by Judy Nunn
‘The Masta will take out his anger upon you, Selena,’ she said.
‘He will not,’ her sister replied sulkily. ‘The Masta loves me.’ Selena wasn’t proud of Savi at all. She thought her brother-in-law was a fool for having disrupted their lives. Selena respected Missus Tack like everyone else, but Missus Tack was white. Savi was not brave at all, in Selena’s opinion, Savi was stupid for interfering in white people’s business.
Savi returned with his cousins, and they started loading everything they could into the cart. One of his cousins had suggested that Savi take the Bos’s dray with its two-horse team; he could return it later. Then they could all ride, the cousin said, instead of having to walk beside the donkey. It was a long trek and they would have to camp out overnight as it was.
But Savi would take nothing that was not his. Even if he were only to borrow the dray, he said, the Bos could accuse him of stealing. Besides, he was never coming back to this place.
When they were ready to go and Selena still refused to accompany them, he washed his hands of her. She could look after herself, he said. He refused to argue any longer; the Bos might arrive home at any minute.
But the Bos didn’t arrive home for three days.
Marat stayed at the apartment, his dizzy spells clearing, but his shoulder giving him incredible pain.
When he finally returned on the third day he found Selena waiting, eager to comfort him and tend to his wounds. Her presence was intolerable; the mere sight of her angered him.
He yelled at her to get out, and when she continued to plead that he let her stay, he gave her a backhander with the full force of his strength, sending her spinning across the room with a fractured jaw. In doing so, he reactivated the pain in his shoulder and bruised the knuckles of his left hand, which angered him all the more. He’d kill her, he roared, if she stayed one second longer, and Selena scuttled away, terrified.
She didn’t rejoin the family, however; she moved into the local village instead, where she nursed her jaw and planned her future. She would find another white masta who wanted a black mistress, she determined. Selena didn’t like to work.
Jane was sympathetic to Selena’s predicament and wished to help, but Sera herself told the Missus that any attempt would be useless. Her sister, she said sadly, had severed all ties with her family.
The Poilamas and Jane became closer than ever. A few days a week, in the mid-morning, Sera would drop Pascal and Marie at Mamma Tack’s on her way to work. Even though her family in the village could have cared for the children daily, Sera was keen that Pascal and baby Marie have the opportunity to more regularly hear and absorb English. Jane was pleased too, since it meant Ronnie now had close friendships with children his own age. It had been a solitary existence for a little boy surrounded by American servicemen, much as they spoiled him.
The children began to see themselves as siblings, and when Pascal re-christened Missus Tack ‘Mamma Jane’, the others took up the nickname, including Ronnie. The three were inseparable, and Pascal, several years older than the others, was fiercely protective of his little brother Ronnie and his sister Marie.
Busy as she was, Jane continued to find her work at the clinic fulfilling and deeply rewarding. Mamma Tack’s was now indispensable to the locals and, surrounded daily by the love and gratitude of her island friends, she felt a growing sense of peace in their easygoing company.
Wolf’s visits were less regular now that he was back at the Havannah Harbour base, but they were no less passionate. Each fortnightly leave he would book into Reid’s Hotel. He would come to Mamma Tack’s during the day and make the children laugh with his antics. Then, under the cover of darkness, he would come to Jane and they would spend the night together, their need for each other becoming more insatiable as the weeks turned into months.
‘What are you doing a fortnight from now?’ he asked one early December morning after they’d made love.
‘Seeing you, I would think.’
‘Yes, but where?’
Was it a puzzle? she thought. What was she supposed to answer? He seemed in a very cheeky mood, something was afoot.
‘I give up,’ she said. ‘Where?’
‘Espiritu Santo.’ He bounced up to hunch over his knees like an excited twelve-year-old. ‘Remember I told you I’d fly you there? Well, there’s a Christmas concert on. Artie Shaw’s big band. We can stay the Saturday night, and I’ll fly us back on Sunday.’
‘I hardly think so, Wolf.’
