Monkeys in the Dark

  Allen & Unwin’s House of Books aims to bring

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  The House of Books is an eloquent collection

  of Australia’s finest literary achievements.

  Blanche d’Alpuget is the author of seven books, including four novels—Monkeys in the Dark (1980), Turtle Beach (1981), Winter in Jerusalem (1986) and White Eye (1993). These works earned her a number of literary prizes including the PEN Golden Jubilee Award, the Age Book of the Year Award and the South Australian Government’s Award for Literature.

  d’Alpuget’s first book, Mediator: A Biography of Sir Richard Kirby was published in 1977 to critical acclaim. Robert J. Hawke: A Biography (1982) was both a national bestseller and the winner of several awards. She is also the author of On Longing and Hawke: The Prime Minister.

  She has served on the boards of the Copyright Agency Ltd and the Australian Film Commission, and was the Chair of the Australian Society of Authors in 1991. She lives in Sydney with her husband and son.

  HOUSE of BOOKS

  BLANCHE

  d’ALPUGET

  Monkeys in

  the Dark

  This edition published by Allen & Unwin House of Books in 2012

  First published by Chatto, Bodley Head & Jonathan Cape Australia Pty Ltd in 1980

  Copyright © Blanche d’Alpuget 1980

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

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  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 225 4 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 1 74269 917 2 (ebook)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  1

  The moon had gone. The island, a mile or so of beach looping a stand of coconut palms, had become featureless in the dark. Sand and silvered trunks and fronds had vanished along with the smoking white patch of sky.

  Alex lay still under the mosquito net, staring towards the triangular opening in the hut, willing the daybreak. Tonight Maruli would come.

  In the past few days she had foreseen the event a hundred times, always baldly, just as a fact: Maruli walking into her house. She had refused, as she did again now, to allow herself to elaborate the picture; she wanted the events that would follow his arrival to remain hidden from imagination until their moment, so they would burst on her suddenly, unrehearsed. It will be like an avalanche, she thought. There will be no chance to run away.

  From the blackness outside came the sound of a sigh. Alex shivered. There were other noises in the dark: small pieces of bleached coral that made up the path running from the beach were squeaking together; human limbs creaked. There were whispers, a groan, and silence again. Then came the chant La Ilaha illa ’llah! It quivered through the muffle of the night: There is no god but Allah!

  Around her, throughout the thousands of islands with their countless mosques and prayer places, other people were breathing out this same affirmation of their faith, an affirmation that reminded her how much she was an outsider.

  Perhaps she was wrong about Maruli. Perhaps he would not come. And perhaps it would be better if he did not. He was in disgrace. Inevitably, a liaison with him would be regarded unfavourably in the embassy.

  Then, from the dark outside the hut came distinct words, and Alex became conscious once more of her servant’s morning prayer. It ended with an exhalation, the submission of mind and will. ‘Submission,’ people said. ‘Islam means Submission.’

  The softness in her servant’s voice infected Alex; her own body relaxed. There was the sound of a mat being shaken free of particles of coral and sand, and at the end of the hut the faintest suggestion of a substantial form appeared: the coconut palm that stood there. The man sleeping beside her stirred and Alex reached over to re-cover his bare shoulders with the sheet, then herself slid back into sleep.

  The shining sea, the white beach and the coconut palm with a safari suit suspended from a nail in its trunk were all visible when she next awoke. The servant, Itji, was crouched in the doorway of the A-frame hut. She beamed at her mistress, showing a gapped picket fence of yellow teeth and half an inch of mauve gums.

  ‘A lovely sight,’ murmured Anthony Sinclaire. He had, like Alex, just awoken from Itji’s shaking.

  ‘Non,’ the servant said. ‘It’s time for your swim.’

  ‘Close your eyes, Itji, or you’ll see my kontol,’ Sinclaire said. The servant flashed her Hallowe’en smile. ‘It’s as big as a donkey’s,’ he added, and glanced at Alex.

  It was six o’clock; the others did not rise until around seven. He and Alex dropped their towels at the water’s edge and swam naked in the lagoon. The sky, the sea and the island were luminous with the pearl-shell colours of early morning and the water was almost cold and perfectly clear, making visible every detail in the sand beneath it. They kicked spray in each other’s faces, as they had in childhood.

  Julie Ashby had rebuttoned her blouse and hurried back into the coconut grove when she had seen them emerging from the hut together. She now stood behind a palm tree trunk, staring at them and shushing the baby she was nursing. She was a pale-faced, bony woman with dull brown hair. She wore a large sun hat, even at this hour, but the sun had already damaged her: the skin around her eyes was dry and cracking and other skin, like strips of ricepaper, was peeling from her arms and legs. Her mouth twitched a little as she watched. After a few minutes she went to her own hut and woke her husband.

  ‘First cousins! It’s incest,’ she said.

  His face was puffy from sleep. ‘It’s platonic.’

