The Love Beach (16 page)

He awoke from his dream with the sun beating down on his face, clear away from the shadow where he had gone to sleep. He was rolling in the sand and it was sticking to his sweat as he rolled. He awoke shouting: 'Ghosts! Ghosts! Ghosts!' His raw voice jerked him to full consciousness and he sat up in the black sand on the empty beach, and stared out to the aching brilliance of the sun on the lagoon. Above him the arms of the palm trees were stamped out against the full blue sky. The sun was burning, and the only sounds were the rhythms of his breathing and the tired washing of the sea.

'Ghosts!' he repeated to himself miserably. He thought about the dream and felt he might try to get back to sleep again to search for his lost wife and his children. He would hold them still and close so that he could see their faces and so they could recognize him. But he knew that would be useless. When he thought about it he had very little more money now than when he set out to Australia all those long months ago. He would go back home to Wales, to seek them out and tell them he was their father, not any other man, car or no car, and he would claim Kate again. Yes, he would find the money and be with them again.

When
The Baffin
Bay arrived, that was.

It was recognized that Mrs Flagg's garden party was the opening event of the summer season at Sexagesima. Her house with the red roof which provided such a convenient navigation mark for the Governor's little sailors was
splendidly
situated for the event, with its lawns assembled by the lagoon and its muster of trees for shade. Mrs Flagg always instructed Mr Flagg to see that the lawns were well watered for at least a week beforehand and for the entire morning of the actual day of the party, but to make sure that the sprinklers were turned off and hidden away before the arrival of either the British or the French Governors because they had, by then, made their water‑saving appeal. 'This year we're having our little surprise innovation, dear,' Mrs Flagg told Bird when she arrived for her shampoo and set. 'You know what I mean, don't you? Some people
know
they're here, but we're just hoping that the news hasn't travelled too far.' Bird made a lined puzzled face in the mirror. 'Oh come, dear,' said Mrs Flagg. 'Don't say you've forgotten. I told you, now didn't 1, when I sat in this very chair a few weeks ago?' She looked hopefully at Bird. 'You
know,'
she nudged. 'Our native friends from St Mark's. We've got six of them.'

Bird realized. 'At the house?' she said. 'Now?'

'Yes, dear, of course. They're going to serve the guests at the garden party.'

Bird watched Mrs Flagg in the mirror. 'Have they? ...

You know, Mrs Flagg, have they got?...'

'The banana leaf wrappings, their baloots, dear?' Mrs Flagg gurgled. 'But, of course. They wouldn't be St Mark's if they hadn't got them would they? They're jolly interesting, you know. They've been with us three days now and they're completely fascinating. I could watch them all day. Mr Flagg and I have been making copious notes.'

'Where are they living?' asked Bird suspiciously. She started to work on Mrs Flagg's hair again.

'In the grounds. They've built a nice hut. It doesn't take them long, you know, and they're settling down very well. They brought over their own bedding and cooking utensils and that sort of personal thing and they've got their ancestors' skulls all lined up outside the front door.'

Bird stopped working again. 'They brought the skulls with them?'

'But naturally, dear,' said Mrs Flagg. 'They wouldn't have come under any other circumstances. It was quite amusing really, quite amusing. When they were lining up the skulls they had quite a nasty argument among themselves about which order they ought to be placed. One said this skull was third in line, and other said no, it was this one, and the third said it wasn't either, it was this one because it had a spear mark just behind the ear.'

'They should have numbered them,' suggested Bird.

'Next time they will, I expect,' said Mrs Flagg. 'It will save all the arguments. But. you see, they're just not used to moving. Quite frankly, even now they're not at all sure that all the grandfathers and grandmothers are in the right order. There was quite a bit of bad feeling about it at the start, but I think it's all simmered down. I joll
y
well hope so, for the sake of the garden party.'

