But after a minute it stopped. Papee went silent, like he’d fallen back asleep. Then he shuddered a last time, head-to-foot—his throat making a peculiar retching kinda noise, like if he was straining to spit something up. This same something expelled finally from out his mouth. Papee turning his head to the side with a slack-jawed barracuda-belch onto the canvas: a globule of blood-infused mucus. The size and shape of a baby’s clenched fist, five little fingers fused together round it. Like some kinda smallish internal organ, lying there translucent on the white canvas. Quivering through with moonlight. Still connected by a thread of saliva to my father’s lips.
But now he lay there placid again, his eyes shut, breathing soft.
John and me looked at each other relieved—that seemed to be the last of it.
Then, a minute later, we watched Papee rise up off the canvas mattress. Onto his hands and knees. Remaining on all fours, his bamsee sill draped-over by the ghostly strip of canvas. His eyes wide open now. Staring down beneath him at the quivering globule. Studying it, intent, with his whole body—Papee’s particular way of looking at things. Of taking in the world.
After another minute he reached his right arm forward, slow and purposeful, pressing the full weight of his handpalm down on top. Grinding the globule into the canvas. Swiveling his palm side-to-side like a footheel grinding out a smouldering zoot.
Papee sat back onto his heels again, examining his soiled palm. He wiped it clean against his merino vestshirt in a single rust-coloured swipe—like the aftermath of a sharp stick chooking him between the ribs. He leant forward onto all fours again, the canvas strip still draping over his heels, still clinging. Shifting round elephant-wise, crawling off in the opposite direction, away from John and me. Slowly cross the raw sunbleached deckboards, towards the starboard rail.
For the first few feet the ghostly strip dragged behind. Eventually snagging on a nail, Papee crawling out from underneath. Stopping only after he’d gained the farthest reach of the deck. A reverberating brammn as his head butted-up against the rail—as though, if not for that rust-dripping barrier, he’d’ve crawled straight off it.
Papee remained there on hands and knees. Peering over the schooner’s side. Son, I felt sure he was going to vomit. The thing I’d feared most for five days and nights—that black pitch. But it didn’t come. Not yet. Not now. Papee simply knelt there, on the sunbleached deck, frozen beneath the moon like a polar bear at the edge of his block of ice. Studying the procession of pink salmon swimming past.
John turned to look at me again. We looked at each other. Not knowing what-the-arse to do—go to him? let him alone?
We watched Papee reach to grasp hold of the rust-dripping rail. One groping hand and then the next. We saw him pull heself up onto his feet, standing there a moment—bent over, hands still grasping the rail, his back turned—tatty drawers and merino awash in moonlight.
He let the rail loose and stood up straight, raising his leg simultaneous into the air. Up over the railing. Standing there poised just so another second, his leg suspended over the rail, hands outstretched to each side like a circus bear feeling out his balance atop a ball.
He stepped forward. As easy and purposeful as striding off his morning porchstoop at #7 Charlotte Street. And we heard the solid thuff of his body landing in the sand below. We felt the unpinned boards beneath us exhale a breath.
I was down the ladder first, John behind, scrambling over to Papee’s side. Lying there on his back with the upper half of his body stretched out cross the sand, his feet and legs buried under a mound of curled shavings. Papee’s face aglow beneath the moon—docile, serene-looking, relaxed. Lying there perfectly still, perfectly placid.
Except out from the corner of his mouth a tiny stream of pitch flowed. A thin living black line. Clean. Continuous. The razor-edge of white moonlight flowing along inside it. A thin mappapee snake, sliding out from between his lips, cutting diagonal cross his cheek. Down over the sweep of his bullmoose-neck.
We knelt in the sand at either side, John and me, just watching this line of pitch. Flowing. How long I couldn’t tell you. Papee with his eyes wide-open but unseeing—because John passed his hand before them with no response a-tall—staring up sightless at the bright moon.
Eventually, inevitably, the line of pitch drew itself out, becoming thinner. Till it looked like a length of filthy kitestring. Then it reached the end, snapping off, disappearing into the sand without a trace.
