I didn't know it at the time, but my troubles all began when I flew back to Bougainville from Brisbane for the Christmas holidays. One of the hassles of living in an expatriate community is that secondary schooling is done away at boarding school, usually in Queensland or New South Wales in Australia.

This means lots of travel if you're a student like me, for with several holidays each year we soon clock up the air miles. Fortunately the Company pays the bills. In fact we students usually get to travel back and forth on the company jet, although with the rush on at holiday time it's more often necessary to take commercial flights. On this occasion it was an Air Oceanic flight, and we had to travel through Honiara in the Solomon Islands proper. This always means a stopover there, but nobody minds very much since there's usually a group and it's a fun time with everyone so glad to be out of the confines of the boarding school system.

The Company? You haven't heard of Bougainville, then. On Bougainville Island there's a hole in the ground, a very big hole, and for years they've been nibbling away with their machines and have managed to reduce a fair-sized mountain to this great ledged crater nearly two kilometers across and over two hundred meters deep. Why? For copper, of course, and gold. The mine is operated by thousands of national and expatriate workers, labourers, machine operators, technicians, engineers... My father is one of these latter, and we've lived on the island nearly as long as I can remember.

Fortunately the mine itself is miles away up in the mountains so the rest of the island still retains the very breath of paradise, with miles of coral reefs and beaches, coconut palms and sparkle-clear mountain streams. I think it's a marvellous place.

It was quite early in the morning when we finally looked down on the rugged green profile that is Bougainville. My heart always beats faster when the plane slides lower and closer to the hills, with the blue of the lagoon to one side and the abrupt mountain face on the other. Somehow the airfield looks impossibly tiny and insignificant, and it takes the rude squeal of aircraft tyres to remind you that this is solid ground, not some clever TV simulation...

Honiara had already re-acclimatised us to the tropical heat so we were able to concentrate on identifying the welcoming faces at the little terminal building when we walked down the steps of the aircraft and over to the arrivals area.

Shack, Kelly, Call a spade a spade!

OK, shack, but it's the doorstep to home. Who cares if tourists aren't impressed. They should stay at home and appreciate their own things first.

And who came to greet me? Usually I could see my father's lean beanpole figure projecting well over everyone else, always a little apart from all the other parents and well-wishers, for he still had a little European arrogance even after all these years. He's German, and still carefully cultivated his accent after nearly twenty years away. I loved him in spite of it!

Yep, there he is, but what's this? He's not alone...

Nope. Curious, Kelly, Don't tell me he has a girlfriend.

We always used to joke about that, for he really is a lonely figure and it must have been difficult for him when I went away to school and he was completely alone. I don't think he ever understood the female mind. Mother died when I was quite young and he brought me up as if I was a boy, and even when I was old enough to take over most of the household chores he still thought of me that way.

I remember the first time I went away to boarding school and wrote back to him for money for clothes. He replied with questions. What sort of clothes? How come I needed anything more than the already grossly excessive collection that he'd personally had to struggle into the airport with? Didn't I realise how much these things cost?

Patiently I wrote back and listed the clothes I wanted and why, and please send the money, Vater. Back came another letter, still asking why in the world I needed so much extra clothing, and why why why did I need a bra!

There've been some changes, Vater...

Oh, ja, of course. A bra. But why more than one...?

This went on for several letters before I finally got through to him that these things were necessary, important to me, and very urgent now. This was the man in my life, my totally ignorant and totally lovable father. And there he was, waiting for me with company! I knew instantly that it wasn't a friend of the normal kind. I see things like that very easily; it's a talent of mine to be nosey.

It took the usual confused half hour to get through customs. Nothing had changed. Those guys are only interested in videotapes and ghetto-blaster transistor radios. The trick is to play the helpless female and let them do all the work, then they tire very easily and wave you through...

Outside the plain wooden door that constitutes the somewhat inelegant portal of Paradise Father was waiting nervously. Beside him was a slightly built woman of medium height, slim with short, dark hair and dressed in a simple light frock.

He came forward and took my hand. Closer contact makes him nervous now, since the bra episode, but he still means it. All the hugging and kissing shines out of his eyes, straight from the heart.

