SIXTY-FOUR

KIROA WAS SURPRISED that when she told her father what had occurred he laughed. It did not seem in the least amusing to her that the American had attacked Lintoa, nor that she had knocked out the boy – or rather the she-boy – she loved. And she might have expected him to be concerned about her hurting the American. After all, if the Americans blew you up for no reason, what might not they do if you gave them cause, and surely striking one was cause enough?

Purnu sent some young men to bring back the victims of his daughter’s solicitude for her loved one and someone else to fetch the other two Americans from the Captain Cook. By the time William and Dr Gold reached the centre of the village, all the natives were there. Lintoa was already awake. He had a black eye. Sandy Beach was still out cold. He had two black eyes.

Managua was already conducting an investigation. ‘What is happen?’ he asked Lintoa.

‘American is go crazy. First he is try for lick me.’

‘Lick you!’ Managua’s exclamation was echoed by everyone within hearing distance. ‘What for is he want for lick you?’

‘I is not know. I is be plenty damn worry, I is can tell you.’

Managua screwed up his eyes. ‘You is think he is go eat you?’

Lintoa stared at him. ‘What for you is ask this? He is be cannibal? He is eat someone else?’

‘No, no. At least I is not think so.’ He turned to William. ‘This one with fungi colour hair. He is eat people?’

William fought the urge to laugh. ‘I don’t think so. I think the tongue thing was more a mark of, well, affection.’

‘He is try for kiss Lintoa!’ interjected Kiroa. ‘I is see.’

‘He is bite my bra,’ said Lintoa.

Managua shook his head. ‘First he is go eat people, then he is go eat clothes. This is be one crazy American.’

‘All Americans is be crazy,’ said Lintoa. Then he remembered William. ‘Sorry, gwanga, I is not mean you.’

‘That’s OK,’ said William.

‘Although I is think you is be little bit crazy. Is be eye thing.’

‘Oh yes,’ agreed William. ‘The eye thing.’

While all this was going on Dr Gold had been working on Sandy Beach with smelling salts. By the time Beach was conscious again, William and Managua had managed to piece together the details of his attempt on Lintoa’s virtue. Several of the islanders were reduced to hysterical laughter at the idea of a man attempting to make fug-a-fug with a she-boy. Things became even livelier when a groggy Beach looked at Lintoa and uttered his first word since regaining consciousness: ‘Darling!’

William put a finger to his lips to quieten the natives. He whispered to Purnu, ‘Get them away, tell them to stop laughing. If we’re clever, we can use this.’

Purnu had no idea what William had in mind but he did as he was asked anyway. He knew it was something to do with the dollars. William asked Tr’boa and a couple of his friends to help carry Beach back to the Captain Cook. ‘No joking,’ he said. ‘I want you all to look very serious.’

Next day Beach woke with a thundering headache from all the bourbon he’d consumed and the blows he’d received from Lintoa and Kiroa. His body hurt in several places. He couldn’t remember what had happened but a vague idea that it involved sex was enough to get him started on a story for the doctor.

‘Boy, that big girl sure likes it rough,’ he said. ‘I feel like I did ten rounds with Mike Tyson.’

He was surprised when Dr Gold didn’t take the bait. Gold was an old married man who lived on the sexual titbits Beach threw him.

‘Let me tell you, Gold, that girl may look like butter wouldn’t melt . . .’ Here Beach paused. Actually, when he thought about it, Lintoa didn’t look like butter wouldn’t melt. She was a great big bitch of a woman. ‘I mean . . .  owww!’ He put a hand to his head as he realized too late that he’d gotten excited and moved it. Into his befuddled brain popped an image of himself rolling around on the ground fighting. The snapshot vanished and was immediately replaced by a picture of an enormous penis dangling in front of his eyes. A vague unease, more than he usually had from a drunken blackout, permeated his mind. Just what had happened last night?

He swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the table. He heard a tapping noise and looked up to see William typing on a laptop at the far end of the table. William turned and stared at him for a moment or two, then went back to his typing. Gold was writing at his end of the table.

