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  frangipani princess

  Thursday Island, 1941

  The only light in the room came from the open window. Francesca knew she should not go. She thought of how angry it would make Essa. He had drummed stories into her head since she was a young girl – about a wild spirit woman who sat in the poinciana tree at night, waiting for young girls, waiting to capture them and extract the youth and beauty from their bones. Tonight Francesca dismissed these stories as primitive legends intended to scare and entertain young children.

  I am no longer a child, she told herself. We have the wireless and we have big band music. Primitive people we Islanders might have been once, but not any more. I’m not hanging around the island waiting for some big-time university professor to come and measure my skull and take my photograph for the encyclopaedia.

  The Islanders were changing their old ways of life. Some were moving to the mainland and getting jobs. Her sister Philomena had shifted to the mainland with her South Sea Islander husband, who was cutting sugarcane south of Cairns. She’d been living there for five years or more. Islander women didn’t just have to stay on the island looking after their unmarried brothers. Francesca no longer had to be held back by Essa’s silly stories.

  She pulled the soft fabric of her dress over her skin. The touch on her back was sweet and smooth, like milk chocolate. With her small hands she tied the bow at the back. ‘Small hands with long, piano fingers’ was how Sister Mary from school had described them. She would let Francesca play for the younger children at the convent, but that was before the old piano went a little off tune.

  A person’s eyes, according to Sister Mary, were the windows to a person’s soul. Francesca gazed at her own eyes in the mirror. There was something about hers that seemed different. They were the shape of almonds, a testimony to the history of her bloodlines – the merging of Torres Strait Islander and Filipino. Tonight they shone like the moon over water. She blinked, and watched as the dark pupils pulsed and her long eyelashes uncurled. She was changing.

  Francesca dressed in the darkness. Her fingers fumbled doing up the buttons. Her heart was light. She looked around for her shoes. She was agile slipping out the window to find her guitar man.

  On the way to the hall, Francesca could see the moon rising across the ocean. As she passed the poinciana tree, her walk quickened. There was a sound like a snapping branch. Francesca broke into a run and did not stop until she was inside the hall.

  The lights were set low and the music pulsed. Francesca saw Kit on stage. She waved but he did not respond. His voice sounded resonant and youthful. A group of girls stood up the front, watching. Francesca was about to leave, thinking she had misread the signals, when a tall woman with bright red lips called out.

  ‘Frannie, what you doing here? I thought you weren’t allowed out at nights.’

  ‘Hi, Mara. I jumped out the window. Essa doesn’t know.’

  ‘That brother of yours just wants you to stay at home so you can look after him. Good for you for getting out.’

  ‘Do I look okay?’ Francesca asked.

  ‘Fine, love, just fine.’ Mara fluffed up Francesca’s skirt. ‘I’m going to leave this island,’ she said, leaning back into the wall.

  ‘Leave here? But why?’ Francesca watched her friend light a cigarette, saw the smoke in her mouth. Mara’s lips pouted and the smoke curled out like a white snake.

  ‘It’s too small, this place. I don’t want to the only ever having lived on this island.’ Mara looked to the door. It was as if she were speaking Francesca’s thoughts.

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Cairns, Townsville, maybe even Brisbane. Who knows?’

  Francesca stopped twirling her hair in her fingers. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Get a job working in a laundry, maybe.’ Mara touched the flower at her ear.

  ‘Won’t you need permission from the Protector’s Office?’

  ‘There’s white men building an airstrip on Horn Island,’ Mara said. ‘That’s my opportunity to leave here, Frannie.’

  Just then a white man in a suit walked past them and nodded at Mara. ‘G’day, honey,’ he called.

  ‘Honey, ay?’ Francesca’s smile widened.

  ‘You provide the money, I’ll provide the honey,’ Mara laughed. ‘Gotta go.’

  Francesca watched her move towards the man, hips swaying. She could hear Mara laughing beyond the whispers of the other girls. Mara and her man left.

