The Pacific Room Page 8

  Dropping their bundle of stage costumes and cosmetic bags on the floor, the pair huddle at Teuila’s bedside just in time to hear her say in a voice punctuated by a low stringy cough, ‘I thought I was gone.’

  There comes the dry rustle of palm fronds outside and soon the curtain levitates in a warm stream of air. With her visitors to perform to, Teuila feels her spirits lifting too. Her cough splinters into a laugh, her fingers thrumming her throat, and next she is reaching for her cigarettes.

  ‘Can you believe Shema was wearing a white beach dress that was on sale at Chan Mow & Co last week? That girl has no shame!’

  Teuila’s audience wait a moment before smiling, at which point they realise that she is saved.

  Wilhelmina presses play, and Whitney Houston’s ‘Greatest Love of All’ vibrates through the speakers of the ghetto blaster. It is as if they have been waiting for this signal. Tara shakes her hair free of the towel and slides across the vinyl floor to take her place, knees up, under the window louvres. For a moment the curtain strays across her face, and Teuila can’t help herself.

  ‘Tara, it’s your veil.’

  Wilhelmina steals a quick glance at Tara before nudging a cosmetic bag into the centre of the room with her toe. Here she settles cross-legged on the floor just as the ballad builds to its finale.

  Despite Whitney’s best efforts, the song is anticlimactic. The visitors want to ask Teuila about the wedding, but they also know they must wait until later, much later – by the bar at Tropicana, or in the back of the minibus coming home, or (more likely) back here in Teuila’s magic room. But not now. Spread out on her bed and blowing smoke rings at the ceiling, Teuila won’t be talking.

  Just as Whitney’s voice pauses for breath, the curtain retreats through the louvres; Tara’s face is revealed under the light bulb’s glare.

  ‘Look at her freckles,’ says Teuila, laughing through the cigarette smoke. ‘Tae lago.’ Fly shit.

  Tara’s pencilled eyebrows flick up, and her crescendo of American-tinged cursing drowns out Whitney mid-chorus. Then, with the utmost delicacy, she begins to scrape her ankle with a Lady Remington.

  Taking a slow swig of Sprite, Teuila watches these dress-up rituals from her bed. The sugar acts like a drug, intensifying the shifting registers in her room. As she bobs up from the floor, Wilhelmina casts a monster beehive shadow across the walls behind her. Frosted fingernails flutter over bronzedusted eyelids. ‘Almost there.’ Dab, dab, dab and soon her eyelashes are done – ‘Superglue for super lashes!’

  Looking up, Wilhelmina’s eyes are aflutter. ‘Even without you the show must go on,’ she says, towering in her high heels over Teuila’s bed. ‘That much we learnt from you. Even with one table in the house the show must go on.’

  Teuila’s kimono has loosened. The contours of her chest fall away into ridges of plump muscle and dark shadow. Taking a deep breath she says, ‘I never played to one table.’ Her eyes squint suspiciously through the cigarette smoke.

  Everyone in the room knows a storm is on its way, and each does her best to deflect attention away from it.

  Tara’s lips are now painted a glossy red, and a white silk magnolia emerges from behind her left ear. She pouts for her audience of two. ‘Do I look like Billie Holiday?’

  Glancing at her compact mirror, Wilhelmina replies with her own small assertion of self. ‘I’m finding that Retin-A is actually changing the shape of my face.’

  Her face appears huge and alien, like a flying saucer, in the tiny mirror.

  ‘It’s very powerful,’ she continues. ‘We all have different techniques to fight the ageing process.’

  ‘Just as none of us do blow jobs the same way,’ says Tara.

  ‘That’s why you’re called the Rubbish Bin,’ comes Wilhelmina’s quick reply. ‘You end up with everyone’s leftovers.’

  Tara brings a bottle of Vailima to her lips. The beer slowly rises up the bottle’s neck so the others can sense its sweet salty taste. She pauses before putting the bottle down. ‘Teuila, did you ever do shows with extra money for sex?’

  ‘Never,’ Teuila says with a firmness that seems to draw the curtains once more into the room. ‘That’s dirty money.’

  ‘I would do an old man for five hundred tala,’ continues Tara. ‘For a thousand I’d carry his crutches up the stairs.’

