The Mad Women of Gilligan’s Island

by Penny-Anne Beaudoin

Lovey Howell was late.

The millionaire’s wife told Ginger and Mary Ann she wanted to meet them down by the lagoon after everyone was asleep, but refused to tell them what she wanted to speak to them about or why the need for secrecy. The tropical moon had crept halfway across the heavens before she finally joined them.

“Darlings,” she panted, out of breath, “you must forgive my tardiness! It’s the end of the first fiscal quarter, and I thought Thurston would never finish calculating the interest on our off-shore accounts and go to sleep! But he did at last, and here I am!” She smiled at them affectionately.

“Yes, here you are,” Mary Ann said, “but why are we here? What was it you wanted to see us about?”

“And why meet in the dead of night?” Ginger wanted to know. “I know I’ll look just dreadful without my 12 hours of beauty sleep!”

Laughing quietly, Mrs. Howell linked arms with both of them and led them a little further down the beach away from the huts. They all sat down in the sand together, Mary Ann cross-legged, Ginger on one hip to accommodate her form-fitting Dior gown, and Mrs. Howell Japanese-style, sitting back on her heels.

“I called this meeting,” she began, “because I have something to tell you, something you may find a bit shocking, but I want you to hear it first, before I tell the men.” She peered at them through her diamond-studded lorgnettes.
“We’ve been stranded here for several years now, and although we’ve had our low moments when we’ve despaired of ever being rescued, I think we all know in our hearts it’s only a matter of time before we’re spotted by a passing plane or a ship, or someone dreams up some ingenious way to get us off this island. But my darlings,” she continued with uncharacteristic gravity, “my darlings, I’ve thought about this long and hard, and I’ve decided - I don’t want to be rescued!”

Ginger and Mary Ann gasped.

“But Mrs. Howell,” Mary Ann said when she could speak again, “why on earth not?”

“Because I’ve been rescued all my life and it’s killing me!” Mrs. Howell blurted out. She put a hand to her heart as if to calm herself and took a few deep breaths before continuing.

“Please don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Thurston is a good man. It’s just, in his loving-kindness, he’s sheltered me from everything, absolutely everything! - spinsterhood, poverty, work, every trial, every challenge, every difficulty, every problem! He’s rescued me from life, and in its place...well...” the expression drained out of her face and her voice and she gestured listlessly, “...in it’s place I have my committees, my leisure activities, my entertainments, diversions all, keeping me from anything meaningful or rewarding, anything that would make my life worth living!”

Ginger and Mary Ann exchanged astonished glances.

“We had no idea you felt like this!” Mary Ann said.

Mrs. Howell brushed imaginary grains of sand from the lap of her fetching yachting slacks and plucked the cuff of her matching shirt absentmindedly.

“Well no,” she murmured, “how could you? I’ve always been extremely careful to do whatever was expected of me, and to do it without complaint. It’s the way of my generation, you see.” She seemed to be talking to herself. “One makes one’s bed, and one lies in it until the time comes when one finds she’s almost forgotten what it feels like to walk, or stand, or even move.” She met the concerned glances of the younger women and smiled a little apologetically.

“I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve only lately come to realize that right here on this island, I have the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m loathed to give that up.”

“And just what is it you want to do?” Ginger asked.

“Oh Ginger!” She pronounced it ‘Gingah’ in the English manner, although she herself was not English but had affected the accent for so many years that now she and the letter ‘r’ were virtual strangers. “Ginger,” she continued earnestly, “I’ve never been allowed to create anything! Not with my hands,” (she held out her perfectly manicured nails), “or my brain,” (she touched her flawless coiffure), “or my body,” (she folded her hands over a now shrivelled uterus).

Mary Ann bit her lip and Ginger looked on soberly.

“I want to make something my dears, and I know if I go back home with Thurston, I never will.” She set her chin determinedly. “No, I’m going to stay right here, and the first thing I’m going to build is a hut just for me,” she leaned forward, cupped her hand to her cheek and whispered conspiratorially, “with an ensuite latrine! What do you think of that?”

But before the other women could respond, she went on enthusiastically.
“And I want to make tools, and catch rainwater in baskets I weave myself, and plant a garden, and put up preserves! I’ve watched you work in your garden Mary Ann, and admired you so! I do hope you’ll give me some pointers and leave me your seeds and seedlings when you’re rescued.”

Mary Ann nodded wordlessly and turned her face away.

“Oh my darlings,” Mrs. Howell went on, her eyes half-closed, a rapturous smile parting her lips, “I’m going to stay right here and make a life! And it will be glorious!”

Mary Ann swallowed hard and asked,

“But won’t you miss your husband, Mr. Howell?”

Lovey sighed.

“About as much as one would miss a big warm fluffy pillow - pressed down tightly over one’s nose and mouth.”

