Song

by Michelle Jana Chan

  ‘How sad. They’re sad anyway, but a dead, badly stuffed harpy eagle.’

  ‘It needs life, like you give life to the birds in your drawings.’

  ‘I can’t promise it’ll be any good, but I’ll try.’ Jon paused. ‘So, you been finding any gold ? I heard it’s going well.’

  ‘We hit a seam.’

  ‘This town’s talking of nothing else. You should hear it: “Remember that sugar Chiney taken in by the pastor, that’s the one”; “That boy became a pork-knocker out in Bartica and he’s struck gold”; “He’s buying up Georgetown, did you hear?”; “What’d that pastor think of him now?”’

  ‘What would he think of me now ?’

  ‘He’d be proud.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Then Song thought about what his own father would have thought. ‘Keep to yourself.’ That’s what he’d have said. ‘Trouble only comes to those who stand out.’ Song didn’t believe in those warnings anymore. He was tired of keeping himself to himself. Instead he was beginning to feel it was his time.

  On his last day Song went to collect the bracelet. Mr Hing handed him a brown leather box. Song pressed the small metal button on the front. It clicked softly and Song opened the lid. It was a double strand of square-cut diamonds twisted around each other.

  ‘It will sit better on a wrist than in the box,’ Mr Hing said.

  ‘It’s very fine, thank you,’ Song said. He wanted to be bound with Hannah the same way. ‘Find a sweet one and stick with her,’ that’s what Mr Leigh had said. ‘Treat her right and she’ll stick by you forever.’

  ‘I hope she says yes,’ Mr Hing added.

  Song was startled by Mr Hing’s intuition but then realised how obvious it was. ‘I hope so, too.’

  CHAPTER 21

  When Song returned to Bartica he went straight to Mary Luck’s Lucky Bakery. Hannah’s bicycle was not there so he waited in the yard. He could hear Mary Luck stacking trays inside. He reached up again to feel the smooth hard box in his shirt pocket and his stomach knotted.

  There was a whir of bicycle wheels and suddenly she was in front of him. Her hair was tugged back and her face was glistening with sweat.

  ‘Hannah,’ he said. ‘I’m back from Georgetown.’

  ‘I can see that.’ She stood in front of him, straddling her bicycle. ‘How was it ?’

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘How so.’ Then she put her hand in her pocket and brought out some shelled Brazil nuts. ‘You hungry ?’

  Song nodded. She let some fall into his open hand. ‘I’ve been keeping them for you.’

  ‘I have something for you, too.’ Song reached into his pocket and took out the box.

  ‘What is it ?’

  ‘Open it.’

  ‘Will you hold the handlebars ?’

  Song held the bicycle steady. She rubbed her hands on her apron and took the box from him. Her eyes flashed. ‘What is it ?’

  Song could barely wait. ‘Please open it.’

  She pressed the little metal button and there was a click. She looked up at him and smiled, before lifting the lid. The bracelet shone in the sunlight with tiny dancing rainbows like waterfall spray.

  Song thought how much more beautiful it was in her hands. Rainbows, like a life with Hannah.

  She shut the lid and pushed the box towards Song. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why ?’ Song said.

  ‘It’s too much, Song. It’s not right.’

  ‘But it’s for you.’ Song’s voice broke as he spoke. ‘I had it made for you specially.’

  ‘It’s very beautiful but I can’t accept it. Mother wouldn’t allow it.’

  ‘It’s not for your mother to allow.’

  Hannah hesitated. ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘She told me it was up to you if you wanted to go for a walk with me.’

  ‘A walk maybe,’ Hannah said. ‘But not—’

  ‘I want to marry you.’

  Song hadn’t planned to say it so soon.

  Hannah stepped back sharply. As she did she lost her balance. Song tried to hold on to the handlebars but Hannah, her bicycle and the cake trays crashed to the ground. Mary Luck came to the door. ‘What’s going on ?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Hannah said, pulling herself up. ‘Everything’s fine. The trays were empty anyway.’

  ‘If they’re empty there’s more to deliver,’ her mother said.

  ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ Song said.

