Russell Hoban - Come Dance With Me

‘Here’s Kaanapali,’ said Rudy. He stopped Lucille and pulled over to the side. ‘See the train?’ He pointed to the right where a Disneyland kind of old-fashioned steam train was huffing and puffing, all red and black and brass.

‘Hooeee!’ echoed Django as it blew its whistle.

‘A-N-A-K-A,’ he said, reading off the gold letters on the side of the red cab.

‘Anaka must be the name of the engine,’ I said. LK & P RR were the gold letters on the black tender. Django couldn’t do anything with the ampersand.

‘That’s what used to be the old sugar train, the Lahaina-Kaanapali and Pacific Railroad,’ said Rudy. ‘Look down there to your left at that black rock that juts out into the water.’ We looked. There was a white bird with black markings and long black tail streamers wheeling over it.

‘It’s sacred, that rock,’ said Rudy. ‘Kekaa is its name. That’s where Maui souls used to jump off into the spirit world.’

‘That bird down there, is it a soul?’ said Django.

‘That’s a tropic-bird,’ said Rudy. ‘Maybe it’s a soul, I don’t know.’

‘You said they used to jump off there,’ said Django. ‘Don’t they do it any more?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Rudy. ‘Maybe they do.’

‘Some of them must come from far away,’ said Django. ‘So they have to fly there?’

‘OK,’ said Rudy. ‘That makes sense.’

‘So why do they need to jump off a rock?’ said Django. ‘Why don’t they just fly straight into the spirit world?’

‘You got me there,’ said Rudy.

‘Maybe the black rock is a door to the spirit world,’ said Django. ‘That’s why they have to come there.’

‘That’s the best explanation I’ve heard so far,’ said Rudy.

Ten years ago and I remember every word. We went up along the coast through Kapalua. ‘This is where they grow golf, hotels and pineapples,’ said Rudy.

‘What’s golf?’ said Django.

‘People hitting a little white ball with fancy clubs,’ said Rudy.

‘How can they grow golf and hotels?’ said Django.

‘They plant money and the golf and the hotels spring up,’ said Rudy.

‘Where do they get the money?’ said Django.

‘From tourists,’ said Rudy.

‘Like me and Mum?’ said Django.

Rudy looked at me and wiped imaginary sweat from his brow.

‘Don’t look at me,’ I said to him. ‘You started it with your smartass remarks.’

‘Yes,’ said Rudy to Django. ‘Like you and your mom.’

‘We don’t hit any little white balls,’ said Django.

‘OK,’ said Rudy. ‘My mistake. Sorry.’

The road took us along high cliffs. Far down below, the surf crashed on the rocks. We rounded the top of West Maui and drove a couple of miles, then Rudy pulled over and we got out of the car. Even seeing someone in a film standing on top of a tall building makes me tingle from the feet upwards; I wished we were watching for whales from a boat and I held on to Django’s hand. ‘There’s Kahakuloa Head,’ said Rudy. It was a huge rough rock less than a mile away, grey and ugly and it began to grow larger in my eyes the way things do when you approach over water. Then it froze like a photograph and I froze too: I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. My hand was empty. I looked around for Django, heard him say, ‘Another door’, saw the blur of his T-shirt, then he wasn’t there. A humpback whale surged up out of the water off Kahakuloa Head and fell back with a sound like a thunderclap and a tower of spray.

Again and again I live that moment and wonder what happened. Rudy said Django got too close to the edge and slipped. How could I have let go of his hand? Death is such a big thing and he was such a small person.

‘Right,’ I said to myself, ‘that’s it for 1993 and our tenth-anniversary trip down Memory Lane. Now if we can return to 30 January, 2003 …’

This time I’d made my own arrangements. I hired a car at Kahului, drove to the Pioneer Inn, and checked myself in. I didn’t want to see Rudy Ka’uhane. I was still full of anger, more at myself than at him. I couldn’t help thinking that he ought not to have taken us to Kahakuloa but I was brought up against the fact that I’d made the decision not to go out on a boat.

This day in 2003 was the same kind of day as ten years ago, cool and grey. I followed the same road we’d taken in the Land Rover and in a very short time — I must have been driving faster than I thought — there I was looking at Kahakuloa Head and it was looking back at me with the face of the cyclops.

‘You!’ I said, recalling how when I first saw that painting at the Royal Academy I had to throw up. Now my eyes and my mind were no longer under my control and this grey and ugly rock was also being the Iao Needle and the black rock where the souls jumped off. I threw up again and leant against the car trying to pull myself together. ‘What’s the use?’ I said. ‘I’m the bad-luck woman.’ I recited the names, leaving out Badroulbadour because I didn’t know anyone on that boat: my stepfather Ron Burke; Dick Turpin; Sid Horstmann; Adam Freund; and Django. I wasn’t going to add Elias’s name to the list. My life was a thing where I had no place to stand any more. I looked at the edge where Django went over and said, ‘Why not?’ The cyclops, Kahakuloa Head, the Iao Needle and the black rock all nodded their approval.

‘Do you mind?’ I said as I heard Lucille sounding as if she needed a new silencer and a valve job. I wanted peace and quiet but I wasn’t getting any. Now I was hallucinating Elias but he had a stronger grip than most hallucinations.

‘Gotcha,’ he said. Just like that. No emphasis. Here he was.

‘You’ll be sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m nothing but bad news.’

‘As it happens,’ he said, ‘I’ve got good news.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘No, really, look at this.’ He pulled a cutting from The Times out of his pocket. Picture of a Heinz tomato ketchup bottle standing on its head.

‘So?’ I said.

‘After all these years they turned it around. Don’t you see? Things don’t just stay the same year after year.’

‘You’re crazy,’ I said.

‘Not enough yet but I’m working on it. I love you.’

‘OK, I love you too, whatever that’s worth.’

‘It’s worth everything,’ he said, so I didn’t argue with him.

29 January 2003.

ENCORE

Jimmy Wicks, 60, guitarist, singer and songwriter with Mobile Mortuary, was pronounced dead of an apparent heart attack at his home in Clapton earlier today. In the ambulance taking him away, however, he sat up and said, ‘Thanks for turning on the sound.’ He subsequently underwent a triple bypass at Homerton Hospital and is now recovering in good spirits.

If the goodwill and hours and miles of help I had on this novel were laid end to end they would reach from here to Kahakuloa Head.

Andrew Bown of Status Quo was my consultant and guide in all musical matters and gave me encyclopaedic data.

Nunu Whiting and Dave Salt let me visit Waterloo Sunset rehearsal studios and Claire Ferris gave me a complete tour.

Ben Schlapak, Manager of Honolulu International Airport, graciously authorised my enquiries and sent me useful descriptions. Jenny Hausler of the Visitors’ Information Office reported on the gardens and the now-closed Mini Hotel.

Emmae Gibson, like me, went through Honolulu International Airport in 1993 and generously shared her impressions.

Dennis Camblin of Hawaii spent days travelling in Maui on my behalf. He sent me voluminous notes and hundreds of photographs as well as books, maps and pressed flowers.