CHAPTER 21: SACKED AGAIN
Ewan parks his jeep on the roadside guessing someone’s in. He climbs the flight of stairs and knocks on the unlocked door. Waits politely for an answer. But there’ s none. So he walks into the untidy room, amused to see a table groaning with bottles, powdered milk and bits of cut up cloth that look set to become nappies. It’s clear that the coconut wireless is right. VSO Suzy Trevillion hasn’t just lost her job as a teacher, she’s also acquired a baby.
Taking a sachet of locally grown and ground coffee beans – given the amount of AUSAID funding this is as expensive as gold weight for weight – her boss heats up water in a saucepan (no kettles in the volunteer houses), then fills a strainer with the black grit. Rests this over a tin camping mug, and sluices in the heated water ever so slowly. It’s not Bodum coffee making style, but for caffine addicts it seems to work. Satisfied at last with the strength of the first cup he then makes another.
The process is noisy enough for Suzy to wake thinking that there’s another intruder in the house. Wrapping a discarded lava lava around herself she is surprised to find her Field Director in the kitchen. He hands her an aluminium mug of black coffee and starts the inquisition: “Surely you can’t be so desperate to have a baby that you knicked one?” asks Ewan, mock shocked. At 34 himself he’s starting to hear stories about his female school friends back home who turn from normal mad, to hormonally obsessed at just about the time their career is properly kicking off.
“Ewan I’m 23. I know me. And I’m not interested in babies. This one was given to me on a bus… Anyway how do you know?”
Ewan smiles mysteriously – Suzy doesn’t need to know that it was his girlfriends’ old school friend who works on the maternity ward who told him.
“Pregnancy is treated with major seriousness by VSO. You will have signed a contract stating that all pregnancy costs are your own responsibility and in any such instance your post would be up for instant renewal. I hardly know where to start with actually producing a dependant. Children are exhausting. Babies more so,” says Ewan quite seriously. The lecture goes on long enough for Suzy to block out the words so she can half-admire his profile – there’s a real James Mason quality to his looks, somehow crossed with a crumpled duvet. Strange how you forget the word duvet when you live in a place where just a sheet makes the ideal bed cover. She swims back to the present. Ewan seems to be finishing: “Those contractual details aside, congratulations Suzy, you have actually managed to get yourself sacked again. Trouble certainly sticks to you doesn’t it?
Suzy laughs. Switches on a fan and then sits on the sofa facing into its cooling stream. Ewan brings his coffee over and a plate of mixed ngali and cut nuts, to join her. “Go on,” he says encouragingly, “eat up and tell me what happened.”
“You’re going to think I’m making this up…”
He gestures as if such a thing was impossible... “OK well don’t interrupt and I’ll try and tell you everything. I need to make sense of it too. I'd gone down to say goodbye to my friend at the agricultural research station near Tenaru. I don’t have to tell you why I’m doing that. Unfortunately she was out (off gallivanting around the islands checking up on the latest in cash crops: spices, her speciality) so, a bit disgruntled I'd hung out by the roadside until eventually one of the minibuses that runs between the Commonwealth Development Corporation copra plantation and Honiara turned up heading the right way. This was yesterday. It was about lunch time and as expected the bus was just packed out - men with rice sacks, women with sacks of root crops for family in town and several kids balanced precariously on passenger's knees. The fares collector (the usual young wantok of the driver who showed some aptitude for maths during his primary school days had packed the punters in so well that the driver could barely make a gear change.
“Anyway I just flagged it down, and to my amazement was in luck. The bus rushed to a halt, all tyres sagging and the main door was slid back. Picking up my basket, and shaking the dust out of it, I went to get into the bus to find there was absolutely no room for my whole body, however I was prepared to fold myself. So the bus boy gestured to the front passenger seat, where there were already two people, if you count the baby. It’s so hard to get a bus out there and I was determined to get back to town and start putting my energy into getting my job back. Well any job here, that I decided to squeeze in as suggested. It caused quite a kerfuffle. The mother gave her baby to the driver so she could step out on to the ground, stretch and then get back in. I eased myself in, which forced me (sardine like) up against the driver's leg. I was so busy concentrating on not touching the driver - thereby making sure he got no strange ideas about the kind of person I was - that I never noticed a different woman get in beside me on the shared front seat. The doors were slammed and the bus boy managed to make the driver hear, over the noise of the passengers - a real rowdy lot - the all-clear tap on the roof. Understandably the driver passed the baby over to me and set off at a predictable, tremendous speed.
“So there I am holding the baby, and for a few seconds (if I'm being honest) I looked down at this sleeping, old man face and thought "Ah, isn't it sweet!" and then I went to pass the bundle to its mother. But the woman beside me just smiled broadly and put her hands up, chattering away. She was one of these old ladies from Guadalcanal and didn't seem to speak, or understand, Pijin. It was very confusing. I thought she meant: ‘No, you go on and hold him for a bit.’ So I did, sort of rocking the bundle in a soothing manner - not that I needed to have bothered, what with the state of the road surfaces round here. And then after we'd been driving for about 15 minutes she hissed for the driver's attention, got it, and as the airport's sign for international departures came into view the bus slipped to a standstill and she stepped out, pausing only to slam the door. That's when I panicked. I said, now in English as all my Pijin words had just slipped out of my head (it's been the same on boats when the sea's become rough - my language of fear is English that's for sure): "What about your baby? Excuse me, you've left your baby on the bus." I know, a tad ironic, but she just laughed and raising her hand to her head twizzled her finger at the left temple - ie, I was the crazy woman. Everyone in the bus was laughing now, it was just hideous. And worse, the driver seemed to be about to drive on. Rudely, I just leant across him (all my paranoia about accidentally touching his legs long forgotten) and pulled the keys out of the ignition. This made him pretty angry, but at least got his attention.
“’Now look, whose baby is this?’" I asked in a hideously dictatorial manner - all those years of teaching in a south London comp flooding back; possibly even a hint of my grandparents colonial manners too. This time all the passengers were silent. I really panicked, I just went round the bus, asking everyone if they knew whose baby it was. And no one did. Well, no one until the bus boy strained to recall his passengers and worked out that the mother (if it was the mother, and no one knew that either) must have got off the bus when I got on it, 10km or so back at Tenaru. Aghast, I reckoned he probably was right. So what to do now? Well, obviously the first thing was to get rid of the baby - who was sleeping, oblivious to his predicament. No one on the bus wanted him. I thought about going into town, but decided I might be able to find a policeman at the airport. I guessed an international flight from PNG was due in fairly soon, judging by the amount of people hanging around, so stupidly I opted to get off the bus and ask someone at Henderson Airport for help.
“That was a very bad decision.
“Do you know how much worse the airport has become? The toilets are unspeakable, the heat insupportable, the snack food unbearable and the police invisible. Luckily the local bank branch was open though, so I managed to get some dollars out, but I can't tell you how hard it was to fill in my pass book at the same time as holding a, by now shrieking, baby and my own well-stuffed basket.” Here Ewan nods, he clearly knows something about childcare.
“By the time I'd sorted myself out the flight had landed, the passengers deplaned and all the taxis waiting outside been snatched up. I felt dizzy with heat and confusion, so walked past the war memorial and over to the shade of the big trees by the roadside, waiting for transport, any transport to get me back to Honiara. Never have I wanted to get back to my Honiara house so much. And of course no transport came: not a truck nor a car to cadge a lift from; not a bus to squeeze into; not a taxi to collapse in. Nothing. Nothing until the cicadas started up, just around dusk - about the time when I thought my ears would fall off with the screams of this bundled baby-beast - when, joys, a taxi I recognised came heading down the road. It was Fred's (you know the guy who took me up to the river one time with his family) so I thought, things are improving. But didn't stop. In fact he damn nearly ran me over.
“Anyway, I did get rescued in the end, by one of the late evening buses taking a bunch of CDC rascal types into town for a wild night of partying. They all grinned hideously at me (me, being the only woman on board) but the baby - for the first time - played a kind of useful "protective" role (obviously I "belonged" to someone, who'd "given" me a child and therefore they were forced to be on their best behaviour).
“Back in town I went straight to the hospital's outpatients and asked how to feed a baby. The nurse was very surprised to see such a little thing in my arms and asked me where he had come from. Well I knew it was a he now, but I didn't like to say what had happened, so I just said that it's mother had no milk and had asked me to take him down to Number Nine Hospital and get the right formula. This led to a quizzing session on the dangers of homebirths (!) followed up by a lengthy lecture on why breast was best (I'm sure you agree). Oh yes, and why milk powder spoils kids, sometimes even kills them. The way I felt then - completely knackered - I was actually prepared to agree to anything. But eventually the nurse (she’s a friend of your’s isn’t she?) let me go home with some kind of milk mix and an appointment for "mother" and child at the clinic tomorrow, to check up on weight etc. Forget the baby's weight, all I want is it's parents.
“You have no idea how difficult it is to sleep when this slip of a thing starts off. Imagine 1,000 mosquitoes droning, the soundtrack from Apocalypse Now on full blast, oh yes, and rats crawling over your face and you still have -nth of the volume and distraction of a baby. Maybe its just this particular baby, angry at being abandoned ...
From the bedroom comes a cry as sharp as a baby parrot. Someone else has woken up.
“What’s that I hear?” asks Ewan, “are you organising fresh meat for your goodbye barbie?”
“Oh ha ha. That’s my baby. Um, are you able to help me? I really don’t know how to feed him…”
Within seconds he had mixed up some formula, using sterilised equipment, and managed to soothe the baby by getting some milk into it's belly.
“They obviously train you for everything at VSO's London HQ,” says Suzy genuinely impressed as Ewan begins to burp the baby.
“Babies are lovely,” he says with a wide grin, “but, no offence Suzy, they need their mothers. What are you planning to do, because you don’t seem to have a clue how to look after him?”
Suzy looks at her baby with something close to love. This isn't some invisible foetus which has spirited itself into her body through a moment of idiotic carelessness. This is a warm, cuddly body she’s holding in her arms, with wise-looking eyes occasionally blinking up at her.
