Pollet's car shuddered around the corner of the main warehouses on the waterfront, scattering some native women who were vending melons and breadfruit. A bread‑
fruit rolled like an orange football until the car's rear wheel exploded it into a splatter of pips and water. The Belgian waved backwards in apology and then slowed and drew the car alongside Abe with all the elegance of a royal chauffeur. He smartly opened the rattly rear door for Conway and Davies.
'Gentlemen,' said Pollet, still formally. 'This is Mr Abe Nissenbaum. He'll take you across to St Paul's and look after you.'
'It's not my day to go,' shrugged Abe eloquently. 'But,
hell, I'll take you. Sure. And for just the normal rate. Not a shilling more. I'm like that.' He looked aggressively at Pollet for confirmation.
'Certainly,' agreed Pollet. 'He's like that. He won't charge you a shilling more.'
Davies looked with interest at the Jewish trader. He was a remarkable human specimen. His face was more gipsy than Jewish, Davies thought, and in this he was accurate since Abe claimed to be a Jewish gipsy. One of the few, he said. He was average in height and build, but from the middle of his body, thrusting out suddenly, dramatically, against all the laws of balance, was an extraordinary paunch. It was not the gradual mound of a well‑fed man, it wasn't the low‑slung belly of a woman with child, it was a balloon, an oval balloon, pushing straight flat out from under his ribs and having done a sudden downwards curve, diving straight back home for his pelvis.
Conway and Davies climbed into the big untidy motor boat. Abe remained on the jetty laughing and shaking hands with Pollet. Davies sat, uncomfortably. 'God knows what I'm doing here,' he grumbled. 'Mat's in this for me? It's you who wants to go over to the island.'
Conway tutted. 'Come on, boy,' he said. 'The natives over there are just screaming out for fresh butter and fats. I've been told.'
'Who told you?'
'Dahlia did. Last night.'
Davies looked at him doubtfully. 'You talked about butter and fats?'
'Some of the time,' admitted Conway modestly. 'We talked about the island and that's how it came up. You have to talk sometimes, you know. That's part of the game. It's no good just keeping screwing away and keeping your trap shut.'
'I don't need any lessons, thanks,' grunted Davies. 'I'm a married man, remember. I've done it all.'
Conway grinned. 'Oh, God help me, so you are. I forgot.'
Abe came down over the side of the jetty, his back to them. He was wearing a sweat shirt, blue trousers, and rope shoes. From behind he looked like a fit man. He turned, rather majestically, on reaching the deck, guiding his stomach with great care around a rope.
'I told you didn't I that it's not my day today for St Paul's. Next Friday, that's my day. But I'll take you. Aw hell, I don't care. I'm very good like that.'
'You mentioned it,' said Davies flatly. Abe didn't appear to notice.
The boat began tiredly, pushing with protest against the small flow of the sea into the harbour. But it seemed to stir itself as they made for the feathered reef, heeling in an elderly but graceful attitude as they met the run of the ocean coming through the gap in the coral.
'God is very thoughtful,' said Abe suddenly in the manner of a man beginning a set lecture. 'He's a good man. Good businessman, what's more. He thinks of everything. He makes a reef from coral to protect his interest, the island and the people and the things they make and buy and sell, and all that sort of thing. Then He arranges it so that the coral won't live in fresh water, and then He fixes a river to come into the sea at a certain place and to flow out and keep a gap in the reef so that people can get in and out. Now, that's ingenious. Just about as ingenious as, shall we say, sexual intercourse. That's a good business principle too. You want productivity so you get the people to enjoy what they're doing and you get the output. If we produced crops instead of babies by intercourse then nobody would be starving in the world, would they? There would be
plenty all round, and more. My God, this island would produce enough to feed half the Southern Hemisphere.'
'How long have you been here?' asked Davies. The boat was beginning to paw at the water as it met the inrush from the gap in the reef. He moved more to the centre of the wooden cross‑seat.
'Few years,' said Abe, squinting professionally at the two teeth of surf marking the extremities of the gap. 'I'm Jewish, you understand. A refugee.'
'Where from?' asked Conway, looking at the gap too. It seemed narrow and difficult, but Abe was leaning negligently on the wheel scratching the dome of his stomach.
'From Israel,' said Abe simply. 'I'm a refugee from Israel.'
