The Wedding Party (19 page)

I seemed to see Lady Sarah, sensational and dominant, as her new figure-head.

A week later I walked back to the boat on a cool, showery afternoon on the chance of having another word with Poop-Deck.

Under the late cloudy August skies the leaves of the poplars above the river banks were full of fretful chatter and beneath them
The Other Eden
presented a sad and surprising sight. She was lying half-submerged, slightly keeled over, in the middle of the river.

While I stared at this melancholy sight, still unable quite to realise that my chance of sharing Captain Poop-Deck's paradise had gone for ever, a dinghy appeared from behind the half-sunken stern. In it was Skilly.

He rowed ashore.

‘Hullo, there, Skilly. Salvaging the wreck?'

‘Oh! it's you, sir.' He picked up from the bottom of the dinghy a very tired-looking bundle of clothing wrapped in
newspaper. He looked more than ever like an old lag starting out on a new life, though not very enthusiastically, after a long stretch. ‘Just saving a few duds. All I got in the world.'

‘What happened?'

Skilly, dropping the lid of one beery eye, answered with sublime simplicity.

‘We was launching her, sir, and she just went down.'

‘Somebody pull the plug?'

‘Not saying about that, sir.'

‘Not the bo'sun by any chance?'

‘Not saying about that, sir.'

I stared across at the wreck, thinking once again of my dream of her figure-head.

‘Was Lady Sarah aboard at the time?'

‘Aye, aye, sir. Very much so, sir. Her and the Captain got as thick as thieves in no time.'

Musing briefly on the appropriateness of this expression I asked if the Captain was about today?

‘No, sir. Not about.'

‘Any idea where I could get in touch with him?'

‘No, sir. No idea. Rather fancy he's gone on a little holiday with Lady Sarah somewhere.'

‘And the bo'sun?'

‘Couldn't say about her, sir.'

‘And Number One?'

‘Couldn't say about her either, sir.'

After a short silence Skilly hitched up his drooping bag of bones and looked at me with eyes moist with infinite
pleading. I looked back at him with a fairly solemn compassion.

‘Haven't got the price of a pint, I suppose, sir?'

I gave him the price of a pint and he touched his cap and said:

‘Bless your 'eart, sir. Thanks a lot. May you always have jolly good 'ealth and jolly good luck, sir, and all that.'

‘And plenty of melon and salmon mayonnaise and all that.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘And fresh pineapple and cream and guavas and bread-fruit and the milk of the coconut.'

‘Aye, aye, sir. I know what you mean.'

After that I didn't hear of Captain Poop-Deck again for about a year. Then an advertisement in a Sunday paper caught my eye.

It invited you to become a bond-holder in
The Elysian Vineyards Trust. ‘Own your own vines on the very slopes where the Romans grew theirs. Drink your own delicious vintage wine in your own home
.'

The scheme, I discovered, was not only one of entrancing simplicity. It also bore the unmistakable imprint of Poop-Deck. You merely invested in units of twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five or a hundred pounds and in return were allotted an appropriate area of vines. There was no work to do. The staff of trained viticulturalists on the
Elysian Vineyards Trust
did all the work. They bought, planted, pruned and sprayed
the vines. They picked, harvested and pressed the grapes. They saw to the fermenting, bottling and dispatching of the wine. A unit of twenty-five pounds would provide you with a bottle of wine every day of the year, a unit of fifty pounds with two bottles per day per year, and all you had to do was stay at home and drink them.

And not only did you sup as the Romans did, on the wines of the Elysian fields. The vines and the good earth on which they grew were yours, without strings, in perpetuity, for ever.

Across plates of raw fish, steaming dishes of sucking pig, crabs and liver, fried plantain, curries of prawn and fresh-water shrimp, bowls of bread-fruit, sweet-potatoes and rice, Mr Pilgrim raised his gin glass to me and looked over the edge of it with his pink, under-cooked eyes.

‘Those fellows in Africa have the right idea,' he said. ‘They're out to keep Africa for the white man.'

‘Pass the bread-fruit, Freddy,' Linda said, ‘and stop yattering.'

Mr Pilgrim ignored the request for bread-fruit and picked up a rib of sucking pig, warm fat dripping from his fingers. The girl named Linda, splendidly American in rose-coloured shorts, blue silk shirt and a peach-yellow hibiscus in her fair hair, leaned across me, took the bread-fruit dish and said:

‘How are you doing? Don't you like bread-fruit? Try some raw fish.'