  ‘That’s why we say American Samoans are nothing but trash,’ Wilhelmina declares. ‘And all you’re good for is working the taxi phones – and giving lip.’

  Wilhelmina’s chiffon gown, champagne-coloured, grazes the floor. Everything about her is bronzed and dusted.

  Teuila’s eyes rest for a moment on this vision hovering by her bed. It’s like looking in the mirror and seeing a younger version of herself, something shinier reflected back – not unlike the diamanté necklace Wilhelmina is holding out to be fastened at her neck. Teuila also senses a quiet hunger, something that can’t be easily sated. It scares her just a little.

  ‘You should enter Miss Tutti Frutti next year,’ Teuila says, her fingers finding their sense memory as she takes Wilhelmina’s necklace. She motions with her chin towards the satin sash and begins a monologue they have all heard before, on many late nights and early mornings in Teuila’s room. They know the story’s precise rhythm – verse, chorus, verse, chorus – but somehow with each telling something new is gained – just like with a Whitney song.

  ‘I remember the night I was crowned, a queue ran all the way down the street from the old Chinese theatre. There wasn’t a spare seat in the house. And of all the contestants I was the only one …’ She pauses. ‘Well, all the others had nice figures and I said to myself, “Win or lose, I have to get the talent category.” My song was “Diamonds Are Forever”, and Shirley Bassey was my look. We share the same skin colour, you see. Her voice and style are unique. She sings ninetynine per cent of songs in a different way. And she can’t wear the same dress twice. She’s a dame.’

  ‘Were you nervous?’ Wilhelmina asks. All eyes in the room are fastened on the sash.

  ‘I’d prepared for the competition thinking it was just another show night for me.’ Teuila pauses, smiling at the memory. ‘No, there were no nerves. It was like I was running up-down, up-down. I thought to myself, What else do I need? I’ve already got my crown – my crown of self-respect.’

  Tara begins to sniff, bringing the back of her hand across her nose.

  ‘I was thankful for the crown – of course I was – but that’s not the whole of it. Because here –’ She looks at Tara with an accusatory twist. ‘It might be different in Pago Pago, but here it’s family first. Your family comes first.’

  The necklace with its tiny gold clasp hangs expectantly at Wilhelmina’s throat. The young protégé swallows, her neck muscles tensing slightly, before yielding to the reassuring softness of Teulia’s hands – despite their largeness, the deployment of hooks, zips and buttons is her particular specialty.

  And no sooner is Teuila humming in her smoky contralto ‘Diamonds are Forever’ than Wilhelmina and Tara are sent, glittering, out into the night.

  Chapter 15

  TROPICANA

  It’s still light when he reaches the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception. Blue streamers wave at him in slow motion from the feet of the Virgin Mary, whose white cement hands gesture out to the harbour. Her fingers are open, as if conducting the breeze, or perhaps summoning the rain. The cathedral doors usher him in: no souls denied here. An early evening service has begun, and as Lewis enters the church the priest’s amplified words ring out: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

  He settles into the back row alongside a mother and her teenage daughter, the pew complaining as he takes his seat. At first he has trouble focusing on the service. The gold logo of the girl’s sunglasses catches the light, sending a reflection dancing around the walls of the church. Lewis’s eyes follow, moving beyond to take in the church’s interior: the painted blue horizon line, the high porthole windows and the slow soughi
ng ceiling fans giving way to the chandelier overhead, a giant jellyfish viewed from the bottom of the sea.

  The mother turns to Lewis and smiles: Talofa. Immediately he feels welcomed into their world. Stray thoughts are banished as he stares out through their eyes. Edging down the aisle comes a shining vision: a group of altar boys bearing candles and a crucifix, their purple cassocks trailing on the floor. The priest is speaking of repentance and how it’s the season of Advent, the coming of Christ.

  Lewis can feel his soul welling up in the aqueous light. He remembers helping carry his brother’s coffin from the church at his family’s funeral. Garry had never felt as heavy as he did that day. Lewis wondered if there had somehow been a mistake, if it was his father’s body he was carrying instead. Already he was taller than his uncles and he had to stoop to keep the coffin level as they went down the church steps, his trouser cuffs flapping in the hot gusting wind.

