Inheritance (20 page)

Tongues wagged of course. But, by that time, Teo was married.

Should I take the position? The question keeps battering at me. Teo can’t understand why I hesitate. (I should call him by his title, but keep forgetting, which just shows how much a palagi I have become.) He says I have no ties to New Zealand, and that senior registrar at the hospital would only lead to better things in the future. I think he means that it would add to our family’s pule (or his own!) if I had a senior position in the administration.

I’m tempted; of course I am. But it’s not true to say that I have no ties here. Teo means I’m not married with children. I have good friends. And there is Francesca, who needs me I feel. And Jeanie. Ann.

Last week, back in Samoa for a week of meetings, I visited Teo and Ma‘atoe in their smart new home, built beside Tiresa’s fale which became the guest house,
following her death. I prefer the airy fale and always sleep there when I visit, which annoys Ma‘atoe, who thinks it disrespectful to her sparkling spare room with three mattresses on the bed and mosquito screen on the windows. It’s a shame, I suppose, that Ma‘atoe and I don’t get on. She’s a good, if conservative mother to their five children, who are all bright enough. The eldest boy is training to be a priest, and one of the girls has a position in the administration. But I would like to see them spread their wings – take their education further. Ma‘atoe says too many bright ones leave and never come back (looking at me severely); she feels a responsibility to keep them in the islands. I’ll bet young Simi breaks away though.

That evening, returning from matai choir practice, Teo stopped at the fale and sat down on the matting for a chat. He is a big man now – not as large as me – but of a fitting size for his position. He seemed easy and relaxed – always less pompous away from Ma‘atoe or his fellow matai. He propped his back against the Pou o le Tala – the same pole that our father had leaned against when he told us stories – while I lay out, head on some cushions, a lavalava covering my feet. The seaward breeze had died; most of the fale were dark; even the pigs were sleeping somewhere under the trees. It would be sixteen years since I had lived in Samoa for any length of time. Nothing much has changed. This is in some ways comfortable and in others a challenge. That night the familiarity seemed more important.

‘The title is a good one,’ said Teo, scratching his back against the pole, ‘Not split, and quite senior.’ The light of my little hurricane lamp lit his smile. He told me I would
be only one step down from his own title. He knew my view of splitting titles and offering them to off-shore Samoans, simply – in my view – to attract foreign dollars in family or church donations. ‘Your village duties would allow you to make a real difference,’ he said, ‘and you could have a major say in the plantation if that interests you.’

Teo has an entrepreneurial streak. He’d like to get the plantation back into serious production, but his government and family duties keep him occupied. And, of course, he loves all that arguing, wheeling and dealing, making speeches. Teo has become quite a noted faipule.

‘It’s tempting,’ I said, and meant it. That old dragon Gertrude would smile in her grave to know I was genuinely interested in cacao. But this was too good an opportunity to explore another matter. I had been waiting for the chance. Plantation policy could wait.

‘Do you remember Jeanie Roper?’ I asked

The mats rustled as Teo shifted his weight. I watched his face. For a while he said nothing, but looked back at me steadily, trying to read me, I suppose.

‘That’s a long time ago,’ he said at last. ‘Yes, I remember her. Of course.’ He showed no particular emotion. His lack of emotion was of interest to me though. My brother still enjoys gossip.

I told him that I’d come across her recently; that she’d changed her name. That she’d dumped Stuart years ago and had a grown-up daughter.

Teo grunted and made to get up. ‘All in the past,’ he said, ‘I can’t say I’m interested. Think about the job though. You would certainly get it. Title and job, I can guarantee.’

Off he strode, across to the house. I thought it strange. He had seemed settled in for a good talk.

My meeting with health officials in Apia was brief. There was an expectancy, I could feel, that I might soon be senior to them, and they were eager to display efficiency. I left the building and wandered along Beach Road, looking for changes in the two years since my last visit. A new hotel, a face-lift for the library. A building flying a foreign flag I didn’t recognise.

The clouds that had been massing most of the morning over the peaks were rolling down towards the sea, threatening rain. I had forgotten how regular the midday rain was and had no umbrella with me. As the first fat drops landed, I reached the verandah of a fancy new nightclub. There was a bench there and I sat, watching the road become a lake, water sheet off roofs, gutters overflow. Shoppers and street vendors, cars too, paused and waited for the blinding downpour to ease. It is such a pleasure to feel the humidity sucked out of the air each day; the brief freshness after rain is so sweet!

As I turned from the roaring rain to examine the group of nightclubs, I realised I was sitting exactly where the door to the old Tivoli Theatre had been. That seedy old building that had seen so many film evenings, dances and shows. The Women’s Committee play! I heard again the wild applause, the stamping and the shouts of laughter that night we put on the concert to raise funds for Maota o le Alofa: the ‘House of Love’ – the National
Council of Women’s Centre. I have never seen Jeanie happier than at that time.

My mother, naturally, had a hand in the planning. She was head of the Women’s Committee in our nu‘u and our district. But the Masiofo herself headed the enterprise. As head of state’s wife she was determined to leave a monument to women in the new independent Samoa – a place where women from all over the islands could meet, stay, attend sessions on hygiene and baby care, hold performances. Plans were underway at the time to build a new Fale Fono down at Mulinu‘u, so it was only natural that our powerful Women’s Committees should want a prestigious building of their own.

