I was allowing myself to be drawn in despite all my scruples. There was something seductive about planning this clandestine escape. And given Stuart’s wretched stalking, his demands and threats, my actions felt at the time thoroughly justified.
‘Would I need a passport on the boat?’ she asked.
Yes, I said. There was no way to compromise with the passport. They might not check as she embarked, but wherever she disembarked there would be a customs check.
She stood up and paced my little room. I couldn’t see why she was so fussed. Surely Stuart wouldn’t go to the trouble to check customs controls?
‘Yes he would,’ she said, with a grim smile. ‘Oh yes he would. He would try everything. He knows the law too.’
A rather sour note to bring into the conversation, considering all I was doing to keep her plans quiet.
Later, after she’d left the islands, I did help her to deposit money in a new account in New Zealand under a new name. I was right. The bank in question had no scruples at all. I believe Jeanie would have been required to give an address and telephone number – nothing more. She never told me where she settled. I arranged a bank draft for a considerable amount to the account in question. Ann Hope was the name. I made no connection at the time. But later I wondered if she had falsified her passport. Her name was Ann Jeanie Roper. Perhaps, on that boat trip back to New Zealand, she had painstakingly altered the two r’s in Roper. In those days it might have been possible. Customs checks coming off the banana boat were probably cursory, and of course, in the nineteen-sixties, passports were primitive things compared to these electronic days.
Up until the day she left, I felt I had done nothing really unprincipled. My actions could be construed as a quiet helping hand to a client in trouble.
I had no idea about any baby. But what could I do at that late stage? I felt thoroughly compromised and very angry with Jeanie.
Jeanie came running across the garden and up the steps, not five minutes after Simone had left to help at the clinic.
‘Hamish, I need your help. Please, please don’t say no. Please!’
The poor girl looked quite distraught, bags under those pretty dark eyes, her clothes a mess. She kept looking back at her house. Perhaps she was worried Stuart might appear.
‘Here, calm down,’ I said, laying down my precious newspaper. In those days I had the Guardian Weekly flown in – an airmail version on tissue paper which was a lifeline to the real world. That edition contained dreadful news, I seem to remember, about civilian conditions in Vietnam.
She danced and fussed while I found a stone to weight the pages. Obviously something was up.
Naturally, I offered to help. At first I thought the request could easily be granted. She was finally off. Had booked a passage on the Matua, which had been tied up at the new wharf since yesterday and was leaving shortly. Would I drive her and her luggage down? She was in a ferment; fearful that Stuart might find out and wanting to board at the last possible moment. I agreed feeling a little excited to be part of her escape. The plantation was sold, her Apia house settled with a renting agency, all her affairs in order. I felt I had acted reasonably honourably; had done all I could to help her escape the intolerable situation with Stuart. Was quite proud of myself, if I remember rightly.
Jeanie thanked me breathlessly, planted a kiss on my head and ran back to her house. She said she’d be ready in half an hour. I must say she’d been quite enterprising. I hadn’t helped with booking the passage, or with sorting her effects. I expected the furniture to travel with her on the boat; that she’d have arranged cartage already, but was wrong on that count. She left it behind.
Jeanie was ready on the drive when I backed the Datsun up. Three suitcases stood there ready, along with a backpack and a large basket covered with a muslin cloth. Jeanie herself was dressed rather extraordinarily – a big shapeless mumu with some sort of large overcoat over that. I had only ever seen her neat as a button. She must have been sweltering. I assumed these were clothes that wouldn’t fit in her suitcases.
We loaded the car, Jeanie hopping and fussing over everything, nervous as a flea despite her weight of clothes. The basket went in last. She settled it gently onto the back seat, wedging it tightly with the backpack; wouldn’t let me touch it. Food, Jeanie said, and some fragile things. I thought no more about it and we set off for the wharf. A short trip.
But just before we arrived, near the bottom of Leifiifi Street, the baby cried.
‘Stop, stop!’ cried Jeanie. ‘Stop please, Hamish!’
