by Marie Evelyn
‘I’d like to know what it is,’ said Becky who also found the sound deeply unsettling, the more so because she couldn’t identify it.
The lady who had put her hand over her heart put her fingers in her ears and hurried back inside.
‘It’s a singing angel,’ said Renee. ‘At least I think it’s a Singing Angel. Normally there’s just one but this sounds like an army of the beasts. I’ve never heard so many.’
‘It’s a Mad Bull,’ said another. ‘I should know. I had to ban my grandson from making them.’
That made Becky feel better. If the noise was caused by something a child could make, it could not be anything dangerous.
‘No wonder some people want them banned at night,’ said Clara.
‘I’ve never heard it this bad before,’ said Renee. ‘I hope the wind dies down otherwise you won’t get any sleep tonight.’
The noise was such that it brought the curtain down on the act of bridge and soon the ladies were turning out of the yard and pointing their cars towards their own more tranquil neighbourhoods. Clara went to bed, muttering distractedly, and Becky opted to go up too. She lay on top of her sheets, searching for sleep, but it would not come. She tried closing the window but the heat was soon suffocating. Her room had a fan on the table but she tended to avoid using it, as the waves of air interfered with her sleep. She tried one more time with the window open and the buzzing noise increased triumphantly. Matthew came home and she heard the rat-a-tat of the bolts locking out whatever villains lurked outside but the bolts were powerless against this formless intruder. She wondered what Matthew thought about it.
Chapter Nine
Becky tried to sleep with pillows wedged round her ears but at six o’clock she gave up the futile struggle and got up. The buzzing was probably less intense than it had been the previous night but its very unceasing monotony was distressing. She realised she had assumed daybreak would herald a return to normality. No such luck.
She found Matthew on the veranda – like her still in pyjamas – leaning over the balustrade. His face looked worn with sleeplessness.
‘When did this start?’ he said curtly. There was no point expecting a ‘good morning’ out of him as this morning clearly wasn’t.
‘About ten o’clock last night. Where’s it coming from?’
‘Hopefully on our land. Can you get dressed? Give me a hand?’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘See you back here.’
Ten minutes later they were both back on the veranda, Becky wearing shorts and a T-shirt and Matthew for once wearing a shirt with his black shorts. He was also armed, rather alarmingly, with a machete and a small knife.
‘Are we going to need a lawyer for this?’ asked Becky.
To her surprise he laughed. ‘If they’re on someone else’s land then we will be trespassing and may have to kill a couple of pit bull terriers before we finish off the owner – then we might need a lawyer.’
‘Oh.’ She hoped he was joking.
‘But as I said hopefully they’re on our side of the wall.’
Cook came out on the veranda and regarded Matthew and his weapons impassively. She said, ‘I’m going to church later.’
‘Are you saying that because you want a lift or telling me because you’re going to pray for my soul?’ asked Matthew.
A half-smile played on the old lady’s face. ‘Both,’ she said.
‘Maybe you could slip in a prayer for an end to this assault on our ears.’
‘Maybe I will,’ said Cook and went back inside.
Matthew shook his head with something like admiration then turned to Becky. ‘You look terrible.’
She certainly felt it. Even Matthew with his darker-toned skin had noticeable circles under his eyes. ‘So do you.’
‘Cook looks better than both of us. I don’t know how she managed to sleep.’
Becky knew it was because Cook kept her window shut but said nothing. She followed him out of the yard towards the area of rough ground at the end of the drive. To the left of the mahogany treeline was the grassy area she had explored with Zena a couple of days before, whereas the land they were heading for was banded by casuarina trees. The noise of the wind playing through their needles was usually a comforting sound but today it was quite usurped by the duppies. Matthew strode ahead, not talking, though he would have had to shout to be heard above the furious buzzing. The occasional swipe of his machete to knock away a recalcitrant clump of tall razor-sharp grass alongside the drive revealed more about his mood than any conversation might.
