Bloodlines Read online

  She holds his gaze. They haven’t discussed this.

  ‘Tassie could be a good idea, Mum,’ Clem says.

  ‘That’d be lovely.’

  But Beth looks away; she can’t imagine leaving them again.

  *

  At dusk one Sunday, Beth and Sam walk towards the lighthouse at South Mole, looking into the plastic buckets of fishermen and kids. Slimy grey herring swim around uselessly under a lip of blood. Sam pulls Beth close, reaching under her shirt, his cold hand resting on her hip. The wind whips her hair up and about and Sam flinches as it crosses his face. She tries to nestle into him, over-stepping to keep in time with his longer stride.

  Beth has this sense, sometimes, that it’s all too hot, all too hard. Her clothes stick to her and she knows Mr Reis and the Year Eight boys try desperately not to look at her chest. The green T-shirt has dark green patches leaking out from her armpits and the small valley between her breasts has dots of dark green as well. Beth reaches for her long curls, twists them high on her head and snaps a tight band around them. It’s nearly lunch time.

  Delilah likes to braid Beth’s hair in the haus win, those thin brown ropes kicking up at the end. And every time she tells her she has nice hair. Soft, long. Feel nice. Not like my hairs.

  But Beth doesn’t like her hair today. There’s too much of it, it takes too much effort. She’s tempted to shave the bloody lot off and go home, bald and bare, to Clem. At least it would be honest, she thinks. A laying down, a baring all, instead of the girl who’d scuttled away. She looks at the date on the blackboard. It’s been five months.

  ‘Misis.’ Abraham calls. ‘Misis Beth, what’s this word?’

  Beth goes to his side, crouches by the wooden desk. She can smell tinned fish and sweat on him.

  ‘Anarchy,’ she says quietly. ‘It means ... out of control. Lawless.’

  Abraham looks at her. ‘Like in Verona?’ he asks. ‘You know, with them Romeos and Juliets?’

  ‘Yes,’ Beth says, standing up. ‘Like Verona.’ Abraham bends over the book and continues reading. She fixes her eyes on the tight balls of hair on his scalp.

  And like here, she thinks. And there. And me.

  2006

  Somewhere east of Walpole, they pull up just on dusk, a streak of orange pollen blazing through the sky.

  ‘Stay here, I’ll go,’ says Sam, turning off the ignition.

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait?’ Beth says quickly. ‘It’s probably just a shower, it’ll be over in a bit.’

  Craning forward to look up through the windscreen, he shakes his head. ‘Nah, looks like it’s set in.’

  He wrenches his jumper and shirt over his head, tosses them into the back seat, then wriggles out of his jeans. ‘Stay here, no point both of us getting wet,’ he says, opening the door. ‘Time me.’

  In one sleek movement he’s out and slamming the door, races to the boot, grabs the tent and rushes in front to the clearing. He motions for her to turn on the headlights and she watches him, her naked longlimbed Sam, assemble tent poles and lay out the grey and yellow tent, then the fly, his skin milky-smooth in the light. Now that the rain is easing, the chatter of birds and the warble of a magpie fill the clearing, and Beth watches as he rams pegs into sodden earth and ties the last rope to a peppermint tree. He stands barebummed, hands on hips, surveying his work.

  Beth, naked now too, comes up behind him, her arms encircling his thin white hips; so white, blue-white. He jumps, and she loosens her hold as he turns, long arms gathering her in. They hold each other in the softening rain, in that grove, miles from anywhere, Southern Ocean booming.

  ‘Eight minutes,’ she whispers finally. ‘You are amazing.’

  He laughs. ‘I grew up in Tassie, remember. We learnt to do it from a young age. Otherwise you’d never bloody camp!’ He looks down at her and at that moment everything feels full and ripe. He bends to kiss her.

  They run with their gear to the tent and towel each other dry. He pours red wine into plastic cups and cuts slabs of blue cheese for their crackers. On the mattress, she snuggles into him as he feeds her slices of pear and sultanas, one by one, and they listen to the waves throw themselves at the beach behind them.

  ‘Beth,’ he says, grey eyes swimming. ‘Marry me.’

