“Just doesn’t seem right somehow. I’ll be okay. You two do what you want to do. I’ll just tag along and try not to spoil anything.”
Rick looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“Fine with me,” I replied.
“Why not,” Rick said and pushed back his chair and went striding across the floor. I watched as he sidled up to the girl’s table, smiled, and took her by the hand. I was certain that she would tell him, politely, to bugger off, but there was not even a word of protest as he led her on to the dance floor and began gyrating slowly to the loud music, moving in half time; and then he was lost in the smoky haze and melee of swaying bodies.
Three numbers later the music crashed to its normal close and, as the crowd broke apart, I saw him standing in the middle of the floor, still holding her hand, talking earnestly and pointing in our direction. I gave a friendly wave. She smiled, nodded to Rick and then walked back to her table and her friends. Tough luck, Rick, I thought. You’ve missed out there.
“Henry,” I said. “You’d better get another cold bottle. I think he’s going to need it.”
He got up and went to the bar. I turned back to Rick, surprised to see him still standing where she had left him, and then I saw the grin rise on his face as the Fijian girl crooked her hand at him. He walked across and bowed to the other two Fijian girls sitting at the table and waved his arm, indicating Henry and me.
Henry stumbled up the steps with two fresh bottles and nearly fell over the chair.
“Bloody h..h..hell!” He stammered. “He’s bringing the lot of them over here!”
“So what?” I shot back. “What harm is there in a little fraternization with the natives? For Christ’s sake, Henry! You don’t have to dance with them if you don’t want to. The bloody colour won’t rub off, you know!”
“Hi, guys!” Rick said, greeting us with the confidence of one who had been successful, pushing forward the girl he had been dancing with, the one with the smile. “I’d like you to meet ... ah ... sorry, my dear. What was your name again?”
She turned to him. “Sainimili,” she replied, eyes downcast for a second, and then flashing them back at Henry and me. “But you can call me Sai.”
That smile was one of the prettiest I had seen for many years, and genuine. For a second or two I cursed my slowness in letting Rick beat me to the dance-floor.
Sai introduced the other two girls.
“Mary and..., Kenny?” I repeated.
There were titters behind hands held in front of mouths.
“No,” Sai giggled. “Mere and Kini.” She spelt the names for us, making certain that we got the pronunciation right, and making us repeat each name several times, breaking the ice as we started to laugh.
Sai was the prettiest of the three, although Kini probably had the better figure. Mere was on the chubby side, with enormous knockers. Rick had already laid his claim to Sai, and the way she stuck close to him made it clear that nobody was going to edge him out, so I quickly positioned Kini between myself and Rick, leaving Henry unknowingly rubbing an elbow on one of Mere’s huge boobs. A minute later he looked down and jerked his arm away as though he had been bitten.
The girls were beer drinkers, which made things simpler, but it also meant that before long none of us had a clue as to how much we had each had to drink. With everybody sharing numerous large bottles, it was impossible to tell.
Henry’s nose got redder as the night progressed. He refused to dance, even when Sai’s entrancing smile tried to entice him on to the floor, arguing at first that he had twisted his ankle climbing down into the dinghy, and then massaging the elbow he had bruised at the market. It didn’t seem to bother Mere much. She seemed quite happy just sitting and talking, although there didn’t seem to be much of the latter when Rick and I moved out to the dance floor.
It wasn’t like Henry. He certainly wasn’t queer. I had caught him in the cot with some little darling on more than one occasion when he thought Rick and I were still propped against the bar in one of the local pubs in Cairns; and there had been Judy; but then again, who was I to question his preferences?
Four hours later, with legs stiff from all that unaccustomed dancing, and heads light from innumerable glasses of beer poured down thirsty throats, Rick and I decided it might be time to call it a night.
“What do you reckon, guys?” Rick asked, the girls halfway to the back of the room, heading for the toilet. “Reckon we can persuade them to come back to the trawler for a cup of coffee?”