  The music stopped and everybody clapped. Kit tapped Francesca on the shoulder. ‘Hello, Frangipani. Good to see you could make it.’

  ‘You sounded good,’ Francesca said. Her guitar man was pleased to see her.

  They moved towards the side of the hall, where a row of trestles formed makeshift tables with food and drinks. Kit picked up a frangipani flower from a nearby table and placed it behind Francesca’s ear. ‘Would you like to dance, frangipani princess?’

  Later, walking her back to her house, he stopped under the frangipani tree.

  ‘Did you carve the guitar in the tree?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m glad this isn’t a poinciana tree,’ she laughed.

  ‘Are you frightened of those old stories?’

  ‘No,’ she lied.

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t be. A frangipani princess is much stronger than a poinciana woman, easy. Don’t be scared.’

  ‘I’m more scared about a war, and what might happen to this place. It could bring bad luck to the ancestors.’

  ‘This island is too small-minded.’

  ‘Don’t you like it here?’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s just that I want to go to the mainland and see what life is like off the island. You know, us fellas can go over if we sign up for work on the sugar farms, doing cane-cutting. You get permission for that because they need the labour, cos of the war.’

  There was silence. But then he smiled. ‘I might fly there. Just like a butterfly.’

  ‘I better go in, Essa might –’

  ‘Essa can wait.’ He kissed her and then placed a frangipani in her hand. ‘Maybe you can come with me?’

  ‘But leave the island? I’d have to get special permission.’

  ‘Let’s try and see,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some money saved and I’ll have a job in the canefields on the mainland. C’mon, little butterfly, spread your wings and leave this place with me. Marry me.’

  Francesca could think of a thousand questions to ask, but her head was nodding yes.

  essa’s conditions

  Thursday Island, 1941

  Around midday, Essa walked up the street on his way home from fishing in the canoe. He had heard the other men talking behind his back about the dance the other night. They had mentioned Francesca’s name, and hushed when he got closer to where they were cleaning the fish. They were also talking about Kit, the one who played the guitar. Guitar music, according to Essa, did not have a place here on the island. Singing should be done with drums, and in language. This new type of singing was for weak men, not strong Islanders who would carry on the island culture. He must forbid Francesca to see the guitar player.

  The sun was hot on his back. Essa stopped in front of the frangipani tree. This was what Francesca had been dreamingly looking at from the front of the house, he remembered. This tree must be fifty years old, maybe more. Its branches were thick. Then he noticed the image on the trunk of the tree. A guitar. He moved angrily towards the house, the two fish in his hand swinging like pendulums.

  ‘Get inside here now, Francesca!’ yelled Essa.

  ‘How was your day, Essa?’ Francesca noticed that her brother’s hands were closed in fists.

  ‘Never mind how my day was. I heard them say you’ve been meeting Kit.’

  ‘What have you got against him?’

  ‘He’s wasting his time playing that guitar music. It’s not proper Islander.’

  ‘His grandfather is an Islander. He was a shell sorter. He even worked wit
h our grandfather.’

  ‘He must have puri puri you. Island magic, ay, he got you under a magic spell?’

  ‘Can’t you see I love him?’

  ‘I don’t care. Don’t you go hanging around Kit. Not him or that music he plays.’ Essa’s eyes were as large as eggs. ‘We have it hard enough here as Islanders. You’ll only bring shame to this family to marry that crazy musician. I forbid you to see him.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘I am the eldest in this family, and as long as you live under this roof you will abide by my words.’

  Francesca ran out the door.

  Kit’s father, a Malay shell sorter, had married an Aboriginal woman from the mainland and moved with her to Thursday Island, where Kit was born. Under the Act, half-castes had to get permission from the Protector to work, move in and out of the area, get married, and to do other, less important things too. Kit refused to have his life regulated, and attempted to slip through the arms of the Protector as much as he could.

