by John Harding
‘And who is that?’
Tr’boa lifted his hands off the wheel, disconcertingly. ‘Ah, you is must not ask me. I is not want trouble.’
‘I understand. I’m not asking what you think, just tell me, who does Purnu blame?’
‘Who else is can be but Managua? They two is still fight like always. Purnu is say is must be Managua who is cast fat spell, is be one good reason.’
‘Which is?’
‘Managua is still be thin.’
They passed more concrete buildings, evidently houses, because they had porches around them on which people lay on beach recliners. William saw that most of these people had the same Incredible Hulk proportions. He noticed too, as they passed more people on the road, that many of them, surely a bigger proportion than he had represented, sported artificial legs.
‘Tr’boa, tell me, have there been more explosions? Have more people been injured by mines since I left?’ He felt his anger rising. Part of the deal he’d struck with Sandy Beach had been that US military engineers would locate and remove all the landmines.
‘One or two, maybe three or four, no more. And they is be plenty long time ago, before Americans is return and dig up all bombs. Is be no more bombs left now.’
William shrugged. Maybe he’d just happened to see all the people he’d helped. It was impossible to tell because their features were so inflated there was no way he could recognize them.
It was strange to approach the Captain Cook from any other direction than from the beach, but here they were, driving up a smart new road to it. Not only the road was new. What William had always regarded as the back of the hotel, but which was now obviously the front, had been finished. Instead of the cutaway, doll’s-house façade he was accustomed to, there was a whole building. A large unlit neon sign said: ‘Captain Cook Hotel – the only place to stay’.
Tr’boa nodded at it. ‘You is see sign? Is be one big joke. Is be really only place for stay. Is not be any other hotel on island!’
Tr’boa stopped the jeep, got out and hefted William’s bag out of the back for him.
‘Thanks,’ said William. Then he remembered. ‘Oh, sorry.’
‘Is be OK,’ said Tr’boa. ‘I is be accustom for people offer inappropriate thanks. We is have many more visitor now. Americans for sell we things and also for sit on beach for watch sea. And little man with hair like orange fungi is be here not long ago. Also Japanese is come for take pictures. They is be worst of all. They is all be so rude – is thank we all time. Still, what you is can do?’ He shrugged.
‘Well, it’s great to see you again,’ said William. ‘I’m sure we’ll meet up before long, have a longer chat. Bye now.’ He turned towards the hotel.
‘Hey, gwanga!’
William stopped and turned back to face the young man. ‘You is not pay me for taxi.’
‘Oh, sorry. Listen, I don’t have any yams . . .’
‘Yams?’ Tr’boa laughed. ‘Nobody is have yams no more. Nobody is grow they damn things. Is be bloody damn stupid thing for use for trade anyhow, is be most tricky plant for grow, you is must always dig with yams. You is be right all along. Dollars is be much better. Now we is all use dollars.’
A local girl was behind the reception desk. In itself this was strange. She wore a band of bright red cloth around her chest, covering her breasts, and when she stood up he saw she had on a sarong-type skirt that stretched from her waist to her ankles. It was the first time he’d ever seen an island girl in proper clothes, unless, of course, you counted Lintoa, Sussua and poor Tigua, and he didn’t suppose you really could. She checked him in without batting an eyelid, just as in any other hotel anywhere else in the world, taking his details and typing them into a computer with nonchalant aplomb. William couldn’t help recalling the time when Managua was the only person, the only native person, anyway, on the island who could read. This was progress. The jury might still be out on whether or not motor vehicles were a good thing for the island, but he could surely be proud that one effect of his actions had been the spread of literacy.
‘Is be you first visit this island, sir?’
‘No, I was here five years ago,’ said William. ‘The hotel was a bit different last time I stayed in it.’
The girl looked at him more closely. ‘I is remember you. You is be one they is call gwanga, who is do funny thing with eyes. Hah! you is do now! I is be just little kid when you is be here before.’
‘I guess.’
