‘Our watering systems fell apart. Sovereign man became destitute. People moved to the cities. Those of us remaining lived on the front portions of our lands and kept our old ways as much as we could. But the land didn’t belong to us any more, we were told. It had been stolen from us because the sovereign man failed to pay taxes, we were told. We were told there were going to be roads and other people’s grand houses.

‘The next war of the world came. More people had to leave the land to find work so they wouldn’t die. They had to go to war in order to survive. You live, you survive so you or your child can have life. Often you live in darkness, crushed and creeping about in search of light.

‘I won’t be here when the new roads come. But you will be here,’ the old man said. ‘Our grandchildren will be here. I won’t be walking the roads, or riding on them in cars, but you’ll all be here. As for me, I’ll be out there beyond the reef, listening to the wisdom of my turtle relatives. Or I’ll be sleeping in a rocky shelter in the cave of my ancestor.’

‘What’s happening?’ I asked Ela one day.

‘Lumps and bumps,’ she said. ‘They come and go, it’s change of life.’

What a coward I am. Though I ride high seas and face ghosts or go through bombings and fire, mention such things to me as ‘change of life’, ‘time of the month’, ‘womb’, and my insides shrivel. Ela’s words shut me up for some time. I think of my stupidity every day.

Chapter 26

Oriwia

Since Oriwia’s disappointing visit to Hawai‘i seven years earlier, Chappy had taken an apartment in the city. He was running his own franchise now, and though the enterprise had suffered during his illness and absence, it had been kept afloat by Ishy and Malia’s daughter, whom he’d employed six months after taking over the business.

Oriwia was comfortable in the new place, which had electricity and plenty of water and ceiling fans to keep it cool. Unused to being surrounded by so much concrete, bitumen and heat, she seldom ventured outside except to shop for daily needs or buy postcards to send to the family.

Comfortable – yet they were long days, days of waiting for Chappy to return from work, filling in hours until he came home sniffing the aromas of special dishes she’d prepared for their evening meal.

Oriwia was not good at being alone. She missed her grandchildren, she missed Dorothea, the family and Dulcie. She missed her customers, the town gossip, and the Country Library Service van.