The Plantation

by Di Morrissey

  As the car purred along the highway, Julie looked at the endless hills covered with palm oil plantations. The immaculate, serried ranks of plump fronds marched in straight lines as far as she could see. It all looked so silent, so ordered, so militaristic. She longed for the tangle of jungle, the disorder of human habitation, the sight and sounds of birds and wild animals. Every few miles a neat billboard announced the name of the company that owned that particular plantation.

  ‘Shane, Peter, would you mind if I asked you how you feel about the spread of the palm oil plantations?’ she asked. ‘I know you must think palm oil is important, because you now grow so much of it, but palm oil is a contentious issue.’

  Peter turned and smiled at her. ‘Ah, this is a discussion that can fill in a few hours.’

  Shane drew a long breath and said, ‘It’s true, palm oil is a part of the Malaysian economy and yes, there are problems because the jungle is being cut down to create these oil plantations, but at Utopia we are trying to be as ethical as possible. My father made the decision to plant palm oil after Grandfather Roland died. Grandfather was such a rubber man and although he had experimented with palm oil before the war, he couldn’t bring himself to change the whole plantation over to it. But Dad decided that the time was right to make the move, but he wanted to do it the right way.’

  ‘It takes a lot of investment, organisation and long-term commitment to create a properly run plantation,’ added Peter. ‘We try to show that we’re not just after profits but want to give local people opportunities for a better standard of living. Governments also say that they want these things for their people, but it’s really difficult to find the best balance between the economy and development, and the ecology and forest conservation.’

  ‘It’s such a complex issue, it’s impossible to give easy answers,’ added Shane.

  ‘But what about these campaigns telling us not to touch any products with palm oil in them?’ asked Julie.

  ‘We belong to an international organisation – the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. This is moving forward to promote best practices as well as labelling products so that consumers can choose to buy products from sustainable sources,’ said Peter.

  ‘Frankly, if we don’t persevere with sustainable production, then others would say that they don’t care about all these high standards and restrictions, either. So they’d just clear the jungle for plantations, with no ongoing support for the community or interest in long-term viability,’ said Shane.

  ‘Lately, there has been some acknowledgment that continuing to clear for palm oil production can’t go on,’ said Peter. ‘Governments are beginning to compensate farmers for not clearing land and giving them funds to start other projects. And, of course, this new policy allows for carbon trading, which is great, so long as corrupt politicians and other interests don’t derail it.’

  ‘It is complicated,’ said Julie. She didn’t doubt the sincerity of her cousins, but she could see both sides of the argument, especially after what she had learned from the Iban.

  ‘Julie, you’ve had the visitor’s tour of the plantation, perhaps we need to show you how the business side really works,’ said Shane.

  Martine lifted her head. ‘Don’t lecture her, Shane. Let Julie enjoy her last day or so.’

  ‘No, I am really interested,’ protested Julie. ‘Our great grandfather established the plantation, so I’d better find out how it works.’

  ‘Enough of this serious talk,’ said Martine, putting down her magazine. ‘Tell me, Julie, what did you learn about your great aunt from Marjorie?’

  Julie told Martine briefly about Bette and her efforts to keep Philip alive in the POW camp. ‘I wish I knew more about Bette,’ Julie said. ‘I really know very little. My mother says she remembers her aunt from when she was a little girl, but then Bette just dropped out of her life.’

  ‘Why was that? After all she went through with that little boy, I would have thought that Bette would have been close to Philip forever. It all seems very ungrateful,’ said Martine.

  ‘My mother says that she was ostracised from the family because she married a Chinese man,’ said Julie.

  ‘Oh, I can’t believe that!’ exclaimed the worldly Martine. ‘Shane, you told me that your grandfather had many good Malay, Chinese and Indian friends. He doesn’t sound like a racist, or a person easily shocked by such a marriage.’

  ‘My grandmother painted Bette’s husband as the devil in the piece,’ said Julie. ‘According to my mother, Gran never got over the shame of her sister marrying a “Chinaman”.’

