COCONUT WIRELESS by Nicola Baird
COCONUT WIRELESS
What happens when a young Solomon Islands man and a cynical London girl step out of their comfort zones? Find out in this novel about love, life and gossip in the South Pacific.
by Nicola Baird
© Nicola Baird, Nov 2010, Jan 2011
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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All characters are imaginary.
Events take place in the early 1990s, in and around Honiara.
Half of any money produced by sales of Coconut Wireless will be given to support projects working with Solomon Islands women and children.
STORY SUMMARY
What
happens when a young Solomon Islands man and a cynical London girl
step out of their comfort zones? Find out in “Coconut Wireless”,
a novel about love, life and gossip in the South Pacific.
When
Suzy overhears her on-off boyfriend Dan flirting with another girl
she decides to quit her London job and take up a maths teaching post
as a VSO on an island in the South Pacific. Yet again she discovers
that nothing is quite what it seems to be.
At
first Suzy feels like a big fish in a small pond, whereas Henderson,
a charming young islander, is uneasily finding his feet in the big
city - but somehow both their lives are forever changed by one chance
meeting.
It’s
not just a love story that keeps you guessing until the end –
there’s also the chance to learn about life in Honiara, the
bustling capital of Solomon Islands as Suzy acclimatises to heat,
mosquitoes and serious humidity. Enjoy meeting a cast of island
characters including clever Stella who has to find a way to protect
herself, and her children, and the old Malaitan woman Anna who grew
up during world war two, and their nemesis: an MP with an eye on
making enough cash to buy Ozzie beachfront real estate.
This
cracking story by Nicola Baird of star-crossed destinies mixes magic
and the everyday with a tropical south seas backdrop. You don’t get
that sort of weather in the Twilight
series!
Coconut
Wireless is the
perfect next read if you loved novels such as One
Day by David
Nicholls, The No
1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith or anything by Marian Keyes, or non-fiction
travel books such as Pies
& Prejudice,
Solomon Time
by Will Randall or Castaway
& Faraway
by Lucy Irvine.
==
Author
Nicola Baird has written seven published books including the best
selling Save Cash
& Save the Planet
(Collins, co-written, 2005) and Homemade
Kids: thrifty, creative and eco-friendly ways to raise children
(Vermilion, 2010). Coconut
Wireless is her
first e-novel. Nicola lived in Solomon Islands from 1990-1992 working
as a VSO journalist trainer for Solomon Islands Development Trust.
COCONUT WIRELESS
CONTENTS
==
Chapter 1 Wet wet wet
Chapter 2 Leaving home
Chapter 3 The bridge
Chapter 4 Anna’s story
Chapter 5 Not on holiday
Chapter 6 Mob dreams
Chapter 7 Water’s off
Chapter 8 Crazy nights
Chapter 9 Malaria madness
Chapter 10 Fresh start
Chapter 11 Rough justice
Chapter 12 Honorary Mrs
Chapter 13 Walkabout
Chapter 14 Secrets
Chapter 15 Wheel of Fortune
Chapter 16 Absolutely Normal
Chapter 17 In the dark
Chapter 18 Bad magic
Chapter 19 If only
Chapter 20 Soldiers’ Graveyard
Chapter 21 Sacked again
Chapter 22 Life ain’t easy anymore
Chapter 23 Heart-to-heart
Chapter 24 Pantomime
Chapter 25 The feast
Chapter 26 That’s my boy
Chapter 27 Solomon time
CHAPTER 1: WET, WET, WET
Suzy, legs-up-squashed into the bath, wonders how mad you have to be to give up baths, friends and going to the movies for two years? She’ll soon know because in a few hours she’ll be at Heathrow airport with her one-way ticket to Solomon Islands.
Things that are bad about this:
1 No one knows where this country is (actually nor did she – but thanks to a right-on Peters Projection map she now knows that the capital, Honiara, is on the biggest of a chain of islands just to the top right of Australia. Make that north east).
2 She may like baths but she’s not into water. In fact Suzy is a bit frightened of out-of-her-depth swimming and gets sea sick on boats. How will she cope on a chain of islands in the middle of the Pacific ocean?
3 Just a hunch but at 32C it’ll surely be too hot and humid to wear trainers or even glam up with a bit of lippy. Ever.
4 Developing such a fear about the chances of Honiara having a hairdresser that she made her stylist give her the first sensible (think short) haircut since her mum stopped having a go, around the time she was 10. The trick said her hair man is to avoid mirrors. At least that will be easy: Solomon Islands has no wine bars and no department stores. There’s probably no chance of dressing up again.
5 No one she knows lives there, has been there or wants to visit her there…
Despite these fears Suzy is also very over-excited. She’s found a great new job half way around the world teaching in a country where it is pretty much always sunny. She skilfully flicks soap bubbles from thigh to knee contentedly knowing that she won’t miss winter rain, thermostat battles with flatmates, the crush on the tube, Mrs Thatcher, or her old job in a classroom with no windows. Or the fact that everyone in London’s always busy according to their Fil-o-bloody-faxes. She especially won’t miss liar not-really-boyfriend, Dan, either.”
In fact it’s all Dan’s fault she’s doing this. She was in this very bath when the missile moment happened.
Suzy remembers how the ceiling light was off, less for modesty than to remove the irritating noise of the rented flat’s extractor fan. She’d lit a scented candle and was smug in the bubbles assuming that as Dan had come round about six o’clock he’d be staying with her for the whole weekend. She now realises she was just a convenient early Saturday evening stop-off.
Suzy and Dan are an old university habit.
