by Judy Nunn
‘I come, you come, we come, they come,’ she recited and he repeated the words.
It wasn’t long before he tired of the game, however, and as he drifted off to sleep, she and Savi moved to the table where the lesson started in earnest until, an hour and a half later, a shrill little voice sounded out from the open doorway.
‘Bos come!’ Pascal called, now wide awake, as he watched the black car drive away from the big house.
Jane was surprised by the boy’s retention. Perhaps he was simply imitating his father, she thought, but then she’d noticed that Savi did not speak English to his wife and son. It was no coincidence, she decided. The four-year-old had understood and retained the word in just one ten-minute lesson. She was very impressed.
Savi was neither surprised, nor impressed. Savi was alarmed. He’d suddenly remembered Missus Tack’s lunch.
‘Missus Tack no eat,’ he said. ‘Sera much angry.’
‘Sera very angry,’ she corrected.
‘Yes, Sera very angry. Eat, eat. Quick, quick,’ he said, thrusting the bowl and a wooden spoon at her.
Jane laughed – it was obvious that Sera ruled the roost in the home – and she dug into the cold stew with relish, discovering that she was famished.
She managed about half a dozen mouthfuls before the Peugeot pulled up beside the hut and the Frenchman got out.
‘Thank you, Savi,’ she said, hastily swallowing the final mouthful. ‘Tell Sera it was delicious.’
‘Dee-lish-us.’ Savi grinned, happy that she’d liked the food, but happier still that he’d learned another word.
Jane knelt to say goodbye to the children. The toddler tottered about, waving her brown, chubby arms in the air, and Pascal hugged Missus Tack as hard as he could.
When Savi accompanied her outside, Marat told him that Selena would shortly return to look after the children and that Savi was to get back to work as soon as she did. But the Bos said it in French and Savi recognised a warning in the way that he said it. Savi was not to practise his English in the Bos’s presence, he realised. He would not have done so in any event, since the Bos never encouraged him to speak English. Savi had been most surprised when the Bos himself had told him to report for his lesson; he had presumed that Missus Tack would teach him in secret.
‘Oui, Bos,’ he said, and he waved goodbye to Missus Tack as the Peugeot turned right and set off across the rough open ground towards the big house.
They were going in the wrong direction, Jane thought.
‘You’ll have some refreshment before the journey home, I trust?’
For some strange reason her mild sense of panic returned. Perhaps it was simply because she hadn’t been prepared for the invitation, which was a perfectly natural one, but she didn’t want to be alone with the Frenchman in his house.
‘It’s very kind of you, M’sieur, but if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to get back to my little boy. I’m not normally away from him for such a long period of time.’
She’d been away from the child for a whole day, Jean-François thought, and she’d been prepared to be away from him well into the night too, when she’d come out in the horse and buggy.
‘But you must be starving,’ he said, ‘I insist you take lunch.’
Thank goodness for Sera, Jane thought. ‘I have already taken lunch,’ she replied. ‘Sera had prepared a cold dish of fish and yams for me.’
Most annoying, he thought. He hadn’t taken Sera’s hospitality into consideration. Next time he would tell her that the Missus was to dine at the big house.
‘How extremely unpalatable,’ he said.
‘To the contrary, it was delicious.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ he acceded with good grace. ‘Sera is an excellent cook, although I prefer her French cuisine myself. Cold fish and yams,’ he remarked as he turned left into the main drive and made for the coast road, ‘I fear, Madame Thackeray, that you are becoming quite native.’
He said it jokingly, and she laughed in reply, once again cursing herself for her overreaction. ‘I do believe I am,’ she said. ‘My husband calls me “a true islander”.’
Jane wondered what the sophisticated Frenchman would think if he could see her squatting with the village women, her son in a carrying sack slung around her neck, as she had done so often on her trips with Martin. She relished the image, and missed Martin more than ever.
