Eden Burning

by Belva Plain

  “Thank you, but I’m a guest of the Mebanes and I leave the day after tomorrow.” He turned to Francis somewhat abruptly. “I hear you’re a writer.”

  “An exaggeration. I’ve been working on a history of the island, of the whole West Indies actually, from Spanish galleons to Arawaks, parrots—and cabbage palms, too. But I don’t call myself a writer.”

  “I didn’t know you were living here. I lost contact with your parents years ago.”

  “Yes, I’ve become a native.”

  The old man smiled courteously. It struck Francis acutely that there was more than ordinary interest in the smiling courtesy. But why should there be?

  “You’re here alone? You’re with your wife, of course; I meant, your brothers and sisters?”

  “I have no brothers, and my sisters live in New York.”

  “Ah,” Da Cunha said.

  Yes, definitely he was curious. Well, he was old and probably eccentric to begin with.

  Nicholas obviously wanted to draw him on now to another table, but Da Cunha prolonged the conversation.

  “I bought a newspaper in New York. They’re saying fine things about your new leaders. It’s all very interesting to me. Franklin Parrish, they mention, and another one, Patrick Courzon. But you know them all, I suppose.”

  “Patrick Courzon is the intellectual,” Father Baker said, tactfully enough, since Nicholas’s attention had been diverted by a pair of enthusiastic pink-and-blue matrons.

  “You know them? You know Courzon?” Anatole asked Francis.

  “I know them both.”

  “Unfortunately,” Father Baker said, “they’ve had some differences, Francis and Patrick. I must say I’ve felt very sorry about it, too, since this island needs all its best minds working together.” And he looked reproach at Francis, who colored with anger. Father could be an interfering old fool.

  Nicholas, released by the ladies, drew Da Cunha away. Immediately then, everyone began to talk about Nicholas.

  “He really is rather likable, isn’t he?” Mrs. Whittaker remarked. “One gets to thinking when one’s with him that things may not turn out so badly after all.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Father Baker said, rather wanly.

  “What, Father?” Lionel cried. “You should be jubilant today! This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “I would be happier if Patrick were going to be running things instead.”

  “Nonsense! What experience has he ever had? Good Lord, Mebane is a barrister, he’s worked on the Constitution, been on the Legislative Council, worked in the Development Bank during federation—you name it! He’s a practical man! Mind you, I still want to get the hell away from here, but at least with Mebane one would stand a fighting chance of survival. He’s got his feet on the ground and knows how to compromise. Courzon’s nothing but a dreamer.”

  Lionel was right, of course. Oh, Patrick would have his place, Nicholas would see to that, for they had been like brothers since childhood. That was understandable. One had to admire loyalty of that sort. But Nicholas knew what he was about, and he’d picked the right slot for a man as imprudent as Courzon. Only last week he’d told Francis—obviously, he had high respect and regard for Francis to give him as many confidences as he did—that Courzon was to be minister for education. Well, he couldn’t do any harm there and, to be honest about it, might even do some good. It was his sort of job.

  “Why, even in the Guardian Club,” Lionel continued now, “even among his own kind, the colored politicians, so they tell me, Courzon is called a dreamer. They don’t think much of him, even there.”

  “And all the time the world is starved for dreamers,” Father Baker said.

  Francis turned away. Too much talk tonight, and the wrong talk, too! He was at his poorest in crowds and he wished they could leave now, but Marjorie would be among the last to depart.

  She was laughing. Her laughter had always been infrequent; it was more so, naturally, during these last few years. Sometimes her laughter was genuine, especially her loving gaiety with Megan, but her “social” laugh was a high, affected chortle, straining the cheek muscles. It made his own cheeks ache to watch her. He could never see why it was necessary to make such an effort at seeming amused or to be amusing for the good opinion of people one didn’t especially care about. Yet most people did it, so probably it was he who was the odd one.

  Then he had a new and sudden insight: quite unlike himself, Marjorie needed the crowd and the approval in order to survive! When they were alone at home the silence often lay like a heavy cloth, shrouding the two of them and shrouding as well the room in which they sat. Her thoughts must be so heavy, then!

