About the Author

Nick Ashton-Jones was born in Sheffield but spent a large part of

his life in the Tropics, finally and for many years in West Africa.
However, the decade he spent in the South Pacific in the late
1970s and 1980s was formative and he always thought of Papua
New Guinea, especially the Highlands and the Wahgi Valley, as
a spiritual home to which he was constantly recalled. The
Possible Estate is the third of Ashton-Joness novels to be
published by Austin Macaulay but it is the first he wrote. All
three evoke the South Pacific although they refer to the universal
human condition.
The fourth and final South Pacific novel, Fishermen, will be
published in 2017. The publication of the first of series of
English novels is planned for 2016.
http://www.nickashtonjones.com

With gratitude to Roger Gillbanks who sent me to the Highlands

of Papua New Guinea

Nick Ashton-Jones

THE POSSIBLE ESTATE

Copyright Nick Ashton-Jones (2015)

The right of Nick Ashton-Jones to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims
for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.
ISBN 978 1 78455 095 0
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2015)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Contents
1

ODD BUGGER

WANEIS PEOPLE

14

MISSION

19

MUSTER

26

ESTATE

33

CONNECTION

38

WOUNDS

45

THEN WHO AM I?

54

CHIEF

70

10 CHRISTIANITY COMES TO VAN

78

11 HEART OF DARKNESS

82

12 IDEALIST

96

13 DETRITUS

105

14 TOWN

118

15 HOME TRUTHS

123

16 UNWELCOME VISITOR

133

17 VAN ISLANDERS

149

18 THE CENTRE

160

19 A CRAVING FOR SALVATION

192

20 THE GARDENER

209

21 THE VERY DEVIL

222

22 MODINSKY LOSES HIS HEAD

226

23 DRY LAND

234

24 SLEEP

242

25 DEPARTURE

250

26 THE WRONG VIEW

257

27 HOME

265

ODD BUGGER

1.1
Harry Harrington-Smith would attend the local planters
meetings once a week, so you couldnt say he was deliberately
anti-social. But in the middle of the discussion his eyes would
mist over, his face would relax and he was gone to that place
where he would rather be than with these tiresome men. They
were not offended in terms of manners, because it went deeper
than that, seeming to confirm the total irrelevance of
everything. But they were baffled by this odd man who
seemed to be so separate from them. He made them feel
uneasy; they wanted to avoid him.
After the meeting there would be drinks around the bar:
beer from stubby bottles, whisky-coke or gin and tonics.
Restrained merriment until Harry left: Ill be off.
OK, see you.
Bye Harry.
Cheers Harry.
Careful on that road, you never see the buggers in the
night.
See you.
Bye.
Bye.
He was gone; they relaxed: Odd fellow, Harry.
Yeah, fuck him.
They were glad to forget him and drink away their fears,
to let their dinners get cold and avoid their lonely bungalows.
Life was less frightening in the beery surroundings of the club
where they did not have to be alone.
After it had happened, of course, everyone said they were
not surprised. He was bound to do something funny, in the
end.

1.2
Headlights pick up hedges of coffee, rolling tea, casuarina
trees, neat village huts strung along the rough roadside. Less
alien are the grassy hills behind; the black, brooding
mountains beyond. The plantation gate opened by the nightwatch: yes Master.
Yes Jon, good night.
Up the hill to the old bungalow. Head-lights sweep
hibiscus, gravel forecourt and briefly, a stone wall, a tangle of
bougainvillea hanging over roof and windows, a wooden
panelled door. Then, only the night: the rustle of leaves; the
rainy whistle of a breeze; the distant, slow drumming and
chanting from the hills. Stars prick out the vast dome of the
black sky. Memories of the time before when the valley
echoed with drums and dances, when it was not irritated by
the tea and coffee plantations and when fire ran free across the
grass: before they had retreated to the damp, woody hillsides;
before they cut off their fine hair, plaited with pig grease;
before they became the bloody-fucking-bastards of the white
men; before the white men found the valley, settling it,
draining it, making it safe and familiar for themselves and
damn the rest.
Harry sits in the car, in the dark.
A small light bobs and jumps, brighter, shines through a
window, throws out shadows which dance around the car and
across the face of Harry. Brow creased in pain or the shadows
game? An odd bugger: its been said, but who isnt?

