She crossed that out.
that it has not been good for Aren
She crossed that out as well. Neither said what she meant. There was time before they reached Nuku‘alofa; she would wait to finish this.
8
Nuku‘alofa
The Tofua took nearly a week to reach Tonga, first stopping at the Cook Islands for passengers to disembark and embark. Often in the distance, and sometimes nearby, they saw humpback whales—almost always two or three, because they love to travel together, Mr. Brimner said, having learned more about whales during his time in Tonga.
They were still, always, a shocking size. Leviathan, gleaming blue-black in the depths, greyish-white showing underneath when one rolled into a turn or came to the surface for air—or when they rose like swallows with wings spread in the play and display of breaching. Once they had breathed, they might stay underwater ten or twenty minutes, or an hour, as they chose; the game was to spot where they came up again. In the olden days, Kay had thought she would always be sailing among them.
The dining room was well run, and the menu on the second evening included Tartines à la Yarmouth, which turned out to be clam fritters with pinkish sauce. A small band played the tango in the saloon bar, where the Misses Pike, at loose ends between rubbers of bridge, took it in turn to dance with Aren and Mr. Brimner. Between those mild excitements, Kay and Mr. Brimner talked and thought and walked many miles around the promenade deck.
Aren listened to Kay talk about how they might go on to Pulo Anna, without taking part. But Jimmy Giles joined naturally in the conversation, since he knew the island routes, and he abused his privilege to send several cables to his brother John in Pangai, part-owner of a fishing boat that made longer voyages from time to time.
Days came and went in orderly sequence, clouds processing across the long sky from morning till night, till at the end of one afternoon there was a green hill in the distance.
This was the island of ‘Eua, which sounded to Kay like the name of the first land that ever came out of the sea. She had wanted to stop there long ago, on her first voyage—and now they would, for most of the day, while the Tofua let off passengers and took on more. The green island was lit by white sunlight, no half-lights or shadows. Untarnished, just born—she heard herself empurpling her thoughts, like Elsie Spiers. Or like Tennyson: In the afternoon they came unto a land in which it seemed always afternoon. Heavy-flowered heat wound round the ship as it slowed, and they saw schools of jewelled fishes in the water near the shore, almost as clear as the water in Eleuthera (the place that stood in Kay’s mind for heaven, perhaps because Thea had buried her first child there), but darker green than that sea’s pellucid blue.
White-sailed schooners crowded the pier at ‘Eua, coming and going. The Tofua anchored out beyond the tiny harbour at ‘Ohonua, and boats ran back and forth, first with the many deck passengers who were getting off and getting on, then more and smaller boats loaded with fruit and coconuts. It was a family-home week, which also meant it was time for some funerals, and many of the houses near the shore were in mourning, wrapped from side to side in huge swaths of black cloth.
Mr. Brimner, Kay and Aren, wanting to explore the town for an hour or so, went over on the first boat with Jimmy Giles, and he promised to make sure they got back on the last boat. They walked up the long tamped-dirt street. Yellow trumpet flowers hung from the roofs of the houses; little black pigs ran in and out of doorways, chased by children in raggedy drawers. One of the boys shinned up a tree to please the people from the ship, and dropped down green coconuts for them to drink. There was a surprise, too: a tiny bookshop, where Kay bought a mystery novel called Gore of Babylon. She could not resist—it had a knife-wielding vicar on the cover, locked in the embrace of a red-haired woman in a saturated-red dress.
But even standing on the dirt road, with nothing to hurry for, Kay felt a hungry need to get on with it, to get to Tonga, and on to Pangai, to get John Giles’s boat and go beyond into what they needed to find.
On the shore, they saw a man carrying an oar. Kay told Mr. Brimner of Francis’s joking threat to walk inland carrying an oar until someone asked him, “What’s that on your shoulder?” and there settle down—and how she’d shown him that joke in the Odyssey, at least a variation. “I will tell you an obvious marker—at least, that is how I translated σῆμα,” she said, checking with her teacher. “But perhaps it ought to be sign? Whenever some traveller meets you and asks why you have a winnowing fan on your fine shoulder, at that very point drive the well-shaped oar into the ground.”
