Bloodlines Read online

  After the hour flight from Port Moresby, Beth steps from the small plane onto the airstrip and feels the brutal slap of heat. She finds it hard to breathe and although it’s only eight in the morning, her blouse sticks to her back. Steam rises up from the bitumen as she follows the throng of locals to the tin shed, Domestic Terminal painted in faded green on the roof. Straining to see above the heads of people, she finally glimpses Val, the only white person, standing toward the back of the crowd waiting behind a gate. Val waves, and Beth waves back. Passengers mill about in the shed, waiting for their luggage. They stare at her, she smiles hello and edges her way to the back near a wall marked with greasy hand prints, watching people head through the gate lugging lobsters in open boxes, brackish-coloured crabs bound in green vines, string bags bulging with clothes.

  ‘Misis, cargo bilong yu,’ says a spindly man with red teeth, and her backpack and guitar are finally thrust at her. She rummages in her pocket for her plane ticket and passport to show the guard at the gate, aware that she’s the only white passenger on the plane, the only person with a backpack, not a woven or string bag. But even so, he meticulously studies her ticket, her luggage, her passport, her face, and before she can object, he marks her backpack with an X in permanent red texta, and waves her through.

  Locals move out of the way and Beth feels eyes watching. She guesses she’s the novelty, something she’s felt before when travelling, and she’d usually liked it, being the strange one, seeming exotic. But today she wishes she could go unnoticed as she heads towards Val, who’s waiting near a wooden pillar with ... she’s not sure, but it looks like intricately carved things, crocodiles and flowers, maybe a Bird of Paradise, entwined and climbing all over each other. She can’t remember meeting Val but before she left she’d seen her photo. She was wearing a red blouse, navy skirt and square sunglasses, and she was standing in front of a blue brick classroom, smiling, a flock of small dark children gathered either side. But this Val before her now is smaller than she’d expected. Her hair is pepper grey and, kicking up in places, is longer than in the photograph.

  ‘Beth,’ Val says, stepping forward, both arms stretching outwards as if she’s parting the Red Sea. ‘Welcome to Papua New Guinea.’ Her brown eyes are shining. Beth drops her backpack and guitar and Val reaches for her in an awkward embrace. She smells of cheap peach soap.

  ‘Thanks,’ Beth says. ‘It’s good to get here, finally. You forget how far Perth is from everywhere.’

  Val bends to help Beth with her backpack, stuffed full of clothes and books, but Beth protests and hauls it onto her back.

  ‘I’ll carry this, then,’ Val says, picking up the guitar, and then, theatrically: ‘Let them have music!’ She laughs and points toward the parking area. ‘The car’s over there.’

  ‘Morning Misis Val,’ an older woman says as they pass, and Val answers in words Beth doesn’t understand. Others greet them or look to the ground. Most smile and giggle at the two white women and Beth sees their teeth, thick with red gunk, and her stomach lurches. The sickly smell of old sweat cloys the air. People don’t move, they remain locked in their groups, greeting friends and relatives as luggage is handled through the crowd and Val and Beth must weave in and out, step around chickens tied together at the feet, their heads lolling. In front, a woman unwraps a bundle of palm leaves, then throws her head back, ecstatic. She lifts something above her head—a lobster, maybe, or the biggest crab Beth’s ever seen—and she’s chattering, words Beth can’t make out.

  Now that she’s made it through the crowd, Beth scans the entire scene: a bustling tin shed, women in garish shapeless long dresses, kids in dirty clothes, people clapping each other on the back and shrieking strange words, and dogs and birds and lobster and pineapple and pawpaw. About as far removed from the sterile Perth airport as you can get. Beth glances up at the sky: half shrouded in storm-cloud dark blue, the rest is brilliant pink where the sun has risen.

  ‘It’s the big excitement for this town every day, the plane,’ Val says, and smiles. ‘People just come for a look.’

  Val stops by a green ute, Saint Mary’s Catholic School hand-painted in sloping black letters on the passenger door. The only Saint Mary who Beth can recall is the sinner from Egypt. She’s the sinner here, all right, while Val, in her cream blouse and navy skirt, looks straight out of the convent. The two women put Beth’s gear on the back of the ute, get in the cab and wind down the windows. Beth reaches for the seatbelt and, seeing Val doesn’t, lets it slip through her fingers back into place.

