Come Dance With Me
Page 11
The other vessels in the harbour were expensive sailing boats, cabin cruisers and sport-fishermen and the water sparkled with dollar signs. There were T-shirts with whales on them in the shops and the Lahaina News advertised a Slack Key Guitar Festival. Still, it was charming and lively, full of places where you could spend time and money. I mustn’t let the jaded me of 2003 get in the way. I bought Django a T-shirt with a humpback whale on it and a baseball cap that said MAUL
Later we went to the I’‘O nearby in Front Street for a candlelit dinner outside under the trees. For starters we had steamed wontons filled with ‘roasted peppers, mushrooms, spinach, macadamia nuts and silken tofu over a fragrant tomato coulis with a creamy basil yogurt purée’. The list of ingredients with its adjectives was so colourful that I took a menu away with me for a souvenir. We shared a Maui steak after that and finished up with pineapple ice cream. Front Street was full of tourists enjoying their evening as we went back to the Pioneer Inn. Some of them were singing.
When Django was asleep I went out on to the veranda. The sky had cleared and there was a little sliver of crescent moon. I stood there looking at the stars until I found the Plough. That’s all right then, I thought. This is home too. But I didn’t quite believe it.
28
Elias Newman
30 January 2003. It was as if the ocean were sending up to me songs of my childhood. One of the songs we sang in Morning Exercises was ‘My Faith Looks Up to Thee’:
My faith looks up to thee,
Thou lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine!
Now hear me while I pray,
take all my guilt away,
O let me from this day
be wholly thine!
I didn’t have any Christian guilt but the hymn had a good sound to it and I joined in with a will. The verse I liked best was the last one. It accorded well with the darkness that was in me even then:
When ends life’s transient dream,
when death’s cold sullen stream
shall o’er me roll;
blest Saviour, then in love,
fear and distrust remove;
O bear me safe above,
a ransomed soul!
I had no idea of a Saviour and ransomed souls but death’s cold sullen stream rang true for me. Now I was reflecting that we are all of us little chips of life borne on death’s cold sullen stream to the ocean of nothingness. No more anything. I shook myself to shake off those thoughts; I didn’t want them to connect with my thoughts of Christabel.
‘Somebody walk over your grave?’ said the woman next to me. American. Fat, middle-aged.
‘They do it all the time,’ I said.
‘You get used to it,’ she said. ‘Try Jack Daniel’s.’
‘Have they got it on the drinks trolley?’ I said.
‘Johnny Walker will do the job too,’ she said. ‘I just happen to like sour mash when they start walking.’
‘Who?’
‘Over my grave. Ex-husbands. Worthless bastards.’
‘How many?’
‘A fifth will usually last me two days, sometimes not.’
‘I meant husbands, not drinks.’
‘Four.’
‘Why so many?’
‘Kept trying to get it right, never did.’
‘You must have loved them, at least in the beginning?’
She suddenly took on a sharper focus and her face zoomed to a close-up. She fixed me with a penetrating glance and said, ‘What’s love? Can you tell me?’
‘I don’t think it’s something that can be defined.’
‘I didn’t think you could. I’m going to watch a movie now.’
Left to myself I didn’t try to define love. I had heard myself say that I was in love with Christabel and I believed it without understanding it. Sometimes late at night I watch major league baseball on TV. Abstractly, without caring who’s playing. I enjoy the dramatic moments, as in bottom of the ninth and the team I’m rooting for trying to hold on to a one-run lead with the other team at bat and two outs. The pitcher (whoever he is) looks to the catcher, waves off the sign, goes into his wind-up. Here’s the pitch, a low fast ball but not fast enough. The batter (leading the league in RBIs this season) connects and, Wow! There it goes, going, going … The centre fielder races back, back, back and up the wall, up, up, yes! He’s got it! What a catch. OK, so love hadn’t escaped me. But that was just my end of it. Did Christabel love me? She liked my company and was willing to go to bed with me but lots of people do that without being in love. Her history wasn’t the usual thing. Woody Guthrie came to mind with his songs about hard travelling down various roads. I’d sung those songs to myself at one time and another; maybe Christabel had too — life is full of rough roads. By now probably anything with a man looked like hard travelling to her. Sometimes she felt like a bad-luck carrier, she’d said. For me the worst luck would be to lose her, and while the plane seemed perfectly still high above the ocean I leant forward in the roaring recycled silence, straining towards her, afraid that she couldn’t love me, that I couldn’t hold her, that she’d slip through my fingers and be lost. I went back to the galley and one of the flight attendants said, ‘Hi. What can we do for you?’ A pretty young woman with a knowing air and a figure that gladdened the eye.
‘I know this isn’t drinks time,’ I said, ‘but do you think I could have two of those little bottles of Johnny Walker?’
‘Did you bring a note from your mother?’ she said.
‘Actually you might say it’s for medicinal purposes. I’m a doctor.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I trust you. I’ll even pour it into a glass for you. Straight up?’
‘Neat,’ I said. ‘No ice, no water.’
‘You got it, Doc. Go back to your seat and I’ll bring it to you.’