‘Mary can stay here at the cottage and look after Ronnie, it’s only for one night, and it’ll do you good to get away.’
‘Oh for goodness sake, don’t be ridiculous. How could I stay overnight with you?’
‘You wouldn’t be staying with me, you’d be staying in the nurses’ quarters.’ He winked. ‘I’ve got it all set up. “The famous Mamma Tack from Vila visits the nurses on Santo”,’ he gestured headlines in the air. ‘Great public relations exercise. They want to do a story on it for the army bulletin, you know, boosting morale and all that. I’ve run it by them, and they can’t wait to meet you.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘I’ve run it by them. The CO on Santo thinks it’s a great idea.’ He beamed with an enthusiasm that was overwhelmingly infectious. ‘And I’ve volunteered to be your pilot. What do you say, Jane? You and me and Artie Shaw’s big band!’
How could she possibly say no?
‘Begin the Beguine’ blared out across the open amphitheatre with all the magic that only an eighteen-piece American swing band could deliver. The concert itself was over and it was dance time now. Women were in a minority and the nurses were danced off their feet, Jane included, as hundreds of servicemen vied for their favours. In the balmy evening, beneath a tropical night sky, coconut palms swaying in the breeze, it was an exhausting, exhilarating and thoroughly heady experience.
Jane had been officially welcomed by the CO in the afternoon and interviewed by a journalist who’d made shorthand notes in a pad at lightning speed, after which she’d been given a guided tour of the base. She’d told Wolf she felt like a celebrity. ‘And a terrible phony,’ she’d added.
‘Rubbish,’ he’d said, ‘Mamma Tack is a celebrity, and she deserves to be. You’re as famous on Santo as you are on Efate – all the guys come back here with stories about you.’
He had accompanied her to the nurses’ quarters where she had been warmly welcomed, but where Wolf himself was the star. He flirted effortlessly and outrageously with the nurses, who loved every minute of it, even the stern-faced, middle-aged major putty in his hands. Jane was reminded of her own first impression, that day a lifetime ago when they’d met. Wolf Baker was quite simply charismatic, she’d thought, and she’d been right. She watched him, at ease with the attention and revelling in it. Wolf was the one born for celebrity, she thought fondly.
And now it was the last number for the evening, ‘Moonglow’, and Wolf had finally managed to claim a dance with her. She’d been jitterbugged into a state of fatigue and it was a relief to sway gently to the melody, one of her favourites.
‘Thank you, Wolf,’ she said. ‘I don’t know when I’ve had a more exciting time.’ She laughed at herself. ‘Well, I never have. I haven’t had such an exciting time in my whole life.’ It was true. The afternoon’s flight to Espiritu Santo had been even more thrilling than her first experience, then the personal guided tour of the military base, and now tonight, to top it all off, the incredible excitement of Artie Shaw’s big band!
Wolf wanted to tell her that he’d make the rest of her life just as exciting if she’d agree to spend it with him. Now was not the time, he realised, but he was starting to live in hope. He suspected that he was beginning to mean more to Jane Thackeray than a distraction from her loneliness.
‘It will soon be Christmas.’
It seemed a rather obvious statement, Jane thought as she sat drinking tea with the Reverend Smeed in her lounge room a week before Christmas Eve.
‘Ye
s,’ she agreed, wondering where he was leading. Something to do with the church’s Christmas pageant, she presumed; she and Hilary had already agreed to help with the decorations.
‘And you still intend to stay in Vila?’
Of course, she realised wearily, the same old subject.
‘Yes I do, Reverend Smeed.’
‘Ah.’
Both the military and the New Hebrides Mission had been concerned about Jane’s plans. She had been assured by each that her return to England would be taken care of, together with any relocation expenses she might incur. It had been a surprise to all when she had declared her intention to remain in Vila.
Arthur Smeed had made the offer, somewhat awkwardly, Jane had thought, that she was welcome to stay in the cottage until the new minister was appointed.
