52. Resolution

“I’m really sorry, Kara,” I replied, “I was miles away. I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

“That’s OK. I was worried that you were bored. You know that Jim asked me to look after you and, of course, I would do that as a favour for him. But I thought I should tell you that I think you’re a nice man. When you were here last time I thought you were clever and quiet and you have a great sense of humour. I wouldn’t want you not to have a good time.”

“I think you over-estimate me,” I said, “I didn’t mean the story about the chicken feathers to be funny, you know.”

“It wasn’t that. It’s more the way you say things. You think differently from the other people here.” She smiled at me. “Most people just want to be with Jim for what they can get out of it.”

“Well, they’re certainly getting their money’s worth this evening.”

“Yes, it’s one of the biggest parties he’s had since I’ve known him. And Iliva has really put on a feast. This food is delicious.”

Looking around, we could see that the party was beginning to liven up. In the centre of the tent, the tables had been pushed back and a space cleared for dancing. Half a dozen musicians had begun to play and a few people were already on the floor. Lukuni and Lomu were busily tucking into the fruit desert and Dana was snuggled on Manaku Jim’s lap.

Across the table, Sato, the footballer was telling a joke to a crowd who were laughing uproariously.

“Excuse me a second,” Kara said, “I need to visit the ladies' room.”

Left alone, my mind strayed back to my thoughts of Our Granny. Netto was right that She had created a singleness of mind in the Village that ensured that people would work together for more than their own short-term gains. Even if there was no way of knowing for certain what Our Granny really meant or wanted, perhaps it was worth behaving as if one knew just to provide some framework for one’s life. Or, more precisely, for the life of the Village.

As my father had observed, Our Granny provided a sort of tent within which we could shelter from uncertainty and, as long as it provided enough space, then that was a worthwhile sort of thing. I looked around me at my fellow guests and it was clear that for them, being in a tent was something they relished. Listening now, I could hear that the storm that had threatened in the afternoon had arrived with distant thunder and the patter of raindrops on the roof of the marquee.

Yes. Tents were definitely useful and I could see that this one sheltered a cross section of the Village. There were the Gardeners and Manaku Jim. I could also see the Guardian Captain, Bambafama sitting next to Lomu and there were footballers, their wives and girl friends and even ordinary people like Bahla, Fasi and Langanipa.

As long as there was a tent and everyone was happily inside it, what was the harm?

Perhaps that was the problem. There wasn’t just one tent and those who were excluded from this one – the people who had been re-housed from the shanty towns into the new townships where they could be surveyed and controlled, for example – were at this very moment probably plotting its downfall.

Both Netto and Hama Batu had asked me to choose which side I was on. I could not imagine myself lining up with the Gardeners and their system of greed and exploitation but, at the same time, I didn’t think that Hama Batu, in his bivouac in the jungle with his aversion to change and progress was any better. Why did one have to choose between these two versions of Our Granny?

The benefit, I could imagine Netto and Hama Batu answering in unison, was that she would look after us as a real grandmother cares for her children. She would wisely tell us what to do and guide us in what to think. Without Our Granny (or someone like her) how would we know right from wrong?

And yet that argument was not valid. As long as we had Our Granny to think for us we would remain in precisely that state: childhood. As long as we had a grandmother to tell us what to do, we remained children squabbling over our toys. We could never really grow up and take responsibility for our own actions and know right from wrong. What we really needed to do, perhaps, was to begin to think like grownups about the way we lived.

Perhaps, without the comfort of Our Granny’s authority, intelligent people like Hasiki and Langanipa could be encouraged to think about what the island needed and not just focus on the technical interest of what ever they were asked to do by the Gardeners.

We needed to understand what was necessary for the Village and the island. If there was a shortage of fuel for the Tractor, that needed to be accepted and the consequences evaluated. If we were clearing the forest in a way that would ultimately destroy the Village, then that had to be managed. It was not just wrong to rely blindly on the idea that Our Granny would provide, it was stupidity bordering on the insane.

Netto had said that there were people who believed that the island had been created from an Idea. If that were so, where had that Idea come from? It must have contained every detail of the island as it would exist at every point in time: every drop of water that had eroded a particle of stone, every beetle that had chewed on a leaf. The Idea was much harder to explain than the island was. In fact the whole concept was ridiculous. No. Not ridiculous, pointless.

