Beat Not the Bones (21 page)

CHAPTER 20

Stella had very little recollection of the journey back to Maiola. She felt that if it had been a hundred yards further away she would not have reached it. As it was, Hitolo all but carried her during the last day's march. She was not in pain but she was weak and at times hardly aware of her surroundings. They always seemed to be walking through the same stretch of jungle. The trees were the same, the path was the same and turned round corners to reveal jungle that had just been crossed. They might have been marking time.

When they reached Maiola her strength gave way and she could no longer stand. She remembered vaguely stumbling up some steps into an empty hut. She remembered, too, looking down and seeing with surprise Hitolo's shadowy fingers gripping her arms.

Then she slept a long, uneasy, broken sleep. Occasionally she could hear voices outside. Someone brought her food, but she could not remember if she ate it. Once she opened her eyes and looked into a long, rectangular strip of sky lit with enormous stars. She felt a yearning, for something, someone, she did not know what – perhaps her father – and lay for a long time with tears welling up in her eyes and running down her cheeks. She did not move. Her body might have been weighed down with chains. At last she opened her eyes and saw Thomas Seaton's lean face peering over her.

He asked her some questions, but she could not remember having answered him, or even what the questions were. She went to sleep again, and while she slept she was carried outside on to the station launch. When she awoke she was in bed at Seaton's house at Kairipi.

She knew immediately where she was, though she had never seen the room before. She could look out through an open louvre down a pathway lined with hibiscus bushes. Two boys were cutting the lawn with pieces of bent hoop-iron. Her fever had gone. Her head was clear and her skin dry, but she felt she would never move again.

As she lay there a Papuan girl in a blue calico frock with a cross around her neck crept forward from a corner of the room and peered into her face, then brought a basin of water and washed her. She slid away out of the door, and a few moments later Seaton came in.

‘Washington's dead,' Stella said. ‘He shot himself.'

He stood stiffly to attention at the end of her bed and nodded. ‘I know, you told me.'

‘Did I? Have I been very ill?'

He was obviously not used to sick-rooms, particularly with women in them. His head was drawn back and his expression severe. He nodded again. ‘Fever. Shock, too, I should say. Couldn't move you. Risky. Best to stay here. You're all right now.'

‘When can I go back to Marapai?'

‘Not until you're stronger. Better stay here for a while. I know a bit about fever.'

The yearning that had not left her even in sleep became more urgent. ‘Do they know at Marapai?'

‘Yes.'

‘And did no one ask for me? Has no one been to see me?'

‘I got through to Nyall.'

‘Anthony?'

‘Trevor. Most concerned. Wanted to fly over but there was no point. Better if you stay quiet for a few days. Had a long talk. No official report till I've been to Eola and had a look around.'

Where is he? Why doesn't he come and see me when I'm alone and ill? If he loved me why doesn't he come and look after me?

‘Bad show,' said Seaton stiffly. He looked for a moment straight into her eyes and the gulf between them shrank. ‘Bad show. Funny how people break up here. Never know what they'll do next. People you'd least expect.' He straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin and resurrected his impersonal expression. ‘Bad for the Territory,' he said sombrely, ‘bad for the administration.'

‘Bad for the Eolans,' said Stella and started to laugh. She found that once having started she could not stop. Laughter rippled up her limbs and choked out of her lips. She clenched her teeth but she could not stop.

Seaton looked at her and wondered if he should slap her face. She looked too sick to strike, so instead he moved forward, put a hand on her shoulder and shook her sharply. Her laughter stopped instantly, and he drew his hand away.

‘Tough on you … plenty of pluck too. People break out, you know, Washington … understandable, not the sort of man to come to this country. No principles. But Warwick … he was a good fellow. Can't understand it.'

‘
Was
he a good fellow?' said Stella, looking up with large feverish eyes.

Embarrassed, Seaton glanced away. ‘Oh, yes,' he said gruffly. ‘One of the very best.'

