When the Singing Stops

by Di Morrissey

  ‘That does it, I’m going to come. I’ll bring the gear I took to Kaieteur and you’ll tell me what supplies and stuff I need, right?’

  Lester shook his head and looked bemused at the very notion of it all, but added in a conciliatory voice, ‘After yo talked to yo Mr Matthew. Now, I gotta go see one friend’. He was desperate to restore some sort of sanity to the day. ‘I take you back now, okay.’

  Madi tried to pick the right moment to discuss the idea with Matthew but, despite lolling on the cane lounge with his feet up after work and a rum in his hand, his reaction was neither relaxed nor understanding. His jaw dropped degree by degree as Madi gushed out the detail of what she proposed.

  ‘It’s crazy, Madison. For a start it is totally inappropriate going bush with a black bloke up some damned remote river and camping in the scrub. Imagine how that piece of gossip would go down around the cocktail circuit.’

  ‘Matt, people like that will always gossip. I don’t care.’

  ‘But I care. Connor will care,’ he added angrily, then calming a little, added, ‘Look, sis, the climb to Kaieteur was one thing, this is far different. It’s not a holiday trip. They don’t have a Club Med up there, you know. The man is trying to scratch a living in probably the hardest way possible in this country. He doesn’t need a tourist along . . . and a woman, to boot’.

  Madi’s mouth tightened. ‘That’s a pretty sexist remark, Matt. Tourist I may be, but I want to get into really working, really looking for diamonds. I’m prepared to get my hands dirty and I do have some idea of what to expect,’ she said stubbornly, indicating Gwen’s book sitting on the coffee table.

  ‘Get real, Madison,’ exploded Matthew picking up Gwen’s book and flipping through the pages. He stopped at a photograph of the handsome Major Blake. ‘See, she had a white bloke in charge . . . and don’t tell me there wasn’t any hanky-panky, eh?’ He chuckled and Madi snatched the book from him.

  ‘Gwen was in charge and I don’t believe there was any such hanky-panky, as you call it. Why can’t you accept that a woman, even back then, could want adventures and experiences that were radically different to prove herself?’

  ‘Is that what you’re doing, Madi? Trying to prove something. What, for God’s sake?’ asked Matthew quietly.

  Madi didn’t answer. She went to her room and softly shut the door. A few minutes later, Matthew knocked. ‘You’re putting me in an awkward position, sis,’ he said gently. He walked over to where she was sitting on the bed and kissed her cheek. ‘Let’s sleep on it.’

  Matthew could feel his socks getting wet as perspiration ran down his legs while he jogged beside Gordon Ash around the oval opposite the Pessaro Hotel. The general manager insisted on his morning ‘conference run’ in Georgetown as well as at the mine. Matthew was grateful there was a slight sea breeze and that it was still early. In two hours, the heat would be ten degrees higher and the humidity a killer. He was beginning to dread these Georgetown visits from Gordon Ash and he always tried to escape the regime when he stayed overnight at the mine.

  ‘We’re meeting Johns for breakfast with your mate Bain from the IFO.’ Ash quickened the pace. ‘I’ve been through this caper a few times before in Third World situations. Must say I can’t agree with this propping up of poor countries by international funding organisations. This place is never going to get on top of itself under those conditions. Too many Third World governments just keep servicing the debt which keeps ballooning.’

  ‘So what’s the answer?’ Matthew matched his stride to the older man. ‘I agree outside funding places enormous hardship on the local people, but without some outside aid and influence what is their alternative?’

  ‘Maybe they should repudiate the whole idea of their debt.’ Gordon Ash was blunt and somewhat self-opinionated, thought Matthew.

  ‘That surely would incur retaliation.’ Matthew glanced at the rough, tough fighter beside him. ‘You must create a bit of havoc in boardrooms.’

  ‘I’ve been known to speak my mind.’

  That’s just what we need at this moment, thought Matthew. An idealist. Ash obviously didn’t fully appreciate the subtleties of the mine’s financial situation. ‘Guyminco’s been raped and rumour has it the funds were siphoned off into a phantom company,’ said Matthew, wondering if Gordon had heard anything about El Dorado.

