Fishing for Stars (60 page)

‘And a very nice one for me too, Joseph. I apologise for not recognising your surname. I knew you only as a boy called Joseph, a very bright one as I recall Uncle Joe telling me at the time, but now you’re a big man. I’m glad I was able to help you and your brother, although, from what I hear from Nicholas, you’d have got here under your own steam.’

‘Please,’ Joseph said, indicating two chairs set out in front of his desk. ‘Lily, bring tea, hey!’ he called, before seating himself behind his desk.

The office was humid and a desultory ceiling fan stirred rather than cooled the torpid afternoon air. The sound of a truck banging over potholes filtered through the dusty pink louvres, momentarily drowning the laughter and the snatches of singing from a group of islanders we’d seen squatting in the shade under the wide eaves of the building.

‘You’ve read the contract, of course, so I’ll be brief.’ I explained that Anna was representing the
zaibatsu
, the Japanese syndicate interested in procuring a fishing licence and establishing a joint venture, and that she would explain further shortly. Then I proceeded briefly to outline the aspects of the proposed deal we – that is Joe, Kevin Judge and I – would be responsible for, in particular the fish factory.

Lily then brought tea (milky and too sweet), and I sat back and let Anna get on with her presentation and was again struck by her calm, forthright negotiating manner. I noted that her voice had an almost hypnotic quality, assured and convincing without ever appearing overenthusiastic, strident or honeyed. ‘The Japanese are keen to be seen as partners rather than as foreign exploiters,’ she said evenly, not stressing the last two words so that they passed almost unnoticed, although I knew they wouldn’t be. ‘They are conscious that their reputation has been damaged by their behaviour during the war and they want to emphasise that they come as friends and equals.’

‘Equals?’ Joseph said quickly. ‘I notice there is a difference of one per cent in the two shares . . .’

Anna smiled. She had been correct about Fitzgerald. ‘It seemed reasonable as my client is supplying all the capital to build the infrastructure for the project as well as supplying the pole and line fishing boats and the equipment for the cannery and freezing works.’

‘With a general fishing licence this might be reasonable,’ Joseph said evenly. ‘But did you not request an
exclusive
licence to fish our coastal waters?’

‘Yes, that’s correct, and if this requires equal shares I feel sure my client will understand,’ Anna said in an accommodating voice.

‘Thank you,’ Joseph Minusi said quietly. ‘I will await their decision.’

Later Anna would explain that she’d already settled on a fifty-fifty deal before she’d left Japan. ‘It was just a little leverage I built in, a bonus if you can get away with it, but invariably you can’t. Everyone wants a little something extra. My grandfather had a Dutch saying about negotiating – I think he claimed it was Jewish – “Always remember to leave a little salt on the bread,” he’d say.’

At the conclusion of Anna’s presentation Joseph turned to me. ‘Nick, what locations have you considered for the harbour and the cannery building?’

‘Ah, obviously we haven’t made a detailed survey, but several good locations spring to mind, pending your decision of course. Why? Do you have a suggestion?’

I waited. Nothing had changed and I hadn’t expected it would. He paused for effect. ‘I think Noro would be a particularly good choice for the building of just such a large project.’

I grinned to myself. ‘Your people, eh?’

Joseph didn’t even look embarrassed. ‘Yes, my father is the paramount chief in the area and if you should choose Noro I can guarantee the project will have the government’s full support.’

‘This will need the support of your Department Secretary though, won’t it?’ I now saw clearly why Joseph had taken the project to Gerald Fitzgerald.

‘Of course,’ he said, not batting an eye.

‘And you’re confident?’

‘Extremely,’ he assured me with a shrug.

Later Anna would tell me that it hadn’t been necessary to ask Joseph if he was confident he had the approval of the Department Secretary. ‘You were gilding the lily, Nicholas, and besides, it was almost patronising.’

‘Hang on!’ I protested. ‘What about that friendly hands across the sea bit, remorseful partners and not foreign exploiters? That was spreading it on pretty thick!’