He’s brown-eyed, curly haired, has a gorgeous grin and plenty of wit. He wants to see the world on an expense account. He’s happy to be around children, but not planning to have any of his own ever as he says whenever he picks up a condom. He’s loving the get it spend it whirl of 80s business. Thinks he might even set himself up as a Greed Guru, or run a nightclub.
She’s slim, dark haired and forever fussing about morals and miners. Because she’s a feminist men find her an usually cheap date – she’ll even go halves on a kebab.
It’s obvious to Dan that they want very different things in life.
Even so he likes being with Suzy, and he likes the fact that her flat practically overlooks the Loftus Road ground. That grey Saturday he’d swung by in his lucky suit after the match for a little food and fun. But after the pitta stuffed with sweetcorn and mayonnaise, a bit of cuddling and a shower, there’s still time for a better date with Cassie, the good looking blonde in advertising who wrote her number on his shirt cuff at a mate’s party.
Suzy remembers, yet again, how she heard him picking up the phone and dialling.
“You there darling?”
“Yes,” says Suzy, surprised out of her after-sex, bath time reverie, because in all the years she’s known Dan, he’s never called anyone darling.
“Do you mean me?” asks Suzy too softly for Dan to hear.
“Hey, didn’t think you’d be in. We met yesterday, remember? Do you want to meet at that new Russian place – vodka, champers and caviar – about 10pm and then go on to Limelight? Yeah? Good, see you later.” He mumbles something she can’t hear, then laughs wickedly as he puts down the receiver.
Next moment the TV clicks on. It’s Disappearing World, his favourite - he loves to watch just how far the Coca Cola brand can get. Shocked by what she’s heard Suzy slips deeper into the water, an attempt to wash away what’s going on. A few moments later the two-timing rat is lying to her through the bathroom door.
“Suze, I’ve got to go now. Need to read reports before work on Monday. I’ll give you a ring.” He edges open the bathroom door, leans in to kiss her wet head and before she can splutter any kind of protest he’s let himself out of the flat into the city that never sleeps.
Instead of crying Suzy promises herself that things have got to change. She narrows it down to three options. She could spend three months moping. She could start looking for someone better than Dan to be a real boyfriend rather than carry on with this on-off pretence. Or she could disappear and take a long trip enjoying herself while Dan learns to miss her.
And even if he doesn’t miss her, she’ll find a way of being out of London for long enough to come back a new person. She sees herself with a tan, skinny enough to wear chic size 10 clothes, with long tresses and a bunch of stories to rival anything she’s done yet in her life. She will be the sort of person men like Dan will want to call “darling” (in an ironic sort of a way). Oh yes, and she’ll be bilingual, maybe even trilingual - a woman who can teach anytime, anyplace, anywhere…
On Sunday Suzy stops crying and thinks up more professional reasons to sign up as a maths teacher with Voluntary Service Overseas. The next two years of life look set to be:
Sunny. Tick.
Long way off. Tick.
Different. Double tick.
Well paid. Not at all. Anyway who but Dan cares about that?
The doorbell buzzes Suzy out of recall mode and swiftly into comfy travelling clothes. It’s Dan. He’s come round to wish her luck with the head hunters of the Solomon Islands.
Just typical he should be so politically incorrect.
“It’s not too late to stop this you know,” he says surveying her bed adrift with last minute packing that can’t be crammed into a backpack.
“You could just not turn up at Heathrow. You don’t have to go and live in a country no one but an anthropologist or TV crew can locate. You don’t have to teach barefoot teenagers. You can stay here Suzy, near me. London’s brilliant. Ow. What on earth does a 23-year-old thoroughly modern Ms need this for?” he laughs removing a plastic box from where he’s sitting. “And why have you got so many?”
“It’s Tupperware. Someone’s mum said they are useful in the Tropics because they keep camera film, medicines, typewriter ribbons, that sort of stuff (she’s not going to mention diaphragms or spermicidal cream) a better chance of lasting in the humidity until their sell-by-date,” replies Suzy feeling as crushed as the box Dan’s holding. He’s not made a declaration of love, so go she must.
“You’ll write to me won’t you?” she hears herself saying, uncooly.
“Yes,” says Dan taking off his Ray Bans to give a wink, “but you know me, I’m better at reading…”
CHAPTER 2: LEAVING HOME
ONLY A STRANGER would find it odd - everyone is in the church. The dark-skinned men up by the mahogany cross decorated with flowers. Their women, soothing babies by a curious pitch and roll of breast and belly, are spilling into the aisles and out of the rough carved door searching for a breeze. A few of the more daring women whisper to each other in a language of apostrophes and laughter, raising their eyes with silent humour as the old priest talks on and on, in the grand English of the church. Every now and then he breaks into an angry splutter of Pijin English accompanied by a menacing finger point. The village women don't feel comfortable when he does that: and, lowering offended eyes, switch babies from breast to hip. They are waiting for the singing.
Impatient, one old woman - 10 children and scores of grandchildren - shuffles barefoot along the aisle to the front, eyes cheekily down, knees and shoulders dipped, and drops two large kumara and a yam into the offerings sack. Curious, everyone abandons their struggle to follow the priest's Sunday words to stare at their bold relation hurrying the service to be over as she walks back down the aisle to the rickety bench outside the church. Her husband fidgets, the old woman is just as impetuous as when he first met her. Beside him their youngest, already 18 years, is purposefully staring at a hymn book. Accidentally he brushes the boy's arm making the green-backed book of modern hymns tumble on to the floor. His son's admirable Christian concentration is exposed ... a fat novel by Sidney Sheldon.
"Henderson, what kind of person are you? Why are you reading a book on the Sabbath? In Church?" demands the old man, embarrassed now by both wife and son during church.
