New Guinea Moon

by Kate Constable

  She doesn’t know what to do; she stares at the money, mesmerised. At last she rolls it up again, stuffs the bundle inside a pair of socks, and thrusts it deep in her shoulder bag. Some instinct warns her to keep this secret.

  In the bottom drawer in Tony’s bedroom, she finds a single photo album. If only she’d known about this before he died! If only they could have spent an evening together, sitting on the couch, while he told her the stories behind the photographs — the friends he’d made, the places he’d seen, some of those funny stories like the ones he’d wheeled out at the Crabtrees’ dinner table. She could have taken notes, made labels . . .

  She flip opens the album. Then she sinks onto the bed. This isn’t the book of Tony’s life. It’s her own.

  Inside this volume, neatly arranged, is a copy of every school photo: Julie with a gap-toothed smile, Julie with a freckled nose, Julie with pigtails, with a fringe, with a single ponytail, smiling, frowning, eyes sliding away from the camera, growing older with every photo, her cheeks thinning out, her eyes more serious. And there are other photos of her, too, dutifully slipped inside Christmas cards by Caroline: on the swing in their backyard, sitting on Nana’s steps, under the Christmas tree unwrapping a box of Lego. And in the back of the album, arranged chronologically, is wedged every carelessly scrawled Christmas card and note that Caroline had made her write, each year, to the distant stranger who was her father.

  Reading them now, they seem so perfunctory, so thoughtless, each word is like a blow. Dear Tony, Happy Christmas. We went to Luna Park. It was fun. From Julie. Dear Tony, I hope you are well. We are well. School is okay. Next door have a new baby, he cries a lot! Well, that’s all. Have a merry Christmas! From Julie. Each one filed, dated and tucked away.

  Why hadn’t she ever bothered to write him a proper letter? And why hadn’t he ever written one to her? Or sent her a present? Never anything for Christmas, nothing for her birthday. She’s always assumed, and Caroline has encouraged her to assume, that he just wasn’t interested, that he didn’t care. But now she realises the truth: he was too shy. Too afraid of sending her the wrong thing, of saying the wrong words, and so he’d stayed silent. Also, there aren’t many shops up here. Maybe he was afraid that whatever he could buy at the market, or one of the Chinese trade stores, or at Carpenters or Beeps, wouldn’t be good enough. Safer to send nothing at all.

  At least she knows that now; at least they had these few short weeks. What if she hadn’t come? What if she’d never met him at all? How would she have felt when Caroline got the letter, or the phone call from Allan? Would she have cared? She would have felt important, swollen with drama, for a month or so. My father’s died. My father’s plane crashed. My father was killed in New Guinea. But it wouldn’t have seemed real; it wouldn’t have been real. This — this twisting of her heart, this ache in her throat — it’s horrible, but she’s glad, glad to feel it. Beneath the photo album is a large envelope with a manila folder inside. Perhaps this will be her school reports, or copies of her best projects; who knows what Caroline sent to him.

  But what falls out onto the mattress is a jumble of papers — letters, receipts, carbon copies of official-looking forms. Julie shuffles through them, bewildered. There is a report card — and another — but not from her school. This doesn’t make sense. The reports are from a school in Goroka. The name on the top of the card reads Helen McGinty.

  Julie stares at the words until they begin to dance before her eyes. Then, feverishly, she grabs at the letters, the bills, the receipts, scanning them for clues.

  The bills are from the same school. Tony has been paying the fees. The latest receipt is from only a couple of months ago. Julie shakes the envelope and a small black-and-white snapshot falls out. It’s a girl, about ten or eleven, staring into the camera. Her hair is thick and curling, tied with a ribbon; her skin is dark. Julie turns the photo over. The back is blank. But she doesn’t need a label to tell her that this girl is Helen. Helen McGinty.

  She must be Tony’s daughter. Tony’s other daughter.

  Julie’s half-sister.

  18

  For a moment she sits motionless. Her head is swimming; she thinks she might pass out.

  Then, with a single clumsy gesture, she sweeps all the papers, the photo, the letters, back into the big yellow envelope. She flies from window to door, locking up. She slings her bag over her shoulder and picks up her suitcase. She finds herself on the front steps, gazing at Tony’s keys in her hand, as if she’s never seen a bunch of keys before. Tony’s little white car sits in the driveway, waiting.

