Chapter 6 - Fiji - resort

We caught a rickety bus to Cast-A-Way resort and while Niki and Sophie napped I took in the scenery along the way. We shook along the Coral Coast past green and blue landscapes, the driver keeping up an entertaining commentary for everyone and no one in particular. We passed through Sigatoka, a bustling sort of town that looked eminently visitable. It seemed an odd place for a town, on a muddy river quite a ways from the coast, but I remembered that corals don’t grow by fresh or cloudy water so villages and ports in the Pacific are mostly located up from reef-free river mouths. We passed the market, all sorts of fruits and vegetables spread out on woven mats. Everyone seemed friendly and open, smiling and waving curiously at us as we bounced past. I looked longingly at a dilapidated building advertising itself as a hotel. It looked like some faded colonial club that would have once housed people dressed in white and drinking gins and tonic.

My reveries came to a halt as abruptly as the bus, stopping at the resort with a bump. There we were assigned our own mbure, a large hut that looked terribly romantic with its thatched roof and mosquito nets.

I had visions of cooking over warm embers using coconut shells as fuel, but instead we ate in the resort restaurant, which was actually pretty good. Fresh papaya and fish. Cold Fijian beer. Niki and Sophie wasted no time in getting down to what the real reason for the trip was as they settled at one end of the bar to have a good look at everyone else. They were like two big cats who, despite having just eaten a large meal, were already on the hunt for fresh meat. For them it was truly the time for at least some good men to come to the aid of the party.

“That table is all couples. No possibilities there. We will be avoiding them. Now that table looks likely. Five guys. All fit, only one smoking. Two of them very cute. One could be - with a better haircut.”

“There’re some likely prospects over by the buffet. Surfers I bet. Totally buff. Or maybe divers.”

“And that blondie over in the corner chatting up the rather snotty thing in green. Crikey, he is rather a nice view.”

“Did you see the table of lifeguards? And that waiter over by the bar area. We shouldn’t underestimate the staff. They might be game on for a bit of fun.”

“Oh my god”, I couldn’t help myself. “Can’t you guys just enjoy the sun, the food, the culture? Why does it always have to be about sex?”

Their eyes rounded on me. Here it comes. Niki first.

“You, missy, are the reason we are here.” She punctutated the word ‘you’ with lavish emphasis. “And ‘you’ are the reason we are scouting prospects. ‘You’ have been holed up for what is it, four years, five years now? Working in a boring job. Reading boring books. Not going out. And I don't count going out to the library as going out. Staring at dusty old maps and charts for hours and days. Alone. Like, totally alone! Shunning other people, clubs and dances. And why? We’ll tell you why. Because ‘you’ are afraid. It’s like you’ve become a nun. You wear boring clothes, and are only interested in things if they belong in a museum. Ye gods, you are going to end up in a museum. You told me even your mother said you should get out and meet a man. I mean when someone’s own mother says that, like, really! So before it’s too late we are going to save you. I told you if you hadn’t gone on a proper date by the time you were 30 I was going to take over. Well guess what? Happy Birthday, honeybunch. Here I am. Here we are.” She gestured towards Sophie. “You’re just damned lucky to have two friends on different continents who care so much about your libido.”

“But I don’t want to go out with anyone. Look,” I pleaded. “How could I possibly expect to find something twice that many people never find once? I’ve been lucky. Lucky in love and lucky with friends. I love you guys and I appreciate that you worry about me. But I don’t need you to tell me what is missing in my life. I have my mother for that.” No one laughed. I sighed. My jokes always fall flat. “I am not missing anything. Believe me.”

I might have been speaking to a couple of mangos. They looked at me with their eyes and smiled at me with their mouths and curled their influence around me. Sophie purred, “We’re not asking you to find love, just a bit of fun. A starter home, not a long term investment. You work so hard all the time. Let’s just treat this like a holiday ok? When’s the last time you took a real holiday? Ok then, this is your holiday and we’re spending it together. Three friends together. We’ll have some laughs and enjoy each other’s company. Ok?”

“Ok”, I said slowly. “I can do fun. I mean it. We will do everything we said we’d do. Swim, eat, drink. And this is such a beautiful spot. A good choice for a holiday.” Now I sounded like a toady. “Thanks for caring so much about me.”

I meant it though. These two have been there for me so many times. Of course I’m secretly grateful they live in two totally different time zones, and not just because I could make my weeping phone calls to one or the other without worrying about what time it was. One of them was always bound to be awake. Of course Niki had met Andrew which helped. But then Sophie helped other times more because she hadn’t known him. But together they do have a tendency to gang up. Sometimes I wonder why I introduced them on one of Niki’s visits to London. They immediately clicked together and my life has not been the same since.

We spent our first afternoon lying on a palm-fringed beach. Delicate crabs scittered around in a constant search for food. We lie still and they hunt, we move and they freeze. Another movement and they disappear down little holes in the sand. Niki and Sophie seemed happy to just lie there with their eyes closed listening to their walkmans, and I could hear Duran Duran and Enya seeping through their respective headphones. I tried to read, but couldn’t stay focussed, constantly distracted by beauty and the sounds of foaming waves and rustling trees and chortling birds and muffled techo-pop. I love being by the sea again. It fills a crevice inside me. Vanilla orchids. Hibiscus, bougainvillea, allamanda and fangipani. Idyllic. I felt like Abel Tasman landing on these shores for the first time.

The sun and the breezes felt so good as the afternoon drifted by, me with my thoughts and ruminations. I have to admit it did feel wonderful to just allow the present to take hold and let it wash over me. Not having to think about what I’ll do tomorrow or next week. Not filling my time with things I feel I should be doing, should be seeing, should be accomplishing. I guess this is what a proper holiday is meant to feel like.