The Beloved Read online

‘I want to know now.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you now.’

  ‘Stefi says you stick your bums together and babies come out.’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s wrong.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when you need to know it. Right now this conversation has gone far enough.’

  Far enough. Far enough! Not far enough. With auras telling me one thing and people telling me another I was sick of conversations that didn’t go far enough. Even Stefi did it. There was something weird about her father’s aura, it was different from any I’d seen before. Faint yellow-brown, almost colourless, not cloudy or clear or heavy or light but sticky, jelly-like and clingy. Yet whenever I asked Stefi about her father she clammed up.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about him stabbing the Christmas turkey. I kept seeing the carving knife and the turkey’s gaping chest and hearing the crack of its bones. And Stefi, looking like she’d seen . . . too much.

  I wanted to draw it.

  I didn’t want to draw it.

  But I did draw it. I sat at Dad’s desk and drew Mr Breuer holding a tiny human being in one hand, like King Kong held Fay Wray in the movie, while his other hand skewered her with a needle. It was a horrible picture, yet something told me I’d got Mr Breuer right.

  ‘Oh, my God.’

  I leaped. I hadn’t heard her come in. ‘You scared me, Mama.’

  She was staring at my picture with huge eyes. ‘You scare me, Roberta. It’s terrible. Get rid of it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’

  ‘Just do it. Now.’

  She tossed a pile of mail on the table and began opening letters. I crumpled the picture. I didn’t blame her for hating it.

  ‘Holy Mother of God!’

  ‘Mama . . . ?’

  She ripped the letter she’d been reading into pieces, shredding it faster and faster into tiny bits that floated to the floor. Her chest burst with sharp red needles.

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ she said. ‘I’ll kill the bastard. I’ll bloody well kill him!’

  She raced out to the jeep and roared off. It was nearly seven o’clock before she and Dad came home and she was still fuming. She slammed a carton of frozen vegetables on the sink. Tim and I swapped looks. Dinner would be late, and noisy. She put a trembling hand on her hip.

  ‘Timothy.’

  Timothy! She’d never called him Timothy in his life.

  ‘I’m very sorry to say that – thanks to your father – you won’t be going to Vic Grammar School this year. A letter came today from the bursar, cancelling your enrolment.’

  She turned to Dad. ‘August, I filled out those forms and gave them to you. In August I asked you to pay the deposit. He was supposed to start school in two weeks’ time!’ Her lips thinned. ‘You had no intention of paying it, did you? You never wanted him to go to boarding school. You did it deliberately.’

  ‘No, Lily May. I swear. It was an accident. The forms got buried in the stuff on my desk.’

  ‘Rubbish! It was sabotage. But you won’t stop him going. I’ll find him another school; I’ll do whatever it takes – whatever – to ensure my children have the best education.’

  That night she made up her bed on the verandah. It would snow in Moresby, she said, before she slept with Dad again.

  Three days later she and Tim had gone South.

  Dad and I did what we wanted. Steak for breakfast, ice cream for dinner, cereal by the fistful any old time and painting all the time. Dad kept up a steady supply of paper from the office and I took over the kitchen table with my paints. Dad didn’t care; we ate dinner at his desk.

  One afternoon I was rinsing my brush in the kitchen sink when the tap handle fell off. I couldn’t get it back on and water was gushing all over the place so I hurried down to the boi-haus to get Josie.

  There was silence when I knocked on the door, but I knew she was in there so I called out.

  Still nothing.

  I opened the door a crack and saw Josie and Matthew on a mat on the floor. They were naked. Matthew put a leg over Josie’s tummy. As he did, I saw a giant salami sticking up between his legs. I’d seen penises before, but only little ones – Tim’s and a couple of show-offs at school. Josie pressed the huge thing between her legs and it disappeared, then Matthew began to rock, forward and back, forward and back, grunting and heaving and getting faster and faster until he reared up and jerked like he was having a fit. He stayed still for a moment, back arched, then like a leaky balloon slid in a heap on top of Josie. She sighed and pulled him close. I shut the door and leaned against the wall.

  Humans do it like that, too.

  Make puppies?

  Babies, you dill.

  Making babies.