‘Thank you, I feel better already. You’re very kind.’
‘What are flight attendants for?’ she said with a compassionate smile.
An answer almost leapt to my lips but I limited myself to another smile. When she brought me the whisky she said, ‘There you go, Doc. If symptoms persist buzz me.’
‘You got it,’ I said. It was a pleasure to watch her walk away. With scotch in hand I went back to my anxiety in an easier state of mind.
I was halfway through my drink when suddenly all ease left me and I saw Christabel Alderton climbing the stairs of the old mission in Vertigo. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Please no.’
The woman beside me had on her headphones and I don’t think she heard me. I finished the whisky and resumed my forward lean. Although my seat was on the aisle I kept my eye on the window. There was no sign of Bat Air.
29
Rita Henderson
30 January 2003. If I had an electric eye and a buzzer in the back of my skirt there’d be a lot of noise following me around. Of course there isn’t room for an electric eye and a buzzer. I think it’s nice when older men take an interest and this one certainly did. When they have good manners like that doctor I think it might make a nice change sometime from the usual guys I go with. Not that pilots are all that young. I like a little refinement in a man. And that’s what I mostly get: very damn little. Oh well, some day my prince will come. But not prematurely, I hope.
The doctor really did seem troubled when he asked for the scotch. I wonder what he was troubled about. I’m twenty-eight and I’d guess he was in his late fifties. When I’m twice as old as I am now, what’s it going to be like? Rafe Simmonds, the pilot on our last flight to HNL, said to me during our layover, ‘Now it takes me all night to do what I used to do all night.’
‘I like a man who takes his time,’ I said. Well, what else could I say?
30
Florence Jasper
30 January 2003. That guy next to me in the plane had some kind of trouble on his mind. Sex, money, death? Maybe all three. You never know what’s going on inside another person. My No. 4, Herb Jasper, on Tuesday he was OK, no problems. On Wednesday he put the muzzle of
his 12-gauge in his mouth and blew his head off. You just never know.
31
Anneliese Newman
26 January 2003. Here am I, not yet dead. There are no productions of Traviata with Violetta and Alfredo in their nineties. Who would pay money to see and hear it? Especially the ending. ‘Die already!’ the audience would shout. One only cares about Violetta because she is young and beautiful. And Schubert, he wrote ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ but he did not follow this with ‘Der Tod und die Greisin,’ Death and the Old Woman’. Der Tod himself is bored with old women, how could he not be?
I still have my teeth, my eyes, my hearing and my mind. In me is the pretty girl I was, das Mädchen Anneliese Linde. If I close my eyes I see the sky reflected in the Weser and I hear the wind in the birches and smell the grasses warm from the sun. I am ready to go back there for ever. ‘Here am I,’ I say. But der Tod sees not the pretty girl and passes me by.
32
Christabel Alderton
27 January 2003. Back in 1993 after our first night in the Pioneer Inn I woke up feeling not all that keen for a visit to Iao Valley State Park but Rudy seemed to think it was important and I didn’t want to spoil the day for Django.
We had breakfast and I wouldn’t have minded a few more cups of coffee but here was Rudy bright and early. Django said, ‘We going in Lucille?’ He had Crocodile with him and he was ready for action.
‘Partly,’ said Rudy, ‘and partly we goin’ be luggin’ it, brah.’
‘OK,’ said Django, ‘les’ do it, Uncle.’
‘How come you called me Uncle?’
‘I don’t know. Can you be my uncle?’
‘You got it, Nephew,’ said Rudy, and scooped him up and carried him off to the Land Rover. Django hadn’t ever wanted any of the guys in the band to be his uncle.
Lucille started off with her usual roar and we were off. The day was grey and cloudy. ‘How far is it?’ I asked Rudy.
‘About twenty miles, maybe little more. We gotta go down the coast to Maalaea Harbor then up Kahekili Highway to the Iao Valley. Keiko packed some sandwiches in case we get hungry while we’re out.’
‘Who’s Keiko?’ said Django.
‘My wife,’ said Rudy. ‘She’s Japanese.’
‘Could I have a sandwich now?’ said Django. He was never good at waiting for picnics. I was hungry too and so was Rudy so we finished the sandwiches and a flask of tea after we’d been on the road less than a quarter of an hour.
‘Are we going to see whales?’ said Django.
‘Iao Needle today, whales tomorrow,’ said Rudy.
We went down the coast with the sea to our right and the mountains to our left. Yesterday the mountains I’d seen from the veranda had looked mystical but these didn’t. I knew the islands were volcanic, risen out of the sea millions of years ago; looking at these mountains today, I didn’t like the idea of them bursting up out of the sea as if something down there had heaved them off its back. I thought of the mountains of experience in me and I shook my head to make my thoughts go away while Lucille shook, rattled and snarled as the Kahekili Highway began to climb a little and Rudy changed gears.
It was cool but not cold as we turned off for the valley. When we entered the park it grew cooler as the road took us among the fresh-smelling trees. We passed a shrine in which stood a madonna hung with leis. In front of her were three figures which I took to be wise men, also a couple of animals, sheep perhaps. Rudy didn’t stop. ‘Haole,’ he muttered.
