New Guinea Moon (12 page)

Aeroplanes swooping overhead, dropping cargo like bombs. Airstrips and schools and churches springing up like fungus, the outside world flooding in; guns and money and food in tins; metal tools, metal weapons, instead of stone axes, spears and digging sticks; skirts and shirts and soap and books; cars and pills and razor blades, cameras and radios and movies and World War II.

Julie thinks of Koki, and of Dulcie, and their serene, peaceful faces. She thinks of all they've seen in their lifetimes, their universes turned not just upside down, as Simon says, but inside out.

‘And what about your father, when he first arrived?' Julie says. ‘What did he think of it all?'

Simon doesn't answer; for a moment, Julie thinks he hasn't heard. At last he says, ‘Dad doesn't like talking about those pioneer days. He's talked about the war, a bit. But not the thirties, not first contact.'

‘Why? It must have been so exciting — amazing to discover all those people —'

‘He came to find gold,' says Simon. ‘To make money. Not to expand the sum of human knowledge.'

‘But still —'

‘It wasn't pretty, you know,' says Simon. ‘It was bloody dangerous. The locals thought they were being invaded. Well, they
were
being invaded. So they attacked. But there's not much a spear can do, or bows and arrows, against a rifle.'

Julie holds her breath. ‘You mean — do you think Patrick might have —? He wouldn't have
shot
anyone, would he?'

Simon changes gear, his eyes fixed on the road. ‘I found a box of stuff once. A journal, photographs, even some old films
. . .
They were under attack all the time, they had to defend themselves.'

‘Who's
they
?' says Julie. ‘Are you talking about the locals, or the explorers?'

Simon laughs, perplexed. ‘Both, I guess — but I meant the Europeans. Sometimes they had to shoot first and ask questions later. Once the warriors knew what guns could do, they'd back off. It actually meant
less
bloodshed. If they shot just one man early on, and that scared the others into not fighting, they were actually
saving
lives, in the long run.' He glances at Julie. ‘That makes sense, doesn't it?'

‘Yes. No. I don't know. You think your father did that? Killed people?'

‘I know he did. It's in his diaries.'

Julie stares out through the windscreen. A rainbow glows above the mountains; rain has polished the leaves and left behind glittering pools on the surface of the road. She tries to picture stiffly-moving old Patrick as a young man, raising a rifle to his shoulder, staring down a naked warrior who charges toward him, spear in hand, teeth bared. Does he shout a warning? The warrior doesn't, cannot, understand his peril. The rifle kicks; the warrior falls. There is blood on the ground; the women's mouths open in soundless screams. The picture is jerky, black and white, a scene from a silent film; it doesn't seem real.

They drive on in silence. Soon the buildings of the town appear on either side. They drive down the main street, past the post office with its forest of radio towers, and the two big trading stores — Carpenters and Burns Philp — the barefoot nationals wandering along the pavement. Julie can't help remembering Nadine's story about the woman who wore the sheet off the clothesline.

A couple of minutes later Simon pulls up the Jeep outside Tony's unit.

‘Thanks for everything,' says Julie. ‘For rescuing me, and lunch, and showing me Keriga, and everything. Thanks for taking me to meet your parents
. . .
Not that it was like a
date
,' she adds hastily. ‘I mean, I know it's not as if you were asking me to
marry
you or anything — not that that would be a bad thing — I mean —' Her face is burning. She wonders if it's possible to actually die from mortification. She tugs at the door-handle and almost falls out of the Jeep.

‘Just glad we got you home safely,' says Simon.

‘Well, thanks!' calls Julie brightly, waving like an idiot.

The Jeep drives away, and she covers her face. Her cheeks are so hot with embarrassment she almost scorches her hands.

11

‘On the nose with Barb, are we?' says Tony, after two nights of Julie's cooking.

Julie busies herself at the stove with the sausages. ‘I think I upset her.'

‘I heard about it.'

When Julie turns around, he is quietly smiling. ‘Don't worry about it, mate,' he says. ‘She'll come round.'

Julie pulls a face. ‘You think so? She seems like the type to hold a grudge, to me.'

Tony laughs. ‘You've got no problem with her son, though
. . .
You've made a friend for life there, by the looks of it.'

Julie brings the sausages to the table. ‘Mm.'

Ryan has been at the house all day. He arrived on the doorstep bright and early, and settled in for a day of smooching on the couch. Which is nice enough, she supposes, but she doesn't want to spend her whole time in New Guinea locked inside the house with the curtains drawn, with Ryan's tongue in her mouth and his hands up her shirt. She tries to persuade him to walk with her to the library that Robyn has told her about, but he won't come. He sprawls on the couch and complains about how boring it is in Mt Hagen and how he can't wait to get back to Brisbane. ‘Except for you,' he adds hastily. ‘You're not boring.'

‘Gee, thanks!' She lets him pull her down onto the couch, but after a few minutes she wriggles free and picks up Ryan's guitar. ‘Play us a song?' she coaxes.

‘What's the point?' he grumbles, but he takes the guitar and starts to strum, and soon he's absorbed in the music, his lank hair falling like a curtain across his face, and Julie, watching, thinks that perhaps she likes him best like this, when he's forgotten that she's there
. . .

Tony polishes off his sausages. ‘Not bad. Maybe we should ask Teddie and Spargo round one night.'

Julie looks up in alarm. ‘I don't mind cooking for you, but I'm not ready for a dinner party.'

Tony laughs. ‘Teddie won't be fit for a few days anyway. She's off sick. Hopefully it won't turn out to be dengue fever — Curry's a bit cranky, he's got no one to answer the phone for him now.'

The idea leaps from her mouth almost before it forms in her head. ‘I could do that! I could help out. I've done typing at school. And I'd love to come in and see what you do, and how it all works.'