Her astounding words hung in the air thick and heavy like wood smoke. Then Ginger found her voice.

“Well, I don’t want to be rescued either!” she said.

“Ginger!” the others exclaimed.

“I’ve been thinking about it too. And what do I have to go back to, tell me that! As soon as I get home, reporters will be hounding me for interviews; my agent will put me in the first castaway picture to come down the pike no matter how mindless; and in no time three or four unauthorized biographies will come out detailing what “really” happened here, the titillating innuendo, the outright lies, how I had Gilligan’s love child...”

“Gilligan’s?” Lovey and Mary Ann said together.

Ginger stared hard at her friends for a moment.

“That would be one of the ‘outright lies’ I mentioned.”

“Oh,” said Mary Ann.

“Of course,” said Lovey.

Ginger continued. “Before I was shipwrecked, half of Hollywood was after me to make a “serious” motion picture, and the other half wanted me to pose nude. Why would I want to return to that insanity? The parties, the public appearances, the ridiculous marriage proposals, the paparazzi, fans rummaging through my garbage, never a moment to myself, never a moment to think...!”

Lovey looked at the movie star curiously through her lorgnettes, her head tilted to one side.

“Do you think, Ginger?” she asked seriously.

Ginger flashed her a glamour-girl smile.

“You don’t really believe I sleep 12 hours a day, do you?”

Lovey pursed her lips and considered that for a moment.

“Well, no” she said slowly, thoughtfully. “There’s your makeup to put on, and that must take some time...”

Ginger shook her head and chuckled dryly.

“I say silly things like that because, well, people have expectations of me too. But yes, to answer your question, I do think. Since landing on this island, I’ve done a lot of thinking.”

“About what?” Mary Ann wanted to know.

Ginger leaned back on both her hands and gazed out toward horizon.

“Many things,” she said, her voice sounding far away. “The origins of the cosmos, how we came to be here, if there’s a God, what happens after we die, the relationship between justice and law, the purpose of suffering...”

“My dear!” exclaimed Lovey.

Ginger chuckled again.

“And here’s something else that might surprise you - when I’m alone, I write poetry in the sand.”

“Indeed?”

She nodded.

“And I dance and sing. At first I was recalling the songs from my musicals, but later I composed my own music and choreography. I didn’t tell anyone, because I knew no one would take me seriously. No one ever has,” she finished quietly.

Lovey put a gentle hand on Ginger’s bare shoulder and was rewarded with another radiant smile.

“But if you have no objections, Mrs. Howell,” she said, “I would like to stay on the island with you, and...think some more.”

“My dear,” the older woman replied, “I couldn’t ask for better company!”
And she gave Ginger’s shoulder a little squeeze.

Mary Ann regarded this exchange between her fellow castaways with an odd expression on her face, and when she finally spoke, it was in a voice no one had ever heard before.

“When I first set foot on this island,” she said, “I knew I had found my place in the world.”

“Why, Mary Ann!”

“Oh I know,” she continued, “I know what people see when they look at me - the fresh-faced girl next door, everybody’s Girl Friday, the good little girl. I cook everyone’s meals and I clean all the huts and I bandage all the scrapes. And every night I retire to my little girl hut and my little girl bed and there I burn and burn with such a fever I think my body will burst into flame!” She suddenly clenched her fist and pounded it into the sand. “Well, guess what!” she continued in a fierce whisper, “I’m nobody’s goddamn little girl!”

“Goodness!” said Lovey.

“Tell us more!” Ginger urged. “Tell us who you really are!”

The moon spilled silver light into Mary Ann’s eyes, giving her face an otherworldly appearance.

“I am a wild woman,” she breathed, “born of star fire and mountain ice!”

“Wild woman!” Ginger repeated rapturously.

“You don’t know how often I’ve wanted to undo these little girl pig tails and let the wind blow my hair across my shoulders and into my eyes; how often I’ve wanted to walk barefoot and bare-breasted into the jungle and give in to the feral urges stirring within me!” She clutched at her halter top as if it were suddenly too tight. “I want to run with the wolves!” she cried passionately.

“The wolves, dear?” Lovey asked tentatively.

“There are wolves on the island?” Ginger asked, looking around anxiously.

“Well, no,” Mary Ann replied, a bit subdued. “The only wild animal we have is the wild boar. But it doesn’t have the same ring to it, ‘I want to run with the pigs!’”

“Ah, I see your point,” Ginger agreed.

“Quite so,” Lovey added. “Please continue.”

“I want to go wild!” Mary Ann said simply. “I want to shed these domestic chains and go live with the animals and birds. I want to study the plants and let them teach me their secrets of life and healing. And I want to make my bed under the cool stars and let them sing me to sleep every night. And in exchange for this great privilege, I will pledge my life’s blood to protect this island from any and all who would seek to harm it or its inhabitants.” She looked at Lovey with an expression both defiant and imploring.

