by Nicola Baird
"My god, man, do you want us to be chucked out of this place before we’ve had fun? I know, I know you didn't know, but this is the G-Klub, you gotta look smart here. Listen I think there are some sneakers in the truck, go back and get them on those big feet of yours!" says Patte chucking the keys at Henderson so he won’t miss a moment in the club house. As he walks away the thunder claps start again. The rainy season’s been along time coming.
It might have been a pretty place in the daylight - a white-washed bar, surrounded by a bougainvillaea-covered breeze block wall. At the far end of the dance floor a live band, four be-jeaned, be-jewelled, beery Rasta guys play cover versions of reggae greats. The place is seething with dancers. And the girls! They dance so beautifully. Henderson collapses back into the innocent, village boy, staring at everything. And he's certainly rewarded when he does drag big eyes off in the other direction - little wicker tables and chairs, a swimming pool (is this the famous one Adam talked about that is stuffed with money? he must remember to check) and then a white sand beach running down to the moonlit sea.
"It's just beautiful!"
Patte, ignores Henderson, plunges to the bar and comes back with four cans of Fosters.
"Here man, let's sit here, relax, and just enjoy our winnings. Kura cards is thirsty work! Cheers!"
Patte opens the beer with a practised gesture and practically downs the can in one. Henderson struggles to do the same. He desperately wants to fit in, hopes no one can tell it's his first trip to any club, let alone the country's infamous G-Klub. It's an easy enough pretence so long as he just sits still and enjoys the place. The two friends drink in companionable silence, nodding their head to the rhythms. By the time Patte has finished off his two cans Henderson is feeling very mellow. Patte goes for a walkabout, just to see where the action is tonight, whilst Henderson opts to feast his eyes.
"Love me,
"Love me just a little bit longer,
"Our love is much to young to break, you never even try" (Susan Cadogan)
Henderson tries to make sense of what two town girls, both with soft, wavy hair clipped up, and red, red lipstick are saying too quickly and quietly in a language from back home, ‘Are‘Are.
“It’s as if he’s gone mad. He doesn’t care for me or his child anymore. Last month he nearly killed me.”
“He’s no good,” agrees the girl with blue devil eye-lidded eyes.
“I’m not lying. When he’s drunk he hits me. He’s drunk so often there’s hardly a break between bruises, bashing and baby care. I have to wear dark glasses even in the house, even now at night. And he’s gone strange, makes me wear strange sexy clothes as if I was his prostitute not his wife. He’s supposed to be an MP, I say he’s more like an idiot.”
“Take the small girl and go,” insists her friend smoothing her curls. “Go while he’s at this party. O look, I can see Patte. It is Patte isn’t it?”
The sad young woman laughs at her friend’s change of mood, quickly forgetting her own problems, she teases her “your eyes must have some kind of sickness if they can only see Patteson in here. He’s as crazy as all the others.”
"Hey girls!" This from Patte, in a smoothly-predatory manner offering his hand to shake hello. "Stella! If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?" It's an old joke, but all three laugh.
"This is my message to yooooou
"Singing don't worry - 'bout a thing
"Cos every little thing gonna be all right" (Bob Marley)
Henderson gives up the strain of listening to this nonsense from the girls, and now his friend. He positions himself at the bar. Two guys, looking fit, are discussing football, agreeing the more they drink the stronger they’ll be for their game tomorrow.
A white lady joins the two men. "Hello, hello. Nice with the rain isn't it? Sorry that I'm a little late, I was out having dinner with some friends, whom I think you know - they're over there." She points to some expats dancing.
"Suzy, good to see you. You're looking good," says one of the men and then turns back to his football talk. There's a time and place for women, but it's not right now. Suzy, suddenly isolated by sport and language, retreats to a table and hisses for a waiter to bring her a Tiger beer. She looks around, deeply regretting being there at all. The problem with nightclubs is that everyone always seems to be having a better time than you. Most certainly look happier. Suzy giggles to herself, at least she's getting some more material to write home about - Dan will enjoy this one.