‘Well, enjoy you stay.’ She handed him his key and pressed a bell on the counter in front of her. A local boy of about twelve, dressed in floral-patterned knee-length beach shorts, appeared as if from nowhere and picked up his bag. William followed him up the stairs, which had been restored so there was no need for him to ascend them with any worries about symmetry. As luck would have it his room was the one in which he’d found the pig Cordelia six years ago. Now the boy put down the bag and flung open the window shutters to reveal a stunning view of the sea. The room was light and airy and it was hard to recall it had ever seemed a dark and forbidding place that smelled of pig.
William walked out onto the balcony. The sea winked at him in the late-afternoon sun. He remembered Lintoa telling him how he had first seen Perlua standing in this very spot. It all seemed so long ago.
A slight cough behind him. He turned and saw the boy still standing there. He took out a dollar and gave it to him.
The boy smiled but didn’t thank him. At least some of the old customs survive, thought William.
Later he went down to the dining room for dinner. The mahogany table that had once been his bed, where he had first enjoyed the exquisite pain and pleasure of making love with Lucy, where he had also slept with poor Sandy Beach and Dr Gold, was no more. Well, of course not. It had been decrepit even five years ago. Gone too was the grand piano. There was a new bar, no longer in the shape of a ship’s hull, and the violent murder of Captain Cook had been erased from the wall and replaced with a pastel shade of blue.
The only other diners were a middle-aged Japanese couple. William chose a table as far away as possible from theirs, but this didn’t stop them attempting to engage him in conversation.
‘You have just arrived?’ asked the man.
‘Yes,’ he replied and applied himself to the menu. He was intrigued to see it offered a variety of ‘local delicacies’ including king prawns, stuffed red mushrooms (one to avoid, he felt) and roast suckling pig.
‘We have been here four days,’ said the Japanese man. ‘It’s enough. There’s nothing to see here.’
‘The sunset is worth photographing,’ said his wife. ‘And maybe the sunrise, which we hope to get tomorrow morning. But as for the rest, don’t waste your film. If you want to know anything about the place, ask us. We’ll be here until the day after tomorrow.’
‘Thanks, but I won’t need to trouble you,’ said William. ‘I’ve been here before.’
‘You’ve been here before?’ said the woman, sounding as shocked as if he’d just said he was an axe murderer. ‘And you came back?’
SIXTY-SEVEN
THAT NIGHT WILLIAM lay in bed as he once lay on the mahogany dining table, listening to the sound of the surf remind him of his own mortality. Six years on from that first time. Six years older and nothing different in his life but that. Beneath the sound of the surf he could detect a steady hum, which seemed to signify his own ever-present anxiety. It took him some time to figure out it was the hotel’s generator chugging away somewhere out back.
Next morning he awoke early. It was not long past dawn. His stomach felt a little queasy. He hoped the prawns he’d eaten had been fresh. More than that, he hoped they hadn’t been near any fungi of whatever hue. He got out of bed, and walked to the bathroom. He sat down on the lavatory but the plastic seat felt cold and strange. It was no use. It seemed all wrong to take a dump like this.
He pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. Although it was so early the girl from yesterday was already on the des
k. She obviously kept the same long hours as hotel workers all over the world. Even here.
He handed her his key. ‘You is go out already, sir?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he replied, perhaps because of her island speech not thinking about what he was saying. ‘I think I’ll take a shit on the beach.’
The girl didn’t bat an eyelid. But William turned around to find the Japanese couple standing right behind him, staring at him the way you might at, say, a psychopath. ‘It’s an old island custom,’ he said, and pushed past them and out the door leaving them jabbering excitedly in Japanese.
The dawn wasn’t quite as it had been. For a start there was the hum of the hotel’s generator. True, it faded as he got further away, but then, as he neared the village, he became aware of an aural undertow, suggesting there was at least another, maybe several generators there. He wondered what other changes his dollars had wrought. Still you couldn’t have everything and a little noise was surely a small price to pay for the benefits electricity must have brought to the islanders’ previously benighted state.
