Sixteen

The Feast of St Andrew

In which poultry prospers – we ready ourselves for the feast – I meet a frightful boar – the church is invaded – and the night is danced away.

Happily installed in their new home the chickens prospered and so now, after our varied exertions, it was time for village life to return to its normal course. Time slowed back to a gentle drift through this pattern of islands and comfortable, settled, content with my new home, I floated along at the pace that it had set, meandering distractedly through the days and weeks. Attempting to govern or hasten the timing of events was, as I had learned, a fruitless task so I took off my watch and put it at the back of my wooden cupboard. Soon the white mark, which the manacle had left on my wrist, faded and finally disappeared into the deepening tan of my forearm.

Daily routine was marked by little more than the rising and the setting of the sun, by light and dark, by morning and evening, and was intruded upon only by the occasional appearance of hunger and thirst. Often, particularly after tending to the needs of these two, I would only too agreeably comply with my leaden eyelids’ request that I should lie down for an hour or two. Trained as I had been to sprint out every morning from the starting blocks of ambition and achievement towards an ever more distant, often invisible, finishing line, it took, perversely, no little self-discipline to break out of the habit of trying to get things done. After a few Pavlovian responses, I succeeded in ignoring the report of the starting pistol altogether.

Many were the days when simply nothing happened, but this inactivity only heightened the pleasure of waiting for the few special events in the village calendar, high points of the year, which as they approached were enthusiastically saved for, discussed and planned. A few days after the arrival of the birds, one such day came round and, as there now really was some cause for celebration, I had been much looking forward to it.

Somewhat incongruously, the most important day of the year at Mendali, after Christmas and Easter, was St Andrew’s Day. This was not, it transpired later, due to any Scottish connection. I had half-expected to find myself dining on homemade haggis and sweet potatoes, the festivities only coming to a close once we had finished kicking up our coconut kilts and dancing endless reels around our bush knives to the tune of bamboo bagpipes. Fortunately St Andrew, the fisherman, was, it transpired aptly but rather more prosaically, the patron saint of the village church and it was in his honour that a day of mainly religious celebration was to take place.

In the Solomon Islands Christianity, rather than being flashed about as a minority fashion accessory, was treated by one and all with a gravitas that was all the more impressive in a world where nothing was taken too seriously. Christianity alone, with its call to prayer twice daily, three times on Sundays, provided any social structure to the day and its followers lived, as much as I could observe, fairly steadfastly by its teachings or at least as well as anyone can whilst being permanently hounded by Temptation. Every islander was expected to be a signed-up member of at least one of the numerous churches available and it was therefore useful, for once, that I had been baptised. The consequences of a reluctance to adopt one brand or another, at least for appearance sake, would have resulted in definite censure.

The flip side of the Solomon ecclesiastical coin was that people tended to be worryingly accepting of the various religious road shows that paddled around the islands. Every halfwitted, crackpot, dishonest, unscrupulous, hypocritical and, more often than not, American church was in evidence, generally represented by an individual who was a fine example of all these characteristics. He – and more often than not it was a he – toted a loud-hailer and scattered leaflets bountifully as he urged curious villagers to join up and cough up.

“Yessiree, pay your way in this life and get a free ride in the next!”

A particularly dubious character stood almost daily in the marketplace at Munda. Thredfell as he was known by his brethren, ‘Dreadful Thredfell’ as he was known to the rest of us. Black-browed and silver-haired, he would berate his audience for every conceivable vice, many if not all of which he shared. Certainly his penchant for young Solomon Island girls was widely reported. On one occasion, as he held forth, I crossed between the women seated on the ground amongst their piles of equally disinterested produce and politely declined one of his proffered, printed sheets. Seeing that he might be missing out on the opportunity of saving an obvious sinner, he leant over to me and with his moist, colourless lips almost touching my ear, he breathed in a Southern drawl:

“Can’t hurt yer, can only help yer.”

I had shuddered and hurried on.

Father Joshua, on the other hand, was a thoroughly likeable Solomon Islander. He was the roving vicar of the Western Province but, with no transport of his own, he was forced to hitch lifts around the islands with a bottle of wine and a few wafers in his rucksack to bring communion to the outlying villages. A young man recently married and now provided with the requisite armfuls of gurgling babies, his easy manner combined with his genuine interest in his congregations made him a popular visitor to Mendali.

When on a few occasions he stopped overnight in the village, he would stay in my house, or rather in his house. For the official title of my residence was ‘Small Padre House’, in this case the ‘small’ referring to the size of the house, the padre being of perfectly average proportions. Father Joshua would insist on sleeping on the floor of the front room, lying beatifically on the mat that travelled with him. In the morning I would come guiltily out of my room to find him asleep, his head propped on a sack of rice as an impromptu pillow, his only covering his communion robe, pulled neatly up to his chin.