  ‘Bilas ples,’ Val says as she drives them past bamboo huts lining a lagoon, then further along, Queenslanderstyle houses, perched high on six-foot posts. Beth is surprised. What did she expect: grass huts? Tree houses? Colour explodes everywhere: bushes frothing with magenta bougainvillea, drooping palm trees and hedges thick with red and orange hibiscus flowers on both sides of the road.

  ‘Bilas means beautiful; ples is place. In Pidgin.’

  Beth breathes out a long, slow exhalation, rests her head against the seat.

  People in a long straggly line walk along the roadside. Most of them wave and Val waves back or toots the horn. Dogs scurry in front of the ute or chase after it, barking.

  ‘The long dresses the women wear, they’re meri blouses,’ Val tells her. ‘I’ve been given loads as gifts but never wear them. Too bright and big for me.’ She looks at Beth and laughs. ‘You’ll get loads too, don’t worry! And bilums—they’re the string bags the locals make. Carry anything: shopping, clothes, babies. Wonderful things.’ They take a left turn. ‘Down there’s the hospital and the beach, over that way is town.’ She points to her right. ‘We can go for a drive later. About five thousand people live on the island. Most are in villages down the highway, but this is the main town.’

  They pass a tiny bamboo hut, a giant fern sprouting from its roof, and a Coca-Cola sign propped up against the front. Five people queue outside.

  ‘That’s the 7-Eleven,’ Val laughs.

  Finally they slow down. ‘This is where the mission begins, and goes all the way to the church at the beach.’

  Val turns left along a muddy drive, pulling up outside four low-set houses, a high fence topped with curling barbed wire around them all. Beth thinks of the old Fremantle prison, with its crumbling limestone walls lined with razor wire.

  At home, she doesn’t lock her car. Clem’s never even owned a key for the farm.

  *

  ‘Now, it’s not much,’ Val says, unlocking the door of the duplex, ‘but it is mission clean! And Moses has painted the bedroom for you.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Beth says as she steps inside. She registers the faded orange lino looking tired against the baby blue walls.

  ‘The school’s painted the same colour,’ Val says, and Beth remembers the photo at Eva’s. ‘We had a tin left over.’

  Everything seems to have a precise place. A rectangular table covered with plastic tablecloth with a roses and a jar of flowers in the centre; three wooden chairs; a calendar of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hovering over a two-seater couch; a crucifix above the stove; a small kitchen. I’ll be sharing with God, then, Beth thinks. Eva will be happy. Through the open door to her left she sees a bathroom basin. Val leads her through the house, naming everything as if Beth doesn’t know what a fridge, stove or shower in this country might look like.

  ‘The bedroom’s in there. There’s only an old fan, not like the one in here,’ Val says, glancing up at the ceiling fan. ‘It should do the job, though. Tell me if it doesn’t.’

  Bunches of vines and white and pink orchids are taped to the doorframe of the bedroom. Alongside them are pieces of white and yellow paper with lopsided kids handwriting: Welcome to PNG, Hello Beth you are welcome here, Mipela laikim yu. And although Beth can’t make out the last few words, the thoughtfulness touches something in her. She feels herself relax a little.

  ‘Lena and her girl from next door did that for you,’ Val says. ‘I’ll take you over later to meet
them. Have a shower first.’ She heads for the door. ‘And you look like you could use a sleep.’

  Beth feels the sting of Val’s words. She’s related to Eva all right.

  ‘Thanks Val,’ Beth says. ‘For having me.’

  ‘Glad to,’ Val says, opening the door. ‘There’s food in the fridge. I’ll be back in a few hours. Two houses down, the red roof, if you need me. Or sing out for Moses. He’s usually in the garden.’ She turns from the front porch, calls through the screen door, ‘Oh and don’t drink the water in here. The tanks are down the side of Lena’s. We all share them—our four houses. And the toilet’s out there too. Clem’d love to know you’ve got an outside dunny!’ And she chuckles loudly.

  Beth watches through the open louvres as Val walks through the gate to the ute and drives away. After the hum of the plane and the swarming airport, everything is so quiet. Her gaze tracks the lengths of the high barbed wire fence.

  What has she agreed to?