"Money in my pocket
But I just can't get no love" (Denis Brown)
Henderson now turns to his left, back to the bar and tunes into some business talk, again two men – one is offering a piece of land but seems uncertain his mate will pay in Australian dollars using his Brisbane account.
“Don’t think I’d lie, this is straight plan, no tricks.” Which it won’t be, and everyone knows (except Henderson, though even he can guess).
"Ahhh
"Waiting for love won't make it happen ...
"Only heaven can wait for love" (Rudy Thomas & Susan Cadogan)
Henderson wonders if he should dance. He wonders how to dance. He studies the dancers. It'd definitely be easier with more beer. Ordering another can (thank you Mr Patte for that generous gift of dollars) he slops some into his mouth and then heads to the nearest table. He's a youth, and a youth's gotta dance. He asks the girl in the red dress, red as her lipstick, that he saw Patte flirting with earlier, if she will dance with him. It's OK. They dance.
“You look nice, what’s your name?”
“They call me Stella, Ellen’s mummy.” And although she’s dancing with him in her style sunglasses, she seems to be breathing unhappiness on to their piece of dance floor. Henderson has drunk enough to feel affronted for wasting his time with a married woman, but by holding her close he can look around at the many other women not yet paired off and know there are plenty of fish left to try. There’s a pretty girl there he’ll speak to next. Just wait until the song finishes.
"The sun is shining
"The weather is sweet now ...
"For the rescue - here I am
"Want you to know ... I'm a rainbow too." (Bob Marley)
A middle aged face that is becoming frighteningly familiar trawls up to Henderson and his dance partner. And then, before he works out it's the man who Patte crashed into earlier that night, there's a fist in his face. This is becoming a habit he could well do without. Henderson staggers back, more from surprise than pain. The dancers scatter - girls out of the way, men to join in. The MP is shouting, his posh Colonial accent now jumbled into Roviana:
"You man are just trouble. A five finger wanker. Nothing else. And the sooner you get out of this town the better. Go back where you belong - and don't ever dance with my wife again, else you will get to taste my fists another time."
The MP weaves out of the club, dragging the woman in that red dress as if she was a dog. Patte props Henderson up.
"Come on, come on, have another drink. Don't worry. The night's still young and there's plenty more drinking time, plenty of single girls." The pair go back to the bar. Henderson switches to rum. It tastes sweet after the lager. He swaggers, he is in a club, he's danced with a girl and there's been a fight - which his drunken mind allows him to think of as his great victory. After all he's still at the party, can still dance, and feels all right. Unconsciously Henderson flexes his muscles, and calls for more drinks all round.
***
Hello there Dan!
Yes, it's me again. Can’t stop writing to you, but this time I’m in a new uniform: barefoot, dressed in a slither of material, with a frangipani lei (garland) on the table beside me. Oh yes, and a can of beer, and a lit candle. I'm celebrating something big – today, this Sunday, I’ve done three months and managed to avoid going Tropo. Even so I’m half-considering a frigate bird tattoo on the left ankle!
You remember how I had a good time on that walk? Well, after that decided it was
time to Go To The Village and learn how to speak Pijin (which up until now I fear I've been spelling pigeon, such was my reluctance/fear about learning another language). I can't really speak it now, other than service words like: "Would you like some food?" "Are you tired?" and happy expletives like, "That's nice!" It seems an odd vocabulary, but not bad seeing as the first phrase I learnt was: "Are you going to kill the pigs now?" (Ae, bae iu go busarem olketa pig pig dis taem?" I mean, I'm a VEGGIE. What kind of use is this going to have for me? I don't eat pigs. Maybe it'll be handy to pacify demented locals wielding a bush knife, which is a sort of short scythe. Very sharp teaching.
Anyway language learning is a wee bit different here. I was given a tutor (that's nice!) who seemed to expect me to know when he was hungry (would you like some food?) and to recognise that teaching was exhausting (are you tired?). Whenever I heard a new word I tried to write it down in a thin orange exercise book until my tutor gestured me to pass it to him. I assumed he was going to check the spelling, so handed it over (we were doing some ditch dull TEFL-style exercises which are designed for Americans who know about teaching English as a foreign language: very serious). It was rather hot, and as you're going to see I'm clearly still an innocent abroad. Wordlessly my tutor tore out that very page - the one I'd painstakingly written out my vocab lists on - rolled it up and SMOKED it! And what could I say in my useless clutch of words? Believe me, "That's nice" didn't come to mind!
