Scatter the Stars, page 14
‘It’s not a woman,’ Richie said, and he described how he’d been walking down at the docks and seen ‘her’.
She was sleek, yet voluptuous and undoubtedly she had a romantic soul. The letters on her stern, faded yet full of magic, read Sorcerer. She was an old wooden sloop with graceful flowing lines. He’d stepped from the small jetty onto her deck, wincing as he landed on his foot, still sore from the bomb incident. The cabin and galley were padlocked, but Richie had sat on a hatch and he’d run his hand over the old wood and brass helm. ‘Where have you been, my lovely?’ he’d wondered. ‘And where shall we go?’
‘So I made up my mind on the spot. I want to own the Sorcerer.’
Frank nodded. ‘I think I know the boat you mean. Hang on a tick.’ He made a phone call as the tea arrived.
Richie leaned back in his chair. ‘Y’know Frank, what’d be the chances of going the whole hog and finding some sort of a place up here too? Maybe I could boost my film money with a bit of gold prospecting.’
Frank shook his head. ‘Forget it. The main areas are in the hands of the major operators. One-man operations won’t make a fortune any more, unless you’re prepared to go into unknown territory and take risks. There’s a few blokes out there doing that.’ He pursed his lips. ‘They tend to be pretty unsavoury characters. My advice is stick to something like copra, Richie. Coconut oil is where the money is.’
‘So? Find me a place.’
Frank laughed. ‘It isn’t that easy. Lots of places were flattened by the war, but . . .’ he paused and scratched his head. ‘There is a place, over on the other coast, outside Madang . . . pretty area. The place was originally German.’
‘Was it profitable?’
‘Yeah, it was funded by the profits from the bird of paradise plume industry. Leases were given out late last century. In those early days, they could hunt birds in a certain area, if the hunters also agreed to clear the coastal land and plant coconuts. While they waited the seven years for them to bear, they could hunt the birds. Then, by the time the bird population had diminished, the plantation would be productive. That was before World War II. I don’t know how good the land is now.’
‘All I want is a roof over my head,’ said Richie cheerfully.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Frank, who had to admire Richie’s courage in even considering sinking his film salary into an abandoned copra plantation.
‘I might take a look at it,’ said Richie.
Frank wrote the name of the Sorcerer’s owner on a piece of paper and handed it to him. They shook hands and Richie left the office, walking back to the war disposals jeep the film company had hired for him. He glanced down at the piece of paper on which Frank had written – It’s owned by an old codger out of town. Mac – Andrew Macintosh. Two miles south of Hanuabada, past Elevala village, you’ll find the track to his place called Samsara.
Richie was tempted to stop the jeep and walk around Hanuabada village which was connected to Elevala village on a small island by a rickety bridge, fifteen feet above the water. The thatched huts were on spindly piles over shallow water with platforms that served as mini verandahs. Along the shoreline, children played under coconut trees while adults repaired canoes and fishing nets. Beached to one side was a lakotoi, one of the huge multi-hulled oceangoing canoes. Richie had seen one in Moresby harbour under its giant woven sail.
Beyond Elevala village, the dirt road turned into a mere track and then, nailed to a palm, he saw a carved wooden sign, Samsara. The word hit Richie as a whip crack. Memories too long suppressed, flooded back. Sounds and smells, the gentle voice of Dorgei. Once again he was a small boy in India. And the ache in his heart returned. Why now? Why this place? But then he knew. He knew from the lessons of his childhood. There was a reason he had been led here.
Slowly Richie turned the jeep onto the rough track. He passed a vegetable garden neatly fenced. Scattering pigs and chickens, he came to the end of the rutted track. Leaving the jeep, he walked along a path that led to a rustic thatched house with green wooden shutters. A verandah, spread around its sides, was almost buried beneath scarlet bougainvillea. He walked across the front lawn where a rain tree had scattered a carpet of yellow leaves.
‘Anyone home?’ he called.
A man rose from an old cane lounge in the shade of the verandah and stepped stiffly to the yard, squinting at Richie.
Richie went to him. ‘G’day. Sorry to disturb you. Would you be Mr Macintosh? Andrew Macintosh?’
