To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  Enoch Arden had left so his wife could be happy with someone else. But she didn’t want Michael to be with anyone else.

  She let her hand rest on the life jacket that was lying beside her on the sand. What had Mr Harding said? You must believe.

  I believe, she thought. I believe that home is there, the cascades and the pool under the fig tree. I believe that Michael understood, that morning I took him there. I believe that we will be together, me and Michael and Overflow …

  She slept again, or at least the world vanished for a while. She woke to footsteps, too close to clamber to her feet and try to hide.

  It was the woman, Gavin in her arms. Sunburnt Gavin, red-skinned, wide-eyed, chubby arms bare, in a strange-looking skirt of flowered cloth. And next to them was Moira.

  Chapter 16

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 30 January 1942

  Blackout for Gibber’s Creek

  Police yesterday received orders that all homes and businesses must be blacked out during night-time hours. By seven-thirty pm police had closed all businesses until blackout arrangements can be made.

  PULAU AYU, AN ISLAND OFF MALAYA, 30 JANUARY 1942

  NANCY

  She lay in the not-quite shade of the multi-trunked tree, the sand breathing heat about them. The air was too bright, a reflection from the sea or her own weakness. Nancy still felt too dizzy to decide.

  Moira sat beside her, sponging Gavin to cool his sunburn. ‘I think we were in the water a couple of hours. I kept trying to keep Gavin out of the water and shelter him from the sun with my skirt. I didn’t even know the canoe was there till someone bent down and grabbed my arm. A fisherman. He hauled us into his canoe. Well, it was bigger than a canoe — more like a proper boat. It even had a sail.’

  Trust Moira, thought Nancy, to talk about ‘proper’ boats when the owner was saving her life.

  The woman had gone again, leaving them with a wooden bucket of water, and another with more cold fish curry. Now they lay against the tree trunk, only moving as the shade moved. Gavin curled on the sand next to them — it was cooler than on their laps — while Moira tried to cool his flushed skin with a wet handkerchief. He was shadow-eyed and curiously limp.

  ‘I looked and looked, but I couldn’t see you. The oil from the ship had spread. There were tiny fires everywhere. I saw one of the ships from the convoy, but it was too far to hail. The fisherman wouldn’t paddle over to it either. I don’t know if he was scared of bombs or it was too far away.’ She felt Gavin’s forehead. ‘I don’t think he’s as hot now. Anyway the fisherman paddled up to some rock and told me to stay there, out of sight. That was the first time he spoke any English. The woman came to fetch me today. I think she must be his wife. Or sister. What about you?’

  ‘I washed up on a beach. The woman found me.’ She didn’t mention the bodies. ‘The Japanese are here.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ve seen them?’

  ‘No. But why else would they be hiding us, instead of taking us to the authorities? What happened to your side? Did you get hurt by the debris?’

  ‘A soldier shot me when I reached the beach. I pretended he’d killed me.’

  ‘Shot you! How bad is it?’

  ‘Not all that bad. No big hole or bullet, just a chunk out of my side.’ She stroked Gavin’s cheek lightly, relieved when he grabbed her finger and began to chew it.

  ‘You need a doctor.’

  ‘I’m all right. The woman put some stuff on it.’

  ‘Native muck,’ said Moira. ‘We should probably wash it off —’

  ‘Don’t you touch it.’ Suddenly she was furious, fear and relief boiling up with anger. ‘Gran makes “native muck”. And it works. We use her poultices whenever we cut ourselves. If it hadn’t been for you and your prejudices about natives, we wouldn’t be here. If you’d been able to face living with a grandmother-in-law who was Aboriginal, we’d have been home safe months ago.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Ben wanted you to go a year ago! That’s why he sent for me!’

  ‘I couldn’t go then. You know I couldn’t.’

  ‘But you could have gone months ago. You put Gavin in danger …’ And me, she thought. You’ve kept me from home, from Michael.

  ‘How was I to know the Japanese would invade like that? I thought we’d have weeks of warning. Days at least.’

