But Anthony’s wife would not be cherished and looked after. She would not follow a prescribed course of conduct, for none would be plotted out for her. Everything would be left to her, and there would always be problems. Questions that arose would be as much the property of one as of the other. She shifted uneasily, conscious of a strange disquietude. It seemed to her that an unrestful, emotionally turbulent and unstable existence was promised for Anthony’s wife.
They had reached the town. Cars were drawn up under the palms outside the hotel and women in long dresses could be seen in the foyer.
‘What will you do now?’ Anthony said, as they turned up the hill. ‘Go to Eola?’
‘I shall try.’
‘I must go to Rabaul. Will you wait till I come back?’
‘I don’t know.’ She spoke stiffly, and did not look at him. She was not surprised by his demand, had expected it, really, and accepted it as the first of many demands that he would make on her. It annoyed her, but she felt no sense of injustice.
But she was afraid. He will ask me not to go because he loves me. He will corrupt me. I shall be like him, unable to act. ‘I shall do what seems best,’ she said quickly.
‘I shan’t be long,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back on Friday of next week.’ They had stopped in front of her house. She shrank away from him.
‘I don’t know, I may not be able to go.’
He leaned back as if to spare her from the necessity of shrinking. The movement so touched her, and this emotion was so new that she said, without thinking, ‘I’ll try.’
She asked Trevor next morning if he would help her to get to Eola. He instantly refused. ‘I wouldn’t take the responsibility for one thing,’ he said, ‘And it wouldn’t be in my power, for another.’ He did not look at her but opened and shut the drawers in his desk, looking for papers and files. He was going out again and had not even taken off his hat.
‘It would be in your power,’ said Stella calmly. She had come to realise that people lied to her more often than they did not, and examined all Trevor’s statements in the light of this. ‘You’re the head of this department. People are always going out in the field. If you wanted to arrange it you could send a surveyor at least as far as Kairipi and from then on nobody needs to know where they went, or why I went too.’
He did not refute this but merely said, scowling into an open drawer, and then closing it with a sharp slap, ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
It was true. She spoke with her old intense determination; her eyes, fastened even more rigidly in one direction, looked neither to right nor left, but Eola might have been a village in a fairytale. She made her plans as one spends money in a lottery. ‘If you don’t help me,’ she said. ‘I shall go to the administrator and ask his help. Or to the police. Or to the district officer at Kairipi. Perhaps he will go with me.’
This statement was not, as it might have been two days ago, innocent and uncalculated. She knew exactly what she was doing and looked him steadily in the eye as she spoke.
He gave her a faint, tight-lipped smile. ‘Blackmail, is it? You’re trading on my wish to keep this quiet. Either I help you or you shout, “Bava valley gold”, all over the Territory. Not very fair tactics when it was through David’s indiscretion that you learned about it. The responsibility will fall on me and my department, and he isn’t here to protect us.’
‘No,’ said Stella, ‘he isn’t here. He’s been murdered.’
He brushed his aside and went on. ‘And the natives …’ he began.
‘I am beginning to realise,’ she said, ‘that people up here only worry about the Papuans when it suits them.’
He was stuffing papers into his brief-case but paused and threw her an outraged glance. She felt his antagonism like a physical blow. She lowered her eyes and thought of his wife. You would always have to seek to please him, she thought. When she looked up his face had cleared and he was smiling. ‘You mustn’t assume that is true of us all,’ he said. It isn’t true of me, he had implied, but Stella saw that once again he was lying and that it was exactly of him and his kind that it was true. They could not by any other means remain as clear-browed and bright-eyed as this. Here, in this country, confidence and serenity were sins.
He came over and touched her shoulder. ‘Wait for a day or so. I’ll have to think about it.’ The hand he reached out might have been her father’s or her husband’s hand. Her resolution weakened, and the startling glimpse she had seen of a new and different Trevor Nyall retreated. She thought only, He is my friend and I must not offend him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I must go. You don’t understand. I must. But I’ll wait.’