  I waited for a few moments then thumped on the wall. ‘Josie, you have to come. Tap’s broken and water’s leaking everywhere.’

  She came to the door looking like nothing had happened.

  ‘The tap in the kitchen,’ I said, ‘it’s broken.’

  Josie got Matthew to turn off the water at the mains and we went upstairs to deal with the mess.

  ‘Josie,’ I sat on the floor, mopping up water with a rag and squeezing it into a bucket. ‘Are you going to have a baby?’

  She wrung out her rag. ‘Why you asking, piccanin’?’

  ‘No reason.’

  She sat back on her haunches. ‘You been peekin’?’

  ‘No . . .’

  She waggled her finger. ‘You been peekin’.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to. I knocked but you didn’t hear.’

  She glared for a moment, then giggled. ‘Yeah, makin’ babies, but not makin’ babies. This time just for fun.’

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘Bertie, you phone Daddy. Tell him bring plumber.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Tasol, Bertie. Tok ’e stap.’

  No more talk. Just when it was getting interesting.

  Dad arrived home with a plumber and when the pipe was fixed, he put his arm around me. ‘Not much of a holiday for you, is it, old thing? Here it is, nearly time to start grade four and you’ve had nothing more exciting than a broken pipe. The day after tomorrow is your birthday – I haven’t forgotten. I’ll try to clear the decks and take you somewhere. Somewhere exciting.’

  The following day I went to Stefi’s. We spent most of the time trying to build a radio. She’d found a crystal set in the garage and reckoned she could make it work.

  I told her about seeing Josie and Matthew in the boi-haus.

  ‘You were right,’ I said. ‘They were doing what the dogs were doing, sort of. Making babies, only Josie said this time they were just having fun.’

  Stefi held up a thin piece of wire. ‘Look Bertie, a cat’s whisker, like an aerial.’

  ‘Did you hear me? Josie said it was fun.’

  ‘I don’t believe her.’

  ‘But that’s what she—’

  ‘Shut up, Bertie! Just shut up.’

  ‘I won’t shut up. I want to know!’ I slammed down a pot of glue. People and their secrets. I was sick of them.

  I left her to fiddle with the radio on her own and began to draw. Three mouths – Mama’s, Josie’s and Stefi’s – all of them stitched shut. Above each I drew a thought-cloud. In Mama’s I put an inlaid box and the flower ring, in Josie’s I put Matthew’s enormous penis and in Stefi’s . . . in Stefi’s, nothing. I didn’t know what to put, so I left it blank. Stefi looked at the picture and mumbled something.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. That’s why I left it blank.’

  When Dad arrived to pick me up, there was a pile of stuff on the floor of the jeep: a man’s leather jacket, leather helmet, gloves, goggles and a scarf.

  ‘A surprise in honour of your ninth birthday,’ he said. ‘We’re hitting the sack early tonight, CP. Tomorrow we start before dawn.’

  O-f
ive-thirty hours.

  I stood outside the hangar at Jackson’s Strip, bundled into a mountain of flying gear, watching an apricot line appear on the horizon. Dad came from the hangar with a stocky little man in overalls.

  ‘Brian,’ said Dad, introducing us. ‘He’s going to start her up.’

  Dad climbed onto the wing of the aeroplane, a tiny Tiger Moth, and Brian lifted me up after him. I clambered into the front cockpit and Dad buckled me into a harness.

  ‘See this?’ he said. ‘It’s a speaking-tube so we can talk to each other. Compris?’

  ‘Compris.’

  Dad settled in the rear cockpit. ‘Okay, Brian. Let’s get this crate off the ground. Stand by.’

  Brian grabbed a blade of the propeller and pulled it down. The Tiger Moth coughed and sent out a puff of smoke and Brian jumped back. He stuck up his thumb and clamped his hands over his ears as Dad guided the plane onto the runway. We sat for a moment, then began to move down the strip faster and faster until the ground suddenly dropped away and we were nosing into the sky. We climbed sharply, then evened out and circled back over the airport. At the far end of the runway an old B-17 bomber lay half out of the water in Bootless Bay, my favourite place name. Sun flashed off its skeleton, reminding me of turkey bones. It was noisy in the open cockpit but a low windshield protected me from the worst of the wind.