“Mrs. Howell, would there be room in your hut for three?”

“But I thought you wanted to make your bed under the stars every night,” Ginger reminded her.

Mary Ann shrugged.

“I could still come for a visit...the occasional sleep-over...?”

“Absolutely not!” Lovey declared with such authority the younger women started in surprise. “There will be no sharing of huts! Mary Ann, you will need the freedom to come and go as you please, and you, Ginger, you will need solitude to think and meditate. No, I will build each of us a hut of our own!”

“With an ensuite latrine?” Ginger asked, a wicked glint in her eye.

“Exactly so!” Lovey assured her.

The three women looked at each other, scarcely breathing for excitement.

“Then we are decided?” Ginger asked. “When rescue comes, we three will remain behind and live together here on the island?”

“We are decided,” the other two declared happily.

“I just hope,” Lovey began, “well, I just hope it will be enough, what I have to offer. Do you think it will be enough my dears?”

“You will be the hands of our community,” they told her, “the architect, the engineer, and the provider. You will shelter us and feed us and make us a home. It is enough, and more than enough!”

“And what I have to offer,” Ginger asked, “will it be enough?”

“You will be the brains of our community,” they told her. “From your deep thoughts will come forth philosophy, law, culture and religion. You will give us civilization. It is enough, and more than enough!”

“And me,” Mary Ann said. “Will what I have to offer be enough?”

“You will be the spirit of our community,” they told her. “You will be our healer and defender. From you will come our peace and security, and science and medicine to enhance our health and bring comfort to our living. It is enough, and more than enough!”

And with that, the women sent up a cheer, but a quiet one, so as not to wake the men. Mary Ann wanted to seal their pact in blood, but Mrs. Howell wouldn’t hear of it.

“It is men who seal things in blood. We shall ratify our covenant in the way of women,” and each embraced the other in turn.

“To bed now my dears,” Lovey admonished them, “and in the morning we shall tell the men of our decision.”

And they crept back to their huts and dreamed, each one of them, of giving birth.

In the morning though, after Mary Ann had served breakfast, (for Mrs. Howell thought such news best heard on full stomachs), the men seemed to have nothing to say.

“Well Thurston,” Mrs. Howell prompted her husband, “don’t just stand there with your mouth open! Say something, for goodness sake!”

Mr. Howell regarded his wife in stunned silence for a moment longer and then said sadly,

“I blame myself for this, I blame myself! Lovey-dear, forgive me! What with the shipwreck, the abominable living conditions, well, it’s all proven too much for you! I should have seen this coming! My poor Lovey!” He slipped a solicitous arm around her shoulders. “Come back to the hut with me, and I’ll help you put your feet up, and fix a cold compress for your eyes, and you’ll be back to normal in no time, you’ll see!”

The skipper stood up next and told everyone he was responsible for all the castaways, to return them all safely back home. He had never lost anyone, passenger or crew, on any of his three hour tours and by God, by God! he wasn’t about to start now! He wasn’t going to have people whispering behind his back for the rest of his life about how he abandoned three defenceless women on a desert island and saved his own skin. No, by God! They were all going back together and that was that! By God!

The professor said the women all seemed to be suffering from what he called “Island Madness,” although secretly he was sure once he returned and wrote his paper on it, the scientific community would no doubt want to name the syndrome after him. He returned to his hut to find his writing materials, all the while muttering “fascinating, simply fascinating!”

And finally Gilligan said he thought he spoke for everyone when he said no one would object if Mary Ann or any of the girls wanted to go bare-breasted starting right then and there, although to protect Mrs. Howell’s delicate constitution perhaps she should remain covered up.

The three women looked down at the sand beneath their feet and a soft sound escaped their lips, a collective sigh, although the men heard only the wind in the palms. The moment passed, and then Ginger said she should go fix her face, that she must look dreadful after so little beauty sleep the night before, and that she couldn’t imagine how she forgot to put on her lip liner this morning, as that just wasn’t like her.

Mary Ann pulled her windswept hair back into a tight, practical, ponytail and said she’d better go and see about the lunchtime menu.

And Mrs. Howell, to her husband’s immeasurable relief, challenged him to what turned out to be a robust game of coconut croquet.

*****

© Penny Anne Boudine, 2004

Penny-Anne Beaudoin earned a Masters degree in Pastoral Ministry in 1997 and has been freelancing for religion and spirituality journals in both Canada and the United States since then. Her articles have appeared in number of journals and newspapers. Her poetry has appeared in A Room of One's Own and her fiction in Ligourian Magazine. She just completed a novella and is hard at work on her first full-length novel.