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JACARANDA
a novel by
Catherine Broughton
Because I travel a great deal, the best way to contact me is by e-mail:-
catherine-broughton@live.co.uk
www.turquoisemoon.co.uk
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JACARANDA
by Catherine Broughton
catherine-broughton@live.co.uk
She first met him at a cocktail party at the South Pacific Commission one hot night in
January.
As a general rule most of the Commission officials met to welcome any newcomer to the
island and this time it was for the new legal advisor. They gathered, drinks in hand,
bowls of peanuts and tit bits on the side tables, in the airless refectory rooms. Cigarette
smoke wafted up in to the air and created a light cloudy atmosphere that was not
unpleasant. Most people knew each other in Noumea or, at any rate, if they were of the
same ilk, or in the same line of business, they knew each other. Even if they didn’t
actually know each other to speak to they had at least heard of each other, or heard of a
neighbour or a friend, or had passed each other in the flame-of-forest streets or by the
sandy beaches along the Baie de Citrons.
That’s how it was in this relatively small island community, so when she saw him she did
a kind of second-take, thinking she’s seen him somewhere but couldn’t quite think where
and at the same time deciding he’d not been long in the South Pacific for he had that
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bright pinky tan that Europeans in Europe have, as opposed to the deep leathery tan of the
tropics.
There were some fifty or so men present, most of them French, a powdering of English,
several Australians, several New Zealanders, a young Dutch engineer with stunningly
yellow hair and another chap, probably of Italian extract, with stunningly black hair.
With most of them were their wives, and the wives were all dressed up with back-combed
hair-dos and heavily starched petticoats that were murder to wear in this heat. The little
clickety-click sound of stiletto heels had pervaded the whole room when they first arrived,
now silenced as they stood about dutifully, legs aching and ankles swelling, sipping
Martini and smiling graciously. Some held their cigarettes in elegant little holders.
Almost all of them were smoking. The men were mostly in white tropical suits, necks
sweaty under their old school ties and hair slicked back with Brillantine. A record-player
in one corner of the room played a new song from England which was apparently a great
hit – “she loves you, yeh, yeh, yeh,” it seemed to say. Everybody was ignoring it which
was just as well for the sound was distorted under the steady rhythmic whirr of the
overhead fans.
Her escort that evening was Peter Maddison, the secretary general of the Commission,
who also happened to be her neighbour. His wife usually attended these functions but had
gone back to Sydney for a few weeks to visit an ailing relative. She had been glad of the
chance to get out and Peter was a harmless and careful man who would not expect
anything … difficult … embarrassing …of her. Peter would not want to stay late and she
was also glad of this, needing to be back by midnight because Rosa, the Kanaka house-
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girl who was babysitting tonight, wanted to be out painting Noumea red by midnight. Not
that Jimmy needed much sitting these days. At nine years old he could quite possibly just
be left.
She sighed slightly as she glanced around her. Her life had changed so radically since she
first set foot in Noumea, over two years ago. Fresh out of a Sussex country village, she
was the typical little housewife who had no idea about anything at all except how to make
scones and sew on buttons. Well, she’d learnt. She’d learnt plenty.
“You’re sighing!” exclaimed the man next to her. Then, “may I refill your glass?”
The English tended to stick together and she turned now to Bill Taylor, a doctor of
tropical diseases, who she had met several times before. His wife was not there either,
heavily pregnant with … she counted … it must be their sixth child. God forbid! He
was a nice man, a really nice man, the sort who could always be counted on, sincere and
honest and compassionate. She never seemed to meet men like him – not available ones,
anyway. He was shorter than average with black hair and a public school accent that
smacked faintly of Somerset.
“Let me introduce you to our new comer,” said Bill Taylor and he steered her expertly by
the elbow, his touch barely discernable against her skin, towards Maurice du Chazan.
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“Monsieur du Chazan!” Bill Taylor called out as they approached, “may I introduce you
to one of our secretaries here at the Commission? Melanie Hodge. Mrs Hodge, Monsieur
du Chazan.”
“How d’you do?” said Melanie.
“Enchanted, Madame,” said du Chazan, using the direct translation of the French
greeting. Bill Taylor made small talk for a few moments and then moved off to join some
of the others – the Dutchman, and the Australian with the big nose who was the
accountant … Melanie felt a moment of panic, which was quite unlike her, as she found
herself alone with du Chazan. Years later she decided it was A Sign, but that evening she
was only conscious of a mild sensation of threat in the aura around her and her
companion.
She saw in front of her a man in his early forties, not much taller than she, with a thick
shock of brown hair already going grey at the sides. He also was wearing a white suit and
a tie. He was good-looking in a standard sort of way, with a firm jaw-line and clear pale
eyes. His hands and fingernails were immaculate – quite the opposite of Greg’s, she
thought, momentarily picturing the work-worn hands she used to know so well.
“Where are you from?” she asked politely.
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“Bordeaux,” the man bowed very slightly as he said this, then added, “do you know
where that is?”
How rude! She thought, but she smiled at replied:
“Why yes, all the best wine comes from Bordeaux!”
He had seemed pleased with this.
“I own a vineyard,” said Mr du Chazand conversationally, “along with my elder brother.”
“Ah – yes, I see. I expect you know all about good wine.”
Melanie was adept at making light conversation.
“Who looks after the vineyard now?”
“My brother and my mother and – of course – our workers. We have four permanent staff
and we take on hundreds during the vendange.”
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“Vendange? “
“The busiest time of year when we pick the grapes.”
Melanie kept up a pleasant conversation with Mr du Chazan till another couple joined
them and the subject changed from wine to something different. Most of these cocktail
parties were the same, Melanie mused, but she didn’t dislike them.
She chatted a while with one of the wives and almost instantly forgot du Chazan.
Peter dropped her off outside her little flat soon after eleven. He waited politely till she
got inside. Rosa was sitting on the bottom step of the stair, gloomily swinging a claquette
round and round between her fingers. Rosa had several times hinted that Madame could
perhaps give her a pair of her cast-off shoes, for these rubber thongs were hardly the thing
for painting Noumea red and stilettos would be so much better, but Melanie hadn’t got
any shoes to throw out and anyway suspected that Rosa’s feet were considerably bigger
than her own. Most of these native girls wear claquettes, Melanie reasoned, refusing to
feel bad about it.
Rosa sauntered off down the drive, still swinging her claquettes, her feet bare on the dark
dusty path. She disappeared in to the night, They were on the whole quite attractive, the
island people. They were Polynesian in origin and although they had none of the Negro
ebony beauty one might expect, nor any of the porcelain beauty of the Orientals and nor
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did they show a trace of the finely-chiselled features one saw among the Indian classes,
the locals here were … she searched for the word … wholesome people, with soft-skinned
faces and a broad bone structure. Greg had once told her that the Kanaks were especially
lovely in comparison to the aboriginals of Australia … and again a momentary vision of
him slipped in and out of her mind, quickly, faintly, so that she was barely aware of it …
and even as awareness dawned for a split second, she shook the vision away again, and
forgot it equally quickly. She had become good at doing that.
Melanie lit a mosquito coil and locked up the flat for the night. She made her way across
the darkened room, the pungeant odour of the coil filling her nostrils, to Jimmy’s room.
He lay with his mouth wide open, sound asleep. His mosquito net had been shoved to one
side and she pulled this gently back over her son before retreating to her own bed.
Her cocktail dress left angry red weals on her skin under her arms and around the waist.
She threw the dress over a chair and stood for a moment in front of the mirror. The style
of the dress meant that she had not worn a bra, for the bra section was built in to the dress
which had no shoulders to it. It was very elegant and showed off her trim little figure.
She removed her petticoat, damp with sweat around the waistline, and stood in her
knickers and surveyed herself. At thirty-eight she was still “a looker” – one of Greg’s
expressions – with an abundance of mid-brown hair and pretty mid-brown eyes. She had
the English complexion of peaches and cream, enhanced by a light tan, and shapely legs.
She was perhaps slightly on the short side and made a point of always wearing high heels.
Having Jimmy had not spoilt her figure at all and she turned this way and that in front of
the mirror and after a while, feeling embarrassed even though she was alone, she removed
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her knickers. Her bottom was well rounded but quite firm, and long walks on the beach
had kept her thighs in trim. A flat tummy, with the slightest hint of plumpness, and a
small waist. Not a wasp waist, she thought, but then she wasn’t trying for wasp waist.
She ran a hand gently over her tummy and down over her pubis, feeling shocked at herself
as she did so. She had forgotten all about sex. I am still a looker, she said to herself, I am
still a looker.
Alone on her bed she arranged the mosquito net about her as best she could and, as
always, glanced over at the dark window and the locked door. She was not afraid, but she
was cautious. She didn’t particularly mind being alone here with Jimmy now that she had
got her job at the Commission. The company of the other secretaries and the rest of the
staff had beaten loneliness in to the background, and her little salary kept fear away from
her door. She owned very little, and her eyes wandered round the darkened room at the
black shapes of familiar objects positioned here and there with care and tidy concern. A
big old wicker hamper housed Jimmy’s toys, and an old wardrobe – really too big for the
room – housed their clothes. She had her cooking things and a few bathroom things, a
picture of Hastings hung up on the wall in Jimmy’s room and a vivid oil sketch of local
flora hung up over her bed. A few books. A clock. A vase and a china horse rearing up
on its hind legs. She had a few pots of flowers outside the door which she kept well
shaded and well watered. That was all. That was fine. She neither needed not wanted
more so long as she could feel some sense of financial security.
The constant terror of finding herself out of work and in need of money made her very
frugal and etched a little frown mark between her brows. But she was a confident person
who believed in things coming right and, despite a momentary wish to allow tears to
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envelop her as she lay there in the dark, she smiled quietly to herself, breathed deeply and
fell asleep.
“I went through a period of mourning,” she said, years later, “It was mourning. It was
like dealing with a death. A tragedy. I couldn’t believe it had happened. I didn’t believe
it.”
Even now, after all this time, Melanie was aware of a sensation of gross desolation if she
allowed herself to think about it. She had taught herself to not think about it, to put
herself in to a kind of sleep, hoping that when she woke the pain would be all gone. To a
large extent this worked. She was a practical sort, not prone to mooning about, nor prone
to crying. That initial shock had sent her reeling however.
“What d’you mean, Greg?” she asked sweetly, assuming that she had misunderstood and
was just being silly.
“Mel, please don’t make this any more difficult.”
“Difficult?” she laughed slightly, putting her hand up to her cheek. She felt the colour
rise there, flushing through her face as if she had said or done something very daft.
“Greg, what are you talking about? Dinner will be ready shortly …”
“Melanie, I am leaving you. Listen to me. Understand. I am leaving.”
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“What … how … why? This is ridiculous – it doesn’t make sense – Greg! Tell me this is
just some kind of joke!”
She turned to the table where the laundry was piled up ready for ironing and started to
vigorously sort it out. It had taken her most of the morning to wash their clothes, but they
always dried within a matter of minutes out in the sun. So long as she folded them
carefully half of them didn’t need ironing and, to keep her hands busy she now turned her
attention to this, flattening-out items with unnecessary vigour. She could feel his eyes
boring in to the back of her neck.
“You’ve not been right for days,” she told him, “I’ve thought it several times.”
She found that her voice was shaking. In the shadow against the wall she saw that he
moved his arm and was about to touch her shoulder, but then stopped. Something had
made him jumpy for a good week or more. She hadn’t really taken much notice … after
all, one goes through good and bad patches, ups and downs; business was mediocre but
they ate every day … life was good …
“What has been the matter, love?” she asked, still not looking at him. “Have you been
off-colour?”
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Surely this was not it ? She had heard of couples splitting up – is this what was
happening ? He still didn’t reply. She turned to face him.
“Tell me this is a joke,” she repeated.
“No joke, Mel, I am leaving. Tonight. Now.”
And she looked at him, standing there in his khaki trousers, hands in his pockets, shirt
open. A little trickle of sweat ran down his chest and left a damp patch between the shirt
buttons. The sharp blue-green eyes looked straight at her, his mouth slightly open as
though he might say something else. He had spent a lot of time in the sun, out on the
boat, and had a deep dark tan. Constant exposure to sun and sea water had made his hair
very fair, almost blond, and brittle. He wore it short, rather like an American. In some
ways she felt she was seeing him for the first time.
“Say something, Mel,” he said.
“What in hell –“ she flinched as she said it, for it was not her way to swear, “what in hell
am I supposed to say? Greg, this is rubbish. You’re drunk. You’ve been smoking that
island stuff. I don’t like it. Stop it.”
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He turned from her then. By the door he hesitated a split second, then bent down and
picked up the grip bag.
“I’m leaving almost everything,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact and devoid of any
emotion, “sell stuff if you can. I won’t be back for it. There’s not a lot – the transistor,
the record player, the dinghy. That’ll be enough for a ship back to England. I’m just
taking a few clothes and I’ll keep the boat and the truck.”
“The boat and the truck are the only things of any value!” she laughed. “Oh, come on,
Greg, I’ve obviously made you really cross about something. What is it? Tell me.” She
smiled up at him, suddenly realizing he was still very good-looking, and she had an urge
to put her hands up on his shoulders. She gave her hips a little wiggle; it used to drive
him in to a frenzy of sexual activity. “C’mon, let’s go to bed and … fool around a little.”
But he continued to look straight at her. It was almost as though he was play-acting yet
something about him made her realize it was really true, he was leaving her. The
realization sent a shock wave through her, causing her throat muscles to tighten. Panic
rose.
“Greg! What about me? What about Jimmy? How will we live?”
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“The rent is paid here for two months,” he jerked his chin towards the house as he spoke.
“That’ll give you time to sort things out and go home. There’s a bit of money in the
sideboard. I’ve closed the bank account. As for Jimmy … he’s a nice kid and I hope
he’ll come and find me one day. When he’s older.”
And with that he picked up his bag and strode out to the truck, his long legs moving easily
over the patio and down the steps. He seemed to give a little hop as he got to the truck.
“Is that it?!” Melanie rushed forwards to the edge of the patio. “Greg! For pity’s
sake!!”
He flung his grip bag in to the truck and turned to look at her, one foot up on the rung,
ready to get in.
“Yes, that is it. It’s finished. Over. You just don’t get it, do you? I’ve tried to talk to
you but you are always – oh, I dunno – baking bread or some damn thing. It’s been over
for a long time. You haven’t even noticed, have you?”
His voice was loud and, despite
herself, Melanie glanced awkwardly at the neighbour’s house.
“I thought we were okay …”
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“You were okay, but I was not. Goodbye, Mel.”
And he got in to the truck and drove away. Melanie stood there at the edge of the patio
and watched as the truck sped off towards the port. She had never encountered anything
like this before and had no idea how to react or what to do next. She thought for a
moment he might stop, reverse up, come back, but knew that in fact he wouldn’t. There
was something final about his departure, so that she didn’t delude herself that he was just
having a tantrum about something. She knew he was speaking the truth: it was over. And
another truth was that, as he had said, she hadn’t noticed anything was wrong.
When a love affair ends one goes through a series of emotions, almost systematically,
whether one is seventeen or, as in Melanie’s case, thirty-five. The practical side of being
only seventeen, however, almost nullifies the upset for, at seventeen, you recover one way
or another fairly quickly and, all being well, don’t have much else to think about. At
thirty-five Melanie had a nine year-old child to consider and she was a long way from
home. But the series of emotions, that is the order in which they arise, are the same: deep,
deep dreadful hurt. Crying off and on almost all night and frequently during the day.
Pain. Unable to talk about it without tears springing to the eyes, unable to believe he has
really left, unable to consider life without him. Then, as the weeks drift by, this tearful
period – the mourning as Melanie later described it – is replaced by a sense of
practicality: life must go on. A frenzy of hair washing and of flinging out old clothes.
Jimmy got a lot of motherly devotion during this patch, full of positive energy with little
weepy interludes. Then, as that died away, some three or four weeks later, the fury
started. Wild bitter anger, hatred, revulsion, disgust.
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“You bastard!” Melanie shouted in to the empty house, “you bloody fucking bastard!”
Using the swear words that she had often heard on his lips, but had never used herself,
made her feel almost as though her words would reach him somehow. She gathered up
the rest of his things, having sold the radio and a set of encyclopedias, and made a bonfire
in the yard. She kept only a framed picture of Hastings, where Greg had once lived, to
give to Jimmy one day, also a snap-shot of Greg taken on the ship coming over from
Sydney. Jimmy would want her to keep that, she told herself.
“You swine! You use the best years of my life and you just walk out – leaving me with a
child, precious little money, and very few prospects! Without so much as a hint – how
dare you? How dare you?!”
The smoke from the bonfire spiralled upwards in to the brilliantly blue sky. Everything
was tinder dry and she threw things on a bit at a time, unable to make the big fire she’d
have liked. Greg’s shoes burnt slowly, emitting a biiter smell of burning rubber, sitting
like dying creatures on a funeral pyre; then his jacket, then a few more books.
“Who the hell d’you think you are?” she stared vehemently at the burning clothes as she
spoke, half whispering under her breath. “So you weren’t happy? Poor little you!!
That’s the solution, isn’t it? Just walk out? You dirty rotten bastard!”
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It was only that night, some three months or so after Greg’s departure, that Melanie
suddenly realized there was, of course, another woman. Why this hadn’t dawned on her
before, she had no idea. It was the smell that made her realize – the smell of the burning
clothes reminded her of a smell that was sometimes on Greg and which she couldn’t place
… till now. Of course. How stupid. The smell of sex. The torrid smell of sperm and
sweat. The smell that permeates the skin, almost, after sex. She had smelt it in their own
bed, years ago, before they came to New Caledonia, in the early years of their marriage.
A little lump rose in her throat and came out as a small cry, like an injured animal.
“Mum!” Jimmy came in to the room, “are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, sweetheart. Go back to bed. I was coughing, that’s all.”
Now that this had sunk in, she could hardly believe that she had never considered it
before. Greg had not given the slightest hint of being sexually unhappy – or any kind of
unhappy, for that matter. A naturally unsmiling man, he was out on the boat every day,
seven days a week during the tourist season, and five days a week the rest of the year.
And when he wasn’t on the boat he was tinkering under it up on the dry, or tinkering with
the van or tinkering with the dinghy. He came in, usually spent a bit of time with Jimmy
– but not much – ate his supper, then went out to the garage with a couple of cans of beer
and tinkered with something else. At night he fell in to bed next to her.
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Thinking about it now, Melanie realized that a more astute woman, a more worldly
woman, would have been aware that Greg was having an affair. There were probably
signs that she had missed. She didn’t know what the signs would have been, but
supposed it was in the way he looked at her, or in the way he made love.
She wondered who the other woman was, and where they had met. Something to do with
the boat, that much she could all but put money on. Greg had a natural sexuality to him.
Some other woman had filled a need she had been unable to fill. Melanie sighed heavily,
and with the sigh came the final stage of Heartache – after the tears and the frenzied
energy, after the fury, there came the indifference.
“I shall forget you, Greg,” she said aloud in to the dark room, “I shall forget all about you
and start my life again.”
---
The landlord came round when the rent was not paid the third month. He asked her to
leave by the end of the month. Although she knew this was bound to happen she had
somehow thought she’d be able to stay longer. Finding a job had proved terribly difficult,
not least because she hadn’t got a car. She spoke tolerably good French, but not good
enough to get a job on the strength of it. She could type a little and now, seeing that she
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needed every skill available to her, she taught herself a kind of DIY shorthand, sitting out
on her patio in the evenings. Greg had his own version of shorthand, learnt years ago
when he was just a lad during the war and had to jot down messages in a timber yard and
then cycle across the town back and forth, delivering messages and returning with replies.
When dating – God, that felt like hundreds of years ago! – they had written love letters to
each other in this secret shorthand. Now it came in useful to her.
She got one of the little Noumean buses down to the Place des Cocotiers where there
was a girls’ school, hoping to get a teaching job there.
The bus was full of Kanak people, carrying baskets full of chickens or paw-paw; one
person even carried a small pig. A couple of European youths sat near the driver,
smoking and talking loudly. At the school she stood uncomfortably aware of her little
sun-dress as she spoke to a nun who was totally covered from head to foot, to include a
huge starched wimple jutting out like a halo from her head.
The school yard was dusty
and smelt of latrines, but a remarkable purple bougainvillea spread itself along the
covered walkways and the fronds of a palm jutted up in front of a classroom, startlingly
green against the bleu sky.
“Non, Madame,” the nun replied somewhat curtly, “rien”.
Part of what made it so difficult was that this was a French-governed island and she was,
essentially, a foreigner. She guessed she was probably supposed to have a resident’s
permit, and almost certainly a work permit.
It was the landlord who suggested she try the Commission.
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“No offence,” he said, “but I need the rent in, see. Can’t eat if I’ve got no rent coming
in.”
He was of Indian extract, with a French passport. A lot of Indians around Noumea
seemed to own a bit of property which they let out. Unlike the British, the French tended
to rent rather than buy, and this syndrome had followed them to their colonies. She had
never heard of the Commission.
“Yes!” exclaimed the landlord, surprised, “the Commission! It is very big! It is doctors
and engineers and professors from Europe. They study things here on the island. And the
other islands about – as far as Tahiti. Study disease, education, that kinda thing.”
So Melanie got a bus out to the Baie des Citrons. The Commission buildings covered the
entire area on that side of the bay, sprawled out like the epitome of colonial headquarters,
with green lawns where sprinklers played, and native servants passed dressed in white.
Small palms lined the driveway and, there beyond the foyer, Melanie could hear the
reassuring sound of English voices. Over the door was a notice: COMMISSION DU
PACIFIC SUD.
Her first break, then, came with the job. She was taken on by Derek Hurst, a tall thin
man, no more than thirty years old and very young for the senior position he held. He
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was a true English gentleman with impeccable manners and a kindness and patience that
permitted her to find her way steadily about her duties and the office; gradually her typing
improved and she stayed in the office during her lunch break, partly to get the work done,
partly to impress Mr Hurst, but mostly to speed up both typing and shorthand skills. Her
office overlooked the Commission lawns, where sprinklers played and occasionally a
group of parakeets would land and peck at the hard earth.
“I wanted to become the best,” she said, “I wanted to be indispensable to my new boss, or
indispensable to anybody really – I didn’t ever want to be struggling to find a job again. I
also improved my French, worked at it every evening so that by the end of that first year I
was really fluent.”
Melanie and Jimmy moved from the little bungalow they had shared with Greg in to a one
bedroomed flat under a big villa on Mont Coffyn, overlooking the bay and the Isle au
Metre. Although she could now pay her rent, economy and the need to never be
frightened about money again, had driven her out into cheaper accommodation. They
were both out all day, her at work and Jimmy at school, and at night Jimmy had the
bedroom and she slept on the sofa. It was fine, she didn’t mind a bit. More importantly,
it was somewhere she could safely leave Jimmy during the school holidays if the need
arose, for there were a lot of European children on Mont Coffyn, including the five Taylor
children who played up on the water reservoir, invariably shoeless and always
astoundingly grubby.
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Her small flat was designed as a servant’s flat, built directly next to the laundry rooms in
the basement of a large villa called Les Acacias. The owners were French and were often
away, so she and Jimmy had use of the big garden most of the time. A large expanse of
yellow-green lawn sloped away to a thicket of hibiscus bushes that grew, their vivid red
flowers like banners of brilliance, over by the entrance. A flight of steep concrete steps
led from the garage area, built at the edge of the hill, to her little private yard – just
enough to peg out a bit of washing – and there was an outdoor loo and a cold shower to
one side of the yard. She scrubbed these with bleach. Double doors led from her little
patio area in to a spacious living room, which doubled as her bedroom, and on one side
another door (she removed the door so that it was just an opening and made life easier)
led through to a tiny kitchen where there was an ancient enamel sink – again, cold water
only – a few cupboards and a gas cooker. Once again, she scrubbed everything with
bleach. A door opposite this led in to the bedroom.
“It was fine,” she said, “I cleaned it up, spruced it up, hung up some pictures and
curtains, made it nice. It was fine and cost next to nothing.”
She concentrated all her energies on raising Jimmy and saving money. She also
concentrated hard on not thinking about Greg. His behaviour had been so
uncharacteristic, so brutal, she felt she would never stop reeling from the shock. Jimmy
had asked after his dad quite often in the early weeks but, like all young children, was
soon engrossed in other things.
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The morning of Jimmy’s tenth birthday, Melanie found a couple of dinky toys – a small
yellow car and a truck – wrapped up on her doorstep.
“You sod!” she spat under her breath.
She nonetheless gave them to Jimmy, who was very pleased. So – the bastard had had the
decency to think of his son on his birthday. It was all wrong – the whole thing was all
wrong – Greg had loved Jimmy. How he could dump her was hard enough to handle, but
to dump his child too …..? The other woman must have a pretty powerful effect on him,
that’s all. One day, Greg, you’re going to come wheedling your way back in here you’re
going to want to see Jimmy … but he won’t want to see you. I certainly don’t want to see
you.
Melanie was absolutely clear in her mind as to what she wanted out of life.
Once the shock of having been so unceremoniously dumped had worn off, she found that,
despite what she afterwards called her “broken heart”, she was able to settle reasonably
well in to life with just Jimmy. The gap Greg left created a painful void, but being the
practical sort of person she was, Melanie knew the only possible course of action was to
get up and get on.
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She wanted to feel safe. No more, no less. Even if Greg came back to her – and she
knew she’d have him back with no hesitation – she wanted to feel that she had enough
money or enough influence to be able to look after herself.
“I never day-dreamed about a Rolls Royce,” she said, “or a yacht or a mansion. I didn’t
mean that kind of money. I just wanted good savings, so that whatever else happened to
me and Jimmy I would never again be so afraid of being unable to put food on the table.
The simplest thing would have been to re-marry, somebody rich,but I didn’t want to even
contemplate the agonies of officialdom to be endured if I attempted a divorce there in
Noumea.”
“Step One,” she said as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, “is to educate myself.
Become qualified in something. Or at least become good at something.”
She was painfully aware, now that she was mixing with professional people at the
Commission, that she knew nothing about world affairs, or finance. Even her geography
was pretty rusty. She didn’t know how long her job at the Commission would last; she
had been given a three-month trial run contract, renewable every six months if she was
kept on. This made her insecure, flailing constantly under the vague feeling that this time
in a few months’ time she may no longer have a job. In some ways it would have been
easiest to simply fall in to the role of single parent (a term barely used at that time) and
return to England. Greg had clearly assumed she would go home. She’d be given a
Council flat or similar, and would also be entitled to some kind of allowance. Once in
England she would be able to divorce Greg – not that she particularly wanted to, but all
25
things had to be considered. Sitting, chin in hand, stirring sugar slowly in to her tea,
Melanie thought this out carefully, knowing in advance that she would reject it.
Her second option was to return to Australia, where they had lived for four months before
arriving in Noumea. That was a fraction of the journey at a fraction of the price. She had
totally disliked what little she had seen of Australia but was the first to admit that all she
had seen was the dull pre-fab suburb of a small town, dusty streets and big old cars.
There, she could safely assume, she would – as in England - doubtless be given a council
flat and social and financial support of one sort or another.
She tucked this possibility away in her mind, shelving it at the back of her memory, as a
plan to be brought out if necessary. She preferred it to returning to England.
In the meantime, she decided, it was best to stay put.
“I made sure that I not only became brilliant at my job,” she said, “ but pretty good at
other things too. I educated myself. I made sure I knew about local politics. I made sure
I knew local history and geography. I read the paper every day for world news –
something I’d never done before. I worked out how the Commission operated, who was
at the top and who at the bottom. I made sure I was there – even if only in the
background – whenever possible – at a meeting, at a conference – whatever. In no time at
all my French was good enough to be able to interpret when asked to, and I was paid extra
for this. I was knowledgeable about anything and everything to do with Mr Hurst’s
office, knew all his contacts and colleagues – the lot.”
26
Melanie had been raised, one of two children, by a homely couple of shopkeepers in the
south-east of England. She had never been close to her sister. She grew up in a twobedroomed flat over the shop, with a coal fire in the living room, the ever-present smell of
sweets and bread and newspapers, and a view over the South Downs. Her life was
simple, hard-working and honest. Both her parents died when she was twenty.
She had married Greg in England, in a little village church near Tunbridge Wells, in 1954.
Jimmy was born seven months later. She told everybody that he was premature. Greg
had not wanted to get married and had done so with remarkable bad grace. He had not
been interested in the new baby – or only very moderately so – and had been positively
disgusted by her during the pregnancy. Despite this they had a fairly happy relationship,
based on a similar humour and – Greg also being alone in the world – a need for each
other.
They moved and Greg worked in a mechanics workshop next to a garage in Haywards
Heath, where they lived for three years. Their flat was little more than a bedsit. Greg
went out to the pub almost every evening while Melanie cared for the baby. She was
miserable. So when Greg came home one evening and told her they were off to Australia
to live, she greeted this with great enthusiasm.
“Australia? Where? How?”
27
“It’s a government scheme. Costs nothing,” Greg replied, “free because of him –“ he
jerked his head towards the cot, “and they need car mechanics. It’ll be a new start for us,
Mel, we’ll make a good living, get out of this place.”
He looked towards the grey window where rain pattered against the panes. They had no
curtains so when it was time to go to bed they rigged up an old sheet in front of the
window.
“We can’t stay here,” he continued, “we’re going nowhere, doing nothing. I’ve got
ambitions. I want things.”
Before Melanie had become pregnant with Jimmy she had always thought there was
something romantic about having a baby. But sitting here with the few old bits of
furniture and the torn linoleum on the floor, Melanie sighed heavily. There was nothing
romantic about anything, really.
“Sounds good,” she said.
A tedious three months elapsed before they left. They had to have medicals done and
they had to go up to Australia House in London. They could barely pay the train fares.
They told almost nobody about their plans, feeling somehow that it was best to say
nothing till it was all cut and dried and ready to go.
28
“’Cause you never know,” she said to Greg, “things can go wrong.”
She had a few friends, but nobody special. She was keen to leave.
“We’ll start again,” she said to Greg.
The new venture gave them both renewed energy. It was something to look forward to
and they both felt convinced that if they could only get away – get away from all this grey
rain, get away from the mechanics work shop, get away from the little bedsit – everything
would work out well. Greg stopped going out to the pub and they put aside what little
money they could and when they left, having sold their few possessions, they took almost
nothing with them.
“That was a happy patch,” said Melanie, “we were happy together for the first and last
time. Truly happy. Not that either of us was ever actually particularly un- happy either
… we just plodded along, surviving. Going to Australia gave us a whole new lease of
life, a new aim.”
They sailed on the SS Australis from Portsmouth one cold October day. Greg stayed on
deck and, he said, watched till land was out of sight. They were allotted two separate
29
cabins because men and women slept apart. Both cabins were down in the bowels of the
ship where a nauseous stench of diesel and oil combined with the air conditioning
permeated everything and made all three of them sick for the first two weeks. The cabins
were small with bunk beds arranged on either side, six to a room. There was constantly
one child or another crying. On board were hundreds of people like them, with little or no
money, small children, heads and hearts full of dreams about how everything would be
different once they got to Australia.
A fancy dress party, about a month in to the voyage, caused them to meet a French
emigrant by the name of Jean-Marie Jespin. He was only stopping over in Sydney.
“Ah! You should not go to ze Australie!” he exclaimed, “it is La Nouvelle Caledonie ze
good place!”
He was small and dark, like a Spaniard, and was dressed up as a monkey. It suited him.
He wore brown leggings, pinched from a washing-line he confided to Greg, and a brown
roll-neck sweater. He had a brilliant way of bowing his legs, like a monkey. Ears and tail
were brown cloth stretched over wire and he held a banana which, as the evening wore
on, got steadily more and more bruised and floppy so that the little Frenchman eventually
rapidly peeled it and stuffed it in to his mouth.
30
“Iz the beautiful island,” he said, his mouth full, “is much better than Australie. That is
too big, too much big.”
The ship stopped at Freemantle for forty-eight hours and Melanie and Greg, wandering
round the oil-thick port under the unforgiving sun, felt their hearts sink. Hap-hazard
buildings, large and small, spread out over the dirt. Everything and everybody gave the
appearance of poverty and hard labour, right down to a few mangey dogs, tongues lolling,
lying in the shade.
“Sydney will be better,” said Greg.
Leaving Sydney, where they were housed in the suburbs of the city, in one of a row of
purpose-built prefab buildings, all more-or-less identical and all housing immigrants of one
form or another, to New Caledonia was easier said than done. Ships left Sydney every
week for Noumea, the little capital of the island, but the fares were far beyond the reach of
Melanie and Greg. It had cost them very little to travel almost the entire way round the
world, but now it seemed that a journey of a mere three hundred miles was almost
impossible.
Greg was given a job as a car mechanic near Syndey harbour, in a small back-street
workshop. The pay was reasonable and travel to and from the suburb was free for he was
able to get a lift almost every day with a work colleague, Fred. The housing cost nothing
for the first month, and after that there was a small rent for a couple of months. The
authorities estimated that these three months should give most people time to sort
31
themselves out, find work and permanent housing, and generally become New Citizens of
this new world. Melanie found work in a market garden, back-breaking tending of plants,
hauling sacks of soil, pushing wheelbarrows and digging. She was paid next-to-nothing.
“It’s barely worth doing,” she said crossly when she saw her pay at the end of the week.
“Unskilled,” came the curt reply.
Jimmy was able to come with her to her work, and it seemed to be considered that this
was in lieu of pay. She had no choice but to accept. Bending down under the blistering
sun, Melanie did her allotted chores and Jimmy tagged along next to her. It all but
reduced her to tears – this was not what she and Greg had had in mind when they
travelled across the world.
Ever optimistic, however, Melanie and Greg cast about for information on getting to
Noumea, convinced that there they would be able to start again in a way they had never
even dreamed. Years later, Melanie smiled at the irony of this. Greg was able to get extra
work in the evenings in the harbour: he had once had a boat in Hastings and more than
anything he wanted a boat again. This dream kept him slogging untold hours to raise the
funds to get to Noumea.
32
“You can get a boat here in Australia!” exclaimed his Fred on their way in to work one
morning.
Greg instantly regretted telling Fred of their plans and dreams. After that he kept it to
himself, and when they finally left Sydney on the Nelson, three months later, they said
goodbye to nobody.
“Nobody knew we were there,” said Melanie, “and nobody knew we’d gone.”
New Caledonia is situated in the South Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and north-west of
New Zealand. The island was discovered by James Cook in 1774, who gave it the
Roman name for Scotland. New Caledonia is the largest of several islands and island
groups, to include Ile des Pins, the Loyalty Islands, Chesterfield and Huon. Neither
Melanie nor Greg had ever been out of England before and their departure for Australia,
although they were among thousands who left, was brave and showed considerable
initiative. Encouraged by emigrant schemes in Britain and driven by a wish to do more,
go further, be something else, their departure the entire way across the world was an
adventure beyond the imagination of most of their counterparts. To then go on to New
Caledonia, a completely unknown quantity with a strange language and strange customs,
was all but unheard of out of the engineering, medical and missionary classes. Their
bravery was born in part of ignorance for they could not imagine a world much different
from their own – or at any rate not much different from the Australian world which,
although totally different to England was nonetheless compatible – and part from,
Melanie later felt, a lack of any real concern for her and Jimmy on Greg’s behalf.
33
“Really,” said Melanie, “ he never considered us his family. We were just there. He was
not a family man. He went out to work and gave me the money to buy food and pay bills
– not because he had a duty towards us but because that was the obvious thing to do. In
some ways he wasn’t bothered about anything much. He loved his boat and took care of
the truck because he needed it. He had nothing of any sentimental value, except perhaps
a picture of Hastings where he’d lived as a boy before his parents were killed. He had
neither brothers nor sisters. If he’d returned home to find that Jimmy and I had left him I
don’t think he’d have been bothered, not really.”
The Nelson docked in Noumea harbour at night. Melanie and Greg stood on the deck,
Jimmy asleep on Greg’s shoulder, and stared up at the huge black sky with its underbelly
of flaming stars, so bright and so clear one felt like reaching up to touch them. They
stood in silence listening to the boom of the breakers on the reef not far away and to the
sound of Noumea at night – quiet night-time sounds of a small city that is just reaching its
puberty, ready to start growing and expanding.
“Tourists are starting to come here,” Greg said, “there are lots of them off and on all year.
A boat is the answer. We can make good money.”
Melanie hugged his arm. It excited her he should talk like this. They had never had
anything much and the months in the Sydney suburb with all the dust and the loud women
had worn her down.
34
“It’ll be a new start,” she said happily.
They had virtually no money and the following day picked up their child and their few
belongings and crossed the gang plank on to dry land. The harbour was flanked on one
side by an island, the ile au Maitre, and on the other by a small industrial port where a
few cranes lifted dozens of crates off their ship and a couple of vans and cars hooted on
the quay. The town of Noumea sprawled haphazardly, idle in the evening sun, behind the
port, stretching off to a golden beach on one side, palm groves on the other and a red
rocky hill behind. The very smell of Noumea was totally different – a smell of passion
fruit and bananas and a small round fruit that Melanie had never seen before, called
lychees. Although French was the main language, they could hear several English voices
with the raucous accent of Australia. The local people seemed to be dressed mainly in
lava-lavas, which were brightly patterened lengths of cloth wound round the body and
simply tucked in. Most were Melanesian, with fine dark features and frizzy hair. There
were several orientals, wearing oriental clothes, and Indians in European dress. A small
market was installed at the side of the quay where birds in cages – thousands of multicoloured birds – were for sale, and mangoes and paw-paw and lengths of bright cloth.
Mesmerized by their new world, Greg and Melanie sauntered slowly along the road,
Jimmy clutching on to Melanie’s hand while Greg carried the bags. Tall palms, like out
of a picture book, lined the road where a couple of battered deux-chevaux sparred for
35
space and several bicycles wobbled, their owners invariably chattering or eating as they
cycled along.
A few enquiries brought Melanie and Greg to a hostel where they could stay for the time
being. It was little more than a thatch on stilts with several pallets raised off the floor on
short legs, a cold tap over a basin and a loo in a corrugated iron shed. Cockroaches ran up
and down the floor.
“Ugh!”
Undaunted, Melanie and Greg placed their few bags on one of the pallets.
“It’ll be all right,” said Melanie, “it’ll be fine for a few nights till we get sorted.”
They both found work fairly quickly, Melanie in a nursery group where Jimmy could
play, just three mornings a week. She had forty children, mostly locals, in her care and
the fact that she had only schoolgirl French didn’t appear to matter. Greg found a job in a
boat yard, which was exactly what he wanted.
“Our plan,” said Melanie, “was to buy a boat of our own and take rich tourists out on day
trips. And that is what we did. Precisely that.”
36
They moved from the thatched hostel to a small ground floor apartment within the week.
“It was smaller than the place we’d left in Haywards Heath,” said Melanie, “but it was
hot, so it didn’t matter. The patio became our living room.”
Outside was an expanse of tough brittle grass with wide blades, yellowed under the sun.
Trumpet-orchids and frangi-pangi grew wild along the hedges and in the trees, and their
aromatic presence seemed to fill the night, so that those first few idyllic weeks passed in
happy energy. Melanie lay with her eyes open, listening to the forever-present sound of
the breakers on the reef, booming distantly as they landed, the quiet insistence of
mosquitoes and the excitable clamour of cicadas in the shrubbery outside. As the weeks
turned in to months these new sounds and smells became so familiar that Melanie didn’t
hear them any more.
“They were just a way of life,” she said.
Both she and Greg loved Noumea. It was a run-down little town struggling to get on to its
feet. Multi-national and with the dividing differences in the natives and the strangeness
of the languages they spoke, the island seemed mystical. The dramatic and romantic
atolls epitomized the ideal of the South Pacific, and all along the beach warm golden sand
spread out to welcome the sea, and there were shells, hundred upon hundred of beautiful
37
shells. French was spoken by the local people with a heavy accent which made them
difficult to understand and they referred to the ex-patriate French as the Caldoches. New
Caledonia, although annexed by the French in 1853 had only in 1946 been organized in to
a colonial territory. This gave the island an extraordinary mixture of native habitat and
custom mixed hap-hazardly with small colonial buildings and hastily-erected pre-fab
accommodation for the whites.
Noumea boasted two schools for the Europeans, St Joseph de Cluny for girls on the
square where the flame-of-forest trees offered expansive shade from the sun, and the
Ecole des Freres for boys, further up the hill. These two very basic schools were run by
religious orders, administered with a rod of iron where fingers of pupils got whacked with
rulers for the slightest misdemeanor and simply being white – and preferably French –
gave one an advantage over everything.
Their bed-sit was situated in the very heart of the town, overlooked by the Cathedral with
its arched pseudo-gothic doorway and constant little streams of nuns in black and white.
The nuns were invariably wearing extraordinary starched headgear, like fans of ruffles
tightly fitted around their faces and over their heads, and accompanied small children in
faded chequered uniforms.
Melanie, Jimmy and Greg all lived in one room with a small kitchenette annexe to one
side and a shower to the other. The lavatory was outside. It was spartan and not very
clean, with walls painted in off-white gloss and a concrete floor. There were cockroaches
and centipedes everywhere. Completely undaunted, Melanie and Greg cleaned the place
from top to bottom and rapidly learnt how to deal not only with the cockroaches and
38
centipedes, but armies of ants, millipedes, spiders and small yellow beetles. The
furnishings were basic, consisting of a double bed with an ancient mattress, a couple of
chairs and a formica table, a grease-encrusted gas cooker and the sink. There was not one
shelf or cupboard of any description and for the first few weeks Jimmy slept on a
makeshift pallet on the floor by the bed, and their few belongings remained in the cases.
They lived there three months and then progressed to their small bungalow at the foot of
Mont Coffyn. They were thrilled with it. The view through the straggling trees was
lovely, with an array of greenery and tropical flowers, all the way down over the water to
the ile Ouen in the distance.
Jimmy attended the Ecole des Freres. Melanie wanted to spend the first few days in the
classroom with her small son, but was told to leave.
“He doesn’t speak a word of French!” she exclaimed in some dismay.
“He will learn very quickly,” replied the priest, a sickly looking man dressed in a long
white robe, “and if you are here you will speak to him in English and he will not learn.
We have another English boy here – Howard Taylor – and some Australians. Young
James will not be alone.”
39
Life was good. Greg worked hard and they both saved every penny. Melanie’s little job
at the infant school came to an end – though she was not sorry.
“It was a killer,” she said.
They were both young, ambitious, versatile, ready. With the energy of people who are
enthused and excited, they bought second-hand bits of furniture and cooking utensils,
Greg put up shelves and they rapidly created a comfortable little home. They spent a lot
of time on the beach. Melanie couldn’t swim and Greg taught both her and Jimmy. On
Sundays there was quite often a sand-castle building competition that Greg and Jimmy
joined in; the old hands who had been building sand castles all their lives created
magnificent structures with turrets and towers, making Greg’s inexperienced efforts look
small. They laughed a lot.
Melanie found another small job cleaning at the Ecole des Freres. It was only three
mornings a week and was little more than pin money, but her earnings were carefully put
in to their bank account, slowly mounting up till one day it was enough for the deposit on
a small rowing boat.
It was a timber-framed and plank craft, probably no more than five years old, with a small
outboard motor mounted vertically at the stern.
40
“It’s worth double what they’re asking,” Greg told the bank manager. “We just need the
money to buy it and then we will re-sell at a good profit.”
The bank manager was not impressed. He had lived and breathed boats all his life on this
island.
Admittedly since the end of the Second World War recreational craft were
becoming more and more popular and it was true there was a steady influx of tourists on
to the island, but he doubted it would ever be big business
“Right then,” said Greg after they’d left the bank, “what we’ll do is find a buyer for the
boat before we buy it.”
“How d’you mean?” asked Melanie.
“I saw it done with cars back home. The dealer would spot a car at a good price, find
somebody who wanted it, and kind of buy and re-sell the car in one hit. For example, say
the car was for sale for £100 – the dealer would tell his client it was £200, pick up the
£200, give £100 to the vendor of the car and pocket £100. Easy”
“Is it legal?”
41
“Dunno. The log book changes hands, of course, so I suppose it must be legal. I imagine
the buyer thought that the dealer was the owner. There’s no log book with this boat so
theoretically it should be easier – and legal.”
“Is your French up to it?” asked Melanie. “I mean, if you’re having to do quick
negotiating like you describe you’ll have to be pretty sharp – and in a foreign language.”
“Well – there’s nothing to lose, Mel baby.”
Greg told the vendor of the little boat that he wanted it at the asking price but that he had
to wait for “a friend” with the money. A couple of weeks at the most, Greg said. The
vendor agreed.
The vendor was a Caldoche, a Frenchman who had lived all his life on the island. On the
one hand this was a major disadvantage for it meant that he knew everybody, but on the
other hand it was an advantage because he probably didn’t mix with the ex-patriates,
certainly not the non-French ex-patriates, and this was the market Greg and Melanie
wanted to catch. A couple of notices up in tourist bars, a few words spoken at the Tourist
Office, the Hotel Roget and among the British, Australian and New Zealand people on the
island, and a buyer soon presented himself to Greg one afternoon on the beach at SainteMarie.
42
As planned, the boat was bought and sold – in one movement, so to speak, neither the
vendor nor the buyer being any the wiser. Back at the bank Greg showed the bank
manager his 100% profit.
“Now,” he said, “we want to buy a bigger boat, a boat to take tourists out in.”
“Tourists?” the bank manager was now interested. The area seemed after all to be
opening up rapidly and a lot of changes were suddenly taking place where, only a couple
of weeks ago, it didn’t seem possible. “Have you seen a boat?”
“Yes,” Greg said, even though he hadn’t. It was important to be positive. “There is a
smart little cruiser for sale over by Taho. It has a 80 horsepower outboard motor, so it’s
quite nippy. Just the job.”
He and Melanie had worked out that if they had tourists six days a week they would earn
an average of 1800 francs a month. This meant that, after general living expenses and the
rent, they could afford to pay the bank 600f a month. A loan was negotiated over a twoyear period.
“It was so good,” said Melanie, years later, “it was so exciting. We had lots of ideas. We
were young, weren’t we? Loads of energy. No fear. We wanted to carve out a good life
for ourselves and for Jimmy. We loved the area. People were friendly and warm. I had
43
no idea what was coming. Not the faintest inkling. Any of it. Our lives were about palm
trees and fresh fruit, about sand and sun and sea, about warm evenings and parakeets and
jacaranda in bloom.”
Then Greg left.
--------
Maurice du Chazand was attracted, in his own dispassionate way, to the English woman,
Melanie Hodges. He had heard that she was separated from her husband – also English, it
appeared – probably for a native woman – some of these natives were very lovely – but he
kept his distance for unless she was seriously separated and getting a divorce there was no
point in becoming involved. He was, albeit in a passive sort of way, on the look-out for a
wife. He had done six years in Africa, two in the Gilbert Islands and now had three years’
work in Noumea. After that his wish was to retire early – he would be forty-four next
year - to his vineyards in the Medoc, preferably with a wife. Back in his little town of
Lesparre he assumed Francine le Grand was still waiting and hoping he would marry her
– and if the worst came to the worst, he would – ( but he had never really fancied those
huge child-bearing hips or her jam-making mother) – for she would make a good faithful
wife who would doubtless produce a couple of children, who was of good local stock (her
father was Monsieur le Maire) and whom he had known since school days. In the
meantime if he could meet a pretty young woman like Melanie Hodges, that would be so
much better. He took it all very seriously. He most certainly didn’t want to grow old
44
alone and – even though old age was still a long way off – all this needed careful
consideration.
I am accustomed, he wrote to his brother, to an active social life, to an international
entourage, to not only mixing with people from all over the world and all walks of life but
also with all sorts of tastes and aspirations. I dread the thought of settling down with a
woman who has no conversation and who knows nothing beyond cooking and coffee
mornings. I would not be happy. Our dear Francine le Grand is most charming, very
kind, but I would rather find something a little more exotic – or at least a little different.
You write, his brother replied, almost as though you are choosing a new car!
This was a coincidence for du Chazan had just had a car shipped over from France. It had
cost him a small fortune for it was a new Citroen, pale beige in colour with good creamcoloured leather upholstery. It was smooth and stream-lined and after all those years in
the Congo, where he drove only landrovers, and sometimes pretty rough ones at that,
made a more than welcome change. On arrival in Noumea he had been disappointed to
find that most cars on the island were imported from Australia, usually Holdens or
sometimes big old American cars. Not that he was a car man, he told himself, but it was
most satisfying to seat himself in the comfortable Citroen with its hydraulic suspension
and clean lines.
45
So du Chazan watched the Hodges woman discreetly. He didn’t mind about the little boy
– he was of no particular interest and seemed healthy and intelligent. Du Chazan made a
few casual and polite enquiries here and there from the other employees of the
Commission. The Hodges woman had been abandoned, which was better than an agreed
separation for it put her in the “right” somehow, and there was a rumour that another child
was involved, not hers.
Sitting with his coffee on the Commission verandah, du Chazan often saw Melanie flit
back and forth out of Hurst’s office. Fairly small (which suited him for he was not a big
man) with long dark hair back-combed in to a chignon as was the fashion, she had pretty
legs and occasionally he could glimpse a centimetre or two of lace petticoat under the full
starched skirt. Something about her attracted him more than any other available woman
in Noumea – and there were not many – and du Chazan settled back patiently to await the
outcome.
His wait was brought to an abrupt end when the Hodges man was killed.
It couldn’t have been planned better.
Two gendarmes came to the Commission to tell Melanie. She sat at her desk and
listened to them explain. They had been talking to Mr Hurst for a while, in quiet, subdued
voices, but it was not unusual to find gendarmes at the Commission for almost all the
projects under way were linked, at one stage or another, with an aspect of the
46
gendarmerie. She was surprised, however, when Mr Hurst led the two men through to
her office.
“My dear Mrs Hodges,” Mr Hurst bent sympathetically towards her, “these men have
brought some very shocking news for you.”
“Jimmy!” Melanie leapt to her feet.
“No, no! Jimmy is fine!” Mr Hurst gripped her arm. “I am so sorry, my dear, that was
foolish of me. It’s not about Jimmy.”
Melanie sat down again.
“What then?”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that your husband, Greg Hodges, has been killed in a
boating accident.”
There seemed to be a high-pitched noise in her head and the room spun slightly. She
gripped the edge of her desk. Her mouth felt strange, as though it was not hers.
47
“Tell me this is not true,” she whispered.
The two gendarmes stood silently to one side and watched. She looked at them blankly,
as though they might somehow prove that it wasn’t true.
“I am so sorry, my dear,” Mr Hodges said again.
“What – how – this is nonsense – Greg is brilliant with boats – he can’t have had an
accident. What accident?”
“It appears he was drunk … he was out fishing … a native chap found his boat.”
“No – that can’t be … He … he …”
Shock suddenly engulfed her and she broke down. Despite all the pain he had caused
her, and despite having started a new life on her own, she would never have wanted him
dead.
“He is Jimmy’s father!” she sobbed.
48
The two gendarmes left. They seemed to be saying something to her but she didn’t take
any notice. Loud sobs racked her body. All the upset and all the trauma of the past year
engulfed her and she cried so that she felt she would never stop. Mr Hurst went to fetch
one of the other secretaries who sat impotently to one side, periodically patting Melanie’s
arm and passing her bits of lavatory paper to blow her nose on. At some stage somebody
took her home.
Melanie knew very little about the Kanak woman, and certainly knew nothing about the
child, but when she had calmed down again one of her first thoughts was for the “other
woman”, whoever she was. How ghastly! Poor creature! She, Melanie, as Greg’s
widow, had some kind of “right” in this disaster whereas the other woman was an
intruder, not only in Melanie’s eyes but in the eyes of the law and of all sense of
propriety. The small ex-patriate world of Noumea regarded her as the abused wife, and
her child was the abandoned child, and all rights were hers.
So the truck, in which Greg had driven away so brutally, eight months ago now, and the
boat in which he had made his living, taking rich Australians and Americans out to the
coral reefs beyond Mare and the Ile aux Canards, now returned to her. Without a
second’s hesitation she sold them, probably for half their value, she realized, but she
wanted to be shot of them as quickly as she could. Her only concern was to recover as
fast as she could from the shock, to help Jimmy cope with it, and to get on with her life.
49
Studiously, like a person walking on egg shells, she avoided Greg in her mind and refused
to cry again.
Living in the little flat she had been able to put a small amount of money to one side,
and to this she now added the proceeds from the sale of the boat and the truck. It didn’t
amount to much – not even enough to pay more than six or seven months’ rent – but it
was hers, and she had never had so much money in her life. Unlike many women who get
a sense of comfort from going out and spending something on themselves, Melanie was
aware of a huge sense of well-being whenever she was able to put money to one side. It
was one step closer to independence – be that independence ever so far away …
Jimmy wanted for nothing and she was very careful about this. Oddly enough, he
virtually never asked about his dad any more. It was almost as if the boy knew his father
had abandoned him – though she had never told him so – and that he would not see him
again.