However one person seemed unaffected by the racket. Beneath the branches of a casuarina tree was a figure, fully stretched out with a floppy fedora over his face.
‘Pitcher,’ said Matthew, with weary resignation. ‘Worn out by gardening as usual.’
As they drew nearer Becky could see Pitcher’s chalk-white arms resting on his stomach. His trousers were so torn they were more like tasselled shorts and his shirt was all but bleached of colour.
‘Looks like he could do with some new clothes,’ she said.
‘I can’t tell him what to spend his money on.’
‘It was an observation,’ said Becky. ‘No need to take it as criticism.’
Matthew grunted. Despite the fact they were standing over him, Pitcher seemed oblivious of their presence.
‘I take it he is just sleeping?’ said Becky, watching Pitcher’s chest to check he was breathing.
‘Let’s hope so.’ Matthew carried on walking.
They came in sight of what Becky assumed was an old plantation wall and – presumably – the boundary of Matthew’s land. He stopped now, seeming to survey the area as if he expected to find something right in front of them. Becky couldn’t see anything obvious. Beyond the low wall was yet more scrub and another wall could be seen ahead, perpendicular to them, roughly threading its way over the land beyond.
Something about that wall seemed out of place here and yet looked familiar to Becky. The buzzing noise seemed to reach a crescendo as she walked nearer to the boundary to look over. For a moment she remembered being with a very young Joe on holiday somewhere in the south west of England, maybe Devon or Dorset. Her father was pointing out a wall to them and explaining that it took real skill to build such a structure without cement; one that could stand for hundreds of years. There was no mistaking it – she was looking at a drystone wall.
Becky would have liked to ask Matthew what use they had in Barbados but he was staring at the sky.
‘Look at that,’ he shouted. ‘There must be at least twenty.’
Becky followed his gaze to see several blobs floating above them, no more distinguishable than skylarks on a summer’s day in Britain.
‘Can you see the strings?’ he asked.
She peered more closely and realised what the objects were. ‘Oh yes. Now I can.’ There were twenty kites tied to stakes in the ground – all screaming with fury at being tethered. She had actually passed between two of them without realising.
‘I’ve never heard kites make this kind of noise,’ she shouted. ‘But at least they’re on your side of the wall.’
‘Yes,’ said Matthew, grumpily. ‘Someone trying to make a point.’ He walked forward and touched the string attached to the nearest stake as if to test the tension. ‘They were lucky with the weather.’
‘They? You think someone did this deliberately?’ It was a stupid question – of course the kites could not have tethered themselves – but she was sleep deprived.
Matthew flung the machete and knife down and started pulling hand over hand to rein in the first kite. As the soaring beast drew nearer, Becky recognised a conventional old-fashioned coffin shape and was surprised to see it was just a shop-bought kite. It lost its nerve fifty or so yards from the ground, its serpentine wanderings abruptly terminating with a slow decline to the grass. Matthew pointed to a flap of plastic, which looked like it had been cut from a normal throwaway plastic bag, stuck fast to the top of the kite.
/> ‘That’s the Mad Bull?’ shouted Becky.
Matthew looked surprised. ‘You’ve heard about them? I made my own when I was young. You had to make them as loud as possible. But that’s the sort of thing that irritating little boys do.’
‘So this was probably just boys messing around?’
‘Childish men would be nearer the truth.’ He picked up the machete and the knife. ‘Now, what to do? I would like to cut the strings; it would certainly save time.’ He looked at her. ‘What would you do?’
Becky felt like she was being tested but either way her answer would have been the same. ‘I think we should pull them down. I don’t know what the consequences would be if we just cut them loose.’
He nodded, as if she had confirmed his own thoughts. Matthew put down the knife and machete again and they worked their way along the stakes. Pulling the kites down was surprisingly hard work and Becky appreciated the same breeze that had kept the beasts up in the air overnight; each one had a fold of plastic bag glued to it – which looked quite incongruous with the otherwise professionally made kites.
‘It must have taken someone ages to do this,’ she said as they worked side by side.