  1974

  Rose Chadwick grows up in the outskirts of Sydney and always finds herself looking west, especially when the sun is sinking behind the land. She works the lunch and dinner shifts at The Ivory, stewing stringy beef in thick gravy, creeps in the back door when she gets home, tiptoeing past her father slumped in his lounge chair, radio blaring, empty brandy bottle by his side.

  When she turns nineteen Rose asks her Uncle Bob to take her with him on one of his runs to Perth in Roaring Forties, his crimson and silver truck which pulls three carriages. The best years of me life, me forties, he always says.

  The day Rose leaves, Jan Chadwick stands by the stone letterbox, wringing her hands, eyes misty but her smile broad: ‘It’s best you go, Rosie,’ she says. ‘I know. I’d do the same if I were you. Go now, before he comes home.’ She places her hand on Rose’s chest, presses in firmly. ‘And just you be safe, girl.’

  Rose holds her mother, a bony woman who grows thinner each year, then pulls her rucksack up and onto her back and heads for the station. She knows her mother will be watching until she rounds the corner. Rose does not look back.

  Waiting for her uncle beside Roaring Forties at the depot, she can hear men’s voices from across the yard draw closer. One lets out a low whistle when he sees her.

  ‘Well, well,’ he sniggers, ‘what precious cargo you movin’ tonight, Bobby?’

  And her uncle, beside her now, opens the passenger door of the cab and motions for Rose to climb in.

  ‘Piss off, Jenkins!’ he spits. ‘She’s me niece, for Christ’s sake.’

  The truck ploughs west as darkness falls. They stop at a roadhouse for pies and tea at nine, then Rose leans her head against the window, puts her feet on the dash and dozes, Slim Dusty crooning with Bob singing softly along. The time passes easily as they barrel towards the South Australian border: small towns and lonely roadhouses are beacons on the ribbon of road that stretches out long before them. Dead kangaroos and emus litter both sides of the tarmac. Rose always sleeps curled up in the cab; Bob unrolls his swag under the truck where he snores up a storm. By the time they reach Ceduna, Rose has knitted a red and blue beanie for Bob and a green scarf for herself.

  East of the Nullarbor Motel Bob pulls off the road and they get out, arching their backs, eager to stretch their legs. The wind screaming in over the Bight flushes their faces, and Rose’s curls fly up and about.

  ‘God, love,’ Bob says, scruffling her hair, ‘it’s like a willy-willy!’

  Within two metres of the cliff edge, Rose stands looking at the waves thrashing hundreds of feet below, spreads her arms wide, closes her eyes and takes in big gulps of sea air. It washes over her, seeps through her skin, leaves her raw and alive, and she knows, knows and doesn’t question it: she will never go home.

  They finally cut across the border into Western Australia, stopping late at night in Norseman, then early next morning they’re through Kalgoorlie and along the Great Eastern Highway to Perth. Rose rolls the strange sounding towns over her tongue—Coolgardie, Burracoppin, Kellerberrin—and when they finally reach the crest of Greenmount Hill, the first lights twinkle in the city, low and wide, below them. Miles in front, a haze smudges the horizon.

  ‘It’s the sea, Rose,’ Bob says. ‘The Indian Ocean.’

  The Indian. It sounds so exotic. Rose smiles and hugs herself against the seat. That night they eat fish and soggy chips out of newspaper at the Salvation Army Hostel in Guildford, and Bob leaves the next morning. He hugs Rose hard, then writes a phone number on a serviette and stuffs it in her pocket.

  ‘You call them if you need anything, they’ll know where to get hold of me,’ he says. He squeezes the air from her. ‘And for Christ’s sake Rosie, take care of yerself.’

  Rose stands under the mauve jacaranda tree out the front of the hostel, watching Roaring Forties slide away.

  A few days later she finds work at The Trifecta, a rambling pub high on the banks of the Swan River. She washes dishes, takes orders at the tables and when the rush hour comes, helps the cook fry chips and eggs, piles salad in small glass bowls, whips cream with an old egg beater. Men with hungry mouths and blazing eyes call out as she walks between work and home and she quickens her pace, tries not to run. Never looks back. Her shifts stretch out to fourteen hours a day and she teeters home on sore feet, stinking of deep fried food and dreaming of bed.

  A few months later she spots an advertisement taped in the window of a trade store in the town square. It’s for work in a place called Hope Valley, two hours from Perth: a cook and a roustabout are wanted.

