Rotuman Afternoon

By "Amel"

IT was supposed to be my afternoon. I and it planned, and the idea was that we would walk to lovelv Lulu beach haunt of picnickers, goal of hikers—three miles away, where we would sit on the sa nd and look at the shells and crabs. _,F n til we had passed the Upu Catholic Mission, where one of the Sisters sat sewmg ,V nde £ the wee P in S tree, and Manly, where Mrs. Jacobsen waved from a window, and sundry villages whose inhabitants were mostly all asleep, it was m rnu er £ oon - , , Then Tom took over. “We go this way, he said, turning down a side track, ! knew he was wrong, but, in the manner ota dutiful wife, I followed him meekly, The road got muddier and muddier. The air was filled with the odour of pig sties and rotten oranges. We splodged along, “We are on the wrong road.” I said, gloomily, “the road to Lulu was never like this. We’ve walked thousands and thousands of miles, and still haven’t seen the tree with the passionfruit vine on it. Where’s Lulu?”

Tom said, “Never mind Lulu to-day.

Let’s go to this beach instead. I’ve never seen it.” And he shot off to the right, into a clump of pandanus, to look for a track down an apparently perpendicular cliff.

“I never want to see it.” I muttered. “I wanna go to Lulu!”

As I hate charging through pandanus— nasty, rooty, prickly stuff—l sat on a log, feeling very rebellious, and said, “Yell if vou find a track ” y ‘ Presently, he yelled—much to my disappointment—so I staggered along to see what he had found. His discovery could be truly described as a “tortuous path,” and down it we slithered and scraped.

But there was compensation for our effort. At the end of the path we found, in chronological order: A half-moon of land, backed by the high cliff, a fringe of white beach lapped by a crystal sea. a lovely view of frowning, forbidding,

fascinating Uea Island and, lastly, An tonio the Rotuman.

TMMEDIATELY on sighting us, Antonio 1. climbed a coconut tree and threw down two drinking nuts. He sliced the tops off them and. as we arrived panting and gasping, presented them to us. say ing, “Thev are not nice, but would you like a drink?” We disposed of them' in record time. Then we sat on this glorious beach and talked to Antonio, who in formed us that the beach and the land and everything on it. were his. He was very proud of it all. “Come and see my cow,” he invited. So we went and saw his cow—also its calf—also a bull, look ino- coyly over a stone fence Then Antonio said. “Foliow me,” and back we went up the tortuous path to where his horse was tethered. “Wait here.” he said. So we waited, while he climbed an orange tree and shook down a shower of fruit. Faster than we could eat them, he peeled them, apologising profusely for giving us such awful oranges. They were really delicious He insisted that we take a dozen home Antonia then said. “Come and I will show you my pig.” So we trotted in his wake, scaled the fence and admired the huge pig which ambled out of the forest and a te, with loud smacking noises, the coconuts that Antonio split with his knife. f™i led , US *. to 5- S Srdpn U ?nrt f frnm KWowfol , ru £. hls p/tw’ g ™ dei i hls u OUS I‘ Rather dazed, we staggered to a bench and sat down, while Antonio industriously peeled sugar cane, and saw that we ate it.

When the sun was setting, we left for home, with our hats full of oranges, our arms full of sugar cane and Antonio’s benedictions ringing in our ears, There could be no denying the fact that the afternoon had not been mine, after all. Nor had it been Tom’s. It had belonged solely, entirely and exclusively to Antonio.