‘Was it my fault or would it have happened anyway?' said Stella.

Not following her fleeting, disconnected thoughts he gave her a puzzled glance. ‘What?'

‘Washington? Was he mad? He would have killed himself, wouldn't he, like David? They did something that was far outside their natures and then couldn't live with it.'

Where was Anthony? He knew about Philip, he understood. Why didn't he come and tell her that it wasn't her fault, that he was mad and wanted to die?

‘It wasn't my fault?'

He gripped her shoulder again and gently shook her. ‘Go to sleep. Plenty of rest, that's what you need. Nasty experience. Try not to think about it.'

‘He killed my father,' said Stella and turned her head into the pillow.

A fortnight later she returned to Marapai. The flying boat came to rest on the ruffled blue bay at about 3.30 in the afternoon. There ahead was the town with its white roofs straggling up the slopes of the hills. The trees, their flowering nearly over, were breaking into violent green leaf. Her eyes turned to the wharf where a group of white figures stood waiting.

One of them would be there, she felt sure. But which? She did not know which emotion was strongest. Dread that it might be one, or hope that it might be the other.

The hostess, who knew she had been ill, helped her into the boat. The wharf drew nearer. The brown faces under topees and straw hats gradually acquired features. Then she saw him. It was Anthony, and Janet was with him.

He came half way down the steps to help her up from the boat. They did not speak or smile. The rush of feeling towards him died away as she looked into his face. She walked up the steps beside him thinking, He won't help me, he won't even comfort me. I am on my own.

She realised that throughout her sickness she had been wanting him to cling to and rest against, that the picture of him as she had reconstructed it had seen her through those terrible weeks. But it was not a true picture; she had forgotten what he was like. For he would fulfil none of these supporting and protective functions. He was even more lost and bewildered than she. The weight of twelve deaths hung around his neck; she only bore the weight of one. His dark, unhappy eyes looked into hers only for an instant and then he turned away.

Janet stood above them on the wharf. The wind blew her dress about her tiny body. Stella pressed her hand and smiled. She no longer shrank from Janet, knowing what it was she had shrunk from before.

‘You're to come and stay with us,' said Janet, as they moved off down the wharf. ‘Trevor insisted. And you're not to work until you're stronger.'

Stella thought she was less vague and stupid than she remembered her, but perhaps this was only because her husband was not there.

She glanced at Anthony. ‘Do you think it's all right?'

He did not meet her eye but shrugged his shoulders. ‘You'll need a rest. I see no reason why not. It's up to you.'

I see no reason why not. She continued to stare at him, wondering if this meant that they were to lie to each other. But he would not be drawn by her glance and gazed ahead.

‘Trevor couldn't come to meet you,' said Janet. ‘So I came instead. He was kept back late. But I expect he'll be home when we get there.'

Stella watched her face with its large, unfocused eyes. She doesn't know, she thought. And Anthony …? Yes, Anthony knew. ‘Why didn't you come and see me,' she said quietly.

‘At Kairipi?' he glanced at her and glanced quickly away. ‘I didn't know what was best. I thought of going, but I didn't know what you would want. Seaton said you were all right. I didn't know what to do.'

‘So you did nothing.'

His lips tightened. ‘This was your show,' he said. ‘I thought it was best for you to be on your own until the end.'

‘Here we are,' said Janet as they approached Trevor's large, expensive and thoroughly unsuitable car. ‘Tony, will you drive?'

She looked up and blinked her big, drained eyes. He moved forward. But she held up a hand and her face crumpled with uncertainty. ‘No, perhaps I should drive. He doesn't like you driving this car, does he, because of your eyes and not being able to see out of the sides of your glasses.'

Anthony opened the back door. ‘I'll drive.'

Janet was looking up and down the street as if hoping that Trevor might arrive to resolve the problem. An argument followed that ended with her getting into the back and then leaning out again to entreat Anthony to drive carefully.

