Coconut Wireless

by Nicola Baird

  "It's so very small. I hate it when the little children are called to God's place so quickly." A sentimental tear crowds the brother's eye. He then puts an arm around Fred and tells him that the coffin has been blessed so the family can bury it whenever they like.

  As they pass the airport on their way home a panicky looking white Mrs, holding a bundle of material runs into the road as if to flag the taxi down. Fred, aware he’s on official business and desperate not to hurt anyone on the road, swerves to avoid her. Luckily she’s safe but the coffin, placed horizontally across the back passenger seat, lurches with a horrible crunch towards the taxi’s floor. Matron, who is sitting beside it, quickly steadies it into place. There’s no reason to stop – this is not a time to offer a mercy lift - but both men are upset enough by the incident with a Mrs neither knows they both know to cease all chatter. Their silence allows Matron to relax a little, sinking into the back seat with false courage, until she leans back asleep against the car door.

  Back at the Mbokonavera house Lovelyn has now turned up and with Sarah has made several pink and white frangipani garlands. Together with great blossoms of bougainvillaea these are placed on the coffin, which is still occupying the back seat of the taxi. There is not much time before the body starts to rot.

  "Stella told me she wants the child to have a custom funeral. He's already had a Christian blessing by the brothers," says Matron in the direction of Sarah, the only person in the Mbokonavera who might question this unusual decision. "We'll do it tonight, when the first star begins to show." Blinding the household with custom knowledge, she adds. "The new moon is a fortuitous time to bury the young."

  And when that star comes out Stella is still feverish. She tries to stand, but her legs are as shaky as a house rocked by a cyclone. So Sarah decides to stay with her, just in case she worsens and Matron agrees with alacrity that she's doing the right thing. The rest of the household straggle by leg, or squeeze into the coffin-bearing taxi, so they can head towards the Soldiers' Graveyard on the far side of the Labour Line.

  The graveyard is a haunting place at the best of times. And the best of times is midday when the sun lets light dapple through the avenues of twisted, grey-trunked frangipani trees casting a scented rain of waxy, white flowers on to the graves of strangers, soldiers all. Some have headstones, some simple crosses, the odd few a dog tag hanging from a marker. There are rows and rows of graves, all of young men, and all unvisited by their loved ones. The site has been feared for centuries by Guadalcanal people. It has long been known to be a favourite of the red spirits who seize the body and grip it in a vice-like stiffness before killing its victim (perhaps an early clue that the Anopheles mosquito loves that 10-acre bog at the base of a ring of extinct volcanoes, where the ground is too marshy to build).

  The enclosing hills are fortress steep. But their summit, a cool ridge with panoramic views, is home to the nation's grandest houses - the British High Commission residence, bought from a lady whose special “friend” a Chinese trader built the best house in the Solomons as a love token, but died before he and his lady love could live together. There’s the strange shaped A-frame house with its garden of sculptures throwing wild shadows on to the closely-mown lawn which terrify the local children living in squatter camps further up in the hills. And there’s the triumphant new Governor General's place - a purpose built residence of ridiculous cost and grandiose (funded by the Taiwanese) that gives every national a new desire to succeed in politics, and fulfil their dream that one day (maybe even for just one day) they'll be chauffeur-driven to that beautiful palace and when they step out of the car their staff will be lined up (just like in the old Colonial days) lined up with peaked caps for the men, bowing, scraping and saying "Your Excellency" every four sentences. It's a dream of the high life for 350,000 people and the 3.5 per cent who are born each year. Dream on you honest folk - there's no hope of getting that job without the ability to forget to do unto others as you would have done unto you.

  The Mbokonavera mobs have brought kerosene lights with them and these light up the corner of the graveyard, near the road, in a rather sinister way. The lamps hang from the twisted tree trunks and the sea breeze, just felt inland at this southern part of the graveyard, rocks the trees, which groan in protest, and in turn rock the lamps.