“Worth a try,” I answered. “Henry?”
All we got was a vacant stare.
“I think he’s pissed,” Rick muttered. “Hey, Henry, old sport!”
“Huh? Wassup?”
“Christ,” I said. “Never mind what he wants to do. If the chubby one wants to come along, then let her come.”
It didn’t take as much as either of us thought to talk the girls into coming back to the Bay of Islands. We had already told them about the Sally May. They had seemed more impressed than the girls in Cairns had ever been.
The taxi driver charged us six dollars. Rick didn’t so much as bat an eyelid. He had other things on his mind.
It was bad enough fitting the six of us in the taxi, but boarding the dinghy was something else entirely. For one horrible second I thought the small aluminium boat was going to capsize as Henry lurched from one side to the other, a wicked grin on his face, throwing an arm around Mere, his hand reaching for her left breast while she giggled and kept pushing it aside.
Rick jumped on board the trawler and busied himself in the galley, filling the kettle, getting out the mugs, and trying to look as though he did it every day.
“Hey, Henry!” he shouted as the kettle boiled. “Your coffee’s ready!” There was no answer. “Where the bloody hell is he?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and then realized that Mere was nowhere to be seen either. I moved over to the doorway, intending to go out to the stern where we had tied the dinghy, thinking they might have both collapsed in a pile on the deck as we had climbed on board.
“They went down there,” a soft voice whispered behind me. I turned around to Kini.
“Went down where?”
“Down over there.”
I stepped back into the saloon and walked across to the fo’c’sle hatch and peered down into the gloom, not quite game to switch on the light. Within seconds my eyes became accustomed to the darkness faintly illuminated by moonlight filtering through the thin curtains, and made out two moving shapes on the bottom starboard bunk: the rounder one black and the other, by contrast, white as snow. I backed out quickly.
“Passed out?” Rick asked, casually stirring sugar into his coffee.
“No.”
“Passing out?”
“No.”
“Well, what then?”
“What the hell would you think?” I replied.
“What? Already? You’re kidding. Just like that?”
“Yeah, and on my bloody bunk!”
He doubled up and started to roar with laughter. I couldn’t help but join him. The girls covered their faces and tried to hide grins. I poured us each another beer, hoping it might help to ease the situation and maybe persuade Kini and Sai to stay, for I was certain that they would grab Mere as soon as decency would allow and demand to be taken back to shore. You can’t bulldoze seduction. It has to be done delicately, with feeling, and gentleness, and maybe another beer or two.
They sipped their drinks and tittered to each other in Fijian, from time to time casting embarrassed looks at Rick and me, but there was no sign of their wanting to leave.
Five minutes later the snores started up from the fo’c’sle.
“He’s at it again,” Rick said. “Every time he gets on the booze nobody else can get a wink of sleep.” He stuck his head into the opening and yelled: “Roll over, Henry!”
There was a snort and a couple of snuffles and the sound of two bodies shifting around on my bunk,
and then silence. I looked across at Kini and realized that if ever I was going to make a move, now was the moment.
“Ah, Rick?” I said.
“Yeah, mate.”
“How are we going to work this?”
“Work what?”
“Berths, mate, berths.” Then, as both girls burst out laughing, I realized how funny the word must have sounded.
But Rick knew what I meant. There were only the five bunks on board and they were all down in the fo’c’sle cabin: two on the starboard side and two on the port, top and bottom, with the fifth, Henry’s bunk, tucked in aft of the fo’c’sle ladder. If you draped a blanket down over the ladder, you could get a certain degree of privacy in Henry’s bunk, but not enough for what we wanted; particularly not with Henry snoring away on the other side of the crowded cabin.
But one of us would have to take that bunk, while the other stripped the two mattresses off the port bunks and took them up to the comparative privacy of the wheelhouse.
“Toss you for it,” Rick said. “The loser gets Henry.”
