Another Throw of The Dice

by Mary Clare Morganti

  ‘I would like to show you my village as long as you can get back to the wharf in time,’ he said graciously and it was too good an offer to turn down.

  ‘We’ve got our tickets so that shouldn’t be a problem.’ Robert’s irony was met with polite silence.

  Min said later that it was like leaving normal time and moving into another dimension. It wasn’t long before a retinue of lively children joined them and the young man introduced himself as Perenese, who had recently become the chief of his village on the death of his father. It turned out also that he had been educated in New Zealand and was working there when the call came. Robert asked him if he had found it difficult to slot back into village life and his answer was equivocal.

  ‘Now I have many responsibilities for the family.’

  When they arrived in the village compound there was an air of industry and the old people were sitting cross-legged in the shade and fanning themselves. Perenese introduced his friends to his mother who was busy putting out washing and he told her about their ferry experience which made her laugh also. She invited them to have a meal but he said they would miss the ferry again - a possibility he again found very amusing.

 

  Then suddenly he said something to one of the boys who promptly and with astonishing agility, shinned up one of the nearby coconut palms where he knocked down four fruit which thudded almost at their feet. With the same deft speed Perenese chopped down a sapling, sharpened it to a point with his machete and drove it into the ground. He then punctured the drinking coconuts on the spike and handed one to each of the visitors who raised the vessels as if toasting with a fine wine. Min recorded the experience in her journal as a singular moment which had all the elements of physical relief from thirst and which amounted almost to a sacrament. For a moment she felt like a relaxed pantheist.

  The children watched with round eyes as the strangers drank gratefully and Perenese asked where they could meet when he went to the other island, as he did on a regular basis. Robert found a scrap of paper on which he wrote his name and address and handed it to their host thanking him for a welcome interlude.

  ‘It was worth missing the ferry after all,’ said Dinah as she placed her empty coconut on the ground.

  Lucky fished in his pocket and found some coins which he wanted to give to the children but he asked if it was in order to do so. Perenese said the children were not used to spending money but he would take care of it and buy them something when he went to town. As Min noted, the splendid teeth were witness to the absence of corner shops.

  Back at the wharf a crowd had assembled in the meantime and there were several pickups queued at the wharf gates. A large man wearing a braided cap at a jaunty angle stood outside a too-small sort of sentry box with a look of authority. In spite of the heat he was also wearing a jacket with epaulettes and he surveyed the throng with a genial smile. Min said the comic opera effect meant that she half expected him to burst into song at any moment while Robert suggested that he had raided the costume department of the musical “South Pacific”. This amusement was cut short when he opened the gates and ushered in the pickups while holding back the foot passengers with the sole authority of an outstretched arm.

  Then the main gates were closed again and a small group of men appeared on the gangway with a coffin. When they approached the small side gate they were saluted extravagantly by the sentry who accompanied them to the waiting bus. The crowd watched in subdued silence as the men tried to negotiate their load through the front door of the bus with the help of manic hand gestures from the official. But when the coffin was suddenly upended to ease its passage there was a general gasp which gave way to deep visceral laughter. The coffin must have been empty, surely.

  ‘Poor corpse,’ spluttered Min. ‘This is one time I would have liked to own a video camera.’

  Once this operation was over the official returned to his post and opened the main gates again.

  Thereupon there was surge forward which left the four ticket holders at the rear of the crowd and looking as if they would miss out once again on the means of escape from paradise. Robert swore loudly and when they finally passed the sentry man he berated him for a chaotic system. Lucky asked if there was a limit to the number permitted on the craft but all he got was a charming smile and a doff of the cap. Min asked the others later if the gesture had meant that he didn’t understand or that he was in character and wanted to maintain the comic theme.

  On board Min began to feel reality seeping into her consciousness and to feel guilty about her missed classes. She hoped that the Principal hadn’t worried enough to send someone to her house to find out why she hadn’t come to the college, because earlier she had asked her to check in that case. Without a phone and knowing few people she had felt particularly insecure. But now that she had good friends life was changing.

  Chapter 19

  ‘Now for your story Min,’ said Lucky, ‘to entertain us in default of any electronic media on this sea-going vessel.’

  ‘Gather round then,’ she said redundantly to the other three huddled uncomfortably close under a derrick.

  ‘According to my mother I was a bit sickly but I think they were anxious parents with a first child. Anyway my mother always had one or two tonics up her sleeve and at this stage it was something dire called milk of magnesia. On this particular night I apparently went to bed like a lamb fortified by the tonic, and the parents went downstairs to have drinks before dinner with the host and hostess who were very impressed by my angelic behaviour. At this point in the story my mother usually digresses with the suggestion that it was uncharacteristic and they should have been suspicious.’ She wiped her face with the bottom of her tee-shirt and took a deep breath.

  ‘God - I’m hot. So to cut a long story short - parents preening themselves in lounge - daughter of owner comes running out to say her bed was all wet - all rush upstairs to room above daughter’s - door opened on scene of shivering brat standing at the overflowing basin - empty blue bottle in hand - mother rushes over to pull out plug etc. - child screams - parents mortified - end of hotel visits even though friends were terribly decent about vandalism. So here ends another watery tale. And I’m an aquarian - what about you Lucky?’

