“Repairs, a little paint, a few of my own things here and there.”
“And his books?” Vivian asked.
“I’m reading my way through them.”
“Was a time Jack share those books with Viv,” Finney said. “They talk and talk about history and literature.”
Els had imagined schoolteacher Vivian as upstanding, even priggish, and the notion that she and Jack had shared an intellectual friendship increased the intrigue about both of them. “So that was before your . . . foot.” Vivian’s forehead creased, and Els sensed another gaffe. “You must come and borrow anything you please,” she said.
Vivian flashed an eager smile at Eulia. “We just hit the jackpot.” She chuckled at the pun. “Eulia and Finney have already read me everything we have, more than once. There are few books to be had here besides the occasional Mills & Boon from the church jumble sales.”
Els cringed that Vivian might look down on the romance novels she found so comforting, but this gracious former teacher didn’t seem the type to discourage reading in any form. “What about the steps?” she asked.
“If Finney takes my one arm and Eulia the other, I think I could run right up to reach that treasure.” Vivian’s glance at Eulia had a pleading quality.
Peanut squirmed out of Eulia’s lap and crawled under Els’s chair. Eulia watched him, her lips compressed. “Let she help Daddy haul you up,” she said. “Doan need me.”
“You must come see what I’ve done to the place,” Els said. “Let’s go right now.” She looked at Eulia. “Would you help me move things about to make room in the boot for the wheelchair?”
A car roared past, throbbing music trailing it like a tail. Eulia glanced at Vivian, then clasped Peanut to her chest and stood up in one motion, a spring uncoiling, and handed the baby to Finney.
When she and Els reached the Jeep, she touched Els’s elbow. “He visit like they say?”
Els stowed a water jug and beach towel and squinted at a hen and three chicks that stopped pecking near the roadside to scatter, amid peeping and beating wings, for no apparent reason. “Why would he?” she asked.
Eulia looked toward the sea. “If is something he want, Jack never leave ’til he get it.”
“Any idea what that might be?”
“Guess you gotta ask that jumbie.”
While Els carried the fidgeting Peanut, Eulia struggled to push the chair across the court, its wheels digging deep grooves in the gravel.
“Help me up, Husband.” Vivian grasped the chair arms.
“You just hang on,” Finney said. “We gon’ roll you right up.” He backed the chair to the stairs, and he and Eulia pushed and hauled Vivian up. By the time they reached the gallery, sweat beaded his face.
Els swept open the door and Eulia maneuvered the chair over the sill. “Tell me what you see, Child,” Vivian said.
“Same leather chair, table, books everywhere,” Eulia said. “New cushions and pretty things all around. A clock over there, taller than me with sun and moon faces on it and gold hands, new strange pictures, and a paintin’ of an old lady in a big gold frame hangin’ by the stair. She looks vex.”
“Child!” Vivian said.
“My paternal grandmother,” Els said. “A warrior’s heart trapped in a woman’s body.” She handed Peanut to Vivian, popped open the secret door, and said, “Tour of the upstairs, anyone?”
“I goin’ keep Viv company,” Finney said. “You go ’long, gyull.” He put his hand on Vivian’s shoulder and she leaned her cheek against his forearm, making Els long for such tiny caresses.
“None a’ we got any business up there,” Eulia said, eyeing the nudes.
“Go on, Child,” Vivian said. “I want to hear everything you see.”
Eulia trailed Els up the stairs, past the study door and into the bedroom. Staring at the carved mahogany bed frame hung with voile curtains, she said, “You got youself a house inside a house.”
“That bed had tapestries woven with all the wild animals and flowers on the moors,” Els said. “As a child, I’d close them to shut out the world.”
“You gon’ need more dan curtains, if you wan be safe from that jumbie,” Eulia said. The cupboard door was ajar, admitting a view of Jack’s shirts. She stepped closer. “You just invitin’ trouble keepin’ he things.”
“I like their man smell.”
Eulia plucked at a sleeve, yellowed on the crease, and sniffed. “Get youself a live man for that.” She poked her toe at a pair of shoes stretched on Brooks Brothers shoe trees and green with mold. “He doan never put he feet inside, but he polish them every week.” She hugged her elbows. “These things pullin’ him,” she said. “You toss them out, maybe he leave you ’lone.”
