The Love Beach

by Leslie Thomas

  That midnight on the hill it suited Conway very well. The cowl covered his head and the robe enveloped his body. It was too warm in there though, and he immediately began to sweat. Then there was the bell, borrowed, again unofficially. from the mission Sunday school on St Peter's island. He took it from the army pack, holding it by the clapper like a veterinary surgeon holding a dangerous animal.

  Folding the army pack he fastened it to the motor cycle's pillion, with the elasticated straps provided. Dodson‑Smith was obviously expected to arrive with some small items of luggage and the grips had been thoughtfully provided.

  From the beach he could hear the voices of the St Paul's natives howling like a newly started wind. The copra hulk was burning spectacularly now, sending up great blossoms

  of flame, red, yellow, and blue, with green shoots sprouting over the lagoon. He pushed the motor cycle from its mounting, a simple wooden cradle, and wheeled it very easily a few feet forward. M excitement had now caught him, a tight band of it around his chest and his belly. It came back like some companion from the past who had not been with him for some time. The air seemed closer and hotter around him. Within the encompassing robe he was dripping wet. All sounds that carried up from the beach brought more fever to him, and the wild crackling of the fire added to the pulsing of the air. But inside himself he was cool and efficient. Conway had never felt better.

  He adjusted his robe, pulling it round him with a flying fling like a pantomime dame, and mounted the motor cycle. He tucked the blanket ends beneath him so that they were not trailing. Now he was ready. He bent and picked up the bell and it gave a small amused tinkle. He frowned at it. The noise of the voices still came up powerfully from the beach and the old ship was crackling cheerfully. Now some small canoes were standing off the burning hulk. Conway could see vaguely their splinter shapes. 'It's no use peeing on it, lads,' he called softly. Then he kicked at the motor cycle starter and it growled into surprised life. He revved it violently knowing that the elevated sound would fly like the call of a fierce wild animal over the village and down to the beach.

  'They had kept the machine in fine condition. DodsonSmith could have no complaints about his transport. Conway felt it vibrating beneath him as though it was experiencing a trembling anxiety to run off after all its symbolic and static years.

  He pushed it forward gently, and let the gear in. It rolled off beautifully, smoother than riding a sedate Shetland pony, easy and controlled, throwing out a few snorts of smoke but making a loud happy growling. Conway went down the jig‑saw path to the village. Halfway down he began ringing the mission Sunday school bell.

  On the coral beach the St Paul's islanders wailing at the

  flames sizzling through their treasure of coconut oil, were stilled, silenced, petrified, by the first spitting sound of the engine. They stood in their attitudes, looking towards the lagoon. Even the fire seemed to be frozen. Then the jungle sound of the heavy revving roared over the trees to them. Joseph of Arimathea, in pyjamas, turned first, his great face set like a black jelly, his eyes thrown outwards, his lips dry and hard as tusks. The rest of the tribe, with a slow movement that would have enhanced some primitive ballet, turned then, from the head, then from the hips, then the clumsy feet revolving through the sand. In the lagoon the crews of the canoes stopped cursing the fire and looked over their shoulders towards the towering land.

  Fear, foreboding, joy, wonder, crowded on the tribe at the same moment. Some felt the fear the most. Women covering their big jet breasts, their hands going to their throats. Children hurrying behind elders, thrusting their frightened noses into the sanctuary of a buttock‑crack, holding tightly on to adult legs. Some dropped with dreadful foreboding to the sand of the beach, their bodies bent as though awaiting quick death, their eyes gradually travelling up to see if the death was really coming. But a jagged smile drew itself across the old face of Joseph of Arimathea, a smile that filled his brain and all the channels of his body. His arms went out, moving as though they had been paralysed all through life and had learned how to work. Others near him felt the joy too, igniting within themselves just as their copra ship had burned from the inside. Wonder rooted some to the sand like strange stunted trees. There was no sound from the tribe, except their breathing, a noise like gas leaking from th,‑m. They were experiencing almost every emotion but disbelief. Bound by the terrible certainty of their outlandish Christianity, never considering the thought that someone might be cheating them, they looked up towards the glorious sound of the travelling motor cycle. Dodson‑Smith, and no one else, their Messiah, their Saviour, was coming down the hill to his waiting people!

