Inheritance. Part 8

'To myself on behalf of my daughter.'

Elena shifts a little, regards Ann with her head tilted to one side, considering, no doubt, the next line of attack. Ann waits. She remembers the examination, years ago, for her French orals the patient tutors behind their desks, trying not to appear terrifying; and failing.

'Ani,' says Elena at last, 'you must know what I am thinking. That Teo is the father. Her age would fit.'

Ann says nothing. She looks away, out to the hills in the distance. She thinks of her beloved dead father and prays to his soul for strength.

'You have promised to keep the child secret, to save his pule.' Elena makes a face. 'That wife of his Ma'atoe is a jealous and proud woman. Her children are not allowed to visit me in New Zealand for fear I contaminate them with my modern ideas! Can you imagine! But then she is high-born.'

Ann stares into the fire. She dares not speak.

Elena smiles and leans forward ominously. 'My dear Ani, my naughty brother is a better man these days. A little pompous, but not as wayward as in those years we were together. A matai, yes, and a Member of Parliament. He has a certain standing and may enter the Cabinet soon. His reputation is secure enough. An illegitimate palagi child might be excused even chuckled over as a conquest in past days.' She slaps her thigh and chuckles herself. 'Ma'atoe need not know.'

'Elena my old friend,' Ann rises and holds out her hand. The worst is perhaps over. 'I have made a promise and will keep it. At the time I was very angry with the father and never wanted to see him again.' (This, at least, is the truth.) 'Francesca will never have knowledge of her birth father. Surely it's not so important. She is happy and secure with a good mother and many friends. If you want to keep in touch with Francesca, it must be as one of those friends. Or as patron.'

Elena gives a little sigh. 'Not as aunt?'

'No. Not as aunt. And you must not mention a word of any Samoan blood. Or of our time in Samoa.'

Elena sighs again. 'So hard.'

She has given in too easily, thinks Ann. I don't trust her for a minute. 'Listen Elena,' she says, 'I have told Francesca what you call "a big fib" for good reason. What will she think of me if you tell her something different now? Will she ever trust me again?'

Elena says nothing, but her eyes accuse. She spreads her hands, palms up, as if the answer is obvious, then slaps them down on her thighs.

'Well, then. So, for the time being we will differ on the matter of Francesca.' She smiles easily and steers the conversation to other matters. Her own life; Ann's.

'That story of Florence,' she says, tracing a finger over the tapestry cushion at her side, 'I told not one person but you.' I made a big joke of it, I think, when we sat over our lunch at the clinic do you remember that day? How we laughed?'

Ann remembers the ease of their friendship back in the islands, the many hilarities. Elena was away, back in New Zealand, during the darkest time. Her memories seem all to be clear and sunlit; or is she trying to seduce Ann?

'Yes I remember,' she says, smiling. 'Your stories always made me laugh.'

Elena sighs. 'Shall I tell you the truth? It was not a funny time at all. I changed it to make you laugh. I told you a big fib because I wanted to tell, but was embarra.s.sed about the truth. Perhaps you have been the same with Francesca.'

Before Ann can interrupt, to argue again her own scruples, Elena tells the real story. She speaks in a different voice now not the usual colourful flow. The words are hesitant, troubled.

'For me it wasn't really the fun-filled trip of a lifetime the carefree OE that we all loved to boast about. My mother didn't even know about it. I lied to her.' Elena looks quickly up at Ann and back again at the pattern on the cushion. 'It was the year before my degree course in Dunedin started. I'd pa.s.sed my prelim exams in Wellington with flying colours. Two other students friends in a casual sort of way decided to have a year off before all the hard work and asked me to come too. I had saved enough of the scholarship money to go and wanted desperately to see Europe, so we went. My mother thought I was hard at work on an isolated farm earning enough to continue my studies. In a way the guilt of that lie spoiled things for me I was always worrying that she might find out. One of the others was a boy, which would be considered highly improper in Samoa. But I rather fancied him and liked her, so I went.'

'Was this an affair?' says Ann, interested despite her worries. 'You never mentioned an affair!'

