She wants to whisper to Simon that she has some money. Could she extract a couple of notes without letting them see the whole roll of cash? She is so conscious of the bundle in the bag under her seat, she can’t believe the raskols don’t sense it too. The man’s powerful smell fills the car: tobacco and musk and grease and sweat.
Simon and the chief raskol are speaking. Julie can’t follow their rapid patter of Pidgin, back and forth — is it even Pidgin? It’s too fast to tell. She sits upright, on the edge of her seat, taut as a guitar string. Could she make a run for it? Crash off into the bush and hide? She dismisses the idea instantly; they would catch her at once. Does Simon have a weapon — a gun?
For the first time in New Guinea, she is truly frightened. Her palms are slippery with sweat, and cold as ice.
The chief raskol’s right hand rests lightly on the machete in his belt. He is frowning. Now Simon is reaching into his back pocket.
‘Simon?’ Her voice is a squeak.
‘It’s okay.’ He doesn’t look at her; his gaze is fixed steadily on the face of the man leering through the open window. As Julie watches, he pulls out his wallet and plucks out a ten-dollar note. It vanishes into the raskol’s fist as if sucked up a vacuum tube. The man is still frowning. He says something: demanding more. Simon shakes his head. The raskol’s fist thuds into the side of the Jeep, and Julie jumps. Slowly, reluctantly, Simon pulls out another note — a five this time. He shows the raskol his empty wallet, shrugs and grimaces. Frowning, the raskol accepts the five-dollar note. It’s as if he’s turning over possibilities in his mind.
Julie holds her breath. Rapidly she runs over Caroline’s self-defence lessons in her mind, the list of vulnerable places to target if she’s attacked — the throat, the crotch, the top of the foot. Could she grab the machete? She remembers the axe-blade scar on Tony’s head. She remembers the promise she made to him: Don’t do anything silly . . . It was almost the last conversation they ever had. Her eyes blur with sudden tears.
And then, at last, the raskol smacks his palm on the Jeep’s bonnet. He yells something over his shoulder, and the car blocking their way begins to inch aside. Julie hadn’t even noticed the driver at the wheel, waiting for his orders. Simon quickly winds up the window and shoves at the gear stick. The Jeep rolls forward; the chief raskol jumps out of the way. The car in front jerks back and forth. ‘Come on, come on,’ mutters Simon. His hands grip the wheel. The raskols yell at each other, flinging their hands in the air.
As soon as there is room to pass, Simon throws the Jeep into gear and the vehicle shoots forward through the gap. Then they are roaring away, bumping from side to side as the Jeep hurtles down the road.
Julie lets out the breath she’s been holding. ‘What did you say to them?’
‘Not much. Asked them where they were from. Figured out he was one of my wontoks, luckily, that’s why they let us go.’
‘Did you have to give them all your money?’
Simon laughs. ‘Most of my cash is in my pocket. The wallet was just for show, in case something like this happened.’
‘I’ll pay you back,’ says Julie.
‘Don’t worry about it.’
She sneaks a sideways look at him. He is frowning ahead, his profile set and stern. Suddenly he looks completely New Guinean; she can’t find a trace of Patrick, or any European, in his face. He is one of them, a wontok; this is his world, the world of haggling and payback, village obligations and village justice. These negotiations are as much a part of him as the world of the boarding school cricket team and model aeroplanes and reading Graham Greene.
Julie looks away, at the blurred reel of bush unscrolling past the window. It’s beginning to rain again, the heavy drops pelting against the glass. She feels safe, closed inside the Jeep, with Simon beside her. She wriggles down in her seat and closes her eyes.
20
Without consciously thinking about it, Julie is half-expecting Simon to take the lead when they find the school at last. He is the man; he’s older than she is; he’s taller; he’s the driver. But as they walk up to the door of the low fibro building, Simon drops back to let Julie go ahead of him, and it’s Julie who raps on the door.
They wait.
‘Maybe there’s no one here,’ says Julie. ‘It is the holidays.’
Part of her wants to seize any excuse to turn and run; her stomach is churning.
‘Someone’s coming,’ says Simon.
