Coconut Wireless

by Nicola Baird

  Anyway, enough of this witter. What's your news? Don't let me believe in my new codicil: I'm friendless in my new country; jobless in my old and feeling completely out-of-touch in both.

  Love Suzy

  PS I've had a phone installed in my room. It hasn't rung yet.

  CHAPTER 4: ANNA’S STORY

  A TAXI HORN blasts making the old couple walking back from town’s Number Nine hospital squeeze themselves, fast, on to the dusty verge. The man, his belly fattened into a phantom pregnancy from an easy life - and beer - with his equally fat wife are returning sadly from the clinic. Their youngest daughter, Lovelyn, seems so sick from malaria that the doctor abandoned her morning's patients to drive the girl straight to hospital. They plan to keep a bedside vigil, but first must collect some food from their house and suitable clothes for Lovelyn.

  The pair look as ordinary as it's possible for two grannies to look. And yet behind Anna's eyes are deep, deep secrets. The gossips still remember snatches, but lucky for her there are more up-to-the-minute scandals to share.

  Anna's cheap cotton dress is stretched so tight that her breasts swing in the direction of the southerly trade winds and her hips roll south-easterly recalling the old days, when Anna was slim. It was then, when her body was literally her trade, that she'd perfected this walk. Down at the fishing boats at full moon she'd pace the wharf until one of the hungry sailors, or better still the American personnel, offered cash for a slug at her sex. Even those experienced payers of love were hypnotised by Anna's walk. Some left her alone, thinking she was hiding a disability, but for most the lure of taking a girl with Anna's handsome face left them with no problems about parting with either their money - or trousers.

  Once upon a time Anna was a bush girl, living the life that generation after generation of her ancestors had lived. And then came the day when white man turned on white man and brought their deadly games to the islands. A nearby lagoon village had been burnt to nothing by a stray shot from a nervy pilot's friendly fire. The surviving villagers, mostly relations, had run to her father, the chief's home, and demanded compensation, explanation ... what had they done to deserve this?

  The old, once-dignified chief was suddenly powerless. He recognised a new world where things would never be the same. There were stories of the Japanese killing innocents, the Americans trampling food gardens, the British protectorate colonials so scared they'd run away ... The sky was suddenly black with whining, tin mosquitoes that brought fire and death in the name of peace. Some nights, looking north east towards the Ngella islands, the darkened starry sky was hidden by a sinister red glow. The villagers feared Tulagi, at that time a very unassuming capital, was on fire. And it was. And then there were the stories of so many ships between Ngella and Guadalcanal that even a non-swimmer could walk blindfold safely on those metal "bridges" lying ready, stern against prow, across the treacherous strait.

  That war jettisoned everyone into a different century.

  A hero was recognised: Sgt Jacob Vouza, now remembered more as a stamp than a man, who knew silence was the best weapon, left for dead by Japanese soldiers' bayonets.

  A hero was made: America's ill-fated president John F Kennedy, then just a man hoping for luck - and enjoying it with the aid of Western scouts, Biuku Gasa and Aaron Kumana - who suggested scratching "Bring Help" on to a coconut shell. The scouts then paddled the message to the coastwatchers HQ, ensuring the rescue of Kennedy and his crew from their stricken PT torpedo boat.

  And the old heroes fell - Anna's father and hundreds of chiefly elders like him - came tumbling down, mere insignificancies amongst the new gods of dollar bills, tinned beef and motor cars.

  Anna was a very young girl when she ran away to the new capital being built on the big island, Guadalcanal. And there she went wild, enjoyed clubs, took the soldiers' and then the ex-servicemen's and then the fishermen's money ... and then suddenly it all bored her. What she wanted was a man to give her children - which is how she ended up with Adam.

  Time has treated Adam very badly. Once fit enough to compete for his country's national athletic squad; fit enough to bring home a meal and honed enough to coach, and train, and coach and train, he is now a greying fish left breathless on the shore. All that is left of the splendid days are a collection of rusting medals, an album of faded pictures and a fit man's brain in a fat man's body. Adam looks best sitting on the bench under the house chatting gently to his wife.

