by Di Morrissey
‘The business has to pick up, so I have to get the new wing finished. Hopefully Abel John can find some sort of compromise. Now, before I forget, your mail.’ She handed Catherine several letters.
There was a welcome payment from the News, a circular and one from her mother.
Catherine skimmed through it quickly, fighting back tears. ‘It’s my mum. They’re upset, of course, about Bradley and me. But so loving. I don’t want to go back home. Not yet.’
‘No, you’re at something of a crossroads.’ Eleanor patted Catherine’s hand. ‘You’ll know what to do when the time comes. I’d better go back. Come over for lunch or a drink anytime. Have a look at the hole in the ground.’ She rolled her eyes.
Later, at sunset, as Catherine sat on the beach towelling herself dry and watching the last of the surfers come in, PJ joined her.
‘You look pensive.’
‘Bit down in the dumps. Had a letter from my mother, pleading with me to come home, asking me what am I going to do with my life and so on.’
‘Bit heavy. What’re you doing tomorrow?’
‘Putting in a couple of hours in the gallery. What’re you doing?’
‘I was going to suggest we go to Pakala, it has a good left point break, or else try Poipu. They’re close to Hanapepe. Looks like it’s going to rain here and it’s generally dry on your south-west side.’
‘Great. Come to The Joss House. See Miranda’s art. We could have dinner at Molo’s down the road later. It’s a great little café – nice food, pretty cheap.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
PJ arrived early the next afternoon and they set off for the beach. There were a few surfers out and Catherine found the left point at Pakala quite challenging. PJ complimented her on how well she did. They sat on the beach and she was relieved that they talked about lots of things other than Bradley. Her marriage, her past and the future were never mentioned.
Back at Miranda’s, while PJ showered and changed, Catherine set out coffee on the balcony.
She handed him a mug. ‘Why don’t you have a look at Miranda’s art downstairs while I have my shower?’
PJ was very taken by Miranda’s paintings and he spent a long time examining each one.
When Catherine joined him downstairs he said, ‘I know where that is. That’s a nice touch. Mmm, I like that one. They’re happy pictures,’ he summed up. ‘Little fragments of the Islands.’ He surprised Catherine by adding, ‘I’ve always wanted to paint.’
‘Really? What kind of painting?’ She was surprised.
‘Watercolours.’ He grinned. ‘I don’t know about technique, but when you’re out there on the water, in the waves, under water, you get a different perspective of the world . . . watery, runny, liquid . . . like everything is melting . . .’ He stopped. ‘Well, you understand what I mean, don’t you?’
‘I think I do,’ said Catherine slowly. ‘It’s the fluidity. Nothing is what it seems, everything changes from instant to instant. Soft one moment, surging the next.’
They were both silent, thinking.
Then PJ touched her hand. ‘I’m glad you’ve got into the ocean. Trying the surfing. It helps you understand who I am,’ he said awkwardly.
She nodded. ‘Surfing is not something you can explain. You have to do it. Even badly.’ She gave a small laugh.
‘You’re doing just fine. I’m really proud of you, country girl.’ He smiled and leant over and lightly kissed her cheek.
Catherine closed her eyes, catching her breath for a moment. ‘Let’s eat. Molo’s making something special for us.’
They walked along the wooden boardwalk to Molo’s café and found four other people sitting around a communal table.
The food was delicious, the company eclectic and Catherine saw another side to PJ who talked to everyone about travel, food and life in the Islands. Then Molo talked about his ancestors and how they had lived in the hidden valleys of Na Pali.
He turned to PJ. ‘Why don’t you take Catherine to the Na Pali coast. I think it’s the most beautiful part of all of Hawaii.’
‘Need a boat for that,’ said PJ.
‘You can borrow mine. Or I can show you the way in over the mountain. Very secret. Very rugged. Some say the valley is haunted by a lost civilisation.’
‘Ooh, rugged and haunted, I don’t think so,’ said Catherine. ‘But a boat trip along the coast would be nice.’
‘Be my guest,’ said Molo to PJ.