  Her hands shake as she inserts the key in the car door. For a second she thinks the engine won’t start, but it coughs and turns over, and the car jumps as she sorts out clutch and gears and accelerator and brake, Caroline’s lessons flooding back into her mind. She backs out of the driveway and swerves onto the road. Head check, head check. And she’s forgotten her seatbelt . . . but the cars up here don’t have seatbelts. She can’t find the indicator. The windscreen wipers slash madly across the glass, and the gears grind as she wrestles with the stick. It’s been a while since her last lesson, and the bumpy Mt Hagen roads are a long way from the quiet suburban crescents of bayside Melbourne.

  But soon she’s out on the highway, on the way to Keriga. She has to concentrate so hard on driving that there’s no room in her mind for her discovery: that girl, the secret envelope. She has to get to Simon; she has to tell him. He’ll know what to do. A car comes speeding toward her and instinctively she swerves out of the way — too far — as it shoots past, then swings violently back into the middle of the road. Calm down, Julie. Now the image of the girl comes bubbling back up. She can’t breathe. She gropes for the handle to crank down the window and gulps in mouthfuls of cool air. A sister, a New Guinean sister. Who is her mother? Why didn’t Tony ever mention her? Does Allan Crabtree know about her? No, he can’t — he said, you’re Tony’s only child, his next of kin . . .

  With a start, she realises she’s about to drive past the Keriga turnoff. Just in time she yanks at the steering wheel and gravel sprays beneath the tyres. Too fast, too fast — desperately she hauls at the wheel with one hand and shoves at the gearstick with the other. She’s spinning, the car is spinning, someone is shouting, swearing, and a tree rears up before her. With one final frantic effort she slams at the brake and drags at the wheel, and the car swings about, bumps once, twice, with a jolt that flings her sideways, and stops. Julie’s forehead is squashed against the steering wheel. There is a terrible blaring noise. She fumbles with the key and manages to switch off the ignition. She realises she’s leaning against the horn, and hastily rears back. The blaring stops abruptly; the silence that follows seems almost as deafening. The car is in the ditch, its front corner crumpled. That was her own voice, shouting obscenities . . . She giggles weakly, and the giggle becomes a sob. She can’t move, can’t think. Her cheeks are wet, her eyes leaking tears. She leans her arms on the wheel, leans her head on her arms, and closes her eyes.

  Perhaps she even falls asleep for a minute.

  A sudden sharp tapping near her ear makes her jump out of her skin.

  A dark face is peering in the window. She bites back the urge to scream. Then she sees that it’s Moses, the Keriga foreman. She winds down the window. ‘Hello.’

  He looks worried. ‘You all right, misis?’

  ‘Not really.’ She gives him a wobbly smile. ‘I seem to have crashed my car.’

  He wrenches at the car door and forces it open, then holds out his large, comforting hand. ‘You come.’

  Moses carries her suitcase, but Julie clutches the yellow envelope and her shoulder bag tightly to her body. Her knees won’t stop shaking, so she also has to cling to Moses’s arm. It feels like a rod of steel. All the way to the house, he talks to her, a stream of murmurous reassurance that she hears but barely understands, a mixture of English and Pidgin and maybe something else. Simon has told her that most nationals speak two or three languages be
fore they learn Pidgin. What language does her sister speak? She has lost a father and found a sister. She feels delirious.

  Moses helps her up the steps, calling for Dulcie. Dulcie comes hurrying out, takes one look at Julie and gently pushes her into a chair, exclaiming in concern. Dulcie and Moses have an agitated conversation, with much shrugging from Moses, and at last he jogs down the steps and away across the grass.

  It’s not until Dulcie fetches a bowl of water and a cloth that Julie realises she’s cut her head; blood is sticky behind her ear, oozing through her hair. She winces as Dulcie gently sponges at the cut. ‘I crashed the car,’ she tells Dulcie.

  Dulcie clucks absently. ‘You sit there. I make you a cup of tea.’