  ‘I’ve heard the gossip. Made it my business over a few rums in the first week. You know what I think?’

  Matthew shook his head.

  ‘I think the government and bureaucracy are now relatively clean,’ Ash said. ‘They’re into fringe perks, not big cash payments. If there’s a villain it’s someone with access to cash flows outside Guyana who needs to launder money in a country like this where no one takes too much notice.’

  ‘Any suspects?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Hell, I’m the new boy on the block. I’m just theorising.’

  Matthew decided not to push the subject further.

  Connor heard of Madi’s plan to go diamond hunting as they sat in the gazebo at the bottom of Matthew’s garden. A gaudy macaw, impossibly bright in blue and yellow feathers, flew into a nearby tree with a loud screech.

  Connor sipped his rum. ‘Madi, I have no right to tell you what to do, but as a friend—a good friend, I hope—I ask that you think this through very carefully.’

  ‘I have, Connor. I’ve considered the pros and cons quite seriously.’

  ‘So what are they?’

  Madi sipped her drink. ‘I won’t go through them all, but I assume one negative factor is me taking off into the jungle with a man I hardly know, coloured, and a nobody by our standards.’

  ‘That had crossed my mind. But that’s your decision. You say you can trust him and I respect that.’ But he gave a lopsided grin. ‘Though I have to admit to slight pangs of jealousy.’

  ‘Of Lester, or of me going bush?’

  ‘Both, I guess. Safety is another concern.’

  ‘Crossing the road in Georgetown is dangerous. I can’t live in cotton wool. I now realise I’ve spent most of my life mouthing politically correct attitudes, hiding behind the safety and security of my job, my family, my lifestyle and even using my broken marriage as a reason for not stepping off the cliff.’

  ‘You can get through life quite well without hurling yourself into an abyss, you know, Madi.’

  ‘Are you telling me you’ve always played it safe? Never taken a risk?’ She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘This is more than just exploring the wilds of Guyana, it’s a little journey of self-discovery.’ She spoke lightly but meant every word.

  ‘Matthew told me he wouldn’t try to stop you any more, so all we can do is point out the pitfalls and let you choose, and you’ve done that. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, Madi.’

  ‘Only way to find out, right?’ They both turned as a large black bee hummed loudly into view. Connor glanced at his watch. ‘Right on the dot.’

  Madi brightened now that Connor seemed content to accept the decision. ‘Poor Lester, I don’t know who was more stunned that I had decided definitely to go, he or Matthew. They both kept looking at me and saying, “Are you sure?” like a pair of mother hens. Anyway, someone will be taking supplies up to Lester. I can come back with them.’

  Connor leaned back in his chair and lifted his arms in a gesture of resignation. ‘Right, sounds like you’ve covered everything. What more can I say?’

  ‘You could wish me luck and tell me to have a nice time,’ she said softly.

  Connor reached over and awkwardly wrapped his arms about her. ‘I do, Madi, but I’ll worry the whole time. And I’ll miss you.’ He kissed her hard on the mouth.

  A week later Madison was sitting in the centre of a small, open aluminium runabout with Lester at the tiller and supplies and gear stacked high around them.

  Madi started to feel excited. It was early morning on the river and she was entering a whole new world. It seemed that every nerve in her body, all her senses,
were switched on to absorb and respond to every detail of the adventure. She wore a broad-rimmed Akubra and sunglasses to combat the tropical sun and she had splashed suntan oil over her exposed arms and dabbed white zinc cream over her lips and face, much to Lester’s amusement.

  ‘Puttin’ on de Australian war paint, eh? Scare de Amerindians, eh.’

  Madi accepted the good-humoured jibe with a broad smile. She was happy beyond belief. In just a few hours she felt she’d crossed an invisible border that divided the safe and known from the remote and unpredictable. Already the energy of the jungle was making itself felt, the thickness and impenetrability of it crowding down to the water’s edge.

  Occasionally they passed minor assaults into its flanks as loggers dragged greenheart trees to the water’s edge and onto barges.

  Lester told her of the strength and durability of these magnificent trees that soared forty-six metres straight and true before throwing out branches at the top of the rainforest canopy.