  His own could run like quicksilver in his head. The other night he had been reading about Crete and the rosette motif on the murals at the palace in Knossos. For some reason he had needed to talk about it, to share his curiosity with someone.

  “It must have meant something, don’t you think? Or perhaps only a decoration?”

  “I shan’t lose any sleep for wondering about it, I assure you,” she had answered, not unkindly, but with irony and boredom.

  She had yawned and he had felt a profound and lonely sadness.

  He drank his coffee, pushing the dessert aside. Tomorrow would be Sunday and a whole free morning with Megan while Marjorie slept late. Maybe they’d sail over to Spark Island. They could take Osborne’s four-year-old grandson along—he’d be company for Megan. Or was that only a delusion? Roy was so far ahead of Megan. He tossed in the water like a dolphin; he saw everything and had his chatty opinions about everything; he could relate a photograph of a thousand-pound turtle to the newly hatched young crawling out of the sand holes on the beach where the eggs had been laid. He was a companion, that little boy, following his grandfather so closely that he was known on the estate as Mr. Osborne’s shadow.

  It was so hard not to be bitter, not to envy Osborne this wealth of his!

  Yet just to look at Megan, not hearing the repetitious baby syllables, not knowing with what difficulty she was being trained out of diapers—just to look at her, you would never know she wasn’t “normal.” She with the soft blond down on the back of her warm, sun-browned neck, she with the double row of tiny, perfect teeth, the cobalt eyes, the—And behind his own eyes Francis felt the painful prickle of unseen, stifled tears.

  How he was tied to that poor scrap of a life! And both of them tied to the scrap, the piece of earth on which they lived! Without making himself appear absurdly pathetic, he was never able to explain exactly how he felt about this tie, this solemn linkage both to his child and to the first of his blood who had built upon that land, or how he felt about the land: half guardian and ultimate shelter for that vulnerable child.

  “You’re in a fog,” Marjorie said now, with slight impatience. “Where are you anyway, Francis?”

  “In the middle of tomorrow morning,” he answered, and she gave him her 1-don’t-understand-you look.

  Something else troubled him. Could he possibly be “using” the child because there was no other deep affection in his life? No one else he would die for? For Megan he would die a hundred times over. Yet so would Marjorie. Often he watched them together, the mother and the little girl crossing the lawn at dusk, with their pale dresses like flowers or moths. In a way of which Megan could fortunately have no idea, it was she who held them all together. She, and Marjorie’s compassion, too, for he could not have borne to lose Megan and Marjorie knew it well. Her standards might be rigid and unyielding, but she did live up to them herself; one had to grant that. In this respect, at least, he had certainly not misjudged when, on that first night so long ago, he had recognized the quality and honor that were Marjorie.

  She prodded his ribs. “Oh, look! Look over there!”

  “Over where?”

  He knew instantly what she meant. Moving among the tables toward a large, reserved one at the center of the terrace were Patrick with his wife, a group of young white men and women who we
re friends and relatives of Kate’s, two or three black politicians—and Kate.

  “Clever of her to wear pink with that hair,” Marjorie said. “Funny, she never did care much about clothes.”

  Lionel studied Kate frankly, as if it didn’t matter whether she saw him doing so or not. “She never needed to care very much. Anything she puts on becomes graceful.” The observation was surprisingly delicate to come from Lionel’s lips.

  “You never mention her,” Marjorie said.

  “Why should I? We’re divorced. Besides, it would hardly be tactful in your house, would it?”

  “What do you mean? Because she once had a crush on Francis?” Marjorie laughed.

  Francis felt the blood rushing to his neck. “Don’t be ridiculous, Marjorie!” His eyes met those of Lionel, who looked amused.

  “You know she did!” Marjorie insisted. “I don’t say it lasted very long, but—”

  Lionel interrupted. “I never mention her in your house, Marjorie, because of the tragedy that happened to us all. You know quite well that’s the reason. And also because she’s involved with Courzon.”

