Open Writing

Jan and I had enjoyed living in Moresby. I had joined the golf club, we played cards and, as there was no television and with house chores virtually nonexistent, we, like many others, frequently socialized and entertained. Jan was very unhappy at having to leave the department of forests in Moresby where she was well respected and happy. It was also upsetting for the children as they too had settled in and made good friends. Rodney spent many after-school hours hunting 'guppies', tiny tropical fish, in Moresby's almost dry storm water drains. .

Madang was a tropical paradise but it was not as progressive as Moresby. For example, the town still boasted an Occidental Club when I arrived.

Once again I went ahead of Jan and the children to set up our accommodation. The house I was allocated was very similar to the one we had vacated in Boroko, but Jan was not happy there. She thought the house gave off a very different aura to the one in Moresby.

A few days before Jan and the children arrived I walked down to the local cinema and saw "Wait Until Dark" a suspense film with Audrey Hepburn playing a blind woman on her own being threatened by a murderer. After walking home down a spooky avenue under drooping branches of large tropical trees I was glad when I reached the house. As I put my hand on the door handle, it gave an unearthly scream. Unwittingly I had put my hand on a large green tree frog.

The store I was to manage was nothing more than a large trade, or mini department, store. The contrast to the beautifully appointed store in Moresby was akin to going from Woolworths in the city to the Manly store.

When Jan and the children arrived we were invited to dinner by one couple whom we thought were being very kind and friendly. However, one of the guest’s pulled me aside during the evening and warned me that we were only invited there so that when we reciprocated, our hosts would be able to look us over as a subject for their future gossip sessions. He proved to be right, as after entertaining them, we never heard from them again.

We made few friends in Madang. My boss Ken Lee, an avid golfer, was keener for me to spend every spare moment at the golf club with him rather than manage the store. We were playing one of our frequent mid-week afternoon games when Mr. Underwood and other senior executives flew into Madang. When Ken was told that they had arrived, he merely instructed his assistant to invite the party to join us at the club for lunch.

My handicap at eighteen was the lowest it has ever been. While I was there I luckily scored a hole in one.

That was a weekend that will go down in my family folklore.

On the last Friday in October 1970 Jan and I had decided to take the children to dinner to the Madang Hotel right on the harbour to celebrate Rodney's 9th birthday. It was a beautiful setting with the restaurant in a large open building with a thatched roof. We ate our entree about seven o'clock. We then had to wait for more then an hour for the Luau, a pit where a pig and some chickens were being cooked underground.

The children became more and more tired and restless as we stood around waiting for the banana leaves to be removed. When the leaves were finally removed Rodney took one look into the pit and on seeing a disembowelled pig and poultry lying on their backs below said, with his face contorting in disgust, "I don't want any of that".

"Never mind," I said as the meat was brought up and turned over on the carved crocodile table alongside the salads and exotic fruit displays, "let's have some nice salad instead. Here's some lovely pineapple and mangoes-", at this point David piped up in a loud voice pointing to a lettuce leaf, "There's a grub on that." That was it. Jan and I knew it was time for us to take the children home.

It was very busy in the store the next morning. Ken appeared to be on edge and kept coming into the store with a thundercloud above his head. I reassured him that everything was fine and for him to leave things to me and go back into his office. For some reason the scuffing of the natives’ thongs annoyed him. After closing the shop Ken and I went off to the golf course.

Jan, in the mean time, had gone around the neighbourhood lining up children to come to Rodney's party that afternoon. She believed that it would be a good opportunity for the children to make new friends. With the help of a couple of mothers, Jan got things under way. The party was progressing well when a roar was heard from the golf club nearby. "Someone's got a hole in one", one of the mothers said. I had hit an eight iron shot on the short eighth hole; the ball had bounced once and then wedged itself between the flagpole and the rim of the hole. It couldn't have been truer. I collected twenty-eight golf balls from the pool; a certificate and eventually a trophy arrived with a spot for the golf ball to sit.

© Clement 2007