by Hill, David
‘The volcanoes died down. People came. Our people. Great chiefs and leaders. Canoes carried many warriors. There were wars between islands.’
The little kids gasped as Noah leaped to his feet. Darryl realised he’d jerked, too. The girl in black took the drum, and a harsher, angrier beat filled the room. Noah stalked from side to side. He flung spears; he swung clubs and axes. His hands were empty, but Darryl seemed to see every weapon. Beside him, the two girls in white bent and rowed, or rose and fought as well.
‘Slowly, peace came to our islands. For many years, we fished, and grew our crops, and were happy.’ Noah stood unmoving for a second, then stepped back to his drum. The girls’ movements were calm and gentle. Darryl hardly noticed the words in French now; the dancing made everything clear.
‘Then the missionaries came.’ Alicia’s voice sounded sadder, lower. ‘They broke our statues. They tore down the temples of our gods.’ The drum changed to a solemn beat. The dancers crumpled, sank to the floor, struggled up again. ‘Diseases came. Our people began to grow sick and die.’ Darryl saw one of the teachers shaking her head and looking sad. The others watched silently.
‘Our people had to stop fishing and build churches, stop planting crops and make a prison. Those who refused were whipped. Children who played near the church were punished.’ The dancers in white shrank into corners, hands over their heads, while the one in black strutted up and down, pointing and ordering.
The drum beat more briskly again. ‘Slowly our people became well again,’ Alicia went on. ‘Some of the missionaries were friends. Years passed.’ The dancers were all on their feet again, moving gently, faces relaxed. ‘In other parts of the world, there were great wars. But Mangareva was full of peace. We were too far away for war. The pearls from our sea brought visitors. The beautiful black pearls and white pearls.’
The drum faded. The dancers were almost still. Alicia said nothing for a moment, then her voice changed. ‘But we were not too far away for the bomb.’
Noah’s drumming changed, too: his hands beat jaggedly, roughly; the dancers’ movements turned tense and frightened. ‘The island of Mururoa was full of palm trees and rainbow reefs and gliding fish. Now the trees are burned. The coral has melted into the sea. The fish lie dead in the water. The bomb burst!’
A crash on the drum. At the same moment, the dancers’ feet slammed on the floor. Everyone jumped. Several of the little kids cried out. Darryl’s back stiffened, and his skin prickled.
‘A burning light filled the sky. The sea boiled. Birds in the air were blinded by the fire of the bomb. They fell shrieking into the sea.’ Drum hammered; feet stamped. Darryl saw that some of the smaller kids were crying.
A different voice spoke. Principal Kara was on his feet, moving towards the front of the classroom, talking quickly to the teenagers. A couple of them stared at the floor. Noah stood, looking uncertain. Alicia opened her mouth to speak.
But the man shook his head. Good on you, thought Darryl.
‘I think we stop now,’ Principal Kara said, and smiled a principal’s smile. ‘We hope our friends from la Nouvelle-Zélande enjoy the presenting. Merci to our trade school pupils.’ He clapped; the other teachers and, after a second, the little kids joined in. Alicia looked as though she wanted to keep going, but after a moment she lowered her head.
Yeah, she’ll make a politician, all right, Darryl decided. They love the sound of their own voices.
He realised his mother was talking. She’d moved up to the front. ‘Merci bien. Thank you so much. That was wonderful. Thank you, Alicia and Noah and your friends. You are marvellous performers. Vous êtes formidables!’ Four of the teenagers gave proud smiles; the one in red gave a half-smile.
‘Thank you also to your lovely school. Votre très bonne école.’ The kids giggled. ‘This book’ – Mrs Davis held up the one she’d shown before – ‘is for you. And so is this.’ She reached into her bag again, produced another one: Tales of the Maori.
Everyone clapped once more. Mrs Davis shook hands with Principal Kara, shook hands with the teachers, shook hands with the five teenagers, ending with a hug for Alicia, whose half-smile had grown into a three-quarters-smile. Darryl watched the two of them, the fair head and dark head pressed together for a moment. If Dad could see Mum now, he’d … he’d …
In fact, he wasn’t sure what his father would think. But then, he wasn’t sure what he thought about what he’d seen in the past half-hour, either.
