by Nicola Baird
She can hear someone rhythmically sweeping, it must have been what woke her. Under the stilt-legged houses on the other side of the road two girls chat as they restart peeling kumara, and from the sea side of the town it’s still quiet enough to hear a faint rumble of a truck reversing down by Ranandi wharf.
Suzy has been in the Solomons for less than a month but she is delighted by the holiday-perfect mornings and achingly quick red sunsets. If she dared leave her bed, unlock the door and pad through the living space, decorated solely with one large sofa, then she could look at a the sea and out to the far away islands of Tulagi, the old capital. At this time of the day it’s a stretch of horizontal blues and silvers magical against a perfect sea, but the calmness seems to disappear as the mercury rises. Every day its 32C, which is happily hot; but the humidity is awful. Suzy can’t believe she will ever adjust to walking on the shady side of the street, very slowly or feel a need to take less than 15 showers a day. After a night like the one she’s just had – woken persistently by the stupid dogs that roam the town barking at the moon, their shadows and whatever it is Solomon dogs fuss about – she’d normally have a lie-in, especially as today’s a special school holiday. But she’s endured enough of these hot, sticky days to know that getting up now to do the jobs on her list is the better option.
Problem is, Suzy’s a bit nervous of her flat mates. They are also volunteers, sent by agencies like VSO, but from Canada, Australia and America. They’ve all lived here nearly two years and know everything she’s hoping to learn, but seem worn out by sharing it all. On paper this volunteer house ought to be a hoot, but the rule seems to be that English cannot be spoken. As a result she’s got no idea what’s going on, there’s a blur of Pijin words which seem half recognisable but make no obvious sense to her. One of the volunteers manages an acting troop and a few nights ago all the actors turned up – 11 muscled up boys, some with moustaches and dreadlocks – and they’ve taken over the room next door. Given how many people are now based in the house the Solomon guys are incredibly considerate. About 10pm they all seemed to lie down where they talked – tables, chairs, floor - wrap themselves in a cloth and fall instantly asleep. Now she also feels very guilty about having a room of her own, and unclear about whether to lock the door or not. Wherever she goes, especially on the walk to the college, doors are left open. This is clearly a town where keys don’t get used and of course there’s not much point with the leaf houses… But she’s also been advised to lock her room, and with 11 men she can’t yet understand sleeping outside her door this feels like the right thing to do.
Dressed to mop up sweat - in a bright skirt and pale Lacoste polo shirt - Suzy cautiously opens her bedroom door, expecting to queue for the bathroom. The guys are starting to turn over, as if resistant to waking up. A couple are on the verandah smoking but it’s still Church-quiet inside. By the gas stove Fabien (from Canada) in improbably short shorts stirs ferociously at a large pot.
“It’s soup. I’m making it for breakfast,” he says surprising her with words she knows. Then again she’s never heard of soup eating at this time of the day. “It’s a holiday for you isn’t it? Well, when you’re ready do you want me to show you around town – I’ve got to go up to the Post Office anyway. If we go soon we can get some fresh bread.”
Turns out Fabien is kind of nice, he just thinks women are a pain and classroom teaching inappropriate for a society where most people live in a way their great great grandparents would recognise, but who are also trying to adapt to the changes that world economics bring. Suzy lets his sniping flow past. He’s been here too long, as is all too clear when they enter the bread shop and he choose his purchases – a white loaf and a sweet roll - using his chin.
“How do you do that chin choice thing?” she quizzes as they finish up the fresh bread sitting on a surprisingly lush clover patch, which is also scattered with fish bones and greasy paper bags. The truth is that she’s not really listening to Fabien’s answer about custom, culture and direct gaze, or even that interested in his thoughts on modern development. She’s been employed to coach the fifth formers, and work up various teaching strategies, so the real teacher can finish their own training over at the University of the South Pacific campus in Fiji. It’d be good if she had counterparts to work with, train up and handover to like most of the other UK-volunteers, just so she’d feel less isolated but stuff it, she hasn’t.