  ‘You can’t tell me that two people who’ve spent the night alone in a hut, and who go swimming nude when they think nobody will see them are not, well, sleeping together.’

  Thornton Ashby sat up. ‘Julie, if you’re going to make a scene about it well go home right now. Sinclaire may be shagging everything else that moves in Djakarta, but he is not on with Alex. You know I’m always right about things like that …’

 
Julie knew he always was.

  ‘Anthony is hardly a good advertisement for Australia,’ she persisted, although Thornton had slumped back and closed his eyes. ‘He’s supposed to be a diplomat, but he behaves like one of the GIs at the American embassy. Why don’t you say something to the Ambassador?’ The baby began mewling. Julie’s left breast was dry; she buttoned it on to the right one. ‘It couldn’t do you any harm if he learnt a few facts about Anthony’s goings-on,’ she added.

  Thornton gave a sigh that was half a snore. ‘I will fix Sinclaire in my own way. And time. For God’s sake stop nagging. Just feed Amanda.’ He turned his back on his wife and child and slept again.

  Sinclaire and Alex had dressed in bathing suits and were stretched out on the beach. People often took them for brother and sister, although their colouring was dissimilar and their expressions signalled different attitudes of mind—Alex’s face was candid; her cousin’s was resourceful. There was, however, something in their bone-structure, in their long-limbed build, that announced in each the flesh of the other. Sinclaire’s wolfish features were an exaggeration of Alex’s small, neat ones. His hair was blond and thinning at the front; his eyes were green. Her hair was dark sherry colour, almost red, and her eyes were blue. But they were the same eyes, drawn larger and more innocent.

  ‘I suppose you know Julie was watching us? She was beside herself,’ Sinclaire said. His pointed features sharpened with smiling. ‘We’ve made her weekend. By next Friday your name will be mud in the coffee-party set.’

  Alex smiled at him absent-mindedly. She saw Maruli again as she had first seen him, at a luncheon given by rich Javanese. She had been the only foreigner, the honoured guest. The women in their tightly-wound sarongs and lace jackets had patted her continually, led her by the hand to the buffet, urged her to eat more … the ritual of acceptance into their tribe. Then the giggling and caressing had diminished abruptly. A dark, stocky man had appeared at the french windows. His short hair lay close to the scalp, like a cap, and his eyes were deep-set, almost black. Beside the plump, light-skinned Javanese the intensity in his face was feral and ugly.

  A boy student had whispered to Alex, ‘That is Mr Maruli from Sumatra. Our most famous poet. Now he is not allowed to write.’ The boy, Usman, was grinning with nervousness. It was only later that Alex had learned from Usman that, after the coup, Maruli had been sacked from his job in the Ministry of Culture, removed as chairman of the Literature Council and of the Film Board, and was now running a private cultural centre on the outskirts of town. Usman was one of his students.

  ‘We are Sukarnoists,’ Usman had said, challengingly. The President, though still President, was no longer a god, and his devotees were suffering under the new regime.

  She had noticed that Maruli ate greedily. When they had brought him over to introduce him he could not shake hands, as his fingers were yellow with curry sauce and flecked with rice grains. He had nodded to her brusquely. His expression had been alert and amused.

  ‘You have chosen an interesting time to come here. There is internal struggle; personalities are changing,’ he had said, and his eyes had said something else.

  Sinclaire squinted at Alex. ‘You’re very preoccupied. Have been all weekend. I think you’re hatching something.’ He continued to look at her. ‘Tell me, darling girl, is it foolish? Or is it wicked?’ Sinclaire had assumed the foppish, theatrical tone he used when he wanted to be irritating.

  Alex hesitated. Her mother’s voice said, ‘Anthony has taught Alex to ride … Anthony is taking Alex to the ballet … Anthony has stopped Alex wearing that frightful green jumper … Anthony says her boyfriend is a fool … Anthony says Alex should learn Malay … Anthony has got you a job in the Djakarta embassy Press Office, darling.’

  ‘Neither,’ she said. ‘You’re not my superego, you know.’

  ‘Dear me. Miss Snapdragon.’ He grinned and thought for the twentieth time in the past few weeks, I’ve been a fool to import her. Somehow she’s going to get us both into trouble.

  He reached over and pinched her sharply on the tender upper part of her arm, making Alex gasp. ‘You had a midge on you,’ he said, and as she rubbed the spot he had pinched he felt his own temper abating.

  The others, who had slept in their separate huts scattered through the coconut grove, had begun straggling down to the beach. Colonel James, the military attaché, was camouflaged behind dark glasses. He was of minimum size for a soldier but he cut a spruce figure in uniform, with his small shiny shoes, medals and swagger stick and neat grey moustache. Even in baggy shorts that displayed his paunch he had a quick-march air. This morning, however, he looked pallid and cross. He could not remember what had been said the night before, but he had the suspicion that there had been some loose talk in front of the girls. He felt that the black pamphlets had been mentioned, and the tightness above his nose became worse. He grunted at his wife, Bette, who did not get hangovers, and who gave him a cheerful slap on the rump.