  Julie sits, gingerly touching her scalp. Inside the house, she can hear Patrick’s querulous voice, and Dulcie soothing him.

  Simon comes bounding up the steps. ‘Julie? Moses told me you crashed a car! What the hell were you doing driving out here?’

  ‘I’ve got my learners,’ says Julie. ‘I can drive.’

  Simon raises his eyebrows. ‘Apparently. But if you wanted to come for a visit, I could have picked you up.’

  Julie says, ‘I found something.’

  She finds she can’t look at him; she’s staring at the floor. Her throat is tight.

  Simon draws up a chair beside her. ‘Tell me.’

  Wordless, she hands him the envelope. Frowning, he sorts through the contents, and she sees comprehension dawn on his face. He looks up.

  ‘I think I know who her mother was,’ she says. ‘Tony used to have a meri when he first came up here. He said it didn’t work out.’

  ‘Hm,’ says Simon. ‘There are quite a few meri and employer situations that don’t work out like that. At least he seems to have taken responsibility for the baby, even given her his name. There aren’t many expats who’d do that.’

  Your father did. But she doesn’t say it. ‘We would never have known about Tony and this girl if he hadn’t died. It was all a big secret.’ Julie looks at him in anguish. ‘She doesn’t know he’s died. We have to tell her. And who’s going to pay her school fees now?’ She jumps up. ‘I need to find her. I need to get to Goroka. Can you help me get the car out of the ditch? It’s not far to Goroka, is it? Could I drive there?’

  ‘It’s possible to drive there,’ says Simon. ‘But you’re not doing it. Sit down. You’re in shock.’

  Dulcie brings out a mug of tea. It’s hot and sweet. As Julie sips at it, she can hear Simon and his mother having a murmured conference in the doorway behind her.

  Simon sits down again. ‘Listen, Julie. We have to ring the Crabtrees, tell them where you are.’

  ‘I’m not staying with them any more. I’m at Andy and Teddie Spargo’s house.’

  ‘Okay, then we’ll call them. They can come and pick you up.’

  ‘No — no, no, I have to go to Goroka. I have to find Helen.’

  Saying her name makes it seem more real. She can almost see the anxious little girl, sitting on the end of a boarding school bed, her hands folded, waiting to hear her fate. Waiting for Julie . . . Does Helen know that she has a sister? ‘I can’t just leave her there. Please, Simon.’

  He runs his hand over his head. ‘You’ve only got the address of this school, right? She won’t even be there, Julie. It’s the holidays.’

  ‘She might be there. Some kids stay at boarding school for the holidays, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ he has to admit. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘The school is the only clue we have. There’s nothing else, no phone number, no home address . . . Please, Simon! I can drive there. I’ve calmed down now. Look.’ She holds out her hand, flat, to show him how steady it is. Unfortunately it’s trembling like a guria shaking a house.

  Simon grabs her hand and presses it between his own. Her heart flips over. ‘You can’t drive anywhere,’ he says firmly.

  Julie says faintly, ‘If you don’t let me, I’ll sneak out in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Moses says your car is too wrecked to drive.’

  ‘Then I’ll take Andy’s car. All I have to do is drive along the Highlands Highway, don’t I? Goroka’s the next town.’

  ‘It’s a four-hour drive!’

  ‘I don’t care. My mother will be here soon; I’ll have to go home. This is my last chance. Please, Simon! If I don’t look after her, nobody will. She’s my family . . . She’s my wontok.’

  ‘Julie —’ He shakes his head, smiling. He’s still holding onto her hand. ‘All right,’ he says, and sighs. ‘You win.’

  ‘You mean I can take the car?’

  ‘No! You can’t drive to Goroka.’ He lets go of her hand, abruptly, as if he’s just realised that he’s holding it. ‘I’ll take you.’

  19

  Patrick won’t let them leave until Julie has rung Teddie at HAC and told her that she’s safe, and not to worry.

  ‘I’m staying with the Murphys tonight,’ says Julie, winding the phone cord around her finger. ‘Maybe two nights.’

  She tells herself it’s not really a lie — after all, she will be with Simon.

  ‘Okay,’ says Teddie distractedly. The other phone line is ringing. ‘Have fun . . .’