Tony's eyes brighten, but he says, ‘You sure? Don't want to spoil your holiday
. . .
interfere with your social life, and all that
. . .
'

‘It wouldn't,' Julie assures him.

‘I'll have a word to Curry, then. It's not rocket science, just filing and that kind of thing. I reckon if Teddie can handle it, you should be able to do it standing on your head.'

Julie is surprised by the pride in his voice. She doesn't know where to look.

He says, rather wistfully, ‘You've got your mother's brains. She was always too clever for me.'

Julie can't imagine Caroline and Tony together. Her mind baulks at the thought of it. They must have been different, when they were young; that's as far as her imagination will stretch. She jumps up and turns on the tap to fill the sink from the water tank. ‘So, will you ring Curry now?'

Julie snaps awake in the morning when Tony's alarm shrills. She lies in bed, wondering if she's bitten off more than she can chew. Yes, she can answer a phone, and she's done three terms of typing at school. But what does she know about running an office, or an air charter business? Tony expects her to be clever; she imagines his disappointed face.
Never mind, mate, it doesn't matter . . .
She throws back the blanket. Her mouth is dry.

Tony has made her a coffee, strong and black, the way he likes it. Julie adds two spoonfuls of sugar, and a splash of UHT milk. She's almost used to the taste of it now, though she can't say she likes it. Nadine told her that when she's down south at school, she misses long-life milk. Julie wonders if, when she goes home, fresh milk will taste weird.

‘Ready to go?'

She nods, still half-asleep, and follows him out to the car. Gibbo is just stumbling from his front door. Julie waves, and he blinks at her, baffled, as if he thinks he might be dreaming.

The sky is murky with night, the dawn just touching it, a dab of pale paint lowered into a glass of painting water. Or no — it's as if each touch of the brush removes some ink from the glass, the water growing cleaner, clearer, with every moment. The sky turns grey, then white. Julie leans her head back against the seat as the car hums along the road to the airport. Because the mountains screen the horizon, the world is quite light, she can see around her easily, before the sun itself rolls above the ranges and floods the valley with gold. Mist boils off the mountains like smoke.

‘Best part of the day,' says Tony. ‘Shame to waste it lying in bed.'

The HAC terminal is bustling. Pilots come in and out, sipping bitter coffee, grimacing, joshing one another, filling out forms, intently studying coloured pieces of paper. Later Julie will learn about flight plans and cargo manifests and NOTAMs, but for now it is all mysterious. Gibbo appears. ‘Choose a job you love,' he says. ‘And you'll never have to work a day in your life.'

‘I know,' says Julie. ‘You told me that already.'

In the cargo shed, the bois are busy shifting sacks of rice and coffee beans, heaving them onto the all-important big scales, while someone adjusts the brass weights along the slide and sings out the results. Allan Crabtree barks orders, his chest pigeon-puffed. When he sees Julie, he points to a chair. ‘Sit there and stay out of the way. I'll get to you later.'

Of course, it will be Allan, not Tony, showing her what to do. She should have expected that. She hasn't thought this through.

But there is something intensely satisfying about being awake and part of all this busyness, while the rest of the world is asleep. The terminal hums like a machine. Before long, planes are being loaded. One by one, the pilots abandon their coffee mugs, drop their paperwork on the desk and stride out to start their engines. One by one, the planes roar into life, whirring like dragonflies with the early morning sun on their wings. In an orderly procession, they trundle onto the runway, then, at an invisible signal, they zoom along the tarmac, before lifting, as clumsy as beetles, as elegant as birds, into the soaring sky.

With a start, Julie realises that everyone has gone — everyone but her and Allan and the kago bois. Allan is barking at someone on the phone, and the bois are moving purposefully around in the shed, rearranging piles of boxes. The head boi, Joseph, pokes his head around the doorway to give her a friendly grin. Julie grins back, and feels better.

She collects up the coffee mugs and takes them out to the back kitchen to rinse and drain at the tiny sink, careful not to get in the workers' way. The whole building has a peculiar, particular smell — a mixture of condensed milk and cats, cleaning fluid and avgas — with the musty background New Guinea smell of sweat and smoke that she has almost stopped noticing. There is a box of kittens in one corner of the kitchen, to keep the mice down, she guesses, and the grubby table is littered with dog-eared playing cards,
Phantom
comics and well-thumbed copies of
Australasian Post
, with bosomy cover girls in skimpy bikini tops.

Allan marches in. ‘Come on then, Miss McGinty, let's get cracking.'

To Julie's relief, he is much more amiable when there's no one around to yell at. The work he gives her isn't difficult, mostly answering the phone and taking messages, and typing out letters with messy sheets of carbon inserted between the pages, staining her finger-tips purple. She tidies Teddie's desk and puts away some filing she'd pushed to one side. She feels competent and efficient and grown up.

All morning, the planes come and go. Some of the nearest airstrips are only ten minutes away. At lunchtime, Joseph produces a hot meal — roast meat, mashed potatoes, sweet corn, bread and butter — enough for everyone. The pilots stroll in, help themselves to coffee, and sprawl around the kitchen table with their ties unknotted. Julie is shy; she carries her lunch into the office and eats at her desk.

When it's safe to come out, she takes her plate back to the kitchen, and kneels by the kitten box. She lifts out one tiny scrap of fur and rubs it against her cheek.

Joseph comes in and squats beside her. He croons softly as his calloused, scarred finger gently reaches into the box and scratches a kitten's fur.

‘Dispela
, I take home,' he says.
‘Long pikinini
.'

‘You have children, Joseph? How many?'

He grins.
‘Faipela
.'

‘Five! Boys or girls?'

‘Tripela gel, tupela boi.
'