The Chip-Chip Gatherers

by Shiva Naipaul

‘If you want to change your mind I wouldn’t take offence,’ she said. Shanty’s feelings told her nothing. Wilbert might have been asking her to go for a walk with him.

  He was stubbornly silent.

  ‘If I marry you it’s only because …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I can’t promise you anything.’ It was an appeal. And it went beyond an appeal. She was accepting him.

  Time had run out.

  3

  ‘Come on, mister! I never hear of a thing like this at all. You must take a photograph on your wedding day.’ The photographer skipped jovially in front of him. ‘No, man. We definitely can’t allow a thing like this to happen. Not on your wedding day of all days. What does the beautiful blushing bride have to say about all this?’

  Shanty appeared to have nothing to say. She clutched her limp bouquet.

  ‘You must take some photographs,’ Mrs Bholai whispered to Wilbert.

  Wilbert frowned at her. ‘I thought we were going to have none of this fuss and bother.’

  ‘You must take some photographs,’ she pleaded. ‘It won’t kill you to do that.’

  ‘What you have to be so bashful about?’ The photographer aimed his camera experimentally.

  He had trapped them on the lawn in front of the Registry Office. His vociferous antics attracted several passers-by who stopped to watch the unfolding drama. Wilbert grasped Shanty’s hand tightly. The photographer interpreted this as a sign of conjugal bliss.

  ‘That’s what I like to see! That’s more like it!’

  The spectacle drew more people. The camera clicked.

  ‘Look at them!’ Wilbert sputtered. ‘Gaping at us as though we’re monkeys in the zoo! Laughing at us! Just look at them!’

  ‘You’ve had everything your own way so far,’ Shanty said. ‘You could at least do this and not complain. It will be over soon.’

  It was the climax of a bad morning. A short while before they had been officially pronounced man and wife in a ceremony which had lasted five minutes. Only the immediate family had been invited. Wilbert had insisted adamantly on that; as he had insisted adamantly on the venue: the Registry Office. The ‘Marriage Room’ (it was sandwiched between the ‘Births Room’ and the ‘Deaths Room’) was decorated with bureaucratic gaiety and the registrar, a freshfaced, cleanshaven man, had pondered Shanty’s stomach furtively as he instructed them in what they had to do. ‘It’s really very simple,’ he said cheerfully when he had finished his explanations. ‘Registering a death is much more complicated.’ It was then the photographer had appeared and tucked himself obtrusively into a corner. Wilbert had objected. ‘I’m sorry,’ the registrar said, ‘but this is a public ceremony and you can’t prevent anyone from looking on.’ The photographer smiled amiably. He tapped his camera and shrugged, indicating that he was merely doing his job. Idle clerks from other offices assembled around the open doors. The registrar called for silence and the general chatter declined into a hush. Wilbert was handed a card printed with the words he must speak. Mrs Bholai sniffed and dried a tear. He began to read. A strip of sunlight fell at an oblique angle across the leather-topped desk and bounced dazzlingly off a gold ring the registrar wore on the small finger of his right hand. Then it was Shanty’s turn. The tonelessness with which she read from the card deepened his irritation. His suit was itchy and uncomfortable against the skin and the heat of the morning seemed to have collected under the collar of the nylon shirt he was wearing. He wanted to tear it off. Now, as a final tribulation, here they were being made fools of by the photographer. The wet shirt seemed to have sunk into his skin.

  ‘That’s great!’ the photographer was saying. ‘That’s just great, folks!’ He capered merrily. ‘The next thing we must do is form a group with the family of the bride.’ The Bholais were shepherded and ranked according to height. When they had been arranged according to his satisfaction, he leapt back. ‘That’s great! That’s just great!’ He juggled with the camera. ‘Let me see you smile. Give us a big smile, folks.’

  Mr Bholai stared gravely into the camera. Mrs Bholai dried a tear and produced a wan, stricken smile. It was the best she could do. The bliss of Wilbert’s proposal to Shanty was swiftly followed by disillusion on a scale she had never imagined to be possible. He had shattered her dreams of a magnificent wedding with bridesmaids and pageboys in San Fernando’s fashionable Presbyterian church; of the congratulatory, admiring flocks of her relatives crowding about her; and of the lavish reception with ‘sharmpagne’. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, no and no again.’ He had vetoed her every suggestion. ‘Not even a wedding cake?’ she asked meekly. ‘Not even that,’ he had replied. ‘I’m marrying your daughter. Isn’t that enough for you?’ She had been victim of a gross deception; robbed of the joys of what had augured to be one of the supreme occasions of her life. The ceremony in the Registry Office was as melancholy as a funeral service.

