by Judy Nunn
Within minutes Jane had met an eclectic gathering of itinerants, expatriates and colonial servicemen. There were several New Zealanders, two Australians, a number of French and British, and a Dutch couple who lived on a yacht moored in the harbour. Reid’s was certainly the place to which everyone gravitated, she thought, but there were few women present. She refused to feel self-conscious, however, and put her trust in Godfrey. And he was certainly her calling card. Godfrey made no overtures, he simply waited for others to come to him. And they did.
‘Mr Tomlinson.’ A man whom Jane judged to be in his late thirties had tapped Godfrey on the shoulder. ‘May I be introduced to your charming companion?’ he asked in his heavily accented but perfect English. He was a handsome man, of average height but solid build, with a patrician face, a fine head of hair, the temples of which were flecked with grey, and he bore the confident assurance of wealth.
‘Mrs Thackeray, M’sieur Marat,’ Godfrey said obediently, but rather charmlessly, Jane thought, which surprised her a little.
‘Madame Thackeray.’ The Frenchman bent and kissed her hand, his lips lingering just a moment longer than necessary, but not long enough to be offensive.
‘How do you do,’ Jane said.
‘I have looked forward to making your acquaintance. And that of your husband.’ Jean-François Marat looked around the club room. ‘He is not with you?’
‘Dr Thackeray is in Lakatoro,’ Godfrey replied brusquely before Jane could answer, and she was taken aback by his tone; Godfrey was normally so courteous. It was not only evident that Godfrey Tomlinson disliked M’sieur Marat, but that he took little trouble to disguise the fact.
‘Ah yes, of course,’ the Frenchman said. ‘I heard there were some medical problems on Malekula. Will you join my table?’ he asked Jane. ‘The two of you of course,’ he added to Godfrey. ‘A glass of champagne by way of welcome to Mrs Thackeray?’
‘Delighted,’ Godfrey said, though he plainly wasn’t, ‘thank you.’ Then he offered Jane his arm before the Frenchman could offer his.
Under normal circumstances Godfrey would not have received, nor would he have accepted, the invitation. He and Marat did not like each other. But he recognised it as an ideal opportunity for Jane to meet the members of ‘the other camp’, as he referred to them. Seated at Marat’s table was the French resident commissioner and several of his upper echelon.
During the following half hour Jean-François Marat was so attentive to Jane that she began to feel embarrassed. The entire table was French-speaking and yet he repeatedly steered the conversation back into English, at one point even chastising the assembled company when they once again broke into a rapid-fire conversation in their mother tongue.
‘Shall we pay some courtesy to Madame Thackeray?’ he suggested with an icy smile and an edge to his voice that brought the table to a halt. Jean-François Marat was one of the most powerful men in the colony and even the resident commissioner appeared to be at his beck and call.
‘Please, M’sieur Marat,’ she insisted, feeling herself flush with self-consciousness, ‘don’t let my presence inhibit conversation. Besides,’ she said, trying to laugh the moment off, all eyes upon her, ‘it’s excellent practice for me. I do speak a little schoolgirl French,’ she admitted, ‘appalling as it is, and I really must learn to be proficient whilst I’m here.’
‘Of course you must,’ Jean-François agreed smoothly, ‘but this is your first evening in our company.’ He was ignoring the others at the table, it was as if the two of them were alone, and ‘our’ company seemed to infer ‘mine’. Jane found his scrutiny most confronting.
‘I intend to become proficient with every language which is practised in Vila, M’sieur Marat,’ she said, not knowing where to look, the intensity of his gaze was so disconcerting. ‘I’m currently learning Bislama.’
‘Oh really?’ His tone intimated ‘why bother’. He spoke it himself, but then it was necessary for communication with the workers on his plantation. ‘How admirable,’ he said. What a waste of time, he thought. A woman with looks like Jane Thackeray’s shouldn’t bother herself with the blacks.
