Coconut Wireless

by Nicola Baird

  "Stella, you've never worked before. How do you know you can do this? You've never done anything but be a student or a mother."

  This challenge makes Stella lose her patience with Henderson. So often men are just plain stupid, always setting stupid agendas and then refusing to see any possible alternatives. She revokes to her former self - the sulking woman who will not speak until she's got her own way. It was this characteristic which so enraged the MP and provoked him into beating her: not that it made her answer, it just made him feel better for a blow or two.

  Henderson however comes from a different mould. When Stella refuses to answer any more of his questions he just wishes her goodnight, hugs her tight shoulders affectionately, and then lies down and sleeps. Stella, try as she might, can't. Involuntarily she finds herself grinning, this man of hers really is something special - a true kind heart. And as her sweetness returns, sleep welcomes her.

  Stella wakes early, and as usual finds Lodu busy in the kitchen outside the house. Today she is rocking a fat baby on her knee, patiently feeding him mashed up pawpaw, which dribbles in an orange slush down his chubby chin.

  "Morne! Where did you steal that baby from?"

  "Oh, hello Stella. He's a nice one isn't he? He's my cousin-sister's. But she doesn't want him anymore so she asked me if I'd take him for me."

  "You mean he's your baby now! What on earth will your man say when he hears?"

  "Oh, he'll be pleased." A tremor crosses Lodu's face. This is her husband's child, that's why he won't complain, she tries to keep cheerful so cheerful becomes her habit. "You no worry. My olo (husband) loves kids, he's got two already and he's only 22! My cousin-sister told me before Christmas about her problem and I felt sorry when I heard she didn't want to keep a baby without a father. So I told her that when she weaned him she should give him to me."

  Stella's mind is whirling, ignoring Lodu's obvious economy with the truth, because this may give her just what she wants.

  "Do you think," she quizzes Lodu, "that you'll still be able to go on working up at the college?"

  “No, not right now,” she says distracting the baby with a blackened pod that’s fallen from the flame trees. “I hoped you might be able to help me Stella. Why don't you take over until your baby is ready to be born, and by that time mine will be used to its new mother - and old enough to come with me without distracting me."

  Both women know this is nonsense, Lodu's baby could go with her now but Stella figures Lodu has her reasons, and if those reasons happen to be helping Stella out, she's not going to pry.

  "Lodu, are you sure? It's true I really do want to do some work - you know build up some savings in the bank pass book ... It’s odd but the nearer I come to having two children the more important it feels to get back to school, and qualify. I can’t spend my life being just a mother."

  "Well you won't get much money: it's $5 for a morning," giggles Lodu admiring the way her new baby is trying to find her susu (breast) "I'm just the general cleaner, doing all the boring jobs, you know sweeping the classrooms out, picking up the cigarette butts left on the staff room floor, watering the flowers. It's dull even on the good days, and you Stella, you'll hate it soon enough. All those people are clever, just like you, but the difference is they're doing challenging jobs and you're doing the cleaning." She shifts the baby to her other arm and then gets up to start boiling rice for breakfast. "Do you want to start today?"

  Predictably Stella nods.

  "OK, I'll get my bro to take you up there. Will you be ready to start at 8am? That's when the students have assembly and you can go round the classrooms straightening chairs and wiping the floor."

  "Assembly?" queries Stella.

  "Yes, every day a prayer and a meeting about that time," answers Lodu, pleased to know something Stella doesn’t.

  "No, I didn't mean that - I just thought colleges were different to schools."

  Lodu looks blank and then she realises what the problem is. "Ah, I get it! No this job is at King George VI School, not with my bro at the College of Higher Education. But the staff there are still nice, you'll see."

  That's not how Stella remembers them.

  But for a whole month Stella dutifully turns up at her old school and then cleans, polishes and brushes until the lunch bell. She hadn't registered Ellen in time to join one of Honiara's play groups - all were full up, from the cheapest at one buck a day to the most expensive of several hundred dollars a term - so she has no choice but to take her daughter with her.