‘Shit, my head,’ said Beach. ‘Reckon some of that food these abos gave us must have been oxidized. Can you get botulism from prawns?’

No-one laughed. The room was deadly silent except for the tap tap of William’s fingertips and the scratch of Gold’s pen. Both men kept their eyes resolutely on their work.

‘What?’ said Beach.

No-one answered.

‘Did I embarrass myself last night?’

Gold spoke without looking up. ‘Embarrass would be an understatement.’

‘Hey, come on, guys, stop joshing me . . .’

William looked up and stared at him, his eyes cold and expressionless. ‘You attempted to sexually assault a teenage boy.’

Beach made a weak try at a smile. ‘Hey, come on, what is this? A sexual assault on a boy? I didn’t go near any boy. I had a – a – tumble with the chick in the red dress, the big one.’

‘She’s not a chick,’ said Gold. ‘She’s a boy.’

Beach stared at him. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind he remembered that huge penis. Had someone lifted a skirt to show it to him?

‘No, no, she’s a girl. Lintoa, right? That’s the one we’re talking about.’

‘Lintoa is a boy,’ said William. ‘You were caught last night in the middle of a violent sexual assault on a transvestite boy.’

Beach stared at William for a moment. Unforgiving, unblinking eyes met his. He turned to the other end of the table. Gold nodded.

‘Holy shit!’ said Beach. ‘I knew there was something weird about her.’ He chuckled. ‘Jesus, thank God nothing happened. That could have been nasty.’

‘You don’t understand, my friend,’ said Gold. ‘It was nasty.’

‘It is nasty,’ said William. ‘Lintoa is considering bringing a lawsuit against you.’

‘B-but that’s preposterous. I – I was drunk. She – he – led me on, I – I—.’

William got up and walked around the table. ‘Even if Lintoa doesn’t bring an action, think how it’s going to stack up when the compensation cases come to court. Think what will happen to your career.’

‘You can’t be serious—’

‘A sexual assault on a transvestite boy? How much more decadent can you get?’

Beach buried his head in his hands. The other two men looked on and said nothing. All you could hear was the surf pounding the beach as the tide began to turn outside.

Beach looked up. ‘William, we go back a long way. Remember how we used to play chess? Remember that?’

‘I remember you getting the whole school to call me Wanker.’

‘William, it was just a joke. A bit of fun—’

‘Funny how it’s you who turned out to be the pervert.’

‘Oh my God,’ wailed Beach. ‘If this gets out, I’m ruined. Totally fucking ruined.’

William walked slowly around the table. He fingered the mahogany as though he were terribly interested in it, although how could anybody have been interested in this decades-old decrepit piece of furniture, unless of course it bore some imprint, some distant memory of the first time you made love on it with someone you had lost? He found himself feeling uncharacteristically vindictive towards Beach. Not on account of the childhood misery the other had inflicted upon him but because the hullabaloo last night had prevented his visiting Lucy’s house. He was irked that his own essential goodness, the fact that he wasn’t like Beach, was making him sacrifice any other chance of finding her too. What he had in mind would ensure the chopper would be called and have them out of here today. It would probably mean he never saw Lucy again. Still, William wasn’t Beach; it had to be done.

‘Of course, there is a way out,’ he said.

Beach’s head sprang up. ‘Yes?’

‘It doesn’t have to come to trial. A trial would benefit no-one. It could take ten years or more before anyone sees any money. Ten years of these people hobbling around on ill-fitting artificial limbs.’

‘Wait a minute, what are you saying?’

William stopped his perambulation right beside Beach. He thrust his face into his. ‘You could advise the government to settle out of court. If they did that no-one need ever know about last night.’

‘That’s blackmail.’

William didn’t reply.

Beach appealed to Gold. ‘He’s trying to blackmail me! Are you going to go along with that?’

Gold shrugged. ‘Come on, these are people who live in abject poverty. Uncle Sam did them some real damage. They ought to be compensated. Why wouldn’t any reasonable human being want that? Why should you be allowed to delay and obstruct with a load of legal technicalities? What’s a few mil more or less to Uncle Sam?’