by Pauline Fisk
The hostel was set back behind a lovely sprawling beach-garden, full of hammocks, swings and palms. A pale blue palapa thatched with wispy dried grasses stood at one end of it, its legs planted in the sea, and the hostel stood at the other, a spider’s web of decks, balconies and staircases, all decorated in bright colours with an exotic mural of an emerald-green sea goddess painted along the front wall.
Kid had scarcely had time to take it in, however, before Hal said, ‘Look who I’ve got here …’
Everybody looked up from whatever they were doing. Tilda and Al sat on the veranda, a pack of cards between them. Joanne was lounging on the palapa with Jack, the black-haired Goth look gone for ever, bleached out by the sun, both reading books. Wallace was tanning his body on the dock with his headphones on.
Everybody leapt up, shrieking. But Snow was the first one to get to Kid. Snow, who’d been taking in her washing from the second-floor balcony, leapt over it, down the stairs, over the banister, down a second flight of stairs and across the veranda, crying, ‘Oh my God! I don’t believe it! Kid, it’s you!’
Kid found himself being hugged by everyone, and slapped on the back. Everybody was thinner than last time he’d seen them. It wasn’t just Hal. They were more shaggy-haired and wearing far fewer clothes. Some of the girls wore make-up, some of the boys sported ragged bits of beards and everybody’s hair was bleached by the sun. But despite the beach-bum look, they were the same old team, and everybody had a story to tell and questions they wanted to ask – and they all wanted to do it at the same time.
Before they could ask anything, however, a voice called down from the first-floor balcony, where the owner of the hostel had her office, that if the new boy with a rucksack wanted a bed for the night he’d better book it quick.
The owner’s name was Elena. Kid went upstairs to find himself confronted by a tall, brown-skinned woman in an emerald-green bikini, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the sea goddess painted on her front wall. Her hair looked like golden seaweed and smelt of a heady mixture of flowers and salt. Her smile was warm, but there was a definite warning in her eyes that nobody crossed her and came out alive. She was surrounded by a pack of dogs who all took to Kid. She said she liked a man who could be trusted by dogs and he almost wondered if she was flirting with him, until he worked out that she had to be at least twenty years older than him.
Kid spent the rest of the day either playing with Elena’s dogs or sitting in the Sports Bar next door to the hostel, catching up on everybody’s news. Apparently both teams’ projects had been a huge success. There had even been a ceremony to thank them all. It had been attended by one of Belize’s Channel 7 television news teams, and a handful of dignitaries had been helicoptered in to officially open the bunkhouse.
Some of them had been real wimps, Al said, worrying about snakes and xateros and things like that. But all of them had agreed that the volunteers from Wide-World Treks had done a wonderful job, playing a part in protecting one of the world’s last great wildernesses.
‘They weren’t so impressed with our living conditions, though,’ Joanne said. ‘We thought we’d really smartened up the camp for the occasion, but the word they used to describe it was primitive. They were shocked at the way we’d had to live. I couldn’t see why at the time, but I suppose I can now that I’m back in the land of chocolate cake and cocktails on the beach. I mean, our camp was home, and we were really proud of it. But it was still pretty basic. You have to admit that.’
Kid said that he was admitting no such thing. He’d missed the camp too much to have a word said against it. But then he’d missed the whole of Chiquibul. A sigh ran round the group as everybody remembered what they missed most. Howler monkeys got a mention, and so did the coolness of the early morning, with mist between the trees. Evening swims in the Rio Blanco were high on everybody’s list, and everybody agreed that moonlight shining down on to the forest floor was an unforgettable sight.
‘Nothing will ever be the same,’ said Jack.
‘I’ll certainly never be the same,’ said Hal – and everyone agreed, because they all knew they’d changed.
People started talking about what they’d do next. Snow was going to college as her parents had always wanted, but she intended to become an environmental scientist, which definitely wasn’t on their list of approved careers. Hal was going back to the family farm, but the choice hadn’t been automatic, and it hadn’t been easy either. Jack was going to write a novel about his experiences in Belize. Al was going home for a good sleep. Joanne was in love with Sam from the boundary-cutting team, who was on a placement now and she was hoping to go and join him. Wallace wanted to go travelling round South America. See if he could meet up with Cassie and Doc Rose.
And what about Kid, they all wanted to know.
Kid didn’t know what to say. In the distance he could hear the muffled roar of the reef. Beyond it he knew the sea was deep and unpredictable, and its currents were strong. But here, within its protective arm, he felt untouchable.
‘I’m on holiday,’ he said. ‘I have a bed. I have my friends – at least I do for the next few days, until you guys leave. And, best of all, I’ve slowed down. And that’s good enough for now.’
33
DUENDE
It was only later that night – sitting on the palapa with Hal and Snow – that Kid finally opened up about his placement. The island seemed to be alive with light, from the electric rays glowing beneath the surface of the water, to the lanterns hanging in the palm trees in the hostel garden, making it look like a stage for some play – Shakespeare’s Tempest, or something like that.