‘Take the Chinks,' Mr Pilgrim said. ‘You're interested in people.' He waved the rib of sucking pig at me, dropped it on his plate and picked up another. ‘Take the Chinks, now. Here in Tahiti—'

‘Anybody ready for wine?' a man said. His name was George. He was tall, with a head like a bald domed white
rock and a shirt of orange and purple design that fell outside his copper-coloured trousers. ‘Speak up. Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake. Where's Bill Rockley?'

‘Entertaining his new
vahini
,' Linda said.

‘Who said? Who said? What
vahini
is this?' George said. ‘Since when? Who told you?'

‘Coconut radio!' a dozen voices said. ‘Coconut radio!'

Everybody sucked at pig-bones, laughing.

‘Anybody seen her? What's she like?' George said. He moved down the long table of food, pouring red wine into tumblers. ‘Gentleman over there, I've forgotten your name. Have some wine? Like the sucking pig? I'm so sorry I've forgotten your name.'

‘Matthews.'

‘Call him Morgenthau,' a girl said. She was pert, dark, quick-tongued. ‘We all call him Morgenthau. He came on the plane with us, didn't you, Morgenthau? He lends us money, don't you, Morgenthau?'

‘Well—'

Shyly the young man called Morgenthau, blushing a little, was trying to cut a rib of sucking pig with his knife and fork.

‘Saved our lives, Morgenthau did, when the banks weren't open,' the pert, quick-tongued girl said.

‘Where are you from, Mr Morgenthau?' Mr Pilgrim asked.

‘New Zealand, but—'

‘Take the Chinks here,' Mr Pilgrim said. ‘You come from a white country, Mr Morgenthau. You don't need to be hit
over the head with a sledge-hammer to see which way the wind is blowing, do you?'

‘I actually work in Fiji—'

‘Another example!' Mr Pilgrim said. ‘Worse if anything. Take the Indians in Fiji—'

‘I wonder where Bill Rockley is?' Linda said. ‘Bill is fun. I miss Bill.'

‘He'll be here,' George said. ‘He knows about the sucking pig. Come to that, where's that man of yours? Where's Henry?'

‘Must you ask?' she said. ‘Somewhere between here and Bora-Bora. As usual. With that damned out-board put-put. Catching tuna. One day a shark—'

‘Reminds me,' a man said. He was hairy-chested, but otherwise bald too. His open shirt was sulphur yellow, with a design of green sword-fish across it. His slacks were pale blue, the top buttons of the front undone, letting his paunch protrude.

Beside him sat a thin, blank-eyed Tahitian girl drinking gin. She did not, I noticed, eat very much. Sometimes she took up a rib of sucking pig, held it absent-eyed for a time in her fingers and then, equally absent-eyed, gave it to the man beside her. She did not look young and the listless skin of her face, something the colour of old, faded straw, was deeply pock-marked.

‘Reminds you of what?' George said. ‘Don't be so damned secretive. Don't feed the animal, Marcelle, if he won't talk.'

The girl, Marcelle, did not smile.

‘I hear the new
vahini
comes from Bora-Bora, that's all. I don't know, I just heard—'

‘Where from? Who said?'

‘Coconut radio again!' they all said. ‘Coconut radio!'

‘Everywhere this same pattern,' Mr Pilgrim said to me, ‘is manifesting itself. Have some raw fish? Try the shrimps – the shrimps are delicious. Take the Indians in Fiji. Eh, Mr Morgenthau, you know all about the Indians in Fiji. What were they, fifty, sixty years ago?'

‘Coolies mostly. Indentured labour—'

‘Exactly. And what are they now? Rich. Prosperous. Prolific as flies. Outnumbering everybody.' He helped himself to large portions of raw fish and curried prawns. ‘And the Chinks. Take the Chinks. Not only here in Tahiti, but in Honolulu. In San Francisco. And the Japs. Take the Japs in San Francisco. Three generations back—'

‘How long have you been here, Mr Morgenthau?' a voice said. ‘Your first visit?'

‘Well, just—'

Mr Morgenthau blushed, still trying to cut ribs of sucking pig with his knife and fork, and looked mildly and shyly about him.

‘Mr Morgenthau's too wild!' someone said. ‘He needs taming. Can't we get him a
vahini?
What about it, Mr Morgenthau? Stay here and settle down and pick yourself a nice
vahini
.'

