They are standing now at the edge of a large field. There are no lights from the labourers’ shacks surrounding them. The houses are too far away, behind the phalanx of mahogany trees, down the slope, down the long drift of land that leads gently and gradually in the distance, into the sea. And on the other side, the side that could have afforded them a vision of the Main House, the distance is too far.
The noise now, of her feet and Sargeant’s, on the dried trash, even at this time of night, when dew is already forming, is still sharp and loud.
But when she thinks of the way her feet strike the trash, and the way the trash responds to her weight, it carries her back, farther back in her childhood, to the time when Ma would shake her mattress every evening before spreading it back onto the six pieces of board that were placed crosswise, in place of bedsprings, after the mattress had been hanging on the clothesline in the sun all day; to get rid of bugs, chinks and other little things that bite during the long, sweating, tossing-and-turning humid night. Walking on the trash in the field now, takes her back to those evenings when it was her duty to spread the mattress, stuffed with dried Guinea grass, evenly over the six boards.
The night has begun to get chilly. It is a skin-piercing chilliness that is noticeable because the day was so hot, and now the sudden change in temperature is like a change in disposition, from passionate confidence, to sly gossip and deceit.
It has changed from a night of passionate confidence, to a night of deceitful negotiating.
She pulls the neck of her dress and the shawl tighter round her neck, but there is no relief from the chilliness of the night.
Sargeant tramps on the trash in the same way he would track a suspect. With silent, deadly determination. But Sargeant never calls them suspects: they are all criminals to him, even before proven guilty. It is with this steadfast determination that he is walking now. He no longer feels the power she had over his body. His flesh is no longer weak. He is going along with her, out of courtesy. And because he is a policeman.
“We’re going to stop here,” she says.
“I think I know where we are,” he says.
He looks around into the thick, heavy darkness.
“I think I know where we are.”
“The North Field.”
“That field?” he says, still looking around.
“You should be.Well acquainted with this field, Percy.”
“Why?”
He does not see the sarcasm.
“Why?” he says again.
Perhaps, he does not want to see it.
“Are you a bat?”
“Bat?”
“A night-bat?”
“As against a day-bat, like in cricket?”
“Seeing in the dark, Percy. Seeing in the dark.”
“You had me there, for a moment.”
“This is the spot,” she says. “The best spot.”
They are standing now. The trash comes up to their ankles. Each time they move, change a posture, the trash grumbles.
“Wilberforce will be thirtyfive, tomorrow,” she says. “What a funny thing to come into my head, at a time like this.”
“thirtyfive?”
“Monday. That makes me fifty-something. And pushing sixty,” she says, looking up at the skies. “At fifty-something years of age, I feel like a woman for the first time. And it scares me.”
“Fifty-something,” he says, still trying to see through the blackness of the night that surrounds them. “You don’t look so old, Mary-G,” he adds, and immediately realizes how stupid is his comment.
“If that’s a compliment, thank you, Percy.”
“I didn’t mean it so,” he says, not knowing really what to say. This kind of delicacy, this kind of sophistication, the confidence to sweet-talk a woman, as Manny had tried to coach him, just stanning-up and throwing sweet-words at her, even to do this with Gertrude, is not his fortay.
He is a man of action. A man of deeds. A man of force. And drive. A man of hardness. Even in his fooping. In. And two flings. With his eyes shut. And bam! Climax. Done with that! And out.
He is a man on everlasting missions, usually in the dead of night, when all Christian-minded people are sleeping, leaving him to roam the Village, in the company of bugs and worms and centipedes, with the “unrighteous,” as Manny calls them; in this kind of blackness, having to track down criminals; catch criminals; paint criminals’ arse with blows from his bull-pistle, to assist them in confessing “and don’t waste my blasted time”; lock up criminals; beat them some more; and “throw-’way the blasted key, if it was up to me. But it ain’t up to me. I is only a lil Crown-Sargeant. Not even a Inspector. But if-only. Only-if I were a acting Inspector, if um was up to me, all like you-so would be dead. Beaten to death. And then thrown in the sea, for the sharks to feast on, be-Jesus Christ, mark my word!”; and Boysie-Boys, to whom these words had been addressed, harkened; and Sargeant would forget them, until the next criminal is being tracked down, and beaten into pulp, and into confession.
