What Lies Beneath...

There was an old man who exercised on the hotel jetty.

‘Bonjouir’

We shared politely after my morning paddle in the water that met the jetty’s edge.

When he’d arrived, I’d feel young, agile, and attractive.

He must have been at least 70 years old. So at 29, you’d hope (or expect) that I’d feel this way. But feeling old and most likely past it was how I had felt most of my life. So young and agile was something. Particularly considering it was lean, six-packed torsos of the French water-sport-enthusiasts who populated my hotel. Their presence, and their beautiful families only served to make me feel squishy.

Righteously squishy of course, as I’d sun myself and read my book, sucked on fresh fruit dacquiris, and took surreptitious glances at their proportioned bodies making laps of the pool for fun -

At least I know how to holiday.

The old man would wander down in his swimming trunks with his sinewy, taught, aging muscles. He was French. They all were. Except for the group of New Zealand parents, who liked white wine and bland humour. But they are warm and I like to eves drop on their conversation, like a child listening to the grown ups at a dinner party.

Every morning, I woke naturally with no alarm except for a dry mouth and a craving for water; a need to drink and an ache for a body of water to put myself into. I would wake a little fuddle-headed and bleary eyed, with cocktails from the night before leaving a lovely haze over the 28-degree and humid day. The sun would make shafts through the mountain peaks; they were wholesome, virtuous starts.

I would appear from the hotel, slightly blobby after filling my face with French cheese and downloaded TV shows from the night before.

Buxom.

I tell myself.

The squishy bits are womanly, warm, inviting.

They actually just make me feel like I’ve lost some sort of teenage battle. But I was here to relax, so me and my ‘curves’ fumble our way down to the jetty. Sunglasses planted firmly on my cheese-consuming face, and cloaked in a well-rehearsed, made-up air of nonchalance (to compensate for any self-consciousness).

The fuddle-headedness would clear immediately when I’d put myself into the sea. Cool, deep, blue. Skin, mind, washed, cleansed.

Here, I feel I am holiday. Here, in the water, I am weightless.

Dripping with sea salt and warmed by the island sun, I’d lift myself from the turquoise ocean. I’d wrap the hotel’s towel around me; safe, dry and comforting. And I would stare back down at the water and watch the darting, coloured fish.

I imaged this place as my home.

Days would be lazy and light. Life would be easy. There’s not much to do, except watch sunsets and decipher French accents.

Perhaps I could write.

But write what? Self-absorbed compositions about holidays? I can’t be sure. But the idea of being an artist on that island centered me. And I’d start to paint myself as a modern day Gauguin… except not mental. And not a painter.

And I would certainly not call anybody “savages”.

A Tahitian Frida Kahlo, perhaps?

But it’s just a water-colour painting – whimsical, unsubstantial. I would still just be me, only surrounded by orange bananas and Hibiscus flowers. And I'm not a painter. The fantasy still looked pretty good though; as fantasies do against the blobbiness of reality.

The gentle lapping of the tide against the jetty’s legs made for a rhythmic beat that encouraged poetic dreams and meandering thoughts. But I’m prone to chronic contemplation.

Most days, a rising need to jump off the jetty would surface. I wanted to jump, splash and disturb the quiet bay. Disperse the fish and make waves. Ruffle my feathers; change the pace.

Most days, I didn’t.

Instead, I wondered what I was doing with my life and watched the bright, fluro fish snap from one direction to the other.

Am I fulfilling my responsibilities to my Nan and Pop’s forgone dreams to be an aerial artist and a vaudeville performer?

Have I run away with circus?

Have I become a tap dancing explorer of Egypt?

Maybe it was family curse to day-dream.

And besides, is any of this enough to bring to the world?

And why was I here alone…?

It was a question I would be asked many times during my time away. And I didn’t have an answer.