Aren had heard this before; seeing his patient expression, Kay turned to Mr. Brimner to apologize for having perhaps already told the joke to him too, in a long-ago letter, but he said that he had the most obliging memory and never minded being told good stories again. As a true classicist must not.
“We must read together again, dear Kay,” he said.
This was a generous offer, but of course he had no duty to tutor her now. “Your passage was paid that way long ago,” she said, “but I will be delighted to read with you again!” She did not add “Mr. Brimner” because that seemed too distant. But to say “Henry” was too close.
Evening came down like a blind being pulled as the Tofua steamed toward the main island of Tongatapu, lying flatter than ‘Eua, a low, straggling coastline. Looking back, they saw ‘Eua’s palm trees as black outlines against the moon, and heard the low singing of mourners who would sit vigil at church all night. Or was that singing coming from Tongatapu already?
* * *
—
The ship stayed at anchor off Nuku‘alofa for the night—the rising and falling cadence of hymns audible from shore all night long—and very early in the morning the boats began to go back and forth to the wharf. Kay stared at the scruffy shoreline of Nuku‘alofa. There were still wading women, going out to check the progress of the leaves for weaving mats. Always women at that work, tending and checking. She stood recalling their last visit here, when they had not even known Aren yet. The thing in Tonga that she had most loved, of all the things she saw then, was the ‘esi maka faakinanga, the stone to lean against, from where the king had struck the knees of his visitors. She had loved sitting there beside Miss Winifred Small’s tender and affectionate knees, safe from the unpredictable power of kings.
As they were rowed shoreward, the first person she could make out on the wharf looked familiar. Coming closer, Kay saw that it really was a friend: as if she had come out of a dream again, it was Lisia, Miss Winifred’s companion. She was waving and jumping at the steel guardrail, displaying undignified and gratifying joy at the sight of Kay.
“Miss Winifred is here!” Lisia shouted as soon as she might be heard across the water. “She has come to meet you, herself!”
This was obviously a great honour, and Kay felt it. She did not need to remind Mr. Brimner who Miss Winifred was, but told Aren how lucky they were to know such a great lady.
At her open carriage, which was painted so nicely it could not be called a cart, Miss Winifred Small held down a hand to them, offering leis of fragrant maile leaves to refresh them after their journey, and saying, “Mālō ‘etau lava!”
“Mālō! Mālō ‘e lelei,” Kay replied.
“Mrs. Thea, your dear sister, cabled to say you would be on this boat,” Miss Winifred said, “so I had Lisia harness King George and bring us down, in order that we would not miss a moment of your company.”
Miss Winifred had grown very large, these last ten years, and only more beautiful. Kay stood on the step and stretched up to her old friend, who enveloped her in a warm embrace smelling of clean clothes and sandalwood.
“You must meet my brother, Aren!” Kay stepped back to bring him for inspection. Miss Winifred gave him a generous smile and set a graceful hand on his head. “And you know our friend Mr. Brimner—”
“I have known Henry these ten y
ears!” Miss Winifred waved at Mr. Brimner and motioned him forward. “And will enlist him now for my purposes.”
With a hand on the edge of the cart, Mr. Brimner said, “Miss Winifred and I meet often, dear Kay. Though a confirmed Wesleyan, I assure you, she is a force in the nation.”
“You must stay for a proper visit,” said Miss Winifred, not heeding this flattery. “I do not know what you may be planning, but you cannot proceed on the Tofua today! We will arrange things better.”
Kay lifted her hands, helpless against the ship’s schedule, but Miss Winifred had gestured and Lisia was already running back to the boat. “I have instructed her to get you a wharf ticket, so you may stay for a week, until the Matua comes. It’s just as good a boat, I promise you, but you must let me have a little time to enjoy your company.”
