Eric McCormack - Cloud

The manager obviously sympathized with his friend, but his job was to consider finances. He wondered if by replacing the worn parts he would save money and also have pumps that again ran efficiently.

I could see they’d had this debate often before. Indeed, I’d often heard it in similar situations.

“Sure, we could buy new parts,” said the engineer. “But they’d just reveal other weaknesses in the pumps. Then we’d have to buy even more new parts. It’s a vicious circle.” He looked to me for support. “We might end up replacing so many parts that it would be like buying new pumps at ten times the expense, isn’t that so?”

I couldn’t have made a better sales pitch myself. Diplomatically, however, I told the manager he was right that it might be possible to repair the pumps. But that his engineer was right, too, about the problems that might result from putting new parts in old machines.

Now I played the card I’d discussed with Jonson before leaving Camberloo. Because of Bird Island Phosphates’ loyalty to Smith’s, I’d offer a substantial discount on two new pumps as well as free delivery and a ten-year warranty.

After hearing the details, the manager was won over. His friend, the engineer, was delighted. A deal was signed.

“Let’s drink to it,” the manager said.

SITTING THERE SWEATING under the deck awning, we drank several glasses of scotch and we talked. I learned that their brand of phosphate was in demand throughout the world for agricultural fertilizer. The workers who extracted it were brought in from other islands. These two Englishmen, like all their predecessors, were hired on three-year contracts. They made it clear they’d stay for that exact time and not a day more.

“No one could live on Bird Island for longer than three years without going mad,” said the engineer. “It isn’t a fit place for human beings. It shouldn’t even be called an island. It’s just thousands of years of bird droppings heaped up on a coral reef. The flies are so bad that when you approach from the sea, you’d swear they were clouds of smoke from a volcano.”

We laughed at his description. I remembered such pillars of flies over the battlefield near Dupont’s hospital in Africa.

“Thankfully, by the time the new pumps are installed, our stint will be just about finished,” the manager said. They’d go back to England for six months’ rest and recuperation, then they’d be assigned to some other remote place. It certainly couldn’t be any worse than Bird Island.

I could see in their faces signs of the ravages of malaria and isolation. So I was curious to know, in view of what they’d told me, why any man would willingly spend part of his life in a place like Bird Island.

The engineer looked at me for a moment, sizing me up.

“There’s a Bird Island in everyone’s life,” he said.

We all laughed at that, probably because of the scotch.

After dinner that night, my last night in the Mango Tree Hotel, I went to the verandah of the main hut and settled down in a deep rattan couch that looked out over the lagoon. I’d brought along my glass and the remains of a jug of the palm wine.

It was one of those idyllic South Sea Island moments, only slightly spoiled by the angry whine of mosquitoes that couldn’t make up their minds between the verandah lantern and my neck. On the beach below, palm trees creaked and sighed in the warm night wind. The lagoon was dotted with outriggers from which Oluban fishermen dangled lanterns to mesmerize the fish. In the skies far above, an oversized moon hung amidst endless clusters of stars.

AFTER ONLY FIVE minutes or so, I heard a squeaking of floorboards and a rustling of clothing. I looked round.

At the entranceway to the verandah was the woman who’d signed me in at the reception desk upon my arrival. She stood there, watching me through the foliage of tattooed vegetation covering her face. She was wearing a red sarong and carrying a little woven purse. Her hair was long and black, with a white orchid over her left ear.

Since she spoke no English, I gestured to a rattan chair beside the couch and waved an invitation to her to come and sit. But instead of sitting on the chair, she came and sat down beside me on the couch with her woven purse in her lap. Her skin glistened with some sort of perfumed oil. What with that and the plant tattoos, she was like a scented garden.

I pointed at myself.

“Harry,” I said.

She pointed at herself.

“Maratawi.”

The word sounded to me like a song.

“Would you like some wine, Maratawi?” I said, holding up my glass.

She nodded.

In my drunken state, I easily imagined that the old custom in Fludd’s Unveiling the Islands was still in effect and that this beautiful woman had been sent to me, a stranger, to make me feel at home.

And indeed, one thing led to another — or, one glass of wine led to another. And soon enough Maratami was in my hut, my clothes strewn over the floor and her red sarong beside them. On the bed, we massaged each other with a little phial of oil she’d taken from that woven purse. Her thighs didn’t look at all muscular, but I couldn’t help being aware of the heavy wooden beam that supported the mosquito net above us. I prepared myself mentally for the delicious ordeal ahead.

There was no need.

What we proceeded to do was done in bed in the good old-fashioned way, a bit noisy but most satisfying. Afterwards, we both fell asleep. About two in the morning I awoke and saw that she was gone. I didn’t stay awake long. Owing to the combined effects of the palm liquor and my exertions, I fell back into a deep sleep.

THE NEXT MORNING I awoke with a splitting headache and a great deal of remorse over my activities of the night before. On my way to the dining room for breakfast I had to pass the reception area and was relieved to see that Maratawi wasn’t there. Joe, the bartender, brought me breadfruit rolls and coffee right away.

“You look tired,” he said. “No wonder. You and Maratawi had quite a time last night. Our room’s at the other end of the hotel and we could hear you. We thought we’d never get to sleep.”

Clearly, a hotel made of grass wasn’t the best place to keep secrets. I didn’t answer him but he stayed by the table, wanting to talk.

“Maratawi won’t be in today,” he said. “She’s home with her husband and her two children.”

That unwanted information made me feel much worse. But more was to come.

“You’ve heard of paratac ?” he said.

I nodded, not knowing quite what to expect.

“Gordon and Anata used to do it together,” Joe said. “That was in the days when the women still did it. The last few times he was here, he said he was too old to do it anymore and felt bad about that. After paratac , I guess it was hard for him to go back to the usual thing.”

I was speechless. Gordon used to indulge in athletic sex with that tattooed Oluban woman! Again, it wasn’t quite the image of the business-monk I’d usually associated with him.

Joe, the bartender, wasn’t finished with his revelations.

“Maratawi’s their daughter,” he said. “That was one of the reasons he kept on coming down here — to see how she was getting on.”

Now I was really shocked. If what he said was true, I, who was legally married to one of Gordon’s daughters, had just slept with another whose existence he’d never mentioned.

“You can thank Anata for sending Maratawi to you last night to keep you company,” Joe said. “It’s no big deal down here so long as you both had fun.”

At that moment, the tattooed Anata came shuffling in like a plant with legs.

It was hard enough for me to comprehend how a mother could have done such a thing to her daughter. What would she think if she knew I was married to another of Gordon’s daughters — or would she even mind?