Gaigai Dala

From the ages of thirteen to seventeen, my one drive in life was the acquisition of a girlfriend. As a chubby, self-hating student at an all-boy school, opportunities to improve my self-esteem were few and far between. Becoming academically exalted was too much work, and I was never going to debase myself by attempting to join the rugby team, so there was only one option. I needed to find a girlfriend.

Before I continue, I want to point out that the person I was then is not who I am now. I’m studying business at Cardiff University and in my second year of a stable, loving relationship with a course-mate. Of course, it’s impossible to judge myself accurately and it may be that my housemates and lecturers see me as an obnoxious twat, but I like to think that I’m relatively mature and well-adjusted. I like to think that I’ve learned from the mistakes of my youth.

During those four years at school I was a vacuum, shallowly feigning every interest necessary to pique the interest of the few girls I ever got the chance to speak to. When I started messaging Fiona Pollock, with her tall quietness and ever-changing hair colour, I learned that she loved horror. So it was that I spent weekend after weekend streaming Dario Argento and Wes Craven films, trying to find the chance to invite myself over and introduce her to La Chiesa or Shocker or some other horseshit. When I met Georgia Weaver at auditions for a youth orchestra, I listened to every Haydn symphony over the course of a month, boring myself to tears just because I’d heard her play a few dozen bars of his second cello concerto while warming up. Most debasing of all, though, when I met Sally Bender, I watched four seasons of Supernatural in three weeks. When I asked her out and she laughed in my face, it was such a blow to my confidence that I considered pivoting towards academic success.

A month later, though, I came up with a plan that I was convinced would work. It was at the school’s carol service, surrounded by Christmas cheer in the high, stony vault of the local parish church that I had my epiphany. In a flash of divine inspiration, I decided to date a Christian girl.

It would hardly make me a player, and there’d be limits to how much social currency it would afford me. I wouldn’t be able to brag over canteen French bread pizza about the absurd positions me and my Jesus-freak studied after Sunday School, and the mockery from friends would at least equal the ego-boost I’d get from every date. Still, looking at the gangly, sombre youths who timidly poured out mulled wine after the service, at the very least I knew I’d be among social equals. Besides, there was always a chance that it would all turn out to be true and I would avoid the Lake of Fire when I croaked.

When, after Christmas, I announced to my family my intention to take confirmation at the Anglican church in town, my parents responded with quiet, slightly baffled happiness. They’d raised me in the Methodist faith and, while I don’t think either of them held strong religious views, they respected God enough to scowl when, just six months earlier, I’d declared myself an atheist as all edgy teenagers must. That Sunday, just shy of my sixteenth birthday, I attended my first church service in the better part of ten years and, the Wednesday evening after that, my first Youth Group session.

A year later and I hadn’t yet made my move. I’m not the victim here but looking back I wasn’t doing well. I was a spotty brat who ran a mile in 16 minutes and was always described as “underperforming” by every teacher who ever met my parents. I could see two ways out of my anxiety at the time, and the most appealing was sealing the deal with my target; Prudence Stearne.

Prue was a plain girl. A little taller than most, but with a body that had otherwise stopped developing by thirteen, I’d selected her the first time I attended Youth Group – though it took another two weeks before she met my gaze. Over the following months I got to know her and learned that behind the wide staring eyes there was a sweet, kindly heart and, below hair so mousy it bordered on grey there was brain filled with a gentle wit, a love of baking and, of course, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Good Book.

It was a surprise when, a year after I’d decided to prey on the godly, Prue invited me to her house for dinner. I knew there was no real romantic intention behind it, but I was so starved of female attention that I decided to treat it as a practice run for when she inevitably fell for my charms. On the last day of school, I wandered down into town, changed into a new Primark shirt in the public toilets behind the market building, got a cheap haircut, and picked up a bottle of Shloer from Aldi. All prepared to make her fall in love with me, I marched across town and knocked on Prudence Stearne’s door.

I was blown away the moment the door opened. The Stearne family did not do Christmas by halves. Her parents, dressed in matching but opposite-coloured Christmas jumpers welcomed me into their home and lead me to the dining room – a route that passed by no fewer than six Christmas trees, each with coordinated decoration, at least two of which were real. The entire ceiling above the dining table was covered by a silver-coloured plastic net, from which hung more than a hundred novelty baubles of all shapes and sizes, and if there was a surface in that house that wasn’t covered in snow-globes and nutcrackers, I didn’t see it. Even the dining room table, set for five people, was littered with twice as many neatly arranged candles in kitschy elf-head holders, surrounding a gargantuan motorised snow-globe that contained a plastic Frosty pinching Rudolph on the shiny red nose- illuminated, of course. Mrs Stearne made some fussing apology about the mess and I replied with some joke too weak to remember, which was met with gales of good-natured fake laughter from the parents. Prudence, sitting at the table in a modest green skirt with her hair in braids, wore a small smile and a faint blush. In the light of the candle, she actually looked quite pretty.

