Barker stopped the cart in front of the veranda steps. The house was smaller but more solid than most Apia homes; it was of rough-hewn timber and had narrow windows and doors, a steeply sloping iron roof and, most surprising of all, a red brick chimney. The wide front veranda had thick wooden beams from which hung pots of orchids, ferns and creepers. So neat and tidy; the house didn’t even look lived in. Yes, a magician’s home, thought Peleiupu.

  They followed Barker off the cart. ‘You wait on the veranda,’ he said. ‘I’ll take this to the stables.’ He started leading off the horse.

  As they walked cautiously onto the veranda, Peleiupu sensed that Arona had again withdrawn into his protective silence.

  A circle of six cane chairs surrounded a white cane table on the veranda. At the far side was a canvas sun chair coloured like the rainbow. A large ava bowl leant against the house wall. They stood at the edge of the circle of chairs, facing the front door, which was black like river boulders.

  When Barker returned and stood between them, the lonely emptiness of the veranda vanished, defeated by his familiar odour.

  ‘Anybody home?’ Barker called. ‘I need a drink!’ He moved up to the door and was just going to knock on it when someone pulled it in.

  Into the doorway stepped the thinnest papalagi Peleiupu had ever seen. She thought that if you shone a bright light into his yellow paleness you would be able to see all of his bones and veins. The man’s face was one radiant smile when he saw Barker. ‘I need your expensive Scotch whisky!’ Barker laughed. ‘God knows, you’re the only bugger this side of the Equator who can afford it.’ The writer opened his arms and Barker stepped into his embrace.

  ‘Welcome,’ the writer said. ‘Welcome, my lost adventurer who carries the White Man’s burden!’ Barker hugged him.

  Over Barker’s right shoulder the writer gazed down at Peleiupu and Arona, with the bluest eyes Peleiupu had ever looked into. The eggshell-white skin of his face was so tightly stretched over the bones, it appeared to be on the verge of tearing. His long, almost fleshless fingers, now pressed into Barker’s back, were tinged with prominent pink veins and blond hair.

  ‘And your beautiful friends?’ the writer asked. He stepped around Barker and stood between the children who refused to look at him.

  ‘Ask them — they speak excellent English!’

  ‘Your children?’

  ‘Christ, no!’ Barker guffawed. ‘Do they look ugly like me?’

  ‘No, they are too noble, too beautiful, too well mannered, and too shy!’ The writer wore starched white trousers and shirt, a blue cravat, a thick Texan leather belt with a gold buckle, and brown boots.

  ‘This is their first visit to Apia and to the home of another papalagi,’ Barker said, sitting down in one of the cane chairs. The writer held Peleiupu’s chin gently and turned her face up towards him. She refused to look at him. He smelled of tobacco. ‘We all smell vile to them,’ Barker added. ‘Like flying-foxes. Don’t we, Pele?’ Peleiupu didn’t respond. ‘They also consider us uncivilised, barbaric, terribly stupid, clumsy, cruel and very, very ungodly. Sinful atheists, in fact. Isn’t that right, Arona?’ Arona was trembling visibly, sweat trickling down his legs onto the floor.

  ‘You’re frightening them,’ the writer cautioned.

  ‘Frightened of us?’ laughed Barker. ‘My learned friend, the natives tolerate us as beings only one level removed from the state of the beast! I should know, Mr Leonard Roland Stenson. I live with them!’

  Ignoring Barker, Stenson asked, ‘And, young lady, what … is … your … name?’

  ‘Ha, you … are … being… bloody … condescending!’ Barker imitated him. ‘Like … every … other … bloody … bearer … of … the mighty … British Flag … and … arrogant civilisation!’

  ‘My name is Peleiupu Mautu, sir,’ Peleiupu said.

  ‘She even has your accent!’ Stenson exclaimed.

  ‘What did you expect? I’m her ingenious language teacher!’

  ‘And you are …?’ Stenson asked Arona, who glanced at Peleiupu, who nodded.

  ‘My name is Arona,’ he enunciated carefully. ‘And our father is Mautu.’ Barker was now shaking with suppressed laughter.

  ‘Our mother’s name is Lalaga and our village is called Satoa,’ Peleiupu recited. ‘It is on the island of Savai’i. And I have read many books.’ Then, remembering, added, ‘All in English, your language.’

  ‘Wonderful, unbelievable!’ Stenson whispered. Putting an arm around the shoulders of each child, he said, ‘Welcome to my humble home, my refuge. I am honoured having you here.’

