“Cocktails will be at the usual time and we will ring the bell. Tonight, supper will be on board. After supper there will be a break of less than 15 minutes while we rearrange the chairs, then a group of dancers from the village will come to show you some traditional dances. Our previous passengers have found the dances to be interesting, entertaining and very beautiful. We hope you enjoy them as well. A word of caution. These dancers live in a society which does not value the modesty of covering the body for concealment – native Fijian dress was scant before the Europeans came, and, in this village, it remains scant. Some could find this shocking. You are forewarned.”
These announcements brought in immediate bubble of comments around each of the tables. Would the dancers be naked? One doubted that! But about what could Captain Wilkie be so cautious? It would pique the curiosity of all 30 passengers until the show started.
In the meantime, the passengers gradually dropped the lunch-time conversation and returned to their staterooms for a rest before arrival. Within an hour, they were gradually returning to the main deck, anxious to see what this new island would be like.
The Island
The ship began to slow. The view ahead and to port was of a substantial island, especially compared to the one where they had spent the previous night. Rising before them was a volcanic crag, several hundred meters tall, rocky at its upper reaches and swathed in green below. The ship was being gently tossed by waves that were the largest they had encountered since leaving Lautoka. The ship turned and found its way between two lines of white foam into calmer water. Moving slowly in the sheltered waters, the ship turned again, gliding along with the shoreline until a large white sand beach appeared; a hard turn to starboard and a little adjusting brought them straight in to the beach, where the now accustomed gentle impact with the sand brought them to a standstill.
The ship seemed to be stationed well to the right end of the beach – off in that direction the sand seemed to narrow and disappear in a moderate distance, the tall green of palm trees reaching nearly to the water, with other lower foliage acting as its escort. To the left, the beach seemed to continue to widen and extend much farther, disappearing out of sight beyond a turn in the coast. Inland, there were lava cliffs rising high above them. The cliff itself seemed to be lower to the left and taller and closer to the ocean to the right, becoming a buttress pushing into the sea at the far right end of the island.
Most of the passengers were dressed in shorts or short dresses and sandals – ideal for walking on the beach or wading in shallow water. Looking over the side of the ship, seeing the coral reefs below, wondering how much clearance the ship had over the top of the reef, James kept glancing down as he and Maria walked forward to disembark, noticing that sand only started about ten feet from the edge of the water – if one wandered in farther than that, one would be walking first on coral then treading water. The Captain’s warning was well given and worth heeding.
The sun was warm, its rays diffused by the moist air; the air was warm enough to make anything more than a single layer of cotton too much clothing, moistly nurturing skin and hair, the gentle breeze offering neither chill nor heat, only a change of air and an occasional perfume suggesting flowers not far away; the sand was soft, white and coarse, ground shells and coral mixed with small amounts of pulverized lava; water stretching to one side, lush greenery to the other, the passenger group was strung out in a long, occasionally clumped line along the beach, reaching toward the tongue of green that touched the placid water.
James and Maria found themselves in the company of Ron, Jim and Paul, walking along, listening to Paul’s commentary on the captain’s abbreviated and mysterious description of the dances on the docket for the evening’s entertainment. Paul indicated, as he had at lunch to Val and Shelly, the wisdom that the pre-European Fijian was largely a naked or nearly-naked populace. He suspected that the dancers were going to be very scantily attired, perhaps naked. He wondered about the use of body paint in pre-contact Fiji, and could remember nothing about it. Ron and Jim asked interested questions, trying to solicit more information from Paul, who indicated that there was little else to tell because no one had systematically recorded the Fijian culture. James and Maria were content to listen in. The five walkers entered the palm grove, finding a small stream, following Valerie and Michelle and leading the Joneses. It was slightly cooler in the shade of the palm trees. Dense bushes grew along the sides of the stream, a mixture of ocean water washing up from behind them and fresh water coming down from the rocks before them. The water was cool. There were no banks to the stream, so walking in the water was the only choice, but cool water was welcomed by hot feet.
Their path curved to the right and then to the left without any apparent change in elevation, then an incline and a sudden change in the undergrowth, as the dense bushes disappeared and some grasses and scattered broad-leafed bushes and flowering shrubs appeared to both sides of the stream in the open shade of the palms. Here, they could have left the water and walked on the banks, but it was just as easy to stay in the water.
The stream wandered some more, gradually rising, the water flowing toward them from higher ground, cooler now than it had been nearer the beach. They were coming closer and closer to the lava cliff. The watercourse seemed as if it was going to take them directly into the wall of irregular black rock, but it turned to the right, around an outcropping; they continued walking in the water with a tall, rocky cliff on the left and short one on the right, the light reduced substantially in the shadows, and a new noise coming from ahead. They rounded a turn to the left and there before them, water was falling from high above their heads, in a thin, steady stream shooting out from the top of the rocks, playing its way down through a beautiful rainbow.
