1 Blandine

Wakunia, Bougainville, PNG

Wakunai is a delightful town on the east coast of Bougainville, far from the mess that remains now from the Bougainville Copper operations. It does not rank up there with Rabaul or the Highlands as a major tourist destination. It is more of a quiet backwater of charm—and mystery.

When I was working for Bougainville Copper, my job took me to villages near and far in that fascinating land. I had friends who ran a plantation to the north of Wakunai outside the village of Asotavi. They were Australians who lived in a delightful, wide verandah, house just outside Asotavi, half way between there and Wakunai.

I was a regular visitor and I loved being away from the mine and relaxing in what I fondly imagined was quasi-colonial splendour.

My friend, Lionel, had run the plantation for years. Some considered him to be a little odd. He came from outside Toowoomba, so maybe there was a reason for it. I would turn regularly and we just chewed the fat. He was a great raconteur but one of his stories left me slightly worried. Would he stay sane? He claimed that there were ghosts in a now abandoned old plantation manager’s house further down the coast nearer Wakunai.

I looked dubious.

‘I have the keys to it,’ he challenged me,. ‘Want to stay over tomorrow? There?’

I nodded, slightly.

We arrived in the evening just after sunset. Showered and had dinner prepared by Lionels’ houseboy. He cooked outside. We ate on the verandah. The houseboy refused to enter the house.

Lulu, Lionel’s wife, was from the Philippines. She refused to come with us.

‘She is too frightened’, joked Lionel.

I looked through the house. Dark, Musty. Dingy: every adjective that could evoke evil spirits could be applied to it, but we all know that such stories are clap trap, so, with the bravado of the ignorant, I was looking forward to sleeping with the spooks.

Now, most of you will know what a typical PNG plantation house is like. It is raised off the ground and sits on poles—a little like Queensland houses—designed for the breezes to pass above and below the house, keeping it cool and pleasant. The ghost house had a living room on one side of the house. The bedrooms were on the other side of the house. The kitchen was in a small hut a few meters from the back of the main building.

The nearby villagers—with Lionel’s blessing—kept chickens in a coop under the bedrooms. That is where I slept: right above the chickens. If I looked through the cracks between the floorboards, I could see them.

After too many beers and too much to eat, Lionel and I retired.

Around midnight, I woke up. Lionel was shaking my shoulder.

‘What ever you are doing stop it’, he yelled.

‘I awoke in a confused daze.

‘Wha!...’

‘You are poking me from below, through my mattress!’ he said.

I looked at him. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘How can that happen? There is a wooden floor underneath you and you are lying on a mattress!’

‘I know. I felt it,’ she said crossly. ‘Stop playing silly buggers. Go to sleep.’

I looked at him. ‘Grow up.’

He dozed off again as did I.

A few moments later I woke with a start. Something was poking me! I looked over at Lionel. By the light of the moon I could see that he too was sitting up. I could see from the light of the moon that he looked puzzled. What was happening? We had now both experienced the same strange thing.

We heard something scratching at the door. We turned and looked. Neither of us could say anything. We were slightly alarmed.

‘Looks to me like the handle is turning’, said Lionel.

I gulped. Someone was calling out our names. We looked at each other.

‘I am not sure I like this’, I muttered.

The scratching and the name-calling stopped. We relaxed a little.  Then it started again, but this time the noise came from on top of the roof. We heard footsteps rustling through the reeds on the roof, followed by the sound of scraping and scratching above our heads.

‘Quick,’ I said. ‘Whatever is up there has moved from behind the door and is now on the roof. Let’s go outside and check it out’.

We ran outside. We looked and looked. We saw nothing. All was calm. The only noise was the rustle of the leaves in the cooling breeze. The moonlight danced on the sea and the gentle sound of the waves lulled any disconcerting notions we might have had.

At breakfast next morning neither of us were at all sure of ourselves. We all knew what we had heard and felt, but in the light of the new day, it seemed an odd thing to talk about it.

Lionel looked at me.

‘Now what was this nonsense last night?’ he asked, not unkindly.

‘You were the one who said this place was haunted’, I said, and he laughed.

He took a slow sip of his tea and began to speak.

‘I am not sure of all the details, but what I can gather this is what happened. A few weeks before you arrived, the daughter of the villager who looks after this place for me r committed suicide.’

 ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘That is so rare here, surely?’

‘Indeed, but apparently she was terribly abused by her stepmother, and could not take it any longer.’

‘How can a village child do such a thing?’ I asked.

 ‘It beats me’, replied Lionel. ‘I don’t know that family very well but I have heard reports of how badly she was treated by her mother in law.’

‘How did she die?’ I asked.

‘She drank rat poison,’ he replied. ‘We keep lots of it in the plantations, for obvious reasons.

‘Are you suggesting that whatever was bugging us last night might be something to do with that poor girl?’

Lionel nodded quietly. ‘You know, I think it is possible,’ he said. ‘The poor child. She must have been so sad when she was alive. Maybe she wanted to join us.’

I looked at him. ‘If that is the case—and believe me, I don’t believe in this malarkey—then this is not a dangerous spirit, so I don’t think anyone needs to worry.’

We spent the day inspecting the plantation which led up towards the volcano, Mount Bagana. It rumbled and smoked away.

‘If there were spirits, this is where they would originate from’, I joked.

‘I need to stay one more night. We will go back tomorrow. You up for that?’

I wheeled on him and fixed him with a deliberately brave stare.

‘Of course’, I gulped.

That night we went to bed again, not a little apprehensive as to what might happen. Sure enough, at about the same time, we both woke with a start. We dashed out of the house. We had both heard the same thing: shrill laughter filled the house. It was quite unnerving.

Lionel and I looked out into the encroaching forest which seemed to have taken on a sense of menace.

‘Blandine! Blandine! I know it is you,’ Lionel shouted. ‘Leave us alone. Please. I will sort things out for you.’

All was quiet.

‘Blandine?’ I asked.

‘That was the little girl’s name,’ he replied quietly.

‘What did you mean you will sort things out for her?’

He just nodded his head and suggested that we return to bed. Things would be fine.

We heard no more shouts or screams that night.  Nor did we feel anyone poking us. No one scratched at the door or on the ceiling.

Three months later I returned. I wanted to stay at Torokina, not the haunted house at Wakunai.

‘Well!’ I asked Lionel. ‘Did you sort things out?’

‘You need not worry about Blandine’s ghost anymore,’ he smiled.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘How can you be sure?

‘A day or two after you left, her stepmother was found dead under a tree in the garden. Her eyes were wide open and her face had a terrified expression on it that showed that something had frightened her beyond imagining’.

I was stunned. I screwed up my face.

‘Weird!’ I said. ‘And?’

‘There have been no ‘visits’ since then. Blandine is at peace’.

I looked at my friend. He was serious.

I only hoped that Blandine was—indeed—at peace.