  Not that this matters, Ellen loves school. She likes it best when her mother cleans the empty classrooms, because then she can study the displays students have made. Her favourite is one of leather back turtles and their nesting sites around the islands. There's even a turtle egg and a replica of a nest right there in the classroom, plus photos of several students standing on top of the carapace of a giant turtle with weeping brown eyes. She never tires of asking her mother to read out bits of information from the display, and her mother never tires of telling her to go away and stop disturbing her. Then at break time there's a couple of girls who always come over and play with her, including Auntie, or that's what she's been told to call her, "Auntie" Lovelyn. Lovelyn is always asking after Ellen's new daddy, Henderson, and teasing her about being the youngest student at the school, or (horrible thought) telling her that if she's bad she'll be auctioned on the Wheel of Fortune.

  And there's the library to explore. When Ellen goes into that library with its rows of books arranged around the walls, but not right up to the ceiling, she just wishes she could read. She sort of knows her alphabet, mummy taught her that, but she wants to be able to put her head in one of the magazines and be able to understand every word. It's so good sitting in the cool library watching the students laugh and argue over a picture in one of the old copies of Time or Link magazine lying around. Sometimes Ellen takes a comic book, her mother said it was about a man called TinTin, and tries to make sense of the story from the pictures - but it seems very hard.

  Best of all are the mornings when it is raining and all sports lessons are cancelled. Then all the students crowd into the library and one of the volunteer teachers, who would prefer to be a basketball or netball referee, will read out loud. Ellen always sneaks into the library to hear the magical 'Once Upon A Time' start, though sometimes she finds the English a little hard. But she loves listening so much that each night she insists her mother also reads her a story when they return to the crowded house on the Labour Line. There’s no money for books but someone always has a Bible which is packed with stories. And there’s often a Watchtower with a Pacific slant on what God does with his day blowing about on the Labour Line’s litter piles. Perhaps not ideal child-reading material, but standard for all the other Ellens whose family are finding new ways to bring up little ones.

  One Thursday evening mother and child are reading the dramatic tale of Moses crossing the Red Sea which has catapulted Ellen into a world of refugees and exploration. Her mind's eye can see a scared - and amazed - crowd breaking ranks to walk gingerly around air-gasping fish that wriggle on the razor-sharp corals alongside a transparent wall of water, behind which swim wicked looking sharks and octopuses with eyes and legs of cruel intent, which helps Moses know where to go - when Stella lays the book down and, clutching her hand to her lower belly, explains she is not feeling well. What was a dull ache is switching to waves of stabbing pain.

  "Are you going to die?" asks Ellen cautiously. She's never seen a late person and wants to as soon as she can.

  "No, no, it's all right," says Stella haltingly. It’s hard to talk sentences with this pain. "Maybe the baby is coming early.” Very early she thinks realising she's only just eight months gone and this pain feels cruelly different. "Please, you be good and bring me some water. Then let me lie down quiet." Ellen's disappointment about not finishing the story dissolves. She's never seen a person give birth either, she hopes it is as good as a corpse.

  When Henderson p
itches up in his borrowed soccer boots after a rowdy game with the boys, and an even more rowdy conversation that verged on the lewd, Stella seems to be worse. Lodu is holding a wet towel to her head, pointlessly trying to ice away the pain while trying to tempt Stella to chew a gnarled piece of greying root.

  "Ginger is good you know Stella. If you chew ginger then you'll give birth as easily as a dog."

  Despite the unwelcome contractions Stella smiles at the thought, then pushes Lodu's offering away. "Just one baby is enough," she explains. "I don't want puppies. Please just take that disgusting ginger away from me."

  "Stella, what's happening to you? Are you ready to have this child?" Henderson looks at his girlfriend anxiously. Stella's hair is knotted with sweat, her eyes staring. She’s clutching at her belly as if looking for the pain, and only breaths when a spasm finishes.

  "It's too early," gasps Stella. "Who knows why this baby is in such a rush to come out? I don't want to move; don't want those doctors and nurses to prod me and ask me senseless questions." Her whole mind is concentrated on avoiding the agony, but when the shunting of muscle and pelvis stops Stella remembers the humiliation of her last trip to the hospital. She fears that if she goes to Number 9 her one-time custom husband is sure to find out. The MP must be raging with anger against her now and she's frightened about being trapped in a ward with him. She’ll never forget the horror of her last hospital visit.