"Kelly, Kelly, but you haff grown. Where is my little tomboy now...?"

"Good morning, Vater. I'm still here, of course, just the same as always!" I kissed him warmly on the cheek, aglow with happiness to be home again. I was a little tired but curiosity was very quickly overtaking that. My eyes asked him questions.

"Kelly, this is Mrs Herrigan." He looked acutely embarrassed. "She is staying at our house."

Amused, I shook her hand and murmured a polite greeting, and she looked at me steadily. Staying at our house, indeed. Looks more like a fixture to me. I was a little surprised that Father still knew how... to catch a woman, I mean. For one brief moment jealousy flared, hard and hot.

Cool it, Kelly, it's no business of ours.

True. If I didn't want to be selfish I had to admit that it was a good thing for Father, for what would he do if I went away for work, as surely I must one day.

One day! Sooner than you think, Kelly.

She asked me if these were my only bags and I admitted they were. I don't travel with much, preferring to leave as much as possible at school for the new term. Who wants to bring school clothes home anyway... For the next few minutes we organised ourselves into the car. Father has this firm belief that everything from Germany is far superior to anything the rest of the world can produce, and cars are a classic example of this. For this reason we have the only Mercedes on the island, no matter that it's a good twenty years old now and more than a little tarnished. He still feels good when he parks alongside the Holdens outside Arawa's miniature supermarket.

We drove in silence along the coast road that separates the airport from Kieta township, me with my nose pressed to the window renewing my acquaintance with the incredibly beautiful coves and beaches on the way. Here and there are dotted small villages amongst the long rows of coconut palms, crouching between the sea and the mountains as they must have done for centuries. The original people here are so very black that their skins seem dusty, and it was only a few decades ago that there were still cannibals on the island.

Now a battered strip of tarred road threads through the small communities and their tiny palm-thatched stilt houses. Old women and children manned roadside stalls selling pineapples, bananas and kau-kau, a kind of sweet potato, as well as the hard green pods of betel nut.

Everywhere there are coconut palms, endless rows of tall, ribbed trunks soaring up to heads of dark green fronds that stop just enough sunlight to keep the ground cool and moist in spite of the glaring tropical sun above. Wherever the coastline curves inwards to make small bays there are rows of dugout canoes at the edge of these palms, each hidden under carefully placed fronds to protect them from the sun which would otherwise split their fragile wooden shells.

I loved it all. I still do, but right then I couldn't ever imagine living anywhere else but in the tropics. It gets into your blood.

It was some time before I realised that I was being rude, staring out the window and ignoring the people inside. Usually Father just smiles in that slow way and lets me soak it all in without comment. He understands that when I come back I have to restore all the little things in their rightful places of my memory, re-absorbing as quickly as I can the taste and shape of the place, discarding once more the narrow patterns of school life in Brisbane. This time I reluctantly tore my eyes from the freshly familiar green world outside and took a deep breath. What do you say to your father's new lady...

"How long have you been on Bougainville, Mrs Herrigan?" That seemed a safe beginning.

She turned from the front seat to face me.

"About six months, this time," she said. "Oh, and call me Marjorie, we're all adults."

"So you've been here before ?"

"Uh, yes, several times. In fact I used to live here once, for over a year. That was two years ago, now, but it's taken that long to finalise legal and insurance matters."

"Marjorie is a widow, Kelly. Her husband was killed in a car accident on the mountain road, so she returned down south. I thought you might have remembered them, they lived way over in Birempa. Barry was one of the tunnel surveyors."

I didn't remember them at all, which was no great surprise. Birempa is a world away, all that remains of one of the original construction 'camps' halfway up the road to the mine at Panguna and well past Arawa township itself. I never went near the ugliness of the mine if I could help it, preferring the colour and bright sunshine of the humid coast to the damp clouds constantly shrouding the ranges.

Not that it really mattered whether or not I remembered them. What was important was that Marjorie was here now, a totally unexpected element in my cosy, pre-conceived holiday plans. I briefly wondered how far this had gone. Staying at our house, indeed!