‘Nicholas, Nicholas, have you ever heard of James Thompson, the extreme leftwing professor of business studies at Auckland University where Joseph studied? No, of course not. Thompson constantly brainwashed and indoctrinated his island students about the iniquities of their exploiting colonial masters and the rapine of the islands by big business, French, British and Australian. Joseph practically purred when I came out with that little gem!’

‘Oh, so you did know who he was when he first greeted us?’

‘Of course.’

‘And all those years back, with the scholarships? You knew then?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Nicholas. I was simply casting my net for future stars. They won’t all make it. When you’re fishing for stars even some very bright ones fall through the net. I got lucky with Joseph. I’m also keeping an eye on Wilson, his brother. Not quite as bright, but ambitious and a good accountant.’

‘But how did you know he’d gone on to university and was now in the government over here?’

‘When you mentioned his name and told me to send the contract ahead, I looked up my list.’

‘List? You keep a list?’

Anna nodded. ‘I make it my business to follow their educational progress and their careers. Joe keeps me in touch, lets me know what’s needed. Who do you think paid his scholarship to Auckland University?’

I guess I’m never going to make the big league. My life has too much immediate action and not sufficient forethought. ‘Humph. I personally felt I’d handled it all rather well in there,’ I lamented.

‘You did, Nicholas,
almost
all of it.’

‘Now who’s the one being patronising?’ I grinned, knowing I was never going to win.

The day wasn’t quite over. We were duly picked up at six o’clock by Gerald and his plump, no-nonsense wife Maggie, who was equally loved by the locals. In the car on the way to the Resident Commissioner’s house, the Department Secretary said casually, ‘Nick, I think the Commissioner and his lady wife would very much like to visit Japan.’

Anna didn’t even pause to take a breath. ‘Of course! The Japanese Government will be honoured to welcome his delegation, and I do hope you and Maggie can find the time to go, too. Perhaps Joseph? And I daresay there will be several others who are necessary to finalising the negotiations. You may have to put up with a day or two of formal welcoming, but after that, perhaps a week of sightseeing? Though it’s starting to be a little cool at the moment. I recommend somewhere around, but not before, April – cherry blossom time. Let me know and I’ll make the necessary arrangements with the Imperial Hotel. Any personal shopping will be at your own expense, of course, but I’m sure you can leave the rest in my care. I speak adequate Japanese and I’ll enjoy being your guide.’

Well, I guess there’s something to be said for negotiating a deal with a man recovering from an acute angina attack who is captive in a hospital bed in Tokyo. Anna would have anticipated all the necessary protocol and negotiated it with Konoe Akira and he, in turn, would have dealt with the Japanese government. By the time we’d returned from the Resident Commissioner’s home it was game, set and match; the rights to a five-year exclusive fishing licence for the territorial waters controlled by the Solomon Islands together with an automatic renewal clause appeared to be all but certain.

Now, looking back, I can only sigh wistfully. A few free overseas trips, a couple of posh hotel suites and expensive dinners were all that was necessary sometimes for any agreement. They were the days when basically honest and disinterested administrators would assess a proposal on its merits and always in the interest of the majority of the locals. Now, as I write this, they have been replaced for the most part by a bunch of greedy indigenous political thugs who won’t consider anything unless there is a significant cut from any deal for them, be it mammoth or minnow. Today, on any of the self-governing islands in the South-west Pacific, you couldn’t hope to open a roadside chicken brazier without a politician or a nepotistic civil servant getting his cut on the chicken, the charcoal and a rent for the shade under the poinciana tree.

The likes of Joseph Abraham Minusi and most of the earlier island politicians who tried to work for the benefit of their own people are all but gone. Joseph, for instance, died on a civil service salary at the age of forty of a stroke, some claimed brought on by overwork and disillusionment.