“Never said he was bothering me.”
Eulia closed the cupboard and secured the latch.
In the bathroom, Eulia leaned out the new casement window that served as a door to the rebuilt shower platform, ran her hand along the rim of the tub, and fingered a monogrammed hand towel. “House doan look like a man place now.”
“I’d call it a draw,” Els said.
On the way back, Eulia stopped at the study door. “Jack doan like nobody in there,” she said. “He doan even let me dust.”
Els stepped inside, but Eulia leaned against the doorframe, her big eyes darting around the room. “He leave more than I thought,” she said. “The day before August Monday, he drink ’til he vex. Make a big fire in the court and burn up papers and pictures.” A faraway expression tinged with sadness came over her face. “He destroy lot a things.”
“I heard he could be a bit, well, crazy. Violent, even, especially when drunk.”
“He say nasty lies, burst bad words,” Eulia said. She dropped her eyes. “He say he can’t bear to look at me no more.” The case clock rattled into action. Eulia started. Three bongs rang through the house.
“How long did you do for Jack?” Els asked. “’Bout eighteen months.” Eulia walked to the desk and peered at the postcards and photographs tacked above it. She pulled off a snapshot of a Japanese woman on the Resort wharf, a blazing sunset behind her.
“That bonfire night was the last time you saw him?”
Eulia tossed the photo onto the desk. “No reason to come back.”
When fat raindrops began to splatter on the gallery and the lounge slipped into gray, Els lit all the lamps and served her guests iced tea and fingers of banana bread. She tried to answer Vivian’s questions about her former job, struggling to put the financial jargon into lay terms.
“Jason know all about fi-nance,” Eulia said.
“Iguana’s Jason?” Els said. “What could that smartass know about investment banking?”
“He loan Daddy money for his motor,” Eulia said.
Vivian looked at Finney, who was glaring at Eulia. “Did he now?” she said.
“Miss, you make this nice cake?” Finney said.
“Jamaican bakery,” Els said. “I’m clueless in the kitchen.”
Eulia’s lip twitched and she looked down at Peanut, asleep in her lap. Els mentally ticked through the skills that gave women status here, all of which she lacked: mothering, cooking, housekeeping, tending to neighbors, teaching. She was no good at praying, either.
After the rain, the garden steamed in the sun, releasing its fragrances. Els placed a sack of books into Vivian’s lap. Vivian clasped it and smiled. “Husband,” she said, “see if you can get me back down without shaking the teeth out of my head.”
Eulia put Peanut in the Jeep and went back to brace the front of the chair while Finney eased Vivian down. Finney’s flip-flop slid on the wet step and he sat down hard; the wheelchair lurched, the handle twisting out of his grip. The chair tipped and Vivian let out a cry. Eulia tried to steady the chair, but the weight was too much and it fell over, pinning her leg and spilling Vivian into the plantings below.
Els yanked the chair off Eulia. It bumped down the steps and crashed into Wilma’s fender. Peanut started
to wail. Els hurried to Vivian, who lay facedown in the muddy flower bed next to the new clump of heliconia. One of its lobster claw flowers dangled on a shredded stalk above her head. Vivian mumbled and pushed herself up a few inches, moaned, and sank back.
“Finney, call the ambulance,” Els said. “Eulia, bring a blanket.” She felt for Vivian’s pulse, which was steady but weak. Vivian’s right arm was caught beneath her. Els didn’t dare move her. “Can you talk, Vivian? Where does it hurt?”
“Hurts . . . to . . . breathe,” Vivian said, her eyes pinched shut.
Finney hobbled down the steps and knelt next to Vivian. “They comin’,” he said. Eulia slid a pillow under Vivian’s cheek and spread the blanket over her. Finney took Vivian’s hand. “My Beauty,” he whispered. “I just a weak old fool.”
Vivian opened her eyes. “Husband,” she said. “Don’t take blame for the rain.”
Eulia, her shin bleeding, sat on the bottom step rocking Peanut, who refused to be consoled. Finney squeezed Vivian’s hand and stroked her cheek. Els paced the court, unable to comfort herself.