‘People will do anything for money.’
When all the kites were captured, and their strings rolled into neat loops, they both stood back, catching their breath. Becky shut her eyes and listened to the day sing through the casuarina trees, the breeze gently rattling the parchment-coloured pods of the shac-shac tree. Only now did she realise how disorientating the sound of the kites had been – almost debilitating.
She opened her eyes to see Matthew looking at her with slight impatience, as if he had somewhere else to be. She picked up the knife and lifted a stack of kites.
‘Isn’t it nice to talk at a normal volume?’ she said.
‘Certainly is.’
Matthew took the other stack of kites in one arm and in his other hand he swung the machete. ‘Fit?’ he asked.
She nodded and they headed homewards. She smiled automatically as the sound of a jubilant hymn wended its way across the land, congregational spirit coursing through the tambourines. ‘I read somewhere that Barbados has more churches per square mile than anywhere else in the world.’
‘That’s probably true.’ He tilted an arm to look at his watch and grimaced. ‘It’s already gone nine o’clock. Poor Cook. I said I’d take her. It’s a bit of a walk.’
‘Maybe Clara’s given her a lift.’
‘If she’s up this early. The garden’s really taking its toll.’
‘She loves it.’
‘I know. But she reacts quite badly to fungal spores. It’s a curse for someone who’s obsessed with gardening. After a while she’ll overdo it.’
Becky suspected late bridge nights were more likely to be the culprit but thought it best not to mention that. She waggled the stack of kites. ‘We did the right thing bringing them down. I don’t know how high these things would go on their own but if planes can be brought down by bird strikes, then –’
‘Bat strikes,’ said Matthew and almost grinned. ‘You know the little bats that you see from the veranda?’
‘Vesper bats?’
He looked surprised at her knowledge. ‘Yes. There have been reports of them hitting plane engines. And I don’t think they fly that high. So I suppose a kite strike would be quite possible.’ He looked at the bundle in his arm. ‘Now I’ve got to figure out whether to throw these away or –’
‘You could hand them out at your hotel.’
‘What? Complimentary kites?’
Becky felt a twinge of annoyance. He hadn’t paid for them; he could hardly charge his guests for second-hand kites.
‘Yes, free. Unless there’s an orphanage around.’
‘Actually there is a children’s home not far away.’
‘That would be the perfect solution then, wouldn’t it?’
‘We’d have to take off all the bits of plastic first.’ Matthew looked at her. ‘But, yes, children’s home it will be. Good idea.’
He strode off again and Becky was hard pressed to keep up with him.
They approached Pitcher who Becky was pleased to see now sitting up, though he looked dazed, as though the state of slumber had made more sense to him than the waking world. He shook his head several times and then his hands started swatting invisible insects.
‘All right, Pitcher?’ called Matthew.
Pitcher removed his hat and looked round. His bleary eyes were both blue and blotchy red and his skin so pale it looked like it had never seen the sun. He was thin to the point of emaciation and was the unhealthiest-looking man Becky had ever seen. She couldn’t guess his age. He could be anything from late thirties to sixties.
Pitcher stopped swatting imaginary insects and gave a half wave, which Becky sensed was more out of polite acknowledgement than recognition. Most people would have commented on a man and woman walking along with arms full of brightly coloured kites but he showed no interest at all. She could see why Alex thought she wouldn’t have much luck asking him about the Monmouth rebels. Becky couldn’t imagine Pitcher had much idea what had happened yesterday let alone over three hundred years ago.
‘What goes on in his head?’ Matthew sighed as they walked on.
‘Cook says that he sees people in the garden. Or sees things anyway.’
‘He sees both. Though the things aren’t real. I’m not sure about the people.’
‘I’ve never seen anyone,’ said Becky. ‘If that helps?’
‘Good. I don’t mind people walking over the land out here. It’s a short cut to a little …’ he paused, as if looking for the right word, ‘village – you could call it. People just step over the old wall, which I don’t mind. But if anyone actually comes into the garden then I’m more concerned.’