On this St Andrew’s Day he had arrived by canoe to lead the service accompanied by the older, but only recently qualified Deacon Hilary, a jolly, rotund man busting with enthusiasm for his new vocation and beside his considerable self at the prospect of delivering his first sermon.

Everything was now ready for the big day, which had, apart from the continuing prosperity of the chickens, been the sole topic of conversation for weeks. Not only would we have ‘The Service’ to enjoy but also, possibly more importantly, ‘The Feast’.

Local politicians, currying favour with their prospective voters, had arrived in canoes loaded to the gunwales with a seemingly endless number of sacks of rice, flour and election promises. Cardboard boxes of Hard Navy biscuits, protected by plastic from the weevils, that had been such an important dietary supplement to the sailors of yesteryear, paper packets of tea and several hundredweight of sugar had all been hoarded in readiness. For two nights previously the men had set off at night standing in their canoes, spears in hand, in pursuit of the fish course. Lazy parrotfish bumbled to the surface attracted by the bright light of the kerosene lamp balanced on the prow and were swiftly skewered before being dropped flapping and twitching into the bottom of the boat.

I had been partially responsible for the main course, although admittedly somewhat against my will. For only the morning before I had been doing some hit-and-miss weeding of my little patch of garden. Pinching out the impertinent shoots that had appeared overnight, I had been trying to check their spread, which, like thick fur creeping over the ground, would soon ruthlessly choke out the efforts of my infant seedlings to reach maturity.

A peaceful, pastoral scene, I was alone in the jungle, my only audience a pair of chatty, middle-aged cockatoos who, sitting on a branch of a mahogany tree, oohed and tutted comment on my clumsy efforts. Staring back at them, I wondered whether they tasted anything like chicken.

High up and bored, a sea eagle planed in circles, like a boy on a bicycle in the park waiting for his friends. Yawning, it finally headed off over the false forest floor of tree tops, its tawny wings beating in slow motion. Fat, wet splats of rain began to fall and as they became steadier, I sheltered under the broad protection of a banana tree. On the other side of the valley, through the arch of a feeble rainbow, came two girls running through Old Edith’s garden, each guiltily clutching a pawpaw to their chests with one hand. With the other they held, above their heads, huge palm leaves that hung down to cover their entire bodies. At this distance, they looked like a couple of crafty, green beetles scurrying along, picking their way through the undergrowth.

As the clouds that had come tumbling down the side of the mountain now pushed out across the sea, allowing the sun to glare down once more on my attempts to grow green fingers, I returned to my task. Steam trickled upwards prehistorically. This was country through which bizarre creatures might wander; great lizards risen on their hind legs, rabid beasts, half man, half shark, were growling in the forests around me. I laughed and the two cockatoos sighed.

Without warning there was a tremendous commotion some fifty yards above me. I straightened and looked up but my view was blocked by a row of incandescent chilli bushes. With a dreadful cracking and crashing an enormous pig came bursting through the screen, bearing down on me and, nearly as importantly, on my garden. Bristling with thick black hairs, its full tusks pale, curly moustaches either side of its snout and its two thin front legs working double overtime below its corpulent bulk, it frowned like an elderly gentleman pursued by a gang of muggers.

It would be pointless to claim that I was unconcerned by this spectacle but there was no time to run even if I had been able to move my legs. So for want of a better option I sat down firmly on my fledgling tomato plants. The swine was approaching fast, puffing like an out-of-control steamroller at a country fair.

“Oh, great!” it grunted as, thundering down the hill, it spotted me. “This is all I bloody need. Get out of the way!”

Close on its tail, wriggling through the shrubs, emerged two lanky village dogs, greedy, sweaty tongues lolling between bared teeth, and close behind them came the leaping figures of Hapi and Luki. As one of the dogs lunged, the terrible boar veered to its left and headed off in the direction of the stream, Hapi and Luki giving chase. I gave hottish pursuit and, following the course of the flattened vegetation, I eventually found the hunters and the hunted a few hundred yards on. Luki was now astride the pig’s back waving a large surgical-style knife rather as a rodeo rider waves his hat. By now the dogs had the bucking animal pinned down by both tearing ears and with an almost considered stroke of the knife, Luki sliced open its neck. Hapi beat the two hounds back from the fire hydrant of blood.

