Saving Abbie Read online

  Ian pulled Abbie to his side. ‘It’s not our boat, Abbie. It’s not,’ Ian said. But he had to check the ship’s name on the bow, just to make sure. Then he frowned and looked down at Abbie. She would never have seen the ship from the outside, not like that. She saw it from inside, when it was black and pitching. How can she know?

  Abbie was bristling, and her small nose was flaring, sucking in the burnt taste of old rust, the dry salt, the tired oil and heavy hemp rope. Of course, thought Ian. She would know a ship like this with her eyes closed.

  Yos looked back, saw Abbie’s face and touched the accelerator lever. The Dragonfly whirled away from the yellow bucket Abbie had thrown at the ship, climbed from the water and skimmed over the low chop of the river.

  ‘Your boat?’ Dad said quietly. ‘The ship that sank and almost took you with it?’

  Ian nodded numbly. ‘It looks the same. But it wasn’t. That’s Don Pedro, not San Felipe. Pity Abbie can’t read.’ He laughed thinly and squeezed her shoulders.

  Abbie stayed staring at the ship, and shivered a little.

  ‘That little rust-bucket …’ Dad slowly shook his head, then stopped.

  Ian looked at Dad, Mum, Abbie and turned back to the ship in the river, and realised they were all seeing the same thing.

  The storm Ian and Reene had gone through that day had returned, heaving the ship back into the hissing sea. The bright morning had become the long night of the storm, and very slowly the ship began to sink. The black seas had combed the ship, twisting, shaking it from end to end, the wind roaring through the quivering cables, the bow disappearing. Ian remembered Reene shouting hopelessly at the wind …

  ‘Christ,’ whispered Dad.

  Ian looked at Dad in surprise. Okay, they – Mum and Dad – can imagine part of it. But not all of it. You don’t imagine it, no, you just keep on remembering it. Like the black sluicing water inside, the noises, that huge cargo boom crashing into the kitchen, the darkness. But above all of it, there were two things trickling into his head: Reene shouting in the wind and Abbie jumping.

  Abbie stood with Ian’s hand on her shoulder, staring at the ship as it shrank from view.

  ‘But it’s over, it sank and we’re here.’ Ian didn’t quite know whether he was talking to Abbie or to Dad.

  ‘No,’ Dad muttered. ‘Not over. Never over.’

  Ian looked at Dad, at the hunched, thin man staring back at the ship, and suddenly he realised that there was something else, something that was a part of the ship but different from it. That ‘something’ was why he and Abbie were here, and why General Mum had taken control. Why he was allowed to spend a night in a room with Abbie.

  But he did not know what that something was.

  ‘But it is over, Dad.’ Ian rubbed Abbie’s back and sensed her locked muscles ease a little. ‘See, Abbie knows it’s over now. Hey, Mum?’

  Mum twitched the shadow of a smile. ‘Oh, yes.’ But Ian had seen that haunted look on Dad before, when he and Reene were looking out from the Navy helicopter that had rescued them. They saw the huddled group of his parents and hers on the edge of the tarmac of Mackay Airport, and began to wave. They were very, very tired but it was all over. The ship had sunk, but not before the Navy had plucked them and Abbie from its decks. Abbie caused a bit of a panic when she ran wild in the helicopter, but after a needle of anaesthetic she was fine. They could hardly wait to tell their parents how it had been …

  But they had stopped waving as the helicopter moved closer.

  Their parents looked like ghosts from the bottom of the sea, and Dad was far worse than the others. They’d come from searching for their kids in the cyclone wreckage of Albatross Beach and learned that somehow those kids had got themselves on a sinking freighter.

  And everything had been different from then on. In the other times Dad – Dad the Roarer – would be shouting at him, but from that time there was no shouting at all. And when he’d asked Dad – please, please – to take Abbie back to the jungle, it was Mum who had said yes and taken over.

  In the middle of all the rushing about, Ian worked out that maybe people look at you differently when you’ve nearly been killed.

  Ian felt Abbie’s muscles slowly relax under his hand as the ship shrank to be a dark mark on the water. ‘All right now?’ At least he could understand Abbie’s reaction.

  Abbie shivered a little and turned away from the stern.

  ‘The orang, she’s been in a ship before?’ Yos said.

  Dad nodded.

  ‘From here?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Dad seemed reluctant to trust the sound of his voice.

