Madeleine turned abruptly. ‘Theo. Where was I?’
‘I don’t know.’ He laughed. ‘You seem to be far away. I call you, but you ent hear me. So I keep calling. That does happen to me sometimes. Doctor does call me, and then I don’t hear, and then, he does say, Theo where were you? Always funny when he say that, where were you? When I standing right there in front of him.’
‘Where did you go to, Theo?’
Theo looked at her. At first, there were questions, many questions in his face as he frowned. Then she saw that other thing which had been puzzling her about him, that something else she could not put her finger on. Now, she saw it. It was a look of utter sadness. An extreme sense of abandonment.
She had seen many children who were truly abandoned among her patients, and there was an obvious reason for their plight. But here was Theo, with his confidence and his brightness. It seemed to contradict this other look which came over his face. It was a paradoxical face.
But, as he knelt close to her, she was tempted to run her fingers down his spine. She wanted to stroke the pain she imagined had first accompanied this wound, stroke out the pain from it, with her gentle fingers, where it blistered in the sun. Then her words came out without a thought. She immediately regretted them, almost at the same time as she heard their utterance. ‘Theo, what happened to your back?’
He looked up from his hooks and lines. ‘Bait. I forget the bait. Jonah bring fresh bait this morning when he come for Doctor. Some nice little bait. Funny, eh? They does call that bait, Jonah. I’ve it in the ice box, otherwise it does stink in the hot sun. I go go and get it now.’
He had escaped her, running along the hot boards of the jetty, two, three steps at a time, up to the verandah and disappearing into the gloom of the house. Madeleine knew that she had overstepped the mark, ventured where she should not have gone. It was a mistake. She would have to leave it. She would not even apologise. That would be to bring it up again, to place him in a dilemma, pressuring him.
Theo seemed to be ages up at the house, then he waved from the kitchen window, ‘Coming.’ Madeleine waved back.
She got up and stretched. What kind of life was this? Fishing in the afternoon? She watched the barges and tugs. A lone seaplane circled and then landed like a giant pelican in Perruquier Bay.
Then it seemed, like in no time, Theo was back with the bait, smiling and encouraging her to join him, kneeling before his fishing rods, lines and hooks.
‘Right. We go begin. You ever fish before?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ve fished in the Seine. But that’s different, yes?’
‘You fish with seine. I don’t believe that.’
‘On the Seine, yes? You know the Seine?’
For a moment Theo was lost. And then he looked embarrassed that he had made a mistake like that, with his knowledge from Father Angel. He should not have made a mistake like that. Then he burst out laughing at himself. ‘Seine, seine. Maybe that’s where the word come from, or, maybe, that’s why the river call so, because it like a seine, a net full of fish.’
‘Maybe. There are stories in words,’ Madeleine said.
‘Ety-mo-lo-gy.’
‘Yes, derivations.’
‘Yes, I see the Seine which run through Paris.’
‘Yes. That’s it.’
‘That’s a big river, oui!’ Theo was excited.
‘Long and wide.’
‘Tell me about it. I mean I know it. You know I know things I learn. But I never see it, like you. You have first-hand experience.’
‘You know things that have happened to you too,’ Madeleine added.
‘Tell me.’ Theo had a way of ignoring inferences he did not want to dwell on. He had a way of pressing ahead with the conversation in the direction that he wanted it to go. ‘Tell me how it is when you fish on the Seine.’
Theo sat back on his heels, fixing with his fingers the finickety business of threading lines and baiting hooks, ready to start his lesson. He settled back to hear Madeleine’s story, every now and then bending forward to cut his bait with his penknife. She turned to face him more directly, pulling her legs up from dangling over the jetty, pulling her knees up, embracing them, tucking in her skirts, resting her chin on her knees, gazing into her past, but also into Theo’s face.
‘What should I tell you?’
‘Tell me a fishing story on the Seine.’
‘Well,’ Madeleine smiled at Theo, suddenly made self-conscious, by his precise request. ‘Well, where should I start?’