Stella was not listening. A woman was standing on the opposite side of the road looking at her. She wore no hat and the sun blazed down on her shining black head. She stood with her hands at her sides and her feet together, and something about her suggested that she had been there for a long time, waiting. It was Sylvia.

Their eyes met. Instinctively Stella moved forward and put out a hand. A car drove between them and when it had passed Sylvia was walking swiftly down the road away from the town. Stella stood gazing after her. Sickness had pulled a protective skin from her senses and any emotion that she experienced was sharp and intense. Her eyes filled with tears.

She got into the car and shut the door. They drove off towards the town. It was four, the stores were just closing and the streets were filled with people. Trevor was already at home, waiting for them. As they entered Janet and Anthony dropped behind her, and she found herself walking ahead as if they had accepted her leadership against a common adversary.

It was a shock to see him standing there, his hand held out to her – tall, handsome, smiling. During the past few weeks her memory of him had changed, and it was a face altogether different from this that she had expected. Then she looked closer and thought, No this is just the sort of face he should have.

He felt for her hand, for she had not held it out to him, and gripped her fingers. Because she had been ill and her senses were more responsive than at anytime since her father's death, she almost shuddered.

‘Well, and so you're back with us, thank God!' he said.

She had intended to be calm and natural, but anger and loathing swept her resolution away. She could not help saying, ‘It must surprise you, you couldn't have been expecting it.'

She stared at him, and because his eyes were clear and guiltless there was no need for him to look away. She began to understand just how much beyond David and Philip he was in the scope of his capabilities.

He put out a hand and patted her shoulder. ‘I'm afraid later on you'll have to answer some questions, but for the moment we don't want you to even mention it. We want you to forget the whole affair.'

‘Yes, you would want that,' she said, drawing away. She heard an uneasy movement behind her and saw that her words were not touching Trevor, only tormenting Anthony. Janet fluttered away murmuring, ‘I'll see about tea.'

That evening she spoke to Anthony alone. Janet was playing bridge and Trevor had gone to a meeting. It was very hot so they sat on the verandah overlooking the town to catch the breeze. They sat for some moments in silence. It was taut and wretched, and there was no feeling of communion between them. At last Stella said, ‘What are we going to do?'

He did not answer, but turned to look at her. The light flashed on his glasses and intensified an air he had of nursing secrets.

‘About Trevor,' she said.

‘What about him?'

She remembered the night outside Washington's hut when he had abruptly changed his attitude and had appeared to approve of what she was doing. He had permitted her actions, had even encouraged them, and now feared to face the consequence. He had reason to fear. ‘Don't let
us
be dishonest,' she said quietly. ‘He was behind it, he began it. It was his idea.'

He looked away from her over the town. His voice was unsurprised but still guarded. ‘Did Washington tell you that?'

‘Not exactly. He was too muddled and frightened to be lucid. But he let it out – in several ways. I
knew
. When he told me about it, he said “we all” and one doesn't say “we all” for two. But of course he's behind it; it's so obvious. They could never think it up; it wouldn't occur to them. They could only do it and then under compulsion.' She shuddered. ‘He's loathsome. He's a million times worse than they are. They're children, they're babies compared with him. People can do just about anything when they're actually
there
 – and out in the jungle, you can see, when you get there – anything could happen. Anyway I don't believe they meant it to be as wholesale as it was. Perhaps they only wanted to frighten them away, to make a few of them sick. But they misjudged either the strength of the poison they used or the villagers' resistance. I think it got out of hand.'

‘You let them off lightly.'

‘Not because of anything I feel for David, if that's what you mean. You were right there.'

He knew what it meant to her to say this, and let it pass. ‘If you let them off with less terrible intentions,' he said, ‘then you have to let him off too.'

‘No!' she cried. ‘He tried to kill me! He sent me out there to die. He sent Philip to kill me and he hoped it would be the end of Philip. Philip would never have worked out
that
solution; he dreaded the place. It was agony for him to go back. And anyway he was incapable of killing me. They were both of them incapable of the whole thing.'