The Waikato farmers were restless. Three days on Turtle Island down, three to go. They had swum, snorkelled, windsurfed, kayaked, fished, hiked and cycled around the island. Their wives had sunbathed, read Jodi Picoult novels and joined them on a sunset dinner cruise with platters and platters of cold prawns but no sliced bread.
On the morning of the fourth day the Waikato farmers went on a history walking tour in an act of pure desperation. The history, it turned out, was mostly about The Blue Lagoon starring Brooke Shields, filmed on the island in 1980.
See these shabby bures that your waiters and chefs and maids are living in? These were originally built for the film crew.
See this tame iguana munching on a hibiscus flower? This is a Fijian crested iguana, Brachylophus vitiensis, identified by Dr John Gibbons, who first saw it in The Blue Lagoon and travelled to the island to confirm it was a new species.
Just relax, said their wives. This is our first holiday in years. Get a massage. It’s included in the price of the room, isn’t it? Who cares if it isn’t? Oh, it’s not that bad.
The Waikato farmers got massages and talked about the weather with their masseurs. Then they talked excitedly among themselves about the tropical depression that was ploughing their way. Whether the thatched roofs of their bures would stand up to the wind. Who would collect canisters of fresh water and who had spare D batteries for a Maglite torch.
They spoke to the concierge about the coming storm, which had now been upgraded to a cyclone and named Stuart, asking if there was anything they could do. Batten down the hatches. Fill sandbags. Fashion an impenetrable sconce.
No, please, said the concierge, you are our guests. The bad weather will not come here, just you watch.
The faces of the Waikato farmers sank.
At dinner that night they spoke to their wives about Cyclone Stuart like a best friend. Stuart this, Stuart that. Why don’t you just marry Stuart?
The wind’s picking up, don’t you think?
Oh, Neil. Why can’t you relax?
That night the Waikato farmers lay awake thinking about Cyclone Stuart: the wind whining like a Husqvarna, growing so loud it must be the Earth groaning, about to split open and swallow them. They pondered the aftermath: carrying guests with broken ankles to the dining-hall-turned-triage. Trying to fix the diesel genny. Turning fallen trees into firewood. Eating only bananas for three days. Watching parrotfinches fly back and forth in search of new places to nest.
But the next morning dawned as perfect and boring and blue as the rest of their stay.
Horseback riding? asked their wives over breakfast. How else do you ride a horse?
What?
Horseback riding. Bloody Americans. Just say horse riding. Okay, horse riding?
No thanks. Get enough of that at home.
Well, the girls and I are going. Are you going to have something else to eat besides that banana?
The Waikato farmers gathered around a laptop. Cyclone Stuart, one of them read aloud, had stalled two hundred kilometres west of Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island.
Two hundred k’s isn’t that far away, another said. Could be here in a couple of hours if it gets moving again.
They decided to go to the resort workers’ bures, which looked the least likely to withstand a cyclone, and offer their services.
They came to a particularly unsound looking bure. Its roof was thatched but its walls were made of fibrolite and corrugated iron and painted sky blue and pink. Its windows were just squares of compos-ite board hinged at the top and propped open by sticks. Someone found a hammer lying on the ground and picked it up. They knocked on the unlatched door.
Someone said something in Fijian that wasn’t Bula. Moments went by without a sound.
They knocked again.
A bare-chested young man appeared in the doorway.
What do you want? he asked the huddle of farmers on his doorstep.
Would you like help strengthening your bure for the cyclone?
What? I was on night shift. Why do you wake me? He stepped back into his bure and pressed the door closed.
The Waikato farmers looked at one another. There seemed nothing else to do—apart from a visit to the orchid house and maybe a swim in the crystal-clear water—so they went along to the next bure, and the next. Along the way they picked up more items just lying in the sand: a saw, a machete, a length of rope. They thought of the damage these things could do when the cyclone hit. How useful they’d be in their work, before and after.
The Waikato farmers continued to traipse around the workers’ village wielding their tools, looking for someone who needed their help, but the place seemed deserted.
Gentlemen, put down your weapons. It was the concierge in his white polo shirt.
Weapons? They looked at their tools. Heads peeked out from doorways.
We want to help.
Please don’t concern yourselves. You are our guests.
But Stuart?
The storm? It will not come here. How do you know? How?
This is my country, said the concierge.
The Waikato farmers relinquished their tools and spent the rest of the day lying on soft white sand getting sunburnt.
The next morning, their last day on Turtle Island, they could barely move.
Serves you right, said their wives and then went to one last kava ceremony.
The Waikato farmers lay inside on their backs, looking at the wooden rafters, thinking of Stuart, there off the coast of Viti Levu, taunting them, spinning and spinning in the middle of the sea like a dog chasing its tail, spinning and spinning till it tires itself out and ceases to exist.
Taken with kind permission from the newly published short story collection Offshore Service and Other Stories by Craig Cliff (Otago University Press, $35), available in bookstores nationwide. A well-heeled Dunedin suburb receives an influx of refugees. Tensions flare at an Anzac Day barbecue in Perth…The book has been met with a concise review by Lloyd Jones: “Wow.”