‘It depends.’ He rubbed his head, making the wisps of his white hair stand up in small puffs.
Richie grinned. ‘Depends? On what?’
‘On who you might be. I don’t get many visitors. You don’t look very official.’
Richie laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’m no official. My name’s Richie Leyton. And I’ve fallen in love with your Sorcerer.’
The old man’s leathery face broke into a large smile. ‘You’re not the first man she’s seduced. Call me Mac.’ His broad Australian accent put his links with Scotland in name only. He held out a hand crazed with lines like an old china teacup. ‘Come and sit down. I can offer you a rum and water. No ice, or there’s beer that’s fairly cold. Just got the kerosene fridge up and running again.’
‘A beer wouldn’t go astray.’ Richie followed him onto the cool verandah and sat in a cane chair. Mac returned to the split-cane lounge where he stretched out his legs and hollered for the houseboy to bring drinks. Richie suppressed a smile as he gazed at the old man sprawling back on his chair, like a king on his throne, his shorts clinging to his hips beneath a belly that threatened to pop the buttons of his faded shirt. Through each of his canvas shoes, a big toe burst forth.
‘So, tell me about the Sorcerer. I gather she’s for sale. What’s her story?’
Mac studied Richie. ‘You first. How long you been here?’
‘Just a month. I’m up from Sydney. Making a film for the Yanks. I’ve become quite taken with this place. Wouldn’t mind getting into some sort of business venture.’
‘A lot of people would tell you that you’re foolish. You’ll lose your shirt and go mad inside six months as well. And they might be right. On the other hand, look at me. I’m still here.’
‘You came up here from Australia before or after the war?’ Richie lifted the bottle of beer and poured some in the glass mug the houseboy handed him.
‘They call us B4s. Before the war. I’ve been all round these islands, worked on luggers, did some pearling on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. Tried my hand at mining, then running a rubber plantation. Nearly sent the place broke. So I went back to sea. Spent most of my time running copra round the place. Based myself on Samarai Island, that’s way down the southern tip of New Guinea. Wasn’t a bad life. Bit dangerous at times. Mind you, I’ve never done anything as crazy as make a film.’ He gave a lazy grin.
‘So you’re retired here and you’re selling the boat. No plans to go back to Australia?’ asked Richie.
‘Nah, this is home. I’m not too accepted in Moresby, so I doubt if I’d fit into Brisbane any more. Lost touch with my Australian family years ago. I moved to this house when my missus died. Suits me well enough.’
Richie looked about him. He could imagine worse places to sit out one’s last years. Not that Mac was so old. Seventy maybe.
A comfortable silence fell between them. The older man seemed to be waiting. Richie took a deep breath. ‘Why did you call this place Samsara? It’s a word I know from my childhood, but I can’t remember what it means.’
This amused Mac. ‘Would you believe me if I said it was Buddhist? Means the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.’
Images of the wheel of life spun through Richie’s mind. The dozens of illustrations he’d seen in old books shown him by Dorgei.
‘The wheel of life,’ said Richie softly. ‘I haven’t thought about it for years.’
Mac topped up his beer. ‘Like mice running on a wheel, round and round, we all get trapped in an endless cycle. Keep ending up where we started. Samsara can trap you. If you let it.’
Richie was surprised at such philosophical musings from this unlikely character. ‘This seems an odd place to find a man such as yourself who’s read up on such subjects.’
‘A man such as me. Hmmm. Don’t judge me, young man.’ Mac waved his beer at Richie, then grinned.
‘So how did you get interested in all this?’
‘Eventually, we fall over the things we need to know. Eventually. But you’re too young to worry about all that. Let’s just say I’ve had a good life and I’m looking forward to the next one.’ Then, seeing Richie’s face, he added cheerfully, ‘But that day’s a long way off. Now. How good a sailor are you?’
‘Not so hot. If you sell me the Sorcerer, I’ll have to hire a skipper till I feel confident enough to tackle the Coral Sea on my own.’
‘Like most women, the old girl has a few unpredictable traits and habits. If you want, I’ll take you out for a bit. Teach you some navigation. What’re your long-term plans? What’s happening with this film?’
