Chapter 6 - Fiji - hangover central

We are all a little fragile today. Last night was the ‘meke’, a rousing display of Fijian dancing, complete with brandished war clubs and spears, charcoal painted faces and fragrant frangipani leis all round. The most beautiful was when the women performed a dance sitting on the floor in a row, using just their arms and upper bodies. Like wind on grass.

Then out came the kava. Kava is made from the dried roots of a pepper plant, and is an anaesthetic, an analgesic, a diuretic, appetite suppressant, soporific, antibacterial and antifungal agent all in one, tranquilizing drinkers into a state of lethargy and nausea. Not exactly narcotic, but a tingling of the mouth and tongue can be expected. Having read all about it I was cautious about trying it, but found little tingle. It looked and tasted like dirty dishwater. A bit of a non-event. I wondered about the first person to ever try kava. Or Captain Cook, the only European explorer with enough nerve to try it. Ah now there was a man after my own heart, a risk taker who was also painstakingly systematic in his record taking. Astronomer, explorer, practical physician, cartographer and navigator. He eliminated scurvy, determined the size of the universe and proved that Marco Polo’s fabled continent ‘terra australis incognita’ was a mere myth. After him, never again were islands transformed into mysterious and imaginary continents or charted with whimsy.

The others drank deeply of the kava and ended up feeling nauseous right away. Well, what did they expect drinking an entire bowl? So we hit the beer. In a rather big way I’m afraid. Then more kava, which did taste better the second time round. Then beer, then kava - ok I guess everyone gets the idea. We all danced a sort of Fijian hokey-pokey and then things got a bit hazy. I seem to have a memory of Niki sitting on some guy’s lap licking charcoal off his face. Sophie got sick in the kava bowl, which I feared might cause an international incident, but in the end I was more alarmed at the thought that no one would notice her sick getting mixed in with the rest of the kava. I have no memory of returning to the mbure and woke this morning with a headache. That’s not so unusual though. Ever since Andrew died I get headaches frequently.

Niki and Sophie fared worse. At first I didn’t think they were in their beds, but the vaguely sausage-shaped forms I discovered were indeed their own and no one else’s. No response to shaking, prodding or whispering. I’m not used to staying with other people so am unsure of the protocol about waiting. But it was getting hot. The sun must have been beating down on the roof for quite a few hours by this time, and I was thirsty as well as headachy so I dressed, blessing the sulu for it’s lack of buttons, zips and flaps, and stumbled out into the light which hurt like hell. Thank heavens for sunglasses. Made it to the café where I drank green coconut juice. The guy at the bar took a machete and slashed off the top of a coconut for me. It’s lovely, sweet but not at all sugary. As I started in on the second one I noticed that I was practically alone. Was everyone wasted like me or were they already up and out enjoying the day? Not that I cared very much. I like being alone. I was happy to sit here quietly sipping my juice and looking out on the surf. I’ve never been to a tropical place before. All my travelling has been to Europe or North America, places with libraries and universities that house maps. I knew in my head places like this really exist of course. After all I’ve seen them plotted and described hundreds of time. But I wasn’t prepared for the light, or the colours, the smells and the sounds. The shoreline is not a black line, but an ever changing foam of waves, moving sand into mounds and hollows. The coral reef is not static, curvy hashes on parchment, but living, ever growing and shrinking and moving with creatures and plants and corals. I feel like I am opening another set of eyelids for the first time, eyelids that before now have sat hidden up in my forehead.

The resort office had a sign indicating snorkeling equipment could be rented, so I decided to give it a go. I was told to smear saliva all over the inside of the mask to prevent it from fogging up. Amazing stuff saliva. It felt odd breathing only with my mouth and I sputtered trying to get the hang of it. Seeing the sea floor through a mask is a revelation, everything looks so near and so serene. Of course I can’t see that well, not wearing my glasses. After only ten minutes swimming over coral that was only two feet below me, I had a panic attack thinking that I might be too close to this plant that could cut my skin to ribbons. I started to hyperventilate and take on water so turned over on my back and wrenched the mask off to breathe normally. I bobbed along on my back feeling like an idiot to have panicked in two feet of water barely ten metres from shore.

After a bit more snorkeling to get over my jitters, I still had a headache, so spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade and drinking bottle after bottle of water and reading the same page in “The Discovery of the Pacific Islands” about seventeen times, the sun making me feel drowsy. Niki and Sophie finally emerged from the mbure as the sun started to dip. They were fairly quiet, but determined to dress and go to dinner. Sophie in particular felt out of sorts, saying last night’s events disrupted her flow of cosmic energy and that she must get back to following the sun’s rhythm. I love her but sometimes she is a flake. I am constantly amazed to think she sells high priced houses for a living, but of course she only sells those properties that ‘speak to her’. It’s the houses she’s assisting, not the buyers. Niki said she intended to stay up past midnight every night of the holiday as a point of honour, cosmic energy and hangovers be damned.