Up ahead, a group of villagers, women and children, were wandering along the track. On their heads, the women carried palm leaves tied in bundles and, recognising Jane as the vehicle passed them by, they smiled and waved, and the children yelled ‘Missus Tack! Missus Tack!’ at the tops of their voices.
‘Your newfound friends,’ Jean-François said, ‘you appear very popular, I’m impressed.’
She doubted the sincerity of his remark, but she smiled at him anyway. He was right, she thought as she waved through the open car window. The children of Efate were indeed her friends. Wherever she went, their exuberance and the uninhibited affection they displayed towards her filled Jane with a sense of love and purpose.
The drive back to Vila was most enjoyable. It was the first day in May and the weather was perfect. ‘Hot, but not too hot,’ as Jean-François said, ‘and a gentle breeze from the sea. Efate is beautiful this time of the year.’
The Pacific Ocean was glorious in its tranquillity, and as they passed sandy coves where coconut trees leaned over white beaches and waves rippled across coral reefs, Jane marvelled at the beauty, realising with a sense of surprise how little she thought of England these days. She missed her father and the Christmas reunions with her brothers, and most of all she missed Phoebe. But she didn’t miss England. Efate was her home, she thought. She belonged here.
‘You have a special feeling for this place,’ Jean-François said; he had been watching her.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘And for its people, I think.’
‘Very much so. I wish I could do more to help them.’
‘In what way?’
He appeared most interested, and Jane felt suddenly bold. She would tell him exactly what she thought, she decided.
‘I believe they should be remunerated for their labour,’ she said. ‘And I believe that their conditions should be improved and education made available to them.’ There. She’d made her statement. Plain and simple. She waited for him to disagree.
‘Remunerated?’ He seemed amused by the idea. ‘You mean they should be paid a weekly wage for their services?’
‘Well, not exactly, not necessarily weekly.’ Jane was disconcerted. His smile was not sardonic, rather it was indulgent, as if he were talking to a child. ‘But yes,’ she emphasised firmly, ‘they should be paid. They should be financially remunerated.’
‘And what would they do with the money?’ The question was rhetorical, he didn’t wait for her reply. ‘They have no need of money, they live by a barter system, money would confuse them. They principally value livestock and they are well rewarded for their labours with chickens, sometimes pigs, which they value most highly of all, and the village receives a bullock a month. They are more than happy with the arrangement, I assure you.’
Jane felt like an ignorant schoolgirl being taught a lesson as he progressed smoothly to the next point she’d raised, neither irritated nor insulted, his intention simply to inform her.
‘As to their conditions, they live as they wish. If I were to provide special dwellings or modern conveniences, I would be altering the very fabric of their existence. Who am I to interfere with their culture and their way of life?’
There was little she could refute in anything he’d said, and she was starting to feel rather naive.
‘The same principle applies to education,’ he continued. ‘Which is, after all,’ he reminded her, ‘the government’s responsibility, not mine.’
She sensed a gentle reprimand, and she had to acknowledge that he was right. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the responsibility of education does indeed rest with th
e Condominium, and I feel they are sadly lacking in their efforts. Both the French and the English.’
Jean-François decided to keep his personal views on the islanders’ education to himself. He firmly believed that the blacks should be kept in their ignorant state, except for those chosen few who could be relied upon to do the white man’s bidding.
‘Mind you,’ he pointed out, ‘education, too, can intrude upon their way of life. It can court confusion and disruption.’
‘But one cannot halt progress,’ Jane argued. ‘Their lives have already been intruded upon, they have been introduced to the white man’s ways.’
He nodded his acknowledgement, as if she’d scored a point. He was very much enjoying the conversation, it was always enjoyable to converse with an intelligent and desirable young woman, and the obvious fact that he was impressing Jane Thackeray was making the experience doubly pleasurable.