  ‘Now,’ the photographer was shouting, ‘we must have a picture with the family of the groom. Where’s the family of the groom?’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Wilbert said.

  ‘Where’s the family of the groom? We must have a picture with the family of the groom.’

  ‘The groom doesn’t have any family,’ Wilbert yelled at him.

  ‘No family?’ The photographer stared at him in disbelief. ‘No family?’

  ‘That’s what I said. No family! You deaf?’

  ‘This is something I must tell the boys,’ the photographer said aloud. He recovered himself. ‘Okay. Just one more picture of you kissing the June bride. That will cap it nicely.’

  ‘To hell with you!’ Wilbert broke away suddenly, walking quickly towards the specially hired taxi.

  The photographer ran after him. ‘Mister! Mister! You letting the June bride down, man. Have a heart. Just one more picture of you and she kissing.’

  ‘To hell with you and your June bride!’

  Hostile gazes trailed his flight. ‘But look at that, eh!’ a woman in the crowd exclaimed. ‘Well I never. And on he wedding day to boot.’

  ‘If that is how he treating she ten minutes after they get married,’ another chimed in, ‘it going to end in murder before the week out.’

  ‘I wonder how she get sheself into a mess like this,’ the first woman added speculatively.

  ‘If you two bitches …’

  ‘He turning on we now,’ the second woman said.

  Wilbert reached the car. The driver opened the door and he climbed in. Wilbert banged the door shut.

  Mrs Bholai came running up to the car. ‘Like you gone crazy, Wilbert? Wait for Shanty.’

  The two women cast further reproachful glances at Wilbert.

  ‘I wonder if they going to have a honeymoon,’ the first said.

  ‘I hope for she sake they not,’ the other replied. ‘I would hate to think of what happen if he get in a really lonely place.’

  ‘Murder. I know of a case where this man take his young wife …’

  Their conversation was interrupted by Shanty’s arrival. They eyed her disconsolately.

  ‘If I was you,’ the first said, ‘I would make sure I say my prayers every night.’

  ‘I know of a case where the day after this man get married …’

  ‘If you two bitches don’t stop molesting me, there’ll be murder right now.’ The suit itched him more than ever. He tore off the jacket and tossed it on the floor.

  The driver opened the door with exaggerated courtesy and Shanty got in. She dropped the bouquet on the floor. The engine coughed.

  The photographer hovered outside the window. ‘How you could treat your June bride like that, mister? You could make up for everything now if you just let me take one more picture of you and she kissing. Just one …’

  The car jerked away from the kerb. The photographer, his jacket flying behind him, darted in pursuit. ‘Give me your address. How else will I get the pictures to you?’

  Wilbert tapped the driver’s shoulders. ‘Go.’

 
The car was gathering speed and the photographer sped alongside. ‘At least my card,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll know how to get in touch with me if you decide you want them.’

  Wilbert reached forward and took the card from his out-stretched hand. The photographer dropped behind. Wilbert read the card. ‘P. Wilkinson. Freelance photographic artiste. Winner of a Trinidad Chronicle Award.’ He tossed it out of the window. It floated gently down into the gutter. The photographer shook his fist at him. Wilbert laughed, feeling much better.

  4

  It was late afternoon when they arrived and, in the fading light, the decrepitude of the beach house was startling. The atmosphere of ruin was reinforced by the neighbouring houses which were clean and spruce and in good repair. Egbert Ramsaran had not cared to waste money on the upkeep of his property. He had let it rot and fall to pieces in the salty air. The other houses were all unoccupied at this time of year. April and August were the popular months: they had come there in June – a dead month. The wind sluicing through the slatted fronds of the coconut palms and the low, monotonous growl of the waves breaking on the beach were the only sounds to disturb the stillness. It was cool with the wind skimming off the sea and Shanty shivered. There was no sign of Singh who should have been there to meet them with the keys. Wilbert cursed: it was darkening rapidly.