  Later he stood holding hands with Aunt Agatha as the hearse drove away. She seemed uncertain what to do apart from clasping his hand, which hurt from her squeezing. Her green eye shadow had started to run, as if melting with grief.

  Now in the church something warm and pillowy presses Lewis’s palm. The priest has asked the congregation to reach out to one another and greet their neighbours. And so Lewis finds himself linked to the mother and her teenage daughter, their hands joining as they sing ‘Lift Up Your Hearts’. He gives in to the feeling, momentarily at one with the congregation and the swelling hymn of the sea.

  His right hand made a path through the night,

  Split the waters of the sea.

  All creation, lift up your voice:

  Our God has set us free!

  Outside the light has begun to dim. Looking up at the mountain pressing itself through the high church window, Lewis thinks he can see a face – whether of Jesus or Garry or perhaps the Scottish writer, he doesn’t know. Just the word that suggests itself in the hulking head of rock: Repent.

  Lewis sinks back into the plastic-covered seat and lets out a soft sigh. Everything around him presents in short spurts of pleasure: the blue streamers flickering in the taxi’s rear-view mirror, the waft of coconut from the woman driving, the mother and daughter who wave to him from the steps of the church.

  Seamlessly they travel down the harbour road. As they stop at the traffic lights, the image floats in through the open window. It’s a handpainted billboard of two birds meeting on a branch. One appears to be a crow, the other a dove. Behind the crow is a nest filled with eggs; flying foxes hang from the trees like washing. Drifting above are the words: Birds Are Essential to Life / E Taua Tele Manulele I Le Ola.

  It reminds Lewis of Troy’s note, which he slips from his shirt pocket and hands to the driver. She smiles. Nothing more needs to be said, and there is a relief in the uselessness of words. Just a glance, like those two birds alighting on a branch. And then, as if by the click of the fingers, it’s nightfall.

  Past the markets, they travel down a waterlogged lane, dodging potholes and the looming presence of rain. After a few minutes they arrive at an open-air pavilion, brightly lit and decorated with garlands of gold-painted coconuts. Even the sign seems handmade: Tropicana.

  The rest of the evening unfolds dreamily, jump-cutting through time. The getting out of the cab he can’t remember, nor paying the driver, just the swift unfolding scenes. At first only a few men sit around watching an All Blacks game on a TV set dangled from the ceiling. Then after he downs a few beers, groups of women arrive to cluster at the bar. The later they arrive, the tighter their tops seem to be, skirts inching up shapely legs lit by the neon colours of the Vailima beer sign behind the bar. Through the heavy night-time air their names waft together like perfume in a department store: Alosina, Wilhelmina, Tara … It has never occurred to Lewis before how words can be fragrant like this.

  The rugby game has finished by now and men and women gather on the dance floor, cigarette smoke mixing with the smell of beer. Watching from his table, Lewis isn’t always certain which dancer leads and which one follows. Individuals shift into other bodily shapes like a moving sea of crazy paving.

  The crowd rises to a pitch of excitement when a dance troupe suddenly appears from the wings to occupy the open space before the bar. Behind their heads the beer sign seems to intensify; a green neon palm tree strobes.

  Songs and outfits blur into one. There are grass skirts and feather boas and foreheads stretched by smiling, shiny with sweat. But Lewis remembers most of all the solo dancer. Her body spills over widely planted feet as she catches his eye. It’s as if she is performing just for him. Her arms gently undulate about her and with open-fingered hands she reaches for the moon – even if, on this night, it is laden with cloud.

  When people begin to rise from their seats to pin tala notes to her body, at first he hesitates.

  ‘Go on,’ says the man at the next table, toasting him with a longneck of beer, his red eyes smiling into the night.

  As Lewis approaches the stage she calmly avoids his eyes. But as he presses his tala note into a small gap left by her coconut bra, she brings her hand over his, brushing his face with long lashes. There is the smell of talcum powder and Kool Mints and a spray of jasmine, as if the whole of Aunt Agatha’s dressing table had been condensed into a single essence.

  He’s still drunk with her scent when, moments later, he finds himself in the club’s bathroom, a naked light bulb bathing the scene: a man, half-standing, has collapsed over a basin with the tap running in a steady trickle.