The door creaks open. A slightly built white woman peers out at them through round, wire-rimmed spectacles. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’
Julie’s mouth is dry. ‘We’re trying to find Helen McGinty. I think she’s a student here?’
‘Oh, yes.’ The woman opens the door a little wider and her face relaxes into a smile. She looks over Julie’s shoulder at Simon. ‘You’re family, I take it?’
‘Yes,’ says Julie.
‘She’s not here at the moment, the boarding school’s closed over Christmas. Helen spends the holidays with one of the teachers, Miss Elliot. Wait there a moment, I can give you the address.’
The woman retreats swiftly away down the corridor, and returns with an address scribbled on a scrap of paper. ‘Down past the airport, turn right at Griffiths Street.’
‘Wow,’ says Julie, slightly dazed, as she and Simon climb back into the Jeep. ‘That was easy.’
‘So far,’ says Simon. He reverses the Jeep out of the car park. ‘Now comes the hard part.’
Goroka is a larger town than Mt Hagen, better laid out and more attractive, with well-tended gardens and more established houses. ‘People stay here longer than they do in Hagen,’ says Simon. ‘Hagen’s still a frontier town. There are a lot more expats in Goroka.’
He pulls up the Jeep in front of a house on stilts, surrounded by poinsettia bushes. A small green car is parked underneath the house; a washing line, hung with tea towels, is strung between the supporting struts. Julie opens her door, then looks back at Simon, who hasn’t moved. ‘You’re coming with me, aren’t you?’
‘Maybe I should stay here.’
‘Why?’
Simon sighs and opens his door. ‘Okay, I’ll come.’
Again he lets Julie go first as they stump up the stairs to the front door. Julie clutches her shoulder bag with the yellow envelope inside. Can it really be only this morning that she found it? Now the day is almost over; the sky is beginning to grow dark. Julie pulls open the fly screen and knocks at the door. She can hear music playing inside — a pop song. It might be ‘You’re So Vain’.
The music stops abruptly, and Julie hears footsteps crossing the floor. She tries to swallow, but her throat is dry. Nervously she tucks her hair behind her ears.
The door cracks open, and a brown eye peers out at them.
‘Hello,’ says Julie. ‘Are you Helen?’
The door opens wider. A girl, about the same age as Nadine, perhaps a little younger, twelve or thirteen, wearing a neat blue-and-white cotton dress, stands with her hands barring the doorway. Her hair is thick and dark and straight, smoothed back from her forehead. A tiny apple hairclip gleams behind each ear. She stares mistrustfully out at Simon and Julie. Her skin is a shade darker than Simon’s.
‘Yes, I’m Helen,’ she says in a low voice.
‘Helen McGinty?’ Julie’s voice trembles.
‘Yes.’
Julie holds out her hand. ‘My name is Julie McGinty. I think I’m your sister.’
The girl’s face goes blank, a curtain drawn across. She does not move.
Simon says, ‘Is your teacher here? Miss Elliot?’
The girl’s head turns, and she calls to someone in the house behind her. She is still holding onto the doorjamb, blocking the entrance, as if she thinks they will storm in and trample her.
Miss Elliot appears behind Helen’s shoulder. Julie feels a slight shock as she sees that the teacher is a national, or more likely mixed-race, her skin golden-brown, sprinkled with a smattering of darker freckles, her fuzzy hai
r springing out in an afro around her head. She’s young, only a little older than Simon. She wears jeans and a meri blouse. She stares out at Julie and Simon with a puzzled frown.
‘I think perhaps we’d better come inside,’ says Simon.
Miss Elliot moves in front of Helen with a protective motion. She says, ‘I’m sorry, who are you?’
‘She says she’s my sister.’ Helen flickers her dark eyes at Julie. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘This is Julie McGinty,’ says Simon. ‘And my name is Simon Murphy, I’m a friend.’
Slowly Miss Elliot stands aside. ‘Okay. Maybe you should come in.’
The house is comfortably messy; books are scattered about, a cardigan dropped on the back of a chair, a pair of clogs kicked off beside the door. There’s a Van Gogh poster on one wall. With a pang, Julie thinks of her own untidy home, with Caroline, back in Melbourne.
