Rushing to Paradise Read online

  Neil stood up and climbed the stony path to the station.

  ‘Neil…?’ Recognizing him, she stepped forward, warily searching the forest trail. Accepting that he was alone, she at last treated him to the barest smile.

  Her face was sallow and toneless, but flared with a brief rush of colour as she took his shoulders. ‘I knew you’d come. How did you find me?’

  ‘I followed the albatross.’

  ‘I should have guessed - we’ve been together too long.’ Neil touched her frayed hair and scuffed forehead, nervous of the enlarged pupils that ranged across his face, and aware that she barely remembered him. She had washed herself in the stream, but he could almost taste her hands with their reek of blood and fat.

  ‘I looked for you all over Saint-Esprit, doctor. Every day for three weeks.’

  ‘I know. I saw you swimming between the sand-bars.’ Dr Barbara was still watching him in her unsettling way, as if she had spent too much time among the albatross and was waiting for his wings to unfurl themselves. ‘Have you told anyone I’m No never tell them.’ Good. It’s best for them not to know. Come in - you look as if you need to sit down.’

  She beckoned him into the cave behind the concrete chamber, Hiere her sleeping bag lay on a mattress of palm fronds. There as a primus stove, a satchel filled with food cans, a canvas stool id water bucket. These modest props formed a shabby tableau, like the den of a down-at-heel sorceress.

  ‘Sit there, Neil. I can see you’re tired.’ lDr Barbara’s black valise rested on the stool, a hypodermic vringe in a kidney dish beside it. She moved the syringe and lay down on the sleeping bag, adjusting her gaze to take in the long limbed adolescent who filled the cave like a gawky animal. To Neil she seemed alternately drained and flushed, as if she had decided not to throw off the effects of her fever, incubating some reserve infection that she might put to use.

  ‘Tell me, Neil - how is the sanctuary? Is Kimo still looking after the animals for you? I hope he’s feeding them every day.

  And Monique…?’

  ‘They’re fine, just about.’ Neil moved her idle hand from his knee. ‘Are you coming back, Dr Barbara? The sanctuary isn’t the same any more. They really need you.’

  ‘Do they? I’m not sure.’ She stared through the open doorway at the horizon, as if expecting to see the top-masts of an approaching vessel. ‘I wanted them to look ahead, to what the sanctuary might become, but I moved them too quickly.’

  ‘You were right, doctor. They just need more time - then they’ll understand.’

  ‘Time…?’ Dr Barbara felt for the syringe, reminding herself of its position. ‘We’ve wasted enough time as it is. The French will soon be here, Neil.

  They’ll want to take me with them.’

  ‘The French aren’t coming, doctor. Everyone thinks you’re still working in the clinic. You can stay at Saint-Esprit as long as ou like.’ 1 Dr Barbara roused

  herself, taking a closer interest in Neil.

  ‘I)idii’t the Andersons leave for Papeete? Their yacht’s still here, but I thought they had gone. They were so upset by that sad child…

  ‘They didn’t leave. David explained everything to them. If the French take you away from Saint-Esprit all the albatross will die.

  No-one’s said anything about Gubby, not even Trudi and Inger.’ Dr Barbara picked at an infected mosquito bite on her hand.

  She rested her head on the pillow of the sleeping bag and drowsily reached out to touch Neil, reassured that her retreat to this dismal cave had proved its point.

  ‘I’m sorry Gubby died. You were so fond of him. But he was really very handicapped.’

  ‘I know he was, doctor.’ Unsettled by her drugged calm, Neil tried to ignore the albatross that circled the weather-station, screaming over the bones. ‘Trudi hoped he might get better. I was teaching him to read. Still, one day he would have grown up.’

  ‘He would, Neil. That’s what the others refused to grasp.

  What sort of future waited for that little chap? He was an out-of time baby, born into a world without a future. Doctors often have to be unkind. Gubby was all they could think about - the sanctuary was turning into his cr che. You always

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  trusted me, Neil.’

  ‘I still trust you, Dr Barbara. Gubby couldn’t read, not properly. We all trust you, even old Major Anderson.’

  ‘The old Major…?’ Dr Barbara massaged the needle puncture on her left arm.