  ‘Fine time of the day to be making a visit, when we’re delivering,’ Mary Luck said to Song. ‘Customers are waiting while you’re both chatting away like there was all the time—’

  ‘Let them wait,’ Hannah cut in.

  Her mother gasped. ‘What’s gotten into you, chil’ ?’

  Hannah was looking at Song. Her one green and one brown eye were locked on to his one good eye. She smiled a small smile that nobody but he noticed.

  ‘Song came to ask me to marry him, Mama,’ Hannah said. ‘And I said yes.’

  Within the month, Song and Hannah were married at St Ethelbert’s. Weddings were the best of times in Bartica. The women put on wide-brimmed hats and their biggest diamonds. The larger ladies wore billowing flowered dresses and the skinny ones straight shifts. All of Ruby Lou’s girls came with ribbons in their hair and painted nails showing through open-toed shoes.

  Weddings were also the best way to fill a church. Father Lovett took advantage of the chance to speak to so many people. His sermon lasted over an hour, preaching about the sin of drink, of music, of a life without meaning. He seemed to condemn most of the town to hell, foretelling consequences, perhaps not in this lifetime but at its end. Everyone was polite enough to stay the course but not enough to refrain from fidgeting. Parents pinched their babies hard in the backside to make them cry so they could excuse themselves and get some air. Song squeezed Hannah’s hand to try to express how insufferable he thought Father Lovett was.

  Of course the real reason everybody was attending the ceremony was for the party. Leading up to the wedding Jingy told Father Lovett she was taking the whole week off and she took charge of catering. The crab population of Bartica was just about extinct by the time she had finished crawling up and down the side of the dock filling up buckets. In addition the air was filled with the squawking of strangled chickens and their plucked feathers. Bartica was not going to see a chicken egg in a long time.

  There was more food than anyone had seen on one single day. If half of Georgetown had come too there would still have been leftovers. As Song looked around he remembered how it was to feel hungry – and the conjured-up stories of food that had sustained him. Here it was for real. There were baked chicken legs in molasses; chicken wings in forest honey; bass with onion and ginger; cauldrons of pepper pot; rice coloured with strands of saffron; blackened barbecued pork; potato and pea curry with turmeric, and a dozen dishes of stewed okra and fried tomatoes.

  Mary Luck closed the bakery for three days before the day of the wedding and kept the ovens hot through the night. She woke every few hours to take out trays of warm golden biscuits and to replace them with trays of uncooked pastry. There were enough currant cakes and pine tarts and cream pies for every man, woman and child three times over.

  While the guests feasted the B Town Troubadours played through the night until dawn the following day. Everybody danced. Everybody sweated. Everybody drank the free-flowing rum. A couple of fights broke out in the early hours but nobody was badly hurt. Song could not have been happier, as if the best time of his life might be just beginning.

  Song and Hannah left the party before Short John had played his last tune, but it was already so late none of the guests noticed. Song led her home to his Bits & Bobs room. Bronco was outside Louis’ and he gave them a shy smile. He had insisted on keeping guard even if it meant missing the wedding. ‘If I was a thief it would be exactly the moment I’d strike,’ he said. ‘Just make sure you save me some of Jingy’s curry and I’ll be a happy man.’

  When Song u
nlocked his door there was a wave of perfume. Jingy had decorated the room with flamboyants and frangipani, garlands of jasmine, and with bougainvillaea petals scattered across the bed. Hannah walked around the room smelling all the different flowers and looking at Song’s few things. She touched the yellowed globe Mr Leigh had given Father Holmes, and looked surprised when it turned on itself. Then she ran her fingers along the spines of the books. ‘Have you read all these ?’

  Song nodded. ‘More than once.’

  She leaned forward to smell the jasmine.

  ‘We can always have flowers if you like,’ Song said.

  ‘Always ? How long is always ?’

  ‘For all time. Forever.’ Song leaned forward to take the frangipani from Hannah’s hair. ‘Why is it, Hannah Luck, that you married me ?’

  ‘That’s Hannah Luck Holmes to you,’ she said. ‘And I married you, Song Holmes, because I love you.’

