The Plantation by Di Morrissey

pitcher and a rough outdoor fireplace with a large shallow pan on top, like she’d seen the hawkers use. There were several rope chairs and two tiny rooms which she thought must house some of the domestic staff. Washing was hanging on a rope line. Margaret doubted if this was the sort of place where a mem would spend any time.
    She turned away and walked around the house to the front driveway where Eugene’s black Oldsmobile was parked beneath the portico of plastered stone pillars supporting a tiled roof, covered in a rampant flowering vine. The exterior of the house was high, and its timber and stone gave it a stately appearance.
    Lush plants grew under the side of the portico. The driveway leading to the house wound around a small circular garden before joining a narrow dirt road. There was no fence, front gate or demarcation between the house and the red laterite road lined on either side by palm trees. In the distance she could see thickly forested hills. As Margaret turned down the road she saw, for the first time, a section of young rubber trees.
    An Indian who had been tending the garden stood and gave her a swift salute. ‘Memsahib require car?’
    ‘No, thank you. I’m just walking.’
    He shook his head from side to side. ‘No good memsahib walk. Very hot. Many snakes.’
    ‘Snakes? Oh, I see. Thank you.’ She turned back towards the house.
    The gardener crouched back down to the small border of flowers.
    Margaret sat on the verandah and fanned herself. All the staff had asked if they could help her and they had been very respectful. Margaret was enchanted. Clearly while Charlotte Elliott was away, Margaret was the ‘boss mem’. No one at home in Brisbane would ever imagine living with so many servants.
    She jumped up as she heard Roland’s Bedford truck returning.
    He took off his hat and wiped his face with his handkerchief. ‘Right, Mrs Elliott, shall we go and inspect our house? I’ve asked Hamid to take our things over there. Then later this afternoon when it starts to cool, we’ll go for a bit of a tour about the rest of the place.’ He kissed her. ‘I know this might seem strange and difficult but our bungalow will be your own domain to make of what you will.’ He put his arm about her shoulders as they walked indoors.
    ‘This place is rather, well, old looking. Outdated,’ said Margaret. ‘I suppose older people don’t like change.’
    ‘Well, that’s part of it. But Margaret, we’ve just come through the Depression when rubber prices were at rock bottom. It was a struggle for us just to keep the plantation viable. So there’s been no money for what Father would consider frivolous things. My mother certainly understood that whenever there was spare cash, it was put straight back into the business. Things are picking up now and because my parents were frugal and hung on through the bad times, they were able to come out way ahead. Actually we have been able to expand our operation because we bought up a lot of estates around here from other families and companies that couldn’t make a go of things in the last few years.’
    ‘So you actually expanded Utopia during the Depression?’ asked Margaret, impressed with the Elliotts’ business acumen.
    Roland nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll show you later. For now let’s drive over to our house. Can I carry you over the threshold?’
    Margaret was glad that their bungalow was some distance from the main house. On the way there, they passed worksheds housing equipment, lean-tos sheltering seedlings and a collection of rough shacks of woven palm leaves, which was where some of the rubber tappers lived. All around, stretched the pale-green lines of the rubber trees.
    ‘There’s a local village of sorts not far away where a lot of the Indian tappers live. I’ll explain the workings of the plantation to you another time,’ said Roland.
    When Margaret saw her new home, so unadorned, so basic, so … words failed her. By local standards it was new,