‘Now,’ says Miss Elliot severely, in a teacher’s voice. ‘What is all this about, please?’
But Julie is already shaking out the contents of the yellow envelope onto the dining table. Report cards skid onto the floor and Julie clumsily snatches them up. Helen moves a wooden fruit bowl aside to make more room; her face is expressionless.
‘This is you, isn’t it? Your school bills — your reports — and this photo? I mean, you’re older, obviously — in real life, I mean, not in the photo —’ Julie hears herself gabbling, breathless. Of course it’s Helen. She’s started in the wrong place. She takes a deep breath and tries to catch Helen’s eye, to look at her directly. But Helen is staring down at the table; she won’t look at her.
‘Listen,’ says Julie. ‘Your father’s Tony McGinty, right? Well, he was my father, too.’
At that Helen does look up. ‘Was?’
There is a silence.
Simon says gently, ‘I’m sorry, Helen. We have some bad news for you.’
‘He’s dead,’ blurts Julie, before she can stop herself. Without warning, tears sting her eyes and she has to turn away. In a muffled voice she goes on, ‘It was just before Christmas . . . He was flying from Koinambe to Mt Hagen . . . His plane crashed. The weather was really bad — he shouldn’t have taken off, probably — he was usually very careful — he crashed in the Jimi Valley. You know he was a pilot? Yes, of course you do . . .’
She is rambling again.
There is another silence. Miss Elliot crosses the room to put her arm around Helen’s shoulders.
Helen says, ‘I didn’t know him.’ Her voice is flat and small. She picks up the tiny photo of herself from the table and stares at it as if it were the face of a stranger. Then a flash of fear crosses her face, and she turns to Simon. She says, ‘He paid for my school. Who will pay my school fees now?’
Simon clears his throat. ‘Well . . .’
‘I will!’ Julie says. ‘I’m your big sister. Tony was my father, too. We’re sisters; I’ll look after you. You can come back to live in Australia with me, you can go to my school. It’s perfect, we have a spare room in our house — We could adopt you!’
‘Hold on a second,’ says Simon.
‘My mum will say yes, I know she will! She always wants to help people.’ But Julie’s voice wavers.
‘I don’t want to go to Australia.’ Helen’s voice rises, her dark eyes widen in panic.
‘No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do,’ says Simon. ‘Right, Julie?’
‘This is all very sudden,’ says Miss Elliot. ‘Perhaps you should give us some time to think.’
Julie feels her temper rise. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s got nothing to do with you. I’m Helen’s family; it’s our business, not yours.’
‘The school is acting as Helen’s guardian —’ Miss Elliot begins.
‘But I’m her sister. I’m her next of kin!’
‘Julie, slow down,’ says Simon.
‘She’s my sister,’ says Julie again. Impulsively she moves around the table and tries to embrace Helen. But Helen pushes her away. She has begun to cry. Sobbing, she starts to scrape together the scattered papers and shovel them back into the yellow envelope.
Julie says, ‘What are you doing?’
‘They’re mine,’ says Helen. ‘Mine, not yours.’
Julie knows Helen is right, but she can’t help feeling that the papers belong to her. She found them, they were Tony’s. She scrabbles for the report cards, the letters, that Helen hasn’t reached, clutching them to her chest.
‘Julie . . .’ says Simon.
The papers spill to the floor and both girls dive to retrieve them. Their heads bang together, and Helen cries out. An arrow of pain shoots through Julie’s skull, where she cut her head when she crashed the car that morning. Helen lets the papers fall, weeping bitterly, and Miss Elliot puts her arms around her. Julie, grimly determined, sweeps the papers into the envelope. She feels like crying too, but she won’t let herself. This meeting has been such a mess; she has ruined everything. Her hands are shaking as she thrusts the last letter into the envelope and stands up.
‘I think perhaps you should leave now,’ says Miss Elliot.
Simon raises his hands placatingly. ‘Okay. Okay.’ He shoots a look at Julie, at the envelope in her hands. ‘Maybe you should leave that here?’
Julie hugs the envelope to her chest; then she slowly lays it down on the table.
‘Okay,’ says Simon. He takes Julie’s arm and steers her toward the door.