  Peleiupu looked at Barker, who nodded. ‘Sir, thank you for welcoming us to your most gracious home,’ she said, copying the dialogue of a heroine from a novel she had read. Barker clapped.

  Stenson bowed to his young guests. ‘Please go in,’ he invited them.

  Heads held high, the children walked into the house with Stenson. Barker’s loud clapping snapped at their happy heels, echoed through the stillness of the house and then, like a flutter of pigeons, burst out of the back windows and up into a sky that was as intensely blue as Stenson’s eyes.

  ‘Sit, sit!’ Stenson pointed at the velvet-covered sofa in front of the fireplace. ‘You must be hungry.’ He disappeared into the next room.

  Cautiously Peleiupu and Arona sat down on the sofa. The velvet felt like dog’s fur under their thighs and against the backs of their legs.

  The room was lined with bookcases stacked neatly with books. A large mahogany desk and high-backed chair with furred back sat to the left of the fireplace.

  ‘Plenty of books,’ Arona whispered.

  ‘It is because he is a writer.’ She scrutinised the books.

  Barker’s smell preceded him into the room. ‘He really likes you, so don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘I need a bath.’ He left, flicking the sweat off his arms with his hands. They listened to his heavy boots thumping down the corridor into a back room, and the door shutting with a sharp click.

  ‘Are you scared?’ Peleiupu asked. Arona shook his head. ‘I’m not either,’ she said. They sat in silence for a while, listening for the writer to return. Eventually she couldn’t resist it any more. She went over to the bookshelves.

  ‘He’ll be back soon,’ Arona cautioned.

  She read the titles and ran her forefinger along the books’ spines. ‘I haven’t read any of these,’ she said. She started pulling out a thick leather-bound volume.

  ‘Don’t!’ Arona called.

  Opening the cover, she read. ‘It’s by him,’ she said. ‘It’s called The Island of Treasures.’

  Footsteps were hurrying up the corridor. She snapped the book shut, pushed it back into the shelf, ran back and sat down.

  ‘Sorry I took so long,’ Stenson said, putting a tray with glasses and a jug of lemonade down on the table. His guests tried not to look at him as he poured three drinks, gave them one each, took one himself and, raising it, said, ‘Here’s to the most beautiful guests this unhappy home has ever been fortunate enough to have. Cheers!’

  Arona glanced at Peleiupu, who raised her drink and, in imitation of their host, said, ‘Thank you, sir!’ Stenson started drinking; Peleiupu did the same. Arona followed suit. Stenson drank a third; the children copied him.

  ‘Drink some more,’ Stenson encouraged them. Peleiupu drained her glass. Arona did the same. ‘Good, very good,’ Stenson said.

  He refilled their glasses. They drank. He refilled them again.

  ‘It must have been a difficult journey?’ Stenson asked. They didn’t reply. ‘One day I’ll get Barker to bring me to your village.’ Still no reply. ‘Your lunch’ll be ready soon. Mrs Pivot, my housekeeper, is preparing it now. I hope you’re hungry. Mrs Pivot will be upset if you don’t eat everything. Are you hungry?’ Arona started shaking his head but, when he saw Peleiupu nodding, he did the same. ‘Good!’ Stenson said, sitting back in his chair, crossing his legs and clasping his bony hands around one knee.

  He was determined to make them talk, Peleiupu thought. They had been raised never to talk freely to adults unless spoken to, and she wasn’t initiating any impoliteness. According to her parents, papalagi children were spoilt and treated their parents as servants. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t pronounce your name properly. You must help me.’

  ‘My name is Peleiupu,’ she said. She glanced at Arona.

  ‘My name is Arona.’

  ‘They have a beautiful sound. You must spell them for me. Will you do that for me?’ They nodded. He pulled a small notebook out of his shirt pocket. Peleiupu spelled her name while he wrote it down. Then he sounded each letter. ‘Now spell it in Samoan.’ Peleiupu did so. He tried to copy her pronunciation, aloud. ‘Not very good, is it?’ Smiling, she shook her head. ‘You must say each letter for me again.’ He copied her repeatedly and, every time he said it correctly and she nodded, he slapped his knee and chuckled.

  ‘Arona is from the Bible, isn’t it?’ Stenson asked after he had spelled the name correctly in Samoan.

  ‘Yes, Aaron was a prophet,’ Arona replied.