  "Look, you are not right. Maybe you are at risk. Think about your baby too, maybe it's at risk. Let's just go to the hospital and check it out." Henderson scoots off into the dark to borrow a friend's car. He returns soon after and then with the help of Lodu carefully carries a now weeping Stella towards the transport.

  At the hospital Stella is given urgent attention by a nurse who has had more practice at midwifery than any Western doctor. She checks Stella's blood pressure. It's normal, so that rules out pre-eclampsia. She checks for dilation of the cervix, but there is nothing. No waters have broken. No mucus plug popped. She checks the baby's heartbeat and it seems normal. So she guesses that Stella has overdone things and is having a false alarm.

  "Strong Braxton Hicks. Nothing to worry about," she tells Henderson - not Stella, who has been offered the only pain killer the hospital has. Even the worst births are done practically drug free for there are no epidurals in Honiara. It’s not a policy, it’s a fact of life. "We'll keep her in the hospital today and then let her go home tomorrow. But you will have to make sure she rests until the baby is ready to come. That means no work," she talks very slowly and deliberately, emphasising every word in the hopes that this Solo man will get the message. Most don't. "No cooking, no walking about, no gardening, no shopping, no sex. Just rest all the time." The nurse is puzzled by Henderson's gentle expression. All too often she's seen men thinking their thoughts aloud - what kind of a wife is a wife who can't do anything? - but Henderson really does look genuinely concerned. He's a strange man, that's for sure, after all the nurse remembers the fight that happened in the private ward not so long ago, and the baby's obviously not his, unless of course it fiddles the figures as much as the MP did when he ran the hospital's extension budget and avoided actioning the staff's promised salary increases. Kindly she touches Henderson’s arm. "You'll be all right too won't you?"

  "Oh ... yes, I'm fine," he replies. "But if it's allowed I'd like to stay with her. I think she'll be frightened alone. Is that OK?"

  "Well, it's not exactly taboo," considers the nurse, "but no one has ever done that before. The problem is that you're a man and we were going to put her in the women's ward. Some of those women might be scared, and their husbands won't be best pleased."

  "Hiya," says Henderson borrowing a Lau expression - obviously his last unconventional visit to the hospital rubbed off. "I'll pay for a private room then."

  "We only take American Express or Diners Card," says the nurse coldly. She likes giving out medicines to cure but hates this new policy of privatisation where most of her time seems to be spent taking-in money for cures, it's old-fashioned. Ugly.

  Henderson doesn't have a clue what the nurse means, but guesses it's some kind of negotiation and pulls a wedge of $50 dollar bills out of his back jeans pocket (thanking his lucky stars that the Wheel of Fortune has proved so profitable). She takes them mournfully, removes $200 and returns the rest without a thank you - or the famous "That'll do nicely, Sir". With the money talk over, Stella can be wheeled, on a squeaking trolley bed, over to a private room. Henderson takes up poll position as security. His commitment collapses after hearing the Catholic church's bell, across the way, ring out two peels - 2am - and he creeps into sleep. The pair wake together, both blinking in the morning sunlight, wondering where on earth they are. Henderson guesses first. After the amount this escapade cost, that's no surprise!

  "Hello Mrs."

  Stella smiles weakly in response.

  "Are you feeling better," Henderson doesn't wait for an answer, it's obvious she does. "Come on, we must go home now - Ellen will be wondering where you are. But you better remember you are under doctor's orders to rest. There are a lot of things you are not allowed to do until that troublesome baby of yours is born."

  At that moment a nurse arrives with a thermometer and full breakfast tray - genuine Mendana Hotel style with wheat flakes, rolls and even marmalade!

  "I'm feeling a lot better," says Stella, "there's no pain today, no fever too ..." but her efforts to explain good health are cut short as the thermometer is stuck in her mouth. There is silence for two minutes and then the reading. "97.6," says the nurse. "Absolutely normal. You're absolutely normal." And with that comforting description the pair share Stella's stylish breakfast and make plans about how to spend a month resting.

  "Asleep," suggests Stella mouth crammed full of jammy roll.

  "Oh, yes please," grins Henderson, still suffering from his attempt at late-night guard duty.

