“When I regain my voice, I axe Celia mother, ‘She didn’t get my letters?’”
“‘All o’ them come,’ Celia mother tell me.
“‘And she didn’t open them?’ I axe Celia mother. “‘I don’t know if she open them, Percy’, she tell me. ‘I don’t know, Percy.’ ”
He stops talking. The old grandfather clock, ticking in self-assured confidence in a far corner, is the only life in the room with them. There is the smell again of burnt sugar canes, as the wind rises and brings the acrid smell into their faces, through the open window.
“Love!”
It is she who has said this.
It is as if she wants to bring him back from those waves, from that sea, from that street in Port-of-Spain where the door was shut against him, where the conclusion of his sea adventure was bound to end in shipwreck, amongst flotsam and in jetsam, concerning his ambition to find a new life that reflected the one he had left in the barracks of the Police Training School.
She wants to talk to him about love. About the love that she has lived without for the same twenty-five years that is the measurement of his loss.
What choice was that, she wonders? Even if the woman did not love the man, what choice is that, to “go bingo”; to watch her fortune and her luck fall before her eyes, in numbers matched to letters:
“O–6!” a voice says. And hands move nervously, scrambling over the hopscotch bingo card.
“B–23!”
“N–39!”
“Bing-go! Bingo, bingo, bingo!”
What kind of a life is this, for a woman in love? Matching numbers with letters on a bingo card that does not guarantee fortune and bring luck?
“Love,” she says. “I never really understand love. Nor loved anybody. Not if I am talking about a man.
“I loved my mother, Ma. And Gran, my grandmother. And my great-gran, Ma’s grandmother. Three people. Three women. But I don’t think I ever loved anybody else. Particular, a man!
“Wilberforce! I forgot Wilberforce, my God! That goes without saying. My thrildren. William Henry. And Rachelle Sarah Providence. A mother loves her thrildren. It is something that she doesn’t have to prove. Something you take for granted. Apart from them, the three women in my life.
“But in all the time you were seeing me, in Church on first Sundays of the month, taking Communion; at certain functions, like the opening day at the Races; on the Garrison Savannah Pasture for parades, like the King’s Birthday Parade, Queen Victoria’s Birthday Parade, and the annual Gymkhana that the Bimshire Volunteer Regiment and Brigade puts on.
“You seeing me from that distance, at our annual Church outing and picnic; up at the Crane Beach Hotel; once or twice in Town, walkingcross Swan Street, when I had to visit Mr. Bellfeels lawyer, the Solicitor-General before he was a Solicitor-General; you had to have a different opinion of the woman you were seeing.
“What you were seeing wasn’t me. You were looking at a person you had invented in your imagination, a person who, as you say, you couldn’t approach. And here I was, all the time you were watching me, suffering for the slightest attention I could have got from any man.
“Let me tell you something, Percy.
“This Great House is bigger and definitely nicer and prettier than the shack I was born in. Than any in the Village. But is it a happier place to live in?
“And the things you see inside it. The furnitures. The chairs and tables. The carpets, either brought back for me by my son Wilberforce or else delivered here by mule cart or delivery van from Cave Shepherd & Sons, Haberdasheries.
“The food I eat, that me and Wilberforce eat, doesn’t come from Miss Greaves Shop in the Village. When last have I darkened the door of Miss Greaves Shop? I was brought up going to that shop. Ma used that shop all her life, trusting salt fish, mackerel and flour on credit . . . I won’t be surprise if she dead, owing Miss Greaves money . . .
“Now, I order things from Goddard & Sons, the Ice House, down in Town. And I have my pick of any boy working in the Plantation Yard, to get him to jump-on ’pon his bicycle and cycle-into-Town, to place my order.
“But is this the happiness that I want? And not to be able to go to a dance if I wanted to? Not only in Queens Park Shed, but even at the Aquatic? Or the Marine Hotel? Even if I was accompanied by Mr. Bellfeels?
“In bygone days. Because dancing gone outta his bones a long time now! But back-then. The dancing!