I searched for a neutral reply.

"I guess it must have been happened while I was down south, Vater," I said noncommittally. "You probably did write me about it, though."

"Oh, ja."

Father was being careful with his English today, and was avoiding his own language for the sake of his guest. Normally at home we used his native German even though of course he's as fluent with English as I am. It's just his German way. If she could have this effect who knows what other changes might be wrought!

Suddenly a gaggle of questions boiled up in my mind.

"Are you up on holiday? How did you meet father? How long will you be staying ?" I burst out with barely a break, suddenly realising that there might be more to this than helping out another expat.

Hey! Steady on, Kelly, This isn't an interrogation.

It was Father who answered me, much more slowly than before, and I began to regret my impulsiveness. Soon I forgot such niceties as the bad dream took over.

"Kelly, Marjorie is going to be a permanent feature in our house. Would you mind that?"

Something twisted inside me and I struggled for a reply, oblivious now of the beauty sliding past the car windows.

"Permanent? You mean... you might get married, or something...?"

There was a slow, reluctant silence and I saw the truth in Marjorie's eyes even before my father assembled the words.

"Ja, Kelly. We are going to get married."

I was speechless. Married? I had thought he might eventually work up to that but this was much too fast for me. There really must have been some changes while I was away! How had this happened without someone telling me?

It was Marjorie who broke the sudden silence.

"Would you mind, Kelly?"

Mind! What was happening! My thoughts whirled as I grappled with this... alien idea. Father marry again? Well, why not, but somehow I had envisaged this well into the future, a gradual transition for everyone. Married! When?

I avoided answering directly.

"When did you plan to do this... get married, I mean?" I tried to keep my voice even but it sounded high pitched, unnatural.

"Klaus wanted to be married before this, but I insisted that you must be told about it well beforehand. He doesn't seem to understand that children must be properly introduced to the idea and that they have the right to be consulted in these things. He was too afraid of you to write and tell you, and he wouldn't let me do it myself, so now we have the present awkward situation.

"We want your approval, but our minds are made up. The wedding is in six weeks time, Kelly."

Six weeks! That's blackmail! I felt cold despair grip me. Six weeks!

Marjorie and my father exchanged anxious glances while I sat back, stunned. How could he do this...

"There's more, Kelly." Marjorie had turned back to speak again.

"You might as well know all of it. Yesterday we were at the airport to pick up my own children. Two of them. They're not taking this idea very well, although they've known about it for some time now. They too were at a boarding school, and... well, they don't know about you, Kelly. I'm sure they think you're a boy, I never did get the chance to tell them because they were quite distressed enough as it was."

"I'll need your help and understanding, Kelly. I love your father but he is helpless in this. He insisted that you were able to handle almost anything and anyone and that you would sort the boys out, that they would accept it in the end if you were involved. Somehow I have my doubts they will ever accept what has to come. Can you get them to do this for me?"

Help? Help you take my father away from me! Are you crazy? Raw heat flared up in me and the car wobbled dangerously. I felt like I should scream. I will...

Kelly! Cut it out! Smooth and suave, Kelly, don't let them know it hurts... OK ?

My father slowed the car right down, glancing around apprehensively. A coward he might be, but he knew his Kelly girl very well indeed and recognised the symptoms.

"Kelly! Bitte, Kelly... Du brauchst nichts zu sagen, aber wir haben ein ziemliches problem mit ihnen. Bitte..."

So it was their problem, not mine. I boiled. What a cheek, to ask me to solve her troubles!

"Warum, Vater, warum...?" Why, why, why...?

Marjorie was looking at me through narrowed eyes, for although I'm sure my face showed nothing the vehemence of my voice to Father had registered.

"Kelly? Have I upset you?" Her voice softened. "It had to be said, Ke1ly, you understand...?"

What could say. She was trying so hard. I swallowed.

"It's all right. You surprised me, that's all." I tried to laugh, but it came out a strangled noise. "I'11 need some time to get used to it, I guess. Six weeks! And these two boys, what am I supposed to do with them? How old are they anyway? They won't like being told what to do by a girl, will they...?"

Her face hardened.