates, but she hadn’t mentioned this when she’d interviewed a few of the American servicemen on Rest and Recreation leave. Some seemed like tough thugs you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night but others were traumatised vulnerable boys who needed to go home. She added, ‘You want to be careful yourself. I’ve heard a lot of the soldiers have got VD.’

  ‘Nah, they’re all on penicillin. Not to mention other substances. But as I always say, there’s nothing wrong with a good old Aussie bloke.’

  There’s plenty wrong with a good old Aussie bloke, she thought, especially when he doesn’t live here any more. Jim Cadwallader might have been in her heart but he wasn’t in her country. Four years in Britain was four too many, and now he was in Phnom Penh covering the Vietnam War as it spilt over into Cambodia. Even though she’d loved him for years, even though they’d been writing to each other for years, none of that was enough to bring him home.