Mr Peacock's Possessions

by Lydia Syson

  *

  I hear a noise like the cry of a stranger, a trapped animal, an unknown seabird. It is none of those things. Mrs Peacock’s heart has cracked, with a sound to shatter other hearts, and I know by this that her beautiful boy is come home.

  A moment later her ironwood strength returns and I watch her step out to meet the solemn procession as it descends, her husband at its helm. Pride stretches my jaw when I see the blank, serious faces of my fellow Islanders, and note how they bear themselves. Solomona has trained them to walk just so, heavy with dignity, heads high and eyes unwandering, just as Mr Reverend trained Solomona at his time of grief.

  The two parties meet. Mr and Mrs Peacock walk back together, a handspan apart. The girls fall in beside the litter. Ada bears the baby Joe, and Billy joins his sisters, taking the hand Lizzie stretches out to him. All but Gus look straight ahead, away from the shrouded, shrivelled load my fellows carry. When Gus reaches up a hand to pluck at the sheet, Queenie slaps her away, jerking her other arm with rare ferocity, springing tears.

  The procession – everyone but me – moves on. Albert is taken to rest in his parents’ hut.

  Nobody comes near. I have not been told why I am confined.

  Later, a little way off, beyond the taro patch, I hear the song of shovels, the stony slide of moving earth.

  36

  TOO LITTLE SPACE TO HOLD THIS SWELLING SADNESS. Albert’s bones lie in the hut which saw his brother’s birth a few months earlier, and the family kneels wordless around the bed. Staggered breathing surrounds Lizzie, corrugated inhalations and long, impossible sighs, everyone out of time. She remembers the first nights when they all slept in this hut, newly built on the hopeful side of the island, when the roof and walls were green and fresh, when all their bodies rose and fell as one.

  Now the walls have lost their colour. They rustle when the wind blows. Lizzie sees her father has faded too. His eyes have greyed to the dull grittiness of the beach at Clapperton Bay. He is grey all over, beard and clothes and bleached-out skin all merging, like a drawing of himself. When those eyes catch hers, Lizzie retreats. Her insides clamp. Her breathing stops. Her head is spreading again, just as Kalala has described, like a slowly expanding cloud. Feathers. Foam. Air. Nothingness. Her palms press against each other, her fingers lock – she might be praying, but she is holding on, her knuckles and nails whitening with the effort of staying anchored to herself.

  Different noises break up fragmented rushing thoughts. Hammering. Sawing. Distant thudding shovels – the kind which usually foretell a feast. Soon the lying wooden cross etched with Albert’s name will tell the truth, the marker which all this time has stood like fingers crossed behind a child’s back, a sign of something false, signalling only a vanishing.

  Her mind muddles. She crashes into blankness. Even moments just passed wash away from her. Her forehead furrows as she tries to piece together shards. Billy was sent to guard Kalala. Billy who every day steps more briskly into Albert’s empty place. But why? And where? And isn’t Billy here now, kneeling opposite Lizzie, with ash in the parting of his hair.

  Her head jerks back. Her thoughts are a mess of maggots, consuming her bit by bit. Each grub has a tiny voice, and it holds forth very quietly, almost undetectable; a ferocious, incessant, wayward confrontation. Still nobody has said anything about how her brother died. Of course not. She’s said nothing about his injuries herself. But someone’s seen them. They must have. And someone inflicted those injuries. Who is Lizzie protecting with her silence? Ada? Queenie? Her mother? Herself. Someone else.

  The maggots are hatching into blowflies, bumping against her skull. They murmur and buzz and whine inside, settling, slowly crawling, rubbing their front legs – washing or wringing their hands – then taking off into the air again just before she can squash them. She can’t hear what they’re saying. She can think of nothing but the truth Kalala told her the night before. Somebody killed Albert. Had he understood, as she had, that it could only have been one person? Another fly. Splat. Wasn’t it obvious to everyone? Surely, surely he would have to confess. Another crack. Everything would break. And then? Oh, go away, go away, she tells the addle-pating insects and their eyes and moaning wings. Bang. Bang. Again and again they hit against her thinking and send it skimming elsewhere. Could Albert go back underground and nobody ever see what killed him? Nobody but Pa and perhaps the Islanders, if he let them? Where is Kalala now? What is he thinking? What might he yet say?

