Chapters

29

Exeter drives carefully, not like Huxley or Merkel. He is a man who wants to live into old age without battle scars. At first I recognise the terrain, the coffee plantations, the trees, the shrubs, not that I know their names, but I have seen them all before. Then he points the Land Rover up, its nose sniffing the higher ground, checking the safety of places it has not been before. The native line alongside the road thins and the vegetation thickens. Every so often we stop at a trading store and Exeter gets out to chat with the local trader. I wander about, not too far from the Rover, checking out the scenery, what little I can see through the trees. Not too far. Don’t want to get lost in the jungle. Never know what might be in there. Shut up, Jack. There’s nothing in there. I shake my head.

When we get to Kia country Exeter has a lot of businesses to visit, people to talk to. We have a room each in the local hotel motel. When Exeter has to drive out of town, into the bush, he takes me with him. The bush is different up here. Thicker. Greener. Impenetrable. If anything got in there it would never get out. But there is something trying. No there isn’t. There’s nothing. My head shakes.

The locals are shorter, and their bodies like stacks of walnuts. The women are forever carrying things hanging off their heads. They don’t look at me, or if they do, they seem suspicious. The air is cooler. The girls show less flesh.

After lunch I go back to my room and read.

There’s a knock on my door. I open it and Mike Hogarth walks in.

What are you doing here? I ask.

What do you mean me? he says. I should ask you? I’m a bloody patrol officer and this is my district. I could have you arrested and shot.

What for?

Anything, he says. But first, you want to come out for a drive? Somewhere dangerous. Right out there in the thick of it all where men are men and the women are even tougher.

All right, I say. As long as you do all the talking.

He does, I barely get a word in. As soon as we climb into his Land Cruiser, it and his mouth get into gear, but his mouth doesn’t stop when the stick hits neutral. Yes, Hogarth did go to Timbertop with Prince Charles and his family was shocked when he decided to become a patrol officer on a far-flung piece of empire.

Hardly a bloody empire, he says. And we only took these islands on because no one else would. But that’s what my mother insisted on calling it. She thought I was heading off to uni to do law.

Mine too, I say. She was convinced I was lawyer material. My older brother is. What’s articles? He’s doing them.

That’s what they call what you have to do before you become fully qualified. It’s like your probation period.

Why don’t they just call him a cadet lawyer?