  ‘Sometimes it’s a mistake to be too old.

  I trust you, too, Neil - but I’m not sure if the others are strong enough.

  David and Kimo have worked hard, like Professor Saito, but they’ve started to fall ill, and soon they’ll be sick all the time, just as little Gubby was.’

  ‘We’re strong enough, doctor - you and I. We’ll run the sanctuary together.

  The others can go if they want.’

  ‘Neil…’ Touched by his na vet

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  , Dr Barbara pinched his cheek. ‘I’m too old

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  for you, sadly. You need younger women, even younger than Trudi and Inger.’

  ‘We can invite more people to Saint-Esprit,’ Neil explained, relieved that Dr Barbara was looking to the future. ‘Just announce that you want some extra volunteers - a lot of men will follow you here.’

  ‘One man is enough, Neil. A man with the right fever in the blood.’ Dr Barbara stared coolly at Neil. ‘In fact we need women more than men. Women work harder and survive on less.’

  They certainly do - Monique and Mrs Saito never stop)rking and hardly eat at all.’ 1 should have brought more women with me, but I had to make do with the men.

  lDr Barbara turned away from Neil. She had fallen asleep, one hand over the hypodermic syringe. Her flat voice worried Neil, and he tried not to look at the needle-marks on her arms, hoping that they were vitamin injections. She was thin and under nourished, her pallid skin the colour of the rare arctic mush rooms in Professor Saito’s plant laboratory. Despite her welcome, a distance had opened between them that he was eager to close. As she slept, blonde hair in the sweaty hollow of her pillow, he leaned forward and whispered: ‘lDr Barbara, I understand why you killed Cubby.

  An hour after dusk Dr Barbara woke refreshed from her sleep.

  She brushed the frayed hair from her forehead and tested her teeth, blue eyes taking in the darkened cave. Outside the weather-station a dozen albatross veered like flecks of flayed skin against a sky that seemed to be the back-projection of her threatening dreams. Neil had sat beside her, watching her recover her strength, heartened by her deep snores and the childlike puttering as she broke wind. He waved away the mosquitoes, and kept watch for any French patrol boat that might arrive.

  ‘Right, Neil… ‘ Dr Barbara sat up, taking control of her modest realm. ‘You must be hungry. ‘ Neil searched through the few cans in the satchel, squinting at the labels. ‘Ravioli, frankfurters… I can cook for you.’

  ‘Leave those, you need fresh meat. No time to fish now, so well go hunting.’

  1-lunting? There’s nothing to hunt.’

  ‘There’s everything to hunt, Neil. All kinds of game on Saint Esprit, as you’ll find out..

  Her sleep had transformed the lethargic hermit of the weather station into the determined Dr Barbara of the Dugong. She waited iiiipatiently as night settled over the island, striding up and down the parapet with the energy of a young woman.

  At last she hitched up her shorts, beckoned to Neil and set off along the path.

  Barely keeping pace with her nimble feet, Neil followed her down the steep hillside. She darted between the tamarinds, hacking at the fronds with her machete.

  They waded through the ferns towards the stream, following the narrow valley as it sloped through the forest to the beach. The camera-tower emerged from the restless shadows, the wind sighing through its observation slits.

  Neil stood beside the blood-dark graffiti as Dr Barbara bathed her face and shoulders
in the stream.

  ‘Good, let’s find our supper. ‘ She wiped the silver moisture from her forehead and grimaced at the obscene drawing of herself on the worn cement. ‘Ugly thing… I hope I’m a better doctor than an artist.’ She set out along the forest path below the disused aqueduct, barely visible only ten feet in front of him, strong shoulders feinting between the trees. Neil stumbled after her, glancing back at the graffiti on the tower and trying to understand Dr Barbara’s motives. She had killed the chicken, smearing its entrails on the wall in an attempt to provoke him, and then poisoned the water in the aqueduct with her ownexcrement.

  They stepped through the screen of palms beside the runway.

  Without pausing, Dr Barbara strode past the tents where the expedition members lay asleep. Steam rose from the distillation plant, a pale wraith floating on the shoulder of the wind. She paused to test the padlocked door of the clinic, and waved Neil towards the animal enclosures.