'Not really an affair. He was clever and good fun. We held hands once or twice. I was always a prude, even in Samoa. Teo told me I was known as the ice queen, for my standoffish ways!' Elena smiles, perhaps sadly. 'I was interested in other things. Boys usually seemed rather silly to me.'

'But Florence?' Ann prompts. 'Did it really happen?'

'Oh yes. It happened,' Elena clears her throat angrily, 'but not in the boisterous, hilarious way I told it to you and no doubt you told to Francesca. I was homesick; the other two had gone off somewhere for a couple of days together. They had become a sort of couple, which made me even more miserable. I knew no one in the camping ground and was freezing, huddled in my sleeping bag in our little tent. I could hear laughter from the tent next door.

'Then a young English boy poked his head through the flap and said his Italian friend knew of a good party in an old mill close by. He said they'd noticed I was alone and asked if I'd like to join them. I shook my head.' Tears stand in Elena's eyes as she looks up. 'Embarra.s.sed at my own shyness, terrified of what my mother would think, ashamed of being such a wimp. Get the picture?'

'Elena, you don't have to tell me,' says Ann. 'It's a long time ago.'

'I want to tell you, Ani. Do you mind?'

Ann moves over to sit at Elena's feet. This is not at all how she had pictured the evening, but she's glad of the diversion, glad to be, in some way, needed.

Elena takes a deep breath. 'He was very persuasive but not violent. I buried my head in the sleeping bag and he went away. I felt dreadful. Lay there listening to their laughter, which I now imagined was aimed at me. Finally they came back.'

'They?'

'All three boys two English and one handsome Italian that part was real with a bottle of Chianti. They pushed in and sat down beside me, rather drunk, saying they were coming to cheer me up. "Have a drink," they said, "then you might feel like coming to the party." Again, I was too shy to send them away.'

'I can't believe this,' says Ann, trying to make light of the story. 'The feisty Elena Levamanaia?'

Elena strokes Ann's head where it rests now on her knee. 'I was out of my element, Ani, and alone. Who can behave as they'd wish in those times? I sat up in bed, accepted a drink, pretended to be friendly; tried to be the party girl they were looking for. Of course it got worse. I became light-headed very quickly. The Italian started to stroke my arm, which rather excited me at first, but then one of the other boys joined in on the other side, and I became frightened.'

'Why didn't you call out? There must have been people within earshot.'

'Oh yes there were, there were. Why didn't I call out? Shame again? I was in my nightdress and didn't want anyone to see me. The boys were laughing. They thought it all a great joke. "Don't be afraid," one of them said. "We won't hurt you it's just a bit of fun. Come on sweetie, enjoy yourself." But I couldn't. I couldn't. I hated every minute of their pawing. In the end I fought them with all my strength, silently but with hate in my heart. That excited them even more. One of them ...' Elena stopped speaking.

Ann turns up to look at her friend. 'Oh Elena, did they rape you?'

'No. Not completely. I was too strong for them. But one of them couldn't hold back his excitement and made a mess on my sleeping bag. He told me I was a frigid b.i.t.c.h and to go back to whatever backwoods I'd crawled out of. Then they all went. Off, noisy and laughing, to their party at the mill.'

Elena sighs. Wipes at the tears with the back of her hand. 'I was never there at that party. That's the true version. Not a laugh a minute. I have felt shame ever since. Perhaps what he said was right perhaps I am frigid.'

Ann laughs. 'You are the warmest, most lively person I've ever met.'

'You know what I mean.'

Ann nods. The silence between them is comfortable. I have missed this good friend, she thinks, more than I knew.

The room has grown colder. Ann goes to bank up the fire, but Elena halts her. She rises from her chair, graceful despite her bulk. 'Time I should go, Ani my dear friend. Thank you for listening. I must drive back to Invercargill tonight, and then Wellington early in the morning.' She cups Ann's face in her hand, rubbing gently. 'You are tired. And we must both work tomorrow.'

'I knew you would come,' Ann says quietly at the door. 'But I don't really understand why. Why did you come, Elena? Why take so much trouble? All this is in the past.'