I went to sit down next to her, but with a well-placed glare she indicated that I should sit opposite. I faltered a little as I pulled the chair out but reasoned to myself that maybe her parents were a little puritanical in this regard. I felt good as Mr Stearne made a big show of pouring out a glass of my Shloer for everyone, right up until the moment he poured out the fifth glass. There was a shout of “Theo, dinner’s ready!” from the stairwell, and as I heard the thud of quick footsteps above, I felt the colour drain from my face.

I disliked Prue’s little brother from the start. He was at an even more awkward age than I was, and the brattishness inherent to most thirteen-year-olds combined with his aggressive eczema, milk-bottle glasses, and unwashed black hair to make him a perpetual outsider. His appearance was matched by an equally disagreeable personality. Theodore had frail health, but when he did manage to drag himself out of bed to Youth Group, he made sure everyone knew how much of an effort it was, all the while complaining in that irritating drone of his while absolutely refusing to be cooperative. His worst attribute, though, was how sneaky he was – or rather, how sneaky he thought he was, and the hissy fit he would throw when whatever bullshit scheme he was running was exposed. He didn’t believe in doing anything kind without getting something back in return, so his presence at dinner made me certain that something was up.

The pitch came after dessert. I was still half-heartedly putting on a face for Prudence, so I offered to help wash up, but Mrs Stearne whisked away my bowl and suggested that I hang out in the den with Theo and Prudence. Even now, I remember that that was the order she put it in, making it clear that I was there for Theo’s entertainment. As I wandered into the dimly lit room and collapsed on a beanbag covered in a festive Disney blanket, I could feel the trap snapping shut on my leg.

Theodore’s pitch was Soul Benefactor. The name was familiar – fliers smattered with photos of cheery-faced white teenagers hugging African children littered the church hall, and a few of the leaders at Youth Group had gone on trips to Kenya and Tanzania themselves. The company organised missionary work, with trips part-funded by whatever shadowy evangelical group and part-funded by the honest determination and fundraising of the kids themselves. I’d never really given them much thought, since the school had its own programmes for sending kids off to do charity work and I wasn’t exactly the sort to go adventuring. If I’m honest, the idea of sending people off to evangelise in poor African nations was a bit 19^th century to me. The second part of the pitch intrigued me, though: Papua New Guinea.

It was, undeniably, a great deal. Even as a shitty sixteen-year-old, I understood that opportunities to fly to the other side of the world for less than a grand didn’t present themselves often. Prudence leaned in close, cutting off Theo as he harped on about the mountains and wildlife, and got to the point – the Papua trip was new, and Soul Benefactor needed a group for a trial run. Prudence and Theo had already found three willing volunteers through Christian message-boards, but they needed the sixth to be signed on before the New Year. Under the pleading pressure of those wide, soft eyes I agreed. I wasn’t thinking of the tortures of hiking in the jungle with Theo, I wasn’t thinking of the hard work needed to raise the money, and I certainly wasn’t thinking of the quasi-colonialist nature of 21^st Century missionary work; I was thinking of that little smile Prudence wore just before dinner.

The next six months were hard work, and climbing through the cloud forests with an asthmatic, blister-footed thirteen-year-old was just as torturous as it sounds. Honestly, Theo should’ve never been allowed to come. Soul Benefactor usually required participants to be at least sixteen and undergo a physical before flying out with them, but some of the higher-ups in the UK chapter were friends with Mr and Mrs Stearne, and I understood that a sizeable donation had bypassed these concerns. After three day’s climb from the town of Mount Hagen, the eight of us – six children, a SB Rep, and a local interpreter – arrived at the site of our project. The town was too small to have a name on the map, but as we gazed down from the treeline towards the two-dozen palm-thatched huts, a name came unbidden to Prue’s mind: New Hebron.

The hard work of those two weeks made the fundraising look leisurely. We were labourers, helping to construct a block of brick-walled chemical toilets, a small schoolhouse, and, of course, a chapel, all half-completed by a previous group of missionaries. That fortnight was one of the best times of my life. The villagers were fantastically warm and generous, and the work was fulfilling.

It’s just a shame that Theo was there.

