June Collins's Blog, page 3

I’m So Grateful, I Survived.

I never talk about cancer – wishing to put it far from me. However, this morning I found something I wrote while I was undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer.

From statistics I’ve read, only 20% of ovarian cancer patients remain alive after five years. Maybe I should not be tempting fate here, but I am one of the lucky ones who has been in remission for eight years. I count my blessings every day and pray for those less fortunate.

My doctor tells me you NEVER recover from ovarian cancer but I have never believed everything that doctors tell me and I know I am RECOVERED. The mind has great power!

Despite not TALKING about it, the following words I share with you from when it was happening, and I was WRITING about it.

Title; SUNRISE, BEAUTIFUL SUNRISE.

Would daylight never come? I hate the nights. They drag on endlessly in dark silence.

I lie in the darkness, tossing about as I try not to scratch.

That infernal itch is not painful but it is unbearably miserable. It usually starts with red spots that grow into angry welts, two or three days after each chemo treatment.

I listen to the heavy silence, wondering if I am the only person in the whole world who is lying awake, disturbed by pain or thoughts of death. I have never felt so alone.

If I lived in the city, the noises might sound friendly, reminding me I am not alone. But the country is deathly still…

A sound outside my window briefly breaks the silence. I welcome it, wondering what kind of a night animal it might be, slinking through the tropical vegetation. I consider looking through the window but realize that would be pointless in the dark. Curiosity is killed as the ITCH imposes its presence upon me once more. It is the most pervasive thing in my life this minute. I have tried Calamine lotion and every type of creme and pill, to no avail.

Hours pass and I long for sleep. Exhausted, I wobble to the bathroom and fill the tub with hot water and foaming bath-oil. Sinking into its soothing depths, I find some relief as I run my hands over my hairless skin, feeling a silky oiliness on my fingers.

The itch remains but it is now tolerable. I no longer fight the urge to claw at my flesh. The stress ebbs away as I sigh with relief and rest my head back against a folded towel. Shadows from a night light comfort me as I drift into much needed sleep.

The cold water awakens me. Unhappy at the disturbance, I drain half the water out and refill the tub. I consider going back to my bed but I know the itch will only intensify if I leave the water. I’ve done this before. If I suffer for a week, I know I will then have a short period of respite until the next chemo session.

Throughout the long night I doze, I wake, I fill the tub. Sometimes I wonder if I might be so exhausted that I slip under the water and drown while sleeping. I don’t want to die. I still have one handicapped son to worry about. He needs me. It’s impossible to quell my anxiety about what will become of him when I’m gone.

I think about all the younger mothers who are suffering cancer. I think of their torment if they have young children. I close my eyes and say a prayer for these sisters I don’t know.

When the doctor first told me I had advanced ovarian cancer, I was understandably devastated and the dread was with me every moment. Surprisingly, after a couple of months, I calmed down and except for worrying for my son, found some unexpected peace. External things which had previously troubled me no longer mattered. Life took on a new perspective. And even though I wanted to survive, I stopped fearing death.

I drained more water from the tub and considered refilling it  but sensed the night was coming to an end. I had become adept at guessing exactly what time it was without looking at a clock. It now felt like 4 am. If I climbed out of the tub, dried myself and put on my robe, it would be almost dawn. I always loved the sunrise and I knew exactly from which vantage spot I would get the first glimmer of light.  Daylight banished the night terrors and sent my soul soaring.

Just as the sky turned pink, the kookaburras, those wonderful harbingers of day awoke. My ears rang with the sounds of their joyous laughter and I was no longer alone. I felt my spirit touch theirs and I wiped the mist of gratitude from my eyes.

Here was another perfect day – another day of life!

WRITER’S BLOCK.

I always boasted I never got writers block. Karma must be charging me retribution. Since I published Junie Moon Rising in April, I haven’t had a writing thought in my head. I have tried analyzing the ‘why’ of this.

Is it because I have wasted so much time on the internet, trying to indirectly promote my books by chatting with cyber friends? If so, it hasn’t worked as my sequel has not taken off with a rousing start. I’ve had one KDP give-away and it was my worst ever. I have no explanation as I did nothing different.

Actually, I do not have a huge internet following and I try to stay in touch with as much regularity as possible with my followers. Bloggers with thousands of followers must find it impossible. Therefore, they would be termed ‘followers’ NOT ‘friends’. I tend to find friends which makes it more personal. This does not, however, help book sales a great deal. Sales come from numbers.The secret to followers must be to blog more AND write with more wit and wisdom.

The time spent on the internet has increased since I’m not writing. In fact, I feel that I waste hours a day, looking for answers there. It has to stop and writing has to start again. But how?

I still enjoy attending my writers group twice a month but I have no new material to read. I still, from habit, wake up at 4 am each day, but I do not rush to the computer, brimming over with thoughts I’m anxious to record. In fact, those quiet, early mornings I loved now feel desolate. Winter is here and it is cold and dark. I don’t want to leave my cozy electric blanket but I’m awake and can’t go back to sleep.

The trouble is, I don’t know what I want to write next, or even if I want to write. I’ve written my life story up until I started adopting the children, I’ve always said I didn’t want to invade my children’s privacy by writing about them. Besides, there are many books out there about adoptions.