I looked at her in amazement. ‘I thought I heard a baby!’ I was making a joke, you see. Knew it couldn’t have been.
‘Hamish, Hamish,’ she cried, ‘don’t look. Just pull in over there.’ She pointed to a patch of shade, and then turned in her seat to fuss at the basket.
Well it was a baby. Jeanie was desperate for me not to know; didn’t want me implicated, perhaps, or feared that I would ruin her plans. But the baby had other ideas. It cried for a moment, despite Jeanie’s jiggling of the basket. Nothing would do but she must get out a bottle and settle the tiny thing down. Jeanie giving me pleading glances, and me huffing and puffing as well I might.
I told her I would have no part of this. That we must return to the house. That what she was planning amounted to kidnap for all I knew. That my reputation and standing in the legal profession would be severely compromised if I became party to her mad plan. Jeanie nodded grimly at all my protestations without a word. She continued to feed the mite, who settled after a bit. I saw love in her eyes. In that desperate, desperate situation, she looked at the little scrap of a baby with tenderness.
‘If you don’t help,’ she said quietly, ‘you may well be signing this baby’s death warrant.’ Then, in a whisper, she told me the whole shocking story. I was absolutely appalled. What a dreadful crisis that poor young woman had been dealing with, on her own, all these months. We had suspected a fight between Teo and Stuart – everyone had. But we had guessed it was over Jeanie. In retelling the story she had gone quite white with the fear and emotion of it. There was nothing serious between her and Teo, she insisted, just a bit of innocent flirting. But then Stuart involved in a rape! Of Teo’s fiancée! What a dreadful, spiteful deed! I could scarcely imagine the recriminations and shame if the story had got out. Stuart would have been lynched. This explained why he had not laid a complaint. I lost all sympathy for the wretch.
Jeanie pleaded with me to be silent. If anything came to light, she said, I could safely say that she had tricked me, and that I had no idea a baby was involved. She said the baby – a little girl – had been dumped at her door a week ago. Jeanie had been at her wits’ end keeping the whole thing quiet until the banana boat came in.
I told her she should report the whole matter to the police. It was my duty to say so, but the endless implications were as clear to me as to her. Clearer perhaps. The assault. The rape. The shame to Ma‘atoe and the aualuma; the hidden pregnancy; the crime of abandoning the baby. I was very, very angry with Teo for putting the burden on poor Jeanie. He should have reported Stuart immediately. But then I could also imagine his dilemma. I knew Ma‘atoe’s family. They were definitely of the old fa‘asamoa. Very strict and traditional. And she a taupou.
Jeanie told me that she would probably have the baby adopted in some other country. That she planned to pretend to give birth on the boat – hence the shapeless clothes. Goodness knows how she thought she could get away with that. A mad, desperate plan.
But with the baby asleep and covered and the ship about to sail, I thought she might get away with smuggling it aboard.
I closed my mind to the whole matter and drove her onto the wharf. I knew the officer on duty, Paul, and chatted to him while Jeanie took the backpack and basket to her cabin. Paul and I carried her cases up the gangplank. At the cabin door Jeanie gave me a quick kiss and touched my sleeve in that light-fingered way she had.
Her eyes were shining. Perhaps with tears, but I
sensed there was happiness too. Simone would have known.
‘Don’t let Stuart know,’ she said. ‘Not ever.’
I promised. She was so brave. I think I would have promised her anything at that moment. I should have felt a great weight of guilt, I suppose, but at the time I believe I felt rather proud. I longed to tell Simone – wouldn’t she have laughed and cheered!
I never knew what happened on the voyage. For all I knew the baby could have died. When the Matua next came back into port a fortnight later, I made a point of going down to the club, as the officers usually ended up there. Paul was very much in attendance, chatting up the girls in his usual overt way. He nodded to me, but we didn’t speak. I never heard any gossip about an illegitimate baby on board. Or a birth. The ruined shipment of bananas and the collapse of the banana export trade was all everyone was talking about. Lucky for Jeanie, perhaps. Or perhaps she had convinced the officers to stay mum with some invented story. Such a little slip of a thing. She could be very appealing.
