Coconut Wireless

by Nicola Baird

  "I think Henderson is right. I’d rather look around, see what life's about and finish my studies than get married to the men here," said Lovelyn with force. "When I see you wantoks coming to town and living life up, and then going back to your wives with the whisky and Fosters beer barely washed off; turning into Sparka Masters (drunks) and sleeping in the gutter, I just feel sorry for your families. All this bullshit about seeing life means nothing - you men just come to town to be free and play around. In the town you forget your families, your pride and your self-respect. I never, never want to be a wife of people like you."

  "Lovelyn! How can you talk that way to your relations, it's disrespectful for a woman to talk that way," says the whiskery thin man authoritatively.

  But Lovelyn has lived all her life in town and is frightened of nothing - and especially men - and she's open too. Marriage is as much a horror for her as the prospect of marrying Saskia-from-the-village-back-home is to Henderson. Lovelyn may be child-woman, but she's seen it all. Mostly she's seen enough housegirls being sent home with fat bellies and betrayed looks. Despite her fierce feelings she's also been seduced by endless video movies to believe in love with a capital L.

  Underneath the house her mother sighs, splits open another betel nut, she knows love will be her fiery daughter's undoing. But let her make her own mistakes, they'll be less painful that way. Adam, sensing his wife's thoughts, takes her hand and squeezes it shyly: the couple who followed none of the rules clearly still admire each other. It’s also clear that Lovelyn is well enough to go back to her school…

  "Yes, I like Lovelyn's ideas," says a lanky cousin brother, whose ambition is to drive the bus he currently crews for, and whom everybody knows has a shine for a black American woman. "It's so much more, well modern, Western, American!" The mood returns to amusement - most of the wantoks giggle until the lanky boy has enough sense to look bashful. But he is irrepressible, lets a Peace Corps Mrs travel on his bus for free, can't see she's embarrassed by a poor ticket boy's attention. "OK, OK," he slurs into a fake American accent to amuse, "I guess I wanna say these things because I gotta in'trest in one special lady, but I'd think it anyway. The real young ones in this room, you know us - Lovelyn, Henderson, Jack, Rosie and whoever else pretends to be unmarried, we've really got to think hard. I mean is it right to live in town with your own family? How can you afford to do that unless you are rich? The thing is you've got to go home, back to the village, else you'll never be boss in your own house. Not that you girls can be anyway," he adds to try and wind-up Lovelyn.

  "Yeah, life in town isn't so easy is it?" muses Henderson, who cannot admit that he hasn't left the Mbokonavera house - not even to play football - since he was bashed on the bridge, during the riot. "I mean I thought I'd be free here, could do anything I wanted, be away from the eyes of the village, but Honiara is an even bigger village than back home. If I sneeze everyone knows, and worse they talk about it shamelessly. The things I've heard now about what big men do just amazes me."

  "Oh, Henderson," says Rosie, always wise and never believed, "you'll be like them all soon. You just had bad luck when you arrived. Riots don't normally happen. You should just stop your thinking and go out and look at this town world of ours. It may be small, but there's things happening here that'll satisfy your eyes: not everything is bad, though plenty is. And then maybe if you still feel like the good person that you obviously are, you'll do something to stop it all - and then us unmarried girls may feel a good deal happier about getting married to the idiots who propose, and then trick us into good natured goodbyes and a one-way trip back to the village - we'd been so crazy to leave - for the sake of their pikinini (child)!"

  The bus boy has barely heard the last couple of exchanges and reverts to money talk. "If I was rich, it'd be different. Imagine, if you had some money you could have development in your village Henderson; and you Rosie needn't work as a housegirl here, you could be your own boss, and Lovelyn you could study overseas, be the university girl. And me, I'd have my own bus ..." His dreams are interrupted by another of the wantoks, Sarah who has been cooking quietly in the imitation bush kitchen behind the house, entering the room and placing heaped plates of steaming rice, noodles, tinned fish and kumara on to the table. The wantoks quieten down, and after a prayer, the room is enlivened only by the radio's current events "World Blong Iumi" (our world) presenter and the scrape of spoon on plate.