I wanted to forget the questions and jump off the jetty. Leap, bound, jump, throw myself in the water. It was here, on the edge of that jetty, on my holiday alone, facing the water that I realised I wanted a partner, a lover, a friend to jump off with me. Someone to wave or laugh or make a pfft sound at any and all the cautiousness that held me back…

I knew the tentative thoughts were unreasonable –

What if it’s too shallow and I break my neck?

What if land on an eel and it goes up my…*coughs* you know…?

What if I look foolish and reveal a part of myself I didn’t have control over? God forbid I mar my well-rehearsed air of nonchalance.

In this moment, I promised myself by the end of my holiday I would jump off the jetty. By myself. I would make my own pfft sounds. I didn’t need anyone to do it for me.

Another well-rehearsed mantra.

One day, he spoke to me.

Not God.

Not a good looking, 30-something with a caustic wit, a kind heart and a sense of social justice with whom to fall in love with - just the old man from up the hill, who exercised on the jetty. The 70 year old.

He spoke to me.

In French.

I didn’t speak French. Still don’t.

Jeh, mah, parhl, vah, fraun-say, I quoted in my head then…

‘Jeh, mah, parhl, vah, fraun-say’ I said it out loud.

‘Ah, Canadian?’ He said. In French.

Canadians speak French. I’m not Canadian and I don’t speak French.

I could only assume that I must say Bonjouir really well, as this was a constant confusion for me in French Polynesia. I would say Bonjouir, then a sprinkler of French would be sprayed back at me with a pumping presumption that I would understand.

I didn’t.

Sometimes, at home, I put on a faux French accent and say ‘Baguette’ or ‘Croissant’. Aside from that, I do not speak French.

‘Au-stray-lee-aurn’. I said. And thought about saying yoplait. I didn’t. And in hindsight, I think it was probably for the best.

‘Ah’ He said in French. And then he continued speaking in French at me. He pointed to the water I’d emerged from, the salt from which was beginning to cling to my skin, tight and sticky, in a clean, clear, crinkly way.

I just blinked at him.

Now he got it.

I didn’t speak French.

To make up for it, he placed his forefinger and middle finger in a V shape, pointed to his eyes then to the water. Still. Speaking in French.

Then he took his hands out to the side and flapped them.

‘Oh, really?’ I said pretending to be impressed, wishing I did actually speak French. Because if I did, I would respond appropriately and would know if a great white shark had entered the shallows and was going to eat me… I’d be tasty. I’m Au-stray-lee-aurn. And notably seal-pup-like with my ‘buxom’ curves and naïve view of the world.

It was obvious by now that I had no idea what he as talking about and he started to exercise. After a few more hand gestures and French words from him and a few more dolt-like “mmm”s from me, the conversation was congenially over.

I tied my towel tightly around my belly, and I thought of breakfast.

Fruit. Coffee. That freaking amazing homemade yoghurt with fresh vanilla bean from Tahaa island… this really is paradise…

I smiled to the old man, offered a quiet, coy ‘au revoir’, and padded bare-foot down the jetty towards breakfast. I wondered what he saw in the water that I couldn’t? A turtle was what his impression looked most like. I hoped for a turtle. I’d loved turtles ever since I was child. Old, wise, patient. Qualities I like in humans too. But for some reason my mind ran to something more sinister. Something dangerous in the water below.

Mornings came and went. Soggy from gin and wine and sun-kissed bike rides, I woke and I swan and read and wrote and ate and bonjouir-ed my way around the island. A shaky scooter ride and some energetic hula performances helped tick off the “cultural” requirements of holidaying in a foreign country.

But I spent a lot of time staring into the water, thinking of different lives, projecting human characteristics onto the tropical fish, of dangerous sea creatures, and of whimsical, water-coloured futures for myself. Futures where I could breathe, where I could feel the sun and salted-crispiness of the sea. And I wondered why it felt so far away.