  ‘We could have kept going to Singapore instead of staying in Kuala Lumpur. We could be home by now!’

  Moira said nothing, her eyes on Gavin.

  ‘It’s true! You could have killed us all. Gavin too. Just because of your stupid prejudice …’

  ‘How dare you say I’m prejudiced?’

  ‘Because you are.’

  ‘You stupid child. If I were prejudiced, I’d never have married your brother.’

  Her wound felt cold. She wondered if it was bleeding again, under the leaves, decided there was nothing she could do about it. Putting more pressure on it might just dislodge any developing scab. If they were going to die here, she could ask one thing first.

  ‘Moira?’

  Moira still looked at Gavin. ‘Yes?’

  ‘What did you tell Ben when you found out his grandmother was Aboriginal?’

  ‘That I still wanted to marry him.’

  ‘What?’ Nancy rolled towards her, winced. ‘You knew about Gran before you married him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She hadn’t thought Ben would have married anyone without telling her about his family. But she hadn’t been able to believe that Moira would marry a quarter-caste either, not unless she assumed that no one would find out, either in Malaya or back in England.

  ‘He told me at the New Year’s Eve dance at the golf club.’ Moira’s voice was suddenly far away. ‘He looked so handsome in his dinner jacket. I wore my white brocade and silver shoes …’

  She blinked as Gavin began to cry. Moira forced herself into a sitting position and held the baby to her breast. ‘I hope my milk doesn’t dry up. Some of the native women feed their babies till they are two years old. My mother was scandalised when she heard I was feeding him myself, but with all the uncertainty of war … well, thank goodness I did.’

  She looked back at Nancy. ‘Ben was so scared of what I’d say. I said, “Is she?” and then, “Are you going to ask me to marry you?” because I was afraid he wouldn’t. And he laughed and said, “Only if you’re going to say yes.”’

  ‘You … you knew? Then why wouldn’t you come to Australia? Why don’t you like me?’

  ‘I should have left for Gavin’s sake. But it’s easy to know that now. I … I just couldn’t leave Ben. What if he was wounded? If he needed me.’

  ‘And me?’

  Moira shrugged. ‘I don’t dislike you.’

  ‘You don’t like me either.’

  Moira sighed. ‘You haven’t made it easy. That first afternoon when I tried to get you to put on lipstick before Mrs Anderson’s mah jong afternoon …’

  ‘I said I’d rather paint war stripes on my face than wear lipstick.’

  ‘And that rag of a dress you arrived in. Heaven knows what the District Commissioner’s wife thought. But I’d promised Ben I’d do my best with you.’

  ‘You promised Ben!’

  ‘Ben asked me to try to … to tidy you up a bit. Show you how to behave in society, how to dress.’

  ‘Ben!’

  ‘Your brother cares about you. My dear girl, has it ever occurred to you that if you marry that young man you keep writing to — or anyone else of good family — you need to know how to behave in public? Your mother’s done her best, but oh dear, even after you had some respectable clothes you’d keep putting on those rags you arrived in to go around the plantation. There was no way to get through to you that some things are acceptable, and some are not. Your mother even wrote to thank me when Ben told her that at least you were wearing dresses and had had a proper haircut.’

  ‘Mum!’

  The hurt bit sharpe
r than the bullet. Her mother — her brother — wanted her reshaped as a ‘lady’. Had Michael also wanted her to look ‘acceptable’? Was that why he had never sent the word ‘love’?

  No, she thought. Whatever is between me and Michael is honest. But he still might like her to … to dress well sometimes. And she did know how to dress properly now …

  Vaguely she was aware Moira was still speaking. ‘… you never even understood the impact your behaviour might have on Ben. A sister who —’

  ‘Won’t play the game?’

  ‘Exactly. It reflects on him. Do you have any idea how hard it has been for Ben to succeed, despite his background? The way you dress and behave doesn’t just affect him. It reflects on your whole family.’

  ‘Not on you?’

