How Do I Love Thee? (23 page)

I walked down the beach today and went past a place where the English backpackers had been sunbaking, and I found the word ‘FIJI’ written in shells and sticks in the sand, like a young girl might do, trying to capture something of the magic of it through writing the word. I imagine it was the sad girl who wrote it, and I wonder if it helped her to understand why Fiji any better.

The first morning I saw Kurt and Ingrid they were sitting in the shade outside our hut, and I thought, that’s our shade they’re sitting in! And I watched them reading these big
heavy books and taking notes, and then I thought, these could be interesting people.

We ended up sitting together at lunch the first day and have had every meal together ever since. Kurt said he’d picked us for Australians. He’s truly amazing at this.

Like us, they’re a little older than most of the backpackers, and maybe have a little more money as they’re also staying in a hut by the beach rather than the dorms further back on the island where there’s no ocean breeze. Kurt is tall and has a shaggy beard and Ingrid is small and very petite. But they both have the same wide smile. She looks stunning in her black bikini too, but I’d never tell Rosie I thought that.

I just say, ‘They always seem so happy together.’

‘Maybe they are just happy at this moment,’ she says.

‘Maybe they are always happy,’ I say.

‘Maybe you just like to imagine that it’s possible for people to always be happy.’

‘Maybe I do.’

‘Of course you do.’ Then she looks at me and gives a small shake of her head and lays one hand against the side of my face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

I almost ask, ‘For what?’ But I don’t really want her to say.

At dinner we compare favourite books with Kurt and Ingrid, and I’ve never heard of most of the authors he tells
me about—even though most are English and American. But Kurt says he’s never read
The Da Vinci Code
. Ingrid punches him gently on the shoulder, like it’s a mark of achievement.

We sit up on the beach that night swapping favourite films and working hard on a bottle of Jack Daniels between us. Rosie settles under my arm and dozes off somewhere around modern French cinema, and I remember, in a lull in the conversation, looking down at her and suddenly feeling that our section of the beach was floating away from the island, slowly drifting off to an even more remote place, maybe close to the international date line.

So I’m lying in the hammock under the shade of the trees the next morning, thinking about the feeling of being conscious as somebody takes a bite out of your heart, when I feel the whole world stop moving. I’m just lying there, suspended above the earth, and I can see nothing in front of me but the horizon. It’s as if, for a moment, nothing else exists except that horizon. It’s as if the whole world could be simplified down and understood by that far line where sky and sea meet.

As if everything really could be understood.

I’m hanging out with Kurt later, while Rosie and Ingrid are snorkelling. She’s a bit grumpy at me today. I no longer ask
why. I think Kurt senses something and wants to ask what’s the matter, but it’s easier not to talk about some things. So instead I’m telling him about a conversation I had with Losana about life in modern Fiji. She was telling me that modern Fijians don’t spend enough time with their families and that it is very bad for Fijian society. She told me that they are too busy chasing Western things. And then she told me that all the staff on the island work twenty-five days straight at the resort and then have five days off.

‘Twenty-five days!’ I say. ‘Most of us aren’t on holidays that long.’

Kurt nods. ‘I can’t imagine being apart from my family for twenty-five days at a time. I mean, when I have a family.’ It’s the first time he’s talked about the future like that. It doesn’t surprise me though. You just know him and Ingrid are going to get married and have children and maybe settle down somewhere in Austria, and then sit up late at nights sometimes telling each other stories of their memories of being in Fiji and the other Pacific islands.

‘She said they didn’t always like it but the pay is good,’ I tell him.

We sit in silence for a bit and then I add, ‘Did you know she has two daughters on the mainland? One is six and one is ten.’ And Kurt nods again. I don’t need to tell him that
I’m thinking Losana’s story about the local staff is really all about herself.

Maybe everybody’s stories are really all about themselves.

As we sit there we look up the beach and see that the Welsh guy has left the TV room and is now hanging out with the English backpackers.

We watch them for a bit and Kurt says, ‘No man is an island.’

He’s too cool for school sometimes.

