Rushing to Paradise Page 9

  The French government had given no ason for their abandonment of Saint-Esprit, but even if they turned in force the albatross sanctuary would soon be so well tablished that a vast international outcry would greet any tempt to expel them.

  ‘Neil, stop dreaming…’ David Carline sat at the controls of c bulldozer, a jaunty smile on his thin mouth, dust rising: OUfld him like incense around a buddha. ‘It’s safe to wake up )W.

  ‘I’m dreaming of the albatross, David.’ You don’t need to - they’ve come back to Saint-Esprit.’ That’s my dream…we’re all inside it.’ Even Monique and Dr Barbara? You’re a shaman, Neil tii‘1i live in the forest with Professor Saito and count the tnds.’

  ‘Even Monique and Dr Barbara. But maybe not you, David.’ Carline ignored this, still trying to win Neil’s friendship. He id offered to teach him how to drive the bulldozer, but Neil is wary of the American. Since leaving Honolulu, Carline had ed every trace of plumpness from his face, which was now as rd and angular as the camera-towers. So far he showed little terest in the albatross, and spent his time scouring the old kers for barbed wire, as if he planned to take over from the a military base. Four canvas tents donated by the crew of the Croix du Sud were pitched at the northern end of the runway, aligned by Carline’s exacting eye.

  He had drawn up plans for a mess-hall, clinic and plant laborat ory that left Dr Barbara nodding at him like a mechanical toy.

  Monique and the Saitos were standing on the pier, checking the latest gifts of food and medical supplies. Neil would have offered to help, but they already treated him as their messenger-boy, ordering him about on endless errands, and he crossed the runway to the aqueduct of cement and plastic tubing which the elderly Australian couple were building.

  Despite their work on the aqueduct, Major Anderson and his wife drank only the bottled mineral water stored in their sloop, a’f the stream running down the hillside was reserved for Drs I Barbara and her team. Neil liked to sit with them, helping to stir the fast-setting ciment fondue which the French engineers had used to construct the underwater foundations of the pier.

  He was impressed by their dedication to the sanctuary, though they rarely mixed with the other yacht-crews. As the Bracewells had soon noticed, the would-be saviours of the albatross had little in common apart from their vague yearnings for the mythical bird.

  ‘Are you hungry, Neil?’ Mrs Anderson put down her trowel and rooted in her wicker bag. ‘We brought some canned fish for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Anderson. I’ll eat it later.’

  ‘Eat it now - no-one will see you, they’re all so busy. You must be hungry after climbing the mast.’

  ‘I’m always hungry.’ Neil read the label on the can. ‘Dr Barbara says we shouldn’t hunt the fish in the lagoon. She claims it’s their sanctuary too.’

  ‘That’s high-minded of her, and I dare say she’s right.’ Major Anderson pressed the can-opener into Neil’s hand. ‘I imagine you can eat this fish - it was probably making a nuisance of itself somewhere.’ Neil tucked into the greasy mackerel with a plastic fork. His spirits rose as he remembered the savoury anchovies from Carline’s hamper that he had devoured on the beach. The waters of the lagoon teemed with snapper and coral trout, blue-fish and ii that many of the yacht-crews, not yet indoctrinated by Barbara, grilled on open fires in the evening.

  ‘The way Mr Carline brought down the mast -..’ Mrs iiderson waved away the flies. ‘That was a sight. I thought the hole island was falling into the sea.

  Either that or the French Ad landed again.’ Neil tossed the empty can into the undergrowth. ‘Do you hink they will land again?’

  ‘We have to assume so, Neil.’ Major Anderson pushed back is straw hat and surveyed the endlessly circling albatross.

  ‘crious fellows, aren’t they? But they have a lot to be serious out. I’ve never known the French give up anything without a ht. Verdun, Indo-China, Algiers -

  history penned in their blood.’ hat’s what I tell Dr Barbara,’ Neil agreed. ‘She thinks ‘re bored with us. I expect they’ll be here within a month.’ military eye over Neil’s road shoulders. ‘Whenever they come, they’ll knock heads, so careful.’

