Coconut Wireless

by Nicola Baird

  Even Stella allows herself to smile – she’s glad now she allowed Henderson and his rascal friend Patte to talk her into this squalid testimonial.

  “Maybe it will help some other women too?” Patte had sweet-talked her as his almost girlfriend, the Minister’s secretary, sweated into her important clothes wondering if this trick would get her the sack or a husband. Both? Neither? One not the other? But really Stella’s tale was told for herself: humiliation is a powerful medicine. And in a town like Honiara memories of a Big Man’s fall from grace is sure to be told and retold. She’ll get her baby back soon, he’s already proved he has a homing instinct.

  ***

  24 HOURS LATER

  The sleek-looking SolAir plane hums past low enough for the residents of Honiara to look up dreamily imagining who’s arriving today. Working out who’s due to leave besides the ACP delegates. Oh, it’s a beautiful day for a journey.

  In Mbokonavera, Suzy jiggles by the side of her house cursing her ineptitude. She’s got 10 minutes until Ewan and Dr Maylinda, acting as taxi and send-off force, turn up. But there’s still a heap of coconut husks that she can’t get to light. God knows she’s seen people get fires going enough in the houses around here, but nothing is as easy as it looks. Her persistence pays off this time: there’s a flame, and another, she scrumples up an old copy of Time magazine happy to see it flaring up along with carbon copies of all the letters she wrote. At last her fire is strong enough to take the pile of hot-weather, sun-bleached, part-time nappy clothes she’ll never need to wear again. It’s kind of wrong to burn them up when she knows she should be sharing what she has, but…

  Well no buts. Life couldn’t get more complicated. She had a job in paradise. Lost it. She had a baby. She gave the baby away. She had a kiss. Made no effort to get another. So why can’t she stop thinking about it? Idiot! This afternoon she’ll be in Brisbane – then back home to the UK, that land of layers, central heating and unions that stop you getting such unfair dismissal. There are pluses too: warm jumpers, Marmite and anonymity. How good it will be to do things and go places without the whole town talking. Perhaps the first thing she should do when she gets back to London is make sure she doesn’t get to know her neighbours? Suzy suspects that will be impossible, Solomon life has knocked away her sharp edges –something to think about on the plane. If she gets to the airport in time.

  **

  Up by the Labour Line Stella crouches by the glowing coals of her fire showing daughter Ellen – so nearly a school girl - how to grill a reef fish. It’s such a simple task Stella lets her mind wander. Yes, life is a surprise. She was an A grade student who made a mistake that got her kicked out of school. She had a Big Man husband. She walked off. She found a new husband, but forgot to hold on tight. She had a rubbish job. She left her job. Had a baby and gave him away… Looked at her life this way she’s not a good woman. Still at least her baby boy’s named and living back with her. There he is sleeping in a hammock made from an old fishing net rigged up under the nearby mango tree. He’s so sweet now he’s with her and able to enjoy her milk. Yes, there’s plenty of time to wait for her man.

  Drawn by the mouth-watering smell of cooking fish Henderson in long shirt and trousers comes out of the grubby little house and over to Stella for a last taste of home cooked food. Wants to put an arm around her shoulders and kiss her goodbye but his father is sitting close by, and custom hangs heavy everywhere. They see the plane circling to land, admire through the tree canopy it’s newly painted livery of a Solomon flag on the tail fin – five stars on the blue, a yellow flash of sun then a chunk of green to represent the rainforest – it’s visible just long enough for Henderson to greedily munch up the fish, bones and eyeballs too, then drink a long draught of water. Full he shakes his family’s hand good bye – father has promised to look after Stella and the children, perhaps as keen as his son for a change of scene.