  1976

  Clem, Rose and the baby slide through those first few weeks. Eva visits every day with food and takes the baby outside for fresh air so that Rose can sleep. Rose wakes to find the bassinet under the dappled shade of the wattle, and Eva snoring softly on a blanket alongside. The baby feeds like she’s been here before, and Rose feels something she’s never known: pride and accomplishment, relief and love, so much love, every time she gazes at her little Beth, dozy drunk on milk. She spends hours just staring at her.

  But five days later Beth is screaming blue murder most of the night and day. Her little back arching, her body tight with colic, as tight as a washing board. The clinic sister comes one morning at Eva’s request and brings gripe water and Infacol, and though Rose resists, she knows she can’t go on like this. The days inch along and she watches the clock above the stove, waiting for Clem’s ute to come up the drive at dusk. The house is a mess, she hasn’t started dinner and the baby won’t settle. She reminds herself this is what she’s always wanted and she knows she loves this squawking baby but some days she could head out the back door, hear it whack the side of the house, and just keep walking.

  2006

  In the afterglow, they can’t keep their hands off one another. Beth walks past the fridge as Sam’s coming through the back door and they brush their fingers over each other as they pass. He works in the shed or out in the small courtyard, planting vegies and sunflowers in wine barrels sawn in half. She reads in the loft, plans lessons or cooks dinner, and every hour he seeks her out. He sneaks up behind, gentle at first, then pushes her hard against the chair or wall, mouth hot on hers, hand forcing up her shirt, she bites his neck and wraps her legs around him.

  Then they slip back to their places, losing themselves in the jobs that need to be done. Late afternoon they stroll along South Beach, or ride Sam’s vintage Triumph motorbike, a recent purchase, along West Coast Highway to Sorrento and back, and for a while, everything seems clear and bright.

  But then Beth begins to notice that Sam heads to the pub more than he used to. He phones from work and leaves a message to say he’s out with mates, and when he comes in, she smells beer and greasy food. And he always wants to talk about Tasmania, his family, how they’d love it if he and Beth visited, even lived there. And when Beth tells him it’s the middle of the school year, that she can’t leave her students, she’s beginning to think what she doesn’t want to think: that she is buying time.

  She finds herself snapping when he finishes her sentences, asks him to let her speak. When she goes for her morning run along the coast it worries at her, his interjections: it’s like she’s losing the shape of herself somehow. Most nights they eat fish or squid he’s caught and a cake she’s made, one of Eva’s neverfail recipes. And when they fall into bed, he reaches for her, long lean tentacles wrapping around her, taking her away from the little terrace house near the beach so she forgets who she is, who he is, where he’s from. After, she feels stoned and heavy. He always lies with a leg or arm thrown over her; it feels heavier the closer he gets to sleep.

  *

  It’s too late by the time she realises she has to keep busy, keep moving. Can’t stop. She runs every morning, works long hours at the girls’ school on the hill, stays late for extra meetings. He has dinner waiting by the time she gets home. Beth is sick of fish.

  Beth wakes at five and knows what to do. She puts a load of washing in the twintub and sits on the cement floor of the laundry, sipping tea. She looks out at the sky and watches it gradually lighten. Birds in the jungle behind her empty their cries into the early quiet of the dawn. She feels numb. Won’t let thoughts in. When the light in Lena’s house switches on, she jumps up, dumps her clothes in a bucket to
hang out later, and hurries for her house. Her trainers are on and she is running along the waterfront and weaving through the dirt tracks of Chinatown before six.

  For weeks, Beth is at school early, works through the lunch break, setting up lessons, reading students’ work, marking papers. National exams for Year Eight are early next term and she spends hours in the library looking at past papers, photocopying examples, making up her own questions. And after all this, when she hands out the thick revision booklets she’s compiled, the students look taken aback, slowly turning the pages, overwhelmed by the masses of print.

  Early one morning Hosannah is waiting for her by the school gate, holding a homemade card and a bunch of frangipanis.

  ‘I did three pages last night, Misis Beth,’ she says.

  ‘The best help. Thank you.’