John and me knelt there silent another minute. Listening to the waves breathing in and out a few paces down the sand. The papery prattle of breeze-stirred sea oats behind us. John grabbing at a sandfly buzzing beside his ear. Pinching it dead, silent. He shifted back onto his heels, looking at me—
Come nuh, he says, his voice subdued. Leh-we carry you papee up to de compoun. We could tend to he better dere, you unnastan. N’ Mr. Carr could give he dose o’ de white powder.
He paused. With me only thinking—but there isn’t any bloody acetylsalicylic powder left, because Mr. Carr’s given it all away, all his box of homeopathic pills!
John continued—
Soon as you papee could shake-off dis malkadee. Come back in conscient. And me go boil he up some good strong bush-tea feh cleanse-out he blood. Cool it down.
We sat staring at one another. Several seconds. Then I reached to grasp hold of both John’s shoulders. His skin moist and hard-soft in the grips of my hands—
We’ve got to get him back to town, I say, slow.
John gave me a look like I gone vie-kee-vie—
Egn?
Home. Back to Mum and my sisters. To the government hospital in Port-Spain.
He steupsed—
Boy, don’t talk foolishness for me now! How we go manage dat?
I looked at him. Several more seconds.
He steupsed again, turning from me—
Now make haste n’ help me carry you papee up to de compoun.
___________________
Mr. Carr was awake and on his feet even before we could swing Papee into the hammock beside him—
Bloody Christ, he says. Tucker it is now!
As we lay Papee inside the hammock, his skin suddenly felt hot. Scorching. Like it was boiling beneath the surface. His face covered over in tiny beads of sweat, like bubbles rising up to the top.
I snatched at a piece of cloth—a discarded drawers slung over a sea grape limb—using it to swab his cheeks and forehead. Down round his neck and over his broad shoulders. Papee’s merino plastered against his chest, expanding and contracting with each breath. The tiny parallel ribs of the cloth showing through.
John turned away, distressed. Starting over to other side of the compound to prepare his bush-tea.
From somewhere out of the shadows Mr. Carr produced Captain Taylor’s old blanket. So many holes it looked like a bloody cobweb. Spreading it over Papee and tucking it round him.
I watched a few seconds. Then I grabbed hold of Mr. Carr’s forearm, pulling him erect, away from Papee. Jerking him round—
Feel his bloody temp, will you, he’s boilin! He’s not in need of no fuckin blanket!
Mr. Carr looked into my face. Several seconds. He gave me a weak half-smile—
That’s enough, lad.
Papee’s skin already covered over with tiny beads of sweat. Again I swabbed him dry. Except now, all-in-a-sudden, he felt cold. His teeth clattering together like loose sinkers in a boatbilge.
Mr. Carr looked up—
Good, he says, smiling. Good sign, that! Your father should be with us again shortly!
He said it as if Papee’d stepped into another room. In a sense I suppose he had.
I reached to continue swabbing him dry, the rag flipping out my hand—clop into the dirt. But when I bent down to grab it up it was coated over in grit. Upon straightening I felt dizzy. Like I was about to pitch a faint. The rag slipping out my hand, clop into the dirt again. I turned and stumbled off in the direction of the dining table. But I stopped
and turned round, trudging back a few paces to my hammock. Reaching in and grabbing up my book—all its pages stuck together by now, tearing-way when I tried to pull them apart. The book almost unreadable, all the words smudged, plates blotched. How would I read it in the dark anyway?
I grabbed it up nonetheless and stumbled towards the dining table. All-in-a-sudden it seemed so distant, an island away, my legs taking forever to get me there. And I slouched down onto the bench, my head cushioned atop my folded arms. Atop my ruined book.
After a minute, out my eye-corners, I began watching John. Over near the cast-iron cookpot, slightly out-of-focus. Like if I was seeing him inside a dream. I watched him another minute. Not preparing his bush-tea, but building something. Some kinda structure? a frame of some sort? Four bamboo poles crossed together to make a #-shape. Tied tight with twine. John busy wrapping the twine round & round & round in a series of double helixes. One at each of the four joints where the bamboos crossed. The two shorter poles about five-feet long, two longer ones about double they length.