  “Involved? I wouldn’t be astonished at all,” Marjorie said, “if someone were to tell me she’s having an affair with him.”

  The blood was beating hard now in Francis’ neck. But he spoke calmly and curiously. “You hate her, don’t you, Marjorie? Why?”

  Amusement still played on Lionel’s face as he watched the little play.

  “Don’t be silly, Francis! Why should I hate her? Just a little gossip within the family, no harm in it,” she said lightly, as if she had suddenly become aware she was going too far. “I’m quite open-minded, quite unjealous; you know perfectly well I always am. If I weren’t, would I draw your attention to how attractive she is? Those earrings are stunning, by the way.”

  All one could see of Kate were her bared back, the reddish foam of curly hair and the glitter of swinging eardrops.

  “They were her grandmother’s. I found them in a safe deposit box awhile back. She’d forgotten about them evidently, so I sent them to her. They’re not worth much. Pretty, but the stones are very flawed.” Lionel lit a cigarette and leaned into his subject, as if he were quite at ease with it, enjoying it. “Kate never cared about jewelry except for funny old antique pieces. I remember the day she gave back the emerald ring. I really wanted her to keep it, you know. I came upon her in the bedroom, packing to leave me. She was sitting naked on the bed. It was quite a picture, stark naked except for the emerald. She threw it across the room at me. Yes, quite a picture. That fellow Da Cunha could probably paint it, make a big splash with it. He could call it Naked Woman with Red Hair and Emerald, or something like that.”

  The muscles in Francis’ belly tightened with the old familiar shock and he felt again that outrage—although it was none of his business anymore—at the memory of Lionel and Kate, the memory with which, he knew, he was now deliberately being taunted. Lionel had rare nasty moods like this.

  Lionel had “known” her. He had “had” her. But not as I once had her and as I knew her. Creamy and slippery under the shower. The mole on her left breast. That little gap between her two front teeth. Crying over an abused cat. Laughing in bed, that wonderful bed. The quilt has a different kind of bird embroidered in each square….

  Not that it made any difference to him! The past was past. She had written him off. She had failed him and he had written her off. His life was very different now. His head and his heart were filled in many different ways.

  Lionel and Marjorie got up to dance. For a moment he watched as Marjorie’s face appeared above Lionel’s shoulder, a face still pure and smooth in spite of sorrow. He followed them until they were concealed in the crowd of dancers. Then his gaze fell on Kate’s back; she was talking, her hands flying up in the animated gesture that he had forgotten until now.

  A stubborn, fanatical, opinionated, bad-tempered woman, no matter what else! And so to hell with her.

  But don’t let anything happen to her. Keep her safe in the little house, with the doors locked and the storm outside. She’s so small! She likes to think she’s bold, but she’s only a weak little thing and quite alone. Take care of her.

  Something happened, Kate, between you and me. It can’t be undone, can it? Something happened.

  His hands were cold and he called for a second cup of coffee, really to warm his hands around the cup rather than to drink. His head throbbed so that the music’s beat was painful, each crescendo crashing through his skull.

  “Something happened,” he said aloud.

  Returning, Marjorie announced that it was time to go.

  “I can see you’re having a miserable time.” It was a reproach in the guise of generous consideration. But he let it pass.

  A wind had risen and Lionel, who had Marjorie’s shawl in his hand, helped her on with it.

  “Frankly,” Francis heard her say very low, “I’m glad Francis refused to buy your property. Please don’t offer it to him again, will you? I’m still waiting for him to get tired of all this and go home.”

  “Don’t hold your breath while you wait,” Lionel told her. “It’s my guess he never will.”

  “Never’s a long time,” she replied.

  But Lionel was right. He was not going to be driven out by politics or economics, by anything or anyone! He had lost enough for one lifetime: a kindly father dead and a dearly beloved mother left alone; then Kate, a woman out of a dream—until the dream broke; then Patrick, a Jonathan to his David, or so he had hoped; finally, finally an unhealthy child. Loss enough, yes, for one lifetime.

