by John Harding
The circle in the centre of the village was deserted. A strong wind had gotten up and was hurling rain at him. He wasn’t even sure he knew the way back to the hotel. It was right on the beach, he remembered that much, and that meant that all he had to do was turn right or left when he reached the ocean. The only problem was, where was the shore? Somehow, what with the drumbeat in his cranium and the howling of the wind, he’d managed to lose the whole Pacific Ocean.
He fell to his hands and knees with the intention of crawling back into the kassa house, but then remembered his mother. He was just wondering whether it might not be a better idea to die of exposure than see her again, except of course dying would mean he would see her again, when a head emerged from the tunnel. At first he thought it belonged to a gigantic rat and that he was hallucinating again, but it was followed by a body that turned out to be human and he realized it was the man Purnu.
‘Hi!’ Beach said cheerily.
Purnu stared at him in surprise. Both of them were still on all fours, nose to nose, like two dogs. ‘What for you is crawl around out here?’ asked Purnu. There was the same note of suspicion in his voice with which he had questioned William Hardt about trying to conceal his faeces.
‘Actually, I was looking for some help,’ said Beach.
‘What kind of help you is look for? Is be for tell where other white man is go or for find Captain Cook? Or you is want magic?’
‘That’s exactly—’ Sandy Beach had been about to say that Purnu had guessed just what he wanted, directions home. But the word ‘magic’ triggered the memory of what Tr’boa had told him. In his kassa stupor it seemed to him that this was what he really needed.
‘Magic.’
‘OK. I is can do all sorts. You is want for catch pig perhaps? No? You is have someone you is want for kill?’
Sandy Beach thought seriously about this last one. Then he realized its impossibility. ‘No,’ he said, a wisp of regret in his voice. ‘She’s already dead.’
‘Love potion? Ah, this is be right one! I is can tell from you face. Who is be lucky girl?’
‘I don’t happen to know her name, but man, you can’t mistake her. She is a custom-made fucking machine on two legs. She’s built for it.’
‘You is can describe?’ Purnu was looking at him with a hint of distaste. Since he had learned to read his knowledge of the English language had widened exponentially. Moreover, some of the blockbuster books that came his way had taught him that while ‘fuck’ sounded like ‘fug-a-fug’ and meant more or less the same thing, suggesting, perhaps, a common root, it was here being used as a profanity. He was affronted by Beach’s lack of respect for the object of his desire.
‘Well, she’s BIG. I mean really big. This high.’ Beach held his hand horizontally above his head. Both men looked up at it. An observer might have suggested there was a gleam of dismay in Purnu’s eye now. ‘She walks like this.’ Beach mimed Kiroa’s sexy walk. There could be no doubt of whom he was talking now. A man less out of his head would surely have noticed that Purnu was almost foaming at the mouth.
The little man fought back his anger and put on a supercilious smile. ‘You is want love potion for make she is love you?’
‘I want something that will make her fuck me.’
Purnu rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He considered turning the white man into a cockroach and then stamping on him but decided that might be too quick. Besides, he’d probably had too much kassa himself to bring it off.
‘Hey,’ said Beach impatiently, ‘can we go somewhere out of the rain? My clothes are getting soaked.’
‘What for you is need clothes? If you is have only pubic leaf water is just splash off you skin. I is not understand what for white mans is wear clothes.’
‘What’s to understand? It’s what civilized people do. Where I come from even the bums on the street wear clothes.’
Purnu was puzzled. He knew ‘bum’ was a British word for ‘arse’ but he didn’t understand why Sandy Beach was talking about arses on the street. He’d seen a picture of a New York street, but there had been no arses in it. It just didn’t make sense. Then again, that was Americans for you. Nothing they did made sense. What reason was there in planting bombs to blow off people’s legs? It was a puzzler.
‘Listen,’ said Beach again, ‘can we please get out of this rain?’
