The bar area was already pretty full of bronzed bodies when we got there, and everyone turned to see us newcomers, surrounding us as we each took our place in the throng. It’s evident that this is a place set up for the sole purpose of meeting people of the opposite sex, and conversations were all about sizing each other up and seeing how far everyone was willing to go, which seemed pretty far from what I heard. We sat with six guys and one dark haired woman and talk deepened as dinner concluded and the dancing began. One Aussie seemed very keen on me, flirting, buying me drinks, and finding every excuse to touch my arm or hair. Lord knows why with the three other women looking far more gorgeous and far more willing. When he got up to get drinks Sophie slipped me a condom. I shoved it back at her angrily. I won’t be needing that!
The Aussie (he didn't even tell me his name!) and I danced quite a bit and the drink helped me loosen up a bit more. I forgot he was there sometimes and just danced the way I wanted. The room began to swirl with the music and I felt myself float along with it. I think there might have been a different guy at some point. I can’t remember. I saw Sophie go off with a dark haired hunk pretty early on. Niki was sitting on two guys’ laps and kissing first one then another. It was easy enough for me to avoid the kissing thing but I could feel a lot of groping going on. I guess I just went with it. As long as there was no kissing I could pretend it was just part of the music. I do remember breaking away with several others at one point and running down to the beach to plunge in for a swim. Someone was harping on about wanting to find the Southern Cross in the sky. I have an uneasy feeling that it was me.
There was some shedding of clothes, but I know I didn’t. I know because I woke up in them this morning and they were still damp from being in the sea. I have no idea how I got back to the lodge, but I was alone in my own bed and fully dressed so I must have. Totally alone as it turned out. Niki and Sophie were nowhere to be found. I showered and changed, drank a big bottle of water all in one go, and headed to the phones.
“Happy Birthday Mom.”
“Well, the happy traveller! Where are you?”
“In Fiji. With Niki and a friend from London. You remember. I wrote to you about it.”
“Lucky you on holiday.”
“It was your suggestion. Besides I haven’t taken a holiday in three years.”
“Three years – try 35!”
I took a deep breath and tried to channel some of Sophie’s meditative calm. “How’s Dad? How are the others? How did the ‘Jackson Wonders’ turn out this year?”
“Oh I can’t keep track of all your father’s beans you know that. Goodness, he’s even talking about developing his own breed or stock or whatever you call it. He does a few things in the lab and suddenly he’s a Nobel prize winner. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t grow something that doesn’t strangle us in our beds.”
“And you? What are you doing today?”
“Well, things are slow. There’s only one funeral this weekend. If people don’t start dying more before my voice gives out we’ll be going to the poor house. Thank goodness the divining work is flooding in, if you’ll pardon the pun. I’ve got three contracts this month alone! I may have to put my prices up.”
“That’s great Mom. Are you doing anything fun tonight?”
“Sidney and Sam are taking me out for dinner. Just me, without your Father for a change. Isn’t that nice?”
“Yes indeed. Where are you going?”
“They said I could go anywhere I liked. I think we’ll try the new Chinese. Your Dad and I went to a dinner last night. It was arranged by one of my mah jong friends Margaret who recently remarried after many years as a widow. We haven't taken to her new husband. At the last mah jong afternoon he read us a poem that he had composed for Margaret and had read at the wedding ceremony. It was cringe making. Far too sentimental. Made my blood run cold. I am trying crewel work, and working on an enormous canvas depicting a giant watermill. It’s going well although I am getting fed up with beige. By the way I haven’t received your parcel.”
“That’s because I didn’t send one. Sam has –“
“Well I suppose a phone call is something.”
“-a gift that I wired her money for.”
“Oh. Well.”
“Hope you like it. Is Sam able to leave the commune then?”
“She’s taken over the Secretary position and apparently it allows her to go out and make purchases and appointments. She thoughtfully worked out some time tonight for our dinner between duties.”
“What will she wear?” As soon as I said it I knew I shouldn’t have asked that out loud.
“What do you mean ‘What will she wear’? Just because she lives in a nudist commune doesn’t mean she can’t make herself look nice for her family. Don’t you think she’s thought of that? Sometimes you are impossibly ignorant. I hope you are being a good friend to your girlfriends there in, where is it, Tahiti?”