  ‘But the Tsangs were very influential people. According to Grandfather, they were a very impressive, warm and fun-loving family,’ said Peter. ‘I think he knew Tony Tsang well. They were at university together.’

  Julie stared at Peter.

  ‘What is up, Julie?’ asked Martine.

  Julie suddenly leaned forward. ‘Tsang. Tony Tsang. Is that who Bette married?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘I never knew her married name.’

  ‘Good Lord! You were kept in the dark. I’m sorry that we didn’t tell you earlier, but we didn’t know what you didn’t know, if you get what I mean. Mind you, we have been on the go the whole time you’ve been here, so we haven’t really had time to talk as much as we should about the family. The Tsang’s house is one of the great old Peranakan homes in Penang,’ said Shane.

  ‘You could have a look at it when you go there,’ added Peter.

  ‘I had no idea about any of this. Mum did mention Tony Tsang to me when she told me about Gran’s time in Malaya before the war, but neither of us had any idea about the connection. Did you boys ever meet the Tsangs?’ asked Julie.

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ replied Peter.

  ‘The Tsang house is now a boutique hotel, well, part of it is, I think,’ said Shane. ‘Have you ever been there, Pete?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, it’s a pretty pricey place to stay, I believe.’

  Martine looked at Julie and smiled. ‘Your visit to Penang is going to be interesting.’

  Julie leaned back, shaking her head. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Perhaps you should ask Christopher to come with you,’ suggested Martine. ‘You’re going to see him, yes? It will be quite interesting for you to see the old mansion.’

  ‘Christopher did suggest dinner when I went to Penang, but now I have so much more to check out. Do you know the address of Bette’s old home, Shane?’

  ‘Oh, everyone knows it. It’s known as Rose Mansion. Big old pink stucco place with gold trim. It used to be virtually on the water but the land was reclaimed along the seafront so there’s a promenade in front of it now,’ said Shane.

  ‘At least the old home hasn’t been torn down, but restored and made into a hotel,’ said Peter.

  ‘I know Gran told my mother that he was very rich. Is that right?’ asked Julie.

  Peter chuckled. ‘I’d say so. He kept racehorses. That was the heyday of high society before the war. Even afterwards, the Chinese and the Peranakan did very well, until the anti-Chinese riots in the 1960s. Things changed after that.’

  ‘The history of the mansion is probably well documented,’ said Shane. ‘In the last ten years there’s been a resurgence of interest in the old days. I think some of the Tsang descendants helped with its preservation.’

  ‘It’s interesting for tourists,’ said Martine.

  ‘I guess that’s what I’ll be, a tourist,’ said Julie quietly. ‘I wish I knew more.’

  Martine touched her arm. ‘This is a quest. All the time you are discovering things. It will all unfold,’ she said to Julie.

  Julie stared at her. ‘Yes. I suppose so. But I’m impatient to know as much as I can. My holiday is almost over. I have to go back home, go back to work . . . deal with my family’s fight to save our home . . .’ All these things seemed a world away. Here, in Malaysia, Julie felt herself touching a part of her family’s past that had been unknown to her. ‘I wonder when I see this mansion, if it
might help me understand why there was such a rift between Margaret and Bette.’

  ‘Perhaps you may,’ said Martine gently.

  ‘Anyway, even if I don’t find any answers in Penang, it will be nice to see where Great Aunt Bette lived,’ said Julie, and sank back in the soft leather seat of the Jaguar.

  She must have dozed off, for when she opened her eyes they were driving past the long plantation rows of Utopia in bright sunlight. A mini steam train was chugging along pulling iron buckets, each holding two tonnes of just harvested palm oil fruit. The spiky clusters of the red fruit were piled high.

  ‘There they go, straight from the field, no trucks, less handling, those metal cages go right into the ovens, so there’s less bruising,’ said Shane proudly.

  ‘Makes for better quality oil if it’s direct from the field,’ said Peter. ‘Nothing is wasted, the by-products and effluent from the mills are collected and made into bio gas, which is then used to heat the water, which becomes the steam, which runs the refinery. Everywhere we can, we try to reduce our dependence on petrochemicals.’