"Yeah," whispers a grey-haired uncle, sitting close by, and with added authority because he has been trained as a lay preacher to speak in capital letters, "and What Ever Happens in a Book Anyway? THIS is Real, Henderson, Father's Words are the WORDS OF GOD - your Book is NOTHING."
Henderson ignores both his relations. He has just reached another interesting part – and already there have been three mysterious deaths and extraordinary sex. He is hungry to live the life of the book's heroes, discover what is really happening out there, guess the villain or villains. He also knows the only peace for reading he can steal is in church. Not many of the villagers read English that well, so Henderson can take whatever reading matter he likes into the church - and always does - even though his father rebukes him, and the priest has started calling him "too proud" and pointing his long finger more often in his direction.
Henderson just doesn't care. The only drawback to Church reading is that by mid-morning services become so hot, despite the cooling views, over half walls made from long leaves, out to the blue shaded Solomon Sea. Today it is scorching. Sweat trickles down Henderson's back, as if he was playing soccer, but when the women fan their hymn books ferociously over their babies' boiling bodies a soft breeze cools his neck.
If this church service ever finishes Henderson plans to lie still and sleep, dreaming of the exciting life that must be going on in the big city right-now-this-minute. He is sick of being bossed around by old men and women, the only people who seem to live in his village any more, in fact in any village any more judging by the quietness of nearby Heranisi and Panatu. All his school mates have long gone on walkabout in town and the students don't come back for Christmas holidays for another four months. There aren't even any girls to flirt with - the single ones are working as house girls (or that's what they say) with relations in Honiara and the married ones are busy with babies - and gardening, and cooking, and cleaning, and most of all gossiping about the wild goings on of relations on walkabout around town.
Henderson bends slowly to pick up his dropped novel and is surprised by a message: "What are you doing here?" The words are on page 158, curiously highlighted by a shaft of sunshine, but they might just as well be a gift from God.
Henderson's mind races to make sense of the question. What is he doing back home at the village when every other Solomon boy is having a real life? A modern life? The village is boring: it's an old-fashioned place, its daily rhythms of work punctuated only by church bells. It's lotu, lotu, lotu as the priest would say, for he always makes his points three times.
Since he failed his school certificate, about three years ago, Henderson has helped his family run their small village store, letting his father, an untrainable teacher, spend more time with the primary school kids. There are plenty of youngsters and classes spill out of the tatty leaf building which his father calls "school". Henderson may not be a scholar (blame malaria for all that time off), but he is one of the rare ones who loves to read books. Diplomatically he stays silent about his father’s poor teaching, done in the Sunday School manner. Father tells the students to do this, or do that, and mixes English and Pijin in such a way that he's almost invented another language. The students, even the littlest ones, study torn primers of English grammar ineffectively. They learn everything in English, which most of them will later use to fail their secondary school entry exams.
In the village everyone talks their home language though no one finds this easy to read. About five years ago some overseas Christians came to stay in a nearby village to translate the Bible into their local language. Henderson remembers everyone being so surprised that they were bothering. After all most services by the old priest were in English. And then the day came when the newly translated Bible was ready and every family received a free copy. It was such a shock - inside were words everyone knew and understood when they heard them, but very few people could actually read them! And then there were the mistakes which caused so much amusement, and the fact that their own language was being used to send messages and praise God, the Big Man, (whom they thought only understood English salutations) that in the end the priest (who came from a bush village up the lagoon - and had a different home language anyway) abandoned the experiment just to keep order amongst his congregation. Some houses still have their gift copy perched in safe places away from the sticky hands of small children, but plenty too have been spoilt by cockroaches, or grown a mould which leaves an acrid dust on anyone who rashly touches the laminated cover.
The long-awaited singing begins and Henderson is side-tracked by the performance. The Sunday school kids, mostly students at his father's school, have formed a choir.
Today they are singing in a cappella style but there are plans at Christmas, when most of the villagers who don't live in the village return for a month’s holiday, to raise funds for a keyboard and guitars. His father is already rehearsing a play version of The Pilgrim's Progress. A wild looking 12-year-old will star as Christian - chosen because he owns a vital prop - a bulky backpack - and, more importantly, is a brother of the local MP.
The logic runs: make George "Christian" and the MP will then donate more money towards the music fund. The truth is: their MP is sure to stay in town during Christmas because he hates the constant demands of his relations and constituents for cash and IOUs. He also hates village life, thinks of it as boring; all time not spent wheeling and dealing (for himself) is wasted time. Many of the Honourable Members think the same.
Henderson helped his father create a simple storyline for the play. He envisages a troublesome journey for Christian, through gangs of town-based rascals (wild child types, often unmarried and unemployed) and exotic temptations of beer and loud music on the way to the Celestial City. In his own mind the Celestial City is also crowded by gangs of rascals and exotic delights of beer, loud music - and girls - but he knows better than to mention such thoughts to his father. The project has left him even more determined to try the bright lights.
The village students are excited too and have insisted a number of extra characters are introduced. There has to be a pantomime cow for instance - two of the older men, who tried to set up a cattle ranch back in 1976, rigged one up with copra sacks last Christmas and then lurched from leaf house to leaf house singing carols, shameless from potent home brew. They raised more than 50 Solomon dollars and their crazy Left foot, Right foot, Left foot, Hiccup progress is still imitated by the more playful, smaller kids.
Someone also has to be a devil, though no one is very keen to volunteer for this part - names (and reputations) after all stick for life in a village. Even primary school students are all too aware of that.
