The Islands (30 page)

‘Shadow? I don't know much about PJ at all, except he's a surfer and he wanted to help an old man I know.'

‘Surfer! PJ's a king. Known as the shadow because he's always around, right behind you, but hardly ever makes a sound or talks much. He doesn't often bring a girl here.'

‘Well, he hasn't exactly brought me, it was a drop in kind of thing. Ah, can I ask, are one of you connected to him? As a girlfriend?' said Catherine candidly.

Sadie started tossing the salad. ‘This is a pretty free and easygoing house. People come and go. Some of us have been here a while, PJ comes and goes. Occasionally he has a girl in tow. Not for long. We kind of share him,' said Sadie.

‘Hey, don't get the wrong idea, Catherine! We don't sleep with him. He's not one of our group in that sense. He just likes to have a base here. Place to sleep, place to eat, place to keep his boards . . . then he's off and we have no idea where he is and then weeks later he just turns up,' said Summer.

‘If you're keen on him, he's a hard man to pin down,' said Ginger softly. ‘Many have tried. He's only interested in one thing.'

‘The ocean?' said Catherine.

‘Of course,' said the girls.

‘He sounds just like someone else I know,' said Catherine. ‘But I'm not pursuing him. I'm happily married. Our paths have sort of crossed because of old Lester.' She was embarrassed they thought she was some chick with the hots for the handsome and mysterious surfer. ‘Would you mind if I got my car? I have some different camera lenses in there I want to use.'

‘Do whatever you want. Now you're here, why not stay the night? Plenty of hammocks, places to crash,' said Sadie.

Pink went and flung her arms around Catherine's waist. ‘Goodie! Stay tonight and we can talk stories.'

When she got to the car Catherine was tempted to get in and drive back to the Palm Grove. The whole scene at
Nirvana
was so far out, so different from anything she'd known, but she didn't sense anything sinister in the setting or the people. In fact she was drawn to them, curious about their lifestyle. It was just so very informal and unstructured. Didn't they have jobs? How did they all just live as though they were on one big perpetual family holiday? She decided to stay a little longer.

She parked Eleanor's car at
Nirvana
, glad that Eleanor had offered it to her for a few days. Along with her bag of camera accessories, Catherine looked in her basket and found she had her make-up bag, a beach towel, her bikini and a clean T-shirt, but she was unprepared for an overnight stay. She'd wait and see how the afternoon panned out. The women had made tea and one handed Catherine a mug but it was milky, spicy and sweet.

‘Is this Hawaiian tea? It's different from Aussie tea,' said Catherine. ‘But I like it.'

‘It's Indian chai,' said Ginger. ‘There's fresh lime juice if you'd rather? Or a papaya milkshake. We make them with coconut water.'

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of sputtering motors with loud mufflers.

‘Good, they're here for lunch.' Summer put a cushion on a chair for Ziggy and a plate in front of Pink.

PJ was the first to stroll in and Pink rushed to him, hugging his legs. He picked her up. ‘Hey, Miss Pink, how'zit?'

‘Catherine is taking my picture.'

He swung around and grinned at Catherine. ‘You got here.'

‘Yes. Everyone's been very hospitable.'

Two other men came in, filling the room with energy and laughter. They had long hair, faded shorts and T-shirts advertising Led Zeppelin and Primo beer. They sat at the table, ruffling the kids' hair. One picked up baby Petal, gave her a kiss and put her back in her basket.

‘This is Catherine,' said Sadie.

‘Hi. I'm Doobie.'

‘Hey, Catherine. I'm Lief. Spelled L-i-e-f, but said leaf.'

‘Hello,' she answered, amused to see the men starting to heap food onto their plates.

‘Good waves?' asked Summer.

‘Fair. Doobie got a decent tube or two.'

‘Going out this afternoon?' asked Sadie. ‘We hit the store so we don't need anything.'

‘Groovy. Then we can kick back,' said Lief.

‘We could show Catherine around. We thought we might go to the heiau, have a swim with the kids,' said Sadie. ‘You'll like it, Catherine.'

‘Okay, I'm happy to fit in with your plans.'

‘They don't have plans,' said PJ. ‘Things just evolve.'

