Intrigued by the young women, Neil began to join the hippies on the beach in the evenings. As the gasoline flames lit the dark surf at his feet, he lay beside the fire of palm logs, watching the erratic video picture on a battery-powered TV
set embedded in the sand. The two German women from the Parsfal took turns to breast-feed their baby, an amiable infant with rolling eyes under a swollen Down’s forehead. Wondering which of the women was the child’s mother, and assuming that the other had left her own baby in Vancouver, Neil enjoyed the pot and mulled vine which the bearded captain of the Parsfa1 offered him.
Fhe hippies’ erratic but undemanding presence made a pleasant change from Dr Barbara and her puritanical regime. The albatross were returning to Saint-Esprit, however deep he dug the camp latrines, and Neil felt less concerned with the fate of the slow loris or a threatened species of dwarf bamboo from the uplands of Nepal. He inhaled the sweet smoke, thinking some times of Louise, now as remote from him as the nuclear tests that OtiId!C'1 Conic to the saiict nary island.
An hour before dawn he woke in his tent, aware that Dr Barbara was leaning over his bed. Her face was touched by the light rcflected from the surf, and he could smell the strong scent of her as she worked herself into one of her passions.
He listened to the sea breaking on the reef, and the mournful, fluted music of the waves rushing through the hull of the Dugong. His nostrils quickened as Dr Barbara searched the mosquito net. He guessed that she had climbed the peak through the darkness, eager to be close to her beloved albatross, an ascent she made whenever she weighed an important decision. Pacing among the birds, she would have seen Neil
and the hippies on the beach.
She raised the mosquito net and sat beside him, a hand pressed to his abdomen.
‘Neil - time to wake up.’
‘Dr Barbara?’
‘Not so much noise. Listen to me - can you drive the bulldozer?’
‘Of course.’
‘You understand the controls?’ Neil sat up, rubbing the cannabis resin from his lips. ‘Do you want to build another runway, doctor?’
‘Another runway? We have one too many as it is. Get up and put on some clothes.’ She waited while he dressed, her eyes never leaving his naked body. After straightening his mosquito net, she raised the door flap and beckoned him into the darkness. They moved through the silent camp, past the tent where Monique slept beside her aged father. The riding lights of the Andersons’ sloop seemed to drown in the blackness of the lagoon. Water ruled from the zinc cascade of the aqueduct, inaudible against the breaking waves.
Dr Barbara strode through the night air, the sweat cooling on her forehead.
Still fuddled by the cannabis, Neil stumbled into a rut left by the Dakota’s wheels. Dr Barbara steadied him and pointed to the bulldozer, parked beside the long line of packing cases and donated stores.
‘Neil, I want you to start the bulldozer.’ Neil listened to the Dugong sighing on the reef. The flames still lifted from the hippies’ log fire, but they were asleep in their shanties and lean-to huts.
‘Start the engine? Where are you going, doctor?’
‘Nowhere. I’ll stay here with you. Now, listen to me - I want you to push everything into the sea. The whole lot, as deep as you can.’
III ic shacks, doctor? [here’s a baby there. One of the girls has jiaria.’
‘Not the shacks! I’ll deal with them later.’ She gestured at the ooden crates in their cargo netting. ‘Get rid of them! Drive: em into the sea!’ Neil tried to calm Dr Barbara as the coral dust rose from her ervous feet. ‘We need the supplies, doctor - they’re here to help ‘They’re not!’ She seized his arm and propelled him towards ihe bulldozer. ‘We don’t need them, and they’re not helping us.
They’re turning Saint-Esprit into a playground. We have to egin again and do it on our own. Now, get into the seat and,, art the engine!’
‘But what about the food…?’ Neil pressed his hands against: he steel track.
‘We only have enough supplies at the camp for three weeks?’
‘Throw the food away!’ Enraged with herself, Dr Barbara ummed her fists together. ‘We’ll make do with what we can crow ourselves. Try to understand, Neil -
I want the world to JLve Saint-Esprit and forget us. Then we can find who we really I re ;rr i11)1te liter Neil witc1ed oft the enynr. I Ic icaned eiinst the metal seat, his lungs filled with the foul breath of the diesel exhaust, skin drenched in lubrication oil sprayed from a leaking gasket. A small fire which two of the hippies had lit with splinters from the packing cases burned on the open ground above the beach, its flames reflected in the greasy itrol levers.