The Matua was the ship that Elsie and Julia were to travel on to Samoa. For a moment Kay thought it would be nice to see them again, before remembering that they were going in a different direction altogether.
Here was Lisia coming back across the pavement, and Jimmy Giles following close behind—he must have come over on the second boat. He was waving the long-awaited cable from his brother John. “It is all fixed,” he said to Aren as he reached him. “You sail Tuesday after next, out of Pangai. That gives John time to provision the boat and find a crew.”
Aren clasped Jimmy’s hand and thanked him, and so did Mr. Brimner, and the three of them stepped aside a little to learn more, while Kay turned back to tell Miss Winifred of their plans.
“We did not know if Mr. Giles’s brother could—but he can! So we will go on from Pangai in his fishing boat, up to the Solomons and then on to Micronesia to the Palau group, where Aren was born. We are going to his island.”
“Well, that is an Odyssey,” she said.
That made Kay laugh—she had not thought of that. “I hope it does not take ten years!” she said. “But if we have a week to wait, I think we might find a guest house here and wait for the Matua to take us on to Pangai!”
Miss Winifred would have none of that and insisted they were to be her guests, it was all planned. “Lisia’s little daughter is back at the house right now seeing that the beds are well aired.”
The first thing was to go back to the Tofua with the second boat for their things. Mr. Brimner, as always, had his possessions ready in a flash; Aren shouldered his seabag. But in the rush to get their luggage packed and taken off, and retrieved from the quayside melee of gigantic parcels of food and clothing bound for the outer islands, Kay forgot to look in the cupboard over her sink, and truly regretted losing the red toothbrush she’d bought in Boston.
Back on shore, they bowled along in a hired cart past the Queen’s palace and down Vuna Road, looking for Miss Winifred’s white clapboard house “with gingerbread decorations over the door,” built since Kay’s last visit, and even since Mr. Brimner had last been to Nuku‘alofa.
Keeping her eyes open for the house, Kay saw a man loping past along the side of the road, and twisted back to look again. Aren was looking back, too.
“That man! Was that Seaton?” Aren asked.
“I think it was,” Kay said, and Mr. Brimner nodded.
Aren stood up in the cart and called after him. “Hi! Seaton!” he cried. “Seeeee-ton!”
But the man did not turn or stop in his easy striding. His legs were newel posts, smooth as mahogany and covered with black decorations, and he wore a white cap on his head.
“Well, if it was him, I will find him later,” said Aren, sitting back again.
And that must be the house—yes, Miss Winifred’s, the driver agreed, yes, yes. He waited for them to get down, and for payment, and then backed his old cart and made off. In the distance they saw him pull up by the running man, and let him up for the ride back to town.
After their little party was settled, Mr. Brimner explained to Miss Winifred their plans for Aren’s trip: he knew John Giles well, whose wife Lotoua came from Ha‘ano and was his neighbour Mahina’s sister. “They are Fifitas,” he said.
As if that explained everything, Miss Winifred nodded, saying, “Sione’s daughters.”
So there was an island code of understanding—like in Yarmouth, Kay thought.
“Jimmy Giles sent his brother a cable proposing that John cease from fishing for a few weeks and instead ferry the little party up to the Palau islands north of Papua New Guinea. A big trip for a small schooner, but not impracticable, if John were willing,” Mr. Brimner told Miss Winifred. It took some time for John to think about the route, and another day of waiting to hear what Lotoua had to say about it. “Perhaps helped by my suggestion that Lotoua might go over to Ha‘ano for a holiday, and stay in my little house.”
With one eye on Aren, playing a juggling game in the distance with Lisia’s younger daughter Joy, Miss Winifred said, “And do you expect this home-return to make him happy?”
Kay did not know what to answer.
Mr. Brimner saved her. “Casus ubique valet,” he said. “Semper tibi pendeat hamus…” He gave Kay a bright glance, as one prompting a star pupil.
She laughed. “All right, that is enough for me.”
Miss Winifred said testily, “What, what? You must not speak in secret languages!”