Jean-François hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Jane from the moment he’d seen her arrive at Reid’s on the arm of the interfering old fool Godfrey Tomlinson. So this was the wife of the new missionary doctor. He’d heard she was pretty, but she was more than pretty, he’d thought as he’d watched her in animated conversation. She was exquisite. Fair hair, blue eyes, skin like porcelain, and a smile as fresh as the morning. Jane Thackeray was an English rose.
Now, as she sat at his table and he devoured her with his eyes, he wondered how long it would take before she became bored with her drab English husband. A missionary doctor? Subjugated by the church, working for a pittance? Such a woman deserved far better. In any event, she was bound to become restive during her husband’s long absences from home, and Jean-François was quite willing to wait. He’d had many a clandestine affair with the frustrated wife of an absentee husband. It was only a matter of time, he’d found, before women left on their own became restless. Then the heat and the sensuality of the tropics did the rest.
‘I very much look forward to meeting Dr Thackeray,’ he said ten minutes later when Godfrey and Jane took their leave. Once again he kissed her hand, and once again his lips lingered. ‘When your husband returns, you must both come to dine at Chanson de Mer,’ he insisted.
He continued to hold her hand and Jane stared back at him, unnerved and not sure what to do.
‘My home,’ he said. ‘The name is my little indulgence.’ He smiled and his dark eyes seemed bent on seducing her. ‘I am right by the sea,’ he softly explained, as if he was telling her a personal secret. ‘And the Pacific sings to me. Her own special song.’
‘Thank you for your invitation, M’sieur Marat.’ She withdrew her hand. ‘Au revoir, gentlemen,’ she said to the others who had risen from the table.
‘You must be wary of Marat,’ Godfrey warned as they walked along the front to the restaurant, ‘he can be dangerous.’ He avoided any mention of the man’s detestable behaviour, not wishing to embarrass her further. Godfrey had found Marat’s barely disguised lust both contemptible and insulting.
‘He’s certainly arrogant,’ Jane agreed. Her reaction to Marat’s attention had gone beyond mere embarrassment, she’d found him extraordinarily unsettling. Never before had she been so studied, as if she was some form of prey. ‘Who is he, Godfrey?’
‘He’s a plantation owner, very rich and very powerful and he has the French officials in his pocket. Marat’s is the biggest copra plantation on the island and he uses his money in every corrupt way possible. I suggest you and Martin keep well out of his way.’
Several days later, Godfrey insisted she join him on a buggy ride. ‘I’m going to show you the real Efate,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll have to leave Ronnie with Mary, an outrigger canoe’s not the safest place for a child of his age.’
Jane’s eyes widened at such an alarming prospect, but she made no protest, which delighted Godfrey.
The unpaved roads of Vila extended only a few miles to the north and the east of the town, and Godfrey had never seen fit to own a motor vehicle. He’d imported any number of them as an agent, he said, particularly in the earlier years when cars were a novelty and there’d been many an eager client. ‘But I can’t see the point in owning one myself,’ he said, ‘there’s nowhere to drive. A buggy is vastly preferable.’
The horse, a reliable twelve-year-old bay gelding called Luke, set off at a walking pace down the track and, when they arrived at the bottom of the hill, they turned into the main street. It was Monday morning and Vila was busy. Locals were on their way to work, women in brightly coloured ‘Mother Hubbard’ dresses, the standard female attire of the islanders, and men in weathered shorts and shirts, hand-me-downs from their colonial employers. Beneath wide straw hats, the Tonkinese labourers, immigrant workers from Indochina, balanced twin baskets on shoulder
poles and, at the warehouse of Burns Philp & Company Ltd, local native workers carted sacks of copra, which had been transported by drays from the plantations, to the vessel waiting at the Burns Philp pier.
‘The all-powerful BP,’ Godfrey said, indicating the export company’s sign, ‘known locally as “Bastards of the Pacific”. Burns Philp virtually control the economy of these islands.’
The copra boat arrived every several months, he told her, when there was a load awaiting collection. Since the depletion of the sandalwood forests, copra, the smoked meat of the coconut from which soaps and oils were produced, remained one of the principal exports throughout the New Hebrides.
