The Pink House at Appleton (32 page)

Papa, returning to the factory after an early lunch, paused to take in the scene on the verandah. He nodded to Susan, by now slouching in the chair, lashes low, and gave Boyd a hard look, for reasons only he knew.

‘I want you to behave yourself,' Papa said, walking away, brown Nugget shoe polish and Royal Blend cigarette odours flowing from him.

‘Yes, Papa,' Boyd said to Papa's departing back, displeased at being reprimanded unnecessarily in Susan's presence.

‘Why did your daddy say to behave yourself?'

‘He always says that.'

Susan laughed. Boyd giggled and watched the Land Rover take Papa away. When Yvonne returned to the verandah one last time, having sung
Mr Lee
ten times with Mavis, neither Susan nor Boyd was there. Susan's crimson hibiscus lay discarded on the tiles. Yvonne looked across the lawns, far out beyond the periwinkle fence to the beginning of the orchard where all the trees came together. But she could not see them.

They were under the orange tree in the deepest part of the orchard, where Mavis's voice could not be heard, nor Mama's. It was quiet there except for their urgent breathing and Poppy's impatient little barks.

‘This is like in the forest,' Susan said, delighted, looking into his eyes, thinking of the Forest of Arden, Orlando and Rosalind.

‘In the garden,' Boyd breathed, thinking of Estella in the garden at Miss Havisham's house. He held her hand.
A girl's hand
. He had never held one before. It was soft and warm and strange, a wonderful feeling. They laughed and Boyd ran off. He led her deep into the green closeness of the garden where the pink women were.

‘We're in the Forest of Arden,' Susan said. She wanted to let Boyd know that he was Orlando and that she was Rosalind. She wanted to tell him that they'd just found each other and would be friends forever. But she knew that there would be time enough for that in the days and weeks ahead.

They touched in the apple-green sunlight in the orange-warmth, where no one could see them, lips upon lips under the trees as yellow butterflies alighted and departed. Susan spluttered and laughed, her hair in her eyes, and wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

‘No, that's not how they do it,' she said. And she attempted to show Boyd how. She had seen ten times more films than Boyd, including
Gone with the Wind,
although she had fallen asleep because it was too long.

But Boyd was not interested in being shown how. He knew how to suck and lick flowers, how to seek out the soft, delicate heart of them. He was in the music now and her strawberry jam lips were within reach, their scent fruity, delicious. Susan, recoiling so that she stumbled backwards into the long grass, thought Boyd was quite taken with his playing. But she was getting used to him. And now that he was beginning to look directly into her eyes with that new look, the one that made her giggle, that look that made her see other worlds in his eyes and lose her bearings a little, she was willing to lie in the grass with him at her side looking up into the trees and into the sky. It was as fascinating and lovely as on that first afternoon in the open space under the poinciana trees when they first did it.

Yvonne, feeling perplexed from trying, after what seemed like ages, to fix Patsy's hair, was singing,
Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer. Turn
to the east, turn to the west, turn to the one you love the best.
Looking out the window into a patch of lime-green, she saw them. Quickly she put Patsy down on the bed, her pink legs in the air and her corn-coloured hair spread out on the pillow. She saw them rushing behind the house, Boyd grabbing at Susan's hair as he often did at hers. Susan ran, arms thrashing about wildly, her light-brown hair shimmering and tossing, trying to get away. Yvonne knew that her only escape was to run to Mama. But poor Susan did not know. Boyd chased her into the deepest part of the garden. Yvonne skipped down the hall and out the back door, across the porch and out into the sun.
Ride, Sally, ride. Turn to the east, turn to the
west. Turn to the one you love the best.
She knew of the inner reaches of the garden where Boyd and Poppy spent a lot of their time. But it was difficult to get to because it meant penetrating deep into the green foliage, behind the overhanging leaves and vines and twisting things. It meant crawling and twisting and squeezing and having scented blossoms brush against her hair and block her path. She saw them disappear into the greenery. Pink and purple flowers fell to the ground in front of her and fresh leaves, from their urgent scrambling, carpeted the ground. She heard them ahead of her, Susan's little squeals, Poppy's barks, Boyd's
Shhs
. But she lost them and it suddenly got quiet. All about her were shadows of the deepest green. She felt afraid and turned back, saplings lashing at her as she ran out into the yellow sunlight where the sky was wide and open.
Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer.