Kay translated, as Mr. Brimner had meant her to. “It is a tag from Ovid: Chance rules everything. Keep dangling your hook, and in an eddy where you least expect it—a fish!”
Miss Winifred was not much mollified. “That is only ordinary sense. I will speak in Tongan and then you will be the ones who cannot keep up!” After a moment, she said, “It will be an expensive trip, Henry.”
“It will cost a certain amount, but I have some savings—I have not been able to spend any money at all in these last few years, except for postage and my clerical collars, which are sent from London at hideous expense.”
Miss Winifred laughed, but Kay shook her head sternly at Mr. Brimner. “It will be all right. I have received my inheritance, and Aren has money of his own. My brother Francis will wire us the funds.”
“Well, I am a passenger, and will contribute my share,” Mr. Brimner said.
Miss Winifred hauled herself out of her chair. “I leave you and Henry to quarrel it out,” she said. “From the kitchen smell, dinner is either ready or ruined—I will investigate.”
The household was not exactly what they were used to, but warm and comfortable. Lisia and her daughters Eponie and Joy lived with Miss Winifred, mostly as friends, Kay thought, and very slightly as live-in help, except that Lisia was more like an unmarried sister than a poor relation. But it was Miss Winifred who had never married. She did not understand the relationships, or Miss Winifred’s complicated history, and she thought (congratulating herself on thinking this, then scolding herself for thinking she was so wise) that perhaps she had better just listen and wait and not jump to any conclusions.
As the night wind cooled, she adjusted the louvres in her window and settled herself into the comfortable bed Lisia and Eponie had made up for her. Grateful for this peaceful room, and for not being on a ship for a little while, she said her prayers, asking God to keep Roddy and Francis and Thea safe. She would write tomorrow and tell Thea everything, everything.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think, but just to listen to the far-off singing.
* * *
—
Next morning, Aren went out searching for Seaton, who Miss Winifred confirmed was an off-and-on inhabitant of Nuku‘alofa. He had most likely been out odd-jobbing farther down Vuna Road, and might be there again today.
“He is a codger,” she declared. “Well known throughout the region, an easygoing fellow of regular habits, kava-drunk in the same place every Saturday night—I will point you to it if you have not found him by then, but he will not be hard to find. He is a knowing man, if he will not move faster than he pleases.”
/> Kay would have liked to go with Aren, but this seemed to be his own quest. She stood on the gingerbread porch looking after him as he strode down the road toward the town.
After breakfast, Mr. Brimner left too, saying he might be gone most of the day; it was his bounden duty to visit the Nuku‘alofa priest-in-charge, Mr. Hill’s replacement, whom he had not yet met.
Miss Winifred waved him off without regret and said that Lisia and Kay should find their hats and they would go into the country to see the sights without him, since Henry had had his fill long ago, and Kay must have forgotten everything by now.
Jouncing down the dirt road, coming back from the rather unimpressive and marshy site of Captain Cook’s famous landing on Tonga, the cart gave a wild swerve, as Lisia manoeuvred to avoid something tiny—what? Oh, it was a puppy, lost on the road, looking half-starved.
She pulled up and Kay jumped down to gather up the little bundle. So small, so new! His breath smelled like a skunk, even here where there were no skunks. She turned him up in her arms so he could look at her. His fur was mixed black and cream, a dark mask over his face giving him a rakish look. He was nothing like her dog Pilot, of course, but he had a bright, curious eye. He nipped her finger gently with his sharp little teeth, and then licked her hand to make up for it.
Then another came romping out from a hedge, and another, and soon there were six pups playing in the road, and the mother nosing after them.
A bright-eyed child ran out into the road, entirely without caution, but Kay supposed there was no motor traffic to be careful of.
“Whose is this puppy, child?” Lisia demanded.
“Our puppy!” the girl said.
“Will you sell him to me?” Kay asked.
Her sister had come out behind her. “We get you a good one!” she shouted, running back to where the litter had returned to their food.
The Difference Page 35