The White Pearl

by Kate Furnivall

  With a hiss of anger and a shake of her head, as though she could tip mem right out of it, she scampered into the cockroach-ridden hut and put a pan of water to boil on the rickety oil stove. Tea. That’s what cured a white man’s ills, that’s what Golden-hair needed.

  The boy, Tuan Teddy, was seated inside the hut on the stained mat playing with the pirate boat’s monkey, a tiny scrap of a thing with huge, dung-coloured eyes in a naked pink face with ferocious teeth. It wore a leather belt round its middle and a miniature silver bracelet on each wrist. The boy’s dog was regarding it with nervous eyes. Maya had been astonished that Mem Hadley had let her son keep the dog after it caused the death of her husband. Sure as hell Maya would have tossed it to the sharks, but white minds were strange countries with tangled, baffling pathways.

  Japs as well. She didn’t know why the prisoner pilot had not told anyone that she was the reason he’d chucked the dog overboard. Did he really want mem to hate him that much? Still Maya sweated over it. She didn’t want them to feed her to the sharks, or put a bullet in her brain instead of in his. She could have kissed Iron-eyes’ feet when he insisted that the Jap remain on The White Pearl until it was repaired. If that Sumatran bastard with the mouthful of gold had any sense, he’d stick a knife down his enemy’s throat and finish the job Mem Hadley had started – one less to feed.

  It struck Maya as odd that the no-good, weasel-faced Madoc and his fat wife chose to stay with the yacht as well, instead of coming on the Burung Camar. Mem Hadley had thanked him, and said she was grateful to have someone to keep on eye on it. Aiyee. Weasel-face was getting ready to bite off her fingers. Maybe the Japs would blast his skinny bones out of the water when the yacht set sail again.

  ‘You need milk.’

  Maya was pouring the hot water into a tin mug. She sprinkled black tea leaves on top and looked over at the boy. ‘What?’

  ‘You need milk in the tea,’ he explained kindly.

  ‘No milk here.’

  ‘Any sugar?’

  She inspected their tin box of provisions. ‘No sugar.’ She rummaged through it, and held up a squat jar. ‘Honey?’

  ‘That will do.’

  She stirred four spoonfuls into the hot water. It didn’t look quite right. The tea leaves were floating on top like ants.

  ‘It’s for Tuan Pilot Jo-nee,’ she told him.

  The boy laughed, came over and stuck his finger in the honey jar. He took turns licking it with the dog and the monkey.

  ‘Lucky Jo-nee,’ he said.

  The island looked like a crab, except it was green. It was covered so densely with jungle that it formed a carapace that it was impossible to penetrate. Maya viewed it with apprehension. It had a high hunched back that rose in the centre, and outcrops of land stretching off to the side like claws, ready to clamp onto intruders.

  ‘What is so special about this island that makes it different from all the others?’ Razak asked in her ear. His voice sounded sad, and she knew he was missing Tuan Hadley.

  She took his hands in hers. ‘I don’t know. I am sick of new things, my brother. Every day they come at me like arrows, and I hurt all over. I want to sit in a hut on dry land and eat fish and pawpaw stew and speak to no one.’

  ‘Except Golden-hair.’

  Her cheeks flushed, and she glared across the waves at the island. An army of black clouds was marching towards them. It would rain soon.

  ‘Maya,’ Razak whispered, ‘he is not meant for you, any more than Tuan Hadley was meant for me.’

  Tears stung Maya’s eyes, and the wasps stirred in her chest again. ‘Who says?’

  Her brother’s arm curled around her shoulder and drew her to him. ‘I say.’

  The ache in her head was comforted by his protection, knowing that he would guard her from the arrows of newness. But the ache in her heart was too big to mention, in case words gave it the power it needed to eat her alive.

  *

  A solid wall of trees barricaded the island. No white sandy beaches laced its shoreline, and there appeared to be no inlets or inviting creeks where wildlife came to search for turtle eggs. Darkness moved like a living thing behind the tree trunks as Fitzpayne expertly steered a course through the waves that crashed against the mangroves. The long bowsprit heeled to starboard, and the deck trembled and creaked as the rising wind tussled with the rigging.