“He’s a lost child isn’t he, and the one positive thing he has at the moment is me. Either I keep him as a souvenir…” Ewan raises his eyebrows, no doubt horrified by Suzy’s sudden sentimentality, “or I get myself down to the police station and explain my problem to them. The boys in blue should sort me out. You can see I’m confused - just how did I get to be the one who was given a baby on a bus?
“Well, that’s what you need to find out. But one tip,” says Ewan standing up to leave. “When you get to the police station summarise, you don’t need to tell them your story in quite so much detail. Keep it real, don’t use real time…”
***
Solomons & Vanuatu Field Office, PO Box 1026, Honiara, Solomon Islands
The Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
PO Box G1
Honiara
Solomon Islands
Dear Sir
Re: VISA APPLICATION EXTENSION
One of my VSO colleagues has been unlucky and had her visa withdrawn after a misunderstanding. It would be a great help if you could consider looking into this as Suzanne Trevillion has many skills to share with counterparts at King George VI College. Many apologies for having to bother you when your office is so busy hosting the Oceanic round of ACP talks.
Yours sincerely
EWAN REAVER
(stamped over it IGNORE with Solomon Islands stamp)
CHAPTER 22: LIFE AIN’T EASY ANYMORE
SUZY COULDN'T BELIEVE how long it took to get out of her house with a baby around. The first time she thought she was ready, just after Ewan had gone and the little one had a clean nappy and a full stomach she'd picked him up (perhaps a bit roughly) and he'd instantly been sick down her shirt. Off went the shirt, unceremoniously dumped behind the door ready for the lady-in-waiting (ie, Suzy) to come back and wash it.
Suzy pulled a new T-shirt over her head, picked up the wriggly baby and purposely moved towards the door wondering why there's now a terrible smell.
The stink is overpowering. Suzy puts the baby down and - surprise, surprise - the smell goes. Using her nose like a dog she sniffs the air. It's not in the air. She moves towards the baby and the smell grows worse - warm, warmer, hot. No! Yup, that's right, the baby has just spoilt its new nappy. The nurse at the hospital had given her five terry towels and they're now all dirty. Carrying the child, who is gurgling contentedly despite her ineptness, Suzy rummages through her cupboard - or the shelf that masquerades as a cupboard - looking critically at her clothes for possible nappy conversion. There is a silk scarf that sentiment cannot let her part with. There is a shirt she could use as a nappy, but then again she'd rather not. She looks again - what about that old yellow T-shirt? Yes that's what she'll use, and she does. It is only after the strangely shaped nappy is firmly pinned into place that Suzy remembers Dan had given it to her. Well it's too late now to worry - looking at her watch she sees that trying to leave the house has taken her nearly half an hour from the time she first picked up the baby intent on finding him his real mother.
The third attempt at an exit is successful. But the walk towards the nearest police station is a nightmare. The equatorial sun suddenly seems relentless and she is frightened that such a young baby will overheat. Reorganisation involves holding the baby away from her body (to let some air circulate?) as well as opening up the umbrella, sensibly brought in case it rained, then holding it above the child's head at an uncomfortable 45 degree angle. Everything seems to be happening on the right-hand side of her body and poor Suzy feels as if she's going to overbalance any minute. Nothing had prepared her for the heaviness of a 3.25 kilo newborn, or the way - when he wakes up - this tiny thing can wave both arms around which, to Suzy's embarrassment, look like a serious cry for rescue from his imposter foster mother. By the time the pair reach the police station Suzy is feeling a bit more upbeat - this is her chance to get rid of the child she never wanted in the first place. Thank god there's no blood ties, again she runs through the logical reasons for dumping him: it's not hers, she doesn't want a baby, it doesn't like her enough.
The policeman takes a different view.
"So you're reporting a lost baby then," says the officer with undisguised contempt - he hasn't even bothered to look up from his Solomon Star, beyond noticing that there is a woman wearing a big shade hat and cradling a small baby in the station. Obviously yet another girl trying to dump her kid after her boyfriend's dumped her. Women - they're all the same, no sense. He writes in the corner of the form: "Domestic dispute, reported 11.10am. No follow up needed."
Suzy is not put off by the man’s tone. But she is annoyed to know that this officer hasn't bothered to look up from the football results he's blatantly also reading whilst talking at her.
"Have you heard me? This baby is motherless. What are you going to do?" Suzy speaks in the hard tone of an angry white woman stamping her feet at officialdom. Such insolence from a woman surprises the policeman so much he looks up, and to his horror sees a white Mrs on the other side of the counter.
With any other woman, on any other day he'd probably apologise, talk about her excellent Pijin skills, or complement her on something or other, then fill in the (inevitable) road traffic accident form. But today things are different. For a start she's got a red-skinned pikinini in her arms and she's obviously lying about it being a local kid. Secondly he doesn't like her attitude at all.
"If the baby really doesn't have a mother, it's a good thing it's got you."
"Why is it good? I don't know anything at all about babies. I’m an only child!"
"You're a woman."
"So what?"
"Women know about baby stuff."
"That's rubbish, motherhood is not an instinct, it's a skill. Do you have children?"
“Yes, four."
"Well then you know how to look after kids. YOU have the baby."
"Madam, it is against the law to leave unaccompanied minors in this government building. Now I'm going to ask you a few questions. What's your age?"
"Twenty-three."
"Any dependants?"
"None."
"Well then, problem solved." The police officer is obviously triumphant with his trick of wheedling out information. "You're an old woman without a baby. All women need children else they go crazy in the head. You've got yourself a baby, now just keep it, and if you're good I won't tell anyone else about this little matter. You're a nice looking woman, with that pale skin of yours, so you just go back to your man and tell him you're sorry." He folds up the newspaper, signs the report he's already written, tips his hat and goes to leave the counter.
Suzy is outraged.
"Excuse me officer! That's no way to talk. I'm trying to report a lost baby. I'm not old. I’m not the mother and it," she glares venomously at the infant, "was given to me yesterday on the bus down at Tenaru. It's mother may be ill and it's your duty to find her."
The policeman's back is towards her now. But he swings round, angrily.
"Look we don't want anything to do with your domestic dispute. You just go home and sort out this problem with your husband," he thumps his fist on the counter, jowls quivering with rage: "And if I hear anything more about it, I'll be checking up on the validity of your work permit. Now good morning."
Suzy gives up, her eyes smarting. Her head steaming with rage. She walks out of the police station and into the hot sun. What on earth is she going to do now? In a bid to make up her mind she instinctively walks towards the Mendana Hotel. It's close by and a good place to sit with the baby out of the sun. Unthinkingly she walks past the security guards and into the lobby. An apologetic employee stops her.
"Mrs, are you a guest here?"
"Well, no," replies Suzy not quick-thinking enough to say she's waiting for Sappho (her very useful 'mythical' girlfriend).
"Well, I'm sorry, but the management of the Mendana Hotel plc is unable to allow non-residential guests to use the facilities if they are accompanied by a baby."
Suzy stares blankly at him
"You'll have to leave. The exit's this way Mrs."
She nods, it's extraordinary - have a child and doors on your girlhood, doors on your freedom, doors on a life just slam shut. Suzy's so numb now it's impossible to cry. And anyway she's got to be more adult, what with this little baby in her arms, still fortunately lulled asleep by the walkabout. She walks back down the street and towards the Yacht Club. If the management do the same thing to her she can at least tell a journalist friend, and maybe they could do some kind of story about it, or whatever it is journalists are supposed to do. But before she can get to the club's shady compound a dark-coloured dog rushes across the road and up to her feet. He lies down in the dust, backbone on the road, belly uppermost hoping for a tummy tickle from the sympathetic woman which he recognises as living near his house in Mbokonavera, the regular feeder of titbits.
"Rasta! What are you doing here?" Suzy is surprised, and a bit irritated too, the big dog may be friendly but he's also a right nuisance. Now she's obviously also going to have to take him back to his owner to make sure he's not run over dodging the main road traffic. But she's also dying for a long, cool drink of lemonade, oh yes and the chance to buy some more nappies. Giving him a quick pat, she tells the dog to disappear - but does so in such soothing tones, the soft voice of a British dog lover that Rasta gets the real message. He is thrilled, leaps to his feet, shakes the dust from his coat and as Suzy heads for the Yacht Club follows politely at her heels.
Never has a day gone so crazily wrong. That’s why Suzy is not at all surprised when the Yacht Club doorman refuses to let her come into the club.
"Sorry Madam the club has a policy that prohibits dogs."
"He's not my dog."
"Well, Madam the club also has a policy that prohibits the under-ones." He clucks at the baby nestled under her right arm.
"It's not my baby," answers Suzy, remembering the rule that was set up by Australian men to prevent their Solomon girlfriends from embarrassing them with love "by-products" in front of their amused drinking mates. She grinds her teeth in frustration. The doorman, a young guy from Western province, thinks she's joking until he notices the look of tense exhaustion on her face.
"It's all right Madam. Look our club's by-laws are very complicated so I can't let you in, else I'll get fired. But perhaps I can call you a taxi?"
She nods her head dull-wittedly. "But I've got no money."
"That's no problem, you can pay me another time," says the doorman generously. And does just what he offered - hisses up a taxi, opens the door (so stiff from rust that it's not exactly the fluid gesture of the movies) and then helps Suzy and the baby into the back. Rasta, not wishing to be forgotten, jumps through the open window of the front passenger seat – making the horrified driver leap out of his car. He slams the door clearly petrified by dogs. Despite the events of the last hour or so even Suzy can see the funny side of this.
"It's all right. The dog's less crazy than any of us," she says reassuringly. "He doesn't know how to bite. He lives up near my house, so if it's OK with you perhaps we better take him up there too?"
It takes a lot more coaxing, and plenty of sample pats for Rasta - to show off his sweet canine nature - before the driver can be persuaded to return to his own driver's seat. At last Suzy, and her entourage, are being driven back up to her house - never more exhausted or distressed than after the first 24 hours of being a reluctant mother. Her misery is compounded when she discovers there is not even a letter for her, and it's her birthday tomorrow. At least the past few hours have given her a workshop in everything there is to know about the post-baby blues.