I think at the time I underestimated him. In the weeks leading up to the Papua trip I spent a lot of time at the Stearnes’ house with Prue. We would meet for coffee to discuss the details of who was carpooling with who to the airport, we’d share lunch and decide seating arrangements on the flight, prepare a bake sale together to raise a final bit of spending money. The little brat made sure I wasn’t allowed any alone time with Prue in New Hebron. Those two weeks, every time we had a moment to speak Theo would burst out of the undergrowth complaining of some new tropical ailment in a whine more irritating than any mosquito, malarial or not. When Prudence and I were assigned jobs together, Theo would insist on helping, wanting to set a ‘good hard-working Protestant example’ for the villagers. Worst of all, though, was the sleeping arrangements. While everyone else had their privacy, Theo insisted that his asthma made it too risky for him to spend even a minute unsupervised. I’ll let you guess who drew the short straw and had to share a tent with the untidiest asthmatic in Papua New Guinea. On multiple occasions, I had to escort out insects that had nestled in Theo’s clothes after he had been too lazy to check his belongings before going to sleep, and the exhaustion from the work wasn’t helped by his high, nasal snore.

The time in New Hebron passed quickly. I was genuinely proud of our work; the toilets were functional, the schoolhouse had solar power, and the chapel was fit for worship. On the last night in New Hebron, the villagers threw us a party. We danced around a fire with the locals, ate chickens slaughtered especially for us, stuffed with pandanus nut and barbecued black with sweet potato and taro, and us older kids even snuck a couple of beers, chilled in a fridge hooked up to the school’s power supply. Even as we celebrated, though, a part of me was heartsick. I didn’t want to leave the forest as alone as I had arrived.

Things started to die down as we crept into the early hours of the morning. The clouds were thick in the hills, and aside from the dying bonfire in the centre of the village, the jungle was dark. I was meandering back to my tent when I heard retching near the treeline. I turned away from the tent, wandered past the log pile marking the limits of the village and nearly tripped over Prue. In the half-light I could see that she’d been crying and I gently easing myself past the puddle of sick and sat down next to her. I leaned back against the woodpile as she lay her head on my chest.

Over the next half hour or so she unloaded. She was worried about her parent’s relationship, stressed about A Levels, petrified that something would happen to Theo, afraid of university. She must have drunk more than I’d realised that evening – either that, or she an even lower tolerance than mine. I gently wrapped my arms around her as she began to weep again, pulling her close against the slight chill of the night. She looked up at me, eyes somewhat dull in the darkness and, trembling, I bent down and touched my lips to hers.

In that moment, I was blinded by torchlight. I just had time to threaten him before Theo screamed out, his voice reverberating around the clearing. Prue started wailing, and as I scrambled to put some distance between her and myself, I stamped my foot down on her fresh vomit and slipped, falling hard against a log. I winded myself, and the shock was enough that, by the time I was back on my feet, the rest of the Soul Survivor team had dragged themselves out of their tents. The Rep demanded to know what was going on, and as Prue continued to weep, Theo blubbered that I was holding Prue down, had my hand up her shirt, that I was forcing myself on her. I opened my mouth to protest, but a glare from the Rep made it clear that I wasn’t helping myself.

I could hear footsteps from the village and hoping for help I peered around the woodpile and made out a squat figure hobbling towards us. The Rep turned his torch on, illuminating Ezra, one of the older members of the village. His leathery skin was taut from years of farming taro and picking pandanus, and there was steel in his nut-coloured eyes that even now makes me shudder. The interpreter, slightly drunk himself, stumbled over towards the man and the two shared a hurried conversation in Angal, nearly escalating to shouts. The interpreter came back over to the group, his voice suddenly sober as he explained the situation.

The villagers had a rite, he said, for disciplining young men caught behaving inappropriately with unmarried girls. Gaigai Dala dated back further than anyone cared to remember and was the law before the first missionaries arrived at the village during Ezra’s childhood. To complete Gaigai Dala, the guilty youth would have to wander the forest for an entire night in darkness, circling the village and keeping the glow from the bonfire on his left. After each circumnavigation, he would prostrate himself on the ground at the limits of the village, facing away from the fire and screaming into the dirt. By doing this, the youth would leave his soul to the mercy of the Earth and his body to the mercy of the forest; if innocent, he would return in the morning unscathed. If guilty, then the forest would kill him, and the Earth would swallow his bones. The punishment for refusing Gaigai Dala was live burial beneath the firepit.

I sat back down and swore to myself as the Rep started to argue with Ezra through the interpreter. Those minutes were agonizing, only hearing half the conversation, but I could make out what was going on clear enough. The Rep refused to let a kid he was legally responsible for wander around the jungle alone in the dark, but Ezra wasn’t in the mood to compromise with outsiders. If we disrespected the traditions of the village we would have to leave immediately. I glanced up at Prudence, desperate for her to speak up, but she averted her eyes. My heart pounded in my chest as Ezra and the Rep approached and handed me my sentence.