  ‘Let’s get some curry puffs at the bakery,’ said Martine, who had heard all this before, many times.

  They got out of the car, glad to stretch their legs. As Shane and Peter walked into the bakery they were immediately greeted by a middle-aged woman and a younger woman behind the counter. While their order was being assembled the manager, a middle-aged man of Indian descent, proudly showed his bosses the food preparation area. It was spotless. Julie felt that she could have eaten from the floor. Every piece of equipment was gleaming, bench tops sterile, and the staff wore plastic gloves, hair nets and cotton coverings over their shoes.

  ‘You can come in here any time and it is always immaculate,’ Martine whispered to Julia. ‘It’s the same in the factories, too.’

  The older woman had a big smile for Shane and Peter, and handed them both a warm curry puff. They introduced Julie to her as their cousin from Australia. She took both of Julie’s hands, in what was clearly a very warm welcome.

  As they walked outside Shane told Julie, ‘Mrs Seeto’s family has been here since our grandfather’s time. Her mother suffered terribly under the Japanese, and we’ve always looked after her. Now her family works here too. She still likes to help out in the bakery. That’s her granddaughter behind the counter.’

  Once again the mention of the war years brought back Marjorie’s story to Julie. She remarked, ‘Bette lived in Penang, and now Marjorie does. I suppose their time there didn’t overlap, but it’s very curious.’

  Martine tucked her arm through Julie’s. ‘When you get to Penang you will see the old and the new, and understand its appeal. Now you have family connections in lots of parts of Malaysia!’

  Julie had one more day at Utopia. She wanted to take photos for her mother who had lived here as a very young child, but now had so few memories of it. Peter drove her around the plantation, stopping by one of the long avenues of palms where the dried fronds were neatly cut and stacked, the harvested bunches of fruit on the ground in a neat circle at the base of each palm tree. Peter walked into the row and stopped at one of the trees pointing at the loose red fruit and seeds scattered at the base of the tree.

  ‘When the fruit starts dropping around the tree, we know that it’s time to pick the bunches. Every division has to be checked every day. There’s not a season for oil palms, they produce year round.’

  ‘Just as well with six thousand people working here. You can’t have them waiting for the crop,’ said Julie.

  ‘There’s always work. Shane and I come out every day, we walk around, meet the managers and assistants, and that’s how we get to know our people. Our father always said the best fertiliser is the boss’s footprints!’

  ‘So how many trees are on Utopia?’

  ‘Around five million. And each is numbered in its division, so if one develops a problem, or the R and D people pick something up, we can check the exact palm straight away.’

  ‘What’s this box?’ asked Julie. ‘It looks like a letterbox.’

  Peter laughed. ‘It’s actually a pheromone trap. Our biggest pest on the plantation is the rhinoceros beetle. Here, see, an ugly brute.’ He picked a beetle off the ground. It was the length of his palm and had vicious pincers. ‘This box gives off the smell of a female beetle, and so the males are attracted to it. When the box is full we know there are too many beetles around this particular area and we spray. If they’re not constantly controlled these beetles can kill a full-grown palm pretty quickly.’

  As they got back into the car, Julie pointed to some young palms in a field covered in a carpet of green growth. ‘And over there?’

  ‘Those palms are three years old, but we don’t let them bear fruit right away because we want them to grow strong first. There’s no rush for crops because a strong palm will yield for up to fifty years. We plant this ground-cover around the trees to hold in moisture and to stop erosion. And the flowers look pretty.’

  From the bottling plant where the rich red oil was being bottled and labelled in spotless conditions, they went into the nursery where thousands of various types of palm seeds were being hybridised. In the hothouse, Julie looked at the racks of thousands of sprouting seeds and couldn’t help but be impressed by the innovative breeding program, which would produce dwarf varieties of oil and coconut palms for easier harvesting, while still ensuring that they bore quality fruit.

  ‘The operation is so huge, it’s hard to take it all in. I’d imagined a plantation being just rows of trees and that was all,’ said Julie.