That afternoon, before dinner, the Fijian boys are back from work early and haven’t started their kava for the evening, and me and Kurt are at the billiards table trying to get a feel for its individuality. This table was never built for the tropics, you see. The heat or the humidity has bent the wood under the felt cover, so you line up this perfect shot and tap the ball, and watch with despair as it rolls off to one side somewhere. But the Fijian boys have been playing on it for years and know just how to play it. They line up shots that you think have no chance of getting near the pocket, and the ball rolls all over the place and in it goes! It’s some complicated revenge on colonialism, I think.

But, here’s the funny thing, after a couple of drinks you can play much better on the table. And, the way I see it, if
we have enough, we’ll have the same bumpy and warped logic as the table itself, and can dare to take on the local chapter of the Fijian National Billiards Team. So Kurt and I decide it’s worth a try. We tell the closest two guys that we want to challenge them in a doubles match. They look at us and smile.

So we set the balls up and start playing for our national pride. Rosie and Ingrid sit behind us watching. Our cheer squad. The Fijian boys sink two balls each with their first shots, and Kurt and I have only managed to embarrass ourselves. ‘Don’t worry,’ I whisper, ‘This is all part of my plan: they’re not going to be able to find their balls among all ours soon.’

Kurt has had just enough Jack Daniels that this sounds logical. ‘Yeah. Good plan,’ he says. I wink and walk around the table trying to find a shot that won’t look too bad if I miss it. I line up one of the tens—there are two tens—aiming for the corner pocket, and I bash it. It ricochets off the twelve, which bounces around and goes into a side pocket. I try not to look surprised, and look across to the two Fijian guys and give them a slow nod to let them know that was the shot I was planning all along.

Then I turn back to the ten. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but I bend down and eye it up carefully, and pow—it goes in! Right where I was aiming for. Kurt is grinning. Ingrid claps
wildly. Even Rosie joins in. The two Fijian guys are looking a little concerned. ‘Do you think I should sink the rest now?’ I ask Kurt. ‘Or do you want to have another turn?’

‘Go ahead,’ he says. I look at the two Fijians, and line up a real easy shot on the thirteen. But the cue ball goes in instead of the thirteen. ‘Shit,’ I mumble. The two Fijians are smiling again.

And so the game progresses. But then Kurt’s Jack Daniels seems to kick in suddenly and he sinks three balls in a row! And we’re suddenly even with the Fijians. They’re looking around to make sure that none of their co-workers are watching. This isn’t looking good for them. The tall one, Aki or Agi or something, lines up the five and pots it in a smooth powerful shot. Then he lines up on the black. Ready to end the game.

Me and Kurt hold our breath. I look across at Rosie. She crosses her fingers for me and blows me a kiss. I swear I feel it hit me. It takes my breath away. I smile at her and know that nothing is going to go bad for us here. He shoots. Misses. Kurt steps up to the table and tries that cue behind the back shot that he’s never been able to master, but with the help of St Jack Daniels he pots the fourteen. Then he lines up the black and it’s like time stands still. It’s a real difficult shot. He’s got no chance of getting it. But maybe he has. But it’s too hard. But he’s grinning like he can feel it is going to go
in. And I don’t care if he sinks it or not. Rosie is looking at me and smiling. Like there’s just the two of us on the island. And Kurt belts the ball and it goes flying down the table and into the corner pocket, and the cue follows after it, rolling slowly towards the hole, and we all hold our breath again. And just at the edge of the hole it encounters one of those small warps in the table and stops. We’ve won! We dance around the table and make the Fijians pose for a photo. I look at it later on the camera, and zoom in on the image, and can see that Kurt and I are grinning fit to bust, but the two Fijian guys don’t look so happy at all.

‘In the old days they’d kill us and cook us for that,’ I tell Kurt.

‘Let’s play again,’ says Kurt, high on the victory.

‘Nah, let’s not lose what we’ve got,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I could expect to get that lucky twice in life.’