  Hannah’s words snatched Song’s breath. ‘And why is it that you love me ?’ Song asked.

  ‘Another why.’ Hannah said. ‘How many whys shall I allow you tonight ?’

  ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘Because of the way your one eye looks so deeply into my mixed-up eyes it makes up for the other that hides itself. It looks at me strong and curious and soft all at the same time. I love you, Song, because you are strong and curious and soft all at the same time.’

  He kissed her on the lips. She tasted of papaya.

  ‘And I love you also,’ Hannah whispered, ‘because you love me back.’

  For an instant they simply looked at each other in the milky light. Then they began to loosen each other’s clothes, unbuttoning and pulling at ties. The garments fell to the ground. Hannah picked up and carefully laid her red dress on Song’s desk. She was standing in a white cotton petticoat that held her in so tightly it looked as if it had been sewn upon her. Her round breasts were pressed flat. The cotton tugged around her broad hips. Fine darts of stitching drew in her waist.

  He led her towards the bed and pulled back the sheet. Petals rose up in the air in a cloud of colour and Hannah laughed. As she lay back her petticoat became trapped and there was the sound of seams tearing. There was her lullaby laugh again, sweet and drowsy.

  Song put his hands on Hannah’s body and felt the dampness of sweat through the cotton. He tried to slide up her petticoat and there was another gentle tear.

  ‘Tear it off me,’ Hannah whispered. ‘I don’t think it will come off any other way.’

  Song took a seam between his hands. The threads ripped apart easily. The sound stirred him. His hands travelled over her soft buttery body. Then he moved upon her. She was motionless, looking at him with her mismatched eyes. For a moment they paused. Then they began to rock together back and forth as if to comfort each other after a lifetime apart.

  The next morning Song woke to feel the light touch of fingers running across his back. He whispered her name. ‘Hannah ?’ Her name was so soft, like breath. He found himself wanting to cry at the sound of her name. He could feel her lips on his back. She was kissing his scars.

  CHAPTER 22

  A few days after the wedding Song went to see Chi. Nina was in the front yard with her younger siblings. She was carrying Bibi on her hip. Song had not spoken to her since the afternoon he had cut her short and walked away.

  ‘Hands full again ?’ Song asked.

  Nina shrugged. ‘Always.’

  ‘Chi around ?’

  ‘Probably.’

  She turned away from him and yelled. ‘Papaaaa!’ Bibi, clinging to her, jumped.

  Chi came out in the yard in his underwear. It was Bibi’s turn to shout. She mimicked her older sister. ‘Papaaaa!’ The other children laughed.

  Song was glad for the break in the tension. He went up to sit on the porch and Chi straddled his hammock. ‘I thought you’d forgotten your old river mate.’

  ‘We’re going to set up a goldmine, Chi.’

  Chi rolled his eyes. ‘You should be making babies, not talking about goldmines.’

  ‘There’ll be time for that later,’ Song said. He wanted to make sure he could provide for Hannah and a family. He never wanted anybody to be hungry again.

  ‘Gold first,’ Chi said. ‘I like the way you do things.’

  ‘We’ll need a team,’ Song said. ‘Maybe ten or twenty.’

  ‘You want even more people to know about this ? You’re killing me.’

  ‘What do you want to do ? Have the two of us chip away at the wrong rock for the rest of our lives ?’

  ‘Of course that’s what I want.’

  Song ignored him. ‘Will you run it ?’

  ‘Is it gonna make me a rich man ?’ Chi asked.

  ‘You’ll be a rich man whether you choose to run it or not. I’m taking my job to make you rich very seriously.’

  Chi laughed. ‘What’s the catch ?’

  ‘You’ll need to spend a lot of time upriver, but that’s probably not a catch for you. We’ll need two teams working on say, three-month rotations. You’ll get to choose the men. We can ask Sammy and the boys but as we know, it’s not for them all the time. We’ll have to find a deputy to cover you when you bring the gold back to Bartica. That journey will have its risks but I’ll have Bronco meet you before the dock. That’ll be the gold we declare. The rest I’ll take from the mine to Georgetown. I’ve found someone to work with directly. Says he’ll take everything we pull out.’