What the arse? I think.
Then I understood: he was building a giant kite. What the Trinidad boys called a madbull-slinger. Long tails tied with razorblades, pasted with ground-glassbottle.
Epic battles at Quayside! I think.
Then I shut my eyes.
The Whitechurches had arrived at the Johnstons’ home a few minutes before the Tucker clan. Since Mr. Whitechurch would depart with Papee and me early the following morning—and since Maraval, where the Whitechurches were staying, was an hour’s drive by coach from the port—they’d taken a suite for the night at Le Palais Cramoisi. With a separate room for Marguerite.
Mr. Whitechurch turned to Papee, reaching to place his hand atop his shoulder—
A night of deprivation to get me ready for the bush! he says.
For the previous three days, since the Johnstons’ invitation had arrived, I’d contemplated little more than how Marguerite and me could escape from this Christmas dinner. To someplace private. Where, I had no idea. Nor when. But as it turned out the chance for us to make our swift clean skedaddle didn’t take no time in arriving a-tall. Because we hadn’t hardly finished our plum puddings when Marguerite’s aunt got up from her place near the head of the table. Making her way round to where I was seated, catty-corner to Marguerite.
She stopped beside me, the top of her head barely reaching past my seated shoulder—
Willy, she says, our host’s been telling us about a popular lookout station. Not far from here. Mr. Johnston claims it’s the very best place to view le couch-soleil, as our charming islanders like to say . . . I take it you’re familiar with the spot?
I nodded my head in the affirmative—despite that I didn’t have no idea what she was talking about. Then I remembered—the Observatory on the other side of St. Anns River. Where Mr. Johnston had taken us that first afternoon.
Mrs. Whitechurch glanced over at her niece, but it was me she continued to address—
I was thinking, Willy, that per’aps you’d like to show Marguerite the place? You shall have to hurry, but you’re sure to witness a splendid sunset!
At that same moment something else occurred to facilitate our exit even better: another troupe of parang singers arrived at the Johnstons’ door. Third group already for the afternoon. Each of the singers strumming a quarto, scraping a grater, or shaking a pair of shackshacks. Each wearing some kinda outlandish hat. And for the third time that afternoon the dinner party jumped up, making a bolt for the foyer to hear them sing. Accompanied by Berty and—hurrying from out the kitchen with a bottle of rum to dulcify the musicians—Vincent’s mum.
Everybody excepting Marguerite and me. Because we made a bolt in the opposite direction. Through the vacated kitchen, out the screened back door. And a minute later, hidden in the little grotto at the side of the property—spout of water cascading into the pool beside us—we embraced each other.
___________________
Son, we never did climb the hill to the Observatory on the other side of St. Anns River, so as to view the sunset on that Christmas day. Neither did we sleep the night in Marguerite’s room, adjacent to the Whitechurch’s suite in Le Palais Cramoisi. We wandered aimless along the river awhile. Eventually crossing the line of boulderstones to the far side.
On one of my solitary, stolen jaunts through the forest in search of hummingbirds—they seemed especially populous near the river—I’d discovered a small swimming pool. Branching off from the main stream, hidden behind a rock wall. Further concealed by towering bois cano, big-leafed bozee majo trees, spiny boxwood. That afternoon, as I followed the bank, I’d heard shouting. Coming from someplace behind the trees—I couldn’t make out where. But the shouting sounded playful, accompanied by laughter, and I’d become curious. Picking my way between the boulderstones and tall trees, I’d stumbled upon the pool, several young boys swimming & splashing & having theyself a time.
They waved, and I spoke to them a minute. One telling me what the spot was called—poo-dee-tra-dee-sell-boo—pronouncing the name in his rhyming singsong. Laughing as I made him repeat it again and again. Till I understood—peu d’ tranche d’ ciel bleu.
Now, standing beside the river not far from the same pool, I told Marguerite about it. About the friendly boys.
She reached for her little book and pencil, slipped into my coat pocket when we’d made our bolt from the dinner table. Marguerite daubed the lead against her tongue—
I should like very much to go there for a swim
I turned from her, peering downriver—
I’m not sure, but it can’t be much farther ahead—we may have to do some rummaging through the bush!