The boys were already tying its legs together with vine chopped from the closest tree when, as if tired and very slightly irritated by the whole exercise, the beast gave up. Pushing a pole between the two pairs of trotters, they easily lifted it slung upside down onto their shoulders. Setting off triumphant, they waved back.

“Nice one, Mr Will!” they had chorused.

Well, I supposed so.

A carefully timetabled programme of St Andrew’s Day events had been drawn up and written out but as I had been the scribe and nobody had the faintest intention of abiding by it, it was a fairly useless not to say illegible document. ‘Activities’ were supposed to include Kastom dancing, singing groups and dramas but the only two certainties were ‘The Service’, which would be followed by ‘The Feast’.

It was for ‘The Service’ that I was waiting in the churchyard under the shady branches of one of the rain trees, so called for the feathery wide leaves that offered some protection from the regular and often violent downpours. An iron cauldron was being readied under Ethel’s expert supervision for the huge quantity of super-sweet, pitch-black, bladder-defeating tea that would be drunk throughout the later celebrations.

Although still very early in the morning, the day already held the heat and humidity that, switching themselves idly with birch rods, Scandinavians lock themselves away in small rooms to find. I had been beginning to regret my decision to wear long trousers and socks. But as I looked towards the village and saw the first of the congregation walking towards me down the single-track path, I felt some relief that I had made an effort to dress for the occasion. Gone were the ragged shorts and betel-nut-stained T-shirts of the men, gone too were the tired curtains that were normally wrapped above or below the women’s breasts, patterned and spattered by endless babes-in-arms. In their place were smart black or blue shorts, white shirts and colourful floral dresses, straw hats and shell necklaces. I smiled and whispered ‘Gud morne’ as I slipped off my shoes and we went into the comparative cool of the church.

The font, filled with fresh water, had been drawn up to one side of the altar. Father Joshua, who was still outside in his white robe enjoying a last-minute betel nut and a huge cigarette, was clearly hoping to fulfil a number of his duties on this one visit from his vicarage on the other side of the lagoon.

On both sides of the aisle, the nave had been decorated with a profusion of flowers, and greenery had been woven around the rafters and tied to the ends of the pews to create a fittingly biblical avenue of palm trees the length of the nave. Above the altar, suspended by two lengths of fishing line, hung a huge heart-shaped wreath woven from hibiscus and frangipani.

The ship’s bell, that had been salvaged from the Commander’s launch before it had sunk in a sudden storm and now hung in the vestry, was energetically rung. As the sound of the last sharp clang rolled away across the water, the service started.

Selwyn Fly, our choirmaster, sang the first line of the opening hymn solo into his grey beard, peering at his handwritten, water-stained words through his elderly spectacles. From where I stood behind him I could see the piece of wire that held the frame to its right earpiece. He whipped them from his nose and lifted his head as the rest of the choir joined him in singing the softly ululating tune. Unaccompanied they sang in parts, the men behind me and the women on my left across the way. This layered, complicated mix of sounds and words seemed to transform the church building into a complex but extraordinarily beautiful human accordion. To describe it further would be only to say that, as I gazed past the decorated pillars out of the window at the blues of the still sea and the island of Kukurana across the channel and the music increased in volume, I was very nearly, suddenly and unexpectedly, reduced to floods of tears.

Through a shimmering film the procession made its way to the altar, led by the irrepressible Small Tome, dressed in one of his most lavish and intricate robes. As he advanced, he swung a brass incense burner filled with smoking Ngali nut oil around and around as a mediaeval knight might have brandished a ball and chain on his way to battle, or a Japanese might demonstrate a martial art: a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree swing with every step. Then as he brought his other foot level the chain came to rest by his side and then another step and another swing and onward. Slowly and seriously, he made his way towards the three shallow steps that led up to the altar.

Behind him, in attendance, came Brian, a young lad who had the triply difficult job of holding a small bowl of oil steady, keeping step with Small Tome and avoiding the dangerous metal object whizzing and whirring in front of him. Despite the occasional unavoidable duck or weave he carried out his duties impeccably as the solemnity of the occasion demanded.

Behind them now came the splendidly dressed Father Joshua, in surplice of red and gold, and beside him the wondrously corpulent Deacon Hilary, the cord of his robe tied in a tight knot around his remarkable girth. His round, cheerful face had already developed a sheen that was broken only by the droplets of sweat that ran down in little streams from his greying hair and met like lemmings on the end of his chin.

