“Start by agreeing to pay attention.” He was staring over her shoulder at the upstairs windows.
She followed his gaze. His clues were in there somewhere. The moon bathed the facade in blue light.
“All right, Jack,” she said. “I’ll pay very, very careful attention.”
He ambled down the drive and seemed to step right into the moon and disappear.
CHAPTER 23
The government water had been intermittent for a week, and when she had a strong flow for the first time in days, she hurried to try out the rebuilt platform shower. Her concept of luxury kept redefining itself and now included warm showers on demand and feeling truly clean. Her list of wonders was expanding too. When she rinsed, the low sun drew rainbows in the droplets bouncing off her shoulders.
A man called from the court, and she swore and retreated behind the shower’s lattice screen. She climbed back through the window and kept an eye on the drive while she dressed, but there was no sign of his departure. When she went to the front door—barefoot, her linen shift clinging to her back—he was sitting on the gallery railing.
“Capital shower, isn’t it,” he said. His smile was mischievous. “Not to mention the view. No doubt you’ve noticed that it waters the ferns underneath.”
“And just how would you know all that?” she asked, tugging at her dress.
He pulled off his cap. He was ash blond, bearded, gray-eyed, and weathered. Mid-fifties, she guessed. In the photo of Jack and the two other men holding the mahi-mahi, he was the one on the left with the boyish grin.
“Julian Crawford,” he said. “Better known as Boney. I’m—was—a mate of Jack’s. Enjoyed that shower many a time.” He looked down, crumpled the crown of his cap, and shook it out again.
His words tumbled out in a rush. “I helped Jack board up the place. I’ve been on a boat out of St. Martin, and this is the first time I’ve been able to get to Nevis since he . . . .” He looked out to sea. “I just reconnected with the old Oualie gang, and none of us had a proper goodbye with old Jack, and we heard someone was fixing up the place, so I volunteered to scout it out.”
She crossed her arms and waited. His smile was disarming.
“It’d mean a lot to us to come up for the sunset, like old times, if it’s not too much of an imposition. They’re down there waiting for my signal.”
“Who’s in the old gang?”
“The boys from Iguana,” he said. “Maybe you know her or them.”
“They’ve been away since before New Year’s.”
“Came in this afternoon,” he said. She wondered how she’d missed that huge sail.
A lorry accelerated around the curve, shifted gears, and roared toward Charlestown. Els stood up straighter. “Go tell them to come up,” she said.
“I’ll just fire off Bessie,” he said. “The cannon that belongs on this pedestal. I’m relieved to see she’s still here.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” she said. “I only kept that old thing for its decorative charm.”
“Decorative,” he said. “Sacrilege. Jack shot off the old girl whenever he was in an entertaining mood. We could hear her at Oualie and come up for a drink. Or several.”
“Why couldn’t he just use the telephone?”
“He never got ship-to-shore. Besides, it was the ritual of the thing.” He smiled again, a pleading, little boy look. He glanced toward the sea where the sun was beginning its descent. “I could have her set up in a jiffy.”
Except for Jack, her only visitors so far had been Finney, Tony, Lauretta, the workmen, and that mysterious black man who worked in the garden. While she explored the island methodically by day, she became reclusive at night, taking her first drink at sunset, picking at whatever food was about, and reading her way through Jack’s papers and eclectic library. Time and again, she’d found herself ruminating about the exile she and Jack had chosen, both of them blustering through life, both nursing corrosive anger and guilt. The salve he found in the embrace of women. Her retreat into the embrace of memory. Even though she never passed the harbor at Oualie or Charlestown without looking for Iguana, she’d burrowed so far into herself that the prospect of company, Liz most of all, felt like an invasion. Her chest began to constrict, tiny stitches threatening to bind her as tight as a pearl on silk. She took a deep breath, forcing her ribs outward, giving her heart space.
“Okay,” she said. “Only if you promise not to blow up the place.”
“Hot damn,” Boney said, and ran down to the court.