  ‘The ship was the San Felipe,’ Mum said.

  Yos shrugged. ‘Yes. I know it. It has been here in Kumai. A few times.’

  ‘It won’t come again,’ Ian mumbled.

  ‘Around the river they say that it sank.’

  ‘Yes, it sank off the Queensland coast,’ Mum said very quickly, as if she was trying to push it aside.

  ‘Good.’

  Mum looked up in surprise. ‘You know something about the San Felipe?’

  ‘Just what you hear. That captain would take anything in his holds – drugs, guns, orangs, anything to fill his wallet. I don’t think he will get another boat.’ Yos squinted at Ian. ‘Back there, you sounded like you were on the boat.’

  ‘I was. We both were …’

  Mum snatched the words from Ian’s mouth. ‘Ian and Abbie were on the ship with a girl, Reene. They should not have been there. They were rescued and now we are taking Abbie back into her jungle.’ End of story.

  Ian opened his mouth but he caught the gleam in Mum’s eyes and shut up.

  Yos nodded slowly and turned away. Ian could see that he had many questions but Mum stopped him. Because Mum knew where the questions would lead? Ian slouched in the Dragonfly. It was just too hard to work out.

  But when he looked back he took some small satisfaction in seeing that the Don Pedro had disappeared. The town was a blur on the horizon now and the river had spread wide, so wide it seemed to be a bay. The Dragonfly chopped into low brown-green waves, kicking spray into the breeze and damping Abbie at the back of the boat. She was licking the droplets of water on her arm, and had forgotten the ship now.

  Maybe we can – all of us – lose ourselves in the jungle, Ian thought, and forget about the sinking ship and everything. Hey? Abbie grinned at Ian as the Dragonfly slid across the brown sea towards a thick green wall. Ian screwed up his nose at Abbie. Back to normal.

  The green wall reared from the water to become an impenetrable tangle of palms, their great leaves shouldering, scraping each other in the breeze. Abbie watched the palms slide by her as if she was a tourist, as if it had nothing to do with her, only that it was better than the roaring, squealing towns she had left.

  Yos drove at the green wall until a section of the palms seemed to open up to reveal the mouth of a narrow river. ‘Sekonyer River,’ he said.

  The low waves disappeared with the first bend of the Sekonyer and the fresh breeze left them on the second. Yos slowed a little and the heat of the morning sun began to scorch Ian’s arms.

  Abbie flopped back over the back of the Dragonfly and blew a lazy kiss at the sun.

  ‘You’ll fall in,’ Ian said, but he had noticed that Abbie’s black feet had been gripping tightly the chrome rail behind the seats.

  Slowly the palm tangle gave way to trees.

  Yos began to wave his hands about as if he were a real estate agent trying to sell the river and surrounding land. ‘This here,’ he swept his hand along the left bank, ‘is wide-open country. The trees are being chopped down all the time in Dyak country. Villages are there and even hotels.’

  As they were approaching a slow klotok, Yos accelerated the Dragonfly. ‘And those are the goldminers,’ he said. ‘Don’t swim in the river. They use mercury.’

  The slow klotok was similar to the boat Yos had at Kumai, a long boat with a low top deck. But this one was wallowing under a crush of
people on the bottom deck. The top deck protected the passengers from the sun, but the edge of the hull was only a finger-length above the brown water.

  Yos made no effort to slow the Dragonfly and in fact he curved away from the klotok as he raced past it, sending a surging wave towards it. Ian watched the wave tilt the boat and crash over many of the miners on board. A few shouted angrily.

  Yos winked at Ian. ‘I do that for my great-grandfather.’

  ‘Because of the mine?’

  Yos shrugged. ‘Everything. For poisoning the rivers, killing the fish, chopping the tall trees, burning the jungle, everything. I am Dyak. This is our island, ours and the orangutans, but there’s not much of it left. My great-grandfather would have taken a few heads for the long house. I damp down a few miners. Sorry, Abbie.’

  Ian stared at Yos. Suddenly this man, the rockmelon with a drooping moustache, is from a head-hunting tribe. This jungle is changing, Ian thought, but nobody seems to notice.

  ‘But you are going to like Tanjung Puting,’ Yos said. ‘That’s everything on the right of the river. The National Park. And it’s the way Borneo used to be. A Canadian woman at Camp Leakey – we call her the Professor – got it going. No loggers there, just a few rangers and the jungle. And the orangutans.’

