Interlude
The defining motto of this journey, I decided, would be ‘Eat well, Sleep Well, Drink Rum.’ It didn’t have to be rum, of course, but it sounded good, and that’s all I was really searching for in a defining motto.
I got off to a bad start. On arrival in Mali’s very 70’s airport café/boat lounge – at that moment but a hazy apparition of very happy folk bedecked with confusing sartorial embellishments – I realised that my own luggage, which itself held a collection of hats and a tiny guitar, was still at Columbo’s International Airport.
Coming out of a trance, I now saw myself quite clearly in the café mirror. The outfit I was wearing was not fit for five days in Paradise, hobnobbing with what seemed like high society at two very five star hotels.
I ordered a glass of cheap red wine. Ill fortune is best offset with a sickly glass of wine, together with the faintly optimistic odour of suncream, daiquiri cocktails and the ‘ Pirates’ theme tune ringing in your ears. I soon wore an outlandish smile, quite at odds with my vampire-pale complexion and a hat I bought off a strange gentleman selling roses.
‘They’ll bring it on the next flight, probably tomorrow morning. And besides, I don’t really need to quaff my hair. Or shave. And I really only need one hat.’ I said to anyone that would listen, before jumping aboard a cruise missile-type speedboat for Sheraton Maldives Full Moon Resort & Spa.
Now, this is a ride, a real, memorable one that you need to take the kids on. Even the steam fair of my youth that got closed down for insufficient safety measures didn’t have a ride like this one. Every five seconds I flew a few feet in the air, got a plume of spray in my face, a leg in the back and a jolly hand on the shoulder by one of a giggling trio of Chinese businessman (they also wore hats). ‘We like Maldives’ they screamed, and I wiped my Lemtosh shades with a euphoric, nauseous feeling that made me smile even wider.
‘Your hat. Where did you get it?’ The captain lisped in perfect English. He looked like a cross between a young Keith Richards and Mohamed Nasheed – the Maldivian president.
‘I found it in my attic. It’s vintage.’ I lied, too tired to explain. ‘Probably my grandfathers.’
‘Your grandfather?’
‘Yes. He liked hats.’
He eyed my clothes carefully. ‘Your suitcase will come soon. Don’t worry.’
Sheraton Maldives Full Moon Resort & Spa
The boat slowed and a sea of shining faces greeted us from Sheraton’s Furanafushi Island, just one gem in a trove of 1200 islands that, together with their surrounding lagoons, impress the mind and soul of man with the most sublime juxtaposition of form and colour this side of eternity. Slither of bright white moon and dark tropical plant against water the colour of pure green Versace dress, the water turning from amethyst to emerald to sublime tints of jade and sapphire.
I leant over as Captain Jack hit the brakes and I jumped off, scooped up a little, and got overly emotional as they fixed me a welcome cocktail that had rum in it. They then told me how much they liked my hat, and made me believe that my person, in the superficial sense, at least, was quite welcome at the resort.
This is where I met Milja, a sprightly, intelligent Scandinavian girl with a persuasive accent that reverberated in a joyful major key, picked up, it turned out, after circumnavigating the seven seas in her own good time. My five senses battling with each other to distill these vital first impressions for my audience back home, I only picked up threads of the conversation I was supposed to be having. ‘Yes, we have the best of both worlds here…The scuba diving is great…some of the best marine wildlife…dolphins? Yes, there is a cruise tomorrow afternoon…go to the Spa later for an hour long massage if…yes, amazing…no, I don’t recommend it. The surf is for advanced boarders…now promise, you’ll sleep then meet me at the Coconut Grove for lunch…’
She was very sweet, and informative, and steady like all Scandinavian’s are, and helped me into a green buggy with a couple of Latin American footballers. ‘You from England, man?’ Someone said behind me. ‘Yes. I know, I should have taken my boots off.’ I replied nonsensically, before Milja said ‘Take him to Ocean Villa. It’s the best on the island.’ She winked at me cryptically, then added; ‘Believe me. It’s to die for.’
Now, all I saw at first was a hammock. I slipped off my tattered boots, my wine-stained Savile row trousers and quickly fell into a coma as the water crashed against the rocks just inches away. I heard music playing in gasps of warm salty air – Beethoven and Wagner and then laughing from a fishing schooner on the surf. My eyes opened. I grinned, like a pirate, stretched my arm out, lifted a warm bottle of something expensive I had taken from the mini bar earlier. ‘Bring me that horizon’ I said, popping it open with a burst of laughter.
