Coconut Wireless

by Nicola Baird

  "Your wantoks are causing heaps of trouble at the moment near China Town, you should probably go up and find them. I'll take a look with you if you like," suggests Patte who likes to be where the action is. Even in a small town this keeps him permanently busy.

  Henderson isn’t sure about Patte’s plan. He’s tired and could do with a swim (wash). The best place to be right now would be his auntie's house, if he could just work out where it was. Timidly he tries to hold on to his schedule: "Patte, that's a good idea, but I'm quite busy right now. I should be trying to find my wantoks. Perhaps we could meet up another time?" Patte is looking blankly at his feet. "Or you could even show me the road to Mbokonavera?" says Henderson worrying that he may have lost his first friend in less time than it takes to idle his way through a home-rolled fag.

  "No, no," says Patte - again waving at a passing wantok - "you don't understand! Something's happened in town now. There's a meeting that all young people should be at. It's our future, it's your future that I'm thinking about, well you guys from Malaita. I don't know where your relations live, but I'm sure you'll find someone who does know up near the market." And with that Patte throws down the butt of his own cigarette and walks purposefully off towards the dirt track that is grandly known as the pavement. Henderson feels obliged to follow.

  The market isn't far away but it takes a while to reach it as so many people on foot also seem to be heading that way. The traffic has come to a stop and people are swarming over the road, standing up in the back of trucks, all eyes and ears directed the same way. Henderson never knew so many strangers could live in the same place. There are people from every province, and quite a few whites too, though mostly sheltered from the hot sun by air-conditioned vehicles.

  Everyone is chatting good-naturedly, but then, just as Henderson and Patte reach the edge of the market place there is a terrific bang and the crowd starts shouting. There are fists in the air. The people's mood has switched from curious bystander to determined participation. A column of youngsters head down the road at a slow jog. Patte follows eagerly and Henderson, who by now feels completely overwhelmed, finds there is no choice but to follow - the people behind are pushing him along.

  It's getting hotter and hotter as the crowd starts to chant: "The bridge, the bridge, the bridge, throw them from the bridge." Hampered by his makeshift bag Henderson again finds there is no choice but to join in. Patte is about five metres in front of him, teamed up with another dreadlocked boy. Everyone around him seems so busy shouting that Henderson cannot even ask what is going on. He would love to know what's going on.

  With the same suddenness that the crowd went on the move, it stops. Henderson has a chance to look around – there are hills and houses away in the distance, craning heads in front and behind, and when he looks down he suddenly realises he is standing on the metal planks of a bailey bridge, probably "the" bridge. A middle-aged man, dressed in a dark tailored suit, with white shirt and tie climbs up a step-ladder and begins to address the crowd with a crackling tannoy system. It is hard to make sense of anything, but Henderson is anxious not to miss this excitement so he strains to hear.

  "We young people," there are hisses and boos from the crowd which must have a collective age of 19 - about 20 years younger than the speaker - "yes, we young people," continues the suited man with more force, "we know there are good and evil forces in the world. We are looking for a Christian way of development, and that way means ridding our new country of all evil. Today, in the market place, we've had an example of what happens when province spoils province. When nations fight, look what happens ... "

  Here the speaker makes a cautious pause for effect, a technique clearly learnt at some public speaking workshop held overseas. He has however mistimed his peace plea, the crowd is impatient, the crowd wants words, the crowd wants to do something. A stone is thrown. It hits the speaker who clutches a handkerchief to his brow. A red stain soon starts flowing down the side of his face for some reason angering the crowd more.

  "He's a liar!" shouts a thin voice. "Throw HIM off the bridge," yells another, louder, and then another, and another. Soon there is a crescendo chant: "Throw him, throw him, throw him."

  "They won't will they?" says Henderson more to himself than anyone else, but to his surprise is answered in his home language by a university student standing beside him, whom he recognises as coming from a village near his own home.