‘Thank you, Reverend Smeed,’ she had said; she had expected such an offer. And Arthur Smeed had left somewhat daunted. The independence Jane Thackeray displayed was unseemly in a young widow, he thought.
Now he was back. And the conversation seemed to be progressing along the same lines, except that he appeared more awkward than ever.
‘It’s about the new appointment …’ he said.
‘Yes?’ It was just over three months since Marty’s death and she had been expecting the news at any moment. She had made enquiries in town about renting a small apartment, and then Godfrey had made his outrageous offer.
‘You will move in with me,’ he had announced.
She’d laughed initially. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Godfrey,’ she’d said, ‘I’d be the talk of Vila. What on earth would people say?’
‘My dear, I am seventy-three years of age, old enough to be your grandfather. This is a large house, you would have your own quarters, and I would expect Mary to move in with you as your personal maid. Let Vila say what it will.’
It was an offer she could hardly refuse, and Mary had been thrilled at the prospect, although Jane had sworn her to secrecy for the moment.
‘Well, there have been delays,’ the Reverend Smeed continued, ‘due to the war, you understand.’
‘Yes of course.’
‘But I’m led to believe that the appointment will be confirmed some time in the new year. Possibly late January, so given the travel time …’ He tried to put it delicately. ‘… I’d say we’d be looking to vacate the cottage around the end of February. Would that be convenient?’
Jane was surprised. She had far more time up her sleeve than she’d anticipated.
‘That would be perfectly convenient, Reverend Smeed,’ she said. She didn’t dare tell him of her arrangement with Godfrey, aware that he would find it scandalous, that she was already far too non-conformist for his liking.
It seemed laughable now as she recalled how intimidating she’d found the Reverend Smeed upon her arrival in the colony, with his litany of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’. She felt sorry for him now. He simply didn’t know what to do with her, she realised. She was no longer the wife of his minister, she refused to go home to the mother country, she didn’t conform to his ideas of widowhood. The Reverend Smeed found her confusing.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ she said as she farewelled him at the door, and the poor man left more confused than ever.
‘I’m having a New Year’s Eve dinner party,’ Godfrey announced to Jane as he fought, with little success, to rescue his beard from Ronnie who was sitting on his knee, ‘and you’re the first person on my invitation list.’
‘I’m flattered.’
Wolf had invited her to the military’s big open-air ‘bash’, as he called it, but she’d refused. He’d assumed she was uncomfortable about their being seen publicly together, and accused her of being oversensitive.
‘Jane, there’ll be a thousand people! And you’ve worked for the military yourself, you’re personally invited, everyone is!’
When she’d remained steadfast in her refusal, he’d insisted that they spend New Year’s Eve alone together. ‘Who the hell needs a party anyway? Just the two of us. What do you say?’ Wolf had thrown caution to the wind lately. He hadn’t actually told her that he loved her, but he was wearing his heart on his sleeve a lot these days.
‘Please, Wolf, go to the party with your friends,’ she’d urged. New Year’s Eve wasn’t particularly important to her, she told him, it was just a night like any other, in her view.
It was true, she thought, remembering how she and Marty had usually been in bed fast asleep by midnight, then how, in the morning, he would say, ‘a happy New Year to us both, my love’. But she didn’t tell Wolf that. She didn’t tell him that she didn’t want to think about the New Year at all.
Jane had accepted Marty’s death and the knowledge that she must go on without him, but she feared for her future and Ronnie’s also. Despite the fulfilment of her work at Mamma Tack’s and the love of her friends, she felt somehow displaced, as if she were in suspended animation. The strength and resilience she’d experienced after the incident with Marat seemed to have deserted her as she contemplated her future. Without a place to truly call her own, she felt neither English nor islander, and 1943 loomed dauntingly ahead.
Now, however, she decided that she could not possibly refuse Godfrey’s invitation. The old man was lonely, she was sure, and she’d seen little of him over the past weeks.
‘Who else are you planning on inviting?’ she asked, trying to sound enthusiastic.