‘Why do you want to go?’ he said. ‘What on earth do you expect to find out?’
She was silent, unable to answer what she dared not admit to herself. His hand flapped absently on her shoulder and a moment later he was gone.
But Stella was not dismayed. She felt convinced that she would set off for Eola some time soon. Indeed it seemed now not only inevitable but inescapable. And when that same day Hitolo came to her and asked if he might go too, she listened to him without surprise. He was waiting for her outside the office, squatting in the thin shade of a clump of casuarinas. She did not see him until he rose and walked hesitantly forward.
‘Mrs Warwick. Excuse me.’
‘Hitolo.’ She stopped and waited.
‘You go to Eola, Mrs Warwick.’
‘How do you know?’
He stared at her blankly. He could not know that his knowledge was a prediction, and blinked with an air of vagueness customary to his people when asked to account for knowledge that they held instinctively.
Stella understood. ‘Perhaps, some time soon,’ she said.
He smiled at her. His eyes were bright, his voice soft. ‘Mrs Warwick, when you go you take me.’
‘Aren’t you afraid of the vada men?’
He smiled again and shook his head. ‘I am not afraid. Purri purri not true, sinabada.’ He waited, watching her. Then he made a vague movement with his hand. ‘You take me, Mrs Warwick, I’ll show the way.’
That was all the bargaining he put forward. She nodded. ‘I’ll try, Hitolo.’
CHAPTER 13
At six o’clock next morning Washington rolled out of bed. He had hardly closed his eyes all night and felt around for his gown and slippers, weak and dazed with weariness. The room lurched and tottered, and he gripped the doorpost to steady himself. The sky was not yet golden, and masks and tapa cloth, dog teeth and lime gourds glowed in an eerie, greenish light. The sweet, cool morning breeze stirred the thatch outside the window. For once he was not afraid. His heart was filled with hatred and there was no room for fear. ‘Well it couldn’t be worse than this,’ he muttered. ‘Koibari! Koibari!’ There was no answer. He went out to the back door and called again, but no sound came from the boy house. Washington lit the primus himself and filled a kettle. His hands trembled.
‘Filthy, stinking savage,’ he said aloud. Then he attacked himself. It was his own fault. What an insane impulse, getting rid of Rei and hiring that old wizard with his bag of tricks. Was the house any less haunted? He had hung coconut magic on the door, tufts of copra tapped in the wind on the trees in the garden, and Koibari sat on the steps and murmured slogans. But it was useless, there was nothing to be done.
He filled the teapot and carried it back into the house. He hardly knew where he was, his mind was dazed with rage and despair. But the tea revived him. After his second cup he was thinking more clearly. He lit a cigarette. Well, it would be good to get away from here, he thought, looking around him. The hut had turned against him. It was no longer friendly. It had gone over to the enemy, and no manner of coaxing would win it back. He would not have been able to stay here much longer. His health was breaking; his nerves were in pieces. But if he survived what was ahead, this place would capitulate, he would have won. He could move on then to all that the future had once promised – a h
ome for his sister, a house on the hill, position, wealth, power, a garden full of flowering trees, a view over the sea, and a shoulder shrugged at Trevor Nyall.
He swallowed a third cup of tea and started to dress. His hands had steadied. The longed-for future seemed closer, more possible. It’s only a few days, he told himself. It’s only a matter of keeping your head, maybe for an hour or more. There was a three-day walk, but he tried not to think of it and fixed his mind on the salvaged future. The trip ahead was a hurdle, but it was a risk worth taking.
At eight o’clock he made his way down the hill towards the Department of Survey. He had been shut up in his hut for a fortnight now and it was with a sense of immense relief that he turned his back on it.
Most of the survey staff were already seated at their desks when he entered the building.
‘Well, hello!’ said a red-haired typist who had set her heart on him in spite of his consistent rudeness. ‘Quite a stranger here.’
‘Oh, God. The little ray of sunshine.’ He felt better than ever after that. Rudeness was invigorating. It was proof of how little he cared for anyone.