1.3
Wanei, the house-boy, heard the car as he slept in a chair
beside the kitchen range wherein dinner congealed. Wanei,
ever watchful for ways, it seemed, to serve a god. Wanei,
whose one eye rested sometimes on the long, blond, hairy
body of Harry; the man.
Oh, but if the man returned the gaze, the one eye dropped
to the ground.
Wanei, you bugger, wheres my shirt?
Wanei, hurry up you donkey; Ill beat you.

10

And Wanei wished he could be beaten if that would make

the connection.
But better, all the same, when Harry, the man, was
unhappy. Then, as a man, he sought out Wanei: Funny life
isnt it Wanei? Why do we make a fuss? How come Im the
master and youre the slave? Luck of the divine draw? Then
Im the lucky one. Or maybe not.
But the best times were when Harry was happy. Then he
stole up behind Wanei to hug him tight around the chest and
push his chin down onto Waneis sharp, gritty, curly-haired
head. Then Wanei was a bird: he flew up above the world to
look down upon Harry surrounded by the coffee trees. Then,
Wanei felt that it was he who was the god. Then, Wanei slept
in his room at the back of the house with a sense of
contentment and closeness to Harry he had felt with no one
else.

1.4
He creeps into the mans room. He stands, bright in the
moonlight, watching the sleeping face. Eyes open to hold the
one eye with an intensity of knowledge. Wanei is more
securely tied than ever. Love moves in his belly as a lively
snake which makes him afraid.

1.5
The light stops and the front door opens to Wanei holding
the kero lamp. The car door slams shut in the still night.
Wanei?
Master?
Is food ready?
Yes, Master.
Lets have it quick, and Wanei leads Harry into the
dining room; a big room in the centre of the house; at one
time, a yard. Roofed over, the place has never successfully
pulled itself together to become a proper room: a crippled
space; one poor window squints at the garden, mountains
beyond; a view, in the daytime, which mocks the closed-in
and joyless void.
A table dominates; beautifully made from one of the
highland mahoganies; big enough to seat twelve people, it is
11

immense. Diners come to the edge to gaze across a featureless

plain. The dining chairs, where men might sit, are unable to
meet the expected task and are not alone in their humiliation.
The walls and ceiling are a disgrace: grubbily painted
plywood, buckled and bent in the damp climate. The floor is
concrete, floor-paint blistered by the damp; worn where the
two men, who live alone in the house, pass around the table as
they hurry by.
Ignominiously pressed against a shabby wall, the massive
sideboard is a triumph of ugliness patched together from bits
and pieces by a well-meaning carpenter upon the assumption
that it is what white men like. Hes not far wrong. Five illfitting drawers are flanked by double cupboards. Not a bad
design Sheraton might have had a hand in it had the
cupboards matched but they do not: they work hard to be
different. The black, gloss paint which covers the monster
gives it some dignity. But it menaces all the same. Brave will
be the man who looks inside.
Harry stands in the doorway looking into the abyss at the
centre of the house, said to be his home. His eyes fix upon the
dim table. Wanei brings a lamp and makes a place ready for
him to eat. Harry thus sits in a cocoon of light which might be
love. Carrying another lamp, Wanei carries in the food and
having placed it on the table, stands back, invisible. Harry
takes one mouthful and pushes the plate away.
Wanei speaks quietly: Master is not hungry? Master does
not like the food?
No, Master is not hungry; Master does not like the food.
Harry mimics Waneis soft pidgin. Normally, he is distantly
polite or shouts in real bad temper or out of manic joviality.
This mean, calculating way of speaking is rare and thus can
cut deeply. But Wanei is not wounded. Rather his is made
unhappy by his inability to help.
Clear away, then fuck off . . . please, Wanei, Im going
to bed. But he doesnt move and Wanei clears around him as
if neither man exists.