  "That man's supposed to be an MP, but he's more like a shark. He takes anything he can for himself - government cars, other men's wives, aid money, anything. He's spoilt so many people's lives by the rent he charges for terrible houses on the Labour Line. Then there are rumours about him making our Solomon girls do porn videos. He's disgusting ...... Aye, you're from back home aren't you? Have you just arrived in town, what timing!" and with that the student resumes his bitter call for the MP to be thrown off the bridge, surprised that Henderson does not do the same after his explanation.

  "What if he dies?" asks Henderson in a rash moment of bravery.

  "What is the matter with you all?" he challenges the crowd around him in a far louder voice. "That big man has just pleaded for peace, pleaded for an end to violence and suddenly you young people all want to kill him."

  Without a word of warning five rascal-types standing behind Henderson start to hit the new boy in town. At first Henderson laughs, he can't believe they are doing this to him. As he protests a fist hits his jaw. His head spins. Another puts a heavily knuckled fist into his belly. Henderson lets out a feeble shriek and passes out as a police sirens start up.

  All attention is now turned on the scuffle in the crowd. The police, tall lean men, in long blue socks, recruited to the force for their football skills, take a side view whilst the excited youngsters sort themselves out. The siren noise is deafening, but it is the cries of confused people, pushed out of the way by the ones behind them, around them and in front of them, that drags Henderson back to consciousness. With his head pounding, he opens a cautious eye to see Patte staring at him.

  "You all right man?" worries his friend, "I thought you were a gonner then. Here sit up a bit, you'll soon feel good again." As Patte clears some space for Henderson to recover, he nods to one of his brothers a few metres back. It is lost on Henderson, but the next moment the boys who hit Henderson are pushed towards the bridge's balustrade and told to jump. "Let's see if that cools them off," jokes Patte - and with the same suddenness that the riot started it dissolves into a swimming party.

  The MP, on his platform, is ignored; the police radio back to the station that the trouble seems to be over, and the young men in the crowd head back to their offices, or most likely a shady spot beside an office, to talk over and over the bizarre events happening in town during the past 24 hours.

  "Well, friend, do you think you could drink something? I'll sponsor you," suggests Patte encouraging Henderson on to shaky feet. "There's a cafe just near here in China Town, come on, hurry up," he takes his hand. "This way." To his surprise Henderson can now see that he was knocked down on the "symbolic" bridge. Some boys, maybe even the ones who hit him, are still swimming in the waters below. The banks of the Mataniko don't look too clean but following them down, until the river nearly reaches the sea, where Henderson notices another bridge over which traffic is now speeding. "Not a bad day for a riot, eh?" jokes Patte, unwilling to admit that it's the first he's ever seen, despite being a townie - and worse, that it took him by surprise. "You sure you're feeling all right now?"

  "Oh yes, people from Mala are tough you know!" comments Henderson with bravado he does not feel. His head is sore and he hasn't made any effort yet to try and piece together the tumultuous events since he put his feet on Honiara's main wharf.

  The two young men cross the bridge and turn off down a pot-holed one-way street. Halfway down Patte points out a cafe, which they enter through a ribboned doorway of multi-coloured plastic streamers. "Wow, it's beautiful," exclaims Henderson looking round with pleasure at the gingha
m checked cloths and small flower vases on each table. Painted across the far wall there's a huge mural of animals and plants set against a rainforest scene of trees and luminous bulldozers - clearly the artist's speciality. "Yeah, it's nice here," says Patte, non-committally, busy ordering fish, sweet potato chips and green drinking coconut for two. Taking their food they go and join two other boys, at a table in the corner, who are busy discussing the riot. Henderson gathers that it started sometime yesterday after one gang living in town picked a fight with rivals. The boys are arguing about why it went on for so long - and seem to be blaming politicians and radio journalists for their interference.

  Surprisingly Patte ignores the talk, instead wolfing down his meal. He is clearly hungry and has nearly finished before Henderson opens the rather greasy brown paper bag of food Patte bought for him. Inside is a portion of cold-battered tuna steak and four thick slices of fried kumara. It's not like village food - it's not even like the fish or kumara his mother cooks in the motu earth oven on feastdays - but he’s hungry enough and bold enough to love it.