  The air was thick and oppressively heavy, so that when the rain started it came as a relief. Connie didn’t mind the soaking. She felt a restless energy that matched the rain’s, and preferred to stand out on deck rather than in the hut as it pitched and rolled in the grip of a fierce current. Her eyes strained to make out the features of the island but the curtain of rain obscured it. Everything grew grey and greasy, except for the veins of lightning that flared out of the sudden gloom.

  Abruptly, Fitzpayne swung the wheel hard to starboard and for a moment Connie was convinced they would be thrown against the grey trunks and pitched into the ocean. She seized the rail and shouted out to Teddy in the hut, but suddenly the boom of the waves ceased. The air around her changed colour: it became green and shimmering as though they were under water. Astonished, because she had seen no gap, she realised that Fitzpayne had unerringly found a hidden narrow inlet, and they were gliding under an arc of dark green foliage high overhead.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It has many names in many tongues.’ His eyes scanned the riverbanks, where nothing seemed to move except the rain.Yet she could sense his pleasure, as though this place meant something to him.

  ‘What do you call it?’ she urged. And when he didn’t answer she added, ‘Home?’

  He laughed, and there was a certain contentment in the sound. ‘It’s as good a name as any.’

  *

  The place wasn’t at all like Maya expected. She stood nervously on the jetty with the waters snarling at her below the planking, and she wanted to throw herself onto the muddy path, cling to its solid earth and swear she would never set foot on anything that moved ever again.

  ‘Look up there,’ Razak said, his eyes bright with excitement.

  ‘No!’

  ‘It’s good, sister.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘We will be as free as monkeys up there.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a monkey.’

  She stamped her foot on the jetty to remind him she was made to be on the ground, but he laughed, entranced by the network of ropes and walkways that was strung through the trees like spiders’ webs.

  ‘Come along, Maya.’ A hand took her wrist. It was Mem Hadley. ‘Let’s take a look at this new home of ours.’

  The rain was easing back to a sullen drizzle, and mem gently coaxed her across the planks to solid land. Maya sank gratefully to her knees in the mud, patting its sodden surface with her palms as if it were a dear friend. Mem didn’t laugh at her, but stood quietly inspecting this strange green world they found themselves in.

  ‘Teddy will love it here,’ she smiled.

  ‘Yes, mem.’

  ‘Razak too, I think.’

  ‘Yes, mem. They foolish men.’

  Mem Hadley gave a soft, bird-size laugh and there was a sound in it that Maya had not heard before, a clear, ringing sound like a bell that has been cut free of its rope. How could a face look so sad but a voice sing so happy in the same person? Inside Maya, a tight fist that was lodged somewhere below her throat – that had been jammed there ever since Tuan Hadley was gobbled by the shark – relaxed its grip a fraction at the sound of it. She swallowed her fear, and this time it didn’t hurt.

  ‘Mem,’ she looked around warily, ‘we in bad shit.’

  We in bad shit.

  Such frightened words. Connie felt a surge of sympathy for the young native girl. In the back streets of Palur, Maya may be quick and feral and alert to its dangers, but here in the tangled world of the jungle she was as awkward and ignorant as Connie herself. The long-limbed trees and the grasping fingers of the lush foliage reached out fo
r them; the jungle’s rank breath hung over them.

  Connie understood why Fitzpayne had brought them here to an island that hid its face away from the outside world, but as she stared beyond the narrow river where all manner of different boats already rode at anchor, she felt a stab of alarm. The high canopy that masked them from the sky was not made up of just the boughs of trees that towered sixty feet, even a hundred feet, over the silver thread of the river. There were nets up there. Slung from the branches on one bank to those on the other, allowing the creepers to weave their stems in and out of the netting, climbing and twisting until a green mat blocked out the sky. It felt like a prison.

  From the riverbank there were no buildings visible, just a network of rope pathways high up in the trees, but as Fitzpayne led them in single file along a narrow track deeper into the forest, Connie became aware of movement and sound around her. She hung on tight to Teddy, with Pippin tucked under her arm. Figures peered down at them from above. Shouts reached them, and hands were raised in greeting to Fitzpayne. They followed dim green tunnels that converged in a sudden and unexpected explosion of light as a clearing opened up before them.

