The Love Beach

by Leslie Thomas

  'Jesus, I mean their Jesus, the man carrying the cross, what was he like?'

  Davies raised his eyebrows at her. 'Yes,' he said. 'You're thinking like we began to think,' he said. 'It didn't occur to us, right then when we were sitting there with the chief drinking the beer. It was hot as hell, the sun really burning down, and no rain all day, for once. The chap who was carrying the cross was in a sort of blanket and his hair and his beard were long. He was the only one with whiskers, so he had obviously been prepared for the part. Anyway, it went on for hours, it seemed. The whole ritual, and in dumb show. And as I said it was terrible and hot and they kept bringing us these bowls of their beer and before long I was well on the way to being plastered. I thought it was the heat at the start, because the square, with the sun really white on it, started to get hazy and all the black bodies began to wriggle in front of my eyes. They looked just like a swarm of tadpoles.'

  He could see she was about to ask him what tadpoles were, but she changed her mind and did not interrupt.

  'I thought it was just me, but it wasn't because old Conway was well gone. He started putting his arm around Joseph of Arimathea and saying to him, "How would you and some of your lads like to go to Vietnam?"'

  'What!' Bird exclaimed. 'Vietnam! Why did he say that?'

  'God only knows, but he kept on. It was awkward for me, I can tell you. He was well gone, worse than I was. Yes, just leaning over as though he was in a pub at Woolamalloo and asking if they'd like to go to Vietnam. Plastered out of his mind. Fortunately Abe hadn't drunk any of the native grog and he could see things were getting out of hand. So he got us up from our seats, shook hands with Joseph, and made us do the same. The old boy smiled quite agreeably and didn't seem to mind us going. Jesus, or the man playing the part of Jesus, was carrying this whacking great cross through all the people by then, sweating under it and dragging his feet in the dust. Joseph just nodded to us and when we slipped away he was sitting back there dead pleased, in his armchair.

  'We didn't have to go through the crowd. We skirted the house and Abe took us through some palms and we found ourselves on the beach again. I never thought I'd be so glad to be away from anywhere. Abe seemed to be as scared as we were, or perhaps he was just annoyed with us, because he didn't say a word. He just hurried and got the boat out of the lagoon and headed back here. It wasn't until we were well out of the way, and I was feeling sick as the devil, what with the beer and the sea getting a swell on, that anyone said anything. Conway was looking green, really terrible, and I had the thought that had been there in my mind all the time. I said to Abe: "Abe, what are they going to do with that man? They're not really going to crucify him are they?"

  'Conway looked up and he looked awful. He said to us, "When they did the Christmas pantomime they actually had a baby born. I was told that! "So I asked Abe again. "Are they going to crucify that man?" and Abe turned around, really grumpy, and said: "How the hell should I know. It's your bloody religion, not mine."'

  Eight

  The long ranges of cloud that for weeks had grown successfully on the eastern sea, bringing the thick rain to the island, became small foothills, then little mounds, and eventually failed to rise at all. The wet season was over. Within a few days, dust was piling in the streets of Sexagesima and both governors had broadcast a warning of an impending water shortage. 'Every year the situation is the same,' said Pollet to Davies. 'In March the place is a swamp, by the third day of April there's a drought.'

  'It must be really bad for the governors to have to broadcast,' said Davies.

  Pollet blew out his cheeks and hunched his shoulders in a continental gesture. 'It's no different, my friend. In fact every year on this day it's the same speech. The Governor records it and George Turtle puts the record on on April the third at eleven in the morning. The French do the same when they have their hour of broadcasting. You could call it a fixed feast. Next week Mrs Flagg will have a garden party and there will be Scottish dancing led by Mr English, the leader of the council, you remember. That is also a fixed feast. It is the beginning of the summer here in the Apostles.'

  Almost every day Davies went down to The Love Beach to swim, sometimes alone, sometimes with Bird, when the salon was not busy, and occasionally with Conway and Dahlia. He liked to go in the late afternoon best because then the children from the village would come from the school and run down on to the sand, roll and jump into the sea in the sun, and then sit about under the shade of the landing barges and sing sweet songs.

  A strange feeling of carelessness had come over him when the sun had arrived in the islands. He felt it soak into him, slowing his thoughts and movements, his ambitions

  too. His campaign to sell butter and fats had not been in the least successful. Some of the shopkeepers, the Chinese and Vietnamese particularly, had been polite and even encouraging, but his order book remained full of nothing but half‑promises. Since he considered himself a trained failure the sight of his plan draining away was no surprise, but this time the savage disappointment was not there. Somehow it did not seem to matter enough to hurt him. The sun had burned his body hard brown within a couple of weeks. He took his paints and his canvases into places in the interior, spending hours working alone, high up above a village with the sea at its door, trying to convey its domesticity among the green wildness, the smoke from the houses, the people moving about and throwing nets from the beach. Once he took his bicycle to the back of the island and sat under some rocks working at his canvas all day while two men fished with circular nets into a heavy surf. Another day he painted a village market, and then some natives working at the coconut gathering. At some of the villages they began to recognize him, to welcome him, and to congregate with polite curiosity as he went about his art. Children, at the front, men and women behind, they would form an orderly gallery, very quiet, but occasionally pointing out details on the canvas to their companions.

