Deadly Sky (ePub), The

by Hill, David

  ‘Alicia will tell.’ The girl had just appeared, carrying a tray on which two bowls steamed. She placed them carefully on the table. Some sort of yellow potato and fish. Beside them, she put another bowl of – yay! – pineapple.

  ‘We will show the history of Mangareva.’ Her voice was different from that of New Zealand girls: not just the accent; it was softer and lower. ‘How our islands began. The missionaries and what they do. Pearls and how they help us. The bombs and how they damage us.’

  Aw no, Darryl thought, not that again! His face must have shown what he was thinking, because the girl looked hard at him, then glanced away. Embarrassment and annoyance surged inside him.

  ‘Sounds wonderful,’ his mother went again. ‘Alicia, are you one of the people thinking of coming to high school in New Zealand?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I am wishing – I want to learn hotels – how to bring people to visit here. The tourisms not come, after the tests begin. My uncle and aunt miss – lose – money.’

  ‘How …’ Mrs Davis hesitated. ‘Your parents, do they work on Mangareva?’

  Alicia shook her head once more. She had a white blossom tucked into her hair, Darryl noticed. ‘My mother has died when I am little. My father—’ Now she paused. ‘The bomb killed him.’

  TEN

  What’s she on about? Darryl asked himself as he came back to their quiet, dark little lodge an hour later. The bomb couldn’t have killed her father! Nobody’s been killed by nuclear weapons since the two bombs dropped on Japan. Nuclear weapons had helped keep the world safe, by making countries afraid of going to war. They’d saved the lives of thousands of soldiers like Grandad Davis in World War II.

  No, it couldn’t have been the bomb. There was the boatload of Japanese fishermen who got sick when they accidentally sailed into radioactive fallout after a British test, but that was all. She’s making it up, Darryl decided.

  His mother was still in the dining room, talking to Lily and the girl. He’d left early, said he was tired. The truth was, he felt angry at all this bomb business, and the way Alicia had hardly looked at him. Who did she think she was?

  His mum returned after another twenty minutes. ‘You OK, Da? You left in a bit of a hurry.’

  Darryl had managed to light one of the oil lamps Lily had given them, and was thumbing through some French magazines left in their room.

  ‘What’d she mean?’ he demanded. ‘Her – Alicia – about the bomb killing her father? It couldn’t have!’

  His mum nodded. ‘Her mother gashed her foot on some coral when she was wading in the sea. She got blood poisoning. It happened when Alicia was just two. They only had one flight a week from Tahiti, then; they sent medicine on the next one, but she died.’

  ‘Yeah, but what about her father?’ Darryl asked after a moment.

  ‘Her father was a fisherman. When the French government started declaring the big exclusion zones around Mururoa and other islands, they had to sail in parts of the sea they didn’t know. His boat got caught in a storm, and he was drowned.’

  ‘So she blames a nuclear test for the storm?’

  ‘Don’t take it out on me, Da. I’m just telling you what I heard. Anyway, it’s the school tomorrow, then I’m talking to a church group on Thursday. Oh, and we’ve been invited to church the next day as well.’ She laughed at his expression. ‘I told you they were religious on the islands. Their cathedral is supposed to be amazing. It’s got an altar made of sea-shells.’

  ‘What else are we doing?’ Darryl wanted to know.

  His mother stretched and yawned. The oil lamp cast her shadow across the plain white wall. ‘Oh, excuse me,’ she said, as she yawned. ‘We’ll have time to explore, don’t worry. You can walk right around Mangareva in a morning. And Lily says we have to see the reef.’

  As he lay in bed later, listening to the sea murmur on the sand just outside, he could hear a couple of what he guessed were sheep make grunting noises nearby. He was still annoyed as he thought of Alicia. If all the rest of the Island girls were like her, then meeting one of them was more than enough!

  Darryl felt less grumpy in the morning. He’d slept like a rock, then woken to silence and bright clean sunlight slanting through the wooden blinds, followed by the sound of Napoleon’s Land Rover driving off.

  His mother must have heard him moving. She knocked, and poked her head through the door. ‘Morning, Sleeping Handsome. You’ll enjoy the shower. It’s a bucket of water with a big ladle to pour it over yourself.’

  Darryl sat up, yawning and scratching. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Mrs Davis’s hair was wet. ‘Fresh water is precious here. The island is too small to have a proper river.’

