One Blood (17 page)

‘Did someone dislodge it deliberately?’ asked Sister Johanna.

‘I don’t know,’ answered Sister Conchita, ‘but let’s find that canoe as fast as we can!’

KELLA FOLLOWED THE
rest of the audience out of the Point Cruz cinema on Mendana Avenue at the end of the single performance for the evening. Expatriates and islanders alike began to scurry away to their parked cars or to their homes in the labour lines designated for government workers just outside the town.

Kella stood against a wall and let the others pass him. He was feeling tired. A few hours earlier, a Melanesian mission ship had deposited him at Point Cruz wharf. He had been lucky. The islanders on Baroraite had taken him by canoe to a mission station on Santa Ysabel, just as the
Selwyn
was preparing to leave. The voyage back to Honiara had taken two days. He had walked from the wharf to his hut in the fishing village on the outskirts of the town, washed and changed, packed another knapsack and walked back to ascertain that there was room on the charter flight leaving for Munda the following morning. He had booked a one-way ticket and then, unable to settle and not wanting to go home straight away, he had noticed that an American B Western was supporting the main feature at the Point Cruz cinema, known variously among the expatriate population of the capital, for obvious reasons, as the Flea Pit and the Bucket of Blood.

Kella loved all low-budget cowboy films, except the ones in which the hero sang to his horse. This evening’s production had lived up to his expectations, as it had starred the
Hollywood actor Wayne Morris, who in real life had flown a Hellcat in the Pacific during the war and who always looked to Kella to be that rarity among screen actors: a man big and ugly enough to handle himself in a genuine fight.

The only interruption to his enjoyment in the cinema had occurred after Morris’s leading lady had been shot on screen and had tumbled gracefully to the ground. The ambience of the moment had been spoiled by the interjection of a Guadalcanal government clerk sitting at the back, who had shouted to the heartbroken hero in perfectly articulated English: ‘Go on, whitey, shag her while she’s still warm!’

This had aroused the ire of a bunch of Malaitans from the labour lines who had been sitting nearby. Objecting on principle to a man from another island raising his voice in their presence, they had started a fight with the Guadalcanal man, forcing Kella to climb over the backs of several rows of seats and slap a few heads with his open hand before a semblance of order could be restored.

Rather than risk the scuffle continuing during the interval, the projectionist had then gone straight into the newsreel. For once, the events being depicted were only a few months old. It showed scenes of the ending of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, Sputnik 4 being launched in Russia and a young Elvis Presley returning from army service in Germany. There was also coverage of a fresh-faced presidential candidate, forty-two-year-old John F. Kennedy, canvassing for votes among coal miners in West Virginia.

Kella studied the shots of the smiling young candidate with interest. The man seemed full of energy, although he was supposed to be suffering from a long-term back injury exacerbated by his experiences in the Roviana Lagoon. The announcer declared in passing that Kennedy’s forthcoming campaign against the Republican candidate Richard M. Nixon seemed too close to call at the moment. Afterwards Kella sat through
the main attraction, an American cop movie, with massive patience, then left the cinema.

‘Hey, Kella, did you really stand me up on our last date?’ asked Mary Gui, coming out of the theatre behind him. She was wearing a floral print dress that clung to her trim figure.

‘I got called away from Kolombangara unexpectedly,’ said Kella.

‘You mean some boy brought a telegraph all the way up the volcano to you? I hoped you tipped him well, going to that trouble.’

Kella smiled and started walking through the night crowds. Mary fell into determined step beside him. ‘What did you think of the film?’ she asked.

‘Kirk Douglas had it made. Every time he needed information, he only had to make a telephone call from his precinct. I sometimes have to travel three days between witnesses. Plus he had a compassionate buddy and a tough but understanding lieutenant.’

‘Ah,’ said Mary, ‘but were there any black detectives in sight?’

‘No, just a black patrolman who Douglas ordered out of the way before sacrificing his life in an act of heroic folly for the good of his men.’

‘You see,’ said Mary. ‘You’ve got some advantages. You haven’t been asked to do that yet. When was the last time a white detective ordered you to step back on the edge of some volcano and let him justify his star billing.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing. You don’t find too many white cops on top of Mount Mahimba.’