But is he really such a man? A man who, as he says, likes to do a little “tinklelling” of the ivories on Friday nights, who likes to cook for Naiman and the Constable, and Gertrude, when she is off duty; a man who reads, not only crime magazines, and travel brochures about Amurca, but library books. Is this man the kind of policeman you would call by the nickname “Hitler” or “Goebbels” or “The Gestapo”?
He is a man “who love woman,” as he confesses to Manny. “’Nough woman. The more the merrier.” But, as he also confesses, “a man who don’t know very much ’bout woman . . .”
“Sit down, Percy. You’re so stiff!”
And he laughs, and she laughs, too.
“This is awkward for me. I haven’t done this, since . . .”
“You don’t have to tell me, Mary-G.”
“A lot I have to tell you, Percy. Both to you, as Percy my friend; and to you, as Percy the police Sargeant.”
“This passageway that you bring me in,” he says, looking back in the direction they have come, “this passageway. I was listening all the time you was talking, and I say to myself, whilst you are telling me the uses this tunnel was put to, nowadays and in days of yore, I been thinking, Mary-Mathilda . . .
“And this is hard for me, a lawman, to say. But this is life. And I know you. And you know me. And this is hard . . .”
“What, Percy? What?”
“. . . hard to say. But there isn’t one man, not one . . .”
“Who, Percy?”
“. . . not one man in this whole-entire Village and n’ighbourhood who won’t want to . . .”
“What, Percy?”
“There isn’t one blasted soul in this whole Village or n’ighbourhood, who won’t want to pelt a few stones, or one big rock-stone, at Mr. Bellfeels, a man you got yourself involve with, not that it was any fault of yours. It wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t your choice.
“And according to Manny, who, as you know, spend time in Amurca, working in the South, Manny always say that your life was ordered through the destinies of paternity. I don’t know exactly what Manny mean by that. Do you? But, as he try to explain it to me, and as my brain retain what little it could, Manny mean that your life, and not only your life, but the life of anybody who .Wells within the precincts of the Plantation, any Sam-cow-or-the-duppy, man, woman, child, girl or boy, would regard it as a honour to drive a deadly lash in Mr. Bellfeels arse.
“I know your connection to Mr. Bellfeels, and I hope you will pardon my language. And I can understand your loyalties to a man like Mr. Bellfeels. And I can’t say nothing against that. But, as Manny say, it is a matter of the destinies of paternity.
“I know you. And you know me. We grew up together. And played together, before your mother thought you were,..Well, you know what I mean. And that is when Mr. Bellfeels came on the scene.
“But I trying hard-hard, all this time, to see if I can’t forget what occurred, that cause me now to be here with you. To
see if I can’t on purpose forget to take a Statement from you. If I can’t pretend that neither me, nor you, nor the blasted Statement exists . . .
“I feel like, like doing something to Mr. Bellfeels, and this whole case, to exterminate him from existence. You know what I mean? If it was possible, for me, or for you, or for any Tom-Dick-and-Harry, to do something to Mr. Bellfeels, to make him disappear. Just disappear off the fecking face of the earth—pardon my French, Mary-Mathilda. And nobody won’t miss him. Like invisible. Like a kind of extermination. You know what I mean?
“And I wonder if it is possible, and as soon as we visit the scene, which I should have visited hours ago . . . there is a scene to visit? . . . visit the scene with you long-side me, I been here wondering if when I visit the scene of the crime . . . if, as I said, there is one? . . . if I see him in the scene, whether dead, be-Christ, or alive, if I couldn’t snap my fingers and make him disappear. Like in music and in witchcraft. Or like the movie I saw once at the Olympic Theatre in Town, where a woman who didn’t want the man who was following her, begging her for a piece, to continue humbugging her, all she did was fling some drops from a special vial she had in her purse, right in his face, and all over his body, and snap! he disappeared; from sight. Disappeared from off the face o’ the earth! Invisible. The movie in question was Gaslight.