They stood and stared.
Lord Richard and his lady were somewhat overdressed for the occasion; he stopped to take off his shoes and socks and roll up his pant legs before they started up the creek. As impressed as everyone else by the waterfall, they took photos to send back to their children, and considered how to describe the experience. As they conferred about their assessment of the trip so far, they had to agree that it had been enjoyable, and, with the company they had found and the prospects for further adventures on these beautiful islands, this might turn out to be one of the best journeys they had ever had.
Ideally dressed for the hike in shorts, polo shirt and sandals, Julia nonetheless paused at the water’s edge, reluctant to put a foot in and get her sandals and feet wet. Finding no reasonable alternative, Mark forging ahead on his way upstream, paying no attention to her hesitation, she clenched her teeth, stepped into the water and started slowly upstream behind Mark, catching up to him only as he stopped at the sight of the waterfall. The walk back was even more uncomfortable for her, the sand clinging to her wet feet, making them feel dirty. She was pleased to get back to her stateroom, to wash up and then clean up, tidying up Mark as well as herself. By the time she was done, it was time for her to get dressed for cocktails.
Having started out somewhat separated from the other walkers, the Fullers were overtaken by the faster-walking Howlands and fell in with them in conversation, first about the island, then about the promised dance that evening. That topic of conversation lasted until after they had seen the waterfall. After a few moments of silence, the Howlands resumed their faster pace and gradually pulled ahead, arriving back at the ship at least five minutes before the Fullers. Back in their stateroom, they discussed again the upcoming dance, wondering if they really wanted to watch naked native dancers. They thought they would see how it went at the beginning, but be prepared to leave if they didn’t like it.
Walking from the waterfall back toward the beach, Valerie and Michelle developed a curiosity about the flowers blooming near the creek. They climbed out of the water and walked to one bush, then to another. These were flowers neither of them recognized, but they thought they were both beautiful and nice to smell. They were a bit afrai
d to pick them after the stern warnings from the Captain. Valerie picked one flower to put in her hair, and Michelle fretted the rest of the way back to the ship that they were both going to be arrested and put into some kind of forced servitude or something.
Later, a group of five passengers were sitting at a table at the aft end the main deck, basking in sun and breeze, smelling the ocean and appreciating the quiet of the idle ship. The conversation had drifted away from speculations about the Fijian dancers to their presence at this far-flung extreme of the island chain.
James: “Don’t you think Captain Wilkie presented a biased picture of what the trip would be like in order to influence us to vote the way he wanted?”
Paul: “I, for one, wanted to be here even before he began talking, so I was relieved at the lopsided vote.”
Jim: “I suppose I would have chosen this adventure too. But, you know, if he really wanted to get us to vote for the outer islands, he might be a little unbalanced in his presentation.”
Maria: “Oh, I don’t know that he was, though. I think we may just be an adventuresome group.” She was looking across the water, watching a group of birds feeding on something at the edge of the mangrove, swooping up and diving down into the water. “Oh my, look at that!”
Ron leaned across to see and immediately pulled out his pencil and sketch pad, “Oh, this is wonderful, I must see if I can get this!”
“He will be sketching for a little bit now and cannot be interrupted, you know. But if we don’t talk to him, he will be OK.” Jim’s caution produced silence at the table.
Maria watched in amazement as quickly scrawled lines rapidly captured first one view then another of the swirling birds. The page flipped, a bird appeared, another page flipped, the pencil still working rapidly. James, Paul and Jim nodded to one another and rose. By the time they returned with five drinks, Ron had gone through half a dozen pages and was just shutting his book up again.
“Were you watching?”
“Yes, it was very interesting to see you work. I am impressed already, and I haven’t seen anything finished.”
“Quite. You’ll have to visit us in Sydney to see my finished stuff.”
“Perhaps we might just do that.”
James intruded gently: “Honey, do you want to dress for supper?”
Maria excused herself and they went to their stateroom.
Cocktails
Cocktail hour was a rather different affair this evening because people were coming and going during the hour, rather than staying and socializing. The cocktail hour began with a number of the passengers already returned from the waterfall, sitting informally in groups around the main deck. Drinks were served and some passengers left; others stayed. James and Maria were among the first to leave. Eloise was next, Marshall promising to follow shortly. The rest gradually drifted off. By 6:00, no one was left on the main deck. Knowing that a performance of the natives was coming after supper, everyone was more attentive to getting dressed for supper tonight than on the previous night.