It was late as they walked in the dark the few doors back to The Joss House.
PJ took Catherine’s hand. ‘Would you like go see Na Pali?’
‘Yes, please. But I don’t really want to hike over some abyss into a spooky valley.’
‘It’s quite a story. An archeological team went in some years back.’ PJ began to tell her the story and Catherine held his hand tightly as the tale unfolded. They went through the gallery and upstairs to sit on the balcony and, as PJ talked, she lit a candle and poured them both a glass of wine.
The candle sputtered, a chime tinkled as a breeze stirred the balmy night. PJ leant over and blew out the remains of the candle. Catherine picked up their glasses and took them inside. PJ brought in the bottle and as Catherine rinsed her glass he lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck.
Slowly she turned to face him, melting against him, fitting easily into his body. PJ kissed her face and throat and hair. Slow, lazy kisses. They felt comfortable, connected. Catherine wound her arms about him, drawing her face to his. His kiss was suddenly hard, insistent.
‘I want you, Catherine,’ he said in a husky voice.
‘Me too,’ she breathed.
And it was so easy, so simple. Compared to the wild passion of their beach encounter, which now seemed an eternity ago, this coming together was unhurried, caring, tenderly caressing.
The night passed. Dawn was ignored as they held and loved each other with no thought of time or commitments, until, laughing, they dragged themselves to the kitchen for coffee.
Wrapped in a sheet, Catherine sipped the milky brew as PJ toasted bread.
He handed Catherine a piece of toast. ‘You up for a surf?’
‘Of course.’ She licked the dripping butter and smiled at PJ. Catherine looked out at the blue and gold day. She had nothing better to do in the world.
The nights were dreamless. But she slept with the knowledge of PJ twined around her, their bodies linked. She was first to awaken and she hardly dared breathe so as not to disturb the moment. She loved his golden skin, his tangled blond curls that tasted of the sea. She counted every freckle, watched the thick layer of his eyelashes and longed for him to wake so she could touch his perfect mouth.
How different this was to the bed she shared with Bradley where an ocean of crisp white sheet had separated their bodies. Bradley had been a light sleeper and if she moved too much or touched him, his sleep was disturbed. Save for an occasional questing foot reaching across the divide, a hesitant invitation to make love, they could have been sleeping in separate rooms.
Catherine glanced at the lengths of hand-painted silk that hung at the windows. The morning light glimmered through them sending dancing colours across the bed. PJ started to wake up, tightening his arms around her, searching for her lips, seeking warmth and sustenance.
The days since their dinner at Molo’s blurred together. PJ spent most nights with Catherine and the multicoloured Joss House had become a haven for them. After their early morning surf and breakfast they were both out and about. PJ had set up a workshop at Nirvana and started shaping boards to suit the local conditions for a new group of surfers who’d arrived. Catherine shut the studio for a siesta break, as the other places along the street did, and went out with her camera to explore Kauai.
The more she explored the island the more she thought of it as the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. Sometimes she imagined she was seeing a landscape no human had seen: great valleys and gorges like the Grand Canyon, impenetrable mountains and hidde
n valleys where waterfalls, lost tribes, unknown plants and animals might be living, trapped in their own world.
One day, PJ borrowed Molo’s boat and they sailed along the Na Pali coast, with its breathtaking, untouched and frighteningly beautiful, sculptured, lush mountains rising from the sea. They landed on one of a few tiny crescent beaches below the cliffs and swam naked, made love on the sand and sailed away unseen. Catherine felt that the time they spent there was swiftly obliterated. They were just specks of sand in the millennia that had formed the island.
One day Catherine called in to see Eleanor at the Palm Grove but she was away, so she found Abel John and asked if she could go over to the site of the new wing. Together they walked past the great grove of coconut palm trees, with their name plaques at their base, past the rows of water lily ponds and man-made canals to where a swamp was screened by panels of hessian. As they stepped inside the screen, Catherine was confronted by muddy ponds that had been dredged from the slippery murky grey sand and mud.