“Fiji. We are having a good time.”
“I bet you are, gadding about on holiday. Lucky girl. What do you do there?”
“Oh not much. You know.”
“No I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. What’s the food like?”
“Fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Is it hot? Sunny? What’s the water like? Are the people nice? ”
“Yes, it’s hot.”
“I suppose there are boys there where you are?”
“I’m with Niki. Oh course there are boys. Or ‘men’ as we like to call them.”
“Don’t get smart. You’re not too old to be told how to behave.”
“I’m 30.”
“When I was 30 I had 3 children and a full time job. No holidays for me, that’s for sure. Bringing up a pack of girls isn’t the easiest thing.”
“Well, we’re brought up now so you don’t have to worry.”
“A mother always worries. If you were a mother you’d know that. Sidney knows that. She’s a good mother to her children, works hard, is considerate of her family, always here when I need her. Do you know she calls me every single day?”
“It’s not long distance for her. I call you too mom. Lots. Most Sundays. When I'm at home of course.”
“Not all Sundays.”
“Yes, I know, but I have to work sometimes as I’ve told you many times. And I try to call you the next day.”
“I get sick with worry. You have no idea. I can never call you, no phone in that room or bedsit whatsit thing you call a home. You never have time to answer my letters. There you are in a foreign country all alone, no one to look after you, no man in your life, going from parties to parties I’m sure.”
“Mom, I don’t go to parties much, you know that. And I’m fine. I like being alone.”
“No one likes being alone. Why do you live alone? Why don’t you move in with a friend? That Sophie girl for instance, who seems to be your only friend in a country of millions? I don’t even know what she looks like. Is she English or of the Asian persuasion?”
“Sophie lives with –“, oops, I almost told her about Sophie’s unusual living arrangements with her two lovers, something I don’t think Mom would understand “-someone else. There’s no room for me.”
“Why don’t you come home? Find a boy. Or bring a boy home. Maybe one you find there in Fuji.”
“Fiji.”
“Don’t interrupt. Find a nice boy. Or even a man, ‘as you like to call them’. Bring him home and settle down. Or come for a holiday, now that you know what it feels like. It’s been years since I saw you. I could send you money. Is that the problem? Do you want me to send you money?”
“No Mom, I don’t want you to send me money. It’s not that. It’s not that I won’t come home, exactly. It’s not home anymore for me. I have to find my own home. And, well, I have to finish my thesis.”
“Oh pooh, you are becoming as boring as your father. What is your thesis thingummy on anyway? You’ve never told me. Aren’t maps already researched enough for this world?”
“You wouldn’t understand it Mom. Lots of jargon.”
“There you go. You never tell me anything about your work, your life. You are just finding excuses. And now you say you don’t have a home? How do you think that makes me feel? On my birthday.”
“I’m sorry Mom. You did a great job bringing us up. You must know that – we’re all healthy, independent. I appreciate everything you did for me. But you set too good an example – you raised us too well. You taught me to stand on my own two feet, to look out for myself, to rely on myself. I’m a modern woman.”
“I’ll give you modern. There’s such a thing as too independent if you ask me. Studying all the time, no holiday for three years. A hermit. You live like a hermit. Of course I can only guess how you live. I’ve never seen your room and you never tell me anything about anything. I think you’re afraid to come home. You’re hiding from home. You’re afraid of what you’ll find if you come home and actually have to answer questions face to face.”
“Looks like my five minutes are up Mom. Gotta go – have a lovely day, say hi to the others, love you, byyeeee…”
I had a good stiff drink even though it was still only 11am. She was starting to hit a nerve there at the end. Mom always manages to find just the right button and press it at just the right time in just the right way to wrest just the right kind of pain. How does she do it?
I spent the afternoon snorkeling to try to replace the conversation with distraction. By the time evening came round I was keen to have a good time in spite of her words. Or perhaps it was because of her words. After all, isn’t this what she tells me again and again is the sort of thing she wants me to do? Get out and be with people? Talking to her always seems to confuse me.