My one embryonic glimmer of any story is a comedy. After my children were grown I started doing antique shows, touring the East Coast of Australia while selling American vintage costume jewelry. I had a good supply of this for awhile. It was left over from my Seattle days when I owned the exotic and beautiful ‘Diamond Lil’s’ on 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle (my favorite city.) The jewelry is gone now and you don’t find much decent vintage, costume jewelry in Australia so I don’t do that regularly these days, preferring to write.

While doing those shows, you meet the same antiques dealers repeatedly and many of them make good book material. I have had a faint outline for the story in my mind for a few years. The stumbling blocks are these.

A. Will readers find my writing funny?

B. Is it possible to change book genre and not lose your followers?

C. How do I overcome this block and ‘give it a go?’

ANY SUGGESTIONS, ANYONE?

Cyber Friends.

My mother always told me I must dress well, speak well, and mind my manners. “Just remember” she used to say, “first impressions always stick.”

Well they were the days of the fifties and sixties when things like appearance and behavior mattered.

Such things do seem to be becoming irrelevant.

They say that writing is a solitary pastime. I rather enjoy solitude. However, I was told that to promote my books, I needed to get involved with social networking. Ugh! I couldn’t think of anything worse. I am barely computer literate enough to type out my books, delete, copy and paste etc. Facebook and Twitter were dirty words to me.

Reluctantly I started checking out writers’ forums and networking sites. They all seemed boring. Everyone seemed to be desperately yelling about their books and no-one was listening. I tried a few comments but didn’t know what I was doing – couldn’t attach a photo of myself or of my books to comments etc. And one time, I commented on the wrong forum, angering a man who jumped all over me and said plenty of nasty things. e.g. “Get out of here- read the requirements” – and meanest of all, “go and learn to write.” I never returned to that site.

Fortunately I stumbled upon an amazon non-fiction authors forum. The people chatted among themselves there and welcomed me. Several bought my book and encouraged me by writing wonderful reviews. Gradually, I branched out, becoming more involved in Facebook and Twitter.

Well, I’m still not very good at it and when the conversation gets technical, I don’t always understand that different language. However, I am slowly ‘getting there’ and even beginning to enjoy it. The most enjoyable part being several lovely people with whom I have become cyber-friends. This has only happened over time, as we have chatted more and more. Several of us seem to be on the same page, as they say, and I am genuinely fond of them.

That got me to wondering what they looked like, where they were from etc. Then it hit me – none of that mattered. As I thought about it more, I realized what a good thing it was to get to know someone without being distracted by their physical appearance. Indeed, I was not conscious of shape, race, age, beauty, dress etc. only what they thought and felt. We connected on a deeper level.

So, I have become a convert of sorts. It is fun to talk with people from all over the world – especially if they have the same interests as yourself, whether it be dogs, cooking, children or writing.

So, my dear cyber-friends, know that you are really appreciated and I love hearing from you. But I’m sorry I have to run now. It’s time to check my Facebook page.

I Must Retract Some Comments in Last Week’s Post

When I decided to read Nancy Stephen’s book, The Truth About Butterflies, I did not realize it was a sad story such as those I avoid. By page 5 it was too late. What a woman! What a brilliant writer! Yes it was sad And Yes, I cried in places. Nevertheless, I was unable to put it down. At 2 am I was tired and tried to sleep. Unable to stop thinking about it, I turned the light on again and continued reading. This went on all night until I finally finished it at 5.30 am.

I still avoid sad stories which does not mean I don’t value them. I was deeply affected by the story and brilliance of Joan Mazzota’s, ‘Why Whisper’. Leila Summers story ‘It Rains in February’ likewise kept me reading to the end. These are all writers whose suffering seems to have turned them into brilliant writers, able to express, and touch us with their pain. Whilst I do want to avoid sadness, how can one stop reading books that are written so magnificently? I hurt from their pain but I glow from their words.

Change of subject;

Whilst driving along this pristine mountain top last week, I was jolted to see an empty, plastic bottle discarded by the roadside. Trash is not a thing we are accustomed to seeing here. It reminded me of a few years ago when a friend’s son came to visit from Tacoma Wa. His first words were “Wow. How clean and green it is here.”

It is indeed green and clean and there is not a day I don’t appreciate it. Some years ago, I too lived in Tacoma Wa. After awhile you don’t notice the trash so much. But on a recent visit to see an old neighbor, the filth littering the pavements appalled me. We had lived not far from a shopping strip with fast food establishments. The refuse from those places was everywhere. I was so glad I no longer lived there.

Then I got to thinking about India and how filthy that beautiful country is. Not only is filth all over the streets but countless plastic bags have been blown by the wind up into the trees. I love trees and to see them covered in dust until the leaves look brown and see the branches cloaked with plastic is heart-breaking. Of course, the government, at least when I was last there, had not installed trash cans anywhere. However, there are many places here minus trash cans and we just keep the trash until we find a proper place to dispose of it. Then I recalled travelling on an Indian train with my daughter-in-law’s aunt. The aunt is a lovely, educated woman. After we finished drinking chai from paper cups, she took the cups and tossed them out of the train window. I must have looked horrified because she said “That’s a bad habit. I know.”