“Your freedom, your life, is taken from you, as a woman in this Island, for the certainty that you will have food, and a roof over your head, and over your thrildren’s head. Yes.
“Loss o’ freedom?
“Yes! Perhaps. But if you play your cards right, you will have these things to look at; these things of material value flowing unto you, in abundance, in your direction. Even flowing unto your bed. Under your sheets. Yes!
“But is this happiness?
“Perhaps. Yes-and-no. Perhaps. So, you look at me, and you see a woman you know from small; from when we were growing up together, as thrildren. You stand from across a street, and you fix your two eyes on me, and every time you do that, even from that distance, my body reacted with a tinge, a twinge, and a feeling comes over my body.
“But I couldn’t look-back-in your direction. I could not give-you-back the look you were sending.
“There were always eyes following me. Put there by Mr. Bellfeels, to follow. He was never sure of my faithfulness. Yes! But the eyes followed me, even when he no longer had any uses for me.
“You don’t know, Percy! It just doesn’t fall within your understanding to know. Follow and report. Report sometimes, even without following.”
Sargeant is leaning forward from his seat, following her words. She has now stopped talking. From her sleeve, which reaches to her wrist, her left wrist, she pulls a cotton handkerchief. It is white. It has white flowers embroidered into its fabric. Its borders are four strips of lace. The lace itself has no flowers.
She taps this handkerchief to her mouth. Tears appear at the corners of her eyes. The tears remain lodged in her eyes. And it seems to him that when she does eventually feel the tears flow from her eyes and come to her cheeks, only then does she move the handkerchief to her eyes. She closes her eyes as she dries them.
And then she opens them. Her face is smiling again. Her brown eyes are bright. Frisky as a cat’s. Her lips are pulled firm and tight over her teeth. And this makes the smile that is on her face even more beautiful. But beneath the beautifulness of the smile, there is a sneer.
Her skin is firm. Pulled back without wrinkle. Her skin is brown. Her hair is long and black, with a few waves of silver in it. Her neck is long, and her swallow pipe bobs up and down when she gets excited, or emotional as she was a moment ago. In the middle of her top lip is a crease that gives distinction and definition to her mouth, and then to her lips. And her hands are strong. Veins criss-cross the smooth dark brown plains of her hands, travelling between her fingers, between the webs of her fingers. Her hands are soft.
They do not reflect the hard work she endured in the North Field for years, years ago. And her fingers are long. Her fingernails are short. They are cut very short.
She does not wear lipstick. And she does not wear nail polish.
She puts the handkerchief back into her left sleeve.
“Would you please make me a drink, Percy?”
It takes him some time to respond. He has been travelling along with her story of personal history, over that landscape, observing the chapters of that journey, as he did then, and even now, from the other vantage point, from the other side of Highgates Commons, on the other side of the counter, on the other side of the aisle, on the other side of the picnic ground, on the other side of the waves at the Crane Beach Hotel, on the other side of the sandcastles the children built, wishing that he had the ability of knowledge, at least that he could have guessed at her unhappiness, and now, tonight, on the other side of this front-house . . . did she say she was unhappy? Or
lonely? He wishes he could have guessed at her loneliness. But as he knows, and as she has said, eyes followed, and reported.
Golbourne got a cruel, severe, crippling beating from Mr. Bellfeels. And it was caused by jealousy over Golbourne’s girlfriend that Mr. Bellfeels fancied.
Pounce got a severe beating from Mr. Bellfeels for going with a woman Mr. Bellfeels fancied.
Sargeant knows about these incidents.
He knows more. He conducted the two criminal investigations himself; and another: the damage to the Morris Minor of the Vicar, the Reverend Mr. M. R. P. P. Dowd, caused by “deliberate incendary activity,” Sargeant wrote in his little black book; “burned”; and the “whole entire car and part of the garage it was park in, butting and bound” on the west side of the Vicarage, “almost engulf totally in conflagration.” Mr. Bellfeels had passed one Sunday when it was raining, on his way from the Church to the Great House in which Miss Mary lived with Wilberforce, then a small boy in Third Form at Harrison College, and had seen the Vicar speaking with Mary, and had seen how Mary was holding her body over the Vicar’s car door, to thank him for the lift, to say good night to the Vicar . . . It was about eight-forty-five the Sunday night, after Evensong and Service . . .