Becky was surprised considering how security conscious Matthew was but that explained why the outer plantation wall wasn’t topped by broken glass and concrete. She supposed people taking a short cut to the Redleg village Alex had mentioned wouldn’t pose a threat to anyone at Copper Mill.
‘You mean if they’re in the garden they might be trying to break in?’
‘Yes. No. I mean, don’t be worried.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I suspect that the real thieves would be invited in as guests.’
By the time they reached the yard Becky’s arms felt dead with fatigue.
‘Shame about later. I have to get enthusiastic about kites and right now I never want to see one again,’ Matthew muttered.
Becky remembered it was Sunday and the day of the competition. Right now she didn’t feel much like an afternoon out herself but, having heard so much about the festival from Maureen and Cook, she did want to see it. ‘Clara said someone is trying to revive an old tradition?’
‘Well, hopefully more than one person wants to get it going again. It used to be one of the main events of the year. But – I don’t really know what happened. People stopped coming and the sponsors got nervous. Mind you they’re quite happy to push every food and drink festival down the tourists’ throats.’
This was possibly the longest conversation Becky had ever had with Matthew but she still could not work him out. For someone who owed his wealth to his hotel business he didn’t seem that enamoured of the tourist industry. She followed him to an outhouse which held the gardening tools and dumped the kites on an old table. They put away the machete and the knife and headed back to the plantation house. Matthew watched as Becky tried to rub some life back into her arms.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And sorry about your disturbed night.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t anything personal. Probably just kids excited about Crop Over.’
He scowled so she changed the subject, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you hand out the prizes later.’
‘I’m handing out bribes.’ He gave a half-grin and stepped back to let her into the house. ‘I think breakfast, a shower and some sleep are called for. Not necessarily in t
hat order.’
Becky agreed and decided to aim for sleep first. She felt worn out.
Chapter Ten
Somewhat to Becky’s surprise she did fall asleep soundly and awoke a couple of hours later, feeling much better. She took a quick shower and went downstairs wondering whether it was now time for breakfast or lunch. Clara clearly seemed to think the former as she was still in her dressing gown. She looked quite pale.
‘Isn’t the silence a relief? Matthew says you helped him with the Mad Bulls. Thank you so much.’
‘That’s OK.’
Outside on the veranda Becky found Matthew holding his hand out over the balustrade, as if to test the wind. He was looking worried. The earlier breeze had completely died down; the shrubs in the garden were barely shimmering. He withdrew his hand when he noticed Becky join him.
‘What exactly is the competition judging – skill at flying?’ she asked.
‘No, skill at making. Any fool can buy a kite and get it to fly. But making a kite out of paper and sticks and string is quite a craft. It would be really good if we can keep it going. But we need a bit of breeze. Otherwise people won’t bother to turn up.’
She wondered why a successful businessman was so bothered about a kite competition. ‘You’re quite into traditions, aren’t you?’
‘Aren’t you?’ he said. Becky did not answer because she could not think of a tradition in England that she really followed but he must have taken her silence as dissent because he snapped, ‘Don’t expect too much in the way of entertainment today,’ and went inside.
Becky was cross. Why had she even bothered? But maybe he had not been able to go to sleep like her and his disturbed night was now catching up with him. She decided she was not going to let a grumpy Matthew Darnley spoil her opportunity to see a real slice of Barbados life. Besides if he was busy handing out the prizes there was a good chance she would not have to spend much time with him anyway.
A couple of hours later they set off. Matthew had changed into a lightweight suit and Becky was wearing a dress for the first time since she had arrived in Barbados. Clara, looking her usual glamorous self, sat in the front, next to Matthew. Becky was pleased to see it was getting noticeably windier as they got nearer the coast. Eventually they pulled into the grounds of what looked like a school and Becky saw a sign saying Queens College. When Renee had mentioned Queens on the night of the cinema Becky had thought she meant a country club or something similar but this was clearly their destination.