  As Julie hangs up, she feels slightly indignant that Teddie hasn’t questioned her more closely. But then a liberating lightness washes through her; she is free. She can go wherever she likes. She is going to find her sister, and no one can stop her.

  She says to Simon, ‘Let’s go.’

  They take the Jeep. ‘It would be much quicker to fly, you know,’ says Simon.

  ‘No,’ says Julie. ‘I don’t want to do that.’

  ‘More expensive,’ agrees Simon.

  But it’s not the expense; Julie knows that she couldn’t fly anywhere in New Guinea without Allan Crabtree finding out about it. She doesn’t know if the Crabtrees would try to stop her on this quest, but she doesn’t want to take any chances. Tony had kept Helen secret; for now, Julie figures she should do the same.

  ‘What are you going to do, if you find her?’

  ‘We will find her,’ says Julie. ‘I know we will.’

  ‘And?’

  Julie is silent for a moment. ‘Tell her about Tony. Tell her I’m her sister. She needs to know that I’ll look after her, that I’m her family now.’

  A burst of rain sweeps over them. Simon turns on the windscreen wipers, and as Julie watches their hypnotic arc, she finds her eyelids growing heavy.

  When she snaps awake again, the road looks different. The trees have thinned out, the slope of the mountain dropping away to one side. The rain has stopped, and the valley floor spreads out in a sunlit vista, as brightly and improbably green as a lime spider.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay. You looked like you needed it.’

  ‘I wasn’t snoring, was I?’

  ‘Oh, no. Not at all.’

  ‘Good.’

  There is a pause. Simon says, ‘You were drooling, though.’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ She stares at him in horror.

  ‘Just a little bit.’

  He grins, and she realises how rare it is to see him smile. Suddenly self-conscious, she shifts in her seat. One of her feet has gone to sleep, and she rubs it, grimacing, as pins and needles take hold.

  ‘How far have we got to go?’

  ‘Hours yet. I hope we get there before dark. Not much fun driving this road at night.’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Julie.

  ‘That’s okay. I volunteered, remember?’

  A truck, laden with passengers, rattles past them, and Simon veers aside to let them pass. A fleck of gravel flies up and strikes the windscreen, and Julie can’t help flinching. She hopes Simon hasn’t noticed. Dulcie has packed them a basket of food, but she is too nervous to eat. She keeps trying to picture her first meeting with Helen, but her imagination seems to shut down; she can’t push the scene beyond Hello, I’m Julie . . .

  The road twists and turns thr
ough the mountains. Julie glances out at dizzying drops and hastily looks away, wondering why crawling along the ground is more frightening than flying miles above it.

  ‘Shit,’ says Simon softly.

  ‘What? What’s the matter?’

  Julie sits up in alarm, peering ahead. She sees an old, battered car slewed across the narrow road, blocking the way ahead, and a couple of men lounging against it. ‘Have they broken down?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ says Simon grimly. ‘Lock your door, Julie.’

  Her heart begins to hammer. She snaps down the lock and pushes her shoulder bag out of sight beneath the seat, as Simon slows the Jeep and pulls up near the parked vehicle. He keeps the engine idling as he winds down the window and leans casually out. ‘Wanem, yupela?’

  The two men push themselves off from the car and saunter across. One of them rests his bum on the bonnet; his weight makes the Jeep sag. The other one jumps up onto the running board, so his face is level with Simon’s. He grins, showing betel-stained teeth. He has a machete thrust through his belt.

  Julie tries to keep her face neutral. But her heart is pounding as she sees one, two, three more men emerge from the trees, detaching themselves from the dappled shadows. They stand motionless in the road, watching. The jungle folds around them all like a smothering cloak, dark, damp, and choking.

  These are the raskols she’s heard so much about. For a fleeting moment, she wonders what might have happened if she’d driven this road by herself, as she’d wanted to. Thank God she is with Simon.

  But then she realises that this isn’t over. It hasn’t even begun. There are five of them, standing around the car, relaxed, loose-limbed, confident. One of them picks his teeth with the tip of a knife. Simon leans out through the window, apparently just as relaxed as they are. But he keeps the engine running. Menace hangs in the air like the thrumming echo of a war cry.