The struggle to remove the cannon from the alcove under the steps and reposition it on the pedestal left him red-faced. The sun appeared to gain speed in its dive toward the horizon. He hurried back to her. “Is the powder where Jack always kept it?”
“No clue,” she said.
He went into the house; his flip-flops slapped on the kitchen steps. He returned breathless, holding yellowed newspaper and two Mason jars with rusted lids, one containing about two centimeters of black powder, the other kitchen matches.
He blew into the breach, poured in some powder, balled up a wad of newspaper, rammed it into the barrel, and stuck in a fuse. Waving her back, he arranged a small bundle of matches and, glancing at the sea, struck them, cupped the flame, and touched off the fuse. “Here you go, mates,” he said. “Three, two, one.” The cannon boomed, belched smoke, and recoiled almost off the pedestal.
Els cried out and fanned away the smoke.
Boney’s eyes were full of merriment and anticipation. “Bet Jack left some Cavalier around. Let’s crack it open while we wait for them,” he said. “You live here long enough, you’ll drink it like all the locals. A little ice and lime would be just the thing.”
Rum would be just the thing to combat her rising jitters. She hurried upstairs and changed into a tank dress, slinkier than the linen shift but not too revealing, its dusky blue a good pairing with her eyes and the bead necklace, which she now wore most of the time. When she returned to the gallery, Boney had gathered glasses, rum, ice, and some of the limes she’d collected that morning and was sitting in one of two chairs he’d pulled close to the railing with his bare feet propped up on it.
“Make yourself right at home,” she said, but her irony was lost on him.
He dropped two cubes into his glass, poured rum until they floated, then a little more, squeezed lime into it, and tossed the rind over the railing.
He raised his glass and waited while she splashed rum into hers. “To Jack,” he said, “ecstasy in small things, and excess whenever possible.” He sipped his drink. “This was his favorite part of the day,” he said. “A big rum at sunset and a package of pork rinds was his idea of heaven.”
She grimaced.
“Don’t knock it,” he said. “Those little morsels sustained Jack—many of us, actually—on more than one occasion. Got any around?”
“Nor much of anything else,” she said. She sipped, the ice cold against her lip, the rum warm in her throat.
“If you wanted to eat well in this house, you brought the grub yourself,” he said.
“Jack wasn’t much of a host, then.”
“None finer,” he said. He poked his ice cubes and watched them bob. “Near the end, he drank his meals unless someone put decent food under his nose, and sometimes even then . . . .” He squinted at the sea, took a long swig of his rum, and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand.
Boney started to tell her the history of the house, but she put up a hand. “I’ve read all about that planter from the dry side, building this house for his mistress. Jack wrote pages about fiery Sophia, the lover of sunsets.”
“He had a serious crush on her,” Boney said. “That she died a hundred fifty years before he was born didn’t faze him one bit.”
He told her Jack had been as kookily inventive as he was handy, cobbling together the original shower platform and figuring out how to divert some of the torrents in the ghaut to a cistern under the chattel house and run piping from there around t
he garden. “How the hell else could he have so many friggin’ plants?” he said.
“I’m on the government water now,” she said.
Boney gaped at her. “And be at the mercy of the powers that be, or wannabe? Jack had reasons beyond pure cussedness to be keen on self-sufficiency.”
When the gate rattled, Boney jumped up and waved his arms, and a pickup truck with a sun-seared paint job rolled up the hill. He vaulted the gallery railing—right into the newly planted birds of paradise below. “Who put these fucking things here?” he asked.
“A very expensive landscaper.” Els scowled down at the smashed plants.
“Just think of it as pruning.” Boney thrashed through the bed toward the truck, scattering leaves onto the court as he went.
Liz climbed out of the passenger seat, looked up at Els, and gave her a surprised grin, his eyes the color of the sea.
Jason uncoiled himself from behind the wheel. “When we hear that cannon,” he said, “we want to believe old times have come back again.” His laugh flowed through his sinewy body. He was wearing his sunglasses and crocheted hat.
“Sadly, no,” Boney said. “Step up, lads, and meet our hostess. She says her name is Els, whatever kind of name that is.”