I never saw a shark or anything more than brightly coloured fish looking for tasty plankton. I did see an eel, once. It was near the shore, a long way from the jetty’s edge where I swan. It was harmless and from it’s facial expression (a perpetual state of shock) it was not looking to enter cavities, of any sort.

I never saw a turtle. But I did imagine being reincarnated as one. Then maybe I could be old, wise and patient too.

And I never did jump off the jetty. I always sank into the water, dipped myself cautiously via the ladder on the side. I’d plop in, then duck dive under. I’d breast stroke and float and day-dream. Careful not to make too many waves.

Them, over there

She leaned against the quarter moon-shaped trunk of the palm tree. The hotel jetty jutted out over the reef where the multi-coloured tropical fish darted and danced like ravers at a bush doof. Only it was in the sea. She sat in the sun, a scarf lazily draped around her, covering her emerging bikini line and she pretended to read her book. The thick wad of paper belittled her hands. She found thick books sexy, if only a little intimidating. A small tingle ran over her skin and in between her legs. She was reminded of a lover. Thick, sexy, intimidating. The latte-coloured, sun drenched skin and oozy blobby flesh of her arse pressed against the rough trunk. She wanted to appear relaxed, cool, easy. Like those French people she saw in the Market in Pape’ete. They were lean, elegant and negotiated the busy market place with grace. But from out the corner of her wayfarers, she eyed off the silhouettes of a group of teenagers tottering about at the end jetty.

She just wanted to go for a fucking swim.

What was it that was stopping her? A need to be alone was a comforting excuse. But a fear of being laughed at was probably closer to the mark. It was a fear that had stayed with her since she was their age. Them, over there, those sun kissed long beans of beautiful young limbs and lips. It was dumb. In her logical mind she knew it was ridiculous because she could handle being laughed at… she could. Could she? She could. Surely.

Probably not.

But why would they laugh? They wouldn’t. Would they? They could.

She was on holidays. She just wanted to swim off the end of the jetty like she did every morning and every evening - just as the sun rose over the jungle-covered mountains and just as it sunk into the ocean’s horizon. The gentle lapping of the turquoise sea, on the coral-ed sand, beckoned her but it only made her feel a like tool.

Was she intimidated? There was no need. She was fleshy, and buxom and bikini-ed; she was the intimidating older woman now. She was successful. She was successful. She was successful. She was successful. She was successful. She sounded like her mother. She didn’t feel “successful”. She always felt out of her depth, out of place, lost at sea, like the novelty hippie in a business class world. Like a child pretending, playing dress ups.

At the end of the jetty, the teenagers gaggled, laughed, cheered. The boys were perfectly sculptured triangular shapes with low-slung board shorts, low enough you could almost see, almost imagine…

There no point imagining. She was too old for them now. She’d like to think ‘beyond’ them. But here she was, arse pressed against palm tree, pretending. To read.

She had never been into that muscular look, anyway. The men she dated now were older than her, fraying at the seams, salt and peppered, a little loose, but with bodies wonderfully imperfect, comfortable. She would never feel those solid bodies, arms, torsos, backs, like those of the boys out there on the jetty. She was in her thirties. Hell, she’d never felt them at any age. She’d never known what to do with them, still didn’t. Pale, knock-kneed musicians were who she spent chasing, laying and being afraid of in her youth.

She was suddenly struck with the thought of having sex against the palm. In her mind’s eye, it was fucking good. Every limb knew where to go; every arm, hand, finger knew which pliable fleshy bit to knead.

In reality, it would be trickier. Her bikini bottoms would be splintered, ruined. The rough, palm trunk would grate her bare arse. Limbs would be cumbersome, shoulders would get in the way. The angle, really, would be all wrong. It just wouldn’t work.

She sighed. It wouldn’t work.

Her book. She’d been staring at the same page for a while now. She struggled to find the sentence she’d been trying to read for the past little bit of time; trying to read while appearing cool and relaxed. Cool and relaxed.