'To me not.' Elena's voice comes smiling from the darkened drive. 'I do not share your palagi sense of time. Past and present live together. Remember that time at the archaeological site? On that great mound?'

Ann waits, trying to grasp the connection, but no further comment is offered. She sees Elena's moonlit hand raised beside the car. Then the door slams and she drives away. She watches as Elena climbs out to manage the gate, drives through and stops to latch it again. She can't see if there is a final wave.

As she tidies away coffee cups, turns out lights, Ann admits to herself the pleasure of Elena's visit. The good times have been locked away securely with the bad, she thinks. I had forgotten entirely that there were good times. She wonders if Elena has other bad times to remember. Not Ann's, but others of her own. The thought that they will meet again is a pleasure a dangerous antic.i.p.ation. No meeting has been planned but they both know it will happen. What an aching pleasure it would be to sit with Elena again and tell the truth, as Elena has just done. The whole story. In the tapestry of these twenty good years ones to be proud of is woven a single twisted thread of worry and guilt. Has she done the right thing? Should Francesca have always known the truth?

Elena is the person she could tell. But what might she break in the process?

PART THREE.

Fa'asamoa.

Elena.

Well, I will need to tread lightly as they say. Not so easy for a big woman! Especially one of my nature. Why did I take the trouble, she asked? A good question. I asked myself the same on that long drive in the dark back to my cold hotel bed. Part, of course, was the allure of that young woman who may be the niece I have longed to nurture. But part also is tied up with Jeanie herself. The friends I have are mostly casual. Jeanie is different. I would not tell that story of the dreadful time in Florence to anyone else. Not to Teo. Not to my mother especially not my mother! I know I'm looked upon as strange an unmarried Samoan woman! But the idea of married life or life with a man, I suppose I should say simply doesn't interest me. Nothing particularly strange about that from my point of view. My work is satisfying. But the loss of Jeanie has left a hole in the weave of my life that no one else has filled. I can't really explain it. Nor do I feel the need to.

I'd like to talk to her about my present dilemma. Should I go back to Samoa, as I am called to do? The job offered is good, very good, and I would be in a position to make a difference. Also, a senior matai t.i.tle is on the table on the mat, I should say! I have never agreed to accept a t.i.tle unless I were living in the islands and could fulfil my duties properly. I have never admired those who accept t.i.tles while still living overseas. They send money, yes, but that is not the purpose of a t.i.tle. A matai should be a leader, not a source of income.

Somehow, seeing Jeannie that day in the museum brought back the feeling we had, Teo and I, returning to the islands. We were full of hope, and purpose then, confident of changing things for the better. We were the new, qualified generation, able, under the new const.i.tution, to make a difference in our own country.

And in those first few years I did, I think. The campaign to stamp out the dreaded filariasis disease; the food distribution after the hurricane. But then I saw Teo give in to the old conservative pressures, and I felt myself doing the same. I told myself I could be more use serving our people back in New Zealand, but basically I suppose I was running away before fa'asamoa got to me too. The old customs are so strong! I see no change, these days, or none for the better. Children still come last in the pecking order, those with new ideas are suspect, conservative elders still hold sway, the pastors are still overfed and greedy. Violence underlies much of fa'asamoa. My views are unbalanced perhaps; but in my line of business I need to put a little extra weight in the scales.

I think of those cases of donated milk powder, flour and tins of fish and meat, standing idle in the sheds after the hurricane, while the men tried to agree on a good method of distribution. Months, they languished there while the arguments continued. Should each matai be given an amount according to the number of families in his 'aiga? Or should each village be given a share to distribute? Perhaps the churches the pastors should distribute? (I was definitely against that.) In the end the Women's Committees demanded, and won, the right to distribute. Those powerful women decreed that every man, woman and child should get exactly the same, and that distribution would be through the Women's Committees themselves! They were rigid and scrupulous in the task. A triumph, if somewhat ridiculous when it came to the palagi population. That's where Jeanie and I came into our own. We followed the distribution teams when they went to palagi homes. Two minutes after the supplies had been handed over, we knocked on the door, carrying large baskets.