Sadie smiled at Catherine. ‘With kids sometimes evolution needs a bit of nudge. We'll make it a women's excursion to the Goddess pool.'

‘I'll change into my bikini,' said Catherine.

‘You won't need to,' said Ginger. ‘It's the women's sacred bathing pool.'

Catherine was a bit nervous at the idea of naked bathing but the women were easy to get along with and as she'd already agreed to go, she didn't want to appear a stick in the mud. Pink chattered to her, which kept her distracted, as everyone else fell into easy conversation, passing food and laughing a lot.

Surreptitiously Catherine watched the interaction between them all but she couldn't figure out which man was with which woman. They all paid attention to the children and seemed comfortable with each other. There was a lot of joshing around, laughter and sometimes intense debate over music, politics, the war, surfing breaks and food, along with stories of great road trips.

It was a foreign language, a different world for Catherine. Her background seemed so sheltered, so one dimensional. When she heard the stories these people told she felt that she hadn't really lived. Or had fun. Or escaped. Even her time in London now seemed sedate and unadventurous. She sat and listened and laughed, hoping no-one would ask her to share any of her wild experiences.

After lunch the three women cleared away and prepared a basket with things for the two children and the baby, gathered some cold drinks and towels and packed up an old Chevy station wagon. Pink and Ziggy were put in the rear with the basket and while Sadie drove with pregnant Ginger beside her, Summer and Catherine sat in the back seat.

They drove down the coast road, which narrowed as it wound along the deserted coastline until there was no more beach, just a rocky foreshore. They all sang along to ‘Puff the Magic Dragon' and Catherine joined in.

‘What kind of music do you like, Catherine?' asked Summer.

‘I love Peter, Paul and Mary, even if it's a bit old- fashioned now.'

‘The song's set on this island – Hanalei Bay. Everyone's got a different interpretation of what the lyrics really mean,' said Sadie.

Catherine was glad she could relate to some of their music at least. At lunch they had played a lot she was not familiar with. It was what Bradley called ‘harsh, modern music'. Bradley didn't even like the Beatles or the Stones and he shook his head in dismay whenever she played them. ‘My husband likes old show tunes, movie musicals. And Hawaiian music.'

‘Don Ho or Rap Replinger?' asked Summer with a grin. ‘He's not into Led Zeppelin or Marvin Gaye, then?'

‘Er, I don't think so.'

Pink began to chirp, ‘Tiny bubbles, make you feel warm all over . . .'

They stopped the car close to a boulder-strewn beach by a small headland. Catherine couldn't imagine where they might go from here, but everyone got out, gathered their belongings and even little Ziggy was given a towel and small cloth bag was strung around his neck. Summer tied baby Petal in a cloth sling, and knotted it around her neck and across one shoulder leaving her hands free.

Catherine followed them along the edge of the rocky beach until they got to two large boulders that seemed impossible to pass. Ahead was a jutting impenetrable finger of sheer rock and thick undergrowth. Summer in the lead, the baby strapped to her, bent down and rolled away a rock lying between two larger ones to reveal a small passageway. Squeezing between the rocks Catherine saw that there was a sandy track etched between the undergrowth, leading to the rocky beach and the large flat rocks at the base of the headland. It was familiar territory to the women who talked as they walked, helping Pink and Ziggy over the rougher patches.

It seemed that they were heading to the rocky beach when suddenly there was a cleft in the cliff face and they walked onto sheltered broad flat rocks.

‘It's like an open-air room,' breathed Catherine.

‘But better, look, a pool,' said Ginger.

Already Ziggy was following Pink who jettisoned her bag and sandals and skipped surefooted towards the deep glistening pool trapped in the flat rocks. Further out the water of a lagoon glistened and around the tip of the cleft they could see the white water rushing over the reef.

‘It's beautiful. We won't get swamped or cut off by the tide will we?' asked Catherine.

‘Very rarely. It's in such a position that the water comes in through that tiny channel at high tide but never washes over it. Unless there's a cyclone,' said Summer, slipping out of her shirt and crochet bikini.

‘How did you find this place?' wondered Catherine.

