A Bird on My Shoulder (4 page)

With a bottle of chilled lime juice in hand, I clambered into his four-wheel drive. He had packed the back seat with gear – a
flask of coffee, a bag of fruit, petrol, an extra sail, a few ropes. I imagined a rather sweet little boat which we would sail on the morning's glassy sea, leaving behind the dry, dusty city.

Port Moresby was not, by international standards, a particularly beautiful capital. Carved into brown, rocky hillsides, and subjected to an almost permanent drought, it was, like so many other cities in the developing world, a place of increasingly sharp economic contrasts. The poor were heartbreakingly so; families eked out a living selling the few crops they had ingeniously grafted onto the steep hills from tiny stalls on the side of the road. Thousands of people from all over the country, who had left their villages in far-flung provinces in search of a better life, were now crammed in sprawling settlements, in tiny airless homes made from bits of wood and discarded tin. Boarded-up shops, derelict buildings, dust and litter, as well as the never-ending sight of razor wire and the gradual loss of so many tropical trees, made much of the city aesthetically depressing and bleak.

By comparison, on the hills overlooking the sea, there were mansions in glorious colourful gardens and, near the port, shiny new high-rise offices with huge windows and gleaming tiled floors. There were growing numbers of expensive cars on the roads and plush restaurants for the Papua New Guinean elite and their international counterparts, discreetly hidden behind fences and patrolled by security guards and dogs. The small but
increasing middle classes – the public servants, entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers and university lecturers – largely lived in the sprawling suburbs down endless potholed roads.

What saved Port Moresby from lapsing into ugliness was the sea, which pooled at the city's ankles like a glorious silk gown, bringing the changing trade winds and the scent of other possibilities. Looking out across the Torres Strait, there were long, thin-lipped islands in the distance; sometimes a lone fisherman on an outrigger canoe appeared on the horizon, his silhouette perfectly still, seemingly blissful in his solitude.

•••

The first surprise was that Julian owned a catamaran. My mental image of the sweet little boat was rather abruptly replaced by this rather strange flat craft which looked as if it required real skill to handle.

I'd been a little vague when he had asked me about my experience with sailing, telling him that I had once sailed a yacht. This was true. After walking across Corsica with a Belgian friend, we had hitched a ride with some Brazilians who were sailing to Monte Carlo. Surely, I must have tacked or jibed at some point. But now I stared at the catamaran with barely disguised dismay.

‘We'll just go out for a little run,' Julian said confidently.

•••

My anxieties about the expedition were soon quieted as we manoeuvred with ease out onto the open sea and began to chat. Julian had been living in Papua New Guinea for more than fifteen years and seemed to have a very level perspective on its political and economic progress. He'd worked for the current prime minister, Sir Julius Chan, at one point, and had a lot to say about the encroaching corruption that was eating into the administrative fabric of Papua New Guinea's daily life. He also lamented the high number of deals and alliances between corrupt politicians and international contractors.

He mentioned one man in particular. ‘He was in my office a few months ago, talking about buying a property. I was very happy to help him and was just asking for a few details when he chucked a large envelope on the table, full of foreign currency, probably about forty thousand dollars.' Julian shook his head and gave an exasperated smile. ‘I told him he'd have to bring the deposit as a bank cheque and he went very quiet and I never saw him again.'

•••

The sea that day was a brilliant, slow blue. The wind nestled into the sails as we cruised away from land and I could feel the tension ebbing from me as I melted into the day. It was not long
before Julian guided us to the edge of a small sandy island still within sight of the city.

‘Let's stop here – I don't think there's enough wind to get much further,' he said, stepping out of the boat into knee-deep water and, once again, offering me his hand.

Julian had brought the day's newspapers and we settled down in the sun to read.

After a while I began to get hot. ‘Do you want to use this?' I asked, proffering a snorkel mask.

Julian blinked through his large, thick glasses.

‘No point. I brought it for you. I can't see a thing without my glasses,' he said.