***
Note for Head Teacher, Primary School near Heranisi/Panatu, Malaita
Via MV Mali
Father -
I'm sorry to be sending you bad news, but my wife's new baby was born dead. (You do not need to tell mother, the child was another man's baby anyway.) Your sister Anna has been good to us. Her mobs helped me bury the small boy the custom way over at the soldiers graveyard.
I am worried about my wife. She was sick before the birth and is worse now. I think it's bad magic. What can I do for her? I am frightened she is going to die as well.
I hope this note finds you and the family all well. Special regards to uncle. May God bless us all.
Henderson
PS I gave our wantok two sacks of rice to take home He is a lazy man so I think you will have to look for them at the beach near where MV Mali anchors. Have finished the store order you wanted (will send on the next boat).
THE BIRTHDAY-TO-REMEMBER to be held at the same times as her unwanted goodbye Barbie (or at any rate the party that Suzy had imagined) went badly wrong. Perhaps because it didn’t happen at all. Not that it mattered much: she couldn’t imagine cooking a meal while trying to keep the little guzzleguts topped up with milk. And she couldn’t work out how to carry so much shopping from Consumers Supermarket, and the baby, back to the house via the big market and the fish stall behind Kukum’s Labour Line, even if she took a taxi. Besides, if she stayed at the house she still had faith that the baby’s mother would turn up, confessing to some temporary brainstorm, and reclaim him.
Having a baby to care for was doing something strange to her head. Already Suzy wondered how she'd manage to live alone for so many years - after just three days of bringing up baby she'd kind of got used to the little critter. Yes she hated the way he woke her again and again in the night with his piercing screams of hunger (and perhaps just as likely, abandonment). She could still remember the pleasures of sleeping a full night but those memories were fading, she could cope with jet lag! And weighed against the gifts the child gave: those occasional happy, full, contented, peaceful moments of him drinking or falling asleep drunkenly full with smiles chasing across his sleeping face, were like nothing else. Maybe that was her birthday present - a special dose of maternal instinct from her personal guardian angel?
It was an odd feeling, too, to be the temporary mother of a boy child. All her feminist life in the city she'd assumed (wrongly!) that it would be impossible for a male child to be conceived, to grow and fatten inside her body. If she had wanted a baby she'd have wanted a girl - to share secrets with. A girl to give a good headful of confidence for life; a girl to be a better version of herself. And now, through no fault of her own, there was a mini action man issuing 24-hour demands within her own house.
She'd often heard Solomon Islanders discuss the birth of their children in the most archetypal of ways: everyone wanted girl babies. Suzy had pestered her colleagues why that was, and though none would give a straight answer cynically she reckoned that women wanted a mini-me who could help them round the house: do the washing, mind the baby, go to the garden, carry more than a bush knife and generally be nice. And the men wanted to be sure that more girls were born so that the sex ratio of the country would shift back to more females than males as it is in nearly every other country in the world (ergo: more partner choice for them and their sons). It all smacked of wise long-term "family" planning, but then of course that was the last thing there was in the country. From a very random sample, the 36 students in her form one Tuesday morning, there was not one "only" child. Most had four or more siblings and one had 10. Suzy had met a woman with sad eyes and 11 children, the last cradled on her arm - though past his third birthday - because he couldn't walk and wasn't all there in the head at all. Nosey she'd asked that mother, struggling with the needs of what must have been a Down's Syndrome child, what she'd have changed (if anything) if she had a second go at life. Without hesitation the woman had said: "Only two children". She was 40 but looked properly old.
Suzy looked in the mirror - a difficult business as the mirror was only about 4cm by 7cm and the yellow plastic edging gave her pale, tired face a deathly tinge. "Twenty-four today," she told herself firmly, "twenty-four: not quite so raw." If she'd been birthdaying last week she could have treated herself to a leisurely in-bed read followed by a perfectly prepared breakfast and a relaxed working day. Because of course she used to have a job…
As it was her surrogate child took over the proceedings with a hideous wail which didn't waver (in intensity or volume) for about two hours. By that time Suzy's sentimental dreams of motherhood - of dandling the baby on a lawn, with nothing to do but count clouds, sing lullabies, read fairy tales and listen to the plop of ripe papayas fall from the tree - had been long since shattered. Baby care on the front line involved nappies, milk and endless washing. Drying on the line strung up beneath her house’s supports were terry towels, adapted nappies, all yellow-stained from the baby’s strange coloured poo. And there was the rustle of plastic bags she’d had to start washing (imagine, washing a bag!) so she could reuse them as bibs, dirty nappy storage, whatever was needed. In some ways she wanted to give herself a real birthday present and sock the kid in its noisy little mouth, instead she hunted through the medical kit that the British High Commission presented to all newly-arrived volunteers, searching frantically for the pain killers she'd put in there. At last they were found, two innocent looking sugar-coated pills of Nurofen that could cure the ache in her head. And just in case they didn't, she also stuffed some cotton wool into her ears. This muffled all sound so effectively that it was no surprise she thought she must be hallucinating when around another of the baby’s dinner times a teenager walked softly into the house.
"Don't you go to King George VI School?" The student looked puzzled, clearly unsure whether to say yes or no. Suzy realised she'd asked the question negatively. She tried again. "Do you go to King George VI School?"
"Yes, Mrs Suzy. I'm Lovelyn Adam. You teach me!" she seems offended not to be recognised. “Oh, you students look different without your uniforms,” said Suzy lamely. Lack of sleep (rather than age) was making her stupid. But the confusion made her also remember the horrible truth that just as lots of Solomon Islanders couldn't tell a white person from another white person (seeing all Caucasians as ghostly blurs) sometimes she also couldn't match locals' names and faces, especially the teenagers.
"Is it your baby?" asks Lovelyn looking at the uncomfortable angle Suzy holds the poor child, as if she wants to give him wind.
"Well, yes and no," said Suzy and then just as she was about to explain - and in fact just as Lovelyn was about to do some even more radical explaining - the radio announcer's clipped English tones cut in with an on-the-hour news flash.
"Police today are searching Guadalcanal for the mother who abandoned her newborn child on a bus. "Bus Baby", as the little boy is called by Detective Sergeant Pilakati, who is leading the hunt, was left on a CDC-Honiara bus three days ago. Detective Sgt Pilakati has made an urgent plea for Bus Baby's mother to contact Number Nine Hospital for medical assistance.
"The child is well, despite his ordeal, and being cared for at a secret location."
Suzy is outraged. "That hideous policeman," she splutters with contempt, then shouts it with more venom that she knew she possessed. "And what about me? What about this secret location crap? It's only secret because he refused to write any information down on his stupid pad. Her tumble of irritation is drowned by the measured bounce of the presenter's news voice which bleeds into the next news story:
"During the 4th annual meeting of the African Carribean and Pacific conference of the parties meeting, the Minister for Youth, Women & Culture, Dean Solomon, has talked out against vandals spoiling the Soldier's Graveyard. All graves in West Honiara are now being inspected for graffiti by the police. The Honourable Minister warns that the person, or persons, responsible for defacing sanctified areas will face severe penalties.
"This kind of behaviour is inappropriate for a new nation," said Dean Solomon in a statement earlier today, "it may spread sickness and if it is not nipped in the bud may also jeopardise our friendship with both the US of A and Japan whose war dead are buried there.
“And finally ... the British tourist cruiser, the QE2, will call at Honiara next tomorrow on the final leg of her Pacific cruise. She is expected just after dawn for a half-day visit. That's the news from Radio Happy Isles, up-to-the-minute news on the hour, every hour. This is Richard DoubleUX. And now for some more music - here's the current local chart-topper Lucky Dube's Little Heroes - so just sit back wherever you are in our sunshine isles and enjoy the best music on your favourite radio station."
Suzy has still not calmed down, so Lovelyn does her usual pacifying trick of locating the ice-box, finding some cool water and a glass (in this house, despite the occupant being white-skinned - and therefore rich, or so she had thought - glasses seem to be old Sunshine coffee jars) and rehydrating the cross-patch. Lovelyn pours out the water carefully and takes it over to Suzy who, despite turning off the radio, continues to rant, upsetting the baby into tears. She gulps down the contents of the glass, face turning pink with anger. "Is it just because I'm a woman? Is it just because I don't belong? Is it just because - I don't know? No I really don't know what it is. Except IT'S WRONG AND IT'S UNFAIR. That policeman didn't listen to a word I said. And this poor baby now has an uncaring beast of a man leading the hunt for his mother. It sounds like when she's found she'll be kept in prison, not hospital. God, I'm beginning to hate this place. The town's all-seeing eyes are as bad as life in a jail." Suzy is raving, and it doesn't suit her.
Lovelyn waits politely for some calm to descend. It is a shorter wait than she expected - just as suddenly as Suzy's rage appears it also disappears.
"I am sorry," she says, her eyes refocusing on the room, "sometimes things just get on top of me and ... well, sorry. Now, why are you here Lovelyn? Shouldn't you be at school?" Suzy feels rather guilty quizzing this student, seeing as she also ought to be at school if she hadn’t messed up things for herself.
"Oh I'm a little bit sick today, you know belly run," says Lovelyn, obviously lying. "The thing is Mrs Suzy..."
"No, no, call me Suzy,"
"Yes, Mrs, I mean Suzy. I've got something I need to explain, but I need to be quick. I only live next door and I don’t want my mobs to miss me. Can I tell you now?"
"I didn't realise we were neighbours," says Suzy suddenly interested in her surprise visitor, "you mean you live with Fred's family?"
"Well, yes," agrees Lovelyn cautiously. "My mother runs the AA store, you know the one you're always buying your noodles in, on the corner. Fred and his family have lived with us for a long time now. His wife is my cousin."
Suzy nods her head, swotting at a non-existent fly - one she thought was there thanks to the buzz of clues currently zooming around her head. "You're going to tell me something that's made a fool of me aren't you?" she says suspiciously.
"Oh no," protests Lovelyn. "No one's been made a fool of, but I do need your help - this is why ..." And so her story begins: "I think you know most of the people I'm going to talk about, or at least you'll know them when you see them face-to-face. What I'm going to say may sound a bit odd, and it's a secret too. Please, please don't tell anyone else what I'm going to tell you. But the thing is that I think Stella is going to die, and I don't want that. I'm not sure if that's what my mother wants, but I know it is not what my cousin wants who lives with her."