Du Chazaud waited discreetly, biding his time, till a suitable period had elapsed. He
estimated that a couple of months was too long for, after all, the couple had not been
together for some time when the man died, yet one month was somehow a little crude.
Five weeks, then, was decided upon, and du Chazan then approached Melanie casually as
she was about to leave work one evening. Hurst had gone out to one of the mines and
Melanie was alone in the office. She was standing behind her desk, a sheaf of papers in
one hand and pulling something out of her typewriter with the other. She had a slight
50
frown between her eyes as she concentrated on what she was doing. The overhead fan
made wisps of her hair move lightly at the top of her head and she wore a pale yellow
blouse, open to reveal the beginning of an appealing hint of cleavage, and a full pleated
skirt to match. Charming, thought du Chazan, really quite charming. Melanie looked up,
startled, when she saw him.
“Oh! Monsieur du Chazan! I am so sorry – I didn’t see you waiting there!”
Du Chazan stepped forwards in to the room, putting his hand out in the French manner.
Melanie shook it.
“How can I help?” she asked.
“I was hoping for a word with Mr Hurst,” replied du Chazan, “But I see he is not here.”
“Oh – no – he’s at the mine. He won’t be in till the morning now. Is it something I can
help with?”
“It’s nothing that can’t wait,” he replied, casually putting a hand in his pocket. “Sorry to
have disturbed you.” He seemed about to turn to go, then stopped and looked at her. “I
51
was saddened to hear about your husband’s death,” he then added, almost as an afterthought.
Melanie was slightly flustered. She didn’t want to talk about Greg and wasn’t certain if
anybody at the Commission knew much about it. It had been in the papers, of course, but
only Dr Taylor had commented.
“Thank you,” she replied formally, “ We have – had – a child – it will be hard for him.”
“Can I be helpful in any way?” he asked.
“Oh – no – thank you so much – we’re fine.”
Du Chazan smiled and took his leave. He left it a day or two then went back to Melanie’s
office, again on the pretext of wanting to see Hurst. He made small talk with her for a
few moments then again made that slight movement as if he were about to go – but had
another thought …
“Madame Hodges,” he said, “if this is not too much of an imposition – a new restaurant
has opened as the Anse Vata. It would give me such pleasure if you would allow me to
take you along with me to try it out.”
52
Melanie smiled when she looked back on her dates with Maurice. He was formal and
correct, polite, smart, clean, generous and precise – so unlike Greg. He took great pride
in his knowledge about wine and was extremely concerned about what he ate, often
discussing each dish with Melanie in a way that made her wonder if there was something
about food she had missed all these years. He was a legal man and had no artistic
aspirations in any way; he never seemed to notice the colour of the sky or of the sun as it
slid like red silk falling from a table, down behind the horizon where the world ended.
It was the first time Melanie had been wined and dined and she decided to enjoy it in
every way. Rosa babysat Jimmy. Melanie had only got a couple of dresses for best – the
cocktail dress she wore the evening she first met Maurice and another off-white linen one
more suitable for wearing to church. She tried to dress this up with beads and a belt but
refused totally to dip in to her savings.
It came as a massive surprise to her that Greg had had a life insurance. When the man
knocked at her door with papers for her to sign she almost flapped him away.
“What? What papers?”
53
She was on the brink of telling him that she had had nothing to do with Greg for nearly a
year when she suddenly realized that, despite everything, there might be something other
than the second-hand boat and truck for her.
“Wait! Come in,” she said to the insurance man.
By this time she had been working at the Commission for nearly a year and had got used
to scanning through papers. The official phraseology that would have terrified her before
was now old hat and quickly she perused the document that was held out in front of her.
So! Greg had had a life insurance! It was taken out, it seemed, as an integral part of the
bank loan with which the boat purchase was made. Greg had not voluntarily made a wise
decision in insuring his life, and had most certainly not had the slightest modicom of
consideration for her or for Jimmy: but the life insurance had been compulsory while the
loan on the boat lasted, and although the loan was paid off the insurance still went on.
Whether he had forgotten to cancel it or – more likely – not really taken it in – she would
never know, but it entitled her, as Greg’s widow to a lump sum of 5 000 francs.
“It is not a lot of money, Madame,” said the insurance man, “but it will in some small way
help a little to make up for your loss, help you to cope …”
She put the money in her savings account, along with her other money. She smiled to
herself. Well, Greg, she thought, you got something right!
54
Nevertheless that night she cried. Lying alone on her sofa-bed she’d have by far preferred
to be still happily married and living in that old bungalow … if she’d known then what
she knew now it would all be different … she sobbed silently into her pillow … she’d
have learnt about this – this sex thing that men were so keen on … he wouldn’t have left
her for somebody else. Suddenly she could feel his arms about her, big strong arms that
once enfolded her, now stilled forever.
Greg’s body was not recovered from the water. Nobody was clear what had happened
and Melanie was forced to sit through a distasteful interview down at the gendarmerie for,
as his widow, she was the only person to whom they could legally relate any of the sparse
details or to whom they could give the few effects that they had recovered from the
dinghy from which he had toppled. Melanie sat woodenly at the opposite side of the desk
while the gendarme read out the report, and stared fixedly at the man’s face. Her lips
were thin and her face white as she determinedly closed her mind to emotion.
Poor Greg. He was a real boat person, and to die in a boating accident was somehow the
irony beyond all ironies.
Oh Greg, my love, Greg ………
“The investigating officer,” read the gendarme, “reports that there was evidence of
damage – probably a heavy object, the motor, for example – on the bilge. Monsieur
Hodges, we believe, got in to the dinghy to get back to the shore for help, for when the
Caprice was found it was awash with water that had seeped in through the damaged
bilge.”
55
Melanie nodded dumbly.
“Monsieur Hodges, I regret to say, was known to us as a local drunkard. On the Caprice
we found no less than nine near-empty whiskey bottles and a great many beer cans. It
seems he wasn’t alert to what he was doing. The three flares kept in the forelocker had
been used, so he had evidently tried to attract attention, even though the boat was far from
actually sinking.”
Melanie nodded again.
“I see,” she said. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Monsieur Hodges then got in to the dinghy. His shirt was found tied to a makeshift oar
which he had propped up at one end. The dinghy was found adrift out by Thiminna.
Inside was one plimsoll, a hat, the Eski, a plastic plate and several empty cans of beer.”
The electric fan in the centre of the ceiling whirred round and round, making a faint
grinding sound as it did so. The air nonetheless was hot and still and a couple of flies
buzzed with irritable insistence against the window pane. The policeman got out a fresh
form, smoothed it with his hand and wrote down her maiden name and her mother’s
56
maiden name with agonizing deliberation, penning the information out on the paper with
a long slanting script.
She signed where she was told to sign. Having done so she sat motionless for a few
moments, her pen hovering over the paper as though she wanted to scratch out her
signature and somehow make it all go away. I have just signed my agreement to taking
Greg’s things because he is … dead. How can this be ?
The policeman cleared his throat.
“Madame,” he said , “there is another matter, a … er … delicate matter and it grieves me
to have to raise it now, at this difficult time.”
“What is it?”
“A difficult matter …”
“Yes … ?”
57
She felt moderately irritated for, although this policeman was French and had quite
possibly never spoken to any of the English community in Noumea, most people knew
each other’s business. Why was he being so delicate about it all ?
Get on with it, she wanted to say.
“There is a woman sitting outside … a native girl … with a small child … Madame,
please forgive me, but this native girl … well, the little one she holds in her arms is your
late husband’s child.”
He spat out this last sentence in a rush, eager to get it out. Melanie stared at him,
incredulous. She had been aware of the Kanak girl as she came in, sitting on one of the
plastic chairs, long hair caught back in a frizzy pony tail, a little girl of two or so on her
knee.
Melanie got to her feet and opened the door wide. She stared at the native girl, and then
at the child. They stared back with open frankness. The girl clearly knew who she was,
and Melanie resented this bitterly.
“It’s not true,” she said, closing the door and turning back to the policeman, “that child is
two years old. My husband left me only a year ago – less.”
58
Even as she said it she realized what she was saying.
“My God …”
There was a moment of silence as Melanie took this in, composed herself, and the
policeman replaced the cap on his fountain pen, vigorously clipping it in to place in his
breast pocket, then taking it out again.
“What does she want here anyway?” asked Melanie.
“Money, we believe.”
“Of course, how stupid of me. Well, that’s her problem, not mine.”
“Of course, Madame,” smiled the policeman, unable to hide his total contempt for ‘the
other woman’ in his voice, “you are right. She seems to want to speak with you. Ignore
her. It is not your concern.”
Melanie thanked him and left, walking swiftly out of the building, her skirt lightly
brushing the girl as she passed. She took in, in those few moments, a pretty young
59
woman of twenty or so, dark skin, large chocolate eyes, a bright orange and white lavalava wrapped around her in the native style, tucked tightly under her arms and reaching as
far as her knees. She raised her hand towards Melanie as though she wanted to say
something. Melanie glared at her momentarily. The little girl was a half-caste, that was
obvious, with her mother’s dark skin and European features. She wore just a pair of
knickers.
“God …” said Melanie again.
--------
She married Maurice du Chazan on the rebound. She was aware of it when they were
dating and was aware of it when they married. He asked her formally.
“Melanie, will you marry me?”
She stood there in the Town Hall, dressed in a smart pale yellow suit. When she had had
it made she had told herself that it was abundantly suitable for a young and demure
widow. She had been well aware that she did not love Maurice and that he did not love
her. No thunderbolt had struck either of them but she knew that a quiet companionship
would undoubtedly grow. They liked each other, and that was a good start. She needed
somebody to look after her, to help her meet the bills that her little secretarial job at the
Commission couldn’t meet, and provide a home for Jimmy. She was glad to have found a
60
man of some social standing, with a good income, an educated man who would provide
company and a male influence, and who she could look up to. For even now, in the
sixties, she retained that old-fashioned value of looking up to a man. And likewise, even
though it was the sixties, the stigma unwittingly attached to a widow was one best
solutioned by a re-marriage to somebody stable and reasonably eminent.
Her decision to say “yes” to him, after a suitable two days of reflection, was there- fore a
calculated one. Better by far to be married to a man she didn’t love, but who seemed
perfectly nice and who was financially sound, that to remain alone with her son. She
decided it. She had neither illusion nor delusion about it. A marriage of convenience, she
told herself, one that – God willing – would blossom with time in to something more
meaningful. She certainly intended to work towards that.
She was well aware that Maurice had probably never been in love in his life and never
would be, except perhaps with himself. This didn’t matter. He was decent, clean, hardworking and willing to take on Jimmy. He needed a pretty and competent wife to hostess
the odd cocktail party, to accompany him to official functions and to there say the right
things to the right people. She knew herself to be well-liked at the Commission and
likewise knew that Maurice had made a few discreet enquiries about her. Her dubious
and regrettable status as a near- divorcee had been largely counteracted by the story of
Greg’s cruel and sudden desertion, not to mention his liaison with a Kanak woman. She
was astute enough to know that she had obtained her position as secretary in the
Commission more due to her pitiful circumstances than her secretarial abilities.
61
The wedding took place at La Mairie in the centre of Noumea. They invited Dr Taylor
and his family, though only he came, accompanied by a little blonde daughter called
Anthea, and the Pattersons and five or six other people at the office. Jimmy, who not only
was at the wedding reception but was also coming along on the honeymoon – and
Melanie was eternally grateful to Maurice for this for she had never left Jimmy – totally
ignored the little Taylor girl despite several attempts at getting the two children to play
together.
“I could have brought my son, Howard,” said Dr Taylor, “that would have been better.”
He ran his hand gently over the back of the little girl’s head as he spoke.
They ate a meal at the same restaurant they had first been to at Anse Vata – sea food
platter, char-grilled steak done in the American fashion (much to Maurice’s dismay) and
ice-cream. She and Maurice then took the island-hopper aeroplane that evening to the
Loyalty Islands, landing on an airstrip scarlet under the setting sun. Their hotel was set
amid palms at the edge of the beach and was the most beautiful place Melanie had ever
seen. Jimmy sank in to an exhausted sleep within minutes of getting in to bed and
Melanie, closing the door softly behind her, returned to the room she was to share with
Maurice. He was sitting on the little verandah and had ordered a bottle of champagne.
“Gosh – I don’t know if I could drink another drop …” she ventured, seeing the bottle.
62
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just sip it. It’s probably not very good anyway.”
He uncorked the bottle and filled their glasses.
“This is to us, Madame du Chazan,” he said.
She smiled. He is trying to be romantic, she thought, and that is sweet of him. He had
given Jimmy a present – an electric train set – far too extravagant and told him that he
hoped they would get along fine. There was no reason why they shouldn’t. Now, sitting
on the verandah of their honeymoon hotel, Melanie’s mind suddenly flit back over the
past months. Such a lot can happen so suddenly, she thought. I’d never imagined
staying in a smart place like this. I’d never thought I’d be with any man other than Greg.
“Are you nervous?” asked Maurice suddenly.
“Nervous? Me? What about?” she was surprised at his question then, realizing she was
being foolish and not a little crass added, “oh – I see – no – well, yes – I don’t know …”
He laughed lightly and reached over and took her hand.
63
Maurice made love to her under the mosquito net to the sound of the sea on the beach and
a thousand million insects and small creatures in the night beyond the verandah. She had
not had sex since a day or two before Greg had left her and now found that she was –
quite unexpectedly – hungry for it. She responded to him willingly, arching her body for
more and feeling moderately disappointed when it was over and he rolled over and went
to sleep.
Maurice du Chazan lived in a one-storey villa near Majenta beach. The property,
although spacious and expensively furnished – as far as the shops in Noumea would allow
– was in dire need of the feminine touch, and Melanie embarked on the refurbishment and
redecoration of the rooms with great enthusiasm. It was the first time in her life she had
lived in a big house, and the first time she had had any money to spend.
The murmur of the surf rose constantly through the trees, a never- ending lullaby at the
edge of the vast emptiness of the ocean beyond. Melanie stood on their patio frequently,
looking out to where the massive sky met the mighty sea, and the horizon was a silvergold thread running along separating the two. There was something terrifying about it at
night, but as soon as light came the friendly native chatter and calm turquoise waters
unleashed a scene of utmost loveliness.
A quiet patch started in Melanie’s life. She continued with her job at the Commission,
despite Maurice suggesting she drop it, and did not want to even reduce her hours in any
64
way. The Commission car picked Jimmy up every morning and took him to school along
with the Taylor children and a couple of Dutch children.
“Do you chat with the others?” she asked of her son.
“No, I don’t.”
“What are the Taylor children like?”
“Noisy.”
“Why don’t you invite the older one round – he must be your age …? What’s his name?”
“Howard. But I don’t want to invite him round. He plays with the Australian children on
Mont Coffyn.”
“Well what about one of the others? What are they called?”
“Cherry and Anthea. Girls.”
65
Jimmy did not seem to want to have other children round at all. Melanie studied him
carefully, but he didn’t seem unhappy. He spent a lot of time reading. She wondered if
he missed Greg and the boat.
“Shall we take the dinghy out on Sunday?” she asked suddenly, “we’ve still got the
dinghy, you know.”
A mild flicker of interest crossed his young freckled face, but he said.
“We can’t go anywhere in the dinghy. It needs an outboard motor.”
He was right. She was just trying.
“Do you miss your dad?” she asked gently.
“Sometimes,” he replied and his answer seemed genuine, “but not all the time. I miss the
boat – the Caprice – that used to be fun so long as dad didn’t yell.”
She laughed.
66
“There’s something about boats that make people yell at each other.”
Engrossed in her new married life, in raising Jimmy and with a full-time job, Melanie
didn’t have time – or the inclination – to think about much else. Greg and the Kanak girl
crossed her mind from time to time. Maurice was at work till fairly late most nights and
expected a meal when he got in. She found him fussy about his food to the point of being
quite maddening, but he gave her a good allowance, tolerated Jimmy with a kind of
courteous grimness and asked little of her apart from her presence at almost all social
functions at the Commission and a half hour of sex on a Friday night and again on a
Sunday morning before Mass.
He attended mass at the cathedral close to where Melanie and Greg had once lived, La
Cathedrale de Ste Marie des Mers in the centre of Noumea. She had accompanied him
once or twice, and the men were seated on one side and the women, heads covered in
mantillas, were seated on the other. The mass was in Latin and it seemed to Melanie that
these Roman Catholics spent a great part of the service kneeling down then standing up,
then kneeling down again … up, down, up, down all the time.
If asked, she said she was
a Protestant, but in fact she had no particular beliefs one way or another. Greg had been
very interested in some of the native occults, but apart from the curiosity natural to a
lively mind, he didn’t take it any further. Nor would he have been able to, she mused, for
a lot of these native rituals were closely guarded secrets. For herself, she had been
baptised and confirmed, and she had attended church with her parents from time to time
67
as a child, but considered the church simply as a venue for weddings, baptisms and
funerals.
“Do you believe in God?” Maurice asked her suddenly as they drove home. It surprised
her for he was not prone to asking her anything much about herself.
“Why – yes!” she hesitated before answering, “yes, I do. But I believe in God in a
passive sort of way.”
He didn’t ask her anything else and seemed to be not bothered one way or another. She
thought he might ask what she meant by “passive”, but he didn’t. She suspected he went
to mass out of habit – this is what they did in France, what he had always done, and what
he did now. For a lot of the colonial people this maintenance of traditions within their
own culture was very important – there, so to speak, in amid the palms and the flame-offorest, was the mainstay of their own culture in the form of Christian symbolism: the
Cathedral. It was like an assertion of their own European-ness as well as – for some – a
true devotion to any Christ and the beliefs attached thereto.
It seemed to her that sometimes she was followed.
She noticed it more than once or twice, coming out of the office, or out of a shop. It
seemed the Kanak girl was there, really quite frequently, waiting. She couldn’t be sure, of
68
course, for they all looked the same, these girls, and without stopping to stare it was
difficult to tell.
She wondered if it was some guilty feeling about the small child that made her think she
was being followed. Do I feel guilty? she thought. Should I ? After all, what Greg had
or had not done was no concern of hers. Yet the picture of the Kanak girl and the child
often came back to her, sitting there at the police station, hoping for some kind of handout from the widow – and to them she probably seemed like a rich widow.
Thinking about it, Melanie realized there was a Kanak girl just outside the Town Hall
when she and Maurice got married … was that her? Surely not? But the feeling
persisted and after a while she found herself constantly looking about her, stopping to tieup a shoe that had not really come undone or, feeling foolish, dropping a hankie or a
newspaper and stooping to pick it up … and surrepticiously glancing about to see if there
was anybody there. And there frequently was.
She said nothing to Maurice about it. After all, she had been through a bad patch and it
was possible that her mind was playing tricks on her. It was absolutely logical that there
should be a Kanak of one sort or another almost everywhere she went – this was their
island after all! – and Melanie shook her head and chided herself for being dramatic.
“I’m being foolish,” she told herself sternly.
69
The humid season arrived. The island was covered in a bank of cloud which locked the
heat in. Every day she scanned the sky for a patch of blue which would relieve the
heaviness, but there was none. She wished she had a boat so that they could escape a bit
out to Ile des Pins or even just out to sea where the air was clearer.
“It would be nice to have a boat,” she ventured one night as Maurice finished his meal.
He flicked away a beetle that landed on the table. Around the brilliant light bulb all the
insects of the night were suicidal.
They always ate in the dining room, rather formally, at each end of the table with the big
ceiling fan whirring round and round between them. Although she had a maid she did
almost all the cooking herself. Jimmy ate in the kitchen with la bonne and seemed to
prefer to do so.
“The locals only know how to cook yams!” Maurice had told her.
His tastes remained sternly French, with a small half-cooked steak and vegetables served
separately, or perhaps a chicken stew with red wine, or a platter of sea food. He always
70
had wine, imported from his own vineyards near Bordeaux. He leant back in his chair
now and looked over at her in mild surprise.
“A boat?” he queried as though he perhaps didn’t hear her.
“Yes – it’s so hot – and Jimmy would like it –“ she realized as she mentioned her son, this
would not be relevant to him “- and so would you! We could go on picnics.”
“Perhaps,” was all he said.
They spoke almost always in English, though as Melanie’s French improved they tended
to speak also in French, depending on what they were talking about.
“My French will never be as good as your English,” she told him.
He was a good husband. He was unimaginative and organized to the point of fettish, both
around the house and in their personal relationship. He took on his role as step-father
willingly enough, not because he had any paternal feelings but because, as the husband of
the child’s mother, it was his duty. He did his duty to perfection, paying the Commission
car and all school expenses. Melanie guessed he would doubtless provide the boat out of
the same reasoning. He rarely lost his temper, or even became angered, but was
71
nonetheless humourless and thin-lipped all the while being perfectly pleasant and mildmannered. He spoke a lot about his home town, Lesparre, somewhere to the north of
Bordeaux. With his brother and their elderly mother they owned thousands of hectares of
prime vine land. He spoke nostalgically about his house and his old friends. Melanie
dreaded the thought of having to accompany him back there one day. His contract with
the Commission was for another three years, she told herself, and plenty of other things
could happen between now and then.
“Would you like a boat trip?” he asked suddenly looking up from his glass of wine, “have
you seen the islands around here? Has Jimmy seen them?”
“No – I mean, yes! I’d love a boat trip. No, I haven’t seen the islands …” she was about
to relate how Greg, after his initial enthusiasm with his boat, had always preferred to
leave her behind, but dutifully reflected it best to leave her late husband out of it.
That in itself had been slightly strange, she reflected, her gaze wandering out over the
patio and out to the ink black sea, a mile or two away, dotted with little lights as a few
boats came and went. Their lights scanned the surface of the water momentarily as they
passed, usually fishermen on their way in or out. Beyond was the black hulk of the Ile au
Maitre, formidable against the night sky. Greg had been thrilled with the Caprice when
they had finally managed to buy it.
72
For some weeks they had had their eyes on the Caprice , which was up on the dry by the
small yachting marina at Majenta Beach. She was painted bright yellow. She was not
fast but she handled well over the swells around the reef, a sturdy fishing boat with a
shallow draft and ideal for these waters. She was steady and reliable. Greg constructed
benches along the gunnels, creating enough space for up to twelve passengers. A couple
of life buoys were fixed to the sides, each with the name Caprice emblazoned in blue and
an inflatable life raft was stored at the stern. In the bow of the Caprice, and under a
lightweight timber roof with no windows, was a small galley where Greg installed a
pendulum primus stove for brewing tea and making coffee. Four large eskis were for
storing picnics. A small mast at the bow displayed the navigation lights and a couple of
flags – a Union Jack and a Tricolor – and in the fore-locker lived a fuel can for spare
diesel, the anchor and an assortment of ropes. Greg was in his element. It was an instant
hit not only with the tourists that flocked in from Australia and New Zealand and the
USA, but also with the local ex-pats for it gave them a place to go and something to do in
a land where you either had your own boat or you stayed at home. Apart from the
cinema, which showed old versions of Sissi over and over again there was absolutely
nothing to do and nowhere to go once you had visited the island – which, though
undeniably lovely, had its limitations – been to the beach, and attended cocktail parties.
She had enjoyed her role as general bottle-washer on the boat, accompanying Greg on
most outings and taking an equivalent pride in the maintenance of the Caprice.
But then suddenly it stopped. He didn’t want to have her there too. It coincided with a
bout of crippling headaches and bad period pains, so Melanie was at first not in the least
dismayed. To top it, although she was a good sailor and enjoyed boating, she suffered
slightly from bouts of sea-sickness which tended to make Greg impatient. He’d say she
73
was having a “blip”; she didn’t know what the word meant, sounded American, and she
didn’t care. The language was full of odd words these days. Groovy, for example. Silly
word.
It’s funny, though, she thought, I just stopped helping with the boat and … somehow got
left out afterwards…
“We will take a week on the Ile des Pins” said Maurice, breaking in to her thoughts.
“That would be lovely!” she exclaimed, surprised. It was not what she had meant – she
had been thinking more of buying a boat they could potter about with – but a few days
away would be wonderful.
It was that night, as she lay awake listening to the steady, firm breathing of Maurice
beside her, that she suddenly remembered something about the Caprice . That Kanak girl
was there. Melanie sat up in bed and frowned in to the darkness. She was certain. It was
the same girl. Even then! Good God – surely Greg had not been having an affair even
then ?! She counted – they had been in Noumea perhaps five months at that time; they
had saved and scrimped every centime for that boat; they had done battle with the bank …
where did that Kanak girl fit in to all this? She felt sick when she looked back. She had
gone without, she had written out the columns of figures to show the bank manager, she
had worked really hard – and all the while … all the while what? Suddenly she could
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remember the girl’s name. She had been cleaning nets and buckets out, swilling copious
quantities of water about and her lava-lava was wet and clung to her body. Mana-ouaoua. That was her name. Melanie could remember it because it meant “seagull” – in fact,
it was Greg who had translated this for her.
She lay awake for a long time, racking her brains and trying to remember. Why had she
not taken more notice of things? But why should she have done so? She and Greg
seemed happy enough; she cared for Jimmy, cooked their meals … how was she to know
there was something she should have been particularly noticing? She had never had the
slightest inkling that Greg was seeing another woman … not the slightest hint.
By morning, however, it seemed less important. Mana-ou-oua might and might not be
the same girl as in the police station; and she might and might not be following her. The
night plays tricks on the imagination; grief plays tricks on the imagination too. Once or
twice she thought she saw Greg but Dr Taylor had explained to her that it was very
common to think you could see people who were familiar to you, after they’d gone. It
could last for years, he’d said, so try to ignore it. Greg was dead. Her life had changed
totally. So long as she kept Greg firmly and severely well back – back there in the dark
recesses of her mind, where time would heal and memories would fade – she could even
say that life had changed considerably for the better. For the first time in her life she had
a little spending money – not a lot, but enough to be able to treat herself to a new dress
every now and then, or to treat Jimmy to an ice-cream on Majenta beach. Also for the
first time she had a maid, Hudeline, and periodically had the girl Rosa in to help too, and
was able to enjoy a few of the niceties of life – cocktails on the patio, with an olive or a
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slither of lemon and plenty of ice, a record-player with lots of Francoise Hardy and
Petula Clarke. There was no money to be frittered – Maurice was considerably better off
than anybody she had ever met before, but he was nonetheless not a vastly wealthy man.
She was fiercely protective of her savings – the proceeds from the sale of the boat and
Greg’s life insurance money – and had never mentioned them to anybody at all, not even
Maurice. When she could, and feeling a little like a schoolgirl, she occasionally added a
few francs from her housekeeping money.
The Ile des Pins is situated barely four miles to the east of Noumea, an idyllic island atoll
basking in the Pacific sun. It was seven miles across at its widest point and nine miles
long, the central spine of the island being a rocky outcrop interspersed with thick shrub
land and palms. It also boasted a forest of maritime pines – hence the name – and the
crescent bay was totally bounded, like a lace petticoat, by an expanse of golden beach.
There was no town to speak of, but a settlement of a few local huts and a small hotel,
sitting precariously in amid the evergreens, edged with white sand and trumpet-orchids.
A couple of sea food restaurants, no more than thatched roofs with uprights on a platform,
no walls, served the local produce, dished up native-style on palm leaves.
“These are called mwenga” Maurice explained knowledgeably to her, “- really, it just
means “building”, for all their buildings are essentially the same.”
It was everybody’s dream of a south Pacific island and contrasted pleasingly with New
Caledonia which, although still lovely, was an industrialized island with a rapidly
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expanding population and important industries in copra and also in mining – nickel, iron
and manganese ores. Unlike most of the South Pacific islands which had retained their
identities and traditions, New Caledonia boasted very little in the way of taditional native
ways, having been rapidly and inexorably over-run by colonial implantation. The native
population was large and had adopted the European way of life along with a motley
selection of tribal rituals, creating a kind of melting-pot of castes and races. Even the
original language, originally a mixture of Melanesian and Polynesian tongues that varied
from village to village, was now predominantly French, or pigeon-French and, although
the Kanaks could communicate freely with natives from the other islands, their own
dialect was heavily bastardised with colonial words and European expressions.
Furthermore, the recent onset of the tourist industry had created a new variety of locals in
the form of native dancers who, Tahitian-style, danced with their hips and their bellies a
medley of dances from Fiji to Honolulu, the meaning of which had been all lost.
Maurice had brought a book with him, “Memoires du Duc de Portermerle” and was
happy to lie on their little hotel terrace, sunning himself half-shaded by the palms. He
wore khaki shorts and a Noumean printed shirt, short-sleeved with huge floral patterns in
bright green and white, his business-like arms and carefully manicured hands incongruous
as they sunned themselves for the first time in months. Melanie and Jimmy made their
way over the short stubble of lawn where a sprinkler made efforts at keeping it green, past
the hibiscus that lined the little garden area, and out on to a track, not much wider than a
footpath, towards the pine forest.
“I like the smell,” Jimmy commented.
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He had also brought books with him – Tintin et Milou, Melanie saw, and l’Auberge de
l’Ange Gardien. She was pleased he wanted to walk with her. He was a quiet boy. She
still couldn’t persuade him to play with other children, nor to join in any kind of group
activity. A lot of the French children went on Colonie Vacances during the long summer
school holidays, but Jimmy refused.
“Yes, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?” agreed Melanie. “It’s the smell of the pines and the palms
and the frangi-pangi all mixed together.”
“Even the sea has a smell,” said Jimmy, “sort-of different to the sea at home in Noumea.”
The path led them through the trees towards what looked at first glance like a petrol
station – but there were no vehicles on the Ile des Pins – but turned out to be somebody’s
house. Jacaranda grew wild, its purple flowers blatant against the off-white wall, along
the side of the building. A couple of island men in baggy ex-army shorts worked outside
on an outboard motor while a third watched languidly from a few yards away; he squatted
on the ground, his shoulders hunched forwards so that his armpits were resting on his
knees.
“Bonjour!” she called, waving pleasantly.
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“Jour, m’dam!” they called back.
Some chickens ran about in front of the house and, as they progressed along the path,
there was a strong smell of pigs. Melanie glanced back at the house – and there – surely
that was that girl again? She shook her head. A sensation of goose-pimples ran down
her back.
“Tell me, Jimmy,” she put her arms over her son’s shoulders, “do the local people all look
the same to you?”
He thought for a moment.
“Yes, quite often. Apparently we all look the same to them!”
It’ll pass, she told herself. I’m not over this yet. I’ve got further to go than I thought.
Mental health was an entirely new idea among the British, but the French, she reflected,
loved to talk about their health problems and saw their doctor – le medecin traitant, as
they called him, at the drop of a hat. She had read somewhere about a new American idea
called “counselling” for people who had been through shock, and wondered if she needed
it herself.
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“Do I ever seem strange to you, Jimmy?” she asked suddenly in an unusual burst of
confidence.
“You’re a nutter, mummy!” Jimmy laughed.
They went on a shark-fishing outing the following day. Melanie had an abhorrence of
sharks, a total terror that bordered on panic. Be reasonable, she told herself, there is no
danger. But she resolved to speak to Dr Taylor as soon as she was back in Noumea. She
remembered Greg talking about shark fishing; he also had loved the idea of it.
Sharks, their guide explained, avoid rough waters. Ship-wrecked people over the
centuries have clung to rafts in abject terror of sharks marauding around their legs, but in
a storm, or in rough weather, the sharks don’t come. Well below the surface the water
remains calm, even in a ferocious storm, and the sharks – unless terribly hungry – remain
down there.
The boat was a 35 foot fishing boat with large winding drums for pulling in the nets and it
smelt strongly of fish and diesel and those black tobacco cigarettes the natives all seemed
to smoke. Sometimes the cigarettes also had a thick herb-like smell to them, and Greg
had – oh, long long ago now! – once explained that this was a drug, similar to cannabis,
called Tyouma. This word apparently meant simply “island smokes”.
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Melanie sat next to Maurice and she clung worriedly on to Jimmy.
“Jimmy! Do sit down!” she fretted, “you’ll go overboard!”
“Don’t worry about him,” Maurice chided her gently, “he’s a boy. He’s having fun. Eh,
you are having fun, Jimmy, mon grand?”
There was another couple on the boat, also the three crew, sitting next to each other on
small purpose-built seats that reminded her of the Caprice. I seem to be surrounded by
reminders, she thought.
“Where are you from?” asked Melanie conversationally.
“Sydney,” the man replied.
He looked American with a clear-cut tanned face and broad shoulders. His wife (Melanie
noted there was a wedding ring) was very tall with legs that went on forever; she wore
tiny red shorts and a T-shirt. The T-shirt looked slightly wrong on a woman, somehow,
and smacked of labourers. It was another of those American fashions. A pretty blouse
would have been better, Melanie reflected absently.
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The fishermen had brought coconut rattles with them as “gifts” for the sharks. The engine
was started and Melanie held her breath as the boat slid forwards from the jetty and
headed out towards the reef. Swimming was really quite safe this side of the reef for
New Caledonia and its associated islands was surrounded by thick coral reefs that kept the
sharks out at sea. Several islands, Ile des Pins being just one of many, dot the blue waters
like sections of cut jem stones ringed with a turquoise-blue lagoon. The reef, even when
below the level of the water, is easily discernable, for the seas break over them and
change shape and density, creating white horses and making a distinct line between the
lagoon and the sapphire of deep water. The boat wove its way sidelong to the shore,
hemming the reef and slowing down before turning sharply and slowly cutting its way
over the sea till, suddenly, Melanie realized they were past the reef and in to deep waters.
She gripped Maurice’s hand.
“My dear,” he smiled at her, “don’t be afraid.”
But she was afraid, horribly so. Visions of sharks, of Greg’s floating body, of watery
depths of darkness rushed through her.
“You all right?” the Australian woman touched her arm. She pronounced it “orl raht”.
“I don’t know why I should be so frightened …” Melanie stumbled, turning away from
Maurice as she spoke. He was looking out to sea and saying something to Jimmy. “My
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ex … I mean my late … well, my previous husband had a boat, I often went out with
him. He died in a boating accident.”
“Oh! My dear – I am so sorry!”
“No – well – we were already separated … but I feel very frightened of the water … of
sharks .. I don’t know …” she ended feebly.
The Australian woman squeezed her arm momentarily, sensing instinctively that Melanie
was trying to hide her fear from Maurice. Melanie was grateful for this.
They continued out to sea in a directly northern line for over twenty minutes. The
fishermen had said nothing at all till now, but suddenly the engine was switched off and
the world seemed strangely quiet. A low flap-flack sound came from under the boat as
the eddies of water hit it and for a moment nobody spoke. Melanie adjusted her hat and
glanced at Jimmy.
“We call the shark Hina,” said one of the fishermen suddenly, his voice incongruous in
the silence of the sea, “and if we want the hina to come to us, we must call him and give
him presents.” He held up the coconut shell cords and handed one to Jimmy. “Long
ago,” he continued, “hina was lost and hungry.
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He could not find his family. He followed the tide for many hours towards the island of
Honna-Ho, till the Great Reef of Yutir blocked his path. Hina could see people on the
shore, far away beyond the reef and even though the waves crashed over the reef he
could hear voices. He listened. He listened very carefully. He realized that they too were
hungry for the fishing had been bad for island people as well as for sharks. He waited
there by the reef seventeen days and seventeen nights, then, when he felt his death was
near he called to his friend the Ray and told him to go to the island people and tell them
that, in return for a little food, he would tell all the fish of the sea to swim around in the
area his side of the reef. So the Ray, quick like a flash of white lightening, swam towards
the shore and, when he could also hear clearly the voices of the island people, he called
out to them. They stopped to listen. They were afraid of Rays but sharks were good to
eat. So they sent the Ray back with some coconuts and, true to his word, the hina swam
back out to the deep deep ocean and told all the sea creatures that food could be had if
only they would swim towards the reef. And that is why we throw coconut shells in to
the water. The hina comes for them. And then we catch the hina.”
His story ended, the man sat down abruptly. Everybody waited for the next move, but
the man held up a finger and slowly moved it towards his lips in a gesture that said
“silence!” With the unconquerable patience of the natives, he waited for the right
moment and the suddenly leapt to his feet and ordered Jimmy to throw the coconut
necklace out to sea.
“Far!” the man cried, raising his arms as if in a prayer, “far away, as far as you can
throw!”
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Jimmy obeyed and the coconut shells landed with a little plop some five yards or so away
and floated on the still, inky water. Within a few seconds a fin appeared.
“Ugh!” Melanie put her face in her hands, battling against panic. Maurice put a hand on
her arm again, patting gently. “Jimmy … sit down …” she said hoarsely.
The fin sliced through the water rapidly towards the coconut shells, then seemed to turn in
a circle and disappear for a while.
“Hina is pleased,” said the man, “he has gone to fetch his friends.”
And sure enough, a few moments later two other fins appeared. Melanie stared in horror,
too terrified to scream. I’ll never ever go in a boat again, she thought.
“Goodness …” she heard the Australian woman say, “it’s true it’s quite frightening …”
Suddenly all hell broke loose as the fishermen swung in to action. They abandoned their
silence and their mystery, and orders were shouted back and forth, a net flung out, a line,
and all the magic of the hina story disappeared within a second.
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The shark they caught was a small one, Maurice told her, doubtless quite harmless. As
was the way on the island he had a tooth removed from the carcass and, a few weeks later
back in Noumea had it set in silver and gave it to Melanie.
He had had her initials engraved on the back and Melanie was touched by this.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It is to remind you of our wonderful holiday,” he said.
She smiled at him. He was very kind in his own way. Where there was unkindness was
not because of any malice but simply because of a total pedantry in his personality. He
was immutably constant, almost as though he were in the army, she reflected. He
diverged neither to right nor to left, he did what was right and had no imagination
whatsoever. The fact that he had had the idea to have the shark tooth set for her meant a
great deal – even though he had not had the sensitivity to realize that the last thing in the
world she wanted was a reminder of sharks. Totally out of character she suddenly leant
forwards and kissed him.
“Thank you,” she said again, “it’s lovely.”
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That night they made love. Afterwards they lay naked, sweating under the mosquito net
and watching each other. He is not beautiful, she thought, but he cares about me and he
looks after me and Jimmy. I ask no more. Tears sprang suddenly behind her eyes,
smarting as she held them back. That was so painful, so cruel, the way Greg had left …
but that was over now, she had her new life. She reached out and touched Maurice gently
and realized that he was asleep.
Melanie and Maurice had been married nearly a year when Melanie found she was
pregnant. She was stunned. Apart from that one night after the shark tooth necklace,
their love-making had always been so … she struggled for the word … so clinical. It
didn’t seem possible that a whole new little life could start as a result.
Her periods were
as regular as clockwork, but still she waited the full month before saying anything to
Maurice or going to the doctor, just to be sure. She had been as sick as a dog with Jimmy
but this pregnancy advanced in to its sixth week with no trouble. In fact, she felt
remarkably well.
“Maurice,” she said to him as they sat down to start their meal, “I have something to tell
you.”
He looked up and she realized he hadn’t the faintest notion what she was about to say. He
leant forwards and started to uncork the wine.
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“Oui?” he asked.
Just as she could tell he had no idea whatsoever, she could also see that his reaction could
be one of many. She hesitated, wishing she hadn’t said anything. Well, a baby was the
normal thing after sex, she thought.
“We are going to have a child,” she said firmly, “I am expecting a baby.”
If she had expected stunned surprise, she was disappointed. He continued to uncork the
bottle, smiling broadly.
“Good!” he exclaimed.
That was all. He didn’t ask when it was due or how she was or if she had been to the
doctor. He just said good. But he said it with an obvious pleasure and she knew this was
all she’d get out of him on the subject.
Her breasts became swollen and tender and the sickness started. Waves of nausea hit her
the moment she woke and remained with her all day till she went to sleep again. The heat
became intolerable. It was impossible to get fresh milk on the island and suddenly the
powdered milk, to which she had become quite accustomed, was unbearable. Anything
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and everything seemed to make her sick and she had difficulty in keeping food down at
all. This was far worse than when she’d been expecting Jimmy. Hudeline made her a
kind of soupy tea out of local herbs which, in need of some sustenance and desperate for
the nausea to abate, Melanie sipped dutifully.
“It makes the sickness go away,” said Hudeline, “sickness go and Madame will be
strong.”
“What is it made of?” asked Melanie.
“Ah! It is juice from banana palm, Madame, and juice from coconut palm. It is also juice
from fish and herbs.”
Juice from fish ? Whatever was the woman talking about? But the nausea started to die
down within minutes and, although the concoction didn’t taste very pleasant – bitter and
full of dubious-looking bits – Melanie started to feel better almost immediately. She
drank it all.
“Well,” said Dr Taylor when she told him about it, “it’s probably harmless enough. It
almost certainly contains a bit of Tyouma which is what gave you the immediate lift, and
it probably contains a dash of whisky – both harmless in such small quantities.”
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“What about your wife? Does she get sickness?”
“Andree? Oh – a bit – yes.”
“Does she take anything?”
“Yes, come to think of it, she does. She drinks a tea made from raspberry leaves. I
wonder where she gets that from? I expect her sister posts it over from England. Don’t
worry about it, Mrs Hodge. Bring in a sample of this soupy drink if you can, and I’ll taste
it, tell you what I think. It’s not a good idea to take drugs of any sort, at any time whether
or not you’re in the family way … but a little of what you fancy does you good. A little,
mark you.”
They spent Christmas Day on the beach. There was a small hotel there where they ate
lunch. A smart patio area had been built over the sand in the shade of the palms and they
sat facing each other over the table. Jimmy played quietly in the sand just beyond and
Melanie watched him for a while, marvelling that he should have a brother or a sister soon
and feeling that this would be good for him. She put her hand on her belly where a small
swelling was just starting to show. It’ll be a little girl, she thought, and smiled.
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Another couple came in to the restaurant and Maurice saluted them.
“Bonjour!” he called, raising a hand.
They came over and shook hands, and for a dreadful moment Melanie thought Maurice
was going to ask them to sit down with them. She wished she had some secret signal she
could give him, the way she used to with Greg, but their relationship was not like that.
“My dear, do you know Mr and Mrs Gilbert?” Maurice said.
“Why, yes, Mr Gilbert I know you at work, of course. But I have never met your wife.
Hello, Madame.”
She saw a large woman with an abdunance of red hair.
“I hear you are expecting a baby,” said the woman pleasantly.
“Yes – “ Melanie instinctively put her hand on her tummy.
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“Congratulations. It will be your first child won’t it?”
“Why – yes – no –“ Melanie glanced down at Jimmy playing in the sand. She really
didn’t want to go in to any explanations.
“Melanie was widowed before we met,” Maurice stepped in easily, “and this little chap is
her son – now my son too – eh, Jimmy?” He called out to Jimmy and held out his hand.
“Come and say bonjour to these people.”
Jimmy obeyed politely, switching readily from English to French when he realized he had
started in the wrong language.
“We’re growing a new baby,” he volunteered.
“Why, yes!” exclaimed the woman, relieved that her faux-pas had been neatly averted,
“isn’t that nice?”
Her tummy swelled. She felt totally differently in this pregnancy. When she was
expecting Jimmy she took it as a normal course of events. Certainly, she was thrilled – as
any young mother would be – but it was right and normal and natural that she should have
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a baby. She had never thought it could or would be otherwise. Greg had not wanted
another child and nor had she. They both loved their little son but felt a total satisfaction
in him. Although she periodically went through broody patches they never lasted long,
and she enjoyed the endearing chubbiness of her child and adored watching him learn and
grow, and generally had no wish to repeat the experience nor to share it with a second
child. She felt that another baby would somehow dilute her devotion to Jimmy.
Now, however, over nine years later, to find that she was expecting again filled her with a
joy and a sense of achievement that surprised her and surpassed any ideas she might have
had as to maternal satisfaction. It gave her a place at Maurice’s table somehow.
Although they were married, and although he was nothing if not kind and decent with
Jimmy, Melanie always felt nonetheless as though she was somehow sitting “at the edge”
of the household. A new baby bonded them together.
She could not say that Maurice was not interested, for he was. He didn’t ask her one
solitary question as to how she was feeling or even about the baby, but she could sense
that he greeted the imminent new arrival with pleasure. If he was concerned for her
health or her well-being he didn’t show it, and if he was excited at the prospect of
becoming a father he didn’t show that either. He maintained a respectful distance from
her in the marital bed, as though some old-fashioned notion worried him that he would
somehow damage the baby if they made love. Melanie slept a lot. Sometimes she
dreamt about Greg. She frequently had confused dreams about Greg being the father and
she would wake, sweating and quivering, ready to make love with him.
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But with dawn came reality and common sense. Despite herself she felt embarrassed
about her dreams. She ordered a couple of maternity dresses from a Japanese couturiere
in the main part of town, a short and fragile woman with an ageing porcelain beauty. Mrs
Taylor had recommended her.
“What shall we call this baby?” she asked Maurice one evening over dinner. She ran a
hand down over her tummy, conscious of a small kick as she did so. “It is due in another
four months – not long, you know!”
Maurice put down his book and looked over at her. He had put on a little weight.
Married life suited him.
“You don’t have to keep away from me, you know,” she said suddenly, “you won’t hurt
the baby or anything.”
“Melanie!” Maurice seemed shocked and she felt colour rising in her cheeks.
“A name?” she asked, quickly changing the subject back to where it had started, “what
about a name?”
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“Oh – ma chere – I leave all that kind of thing to you.”
“I don’t believe you!” a mixture of irritation and surprise made her speak out, “I bet you
have a name in mind if it is a boy.”
“It is traditional,” he replied after a slight hesitation, “to call a son after the father or the
grandfather.”
“What was your father’s name?”
“He was also Maurice,” he laughed. The momentary tension was gone.
“What about a local name?” asked Melanie – “how about … Moon Rise?”
They both laughed.
“For the local people,” he told her, “ a name has no particular significance.”
“How d’you mean?”
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“Just that. A name is not generally considered before the birth. That is a European idea.
The local people wait till the child is born and then choose a name. The name will depend
on how the birth was, the time of day, the weather, any special omens in the air, that sort
of thing.”
“Oh dear – well, I wouldn’t want to call him – or her – Hot Sun just because of the
climate!”
Maurice smiled indulgently.
“The parents don’t have to like or dislike the name,” he explained, “for the choosing of
the name does not have the same importance as it does for us. It is simply a way of
referring to the child – he who was born during the storm, or he who arrived at the time of
shark fishing, or whatever.”
“I see.”
“Still, I leave the name to you. It would please me to have a good old-fashioned French
name, like Hubert or Gaston, but an English name is fine.”
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“It’s probably a little girl,” said Melanie.
“Oh?”
“No reason – it’s just what I feel. I feel it is a girl.”
“Mmmmm. Interesting,” he replied and resumed his book.
The maternity dresses were ready. Melanie drove down to the little Japanese shop on the
appointed afternoon to try them on. She had chosen a deep red satin with a gold leafy
design for cocktail parties and a couple of pretty multi-coloured floral prints for everyday
wear. All three dresses were the same basic design with straps over the shoulders and
voluminous quantities of fabric falling from a simple square yoke.
“There are a lot of Europeans like yourself Madame,” said the seamstress
conversationally, “who have re-located to Noumea. It is a pleasant place to live, n’est-ce
pas? We even had an English man lodging with us last year. He died in a boating
accident.”
“Good Lord ……” Melanie’s heart missed a beat. She was on the brink of asking for his
name but, equally quickly, in that way when one can think an entire paragraph in a split
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second, she realized it was not relevant. Her life was here, now, with this new baby and
Jimmy and Maurice.
“ And you know Mrs Taylor, I think ?” continued the coutureiere. “She has six children.
Of course, years ago everybody had six children or more, sometimes many more …..”
Maurice attended every social function almost without fail. Cocktail parties and small
supper parties were very common in the ex-patriate community of Noumea. Melanie
attended most of them with him and was apt at keeping up a light babble of genteel
conversation, something which she knew Maurice appreciated. Although essentially shy,
she was never at a loss for words and, having lived in Noumea for three years now, had a
tolerably good knowledge of the area and the customs. New wives always wanted to talk
to her, to glean information as to where they could get fresh milk or frozen products, and
they were also always very concerned about their children.
“Oh, there’s no choice in schools, I’m afraid,” Melanie told them. “There’s St Jospeh to
Cluny for girls and the Ecole des Freres for boys. Nothing else. Not for European
children, at any rate. Even so, the two so-called European schools are full of Kanak
children and are pretty basic to say the least.”
Mrs Taylor had told her that these Noumean schools were bang up to date compared to
the schools her children had attended in Africa.
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“Sometimes little more than a few school benches and a blackboard under a tree,” Andree
Taylor had said.
Jimmy worried her. He was so quiet. She had to virtually force him to go to play with
Howard. There were a couple of Australian boys living in the same area on Mont Coffyn,
and there was the Dutch boy. But Jimmy spoke French fluently so had no reason to not
want to join in with the French boys – but wouldn’t. She had asked Howard round to play
at their house once and the child had been flabbergasted to find Coca-cola in the fridge
and biscuits in the tin.
“Jimmy is an only child, whereas you are one of six,” she told him, “it changes
everything.”
Boisterous, self-confident and permanently – or so it seemed – grinning, the young
Howard Taylor was absolutely the opposite of Jimmy. He had even a little exclusive
“club” called the Len Club for his friends; Jimmy told her everybody had to eat a worm
and run eighteen times round a camp fire if they wanted to join.
Dr Taylor, Howard’s father, had made a cine film of The Last of the Mohicans, starring
his six children – even the baby had been included - and all the neighbour’s children all
dressed up in an assortment of their mother’s dresses and scarves. Jimmy was invited to
be a Red Indian and she had torn up a pair of shorts for him and made a headband with a
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feather. He had had a wonderful time, and the filming had gone on late in to the night and
finished round a camp fire.
But still Jimmy didn’t want to join in anything. He preferred his books. He seemed to be
developing a bit of interest in art and, keen to encourage any activity at all, Melanie
bought him a box of paints and a sketch pad.
The fifth of June marked the 50th birthday of the Chief Commissioner and a party was
held for all staff, with a barbeque and fireworks. For once children were invited too and
Melanie hoped that the Taylor children would be there, but they weren’t. The two
Australian boys did not attend either for their fathers didn’t work at the Commission,
which left the Dutch boy and a few others she didn’t know so well.
“Jimmy seems to be running around happily enough,” she commented to Dr Taylor as he
approached her. He raised an eyebrow slightly in the direction of her gaze.
“Why – yes. That’s what boys do!”
“Mine doesn’t – not often anyhow.”
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“He’s an only child. If only for now!” Dr Taylor laughed lightly as he glanced down at
her tummy, “only children often don’t know how to interact with other children. Don’t
worry about it.”
“Is your wife not here?” asked Melanie, knowing that she wasn’t.
“No. Andree prefers to look after the children herself.”
“Doesn’t she have any help?” asked Melanie, aghast.
“Oh, yes, a woman called Rosa.”
Melanie laughed.
“They all seem to be called Rosa!”
The civil engineer came by and wanted to talk in private to Bill Taylor.
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“Excuse me,” he said pleasantly to Melanie, and made his way with the other man over
the dry brittle grass.
The sun was starting to go down and thousands of cicadas filled the air with their calls. It
was a pleasant evening with a light breeze coming in off the sea. The heavy scent of
frangi-pangi was everywhere. Melanie felt a slight movement again and, suddenly
terribly tired, located Maurice and said:
“Would you mind terribly running me home? I’m so tired. You come back and bring
Jimmy with you later when you’re ready. Would that be all right?”
“Of course, my dear.”
He excused himself from the group he had been talking with and escorted Melanie to his
car. Melanie eased herself gratefully on to her seat.
“I don’t know why I should be so tired,” she apologized “- but I am.”
Their house was barely five minutes drive away. In a milder climate they would probably
have walked to the Commission. Maurice hopped out and came round to open the door
for her. She stepped out of the car and kissed him.
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“See you later,” she said.
As soon as he had driven away and she was half way across the patio, the darkness
seemed to close in around her. The patio light, around which swarmed hundreds of
insects, gave out a brilliant orange glow, and they had left a light on upstairs. But the
very glow of the patio light made the surrounding darkness deeper and more intense, so
that Melanie shuddered slightly and unlocked the door quickly and stepped inside.
Within seconds of closing the door behind her she could sense there was somebody else
there. She felt, rather than saw, a movement over by the kitchen door. Quickly, her heart
pounding, she switched on the light.
“Hudeline?”
The tiniest waft of fresh air, barely discernable, came through from the kitchen. She
knew immediately what it was. Somebody had quietly opened and then closed the
kitchen door. Whoever had been there was now outside. She rushed forwards in to the
kitchen, calling angrily:
“Hudeline! Rosa!”
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She was just about to open the kitchen door and step out, when she stopped. Suddenly
she was frightened. What if it wasn’t Hudeline or Rosa? She peered out of the window
but could see nothing. Realizing that whoever it was would either have to climb over the
wall, which was heavily adorned on both sides with cacti, or go round to the front of the
property she dashed back in to the living room and, standing to one side in the darkened
study, she looked out again. Nothing. She strained her eyes in to the darkness, scanning
the length of the wall and peering in to the dark voids under the trees and shrubbery. She
remained silent and motionless for some time, but still nothing moved outside.