•••

On the edge of the island a new world opened, a slow feast which echoed the sound of my breathing. I slowly made my way around to a small reef, leaving Julian deeply ensconced in the news. Where the water was shallow the sand lifted as I swam past, settling itself in minutely perfect patterns. There were fish, transparent skeletal forms with golden fins, and a small stingray that passed underneath me, flapping like a strange bird. Tiny glittering fish darted past my groping hands. I let myself drift with the slow current as the sun burned down.

When I eventually surfaced, Julian was leaning back on an esky. Behind him the arc of the beach was flung out like an
outstretched arm. He broke into a smile which I remember to this day: a wide grin under a lopsided floppy hat.

‘That was absolutely amazing,' I said. ‘I had forgotten how beautiful it could be.'

We opened the flask of lukewarm coffee. In the distance we could see the city, draped in brown and parched by endless days of summer. The sea seemed to hover above itself in the heat; the horizon was a blur of light.

I thought back to my childhood and our family holidays on the coasts of Wales and Devon. Some of those days faded gloriously into one another, the darkness only arriving late at night. But even at the height of summer the beaches could be obscured by driving rain. When the sun timidly emerged, my sister Libby and I would run down to the dunes, the gritty sand scraping the bottoms of our feet, and shriek as we ran into the churning waves. Now I sat under the tropical sun, soaking in the years of lost warmth, my body heavy like a stone.

•••

Without much prompting, Julian began to talk about the loss of his wife, Charmian, at the end of 1993. His father had also died in the same car accident and his two youngest boys, Henry and Edward, had been injured – though, thankfully, their injuries had not been life-threatening. Julian spoke with particular pride about all his sons, deeply concerned about their ongoing welfare.

Even though I had experienced suffering, loss on such a scale as this was completely foreign to me. I felt as though I had been leafing through a book only to find a jagged tear with pages missing and a story that had ended unexpectedly.

Listening to Julian, I also realised how little I really knew about the larger realities of life, the stories of tremendous pain hidden away in the folds of other people's lives.

Gradually our conversation drifted on to other topics, but I remained awed by his story and struck by his evenness and self-possession. What an extraordinary person he must be, I thought, to have survived all this and retain such equanimity.

‘It's getting pretty hot,' Julian observed. ‘Shall we go?'

We gathered our things and crunched over the hot sand to the waiting boat.

•••

On the way back to shore, I tried to make myself useful and asked Julian if there was anything he wanted me to do. He mumbled an instruction. Could he perhaps say that again in English? I bantered. He laughed at my confusion and repeated himself slowly.

As we neared the marina, disaster struck. The engine, which we needed to help us guide the boat back into its berth, would not start. Julian struggled to coax it into life as we began to drift towards a large retaining wall.

‘If you could jump in . . .' Julian said . ‘Get on the rocks and push back if I get too close.'

Without any hesitation I jumped in fully clothed, swam to the wall, hauled myself out onto the rocks and wrestled with the side of the slippery boat. Some men from the marina came running down to help. Somehow the engine was restored and the boat began to move towards its berth.

I suddenly noticed that blood was running down my shin from a large gash on my knee.

‘Marvellous!' Julian called out and then peered over the side of the boat. ‘No damage at all.'

•••

‘Do you have any plans for tomorrow evening?' Julian asked as we drove up the hill to my house.

‘Yes, sorry, I'm going out,' I said. I wasn't.

‘Well, I'm having dinner with Chilean friends. I'm sure you'd really like them.'

I thanked him for the thought and reached down for my bag.

‘You're sure? It would be marvellous if you could come.'

I was plunged into confusion in the face of his polite insistence. With other men I wanted to avoid, I had found that I could always rely on evasion or, if that failed, my library of brutal putdowns. But as I was to discover, Julian was a truly formidable
adversary – he had absolutely no interest in negotiating on my terms alone.

‘I'll ring them,' I heard myself say, incredulous at the sound of my own lies.

‘Good,' he said. ‘I'll pick you up at seven.'