‘Oh, please,’ says Julie. ‘Please —’
‘Maybe we could come back tomorrow?’ says Simon. ‘Give us all a chance to cool down?’ He looks at Miss Elliot, who hesitates, then gives an almost imperceptible nod of agreement.
Then Julie is stumbling down the stairs, with Simon gripping her elbow. Night is creeping through the streets; the deafening thrum of cicadas rises from the garden. The sky is streaked with pink and orange like the lining of a passionfruit. Julie trips on the last step, and Simon catches her.
‘Careful,’ he says.
She tries to say thanks, but it bursts from her throat as a sob.
21
Safe inside the Jeep, Julie fishes a grubby handkerchief from the depths of her bag, scrubs at her eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. ‘So,’ she says. ‘That didn’t go very well, did it?’
‘What did you expect?’ says Simon, driving. ‘Did you think she’d run into your arms and weep for joy?’
Julie says nothing. She stares out at the houses on stilts, nestled in their half-wild gardens. Not even colonial Goroka can tame the jungle completely.
‘Sorry,’ says Simon.
‘Can we not talk about it?’
‘It’ll be better tomorrow,’ says Simon. ‘When she’s had a chance to get used to the idea. You’ll see.’
He steers the Jeep through the darkened streets of the town, searching for the motel Patrick recommended. They are too tired to speak. At last he pulls up outside a small, rundown motel. A faded sign announces Paradise Lodge. Simon switches off the engine.
‘Finally,’ he says.
Julie looks at him. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’ve never driven this far before. Not the whole way.’ He flexes his fingers. ‘So.’
‘I’m going to pay,’ says Julie. ‘I’ve got cash.’
‘Don’t book a room for me. I’ll sleep in the Jeep.’
Julie hesitates, but she’s too exhausted to argue with him. Anyway, should she be throwing money away on motel rooms? It might mean one more term at school for Helen. If Simon wants to sleep in the car, that’s up to him. ‘Fine,’ she says wearily, and slips down from the Jeep.
She pushes open the door to reception. The stench of grease almost bowls her over. An elderly white man behind the counter is tucking into a plate of bacon, eggs and sausages, all slathered in tomato sauce. He peers up at her grumpily, not pleased to have his dinner interrupted.
‘I’d like a room, please.’
The man looks past h
er shoulder for a companion that isn’t there. ‘On your own, are you?’
‘Um — yes.’
‘Bit young to be travelling alone, aren’t you?’
Julie draws herself up. ‘I’m eighteen,’ she says. ‘I’ve stayed by myself in hotels hundreds of times.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ He stares at her, sceptical. ‘Single room?’
She hesitates only for a second. ‘Double.’ The temptation to stretch herself luxuriously in a huge bed after this longest of days is irresistible.
The manager gives her a leering look, and her heart sinks. ‘Luggage?’
‘It’s in my car.’
‘How many nights?’
She considers. ‘Better make it two.’
He scratches himself. ‘What are you doing in town, sweetheart?’
‘Visiting family . . .’ Why is she even answering his questions? She pulls out her purse. ‘Can I pay now?’
He shrugs. ‘If you want.’
Even as she’s counting out the cash, she’s berating herself. Dumb, dumb, you don’t pay first! What if the room’s no good? She’s already given him the money; now she’s got nothing to bargain with. But it’s too late, she’s too embarrassed to say she’s changed her mind.
He pushes the register toward her and she signs it neatly. She has done this before, in Brisbane, before she flew up to Port Moresby. But Caroline booked that room. Julie only had to turn up and pay . . . She remembers, too late, that she meant to use a fake name — is that against the law? Oh, well, she’s obviously not cut out for a life of crime.
The manager fishes a key from a hook and leads Julie outside, to a row of rooms whose doors face the car park. The Jeep is there, but she can’t see Simon. Is he hiding? He wouldn’t abandon her — would he?
The manager opens the door and stands aside so she can see the room. ‘Very nice,’ she says, distractedly. Is she supposed to tip him now, or something?
The man sniffs. ‘You want some dinner? I could rustle you up some eggs or something. I can bring it to your room if you like. Maybe you’d like some company.’ He leans against the doorjamb and looks her up and down.