I am always a bit outspoken and even though I like this lady a lot, I retorted “Yes. And I would expect you to know better Charanjeet. You are a cultured woman. They need people like you to set an example if anyone is to change.”

As more and more migrants arrive in Australia – usually choosing to settle in the cities, I notice that some back areas of Sydney are not as clean as they once were.  Governments – councils, need to educate by placing commercials about civic pride on the television and by increasing the fines for littering. If we love our country, wherever it is, we should do what we can to care for it.

Profusion of serious books.

For weeks – months, I’ve been talking about my book, Goodbye Junie Moon and the sequel, Junie Moon Rising. At last, I’m sick of talking about myself. So what now? More than anything, I’m ready for a laugh.

I own a Kindle and that gives me the opportunity to download hundreds of free ebooks.

This is a great boon to readers but not so good for authors. Nevertheless, I have downloaded more free books than I currently have time to read. And I know there are many in the same boat.

What I am finding is that there are very few books on humor these days. Have we all become too serious? It seems that we don’t want to laugh but we want to tremble. Just check out the thousands of books on monsters, zombies, creatures of unimaginable fantasy.

Then there are the so-tagged Misery Memoirs. I recently listened to an editor from a major publishing company talking on the ABC. She said that a huge percentage of manuscripts she receives are about people surviving cancer. I can understand this. The majority of writers are women and the majority of cancer sufferers seem to be women. The percentage of us getting this dreaded disease are appalling.

Cancer is certainly a major event in anyone’s life. Life and death! What can get your attention more than that? So I can understand the women wanting to write about their survival. I applaud their strength – their good fortune that they are here to write. I thank God for their recovery but I don’t want to read about it (even though so many do.)

I myself am a grateful, and miraculous survivor of ovarian cancer. From day one I wanted to attack it, overcome it, yet take away its power at every turn. Therefore, I rarely spoke about it – except occasionally to others who were in the same boat as me. I did not join any support groups. When I lost my hair I wore a bright pink vinyl wig that I bought at Crazy Clarkes. I hated answering the phone because friends spoke to me in lowered voices, hushed, as if they were in the presence of death. I tried to beat them to it by snatching up the phone and speaking in the brightest tone possible. You might have thought I was on stage in a musical.

So I am strong and healthy now. I am grateful every single day but I don’t care to rehash it or cry over someone else’s battle, even though my heart goes out to them – most especially if they are children or have young children.

My sister had school-age children when she discovered she had breast cancer. I worried more for her than I did for myself. And she handled it differently from me. She did attend all the groups, and cried when other group members’ she had befriended died. Then after she went into remission she became a dynamo at holding highly successful morning teas and raising money for cancer research. Thank God for her and those like her. But as for me, I want to put it behind me. Of course, I contribute what funds I can to cancer research – especially for the treatment of children. We are all different and we all handle the crisis of life in different ways. I’m sure there is no right or wrong way – just what works best for each of us.

So now I’ve been sidetracked there. Illness is not the only subject of such memoirs. There is also a great influx of memoirs about abusive childhoods. Again, I don’t want to read them – or if I do – I can only take them in small doses. Everyone has tragedy in their life at some time. I don’t want to dwell on my own, nor anyone else’s. So, while they are highly popular at the moment, for the most part, I avoid such books.

Invariably the author’s tell us they wrote them to ‘help others’.  I know that is a genuine sentiment, but let’s be honest,  it is self therapy. That’s certainly not a bad thing.

So where is this leading? To humor – that is where! I am not finding enough new books out there with the sole aim of making us laugh – of brightening our day. If you can recommend any, please let me know. I WANT TO LAUGH.

And if you fit any of the categories I’ve mentioned, don’t think I’m cold-hearted or uncaring. Just the opposite. I love you, I would hug you if I could and I am SO truly  happy you have survived. We are on the same  team. I just don’t want anymore tears.

JUNIE MOON RISING IS NOW ON AMAZON

Maybe I should change the name of this blog because there are now two books. If you have enjoyed the first chapters of the sequel shown here, you can now buy the download from amazon for $4.99.

For the next few hours, Goodbye Junie Moon is free for download from Amazon.

If you have made three earlier comments on this blog ( or more) I will send you a free download of Junie Moon Rising, if you request, either here or at juniemooncollins@hotmail.com

I don’t have any reviews on Junie Moon Rising yet.

Cheers everyone!

JUNIE MOON RISING IS NOW ON AMAZON.

JUNIE MOON RISING IS NOW ON AMAZON..

CHAPTER 6 Bad Dreams.

CHAPTER 6  .

 

A bad dream woke me at three a.m. Such dreams were fading but, just when I thought they were gone, back they came. This one was familiar. I was crouched behind a very small rock dodging bullets. As I buried into the dirt, scratching at it with my toes and wishing it would open up and swallow me, my heart pounded. The bullets pinged all around, following me as I scuffled about behind that little rock. When I awoke, hunched in a tight coil, my heart still thumped against my chest. 