5

Love will find me if it wants to. It will creep through

sap-stained undergrowth, rustle under that old twisted fig tree

and nudge at my heart like the first stirrings of life itself.

Like a tributary trickling into a stream, quietly and without fuss, my life with Julian began.

Dinner on Sunday, lunch on Monday and a game of squash on Wednesday. A loaned book, a dreamy rendition of ‘Caruso' by Pavarotti on a long drive home, a moment of shared laughter.

Before long I was telling my friends I had met someone I really liked. They were delighted but puzzled – Julian did not sound like the young, bohemian, left-leaning adventurer they had imagined for me. They questioned the age gap between us – I was thirty-one and he was fifty-six – and while I agreed it was something of a cliché, somehow I could not translate this statistic into anything resembling genuine concern.

It's early days, I told them. Let's just see what happens.

However, I knew from the day we went sailing that something unusual was afoot. My concerns about how Julian and I might get along had evaporated, leaving only curiosity and an unusual feeling of contentment. I did not even stop to think about why I began to leaf through the vast economic reports that had previously sat mouldering in the corner of the office. Nor did I give a great deal of thought as to why I started swimming every day, suddenly conscious that a year of largely sitting down at a desk and not getting enough exercise had taken its toll on my body.

I even began to look for clothes more appropriate to an expanding social life in the few Western shops that Port Moresby offered. I also wanted to improve my wardrobe from the constantly recycled outfits which had so far seen me through an erupting volcano in Rabaul, a week in an abandoned house during peace talks on Bougainville, and an unexpectedly large amount of walking in Papua New Guinea's liquid heat. My clothes consisted of an endless array of white cotton shirts, floral skirts and what one friend teasingly referred to as my collection of leather ‘missionary sandals'.

‘You've got to get rid of that dress,' said my friend Mary-Louise, referring to a rather gaudy blue and orange outfit I had stunned her with during her last visit to Port Moresby.

‘Why?'

‘I'm serious! Get rid of it,' she said. ‘It makes you look like a sofa.'

‘But I bought some matching earrings from the second-hand store,' I protested.

We laughed, despairing at my fashion sense.

I had met Mary-Louise a few weeks after I had arrived in PNG at the end of 1993. The government had invited a group of Australian businessmen, mostly from Queensland, to travel around the major centres of PNG looking at investment opportunities. A group of journalists had been invited to accompany them. I had driven out early one morning to the airport where a bustle of middle-aged men with dated outfits and haircuts were hovering. I exchanged a look with one of my colleagues. ‘We'll just have to hope for the best,' I said.

A group of journalists, most of whom I knew from the daily national newspapers –
The Post Courier
and
The National
– had gathered in the departure lounge. We all shook hands, greeting each other warmly.

‘Lucy,' one said, ‘meet Mary-Louise O'Callaghan.'

I turned to see the bright smiling face of a woman about my age.

‘People call me ML,' she said.

ML had a reputation as an insightful and passionate foreign correspondent and, after more than a year away from my close friends in Sydney, I missed having a meaningful friendship
with another woman. I was immediately struck by ML's force of character. Over the course of the trip her warmth, lightning wit and capacity for a devastating one-liner had me in stitches – finally, someone on the same wavelength.

ML had made her own unorthodox match several years before when she married a leading Solomon Islands political figure, Joses Tuhanuku. They'd already had the first of their four children, Erin, and ML was in the midst of forging a fruitful and meaningful relationship with her two stepchildren. In some ways, she was a little further down life's road than me and had a refreshingly honest perspective on her own mistakes and successes. I had no idea then, as we careered around the country, laughing, working, talking nineteen to the dozen, what an extraordinary robust and generous friendship we would forge in the years ahead.

•••

On the plane to Mount Hagen, I told ML about Susannah Wamp and my hope that I would find her. I had not heard from Susannah for more than a year. I had written to her as soon as I had arrived in Papua New Guinea but had no idea whether the letters I'd been sending had ever reached her.