  ‘Yes, be careful, Neil,’ his wife agreed. ‘We’ll be here to look tcr you, but don’t let Kimo and Mr Carline get you fighting the French soldiers.’ car.. - ‘ The major calmed her. ‘Neil knows that - he’s id y been shot by them.’

  ‘We don’t want him shot again. Have you thought of going ick to Atlanta, Neil? Your mother must be worried. And iwse - she sounds as if she needs you.’

  ‘I talked to them on the Croix du Sud’s radio-phone. I said I’d back when I finished helping Dr Barbara.’

  ‘Well, she needs you too. Dr Barbara’s the sort who always: cds people. You’d best look for her, Neil.’

  ‘She’s by the beach with Mrs Saito, cleaning the birds.’

  ‘That’s good, Neil.’ Mrs Anderson took the plastic fork from s restless hand.

  ‘You go and help her.’

  ‘No - the birds are all dead. It’s a waste of time.’

  ‘Neil.. - ‘ Mrs Anderson stilled his hands. ‘It’s Dr Barbara’s iv of niournin g for them.’

  * Waving to the Andersons, Neil crossed the runway towards the beach. He liked the elderly couple, two more of the surrogate parents he regularly recruited, only to find that their affection suffocated him. There were no youths of his own age on Saint Esprit. The Frenchmen from the Croix du Sud called to him from the beach as they rested after filling the lighter with rocks and sand, but they were ten years older than Neil and only interested in their endless games of volley-ball. Neil passed the prayer-shack where Bracewell lay in the small cemetery among the wild yams. He added a single lily to the wreaths left by the visiting yacht-crews, and gazed at the wreck of the Dugong on the reef. A storm had torn away the funnel and a section of the bridge, and the oil slick was drifting along the beach to the rocky cascade below the cliff.

  Neil waded through the shallow water, searching for edible crab and bivalves.

  Fortunately the lowly creatures lay in a zoological niche beyond the reach of the animal rightists. The cheerful cries of the Croix du Sud’s crew sounded above the thump of the volley-ball. Despite their hard work, they managed to enjoy themselves, inviting Monique and any spare women from the fleet of ocean craft to join their camp-fire parties on the beach. Saint-Esprit and the albatross were a game to be played like the water-sports at a holiday resort.

  Buoyed by the clear skies and the returning birds, everyone’s confidence was high. The forty or so volunteers worked together without any supervision, clearing

  the forest beside the runway, digging latrines and setting up the camp. The water supply, the kitchen tent and donated stores would keep the original members of the albatross expedition going for at least a month. More sea birds had been killed by the Dugong’s leaking oil than by the French soldiers in their months of occupation, but at least the albatross now soared above the peak.

  Despite this success, Neil felt distanced from the rest of the expedition. He missed Louise, and had been unsettled by her self-immersed chatter on the radio-phone. More than a planet separated them. He wanted to leave for Hawaii and a flight back to London, and knew that he was staying on Saint-Esprit, not to save the albatross, but in the hope that the French would resume iin gazing wistfully at the blockhouses, he guessed that they were ully aware of his real motives forjoining the expedition.

  A slick of engine oil lay in a small cove, a greasy quilt of dackened plumage, dead fish and beach debris nudged by the waves rolling in from the reef.

  Neil climbed the sandy slope and valked towards another of the camera-towers hidden among the trees, its cracked cement streaked with rust from the armature bars.

  There were a dozen towers around the perimeter of the lagoon, built in the 196os to house the remote-controlled cameras.

  During his first week on Saint-Esprit he had explored them all, wimming between the sand-bars tha
t made up the rim of the itoll, but none showed any sign that they were being prepared for 11 fresh round of tests. The towers on the high island had been swallowed by the advancing forest, ancient megaliths left behind by a race of warrior scientists obsessed with geometry and death.

  A faded vanilla shrub filled the doorway of the tower, its leaves dissolving into dust as he pressed past it to the steps. Neil rested his clbows on the window ledge of the observation chamber and hazed at the open expanse of the lagoon, visualizing the immense flash that might one day light its surface. Memories of his dead father and the atomic proving grounds at Maralinga seemed to hinilt its calm waters, a myth more potent than the albatross.