  A vehicle struggles up the hill outside the house and is greeted by barking dogs. A few seconds later the taxi driver enters the room.

  "Good evening oloketa (everyone)! Sarah?" He shouts for his wife, but before he can ask her: "What's for dinner?" she is at his side with a vast helping. She's never normally this nice to him so the wantoks guess it must be pay day. And they're right, the moment the talkative man has cleared his mouth of dinner, the moment his belly feels satisfied he begins his pay day lecture about money, the enormous sums of money he made this fortnight for the owner of the taxi. Out of the back pocket of his jeans he brings out a tightly-rolled wad of dollars - and throws it triumphantly on the table.

  The bus boy runs his hands through the notes, feels the crisp shapes and the worn corners of the older dollar bills. He handles coins all day, every day. The touch of paper is too much - he looks half drunk, his tongue lolling to the side, his eyes a strange glow. "Yes, with this money we could have development!"

  Adam disagrees. "No, that's not right at all money doesn't mean development, it's just a tool towards development."

  The bus boy looks blankly at him, confused. In his short life he has learnt just one thing, dollars talk.

  "Think of it like this then," explains Adam patiently, he takes his duty as head of the house, the wise head of the house that is, very seriously. "Say you have a swimming pool of money in your beautiful garden. To begin with you can take as much money as you like and there's plenty left - but if you don't share that money your neighbours will be jealous. They'll want some of it too. But if you don't want to share it, you'll then have to pay money for better security, you'll have to build fences and to close your house off from your friends and it won't be long before your swimming pool of money will be nothing, just a few dollars at the bottom of a deep pit. Useless!" He bounces his sleepy grandson, Junior, hard on his knee to emphasise the point. "We Melanesians don't understand money in the same way as that Peace Corps woman you're always talking about. For us money is a glue, it helps bring our families and tribes together. But with your Chinese and your Americans and your Europeans it's different, they use money to separate themselves from their families and tribes. For them money is a knife, used to cut family ties. We've all heard stories from those presenters, Julian and Richard WX, on this radio programme," he nods in the direction of the wireless, "about how in other countries people leave the old men and women in strangers' homes, they let them roam the streets homeless, they isolate them.

  "Suppose someone gave you a chicken, what would an ordinary Solomon Islander villager do, not a chief, just a man? Or a woman," he adds after Anna. Saraj and his daughter, Lovelyn, throw him a significant, pained look. "He'd thank his luck and look after that hen until it grew fat. And then he'd slaughter it and have a feast with his wantoks and neighbours. That's our way and these overseas people will never understand it. Time and again aid donors come along with a chicken and give it to villagers, saying that they should set up a chicken project - look after the hen and get eggs, sell the eggs, sell the chicks or sell full-grown chickens for other people to use as egg machines. The Westerners, or Japanese even, it doesn't matter who gives us this money for the hen, they think this one hen is a foolproof gift. They think that this hen will give a taste of their kind of commerce, and with one bite we'll be hooked like a stupid fish into a life of struggle - producing, selling, buying, consuming. That's their way and it's why they don't understand when their aid hen is put in a pot and boiled until it is done.

  "Our villager knows there are more important things than money. Yes, he
needs money for kerosene and matches and the school fee, but he also needs his neighbours, his relations, his friends to feel good about him - to know he is generous and will share his hen as a soup, or as a feast and not be greedy and try to get all the money circulating the community into his hands."

  "Does that mean we should go back to the old ways, forget money then if it causes so much disagreement?" Sarah asks her uncle by marriage. No one hears her, hardly anyone listened to the old man. What does he know anyway? And what does he mean saying money is bad when everyone knows he's got pots of the stuff! Why do old men turn into babies?