  ‘Wait here for me. Now, Neil, cock…? It’s always the best.’

  ‘What? Dr Barbara…?’

  ‘Cock or hen? Which do you want? Never mind..

  Machete in hand, she slipped through the wire and vanished into the darkness among the cages. Neil tried to calm the swaying fence and listened to the restive animals retreating into their lairs.

  He waited for a light to flare in the plant laboratory, certain that torch-beams would criss-cross the tents as Kimo roused the women.

  There was a brief flurry of feathers from one of the cages, the sound of talons desperately raking a plywood wall. Dr Barbara reappeared before Neil could part the wires for her. She stepped through the fence, blood dripping from her left hand. In the other she held the trembling body of a rare Mikado pheasant which a Taiwanese surgeon had dedicated to the sanctuary.

  Beneath the limp coxcomb its swollen eyes stared at Dr Barbara, is if recognizing her for the first time.

  Hunters and Lovers

  AS THE LAST EMBERS of the fire faded in the evening air, Dr Barbara sat forward on the canvas stool and blew at the glowing ash. Her strong face, so ruddy in the flames, became pale and unstructured as the dying charcoal drew the light into itself.

  Giving up any hope of reviving the fire, she wiped the fat from her chin and tucked the hypodermic syringe into its leather wallet.

  Neil sat on the floor beside her, sucking at the dark flesh of the pheasant, which reminded him of the over-ripe gamebirds he had so hated as a child. Dr Barbara had relished the meal, tearing apart the soft breast as if this was her treat of the day. Neil was still shocked by the way in which she had killed the creature, expertly wringing its neck. If the sanctuary was unable to protect the

  birds, what could it protect? Thinking of the hours he had spent feeding the endangered pheasant and cleaning out its pen, he realized that he had been fattening it for a midnight feast.

  As he lit the fire Dr Barbara had put her dissection-room skills to work, cutting off the head, feet and wings. She briskly eviscerated the bird, whose entrails still gleamed in a heap of mucilage beside the fire. The sight of blood seemed to stimulate her, even more than the ‘vitamin’ shot she injected as an aperitif while Neil hunted the forest path for kindling.

  When the fire died she dipped her forefinger in the entrails, searching for the pheasant’s heart, and solemnly marked Neil’s forehead.

  ‘There, Neil - you’ll remember me forever.’ Admiring the paisley-patterned blood on her arms, she added: ‘One day, who knows, you may eat me…

  ‘Wolfgang and Werner are eating the dead albatross,’ Neil told her. ‘What happens to the sanctuary now?’

  ‘It’s still here. More than ever. Living on my own, I’ve found the real sanctuary we were looking for.’

  ‘Real?’ Neil picked a shard of bone from his teeth. ‘Half an hour ago this Mikado pheasant was real.’

  ‘It wasn’t real!’ Dr Barbara snorted at the thought. ‘Saint Esprit was a fantasy we invented, a make-believe world we put together from all that animal rights sentimentality.’

  ‘It wasn’t just sentiment, doctor. You wanted to save the ilbatross.’ 1 do now.’ Concerned for Neil, she wiped the blood from his forehead. ‘I’m sorry, Neil -

  first you watch me steal the pheasant and then I make you eat it.’ It was tasty -

  better than grouper or blue-fish. But if we go on eating the animals there won’t be a sanctuary left.’

  ‘No, Neil… try to think what the sanctuary was really for.

  Why did we come to Saint-Esprit? It wasn’t the birds -there’s no shortage of albatross in the world.’ You said they were threatened.’

  ‘So they are, but they’ll survive. Whether a few albatross or laboratory rats and beagles die isn’t here or there. It’s we who are threatened - Monique and myself, Mrs Saito, Inger and Trudi, even poor old Mrs Anderson, playing batman to the Major.

  I’m surprised he hasn’t taught her to salute.’

  ‘Monique and Mrs Saito? You mean the women?’