Donations were called for throughout the islands, but the Masiofo wanted a focal event. So the concert was planned. This was to have not only the usual programme of singing and dancing items from various villages, but an ambitious performance of the famous legend of Sina and the King of Fiji. The Masiofo thought I might have some fancy palagi knowledge of theatrical staging. We were together at university in Wellington for a year and she knew that I had briefly joined the drama club there. But Jeanie had a much broader knowledge. She loved the theatre and had been active in her local drama group back in New Zealand. I roped Jeanie in, and together we helped turn the usual simple performance of an old story into a full-scale event with stage lights, scenery, an interval, and a cast of thousands!

Jeanie had such energy at that time! Stuart was back in hospital in New Zealand. Or maybe out of hospital. Jeanie told me she had broken with him; had told him not to come back. She didn’t want him. She spoke so
fiercely! The plantation was hers, she said, not his. He had only made matters worse in every way; had hounded her father to his death and beaten her and she never wanted to set eyes on him again. Such a change from before, when she seemed to accept him in a passive sort of way. Perhaps his absence had brought her to the realisation that they were bad for each other. I asked her if Stuart accepted all this. Would he stay in New Zealand?

‘He’d better,’ was her reply.

A fierce little tiger she was!

But she threw herself into the concert. She suggested we borrow lights from the local palagi drama group and string them up in the old, rat-ridden rafters of the Tivoli; we could beg old banana crates from the wharf and build scenery. We could build a long low flat and paint it to look like a canoe, for the scene where the King of Fiji and all his attendants cross the sea. Tiresa and the Masiofo were impressed with all this knowledge and planning and added the full force of their influence to the production.

Any scepticism Jeanie might have had about the dramatic quality of the piece was shattered at the first rehearsal. We were both electrified. Laughing one minute; moved the next. And this was only a rehearsal!

Jeanie grinned over to me in the darkened old theatre. ‘You didn’t say your mother was a star.’

Tiresa had the part of the giant lizard and performed it with relish, wagging her great sacking tail back and forth, snorting and gnashing; the fiercest lizard on earth was my mother, her swollen limb down to half its size by now and giving her so much more movement.
She was proud of me over that at least – and proud of her Women’s Committees which had carried out the campaign so fiercely.

Jeanie had worked out an ingenious way, using undulating blue ribbons of ‘sea’, to make the lizard appear to be lifted magically out of the water. Tiresa thought it was marvellous, all the theatricals, and was delighted to be the centre of one of the most dramatic moments. All the animosity had gone by now, with the plantation divided and Teo safely married. She was as pleased with Jeanie’s ingenuity as everyone else.

All the other main parts – Sina, her mother, the king and so on, were of course taken by the highest-ranking women. The two highest masiofo – equal in rank – split the role of Sina, each playing half the show. Most of the cast were over fifty and few under fourteen stone. Jeanie, with her new-found theatrical zeal, looked doubtful when she was introduced to the cast, but she quickly changed her opinion when she saw them perform.

‘They must choose their highest ranking women by the way they sing and dance,’ she muttered to me at one time after a particularly beautiful song.

‘Why not?’ I whispered back. ‘Of course that comes into it.’

Disaster nearly struck when our beautiful cut-out canoe, which stretched almost the full width of the stage, could not fit all the ample behinds of the King of Fiji’s retinue. No matter how much shuffling went on, a paddler stuck out into the sea at each end. Our Masiofo decreed that the two largest behinds would have to go for this scene. Roars of laughter and measuring
followed. Jeanie was in stitches. The two women who retired did so with pride – it was certainly no shame to be large.

Jeanie was down at the theatre soon after dawn on the day of the performance. I was there early too. I heard her behind the curtain – so happy, so quick to pick up friendships. Two of the cast were with her – the two who had been ousted from the canoe. All three were laughing and singing together. The women – from Savai‘i – I didn’t know them – had sat on a piece of scenery while they waited to come back on stage and had smashed it to matchsticks! Together with Jeanie they were improvising a replacement with woven palm leaves and flowers. Much nicer than the painted original!

In came the truckloads of leaves and flowers to transform the aging Tivoli into a garden paradise. Women’s Committees from all over Samoa were there, all in their separate village uniforms – a flowery decoration in itself – everyone singing and laughing as they wove garlands and plaited palm leaves. Salamasina brought the girls from Papauta School down to lend a hand. We all shouted with appreciation as the Masiofo arrived with a huge piece of tapa cloth – big enough to hang as a backdrop for the whole stage. A wonderful Tongan tapa. It was the Masiofo’s share of a giant half mile by fifteen foot piece, given by Tonga to celebrate Samoan independence. She was so generous and energetic that day – didn’t turn a hair, later that night, when some performers poked a hole in the priceless piece so they could get a glimpse of the audience.

Tiresa had roped Teo into helping cut and transport
the palm leaves. He came with a bad grace, I thought, not contributing at all to the general festive occasion. When he asked for Jeanie, I sent him and his towering pile of fronds in the wrong direction. I didn’t want his frowns spoiling such a glorious day.

Everyone came to the show. The whole palagi population and all the Samoan hierarchy. The Tivoli was packed. Crowds stood at the back and lined the side walls. Frangipani scented the air and our beautiful stage lights turned the garlands and the scenery into a magic grotto. Oh it was all glorious! Jeanie and I hugged each other as the curtain went up and the first beautiful chorus began. The woman who played Sina’s mother took five minutes to die convulsively, a wedge of breadfruit stuck in her throat. It brought the house down. Howls of laughter. Next moment all were in tears – Jeanie and me included – at the sad lament that followed.