  ***

  SUZY’S DIARY

  Just left the house this morning and was eyeing up the soursops on the bush next door, when one of my neighbour’s mangy, and normally very sleepy, dogs rushed at me and bit my finger. It didn’t seem willing to let go until I kicked it, breaking my flip flop.

  The dog's owners are a medical couple: well she’s a nurse, so I knew it couldn't have happened in a better place. But not a bit of it, as I reached out my hand for a bit of tender loving diagnosis, the nurse nonchalantly picked up a handful of clover, growing right there beneath our feet, and then squeezed a violent green liquid on to my wrist. My imagination heard it fizz as the ooze mingled horribly with the blood. It certainly stung like hell.

  Our custom magic works well she said, I think embarrassed by the dog and that she had to leave for work, so couldn’t offer after-care. I’d planned to put a dab of antiseptic cream on to it as well, but just then Fred came by, and offered a lift down to the school. So if I get better it’ll be a clover cure. If I get worse this diary will be the evidence. Call me a doubter, but I’m glad I had a tetanus shot before leaving the UK.

  When I got into school I asked my students about their reaction to good and bad custom medicine and the result was several damaged maths lessons as students discussed the uses of a certain green leaf to get the girls; get the husband; prevent children and - most importantly of all - to win the football game. In the end I began to think that 'green leaf' might be a generic term because I can't see how one tree, even the great Neem tree of India (the one that provides food, contraception, fertiliser, dental sticks, insect repellent etc), could actually provide all the ingredients for all these successes.

  But if it could, what a marvellous tree. Bang goes the Oak tree (in that it's old world and therefore 'civilised') is superior to the Mango tree debate (very topical amongst poets I'm told) when an outsider like the Green Leaf tree enters the competition. Except it won't because it doesn't exist (I think) but the idea of it certainly does and boy, do my students believe in it. In fact the other week there was a terrific stir in t
he classroom when someone - I never did find out who - brought in a long silver-bodied fish that they claimed had been magiced by a man with a beard and pipe who had a 20-year feud with a cousin's cousin, or something. The fish was by this time rapidly thawing and needed some urgent treatment so I broke every school rule in the book and suggested a barbecue. Not one pupil was willing (and these are kids who normally only eat rice at lunch time with about two flakes of very dubious-tasting tinned tunny fish) so, reluctantly, because it did seem like a waste I gave it to the guy who looks after the pigs (very George Orwell this, he's called Nelson - or he was the term the English syllabus forced students to study 1984). Everything turned out all right in the end, ie school pigs likely to taste more delicious when slaughtered for the end of term feast, and if Nelson ate it himself, which I sort of doubt, though he's claimed enough times he'd eat anything - and looking at his less than scrawny body I have no hesitation in believing him - he seems to be OK too.

  Generally the staff room is better than the classroom for gossip – and it’s not always custom magic that’s the problem. The best story has to be the student who stole all the school's marketing income (approx £500), then jumped in the deputy's 4WD, drove to the airport, bought a one-way ticket and flew home. His excuse? He'd just heard on the World Service that coconut fibres can be used as a kind of compost and wanted his family to know first, and thus improve their copra plantation's income. He got into terrible trouble, and of course if he'd only been allowed access to a radio-phone wouldn't now have a criminal record!

  While I’ve been at KGVI the most exciting event was when Nelson let the pigs escape which promptly gobbled up the principal's carefully nurtured vegetable garden, including his absolute pride - the passion fruit hedge.

  Or at least that was the best story until I started listening to the cleaner's tales. The school's original cleaner, Lodu, was just a sweetie, seemed to love nothing better than to story. Cleaning for her was clearly a subsidiary occupation but at least at a school it did provide her with an audience. In between the odd sweep she'd take out a long wooden pipe, kept in a fibre-weave bag hung on a string around her neck, and then waylay someone to listen. She called it her "idle" time and I guess the school would have degenerated into a dirt palace if she hadn't turned up one day with a baby tucked in a wrap around piece of cloth and announced she was leaving to care for her new (presumably adopted) kid, but could her wantok, Stella come in and work instead? Well, we knew we'd miss Lodu's hot gossip, but I think the head was grateful to have a newcomer brought in - a clean sweep so to speak.