Liz twisted the broken stems off the birds of paradise and carried the flowers up the steps. “I heard a crazy Brit bought the house, even camped out here during Lenny,” he said. “Jason said he saw you at Christmas, but I never put it together.”
She went to the top of the steps; he remained standing on the one below. “Your father?”
“Died Christmas Eve,” Liz said. “Had a stroke a week before and never spoke again.”
She touched his arm. “It’s hard.”
“He was hard,” he said. “Mister Big Shot CEO.”
She removed her hand.
“I see introductions are superfluous,” Boney said.
Jason leaned against the truck, watching them.
Liz handed her the flowers and reached up to touch the blue bead. “It worked,” he said.
She caught his salty, soapy smell. “What did?”
Boney climbed up behind Liz, squinted at the bead, and pulled his beard. “That can’t be the same one,” he said. “I thought you’d never part with it.” He looked searchingly at Els.
“What worked?” Els said, cradling the bouquet. The spiky flowers scratched her bare arm.
“Quit the palaver, or the sun will go to bed without us.” Boney stepped around them and hurried to the cannon.
“I suppose you need Bessie to tuck the sun in too,” Els said.
“Part of the ritual,” he called over his shoulder.
While Liz and Boney prepared the cannon, Jason stood in the court looking toward St. Kitts. Els retreated to the doorway. Boney went through his countdown, and the cannon boomed just after the sun winked green on the rim of the world. In silence, they all watched the sunken sun’s rays gild the wisps of cloud.
Jack stepped to the railing, smiled at the sunset, and nodded at Els. The men gave no sign of seeing him, but Els cried out in surprise, and when Liz looked at her, Jack bowed and disappeared behind the hibiscus. She avoided Liz’s gaze, pretending to be entranced by the sunset.
“Got dinner plans?” he asked.
“A doggie bag from Unella’s.”
“Barrett Cobb let us raid his provisions,” he said. “We were heading to Jason’s house, assuming the new owner here would kick our asses out after five minutes.”
“A fair assumption,” she said.
“Let us make you dinner,” he said. “As a welcome. And in honor of our friendship with Jack.”
The rum had nudged her from apprehensive toward what-the-hell, but she wondered if being receptive to Jack also meant uncorking a stream of his erstwhile pals. She opened the door and gestured the men inside.
Jason, his expression still unreadable, lifted a cooler out of the truck, stacked two six-packs of Red Stripe on top, and strode toward the kitchen door.
“I take it you know where everything is too,” she said.
He kept walking toward the patio. She stepped into the lounge and let the screen slam.
Anger pricked her—a flash of distant lightning—and she wondered why Jason, with whom she’d exchanged only a few words, should exude such annoying disapproval when Liz, to whom she’d been bitchy and ungrateful, should take her in his amused stride.
Liz took in the lounge and its celadon ceiling. “Unusual color.”
“The inside of limpet shells,” she said.
He examined her mother’s harbor scene near the door and the Basquiat over the refectory table. “The whole place is part Jack, part revelation.”
“Am I to take that as a compliment, Captain?”
“If you’ll accept one.”
Boney stepped over to the wall that hid the staircase and examined the six black-and-white blowups in museum frames she’d hung on it. “What are these weird pho-tos?”
“Nudes,” she said. “I found the negatives upstairs.”
“I’d have guessed sand dunes in the desert,” he said. “You can’t hardly tell they’re of a lady, much less the sweetest part of one.” He traced a line. “That’s an elbow all right, and there’s a boobie.”
“No drooling, Bones,” Liz said, elbowing him as he started down the kitchen steps. He stopped to inspect The Beatrice. “A relative?”
“And a role model,” Els said.
“I wouldn’t want to tangle with her.”
“People say that about me too.”
“They’re right.”
The aroma of frying onions and potatoes welcomed them to the kitchen, where Jason, wearing a faded orange New York Mets tank top, was chunking tomatoes and tossing them into a bowl.
“A chef too,” she said.
“Unless you plan to eat only junk, you learn to cook,” Jason said.
“What makes you think I eat junk?”
“Nothin’ here but junk.”
