Tuvalu

by Andrew O'Connor

  I removed my hand from her bare hip and flopped onto my back, staring up into the single, dim bulb. When I looked out the window it was snowing heavily and there was a layer of white on the outside ledge.

  ‘You really wrote a lot of letters?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’m embarrassed now that I sent them. I sent them to people I haven’t seen since elementary school. Dear so and so, sorry for pulling your hair and breaking your arm. That sort of thing.’

  I had to smile. ‘Look on the bright side, at least you’ll arrive in the South Pacific with a clear conscience.’

  At the mention of Tuvalu, Mami’s eyes sparkled. She adroitly rolled on top of me. ‘I want to save it for then,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sex.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘We’ll save it for this mystery island you won’t tell me a thing about.’

  ‘This island I don’t know a thing about.’

  Cold, I nuzzled into her and felt with sore fingers the warmth of her skin, felt it radiate out, but it was not enough to prevent a shudder.

  She whispered in my ear. ‘I bet it has bright green tropical trees, big monkeys, natives and cerulean blue oceans. I bet it has ocean whichever way you look. I bet I won’t even need to wear a watch.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘And,’ she said, ‘there’ll be rain storms. Raindrops the size of marbles. We’ll wake to the sound of tropical rain, or failing that the sound of waves. I love the sound of waves at night, don’t you? They’re so calm and regular. We’ll lie on a bamboo bed in each other’s arms like this and listen, and everything that’s here will be left here, left to Japan, to grimy, unfair, sad Japan, with its overcast sky, with its industry and iron and sharp edges.’

  A jetliner roared overhead and the hotel walls rattled loudly, then fell silent.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Mami said. ‘Tomorrow we’ll be in Tuvalu.’

  I fell straight to sleep then but woke too early, woke when I should have slept. I heard her behind me, trying to cross the dark room quietly, her bare feet causing the tatami to groan. I heard paper slip over material and leather placed carefully back on plastic. When I rolled over, squinting, she was silhouetted in the doorway by fluorescent light.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ she whispered, ‘I’m just getting a soft drink from the vending machine.’ And I nodded and rolled back, and when she shut the door all I could see was the deathly quiet snow falling outside.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Annette Barlow, Christa Munns, Catherine Milne, Ali Lavau and Catherine Taylor for a fantastic edit; to everyone at Allen & Unwin for their great support and patience; to The Australian and Vogel’s for the ongoing encouragement and opportunity they give new writers; to Soph for her last-minute insights; to the many wonderfully kind and interesting Japanese people who explained so much of Japan to me; to the gaijin who were and still are there, especially Eric; to Serendipity Lavender Farm, Nar Nar Goon, for teaching me about lavender lollies and other useful details; and to old friends everywhere who always told me to get on and finish something. All mistakes are my own.