  The bucket-and-ladle shower wasn’t too bad, after the first cold shock, which made him say a non-French word. When he was dressed, he wandered outside to look at the sea.

  It was like stepping into a travel poster. Shining, shelly sand; greeny-blue water. Coconut palms and other tall trees stirred in a warm breeze. A wave no higher than his ankles crept in, folded onto the shore, crept out again. About fifty metres along, an old woman knelt at the sea’s edge. As Darryl watched, she seemed to toss something into the quiet water.

  A movement over by the building where they’d eaten last night. The girl – Alicia – sweeping leaves from the path with a brush made from twigs. She wore a red dress; her black hair hung down her back.

  ‘She’s pretty.’ Darryl jumped as his mother spoke beside him. Hell, she didn’t think he’d been watching the girl, did she? ‘Lily says her mother was part-French. I suppose that’s why she looks a bit different.’

  Darryl grunted, and pointed at the water. ‘Sea looks good, eh?’

  His mother laughed, for some reason.

  The girl had heard them. She stopped her sweeping. ‘Bonjour. Hello.’

  ‘Bonjour,’ his mother replied. Darryl mumbled ‘Hi’. The girl flicked the last leaves off the path, smiled at them, and vanished around the corner of the building.

  Mrs Davis watched her go. ‘Poor kid. Awful for her, losing her mother and her father.’

  ‘Mum? Do you think Dad will come back?’ The words were out of Darryl’s mouth before he knew he was going to say them.

  He hadn’t meant to say it. He stared at the glittering Pacific. His hands had clenched into fists; his face felt hot. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘It’s all right, son.’ His mother’s voice was quiet. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while we’ve been away. I know from your father’s letters that he’s the same. We both made mistakes; we realise that now.’ She smiled. ‘I guess that’s a start.’

  They stood, watching the sea. Out where the beach curved towards a rocky point, a sail glided into view. Two seabirds hung in the sky, wings spread, then slid away.

  ‘Do you feel angry about your dad going?’

  Darryl twitched at his mother’s words. ‘A bit,’ he muttered, and she nodded.

  ‘I did, too. Now I just miss him. I’m going to write to him again as soon as we get home. Let’s wait and see what happens then, OK?’

  Darryl nodded. ‘OK.’

  The old woman had gone. Alicia appeared again. ‘My auntie says the breakfast is ready. But please do not have to hurry.’

  ‘Breakfast?’ Mrs Davis put an arm around her son’s shoulders. ‘I hope Mangareva boys don’t eat as much as New Zealand boys. There’ll be no food left on the island.’

  And I hope Dad does come back, Darryl decided as they started towards the dining room.

  Alicia led them to the primary school. She wore the same white blouse, dark skirt and sandals she had the previous afternoon. Her hair was tied up again. A dirt path wound up through trees. At eight-thirty in the morning, insects were already shrilling, and Darryl could feel the heat on his back.

  A scurry among the trees made Darryl jump, and his mother exclaimed as two black pigs trotted across the path. ‘Many pigs are on Mangareva,’ Alicia told them.
‘They eat rubbish. We eat them.’ Must have been them I heard in the night, Darryl realised.

  Through a gap in the trees, they glimpsed the two white towers they’d seen the day before. ‘Saint-Michel,’ said Alicia. ‘Saint Michael’s Cathedral. Will you see it? It is very beautiful, all white and blue and gold inside.’ While she spoke mostly to Darryl’s mother, she seemed friendlier this morning. She’d given Darryl a little half-nod half-bow when he’d thanked her for breakfast, and he was still trying to decide whether he liked that or not.

  Everyone they met smiled at them. Two little girls rushed up to Alicia, squeaking ‘Licia! Licia!’, and hugging her. They stared at the two New Zealanders. ‘’Allo, welcome,’ one went. The other, with two glossy pigtails down her back, waved to Darryl, and he recognised the kid who’d been jumping up and down on the flight from Tahiti. They skipped off, giggling.

  ‘My cousins,’ Alicia said. ‘Lannya and her mother visit to her grandfather in Papeete. He is there for the work.’

  The school was small, all right, about three rooms. White walls, wooden shutters thrown wide open to let in the fresh air. Darryl glimpsed wooden floors, old-fashioned desks, and a teacher writing in yellow chalk on a blackboard.

