Song

by Michelle Jana Chan

  ‘I know what you’re trying to do. But this kind of change won’t happen in my lifetime.’

  ‘We’ll be closer to it happening.’

  ‘I’m a selfish old man living a selfish old life.’

  ‘No man is an island. Father Holmes would have leaned on you to do this, too. I remember listening to your conversations with him and Tom Jameson in the evenings at the vicarage. Eating crab backs, rocking on the porch, me wishing I could join you. I want to create that kind of atmosphere – to talk freely, to share news, to look out for each other.’

  Edward sighed. ‘You’re a dog with a bone, Song. Put me down on your books then. It may not be for very long, though. In truth I’m thinking about returning to England. I’m getting tired of the heat and the work, and I have a little house in England that my mother left me. It’s cold and dark and a good distance from the nearest village but it’s somewhere to spend the rest of my selfish days with memories of the tropics to warm my bones.’

  Song shook his head. ‘I can’t see you leaving Bartica.’

  ‘Not for a damp dark cottage ? Perhaps you’re right.’

  ‘You matter here, Edward. You matter to the Silent Temple, to the community here, to my family.’

  ‘That’s kind of you to say.’

  They split up at the corner of Water Street. Song walked home slowly. Ahead he saw Mr Oakden with his wife. He remembered the letter he addressed to him applying to join the British Club.

  Song tipped his hat. ‘Good evening.’

  In an exaggerated response Mr Oakden imitated Song tipping his hat. ‘You’ll never be one of us.’ It was an unprovokedly vicious tone.

  Song noticed Mrs Oakden squeeze her husband’s arm.

  ‘You are assuming I would like to be,’ Song said.

  ‘A sports club in a near mirror image of ours,’ Mr Oakden said. ‘Don’t fool yourself that you’re doing something unique.’

  ‘This is not about tennis courts, Mr Oakden. It is about a membership system that’s open to everyone.’

  ‘Open to anyone who can afford it.’

  ‘You can change your financial circumstances. You cannot change your circumstances of birth.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘For your circumstances of birth to rule the rest of your life cannot be fair.’

  Mrs Oakden caught Song’s eye. He sensed her admiration, even as she stood beside her husband.

  ‘You people don’t understand,’ Mr Oakden said. ‘Civil society is not built on money. It’s built on years of doing the right thing. Just because life has been good to you for a few years doesn’t mean you can now buy your way into society. Your club won’t be the new place for Georgetown society. It will be a place for secondraters with chips on their shoulders. Do you think any one of you would turn your nose up at the chance of joining the British Club ?’

  ‘There was a time when I wanted to join the British Club. Do you remember ? I wanted to feel part of a community. Not the British community. Not the Chinese community. But Georgetown community. It is you who does not understand, Mr Oakden. I certainly would turn down the chance of joining the British Club now.’

  ‘Let me teach you something: clubs are called clubs because of the shared interests of their members. Will plantation workers be joining your club ? No. The homeless ? The poor ? The illiterate ? No, no, no. That’s called exclusion on the basis of money . . .’

  ‘I was once a plantation worker,’ Song interrupted. ‘Today I am a pork-knocker. Neither fact matters. In our club it won’t matter how people earn their money or where they come from. For those who can’t afford it, there’ll be open days and subsidies. Perhaps I’ll waive all fees. At the church, the doors will be wide open. Nobody will be excluded. It was a man from your own country who taught me that a long time ago and I’ve never forgotten it.’

  ‘I can see you’re a very bitter man,’ Mr Oakden said.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ his wife said.

  ‘Bitterness isn’t driving this,’ Song said. ‘A call for fairness is.’

  Mrs Oakden was pulling at her husband’s arm.

  ‘I hope you and Mrs Oakden will find the courage to come to the inauguration. Everyone is invited.’

  Over a thousand people came to the opening party. Song surveyed the scene and wished Father Holmes could have been there. A place to come together for everyone, open to all. Song remembered what Father Holmes said: ‘If we’re demanding perfection before people walk through our doors we’ll have very empty churches.’ Song reflected on his own imperfect self, his transgressions. What a very unordinary vicar Father Holmes had been.