  "You play football?" asks Patte eventually, after swallowing the last thick chip dipped in spicy Magi sauce. Henderson looks up, pleased. "Well, you'll have to join with the boys. We play most evenings on the ground up near the police station. Come along, it'll be a good way to get to know my mobs and make some friends. Town people are different you know, they're not as kind as people back home."

  Henderson smiles uncertainly - he still has a thumping headache to prove Patte's point. He begins to think it might be better to turn his attention back towards finding his wantok's house - when Patte, almost a mind reader, suggests they head up towards Mbokonavera.

  "A bush boy like you will find it easily," Patte says with a wry smile, "you just go back over the battleground, take a left along a bush road and then when that finishes, go up a big road which starts by a guava tree. There are plenty of houses in Mbokonavera, but plenty of women are paid by the council to stand around telling you where to go." Not realising he's being teased, Henderson starts to quiz his friend about signposts - he'd always thought in town they used labels - not ladies - to tell you where you were.

  The guys head out of the cafe into the heat again. Temporarily blinded by the sun they are nearly hit by a long-bodied taxi that is covered with adverts. There's a squeal of breaks, dust flies, and the taxi reverses back. Inside is Henderson's wantok, a taxi driver who married his eldest sister and lives where he's heading for.

  "Hey, how'z life with you then Hen?" asks his brother-in-law, Fred, leaning out of the window and removing his stylish dark glasses theatrically. "You just come to town from the airport? Yeah I guess you must have done – with a name like your’s.” It’s the family joke – how Henderson was named after his Father took a trip from the international airport for a teacher training symposium in Brisbane.

  “Anyway I seez you met up with that no good Patterson too? You good Patte? Well, how'z all the folks back home then? All well I hope. You just on a walkabout? Come to get yourself an office job I guess?" In all the time Henderson has known this man, he's never had a chance to answer any of his questions. Clearly things aren’t going to change today.

  The talkative man stretches his hand back through the window, opens the taxi's rear door and offers a free ride. Gratefully Henderson sinks into a seat covered with a leopard-skin print. He feels like a king. Patte gets in beside him and asks to be dropped by the bus stop. Before the Sunny Datsun's door is properly shut (which Henderson never notices isn't possible) they're off with another squeal - this time mostly from the gear department, but backed up by dust and horse-power which leaves behind a trail of rubber and dust.

  Minutes later the boys are winding up the hilly road to Henderson's new place. When he sees it he is amazed - a prefab house on legs, with his aunt and uncle's AA Store just set to the side. Plenty of people are hanging around in the shade underneath, listening to radio reports of the riot whilst the Prime Minister, in a piece of sure-bet politics, is belatedly broadcasting for calm.

  Stepping out of the taxi, Henderson takes a good look. A precarious-looking staircase runs alongside the house, up from a packed washing line to a cool-slatted veranda crowded by homemade sofas. From there the view is of a clover lawn hedged with a hibiscus flowering bush, endless potted plants and bougainvillaea bushes. There’s night-scented jasmine creeping up each of the house's spindly legs and posts with orchids sprouting from coconut shells dotted all round the plot. A steep hill of red ground backs on to the house which seems to be planted with all kinds of root vegetables and a tall curtain of maize. Yes, this is truly a palace, and he's going to be living in it. Henderson grins contentedly, despite his sore head.

  "Good place, eh mate?" states the taxi driver, again not waiting for an answer from his young brother-in-law. "Now wait here for Matron your aunt. I think she's gone to the clinic as her youngest, Lovelyn, is sick with malaria. You eat, swim, rest, just be happy." He reverses the taxi in his customarily speedy manner, waving.

  "See yous," he adds imitating the Australian accent - a year picking apples in Queensland, and countless years picking passengers from the airport, has changed his voice. And, thinks Henderson, wickedly, helped him put on enough weight to play rugby forward.

  He may be away from the hurly-burly of megaphones and rioting youth but the house is packed. Henderson greets his city cousins in a mass shaking of hands. Then, leaving his sister with the sack filled with her favourite, thorn-skinned pana, he climbs the house's staircase to find a cool place to rest as he waits for auntie to come back home.