With the singing, the atmosphere of impatience dissolves. The women sway rhythmically - delighting sleepy babies - craning to see their older children perform. One little girl sings a verse on her own. It is lovely and Henderson finds his irritation at being discovered reading - yet again - ebb a little. There is a gecko busy in the leaf roof above his head. Over by the big mango tree, that marks the centre of the village, there are about 20 tiny colourful parrots feasting. A small boy is sent out to distract them - shoots a stone with his catapult into the top branches - and the marauders fly off in an angry swoop to a safer restaurant by the edge of the village. As Henderson watches the blonde haired boy come back to the church service, his eye is caught by a flash moving along the far side of the reef. He looks again - it's a motor canoe slowing up to come through the passage. The speck grows and as it judders through the reef, the sound of the surf pounding the reef is masked, a little, by the drone of the Yamaha engine. The village doesn't usually have visitors on a Sunday. Henderson makes to get up and meet the strangers, but his father stops him with a glance. In defiance Henderson turns back to his novel, this time without pretending it’s a prayer book.
At dusk, just as Henderson's mother passes out portions of rice, tinned fish and sweet potato on battered orange plastic bowls, the Capital Letter uncle comes by, very self-importantly, with the visitors. As ever his mother enables the food to stretch amply for another three mouths. No one speaks, but after wolfing down dinner, Henderson and the men move to the bamboo bench outside to story. The visitors are agricultural extension officers based at the government station about six hours canoe journey along the coast. They are due to visit spice growers in the southern part of the province, but were delayed by the taller man's daughter coping badly with malaria.
"There's so much malaria at the moment," he complains. "It used to be worse at Christmas and New Year when it gets wet, but at Auki everyone gets sick any time of the year. My wife is head of the Mother's Union and I tell her off for not making her members keep the place clean, but the truth is she does. I sometimes wonder if there is a special malaria devil going round at night planting tins of Taiyo brand tuna fish and coconut shells so the station's drainage ditches will have the perfect stagnant ponds for Mother Anopholese!"
"Yes, it's a problem here too," says Henderson's father slapping theatrically at mosquitoes busy eyeing-up his ankles. "Our village is kept clean, but the government stopped the spraying programme back in l981. In fact that wasn't too bad because the spray seemed to make the pussycats die, so then we got an invasion of rats.” He pauses to roll up a smoke.
“Then we poisoned the rats but when they were dead the women used to complain there were more snakes around - no rats to eat them I guess - and even more mosquitoes! No, the worst thing here is that when people get sick it's a long way to the clinic. There's a bush road, which goes through the mangrove swamp, and takes a fit person two hours or so. Or there's Panatu's clinic, which we can reach by canoe - but sometimes there's no petrol or the engine's broken, or some small problem," he laughs resignedly, "like no money to pay for canoe hire. We've given God two of our children early because of malaria."
The visitors nod their heads sympathetically and then switch their attention from sickness to the betel nut being offered round. Henderson goes to fetch his father's pot of lime powder and some fresh leaf for the men to take with it. He's been chewing betel nut since he was tiny and is always surprised to hear people say foreigners call it "Solomon beer". Besides a chalky, numb-mouth feel he's never had the slightest hint of being drunk - but then maybe that's because he doesn't drink or for that matter use lime. He would, but he's always been a little vain and doesn't much like the idea of staining his mouth red, like a town girl with lipstick, or worse losing his teeth like most of the adults in the village.
What does lipstick taste like? He silently guesses while the other men chew and spit, companionably watching the stars, until the other visitor starts talking again: "Have you heard that the Honourable Member for round here is negotiating with people up at 'Are'Are for bait fishing rights? I met a man who'd been at one of the meetings and the MP says if they give the go ahead he will make sure a really good clinic is built. The deal is good too, they just let the Japanese come in and pick up their fish and get paid - that's not bad development is it? I mean the work we do with the agricultural section involves hard work, nothing is as easy as bait fishing deals. Not a bad way to find money for an engine or pay the school fees is it?"
Henderson's father isn't convinced. "We had bait fishing round here for about five years. It was an awful time. The foreigners paid us well, but they only came at night and they used loud generators so the whole village was unable to sleep - except my son here, who can sleep through anything!" The crack makes the men laugh.
"Some of the fishermen would come over to my store to buy tobacco, or whatever small things they needed, but it was just a way to go off with our girls. They weren't Christian people. They left in the end, but we wouldn't want them back ..." before he can continue his wife walks out of the kitchen hut a few metres away and mutters something in low tones, before laughing raucously. She's pointing out that the fishermen also took all the small fish so that now the bigger fish don't like being caught, which is why they ate the tinned version this evening - and it is also why her son Henderson is still unmarried. She is looking forward to her youngest starting his own family and worries if a wife isn’t arranged for him soon he'll go about it the wrong way.
The conversation ebbs and flows, fuelled by betel nut, until the second kerosene light splutters out. Again Henderson's mother walks past, pretending to talk to herself but really aiming her comments at her husband. This time she seems cross. With the kerosene gone, that's the end of their fuel. There are no candles, the torch batteries ran out long ago and still their cargo, sent from town by a wantok (one talk = relation, friend or sharing same 1st language) won't be arriving for another week. "Yes that's right," says the Capital Letter uncle importantly (even though he heard it on the radio), "the Boat has Engine Problems, it's due in on Number 22 though." In the distance Henderson can hear reggae music being played at this uncle's house - if his little nephews play their tapes that often he can bet his uncle won't be hearing any more shipping reports until a supply of new batteries arrives.
