Song

by Michelle Jana Chan

  ‘Never seen gold giving itself up like this,’ Chi said.

  ‘That right ?’

  ‘We find something every day. Most days.’

  Song shrugged. ‘Don’t feel it’s that much.’

  ‘It’s more than I’ve known.’

  ‘Good.’ Song knew he wasn’t making conversation easy for Chi.

  ‘River can swallow you up, can spit you out, but in the end it offers up what you deserve.’

  ‘Not sure I believe that,’ Song said, but he felt some vindication in Chi’s words. Jesus, the man who’d raped him, had also revealed this place to him.

  For those first couple months Song and Chi had found gold in their battels by the close of each day. But as their food supplies dried up, so did their finds. Song asked Chi to cut down their daily rations so they could stay out longer. Chi didn’t seem to mind. He was in good spirits with what they’d already found. Song was less so. ‘If you choose to go upriver, you make sure you hit the big time.’ That’s what Mr Leigh had said. ‘Set yourself apart.’

  ‘Time we had a break, I think,’ Song said one evening. He’d been counting; they’d been out ninety-two days.

  Chi raised his eyebrows and continued to stoke the fire.

  ‘It’s already been three months,’ Song continued.

  ‘Been out for double that time before, and longer,’ Chi said.

  ‘Can’t be easy for Yan.’

  ‘She knows what it’s like. She’ll be happy enough s’long as I come back with heavy pockets.’

  ‘We’ve been out of rice and oil for weeks. I can’t live off raw fish and labba. We’ll come back and make a fresh start. With fresh luck.’ Song didn’t really know what he meant by this. Maybe he was tired. Swirling the battels, time passing around and around. He felt he could be trapped into doing this forever. Like Jesus.

  ‘Just don’t want us quitting on account of my family,’ Chi said.

  ‘No one’s quitting. I need to do a bit of thinking. Away from here. I want to sell what we’ve found. There’ll be some for you, some for supplies. With the rest, I’m going to register the land.’

  Chi frowned. ‘Dangerous. Better we keep it to ourselves. This is a good spot.’

  ‘I don’t want to risk losing this land. What if some American company comes along and buys up half the Essequibo, including here ? I need to get in first. I want the deeds. With all the paperwork in order. No disputes.’

  ‘We’ll have everyone on our back if you do,’ Chi said. ‘They won’t waste a minute. Place’ll be crawling with pork-knockers by the time we’d return here.’

  ‘I won’t be registering only this parcel of land. Land is cheap. I’ll buy as much as I can. Acres. Hundreds of acres if I can. They wouldn’t know where to look first.’

  Chi was sullen. ‘Nobody else registers land.’

  ‘That’s because most pork-knockers can’t read. They couldn’t even point to where they are on a map. But if we register the land, everything we pull out is ours.’

  ‘You the boss. Just don’t like the idea of everyone knowing where we are. Heard about whole gangs found crawling over registered land. No mercy upriver. Bodies wash up in Bartica every month and nobody sheds a tear.’

  Song wondered if he’d already shared too much. There was a voice inside telling him not to be too quick to trust Chi. But after three months upriver with him – working together, eating together – Song wanted to believe he was the steady sort.

  ‘We won’t stay in Bartica long,’ Song said. ‘I’ll need you to prepare supplies for the next trip.’

  ‘I’ll be ready to leave as soon as we get in.’

  Song was beginning to understand the gulf between him and Chi. Chi pork-knocked because he loved nothing more than being upriver with a fever burning him up. The chance of getting rich was only a bonus. Song wanted more. He wanted to live up to what Father Holmes might have wanted for him. Not just to go upriver. Not even just to get rich. He wanted to set himself apart, that’s how Mr Leigh had put it. To live a life that was a story worth telling . . .

  ‘We’ll return after the paperwork is sorted, after I’ve the deeds in my hand,’ Song said.

  ‘I ain’t here to tell you nothing ’bout nothing. Just telling you what I know about the ways of the river. But sounds like you’ve got it all worked out—’

  ‘I’ll get a decent area with the gold we’ve found,’ Song said. ‘Then we’ll be safe. Anything we find from then on will be ours.’

