The Birthmark (19 page)

‘
Trut!
' she screamed and shoved the propped mattress in her fury. It wobbled and flopped to the ground revealing a rectangular shape against the wall.

Lorelei caught her breath and teetered at the door, her eyes struggling to focus. Then it was clear, it was a DVD— probably the one she'd been searching for. She reached in and picked it up. There was no label. She was certain it was the porno. And with a pang of guilt she was certain of something else too: she knew why her daughter hadn't wanted to come home to sleep.

twenty

Baringa Bay
18 April 1943

The youth led Tepu south through the forest. Not far from the path leading up to the Baringa Bay bunker two coconut trees stood in a clearing. Tepu saw a dark shape huddled at the base of each one.

‘He's over there,' the youth said, pointing to the furthest tree.

Tepu ran and whispered to the slumped figure of his brother. ‘I'm here now, I'll take you home.' But no answer came except the soft gurgle and rattle of Tarema's breath. He shook him gently, but still there was no response. Tepu took a deep breath to quell his rage. The smell of blood and urine filled his senses, forcing bile into his mouth. He fought back the urge to vomit.

‘Hurry, Tepu!' the youth called from the other side of the clearing, ‘the patrols will come again soon.'

Tepu fumbled in the dark and felt the ropes that bound Tarema to the tree. He sawed at them with his knife until they broke. Tarema pitched forward into the sand. Tepu lifted him over his shoulder then staggered to his feet. The marines would pay for this, he swore. There would be blood for blood.

Anbwido
Friday 2 July 2004

Hector made his way up the Witch Track behind Lotus Restaurant. An idea had been troubling him for days, growing in his mind until it was all he thought about. If the sword was half buried in the bush where they'd caught the chicken, what else was up there? Would there be other treasures, other things from the war?

Hector tipped the last drops of a soft drink into his mouth, then tossed his can away into the bushes. He was prepared this time. He'd brought with him one of his longer whittled sticks, sturdy enough to use as a walking stick or to dig with if needed.

Maybe he'd find another bottle. Ibu had liked the bottle, even though it wasn't a weapon. He said it could whisper a story to him if he listened hard enough. That's because bottles had mouths, the old man reasoned, and the drinkers were telling a few stories at the time they drank.

Hector laughed. Imagine if it were true—what would they say, all the crushed VB cans that covered the surface of the island? Or even the can he'd just tossed.

After about five minutes walk he reached the site where they'd found the sword. Dead leaves had already covered the disturbed ground and Hector realised that if he'd left it for another week he would have had trouble finding it again.

He cleared away the leaves with his stick, then dug deeply in the black soil. Small black hopping bugs and tiny crawling insects writhed in the wet humus, desperate for the cover of rotting leaves. He pushed them aside with his free hand and continued to dig around with the stick, exposing white coral shards amongst the black soil and then the grey sand of the deeper layers.

There was nothing but the earth and Hector felt cheated. He was so sure he would find something else. ‘Bastard!' he shouted, getting to his feet and flinging his stick into the air. It flew into the scrub behind him and lodged high in the tangle of tree hibiscus that formed a kind of hedge.

Ngaitirre!
That was a good stick, he cursed. He shook each of the hibiscus trunks in turn, trying to shift it. Finally it dropped down, but fell on the other side of the hedge. He forced his way between two trunks and bent down to grab it. But in that moment he saw the rounded shape of an eye socket and a smooth skull. Although dark grey and partly buried, it was definitely human.

‘Ey!' he shouted, leaping back from the hedge. His breath stuck in his throat. He looked about in terror, expecting a skeleton to jump out from the trees around him, but the forest was still in the dappled light. He gulped back his fear and pushed into the hedge once more. This time he saw that the skull lay at the foot of two pinnacles, completely hidden by the hedge of tree hibiscus. The soil about it had been disturbed by the busy claws of wild chickens and Hector noted that, even though only a small section of the upper jaw was visible, a few teeth remained.

He picked up his stick and backed away, unable to take his gaze from the gaping eye. He stumbled over the earth he'd disturbed. It had only been a few steps, so close that Hector realised it was probably the sword's owner he'd found.

He shuddered, thinking of the sword and how Lily had been haunted. Would the ghost come after him now? His chest burst with adrenaline and before he even realised it, he was racing through the forest back to the Witch Track.

twenty-one

Yamek District
20 April 1943

In the early morning of the second day Tarema stopped breathing.

For the first time since the Japanese invaded, Tepu cried. No matter how he thought about it, he felt responsible for his brother's death. He hadn't kept watch over him, hadn't protected him. His own inability to provide for his family had prompted Tarema to take more risks. Each week his little brother had managed to steal something from the Japanese stores. He stole to keep them alive, Tepu and their mother. But this time he'd been caught.

The struggle against the Japanese seemed futile. Each day they broke the spirit of the islanders, broke it with starvation, violence, death. And now it seemed to Tepu the Japanese had won. He sat hunched by the lean-to, listening to his mother's weeping.

The chatter of a black sea tern startled him. He looked up. The ancestor bird was perched on one of the pinnacles that formed the wall of the lean-to. Its eyes shone with an eerie green light.

‘Use the stone,' the bird rasped. Then it faded from view.