  Shadows and pools of smoky light haunt this custom funeral. Above, the night sky is filled with lightning flashes, the sign of great unease from the spirit gods - they don't seem to be welcoming this baby. Henderson and Fred dig a shallow grave, close to a site with a concrete headstone upon which is carved Japanese characters. Frightened of disturbing somebody else's body they dare not dig deep, but soon there is a hole big enough for the little coffin to be laid to rest.

  Matron throws the first crumbs of parched-smelling earth on to the coffin. "Rest well in this bed," she mutters, "in peace and away from all bad magic. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Her sacrament is a strange mix of Christian liturgy and old timer's sentiment.

  A real custom funeral, if these are even dared to be done these days, would mean burning the body but nobody thinks to quiz Anna about her logic. There are tears again, and then the coffin is properly covered with freshly-dug earth. As the last sod is returned, there is a dramatic clap of thunder and great heavy drops start to fall. They splash and tear at the small mound of loose piled earth washing rivulets away towards the sea. It's as if nature can't bear to have this new grave, this youngest soldier, in her garden of coffin sludge and war-dried bones.

  Henderson tells the others to go. He is the surrogate father, so he makes the rules and the speeches. "We'll have a memorial feast another time, when Stella is strong and living with me again at the Labour Line," he says as the by-now soaked group look expectantly at him. "Now thank you for your support and your help. But please now just go. Be gone the lot of you, I have some private business." Frightened, as much by the storm as Henderson's unusual bossiness, his relations head damply back to Mbokonavera.

  Henderson is alone now, except for one of the swinging lamps which finally succumbs to smoke and water and fizzles out with a damp hiss. He feels mad with rage that Stella's happiness should have been destroyed by the MP's devil magic. Taking his bush knife he slices at his finger. Then as the drops of blood fall on the small boy's resting place Henderson carves a promise into the foreign soldier's headstone.

  "Revenge" is a short enough word when you are angry, and the stonework rotting, so his task is easier than expected. But it's a cruel message to have been scratched on top of those curious Japanese letters that generously wish for the Buddhist gift of "Peace To All".

  Mind you it doesn't matter who's been busy with graffiti - or indeed what it says - in the soldiers' graveyard for the man the Town Council employs to take care of the site (for the sake of the tourists' sensibilities) because he's never got to grips with reading or writing. When he files his report of vandalism down at Kukum police station he does it by that old-fashioned method: talking. He hints that something strange has been going on, grave diggers - and worse. When the wife of the second sergeant hears that, she rushes to tell her neighbour and neighbour's neighbour a story of darstedly devil worship, much improved by joining it with tales of sacrifices on Mount Austen - the tall hill, which once thought of itself as a volcano, dominating the skyline a few miles south of the Soldiers' Graveyard.

  It’s dark in the rain so Henderson can’t follow the stars. Instead he follows the sulphur-glow from Honiara town as he takes the most direct route to Patteson’s place.

  ***

  The rain’s still falling when Henderson reaches Patteson’s crowded home on the Labour Line. He picks up a pebble, throws it up on to the tin roof and instantly someone wakes up. A face looks out of the broken fly screen, recognises Henderson, even in the dark, and sends an eye-rubbing Patte out.

  Henderson tells Patteson he has to bring the mobs, and help him kill finish Dean Solomon now, before sun up.

  “You’ve read too many books man
,” says Patteson disgusted watching Henderson using a thick stone to sharpen the bush knife. Clearly his village friend assumes life’s good time pleasures – gambling, drinking, girls – are just one step away from bad ass movie crazyness – kidnap, murder, life imprisonment. And they’re not, or not for him anyway. He’s a far more muscled man than Henderson, but it’s his brain that demonstrates the greater show of strength as he tries to sober up the alcohol-free, revenge-crazed boy. “What are you are asking me to do is not good. You want me to act like a Rambo, a bounty hunter, a mercenary killer. You are true crazy.”