‘I is can make potion in my house. Come.’ He led the way through the inner circle of huts, then stopped and looked back at Beach. ‘You is understand that for magic you is must pay?’
‘OK, but I don’t have any yams. Not on me, any rate.’
‘Who is say anything ’bout yams?’ said Purnu, who was a fast learner. ‘You is pay me dollars.’
Lamua reacted to her husband’s unexpected guest with the kind of annoyance Lucy’s mother might have shown. She had not long been in bed. She had her own baby and Lucy’s tucked in with her, one to a breast, and had only just got them both to sleep. She complained when Purnu lit the palm-oil lamp that he had woken her. Purnu ignored her disgruntled tone. ‘Sssh, you is not disturb youself. Is go back sleep.’ One of the babies whimpered and she turned her attention from him to comfort it. She looked around for Kiroa, hoping for some help from Purnu’s daughter, but the girl wasn’t there. Out moping about after Lintoa, no doubt. In this weather!
Most people walking in on a woman trying to bed down a couple of babies would have made their excuses and left, but not Sandy Beach who, after all, had a history of not knowing when he was not welcome. He sat himself down on the floor and listened to the rain drumming on the adula-leaf roof. His head began to sway. It reminded him of one of his favourite heavy rock music tracks.
Eventually Lamua got the babies settled down and the little sorcerer turned and smiled apologetically at Beach and said, ‘Families!’
‘Too right!’ said Beach, the memory of his mother still recent.
Purnu produced a pipe, stuffed in some kassa leaves and fired it up. Lamua coughed a noisy protest for a minute or so and then settled back down again. Like any island mother she knew that there was nothing like a bit of passively smoked kassa for getting a baby off to sleep. Purnu handed the pipe to Beach then went over to the bed, which was really only a bunk built against the wall, and from under it pulled out a box made of bamboo and woven fibre. He opened the lid, rummaged around inside for a moment or two and took out a small leather gourd. He removed the wooden stopper from its neck and sniffed. He pulled a face, restoppered the gourd, replaced it and took out another. He did this two or three times before he found one that produced a smile of satisfaction.
‘This is be love potion for you,’ he said. ‘Is work plenty damn fast. You is not go be here on island longtime, you is need for work plenty quick.’
Beach took another pull on the pipe. His head was swirling. The rain was drumming inside his cranium. How could that be?
‘How do you suggest I give it to the girl?’ he asked.
‘You is not give she. Is be you who is take potion.’
Beach took another drag of kassa. There was something here he wasn’t getting. ‘How is it going to make the girl fall for me if I’m the one who takes the medicine?’
‘You is take potion before you is go sleep. You is close eyes and think about girl. You is dream about girl. Next day you is be attractive for girl. She is fancy you like mad.’
Perhaps if Beach had not been stoned this would not have made such perfect sense to him, but with his mind performing like a psychedelic light show at some awful Sixties nostalgia party it had a wonderful logic. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that?
‘Open mouth,’ ordered Purnu. Beach leaned his head back and opened his mouth. His tongue hung out in a lascivious fashion that dispelled any lingering doubts Purnu had about what he was doing. He allowed half a dozen drops to fall onto Beach’s tongue. ‘Is be enough,’ he said.
Beach righted his head and swallowed. The stuff was sweet as the kassa had been in the hut. It tasted of honey.
He returned to his hut chuckling to himself in spite of the fact that he had been thoroughly soaked by the storm.
‘What for you is do that?’ Lamua raised herself carefully to a sitting position, fearful of waking the babies.
‘I is have little bit of fun, is be all,’ said Purnu. ‘Is teach American lesson for disrespect of my daughter.’ He explained to her what Beach had said and the nature of the potion he had given him.
‘Is be good,’ said Lamua, smiling her most wicked smile, which let Purnu know he was forgiven for having intruded on her. ‘I is look forward for see what is happen.’
What Purnu had just told her was how he had duped the white man. The potion would not make Kiroa love Beach. Or anyone else, for that matter. It would only work on Beach himself. It would make him fall hopelessly in love with the first person he saw when he woke up.
