The Plantation - Di Morrissey [173]
‘That does sound interesting,’ said Tony. ‘I’ve heard of this fellow. He’s regarded as being a bit eccentric and very colourful.’
‘He’s lived here since the war and says he’s made some amazing archeological discoveries in the Niah caves. He’s found fossils and skulls which he says date back more than forty thousand years. I would so love to go there and see them. He says the caves are huge.’
‘You would? I’ll look into it if you like. What about visiting the camp? Is tomorrow morning all right with you?’
Bette nodded, her bubbling enthusiasm about the museum curator subsiding at the thought of revisiting the internment camp.
It wasn’t as she remembered, for which she was glad. It was now a peaceful place. Green fields surrounded the original barracks, which were now part of a teacher training college. Grass had replaced dust. There were neat signs, a monument, a flagpole, and some of the occupied buildings were cleaned up and open to the public. There was no sign of the barbed-wire fences or the watchtowers. But the faces of the women and children Bette had seen every day, came clearly to her mind.
She walked alone towards the buildings she remembered as being her world, her home and her prison for nearly four years. When she walked back to Tony, who stood smoking a cigarette in the shade of a tree, she was smiling.
‘Are you all right?’ He embraced her and she clung to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
‘Yes. At last I really am all right.’ She looked up into his face. ‘You are my life now, Tony. Everything that happened before I married you, means very little to me any more.’
He kissed her softly. ‘Then we shall make every day ours.’
Back in Kuching, Tony took Bette’s idle remark about visiting the Niah caves quite seriously. But when he talked to the museum curator, Tom Harrisson told him that the caves were quite isolated and difficult to reach, and the area was off limits because it was a dig site. Nevertheless, Tom invited them both to come to his house in Pig Lane for a drink and to discuss the possibility of visiting other parts of Sarawak.
Bette was fascinated by the cluttered, ramshackle home that Tom shared with his anthropologist wife Barbara, who was currently making a documentary about their work at Niah. The house was like a museum. Walls and surfaces were smothered in the artifacts that Tom had collected over the years he’d been in South East Asia. native woven baskets and hats, ornamental knives, krises, blowpipes and mats were hung everywhere, while the walls were decorated with magnificent, boldly coloured murals. Tom explained that the paintings and carvings in the house had been done by various orang ulu – upriver natives. Bette was intrigued by his collection of pottery pieces and shards of Chinese and Siamese porcelain, which were very much older than the perfect porcelain on display in Rose Mansion.
‘This is amazing,’ said Bette. ‘These artifacts are such a contrast to the things that we have in Penang. Just look at those paintings. Fantastic.’
Seeing her enthusiasm and interest, Tom suggested that since they couldn’t go to the caves, they might like to visit a longhouse, where he had Iban friends.
‘Leonard is one of the assistants working at the museum and he’s Iban. I’m sure he’d help you, if you’d like to go,’ said Tom.
Tom also introduced Bette and Tony to his ‘children’, and Bette was fascinated. Kept in cages out the back of the house and roaming around inside, demanding constant attention, were several baby orangutans. Tom explained that they had been rescued from illegal traders trying to smuggle them out of the country. Barbara was rearing them and trying to prepare them to be released