  ‘What’s a roustabout?’ she asks Polly, the cleaner from the hostel.

  ‘No work for a girl, that’s for sure,’ Polly puffs, taking the thin white sheets from the clothesline out the back. ‘It’s man’s work. And bloody hard work too. You’re in shearing sheds from dawn to dusk and all you do is pick up wool, throw wool, and sweep up wool. All day long. That’s what you do.’

  ‘I just like the sound of country work, though, Poll. Maybe I’ll call. They want a cook too.’

  ‘Hmmppff,’ snorts Polly. ‘You’ll end up a drunkard and smelling of sheep shit.’

  Rose folds a pillow case and places it in the wicker basket.

  ‘Don’t think about it, Rose,’ Polly says sharply. ‘Best you stay put in the city. Find yourself a good fella.’

  Rose walks towards the back door. ‘I’m not after a fella,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘I just want to see the place a bit, do something different. Hell, I don’t want to be cooped up in pub kitchens for the rest of my life.’

  Within a week she’s on a train, winding through the steep, green hills east of Perth, dotted with sheep and farmhouses. The railway line follows the river, glittering in the early afternoon sun, and Rose feels the grime and dust of Guildford finally leave her skin.

  When she arrives, she walks the main street twice and can’t believe how small Hope Valley is. There’s MacMillan’s: a general store that doubles as the post office, three churches, an old flourmill now turned into tearooms, and a few brick houses between them all. Two pubs—The Bottom and The Top—bookend the lot. When she’d phoned on Tuesday about the job she was told to wait outside MacMillan’s shop, where Harry Smithson, in a red ute, would meet her at three. It’s already ten past four.

  Rose looks down the length of the main street. Not one person. Not one car. Not much hope at all.

  Yanking open the fridge door, Beth notices patches where someone’s used a scourer or brush to get rid of the mould. Inside, she finds milk, butter, six brown speckled eggs, a loaf of bread from Lim’s Freshest Bakery, a ripe pawpaw bigger than the bread and a bunch of fat orange bananas that look like breakfast sausages. She snaps off a banana and heads out the back door. She sits on the concrete steps, kicks off her boots and wriggles out of her socks, plunging her feet into the cool grass, her toes fat white grubs digging into the soil underneath. Off to her left, glossy orange Bird of Paradise flowers grow in clumps, and overhead a pawpaw tree sags under the wei
ght of large green fruit. She peels the banana and bites; it tastes nutty, its flesh pink in the centre. She stares through the chicken-wire fence to the thick jungle, vines and creepers clinging to trees, and is glad she’s finally here, so far away from home.

  ‘Hello, hello.’

  A woman opens the door of the other duplex and comes towards her, arms flailing, big breasts jiggling under a puffy green and yellow dress. What had Val called it? A meri blouse. Beth quickly tosses the peel onto the step behind her, wipes her hand down her skirt and mashes the last of the banana down in thick gulps—surprised that something so soft can actually hurt—just as the woman, the blackest person Beth has ever seen, is upon her.

  ‘Hello,’ she says again. ‘It is me. My name is Lena.’ She thrusts out her hand, silver bracelets jingling. Beth stands and shakes Lena’s hand.

  ‘I’m Beth,’ she says, and smiles.

  ‘Yes, yes. Misis Beth. We have been waiting for you, Grace and me. Grace em pikinini bilong mi em i go long nambis—sori—Grace is my girl, she at the beach with Delilah. Welcome to Papua New Guinea!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Lena keeps shaking her hand. ‘Yes, we are very lucky to have help with our teachings and our childrens at the school. Misis Val say you have planti experience.’

  Beth, freeing her hand, says, ‘I’ll just be happy to help.’

  ‘Come,’ Lena says. ‘I’ll show you.’ Beth figures she can see everything clear enough as it is—a couple of cement buildings and a bush hut—but she walks alongside Lena around the backyard. Lena’s skin, a shiny blue-black, glistens, her dark hair twisted into little knobs all over her head, her meri blouse reaching down below her calves, billowing as she walks. The concrete laundry near the back gate has a double basin and an old Hoover twintub like the one Eva owned twenty years ago. Adjacent is a bush hut with bamboo woven halfway up the sides, then open to the roof, sagging in places from the weight of palm leaves and grass.