New Guinea Moon (5 page)

‘Turn that down!' barks Allan. ‘A man can't hear himself think with that bloody racket.'

Ryan flops into a chair.

‘Why don't you kids have a dance?' says Barbara. ‘Go on, Ryan, ask Julie for a dance.'

‘Oh, no, I don't —' says Julie.

‘God, Mum!' protests Ryan at the same moment.

They look at each other. Julie isn't sure whether to be grateful or offended that he seems as reluctant to dance with her as she is to dance with him.

‘I'll dance,' says Nadine. She scrambles up and throws herself into an energetic shimmy.

‘Show-off,' mutters Ryan.

‘She does jazz ballet,' says Barbara. ‘Do you do jazz ballet, Julie?'

‘No. No, I don't. My mother —' She stops herself. She can't say,
my mother thinks jazz ballet is stupid.

Barbara says sympathetically, ‘Your mother will miss you while you're away.'

‘I doubt it,' says Julie. ‘When I rang her this afternoon she was all excited about going to Sydney to visit her friend.'

‘Oh, well, she'll need to keep herself busy,' says Barbara vaguely.

That's
never a problem, thinks Julie, but she doesn't say it aloud.

Carefully Tony sets his whisky on the table, then heaves himself out of his chair. ‘Dance with an old man —?' He glances sideways at Julie, then loses his nerve. ‘— Barbara?'

‘Why not?' She closes her magazine and stands up, smoothing her dress over her thighs, and she and Tony step out into the middle of the floor.

Ryan covers his eyes with his hand. ‘It's kinder not to watch,' he mutters, and Julie can't help a giggle. In fact, she thinks, Barbara and Tony don't dance too badly, for old people. She vaguely remembers her mother saying something about Tony being a good dancer. Back in the days when Caroline believed in dancing
. . .

Allan sits with his hands resting on the arms of his chair, like a medieval king on his throne, surveying his court. ‘Mac!' he commands. ‘Ask your daughter to dance with you, for Christ's sake. And get your hands off my wife!'

‘What do you care?' says Barbara tartly. ‘I could grow old and die waiting for
you
to ask me.' But she pats her hair and sits down.

Slowly Julie climbs to her feet. Tony is waiting, his arms hanging by his sides. She walks across the polished floor, feeling them all watching, certain that they're all exchanging secret smiles. Her face feels hot. Tony pulls a small private grimace, to show her he feels awkward too. Julie holds out her hands and Tony takes them, and they shuffle on the spot together. Julie fixes her eyes on the Christmas tree behind Tony's shoulder; Tony looks at the floor.

Then a new song comes on: ‘Sweet Caroline'.

Instantly Tony and Julie drop their hands. Their eyes meet and they both begin to laugh. Tony shakes his head. ‘Nah, mate, no — not that one.'

‘What's so funny?' demands Nadine.

‘Julie's mother is called Caroline,' says Barbara.

Julie says, ‘She's not exactly sweet, though.'

‘I feel inclined . . .
' hums Ryan. He's watching Julie.

‘Take the poor kid home, Mac,' Allan barks. ‘She's dead tired. Look at her; she can hardly stand up.'

‘I thought we'd take you to see the market tomorrow,' says Barbara briskly. ‘We'll pick you up at nine.'

Exhausted as she is, Julie finds it hard to fall asleep. Her brain whirls with the people she's met and the things she's seen since this long day began. It seems years ago since she last went to bed, far away in a Brisbane hotel. Julie smiles to think how excited she'd been about staying in that hotel alone; it seems like another planet.

Frogs throb outside the window, pumping their calls out into the night. Julie gazes out into the darkness. A half-moon, like a tiny tin boat, sails in the sky high above. She lies down and closes her eyes. The frogs' song drums in time with her own heartbeat, steady, unhurried, a soothing beat
. . .

Suddenly she is jolted from sleep. The moon has slipped down the sky, and a deep rumbling, like thunder, has replaced the frogs' chorus. Her bed is rocking gently to and fro. The window louvres chatter above her head. She puts her hand to the flimsy wall and it shivers beneath her palm. She must have let out a startled noise, because there are footsteps outside her door, and Tony's gruff voice calls out, ‘It's all right, nothing to worry about. It's just a
guria
, an earth tremor. Happens all the time.'

‘Okay — I'm okay,' she calls.

She lies down again as the tremor subsides, and feels her bed shaking, trembling, then gradually falling still. The distant grumbles fade away. On top of everything else, now an earthquake! She'll have to tell Caroline about that when she writes her first letter; though her mother won't believe it. Julie is still smiling into the darkness when sleep mows her down.

5

When she wakes, it takes her a second or two to remember where she is. Then anticipation fizzes through her and she shoots out of bed. She can hear Tony moving about in the bathroom; it was his alarm that woke her. It's barely light; a glance out of the window shows her a misty, chilly morning. She shivers into her clothes and out into the kitchen.

‘You don't need to get up, Julie. Have a lie-in. I'll be off to work in a minute.'

‘That's okay. I'm awake now.'

‘Coffee?'

‘Yes, please.' She opens the fridge. ‘Is this long-life milk all there is?'

‘That's it. Just UHT,' says Tony apologetically. ‘There's no fresh — no dairy in Hagen. Not enough
bulmakaus
. Cows,' he adds.

‘Yeah, I guessed.' She adds a splash of the milk to the mug that Tony offers her and takes a cautious sip.

‘You get used to the taste,' says Tony.

‘Really?' says Julie.

Tony grins. There's a tap at the door and he unlocks it. A tall thin man with sunken cheeks and a drooping moustache inserts one long leg through the doorway, like a stork. Julie recognises him as one of the pilots she saw at HAC yesterday.