Jane couldn’t understand how he could acknowledge her comment without agreeing with her argument. ‘Then surely it follows that they should be offered the opportunity of improvement,’ she said emphatically. ‘That is, of course, if they wish it. They should at least have the choice. My husband and I are strongly of this opinion.’
At the mention of Martin Thackeray, Jean-François felt a surge of irritation. Of course the insipid Englishman would believe in educating the blacks. What would such a man know of the real world?
He stifled the retort that sprang to his lips and said very mildly instead, ‘Your husband is a man of the cloth, Madame Thackeray. Dedicated as he is to the spiritual wellbeing of these people, he is perhaps at times unaware of the more practical aspects of their daily lives.’
Jane looked sharply at the Frenchman, sensing a slur upon Martin’s masculinity in his words, but he was smiling respectfully. Nevertheless, she felt the need to retaliate.
‘My husband is also a doctor of medicine, M’sieur Marat,’ she said stiffly. ‘He is an eminently practical man.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He’d offended her, how stupid of him. ‘I meant no disrespect, I assure you. I deeply admire the doctor’s work, as does everyone on the island. My sincere apologies if I’ve caused any offence, it was certainly unintentional.’
‘The apology is mine, M’sieur.’ Jane regretted her sharp reply; the man had clearly meant no harm. ‘I was perhaps being a little overprotective of my husband.’
‘As every good wife should be,’ he said, ‘most admirable.’
They shared a smile and Jean-François thanked his lucky stars he’d got out of that one. No more cheap jibes cloaked in sincerity, he told himself. The woman was not a fool, and he couldn’t risk undermining her newfound trust in him.
He asked her about her little boy, and she said his name was Ronnie. He was fourteen months old now, she said. Very talkative, and starting to walk, which made him quite a handful.
‘The next time you visit us, you must bring Ronnie with you,’ he suggested, and the idea pleased Jane.
‘I would like that very much,’ she said. ‘He and little Marie Poilama are nearly the same age, it would do them good to play together.’
‘Excellent.’
He missed his own son, he said, deciding that it was the opportune moment to share a sense of parenthood.
Jane had heard that Marat’s wife had left him a few years previously and that she’d taken their son with her. Gossip was rife in Vila and it was common knowledge.
‘Simone never really adjusted to the tropics,’ he said. ‘Even after ten years she found the heat unbearable. It was perhaps wrong of me to have inflicted such a life upon her. But like you, Madame, I fell in love with the New Hebrides from the outset.’
And he’d fallen in love with its women, he thought. It had been his lust for black velvet that Simone had found unbearable, the stupid bitch. Not once in the ten years they’d been here had he cheated on her with a white woman. But she hadn’t been able to get it through her head that sleeping with the blacks was par for the course. Everyone did it, it didn’t count as infidelity. Good God, he’d had endless affairs in Paris during the previous five years of their marriage, not that she’d known of course, but she should have been thankful his newly discovered lust for black women kept him faithful.
‘Our son, Michel, was thirteen when she returned to Europe,’ Jean-François said, ‘and I agreed that the boy should go with her to complete his education. War had just broken out and it was too risky to return to Paris, so she now lives in Lucerne, and Michel attends boarding school. It was all for the best really, his education is of sole importance, and Swiss schools are amongst the finest, in my opinion.’
By now they were travelling beside Mele Bay and he looked wistfully out at the little island, so picturesque in the calm waters. ‘But I miss him very, very much.’
And he did, he thought, realising that his conversation had become more than a ploy. He was enjoying unburdening himself to Jane Thackeray, he hadn’t spoken to anyone like this in years. Certainly he’d been glad to see the back of Simone, she’d become tiresome in her discontent, but he had enjoyed having a son, particularly as the boy had grown older. He’d been a hero to Michel.
‘He didn’t want to leave,’ he said, ‘but what sort of education is there in Vila for a boy on the verge of manhood?’ There was a touch of irony in his smile as he added, ‘Even for the white population, Madame.’
Jane said nothing. There was nothing she could say, she thought, surprised by the intimate turn of the man’s conversation.