Before they part – Fabien has to work on something, typical bloke excuse around her – he takes Suzy to see round the national museum, although it looks more like a plane hanger. “When you get too hot, this is the place to come,” he says, his blonde face already starting to pink up. Suzy’s starting to overheat too. In the stifling air near this part of town, where no sea breeze can reach, it is hard to breathe. She sniffs at her wrist realising that she’s starting to smell as if her body is cooking, possibly rotting, in the humidity.
“Its air conditioned to keep the exhibits tiptop,” he explains, “but I don’t like it much. Come on, let’s see what you think.”
Inside they are welcomed by a crackly tape of men in thongs and older, topless women stamping along the beach in a way that makes all of their traditional grass skirts sway violently. The background sound is a mix of grunts and shouts, not the panpipes or cultural genius she’d been somehow led to expect and is a strange contrast to the sweet acapelo singing she’s heard as she walks around town. Fabien says this was filmed in the 1930s. Apparently World War 2 changed everything. Even so most of the museum’s 10 items – skull, pipe, scary carving - are dusty, or maybe she’s just in the wrong mood, so when Fabien points out the exit sign as his favourite exhibit she laughs longer than is kind, happy to escape into the bright light of Honiara town.
“That was a great tour, Fabien, thanks. Didn’t know you can look around a capital so fast! It’s odd someone hasn’t put in blurbs about famous Solomon Islanders in that museum, I guess there must be some famous people in the local history books. Artefacts just don’t do it for me.” She hasn’t talked to anyone other than students for so long (or that’s what it seems) the words fly out. “And before you head back to the soup, can you just tell me where to go and buy things for the house, and I’ve got a few items I need…”
Fabien looks down at his left wrist checking a large, chrome waterproof watch to the amusement of a group of girls walking past with their home-plaited leaf baskets. “Give me $10 and I’ll pass it to the boys to use at the market. We’ve left it too late to get the best deals today, but they’ll have wantoks they can get a good-sized fish from. You should look round the market, it’s amazing with all these piles of cucumber, coconuts and greens that the women from the other side of Guadalcanal grow in their gardens and then bring up here to sell. But if you want treats like watercress, bush limes, star fruit, snake beans or guava,” he continues, not noticing Suzy is wondering if he’s gone back to speaking Pijin as she doesn’t recognise half the foods he’s listed, “then you need to get up earlier or make some good friends. My tip though: bananas are something else here, especially the little ones. Buy as many as you can carry.”
What Suzy wants is camera film, so decides to try the pharmacy and then the stores along China Town the other side of the Mataniko River. The pharmacy’s a pleasure – it’s air conditioned too – and there’s lots of the sort of products she recognises from the Boots counter, except most seem to be out of date, including the one film that fits her camera. The customers in the store, an ebony dark older man dressed in shorts and button down shirt and a thin, rather scruffy Australian bloke, tell her it won’t matter much, unless it does. Exasperated she asks if the store will order some. Apparently that’s possible, but not until the next but one Brisbane flight in 10 days time.
She hadn’t realised there was only one international flight in and out each week. What a shambles of a country. By the time she’s hiked hotly over to the famous China Town stores Suzy is in a bad mood. The street is built like a spaghetti Western wi
th wooden fronted stores, each with a veranda entry up five wide steps, lining either side of a very dusty street. Admittedly there are no cowboys or horses, but there’s no tarmac either, and everywhere she looks people are chatting or staring as if nothing ever happens until Clint Eastwood (or even son of Clint) turns up.
Knowing that most of the stores stock everything, she picks the second building on the left, walks in and is happily surprised by how cool the interior is, although it is rather dark. Obviously the owner doesn’t believe in strip lighting. A few customers, maybe staff, all male line the walls. All eyes are on her which is a pity because at that moment the room starts to spin faster than the ceiling fan. Then it lurches this way, that way, until she can’t stop her scream dashing out straight into the face of a young bloke.
“You alright Mrs?” he asks slowly. The room’s settled down now.
Suzy nods. “What the hell was that?”
“Hem went up and down,” answers the stranger, eyes down.
She just keeps saying, “What?” sounding rather like the time her Walkman stuck on the scary bit at the start of Thriller.