TWELVE
The little – the littlest – kids sang them another song. This time, they all waved their arms to the music. Now they reminded Darryl of little ducks flapping.
As they began leaving the classroom, he passed right by the one who had asked about his hair. Lannya. Before he knew he was doing it, Darryl dropped down onto one knee, and pointed to his head. She stared, then reached forward and patted his hair.
‘Soyeux!’ she squeaked. ‘Si soyeux!’ Next second, two … four … eight other tiny figures were clustered around Darryl, touching his hair and exclaiming. ‘Soyeux! Oui, soyeux!’
The women teachers called them to sit down again. Everyone was smiling. Principal Kara was going ‘Shhh! Shhh!’, but chuckling as he did so. Mrs Davis had gone pink from laughing. The teenagers giggled.
‘Lannya say your head – no, your hair – is so soft,’ one teacher smiled at Darryl.
His mother laughed. ‘His head is soft, too, sometimes.’
Darryl said nothing. Had he looked a total idiot? For some reason, he didn’t care.
They found their way back to their lodge, keeping to the shade of the trees. No pigs this time. Chickens pecked and raked among the leaves. It was only 11.30, but the sun was too fierce to glance at, and when they emerged into the open it felt as though someone was holding a heater above their heads. Ahead of them, the sea dazzled and the white sand glared. ‘Imagine it in midsummer,’ went Darryl’s mother.
‘No, thanks,’ he replied.
Lily had lunch ready. ‘We eat early all times. You don’t mind?’ Little red tomatoes; white cheese; oranges; chopped-up coconut; a fruit that looked like a melon and tasted so brilliant that Darryl found he was eating with his eyes shut – and juice running down his chin. ‘Mango,’ Lily smiled. ‘We grow many. Eat more.’ Darryl did.
‘How is the school time?’ Lily asked.
Mrs Davis smiled. ‘Alicia was so good. She and the others gave the most wonderful presentation about Mangareva.’
Lily looked proud. Then: ‘She talked about the bomb?’
Darryl nodded. ‘Yeah.’ Actually, she can’t stop talking about it, he thought.
Now Lily shook her head. ‘All the time since her father dies, she blames the nuclear. She even say our boats have to sail too far to fish now, and are being damaged. Perhaps….’ Lily paused, then smiled. ‘Next Sunday, she fly to Tahiti, to find about working for the tourism.’
‘Can you see the tests from here?’
As Darryl spoke, his mother frowned. ‘Lily might not want to talk about it, Da.’
‘No, it is all right. When the biggest test come, we see light way down on the edge – horizon. Like a fire under the sea. Napoleon, he climbed our mountain with friends to watch. They see red lightning rush up into the sky. Then we all hear BOOM! Like a great rock slams down. And a hot wind blows across our island. Alicia’ – Lily shook her head – ‘she call the bomb names; she says someone must stop it.’
‘She is a very strong girl,’ went Darryl’s mother.
‘We want her to travel, to speak about our island. Her cousin—’ Lily stopped for a second. ‘You hear Napoleon leave this morning? He go to help clean our island’s government office. A person has thrown red paint on it.’
‘Red paint?’ echoed Mrs Davis.
Lily nodded. ‘A silly person. Someone does not like government.’
Darryl said nothing. He was remembering the protest in Tahiti, and the red paint like blood on the ambassador. And he was remembering Raoul.
Lily smiled. ‘What will you do for this afternoon?’
‘I need to prepare for tomorrow’s church group,’ Mrs Davis said. ‘And I’m going back to talk with Principal Kara and Noah.’
‘You will sleep?’ Lily asked Darryl. ‘Many people sleep in the afternoon.’
Darryl blinked. ‘No way!’ As the women laughed, he added, ‘I’m going to explore.’
‘You must climb our mountain,’ Alicia’s aunt told him. ‘A path goes all the way. I give you a hat, because the sun is so … you say “angry”? Non, “fierce”.’
She lifted down a straw hat wide enough to cover two people. Just as well none of his friends was around to see him, Darryl decided.
‘You’ll need sunblock, too,’ his mother went. ‘There’s some on the table by my bed. You can—’
Darryl was already heading for the door, and ignoring her. ‘See ya later.’ As he set off down the path towards his room, he stopped. Next Sunday, Lily had said. That meant Alicia was going to be on the same plane as them, back to Tahiti! Aw, no, he thought. Please don’t let her be sitting next to me!
