We try to wake Uncle, but he slips back into a kind of coma. He has plenty of blankets, but he still trembles. They say to leave him alone; if he doesn’t wake when we reach the island, he’ll go straight into hospital.
Kiribati rises from the blue ocean like a one-dimensional illusion, and we’re almost home. My one thought is to be left alone. People will be out in force to judge. There’ll be crowds at the dock, and that pisses me off greatly. I just want to be with my friends and family.
The much-awaited event is like emerging from a floating dream. The longest agony approaches its natural ending at the dock, like a major incident compressed into a single moment, witnessed by a crowd that looks more like a hushed and silent orchestra waiting for the order to play. We hold our breaths as a single unit of existence, as the patrol boat glides to its berth across the mirror surface of the water. The dream continues, and I see sailors onboard, standing by with ropes. I don’t see Ben. After a heart-thumping eternity, the gangway is lowered in position, and Ben appears, followed by Taea. This old heart jumps in delicious anticipation, as I recognise my son. He’s so very thin, and much, much darker than I’ve ever known him to be. A dark beard surrounds the cracked and burnt lips. Ben moves towards me through the silent assembly. All watch with awe the deliverance, stunned at the simplicity of such an amazing salvation. My heart beats like a jangling piece of music, finally restored to its former rhythm of happiness.
From the deck of the patrol boat I look down into my mother’s steady eyes. She looks just like the wild, determined Taoati of old.
As I walk towards her, I see she wears now her cheery but tearful look. I move into her arms, and she holds me, looks at me to make sure it’s me, and then says, “We’ll soon have you out of here.” We take another cuddle. The moment holds all the happiness and security the world is likely to offer.
I know most of the people around me; it’s a small island. Nobody gets too emotional; they’re only here to judge.
We climb aboard the truck bound for the hospital. It’s pretty uncomfortable, us all cramming in the back together.
At the hospital we wait, wait, and wait. The doctor is out on another call. I give it forty minutes, and then say, “What’s goin’
on?” I get more impatient, and say to the nurses, “Can’t you do something until the doctor arrives?” They say they can take my blood pressure, so I let ’em go ahead and take my blood pressure.
They say it’s quite high, and the doctor will be along soon. I say,
“Nuh! See youse later.” We just walk out of the hospital, go to a shop on the corner, buy ourselves a mango and orange juice, sit in the truck, and wait for my uncle. I sip on the mango juice like it’s a fluid of gold, and kick back.
We end up visiting my aunt’s place, where there’s a family get-together. A church mob turns up; the Seventh Day Adventists.
It’s not my church, but when I hear they’ve been really supportive, I go along, talk to them, sort of play along, and it’s hard, ’cause the phone is goin’ bananas with Sixty Minutes and the ABC, plus the Kiribati newspaper. Neville rings, goin’ all teary in the voice.
When the Seventh Day mob leaves, I go for a drive with Mum. We buy icecreams, and she turns to me and says, “How was it?”