  Shanty wandered off by herself down towards the beach. She stooped suddenly and took off her shoes, slapping them against her thighs to shake out the dry, loose sand. Barefooted, she continued down the slope, the shoes hanging from her fingertips, a shadow among the curving trunks of the coconut trees. Wilbert watched her, forgetting his annoyance with Singh. She was swinging the shoes. One of them slipped and she swooped to retrieve it from the sand. The water swirled around her legs, ankle-deep. He saw her lift her skirts just above the knees and wade in deeper. When a threatening wave approached she would execute a little leap to escape being wet by it. She brought her head virtually on a level with her knees as if she were searching for something in the water. The foam frothed creamily about her.

  He heard footsteps. The dancing beam of a torch was visible among the coconut trees. Wilbert remembered his annoyance.

  ‘Singh! Is that you?’

  There was no reply but the beam of light halted its confident advance and dodged nervously across the ground. It was impossible to see who was lurking beyond it.

  ‘Singh! Is that you?’

  The light advanced cautiously and stopped again, the beam sweeping the darkness. ‘That is the boss voice I hearing?’ Singh’s heavy tones probed the night suspiciously, bringing with them a whiff of rum.

  ‘Who else you was expecting it to be? Come here where I could see you properly.’

  Singh materialized out of the shrouding darkness, all teeth. He was carrying a cutlass as well as the torch. Shanty had returned from her explorations. Singh stared at her, surprised and disconcerted. ‘The boss didn’t tell me … I thought he was coming up by himself.’

  Shanty looked at Wilbert.

  ‘I told you all you needed to know – to get the house ready. That is your job.’

  Singh gurgled sullenly. ‘If I had know it had a lady coming …’ He dug the cutlass into the sand, leaning on it. ‘Where she going to sleep?’

  ‘With my husband naturally.’ Shanty laughed. She linked their arms matrimonially, defiant and provocative. ‘I’m the new Mrs Ramsaran.’ Just as she had acquired the plumage of courtship naturally, so – now that it had served its purpose – she was discarding it. Shanty was regaining her familiar colours.

  Wilbert pushed her from him. ‘The keys … the keys …’

  Singh was all teeth again. ‘So! Let me shake your hands, Miss. Let me congratulate you. The boss didn’t tell me a word about this – but then nobody does ever tell me anything. All he say was for me to get the house ready because he was coming up. But not a word that this was to be his honeymoon.’ He shuffled up to Shanty, peering at her face. ‘It make me really happy to see the boss find a nice young lady like you to settle down with. Real happy. And so short a time after the old boss die as well!’ He shook hands with Shanty. She giggled.

  ‘Very touching,’ Wilbert said. ‘Now the keys … the keys. That’s what you here for.’

  Singh stared at him. He underwent one of his abrupt alterations of mood and manner, becoming gruff and inhospitable. ‘You don’t need no keys. I’ll show you.’ He led them to the back door along a narrow shell-strewn path in which broken bits of glass glinted in the glare of the torch. ‘Mind you don’t cut your foot.’ When they came to the door, he kicked and shoved at it. ‘You don’t need no keys to open this door with,’ he muttered, heaving with his shoulders. ‘He would never buy a new lock after the old one get rusty. You know how many times I tell him to buy a new lock? But he would never buy one. Not he!’ Singh kicked viciously at the door. He was talking to no one in particular. ‘Not that we need a door. Any thief who feel like it could climb through the windows downstairs. Where you think all that glass we see come from? Not a pane of glass left standing in one of them windows.’ He gurgled throatily, kicking at the door. It swung open.

  The beam of the torch punctured the viscous darkness. A salty, marine dampness oozed from the walls. Sand grated underfoot. Singh shone the torch on a heap of dried coconuts and let it play across the mossy concrete floor: this part of the house had never been used. ‘Stick close behind me,’ he warned. ‘If you miss your footing on these stairs you could break every bone you have in your body.’ They climbed a curving flight of wedge-shaped steps to the top floor. Singh lit a hurricane lantern on the landing. The brilliant whiteness of the flare blinded them. They followed him into the kitchen where he lit an oil-lamp and set it on a shelf: there was no electricity. Nothing looked as if it could work – or as if it were meant to work. The kerosene stove, like everything else metallic, was coated with rust. Singh scraped a finger along the burners and held it up for them to see. Tiny cockroaches scurried across the linoleum, vanishing into the cracks and crevices. A trickle of brown water flowed from the tap fed by the tank on the roof. ‘Is not me to blame for the state this place in. Is not me …’

  ‘Nobody’s blaming you for anything,’ Wilbert said.