“Who lives with who? You’re just going too fast…” Lovelyn tries again. "You do know Stella, she used to come down to the school to do cleaning work. I've seen you talk with her plenty of times."
Suzy is getting the idea now - the last thing she heard about Stella was that she was pregnant and ill. Putting two and two together she guesses, rightly, that the "Bus Baby" must be Stella's. But why did she get given him? A thousand questions shape themselves: "Lovelyn what's going on?" quizzes Suzy impatiently.
"I'm not really sure. But this is what I know. I was late for school one day and the telephone rang. It was a Big Man on the line, I'm sure of that, and he wanted to speak to Matron (that's my mother, the one who runs the store). When she got off the phone she was very upset, he seemed to have frightened her, it sounded like he was asking her to get back at Stella. You see Stella used to be married to him, he's an MP you know, but there was a fight or something at the G-Klub, I don't know where really, and my cousin, that's Henderson who I think you've probably seen around, he used to live with us all next door too, anyway he rescued Stella, and told her to live with him.
"Well Matron was really angry about this and threw Henderson out of the house. She's a really kind person, and she liked Henderson a lot, he's her brother's youngest you see, and kind too, so it was to wrong to tell him to go, and I think it must have been to do with this Big Man. She wouldn't normally spoil a wantok, especially a good man like Henderson.”
Mention of Henderson is an added confusion for dog-tired Suzy already struggling to keep up with the names and actions. Think of it as knotted rope that will unravel if you focus on getting some parts straight she tells herself. And as for Henderson the so-called “good man”, well there’s at least something this student doesn’t know.
"So Stella and Henderson went to live at the Labour Line and then as Stella got closer to delivering she started getting sick, spoilt by devil custom magic. I'm sure all the staff room must have been talking about it - it's one of the biggest "personal" scandals going on at the moment, everyone in Honiara seemed to be talking about it. Well Henderson told Stella to go and see Matron to try and get some medicine to cure her, and I'm sure Matron, who is really clever at good custom medicine, would have helped her, but the problem was that Stella really turned up just a few moments after the Big Man’s phone call, and this frightened Matron.”
Suzy's head is whirring, the MP Lovelyn is talking about, could be any one of 32 MPs, and yes, it's true she knows one MP; but surely the one she knows isn't the one Lovelyn's talking about? She thinks back to her conversation with Dean Solomon at the club once, and that weird journey in his car before she got sacked. Did she ever mention Stella? She knows the answer has to be yes, she was so intrigued by custom magic that she talked ceaselessly about Stella's "problems", little knowing the stupidity of what she was saying - satisfying her gossipy nature at the same time as giving the MP all the information he needed about what his runaway wife was doing. She grinds her teeth in frustration. How could she have been so stupid, getting all the wrong messages from the MP's insatiable interest? She'd thought he was just trying to straighten out a stranger about old Solomon customs, when in fact he was ... Suzy forces her mind to shut up so she can hear the rest of Lovelyn's story.
"Anyway Matron told me to help her and we went up to the far bush garden, to a secret custom place, and that's where Stella gave birth,” she rushes on with the story, ignoring Suzy’s look of amazement. Homebirth is one thing, but birth in the bush sounds something else – how clever these local women are.
“But the moment the baby was born, before he'd even made a cry, Matron rushed off with him and so Stella never knew he was alive. She was very weak anyway, so didn't question the fact that her baby was born dead. Except he wasn't of course. Matron made me go to the radio station and put out a death notice on the radio. So that's how Henderson and the wantoks heard about the baby's so-called "death". Then Matron and I put a big rock wrapped up in calico – about the weight of this baby - into a coffin then Matron organised a mock burial over at the soldiers' graveyard. She really wanted everyone to think he was born dead."
"Hang on, hang on," interrupts Suzy, "so how did I end up with Stella's baby if everyone else thinks he is dead?"
"Well that was a mistake really," giggles Lovelyn. "Matron told me to go and hide him,” continues Lovelyn. “I'm guessing, but I think she wanted to be certain that the MP knew his baby was dead before she gave him back to Stella. The custom place is far away, and I was tired, so after dealing with the coffin I had a long walk back into town, and I took a bus. But then you went and flagged it down at Tenaru. I thought you'd recognise me, tell me off for missing school, or tell someone you'd seen a student with a baby and then I'd end up getting expelled."
"But I wouldn't have recognised you," says Suzy apologetically “I hardly notice women with children – they all like the same. You really didn't have to give the baby away."
"Well, I know that now, but I didn't then!" agrees Lovelyn. "I just panicked and I pretended I was getting off the bus to let the White Mrs ..." she pauses wondering why Suzy cringes, "... Have more space and that's how you ended up being given the baby. It was a mistake, but maybe a lucky one. This is where you have to help me again, because I don't know what to do now. Henderson is mad with rage, calling for revenge and all sorts of dark curses. And poor Stella is ill and doesn't care about life now her child is dead. She stayed with us next door but Matron was frightened so got her to move back to the Labour Line. And I can't tell Matron I was frightened and gave the baby away to a, well, stranger. She thinks I’ve found someone to look after him properly until he’s safe. She'll work it out. She's old but she’s clever. It cannot be long before she realises whose baby the white Mrs next door is holding - especially now that the story is on the radio, and the police are involved."
"It's OK," says Suzy quite certain that nothing like this could happen to her anywhere but the Solomons. “But I think we should straighten a few things. Firstly, is Stella well enough to have the baby back? And secondly, if we give the baby back to Stella is it going to cause your mother big problems?
"Oh, yes, I think so," says Lovelyn happily. "There's going to be a big row. That's the only thing I'm sure about."
***
Henderson can’t stop fidgeting even standing at the exact spot where the salt water waves merge with the fresh water at Tenaru River mouth. Patteson has taken a wantok’s truck hoping a change of scenery will bring some sense to his friend. While Patte sluices fresh water and soap over the dusty truck Henderson strides barefoot back and forth through the soft wet sand thinking of ways to kill the MP as he hurls shells at the shallows.
“So you really love Stella?” is Patte’s obvious question, shouted out towards the wind. Henderson only just hears it, but it brings his pacing and bloody fantasies to a stop at last.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Being a husband isn’t as fun as I thought it would be when I was yearning for a taste of life,” he gestures towards the out-of-sight islands that make up his back home. “When I danced with Stella I was punched. When I lived with her I was broke. Most of the time she was ill – beaten up or custom magic ill – so I’ve had to play at being Mummy to a child who isn’t even mine. Stella choose me as a safe husband, she never had time to fall in love with me. I thought love would be different.”
“You moved too fast man,” mutters Patteson who is starting to have similar problems with one particular girl who is the cleanest, calmest, most Christian woman he’s met. He thought he liked the wild child who partyed whenever and wherever, but his heart surprised him by looking in a different direction. It’s strange. But Patte is always the philosopher: “I know things Henderson, you can learn from me. Some girls put you on the wrong pedestal, think you can do no wrong, when you can! Shaking them off hurts them, and often hurts you too. Some want you for money or just as an ornament to show off, who cares about them? But then there’s a girl – often dark eyed and dark haired and no different to the others at all. Except that she has such an effect on a man that there’s no way he can leave her alone, even in his dreams. She may not be fun, or a friend or anything he’d ever expected to admire. But she gets under his skin, trapped in his mind even when she’s not with him. At first he calls it a problem, but the rest of the world recognises it as love, celebrates it with gossip and somehow that couple is soon caught up in a wedding feast or a scandal.
“Is that what you and Stella have? You saw her once, twice and couldn’t stop yourself following her. I saw your eyes soften and focus. You fell in love Henderson, instantly, not many of us are lucky enough to do that. But falling in love is the easy part. Learning how to live with your girl is another game entirely. And then learning to live with your girl and the children. And that, Henderson, I’m really not equipped to tell you about - but my guess is that girls find it as tough as us boys.”
“You are in a wise mood today friend,” says Henderson admiringly, wanting time to think Patte’s theories through. “Come, give me some calico and let me help you clean this truck so your wantok will be willing to lend it to a rascal like you again.”
As they scrub a plan is born. One that will humble the Minister without endangering anyone. Problem is there are two sticking points – Stella and Patte’s almost girlfriend who works at the Ministry for Youth, Women & Culture. The boys aren’t sure their women trust them enough to do what needs to be done. But sweet talking the girls is surely going to be a better option than hacking the man down with a bush knife?
WHEN THE BABY fell asleep, around midday, Suzy persuaded Lovelyn to show her the way to the Labour Line where Stella is apparently based. "I always thought white people walked fast," Lovelyn muttered surprised by Suzy’s slow pace. "Well I do walk faster normally," agreed Suzy wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist, "but as small as this baby is, he's still pretty heavy. And the sun's too hot as well".
"Yeah, it's really hot today. And we're stupid to be out now," added Lovelyn hoping that chat would delay the inevitable confrontation with her cousin when she turned up with a white lady and an alive version of his sick wife's "dead" child.
"Look, over there!" shouts the teenager excitedly.
Suzy spun round expecting to see a taxi, but can see nothing but a large brown dog lying at full stretch on a scrap of grass by a spilling over dustbin. "Someone's cold," continued Lovelyn with an ironic smile, "look at the way that dog’s sunbathing, obviously crazy – or maybe he's got malaria." Suzy laughed, her mind haunted by the knowledge that she'd insisted on going looking for Henderson the moment the baby had fallen asleep. She could have waited a bit and at least not turned herself into a target for the international truth that: "Only mad dogs and Englishmen (well women too) go out in the midday sun."
But time can be a good friend sometimes, and the slower the pair walked, especially along the shadier part of the pot-holed road - down near what ought to have been a tinkling, clear brook running out to the sea, but was in fact a stretch of stinking stagnant scum haunted by mosquitoes - the lower the sun crept. Yes it was still going to be a hot afternoon, but the blistering intensity of high noon had gone.
