Chapter Twenty-Seven: Running To Stand Still
“There is not a great deal of night-life.”
• • •
There had proved to be no way off the island until first thing the next morning. That meant one more night spent in the company of Greg, Skin, Richie and Dale. Emboldened by the knowledge that he would be leaving them the next day, Stuart had become a little more critical of the surfer lifestyle.
“So what exactly is the point of surfing?”
Skin took up the challenge, “Gotta pass the time somehow, aint ya.”
Greg added, “It’s the high.” He looked at Stuart puzzled, “Man, I thought you understood this.”
“But you never seem to actually surf,” said Stuart, reasonably.
Both Skin and Greg gave their excuses in unison.
“The waves...”
“Been a flat set.”
“... just no waves, man.”
“Can’t surf without...”
“Tomorrow...”
“... the right conditions.”
“... tomorrow, the waves will be right.”
Richie turned Stuart’s original query back on the questioner, “So what are you doing?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, what is the point of travelling?”
Stuart made an expression to indicate that he thought it was a dumb question. He replied in a tired voice as though the answer were self-evident, “To broaden the mind, to see new places, to...”
“So has your mind been broadened?” Richie drew out the last word in a long drawl.
“Um. Yes, I guess so.” Stuart mentally kicked himself, for once again slipping into the idiom of his companions.
“And have you seen new places?”
Stuart felt more sure about this and answered with confidence, “Many.”
Richie continued, “New? Or were they just old places you had read about in a guidebook?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean, what’s the point in travelling half way around the world just to see something that someone has already written about. Was anything different to how it was described? Was anything different to how you imagined it?”
“But that’s not the point,” argued Stuart, “It’s the experience.”
Greg and Skin were following the discussion. “The experience, man. It’s the same with surfing.”
Richie continued. “What experience are you going to take away from here?” he asked.
Stuart had to smile at the irony, “I wish I could tell you.”
“Can’t even fuckin’ remember most of it, can you,” said Skin, laughing.
A new voice broke into the conversation; a disembodied voice from the darkness, making everyone sitting around the small fire on the beach jump and look around them, “Sightseeing is the new religion.” A figure gradually emerged from the shadows, still speaking, “Places you never knew existed the day before become meccas that you cannot be satisfied until you have visited. Experienced, to use your phrase.”
“Jan, man. Great to see you.” Greg had risen from where he had been squatting, cross-legged on the sand, and went to greet the newcomer.
Jan was still in mid-flow though. Stuart felt, rightly or wrongly, as though the point of his conversation was aimed directly at him, as if he was being singled out for special treatment. “The guidebook is your bible. Places of interest are your holy sites. Previous travellers write your scriptures. Armchair travellers are your disciples. When you get home...” Jan had advanced to within a few paces of Stuart now and there could be no doubt that it was the Englishman he was addressing, “...you will be God.”
Stuart was not as lost for words as he would have imagined of himself. Three bottles of Hinano had done wonders to make his mind and his tongue act in perfect unison. “And what am I here?”
“Here,” said Jan, with a shrug and a grimace, only too evident in the flickering light of the flames, “you are a pilgrim.”
“A pilgrim?”
“Surfing’s a religion, man.” Greg tried to break into the conversation, but Jan silenced him with an upheld palm. Speak to the hand.
“You are on a pilgrimage.”
“And what will I discover?”
“That depends on you.”
“Enlightenment?”
“That depends on you.”
“And so what are you?”
For the first time Jan was at a slight loss, “What?”
“You met me when I first arrived.”
“Yes.”
“You were with me on the boat to Bora Bora.”
“Some of the way, yes.”
“You are here now on Huahine.”
“Yes. So?”
“So what are you? If I am the pilgrim...”
“I guess, I am your guardian angel,” interrupted Jan.
• • •
Several more beers had been drunk and the fire had died away, leaving a black, charred mess on the beach. The moon was almost full, and to eyes well adjusted to the gloom, the circle of faces was as clear as if it had been daylight. Embers from the cooling fire took flight at the slightest hint of a breeze off the sea, brittle fragments of wafer-thin paper and black soot scattering in all directions. Dale was asleep, her head resting on Skin’s shoulder, who, in turn, looked as though he was finding it hard to keep his eyes open. It was Greg who was holding forth.
“Great to see you, man.” It was the umpteenth time that Greg had reasserted his welcome to Jan, this time emphasising the point by slapping him across the shoulders. “Expected you last week.”
“You know how it is,” said Jan, “Things cropped up. I don’t normally like to spend so long on Bora Bora, but...” he shrugged.
“Hard to drag yourself away,” Greg finished his sentence.
“Something like that.”
“Surf’s not great there, though, is it?”
“Fuck all here, too,” said Richie, slurring his words, as he sipped from a near-finished bottle of beer.
“Not great,” said Jan, noncommittally.
“So, whatever happened to that friend of yours?” Greg pursued.
“Who?” Jan asked.
“Forget his name. No, I remember.” He laughed, “How could I forget. Ice.”
“Yes,” said Jan quietly, conscious that Stuart was suddenly all attention.
“You know,” Greg continued, “Looked like a ghost, surfed like a demon.”