It was useless going back to sleep; I might only resume the dream. Instead, I stumbled to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. As the brew bubbled and filled the room with its tantalizing aroma, I picked up the previous day’s work and started reading it. The story was coming along well. I had tried focusing on all the good times, such as when I ran The Waltzing Matilda, my club in Nha Trang. Finishing the coffee, I made a few corrections. Whenever I turned my pages over to Robin, he made any necessary alterations before typing them up on his old Remington. He always said a book had to be written and rewritten…and rewritten.

             

 

Robin, Liz and I dined at a local hotel that evening. The Jamaican owner bustled to our table to greet Robin. While they chatted, a young man approached. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. The owner introduced him as his son, Thomas, explaining that he was seldom home, being a commercial airline pilot who flew to and from the States.

The music started and Thomas invited me to dance. I left my food unfinished and glided around the dance floor in the tall man’s arms. He guided me with the confidence he must have acquired from flying a plane. Hotel guests stared and my spirits soared as his musky after-shave titillated my senses.

An hour later, as Robin rose to leave, I looked at him and said “I’m staying Robin. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“But how will you get home?” he frowned.

“Taxi!” I muttered as Liz shook her head.

           

 Thomas and I danced until the wee hours of the morning when we ran to the hotel’s deserted beach and threw our hot bodies into the surf. Yellow moonbeams fell like a shower of buttercups upon the gently swelling, dark water. We laughed and splashed, as playful as dolphins. When he rose from the water, towering darkly above me, the heat from his body warmed my flesh in the chill night air. Laughter died in my throat as my long dormant libido awoke. I slid my hands up his chest, reaching for his face. A night bird called out from the darkly silhouetted palm trees just as his firm hands grasped my buttocks. He hoisted me up to his lips and I wrapped my legs around his hips, no longer hearing that night bird or the water lapping on the sand, only the symphony filling my head.  

 Eventually, we waded back to shore and continued our lovemaking on the beach until, sated, I fell asleep. Within seconds, he was shaking me awake. The first rays of daylight streaked the sky.

          “Quick,” he said. “We have to move before someone comes out and catches us.”

          Brushing the sand off my body, I flung my clothes on. “Can we meet tonight?” I asked, knowing a relationship between us would raise a few eyebrows amid the white community.

          “Who’s gonna stop us?” he growled.

 

 

          Robin and I were nearing the completion of our book. He informed Liz and me at lunch one day that he was flying back to New York for a brief business meeting. I wondered if ‘The Witch’ was calling.

          “I’m coming with you,” Liz exclaimed. “I won’t stay here with her.” She pointed at me.

          “Sorry dear. Not this time. I’ll be busy and you will only slow me down. I’ll be back in three days.”

          I was as unhappy as Liz about being left alone together. My pilot had flown to the States and wasn’t due back for days. There was only so much sunbathing and solitary jungle walks one could endure. 

 Two days after Robin left, I stupidly made the mistake of going to bed without locking the door of the guest house. 

When The Tea House closed at night, Liz and I were the only two people for miles around. Port Antonio was seven miles north and Frenchman’s Cove a mile further south.

        I tried to read by the dim bedroom light. An army of geckos was playing, noisily contemptuous of my presence. Jamaican geckos emit a strange ‘ack, ack’ sound not conducive to sleep and they were adeptly dodging the shoes I hurled at them. It must have been around eleven o’clock when they scampered away and I fell asleep.

 Liz had obviously been drinking when she burst into the cottage, trumpeting like a charging elephant. She rushed towards the bed, slashing the air with a machete. Still half asleep, I managed to throw myself onto the floor, barely dodging the machete before it sliced into the mattress. I scrambled to my feet, by then fully awake, and ran into the living room with her hot on my heels. Stopping long enough to grab a bar stool, I hurled it in her direction and made my escape.

I ran barefoot through the jungle wearing nothing but panties. Hadn’t I warned Robin not to leave her behind? Amazingly, although she was drunk, she seemed to be gaining on me.

Whoosh! Whoosh! The sounds of the machete were audible above my labored breathing as she cut a swath through the tangled jungle vines. With pounding heart, I struggled through the underbrush as large plantain leaves slapped against my sweating face. A twisted vine caught my foot and I stumbled forward. My pace slowed while I tried to regain my balance before crashing head first into the trunk of a palm tree. I could hear Liz yelling, “Where are you bitch? Come out! Come out wherever you are!”

  I scrambled behind the trunk of the palm tree which had stopped my flight, but had given me a splitting headache. The cloud that covered the moon, making my dash so hazardous, now worked to my advantage. I cowered in impenetrable darkness beneath the ferns and bracken which sprouted below the palm tree. Liz stopped only feet away and I held my breath. The night seemed uncannily still.

          Even in the hands of a drunk, that machete could do harm. I squeezed myself into a tight ball as blood trickled from a gash in my forehead. Nearby, a coconut dropped with a heavy thud onto the dense leaf bed of the jungle floor. My gasp almost gave me away.