  The humming in her head rises. Her fingers wrench apart. She has to show them. Everyone needs to know. And she must be certain too. Because her head feels so sick today she cannot trust it. Lizzie begins to rise, stiffly, joints creaking and clicking. Ada’s hand reaches out blindly to pull her back. Her mother mutters an uninterruptable prayer, begging for peace for her unhappy son, calling the dear Lord to take him to His bosom and to forgive his trespasses. The baby snuffles quietly. A stuttering sequence of amens follows. The digging stops. All at once the stillness is broken and all eyes are open, as Pa gestures his family to their feet. It’s time.

  Solomona waits at the door. He and Luka have patched together a coffin from a tea chest, the last of the treacherous boxes unloaded from the Good Intent. Stained and pecked and somewhat dented, it has outlasted Albert, and seen more of the world too. It is too wide and too short to contain her brother. His legs will have to bend. He will lie twisted. What will he rest on? The lid is down, and Solomona has scratched Albert’s name on it. Like Queenie, now that she can read, Lizzie looks for letters everywhere. Their brother’s name is harder to make out than the faded, stencilled letters on the box’s side, which spell out fragments: NCOLOURED, and beneath that JAPAN, and beneath that TEA.

  Lizzie puts her hands over her ears and squeezes shut her eyes as the thing is bundled into the coffin. He, she reminds herself. He is Albert. No thing. The flies inside her skull have set up their whining again. She thinks they may soon begin to bite.

  Nails are hammered in.

  Lizzie asks the flies what she should say, how she can stop this sealing up, but they only whine and buzz. She slaps at her head, and again Ada stills her.

  Outside is wincingly bright. The children take up the steady pace of earlier procession, led by Solomona, whose nervous hands juggle Bible and prayer book. Pa takes the front of the litter which now bears the coffin, and Luka – ill at ease – the rear. Then come Mrs Peacock and Baby Joe, Ada and Gussie, Queenie and Billy, and finally Lizzie, last because she hesitated. She has left it too late. She should have stopped them. Past the chickens, past the beans, past the taro beds, past the infant banana trees. The other Islanders lean exhausted on their shovels beside a mound of rich, fresh earth, straightening nervously when they see the coffin coming – one, two, three, but no Kalala. They back away to leave space at the graveside.

  Shocked and stiff, the wooden cross leans backwards against a tree. Something is wrong. Solomona’s horror is written on his face. No straps. No ropes. That is the way the next part should be done, like lowering a boat. Worse, he has mismeasured: his pacing was too short. He glances fearfully at Mr Peacock, who has also seen the problem and glowers.

  Vilipate is the first to jump back into the pit and start to shovel, messily, sweatily, and Iakopo soon joins him, and everything will be fine because in their nervousness, they dig too far, and make room enough for them both to stand and receive the coffin, and clamber out again, pushing and pulling at one another in their haste. Again they back away, and bow their heads.

  So everything is ready. It is time. Mrs Peacock pitches, and rights herself. Lizzie takes the baby and stands in the shade with him, swaying deliberately from foot to foot, rocking and hushing and soothing herself as much as little Joe. Her body is not hers. Nothing she can inhabit and nowhere to go. Kalala must have some answer, she thinks again. Looking for him, she sees only something like his shadow in the doorway of the hut, and her confusion increases. Why is he hiding there? She wants cause to doubt herself. She needs to
ask him what’s true. What’s memory. Has she dreamed Albert’s wound? Gus, staring and staring at the hole, where a worm twists and turns in sudden daylight, leans over so far that Ada has to tug her from the edge before she slides in after Albert.

  Solomona coughs and blinks.

  ‘Forasmuch …’ He repeats, ‘Forasmuch …’

  Mr Peacock, who has removed his hat and holds it by the brim, turning it thumb-to-thumb in his hands like a slowly moving wheel, answers with a nod, and the funeral service starts.

