before; they seemed flawless. I was fascinated, too, by the way they moved,
so easeful and languid, the women the same as the men. I never saw them hurry. Out
of respect, I slowed down myself, lazed in fact, spending my days in a state of semi-wakefulness,
either swimming, or lounging, or staring at the water where it lapped against the
sea wall. I was watching for snakes. The men had toldme they were deadly, so I was
drawn to them as a source of terror. The sight of one sliding through the oily harbour
slick was enough to stop my heart.
At some point the subject of school arose. But in Fiji even school turned out to
be a source of delight. I had been unimpressed with my first school, a charmless
establishment for infants through to Grade Three, with draughty classrooms and asphalt
playgrounds that bruised your knees when you fell. There I’d been clothed in a scratchy
grey tunic that seemed always to be damp, and a bulky grey jumper if it was cold.
I thought the outfit an insult to the body inside it. Perhaps this was because I
associated the uniform with the humiliations I suffered while wearing it, the playground
squabbles that left me bleeding from the nose, my demotion from Grade One because
I was weak at sums. Others suffered, too, sometimes worse than I did, like the boy
from our street who shat in his pants on the way home from the bus stop, in full
view of everyone, and walked home with the offending material running down his legs.
Those kinds of accidents happened frequently at that school; it was a time of considerable
bodily anxiety. My one pleasant memory is of a teacher running cool water over my
wrists under a tap. I must have been out playing in the heat. She showed me where
the veins ran close to my skin.‘Your blood runs all through your body,’ she said.
‘So if you cool your blood down, that helps to cool the rest of you.’ It was the
most important lesson any teacher had taught me thus far, and I loved her for it.
I was immediately conscious of the blood pulsing in every part of me, and it was
true that the cold water was drawing all the heat out of it.
To dress for my Fijian school I first needed to be measured by a tailor. My mother
took me to downtown Suva, always a treat: the sights and smells of the narrow streets
were captivating. The market in particular lured you in with its promise of plenitude.
Here was a sweet-smelling maze of fruit stalls and fishmongers and farmers’ stands
selling things I didn’t know the names of and had never tasted. My mother took notes
for the time when we moved into a house with a kitchen and a house girl who could
teach her what to buy and how to cook it.
‘What fun this is!’ she said, rubbing her hands together. I’d never seen her so excited.
Perhaps it was because she’d made a new friend that morning in the hotel lobby.
‘He’s asked us both to dinner,’ she told me. We were drinking milkshakes during a
break from our shopping. ‘His treat.’
My father was away flying at the time, which alwaysimproved my mother’s mood. She
lit up when he was gone. Her skin seemed to glow and her eyes shone more brightly.
At the tailor’s shop she showed me all the colours I was allowed to wear to school.
On any given day I could choose between a tunic that was pink, mint-green, baby-blue
or yellow. The tailor was an Indian, small, with coal-black eyes and stained teeth.
He took my measurements, then pulled down a bolt of cloth so I could feel its weight
and texture. I thrilled to the whole procedure, and understood that this new school
must be an entirely different sort of place from the one I’d left behind. For a
start my uniforms were to be made from this lightweight, open-weave cotton with its
delicious sugary smell. While I inspected buttons and belt buckles and socks, the
tailor turned his attention to my mother, persuading her to buy some blouses and
a dress, exchanging banter and smiles with her as if they were old friends.
‘What a
so easeful and languid, the women the same as the men. I never saw them hurry. Out
of respect, I slowed down myself, lazed in fact, spending my days in a state of semi-wakefulness,
either swimming, or lounging, or staring at the water where it lapped against the
sea wall. I was watching for snakes. The men had toldme they were deadly, so I was
drawn to them as a source of terror. The sight of one sliding through the oily harbour
slick was enough to stop my heart.
At some point the subject of school arose. But in Fiji even school turned out to
be a source of delight. I had been unimpressed with my first school, a charmless
establishment for infants through to Grade Three, with draughty classrooms and asphalt
playgrounds that bruised your knees when you fell. There I’d been clothed in a scratchy
grey tunic that seemed always to be damp, and a bulky grey jumper if it was cold.
I thought the outfit an insult to the body inside it. Perhaps this was because I
associated the uniform with the humiliations I suffered while wearing it, the playground
squabbles that left me bleeding from the nose, my demotion from Grade One because
I was weak at sums. Others suffered, too, sometimes worse than I did, like the boy
from our street who shat in his pants on the way home from the bus stop, in full
view of everyone, and walked home with the offending material running down his legs.
Those kinds of accidents happened frequently at that school; it was a time of considerable
bodily anxiety. My one pleasant memory is of a teacher running cool water over my
wrists under a tap. I must have been out playing in the heat. She showed me where
the veins ran close to my skin.‘Your blood runs all through your body,’ she said.
‘So if you cool your blood down, that helps to cool the rest of you.’ It was the
most important lesson any teacher had taught me thus far, and I loved her for it.
I was immediately conscious of the blood pulsing in every part of me, and it was
true that the cold water was drawing all the heat out of it.
To dress for my Fijian school I first needed to be measured by a tailor. My mother
took me to downtown Suva, always a treat: the sights and smells of the narrow streets
were captivating. The market in particular lured you in with its promise of plenitude.
Here was a sweet-smelling maze of fruit stalls and fishmongers and farmers’ stands
selling things I didn’t know the names of and had never tasted. My mother took notes
for the time when we moved into a house with a kitchen and a house girl who could
teach her what to buy and how to cook it.
‘What fun this is!’ she said, rubbing her hands together. I’d never seen her so excited.
Perhaps it was because she’d made a new friend that morning in the hotel lobby.
‘He’s asked us both to dinner,’ she told me. We were drinking milkshakes during a
break from our shopping. ‘His treat.’
My father was away flying at the time, which alwaysimproved my mother’s mood. She
lit up when he was gone. Her skin seemed to glow and her eyes shone more brightly.
At the tailor’s shop she showed me all the colours I was allowed to wear to school.
On any given day I could choose between a tunic that was pink, mint-green, baby-blue
or yellow. The tailor was an Indian, small, with coal-black eyes and stained teeth.
He took my measurements, then pulled down a bolt of cloth so I could feel its weight
and texture. I thrilled to the whole procedure, and understood that this new school
must be an entirely different sort of place from the one I’d left behind. For a
start my uniforms were to be made from this lightweight, open-weave cotton with its
delicious sugary smell. While I inspected buttons and belt buckles and socks, the
tailor turned his attention to my mother, persuading her to buy some blouses and
a dress, exchanging banter and smiles with her as if they were old friends.
‘What a
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