Tepu clutched at the black stone in his pocket. Its warmth radiated up his arm. He would do as the bird said. He would use the stone to avenge his brother and he would plan carefully.

Baringa Bay
Friday 2 July 2004

Lily trudged along the sand towards the channel. Was he there already? Would he be there at all? He probably wouldn't even show up. Her fears churned over and over in her head until she began to feel sick.

The tide was coming in, waves rushed up the wrinkled brown flats of the reef and hurtled themselves at the exposed coral pinnacles. They were like playful children ambushing their petrified grandfathers who gazed out to sea. Some pinnacles were sharp gritty demons, tall and imposing, while others were no more than broken boulders. They stood proudly in the salty stink of rotting sea slugs and the steady creep of green algae. Perhaps the pinnacles were the frozen forms of her ancestors, or drowned souls returning to their homeland. She often imagined that the wailing in her recurring nightmare was actually a pinnacle calling out to her—perhaps her long departed ancestor, Edouwe. What had happened to her? She'd probably never find out. Her mother and her aunties didn't seem to know much to pass on.

The channel was deserted. Lily walked up to the ramp and saw there were no cars at the parking bay either. She sat on some rocks in the shade of a twisted tree that leant over the beach. She, waited and wondered about Jonah and why he was different from other guys. She loved how confident he was and how he went off on his own and mixed with anyone. She loved the gap between his teeth and the muscles of his arms. She loved the way he touched her, held her, kissed her and she hoped she'd get to experience it again. She hoped yesterday wasn't just a dream, or some kind of ghostly experience like she'd had in the night. She wanted it to be true and real and alive.

‘Are you going to swim?' came Jonah's voice, snapping her out of her trance. And there he was, walking down the ramp, so cool in an old blue T-shirt and a pair of black shorts. In all the time she'd been waiting, the tide had come in a long way and most of the reef was under water. Jonah walked straight into the swell. ‘Come on!'

She followed him out into the sea, gasping as the water rose about her thighs and then her buttocks, until finally she sank into its depths with only her head bobbing above the waves. Lily reckoned Jonah had gone out to where he could just touch the bottom. She swam out to meet him, then floated on her back beside him, lifting her toes to break the surface.

‘I love floating in the waves like this, don't you?' she said.

He grinned at her and she noticed he kept looking at her chest. She looked down and saw her T-shirt clinging to her breasts.

‘Bastard!' she shouted and splashed water at his face. ‘Shut up!' he laughed, lunging at her, but she pulled away from him.

‘People will see us here,' Lily said.

‘You're the one who wanted to meet here.'

‘Well let's go into the shallows, so no one can see us from the road.'

He swam over to the side of the channel, then crawled along the reef like a sand hopper in the incoming tide. Lily waded through the shallows wringing out her T-shirt as she went. She slid into the water in front of him where he lay on his belly, propped up on his elbows with his legs pointed out to sea.

She smiled at the admiring pair of eyes in front of her. ‘I wondered if you would really come here today. I thought you were joking.'

‘I wanted to come. I wanted to see you.'

‘You don't seem to want to see me at school,' she said. ‘School!' he snorted. ‘School's different. We're on holidays now, it's time to play.'

‘We play at school too, don't ever do much work. It's just a big waste of time.'

‘Yeah, I know, school's crazy, isn't it? But we have to get serious now to do the scholarship exams.'

‘So you're Mr Serious at school, are you? Too serious to talk to me?'

‘Yeah,' he said, laughing.

‘You must like school.'

‘No, I hate it. But my dad wants me to sit for the scholarship exam. That's the only reason I go.'

Lily smiled. ‘Imagine if you won a scholarship, where would you go?'

‘Australia, I guess. My cousin got one a few years ago. He's studying in Melbourne.'

‘Bet it's better than Tevua.'

‘Yeah.'

A white form brushed past Lily's arm in the swell. She recoiled. ‘
Suh!
A nappy,' she shouted and tossed the swollen white shape up onto the rocks.

‘I thought it had bitten you,' Jonah said.

They both laughed and Lily saw in his eyes that nameless quality that was nervousness and desire, and she grew in strength because of it—he was just as scared as she was. They sat in silence for a while as the waves lapped at them. She wondered what to say next and what was going through his mind.

‘Do you believe in ghosts, Jonah?'

‘Ghosts?' He looked at her earnestly. ‘Yeah…what sort of ghosts?'

‘Any kind. Do you see them?'

‘No. But my uncle did once.'

‘Where?' she asked as she dug her hands into the sand and began to make small hillocks that eroded with each wave.

‘You know the story about the giant pig that walks around Yamek? He saw it once, on his way home from a nightclub.'

‘Do you believe him?'

‘I don't know. I think so. I think there are things out at night, devils and spirits and things we can't know. Have you seen a ghost?'

She took a long time to answer him, wondering whether he'd think she was crazy or not. ‘Yeah. I have.'

‘You lie.'

His words ate away at her confidence. ‘No, not now,' she said softly and she turned her face towards the sea, away from his doubting eyes.

‘What kind of ghost?'

She gritted her teeth, wondering whether she should say any more but her words spilled out nervously, ‘It's a man, I think he's a soldier…a marine from the war.'