15The road is in such an appalling state, the buses won’t use it anymore. Our carrier, a small truck with a six-by-two plank to sit on and a thin iron rod to lean back against, bumps over the heavily-pitted road. We are squashed up against children and adults to make room for great wands of kava root, scent from the long colourfully tied stems soothing the dark cold night. Mist hangs heavy in the valleys, moon and stars peep from sweeping cloud. Rumbling towards dawn, away from the dark interior into gentle grassy slopes, I wake slowly from my dream of tangled, untamed wildness and sullen dark men. We rumble to the east coast: concrete paths, painted houses, pretty gardens, women in silky brocades and boxer-shorted children. The carrier unloads at Tavua, north of Lautoka.
‘I’m going to fi