When the ambulance finally swung into the drive, Els was amazed at how small it was, how spare of flashing lights.
The attendants examined Vivian with tender respect, and she yelped when they gently rolled her over. Finney watched their every move.
“Miss Els, meet Hamilton and Marcus,” Vivian said in a hoarse whisper. “Students of mine at one time. Boys, I hate to be such a trouble.”
“That what you get for tryin’ out for the Olympic wheelchair slalom, Miss Viv,” Hamilton said.
Vivian laughed, then moaned. “I was so happy, I thought I could fly,” she whispered.
The attendants loaded Vivian’s stretcher into the ambulance and Finney climbed in with her. He promised a full report before they shut the doors and sped off.
After the siren faded, Els darted a glance at Eulia. “This is all my stupid, bloody fault.”
“This is Jack’s fault,” Eulia said.
“How the hell d’ya figure that?” Els said. “Tempting her with Jack’s library was my idea.”
“We all just dancin’ ’round to his music,” Eulia said. “He must want something real bad, he got to knock Mamma down to get it.”
CHAPTER 25
Late the next afternoon, Finney appeared in the court with his fish bucket.
“Come cool off in here and tell me everything,” Els called to him from the kitchen.
He stepped inside and wiped his brow. “Viv crack two ribs and break her wrist,” he said. “Doc say rest got to heal her now. He suggest she go mend by her muddah, who got a big house in Gingerland, but Viv say she won’t never go there.”
“They fell out?”
“Nod to each other at church.” He dropped into the chair she offered. “Sometimes not even that. All ’cause a’ me.”
“Tea or beer?”
“Tea’s fine.”
“No drinking before sundown?”
“No drinkin’,” he said. “Cyan be dull-witted if Viv need something.”
She poured a glass for each of them and pushed the sugar bowl toward him. He dumped a heaping spoonful of the local brown sugar into his glass, where it formed a sludge at the bottom, and stirred until he seemed embarrassed by the clinking and took a sip.
“Doan keep sugar at home,” he said. “Not fair to tempt Viv.”
“You’ve given up a lot for her,” she said, and felt a twinge of longing for a love powerful enough to cause willing sacrifice.
“Viv been suffering on account a’ my romance impulse ever since we meet,” he said.
Els pulled a packet of Peek Freans biscuits from a tin, shook them onto a plate, and settled into her chair. “Tell me,” she said. “I could use a tale of impulsive romance.”
He took a jam tot. He told her he’d met Vivian on Anguilla, where he grew up fishing and building and racing boats and where she’d gotten a teaching job in The Valley after university. “Her girlfriends bring her to the Easter Monday races. She look like a tigress dressed up as a schoolmarm. I sweet her up a little and make her promise to come to a bashment after the races if we win,” he said. “We take second, but she go with me, anyway. Next thing you know, she pregnant with our son Tibby and we get married. Her mudda hate me the minute she rasp her eyes over me, and everything I do since only make it worse. I too black, too ignorant, too poor, too radical.”
“Politically?”
“Dyed into the bone secessionist,” he said, and took another biscuit. He explained that Britain had once lumped Anguilla into a territory with St. Kitts and Nevis, where St. Kitts made the rules and got most of the goods and kept Anguilla in such poverty that it still lacked paved roads in the 1960s. His father and uncle joined the revolution for Anguilla’s independence, and his father was jailed after a skirmish on St. Kitts. “When we finally prevail,” he said, “Anguilla Separation Day, 1980, was a big celebration day fuh my whole family. But by then, Viv and me already here, ’cause her father got the sugar, too, and ain’t doin’ so good, and she want to come home. Since then, I barely see Anguilla or any a’ my family.”
“You’re an exile too,” she said.
“You put Viv in this hand and Anguilla and all a’ dem in this hand,” he said, holding his palms like scales. “Not a contest.” He stirred his tea. “But now seems to me Nevis under Sinkits thumb as bad as Anguilla ever was.”
“A rabble-rouser,” she said. Like Mallo, she thought. Like I would have become. “You should stand for office, fight for change.”