  Then Conway began banging the bell, holding one

  handlebar of the jolting vehicle like an expert cowboy riding and guiding a steer. The tribe reacted with a universal jolt when they heard the bell. But they remained in their attitudes on the beach, covered with their choking silence, unmoved, only waiting. The copra ship spat a great bellow of fresh flame as the fire reached some new source of feeding, but no one noticed. The canoes had been turned by the dazed crews and were floating idly a hundred yards off shore. Each man felt the new gust of fire burn his back, but none of them took their eyes from the path above the beach.

  Conway descended on the pathetic people, riding the motor cycle like a bad comedian, ringing the bell like a demented town crier. He bounced, jolted, went into a half skid but righted it, and finally flew flamboyantly into their view as he travelled at forty miles per hour through the village street. Dogs, with no spiritual barriers, chased him joyfully, snapping and sniffing, leaping and falling over each other, an unruly, tumbling pack. The moment he throttled into sight of the tribe each of them fell flat on his face, the children pressed to the sand by their mother, great sobs now escaping from their black recumbent bodies. Joseph, with a vivid demonstration of humility, tore his pyjamas from about him and threw them wide away, before rolling forward, his face jammed hard into the gritting coral sand.

  They saw Conway only briefly as he careered through the village, for two outcrops of trees hid the track from the beach after that. But when he turned the sharp bend above the beach, hitting the bank with all the aplomb of a scramble rider, and when he began to throw the bell back and forth with tremendous dexterity, they saw him then. They lifted their faces, those who dared, and saw the robed rider taking the path just above their heads, only fifty yards away. The black garments tight about him, the carefully nurtured machine snorting as proudly as any king's charger ‑ and the bell telling them to prepare themselves for war. They had not expected that. But anything Dodson‑Smith decreed was good.

  'Aaaah,' Joseph of Aramathea howled at last. 'Aaaaaaaaah.''Aaaah,' wailed the tribe. 'Aaaah, Aaaaaah, Aaaaaah.'

  At that point the clapper from Conway's wildly flying bell, accustomed only to the gentle tinklings of the Reverend Colin Collins on Sunday afternoons, shot from its socket and went like a heavy missile ahead of the motor cycle. Conway found he was ringing only silence. 'Balls,' he cursed, with no appreciation for the moment. He changed gear and roared on, along the brittle track, now once again out of sight of the natives, and heading for the pebble beach and Abe's boat.

  Davies was lying, semi‑conscious, on the long seat of the boat at that moment, poisoned by the bad tinned crab that Abe had used in the sandwich. He moaned and vomited and moaned again, lost in a fog of nausea and impotence. He heard the motor cycle sound coming through the trees and was aware of Abe starting up from his seat. But he could do nothing more. The crab gripped his guts from the tender inside and held him down to the deck.

  Abe shouted something to him, but it was swallowed by the dreamy cocoon around him. He could not help. He could not move. Abe spat with annoyance and moved forward to make sure that the ramp they had manufactured was firmly against the pebbles at one side and gripped to the deck at the other.

  'Wait,' shouted Abe. 'Too fast!'

  A tail of Conway's robe jammed in the rear wheel and brought the mac
hine round fast and in the wrong direction. With huge skill and strength Conway righted it so that it headed for the ramp again. But he was too late with his brake. The plan had been to stop the machine and quickly wheel it aboard the boat. Instead it ran snorting like a war horse, fiercely, straight up the wooden ramp and crashed spectacularly into the cabin of Abe's boat. Straight through the door it went, wedging itself and its rider in a great debris of planks and splintered wreckage.

  'Mama,' howled Abe. 'What the hell you doin'?' He rushed towards Conway, who was still sitting astride the shattered machine, hunched forward, his head against the only wall of the cabin which remained. Davies was crawling from beneath a pile of planks, blinking with concern and astonishment, and speared by a renewal of his own sickness.