  And while Beth has these moments of pleasure, these flickers of joy, she often feels differently. Not pleasant at all. Like when she finds herself in town sometimes, on an errand for Val, staring at what Lena calls a spark man, crazy with hooch or the local steam, and she looks right at him, daring him to have a go. She has this rage in her, this angry resentment for the world, and she doesn’t know what to do with it. She dives off the main wharf at five and swims furiously for thirty minutes. She fries chokos and beans or pumpkin and aibika to have with rice for dinner. Lena sits out in the haus win but Beth plays guitar in her room. Knows that Lena is wondering.

  *

  She sees the line of women in their bright, puffy meri blouses winding through the mission, and knows they are coming for her. In the haus win she sits cross-legged on the bamboo bench, a mosquito coil burning its way round and round underneath. Lena is leading them, and behind her Delilah in a T-shirt—FCUK in bold silver across the middle—is holding Grace’s hand. Then there are two older, fleshy women from church. They’re chattering in island language and Ruth is last of all, swinging a fern frond over her shoulders, swatting at midges and mosquitoes. Beth closes her book and waits. When Lena sees Beth, she points her out to the others and waves.

  ‘Moning masta,’ Lena says, as they reach the haus win.

  Beth frowns. Lena never calls her that.

  ‘Sori, mi sori tru ... Beth, susa.’ Lena reaches out for Beth’s hand, and in turn Beth shakes all the women’s hands. Grace wriggles free from Delilah and climbs into Beth’s lap, running her fingers over Beth’s forearm. The haus win feels too small for all these women, who have worry all over their faces. Except Delilah. She kicks at the sand and tries to suppress a smile.

  Some sit on the bench, others squat on the sand. The women talk about the market and work; Lena even asks about Clem. Beth finds this difficult, this tiptoeing around. She just needs to know why they’ve come.

  ‘Lena wants to start a shop,’ Delilah says finally, her voice jumpy and high.

  ‘Nogat!’ Ruth clicks her tongue and shoves Delilah. ‘You wait, girl. Lena will talk.’

  Lena, sitting next to Beth, looks at her with big black eyes. Something crosses her face: a look of pleading perhaps, or fear, and then it’s gone. Lena smiles.

  ‘Well, susa,’ she begins, and brushes a mosquito from Beth’s shoulder. ‘We’ve been thinking. I got an idea, something for us women here. Something I want since I was pikinini in the village.’

  ‘The shop!’ Delilah calls out, and Ruth swipes her with the fern frond.

  ‘Yes, Delilah’s right. But not just shop, more like restaurant. For whites you know—tourists—and our people too.’ And then she’s away: the colour of the tables, the pots they will plant flowers in, the food they can cook, the vacant kai bar near Lim’s. The more she talks, the more excited the other meris become, as if the fire in the haus win is burning, making their faces shine. Grace scrambles up from Beth’s lap and throws herself at Delilah. They laugh and giggle and Beth watches Delilah dance with skinny Grace, twirling around and around in the sand. The other meris have turned to each other and chatter excitedly. Gutpela tru. Kukim rais na kari. Baim pis. Even Ruth is smiling now. And Beth, still sitting while everyone else is standing, feels anxious. She’s not sure how she fits into all this but she hears Clem in the distance: Yer name’s written all over it.

  The din finally stops and Lena sits down, takes Beth’s hand. Everyone is quiet.

  ‘Susa,’ she says, ‘we need help. We never done this before. But you know these things. You people know business. Lim, he will give you the shop.’

  Beth feels the wind knocked from her. ‘No. No,’ she says. ‘I know nothing.’

  Delilah’s thumb. It’s better now, but it could have got worse.

  ‘We are just asking for some small help,’ Lena tries to reassure her. ‘It will be ours. Mine really. Lena’s Place. I have liklik moni saved, na gutpela pays from school. We only open nighttime during the week—after school. On weekends, lunch and dinner.’

  Beth takes a deep breath. Maybe. Pirate’s gone. She needs to keep moving, keep busy.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, trying to convince herself. ‘Okay. I will help. You can do the arrangements, Lena, you can speak to Lim, but I will help you work out what to say. We can have a plan.’

  One of the old women looks confused.

  ‘Yes!’ cries Delilah. ‘She says yes!’

  And she’s tossing Grace into the air and they’re all whooping and cheering, clutching each other and dancing in the sand.