  Lunch was spread on long tables with tall glasses of pink and orange rum punch. There were races all afternoon and as the last winner entered the enclosure the music started up. The party lasted long after the sun had gone down.

  But as Song walked home, he thought about the limitations. The English who had shown interest in the organisation – like Edward Hoare – were already outside conventional colonial life. The Silent Temple was irrelevant to the people who wielded political power. For Song the fight wasn’t over yet.

  CHAPTER 31

  Year on year Omaia continued to outperform any goals Song might have had for the mine. It continued, too, to be closely scrutinised by officials at Governor’s House. They never found any evidence of malpractice, nor any inconsistencies in the financial records, but Song did not allow himself to become complacent, conscious that he needed to stay one step ahead. The pattern of his life shifted to accommodate his concern for both the business and the foundation, which he felt required his attention more than ever. He spent less and less time at home, throwing himself into work, and was often away for many months. He was conscious of Hannah’s regular reminders about how quickly the children were growing up. Between his long trips he did notice how Phillip and Flo had started to develop their own personalities, to listen to the world around them more intently and to speak their mind. He knew he was missing out but he was also aware how much he needed to do to provide for his family and to protect their future.

  Late one night, during one of Song’s increasingly brief visits to Georgetown, Jon came to Sugar House. He probably hadn’t seen his friend for over a year. Jon stood at the door of Song’s study, his face pale and his hands shaking. When Song brought him into the light he saw a mix of fear and anger in his friend’s face. This wasn’t Jon’s usual self. His typical steadiness, his quietude. Song led him into his study and shut the door.

  ‘It’s been a long time. How are you, my friend ?’

  Jon let his body sink into a large armchair. With one hand he half-covered his eyes. The other gripped the arm of the chair. ‘What I’m about to tell you, Song, you must not repeat. Not to anyone. Swear it.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Swear it.’

  ‘I swear it.’

  ‘She made me swear not to tell anyone.’

  ‘Who ?’

  ‘Sonia.’

  Song pictured Jon’s sister. He remembered playing with her, swinging her around and around in the yard, hearing her carefree laughter. That was a long time ago. She would have been in her teens by now. ‘Is she okay ?’

  ‘Kiddo. He . . .’ Jon stumbled.

  Kiddo had done some terrible things in his time but Song had never seen Jon like this. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’m going to kill him.’

  Song was almost too afraid to ask. ‘Where’s Sonia ?’

  ‘At my place. She got in from Bartica earlier this evening. Rose is looking after her the best she can.’

  ‘What happened ?’ Song asked again.

  ‘Sometimes, when I was growing up, I used to wish to myself that I didn’t have a family. Like you.’

  ‘Kiddo was never your family.’

  ‘She told me she’d rather be dead.’ Jon’s voice was fading away as if he was talking to himself. ‘She still looks so young. Like a child. She’s just a child. Why didn’t I bring her here before ? I didn
’t know. Why didn’t I know ?’

  ‘What is it, Jon ? You’re not making sense.’

  ‘She’s pregnant.’

  Song swallowed hard. ‘By Kiddo ?’

  Jon’s eyes were full of desperation. ‘It’s been going on for years, she says. He’s been . . . for as long as she can remember. Since she was small. I never even knew. I never even noticed.’ Jon broke down.

  Song’s head was spinning. He thought of the times he’d seen Kiddo make Sonia cry. And how he’d done nothing. He went over and crouched beside his friend. He put an arm around Jon’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m going to kill him, Song,’ Jon said. ‘I swear it.’

  ‘Not tonight, Jon. Not now. You are needed in one place right now and that’s here in Georgetown with Sonia. She needs you more than ever. Look after your sister. Let me look after the rest.’

  Jon crumpled deeper into the chair as if he could no longer hold himself upright. ‘I came here to tell you. But I also came here to ask you if I could borrow the Dartmouth tonight. To go to Bartica.’

  ‘Jon, you listen to me now. Like I listened to you when you pulled me out of Josie’s. If you go to Bartica now you’ll wind up dead. And then you’ll be no good to Sonia at all.’ Song looked hard in his friend’s eyes. ‘Let me sort this out.’