It's late. Henderson leaves the older men storying and goes inside to sleep on a tightly-weaved pandanus mat that doubles as a bed and a waterproof shield during the regular afternoon downpours. His home is on the weather side of the island, down a protected lagoon. But sometimes the seas are so rough - known locally as "alive" - that the fortnightly boat from the capital cannot unload the vital village cargo even when the schedule isn't spoilt by the constant engine problems. His mind drifts: no kerosene is a worry and he doubts if his mother, despite her ingenuity, will be able to borrow some, seeing as it is their family who runs the store and usually does the lending. The village will be a bit quieter when the only light is from a waning moon.
Nearing sleep Henderson thinks again about why he's stayed home leaning on the counter of a store. Those visitors from Auki station seemed so confident about life and their jobs and what's going on in the country and government. Village life seems even more backward and boring now. This restless feeling, this fear he's missing out, his growing hatred of the traditional life of a bush boy is one that's taking his mind over. He was 15 when it started, two Christmases ago, when the wantoks come home to the village to holiday. He knows the town dwellers’ complaints about the price of food, and how they never have time. During the Christmas holidays every village house echoes with relations repeating the same two phrases: "In the village life is free" and "In the town time is your boss." The words spin round and round his head: town life has to be more ... has to be better ... has to be ... for a single boy ...
***
Henderson wakes suddenly from dreams of offices, traffic lights, big men and night clubs. Sleepily straightening his lava-lava he looks out of the unshuttered, unglazed window towards the direction of the noise. It's already first light and the sky is shifting from a ginger beer and pink streaked dawn to another blue, blue morning. Yesterday's visitors are heading back down the lagoon and out towards the reef. It's time he left too. When the ship comes in next week, he'll go - just to see - just for a walkabout.
His first ever walkabout in his country's capital, Honiara.
Dear Dan
I know you’ll have second-guessed this, but I really don't know what I'm doing here! Picture me, Suzy, Englishly white skin (going brown, going brown slowly) a vast-brimmed raffia hat (from tacky old Miss Selfridge) and a necklace of sweat running from my throat to my belly button so my dress could be called a sweat rag. The heat’s like a bath. And my hours have changed: it's only 9.05am and I'm at a collection of buildings masquerading as an airport. They chased PIGS off the runway before our international flight could land!! The sky's a mucky, muddy blue and I'm struck mostly by the lack of stuff. Here I am, my first visit to the tropics, and there's nothing. No sudden whack to the senses of exotic vistas and perfumed plants. No gin slung expats in sight, not even a postcard for sale. I'm just stuck at a stupid, sleepy, aid-built terminal with a handful of other jet-lagged (no, depressed) tourists.
No one to meet me of course - so I'm jettisoned into Pacific time pretty quick. And then when someone does talk to me, asking if I want a taxi, I realise I've NO IDEA where I want to go anyway - in all the hurry to fill in visas, swallow anti-malarials and buy factor 910+ sun block cream I never noticed I hadn't been sent the address of where I was going to live. So what's a girl to do? I just sit at the edge of the departure lounge, under a rapidly heating sky and wait, and wait. Where do you think everyone was? In church, maybe; out fishing, perhaps; rioting to put some life in this boring place, unlikely ... the much-talked about islanders just weren't around.
Still it was lucky I did wait - after all it kept the tension another few minutes. And then when someone did eventually pick me up from the school he decided to SHOW ME ROUND before I'm decamped at my rooms. It was the last thing I wanted to do after two days travelling (that's my calculation based on the amount of aeroplane meals I've been fed - eight, or maybe nine!) So what did I see? Well some crashed planes at the foot of a burnt out look-out tower (once used by the Japanese, or the Marines, or maybe both to shoot the other to bits during WW2 - great view on to the runway, great tourist attraction for a pacif-ic!-ist ...) Oh yes, a collection of huts, that I'm told is a typical Melanesian village, surrounded by long grass which seemed to be on fire - clearly normal as the guy driving me didn't even blink, let alone brake (which I personally feel wouldn't have been a bad idea every now and then, even if there was no other traffic).
And then suddenly it's nearly Honiara and I'm really quite panicky, stomach in knots - not because I'm excited, this is going to be home but because there's a one-lane, super-rusty Bailey bridge marking the town boundaries. And we've got to cross it (I mean I ask you would you have driven over a bridge which creaks and groans even when nobody is on it?) so I half-close my eyes, and look at my feet and to my HORROR find I'm looking through a hole in the truck's chassis, through the Bailey bridge slats, down x-thousand feet and into a swirling river. And, before I'd got over that near-death experience suddenly there's a welcome sign. Not, thankfully from McDonald's, I don't think they've even bothered to hoist burger eating habits on the islanders, which is, I suppose, one plus in the country's favour. It's a painted wooden board, that says "Welcome to the Happy Isles" decorated with what appears to my sensitive eyes to be a warrior with heads of his enemies under his arms and needless to say in my, yes, terrified AND jet-lagged state I saw more as an advert for home, sweet home.
Boy did I want out - and I still hadn't got to this mythical town of Honiara, or what turned out to be a name masquerading as a town. For instance it has one road going one way through it, and another going the other way. There's ONE traffic light, ONE 24-hour store (which wasn't open when we drove past) and ONE zebra crossing which drivers AND pedestrians ignore. The place is filthy - lots of rubbish and broken sticks (why broken sticks?) lying around. No evidence of a cinema, well you knew that. I think I saw a stationery shop, BUT there’s absolutely ZERO chance of a pub crawl to drown my sorrows: you've guessed it, there are NO pubs.
You know what, if there'd been a bus I'd have thrown myself under it. As it is I've got TWO years here - god knows what I'll write to you about. This is the sleepiest, dullest, dustiest town (whoops, c-i-t-y) I've ever seen, let alone imagined. Perhaps there’s a football league I can keep you up-to-date with?