******
Rick got stuck with Henry. I got the peace and privacy of the wheelhouse.
The girls were silent as Rick and I dropped down into the fo’c’sle and began to rearrange the bedding, trying to keep our eyes from the two inert forms on my bunk. Rick finally dropped a sheet over both of them, giggling quietly to himself, and then draped a blanket across the front of the ladder, giving himself some semblance of privacy.
“Shut up, you silly bugger,” I whispered. “You’ll start them off again.”
I dragged the two mattresses up through the saloon and into the wheelhouse and then went back for a couple of sheets, and a blanket – just in case it got cold in the early morning. The girls still hadn’t said a word to us, although there was a lot of whispering in Fijian.
“Come,” I said to Kini and took her by the hand, pulling her gently towards the few steps leading up to the wheelhouse. She turned to Sai, as if to ask what she should do, or perhaps not wanting to leave her on her own; but Rick was already taking care of that, the pair of them with arms around each other, lips hard together, oblivious to Kini and me.
I reached over and flicked off the lights, leaving only the moonlight to show us the way.
She gave me a funny smile as I pulled her down to the rough-made bed. We lay there, looking at each other for what seemed an age. Then I moved across those few inches and kissed her, and started moving my left hand over her body, my right moving to her breasts. At first she pushed both hands away, then, as the minutes drifted on, and her breathing grew faster, those mute protestations grew weaker and I knew that the night would be ours.
The zipper at the back of her dress coursed smoothly down her back. She rolled her shoulders as I lifted first one arm and then the other from the sleeves, and then arched her back as I slid the now crumpled material down over her stomach, under her firm buttocks and down past her feet. The bra went next and the firm black mangoes came ripe into my palms; but there was resistance as I hooked my finger into the top of her knickers, her hand coming down on to mine, leading it back up to her breasts, and then she reached up and lifted my shirt over my head, pressing her dark brown nipples into the sweated hair on my chest.
Again I reached down for the knickers, and again she grabbed my hand, but perhaps not as firmly as before. I persisted, my hand going inside the thin material, roaming over one buttock, squeezing and caressing and then moving my fingers around to where they wanted to be; and her breathing quickened again.
This time there would be no rebuff.
The giggling started when my trouser leg caught on the heel of my left shoe as I struggled in haste to remove the rest of my clothing.
“Quiet,” I said. “Rick’ll hear you.”
She only giggled louder and I felt the pale-blue cotton tear as I ripped my trousers away from my feet, and tossed first shoes and then socks across the wheelhouse, and finally slid out of my underpants.
She looked across at my face, then down over my chest, then further down and back up to my face again. “Nice bola,” she whispered, and reached over and kissed me hard on the lips.
There hadn’t been a lot of girls, but each one had been a battle that first time, and usually on the second as well; and always there had been the tightly closed eyes, the seriousness, the frenzied façade of passion, and then the face turning away in a shadow of shame; but Kini was smiling, gazing up at my face; the moonlight pouring through the wheelhouse windows shining down on dark-skinned breasts covered in sweat from our exertions; happy at the pleasure we had shared; and it was me that felt embarrassed, me that felt that I shouldn’t be looking.
“Nice bola,” she laughed again.
******
Blinding light burst into my eyes as the trawler swung on its moorings, sending the sun’s rays crashing through the wheelhouse windows. I groaned, sat up, and looked at my watch – ten o’clock. A hand slid on to my knee and began to work its way up my thigh. I shook my head.
“No, not just yet,” I whispered, and grabbed my underpants, shrugged them on, and raced out the rear doorway and down to the toilet.
I emerged minutes later to find her standing on the deck, the rumpled blanket around her shoulders, unconcerned, waiting her turn. I gave an embarrassed smile and sidled past, back to the wheelhouse, and settled down to wait for her, feeling a sense of pride as she came through the doorway with that smile on her face.
I wasted no further time, and it was just as well, for my breathing had hardly slowed when there was a knock on the side panel and a tousled head appeared through the doorway.