Suzy was shocked when they reached the Labour Line about an hour later. To her eyes it looked a miserable place, and every half-hearted wisp of wind set a surreal stream of litter flying. Half-naked kids ran in all directions, barefoot and laughing at their games of tag. Then as her own eyes adjusted to the half-light created by Labour Line's shade trees she could see the settlement was crammed with people. And all those people seemed to be looking at her.
The whispers gathered momentum: "Look! A white Mrs, and with a baby too." Some rascal types, boys who lived in Patte's house were whipping up false terror amongst themselves: "It's your girlfriend, coming to give you the baby you gave her. Ssssss - eh, Mrs, over here, your boyfriend, your boss, your husband, your man, he's gone out - gone for a walkabout down the law courts ..." Suzy felt anxious, but not enough to stop her laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Clearly the Labour Line residents were having a good time with their own impromptu pantomime. All having a good time - except for a young man, eyes cast downward as he absentmindedly whittled at a piece of bamboo stick with a short, sharp bush knife.
"Don't mind them," Lovelyn told Suzy, embarrassed by her compatriots, "that's just typical Solomon Island men. Useless people!" Lovelyn spoke with a lot more venom than she felt. If she'd been with any of her wantoks she'd have laughed just as loudly. It was fun making fun: nothing cruel was meant by it.
Henderson looked up from his stick when he heard a sort of splutter, very foreign. It was Suzy snorting (with irritation, with agreement, nobody knows - even her) at Lovelyn's last remark.
"Hey, cuz is that you? What are you up to? Shouldn't you be learning lessons and all that schoolgirl stuff?"
"Er," Lovelyn is nervous with her wantok today, "Henderson, I brought someone, a Mrs, who wants to talk to you. She's a VSO from England, teaching up at KGVI."
Henderson sees Lovelyn gesturing to a white woman to go forward. Suzy, who'd wanted to be there, on that very spot talking to Henderson, now has no idea what to say. She shifts her position a bit, hoping Henderson will notice the baby. He has of course, but just assumes it's hers.
"Do you want to sit down," says Henderson, in less than a whisper – whenever he’s around this woman his English feels rusty. "Tangio tumas (thanks)," says Suzy replying in Pijin. Both relax.
"How are you liking the weather here?" he says aware that Lovelyn is listening.
"Oh, it's very good, I like it," says Suzy stuck in a Q&A ritual unique to the Solomons.
"You like this humid, hot climate of ours?"
"Yes, very much!" replies Suzy, still too embarrassed to know how to start saying what she wants to say. She’d like to talk about that kiss, but first she has to explain why she’s holding his wife’s baby. Unwittingly Henderson makes it easy for her.
"And what about your baby, how does she cope with the heat?"
"She's a he - and he's yours actually." There, she'd blurted it out.
Henderson is aghast: "No, there must be some mistake. I'm just a poor man, a bush boy. I don't have any children - that's not mine." Then he's angry: "How dare you come here and make fun of me, and just at a time when we have had a bereavement in our family." He stands up, throws his knife and stick contemptuously to the ground and walks off. Lovelyn runs after him and explains it's not like that at all. Henderson comes back, reluctantly. Still angry, still proud: "OK, what's going on?"
Suzy explains all that she can to him.
"I don't know why this has happened," finishes off Suzy, "but I do know that I'd like to give your wife back her child." Henderson nods slowly, "Yes, I think that's the right thing to do. She's inside the house," he gestures towards a ramshackle hut, "you go in and tell her - babies are women's business." He leans forward, picks up the fallen knife and abandoned stick and resumes his carving - but it's an idle gesture now, one done to make himself feel centred, feet securely planted on Solomon soil. It's no good, the distraction of carving is still not enough to rid himself of that eternal question machine in his head: "What is going on?"
Lovelyn leads Suzy into the squalid little house and points at the half-open bedroom door. Through it they can see Stella lying on the mat, in the same corpse-like position that she was placed there. She's alive, but her breathing is wretched and her eyes, though open appear glazed. "Stella? Stella are you awake?" quizzes Suzy cautiously. "Stella, I'm a friend. Something strange has been happening - but this little boy is your baby. He’s alive. He never was dead. Here, you take him." The baby, with perfect timing, wakes up and as Suzy places him on his mother's stomach he lets out a hungry cry. Stella jolts into an upright position.
"It's not true, this can't be true! This is my baby?" Her child answers by struggling to latch on to Stella's nipple, desperate for the cosy warmth of the breast he's never yet tasted. And in what must be a miracle, succeeds. Sucks, sucks again and then feels his mother's gift – a spray of sweet milk.
"Is my brother an angel?" asks a confused Ellen, who's been keeping watch by her mother.
"No!" says Stella, with more energy than she's had for several months now, as the baby's rough hunger makes her wince with pain. "He's definitely no angel - he's better than that, he's alive!"
For a few wistful seconds, Suzy just wishes the baby was hers again, surely she could have given him all that he wanted? She fights off self-pity by telling Stella how she was given the baby on the bus. Story over, Stella has many questions - but they're aimed at Lovelyn, who has skilfully manoeuvred herself out of arm’s length by resting behind the only chair in the dark room.
"It wasn't my fault. I had to do what I did. I was told to. Matron made me." Lovelyn is jabbering, half-crying with fright. She thinks her wantoks will whip her.
To her surprise Stella doesn't seem to care about Lovelyn's involvement, she is so happy to have her baby brought back from the dead that any of Lovelyn's past crimes (if indeed she's done anything wrong anyway) are absolved. Stella asks for Henderson to come closer. He hurries inside the house, then stands leaning against the doorway, failing in his bid to look nonchalant. He is pleased to see that Stella suddenly isn’t sick anymore.
"What are you going to do now?" asks Suzy, impatient always for action.
Lovelyn doesn't dare speak. Stella is absorbed in a silent breast-feeding prayer. But little Ellen wants to know more: "If my brother is alive, why did you all go and bury him?" No one answers her at first, each adult trying to work out the reason why ... Why did Matron pretend the baby was dead? Lovelyn is the only one who can answer that - but her explanation is vague. She seems too frightened, of imagined beatings, to say much. "I don't really know, except Matron was frightened by that big man -"
"You mean my ex-husband?" interjects Stella.
"Yes, the MP. He rang Matron up just before you arrived at the house ready to deliver. She was really frightened that he knew you were coming ..."
"But," says Suzy, "why did Matron, Anna, whatever you call the woman, get involved in this cruel trick?"
"That's what I've been wondering," says Henderson puzzling, "there's something we don't know yet - and it's time we found out."
"But before anyone does anything," says Stella eagerly - after all she has barely tasted food for far too many days and nights," let's eat something. Let's just welcome this baby home in the proper way."
"You mean a feast!" Ellen shouts excitedly.
"Shush Ellen, you'll wake up the ancestors if you shout like that! Yes, a feast. Let's eat something special - let's barbecue a bonito, a king fish, some real nice fish. Make popcorn for the little ones. Mix up some cassava pudding. Serve cake and ice cream. I just want to welcome this baby home, let him know he's loved."
Suzy is embarrassed by the spontaneity of these plans, the family don't look rich and the feast they're planning sounds like it's going to break somebody's bank. She tries to slip away, but Henderson is sent to fetch her back.
"Please, don't go just yet. We'd like you to join in with us. You are one of the baby’s mothers,” it’s meant as it’s said, but Suzy can’t help blushing – this man’s just so good looking."
"Oh thanks," replies Suzy feeling slightly dizzy with a mix of lust and demob fever. Without a job she’s like some tourist again, wanting to dip into local life for the few remaining days she’s here, then go, perhaps never thinking of her time in the Solomons again. Suzy doesn’t want to be like that. "I would stay but I've got to .... (go to school, no that’s not right) ... got loads to do (she can't think of anything but it's a conditioned reply)."
Henderson nods his head wisely, "Well, you do what you want to do, but we all want you to join with us. You can be the godmother," Henderson sees this has won her over (still all the while thinking these expats have some weird ways, that's for sure). And certain in this knowledge he starts to joke. "In fact as you're the godmother we have to name the baby after you: Sue like in that cowboy song. Definitely, Sue."
"No, not that!" Suzy starts to protest, before she realises he's teasing. "OK! You win. Yes, I would like to stay on for the feast. I’d be glad to too seeing as it is also my birthday. But if I stay please let me help towards it." She thinks fast, fishes into her pocket and finds the airline ticket Ewan gave her. “Look here’s something you could use – just cash in that section to Brisbane. I’m going home very soon anyway – long story, not for now, oh my God I’ve told it to you already,” she gabbles, catching Henderson grinning. “Anyway my point is I can purchase that bit again.”
Henderson knows how to take the gifts the gods provide. You don’t thank them too much. Instead he leads Suzy towards the bush kitchen, to help her belong.
"Now the mobs will look after you all right if you can set up the motu, peel kumara, scrape pana, grate coconut ..." He'd put money on the fact she can't. Suzy releases a deep sigh, she's no idea how to do such things and is not keen to admit it. Feast food for her is chosen from a restaurant menu. As if from nowhere Lovelyn appears by her side. "I'll help you," she reassures Suzy, "women's work is not that hard, it's just boring. But it's not boring if we all do it together and story as we work."
Lovelyn then introduces Stella to the intricacies of a bush kitchen whilst Henderson sends Ellen and Stella's friend Lodu off to the market to buy up feast kaikai. And though no one seems to have said anything officially: there are no gold-edged greeting cards, no frantic phone calls, no dial-a-dish caterers, word speeds round the coconut wireless. Everyone living on the Labour Line is invited to the lost baby's naming feast. And everyone plans to be there.
BY THE TIME Suzy had split and peeled two sacks of cassava she reckoned she was at last a professional Solomon woman. Her wrist just bent back and flicked off the skin in a kind of rapid gesture rivalling the best squash player - though she did worry that kitchen work might give her RSI. Suzy's love-struck head was filling with the women's stories - endless tales of how the MP had done wrong, and got away with it. But she was most impressed by the way the women had a natural sense of drama. The first story was good, she'd heard it before in fact, the one where an MP (probably the MP) had done some crooked land deals earning himself a whacking cut from a logging licensee. The next woman topped the story - a complicated tale of overseas time wasting with government funds. And the next knew he'd been involved in the blue movie trade.