As Sargeant’s investigation found out, Mr. Bellfeels had gone to get Mary, as he always did, after the service; but the rain was falling; and it had been falling all day; and he was delayed by a flat tire, and Mary had waited inside the Church, at the West Nave, sheltering, for half an hour, with no sight of the large black Humber Hawk; so the Vicar, out of the kindness of his heart, was encouraging Mary to wait for Mr. Bellfeels to come. “So, be patient, my child, do not venture forth into this torrential rain, Miss Mary. Wait.”
“Bellfeels coming. Don’t despair.”
“I want to get back to Wilberforce. Wilberforce has a touch o’ the flu. And he got exams in the morning.”
“Still, wait. How Wilberforce? Which Form Wilberforce in? Third is it? End o’ term. Exams for promotion. Right?”
“I should really go. Even walk-through the rain . . .”
“Is only thirty minutes since service done. Wait a next ten, at least.”
“I should walk home.”
“I’ll drop-you-off, then . . .”
That is how it happened. That is the evidence Sargeant accumulated. What Sargeant did not know was the beating Mary-Mathilda got that night . . .
Now, Sargeant is looking at this woman, whose age has stopped still, seeing her in the same years and identical beauty as when he followed her along the beach as she carried the clear liquid in the large glass jug . . .
And Sargeant knows that if he had, over the years, made a move to talk to her, to see her, to send her a message, to make his intentions known, and Mr. Bellfeels had smelled this adventure, had not even discovered it, but had only suspected it, Sargeant knows that the rat of his lust would have tasted disaster . . . demotion, dismissal, death, even.
Sargeant knows of men who have died . . .
But he is too scared to call the names of those who killed them . . .
“. . . Not to be able to take the lane from this House, and walk-cross the road there, and visit the Needleworker, Mistress Brannford, Rosa Mary Antoinette Brannford, before Mr. Brannford kill her; and before she poisoned the Governor.
“Those places you would have seen me in, from that distance, were times when I would gladly have-exchange my lot with the poorest woman in this Village.
“Even with Clotelle. With Gertrude, who works for me. Even with his wife, Mistress Bellfeels, whom I have hardly spoken to. I have hardly picked my teeth to that woman. Nor her to me. Yes.
“You would have seen me, yes, in various places, and I always came back in here and say to Wilberforce, ‘Guess who I saw in Town? The Sargeant. And he never-as-much as acknowledge my presence. Wonder why?’”
“I was scared,” he says. “I was ward-off.”
“Ward-off? And a little woman like me scaring you? Come-come, Sargeant!”
“You know what they say! A lil woman, but a mob-o’-ton o’ woman.”
“Me? Poor me?”
“It is your position and status. Your status, Miss Mary. Your image. I was talking about this only this evening, to Manny, before. And your class. And what it is that you stand for, and mean . . .”
“What I mean? What the hell you mean by what I mean? Am I a . . . a-a-a . . . a thing?”
“No, no, Miss Mary. Not that.”
“Then what, Percy?”
“We were discussing something-altogether-different.”
“Do not pity me, Sargeant. Not because I have told you certain things.”
“But, good-Christ, Mary . . .”
“In my house, Sargeant, I am Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda, a lady who . . . if you don’t mind, sir.”
“I sorry, Mary. I am very sorry, Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda . . .”
“Thank you, Sargeant.”
“I didn’t mean . . .”
“I have a Statement you have to take from me.”
“Now?”
“Now!”
“Now-now? After the conversation we been having?”
“You are still on duty, Sargeant.”
“But Mary-G . . . I mean, but Miss Mary-Mathilda, do we really have to . . . Why this change o’ heart, all of a sudden?”
“Change o’ heart?”
“Change o’ mood . . .”