  Voices sounded outside the tower, the laughter of a man and oiiian flirtatiously sharing a joke. Neil reached through the cainera slit and pushed aside the palm fronds below the sill. The couple had left the forest path that ran from the beach to the. tirstrip and strolled like idling lovers between the shadowy trees.

  Neil recognized Pierre Bouquet, the skipper of the Croix du Sud, a uathematics teacher at a Papeete lyc e. Bouquet had helped to dean the birds

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  trapped by the oil slick, and his arms were still iiarked by the dark smudges. He smiled attentively at the oman, listening to her strong voice as she laughed at something d said, admiring her with a dozen covert glances. ie woman was Dr Barbara. She had taken off her shirt and cd naked to the waist, stains of oil on her left shoulder. But all Houghts of the drowned birds were far from her mind. She was vea1ing an off-duty version of herself that Neil had never known, like his after-hours glimpse in the Honolulu hospital of an intimidating senior sister relaxing with a tumbler of whisky in the chief anaesthetist’s office.

  As always, she was doing all the talking, but Bouquet was content to listen.

  He was openly admiring her bare breasts, chafed by a succession of safety pins, his hand lightly taking her waist.

  While the shadows dappled their backs they strolled deeper into the forest, voices lost in the chitter of insects.

  Neil leaned against the camera slit, his forehead pressed to the cool concrete, trying to adjust himself to the notion that Dr Barbara had a life beyond the albatross. He had gladly thought of her as a substitute mother, though Dr Barbara could not have been more different from the anxious and unconfident woman who depended on Colonel Stamford to tell her the time of day. He was angry with Dr Barbara, not for taking one of the young Frenchmen as a lover, but because her passion for the albatross was less single-minded than he imagined, and coexisted with other needs and appetites. Saint-Esprit was tainted by more than the death of the birds and the waiting ghosts of its nuclear future.

  In a sudden insight into himself, he thought: I have to protect the island

  from Dr Barbara.

  One of the yachts was raising anchor, its jib-sail tapping at the wind.

  Earlier that morning everyone on Saint-Esprit had said their goodbyes to the crew, a retired American naval commander from Honolulu named Rice, his elderly wife and their middle aged daughter, the widow of a Canadian airline pilot. Having given most of their supplies to the expedition, they were about to return to Hawaii.

  Their place would soon be taken by one of the new arrivals who anchored in the lagoon every day, but Neil was sorry to see them go. They had attended Dr Barbara’s rallies in Waikiki, and had visited him in hospital, bringing a small library of environmenta list texts.

  During the second week at Saint-Esprit he had slept aboard their sloop, glad of the mosquito net and a soft bunk. All three sensibly accepted that the French navy would return, and were concerned, like the Andersons, for Neil’s safety. c sloop’s engine rumbled faintly, the propeller sending a hit wake across the water as Rice wound up the anchor. Seeing ci] on the beach, Mrs Rice cheerily saluted him from the pit where her daughter held the tiller.

  Hi waved in return, and stepped into the shallow surf. He the cool tug of the undertow drawing him into the deeper ater, reminding him of his dream, now shelved, of swimming lie Kaiwi Channel. The Rices’ sloop was three hundred yards, way, but well within his range. He knew that they would be appy to take him with them to Hawaii -they had seen Neil’s aother on television being comforted by Colonel Stamford after iracewell’s death.

  Neil waded into the deeper water, the cold sea clasping his iighs. The black sand raced around his heels, urging him down slope. The duffle bag containing his clothes, the diver’s watch iid other personal kit lay in the pup tent he shared with Kimo, at there was no time to collect them, and he would never be He to explain to Dr Barbara, Monique or Professor Saito why c had decided to leave. nong the dead fish and birds. The sloop’s engine was still )wards the yacht, pausing as the next wave hit his face, then ‘ttling into his powerful crawl.

  He was fifty yards from the sloop when Mrs Rice noticed him ossing its wake.

  Charles… it’s Neil. I think he wants to -, She pushed past her daughter and reached over the stern, but: r husband was staring out to sea, binoculars to his eyes. Above c low beat of the sloop’s engine, drumming at Neil’s ears as he Hed his head in the water, came the hard clatter of an proaching helicopter. The crews of the anchored yachts icrged from their cabins, pointing to a white-hulled ship that vanced towards the reef. As Neil took Mrs Rice’s outstretched nd he saw the concern for him in her eyes, and heard her 7 The Rainbow Pirates A PAIR OF FRENCH combat boots entrenched themselves in the sand beside Neil’s head, their cleated soles cutting through the ashy slope. As he rested after the long swim to shore, he raised his eyes from the boots to the camouflage fatigues, designer sun glasses and close-cropped white hair.