Conway made a face at Davies.
'There ain't many of us,' agreed Abe. 'Jeeze if you knew what I did to get into that place. I got on board one of those clapped‑out freighters with millions of others, all crying for our homeland. And we went in, and the dirty British tried to drown us, and we waded ashore, and kissed the beach, and all that palaver. Aw, it was great, just like a movie. Women, half their clothes off, crying and carrying on and putting their arms around everybody because they'd arrived. I enjoyed myself, I can tell you. I admit it. I used to go down to that beach after that, quite a lot, waiting for the illegal migrant ships to come in. And when they did all these half‑naked women coming in on the waves, wading and swimming and falling. It was great because I used to wade out to help them and pull them in, and there were some great beauties among them too. Jeeze, you should have seen the tits on that beach. I used to really put myself into that. I liked the work.'
They had reached the mouth of the coral now, the external sea pouring through it, smooth and curved as a turquoise tongue, spreading out and flying away towards the harbour and The Love Beach which Davies could now see stretching along the eastern flank of the island, the landing barges piled like crates and boxes on the sand.
'That's The Love Beach,' said Davies to Conway.
98
'Like you said, it's a mess,' said Conway.
'Great opportunity for a scrap metal merchant there,' said Abe, not looking but pushing the motor boat expertly up the hill of the sea, and rolling it down the other side like a big dipper at a fairground. They were suddenly through the gap and into the open water. 'Unfortunately the civilization here has not advanced far enough for there to be a need of scrap metal merchants,' he shrugged. 'Good, that I should be around when it is. Still, you know they're going to get the Queen over there. They're going to have an Unknown Soldier's Grave and a chapel made from the landing barges. That will be homely.'
He seemed to remember something and dipped into a paper bag on the boards of the boat. 'My God,' he said, 'I'll forget my neck next, and otf will come my head. Take these and wear them on St Paul's. It makes you more welcome.' He handed to each of them a wooden crucifix, crudely worked, on a beaded loop. They took them suspiciously. 'Don't worry,' said Abe. 'It don't commit you to anything. Look, I wear one too. I always do, it makes it much safer even if you don't fight under them rules, if you see what I mean.' He hung his about his neck. They did the same. 'That's twenty‑five shillings each or fifteen Pacific francs, whichever you like,' he said. 'They're a bit cheaper today. To you anyway.'
'That's very Christian of you,' commented Conway.
Conway paid for them both. They sat feeling the sun burning now, for the sky had cleared, and the sea threw up the heat at them. Davies fingered his crucifix self‑consciously. 'There couldn't have been much of an outlet for this sort of trade in Israel,' said Davies.
'Exactly,' said Abe with conviction. 'No room for private expansion, enterprise, or anything like that. Take it from me ‑ if that was my people I'd rather be among some other people. I got into trouble because I was selling little building kits to the kids. Harmless things. "Build Your Own Wailing Wall" I called them. Instructive too. After all these children had never seen the Wailing Wall, and I thought this was helping in their education. But the old dead‑beats
didn't like it. And they've even buggered up the little trade idea now by getting the proper Wading Wall back into the country. Stolen from the Arabs.'
They could see the two other islands now, dull bruises on the brilliant sea. 'St Paul's,' commented Abe, nodding to the form rising on the port bow. 'St Mark's,' he added, looking over the silk sweep of the ocean to the other side. 'Yuk, it turns me, it really turns me. Surrounded by the New Testament all the time! You'd have thought those idiot sailors who found this place would have had more flair, more imagination. All right, have a few Christian saints. But what was wrong with Moses or Aaron or Hosiah, or one of those? My not, tell me?'
'They're called the Apostle Islands,' Davies pointed out.
'So they wasn't called that at the start. All right, call them the Bible Islands. Genesis, Deuteronomy, Leviticus...' He hesitated and considered. 'Yeah, Leviticus, and why not? It's a great book! Pity no great Jewish explorers got this far down.'
'How did you get here?' asked Conway. The questionn was over his shoulder. The Australian was watching the volcanic peak of St Paul's growing like a wickedly humped back.
'Stowed away in the end. Went down to Eilat, on the Red Sea, and tried to get on a ship there, but those Israeli bastards kept a watch so close, you would have thought it was money they were watching. So I walked along the beach and stepped over the wire and went across to Jordan, to Akaba, and ‑ just easy ‑ got aboard a Japanese tanker there.