  A few minutes later the square red roof of our house appeared and a dark figure stared up from the clothesline. Fiery poincianas, lolly-pink frangipanis and golden allamandas dotted the Six Mile landscape, painting the rain-soaked earth with more colour than seventy-two Lakeland pencils. Dad turned the plane towards Boroko and the coast. Cars trickled down Three Mile Hill, lakatois drifted in the arms of Walter Bay and Koki Market buzzed. Toy-sized people bent beneath sacks of rice and bananas, wove between mats piled high with food, gathered in knots, broke apart and gathered again. Children splashed at the water’s edge, palm trees threw shadows onto the sand and beneath the turquoise water around Local Island, shadowy fish darted through coral shoals. Ahead, beneath bronze-tipped streaks of cloud, Moresby was waking up. A policeman directed traffic near Dad’s office, ships lolled in the inky waters of the harbour and cranes swung backwards and forwards unloading cargo. Figures wandered along Hanuabada’s rickety walkways to houses built on stilts in the sea. At the end of the harbour, Dad turned the Moth inland.

  ‘Okay, CP.’ His voice came thin through the speaking-tube. ‘You want to fly this plane?’

  Me?

  ‘See that stick? It’s called the joystick. It’s a rudder, or what you steer with. Put your hands around it – but gently – it’s very sensitive.’

  I reached out and closed my hands carefully around the stick.

  ‘When I tell you, let go straight away. Compris?’

  ‘Compris.’

  ‘Okay. Now, pull the stick towards you, just a little.’

  It didn’t take much pulling. The Moth nosed upwards.

  ‘Good girl! Now, ease it back again.’

  I pushed it away and the Moth levelled out.

  ‘Whoo-ee, CP! You’re a natural. Just hold it now, steady as she goes.’

  I was flying. All by myself I was flying the plane. I looked up at the sky, and down at the earth, its mossy hills, broccoli treetops and velvet harbour, its people – working, playing, dreaming. Picture after picture after picture. Painting was the only thing better than flying.

  We were home before nine o’clock, just in time for Mama’s phone call from Melbourne. She was sorry she couldn’t be with me for my birthday but was coming back soon and would bring something special. I told her we’d already done something special but I didn’t tell her what else we had planned. After breakfast I gave Dad my walking stick.

  No more props.

  Hands-free, at last.

  We went outside and he raised the stick into the air.

  ‘Bamahuta, stick,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’ And he brought it down hard over his knee. ‘Ffffu . . . bloody hell!’ He hobbled over to the retaining wall and slammed the stick into the concrete, but still it didn’t break. ‘A tough stick, CP, like you. Why don’t you hang on to it as a keepsake?’

  ‘I don’t want that sort of keepsake.’

  He went for his short-handled axe, chopped the stick into four pieces, dug a hole and buried them. That night he took me to dinner at the Boat Club and gave me a pearl bracelet.

  ‘This has been my best birthday ever,’ I said, remembering last year’s awful clothes and party. Dad clipped the bracelet around my wrist and the pearls glowed white against my skin. ‘It’s so pretty, Dad, but aren’t pearls bad luck?’

  ‘No, CP. Pearls are for wisdom, the greatest gift, apart from love.’

  ‘Even better than a good education?’

  He leaned close. ‘Even better than a good education.’

  Mama brought me back a camera. Not as good as seventy-two Lakeland colouring pencils but better than a frilly dress and a white boot. She’d found Tim a school in the country and he was happy because it kept a barnyard of animals and taught animal husbandry. Mama wasn’t mad with Dad any more but she still slept on the verandah.

  A few days after she got back I was sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework. Dad came home and slid a box in front of me. ‘Look what I got your mother.’

  Inside was an emerald ring with two diamonds. ‘I never did get her an engagement ring. We couldn’t afford it. Will it get me out of the doghouse, do you think?’

  If it didn’t, she was crazy. ‘It’s beautiful, Dad. Much nicer than the other one.’

  ‘What other one?’

  ‘You know, the little ring she keeps in that box.’

  ‘Oh. That.’

  ‘Where did it come from?