  It is more than 35 years since they married, and in that time they've had 11 children. Anna never went flirting again after Adam showed his interest. He wanted this wonderful Malaitan woman, with her quirky foreign habits and entrancing, rolling gait. And to get her he paid too. But not with the dollar bills that bought hair slides and perfume. No, his money was of the old sort - string after string of shells filed into red, brown and white beads. Adam's friends teased him for taking a dewry (prostitute) for a wife, but he was without shame. Anna was going to be his and her past was going to be forgotten.

  The pair are not poor. Both have a sharp wit and a talent for making money. Anna stayed barren that first year of marriage, just so no evil tongues could talk another's paternity on to her firstborn, but he's long dead now. Their youngest, truly a gift of God, is 15-year-old Lovelyn. The kids in-between are living all around the islands so it is their grandchildren, and the children of Adam and Anna's sisters and brothers that gravitate to their house in Mbokonavera.

  It's a good place for dreamers.

  The couple's first venture was to open a store at the squatter village where they first settled. Everyone thought that was a job for the Chinese and just laughed at their local efforts. But soon the AA Store was seeing more trade than they could have imagined. There they sold white man food - jars of coloured mixtures, bread and biscuits; packets of brown grains to change the taste of water and tins of fish that neither looked, nor tasted, like fish but were popular enough. The dollars they earned was invested carefully - first in a permanent house; then on blocks of land and little houses that could be rented. By the time their second-born had her first child, Anna and Adam were probably the richest couple of locals in that strange village Solomon Islanders call the capital. And then came the cyclone, a rare miscreant of wind and pressure over Guadalcanal, and in just one night everything was flattened - the houses, their store, everything.

  They had no choice but to begin again: but they were older this time, and it took it out of them. Anna had to juggle her conscience with her custom beliefs and her Christian thinking to find the cash to rebuild their lives. It wasn't easy. And that's when the lines on the pair's faces began to show and the starchy flesh crept round their bellies. But the shock of starting over jolted the pair out of a growing selfishness.

  The cyclone's sudden force made them realise money in the bank means nothing. It can't protect you from enemies and you can't eat it. Overnight it can grow or it can shrink but you still can't see it in the way you can see the good things of life. They fell back to the old way of thinking about possessions: whatever you have you share, because if times become hard your family and friends can then divide whatever they have with you. This new burst of generosity never stretched to letting customers have purchases from their store for free - behind the concrete box's counter dollars and cents talk - but it did mean that Anna and Adam now began to enjoy their endless relations' impromptu visits to town. After all they could feed these hungry village mouths - and they had enough money to settle the water bill, the power bill and transport to collect new gas cylinders: monthly accounts that many people in town found a constant struggle to meet.

  They also have enough money to afford marble headstones for their dead children, three so far. It's this thought that reduces Anna to tears on the winding road that leads up to the house and the AA Store. She fears her lovely daughter may die, and there's always a nagging doubt that it's the Big Man's revenge for her own chequered past.

  "Matron don't cry,” says Adam uneasily. “The Big Man will look
after Lovelyn. She is sure to be all right, that's why the doctor has taken her to Number Nine (the hospital). We know she's been ill for a bit now, and she's thin and weak. It's right that she's gone to the hospital because they know how to look after her. And yes, I'm sorry that we're not there now, but we'll pick up some things and then we can go straight down there. You'll see, Lovelyn will be all right, she always is."

  Anna sniffs clumsily, she's also feeling guilty for allowing that foreign doctor to take her youngest to hospital alone. She had no choice, the doctor insisted Lovelyn needed urgent treatment right now, not just a mother's patient care.

  As their house comes into sight now they are greeted by the welcome committee - a motley assortment of brown dogs that mostly lie around, bodies flat to the ground, except when they see Adam. He often finds it hard to leave the house without a canine escort - only a warning shout and - sometimes - a well-thrown stone will persuade the dogs to stay on sentry duty under the house.