  Abbie sat up and sniffed at the air. ‘She’s picked up something,’ said Ian.

  ‘Just so long as she doesn’t throw things at it,’ Dad said.

  Ian glanced at Dad and saw a weak and broken smile playing over his lips. He was trying to build up his old humour, piece by piece, but it would take a long while. That smile Ian had known before. He had worn it on his own face, when he had got lost in the centre of the city once, with Dad and Mum frantically trying to find him. Dad found him when he was talking to a traffic cop and he had worn that sick smile for the rest of the day and more …

  But Dad?

  Abbie yawned and looked up at the top of the trees, at the young trees and the old ones, far from the ground. She blinked as she passed them and her lips worked a little, as if she was tasting them.

  ‘Hey, this is better,’ Ian said.

  But Abbie looked as if she was worried.

  The jungle increased on both sides, shrinking the river to a thread, then it suddenly opened up. There were two river landings on opposite sides of the river and another one further on. The nearest one, on the loggers’ side, was cluttered with wooden canoes and it led to a village. But Yos ignored it and steered for the landing on the right instead, the one with a single dug-out canoe in the mud and a large carved sign saying: ‘Welcome to Tanjung Harapan.’

  On the sign sprawled a large orangutan. ‘Is that real?’ Dad said.

  Abbie’s lips smacked softly.

  The large orangutan levered itself up on the sign and peered down at Abbie on the approaching Dragonfly. There were a few men washing clothes on the landing and a heavy tourist taking photos of them. ‘Hey, there’s the new one,’ the tourist said and lifted his camera towards Abbie.

  One of the washing men stood up and shook his hands dry.

  ‘That’s Gistok,’ said Yos.

  ‘The man washing his clothes?’ asked Dad.

  ‘No, he’s the ranger, Ki. Gistok is the orang. Watch her, she’s moving.’

  ‘Is she trouble?’ Ian saw Abbie nervously scrabble to the shelter of Dad’s back.

  ‘No, nothing to be frightened about. Just a bit of a nuisance.’

  Gistok swung from the sign, cocking her head as she stared at Abbie.

  ‘Hey!’ the tourist called across the water. ‘Slow it down, willya Yos! I want to get a shot.’

  ‘That’s Harry.’ Yos sighed softly. ‘Here for a month on a holiday and he’s worse than Gistok. Don’t tell him I said that.’ Yos crept the boat to the landing as if the engine had died.

  Gistok was shambling onto the landing, up behind Harry.

  And Harry didn’t notice at all.

  ‘Just hang on a bit …’ Yos held a couple of fingers before his lips.

  Gistok shuffled slowly towards Harry, lifting her long arms way over her head and waving them about, like she was dancing.

  Ki caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and pointed warningly. But still Harry didn’t see.

  Gistok pouted a kiss at Ki and kept shimmying to Harry’s back.

  ‘That’s good!’ said Harry, and clicked his camera enthusiastically …

  ‘Gistok …!’

  The orangutan yanked Harry’s trousers down to his ankles.

  For a long moment there was no sound. Nobody moved.

  Yos stood in the Dragonfly with a hand on the wheel as it drifted towards the landing. The washing men seemed uncertain how to react; Mum just stared at Harry’s snake-patterned boxer shorts and his pale hairy legs, while Dad watched Harry’s marbled face.

  Harry had flicked a single eye wide open above his camera. Ki kept his eyes closed and sucked in air. And Abbie peered at Gistok in startled wonder. Gistok stood lopsided on the landing, looking up happily at Harry, as if she had just finished making him from fresh clay.

  The Dragonfly pushed the dug-out canoe further into the mud as it nudged the landing.

  And then Harry squeaked and dived for his trousers.

  ‘Gistok!’ Ki roared.

  Mum made a funny coughing sound, covered her mouth with a closed hand and turned away.

  Ian felt a quivering shudder deep in his belly. He tried to push it down and grip it with his ribs but it skidded past him to erupt in a high-pitched donkey-bray. His laughter was echoed by Yos and the washing men. Dad didn’t laugh, but he did shake his shoulders and wheeze. And Gistok gave a broad toothy grin to Ian and Abbie, but Abbie just looked back, worried.

  ‘You’ve had it now!’ Ki scooped up a wet shirt, swung it over his head and strode towards Gistok.