Later that day, as she sat on her bed looking out the window, she saw them again.
Ride, Sally, ride. Turn to the east, turn to the west.
They still chased but had swopped places. Susan was now chasing Boyd and Yvonne could hear their laughter. They were heading straight behind the garage. Poppy galloped ahead of them, his tongue loose and floppy at the side of his mouth. Yvonne knew the spot behind the garage where they could be found. Boyd and Poppy were always there, just sitting and looking into the sky, something she didn't understand. She sprang from the bed, into the hall and out the kitchen door before Mavis could say one word. She rounded the corner by the garage and didn't immediately see anyone. Then she barely made out Susan's pink gingham frock caught in the sun from under the shade of the jacaranda. Boyd was with her, and Poppy too. Poppy's tail wagged. Neither Boyd nor Susan moved, but they were doing something. Susan was giggling. Yvonne could hear the playful, urgent giggling. Boyd was sucking her mouth just the way he sucked the flowers. She had seen him do it before and Mama had said he would be sick because some of the flowers were poisonous but Boyd never listened to Mama. She had seen him do it when he thought no one was looking. She would run and tell Mama. The mouth he licked the flowers with was the same mouth he was sucking Susan with. Just wait. Mama would know what to do about it. Boyd would have to wash out his mouth with Lifebuoy carbolic soap. As Yvonne turned, Boyd turned too. He saw Yvonne's yellow dress vanishing round the corner of the garage, her white bloomers bright in the sunlight. Poppy barked.

‘Boyd's sucking Susan, Mama,' Yvonne said breathlessly to Mama in the bedroom.

‘What's that, darling?' Mama said, gently brushing pollen from Yvonne's hair and drawing her towards the bed and into her arms.

‘Boyd,' Yvonne said, swooning into Mama's warm caress. Mama's cuddles were so pleasurable that Yvonne often found herself falling rapidly into a doze. She sank deeper into the caress and, like a puppy, worked herself into the most comfortable position, stroking Mama's arms and kissing her neck. Baby Babs slept quietly nearby.

‘Did you comb Patsy's hair?' Mama asked, enjoying the cuddle herself, feeling the infant warmth of her little calf. She kissed Yvonne's forehead and pulled her close, massaging her back with little rhythmic paddles of her hand.

After a slow, indulgent sigh, Yvonne said, ‘No, Mama. She's a bad dolly, a very bad dolly.' And she quite forgot about Boyd and Susan, who were by then no longer behind the garage or in her thoughts.

But Yvonne was not the only person to see Boyd and Susan. Vincent saw them arrive behind the garage from his lookout in the bushes. When he saw their puckered lips meet, he had rubbed his eye in disbelief. The things children got up to. His own mother would have taken the whip to him if she had ever caught him doing a thing like that at their age. It was all to do with that rock and roll music, and
jive
this and
jive
that, and
see you later alligator
business. Just look at Boyd and Mavis on the bed, and now just look at him with that little white girl. Foreign music and foreign people were responsible. He didn't understand any of it, the modern world. Take the white woman, Mrs Mitchison. Adolphus, her gardener, told him, with his white rum breath, that she went to bed every night naked, with not even a nightgown to cover herself up with. Imagine that. Not even a slip or a long shirt. Not even the poorest, most ignorant
Neaga
people slept naked. She drank and smoked like any man, drove a jeep at breakneck speed and never spent any time during the day at home the way that the respectable women like Mrs Brookes did. But Mrs Mitchison wasn't the only one. Young
Neaga
women, the hoity-toity ones, were just the same. They went to
foreign
and came back just like the white women.
Just like the white women.
But the maids, especially the younger ones, were worse than all the white women put together. They were as loose as whoring women, no shame, no self-respect. And yet they behaved as if they were not common people, as if they were better than him. It made his blood boil.