  Francesca’s father had been a Filipino pearl diver and he had married a Torres Strait Islander woman. Francesca’s sister Philomena lived on the mainland and her other sister, Glenda, had gone to Broome after marrying a pearl diver. That left Essa, who kept his firm eye over the family home and over Francesca. Essa was quick to point out his objections to Kit. His father was buried in the Muslim part of the cemetery – unlike Francesca and Essa’s family, who were church-going Christians, Catholics even.

  ‘You will tar this family if you marry him,’ Essa told Francesca.

  Francesca pleaded. ‘What does it matter? We’re all treated the same by the white people. I love him and I seek your consent to marry him.’

  But Essa had in mind another person for Francesca to marry. A pearl diver, just like him and his father before him. When Kit himself came to ask for consent, Essa was reluctant to give it.

  ‘What do you do? Sing songs? Play the guitar? That’s not enough to look after a family.’

  ‘I’ve applied to go cane-cutting on the mainland,’ Kit said.

  ‘You’ll be waiting a while. You should get paid work as a diver, like the other men.’

  ‘Is that what it will take for you to give your permission for me to marry Francesca?’ said Kit.

  Essa folded his arms across his chest. The keloid scar on his shoulder shone with sweat.

  ‘Okay then,’ said Kit, ‘I’ll do it.’

  That afternoon, he tried to get a job on a pearling lugger, but the opportunities for deep-sea pearling were becoming limited. He finally found work on a small lugger, without diving apparatus. The job required freestyle divers to dive on the shallow reefs. It was risky, Kit knew, but he would take it to show Essa he was worthy of Francesca’s hand in marriage.

  the tombstone opening

  Thursday Island, 1992

  In the cemetery the grass has been freshly mowed. Two large frangipani trees are growing in the middle, their flowers hanging in thick bunches, waiting for the afternoon rain. Mum and I walk past gravestones. Some have plates, cups, and bits of food around them. Others have plastic flowers in old Pablo instant-coffee jars.

  ‘That’s where it must be.’ I point to the colourful streamers in the distance.

  A white marquee covers three graves. The area is cordoned off with purple, white and blue raffia strips hanging from a waist-length string tied around four poles – bright coral against the stale, green-and-black ground. Last night the younger women gathered at Uncle Ron and Aunty Margaret’s house, cutting the raffia and tying it in plaits.

  ‘Where’s Tally?’ Uncle Ron asks.

  ‘I thought he was coming with you,’ says my mother. Her feet shift against the earth. ‘We were supposed to meet him here.’

  A rusty, lime-green taxi drives through the cemetery. Uncle Tally gets out of the cab. Mum waves to him.

  I can feel sweat gathering in my hairline. ‘When did Aunty Janine pass away?’ I ask Aunty Margaret, who is wearing a full-length dress that covers her arms and neck. She holds an umbrella above her head for shade.

  ‘Five years ago.’ Aunty Margaret fans herself with the photocopied paper with the prayer dedications on it. Around her wrist she holds a set of ivory-coloured rosary beads. There are tears in her eyes. ‘Is this your first tombstone opening?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘The tombstone opening is a very important cultural event,’ she tells me. ‘We present the graves to the family and the community. We make proper headstones with special words and symbols to honour the deceased. This marks the end of the mourning period. We can then celebrate the eternal spirit of our ancestors.’

  The service begins. Two men are playing the guitar. An older man leads the singing and a younger man accompanies him. The younger man has a smooth face and smiling eyes. There is something about him that makes my eyes linger. Our eyes meet for a second, and then I look away. A woman wearing a bright floral dress starts to sing in harmony. Their voices sound so beautiful and they encourage us to sing with them.

  ‘Jesus loves me, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves all people of the world …’

  Three blessings are given, one by the Catholic priest, another by the minister of the Anglican Church, and the last pays homage to the Muslim faith. Uncle Ron moves to the middle of the tented area in front of the tombstone. His dark face is shaded under a khaki Akubra hat.

  ‘Thank you all for coming. For those that have travelled a long way, welcome, and we are happy you came to be with us today.’ The tone of his voice marks his authority. ‘We miss dear Aunty Janine. Everyone that knew her will remember she liked to sing a lot. Hula too. She could tell a good yarn, if you had the time to listen all day. And who could forget her chilli dugong?’