  ‘So, she hasn’t told you.’ Dad sounded tired. ‘She should have. Your mother was . . . there was another chap before me. An army bloke, a doctor. He was killed in the war.’

  Another . . . ? Mama with someone else before Dad? Before us? It didn’t seem possible. ‘Who?’

  ‘Ask your mother. It’s her story, not mine.’

  The screen door slammed. He closed the box.

  ‘Ask me what?’ Mama came in and dropped her camera on the table.

  Dad and I said nothing. I was still struggling with the idea of Mama with another man.

  ‘Ask me what?’

  ‘About your . . . army doctor,’ said Dad.

  ‘He’s dead. There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘Dead, but not buried.’ He gave Mama a tight look but she wasn’t looking at him, she was staring out the window.

  ‘Who was he, Mama?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing to do with you.’

  ‘It is to do with her,’ said Dad. ‘Tell her. Tell her the whole lot. She’s old enough. Your history is her history.’

  ‘You tell her.’ Mama went to the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Dad stared morosely through the fly-screen. Heat rose in ripples from the ground.

  ‘What was his name, Dad?’

  He didn’t answer, but put the box with the ring in his pocket. I went to him and slid my arms around his tummy. He kissed my head. Poor Dad. What was wrong with Mama? Wouldn’t she rather have him and his beautiful ring than a mysterious dead man? Another secret. Another piece of my mother I couldn’t touch. Or was it the same piece? Was it the doctor she dreamed about when she went off into her own world? What did he have that Dad didn’t? What if he hadn’t died . . . ?

  But he did die and Mama had married Dad. She loved him.

  Didn’t she?

  Mama put Dad’s beautiful ring next to her wedding band and went back to his bed. But there was something fragile in our house that needed stepping around. I didn’t want to think about it. I tried not to think about it. I just wanted things to be normal, like they used to be.

  Chapter Ten

  Mama stood at the stove, stirring something in a pot. In her free hand she held a letter. Her eyes, behind the new diamante gl
asses, gobbled up the words.

  ‘Ted Sinclair’s getting married again, Ed. We’re invited to the wedding at Ihu in May.’

  ‘Woop-woop,’ said Dad. He bought copra from Mr Sinclair’s plantation at Ihu, a tiny mission outpost on the southern coast.

  I began setting out plates for dinner.

  ‘I can do an article,’ Mama said, ‘and get photos. Will you come?’

  ‘No.’ Dad twiddled the dials on the radio. ‘I’m flat out. Konrad’s still needling me for a piece of the business and I have to stay ahead of him. Anyway, what about Bertie?’

  ‘She’ll come with me. The wedding’s in the holidays so there’s no conflict with school.’

  Dad looked at her sharply. ‘How are you planning to get there?’

  ‘The usual,’ said Mama. ‘Seaplane, boat, motorbike. You know.’

  ‘I do know, and “boat” is not the word to describe those bloody canoes. I don’t want CP to go. She’s too young for such a dangerous trip.’

  ‘She’s ten, for Pete’s sake. Besides, with the Breuers being away in Sydney over Christmas, she had a very quiet holiday.’ She turned to me and smiled. ‘So far, you haven’t done too badly in grade four. You deserve a little excitement. I assume you want to go?’

  ‘Yes, I do! I’ll be all right, Dad. Honest. I can look after myself.’

  Dad glared at Mama. ‘You’d better look after her.’

  Mama glared back. ‘As if I wouldn’t?’

  Friday. Puttering down the Vailala River in a canoe under a blanket of heat, just Mama, me and Yonna, our native boatman. Mama sat under an old cloth hat examining the jungle through her camera. I trailed my fingers in the soupy water.

  Mama leaned over and slapped my arm. ‘Get your hand out, Roberta. There are crocodiles in there and God knows what other slimy critters.’

  The river was dense and dirty brown. Gnats danced over its surface and mosquitoes trilled in our ears. Smells of rotting plant life and mud-ooze wafted across the water. The swell from our boat rippled into the shallows and left a tangle of lizards, snakes and eels on the mud bank. I watched them shine and slide and slither back into the water. Yonna’s head drooped. The canoe drifted towards the shore and nuzzled the mud. The motor conked out.