‘At the beginning?’ Theo giggled.
‘Not a bad place to start. Yes. No, where was I?’
They both laughed remembering their previous joke.
‘Our house had a path that led down to the Seine. It was a stone path, and it led from a door at the side of the house, between the garden beds to a wrought-iron gate. I remember it well. When you opened the gate it led down some stone steps to a landing stage on the river. There was a key to the gate, a big, cold iron key which hung inside the side door of the house. I remember now that over the gate was a tree. It was a tree that I loved very much. I could see it from the window of my bedroom.’
Madeleine looked up to see how Theo was taking her story. Her eyes met his staring at her, as he listened intently, as they both sat on the still jetty in the hot afternoon sun.
‘What kind of tree?’ Theo asked.
‘What?’
‘The name of the tree?’
‘The name? I don’t think you have this tree here. But yes, the flowers are tropical looking. Magnolia.’
‘Magnolia. That’s a wonderful name.’
‘They flowered in the spring. Their flowers are like big cups, big fleshy cups, white, almost cream. There are different colours, purple as well. But this one was a white Magnolia, and it bloomed in the spring over the gate to the river. When it bloomed, it was heavy and weighed down with lots and lots of these cups of cream. It made me so happy to see it.
‘When it came to the end of its bloom, the white petals fell over the garden path, and onto the steps to the landing stage, and then they were blown onto the river. I remember them floating down the river, white Magnolia petals.’
‘Well, so that’s the setting. A story needs a setting. But what about the fishing?’
‘Well, first of all, I’ll tell you a joke. Near to the street that we lived on is the narrowest street in Paris. It’s called Rue du Chat qui Pêche.’
‘Oui. The cat that does fish. That’s funny, because, of course, cats like to eat fish.’
‘Absolument! Your French is very good.’
‘Un peu.’ Theo smiled.
‘Well, I never saw a cat fishing, but there were lots of fishermen along the banks of the Seine. And on a Saturday afternoon, because I did not have school then, my father would take me to the riverbank under the landing stage, and there we would throw out a line.’
‘Throw out a line. Line fishing?’
‘I don’t know. A rod. A rod with a line. It looked a bit like that.’ Madeleine pointed to one of Theo’s rods lying across the boards of the jetty.
‘And what you use for bait.’
‘Maggots.’
Theo looked puzzled.
‘Little worms.’
‘Worms, yes, we does use worm up Pepper Hill when we fishing in the river for wabean. Bread too. We does use stale bread.’
The hooks baited, the lines ready, and the story of Paris and the magnolia tree faded into the fast turning sepia light over Chac Chac Bay. They threw their lines together, and waited. Madeleine got the first bite, then Theo got a bite too. They pulled in a red snapper each.
‘We’ve got dinner for tonight.’
‘We sure do.’
Vincent was late that evening. Madeleine and Theo ate their supper in the kitchen without ceremony, Theo moving between the stove and the kitchen table with bakes, fried fish and a jug of cocoa sprinkled with cinnamon. They sat in the glow of the humming hurricane lantern.
As they finished, and were clearing up, Vincent arrived back. With the closed doors and the blackouts drawn shut, Theo and Madeleine had not heard the put putting of the pirogue’s motor, rounding the point at Father Meyer’s house. The first they heard was Vincent as he opened the door from the verandah. ‘You two still up. I’m sorry I’m so late.’
He stood behind Madeleine. He did not touch her or bend to kiss her as he wanted to. His fingers, at the back of her chair, tickled the nape of her neck with his secret touch. He still felt shy with Theo there, nervous of Theo witnessing their physical love.
He lit a cigarette and stood watching them eating. ‘My God!’ Vincent exclaimed.
‘What?’ Madeleine looked up.
‘What happen?’ Theo joined in.
They both turned to look at Vincent.
‘Theo, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I meant to be here.’ And, he went back onto the verandah. ‘Theo, forgive me.’