She scribbled again, smiling—
then we shall have to do some rummaging!
We soon found the place. A gap in the forest canopy had allowed the sun to fall onto the shallow pool. It had warmed it for us all afternoon. Now the same sun, hidden behind the rim of trees, filled the air by indirection with a softish amber light.
We left our clothes where they fell. On a patch of errant par’-a-grass beside the pool. Marguerite in first, wading a few steps into the green-gold, thigh-deep water. Raising her arms up to a point above her head and diving, clean-and-smooth, two smooth clean strokes beneath the water.
She surfaced amidst a glassy ring.
Mr. Carr shook me awake—
Come, lad, your father’s asking for you.
It took me several seconds to recognise where I was. To climb off the bench onto my feet. Stumbling behind Mr. Carr, bending over into the shadow of the hammock. Waking up with a jolt: Papee’s face stained all through with the hideous yellow again. His eyes bulging, bloated to double-size. Caught up in they nets of tiny purple veins.
I had to fight to keep from turning my head, from looking-way.
Papee grasped my arm, pulling me down, closer to him. Near enough to smell his stagnant, coppery breath—
Something important to tell you, son. A secret!
Sir? I stammer.
The beater, he says. The bloody beater! Doesn’t matter how you dolly-up the fourdrinier machines—beater’s still the beater n’ don’t let anybody tell you any different!
He paused—
Heart-of-the-matter, son. The thing itself! Cloth-rags or chaff-tatter or whatever else you choose to pulp. But here’s the docket—cellulose. Bloody lignin! secondary xylem! And not just mul’bry, my boy, not just mul’bry a-tall! Any wood will pulp if you beat it proper—beech, ash, birch. Good old everyday horse chestnut. Larch. London plane. You mark my words—the day’ll soon come when paper shall be made from trees. Trees, Willy, trees!
I couldn’t listen. Couldn’t bear the sight of my father’s eyes. The smell of his coppery breath—
Sir?
You shan’t forget, son. Eh? You heard it from your father first!
Just then Mr. Carr stepped up to save me. Leaning in beside my elbow. Holding the rim of a calabash cup against my father�
�s leathery, yolk-coloured lips. Tiltsing it back slow.
Papee let my arm loose. Drinking. I watched him drink.
And at that moment it dawned upon me—like some kinda revelation—that John was fast asleep in the hammock beside us. Snoring out loud.
All-in-a-sudden I was vex, thinking—why’s he not making his bush-tea? and isn’t that Mr. Carr’s hammock he’s sleeping in?
Papee gulped down the water. I watched the soft knob of his throat sliding up-and-down. Up-and-down under its tight, goose-pimpled, yolk-coloured sleeve.
And I slipped away. I turned my back to my own father. For the second time. Because I could no longer bear the sight of his eyes.
Thinking—once more time to make you a bloody Judas!
I trudged across the island of the compound again, back to the dining table. Slouching down onto the bench. My ruined hummingbird book.
We slept the night atop the mattress of our discarded clothes, coarse par’-a-grass pressing through the cloth against our bare skin. My proper English frock coat with its single vent at the back as a cover.
Not waking the following morning till the sun stood peering at us over the ridge of bozee majo trees, reflecting off our small swimming pool like a burning mirror. Stirring us awake. Still, we didn’t rush. We dressed weself slow, tranquil, like we weren’t in no kinda hurry a-tall. Me helping Marguerite to step inside her scout-boy boots. One after the next. Watching her bend over at the waist to pull the laces tight over the tongue—a quick bow, double-knotted. One shoe after the next. But son, it was as if the mechanism of forming those two little bows with her slender fingers—mindless and effortless both—was something utterly unique. Marvelous. Something I’d never witnessed before. So complex and mysterious I couldn’t possibly retrace the steps of making those bows in my mind. Like Marguerite had invented it. Right there and then. Like nobody’d never done it before. None of this.
She stood and looked at me. I took her hand, and we made we way slowly along the bank, upriver, to the place where we crossed over the line of boulderstones.
As Flies to Whatless Boys Page 26