'You don't really need this food,' Jeanie or I would point out. 'The hospital will use your contribution in feeding needy children.' And we'd stand there, smiling, with our baskets. Mostly the food was given willingly. Would the pastors have given their share to the children? No one dared ask them.

So I rave on. My thoughts prejudices perhaps? are a shield against this call to return. Am I stronger now, to resist the old ways? To stand up for the rights of the children who need the protein which their elders consume in such large quant.i.ties? To be an advocate for those who arrive at the hospital beaten up because they questioned a corrupt, but accepted, practice? Perhaps. Or perhaps I will shrug into the comfort of being an elder myself, and will forget all my ideals. That is my fear. I would like to spend the next ten years of my life back in the islands, so that when the millennium arrives I can say: There, I made my mark and my country is the better for it.

Jeanie would not be seduced I think. Jeanie would always question. She is sharper than me. But more vulnerable.

Whatever made her take such a stand? To disappear and change her name? (Hope: what an interesting choice!) Surely being angry with Teo would not be enough?

Jeanie is misguided or over-cautious or both to keep Francesca from the truth. But we will see about all that. In time, surely, I will take my niece to Falelua and tell her the history of her blood.

Our family comes from the village of Falelua in the Tuamasaga District, I will tell her. We are of the Malietoa 'aiga, which is high-born. You can be proud of your Samoan blood. Our line is not the highest of the Malietoa, but respectable enough.

One day I hope to tell Francesca the stories of her bloodline. Even thinking of telling it of describing our nu'u on the coast, east of Apia, makes me smile. The beautiful simple fale set among tall coconut and breadfruit trees our blessed food-givers; the graves of our ancestors, freshly painted white every year, standing comfortingly close behind our fale, the white coral sand raked smooth and clean around them; the two great churches towering over the village Catholic and LMS ridiculously ostentatious, she will say (and I might secretly agree) but a matter of great pride to our nu'u. Their spires and towers are among the highest in the whole district. I will point upward, inland, to where our village land stretches up to the crest of the green and misty mountains in the distance. Wild jungle, most of it, but nearer to the village our families our 'aiga grow banana and taro, coconuts, mangos, sugarcane, pineapple, pawpaw for the pigs and have a plantation of cacao. See where my mother has a few coffee bushes near the fale, and a patch of beans; and of course flowers for behind our ears, and for lei, and to scent the air. The food gardens in the bush are neatly tended by the men and women of our family, (your family, Francesca) under the orders of our matai. In normal times no one goes hungry. All this I will tell Francesca, my niece, one day.

I love to go back to Falelua and one day I will take you, Francesca. A promise. You will smell the creamy frangipani blossoms which sprout so surprisingly from the bare stubby fingers of the tree. We will tuck a red hibiscus flower behind your ear and roast a pig to welcome you. You will learn to play kilikiti and to dance with those thin arms of yours. We will lie at night on the warm mats in our large fale, side by side under a mosquito net, listening to the surf on the reef which, together with the high tinnitus of the cicadas, is a background to all other comfortable rustling grunting animal sounds of the night. Shall I talk to you in our language until the words begin to take root? There are such stories to tell!

Will my soul mate Jeanie be with us? Maybe, maybe. Let me at least dream.

That terrible day when Jeanie's father wandered away.

I never knew him well, John O'Dowd. But Jeanie adored him and had been worried about him for some time. He was depressed, she said, not eating properly. Why, I asked, would he be depressed when he had just discovered family and property and a new life in our lovely islands? But Jeanie would just shake her head and get on with the bandaging. When it came to her father, Jeanie was reticent. Quite secretive, really. I wondered if it was because of the land dispute between our families. But that never seemed to bother her at other times. Tiresa railed at me for keeping up the friendship, but Teo and I just laughed off the old folk and enjoyed spending time with Jeanie. We were young, then. At the clinic, we'd talk and laugh about anything and everything under the sun as we bandaged those poor swollen limbs, our arms white to the elbows with the warm sticky mixture of plaster and latex, our backs aching with the effort of holding those huge legs as we wound the bandages tightly, tightly, constricting the sagging flesh. The old folk loved her as much as I did; she always had a smile or a joke for them, in her funny mixture of English and Samoan. They would urge us to bind more strongly; would cry out in pleasure as the measurements showed they had lost inches of flesh, would walk out of the clinic proudly, able to lift the leg or the arm a little more freely each week. In that needy time, after the hurricane, the clinic was like a little oasis of hope. That word again.