  ‘Less they kill us,’ Chi said.

  ‘Guess that’s true. And there’s always the chance we don’t find another grain, And then I’d own enough barren land to found a new country.’

  CHAPTER 15

  Song wanted to arrive in Bartica after dark to avoid drawing attention. They tied up a hundred yards from the dock and unloaded. The pair parted without a word, moving off in different directions like strangers. Each took half the boat’s load but there wasn’t much. There were clean out of supplies. They had only their bags and their battels.

  Song walked slowly towards the vicarage. His footsteps were quiet. His free hand rested on the handle of a cutlass tucked between his belt and trousers. The street was in darkness and nobody seemed to be about.

  As he approached the house he saw a light at the window of Father Holmes’ study. Song put down his load in the yard and stepped silently upon the wooden porch.

  There was a young man sitting at the desk writing. He was leaning over his papers, just like Father Holmes used to, his hand moving quickly across the page. His eyes glanced up and down between his script and there was a book held open by a magnifying glass. Around his neck was a dog-collar.

  Song pulled back from the window. He tried to calm his quickening breath and reached out his shaking hands for the frame to steady himself. He moved quickly now, travelling to the back of the house to scale the mango tree. He knew every branch, even in the dark. His fingers probed for the knot he’d hollowed out. When he found the space he reached for the seam of his shirt, tearing at the fine stitches and feeling for the nubs of gold wrapped in a shred of shammy. He pressed them deep inside the hollow.

  He released himself from the lowest branch of the tree and moved back around to the front of his house to retrieve his load. Then he slipped out through the gate. There weren’t many places he could go. Josie’s.

  Song slipped up the back stairs. Clio was in the corridor. She jumped when she saw him.

  ‘Goddamn it. What you doing walking around like a ghost ?’ She lit the cigarette in her left hand and inhaled deeply. Then she looked him up and down. ‘You come to see Maia ? You can clean up in there.’ She swept the glowing end of her cigarette in an arc towards the door to his left. ‘I’ll tell Maia you’re here.’ She hesitated. ‘She got smashed about last week. Does it matter ? Ella’s here too. I’m busy tonight.’

  ‘Who hit her ?’

  ‘What’s it to you ? Nothing more I hate than a man getting all protective over us. Like you trying to take ownership or summink. We can look after ourselves thank you very much.’

  Song put his finger up to his lips. ‘Not tonight, Clio. I’m tired.’

  ‘Look it, too.’ she said. ‘Go clean yourself up.’

  She moved off and Song gently pushed open the door. The room was empty. He lifted the load down from his back. His body had started to hurt. He scrubbed himself with the first soap he had seen in over a month. The dirt was deep. He rinsed off with the half-full bucket of water in the corner. There was a film of mosquito eggs on the surface.

  Maia pushed open the door without knocking. She was wearing a coffee-coloured shift and he could see the points of her breasts through the cotton. There was a white shawl around her shoulders but he could see bruises. There was a cut below her eye.

  ‘Came back then ?’

  ‘Just to stock up, get some supplies.’ He pointed at his bag in the corner. ‘Clean out of oil for weeks now. And soap.’

  ‘Didn’t miss me then ?’ Maia
’s voice was firm but Song could hear the fragility beneath.

  ‘Always miss you.’ He didn’t mean it until he said it out loud. Then he felt like he’d been missing her all his life.

  Maia allowed herself a quick smile. ‘Find anything ?’

  ‘Not as much as I’d like.’

  She laughed like a bird. A four-tone staccato he remembered from their childhood. ‘Name me a pork-knocker who’s found as much as he’d like.’

  Her eyes flicked over his body. She pulled a torn bolt of cloth from a line strung up across the room. ‘Wanna come next door ?’

  She slipped out and shouted from down the corridor. ‘Better bring your stuff with you. Won’t last a minute in this dump. Thieves and liars and drunks.’

  Song patted his face with the cloth. In the lamplight his shadow was thrown a half-dozen times across the room. He barely recognised himself. It was the body of a man undernourished but stronger about the shoulders and neck. He looked like how he remembered his father – standing in the doorway of their home before he left for the fields. A silhouette, a shadow. He was nearly eighteen, no longer a boy. In his head he could hear Lady singing to him: . . . don’t give up, don’t give in. And walk tall wherever you go.