Just as she turned away back in to the room she heard an engine start. She swung round
to the window. A solitary light, perhaps that of a moped, shone momentarily, and was
gone. She listened to the sound of the moped recede down the hill.
Well, she consoled herself, whoever was here has gone. Amazed at her own courage, she
walked round each room, systematically checking behind doors and under beds, till she
was satisfied that there was nobody there. She left all the lights on and checked that all
windows and doors were closed. Nothing seemed to be missing. Everything was orderly.
The record-player and the transistor radio, which were the obvious things to be taken by a
burglar, were still in place, as indeed was her every-day handbag, still sitting where she
had left it on the settee. She glanced in – the purse was still there. They had recently
acquired an electric kettle, and that, along with one or two other items that a thief might
take a shine to, was still there too.
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“We’re back!” called Jimmy when they got in.
“Why are all the lights on?” asked Maurice, “the house looks like a Christmas tree! Why
haven’t you gone to bed?”
“Maurice, there was somebody here when I got in. A burglar I think. Nothing seems to
be missing. I surprised him. He nipped out of the back door just as I came in.”
“Are you sure? It seems most unlikely. Perhaps it was Hudeline? Or Rosa?”
“No. I called out. It wasn’t them. And if it was, why would they scuttle off like that?
Also, I saw a moped – or something similar – drive away.”
“That explains it,” Maurice patted her arm reassuringly, “for Rosa’s new boyfriend has
got a moped. Noisy thing.”
“I don’t understand …”
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“My dear – they were having a kiss and a cuddle on our sofa, I expect. Probably the only
privacy they get.”
Of course. Now that he said it, it was obvious.
“I’d like you to speak to her, then,” said Melanie, “I can’t have that kind of thing going
on. It frightened me.”
“Speaking to the servants is your department, my dear,” said Maurice.
Jimmy came over and kissed his mother goodnight. Now exhausted, Melanie staggered
up to bed and fell instantly in to a dreamless sleep. When she saw Rosa the following
morning the whole incident seemed less important and she decided against saying
anything. Rosa was only a kid, after all.
*
Melanie was out shopping when the cyclone hit. Some old-fashioned idea inherited from
… who was it? A grandmother or an aunt … that she should not buy things for the baby
too far in advance made her hesitate every time she spotted a cradle or a pram. Thrusting
superstitious foolishness determinedly to one side, she examined the small selection of
baby things available in Noumea and bought, with an enormous pleasure, a cradle with a
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white lining and also a pram with a parasol against the sun and with a big spacious booth
area under the main carriage. She also selected two dozen nappies and a layette of basic
baby clothes, telling herself that she would come back for the rest of the baby things she
needed all in good time.
“Somebody will come round to fetch these things,” she told the shop keeper as she wrote
out the cheque.
“Very well, madame,” replied the man.
A raised voice made her look out of the shop window where a commotion had started
over by the newspaper stand which, oddly, seemed to be closing.
Somebody at the other side of the place appeared to be shouting something and was
running from shop to shop. Abruptly the shop keeper snatched the cheque out of
Melanie’s hands and swung round to a small transistor radio on the counter. He switched
it on and a loud crackling came through for a few moments before the local radio station
voice sounded, distorted and staccato, warning the island that a cyclone was about to hit.
The wind, a few moments earlier no more than an irritation, at worst a high wind slightly
stronger than normal, now took on an ominous strength and doors banged and dustbin lids
tambourined suddenly across the place, with confettis of paper and leaves and small
branches.
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“Cyclone?” asked Melanie.
She stood bewildered to one side in the shop while the owner banged shutters in to place.
The man who had been running from shop to shop now reached her.
“Home, Madame! Get home as quickly as you can! The cyclone will hit within half an
hour!”
“Cyclone? Jimmy!”
All the baby things forgotten, Melanie rushed for her car. Traffic seemed to appear
suddenly from everywhere as people tried to get home to their loved ones. Frightened,
Melanie stopped a small woman who rushed past the car.
“What is it? What is the panic?” she screamed.
“A cyclone! Get home Madame, fast as you can!”
At the Ecole des Freres the priests were already waiting with several boys whose parents
had not yet picked them up.
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“Do you not listen to your radio, Madame?” asked a priest accusingly as he thrust Jimmy
in to Melanie’s arms.
His rude coldness served to calm Melanie who, kissing Jimmy vigorously, bundled him
into the passenger seat and then steered the car back towards Majenta. Jimmy was
flustered and got his arm caught up in the strap that several modern cars now had,
apparently life-saving in an accident though Melanie couldn’t see the point of it. Just
hold on tight, she had taught Jimmy. The wind whipped along the streets and a few
people, all but knocked down by the wind, battled their way along the pavements, their
clothes whipped like glue to their bodies and their faces screwed up with effort.
“What is it, mummy? Is it a hurricane?”
“Yes – a cyclone. It’s just a different kind of hurricane, the sort you get in this part of the
world.” She was calm now. She felt a very slight kick from the baby. It’s OK, little one,
she thought, we’ll be home in a minute.
They passed a couple of cars but on the whole the town was suddenly remarkably devoid
of human beings. Palm leaves whipped over the streets; they passed a garden shed that
was already on the brink of collapse and thankfully turned in to their drive just as
Melanie’s calm was starting to fade.
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“Leave your things here in the car,” she said. She had to almost shout above the sound of
the wind. “Wait till I get round to your side of the car, then hop out and grab my hand.
Don’t try to talk to me or anything – we’ll just make straight for the house. Okay
Jimmy?”
“Okay, mummy.”
Melanie hopped quickly out of the driver’s seat and scuttled, her skirt blowing up over her
thighs, round to Jimmy’s side.
“Come on!” she called.
Jimmy’s school bag and the strap had become so entangled that, as the wind increased in
ferocity, they abandoned the car door open and fled over the verandah in to the house.
Glancing behind her Melanie saw that the trees were bending viciously to one side and that
the sky, normally still and blue, was like a living creature, shrouding them and mad and
growling wildly.
“Maurice!” she shrieked.
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Hudeline and Rosa had already closed the shutters and were huddled in a corner by the
stairs. They had taken the linen out of the closet and several packets of biscuits and
bottles of water, and these were placed near to hand.
“Over here, Madame!” called Hudeline.
“Where is monsieur?”
Even as she asked, Maurice crashed through the patio doors, shouting her name.
“I am here!” she called, “we are here!”
Maurice and Hudeline bolted the doors and they both rushed around the house checking
that everything was closed as firmly as possible. The wind now howled like a great
murderous animal, beating about the house with animal fury. The electricity went within
the first few moments and the wind whipped in under the patio doors, sending chilling
shafts of air, like slashes from a knife, across the floor to where they sheltered by the
stairs.
“Hudeline!” ordered Maurice, “help me with the table!”
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The big Kanak woman and Maurice shoved the table over Melanie and Jimmy. Maurice
grabbed a couple of cushions off the sofa for Melanie to sit on and threw them on to the
floor. Rosa, petrified in to a dumb silence, squatted next to her mistress. Hudeline and
Maurice then shoved the sideboard against the table.
“We’ll be okay here,” said Maurice, giving Melanie a reassuring little pat on the leg. He
sat on the floor next to her and ruffled Jimmy’s hair self-consciously. “Okay, Jimmy?
Hopefully it won’t last long. Just a few hours if we’re lucky.”
“You made it home quickly,” said Melanie, grateful that he was there.
“It was on the radio this morning – cyclone warnings. We all decided to leave. Some of
the men went straight home to batten down their shutters – “he looked around at the
darkened windows that rattled ominously “ – I rather wish I’d done that.” He looked at
Jimmy. “Did the Commission car pick up all the children? Bill Taylor was concerned.”
“No – I don’t know. I picked Jimmy up as soon as I heard. I was in the Place Cocotiers.”
The wind increased and increased, it’s fury huge. Upstairs they heard the sound of
breaking glass.
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“It is the window in the guest room,” said Hudeline.
Soon the door of the guest room started a thudding drum-like sound, on and on till
Maurice said:
“I hope that bloody door holds.”
“Oh, no, monsieur, the door will break soon,” said Hudeline with maddening logic.
A sudden ripping sound made them look over to the garden window as the shutter tore off
one side. Almost simultaneously the guest room door burst open and the ornaments that
sat on the cabinet on the landing fell to the floor, tossed like pebbles, and smashed in to
small pieces. A picture came off the wall. Rosa started to cry loudly.
“Rosa!” Maurice was angry, “don’t you think there is enough noise without that?”
Hudeline said something sharply to her in a native tongue and the girl was instantly silent.
“What did you tell her?” asked Melanie.
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“I told her that the great white bird who watches the storm loves to hear girls crying. He
will help the storm to continue so long as he knows girls are crying.”
Bit by bit the storm abated. The wind lessened, gradually, over a period of several hours.
It remained ferocious, but had lost the furious impetus of before. The rains came then,
lashing against the windows and sending huge lakes of puddles across the floor, reaching
to as far as where the household squatted beneath the table.
“What do you think?” Maurice asked the big Kanak woman. “Is it safe to come out?”
“Yes, Monsieur,” Hudeline was pleased that monsieur had asked her opinion, “for a
while. Usually the wind gets up again before it goes away for good.”
Everybody, including the servants, used the loo. Melanie rapidly heated some soup on
the gas cooker. The wind was not cold, but a chill was over them, and they were damp
and shaken. They all sipped the soup noisily, Hudeline and Rosa both slightly
embarrassed about eating with Monsieur and Madame. Then, just as Hudeline had
predicted, the wind got up momentum again, a bit at a time, like a wheel picking up
speed, till it howled menacingly around the house, making Rosa shriek with fear. It was
short-lived, however, and the storm ended, suddenly, like a curtain being dropped down
over a theatre scenario.
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Instinctively they all knew the storm had moved on. Maurice raised an eyebrow at
Hudeline.
“Is all good now, Monsieur, the big white bird is tired. Has gone.”
Heaving herself to her feet, her wide hips swaying as she went, she systematically went
round each window and opened the shutters. Incongruously, the sky outside was bright
blue and shafts of yellow sunlight beamed through in to the room, almost as if nothing
had happened.
Melanie went out on to the patio with Jimmy.
“Mummy, look!”
All around them trees were down and those that were still standing had branches broken
off and were devoid of leaves. The palms were mostly still standing. Roofs were missing
in several places on the buildings around them and the remains of a bicycle lay, like a
distorted toy, to one side of the garden.
“S’il vous plait, Madame, “ Hudeline appeared behind them, “Rosa and I must go to our
families.”
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“Oh – of course!” Melanie felt dreadful that she hadn’t given them a thought. “Will they
be all right? Take your time – do what you need.”
The world of normality moved back in to Noumea slowly. On the sea front the waves
remained massive, crashing down on to the beach and over the roads, for several days,
even after the wind had gone. Three people, all natives, had been killed.
-----------Melanie didn’t give the Kanak girl a thought for several weeks.
The aftermath of the hurricane was not serious, she was told, despite the three deaths.
The local people were accustomed to it – every two or three years a cyclone hit, and their
huts were built to withstand it or, if they didn’t withstand it, were built to do no harm
when they fell. The abundance of palm timber and thatching meant an inexpensive
restitution of their homes, helped by the gendarmerie and the French army with
remarkable efficiency and speed. Within forty-eight hours electricity was back almost
everywhere and although rain was not a threat, the roofs were repaired and put back into
functioning order rapidly. The mainstay of the island was in the nickel mines, totally
untouched by the storm. Indeed, the storm seemed to have hit the south-western side of
the island, from point at Ndji, where one of the deaths had occurred, all the way up the
coast line almost as far as Koumac, and the northern coast seemed untouched. The spinal
column of mountains had taken a beating at its northernmost point around the Province
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Nord but was otherwise left sitting like a serene lady, overlooking the fury that hit the
coastline below.
The baby things were delivered to the house and Melanie tried to get Maurice interested.
It was clearly women’s business, however, and Melanie was forced to fall back on
Hudeline and Rosa for admiration of the pram and the cradle. For the first time ever she
wished she knew her sister, or had relatives of some sort, for it would have been nice to
receive a little parcel of baby things in the post. Melanie had decided to carry on
working at the Commission till she was just over seven months, but she nonetheless took
time off now and then, with the full approval of Mr Hurst, to rest and shop and generally
enjoy the extraordinary sensation of life growing inside her.
She spotted the Kanak girl one day down by the port. Her long dark frizzy hair was tied
up in to a kind of top-knot, with a pretty arrangement of shells threaded in to it, and she
wore the same – or a similar – lava-lava wrapped around her. Her feet were bare and she
walked slightly ahead of Melanie, swinging her hips the way the local people do, with a
basket of fish perched on one hip while the other hand gripped that of the little girl, really
little more than a toddler, who trotted along beside its mother, struggling to keep up.
The child looked round all of a sudden, straight at Melanie who, illogically, was following
them across the quay. Melanie stopped in her tracks, ashamed of her curiosity, and not
able to say why she had followed them. She turned and busied herself quickly at a stall
that sold bananas. From the corner of her eye she could see that the girl had not turned
around but the child continued to look back at her, all the while being dragged along by
the hand.
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I suppose, thought Melanie, that it is Greg’s child – that is why I am curious. There is
something that links us.
Greg had deceived her perfectly successfully for over two years. Why the pretence?
Why had he suddenly decided to leave – after all that time? Really, it didn’t make sense.
The island people know everything, she thought. That girl knows I was walking behind
her. Half the natives she passed probably told her so. But she remained dignified and just
walked on. Melanie wondered if Greg had left her desititute – this hadn’t occurred to her
before – but no – of course not! This was an island girl who had an entire family and
extended family all around her. She was at home. It was Melanie who was vulnerable –
very vulnerable till du Chazan had come along. Melanie shook her head slightly, trying to
banish the annoying embarrassment of the native girl. The next stall sold shark steaks.
She rarely bought them. She remembered the boat outing and the fins slicing through the
water. Greg had told her about shark fishing – wanted to do it himself, but, he said, you
have to be local. He had explained there was an entire ritual associated with it and that
the shark fisherman prepare themselves mentally and physically for the fishing ahead. An
entire ritual has to be undergone. The shark fisherman must have no negative thoughts in
his mind when he sets out; he must not have rowed with his wife or his mother, he must
be spiritually prepared, and while he is out fishing the family must keep a kind of vigil,
speaking quietly and remaining indoors.
Why do I think about Greg? she thought crossly. The imminent arrival of the new baby
had calmed her torn heart and put other thoughts and other priorities in to her mind, and
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she felt she was well and truly over all that now. So why come back in to my mind,
Greg? Just leave me alone, that’s all.
She decided against the shark steaks – really, she had known she wasn’t going to buy
them – and made her way slowly over towards the newspaper kiosk and bought a Paris
Match. She couldn’t help it, it was almost as though a magnet made her head turn this
way and that, till she spotted the Kanak girl again, standing with the child, at the other
side of the street. The child still seemed to be staring straight at her. It was curious, for a
little one so young couldn’t possibly have the remotest idea about anything much, let
alone her late father’s ex-wife. Even if the mother had told her – which was most
unlikely – she wouldn’t have been able to take it in. Yet it was curious how the child
stared.
Melanie realized then that the Kanak girl was deliberately looking away from her,
avoiding eye contact. For a wild moment Melanie was about to cross the street and
demand to know what was going on … but of course, she knew what was going on – that
bastard had left them just as he had left her. Even now it didn’t seem possible. She
wouldn’t say it was out-of-character … but she would never have thought him capable of
being so cruel.
Melanie made her way back to her car, determinedly shutting her mind to anything except
the baby and household matters. She drove back to the office and did a couple of hours’
work. Leafing through Mr Hurst’s documents, sorting them in to things to be signed or
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filed or posted, she realized that Maurice was also her psychological escape from all this
… for when she accompanied him back to France, something she really didn’t want to do,
she would leave behind on this island all the bad memories, the Kanak girl and the halfcaste child, and Greg’s body floating in the water.
The cocktail season started again, when the evenings were cool and the days without the
humid cloud that sometimes swathed the island. Maurice liked to have people round
fairly regularly, and Melanie had become a dab hand at entertaining guests and making
sure they had enough to eat and drink. She had trained Hudeline to walk a little more
sedately and to serve drinks with clean hands. Not that it mattered, for almost all the expatriates had lived a few years in Africa or India and took everything in their stride.
There was something she liked enormously about these people for they were on the whole
professional people who had taken their skills out in to a world where those skills were
frequently desperately needed. She knew the Taylors had lived among lepers in Nigeria
and that Dr Taylor had trained black doctors in South Africa for several years. It gave the
ex-patriate community a common spirit, not of do-gooders, but of busy and talented
people who had seen the world, lived through hardships and who had ended up on this
island, smiling in to the sun. She felt one of them.
“Is there no chance of your being posted back to Africa?” she asked of Maurice.
“I could apply for a position in Africa, of course,” he replied, “and I daresay I could find a
good job. But I don’t want to. I want to go home, show you my family. I’m tired of the
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heat and the flies and I long for … green fields, rain, properly-stocked shops, traffic
lights, hamlets where nothing has changed.”
She had never heard him say such a long sentence and knew instinctively that there was
no point in persuing the subject.
The Commission held a barbeque party, organized by the wives, to celebrate the opening
of a new bar. It was a big event for there was ping-pong in the bar, and a piano, and it
gave the Commission families somewhere pleasant to go after work.
“How long till your baby is due?” asked the wife of the blond Dutch engineer.
“Oh – another ten weeks!”
“A long way to go, then – the worst bit to come!” the Dutch woman smiled indulgently.
“Hopefully it won’t get too hot for you. My two were born in Senegal, both before the
big heat, which was such a mercy.”
“I feel as though I should be worrying about it,” said Melanie, “but I’m not. I’m sure the
maternity unit here is fine. Mrs Taylor says its fine – and she should know!”
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The barbeques spare ribs sizzled and spat and their delicious odour filled the air. Melanie
remembered the last party here, for the Commissioner’s birthday, and then remembered
that somebody had been in the house that night … Rosa …? She had never got to the
bottom of it. A bird screeched loudly in the tree just behind her, startling both her and
the Dutch woman.
“Hudeline – my maid – would say that’s a bad omen!” laughed Melanie.
-------She was not prone to being unwell. Apart from a day or two of splitting headaches just
before her period, she was generally fit and well. The sickness during the early part of her
pregnancy had long since abated thanks, she assumed, largely to Hudeline’s concoction.
Her pregnancy progressed with happy lassitude into the fifth and then the sixth month
with nothing to report. Her skin glowed with health and her hair took on a lush sheen.
Her doctor, a French GP from Marseilles, listened to the baby’s heartbeat, which was fine,
prodded Melanie’s abdomen, which was also fine, and Melanie was registered at the
convent nursing hospital, St Jeanne d’Arc, for her confinement.
Yet a vague feeling of being off-colour persisted for several days after the barbeque. It
was nothing she could put her finger on – just an overall sense of not being on top of the
world. Then, on the fourth day, Melanie took to her bed late in the morning, headachy
and sweaty. Hudeline brought her a cup of coffee at about twelve, which was left
untouched by the bed on the little table. By three Hudeline had started to moisten
Madame’s forehead with a damp flannel and at four she walked, as fast as she could, over
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to the petrol station at the Majenta junction, where there was a phone. She was
unaccustomed to using a phone – in fact had only used one twice before – but she dialled
the number she knew related to Monsieur, her heavy fingers dialling each number
laboriously – 229 – and watching the dial roll down under her finger, release, then watch
the dial roll slowly back to position before the next number could be dialled. She had
seen Madame use a biro to dial on the phone – Madame had explained that otherwise it
was uncomfortable for her finger nails. Hudeline couldn’t see the problem. She was
proud that she had dialled Monsieur, however.
“Madame is ill,” she said with relief when she heard the familiar voice of her boss on the
line. “She needs the medecin.”
Maurice called the doctor from his office and then drove straight back to the house.
Melanie had a high temperature and didn’t seem to understand who he was. Her skin had
taken on an ashen greyish sheen that neither he nor Hudeline had ever seen before and,
worse, she was aggressive and even violent in her reaction to both her husband and her
maid.
“Melanie!” pleaded Maurice, “Melanie! It is me! Settle down!”
Hudeline set off to fetch Jimmy from school at around 4.30, leaving Maurice to wait for
the doctor who, hot and exhausted after an outbreak of food poisoning on a ship in port,
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arrived carrying a small black bag at around six thirty. Named Biteau, he was a small
man of Corsican extract, with a quaint handlebar moustache rather like some character out
of an Agatha Christie novel. Melanie had by now developed a rash all along her under
arms and over her abdomen.
“High fever,” pronounced Dr Biteau.
“What is it?” asked Maurice.
“It is most unusual, but there are several cases in Noumea at present. It probably came
over on one of the ships from Papua. It will die out by itself. So long as the fever abates
soon, there is no great risk except – unfortunately – Madame is pregnant.”
“And?”
“A very high fever will almost always trigger a spontaneous abortion. At best we can
hope for a premature birth, but the chances of the baby surviving … Madame is not yet
seven months pregnant, and as it is I would be concerned about the baby surviving if we
were in Paris or London, but here in Noumea … I am sorry.”
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Jimmy stood by the door and watched his mother toss around on the sweat-soaked bed.
He had never seen his mother ill before. Melanie seemed to become coherent
momentarily and looked over at her son.
“Am I ill?” she gasped. “Jimmy –stay with the Taylors.”
Jimmy started to cry and clung on to Hudeline.
“I can look after Jimmy, Monsieur,” said the big Kanak woman.
“Very well,” replied Maurice, “ whatever you think.” Then, suddenly aware of the tearstained face of his young stepson, he turned to Jimmy and said, “is that all right, mon
grand? Will you be OK while your maman is poorly?”
Melanie’s condition worsened and by midnight the rash had spread over her entire body.
Her fever continued to rise and when Biteau came back for a second look at her soon after
midnight, he pronounced that she needed to go in to hospital.
“She is very ill,” he said. “The virus seems to attack the kidneys and then the heart.”
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“Mon Dieu!” Maurice was profoundly shocked. “Surely nothing dreadful – I mean – how
can she be so ill so suddenly? You just said there is no great risk – this afternoon you
said …“
“But the fever has not abated at all, “ replied Biteau, “ in fact, it has got worse. To answer
your question, Monsieur, yes, she could die. But she will not because this is 1964 and we
can look after her. She needs very large doses of anti-biotics. We will know more by
morning.”
Melanie was transported to the European hospital on the southern shore, attached to the
Commission. It was nearly dawn by the time Maurice left her. During the course of the
following morning Dr Taylor popped in on her several times, but she was not aware of
him.. Her fever raged on through all day and a re-hydration drip was set up; she showed
no improvement at all and the rash had turned pussy in places. Her eyes had swollen and
her lips were parched and puffy. Maurice could not recognize the attractive woman who
was his wife.
“Melanie!”he whispered to her, “Melanie - pour l’amour du Ciel …!”
Towards dawn on the second night the bleeding started. Nobody noticed at first, and the
blood seeped slowly but steadily into the sheet under Melanie; nobody noticed for several
hours till a nurse came in to change her. Melanie was having painful contractions, and
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she thrashed about in her delirium. The nurse felt her tummy where already the foetus
had descended low.
“Docteur!”
she called in a loud whisper as she rushed back out in to the corridor, “what
should I do?!”
The night sister rushed to Melanie’s bedside, but it was too late. What had been new life
in the making was all gone, bled out of the sick woman in the pitch of fever. When
Biteau came back in the morning he was not surprised. He broke the news to Maurice as
soon as he arrived.
“Better this way, while she doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Mon Dieu …”
Biteau touched Maurice’s arm.
“She will need a lot of love and support from you,” he said gently. “Now I must go.”
“Wait! The child – the … foetus … could you tell? I mean …”
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“It was a girl,” Biteau frowned slightly as he spoke, “but I assure you, my friend, it is best
forgotten as quickly as possible. As soon as Madame is better you can start again.”
“I don’t think so somehow … Melanie is thirty-eight.”
“Mon cher!” the doctor smiled, “that is not too old. Look at Mrs Taylor! She is forty-two
and on her sixth child!”
The fever now under control, Melanie was given an anaesthetic for a curettage.
Maurice stayed at her bedside. Sometimes she opened her eyes and spoke a few words to
him, asked for water and asked after Jimmy. Mostly she slept.
“She’s not really well enough,” explained the surgeon, “but if we don’t do this septocemia
will start and then she will be even worse than before.”
So on the fourth day, when Melanie regained consciouness and was able to speak and
recognize the people around her, she was extremely weak. Nobody told her about the
baby and she didn’t ask, but looked dully at the people about her, too ill to care what they
did or said and, running her hand feebly over her tummy, too disappointed to
acknowledge her loss. With the sixth sense of mothers-to-be, she knew that baby had
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gone even before she touched her stomach. Silent tears rolled from the corners of her
eyes but she made no sound. She asked for Jimmy several times.
“In a day or two, when you are a little better, you can see your son,” the charge nurse told
her, “but not now.”
Jimmy was used as a bribe to coax her in to eating.
“Your son wants to see his maman,” she was told, “so you must try a little soup so that
you will start to recover.”
Her heart ached for him. He had never been without her before. Now he would no longer
have the little sibling they had chatted about. It made Jimmy all the more precious. By
the eighth day she was sitting up in bed.
“Melanie, my dear,” said Maurice. He took her hand and patted it nervously. “I have
some bad news.”
She knew what he was going to say, but she wanted to hear him say it. Illogically, she
felt she had suffered enough without having to admit out loud that the baby was gone.
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“What?” she asked. She did not smile at him. She felt she would never smile again.
She looked straight at him, almost willing him to say something else.
“The baby is dead,” he said.
She didn’t reply but looked at him and felt a strange dullness. She had expected that
being told this, out loud, would somehow make it real and that she would cry, but no. She
felt dull, numb.
“I am so sorry, my love,” he said, “there was nothing anybody could do and you have
been very very ill.”
She turned away from him then and lay on her side with her back to him. The opposite
wall was painted in white gloss and she stared intently at this.
“Go away,” she said after a while.
She heard him take in a breath as though he was about to speak then, thinking better of it,
his chair made a small scraping sound on the floor and she heard him rise and leave the
room, closing the door softly behind him. After he had gone she realized that he had
called her “my love” and she was grateful for this. For a wild moment she was about to
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shout out to him to come back but, exhausted, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to
drift in and out of sleep. In her waking moments she reminded herself that pain such as
this does ease; she had learnt this after Greg had left her … after a while the pain eases
and almost goes away.
Mrs Taylor came in to see her. She was rushed and explained that she had left her baby
with her eldest daughter and the maid, Rosa.
“I’m sorry about your baby,” said Mrs Taylor awkwardly, “I lost my third one – between
Anthea and Charmian – we were living in Switzerland.”
“You’ve lived all over the place,” said Melanie. She didn’t feel like talking.
“Oooh, yes!” Andree smiled suddenly, a broad and pleasant smile, “Howard was born in
South Africa and so was Cherry. Anthea was born in Switzerland, Charmian in Nigeria
…”
She stopped, realizing this was probably the wrong topic of conversation.
“You’ve got such a nice husband,” said Melanie suddenly.
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Mrs Taylor looked surprised.
“Why –yes – he is …”
Maurice fetched her from the hospital the following week. She had lost over four kilos in
weight and felt weak and tired. She was thrilled to be back with Jimmy and for the first
time really appreciated Hudeline who, during her mistress’ stay in hospital had moved
herself in to what had once been servants quarters in the basement of the house so that she
would be close at hand for Jimmy. Melanie looked at the big Kanak woman, at her feet,
like great flat, blackened hams, and at her hands, big competent hands that now arranged
the mosquito net around her bed and brought her a tray of tea.
“Thank you Hudeline,” said Melanie. “Has monsieur told you that I have lost the baby?”
“Yes, Madame. But I knew this as soon as you were ill.. You have too much fever.”
Tears sprung to Melanie’s eyes and she wiped them away crossly.
“One day soon,” said Hudeline, lowering her voice as though it were a mystery, “you will
feel better, Madame.”
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Her usual stalwart temperament was knocked for six. Melanie became very lethargic and
didn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings. Depression overcame her and she couldn’t
stop crying. Only the knowledge that she must get a grip on herself for Jimmy’s sake
made her finally, some weeks later, emerge from her bedroom and resume her life. She
never mentioned her pregnancy to anybody again, nor her loss. She returned to the office
and, her teeth grit, immersed herself in work and concentrated her free time on her son.
“Would you like it if I took Wednesday afternoons off work?” she asked Jimmy, “and be
at home with you ?”
Jimmy – and of course all other children - attended school on a Saturday morning but not
on a Wednesday afternoon, something which the British parents in the area found odd and
even annoying. Although Melanie suggested they go to the beach or to the small island
zoo, Jimmy was content to be at home with his electric train set and occasionally with a
friend from school. Melanie read a lot.
Some three weeks later, the sound of a car coming along the drive made her stand up,
shoving her magazine to one side on the settee. She slipped her shoes on and went to the
patio. A police car was parking just beyond the lawn and from it emerged the same
policeman that had seen her down at the Gendarmerie when Greg had died.
“Ah! Madame!” he called when he saw her. He touched his cap and strode purposefully
over the grass to the patio. He had put on a little weight and the small effort in the heat
made him sweat.
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“Hello there,” she replied, shaking his hand, “won’t you come in?”
“Ah – you remember me, then?”
“Indeed I do, monsieur, though I have to confess I cannot remember your name.”
“Tricot,” he said, giving a slight bow of the head, “Cyril Tricot a votre service, madame.”
Melanie smiled to herself. “Tricot” meant to knit, a jumper, a woolly.
She led him through to the elegant sitting room where a bowl full of jacaranda was
displayed on a polished table, and indicated that he should sit. She called out:
“Hudeline!”
The large Kanak woman appeared at the kitchen door.
“Limonade s’il te plait,” she told her. Then, turning to the policeman she said:
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“How can I help you?”
“I have had great difficulty finding you,” smiled the man, mopping his forehead with a
large chequered handkerchief, “I gather you have married a Frenchman?”
He said this with a degree of pride as though it was somehow a compliment to himself.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you, monsieur. You have been looking for me?”
Hudeline appeared, carrying a jug full of lemonade and two glasses. They wobbled
slightly on the tray which was deposited with a flourish on the coffee table.
“Yes, Madame – nothing of any importance. It may be that you do not wish to have these
…” she now saw that he was carrying a sheaf of papers rolled up with an elastic band.
“But legally they are yours. They belonged to your late husband.”
“What are they?”
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“I have permitted myself a quick glance over them,” he said almost apologetically, “and
they seem to be doodles, nothing more ….”
“Oh? How odd.” She raised an eyebrow at Tricot, feeling he wanted to say something
else.
“The people who brought the Caprice found them,” he volunteered.
“They took a long time to bring them to you!” Melanie laughed, “that must be over a year
ago!”
“Indeed – this is what I said. But they found them in a strange place, which is why –“ he
mopped his forehead again and drank a few gulps of lemonade, “why I have been to a bit
of trouble to find you.”
“What strange place?”
“They were stitched, Madame, into a small padded area in the fore locker. Hidden, you
see. So they must have been of some importance when your late husband put them there,
even if they are of no importance now.”
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“Strange … perhaps they were there when we bought the boat in the first place? Mr
Hodges was not a man for paperwork. What made the new owners of the Caprice
search?”
“They are doing some renovation work on the boat, I think.”
“Well, “ Melanie put her glass down firmly on the table and moved forwards in her seat,
indicating that it was time for him to go, “it was good of you to bring them to me.”
Tricot gulped down the rest of his lemonade and rose, his cap tucked neatly under one
arm. Again he did a little bow of the head.
“Thank you for your time, Madame.”
“Thank you for coming round,” she replied politely as she steered him to the patio.
She watched him as he made his way back over the grass to his car, then turned to the
papers. Her first instinct was to simply pop them in the bin. She shied away from
anything to do with Greg. She unrolled the sheaf of papers and glanced quickly through
them. Greg’s handwriting jumped out at her, almost as though he was alive again. Greg!
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She nearly said his name aloud. Sitting gingerly at the edge of the settee, she looked
more closely at each page.
The first was entirely in Greg’s hand; he used a lot of his “homemade” shorthand. Three
more pages were some kind of diagram or map. It wasn’t very clear.
What right have you, Greg, to intrude on my life now? I was feeling fine. I was feeling
better than I have in several weeks and then you have to come back to haunt me. I don’t
care what you were or were not doing with these papers – they are no concern of mine …
She rose suddenly and flung them in to the wastepaper basket.
“I’m off to fetch Jimmy!” she called in to the kitchen.
“Bien, Madame,” came Hudeline’s voice.
Jimmy looked hot and tired when she reached the Taylor house. He and Howard were
sitting on the wall that ran, like a series of steps, all along the side of the garden. A dusty
lawn stretched out behind them, heavily littered with pedal cars and tricycles in varying
degrees of disrepair. Both boys had clearly been rushing about. Good, she thought.
Jimmy spent far too long pouring over books. Three little girls played with an assortment
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of dolls, some broken, on the patio, and next to them a grubby toddler sat in a play pen.
Mrs Taylor appeared at the door when Melanie knocked. She had a small, grubbier baby
perched on one hip.
“Hello, Mrs du Chazan,” Mrs Taylor had a broad smile, “have you come for Jimmy?”
“Yes, thank you for having him,” Melanie replied, “Howard must come round to us
sometime.” She glanced about at the terrifying array of washing, both clean and dirty,
toys, comics, baby equipment and little piles of shells and stones where the girls had been
playing. “I don’t know how you cope with all these children!”
Mrs Taylor laughed lightly but didn’t reply. She hitched the baby higher on to her hip.
“What’s her name?” asked Melanie, giving the red little cheek a dubious stroke.
“His,” corrected Mrs Taylor, “he’s a boy – Dominic – I keep his hair long because it is so
pretty.”
“Oh … yes, of course.”
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Melanie ushered Jimmy in to the car and waved towards the house as she drove away.
Mrs Taylor had already gone back indoors. Fancy keeping that child’s hair long – well
over his ears! And Dominic was a strange name – sort-of arty and … Melanie searched
for the word …avant-garde, she decided.
She fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow that night, but woke some time around
three in the morning with a sense of panic and foreboding. Instinctively she reached out
to Maurice who, asleep, grunted quietly as she touched him. She stared at the black
ceiling. Something had woken her. Something had frightened her. The house was
completely silent and there was nothing out of the ordinary. She could hear the faint
creak of Jimmy’s bed as he moved in his sleep and the quiet, hysterical hum of a
mosquito in the room. Then she realized. Those papers. She should have looked more
closely at them.
Moving quietly and slowly she slipped out of bed and, bare feet on the cool tiles, made
her way silently down the stairs to the bin. It was empty. Dammit, she thought. Typical
of that Hudeline – I have to remind her to empty the wastepaper basket a million times,
and the one time I don’t want her to, she has to go and do it! A pair of Maurice’s
claquettes were parked in the utility room and, clad only in a baby-doll nightie, she
slipped her feet in to these and made her way out to the bins. A pungeant smell wafted up
out of the bin as she lifted the lid. Mercifully, the papers, although the elastic band had
snapped, were still in a roll and on the top of the pile of rubbish. The peep-peep of
cicadas filled the air. Gingerly she picked up the sheaf and made her way silently back in
to the house.
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Fully awake now, Melanie switched on the dining room light and spread the papers out
over the table. She very much doubted that Maurice would wake and if he did … well,
she would show him. In the meantime he was asleep and an instinct told her to remain
quiet and to study it all more closely.
The first page seemed to be directions to something – Mont d’Or – that was the mountain
that loomed up behind Noumea … Bourrail, Pointdimie, Houailou … names that she had
seen on sign posts every now and then but had never taken any notice of. It meant
nothing to her. Mont d’Or had been an army base during the war and even now – twenty
years after the end of the war – there were shells and cartridges and other army
paraphenalia littered over the southern and the eastern slopes. Peering more closely,
Melanie could see that a tiny arrow had been pencilled in slightly to the south of Mont
d’Or, in an area known as Mont Rouge. She assumed the map had something to do with
the war, or the army, and at first felt it bore no relation to Greg.
In fact, apart from the one page that was in his handwriting, which was going to take a
while to decipher, not least because it had been scribbled hurriedly with a thick wax
crayon, also the map which appeared to be – but she wasn’t sure – done by him, there was
nothing at all to link him to anything whatsoever in this roll of papers.
Suddenly tired, Melanie bundled them up again and popped them into the recess of the
sideboard. She crept back in to bed. Maurice stirred slightly. She leant on one elbow
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and looked at him in the darkness, his profile outlined against the shutters from where a
solitary street lamp emitted a golden glow. He was a good man. He’d been kind to her.
He had scooped her up out of her loneliness and fear and had taken her and her boy in.
She would always be grateful for that. She never pretended to be in love with him and
felt slightly sad that the basis of regard for him was one of gratitude. She ran her hand
down over her side, across her hips to her thigh. She remembered passion – oh, not
always – but passion nonetheless … in the arms of another man whose handwriting now
haunted her on a page downstairs …
Eager to get to work so that she could have some time off in the afternoon, Melanie was
up and about long before Maurice had woken. She sorted out some washing for Hudeline
or Rosa to do and prepared Jimmy’s packed lunch. Secretively, and feeling slightly
foolish, she took the papers out of the sideboard and glanced through them again. Now,
in the cold light of day, they seemed as ordinary and unimportant as the previous day
when she had binned them. And yet … some sixth sense told her to study them carefully.
The sound of Maurice in the bathroom made her quickly put the papers in to her grip bag.
She set the table for breakfast. Hudeline, as always, had brought fresh baguette and
croissants in with her. Maurice drank tea rather than coffee. Hurriedly she called out to
Jimmy:
“I have to go Jimmy, darling! Have a happy day!”
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“Bye, mummy!”
Maurice hated to be called out at and so she nipped up the stairs where he was still
brushing his hair. He looked cool and smart in light blue trousers with a short-sleeved
shirt to match and good leather sandals which were locally made. He never put his tie on
till he got to the office. He smiled at her.
“You’re off are you? A bit early, isn’t it?”
“Yes – I’ve got a busy day – I have to go out to one of the mines later …”
“What about breakfast?”
“Sorry – could you eat alone? Do you mind terribly? Just this once?”
“D’accord, my dear. See you this evening.”
She kissed his proferred cheek. Just as she turned to leave he gripped her hand.
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“Melanie,” he said, and she saw a look in his eyes she had never seen before, a look of
pain or hurt, bordering on compassion, “I am so sorry about the baby.”
Astonished, she took a step back.
“Oh … yes … it’s all right, I’m over it now. I’m okay. Thank you Maurice …”
He had never said anything about it before, almost as if it was not his concern. In fact,
she thought, as she reversed out of the drive, it was almost as though he thought the
pregnancy was for her, by her, because of her, and that he was just a passer-by. He had
seemed disappointed, certainly, but only in a temporary way.
Mr Hurst was out. Melanie opened the large iron cupboard in his office and took out the
ordonnance survey maps that were stored there. She spread them out on top of the
photocopier where there was enough flat surface, and studied them closely. Sure enough,
a small section of Mont d’Or was called – unimaginatively – Mont Rouge. Beyond that
was Les Capucines and – for some reason in English – Hogg Valley. She could relate the
map in her roll of papers to the large one spread out before her, but it still told her little
except that it was correct.
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Back at her desk she typed out the letters Mr Hust wanted doing and dealt with a
mountain of paperwork that seemed to take ages. Dr Taylor popped his head in at around
eleven.
“All right?” he asked.
He had been away to Honolulu studying something to do with footworm. She couldn’t
imagine how his wife coped with all those children. The whole lot of them had come
down with chicken pox while their father was away.
“Fine,” she grinned at him.
She ate quickly at her desk and by three she had finished all essential work. Mr Hurst
came in and went out again but mercifully didn’t throw anything else at her to do that day.
“Why are those maps on the photocopier?” he asked.
“I thought you might need them if you were out on site,” she replied coolly.
“Oh no, not those ones at any rate.”
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“Right. I’ll put them away, Mr Hurst.”
She waited till she spotted his car driving out at the other end of the lawns, then went back
to the maps. During the course of the morning she had realized that some of the
shorthand in Greg’s scribblings were place names, and now, Greg’s paper in one hand she
examined the map very carefully.
One word at a time, she worked her way through the page and was soon able to pick out
what seemed to be directions. Greg, she thought, what are you talking about? He had not
been the kind of man for any sort of subterfuge, he didn’t talk in riddles; he was a
straight-forward, straight-talking man. Yet it was clear that he had – for some reason she
had yet to discover – hidden the papers; not only that, he also had written these directions
in a kind of secret code. Suddenly it hit her – in a kind of secret code that he’d have
known only she could decipher. Some of the abbreviations were fairly obvious: mtn
meant mountain, she presumed, and rd was road of course. Other words she could work
out only by relating them to the big map – there were three small villages called Ghuind,
Les Mouches and Chemin Long which she could relate to G, LM and CL and there was a
little scribbled drawing of a man on a chair which she supposed meant the village of Bien
Assis. What at first looked like stars and crucifixes turned out to be compasses which
showed her which way the road was heading. Some of the rest of the “shorthand” made
no sense at all – odd words that did not appear to be related to each other.
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What had been a healthy interest now suddenly became a burning curiosity. This meant
that he had intended her to find her way to whatever there was to be found. There was a
message for her here. She scanned the lines quickly, trying to pick up the gist of it, but
couldn’t. He was not a cartographer of any sort, or even a particularly clever man, but he
had wanted to camouflage this. She wished she knew whether he had written it before he
had left her or after; was it before he fell for that Kanak girl? Certainly it must have been
after the birth of his illegitimate child? None of it made sense – not yet – and Melanie
strongly suspected there would turn out to be nothing of any great interest. Life was like
that. But she had to know.
She left the Commission at about five and drove out of Noumea as far as the industrial
area called La Bourse by the docks. She had thought the Bourrail road led out of town at
this point, but saw that she was on the wrong road. A map of Noumea would not go
amiss, she told herself. A ship had just left port, leaving behind it a huge wake that cut
through the lagoon like a flurry of scarves and flags in the water. Seagulls screeched out
at each other.
For the first time in ages she suddenly decided to go to the Mont Coffyn to the bungalow
she had shared with Greg. She drove slowly up the hill, past the Taylor house, and
instead of turning left where she used to towards the little flat she had shared with Jimmy,
she took the right fork and drove on down the northern side of the hill … and there, half
hidden by naouli trees that twisted their pale branches almost horizontally along the edge
of the drive, was the bungalow.
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“Oh, Greg! Who’d have thought you’d come out here to … die?! What happened?
What went wrong? Are you trying to tell me something now?”
She unfolded the papers once more, and switched the engine off. In the hot car sweat
almost instantly burst in little droplets on her forehead. Both the map – if it could be
called a map – seemed to refer mostly to an area on Mont d’Or and to a place that seemed
to be called … she stared at the word … Poum, perhaps. She had never heard of it and
couldn’t be certain it was a place and not a person. The bungalow didn’t seem to be
referred to, yet she had somehow felt that coming back here would give her an insight in
to the papers.
“Okay,” she said aloud, “we seem to have a map of some kind and directions of some
kind. What reason in the world would Greg have had to think that I would want either?
Either he was playing some kind of silly game, or he has a message for me – or for
Jimmy. Do I even want his message? No, not really …”
The view that had once been so familiar unfolded before her and her eyes scanned the tree
tops and the red roofs as they dipped from view below the old bungalow. Beyond were
the mountains to one side and the ever-present sea to the other. Jimmy had played in
those trees down there. She had tried – like the silly English girl she was – to grow a few
vegetables in the dusty, sandy soil … she could just pick out the back door, which was
open, and a man seemed to be shaking out a rug or a blanket of some kind.
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Suddenly she switched the engine back on and drove away.
It occurred to her, as she drove back towards Majenta, that the papers were for his own
reference and not for her at all. But no, she reasoned, he wouldn’t have needed to write
in his secret way had it been just for his own reference.
She realized it was silly not to
show Maurice, a lawyer, who could quite possibly explain the papers at the drop of a hat.
All in good time, she told herself. She wanted to find out what she could first. Her
senses awakened, she realized that the entire thing, from Greg’s sudden departure to this
very day, was all wrong. Something tasted bad, so to speak. There had always been
more to it, more than just another woman ……….She recognized, with a tearful sense of
loss and empty heartache that, had the baby not died, she’d almost certainly have never
retrieved the papers from the dustbin last night.
I must start at the beginning, she told herself. I have a map of sorts, and that is the first
thing – find out where it is leading to. Greg seemed to have marked a place in the hills
with a kind of lop-sided asterix. I have several names of people and places. On the one
hand she was miserably conscious that the whole thing smacked of Girl Guides – yet …
on the other hand it was bizarre … and she wanted to follow it up.
On a sudden impulse she pulled in to a side road, then turned the car round and headed
back to central Noumea. The sun had hit its westernmost point and blasted down through
the palms. She parked on the Place des Cocotiers and crossed over to the police station.
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A gendarme with large damp patches of sweat under the arms of his otherwise
immaculate uniform, told her that Mr Tricot was not in and to come back in the morning.
That night she lay awake for hours, staring at the black ceiling and listening to the
mosquitoes in the room and the cicadas without. The night was full of little noises.
Andree Taylor had once told her how it was in Africa, with a night watchman touring the
house the entire night, and strange sounds in the bush all around … animals, reptiles .. and
was glad this was Noumea and not Nigeria.
The following morning found Melanie at the Gendarmerie soon after eight. Tricot sat at
his desk.
“More?” he asked, surprised at Melanie’s question, “why no, I have no more information.
What kind of thing? Is there something wrong?”
“Do any of these names mean anything to you?” asked Melanie, showing him the list of
names she had copied out. Tricot looked at them with interest.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“That’s what I hoped you would tell me,” she replied.
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Tricot frowned as he scanned the page. He ran his finger down the list and seemed to
hesitate once or twice. He sighed heavily.
“This man, Milleau, was guillotined a few months ago,” he said dryly, tapping the paper
as he spoke, “and this man, Delahaye, is in prison here in Noumea. Why do you need to
know these things? This was in the papers, it is not a secret.”
Melanie ignored him.
“Can you think of any reason – any reason at all – why my husband – my late husband –
should have their names on a list?”
“Madame! I am not a magician! Why indeed? Perhaps he was involved with them?
Nasty people to be involved with!”
She could sense that Tricot was feeling slightly impatient. He doubtless had work to do.
“Why did they go to prison – and guillotined – ugh! What had they done?”
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“Milleau was a murderer, Madame. He was executed for murder. He murdered his bank
manager in a town in France – Saintes – a Roman town near the coast – and he fled here
to Noumea to escape. He slit the man’s throat and then threw the body in to the river
Charente, if you really want to know.”
“Ugh …”
“But,” Tricot straightened his shoulders imperceptibly, “we caught him. Of course.”
“And the other man – Delahaye?”
“No connection as far as I know. He is a thief and a safe-breaker. He has lived in
Noumea several years.”
“And the other names on the list?” insisted Melanie, “do you know who they are?”
“Madame, “ Tricot stood up suddenly, “ I have no wish to be rude, but I have a lot of
work to do. I do not know what the names signify. Monsieur Hodges had a lot of
contacts, he had fingers in a lot of pies, so to speak. He met different people every day.
We watched him for a while.”
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Melanie was stunned.
“Did you?!”
“Yes, Madame, but you will be pleased to know that we were unable to pin anything on
him. We suspected him of many things, but we found nothing. As you know – and
without wishing to be impertinent – he was a drunk. Now, if you please, I must get on.”
“One more thing,” said Melanie, “who brought the papers in – was it the Dumont family –
the same people I sold the boat to?”
“Yes, Madame, it was.”
This was good news. Alain and Sylvaine Dumont were straight-forward people she
would be able to approach. Realizing she would be very late and that Hudeline would be
waiting to go, she now turned the car towards the port. An overturned van caused a minor
traffic jam soon after the Avenue Joel Memin, and she reached the port just as Alain
Dumond was packing up for the night. The Caprice was moored at the end of the jetty.
She had been re-painted pale blue but nonetheless Melanie’s heart missed a beat – all
those months ! – all that time! So much to recover from, so many memories …! Dumond
recognized her instantly.
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“Madame Hodges!”
He was a slightly-built man with a shock of thick white hair even though he could have
been no more that forty-five years old. Both he and his wife, Melanie remembered, were
art teachers, and she particularly remembered the man’s elegant and artistic hands. His
wife, Sylvaine, was a pretty fair-headed woman who wore unusual clothes and colourful
dangly earrings.
“I am Madame du Chazan now,” Melanie told him, “I re-married.”
“Ah! Yes, I heard this,” said Dumond, “what can I do for you?”
Melanie explained, briefly, about the papers. She thanked him for taking them along to
the police station.
“I just wondered if there was anything else?” she asked.
“No – nothing – except for a few things written on the wall – nothing – a list or
something similar.”
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“Can I see?”
“Indeed,” Dumond indicated that she should step aboard. He pointed to the fore locker.
“In there, on the inside of the doors. We were going to re-paint them but for one reason
or another didn’t get round to it.”
Melanie opened the doors. She remembered the catch. She had opened and closed this
catch a dozen times. It took her a few moments to find the writing.
There was a little pencil drawing of five trees in a straight row and underneath a list of
place names some of which she recognized from the papers. By the trees was the figure
five and an asterix the same as the one on the map. She knew then that that place marked
on the map could be identified by five trees. Heavens, Greg, there are trees everywhere!
she thought. There was also a little crude drawing of a bird – Greg couldn’t draw –
flying over the sea. Next to it a tick, like in a child’s school book, indicating that the bird
was right.
She stood up, suddenly tired.
“Thank you Monsieur Dumond,” she said, shaking his hand.
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“What is it?” he queried, “is there anything I can help with?”
“Oh …. no ……. probably not. My husband died, you see ….. I just wondered – oh,
nothing!”
“If I think of anything that might be of interest to you,” said Dumond, almost as though he
understood absolutely, “I will tell you. You work at La Commission, don’t you?”
“Yes – thank you. Au revoir, monsieur.”
“Au revoir, Madame,” he replied.
He watched her as she stepped out of the boat back on to the jetty. She walked rapidly
back up on to the shore, feeling his eyes on her back all the way, and drove off quickly,
sending pebbles shooting up behind the car and feeling … feeling she had somehow
missed a point …. Somehow, somewhere.
She was in the middle of washing her hair when she remembered. Bent over the bath
with the shower attachment shooting hot water over the wall tiles, shampoo all over her
head, she suddenly remembered – the little picture of the bird flying over the sea – it was
a seagull. The tick indicated that the seagull was okay. Melanie stood up and looked at
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her reflection in the mirror and let the wet shampoo drip over her shoulders. Perplexed,
she frowned to herself. This either meant that Greg was simply saying that he liked Manaoua-oua, for reasons best left unexplored, or he was trying to tell her that the Kanak girl
was all right …
That, of course, pre-supposed that Greg was trying to tell her anything at all, and she
hadn’t yet established that.
----------
Several days elapsed before Melanie allowed herself to examine the papers again. I must
either throw them away, she decided, or I must act upon them. Mr Hurst had returned to
England for a few weeks leave, to see his fiancée, a pretty little dark-haired woman by the
name of Denise and whose photo sat on his desk, her frank smile beaming out of the
frame.
“I’ll be gone a couple of weeks,” said her boss. He was so tall that she preferred to sit
when he spoke to her, and he had a pleasant way of leaning forwards, inviting a
confidence, so that she never felt overwhelmed by him.
“Right you are, Mr Hurst,” she replied, “don’t worry, I know what do to.”
“Ah – I know you do my dear Melanie! You’ll keep the ship afloat for me.”
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He laughed pleasantly.
As always there was a mountain of work to be done but Melanie, who knew most of the
typists, was able to palm off a reasonable amount of it and, with the excuse of having to
go to one of the mines, she set off in her car soon after lunch. Her first stop was at home
where she left a note for Jimmy:
“Don’t worry if I am late – I’ve got lots of work. Mummy.”
Jimmy and Hudeline had developed a chummy little relationship since her illness and she
was not worried. She made herself a thermos of tea, had a quick lunch and a coffee and
then, taking the papers with her, she got in to her car.
She slipped in to gear and reversed out of the drive. She felt bad not breathing a word to
Maurice about it, but some sixth sense made her remain silent. Let’s wait and see, she
thought. See what this is all about.
She followed the road down past the port and wound round to the east of Noumea, skirting
the cathedral and picking up the Bourrail road beyond the town. The outskirts of Noumea
were essentially a shanty-town, little more than a light scattering of native huts with
corrugated iron “extensions” built on to the sides, where pigs and chickens milled about.
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There was no poverty here in the European sense of the word, for the island people stuck
together and looked out for each other. Although their houses were virtually shacks, they
lived comfortably by their own standards, ate well, and were healthy. To boot they had the
benefit of French medical attention and French education – even if they didn’t use it.