Madeleine looked at Theo, to see if he could explain these apologies. Vincent came back in, holding a long parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with brown twine. ‘Theo. We’ve not done this before. I can’t believe I’ve not done this before, that I’ve allowed these four years to pass by without ever doing this, without wishing you a happy birthday, without giving you a gift on that day. I can’t believe I’ve allowed you to have that day pass, each year, without anything being done in this house, to celebrate and remember that day of yours, your special day.’
Theo and Madeleine sat turned in their chairs towards Vincent, who was standing in the middle of the room with his large parcel, giving his long speech. Madeleine motioned to Theo to go and receive his gift. Theo was suddenly shy, and looked overcome.
She watched him take the present from Vincent. The present was long and light, and he stood unwrapping the oddly shaped oblong.
Vincent broke in, ‘I had it made by one of Lalbeharry’s pupils in the workshop. There’s a boy there, Khan, he sewed the net and fitted it to the loop. The stick is young guava, strong, but pliant,’ Vincent described, as a butterfly net became visible, trailing on the floor. Theo made a feigned swoop at an invisible butterfly to show his pleasure in the present, as it emerged fully from its chrysalis of brown paper and twine.
Almost inaudibly, overcome, Theo said, ‘Thank you, Doc. Thanks.’ Then his voice grew stronger. ‘I go use it. I go try it out tomorrow.’
Theo was a burgeoning lepidopterist. This new interest had begun with collecting dead butterflies. Vincent was not sure how Theo was going to take to catching them and pinning them to death with the already mounted specimens of Bamboo Page, Cracker, Yellow Migrant and Small White. There was a Brown Biscuit kept in a matchbox on the kitchen table, and some Blue Brilliants stuck with flour paste to the jalousies in his bedroom.
‘Now, I want to say Theo, because I don’t think Madeleine knows. This is Theo’s sixteenth birthday.’ Madeleine looked surprised, but also reassured, having noticed that the boy was changing.
It was suddenly all too much for Theo, and he was quickly up to his room and his crystal set for the news, uncharacteristically leaving the clearing up of the supper things to be done by Madeleine.
Afterwards, she and Vincent sat out on the dark verandah, and watched as the moon cut its path from Patos to the wide embrace of Chac Chac Bay.
Madeleine was woken just after midnight. She followed the voice, and came and stood at the door of Vincent’s room. Theo was at the foot of Vincent’s bed on his usual perch. Madeleine listened, looking at Vincent and then at Theo.
Bedtime Story
I CARRY my nightmare along these corridors, up and down these stairs, out into the kitchen, with bucket and mop and broom, into the library with dusty book, out into the vegetable garden. I carry my nightmare as I plant melangene, as I plant ochro, as I plant pumpkin vine and christophine. I carry my nightmare in bucket to water the vegetable garden. I carry nightmare. I carry them in my work in the sacristy. I rub them into the brass. I arrange them in the flower I pick in the flower garden. I polish them into the floor.
I see my face in the mirror, Mama face and another face.
Work take the pain away and take away the fear.
I carry the gloom at my window, the voice at my door, the hand under the sheet. Sin I can’t confess, because they not commit by me, but by another. I learn not to tell the priest this sin. I confess my own sin. I learn not to tell that sin. No one go believe.
Bring down the Demerara shutter, keep the window stick by the bed, Father Dominic say. Is a dream that fright you? If the window stick make you feel better, put it by your bed. Say the rosary. Pater Noster… Ave Maria…
Yes, Father Dominic come when I cry out one night, but no one there. Father Dominic come like Mama and sit on the bed. He don’t hold me, but his word caress. He smooth my forehead with his long slender finger. I never see finger so long. Like smooth ochro. Finger which turn the soft page of book in the library. Finger make for consecration, for the wafer and the chalice of wine at the elevation. Finger for washing in the cup of the Lord and drying on the linen towel. Lavabo manus meas.
All the time I say, Father? Wish I had a father.
Mama say, Spanish go protect you. I hear her say that one day. Spanish go take care of you. Eh, Spanish, and you go take care of my son, oui?