There were girls out there on the jetty, too.

The girls with their firm, milky white skin and dripping honey-like breasts, bursting, pressing against their bikinis. She had never been like them. At their age, she was probably wearing an awkward one-piece and had been convinced she wasn’t thin enough to wear a bikini. With protruding round-y girl hips and a stomach that was often thought to be a pregnant belly, she thought there were rules to these things. And she believed back then, that she did not belong in the category for bodies that could wear a bikini. Her body was not hers then, not as it was now. She could wear a bikini now.

See, she was successful.

Even so she still grabbed and poked at the fleshy bits of her hips and stomach, when she looked in the mirror. Her gaze would be disapproving, scolding. Still, even now. Even over thirty. Even with making the money that she did. Even having read plenty of thick, intimating books. Even having taken plenty of thick, intimidating lovers to bed, but never against palm trees. Even now. She still felt fat and ugly and she was still scared of teenagers.

She just wanted to go for a fucking swim.

With love from Tahiti...

This is an article I wrote for a street press rag in the Bellarine Peninsular... My final column before I start my adult-y responsible-wonsible life... Bye Bye Forte Sxx...

Oh and Brigette Stone you go get yourself all fixed ms thing NOW!

Tonight, I am sucking on a cocktail that’s the same colour as the water gently lapping on the coral-ed shore. And I’m looking out, in small moments of reverie, across a field of emerald coconut palms. The cocktail is bright turquoise and the firey yellow and burnt orange sun set is falling into the oceans’ horizon.

I, ladies and gentleman, am on the island of Raiatea, which is part of the Society Islands - Tahiti.

During my time here on Raiatea I’ve had the pleasure of attending Heiva, French Polynesia’s annual cultural festival. For opening night, there was a bandstand on the beach, kids eating hot chips smeared in tomato sauce and an MC who guided us through a parade of local clubs and societies such Taekwondo, boxing and a girls’ volleyball team. Then a procession of extravagantly homemade floats and costumes representing different countries made it’s way across the sand. It was all in French and Tahitian so I didn’t really understand what was going on or why but I enjoyed the hub-bub and general atmosphere of ‘a community event’.

I attended the national dance competition – which is a Polynesian version of the rock eisteddfod, just with more hula than jazz ballet; more palm fronds than sequins. And in the quiet tiny town of Opoa I went to a Heiva celebration that I discovered was merely a girls’ soccer competition. But the whole town had turned out. Excitable kids with cake smeared mouths darted about, big fleshy islander families belly laughed and barracked for their daughters, and “community” hang in the air, mingling between the smiles on peoples’ faces and the cool night sea breeze.

“A community nurtures, develops and promotes what it considers important”, writes David Ducrou in this years edition of the Emerging Writer’s Festival’s publication, The Reader. For the people of Opoa, girls’ soccer was a way to do this.

Forte, the street press you’re reading, is another community’s way of celebrating what it considers important. This fortnightly magazine distributes, congregates, and discusses the ins and outs of that luscious arts scene of the Bellarine Peninsular.

As I’ve been lazily waking up to the sunrise and roosters’ crow and paddling the teal blue sea with the electro-raver fish (all brightly coloured and chewing on lollypops) I’ve wondered - has there ever been a theme to my Forte columns? Apart from long rambling sentences, twisted segues, and missed deadlines - is there any commonality running through them? The columns have been as varied and far reaching in topic and subject as one could imagine; from major music festivals to market stalls, from mainstream musicals to local short film festivals, I’ve covered a luscious example of arts in and around the Ballarine Peninsular.

Tonight, is my final night on the island and last golden beams of sun have now sunk into the turquoise sea. In a couple of days, I will land back in drizzle-ville Melbourne and I will start a new job that may be the beginnings of a career. It’ll be all adult and serious and as venture forward into grown-up responsibility, the sun must also on set on my contribution to to Forte. And I come to realise, if there is any common thread running through my columns – it is not of my doing. It is yours; the artists, the makers, the goers to gigs, the curators and purveyors of art, the buyers of market stall trinkets, the amateur musical theatre doers, the short film makers and the readers. It is this community that surrounds, abounds and appears in these pages that make Forte a pleasure to read and to write for.