The girl laughed heartily as if he had said something extraordinarily witty. ‘You look sick, Philip. You shouldn’t have come in.’
He ignored her and said to the man behind her, ‘Nyall in?’
‘Not yet.’
He went on down the passage and pushed open the door of Trevor’s office. Stella was sitting at her desk, her hands in her lap, staring at the map on the wall. For a moment he forgot that it was better to be leaving Marapai than to be staying behind. He saw her as an agent of his enemies and looked at her with hatred. He noted coldly the unscathed freshness of her face, like a moth just out of a cocoon, its colours brilliant and untarnished. Oh brave new world, he said to himself, his mind filled with visions of calculated cruelty, You’ll learn, Miranda, you’ll grow up.
When he smiled his lips were tight and there was a sparkling brightness in his eyes. But Stella, turning her head and seeing only the dark smudges of sleeplessness on the bridge of his cheeks, did not read in his face that he hated her.
‘Good morning,’ he said, cheerfully. Anyone who knew him, Sylvia for instance, would have detected the irony, but Stella accepted it at face value.
‘Good morning, I hope you’re better.’
‘Oh, much better, thank you, much better. The world looks like a different place.’
‘I’m afraid that Mr Nyall isn’t here yet.’
‘Well, I’m not here to see Mr Nyall.’ He sat down on the edge of the desk and nonchalantly swung one leg. ‘I came to see you.’
She said nothing, but waited, her large, expectant eyes raised to his face.
He looked away, his hatred of her abating a little. It lost, in the face of this look, its sharp edge. He could not help pitying her. ‘I’ve been thinking over what we were talking about the other night.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve decided that if it can be arranged, I’ll take you to Eola.’
‘You’ll take me back to Eola,’ she said. There was not, as there had been the other night, a glow of feverish enthusiasm in her face. She accepted his changed attitude. She looked at the map as if in imagination she were already half way there.
It struck him that she was not surprised. ‘Thank you,’ she said. That was all. She did not question what must have surely seemed extraordinarily inconsistent behaviour. Perhaps she understood, even more than he did himself, the inevitability of what was happening. He wanted to justify his actions in more rational terms. ‘I was tremendously upset when you came up on Tuesday night,’ he said. ‘I always get a bit silly with fever. I must have sounded terribly abrupt and rude. I do hope you’ll forgive me.’
‘Of course,’ said Stella gently. ‘I don’t think we shall be allowed to go. Mr Nyall is against it.’
He felt suddenly released. Going to Eola had now become desirable. ‘It won’t be easy,’ he declared. ‘It’s not a picnic and you don’t exactly look husky.’
‘I shall stand up to it all right.’ said Stella. There was the faintest emphasis on the ‘I’ and she looked at him as if she fully understood that he might not. He could not meet her eye and prattled on about leeches, mosquitoes and tinned food.
‘I don’t think that Mr Nyall will let us go,’ she interrupted him again.
‘You’ll see,’ said Washington confidently. But she shook her head. She was convinced that Trevor would do everything in his power to stop them. She did not examine this conviction. She was oddly reluctant to do so. But she was wrong. The next day he gave his permission without protest.
The three of them discussed the journey in his office. Now that it was agreed upon, Washington was anxious to start straight away. Stella on the other hand hung back. The strong, slow current that had borne her along steadily and in safety had gathered speed and swept her on with new ferocity and determination. She had a sense of events flashing past before she could detect their significance.
‘I can’t go till next week,’ she said. ‘Till Friday.’ The reluctant promise made to Anthony was a life-line to cling to.
Both men turned and stared at her. They had found out that the coastal boat was leaving for Kairipi in two days and wanted the party to leave on this. ‘Why not?’
She made no reply.
‘Friday?’ repeated Trevor. ‘I’m afraid we can’t wait till then. It will have to be Thursday of this week or not at all. Washington has other work to do, Stella.’ He spoke sharply. He did not pretend that he gave in with good grace, and it was plain that they were no longer friends.
‘I want to take Hitolo with me.’