“That is what I would like somebody to do to Mr. Bellfeels, and make my life easier, from having to write down a lotta evidence in a Statement I have to take from you; and hand-in to the Commissioner, first thing tomorrow, Monday morning . . .”
“And you haven’t taken down one word, Percy. Not a word.”
“I am derelick in my duties.”
“And I always wondered how you and other policemen go about questioning a suspect . . .”
“There ain’t no suspects, Mary-G. Excepting you, of course! But they ain’t no fecking suspects, to talk plain to you. They’s all crooks, and criminals. And guilty as shite! There aren’t no suspects. At least, not in my books. In all my years policing, I haven’t come-cross none. Not one man who, as a suspect, was not also consequently guilty.”
“But I always wondered how you could question a suspect, for hours and hours, in a room, with the door lock; and listen to the suspect’s evidence, and retain all this evidence in your little policeman notebook that have a elastic band round it, word-for-word, and without a knowledge of Pitman’s shorthand.”
“What I don’t remember I invents. Between me and you.”
“With a man’s life at stake?”
“We are train to have good memories.”
“Without Pitman’s Shorthand?”
“My brain is like a machine. Like a big piece o’ blotting paper, sucking up every word and phrase and sentence that a criminal utter when I ’vestigating him, with the door lock, and I stanning in front the door. And I don’t even worry no more, not at my age, to warn him ’bout his rights and all that shite ’bout what he say will be taken down, and used in evidence against him, and further bullshit like that, when the time comes. I don’t make no difference between a suspect, if they exist at all, and a criminal. One and one is two!”
“You did-ever learn Pitman’s Shorthand, at school? Or in Police Training School?” she says, sitting on the trash. “Sit-down here, with me. And talk.”
“Have I ever been in this field before, you asked me earlier?”
“I wanted to learn Pitman’s Shorthand, so bad, when I was a girl. But Ma, poor soul, couldn’t afford the sixpence-a-month for tuition. In those days, I wanted so bad to be a secretary. A private secretary. I read about a private secretary in a London Illustrated. To be a private secretary, dress in a grey woollen suit, with grey stockings, with a seam in the middle of the back of my two legs, and high-heel shoes, that black. And spectacles. A private secretary have to have-on spectacles; tortoiseshell spectacles. And to a person like the Solicitor-General. To keep his business private; and confidential. Not that I know what a private secretary have to do; further-less, what a Solicitor-General does-do. Even to be a secretary to a Plantation manager, then. It is just that the name sounds so good. Private Secretary!
“To sit at the desk in front my boss, and take down the most serious and confidential things; personal things, too, in letters he dictates. In my Pitman’s Shorthand. Circle-s, and hooks, and dots! I saw this in a book, Learning Pitman’s Shorthand, the Fast Way. Matters of serious business. Plantation business; mortgages; deeds; and rental of tenantries on the Plantation. Matters of importance. Matters of Law. I always had a weakness for the Law, for Wilberforce; and for my son that dead. Wilberforce couldn’t make up his mind between Law and Tropical Medicines. Law is the greatest thing, particular if you have a deep strong voice, like some of the English barsters-at-Law I see in the movies at the Empire Theatre, like in Witness for the Prosecution, starring James Mason. Something like a strict discipline, to remind you of your rightful place in this Island. The Law. But, nevertheless . . .
“I could see myself taking a letter, like this:
“Dear Mr. Bellfeels, The letter herewith addressed to you, Sir, in confidence, and without prejudice, is to inform you that we have been investigating certain instances relative to you, and sundry behaviours of yours, over the years . . .
“‘Over the years’? Or should we put a figure to the number of years and state how many years, in question?”
“State the number of years in question, and aforementioned . . .”