Almost all island people were inoculated against diptheria, mumps, smallpox and polio and
these diseases were more-or-less eradicated. Although cases of malaria were surprisingly
common, this was not an indigenous disease – Dr Taylor had recurrent episodes of malaria,
having first picked it up in Africa as a young man, as did many of the colonial residents of
the island. It seemed that those who had lived and worked in Africa and Malaya hesitated
on the island of New Caledonia before returning permanently to their European homelands,
almost as though the South Pacific was a kind of staging post between white supremacy in
the colonies and home. Killer diseases and mutilating diseases like leprosy and
tuberculosis were, if not eradicated, largely under control.
The arrival of the French, with their shops and industries, rapidly followed by the arrival of
a thin stream of tourists, had made the island relatively wealthy. There was plenty of
employment and sharp-minded island people could not only make extra money on the side
with straight-forward work from waiter to miner, but could also create local “produce” in
necklaces of shells, bracelets, good luck charms, lengths of colourful cloth and straw hats
to persuade the ever-willing tourist to part with his money.
This meant that the island people, generally beautiful, were also a healthy-looking,
wholesome people, who smiled and waved at passing cars and worked alongside their
European counterparts with easy – if insular – sociability. Many had moved in to more
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modern housing and most people felt it was a great shame when they abandoned their
traditional huts, for some reason unwilling or unable to keep the typically South Pacific
thatch-on-stilts style that was maintained with hearty patriotism on the other islands
nearby. Access to good education meant that a small sprinkling of native professionals
was emerging; oddly enough, neither the Kanaks, the Kanak-French nor the Cadoches
seemed to have any aspirations about moving to France to live, preferring their island life
and the simple familiarity of their surroundings, where in other colonies – India or Africa –
the local people seemed to harbour a dream that if they could only get to Europe – and
preferably to Britain – life would be easy.
Melanie supposed that Rosa and Hudeline lived in one of these little shanty towns.
Noumea was no more than three miles across yet boasted quite a regular bus service, and
the native work force travelled in and out of the European areas from quite a distance. A
circular, and invariably rusty blue and white sign indicated a bus stop, and the buses varied
in size from goods vans to coaches and transported a market-maze of people with their
accompanying crescendo of chickens and children.
The tarmac road continued out in to the bushlands. She had been out here with Greg when
they first arrived in New Caledonia. They had driven to a river, Dumbea, and had found an
idyllic little spot by a cluster of huge gnarled trees. The river raced by over boulders,
thickly forested on either side with little clearings made by weekend picnickers; perrokeets
screeched in the trees overhead and the sweltering sun filtered down through the thick
foliage, dappling on the hot brown earth. They had made love while Jimmy slept. She
could picture Greg quite clearly all of a sudden, could even smell his masculine body odour
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and hear his voice and the way he looked at her, eyes squinted up against the sunlight, as
she opened her legs to receive him.
She shook the picture away crossly. Go away, she muttered under her breath, I have no
room for you.
The road was straight for several miles, cutting through a small settlement which had a sign
naming it “Les Moines” incongruously nailed up on a tree. It was barely more than a few
houses. The landscape was brittle, small hills appearing to her right and the ocean to her
left, coming and going in and out of her line of vision. Cacti and ant hills dotted the
scrubland, a vast expanse of which was totally black where there had evidently been a fire.
The dead branches of a few small trees scarred the bright blueness of the sky and a feeling
of sinister aloneness overcame her so that for a few seconds she was tempted to turn back.
As expected, the junction appeared soon after a settlement, this time equally incongruously
named “Bien Assis”. She pulled in and looked at her instructions, scrawled haphazardly in
an inexpert hand across a grubby sheet of paper. She glanced around. Several cars had
passed her so she knew she was not too far from civilization but nonetheless the sensation
of being completely alone persisted. There was no signboard at the junction, but to the left
clearly led down through a small pine wooded area towards the sea, and she could see the
sea some three or four miles off, and the lace ribbon of the reef strung alongside before the
sea touched the horizon. Almost out of sight was an island, which she assumed to be
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Auleronne; she had heard the name once or twice. Straight on, then, led up to the far end
of New Caledonia.
Still hesitating, she reached in to the back seat and pulled out her thermos. Nothing like a
cup of tea she said to herself, much as her mother would have done. She had put a lot of
sugar in and was glad of it; it had started to go luke-warm but it didn’t matter. Refreshed,
she slipped back in to first gear and turned right.
The road almost immediately started its ascent up in to the mountains. The deep red hue
of the range, no more than 3000 feet at its highest point, but stretching almost the entire
length of the island, gave a sunset glow to the landscape. The tarmac lasted only for a mile
or two and then became broken tarmac intermingled with stones and red dust. The dust
was everywhere, dark red tinged with brown and it covered the earth and the rocky
outcrops all about her, dotted with thickly-thorned bushes. Looking in to her rear-view
mirror she could see vast quantities of red swirling up behind her and caking the car.
Maurice will ask what I’ve been doing, she thought. The windscreen was covered and she
had to keep the window closed. The road continued in this way for several miles, and the
further in to the mountains she got, the less the dust became till eventually she reached a
plateau where she pulled in and, shaking and sweaty after the uphill grind, her head
buzzing from the noise of the over-heating and complaining engine, she emerged from the
car and shook out her frock.
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The view was stunning. For mile upon mile she could see the landscape drop gently away
from her down to the sea. And for mile upon mile she could see the sea. Noumea was
clearly visible over to her left, and the Ile au Maitre and the port. There was a ship in.
The glazed to the ocean mirrored small passing clouds and a cool little breeze crept up over
the hill, taking the worst of the heat with it and clearing the light so that an ethereal quality
touched the sky and the red hills all about. The dust had given way here to rock, which
stretched in vast black slabs both down- and up-hill about her. Pines of some sort grew in
among the rocks, vibrantly green and, forced up between the crevices were wild orchids in
white and blue, and a red flower that made her think of fox gloves, in thick clumps, here
and there, like spots of blood where no blood was.
Melanie finished the rest of the tea and got back in to the car. According to her
instructions, the place Greg had marked with an asterix on her map was another five or six
miles. The mountain, aptly named Mont Rouge, stretched like a spinal cord in both
directions, and the narrow road snaked off ahead of her, slithering rapidly out of sight.
She saw now, as she manoeuvred the car round each twisting bend, that she had reached
the highest point in the range she was now in. Typically, the road was an agony of sharp
bends and sheer drops.
“Well, I can hardly do a three-point turn here!” she said aloud.
But as the road narrowed, so her nervousness abated. She stopped momentarily and looked
at her instructions again. Five trees.
She knew she would recognize it when she saw it.
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There were trees all around, growing in density as she continued along the road – but she
knew she’d know the spot. And sure enough, a mile or so further on, the land became flat
and barren and the road split in to two. Looking off to her right she could see the
magnificent archipelageo that was New Caledonia, and looking off to her left … she could
see five trees. Neatly lined up, as though they had been planted there, five trees silhouetted
against the brilliant blue-yellow horizon, black, as good as any sign board, standing straight
and brooding at the edge of the crevice where the road turned.
Melanie crashed the now hot gears in to first, and steadily wove the car off to the left. It
was hardly more than a goat track. Indeed, as she rounded the bend, there were goats
scattered over the rocky escarpment. One or two looked up momentarily as she drove past,
making small bleating sounds and running off nimbly over the rocks. Wild goats were
fairly common; there was a nearby island called Ile des Chevres – goat island.
The track petered out after half a mile or so. It seemed to her that nobody had been along
there for a long time. There was no sign of any sort of any human activity but, peering
through the undergrowth she could see that somebody – a long time ago perhaps – had
built a kind of shelter, almost out of sight beyond the bushes. She switched the engine off
and got out of the car. A cooling breeze wafted up from the sea and she wiped her hankie
over her face, realizing that her frock was again powdered the same red. She took stock of
her surroundings: well, she thought, there is nothing. Not really.
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She didn’t know what she had been expecting – perhaps nothing at all. The shelter needed
further investigation but she had no intention of wading through the brambles in a frock.
Apart from that she couldn’t see anything of any note. She stood gingerly by the car,
horribly aware of snakes, and stared hard at everything, committing it to her memory in
case it was of importance. Delving in to the back seat of the car she pulled out her papers.
She spread the ordonnance survey map over the bonnet of the car and checked that she was
in the right place. There was no doubt about it. It was here – somewhere.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking for!” she said aloud. Her voice seemed strangely
unfamiliar.
Something cold seemed to touch the back of her neck. Goose pimples suddenly measled
over her. She got back in to the car and, slamming the door, reversed rapidly back up the
track; something had startled her. The car swerved this way and that and she struggled to
keep it in line, her fingers inexplicably sweaty on the steering wheel. She had noticed a
small clearing a quarter of a mile or so further back and she was able to turn the car round
there. Sweating, she looked back down to where the shelter was. She stared fixedly for
several minutes, determined the silent landscape would tell her something. No, of course
not … there were goats … snakes … birds …. There was nothing else.
The journey back to the house took ages, or so it felt. She was conscious of being very
grubby and wanted to not only get herself changed and washed before Maurice got in, but
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wanted to wash the car too. Rosa and Hudeline would think it odd – but let them think it
odd – Madame could wash her car if she wanted, one supposed?
-----------“I wish I had a dog,” said Melanie over breakfast.
Maurice lowered his newspaper and looked at her over the rim of his glasses. He was
reading The Times which he picked up from the Commission. It was always a week or so
out-of-date but even Maurice, arrogant in his Frenchisms, said that the Times was the
only paper worth reading.
“A dog?” he asked as though he thought he hadn’t heard.
“Yes … I like dogs …” Melanie was conscious of a slight tremor in her voice and busied
herself with some crumbs on the tablecloth, hoping that Maurice would not notice.
“Ma chere … I had no idea you liked dogs! Of course we can have one if that is what
you want – I’ve always had a dog.”
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“Thank you, Maurice,” she said, smiling at him and feeling guilty. She was afraid he
would start talking about his home near Bordeaux and the dogs he had there, so she added
quickly:
“Will you leave it up to me? Can I go and choose one?”
Maurice took a sip from his coffee cup with maddening deliberation.
“No,” he said in a matter-of-fact way, “I shall come too. I’ll help you choose. There will
not be a lot of choice here, you realize.”
“No, I know … but I’ve got a few ideas …”
“My last dog – Jeudi – died a few years ago. I’d had her fifteen years. A chien de chasse
– a hunting dog.”
“Jeudi ? Meaning Thursday? “
“Yes – I suppose I must have got her on a Thursday.”
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“I rather like collies and dalmations, or good-sized mongrels …” Melanie tried.
“Most dogs around here will be mongrels,” he replied.
“Oh – yes – I think …”
“Something small and easy for you to cope with,” interrupted Maurice absently, taking
another sip and resuming his paper.
That signalled the end of the conversation. Bother, thought Melanie. That had gone quite
well, but she had wanted free rein in the choosing of the animal. It had to be a big dog, it
had to bark ferociously and it had to be obedient. She had had a small mongrel puppy
when she was a child but apart from that had no experience of dogs.
In fact, she
considered, if anything she was slightly afraid of them. But a good faithful dog was part
of the plan, perhaps an essential part – time would tell – and she had to now find a way of
getting a big dog and not the kind of thing she feared Maurice had in mind.
As if reading her thoughts he rose from the table and folded his paper. He scooped his car
keys up from the sideboard.
“A poodle, or something like that, my dear. It will be good for you.”
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“Oh … no, I don’t like poodles …”
“OK – a small terrier or a Scottie, that would be nice.” He kissed her briefly on the
cheek, patting her arm as he did so, “see you this evening.”
She pottered about getting herself ready and had to call out to Jimmy several times. The
Commission car was very punctual and the driver got cross if any of the children were
late. Jimmy came down the stairs two at a time and ran in to the kitchen where Hudeline
handed him a tartine and a bowl of milky coffee.
“Jimmy,” said Melanie, ignoring Hudeline who was crashing vigorously around them,
showing the importance of her position in the kitchen as opposed to Madame’s position
which should be more in the direction of the living room. “Jimmy, I’ve been thinking
about getting a dog. Ask around your friends at school, would you?”
“A dog?!” Jimmy was surprised, “great!” His mouth full of bread and jam he turned on
Hudeline: “maman va nous prendre un chien!”
Hudeline, sloshing quantities of water over the draining board, declared that dogs were
dirty and that she didn’t like them, but she winked kindly at Jimmy; he got on well with
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the maid and seemed to have developed a kind of secretive camaraderie with her, which
was rather pleasant and made Melanie feel that Jimmy was always in good hands.
“It’s not certain yet, Jimmy,” Melanie warned him, “I have yet to find a dog. That’s why
I want to see if any of your friends have got one – or know of one – that would be …
suitable for us.”
“A little puppy!”
“Well, no, really I’d prefer a dog that is almost fully grown …”
“An alsation!”
“Yes … something along those lines …”
“I’ll ask Jean-Marc, he’s got dogs. Howard hasn’t. But I think Brendan has. I’ll ask.”
The sound of a horn outside warned them that the Commission car had arrived and Jimmy
grabbed his cartable and fled out of the door.
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“Bye mummy!”
Melanie waved from the patio. She could see the three eldest Taylor children in the car –
Howard, Cherry and Anthea, and the two Dutch children. They didn’t seem to notice her.
One thing that Melanie liked very much about her job was that to a large extent she could
please herself. She had become Mr Hurst’s right hand man – so to speak – and her role
was far more important than that of mere secretary. He depended on her for the general
running of the department and she had carefully worked her way up to a relatively senior
position in the echelon of secretarial staff. This in turn meant that she didn’t have to dash
in to the office by eight nor feel forced to remain there till five. She worked diligently
and was extremely proud of the good job she did, but – within reason – she worked her
own hours. Being in the engineering department she periodically had to take papers out
to one of the mines or one of the engineering sites; Mr Hurst was fairly frequently out on
a site or even out at one of the other islands for several days at a time. This left Melanie
with plenty of freedom of movement; she didn’t have to “clock” in or out in any real
sense and now, with the need to be out on Mont d’Or ever pressing, she used her easygoing schedule to her advantage. She was inherently honest, however, and a slave to her
own word. She loathed the idea of taking advantage and didn’t at any cost want to
jeopardize either her job or Mr Hurst’s trust in her.
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Maurice would have preferred her to not work. He was an old-fashioned man and wives
generally stayed at home and kept house. He accepted, however, her decision to continue
with her job after their marriage, even though he clearly felt her place was at home.
“Your place is at home,” he told her. He said it kindly enough. He was never unkind to
her. “Women are the home-makers.” She knew he hoped she would become pregnant
again.
“More and more women are working, Maurice, soon it will be quite common. Women
doctors and women lawyers will be as common as men.”
Maurice had laughed.
“I don’t think so my dear!”
“I bet one day there will be women commentators on the radio. Even woman bus
drivers.”
Maurice smiled at her. She went on, irritated:
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“And women speakers on the television, women politicians …”
“I very much doubt television will take off,” he replied dryly. Then, seeing he had
annoyed her, he added:
“Ma chere! You do have some funny ideas. Still, if you like being secretary to Mr
Hurst, you go ahead.”
She sometimes allowed herself to imagine Maurice’s house near Bordeaux. She couldn’t
picture herself there.
She couldn’t imagine living anywhere other than Noumea – or
perhaps returning home to England. She prayed that Maurice’s contract would be
renewed at the end of the three-year period, nearly two of which had already gone. She
was astute enough to realize that this was fickle on her part. After all, she had been fully
aware that Maurice was French when she married him. To declare that she didn’t want to
return with him to his homeland was insensitive and cowardly of her. She knew she
would accompany him dutifully; in the meantime she put her head down against the wind
and ignored it.
A few days later Maurice returned with a white Scottie.
“Oh! How lovely!” Melanie took the creature inexpertly in her arms. It was exactly
what she didn’t want. Jimmy was thrilled.
“Hey, I thought you said a big dog, mummy?!”
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“Mais non,” Maurice interrupted, “a small dog is what your mother wants!”
“What’s it called?” Jimmy ran his fingers through the dog’s coat.
“You choose,” Melanie had difficulty keeping her irritation and disappointment out of her
voice.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“A girl,” Maurice told him.
Later, when Melanie went in to tuck Jimmy in for the night he whispered to her:
“I was hoping it was a boy. Then I’d have called him Greg.”
“Oh Jimmy – darling!” she kissed his hot little head, “do you think about daddy very
much?”
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“Sometimes …” his eyes wandered over to the window, “sometimes I think I can see him
…”
Jimmy had no – or little – memory of Greg leaving them. Melanie allowed the memory
to fade. He knew, however, that Greg was dead and Melanie understood that it was
important to him to think his father had died – no more, no less. Had he realized the way
Greg had simply walked out one day, his little heart would be broken.
“I used to think I could see him too,” she whispered, “but Howard’s dad told me that is
normal. We have a new life now, Jimmy my pet, but neither of us will ever forget your
daddy.”
“I wish …” Jimmy hesitated “ – I wish the baby had been born.”
Their eyes met in the darkness and they were silent for a moment.
“So do I,” Melanie replied.
“I’ve got a good name,” he said, changing the subject abruptly, “Tizzy.”
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“Tizzy? Tizzy it is. Night-night my sweet one.”
“Night-night mummy.”
Tizzy was a little under a year old and fully grown. Small and white and fluffy, she was
absolutely the last thing Melanie had had in mind. Nevertheless, she lifted the dog in to
the car as she set off a few mornings later, for Mont d’Or. One good thing that could be
said about the little dog, she reflected, was that it barked.
“Good girl,” she told her. The little creature wagged its tail.
Th e aim of the dog was to give her some kind of warning. She couldn’t say she felt
actually spooked, but she felt very vulnerable out there on the mountain by herself. A
small white fluffy Scottie would hardly protect her against marauding men with evil
intentions, she reflected, but she assumed the dog would at least bark and warn her about
anybody approaching. The crime rate in New Caledonia was very low. There was
virtually nothing in the way of murder or armed robbery or rape, if only because it was an
island and an offender had nowhere to run. Petty thieving was quite common among the
native classes and drunken brawling was also common among the white sailor classes, but
apart from that there was really nothing of any note. It was one of the things she liked so
much about the island.
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Her other fear was of snakes and centipedes. New Caledonia was home to very few
snakes, being an island, but her horror of them after an encounter in Australia remained.
Centipedes were everywhere, frequently as much as four or five inches long and the larger
centipedes had a nasty “bite” which, if it got infected, could be deadly. She knew the
centipedes to be nocturnal and that they would be hiding in the cool areas under the rocks
and beneath the thick foliage around the Mont Rouge shack. Ships from Australia had
accidently imported a variety of other small creatures.
To her own surprise she found that she quite liked Tizzy. She was a bright little dog,
obedient and intelligent. Her previous owners had been Australian, so commanding
Tizzy was simple enough.
They had returned to Sydney and for one reason or
another had been unable to take the dog with them. Her name was in fact Jenny, but
she seemed to respond to her new name. Funnily enough “Tizzy” suited her – she
was a tizzy kind of dog, lively, energetic, quick to respond.
Melanie drove up as far as the turning she had previously taken up to Mont Rouge,
and then pulled in to study the papers again. A van went past her at
considerable speed, kicking dust up behind it and hooting impatiently.
Peering closely at the map Melanie felt sure she had found the correct spot,
but it seemed to relate also to another spot on Mont d’Or. Logically, then, she
should have turned off earlier where there was a clear sign to Mont d’Or, but
according to Greg’s shorthand scribblings, there was another track, off the
Mont Rouge track.
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She turned right, as she had done before. She tried to reason with herself that it was
quite ridiculous to be so secretive about it. Heavens, I am allowed to drive
around on these mountains if I want to! she told herself. Yet the sensation that
she needed to keep quiet about it prevailed. She was conscious that a part of
her incentive was born of the upset at having lost the baby. It gave her
something new to fill her head. T his realization made her feel concerned
that, upset and in need of some kind of palliative she was reading more in to
the map and the notes than was really there.
On the back seat of the car she had a grip bag with a bottle of water – already positively
warm – some pale yellow slacks, a pair of socks and a sturdy pair of plimsolls. Tizzy sat
on the front seat, periodically jumping up to see what was going on and wagging her tail
energetically.
“I doubt you’re going to be much use,” said Melanie patting the dog’s head lightly.
She drove fairly fast, past the suburb shanty-town and through the parched countryside
where palms waved slightly in the faint breeze. A couple of brightly-coloured birds flew
up suddenly ahead of her, emerging from a naouli tree whose torturous branches were
laden heavily with brittle grey-green leaves. At the junction she turned right as before
and then slowed down, eeking her way along the dirt road and glancing every now and
then at her papers. Some fifty metres further along she turned sharp left into a small track
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that she had not noticed before. It led steeply uphill. Loose gravel and red dust spewed
up behind the car. After a while the track veered off to the right and then seemed to stop.
Melanie pulled on the hand brake and stepped out of the car. Holding her hand up over
her eyes she scanned the countryside but could see nothing except the endless brittle
shrubs, the rocks and the dust. She let Tizzy out. The little dog instantly ran off to one
side and weed. Melanie had brought a small bowl and she gave the dog a drink.
“This is where I need my slacks,” she said aloud.
Glancing around her again, she rapidly removed her skirt and pulled on the trousers. She
hoisted the zip quickly up the side and fastened the button. Although she knew there was
nobody around she had a horrible and disconcerting feeling of being watched.
“For goodness’ sake bark,” she said to the dog, “if you see any body or anything – bark!
What d’you think I brought you along for?!”
She pulled the socks and plimsolls on and locked the car. Within seconds the heat
encased around her legs and feet was almost suffocating. She had seriously considered
putting the slacks on before leaving home, but it was this very heat that she couldn’t
tolerate.
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“C’mon, Tizzy!” she called and set off at a brisk pace across the escarpment, the map and
papers in one hand and her bottle of water in the other.
The bottle soon became heavy and within fifty yards she was totally drenched in sweat.
There was no shade and she realized she should have brought a hat. Nobody, but nobody,
went for a walk in this heat. The sun blasted down on to the rich red earth, bounced back
off the rocks, and permeated the very core of the air itself. She took a few gulps of warm
water. All around, half embedded in the dust, were cartridges and shells, even helmets
and old army water bottles. Bitter relics of the war. Every now and then were piles of
stones, built up like a small wall, probably by sweltering soldiers trying to make a bit of
shade. She could feel her feet swelling inside the plimsolls but was nonetheless glad of
them for every crevice harboured snakes and scorpions and centipedes; Tizzy stopped
regularly to sniff under a rock and more than once recoiled suddenly.
Too hot to continue, Melanie was about to turn back when she realized that the track had
brought her round to where she had arrived the previous week. There, further down the
slope and off to the east, perhaps another mile away, was the shelter. Almost entirely
covered in brambles she could easily have missed it. From this angle she could see it was
bigger than she had thought. A footpath, no more than a few trampelled weeds and cut
brambles, led from this side of the shelter to the furthermost point of the escarpment,
where it disappeared out of sight.
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This told Melanie that there was somebody about; perhaps not right now, but generally ,
there was somebody here who used the shelter. Goat herds, clearly, but why had Greg
done a map of it? Most of the goats were wild and the local people were not animal
farmers really, though she supposed it was plausible that they looked after the goats in an
overall sense – goat meat was popular, and it made sense to “farm” the animals to an
extent. She knew nothing about goats or about what they did or didn’t need in the way of
supervision and care. She had eaten fromage de chevre several times till somebody had
told her – Bill Taylor, perhaps – that it was a quick way of picking up worms. The very
thought made her feel sick.
Tizzy had not barked at anything but was showing signs of being too hot. Melanie
cupped her hand and poured a little water in to the palm.
“Here, Tizzy!” she called.
The small dog came over and eagerly lapped up the tiny quantity of water. Melanie
poured a bit more.
“Come on,” she said, “back to the car.”
In most ways it seemed like a wild goose chase. She had no idea what she was looking
for or why. Had the first page of the roll not been in Greg’s handwriting, and especially
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had it not seemed secret, she doubted she’d have taken an iota of notice. But, the more
she thought about it, the more she realized that there was something about what Greg was
doing – or not doing – that she had not known about.
You left me very suddenly, she said to herself – you just walked out one day. No
warning. Just like that. If there’s an explanation, I want it.
The following day Melanie was back on Mont Rouge with her dog. This time she drove
straight to where the five trees made their landmark, jutting up like great dark scars in to
the brilliant blue sky. Looking to her left she could just make out where the track from
the previous day joined the road – if it could be called a road. Again, she changed in to
slacks and protective footwear and also a hat and then, Tizzy scampering at her heels, set
off toward the shelter. The undergrowth thickened rapidly and it was not possible to
advance. Yet there had to be a way to the shelter, even if it was overgrown. It was clear
that the structure had been built many years ago – quite possibly dating from the war –
and that nobody had been up here to repair it since. Yet somebody had been here,
otherwise the tracks would have long since overgrown. Suddenly she stopped and looked
back at where she had just walked. A sensation akin to fear shot through her. Slowly, she
retraced her steps back towards the car – yes, there it was. A tyre mark in the dust that
was not her own. A scooter or a moped had been here.
“Tizzy! Tizzy!” she called.
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The little dog ran towards her and Melanie scooped her up and got back in to the car. Just
as she reached forward to switch on the ignition, her fear subsided and she almost laughed
out loud.
“Goodness! What in the world do I imagine I have to be afraid of?!”
Smiling at her own foolishness, she patted the little dog’s head and reversed back along
the track to where she could turn around. Although she was stunningly hot, she kept the
slacks on and headed for Noumea. She glanced in the rear-view mirror as she reached the
bend in the road – and there – just for a split second she saw somebody. Or thought she
saw somebody. She pulled in and stared intently via the mirror at the rocks behind her –
but no, there was nobody, there was nothing. Moreover, there was nowhere for anybody
to pop out of sight – a few thin trees, a few low boulders, little else.
As soon as she had left the track and was back out on to the tarmacked road, she wound
down her window and let the air, albeit luke warm, rush through her hair.
I have to make a decision, she thought. Either I give up this … this hunt … or I do it
properly. Already she felt she had wasted a lot of precious time and, worse, had the
constant and maddening feeling that she was just being utterly daft about something. She
was well aware that the roll of papers could turn out to be nothing more than lost property
on the boat – left behind by somebody on a day trip, that Greg had subsequently just
stuffed into the forelocker out of sight because of … well, because of anything, anything
under the sun! As for the scribblings in Greg’s handwriting this also could just be his
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own notes for something – one of his dastardly rendez-vous, perhaps … she had a
momentary vision of Greg having sex with the Kanak girl up on those rocks … A part of
her felt utterly ridiculous, as though she was a member of the Secret Seven or whatever.
She drew in her breath sharply, crossly. Typical of Greg! You can’t just die, can you,
Greg? You can’t just go away? No, you have to come back, don’t you?
And yet the curiosity persisted.
Melanie had no hobbies of any particular note. Some of the Commission wives met for
tennis but she didn’t play. She was periodically invited round to somebody for coffee,
and she invited them back. Both she and Maurice had joined –in play reading several
times, once at the Taylor house where Andree had to be an owl and hooted most
impressively much to the hilarity of the children who were peering through the banisters.
Apart from that she worked and kept the house. This can sort-of be my hobby, she said to
herself.
There was a young Australian student by the name of Mat Green at the Commission this
year. He had taken a degree in Theology at Melbourne University and was now studying
native ritualistic behaviour in the South Pacific. To earn his keep he helped out with
minor administrative work at the Commission. Aged about twenty-two, he had a pale
skin covered in freckles and very short red hair. He was tall and good-looking in his
reddish sort of way , with clear blue eyes and a pleasant smile. Sensing his awkwardness
as a newcomer, Melanie had befriended him and had several times eaten her picnic lunch
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with him, out on the Commission patio, and had helped him to find digs with a French
family living near the docks.
“Have you got family, Mat?” she asked as they sifted through papers in the office.
“Yep, both my parents and two sisters.”
“In Melbourne?”
“Yep. I expect they’ll be out to see me. My older sister, Maureen, is a geologist. She’ll
want to have a look around here I guess.” His eyes went to the window and to the land
beyond that stretched out as far as the first spine of mountains, the Trois Soeurs, so named
because of three jagged outcrops that overlooked the sea.
Melanie looked at him and suddenly her mind was made up. If there turns out to be
nothing in it – well, then there’s nothing in it. No more vacillating. Her fingers quickly
sifting through the papers that she and Mat had to deal with, she made a few quick mental
calculations. One problem was time. She was never allowed much time up on the
mountains – or anywhere else – because of work. She could pretend she was off on an
errand, but only for so long. Week-ends were devoted to Jimmy, and although she had
considered asking Jimmy to go exploring on the mountain with her, she realized she could
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only ask him this once or twice. So the first step had to be to take time off work or to
work less hours.
Her second problem was fear. Although on the one hand she sensed there was nothing to
be afraid of, she had nonetheless several times been frightened. She had wanted the dog
for just that reason, but Maurice had skotched her idea of an Alsation or something
equally impressive. Having a man with her would make all the difference. Quite apart
from anything else, and despite her slacks and plimsolls, she just couldn’t see herself
wading through thick undergrowth or scrambling over rocks.
Her third problem was practical. Each time she arrived back from one of these trips she
had to not only wash the car, which was thick with red dust, but also wash her clothes and
even her hair, likewise caked in dust. Neither Rosa not Hudeline would dream of
mentioning to Maurice that Madame’s clothes were sometimes covered in red dust, but
she nonetheless preferred to wash them herself. Why ? She asked herself. Just in case,
was her reply.
She felt an instinctive liking for Mat. He was a straight-forward young man, honest, clear,
intelligent, strong, quick-witted, knowledgeable and competent. He could do with the
pocket-money and she would enjoy his company.
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Melanie was prevented from doing anything about it for several days because she didn’t
like to broach the subject of doing less hours with Mr Hurst. He was returning to the UK
again to marry his Denise, and then they would go to Honolulu for their honeymoon
before returning to Noumea for the last year of his contract with the Commission. This
meant that he would be away six weeks and everything had to be ship-shape and Bristol
fashion (his expression) before he left.
In some ways the problems was taken out of her hands, if only on a temporary basis.
“You won’t have much to do while I’m away,” said Mr Hurst apologetically, “but don’t
worry about trying to get in on time in the mornings. Take it easy. Just as long as things
are kept ticking over. I’ll phone you every Tuesday and Friday afternoons at around …..”
he calculated …”three o’clock Noumea time. You can tell me if there’s anything
important but I don’t imagine there will be. Just answer the phone, deal with the post, and
anything you can’t deal with just refer it to Monsieur Gilbert. Okay?”
“Yes, okay,” Mr Hurst.
She looked at his tall, lean figure leaning over towards her and felt a surge of affection for
this man who had given her her first break … nearly three years ago now. She didn’t
want to let him down. She wondered whether she should warn him that she’d be wanting
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to work less hours when he returned, but decided against it – a lot can happen in six
weeks.
That week-end they were invited sailing with Gilbert and his family. Gilbert owned a 25
foot sloop which he kept moored at Roget’s port, down beyond Majenta beach. It was a
very smart boat, beautifully kitted out, but fairly small considering there were seven
people in the party. Apart from Gilbert, there was his brother over from Europe for a few
weeks, and the brother’s wife, an opera singer who called herself Gloria and who insisted
on bursting in to song at odd intervals. Gilbert’s two sons, hearty-looking lads in their
late teens were there too.
“My name is not really Gloria,” said the blousy woman in a heavy gutteral accent that was
neither German nor Dutch “it is just a nick-name I earned for singing the Gloria.”
Gloria then burst in to song. This was clearly standard procedure for only she and
Maurice seemed taken aback. Gloria kept up her repertoire off and on throughout the
entire day, all through the crossing to the Ile des Canards, while Gilbert and his sons
hoisted the sails, but she deigned to be quiet as anchor was lowered in an idyllic spot just
off the island, where the water was so clear that you could see the yellow sand at the
bottom, littered like confetti with exquisite little shells and fragile towerlets of white
coral. Multi-coloured fish swam about. Gilbert’s two sons were overboard within
minutes, masks and snorkels in place, while Melanie and Gloria set about putting the
picnic in to the dinghy to be rowed on to the beach.
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“This is just so beautiful,” said Gloria.
A line of palms, bending elegantly towards the sea, skirted the yellow sand all along the
side of the bay. Off to the right another family were picnicking, also with a small sloop
anchored out by the reef. They were some way off. Melanie could only just hear their
voices, audible over the sound of the reef. She squinted. They appeared to be naked.
Looking in the same direction, Gloria nudged her.
“What a shame!” she exclaimed, laughing, “we are spoiling their privacy!”
The two women had prepared a light lunch; they bathed and gathered shells, and Jimmy
swam around with the bigger boys.
“Well!” Gilbert beamed over the picnic to Melanie, “you certainly are well immersed in
the Commission these days! How do you like Majenta?”
“Very much – of course.” Melanie smiled over at Maurice.
“You were on Mont Coffyn for a while, weren’t you? Next door to the Pattersons?”
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“Yes – that’s right.” She couldn’t think why he should want to bring this up and it was
quite indiscreet of him. Deftly, she turned to Gloria:
“Would you like some sun lotion ? Ah – you’ve got some, fine!” Dozens of cocktail
parties had taught her how to change the conversation and, as she spoke, she casually
picked up the sheets of newspaper in which the wine had been wrapped. Despite the ice
and thick wedge of paper around the bottles, it had nonetheless been just off chilled when
they drank it. The corners of the paper were wet in several places.
“We must be careful to not litter the beach,” she said casually and the conversation moved
on to other subjects. The men sauntered off along the sand to join the boys who were
playing some kind of home-made ball game.
“Sorry,” said Gloria, “he’s just so thick-skinned!”
Melanie smiled.
“Oh – there’s nothing to apologize about! I just prefer to not talk about it with men – I
don’t know – it’s awkward – abandoned woman and all that. The whole thing was very
odd.”
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“Your husband died, didn’t he?” said Gloria gently.
“Yes – he did. After he’d left us. But I still loved him. It was a shock. I had a hard time
getting over it.”
For a wild moment Melanie wanted to confide in Gloria – all the ups and downs, all the
loneliness and the money problems, the heartache, burning Greg’s things – the strange
papers. She longed for somebody to talk to but said nothing.
“But you’re over it now?”
Quickly Melanie realized how this could suddenly turn in to nasty gossip. Not that she
thought Gloria was necessarily a gossip, but she was quick to add:
“Ooooh, yes! Maurice and I are very happy. He’s wonderful with Jimmy!”
She turned deliberately to the newspapers, ending the conversation. Gloria didn’t seem
offended but vigorously slapped more sun lotion on to her expansive thighs and then lay
back in the sun. Melanie started leafing lightly through the papers. She tried to read
them every day for an important part of her job was to be up-to-date with current affairs.
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It was a local paper, one she’d almost certainly seen before. She searched the top for the
date – yes, it was several weeks old.
The name Delahaye jumped up off the page at her. Suddenly her idle leafing through the
pages was all-important. There was a photo of him, a white man with a very high
forehead, receding hair, thick glasses. He stared out of the paper at her, his eyes behind
the glasses obscure and dark. Georges Delahaye, the caption read, sentenced by the
Tribunal de Grand’Instance to eight years in prison for the robbery of the bank where he
worked as a clerk. His bank manager, Monsieur Kes d’Eparne, had spotted the man
shifting funds and instantly reported him to the police. It is estimated that Delahaye has
stolen several million francs in small amounts from the bank, over the last few years.
There has been no sign of the money, however, though a small quantity of stolen money,
amounting to less than twenty thousand francs, was found in Delahaye’s brief case
This man’s name was on Greg’s list. It was significant. How or why, she had no idea.
Melanie frowned down at the photo. Tell me! she wanted to say. Had Greg been involved
in this robbery ? Surely not ?! Greg simply wasn’t that type. Why would he have written
that name down in a secret place ? There must have been a reason for it – but what ?
---------With her boss away there was substantially less for Melanie to do, as predicted. The main
area of Derek Hurst’s work, which included the installation of telephone and electricity
wires to cover the entire island of New Caledonia as well as most of its immediate
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neighbours, was well advanced. Mains drainage or sewage tanks had been provided in all
but the most remote areas, and clean water was available for almost everybody. Melanie
had herself overseen the ordering and transportation of thousand upon thousand of meters
of iron and clay pipes which were brought in either from America or from Australia,
unloaded, collated, hauled, installed. They were bolted together in trenches and both she
and Derek Hurst had been involved in lengthy and irate legal battles to enable the
telephone and electricity wires to be installed in the same trenches – which they were not.
The result was an astonishing array of overhead wires and uprights … but most people, if
they didn’t actually have electricity or telephone in their house, at least had tolerably easy
access to either.
Battles over rights of way, invariably confused by local regulations that varied from one
town to the next were an ever-present problem. Local labour was also very volatile, with
some men willing to only work a few hours a day and others almost never sober. Digging
in sand created one set of problems and excavating in rock another; new sewerage plants
were needed near each community also water reservoirs and water towers in low-lying
areas. All these problems became familiar to Melanie.
The main part of the project had nonetheless been achieved and the never-ending
straggle of left-over bits to be tied-up – not withstanding inordinate and totally illogical
opposition from rival engineering groups – were left in the hands of Gilbert, if only for
now.
Gilbert’s own project to bring mains water on to the neighbouring islands had
shown signs of lengthy delays when the construction of one of the essential bridges met
with considerable problems because of the discovery of an old barge in a river bed; this
had to be removed because the foundations could not be put down with it there and for a
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while the entire project seemed to teeter on the brink of collapse while responsibility for
the barge was argued out – it was just one of many war-time relics that were, with
excruciating slowness, being removed from the islands. Finally the project had come to a
satisfactory close and dove-tailed neatly with Mr Hurst’s leave.
Despite her boss telling her not to trouble to get in to the office at any given time, Melanie
nonetheless got herself up early, saw Jimmy off to school and, as frequently as she felt
permissible, left Maurice to eat his breakfast alone. He rarely asked her about her work,
and categorized it simply as “secretarial work” – which indeed it was – and assumed, it
seemed to Melanie, that there was not a lot to ask about.
His own role as lawyer for the
Commission was one of huge responsibility, and one which he rightly took very seriously.
There was no question of Melanie bothering him with her roll of papers – in fact, after her
initial deliberations, it didn’t even dawn on her to do so. This was partly because she was
rather enjoying the furtive investigation and partly because, in his work, Maurice was not
a man to be disturbed or taken lightly in any way. He was somehow unapproachable
where legal matters were concerned, Melanie realized, and that even if she had thought of
asking him about the papers, she wouldn’t have dared.
Mat worked Monday and Thursday mornings at the Commission, and also sometimes on
a Thursday afternoon. The rest of the time he was out in the field, talking to the local
people, meeting their wise men, listening to ancient ritual stories that dated back hundreds
of years. New Caledonia had lost a great deal of its spiritual heritage with the arrival of
the European and his money, but many of the neighbouring islands still held ritualistic
dances and ceremonies that were an integral part of their culture and a mainstay in their
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religious background. A great many local people were Christians, of course, and little
mud churches and chapels were to be found all over the islands, served by priests – either
Anglican or Roman Catholic, depending on the origin of the colonial power – and tended
by a thin-lipped scattering of nuns and nursing nuns on the French side, and volunteer
Christian preachers on the British.
“Where we Christians are concerned with the purity of the soul before death,” explained
Mat, “the natives are concerned about it after death. Even those who are so-called
Christians still depend largely on native rituals. Almost as though they’re hedging their
bets. No matter how much a native Christian is told that death by shark – in other words,
no body for burial – is no worse a way of leaving this earth than any other (from the
soul’s point of view, of course), he cannot accept it for, to him, the body must be present
after death and at the moment of passing to the next world.”
Melanie put more ice in her coke as she listened to Mat. He was a gentle presence in her
working life, and she had come to greatly appreciate her friendship with him.
“That is so important to the native,” Mat went on, “that he will even risk death by shark
himself in the hope of catching the shark that killed whoever’s soul they are concerned
with – particularly if it is a brother or father or son.”
“Why? What difference does catching the shark make?”
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“Sharks often swallow their victims in big lumps. Some of the really big sharks swallow
their victims whole. So long as a part of the body can be recovered – from the belly of the
shark, you see – then the appropriate rituals can be done.”
“Goodness. But how would they know which shark to go after?”
“Sharks are not very intelligent. They will go back to the same feeding place for several
days, even weeks, after a kill.”
Melanie shuddered. The conversation brought her neatly to her own story and she
decided this was the moment – now or never perhaps – to broach the subject of the papers
to Mat.
“My first husband died in mysterious circumstances,” she began.
Mat reached out and patted her hand slightly.
“I know,” he said, “I heard. Don’t talk about it. We’ll talk about something else. Sorry –
I am a fool – I should have known better than to talk about sharks with you …”
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“Oh – it’s OK. It’s not a problem. Not now. Three years ago, you see. The human race
is remarkably resilient!” she tried to laugh but it sounded strange, strained. There was a
moment of silence.
“I doubt it was a shark attack,” Melanie ploughed on, “it could have been anything. His
body was never found. Just the dinghy. Empty.”
“How ghastly for you.”
“Yes … it was. Somebody saw him fall from the boat – a long way off – presumed
drowned, you see.”
“Dreadful business,” said Mat.
He seemed to be trying to change the subject and started to talk erratically about boats,
seaweed, fish, even the weather.
“Mat!” Melanie laughed, “it is okay – really – in fact I want to talk about it. There’s
something I want to discuss with you.”
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Mat looked at her. His eyes crinkled up against the brilliant light that beat back off the
pale patio floor tiles. He had caught the sun on the back of his neck and the skin was
almost scarlet and smelt lightly of camomile.
“Yes?” he asked.
Was she asking too much of him? Melanie wondered suddenly. He leant forwards in his
chair, elbows on his knees.
“Is there something I can help with?” he asked.
“Mat – it may be nothing – I don’t want to waste your time – but – but if you’re interested
in earning yourself a bit of extra money …”
“Sure!” he grinned.
“Well … I need somebody to help me be a detective. Sort of. You see, the police
recently brought to me a roll of papers that were found hidden in my late husband’s boat.
I can’t make out what they are. They seem to be a kind of map – directions – I realize it
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sounds silly – Enid Blyton and all that … and it may turn out to be a load of rubbish. But
I want to investigate it. I can’t do it alone. I can pay you for your time.”
“Hey – well – sure. I don’t know what kind of help I can be, but I’m happy to give it a
bash.”
“Good,” said Melanie, “and one other thing – not a word to anybody – my husband would
think it all rather peculiar. He doesn’t like me to talk about my late husband. I can
understand that.”
Mat nodded sympathetically.
“…But I do want to know …” she finished lamely.
She was miserably aware that the whole thing sounded daft. Mat doubtless thought she
was just some silly woman. He asked what the papers were about, as far as she could tell,
and they agreed that he should see them. Spread out over the desk the following day, Mat
searched the pages for clues, just as Melanie had done. She explained Greg’s shorthand
to him.
He pointed out a couple of things she hadn’t noticed before – a sun which was
either setting or rising in one corner of the page, and a tiny sketch that seemed to be a tap,
a foot and an eye.
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“I have no idea,” Melanie shrugged her shoulders to ease the sense of stupidity, “no idea
at all.”
“Was he keen on games?” asked Mat.
“Games?”
“Yes – you know –like Monopoly or chess …?”
“No – not really – we played both once or twice over the years, but he didn’t like that
kind of thing. Wasn’t his thing.”
“What about crosswords? Dictionaires?”
“He didn’t do the crosswords. We had a dictionary – I’ve still got it I suppose.”
“If – and I stress the word if,” said Mat, “he was not playing a game – after all, he could
have been designing a game, couldn’t he? – well, if that was not the case, then I’d agree
with you that he was trying to tell you something.”
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“He wasn’t designing a game. He just wasn’t that kind of person.”
“What kind of person was he?”
Melanie realized that Mat was going to take this seriously. He looked at her earnestly,
waiting for her answer.
“He was a bastard –“ she began, then “- no, no I don’t mean that. He left me suddenly, it
was awful. Something went terribly wrong and I wasn’t even aware of it. But apart from
that he had been a good dad for Jimmy and a good husband for me. I loved him. He was
big – tall – broad, brown eyes, brown hair, big smile, straight white teeth …” She
hesitated suddenly as a picture of him sprang to mind, swinging Jimmy up out of the
water on one of the beaches nearby, laughing, setting Jimmy up on his shoulders … where
had all that gone? Why had it ended so suddenly? Unexpectedly, the heartache – just for
a few split seconds – came rushing back, and Melanie felt a tightening sensation in her
throat. “He was not a clever, educated man like Maurice,” she continued, “but he was not
a fool. He was not a womaniser – yet he had a child by that Kanak girl, ages before he
left me – I didn’t know a thing about it ..”
Again Mat touched her arm.
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“Don’t upset yourself …” he said gently.
“Oh –I’m not upset – really I’m not. But I did love him – a lot. Then suddenly he left. It
was hard for me.”
The following day Melanie and Mat, with Tizzy on tow, set off for Mont Rouge. Warned
in advance about the brambles, Mat wore heavy-duty shoes and long trousers. Melanie
wondered how he could stand the heat, dressed like that, though the temperature had
dropped slightly in the last few days. Melanie drove, swinging the car out of Noumea and
on to the Bourrail road. She told Mat a little about their surroundings as they drove.
“It’s a wonderful place,” said Mat, “but I wouldn’t want to stay here forever.”
“No … most people go home at the end of the day – wherever home is. I shall
accompany Maurice back to France in due course, clearly. I’ve never been to France and
don’t fancy it – but – well, I knew he was French when I married him, didn’t I? Anyway,
France is not far from England. Not like moving to darkest Africa.”
She realized she was talking too much and fell silent. They reached the cross roads and
turned right. The car had started to make dubious creaking sounds.
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“Suspension,” said Mat, “drive slowly or you’ll wreck the thing.”
Melanie explained how the map showed the track off to the left but that it only led round
to the same place, just below were the landmark trees stood. The road crawled on in a
rough twist around the side of the hill; they passed the spot where she had stopped to look
at the view that first time.
“I sometimes feel as though I’m being watched,” she said.
“Ah!” Mat grinned, “that’s because you’re worried about being secretive about all this –
you’re usually an up-front kind of person, I guess.”
“Up-front?”
“Yes, you know – no secrets, straight-forward, honest, no complications.”
“Perhaps – yes, I suppose that’s what it is. But I can feel somebody watching us right
now, you know. In the air, almost, all around us.”
“Well, unless they’re invisible and travelling at the same rate as the car, you’re wrong.”
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Melanie smiled over at him. He was a nice guy.
She pulled the handbrake on firmly when they reached the end of the track. They both
gulped down a little water and Melanie gave some to Tizzy, who scampered off to one
side for a wee, then hopped about the boulders, little tail wagging energetically.
“I wanted a big dog,” Melanie told Mat, “to guard me. But Maurice bought Tizzy for me
before I had a chance to look at even one dog.”
“Oh dear,” replied Mat, “does that mean you’ve taken me on in favour of a dog?!”
They both laughed lightly.
Mat made his way down through the brambles. He had brought a hefty stick with him
and he used this to clear a path down towards the shelter. It took some time. Every now
and then he stopped and clapped his hands.
“To scare away snakes,” he explained.
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Melanie waited by the car and watched. Tizzy scampered back and forth and rapidly tired
and went to lie down in the shade of the car. Melanie gave her more water. Every now
and then she glanced down at the papers, struggling to make sense of them. Various
landmarks were drawn on to the page and she could pick these out reasonably clearly.
Things that made no sense at all when she was looking at the map at the Commission,
sprang to life up here on the mountain. She had brought a compass with her and, setting it
on the ground, saw that what at first had seemed to be a little sketch of a star was a
compass pointing north-west. She looked up. The red hill rolled away in to the valley.
Somewhere down there was the road they had driven in on. The sea was a constant
presence, an immense blue that filled the world and that glittered under the sun like a girl
in party dress, like opals and diamonds, like a cascade of blue-gold and black. It was
almost hypnotic. Suddenly Melanie realized that where Greg had written “Bill G Gruff”
in what appeared to be the sea on the map, was in fact a reference to Goat Island, just
visible from this point. Only an Englishman would have had the remotest idea what those
words referred to. They were not very astute – Greg was not that kind of man – but they
put over their message perfectly clearly. Goat Island was relevant somehow. Melanie
then knew with absolute certitude that Greg had intended the notes for her, for when she
studied the little sketch of a boat she could just work out the word “blip” – only she knew
his words for seasickness – she had never been a good sailor and when she was feeling
seasick, he would say she was having a blip.
Greg … what is it ? Why this? What are you trying to tell me? She understood then that
she must examine the Caprice more closely, and that she must also find out if Greg used
any other boats in the area, or if he had any connection with other boats. For the first time
she wished she hadn’t sold the Caprice, though at the time it had seemed the only sensible
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thing to do. She would also have to go over to Goat Island. That would be easy enough
for boat trips and boat hire were all readily available. Goat Island was the least visited of
the islands, however, for it was rocky and barren and had little of the idyllic South Pacific
atoll image of heaven that the other islands boasted.
“Melanie!”
Mat’s voice broke in to her thoughts. He used her Christian name, as young people
tended to, and it had shocked her slightly at first. Gingerly she stepped forwards off the
track in to the brambles, placing each foot carefully down. There were several sharp
cacti-like plants which Mat had hacked back a little here and there. She advanced slowly.
Tizzy remained by the car.
“Here we are!” called Mat, “this is the shack!”
As she approached she saw that Mat had shoved to one side a large timber panel that had
been resting against the façade of the shelter. Behind was the same as the rest of the
shelter – sun-dried and brittle planks of wood, upright, treated with some kind of blackish
liquid that still smelt faintly of kerosene. What was important, however, was that the area
of timber that had not been protected from the weather was virtually the same as the area
that had been behind the panel.
She pointed this out to Mat.
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“That means somebody put it here fairly recently,” she said.
“I thought there might be a door behind,” explained Mat.
How long does timber take to look weather-beaten? Melanie wondered. Perhaps she was
reading ficticious clues in to something that wasn’t even there. She told Mat about the
tyre marks she had seen.
“Mmmm …” he hesitated, “could be anything … a tourist taking photos, for instance.”
“Yes – of course. This area is well known for old army stuff – you know, military
training and manoeuvres..”
“I thought that was Mont d’Or?”
“Yes, it is – but it’s the same neck of the woods. A tourist could quite plausibly come up
here too.”
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Mat now started to work his way around the shelter, looking for a door. He peered in
between the planks. Melanie did likewise. Inside it was dark with arrows of yellow light
on one side where the sun slanted in through the planks. They couldn’t see anything.
“Seems to be empty,” said Mat.
He carried on round the shelter. He was drenched in sweat and covered in little bits of
twig or dust. He had cut himself very slightly on the cheek. Melanie remained where she
was and looked closely at the building. A couple of corrugated sheets made the roof, laid
over the top of the planks and held down against the wind with rocks. There appeared to
be no windows or openings.
“There’s no door,” said Mat, coming back round the side.
“I think access must be via the roof,” Melanie pointed upwards. “Those rocks would be
easy for a strong man to move, and –“ she now noticed a couple of small notches in the
timber “ – and one could perhaps climb up quite quickly. It’s not very high.”
“Sherlock Homes eat your heart out!” laughed Mat, placing a foot up on the first notch.
A couple of quick agile movements and Mat was up on the roof.
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“You’re right!” he called down to her. “There’s another smaller sheet of corrugated up
here – a kind of hatch.”
Melanie could hear scratching noises. Mat was out of sight.
“What are you doing?” she called.
“Opening the hatch! It’s not locked. Ah! Here we are!”
“Don’t go in! Mat! Just look, that’s all. It’s not ours – don’t go in!”
“Nope – okay.”
There was a moment of silence and soon Mat reappeared at the side of the roof.
“Nothing,” he said. He sounded disappointed. “Nothing. Empty. Just dirt and a few
boulders, that’s all.”
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---------Mat celebrated his birthday with a small barbeque party one lunch-time at the
Commission. He was short of money and everybody brought a bottle and some food – an
American idea, that seemed a good one. There were only five people there, but Mat had
received presents from his home and was lively and happy. He had got a girl-friend
tucked away somewhere, Melanie assumed, but he was very secretive about her.
Probably embarrassed. The other three people also worked at the Commission – a
husband and wife team, both scientists of sorts, and one of the secretaries, a rather silly
flighty little woman whom Melanie, despite herself, found irritating.
“Are you going out tonight?” asked Melanie.
“Yes – with friends ..” Mat replied.
He threw a couple off chicken pieces on to the barbeque and they spat and sizzled. He
was also cooking onions.
“Should be good,” he continues, “there are lots of people about right now – the club will
be lively.”
A few tourists were around and the streets of Noumea were busier than usual. The
tourists, many of whom were American, were a welcome sight for since the assassination
of Kennedy the previous year, there had been a frightening drop in the quantity of
Americans about. Melanie always noticed them, for it was one thing Greg had doubtless
been right about – tourists and tourism were soon going to be big business.
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The following day Mat came over to Melanie in her office.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “The port is important. Greg was there all the time. He
worked there. He lived boats. People round there would know him – of him – I think it is
worth looking in to.”