  Alicia knocked on a door marked Directeur, and a small man in shorts, a white shirt and knee-length socks appeared. ‘Madame Day-vees? I am Bernard Kara, the directeur. You say “principal”, I think? Welcome, welcome. Our students, they have a greeting ready. Will you come?’

  Principal Kara led them to one of the classrooms, where about 300 kids – no, about eighty, Darryl saw after the first shock – from little five-year-olds up to about twelve-year-olds sat crowded together on the floor. Three women teachers beamed as the visitors came in. Excited cries and hand-waving from the smallest students. Darryl realised a big cheesy grin had spread across his face.

  He and his mother sat on chairs at the front. Two little girls came forward, holding flower leis like the ones they’d been given in Tahiti, and slipped them over the visitors’ heads. Darryl leaned forward, so the girl could reach up high enough, and she pressed two warm and slightly sticky kisses on his cheeks. Clapping from all the kids; smiling from all the teachers. Darryl didn’t know where to look.

  A song from the smallest kids. It made Darryl think of little ducks quacking. Little French ducks. As it ended, he saw that five more figures had entered the classroom, and were sitting against one side wall. Teenagers: Alicia; three other girls, also in white blouses and dark skirts; and a tall boy with curly hair, wearing dark shorts. Must be the kids from the trade school.

  ‘Now,’ the principal was saying, ‘Now Madame Dayvees will talk to us about la belle Nouvelle Zélande – beautiful New Zealand. And then Monsieur Day-vees, perhaps?’

  The five teenagers looked at Darryl. Alicia muttered something to one of the other girls. Yeah, Darryl decided, I’ll talk to them – if I can think of something really fast. I’ll show them. Especially her.

  ELEVEN

  Darryl’s mother stood and smiled at everyone. ‘Bonjour. Bonjour et merci. Mangareva est très belle.’ Murmurs, nods, smiles from kids and adults. Darryl gaped. Since when had his mother spoken French?

  ‘You know what a river is?’ Mrs Davis asked. Principal Kara spoke rapidly in French, and the pupils nodded. ‘You know what ice is?’ More French; more nods. ‘Well, in New Zealand, we have rivers of ice. They’re called “glaciers”. I will show you pictures.’

  From her bag, she took out a book: Beautiful New Zealand. Since when has she had that? Darryl wondered.

  His mother showed photos of the Franz Josef Glacier, the Southern Alps, Mount Egmont, Mount Ruapehu. Hey, Darryl realised, as she flicked past a different picture: now I know what I’ll talk about.

  The kids sat silent, big dark eyes fixed on the photos. The five teenagers against the wall were listening, too. When Darryl’s mum finished, with a picture of Ruapehu’s crater lake, steaming and surrounded by snow, one of the women teachers exclaimed ‘Oh là là!’, and Darryl had to stare at the ground so no one could see his grin.

  ‘Any questions?’ his mother asked. Hands shot up. The principal helped translate. ‘Do you have an ice river – a glacier – in your town? … Have you made a snowman?’ The tall boy put up his hand. ‘Noah?’ Principal Kara nodded. Then Noah asked in careful English, ‘How is it like to feel cold?’

  Lots of clapping when Mrs Davis sat down. The principal turned. ‘Monsieur Day-vees?’

  Darryl stood, swallowed. ‘Can I have the book, Mum?’

  He opened it at the page he’d noticed, and pointed at a round, brown object. ‘What’s this?’

  To his surprise, a woman teacher answered. ‘Keewee bird! I have been one time in Auckland – I saw in the zoo.’

  So he talked about how the kiwi lived only in New Zealand, how they couldn’t fly, how they used their long beaks to find worms and slugs, how their eggs were half as big as they were. The principal translated. Darryl’s mother smiled proudly at him. He glanced a couple of times at the five older kids. They were all listening. Good.

  ‘Any questions?’ he asked, just like his mum. Straight away, the little girl from the plane started chattering in French, pointing at him and patting her head. Other kids, including the teenage girls, collapsed into giggles. What—? wondered Darryl.

  Principal Kara was smiling, too. ‘Lannya asks if your hair is soft, and can she touch it? I tell her, not now please.’ More giggles, then clapping as Darryl sat down. He knew his face was red. He didn’t know if he’d been a big success or a big idiot.