‘I wanted my son schooled in Europe. Just as I want him to return and claim the inheritance I have built for him.’
Jean-François wasn’t lying. The day before the boy had left, the two of them had ridden on horseback into the heart of the plantation at dawn. ‘This will be yours, Michel,’ he’d promised, ‘one day you will be the wealthiest man in the New Hebrides.’ He’d felt very proud that morning. Both of himself and his achievements and of the son he’d sired to inherit it all.
‘Barely a day passes when I do not think of my son,’ Jean-François said, ‘and wish that he was with me.’ Which wasn’t exactly true. He did think of Michel a great deal, but he certainly didn’t want the responsibility of parenting. It was far more convenient for the boy to remain in Switzerland until he reached maturity.
Jane was bewildered. Why had Marat chosen her as a confidant? It was as if he’d been longing to talk about his life and had finally found a person in whom he could place his trust. But why her? She’d nonetheless found herself feeling sympathetic to the Frenchman as she’d listened.
‘He’s growing into a fine young man,’ Jean-François said. ‘He is nearly seventeen now, next year he will be attending university in Zurich.’
‘You must be very proud of him.’
‘I am. Most proud indeed.’
They had reached Vila and, as they drove along the main street, he enquired when she might next wish to visit the Poilama family. He would naturally drive her there and back.
She accepted the offer; she had promised another English lesson, she said, which she hoped might include Sera.
The woman’s presumption was extraordinary, Jean-François thought. Did she intend to set up a school for his servants, and did she expect them to be at liberty to attend whenever they wished?
‘How considerate,’ he said. ‘I know that Sera will be most appreciative.’
They made an arrangement for two days later and he insisted that, as Ronnie would be with her, the two of them were to take luncheon with him at Chanson de Mer.
Jane laughed at the thought of Ronnie ‘taking luncheon’. ‘We’d be delighted,’ she said.
He helped her from the car and, a protective hand at her elbow, escorted her to the front door of the cottage.
‘I have very much enjoyed our conversation,’ he said.
‘I too, M’sieur.’
‘The day after tomorrow, at nine o’clock.’ He kissed her hand. ‘I look forward to your company. And of cour
se, to Ronnie’s.’ He smiled.
‘Thank you so much, M’sieur Marat.’
‘Perhaps, given the fact that we are to become regular travelling companions, we might dispense a little with the formality,’ he laughingly suggested. ‘Why don’t you call me Jean-François?’
He was still holding her hand and Jane suddenly recalled the night at Reid’s Hotel when she’d first met him. How she’d felt like some form of prey as he’d studied her. And Godfrey’s words that the man was not to be trusted. Did she have cause to fear him? But his smile was engaging, his laugh humorous, and the idea seemed ludicrously melodramatic.
‘Of course,’ she said. But she withdrew her hand.
He would have preferred her to have returned the compliment. She should have said, ‘and you must call me Jane’, but as she didn’t, he decided to expedite proceedings.
‘Au revoir, Jane.’
‘Au revoir.’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to say ‘Jean-François’. She didn’t know why, and she felt rather foolish, but somehow it didn’t seem right.
Jean-François smiled to himself as he left. He knew exactly why she was reluctant to embrace any form of familiarity. She was sexually attracted to him but couldn’t admit it, even to herself. She would find out soon enough. But he would take his time. He would become her friend first and foremost, until she herself became aware that she wanted far more from him. He’d have her begging, he thought.
During the drive out to Undine Bay, any possible misgivings Jane might have had two days previously were forgotten. Ronnie was wriggling uncontrollably on her knees, excited with a sense of adventure, and Jane found herself looking forward to the afternoon.
Following her English lesson with the Poilama family, Jean-François collected her and Ronnie from the hut.
‘It’s extremely generous of you, M’sieur Marat,’ she said, ‘to allow both Savi and Sera time free from their work.’