Kid told them about Reuben and Lydia, about the school, Teacher Betty and his total inability to instil information into small children. He told them Joseph’s story about the founding of the village, and he told them how beautiful Blue Bank Springs was with the Maya Mountains in the distance and the jungle all around it. He told them about Renaldo with his endless asking Kid’s name. He even told them about the hurricane shelter, and the shameful circumstances under which he’d heard paranda music for the first time.
But he didn’t tell them about Xa-an, or say anything about the sweat-house by the river where she’d restored him to health. And he didn’t tell them about Renata. How could a person like her be turned into a traveller’s tale?
When Kid had finished, Hal said he wished he’d chosen to do a placement too. ‘You make me wish I wasn’t going home,’ he said. ‘And that’s saying something.’
Snow didn’t say a thing. Only later, when Hal had gone to bed, did she ask, quietly, ‘What went wrong?’
Kid blushed. He’d thought he’d hidden it so well. ‘Who says anything went wrong?’ he said.
‘You don’t need to pretend,’ Snow said. ‘I could tell when you arrived that something had happened. You’re different.’
Kid could have fobbed her off, saying they all were different now. But instead he admitted defeat. ‘There was a girl …’ he said, and it all came out, starting that first day in Blue Bank Springs and ending with his father.
Snow was thrilled to learn he’d found himself a father, and wanted to know more. But that could wait for later. It was the girl she was most interested in. ‘So what’s her name?’ she wanted to know.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kid replied. ‘She was pleased to see the back of me. It was she who talked me into leaving, saying it would be good for me. But she didn’t even come to say goodbye.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t really want you to leave,’ Snow said. ‘Have you thought about that? Perhaps she only told you to because she thought it would be good for you.’
Kid said he didn’t want to talk about it any more. He said goodnight to Snow and went up to bed. But he hardly slept – and it wasn’t a dormitory full of snoring bodies that kept him awake, or an electric fan moaning like a tropical storm. It was Snow’s words ringing in his head.
Early next morning, Kid dressed and left the hostel before anyone else was up
. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the sky was lightening. He headed along the empty waterfront, past the water-taxi terminal and the rustic beach-huts built on stilts, on until he reached the mangroves. Here he stopped to watch the sun rise out of the water in a great, blazing ball of yellow light, then carried on again as if Snow’s words, and the questions that they raised, were driving him.
Could Renata really not have wanted him to leave, he asked himself, like Snow had said? And had doing so been good for him? What had he learned by going with his father? And what about his journey all the way from England? Had his time here in the trees made a difference to his life? Could he see things now with clearer eyes? Was he any closer to finding a place in the world that he could call home? And if he left tomorrow, what would he take away with him?
All Kid’s friends were taking away something from Belize – a different attitude, a changed ambition, a new hope for the future, even a renewed appreciation of what they had at home.
‘But what about me?’ Kid asked himself. ‘What do I have?’
And the answer was that he didn’t know.
By now Kid had long since left the inhabited part of the island and entered an area of dense forest set back from the shoreline. Twisted roots stretched across his path and butterflies danced from tree to tree, as large and bright as any he’d seen in the jungle. It was good to be back amongst trees again. Good to slot back into jungle-trekking mode, eyes peeled for snakes or the sorts of plants, like poisonwood, which he knew not to touch.
Kid glimpsed a rough-skinned iguana with pointy scales running down its spine, and startled a spoonbill, which rose on huge pink wings and swept away. He had reached the southernmost tip of the island now, and was picking his way round a series of swampy pools. There were no houses here, no docks or palapas or other signs of human habitation, so it came as a surprise when a figure appeared ahead of him, lit up by sunlight breaking through the trees.
At first Kid thought the figure was of a child but, as he drew closer, he saw a little man. ‘Good morning,’ he began but the man raised a hand to silence him.
‘I wouldn’t come this way, if I were you,’ he whispered. ‘There’s a croc on the track – and he’s a big un too.’
Unable to see the croc, Kid froze on the spot. The man tiptoed over, finger to his lips, and led him on a woven path between the trees, pushing through the undergrowth, his footfall silent, taking care that not a single leaf should rustle. Kid could have sworn he heard a drum beating somewhere, but it could have been his heart; he wasn’t sure.
‘Thanks,’ he said when the little old man finally let go of him, saying he’d be all right from here.
The little man looked at him. His face was brown and shiny, his teeth stained yellow and his eyes flecked with sunlight, like dots of gold in a river bed.
‘Home’s not a place,’ he suddenly said, as if he could read Kid’s mind and knew how empty he felt. ‘It’s a state of mind. The trees won’t leave you, when you go. They’re a way of life that’s all your own. They’re what you take everywhere you go. Once you’ve lived amongst them, you’ll always flourish in their shade. However far you travel, they’ll always be your home.’
34
KID’S BIG BREAK
How the little man slipped away, disappearing without Kid actually seeing him going, he could never afterwards explain. But if that figure out of legend – that guardian of the forest known as the Duende – had met Kid that day, he couldn’t have felt more changed. And perhaps they had met. Who could say? Perhaps saving him from the croc had been the Duende’s way of saying thanks, as if Kid’s efforts out in Chiquibul had been noticed and appreciated. Or perhaps the thanks were in the words he’d said.