  “Patteson, you are my friend and guide,” says Henderson trying to think calm. “Every time I’ve needed help, I’ve come to you and you’ve given it. Remember when I arrived in Honiara? And when I needed somewhere to stay? You know everyone. That’s how I met Stella. But you, you could get a gun. Or a stick of dynamite. You could cover me as an alibi, and the soccer boys could too. All I need is a chance to bash Stella’s tormentor. He’s hurt her in too many ways. Her poor baby is now dead. Isn’t that a reason to be angry?”

  “You quiet ones are strange,” responds Patteson, fully awake now and hungry to peacemake. “I can imagine you learning your history and the teacher being so pleased that you knew all the stories of our country’s journey from old times to new. But you are thinking so wrong man about those times before. Remember the Kwaio man who smashed policeman William Bell’s skull? He isn’t a lesson to copy, but it seems as if you think as if you have a right to do the same thing to anyone who has upset you. Think back, that was different. It was a colonial time. Bell was tax collecting. Basiano was defending his people – and let’s not forget that he was hanged.”

  Patte laughs, he is after all some sort of rascal, thankful the modern legal system is less brutal. “Henderson, you may not be hanged if you murder someone, but it is not God’s way, the Pacific way or the right way for any of us. You take off your Nguzu Nguzu warrior head so we can do something to scare your man. But let’s choose something that will make people laugh – undermine his Big - rather than waste your life behind the walls of Rove prison. And, bro, take heart I think I have an idea…”

  CHAPTER 21: SACKED AGAIN

  Ewan parks his jeep on the roadside guessing someone’s in. He climbs the flight of stairs and knocks on the unlocked door. Waits politely for an answer. But there’ s none. So he walks into the untidy room, amused to see a table groaning with bottles, powdered milk and bits of cut up cloth that look set to become nappies. It’s clear that the coconut wireless is right. VSO Suzy Trevillion hasn’t just lost her job as a teacher, she’s also acquired a baby.

  Taking a sachet of locally grown and ground coffee beans – given the amount of AUSAID funding this is as expensive as gold weight for weight – her boss heats up water in a saucepan (no kettles in the volunteer houses), then fills a strainer with the black grit. Rests this over a tin camping mug, and sluices in the heated water ever so slowly. It’s not Bodum coffee making style, but for caffine addicts it seems to work. Satisfied at last with the strength of the first cup he then makes another.

  The process is noisy enough for Suzy to wake thinking that there’s another intruder in the house. Wrapping a discarded lava lava around herself she is surprised to find her Field Director in the kitchen. He hands her an aluminium mug of black coffee and starts the inquisition: “Surely you can’t be so desperate to have a baby that you knicked one?” asks Ewan, mock shocked. At 34 himself he’s starting to hear stories about his female school friends back home who turn from normal mad, to hormonally obsessed at just about the time their career is properly kicking off.

  “Ewan I’m 23. I know me. And I’m not interested in babies. This one was given to me on a bus… Anyway how do you know?”

  Ewan smiles mysteriously – Suzy doesn’t need to know that it was his girlfriends’ old school friend who works on the maternity ward who told him.

  “Pregnancy is treated with major seriousness by VSO. You will have signed a contract stating that all pregnancy costs are your own responsibility and in any such instance your post would be up for instant renewal. I hardly know where to start with actually producing a dependant. Children are exhausting. Babies more so,” says Ewan quite seriously. The lecture goes on long enough for Suzy to block out the words so she can half-admire his profile – there’s a real James Mason quality to his looks, somehow crossed with a crumpled duvet. Strange how you forget the word duvet when you live in a place where just a sheet makes the ideal bed cover. She swims back to the present. Ewan seems to be finishing: “Those contractual details aside, congratulations Suzy, you have actually managed to get yourself sacked again. Trouble certainly sticks to you doesn’t it?

  Suzy laughs. Switches on a fan and then sits on the sofa facing into its cooling stream. Ewan brings his coffee over and a plate of mixed ngali and cut nuts, to join her. “Go on,” he says encouragingly, “eat up and tell me what happened.”

