Eric McCormack - Cloud

“When Gordon found out Anata was pregnant with Maratawi, he gave her the money to buy this hotel and make it what it is,” Joe was saying. “He wanted them to be comfortable for the rest of their lives. With Gordon’s blessing, Anata took me for a husband and we really cleaned this place up. Businessmen and sea captains usually stay here when they’re in town. We hope you’ll do the same any time you’re here. Maratawi will always be happy to come and keep you company.”

AROUND FIVE THAT afternoon, I was on the deck of the inter-island schooner looking back at Oluba. Anata and Joe waved to me from the dock and I waved to them. We navigated the opening in the reef successfully and entered the open ocean, heading for Fiji. The wind was fair and the blue sky was pocked with tiny clouds.

The figures on the beach were now becoming quite small. I borrowed a pair of binoculars from the first mate and focused them. Anata and Joe were waving, and they’d been joined by a third figure — Maratawi. I waved back, though I doubted they could see me any longer. But they stayed there waving, tinier and tinier, and I, out of courtesy, waved back till at six o’clock darkness fell like an axe.

ON THAT RETURN voyage to Fiji, when I didn’t feel too seasick, I went over again and again the significance of my Oluban experience.

I’d had my night of pleasure with Maratawi in an updated version of an ancient Oluban custom. But the more I thought about it, the more I flinched at the idea of having been to bed with another of Gordon’s daughters. Technically, it may not have been incest. But if I’d known before the act took place, no amount of palm liquor would have enticed me into it. I did know now, even if no one else ever would, so I’d have to live with it.

I also pondered the stunning discovery I’d made about Gordon Smith’s exploits on Oluba. Once again I realized that though I’d been close to him, I’d barely known him. Which should, of course, have been no surprise. When we take such care to disguise our true feelings from others, why would we expect them to be an open book to us?

These things filled my mind for that entire journey. By the time the schooner sailed into the harbour at Nani the next day, I’d made up my mind on one thing at least: Oluba would never see me again.

A bitterly cold northeaster, precursor of a late March blizzard, was scouring the streets of Camberloo on the morning of my return. But Alicia’s greeting was unusually warm. With me away and Frank at university in Toronto, she’d felt lonely. She’d adopted a cat to keep her company, which surprised me. Both she and Gordon had never seemed fond of pets — cats especially, perhaps for their unpredictability.

I went to bed at noon and slept for several hours to make up for the disruption caused by the change in time zones. When I woke I felt much better. At six o’clock, Alicia and I had dinner together then went into the library for coffee and brandy. I sat in the armchair near the blazing fire. Alicia sat opposite on the sofa. On her knee was her cat, Miss Sophie, a little ivory Siamese who already seemed very much at home.

As ever, I couldn’t help admiring Alicia, sitting there. How beautiful and mysterious she looked, with her dark eyes and her long hair partly covering her face. She was in an unusually talkative mood and asked more questions about my trip than she normally did. I told her that after Fiji I’d spent a couple of days on an island called Oluba.

“Oluba?” she said, suddenly very interested. “I didn’t know you were going there.”

I explained it had been a last-minute addition to my plans. “Please tell me more about Oluba,” she said. “Gordon used to love it there.”

I went on at length about the coral reefs, white beaches, and palm trees, then about my interesting meeting with the two men from Bird Island and the horrors of their situation.

“Is the Mango Tree Hotel still there?” she said.

Her familiarity with that name surprised me. I admitted that was where I’d stayed.

“Gordon used to talk a lot about it,” she said. “That was where he always stayed, too. The owner back then was a woman called Anata. I don’t suppose you met her?”

I was cautious now, for Gordon’s sake as well as my own. Yes, as a matter of fact, Anata still owned the hotel. She was an elderly woman.

“Gordon said she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met,” said Alicia. “He gave her the money to buy the hotel — apparently it had a lot of potential.”

I didn’t like the way this was going.

“In a way, it was repayment for services rendered,” she said.

I put on a puzzled face.

“Oh, yes,” Alicia said. “She was quite an athlete in bed — at least in those days. Paratac , or something like that, I think he called it.”

To hear her use that word and to realize Gordon had actually told her about his bedroom activities in Oluba shouldn’t have surprised me, but once more it did. What an unorthodox father— daughter relationship they’d had.

More was to come.

“Anata didn’t mention they’d had a little daughter together?” she said.

A daughter? I put on a surprised look and explained I’d barely seen Anata, and anyway she spoke no English.

“Maratawi was the name they gave the little girl,” said Alicia. “Isn’t that a delightful name? I was six when she was born. ‘You have a little half-sister at the other end of the world,’ Gordon used to say. She must be quite grown up by now.” She was looking right into me. “You’re sure you didn’t meet someone called Maratawi?”

Of course, I denied it.

She was in so many ways a complete mystery to me, I often felt quite out of my depth with her. How would she react if I told her everything, including my drunken fling with her half-sister? Would she be upset? Or would she be amused? Of course, I just kept quiet.

“If you ever go back to Oluba,” she said, “make a point of looking up Maratawi. After all, she is your sister-in-law.”

I assured her I would do as she said, though I did wonder why she herself had never shown any great interest in meeting her half-sister. She was looking at me quite skeptically, still not satisfied with my account of the trip.

“You should know by now you can tell me the truth,” she said. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s not being told the truth.”

I changed the subject and asked her if she’d ever told Frank about her half-sister in Oluba. After all, Maratawi was his aunt or half-aunt.

Alicia fell for the diversion.

“No, I haven’t yet,” she said. “Please don’t mention it to him. I’m saving it as a big surprise for him someday soon.”

IN THE END, I promised her I’d look up Maratawi next time I was in Oluba. I felt no need to tell her I’d already resolved never to go back there again.

Frank graduated with a degree in fine arts that had allowed him to make a special study of old furniture as well as rare books. He was by now a young-looking twenty-two and had the dark brown hair and eyes of his mother. In fact, physically he was like her in many ways. A stranger might have thought it ironic that the genes of a woman who tended to avoid society could be so domineering when it came to stamping their image on our son. The only noteworthy thing he took from me was his nose, which had a slight leftwards hook to it.

So I was always puzzled when Alicia would say, as she often did, “Frank’s more like you than you think.” I presumed she must mean in temperament, or personality, and was surprised she should think so.

After graduating he came back to live in Camberloo, but not with us. He wanted his own place, a natural thing for a young man to do. Alicia was, of course, disappointed at that but arranged an apartment for him in the building beside the park where I myself had lived on first coming to Camberloo. When I helped Frank move in his things I felt quite nostalgic, thinking back to that period in my own life.