Kid headed back towards the village. He didn’t quite know what had happened back there, but he felt as if he’d had his special ceremony too – his moment in the limelight, and it mightn’t have been recorded on Belize’s Channel 5 TV, but who cared about that?
Returning to the hostel, he found everybody up for what was to be their last full day together, keen to make the most of their precious time. He tried telling them what had happened to him, but no one was listening. For those going on to Spanish language school in Guatemala there were bus timetables to be checked, and for those flying home, there were emails to be sent, making last-minute arrangements for being picked up at the other end.
The internet access was in Elena’s office. Everybody piled in, including Kid who didn’t have any emails to send, but didn’t want to be left out. Much to his surprise, he found a couple of messages in his inbox. The first was from Craig, warning him, that a man who claimed to be his father had nicked his address and was heading his way.
‘No way would I have given him your details,’ Craig wrote, ‘not without permission. But, oddly enough, he’s not the only one interested in you. The other day we had a visit from some local taxi driver offering you a job. She wants you to teach her daughter English, would you believe. She seems to think you and her might hit it off. Her name’s Carmelita, by the way. The daughter, that is. The driver’s name is Taxi-May.’
Kid laughed when he read that. But he didn’t laugh when he read the second email. It came from Nadine. She didn’t ask how he was, or even if he was still alive, just said she’d been feeling guilty ever since he’d left England, and lonely too since she and Kyle had split up, and if he wanted to come back, he could always make a home with her.
Yeah right, thought Kid, until the next boyfriend comes along.
But it was the last part of the message that really got to him. ‘It’s an open offer,’ Nadine wrote. ‘Any time. After all, apart from your grandmother, I’m the nearest you’ve got to a relative.’
Kid had to look away after reading that, because it was true – and how grim was that?
‘You all right?’ said Elena who noticed something in his face.
‘I’m fine,’ Kid said.
After finishing their emails, everybody went down to their favourite beach, known as the Split, where Caye Caulker had been cut in half during a hurricane. The water was deep here, and good for swimming, and everybody’s favourite bar was here too – the Lazy Lizard, where iguanas lined up to bathe in the noonday sun.
Everybody lounged about, tried their hands at snorkelling, swam, stretched out in the sun, drank piña coladas made from fresh pineapple, and played with Elena’s dogs, who’d taken to following Kid in particular everywhere he went.
He imagined staying on after the others had left. Why not, he asked himself. What else was he going to do? There’d be no Spanish language school for him, or backpacking round South America, and he definitely wasn’t planning on returning to Blue Bank Springs, not after the fool he’d made of himself there. And as for Nadine’s offer – even if Kid ran out of money, no way would he go back there.
Kid imagined finding a beach-bum’s job and raking the sand, or learning to dive properly and helping out on the dive-boats. When the holiday season was over, he could head back to San Ignacio and take up Taxi-May’s offer of teaching Carmelita English. Or perhaps he could even persuade Craig and Jasmine that they needed a Boy Friday to do the chores for them.
At the end of the afternoon, everybody sauntered back together along the shoreline. A light breeze blew a handful of flyers along the sand advertising a party that night on the north side of the island. Wallace picked one up and read it out loud, saying, ‘How about it?’
But everybody had packing to do tonight, ready for an early-morning departure, and, besides, they wanted to have a last meal together in the Sports Bar, not go to some party.
At least that’s what they said until Kid looked at the flyer and saw a name.
Paul Nabor.
After that, everybody had to go. This was someone, Kid insisted, who no way, absolutely, could be missed. ‘Who’s Paul Nabor?’ everybody wanted to know. ‘Come and find out,’ Kid replied. ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t.’
That evening, as the sun set over the Caye
Caulker rooftops, everybody piled into a water-taxi to be ferried round to the north side of the island. The moon was rising as they headed up its coast. It shone across the water to a beach of pure white sand from which the sound of drumming drifted out to greet them.
The water-taxi dropped them off beside a dock illuminated by strings of lanterns and rows of flares. A fire burned on the beach, and cans of smoking incense kept mosquitoes at bay. A beach-side bar glowed in the dark like a golden shrine. The smell of barbecued food wafted across the sand while a live band sweated out a diet of punta rock.
Kid pushed his way between a crowd of dancers, heading for the bar, whose decks and balconies on different levels looked out over the ocean. His friends were dancing too, and calling for him to join them, but he held himself back. Let them boogie if they wanted. He was saving himself.
Hours later – or so it seemed to Kid – the main attraction of the night finally stepped up. His arrival came almost unheralded – a little man in a grey suit and white cowboy hat that seemed a bit too large for him, stepping up to the microphone. His face was wizened and he looked incredibly old. Could this possibly be Paul Nabor? This old man with the hooded eyelids and the thin grey moustache?
Kid experienced a sense of astonishment. Never had it crossed his mind that the owner of a voice so strong and passionate could possibly be anything but young. The man said something which Kid didn’t understand, but everybody clapped and shouted, including Elena, Kid noticed, who was in the crowd as well, looking every inch the goddess in a tight red dress.