Lodu, the chief gossip of the Labour Line, was not going to be outdone when she arrived back from the market. "I heard something once too. I heard that when he worked in Fiji with the South Pacific Commission he was caught stealing money and ended up in prison. Luckily for him he was overseas, because otherwise everyone would know, it'd be another open (Dean) Solomon secret! The women end up laughing so much that they decide the business of cutting, chopping and preparing is now - officially - over. Lodu checks the motu stones, pulling out a couple with bamboo tongs, to see the heat. In the murky afternoon darkness of her kitchen the stones throw a fiery red glow. She nods - the signal that the oven’s ready for the women to place their giant puddings, a mush of cassava flesh and coconut milk wrapped in banana leaves on to the stones. Some sacks are thrown on top, then more hot stones, and more sacks. The cooking's begun!
Hands at last free of tasks, Suzy stands up, stretches arms to the pandanus leaf roof and then heads outside. Seeing an empty bench by the house, she sits down for a well-earned rest. Within seconds she's surrounded by another group of women, most of whom have been preparing fish for tonight's feast. "Are we going to have pork?" she asks. The women shake their heads - "it's a devil food," says a woman with a beautiful face. Suzy looks sceptical and the women explain that there are going to be some Seventh Day Adventists at the party and for them pork is a forbidden food. Suzy reckons the taboo excuse is just that, an excuse and there's probably another reason: maybe pig is expensive or it takes too long to cook. It's a pity, she thinks, because she would like the chance to finally use the very first Pijin language phrase she learnt. "What the hell," says her brain, she'll run it by them anyway: "Sori nao, mi laek fo lukim iufela mere go busarem pigpig distaem, bikos tingting blong mi iufela mere worka had fo gud - en mi save lo hia ota worka blong mere hard fo finis." (I wanted to see you women butcher the pigs - because then I'd know that women's work is never done.) Again the women collapse in laughter - feast preparation may be hard work but it seems to bring out the best in everyone.
It will be hours before the motu food is ready, so a bunch of women kill time by a riotous game of tag. In the dappled late afternoon light they look like young girls again, these women who run homes, raise such enormous broods, grow their families' food and share these skills with their daughters, who in turn share them with their daughters - and so it goes. The game continues, louder and more boisterous by the minute, with new women joining as they arrive at the Labour Line, ready for the party.
A taxi draws up - it's Fred with some of the mobs from Mbokonavera. His wife Sarah, has her son Junior's hand firmly held in hers; there's Lovelyn with a video machine; the bus boy is carrying a large cardboard box of popcorn but he’s also hidden a carton of unchilled beer on the back seat, bought on a lengthy detour past the Hibiscus Hotel's bottle shop. Henderson goes to meet his wantoks.
"So where's the baby then?" demands big sister Sarah, taking charge of the popcorn box .
"He's with his mother - she's resting in the house, but go and see her. She asked that you did."
"Henderson!" Fred calls from the driving seat. "Henderson I'll pick up any of the mobs you want." Henderson nods, there's people dotted all round Honiara who'd like to be at this feast, it's really something to celebrate - a lost newborn safely making it home. "But Matron, she said she felt ill, sore belly or something, and was sleeping when we left the house."
"That's all right," says Henderson, "she's an old lady. If she wants to come, she will. There'll be no recriminations. One day I know she'll tell me why what happened happened. We don't need anger tonight. Tonight is a happy night."
Lovelyn starts to set up the video. Henderson goes to assist and is amazed by his cousin's ability to match red plastic something to white plastic something else and find a power supply. "How did you learn this?" he asks. "Oh, long hours of being laid up in the house with malaria," jokes Lovelyn. "No, I just know because I like the video, so I wanted to learn how to use it properly. It's easy when you know what to do! I brought some cartoons to show the kids, that's all right isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, they'll like that." Henderson's mind is in a daze - his body busy, moving here, moving there, like one of the tourists from the big cruise boats who have just half-a-day to fit in their itinerary and so must rush, rush, rush to see the old hospital caves, the National Museum, the war memorials, the Botanical Gardens. Places they pay to enter and places that most islanders take for granted, but don't ever get to see. He checks the kitchen, the motu is cooking well. He checks the barbecue, tended by Lodu's bro and some of his mates. They are clearly happy standing round the too-fierce flames, each with a stubby in hand. The bus boy has earned popularity points with his welcome gift of beer and is discussing, as he always does, the reasons why the Solomons lost the Oceania Cup match against Australia back before Christmas.
Henderson is speedily bored by the drunken talk of the men, so goes to check Stella and the baby are all right. There are so many friends in the room it's hard to see what's going on, or how she's feeling - but Ellen spots her stepfather, pushes her way through the women's skirts and takes Henderson's hand. Together they walk outside and then - to Henderson's amazement - he sees a very familiar figure, slightly lopsided gait, slightly stooped back, walk through the lengthening shadows towards him.
“My word, what are you doing here?"
"I could say the same to you son!" replies Henderson's father reaching to shake his boy's hand. "I've been all round town looking for you - I took a canoe over from Malaita, which took us about eight hours thanks to the sea being so quiet at the moment. We went via Ngella too. Amazing engine! Anyway I've got some carvings to sell to the tourists - you know Henderson, the tourists that will be on the QE2 tomorrow - so I thought I'd come early and have a chance to story with you." He bends down to put his rice sack, crammed with carvings, on the bare ground. "Who's this then?" he says in Ellen's direction.
"She's Stella's firstborn. Ellen this is my father,” he laughs at the problems of what to make his adopted daughter call the man he knows best in the world. “How about you call him your number 2 gran." The new family members stare at each other suspiciously until Henderson suggests to his father. "Come, we'll sit over here and rest a bit, story a bit. Ellen - you go and get some cordial for your gran, and see if there's any fish ready to eat yet. He's had a long journey today." The little girl runs off, pleased to be given a personal task.
"What's going on son?" asks the old man at length. "I went up to my sister's house and the place was in darkness. Adam was there, sitting under the house with those crazy dogs of his - as usual - and he said Anna was sick. When he saw me, he looked like he'd seen a ghost."
"There's been trouble here, that's true," agrees Henderson. "Did you get my note?"
"Yes. I'm very sorry to hear about Stella's problems and the loss of her baby. May it's soul rest in peace."
"Well, things seem to happen faster in town than back home," begins Henderson. "You see the baby wasn't dead - I don't know what happened, can't get my mind around it at all, but it seems Auntie Anna was being bossed around by Stella's former husband, who is an MP.” He speaks fast, hoping his father won’t interrupt. “To cut a complicated story short the baby got given to someone else, a white woman on a bus, and today that lady gave him back to us. Stella's been a different person since the baby arrived home and so she wanted to hold a celebration feast. That's what all this is about." He gestures wildly towards the growing crowd in party mood, nearly off-balancing Ellen who has returned with a plate of grilled bonito (tuna) steaks and a cool drink for the old man. So far Henderson’s father is the only one who knows his sister owed money to the MP, he’d told her back then she was a fool when she took it and look what’s happened. But he says nothing to his son.
"Well," continues Henderson, "I'll let you eat in peace, maybe you'd like to swim too - there's a standpipe over there that's good for washing, and then when you're rested you can meet Stella."
It's unspoken between father and son, but there's something they don't need to say. Henderson knows he shouldn't have spoilt his parents' plans to make him marry that local girl. His father knows he should have let Henderson be a young boy and not try to force him to conform in the old ways - it was done because he missed him so in the village. Thought marriage would give meaning to his life.
"Yes, meeting Stella’s a good idea,” says his father. “And don't let me forget to tell you how our play went at Christmas ..."
"You mean the Pilgrim's Progress with that rascal boy playing Christian?"
"Yes, it was good. My students still act out scenes from it, impromptu, on moonlit nights! And of course we raised plenty of money too."
"That's wonderful! Now excuse me whilst I welcome more guests – I’m expecting real town rascals next – but I think you’ll like my friend Patteson. And the white Mrs who had the baby for a while, she’s a teacher just like you."
There's a big moon that night, it tangles in the mango tree behind the house where Henderson stays on Labour Line; it throws silver light on a path out to sea; it transforms the ugly into delightful and it tosses a slither of happy madness on to everyone at the feast of Stella's unnamed bus baby. When the food is finished the men settle down to more drink and the women, totally unashamed in the weird daylight of night, continue their game of tag. Suzy is exhausted, and kind of exhilarated, by the events of her birthday. Here she is partying at a Solomon Islander's house and by default is now a member of their family (a former mother no less, which earns her the role of honorary aunt or godmother or even oddmother). The moon is beautiful, the people kind, the occasion happy. She's never had such a good time. Yet still she can't settle down, enjoy the eating, the playing, the good-natured joking. There's questions she wants to ask her. Like why? Why doesn't Stella plan to sue the MP in a court of law?
"I can tell you," says Lovelyn edging up to the white woman's restless side, "she can't do anything formally because no one will believe her. Some of those men, when they get more drunk, may want to go and beat him up, but it'll be the usual thing - all beer words, no action from them. I think something will happen to that MP, but even he may be surprised what it is."
“Well how do you work that out?" challenges Suzy sceptically.
"It's easy - there are two men here, Henderson and Patte, who have their reasons to dislike the Honourable Dean Solomon MP and they've got patience to work out just the right revenge. Stella can’t sue in a court because people here are good-natured, God-fearing, Melanesian. Our way is consensus and stepping over the line is permitted now and again. Even if it’s not permitted again and again. Do you see what I'm saying?"
Suzy doesn't get what Lovelyn's saying at all. But her confusion is put on hold when Lovelyn cries out: "My word, there's Matron. How does she dare turn up?" The two women edge a little closer to a heated exchange going on between Stella, Henderson and the old lady. It's clear Matron’s trying to explain something. And she probably would have told them everything - in a torrent of uncensored thoughts about debt, extortion, interest and lies - when, luckily for Matron, the nub of her story is knocked sideways by a terrific burst on a ship's horn.
"It's the QE2, it's the QE2," shouts everyone who knows. Like the others, Suzy rushes towards the Labour Line shore for the view of the main wharf. A sleek white liner dominates the pretty Pacific bay. Moon to the port of her, islands to the starboard of her and beyond her prow, the mysterious, ramshackle Honiara town.
