Mr. Brimner leaned farther forward on the rail, outward, as if the answer was at some other shore. “He—Well! You may read my introduction for a longer answer. They are unusual, even difficult. Ahead of his time. He illuminates a different landscape, an inward, introspective view—but I find odd points of reference to this world, our world here:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.
“The first few times of reading that, in Prior’s black-blotched hand, I confess I thought he was referring to some sea creature swaying kindly fish scales in the deeps—considerate scales.” He laughed a little. “I struggled to understand—you will already have realized that he is speaking of God’s thumb cheating the scales of justice in our favour.”
Being a father and fond—Kay liked that vision of God.
“And yet,” Mr. Brimner said, “it is a relief not to be expecting the next black-bordered letter, the next set of notes on my edits. I loved them both, mother and son, but they are fixed in time, caught in the week before Prior’s illness. My own vision, my ordinary life, has”—he waved an arm around him, at the ship and the sky and the ocean—“well, has transubstantiated, if that is not blasphemy. Only the appearance of me remains.”
Kay said, “Remember Arion the singer and the dolphin who carried him safely to Corinth? Reading Plutarch at last, I found this, that you told us once: To the dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage . . . You gave that to Prior—friendship for no advantage.”
Aren leaned backwards on the rail, tilting his head to look at the starry sky. “Are you still very sad about him?” he asked.
Mr. Brimner looked surprised. “Did I seem so sad, in those olden days?”
“Well, underneath,” Kay said.
“I’m sorry to have burdened you with that. I was only conscious of responsibility. Since he had died and I was still alive.”
“You must show Aren your book! It has a half-quarto morocco cover in blue, Aren.”
“Quarter-morocco,” murmured Mr. Brimner.
Aren said, “May I only look from a distance, or is it available for actual reading?”
Waving grandly with his pipe, Mr. Brimner said it required to be read, by both of them, and he would be honoured to give them each a copy when his box arrived, when there were proper books and not just grey-cardboard pamphlets, which he trusted would be soon.
“We have already received a first review,” he added. “From the critic Theodore Maynard. Allow me to quote: A shy mid-Victorian priest has proven more modern than the most freakish modern would dare to be . . . the poems are the last word in technical development.”
He beamed at them again, the pleasure of having squired his friend’s work into the world almost too great for one face to contain.
Then the drinks cart went rolling by and they followed it into the saloon bar for a nightcap, which Mr. Brimner said was a toast to Prior and, besides, a shipboard habit that none of them would indulge in real life.
——
Returning to her cabin late and slightly tipsy, Kay found that the steward had left a letter from the poste restante bag in Auckland. From Thea, of course, a postscript to her first letter, sent after the first fire of her shock and unhappiness had burned down.
I did not trouble you with this at the time, because you were only a child, but it weighs heavily on my mind now. When you were both so ill, after Shanghai en route for Manila, you know, one night I went to Aren’s cabin to check his fever, and I found him standing on his bunk looking out the port.
“When do they come?” he asked me. I asked who he meant. He stared at me, too fevered to make sense. “They come to get me,” he said. “When will they come? I must go now.”
I sat with him, but he did not want to be comforted, he only wanted to stand at the port and try to see. Francis came to find me, and he carried the little fellow up on deck to be able to see better in the air—I do not know what he told him, but it comforted Aren enough that he could sleep. I thought at the time he was delirious and perhaps referring to angels. That was what I told myself. Now I know, can admit, that he meant his parents, of course.
Of course he did. Kay turned the page—Thea’s handwriting, usually so smooth and controlled, was hard to read here.
He did not yet know the word for mother—there had been no reason to teach him that word yet. I had not intentionally left it out of our lessons, but I was never, could never be his mother, and so I did not pretend to be. He only knew “Aunt” from that book you loved so much in Corcovado, and it was you he knew as his Aunt. I still do not know what relation he thought I bore him then, but I hope that it had in it some kindness at least, and care for him.
This was a strange understanding for Thea to come to now. Kay felt sorry for her.
I was not his mother, but he was my son, and so he still is, as much as Roddy is. Last night Roddy had a fever and sat up straight in bed, asking, “When will they come back?” and my heart was crushed in my chest. He misses you, of course he does, because you are his own family, and I hope that you both will come back as soon as you are able.
Kay wrote back to Thea quickly, meaning to send it from Nuku‘alofa,
You became Aren’s mother, as you were my mother. As you are Roddy’s loving mother. I know you meant it only for good. It is not your fault that it was not right,
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 th
e 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 σήμα,” 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 years!” 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.”
The Voyage of the Morning Light Page 34