Beach staggered along the beach. ‘Fuck you wind!’ he screamed into the gale. ‘Bring it on, you hurricane! Blow all you like, see if I give a fuck!’
His words had no effect. The wind flung them back in his face. It was whipping up the sand and flinging that at him too. His cheeks were smarting from it. His eyes were stinging. Not only that, but his legs were made of lead. He just couldn’t seem to lift them any more.
He took a few steps into the jungle. By sheer luck he stumbled into an adula patch. The broad, glossy leaves of the adula shrub formed a canopy as good as any tent and were a favourite roofing material among the natives. Beach, who didn’t know about green shoestrings and anyway was too far gone on kassa to care, slumped gratefully onto the dry ground beneath the plants and was almost instantly in a deep sleep in which he dreamed, as he mostly did, of big women.
While Managua was occupied in the kassa house, Lintoa had secretly met with Perlua. They had made love in their favourite trysting place, the upper floor of the Captain Cook, a coupling given an additional frisson of pleasure by the presence below of the unsuspecting Dr Gold to whose stentorian snores they had matched the rhythm of their lovemaking, giggling all the while. Afterwards they lay side by side and listened to the wind fixing to get up. Then Perlua set off home to get there before her father staggered in from the kassa house. Lintoa did what he always did on the occasion of such meetings. He waited half an hour, so that he would arrive in the village well after Perlua to avoid any suspicion that they might have been together, then he put on his red dress and set off back himself.
He was about halfway when the storm really got under way. The rain was torrential, and he realized he was never going to make it home tonight. It was too dangerous to proceed further. The wind was tugging up small trees and flinging them around with wild abandon, like careless boys playing with twigs for fun. He had to find shelter before one of the trees targeted him. Luckily he realized he was near the adula patch where he had been wont to hide his dress in his first clandestine meetings with Perlua, when he had been ashamed to let her see him in it. Now he ducked gratefully under the adula’s sheltering roof and, after his evening of arduous sexual activity, was soon fast asleep.
SIXTY-ONE
IN THE MORNING, as a finger or two of sunlight picked its way through the few gaps between the adula leaves, Lintoa was first to awaken, which was only to be expected as he wasn’t the one who had almost OD’d on kassa the night before. It took him a moment or two to remember where he was and during that time he came to realize he was not alone under the adulas. Something nearby in the gloom was snorting. At first he thought he’d got lucky and found himself a black bantam pig without looking and was just wondering what he could use as a weapon – could you finish one off with a high heel? how much damage would a nail file inflict? – when he noticed the outline of a body next to him. Now Sandy Beach was little, and not unendowed with porcine qualities, but even he was not so small as a dwarf pig and it wasn’t long before Lintoa realized his companion was human. It took his eyes a moment or two to get accustomed to the dim light but once they did he soon ascertained that his bedfellow was the little flame-haired American who had arrived on the island a couple of days earlier.
He stood up, intending to sneak off but before he had managed to part the adula leaves, Beach’s eyes flipped open. As soon as they found Lintoa, Beach’s jaw dropped open too. He pulled himself into a sitting position. ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed. ‘What a place this island is, to have someone like you on it!’
Lintoa didn’t know how to respond. His main worry was that Beach would ask what he was doing there or might gossip about him having passed the night outside the village, which could lead to awkward questions and perhaps even the discovery of his liaison with Perlua which was taboo for at least three reasons he could think of: that she was white, that they were both girls and that he cross-dressed as a boy when he met up with her.
‘Moning,’ said Lintoa, for want of anything better to say. ‘Is be plenty damn better from last night.’ This was true. The wind had dropped and the roar of the ocean had now diminished to the lonesome sighing of the surf.
Beach didn’t say anything. He wasn’t about to discuss something as mundane as the weather with the vision he beheld. He hardly had the breath to talk, let alone to waste on platitudes. When he recovered the power of speech at last, all he could manage was a slow and passionate, ‘Hot banana . . .’