Everyone was standing among the trees, watching as the canvas bales. The surf raced through the gulleys which the bulldozer’s tracks had cut into the sand.
Already the sea was breaking up the wooden cases, the undertow dragging the barbecue kits and sun-loungers into the deep water. Sections of diickhoarding floated on the waves, and the surf swilled among Hundreds of food cans rolled back and forth on the sighing gravely taking part in a series of frantic races.
Dr Barbara paced the shore-line, her shirt soaked by the waves, smiling with the pride of a destructive child at the one time gift mountain disintegrating on the black sand. One of the hippies waded into the surf and retrieved a can, wrapping its label around his wrist. Another pulled a recreation bicycle from the deeper water, wheeled it through the waves and threw it onto the sand at Dr Barbara’s feet.
Neil rested against the control levers, too tired to step down from the bulldozer. No-one at the camp had woken until the last of the stores had slid beneath the waves. The hippies were the first to appear, emerging from their
shanties to watch the storehouse that had so generously supplied them with food and drink vanish into the sea. Major Anderson and his wife sat in the cockpit of their sloop, sharing a blanket, observing the action through their binoculars. The Saitos had hurriedly dressed in their yellow weatherproofs and stood solemnly under the palms, while a bare-chested David Carline, pistol tucked into the waist band of his pyjamas, shook his head over the destruction, hands raised to the night air as if trying to weigh the deviant sky. Only Kimo smiled with open admiration, still eager to be impressed by Dr Barbara and her wayward temper.
‘Barbara! I’m with you…!’ Monique ran down to the water’s edge. Fastening her dressing-gown, she embraced Dr Barbara and kissed her cheeks.
Arms around each other, the two women stood in the seething surf, as the last of the packing cases tumbled into the waves.
PART II
The Ecology of Paradise
BARELY A WEEK had passed since the destruction of the supply store, and Neil was still shocked by what he had done. The sanctuary had turned in upon itself, and the members were now preoccupied by their own survival. Their original reason for coming to Saint-Esprit, to save the albatross from the threatened nuclear tests, had faded into the dusty forest as soon as the support flights and media attention had ceased. In the evenings, after a meagre meal, they sat on the beach and watched the hippies trawl the waves for cans of food, aware of the suddenly vaster sky over their heads.
On the first morning, before any of them had recovered from the violent night, Dr Barbara called a meeting in the mess-tent and set out her survival plan for the immediate future. As she waited for them to assemble under the canvas awning she seemed more confident than ever, mistress of her island domain and certain that the expedition was back on its proper course. Lungs flushed with air, blonde hair flying from her forehead like a battle pennant, she resembled a warrior queen who had mounted a successful coup against her own followers.
Clearly intimidated by her, Professor Saito sat like a nervous schoolboy in the front row, pencil and notebook on his lap. Mrs Saito was calmer than her husband, eyes fixed coolly on Dr Barbara as if admiring the way she had seized control of the expedition. Monique helped her ailing father to a seat, concerned by his unsteady gait and fre
tting hands. But the old Frenchman’s resolve and pugnacity had been recharged by the night’s destruc tion. After complimenting Neil on his heroic act he assured “7 irno that the French naval forces were less likely to return to tint-Esprit once the spotlight of world interest moved from the oland.
The Hawaiian treated this to a sceptical shrug, but he cirveyed the peak above the forest slopes as if already seeing the fig of his independent kingdom flying from the plinth of the radio mast.
Canine was the last to enter the tent. Carrying one of the tood cans he had found on the beach, he lingered by the radio cabin, still undecided whether to charter a private jet, or so be had confided to Neil. Only when Dr Barbara began to speak did he stroll across the runway and take his seat behind the others.
‘Right everybody, I’m glad you’re here.’ She stood by a large blackboard, a gift from the Papeete lyc e that Neil guessed would now come into its own. ‘Neil,
�
sit up and stop staring at the camera-towers. There’s a lot to do. First of all, I want you to block the runway.’ Doctor -?’ Major Anderson, sitting with his anxious wife beside the Saitos, tried to protest. ‘It’s our main link to the outside world.