Jane held her wide-brimmed straw hat firmly on head as they travelled down the main street; she was enjoying her buggy ride. Godfrey flicked the reins and Luke obediently raised his gait to a lazy trot, unperturbed by the vehicles that passed them by.
‘When the cars first appeared,’ he said, ‘there was quite a to-do about which side of the road they should drive on, yet another competition between the French and the British. In France they drive on the right and in Britain on the left, and it looked as if it could get quite nasty. Then some bright official suggested that they keep their eye open for the next horse and buggy that came around the corner and they’d settle for whichever side of the road it was travelling on.’
‘The French obviously won,’ Jane laughed.
‘They did, confound them.’
The road had become little more than a track by the time they reached Malapoa Point, the northern headland of Vila’s harbour, and soon they were travelling beside the sweeping shores of Mele Bay. Eventually, Godfrey pulled the buggy up at a sandy spit opposite which, only several hundred yards away, was a small coral island, the huts of a native village clearly visible amongst the trees.
‘That’s where we’re going,’ he said, offering his hand as Jane alighted. ‘Mele Island.’ He waved his arms high over his head and only moments later, Jane saw an islander push an outrigger canoe into the shallows of the white sandy beach. As the canoe set out from the island, she watched Godfrey efficiently go about his business. He unharnessed Luke and tethered him to a tree, then he filled a large tin can from the canvas water bag, both of which he kept in the back of the buggy, and watered the animal. It was a ritual, she thought, intrigued. These visits to Mele Island were obviously a regular occurrence.
Five minutes later, the canoe shovelled its nose up onto the sand and the islander leapt out. A strong young man in his twenties, he was bare-chested and bare-footed and wore shorts far too big for him, belted around his stomach by a length of rope.
‘Goffry!’ he exclaimed in the loudest of greetings, the two men embracing and slapping each other’s arms. ‘Goffry!’ The rest, to Jane, was a jumble. Bislama would not help her here, she thought, they were speaking a Melanesian dialect and at the rate of knots.
When the boisterous exchange was over, Godfrey introduced her.
‘Fren blong mi Missus Thackeray,’ he said in Bislama, then he stood back and waited for the performance he knew would follow.
The islander gave the broadest of grins and extended his hand, which she accepted.
‘Allo, Missus Tackry, allo. Nem blong mi Rama.’ The handshake was vigorous and enthusiastic.
‘Allo, Rama,’ she said, returning his grin.
‘Goffry besfren blong mi,’ he said, pumping away energetically.
‘Yo, yo,’ she nodded in fervent agreement, ‘Goffry nambawan.’
‘Welkam, Missus Tackry, welkam.’
‘Tangkyu tumas, Rama.’
Having established their mutual friendship with Godfrey, which to Rama meant he and Jane were now friends, the official greeting was over, the hand pumping ceased and he pushed the canoe out into the water.
Godfrey gave Jane an approving smile. Her enthusiasm had been perfect; animation was always the key in such an exchange. He’d offered her no advance warning of what to expect, nor any specific advice on how to behave. ‘They’re good people,’ he’d simply said, ‘treat them as you find them.’ And, instinctively, she had. Godfrey was pleased.
Jane took her sandals off and, noticing that Godfrey, shoes in hand, was making no attempt to roll up his trousers, she waded knee-deep into the water, ignoring her calf-length cotton skirt.
Rama balanced the craft and they climbed gingerly aboard. Then, seating himself in the centre, he started to row with his single paddle towards the island, chatting all the while to Godfrey in his Melanesian tongue.
It was a hot, sultry day, the air thick and threateningly heavy with moisture. ‘It’ll storm tonight,’ Godfrey had said. But as yet there was no such sign. The sky was cloudless, the sea’s surface unruffled by wind and, as the canoe approached the sandy beach, Jane looked down through the crystal-clear water to the reef below. She could see the infinite colours, shapes and patterns of the living coral and the fish, vivid and exotic, that darted in and out the intricate maze of nooks and crannies. A world teeming with life lay just beneath them. She would have loved to have leaned over the side for a closer look but she didn’t dare, she felt very vulnerable in the flimsy craft.
‘Can you swim, Jane?’ Godfrey had noticed her fascination with the reef.