  ‘Dey be a valuable tree, de wood lasts long time in de water. But dey can’t grow dem anywhere else. Dey only grow where nature put dem.’

  ‘They can’t transplant them or grow them from seedlings?’

  ‘When dey gone, dey is gone.’

  The musky smell of the rainforest earth, an occasional drift of wood smoke from an unseen Amerindian village, the calls of strange birds, drifted across the water to Madi who inhaled deeply, imprinting all of this on her senses.

  Lester was also reflective, wondering again at his madness in agreeing to bring a foreign white woman up to his rough and remote holding. But she was different from any woman he’d ever known. She had real spirit. She didn’t seem to be like so many of her own kind, polite but condescending. He couldn’t imagine any of the expat ladies he drove around in Georgetown undertaking such a trip. He grinned to himself, remembering the meeting Madi had set up between himself, Matthew and Connor. Although he’d met them before, there had never been any sort of social exchange. They’d sat down rather stiffly in the lounge room with a cold beer and discussed the whole idea and it soon became obvious. Lester wasn’t for the trip any more than they were. It had been Madi’s persuasive, passionate and persistent arguments that had eventually won the day, and Lester just didn’t have the heart to keep saying no.

  They made slow progress up the river due to the weight of their supplies and eventually reached a small island, one of many, where a solid open boat made of greenheart was tied to a tree. Lester nosed in calling out, ‘Jacob . . . yo dere, man?’

  Madi could see a tent and small camp set up in the trees and then a figure tumbled from a hammock. He was a short, deep copper-skinned man, with powerful arms and shoulders.

  ‘Dis be Jacob, he half Amerindian, half Negro like me. Dey call dese river men bovianders.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Cause dey live above yonder, boviander mean short way t’say, above yonder,’ Lester explained with great logic. ‘Dey be de best captains and bowmen on de river. He help us get de boat up de rapids.’

  ‘Not this boat, I hope,’ said Madi looking at the little freeboard of Lester’s craft.

  ‘Hey, yo Jacob,’ shouted Lester, stepping out and pumping the man’s hand. He got a cheerful gap-toothed grin in return. ‘Miz Madison, dis Captain Jacob.’

  He gave her a small salute and became unexpectedly decisive. ‘So we is ready, water lookin’ good, Lester. We load dem up, yeh?’

  Jacob spoke in a deep hoarse voice and soon the two men were busy transferring everything to the solid long-boat, Jacob stowing the gear to distribute the weight evenly in the six-metre craft. The boat was powered by a huge marine version of a car motor mounted on a long propeller shaft that could be readily lifted clear of the water.

  Madi tried to help by handing things from the runabout. ‘What’s wrong with his voice?’ she asked softly.

  ‘He lose his proper voice shoutin’ and singin’ at de river men fo’ years. De crew men got to row in de old days. Singin’ help dem get the verse.’

  ‘I read in Gwen’s book that the crews used to sing shanties while they rowed,’ said Madi. ‘I remember one about a chicken jumping over a fence?’

  ‘I bought a chicken for eighteen pence . . .’ Lester began chanting and Jacob swiftly joined in. ‘Hurrah boys, hurrah! I bought a chicken for eighteen pence, and the son of a gun jumped over de fence . . .’ they sang.

  Lester grinned, ‘Jacob know some songs all right.’ He eyed the laden boat. ‘Dis one heavy greenheart, it no get smashed up on de rocks.’

  ‘Today’s good news,’ quipped Madi more to herself than to the others, but they nevertheless smiled in acknowledgement.

  After a snack they pushed off towing Lester’s empty boat, its outboard stowed in the main craft. Madi sat in the centre, Lester in the stern at the tiller and Jacob stood in the bow with a long solid paddle. Madi wondered how Jacob and Lester would be able to control the ungainly and heavily laden craft should they get into difficulties in rough water.

  Reading her thoughts Lester was reassuring. ‘Don’ be nervous, Miz Madison, dese just small cataracts, not big falls we goin’ down.’

  Jacob entertained them with another hoarse shanty.

  ‘Juliana my dear, Juliana my love.

  The girl from over the mountains.

  Juliana so fair with her black curly hair,

  The girl from over the mountains.

