Wafiago stopped the car, and Merryn opened her window wider. Straightaway an aroma she had never experienced before assaulted her—a mixture of fish cooked on wood fires, the sweat of humans, dry dust, and tobacco smoke. It was different but not unpleasant.
She opened the door and asked Wafiago to wait. Maybe it would be nice to arrive with something for Tori, the girl she was to flat with. The pineapple and mangoes she picked up from a bare-breasted meri‘s straw mat felt ripe and juicy and the paw paws and bananas firm. She squirmed a little as live crabs, tied up with string, wriggled on the mat next to the fruit. Laid out on the dry dirt were intricate wooden carvings, vibrant rainbow coloured string bilums, shell bags, and necklaces. Next to that— on a hessian bag—sweet potatoes, village greens, and wild yams sat alongside piles of betel nut and clumps of firewood. In a wire cage, a white cockerel poked his beak through a hole trying to peck at the dirt. Further on, a tight group of men stood smoking and chewing betel nut under a tree. But mostly the people, Papuans and some Europeans, wandered happily.
It was strange to feel so alone amidst all this. Then, Merryn reflected, would she not feel the same in Sydney, down by the ferries, or in a busy street? At least it was different here.
When she was back in the stifling heat of the car, Wafiago started the engine and moved through a group of children who then ran after them, banging on the shiny green metalwork. Was it the uniform that was the attraction? Merryn wondered. A little to her left was a village with oblong-shaped houses built on stilts out over the water. Amidst the houses, tall palms shifted in the breeze, and a number of canoes, with rusty outboards, were tied to the stilts.
Not far on, they passed a trade store and a small electrical shop. Then Wafiago turned right at two iron gates opening to a yard full of huge trucks and front end loaders. Surely he must be mistaken. No. For he drove right through, stopping next to a two-story green fibro building.
Turning to Merryn, he proclaimed with pride. ‘Em ples bilong yu.’
Merryn’s heart sank as she eyed the building, the dry dusty yard, mountains of discarded rubber tyres, rusted out car chassis, and piles of fuel drums. A group of small children played behind a barbed wire fence. Under a tree, a mangy dog stopped chewing on a bone and barked at the car. An old woman, her face resembling the shrivelled skin of an overripe passion fruit, leant over a derelict wash stand, a tiny naked baby playing in the pale dust by her feet. Three little boys in filthy shorts and torn shirts rushed to the fence and peered through. No one spoke—just stared. Surely the Catholic mission she’d been told about, Merryn thought.
Another dog, huge and black, untangled itself from under the fibro building and barked threateningly. Too nervous to get out of the car, Merryn was wondering what to do next, when two tanned legs descended the stairs. At the summit of the legs appeared a pair of red shorts, then a bare midriff, and a white cropped T-shirt. An animated round face, within a halo of unruly glossy hair, topped it all off.
‘Hi there,’ the girl called out excitedly, waiving her hand in the air. ‘Welcome to hell hole.’ Her voice was light and airy with a slight Aussie twang to it.
‘You’re Tori?’ Merryn asked.
‘Sure am.’,
Merryn smiled as Tori walked towards the car and then eyed the dog warily. ‘Is he friendly?’
Tori laughed. ‘No need to worry about old Gunga Din. All bark, no bite...not that the neighbours know that.’ She grabbed the dog by the collar and opened the car door. ‘Sorry about the landscaping...hope it doesn’t scare you off. You get used to it after a while.’ She grinned, gesturing across the yard. ‘Some of the loaders are even quite cute.’
Merryn gazed around, this time taking in a couple of black sows trying to nuzzle through the fence from the mission. It looked as if it wouldn’t be long before they’d succeed, or at the very least the fence would collapse in a heap around them. ‘It’s different...to what I expected,’ she said.
Then again, she wondered, what did I expect?
‘Bet it is,’ Tori went on brightly. ‘But I reckoned if I explained you’d never come. It’s really quite nice upstairs. The Department of Works owns it, hence all the machinery. You’ll get used to it... and Gunga Din here looks after us not bad.’ She patted the dog’s shiny head. And such was the force of Tori’s personality that Merryn was quite sure Gunga Din would.
‘Sorry I didn’t pick you up from the airport,’ Tori apologized. ‘Barty said a friend was meeting you. Great you’ve someone you know here.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘He’s at Karu Barracks, isn’t he?’
Merryn waited a moment before speaking. ‘Yes, he is.’ She fiddled with the clasp on her chain belt. ‘He’s an old family friend.’ I’d better get used to saying this, she thought. ‘It was good to see him again. I hadn’t seen him for a while.’
‘Ah! Anyway come on up,’ Tori beckoned, pointing to the stairs and grabbing Merryn’s carry all. ‘I bet you’re melting.’
After watching Wafiaga reverse out of the yard, Merryn fell in behind Tori, to a long narrow room with the floor covered in black and white lino. Under the window was a table with a red checked tablecloth, and pushed against the wall was a battered cane lounge suite half-hidden under a Batik print throw over. In the corner, a huge yellow beanbag was covered in dog’s hair—no doubt Gunga Din’s favourite spot. Merryn placed the fruit on the table, next to a vase of purple and magenta bougainvillea and leant down to pat the dog. She was rewarded with much wagging of his tail and a huge lolloping lick to her hand. Suddenly she was homesick for her own dog, Rusty, now living with her mother and Amy. She remembered his huge soulful eyes looking up at her as she walked from the door to catch the plane up to Moresby. He knows I’m going, she’d thought. Yet her mother loved him nearly as much as Merryn did, so she knew he would be spoiled rotten.
She stood up, arching her back. ‘How old is he?’
‘Only two. But the heat and dust gets to them...not to mention the parasites and mange, no matter what you do. Anyway,’ she added, leaning down for Merryn’s suitcase, ‘come and I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.’
With Gunga Din in tow, they moved on to the bedroom where Tori hoisted Merryn’s case onto the single bed. It was a simple room, but to Merryn surprisingly appealing, even though the paint was chipped in places and the wooden floor raw and unstained. ‘I’ve got a double bed next door,’ Tori went on airily. ‘You’ll have to wait till I go to get that.’
Merryn’s eyes skittered around the room, to the white damask bed cover, to the colourful tattered Kilim on the scuffed floor, and over to the wooden louvres with white gauze curtains billowing in the breeze.
She smiled. ‘This will do just fine.’
Bounding back through the door, Tori called over her shoulder, ‘Come and I’ll get you an iced tea. Bet you’re dying of thirst?’
Merryn followed her to a small kitchenette where she pulled a jug from an old Kelvinator fridge and poured an iced tea into a long glass, handing it to Merryn.
‘Here, get this into you. It’s the best for quenching thirst. You don’t drink the water round here without boiling it heaps.’ She paused, raising her dark eyebrows in a fine crescent. ‘Now, what d’you say to something to eat? I’ve some fresh bread from the bakery at Boroko. Afraid I’ve picked at it. I just adore it hot.’ She chuckled. ‘It’s my one treat—one that keeps me fat.’
What was skinny if this was fat? Merryn wondered. For although she was tiny, probably only five foot two, her well-toned body was perfectly proportioned. Watching her standing there, Merryn noticed that her deep-set grey eyes darted to and fro, and one was slightly crooked, making her all the more attractive. But it was difficult to know which eye to follow.
‘Follow the left and you’ll be right,’ Tori said as if in answer to Merryn’s thoughts. ‘The right does its own thing. No matter what I do that’s how it is.’
‘I