‘I is must go,’ said Lintoa. ‘I is be late for shitting.’ The she-boys always shat together on a section of beach between those set aside for male and female defecation. As the only other she-boy of his age now was Sussua, if Lintoa was late it would mean she’d have to shit alone with no-one to talk to. Not only that but he would be conspicuous by his absence, leading to questions about where he’d been. So he thrust aside the adula leaves and, carrying his high heels, which were useless anyway on sand, strode off.
Beach was overwhelmed. God, this woman! She was big. No, she was really BIG. She was an amazon, the kind of woman who could fuck you to within an inch of your life. But it wasn’t just that. Beach was taken aback at the emotion that swelled up inside of him. It wasn’t centred on the fork of his legs, as his feelings for the opposite sex invariably were; it felt to start in his stomach and move in waves into his back where it seemed to take hold of and squeeze his kidneys. He could scarcely breathe. ‘No, wait!’ he shouted after Lintoa. ‘Don’t leave me now!’
He got to his feet and tried to make his way out of the adula bower, but when he pushed at the leaves they only sprang back and attacked his face. He whirled his arms around frantically, desperate to get out but this only seemed to make the leaves mad so that they came back at him even more strongly. His head hurt like hell from the kassa and his brain was dehydrated and working on half its cylinders. The result was, after a couple of minutes he was exhausted and fell to his knees. It was now that he noticed that the hem of the adula canopy was a few inches above the ground. He dropped to his stomach and slithered under.
By now even Lintoa’s massive figure was tiny in the distance. Beach ran after her, but he kept stumbling in the soft sand. In the end he had to give up and could do no more than watch as the loveliest woman he had ever seen walked further and further away from him.
He determined to catch her in the village but as he approached it, having to stop and rest every couple of minutes because of his kassa hangover, he was overtaken by William and Dr Gold who were on their way to the shitting beach.
‘Hey, what’s the rush?’ asked Dr Gold as Beach again tried to run on the soft sand and fell flat on his face. ‘Are you that desperate to shit? Maybe this drug you ingested last night had an effect on your digestion.’
Beach ignored this remark. ‘Didn’t you see her? The girl in the red dress? She’s gorgeous. So – so – so—’
‘Big?’ said William.
‘Yes, big,’ said Beach. ‘But not just that. There’s something speci
al about her I can’t quite put my finger on.’
Try putting it between her legs, thought William. But he said nothing about Lintoa to enlighten Beach. He figured Lintoa could look after himself.
SIXTY-TWO
IN THE VILLAGE centre William was surprised to see Managua among the injured islanders. ‘I thought you didn’t want any dollars,’ he said to him.
‘I is not want dollars is come in island, but if they is, then I is go need dollars. You is bring dollars, I is must have.’ William saw that Pilua was standing beside her husband. She was staring into the distance, as though she could see right through the surrounding huts, like Superboy with his X-ray vision.
They began the questioning of the claimants with William presenting the evidence and Beach battering away at it, trying to dismiss it. William wouldn’t have minded so much if Beach had acted like it was just a job. It was that he went at it with such a will that annoyed William. That wasn’t the only thing; Beach’s brusque insensitivity meant they were whipping through the claimants; William could see they’d be all done in a couple of days. It had been arranged in the States that he would leave the island on the helicopter with Beach and Gold. He was needed back in New York to get the case moving, he couldn’t linger. But he’d hoped for a few more days and some free time to look for Lucy.
It was another long day. A whole new crowd of fraudulent claimants had turned up. One man attempted to get money for a withered arm.
‘That is a congenital defect,’ said Dr Gold in disbelief.
‘What is mean this word con – con—,’ asked the man.
‘Congenital,’ repeated Dr Gold. ‘It means a birth defect, something you were born with. There is no way it can have been caused by a bomb.’