  Song stayed at Josie’s for a couple days. Without even stepping into the street he learned everything that had gone on in Bartica over the previous three months. Ella, the youngest sister, loved to talk.

  ‘There’s a new vicar come all the way from England, too scared even to leave the house,’ she said. ‘Paul Nutt has been in Ruby Lou’s. On a Monday because he figured fewer people would notice. With Lila, I think. Cecil Pereira lost his virginity to his mother’s sister although he’s pretending she’s a half-sister.’

  Song laughed. He hadn’t heard himself laugh that way in a long time.

  ‘Don’t laugh; it’s all true,’ she pouted.

  ‘Am sure it is. You could have been saying this same thing, just different names, when I left three months ago. Bartica doesn’t change much.’

  ‘Jon left, that’s a change.’

  ‘Where’s he gone ?’

  ‘Georgetown. Got a big job at Governor’s House.’

  Song smiled. ‘Drawing ?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Maia was too much of a daydreamer to hear the gossip, or if she did she was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to remember a scrap of it. Clio did not have a minute for anyone but herself. If any of the three was going to last the long road it was going to be Clio.

  Song’s first outing was to collect a portion of gold from the mango tree. He slipped there under the cover of darkness and went on to sell it at first light. He knocked on the door of Old Ivor.

  ‘’Bout time you walked in here again,’ the old man said. ‘Was beginning to wonder if you were one of those fellas that slip up at the start. They say pork-knockers either die very young or very old. You’ll probably last the course now.’

  ‘So you’re a fortune-teller, too, huh ?’ Song teased. ‘How much is that service ?’

  ‘Free with every transaction,’ Old Ivor said.

  Song put the gold on the table. It was only a quarter of what they had found.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ he said, setting the gold on his scales. As they wobbled, he whistled. ‘Very good. You keep coming to me, I’ll look after you.’

  He slid some groats across the table and Song pocketed them. It felt different this time. His hands felt clean. This money had nothing to do with Jesus.

  Song went to market and bought some of Jingy’s favourites: Lifebuoy soap, lime astringent, Lyle’s golden syrup. He waited for her by the dock early evening hoping she would come by to catch crabs. He saw her figure from a distance, bucket in one hand, fishing net in another. She was sharply on time, just before the mosquitoes rose up.

  ‘You don’t look much better this time around and I heard you had a cook with you,’ Jingy said when she saw him. ‘What’s he feeding you ?’

  Song handed Jingy the bag of gifts. ‘Labba mostly.’

  ‘Labba mostly,’ Jingy repeated, taking the bag from him. ‘Call that a healthy way to go about living. You need to stop dying and start thinking about living.’

  ‘I’ve thought the same,’ Song said. ‘That’s why I’m back.’

  She looked into the bag. The can of golden syrup was on top. She softened her tone. ‘I ain’t forgiving you just by you bringing me nice things. This woman can’t be bought. You taken your time to come see me. I hear you’ve been in town a few days already. I’m old you know. I could’ve dropped dead by now and how bad would you have felt ?’ She lifted the can and saw the soap underneath. ‘Now you’ve spent all your money on these frivolous things. Anyway I don’t care to listen to excuses. I’ve enough to do. Crabs are waiting.’

  The two continued to the river just like they used to, and Jingy clambered down the side of the dock passing the net up to Song to empty her haul into the bucket. The crabs were being artful tonight.

  ‘Damn sneaky things,’ she said. ‘So you heard about the new vicar ? Totally unexpected, as it always is in these parts. People arrive before the post. How d’you figure that ? Just suddenly turned up. I had to clear out your rooms. Almost broke me packing up Father Holmes’ things. Still think of the vicarage as his and your home, nobody else’s.’

  Song thought back to when Father Holmes talked of making a home together. Then he thought of Father Holmes’ room at the vicarage, untouched since he left for England, and his own room and the many hours he lay in bed there waiting for the morning light to dissipate the gloom so he could read. It was another life.