  The smaller kids were sent outside to play. The trade school teenagers began setting up their presentation. The teachers, the principal and the two visitors walked across to a tiny staffroom, for small cups of bitter black coffee, and large plates of sweet golden pastries. ‘Mangareva has its own pâtisserie now,’ Principal Kara said.

  ‘It is good that people come to make new shops,’ one of the teachers went. ‘Some are closed. The owners go to Tahiti because bomb tests are too close to Mangareva.’ She smiled again at the Davises. ‘So we are happy you come!’

  ‘Thank you,’ went Darryl’s mother. ‘Tell me: the trade school pupils – which ones want to come to New Zealand?’

  ‘The boy – Noah,’ Principal Kara said. ‘He knows about plants. And he wishes to study fish, to help make work for people here. Sometimes he has to spend time helping with the fishing.’

  Mrs Davis nodded. ‘Any of the girls?’

  The principal looked at the women teachers, who were listening carefully. One of them said, ‘We want Alicia to go. She is clever. But—’ the woman spoke quickly in French to Principal Kara, then said, ‘Alicia is still sad for her father.’

  Principal Kara nodded. ‘And she wants to learn hotel working, to bring guests to her uncle’s lodge.’ He smiled. ‘Alicia is a strong talker. She should be a— a parliament?’

  Darryl’s mother nodded. ‘A politician.’ She hesitated. ‘I am sorry, but may I ask? How do your students feel about the nuclear tests?’

  Aw, Mum, sighed Darryl to himself, as he took a third – or maybe fourth – pastry. Give it a rest.

  But one of the women teachers was already speaking. ‘We want countries to know. We hear that after the bombs, fish and people who eat them are sick.’ She hesitated. ‘Our old people have dreams. They say the ocean dies.’

  Another teacher nodded. ‘Our men cannot fish where they have always gone. And some shops in Papeete do not buy our yams and pineapple. They say it may have poison.’

  Principal Kara looked irritated. ‘The French build a … shelter, you call it? – here on Mangareva. We can go inside if anything wrong happens. La France must have the nuclear weapons to protect its islands.’

  The women teachers gazed at the floor. The principal spoke more quietly. ‘In the World War II, Japanese might have invaded us if America had not used nuclear bombs. Now we must stand up against communist countries. The Soviet Union and the China. France govern
ment knows the tests are problem for us. They give us money. Our young people can travel. There is good sides in what they do.’

  Right, thought Darryl. Nice to hear someone talking common sense.

  ‘Alicia told us about her father,’ said Mrs Davis. ‘She—’

  An old-fashioned bell started clanging, out where the small kids were running and shrieking. Principal Kara glanced at his watch. ‘The presentation begins. We must not make Alicia wait!’

  Darryl hastily swallowed his fifth – or maybe sixth – pastry, and they headed back towards the classroom.

  The chairs had all been placed against the back wall. Noah sat on the floor at the front, legs crossed, hands resting on a tall drum. The four trade school girls stood in a row near him. One of them now wore black; two of them were in white. Alicia wore the red dress she’d had on earlier that morning. Her hair hung loose down her back, the way it had when she’d been sweeping the path before breakfast.

  The little kids trooped in, exclaiming and pointing. Shushing from their teachers, and they were soon seated on the ground in silent rows. Alicia waited until they were all still, then stepped forward.

  ‘Bienvenue, Monsieur le Directeur, Professeuses. Welcome, welcome to our visitors from la Nouvelle-Zélande, Madame Day-vees et – and – Dah-reel.’

  Dah-reel. Yeah, he liked that.

  The girl smiled at them both. ‘We tell you now the story of our home. Mangareva. The Floating Mountain.’

  The drum began throbbing, quietly, steadily. ‘Once our sea was full of volcanoes.’ Alicia’s voice was low but clear. ‘Mangareva, Hawaii, all the others: their tops pouring smoke and fire into the sky.’ She switched into French. As she spoke, the other girls started to dance, hands lifting above their heads, reaching upwards.

  ‘The great hero Maui made these volcanoes,’ Alicia went on. ‘With his fishing line, he caught fire from the Sun. He threw the fire onto our islands. It burned deep down into the earth and far up into the clouds.’ More French. The three figures in black or white swung long, invisible fishing-lines, stretching down, then up. The drum pulsed on.