“You want me to go down to the port?” he asked. “What kind of questions should I ask?
Who should I talk to?”
“Really – I don’t know. Play it by ear. Try to chat to people, see if you can find out
anything. Really, anything. Might be useful.”
Mat set off and Melanie returned home. She told him to meet her there.
“I don’t want to hang around the Commission for you to come back,” she said “- will that
be all right? Can you find your way up to my place?”
At home, she pottered about, seeing to odd small jobs and enjoying the slow pace of life.
Periodically she looked up over the patio in case Mat was on his way, and found herself
impatient for him to turn up. At last she saw his tall thin figure emerge at the bend at the
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bottom of the road. He strode rapidly up the hill and through her garden, raising a hand in
salute when he saw her waiting there.
“Well?” asked Melanie when Mat returned, “did you find anything?”
Mat slumped down in to the wicker patio chair and pulled his sandals off. He spread his
toes, red from the heat, out over the cool stone tiles. He wiped the back of his hand over
his forehead.
“Hudeline!” called Melanie, “limonade s’il te plait!”
She turned back to Mat and then pulled in a chair for herself.
“Sorry,” she said, “I should have offered you a drink first. You’re terribly hot, aren’t
you? I was just pleased to see you back. How did you get here?”
“Bus,” he replied shortly.
“From the port?”
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“Yup. Quite a good service. I don’t think it normally stops at the port – it was picking up
a relative or something.”
Melanie smiled.
“Oh, they have their own rules!”
Hudeline brought a tray out, a glass jug full to the brim and clinking with ice was placed
centrally on it, and two tall glasses from which protruded a couple of straws. She set the
tray down on the patio table and Melanie noticed she had put a tea cloth on the tray, and
there was a napkin neatly folded to one side. Hudeline had been to the cinema a couple of
times recently and was picking up ideas as to how the other half lived and how –
according to her own ideas – Madame wanted to be served. Melanie smiled over at her.
“How’s your foot, Hudeline?” she asked.
Hudeline kicked off a claquette and proferred the sole of her foot. Melanie leant forwards
and peered at a small cut near the toes.
“Better, Madame,” she said.
“Yes, I think you’re right, Hudeline. It seems to be healing doesn’t it?”
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“What happened to her foot?” asked Mat when the Kanak woman had gone.
“Oh – nothing much – I broke a glass and she was barefoot so she got a bit of glass in. I
spent half yesterday morning trying to fish the glass out – just a tiny slither – but nasty. I
was worried she should have had it stitched, but it looks Ok to me …”
Mat gulped down a full glass of lemonade and then turned to Melanie who poured him
another.
“Come on!” she laughed, impatient, “tell me what you found out ! Anything?”
“Yes – a few things …”
“Well ..?”
“Greg most certainly used several other boats,” he began, “and he used them regularly.
He chartered one in particular, a big old fishing thing called Corsaire, almost every day
for two or three weeks. It belongs to a local man, a Kanak, who claims he never actually
met Greg but that Greg Hodges was certainly the name used. He was always paid in
cash.”
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“Seems odd that he never actually met Greg …”
“That’s what I thought at first, but technically the boat belongs to his father-in-law who
was still using it himself at that time. It was the father-in-law who let the boat.”
“Did he know what the boat was used for?”
“He said he didn’t – but I felt that he did.”
“But what reason would he have to lie?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Could have been lots of things – harmless fishing trips,
smuggling, orgies … who knows? He was paid in cash and he might have been
concerned I was a tax inspector – yet he volunteered the information, of course, so that’s
not likely.”
“More likely he was covering up something for the father-in-law ?”
“Perhaps.”
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“But as he had the Caprice it seems odd – I mean, it does, doesn’t it? He already had a
boat, so why hire another?”
Mat shrugged.
They fell silent for a moment. Rosa appeared at the end of the drive and waved shyly as
she approached the house. She took the path round the side of the house to where the
wash rooms were and after a short while Melanie recognized the familiar hum of the twintub she had recently had brought in from Australia . Both she and Maurice had poured
for some time over the instructions, with a defiant Rosa and an even more defiant
Hudeline, hands on hips, loudly declaring that if Madame thought Rosa’s washing was no
good all she had to do was sack the silly girl and get a new girl in to help, not this newfangled modern machine rubbish that would never wash the clothes properly and would
quite possibly destroy them altogether. But – of course – once Rosa and Hudeline had
mastered the knack of using the twin-tub, there was no turning back.
“Perhaps the Caprice was up on dry?” suggested Melanie. “That would explain why he
hired another.”
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“No,” Mat stretched out in the chair and lit a cigarette, “the Caprice was often out at the
same time, full of tourists. He had to do that, I think, in order to take attention off the
Corsaire.”
“That’s assuming something was illegal – or immoral – going on aboard the Corsaire.”
“Yes.”
“Oh – honestly, Mat. I knew this man. We had been together since childhood, grew up in
the same village … he was not that type. He did an honest day’s work, never fiddled the
system, never short-changed anybody. For all his faults, he was one of the world’s Good
Guys.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” said Mat carefully, “but if we are going to advance in this
investigation – ha ha! I should add my dear Watson, shouldn’t I?! - if we are going to
advance, we must keep our ideas open. Perhaps he had lots and lots of clients and needed
a second boat – but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
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“Because the Corsaire is not suitable for tourists. It is a big, ugly, hunky, smelly fishing
boat.”
Mat dragged loudly on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke in little puffs that made small
circles in the air. Melanie sensed there was something else.
“And …?” she asked.
“I might be wrong ..” he hesitated, “but I think I was followed. Not straight away. After
I’d seen the Corsaire. I wandered around the docks a bit and met another guy – an
American who lives down there – he didn’t know anything about Greg – had never heard
of him.”
“And he followed you?”
“What? Sorry. No, a girl, a native girl. I thought she was perhaps following me.”
“Good Heavens! I’ve had the same experience – several times. Did she have long frizzy
hair? Aged about twenty? Wearing a lava-lava?”
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They both laughed suddenly. The description could match hundreds of island girls.
Particularly – though Melanie didn’t say so – if the girl thought she might have a chance
of persuading Mat to date her. Many of the youngsters thought that if they could marry
an American – and to many of them all foreigners were American – they would overnight
become rich.
“I wonder …” said Mat suddenly, “would you mind terribly if I had a quick shower?”
Melanie was very taken aback.
“Oh! Of course … yes … by all means …”
“Not if it’s a bother – truly. It’s just that I stink of fishing boats and I’m hot. I have to get
the bus back in to Noumea and meet somebody. I’d prefer to be clean!”
“Who? Who are you meeting?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” laughed Mat. “Nothing to do with the investigation,
anyway.”
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“Sorry, didn’t mean to be nosey.”
Mat showered quickly and came back down on to the patio looking considerably more
refreshed and certainly smelling better.
“I’m off, then,” he said to Melanie.
Lighting another cigarette, Mat turned away towards the patio steps. He stopped and, his
back to Melanie, he seemed to hesitate. He looked out over the sea. A small sailing boat
was on its way back in, not much more than a fleck of white on the liquid gold and silver
ocean.
“What?” asked Melanie. “Is there something else?”
“I don’t know …” Mat turned slowly to face her, “you’ll hate me for saying this – I
think.”
“What ? For goodness’ sake, Mat!”
“I think Greg was murdered.”
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A silence dropped between them, heavy like a stone. After a few moments Mat added:
“Sorry. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, don’t be sorry, Mat. It had crossed my mind.”
“And …?”
“And I rejected it. It is too improbable. Murders are things you read in the papers. They
don’t happen to you.”
“I wanted to suggest it as a possibility,” Mat went on, “because if it is a serious
possibility, we might be involving ourselves in something best left alone …”
“You want to drop it ….?!”
“No, Melanie, I didn’t say that. Don’t start getting cross. You wanted me to take this
seriously and I am taking it seriously.”
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“Sorry. You’re right, of course. I’ll think it out, but I don’t think he was murdered – he
just can’t have been, that’s all. Who would want to kill him?”
“Listen, Melanie, I can’t pussy-foot around the subject. I’m an out-spoken guy.”
“Sure. What?”
“The police were investigating him, you said. There was more to the man than you knew
about. You have often said it was odd the way he suddenly walked out on you. His body
was not found. I think he was murdered.”
“No.”
“Based on what?”
“Just, no.”
“Right. Okay then, Melanie. He was not murdered. We’ll take it from there. Bye now.”
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“Bye, Mat. And thanks …”
They arranged to meet the following day at the Commission. Melanie felt that she should
perhaps offer to run him back in to Noumea, but a glance at her watch told her that
Maurice would be back soon. She watched Mat wander off towards the bus stop and then
dashed upstairs where, as she had suspected, a bundle of damp towels were dumped on
the floor. Men! She thought to herself. Quickly, she re-arranged them over the towel
rails. Maurice never dumped towels on the floor, and nor did she, and it would be
difficult explaining that a young man had been using the shower.
A telegram arrived that evening for Maurice. Hudeline brought it to them as they sat on
the patio sipping Martini and watching the sun go down. It was always an astonishing
sight, and one that nobody would ever tire of. The depth of the spill of red over both sea
and sky, changing to lighter and brighter tones, even lilac in places where the edge of
colour met the sky, was something no photo nor painting could ever catch. There’s more
to it than just the colours, thought Melanie – there’s a whole feel to it. That’s why photos
and paintings can’t do it justice. She had taken a photo of Jimmy when they first moved
to this house, standing on the patio looking out at the setting sun. It was her favourite
photo. A bird flew up from the garden suddenly, passing quite close to them. Hudeline
saw it.
“Bad omen,” she said.
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Maurice opened the telegram. Melanie saw straight away that it was edged with black.
She watched Maurice’s face. He read quickly and then looked up.
“My mother has died,” he said.
“Oh, Maurice – I am sorry.”
“At home. In her sleep.”
“That’s the best way, Maurice.”
“Yes.”
“How old was she?”
“Eighty-five.”
“Ah.”
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He sat still for a moment, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at his feet.
“I must return to France,” he said.
“Yes – of course – I’ll come with you …”
“No,” he said. His voice was curt as though it was somehow her fault. “You stay here
with Jimmy. The funeral will be over by the time I get there. It is just papers and things I
must see to.”
“Yes, of course,” she said again.
They were silent. The bird that had flown in front of them moments before now sat on the
garden wall letting out a loud sharp chirp. Hudeline came out and cleared away the
glasses, her dark eyes searching their faces and glancing with obvious determination over
at the bird.
“Monsieur’s mother has died,” Melanie told her.
“Ah!” said Hudeline, clearly satisfied.
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“I’ll go up and pack a few things for you,” said Melanie. “Will you get the morning
flight?”
Maurice nodded.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked gently. She touched his hand and for a moment his
fingers gripped onto hers, and then let go.
“Perhaps a whisky,” he said.
Melanie poured the whisky and then went upstairs. She retrieved the small blue suitcase
from the top of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom and rapidly packed a selection of
clothes for him. It was March, so France would not be warm, she realized. Maurice’s
jumpers where stored in a large wicker box at the end of their bed. She shook them out
vigorously. Maurice came in.
“Thank you,” he said when he saw what she was doing. “I’ll be gone ten days or so. No
more. I must see my brother. We both inherited the estate when my father died, but there
will nonetheless be paperwork to see to. I daresay our notaire has got lots of things for
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me to sign.” He smiled suddenly. “Notaires love to get people to sign lots of things in
France, you know!”
She realized he was trying to be light-hearted. The curt tone had gone.
“Were you very fond of your mother?” she asked. Her own parents had died when she
was so young – she didn’t think about them much.
“Yes,” he replied slowly.
He left early in the morning. He gave Melanie a perfunctory kiss as he left and she was
aware of a faint feeling of relief when he drove away. She listened to the sound of the car
till she could no longer hear it, and then lay awake as new sounds came in to the world,
the small sounds of early morning – a cock crowing somewhere far away, the neighbour
banging shutters open, a car revving in to life.
She’d have liked to have been able to say something to comfort him and give him
strength, or to hold him in her arms for a while, but he hadn’t seemed to want her to. She
remembered how he had tried to be kind when she’d lost the baby. She had had difficulty
hiding her pleasure that he didn’t expect her to go to France with him. She had never
flown but knew enough about travelling around the world that it would be a long tedious
journey. Andree Taylor had told her that on their way out to New Caledonia they had
stopped – with all those children – in Rome, then Calcutta, then Bangkok, then Tokyo,
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then Manilla, then Sydney. They had spent a few days in each place. I wonder where
they got the money from? thought Melanie. She drifted back to sleep and then woke with
a start when she remembered that she had to meet Mat at nine.
She felt moderately bad that she almost instantly forgot about Maurice. Mat was waiting
for her in her office. Quickly she sifted through the post, her eyes expertly scanning the
post-marks and address labels. One or two of them she ripped open, using a small silver
knife that sat on her desk. She read rapidly, taking in the contents of each letter and then
said:
“Good. Nothing that can’t be dealt with later.”
She felt slightly concerned that people at the Commission saw her get in to her car with
Mat quite frequently. They would then be gone several hours. He was a nice-looking
young man and especially now, with her husband away, she was very vulnerable to
gossip. She wondered if she should ask Mat to wait for her at the end of the road. He
would be astonished. At thirty-eight she was old as far as he was concerned. She’d have
to think of some way round it for she just couldn’t bear any nasty remarks or inuendos,
and didn’t want to put herself in a situation where she felt she’d have to explain anything
to anybody.
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“I’ve hired the boat,” said Mat as they drove away, “for the whole day. I gave Green as
the name, that’s all.”
“Good.”
“Still, if you want to be incognito, I’d keep your sunglasses on. Did you bring a hat?”
Melanie indicated the back seat where a large floppy hat sat. Her sunglasses, which she
now pushed up her nose slightly, were also large and dark, as fashion dictated, with bright
yellow rims.
“Here’s the cash,” Melanie handed him a wedge of franc notes.
“Right. He said four thousand francs for the day. I hope that’s all right?”
“Sure,” Melanie had stared to pick up Mat’s way of talking.
“It has an outboard motor and a small shelter, fine for what we need.”
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It would take barely an hour and a half to get to the Ile de Chevres in the little boat if they
went directly there from this side of the bay, an area called La Moselle. Mat preferred to
head south for a while so that if they were indeed being watched, it wouldn’t be clear
which island they were heading for. Melanie pointed out that it would also be possible for
them to be simply heading further down the mainland.
“It has occurred to me,” continued Mat as they drove along, “that it is quite possible there
is no message as such in those papers. Perhaps your Greg wanted to record something so
that you’d know it was there – whatever it was – but had no message in particular.”
“I don’t follow you.” Melanie slowed down to allow several people on bikes to cross the
road. A very fat woman with bananas carried in a wicker basket on her head shouted at
the cyclists, and then crossed the road herself, her voluminous skirt over impressive hips,
swaying voluptuously as she went.
“What I mean is – supposing Greg was involved in something – say, drug smuggling. He
may have wanted you to know about it. He may not have intended to leave a specific
message, like “danger over here” or “beware of a man called Fred”. He may simply have
wanted you to be aware of his involvement, without actually inciting you.”
“But whatever for?!” exclaimed Melanie.
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“I don’t know. But for example – if he thought you could be in danger if you knew –“
“Humph! I doubt it! He didn’t give tuppence about me!”
“Well then – perhaps he thought you’d be the only person who could do – or not do –
something he knew he would one day need to have done.”
“Mmmm … I see. Yes, there’s an element of something along those lines. I think he must
have assembled those papers several years ago because he’d have had no reason to
include me after he left. We were doubtless getting divorced. He had left us virtually
penniless. He’d have had no reason at all to imagine that I might stick up for him – or do
something for him – should the need arise.”
“I strongly suspect in that case,” Mat lit a cigarette, “the whole thing is a waste of time. It
was something he had on his mind a long time ago, now irrelevant.”
“I still want to see what we can find out,” said Melanie.
Mat blew is cigarette smoke out of the window.
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“That Dr Taylor says its dangerous, smoking,” he said.
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Bad for the health, he says. Does me good, however.”
They parked under the arching palms a little way off from the port. Melanie told Mat that
she wanted as much shade as possible for the car as they would be out all day. He seemed
to accept this and himself added:
“Can’t be too careful, anyway.”
Melanie pulled her hat on over her hair, tucking loose strands up out of sight. She had
made a point of wearing knee-length plain beige shorts and a simple short-sleeved blouse.
Nothing that anybody would particularly notice. She waited slightly to one side as Mat
went off to the boat, keeping in the shade of the palms and watching the people around
her. There were only a few fishermen about, with their women and children heaving nets
– throw-nets they called them, for often all they had to do was wade waist-high in to the
water and throw the net out in order to catch the fish in the lagoon – up in to the sand to
repair or clean off. There was nobody she knew.
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Eventually Mat seemed to be ready. She saw him hand over the money in cash, as
discussed, and saunter off to the boat. He got in casually and checked the outboard motor.
When she saw he was ready Melanie, as casually as she could, wandered aimlessly in the
direction of the boat. The little timber jetty suddenly seemed very long and her feet
seemed to her to make a huge noise as she walked along it. She hopped in next to Mat,
keeping her face away from the shore and hoping that not only nobody had recognized her
but that nobody had even noticed her either.
“I’m sorry if I was rude yesterday,” Melanie said once they were well away from the
shore.
“No – that’s all right – you weren’t rude. It was a shocking thing to consider, but I felt it
had to be brought out in to the open.”
“Of course.”
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The boat, incongruously named Belle France, cut through the water fairly quickly, its
motor emitting an odour of petrol which almost immediately made Melanie feel sick.
One of her blips, she thought. She couldn’t help smiling faintly to herself, for despite the
bad times, there were plenty of good times too. She closed her eyes against the sun and
brilliant colours darted around behind her lids. There had been a time she was often on a
boat, and although she suffered with periodic bouts of nausea, on the whole she loved it.
They hugged the coastline, heading directly south along the western side of the island,
till they were out of sight of the port. Mat steered. The land off to their left rose slowly
out of the water, sand thick with shells and dotted with fallen palms and long yellow
grass. A few dark-skinned people were doing something to a catamaran on the beach and
a couple of shanty huts could be seen between the trees. The gentle rush of sea air was
cooling. Melanie realized she hadn’t been swimming for a long time now – that also had
somehow got forgotten. Not so long ago she’d loved splashing about in these crystal
clear waters, playing with Jimmy, having fun.
“That’s Ile Nou,” said Melanie, “ile des Chevres is just above it, like a dot over an i.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anybody around, no boats, nothing to report,”
said Mat, “apart from those people –“ he jerked his head in the direction of the beach. “I
guess we can skirt off here.”
“Yes, all right,” Melanie replied.
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They passed above the Ilto Brun which brought them round to the southern side of Ile
Nou. Mat swung the boat leewards towards the Ile des Chevres. The bright yellow beach
increased in size as they approached. Melanie told Mat about her trip to the Ile des
Canards, the newspaper cutting and Gloria.
“That Gloria wouldn’t top singing,” she said, “and on the way back it got choppy and I
was feeling so sick it was all I could do not to shove her overboard!”
They both laughed. Mat reduced the speed of the motor and eddied in to the shallows.
The water was torquoise-clear. Melanie threw the anchor overboard and they both
jumped out in to the warm water. It reached their waists. Mat carried on his head a bag
containing dry shorts and shoes, two bottles of water and some food. They waded
towards the shore.
“A lot of rubbish is talked about sharks,” said Mat, broaching the very subject Melanie
was avoiding, “They only attack if they’re hungry or threatened. Or if they smell blood.”
“Or if we’re simply in their way,” added Melanie grimly.
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“You’re not worried, are you?” asked Mat , looking at her. “Sharks virtually never come
in this side of the reef.”
“Oh – no – I realize. No, I’m not frightened. It’s just that the very word “shark” send
shudders down my spine.”
Mat politely turned his back while Melanie changed her shorts. She had put her
swimming costume on under her clothes and for a moment was going to remain in that.
Thinking better of it, however, she donned her shorts, a sporty-looking pair in white with
a blue edge, and pulled on her plimsolls. Mat did likewise and they set off for the palms
that lined the beach. Huge prickly shrubs grew in-between the palms, and strands of tall,
tough grass, with razor-sharp edges. Millions of tiny red flowers grew underfoot, their
grey-green leaves like small succulents creating a carpet which straggled off in all
directions. Once through the palms they found that the island, unlike the main island and
several of the idyllic atolls in the area, was as barren and rocky as they’d heard and had
little more than brittle grass to commend it. The palms along the beach offered almost the
only shade. There was no settlement on the island – there was no water.
“I really can’t imagine that we’re going to find anything here,” she said, already too hot,
“there’s nothing here to be found.”
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“C’mon,” said Mat reassuringly, “we’ve come this far. You set off in that direction and
I’ll go the other way. We’ll give it half an hour. Okay?”
“Yes, okay. We’ll just look out for anything – anything at all that might seem to relate to
Greg, or to those papers. Lord knows what though.”
Picking her way over the hot stones, Melanie made her way across the brush, heading in a
northerly direction parallel with the beach. Ahead of her she could see that the land
sloped fairly steeply uphill and decided not to attempt going further than the base of the
hill. Off to her right she could see, some four or five hundred metres away across the
parched land, the tops of a couple of naouli trees that seemed to emerge from what might
be a small ravine or a sharp dip in the land. She carried on towards the hill, however,
glancing this way and that. To her left the inviting blue water lapped gently at the golden
sand, coming in and going out in a never-ending rhythm. The Belle France sat waiting
for them in the shallows, bobbing very slightly with the motion of the sea. Between her
and the beach were the odd palm tree. No more. There was nothing else.
When she reached the base of the small hill she turned and looked about. There was no
landmark of any sort. Remembering the five trees in a row at Mont Rouge, she cast about
for something significant – a huge rock, perhaps, or a hut, or the wreck of a boat –
anything that was different from the norm.
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Slowly she headed back, taking a path rather more inland. The naouli trees, she noticed,
were sprouting out from some significant dip in the land, ugly things, twisted and gnarled
like an old witch.
She came across an empty coca-cola bottle, cracked around the rim, but otherwise found
nothing at all.
“Hey!”
She heard Mat call from some way off. Looking up she saw that he was further along the
beach, by the palms. He waved. She waved back. Slowly she made her way down on to
the sand opposite the Belle France and found a shady patch where she sat and gulped
down some water.
“Hey!”
She heard Mat call again. It was intolerably hot. This island seemed airless. No wonder
people didn’t come here very often. Rising to her feet she went as far as where the sand
became wet and then she took off her shoes and walked slowly along the beach, gradually
quickening her pace as she saw that Mat seemed to be indicating something to her.
“Look!” he called as she approached, “look on that tree!”
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Quickly she put her shoes back on and ran over the scorching sand. Wiping the sweat
away from under her hat, Melanie approached the tree. On it were carved her initials.
“Good Heavens,” she said quietly.
“Look on the other side,” said Mat.
Melanie picked her way over the thorns to the other side where she saw were Jimmy’s
initials, and further round were Greg’s. Between each one was a little heart.
“So,” said Mat, “it looks as though we’ve found what we were supposed to find.”
“It doesn’t make sense.” For some reason Melanie could feel tears prickling behind her
eyes. She grit her teeth crossly and tried to breathe deeply. “Greg carved those. But
why?
And they can’t possibly be a serious clue of any sort – if it is clues we’re after –
because the chances of spotting those initials are pretty slim! One could come here a
hundred times and never see them!”
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“No, not really,” Mat replied, “for if you think about it most people remain in this section
of the beach, don’t they? And how many palms are here? Ten? Not a lot. I spotted
them straight away.”
“Hmmm … perhaps. It doesn’t make sense still … so, my initials are carved on to the
trunk of a palm tree – so what? I mean, millions of people over the world can boast the
same thing.” Her sudden weepiness made her aggressive.
“Don’t be negative,” Mat reprimanded her with a grin, “this is quite a find. We don’t
know what it signifies, but it signifies something. Greg wanted you to find them. That
much is clear.”
Melanie had now got a grip on herself and the treacherous sensation of being on the verge
of tears had passed.
“You’re right,” she said. “Let’s scout around a bit more before leaving.”
Again they set off in different directions, walking at acute angles to their previous paths,
keeping in a straight line and looking out – now very keenly – for anything that might be
significant. After fifteen minutes or so they turned back.
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“Nothing,” said Mat.
It was not for several days that Melanie saw the significance of those initials. She racked
her brains – and yes, she was certain – Greg had taken a party of business men out to the
Ile des Chevres several times in the weeks immediately preceding his desertion of her.
That meant that he had carved their initials in the tree trunk just before leaving her. Now
that was an odd thing to do, she thought. On the one hand he carved our initials – little
hearts and all – and on the other hand he leaves me, declares he’s sick to death of me.
--------
A telegram arrived from Maurice, saying he had arrived and that all was well. He also
phoned Melanie at the office on the third day.
“Are you fine?” he asked.
Melanie smiled to herself. Although his English was excellent there nonetheless
remained several Frenchisms he was unable to get rid of.
“I’m fine. And you?”
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“I’m all right. It is upsetting. We have to go through all my mother’s things.”
“Of course. I’m sorry. I wish I was there to help you.”
“I also wish you were here, Melanie.”
Mat appeared at the office door and the phone call came to an end. Trunk calls were
expensive and had to be booked. It hadn’t occurred to Melanie to ask what time it was in
France and now, glancing at her watch, she realized that Maurice must have waited up till
very late at night in order to make that call.
Mat sat down, facing her over the desk.
“Right,” he said decisively, pen and paper in hand, “let’s make a list.” He shifted slightly
in his seat and pretended to be shoving glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“We have got
– one – a sign on the palm trees on the island that proves Greg was there and also
indicates that … well, that he was a family man. Two – we have got a shack up on a hill,
which doesn’t appear to be anything, contain anything, go anywhere. Three both you and
I have felt we were perhaps being followed by the native girl. Four – the police were
looking in to Greg’s activities. Five – Greg left you, quite deliberately, a kind of
message, something he knew only you would be able to decipher.”
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He looked up from his sheet of paper.
“What do we have, then?” he asked.
“Not a lot. Nothing, really. I keep thinking I’m being very daft about something, that I
ought to be able to work out what Greg was trying to tell me.”
“Are you convinced – as I am – that he was truly trying to tell you something? Get a
message to you?”
“Yes – I am. But I’m very confused about it. Why would he imagine I’d even want to
look at the message after what he did to me and Jimmy?”
“If he was afraid for his very life …”
“Let’s not go back to that.”
Melanie stood up and went over to the window. She was wearing a full skirt, pale pink
with small flowers in yellow and blue. She avoided high heels on the whole, but today
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wore a pretty pair of stilettos that matched the skirt and the pale yellow top. She put her
hands into the two big pockets at the front of her skirt. Her back to Mat she said:
“ I know I have to face the fact that murder is a strong possibility … but I can’t. I don’t
want to talk about it.”
“I understand – But I’m afraid it is the most likely explanation. Is it possible – Melanie
– sorry – but is it possible that you in any way misunderstood him the night he left?”
“Whatever d’you mean?”
“Is it possible he was being forced back out to the van ? That he didn’t go of his own free
will?”
“No. He was foul. Nobody was forcing him. Had that been the case he’d have given me
some kind of sign so that I could call the police. Anyway, we have proof that he was
having an affair – that child!”
“Right. We’ll leave that, then.” Mat looked back at his sheet of paper and started to write
again. “Six – you think somebody has been snooping around your house, admittedly
probably only the maid, but to be noted nonetheless. Seven – I had the distinct feeling
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that the man I spoke to about the boat Corsaire knew more than he was saying. Last, but
not least, the man Delahaye appears to be connected somehow with Greg.”
“Perhaps we should explore that avenue a bit better?”
“Yes – though I don’t see how, short of going to the prison and questioning Delahaye.”
“Is there a library in Noumea?”
“No – just a small schools library – so far as I know. Why?”
“Newspapers might give us more information.”
“Oh well, that’s easy. We keep all newspapers for two years here at the Commission.
They’re in date order in Block C – shelf after shelf of them. It’ll be impossible to look
through them unless this Delahaye falls in to some specific category.”
“So they are also categorized?”
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“Only if the article has something to do with the Commission – roads or education or
hospitals or whatever. I don’t think bank robbers fall in to the appropriate category.”
“I’ll start right away, I think, particularly as it could take a long time.” Mat stood up and
shoved his chair to one side.
“You okay with that?” asked Melanie. “I mean – are you still happy about doing this
little job for me?”
“Sure! Never earned such easy money in my life!”
“Which reminds me – “ Melanie pulled her bag out from under the desk and took out
some cash which she gave to Mat. “Your pay to date,” she said.
“You know where would be a good idea for you to go ?” asked Mat as he stuffed the
notes in to a pocket. “The prison. No harm in it. You just say you want to see Delahaye
– give the real reason if they ask you.”
Melanie thought for a moment.
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“As you say – why not ? There’s nothing to lose and we might learn something.”
Noumea’s prison was situated next to the police station in the centre of the oldest part of
the town. Looking at the sombre walls, it must have been one of the first buildings ever
erected on the island. There were only seven cells. Tricot was not there, but Melanie was
seen aimiably enough by a gendarme calling himself Berton. He explained that prisoners
sentenced to more than five years generally got transferred out of Noumea to a more
secure prison in Mayotte.
And that Delahaye was one of the men who was to be transferred. He had served only six
weeks of an eight-year sentence. Berton didn’t ask why Melanie wanted to see Delahaye,
but escorted her through the office rooms at the back of the gendarmerie and out in to a
large courtyard walled-in with very high stone walling and barbed wire. Despite the heat,
Melanie shuddered. Inside the prison block her eyes took a few moments to accustom to
the sudden darkness. There was a strong smell of urine and black tobacco. The gendarme
stopped at a cell on the left. A noise that sounded like some kind of snorting came from
the cell beyond, which told her that only one other seemed to be occupied.
“Debout!” ordered the Berton in to a small dark window cut in to the door, “you have a
visitor.”
There was a sudden rush of movement from within the cell and Melanie could hear feet
shuffling rapidly along the stone floor.
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“No, it’s not your wife! But it’s a lady, so be polite.”
Berton opened the heavy wooden door, beyond which was a set of bars.
Delahaye’s face appeared. Berton stepped to one side, his back to the wall, and indicated
with his head that Melanie could speak. She had hoped he’d go away. Looking at
Delahaye, his face expressionless, she saw a man in his early forties, his skin thick with
sweat and grime that had mixed together, unwashed, for six weeks. His eyes behind the
spectacles were dull and looked – hunted. His eyes in the newspaper had been those of a
criminal – these eyes were those of a man whose life had been shattered. Melanie held up
her photo of Greg.
“Do you know this man?” she asked bluntly.
“He’s dead,” replied Delahaye.
“I know. He was my husband. How did you know him ?”
“Dunno. Can’t remember.”
“Does the Ile des Chevres mean anything to you?”
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There – just for a split second, Melanie was sure a look crossed his face, his eyes took on
a different hue … she had hit the right spot.
“Nah …” he replied, “it’s an island – of course I know that – lived here all my life,
haven’t I?”
And with that he returned in to the darkness and sat down.
“You won’t get any more out of him,” said Berton. “He won’t speak. Not now. One of
his kids got hit pretty bad – beaten up with a whip.”
“Oh ! How horrible!”
Melanie was steered back along the dark passageway and out in to the bright sunshine of
the yard once more.
“Why does that mean he won’t speak, though?”
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“It’s somebody’s way of telling him to shut up,” replied the policeman easily. He then
turned toMelanie and asked: “what’s your interest here, anyway? You know Delahaye ?
“
“No, not at all. Your Mr. Tricot gave me some papers – the name Delahaye was on
them.” Then, on a sudden impulse she added, “ – but Delahaye is a fairly ordinary name,
isn’t it?”
“Suppose so …” Berton didn’t seem particularly interested. He was doing his job and
didn’t want any complications to it.
“Give my regards to Monsieur Tricot,” said Melanie pleasantly, “au revoir, monsieur.”
“Au revoir, madame,” he replied.
The office became very busy for a couple of weeks. Dr Taylor’s contract ended and he
decided against renewing it.
“We have to think of the children,” he said as he and Melanie made their way over the
Commission lawns to the car park, “for their education is paramount. We feel we can’t
drag them around the world any longer.”
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“I don’t know how your wife copes … I expect she’ll be glad to settle down at home.”
“Well she’ll be glad to have a baby in a clean English hospital at any rate.”
“What ?! You don’t mean …?”
“Oh yes, nothing like plenty of children!”
“I shall be sorry to see you go,” said Melanie abruptly changing the subject, “you have
been a friend to me.”
Bill Taylor smiled. He put his arm briefly across her shoulders.
“Well – no reason to be anything other than a friend, is there? You’ve been through a bad
patch, Melanie. But du Chazan is a good man. You’ve fallen on your feet.”
Melanie drove up to Mont Coffyn to the Taylor household, where packing crates were
already being loaded in to a lorry, ready to be shipped back to England. The three eldest
children scurried around, carrying armfuls of clothing, books, toys, half of which were
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dropped on the floor en route and the rest of which seemed to be stuffed with
unceremonious and haphazard energy in to various crates. A couple of dark-skinned men
seemed to be trying to tell the children to leave them to it, and the fourth child, a dark
haired little girl and the toddler, Julian, sat on the pebbles, squashing bits of plasticine on
to eachother’s clothes. Amid all this, standing in calm serenity stood Andree, the baby
perched on one hip and an obvious swelling on her tummy. She smiled at Melanie.
“I expect I’ve come at a bad moment,” Melanie ventured.
“Yes – rather – “ replied the other woman with habitual frankness. “We’re spending a bit
of time in Rome, so it’s difficult to sort out what to pack …” She looked uncertainly at
the children, one of whom seemed to be bashing another over the head with a book.
“Rome ..? Goodness … lovely …”
“I love Rome,” said Andree, as though that solved everything. “If the new baby is a boy
– and I think it is - I shall call him Fabian.”
“Ah – right – very nice too. I just came to see if I could help in any way …” Melanie
sincerely hoped Andree would say no.
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“No, that’s all right,” she said as though she had seen through Melanie’s mind, “we’re
used to it.”
Back at the office Melanie had to deal with a mountain of paperwork relating to a pothole
accident in which a native had been killed – the Commission took full responsibility and
the engineering department, as the pothole was in a back road by the mines, had reports to
make. This was exaccabated by the discovery of factory effluent contaminating drinking
water over by Paita. Dispatches had to be sent and for several days Melanie was too busy
to think about Greg and the papers. She drove out to the airport to wave goodbye to the
Taylors who, despite the seemingly chaotic organization of the packing, seemed to be
ready and smartly dressed. The children, silent for a change, stood in a solemn and tearful
row by passport control. The little girl, Cherry, was carrying a black typewriter box. She
looked unsmilingly at Melanie.
“I always carry mummy’s typewriter,” she announced.
“So I see,” smiled Melanie, “I expect you’ve carried it virtually all over the world!”
“Yes, I have,” she replied.
Melanie waved till they were out of sight. She noticed the little girl was crying, still
clutching the typewriter, as they walked over the tarmac to the plane.
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------Maurice phoned again after he’d been gone nine days. His voice crackled down the line.
Melanie clutched the heavy black receiver to her face and spoke loudly in to the
mouthpiece.
“Delay ? What delay, Maurice? Why?”
“I have to see to a few more things – another week I should think. My mother had some
savings and we have to arrange probate – that kind of thing.”
There was a second or two of silence between his voice and hers as their speech fled up
and down the lines across the world. Melanie suddenly became aware that she’d miss
him terribly if for some reason he didn’t come back.
“I’ll be back soon, my dear,” he said, and his voice was affectionate and warm.
After they’d rung off, Melanie sat staring at the receiver for some time, her fingers
drumming lightly on the desk in front of her. Jimmy had found an old telephone once
and had taken it apart on the kitchen table. The innards looked so simple for such a clever
machine – just the two bells and a few wires and the dialling mechanism under the dial.
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“Hi there!” Mat’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“Mat, hello.”
Mat had found nothing amongst the newspapers the previous week, despite a lengthy
search. His fingers blackened with the print off the paper, he returned to Melanie’s office
several hours after she’d left the prison.
“Nothing,” he said.
Now, leaning against the door frame of Melanie’s office, Mat said:
“Whatever it was Greg was involved in, this man Delahaye knew about it – or vice-versa.
Greg died – how, doesn’t matter – Greg died, leaving Delahaye to carry the can.”
“Yes, something along those lines I think. We may never get to the bottom of it.”
“Probably not. But there are other people involved.”
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“In what way?”
“Well, for a start – hurting Delayhaye’s kid as a warning to him to keep quiet.”
“Oh – yes – if that is what it was. The gendarme didn’t actually say that in any
significant way – just as a matter of vague interest, that’s all.”
“Well, so long as he gets his pay I don’t suppose he could care less, to be honest.
Nevertheless, it seems clear that it was a ruse to keep Delayhaye quiet. That’s why he
won’t talk. He’s afraid for his family.”
“Mat, the Ile des Chevres has the answer – I’m certain of it – we should have spent longer
looking around. There’s no doubt about it – Delahaye blanched visibly when I mentioned
the Ile des Chevres.”
“You may be right. But let’s get something clear.” Mat dragged the chair from the wall
opposite over to Melanie’s desk. He sat down heavily. “Listen, Melanie. I know you
want to avoid the subject of murder, but I don’t want to get involved in anything
dangerous. So far it has been fun. It is intriguing. I’ve really enjoyed it. But it is my
solemn opinion that your late husband was involved in something nasty. Nasty things
involve nasty people. I’m not saying I want to back out, but I am saying – Melanie, listen
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to me! – I am saying that if there is the remotest possibility of anything rough, leave me
out of it. I’m not that kind.”
“Oh – Mat …”
“No, don’t interrupt me – I’m serious. DEADLY serious. I haven’t got any kids that can
be tortured with a whip, but if – and I stress the word IF – Greg was involved with these
men, we’re best to leave it all alone. He’s dead, after all. You have your new life. I have
mine. Soon you’ll go and live in France, I will return to Australia. I know those papers
are curious – I’d love to get to the bottom of it all – but I don’t want any danger. Do you
hear me, Melanie?”
“Yes – yes, I hear you.” She wished she smoked, but unlike almost all the people she
knew, smoking did nothing for her. It would be nice to be able to take a long relaxing
drag on a cigarette right now. Mat was talking sense, she knew it. But she also knew
Greg. Had known Greg.
“He was one of the world’s Good Guys,” she said. “He would never ever have been
involved with people who beat up children or who rob banks. He wasn’t bright enough,
for a start!” She realized that that sounded bitchy and shook her head as if trying to shake
away the words. “He was a plain man. He worked. He was … straight. He was honest.
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If there had been some kind of nasty set-up, he’d have gone straight to the police. He’d
have told me …”
Even as she said it she realized how wrong she had been over that … for it was clear that
something had been troubling him deeply, yet he hadn’t told her … why? Was it too
dangerous? No. He had left her for another woman, that’s all. No more, no less.
“If there is an answer – and now it’s my turn to stress the word IF,” she said, “it is on the
Ile des Chevres.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
Melanie went to her brief case and dug out the papers. She spread them out over her
desk, moving the ink bottle to one side along with various papers and pens. She flattened
each one out carefully and placed them one next to the other so that they covered the
entire table.
“This,” she said, pointing to the third page, “I think relate to the land where the shelter is.
I wish I could ask Maurice, but I daren’t. They are old, dating to long before we came to
Noumea, so it might be that they are in this bundle only as proof that the land belongs to
somebody Greg knew. They are copies, I’m pretty certain of that. Not the originals. In
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my opinion they are included because the shelter had – or has – some significance and
Greg wanted to draw attention to it.”
“Do you understand what it says?” asked Mat, peering at the papers Melanie pointed to.
“Well – yes, inasmuch as I can read French, though a lot of it is old legal jargon that
doesn’t make sense to me. The thing is that they refer to Cadastral sections of land – and
we have nothing to relate those cadastral figures to – there is no actual address, you see.
The owner appears to be a native – there are loads of names here – dating back years and
years – all of them odd, native names that I wouldn’t care to try to repeat.”
“And the Ile des Chevres?”
“In some ways that is the only part that is absolutely clear to me. Blip. I realize it sounds
as though a child composed this, but that was his word for my sea-sickness. He used to
get impatient with me – oh, you’re not going to have one of your blips are you ? That
kind of thing. That means he meant me to go in a boat over to Ile des Chevres. That is
clear. He has drawn the boat – Bill G Gruff – Billy Goat Gruff – goat island. That is also
clear.”
“Yes, I’d agree with all that,” said Mat, “but we found the palm trees and the carvings. I
think that was all there was.”
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“We barely looked!”
“OK – we’ll go back and look further. His directions to Mont Rouge are clear too.
Obscure enough for only you to understand though – so he was afraid of something or
somebody. He didn’t want that person or thing to know that you were aware of …
whatever.”
“Mmmmm. It’s all a bit obtuse. And then there are these – “ Melanie pointed to some
symbols drawn in one corner. “Looks like Greek lettering – he would have had no idea
about Greek lettering … ”
Mat glanced over to where she pointed. They had both poured over all the papers several
times. Suddenly Mat drew in his breath sharply.
“Hey – no, it’s not … look!” Mat picked up a pen and a bit of paper and copied the
symbols out, then did so again, reversing them. “Turn them around – mirror them, if you
like – and it spells POUM. That’s the name of the furthermost point on the northern coast
here, isn’t it?”
“Why yes – so it is. Clever you, Mat!”
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“So, we must put that on our list of things to do,” he said. “How long would it take to
drive up there?”
“Goodness – no idea – ages. It seems to be connected to the words tap, food and eye,
too.”
“How d’you say those in French?”
“Un robinet, de la nourriture, un oiel.”
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“No, nothing.”
Mat hired a different boat for their trip to the Ile des Chevres. Equally incongruously, it
was named La Petite Fleur – the little flower – and again, Melanie was careful to not
make their departure too obvious to anybody who may be watching. Neither she nor Mat
had seen the native girl for several days but they had both learned that it seemed that as
soon as they felt she had given up following them, she re-appeared.
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“She seems to go away for several days at a time,” said Mat, “and to be honest, I couldn’t
swear it is always the same girl, anyway.”
“What about that man over there – is he watching us ?” Melanie indicated with a jerk of
her head an elderly native standing to one side of a small house. He wore a lava-lava and
claquettes and he leant on a colourful walking stick, painted cheerfully with bright floral
patterns in blue and yellow. He had substantial scars on both cheeks and over his nose.
“Dunno – maybe. Hard to tell. People do look at each other. It may be nothing.”
La Petite Fleur burst in to life amid petrol fumes and splutterings of the worn-out little
outboard motor. She lurched forwards, making Melanie grip on tight while Mat steered
through the blue waters, his left hand on the tiller, smiling slightly with his face turned in to
the sun, eyes half closed against the wind and the bright light.
He is such a kind boy, thought Melanie, watching him. He avoided direct sunlight
because his skin was so fair, and she could see bright red burns on his feet where his long
light-weight cotton trousers ended and the sandals began. He tended to wear T-shirts, as
all the young people seemed to, but today had on an open-necked island shirt with bright
sunsets and tropical flora printed on it. The hair on his fore arms was almost white from
bleaching in the sun, and that part of his skin, more accustomed to the light, had tanned
lightly to a pale golden pink.
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He grinned over at her.
“My sister will be over shortly,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“What’s her name?”
“Sue.”
“And your other sister?”
“Tracey.”
Looking at Mat, young and so earnest, Melanie thought it was nearing the time to finish
the search. She had no wish to traipse up to Poum and felt that she had wasted enough
time and spent enough money on her little “detective”. Certainly, she reflected, it would
be fascinating to know what this was all about – but Mat had hit the nail on the head when
he had said that they had their own lives, she would go to France with Maurice, he would
leave for Australia – probably meet some pretty girl and marry within a few years. He’d
make a smashing dad. He’d been great company, but it was nearing time to call it a day.
Suddenly she didn’t want to find out anyway – what the hell, she said to herself – what
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difference would it make to anybody or anything? It may well be that Greg was trying to
tell me something important – but he is dead now, and life must move on.
“Maurice will be back within a week or so,” she said aloud.
“His mother died or something …?”
“Yes. He had to return to France to see his brother, deal with stuff.”
“Tough time for him.”
“Yes.”
“Melanie – can I ask – why is it you don’t want to discuss any of this with your husband?
It seems to me he should be the first person to talk to.”
“Oh, I know – I’ve often thought that – I don’t know – I suppose because in some ways it
isn’t really all that important – I don’t want to bother him with it.”
The island appeared ahead of them and both Melanie and Mat spotted instantly the boat
anchored slightly off to one side. It was a small marlin boat, white with a blue and green
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plimsoll line.
Melanie screwed her eyes up … it seemed to be called the Lys, or
something similar. Names of boats always fascinated her. There seemed to be nobody
aboard. A dinghy was hauled up on to the beach but there were no signs of people
around.
“Picnickers,” said Melanie.
“Yeh – we’ll act as though we are too.”
They continued in to the shore as far as the boat would allow, anchored, and then hopped
off in to the shallows. The sand below the water looked bright green, like pale translucent
emeralds. They carried dry clothes and beach towels on their heads, also some water and
a camera. Once on the sand Melanie slung the camera around her neck.
“Right,” he said, looking around, “dunno where the other people are – but they’re not our
problem. We’ll wander around for an hour – okay? – then, if we’ve found nothing, we’ll
just go home. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
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They set off in opposite directions. Melanie headed south-west this time, going past the
palms where her intials were carved. She stopped for a moment to look at them. Her
eyes quickly scanned the rough surface of the tree, and there were no other marks of any
sort. She continued on, skirting round the bay to opposite where the other boat was at
anchor. Mat took a route directly inland to where the naouli trees crept up out of the
ravine. She could see him quite clearly and it reassured her to know he was within sight,
also that there were other people about, for if there were indeed something ominous to be
discovered here on the island, it was good that there were people around who might be
able to help. Her feet working slowly over the rocks and stones, she made her way
laboriously past the bay. There was nothing to report. Mat was now out of sight. A few
more trees appeared, their thick flat leaves offering a pungeant shade amid the rocks, and
a couple of birds screeched noisily in alarm as she approached.
The trees, growing out of the dry earth along the coastline, appeared to be some kind of
pine, tall and full-leaved and bending slightly inwards towards the land. Vegetation was
more abundant here, with blades of coarse grass and wild flowers. For the first time in a
long time, Melanie felt almost serene. A hint of breeze from the sea, warm like a touch
of silk, wafted up to where she stood. One hour, she said to herself, then we’ll call it a
day. It has been fun in lots of ways, but Maurice will be back soon and I could go on for
months – even years – trying to get to the bottom of all this.
And that, she reflected, pre-supposed there was indeed a bottom. I’m not afraid of what I
might find out about Greg, she told herself, but I’m not that certain I really want to know.
He had an affair with a local woman, he had a child by her, he left me for her – and then
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he died. As Mat pointed out, how he died is neither here nor there –not really. He’s gone,
that is all.
Suddenly she no longer dreaded the day she’d have to return to Europe with Maurice.
She recognized the feeling with a sense of considerable surprise. I suppose because I
need to turn a page somehow, she thought, I need to be allowed to start again. In some
ways, this hunt … this … search, has been like a catharsis. It has proved to me that
although in some ways I still care deeply about poor old Greg – Heavens, we were
together from childhood – it is over. Finished.
A couple of goats appeared on the escarpment beyond the trees, where there was a steep
drop to the sea. The goats hopped nimbly from rock to rock, eating at the greenery here
and there and periodically making a small noise. It wasn’t possible to go any further in
that direction, so Melanie now turned to the left, climbing slightly uphill, towards the
centre of the island. She had seen nothing of any note whatsoever – there was nothing
other than the trees and the goats and the rocks. She felt Mat was right after all – either
those initials were what they were supposed to be looking for – or they were searching
for a needle in a haystack … and the haystack had lost its attraction, the needle was no
longer important. It was time to go home.
Melanie was just about to turn left again over the grassy slope that led towards the beach,
when she saw Mat. Of all the daft things, he seemed to be climbing a tree! She had
noticed the naouli trees before, and these trees, with their thick and almost horizontal
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tortured branches, were an ideal place for kids to play. Well, men never grow up! she
thought. She stopped and watched for a moment, smiling slightly. It proved to her that
the whole thing had become daft. She was about to raise her hand and call out when she
realized that he might be stuck. Two men were approaching him rapidly over the stones
beyond. Ha – serve him right if he’s stuck – silly ha’peth, she thought. She stood still
and watched for a moment, remaining in the shade of a tree. She had to laugh – it was a
silly scene – and one of those men looked vaguely familiar, but it was too far to tell –
black hair, short black beard … he worked in Noumea, she couldn’t think where off-hand.
Quickly, and laughing quietly, she unhooked the camera from her shoulder, opened the
case, adjusted the lens and took first a snap shot of Mat flailing about in the trees and then
one of him being rescued by the men.
Turning on her heel she made her way back to the beach where their towels and dry
clothes still sat. She peeled off the shorts and blouse that had dried quickly in the sun
after she’d jumped out of the boat. Underneath she wore a two-piece swimming costume
– a bikini they called them these days. She ran quickly down to the edge of the water,
kicked off her shoes, and waded gratefully through the liquid opal till the warm water
reached her chest and she sank happily beneath the surface, feeling relieved and as though
a weight had been lifted from her. Re-surfacing, she saw that Mat had not re-appeared yet
– their hour was probably not up. Treading water, she removed her bikini top and then
the bottom and, clutching them in one hand she swam naked up and down several times,
rolling and soaking her hair, content. The water slid along her body, fresh and gentle.
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Emerging from the water it seemed to her she heard a shout of some kind. Mat was on his
way back, no doubt. She couldn’t see him on the beach but quickly, gripping the bikini
top in her teeth and laughter making her go under several times, she got the bottom part of
her bikini on, then the top. She was now quite close to the boat and swam energetically
towards it. The water was shallow now, no higher than her waist. Her clothes and
camera were still on the beach with their towels – but never mind, Mat will pick them up
for me, she thought.
She hauled herself in to the boat just as Mat appeared by the edge of the sand. He was
running and shouting something. She waved. No way was she going back to the shore
unless he had found something really significant – more initials on more trees were of no
interest. Running past their towels, Mat seemed to stumble slightly and came straight
towards the boat, his feet sloshing wildly in the water as it impeded the movements of his
legs. He seemed to stumble again.
“Hey! Our clothes!” she called out.
He shouted something back. It took her a second to understand:
“Start her up! Get going!”
He was only a few yards away now. Suddenly she realized he was hurt.
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“Get the motor going!” he called.
She obeyed instantly.
She pulled vigorously on the starter cord and
the motor leapt in to life just as Mat reached the side of the boat. He hauled himself in.
Quickly Melanie pulled up the anchor.
“Oh, Mat! You’re hurt! Did you fall ?!” Suddenly climbing the tree was not so funny.
Mat didn’t answer but grabbed the tiller and veered the boat forwards.
He seemed to gasp and the boat, lurching from one side to another, cut its way in a
crooked angle away from the island.
Looking behind, Melanie saw that the two men had reached the beach and we pulling
their dinghy towards the water.
“We should have asked them for help,” she said “ – where are you hurt? Do you need a
doctor?”
Mat’s face had turned ash-grey.
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“Here, you steer,” he said.
They swopped places, clambering past each other over the bench. Mat’s back was
covered in blood.
“Good God!” Melanie grabbed the tiller and Mat slumped in to the bottom of the boat,
his head back against the bench.
“I’ve been shot,” he said.
“What?! What are you talking about?!”
“Melanie … listen … for Chrissake … listen!” Mat gasped and a thin trickle of blood
appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“Yes ? What ? Tell me!”
“Those men – I found something – they shot me – they saw me – in the trees. Get away,
fast.”
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Looking back towards the beach, Melanie saw that the men were now in their boat. It
seemed to be still stationary. If they decided to chase us, they’ll catch up in no time at all,
she thought. She looked at Mat who remained slumped in the same place, his eyes open.
“I’ll get you to a doctor,” she said to him, her voice rising sharply as panic rose.
The advance of their boat seemed remarkably slow all of a sudden. Melanie kept looking
behind to see where the other boat was. At first it seemed to remain stationery – engine
trouble, she hoped – but after a while she realized it was moving and gaining on them fast.
“I don’t believe this!” she shouted in to the wind. Seeing Mat was in considerable pain,
she added:
“Don’t worry – it won’t be long – all’s well.”
Thinking quickly, she veered sharply east towards what was called the Grande Rade. It
seemed to take forever. As they approached the mainland she veered again cut in-between
Ile Nou and the little peninsular at Donimabo. Here there were several boats of all shapes
and sizes, and the centre of Noumea appeared with the slow easiness of the South Pacific,
unaware of the unfolding drama, in the
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near-distance. They’re hardly likely to shoot at us here, she thought. There was no time
to take the boat round to the bay where they’d hired it and, standing up shouting a l’aide!
a l’aide! as soon as they were within shouting distance, Melanie drove the boat straight at
the hard, cutting the engine only just in time. She shouted for help again and already
people, curious, had started to gather. Somebody called an ambulance. A couple of men
carried Mat out on to the jetty. Blood had soaked the back of his shirt and the seat of his
shorts and it now dribbled out on to the timber flooring where he lay. He seemed to be
trying to say something.