  ‘And a very great prophet!’ said Stenson. ‘Someday you too will be a prophet.’ Arona straightened with pride. ‘And what does Peleiupu mean?’ Stenson asked.

  From the doorway Barker said, ‘Pele means beloved. I-upu means in words. So the name of this intelligent young lady is Beloved-in-words. How’s that?’ Barker skipped into the room and winked at Peleiupu.

  ‘A melodious and apt name,’ Stenson chorused.

  Barker, whose hair was plastered in wet ringlets to his head and down his neck, danced up and, stopping in front of the two children, said, ‘And you thought my Samoan wasn’t very good, eh?’ He smelled of soap. He collapsed into the chair beside Stenson, who started pouring him a lemon drink. ‘No, not that!’ Barker insisted. ‘What I need is whisky. I haven’t had a drop in over three thirsty months!’ Drops of water sparkled in his beard.

  ‘First, I’ll take our friends to the kitchen to eat.’ He beckoned to them to follow.

  Barker stopped them and said, ‘If I get drunk, make sure we get back to the fautasi and then to your parents, on Tuesday, like I promised them. All right?’ They nodded and followed Stenson. ‘And enjoy yourselves while you’re here.’

  They had never seen anyone getting drunk before, though they had been told about it by Mautu, Barker and other Satoans. Mautu condemned the taking of alcohol as a sin, and used people and incidents from the Bible to illustrate the evils of drink. As she followed Stenson down the passage she realised that she wanted to see Barker getting drunk and being drunk. (She couldn’t imagine Stenson even liking whisky, let alone getting blindly drunk like Noah in the Bible.)

  Peleiupu and Arona expected Mrs Pivot to be a papalagi. But when they saw her they weren’t sure, for the short, slim woman had green eyes, a delicately narrow face and long nose, and ebony-coloured skin. Mr Stenson introduced them to her and she greeted them in Samoan and told them to sit down at the dining table.

  ‘Yes, sit here,’ Stenson told them. Mrs Pivot returned to the stove and continued stirring the pot on it. Peleiupu sat down in the chair Stenson pulled back for her. The food smelled delicious, she thought. The table was set with silver cutlery and plates. Arona sat down opposite Peleiupu when she nodded to him. They stared at their plates. ‘Don’t be shy: treat my home as your home.’ He patted Arona’s shoulder. ‘And eat as much as you like. Mrs Pivot’s cooking is excellent.’

  When he left, Peleiupu observed Mrs Pivot from the corner of her eye. Everything about Mrs Pivot was papalagi, Peleiupu decided. Even her dress, yet she was Samoan.

  ‘Is anything the matter?’ Mrs Pivot asked when she turned and caught her examining her. Peleiupu shook her head and looked down at her plate.

  Mrs Pivot scooped the contents of the pot into a casserole dish and brought it to the table. ‘He wanted the meal served exactly as we would serve papalagi,’ she said in Samoan without looking at the children. She brought some sliced bread. ‘Go ahead and eat,’ she said. She smelled of perfume. ‘Are you from Savai’i?’

  ‘Yes,’ Peleiupu replied.

  ‘Which village?’ Mrs Pivot was now getting cups and saucers out of the cupboard.

  ‘Satoa,’ she replied.

  ‘Where’s that?’ Mrs Pivot brought the crockery to the table. ‘Don’t you like the food?’ she asked.

  ‘It is good, thank you,’ Peleiupu replied.

  ‘Then eat it!’ Mrs Pivot instructed. Peleiupu sensed that Mrs Pivot had placed herself beyond their reach. When she glanced at her brother, she knew he was also experiencing a frightened humiliation. For the first time since leaving Satoa, she wished they hadn’t come.

  ‘Is this the first time you’ve eaten at a table, with knives and forks?’ asked Mrs Pivot. Peleiupu nodded. Mrs Pivot collected the knives and forks and placed dessert-spoons by their plates. ‘Spoons should be more suitable for you then,’ she said. ‘Now, I have a lot of other work to do. Make sure you’ve finished eating by the time I return.’ She left, but her threat lingered in the room.

  Peleiupu glanced across at Arona. His face was streaked with sweat. ‘Let’s eat,’ she said. They bowed and she said grace.

  They wanted to avoid seeing their humiliation in each other, so they dug into the dish of hot, steaming stew and heaped large helpings onto their plates. Peleiupu filled their glasses with water, then, as if by prior agreement, they started devouring the food, stuffing large spoonfuls of stew and hunks of bread into their mouths.

  ‘I don’t like her,’ Arona said, with bits of bread spitting out of his mouth.