‘Exactly, so count your blessings.’

In spite of himself, Kella laughed. Mary took his arm. ‘Buy me a drink,’ she said impudently.

Kella looked around. They were opposite the almost sacrosanct elite Mendana Hotel. ‘Are you kidding?’ he asked lightly.
‘Whitey doesn’t like natives cluttering up his
tambu
spots, unless they’re washing the dishes.’

‘You-me nofella native,’ said Mary, not moving. ‘You-me first generation indigenous educated islanders.’

‘And if we go into the Mendana, that’s just what they might be putting on our gravestones.’

‘I thought you were supposed to be brave,’ Mary said.

Kella studied the girl’s determined face. She seemed to be in deadly earnest. ‘Do you really want to go in there?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think you’ll like it.’

‘Sure I do. There’s got to be a first time for everything. Come on.’

‘But why?’ asked Kella

‘Because,’ said Mary, ‘to the African retread, a permanent and pensionable colonial official now languishing in the South Pacific, in that hotel, I’m still just one generation away from being a jungle bunny, and I’m a lot more than that, don’t you agree, Sergeant Kella?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Kella, feeling himself being propelled against his will by the sheer force of the girl’s personality. ‘As long as you’re sure about this.’

‘I say it’s prejudice, and I say stuff ’em,’ said Mary, crossing the road in the direction of the hotel.

‘If you’re certain it’s not going to be a problem,’ said an impressed Kella, following her.

‘I didn’t say it wasn’t a problem,’ said Mary seriously. ‘It’s probably going to be a hell of a problem, but if you and I aren’t going to go in there, who will? Incidentally, afterwards I shall want full credit for my brazen and devil-may-care attitude.’

‘You’ll get it,’ said Kella.

Mary took the policeman’s arm again and they stepped into the quiet foyer of the Mendana Hotel. They walked past the reception desk with its clerk goggling at them, and out into the large, roofed but open-sided paved veranda running down to
the sea. There were exotic potted plants around the edges of the dining area.

At this time in the evening, the dining room was busy. Expatriates in pairs and foursomes were sitting eating at the tables. There was a buzz of conversation, which died away when Kella and Mary appeared. They ran a gauntlet of disapproving looks from the white diners around them as they took their seats. At first Kella thought they were not going to be served. Then, from the knot of waiters in their long white lap-laps, one emerged and crossed the dining room towards them, shouldering the other waiters out of his way. He was a Lau man, squat and ugly in comparison with the handsome, light-skinned Western Solomons men who made up the rest of the serving complement.

‘
Aofia
,’ he said. ‘What can I fetch you?’

Kella ordered a bottle of beer for himself and a Bacardi and Coke for Mary. Slowly the other diners resumed their conversations and started eating again, continuing to direct cold glances at the unfamiliar sight of the two islanders at their table.

Kella wondered if he should have allowed Mary to bring him to this white bastion. He would not have inflicted the embarrassment on any other local young woman, but he was interested to see how the newly returned Western girl would react to the colonial ambience. He suspected that not only would she rise to the occasion; she might even enjoy it. He had detected a vein of steely, single-minded ambition in Mary, but there was also an element of recklessness that she could probably trace back to her marauding forebears.

‘What are you doing in Honiara?’ he asked.

‘It’s my last day of freedom. Tomorrow I fly back to Munda to take up my job as warden of the rest-house. I’m staying with
wantoks
at Matanikau tonight. Now tell me, what really happened to you on Kolombangara? I looked for you when I got up the next morning, but there was no sign of you.’

‘Was anyone else from the SIIP in the village with you?’

‘Hardly. I was well off the beaten track, wasn’t I? You know full well why I was up in the bush. I was getting the custom markings tattooed on my back from arse to shoulder. Why all the questions, Sergeant Kella? Did you bring me here to strike a blow for independence, or just to interrogate me?’

She stared at him defiantly. The Lau waiter brought their drinks. Kella paid him, and added a generous tip. The waiter grinned appreciatively and left.