Maria was certainly not going to wear the same dress again tonight – perhaps not again on this cruise. She went through her things. The challenge was to wear something different but equally sexy. Finally, she decided to wear her pareo. Dark blue silk cloth with white fish outlines printed on it, the long piece of cloth could be worn a number of ways, the traditional being wrapped under the arms and tied, an alternative being wrapped around the waist as a skirt with a top to go with it, but Maria decided on something more daring. Placing the midpoint of the cloth at her belly button, she wrapped it around to her back, bringing one end inside and the other outside around her torso to cross over her breasts and be tied behind her neck, with the remaining length of cloth hanging down her back. Looking at herself in the mirror, she assured herself that the pareo draped to her knees and covered her breasts but did not disguise their visible bobbling when she moved, her protruding nipples making visible impressions on the thin cloth when she tried to tighten it up – she left it looser. Dressing in sandals, wrapping a red print sulu (like the pareo, which is the Polynesian version of what the Fijians call a sulu, this was a segment of cloth about two meters long and a meter wide) decorated with patterns of fish and seashells in turquoise around his waist and buttoning up a short-sleeved white rayon shirt, James thought he was going to look just the part for being at a Fijian native dance. Satisfied that all was as it should be, they ambled back toward the main deck, arriving just in time for the dinner bell.
Eloise was in a pickle. She had used up her two sexiest costumes on the first two nights and had made a remark to Maria about repeat use of the same costume; she was going to have to do something different tonight but how it would be something sexy was going to be a challenge. Finally, she thought she had a good idea. She got out her best push-up bra and wore a mostly-unbuttoned blouse over it. With silk slacks, this should be sexy enough. She hoped Maria had shot her wad that first night.
Julia wasn’t concerned about being sexy; she wanted to be tidy. Finding something that was adequately clean and well enough pressed was still not a challenge, but she could tell it soon would be. She found white cotton slacks and a white cotton blouse. She wanted Mark to be presentable tonight, so insisted that he wear long pants and a collared shirt.
Jeff Jones was hoping to sit with his sports fan friends again this evening for supper. He was curious about the dance affair, but did not have any particular expectations about it or about how he should be dressed for it. However, at Marilyn’s insistence, he wore slacks and a polo shirt; she found the perfect match to what Eloise had worn the previous evening – a diaphanous, translucent blue blouse with patch pockets over the breasts, under which she would not wear a bra, leaving her beasts visible as shadows and by motion, hopefully annoying that bitch Eloise. With it she chose a knee-length white cotton skirt.
Dress shoes, blue slacks, white shirt, regimental tie and double breasted navy blazer were just the thing for Lord Richard. Lady Richard chose a light weight rayon dress, white with a sparse pattern of blue and yellow flowers on it.
Jayne chose a polyester dress in a light blue floral pattern and insisted Roger wear his brown slacks with a shirt and tie. Marybeth chose a floral print dress, as did Susan Thorpe.
This standard of dress was duplicated by everyone on board.
The Evening Meal
The passengers filed in rapidly through both doors to the main deck, some silent and others chattering with one another. They pursued the now-established ritual of looking for their names at places at the tables, sitting obediently where indicated.
Valerie and Michelle found themselves meeting two couples they had not spoken to previously, the Kershaws and the Taylors. To their credit, they managed to tolerate Marshall very well, and their major contribution to the meal was in reducing the tension between the two couples – Marshall still making an apparent pass at Melodie, who was finding Marshall more and more repulsive. Eloise was distracted to find herself remarkably outdone in dress this evening not only by the despised Maria Fredericks, but also by Marilyn Jones. Valerie was genuinely interested in both New Zealand and Hong Kong, especially since the next leg of their journey might lead them in either direction. Michelle was willing to encourage John and Marshall, alternately, to talk about what they did for a living, and to listen politely.
At another table, Marilyn’s outfit was entirely lost on the audience of Lord Richard and Ralph – the former not particularly interested and the latter too absorbed in Jeanne to notice or care. Jeff had no one to talk to about sports, so was quiet for much of the meal; Marilyn sulked; Lord Richard and Ralph continued a conversation about Tasmania; Lady Richard and Jeanne talked about marriage.
At yet another table, Jayne Applebee was unhappy to find that she must sit at the same table with “that hussy” – her personal designation for Maria, whom she had branded from the first as being a bad sort. The interaction was not in the least blunted by the presence
of the silent Pinkersons, who sat essentially mute throughout the meal. Roger and James found things to talk about related to the service industry; though Roger’s reticence limited the intricacy of his responses, it was a conversation both found interesting and engaging. Jayne, impressed by James’ eloquence, turned reluctantly to Maria to see if there were any redeeming qualities to be found there, finding them in abundance. Jayne had been raised in the family of a conservative protestant minister to know right from wrong and to do good. Her rise to fortune had been inadvertent and partially accidental – she had moved to Sydney to find employment, had married the boss’s son, and had inherited when her husband and his father had perished in an airplane accident. She found in Maria a woman whose financial security in life had left her in a position to nurture children and contribute her time and efforts to her community. Maria’s religious position seemed considerably more liberal than Jayne’s, but her ethics seemed almost the same. Maria worked on the Pinkersons, trying to draw them out, ending with as little success as others had had.
A New Island Page 4