‘An Hawaiian girl showed us. It's not to be broadcast, talked about for, you know, tourists,' cautioned Sadie.

‘No way. Of course. I can tell this is a special place,' said Catherine beginning to disrobe as the others had already shed their clothing.

Ginger was the first to slide into the pool, cupping her hands under her baby belly. Pink and Ziggy, also naked, jumped in beside her, splashing and giggling.

‘It's not deep this end, you can stand up,' said Sadie. ‘There's a deeper bit in the middle and a shallow ledge at that end.'

‘For the birthing,' said Ginger. ‘It's a sacred birthing pool. We call it the goddess pool . . . seeing we're all goddesses!' She laughed. ‘I'm having my baby here.'

‘I had Petal and Ziggy here,' said Summer.

Catherine, feeling pale and shy, slid quickly into the velvety water. ‘Is that a good idea? I mean, I've sort of heard of water births but not, like, in a place like this. Will a doctor come out here?'

Sadie and Summer laughed. ‘No. That's our job.'

Catherine didn't probe further, it was so far away from what she imagined childbirth to be like. She couldn't imagine any of the navy wives, used to their big military medical centre, giving birth in such a place either.

‘Well, it's a great place to skinny dip. Do the men come here too?'

‘Uh, uh. That's kapu, this is wahine territory,' said Sadie firmly. ‘After the baby is born and we leave here, the father has his right to do his ceremony.'

‘How come you know so much about local customs? I didn't think you'd been here that long,' said Catherine.

‘We have good local friends. Once you're accepted as not just another haole, they open their doors and hearts to you,' said Summer.

‘That's true,' said Catherine, thinking of Kiann'e and Abel John and even the formidable Beatrice.

‘Socialising with us haoles can be seen as “acting high”, trying to be better than their friends and neighbours, which doesn't go down well. It takes awhile to be accepted, so that you're fitting in with them rather than them trying to fit in with you.'

‘We get on with the locals because we live like they do,' said Ginger. ‘No offence, Catherine, but the rich mainlanders, the tourists and the military, usually don't get invited into local homes.'

‘The naval people tend to keep to themselves, it's a world of its own,' agreed Catherine. ‘Maybe that's why they've been tolerated so long.'

‘That's changing,' sniffed Sadie.

‘But you're different, inquisitive. You want to find out about other people,' said Summer. ‘That's why we've taken to you.'

‘You're not going to stay in that closed world are you?' asked Ginger bluntly.

‘I'm married to a naval officer!' said Catherine.

The women were silent for a moment.

‘You might want to rethink that,' said Sadie.

‘You don't seem the type,' said Summer.

‘Don't get bossed around, listen to you heart,' said Ginger floating on her back, her large belly looking like a small brown island. Summer held her baby in the water, swishing her back and forth.

Catherine was shocked. And hurt. She didn't want to say she couldn't possibly lead a life like these women, drifting from day to day with fluid relationships, no plans, no security, no apparent rock-solid partner.

‘Bradley's different,' she began, then stopped as the three women broke into big grins.

‘Don't make excuses for him,' said Sadie. ‘Look, I'm sure he's a nice guy. You've told us you dated in a romantic place in an unreal setting, far from home. I bet he's really good looking. And those sexy uniforms. Who wouldn't fall for the guy?'

‘That's not important. It's how we feel about each other,' protested Catherine.

‘So? How do you feel about him?' asked Ginger.

‘I love him! I married him.'

‘Ooh, I've been there,' said Sadie. ‘Didn't last. Thank God I woke up quickly to the fact that he was totally the wrong man for me.'

Catherine was getting annoyed. She'd just met these women, whose world was totally different from hers, and here they were telling her how to run her life, insinuating her marriage was a disaster and that Bradley was not the right husband for her.

‘Well, I'm going to make my marriage work. Bradley is generous, loving, everything a girl could want. My friends at home think I'm so, so lucky.'

‘He's the lucky one I'd say,' said Sadie. She reached over and touched Catherine's arm. ‘You might think it's not our place to say anything, but we've all come through some rough times and we hate to see another woman go down the same path. You haven't lived enough, Catherine. Cut loose a bit.'