We need that runway.’
‘We don’t need it.’ Dr Barbara turned brusquely from her blackboard, breaking
the chalk in her hands. ‘In fact, it’s been a large part of our problem here.
People will still visit Saint-Esprit, Nut they’ll have to come by sea, and that may cool their ardour.
We must be left alone, so we can get on with the sanctuary.
I)avid, do I see you straining to say something?’ Carline stood up, the can in his hand, as if about to lob a ‘renade at Dr Barbara. Yet he watched her with the respect he had always shown to this maverick physician, disagreeing with her but curious to see where her imperious imagination might lead them.
‘I take your point about the runway, Barbara. That was a grandstand display last night. But before I eat today’s breakfast I’d like to think there’s another coming tomorrow.’
‘Of course there is,’ Dr Barbara replied briskly. ‘If you work for it.’
‘Work? Well, that’s a word everyone understands.’ Canine gestured at the canvas roof. ‘A heck of a lot of people worked to put that over our heads. All those stores young Neil bulldozed into the sea were their investment in us, their commitment to a dream. People all over the world are trying to help.’
‘But are they?’ Dr Barbara bared her chipped teeth and pointed to the beer-cans and wine bottles lying under the trees beside the runway. ‘I’m grateful to people for the gifts they’ve sent, but look at what they’ve achieved - Saint-Esprit isn’t a sanctuary, it’s a rubbish tip picked over by TV crews. You may not realize it, David, listening to your head-phones, but you’ve been running a cargo cult.’
‘And what about the dream, Barbara? We shared that once.’
‘We still do. I want Saint-Esprit to be a sanctuary, not a holiday camp for ecological tourists. The hippies on the beach aren’t interested in saving the albatross or anything else. If we wait much longer Saint-Esprit will be a haven for druggies and drop-outs. Everyone has to work, and we can’t work when we’re sleeping off last night’s hangover. We came here to get away from the world, but it’s caught up with us again. You don’t need to go to Brazil or Burma to find deforestation and pollution -just pay a visit to Neil’s psychedelic friends.’
‘They’ll quit soon.’ Kimo tried to pacify her. ‘That still leaves us, doctor.
If we’re going to make the sanctuary work we need all the basics - tools, equipment, food.
Especially food.’
‘We have enough to keep us going,’ Dr Barbara replied. ‘For a good two months if we ration ourselves. We have the goats and chickens, there are wild yams and breadfruit, taro and sweet potato. Professor Saito tells me there are dozens of edible plants in the lagoon. We’ll soon see how many of us the island can support, and then we’ll shut the door on the world. I hope you’ll join me, especially you, David - we’re all grateful for the medical supplies you asked your company to send us. I’ll stay on even if I’m alone here. If any of you decide to leave you can take the last seaplane tomorrow. Then we’ll tell Captain Garfield we want nothing more.
All we ask is to be left alone…
There was an uneasy murmur, and a sharp quarrel over nothing between Mrs Saito and Monique’s father, but before anyone could disagree Dr Barbara began to chalk the work-tasks “9 i! ckboard. Neil would care for the animals in farm enclosure, while Dr Barbara, Canine and Kimo cleared iic plant terraces. Monique and Mrs Saito would be in charge of c kitchen. To the Andersons she assigned the lighter work of tending the vegetable garden of donated seedlings and root ops.
Everyone would devote two hours a day to crop-hunting, ithering breadfruit and taro, manioc, coconuts, yams and sweet;)tatoes. Professor Saito was already compiling a biological ventory of the island, searching for edible plants and fungi. this they could calculate the resource base available for the: dangered species they would admit to Saint-Esprit once the nctuary was established.
We’re going to be busy, damned busy,’ Dr Barbara told rIcm, slapping the chalk from her hands. ‘I’ll work beside you until I drop. Things will get a lot tougher, but it’s worth the effort. Think of Saint-Esprit as the ultimate environmental Ct]Oi11Ccri11 the (‘COIOV of par isc’
I)id anyone believe her Neil waited for the first defectors to fold their tents and set off for the pier, suitcases in hand, but no-one decided to leave.