          While mosquitoes feasted hungrily on my sweaty skin in the muggy air, Liz cursed and searched blindly. Plop, plop! A large, raindrop coursed through the leafy canopy and splattered onto my forehead. The crack of thunder shook the ground as a sudden deluge punched fiercely into the gigantic taro leaves. Their shiny surfaces shook and quivered like a Hawaiian dancer’s grass skirt. Lightning lit the jungle, and waking birds screeched. Throaty frogs hollered and cicadas joined in, their volume swelling and falling, washing over me in deafening waves.

          Surely Liz would leave now? We couldn’t stay drenched outside all night. My knees had grown stiff from crouching. I was about to confront her when she screamed, “You’re no fucking hero! You won’t face me, so stay out here and rot, you whore!”

           She turned on her heel and was gone.

          “How did I end up in this shit?” I wondered. “Can’t I ever meet normal people anymore? Won’t my life ever return to normal?”

          When I saw the distant slits of light appear through the shutters of Robin’s cottage, I stood. Clumsily, I slipped and slithered downhill with mud squelching between my toes. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had started and clouds drifted away, revealing a weak, partial moon amid a sky full of water-hazed stars. I kicked the guest house door open then slammed it. This time I braced a chair beneath the knob.

          “That whoremonger’s gonna get a piece of my mind when he returns,” I mumbled, reaching for a towel.

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5  Fairy Hill, Jamaica.

 

Frenchman’s Cove, the neighboring property, was an exclusive resort comprising forty-five waterfront acres of magnificently landscaped tropical gardens. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh took holidays there. So did Princess Margaret and countless other heads of state and movie royalty.

          Frequently, as we sat around The Blue Lagoon enjoying our evening cocktails, the resort owners zigzagged through the palm trees in their open-topped jeep to join us. They were a friendly couple who usually dressed in khaki shorts and shirts with pith helmets. I half expected to see them drag in a dead tiger or two. Despite the congenial evenings, I was always the odd man out, both by having no escort and by my continual sense of ‘never fitting in’. My recovery and growing happiness was a solitary thing.

 Grainger Weston was the son of Garfield Weston, otherwise known as The Cookie King of Canada. The “Who’s Who” of this world meant nothing to me but they were nice people. When Robin told me that his own family was included in the American “Who’s Who”, I responded with a shrug of my shoulders. My mother had always raised her children to judge a person by their character, not by material wealth or social standing.

      Sitting around the lagoon at sunset, eating pit-roasted, crackling pork from greasy fingers and slurping up exotic cocktails, I was experiencing ‘the good life’.  Night and day, the exotic sounds of reggae music burst forth from The Tea House distracting me with its rhythm. It had been a long time since I had really danced. Pleasant as our evening rituals were, as time passed, I longed to slip away and join the ‘poor natives’ who were letting it all hang out, grooving to the beat.

 The seventies were so different! You either belonged to a ‘white’ segment or a ‘black’ segment and the two rarely mixed.

 One night, the music’s temptation became too great. After Liz and Robin retired, I snuck down to The Tea House. With Julius and family bound by secrecy, it became a nightly event. I was, of course, the only white customer. Sweat-soaked and happy, I managed to get a few hours sleep each morning before writing again. For me, dance was always a passion and passion of any kind had been missing for too long.

I suspected Robin guessed my nocturnal habits after I too began taking afternoon naps. He probably thought it was all about ‘nookie’ for he had never known the thrill of uninhibited dance, being imprisoned by the sedate ‘white man’s’ shuffle. Respectable people weren’t supposed to let their hair down the way Rita Hayworth did. Or the way Ava Gardner did, or the way I sometimes did. Music and dance were bringing me back into the human race.

 

 

          It was a Saturday morning and we seldom wrote on weekends.

          “Do you want to come for a ride with me, Junie Moon?” Robin asked.

          “Where to? Is Liz coming?”

“She’s still sleeping. I’m going to buy some eggs. The old guy is in his eighties but you might find him interesting.”

“Sure. I’ll come,” I replied.

          After a fifteen-minute drive, Robin turned the old sedan off the road and, with the engine laboring, we drove up a perilously steep, rutted, dirt driveway. Reaching the top, he spun the car around to face downhill then pulled up in a cloud of dust and spurting gravel before cutting the engine. As we got out of the car, fowls ran underfoot in the unkempt garden at the rear of a run-down, timber house with sagging shutters. A large, meaty Jamaican woman with a mahogany face worn out from life was hanging clothes on the line. I estimated she was in her sixties and I marveled at her hair which was thick and shiny black, pulled back into a loose braid like that of a young girl.

          Squinting into the sun, she yanked a wooden clothes peg from her mouth and called out, “Hullo, Mr. Moore. I’ll be with you in a minute.” She had that musical rise and fall of the Jamaican accent which I loved.

          “No hurry,” Robin replied. “Where is Mr. Jackson today? Is he sleeping?”

          “No. He’s sitting on the front porch, enjoying the view.”

          Robin frowned. “How can he enjoy the view? He’s blind.”

          “As a bat,” she agreed, continuing to hang the clothes. “The Parkinson’s getting worse but still he likes to look out towards the ocean. He said the smell of the ocean brings the pictures back to his mind from the days when he could see it.”

          Her poignant comments touched me. “That is beautiful but also sad,” I said. She ignored me as though I was an impertinent stranger, lacking the right to speak.