'They were very good, very civilized, the Japs. I went to Yokohama and then down to Fremantle and then, in dribs and drabs, bits and pieces, up through the islands and this is where I am now. It's not much, but it's better than Israel.'
Conway said: 'Who is the boss over on St Paul's now? They have a kind of tribal chief, don't they, someone who speaks for the rest?'
Abe nodded. 'Sure, sure,' he said. 'The old one, Lazarus, died and they waited round for weeks for him to be risen from the dead. But he stayed dead, and he got more dead as the hot days went by, so they had to put him under. Big disappointment for them, though. The new chief is more nutty, really. He's called Joseph of Aritmathea, so for Christ's sake ask him to take you round his garden. He likes people to do that.'
Davies said: 'Do they ever get away? From the island I mean. Or do they stay there always?'
'One or two have been over to St Peter's, but they got frightened over there,' said Abe understandingly. 'The traffic and everything scared them. So they got back quick. When the war was on the Japs were wise enough to keep away from St Paul's. They had all the other islands at some time or another, but they left this little lot alone. The Americans didn't.
They
used it as a jump‑off for getting at the other islands. They brought stores, you know, gasoline and chewing gum and dirty books and all that stuff, and then this cargo cult ‑ this Dodson‑Smith thing started. The natives liked the good living and they're waiting for it all to come back again.'
Davies had never heard this before. 'They're what?' he asked. 'Waiting for who?'
'Dodson‑Smith,' said Abe. 'He's the new Messiah boy, and they've got a US army motor bike waiting up on that mountain for him to ride down in glory. Ha! There'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth that day.'
They
were heeling through the sliding sea towards the island's reef now. Conway spotted the copra hulk in the lagoon, almost identical with the old ship moored off St Peter's. He turned a half circle and looked at St Mark's sitting like a slug on the sea, four miles to the east.
'St Mark's?' he said.
'The same,' agreed Abe. 'Nice people. Not Christian mind, but nice. They never cause a niggle of bother, just live and die, tie their cocks up in banana leaves, so they look three times the normal size, and ‑ what else? ‑ oh yeah, collect the skulls of their ancestors. But nice and agreeable.'
Conway looked at Davies. 'Glad you came?' he asked conversationally.
'It's a lovely outing,' said Davies. 'Joseph of Arimathea, Christ on a motor bike, and all that rubbish, and the other buggers tying their dicks up in banana leaves. It's different to Newport.'
'What about the St Mark's copra ship?' asked Conway.
'In the lagoon, like this one,' said Abe. 'They're getting near being rotten now. Few years ago I sold them some stuff to stick in the leaks ‑ a mixture of sawdust and custard powder. I bought a job lot of the custard powder in Noumea and I got left with it on my hands, so I mixed it with the sawdust and brought it over and did the business. It's lasted very good, I think, but it must be wearing thin now.'
'Custard powder does,' agreed Conway. 'How long now?'
'Twenty minutes,' grunted Abe, suddenly seeming to lose his good humour at the passenger's impatience. 'It don't do to rush it here. But if you'd like to get her in a bit smarter, mister, then you're welcome to try.' He twirled his wooden crucifix as though cooling himself.
'Wouldn't dream of it,' said Conway unruffled. 'You know the road, friend, you take your time.'
'Thanks,' said Abe. He did some additional, largely unnecessary manoeuvres with the boat, to show how intricate the passage was. 'See the different coloured water,' he said in an immediately better humour. 'Blue, and deeper blue, nearly black, and then this green and the pretty blue‑green, and the nice fringe of white. Ah, it's a good place. Pity it ain't a tourist area. One day, maybe.'
'There's people on the beach,' said Davies. 'Running along.'
'They spotted us miles out,' said Abe. 'They're excited, see, because I've got a harmonium for them.'
'What have you got?' queried Conway, his face twisted sideways to hear.
'A little organ, you know ‑ a harmonium. Half a piano, half an organ. They
saw a picture in a missionary magazine I brought over a few months
ago. It had the preacher playing the thing, somewhere in Tahiti, and all the Christians standing around singing. The boys over here like that because they go in for a lot of hymn singing, and frankly it ain't much good. I know because I've heard it. They reckoned that if they could get one of these they would sing better.'