  ‘I don’t want anyone knowing about this. She made me swear not to tell anyone.’

  ‘Sonia’s right. Nobody must know anything about this. Don’t tell her you told me. Don’t tell another soul.’

  Back in Bartica, the jetty boys greeted him with the usual volley of gossip.

  ‘You shoulda been here last week, man,’ Joseph said. ‘A few dozen boxes of rum came floating by the dock. Didn’t belong to nobody. Like a gift. Happy Christmas, Bartica!’

  Song threw them a rope. ‘Do boxes of rum float then ?’

  ‘Ask any man here alive.’

  ‘Whole town was high,’ Dory said. ‘Even if you weren’t drinking it, you were high on the vapours. We were swimming in the stuff. The B Boys were on fire that night. Played till morning and then some.’

  Song smiled. ‘That is something I wish I’d been in town for.’

  ‘Man, you’d have been up all night,’ Joseph said. ‘Streets were littered with bodies that next day. Like there’d been some kinda plague. People were too beat to make it home. They just fell right over on the street and slept there till the sun split their heads in two. Man, we couldn’t have unloaded a basket of feathers the next day. We were out cold. Who knows what was in those bottles ?’

  ‘Good sweet rum, that’s what,’ Basil whistled. ‘Got you between the eyes – and between the legs.’

  ‘Glad I missed it,’ Song said. ‘You’re all talking like a bunch of drunks. What else has been going on ?’

  ‘Usual,’ Dory said. ‘Still no DC. No PC. But the place is running itself, same as ever.’

  ‘You hear Kiddo wound up dead ?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘Finally,’ Basil added.

  Song didn’t flinch. He pulled himself up on the dock. ‘That so ?’

  ‘Knifed in his sleep.’

  ‘Longest list of suspects in history,’ Basil said. ‘You know who’s on the list ? The whole population of Bartica.’

  The jetty boys all laughed.

  ‘I won’t be shedding a tear,’ Song said. It had been done quickly, he thought to himself. He’d asked Bronco to sort it out. He was the obvious choice. The big man who chose not to come to his wedding because he wanted to take care of Song’s small worthless room. ‘The boy with promise,’ Bronco called Song, and he’d do anything for him.

  Bronco knew all the comings and goings of everyone, yet he wasn’t a talker. And he knew people. ‘Most everyone has a price,’ he’d say, ‘and the price in this town’s pretty low.’ He assured Song that he’d hire outsiders and that the murder wouldn’t be able to be threaded back to Song.

  ‘That man lived too long,’ Dory said.

  ‘Even his woman says she’s glad he’s gone,’ Basil said. ‘That man didn’t have a good bone in his body. Course his old man was a dog, too. Bad breeds bad.’

  ‘Not always.’ Dory cut in. ‘You seen Mad Dog’s little ’un ? Sweeter than honey. Eyes so wide, you think they might pop outta their sockets. Got everyone scratching their heads how that man can have such a nice kid. Please and thank yous. Always running and fetching and helping. Course with Sugar the mother he might not be Mad Dog’s.’

  ‘Man, I sure know where to come if I need any gossip,’ Song said. ‘Who can tell me how Jingy is ?’

  ‘Still moaning about last week’s rum. Says the town stinks of liquor and piss. Does it ?’

  ‘Bartica always stinks, Dory,’ Song said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘You been away too long,’ Basil said. ‘Stick around and you’ll stop smelling it.’

  As Song walked away from the dock, he thought how easy it had been to have Kiddo killed. Not a stain. Jon would have had to put the knife in himself. Putting the knife in yourself was something else. He remembered holding the blade against Jesus’ throat, the hours trying to dig dried blood out from under his fingernails. Raped, before he became a killer. That experience had hardened him. Jesus. Kiddo. They got what they deserved, Bartica style. But that wasn’t always the way. Good lives cut short. Others, blood-stained, allowed to go on and on.

  Song spent a month up at Omaia, glad to be away from the noise of Bartica, the kindness of home that he didn’t want right now, that he didn’t feel he deserved. When he eventually turned around to head back to Georgetown, it was with apprehension.

