Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [48]
2 May 1835
With the wind beginning to blow our way, Capt. Drinkwater has spent the day busying his men and readying the masts and rigging of the Caroline. He is keen to leave this idyllic port, as he and his officers have had to keep a tight rein on the less than Christian members of his crew – more sailors romanced on the erotic tales of Cook in Tahiti – who have rarely been far from the Tongan maidens. ‘It has been like asking children to stand in a sweet shop with their hands in their pockets,’ he confessed.
Though I have not written for a week, I should keep this entry brief, as before sunset I have to instruct the Rev. Thomas once more, now an exemplary student who has made rapid progress since our arrival, surpassing both the Rev. Collins and his able wife as a speaker of Fijian.
3 May 1835
Next port of call, Fiji! With a favourable wind we are but two days from the southern tip of my kingdom.
A great many Tongans came to sing us off, the hymns reverberating around the bay and keeping all on-board in quiet reverence until their fading.
4 May 1835
My hand trembles like a leaf. I can barely write knowing that the next rock to jut from this glittering sea will be Lakemba, my home, the land of my mother and father.
5 May 1835
Almost ten years since I left her shores, after a voyage around the globe and back, with a new language upon my tongue, and an old God above my head, I return to Fiji.
We have anchored just beyond the reef system, as the capt. will not sail any closer until he has made certain the dangers of the waters. And of my people. Therefore it has been decided that myself, Revs Thomas and Collins, along with six crewmembers, will row ashore in the pinnace.
With his eyeglass extended, the capt. informs me that he can see hundreds running back and forth across the sands ‘naked but for their glinting muskets, bows and arrows, and masks. No, not masks. Faces, painted as red as blood or as black as tar’.
We will land, with I as foreign as my passengers, the uninvited guests. I must sing out our welcome before an arrow of fear pierces my chest.
Stolen Car
Jimmy walked into the services. He hovered between the rows of snacks. He slipped two king-size Mars Bars and a pack of Ritz biscuits into his inside pocket before going to the counter for a box of matches.
‘How much is that?’
‘Thirty pence, please.’
‘Thirty p. for matches?’ He said it like she was wrong.
The girl stared. ‘Where else you gonna buy ’em?’
Jimmy gave her a pound and thought about taking a pack of Polos off the counter. The girl quickened in her turn and he moved his hand away as though he was touching to check they were real.
His body flinched in the sharpened wind. He felt the wetness of his trainers and weighted clothes. He walked to the south exit through the truck park, passing between hulks of trailers streaked and blackened with spray and rain.
A man was already waiting at the exit with a cardboard sign that said: Bedford Please. Jimmy walked to the top of a small bank and squatted on his haunches. He took out the pack of Ritz biscuits and ate them two or three at a time, watching cars accelerate up the slip road. He then ate a Mars Bar and saved the other for later. His clenched hands were pulled inside his sleeves and pushed hard into his pockets. He was motionless in the wind, and waited beneath a small and leafless tree. Passengers who saw him on the bank stared. He looked too young to be standing out in the rain on the edge of the M1.
When the other hitcher got into a car he actually turned and looked around to Jimmy. He turned as though Jimmy had called out his name even though he had not.
Next, an orange, rusting Metro pulled up. A small man in his late fifties, dressed in a cord blazer beckoned Jimmy into his car as though they were part of a getaway. Jimmy hesitated, looked again at his frailty and size and opened the door.
He regretted getting in the moment the door shut. There was a faint smell of shit, and although not filthy, nothing had