  ‘How old were you?’ he asked, ignoring the question.

  ‘About two and a half I think.’

  ‘Who’d have kids?’ mumbled Robert who said he was feeling seasick and would have to move now that the ferry had changed direction and the sun was beating down on them.

  Lucky and Min were able to find a seat inside while Dinah and Robert went to the stern of the boat where they leaned on a rail. Lucky mentioned the hilarious episode with the coffin and told Min that he’d never forget one of his first shopping expeditions to a general store on the edge of town where they were selling coffins along with ice cream and cabin biscuits.

  ‘There’s something honest about the way death is handled here I reckon,’ said Min. ‘Those graves in the front garden where your ancestors become part of the garden furniture are a bit shocking at first but when you think about it, it’s sort of healthy.’

  Lucky remembered his arrival in the country in the evening and going along the airport road he witnessed a wake in one of the open fales.

  ‘The body was on a sort of raised platform under blazing lights and all the family was seated around it, presumably praying. It was an interesting introduction to the place.’

  Min said she was getting a headache from the heat so Lucky offered to take her rather grubby towel and find some water to dampen it. He finally found a tap over a dirty basin and thought nostalgically of the refreshing coconut milk; for a moment he was tempted to cup his hand under the tap to slake his acute thirst but he knew it was too risky. Instead he drenched the towel and took it to Min who wound it round her throbbing head.

  ‘You were wise to bring your farmer’s hat,’ she told him and he said it was just about de rigueur in Australia. ‘Technically they’re kno
wn as akubras, for some reason,’ he added.

  ‘Have you ever heard of a wideawake?’ she asked.

  ‘I think it’s another name for a sooty tern.’

  ‘It’s a sort of sunhat in one of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories.’

  ‘Who’s Katherine Mansfield ?’

  Min heaved a sigh. Was there no end to the ignorance of her country’s most famous people - apart from mountaineers and footballers whom they claimed as their own.

  Dinah appeared and said that Robert had been violently ill so she had to leave him to it.

  ‘I thought you kiwis were hardened seafarers with all that water around you,’ she said when she saw Min’s obvious discomfort under the towel.

  ‘Kiwis are flightless and nocturnal,’ she muttered disconsolately into her kneecaps. ‘You’re getting them mixed up with albatrosses.’

  ‘You look more like a Bedouin than a kiwi at the moment anyway.’

  ‘A nomadic kiwi - an interesting combination,’ laughed Lucky under his sensible hat.

  The drive from the ferry terminal was nearly the last straw after the discomfort of the two-hour crossing in choppy waters. Dinah drove while Robert slumped beside her and Min cursed for not bringing any painkillers because she was feeling really ill. Lucky said she was showing all the signs of dehydration and he asked Dinah to stop at the first shop they saw. He bought several bottles of tonic water and the army knife was pressed into service again. Min tried to remember whether she had finished the last of her boiled water in the refrigerator because she knew that all she wanted was to go to bed and lose consciousness for hours and hours.

  Robert on the other hand, was feeling very hungry and feeble, so after Min had been dropped off and Lucky had helped her to carry her things inside as well as to check that she drank as much water as she could, the other three decided they needed a good square meal. At such times Robert said he craved one of the square meals which his mother specialised in and it involved lamb and roasted potatoes. Dinah and Lucky decided that it had to be beef in some guise to qualify for square, whereupon they all groaned, tortured by their memories.

  They had to settle for a generic Chinese chop suey and local beer after which as Lucky said,

  ‘When you’re hungry you’ll eat anything,’ and Robert piped up nasally,

  ‘But were you hungry enough to test the rat theory?’

  Dinah looked at Lucky and sighed. ‘What a pity his mother didn’t teach him manners to go with her square meals!’

  Before taking Lucky to his place Dinah wanted to check on Min’s welfare. She knocked gently on the bedroom window but there was not a sound in reply so they all went home to fall into bed and die to the world.

  Chapter 20

  Polly had decided that she would try and learn the local language having determined to immerse herself in the culture.

  She went to see Eturasi in the newspaper office to find out how to go about it. He seemed surprised but at the same time pleased when he heard of her idea, thinking that it was not all that usual for anglophones to bother to learn the language; they simply didn’t need to.

  ‘English has such international cachet,’ he said, ‘and the local language is consequently accorded a lower status - even by some of the native speakers I’m afraid. Of course English is the language of technology but it’s the local language which expresses the spiritual roots of the people.’

  ‘I regret not keeping my Spanish up to the same level as English because my mother always spoke to us in it when we were young. Then we went to school and it took a back seat for a year or two. Now in the US it’s the second most spoken language and I want to take it up again when I go home. Gone are the days when it was thought that one language would impoverish another.’

  Eturasi told Polly that his young brother showed academic promise and was living in their village not too far from town.