  ***

  Dear Dan

  Greetings from the islands where "Don't Worry, Be Happy" rules - after all my whinging in the last letter I thought I'd give you proof positive that it's not all bad (I mean I write this with inspiration from a scented frangipani tucked behind my ear and a chilled can of beer (I found a shop that sells beer, bliss!) in the non-scribbling hand). After 10 days or so (time does funny things here) life is improving (it's on record now ...) though I'm still not convinced living in a big-fish-small-pond capital is the right place for me. Or maybe it's my strange-looking house - anyway no evidence of sunrises or sunsets, which is why people visit the tropics isn't it? I know, I know you'll be down the travel agent cancelling your ticket before you've read the rest of this letter. Still the town's name, Honiara, is pretty enough - and economic too, four syllables translate to something like "spot buffeted by easterlies and then south-easterlies and then some and then Westerners". OK, that's not strictly true, but you'll work it out.

  Besides the lack of TV (not just in this house, in the whole country!) dawn 'n dusk the house is pretty nice. It's big, full of floorboards and filtered sunbeams. The whole caboodle is raised on stilts which gives it a tree house feel. In fact this morning I was woken by a gang of parrots arguing over breakfast. Nothing else noteworthy happened for the rest of that day - not much seems to go on at all though things obviously must do, I mean there's several national newspapers; plenty of expectant mums walking around and a boat schedule for the Christmas holidays is already being advertised on the radio.

  Remind me, it is September isn't it - that means Xmas is more than 100 shopping days away ... then again there might be less here as I've already found out that nothing, absolutely nothing, happens on Sundays, except “Praise The Lord” scenes. And the SDAs (Seventh Day Adventists – sometimes called the Jews of the South Pacific because they do God Friday ‘til Saturday) start 24 hours earlier. That means you can have a weekend loop of doing God.

  Mind you I haven't really gone outside that much, besides the odd class (but more of that in another letter). So here's an extract from my view from the window ... There's a path just to the back of here which puts maidens' feet, nuns' feet and whoever uses feet on to my eye-level. This was more than unnerving until I realised that the dripping red stains littering the path were in fact betel nut spit, not the daily trail of a mad axe murderer!

  And rat
her more poetically most evenings a little train of boys (all aged about six) run past with their leader pounding out some homemade march on a rusty harmonica. All in all I guess it makes a nice backdrop for the friendly voices of the World Service.

  In the house's other rooms there seems to be heaps of gossip (this is paranoia I know, but maybe it's just because everyone talks in low whispers) plus some pretty odd domestic arrangements. Like: everyone in this house (bar me, a Brit-used-to-beds to the end!) sleeps on mats (!), made out of leaves (!) on the floor(!). There's NO glass in any of the windows. The bathroom may not boast a bath but it does make up for this small blip with an extraordinary range of wildlife, all of which clearly believe they have first rights to floor space. This might well mean arguments with red ants (biters); rats (need I say more) and cockroaches (yuck) but I'm not going to be the first.

  Give me a letter of the alphabet and I can name you a beastie in my bathroom. This would put me off washing, or s-w-i-m as they confusingly call it here, but it's so darn humid that on the hour I feel obliged to strip and splash under a rubbish shower (as feared there’s no hot supply in this house unless you boil the kettle!). The truth is that if you don't shower often, you start to glow and before long your whole body smells malty. Believe me, it's NOT nice - remember to fumigate yourself after reading this letter. Still I've been warned that everyone develops fungal infections and malaria (despite the disgusting tasting tabs), so maybe easy-wash-off malt is the best of some bad givens.

  At the moment everyone in this house is an expat. It's a proper league of nations in fact - bar that the official "residence" language appears to be Pijin. I'm not too sure on this point seeing as I haven't yet understood a thing anyone says and as far as I can see we are from the UK, Australia and Canada. All day I see people's lips move and laughter then seems to follow, but I can't get the gist of the sentences at all. I'd feel like I was deaf if I hadn't resorted to a cunning plan - taking out my contact lenses so that now I can neither see nor understand the people I share this house with! I rather suspect everyone wishes I hadn't come. Which makes six of us, those five - and me!