  ‘On me too.’ Moira’s voice was even. ‘People would think I didn’t care enough to help you dress properly, do your hair properly, insist you sit like a lady instead of a cowboy …’

  ‘Drover. Or jackaroo.’

  ‘Jackaroo, kangaroo, what difference does it make? If you had just once tried to do the proper thing …’

  Why should I? she thought. What does it matter? But of course it did matter. She had seen how much it mattered. And perhaps you didn’t have to play the game all the time, just show that you knew the rules enough that you could play it when you wanted to, and ignore it when it didn’t suit. Like Michael’s mother with gumboots over her silk stockings.

  And she did know the rules, and not just the ones Moira had nagged her with. The ones Mum had taught her. The ones she had taken pride in ignoring — make sure your shoes are darker than the hem of your dress; don’t wear patent leather after five pm; wear gloves and hat to go to church or town, even if you only put them on after you slide off your horse — thinking that by ignoring them she was proclaiming herself her own person.

  But there was no need to proclaim to anyone. She was Nancy of the Overflow, and she’d loved her spotted voile, her poor spotted voile blown to shreds in the sea. For a moment sadness for the dress blended with grief for all those women and children lost to the ocean, a sense of loss so profound that she knew she must shove it away and let it out some other time, when she could bear it.

  Gavin burped, bringing up a froth of white. Moira wiped his face with her hand, then wiped that on her dress. ‘Thank goodness he’s drinking well. And my milk hasn’t dried up. I was scared it would. I think his temperature is normal now too.’

  The Nancy who returned home now — and she would return, she must return, and Gavin and Moira too — would not be the urchin who wagged school to go adventuring in tatty moleskins. I know how to dress and behave for the Melbourne Cup or a drover’s camp, she thought. I am Nancy of the Overflow and I can do anything …

  Including survive.

  ‘Moira, I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For everything. For … for not being grateful enough about the dresses, all you tried to teach me. For not getting you to safety.’

  ‘What?’ Moira looked at her, shocked. ‘I should be apologising to you for not looking after you better. I should have got us on a ship much earlier. To India if we couldn’t get to Australia. But if there was any chance at all of seeing Ben, I … I wanted to be there.’

  ‘It was my job to look after you.’

  ‘I am the older one,’ said Moira dryly. ‘And a married woman.’

  And I am Nancy of the Overflow, thought Nancy. Not Nancy of Malaya. I have been a stranger ever since I arrived on the plantation.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again. ‘I promise I will … do my best from now on. Wear what you tell me to. Put on lipstick as soon as I hear visitors arrive.’ She lay on the sand and stared at the blue sky between the treetops. A giggle seeped up.

  ‘What are you laughing about?’

  ‘Here we are on an unknown island without even any shoes between us and I am promising to wear lipstick.’

  ‘I still have my lipstick,’ said Moira. ‘It’s in my pocket.’

  And suddenly they were both laughing, weakly, but laughing, as Gavin burped again.

  Chapter 17

  Dr Joseph McAlpine

  AIF headquarters

  Singapore

  30 January 1942

  Mrs Blue McAlpine

  Moura

  via Gibber’s Creek

  Blue, my darling,

  Well, the ‘holiday abroad’ has certainly ended. Woke this morning to find that some blighter had poured a bag of flour on the road to make an arrow pointing to headquarters for the Jap bombers to follow. A few of us got rid of it quick smart. Luckily I was at the hospital when headquarters was hit. Got back to find my hut ashes. But there are homes deserted all over the place so within an hour I had found myself quite a palace. I even had a BATH. Luxury of luxuries. Then put on clean clothes. Well, when I say ‘clean’ I mean they had been washed recently. Ironing and starching have been forgotten in this corner of the army for the last few weeks.

  Today we began the battle of Singapore. The causeway to the mainland has been blown up. All the places where I have spent the past year are in the hands of the enemy, and I fear many of the men I have patched up in that time have been taken by the Japanese too. If only we could patch up the British Army.