  ‘Yes! We women!’ Dr Barbara gazed triumphantly at the roof of the cave, as if welcoming a convert. ‘Saint-Esprit isn’t a sanctuary for the albatross, it’s a sanctuary for women - or could be. We’re the most endangered species of all. We came here to save the albatross and what did we do? We turned Saint-Esprit Into just another cosy suburb, where we do all the work, and all the caring and carrying, all the planning and worrying.’

  ‘Kimo works. So does David.’ Neil tossed the drumstick into the ashes, uneasy with Dr Barbara’s self-hating tone. ‘And Professor Saito. He’s catalogued thousands of rare plants.’

  ‘They’re boys, Neil, and they play their boys’ games. They hunt and fish itid collect their stamps while Inger and Trudi haul the water and Monique bakes the bread. By God, if I see her bake another baguette I’ll… burst!’

  ‘She likes baking bread. Mrs Saito likes washing clothes. Inger and Trudi liked looking after Gubby.’

  ‘Of course they did. Who were the first domesticated animals? Women! We domesticated ourselves. But I know women are made of fiercer stuff. We have spirit, passion, fire, or used to. We can be cruel and violent, even more than men. We can be killers, Neil. Be wary of us, very wary..

  ‘And what about the men?’

  ‘Men?’ Dr Barbara hesitated, as if confronting a small over sight. ‘There are too many men, Neil. We simply don’t need so many men today. The biggest problem the world faces is not that there are too few whales or pandas, but too many men.’

  ‘So what happens to them?’

  ‘Who knows? Or cares? Their time has passed, they belong with the dugong and

  the manatee. Science and reason have had their day, their place is the museum.

  Perhaps the future belongs to magic, and it’s we women who control magic. We’ll always need a few men, but very few, and I’m only concerned with the women. I want Saint-Esprit to be a sanctuary for all their threatened strengths, their fire and rage and cruelty..

  Neil listened to the cries of the albatross in the darkness. He could hear their wings on the wind, as if they were flying through the vast spaces of Dr Barbara’s icy dreams. Trying to reassure her, he began to pick the dried blood from her arm.

  ‘Come back, Dr Barbara. We miss you at the sanctuary. Kimo and David can’t survive without you.’

  ‘Can they survive with me?’ Dr Barbara laughed to herself.

  ‘I’ll make huge demands on them. Can they think like women? Are they strong enough?’

  ‘I’ll be strong, doctor.’

  ‘I know you will. You’re the only one who’s understood me.’ Dr Barbara shivered in the cool air that rose from the sea, chilling the damp cave. She turned towards the sleeping bag, and held Neil with a firm hand when he tried to leave.

  ‘It’s too late for you to go. We’ll sleep here. I need you tonight, Neil…’

  *

  *

  ‘7’ For the next week Neil lived with Dr Barbara, rarely moving out of her sight. By day they roved the is
land together, hacking pathways through the deep forest, and observing the faltering life of the sanctuary. For the first time Neil realized that he too had played a modest role in giving the expedition members their sense of purpose. His fishing, his idle but equable nature, his unsuccessful courtship of Inger and Trudi, and his obsession with swimming and nuclear weapons had provided a yardstick against which they could measure themselves.

  Once he had gone, they rarely talked to each other. In many ways Neil, rather than Dr Barbara, was what they shared in common. His devotion to the sanctuary and its animals re minded them of why they had come to Saint-Esprit. An adolescent, apart from anything else, needed to be fed, even if most of his food he foraged for himself.

  Now only Mrs Anderson bothered to tend the animals, the plant terraces were overgrown, and no-one hunted for yarns and sweet potatoes. They had eaten the last of the chickens and were living off the reserves of canned food that Dr Barbara had bequeathed them. Mrs Saito chopped firewood for the furnace of the desalination plant, and Trudi and Inger carried water to the kitchens, where Monique served a single meal in the early afternoon.

  Meanwhile Canine sat under his straw hat by the ruin of the radio-cabin, keeping watch over his runway. Kimo, befuddled by coconut wine, rested in his tent.

  Professor Saito rarely ventured from the plant laboratory, still recovering from his bout of fever. The sanctuary had shrunk to his trays of rare fungi and his threatened orchids, and he would sometimes stare out at the runway and the lagoon as if failing to recognize the island.