Uncertain of themselves, but buoyed by Dr Barbara’s fierce conviction in her cause, they set to work. As she frequently reminded them, they were now the endangered spe cies, more vulnerable than the lemur and slow loris. Their survival dominated the next days - moving the storage tent with its stock of food to a more secure position beside the kitchen, digging storm-drains around the camp and, above all, searching the hillsides for the smallest edible root or berry. The world had drawn closer to them, no more than an arm’s length away, at the 1 of a hoe, spade or machete.
Dr Barbara bullied them along. Even the protected animals in ir enclosures were nervous of her, retreating into their dens when she approached. She soon devised a repertory of playful routines for each of the expedition members, joshing Kimo out f his meditative pauses whenever the Hawaiian daydreamed wer his niachete, teasing Professor Saito to provoke his wife 0 into working harder, complimenting Carline on his newly muscled arms.
Canine tolerated all this good-humouredly, but Neil was still surprised that he had decided to remain on Saint-Esprit. At times he suspected that the American had taken the place of the two ill-starred anthropologists whom Kimo had smoked from their blind atop the camera-tower. For reasons Neil had yet to understand, Canine seemed pleased that Dr Barbara had become more authoritarian.
‘Shoulders back, Neil,’ Carline told him when he paused over the latrine they were digging for the clinic. ‘You have to give everything you’ve got for Dr Barbara.’ Neil raised his hands and licked at the burst blisters. ‘There isn’t any more I can give.’
‘Don’t be so sure…’ Carline watched Dr Barbara sprint up the clinic steps.
‘Our lady commandant has large plans for her gulag.’
‘She works the hardest.’
‘Of course she does. And the longest hours. Still, she has the most at stake.’
‘You’re crazy, David. Dr Barbara doesn’t have a cent in the world.’
‘Believe me, Neil, she has a great deal invested here. If the sanctuary fails she’ll be destroyed.’ Neil pondered the American’s frank but unmalicious smile.
‘Do you want it to fail?’
‘Should I? Maybe it’s already failed - I don’t think any of us can match Dr Barbara’s expectations. Not even you, Neil.’
‘But you’re still staying on here?’
‘Of course. What’s so impressive is that she’s absolutely right.
Every decision
she’s made since we left Honolulu has been borne out by events. It took real guts, but she was right to face the French guns. She was right to dump all that stuff in the sea and close the runway.’
‘She’s testing us - she needs to see if we can take it.’
‘No, Neil.’ Carline took the spade from his hands and struck at the sandy soil. ‘She’s testing herself…
Were they all waiting for rescue, before the sanctuary broke 1 xhausted them?
Whenever an aircraft flew over Saint-Esprit icy rested on their tools and watched its vapour trail through ie forest canopy, wistfully dreaming of the food parcels and csh fruit in the seaplane’s cargo hold. Aware that Neil was sing weight, Mrs Anderson brought a can of pressed beef from iie sloop. As he watched Kimo scraping and pounding the taro roots, then heating them to release the starch, Mrs Anderson ipped the can discreetly into his hand.
‘Mrs Anderson…’ Neil followed her to the kitchen irden. ‘I can’t take this
- you’ll need it when you sail back to Ripeete.’
‘Go on, Neil.’ She watched as he opened the can and forked lic fatty meat into his mouth. Her son, a soldier with the UN cace-keeping force in Lebanon, had died in a terrorist ambush in)87, and Neil often suspected that he resembled the dead youth.
Jhen he finished the beef she took the can from him and hid it vay. ‘Good. I never enjoyed Robinson Crusoe, but Dr Barbara ccIns to be playing it backwards.
Every day we have less and and feel more and more uncomfortable.’
‘Doesn’t Dr Barbara want things to get better?’
‘I really don’t know - perhaps she wants them to get worse.’
‘Why, Mrs Anderson?’ Neil asked. ‘What would be the point?’
‘To see what we’re made of, I suppose. And if we’re strong: iough to stay in the sanctuary.’ But if we’re strong, we wouldn’t need a sanctuary?’ It all depends what you mean by one - and what you’re hcping to protect there.’ Aren’t we protecting the albatross?’
‘Something more, I feel… something special that belongs to Dr Barbara.’
Rushing to Paradise Page 12