Next to come were twelve boys of nine or ten, smart in shirts and shorts that seemed to have escaped too much rough and tumble on the way to church. Every boy held a stick at the top of which they had spiked a candle and each one of these seemed to lean at its own idiosyncratic angle. Those whose candles leaned too far backwards spent much of the time trying to avoid the hot wax that rained down in soft white spots onto their hands. Each boy also possessed a different sense of rhythm and level of concentration but miraculously and with only the minimum of jostling the group arrived at the altar without mishap. As the boys filed to either side and Small Tome accomplished a magnificent seven-hundred-and-twenty-degree whirl the last notes of the hymn faded away.

The service took the form of a traditional but simplified form of Anglican worship to suit the islanders’ way of life. The Lord’s Prayer read ‘Give us this day our daily food’ – bread not featuring greatly in the local diet – and parables were rich in metaphors of fish and palm trees, low on asses and lambs. Father Joshua whisked us efficiently through the Order of Service.

Then Deacon Hilary, his finest hour upon him, gave an upbeat sermon in Pijin, which included, he told us, a very funny story about an iguana and a giant and hundreds of people who only narrowly avoided getting eaten – either by the iguana or the giant or possibly by both. I was not entirely sure.

Sadly Father Hilary’s words fell on the sandy ground beneath our feet as none of the smallest piccaninnies, at whom the cut and thrust of his discourse was aimed, understood much Pijin and as a result the whole tale was about as illustrative as a slide show for the blind. Undeterred, Father Hilary laughed uproariously when he reached the end, slapped his juddering thigh several times, put his back out and had to sit down unceremoniously on the first pew available, scattering little blonde-haired girls onto the floor, their pretty, engraved faces alive with alarm.

The first verses of Kyrie Eleison had been sung when the whole congregation froze at the sound of a loud rattle outside. The smallest children, who had now managed to divest themselves of their clothes and had begun to build sand castles in the aisle, scuttled back onto their pews. For in the doorway there appeared, silhouetted by the dazzling morning sun, a group of crouching figures. Led by Hair and Tassels, all six men and boys were dressed in loincloths, braided headbands of dolphins’ teeth and beads decorating their hair and foreheads. White lime streaked their bodies and faces and, bandillero-style across their chests, they wore thick chains of shell jewellery, each shard shining like mother of pearl in the soft light. Around one ankle of each dancer was tied a cluster of dried nut shells which created an impressive rattle as it was shaken and stamped on the floor and in their hands they carried palm leaves to represent paddles. With swooping, bobbing movements, they canoed their way through the congregation, their amplified steps providing a rhythm to the singing that now struck up again. Finally, they lined the three sides of the altar and came to rest. They remained head-bowed and motionless as the last note of the amen drifted out of the window on the scented air.

Carrying on regardless as you must when your church is invaded by six warriors in an invisible war canoe, Father Joshua broke bread, poured wine and served communion. Again my eyes prickled and I feared that I would have to use sand in my contact lenses as the excuse for my red-rimmed reappearance in the village.

Once outside the atmosphere relaxed and children, unleashed from the strange restrictions of church, broke loose of parents and ran amok amongst the huts, pausing only occasionally to kick a cat or torment one of the multitude of scabrous dogs that loped around the fringes of the ‘motu’ mound. Here, underneath a pile of banana leaves and hot stones that had been heated throughout the day by fires built on top of them, resided the pig. As the leaves were pulled away I was greeted by the most peculiar sight. It appeared that an animal that had been of perfectly normal porcine proportions that morning had, in the heat of the fire, melted and collapsed. It was now flat out on the floor with all four limbs splayed outwards rather as a tiger’s skin might be laid out in a baronial hall. Congealing puddles of fat lay in pools on its back or dripped down its snout leaving dark, oily marks on the dirt. It had not, it appeared, been skinned and the bristles stood up in affront at such treatment. Fortunately the eyeballs could not stare accusingly as they had popped. I was not surprised. Anyway, this treat was what we had all been waiting for – the cause of much salivating and stomach rubbing. I made a mental note to stick to the sweet potatoes – again. Turning to walk over to the throng who were congregating in the village clearing I very nearly tripped over and fell into a bloody ribcage. So that was how it was done.

Joining the men by the cauldron, I sipped at an old enamel mug of tea and watched the women busying themselves laying the table. Down on the floor went the palm leaves and onto these were dropped whole sweet potatoes, leaf parcels of rice, whole ‘motued’ fish and slabs of tapioca pudding.

Meanwhile the pig was carved. Heaped on leaves, it was hard to see which of the pieces of pig, carried over from the oven by finger-licking ladies, it was sensible to choose. The trick, I quickly learned, was to wait politely until everybody else had rummaged about and then help yourself from whatever remained. As the local diet normally included next to no fat, slabs of greasy skin, warts and all, to say nothing of the thick black hairs that stuck between your teeth, were considered a great treat to be chewed on at length with sighs of satisfaction. Surreptitiously, I could then select the tastiest and juiciest bits of meat. Blubber an inch thick was carved into squares and added alongside the other food. I could see Fatty eyeing one hungrily and jostling for the right spot at the ‘table’.