I had been sent back to Samoa a year earlier, soon after I qualified, to help manage the filariasis campaign. I stayed for the first months dosing every man, woman and child in Samoa with the filariasis vaccine. The idea was to eradicate the disease entirely from both islands. A mammoth task. My own mother, Tiresa, had a terrible swollen leg, which she hid under her puletasi, and my aunt was worse one huge arm as well as the leg. Elephantiasis, they used to call it, which is an appropriate, if demeaning name. The swollen limb, heavy with soggy, spongy tissue, resembles the grey, wrinkled leg of an elephant. It can attack a man's genitals. I remember an old man in our village who had to support his gigantic s.c.r.o.t.u.m in a sort of wheelbarrow if he wanted to walk at all. It was said in those days, that by the time you had been bitten by ten mosquitoes, you would have the nasty little worms in your blood. Not many palagi ever got to the huge-limb stage that took years. But I treated an old European nun and there was an English priest who always said he was too busy to come in for bandaging. I believe he couldn't face being handled by a Samoan lady doctor.

I was proud to help with the work, even in the difficult early times. Will I ever forget the day of the first dose! From morning to night the radio blared out 'Inu au fualaau', then a moment later, 'Manatua ia inu au fualaau!' the message to take your pills. The Women's Committees were out in force, handing out the pills, standing over everyone, even matai, to ensure the doses were taken. The heavier you weighed, the more pills were to be swallowed. Our patele had to down thirty-four while my mother watched sternly. In fa'asamoa that is not an easy thing to do, even if you are a high-born woman and head of the district Women's Committee. That was something to be proud of: we had persuaded the World Health Organization to insist on the Women's Committees. The matai would have let themselves off, given half a chance!

But worse was next day, when almost all of Samoa fell ill. Those pills had dreadful side effects for those who were badly infected. Stomach cramps, diarrhoea, fever, la.s.situde. Activity of any sort came to a standstill. Schools and offices closed; no one worked on the plantations. Everyone lay on their mats and moaned. A few older people remembered the great flu epidemic when so many died. Fear spread like a cloud of evil mosquitoes. I was shouted at for bringing such a disaster upon the islands. Oh dear Lord, it was a nightmare. How could we ever persuade the population to take the second dose? And the third? And so on.

But we did, more or less, and the eradication was declared a cautious success. Almost the entire population was clear of the tiny worm, praise the good Lord and the WHO. Those little devil mosquitoes no longer had infected blood to sip and spread. By the time Jeanie arrived, I was back in the islands again, helping with the aftermath setting up the clinics, calling for volunteer bandagers, constricting the sagging skin, excising extra flesh. Bringing hope.

I could never persuade Tiresa to come in for bandaging. She had taken her pills, but now her huge leg needed to be constricted with bandages.

'For heaven's sake,' I would rail at her, 'be an example! Look at the way you bullied the patele into taking his pills. After that, the bandaging is nothing!'

But she never would. Was it Jeanie's presence? Or perhaps mine? Was she ashamed for me to see how huge and deformed her leg was?

So we planned to trap her. I enlisted the help of a couple of her friends who were already into the bandaging regime. 'Come into town, Tiresa!' they cried. 'There's a new shipment of hats in Hedstroms. So smart, you won't believe!'

My mother had a weakness for hats. She was famous for her elaborate concoctions, which started off as a smart, shop-bought hat and ended up piled high with beautiful homemade additions.

So the three of them came to town and walked down the street arm in arm, Tiresa in the middle. Hedstroms was just past the clinic on Beach Road. As they pa.s.sed the clinic, the two outer ladies, chatting and laughing, steered the unsuspecting Tiresa sideways, through the door and had her sitting between them on the bench before she realised what was up. Jeanie and I were ready to pounce with the sticky mess of bandages.