Lily was right. A path did lead up the mini mountain. At the end of the beach, a faded wooden sign read ‘MONT DUFF’. They can’t spell, thought Darryl, then realised that it must be the French word for ‘mount’. He moved up between more dark-leafed trees, over clumps of rock. Orange and blue butterflies drifted past. After only five minutes, he was sweating.
A clump of different rocks lay to one side of the track: an old ruin of some sort. Was that one of the temples Alicia had talked about? The ones missionaries had made them pull down? Around a bend, and he stopped to stare at a long building, the size of ten or twelve garages, with heavy corrugated iron roof and sides, no windows, just one thick door at the end. What was that for: storing coconuts or something?
He met nobody. Mangareva seemed asleep, like Lily had said. He passed a grove of trees where enormous oranges hung. Could he take— no, they must belong to somebody.
When he came out into the full sunlight, his back was streaming with perspiration. A huge blue bowl of sky curved above. Ahead of him, steep slopes of springy grass and a few shrubs angled up to the gaunt mound of rock he’d seen from the ferry yesterday afternoon. Only yesterday? It seemed as though he had been on the island much longer than that. So much was happening!
He felt grateful for the straw hat. Even his ears were sweating now. Ten minutes plodding and panting, and he reached the base of the rock. The track zig-zagged on up.
Below him, the sea spread, pale green that became blue-green. A wave washed slowly up the beach, then washed even more slowly back out again. Just offshore, like shadows beneath the surface, Darryl could make out the dark shapes of what must be the reef. Yeah, it would be great if they could explore there.
The rock was rough and sharp: he wouldn’t want to fall here. What’s-her-name’s mother had cut herself on coral and got infected. He’d better not get this stuff into his skin.
Up an angle between two shoulders of rock. A short grassy bit, a tiny oasis on the stony ground. His nose was sweating as well, now. The sun burned through his shirt.
A flight of rough steps had been cut into the black slope. A shadow passed across the ground, and a huge white-and-grey bird hung above him, wings outstretched and motionless. It slid on, skimming sideways and down towards the ocean.
How much further? Man, he felt glad he wasn’t climbing a big mountain in this heat. Another nearly level bit: the ground beneath his feet was rippled like a solid black mud pool. A waist-high pile of stones stood just ahead. He was at the top.
‘Wow!’ he yelled, and lifted his arms above his head. ‘Amazing! Wow!’ Just as well nobody was around to hear him, either. The Pacific stretched to a circle of horizon. The island curved away, other rocky heights lifting out of the trees. Over to one side, a strip of thick reef a couple of kilometres long, with a black stripe running along it. The airport.
Which direction was Mururoa? It would have been incredible to be up here and see the flash of that nuclear explosion. His book said how the Hiroshima mushroom cloud poured up to 45,000 feet above the city. Six miles – nearly 10 kilometres – high: just imagine.
Another white shape curved down the sky. Darryl remembered what Alicia had said about the seabirds blinded by the nuclear flash. OK, it must be hard for people here to understand what the tests were for. OK Number Two: he could understand why they didn’t want it happening in their ocean. But it had to happen somewhere. The bombs had to be made, to keep the free world safe. All the politicians said so.
He sat for a while, his back against the pile of stones. He felt his breathing slow down, his body relax. It would be easy to fall asleep up here.
‘Look at that, Dad,’ he heard himself murmur, as he gazed at glittering sea and glowing sky. For a few seconds, he was back on top of Mount Eden and Mount Hobson in Auckland with his father, puffing and grinning at each other. He lifted his head, said ‘Come back, Dad’, and this time didn’t care if anyone heard him or not.
Going down was great. He picked his way carefully over the bare rock, then as soon as he reached the slope of springy grass he began to run, bounding down towards the treeline below, shouting ‘Yay! Yeah!’ as he hurtled on. He grabbed at a bush, seized a clump of grass, and skidded to a stop just as the path re-entered the trees. Ahead of him, a few pigs galloped away, grunting and snorting. ‘Sorry, guys!’ Darryl yelled after them.