‘We’re nearly done here. Then in a few months time there’ll be a premiere in Hollywood. After that, who knows? I’d like to come back here, see if I can make some money. I stand a better chance of making my fortune here than from being a radio actor in Sydney, I reckon. Worth a shot anyway. What do you say?’
‘You remind me of myself a long time ago. Of course, times were different when I came up here in the thirties. They were wild days.’ He folded his arms behind his head and began to reminisce.
As the sun disappeared behind the thatched roof, Mac talked of the parade of explorers, eccentrics, hunters, wild men, and women like Ma Stewart who’d established the Wau pub and later opened the Cecil Hotel in Lae. Mac told Richie of the early plantation days, and his time spent in special operations with the coastwatch unit when he was wounded behind enemy lines during the war. As Mac chatted on about the sing-sings and tribal ceremonies he’d taken part in, the violence and humour of an untamed country were spun into a rollicking and fascinating monologue that had Richie entertained and entranced.
An hour passed and the sun began to set. Mac called for the rum.
‘Sundowner time. Always have a rum at sundown. Keeps the mosquitoes at bay. They don’t like rum in the blood, did you know that?’
Richie laughed. ‘No, I didn’t.’
Mac went on, ‘Stay and eat, spend the night. I’ll come into Moresby with you in the morning. Tackle the business of selling my girl.’ He gave Richie a strange look and burst out laughing, a private joke.
Richie was thoroughly enjoying himself. He had considered himself something of a good yarn spinner, but Mac was magnificent, a master raconteur. ‘Righto. I’d like to stay. I did my foot a bit of damage out crabbing, jumping on bombs and so on. So I’ve been given a few days off.’
‘Bombs? Now there’s a story there, eh?’
As the houseboy lit lanterns inside the house, Mac picked up the near empty bottle of rum. ‘Let’s move indoors. Bugs start at twilight.’
Richie followed him into the main room, a large space, furnished with a long table, a bureau, a desk and a wall of books. Several rooms led off to one side, bedrooms Richie assumed, while the kitchen and bath house were tacked onto the rear. Richie was surprised to see the table was set for three.
‘Make yourself at home. Be right back.’ He disappeared and Richie began looking at the books, surprised at the range of titles. Mac might be a rough diamond, but he was undeniably well read.
Richie felt someone come into the room behind him and heard a woman’s soft voice. ‘Hullo, I am Talia.’ Her accent was lilting, a mixture of a local dialect and English.
Richie turned and could only stare at the young woman across the room. She was dressed in a brightly patterned skirt and simple blouse, her skin was dark honey, her features reflecting her mixed blood – a magnificent blend of high cheekbones, full mouth, a wide nose and huge deep brown eyes. Her hair was a tight cloud of curls and she was casually tucking several frangipani flowers into the halo framing her face as she walked across the room. She was young, perhaps seventeen, but as she stood looking at Richie there was a calm poise about her.
‘More drink for you? The food is ready.’ She sat at the table and folded her hands in her lap.
‘You’re a nice surprise. My name is Richie. And no, thank you. I’ll wait for the food. Have you prepared it?’
She smiled slightly and gave a brief nod. She didn’t seem to feel the need to make conversation, yet she didn’t seem intimidated, shy or uncomfortable either. She just sat, waiting for Mac’s return.
Richie was intrigued by this exotic beauty. Was this Mac’s woman? He knew local white society didn’t condone white and black relationships. Perhaps this was why Mac had chosen to live in an isolated, run-down planter’s house.
Mac came back into the room. ‘You can wash up out the back. Oh, this is Talia. My daughter.’
Richie looked from the plump light-skinned father to the slim dark daughter, shyly looking down at her hands. Now he could see the characteristics of the father in the daughter, the buttery warmth to the dark skin, the extra height, the finer chiselling of her features.
Mac broke the silence. ‘It’s a bit of a tale. We’ll tell you over dinner.’
It was a simple meal but Richie scarcely noticed what he was eating. The rum had softened his faculties, he felt he was moving in slow motion, warm and comfortable. He had to keep dragging his eyes from Talia back to Mac as he talked.