And that’s the story that’s really about me. Rosie used to date my elder brother, Martin. But he dumped her. Went overseas. Is living and working in California now. He never really loved her, see. Not like I did. I worshipped her, and hated him for the way he used to treat her. It took over a year before she agreed to go out with me after he left. And when she did I thought I was the luckiest guy alive. We went on a camping holiday to Tasmania. It was great for the first few days, but then things started getting awkward. Like Martin was sneaking into our
tent at night and working his way in between us. I’d wake up in the night and find Rosie turned against the far wall of the tent, and I’d wonder if she was asleep or awake. Wonder what she was thinking of. Afraid to ask her in case I’d find out.

Fiji was going to be our attempt at sorting things out. A chance to see if we could find a way to live together without the past intruding. A chance to look over the horizon and wonder if it was possible to see the future there.

I’m wandering back up to our hut to fetch Rosie for dinner. She’s been having an afternoon sleep on her own. I pass the Germans. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Ja, good,’ one of the Helmuts says. I stand there and nod a bit. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Where are you from?’ one of the girls asks me.

‘Australia,’ I said.

‘It is very nice there, yes?’

‘It’s not bad,’ I say.

‘You have good beaches, yes?’ asks one of the Helmuts.

‘Yeah, they’re pretty good.’

‘We love the beach,’ one of the girls says. She has on this blue bikini and is showing serious sunburn around the shoulders and back.

‘You can only dream of this in the winter in Hamburg,’ the other girl says. She has on a T-shirt and shorts. More clothes, less burn. And I suddenly wish I could remember their names. I think it would be really nice to just stand there and have a real conversation with them. Not tourist small talk. Ask them about how they met and what it’s like living in Germany, and what dreams they have for their futures.

And one of the Helmuts asks me first, ‘Why do you come to Fiji? Why, if you can sit on the beach at your home?’

I shrug. ‘Exactly because this is not home,’ I say.

They look at me for a moment like they don’t quite understand what I’ve said. Like they really only want a tourist small-talk answer.

‘It’s real difficult to explain,’ I say and walk off towards our hut.

It’s mine and Rosie’s last night on the island, and so the farewell song is sung for us and a few of the others. After dinner we tip-toe off into the darkness with Kurt and Ingrid, as Losana gets this new Danish guy and his French girlfriend to stand up and introduce themselves.

The German backpackers, old hands now, laugh and watch their awkwardness.

So we sit on the beach with Kurt and Ingrid once more, and tonight we talk about other holidays we’ve been on and others we’d like to go on, and how much you learn from travel. Rosie even tells them about our camping holiday in Tasmania. She says it was very idyllic, sleeping in small camping grounds in the mountains, listening to the sound of the bush. ‘It was so perfect,’ she says. ‘So quiet at times, you could hear thousands of years of silence.’

And I realise, perhaps for the first time, that her memories of Tasmania are like she was on her own there.

Just then Yoko from Kyoto and Aaron from Ireland walk past us and stop to talk for a moment. They’re leaving the island tomorrow too. They tell us how they wish they had more days together. He tells us that she’s flying back to Japan in the morning and he’s going to be flying on to New Zealand. I ask them if they’re going to get together again, and they look at each other and both look down at the ground and then say maybe. Then they wander off down the beach. I watch them go and then see them stop again. They’re talking to somebody else. It’s Jill! She’s been sitting down there by herself in the darkness.

There are so many lonely souls in paradise, I think.

That night the noise of a wind gust wakes me. There’s a storm outside. I look across at Rosie, fast asleep in the moonlight. Her naked tanned shoulders are so beautiful. I brush my lips against her gently and then climb out of bed. I go to the door of the hut and look out, but there’s no movement outside. It’s still and quiet. There’s no storm. No wind. I wonder for a moment what it was that I heard. I step outside the door and see this thin silver path of moonlight that stretches out across the dark ocean. It’s almost inviting me to walk along it. As if it’s going to take me somewhere. I stare at the distant horizon, but the line between the night sky and the ocean is too hard to discern, like they’ve merged into each other out there.