12

1.6
Eventually, Harry pushes himself up, takes a lamp, and
walks towards a passage leading off left of the strangled
window. The glass briefly reflects him. The light disappears
and then flashes back through the window as we see him on
the other side. A door opens, shuts and he is gone. Wanei
picks up the remaining lamp and moves into the kitchen
closing the door behind him.

13

WANEIS PEOPLE

2.1
Benjamin Waninara, whose obvious one eye gave him an
instant nick name, came from the largest of the off-shore
islands. It was called Van, which means Here in their
language. A place of fertile volcanic soils, of luxuriant
vegetation and of handsome people who, despite making an
easy living from land and sea, had a particular taste for human
flesh which, before the white men stopped it, had been
obtained by raiding the weaker tribes living on the smaller
neighbouring islands.
In the old days Waneis people traded on their
cannibalistic reputation and by spreading fear and
incomprehension throughout the locality had won dominance
over a large peninsula protected by sea and mountain. Like the
English, whom they resembled in many ways, Waneis
ancestors thought they had the whole world in their hands. But
there was one aspect of their lives that they could not control.
This was the volcano which dominated the view of Van.
Ironically, Waneis people were well aware of the value of the
volcanic ash which enriched their soils, and indeed the age-old
proverb said after the soot falls, the good times come, but
always in the back of their minds was the fearful idea of what
might happen. And not only had the volcano the capacity to
erupt violently, to shake the earth and to destroy, but also it
did these things apparently without reason and with little
warning. A maddening and unpredictable parent which whilst
loving its children sincerely, had problems of its own and
would therefore lash out from time to time. Waneis ancestors
called the volcano The Mother.
To familiarise the volcano may have made it less
frightening but its brooding unpredictability meant that it had
to be taken into account at all times. But there was no tradition
of trying to placate it, certainly not by human sacrifice. The
presence of the volcano and its power, regularly expressed in
14

a terrible shaking of the ground, had to be accepted and

another age-old proverb said keep your head down, the bad
times will pass, or something like that.
After all, an earthquake awakes a primeval fear in all men.
It reminds us that despite our apparent human supremacy, we
are, in the end, subject to forces beyond our control. We
cannot run away from an earthquake and have no idea what
will happen next; the one thing in our life that ought to be firm
and sure, the earth under our feet, is not firm and is not sure.
An unseen hand takes control of the usually solid ground upon
which we stand: a hand that is no less than mischievous and
perhaps guided by evil intent. It shakes the table at which we
sit.
Afterwards, of course, we clear up the mess laughing in
relief and already wondering at our fear as we mentally collect
the stories we can tell. But nagging us, almost subconsciously,
is the fear of the next time, tomorrow, next week, next year
when we will be awoken again by the nauseating swaying of
the house that has penetrated our dreams. Wide awake and
aware it is not the dog scratching itself beneath the bed, do we
lie and wait for it to stop or leap up and rush for cover?
Cover? Where can we find cover? Were on the damned table
and we cant get off.
But fear lies sleeping, most of the time, hidden in the
dark, dusty forgotten corner of the monstrous sideboard that is
the human mind. And so it was with Waneis cannibal
ancestors whose fantastic delusion of power was a vanity born
of ignorance. But the erratic violence of The Mother was as
nothing compared with the beast of European colonialism
which was about to fall upon them. Initially Waneis ancestors
saw the coming of the white men as something wonderful that
would add a new dimension to their life, bringing them useful
material benefits. Captain Cook had passed nearby but missed
Van. Afterwards, the sails of the European ships were seen on
the horizon in increasing numbers but came no nearer. All the
same, word worked its way back to Waneis ancestors and
they heard a little of the white man, of his ships, of his needs

15