Perhaps I am becoming reactionary in my old age, but Joe and I were so very keen on independence. In our opinion, with a few honourable exceptions, the islands were full of jumped-up white men earning too much and doing too little for it while they looked down their noses at the indigenous people, who we honestly believed deserved better and would do better on their own for their own people. Nobody has a monopoly on brains and Uncle Joe Scholarships were meant to create a lively and intelligent population. Nobody worked harder than Joe to bring it about. A black bloke born in the South, he knew what it was like to be regarded as inferior. If they ever make a model of a good man, they are going to use Joe as the template.

However, at dinner recently Joe lamented, ‘Nick, if yoh converted all da aid and da handouts into cash and loaded it onto one dem landing craft we bought for salvage and left it on da beach, any beach, on any island state, in twelve months all dat money gonna be in da hands of da same folk. Ain’t gonna be no paint foh schools, money foh books, food foh kids, med-dee-sin in da clinics, running water in da village, no pay foh nurses, teachers, doctors.’ He sighed a special heavy Joe sigh. ‘I ain’t got no patience lef’ for da muth’fuckers running da islands. Saffron, she gonna go live in Australia, ain’t no use her stayin’ in New Guinea no more. It fucked, man! Da rascals, dey running da streets and da politicians, dey got dere hand in ever’ pocket. She cain’t make no diff-fer-rence, like she brought up to do. Me, I gotta stay, I’m Uncle Joe. I cain’t walk away from mah people. I gonna cry just thinkin’ ’bout mah poor kanaka people, man!’

Right from the very beginning Anna had seen little or no value in starting a business in the islands. She had a number of sound reasons for this decision, the foremost being that she didn’t want a partnership with me, or the three of us. She also claimed that unless the business was self-contained and earned most of its income on the islands, such as our shipping line and the building and employment company she’d enabled us to create, a venture manufacturing for export simply wouldn’t work. The reasons she gave for this were that labour was unskilled, the infrastructure inadequate, the shipping unreliable and the position of any of the islands too remote. While she’d toyed with the idea of mineral exploitation in New Guinea, the big Australian companies such as BHP were already there and she couldn’t hope to compete, although, I would eventually discover, she held a large bundle of shares in Bougainville Copper Limited, for many years the world’s richest gold and copper mines.

But all this changed in 1975 when Anna finally persuaded Gojo Mura to move from Japan to the New Hebrides. The little artist had kept faith with
Fuchida-san
and painted the two hundred and thirty-seven specimens for the yakuza boss’s
Butterflies of Japan
, a major entomological study that brought the
oyabun
a great deal of credit among butterfly collectors throughout the world, as well as legitimate status among the Japanese scientific community and finally a major natural-science award from the Japanese government.

Anna visited Japan at least twice every year on business and after a couple of visits managed to persuade Gojo to visit the island, where he stayed with me for a month at Beautiful Bay, spending each day collecting and painting insect specimens.

Despite being employed as
Fuchida-san
’s resident artist, Gojo Mura had never settled down in his own country. The many years as a ghost had left an indelible mark on him and he continued to feel alienated and a stranger in his own country. The initial visit became an annual event, and when he’d completed painting
Fuchida-san
’s Japanese butterflies Anna persuaded him to move permanently to the island by creating a small silk-screen business producing sarongs, T-shirts and silk scarfs for the tourists beginning to come to Port Vila in increasing numbers.

Gojo’s beautiful butterfly designs were an instant success and Anna, never able to leave a good thing alone, initially took a dozen hand-painted butterfly scarves to her designer boutiques in the Ala Moana Mall in Honolulu, where she priced them as couture items under the fashion label Gojo. They sold out almost instantly. She then bought from Germany the machinery to set up a small textile plant to create butterfly prints on silk which were sent to a designer house in Paris to be made up into evening gowns and as the lining of couture garments. These were sold in her Honolulu outlets, initially to wealthy American and Japanese tourists. By limiting distribution to Honolulu and Paris the Gojo label soon acquired a reputation among high-fashion cognoscenti.