  Both Gistok and Harry threw up their hands as the wet shirt sprayed them. Gistok shuffled rapidly from the landing and leaped into a tree.

  ‘Oh, leave her be,’ Harry said, rearranging his trousers.

  Ki stormed past Harry and waved the shirt at Gistok as if it was a club. ‘You’re off! You are going up the river now, you hairy delinquent! Nest or no nest!’

  Gistok simply blew a heavy raspberry back at him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Yos said softly to Mum. ‘Ki will look after you.’

  The washing men helped Mum and Dad from the Dragonfly, with Ian clambering after them and Abbie swinging on his hand.

  ‘Can you come back soon, say tomorrow?’ Ki asked, walking quickly towards Yos.

  Yos nodded at Ki and waggled his finger at Gistok. ‘Now you’ve done it.’

  Gistok rippled her lips and swung away.

  After he passed the suitcase and the market bags up to the landing, Yos pushed the Dragonfly away from the edge, waved briefly at Mum and roared down the river.

  Ian and Abbie watched the Dragonfly scud round a bend, then looked at each other and turned together to face the new home. Tanjung Harapan was a clutter of low buildings backing into the jungle. Near the landing a battered bungalow sat in a small area of sandy lawn, with windows flung wide and brightly coloured clothes draping from them, almost shouting a welcome. But behind the bungalow two houses of dark timber lay together in the shadows of the trees, as if they were muttering.

  ‘Don’t worry about Gistok,’ Harry said to Mum as he shook her hand. ‘She’s all right. She picks on me because I pick on her. Ki told me there would be a family from Australia with an orphan orang moving in. You’re them, right?’

  Ki, a lean brown man with a flash of white in his black hair, squatted before Abbie and smiled. ‘You’re the Aussie orang?’

  Abbie clutched hard at Ian’s hand.

  ‘Got shipwrecked in Australian waters,’ Dad said.

  Ki nodded. ‘I heard. So she was being sold, maybe to an Australian, maybe not. You think she came from here?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But …’ Ian started.

  ‘We don’t kno
w,’ Mum said quickly, as if she was trying to avoid a sensitive area. ‘Yos thinks that the captain of the San Felipe took Abbie here in Kumai but that’s only a guess …’

  Harry grunted. ‘He’d know. He knows pretty well everything that happens on the riverfront. Murders, piracy, anything you like.’ He passed a bunch of small bananas from one of the men to Ki.

  ‘Yos said his great-grandfather was a headhunter,’ said Ian.

  ‘That’d be right too. If he gets a few thick tourists he’ll tell them he’s the headhunter.’

  Ki shook his head as he offered a banana to Abbie. ‘Once he tried to make me join in. Introducing me to a tourist and saying he had a “lovely head, wasn’t it?” As if he was headhunting now …’

  Abbie stared at the banana but did not take it. ‘You don’t have bananas like these in Australia?’ Ki said, looking at Abbie.

  ‘Sugar bananas? Sure, but we gave her our big bananas. Is that a problem?’ Dad said.

  Ki shook his head very slightly. ‘No trouble. I’m Ki, what’s your name?’ He peeled the banana.

  ‘Abbie,’ said Ian.

  ‘Abbie. Hello, Abbie.’ Abbie tilted her head, gauging Ki’s face. Ki bit first at the banana and then offered the rest of it to Abbie, who let go of Ian’s arm and took the banana, sniffed at it and finally ate it.

  ‘Maybe Yos was right, she’s from here,’ said Ki.

  ‘Not from Sumatra?’ Harry said.

  Ki nodded and looked at Ian. ‘She’s definitely a Borneo girl. The only other place where orangs live in the wild is Sumatra, and Abbie is not a Sumatran orang.’

  ‘Oh, why?’ Ian looked at Abbie.

  ‘Sumatran orangs have got finer hair, different faces.’

  Abbie squinted at Ian as he hunched his shoulders. He shouldn’t have asked that one.

  ‘What happens now, Ki?’ Mum said.

  ‘Not much.’ Ki stood up slowly and passed the other bananas to Abbie. ‘We’ll have to watch. You know Tanjung Harapan is for orphans like Abbie. She’ll learn from the others, especially from Dafida. She’s a mother with a one-year-old baby.’

  ‘Abbie has to learn?’ Ian thought she was pretty smart as it was. She could even read some words.