  Conway had the presence of mind to wave his hand at Abe, in a forward movement, telling him to get away from the shore. Abe understood, pulled the ramp aboard, and clearing wreckage away, started the engine. He breathed quick but true thanks as the boat responded and began to ease herself into the little bay. He went to the wheel and it came away from its fixing in his hands. The steering was jammed, but at least the rudder was straight because they headed unerringly for the wide gap in the reef and out into the dark ocean. They would soon be beyond the sigh+, of the island, far off into the night sea.

  Half a mile from the beach where they had waited, the entire St Paul's tribe was advancing fearfully along the road, following the tracks of the motor cycle, looking for Dodson‑Smith, the Saviour who had arrived ringing his bell, and had gone away again so quickly.

  By the time they reached the beach Abe's boat was two miles out to sea. Far away from the shore he eased up and did a quick repair job on the steering. He did enough to get them back to Sexagesima harbour and he turned his shattered boat in that direction. He began to feel happier when he thought how much the Australian Government, through their employee Conway, was going to have to pay for the damage. He might even get a new boat.

  Davies and Conway, both unconscious for their different reasons, were laid out on planks either side of the wrecked cabin, like big tuna fish caught by a game fisher. Abe looked at them and smiled. He began to sing a traditional Yiddish song.

  Davies, awakened, knew he was in his own room because a late‑risen moon was filtering through the break in the blind making a bright knife on the wall. His stomach felt cold, vacant. His whole body seemed light as a ghost as though all the substance had been beaten from it.

  'Crab,' he muttered miserably. The word and the very action of saying it invoked a shiver. He tried again, 'Crab.' He was still in his clothes, but he felt chilled in the close little room. Throwing his arm limply sideways he reached below the bed and brought up a bottle of beer. The opener was on the wicker table at his bedside. He moved across the bed on his back like a man crawling through machinegun fire. His eyes felt heavy and burning in the lightness of his body. The opener was there. Gratefully he took it and opened the bottle with his leaden eyes closed. God, how dreadful he felt. Just the effort of lifting the top from the bottle made him run with sweat. He drank the beer. It ran down his mouth and throat like flood‑water washing through a dry and ancient channel and fell in a cascade down inside his cold husk of a stomach. He knew it would make him sick and it did. But after two minutes of vomiting he was much better.

  Back on his bed he felt some of the outside warmth feeding back into him again. He tried to remember it all, but all that came back was the vision of the gaudy flames high above the trees from the copra hulk, and the violent, giddy sickness that had seized him twenty minutes after eating Abe's fresh crab sandwiches.

  'Bastard,' he said thinking of Conway.

  Then he thought about Abe. 'Bastard,' he said again.

  He decided to go to Conway's room. He walked along the corridor full of strong shadows and bars of moonlight, and walked into the room without knocking. The blind was up from the window and the moon settled on the stark face of the Australian topped by a blood‑stained turban made from a towel. Davies faintly remembered then the commotion of Conway's arrival on board. He recalled only the violent crashing and Abe shouting obscenities, for the crab sickness had thrown him down again just then.

  Now he hesitated and craned forward to look at Conway. He took a couple more steps across the explosions of moonlight on the floor. 'Conway,' he said nervously. 'Con.'

  Close up he saw that the Australian had a picturesquely

  split lip, that there were black bruises on his cheekbones and small channels of dried blood with their sources under the towel. Conway was breathing stridently and snoring through a blood‑clogged nose. Otherwise he looked as good as dead. He opened his eyes painfully and regarded the timid Davies.

  'What happened to you?' he asked Davies.

  Davies sat on the side of the bed. 'I'm the one that should be asking that.'

  Conway ran his fingers up to his face and winced as he touched the bruises and then the towel. He put his little finger gingerly against his split and swollen lip. 'Have I lost my good looks?' be asked.

  'What you had you've lost,' confirmed Davies, unsympathetic now that he saw that Conway was not bad. 'You look terrible, boy.'