  Nearby Patte, in another borrowed vehicle, beeps impatiently at the horn. “Don’t you know that you need to check in earlier for the international flights?” he shouts in his friend’s direction. “I won’t be gone for long you know,” Henderson says to Stella reassuringly. “It’s just to see. Just for a walkabout…”

  CHAPTER 27: SOLOMON TIME

  THE QE2 PASSENGERS wake late in their cruiser chic cabins where country cottage meets Mutiny on the Bounty. They dress in their best holiday gear - whites so white they are blue, large straw hats bought at the last port of call and the ubiquitous purse belt. They choose from traditional island, continental and full English breakfast menus. They snap at their partners. They want to go shopping. Let us out, let us shop, let us exist. Australian dollar bills are secreted out of hidey holes, passports stored in the purser's safe and then they are ready for the great descent, down those dinky little walkways that slope - at a crippling angle, if you tripped you'd be sure to die - and then you're on the wharf. Another country to tick off.

  "Look at those murals over there on the building, aren't they naieve? Look at those boats, they look so small. Oh boy, what's that whiff? Ah it's copra isn’t it? So stinky horrible. Strange to think it turns into the sweetest soaps." The professional tourists battle for taxis. They want to look round the islands, check out the old war fields of Guadalcanal, get a real feel for the island during this all too brief anchorage.

  The rest stroll across the 100 yard stretch of concrete that divides the consumers from the producers. There in the cooling sea breeze flaps row upon row of makeshift stalls, hurriedly knocked up by the light of the moon. Each offers a new and more tempting "island style" delight than the one before - ropes of bride price tafulae shells, red feather money, clam shell crescent pendants, polished trochus shells, strong plaited baskets, grass skirts, bones for the nose, carvings darkened to a mahogany glow with artless application of shoe polish, turtle shell earrings, dried berry necklaces - and the tourists love it.

  A timid couple look for a taxi. It's the only taxi left at the rank hurriedly set up by the Tourist Board this morning and Fred is in a vicious mood. He knows he's losing out on the tourist trade because of the great dent in the cab's passenger side where that useless Dean Solomon, MP crashed into him not long ago. Tourists like smart cars: and worse these two seem to want a talk - not a taxi.

  "Excuse me do you speak English?" the woman asks slowly.

  "Yes, very well," replies Fred with a scowl that suggests all those smiling shots of Solomon Islanders were just a marketing lie. Remembering this could be a business deal he smiles. His teeth are stained betel nut brown.

  "We know a girl working here, a British girl. Do you think you might know her?"

  "Sure I know everyone. I’m a taxi driver," says Fred unconvincingly. "Is she a Peace Corps or what?"

  "Something like that. She's a volunteer isn't she," the woman turns to her husband timorously. He nods. "I think she works for VSO. She's a maths teacher at King George school."

  "Sure I reckon I know that one - is it Suzy you mean?"

  "Yes, yes that's her! How extraordinary you should know Suzy,” they keep saying to each other – although it really isn’t a surprise in such a small, nosey town. Everyone knows everyone – eventually. “The first taxi driver we meet knows Suzy. What a wonderful coincidence." Fred is intrigued, what do these two want? He'd told them he was bound to know her, even if he hadn’t he’d have said he did....

  "Look,” say the couple talking almost in unision. “We've got a small parcel to give her, can we give it to you to pass on?"

  "We'll pay you of course," interrupts her husband.

  "No problem," says a now smiling Fred. "I'll get it to her straight away. But don't you’z both want to see her?"

  "Well, it's like this. We've never been to the Pacific before and my husband and I just want to look around. Not rush to catch the boat, so we think we'd rather look at the craft being sold, sit in a cafe or something, not go looking for a woman we’ve never actually met. Suzy’s our son's friend, and this parcel is from him."
>
  Fred nods understandingly, takes the parcel, waves the couple goodbye (though only after the husband's taken endless holiday snaps of the taxi driver with his wife) and drives off towards Mbokonavera.

  Typically the volunteer's house is locked. At his own place, the house next door, floor space is crowded with people, most of whom are catching up on sleep after the riotous pleasures of the prodigal son’s celebration feast. Fred goes to the sink under the house for a quick drink and from the snatches of betel nut-driven conversation Adam and Matron are having, on their usual hard-backed chairs, in their usual places, Fred guesses Suzy is still down at Henderson's place.