‘Haole is Christmas?’ said Django.
Rudy shook his head. ‘Haole is foreigners. Those wonderful people who brought us Christianity, syphilis, and gonorrhoea.’
‘What are syphilis and gonorrhoea?’ said Django.
‘Diseases,’ I said. To Rudy I said, ‘Don’t you think this might be a little heavy for a four-year-old? And Django and I are foreigners.’
‘Sorry,’ said Rudy. ‘I was talking about foreigners way back. Now I’ll get off my soapbox for the rest of the day.’
Rudy parked the car and we walked up a paved pathway beside a stream. I’d put on a pair of trainers and was quite comfortable. The smell and sound of the water and the smell of the trees were refreshing. The air seemed full of presences.
‘What happened here?’ said Django.
‘How do you know something happened?’ said Rudy.
‘I can feel it,’ said Django. ‘Are there ghostes all around us?’ He always pronounced ‘ghosts’ with two syllables.
‘I can feel it too,’ I said. ‘What is it?’
‘Mana,’ said Rudy. ‘Spiritual power. In 1790 there was a big battle when King Kamehamea and his army wiped out the Maui warriors. What you’re feeling is the power of all those spirits. I’ve brought people here who couldn’t feel anything. I thought you would and I’m glad you did.’
‘A kind of test, was it?’ I said.
‘Everything is,’ said Rudy.
‘Your guys lost the battle?’ said Django to Rudy.
‘Don’t matter,’ said Rudy. ‘Kamehamea was trying to unify these islands.’
‘Did he?’ I said.
‘Yes, but it took him almost thirty years.’
‘Who’s king now?’ said Django.
‘Nobody,’ said Rudy.
The walk was long enough to tire Django after a while, and Rudy took him on his shoulders. Eventually we came to a sign that said IAO NEEDLE ELEV. 2250 FT. And there it was sticking up beyond the trees, not so much a needle as an irregular cone of darkness. Beyond it the valley was filled with cloud. The air was wet and the cold and rushing water of the stream sent up spray as it went splashing and tumbling and burbling over the rocks. The water was shouting as if it was the under-voice of the Iao Needle.
‘Talking,’ said Django.
‘Who?’ said Rudy.
Django pointed to the Needle.
‘What’s it saying?’ said Rudy.
‘No words.’
‘That rock could tell a lot of stories if it wanted to,’ said Rudy. ‘Maybe that’s what it’s doing in Needletalk.’
‘I can’t see his face,’ said Django.
‘Whose face?’ I said.
Again he pointed to the Needle.
‘If we go up on the bridge we can see it from a different angle,’ said Rudy. So we went up on the bridge. There was a roofed shelter at one end and we looked at the Needle from there. This time I could see that it was covered with green foliage or mosses.
‘Still no face,’ said Django.
‘I’ve never seen a face myself,’ said Rudy.
‘Whichever way I look, he turns his back,’ said Django.
‘Some rocks are like that,’ said Rudy. ‘My house is closer than the Pioneer Inn, so if it’s OK with you we’ll go there and you can rest up, then I’ll cook you a real Hawaiian dinner.’
33
Elias Newman
30 January 2003. You never know where you’re going to be attacked by a metaphor or run over by a paradigm. In the Tom Bradley International Terminal in Los Angeles there’s a sort of pinball machine stood up on legs like a lecturer’s blackboard. It’s a ball-dropping machine. A conveyor on one side picks up balls that have rolled on to it from the channels they’ve dropped into. It carries the balls up to the top and drops them on to a Heath Robinson arrangement of such channels. There are various other parts that do things but the main action is ball-dropping. Not always the same because of random elements that vary the effects and causes. The machine is worn and doesn’t always pick the balls up. There are no plungers to work, you have no way of controlling what it does. The machine is just what it is and it does its own thing imperfectly in a variety of ways while making noises that satirise pinball machines. A man joined me while I was pondering this. He slapped the glass hard a couple of times, cursed and moved on while the machine made derisory noises. I stood there for a long time as other hopeful punters failed in their efforts. There was a signature on the thing: Rhoads ‘96. A deep one, Mr Rhoads.
On this morning there he was with his lachrymose leg propped up as always and his copy of The Times in hand. ‘Sometimes there’s good news when you least expect it,’ he said.
‘So tell me,’ I said.
‘Have a look.’ He folded the paper as necessary and passed it to me. I’d been too busy booking my flight to read my copy at home. There was a one-column item with a colour photograph of an upside-down bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup sporting a right-side-up label. SAUCE FLIPS TO GO WITH THE FLOW was the headline.
[Heinz] has spent millions of pounds and three years on research to come up with an upside-down bottle with a cap and valve in its bottom. It is a solution that customers hit upon years ago — seven out of ten say they balance their sauce bottles on their tops.
‘How’s that grab you?’ said Selby.
‘It’s definitely good news,’ I said.
‘Things go on the same year after year,’ said Selby, ‘then all at once they get turned around. Pay attention,’ he said to his leg. To me he said, ‘Think about it.’