“Morning, you two!” Rick chortled breezily. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a top, mate,” I replied. “Like a top. How’s our mutual friend and partner?”
“Bastard’s still asleep, but his bird’s out of bed. She and Sai are making some tea. Feel like a cup?”
“Black coffee, thanks mate. What about you, Kini?”
“Tea please.”
******
It was after eleven before a bleary-eyed Henry staggered up out of the fo’c’sle. He’d had nearly nine hours sleep, so the hangover would have just about disappeared. Rick and I were enjoying a small hair of the dog in the main cabin: ice-cold beer. The three girls were out on the back deck, peeling potatoes for lunch.
“Bloody hell!” Henry muttered as he reached for the kettle and the matches. “You guys certainly get to some rough places!” He looked around the saloon. “Thank God we didn’t get stuck with those three birds! How’d you finally manage to get rid of them?” He ran a hand across his stubbled chin and then said, almost absentmindedly; “I don’t really remember much after leaving that damned nightclub.”
I glanced at Rick and he looked at me. We both burst out laughing. Rick half choking on the mouthful of beer he had just swallowed.
“What’s so bloody funny?” Henry asked, looking hurt. “Just because I didn’t fancy dancing with some fat Fijian bird!”
We roared with laughter again.
“Well, what’s the bloody joke?”
“Ah, Henry,” I said. “Do me a favour and see if the dinghy’s all right. I forgot to check it last night.” Then I chortled again.
He shook his head as though to say that only fools got drunk at eleven o’clock in the morning, and stepped out through the doorway. We heard his feet take three paces along the steel decking, then silence, and then a rush as he hurtled back inside.
“They’re out there!” he gasped. “Peeling potatoes! What happened? How long have they been on board?”
“All night, mate,” Rick replied. “All three of them.”
“And as to what happened,” I added. “You got your end away, you dirty old man!”
Rick shrieked and we both folded up over the table as the fits of laughter took hold once more. Henry’s face went paler.
“Shit!” he said.
“Oh shit, nothing,” Rick laughed. “You tho
roughly enjoyed yourself!”
“How would you know?”
“I saw the look on your face afterwards, you dirty bugger.”
“Oh,” was the only answer he could come up with, and then, after a good half minute, as the full effect of what Rick had said finally sank in, added: “What about you two?”
“Don’t worry about us, my friend,” I said. “We can look after ourselves.”
“Shit,” he said again, and then saw the funny side and started to grin. I turned the kettle off and poured him a beer.
“What are you boys laughing about?” a female voice asked.
Sai was standing in the doorway, a bowl of peeled potatoes under one arm, and a questioning look on her face.
Henry’s faced turned from white to red again.
Rick turned to Sai. “We were laughing at Henry’s snoring right after ... well, you know when.”
The smile beamed wider as her eyes swivelled slowly to Henry’s face, which went even redder. She dropped the bowl on the table and raced giggling out on to the deck towards the stern. Seconds later there was a loud shriek from the back deck and the sound of a well-directed slap. Rick and I shot out to find them babbling in Fijian and laughing fit to burst.
At that moment, there was no finer place. It was only later that it became hell on earth.
******
We spent the rest of the day on the boat. Rick and Sai took a cab into Suva, returning with a few of the local delicacies from the market and another two cartons of Fiji Bitter; and we quietly drank ourselves into a peaceful state of euphoria.
The three girls seemed to take it as read that they would be staying the night again. None of them made any sign of wanting to leave. It all seemed so natural to them; but not to Henry. He still had reservations about getting too close to Mere, even though he had spent the previous night with her, a pleasure he still couldn’t remember. I was finally obliged to give up the privacy of the wheelhouse in order to calm him down.
“Look, Henry,” I said through clenched teeth. “You don’t have to actually sleep with her. There’s two mattresses up there. Drag them well apart. She’ll soon get the message.”
The Stone Dog Page 6