  I hope to get this letter onto a flight this afternoon. One advantage of being an MD is that you get all sorts feeling grateful to you, including RAAF pilots. Have no idea when I’ll be able to write again, or get another letter to you, and doubt that any you write to me will reach me. But do keep writing, darling. Just to know you are writing is almost as good as getting the letters, and miracles may happen yet, and a whole bundle will get through. But I don’t think there is a miracle big enough to save Singapore. We can only hope that its evacuation is better planned than its defence.

  If you don’t hear from me for a while, don’t go and think the worst. I WILL get home again. What do you say we try for twins by Christmas? It will be hard work, old thing, but someone has to do it.

  Give my love to Sheba, and to Mah, and Matilda and Tommy, and tell them to look after you even if you don’t think you need looking after. I know you too well, my darling. I won’t say, ‘Don’t worry about me,’ because you will. I admit I am a bit concerned myself. But I also know deep within me that I will be home with you, sitting on the veranda in the dusk, watching the wallabies drinking at the creek — and don’t forget those twins.

  Take care, darling. I love you always,

  Joseph

  PULAU AYU, 30 JANUARY 1942

  NANCY

  Light pulsed, throbbed, or was it her wound? Mosquito bites itched. Her body felt baked in salt. It itched too. But Gavin’s tiny body seemed free of bites. Mosquitoes spread malaria and other disease. Moira must have sheltered him somehow.

  They waited.

  The woman returned as the sun began to slip down from the midday sky. This time a man was with her, wearing black trousers and a white shirt. He looked impatient, even angry.

  ‘Looks like he’s wishing he’d left us to float somewhere else,’ said Moira wryly.

  Nancy didn’t want to know what the fisherman had seen that had changed his mind.

  The woman carried two more buckets; more water in one and, in the other, a hand of bananas, small ones, finger length, and coconut shells filled with some sort of gooey paste. She knelt and held out a coconut shell to Moira.

  ‘Cassava,’ said Moira, spooning some up with her finger. She offered it to Nancy. ‘You eat, then I’ll share the rest with Gavin.’ She peeled a banana and held it to Gavin’s mouth. He shut his lips and turned his head away listlessly. Moira ate it herself, then took the cassava from Nancy.

  The woman and man watched them eat, silent. Nancy sat, self-conscious, and drank some of the water. The man waited till she had finished. ‘Nippon here. You must come.’

  The woman said something sharply to him, in another language. The man answered angrily. The woman broke in again.

&n
bsp; ‘I think she is prepared to look after us. But the man wants us to give ourselves up to the Japanese,’ said Moira.

  Nancy was silent. If this was Australia, she could hide in the bush; find food and water; make sure the Japanese never found them. Natives went from island to island in their fishing boats, didn’t they? Perhaps fishing boat after fishing boat might even get her to Australia or some place where the Allies still had control.

  Could she survive here, or on other islands? If she had been here alone, she’d have risked it. Moira too could probably manage, this new Moira who had taken charge to get them safe from a sinking ship. But Gavin was too small to survive days at sea in a small boat, to live without shelter from rain, mosquitoes.

  She looked at the man and the woman, both silent now, watching them. The Germans shot collaborators. She was pretty sure the Japanese would too. These people might die if the invaders knew they had been helping them.

  What was safest for Gavin and Moira? Had the killings on the beach been an isolated incident? Would the Japanese shoot them as soon as they surrendered? Or would they take them to a prison camp as Mr Harding had suggested? Was this island even big enough to have a camp on it? It was big enough for the Japanese to bother with, so she had to presume it was. Mr Harding had been right up till now. She had to trust he was right about prison camps too.

  You could survive a prison camp, as Mr Harding had done. It occurred to her that the Japanese might be more merciful to meekly surrendering women than they would be to two found skulking around in the jungle.

  Nor, if she was honest, was she convinced that she herself could survive on her own in this strange jungle. And if they refused to come, then this man — this kind man, who even if he was scared and angry now had saved Moira’s life and Gavin’s — might feel he had to tell the Japanese about their presence on the island, in case he put his own family in danger.