On the morning of the event Mr Flagg was seen going from the harbour in his neat blue motor boat. He returned before noon bringing with him from St Mark's one of the tribal elders, an old man with flabby gums, who was reputed to know by sight the skull of every ancestor of every family on the island. 'He really was marvellous,' related Mrs Flagg at the garden party. 'He came in without any fuss and they had a sort of identity parade of the skulls outside the hut. He had a look at each one and muttered something or other, then he shuffled them about a bit, moved one up a couple of places and another farther back, and said that was the right order. It was like that gambling game they play with upturned teacups, where you have to find the dice. Anyway my boys seemed to trust his judgement and abide by his decision. He really saved us an awful lot of bother. I feel so grateful to him. There he is now, over there, drinking tea with the Reverend Collins.'

Almost every European on the island was at the garden party. The sun was glassy on the brilliant lagoon and on the vivid lawns skirting it. The rain was finished, the summer had come to the island. The people, French and English, convivial for once, drank tea and ate cakes and talked in little formations that moved, separated, stayed, separated again, and rejoined, with all the elegance and good taste of Victorian formation dancers.

Mrs Flagg's houseboys caused a sensation only among a minority of guests. Others were diverted, but many had lived so long in the Apostle Islands that no tribal idiosyncrasy astonished them. The six little men busied themselves with good humour serving the guests. Each one had his penis mummified in the case of banana leaves and tight bindings, brought up his stomach, and tucked neatly
into an army webbing belt which Mr Flagg had purchased specially for the occasion.

'How amusing,' commented Mrs English, the wife of the council chairman, when the St Mark's men first entered with their trays. 'How absolutely amusing.'

'Sweet,' agreed Mrs Haskin simpering at her tea. 'Quite sweet. Mrs Flagg certainly has some jolly
ideas.'

The little men were amused themselves, staring at the ladies in silk and nylon dresses with strange shoes and delicate parasols, and the men in their well‑ironed white suits and school ties. Sir William sweated painfully in a badly over‑starched shirt and hard plank‑like trousers. M. Martin looked cool and unofficial in a fine lightweight blue suit and cocky little hat. He had received a new consignment of silk shirts from Paris by the last boat which pleased him, although he was still at a loss to know where his wine and liquor consignment had once again vanished.

'Everything is good for the visit of Her Majesty?' asked M. Martin.

'Oh certainly,' said Sir William. 'We've got plenty of paint and bunting, and the band has been practising like fury all the week.'

'This I know well,' shrugged M. Martin. 'They are playing the same tune at each night from the club of the British Legion. The sound flies up the valley to my terrace when the breeze comes in from the sea in the evening.'

'Nothing to touch a little music for relaxation,' countered Sir William bravely. 'I wish I could hear them.'

'It is, I understand, a composition called
Annie Laurie.

This I have been told by my foreign experts. I wish you could hear it too, your Excellency. Perhaps we could, how do you say it, swop houses, yes, swop houses, that is right, until they have consumed sufficient practice.'

'Fine old Scots air,' said Sir William. 'And they might get it right for the Queen.'

'You know our navy is coming across?' mentioned M. Martin. 'There will be a salute of twenty‑one guns.'

'That gunboat of yours from Noumea?' queried Sir

William
testily. 'I didn't know.'

M. Martin snift'ed over his cup. 'Maybe our liaison officers do not liaise enough, Sir William. They must meet more often. Yes, the warship ‑ the
Auriol
‑ is coming.'

'That thing hasn't got twenty‑one guns,' argued Sir William.

'It will fire its six‑pounder twenty‑one times,' said the French Governor with triumph. 'I understand that there is to be a chapel of the Unknown Soldier consecrated on The Love Beach? That is a good idea. Very romantic and very economical.'

'That's their idea,' said the British Governor, indicating the kilt‑laden Mr English and other members of the town council in a clique at one fringe of the lawn. 'All they have to do now is to find an Unknown Soldier. I gather they've sent search parties out into the jungle to try and get one. Frankly it floors me, old man. They'll go out
en masse
to find a mouldy skeleton but if some poor devil is genuinely lost out there you can't get the so‑and‑sos away from the whist drive at the British Legion. Don't you remember that idiot who came down from Honoraria last year who got stuck in the bog ten miles up the coast? Fool had a native guide who had no sense of direction whatever. He nearly got drowned in the mud before anyone could be raised to go and look for him. What was the excuse then? Oh yes, it was August Bank Holiday.'

'It is not a holiday the French celebrate,' said M. Martin piously.