  ‘That was pretty much the way it was in our great grandfather Eugene’s day. I think he would be surprised to see how we’ve grown, too,’ said Peter.

  Julie felt torn as they headed back to the big house for lunch. She could see why Utopia was regarded as one of the top plantations in South East Asia, not just because of its quality produce but also because of Peter and Shane’s dedication to ecological sustainability. The plantation had excellent relationships with the local people but she wished all this development didn’t come at such a cost to the landscape and the wildlife. But, on the whole, Julie thought, Shane was probably right. It was better to have sustainable development than the total rape of an area with no rehabilitation at all.

  Luncheon was a formal meal, laid out in the dining room in the big house, with silverware and a lace tablecloth and crystal glasses. Martine’s touch was evident in the flower arrangement. The cook had prepared a superb meal – spring rolls, a light but very spicy Malay curry and fresh fruit from the plantation’s garden to finish.

  Shane rose and lifted his glass. ‘I’d like to propose a toast to our cousin, who has been our honoured guest for too brief a time. Thank you for coming, and for reuniting our families. Julie, I hope you will come again soon, and bring your mother back to the land of her birth. Perhaps next time you come, our children will be here from school, so you can meet them as well. I hope the search for the story of Great Aunt Bette continues successfully in Penang and have a safe trip back to Australia. Bon voyage, Julie.’

  Julie responded as best she could, caught unawares by the emotions she was feeling, but sincerely thanking the Elliotts for their hospitality and good company and assuring them that she would only be too delighted to return one day.

  The car and driver swept up to the guest bungalow that afternoon. She hugged Siti the housekeeper goodbye, and thanked her for making her stay so comfortable and asked the driver to take a photo of them both standing in front of the bungalow before sliding into the car. The gardener straightened up and gave her a salute and a big grin, and two girls who worked in the big house waved her goodbye as the car turned into the lane.

  By early evening Julie was in Penang, ensconced in her hotel. To her surprise and delight there was a message from Christopher.

  ‘Call me when you arrive, and could you join me for dinner?’

  He took her to an area known as little India, a colourful, noisy,
vibrant collection of narrow streets filled with wonderful smelling eateries, temples, gold stores and bazaar-like shops selling everything from brilliant saris that hung around the doors like folded butterfly wings, to spice, brass ornaments and antique erotic statues. Braziers and tandooris sizzled in the smoky night air, outdoor eateries and long neon-lit and air-conditioned restaurants were crowded with families enjoying the many types of Indian dishes available, from spicy vegetarian and delicate Goanese curries to fiery rendangs and roasted chillis.

  In the corner of a small restaurant the two of them sat at a laminated table covered with plastic plates and tin utensils, drinking cold beer from chipped glasses. Next to them was a family eating with their fingers from food spread out on banana leaves in front of them.

  ‘This is one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten,’ said Julie.

  ‘Despite the humble surroundings this place is quite famous,’ said Christopher. ‘And quite the cultural experience.’

  They had been talking about all manner of things and it was only as they sipped their glasses of strong black coffee sweetened with condensed milk that Julie told him about discovering that Bette had married Tony Tsang and had lived in the Rose Mansion in Penang.

  Christopher raised an eyebrow. ‘Wow, Rose Mansion is a landmark in Penang, though I have to say I’ve never been there. The more you discover about your great aunt, the more interesting she seems. So after Penang, you’ll go home, and back to work and that’s the end of it?’

  Julie paused. ‘I suppose so.’ She toyed with her glass. ‘I just hate to let Malaysia go, though. Being here has brought me closer to another part of my family. It’s not like just being a tourist and coming here for a holiday. I have a sense of connection with this country now.’

  ‘You can come back any time. Shane and Peter told you that. So you’re lucky in that respect, you could come for holidays every year! And there’s a lot more to see of Malaysia. The beaches half an hour from here are popular, although, to tell the truth, they’re not nearly as good as the ones on the Gold or Sunshine coasts and there are a lot of resorts.’ He caught her expression and smiled. ‘And you haven’t been to the mountains or many of the islands. There are so many places I keep thinking I must go and see, too.’