Inside, with Beethoven for company, I wondered at myself in the mirror before slipping into a bath of warm oils and creams and lotions. Basically, I threw the whole lot in, as is my wont, and gave the interior design five stars after a strong thirty minute inner dialogue that brought every detail into focus – the LA style lighting fixtures, the shabby-chic sofas and rattan armchairs, the play of white, green and tan furnished mahogany panelling and a bathroom probably designed for a beautiful mermaid that lives here in off-season. You feel important in that bathroom, drinking cold beer and reading some inane biography that makes you want to take up oil painting again.
That’s when I jumped into the swell. Now, I had been warned. I knew the risks. But I had gotten hold of the scuba gear, and instead of heading out over the quiet water like most, I decided that there was better fishing up on the rougher East Side of the island. I had a couple girls take pictures of me as I waded out to look for Stingray, Sweetlips, Snappers and Bat Fish. ‘I might even see a shark’ I told them, but they didn’t understand what I was saying and just looked horrified as I dove into a five foot wave. After an hour of thrashing around aimlessly, narrowly missing the schooner, I came up for air, my snorkelling crown stuffed up my nose. I went back in, counted 20 species of day-glo oddities, then threw myself onto dry land, chilled with wonder at the mystery of the ocean. A girl was bathing outside her water bungalow (these are for the true Romantics – with a private sun terrace right up on the lagoon), pouting at the sun with just a hat dipped low over two raven-black eyes, smouldering quietly as they do in a Peroni commercial. She rolled over and shook her finger, and I just stood there, staring, trying to remember what I had just been so excited about.
The next day, at exactly 6pm, after a delightful al fresco lunch of grilled prawn, haloumi and watermelon salad on the beach, the sun was a tiny red disc in a smoky blue sky. I stood on the upper deck of a small tender and hummed along to Keith Richards haunting rendition of ‘The Nearness of You’.
We were headed due South, looking for dolphins. The Jolly Roger wasn’t flying that day, and the Captain stood up front, staring with dreamy eyes towards the horizon, his eyes blinking quietly, waiting for his sweethearts to arrive. ‘They may not come.’ He whispered dramatically. The loved-up Chinese and Dutch on the boat around me let out a faint cry. ‘But I’ll try and find them. For you, just for you, I’ll bring them in.’
As if hearkening to that aloof gaze, or to the melancholic breath that escaped my now crooked smile, a moment later the angels flew before us, carving silver rainbows above the prow. I took off my fedora by way of salute. I had even grown a small goatee, and my pendant swung back and forth across my coppered chest in the 2ft sway. ‘Marvellous, intelligent creatures’ said I, and a girl with ringlets and little Chinese shoes tugged my arm and smiled at me for a moment.
The same night I told Milja as much. We sat down to dine at Seasalt Restaurant– a pantheon of torches and enchanted tropical faces inside a circular wall of coconut trees. They were playing Chopin’s Etude, and the chef was there, decrypting the laws of gastrodynamics. He had a fragrant smirk on his face, one, I imagined, that might only come with creating edible art for folks that really, truly, sincerely appreciate it. He liked me, I could tell, and so spent more than enough time pointing out the necessity of each dish on the a la carte and the flavours that go to make it so unique on the islands. The fish was fresh from the boat and the giant lobster and other delicacies had people murmuring the poetry of love, their hearts softening in that diffused glow, their life stretching out so long and beautiful beyond the tropical flowers, red and yellow and white, beyond the still warm sand and the cool lilac sheen where the moon had found its perfect reflection.
I commended the food heartily, spearing the fish with gusto ‘Milja, I don’t quite know what to say.’ My eyes were full of emotion, and so were hers. ‘I have never tasted such fish, so soft and tender and with that after-taste our friend was talking about.’
‘The caramelized hazelnuts are good aren’t they?’
‘Yes. Each dish is full of sympathetic flavour and texture. Nothing goes missing – the prawns are just rapturous’
‘How is the wine.’
‘Obsessively brilliant – and not too heavy with the sauce. And have you tried this cake! – I think I may just have to give the chef my compliments – by which I mean one from my collection of hats. A strange gentleman I met gave it to me – but on deep reflection, I think it would suit him far more.’
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