'Hats after bandaging!' the women laughed, digging Tiresa in the ribs. 'What a clever daughter you have to make us into slim girls again!'

Tiresa had the good grace to see the joke and allow us to work on her. The other two always called for Jeanie to do them, because they thought I was too rough, so then Tiresa had to stand up for me and we ended up in a mad bandaging race, with comparisons of legs and much hilarity. I had a big cake ready as a reward for my mother.

'Oho!' shouted the two friends. 'We're always coming with you, Tiresa! Such treats, we never get.'

Later, all three came back beaming under their new hats, amid admiring cries from the women waiting for their bandaging. No trouble with Tiresa after that. And she accepted Jeanie too. She was a demanding woman, sometimes, my mother, but fair too. She approved of what Jeanie was doing; the way she joined in. Some of the palagi women never set foot outside their own circles.

Those clinic days were such good fun! Once, Jeanie and I were sitting in the tiny back room of the clinic with our cups of tea and slices of baked breadfruit, tired and happy together. She was talking about children about having them. She wanted a baby desperately. She and Stuart had been trying for months with no luck.

'Don't you want a child?' she asked me, sc.r.a.ping idly at a last clinging patch of latex, 'Wouldn't you love to have a baby?' Jeanie was like that. Never worried about the conventions. A Samoan woman would never talk about such things.

'Not really,' I said. I meant not now. Not here in Samoa. My mother of course was full of plans, but I was not ready, then, for village life, wife of a pastor or matai, organising fiafia, singing in the church choir and attending women's committee meetings. I had already been promised a t.i.tle but had found a reason to turn it down.

'I will be a loving auntie to your children,' I said to Jeanie, 'and you will bring them to me with all their little ailments.' I remember her hugging me then, with tears in her eyes. We thought we were planning a life together. Surely it wasn't just me? We both felt it?

'Your children will come,' I promised. 'Your cycle might take time to adjust to the tropics. Palagi women often have difficulty at first.'

She looked at me with a kind of half smile. 'Oh.'

'And your husband? He wants children too?'

'Yes. Yes of course.' Jeanie gazed through the open door to the glaring yard beyond.

She seemed to have gone somewhere else. I wanted to touch her mind, bring her back. 'What did he do, Stuart, before you came here?'

'Oh,' she shrugged, 'worked in a law office. Not as a lawyer but a law clerk. Then ...' She had gone again.

'Tell me.'

She spoke then with angry defiance, as if she knew she was being disloyal, but didn't care. That's how I read it. Her brute of a husband had lost his temper with a workmate who accused him of some kind of shady deal. They'd had an argument, he had hit the man.

'It wasn't all Stuart's fault. The other man was a bully. But Stuart ... really hurt him. Stuart lost his job. Then there was a court case. Stuart insisted on fighting it, wouldn't admit guilt, and we lost everything the case, our savings, Dad's house.'

Jeanie looked at me, tearful, but smiling. 'Gertrude's summons was a complete G.o.dsend. You wouldn't believe how wonderful that day was, when Dad told us. He took us to dinner at the pub. His half-sister, Aunt Mary, was there too. We knew there was some good news by the way he beamed and urged us to order what we liked. Then he stood, quite formal at the table, to make the announcement. We were going to Samoa! I shouted for joy and hugged him there in front of everyone. Even Stuart shook his hand. A miracle just when we needed it. I know there were problems, and Gertrude was not quite the fairy G.o.dmother I imagined, but here we are! With some kind of future. Stuart is happy, in a way, I think, which helps. If only Dad ...'

'He'll adjust,' I said. 'Give him time.' John's shady paternity had ceased to be the talk of the town by then. But, according to Jeanie, he still felt the shock the shame keenly himself.

Jeanie stood and stretched. She was always quick to change her mood. Dark to light; pensive to full of energy.

'Come for a swim,' she said, laughing, teasing me. I don't swim. I will wallow, demurely clad in a lavalava, if the beach is clean (a rare occurrence), but even in New Zealand I could never see the point of swimming. Snorkelling at Palolo Deep is worse. Floating face down, gazing at coral. Waste of time. Give me a good meal any day.