Back around a couple of bends, and he came to the grove of fruit trees. A man wearing only a pair of shorts was picking the huge oranges and dropping them into baskets. He looked up as Darryl appeared, called out ‘Bonjour!’, and tossed one to him.
‘Thanks. Mercy!’ The orange filled his whole palm. The man grinned, signed for the fruit to be passed back to him, and, as Darryl handed it over uncertainly, he produced a long, machete-type knife and sliced it into quarters. ‘Wel-com,’ he went.
How does he know I’m English? Darryl wondered. My weird accent, maybe? Or my pale skin, my sunburn, my strange clothes, the surprised look on my face?
He walked on. The fruit tasted amazing: sweet and juicy. So much juice that it trickled down his chin and onto his shirt-front as he went. Didn’t matter; he’d wash his shirt when he got back to the lodge. Oh man, the things he’d be able to tell his dad about.
The sea glinted ahead. He turned another corner, strode down the final slope, and came out onto the beach, sweating, panting, tousle-haired, grinning, and sucking on the last piece of orange, juice still dribbling down his chin.
Someone was there. The girl Alicia, standing right in front of him and staring.
THIRTEEN
She wore her school uniform, but her feet were bare. Feet that looked as though they could stride along beaches and climb over rocks with no problem. Her hair was tied up at the back of her neck. He noticed a tiny scar just above one eyebrow. She stared at the sweaty, scruffy, startled figure who had just emerged from the trees. ‘Bonjour,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Hello.’
Darryl tried to wipe his chin with one hand, untangle his hair with a second hand, and tuck his shirt back in with a third hand. He must look a total idiot. ‘Hi,’ he mumbled. ‘Bonday.’ Aw, man, now he sounded a total idiot as well.
‘You have walked – you have climbed – the mountain?’ Her eyes were deep brown, Darryl saw. He couldn’t help grinning at her calling that hill a mountain.
The girl looked hard at him. ‘My English is wrong?’
‘No! No, it’s good. It’s just – our mountains back home are 2,500, 3,000 metres. Your one is – well, it’s a bit smaller.’
Alicia was silent. He realised he still held the last slice of orange peel in his hand. What should he do with it? Eat it? Stick it in his pocket? He stared as she said, ‘You can throw it into the trees. It helps plants to grow. Noah tells me so.’
Noah? Oh yeah, he was supposed to be some sort of expert on plants and stuff. They had begun walking along the beach, side by side,
not looking at each other. Alicia pointed at the clear water, the tiny waves whispering onto the sand. ‘You like this?’
Darryl felt awkward. ‘Yeah, it’s OK.’ Quickly, he added, ‘It’s great!’ Then he heard his mouth go: ‘Your presentation was good, too – your story and stuff, at the school.’
The girl gazed at the sand, pushing one brown foot into the crunchy surface. ‘Did you have anger?’
He couldn’t decide what to say. How did she know? Once again, she looked straight at him. ‘You do not understand my English?’
‘No, it’s good.’ Hell, he’d already said that! ‘And it’s good that you told us.’ To his surprise, he meant it. She might be wrong, but it was useful to know her opinion. ‘We’re – in New Zealand we’re lucky. We’re so far away.’
A couple more steps. Nobody else was in sight. ‘Did you see the bomb shelter?’ Alicia asked. She saw Darryl’s blank look. ‘The long iron house. We hide there if wind makes radioactive come. Then we are supposed to wash the roof and walls with seawater.’ She shook her head. ‘Where does radioactive go then? Why they not have tests underground, to stop radioactive spreading?’
Darryl pictured the long, low building he’d passed. ‘Did you see the bomb go off?’ he asked. She watched him; said nothing. He began to feel stupid – and annoyed – again. ‘Your Auntie Lily told us. The really big test. Your uncle was up on the hill. The mountain, I mean.’
The girl nodded. ‘It was horrible.’
Horra-beel: he liked that.
‘I saw a protest march in Tahiti, against the tests. There were a lot of people.’ He thought of the young pilot – Raoul. Where was he staying on Mangareva?
‘You think it is good?’ Alicia asked. They were halfway along the beach now. Hey, he was walking with a girl! ‘The march?’
Darryl opened his mouth to say, ‘No way!’ He closed it, opened it a second time. ‘I … I don’t know.’ He realised that he meant it, as well.
