This short extract from the memoirs of Evan Moore is provided for students as a study in economic opportunism.
Chapter 10 - THE ISLES OF HALCYON
That summer had been difficult. Firstly there was my internet company which, from its inception I had planned to sell once it reached an optimum size - but even so our parting almost seemed like having one's child fly the nest. Then there was my failing marriage. In my experience a divorce, however amicable, always leaves one with a sense of something lost - as I suppose there is. Thus, come the autumn, I was traumatized and in need of a sabbatical.
One evening - a drink or two taken in the yacht club - I expressed myself forcefully on the subject, whereupon John Hardstaff promptly offered me the use of his small sloop for a winter of solo sailing round the warm South Seas. It seemed the ideal restorative.
So it was that, having been casually cruising wherever my whim took me for close on a month, chance found me near the Halcyon Isles. I had not intended to call there. Indeed, I doubt if I would have been permitted entry given the taboo on visitors. However in the small hours of one morning I collided with a drifting tree trunk and sustained a damaged bow which required an emergency dash for the nearest land.
The Halcyon Isles, as any schoolboy (sorry that's not PC, it should be school person - no to hell with it - school-kid) knows, are to be found just downwind of Paradise, where they share its congenial climate of blue skies, warm seas breaking onto coral sands, light rain at night and temperatures rarely far from the prevailing eighty degrees. With plentiful fish, fertile fields and abundant fruit on the trees, the living is easy. They present a Shangri-La for dropouts, dead beats and drifters - for who has a soul so dead they wouldn't prefer to languish in the Isles rather than slave for the taxes, traffic, and takeaways offered by advanced economies? Which is why the islanders, to protect their way of life, have turned their backs on the world and adopted a strict policy of no immigration, no tourists, no traders. In short, no visitors.
But if they have turned their backs on the delights of civilisation how do they fill their idle hours? Who provides their entertainment?
Well what better than indulging natural desires?
The islanders themselves, though small in number, are noble in stature. The males tall, athletic and well endowed and the women - words are inadequate to convey their bounteous charms. It seems inevitable, in a climate where clothes are largely unnecessary and even when worn are kept to a minimum, that there is a vast proclivity to the gratification of concupiscence - coitus, cunnilingus and fellatio become, as they should be, art forms. Indeed a vindication of art for art's sake.
At least that was the way it had been until the Isles were struck by what scientists refer to as
climate change
. The blue skies and warm seas were still to be enjoyed, but the rains largely disappeared, parching the crops and leaving the islanders dependent on fish for their food. Not that I was immediately aware of this since I had other things on my mind.
As a shipwrecked mariner, I was given permission to stay for the time needed to repair John's boat, and since I had now become a legally authorized unfortunate, the islanders quickly showed their natural friendliness by suggesting that a good a place to lay my head would be the hut of a young widow.
I soon became aware that sleeping was to be a minor part of her hospitality. Indeed just a single night at Choo Mee's demonstrated that though, after three wives and several girl friends, I considered myself well versed in matters sexual I still had much to learn. In consequence I procrastinated on the boat repair while broadening my education and enjoying the sweet life.
Occupied with the boat by day and Choo by night the weeks passed delightfully until she unexpectedly announced that she would be leaving me for a period in order to perform her duties at something called the
Festival of First Joy
. She was carefully vague as to exactly what those duties were - something to do with novices I gathered - and was uncertain precisely how long she would be gone because, as she did explain, the Festival was held on one of the smaller islands in the group and sailing there, and back, depended on the winds being from a suitable direction.
Alone I found time hanging heavily. I didn't want to work too hard and complete my repairs, but what to do instead, and how to fill my evenings? Thus it came about that, after a couple of days, I acquired a drinking companion and learned to appreciate the bite of fermented coconut milk - though not as much as my acquaintance who, most nights, after a few too many drinks had led him to regale me with the Islanders' woes I had to help to his hut.
He complained that the warming of the globe was ruining their lives; their principal crops failing they needed to import food, but they couldn't pay for it; they had no trade, no exports, thus no balance of payments. Their only hope seemed to be to relax their rules and open the Isles to tourists, even though that would bring the drop outs and tidal tripper trash. They were trying to resist, but for how long could they hold out? I sympathized with their problem but, at the time, gave it little thought, being impatient for the return of my Choo.
She was away for nigh on two weeks and when she finally appeared she looked tired and exhausted. So weak that the first night back, while she easily emptied my brimming balls, it took all my skill and perseverance to bring her to a climax - a far cry from her normally insatiable self.
Afterwards I lay with her in my arms. 'Tell me all about it,' I said.
