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"My dear Sir Joseph, may I present --" was as far as the Captain got before Banks was caught in an embrace at once soft and hard, familiar and strange.
"You said we would meet again."
It was the language of the South Seas, of which, on the journey down to Portsmouth, Joseph had said he remembered no more than a few words. His understanding, he found now, was clear, but he could not find the words to reply.
"Mai," he said, instead, returning the young man's embrace. He smelt eau de Cologne and powder; but underneath that, elusive and evocative, a lure of spice and salt and clean male sweat.
"It is Omai, now, Mr -- Sir Joseph," said Captain Furneaux, eyeing them with some disapprobation. "I'll wager you thought never to see him more, eh? Eh?"
"I had not dared to hope that we would meet again," said Joseph equably, taking Mai's -- Omai's -- hands in his. The sensation of scarred skin against his brought memories, in a flood. He stepped back from the embrace, examining the Tahitian as though to reassert the evidence of his own eyes. "This is a happy day."
Omai's eyes were as fathomless as ever. He was gazing at Joseph calmly and steadily, waiting -- waiting for what?
Waiting for things to be as they were, Joseph thought, and felt the colour begin to rise in his cheeks. For a moment he did not know what to do -- what to say -- where to turn. Captain Furneaux had not been there, five years before, when Banks had sailed with Cook and Solander to the South Seas; but when Joseph looked at him, he knew that Furneaux had heard the stories.
Solander cleared his throat. He said to Omai, in tolerable island speech, "We are very happy to welcome you to England."
"I am happy to be here," Omai replied; he was looking at Joseph questioningly, perhaps wondering why his former friend had not greeted him as amiably. Solander had been quick to learn the language of the South Seas when they had been there with Cook, and it seemed he had been as quick to recall it.
Banks knew that he should speak, but perhaps he had never learnt the words for what he wished to say. He would not say it in English, before the Captain, before his friend Solander and James his servant.
"I have happy memories of the islands," he said at last, haltingly. Omai rewarded him with a smile of singular warmth. It was obvious that he had not heard, did not understand, the ambiguity that made Solander -- who had known everything that happened -- scowl.
"I have happy memories of my friends," said Omai in English. In English! His speech was imperfectly formed, like a child's, and the words sounded clumsy on his tongue. Joseph wondered how far his understanding extended beyond his powers of speech. Could they, finally, talk together without his own lack of words crippling conversation?
"Where are you lodging, Omai?" he asked pleasantly.
Omai looked confused. He darted a glance at Captain Furneaux, who had read more into Banks' words than he'd intended.
Banks sighed, and struggled to construct the question in his rusty island speech. "Where will you --" he began, and broke off. "Daniel, how do I ask this? I have not the words."
"I understand your question," said Omai meekly. "It is only because I do not know the answer."
Recklessly, wanting Omai to smile (and expecting Furneaux to frown), Joseph said, "Why, you shall lodge with me in London Town."
It was a lie, to say that he knew that Omai would come to him.
Joseph lay in bed, awake long after the noise from the inn below had become silence, and considered the distinction between knowledge and certainty. He was certain, yes, that Omai would come to him tonight, soft-footed on the unfamiliar stairs. It had been there in that friendly greeting, there in his unfathomable gaze; there, too, in the way he had met Captain Furneaux' scorn with calm dignity. That look had said, more loudly than his imperfect words, "I care not for your priggish morality."
And yet, and yet ... somewhere across the city, a clock chimed midnight, and still he had not come. This was Portsmouth, not Tahiti. This was a stone-built, tile-roofed inn, rooms thruppence a night. Joseph realised that Omai would surely not have a room all to himself.
But if he truly wished to come to Joseph ... His roommate (bedmate?) would surely sleep at last, and Omai could lift the latch and slip out, barefoot on the wooden floor, along the corridor to Joseph's room.
Perhaps that look had meant, instead, "Yes, he and I ... but that is all in the past. I am in England now, and will play the English-man."
The marks and scars -- tattoos, that was their word -- swept down his back like the whorls of a shell.
Joseph groaned. Earlier, he had been touching himself; only lightly, teasing and tantalising, letting memories surface in his mind. Always before he had driven them back; sat bolt upright in bed, some nights, murmuring old Linné's taxonomy like a rosary until the images had been replaced by dust-dry etchings of root and stem and leaf. Now it was safe -- he had thought it safe -- to remember.
There had been a distinctive smell, there in the darkness of that house; spice and salt and rottenness, breadfruit and sweet grass. He had forgotten that, until now. He had forgotten it simply, without needing to think about forgetting. There was something to the nature of memory there, too. The memories that he had tried to lose were no clearer than those that he'd given no thought. The feel of a muscular body pressed against him, the sheen of salt water on dark flesh -- like mahogany, thought Joseph, and his breath stuttered as he thought of hardness ...
He touched himself again. Perhaps his certainty was unfounded. Perhaps Omai did not remember, or thought himself unwelcome, or had turned to another. Joseph groaned again at that last thought. Omai's touch was like nothing else he had ever known. He had paid a girl five shillings, once, to do as Omai had done. He'd cried out "Mai!" when he climaxed, though it had been nothing to what he remembered. The girl had laughed at him, not unkindly, and told him to go back to his lass. "That May you were calling out for," she'd said, when he'd asked what she meant. "That wouldn't be May at the George, now would it? Only she's my cousin."
And there memory went again, leading him astray, letting him wool-gather while the night marched on and he lay awake, alone in an inn in Portsmouth Town.
Joseph had not slept well, and it was an effort to exert himself to speak to the other occupants of the London-bound coach. Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, had arrived that morning, and was determined to set out immediately for London. He had set himself to converse with Omai, and Solander was translating some of the more convoluted sentences. Omai himself showed every sign of having slept soundly. His eyes were clear and h smiled frequently, at Sandwich and Solander as well as Joseph. He answered the First Lord's questions politely and attentively, and gradually Joseph roused himself to join the conversation.
"Yes, I met Omai first in the South Seas when I sailed with Cook on the Endeavour to observe the transit of Venus," he said.
"The tropical paradise of Tahiti, eh?" said Sandwich. "I hear their queen is a fine woman." He winked, very obviously, at Banks.
It was the scandal sheets all over again. Solander grinned at his friend's discomfort; Omai looked politely appalled. Joseph considered several different answers. "Truly? I had not noticed." "They have three queens." "Any European who touched Oberea would have died." "It was not the women who interested me."
"Indeed, my lord," he said. Omai flicked a glance at him, and Joseph could not resist adding, "The people are all well-favoured, as you can see from the person of this fine young man."
Later, when they had stopped to change the horses, Omai caught his arm as he went towards the inn. "Why did you say that? That I was well-favoured?"
Joseph reminded himself that the islanders' expressions often denoted emotional states quite different to those of Europeans. Omai was not necessarily angry. And there was no danger; they stood alone near the gate of the inn, but there were grooms in the stable-yard, and James was waiting at the door for Joseph.
"You are well-favoured," he told Omai, smiling.
Omai's expression did not change.
"I ... hoped you would come to me, last night," Joseph murmured, feeling his smile fade.
But Omai was smiling now, smiling back at him. "I did not know where you lay," he said; and, when Joseph laughed aloud, "It's true!"
"I'm laughing at myself," Joseph told him. "And I will make sure, in London, that you know where to find me."
He looked askance at Omai, suddenly uncertain, all over again, of the other man's wishes. Omai was smiling, still, and he leant close. "How far, now, to London?"
"Very far," said Joseph, and this time Omai laughed with him.
-end-