  Tonight the taxi driver, because of those dollar bills, has a new authority in the house. He stretches out his long, heavy limbs, driving boots still on and dreams of development. He'd like to have his own taxi. Why stop with one car? He'd like a fleet of taxis, each one air-conditioned, smartly painted with the name of his business, 'Fast Fred' printed on the side. Yes 'Fast Fred' would look just top! He'd like a two-way radio fitted in each taxi, so that he can keep an eye on what's happening in town, pick up customers from their homes and not have to be flagged down by a hiss or an impatient wave. He'd like to sit quietly, in the driver's seat, under the shady branches of the giant banyan tree, and not have to cruise Honiara's dusty roads hour after hour, looking for passengers. He wants to carry passengers, not cargo in his fleet of clean, smart cars. And he'd like to demand some better roads - seeing the town from the eyes of the arrival lounge, every flight of the week, he knows visitors are not impressed by the potholed state of paradise.

  His wife, a red hibiscus flower artlessly tucked behind her ear, has dreams too. She loves to cook local style and wants to set up a catering business. How often has she had to spend her days planting, growing, weeding, harvesting, carrying, scraping, stirring, watching the pot to provide a pudding for some wantok's wedding? It tires her. What she'd like to do is organise functions: parties, christenings, birthday fun for kiddies, inauguration events, church feast days. She'd like to cook for money, not just compliments. In her mind she can see the glistening spread of food, between her ears hear the "Ahh!" of good tastes touching tongues, listens to the praises of critics, glows when her friends repeat praise about "Sarah's Kitchen" they've seen written in the newspaper. Some women she knows go to the YWCA to speed up their dreams and to learn more about commercial cooking and budgeting. They say the club lets Your World Come Alive, but Sarah is too busy washing, cooking, caring for Junior and her boss (husband) and the extended family to take the first important step towards making her hopes come to life. She needs some training, her husband needs cash ...

  Everyone in the room has a giant dream, a monster that rushes at them as they sleep, a green-eyed jealous devil that haunts them when they see a rich man or woman, with money in their purse, walk by ... In just that room, in that tiny plot of land tucked into the Honiara hills, there are 11 people and 1,000 dreams. There are visions of a security service - uniformed guards, alsation dogs panting on chains, saluting employees; there's the logging yard boss; the garage mechanic with a passion for racing cars he once saw on satellite TV; the seamstress who'd like to make wedding dresses but can only afford to crochet gaudy coloured cushions; the screen printer who prints nothing - but certainly knows how to stare at the screens; a nascent publisher hidden inside Lovelyn, who has first to read better, then write better, then ask more obvious questions, then keep her opinions to herself, and then become a journo or will she end up as an air hostess, she's sure to be pretty enough; small baby Junior could be a Prime Minister or a pop star? But the chances are he'll be beaten by the struggle of schooling in his third language, English, and instead metamorphosis into a fishermen (skilled: yes, happy: not sure) working the foreign-owned tuna boats around the Solomons coral seas. And there's the reality: except the taxi driver and the bus boy most do nothing, though all are expected to take turns running the AB Store - serious under-employment.

  Henderson surprises them all, but most of all himself. His dream is to go back to the village and help his people improve their cash crops. He wants enough money to organise the villagers to build their own cargo boat to take the copra and cocoa, and sometimes even coffee, into town for sale to the marketing board. He'd like to have cattle grazing under the coconut trees. Things for the young people in the village to do. Fresh eggs and bush lime on sale at his family store. And an airstrip.

  Town's obviously a good place to visit, but he sees it suppressing people's energy - suddenly this hunger for money turns into an obsession. People don't do what they want because they feel they can't make their dreams come true. Every day the dream gets bigger and the ability, the self-confidence shrinks. He's not sure he likes it at all. "With this money," he wrestles the cash out of the hands of its last temporary 'owner' and counts the dollars slowly, "My home place could have a boat ..." The size of the thought makes him sad. He doesn't want to go back to the village until he's become a rich man - and that's what he's going to do even if it means picking non-existent gold specks off non-existent sidewalks. He must find a job, make his fortune.