The stranger tries again, unsure if the white Mrs is scared or missing a part of her brain. “Mrs, it’s an earthquake. It’s gone finished now. You no worry. Come, here’s your basket,” he picks up the blue plastic bag of shopping and small rucksack she’d panickingly dropped.
“Thank you. Will it come back again? Was that big? Is it normal?” Suzy has so many questions she’d like to ask. Even so she notices her rescuer is very good looking. He’s about her height, has cherry bay skin, a wide smile with white teeth and like so many of the men in this town impressive biceps. He’s wearing a sporty red vest and shorts. That seems to be it. No shoes.
“The ground shakes is normal,” he says, the English words feeling rusty. Henderson hasn’t spoken this language really since he was pushed out of school, although you can’t avoid hearing it – the radio announcers, the pastor, and here in town there’s so much more – the whitemen, the big men, the bank staff and now this Mrs. He’s met plenty of expats, back at school there were always a couple of whitemen staff but to date no woman has clung to him quite like this. It’s definitely a good feeling. And is that lipstick?
He holds out his right hand to shake, Solomon-style. “I’m Henderson.”
She’s clearly puzzled by this. “OK Henderson, let’s shake hands. I’m Suzy.”
Emboldened he tests his English: “Where are you from? Are you married? Do you have a video?”
Suzy steps back, trying to withdraw her hand from his, acutely aware how everyone is staring. It’s like being Princess Anne in a zoo. She tries to answer carefully. “Well, I’m from England,” she pauses, thinks about what the other questions might mean, then bolts out of the store door embarrassed to even try answering them, but calls over her shoulder at the red T-shirted guy, “OK, I’ve got to go now. Good to meet you. Thank you for helping me.”
It’s ridiculous to care, but she knows everyone is laughing at her.
CHAPTER 6: MOB DREAMS
LIFE WITH THE Mbokonavera mobs suits Henderson well. Though he found it far better when cousin Lovelyn was eventually allowed home from the hospital, malaria finally conquered. She still looked thin and found moving around too tiring to go back to school just yet, so Henderson was put in charge of her "entertainment" programme. To Henderson's delight this involved watching piles of videos.
Anna and Adam, unexpected sports fans, had paid for a large TV screen, with video set, a few years back. And it was this which became his best-loved item in the Mbokonavera house. Lovelyn, listless on the sofa sometimes too hot and sometimes too cold, expressed little interest in what she watched, so Henderson decided to study every sporting video he could find. His favourites were Fiji in winning mode at the Hong Kong Sevens, closely followed by the All Blacks on tour. But despite his enthusiasm he noticed Lovelyn watched the rugby heroes with increasingly low interest, often letting her eyes shut. This only changed about a fortnight after the riot when Patte turned up at the house wondering why Henderson hasn’t joined his mobs at soccer school. “No boots,” admits the village boy, not realising yet that boots can be shared.
"It's my favourite Henderson," says Patte laughingly handing over a tape wrapped in brown paper, "and as I hear you're not keen to walkabout over bridges at the moment, thought you might like this."
Before Henderson could deny his friend's suggestion that he was a nervy village boy - or even unwrap the parcel - Patte was gone. Curious he put the cassette into the video's hungry mouth and was immediately captivated by a friendly Rastafarian face and a wicked beat: introducing Mister Bob Marley.
"Where did you find this one? It's really nice."
Lovelyn, who had barely spoken for the past two days, quizzed him intently. "I never knew a village boy like you could find music videos," she added impishly - and with that decidedly weird conclusion, or so Henderson thought, 15-year-old Lovelyn began to regain her enthusiasm for living.
The cousins had never met before and Lovelyn was as curious about life in the village as he was about her tall town tales.
They talked and talked, and Henderson found that even though he was now living in the town he never seemed to have the time to walk even the short distance to the centre or hang around with other boys.
Used to being outside most of the day he soon felt feast-full of videos. So he’d pester Lovelyn to spend afternoons by the AA Store sitting under the cool of the Banyan tree. It was quiet at the store then, almost too hot for people to come by. Not so the Hilux owners who accelerated past in a fierce storm that swirled grit over the store’s counter. Whichever wantok was on duty would then get out a coconut palm spine brush and sweep at the dust, coughing pointedly as they busied themselves.