And now, what was I saying about turquoise cocktails… Cheers Forte, this one’s for you.

Yeah OK

Yeah OK was my first airport transfer driver’s response to everything that tumbled out of my mouth in my excited child-like burble upon my arrival to Pape’ete. At first, I thought he just didn’t find me hilariously, adorable after the long wait due to an under staffed customs counter. Yeah OK. Maybe he just doesn’t get my humour… It is rather sophisticated I thought as I tried to climb into the driver’s seat... tttttttttthhhhhhhheeeeeeeyyyyyyy driveontheothersidehere I soon realise. “Yeah OK. Here, here,” he says pointing to the car and passenger side. “This one”. I explain that in Australia we drive on the other side, which is why I tried to get into the wrong side. Ha! Silly me! Me. Hilarious. Adorable. “Yeah OK”. Boy, tough nut to crack.

He tells me he speaks English… he hesitates… he wobbles his hand. “A little bit?” I offer, fingers set in the international sign for little bit. “Wei, a little bit”.

He tries to ask me where I’m from.

I tell I’m 29 years old.

I ask if the radio station we’re listening to is Tahitian. He asks if I’m a music looker. Listener I think… must mean listener. “Yes… ah si I mean wei”.

He turns over the station on the car’s radio and as he scans through different stations – “no. Anglais. No. Francais. Ah, ah Tahitian remix by French” – I realize he actually does means music looker. Someone looking for music. I start to think of myself as some sort of music collector, an intrepid musician looking for the authentic Tahitian sound. I return to this self-image often during my trip to give reason – if only imaginary – for the holiday; to take the moz off a rather expensive oh-la-la holiday for myself; to keep the memory of African children and other hard working friends who can’ afford such luxuries at bay… A guilt ridden yuppie – the most patronising kind.

The music’s terrible. A mixture of light-weight euro-pop and… well not much else. But my friendly driver is lovely. He’s tall and gangly, nerdy, trapped in the body of a fleshy island man. He teaches me Ia Orana (hello in Tahitian) and Nana (Bye) and Maurauru (Thank You).

On the main street of Pape’ete, he says center. I ask what the name of the street is called so I can orientate myself in this new city. “Yeah OK” he replies giving the international sign for ‘I really have no idea what you’re saying to me right now’.

Once past the main drag, he pulls the car over in a narrow alleyway that’s worn and tearing at the seams and I wonder if I have got myself into trouble through my child-like burbling and smiley enthusiasm… His bulky islander build, for briefest second, becomes intimidating. But his disposition is in no way threatening, and I remind my mother’s voice inside my head that not all men want to maul me (my mother’s voice inside my head in turn tells me it’s good to be cautious – I want to argue with my mother further about how this attitude has affected my relationship with men but… ). He hands me a small piece of paper with Hello - Ia Orana, Bye Bye – Nana, and Thank You - Maurauru in scrawly boys handwriting.

“Thank you” I say sincerely as he drops me at the hostel. "Maurauru", he corrects with child-like enthsiasm. “Mau-woo-roo” I say. He laughs kindly, “you’re welcome”.

Easy Like Sunday Morning… in Papeete

Sundays start at the cock’s crow for Pape'etians. This faded and stretched simile, is not, unfortunately, a double entendre, but in fact a nod to the rustic, colloquial call a roster makes as the sun rises over the city. It is an alarm with an in-built and automatic snooze button that cock-a-doodle-doos at 6:30 with the rise of the sun and intermittently continues at 10 minute intervals until… well… whenever he feels like it.