  The radio winds up for the night after a string of weather warnings of lows and sudden cloudbursts round the islands. The taxi driver wraps up the dollars, then puts on a video, and after settling comfortably suddenly abandons his viewing programme to go outside for a cigarette. Henderson joins him. Right now it is another perfect starry night, blessedly cooled by breezes.

  They smoke silently, until Henderson begins to quiz his wantok about how Anna made her money. He doesn't answer for a bit, puffs again, complacently idle under the house. And then just as he starts to hint at the stories of strange goings on, a Hilux wagon, the new type, as yellow as a flower, weaves down the hilly road past the house.

  "That's Patte. He's done well this pay day!" For once Fred loses his cool reserve. He's so bemused by seeing Patte drive in style that he instinctively hisses at the truck. The Hilux stops, and reverses even more erratically. Patte swings open a leather-padded door. "Eh boys, I've got something here. I feel lucky. Come on down town with me. You! Henderson, you come now!" Both men head the short distance down the bush track to the road. Patte is clearly a little drunk thinks Henderson. "Like my new baby? I bought it today!"

  "Bullshit, man. You stole it today, you could never buy this!" says the taxi driver angrily throwing his butt end on to the road. Patte giggles, clearly much more than a little drunk. "True. It's my cousin-brother's and he just told me to give it some exercise. You coming then Henderson? It's time you saw the bright lights of my beautiful Honiara."

  "Well, he wants you to go, you better Henderson. I'm tired - got to work tomorrow there's a flight from Nauru coming in at five, but Patte you have a good time. And Patte, just look after my bro." Henderson feels the taxi driver slap him on the back and then suddenly he's on the road, a god in a truck ... the suspension disguising the bumps, the headlights frightening mosquitoes away. It's time to party - a wild, wild night to party.

  ***

  Dearest Dan

  You wrote to me at last! Thank you. Thank you. I’m glad to know you like the idea that wherever you walk I’m somewhere beneath your feet. I’m not sure that’s quite how I think about it, but I do miss you and… yes, I wish there was a quicker way of communicating…

  Suzy looks at the postcard yet again. There’s a rather bad picture of a frog on one side which after several hours of consideration she’s decided was never meant to mean anything. Dan hasn’t said he’s been to a new restaurant, is working hard, has gone to the opera and misses her. Reading between the lines – he knows she will which is probably why he’s so reluctant to write anything despite her flood of airmails – she can sense he’s been having a pretty active social life. It’s time to forget him properly, but Dan’s a hard habit to break. Besides she’s got so much spare time still, or at least so few evenings when she’s asked out, and there’s no TV to eat up the hours that she might as well keep on keeping on with this letter writing thing. She goes bac
k to her portable typewriter, grateful that despite it’s stiff little keys, she still lugged it out here.

  People keep telling me (this is in the rare moments when the UNfriendlies notice I'm there) that the Solomons isn't about town life at all. Oh no, to see the real Solomons I have to go to the village. As you can imagine this involves a boat journey of inestimable hideousness to an unknown location the other side of the wickedly named Indispensable Strait.

  Whichever of the 5,000 villages I visit, I'm told the food will be plain, though plentiful; I will be expected to cuddle babies (something I'm NEVER going to do, I just don’t do babies yet, that’s for when I’m 32 and the maternal alarm clock rings) and the toilets are better described as shit holes in choice zones - mangrove swamps say, or on the beach (which I guess puts paid to sunbathing). In fact almost everything in this sunny place puts paid to sunbathing - from the endless UV to the fact that the missionaries were here first & their abiding influence is to keep us girls with our breasts and thighs properly covered up! No one is going to make money selling bikinis here.

  "Village life isn't too bad once you get used to washing with your clothes on," said one of the expat women I met who was having a short break from her agricultural job on the island of Makira. She said it in a consoling manner, a sort of tip for timid tourists, but I'm pretty sure she was actually boasting about her own amazing adaptability. I don’t think I’m as adaptable at that, thank goodness I’ve got a cushy college job in a town, however backwater it still seems.