  After the dogs comes a little four-year-old boy, known as Junior as his dad shares the same name. "Matron," he shouts excitedly, legs cannoning into his grandmother, "Matron there's a new boy come here. I've never seen him before. He looks nice, well his teeth are white, but no one has talked to him yet because he's asleep now.

  "I think he's from the village," adds Junior importantly - seducing both Anna and Adam into a less anxious mood. At that moment a sleepy head walks out on to the balcony and stretches. Then looks down and, catching sight of his elderly aunt, makes a cautious welcoming wave. It always happens - the strangers turn up at their house, fall asleep, and then in a strange twist of possession end up welcoming their hosts to home! Anna gives Adam a look, does he recognise this young man? Adam shakes his head - but Anna has worked it out now. The familiar lithe body, thin frame, tall, bold eyes: that's her brother. And as it can't be her brother, must be one of his sons - probably his youngest, so that's her nephew Henderson.

  Henderson, ashamed now that he's greeted his auntie wearing only a lava lava, retreats into the house to put on shorts and a shirt. He returns to the big room to find the old couple sitting on the sofa. Both look tired. Instinctively he runs water from the sink tap and politely gives them each a glass.

  "How do you do Matron? And you uncle, how are ..."

  "So you're Henderson are you?" says Anna happy to have solved another who-are you puzzle. "It is good to see you Henderson, one good omen on this sad day. Your cousin Lovelyn is sick. We are just going to the hospital to sit with her, so you will have to look after yourself in this town for a bit."

  "What's wrong?" asks Henderson, still shy from his calico (clothes) mistake.

  "Lovelyn has malaria and the doctor is making tests. It's her third positive test for malaria in the last month, it just doesn't seem to leave her" - this from Adam who has taken over the conversation while Anna fills a basket with fruit, clean lava lava and a comb.

  "Here, take my book, maybe she'd like to read that," says Henderson thinking it is the only thing he can offer pushing the much-loved Sidney Sheldon novel into his uncle's hands.

  “Oh, no. No books. Lovelyn's too ill to read. And besides she doesn't like any book except The Bible." Adam returns the book formally. No one reads in their house, except maybe the newspaper on a Thursday or The Bible on holy days.

  Matron is busy thinking about custom medicine. Lovelyn's malaria, maybe it cannot be cured by white man medicine either. If she was younger she'd take this village boy into the bush and look for the right tree to make strong medicine to cure Lovelyn. But, she's out of practice, the only custom medicine she dabbles in these days is for the silly creatures who think it will woo them the boy of their dreams or ambitious footballers who'll do anything to get their team into the finals. No one in town uses custom medicine much, now that they can go to the clinic, or the pharmacy, and just buy what's needed in a packet with a sell-by date. Yes, forget those ideas, bush medicine is for backward, bush people - definitely not their precious daughter. But she can't let go of the idea and checks with her husband.

  "No, Anna, we've tried this before," he says angrily. "We would take your special bush medicine in the old days, but this is a modern town, and in town we have all the overseas medicines we need. Besides, there are no trees nearby, or not the tree you need to make this cure. No, we must use what the doctor Mrs gives us."

  Anna pretends to ignore her husband and shakes Henderson's hand welcomingly. "It is sad you've arrived when we have these problems, but you are welcome here ..." She breaks off to pick up a white handle that is ringing noisily in the corner.

  Henderson is wide-eyed. He's staying in a house with what is obviously a telephone. He can't wait to try it out.

  On the line is Fred, the taxi driver, ringing to check if any tourists have booked a taxi for the airport. It's a new system, doesn't work too well yet, but is perfect timing for Anna and Adam right now.

  "Yes, come up to the house and take us to the hospital." The phone is put down unceremoniously and within a few minutes the roar of a Sunny Datsun announces that transport has arrived. Adam and Anna leave together, taking the toddler with them. Alone again, Henderson turns up the radio's volume and then moves to the corner of the room, tracing his fingers over the telephone with awe. What a machine! What a life he's going to have in town! Furtively he punches out numbers at random - quite the office boy.