‘It’s a coastal swamp they thought would be easy to dredge and fill,’ said Abel John. ‘But the backhoe started to hit a lot of rocks and once bones was seen in the sludge, everything came to a stop.’
‘It’s a graveyard?’
‘More. Look over here. We started draining it to see what was here and found that.’ He pointed to a neat rock wall formation. ‘The way it lines up, the way the stones are laid, there’s no doubt it’s a sacred heiau.’
‘An ancient temple?’ Catherine reached in her bag for her camera, but Abel John stopped her.
‘It’s more than that. It’s a whole settlement we think. We’ve had people from the University of Hawaii here and photos and samples went to the mainland. Plenty of archeologists have been here. Kahunas have blessed the site and the thinking is that it could be over a thousand years old.’
‘What happened to it?’
He pointed to the ocean. ‘A war between invaders or a tsunami possibly.’
‘A tidal wave! How exciting, how are they going to know the whole story?’ asked Catherine. Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, this muddy area took shape as she imagined a village of round wooden houses, canoes and outriggers pulled up on the beach, the stone structures of a temple and perhaps sacrificial altars, fires burning, children playing. ‘It’d make a wonderful tourist attraction! A re-creation of an ancient village!’
‘Nice thought,’ said Abel John drily. ‘It’d take ages to excavate, save and re-create. The old kahunas believe this could be a sacred place sung about in ancient chants. Stones hold magical powers. No way will they let this be re-buried under a tennis court and hotel rooms.’
‘Oh dear, what’s Eleanor going to do? This is on hotel land isn’t it?’
‘That no mean anything if it’s certified as a place of cultural heritage. The legal people will be in next, I bet. That partner of hers, the guy with the money, won’t want to let it go without a fight.’
‘But even if it’s not re-created, or whatever, it’s an interesting place to visit. Surely people would want to come here and learn more about it,’ began Catherine.
‘And stay in one other hotel? The Palm Grove needs business. Anyway, there’s more to it.’ He hesitated. ‘There’re all kind of superstitious rumours flying around. The long and the short of is that, if Eleanor damages, digs, does anything, there’ll be some almighty stink.’
‘Poor Eleanor. I wish I could write about this for the paper.’
‘Best not. C’mon. How’re things at The Joss House?’
‘I can’t thank you enough. It’s been wonderful,’ said Catherine.
Abel John looked at her sparkling eyes, happy smile and pink cheeks and didn’t comment. They turned back to the main buildings.
As Catherine was walking to the car she saw Eleanor in the parking lot in animated conversation with Beatrice. She called out and joined them. ‘Beatrice! Eleanor! How lovely to see you both.’
Eleanor smiled but she looked very tense and tired. ‘Hi, Catherine.’
‘Dear girl, how nice to see you,’ said Beatrice kissing her cheek.
‘I’ve just seen the excavation down by the pond of the old . . . settlement,’ said Catherine.
‘We’ve just been discussing it,’ said Eleanor tightly.
‘It’s a heiau all right. A very sacred place, which simply can’t be disturbed,’ said Beatrice firmly to Eleanor.
‘We’ve been over and over this, Beatrice. It’s now out of my hands, my business partner is insistent we push ahead. I’ve told him we’ll preserve the stones, I understand their significance.’
‘Eleanor, we’ve known each other for years. But I promise you, my people and this site have to come before anything else. He can build somewhere else . . .’
‘There isn’t anywhere else,’ began Eleanor, sounding exasperated.
‘Has your business partner seen the area? Perhaps if he came and saw it . . .’ suggested Catherine, worried that she was intruding on what was obviously a sensitive discussion.
‘Of course he won’t,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’m the fall guy here.’
‘Then tell him he won’t escape either way. Move those stones or harm that sacred site and there will be an almighty price to pay. Some catastrophe, the gods and spirits will come down on those who defy the warnings,’ declared Beatrice ominously.
‘Abel John says the workmen won’t touch them,’ said Catherine.
‘My partner has invested a lot in this, I know that he’s going to bring in mainlanders.’
