From the front windows of the elevated bungalow they could see vast opaque green disused pools, as well as the muddy churned tracts of water where two rusty dredgers floated. The vessels were bedecked with an uneven array of bare electric bulbs already lit. The circles of huge buckets scooping up the tin ore and dross washed down from the hillsides by great powerful hoses created a racket which was a constant accompaniment to life there.
By the time they had eaten, George had been off supervising the temporary erection of small-meshed chicken wire stretched taut over an open jeep. It was, he told them, a hand grenade that had been used to ambush his last payroll. ‘If one gets lobbed on that, it should bounce off. It’s a quick, rough job,’ George apologised, ‘but better than nothing. I’ll refine it later.’
Liz and her mother turned to wave goodbye as Sturgess drove them away.
‘I’ll be along to see you quite soon,’ George called.
‘I hope so,’ Blanche called, adding, as they were out of earshot, ‘It’s like leaving another bit of England behind, village cricket and all that.’
Liz noticed how Sturgess’s knuckles stood out white as he gripped the steering wheel. She put it down to impatience with these chatting women. She remembered the bread roll — someone should tell him his actions gave away so much more than his words.
‘Yes,’ she agreed pointedly, ‘all the nice homely bits.’
‘Salt of the earth,’ he said.
Liz found his remark intrusive. ‘Do you know the way?’ she asked, surprised how imperious the remark sounded.
She thought he said he did, but his answer was lost as her mother remarked that she had not expected to travel back to Rinsey in a chicken coop.
The conversation died as the sky changed with dramatic tropical intensity from blue to silver, silver to gold, bronze to fierce red as the sun dropped away, making the huge fern trees stand out and adding gloss to coconut and fan palms.
That he knew the way became more obvious for though the jeep’s headlights were not brilliant, Sturgess drove with what looked like growing confidence, as if he was recollecting the idiosyncrasies of the road as they progressed.
Her throat dry with excitement and anxiety, Liz recognised the last steep rise in the road before they took a sharp left around a huge outcrop of fern-covered rock, where water continually trickled and was ducted under the track. Then, had it been day, they would have glimpsed the bungalow.
‘There should be lights,’ Blanche said as Sturgess swept the jeep expertly around the bend. ‘We should see lights from here.’
‘Unless the trees have grown too big,’ Liz tried to reassure, but she had noticed, before the last of the light went, the neglect in the plantations, how the secondary jungle had begun to creep back under the trees. Some sections had been cleared but there she had seen that the cups on the trees below the tapping scars had run over uncollected; it was a very bad sign. Tappers were paid for the weight of latex they collected, so no worker would tap his section of trees and then not collect his rubber and his dues.
If her mother noticed she said nothing, until they came in sight of their bungalow and Sturgess slowed to walking pace.
‘No lights, no vehicle,’ Blanche said as their headlights touched the front of the property.
‘No boys, no welcome,’ Liz added bleakly as the jeep stopped.
‘Stay in the vehicle,’ Sturgess ordered, ‘while I have a look round, make sure there are no booby traps, nothing wired to explosives or flares.’
Liz found her mother holding her arm as if she well understood her daughter’s overwhelming urge to run up those familiar steps. This was homecoming, after all. The headlights made the wide verandah surrounding the whole bungalow looked even deeper, the roof reaching out to the farthest edges of the steps out of proportion to the building underneath.
She watched as John Sturgess cautiously crossed the verandah, then, almost beyond the range of the jeep lights, flattened himself against the wall. She glimpsed his bare arm reaching out sideways to push open the door. Then he disappeared inside.
After a minute or two there was still silence. Blanche breathed, ‘No one’s blown him up yet.’
‘I feel a bit of a charlie sitting here.’ Liz looked up through the chicken wire to the black velvet sky pierced with huge, bright stars. ‘Shall we go in?’ It was a decision and she was out of the jeep and up the steps before her mother could answer.
As she moved through the open door into the room, she was aware of the generator thudding in the lean-to at the back of the house. If there was no one here now, it had not been deserted for long. She slid an arm along the wall and felt for the light switch. The next moment she gasped as a hand gripped her arm.
‘I could have shot you. Why can’t women do as and be where they’re expected?’
Angrily she took him up on the odd phrase. ‘I expected to be able to do as I liked in my own home.’ For a moment the grip on her arm tightened as if in contradiction, then it was released as he said, ‘I’ll close the shutters.’
‘Someone has been here nursing the generator,’ Blanche commented as the lights were put on and she came into her house. ‘It was always temperamental; there was only Neville and the Guisans who could keep it running.’
They separated, going from room to room, switching on lights, flooding every corner, not pausing to exclaim about objects rediscovered or changes made. The front lounge to Liz’s eyes looked the same, but in the dining room her mother’s treasured bespoke rosewood dining suite had gone; in fact, the room was empty.
‘There’s fresh meat and beer in the refrigerator,’ Liz called from the kitchen. ‘Wherever Daddy’s gone, it can’t be for long.’
‘Major Sturgess!’ the formal call from her mother, who had gone to the main bedroom, alerted them to something more untoward. ‘Come and look at this!’
They hurried to her mother’s room, where Blanche stood looking down on a regular arsenal of weapons laid out on her double bed.
‘Are these all yours?’ the major asked.
She shook her head, but then amended, ‘Some.’ She pointed to three rifles and two revolvers. ‘Neville obviously has his revolver with him, the rest ...’ She shrugged.
‘The rest,’ he began, touching them in turn as he spoke, ‘Sten gun, spare magazines, 303 Lee Enfield rifles. Dropped in metal canisters to us during the war, stolen and buried in the jungle by the communists — until they needed them.’
For a moment Liz felt a little compassion for him. Standing there head down as he contemplated evidence of the deceit of former Chinese comrades in arms, he looked like a man whom life had completely betrayed. She found herself wondering if he had also been betrayed in Australia. A wife perhaps? A family?
With that sudden, disconcerting switch from stillness to action, he went to the telephone, snatching up the receiver. Finding it working, he said, ‘I think we should tell the local police you’re here, that you are unsure where your husband is, and what we’ve found. I’ll also speak to George.’
‘Why not speak to George first?’ Blanche suggested. ‘He could do with the guns. The police will only panic, then confiscate them.’
John Sturgess nodded approval. ‘Now I know you’ve lived here before.’
‘Did you doubt it?’ Liz asked.
He glanced at her and away so quickly that she wondered if her failure to comply to the letter with his instruction had permanently offended him.
The surplus guns were wrapped and stowed in a wardrobe in the spare bedroom, where her mother decided the detailed inspection of their home would stop. There were differences, dilapidations, but also areas where her father had already made some way towards restoring their home to comfort and elegance. For example, a rather splendid new tiled floor had been laid in the kitchen and dining room.