Beverley Oakley
Recently, a Labour
MP was in the Australian news for being denied entry to the US while on
government business. I know, personally, that it’s not fun being deported,
though I imagine Vancouver Immigration was more polite than the French Guianese
Immigration Official who ordered my deportation back to Miama some years ago
and that he wasn’t ordered to sleep on a wooden bench until the next flight out
of Cayenne, 24 hours later.
Like our MP, Mr
Eideh, I was on government business and my paperwork in order. I’d just
finished a survey contract in Greenland, spent ten days at our apartment in
Ottawa and had travelled on my own via Miama to the French Guianese capital,
Cayenne, to join the rest of the Geoterrex (now Fugro Airborne Surveys) crew
who were waiting for me.
At midnight, the
airport had emptied from the last flight that would enter or depart for
twenty-four hours. I was the last passenger through and there was a ‘problem’
with my paperwork, the junior official indicated. The head honcho Immigration
Inspector was on his way to the airport to give his ruling.
This, it soon
turned out, involved a lot of shouting in French as he spoke no English, and a
lot of stabbing his finger at my chest and then at a document I refused to sign
since it was written in French and I couldn’t understand a word of it.
Apparently, I was
unlucky enough to get caught in the middle of political ructions caused by the
then-recent French nuclear testing in the Pacific. In protest, the Australian
government had introduced tourist visa requirements for the French, and the
French had reciprocated. My employer had organized government working visas for
the crew and, understandably, had overlooked the need for a tourist visa for
me, their only Australian employee.
So, now, here I was
in a French colony nestled between Suriname and Brazil, with no tourist visa,
being confronted by a very agitated French Immigration official smelling
strongly of sweat and garlic.
Our project
manager, a French Canadian, arrived at the airport to plead my case and when
that failed, to try and persuade the Immigration Inspector to simply confiscate
my passport and let me sleep the night at the hotel in town before presenting
myself for the next day's flight out of the country.
The inspector was
adamant. With more shouting and finger pointing he ordered me to sleep in a
room in the deserted airport, ‘overseen’ by a 6’4” French Guianese soldier
shouldering an AK-47.
But I had a
champion in my husband’s best friend, my fellow crew member, Jorn.
Concerned for my
virtue at the hands of this lone French Guyanese guard, Jorn chivalrously
offered to subject himself to the discomfort of also spending the night on a
wooden bench in a deserted airport until my imminent deportation the next day.
Fortunately, the
Inspector gave his permission and Jorn and I spent the night listening to the
scratching and rustles of clawed nocturnal creatures while telling stories. (I
must have done a great job talking up my sister Penny’s charms, too, since Jorn
and Penny were married several years later. ;) )
Anyway, I wasn’t
deported. Through good fortune, the manager of the hotel where the Fugro crew
was stationed happened to be a friend of the Minister for Immigration who’d
been drinking at the bar with the crew a few nights before. Fortuitously, he’d
dropped his card on the counter, hardly expecting to get a phone call to ask
for his help in a delicate diplomatic/deportation issue, I’m sure.
But that’s what he
got and the next morning I was met by my now smiling nemesis, the Immigration
head honcho from my previous night’s encounter who said the matter had been
sorted out (no apology, mind you) and I was free to go. (Later, I got a
personal apology from the French Guianese Minister for Immigration.)
Thus began the most
gruelling two-and-a-half months' contract in all my four years of survey work,
operating the computer in the back of a Cessna 404 over the jungle for 8 hours
every day. We couldn’t use the air conditioning which interfered with the data
acquisition equipment, and the 40 degree heat and high humidity caused
perpetual turbulence so that I had to time my throwing-up very carefully for
the few seconds between closing off and setting up new survey lines for the
pilot to fly.
When darling
husband joined me seven weeks later, having finished the Greenland contract, he
called me a walking skeleton for I’d lost 10kg. (Actually, he didn’t use those
words because Eivind never says uncomplimentary things; but he was shocked at
how much weight I had lost.)
Anyway, it was one
of those incidents in life that you never forget but you’re always glad you’ve
had as you become subsumed under life’s normalness because it’s nice to start a
story with: “When I was locked up in French Guiana…”
A
rigged horse race - and a marriage offer riding on the outcome. When Miss Eliza
Montrose unexpectedly becomes legal owner of the horse tipped to win the East
Anglia Cup, her future is finally in her hands – but at what cost?
George Bramley, nephew to the
Earl of Quamby, will wager anything. Even his future bride.
Miss Eliza Montrose will
accept any wager to be reunited with the child she was forced to relinquish
after an indiscretion — even if it means marrying a man she does not love.
But when the handsome and
charming Rufus Patmore buys a horse from her betrothed, George Bramley, whose
household her son visits from the foundling home, her heart is captured and the
outcome of the wager is suddenly fraught with peril.
Eliza had forgotten what
it felt like to enjoy a man’s attention. He’d started to dry her in a vigorous
attempt to warm her but then his touch gentled and he simply stared down at
her.
The wonder in his eye as
he murmured words of praise was a rare sensation. Embarrassed, she turned away.
Yes, turned away because she could not afford to be so obviously disquieted by
another man when she was affianced to George Bramley who stood a few feet away
from her. He was also staring but there was no softness in his countenance.
Hoping to avoid any more
gestures of admiration or kindness from Mr Patmore, Eliza politely extricated
herself and put out her hand to arrest the progress of the Foundling Home lad
whom Nanny Brown was pursuing with a piece of dry linen.
His
impish grin reminded her of young Miss Katherine’s, Lady Fenton’s daughter.
Clearly the two had had a great adventure unlike Young George who was lying on
his stomach upon the grass, shaking with sobs.
“Did you drink a lot of
water, Young George?” Eliza asked, looking down at the crying boy but he
ignored her. “I said we shouldn’t go
out! I said!” He pounded his fists.
“No one ever listens to what I say!”
Eliza
shared a wry smile with the rather lovely Mr Patmore whom she found still
staring at her but, as he looked about to approach her again, she turned her
back on him and instead brought the Foundling Home boy to stand in front of her
now that she’d succeeded in catching him. Eliza would not have Mr Bramley – or
anyone else – accuse her of encouraging the attentions of a man not her
betrothed.
“Jack
– that’s your name, isn’t it? Well, you’ll have something to tell them back at
the Foundling Home.” She’d seen him only from a distance and now, mud
bespattered and with his hair matted over his forehead it was difficult to make
out his features though she knew from various anecdotes that young Jack
distinguished himself for keeping Miss Katherine’s wilfulness in check and
peace between Katherine and her cousin, Young George.
Jack stood obediently
before her as he started to wring out his threadbare shirt. “Nah, I’m fine,
m’lady,” he said, glancing up to reveal a pair of small white teeth in a
freckled face. “But thanks for savin’ me, an’ all.”
Find Devil’s Run at: Amazon
2 comments:
oh my goodness! This sounds like quite an experience. I'm glad you had a friend with you Beverley.
Thanks for sharing this Vicki
Lots of stuff in this post for a novel!
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