‘He belongs to another department,’ said Washington quickly. He had forgotten that he had once almost pitied her. ‘What do you want to take him for?’
‘He’s been there before.’
‘So have I,’ said Washington gaily. ‘I’ll look after you, and don’t imagine that Hitolo would be any use in an emergency. They’re all the same – they panic and run like rabbits. Look what happened the time before. As soon as the carriers started talking about purri purri he wouldn’t budge another step.’
‘It would be different this time,’ said Stella.
‘I’ll see what can be done,’ said Trevor. But whatever he did was not effective. Hitolo was not granted permission to leave his work.
They made preparations for departure. Washington worked late with three village boys during the two remaining nights, fencing his hut.
It was Thursday morning, the day of their departure. Stella had collected her equipment from the front verandah ready for it to be taken down to the wharf.
She stood alone in her room looking around her to see if there was anything she had forgotten. She had not yet fully realised what had happened. Arrangements had been made, clothing had been collected, mostly under Washington’s direction and with little thought or meditation on her part. She had followed instructions mechanically, ticking off the items on his neat, pencilled list with no thought of the uses to which they would be put. She might have been ordering groceries.
Her gaze moved around the walls and came to rest in the flame trees outside the window. Morning sunlight bathed the floor and the faded cover of the bed. The trees were breaking daily into more and more scarlet blossom. She had ceased to think them overdone and had come to regard them as miraculously beautiful. She found herself thinking now, as she had on the first night of her arrival, I like this place, I should like to live here.
But over the past few days, her mind had been subjected to internal censorship. It might have been composed of a series of forbidden doors. Her thoughts fluttered but would not penetrate. Hundreds of questions – Why am I going? Why is Washington taking me? Why has Hitolo not been allowed to go? What will happen to me? Shall we ever return? How could I break my promise to Anthony? – faintly stirred in the depths of her consciousness. But to ask them was dangerous. There was also danger in thinking, I like this town, I should
like to live here. And the spirit that guarded her plan for self-destruction snuffed out the wish like a candle flame. There was still something further to be done, that she had left till the last moment. She picked up a pad and pencil from the dressing table. ‘Dear Anthony …’
She looked helplessly at the blank page extending beneath. What can I say? She had broken her promise and to Anthony it would seem that she did not care. She found that she did care, deeply. Being unable to probe the censored regions of her heart she explained to herself that he was her responsibility and she must act with integrity towards him. She would not tell lies and make dishonest promises as others had to her. ‘… I am sorry I broke my promise. I had to go. I shall explain when I come back.’ She signed her name. She put the letter in an envelope, sealed it and addressed it to ‘Mr Anthony Nyall, Department of Cultural Development, Marapai.’ She paused and read what she had written. Then, obeying an unexamined impulse, she underlined the word ‘Anthony’.
She left her room and knocked on Sylvia’s door. Sylvia had finished breakfast and was standing in front of the mirror powdering her face. Her black hair had not yet torn loose from the knob at the back of her neck. She glanced around as Stella entered, but did not speak or smile. ‘I was wondering if you would do something for me while I’m away,’ said Stella.
Sylvia picked up her lipstick, dragged her lower lip tight across her bottom teeth and swept the lipstick from corner to corner of her mouth.
‘I was wondering,’ said Stella more hesitantly, for there was something stern in the movement of Sylvia’s hand, ‘if you would give this letter to Anthony Nyall. He won’t be back till next Friday. Perhaps you could walk over to Cultural Development on Friday and give it to him.’
‘Why don’t you post it?’ Sylvia said, clamping her lips over a red handkerchief.
‘I’d rather he received it by hand.’
Sylvia slid her tongue around her lips and surveyed them intently. Then she turned and faced Stella. Her lids were narrowed, her eyes bright and hard. ‘Why should I? Why should I help you?’ Her voice, normally soft and drawling, was high and strident. Stella, shocked, caught a glimpse of a child in slum streets, of women shouting at their drunken husbands and starving dogs picking about in gutters. She did not speak, but her eyes grew wide and frightened.
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