The Beloved (7 page)

Timmy was sprawled at the end of the couch poking at blisters on his heel. Mama held a cup of Milo while I drank. My hands still wouldn't let go the stones.

We heard the jeep crunch into the yard. A heavy red ring appeared around Mama's neck.

He whistled as he came up the stairs. Bounced in and tossed his Gladstone bag on a chair. ‘Hello, all.'

I stared at his face as it began to shift and drop.

‘What's wrong?' he said.

Mama put down the Milo. ‘You left your children.'

Dad sucked in his breath. ‘Oh, God. I'm
so
sorry. I forgot.'

‘They waited over an hour for you then Tim ran home, two and a half miles in this stinking heat to get help for his sister who was forced to wait
alone
at school – aged seven, if you remember, but old enough to work out that I couldn't go back for her because I didn't have a car. So she decided to walk home and guess where we found her, Doug Davies and I? In a ditch at the side of the road because a man had come along and scared the pants off her. Look at her. Look at her hands. She can't let go of the stones. How
could
you?'

Mama put socks over my hands before I went to bed and during the night the stones fell out. Tim and I went to school the next day on the bus. We put our lunches in the fridge and I made it through another day of grade three. That night Dad brought home a dozen colouring pencils for me, a set of farm animals for Tim and a bunch of roses for Mama which came from the highlands and cost fifteen shillings. She left them on the table to die.

Back in grade two.

‘Roberta is young, Mrs Lightfoot,' said Mrs Potts. ‘She'd have to be an exceptional student to skip half a year under any circumstances, let alone having had polio. Give her time to settle and find her own pace.'

‘Roberta doesn't have a pace. She needs pushing. I know she can cope.'

‘I'd rather she thrived,' said Mrs Potts.

‘She'll be fine. She needs to know she's as good as the next person, or better. Putting her back to grade two will convince her she's not.'

Mrs Potts took off her glasses and rubbed them with a hanky. ‘Mrs Lightfoot, Roberta may be able to handle some aspects of grade three but frankly, her grasp of arithmetic is poor. If this improves
dramatically
over the next few months we may reassess her situation but right now I simply want her to be able to negotiate grade two.'

‘She'll improve,' Mama promised. ‘
Dramatically
.'

‘I can't believe it,' she said to Dad, forgetting to be angry with him. ‘Me a straight-A math student and you an accountant. How did we produce a child so dense with numbers?'

‘She's only seven, Lily May.'

‘It's not calculus.'

‘Stop pushing.'

‘Somebody has to.'

I did feel like a dummy having to repeat again but Coronation School was different from Melbourne. Kids came from everywhere, bringing funny accents and strange habits. There were older kids and younger kids in my class and I wasn't the only one repeating, although I was the only one who couldn't play schoolyard games. I didn't mind so much; I was just happy not to be teased. The wet season was over and Moresby's colours were fading but pictures were everywhere and while the other kids played, I drew. Kids sprawled under the poinciana tree, kids playing softball, hopscotch or marbles, teachers on playground duty. It didn't matter what they were doing; their colours and their faces told their stories.

One face we'd stopped seeing much of these days was Dad's. He worked most weekends, building up an export business as well as importing, with big orders from Australia and Japan for copra, tea, coffee and cocoa. Tim spent weekends with a friend who lived down the road so it was often just Mama and me, swimming, driving along the coast or taking the jeep inland up hills and along rivers. She had a new camera with dials and knobs, and was forever taking photos. Even in black and white you could see the sheen of the frangipani, the wrinkles in the hibiscus and coconuts that looked so real you wanted to crack them open and munch on the sweet stuff inside. Some weekends she went skin-diving with Doug Davies and his wife. Whenever she got out the goggles and snorkel I'd go crazy with envy. The Davies had an underwater camera and the pictures Mama brought home made me long to see for myself the wonders beneath the sea.

‘Everything falls away when you're under the water, Bertie. All the faded, ordinary things of life. It's a dazzling, beautiful blue-green world out there, swarming with fish of every size from tiny fellows no bigger than a fingernail right up to giant rays.'

‘
Please
take me, Mama.'

‘I can't, it's too dangerous. There are sharks and sea snakes and stonefish. Maybe in a couple of years.'

Instead, when Mama was skin-diving, I went with Dad to his office where he taught me how to use Moira's typewriter, address envelopes, put bills inside and stamp them.

‘You're going to make someone a great secretary one of these days, CP.'