          “This is my houseguest, June Collins,” Robin made the introduction. Mrs. Jackson nodded brusquely, possibly considering mundane courtesies a waste of time.

          “Here after some eggs are you?”

          “Yeah.”

          “They’re not layin’ as many these days but I’ll see if I can rustle up a dozen.” She finished hanging the last garment and wiped her large hands on her apron.

          “Do you mind if I take June around the front of the house to meet Mr. Jackson? I told her all about him being from England and fighting in World War I and she would like to meet him. She has recently come from the war in Vietnam.”

          “He don’t like visitors these days. Says they all talk nonsense and he can’t be bothered.”

          “We’ll leave if we seem to be bothering him.”

          She spat, expertly aiming her gob of saliva onto a busy ant mound. “Go take your chances then.”

          As we walked around the side of the house I asked Robin, “Are there many mixed-race marriages out here?”

          “Very few. The Jackson’s settled in England at the end of WWI but his family disowned him so he moved out here.” He cut off what he was saying and abruptly grabbed my elbow, steering me around a pad of cow dung which I hadn’t noticed. “Racism was worse than what it is now,” he said.

          “I hope it’s been worth it.”

          “Who wouldn’t be better off out here than in England? Look!” We had rounded a corner and the vista spread before us caused me to stop and inhale sharply. I had seen this magnificent shoreline and sparkling ocean almost daily but never from this height with an unobstructed 360-degree angle. On the horizon behind me, the lush, wildly beautiful Blue Mountains rode the range beneath a blue sky streaked with filmy ribbons of cloud. In the foreground, a tumult of bougainvillea spread exuberant in a profusion of purples, reds and cyclamen, almost too vivid for my eyes. To one side soared a sea of swaying palms interspersed by Poinciana trees laden heavy with tangerine blossoms. Umbrella trees, taro and wild bananas ran rampant above a carpet of feathery ferns.

 At the furthest point forward, coves of snowy white half-moons framed the azure water of the ocean which dazzled with a billion spangles of sunlight. My eyes misted over. How could anyone become jaded with such a view? The old people’s house may have seen better days but their property atop Port Antonio’s highest peak would be a developer’s dream. I cringed at the thought of mere mortals tampering with nature’s magnificence, all for money.

          “I wish I had brought my camera,” I whispered, filled with spiritual delight. Robin gazed at me, enjoying my reaction. His scrutiny felt like an intrusion.

          “Who’s there?” rasped a quavering voice from off to my right.

          “It’s Robin, Mr. Jackson. I’ve got a young lady with me and she wants to meet you.”

          “Why would she want to meet me?” He grumbled in a voice grown gravelly from too many years of smoking cigarettes. However, belying his lack of welcome, he reached for his walking cane and rose stiffly from the bench where he sat then turned in our direction. He was tall and angular, the frame of his shoulder bones sticking out gauntly like a coat-hanger as they held up his shirt. He wore clean but crumpled cotton shorts, a short-sleeved, buttoned-down shirt and leather sandals. A nose grown prominent with time dominated his creased face and cloudy eyes seemed to peer at a point just above my head.

          “My name’s June and I hoped we might exchange a few war stories if you like,” I said, stepping up to him and lightly touching his free hand. He fumbled then turned his hand to clasp mine before shaking it. The veins of his spindly arms stood out darkly like purple threads behind his crinkled, sun-parched skin. His knuckles were huge mounds of calcified bone and his skin felt like cracked leather as he pumped my hand in a surprisingly firm grasp.

          “Come and sit beside me if you have nothing better to do, young lady,” he said, the harshness fading from his voice.

          “I’ll go around and talk to Mrs. Jackson,” Robin interjected. “I’ll see you soon.”

          The old man and I sat on the bench in comfortable silence. Eventually he started the conversation and it soon became apparent there was an intangible connection between us. Any age barrier dissolved, if indeed it had ever existed, as he enthralled me with his stories about fighting the Germans and the Turks during WWI. I was a bit of a war history buff and he soon made it clear he held a great deal of admiration for the Turks, even though they had been his enemy.

          “They were such fine soldiers,” he said. “And the Germans, their so-called allies, treated them like dirt. One time I remember, the combined German and Turk forces were overrunning our position. To breach the coils of barbed wire along our perimeter, the Germans ordered the Turks to throw themselves upon the wire, enabling the Krauts to stampede over them.”

          Fate must have brought us together. I shared his admiration of the Turks and had read many military history books about their performance during the Korean War.

          “When I was living in Korea,” I told him, “I dated the Turkish charge-d’affaires. He often took me to visit the Turks at their camp on the DMZ at Panmunjom. Their camp was poor, their vehicles and equipment old, in sharp contrast to the nearby American camp. However, whereas the Americans had numerous guards to stop the local thieves, the Turks had none. They told me that when they caught thieves, they cut their hands off. It may seem harsh, especially as the Koreans were dirt poor, but it worked. Theirs was the only camp not being robbed.” I brushed away an annoying fly and continued. “So I don’t know about WW1, Mr. Jackson, but I do know that in the Korean War the Turks alone never lost a prisoner in the POW camps. Prisoners of other nationalities ridiculed them, calling them animals for eating dirt and grass. The Turks understood the earth’s mineral content and they alone survived intact.”