  Zipping up his fly, Lewis considers leaving without washing his hands. But Aunt Agatha had instilled in him the ritual of hygiene that he finds hard to shake even now. He looks over the sleeping man’s head into the basin and notices how the running water is leaving a tidal mark of rust. He’s thinking of the water running forever as he reaches over with cupped hands and the slumbering figure shoots suddenly upright. Gripping Lewis by his collar, he pulls him to his dark perspiring face.

  Lewis can feel a button popping and the close smell of beer on the man’s breath. A filigree of crimson covers the whites of his eyes.

  As a child Lewis would succumb to a cold dead faint at the sight of blood, and the same wooziness overtakes him now. Time folds in on itself. Then without warning she is there, the solo dancer from before, the shadow of her beehive bobbing like a mushroom cloud along the wall. Next she is haranguing the drunken man, her tarantula eyelashes flashing angrily, and extracts Lewis from his muscly hold. Which is how he later finds himself in the sanctuary of the garden outside, alone under the branches of a monster tree.

  ‘I’m Wilhelmina.’

  The contralto softness of her name takes shape in the evening air with the thinning scent of kerosene smoke. They are sitting apart from the last group of drinkers on the club’s back deck, near the tree’s dark scaly trunk, its ancient boughs spreading over them, giving rough shelter.

  The beer has made him unusually loquacious and he manages a mouthful of words – ‘Fair Isle at Sea – thy lovely name’ – before stumbling.

  She laughs, throwing her head back to release a few springy tendrils of hair while bringing a ringed hand to her throat.

  He looks to locate the diaphragm that released that unearthly sound, but the tree throws long, looping shadows. All he can see is the glitter of her eye shadow and the flash of her ring. And once again there is that mingling of scents – of talc and Kool Mints and jasmine, though this time he doesn’t think of his aunt.

  When, moments later, the taxi she has ordered for him floods the scene with light, he doesn’t know where to look. Instead he asks her the name of this thing looming over them.

  ‘Why, it’s a mango tree,’ she says.

  The next thing he knows he’s travelling alone in the back of the taxi. Down Beach Road, they slide past the old Catholic church, still draped in streamers from the wedding, the darkened Madonna calmly gesturing out, the wind slipping through her fingers. Sloshing drunkenly opposite is the
sea.

  When the drumming begins on the roof of the cab, he feels it bodily. Each sound echoes deeply and distinctly, and for a moment he imagines they are mangoes falling. Only when the noise steadies to a constant thrum does he realise it’s what they have been waiting for all day, everyone here on Upolu – the start of the rain.

  Lewis slumps back and starts to snore.

  Chapter 16

  THE HYDROGRAPHER

  Even before it comes, Teuila can feel the rain. For her, December is always like this – a time of sea and sky melding, of lives emerging from and retreating into water, a return to the sea. It’s a sea that can’t be swept across, as the windsurfer of her memory did. It’s something to be weighed down by and suspended in, to – hopefully – survive.

  Almost three o’clock in the morning. She sits cross-legged on the blue-patterned floor outside her bedroom, waiting for him. It’s her father’s vestibule, a room without clutter. She has preserved it like this for nearly six years – an empty vessel, and all the better to harbour the stray souls of her memory and will. She feels suffused with the spirit of Sosimo now, full of the sweetness of his song and the strength of his limbs. It’s at this hour of the morning that she is most comfortable in her skin: I desire only him.

  Rising to her knees, she rolls out the fine mat that leans patiently by the door. She only has to give a little nudge for it to spread itself into the centre of the room. Slowly she gets up and begins to circle it. Fringed with red parakeet feathers, the mat is fine in every sense. The weave is almost imperceptible, but at a certain angle or when she stoops to lift a corner, the pandanus glows a dull gold with tiny pinpricks of light. Despite its fineness, when she sits down she can’t feel the hardness of the linoleum underneath.

  The mat was bought for Henry’s wedding and should carry a painful memory. Instead, when she stretches along it she feels she is floating. Down the length of her body she looks, down past her toes. As her eyes begin to water the rim of red feathers advances and retreats like blood welling.