  “You’re going to think I’m making this up…”

  He gestures as if such a thing was impossible... “OK well don’t interrupt and I’ll try and tell you everything. I need to make sense of it too. I'd gone down to say goodbye to my friend at the agricultural research station near Tenaru. I don’t have to tell you why I’m doing that. Unfortunately she was out (off gallivanting around the islands checking up on the latest in cash crops: spices, her speciality) so, a bit disgruntled I'd hung out by the roadside until eventually one of the minibuses that runs between the Commonwealth Development Corporation copra plantation and Honiara turned up heading the right way. This was yesterday. It was about lunch time and as expected the bus was just packed out - men with rice sacks, women with sacks of root crops for family in town and several kids balanced precariously on passenger's knees. The fares collector (the usual young wantok of the driver who showed some aptitude for maths during his primary school days had packed the punters in so well that the driver could barely make a gear change.

  “Anyway I just flagged it down, and to my amazement was in luck. The bus rushed to a halt, all tyres sagging and the main door was slid back. Picking up my basket, and shaking the dust out of it, I went to get into the bus to find there was absolutely no room for my whole body, however I was prepared to fold myself. So the bus boy gestured to the front passenger seat, where there were already two people, if you count the baby. It’s so hard to get a bus out there and I was determined to get back to town and start putting my energy into getting my job back. Well any job here, that I decided to squeeze in as suggested. It caused quite a kerfuffle. The mother gave her baby to the driver so she could step out on to the ground, stretch and then get back in. I eased myself in, which forced me (sardine like) up against the driver's leg. I was so busy concentrating on not touching the driver - thereby making sure he got no strange ideas about the kind of person I was - that I never noticed a different woman get in beside me on the shared front seat. The doors were slammed and the bus boy managed to make the driver hear, over the noise of the passengers - a real rowdy lot - the all-clear tap on the roof. Understandably the driver passed the baby over to me and set off at a predictable, tremendous speed.

  “So there I am holding the baby, and for a few seconds (if I'm being honest) I looked down at this sleeping, old man face and thought "Ah, isn't it sweet!" and then I went to pass the bundle to its mother. But the woman beside me just smiled broadly and put her hands up, chattering away. She was one of these old ladies from Guadalcanal and didn't seem to speak, or understand, Pijin. It was very confusing. I thought she meant: ‘No, you go on and hold him for a bit.’ So I did, sort of rocking the bundle in a soothing manner - not that I needed to have bothered, what with the state of the road surfaces round here. And then after we'd been driving for about 15 minutes she hissed for the driver's attention, got it, and as the airport's sign for international departures came into view the bus slipped to a standstill and she stepped out, pausing only to slam the door. That's when I panicked. I said, now in English as
all my Pijin words had just slipped out of my head (it's been the same on boats when the sea's become rough - my language of fear is English that's for sure): "What about your baby? Excuse me, you've left your baby on the bus." I know, a tad ironic, but she just laughed and raising her hand to her head twizzled her finger at the left temple - ie, I was the crazy woman. Everyone in the bus was laughing now, it was just hideous. And worse, the driver seemed to be about to drive on. Rudely, I just leant across him (all my paranoia about accidentally touching his legs long forgotten) and pulled the keys out of the ignition. This made him pretty angry, but at least got his attention.

  “’Now look, whose baby is this?’" I asked in a hideously dictatorial manner - all those years of teaching in a south London comp flooding back; possibly even a hint of my grandparents colonial manners too. This time all the passengers were silent. I really panicked, I just went round the bus, asking everyone if they knew whose baby it was. And no one did. Well, no one until the bus boy strained to recall his passengers and worked out that the mother (if it was the mother, and no one knew that either) must have got off the bus when I got on it, 10km or so back at Tenaru. Aghast, I reckoned he probably was right. So what to do now? Well, obviously the first thing was to get rid of the baby - who was sleeping, oblivious to his predicament. No one on the bus wanted him. I thought about going into town, but decided I might be able to find a policeman at the airport. I guessed an international flight from PNG was due in fairly soon, judging by the amount of people hanging around, so stupidly I opted to get off the bus and ask someone at Henderson Airport for help.