  Blue mountains so high that the barley rot dry,

  The girl from over the mountains,

  Blue mountains so high that a sailor can’t climb,

  The girl from over the mountains . . .’

  Soon they were in the white water. Not a big set of rapids, but there was still a lot of white water roaring around visible rocks. Madi tensely gripped her wooden seat and marvelled at the skill of the bowman in keeping the boat clear of danger. Shouting steering commands in Creole to Lester and using his paddle to steer the bow into clear water or to push them off the rocks, Jacob guided them through the cascade to the smooth, deep, clear-flowing water upstream.

  ‘How ’bout dat one, Miz Madison?’ shouted Lester above the motor.

  ‘Great,’ she shouted back. ‘Fun, isn’t it?’

  Lester simply raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. Wait till we hit the big ones, he thought.

  Soon the keel was scraping over rocks again and the water around the boat was churning and foaming and the boat was proving almost impossible to handle. Then it suddenly became wedged between two rocks. The motor was cut and Jacob grabbed the bow rope, leapt over the side and pushed the boat free, then thigh deep in water, with the rope over his shoulder, began hauling the boat, slowly step by step. On board, Lester used a paddle to push against the bottom and rocks. Madi felt utterly useless, and at times a little frightened when Lester slipped and the boat was momentarily out of control. Frightening episodes she’d read in Gwen’s book came to mind. But she refused to think about them and eventually they made it through the rapids. Using the engine and the paddle, Lester swung the boat and steadied it as Jacob climbed back on board. Madi marvelled at the old man’s strength and skill and saw why the river men were so esteemed.

  But she barely had time to relax before they were into the next set of rapids. After that, it was easy motoring and Jacob lit a cigarette, only occasionally signalling or calling a direction to Lester to keep the boat clear of shallow, submerged rocks.

  Madi, leaning back into a pile of gear, had started to doze when she suddenly heard Lester shout, ‘Dere she be’.

  A landing, a couple of boats, an unpainted wooden shack and several shelters—thatched roofs on poles—were visible.

  ‘Where are we?’

  Lester grinned. ‘Dis be civilisation, man. Our corner shop.’

  It was a crude shack with a hand-painted wooden sign advertising the services of The Trading Post.

  Boat and mining supplies. Beer. Rum. Foodstuffs. Goods bought.

  Madi thought the latter
service rather enigmatic.

  The proprietor was an old pork-knocker with a short plump wife.

  ‘Hey, Sammy,’ hailed Lester, ‘back agin to mek me fortune dis time, man.’ They both laughed uproariously at this.

  ‘Hey, Lester, you still workin’ dat dud claim of yours?’

  ‘Sure ting. Dis time got luck with me, Sammy. Meet Miz Madison. She Australian visitin’ friend of mine in Georgetown.’ It was only a slight distortion of the facts, but it got around a lot of likely questions and boosted Lester’s prestige somewhat.

  Sammy eyed her with interest and rather self-consciously tucked in his grubby old singlet. ‘So you really lookin’ for diamonds? I can sell you some. Good stones. No government tax. Like to see?’

  ‘Yo keep yo rubbish stones, Sammy. Miz Madison goin’ to bring us big luck, yo just see.’

  Madi broke into the good-humoured bantering. ‘Thanks for the offer, Sammy. Perhaps I will look at your stones one day soon—just to compare them with what we find.’

  Lester was jubilant. ‘See. Told yo so, Sammy. We got luck wid us dis time.’ Lester then dropped his voice and spoke quietly. ‘Any finds?’

  Sammy shrugged. ‘You know how ’tis. No one talk less they have to. Or after rum dey open de mouth and de story jump out. Been okay. Some good fire comin’ up.’

  Madi tuned out of the conversation, enchanted by the quaint atmosphere of the remote riverside store and its amazing range of merchandise. Tins of food, packets of soap powder, bags of flour and sugar, dried food, weedy fresh vegetables grown by Sammy’s wife, hats, boots, nets, tents, mining tools, and several tanned animal skins.

  Lester and Jacob had reloaded the gear in Lester’s boat and checked that the outboard was still firing. Jacob tucked the money Lester gave him inside his hat band and jammed the hat on his head.