  Even from a distance Sugar House looked as peacefully removed as ever. Stilled and glowing in the late afternoon light, far from unspeakable horrors.

  Hannah was a shadow on the staircase. She said his name. ‘Song ?’

  Song could hear a melancholy in her voice. ‘What is it ?’

  ‘Mama passed on.’ Her voice broke.

  Song moved up the stairs and gently pulled his wife to him. He remembered what he’d once said to her, albeit many years earlier – that Mary Luck was indestructible – and felt terribly sad that he had been wrong.

  ‘There was no pain, the doctor said.’

  Song looked into his wife’s face. ‘And how are you, my love ?’

  ‘It was peaceful. We can’t wish for more than that.’

  Song nodded. ‘A peaceful death. A life well lived. It’s true. It’s all we can wish for.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ Hannah said softly. ‘Amalia died the same night. We both lost . . .’

  ‘They were two great women. The kind you think will never die.’

  ‘Not two, but three. They both died on the same day the country lost Queen Victoria. Isn’t that strange ? All happening at the same time.’

  ‘They all lived long and full lives.’

  Hannah choked. ‘I want us to live long and full lives. But I’m so afraid to lose you. I’ve been afraid since Chi and the accident. Every time you leave.’

  ‘Every time I leave ? Why haven’t you told me ?’

  ‘I’m brave,’ Hannah stammered.

  ‘You are. I know.’

  ‘But I can still be afraid. Your family needs you, not the mine.’

  Song thought about the goatherd in Mr Ebenezer’s painting. The lesson against greed. Against having too much. Was it time ? Song was overcome with the realisation that everything he truly cared about was where he was now. He felt the sudden fragility of his own family, and how utterly unbearable a loss would be.

  ‘I’m afraid, too,’ Song said. ‘Everyone I love dies.’

  ‘Don’t talk that way.’

  Song held her closer to him. ‘Everyone I love.’

  ‘Not me, Song. I’m here forever.’

  ‘Promise me that.’ Song breathed in Hannah, his lips against her black hair. She smelled like she did their first night. ‘Frangipani ?’

  ‘Jasmine.’

  Song took another breath. ‘Jasmine.’
/>   ‘You promise me, too,’ Hannah said.

  ‘I promise,’ Song said. They held each other in the dark.

  CHAPTER 32

  Song was in his study reading when Hannah came in.

  ‘Something’s wrong with Little A,’ she said. ‘She’s too choked up even to talk. Will you see her ? She’s in her room. I think she’d be too afraid not to answer you.’

  Song heard muffled sobbing as he approached her room. He knocked and pushed open the door. Little A was lying face down on the bed.

  ‘Little A, it’s Song.’

  Little A stopped crying instantly and lifted herself up. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What’s the matter ? Can we help you ?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It’s my little brother, Tots. He passed on.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us ? Was he sick ? Was there nothing we could have done ?’

  ‘It’s my fault, sir. I told him he had to find work. He got a job at Diamond but he didn’t like it. I made him stay on.’

  ‘At Diamond ?’

  ‘The sugar plantation, sir. He’d been there for nearly a month. He said he hated the work but I wouldn’t listen.’ Little A’s voice had started to shake. ‘He told me he wanted to leave but I told ’im he had to learn how it is. Every job’s hard, he couldn’t just walk out. But he was only twelve. Too young, too small. I know that now.’

  Song thought of Jinda. So young. So small. He imagined him bent forward, resting on his cutlass as if it was the only thing holding him up in the world.

  ‘What happened ?’ Song asked.

  ‘They said it was a fever,’ Little A said. ‘But I think it was the hard work, too. The cane can get heavy, that’s what Tots told me. He said he was frightened there.’ Little A sobbed. ‘I feel like I killed him.’

  Hannah had joined Song. ‘You were only trying to be a good sister.’

  Song was blunt. ‘Where’s his body ?’

  Little A let out another sob. ‘They buried him already. At the plantation. Told me it was too hot and what with the fever others might catch it.’