‘What are you going to do now that you’ve come home?’ asked Kella. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to spend the rest of your life running the rest-house. You’re one of the Solomons’ first female graduates; you could practically write your ticket in the government service.’

‘And sit on my backside behind a desk for twenty years? No thank you. I’m going to climb the pole quicker than that, thank you very much.’

‘You’re a determined young lady. There’s always politics.’

‘Certainly, but not just yet, I fancy. The West is a very traditional district. Welchman Buna has got the Roviana seat sewn up for the next five years. I’ll let him make his mistakes before I move in and challenge him.’

‘So what does that leave?’

‘You could say that I’m exploring my options,’ said the girl evasively.

The drunken female voice that Kella had been half expecting since their arrival cut through the dining room imperiously.

‘They’re getting everywhere these days. The bloody people will be fox-hunting next,’ it said, icy with condemnation. There was a peal of forced laughter from the others in the party.

Impassively Kella glanced across the room. He recognized a group of six at the next table. There were three administrators
from the Education Department, stick-thin men, their faces a jaundiced yellow from the persistent injections against tropical diseases they had taken over the years in a variety of depressing dependent tropical territories. Their bored, upholstered wives were uniformly over-bosomed and fat-bottomed. Mary looked expectantly, almost gleefully, at Kella. He sighed, pushed back his chair and walked over to the table. With surprise and obvious alarm, the six expatriates saw him coming and sat up, stiff-backed. Two of the Western waiters began to shuffle forward reluctantly. The Lau waiter sent them back effortlessly with one sweep of his arm. The room fell silent again as everyone waited and listened for what was to come.

Arriving unhurriedly at the table, Kella surveyed the occupants in silence. When he spoke, he pitched his voice so that everyone in the dining room could hear what he said.

‘If you lot get on my tits again, I shall climb down from my tree in the jungle and come and live next door to you,’ he said. ‘So watch it!’

The six expatriates stared fixedly at the tablecloth before them. No one met Kella’s eye. The policeman waited for a minute or two, and then nodded pleasantly and returned to his table. Mary Gui lifted her glass to him in a silent toast. The administrators and their wives started conducting a vehement conversation in hissed undertones. One of the wives stood up and stalked in an offended manner to the lavatories by the reception desk.

‘Excuse me,’ said Mary, standing up and slipping after the large woman.

The hotel manager, a lugubrious middle-aged Scot apparently beaten into a permanent state of submission by decades of dealing with arrogant colonial administrators around the world, appeared in the entrance, apparently summoned by the waiters. For years he had refereed the international rugby union matches regularly held on Lawson Tarma outside the
capital. He wore a shiny dinner jacket and a permanently dejected expression, like a man who quite enjoyed and almost relished his secret sorrows. Kella wondered if he was going to be asked to leave. He saw that the Lau waiter was following the manager across the room. The manager noticed him and waved him away.

‘I’m hoping that the rest of the customers will think I’m reprimanding you,’ said the Scot, sinking into Mary’s chair. ‘So if you don’t mind, I’ll remain here a minute looking stern and exasperated. Is that all right with you, Sergeant Kella?’

‘Be my guest,’ said Kella.

‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about that time you played wing forward for the Solomons against the New Hebrides. If you remember, on that occasion I sent you off for unnecessary violence to their French scrum-half. Since then we have had the honour of entertaining three separate French trade delegations in this establishment. I’ve changed my mind. How the hell can you be unnecessarily violent to a Frenchman?’

‘A fair point,’ said Kella. ‘
Vive l’entente cordiale!
’

The manager turned to the Lau waiter. ‘Phillip, give the sergeant and his guest a drink on the house.’

‘I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ said Kella. ‘I have a feeling that we might be leaving quite rapidly at any moment.’

‘Point taken,’ said the manager, rising. ‘In that case, I shall withdraw to the sanctity of my office while I still have the chance. Phillip, call me when it’s over.’

The Scot walked away, nodding affably to the rest of his patrons. The Lau waiter winked conspiratorially in Kella’s general direction and went back to the suddenly agog group of waiters. Kella waited patiently, finishing his beer and draining Mary’s glass for good measure. He might be leaving in a hurry.