  ‘I is only the caretaker. That is all I is. If only you know how much times …’

  ‘Nobody’s blaming you, Singh.’ Wilbert stared at the bleached ceiling. The sea growled distantly.

  ‘Is not the place I would have choose to spend my honeymoon.’ Singh rubbed his rust-stained finger against his trousers.

  ‘If you mention that word once more …’

  Singh was immediately submissive. ‘What word? Honeymoon?’

  ‘If you mention it once more …’ Wilbert clenched his fists.

  ‘Sorry, boss. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I was just thinking …’

  ‘I’m not interested in what you’re thinking.’ Wilbert raised his voice.

  ‘Why shouldn’t Singh call it our honeymoon?’ Shanty asked. ‘That is exactly what it is. Our honeymoon. Remember?’

  The glance Wilbert bestowed on her was one of pure hatred.

  ‘Thank you, Miss,’ Singh said, celebrating the support he had received. ‘Still, if the boss don’t like it, the boss don’t like it.’ He was gloomily triumphant. ‘This way,’ he said.

  Taking the oil-lamp, Singh preceded them into the sitting-room It bore the lustreless stamp of Egbert Ramsaran’s handiwork. The furniture was minimal and dilapidated. There were three low-slung ‘morris’ chairs with hard, flattened cushions and a torn leather sofa. In the centre was a small table spread with an oilcloth. Two spare mattresses were rolled and stacked in a corner. That was all. Crystals of salt sparkled in the grooves of the floorboards. Invigorating draughts of air circulated freely through the open brickwork that ran round the tops of the walls.

  ‘If I was you, boss, I would sleep in the front bedroom. Is the nicest one in the whole house. The breeze always blowing in there. That was where the old
boss and … that was where he used to sleep when he come here.’

  ‘We’ll sleep there then,’ Wilbert said.

  Singh, swinging the oil-lamp, conducted them to the front room. A double bed and a chest of drawers were the sole items of furniture. The mattress was rolled back on the bed. Singh opened a window and thrust his head outside.

  ‘We going to have some rain tonight,’ he said. ‘I could smell it on the wind.’ He pulled his head in and opened the remaining windows. ‘Rust everywhere you turn in this place.’ Grunting, he unrolled the mattress and laid it flat on the bed.

  ‘That mattress stinks,’ Shanty said.

  ‘It need an airing,’ Singh replied, sniffing at it. ‘You want me to bring one of them other mattresses for you to try, boss?’

  Wilbert looked at the mattress. ‘It will do.’

  Singh watched them. ‘Anything else I could do for you, boss?’ he enquired after a pause.

  Wilbert shook his head. ‘You can go now.’

  Singh shuffled to the door, his eyes on them both. ‘I will come back tomorrow morning to check if you have everything you need.’

  Wilbert nodded absently.

  Singh hovered uncertainly in the doorway. Then he left.

  Singh strode quickly along the meandering track that looped and twisted under the arching trunks of the coconut trees, his torch slicing erratic swathes in the darkness. He swung his cutlass, lopping the undergrowth and muttering ceaselessly under his breath. The sky had clouded over. An energetic wind, moist with the promise of imminent rain, fanned off the sea. He stopped when he reached the wooden bridge spanning the lagoon which backed the village. Propping himself against the rails, he took a bottle of rum from the side pocket of his jacket and drank some. Raising the bottle in salute, he smacked his lips. ‘To the happy couple!’ He had a second swig. The water below him was black. An unbroken fringe of mangrove pressed against the muddy banks, hugging the contours of the lagoon which wound away from the bridge like a controlled expulsion of breath. Towards the sea, the lagoon broadened between shoulders of brown sand and lost its identity in the melee of conflicting currents. ‘To the happy couple!’