  ***

  Dearest Dan

  Missive 101 - You know what, it really does get better here. For instance if you enjoy shopping (and yes, you'll remember how much I do!) you'd truly love it here. No chance of designer frocks, little black outfits fit to die for, clunky gold jewellery - but there is the opportunity to go to a different address for every single item. Crazy I know, but listen, I ain't got nothing to do anyway, so might as well shop-till-I-drop.

  So now you can think of me cruising those Honiara stores. They are identical - it's absurd, there's obviously some kind of charter that says all shops should have a plastic counter fencing off the goods with three or four sulky Solomon Islanders standing behind it. The procedure is walk into the store, and look at your feet (dressed in what is known as "slippers" here, but to you and me hideous flip flops), then look even harder at feet on the dirty concrete floor. This seems to help (everyone else!) locate desired goods, eg, blue plastic hair slide; pink plastic mirror; two kilo sack of plastic-tasting white rice; hideous red nylon knickers. Then point using only the eyes, and if that fails add chin into the point (thank god I'm no chinless wonder)! Sullen islander then asks for money. I then count out some coins (done with horror as even these modest purchases leave me way over budget for the month) and push said coins across the counter.

  Shop worker then goes to cash register and lets boss, as often as not Chinese, recount money. He (as often as not it's a he) then makes that nice ping noise on the cash register. The deal seems to be over. And I think the deal's over and go to walk out. And then there's a snake-like hiss (to attract me, the white Mrs' attention) and I come back to the counter, a bit shamefaced, to watch each of my purchases being wrapped up individually in torn strips of newspaper. It takes for ever, but the plus is a wide-range of reading matter. Have come to realise I prefer my goods wrapped in the Straits Times - plenty of horse racing results and bizarre adverts for off-the-wall aphrodisiacs. My cunning plans to acquire reading matter sometimes backfire if I end up with a newspaper in a Chinese alphabet! But then again even these scraps prove useful blocking up the cavernous holes in the mosquito net over my bed.

  Shopping is about the only time I speak to anyone. You'll remember that I had a phone put in my room - well after 24 days it finally rang. On the other end was some idiot, dialling the wrong number. He mumbled an apology, but I could hardly hear what he was saying because of the blaring pop music in the background - even more ironic (well, I thought so) the voice is singing: "Now that I found you babe I ain't going to look no further". And with that promise the phone was crashed back into its socket and I'm talking to an
irritating cut-off dialling tone. If there was a speaking clock facility here I'm sure I'd spend most of my time listening to it, hearing the two years counted down!

  The job’s really OK, and I've worked out there are some highlights to my week too. Don't let me bore you, but here they are: Monday - post usually arrives; Tuesday - squash; Wednesday - anti-malaria pill; Thursday - swim at Mendana Hotel pool; Friday - more overseas post may come; Saturday - for surprises (ever hopeful!); Sunday - another anti-malaria pill. Please, please, please don't let the World Health Organisation doctor bods find a cure for malaria too soon, or else I'm going to have to find something else to look forward to on two days of the week!

  Well that's it from me. It being Sunday I'm quite busy today, got to find my malaria pill and shove it down my throat! Stay well and happy.

  Masses of love, Suze

  CHAPTER 5: NOT ON HOLIDAY

  Suzy wakes to a room of dappled light. For a moment she thinks she’s lost in a swimming pool, or a Hockney splashed painting, as she struggles to focus on the dancing light rings created by the mix of Tropical morning light filtering brightly through the big green leaves of kapok and pawpaw trees. Her bare left arm is tangled in the mosquito net but as she struggles in and out of neverland she lifts it up enough to feel a welcome breeze wisp from the louvered window kiss her properly awake. It seems that the stretch of flowered material she’d ingeniously strung across the window, using drawing pins filched from King George VI College staff room and a twisted pair of tights, has fallen down allowing anyone passing on the public path at the back of the house a good view of her. Idly Suzy wonders if voyeurs find her possessions or her person more interesting. Probably the latter, Tupperware boxes aren’t that exciting wherever you are in the world.