  I can hear someone in the crowd smacking their lips together. ‘Too good that chilli dugong,’ a voice says.

  ‘Now I call on Aunty Anna, who is Aunty Janine’s sister-in-law, to unveil the tombstone.’

  An old woman with a pink flower in her hair bends down to lift some small presents wrapped in bright paper that are sitting on the fabric covering the tombstone. There is money pinned to the fabric, and Aunty Anna carefully lifts the fabric to reveal an exquisitely fine carving of a hibiscus. There are sighs and the older people move up to inspect the tombstone. Aunty Anna and some of the older people are crying. There is another song and then it’s the turn of the younger ones to have a look.

  Aunty Margaret moves in with her camera. ‘Wipe your eyes now, you mob, I want to take photographs. You go up there too, Lily and Tarena.’

  I am introduced to many more cousins and relatives. Some of them remember my mother from her childhood years, and have not seen her since. ‘You’ve returned, little Lily Lily,’ they say.

  ‘Yes, this is my daughter,’ she tells them.

  ‘She looks so much like Frannie. Just like her grandmother.’

  It is the middle of the day before the unveiling ceremony ends. Everybody starts to move away.

  ‘Where’s everyone going?’ I ask.

  ‘They go home to rest, and the family have to prepare the food. Tonight we feast. It’s too hot now.’

  Mum and Uncle Tally get a lift back with Uncle Ron. Granny Penny and the whole mob pile into his Tarago bus.

  ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ I wave. ‘I want to take a look around the place.’

  moonfire of the sea

  Thursday Island, 1992

  I decide to go for a walk through the cemetery. I linger among the graves of my family, trying to recall the names Granny Penny told me after the tombstone opening. Some headstones bear Islander names. Others have carved epitaphs in Japanese. At the edge of the cemetery, I see a large granite tomb with a black marble headstone. It is a monument.

  On a bench next to the monument sits an old man. He is still, like a thin grey statue planted on the bench. He is dressed in dark trousers on this hot, humid day. The skin on his shaky hands is almost transparent. The purple veins look like a complex ro
ad map. In one hand he holds a cigarette, the other clings onto a worn-out walking stick. Both items shake involuntarily. His nostrils flare rhythmically as he inhales and expels cigarette smoke.

  ‘Hello.’

  He nods, acknowledging my presence.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I say.

  ‘It’s the Japanese pearling monument.’ His finger points forward. ‘The Japanese call the pearl the moonfire of the sea.’

  From the top pocket of his shirt, he pulls out a packet of cigarettes and offers me one. I take it and allow him to light it, although I gave up smoking over three years ago. I draw back and cough.

  ‘Is this your family?’ I ask.

  He nods. He tells me that his father, Nakayo, was a Japanese pearl diver. ‘A great diver,’ he says, ‘and my mother was an Island woman with strong culture. She had over thirteen children.’

  ‘Wow, that’s a lot of kids.’ I hold the cigarette, allowing it to burn.

  ‘She could dive too,’ he tells me, ‘but mostly she would go with him, you know, to look out for him and make sure he was safe. It was proper rough times in those days. You never knew who might be waiting to get you up top.’

  ‘Did you dive?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, I dived with many fine divers.’

  ‘Did you know my grandfather, Kit Plata?’

  ‘You’re Kit’s granddaughter?’ He looks close into my face. ‘I’m Horatio. Yes, we dived together.’ His hands reach out to touch mine. ‘Your grandfather saved my life.’

  I sigh, amazed to have found this man, and to hear his story.

  ‘That was before the war came to here.’ His eyes are sad. ‘But then they sent me to the prisoners’ camp in Cowra. Even though my mum is from this place.’

  I can think of nothing to say.

  ‘But I returned. My mother died, though. Before we all came back.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’ I feel awkward as I flick the long ash from my cigarette.

  ‘It was a long time ago, ay? My time to go is coming too.’