Night Music

Susan takes special care of me. In the markets, she buys nothing – she can get it all cheaper in Mendi – but she trails me, eyeballing young men and keeping a discreet hand on the strap of my bilum.

We settled together early, mostly through the gravitational accidents of conference rooms and hotel dining tables, although I had noticed her quiet smile, her squinty, wicked humour and her determination to be heard. It’s hard to estimate her age – she must be younger than my parents. She is not from here, but she is married to a highlander. She misses her place, a seaside village at the southern end of New Ireland.

We have cultivated a week of allegiance: in-jokes and gentle sillinesses, but it is not until the last night that I think to ask her about her family. Does she have children? How many? How old?

“Four,” she says. And pauses.

“My son was murdered,” Susan says, and maybe I am the only one who thinks it is suddenly. “Twenty one.”

He was beaten to death by a group of young men that he knew. His friends. They were walking at night outside of town. I ask if it was a fight and she says no, she thinks it was jealousy. Her son was on holidays from university where he was ranking high in his engineering degree.

It has been three years.

Susan works as a probation officer, supervising young people on parole and community work orders, and managing their rehabilitation.

At home in Alotau, our little stilted house is in distant earshot of a village. Once or twice since I first arrived, I have heard night singing – curious layered chants, with a swaying ocean rhythm. Hot darkness, insects and the sound like a floating veil – it was something very beautiful, a snatched joy and a mystery.

Last week, Karen showed up for work after days’ disappearance, with a hollow raspy voice and serious expression.

“My husband’s auntie passed,” she whispered. “We have been singing all night at the house.”

There was singing again tonight, just faintly. It was still beautiful.