With love, Suzy
CHAPTER 3: THE BRIDGE
FOR HENDERSON, HONIARA has always been a dreamscape. At night the city is lit up like a flare, throwing shafts of phosphorescence on to the dark harbour water, deep into Iron Bottom Sound. By day it is a garden of hills, with houses and shops clinging to volcanic folds. Cockatoos dare to fly in the main street, a striking contrast against the red-flowered flame trees which garland the avenues. The pad, pad, pad of the residents' bare feet disturb fine trails of dust, giving the town an unworldly atmosphere. Henderson was in love before his soles touched the wharf.
But when they did, it was a tough landing. The melee of wantoks meeting, greeting, collecting, shouting and haranguing produced a scene Henderson had never imagined possible even when the over-full boat arrived home at Christmas. Every conceivable part of the little wooden boat, MV Mali, was covered with people dragging their baskets of village food, or mattresses, or families on to the wharf. In the distance was a low roar, like the reef back home, but as it came inland he guessed it must be from traffic. And sure enough, when Henderson shielded his eyes against the midday sun he saw a snake of cars, jeeps, taxis and mini-buses crawling along parallel to the sea. These didn't seem to be moving fast at all, much to their drivers' irritation whose swearing was only masked by violent horn blasts - the sounds of city reggae.
The wharf smelt acrid from the copra waiting to be shifted by a foreign-registered container ship which dwarfed MV Mali. It also seemed very hot after the cooling breezes of the ship's deck and so Henderson slung his homemade rucksack, a giant yellow Tru Kai rice bag over his shoulder, and headed up the track to the main road in search of someone who knew the way to his auntie's Mbokonavera house.
"Hey bush boy, look out," shouted a man about his age over a squeal of breaks.
"You just be careful wantoko – there are lots of rascals out there today. It's not a good day to be in town," and with that the man drove bad-temperedly towards the boat to pick up, what Henderson guessed must be, the sisters still waiting at the wharf. After that near miss with a truck, and several others, Henderson decided to collect his bearings after a short rest. Seeing a big banyan tree up by an iron shelter, presumably a bus stop, under which a whole crowd had gathered, Henderson eased himself into a shady space and then set about slowly rolling a cigarette, just to get his bearings.
"You got a smoke?" a man with coil dreadlocks and dark shades, wearing a dirty ripped T-shirt, jeans and Australian workman boots joined Henderson. "I'm Patte. Hi! Everyone knows me, but I haven't seen you round town before so I guess you must have just arrived."
Even during such a short conversation Patte punctuated his conversations with well-aimed hisses to attract the attention of friends passing along the road. The pair shake hands. Henderson has heard of Patte (or hustlers like him anyway) much to his new friend's pleasure. Just before he left the village one uncle told him to look out for men with dreadlocks. What the uncle meant was: "Stay away from trouble" - but Henderson missed that particular subtext.
"Yeah," replied Henderson trying to imitate Patte's easy manner, "the boat just came in this morning - we left last night."
"Ah, so you're another from Malaita come to crowd up our small town?" laughed Patte with a certain good-natured menace. Henderson didn't quite know what this disarmingly friendly stranger was getting at, so feigning coolness, he takes a puff on his cigarette and waits for more clues.
"Your wantoks are causing heaps of trouble at the moment near China Town, you should probably go up and find them. I'll take a look with you if you like," suggests Patte who likes to be where the action is. Even in a small town this keeps him permanently busy.
Henderson isn’t sure about Patte’s plan. He’s tired and could do with a swim (wash). The best place to be right now would be his auntie's house, if he could just work out where it was. Timidly he tries to hold on to his schedule: "Patte, that's a good idea, but I'm quite busy right now. I should be trying to find my wantoks. Perhaps we could meet up another time?" Patte is looking blankly at his feet. "Or you could even show me the road to Mbokonavera?" says Henderson worrying that he may have lost his first friend in less time than it takes to idle his way through a home-rolled fag.
"No, no," says Patte - again waving at a passing wantok - "you don't understand! Something's happened in town now. There's a meeting that all young people should be at. It's our future, it's your future that I'm thinking about, well you guys from Malaita. I don't know where your relations live, but I'm sure you'll find someone who does know up near the market." And with that Patte throws down the butt of his own cigarette and walks purposefully off towards the dirt track that is grandly known as the pavement. Henderson feels obliged to follow.
The market isn't far away but it takes a while to reach it as so many people on foot also seem to be heading that way. The traffic has come to a stop and people are swarming over the road, standing up in the back of trucks, all eyes and ears directed the same way. Henderson never knew so many strangers could live in the same place. There are people from every province, and quite a few whites too, though mostly sheltered from the hot sun by air-conditioned vehicles.
Everyone is chatting good-naturedly, but then, just as Henderson and Patte reach the edge of the market place there is a terrific bang and the crowd starts shouting. There are fists in the air. The people's mood has switched from curious bystander to determined participation. A column of youngsters head down the road at a slow jog. Patte follows eagerly and Henderson, who by now feels completely overwhelmed, finds there is no choice but to follow - the people behind are pushing him along.
It's getting hotter and hotter as the crowd starts to chant: "The bridge, the bridge, the bridge, throw them from the bridge." Hampered by his makeshift bag Henderson again finds there is no choice but to join in. Patte is about five metres in front of him, teamed up with another dreadlocked boy. Everyone around him seems so busy shouting that Henderson cannot even ask what is going on. He would love to know what's going on.
With the same suddenness that the crowd went on the move, it stops. Henderson has a chance to look around – there are hills and houses away in the distance, craning heads in front and behind, and when he looks down he suddenly realises he is standing on the metal planks of a bailey bridge, probably "the" bridge. A middle-aged man, dressed in a dark tailored suit, with white shirt and tie climbs up a step-ladder and begins to address the crowd with a crackling tannoy system. It is hard to make sense of anything, but Henderson is anxious not to miss this excitement so he strains to hear.