“Why do you put up with this?” he asked Lovelyn every time a truck passed. She shrugged, it would rain soon and dampen it down.
Once when the Dr Mrs raced past in her style truck, rushing to take cash to her house girl, the dust made everyone choke so much that Lovelyn felt ready to tease her relation.
“Why do you put up with this?”
Henderson didn’t want to anymore. “Back home we make the store a place that the village wants to come, that way they spend their seleni. I think we could make the AA Store a place people wanted to come if we put up some benches under this big tree.”
“Oh you are having an idea now,” mocked Lovelyn, “I thought you didn’t school good.”
Henderson grins at her, happy to be the attention. “I did school until I was 15, not sure why it all went wrong, but if you paid more attention in your maths class you’d know that I’ve also spent four years helping at our family store. I’ll have you know that I’m a business man not an unemployed lieu.”
“OK genius – share your ideas…”
He’s not ready to do that just yet, this is something to talk with Matron about. Maybe it’s because he’s unused to town life he can imagine it better already. He wants a bus going up the Mbokonovera road so there’s no need to sweat into town. Or what about getting the women who grow vegetables to use the store as a mini market so all the people living in this suburb can buy fresh cabbage without having to go to market? And if they sold their produce here, they’d also buy the matches, Kotex and kerosene on sale. The first thing he’d kill would be the dust though – easily done by planting up a hibiscus hedge or banana tree barrier between traffic and the cans of tuna fish and packet noodles on the AA’s dirty counter.
Henderson’s devotion to Lovelyn impressed Anna and Adam who sent nothing but good reports back home to wantoks visiting his village or leaving for annual leave, or working tours in Malaita.
Clearly these stories of good-boy-Henderson were not believed by his father, who’d had the time of his life the year he went to town. Once when the MV Mali came into the wharf a terse note was passed from an uncle, to a friend, via a taxi driver's Mrs at church and then to Anna, who gave it to Henderson. It
was from his father requesting him to behave, not to chase any more girls in town and, in a casual postscript, just to inform him that a large curly-tusked pig has been exchanged and Saskia was now his "wife". Henderson dropped the note in shock, which was quickly picked up, and poured over by Lovelyn.
Henderson did not wish to remember this Saskia girl. She came from a neighbouring village, and the note said she was good, went to church and could sew well. But Henderson thought nothing of her. Yes, he’d liked her once but it was just a young boy’s fun. Angrily he decided he was too busy to worry about this absurd note - busy helping Lovelyn become strong; busy understanding town life; too busy in the head.
"So my cousin-brother is to be married to a village girl! It's time for a feast isn't it?" teased Lovelyn.
"Look I'll do what I want. I don't want to be married to the village. I'm a free, single boy and that's how I want to stay. It's a hard life in the village for a married woman - what does she end up doing, just cooking and gardening and sewing and having babies. And me? What would I end up doing - watching her, that's what. No I want to be a man, use the education I've got to develop myself and then to go back to the village and help people develop the resources there. How's marriage going to help me?"
It was dusk and to Henderson’s surprise the room seemed to have filled up with the wantoks staying at the Mbokonavera house. Not all of them were young, and not all were single, but all had passionate feelings about marriage. The wantoks erupted into debate, a very formal debate that reminded Anna, as she sat chewing betel nut on the old chair under the house, of broadcast parliament sessions - each honourable member having their say and neither agreeing, nor disagreeing with anyone else, possibly not even hearing anyone else.
"Marriage does help," said a whiskery thin man whose frame denied his eight children. He worked on the fishing boats and it was well known that his wife was the boss. Or well known that the pair had been childhood friends, child-aged parents, and now saw each other (and hated each other) only at Christmas. Or that he had two wives, both living in different provinces. Or something ... "Marriage is a holy state, isn't it? It's what a man and a woman should do to have children." Everyone, except Henderson, began laughing. This was the same man who caused a scandal last year by giving his married sister-in-law a baby.