  Connie looked up, wiping sweat from her forehead. The humidity here was something solid; it was like running into a brick wall. She had to drag the air into her lungs by force. Still the green light, still the netting and matted foliage overhead, but it came as a relief to see an open space. She was finding the closeness of the trees claustrophobic, and the smell of rotting vegetation suffocating.

  ‘This,’ Fitzpayne announced to his group of six followers, indicating the single large building in the centre of the clearing, ‘is the Kennel.’ His grey eyes darted from person to person, gauging reactions, and lingered longest on Connie’s son’s face.

  It didn’t look like any kennel Connie had ever seen. She glanced up and her pulse raced as she caught sight of a man perched on one of the rope walkways forty feet up under the canopy, a rifle in his hands. It was pointed directly at them.

  ‘May we go inside?’ she asked. She didn’t want Teddy to see the rifle.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ Johnnie said.

  ‘Be my guest. But you may not like what you see.’ Fitzpayne warned. He shrugged, and led them up a set of steps and under a lintel carved in the shape of a lizard.

  The building was constructed of bamboo, up on stilts and with a roof of dripping fronds, every upright post carved with intricate designs of animals and insects. It smelled strongly of wood smoke. The single room inside was about sixty feet long, and whatever it was Connie expected to find inside, it was nothing remotely like the scene that confronted her.

  The noise of it hit her first. A howling of banshees. A band of twenty or more children – of varying ages and all shades of skin colour – were standing in a circle, bare feet leaping up and down on the timber floor, shouting with frantic excitement. Small fists punched the dusty air.

  At the centre of the circle between the dark heads Connie caught sight of a flash of golden brown and a flurry of a glossy green wing. With a sickening lurch she realised what was taking place here: a cockfight. A tall skinny native kid with a bare chest and one milky eye was holding a pile of coins cupped in his hands and grinning widely. Over by one of the window openings, a man with lazy black eyes and a tattoo on his cheek was leaning against the wall, a cigarette dangling between his lips. Connie noted the knife in his belt.

  She turned away. Her distaste was reflected in the faces of Johnnie and Henry, and together they stepped back quickly towards the door, but she could feel her son tugging to get closer to the circle of boys.

  ‘No, Teddy,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Savages!’ Henry declared.

  But Fitzpayne laughed disparagingly, and tossed a silver coin to the skinny boy who snatched it out of the air. ‘On the small drab bird.’

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr Fitz.’ The boy automatically bit the coin with his strong white teeth to test its worth.

  One of the cockerels screamed piteously, wrenching Connie’s attention back to the battleground, and she saw that the spurs on the back of the birds’ legs were elongated with metal tips. Blood spattered the boards underfoot.

  She swept Teddy away. She wanted to bang the children’s heads together and stop the cockfight at once, but she knew she had no authority here. It annoyed her that Fitzpayne encouraged the fight.

  The losing bird, the one Fitzpayne had bet against, uttered a piercing shriek as its golden breast was ripped open and feathers flew. It was the feathers fluttering in the hot and humid air, a tantalising lure, that were too much for Pippin. He had endured the shouts and the scent of blood with restraint, but the feathers broke him. He leaped out of Teddy’s arms, leash flying behind him, shot between the forest of bare legs and hurled himself at the bright green throat. A quick snap, and the bird hung loose from his jaws.

  There was a roar of fury. The children fell on the dog. Teddy went for them, fists flying, and with a curse Connie leaped in among the small assailants to extract her son.

  ‘Stop it, you savages!’ she shouted, dragging a ferocious urchin off Teddy’s back.

  She waded into the squirming bodies, knocked a few heads together, scooped up Pippin and dangled the animal by his collar high in the air above the children’s heads. The dog started to cough, and the tall skinny boy picked out a pebble from his pocket and launched it at Teddy’s head. But her son was too quick. He ducked and the pebble whistled past, catching Henry Court on the elbow, but Teddy jumped forward and his fist landed a solid left hook on his attacker’s jaw. The boy bellowed.