“I went too far, perhaps, in our conversation. And allowed you to get a false impression. You took advantage of me, under the circumstances; and I allowed you to see me with my guard down. But I really do not need your pity, Sargeant Stuart. I am still the mistress of this Great House.”
“I don’t feel no pity for you, Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda.”
“You are a Crown-Sargeant of Detectives.”
“I still don’t feel no pity for you.”
“You are in my house. My home. You know what this means? You are sitting in my front-house. And in uniform. You are on duty. All I have to do to remind you of this is get a message to the Commissioner. If Gertrude hasn’t left, Gertrude could take a message . . .”
“You would do me so, Tilda? I mean, Miss Mary-Mathilda? You would go to those lengths? You would jeopardize my career in the Police? And my life? Expose me naked-naked, to Mr. Bellfeels? You would do this to me?”
She does not answer. She sits with her head leaning slightly in the direction of the open window, as if she is expecting to feel a kiss from the wind, as if she is listening to a noise, a sound announcing arrival that only she can distinguish and hear and know about when it arrives. Her eyes are closed.
He wishes he had the guts, the balls, in this moment of what she called her vulnerability, to stand up, travel the few feet to the chair in which she sits, bend down, take her up, in his arms, and draw her close to him, even pressing her breasts against the rough-edged silver buttons, with the Imperial Crown on each of the five of them, running down the front of his tunic. He wishes he was a man brought up with a stronger sense of confidence, with a background in family and position that was solid enough to make him able to see this woman before him, in the same confidence of presumption as he sees Gertrude; the kind of man whom, ironically, she, Mary-Mathilda, has been dreaming of having, and has been talking about, even if only through implication; but he got the drift of her words; to hold her in his arms, and move her from side to side, take her back to her own infancy and childhood, when it was Ma who did this to her, putting her to bed every night on the mattress stuffed with Khus-Khus grass, her cradle, rockabye, rockabye, rockabye, “Rockabye baby, on a tree top, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock . . .”; hold her and move her, as if he were guiding her in following the melody of “Moonlight Serenade” . . .
She pulls the white cotton handkerchief with the white flowers embroidered into it from the same sleeve as before; and she passes it across her eyes; three times across each eye.
She is crying. She is crying. Her body
is shaking, in heaving movements, and she is rocking her body back and forth . . . as she is crying; rockabye, rockabye . . . she is weeping . . . “when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. Down will come . . .”
“Would you please make me a drink, Percy?”
“Are you sure you want me to make a drink for you?”
“Yes, Percy.”
“What kind o’ drink?”
“What kind you-yourself want? More rum? Or brandy? Why don’t you choose?”
“You sure you want me to make myself a drink, Miss Mary-Mathilda?”
“Yes-please, Percy. Don’t have to call me Miss Mary Mathilda, any further. Please. Or Miss Mary.”
“What to call you?”
“Call me Mary.”
“Just Mary?”
PART THREE
THE GRAVEL WAS BEING SCATTERED by the tires speeding over it. And the sound of the flying gravel was similar to that of marbles rackling inside a galvanized bucket; and indeed some of the stones smashed against the oil drums cut in half that served as planters for the croton and hibiscus trees that lined the driveway. If it were still light outside the Great House painted in a creamy pink wash by the man who cleaned the stables and the pigpens, and if Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda and Sargeant were able to look through the window and pick out anything, they would have seen the gravel rising in swirls of dust, at the speed the car was travelling over the white marl and loose gravel of the driveway shaped like the figure eight. Half of the eight led to the front door of the Main House.
When Wilberforce comes home in this tense, speeding urgency, in broad daylight, the chickens and the fowls, the slow-moving ducks wobbling in the wake of their ducklings, and the gobbling turkeys attracted to noise begin to make louder noise themselves; and all these animals, like members of Miss Mary-Mathilda’s family, would cluster and line up, at safe distance, to welcome Wilberforce.
Wilberforce was coming home.
“Drunk!” as his mother would have said, had she been looking out the Dutch window in the kitchen, standing beside Gertrude, sitting on the wooden bench that has no back, peeling eddoes for the mutton soup.
The Austin Clarke Library Page 29