'One of the few,' grumbled Sir William. 'I can never get any of your people for half the year. Always some saint's day or other.'

'But you have a holiday without even the excuse of a saint to bless it,' returned M. Martin. 'By the way, do you like Mrs Flagg's little pissens from St Mark's?'

'Not the best choice of words,' said Sir William. 'Your colloquial English lets you down sometimes, old man. You could hardly call what they have got "little", now can you?'

M. Martin laughed. 'A very funny way you have with you, Governor. They are most strange at a garden party, are they not? I understand Mrs Flagg is making a study of them.'

'So is every other frustrated female here,' mumbled Sir William.

Mrs Minnie Turtle at the fringe of a group of clinking teacups was saying: 'Fancy displaying yourself like that at a garden party.' She wriggled half around and glared at Bird and Dahlia.

'What goes in Europe is not always in the best of taste here,' agreed Mrs English. 'I hope they keep their wretched mini‑skirts in their wardrobe when Her Majesty arrives. I want her to see that we preserve some standards in the Apostles.'

George Turtle was saying: 'It's a tragedy that the Queen won't be here long enough to make a broadcast. Now that would be a marvellous thing. And we've got our new microphone now.'

Rob Roy English, his kilt rubbing a little sweaty red seam like a garter across the top of his leg on this hot day, said to Conway: 'The people will all line the pavements and give the royal lass a fine cheer.'

'Pavements?' asked Conway, rudely sucking in his tea. 'Which pavements?'

'Well, the sides of the roads,' said the council chairman reacting to the slight. 'We're not a wealthy authority, you know. We can't have everything in Sexagesima.'

Conway smiled agreeably. He said: 'Why don't you get some of the natives from St Paul's over for the visit? Say a dozen. A sort of guard of honour.'

'Good idea,' said Mr English. 'We'd have to ask the Governor, of course. But it's not a bad notion at all.'

The mention of the Governor depressed Conway immediately. 'I shouldn't worry,' he said. "Fhey're a bit unusual, the boys over there, it might spoil things.'

Mr Livesley said to Davies: 'Do you like the buns? I think they're very good. They're mine.'

Davies said: 'You should put a new neon sign up saying

"Buns". That would be dramatic.' Bird, who was standingwith them, nodded: 'That would be a most effective switch in your advertising campaign, Mr Livesley,' she said.

The baker regarded them with a narrow look. They drank their tea and Bird accepted another syrup bun from one of the St Mark's natives who jolted by with a tray. Mr Livesley decided they were serious.

'I've had thoughts about extending the sign,' he puffed. 'The trouble with this royal visit is that it will be all over by the evening and the ship will have gone. My neon advertisement, I'm the first to admit, looks nothing in the day. I'd like to have a similar sign put on the top of the mountain. Perhaps in just one continuous colour. Not flashing. In red, I think. At night when you could not see the mountain it would look as though it were hanging in the sky. That's what happens with the statue of Christ the Redeemer at Rio de Janeiro, you know. So I've read. At night you can't see the mountain but the statue is floodlit and it looks just as though the Saviour is floating above the city.'

'Interesting,' commented Davies. 'What will your advertisement say?'

'The one on the mountain? Oh, I haven't thought about it yet. It's all in the air. Ha! That's a joke isn't it!'

'Yes, it's a joke,
'
agreed Davies. Bird nodded.

Mr Livesley reverted to his big business voice. 'Bread,' he said decisively. 'That's what it will say ‑ "Bread".'

'Bread of Heaven,' suggested Davies. 'That would be good stuck on top of a mountain.'

'That's got
something
about it,' admitted Mr 'Livesley. 'A sort of ring.'

'It's a hymn,' said Davies. 'A Welsh hymn tune. They

sing it at rugby matches.'

Conway walked over the lawn, his feathery teacup balanced ridiculously in his big hand. He nodded to Mr Livesley. 'Why don't you switch that sign of yours off after midnight?' he asked. 'No one wants to buy bread at three in the morning and the thing keeps people awake.'

'Now wait
a minute,' argued Mr Livesley. 'I don't consider that sign merely a commercial value. It is, I believe, something of a landmark for this town and, indeed, these islands. It can be seen for miles across the sea you know.'