‘Then as your friend, I suggest you leave this place alone,’ said Beatrice firmly. ‘That is my last word.’ She turned to Catherine. ‘Kiann’e said you were here, please come and see me.’
‘I will,’ Catherine said as Beatrice waved to her driver waiting by her old car.
Beatrice smiled sadly. ‘Eleanor, dear, please. Listen to what I say.’
They watched Beatrice ease herself into the car, taking off her straw hat with its fresh flowers tucked around the crown and drive away.
‘The royal decree. We have been told,’ sniffed Eleanor tartly.
‘Are you going to do what she says? It sounds pretty serious,’ said Catherine.
‘Like I said, I have no choice in the matter. How can I give up the Palm Grove? It’s my life. I’ll stay with it, no matter what happens. I just don’t like losing my friends to do it.’
That night, curled in bed together, Catherine described the buried settlement to PJ. ‘You don’t think that the bones have anything to do with human sacrifice, do you?’
‘No, I think you’re letting your imagination run away. But it could be a sacred burial place where people’s ancestors have gone into the night to the spirit world,’ said PJ. ‘I’ve heard stories from old watermen about stones that represent departed chiefs. They stand and face the sea, towards the land beyond the horizon.’
They lay quietly and Catherine suddenly recalled the images in her head of PJ, standing silent and still on a beach watching, watching the horizon.
‘Do you believe there’s something out there, across the sea, the land of Hanalei, some other place?’ she asked quietly.
‘I do. If the sea doesn’t claim me, I want my ashes thrown across the waves,’ he answered.
Catherine shivered. ‘That’s awful talk.’
He held her close and they drifted to sleep and in her dreams she heard the distant roar of surf breaking on a reef and the eventual slap of a shredded wave dying on the shore.
Extract from The Biography of
THE WATERMAN
He sat in the shade of a coconut palm watching the surf. The sea, the sun, the sand, the brush of the tradewinds, all were the same. But everything else had changed since the Islands had been plunged into war.
It had been a Sunday morning and he had just come in from the surf when the sky filled with Japanese planes as they began their lethal attack. Noise and chaos followed. Clouds of black smoke filled the air as the American ships in Pearl Harbor were bomb
ed. Now, around the town were sandbags, rolls of barbed wire, men and women in uniform. More warships crowded the harbour, airforce bombers took off day and night and everyone had learnt to accept curfew times and blackouts. Even some food items were rationed and produce was requisitioned from the local farms.
He regretted that his mild arthritis, a legacy from his time as a stuntman, had meant that his efforts to join the forces had been rejected. Now the imposed changes to Hawaii were rocking his way of life and his peace of mind. He debated about going back to the desert, where the vastness of the lonely prairie gave him the same sense of solitude that surfing gave him. But travel was difficult in these times and his funds were low.
As he sat on the edge of the sand, thinking about these changes, a soldier and a girl walked along the sea wall.
‘Hey, buddy,’ the soldier said, ‘careful a coconut doesn’t fall on your head!’ They passed by laughing.
At sunset, normally a favourite time for the waterman, he got up, pulled a white cotton sweater over his navy swimsuit, slipped his feet into zoris and began walking home.
Along the beachfront he saw a pretty woman in a nurse’s uniform sitting on the sea wall, holding her shoes in one hand and wiggling her bare toes in the sand. They caught each other’s eye and smiled.
‘Enjoying the sunset?’ he asked.
‘Trying to. If you keep looking out to sea from here, you could almost believe the world was safe. Normal.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing. Don’t look behind you at the reality.’ He smiled. ‘You from the mainland?’
‘Yes. I’m working here at Tripler Army Hospital.’
‘Ah. Must be tough sometimes.’
‘Yes, it can be. But times like this . . . helps put things back into perspective.’
‘Then I won’t intrude. Good evening.’
‘G’bye. Good luck,’ she answered.
The woman’s face, her soft eyes and sweet smile, kept returning to his mind at unexpected moments. So he was only half surprised when he saw her again at sunset two days later. This time she was walking, wearing a cotton dress, her hair unpinned, softly falling to her shoulders.