Clearly Pijin isn't a written language ... Now I guess I know why the teachers back in the school staff room complain there aren't enough exercise books for the kids, their parents are probably smoking the pages as fast as the head orders the books!
Still the whole trip was pretty good fun - a definite 7 out of 10. I tried to bond with some of the women. It seems hard to apply my sisterhood is global line - without having a kid (ie, reading Dr Spock: no this is nothing to do with Star Trek) or peeling 1001 sweet potatoes (ie, mugging up on Elizabeth David) or - worse, much worse - growing and digging your own food. It's crazily hard work, mostly done in gardens with such steep slopes that you have to TIE YOURSELF UP with a safety harness (aka, bush 'rope') and hope you don't fall out of your garden, rolling thousands of feet to the inevitable roaring river at the bottom of the valley. Believe me, when I get back to Britain I'm going to get myself a well permanent job. And I'm going to stay in it, and I'm going to order my food by phone if necessary. Digging this soft tropical red soil so it stains your food, and your bare fingers and toes is not for me. Organic be damned. So I kind of hung around the coconut palms with men (dodging falling nuts) and even smoked the odd exercise book ...
I suppose the way in for me, a very untypical woman here in the Solomons - I mean I'm in my 20s and where are my kids? (argh!) - might be via beauty tips. So I tried them all. Put scented coconut oil on my hair, and though it did smell wonderful, my hair rebelled. It just collapsed into greasy brown, lank locks. And STAYED that way for about a fortnight. Flowers behind the ear are OK, though I do get confused whether left means married and right unmarried (or vice versa, or what kind of signal for singles that might give out anyway).
Some of the village women insisted I tried turmeric. Remember how I hate yellow? I mean - I hate it. It's a jealous, mean-spirited colour. And suddenly I'm being persuaded that I have to have my shoulders painted with this yellow, sticky muck. In the end I gave in (hopefully with good grace) but that was with the unspoken proviso that I could wash the turmeric off ... I couldn't then, and three weeks and four days later I still can't! Actually I was lucky, it turns out that turmeric is a brilliant sunscreen - and as I'd forgotten my sun block, and the village was a mere two-day boat journey away from the main shopping centre - that kept those rays at bay. (I know, I know I'm obsessed by UV - it must stem from all those ultra vires motions back in university days I guess!)
Back in town there's another beauty thing going on with blue eyeliner. They call it "blue devil" which rivals even a cosmetic queen's names for beauty daubs. I left all my makeup back in England (to make my luggage lighter you understand) and so had to borrow one of the UNfriendlies' devil sticks. It looked as bad as (I) expected, and even worse (on me that is) after I'd danced the humid tropical night away at this dreadful nightclub. It turns out there are TWO nightclubs in town. After the complete non-isolation of the village (I think the only place you could be alone there is in your head - babies, children, toddlers, women everywhere, though not many men - probably all migrated to the G-Klub) I felt like being alone in club land. And as predicted I was. Danced with Bruce, my friend the doctor's husband. Danced with an MP (wow, this IS the high life!). Danced towards a taxi and left well before midnight - motivated as much by a fight on the dance floor and the fact that everyone seemed to drink only to get drunk (except my doctor friend, who has a passion for malaria talk, and was doing just that - all vectors and statistics - with a woman from the ministry. Their vocab was so alien they might as well have been drunk).
