A Trader's Tale
pp. 40-41 · Read in the full issue
Cocktails on March 21
By “Tukapa Koko"
WHEN “Wilkie”, veteran of two former wars, teller of innumerable tales of hairbreadth escapes and mortal com bat, left our island of Mangaia to taste again the sweets of civilisation, I quite expected his firm to close up the local branch, with a dreary cry of “What’s the use?”.
They didn’t. The hope that sprang eternal in the firm’s corporate breast in spired them to send over a new manager —not another “Wilkie”, but albeit a war veteran also—a personality as different from “Wilkie’s” as chalk from cheese.
The new incumbent was a rum old bird; solemn, incongruously bedight in lumber-jacket and drill shorts, sneaker shod, he first swam into my astonished ken en route from his store to the post office. He did not walk; he proceshed, head up, ambling with the dignity of a zoo penguin marching to the manger.
We got acquainted. His name, a highly aristocratic one, precluded familiar salu tation. But I christened him The Old Bloke, and he smote me not, wherefore I judged that my thrown-out cap fitted, and it remained on.
We met often for discussion, for The Old Bloke was a man of original mind though his philosophy was founded more on the school of Schopenhauer and Jere miah than that of Mr. Mark Tapley.
He would declaim; he would thump the counter in vigorous denunciation of those things he was not pleased to approve; the play of his features was as entertaining as his discourse. He would alternately grin and grimace with wrath at his wrongs and pride at his wit, as some particularly bon mot came to birth; and it seemed as if I, humble competitor, was the ac coucheur of my exalted fellow-trader’s travailing wit.
In my absence, he had no converse With that face-sharpening co-wise-cracker that his caustic humour demanded. He was clown to an empty circus. He could not speak native. And, indeed, had be been able to do so, I know no Maori dialect equal to the strain of carrying the peak-load of that mixture of crusti ness and bitter jest.
In appearance, The Old Bloke was— well, distinctive. He was triangular at all points; his sharp nose, his small, stubborn, stubbly chin, his sloping forehead, adorned with fast-vanishing grey hair— he resembled a bold, pugnacious kangaroo.
In trade, he was all that went with his bold pugnacious ’roo-looks; he could sell you anything you didn't want on the magic of his sales-talk alone.
A day in the merry month of March brought relief to Mangaia. For the twenty first day of the month is the official end of the hurricane season. If no destructive wind occurs up to that date, it will not occur after. To those with anything to lose, the passing of hurricane-days with out a hurricane is an occasion for joy.
Hoarded liquor-supplies, niggardly rationed by a paternal Administration, are on the night of March 21, recklessly squandered.
The evening of the great day was moon lit and fair, and Teremoana and I were at home. The oil-lamp-light was golden, mellow, within the hut. I read; Teremoana sewed.
Came a knock at the door; a voice, thickly jovial, calling “Anyone home?”.' I opened the door.lt was company: The Old Bloke, still in lumber-jacket and shorts, bearing gifts. Under one arm he held a bottle; under the other a square tin, obviously the sarcophagus of biscuits.
Approaching, his breath would have motivated a schooner-engine.
He was not alone. Mrs. Old Bloke, a most slashing young lady, decades younger than her mate, was with him.
He put the bottle and the tin on the table, and at my invitation the pair took seats.
The Old Bloke opened the bottle, and vociferously insisted that I get glasses and drink to the departed hurricane season. Teremoana, devout native Church member, viewed the bottle and glasses with some apprehension, for female Mangaia may not be gay within the fold of Salvation—may not even appear to be being about to be gay.
The Old Bloke, with piratical oaths, in sisted on our being gay. The pinkish fluid in the bottle, designated cocktail, was forced on us, and it set an ember to our lips. At least, that seemed to be the Old Bloke’s intention.
We sang not; neither did we scream with joy. The liquor, a hell-brew made out of sour orange-juice, rum, and onions, flavoured with the juices of other citrus fruits that could have been used as acid soldering-flux, surpassed in nastiness the recollections of a lifetime’s nightmares.
The Old Bloke was annoyed. He would not hear of a refusal. We drank again, and the grimaces of Teremoana were as sandpaper to his aesthetics, for this was his own special cocktail, learned in the States, in which he was well pleased.
We weren’t! And it was impossible to conceal the fact.
The Old Bloke was more annoyed.
Calling us “a dead bunch”, he pressed us into procession with him round the houses, resuming his burden of bottle and tin.
Mrs. Old Bloke made perfunctory con demnation of her spouse’s condition. He be-swore her, and we, thus warned, offered no resistance.
He, and we, went first to the big store of the other major firm. Its manager was in bed, and blasphemously announced his intention of staying there.
We, and the Old Bloke, went to the radio-station. “Makoni” desired not cock tails. There was but one more port of call —the minor store of Mr. and Mrs. Free man. The Old Bloke, listing slightly to starboard, took us there. As we came to the door, open and emitting lamplight, I thought I heard a fierce whisper— a hiss, rather —followed by a weary male exclamation of “Oh, God!”.
Here, again, was no demand for cock tails a la Old Bloke.
The Old Bloke weakened; became first vociferous, then lachrymose, then drowsy.
We got him home to his own store quar ters, and to bed.
The Twenty-First of March had passed without a hurricane; but I, safely back home and receiving the Rounds of the Kitchen at midnight, opined that one storm had only stepped aside to make room for another, and worse.
The Old Bloke, recovering conscious ness and sobriety some hours later, had occasion to reach the same conclusion.
O Tlachtecolotl, Princess of Mexico, bestower on explorers of a mixed drink that has made thy name immortal, what reversed blessings did I not that night call down upon thee!