Vincent had seen Boyd and Susan run off towards the back fence where the meadow began and daisies lay like yellow stars against the lush green grass. He had taken that path to get to Adolphus when he didn't want anyone from the house, especially Mavis, to notice. If they carried on along the fence, they would emerge into open ground below the paddocks where the poinciana trees were. From there it was a short walk up the slope to the Mitchison house. When he saw the children creep under the fence and run along it in the meadow, Boyd chasing hard behind Susan, he knew at once that they were taking the roundabout way to the Mitchison house.

Boyd, breathing valley air and feeling the sun brisk upon his skin, glanced at the coolie barracks in the distance and shouted, pointing. Susan, turning and caught off balance, stumbled. But Boyd was upon her in an instant, like Kid Colt Outlaw leaping off his horse at a bushwhacker or like a tiger leaping at its prey. He dived as though watching himself from a distance, as if he were on show, as he sometimes dived upon Yvonne on the lawn in front of the house. Unlike Yvonne, Susan did not scream out for Mama. Susan just fell into the wild daisies and laughed so much that she couldn't speak, while Boyd wrestled with her, more overcome than she was. He could not believe that there was a real girl with him among the daisies under a blue sky with the sun on his back. He had spent many hours at that same spot with Poppy but had never known such delight. It was the sensation of Pepsi a thousandfold more. Their wrestling stopped and they fell backward, arms and legs flung out. The sky was clear, not a cloud anywhere, so that Boyd could see the mountains in the distance. And Susan's breath was upon him, sweet and hot.

‘Chase me round the hill,' she said, rising, tugging at him, running still in her. ‘Chase me to the trees, into the forest.'

Boyd, wanting her to stay with him in the grass forever, to prolong and give life to the new feelings flowering in him, said, ‘Look at the coolies. Look at their cooking smoke.'

‘Into the forest!' Susan cried, her scent drawing him to her. When he hesitated, she said, ‘Watch me like the moon, watch me like the moon.' It was hopeless to resist.

The thing was, Susan was the radio, a magical being. She was music and sun and rain and everything. She was Mama's caresses, the first taste of sweet potato pudding, a long lick of ice cream in the afternoon, sunshine falling through leaves. She was the smell of evening primrose and a dozen other fragrances. She was all of those things and many others. She was a living sensation, a girl with girl hair and girl looks and girl scent. And she was there with him, within him, throbbing, dazzling, exciting.

* * *

Evadne had had a half-day off from work and was returning just after three o'clock that afternoon. She was late and had taken the back roads, criss-crossing the cane fields, passing behind the coolie barracks and hurrying along the river road with its dried yellow mud and tractor tracks. Looking towards the hill, she could see the white walls of her employers' house. To get to it she would have to clamber under the fence. To do that she would have to gather up the hem of her dress, ease herself carefully under the barbed-wire, walk across the open space surrounded by poinciana trees and up the hill to the paddock road.

Evadne gathered up her floral cotton skirt and wrapped it expertly between her legs. With one hand holding up a rusting strand of the barbed-wire and the other holding down a second strand, she lowered herself in the space between and made it safely to the other side. Then she hurried towards the crimson poinciana carpet below the first tree. She was late, not because some demanding matter had detained her, but because Mr Mitchison was not at home. He was visiting Frome Sugar Estate, a responsibility that fell to him as assistant general manager. Mrs Mitchison, the very best kind of lady to work for, was not demanding or officious in any way whatsoever. If Evadne was late by an hour or so, all Mrs Mitchison said with a warm smile was, ‘Oh, there you are Evadne.' There was nothing she wouldn't do for that woman. Mrs Mitchison made her feel, not like an ordinary maid, not like a common labourer, not like an
ol'
Neaga
, but like a real person. Evadne was late because Mrs Mitchison, willing even to make her own tea, did not mind. She thought that Evadne's family responsibilities were far more important than returning to work on time.

Evadne heard the birds crying as they made their way to the river. But she cocked her head. Her ears detected another kind of crying. It came in on the warm air. She turned about. It was a voice she knew. There was nothing to see but the pulsing bougainvillea bush, stationery trees, creeping shadows and the green sea of sugar cane beyond. She heard the cries once more and turned about, squinting carefully at the bougainvillea, past the bleached wooden fence and along into the deep grass. Then she saw them.