  He drives off again, but his direct route to the Labour Line is turned into a half-day detour when a tourist flags him down near the Mataniko Bridge and pays generously for a ride to the giant clam farm down at Aruligo.

  By the time Fred reaches the Labour Line, the QE2 has sounded the last of her three warning horns and is already cruising towards the deep water of the Coral Seas: next stop Port Villa, Vanuatu. It's been a good day for everyone - the tourists luxuriate in fresh water showers or cocktails in the sunset lounge. Yes, Honiara's got something about it, a magic that they missed in Fiji's main town, Suva. But then again Fiji was cooler, more sophisticated. Yes, this trip's better than they could ever have imagined. And the locals are happily counting their earnings, even these quick stopovers can make all the difference to their cash flow.

  "Motherhood suits you’z both," jokes Fred when he finds Stella and Lodu, with babies on their knees chatting quietly. Ellen is close by flicking the pages of a picture book Suzy gave her at the naming party. Stella laughs cautiously, thinking the same thing. Life with just her children is going to be far less complicated.

  "Where’z the mobs? Where’z your family and friends gone?” persists Fred. “I’ve got something for Suzy and her house is locked up.”

  “Henderson flew to Brisbane today,” says Stella trying to sound as if it’s just as if he’d gone to the market. She attempts a joke: “Everyone else is at church!” though Fred misses it. “And I’m not sure what’s happened to Suzy. You better take whatever you’ve got for her back to her house.”

  Fred is delighted by this unexpectedly fat slab of gossip; it will keep his Mrs happy. Imagine that? Henderson is on an Ozzie walkabout and didn’t tell anyone he was going. Fred eases himself back into the taxi, anxious now to study the brown paper parcel privately. There’s no real address, just a scribble of blue biro that says: “Suzy! Surprise, Bet you didn’t expect me to remember your birthday now you live with the head hunters? See you soon, Love Dan.”

  Whoever Dan is, his timing is rubbish.

  Fred chucks the parcel on to the back seat, turns the radio on and pulls out into the road grinning. One more cruise ship and he’ll also have enough dollars saved to go walkabout again…

  ###

  Info about Nicola Baird, author of Coconut Wireless

  Firstly, thank you so much for reading right to the end of Coconut Wireless! If you like Coconut Wireless, please let me know, or even give it a review. Same goes if you don’t like it. Thank you. I haven’t yet written a sequal but I have written several non-fiction books. So, here’s some more info about me:

  1 Nicola Baird is an environmental journalist based in London. She’s also the author of six non-fiction books, including the co-authored best-seller Save Cash and Save the Planet (Collins, 2005). Her most recent book was published by Vermilion in July 2010 – see Homemade Kids: thrifty, creative and eco-friendly ways to raise children. Also see her blogs on fun ways to travel with kids (all without leaving the UK); practical British tips on baby and childcare and interviews with Islington characters.

  2 For surprising insights into eco lifestyles, read the romantic comedy by Nicola’s football-obsessed husband Pete May, There’s A Hippo In My Cistern (Collins, 2008).

  ***

  This novel, Coconut Wireless, was inspired by Nicola’s two year Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) posting as a journalist trainer in Solomon Islands from 1990-1992 working with the Solomon Islands Development Trust. (For the record I’m terrible at maths and could never be a maths teacher…)

  That said, half any income made from Coconut Wireless will be donated directly to Solomon Islands projects working to improve the life chances of women and their children. Lots of the work I admire is done by Solomon Islands Development Trust, http://sidt.org.sb/ based in Honiara.

  Connect with me online

  http://twitter.com/nicolabairduk

  http://facebook.com/nicolahere

  My blogs http://aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com

  http://homemadekids.wordpress.com

  http://islingtonfacesblog.com

  My website http://www.nicolabaird.com