Backtrack, backtrack: forgot to tell you about some curious customs of the village which have certainly turned all my right on ideas on their head. Number one: all women's wet clothes must be hung on washing lines parallel to the house in case a man accidentally walks under underwear (argh!) and spoils his manhood (argh!). I've thought about this and reckon it was suggested by women in a bid to stop those great idiots knocking the washing down every time they returned from a fishing trip. Men have of course hijacked this idea and claim it is because women are devils, creatures just waiting to pounce and suck out the power of man (this has real blow job parallels doesn't it?). Number two: any menstruating woman must stay in a special hut (14x14ft, that's stable size and with 'paddock' (read rocks) - nothing that a racehorse wouldn't have in England). I admit this is only in 'heathen', ie, non Christian areas, but from my Western viewpoint it's a real shocker. Why on earth should women be isolated for something so obviously natural? After spending two weeks in the village I know better - its SUCH hard work being female here that who wouldn't agree to a 'period' break? One of the local teachers at school told me that whenever she goes back to her village she immediately fakes a period (pregnant or not!) because she finds the chores just too much.
And on that note I might as well pen off now (as KGVI students always finish up their letters home - hideous!). I certainly hope you are well and I certainly hope to hear your news ASAP.
Very much love, stay well & happy, Suzy
CHAPTER 9: MALARIA MADNESS
THE WOMEN FROM the fishing village are delighted by today's catch. About six women, each in their own canoe, take a break from dipping and hooking their lines to stare at the fuzzy shapes emerging with the daylight, on the beach near the G-Klub. It's not really a surprise for them - the same scene occurs every payday morning - the men who didn't survive the night before. And the same jokes. "You want a new husband, don't you?" A woman in a white canoe, startlingly shaped, begins to paddle closer to the lumpy beach. "Look, choose any of them. You can have any you want. And if you want more than one that's OK with me! Look, that one looks tasty!"
"Hiya, hiya, hiya! Stop teasing now - I've had enough problems with these idiots that pass for men. But I am hungry - so let's forget the sleeping babies and go back fishing. Nau doria ia!"
She is ignored. Two of the boldest women go and investigate, more to make fun, wake the sleeping men and see how long it takes for them to feel embarrassed - caught sleeping like dogs on the beach, beside little piles of stinking vomit, and confused by very sore heads.
The pair make so much noise that their teasing remarks follow them across the bay and somewhere, far away, a voice steals out of a seashore house: "Iufela mere long Lau, iufela save toktok tumas." The words float round and round the bay until the women left behind at the Fishing Village, chatting (noisily it has to be said) over early morning smoky fires, cradling their babies, sipping at Milo (powdered malt drink), catch that phrase - about the women of Lau talking too much, and far too loudly - and weigh it down under a big roc
k. Honiara can sleep a little more.
But Henderson doesn't belong to Honiara, and the Lau women's chattering certainly wakes him. His eyes, closed tight behind eyelids are bathed in pink light, there's the soft sound of the sea, quiet now after a stormy night, lapping on to a shell-littered beach. The shells are uncomfortable to lie on. Over to the east a determined sun is chasing darkness and the storm clouds out of mind, helped by a streak of salmon, a palette of watercolours that fade and blend, ebb and wane, then with a suddenness, missed in a blink, explode into shocking pinks to make a dawn of beauty. It’s daytime. Henderson is curled up, his body's armour against the night. His clothes feel damp, he's no idea where he is, or why he is, or what he is or is he is. He tries to stretch, only to find his limbs aren't joined to his body. And with that movement a terrific noise starts up in his head, a thumping and sawing he once puzzled over at a logger's yard.
A shadow falls over his miserable body - it's the Lau women.
"Oh, you're sick aren't you? What's happened to a young fellow like you?" They are teasing, talking to him as if he was a little kid.
Henderson feels so terrible that he misses the joke. What's more he has felt like this before, when he last had malaria, in a haze his brain suggests that's what he's got again. It's true his arms, and legs - now they are attached to him again - feel stiff. His back aches and arches in its discomfort. A bead of sweat (heralding the new day's quota) runs down the side of his head. The women have no pity - they hate to see people drink. It's contrary to their SDA beliefs but it's also against all good sense: they know every one of the troubles it causes their sisters. The men who steal money to party, the same men who come back itching for trouble, who fight, who crash the trucks that the community has bought, who drown and are rightly ignored by their brother sharks, the ones who spoil women - force them to have bad sex, punch at the head, at the belly, clout the eyes, leave babies where babies should never be. Leave girls who are too young to have those babies.