‘Gibbo lives in the unit next door,' says Tony. ‘You'll probably hear him snoring through the wall. You after a lift, mate?'

‘Thanks, mate.' Gibbo peers at Julie. ‘Everything has beauty,' he says. ‘But not everyone sees it.'

‘What?' says Julie.

‘Confucius,' says Gibbo.

Tony rolls his eyes. ‘Gibbo thinks he's a philosopher. Just ignore him. Well, I guess I'll see you later.'

‘Bye,' says Julie.

There is an awkward moment while they both decide that they don't know each other well enough yet to kiss goodbye. Julie lifts her hand, and Tony nods. ‘Spare key is on the bench,' he says. ‘Don't forget to lock up when you go.'

‘Okay. See you. Nice to meet you, Gibbo.'

Gibbo's voice floats in from the front steps. ‘He who chooses a job he loves will never work a day in his life
. . .
'

‘You're full of it, mate, you know that, don't you?' says Tony, closing the door behind them.

Julie toasts some bread under the griller, washes up the few dishes, straightens her bed and tidies up the unit. She wonders why Tony doesn't seem to have a meri, if Nadine says that ‘everyone does'. Then she makes another cup of instant coffee, and carries her mug outside into the fresh clean air of the garden. The mist has cleared and the sky is pale, scattered with puffy clouds. The grass is soft underfoot. The glossy leaves of the bushes gleam in the weak sunshine. The two units share the backyard; Julie wanders across into Gibbo's half of the garden, where she can see a well-tended vegetable plot. What is he growing? Carrots? The lush leaves look familiar, but she can't quite recognise them
. . .
All at once she realises they're marijuana plants.

‘Good morning!'

Julie starts back guiltily. A middle-aged woman is waving and smiling at her across the fence on the other side of the garden.

‘You must be Tony's little girl!'

‘Yes, I'm Julie.'

‘Hi there! I'm Robyn.' Robyn has an American accent.

As Julie walks over to the fence she can see that Robyn wears a gold cross on a slim chain, and her hair is cut short in the unflattering style that she always associates, perhaps unfairly, with Christians.

‘So we're neighbours now!' Robyn sings out cheerfully. ‘Would you like to come visit a while? I have cookies.'

‘Um
. . .
' says Julie. Caroline has brought her up to be suspicious of any organised religion. But it's only a biscuit; a biscuit can't do any harm, if she's on her guard. Hesitantly she says, ‘Okay
. . .
' But then she remembers. ‘I don't think I've got time, actually, someone's picking me up at nine o'clock.'

Even as she speaks, she hears a car pull up at the front of the unit, followed a moment later by hammering at the door.

‘Next time!' cried Robyn, flashing a toothy smile. As Julie runs back inside, she is still smiling and waving over the fence.

Nadine is hopping from foot to foot at the front door. ‘Ready?'

Barbara leans from the car window. ‘Make sure you lock up properly!' she calls. ‘Bolt all the doors, and don't leave any windows open! You have to be so careful here.'

Julie runs back and checks all the windows and doors, then runs out to jump in the car. Ryan is in front beside his mother, and Nadine's in the back.

‘You haven't left any washing on the line, have you?' says Barbara, as she reverses swiftly out onto the road. ‘Because they'll steal from the clothesline, too.'

‘Once, we were driving back from the shops,' says Nadine, ‘and there was a meri walking down the street wrapped up in one of our sheets!'

‘Striped flannelette,' says Ryan gloomily. ‘It was my favourite sheet.'

‘I haven't washed anything yet,' says Julie. ‘So our sheets are safe. For now.'

The market is a revelation. It's a crazy, chaotic festival. Barbara marches up to the gate, where a row of snot-nosed, barefoot urchins are perched on a fence, gnawing sticks of sugarcane. As they approach, the little boys spill off the fence and jostle around them, grinning and wriggling.
‘Mi, misis, mi!
' Barbara gives one boy a copper coin and hands him her wide, flat-bottomed basket.

Julie feels a twinge of unease, watching him struggle with the outsized basket as it whacks against his scabbed, bony shins. Ryan could carry it easily. But then the boy would have missed out on the coin.

‘Watch out for betel spit,' says Ryan over his shoulder.

‘Ryan doesn't usually come to the market,' Nadine tells Julie. ‘We're so-o-o honoured.'

‘I had a craving for salty plums,' says Ryan loftily. ‘For your information.'

‘What are salty plums?' says Julie.

There's so much to look at. Small heaps of vegetables are piled on colourful cloths or woven mats, spread on the stony ground, or arranged on benches. Half-naked women preside over the stalls, giggling behind their hands as they gossip together. Julie sees one woman casually nursing a baby, her flat, stretched breasts flopping against her chest like a pair of brown socks.
Just like National Geographic
, she thinks, and she looks away, embarrassed.

There are pyramids of purple taro roots; hands of green and yellow bananas; knobbly sweet potatoes; glowing tomatoes; pineapples; bunches of peanuts tied by the stems, straight from the ground, dirt still clinging to their shells; long, lacquered sticks of sugarcane; plump pea pods; delicate baby carrots with their froth of foliage; severed heads of lettuce and cauliflower and broccoli; lemons, passionfruit, sweet corn, swollen yellow cucumbers.

An old woman with toothless gums and a face like a map of wrinkles sits behind sheaves of tobacco leaves. There are wooden carvings, necklaces of shells and strings of tiny coloured beads, folded piles of loose, brightly patterned tops. Julie shakes one out and holds it against herself.