The hardest thing was not telling Simone. She knew, of course, that Jeanie had gone. Knew it almost at once and suspected the Matua. She badgered me, naturally, suspecting that I knew more than I was letting on, but for once I think I was able to keep the truth from her. Clever Simone somehow managed to disguise Jeanie’s absence for a good four weeks. Then she put out various titbits of gossip, implying that Jeanie had taken off with a handsome man to New Caledonia. Or Tahiti. Or was it Papua New Guinea? Oh she enjoyed herself over all that! Invented a dark fellow with flashing eyes, in banking was it? Or some foreign business? Apia was abuzz.
Stuart heard the rumours of course. By that time he’d realised that Jeanie had closed his account at the Casino and left him a thousand tala from the sale of the plantation. He raged up to our house – I’d closed the office by then and we were in the process of packing ourselves.
‘One thousand tala!’ he shouted. ‘I should get far more than that! How much did the plantation sell for?’
I wouldn’t tell him.
‘I have a right to know,’ he said. ‘I’m her husband for God’s sake.’
The wretched fellow was still in denial. I could hardly look him in the eye knowing what I now knew. ‘My client,’ I told him, ‘has lived apart from you for the best part of a year. She will soon have grounds, if she is in New Zealand, to apply for a formal separation.’ Simone, who was in the room, ready at hand if needed, said I looked rather smug to give him this news.
He changed tack then. Sat down, uninvited and buried his head in his one good hand. His clothes were dirty and his breath smelled vile. Goodness knows where he was sleeping.
‘Please help me to find her,’ he said, his voice broken. ‘I’m sure I can patch it up with her.’ He looked up at the two of us, watching, I believe, to see our reaction. ‘I know I could have been a better husband.’
‘You beat her,’ said Simone flatly. ‘She has grounds for divorce, Stuart, let alone a separation.’
‘I just want another chance,’ he said, wheedling, displaying his stump. ‘Where did she go?’
Simone picked up a vase as if she would throw it. Then turned her back on him. ‘You’ve heard the rumours,’ she said. ‘Who knows what is true?’
Now she was the smug one. I stood up, taking courage from my doughty wife. ‘Jeanie Roper is my client. Or was. You mustn’t come here for information or consideration Stuart. Your former wife is hostile to you and I must respect her wishes.’
Legal terminology is wonderful sometimes.
There was the anger again, the tightened lips, the quick step towards me. And there was Simone, in the doorway, drawn to her full height, clutching some kind of kitchen weapon and fixing him with a severe Gallic eye. Stuart muttered something and left.
Simone, at her best, can be just as wonderful as the law.
It was Giles, of course, who broke my complacent little bubble. He came over to me in the club one night, rather drunk, his face shining with sweat, holding out a glass of whisky for me.
‘Here old chap, have one on me,’ he said, slumping into the chair next to me.
The offer of a drink from Giles was rare. He must have thought I had useful information, or perhaps he needed advice. I thanked him and we sipped for a while.
Sure enough he was after gossip. ‘I heard a little bird say you were seen helping a certain lady aboard the Matua last month. True?’
Good God, where did the man get his information? I swear Giles must have spies all around Samoa. More than once I have wondered whether his sloppy exterior was a cover for his being some kind of intelligence gatherer for the High Commission. But surely not in Samoa!
I fixed Giles with what I hoped was a humorous stare. ‘Giles, whatever are you doing snooping around listening to ridiculous gossip?’ I tried to laugh. ‘I’m a married man, Giles.’
He was in no way deterred. I wish, sometimes, that I could prevaricate more easily.
‘The little bird says it was Jeanie Roper and that she was decidedly pregnant. Did you help her run away, Hamish, from her legal husband?’
Giles’ bloodshot eyes looked alarmingly vindictive. I was shocked. I thought we were friends. I would have expected a little chuckle and an elbow in the ribs at worst. He sat there, sipping his whisky, eying me over the rim. Whatever could I say to defuse this dangerous, if inaccurate piece of gossip?