“. . . for the past several years, namely and to-wit, twenty-five years, and in your capacity as Manager of the Plantation that have the nomenclature of Flagstaff, to-wit, Flagstaff Plantation, it is my honour, Sir, and my duty in representing my clients, Sir, to inform you that Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda Paul, also known under the alias of Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda Bellfeels, and hereinafter referred to as Miss Paul, herewith and by these tidings wishes to inform you that the said Miss Paul, of the Parish of Sin-Michael, in the Tenantry of Flagstaff, an area of habitation butting and bounding . . . butting and bounding . . .
“Should we tell him what we are suing him for? Or let him find out when he is hauled into the Court of Grand Sessions?”
“Disclosures, Mary-Mathilda. The fundamental thing about English Law, which is not found to the same extent in Amurcan Law, is disclosures. Disclosures, Mary-G. It mean that yuh can’t blindfold a defendant’s defence, meaning, in other words, that the man himself that is charged, even though you catch him red-handed in the act, or with his pants down, in regards to being caught in the act of committing the act, to-wit, the crime . . . Even if um is murder, and in the first degree, and he tell you that he going kill she, therefore admitting premeditation, disclosures still have to be disclose to the defence.”
“Thanks.
‘We regret to inform you, Sir, that Miss Paul has taken actions against you, your person and persona, and your properties and your chattels, servants, maids, cooks and sundries, to-wit, she has evidence through disclosures, that you have committed the following unlawful acts and deeds . . .
“What acts and deeds we should charge him with?”
“Murder.”
“Murder?”
“Murder!”
“But he has to murder somebody first . . .”
“. . . figure out that later. And in the first degree! And ravishing, in the second degrees. Carnal Knowledge, in the third degrees. His misdeeds remind me of a story in the Latin textbook, The Rape of the Sabine Women.”
“But he didn’t commit . . .”
“Murder? And rape? We still going-charge him with murder, in the first degree; and ravishing, in the second degrees. Carnal Knowledge, in the third. If one fail, we got him on the next. We have to tighten the noose tight. He is a’ important man, a man with powerful contacts in this Island and overseas; a man of influence; and he could easily, through his friends like the Solicitor-General, like the Vicar, like the two leading barristers-at-Law in the Island, like the Dean, and like the Headmaster of Harr
ison College, he might— as easy as my snapping my fingers—wriggle-out from justice, by means of the privilege of those friends, and plea’ not guilty to murder in the first degree, and rape in the second degrees; and, consequently, cop a plea of guilty to a more lesser degree. Like insanity. Or unfit to stand trial, by virtue of. So, if we hit him in the first degree, with murder, and with rapinage, in the second degrees, and with Carnal Knowledge, with these three degrees, seeing that all we have in mind, regarding motive, and want, is to lock up the son-of-a-bitch—pardon my French, Miss Mary-Mathilda! If we can’t heng him!—Well, you understand? Or I have to state the obvious?”
“But it isn’t Mr. Bellfeels who has committed the murder!” she says.
“Who, then? You? You telling me that a season detective like me, a Crown-Sargeant in the Royal Constabulary of Bimshire, who passed out with the Baton of Honour, and who take special ’vestigative techniques and police strategy in questioning witnesses, plus a’ intensive course in the Island of Trinidad and Tobago, in the district of Toonapoona, you telling a big man like me that a lil woman like you—not referring to your natural self, real size or avoirdupois— but lil in the ways of influence, compared to Mr. Bellfeels, you telling me that a lil woman like you could commit this big crime, namely murder? And in the first degree? Jesus Christ, Mary-Mathilda, be serious with me now! I beseeching you. Who in this Village going-believe that a woman like you, could ever commit murder? And all jokes aside. Concerning you wanting to be a private secretary . . .
“There ain’t nothing you could say about your act, alleged; nor nothing that I could write-down in my report as your Statement, that will make anybody in this n’ighbourhood blame you, Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda, for carrying out such a’ act, allegedly . . . You’s a saint in the eyes of the people, even if your act, allegedly, is a’ act that break a Commandment. You know what a Commandment is, in terms of this matter? Lemme tell you, then. A Commandment is more important than the Law; a law in Comma-Law, or a statue passed in the Legislative Council of Bimshire that is then turn-into a Law? ‘Thou shalt not kill . . .’”
The Polished Hoe Page 39