          Mr. Jackson’s voice quavered. “They were tough but they always fought fair.” He coughed hard for a moment and his hands shook. I reached across and took one bony hand in my own, gently holding his thin, cold fingers as I would a small child. My touch startled him but he did not immediately pull back. The shaking eased.

          Soon Robin was calling me to leave. I followed the old man out of the sunshine as he led the way, tapping his cane through the darkened house. The living room was filled with heavy, old-fashioned furniture and along one wall were shelves holding hundreds of books.

          “You must have enjoyed reading,” I commented.

          “I miss that most of all.” Nostalgia crept into his gravelly voice.

          “Maybe I can rectify that. I have free time every afternoon. How about I have one of the Jamaican boys drive me over here and I read to you? Have you read ‘Uhuru’ or ‘The Honey Badger’ by Robert Ruark?”

Soon after, I left, knowing I had made a friend. He felt ‘real’ to me, as so many others still did not.

 

 

Chapter 4 Junie Moon Rising

It’s Monday morning Down Under, so time for a new chapter.

I have not received many comments. If you see any errors, please let me know. However, do note, I am using American spelling.

CHAPTER 4 Another Fresh Start.

A week later, I sat on the plane trying not to think about the behavior responsible for this trip. My outburst and self-degradation were best forgotten. As my mother always said, “You can’t unscramble eggs.”

I cleared my mind by focusing on Robin who was in exuberant spirits. He wandered, drink in hand, up and down the aisle, chatting and joking with the Jamaican passengers in childlike happiness which I found endearing. He was never so carefree in New York although I had noticed his eyes lit up whenever he spoke of Jamaica. Liz was matching him drink for drink but looked petulant. I remained guiltily silent, ‘on the wagon’.

At the Kingston airport, Robin’s caretaker, Julius, was waiting beside an old Chevrolet sedan. We loaded the luggage and left immediately for Port Antonio. Thirty minutes into our trip, the last of Kingston’s shantytown houses disappeared, replaced by a dazzlingly lush, tropical landscape.

“This is more my style.” I smiled at Robin.

“We know your style!” Liz snarled.

Many travel writers, then and now, have extolled Port Antonio’s natural beauty. It sits off the beaten track but attracts the world’s wealthy. Today, although its heyday of hosting royalty and movie stars has passed, it remains peaceful and uncrowded. Most tourists traipse to the more familiar destinations of Montego Bay or Ocho Rios on the opposite side of the island.

In 1970, Port Antonio was a very small community indeed, home to a cheerful Jamaican community and a handful of semi-permanent Caucasians. Most of the Caucasians were wealthy English who spent summers on their inherited estates.

Our arrival coincided with the seasonal return of the gentry. As we approached our destination, I stared in admiration at the glistening white homes and sparkling swimming pools dotting the hills. They sat amid verdant gardens of bougainvillea and palms, overlooking spectacular views of the sparkling ocean.

“I’ve owned The Blue Hole for many years,” Robin volunteered as Julius slowed down. “These homes belong to friends of mine. You’ll meet many of them while you’re here.”

“Native Jamaican’s, too?” I prodded.

“Of course! There’s no racism here.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow. The mood in America at that time was changing. Robin was one of the many whites appalled by the treatment of African/Americans. Yet even while he called for ‘equality’, he was not averse to laughing at a racial joke. Like so many of his class, his liberalism was tinged by an unconscious air of superiority towards other races and people of lower social strata. After all, he was a Harvard graduate, a proud achievement occasionally flaunted.

There was little variety to his generous wardrobe of conservative Brooks Brothers suits, routinely accessorized with the old school tie. So while I never considered Robin a racist, he was definitely a Wasp, (white Anglo-Saxon protestant) smug in his benevolent whiteness and family background.

We passed a sign reading “Fairy Hill” and Julius parked the car on the side of the road.

“Home!” Robin sighed contentedly.

“I thought you lived in Port Antonio. What’s this Fairy Hill?”

“The outskirts of Port Antonio. We’re not in the town proper.”

“Yeah. There are no men about here to keep you company.” Liz sneered as we grabbed the luggage.

“Quit it, Liz! We are going to be stuck together every day, so give it a break.”

Robin and Julius took the largest suitcases and we set out in single file down the narrow, hillside path.

“A real rain forest. What a paradise,” I said, following along.

“I live in the top house,” Robin volunteered. “You go with Julius to the writing studio a little further down. It doubles as a guest cottage. His wife or one of his boys will come in and straighten up each morning.”

Liz shrugged. “I’m ready for a drink.”

“Now, now, Liz dear. Let’s unpack first.”

We stopped beside Robin’s cottage. Birds squawked overhead and blue water glistened through the palms further down the track.

“Julius runs The Tea House at the bottom of the hill. We’ll catch you down there beside the lagoon in an hour.”

He and Liz left and, moments later, Julius unlocked the door to my temporary home.

The simple guest cottage, enclosed within glass louvers, was an improvement over the place above the Chinese restaurant. The air smelled of earth and flora, not deep-frying fat.