  ‘David? You look like a French commando..

  ‘I’m flattered, Neil. That’s kind of you. I’m trying to raise a defence squad.’ Carline took off his sunglasses and watched the helicopter circle the atoll. ‘I’m sorry to say there’s no heart left for a fight.’

  ‘Where’s your pistol? And the German holster?’

  ‘Safely hidden away. Where else? We have a real battle on our hands.’ Carline whistled cheerfully, unconvinced by the combat uniform he had assembled from the abandoned lockers in the storage sheds. ‘I’m glad to see you, Neil -for a moment we thought you were leaving us.’

  ‘I wanted to say goodbye to the Rices. ‘ Neil sat up and let. the last water drip from his shirt. ‘They’re sending a message to my mother.’

  ‘Good. She must be worried about you. But the French won’t harm you, Neil -

  you’re the albatross boy.’ Neil frowned at this and searched the horizon for the Sagitta ire.

  He assumed that the corvette would wait out of sight until the aerial reconnaissance of Saint-Esprit was complete. Meanwhile the tank-landing craft -

  more than a hundred metres in length, with a high stern bridge and helicopter deck

  - lay at anchor beyond the reef, sitting on the sea like a huge white ammunition

  ox. Behind its fierce ramp an amphibious arnioured car or even light tank might be ready to launch itself at the nesting ibatross. Or were nuclear weapons and their support equipment noved around in these armoured arks? Either way, a military landing was imminent. A tender owered from the stern had set off for the beach, but no-one had ned to intercept the craft. Despite the excitements of the past lays a sudden mood of resignation had swept the island at almost clepathic speed. Having given everything and endured so much LU gain their foothold on Saint-Esprit, they could no longer ally themselves to defend its oil-sodden shores.

  Besides, the intimidating presence of the landing craft touched 00 many memories of the D-Day landings. Dr Barbara stood ozider the trees by the prayer-shack, quietly picking at the ulcers on her lips. Kimo squatted across a fallen palm trunk, throwing hells into the waves. Monique and the Saitos left the kitchen tent ti-id wandered towards the beach, and only Major Anderson and us wife continued to work at their aqueduct. The yacht-crews vaited under their awnings, and even Bouquet and his usually combative companions aboard the Croix du
Sud watched the cnder’s approach without comment. The time of protests and logans had passed. Like children, Neil reflected, they hoped that:tcy held their breaths the French would go away. he helicopter was first to land. Satisfied that Saint-Esprit was eFended, the pilot came in across the lagoon and settled his oats into the calm water beside the pier.

  A small, perspiring man in a rumpled safari suit, binoculars, round his neck, released the safety harness and slid his cautious I cct into the shallow waves.

  Head down, he waded to the beach,; here Monique waited to greet him, arms folded across her reasts. Neil expected her to launch into one of her legendary uripers and scream abuse at the visitor. But after listening to in through the soft cuffing of the helicopter’s fans, hand raised disbelief to one ear, she waved to Dr Barbara.

  ‘Barbara! Come down, please!’ What is it?’ Dr Barbara stood behind Kimo, steadying herself iinst his shoulder. ‘Be careful, Monique… itov this, Barbara.’

  Monique was laughing for the first time since Neil had met her aboard the Dugong.

  ‘Let me introduce Monsieur Kouchner - he’s very interested in Saint Esprit.’

  ‘j won’t deal with him.’ Dr Barbara’s hands cut the air as she stared down at the portly figure trying to squeeze the water from his trousers. ‘Who does he represent? The Ministry of Defence?’

  ‘Worse than that. Much more sinister…’ Monique shook her head sombrely.

  ‘Still, there’s good news from the Elysee Palace this morning - the government has made Saint-Esprit a wild-life special zone. The moratorium on nuclear tests will continue - Monsieur Kouchner is quite definite.’