‘I thought I’d leave that entirely up to you.’ Godfrey was aware that she was accepting his invitation under sufferance, that she thought he was lonely. But he was happy to blackmail her with his perceived loneliness, having decided it was his mission to rescue her from her own. He suspected that 1943 was not a year Jane Thackeray was eager to embrace and he was determined to distract her from the worry in any way possible.
‘The Bales and who else?’ he asked. ‘The Reverend Smeed?’
‘I think not,’ she smiled, aware that he’d made the offer tongue in cheek.
‘Wolf Baker?’
There was no inference in the old man’s tone, and why should there have been, Jane thought, as she quelled a guilty start. Godfrey knew that Wolf had remained a close and supportive friend following Marty’s death.
‘I believe Wolf’s going to the big military bash,’ she said, ‘but I’ll ask him if you like.’ She knew he’d say yes.
‘Please do. And who else? Who would you most like to see the New Year in with?’ Godfrey was feeling quite excited now, he hadn’t had a dinner party for a long time, and since the arrival of Jane in the colony he had discovered a love of dinner parties. ‘I want to make it special.’
Jane suddenly realised that she had been inveigled into Godfrey’s dinner party because he felt sorry for her, and she was about to tell him that she didn’t want to see the New Year in at all. Then a thought occurred to her, and she answered honestly.
‘I would most like to see the New Year in with the Poilama family,’ she said.
Godfrey had met Savi and Sera and their children several times through Jane but, although he knew of their close friendship, it had not occurred to him that she would suggest the Poilama family. Good heavens above, he chastised himself, in his assumption that she would choose from her white circle of friends he’d behaved just like one of the us-and-thems. Godfrey had always referred, most derisively, to the white colonials who considered themselves superior to the islanders as the ‘us-and-thems’.
‘What a splendid idea,’ he said. ‘A family affair. The New Year should be welcomed in with children; they are the future after all.’
‘The children will be well and truly asleep by midnight, Godfrey.’ She smiled and lifted Ronnie off his lap, rescuing the old man from the child’s murderous attack.
‘Ah yes, of course.’ Godfrey stroked his beard back into position. ‘But they’ll be there nonetheless. The symbolism will not be lost. We can toast the children as we toast the future.’
Jane laughed. Godfrey’s dinner parties
were an endless round of toasts, any excuse to top up guests’ glasses with his finest reds. Which reminded her, she thought as she put Ronnie down on the floor, she must bring along plenty of soft drinks, not only for the children but for Savi and Sera, neither of whom drank alcohol. It would never occur to Godfrey to lay in soft drinks for a dinner party.
‘You must invite Mary of course,’ Godfrey said.
‘She’ll be delighted.’ Jane found herself rather looking forward to the party.
‘And the meal will be strictly island cuisine. Leila will love the opportunity to show off.’
‘She’ll have some competition with Sera, I’m afraid,’ Jane said. ‘Sera will insist upon bringing food and she’s a superb cook.’
‘Better and better,’ Godfrey was inspired now. ‘We’ll make it just that. A competition, points allotted each dish!’ He did so love a dinner party with a theme. And an island theme at that.
‘Perhaps, on second thoughts,’ he said, ‘we won’t invite the Bales.’ The Bales were a nice enough couple, but underneath they were us-and-thems like the rest; Godfrey had found very few whites who weren’t.
‘That’s probably a good idea,’ Jane agreed.
Savi had learned to play the guitar. The only problem was stopping him, Sera said. But no-one minded as they sat on Godfrey’s balcony raucously singing along, the children stamping the floorboards and clapping their hands to the rhythm.
The guitar had been a gift from the Americans, and Savi had practised with his new friends endlessly. The songs were hits of the day, and as Savi played, Wolf led the singalong. Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin: Savi knew all of the melodies and Wolf knew all of the lyrics. He yelled out each line in advance, the others grabbing at the words and bawling them at the tops of their voices. It was not a melodious sound, Godfrey thought, but who cared?