I clattered noisily across bare boards to the small bedroom where a mosquito net hung above a white, iron bed. A couple of geckos played tag on the planked walls. I threw myself onto the bed and lay there, in no hurry to move.

After unpacking and taking a shower, I followed the path to The Blue Hole. Liz and Robin were already there, drinking pina coladas while bathed in the kaleidoscopic colors of a magnificent sunset. Nearby, a fire pit emitted mouth-watering aromas of sizzling pork. The cheerful sounds of reggae music drifted across the lagoon.

“Who owns The Tea House?” I asked, observing several Jamaicans sitting outside the nearby thatched structure.

“The property’s all mine,” Robin began “but I…

“Yours and mine!” Liz interrupted.

“But I lease The Tea House to Julius and his family,” Robin said, ignoring his wife. “They make a decent living and take good care of my place. I like my privacy so I keep The Tea House separated inside the fence. Customers have the view but not the use of the lagoon.”

Moments later, one of Julius’s well muscled teen-age sons appeared carrying a flaming torch.

“Hullo, Mr. Boss.” He grinned at Robin. “I chase away mosquitoes.” He passed on bare feet and lit the bamboo flares around the water’s edge. I watched his progress, quietly admiring his well-developed abs until Robin caught me and I blushed. Wisps of black smoke rose in the evening air, tinging it briefly with kerosene fumes. The yellow flames grew brighter, their flickering light dancing across the darkening water. I sighed heavily; the romantic setting made me wish I wasn’t just a third spoke in the wheel. It had been a long time since any thoughts of romance had entered my head.

“In the past, I rented this place out as a movie location,” Robin interrupted my thoughts. “It was used as location for one of Robin Williams’s movies. A little later, Brooke Shields made it famous with her movie, ‘The Blue Lagoon’. Everyone started calling it The Blue Lagoon then and the name stuck. The older folk still call it The Blue Hole and claim it’s bottomless.” His voice softened. “Wait until tomorrow. When the sun hits it at different angles, it changes color between aquamarine, turquoise and sapphire.”

“Oh shut up with the travelogue.” Liz rasped. “Isn’t it time Julius brought another round?”

Back in the cottage, my first night was restless. No sooner did I fall asleep than a huge crash made me leap up, yelling “Incoming!” A heavy object thumped noisily down the corrugated grooves of the metal roof before smashing into the gutter and shooting out to the ground below. Within moments, I realized the sound had come from a coconut falling onto the tin roof. That sound would disturb my sleep many times in the coming weeks.

Robin and I were early risers. Neither of us ate breakfast and, by the time he knocked on my door at seven a.m., I had the coffee ready and we commenced writing. The house was not air-conditioned and we avoided the midday heat by taking a long lunch break with Liz joining us beside the lagoon.

After lunch, she and Robin took turns skiing across the sparkling water with one of Julius’s boys at the boat helm. They both possessed the grace and skill of elite athletes. Surprised by, and envious of, their talent, I worked on my tan, drawing lascivious glances from Robin. If I lounged too close to the water’s edge, Liz delighted in skiing close to shore. After turning sharp and fast, drenching me beneath a watery fountain, she flashed away, her laughter spinning out across the lagoon. Her intent backfired one day when Robin ran forward and enfolded me in a huge fluffy towel, holding me in his arms long enough to infuriate Liz.

“Can’t you ski, Junie Moon?” he asked, one other day. I shook my head ‘no’ and Liz smirked. Thanks to Robin’s flirting, her jealousy had reached alarming proportions. I suspected Robin deliberately provoked her insecurities and I occasionally felt sorry for her. I had considered trying to befriend her but she was too mean to me. Briefly, I thought of exchanging my skimpy bathing suit for something less revealing but Liz, too, followed the current rage and wore a tiny bikini. Unfortunately for Liz, by cultivating that “New York Thin” look, she had lost her behind. Whenever she entered the lagoon, her bikini pants filled with air and bobbed on the water’s surface like a floating balloon.

“I’ll have to teach you to ski, Junie Moon.” Robin grinned. “There’s no time like the present.”

Although I had been a professional dancer for many years, I was surprised to find myself completely hopeless on skis. I spent more time under water than on top. When I surfaced, choking up water and with my nose running, the sight afforded uproarious entertainment for Liz. The Jamaican tea room customers, upon hearing Liz’s merriment, turned to stare, their voices soon joining hers in raucous laughter.

Following lunch, Robin and Liz routinely returned home so Robin could take an hour siesta – or so he said. I suspected Liz owed me a debt of gratitude. While Robin ‘rested’, I took long, lonesome walks through the rain forest. Sweating in the humidity, I often stopped by one of the many waterfalls to crouch and drink the pristine contents. It never occurred to me that, in years to come, people would waste money buying water to carry everywhere, as if embarking on a trek through the desert.

One afternoon, while wending my way back to the guest house, I stopped to enjoy the wonderful song of a nearby bird. I looked up, searching the branches of the surrounding trees. Slivers of sunshine splashed my upturned face. I inhaled deeply and was stunned by a thought. I was happy!