  ‘Enough!’ Fitzpayne roared.

  He strode into the melee, delivering well-judged kicks and cuffs until order was restored.

  ‘Well,’ he growled at them, ‘that’s a fine way to greet our guests!’

  But Connie could see the grin lurking at the corners of his mouth. What was it with men and fisticuffs? Johnnie was smiling too, nodding approval at Teddy, who emerged with a bleeding lip and a torn shirt, his face still crimson with rage.

  ‘Here,’ Connie said crossly, dumping Pippin in his arms. ‘Take better care of your dog.’

  ‘No dogs,’ the skinny child yelled, clutching his ribs.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s right,’ Fitzpayne allowed. ‘No dogs are permitted on this island. They are too much of a sign of habitation, and they’re impossible to keep quiet.’

  She stared at him, stunned. ‘You knew that when you brought us here.’

  He turned to her son. ‘I thought your dog would make a good breakfast for someone.’

  Teddy didn’t scowl or even utter a protest. To Connie’s astonishment, he squared up to Fitzpayne and burst out laughing, a joyous young sound that she hadn’t heard in a long time.

  ‘Pippin will eat that boy for breakfast if I order him to!’ he declared.

  ‘Then you’d better keep the creature on a tight leash,’ Fitzpayne muttered, and ruffled a hand through Teddy’s messy hair. Finally he allowed his grin to surface. ‘Come!’ he ordered.

  Connie liked living up high. It gave her a different perspective on the world. Everything on the ground looked small. Up here, under the treetop canopy, she felt the sea breeze cool against her cheeks and heard the birds so clearly that at times she thought they had perched inside her head by mistake. On the sea she had felt small, a tiny speck in a vast expanse that any wave could dash from sight at a whim, but up here she felt tall and all-seeing. Oddly powerful.

  Nigel would have hated the weirdness of it. Stuck in a bamboo hut forty feet up from the ground, while a tropical storm crashed down on the flimsy roof and a monkey sat chewing on a pawpaw fruit, at eye level with her. Connie had made herself a brush out of spiky twigs and was growing used to sweeping out invading spiders and millipedes, lizards and frogs and even thin, whippy snakes that made her shout for Teddy.

  Getting Maya aloft had been a problem. Maya had sobbed and begged and swore she would sleep in the Kennel, but no. It was anothe
r of the rules. Nobody sleeps on the ground.

  ‘Why not?’ Connie had asked Fitzpayne.

  He had shaken his wet head, spraying rainwater like a dog. ‘Because if anyone slinks onto the island uninvited at night, the place must look deserted. By day we have lookouts and sentries to watch out for intruders, but at night it’s harder to spot them.’

  A rope ladder hung down from one of the trees to reach the huts in the leafy canopy. Maya swore she would rather die.

  Fitzpayne grinned at Connie, and gestured to the bag on her shoulder.

  ‘Do you have a scarf in there?’ he asked.

  She rummaged and pulled out a silk blouse. He took it from her, and let the material flow through his fingers. It was a strangely intimate moment, as though he were handling her, rather than her blouse. He tied the blouse around the eyes of the wretched Maya. He tossed the girl over his shoulder, ignored her kicking feet and bounded up the ladder with ease. Connie was abruptly reminded of how he had carried Teddy under his arm through the forest when she’d lost her son, and the way he hoisted Maya off The White Pearl that first time in Palur. She laughed softly, and wondered what on earth it must feel like to be manhandled so roughly. Nigel had never stepped beyond the bounds of courtesy, not once. But Nigel wasn’t here.

  ‘Up you go, Teddy,’ she called.

  He scampered up as nimbly as a gecko, Pippin draped nervously around his neck, and she followed after them, careful first to tuck her skirts into her underwear, to give her some privacy. Henry came puffing up behind her, then Johnnie, awkward with one arm. Razak brought up the rear. The rope walkway swayed alarmingly when she stepped on it.

  ‘All right?’ Fitzpayne asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it.’