‘Giles,’ I said firmly, ‘whatever your nasty little bird saw is none of your business. If Jeanie Roper decided to escape from her brutal and insensitive husband, it is entirely her affair. And didn’t I hear that she was working for the clinic over on Savai‘i? For goodness sake Giles, you are overstepping the mark. Think what damage such gossip could do to Jeanie. And to me. Don’t you dare to pass on any whisper of that piece of poisonous gossip to anyone else. What’s happened to you, Giles?’ I could see my words alarmed Giles.
‘Look here,’ he blustered, ‘I mean no harm. It’s just that I heard …’
‘I’m not interested in what you heard.’
‘The thing is, Stuart owes me money. Rather a lot of money. I was helping him out until the plantation sold. If his wife has run off with the whole caboodle, where does that leave me?’
‘No doubt,’ I said coldly, ‘Stuart will receive some share of the sale. I suggest you ask him.’
I shouldn’t have said that last bit. Perhaps it gave Giles some hope of recompense if he moved quickly. The fool told Stuart his wife had left on the boat and that he believed she was pregnant. Two days later, Stuart had gone, to search, Giles told me, for his unborn child. Appalling. So Giles’s gossip backfired on him. Stuart never repaid him. I could only pray that Simone’s clever stories had provided Jeanie with enough time to disappear.
I didn’t see Jeanie again for over twenty years. Simone and I have kept our house in Apia. We return occasionally. Under the pretext of managing our own house, I have managed Jeanie’s too and seen that the rental proceeds have been deposited in Ann Hope’s account, but I have never heard from her, not a word.
Until these last few weeks.
I have written this record hoping it to be a clear statement of events as I saw them in the nineteen-sixties. If the matter comes to light, there may be need of such a document. I do not wish this account to be made available in any way, to any person, unless Jeanie Roper (also known as Ann Hope) requests it. I do not regret my actions. In my opinion, Stuart Roper has no claim whatsoever on the child raised by Jeanie Roper, nor to any further proceeds from properties owned by my former client Jeanie Roper.
Hamish Lander, Wellington 1990
PART SIX
Truth
Elena
The exhibition put on by the final year students at Francesca’s art school in Dunedin was to me a riotous affair. On the first day at least. Not perhaps Francesca’s contribution – her display was more restrained, but some of the other creations took your breath away. So audacious. So rude. I couldn’t keep a straight face as Francesca steered me around the v
arious displays, explaining the serious meaning behind what often seemed to me pretentious rubbish.
‘Don’t laugh,’ she protested, as my giggles broke out. ‘Michael’s right behind you.’ The artist – a weedy fellow with lank hair and torn, paint-spattered jeans was trying not to watch my reaction, to his – whatever it was. A shapeless mass of plaster of Paris, which looked for all the world like a heap of those bandages we wrapped around swollen limbs in Samoa during the filariasis campaign. I glanced at the boy to see whether he might be Samoan, and saw him blush through his acne. Poor sensitive lad. I changed my laughter to a nod of appreciation and moved on quickly.
Francesca watched my reactions anxiously. ‘Don’t you like them?’
‘Some are lovely,’ I said, and meant it. Some of the designs on fabric were full of colour and invention. Francesca’s Pacific series was striking, though perhaps a little restrained for my taste. She would benefit from a visit to the islands and I hoped, of course, to engineer this in the future.
‘My friend Tala will buy some of this for her shop,’ I assured her.
Francesca wriggled with pleasure. She was quite a naïve young woman, I thought, not too full of pretentious art school ideas and mannerisms. Her clothes, mind you, followed the ugly student trend of the day – black stockings with the feet cut out roughly, and various layers of rags and lace draped around. At least Francesca’s layers were bright and clean. All yellow and cream, she was, apart from the legs, and a long draped scarf of her own design – an orange and white pattern of leaves. Her hair, washed and combed for the occasion, fell loose down her back. I longed to hug this lanky, angular niece. But had to restrain myself on that front, for her mother’s sake. One day, one day …
Inheritance Page 19