‘What exactly,' Mr Morgenthau said, ‘is a
vahini?
'

Mr Pilgrim, who was now cracking crabs' claws, took advantage of the rising gust of laughter to turn round,
screen his mouth with one arm and address me confidentially.

‘You know, I suppose, that among themselves they are largely infertile?' he said. ‘You appreciate that?'

‘No, I hadn't—'

‘The Tahitians I mean. These girls. With whites, even with Chinese, right as rain.' Already very flushed, his eyes cooked to a deeper, moister pink, he reached out, took up a bottle and poured himself more wine. ‘But among themselves – phut!'

‘If Bill doesn't hurry soon,' someone said, ‘there'll be no more sucking pig.'

‘The real truth is of course,' Mr Pilgrim said, and again he addressed me confidentially, cracking a crab's claw, ‘that the whole place is ruined. Travesty. You hear all this talk about the paradise? The paradise has gone, old boy. It's finished. They've ruined it completely.'

‘You mean the whites?'

‘Not the whites. Good God, the French.'

Large dishes of glowing water-melon, frosty-pink, came down the table, followed by pineapple, banana and passion-fruit. Mr Pilgrim, though not yet finished with crabs, chose a passion-fruit and began to press it to his lips, giving it quick sucking kisses.

‘How do they strike you?' he said. ‘What's your honest opinion? Looks, I mean.'

‘Some are nice.'

‘But on the whole? Disappointing, wouldn't you say?'

‘Not disappointing,' I said. ‘Only lost. Only very sad.'

‘Sad? Perhaps you're right,' Mr Pilgrim said. He sucked
loudly at his fruit. ‘Though that doesn't alter—'

‘Bill!' someone shouted. ‘Bill!' everyone began to say. ‘Bill! Where were you? What happened? Don't tell! – we know. Everybody knows—'

‘Can't a man keep anything to himself?—'

‘Coconut radio again!' they all shouted. ‘Coconut radio!'

‘For those who don't know this fellow already,' George said, ‘this is Bill Rockley.'

A sombre, tallish man, brown, dark-haired, looking a little more than forty, smiled down the table and said, ‘Hullo' several times. His shirt was blue-black check and this, perhaps, together with a dark moustache, made him seem older than he was.

‘Like to introduce Michele to everybody,' he said. ‘Everybody – Michele.'

The girl who stood beside him smiled down at us with wide dark eyes. Her hair was plaited. It fell over her bare shoulders in two thick blue-black ropes, reaching below her hips. She was perhaps fourteen or fifteen and under the vermilion hibiscus-pattern of her pereu her breasts were beautiful, taut and high. With shyness and grace she stood with one knee gently overlapping the other, one hand fingering the yellow hibiscus in her hair.

‘Fine!' George said. ‘Get the man some sucking pig.'

Grinning rinds of melon were now littered about the table. Mr Pilgrim helped himself to another passion fruit. The shy Mr Morgenthau fingered the last of his pig's bones. Mr Pilgrim, unable to focus his reddening eyes correctly on the passion fruit, bit it at one edge, squirting juice, flesh and
seeds down his chin. And then, as music suddenly flooded about the room, the pert, dark, quick-tongued girl laughed and shouted:

‘Good, a record. Marvellous. I love that tune. I adore that Tahitian tune. Isn't somebody going to dance? Mr Pilgrim, dance with me!'

Mr Pilgrim, his chin still covered with passion fruit, staggered to his feet for dancing.

‘Good idea!' Linda said. ‘Morgenthau! Dance with me! Lend me your arms!'

Soon everybody was dancing. Even the shy Mr Morgenthau was dancing.

Only the girl with the yellow hibiscus in her hair and myself were left at the table, staring at the wreckage of pigs' ribs, the grinning rinds of melon, the crabs and their claws.

Inspired by Bates's trip to Tahiti in 1954, ‘The Sugar Train' describes a married couple with very antithetical personalities, observed through the eyes of a man stalled at an airport rest-house. First published in the
Evening Standard
in 1955, ‘The Sugar Train' now joins a cast of eccentric and contrasting characters in the
The Wedding Party
collection.

In the steamy sweat-box of the little airport rest-house Mrs. Meredith looked as neat, fresh and clean as a porcelain doll in a baker's oven. Her white and pink striped dress looked as dainty as if she were welcoming guests to an English garden party in June. ‘I'm afraid the airplane for Tahiti will be at least two hours late,' she said. ‘She's coming in on three.'