  ‘She thinks she’s a palagi,’ she said. Her hunger was suddenly a down-sucking vacuum she couldn’t fill as she pushed stew, bread and water down into it.

  ‘We shouldn’t have come!’ Arona gasped in between massive mouthfuls. Peleiupu kept eating as if she were devouring Mrs Pivot’s flesh. He tried to keep up with her. They didn’t taste the food or feel the hot stew burning the insides of their mouths.

  The dish was soon empty. Peleiupu brought the pot and emptied the rest of the stew into their dish. She cut the rest of the loaf. Again they raced through the food, tears welling out of their eyes and mingling with their sweat and the food in their mouths.

  They ate.

  And ate.

  Until there was no food left on the table or in the pot on the stove.

  Onto the table they dropped their spoons, leaned their elbows, and lowered their panting heads over their empty plates. ‘I still don’t like her!’ Arona said.

  Peleiupu wiped the sweat off her face with the end of her ie lavalava. ‘We have to stay with her until Tuesday.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay here!’

  ‘We have to,’ she said. ‘Barker and the writer are good to us. We don’t want to offend them.’ She paused. ‘All right?’ He nodded and wiped his face.

  Peleiupu started clearing the table.

  ‘So you did like my cooking!’ Mrs Pivot said when she noticed the empty pot. When she saw the neatly stacked plates, dishes and pots she added, ‘Very good. You’re learning quickly how to live in a palagi family.’

  ‘Is there anything else we can do?’ Peleiupu asked. Mrs Pivot told Arona to sweep the room, and while Peleiupu washed the dishes,

  Mrs Pivot stood beside her telling her what to do. Afterwards she showed them how to polish the cutlery and silverware, and then let them do it at the table while she talked to them. She talked in a thin monotone, in an awkward mixture of Samoan and English. She assumed the children didn’t know any English, and explained all the English terms she used.

  ‘My husband, bless his soul, was the captain of a ship, The Swift Hawk. He was from Bristol, in England. Mr John Robert Pivot, his name was. A righteous and gentle soul who loved me deeply …’ She paused. ‘He was lost at sea between Tonga and New Zealand six years ago.’ Mrs Pivot stopped and Peleiupu expected to see tears. ‘We had no children, yet I’m from a large family of nine brothers and six sisters. We were to settle in England after he had made a lot of money in the copra trade, but he died at sea. I had hoped all my life to live in England, in London where my father, Captain James Rutherford Withers, was from.’

  Then she described her parents and their thriving business and her childhood in Apia. ‘It was difficult growing up in this small town among the Samoans, so my father sent me to New Zealand to a boarding school for rich people’s children. I loved it there among my own people…’ As she described that phase in her life she became more intense, as though by lengthening and savouring every detail of it she could possess it forever. ‘My parents meant for me and my brothers and sisters to return and live in England, our true country, but God hadn’t wanted it that way.’ There was a bitter pause. ‘The dishonest Samoans who worked for my parents stole their money eventually. They even burnt our ship. I had to come back from boarding school to — to this place!’ She turned her head away from Peleiupu. ‘Now I’m just a paid servant.’

  Mrs Pivot must have been beautiful once, like those heroines in the novels she’d read, Peleiupu thought. But fate, by denying her England, had killed that in her. An English lady who’d never been to England, her rightful home. Like Barker she lived in exile, but, unlike Barker, she had not chosen exile. All this Peleiupu would remember and re-examine years later, and, instead of disliking Mrs Pivot, learn to love her.

  Late in the afternoon, when they had finished polishing the silver, Mrs Pivot led them through a small garden of shrubs and flowers over a concrete walkway to her one-room house. She showed them the end of the airy room where Peleiupu was to sleep. (Arona was to sleep by the front door, well away from Peleiupu.) She gave them some sleeping mats and a small mosquito net for Peleiupu. The inside walls were a brilliant white, and Mrs Pivot’s massive bed occupied nearly the whole of the other end. Around the bed were dressers and cupboards overflowing with her clothes.

  ‘You need to bathe,’ she told them. ‘You can’t use the bathroom — that’s for Mr Stenson.’ She gave Peleiupu a fat piece of washing soap. Peleiupu got out of her basket the towel Lalaga had packed for them. ‘The river isn’t far.’ Mrs Pivot opened the back door and pointed to the track that led across the clearing and into the bush and Mt Vaea. ‘Don’t be long!’ she called as the children went down the steps.