“It’ll be all right, Mat,” she cried, grasping his hand. Even his hand was bloody.
She climbed in to the back of the ambulance car alongside Mat and tried to reassure him.
Through the rear window she could see the small crowd that had gathered on the jetty,
dispersing already, and beyond them the reddish-brown mark on the timber floor where
Mat’s blood had run. That picture remained in her mind, stuck like a photograph, for
many years.
Mat died before reaching the hospital.
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Melanie didn’t cry for several hours. She sat at the edge of her bed, feet up under her,
huddled like a whipped creature against the headboard. Shocked and dazed, she couldn’t
speak. Her doctor, Biteau, came up to the house, summoned by Hudeline, and gave her
some tranquilizers. Melanie then sank in to a sleepy fog of guilt and remorse and
confusion, and suffered confused nightmares that revolved round her own iniquity. She
had had great difficulty in talking to the police, her voice tight within her throat and the
shock sending numb blankness through her mind so that she kept thinking it was all a
mistake, that she had had some kind of breakdown and that Mat was working down at the
Commission as he always did.
“My camera …” she said, “I took a photo of the men … my camera must still be on the
beach with my clothes.”
Later that day the police came back to inform her that there was a clear photo of both
men. They brought her clothes back too, also Mat’s towel which she held in her lap,
tightly, trying to make it all go away. The police questioned her at great length and her
head ached horribly. She told them everything.
“He didn’t want to do it … it’s my fault … I was so curious …”
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It was only, three days later, when Mat’s parents arrived to take his body home, that she
finally allowed the tragedy to sink in. She cried loudly, great sobs racking her body, still
squatting in a corner of her bed. Hudeline brought her a hot herby drink.
“Drink it, Madame,” ordered the Kanak woman.
Melanie did as she was told and looked up at the kind dark face.
“I need somebody to comfort me,” she whispered.
The big woman sat down unexpectedly on the side of the bed and patted Melanie’s thigh.
“Monsieur will be home soon,” she said, “and Hudeline’s good drink will comfort you,
Madame.”
The arrival of Mat’s parents served to knock reality back in to Melanie. There were
things to be dealt with and, having dragged Mat in to this, the least she could do was face
his mother.
Then, on the fifth day, two days before Maurice was due home, Melanie got a grip on
herself, packed an overnight bag, arranged for Hudeline to care for Jimmy, ordered Tizzy
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in to the car, and set off for the town of Poum. Her anguish gave way to fury. She
manoeuvred the car through Noumea and out on to the road that ran, snaking between the
sea and the mountains, along the entire length of the island, right as far as the
northernmost tip. She had never ventured far from Noumea before, but she was not
afraid, her sense of injustice and her total anger out-weighing all other emotions. Once
past the town she gave vent to her feelings.
“How dare you?!” she roared in to the empty car, “whoever or whatever you are –
whatever all this is – how dare you?!”
The little dog wagged his tail nervously.
“That poor boy! His poor mother! What the hell – what the fuck – is this all about?!”
The island of New Caledonia is under three hundred kilometres in length, Noumea being
barely forty kilometres in from the southernmost tip. The road as far as Paita, twenty
kilometres or so, was tarmacked and in tolerably good condition. From Paita to
Boulouparis, another forty kilometres, the tarmac was broken and haphazard but perfectly
passable. Her throat tightening, she remembered Mat telling her not to drive too fast over
the bumps – it’ll ruin the suspension, he’d said.
“Mat – darling Mat – I’m sorry,” she said out loud.
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The little dog wagged its tail again. Melanie struggled against tears.
She had estimated, on the assumption that the road would be little more than dust and
stones after Boulouparis, that the journey would take about five hours, if not six. Add to
that stopping to fill up with petrol, going to the loo, having a cool drink and something to
eat, letting Tizzy out – it was the best part of a day’s journey. To top it, when she got to
Poum, she had no idea what to look for.
“But there’s no way I’m dropping this now,” she said aloud, calmer now as she left
familiar territory and the lush coastline vegetation sprang up around her. “No, no. Greg –
is this you ? What is it? There’s no way I’m letting this go now. I’ve got to find out –
Greg, you were involved in something horrid – I accept that now – Mat was right. He
died. Christ – he died!!”
Melanie pulled in at Boulouparis and filled up with petrol. A makeshift café-bar to one
side of the road attracted her in, a bright Fanta sign rusting on a pillar by the door. Inside
a European man, unshaven and dirty, sat on a bar stool.
“Fanta,” she told him in French, “and water for the dog please.”
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“Got no Fanta,” replied the man with a heavy accent, “just beer.”
He put a bowl of water down for Tizzy and jerked his head in the direction of a shelf of
bottles of beer. Flies swarmed over the top of the bar and beat, like an angry and moving
curtain of black against the window.
“Boil me some water, then,” said Melanie, exasperated, “and put some sugar in it.”
The man did as he was told, shuffling like an elderly person between the stools.
“You English?” he asked her, in English.
“Yes – and you?”
“American.”
He didn’t sound American – more like a cross between Australian and central European.
It didn’t matter. He poured the water in to a tolerably clean-looking mug and indicated
the sugar to Melanie. She put two teaspoonfuls in and stirred, waiting for it to cool. It
was unusual to see a European out of Noumea and the immediate areas. There was a kind
of fashion among young people these days, calling themselves “hippy”, which attracted
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remote areas and simple living – she had read about it several times in the ‘papers. But
this man didn’t seem to be a hippy – whatever that was.
“Have you lived here long?” she asked, taking the bull by the horns.
“Few years. Gotta Kanak wife.”
“Oh – I see. Do you know any other Europeans here – further up the island, for
example.”
“Yeh – course – there are several. Mostly bloody frogs. The doctor at Voh is white –
New Zealander – and there’s a mission up there too. Why? You lookin’ for somebody
particular?”
“Yes – no. Just doing a survey – that’s all.”
She was surprised at her own lie. It came out easily. Anger and hurt overtook everything,
gave her an energy, a determination to resolve this. She sipped at her hot water slowly
while Tizzy ran about for a few moments then settled on the cool stone floor at her feet.
The man seemed disinclined to talk much. Melanie was satisfied that she had given the
police a tolerably good description of one of the two men she’d seen while Mat was in the
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tree; she had also been able to describe the boat. She was pretty certain that she had not
been seen by either of the men. At worst, they’d seen her on the boat when they fled and
they’d know she could hardly have seen them clearly, just as they couldn’t possibly have
identified her. Their own boat had been moored slightly off to one side and she was
forced to hope against hope that not only would it not dawn on them that she, being a boat
person, had taken in every detail, but that the police had already picked them up anyway.
In her grief, cowering in shock in the corner of her bed, it hadn’t occurred to her that the
two men might now come after her. Apart from the police nobody had been round except
the doctor. She had been grateful that nobody from the Commission had tried to make a
sympathetic visit to her … and vaguely she now wondered what kind of story was going
around about her and Mat and about what had or had not happened. Unconsciously, she
shrugged slightly. She didn’t care. She realized it would have been better if she had told
Maurice all about it right at the beginning – but she hadn’t and she couldn’t change that
now.
The road from Boulouparis worsened considerably and progress was slow. There was
little change in the landscape, with the range of mountains continuing alongside her to the
right, and the sea to the left.
She passed through a forested area, where tall thin palms
grew alongside what looked like some kind of tropical beech. She could see banana
palms too, and native huts intermingled with small brick or stone buildings with
corrugated iron roofs. There seemed to be a lot of dogs and chickens and children, all
milling about among the huts, and a couple of rusty vans and a few bicycles. The road
became torturous, twisting haphazardly in and out of rocky terrain, and the majestic
expanse of the Pacific, a glittering jewel, spread constantly to one side.
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Several lorries passed her at one stage and she realized she must be close to a mine; they
headed south in the opposite direction, going to the port in Noumea. The workforce in
these mines was considerable and employment high. They had changed the shape of the
island forever, not just physically but socially and historically. Melanie wondered what
the local people thought about it. A very small minority group, virtually unheard of,
periodically appeared on the political scene of the island, wanting independence, but were
unlikely to ever have a voice of any note if only because of the vast wealth and
opportunity the French colonization of the island had brought them, not to mention the
tourist industry introduced by the British and the Americans and which was catching on
fast, indelibly, like a natural progression of events.
A full two hours elapsed before Melanie reached Bourrail. She had frequently seen signs
to this town and for some time had thought it was at the far end of the island. As it was it
marked approximately a third of her journey. She looked at her watch. It was nearly
three o’clock and she hadn’t eaten. She filled up with petrol in a small dark shop where
the petrol was poured from a large jerry can via a funnel in to her petrol tank. She parked
in the small dusty place, dotted with coconut palms and decorated with a couple of broken
park benches where two old men sat, wearing European dress, watching some other
younger men playing the French game of boules. On the far side of the little place was
another café-bar, again sporting a Fanta sign. Here, she used the loo and ordered a plate
of omelette and bread – all they could offer. She sat quietly and ate, and reflected that
she’d have to start to look around for somewhere to stay the night by five o’clock. She
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had only got as far as Bourrail and had no intention of stopping already – yet the journey
ahead seemed never-ending.
Refreshed, she set off again, Tizzy asleep on the seat next to her. Although the condition
of the road was no better to the north of Bourrail, at least it was relatively straight and cut
neatly across a flat area fairly well inland, where she could no longer see the sea. She was
able to pick up a bit of speed and reached the township of Kone within the hour. Again
she stopped, ate, drank, let Tizzy run about. There was a sign outside a house announcing
chambres a louer, but it was too early to stop. She must press on. She was just about to
get back in to her car when she spotted a European woman over by a vegetable stall which
had been erected at the side of the road. Melanie watched her silently for a few moments,
wondering which move to make, then got out of the car.
“Excusez-moi, Madame!” she said cheerfully as she approached.
The woman turned and Melanie saw a wide aimiable face, straight teeth and a welcoming
smile.
“I wondered if you could help me –“ Melanie began uncertainly. “I am writing an article
about foreigners living out of Noumea – are you French?”
“Yes, Madame,” the woman replied formally.
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She was aged in her forties, a wide-hipped woman who was undoubtedly attached to one
of the medical or one of the mission centres nearby. She was keen to chat.
Melanie engaged her in conversation briefly, asked a few questions but, uncertain as to
what she needed to know, to what she was looking for in the first instance, she fell back
on her photo of Greg. She held it up.
“Do you remember ever seeing him?” she asked bluntly.
The woman peered at the picture.
“No,” she said after a while.
The woman was confused and eager to be helpful.
“There is a powdering of Europeans all over the island,” she said, “especially near the
missions. Your friend is a missionary, perhaps?”
“Oh, no, hardly,” Melanie replied, “he’s dead.”
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As she said this she realized it didn’t make sense.
“I’m not looking for him exactly, “ she began, then left it. After all, I don’t have to
explain anything, she thought.
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t help,” said the woman. She pointed over to the chambre sign and
added: “that’s my place. If you get stuck, come back here – even if it is the middle of the
night.”
“That really is very kind of you. Thank you.”
Melanie didn’t reach Poum till gone nine that night. Weary, she found a room to rent
above a seedy little café-bar and, after gulping down another greasy omelette and some
sugared water, she fell onto her bed, Tizzy at her side, and slept a restless sleep that was
constantly interrupted by mosquitoes and the unfamiliar mattress. The sound of men
talking, some of them drinking a kind of root beer made locally, woke her at odd intervals
during the first half of the night, and just before dawn she woke again to the sound of a
car parking outside. She dozed off and on till six, and then rose, stiff and headachy and
looked out of the window.
Poum had around eight thousand inhabitants, she guessed. It was little more than a shanty
town with a scattering of weather-beaten one-storey buildings, a few huts and the
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inevitable corrugated iron. A van and a couple of cars – one of them a new-looking
Peugeot estate were parked outside; the Peugeot had perhaps driven up from Noumea for
it was too smart to be a local car and, like hers, was coated with a thick layer of reddishyellow dust.
Down at the bar, after a quick wash in cold rusty-coloured water, Melanie drank a small
sweet black coffee and hurriedly ate a roll of bread that looked like a croissant but was
more the texture of sweet bread. It was fresh and still warm from the bakery. She bought
a small amount of meat for Tizzy and then set off, her handbag slung over one shoulder,
in to the little port. Here, tourists had not even started to arrive, not even the odd hippy,
and every aspect of everything was broken and down-at-heel. Even the little Mairie,
proudly displaying the French tricilor, was a seedy-looking little building where an portly
man – presumeably Monsieur le Maire – sat outside in the shade of a small banana palm.
Melanie walked as far as the port. Here the massive Pacific Ocean met the Coral Sea, and
waves larger than she’d seen before on New Caledonia – with the exception of after the
cyclone – hit the rocks, sending up a spray of watery lace. A small jetty had been built,
protected to one side by a low stone breakwater.
Melanie breathed in deeply, enjoying the slightly cooler air, and gazing out over the vast
ocean. Somewhere out there, beyond view, she thought, is Vanuatu. Greg had wanted to
sail to Vanuatu. When was that ? A million years ago ? She closed her eyes
momentarily and then turned back to the Mairie.
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“Bonjour Monsieur,” she said as she approached.
The man struggled to his feet and belched.
“Pardon, Madame. Bonjour, Madame,” he said.
“I am doing a survey about Europeans living to the north of the island,” she said. It’s a
fib easy enough to cover up, she thought – after all, I work at the Commission – it’s all
quite plausible.
“Oh, yes?”
“I’m wondering what you could tell me?”
“In what way?”
“You are French, Monsieur. Are there other French – or English – people living around
here, for instance ?”
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“Why – yes –several – there’s a German – they say he’s a German. He says he’s not, but
he’s not French and he’s very edgy all the time. I reckon he’s a German.”
Funny, thought Melanie, the way we carry on about the Germans, even now, twenty years
after the end of the War. She doubted, however, that a German was what she was
looking for.
“Who else?” she asked.
The portly Mayor was eager to talk. Melanie tried to sound casual.
“I mean,” she said, “I can’t imagine many Europeans would want to live out here.”
“Oh no – I’m looking forward to going back to Noumea. Not that I will. My wife is
Kanak, you see. My kids are more Kanak than French – that’s how it is, isn’t it? Got
eight kids – all by the same wife.”
Melanie was tempted to congratulate him but refrained. She dug a pen and a note pad out
of her bag, as if ready to take notes and then cocked her head to one side expectantly. The
Mayor took the hint.
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“Well, Madame, the German calls himself Henneman. Doubt it’s his real name. He’d
have changed it, see , because of the retributions.”
Melanie pretended to write this down.
“There’s an Australian couple with two kids – right little blighters – live out by
Nonaboumbou. Missionaries. Right Bible-thumpers.”
The Mayor rubbed his chin a moment and stared down at his dusty feet where his toes
protruded from a pair of ancient navy plimsolls.
“Can’t think what they’re called,” he said.
Armed with this information, Melanie set off again, Tizzy running along beside her, and
looked around the town. The town meant something. Greg had written that name down.
There was some reason he wanted her to come here and it certainly wasn’t for some
Gestapo escapee or a Bible-thumping quartet. There must be something else.
By mid-day the heat had increased and it had become unpleasantly hot. This end of the
island was intrinsically different that the Noumean end, with none of the romantic atoll
feel to the shore line and where the converging winds from the Coral Sea and the Pacific
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Ocean prevented the growth of the lush floral vegetation of the southernmost tip. Melanie
had not been able to discover anything at all and was sitting outside the café with a Fanta
when a small child, aged about six, approached her.
“Tenez, Madame,” it said.
Melanie took from the proffered hand a small piece of folded paper. She couldn’t tell
whether the child was a boy or a girl – just a little child, dark-skinned, bare-footed and
with a huge halo of brown frizzy hair.
“Merci,” she said and opened the paper.
It was blank. She turned it over several times and held it up to the sun. There was
nothing on it. The child stood expectantly to one side.
“Who gave you this?” asked Melanie, knowing that as soon as she put the expected coin
in to the grubby little hand, the child would scamper off and she would learn nothing. She
picked up her bag meaningfully and took out her purse.
“The monsieur over there,” said the child and jerked her head in the direction of the street
behind her.
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Melanie gripped the child’s arm.
“But where? Who?”
“The German man,” piped the child, “he said to give you the paper.”
Melanie put a few centimes in to the little palm that was now proffered determinedly in
front of her and the child ran off.
Opposite her was a narrow street, running at right angles to the main village road. Along
this street seemed to be small dwellings of one sort or another, mostly stone rendered with
some kind of mud mixture. She rose slowly to her feet. It’s now or never, she told
herself.
Just as she reached the road the Mayor came by. His shirt was glued to his copious belly.
He seemed to be in a rush and his full face was red with sweat.
“I’ve been sent a piece of blank paper,” she told him, “and I’m going along here.”
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She jerked her head in the direction of the narrow street. The Mayor shrugged his
shoulders and made a slight bow of the head.
“Excusez-moi, Madame, j’ai une urgence,” he said.
Melanie wondered what could possibly be urgent in this little town, but a slight sensation
of fear coupled with burning curiosity crept in to her. If I am frightened enough to report
my movements to this silly little Mayor, Melanie told herself, then I must not proceed any
further. I must get in to my car and drive away. But Mat was killed! yelled a voice at the
back of her mind. How can you just walk away when poor dear Mat was killed?!
What am I doing here?
Did Greg mean her to keep away or did he mean her to come
here? Was the secret of his death here in Poum, in this street ? Heavens, was the secret
of his desertion of her here in Poum ? She kept to the middle of the narrow street, away
from the windows and doors, and walked slowly to the end – not far – and back. She
looked up and down several times and there seemed to be nobody in sight – no German,
nothing. Then, just as she was starting to think she’d got it wrong, she heard a door creak
open behind her. She swung round. It was open just a few inches. Coincidence? she
asked herself. Perhaps. But there was only one way to find out.
She knocked gingerly on the door. Silence. She knocked again. Perhaps she should just
walk in? Then, imperceptibly, she heard a slight movement behind the door, was aware
of somebody peering at her through the dirty nets. The door opened.
forwards cautiously and peered at the man inside.
She stepped
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“Greg !!”
-------------------------------------------------
“I wished I had fainted,” she said, years later, “it would have been easier for me had I
fainted, but I didn’t.”
Greg closed the door quickly behind them. They stood in the darkened passageway, their
backs against the walls, facing each other. Melanie felt her legs go numb, her head spin,
her chest pound, but she remained upright and stared at the man in front of her.
“Greg …” she said again.
“Mel, baby …” he touched her arm.
She found that her mouth had gone completely dry. Frantically she racked her brains for
a logical explanation, her eyes wide, her lips slightly apart as she stared at him. Greg. It
was Greg. Thick brown hair, dark brown eyes, deep tan, big working hands, that little
mole on his neck, the Adam’s apple, the line of his jaw.
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“You … I thought you were dead,” she said at length.
“Mel – Mel – please trust me. We’ve got to get out of here. Quickly. I’ll tell you all
about it in a minute. Follow me.”
He turned in the darkened passageway and opened a door at the back. When he saw that
Melanie remained where she was, he took her hand.
“Come on, baby,” he said.
Like a robot, she followed him. Mesmerized, and as if in a trace, she stumbled behind
him through the door and out in to a brilliantly-lit courtyard. Still leading her by the hand
he dashed across the courtyard and gingerly opened a small iron door encased in the wall
at the back. He peered through.
“Please trust me,” he said again, “come with me. We’re in danger here.”
As he spoke there was a knock at the door.
“Shit! That didn’t take them long!”
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Unceremoniously he gripped Melanie’s hand tightly and stepped quickly out in to the
street, closing and locking the iron door behind him. On the other side of the road was an
embankment and Greg now ran along side this some fifty yards or so then turned sharply
and started to climb.
“C’mon baby!” he said, “quick!”
The slope was thick with cactus and brambles and the stones underfoot gave way and
rolled as they clambered up. Grimly, dazed, Melanie hung on to Greg’s hand.
At the top – no more than twelve feet or so – they stopped and sat down in the trees.
Melanie was panting from the exertion and seemed to regain some of her sense.
“What’s going on?!” she said hoarsely, “for pity’s sake …”
She felt her voice start to tremble as the shock sunk in.
“Trust me, trust me, I haven’t got time right now – Mel, please – come on quickly!”
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They rose and darted through a wooded area and out on to another road, little more than
dust and stones, where a moped was parked under some trees.
“Hop on!” ordered Greg, “quick!”
“I don’t know why I obeyed,” said Melanie, “I just did. It seemed right. Instinctively I
knew it was okay.”
Making a series of spluttering noises, the moped burst in to life. Melanie clung on to his
waist … it was familiar, she knew that waist, remembered it from long ago – had loved it
– had loved this man … With a lurch, the moped took off along the track, dust spewing
up behind them. Greg didn’t look behind except when they reached the bend in the road
before the road forked; he slowed down and glanced behind them. There was nobody
there. Neither of them spoke and Melanie put her head down, eyes almost shut, against
the wind and the dust. They rode this way for almost half an hour till they came to a
village. A few native huts appeared suddenly in the brush land, an old car, a small
concrete building, and the inevitable dogs and chickens. The place was named l’Etoile.
Here they stopped outside a hut and Greg shoved the moped in to a corrugated-iron leanto, out of sight behind palm matting.
“What’s going on?” asked Melanie.
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He didn’t answer. He took her hand again and he led her through the front part of the hut
to a small room behind where a native woman sat, her hands busy with more palm
matting. He said something in the local dialect to her and she rose. Melanie saw a portly
woman in her late thirties, dark frizzy hair cut very short and a voluminous pink and white
dress made from local floral fabric. She inclined her head lightly to Melanie and smiled,
then left the room.
“Sit down, Mel, “ said Greg.
She did as instructed. There was a small bench against the wall. He sat opposite her on
an upturned crate, and leant forwards in a gesture that was so familiar to her, leaning his
elbows on his knees, legs spread open, hand clasped between his knees. Silently, they
stared at each other. Melanie realized that they both had grazed themselves in several
places during their scramble through the brambles on the embankment in Poum.
Through it all she had clung on to her handbag, and she suddenly seemed to notice it, a
yellow handbag still slung over one arm. It seemed terribly funny and she started to
laugh, faintly, struggling not to cry, and realizing she was on the verge of hysteria.
“Ssshhh … Mel, it’ll be all right …”
“All right?!” she seemed to all at once get a grip on herself. “What is it? Tell me! I
can’t believe this … this is a dream … I’m asleep … hallucinating …”
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“I don’t know where to start …”
“Try at the beginning. Try here. Why are we here – why are you alive – what is this all
about ?!!”
“Jesus – oh shit – I don’t know – I have spent the past two years pretending to be dead
because somebody wanted to kill me. Briefly.”
He rubbed his hand over his face.
“And the men who wanted to kill me turned up in Poum last night. They probably
followed you out of Noumea. It wouldn’t have been difficult for them to work it out.”
“None of this makes sense, Greg, it’s rubbish ..”
“Ramanata – that native woman – has gone in to Poum for me. She’s a friend. I know
the police were hot on the heels of those men – thanks to you – and all being well, they’ll
pick them today. I let that daft little Mayor know. He thinks I’m ex-Gestapo!” Greg
grinned suddenly. “There are only two gendarmes in Poum – but it’ll be okay.”
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“What – what – are you talking about?!!”
“Let me explain – it’s difficult …”
“The name of this place – l’Etoile – it was on your map-thing,” she interrupted.
“Yes, clever you.”
“I did some homework.”
Melanie looked around at the small room. Flies buzzed incessantly. The floor was of
beaten dirt and there was a makeshift window with a broken pane to one side. Apart from
the bench there was a low table and a calendar depicting General de Gaulle hanging on
the wall.
“Your woman-friend,” she said, “was that her – Ramanata?”
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“She’s a friend. Not a mistress, if that’s what you mean. Her husband and I work
together. She is a relative of Mana-oua-oua … you may remember her – a girl by the port
in Noumea.”
“Has she been following me?”
“Yes – I wanted to know …”
“Good God! This is unbelievable!!” Melanie tried to breathe deeply. Instinctively she
knew she was in no danger, but she had nonetheless to remain calm. “She was at the
police station when you were killed – when you – well, she was at the police station with
… with your child.”
“With which child?”
“Oh please – just tell me your story, Greg. Don’t pretend. You must have deceived me
for years.”
“Mel – I swear – I don’t know what you mean …”
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“Greg, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a new life now, I’m over you. I know all about your
lady-love and your child with her.”
“Mel, you’ve got it wrong. I have no child other than Jimmy.”
“Listen, just explain. You owe me that. The gendarme told me about the woman and the
child. Don’t deny it. Any fool can see she’s a half-caste. I don’t care. It’s not my
problem. But you owe me an explanation.”
“I’m telling you, she’s not my child – Bella. That’s her name. She’s Mana’s little sister!
Certainly, her skin is quite pale, but she’s not half-caste and she’s not my child!”
They both fell silent. The flies buzzed.
“Go on, then,” said Melanie at length, “tell me your story.”
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“It started with an old man named Knooden,” he said, “a fisherman, lives down by the
port … you quite possibly know him by sight.”
He dropped his head forwards in to his hands, his elbows still on his knees and rocked
himself gently. For a moment Melanie thought he was sobbing, but after a while he
raised his head and looked at her with those clear brown eyes. He smiled slightly. His
shirt was torn all down one side and was thick with red dust and sweat. Both lower legs
were covered in small scratches and a larger cut on his arm gaped bright pink. Flies tried
to settle on the cut and he flapped them away with a languid, tired movement of his hand.
“Go on,” said Melanie gently.
“He’s a good man, a Kanak. I owe him my life. He’s a strong, determined old boy. He
was born there on the port, as was his father before him. He’s had four wives and he’s got
eight daughters – no sons. I got to know him when we first bought the Caprice.”
Knooden means “large bird flying” in the native tongue. He was a big man, relatively
wealthy as far as the local people go, for he owned two fishing boats and a small
catamaran which he let out to tourists in the season.
“Was one of these boats called Corsaire?” asked Melanie.
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“Yes – that’s right,” Greg replied, “ –as you say, you did some homework!”
Knooden lived a simple life. He cared deeply about his daughters, sent them to school
and fed them well. The eldest ones married local men who also had boats, which
enhanced the Knooden wealth, and the younger ones grew up in happy simplicity.
Knooden had no aspirations as to increasing his modest wealth, and his only wishes in life
were to see all his daughters safely married one day and to have many grandchildren. He
wanted to grow old gracefully, in good health, and be cared for by his off-spring in the
very house in which he’d been born.
“Does he have a walking stick?” asked Melanie, “painted blue and yellow?”
“Yes, that’s him. He doesn’t need a walking stick; he thinks it makes him look sort-of
westernised, I think.”
Although Knooden had no particular designs to make himself more money he nonetheless
accepted readily enough when a group of five French men turned up, led by a short fat
man by the name of Kes d’Eparne. He was an ugly little man with bad breath and a
furtive look in his small reddened eyes.
Knooden sensed instinctively – with the sixth sense of a true islander that this was a man to be avoided, but – after all – Knooden was native here, he knew
everybody all around, and he had nothing to fear. The men explained that they were
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business men, all from France except for d’Eparne who was a local man, a Caldoche.
They were having a holiday and they wanted to do paintings of the local islands, which
was as reasonable a hobby as any, even for this group of unlikely-looking men. There
was no reason in the world for any of them to explain to the simple fisherman who they
were or what they were doing, and he thought nothing of it. All five were in their late
thirties. One was called Delahaye, a thin wiry man, and one of the others Milleau, a fairly
fit-looking man, almost entirely bald with a pale sweaty complexion. They chartered
Knooden’s boat the Corsaire and were there regularly – almost every day – for several
weeks, making trips out to the Ile des Chevres. With them they carried easles and boxes
full of paints, pads of paper and boards, picnic and sun hats. Dressed in lightweight
slacks or shorts, they made an amusing scene with their white legs and protruding bellies.
Sometimes there were all five of them and at other times just Kes d’Eparne and one other.
They remained for three weeks and then four returned to Europe, leaving Kes d’Eparne in
Noumea. He was bank manager at the Caisse Generale des Societes. Knooden had not
liked the look of these men, but it didn’t interest him what they did or did not do, so long
as they paid for the boat and kept out of his way. He gave it no further thought till Greg
one day showed him a newspaper cutting.
“Hey, look, Knooden!” said Greg pointing to the newspaper, “this man! Isn’t that one of
the men you hired your boat to a few weeks ago? Said his name was Milleau?”
Knooden looked at the appropriate piece and agreed that it was indeed the same man. The
article said the name was Joslin. He had been murdered in his office in France – shot
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through the head while he sat at his desk. The murderer, a man nicknamed “l’Ecureuil”,
was caught and sentenced to the guillotine.
A few weeks later the four remaining men were back, again with easels and paint boxes,
and again wanting the Corsaire. Knooden had broken an ankle during a fall a few weeks
earlier and Greg, keen on a bit more money to help pay for the Caprice, and short of work
that day, offered to take them. The four men were not keen on anybody other than
Knooden taking them but were forced to agree. It was abundantly clear to Greg, as it had
been to Knooden, that these were not amateur artists but, like his old friend, Greg was not
interested in what they were doing so long as he got paid. He was concerned about
money. He loved living in New Caledonia, but didn’t feel his little tourist business could
ever make enough money to keep them much above the bread line. The tourist season
lasted almost all year, and while he couldn’t say that trade was bad, it wasn’t brilliant
either. Once the boat was paid off it would be easier, but that was several years away and
in the meantime Melanie struggled to feed them and unless things improved considerably
– and soon – they would have to consider a return to Australia. Greg arranged for one of
Knooden’s sons-in-law to take his normal tourists out on the Caprice where possible, and
that way was earning, most days, over double what he normally got.
Greg made a point of always acting dumb when with the group of men. He couldn’t
speak French but, having now lived in Noumea for over six months, he could understand
the gist of it. As the weeks drifted by the men became less wary of him but they remained
guarded and careful. They never opened their paint boxes in front of Greg and it soon
became clear that whatever it was they were hiding, it was in those boxes. Probably
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something disgusting, Greg decided almost immediately; they probably take revolting
photos of each other – they looked that type.
When they arrived at the Ile des Chevres, Greg was always instructed to wait on the boat
or on the beach by the boat. Being European, he was paid double what Knooden was
paid – which was not a lot, but it was more than he’d have got had he stayed with the
Caprice all day. It was okay, and had he kept it simple nothing would ever have
happened.
One afternoon, as sometimes happens in that part of the world, Greg could see that the
oceans were swelling and that a storm was going to start within the next few hours. A
northerly wind boded no good and, a sure sign of a storm, the dozens of little insects
whose hum filled the day so much that you were not even aware of them, were completely
silent. Greg remained on the beach where he was and looked over towards the palms
where, as every day, the men had disappeared with their paints. He was under strict
instruction to remain where he was, but if they didn’t leave the island immediately there
was every chance they would be stuck there all night. Worse, there was nowhere to bring
the boat into shelter and, if this was indeed a big storm, the poor old Corsaire may not
survive it. They would then all be dependent on Knooden raising the alarm. Greg needed
to get the boat back in to the shelter of the harbour as quickly as possible and himself
back to Melanie and Jimmy before the storm hit. In an agony of indecision, Greg
remained on the beach for several minutes and then, shouting their names out as he went,
he set off between the palms to the rocks beyond.
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He could see nobody. He made a point of shouting as he walked.
“Hey! A storm is coming!”
The wind picked up, hot and sandy, flicking bits of undergrowth debris with it and
making Greg screw up his eyes. It was quite possibly already too late to leave the island.
Suddenly he saw them. Just at the edge of the hill, where the land fell away in to a small,
dry gulley from which protruded a couple of ancient and gnarled naouli trees, two of the
men appeared to be bending over something. Greg shouted again. One of them heard
him and stood up, tapping the other man as he did so. Greg immediately, realized he was
intruding on something, turned on his heel, beckoning to them as he did so and shouting:
“Come quickly! A storm!”
The men followed him back to the boat promptly enough and by the time they had the
motor going, the ocean had started an ominous heaving, like a whale under the water, a
smooth surface of bulging sea, crashing suddenly as it neared the sand.
They got back in to Noumea harbour only just in time.
The following day, the storm having passed harmlessly, Greg was up before dawn and
already half way over to Ile des Chevres before it had turned light. He took the Caprice.
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Quickly, his hand working with energetic hurry, he threw the anchor over and hopped in
to the small dinghy he had towed behind. Racing against time, he tied the dingy up to a
log, and made his way over the sand towards the palms. The sun was rising rapidly as he
crossed the rocky outcrop and, the shadows and contrasts of early morning confusing him
momentarily, found the spot where the men had been the previous day.
At first it seemed to be only rocks. Rocks, and small thirsty bushes and shrubs. Greg
looked about him for several minutes and then re-traced his steps back to where he
thought he had been standing when he spotted the men the previous day. He was sure he
was in the right spot – yet when he looked over to where the men had been, there was
nothing there but the rocks and the dirt and the land sloping dustily down towards the sea.
They had been bending over something, two of them, and the other two had been out of
sight. He couldn’t see where they could have been out of sight, for the land despite the
slope, was flat and featureless. He strode back over to the spot and saw that the gulley
was still further on – so that could not be related to it, for the men had gathered up their
belongings and caught up with him very promptly. Apart from the naouli trees, the tops
of which overhung this side of the slope, and the endless dusty earth, there was nothing.
Oh well, Greg shrugged involuntarily. Perhaps they were painting after all. Something
made him hang around a little longer, however, walking slowly over the rocks and
looking about. He felt certain that they were hiding something. But there was nowhere to
hide anything apart from under the rocks, which seemed most unlikely, unless there was
some kind of hidden cave. But at a glance he knew this was not the case for there was no
kind of escarpment or rocky outcrop that could possibly house a cave. Moreover there
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was no sign of any digging. Looking more carefully at the soil, however, Greg could see
that there were a lot of footprints, mostly dusty and faint, where the men had walked
around. He had never had cause to study footprints before and, feeling slightly foolish, he
now examined those there.
It seemed to him that the footprints – and he had to admit that some of them didn’t look
like footprints and might have nothing to do with feet at all – all converged in the same
spot. This still told him nothing.
He looked around again and then made his way at a quick trot back to the beach. The
dinghy was where he had left it and he rowed out at some speed, his strong arms working
hard to gain time, and set off again for the mainland.
He had been convinced he was going to find something that would change his life … and
he remained convinced that there was indeed something … but this was a wasted journey
and all he could do now was get back as quickly as possible.
As he feared, the four men were waiting for him on the quay when he returned. The trip
had taken longer than anticipated.
“Where’ve you been?” growled the one they called Delahaye.
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Greg feigned surprise.
“Am I late?” he said, raising an eyebrow and looking at his watch. “Oh – yes – my
apologies – thought I’d try her out –“ he jerked his head in the direction of the Caprice “cleaned her up a bit yesterday evening – motor needed a spot of tuning. Why? Would
you rather we took her out today? “ he added innocently.
“No!” Delahaye barked and threw his things in to the Corsaire. “Let’s get moving!”
More irritation was expressed as Greg filled up the spare petrol tank and checked a few
things on board. He couldn’t help smiling to himself when he saw how irate they were
getting. Finally they set off. The easels were as clean as they had been on the first day
and there was not the slightest hint of paint, whether water-colour, oil or whatever, on
anything. The men carried the same bags and, as far as Greg could tell, the bags
contained the same volume of things each time. All remained stubbornly silent during the
short trip over to the island.
As always the men set off over the sand with their belongings. Greg had promised
Knooden that he would do a couple of odd jobs on the boat that day, and he now switched
on his transistor radio and set to work. A local station played a tune Melanie loved and he
stood still and listened to it, alone with the gentle rocking motion of the boat, till it had
ended. He thought about her and about Jimmy, then opened his tool box and set to work.
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The hinges on the forward hatch had come loose and the catch needed fixing. He rigged
up a sunshade, using a piece of canvas, and worked with slow ease, whistling quietly
under his breath a tune he’d heard Melanie sing many a time … ‘twas on a Monday
morning when I beheld my darling …
He always ate bread and bananas, the way the locals did, at lunch time. It was filling and
nutritious. He had never been one for beer, and turned now to the primus stove to make
himself some tea which he always drank very hot, black and sweet. The rhythmic rocking
of the boat made him sleepy, and he sat holding his tea in the shade of the port awning,
watching the water and half-listening to the radio.
Suddenly he had it. Of course. During the morning he had thought that perhaps they
were not hiding anything at all, but using the island for a secret meeting place, perhaps
even by radio signal, or else it was porn as he had first thought, but he soon realized that
this could not be the case for there was no need for them to go to the bother of hiring a
boat – there were hundreds of remote and secret places on New Caledonia itself, places
they could drive to – or even walk to. No they were hiding something all right – and it
was in the trees.
Suddenly it was terribly obvious. Two of the men had been in sight when he had spotted
them and two had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. It was clear they had not been
actually in the gulley for it would have involved some pretty rapid scrambling up the side
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and anyway, the gulley was further on, downhill. The two trees that grew there, however,
spread their thick grey-white branches out alongside the gulley, even protruding out on to
the hill in places, and a nimble person could quite easily scramble along those in no time
at all, and there were doubtless dozens of hiding places within the branches or within the
rocks around them.
Greg ran his fingers over his chin as he thought. The sun had moved and he shifted his
seat over to the other side under the awning where there was shade. It was a bit farfetched, he knew, but it was the only explanation. None of those men could be described
as nimble, but emerging from those big old branches was the only explanation for their
sudden appearance. Now that he thought about it he realized that all four men were
generally dusty and grubby when they got back to the boat at the end of each outing.
He turned the radio up and got on with his work.
The following day he set off again, leaving Melanie and Jimmy asleep, well before dawn.
He jerked the Caprice in to life; she spluttered and coughed as her engine warmed in the
damp morning mist – a sure sign of a very hot day – and set off the for the Ile des Chevres
again. Knowing what he was looking for made it easier this time and, torch flashing in
the near-darkness, he located the two naouli trees. As he had thought, both trees grew up
out of the scorched gulley a hundred metres or so further down the slope, but their
branches – entwined like ghostly cadavres – spread up the slope, searching for light,
overspilling in places on the land. It was like a ladder. A magnificent, strong, natural
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ladder that led almost horizontally along the edge of the gulley, down to the pits of the
ravine – not really very deep, but enough to put an amateur off climbing down there.
The sun, a brilliant and scorching beacon, rose steadily in the east, casting shocking
crimson over the water and turning the earth and the rocks and the trees themselves in to a
united living creature that awakened a little more with each inch of new light. The world
seemed to stretch and yawn as it brightened and with its wakening the mist cleared and
the intense heat of the day began.
Greg glanced hurriedly at his watch. He had very little time. Leaving his water bottle and
his hat at the top, perched like a momento on a rock, he searched in the branches of the
naouli and soon found that there was a foothold that had clearly been used before. It was
almost as though the tree had been purposefully constructed, for the main branch, thick
and strong like a ghastly tentacle, spread along the edge of the drop, slowly but clearly
getting lower till perhaps eight feet from its tip, it met the main trunk of the tree. The
branch had been walked on for not only were all twigs and small branches missing, there
were notches cut diagonally in to the timber, creating small footholds, and sometimes
even small sections of plank nailed to the side of the branch, like miniature steps. Some
six feet along, Greg noticed that there was a sturdy rope hanging from the branch, half
hidden by the rough bark and the knots in the wood, for a second it looked like a snake,
curled menacingly in the cool shade of the gulley.
Some sixth sense told him to leave it all alone. It was not his concern, it was none of his
business. Yet still he looked. He tested the rope. It moved easily enough, upwards
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towards him as he tugged. It was heavy, but nothing a reasonably strong man could not
pull. The rope was thick, extremely strong, and he needed both hands to haul it in.
Finally, by now sweating, Greg saw a container appear at the end of the rope. About the
size of an average tool box, it was made of light metal, the lid firmly closed with a couple
of sturdy bolts, the whole thing recently painted a beige-grey that blended in. Panting, he
hoisted the box up and on to his lap.
He gasped.
Inside there was money. Hundred upon hundred – thousand upon thousand – of bank
notes. He had expected drugs. At a pinch fire arms. Possibly gems. Porn. But not cash.
Pure and simple it was cash. Not even new notes. The notes were mostly French francs,
but there were also dollars and sterling and dozens of other currencies, all mixed in and
barely even tied together. Quickly Greg sifted through the first bag – it seemed there was
something in the region of a hundred thousand pounds in there – in used notes.
The hiding place, he realized, was ingenious if only because it was so unsophisticated.
How would a criminal get money in large quantities out of the country? It would not be
possible to transfer it from bank to bank in the normal manner for it would undoubtledly
arouse suspicion and there was quite probably a limit as to how much any one man could
transfer. Greg knew little – even nothing about Swiss banks accounts or off-shore
banking – but guessed that anybody able to lay his hands on large sums of money on the
island would either have to form a cartel of some kind in order to shift the money, or reinvest it within the island. His only other solution would be to carry it out in a suitcase
and hope the Customs didn’t search them. Or, of course, hide it and take it out a bit at a
time.
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This left an unanswered question. Whoever had masterminded the operation did not feel
he could trust the others enough to re-locate the money in to several bank accounts in
several different countries as well as on the island – otherwise that would have been the
obvious thing to do and would have been easy enough – each man has his own account,
can presumeably open at least one if not two other accounts in Noumea or in the Loyalty
islands, as well as have an account or two in his homeland. That would mean splitting the
money by – say – fifteen. Plausible. It seemed clear that they were going to stash in this
hideaway the maximum they could get hold of, then simply split it up between them.
After that – well, each unto his own. Each man was incriminated and in as fragile a
position as the other – so each man could, presumeably, trust the other to remain silent.
He closed the box quickly and was just about to lower it back in to its hiding place when
he changed his mind. Rapidly, working fast against the clock, he opened the box up again
and grabbed a fistful of the sterling notes. He didn’t stop to count it, but assumed he had
got a few hundred pounds – more money than he had ever seen before. He stuffed the
cash quickly in to his pocket and then scrambled a bit further along the branch – and sure
enough, there was another rope on another branch, then another ………….
Greg smiled to himself when he remembered they had said they were bankers. Bankers!
It all but gave the game away, and Greg appreciated the tongue-in-cheek irony of it.
There was not a great deal of money in New Caledonia – in fact there was not much at all
by Swiss account and fraud standards – and what there was came essentially out of the
mines – mostly nickel.
It also seemed safe to assume the money was being used for something specific. Drugs
were the obvious thing. Greg knew that trafficking drugs via the Philipines through
Bangkok and from there in to Europe was an obvious route, and probably quite easy to
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do, but it was a route that had been cited several times in the papers. New Caledonia was
considered “clean” and the authorities turned a blind eye to the local form of cannabis.
To bring heroin via the island, especially if none of the trafficking coincided with
shipments in any direction, over to Australia where it doubtless fetched a good price – or
on to America where it would fetch a better price – was a logical sequence of events. The
very artlessness of the scheme made it work. Constant small quantities over a long period
of time … nobody would notice the movement of the money, nor the odd small boat in
and out …
He supposed a swap was done at some stage in the dealings; that the money was put into
place and that somebody else, on another boat, came in, took the money, replaced it with
drugs and so on. Always in small quantities. The advantage to this would be that, if
caught, a small quantity of either money or drugs would not tell too many tales. The
disadvantage, however, was that they had to keep doing it – and it was a dangerous
situation that only a hardened criminal or a madman would want to repeat. This, then,
meant that either the drugs or the money was available only in small quantities –
undoubtedly the money. Even Greg, with little knowledge or understanding of money
matters, could see that a hundred thousand pounds was pin money to serious dealers.
Greg regained the beach promptly, having been careful to leave everything as he found it.
On the sand his footprints were very clear and he looked at them for some moments – he
hadn’t thought of that yesterday, and a cold feeling gripped the back of his neck.
Yesterday, of course, he hadn’t found anything, so had not thought about hiding his tracks
… in theory there had been no need to.
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“Dammit!” he exclaimed under his breath.
Hiding his tracks was easier said than done, for the sand between the edge of the water
and the palms was still wet from the receding tide, and the indentations left by his feet
could only be patted or scraped away – which in itself left a mark which was quite
obviously not natural. He re-traced his steps and scuffed over the footprints he had left in
among the rocks and stones beyond the palms – that was easy enough for the ground was
hard and covered in pebbles. To the untrained eye very few of his footprints showed
except on the sand. With the wildest stretch of the imagination he couldn’t imagine that
any of the gang were trackers. In fact, picturing their white legs and smart shorts, it was
quite funny to think of.
“But it’s not funny …” Greg muttered.
He suddenly remembered the murder he’d seen in the newspaper. He stood still for a
moment, staring at the sand where not only today’s tracks were clear, but there were faint
marks from yesterday too, where the high tide had only lapped gently before going down
again. What have I let myself in for? he thought. Making up his mind he took off his
sandals and, glancing around as though he was afraid of being watched, he trotted
barefoot all over the sand, in several circles, up and down, back and forth, kicking the
sand up regularly, disfiguring his original tracks. He sat down in the sand several times,
rolled over, and with the help of a palm frond, generally made marks everywhere.
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Finished, he stood back and surveyed his work.
It looked as though dozens of people
had been playing in the sand – a game of volley ball, perhaps – that was not unlikely – the
French loved le volley.
When he got back to the port the men were waiting again. Was it his imagination, or
were they looking at him more intently than usual?
“You going to make a habit of this?” growled d’Eparne.
“Am I late again? Sorry! I’m very busy this week.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Hey – monsieur! Can’t a man have a little privacy. A certain little lady wouldn’t like it
if I told you where I’ve been, now would she …..?”
Greg winked meaningfully and Delahaye grinned. He’s repulsive, thought Greg.
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“I’m afraid I can’t make any introduction,” laughed Greg, “the little lady wouldn’t like
that either!”
He hoped he sounded … rakish, naughty … he hoped it was convincing. His throat felt
tight and he was aware of a pounding in his chest. Delahaye continued to grin inanely.
D’Eparne shoved him on the shoulder and grunted:
“Never mind that. Let’s get going!”
It is extraordinary, Greg thought, as the Corsaire cut through the water a few minutes
later, to think that those artists paint boxes actually contain cash – cash and strong boxes,
rope, wire cutters, nails and bits of wood. The picnic box too, no doubt. It explained the
numerous trips, for the greater majority of the notes he had seen that morning were in
relatively small amounts – in fact he had spotted several £1 notes and even a 10/- note, in
among the dollars and francs. This meant that the men were shifting the money daily,
surrepticiously, quite possibly from the till at the bank, or from wage packets or
something similar; and it was in small quantities so that it wouldn’t be noticed. Take a
pound note from the till at odd intervals during the day – or, if it was not a till, then from
whatever source … that didn’t matter – and the chances were it would go unnoticed for
quite a long time. Greg remembered seeing a man in a bank in Noumea centre paying in a
lot of cash one day some time ago and when asked how much was there the man had
replied “about five thousand francs, I think.” I think. That opened lots of doors. For a
clever person, somebody who understood how the system worked, it would be easy
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enough to do. Greg knew that d’Eparne really was a banker, and the murdered man had
been too. Thinking about it now, however, he realized that the other three were more
likely to be the outlet guys – they were the ones who brought in the wages, or came to
collect the wages, or the day’s takings … they were the ones who were able to “lose” the
money, with the cooperation of the banker, between paying it in, having it counted, and it
appearing on a bank statement.
What made it so clever was that it was so simple, almost naïve. Providing they all worked
in cooperation with each other, there was no need to get caught and they could wheedle
millions away in this manner. All they needed was somewhere safe to hide the cash till
they were ready to move it. The notes were a motley selection from all over the world,
paid in and taken out quite possibly at random, untraceable. He could assume fairly
safely that during their last absence the men had carried some of the money with them;
they would doubtless have taken only the legal limit in cash as a trial run. Pay it in to a
bank account at home and it was safe enough there till an account in Luxembourg or
Switzerland could be organized.
It seemed clear to Greg that the men realized that their days were numbered, however.
Otherwise why would they be working hard now at their stash? One – or perhaps all – of
them had got to the end of his contract, perhaps, and would no longer be able to get hold
of cash. They seemed to be grabbing what they could almost feverishly.
This in turn meant that they intended to make their final move fairly soon.
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Greg could see the marks in the sand from a long way off, before he unhooked the dinghy.
He’d have preferred to drop anchor further down the beach but felt it safer to moor at
exactly the same spot as always.
“You stay here!” d’Eparne barked.
“No,” Greg replied easily, “I’ve got work to do on the dinghy, so I’m coming with you as
far as the beach. Here – don’t forget your picnic.”
The marks in the sand looked all wrong – they’re bound to know – Greg was aware of a
slightly sick feeling in his stomach.
“Ah!” he exclaimed once the men had all alighted, “somebody has been having a picnic
here, I’d say!” He pointed to the sand where dozens of foot prints and bottom prints
showed where people had been having fun.
“I’d understood nobody ever came here?” said Delahaye.
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“No – not often – “ Greg studied a couple of mosquito bites on his arm. Melanie had
dabbed them with mercurochrome and the red stain around each bite made them look
worse than they really were. Jimmy loved a dab of mercurochrome.
“It’s not the prettiest island around – people prefer to go to Huon or Ile au Maitre. In fact
I’m surprised at you guys painting here – can’t see there’s a lot to paint really ..” Greg
tried to sound casual, and turned to the dinghy which he hoisted over on to one side,
peering knowledgeably at the helm.
“Right, I’ll get on with this lot – gotta clean it up a bit …” he said.
The men set off. The day unrolled as before: the four men were gone several hours, while
Greg read a trashy novel he’d brought with him, and saw to odd repairs on the boat. He
had also to repaint the life buoys, but had difficulty concentrating, his mind wandering
constantly to the boxes of money. On the return journey it seemed to Greg that the men
sat in the boat stiffly – more so than before – but no, it was his imagination because he
knew. He knew.
There is something immensely exciting about money, and lots of it. Greg knew that he
must leave it well alone, yet he wanted some. He knew that, given sufficient thought, he
would find a way of taking some more. The thought had made him horny when he
returned from work and he had whisked Melanie in to the bedroom while Jimmy ate his
tea.
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“Hey – Greg! Jimmy is eating!”
“That’s okay baby, let him eat!”
Laughing quietly she had kicked off her shoes and stood before him in her knickers, her
small breasts pert, the nipples hardening already, and he flung her down quickly on to the
bed. She had loved it and that in itself excited him further. Her small frame was
moulded to him, under him, and he could feel her thighs flexing in rhythm with his
movements. That night Greg lay awake a long time, watching the far-off headlights of
passing cars shine through the mosquito screens. There was some way to get hold of that
money. He looked at Melanie’s sleeping form and thought about her that afternoon. He
pulled back the sheet and hoisted her nightie up. She woke but lay still, her arms around
his shoulders, moaning quietly, till he had finished. They both fell asleep again instantly.
With the breaking of dawn, Greg knew what he would do.
He dressed quickly and kissed Melanie’s sleepy face.
He skipped breakfast and drove straight down to the port, unhooked the Caprice and set
off for the ile des Chevres. The early morning air was cool on his face as he steered his
boat expertly out of the Baie des Pecheurs and through the Petite Passe.
Although he
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made good time, he knew he’d be late again but it didn’t matter now. The ile des Chevres
rose up out of the water ahead of him. Working as quickly as he could, and being careful
to moor further round the beach so that his footprints wouldn’t be so obvious in the sand,
he made his way to the naouli trees. The ladder-type of notching in the trunk made
getting down easier than he’d anticipated. He reminded himself that he was fit and strong
and that if those men could do it, so could he. Careful to not unnecessarily disturb
anything, he scrambled down to the first box, left that, and made his way further along to
the second. He could see, now that he knew what to look for, money stashed away in
dozens of places, like nests in the branches and in the rocks immediately behind. Wary of
snakes, he thrust his fist in to one of the bags and pulled out a fistful of cash. He looked
at it in his hand, and grinned.
“I shall play you at your own game!” he said to himself. “A little at a time – a little from
each bag – and you’ll never notice, will you?”
His hands trembled slightly as he stuffed the money as fast as he could into his four
pockets in his shorts and the one pocket in his shirt. It was all he could do not to laugh
out loud. It was thrilling, terrible, exciting, dreadful – everything – and he shook with
exertion and anticipation. Sweat poured from his forehead and down the centre of his
back. His fingers seemed heavy, clumsy.
The day passed as the previous day. Greg hid the money in the forelocker of the Caprice
and was unable to count it till he was alone that evening. It came to £3600 – not a
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fortune, but vastly more money than he had ever had before or was likely to ever have
again.
For years afterwards he told himself that if he had just left it at that, if only he had been
content with that, everything would have been all right.