  ‘Serves you right, you silly man,’ she said. Bette James was a forthright woman of middle years, with cropped hair and a well-set spinnaker for a bosom. She was known to everybody as ‘The General’.

  ‘Yoo-hoo,’ she shouted at Meredith Synge, and gave Meredith a slap, too, when she came into range. Meredith, plump, and still clinging to a chocolate-eyed prettiness, was plainly suffering—for similar, but more romantic reasons. Her husband, the Australian press attaché and Alex’s boss, had been in Singapore for the past fortnight recovering from hepatitis. Meredith had smiled often at Sinclaire the night before and had stayed awake for several hours in her hut, alternatively smoking and eating peppermints.

  ‘I’m too old for older women,’ Sinclaire had warned her earlier in the evening, and had sent eye signals to Frank Greaves. But Greaves had hunched up his huge shoulders and looked away. People called Greaves, who was First Secretary, Political, ‘the Iron Man’; Sinclaire, who worked for him, had a different name.

  Greaves was the last to come down to the beach. He was shaved and his mousy hair was slicked down. He put one big hand on the hip of his Bermuda shorts and bared his artificial teeth.

  ‘What a bunch of miserable-looking coots you are,’ he said.

  Sinclaire whispered to Alex, ‘The Strangler has been karate-chopping coconut trees again. It always puts him in a good mood.’

  The water in the lagoon was still calm. But on the reef which enclosed it small waves were already breaking and beyond it the sea was flicking up in white peaks. Itji approached.

  ‘Non, the boat has come. It is too small.’

  ‘Then, Itji, we shall leave you behind to be eaten by sharks,’ Sinclaire said. The servant backed off; her expression was a rictus of fright. ‘You see,’ he continued to Alex, ‘you bring her out here for what you imagine will be an agreeable change from her stinking midden, and she spends the weekend in terror of the elements, longing for the homely smell of sewage. Cultural mistake.’

  ‘I thought she’d enjoy it,’ Alex replied vaguely. She pointed to a heap of white cloth lying at the base of the palm in front of their hut. ‘Your Great Gatsby outfit has just fallen on the ground.’

  ‘Christ! It’s blowing a gale …’

  A half-cabin cruiser with two outboard engines had been nosed through a break in the reef. Its driver stood beside it in the lagoon, staring morosely at his black feet. He felt sorry that the wind was high and the boat was small and that his employer had lent the big boat to an important friend from the Army, forgetting the embassy people week-ending on the island. In the big boat they would have been sure to reach Priok in comfort, or could even send a radio message to the Djakarta Yacht Club if the engines stopped, as sometimes happened when water had been mixed in with the petrol. With a small boat there would be many uncertainties. The boat man waited patiently for the foreigners to begin swearing at him and the women to give him sour looks with their nasty, pale eyes. They had the unpleasant, milky smell of all white people. The men were already shouting at the
island servant boys to hurry with the luggage.

  ‘Absolutely typical,’ Julie Ashby was saying. ‘Lie and cheat. Lie and cheat. He says the big boat has broken down and they’re trying to fix it. Of course it hasn’t broken down. They’re got it hiding over there at one of the other islands. They just don’t want to give it to us for the price we bargained. They’re trying to scare us into paying more because the wind has come up. Absolutely typical.’ Julie glanced around the group to assure herself of support.

  Meredith gave a small guffaw. Her voice was languid. ‘Julie, how do you know that? They’re so fatalistic. Life is cheap for them.’

  Alex and Sinclaire had moved back from the group of anxious, angry faces looking towards the boatman and his undersized boat. ‘Why are expatriates always so nasty?’ she murmured to Sinclaire. ‘Whenever anything goes wrong they suspect the worst.’

  He shrugged. ‘Siege mentality. They’re all scared and Julie is scared, as they say, shitless … I remember what she was wearing the day she arrived here, about eighteen months ago. No kidding, she was in long white gloves and a picture hat. She must have envisaged playing the piano while mint juleps were served on the lawn. Nobody had told her that there was going to be a coup, or that the cockroaches are the size of Havana cigars.’ He paused. ‘But Greaves was here in the fifties, before the nig-nogs went anti-West. He says embassy morale was good then, and that our lot were almost human. Hard to believe, really.’

  Thornton was giving directions for stowing the luggage and for seating arrangements: women were to sit to leeward; gear was to be stowed amidships; somebody was to keep clear of the gunwales. He swore at the boatman and threatened not to tip him. The women looked sulky as they squeezed under the shade of the cabin. Alex hung back on the beach with Sinclaire.

  Thornton shouted at them to come aboard. He was a very tall young man, with dark hair and black, flexible eyebrows shaped in semi-circles. He had a habit of snapping them upwards, as if a holland blind in his face had suddenly been released.