Grace was said by Deacon Hilary who had now made a full recovery, cured, I suspected, by the delights before him. The VIPs sat at ‘table’ at one end and all the others – one hundred or so – squatted simultaneously. (Actually, I sat cross-legged. Thanks to a nasty netball accident early in my teaching career, my knee was often stiff and painful. Although I had not actually been playing I had come into violent collision with a ‘Goal Attack’ who, carrying all before her, had lost control of her momentum and had left the court with some velocity. Spectating enthusiastically, I had edged just a little too close…Soon after my arrival, I had discovered that if I crouched as the villagers did then I ran the risk of becoming locked in position. The only course of action, if I found myself so indisposed, was either to move off looking like a retired Cossack dancer or to roll over sideways and to try to touch my toes. Neither solution was particularly elegant.)

Silence but for the sound of tearing fat settled over the proceedings. For five minutes. Then the leaves were rolled away, the scraps thrown to the dogs and the fire at the end of the clearing stoked. We were ready for the ‘Activities’.

The Mothers’ Union were first ‘on stage’ with tales from the Bible – the choosing of David to be King and the rather gruesome death of John the Baptist. Ellen played an enthusiastic Salome, holding up a coconut with a smiley face drawn on it to represent the unfortunate man’s head. They finished with a cautionary tale about, as far as I could gather, avoiding pregnancy unless married. This was given extra visual impact by the production of the same coconut, this time wearing swaddling clothes, from underneath Young Margaret’s dress. From the looks of surprise and mystery, this strange disclosure had been enough to dissuade some in the audience from pregnancy at any stage, under any circumstances.

Next came the dancers and singers, shifting gently over the ground as they sang in their local language, using undulating arm movements to signify the sea and come-hither love. No applause came from the crowd, only the occasional appreciative murmur. Fingers pointed at the shyer of the performers and smiling mouths whispered into ears, resulting in gentle giggles. Out of the gloom behind the table appeared Small Tome. He was holding one of the only two bottles of the deep-red jam fruit wine that I had produced and some glasses. Surreptitiously he filled two glasses and signalled that I should push them in front of the two clergymen who were sitting either side of me. I shook my head, not wanting to get involved, but he insisted. So I slid one in front of Father Joshua who lifted and sniffed it suspiciously. He declined it by smiling and pushing it back in front of me. I handed it to Deacon Hilary who picked it up and sniffed it. His face lit up.

“A hot one I think!” he exclaimed enthusiastically as he took his first sip. Unfortunately he went on to take several more and as the evening wore on he became more and more animated, talking loudly at inappropriate moments, slapping his neighbours on the back and guffawing with laughter. His face gleamed and beamed in the firelight. Small Tome looked on approvingly, delighted with his handiwork.

Much later, with only the embers of the fire and the gigantic moon to light them, from far away in the bush came the sound of Tassels’ Marching Band. Slowly the music came closer and closer, until boys and girls of all ages singing songs of Jesus and joy in the world marched into the clearing. Each was equipped with two thin sticks about a foot long and small flat piece of wood on which they beat out the rhythm to their tunes. The four columns of children parted and from the gloom behind them came Tassels himself, dressed in the tightest blue pinstripe bell-bottoms and a flouncey white shirt.

As the children marched in intricate formations behind him and every stitch of his extraordinary trousers did their work, he drummed out his own tattoo with a pair of bust leather cowboy boots, their metal-tipped toes glimpsing orange in the darkness. Voodoo witch doctor, dancer and acrobat all rolled into one, he danced as if all our lives depended on it and the crowd loved him. Whooping and shrieking with delight, they watched in awe as he pouted and leered at the bemused Father Joshua, who nevertheless voiced his enthusiasm. Bloated and dazed, Deacon Hilary only managed the occasional hiccup.

For over two hours without cease, the Marching Band pounded out their tunes until with a breathless ‘Suina’ – Finish – and a sweeping bow from Tassels they disappeared into the night.

As I stumbled exhausted down the track past the church, voices called from the dark “Rodo diana” – Good night.

“Rodo diana, Mr Will.”

“Rodo diana, everyone,” I thought contentedly as I clambered over Deacon Hilary who was snoring like a two-stroke engine. Skirting round the serenely sleeping form of Father Joshua who, with his hands folded on his chest might have been an effigy on a tomb, Chutney and I slipped quietly into my room.