Bird of Paradise. Rosemary Esmonde Peterswald
the shutters, crossing the floor to clamber back into bed. Yet it was to be many hours before she finally fell asleep, for a huge wind came up from the water, rattling the shutters and thrashing the trees outside her window. In the distance, she could hear the waves tumbling on the shore. The gusts of wind were so strong that she thought for a moment the whole building would be blown away. However, after what seemed like an eternity, it finally died down, and she fell into an exhausted sleep.
In the morning, Merryn awoke with a sense of loneliness and expectation. Which was the strongest she wasn’t sure? For a moment she felt embarrassed about last night. Had anyone heard her outburst? But the more she thought of what Jake had said about telling her mother and Amy about their baby, the madder she got. What a nerve. Even if he said he didn’t really mean it. Or did he? She knew he would do anything to protect his career. Hadn’t he given up his son in the first place?
When she glanced at her watch, she was surprised to see it was already nine. Would breakfast still be on? But she needn’t have worried—for when she went downstairs, a beaming young Papuan, wearing an orange lap lap and a red hibiscus tucked into a thicket of sooty hair , showed her to the same table she and Jake had sat at last night. Shortly she served herself a few small pieces of pawpaw and pineapple from the buffet in the corner. By the time she was back at her table, the waiter was hovering with a steaming coffee pot and a copy of the South Pacific Post.
‘Thank you,’ she said, giving him a smile.
‘Emi olrait, missus,’ he said cheerfully, his whole face glistening.
Merryn, too, was perspiring terribly, and it seemed even hotter than yesterday.
‘Ah, there you are. You survived the Gubba then? God wasn’t it howling?’ It was Jo, the receptionist from yesterday. This morning Merryn was aware of her bright airy smile and easy manner. Yesterday she hadn’t really noticed that, nor that Jo was pretty, in a country sort of way, creamy skin contrasting to rich dark hair, which this morning was tied back in a ponytail. The skirt she wore was even shorter than yesterday’s, and on her feet she was wearing a pair of rubber thongs. Merryn wondered if she was up in Moresby with the public service. Or was she perhaps a schoolteacher, working in the pub in her spare time?
Or was this her main job? Before she had a chance to ask, Jo straightened the small vase of flowers in the centre of the table and cast her eyes to the window.
‘The blighter comes straight in from the water.’ Then pointing to a Chinese trade store with a galvanized roof across the road, she waved her hands in an exaggerated arc. ‘A few years back it blew that roof clean into air, ending up in the street...lucky it was at night and no one was around.’
‘I thought the whole pub would blow down,’ Merryn said. ‘It seemed to go on for hours.’
‘Ah, it must’ve been worse here,’ exclaimed Jo, eyeing a scraggly palm tree alongside the veranda with a tangle of tattered fronds hanging in shreds and a pile of fallen coconuts strewn at its base. ‘I’m at Badilli. It wasn’t quite as bad there. But what d’you say?’ she asked, looking towards the kitchen. ‘Can I get you something hot? Bacon and eggs perhaps?’
Merryn could think of nothing worse in this heat. ‘No, this is fine, thank you.’
‘Well, help yourself to some more fruit if you like.’ She pointed to the buffet. ‘There’s heaps more where that lot came from.
It’ll just go to waste if not eaten. Anyway,’ she added, looking at the paper in Merryn’s hand, ‘I’ll leave you in peace to catch up on the news. Not that there’s much in that...never is. I’ve a copy of The Australian if you’d like. A few days old mind you. Always is.’
‘Thank you, but I read yesterday’s on the plane up.’
‘More killed in Vietnam. You see that?’ Jo raised a neatly plucked eyebrow and sighed in exasperation. ‘Jees, that’s some war we should’ve stayed out of. Let the Yanks get on with it. Bloody Holt had the hide to commit us. Then what’d he do? Up and disappear into the bloody ocean. Never to be seen of again. Probably living it up on some tropical island whilst the cream of Aussie youth gets shot to pieces.’
Merryn’s lips formed a half smile. ‘Yes...well...I suppose we didn’t have much choice.’
Merryn saw Jo give a slight flinch. Had she remembered Jake was in the army? She leant towards Merryn’s cup.
‘Ah ...well...yes...anyway what about more coffee?’
‘That would be great.’
Having filled Merryn’s cup, she was off to seat a middle-aged couple. Merryn eyed the wife’s sensible garb—long floral skirt, matronly blouse, and thick leather sandals. Her husband, a long tall string of a man with a pair of steel rimmed glasses perched on his flat nose, was wearing dark shiny trousers with a short-sleeved white shirt and carried a Panama hat. No doubt new missionaries come to convert the hordes of marauding natives, Merryn mused, suddenly finding she was inwardly smiling, lifting her mood. She looked out of the window to where a group of little children were climbing up the coconut tree, their shiny ebony eyes awash with glee, their shouts of unadulterated merriment wafting through the humid air to where Merryn sat. And as she watched them playing, she realised she was excited to be here, in this strange country. It would have been easy to say she wouldn’t come. Despite what she’d said to Jake last night, Barty Harmon probably would have understood. But that would have been giving in. She opened the louvres and waved to the gaggle of children. With a twinge of longing, she thought her son would be much the same age as the youngest one. What would he be doing now? Who would he be playing with? Where?
After a moment of eyeing her shyly, the little children waved back, small black hands raised high above their curly heads.
But look what I would have missed out on, she thought, if I hadn’t come to Moresby.
She had not long turned her attention back to the South Pacific Post when a soldier appeared in front of her.
‘Missus... mi Wafiago, ‘ he said, his huge beam contagious.
‘Hello, Wafiago. You come to get me?’
‘Yes... mi driver bilong yu...’ he said proudly, bending down to pick up Merryn’s case.
She noticed he was not as dark as Phillip, but taller. For some reason she’d expected Phillip, yet was grateful for anyone. In any case, she told herself, feeling a stab of pain, Phillip had probably driven Jake and Amanda to the picnic at Idler’s Bay.
‘Thank you, Wafiago,’ she said, following him to the car. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’
Nodding enthusiastically, he opened the boot, carefully placing her suitcase inside.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked a few minutes later, as they drove down the busy main street with cars parked on both sides.
‘Me no save.’ He shook his head vigorously.
Was that where he came from, or didn’t he understand?
‘Your village, where is it?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Vanimo—bilong Sepik.’
‘Is that a long way from Moresby?’
He nodded , ‘Longway tumas.’
She understood the longway part and left it at that.
A short time later, as the beach approached and then fell away when the road divided, they rounded the point. Slowing down he turned to face her.
‘Em bilong Koki,’ he said, pointing through the windscreen at an expanse of makeshift stalls spread out under tall palm trees and multicoloured umbrellas. Beyond the stalls, native outrigger canoes, some with crude