Part 7 (1/2)

'Snakes? Oh, I see. Thank you.' She turned back towards the house.

The gardener crouched back down to the small border of flowers.

Margaret sat on the verandah and fanned herself. All the staff had asked if they could help her and they had been very respectful. Margaret was enchanted. Clearly while Charlotte Elliott was away, Margaret was the 'boss mem'. No one at home in Brisbane would ever imagine living with so many servants.

She jumped up as she heard Roland's Bedford truck returning.

He took off his hat and wiped his face with his handkerchief. 'Right, Mrs Elliott, shall we go and inspect our house? I've asked Hamid to take our things over there. Then later this afternoon when it starts to cool, we'll go for a bit of a tour about the rest of the place.' He kissed her. 'I know this might seem strange and difficult but our bungalow will be your own domain to make of what you will.' He put his arm about her shoulders as they walked indoors.

'This place is rather, well, old looking. Outdated,' said Margaret. 'I suppose older people don't like change.'

'Well, that's part of it. But Margaret, we've just come through the Depression when rubber prices were at rock bottom. It was a struggle for us just to keep the plantation viable. So there's been no money for what Father would consider frivolous things. My mother certainly understood that whenever there was spare cash, it was put straight back into the business. Things are picking up now and because my parents were frugal and hung on through the bad times, they were able to come out way ahead. Actually we have been able to expand our operation because we bought up a lot of estates around here from other families and companies that couldn't make a go of things in the last few years.'

'So you actually expanded Utopia during the Depression?' asked Margaret, impressed with the Elliotts' business ac.u.men.

Roland nodded. 'Yes, I'll show you later. For now let's drive over to our house. Can I carry you over the threshold?'

Margaret was glad that their bungalow was some distance from the main house. On the way there, they pa.s.sed worksheds housing equipment, lean-tos sheltering seedlings and a collection of rough shacks of woven palm leaves, which was where some of the rubber tappers lived. All around, stretched the pale-green lines of the rubber trees.

'There's a local village of sorts not far away where a lot of the Indian tappers live. I'll explain the workings of the plantation to you another time,' said Roland.

When Margaret saw her new home, so unadorned, so basic, so ... words failed her. By local standards it was new, only two years old, but there had been no attention given to a garden, not even pot plants. She dreaded to think what it would be like inside. The one redeeming feature, which gave the house some ident.i.ty, was a ma.s.sive nipa palm growing close to the front step, its fronds spreading into a thick green fan. The house itself was a wooden construction set up high with a wide verandah all around. It reminded Margaret slightly of a small Queenslander.

'It needs a garden,' she managed to say.

'There's a kitchen patch out the back. Greens and things. Ask the gardener and he'll do whatever you want out the front here.'

And with that, Roland swept Margaret up in his arms, marched up the front steps and deposited her on the verandah.

'This looks like a pleasant area to sit,' said Margaret noting the old-style planters' chairs, wicker table, a rack overflowing with newspapers and a drinks trolley. As the bungalow was on a rise, the view from the verandah across the sea of ribbed rows of rubber trees to the hills was quite spectacular.

She tried to hide her disappointment as she went from room to room realising how very simple it all was. Indeed the kitchen out the back was so primitive that the stove appeared to be a converted kerosene tin. She was relieved she wouldn't have to work with it.

'Where's the toilet and bathroom?' asked Margaret.

'Thunder box, I'm afraid. It gets emptied every day.' Roland opened a small door and Margaret felt the sultry outside air hit her as she gaped in shock.

The bathroom was an unlined wooden cubicle with a section of the floor made up of slats a few inches apart, just wide enough for snakes to come in, Margaret thought grimly. A huge ceramic jar stood beside a tin bathtub. There was a dipper made from half a coconut sh.e.l.l hanging beside it.

'No hot water, I'm afraid,' said Roland cheerfully. 'You ladle the cold water from the Shanghai jar over yourself. It's always cold, so you'll find it refres.h.i.+ng. The amah will get you some hot water if you want a warm bath.'

The bungalow had three bedrooms, and like the main bungalow, there was a sleep-out with several bamboo stretcher beds, their feet in saucers of kerosene.

'Keeps the ants and bugs off,' explained Roland. 'Sometimes people stop over when travelling round the district. Dr Hamilton, the DO and his wife, if she's with him, stay at the big house of course.'

Their bedroom was furnished simply, but there was a big mosquito net over a solid carved Chinese bed. A standing mirror, a dressing table with a small vase of fresh flowers, an armoire and an ornate chest at the foot of the bed made up the rest of the furniture. The windows had shutters without curtains, the floorboards were bare but painted cream and there was a small, attractive Indian rug.

The lounge room and dining room were combined, making one big s.p.a.ce with lots of chairs and a long table. It was not the cosiness that Margaret was used to and compared with the ornaments, knick-knacks, decorative items and personal touches jammed into Winifred's house, this looked very s.p.a.cious and uncluttered.

