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Nick Ashton-Jones
Contents
1
ODD BUGGER
WANEIS PEOPLE
14
MISSION
19
MUSTER
26
ESTATE
33
CONNECTION
38
WOUNDS
45
THEN WHO AM I?
54
CHIEF
70
78
11 HEART OF DARKNESS
82
12 IDEALIST
96
13 DETRITUS
105
14 TOWN
118
15 HOME TRUTHS
123
16 UNWELCOME VISITOR
133
17 VAN ISLANDERS
149
18 THE CENTRE
160
192
20 THE GARDENER
209
222
226
23 DRY LAND
234
24 SLEEP
242
25 DEPARTURE
250
257
27 HOME
265
ODD BUGGER
1.1
Harry Harrington-Smith would attend the local planters
meetings once a week, so you couldnt say he was deliberately
anti-social. But in the middle of the discussion his eyes would
mist over, his face would relax and he was gone to that place
where he would rather be than with these tiresome men. They
were not offended in terms of manners, because it went deeper
than that, seeming to confirm the total irrelevance of
everything. But they were baffled by this odd man who
seemed to be so separate from them. He made them feel
uneasy; they wanted to avoid him.
After the meeting there would be drinks around the bar:
beer from stubby bottles, whisky-coke or gin and tonics.
Restrained merriment until Harry left: Ill be off.
OK, see you.
Bye Harry.
Cheers Harry.
Careful on that road, you never see the buggers in the
night.
See you.
Bye.
Bye.
He was gone; they relaxed: Odd fellow, Harry.
Yeah, fuck him.
They were glad to forget him and drink away their fears,
to let their dinners get cold and avoid their lonely bungalows.
Life was less frightening in the beery surroundings of the club
where they did not have to be alone.
After it had happened, of course, everyone said they were
not surprised. He was bound to do something funny, in the
end.
1.2
Headlights pick up hedges of coffee, rolling tea, casuarina
trees, neat village huts strung along the rough roadside. Less
alien are the grassy hills behind; the black, brooding
mountains beyond. The plantation gate opened by the nightwatch: yes Master.
Yes Jon, good night.
Up the hill to the old bungalow. Head-lights sweep
hibiscus, gravel forecourt and briefly, a stone wall, a tangle of
bougainvillea hanging over roof and windows, a wooden
panelled door. Then, only the night: the rustle of leaves; the
rainy whistle of a breeze; the distant, slow drumming and
chanting from the hills. Stars prick out the vast dome of the
black sky. Memories of the time before when the valley
echoed with drums and dances, when it was not irritated by
the tea and coffee plantations and when fire ran free across the
grass: before they had retreated to the damp, woody hillsides;
before they cut off their fine hair, plaited with pig grease;
before they became the bloody-fucking-bastards of the white
men; before the white men found the valley, settling it,
draining it, making it safe and familiar for themselves and
damn the rest.
Harry sits in the car, in the dark.
A small light bobs and jumps, brighter, shines through a
window, throws out shadows which dance around the car and
across the face of Harry. Brow creased in pain or the shadows
game? An odd bugger: its been said, but who isnt?
1.3
Wanei, the house-boy, heard the car as he slept in a chair
beside the kitchen range wherein dinner congealed. Wanei,
ever watchful for ways, it seemed, to serve a god. Wanei,
whose one eye rested sometimes on the long, blond, hairy
body of Harry; the man.
Oh, but if the man returned the gaze, the one eye dropped
to the ground.
Wanei, you bugger, wheres my shirt?
Wanei, hurry up you donkey; Ill beat you.
10
1.4
He creeps into the mans room. He stands, bright in the
moonlight, watching the sleeping face. Eyes open to hold the
one eye with an intensity of knowledge. Wanei is more
securely tied than ever. Love moves in his belly as a lively
snake which makes him afraid.
1.5
The light stops and the front door opens to Wanei holding
the kero lamp. The car door slams shut in the still night.
Wanei?
Master?
Is food ready?
Yes, Master.
Lets have it quick, and Wanei leads Harry into the
dining room; a big room in the centre of the house; at one
time, a yard. Roofed over, the place has never successfully
pulled itself together to become a proper room: a crippled
space; one poor window squints at the garden, mountains
beyond; a view, in the daytime, which mocks the closed-in
and joyless void.
A table dominates; beautifully made from one of the
highland mahoganies; big enough to seat twelve people, it is
11
12
1.6
Eventually, Harry pushes himself up, takes a lamp, and
walks towards a passage leading off left of the strangled
window. The glass briefly reflects him. The light disappears
and then flashes back through the window as we see him on
the other side. A door opens, shuts and he is gone. Wanei
picks up the remaining lamp and moves into the kitchen
closing the door behind him.
13
WANEIS PEOPLE
2.1
Benjamin Waninara, whose obvious one eye gave him an
instant nick name, came from the largest of the off-shore
islands. It was called Van, which means Here in their
language. A place of fertile volcanic soils, of luxuriant
vegetation and of handsome people who, despite making an
easy living from land and sea, had a particular taste for human
flesh which, before the white men stopped it, had been
obtained by raiding the weaker tribes living on the smaller
neighbouring islands.
In the old days Waneis people traded on their
cannibalistic reputation and by spreading fear and
incomprehension throughout the locality had won dominance
over a large peninsula protected by sea and mountain. Like the
English, whom they resembled in many ways, Waneis
ancestors thought they had the whole world in their hands. But
there was one aspect of their lives that they could not control.
This was the volcano which dominated the view of Van.
Ironically, Waneis people were well aware of the value of the
volcanic ash which enriched their soils, and indeed the age-old
proverb said after the soot falls, the good times come, but
always in the back of their minds was the fearful idea of what
might happen. And not only had the volcano the capacity to
erupt violently, to shake the earth and to destroy, but also it
did these things apparently without reason and with little
warning. A maddening and unpredictable parent which whilst
loving its children sincerely, had problems of its own and
would therefore lash out from time to time. Waneis ancestors
called the volcano The Mother.
To familiarise the volcano may have made it less
frightening but its brooding unpredictability meant that it had
to be taken into account at all times. But there was no tradition
of trying to placate it, certainly not by human sacrifice. The
presence of the volcano and its power, regularly expressed in
14
15