He hurried because the sun was up and he thought he might be late, but when he reached the shitting beach there were only a few figures, a dozen at most, dotted around.
They stared at him as he made his way across the sand. The first thing he noticed was that two or three of them were morbidly obese, and several of the others were seriously overweight. There was much grunting and gasping, as the men strained to produce anything, a phenomenon he certainly didn’t remember from before. Then he saw one of the figures, one of the slim ones, waving to him. He made his way across the beach to him. It was Managua.
‘Gwanga, is be true then. I is hear you is come back, but I is think that fool Tr’boa is be mistake. Welcome.’
‘Thanks,’ said William.
Managua frowned. ‘I see you is not learn any manners while you is be away.’
‘Sorry, I forgot.’
‘Is be OK. Is not be worst thing you is ever do.’
William shot him a questioning glance. Managua gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Not now, not now. Is time for do shit.’ He squatted and pulled aside his pubic leaf string. William dropped his trousers and shorts and crouched beside him. He’d forgotten how refreshing it was to lift your butt to the breeze.
They squatted for a few moments in companionable silence, aside from the hum of the distant generators and the groans of constipated fat men. It wasn’t just these latter that were different though, something was missing. There were too few people. There was no sense of communal ritual.
‘Did I get here too late?’ asked William. ‘I seemed to have missed the main event.’
‘No, this is be all,’ said Managua, gesturing half-heartedly with the hand that wasn’t holding aside his pubic leaf string. ‘People now is have American toilet in they house. Is not can be bother for come here for shit. Is be one of many old customs that is fall away. Young people is no longer want for shit properly any more.’
It was true. William looked around and saw only old people. Managua, at what, sixty-five? was perhaps the youngest one there. But then he saw a youthful, muscular figure running across the sand towards them. William realized that this was the first young man still sporting the traditional pubic leaf, rather than Western-made shorts, that he’d seen since he arrived back on the island.
‘Gwanga!’ It was Lintoa, but not as he had seen him last, wearing a red dress and sporting a black eye after his fight with Sandy Beach, the fight that had led to the US government settling with the islanders out of court. You’d never have guessed this piece of smiling, supercharged testosterone had spent most of his life as a disgruntled girl.
Lintoa squatted the other side of William from Managua. ‘I is shit on this part of beach these days,’ he said. ‘I is be boy now.’
‘Man, I’d say,’ said William.
Lintoa’s chest puffed out a couple more inches, if that was possible. ‘Is be true. Man.’
When they had all finished shitting and William was pulling up his trousers, he felt glad that at least one tradition had vanished. Purnu and his friends not being there meant there was nobody conducting a post-mortem on his dump. It was good to be able to attend the shitting without any embarrassment. At this moment he looked up and saw, maybe thirty feet away, the Japanese couple. The man had a video camera to his eye. It was pointed directly at William.
SIXTY-EIGHT
THE TRACK BACK to the village from the shitting beach was overgrown, Managua explained, because these days so few people walked this way for the daily communal bowel movement.
When they entered the village, William was appalled by what he saw. The outer ring of dwelling huts had all but abandoned its circular shape. Now it was a sprawl, spreading this way and that into the jungle. The reason was many of the traditional bamboo and adula buildings had been demolished and in their place single-storey concrete houses had sprung up. They were bigger than the old huts and had elbowed their way into the tree line. Behind each was a small cinder-block building from which emanated the drone of a gas-driven generator. No longer could you smell the scent of frangipani and lemon blossom; the air was perfumed with the acrid sting of petrol fumes.
Even those huts that remained from his former visits had changed. Almost all of them were roofed with corrugated tin. Somewhere or other on every house, bamboo or concrete, was a satellite TV dish.
If the outer circle made a distressing sight, at least it was still there. The inner circle had mostly been demolished, the one or two buildings that were left in sorry need of attention, their adula roofs dried to dust and blown away, the roof beams collapsed, the walls stove in by strong winds and left unrepaired.