  'The bloody motor bike didn't stop,' said Conway. 'Didn't you see?'

  'I was lying on the deck, flat out,' admitted Davies. 'Abe gave me what he reckoned was fresh crab and it wasn't fresh. Came out of a tin from Australia, I bet. Anyway, he poisoned me with it. I went out just like that. I've just woken up.' He looked at Conway seriously. 'You're an unscrupulous bastard, you know.'

  'That's me,' agreed Conway.

  'Setting the hulk on fire was a bastard's trick,' said Davies. 'And a lousy bastard's trick at that.'

  'Yes, it was,' nodded Conway. He seemed to find the nodding painful and stopped. 'Have you got any beer?'

  'Haven't you?' asked Davies.

  'Not a trickle. Get us a beer, mate.'

  Without answering Davies got up and went back to his room for a bottle of beer. He hoped it would make Conway as sick as it had made him. But it didn't.

  'I couldn't believe it when you did that,' said Davies. 'Honest, I didn't think even you would do such a lousy trick.'

  'I did,' said Conway evenly. 'I know me better than you know me. There's no getting away from it, I am an unscrupulous bastard.'

  'That's all they had to live on, that copra,' said Davies feeling hopeless at arguing with the man. 'I thought you were just going to do the Dodson‑Smith act.'

  Conway smiled like an actor recalling a favourite and famous part. .’ I was very good,' he said. 'Terrific, in fact. I really put the fear of God into that mob.'

  'The bike worked all right?' said Davies miserably. He decided not to argue any more. He still felt sick.

  'A beaut. A real beaut, that bike. And the bell went like mad until the bloody clapper flew out. Ha!'

  'So now they know they've had the sign from their Messiah telling them they've got to go to war? 'said Davies.

  'That's too right, son,' said Conway. He moved carefully around on the bed so he could hold the beer bottle in the other hand. 'No beer for you?' he asked.

  'I had some,' said Davies. 'I only kept it down for thirty seconds.'

  'And you hoped the same thing would happen to me?'

  'Yes, I did.'

  'Well, it won't. I feel sore, not sick.'

  'You'll go over tomorrow, well I mean today now, and do your recruiting?' asked Davies.

  'They'll be waiting with the old kitbags all packed,' said Conway. 'I'll pay in advance, of course, and they'll be needing some army pay now the piggy bank is at the bottom of the lagoon.'

  Davies shook his head slowly. 'It really was a bastard trick,' he repeated.

  'You're in it too,' said Conway. 'We've got a written contract remember?'

  'Don't worry, I won't go to the United bleeding Nations about it,' Davies assured him bitterly. 'I don't want any more trouble. But you won't get me involved with any hokey‑pokey like this again
.'

  'Quite right too, sport,' said Conway. 'You leave that to the professional shits like me. You sell your butter and fats.'

  Fourteen

  A marmalade dawn spread over the sea. The islands and the hills and trees, the coloured palettes of the lagoons, the white houses, the red earth, and the ocean itself changed their tones with every new moment of the growing day.

  People began moving about Sexagesima early because it was easy to do the things that had to be done before the air became swollen and hot in the streets. Abe slept only for an hour and then walked along the cool waterfront to his boat. The Melanesian women were already spreading out their fruit baskets for the day's selling and Abe bought himself half a melon for breakfast. He bartered about the price and got it reduced. He ate the melon as he went towards the boat, letting the juice fall down his chin and on to his thrustful belly, hardly noticing it because it always fell down like that, anyway, and he was full of the thoughts of how much to charge for the damage to the boat.

  He stood on the jetty and shook a sad head at it. The motor cycle was still spectacularly embedded in the debris of the cabin, the boat's steering wheel was hanging like a fallen star, the planks and plywood stuck out like buck teeth. Carefully he performed some subtle rearrangement of the wreckage, putting a plank here and a section of shattered plywood there. The result of these touches was that the damage looked even more violent, a device which Abe excused on the grounds that he had needed to do a certain amount of clearing up when they were at sea during the night, so that he could stand and steer the boat back to Sexagesima.