  1976

  Now that the Infacol has kicked in, Rose hardly knows what to do with herself when the baby sleeps. She roams from window to window, room to room, stares out at the dying paddocks, turns back to the room, to the dishes caked in porridge, the nappies brought in from the line the day before and dumped on a chair by the fire. The congratulations cards still needing replies. She shakes her head to clear the fog. What to do. What to do.

  It’s ten. The baby’s been asleep for two hours—when does that happen? Rose resists the urge to check that Beth’s still breathing. She imagines her heavy legs sinking through the floorboards, down to the earth, taking root. Can’t move. Can’t move.

  ‘Shit, Rose,’ she whispers viciously, exasperated with herself. ‘Just do something!’

  Of course what she most wants to do is run. Just dash out the door, down the steps, along the gravel drive, barefoot and all. Through the gate and just keep running. Run until her guts burn with a stitch, her throat is desert dry and her legs are raw. Run until she can’t feel this anymore. Till she’s sick. Till she can’t breathe. Till she’s gone.

  Suddenly Beth’s wail splits the air, and Rose highkicks a pile of nappies. They tumble to the floor as she storms down the hall.

  The old kai bar endures four evenings and one weekend of scrubbing, washing, painting, sewing, and finally sheds its skin. The floor is mopped four times, the louvres cleaned with vinegar and the deep fryer, beyond repair except as a nest for a gaggle of rats, has been replaced with a secondhand one from The Lagoon. The centrepiece of the restaurant is near the till: the new bain-marie Lena ordered through Lim’s, and Ruth can’t stop staring at it, running her fingers over the sparkling surface. Earlier, Val brought down an old blackboard from school and on it Beth wrote Lena’s Place Open Tonight. It stands outside on the grass, and another glossy yellow sign hangs above the door.

  ‘Well done, you meris,’ says Beth, hands on hips. ‘Bilas ples!’

  Delilah jumps off a table where she’s been reaching up to wash the last of the ceiling fans.

  ‘Dispela ples i nambawan tru!’ she shouts.

  *

  Balloons and orchids are tied up with string and shells, and taped to the corners of the room and the handles of the louvres. The restaurant’s swarming by 6pm. Tables are filled with families from school, people from the market, some tourists who’ve driven up from The Lagoon, locals Beth’s never seen before. Music from Buka blasts from the stereo, a gift from Val. Ruth and Lena ladle steaming food from the bain-marie, Delilah clears tables and Beth stays hidden out the back: cooking, washing dishes, cutting up fruit.<
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  Val sticks her head round the door, beaming: ‘Fantastic turnout!’

  ‘More than I thought,’ says Beth, looking up from the sink.

  ‘You’ve done a great job, Beth, a great job with all this. They’re so lucky. I knew you’d be able to help.’ Beth looks at her—the penny dropping—and Val reddens slightly. ‘Better go,’ she says, and dashes out the door.

  At one point when things get hectic, Beth helps clear tables. Ned and Bill are eating by the door and she brings more serviettes, a bottle of water and glasses.

  ‘Beth, this place is unbelievable,’ says Ned. He leans back in his chair, big gut skimming the table. ‘What this island’s needed all along!’

  ‘Yep. These meris have done an amazing job.’

  ‘Sure have,’ says Bill. ‘Better than the Crown in Moresby, I reckon!’

  The women at the next table titter.

  ‘You know, Beth,’ Ned says, wiping his mouth with a serviette, ‘years ago there was this young white woman, wife of a policeman up here, she had a native houseboy and she was planning a big dinner party one night. She said to him, Catch a kakaruk, pluck it and put it in the fridge.’ He looks at Bill knowingly, then back at Beth: ‘And she found it a few hours later in the fridge—still alive! Plucked and bloody freezing!’ Ned bangs his hand on the table and laughs. Beth takes his empty beer bottle, rolls her eyes at Bill. ‘At least your meris know what they’re doing!’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘They’re not my meris, Ned. They employ me.’ And as she walks away, she hears Bill laugh.

  ‘She’s a touchy one,’ says Ned, loud enough for her to hear. ‘These white women, there’s no pleasing—’

  ‘Aw give her a break, mate,’ says Bill. ‘She works damn hard, and you know it.’