-------
The following day was a Saturday and the men didn’t want the boat. As it was Greg was
fully booked with tourists all day that day and the Sunday too. He had left the money in
the forelocker overnight, rightly judging that none of the locals, most of whom he counted
among his friends, would dream of pilfering in there and that, in view of the illegal nature
of the stash, he could hardly take it home to Melanie. Usually Melanie and Jimmy came
out on the boat at the week-end. Melanie was good at chatting amiably with the clients.
But today he had said to her to stay at home. He couldn’t risk her looking in the forelocker.
“Have a day off,” he’d said.
She looked surprised.
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“Are you sure you can manage? I’d be glad to stop in actually – I’ve got quite a headache.”
“Yeh – don’t worry.”
Towards the end of the afternoon, after he deposited the tourists back at the port, picked up
his pay and a good tip, he set straight off for the Ile des Chevres. Rapidly, and knowing
what he was doing this time so that he was able to move with considerable speed, he
clambered in to the naouli tree and once again grabbed a fistful of cash. Again he filled his
pockets from various bags and nets, also a small grip bag he’d brought with him. Mustn’t
over-do it, he told himself.
He waited till he was well away from the island before he counted his grab - £2 800,
slightly over. Excitement made him euphoric. He got home well before dark and was up
again the following morning, the Sunday, feeling excessively energetic.
“Goodness – you’re cheerful!” exclaimed Melanie. “Shall we come with you today? My
head is a bit better.”
“No, love. You stay put.”
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The money hidden on board was something that bothered him. Both he and Melanie were
straight forward people; they worked, they raised their child, paid their bills. Neither had
ever asked much out of life except to live tolerably comfortably. Neither had ever so much
as short-changed anybody. To tell Melanie that he had managed to get hold of £6400
would be impossible. He reasoned with himself that it wasn’t bad theft - and even at times
managed to convince himself that it was good theft – or not theft at all – but he knew
Melanie well enough to know that she would be profoundly shocked, frightened and –
worse – disappointed in him.
This in itself irritated him, for all he wanted was enough money to pay off the Caprice and
to put some aside for a rainy day. Nothing unreasonable, he told himself. Melanie had no
reason to be disappointed – and yet she would be. Hell, he thought, I can barely meet the
payments on the van, never mind the boat! To date there was always enough to feed them
each day, and Jimmy had had new shoes twice in the last year, but the constant fear of not
having enough money to keep the wolf from the door – so to speak – gnawed away at him
almost constantly.
He never discussed money with Melanie. It was a man thing. She was economical and
sensible with what little he gave her to keep them fed and clothed. She had had her little
job at the play group for a while and he knew she’d find herself another little job if he asked
her to – but he was the man of the house and as such wished to provide for his wife and
child.
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The tourists all week-end were very demanding and for the first time he found he didn’t
particularly enjoy the outings. Normally he took a great deal of pride in the Caprice and
found a huge pleasure in watching the tourists clamber aboard. He usually did the same
route – around the Ile au Maitre, head south beyond the reef and watch for shark fins – the
women would invariably squeal, even scream, then back round to the lagoon at Ile
Sonnette. There, the sharks forgotten, the tourists would bathe and tan for a couple of
hours. It varied slightly each time. Sometimes a picnic would be included in the price and
sometimes they brought their own. Greg preferred the latter for it saved Melanie dipping
in to her already very tight budget – even though it eventually got paid for – and tramping
round the shops. On a more practical level, food went off quite quickly, even with the Eski,
and Greg lived in constant fear of somebody getting food poisoning. This particularly
worried him when he had got Amercian tourists who were generally stunningly demanding
and he’d been warned that they’d sue at the drop of a hat.
Lord forbid the British should ever become like that! he thought.
Longer trips took his boat out to the Ile des Pins, for him the most beautiful place in the
world. They camped overnight. Tourists loved it and he generally picked up good money.
One of Knooden’s daughters, Laekwan, meaning “the colour of the sky at dawn” lived there
with her husband and children. The poetic name was unfortunate for Laekwan was huge,
without the faintest element of poetry in her massive thighs and big work-worn hands.
Knooden’s last-but-one daughter, a beautiful girl of seventeen or so, was often there.
Mana-oua-oua. It meant seagull. He loved the name. She helped her enormously fat sister
with the children. Greg feared she was “betrothed” in some way to an island man – and felt
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that was a shame for she was far too lovely to spend the rest of her life on that small island
– even though the island itself was also lovely.
Greg was generally accommodated at Laekwan’s house where he watched the beautiful
Mana help about the kitchen and serve him with paw-paw and bread. Frequently she
hitched a ride back to Noumea with him the following day and this also was a bonus for
the tourists, who loved to see the girl dressed in her lava-lava, with long hair and bare
feet, sitting at the side of the boat.
“What’s her name?” and one would take a photo
“Mana-oua-oua. It means seagull.”
And the girl, hearing her name, would turn and smile at the camera.
Greg dropped the last of his tourists off on the Sunday evening. There were still several
hours of daylight, and he watched the sky carefully for what Knooden called “the
language of the clouds”. A few light fluffy patches of white told him that all would
remain calm; the horizon was clear, shimmering under the heat haze.
“Cheerio then,” the tourists said to him, “thanks for a nice day.”
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He was given a tip of twenty dollars. Good. Melanie would be pleased with that. He
wished they had a telephone somewhere near where they lived, so that he could ring with
a message for Melanie in case he was late. He was always back long before dark. More
and more people were getting telephones but he couldn’t imagine they’d ever have one.
He refilled the Caprice’s petrol tank and the water carrier. Hurrying, he was aware of the
need to remain sensible and to be conscious of normal safety routines. He glanced at his
watch. He had plenty of time, but if he was going to do this – and he swore it would be
the last time – he wanted to do it quickly. He pulled the motor in to life and set off.
Glancing back he saw Knooden. He was waving. Greg waved back.
Afterwards he couldn’t understand why he didn’t instantly spot that something was
different. There must have been foot-prints in the sand, apart from anything else, but he
didn’t see them. Nor did he see the boat moored off to the east, tucked just slightly out of
sight round the bay. It was unlike him to not notice these things – boats were second
nature to him these days. He always noticed them and knew most of them round here too.
He hopped quickly in to the wet sand and made his way up towards the palms. The sun,
now at its highest point before its descent in to the red and orange robes of sunset, cast
beneath the trees long shadows that stretched out across the sand to meet his own
elongated shadow as he walked. Here in the South Pacific it was either dark or it was
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light – there was very little in the way of dusk or dawn, and night and its blackness would
fall suddenly.
Reaching the naouli trees, slightly puffed after hurrying across the rocks, Greg made his
way to the protruding branches. Large green lizards, basking before the heat drove them
under the rocks, scurried off at his approach. He walked slowly at the edge of the rocks,
carefully picking a different section of branches, before he somewhat gingerly lowered
himself over the edge. He shuffled along on his bottom, one leg either side of the branch,
and peered closely in to the rock crevices, where he could see several small hidey-holes,
containing bundles of cash, sometimes barely wrapped and clearly stuffed there hurriedly.
Further ropes dangles from sturdy branches. It would not be easy to fall, and a fall would
be broken in many places by the thick foliage. Climbing both up and down was easy
providing you were fit. Then, sitting precariously on the branch, a cash box in his lap, he
slid back the bolts and once again grabbed several fists full of sterling and filled his
pockets. His hands trembled with a mixture of excitement and fear. He didn’t look at
what he took – it was utterly random – he hoped it was a lot, but the money had not been
sorted in to different notes, and he noticed notes as small as five shillings and as much as
two hundred pounds. He closed the box securely and let it down in to its hiding place
once again. He scrambled back up.
He simply didn’t see the man there, waiting at the top.
“Bonjour,” said Delahaye’s voice.
Greg turned around slowly. Delahaye stood a few metres away, pistol in hand.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice cut like a knife through the still air.
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Greg stared. He had no answer .He glanced around and saw that there appeared to be
nobody else there. “Where are the others?”
“Aury is in the boat. But he knows you are here. He doesn’t like the smell of blood,
poor thing.”
Delahaye grinned.
“Blood?! Shit! You won’t get away with this!”
“But of course we will get away with it, you fool.” Delahaye’s voice was very calm.
“What did you imagine you were doing here? Did you think we were stupid?”
“Plenty of people know about this – “ Greg flailed around desperately in his mind for
what to say. “I’ve told the police!”
“No, my friend, you have not. I work closely with the police, and they do not know.
And if they did know they would be here, not you.”
“Christ –don’t be an idiot!” Greg could feel panic rising. “Plenty of people saw me come
out here – saw you come out here ….!”
“No, this is not so.” Delahaye’s voice was maddening in its calm. “I regret, my friend,
that your wife is about to become a widow.”
“Wait – we can do a deal – I know …”
“You know what ? You see, it doesn’t matter what you do and do not know, my friend, it
is of no importance. It is tedious having to er …. delete you ……. but apart from that
this is just routine. You are of no importance to us.”
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Just at that moment a figure appeared through the trees behind Delahaye. Greg didn’t
move. The figure moved silently and swiftly, like a cat. Eerie in the fast fading light,
Knooden’s agile form crept, crouched and soundless, over the stones.
“Hang on,” said Greg to Delahaye, desperate for time, “I’ve got a good idea …”
“Blast your good ideas, my friend, I don’t need good ideas!”
Knooden approached rapidly, almost sprinting across the rocks, yet totally silent. In a few
quick strides he was behind Delahaye and had got him round the neck, his big strong
fingers pressing tightly against the throat. Delahaye’s eyes popped open wider, like
marbles, and an expression of stunned surprise and abject terror took over his face.
“Drop the gun!” hissed Knooden.
Delahaye’s face turned purple. He struggled for a few minutes, then dropped the gun.
Greg grabbed it. He was shaking. Knooden pushed the Frenchman in to a sitting
position on the rock.
“There’s another man in the boat …” Greg began.
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“I’ve tied him up,” said Knooden.
He took the gun off Greg and pointed it at the Frenchman. He shook his head wearily
and made a little tsss noise with his teeth. Delahaye, his courage gone with the gun, sat
silently, red-faced and eyes darting back and forth.
Grag’s mind raced. Did Delahaye know his pockets were full of cash ? Did Knooden
know about it? He could see that Knooden was fearful, his weather-worn face was
creased up in concentration. He was a naturally gentle man. Greg tried to take charge.
“Listen, you bastard …” he began.
But the Frenchman had regained his composure and, although he remained seated, his
position relaxed and he dropped his hands down on to the sand at his sides.
“No, you listen!” he said steadily. “There is going to be no easy way out of this for any
of us …”
“Oh, it’s perfectly easy – “ Greg struggled to gain ground, “we just take you along to the
police, that’s all.”
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“I don’t think so, my friend. You are hardly likely to go to the police.”
“Humph! Why ever not?”
“Because of several reasons. Firstly, they would question me – and Aury of course – and
we would tell them that you have received stolen money. Including what you have taken
today there must be about twenty thousand US dollars tucked away by you. So –“ he
appeared to be counting “ – so, you could do around seven years in prison for that.”
“There are several holes in that …” Greg began.
“Yes, there are – you would reply to the police that we planted the money on you,
wouldn’t you? Is that what you have in mind, my friend? You could hardly pretend it
was your savings! Let’s not forget that I work closely with the police.”
“Your word against mine …” with a sinking sense of doom Greg began to understand
just how deeply involved he was already. He didn’t like the idea of pitting his word
against that of this man – or anybody else – here in Noumea. Least of all if Delahaye
truly was in with the police. To top it there was a kind of old-boy regime among the
Caldoches, and it was pretty clear that he, Greg, would come out worse. Delahaye’s calm
was maddening.
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“Listen, and listen very carefully, “ Delahaye wagged a finger at both Greg and Knooden.
Knooden had lowered the gun, but stood poised like a creature ready to pounce. Poor old
man, thought Greg, what have I done to him?
“You keep the money you have taken. There’s plenty more of it. We’ll call it your hush
money. You keep it, you keep your mouth shut. We go our separate ways. Simple.”
“Yes – okay – I’ll keep my mouth shut. But what guarantee do I have that you will keep
your side of the deal?”
“You have no guarantee, Gregory, my friend. None. But we do. We have a guarantee.
Your wife and child.”
“For Chrissake – what are you talking about?!”
“You open your foolish little mouth, monsieur, and your wife and child will be … let’s
say an accident will befall them…”
“You wouldn’t dare! Leave them out of this!”
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The enormity of it all hit him like a thunderbolt. For a wild moment he wanted to grab
the money out of his pockets and throw it on the ground and say keep it! Keep it! But it
was too late for that.
Greg and Knooden accompanied Delahaye at gun-point back to his boat where a frantic
Aury was struggling to get free of the ropes Knooden had bound him with. As agreed
during their walk over to the boat, the two men set off, leaving Greg and Knooden on the
beach. Once away from the shore, Greg and his friend regained their boats.
“Thanks,” said Greg. He put his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “How did you
know?”
“I seen them set off earlier,” replied the Kanak, “I knowed they wasn’t up to no good. I
tried to warn you.”
“ You saved my life, old friend.”
“Yes,” replied Knooden, “this is true.”
-------------
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The old man was badly shaken up by the incident. Without a further word to Greg he
took his boat and made his way slowly down past Ile Nou back towards la Baie des
Orphelinats. Greg, also very shaken, pulled up his anchor with frantic speed and for the
first time ever set off without the sense of thrill his boat always gave him, whether on his
way to or from a trip. Arrived at the port in Noumea, he went back to his habitual
mooring and waited silently for Knooden by his house. When he saw him approach,
some two hours later, he rose and went slowly over to him. He wondered where Knooden
had been – had he been to the police?
“Thank you,” said Greg again.
Knooden grunted.
“Did you go to the police?”
“No,” he grunted again.
Greg knew this was the truth.
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Knooden sat down just inside his door. He didn’t ask Greg in nor did he offer him a beer.
His youngest daughter, a child of no more than two or three years old came trotting over
and hung over her father’s knee and Knooden absently stroked her hair. A woman was
cooking something in the background – Knooden’s fourth wife. There was a pleasant
odour of boiled rice and fresh fruit.
Both men remained silent for some minutes. Greg remained awkwardly by the door,
leaning against the door frame and staring at the floor.
“Don’t bring trouble to my house,” said the old man at length.
He spat vigorously in the general direction of the front door.
The woman, realizing there was somebody there, emerged from a dark back room and
crossed over to shake Greg’s hand in the formal French manner some of the local people
used. The native handshake, Greg reflected absently, had none of the firm grip in a
European handshake: it meant nothing to them traditionally and therefore whether the
hand was limp or firm was of no importance to them. The woman had a pretty smile and
wore a European dress that had seen better days, though on her feet were a pair of new
bright yellow sandals. Her long hair was caught up in to a kind of chignon and her skin
was brown and soft. Christ, thought Greg, she must be thirty years younger than the old
boy! The woman turned back to her cooking pots. Knooden spat again.
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Greg had no idea how he should handle this. He was horribly aware that he had dragged
his old friend – unwittingly perhaps, but dragged his old friend nonetheless – into an
extremely dangerous situation. Worse, he had involved Melanie and Jimmy. It was the
last thing he had wanted.
“No, no, this is not my wish,” said Greg. He shook his head and edged his way through
the front door and squatted by Knooden’s feet, the way he had seen his sons-in-law do. “I
am afraid,” he added.
The old man looked away from him out towards the boats. There was wisdom in the
wrinkles around those eyes. He seemed to be studying the sea for a while then, sighing
heavily, he raised one hand slowly and looked at Greg.
“Be wary for your wife and child,” he warned, “ be wary.”
“What shall I do with the money?” asked Greg. “There’s no point in burning it. That
wouldn’t solve anything – could even make it worse. Where can I put it?”
Knoorden seemed to be asleep, but Greg knew he was thinking. He waited. Some
moments later the older man straightened up.
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“Tomorrow, when it is light, I will show you a good place to hide that money,” he said.
“But for tonight you must keep it with you. Or hide it in another place – away from my
home and away from yours.”
“Should I take it straight to the police?”
“Do not bring the police to my house,” came the reply. Like a lot of local people,
Knooden seemed afraid of the police, though Greg realized he almost certainly had no
reason to be. Greg rose, hands in his pockets. He’d be off, then. He wanted to say
something else, something to tell the old man that he was truly grateful and that he was
profoundly sorry. He didn’t know what to say.
“I’ll go home now, then,” he said at last.
Knooden didn’t reply but raised his hand faintly as if shooing Greg away.
Melanie had long since eaten by herself when he at last got in. Jimmy was sitting at the
dining table under the ceiling fan, doing homework. He glanced up.
“Hello, dad,” he said.
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Melanie was cross.
“Where were you?!”
“Don’t be cross, love ..”
“Of course I’m cross! I was getting worried!”
“There’s no need to worry about me, Mel. I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, typical!” she slammed her book down on the table, “you can take care of yourself,
I’m sure you can, Greg, but that’s hardly the point!”
He knew she wouldn’t be cross for long. She never was. He had kept some of the money
in his pocket, having hidden the rest in the garden before coming in. Rolled up in a
plastic bag, he felt it was so easy to find, tucked there under the banana palm – yet he
couldn’t think of anywhere else and a part of him hoped it would be gone come morning.
He now took out the cash he had kept and handed it to her.
“Oooh! Goodness! No wonder they kept you late!” she said, moderately mollified.
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“They were Americans,” he lied, “they always tip well.”
That night Greg felt too sick and fearful to make love to his wife. He lay on his back and
stared at the ceiling. Every noise seemed ominous to him. He thought he could hear a car
pull in outside, he thought he could hear a footfall on the stair, he thought there was
somebody in Jimmy’s room … finally, just before dawn, he fell asleep.
With the risen sun, came reason. It was obvious that the only thing to do was to take his
little family and go. He now had enough money to buy air tickets back to England, where
they would forget all this – and he would simply tell Melanie what had happened, and she
would understand. Contrary to his normal practice, he lay in bed for a while before
getting up, and then breakfasted slowly. He ate his toast out on the small patio and looked
at the magnificent views that stretched out before him. He didn’t want to go. Melanie
wouldn’t want to go. They had a good life here. The boat would soon be doing okay, they
had a van, and they rented this little house. It was all right. It made him sick to the
stomach to think of packing it in and returning to work as a car mechanic in Haywards
Heath. Nonetheless, his mind made up, he drove slowly down to the port, having first
retrieved his money from the garden.
Knooden was waiting for him.
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“I have a place,” he said, coming straight to the point. He jerked his head in the direction
of Greg’s car. “I will show you the way.”
The old man seemed angry. He sat sullenly next to Greg, hunched forward in the
passenger seat with one hand on the dash board. He was unaccustomed to riding in a car.
“Where are we going?” asked Greg as he revved the engine and reversed away from the
port.
He looked around him in case the men were there.
“They are not here,” said Knooden, “but they were here all night. They go back with
torches and the boat that belongs to lima-lima. They take the money. They put it in a
new place. Good. Better they go.”
Lima-lima was the local word for the police.
“Are you sure it was the men, and not the police?” asked Greg.
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“Oh yes, Knooden knows. This was not the correct lima-lima. This was the men. They
are afraid now, Monsieur Gregory, and fear makes man behave badly. They will move
quickly. They cannot risk you telling any tales. They will warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“Listen to Knooden! They will warn you! I do not know how or when but they will not
just quietly go. They will leave you a warning that you must remain silent.”
“Oh, my God … what is happening … I wish I’d never clapped eyes on those bloody men
… it looked so easy …”
Suddenly Knooden’s attitutde seemed to soften.
“It always looks easy …”
Greg manoeuvred the car through the centre of Noumea and in to a small back street, as
directed by his companion. Here they parked and, taking the bag of money with them,
went inside a small garage where a couple of rusty Morris cars sat, their wheels gone, like
teeth that had been pulled. Knooden stood silently for a moment and appeared to be
thinking.
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“Were we followed?” asked Greg.
“I don’t know.”
Both men returned to the garage door and peered out. There didn’t appear to be anybody
around, except for a torquoise Chevvy that was reversing out of a garage further along,
near the place.
But instead of opening one of the old cars, or some hideaway place within the garage,
where Greg fully expected to deposit the money, Knooden beckoned him to follow him
out of another door at the back, which led out in to a small alley-way that smelt strongly
of urine and bad food. Parked at the end of the alley was a van with Plomberie et
Zinguerie painted in large red italic letters along the side.
“Get in!” ordered Knooden.
Greg obeyed. He found the ignition key in place and, not daring to ask, and looking
constantly about, he set off in the direction of the Bourrail road.
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The road took them out of Noumea and through a shanty town. Greg looked constantly in
his rear view mirror but there didn’t appear to be anybody. He felt confident the men
didn’t particularly want their money back. Although by his standards it was a fortune, by
their standards it was peanuts. He doubted, then, that they would go to the bother of
following him, but he nonetheless felt nervous and wary. One thing was very clear,
however, and that was it was unlikely they would simply leave him alone. He had found
their secret out, he could identify them, and he had a witness. His position was fragile to
say the least. Knooden didn’t speak. Greg would have preferred a reprimand, a burst of
fury even, but this sullen silence made him feel like a naughty school boy who was in
deep deep trouble and whose incensed parent was bailing out.
“Will they kill me?” asked Greg.
Knooden didn’t reply. The dusty landscape spread out ahead of them and the mountains,
called Mont d’Or rose on their right, magnificent against the azure morning sky. Greg
remembered the road from his early days in Noumea when he and Melanie had
picknicked by a river somewhere around here – Dumbea, it was called – and they had
made love beneath the trees. A little further on they came to a small settlement – Greg
hesitated to call it a village – called Les Moines. It was barely more than a few houses.
Greg’s eyes kept darting up to the rear-view mirror, but still there was nobody following.
Every now and then a car or a van over took them. The landscape was brittle, small hills
to their right and the vast ocean to the left, periodically screened from view by hills and
trees.
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Some miles later they came to a hamlet named Bien Assis and Knooden seemed to be
looking about him, as if searching. He indicated to Greg to slow down, flapping his hand
vaguely at the steering wheel. A small junction appreared.
“Here!” said Knooden, pointing to the right.
Greg turned right. The road almost immediately started its ascent, not very steeply, but
steadily working its way up in to the mountain. The tarmac section lasted a couple of
miles and then became broken and intermingled with stones and red dust. Looking in to
his rear-view mirror now, Greg could see vast quantities of red dust swirling up behind
them. All around were thickly-thorned bushes.
“Where are we going?” asked Greg.
“It is a place that is mine,” said Knooden.
Greg was surprised. There was decidedly more to the old man than met the eye at first.
Usually these fishing folk had not ventured further than the town.
“Yours? A house?”
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“No, a building, some land. Your money will be safe there.”
“How long have you had this land?”
“Since before I was born,” replied Knooden sagely. “It was my father’s land, and his
father’s before him. When I was a boy and the French came, the authorities made my
father do some papers to show that it was his. When he died it passed to me. I have no
sons. When I die it will pass to my eldest grandson in the Kanak tradition.”
The road straightened out slightly and they reached a plateau where the dust was
considerably less. They stopped momentarily and looked down the road they had come.
They could see the road stretch out a long way down, winding like a trickle of red-brown
liquid down the hill. Every now and then it disappeared out of sight. There was nobody
following them, for even where the road was out of sight there was no dust swirling up in
to the air. Both men were considerably relieved.
The road twisted on. Pines grew in amid rocks. Knooden said that he remembered
coming here as a young man, but that he had not been since. It crossed Greg’s mind to
tell him that he should sell the land to an hotel company –there were several
conglomerates starting to look around the island – tourism was going to be big business
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one day. But he decided it was not his place, under the circumstances, to give his friend
any advice on making money. Greg’s mouth twisted in to a wry smile at the thought of it.
“Ah! Here!!” exclaimed Knooden all of a sudden.
Greg stopped. Ahead of them, standing out in a very obvious silhouette against the
brilliant landscape, were five trees, arrowing in to the sky, straight and narrow, at the
edge of the crevice where the road turned. There were wild goats about, hopping
languidly from rock to rock.
“The trees are on my land,” said Knooden.
The track soon petered out. Nobody had been here for a long time. Knooden pointed
down the slope a little where there was a vast clump of short trees and thorn-encrusted
shrubs. Peering more closely, it became clear that these grew around a small building of
some sort.
“Soldiers sheltered here in the war,” said Knooden.
From the back of the van he took a couple of scythes and axes. He handed one of each to
Greg. Leaving the bag of money in the car, the two men set to work clearing the way to
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gain access to the shelter. It was hard, hot work. He’s a good man, thought Greg, looking
at his companion, bent double ahead of him. The strong old arms swung back and forth,
wielding the axe with remarkable ease. In some ways it seemed ridiculous to go to these
lengths to hide money he no longer wanted. The trouble was, he thought, that if the
police found money on him, or in his house or boat, he would be incriminated. Therefore,
in case Aury and Delahaye decided to shop him – and he realized he could quite easily be
made the scape goat should the multi-thefts become known – it was best to have no
evidence. In which case, burn it! he said to himself. But no, his best course of action had
been decided that morning – he must leave, and leave immediately, taking his family with
him. He needed the money in order to leave.
This in itself posed a new problem. Firstly, was it all right to use the money? If he had
guessed correctly, the money was untraceable. But what if it wasn’t? Another problem
was whether or not the men would allow him to leave … almost certainly not …. In
which case he would have to go quietly, without anybody knowing … and with a wife and
child in tow, that would not be easy.
It took them over half an hour to clear away enough undergrowth to reach the shelter. It
was constructed of planks nailed on to a timber frame. The roof was sheets of corrugated
iron.
“You gets in over the top,” said Knooden, pointing to the roof.
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“Eh? No door?”
“Nope.”
The roof was not very high up. Knooden pointed out a couple of footholds notched in to
the timber frame and Greg hauled himself up and swung one leg, then the other, over the
top. In the roof was a trap-door of sorts. It was not locked but opened creakily well
enough. Greg peered in. It was dark with yellow slits of light from the outside world
slanting in through the uprights.
“What’s down there?” he called.
“Nothing, there ain’t nothing. Not as I knows.”
Greg held on to the edge of the trap hole and let himself in, dropping easily the last few
feet on to a hard mud surface. He waited a few moments while his eyes adjusted to the
light.
“There’s a hole in one corner, between them rocks,” came Knooden’s voice through the
slats. “It’s where them soldiers kept their food cool, see.”
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Sure enough, a hollow, about the size of a couple of shoe boxes, had been dug out of the
earth between two large rocks that protruded up out of the earth. In the darkness the rocks
themselves were difficult to spot at first, and the hole between them, half-hidden by the
shape of the rocks, was even harder to see.
“What about snakes?” he called out.
“Ain’t no snakes round here,” replied the old man.
Greg clapped his hands loudly. Nothing moved. Gingerly he put his hand down. Inside
the hole it was clean and dry. It was a good hiding place. Even if somebody found the
shelter, they’d have to find the way in. And having found the way in, they’d have to find
the hollow between the rocks. Anyway, he didn’t intend to keep the money there for
long. Just long enough to work out a full-poof plan. He made his way rapidly back to the
car to fetch the money. Well wrapped, he bundled it in to the hole, then scraped some
earth over it. He stood looking at his handiwork for a few moments. He’d have to come
back and re-bury it if it stayed there long, for perhaps some hillside creature would nest in
it, or when the rains came they could wash it all away. Humph, thought Greg, having got
in to this much trouble I might as well be rich on it!
“There now,” said Knooden as they drove away again. As was his way he was silent for
a moment and then repeated, “there now. You’ve got that money hidden there. Nobody
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will find it. Don’t you ever bring it round to the port, not never. Don’t you ever even talk
to me about it. Never. I don’t want to know what you does with it, but you can leave it
there till you’ve worked it out. If they don’t kill you, of course.”
They parted company on the outskirts of town, leaving the van parked, as instructed by
Knooden, outside a small petrol station.
“It’s my brother’s son,” he said, jerking his head towards the petrol station. “His place.
Lazy bastard. He’ll run me back.”
“All those old cars in the garage earlier today – are they his?”
“Yes.”
Greg got the bus back in to the centre of Noumea and from there walked to the port. All
the time he was conscious of a prickling sensation at the back of his neck.
Life seemed to return to normal for a short while. Greg was very fearful that the men
would reappear at the port and told Melanie to stay at home with Jimmy. She didn’t seem
to mind. She wasn’t the best sailor in the world as it was and it always surprised him how
much she seemed to like the Caprice. Greg tried to act as though nothing had changed
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and didn’t dare broach the subject of leaving Noumea while he hadn’t got a plan worked
out. He was very tempted to simply walk in to a travel agent, book a flight out, pay for it
with the money and be gone. All in one hit. It would barely give the men time to work
out where he was. Had he been alone that is probably what he’d have done. But he
couldn’t risk it with a wife and child. Also he had to consider Jimmy’s feelings - he
couldn’t be just wrenched out of school unless he was certain the plan would work and
would therefore in a way be worth traumatising the boy. And Melanie – he had no idea
how he would handle her. Another possibility would be to save up enough to get as far as
– say, the Loyalty islands – and just start again there and presume the men would leave
them alone. Again, the risk was too great. They needed to disappear totally, back to
Europe, to England where he doubted the men would follow.
The situation, however, was taken out of his hands.
It was a Tuesday morning. Greg reached the port as always, very early and ready for a
day on the boat. Today he had an Australian group of people. They would turn up at
about eight –thirty. Glancing at his watch he saw that it had just gone seven. Enough
time to make sure the boat was clean and ready. The sun was up now and the morning
blueness was rapidly soaking up the red, like a giant sponge in the sky. The last of the red
reflected in the sea. There was a small wake in the water where a boat had gone out.
He knew instantly something was wrong. Usually Knooden and his sons-in-law were up
and about. Normally there was a radio on, people moving about, the sights and sounds of
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early morning in a port. Certainly, there were people on the boats, hauling nets and
rolling ropes, but there was an intrinsic change in the scene that Greg had come to know
so well.
A small group of local people had gathered by Knooden’s front door. They turned to look
at Greg when they saw him approach. He locked his car, something he very rarely did
round here, and made his way over to them.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Knooden,” said a large man wearing a straw hat, “he bin hurt.”
“Oh?”
Greg pushed his way through the group of people and stepped inside the darkened room.
The little girl, whose name he had learnt was Bella, sat quietly on the floor with a doll.
Again there was that smell of boiled rice and fresh fruit. A door opened at the other side
of the room and a European man appeared, carrying a little black bag.
“Doctor?” queried Greg.
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“Who are you? Family?”
“No – a friend – what has happened?”
“Well – it won’t be a secret. The old man is hurt, badly hurt. Somebody threw acid in his
face.”
This took a moment to sink in. It didn’t seem possible. He had heard of this kind of thing
in big cities … but not here.
“Acid?” he asked stupidly.
“Yes. Probably battery acid. Any idea who might have done this?”
“Me? Hell, no!”
“The police are on their way round. The old man says he doesn’t know who it was, but I
think he’s covering up something. Tell the police I said that, would you?”
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“Eh …? Yes, of course… is he … will he be …?”
“Blind? Yes, most certainly.”
“Good God …”
Greg advanced towards the far room. The smell hit him as soon as he stepped over the
threshold. A sickly smell of burnt flesh, of antiseptic, of vomit. Knooden lay on his back
on his bed, his wife next to him. She had been crying.
The shutters were closed and a couple of flies buzzed round and round in a circle in the
centre of the room. A mass of colourful clothes was piled up in one corner, next to a door
which appaered to lead through to another similar room.
“Knooden …” whispered Greg.
The old man held his hand up. Greg clutched it.
“What has happened?”
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Knooden didn’t answer and Greg saw that his lips were burnt too. The skin on his face
looked as though it had melted. He felt sick. But the old man clutched Greg’s hand
firmly and seemed to give it a little squeeze.
The police came and went. Greg busied himself with his tourists on his boat and the
police didn’t ask to see him. Why would they? An old Kanak had been the victim of a
nasty attack. It didn’t concern Greg. He had difficulty taking any notice of his clients,
and set off for the day in a total daze of shock.
“I’m sorry – “ he found himself apologizing to one, “a friend of mine was very badly
injured during the night.”
“Aw, don’t worry, mate, you’ll be right.”
Greg knew that one of the men would be there when he got back that evening. Long
before he could see the man standing in a smart pale blue suit on the jetty, he knew one
would be there. He watched him steadily as he approached. The Australians tipped him
and seemed to take an eternity to say goodbye and leave. Greg walked slowly over to
where Delahaye stood.
“You bastard,” he said between his teeth.
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“I? No, not I, my friend. You are the one at fault. Let’s be quite clear about that. But
take my warning seriously,” he lowered his voice so that it was barely audible, “for we
will not tolerate any … shall we say … foolish chatter ? If need be next time it will be the
pretty Melanie …”
In a split second Greg had played the only card he had. Without any pre-thought and in
total desperation, he said:
“Melanie? Humph! Do you imagine I care what happens to her?”
He saw a look of stunned surprise cross Delahaye’s face. He had guessed right. He drove
home his advantage.
“I’m sick to death with that whore as it is! Her and that bastard kid of hers! But keep
away from my friends, you sod!”
--------
Greg put his face down in his hands.
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“I was desperate,” he sobbed, “I was totally desperate. I had to do something – anything
– to keep them away from you and Jimmy.”
“But …” Melanie was lost for words. She looked at the man sitting opposite her. Her
mind raced. Hatred and jealousy flashed through her, love and compassion, joy and anger
… “But why leave me? Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I was being watched. Oh, not all the time, but they had their eyes on me all right. I had
to get out of the house to make it seem I really didn’t care about you any longer. That
was the only way I could be sure they’d leave you alone. They couldn’t buy my silence
and cooperation via you, you see. It terrified me. There was no way we could just leave
the island. They would never have allowed it. It was far too risky.”
“I don’t see why not …”
“Don’t you see? For one thing, just imagine if I had come home and said to you Mel
darling, we’re leaving. Right now. Forget everything. Come as you are. Bring Jimmy
and passports and nothing else.”
“It would have been better than leaving the way you did ....”
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“Furthermore you wouldn’t have just obeyed. You’d have argued. You’d have insisted
we go to the police. For all I knew they were listening at the door to everything I said.
You’d have put your foot down – you’d have become angry and ………… jeez, I don’t
know, Mel ……….. I thought that if I left you, you’d just pack up and return to
England………. But you didn’t. You stayed.”
“We should have just left there and then Greg! You should have made me!”
“And if we had done that? Suppose we had got as far as the port? Or the airport?
Suppose they stopped us there? Their warning was very clear, Mel, very brutal. They
threw acid in to Knooden’s face! I kept picturing them doing that to you, I was beside
myself … Believe me, they would never have let us go.”
“Surely you could have got word to me? It doesn’t make sense …”
“I thought I’d be able to work something out. I thought – oh, I don’t know – that I’d be
able to get a message to you, that you would realize …”
“You were horrible!”
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“I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry. I’ve broken my heart over it all this time.”
Melanie fought between calm understanding and boundless fury. He looked so different
– yet so familiar. Those hands – those eyes – that mouth…
“ Over two years have gone by …” she said.
“Jesus! Had I known it would be so long .. I can’t tell you … I was caught in a trap … I
didn’t know what to do …”
“What happened next?”
“That first night I slept on the Caprice. In fact, I slept several nights on the Caprice.
Then I went over to the Ile des Pins and stayed with Knooden’s daughter and operated the
Caprice from there. Of course that didn’t work. I had lots of ideas at first – ways of
getting a message to you – ways of getting us out of the nightmare. But gradually things
changed. I missed you terribly and felt rotten about the way I’d spoken to you – even
though I knew it was for your sake – and I missed Jimmy …”
“So …? Thanks a lot!” she replied tartly.
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“Mel – don’t! You’re condemning me before I begin! I kept thinking of Knooden’s face,
all burnt, like melted plastic – I didn’t know which way to turn.”
“Greg, you left me almost penniless and with a small child to raise! I don’t know how
you can justify it – in any way – how can you justify what you did to us?!”
Greg smiled weakly.
“You managed – as I knew you would. I had thought you’d go home – in fact, I had
rather assumed that, and it would have made it easier because you’d have been safe. I’d
have found a way of catching up with you. But I’d not taken in to consideration how
strong you are. You made that money in the sideboard last a long time, didn’t you? You
found a job. You were all right. I must say I was pretty shocked when you burnt all my
things!”
“I was angry and hurt.”
“And you – you re-married …”
“Quite a normal thing for a young widow to do, Greg …”
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“I know, I know … I told myself that a thousand times. A million times. At first it made
me desperate – I had lost you forever. You had not found the map. I wanted to get in
touch with Jimmy – but didn’t dare. Then I resigned myself to it. I had made an
incredibly stupid blunder with my life –“
“With our lives!”
“Yes – all right, with our lives. You seemed happy enough, so did Jimmy. It cut me to
the quick that you got over me so rapidly.”
“Am I supposed to apologize? Anyway, it wasn’t a question of getting over you, it was a
question of survival.”
“I know, I understand, really I do. Is he – is he … okay … your Maurice?”
“I see you know his name. Mana-oua-oua reported it, I suppose. Yes, he’s a good man.
He looks after me and Jimmy.”
“Mel, I want to make it up to you. And I must see Jimmy.”
“Go on with your story, Greg. Explain.”
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Greg stretched his legs out in front of him and then rose and walked to the little window
and peered out.
“When I ran in to Kes d’Eparne the following day,” he said, “ I knew I had been right to
leave you and Jimmy.
“Monsieur Hodges!” d’Eparne greeted him in the street like a long lost friend or a good
client.
Greg had slept on the Caprice and, despite what had happened, had slept well. He had
had confused dreams about Melanie and violence, though couldn’t really remember them
when he woke. He woke very early and, hungry and thirsty, dressed rapidly and left the
boat. Everybody and everything seemed to him to be suspicious and from the corner of
his eye he watched the few fishermen that were up and about. The sound of a car starting
up made him look back down towards the rue d’Austerlitz ; a torquoise chevvy reversed
and turned, the driver, a man in dark glasses, seemed to look straight over at him. A chill
ran down Greg’s spine. Still, he thought, if that was somebody watching me they know I
slept on the boat. If they want to come looking for me , they will look around here and
not on Mont Coffyn.
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He walked rapidly in to the centre of Noumea, along the rue du General Gallieni as far as
the town hall where he crossed the little place to a small café set amid the coconut palms
on the corner.
“Café au lait,” he told the barman.
That was when he realized d’Eparne was there too, drinking a small black coffee and
noisily eating a croissant. D’Eparne rose and sauntered, his mouth full, over to Greg.
“I hear your native friend had a nasty accident!” he exclaimed
“You bastard,” whispered Greg between grit teeth.
D’Eparne laughed lightly, quietly. Then, slightly more loudly, he made an expansive
gesture with his hands and added:
“I do so hope nobody else has an accident. One is enough for one year, eh?”
“Quite enough,” replied Greg, “and I’m sure no such accident will happen again. After
all, there’s no need is there?”
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“Absolutely,” replied d’Eparne, “accidents are such tiresome things, eh?”
Making another expansive gesture d’Eparne pulled out a photo from his breast pocket.
He flashed it in Greg’s face. It was a snapshot of Melanie in the garden, taken just
recently by the looks of it; she was bending down to something by the van, unaware of the
photographer lurking.
Greg looked at it and shrugged. His mouth had gone completely dry.
“Whatever,” he said, and turned back to his table where his coffee was cooling.
He finished his coffee and then set off over the Place des Cocotiers to a small dress
fabric shop run by a Japanese couple; he had heard several times over the years that they
sometimes had rooms to let. The little shop was bright and airy and smelt deliciously of
new fabric; and the fabrics were draped everywhere, wonderful lengths of local cloth
depicting huge hibiscus and other exotic flowers in bright reds and oranges and greens.
There were exquisite folds of oriental cloth, threaded with gold and silver and arranged
temptingly on the shelves. The shop was very small and each space was filled with cotton
thread and buttons and zippers and reams of fabric of one sort or another. In a corner a
small Japanese man sat, glasses perched professionally on the end of his nose, working
away at a sewing machine. He seemed to be making the sleeve of a shirt and his short
deft little fingers moved with remarkable speed, shoving the cloth this was and that. A
Japanese lady of about the same age – in her forties – stood by the counter and did a polite
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little bow as Greg entered. At her side a little girl aged ten or eleven stood, dressed in
what looked like simply knickers.
“Do you have a room?” asked Greg.
“How long for, monsieur?” the woman bowed.
“Oh – I don’t know – a week perhaps – perhaps a little more …”
He was shown up in to a small room under the eaves. A strange bed, very low on the
floor, took up most of the space. There was a set of shelves and a washbasin in one
corner. A curtain that appeared to be made of paper, very light and simple, draped over
the window. Everything was extremely clean and there was a pleasant smell of some kind
of polish, and of wax and pleasant, clean things.
“How much?” asked Greg.
He had difficulty understanding her. She spoke with a heavy accent from her own
country and her vocabulary seemed to be limited to her stock in her shop. They agreed a
price and Greg paid the week in advance. He then set back off across the square and
down the rue Sebastopol to the rue Blay where he knew a French couple who had a
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couple of big boats. His first idea was to hire – or even steal if he had to – a large boat
that he could navigate himself and take as far as Honolulu or at least the Loyalty islands.
On the assumption that Melanie returned home to England sometime within the next few
weeks, he had little time to organize his own trip. From the Loyalty Islands could get a
flight – certainly to New Zealand or Australia, but preferably to America, where he could
lose himself in the crowd for a while. Perhaps he would send for Melanie from there. He
doubted the gang’s power was such that they would follow him far, and he doubted they
had any influence out of their own little foursome. The murder in France showed him that
they meant business, as indeed did the attack on Knooden , but he felt convinced that,
once away from them, they would not be able to follow far if at all.
On the one hand this was a blessing but on the other it meant that the gang would be very
keen to keep him where they could watch him. That in turn meant it would be difficult to
leave New Caledonia. It might be, he thought, that they considered they had warned him
sufficiently strongly by what they had done to Knooden … but the chances of them
allowing him to leave the island looked more and more slender the more he thought about
it.
There was no question of Greg telling the rue Blay couple about what had happened; he
wanted more to try to gain information, or find out how it was possible – or not possible –
to get off the island without being noticed, and he needed to find this out without actually
saying it. He sat down with them over a beer and they chatted amicably enough; they all
had work to do and it wasn’t possible to stay long. Greg steered the conversation straight
on to the subject boats – which was easy enough as they all owned at least one – but really
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got no further. He was able to learn that the Loyalty Islands had no particular control
system in view of passports, but nothing else. He left feeling, however, that these people
probably unwittingly had useful information for him and he told them he’d love to pop by
again.
“How is your wife?” one of them asked as Greg started to walk away.
“Oh – fine – I think – we’ve split up, you know …”
It cut him to the quick. What am I saying? What am I doing? And it made him all the
more determined to get some kind of message to Melanie and Jimmy as fast as possible,
the moment they left Noumea. A few weeks, love, he thought to himself, a month or so at
the most. Then I’ll explain everything.
Greg made a point of not thinking about what he had said to her. It had been important
that she had been convinced. She had to play her side of the scene to perfection for she
was almost certainly watched too. From what little he had learnt about the four men, he
was fairly certain that they were only four – perhaps an additional stooge of some sort –
the man in the torquoise chevvy, for example – but no more. This meant that they
couldn’t possibly watch both him and Melanie all the time, and that was on the
assumption they even wanted to.
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Back at the Moselle, Greg went to see Knooden. He lay on his back in the same position
as the previous day and was in considerable pain. A light gauze bandage had been placed,
unstuck, over his eyes. The skin all around his eyes was burnt. The doctor had been
already and was coming back later in the day. The wife was out and only the small girl
sat in the front room, still playing with the same doll. Knooden was able to speak a little
and explained to Greg that his wife had gone out to fetch his prescription.
“My friend …” Greg began, “what have I done to you …?”
Knooden raised his hand again, as he had done the previous time.
“This is my fault, “ said Greg, “my fault. This would never have happened had I not been
greedy ..”
“You were not greedy, Gregory, you just wanted to have the money to be secure. All men
want this.”
Knooden’s voice was rasping.
“Do you want water?” asked Greg.
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Knooden nodded and Greg held the glass by his bed up to the burnt lips. The smell
almost made him gag.
“I will find a way to put this right …” he began, knowing that was a ridiculous thing to
say; he was doing everything he could to get off the island as fast as possible. He shook
his head as if trying to shake away bad thoughts or bad visions. “I want to put this right
… I don’t know what to do. I’d give the money back if I thought it would solve the
problem …”
“That will not solve the problem,” Knooden’s breath was bad and his voice just as raspy
as it had been before the water, “it is a big problem. They will not leave you alone.
Listen to me – you must not try to leave for they will catch you and probably kill you. I
told you there would be a warning.” He pointed his finger towards his face, and
continued: “this was the warning. Take it seriously. Leave that money hidden where it is,
do not approach it. You may need it one day.”
“Is the money evil?” asked Greg suddenly.
“Evil? Why, all money is evil. If it means has it brought evil upon you – no, the men
have brought the evil. If you mean is the money jinxed – perhaps it is in a way, but we
must not be foolish. Leave it where it is. Do not touch it. Wait.”
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“I’ve left my wife, Knooden, “ Greg’s voice caught as he spoke, “I’ve left my wife and
my son. I told them he was not my son, that my wife was a whore … I hope they’ll leave
her alone.”
Knooden remained silent for a while and Greg started to wonder if he’s gone to sleep. He
tapped his arm lightly.
“Knooden?”
“I am here. I am listening. Thinking. Yes … that was the right thing to do. She knows
nothing about the money, then?”
“No.”
“Good. That is better. We must hope that they leave her alone and just watch you. For
they will watch you, Gregory, believe me.”
Greg had clients that afternoon and for the first time he found himself listening carefully
to everything they said about their trip and their journey. He felt certain that there was a
way, despite what Knooden had said, to leave the island quietly and secretly. The clients
wanted to be taken out as far as the reef. Two were professional divers and they explored
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the reef, accompanied by the amateur divers, for some time. New regulations were
coming in all the time about divers having to produce a certificate of aptitude before men
like Greg could take them out, but while there was no clear law about it Greg ignored it.
It often seemed to him that the red tape in the French system was just for show for most
people seemed to systematically ignore the greater part of rules and regulations.
Greg
watched the clients under the clear blue-green water, bright and pale like a luminous
sheet.
He realized that the first thing would be to change his identity and to get new identities –
if only temporary ones – for Melanie and Jimmy. Looking now at the bags of towels and
suntan oil the clients had left scattered about on deck, Greg realized how easy that could
be to do. All he needed was a few passports. Glancing guiltily over his shoulder at the
divers in the sea beneath him, he rapidly rummaged through the bags. There were three
and none contained anything of any use. Disappointed, and shaking slightly, Greg sat
down again. Still, he thought, sooner or later there will be passports in some of the bags.
All I have to do is search them. He remembered then that the other lodger at the Japanese
shop was a European. Right, must search his room too, he thought. All I need is a
passport . Few passports ever got carefully studied by custom officials.
He kept studiously away from Melanie. He had hoped she would come down to the port
and make a scene one day when Delahaye was there, to sort-of prove the point as it were.
But she didn’t. She was not the kind of girl to make a scene. He longed to take her in his
arms and explain all this misery – wait, Mel baby, wait, and I’ll put it all right again.
Several times he nearly went over to the Ecole des Freres, but knowing that the
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playground was not in sight of the road, thus knowing that he would not be able to see
Jimmy, kept him away. I have not gone through all this, he thought, just to have those
men twig that I care deeply about my wife and child. It was of paramount importance that
they thought he couldn’t care less.
Towards the end of that first week Greg was able to get hold of a passport. A plump
American couple came along for the ride – their words – while their lean and youthful
sons, all-American with small noses and straight white teeth, snorkled by the reef.
Unexpectedly, they decided to join their sons in the water and lowered their huge frames
over the side in to the turquoise sea. Quickly, seizing the opportunity, Greg tipped out the
contents of a large cloth tote-bag the woman had brought on board with her and left on the
bench. Sure enough, there was the man’s passport. Greg grabbed it and tucked it away in
the forelocker and frantically stashed the bag and its contents back as they had been.
Afraid that the woman would realize that somebody had been meddling with her bag, he
then leant forwards and knocked it off the bench. Women were funny things with their
bags, he thought. When she was back on board again he picked it up and said :
“Is this yours? It could get wet on the floor.”
He made a point of turning it upside down clumsily as he gave it to her.
“Oh, gee honey, thanks,” she said and took it from him.
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The following day one of the sons came round and asked if Greg had by any chance found
his father’s passport. No, no, I haven’t said Greg.
The tourist season picked up momentum and Greg found himself very busy, starting early
in the morning and finishing late at night. He did everything he could to help Knooden
who, as the days drifted on and wore in to weeks, started to recover from his injury. His
skin retained a ghastly pink-yellow pallor to it, wrinkled under the burn or stretched like
silk, taught over the upper cheek bone. But the main thing was that he could see. The
relief of this was so huge not only to Knooden and his wife, but also to Greg, that it in
some ways palliated the sense of guilt that had pervaded Greg’s sleeping hours.
Knooden’s right eye had been badly damaged and the sight was poor, but the left eye was
almost normal. The sons-in-law were there every day and clearly knew nothing at all
about Greg’s involvement in their father-in-law’s attack.
Greg didn’t see the men for several weeks but, as was to soon become a predictable
sequence, just as he was starting to relax, one of them reappeared, waving jauntily at him
from the other side of the street, or coming in to the Japanese shop, or waiting for him in
the evening when his boat came in. They would always smile, greet him like a friend,
clap him on the shoulder, shake his hand. It made him sick to the stomach. They were
saying “we are still here, we are watching you.”
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Greg saw that his desperate ploy to keep the men away from Melanie and Jimmy had
worked to perfection. Although he by now hadn’t seen either of them for several weeks,
he knew that if anything had happened to them it would be round the European
community in no time at all. When he realized how the weeks had elapsed he could
hardly believe it. He needed to keep working for, although he had still got a small amount
of the stolen money he had kept on him, he didn’t dare go up to Mont Rouge and dip in to
the rest. It was far too risky. It was essential he put to one side as much of his earnings as
he could for he still felt totally confident that at any moment his moment to break away
would come.
He was concerned as to how Melanie was managing. It seemed she had made no attempt
to pack or enquire about flights or ships, and for the first time it struck Greg that she was
going to stay. He had left enough money for her to pay a passage as far as Australia, but
by now she must surely have used most of that up just living. She was a resourceful
woman. It was, of course, also very frightening for her. He shut his mind every time he
pictured her thunder-struck face the day he had left her, and stalwartly refused to think
about her crying or being hurt. She was a strong and sensible person: she’d be all right.
Now, however, he had to think of a way of getting some money to her.
He had paid a
month’s rent in advance before leaving and he now considered going to the landlord and
paying another month. During the day this seemed to him to be quite a reasonable move
– after all, what had it to do with the men if he still paid the rent? – but at night the terror
that had been struck in to him when Knooden got hurt was so huge that not for anything
could he even risk seeming to be associated in any way with Melanie.
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It was at about this time that he went to the Ile des Pins for a while. He could no longer
keep his room at the Japanese shop for the couple needed it for their daughter. He didn’t
mind sleeping on the Caprice and intended continuing to do so as long as the weather was
good, but decided one day to go over to the Ile des Pins. Once there, the events of the
past weeks seemed to catch up with him and he sank in to a kind of depressed state that
was nothing like his usual self.
Maman-ou-oua was there.
The girl sat cross-legged on the floor by the window. A light breeze from the sea made
the raffia curtaining over the window stir slightly, billowing out in to the room in small
waves, like a butterfly about to take flight. The girl had a silken skin, light brown and soft
and glowing with youth and health. Her long legs were folded under her in an almost
child-like posture, yet graceful and supple, and her thick black hair was caught loosely on
one side with a small red grip in to which the girl had threaded a couple of island flowers.
She hummed a little tune to herself while sorting something in a basket – herbs perhaps,
or dried seaweed. She had a pale yellow lava-lava wrapped around her waist, but her
breasts were bare. About her neck was a simple gold chain, European in style, the sort of
thing that might have a crucifix on it.
She was not startled when Greg entered the room. She looked up and smiled over at him,
a broad, frank smile. She had large dark brown eyes, almost black, and endless in their
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depth. Unabashed she re-adjusted her lava-lava, without getting up, to cover her breasts,
all the while continuing her little tune while her fingers sifted gently through the contents
of the basket.
“Hello, Mana,” said Greg.
“Hello Gregory,” she said.
She pronounced it Gray-goree. He found it delightful.
Her English was excellent for she had worked in the household of an English family since
she was twelve years old until just recently when she has started to help her sister instead.
“How is your sister?”
“She is well, Gray-goree.”
“And your sister’s children and husband?”
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“They are also well, Gray-goree.”