"We young people," there are hisses and boos from the crowd which must have a collective age of 19 - about 20 years younger than the speaker - "yes, we young people," continues the suited man with more force, "we know there are good and evil forces in the world. We are looking for a Christian way of development, and that way means ridding our new country of all evil. Today, in the market place, we've had an example of what happens when province spoils province. When nations fight, look what happens ... "
Here the speaker makes a cautious pause for effect, a technique clearly learnt at some public speaking workshop held overseas. He has however mistimed his peace plea, the crowd is impatient, the crowd wants words, the crowd wants to do something. A stone is thrown. It hits the speaker who clutches a handkerchief to his brow. A red stain soon starts flowing down the side of his face for some reason angering the crowd more.
"He's a liar!" shouts a thin voice. "Throw HIM off the bridge," yells another, louder, and then another, and another. Soon there is a crescendo chant: "Throw him, throw him, throw him."
"They won't will they?" says Henderson more to himself than anyone else, but to his surprise is answered in his home language by a university student standing beside him, whom he recognises as coming from a village near his own home.
"That man's supposed to be an MP, but he's more like a shark. He takes anything he can for himself - government cars, other men's wives, aid money, anything. He's spoilt so many people's lives by the rent he charges for terrible houses on the Labour Line. Then there are rumours about him making our Solomon girls do porn videos. He's disgusting ...... Aye, you're from back home aren't you? Have you just arrived in town, what timing!" and with that the student resumes his bitter call for the MP to be thrown off the bridge, surprised that Henderson does not do the same after his explanation.
"What if he dies?" asks Henderson in a rash moment of bravery.
"What is the matter with you all?" he challenges the crowd around him in a far louder voice. "That big man has just pleaded for peace, pleaded for an end to violence and suddenly you young people all want to kill him."
Without a word of warning five rascal-types standing behind Henderson start to hit the new boy in town. At first Henderson laughs, he can't believe they are doing this to him. As he protests a fist hits his jaw. His head spins. Another puts a heavily knuckled fist into his belly. Henderson lets out a feeble shriek and passes out as a police sirens start up.
All attention is now turned on the scuffle in the crowd. The police, tall lean men, in long blue socks, recruited to the force for their football skills, take a side view whilst the excited youngsters sort themselves out. The siren noise is deafening, but it is the cries of confused people, pushed out of the way by the ones behind them, around them and in front of them, that drags Henderson back to consciousness. With his head pounding, he opens a cautious eye to see Patte staring at him.
"You all right man?" worries his friend, "I thought you were a gonner then. Here sit up a bit, you'll soon feel good again." As Patte clears some space for Henderson to recover, he nods to one of his brothers a few metres back. It is lost on Henderson, but the next moment the boys who hit Henderson are pushed towards the bridge's balustrade and told to jump. "Let's see if that cools them off," jokes Patte - and with the same suddenness that the riot started it dissolves into a swimming party.
The MP, on his platform, is ignored; the police radio back to the station that the trouble seems to be over, and the young men in the crowd head back to their offices, or most likely a shady spot beside an office, to talk over and over the bizarre events happening in town during the past 24 hours.
"Well, friend, do you think you could drink something? I'll sponsor you," suggests Patte encouraging Henderson on to shaky feet. "There's a cafe just near here in China Town, come on, hurry up," he takes his hand. "This way." To his surprise Henderson can now see that he was knocked down on the "symbolic" bridge. Some boys, maybe even the ones who hit him, are still swimming in the waters below. The banks of the Mataniko don't look too clean but following them down, until the river nearly reaches the sea, where Henderson notices another bridge over which traffic is now speeding. "Not a bad day for a riot, eh?" jokes Patte, unwilling to admit that it's the first he's ever seen, despite being a townie - and worse, that it took him by surprise. "You sure you're feeling all right now?"
"Oh yes, people from Mala are tough you know!" comments Henderson with bravado he does not feel. His head is sore and he hasn't made any effort yet to try and piece together the tumultuous events since he put his feet on Honiara's main wharf.
The two young men cross the bridge and turn off down a pot-holed one-way street. Halfway down Patte points out a cafe, which they enter through a ribboned doorway of multi-coloured plastic streamers. "Wow, it's beautiful," exclaims Henderson looking round with pleasure at the gingham checked cloths and small flower vases on each table. Painted across the far wall there's a huge mural of animals and plants set against a rainforest scene of trees and luminous bulldozers - clearly the artist's speciality. "Yeah, it's nice here," says Patte, non-committally, busy ordering fish, sweet potato chips and green drinking coconut for two. Taking their food they go and join two other boys, at a table in the corner, who are busy discussing the riot. Henderson gathers that it started sometime yesterday after one gang living in town picked a fight with rivals. The boys are arguing about why it went on for so long - and seem to be blaming politicians and radio journalists for their interference.
Surprisingly Patte ignores the talk, instead wolfing down his meal. He is clearly hungry and has nearly finished before Henderson opens the rather greasy brown paper bag of food Patte bought for him. Inside is a portion of cold-battered tuna steak and four thick slices of fried kumara. It's not like village food - it's not even like the fish or kumara his mother cooks in the motu earth oven on feastdays - but he’s hungry enough and bold enough to love it.
"You play football?" asks Patte eventually, after swallowing the last thick chip dipped in spicy Magi sauce. Henderson looks up, pleased. "Well, you'll have to join with the boys. We play most evenings on the ground up near the police station. Come along, it'll be a good way to get to know my mobs and make some friends. Town people are different you know, they're not as kind as people back home."