A singing contest tonight for resort guests. A little beer with dinner. Hair of the dog. By 10 we were all feeling a bit more human. Niki suggested taking a few bottles of beer down to the beach along with some male companions. Sophie agreed but wasn’t overly enthusiastic. “The guys here aren’t really up to much. They’re either with someone, gay or only interested in drinking beer and hanging out with each other, so they might as well be gay. I hear there’s a new development moving in tomorrow.”

She must have done quite a lot of research last night to be able to peg every guy in the place so soon. Amazing girl.

As we sat with our drinks (Niki - beer, Sophie – gin and tonic, me – mango juice) in our cosy thatched hut before going to bed I felt a warm glow, the three of us in the same place being a rarity. While Niki talks about her latest conquests at home, her annual two weeks at club-med, and her new car I see that, despite her deep desire to be flamboyant, she is really living a very conventional life. I guess when you spend so much time in law courts and suits you can’t avoid it. And yet, her Valley Girl way of talking is just too comic. Is this really what she sounds like in court? While she braided my hair with beads, a dubious practice she picked up on one of her Mexican sun fests, she talked eagerly about her latest escapade “Okay, so, I was sitting there at the bar okay? When this guy came up to me okay? So I was like ‘hello there’. And he just started getting really heavy. I totally freaked out! It was like, so intense.” I had to stifle a laugh throughout, she reminded me so much of some thirteen year old. She suddenly twisted me around to scrutinize her work. “You know, I think you’ve gotten better looking with age. Like, you’re almost pretty.”

“Thank you. I will take that as a compliment.” I’ve learned over the years to take the spirit of Niki’s words as opposed to the actual.

“Oh it is. Look at you. Not a wrinkle in sight. Gag me. I guess oily skin does have its advantages.”
“I certainly didn’t think so in my teenaged years.”

“Nobody with acres of acne does.”

“And what do you mean? None of us looks old.”

“Maybe not old, but I’m definitely aging. Last month I found my first grey hair.”

“Where? How exciting. Let’s see.”

“I got rid of it of course. How can you think grey hair is wonderful? Seeing that one grey hair, it totally freaked me out. If I get too many others it will be time to do something about it. Ye gods.”

“Like what? How do you prevent the passage of time? Talk like a teenager?” I slyly asked, but she ignored my cheekiness.

“With dye of course, okay? Tucks and Nips. Whatever it takes and whatever there is.”

“I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of wearing my wrinkles and grey hairs. They’re sort of a badge of honour.”

“That’s because you have neither.”

“Well, if you didn’t spend every holiday lying in the sun, you wouldn’t either.”

She made a face and Sophie chimed in. “You should probably consider wearing a hat Niki. My Mum has worn a hat in the sun as long as I can remember and she has the most lovely skin.”
I envy Sophie for her relationship with her mom. They seem to be such friends. They even take holidays together. I can’t imagine doing that with my mom. We always feel like we’re walking on eggshells around each other. I know she loves me and tries to take part in my life, but she tries too hard. Or else not enough. Either removed and uninterested or desperate to be my confidante and angry when I don’t confide in her. She's so - cautious. I always get the feeling that she is hiding something from me.

Niki and Sophie turned the conversation onto their favourite topic. Sophie has very open relationships with two very different men. Niki professes an abhorrence of becoming tied to any one man and yet would like nothing more than to marry some rich gorgeous doctor. Together, they both revel in playing the field and then discussing their finds. My two little archaeologists. I smiled as I listened, Niki doing her over the top zeal, and Sophie talking about guys as if they were hot properties on the market. I had a hard time not laughing out loud when she declared her preference for solidly built guys in prime condition who were ideal for entertaining. Sophie always tries to see them in a positive light, and Niki focuses on the negative, reading between the lines to find out what’s wrong with them. When Sophie said one guy was ‘self-employed’ Niki said “you mean he doesn’t have a job”. Sophie’s ‘slight and lean’ was Niki’s ‘sickly’. If Sophie found his looks to be ‘in proportion to his height’ Niki called him ‘fat’. If he’s a lawyer it means he wants to avoid being in a relationship. If he’s a writer he’s a pompous twit who can’t string two words together. My oh my, where did she learn to be so cynical?