I vented to Niki and Sophie. Niki was silent. I guess she’s heard it all before. Sophie has never met my mother so didn’t have any reference. “She’s just worried about you,” she said when I’d done ranting.
“But she’s so changeable. She says one thing and then switches gears in mid stream. She tries so hard, too hard. I feel invaded.”
“Well, maybe it comes from her early life. Or even a previous life. Our minds work in very inscrutable ways. Didn’t you tell me she lost her brother?
“Yeah.” I was still feeling sullen, like a willful child. Why were they taking her side of things? Why do I always feel about 14 years old after talking to my mother?
“Her only brother? Her only sibling?”
“Uh-huh. When she was 14. He was 17.”
“How did her parents take it, his death I mean?”
Oh, really badly I think. He died in India of a fever a few weeks after he left home. He always wanted to go off travelling but wasn’t allowed to until he left school. My Mom’s Mom didn’t live long after and her Dad never got over it. He was always saying things like ‘if only I had a son to take care of me, nobody is better at taking care of things than a man’ and ‘boys are so much more useful than girls’ and ‘girls don’t need to be as smart as boys, why do they feel they have to go to school, they can’t do as well anyway’.” I don’t remember him much, he died when I was little, but I remember him saying things that always making me feel inferior just because I was a girl. And he was always ragging on Mom for having three of them. Us, I mean. Girls.”
“Well it sounds to me a classic psychological prodigal son issue. The one who goes off, your uncle, is revered, and the one who stays, your Mother, is taken for granted. She’s conflicted. Was she close to her brother?”
“Yes, she missed him terribly. Still does I think.”
“There you go. Your mother felt the pressure of living up to a memory and now passes on that to you. I’m guessing you’re the one who is most like her brother in temperament, you’re the traveller and she has to stay behind. Again. It’s classic. She’s spiritually unaligned.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
Sophie continued, “Not unlike you. Your essence is upset because she says things you don’t want to hear. But they are perhaps things you are supposed to hear. To really listen to. You aren’t listening to her true spirit.”
I squirmed in my seat. Niki interrupted, “Look, I don’t want to spend all night talking about Mothers and Daughters, okay? Or you’ll get me started on mine. My glass is empty and the dance floor is calling.”
Grateful to escape an uncomfortable conversation I leapt up to join her and put the whole thing out of my mind. Dancing on sand is such a sensuous experience. My Aussie of last night had found another, probably more willing partner, and I was quite happy to sit out and watch sometimes. At the other end of the table sat a couple of English ‘lager louts’ who drank beer after beer and kept winking at me in a bleary eyed way. One of them had a face like a rolled up sock. Their conversation got louder and louder and it was soon clear to anyone within 500 feet that they were hatching a plan with one of the Fijian waiters to smuggle black coral to sell at a huge profit in England. It all sounds very dodgy and I declined the invitation to be a part of this ‘great deal’. They said I was nuts not to join them seeing as I am a woman and have an extra orifice in which to hide the coral (charming!). The dance floor beckoned after that!
Our last day. Last night Niki alluded to planning another holiday together next year in Cancun and I knew she’d be bringing it up again at breakfast. I determined to get in there first. I have to do it, and before we are on a plane back to our lives.
The three of us met for drinks and the girls were bubbling over with happiness so I put away my unsettled reactions and took in all their news.
Eventually a series of dishes was laid out in front of us. Breadfruit, taro root, octopus, papaya, pineapple, mango, sweet potato, cassava, an entire watermelon cut into curves. Roast chicken, roast pig, cucumbers, tomatoes, yams, a wonderful white fish simply roasted in a mesh of leaves, chow mein, dalo, a starchy white round vegetable I couldn’t identify, a stew of eggplant, tomato, coconut and dalo leaves, another dish of dalo leaves alone. It kept coming and coming for hours. The best dish was something called “kokoda”, raw fish in coconut and lemon juice with tomatoes. We ate until we couldn’t eat and then had to eat a little more until everyone lay back groaning. There were cheese puffs strung along coconut strands, with cigarettes stuck on the end, and all pierced into coconuts as decorations. One by one the cigarettes were removed and smoked, and the now soft cheezies were eaten by the children, in the way of after dinner mints. Soon snoring could be heard amid the low hum of conversation.