“So you’ve rummaged in the cupboards.”
“At least you got salt,” he said.
Liz shot Jason a glance and dumped red snappers from the cooler into the sink. Oversized black eyes stared.
“She doesn’t seem crazy to me,” Boney said.
Jason waved the tip of his knife toward Els. “She mad but she no crazy,” he said. “Ambition bury her passion.” He pronounced it “ahm-bee-shun” and “pah-shun.” He cubed slices of baguette and scattered the pieces over the tomatoes.
“That’s one hell of a pronouncement,” Els said. “Based on a few hours of eavesdropping on your precious sailboat.” She stuck the flowers into a vase and plunked it on the table.
Liz picked up the knife Jason had been using and glanced from Jason to Els.
“You forgetting our evening at Sunshine’s,” Jason said. He sprinkled salt and pepper onto the salad and flipped the bowl with a practiced hand.
“Where you were conspicuously silent,” she said. “Is that your game, Jason? Hiding behind those sunglasses and passing judgment on everyone you meet?”
“Something Jason say hit a nerve,” he said. He tore basil leaves into the bowl, releasing their peppery anise fragrance. “Angry? Ambitious? Repressed? All a’ dem?” He scooped the tomato cores into his hand and tossed them out the door.
“Why don’t you just settle for ‘bitch,’ like your partner?” Els snapped.
Liz looked down.
“If the shoe fit,” Jason said.
“Mates, mates,” Boney said. “We’re celebrating here.” He handed rums around.
Liz raised his glass. “To unburied passion.” He swallowed half his rum, put the glass on the drainboard, and began cleaning the fish, using the back of the knife as a scaler. When he was finished, iridescent scales clogged the drain.
Els took her drink out to the patio, where she sat in the shadows and watched the men through the window. The aroma of the onions and potatoes and the men’s easy camaraderie tripped her hunger,
as much for a shared meal as the food.
The house filled with music—Latin, insinuating, sexy, nothing she recognized. Liz sashayed onto the patio with a platter piled with fish and his rum.
“Are you the self-appointed DJ?” she asked.
“Bachata,” he said. “Got it in La Romana.” He put the platter on the table. Holding an imaginary partner, he mimed a hip grind. “Great dance music.” He picked through the pile of construction scraps and built a fire in one end of the long grill. While he tended it, he swayed to the beat and sang phrases in Spanish.
“When Jack was alive, did you guys just take over the place at will?”
“He had an open door, loved company at any hour.”
“Well, that’s over,” she said.
The music shifted to slow and sinuous, with a weeping trumpet over the steady beat. Liz spread the fire and arranged the fish. Embers flared when the drippings hit them. Inside, Boney’s voice rose and fell, punctuated occasionally by a rumbling comment from Jason. Insect ticking and chirping filled the night. Els had finished her rum. Everything was pulsing.
“Tell me about this bead,” she said, running it back and forth on its chain.
“Statia is what we call Sint Eustatius, which is over there near Saba on the other side of St. Kitts.”
“I know where Statia is. Jack left books on every subject.”
“So did you also read that Statia was once an important Dutch trading port?” He reached for his glass and brushed her arm when he set it back down. “The blue beads were used to buy slaves.” He slid a spatula under the fish and flipped it. Boney was laughing and shouting Jack’s name. Liz chuckled. “There’ll be no stopping him now.” He poked the fish and licked his finger. “The beads were also used to pay free slaves for their labor. A free man could buy his wife out of slavery if he saved up enough beads to go around her waist.”
She gathered her dress to her waist. “A lot of beads,” she said, “even for a slender wife.”
He flicked his eyes over her. “And a lot of labor for each bead. After emancipation, the slaves threw the beads into the sea. They’re as rare as doubloons now, but sometimes show up after storms. I found that one about twelve years ago when I was diving with . . . a friend.” He gestured for her to hold the platter. She picked it up, and after he lifted the fish onto it, he squeezed lime over them and tossed the rinds into the garden. “The legend goes that if you find a blue bead of Statia, you will return.”
The Moon Always Rising Page 15