Bird of Paradise. Rosemary Esmonde Peterswald

      Could she be happy here? she asked herself. With Tori? Without Jake? It’d be easy to say how unfair it all was. But then hadn’t Tori had her share of unfairness too? Why quarrel with what life had thrown up? Little could be done about it anyway. She’d work out later whether she’d continue with the charade of never having being engaged to Jake. In the meantime, she’d go along with it. For what was there to lose, particularly with him away? Even now she imagined Tori’s reaction if Merryn had told her.

      ‘I was engaged to Jake Hawkins. We were to be married at the chapel at Karu Barracks. The same one he’s marrying Amanda James in.’

      She could just see Tori’s eyes popping out of her head. ‘What! You were engaged when he got her pregnant? God how awful? Poor you. Crikey, if it was me, I’d kill him. What if you come across them? You’re sure to in a place like this. Jees, if I see him ... well, rest assured I’ll tell him what’s for.’

      Immediately she would regard Merryn in a different light. Feel sorry for her.

      Merryn unpacked her suitcase. Most of the clothes were new, although she’d brought some old favourites. Behind the door, she hung a shimmering evening dress, one she always loved and Jake’s favourite—silver, clingy with a large slit up the side. Would she ever have anywhere to wear it again? In another drawer, she carefully placed her wedding dress. She should have thrown it away, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to. That would have been giving up all hope. After a moment, she took it from the drawer and placed it in the now empty suitcase, which she pushed under the bed.

      Beside the bed she stood a black and white photograph, taken when she was just fifteen on her pony, Kinsale; Amy on her thoroughbred, Aron; her mother holding the bridle. She looked at her father, Paddy, and for some time gazed into his eyes. Her eyes. Again she marvelled at his smile and remembered, with a pang, how when she first met Jake his smile reminded her of his. Bringing the photo to her lips, she kissed her father’s happy face. They’d been for a picnic to the bottom paddock—where they’d arranged a few logs under the huge gum tree by the creek and lit a fire, cooked some sausages, and boiled a billy. The flies driving them mad as they lay on the bank listening to the water gurgling over the brown speckled stones in the creek below. It was the last time they’d all been together. Two days later her father was dead.

      As she looked at the picture, feelings and memories she’d put on the back burner were revived. She remembered how she wanted everyone to leave after the funeral, so she could go back to the small cemetery beside the wooden church and sit by her father’s grave. Talk to him. Cry over the newly turned dirt. And yet they wouldn’t go, would they? Too afraid to leave the family on their own. In the end her mother, her beautiful gorgeous mother, the belle of Tipperary, had got roaring drunk, collapsing into bed with a packet of Relaxa tablets. Merryn was too frightened to leave her by herself in case she choked to death on her own vomit. For three days, her mother lay in that bed of rumpled sheets, curtains closed, refusing to get up. Only when she eventually surfaced did Merryn go back to her father’s grave to grieve on her own, taking the yellow daffodil bulbs he loved so much to plant by his head.

      For days Merryn could remember holding Amy in her arms as she sobbed and sobbed. All the time Merryn just wanted to sob too, but was afraid if she did Amy would curl up and die. She remembered the motions of getting though each day. She made a cup of tea in bed for her mother before getting hers and Amy’s breakfast. Then she sliced the thick crusty loaf of soda bread she’d baked in the fuel stove the night before for their sandwiches and wrapped them up in greaseproof paper before placing them in their new bright red lunchboxes their father had given them for Christmas. He’d chosen them himself at the corner store. Then she would sit in the ute, tooting the horn for Amy to come. And when Amy wouldn’t come, Merryn would go back inside, one time discovering her in the bathroom crying, because she couldn’t find the lid of the toothpaste and their father would have got cross. It was the only thing that had driven him mad. When they came home from school, Merryn would cook the dinner, and then sit down and do her homework. And all the time her mother walked around in a daze, until finally one morning she came out and asked.

      ‘What would you like in your sandwiches today? How about some hundreds and thousands?’

      Merryn wanted to exclaim. ‘Mum, I’m fifteen. I haven’t had hundreds and thousands for years.’

      But she knew it was a start and said, ‘Thanks Mum. That’d be great.’

      Merryn brushed her hand over her eyes before giving the picture a final glance and going to the kitchen. Removing the key from the hook, she headed downstairs to the bathroom. In one corner of the small room was a bath with rust stains and a couple of geckos playing in the bottom. An enamel basin, crudely bolted on the wall, sat next to an antiquated hot water cylinder. After using the loo, she ran her hands under the tap and locked the door behind her. She then became aware that she was being watched. Three small boys covered in dirt stood not more than two feet away. Even their clothes were black.

      ‘Hi there,’ she said.

      ‘Apinun,’ the taller one said, his huge liquid eyes eyeing her curiously.

      ‘Good afternoon,’ she answered.

      Grinning mischievously, they just stood there staring at Merryn. After a moment she beckoned for them to wait and went upstairs. In her handbag, she had a packet of Jaffas she’d bought at the airport in Townsville. Downstairs she divided the sweets into equal portions, handing them to the boys. She could almost hear Tori scolding her. ‘Do that and the little imps will be back every five minutes for more.’

      But, what the heck.

      After stuffing the Jaffas in their pockets, the boys giggled a ‘tenkyu,’ and scuttled towards the back fence. Would they share them? Merryn wondered. Or would they gobble the lot down themselves? In a way she hoped that’s what they’d do; otherwise, before she knew it, she’d have all the children from the mission climbing over the fence, and then Tori would be cross. She smiled. Either way it was worth it, for she was pretty sure she’d made three new friends in her adopted country.

      Upstairs again she pulled Cat Stevens’s Matthew and Son from a pile of records, slipped it from its sleeve, and positioned it on the record player in the corner. After a few moments, the room was filled with the unmistakable haunting voice of her favourite singer. Somehow just hearing him sing gave her a feeling of comfort and familiarity. She walked over to the table and lifted a ripe mango out of the bowl. Carrying it to the wicker chair in the corner of the room, she sat down, kicked off her sandals, and cut the skin with a knife. Taking a bite she relished the sweet taste.

      She was still sitting there, having fallen asleep in the hot afternoon sun filtering through the cane string curtain hanging over the back door, when Tori rushed up the stairs carrying the vegies from Koki market.

      ‘God, how could you sleep through that?’ she cried, lifting the scratchy needle off the record. ‘It gets caught at the end of that track every time.’ She headed to the kitchen. ‘Anyway, how about a drink? I’m parched. I reckon an icy cold Bundy and Coke will do the trick. I know it’s early, but being your first day, you could probably do with a pick me up.’

      Merryn stood up and leant down to put on her sandals. ‘Sounds good to me.’ She yawned, running a hand over her moist forehead. ‘I must be jet lagged after all.’ She walked across the room to where Tori had plonked the vegies down on the floor next to the table. ‘What do you want me to do with these?’

      ‘Not a thing,’ Tori said. ‘We’ll have a drink first. Think about dinner later.’