Breakfast at the hostel, I was told the night I arrive, is between 6:30 and 8:30am and I got the feeling this was to get the fat tourists their breakfast and then our hosts could get on with their day. But that thought belied the friendly and motherly disposition of my host – this time is in fact a lazy Sunday morning brunch for the people of Pape'ete. A lazy Sunday morning brunch, one of my favourite Melbourne decadences of the white, coolsy peeps in which I often indulge, is usually rustled together between friends at about 10ish… at the earliest.

But there is no mess or debris from which to pick yourself up as a result of a rowdy, obnoxious Saturday night – where we, of the white coolsies, blather loudly about nothing over the drawl of electric guitars and muddle our way through a dark night with gin, gin and perhaps a vodka cranberry. Ha HA HA HA! I’m going to dance! Should we go to yah yahs?

The night life in Tahiti can probably be found but the one bar I seek out, sold overprised, sugary cocktails and terrible (and not ironic/cool terrible… just terrible) euro-pop seeped onto the pavement like gelatinous goop. The fraternity/sorority type French girls and boys in misaligned baseball caps left me with an insatiable need to build a cubby house from my New Zealand weekend newspaper. I’d peer out, through venetians made from the comic strips, at the rabble outside and judge the boisterous gaffaws of the jock like boys and damn the petite nervous giggles of the girls.

I’m a snob. I’m almost 30. I’m ok with it.

The Marche de Pape'ete (The Market of Papeete for those of you not cultural enough to know French… or for those of you who can read the English translation on the street sign as I did) opens at 4:30am and closes at 9 on a Sunday. This, it would seem, was the only way I was to get lunch and dinner for that day. Thank god for the rooster.

Alert with Jet Lag at an hour not know to me on a Sunday, I make my way through the alleys and the back lots of Pape'ete. I am staying just outside the main drag of the city and said ‘back lots’ are a mere 15 minute walk to the CBD. Even so, there’s a cultural shift to adjust too. I feel like a rich white cunt traipsing though streets that are wearing at the seams. Where angry looking dogs tied with wire sleep or blink at me lazily and I imagine a mauling… Where boys with cool caramel skin practice tricks on bikes - again with the misaligned baseball caps… why are they so threating? - where old men smoke through rotten teeth and baby chickens belonging to no one peck at the stove-like cement.

I make it into town without a mauling, just a few leer-y greetings – from the men not the dogs.

Pape'ete is like an Australian country town, at 3pm on a Sunday – everything is closed. Everything. Is closed. And closed with an abrasive metal shutter. I feel locked out, self conscious and conspicuous. When I ask a local the way to the market, she looks startled. “Er… pardon, mar-kette?” I point. Statled eyes blink at me. “um… Marche?” “Ah!” She points enthusiastically down the street nodding, then escapes as quickly as possible.

Tourists seem few and far between – most likely making their way to their islands and cocktails.

Pape'ete is not the resort town I had been imagining – although there is a McDonalds. There’s no massive shopping malls, there’s no fat Americans in brightly coloured sarrongs and fanny packs. There are beautiful French families, lean and easy, as they negotiate the market with grace, engaging the shop keepers in lively conversation about their wares. I want to be them. When I grow up.

As I make my way back through the torn streets, past the boys and the old men and the kittens without a mum, laden with plump paw paws, soft mangos and bananas… bananas!! That are not priced like gold!!... peanuts and yogurt from the local shell petrol station, a young mum, dressed liked the surfer bogans I grew up with, smiles “Bonjouir”. A fumbling Bonjouir fills my mouth, embarrassed that I might say it wrong, and I let it dribble out onto the street. She turns to hurry her dawdling child into the car. The kid with bright eyes and an attitude in her voice that I don’t need to understand the words to know what she says. “Yes, yes I’m coming, I just need to do this one thing, this one thing, before we go” In other words, in my words, the world’s fucking fascinating and I’d just like to discover this one thing, just this one thing before we go…