'It's a nice big s.p.a.ce, and cool,' said Margaret.

'Oh, I'm sure you'll give this place the homey touch,' said Roland. Then he added seriously, 'But some things will have to wait. I'm sure we can manage quite well for the time being, don't you? If you need anything for entertaining just borrow it from the big house. Come and meet Ah Kit, our houseboy. He'll run everything, but keep an eye on the other servants and make sure they don't rob us too much.' He lowered his voice. 'And don't be too cosy with them. Pleasant but firm. You understand how it is.'

'Er, yes. I suppose so,' said Margaret.

Ah Kit was Chinese, younger than Eugene's houseboy, possibly the same age as Roland, with bright, inquisitive dark eyes and a quick smile. He wore what was obviously the local uniform of white tunic and black pants. He bowed and said, 'I am very happy to work for you, mem.'

'Thank you,' said Margaret.

'You want tea? Ah Kit learn what mem like, no like.'

'In a little while, Ah Kit. I'll show the mem around,' said Roland. As they walked away, he said to Margaret, 'You'll have to instruct him on the way you like things done, he's very quick to learn.'

'Does he cook as well?' asked Margaret.

'No, Cookie does that. Cookie's Malay and a Muslim so he won't touch any pork. Sometimes he has disagreements with the others about cooking utensils, which have been used to cook pork with, and so on. You'll get the hang of it all. Come on, let's go for a drive and I'll show you some of the better divisions.'

Margaret recalled the big distances and the wide open s.p.a.ces of Queensland but, even so, the size of the sections of the plantation surprised her. Roland drove her past mile after mile of avenues of rubber trees where occasionally he would stop and inspect some of the trees or chat to the working tappers.

'Don't get out of the car, you're not wrapped up,' advised Roland. 'The mosquitoes among these trees are vicious.'

Margaret had noticed that the workers wore long sleeves and pants, or saris topped with cotton s.h.i.+rts. They all wore hats with scarves wrapped around their faces as they worked. Many wore cotton gloves and now she knew why.

'The tapping is done in the early hours of the morning while it's still cool,' explained Roland as they drove. 'The tappers cut into the bark in a spiral on one side and the latex bleeds down into the cup. Once the sun is up the latex congeals and stops flowing so after midday the cups are collected, which is what is happening now. Later, the opposite side of the tree is cut, while the other side heals.'

'And what happens to the latex?' asked Margaret.

'It's poured into moulds, smoked and dried and then rolled into rubber sheets for export. A lot of our rubber was on that steams.h.i.+p that runs between Port Swettenham and Singapore,' said Roland.

It was a strange and eerie world that Roland inhabited, thought Margaret as she watched him shrug into his cotton jacket and don a solar topee, which had a kind of veil attached. He wrapped it around his face to protect himself from the mosquitoes. If the mosquitoes are really this bad, thought Margaret, perhaps I'd better take quinine each day as Eugene has suggested so that I don't get malaria. And she'd better speak to Roland about getting some kind of screen for their bedroom windows as a mosquito had been trapped in the netting the previous night.

Two or three days later she again went out with Roland. She watched him walk the length of one row of rubber trees, disappearing into the shadowy green light. He seemed to enjoy the conformity, the neat exactness of the rows of trees and Margaret wondered if he'd played with tin soldiers as a boy, lining them up in serried ranks.

'Sorry, dear, hope you're not bored coming out here again. But if I don't check, the workers get sloppy with their cuts and either they don't cut deep enough to get the latex, or they go too deeply and kill the tree. I'll take you down to the river now. You'll like that,' said Roland, flinging his hat on to the seat of the Bedford truck.

'Have you ever got lost?' asked Margaret. 'Everything looks the same.'

He stared at her in surprise then laughed. 'Gosh, no. I know every tree. I've been around this estate ever since I could walk!'

Margaret was pleasantly surprised when they came to the river. They drove past the smoke house where the latex was made, a workshop and a small factory, which was really just a shed shaded by an attap with open sides where the latex was rolled out and stacked ready to be sent downriver. They came to a solid wharf that looked as though it had been built many years before. The riverbank had been cleared except for a few shady trees, and nearby was a small locked storehouse.

'That's where we keep all the goods that come up here by boat. It's always locked, although Ho has a key if we need to replenish household supplies. Possibly we could also let Ah Kit have one too, so that you can get anything you need. Once a month the workers can buy their bulk rice and sugar and other basics from here, too.'

'The river is pretty,' said Margaret looking at the broad brown sweep of water, bordered by thick jungle that came to the water's edge on the other side. 'Can we take a trip down it sometime? Do you have a boat?'

'There are several longboats, small praus and a motor launch upriver, near the village. We'll organise a picnic and a river trip. Get the social club together for an outing. Be good for everyone to meet you.'