‘Loa?’ It was his nephew again.
‘What?’
‘We netted the dogs! How do you tie them up?’
‘Carefully,’ said Loa. ‘They’ll bite your fingers off.’
‘Loa! Show us how!’
Loa heaved himself to his feet. He was a man, a hunter. It was his duty to show the boys what to do. He trudged over to the heaving mass of dogs and net. ‘You put your foot on their snout, see?’ He stamped down on the biggest dog, a male. ‘That way they can’t bite. Now reach through the net and tie up the front paws. That’s it. Now the hind paws. See how I tie up his jaws? There. You tie up the others.’
He stepped back, ready to help if it looked like the boys would be badly bitten. But despite yells and lunges they managed it. They stood back, staring as proudly at their three bound dogs as Loa had at his sow.
‘Will Grandfather cook the dogs now?’
Not till it’s time to put in the piglets, thought Loa. ‘Go and ask him.’
He watched the boys run off again. Soon the women would be back. Bu and his friends would arrive with the gifts for Leki’s family. Bu was a canoe maker, so a beautiful new canoe would be the main bride gift. But there’d be others: strings of beads and fish to add to the feast.
Everyone would sit and eat and eat, calling jokes, while Leki and Bu …
Suddenly he couldn’t stay here, with the smells of smoke and feasts.
He ran down to the beach. He jogged along the hard wet sand, away from the camp and the cooking pit, the boys and their laughter. Away from everything!
Small waves splashed at his ankles as the sea sucked in and out. He rounded the headland. The waves crashed high and long here, away from the protection of the reef and the lagoon.
At last he sank to his knees. The sand felt as hot as the sun above him. He didn’t care. He put his face in his hands and thought of Leki.
He didn’t know how long he’d sat on the beach when he heard Leki’s voice.
‘Loa?’
Loa scrambled to his feet. It was as though his dream had conjured her up.
But he had never seen Leki look like this. Her dark hair was hidden by a wig of dried grass, standing like rays of the sun. Her skirt was new bark cloth, faintly patterned with leaves. Ropes of shell beads hung from her neck and waist. She held a paperbark bag in one hand, bulging with shellfish gathered along the shore. She is already gathering food for Bu, he thought.
She was more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen.
He felt like a small boy, not the hunter who had killed a massive sow just that morning.
‘Leki.’ He walked up the hot sand towards her, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘Don’t leave your people to live with strangers! Your parents can’t make you marry Bu. You could … you could marry me.’ His tongue felt tangled. ‘I speared a sow today. Grandfather will tell your parents I’ll be a great hunter too …’
His voice died away as she smiled at him. It was the smile an older sister might give her brother. Suddenly she seemed years older than he was. ‘Loa, I want to marry Bu.’
She said it so simply Loa knew that it was true.
It was as though a wave had leaped from the sea to slap his face. Bu was older, stronger. He had shown the uncles and grandfathers a new way to shape a canoe to give it better balance. His muscles had gleamed as he swung his adze.
How could a girl not love Bu?
That was the worst of all.
‘I want to go back to Bu’s clan too. Haven’t you ever dreamed of new places, Loa? Something beyond the hunting ground and the lagoon?’
No, he thought. Why would I want to leave here?
Leki looked back down the beach towards the camp. The smoke from the cooking pit had vanished into faint shimmers in the air. She smiled, almost as though she no longer saw him. ‘Go back to the feast.’
As though I’m a child to be told what to do, Loa thought bitterly.
‘Bu might bring some of his sisters with him. Maybe you’ll fancy one of them.’
‘No!’
Her smile disappeared. ‘Loa, don’t be like this —’
‘I’m going fishing!’ he yelled. It was the first excuse he could think of.
She looked at him like she had when they were toddlers pretending their sticks were canoes in the lagoon. But at least she was seeing him now, not dreaming of Bu. ‘You’re stupid. No one will take out a canoe with you today. They’ll want to be at the feast.’
He was being stupid. There was no need for fish, not with pig and dog in the fire pit. But he couldn’t take his words back.
Leki wasn’t the only one who could go to new places.
‘I’ll take the canoe out by myself. I’ll paddle down the coast to the clan who lives beyond the giant-headland-near-the-sky. I’ll come back with the most beautiful wife in the world. Two big, fat wives!’
‘Loa.’ She looked at him indulgently, as if he’d boasted he could climb up the pig-tusk path across the ocean to the moon.
He wondered if he had ever really known her. She was the most familiar thing in his life — and suddenly the strangest.
And even if he did bring back a wife, Leki would be gone with Bu.
She stood there on the beach, exotic in her golden-grass headdress. No matter how long he looked, he knew he would never find anyone as beautiful as her.
He tore his gaze away and ran back towards the camp.