He sat down in the wicker chair opposite her. It was a strange room, very large, built of
timber, mud and matting. The big windows had shutters that were frequently shut, in the
French way, to keep the sun out when it was hot and the rain out when it was wet. The
ceiling was slanting, also a mix of timber and matting, and the floor, raised off the ground
by a meter or so, was of bare timber. There was no overhead fan but a large raffia matlike object, suspended at right angles to the ceiling from a pole; to the corner of this was
attached a rope and pulley system, enabling whoever was sitting in the room to fan
himself. The ‘mat’ was about a metre square, and the set of strings that were attached to
it were hooked round a large nail rammed in to a timber upright in the the wall. Whoever
wished to fan himself had to simply unhook the string and take it with him to wherever he
was sitting – and then pull gently. The big ‘mat’ then flapped back and forth, back and
forth so long as the strings were given a regular gentle tug. It was ingenious. There was
very little furniture in the room. On the floor were several large raffia mats with bright
pictures of parakeets and hibiscus painted on them; there was a long low table at one end
but no chairs, then a couple of wicker chairs over at the other end of the room. Three
framed native paintings adorned the walls and a calendar dated 1952 depicting a sailing
boat in full sail, also a vast quantity of plastic or china bits of crockery stacked neatly onto
seven or eight shelves at one end. Not long ago the entire family would have slept in this
room, but the world had advanced even on this island, and two spacious bedrooms led of
this main room on one side; on the other side was a small dark kitchen area, consisting of
a scrubbed formica table and some cupboards, a hard mud floor where a zillion
cockroaches ran permanently, and a cold water tap over a large enamel bucket. The
bedrooms were similar in their sparsity. On two sides of the house there was a makeshift
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patio, copied with enthusiasm from European houses by Knooden’s son-in-law. At one
end was a latrine.
“What is the song you’re singing?” asked Greg.
She looked up at him from the corner of her eye, and smiled, showing straight white teeth.
“It is a love-song,” she replied.
And she started to sing again, quietly:
“Time you go long way long sea – this means you have been gone a long time, sun and
rain it hurtem me – this means I feel hurt through all the seasons, me sorry you no come
back long me – this is I am sad that you don’t want to come back to me, I thinkem you no
love me true – I think you don’t really love me.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Greg, “it’s a lovely song. Where is it from?”
“Tahiti.”
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“Is there any more to it?”
“Time you go me come loosin you – this means after all this time I have lost you, you no
come back long me – this is you will not be coming back, me tears and crying strong –
this means my heart is broken, me thinkem you no love me no more – I think you don’t
love me any more.”
Her song was so quiet Greg had to strain to hear the words, and her voice was clear and
pure. As she sang her lava-lava slipped, showing a pink-brown nipple and a firm young
breast. Absently, she tucked the cloth back up under her arm again.
Usually able to drop off to sleep wherever he was and whatever was going on, Greg found
that he couldn’t sleep, and he lay on his back in one of the rooms with the children and
Mana, staring up at the bamboo ceiling and listening to the surf crashing on the reef. The
sea was awesome in the dark. Mel had always been afraid of the sea at night.
He looked around at the sleeping bodies about him, stretched out in various positions on
three mattresses on the floor. Mana lay on one side, a toddler tucked in to the crook of
her body. At her back was an older girl aged about twelve, and the next mattress was bed
to four more children aged between three and eleven. There was also a baby somewhere
– supposedly in with the mother. Being a guest, Greg had a mattress to himself. He
thought about Jimmy and a pang of guilt and shame shot through him.
He had let Jimmy
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down, let Mel down, let himself down. He had thought there’s be some solution to the
ridiculous situation in which he found himself – but there wasn’t. He didn’t dare
approach Melanie and Jimmy for fear of being seen. And worse, he now realized that his
brutal behaviour with her the night he had left had possibly done more damage than he’d
have imagined. Women are funny things, he mused. Mel was terribly shocked and upset
that day … but now …. she probably hates me.
He had no idea how she would react if he suddenly walked back into their lives. Scratch
his eyes out? Well, that would be all right. What had she said to Jimmy? How could he
even begin to explain? He had truly thought he’d be back with her within a week of
leaving – but now, the longer it was left, the more difficult it became.
It was even possible – and it hit him like a thunderbolt – that Melanie had got herself a
boyfriend. He hadn’t thought about that before. She was a pretty woman, unaccustomed
to being alone. He counted the days – it was now nearly two months. Why had he been
so nasty to her? Why had he not made some attempt to explain what had happened? Oh
Christ! He could and should have trusted her. How could he have been such a fool?
He thrashed about on his mattress. The natives didn’t seem to notice the mosquitoes but
they drove him mad. Their high-pitched hum exacerbated his taught nerves and, in the
morning, irritable from lack of sleep, he became depressed and moody. The following
night Mana prepared a potion of some sort for him. He dreaded to think what it was made
of. It made him sleep, however.
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“What troubles you?” asked Mana one day.
Greg had been there nearly a week and was realizing he must return to Noumea. He had
hoped there’d be a way of running the business from the Ile des Pins, where the glare of
the men’s eyes wouldn’t be on him quite so much, but it clearly wasn’t possible.
Knooden’s family were kind to him in their quiet, self- effacing way, but he felt he
couldn’t stay any longer.
Mana’s gentle voice broke in to his thoughts. He sighed heavily and didn’t reply.
“You are deeply troubled,” she then said.
“Yes, Mana, I am …” he sighed again. “I am very worried about my wife and son.”
“You do not look after them any more?” she queried.
He knew that for the island people this was dreadful. They always looked out for each
other, even in a hapless marriage.
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“I want to –“ he began.
He didn’t know how to tell her, or what to tell her.
“Something bad happened,” he said, “and I feared for the safety of my wife and child …”
He saw a look of perplexed curiosity cross her face. A tiny frown mark appeared
momentarily between her dark eyes.
“I am worried about them …” he finished lamely.
“Why do you not go to see them?” she asked.
“I cannot … it isn’t safe …”
“Shall I go to look?”
Her question was so unexpected that it took Greg a moment to take it in. Before he
answered, she added:
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“I can go to where they live and come back to tell you if they are well.”
Greg leapt forwards and grabbed Mana’s arms.
“Could you? Would you? It must be a secret – nobody must know – don’t speak to them
…”
That night he lay awake, determined to find a way of getting a message to Melanie
without getting her in to trouble. He started to write a letter:
Mel baby, it ran, I know this is all very odd but …
He realized instantly that that wouldn’t do. He daren’t put anything in writing. He tried a
business-like approach:
For the attention of Mrs Melanie Hodges. Please read carefully, for all is not as it seems
…
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But he rejected this too. He decided to first wait till Mana had reported back to him.
You never know, he thought, there might be something I need to know about first. I must
get back to Noumea.
Mana accompanied Greg on the Caprice back to Noumea the following day and,
accompanied by her little sister, Bella, the last of Knooden’s many daughters, set off to
Mont Coffyn. Greg waited on the boat. She seemed to be gone hours. Local people
didn’t hurry – there was rarely any need to. He had asked her to come back quickly to
tell him what she had seen and what she had ascertained, but he knew it was highly likely
that en route she’d stopped at the market or gone to see an aunt, or even that she was just
wandering along the beach, singing one of her little songs with no sense of urgency at all.
At last he spotted her at the far end of the dock. The little girl was not with her, so she
had clearly been somewhere else before coming back to him. Greg looked around. There
didn’t seem to be anybody about. In fact the torquoise chevvy didn’t appear to be around
at all – not in Noumea at any rate. Casually, trying to feign indifference, he sauntered
over to Mana.
“Any news?” he asked her bluntly.
“I saw your wife, Gregory,” she said.
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“And?”
“And your son. They are both well. They were eating. Then they went to the beach. I
followed them to the beach, then I brought Bella back here. That is all.”
“Thank you, Mana,” he said.
What had he hoped ? Had he imagined that this girl was going to tell him that Melanie
was crying out for him, that Jimmy was constantly asking for his dad? And it was quite
typical of the local people to spirit themselves in and out like that – Mana had brought
Bella back, yet he could have sworn she had only just arrived.
“What were they eating?” he asked suddenly.
If she thought his question was odd, she didn’t show it.
“Rice,” she reported seriously.
“Just rice?”
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“Some beans too.”
“And what were they wearing?”
Mana smiled now.
“Your wife wore a red skirt and a white blouse, Gregory. Your son wore shorts.”
“Ah …”
A curious thing, Greg noticed as the days slipped by, was that when he thought about Mel
and Jimmy, his heart ached and he felt he would die. But, on the other hand, he didn’t
spend every waking moment thinking about them. In fact, engrossed in his work he often
found that hours would go by and neither his wife nor his son would slip in through the
window of his mind, and that he would remember them, suddenly, with a shock and a
painful sense of guilt. At night, however, they filled his thoughts constantly. If Mana
were able to she would give him a sleeping potion, and if she were unable to Greg would
open a bottle of whisky and sink, drunk and snoring loudly, into an unconscious oblivion
where nothing mattered any more.
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Mana was good at her job. Stealthy and unobstrusive, she followed Melanie at some
stage almost every day. She tried hard to report back the things that Greg wanted to
know. Once or twice she allowed Melanie to see her, hoping that perhaps she would
recognize her … and then what? She knew Gray-goree cared about his wife, but she
didn’t know what the trouble was about and realized it was not her place to intervene.
Once Greg had told her to try to get a message to Melanie.
“Tell her … tell her … no, tell her nothing.”
Only he could tell her.
----------Jimmy’s birthday came round. Greg bought him a couple of dinky-cars. He didn’t wrap
them. He had never been any good at that kind of thing. He wanted to write “from dad
with lots of love”, but didn’t. I never thought I’d not be there for his birthday, he said to
himself, I always thought I’d be there … Mana took the present up to Mont Coffyn and
left it on the door step when Melanie was out. Again, Greg racked his brains for a
message Mana could leave for Melanie – something that would make her realize it was
from him and that all was well, they’d be together again soon – yet something only she
would understand and which she would not discuss with anybody. It was impossible.
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But things seemed to improve. First of all Greg no longer felt he was being either
watched or followed; he hadn’t seen the torquoise chevvy or any of the men for some
weeks.
There were several explanations for this, the main one being that they had got their haul
safe and sound somewhere different – though Greg very much doubted there was
anything at all on the Ile des Chevres now – possibly right off the island. Routes on and
off New Caledonia were fairly limited, despite regular BOAC flights to Australia and
New Zealand every week and several flights to Manilla, New Guinea and the Gilbert
Islands. This meant that if they had carried a lot of cash with them they had probably
done so in several trips and to several different destinations. Going by boat was fairly
straight-forward as there was a ship from Sydney every week, carrying cargo for the
island on its inward journey and nickel and iron ores on its outward journey. Simply
walking off the island would nonetheless be risky with a huge amount of cash, and
transferring it from Noumea to another bank elsewhere would be even more risky, even
with the stunningly inefficient banking system that existed.
Yet the men appeared to have gone. Greg wandered around the bank where Kes d’Eparne
worked, trying to peer in through windows, and listening carefully to everything anybody
said. There was no sign of d’Eparne and he didn’t hear his name mentioned. He was
further encouraged when the couple living on rue du Bray, who he kept in touch with
periodically, announced that they were buying a big schooner which they intended to use
for longer cruising.
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Greg had no idea how to broach the subject of them letting him and his family escape on
this boat – simply sail away to Ouvea, perhaps, then get another boat from there to BoraBora and a flight from there to Manilla. Easy enough when you can pay for it, he thought.
The rue du Bray people were comfortably off but would doubtless be only too pleased to
accept a large sum of money for the loan of the boat …
It seemed to Greg that every time he thought of a solution, devised a plan of some sort,
there was a hitch. For a start, he had no way of knowing whether or not he could trust the
du Bray people – for all he knew they were great friends with Delahaye and d’Eparne.
Secondly, if and when he broached the subject he had to be very sure about a positive
result: he could not risk exposing himself only to find that they wouldn’t loan him the
boat anyway. There was also the permanent problem of the viability of the cash itself,
still stashed away in Knooden’s hideout. On the assumption that the cash was “hot”
(Greg had heard this term in a film some time – oh, years ago now, back in Haywards
Heath …) it was essential that he be able to pay for whatever he had to pay for and leave
New Caledonia within twenty-four hours. There could be no booking in advance, no
paying in advance.
Nevertheless Greg started to feel more confident. Once again he composed a note for
Melanie:
Mel, baby,
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I know you’re going to have a hard time forgiving me but I want you to know that I never
really left you and that I have always loved you and Jimmy. I’ll explain everything soon.
Please trust me.
Greg.
He waited several days. He walked constantly round the town centre, carefully watching
everybody, determined that if one of the men was there, he would see him. But there was
nobody.
He gave the note to Mana.
Soon this will be over, Mel, he thought. Soon we’ll be together again. I hope you can
forgive me. I realize I’ve handled this like a fool. I am a fool. I’ll make it up to you.
He walked slowly with Mana along the Moselle towards the Place Hourneau. The little
girl, Bella, skipped at her side. A wind from the south blew sand in off the beach, hot
and dusty, and despite the heat the sky was thick with cloud. The usual paradise island
aura of the place had gone for today, and everything seemed sweaty and heavy. A couple
of stray cats sauntered past, one limping. At the far end of the street a deux-chevaux was
parked, rusted from the salty air.
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They reached the end of the road and crossed over to the rue Tourville. They kept on the
shaded side of the street. Mana was quiet.
“I’ll go off here,” said Greg, “see you when you get back.”
She raised her hand slightly and glanced down at the little girl who skipped on just ahead
of her.
The car came round the corner suddenly. Before Greg had crossed the street the car had
pulled in, tyres screeching on the hot tarmac, and Aury had alighted. He grabbed Bella’s
arm.
“Ah! Bonjour!” he exclaimed.
Bella tried to wrestle free and Mana went rushing forwards.
“I am not hurting the child,” said Aury in a voice that was maddening in its calm, “ I
wouldn’t dream of hurting a child … now would I Mr Hodges?”
“What d’you want?” Greg spat between his teeth.
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“Well, now, isn’t that an unfriendly way to greet an old friend? Just saying hello, mon
cher, just saying hello.” He turned to Mana who stood grasping Bella’s other arm,
frightened, her long hair loosened from its usual binding and her dark eyes flashing with
fear and fury. “Bonjour mademoiselle.”
Just as suddenly as he had appeared, he let go of the child’s arm and got back in to the car
and drove away. He had left great red weals on Bella’s skin and she started to cry quietly,
big tears rolling almost silently down her little face.
“Who was this person?” asked Mana.
“The person I want to keep away from my wife,” Greg replied. His voice was shaking.
“Give me that note – it’s too dangerous – I thought it would be all right – but its not…”.
He tore the paper in to several pieces and stuffed them in his pocket. Mana looked at him,
her large brown eyes full of sadness. She pulled the little girl to her and stroked the black
frizzy hair.
“Gray-goree …” she began.
He didn’t reply but stared after the car that vanished round the corner.
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“Gray-goree …” she said again.
He turned to look at her.
“What ..? What is it?” he asked.
“I have news. A thing I have not told you.”
“News ? Yes ? What ?”
“Your wife – Melanie … she is with a new man …”
“What?!”
Although this possibility had crossed his mind several times, he had never really
considered it in any serious sense. He felt sick. Within a couple of seconds every
emotion shot through him from jealous fury to deep hurt. Something in his head seemed
to be pounding.
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“What d’you mean, a new man?”
Even as he asked it, he knew his question was foolish. Mana would not have mentioned it
if she thought it were just a passing light-hearted flirtation. Suddenly he turned and
crossed the street. He didn’t speak to Mana, but walked quickly, heading nowhere, hands
deep in his pockets. Mana trotted to keep up with him.
“Gray-goree! Gray-goree!”
After a while she gave up. When Greg reached the end of the street he looked back at her,
standing silently, watching him go. Then she stooped and picked up the little girl.
Greg walked almost all day. His mood swung from blind fury to blank astonishment. At
the bar on the corner of rue Pierrot he bought a bottle of whisky and took swigs out of it
as he walked, steadily getting more and more drunk till he wasn’t sure where he was and
Melanie was just a funny twit he had known once, now forgotten. His drunken
staggering took him as far as the area they called – somewhat incongruously - the
Trianon, and from there he meandered down to the Baie de l’Orphelinat. A little tune
came to mind. He couldn’t think where he’s heard it – time you go long way long sea,
sun and rain it hurtem me … and when he reached the yachts moored at the Orphelinat he
developed the bright idea of simply taking one … and sailing away … in to the sunset …
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He crashed out by some dustbins at the back of a small restaurant on the marina. He was
aware of being sick and of the world tipping about him. Stupid world, why can’t it stay
still? Some hands gripped him from behind and hoisted him to his feet.
“If you’re gonna kill me, kill me now …” he slurred.
Another pair of hands … a dark face … a smell of rice and fresh fruit.
“C’mon man!” said a voice.
Firmly wedged between two of Knooden’s sons-in-law, Greg staggered, sagging
constantly, along the pavement. He wanted to tell them to leave him there to die quietly
but the words wouldn’t come out and he felt confused about which language he should
speak. Perhaps they’re English Bobbies, perhaps this is Haywards Heath … oh yea, been
downna pub, haven’t I? … and then blackness and total oblivion.
When he woke the morning was well advanced. The thick heavy cloud, which had locked
the hot air in over the island, had cleared and the bright azure sky blasted in through a
small window in the darkened room in which he lay. Somebody had driven a
sledgehammer through his skull. He couldn’t think where he was and assumed the
d’Eparne men had finally got him. He didn’t care. He felt so ill that it really didn’t
matter what happened now. He went back to sleep and when he woke the second time he
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could vaguely remember the two sons-in-law. His shirt had gone – and his trousers and
underpants. He was stark naked. He sat up, his head banging, and looked around for
something to cover himself with. There wasn’t even a sheet under him, never mind over
him. He couldn’t think where he was, but slowly the sound of the reef filtered through to
him, and the little sounds of the port, very familiar to him now, and the smell of boiled
rice and fresh fruit.
Then he remembered Melanie.
So, she has got a new man. Well, it didn’t take her long. What had he expected? She
was young and attractive and sexy. Of course she’d got a new man. He tried to feel
reasonable. After all, he’d left her. As far as she was concerned there was not a reason
in the world to remain faithful. How was she to know?
Yet the hurt and bitter disappointment surfaced quickly. A part of him wanted to shout
out that she was a tart and a whore. Had he meant so little to her, then? So little that in
no time at all she was with somebody new? You bitch! You two-faced little cow!
Slowly a tightening started in his throat. So, he thought, this is what a broken heart feels
like … a few tears rolled with difficulty down his face and he wiped them away halfheartedly. This is a mess, he thought.
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Tourists kept Greg busy seven days a week, sometimes till well in to the evening and
sometimes overnight. He was glad of the work load; it stopped him thinking.
Periodically the group of clients of that day would ask him round to wherever they were
staying and he would have meal with them and enjoy their company. He liked the local
food dished up in the scattering of restaurants and hotels that were springing up, like fresh
young roots, all over Noumea and the immediate vicinity. Traditionally local people ate a
lot of fish, rice and a kind of potato called a finnat and lots of fruit ranging from paw-paw
to mango to banana. Sitting across the table with other foreigners, cigarettes in hand, ice
in their glasses … there was always something undeniably relaxing about it.
More often than not, however, Greg was alone in the evenings and he took to walking
about Noumea, stopping at first this bar and then that bar, steadily getting drunk and
belligerent. He slept on the Caprice most nights, and sometimes in a cheap pension he
found over by the Place Bellevue. He liked to stay there for it was at the edge of what the
tourist office had started to dub the quartier Latin, and as a result stalls of Pacific
produce, herbs and incense, shells of every shape and size, things made out of palm leaves
or coconuts, and fabrics from all over the eastern world, were all springing up in-between
bars and small nightclubs and inexpensive restaurants. The area was showing signs of
coming alive with people and music, and street artists would appear, and musicians and
jugglers and fire-eaters – like creatures from a pantomime, springing out of the Noumean
world as soon as the sun had set, hands out to catch the tourist money, faces alive with
laughter and the sheer pleasure of just being who they were.
Greg could hang around the quartier Latin till the small wee hours, just watching. But
when there was nobody about, or he couldn’t afford the pension, he retreated to one of the
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bars with a bottle of whisky or – worse – sat alone on the Caprice, drinking till he sank
into an oblivion where what had or had not happened didn’t really matter any more.
He went through phases. Sometimes he was wild with fury. Drunk and foul-mouthed he
would rant and rave about Melanie, call her a cunt and a whore and swear that he would
get his son away from her. The second stage of drunkenness, however, brought a
weepiness and a self-pity that led swiftly into the third stage of drunkenness where he
didn’t care anyway. That was the best stage. He always woke with a cracking headache
which made him too unwell to get up and wash and shave, and too bad-tempered to do
anything other than the bare essentials of his job.
Mostly, however, he spent a lot of time staring out over the water to the silver thread of
the horizon, lain along the furthermost edge of the world like a fragile strand of silk that
glimmered and shivered somewhere over there, where the world ended. His broken heartedness mended relatively quickly with drink and work, and in its place came a quiet,
dull acceptance of what had befallen him. But that quiet acceptance also went in phases –
sometimes there was no way he would accept, sometimes he accepted totally, and
sometimes he stared at that horizon as if it held a solution for him, as if he could spot –
suddenly – a way out of all this if only he stared long enough.
He very rarely saw any of the men he feared. Now that Melanie had quite publicly got
herself a new man and it was clear to the entire ex-patriate community that she had made
a new start, he no longer feared what Delahaye and his like could do to her. On the one
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hand it made it possible for him to … perhaps … approach her, but on the other hand he
didn’t want to open-up what could now be best left alone.
What would he say to her if he approached her? Mel baby, I was frightened for your
safety and so I pretended to leave you so that those men could not threaten me by hurting
you. I knew that they would think I was a greedy bastard and would keep the money for
myself, and just leave you to get on by yourself. Mel baby, if was for your protection …
He knew it sounded ridiculous and foolish and that he had handled it like an idiot. Mel
baby, I know now I should have gone straight to the police, taken you and Jimmy far
away from here … but even as he said it he knew that wouldn’t have been possible.
They’d have killed us, Mel, you see …
The feeling of being watched also went through phases. Mostly he didn’t really care but,
when he thought about it, he realized that he didn’t care if he died but he most certainly
didn’t want acid thrown in his face or that of Mana or the little girl. By now five months
had elapsed since the Ile des Chevres episode, and he guessed that the illegal operation
was either over by now – or that it was an on-going thing that would not end. Either way,
nobody had approached him since the street scene when Aury had grabbed Bella’s arm
and it seemed clear that every now and then one of them would appear and remind him
that they were there – always there – but that so long as he made no foolish moves, they
would leave him alone. He had not been back to Mont Rouge and had no intention of
going back; he lived a life of poverty and realised he was becoming a drunk. He decided
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that if ever asked he would say he had long ago burnt the money out at sea. That was
highly probable. There was nothing – absolutely nothing – about him that looked as
though he might have some money stashed away. Realizing this, Greg made a point of
looking and acting more run-down and down-at-heel than he really was: if they see me, he
thought, if they think about it, they will know that I’m a loser, I’ve lost, I’ve got nothing.
He kept away from Knooden. He felt that the old man was almost certainly the best
friend he’d ever had, and he admired and loved him. But he had brought trouble on his
household – Knooden’s words – already, and didn’t wish to do so again. Without having
to be told, Knooden understood absolutely the reason for Greg’s supposed unfriendliness;
when Greg was drunk, too drunk to walk, Knooden’s sons-in-law seemed to appear out of
nowhere to drag him back to his boat or to the little dark back room in Knooden’s house.
The lovely Mana-oua-oua steadfastly and faithfully reported back on what Melanie was or
was not doing, but also kept her distance since the incident with Bella, till finally Greg
told her not to follow Melanie any more … it didn’t matter. It was over. Finished.
Relatively sober one evening and severely depressed, Greg sat alone with his bottle on the
Caprice. The boat tilted gently this way and that, and the water made a hard slapping
sound under the keel. Greg never tired of it. Slightly drunk, he looked morosely around
and thought how Mel would have had a fit if she saw how dirty the Caprice now was.
Vaguely, he told himself he’d clean the place up in the morning, all the while knowing
quite well that he wouldn’t. The sun had set and the last deep velvet ruby-red of the sky
was turning to purple, casting dye out over the sea so that the waters were moving gems
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that slowly darkened each time the sun dipped a little further. Greg was conscious of a
footfall on the gang plank. He hardly bothered to turn his head to look.
Without speaking Knooden sat down beside him. The two men sat in silence side by side
for some minutes, then eventually Greg sighed heavily and said:
“It has all gone wrong. I am alone. I have lost my wife and child. Those men will never
ever leave me alone.”
Knooden looked at him, his eyes almost black in the fading light and the red hue of the
sky reflected like a fire on the side of his kind, weather-beaten face, making the pink
scarring on the flesh look almost translucent. He said nothing.
“So long as they know that I’m around, they will watch me. So long as they’re watching
me I dare not approach Melanie. There is no escape. I cannot even leave the island.
Death would be the only solution.”
------
Greg straightened his back, easing his shoulders round in small backward circles. He
looked older than his … Melanie counted … thirty-nine years. Patches of grey had
404
started to appear on his side burns, and the continual sea and salt air had weathered his
skin, especially around his eyes and the backs of his hands.
“So,” he said, spreading his hands open in front of her, “now you know. I faked my
death. It was easy enough. Knooden helped. A boat, some sharks, a witness … it wasn’t
difficult. There was a weak spot in the bilges, up by the bow’ I had just started to
strengthen it when I realized that it would be easy enough to make it look worse. I knew
the Caprice wouldn’t sink because of the flotation tanks. I emptied several bottles of beer
and a couple of whiskies too in to the sea. I fired the flares - I knew the cartridges would
be found. I rowed out in the dinghy to beyond the reef – there were loads of sharks that
day – horrible – and Knooden picked me up there, beyond the Ghaeto straits. He made a
good witness – told the police he’d seen the flares but that as I was a drunk he didn’t take
much notice. Not many people knew how close I was to Knooden – nobody except him,
really. I died.”
“But why?” asked Melanie, “whatever for? I can’t see the point of that …”
“Can’t you? Think about it, Mel. You were dating a new man. With me dead you were
free –“
“Oh, I –“
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“No – wait – let me finish. With me dead you were free. I could see no way forward.
You had got yourself a nice little job, Jimmy was happy enough, you stood a good chance
of getting yourself – and Jimmy – out of the poverty trap. I could see it. Even if I had
suddenly appeared on the doorstep with my story – what difference would that have
made? I was a drunk. My story was preposterous. You loathed me. I had treated you so
badly.”
“No, I –“
“And it wasn’t just that – with me dead, the men stopped watching me. It was
remarkable. They swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I was free at last.”
“Greg, I loved you so much …”
“Ah, did you, Mel baby? I loved you – still do – but was far too much of a fool to
understand how important you were to me till it was too late. I was so shocked when you
seemed to quickly get over me ………..”
“It was a bit like washing my hair ..”
“Eh …..?”
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“I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair … that kind of thing.”
“Oh, I see. I think. I was always surprised you never tried to come and find me, have it
out with me. I was glad you didn’t, mind, but most women would have made a scene. It
was almost hurtful when you didn’t.”
“I hope you’re not expecting me to apologize …?”
They both managed a smile. Greg took Melanie’s hands and studied her fingers. He used
to know those fingers.
“I could hardly believe it when you sold the Caprice.”
“What did you expect me to do with it …..?”
“Keep her! You used to love her! It never dawned on me you’d sell her …”
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“I just wanted to be shot of anything and everything to do with you … I’m sorry, love, I
just wanted to forget you and start a new life as quickly as I could. For Jimmy’s sake as
well as my own.”
“I can understand that”
“So? What happened next?”
Greg lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply before replying. He seemed to think for a
short while and his eyes screwed up against the bright sky as he looked pensively ahead in
to the far distance.
“You see,” he said at length, “it never dawned on me that you’d sell the Caprice. Stupid,
I know, for it was the obvious thing to do – but for some reason I pictured you keeping
her. I dunno – I’d imagined you and Jimmy taking her out, or something. I thought
about it a long time. You see, I had no way of knowing whether or not you would marry
this du Chazan guy, or whether or not you even particularly liked him. For all I knew he
was rotten to Jimmy –“
“He’s not – he’s kind to Jimmy –“
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“Yes, I know. I know now. But I didn’t know it then.”
“Didn’t your little Mana-oua-oua report that to you …?” Melanie struggled to keep the
touch of sarcasm out of her voice. Greg smiled wryly and looked over at her for a
moment then resumed his stare on the horizon.
“Oh – yes – of course. She was brilliant. But I needed to leave a door open for you –for
us – you see … I had to find a way of letting you know that there was more to my sudden
desertion of you and my so-called demise than met the eye. I couldn’t walk back in to
your life and say “Hey look! Here I am!” So I decided to leave something for you that
would make you think about the whole thing. Make you perhaps want to investigate it.”
“So you left those papers hidden in the Caprice?”
“Yes, I knew you’d find them. Sooner or later. They were sufficiently well hidden to
withstand a search of the boat in the unlikely event of d’Eparne and that lot having a look,
but also sufficiently badly hidden to be found quickly enough by you cleaning – or
decorating.”
“But I sold the boat.”
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“But you sold the boat. It shattered me. All doors seemed to close about me. I even
thought about killing myself – in fact in some ways the only reason I didn’t was the
constant hope that even if I was unable to contact you again I’d be able to approach
Jimmy one day when he was a lot older.”
“The papers didn’t really make sense … I very nearly binned them.”
“The aim of them was to make you look more closely at the whole thing – which you did.
I knew you’d know there was more to it when you saw my shorthand. I knew that you’d
know you were the only person able to read it. It would then be up to you if you wanted
to follow it through. The choice was yours. You could realize there was something fishy
about it all and – as you nearly did – bin it, or investigate it. I told myself that if you
retained any feelings for me you’d investigate it. “
“Some of your so-called clues were … hopeless!”
Melanie laughed gently and touched his arm.
“Sorry baby – I’m not good at that kind of thing. And I had to do it quickly before I lost
my nerve and before Knooden changed his mind.”
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“Why – “ suddenly Melanie was serious, “why did you send us out to Ile des Chevres,
knowing it could be dangerous?”
“Well, firstly I didn’t really think it was dangerous – by this time I seriously thought the
men had long gone. Also, of course, I had no reason to think you would investigate
anything other than the beach – I just wanted you to find the tree, to know that I’d been
there, that I’d loved you. I knew you’d work out that I’d carved that literally a day or two
before leaving you.”
“Well, you were right.”
“I’m sorry about that young man. Truly.”
“It was horrible. I’ll never get over it. I couldn’t look his mother in the eyes when they
came for his body. He was my little friend. I was able to confide … all this …in him. He
was sweet.”
----------
Greg lived in Knooden’s nephew’s garage for three days after his “death”, in among the
old cars and the smell of diesel, and using the back of a wheel-less 2CV van for a bed.
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At first he experienced a sensation of overwhelming relief that he was no longer hunted,
but that soon gave way to fear of forever hiding. So long as those men lived in Noumea –
or so long as they were alive, perhaps – he had to hide. The enormity of this hit him only
after he had “died”. He spent long hours just sitting, head in hands, staring at the concrete
floor between his feet. He was still determined to get away with Mel and Jimmy, but
now knew that a long time could elapse, perhaps a very long time.
Mana brought him food. She seemed to secrete herself in and out of the garage like a
shadow, silent and mysterious. The arrival of the food became the main event of Greg’s
day, and dividing each delivery in to three small piles – for his three daily meals – became
the only entertainment, apart from eating it. The dank cloak of loneliness enveloped him.
Sometimes he cried. In the middle of the night he hatched plans, all of which seemed
reasonable in the dark and cramped solitude of the back of the car, but in the daylight
became foolish.
On the fourth day Mana also brought him clothes – a pair of ex-army trousers, a hat, a big
baggy T-shirt and some sunglasses. Each time he saw her he was so grateful that his arms
ached to hold her close to him. Sometimes he fantasized about her as he lay silent and
morose, often sleepless, through the night. Sometimes he fantasized about Melanie.
Mostly he just remained like a stone, feeling nothing, waiting. He was unable to either
wash or shave, let alone brush his teeth, and he crept out to the small stinking latrine in
the yard only after it had gone dark.
Mana showed no sign if she found that he smelt –
which she must do, thought Greg – nor that he doubtless looked a mere shadow of the
tanned boat man he used to be. Everything in the garage was dirty and much of it oily.
The only two odours in his small, dark world, were that of the latrine, which stank of shit
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and drains, and the garage itself which, along with the diesel, stank of sweat and oil and
iron. Now with four days’ growth of stubble and very dirty Greg barely recognized
himself as he peered awkwardly in to the rear view mirror.
Mana-oua-oua had also brought him a couple of sturdy grip bags laden with something.
“What is this?”
“A few extra supplies,” she replied.
“Thanks.”
“You will need them. For a while.”
They looked at each other, both silent. Her long dark hair shone, and she wore a pretty
blue and green lava-lava. Her feet were bare and she had a small shell bracelet round one
ankle.
“How is Melanie?” he asked at length.
“I do not know,” she replied, “you cannot know. You have died.”
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He knew this was true. There was no turning back. A good point was that Mel would get
the boat and the van and also a small life insurance policy that he had taken out when they
first arrived. It wouldn’t amount to much, but Mel would make the best of it, he knew.
In a warped kind of way I have provided for my wife and child, he thought bitterly. He
assumed it was fraud. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.
A small movement in the same direction from which Mana had emerged made Greg peer
in to the dark recesses of the garage, and he saw one of Knooden’s nephews materialize.
They shook hands half-heartedly. Greg tried to smile. His mouth felt disgusting. He put
on the clothes and, as directed by Knooden’s nephew, clambered in to the front of an old
lorry. Keeping his head down, he waited for the vehicle to back noisily out of the
building and turn along the narrow road. Furtively, he watched the streets of Noumea for
the last time and an overwhelming need to cry came over him, so that he bit on his fist
silently in the cab and kept his face turned away from the driver.
In some ways it was like a funeral. My funeral, he told himself. Mana had put a small
garland of frangi-pangi around his neck, as was the island custom more for greeting
people than saying goodbye, and then she had reached up and kissed him lightly on the
mouth. Tears in her eyes but smiling bravely she said:
“Goodbye, Gray-goree.”
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Greg’s one-vehicle funeral cortege made its way slowly out of Noumea. As they rounded
the bend by the garage, the nephew hooted and there was Knooden waiting by the road.
He didn’t wave, but as he caught Greg’s eye he nodded slightly, and looking out of the
rear window Greg could see Knooden watch the lorry till it was out of sight.
The nephew drove first to a town called Canala, on the other side of the island. The lorry
took a slow and agonizing route over the mountain. They had to stop several times to fill
up with water which was carried in several large jerry-cans in the back. Each stop was an
agony of waiting for the radiator to cool sufficiently for the driver to remove the cap, let
the scorching steam spurt out, then top up.
It had been dark for several hours when they reached the town. The nephew pulled in at
the little place in the centre of the town and told Greg to alight and to go straight in to a
dark alley way the entrance of which was in the shadow of the lorry. Greg obeyed and the
nephew drove away.
Greg listened to the sound of the lorry receding in to the distance and stood there in the
darkness wondering what to do next. There were no street lights and only the glow from
one or two lit rooms further along the road. The nephew hadn’t spoken at all during the
journey except to mutter things about the lorry’s engine, and Greg had been grateful for
this for he had no idea how much the nephew did or did not know. Now, however, he
wished they had discussed the sequence of events, for waiting in the dark alley was nervewrecking. Was he expected to now fend for himself? Knooden had told him he would be
taken to a safe place – surely this was not it?
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He waited some time then, legs aching, squatted down on the floor. A rat scuttled past.
The minutes ticked by. He looked at his watch – a quarter of an hour, half an hour – a full
hour. It was almost impossible to see the time in the darkness. The island people had no
idea about time and to their way of thinking it would be perfectly acceptable for Greg to
wait there a couple of hours. He was thirsty. Eventually he got up and walked to the end
of the alley and back, tripping periodically in the darkness. He peed in to a corner.
At last he heard a noise. At first it was so quiet that Greg thought it was another rat – or
similar – scurrying past. But no, there was somebody at the far end of the alley way.
Whoever it was lit a cigarette. Greg strained to look at his watch again. It had gone
midnight.
He waited uncertainly for a few minutes, half-expecting the other person to speak. Then,
as the silence continued Greg emerged from the alley. One of Knooden’s sons-in-law
was there. He grinned.
“Come,” he whispered.
Greg was led along the side of the buildings, skirting the edge of the settlement, to a small
house – really little more than a hut – situated at the corner directly behind the place. The
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son-in-law shoved the door which swung open. With a movement of the head he
indicated that Greg should go in.
A solitary electric light bulb hung from the centre of the room. The son-in-law flicked
the switch by the door, and a weak yellow luminosity filled the room, sending a circle of
yellow across the centre of the floor but leaving the sides in darkness.
“You can stay here,” said the young man in a broken pidgin French, “just for now. A few
days. A week. No more. I will bring food tomorrow.”
The young man smiled broadly, showing a row of straight, strong white teeth in his dark
face. There was a pleasant spicey odour to him and he wore a lava-lava that reached his
ankles.
“Do you live here?” asked Greg, “in this village?”
“Not far,” replied the young man.
“What is your name?”
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“Tica,” replied the man, smiling again, “you sleep now. Tomorrow food.”
And with that he was gone. Greg looked around and saw that there was a kind of pallet
on the floor, raised off the ground by what looked like the base of packing crates. A thin
goat-hair mattress covered this. Greg bent down and prodded it and instantly fleas leapt
up out of the fabric and momentarily covered his hand. He swotted them quickly and the
rest settled back in to the mattress again. There was a light smell of manure – not
unpleasant – and an overall feeling of the presence of animals, though there were none.
Looking about he saw that there was a kind of wood-burning stove in one corner with a
steel tube that ran up out of the ceiling above it.
Some dung and some small bits of
wood were piled to one side. There was also a chair. Two large timber packing crates,
both empty, to one side confirmed what the base of the bed was made from.
Greg now opened the two grip bags Mana had given him. He squatted in the centre of
the room on the mud floor directly under the light bulb. The ceiling was low and he had
hit the bulb slightly with his head, and it now swung a little from side to side, creating a
ghostly dance of light and darkness that, despite himself, sent shivers down his spine. A
cat miowled outside.
Clever girl, he thought, as he unpacked. There was one clean set of clothes – including
some underpants, which made him smile for the local people didn’t wear them – a towel,
a bar of soap and a pair of claquettes. More importantly for tonight, there was also a
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bottle of insect repellent, some kind of disinfectant, a packet of aspirin and a box full of
mosquito coils. Matches! She had even thought of matches.
Greg lit two of the coils right next to the mattress, working on the assumption – which
proved to be right – that fleas wouldn’t like the incense any more than mosquitoes did.
He then rubbed his body with insect repellent and, leaving the other bag till morning, he
fell on to the mattress and sunk immediately in to a deep and dreamless sleep.
Tica woke him very early the next morning. With him he had brought some food and
several bottles of water. There was enough of both to last several days. Tica was not
very communicative, although extremely pleasant with a constantly ready smile. When
questioned, he had no ideas and no suggestions as to what Greg’s next move should be
and it slowly became clear that this hut was Knooden’s “safe place” and that there was
nothing more to follow.
Well, thought Greg, what did I imagine he’d be able to do for me? He’s already done
more than enough for me. Now I’m on my own and must build a new life for myself.
“Is there somewhere I can wash ?” he asked Tica.
Tica indicated a hose pipe just outside the hut, connected to a tap somewhere beyond his
line of vision.
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“You wash now,” Tica said, and he made a tap-turning motion with his hand. He
disappeared and within a minute water gushed out of the hose. Quickly, Greg grabbed
the soap and doused himself, clothes and all, rubbing himself as vigorously as he could.
He had barely finished rinsing himself off when the tap was turned off again. Tica did
not reappear.
*
With a modicum of cleanliness, Greg’s spirits lifted. He assessed his situation. He had by
now lost both wife and child, also his van and his boat – and, of course, his livelihood.
On the other hand he had gained a freedom of sorts. He knew that, if he played his cards
right, he would no longer need to feel eyes on the back of his neck constantly and – after
all – he had the entire world around him in which to start again. Now that he was “dead”
going back to check-up on the money was not so dangerous. So, he had plenty of money
too. All he had to do was lie low, wait a month or two for the dust to settle, and then
contact Melanie.
He spent a great deal of time working out how he would do this last thing. He would
write to her, perhaps – no, that wouldn’t do in case somebody else saw it. He didn’t want
Melanie implicated in life insurance fraud after all this trouble. Mana-oua-oua could take
a message. She could tell Mel that there was somebody who wanted to talk to her –
somebody waiting in a car parked in the drive, even. He wasn’t fool enough to think it
would be plain sailing – Melanie could react in a number of ways, and apart from
anything else she had almost certainly told their son he was dead. Well, he would put all
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that right in due course. They would go and live … in America … in Honolulu – it didn’t
really matter. Elsewhere.
---------
Melanie sighed heavily.
“Good God …” she said.
Greg had sat down on the upturned crate again. He gave a little laugh.
“But you know what went wrong next …”
“I re-married …”
“Yes, you re-married ……”
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He said it without bitterness, even with a slight hint of humour. He shook his head
slightly and brought the palm of his hand down over the front of his face, wiping away the
sweat that had gathered there. He looked at Melanie.
“I know it’s naïve, but I was stunned. It didn’t dawn on me that you would sell the
Caprice and not find my notes, and it didn’t dawn on me that you would re-marry and no
longer be available to come back to me.”
“Try to look at it from my point of view,” said Melanie gently.
“Oh I do! I did! I looked at it from every point of view. In some ways I was proud of
you. You had got it all back together again, made a new life for yourself and Jimmy, seen
to everything remarkably well. I never doubted that you would. And to marry a man who
could look after you both was – well, sensible.”
“I didn’t love him, but he is a good man, Greg.”
“I daresay … I guessed you didn’t love him. You had loved me.”
“I still do.”
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“Do you, baby? Do you love me still? God knows, I love you.”
They smiled weakly at each other and Greg touched her fingers again, playing with them
lightly as she sat opposite him on the bench. The flies continued their incessant crazed
dance.
“Have you …” Melanie hesitated, “well, have you … been alone all this time …?”
He grinned.
“About as much as you have,” he said.
“Oh? Who?”
“There’s a French woman in Koumac I’ve been seeing a bit – off and on – over the past
year. She’s got a small shop place there. Gets about two visitors a year! She also
teaches at the mission school.”
“Do you love her?”
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“Women! Mel – hey, baby, I’m a man, aren’t I? You women – it’s all about love … I
dunno … I realized too late how much I loved you – cherished you – but for us blokes it’s
not so much about love. I’ve liked being with her. She’s nice. Love her? No, I don’t
suppose I do, but I could make a new life with her if .. if …”
“If what?”
“If you don’t come back to me …”
They both fell silent for a while. Melanie stared at her shoes. There was no need for
either of them to point-out that, as Greg was alive, her marriage to Maurice was invalid.
“I realize I’ve opened a Pandora’s box,” said Greg then. “I realize it’s not going to be
easy. But I’ve got plenty of money now, Mel. It’ll be safe to get the money now. We
can start a new life. And there’s Jimmy. Jimmy is my son.”
Melanie didn’t reply. Then she said:
“Is there anything to drink? I’m terribly thirsty.”
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“Sure.”
Greg left the room and soon returned with a bottle of diluted sirop de grenadine and a
couple of plastic mugs. He poured a drink for each of them.
-------
On the fifth day Greg managed to get hold of some wood preserving fluid, a spade and a
few other tools, and a heavy-duty sack. Tica loaned him a moped. He set off early in the
morning back over the mountains to Knooden’s shelter on Mont Rouge. It took him
almost all day to get there and the sun was barely an hour away from setting when he
began work.
His first job was to make sure that the money could not be washed away in a heavy storm
or eaten by rats. He removed it from its hiding place, his fingers ripping open the
packaging impatiently; it was completely untouched. No creature had nested in it, no
damp had got to it. He ran his fingers through it for a while … good money, money that
could change his life. All he had to do was wait for the right moment. He took some out
– enough to keep him going for a month if he was careful – and put it in his pocket. He
dug the hole slightly deeper and then put all the rest of the money, still in it’s bag, into the
sack. It filled almost half of the sack. He then put this in to one of Mana’s grip bags and
buried it carefully between the stones as before. Quickly, he made his way round the
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inside of the shelter, knocking a nail in here and there, splashing a little preservative over
the timber, and generally trying to strengthen the building which, although it was clearly
not on the point of falling down, might not survive a strong wind. He used a few
branches to strengthen the roof.
It had been dark for over an hour when he had finished. He decided to sleep there and to
set off again just before light. There were no lights on the moped, but also a moped
during the night travelling over the mountain would attract attention. It was a strange
sensation, being so poor and down at heel that he had to lie down on the bare earth to
sleep, all the while knowing there were thousands hidden away just near where his head
lay. He set off again just before first light.
It wasn’t possible to remain any longer in Knooden’s hut in Canala. Greg didn’t want to
abuse Knooden’s kindness, but also he needed to get himself in to a situation where he
could look after himself. Being dependent on Knooden’s son-in-law was no good. He
didn’t say goodbye (dead men don’t, he told himself) but left very early one morning and
– so far as everybody he had ever met was concerned – simply disappeared.
He walked as far as the main road where he got a bus as far as Touhou. It was in Touhou
that he acquired his new identity. He decided on the name Richard Henneman – just a
name that came out of his head: Richard because it was an international name that could
be English or French in origin, not to mention American or Australasian, and Henneman
because, despite everything, many people bore an inherent grudging dislike of Germans.
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Relics of the war were all over New Caledonia. This suited him. He did not want
anybody particularly befriending him. A couple of days in Touhou, however, made him
realize he’d have to try elsewhere before settling in any way, simply because he was the
only European there and that in itself attracted attention. He then got a bus – creaking at
the seams and filled with natives carrying chickens and fruit and babies – back over the
island to the southern coast, to the township of Koumac. He found a small bed-andbreakfast place run by a woman who also taught at the mission. Voluptuous, lonely and
friendly, Beatrice Florian brought to Greg a comfort and a companionship that he had
missed sorely. He remained there three months. She fed him and made love with him,
washed his clothes and tended his needs. When he lay between her big white thighs he
managed to forget things for a while, and found a level of peace and pleasure. He in
return mended the shutters and serviced the car. He’d have liked to have stayed there.
“There’s going to be a bad storm,” said Beatrice one afternoon, looking out over the sea.
She turned back in to the house and switched the radio on. They both listened. A cyclone
warning crackled out through the transistor and Greg thought about his money, tucked
away safely up on the mountain.
The storm hit with a cruel ferocity, ripping the roofs off several buildings and bringing
trees down.
The old man in the house next door was killed when his roof fell in; boats
were blown up out of the water on to the road and the road itself was broken up by the
thrashing waves that leapt up, furious, out of the sea and beat upon the earth till it broke.
Greg and Beatrice huddled under the staircase.
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“Oh, I’m so glad you are here!” she told him and hung on to him for safety.
The mission school was badly damaged. A large part of the roof was gone and the small
amount of furniture torn apart. The fragile collection of books and school equipment was
sodden and battered beyond recognition. Doors and windows had been ripped off their
hinges. Greg remained with Beatrice to help clear up and to help with the repairs, but the
cyclone seemed to serve to snap him back in to reality and Melanie, who had receded in
to the back of his mind, now re-emerged to the front. He sat down and carefully worked
it out. Eventually, after careful thought, and feeling a traitor to Beatrice, he send word to
Mana.
“What is troubling you?” asked Beatrice.
“Oh – nothing – “ He didn’t want to deceive her. She was a big, wholesome woman
who concerned herself with chickens and native children and who would not make a
scene. She was solid, unflappable, totally kind and reasonable. He knew that he would
perhaps one day tell her his story … and that she would accept it with her usual beaming
smile– but not today.
He didn’t have to wait long. Within three days Mana appeared at the door of Beatrice’s
house.
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“Gray-goree!” she greeted him with genuine warmth.
She hadn’t changed. Quiet and dignified, she shook hands politely with Beatrice and
then waited for a moment when she was alone with Greg. Her dark eyes open wide, she
listened to him.
“I want you to get a message to Melanie,” he said, “I must find a way of letting her know
that I am alive and well. It will be safe. Nobody is looking for me any more.”
He expected Mana to bow her head in acceptance of her instructions, to smile that pretty
and totally un-assuming smile, but she didn’t.
“I cannot take the words to Melanie,” she said, coming straight to the point.
“Eh ? But why not, Mana?”
“There is a little baby to be born, Gray-goree.” She leant back against the wall and waited
for her words to sink in, watching dumb incomprehension cross Greg’s face, then she
added: “last year has gone. Now you must greet the new year. This is the message from
my father.”
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Greg left Koumac the following day. It seemed that all his plans came to nothing. He felt
profoundly shocked, and he also felt – illogically – that Melanie had abandoned him.
“Come back to me, Richard,” said Beatrice, “and take care of yourself!”
She waved vigorously as the bus started to pull away.
“I’ll be back!” he called.
--------
Greg spread his hands out in front of him.
“And that’s about it,” he said. “I got the bus up here to Poum and found work helping
Ramanata and her husband, Henni. Knooden is Ramanata’s great –uncle – Lord, they
seem to be all related one way or another! They’ve got a papaya plantation here. It’s
dirty, smelly work, but I don’t mind. Between the three of us we make a pittance, but I
also get looked after. They’re friends. We work together. It’s all right.”
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“And Beatrice?”
“We see each other from time to time. I go down to Koumac, or she comes up here.
Depends.”
“And the money?”
“It’s there – in the shelter – still there. It keeps me going. Sometimes when I remember
the Caprice and life in Noumea I feel sick – but all I have to do is think of that money and
..”
“One other thing – “ Melanie interrupted him, “why did that policeman tell me that Manaoua-oua was the mother of your child?”
“Truly, I don’t know. I doubt she told him that – that’s not her way. These people are
inherently honest. Subterfuge is not their thing – they don’t understand it. I suspect
either the gendarme leapt to conclusions or else he thought he could understand more
pidgin French than he could.”
“Good God – how ridiculous – when I think of how I suffered because of that …!”
431
At that moment Ramanata entered. She made a little inclination of her head at Melanie
and then spoke in rapid native dialect to Greg. Greg stood up suddenly. He was pale.
He spoke with her in an equally rapid dialect and seemed to be asking questions. Melanie
watched them, listening, but could understand nothing.
“What’s up?” she asked.
He turned slowly towards her.
“Baby,” he said, “baby, this is it. It’s over.”
“Over?”
“The police were ready – they’ve been arrested. The men who killed Mat, the men who
stole that money, who made me hide away like this … it’s over. Two were picked up in
Noumea last night and two in Poum today … good grief – all this time …”
Greg sat down again suddenly and dropped his face forwards in to his hands.
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“Thank God, thank God …” he said. “Mel, we can go back to England – the three of us –
start again – at last.”
The sun was beginning to set when they got on the moped and made their way back to
Greg’s house in Poum. They stopped en route and bought some meat and paw-paws. It
was almost like old times, Melanie thought, sitting in Greg’s little living room, eating
grilled steak and drinking beer. The room was dark, lit only by a solitary bulb in the
centre of the ceiling. Their shadows cast huge and distorted shapes on the walls. So
much water under the bridge, so much water …..!
They made love on the raffia mat, there by the table. Their bodies met and moulded, and
it was as though they had never been apart. His big shoulders heaving over her, Melanie
hung on to him, the man she had loved so much, and kissed his adored face over and over
till, sated, he rolled on to one side and they slept.
---------
Jimmy hopped out of the landrover. At fourteen he was tall and very like his father. He
was back from school for the week-end. He was doing well. His school bag slung over
one shoulder, he strode over the lawns where sprinklers cast rainbows over the wet
grass, and kissed his family, each one in turn. He was fine, Melanie was proud of him
and watched him bend to kiss his little sister.
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Sometimes, when she wasn’t thinking about it – and she didn’t think about it very often –
Melanie would look at Celine unexpectedly … and she could see Greg there in those
brown eyes, in the shape of that little nose or the chubby little hands. Sometimes she was
so like Greg that even her hair, caught back in pig-tails with red ribbons, seemed the same
texture, the same colour, and her defiant little personality, the determined set of the mouth
… so like Greg.
But at other times it was not so at all. Most of the time, in fact, she could see very little in
Celine that made her think of Greg. Quite the opposite – when Maurice scooped her up in
to his arms and she planted baby kisses all over his face – oh, she was so like him!
Affectionate and solemn, and she had his brown eyes and his slightly-built body. She was
so very French, even though just a tot, and Maurice called her his poupee.
The vendage was over and most of the work force had gone till next year. Summer had
ended, leaving behind it the yellowed grass and an excellent cepage that would be bottled
and then left several years.
Melanie looked at the big old stone house behind her and
breathed in deeply.
“Okay, ma chere?” enquired Maurice.
“Okay,” she replied.
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--------------
THE END