Henderson smiles uncertainly - he still has a thumping headache to prove Patte's point. He begins to think it might be better to turn his attention back towards finding his wantok's house - when Patte, almost a mind reader, suggests they head up towards Mbokonavera.
"A bush boy like you will find it easily," Patte says with a wry smile, "you just go back over the battleground, take a left along a bush road and then when that finishes, go up a big road which starts by a guava tree. There are plenty of houses in Mbokonavera, but plenty of women are paid by the council to stand around telling you where to go." Not realising he's being teased, Henderson starts to quiz his friend about signposts - he'd always thought in town they used labels - not ladies - to tell you where you were.
The guys head out of the cafe into the heat again. Temporarily blinded by the sun they are nearly hit by a long-bodied taxi that is covered with adverts. There's a squeal of breaks, dust flies, and the taxi reverses back. Inside is Henderson's wantok, a taxi driver who married his eldest sister and lives where he's heading for.
"Hey, how'z life with you then Hen?" asks his brother-in-law, Fred, leaning out of the window and removing his stylish dark glasses theatrically. "You just come to town from the airport? Yeah I guess you must have done – with a name like your’s.” It’s the family joke – how Henderson was named after his Father took a trip from the international airport for a teacher training symposium in Brisbane.
“Anyway I seez you met up with that no good Patterson too? You good Patte? Well, how'z all the folks back home then? All well I hope. You just on a walkabout? Come to get yourself an office job I guess?" In all the time Henderson has known this man, he's never had a chance to answer any of his questions. Clearly things aren’t going to change today.
The talkative man stretches his hand back through the window, opens the taxi's rear door and offers a free ride. Gratefully Henderson sinks into a seat covered with a leopard-skin print. He feels like a king. Patte gets in beside him and asks to be dropped by the bus stop. Before the Sunny Datsun's door is properly shut (which Henderson never notices isn't possible) they're off with another squeal - this time mostly from the gear department, but backed up by dust and horse-power which leaves behind a trail of rubber and dust.
Minutes later the boys are winding up the hilly road to Henderson's new place. When he sees it he is amazed - a prefab house on legs, with his aunt and uncle's AA Store just set to the side. Plenty of people are hanging around in the shade underneath, listening to radio reports of the riot whilst the Prime Minister, in a piece of sure-bet politics, is belatedly broadcasting for calm.
Stepping out of the taxi, Henderson takes a good look. A precarious-looking staircase runs alongside the house, up from a packed washing line to a cool-slatted veranda crowded by homemade sofas. From there the view is of a clover lawn hedged with a hibiscus flowering bush, endless potted plants and bougainvillaea bushes. There’s night-scented jasmine creeping up each of the house's spindly legs and posts with orchids sprouting from coconut shells dotted all round the plot. A steep hill of red ground backs on to the house which seems to be planted with all kinds of root vegetables and a tall curtain of maize. Yes, this is truly a palace, and he's going to be living in it. Henderson grins contentedly, despite his sore head.
"Good place, eh mate?" states the taxi driver, again not waiting for an answer from his young brother-in-law. "Now wait here for Matron your aunt. I think she's gone to the clinic as her youngest, Lovelyn, is sick with malaria. You eat, swim, rest, just be happy." He reverses the taxi in his customarily speedy manner, waving.
"See yous," he adds imitating the Australian accent - a year picking apples in Queensland, and countless years picking passengers from the airport, has changed his voice. And, thinks Henderson, wickedly, helped him put on enough weight to play rugby forward.
He
may be away from the hurly-burly of megaphones and rioting youth but
the house is packed. Henderson greets his city cousins in a mass
shaking of hands. Then, leaving his sister with the sack filled
with her favourite, thorn-skinned pana, he climbs the house's
staircase to find a cool place to rest as he waits for auntie to come
back home.
Dear Dan
Greetings from the islands where "Don't Worry, Be Happy" rules - after all my whinging in the last letter I thought I'd give you proof positive that it's not all bad (I mean I write this with inspiration from a scented frangipani tucked behind my ear and a chilled can of beer (I found a shop that sells beer, bliss!) in the non-scribbling hand). After 10 days or so (time does funny things here) life is improving (it's on record now ...) though I'm still not convinced living in a big-fish-small-pond capital is the right place for me. Or maybe it's my strange-looking house - anyway no evidence of sunrises or sunsets, which is why people visit the tropics isn't it? I know, I know you'll be down the travel agent cancelling your ticket before you've read the rest of this letter. Still the town's name, Honiara, is pretty enough - and economic too, four syllables translate to something like "spot buffeted by easterlies and then south-easterlies and then some and then Westerners". OK, that's not strictly true, but you'll work it out.
Besides the lack of TV (not just in this house, in the whole country!) dawn 'n dusk the house is pretty nice. It's big, full of floorboards and filtered sunbeams. The whole caboodle is raised on stilts which gives it a tree house feel. In fact this morning I was woken by a gang of parrots arguing over breakfast. Nothing else noteworthy happened for the rest of that day - not much seems to go on at all though things obviously must do, I mean there's several national newspapers; plenty of expectant mums walking around and a boat schedule for the Christmas holidays is already being advertised on the radio.
Remind me, it is September isn't it - that means Xmas is more than 100 shopping days away ... then again there might be less here as I've already found out that nothing, absolutely nothing, happens on Sundays, except “Praise The Lord” scenes. And the SDAs (Seventh Day Adventists – sometimes called the Jews of the South Pacific because they do God Friday ‘til Saturday) start 24 hours earlier. That means you can have a weekend loop of doing God.