  ‘He could probably help you and at the same time learn a lot himself. What’s more you could spend some time in the village if you wanted to. His name is Jupeli and he comes to town at least once a week so would you like to meet him?’

  It suddenly dawned on Polly that he was talking about the young man who had told her about his brother that day on the beach. She felt embarrassed and gave him an edited version of her meeting with him.

  ‘I think I need someone older - with authority I mean,’ she said lamely.

  ‘Like me you mean?’ Eturasi smiled.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  He pointed out that he had very little formal knowledge but Polly told him that she had little formal grammar in English.

  ‘So we’d both be learning.’

  She would feel more comfortable with him she knew. They discussed a possible venue and Eturasi asked Polly if Jim would be interested in joining in. She bit her lower lip - a gesture of doubt which he would get used to - and said she’d ask him.

  His answer was in the expected negative (‘I can’t see the point - and anyway I’m hopeless at languages,’) but if she needed a chaperone…

  ‘I don’t - but I think Eturasi might.’

  As she made her way to her first lesson with him on his front verandah, Polly wondered if she would have any aptitude for what was essentially a spoken language with a limited alphabet. At the same time Eturasi was having misgivings about the project. He wanted to hand it over to someone else but teachers qualified to teach his mother tongue as a second language were almost non-existent; he therefore felt a certain responsibility to be a pioneer. At least he knew what he didn’t know and it could be a chance to make some interesting discoveries.

  The house was European-style with furniture made from the rich rain forest timber and large plaited mats of varying textures covering much of the floor. Polly noticed the interesting curtain fabric of a bold design in black and reddish brown - colours which Eturasi said had come from New Zealand where the Maori patterns had a most distinctive style.

  ‘Luatasi brought them back from one of her New Zealand trips - it’s like a second home to her.’

  ‘Have you ever thought of moving there?’

  ‘No. I love this place too much and I want to help to keep people informed through the newspaper. It’s so important to cover the local goings-on and to try and keep the politicians honest.’

  ‘Is that very difficult?’

  ‘Not if you have the right contacts.’ Eturasi smiled. ‘The churches too - they have a lot of power. And sometimes it’s hard to know where culture ends and religion begins - they’re so intertwined here now. Anyway this isn’t what you came to listen to.’

  Eturasi had prepared some sentences useful for buying food at the market and Polly had to say them over and over. She wanted to write them down but he thought she should train her ear. She found herself making all sorts of weird associations in her head to try and establish the sounds in her mind and then they tried a little role play with some vegetables which Eturasi found in the kitchen. It became an amusing game and Polly found herself having fun as she mouthed the unfamiliar and almost meaningless sounds.

  On her way home she passed Min’s house and was tempted to go and see her but she knew she would erase the magic formulae ringing in her head. When she got home she wrote down what she was saying because it was all very well to train her ear but it was her eyes that were the conduit to her brain she’d decided.

  Jim laughed when he saw what she had written and said it looked like a secret code.

  ‘Might as well be,’ said Polly ruefully. ‘This is going to even harder than I imagined.’

  ‘I hope it’s worth the effort - I’ve been thinking - it won’t be any use outside of this country.’

  ‘As I said - I want to get more out of the experience of living here.’

  ‘You’re a real idealist Poll - and I mean that kindly. I’m just a lazy sod and I’m starting to vegetate. I think I’ll take up the guitar again - trouble is, it’s back home and I don’t want to buy one here. It crossed my mind when we were u
p at the poet’s grave that I should have brought the thing with me but I didn’t think of it in the rush of leaving.’

  ‘I’ve just had an idea. I should write a tune to go with the words I

  learned yesterday and see if it’s any easier to remember them.’

  Jim warbled operatically ‘How much is the breadfruit?’ and laughed at the image of Polly as Julie Andrews, singing and smiling her way among the admiring vendors at the local market.

  ‘Very funny Mister Johansen. Talking of markets - what do we need for the meal you promised to cook?’

  ‘Let’s invite Min. I’m keen to hear about that trip she went on and I hear she’s having fun and games in the school where her students are trying out their teaching skills.’

  ‘I can’t work out whether that woman has a chequered existence or whether she is endowed with superior descriptive powers.’

  ‘It’s a bit of both I’d say,’ said Polly.

  Chapter 21

  Min woke feeling disoriented after the soundest sleep she had had for weeks on the morning after the ferry trip home and she wanted to stay in bed for the rest of the day. It was one of those times when she indulged in a fleeting fantasy that she was a completely free agent. Then she suddenly remembered that she was supposed to have started her teaching supervision the day before in the school she had been assigned. She felt a rush of guilt as she leaped out of bed and got herself ready. It was so difficult to hurry. No sooner had she had some breakfast than she needed another shower but instead she set off in the heat for the college. It would be impossible to describe the experience which had been a sort of baptism of the new and she must try and capture her feelings on paper before they lost their impact.

  The Principal greeted her with her usual calm smile which contrasted with Min’s muddled blurtings and it made her feel a bit inept. Perhaps one day she would be able to acquire the dignity of acceptance of the unforeseen.