It meant that, in the final analysis, there was no possibility of understanding anything at all. Even things that we thought we understood like the fact that water flows downhill only seemed simple. If you looked closely enough they were really parts of the overall Idea that we could never understand. If Our Granny changed her mind, water could just as easily run uphill.

We were convinced that Our Granny would look after us, that she loved us like a real grandmother and the Gardeners said that meant we didn’t need to worry. But how could we be sure that Our Granny – the Idea of Our Granny – was really interested in providing for us, even if She could? Once you got beyond Our Physical Granny to some Idea of Our Granny then you knew almost nothing about her. Everyone had a different idea of what She was. Even if She had told Hama Batu and the Gardeners that she had our interests at heart, how could we know it was true?

If the Idea of a Granny who was perfectly good existed by definition, then the same logic could be used to say that there was a Perfectly Evil Granny. If she was Perfectly Evil then her perfection implied her existence. How could we know which Granny we were dealing with? Was Our Granny perfectly good and trustworthy or was she perfectly Evil and falsely pretending to be good. Perfect Evil would, by definition, appear to be Perfectly Good. They would be indistinguishable.

My head was spinning. This line of thinking was as bad as drinking too much fruit punch and it was a relief to see Kara returning from the bathroom. She sat down next to me.

“You know, Tommu,” she said, “People think that we are very lucky to be Manaku Jim’s girl friends. They think that it is fun spending your time by the swimming pool and meeting famous people. When you grow up in the shanties, then you dream of getting out and not having to spend your whole life in the dirt.

When Jim invited me to come and live here I thought that it was the best thing that ever happened to me but it’s not the way it seems.”

I noticed that Kara was slurring her words slightly and realised that she must have had some of Gomal’s knock-out recipe.

“You’re a clever man. You don’t have to hang around all day waiting for Jim to tell you what to do. And you get to see different people all the time. It must be interesting for you to go and meet people. Here you see the same people every day and you are always on show. You have to spend all your efforts to look good because you know that as soon as you are a little less than your best, someone else will take your place.

I don’t want you to think that I don’t like Jim,” she sniffed, and a tear ran down her cheek, “he’s a lovely man. You don’t even have to sleep with him if you don’t want to – they say he used to be different, but he’s getting on now and he’s really kind most of the time – but there’s nothing to do. You spend your whole life waiting. And then everyone’s drunk by lunch time.”

I looked at Kara carefully. She was wiping the tears from her face on the edge of the tablecloth.

“I don’t know what to do,” she continued, “I want to get away but I couldn’t face going back to the townships.”

“Perhaps you could become a cook,” I suggested, “now that Iliva is going?”

“I don’t know how.” She folded her arms on the table in front of her and rested her head on them, “and I’m not feeling very well.”

I waited for her to go on but before she said any more, Rombo and Sato, the footballers came up to us.

“Come on Tommu,” Rombo called loudly, “everyone has to dance!”

“You too,” Sato said, taking the girl by the shoulder, “dancing, dancing, dancing!”

Kara remained collapsed over the table and Sato lost interest in her.

“Leave her,” he said, “she’s no use when she’s had too much fruit juice.”

He and Rombo seized me, one on each side and led me to the dance floor where a mass of gyrating bodies was leaping up and down in time to the music.

The deep sound of the bass drums mingled with the wooden percussion of sticks beating on different lengths of wood and bamboo. The sound of half a dozen sets of pan pipes, some deep and rhythmic, some high and tuneful, animated the music. The voice of the singer was almost inaudible above the whoops of the crowd.

Lomu, the Minister for War was dancing with one of Jim’s girls, almost enveloping her in the folds of his ample body and Sato was doing his own chicken hop, limping in a circle and every now and then letting out a shriek or a cluck. I could hear that the rain outside was now heavy, thundering on the roof of the marquee but in spite of that, it was steaming hot with everyone running with sweat from the exertion of the dance.

All at once, the heat and the noise seemed intolerable. I knew that I could not stay a moment longer in the atmosphere of the tent. The idea of joining Hama Batu in his tent in the jungle was equally repugnant but, somehow, I had to escape. Tearing myself away from the grip of the crowd, I walked quickly outside to the wall along the edge of the cliff.

With my back to the Village and its celebrations, I listened to the sound of the waves and the sea birds nesting far below and felt the force of the rain as it washed me clean.

THE END