  In the painting of these things he felt a set contentment he had not experienced before in his life. He was, he realized, and he told everyone, merely waiting for the arrival of The Baffin Bay to return him to Sydney where he would report the utter and dismal failure of his business mission to Trellis and Jones of The Circular Quay, and would doubtless then get the sack. But that was all to come. There was plenty of time, another month, to consider all his difficulties. In the meantime he would sit like Gauguin, and paint.

  Davies, however, remained the worst artist in the world. Conway told Dahlia that he thought the Welshman was colour‑blind and didn't know it. Bird was always politely encouraging, but screwed up her face when she looked over his shoulder. He had no feel for his subjects, even if he thought he had, no romance, no flair, not even the compensation of bold technical efficiency. His only attribute was absolute blindness to his own incompetence. There was nothing else.

  Once while he was asleep after lunch on a heart‑shaped coral beach in the north of the island, a Melanesian from the fishing village purloined his easel and proceeded to paint the scene with gusto, and with a vivid colour sense such as Davies would never have. When Davies woke up he was very angry with the man and told him he must not interfere again when an artist was at work near his village. But he let the man have his daub to take and hang in his house. 'After all, he didn't know what he was doing,' he said to Bird.

  Each time he went out on one of his painting expeditions he would get Seamus at the Hilton to make him up a bundle of sandwiches and wrap up some fruit, and he would take with him a bottle of native beer. When he had worked through the morning he would sleep for an hour after lunch and then continue until he considered the light had changed. Sometimes he took two bottles of beer and his afternoon sleep lasted longer.

  One afternoon, lying in the shade of the barges on The Love Beach, snoring into the black sand, he dreamed, as he had often done, of little Mag and David and Kate. But, for the first time, he had difficulty in focusing them. In his dream he could not see their faces, and when he came to look at their clothes
he could not recognize them either. He strained to hear their voices, forcing himself deeper into the sand in his sleep, but they were only whispers with Welsh accents. He couldn't catch what they were saying. Where were they going, moving away from him like this? What had happened to the clear lines of their noses and the light in their eyes? Kate was the same, even worse, just a shadow in an oatmeal costume and a spot of rouge on her cheeks. In his dream a commentator kept explaining to him that the reason they had altered and he couldn't see them properly was because he had been away so long and they had changed; they were different and he was different, and they could not be expected to remain faithful to him ‑ any of them ‑ because he had been away so long and they were not sure they knew him properly any longer, any more than he knew them.

  He awoke from his dream with the sun beating down on his face, clear away from the shadow where he had gone to sleep. He was rolling in the sand and it was sticking to his sweat as he rolled. He awoke shouting: 'Ghosts! Ghosts! Ghosts!' His raw voice jerked him to full consciousness and he sat up in the black sand on the empty beach, and stared out to the aching brilliance of the sun on the lagoon. Above him the arms of the palm trees were stamped out against the full blue sky. The sun was burning, and the only sounds were the rhythms of his breathing and the tired washing of the sea.

  'Ghosts!' he repeated to himself miserably. He thought about the dream and felt he might try to get back to sleep again to search for his lost wife and his children. He would hold them still and close so that he could see their faces and so they could recognize him. But he knew that would be useless. When he thought about it he had very little more money now than when he set out to Australia all those long months ago. He would go back home to Wales, to seek them out and tell them he was their father, not any other man, car or no car, and he would claim Kate again. Yes, he would find the money and be with them again.

  When The Baffin Bay arrived, that was.

  It was recognized that Mrs Flagg's garden party was the opening event of the summer season at Sexagesima. Her house with the red roof which provided such a convenient navigation mark for the Governor's little sailors was splendidly situated for the event, with its lawns assembled by the lagoon and its muster of trees for shade. Mrs Flagg always instructed Mr Flagg to see that the lawns were well watered for at least a week beforehand and for the entire morning of the actual day of the party, but to make sure that the sprinklers were turned off and hidden away before the arrival of either the British or the French Governors because they had, by then, made their water‑saving appeal. 'This year we're having our little surprise innovation, dear,' Mrs Flagg told Bird when she arrived for her shampoo and set. 'You know what I mean, don't you? Some people know they're here, but we're just hoping that the news hasn't travelled too far.' Bird made a lined puzzled face in the mirror. 'Oh come, dear,' said Mrs Flagg. 'Don't say you've forgotten. I told you, now didn't 1, when I sat in this very chair a few weeks ago?' She looked hopefully at Bird. 'You know,' she nudged. 'Our native friends from St Mark's. We've got six of them.'

  Bird realized. 'At the house?' she said. 'Now?'

  'Yes, dear, of course. They're going to serve the guests at the garden party.'

  Bird watched Mrs Flagg in the mirror. 'Have they? ...

  You know, Mrs Flagg, have they got?...'