“Was a time I enjoy stirring it up,” he said. “Back then, our house always full a’ my compatriots, drinking beer late into the night, plotting our campaigns, eating Vivian’s goat water and coconut cake. I back a guy who beat out Viv’s brother Eugene.” He took another jam biscuit. “That guy winnin’ ’gainst Eugene mean we mostly cut off from Viv’s people. Customers mysteriously start going away from me. I lose my boat buildin’ business. After that, I step away from politics ’cause we got babies to feed. Anyway, Anguillian fisherman like me what leave school by twelve cyan achieve no position of authority here.”
“From what I read in the papers, you’ve got more sense than anyone now in office.”
“Papers only good for wrappin’ fish,” he said. “Gorment and opposition each got they own, nothing objective.”
It was true that each publication was so partisan Els often wondered where the truth hung between them. As she studied Finney’s proud profile, she thought of the children she and Mallo might have had, despite her terror of motherhood. A bunch of red-haired hooligans. But Mallo would never have traded his political dreams for Scotland for the comfort or safety of his family, and she would have plunged into the fray, drawn as much by the force of his passion as her own.
“Viv put up with what we got, but she deserve more’n that damn shack we rent from her skinny-ass cousin,” Finney said. “Doc doan like her livin’ with water from a hose, doin’ her business in a bucket.” He flashed a smile and spun his spoon. “I got a plan,” he said. “With that boat, I coverin’ all a’ my financial obligations, some weeks even a bit over.” He watched the bananaquits darting from the mango tree to the plate of sugar on the patio table. “I got my eye on a house in Newcastle. Shaded gallery, real plumbing, pretty vine growing up.”
She thought of her introduction to the airport four months before and Sparrow’s excited expectations for the new field. “Newcastle’s nothing but a construction zone,” she said. “With all that dust, every blade of grass is as gray as cement.”
“Up Shaw’s Road they’s only a bit a’ dust and you got a nice view a’ the sea.” He reached toward the biscuits, reconsidered, and sipped his tea instead. “New airport’s just another gorment stupidness. Cyan make the airlines send planes just ’cause we got a place they can land. That Eugene claim he can buy his shiny new car because his earth shiftin’ business been good. He neglect to mention he negotiate the contracts for the airport and th
e new road, and it’s dat keep his machines goin’ solid for two years.”
She put the rest of the biscuits back into the packet and handed it to Finney. “Wrap your catch in that government rag over there,” she said. “We’ll get Eulia and go cheer Vivian up. But first, I want to show you something.”
At the restored chattel house, she joked about the carved wooden toad she’d placed in the privy and the hand-painted sign reading “Toad Hall” she’d hung over the cottage door. She showed off the new outdoor shower and deck connecting it all, and when she ushered Finney into the cottage and propped open the shutters, the golden light hit the easel and made her unfinished sunset painting glow.
“You got a fine paintin’ place,” he said.
“The studio’s finer than the painter.” She removed the canvas and leaned it against the wall. “What if you and Vivian stayed here, just until she recuperates?”
Finney took in the whitewashed walls, Jack’s brass bed strewn with bright pillows, the lemon suede chair from her London flat, jars bristling with paint brushes, paintings and sketches of flowers, leaves, shells, and monkeys. “These pretty,” he said. He put the sunset canvas back on the easel. “Thanks all the same.”
“I could move all this to the study in five minutes.”
“We doing okay.”
“If it’s a battle of pride we’re in,” she said, “I warn ye, I come well armed.”
Vivian shared a ward with a very pregnant teen and a crone who was curled up facing the wall. Her casted arm, resting across her stomach, rose and fell with her shallow breathing. Her hair made a salt-and-pepper halo on the pillow. At Finney’s “Hello, My Beauty,” she looked toward the door and greeted his false heartiness with a wan smile.
“Back so soon?” She tilted her chin to accept his kiss.
“Els had to see for herself you ain’t dead,” he said.
“Help me up a bit,” she said.
Finney eased her forward while Eulia wedged pillows behind her. Vivian settled back with a wince. She looked shrunken, her face the color of putty.
The Moon Always Rising Page 17