The African Caribbean Pacific breakaway meeting – hosted here in Honiara rather than Brussels) was panning out far better than Dean Solomon had dared hope. The European donors had sent in a fat sum to fund the workshops, conferences, day trip to Tambea resort, translations and all the feasting. Each participant might have to sweat through air-conditioned meetings, and long hours of talk but the ACP states were in broad agreement about many things. Sustainable development: absolutely! Relief of poverty: couldn’t agree more! And best of all every participant was entitled to a per deum payment of 120 US dollars and a hotel room, and all meals and travel expenses covered. With five days of meetings, and all that travelling, most attendees were able to put plenty towards the bad days when the EU gravy train would come to a halt, or more likely they would lose their seat at some upcoming election.
The downside was today’s afternoon session hosted by him in the Ministry to discuss ways to strengthen the role of women in society. Good God he’d found enough examples of female businessmen hadn’t he? There was the Malaitan woman who set up a small co-operative making baskets for the tourist market, the extraordinary Isabel Mrs who farmed cattle under the coconuts, the Choiseul woman who turned hibiscus petals into sweet jam. Clever girls: and all very tasty looking too. And that useless woman MP (the only one to date) might drop by too if she wasn’t having another baby.
What more could he produce for the Prime Minister to prove that the Solomons – independent since 1978 - was a country where women had a fair say in society? He’d been tipped off that the ACP delegates liked a sob story of wronged woman delivered to them. He imagined he would listen like wise King Solomon (the delegates would love, this he’d crack as an aside to a clever-one “call me Lome”) then make the right pronouncement, and after the ACP delegates cheers had stopped ringing in his ears the news would fill the front page of next Friday’s Solomon Star. Something was sure to come up, especially if his secretary worked a bit harder on the case.
Little did he realise just how hard some people were working to find the right wronged woman…
“Welcome back. I trust you all enjoyed your traditional Solomon kaikai, or as you may know it in your countries’ “food”, and are ready to participate in this special session on women’s rights and problems in the Pacific,” said the Minister slightly shocked to see that the only delegates who have turned up for this particular meeting appear to be the female of the species. Where are the African suits? Probably still at the bar. He hadn’t realised how much he’d counted on them to make this potentially boring afternoon a little more lively. Even if women’s issues are a side-show in these important talks, there’s still no reason why this afternoon shouldn’t be run efficiently. The Minister makes a small cough to regain the honourable ladies’ attention, careful to give the best-looking his best profile.
“After we’ve had a short summary from our friend from Fiji, he nods at a large-breasted woman in loosely cut Mother Hubbard top seated on his right (how the missionaries would approve of her dull dress sense), and then another fascinating Melanesian tale from Vanuatu - this time he catches the eye of a skinny woman in a rather French styled white blouson - we will look at a case study from this very island, Guadalcanal.
“Thank you Dean Solomon, Minister for Youth, Women and Culture,” says the Fijian with a good-humoured edge to her voice which makes the ladies titter. “I think we all agree that the ACP states are indeed making progress representing women in decision making in most countries. It is perhaps a shame that the good citizens of our respected host nation, Solomon Islands, have yet to elect from their 1,000 beautiful islands enough lady folk to Parliament to be able to let a real woman talk out about the struggles our sisters face in these challenging social and economic times.
“Of course my own Fijian government, so bound up with the military men, makes its mistakes, but I am at least pleased to be able to inform you that our Youth ministry canvasses the opinion of youth each fortnight using a mix of TV, which of course you do not have here, school surveys and face-to-face interviews with those students who have left school but not yet joined the work force. It also gives me great pleasure to share with you the knowledge that our Culture Minister is a renowned artist, has written two important books on Fijian ceremonial traditions with the kava bowl, and our Minister for Women is myself, i dot e, a real woman….” and so she continues - to laughs and note taking - for an interminable 40 minutes.
Dean Solomon feared Mrs Fiji would never stop talking. Oh it is true that you can take woman out of the village but you can’t take the skills of a fishwife gossip out of woman. But at last she comes to a close, and then he is surprised by a break in his tight agenda. There is a knock on the door. In walks a young Solomon woman, her modest eyes downcast her dusty feet in sorry-looking flip-flops, cradling a baby in one arm and holding the hand of a small girl in the other.
Good God that’s Stella! He doesn’t like the look of this. But trapped by his chairing role, official post, and a complete loss as to what to do next there he remains wondering just what his one time useless girlfriend is going to share…
Stella sits down on a chair that has been left out, placed as if she was a Queen facing her subjects. She puts the baby to feed on her left breast, embarrassing for the Minister, though he notices no one else seems to bat the proverbial eyelid.
“I have a story I’d like to tell,” says Stella who has nothing left to lose. “This is my story, but many women here in town have the same sorrows to tell. I am ashamed to share this with so many of you, but, as we are all women – or their representatives she says suddenly brave, looking steely-eyed directly at her ex husband, then it is a story of urbanisation and modernisation that is too often true. I have come here to appeal to you for a way to resolve my problem.
“I am 19. Still young but I have two children, and no real husband in the eyes of God. When I was a scholarship student in Form 4, still as innocent as a day-old bonito fish, a Big Man took too much notice of me. Seduced me, made me pregnant, took me to his home for a play thing,” she starts to speak louder and faster, encouraged perhaps by the growing chorus of tuts of sympathy and recognition.
“But this wasn’t enough for the Big Man. I was his, forced to drop out of school for getting fatter with his child. This was his fault, but he showed his resentment by finding every sort of occasion to strike me whether we were alone at home or out in town. I had bruises that forced me to wear sunglasses indoors and out. My lip bled, my teeth were knocked out.” She opens her mouth to reveal several gaps. “No matter. He hurt me more than I can say. This is his daughter. She’s five. What hope for her? Even though you can see this baby is just a newborn, which gave me a brief rest from pregnancy and delivery and breastfeeding I’d still lost my chance of finishing school or studying at university. And he was so keen for me to lose it, or to lose me when I walked away from the beatings that he used all kinds of custom medicine to frighten me. This poor baby was stolen, pronounced dead, and yet here he is in my arms. You are too esteemed a group for me to talk about the dark side of this scarring – the panic, the pain, the fears of the future.” Stella wipes at her eyes, there is so much for her to cry about. But she forces herself to be strong so she can continue, dark eyes fixed darkly on her persecutor in a suit.
“The things I have been forced to do, if you understand me, are not the things a woman should be made to do in a Christian country. Or anywhere. But they happen too often in Melanesia.
“And then a kind man, my age, took care of me. We live in a crowded house, he has no proper job and has become the step father – paying for everything they need – and it is such a strain that no doubt he will leave me. Indeed I think he has... And what will I be then? Still a teenager: but with two fatherless children, no hope of a true or fulfilling job and a life of struggle to look forward to. I am sorry true to share my sorrows with you today, but sometimes I wonder if the Big Men and the Big Women of our young countries understand the difficulties simple people, like myself, are having to face.” Stella comes to a stuttering halt and looks down at her baby again, so contentedly sleeping now on her breast.
Even during the applause for the “brave mother” Dean Solomon is sure he can wriggle out of this. But the unexpected delay from the chairman allows the Fijian to speak, again. “Well Mr Minister of the Solomon Islands,” she says.
Seems she’s now chairing his session, devil woman. “Do you have anything to say?”
“Not at all, not at all,” says Dean Solomon soothingly. “It’s such a shock to hear how our women can be so abused…” He has some ideas how to move the discussion fast-forward, just up his sleeve, but he hadn’t banked on the little girl being bold enough to look up, recognise that voice and yell out so no one in the Ministry workshop room could fail to hear her saying: “That’s Daddy! It’s my daddy.”
The uproar from the delegates, already shocked by Stella’s sad tale, could be heard many miles away, even down at the Tambea resort where economics is under APC scrutiny. A slow hand clap starts up. It’s joined by another pair of woman’s hands, and then another. Soon the room is ringing with ironic applause. This all stops the moment Stella stands, and moves calmly towards the Minister in an unscripted moment. There is absolute quiet as she hands the sleeping baby over to him. “You’re a Big Man Dean Solomon, and you’re this little boy’s father. This may be the first time you’re seeing him. So look close, he has your nose and your chin. I want you to take him - you’ll know how to bring him up right because he is your own.” The Minister clumsily pushes the baby away but clearly can’t be seen to drop him in front of this audience. He smiles with his teeth, takes the little boy in his arms.
Flash goes a camera!
“Well isn’t that a lovely ending?” says the Fijian, all smiles miming a slap, “It’s so nice to know that our favourite Minister for Youth, Women (she does have a violent way of saying that word ‘wimmin’) and Culture has first hand experience of ladies’ problems but is prepared to be a hands-on dad! It seems we need to congratulate him further for this.”
For the first time in his life the Minister is properly out of luck. Thundering “This better stay off record and that picture be destroyed!” Dean Solomon, cradling his baby son, leaves the room as the delegates burst into ladylike claps.
Even Stella allows herself to smile – she’s glad now she allowed Henderson and his rascal friend Patte to talk her into this squalid testimonial.
“Maybe it will help some other women too?” Patte had sweet-talked her as his almost girlfriend, the Minister’s secretary, sweated into her important clothes wondering if this trick would get her the sack or a husband. Both? Neither? One not the other? But really Stella’s tale was told for herself: humiliation is a powerful medicine. And in a town like Honiara memories of a Big Man’s fall from grace is sure to be told and retold. She’ll get her baby back soon, he’s already proved he has a homing instinct.
***
24 HOURS LATER
The sleek-looking SolAir plane hums past low enough for the residents of Honiara to look up dreamily imagining who’s arriving today. Working out who’s due to leave besides the ACP delegates. Oh, it’s a beautiful day for a journey.