It was some minutes before William could speak. ‘What happened to the bukumatula houses?’
‘No-one is use they any more. Young couples these days is just move in own house together. They is not bother for marry. They is sleep together and then they is sit outside they hut and eat together in full view of everyone. You is see they stuff they faces side by side. They is have no shame.’
‘And the storehouses?’
‘Is not be need. Now we is have shop.’ Beyond the ruin of what had once been the bukumatula house where William had been kept awake by an orgy of sound, Managua indicated with the sweep of his arm the other side of the central village clearing where stood a long concrete building with glass windows and doors. On its roof a plastic sign read PURNU MINI MARKET. As they approached William read handwritten signs in the windows: SPECIAL! ONE MOON ONLY! COCA-COLA PLENTY DAMN CHEAP! and DORITOS – FIVE FLAVOURS NOW IN STOCK. A smaller notice said: POLITE NOTICE FOR ALL WE CUSTOMERS. WE IS BE SORRY WE IS NOT CAN ACCEPTYAMS.
Such, thought William, are the uses of literacy. He turned and, for the first time, saw beside the kassa house a new building, at least three or four times the size of the former. It was perhaps twenty feet high, made of solid wood, and circular. He looked at Managua, who was smiling proudly.
‘Is be New Globe Playhouse. Is be what I is do with most of my dollars.’
‘You built a playhouse? You have plays here?’
‘Play,’ said Managua. ‘Hamlet. First performance is be in few days’ time.’ He appeared confused. ‘You is not know? I is think you is come special for see.’
‘I didn’t hear about it,’ William confessed.
Managua pushed open the door of the building. Inside there were ten rows of steps for seats raked around an apron stage. Everything was in polished wood, such as you never saw on the island. It would not have disgraced any small American town. William shuddered to think what the rain and the sun and the termites would make of it.
‘It – it’s magnificent. It will be quite something to see a play here. I look forward to it.’
‘Well, you is be in for one big damn treat,’ said Lintoa, the Easter Island statue breaking into a huge grin. ‘I is be Hamlet.’
‘You?’
‘Sure thing. I is learn all play.’ He ga
lloped down the step seats and leaped on to the stage. He held up one arm and declaimed. ‘Is be, or is be not, is be one big damn puzzler. You see? I is act plenty damn good, is I not? You is go tell me you is ever hear they words is be act better?’
‘No,’ agreed William, ‘I certainly haven’t.’ This was true; although he couldn’t remember whether or not he’d seen Hamlet, he knew that if he had the soliloquy definitely wouldn’t have sounded anything like that.
Managua shot William a serious and meaningful look. ‘You is see, gwanga, is be one good thing is come of you dollars.’
‘Yes,’ said William. ‘One good thing.’
‘No,’ said Lintoa. ‘You is must not forget, now we is have hospital.’
‘Hospital?’
‘Yes, people with dollars is put money together for build. We is have doctor too, from America.’
‘Hospital! Huh!’ Managua rolled his eyes. ‘Come, gwanga. Now you is see some of mess you is make of island, how so many tradition is be ruin by you dollars, I is show you we is keep some of we customs. Even after all you is do, I is welcome you at my home.’
‘Thanks,’ said William.
Managua scowled and hobbled out of the building.
Managua’s hut was as before, at least on the outside. It still had an adula-leaf roof and although a generator hummed from behind it, William saw that the noise emanated from a shed built of bamboo and adula rather than cinder blocks. In front of the door was the customary fire, on which a pot – no doubt containing the foul-tasting stew the old man lived on – bubbled away. Pilua kneeled by it, chopping vegetables.
‘Greetings, gwanga,’ she said. ‘I is be please for see you. We is worry ’bout you with all this bad news from America.’
William was humbled by her concern. He had all but destroyed the islanders’ way of life and here was one of them showing sympathy for him. He had a desperate urge to apologize, but couldn’t find the words. ‘Sorry’ was so inadequate it amounted to an insult. ‘Pleased to see you, too,’ he mumbled.