  ‘What you heard about Father Lovett, then ?’

  ‘Not a lot. Heard he’s living scared, that’s all.’

  Jingy tsk-ed. ‘Course you have. This town likes to put someone down before they know a thing about them. He’s not so bad. No Father Holmes but he’s worth getting to know. Nice name. Young though. And a bit serious for someone so young. Believes everyone should live by the book. Not an easy thing in a town like Bartica.

  ‘I’ll come meet him later in the week,’ Song said.

  ‘Course you won’t. I’ll send your things. And Father Holmes’. All packed with your name on. And don’t go asking me to send them to Josie’s. I want a proper address.’

  Song took a room above the Bits & Bobs pawnshop, across the street from Louis’, and paid Bronco to watch his door. The room was empty save one table and a mat on the floor. Later in the day Short John turned up with the boxes from Jingy. Inside were Father Holmes’ books, his typewriter and shaving kit. There was the globe and the brass scales from Mr Leigh. One of the boxes was filled with letters and other papers. He caught sight of Father Holmes’ neat handwriting and he ran his fingers over the words. Song closed the box again, trying to shut out the sadness he felt.

  The next day Song woke early and made his way to the district commissioner’s office. William Wright was the person to speak to about land registration, or in fact anything official in Bartica. But in truth nobody saw much of him. He kept a distance, and was more likely to be spotted on the ferry back and forth to Georgetown than on the streets of this town he was meant to be running.

  When Song entered the office, Wright’s assistant Harrington was hunched at his desk staring into space. He was strangely uncomfortable to look at – all jutting shoulders and bony elbows – and had a twitch of licking his lips over and again nervously. There was an aimlessness about him. Like he was just marking time through life.

  ‘Is Mr Wright in ?’

  Harrington jumped. He looked up at Song and his eyes fell on the rolled-up map Song was carrying.

  ‘What’s your business ?’

  Song lifted up the map. ‘Land.’

  ‘Mr Wright’s a busy man and won’t be able to see you today.’

  ‘We’re all busy, Harrington,’ Song said. ‘But I’ve got a lot of land to purchase and I think he’d like to know.’

  Harrington got up slowly
. He knocked on the inside door leading into Mr Wright’s office, entered and closed it behind him. Seconds later he returned. ‘As I said before, Mr Wright is a very busy man, but you’ll be grateful to know I’ve persuaded him to see you. You’ll have to wait till he’s ready.’

  Mr Wright shouted ‘come in’ from inside his office. Harrington jumped. ‘He’s ready now. Follow me.’

  Mr Wright’s office was small and stuffy. There was one small window but it was closed. On the walls were hand-drawn maps with tracts colour-coded in red hatched lines, green dots and blue shading. Mr Wright was writing at his desk. Several pens sat in grooves carved into the wood. By his elbow was a half-drunk cup of tea. The shelves around the room were cluttered with reference books.

  Mr Wright did not look up.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Song said. ‘I’d like to see you about some land.’

  ‘I’ve told him you’re a very busy man, sir,’ Harrington said.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Mr Wright said.

  ‘Shall I take minutes ?’ Harrington said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mr Wright said.

  Harrington pulled a face and left the room slowly. Song waited for the door to shut behind him. ‘Thanks for your time, sir. I’ve been keen to get myself a piece of land. I have money saved up from working at the vicarage and thought it might be a good time to invest it. Father Holmes taught me that land was the best place to put money and I wanted to ask you what you thought of the timing. I hear the market is favourable.’

  ‘A good man, Father Holmes. Not many of them in these parts. Smart, too. You could do a lot worse than buy land. Cheap, too. I don’t know why more don’t. Land is one thing they’re not making more of. Where are you looking ?’

  ‘May I ?’ Song asked, as he unrolled the map he had brought and flattened it evenly upon the desk. ‘This is one of Father Holmes’ old maps,’ he said. ‘I’ve marked the area.’

  Mr Wright looked at the great swathe of land Song had marked. He whistled. ‘Buying up half the country ? When I talked about speculation I didn’t mean you had to buy up the Essequibo. What do you plan to do with it ?’