  'The banana leaf wrappings, their baloots, dear?' Mrs Flagg gurgled. 'But, of course. They wouldn't be St Mark's if they hadn't got them would they? They're jolly interesting, you know. They've been with us three days now and they're completely fascinating. I could watch them all day. Mr Flagg and I have been making copious notes.'

  'Where are they living?' asked Bird suspiciously. She started to work on Mrs Flagg's hair again.

  'In the grounds. They've built a nice hut. It doesn't take them long, you know, and they're settling down very well. They brought over their own bedding and cooking utensils and that sort of personal thing and they've got their ancestors' skulls all lined up outside the front door.'

  Bird stopped working again. 'They brought the skulls with them?'

  'But naturally, dear,' said Mrs Flagg. 'They wouldn't have come under any other circumstances. It was quite amusing really, quite amusing. When they were lining up the skulls they had quite a nasty argument among themselves about which order they ought to be placed. One said this skull was third in line, and other said no, it was this one, and the third said it wasn't either, it was this one because it had a spear mark just behind the ear.'

  'They should have numbered them,' suggested Bird.

  'Next time they will, I expect,' said Mrs Flagg. 'It will save all the arguments. But. you see, they're just not used to moving. Quite frankly, even now they're not at all sure that all the grandfathers and grandmothers are in the right order. There was quite a bit of bad feeling about it at the start, but I think it's all simmered down. I jolly well hope so, for the sake of the garden party.'

  On the morning of the event Mr Flagg was seen going from the harbour in his neat blue motor boat. He returned before noon bringing with him from St Mark's one of the tribal elders, an old man with flabby gums, who was reputed to know by sight the skull of every ancestor of every family on the island. 'He really was marvellous,' related Mrs Flagg at the garden party. 'He came in without any fuss and they had a sort of identity parade of the skulls outside the hut. He had a look at each one and muttered something or other, then he shuffled them about a bit, moved one up a couple of places and another farther back, and said that was the right order. It was like that gambling game they play with upturned teacups, where you have to find the dice. Anyway my boys seemed to trust his judgement and abide by his decision. He really saved us an awful lot of bother. I feel so grateful to him. There he is now, over there, drinking tea with the Reverend Collins.'

  Almost every European on the island was at the garden party. The sun was glassy on the brilliant lagoon and on the vivid lawns skirting it. The rain was finished, the summer had come to the island. The people, French and English, convivial for once, drank tea and ate cakes and talked in little formations that moved, separated, stayed, separated again, and rejoined, with all the elegance and good taste of Victorian formation dancers.

  Mrs Flagg's houseboys caused a sensation only among a minority of guests. Others were diverted, but many had lived so long in the Apostle Islands that no tribal idiosyncrasy astonished them. The six little men busied themselves with good humour serving the guests. Each one had his penis mummified in the case of banana leaves and tight bindings, brought up his stomach, and tucked neatly into an army webbing belt which Mr Flagg had purchased specially for the occasion.

  'How amusing,' commented Mrs English, the wife of the council chairman, when the St Mark's men first entered with their trays. 'How absolutely amusing.'

  'Sweet,' agreed Mrs Haskin simpering at her tea. 'Quite sweet. Mrs Flagg certainly has some jolly ideas.'

  The little men were amused themselves, staring at the ladies in silk and nylon dresses with strange shoes and delicate parasols, and the men in their well‑ironed white suits and school ties. Sir William sweated painfully in a badly over‑starched shirt and hard plank‑like trousers. M. Martin looked cool and unofficial in a fine lightweight blue suit and cocky little hat. He had received a new consignment of silk shirts from Paris by the last boat which pleased him, although he was still at a loss to know where his wine and liquor consignment had once again vanished.

  'Everything is good for the visit of Her Majesty?' asked M. Martin.

  'Oh certainly,' said Sir William. 'We've got plenty of paint and bunting, and the band has been practising like fury all the week.'

  'This I know well,' shrugged M. Martin. 'They are playing the same tune at each night from the club of the British Legion. The sound flies up the valley to my terrace when the breeze comes in from the sea in the evening.'

  'Nothing to touch a little music for relaxation,' countered Sir William bravely. 'I wish I could hear them.'

  'It is, I unde
rstand, a composition called Annie Laurie.

  This I have been told by my foreign experts. I wish you could hear it too, your Excellency. Perhaps we could, how do you say it, swop houses, yes, swop houses, that is right, until they have consumed sufficient practice.'

  'Fine old Scots air,' said Sir William. 'And they might get it right for the Queen.'

  'You know our navy is coming across?' mentioned M. Martin. 'There will be a salute of twenty‑one guns.'

  'That gunboat of yours from Noumea?' queried Sir

  William testily. 'I didn't know.'

  M. Martin snift'ed over his cup. 'Maybe our liaison officers do not liaise enough, Sir William. They must meet more often. Yes, the warship ‑ the Auriol ‑ is coming.'

  'That thing hasn't got twenty‑one guns,' argued Sir William.

  'It will fire its six‑pounder twenty‑one times,' said the French Governor with triumph. 'I understand that there is to be a chapel of the Unknown Soldier consecrated on The Love Beach? That is a good idea. Very romantic and very economical.'