‘I finally settled on Samarai Island. It was the hub of trading and there was a big European colony living very well there. Far better than life in Moresby or Rabaul. Not that I mixed with them. I was always considered a bit of an outcast. A reprobate, a bad influence – I had radical ideas by their standards.’
‘And you drank too much. And got into fights,’ interjected Talia with a fond look at Mac.
‘Yeah. Then I met Talia’s mother. She was a Massim girl who came to work as a domestic in the Samarai hospital. One thing led to another and so I decided, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, that she’d be my meri, my housekeeper. There was a curfew, you see, the nationals had to go back to the mainland every night. Except house staff. So officially she slept in the houseboy’s accommodation out the back.’
‘So she was more than just a meri, a house-girl?’
‘I considered her my wife. I was away on the boat a lot. When she had Talia, we had to leave Samarai.’
Both men glanced at Talia. She gave her father a fond look and turned to Richie. ‘My father loved my mother very much.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘We moved to the mainland and she became very sick. Bad malaria.’
For the first time Mac’s weathered face, creased like an old paper bag, looked pained. Talia reached over and patted his hand. He gave her a brief smile. ‘So there I was left with a baby daughter. I moved to a plantation on the New Guinea coast and ran the place. Badly. The boys, who’d been there a long time, saved my hide more than once. I brought Talia up on my own. Occasionally, she went back to her mother’s relatives. They taught her the old ways.’
Richie turned to her. ‘What about schooling?’
‘My father taught me. He is a very clever man.’ For the first time she looked directly into Richie’s face.
‘There were no mission schools?’ asked Richie, now totally intrigued by this unusual family.
‘Yeah. I could’ve sent her away. To be brainwashed by the Christians, and lose all her culture. She spent the war years with her mother’s people, though I had considered sending her down to Australia. As things have turned out, she knows her own customs and she reads Robinson Crusoe and Little Women as well.’
Richie stared at the exotic creature across the table and gave a bemused shake of his head. Talia also giggled. Mac grinned at them both.
Late in the evening when the houseboy had gone to bed and Talia had bid them goodnight, Richie and Mac got stuck into the port and a word-slurring discussion of politics, poetry and philosophy. Richie couldn’t stop thinking about the strange and beautiful mix that was Talia. ‘Listen, Mac, what’s going to happen to Talia? She can’t marry a white bloke, up here anyway. Does she want to go to her people? I can’t see it. What’s her future?’
Mac shrugged. ‘It’s in the lap of the gods, eh.’
Richie didn’t answer, he had no immediate solution.
In the morning, each suffering, they ate breakfast slowly.
‘You don’t have to come into town,’ Richie began, but Mac waved his hand.
‘Let’s go. Talia can come and do some shopping.’
‘Bring some gear, then,’ suggested Richie. ‘I have a big house in Moresby, come and stay a couple of days. Maybe we can get in those navigation lessons.’
Richie dropped them off at his rented place in Port Moresby and limped into the production office to be greeted by a frantic, shouting Biff. ‘Where the hell you been, for chrissake! When you didn’t come home last night, we got the cops out looking for you! Thought you were dead. Don’t do this again.’ He chomped on his cigar, hiding the relief he felt at having his star safely back.
With two more days of freedom, Richie, Mac and Talia spent hours on the Sorcerer as Mac taught Richie the basics of navigation. Talia’s shyness began to dissolve and Richie found he could talk to her with ease. If they didn’t initiate conversation, they sat in friendly silence.
On shore, Talia distanced herself so she didn’t appear to be with Richie and Mac. But in the privacy of the Moresby house, Richie and Talia found themselves alone quite frequently.
‘Boy, you do outside work, Missy Talia now meri inside.’
Having dispatched the houseboy, Richie watched Talia settle herself in the house, preparing tea and snacks and caring for her father. She had brought few belongings, and Richie was intrigued as he watched her fold clothes neatly into her basket and set out some books, a sketchbook and an angular stylised Massim carving of an ancestor spirit. It was a full figure of a woman with hands across her abdomen and downward pointing feet. ‘That means she has no need of feet because she can fly,’ explained Talia. She propped the carving by the door, and as she came in from the market carrying fresh vegetables she would stroke the figure and drop a small hibiscus flower at its feet.