‘Oh yes, most certainly, I enjoy it.’
‘Then next time we come to Mele Island I shall bring an underwater mask for you. You’ll find a fairyland down there, I promise.’
‘I’d love that.’
A group of a dozen or so islanders had gathered on the beach to greet them, and they were most effusive in their welcome as Godfrey and Jane waded in from the shallows, Jane again ignoring the skirt which clung to her knees.
The men slapped Godfrey on the back and arms, the women giggled and took his hand and the children jumped about tugging at his clothes.
It was Rama who introduced Jane and, one by one, the islanders shook her hand. ‘Welkam, Missus Tackry, welkam,’ each one said, and two small boys started jumping up and down chanting ‘Missus Tackry, Missus Tackry’, showing off, obviously enjoying the sound. Meeting a friend of Goffry’s was a rare and special treat.
Then, as the entire company made its way along the track that led from the shore to the village, a little girl slipped her hand into Jane’s and, with a beaming smile, led her up the path. It was a declaration of ownership, and more than the other children could stand. Suddenly Jane was surrounded, each child claiming a part of her. Sharing her other hand between them, tugging her skirt, taking her arm and jabbering away excitedly, big brown eyes in happy, healthy little faces laughing up at her. Jane was enchanted by each and every one of them, but she maintained her hold on the little girl’s hand and they shared a secret smile.
The Mele Islanders were virtually an extended family and their village was very small, no more than a series of bamboo-framed huts with thatched roofs of sago palm, and walls of natangora, the painstakingly woven material made from coconut palm, pandanus tree or sugar cane leaves. They had made little use of the Europeans’ corrugated iron that was readily available and very popular amongst the locals in the larger villages of Efate.
As Godfrey and Jane arrived with their welcoming party, the villagers sitting on their natangora mats outside the open-framed entrances of their huts waved and called out. Godfrey waved a greeting in return, and those who’d accompanied him from the shore stood back at a respectful distance as he approached the largest of the huts.
A big man, with an alarming head of grey hair that stood out six inches from his head like an outrageous halo, appeared at the entrance. In his late sixties, he was old by islanders’ standards, but obviously in good health.
‘Goffry!’ he exclaimed, holding his huge arms wide, and once again there was much back-slapping as the men embraced and greeted each other in Melanesian. Then Godfrey beckoned Jane over.
‘Brata blong mi Moli,’ he said in Bislama after he’d introduced her to the big man.
‘Welkam, Missus Tackry.’ Moli shook her hand.
‘Tangkyu tumas, Moli,’ she replied, intrigued that Godfrey had called the man his brother and assuming it was intended as a show of respect.
Moli insisted that Godfrey show Jane around the village and she was initially a little self-conscious. She didn’t wish to be the centre of attention, and the men were obviously good friends, surely they wanted to talk together. She said so to Godfrey.
‘Moli is the village elder and he loves to show off,’ Godfrey replied. ‘He’d be terribly hurt if you didn’t want to explore his village.’
‘You called him your brother,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ There was a brief pause. ‘He’s not really.’
Jane smiled, presuming he was joking, but Godfrey’s look was strangely quizzical. ‘He’s my tawian.’
She shook her head. He was plainly testing her Bislama vocabulary, and it didn’t stretch that far.
‘My brother-in-law.’ Godfrey smiled as her jaw dropped in amazement. ‘Come on, Moli’s watching. We’re being very rude standing here talking English.’
For the next hour, Jane was given a fascinating insight into the lives of the villagers. She watched women weaving the intricate natangora, and men chiselling out the interior of a tree trunk that was to become a canoe. She was shown the proud catch that morning, a huge mahi mahi fish, bright yellow and over six feet long. They would feast on it tonight, over an open fire down by the shore, with baked taros and yams. She watched the women digging up the root vegetables and preparing them, and they invited her to stay for the feast, but she explained it was impossible. She had a pikinini, she said, and she had to go home. They were immediately interested. How old was her pikinini? they asked. A boy or a girl? Then one woman said that her pikinini was sick. In what way sick? Jane asked.