  The land was all he had left. He had fallen in love with the land and it was like loving another life, so profound was the attachment. To abandon it would be to long and ache for it until the day he died.

  No. Eleuthera was his and he was hers. There was nothing more to be said.

  TWENTY

  When at last you reach the place at which, reluctantly, you must accept some enormous, shocking change—as when the endearing child becomes the hostile adult or the enchanting lover turns dull and mean or the trusted friend embezzles and cheats you—then, looking backward, it suddenly becomes quite clear. Yes, yes, of course, that was the day, when he said this or she did that, of course, that was the first sign, the start, which you failed to recognize! Or did not want to recognize?

  Nicholas Mebane entered office amidst a universal, roseate euphoria. Enthusiastic comparisons were made with Roosevelt’s historic first hundred days. “We will not promise miracles,” he said frankly, “but there will be immediate and swift beginnings. They will be visible and felt, I promise you that.”

  And Patrick’s heart swelled.

  Within two months of the accession ground was broken for a splendid recreation center, with soccer fields, a swimming pool, and basketball courts, a whole range of sports. With the turning of the first shovelful of earth, there was a collective jubilation among the people. At last they were getting something, something they could see and touch!

  Next came the establishment of the St. Felice Museum in a great, stone eighteenth-century warehouse behind Wharf Street. Doris Mebane, whose project it was, had overseen the renovation. With taste as refined and graceful as her husband’s, she had caused a dry moat along the building’s sides to be filled with greenery, while in the lofty, quiet space behind classic arches Anatole Da Cunha’s gifts to the nation were displayed. There were some dozen oils and two pieces of marble sculpture. Above the front portal Nicholas had ordered a grand inscription to be carved into the stone: Pro bono publico. In the official brochure it was explained that this meant: For the benefit of the people. The building was dedicated with the accompaniment of a string quartet and unlimited champagne in paper cups, the entire middle class of Covetown attending and admiring. A fine beginning, indeed.

  Patrick had ideas of his own to offer. At the close of the ceremonies he drew Nicholas aside.

  “Something occurred to me last night. It’s
a school children’s project. I was thinking of giving out seedlings, young fruit trees or vegetables or both. We’d have instruction, and prizes, naturally, for the best results. It would serve a joint purpose, a fine activity for the children, and at the same time it’d point up our need to be self-sufficient in food. What do you think?”

  “Excellent! Go to it! Draw up a rough plan and present it at the next executive meeting.” Nicholas clapped Patrick’s shoulder. “Did you ever think, or dare to dream, we’d come so far? Lord, I remember doing Latin verbs together! Not that they ever did us much good. Or maybe they did!” His laugh came from his lips and shone in his eyes, an up welling of pure pleasure.

  “Can we get to work on this, then?”

  “Don’t see why not. One good thing about it, it won’t cost much. We’re frightfully low on money. Frightfully.” And having been hailed from across the room Nicholas began to move away.

  “Give me a minute,” Patrick said hurriedly. “I know how swamped you are, but I haven’t had a chance for a minute with you in days. I wanted to add, what about giving tree seedlings to the farmers while we’re at it? Some blue mahoe or Honduras mahogany? That last hurricane wrecked at least two thousand acres of government-owned forest and there’s been no replanting at all. It occurred to me we could combine the projects. It shouldn’t cost much.”

  “You’re minister for education, remember? That would come under the heading of forestry.”

  “I know, but things do tie into one another, they overflow from one department to another.”

  “I’ve got to run now. Really. We’ll talk about it some other time.” Nicholas gave him another shoulder pat. “Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Although I do love your enthusiasm!” he called back.

  Patrick drank enthusiasm as if it were rich wine. So much needed to be done! He was too well aware how poorly qualified so many of the system’s teachers were; better salaries and improved conditions were, naturally, the solution to that. Driving out past Gully one day he noticed that the roof, which had leaked so badly when he taught there that they’d had to keep a row of buckets on the ready, was still the same old roof, unrepaired. Textbooks, visual aids, the drop-out problem—so his mind ran.