  Chi stared at Song.

  ‘What ?’ Song said.

  ‘There I was thinking you were falling in love and getting married,’ Chi said, ‘and all that time you were doing deals.’

  ‘I’m thinking of your future, Chi, while you laze about in a hammock and walk around your yard in your underwear.’

  ‘You know, there’s such a thing as too much gold,’ Chi said.

  ‘Really ?’ Song asked sarcastically. ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘Too much can weigh a man down.’ Chi’s voice was serious. ‘All we really need is enough to buy a round or two, to pick up a super deluxe at Ruthie’s, to buy a trinket for the wife and the whore. That’ll do. A bit of change for the biscuit tin so we’re allowed to leave again. Everyone’s happy. Bring back too much and you’re headed for trouble. Wife’ll pester, wanting to rise up. She’ll bother about why you need to leave so soon. You don’t need to leave so soon, she’ll say. And there goes the life we love.’

  ‘So what are you saying ?’

  Chi smiled. ‘I’m not saying nothing. When are we heading back ?’

  ‘Is that a yes ?’

  ‘What else am I going to do ? Chip away at the wrong rock for the rest of my life, as you put it ? Waiting around is making me jumpy.’

  ‘Fever’s rising in both of us.’ Song wasn’t sure this was true any more. The fever was stronger when there was nothing to lose. Now, with Hannah by his side, he was aware how much was at stake. He was responsible for both of them now. Lives bound together. Entangled with each other like the strands of a bracelet.

  Chi met Song to tell him he’d hired ten men for the next expedition.

  ‘Just wandered around my neighbourhood talking to the young ’uns,’ Chi said. ‘They’re all hungry for adventure, eager to learn. None of them have one jot of pork-knocking experience. I like it that way. Clean slate. We can teach them our way. Besides hard to take the wanderer out of most pork-knockers. They’d like the company but they’re no good at working for someone else, not for all the wages in the world.’

  Song hired Joseph to do some of the boat transfers up and down the river. He would have liked to have taken him on full-time.

  ‘Flattered to be asked,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t leave the dock. The boys might drive me crazy but this here little patch of the planet is where I’m set to live out my days.’

  Song also hired Bronco full-time. Louis could not argue. He could never match the wage Song was offering the big man. But Song had given Louis a good deal on the side. When Bronco was in
town – which would be most of the time – he would continue to stand outside Louis’ store, while keeping an eye on his own room across the street. No charge to Louis.

  Song had to fend off all the gossip. Harrington caught up with Song one morning.

  ‘So I been hearing it’s all a sham. Buying land just to boost land prices. Well, it won’t happen. I know about land. Been working in land before you were born.’

  ‘You’re probably right, Harrington.’

  ‘I know what land you bought. Too big an area for one man.’

  ‘Not for this man.’

  Harrington snorted. ‘You getting too full of yourself. It’s people like you who end up getting washed downriver.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I watch my back.’ Song didn’t dismiss Harrington’s words. He was aware he was putting some people out. But neither was he going back to his old ways. He felt more self-assured. Maybe it was Hannah. Maybe it was age. He didn’t want to keep his head down forever.

  Dr Foo also questioned him. ‘Some say you’re buying gold straight from the Amerindians, not pork-knocking at all,’ he said. ‘That right ? Need to be careful, if so. I know you got friends up there, but they don’t live by the same rules as us.’

  ‘And what rules does Bartica live by, Dr Foo ? I don’t see any rules here.’

  ‘True, true. Just want you to look out for yourself, Song. Telling you what Father Holmes might have told you if he was alive.’

  Song thought how Father Holmes would not have said anything like that if he was alive.

  ‘Remember you only got one eye now. Use it well. Look out for yourself as much as you can.’

  The jetty boys also pestered him. ‘Hear you buying up Georgetown, too,’ Dory said.

  ‘I bought a place to stay when I’m there, that’s all.’

  ‘Not what we’re hearing. Some say it’s the biggest building in the city.’