In Mbokonavera, Suzy jiggles by the side of her house cursing her ineptitude. She’s got 10 minutes until Ewan and Dr Maylinda, acting as taxi and send-off force, turn up. But there’s still a heap of coconut husks that she can’t get to light. God knows she’s seen people get fires going enough in the houses around here, but nothing is as easy as it looks. Her persistence pays off this time: there’s a flame, and another, she scrumples up an old copy of Time magazine happy to see it flaring up along with carbon copies of all the letters she wrote. At last her fire is strong enough to take the pile of hot-weather, sun-bleached, part-time nappy clothes she’ll never need to wear again. It’s kind of wrong to burn them up when she knows she should be sharing what she has, but…
Well no buts. Life couldn’t get more complicated. She had a job in paradise. Lost it. She had a baby. She gave the baby away. She had a kiss. Made no effort to get another. So why can’t she stop thinking about it? Idiot! This afternoon she’ll be in Brisbane – then back home to the UK, that land of layers, central heating and unions that stop you getting such unfair dismissal. There are pluses too: warm jumpers, Marmite and anonymity. How good it will be to do things and go places without the whole town talking. Perhaps the first thing she should do when she gets back to London is make sure she doesn’t get to know her neighbours? Suzy suspects that will be impossible, Solomon life has knocked away her sharp edges –something to think about on the plane. If she gets to the airport in time.
**
Up by the Labour Line Stella crouches by the glowing coals of her fire showing daughter Ellen – so nearly a school girl - how to grill a reef fish. It’s such a simple task Stella lets her mind wander. Yes, life is a surprise. She was an A grade student who made a mistake that got her kicked out of school. She had a Big Man husband. She walked off. She found a new husband, but forgot to hold on tight. She had a rubbish job. She left her job. Had a baby and gave him away… Looked at her life this way she’s not a good woman. Still at least her baby boy’s named and living back with her. There he is sleeping in a hammock made from an old fishing net rigged up under the nearby mango tree. He’s so sweet now he’s with her and able to enjoy her milk. Yes, there’s plenty of time to wait for her man.
Drawn by the mouth-watering smell of cooking fish Henderson in long shirt and trousers comes out of the grubby little house and over to Stella for a last taste of home cooked food. Wants to put an arm around her shoulders and kiss her goodbye but his father is sitting close by, and custom hangs heavy everywhere. They see the plane circling to land, admire through the tree canopy it’s newly painted livery of a Solomon flag on the tail fin – five stars on the blue, a yellow flash of sun then a chunk of green to represent the rainforest – it’s visible just long enough for Henderson to greedily munch up the fish, bones and eyeballs too, then drink a long draught of water. Full he shakes his family’s hand good bye – father has promised to look after Stella and the children, perhaps as keen as his son for a change of scene.
Nearby Patte, in another borrowed vehicle, beeps impatiently at the horn. “Don’t you know that you need to check in earlier for the international flights?” he shouts in his friend’s direction. “I won’t be gone for long you know,” Henderson says to Stella reassuringly. “It’s just to see. Just for a walkabout…”
THE QE2 PASSENGERS wake late in their cruiser chic cabins where country cottage meets Mutiny on the Bounty. They dress in their best holiday gear - whites so white they are blue, large straw hats bought at the last port of call and the ubiquitous purse belt. They choose from traditional island, continental and full English breakfast menus. They snap at their partners. They want to go shopping. Let us out, let us shop, let us exist. Australian dollar bills are secreted out of hidey holes, passports stored in the purser's safe and then they are ready for the great descent, down those dinky little walkways that slope - at a crippling angle, if you tripped you'd be sure to die - and then you're on the wharf. Another country to tick off.
"Look at those murals over there on the building, aren't they naieve? Look at those boats, they look so small. Oh boy, what's that whiff? Ah it's copra isn’t it? So stinky horrible. Strange to think it turns into the sweetest soaps." The professional tourists battle for taxis. They want to look round the islands, check out the old war fields of Guadalcanal, get a real feel for the island during this all too brief anchorage.
The rest stroll across the 100 yard stretch of concrete that divides the consumers from the producers. There in the cooling sea breeze flaps row upon row of makeshift stalls, hurriedly knocked up by the light of the moon. Each offers a new and more tempting "island style" delight than the one before - ropes of bride price tafulae shells, red feather money, clam shell crescent pendants, polished trochus shells, strong plaited baskets, grass skirts, bones for the nose, carvings darkened to a mahogany glow with artless application of shoe polish, turtle shell earrings, dried berry necklaces - and the tourists love it.
A timid couple look for a taxi. It's the only taxi left at the rank hurriedly set up by the Tourist Board this morning and Fred is in a vicious mood. He knows he's losing out on the tourist trade because of the great dent in the cab's passenger side where that useless Dean Solomon, MP crashed into him not long ago. Tourists like smart cars: and worse these two seem to want a talk - not a taxi.
"Excuse me do you speak English?" the woman asks slowly.
"Yes, very well," replies Fred with a scowl that suggests all those smiling shots of Solomon Islanders were just a marketing lie. Remembering this could be a business deal he smiles. His teeth are stained betel nut brown.
"We know a girl working here, a British girl. Do you think you might know her?"
"Sure I know everyone. I’m a taxi driver," says Fred unconvincingly. "Is she a Peace Corps or what?"
"Something like that. She's a volunteer isn't she," the woman turns to her husband timorously. He nods. "I think she works for VSO. She's a maths teacher at King George school."
"Sure I reckon I know that one - is it Suzy you mean?"
"Yes, yes that's her! How extraordinary you should know Suzy,” they keep saying to each other – although it really isn’t a surprise in such a small, nosey town. Everyone knows everyone – eventually. “The first taxi driver we meet knows Suzy. What a wonderful coincidence." Fred is intrigued, what do these two want? He'd told them he was bound to know her, even if he hadn’t he’d have said he did....
"Look,” say the couple talking almost in unision. “We've got a small parcel to give her, can we give it to you to pass on?"
"We'll pay you of course," interrupts her husband.
"No problem," says a now smiling Fred. "I'll get it to her straight away. But don't you’z both want to see her?"
"Well, it's like this. We've never been to the Pacific before and my husband and I just want to look around. Not rush to catch the boat, so we think we'd rather look at the craft being sold, sit in a cafe or something, not go looking for a woman we’ve never actually met. Suzy’s our son's friend, and this parcel is from him."
Fred nods understandingly, takes the parcel, waves the couple goodbye (though only after the husband's taken endless holiday snaps of the taxi driver with his wife) and drives off towards Mbokonavera.
Typically the volunteer's house is locked. At his own place, the house next door, floor space is crowded with people, most of whom are catching up on sleep after the riotous pleasures of the prodigal son’s celebration feast. Fred goes to the sink under the house for a quick drink and from the snatches of betel nut-driven conversation Adam and Matron are having, on their usual hard-backed chairs, in their usual places, Fred guesses Suzy is still down at Henderson's place.
He drives off again, but his direct route to the Labour Line is turned into a half-day detour when a tourist flags him down near the Mataniko Bridge and pays generously for a ride to the giant clam farm down at Aruligo.
By the time Fred reaches the Labour Line, the QE2 has sounded the last of her three warning horns and is already cruising towards the deep water of the Coral Seas: next stop Port Villa, Vanuatu. It's been a good day for everyone - the tourists luxuriate in fresh water showers or cocktails in the sunset lounge. Yes, Honiara's got something about it, a magic that they missed in Fiji's main town, Suva. But then again Fiji was cooler, more sophisticated. Yes, this trip's better than they could ever have imagined. And the locals are happily counting their earnings, even these quick stopovers can make all the difference to their cash flow.
"Motherhood suits you’z both," jokes Fred when he finds Stella and Lodu, with babies on their knees chatting quietly. Ellen is close by flicking the pages of a picture book Suzy gave her at the naming party. Stella laughs cautiously, thinking the same thing. Life with just her children is going to be far less complicated.
"Where’z the mobs? Where’z your family and friends gone?” persists Fred. “I’ve got something for Suzy and her house is locked up.”
“Henderson flew to Brisbane today,” says Stella trying to sound as if it’s just as if he’d gone to the market. She attempts a joke: “Everyone else is at church!” though Fred misses it. “And I’m not sure what’s happened to Suzy. You better take whatever you’ve got for her back to her house.”
Fred is delighted by this unexpectedly fat slab of gossip; it will keep his Mrs happy. Imagine that? Henderson is on an Ozzie walkabout and didn’t tell anyone he was going. Fred eases himself back into the taxi, anxious now to study the brown paper parcel privately. There’s no real address, just a scribble of blue biro that says: “Suzy! Surprise, Bet you didn’t expect me to remember your birthday now you live with the head hunters? See you soon, Love Dan.”
Whoever Dan is, his timing is rubbish.
Fred chucks the parcel on to the back seat, turns the radio on and pulls out into the road grinning. One more cruise ship and he’ll also have enough dollars saved to go walkabout again…
###
Info about Nicola Baird, author of Coconut Wireless
Firstly, thank you so much for reading right to the end of Coconut Wireless! If you like Coconut Wireless, please let me know, or even give it a review. Same goes if you don’t like it. Thank you. I haven’t yet written a sequal but I have written several non-fiction books. So, here’s some more info about me:
1 Nicola Baird is an environmental journalist based in London. She’s also the author of six non-fiction books, including the co-authored best-seller Save Cash and Save the Planet (Collins, 2005). Her most recent book was published by Vermilion in July 2010 – see Homemade Kids: thrifty, creative and eco-friendly ways to raise children. Also see her blogs on fun ways to travel with kids (all without leaving the UK); practical British tips on baby and childcare and interviews with Islington characters.
2 For surprising insights into eco lifestyles, read the romantic comedy by Nicola’s football-obsessed husband Pete May, There’s A Hippo In My Cistern (Collins, 2008).
***
This novel, Coconut Wireless, was inspired by Nicola’s two year Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) posting as a journalist trainer in Solomon Islands from 1990-1992 working with the Solomon Islands Development Trust. (For the record I’m terrible at maths and could never be a maths teacher…)
That said, half any income made from Coconut Wireless will be donated directly to Solomon Islands projects working to improve the life chances of women and their children. Lots of the work I admire is done by Solomon Islands Development Trust, http://sidt.org.sb/ based in Honiara.
Connect with me online
http://twitter.com/nicolabairduk
http://facebook.com/nicolahere
My blogs http://aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com
http://homemadekids.wordpress.com
My website http://www.nicolabaird.com