Yes, Emelda, he say, is now you come to me after the fire in you belly, after you done bake the bread. And he run his finger through my hair. Sugar head. Like he know something. Emelda boy, he does call me.
Father Dominic blow out the candle and take the matches away. Far away, I hear Mama, Do do, petit popo. I curl up like a cashew nut. Rock myself to sleep sucking on my thumb. I sucking thumb again. Mama big boy, sucking thumb!
Vincent looked at Madeleine. She had sunk to her knees and crouched by the door listening. She was strangely lulled by the boy’s story, but also astonished, bewildered.
HE DOES COME in the night, scratching at the window, prizing with his finger at the jalousies, whispering my name, that name that sound like a bird, Coco Coco Cocorito.
He is a voice, is an eye at the keyhole, between the crack in the door.
He arrive on horseback in the courtyard. He move across the gravel like chac chac, like jumbie bead in a calabash.
The horse snort and neigh and jostle at the rein and tug at the bit in it mouth. Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes.
He come to sleep in my ear. Like a lizard in my ear. A tongue in my ear.
The horse sniff at the window, snort and smell like him who ride the back, who creep into this cell with bare wall. There is no match and I can’t light a candle to see who it is that come to perform the ceremony, I know since I small. I can’t light a candle to see the shadow, to see the shape of the shadow of the one who come. Phantom.
I believe that he invisible. Invisible with the touch which is like fire. Socouyant, sucker of blood, the fireball witch. Hot like ice. Tip of the finger, like tong to pick meat. Like gabilan, the hawk, I see high high high over the convent sky.
The voice sound like, Coco Coco Cocorito.
Who it is that ride a horse through the window, pawing at the floor, strutting across the cell, galloping into my bed?
I know that smell, the smell of a horse and de l’eau from the city of Cologne on Father Angel’s map.
Get the eau d’Cologne for the child.
Limacol is better, Oui!
Where Mrs Goveia? Now she does always have Bay Rum ready to revive the child when he faint.
I must stop breathing. And sleep. And then, die.
Pretend I’m dead. That is what Mama say I must do. Pretend you dead. If you dead you can’t do nothing, and nobody could do you nothing. You not there. You dead.
I dead, dead, dead, dead.
Playing a game I learn to play it better. Shut my eye and disappear.
Then the gravedigger has his way with the dead.
Madeleine was all eyes and ears. She exch
anged her own fear for the boy’s. She and Vincent kept the vigil.
HE LEAVE before the bell for Matin in the little hour.
He leave the sheet scatter on the floor. Leave me in this corner to cry.
I get up from the dead and wash myself between the legs, and let the water fall over my chest, and fling it at my face and gargle, and scrub away the smell and taste of the dead on my mouth and under my breath. And I fling open the window to fly, fly up into the milky con-stel-la-tions. And the perfume are lily flowers, funeral flowers in the garden beIow. Don’t fly.
We done loss the science of flight.
I let the bell rope take me up up, the big heavy bell with a heavy tongue in its throat. Toll, toll, toll.
Then I see him leave the yard on his chestnut horse.
In the past, before they stopped, Vincent had always been pleased to receive Father Dominic’s letters. They were long and sprawling. He always thought that the friar had been infected by Theo’s storytelling.
“I have looked into this matter of the one who visits in the night. This question of nightly visitations is very upsetting. Another preposterous phenomenon to explain to Father Superior. It would mean that I would have to keep vigil every night, and be able to get up with strength for Matins, as early as we customarily do. I do not think I can manage that and carry out my duties to the community in the day. It would soon be evident that I was under a strain. Which I am. But at that moment I insisted on getting my night’s sleep. I went to the boy when I heard his call. No one else had seemed to have heard the call, thank God. I do have so much to thank God for. But yes, there is the story of the one who comes into his room. There is the chestnut horse. There is the dying that he must do. His Mama told him to die. I do not understand any of this. This is beyond me. I had to wait for him to tell me more, to describe more. Some of this I did not want to hear. I was disturbed by what I heard.”
Night Calypso Page 36