‘No I'm not.' I pushed aside the envelopes and went to work on a picture of a giant fish filled with tiny people.

Dad looked at my drawing and waggled my plait.

‘Do you hate it, Dad?'

‘No. How could I hate anything you do?'

‘I'm going to be an artist when I grow up, like Aunt Tempe.'

‘Oh, are you?' Dad combed his moustache with his fingers.

‘Mama wants me to be somebody.'

‘You're already somebody, sweetheart. You're our Roberta.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Roberta Lindsay Lightfoot, world famous artist.'

Two months after we arrived in Port Moresby, I ditched the calliper
forever
.

‘We'll celebrate,' said Mama. ‘Drag your father from the office and go on a picnic. All of us.'

We had a calliper-burying ceremony. Dad dug a hole and snapped his heels together.
Atten-shun! Squa-a-a-ad salute!
I leaned on my sticks, tossed in a fistful of dirt and watched in satisfaction as Dad filled in the hole. After the burial we went on a picnic. Mama had wanted me to bring a friend.

‘I don't have a friend,' I said.

‘But I've heard you talk about Diane and Pamela.'

‘They're not friends, they're just kids at school.'

‘Bertie, you must have friends. Invite a few classmates home to play.'

Play what – hopscotch? Anyway Diane had already tried that.

‘Mrs Potts said we should play with you,' she said, one day at playlunch. ‘What can you play?'

‘I don't know.'

‘We could . . . well, we could skip while you hold the rope?'

I shook my head.

She chewed her lip.

‘It's all right, Diane,' I said. ‘I don't have to play.' I walked away, wondering if they were watching me and whispering about my boot. They weren't allowed to say anything to my face but it didn't stop people thinking. I saw what kids did behind Errol Prichard's back. He looked like a rabbit with his mouth hitched up to his nose and he talked funny. Some kids copied him, others felt sorry. I hated pity but I couldn't help feeling sorry for Errol because his problem was right there in front of you all the time. Anyway, bullying was worse, and as long as people left me alone, friends didn't matter.

‘I'm all right, Mama.'

‘You're not all right and we're going to fix it.'

In the meantime she packed a picnic and we crammed into the jeep with the dog and drove into the cool of the hills. Tim and Snifter went everywhere together and as the jeep ground up the steep dirt road, Snifter leaned into Tim. Up and up we went, past the thundering waterfalls of Rona that made our electricity and on to Sogeri, a pretty village surrounded by rubber plantations. We found a spot by a stream and Dad set up an umbrella and our folding card table. He'd chopped eighteen inches off the legs to make it more useful for sitting on the ground and copped an earful from Mama.

‘How are we supposed to play canasta with the Davies at
that
?'

Dad scratched his head. ‘I dunno. Maybe we can sit on the floor.'

‘What? Four of us squatting on our haunches? What are we supposed to do with our legs?'

Dad mulled it over. ‘I could cut holes in the floor. Our legs could dangle in the breeze. Nice and cool.'

But it was good for the picnic and after a swim we munched on Mama's sandwiches, lemonade and a chocolate cake she baked specially.

‘Make a wish,' she said, handing me the knife.

I dragged it through the creamy filling.
Make me normal, God. Make me like everyone else
.

One day we came home from school and Snifter wasn't there. Mama said she hadn't seen him all day so she went and asked Willie.

He shrugged. ‘No dog. All day, no dog.'

Tim went up and down the road calling but when Snifter didn't come, Mama drove us around in the jeep until dark, looking. Snifter didn't come home that night and he wasn't there the next morning.

‘We'll just have to hope he's back by the time you get home from school this afternoon,' said Mama. ‘He's probably out having an adventure.'

I wanted to believe her but Snifter had never gone off on his own before.

‘What if he's been hit by a car or bitten by a snake and he's out in the scrub in terrible pain?' said Tim, struggling not to cry.

Snifter wasn't home after school and for the next three days Tim and Mama searched, knocked on doors and left notes on telegraph poles. Mama even put an ad in the newspaper with Snifter's photo. No-one had seen him.

‘Gone pinis,' said Dad sadly. ‘Forever, I'm afraid. Three days now and no sign. I reckon he's been stolen. His pedigree makes him worth a lot of money.'

Tim went so pale I thought he might be sick.

‘So whoever took him,' Dad said quickly, ‘will certainly look after him.'

‘Yes,' said Mama. ‘They'll give him his favourite food and he won't even want to come home.'

Tim said nothing. He didn't believe them. I didn't either.