The Rep told me firmly that my actions could not go unpunished, and that the traditions of the village had to be respected. The words were like a punch to the gut and I quietly begged Prue to tell the truth, but she still stared at the forest floor. Ezra had, however, relented somewhat. I would not be taking the Gaigai Dala alone. Instead, I would be accompanied by a villager of Ezra’s choosing, to ensure that I respected the custom. Ezra ordered the rest of the Soul Benefactor group back to their tents, and as one of the girls helped Prudence to her feet and lead her away, I saw Theo’s face twist into the self-satisfied grin of a well-fed snake. My supposed friends were replaced minutes later by a group of villagers and one, a tall, thin teenager wordlessly commanded me to undress to my underwear and marched me barefoot away from New Hebron.

That silent youth forced me through the woods for four hours. The hike from Mount Hagen up into the hills had been hard work, of course, but the dehydration, exhaustion, and humiliation made every circuit of that village a new torture. Each time we arrived at the wood pile, my warder smacked me in the shins with a hard wooden cane and forced me to the ground, face down, kneeling on my back until I screamed into the earth, only allowing me to stop when my voice was hoarse. I lost count of how many times I was made to bite down on the bitter wetness of that fertile soil, but I know that with each scream I cursed the name of Theodore Stearne.

I faltered once in my march of penance. Stumbling from tiredness and feeling the first stabbing pangs of what would be my first ever hangover, it occurred to me that tomorrow we would begin the three-day trek back to Mount Hagen. I cried out then and, weeping with fatigue, collapsed to my knees. A sharp cane blow to the kidney made me sure not to stop again.

By the time dawn came, I was resolved to hold my tongue. Ezra could have whatever opinion he believed, but the forest had judged me. Short of making the trip home uncomfortable and forcing me out of the church, there wasn’t a lot that the rest of the group could do either. My chances with Prue were shattered, sure, but I was off to university soon enough, and the freshers at Cardiff wouldn’t care about my dalliance with religion.

As for Theo, I already knew that I would never say another word to him.

The youth forced me to the ground, just yards away from where Prudence and I had been discovered and, after screaming once more, I looked up to see Ezra standing by the woodpile. He nodded once, formally, and gestured towards the line of tents dimly visible in the grey morning mist. I got to my feet and scooped up my cold, damp clothes, shaking them out carefully to make sure no undesirable creatures had taken up residence during my trial. My limbs began to tremble with exhaustion and cold, but the promise of a couple of hours in the sleeping bag made me determined not to show the physical toll of the Gaigai Dala in front of my judge. I turned once more to Ezra, trying to communicate as much of my contempt as possible with a glare, but the old man’s face only looked tired and sombre.

I slouched back across the forest clearing, stopping outside of my shared tent. With a sneer I realised that the bastard was awake inside, the whistling snore absent in that moment. I recalled my resolve, though, and remembered that everything I wanted to say to him I had screamed into the ground.

My anger surged when I unzipped the tent, though. He’d ransacked the place. My clothes, which I had left carefully piled for easy packing were all across the floor of the tent. A gallon bottle of water lay on its side, soaking my sleeping bag and the little shit, lying diagonally across the floor, was clutching tightly to my dark red leather belt, a prized possession of mine that my grandfather had gifted to me before he died. I went to grab his shoulders wanting to shake some sense into him and froze.

I hadn’t brought my belt with me; it was far too precious an item to risk out here in the jungle. Something else was wrong, too. The tent wasn’t just quiet, it was silent; the reedy asthmatic breath stopped. In the ever-increasing dawn light, I could make out the deep, bruised mottling of Theo’s skin, spreading up from his arm. A few dark maroon lines crept serpentine up his neck towards his face, which was fixed in a blind rictus masked by broken glasses. His lips were full and purple like overripe grapes.

It was only when the belt unhooked its fangs and slithered down his arm in a steady anticlockwise corkscrew that I realised what was going on. As Theo’s cold purple fingertips brushed its red scales, the taipan looked at me, eyes the colour of rich, fertile forest soil. With a single flick of its forked tongue the snake left the tent. It was only then that I had the presence of mind to scream.

Prudence didn’t cry when she saw her brother’s body. A sick part of me wonders if she felt some relief at a worry being crossed off her list. It’s impossible for me to know. I didn’t hear her say anything more than single word answers in the days we waited at New Hebron for evacuation, nor in the week we spent shuffling in and out of the British High Commission at Port Moresby. I don’t have contact with her or her parents anymore, and last I heard she was studying veterinary science at a school in Australia.

I didn’t attend Theodore Stearne’s funeral. Whatever lingering faith I had I lost on that night in Papua New Guinea. If there are gods out there, they shouldn’t be prayed to.

Image Credit: Michelle Venter via phys.org