  Noise and pain grind into Lizzie’s head. She doesn’t notice when Ada takes the baby from her, as if she needs her own turn with the promise of life the child embodies. Even without that tiny burden, Lizzie still rocks from side to side, soothing only herself. The first handful of earth scatters on the thin, lead-lined lid, with the rattle of heavy rain on palm leaves. All night, all morning, she had anticipated confession and hoped for explanation, all the while torturing herself with thoughts of where this could lead. But it was clear at this moment that her father had chosen another, more unexpected path. And that, as always, it was one that he expected her to follow.

  37

  I HEAR THE ROPE SLAP AGAINST HIS PALM BEFORE I KNOW what its noise signifies, once, twice, and there is Mr Peacock at the door. On my feet already, I am ready for him. Eager, even, to forgive his trespasses against me. Until I see the rope spring taut between his hands. Then I know I have meddled with strife that does not belong to me. I have taken a dog by the ears when I should have passed him by.

  Fear curls my half-sprung limbs faster than flame shrivels a dry fern. I duck away – just like a guilty man – but Mr Peacock moves faster, and catches my arms behind me. Face down on the mat, the taste of flax in my mouth, I struggle as a sharp weight presses my back. Mr Peacock knees me hard while he binds my wrists and I writhe uselessly, unable to force my own knee under myself so I may rise and throw him off. I twist my head and shout for Solomona’s aid, just once, before I am shaken into silence. I am a pig trussed for slaughter, but I may not squeal, no matter how harsh my injuries or how deep my humiliation.

  ‘Your brother is praying for you,’ Mr Peacock tells me. ‘Wouldn’t hurt to do the same for yourself, but I don’t know how God will help you. Now, get up. Come with me.’

  He pulls me from behind up onto my feet.

  ‘Sir, listen to me, please. Sir?’ Despite fresh pain, I try to turn. ‘Sir, I have not touched your daughter. Not how you think. Only to carry her home. Has she not told you so? Will you not believe her, sir?’

  He shoves me in the back. I stagger forward, right myself before I fall, and try again.

  ‘I went to find Lizzie, not to hurt her. She must have told you so. Sir, please ask her.’

  ‘Get out of here.’

  ‘I saved your daughter. I saved her. I cannot hurt her. I would not harm her.’

  I don’t know how to make him listen. One voice cannot argue. So I stumble on, keeping up my protest.

  ‘Sir? What have I done? Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘Your confinement has nothing to do with Lizzie. As well you know.’

  So Solomona is much mistaken. We need more than patience now, more than prayers.

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, sir. No, Mr Peacock. I don’t.’

  ‘You know.’

  I look for answers in the blank, uncertain faces lined up to greet me – the Peacock family on one side, my fellows on the other. They also wait for revelation. But surely Solomona will not wait much longer? Surely my own brother will soon speak out to defend me? If not for my sake, then for the sake of truth and righteousness. With my eyes I try to remind him: he has two masters, one visible, one unseen, and their wishes may neither be the same, nor equal.

  And Lizzie? I cannot see her yet.

  On either side, swinging glances tell me where I am being taken, and why nobody dare hinder my progress. Passing his wife, Mr Peacock briefly stops to take the gun from her reluctant hands and, watched by every pair of eyes, he lays it across his shoulder. The other hand I feel hard at my back, pushing me away from the kitchen fire and the family’s sleeping huts, towards the single ironwood tree beside the storehut.

  This they have emptied out already. All tools, all wood, all chests now huddle beneath sailcloth beside the building. A split stake is driven into the middle of the floor, and I see he means to tie me to it while he secures his gaol house.

  Then Mr Peacock spins me round to face him. His hunting eyes are on me, glinting between beard and hat-brim, shining like the sweat that gleams and drips around them, unsteady with excitement. When all are close enough to hear his words, he scrubs his face with a darkening handkerchief, ready to speak. I see again how Mr Peacock always measures me. He eyes me up and down, like a vaka-maker before a tree he thinks to fell, considering me from top to toe. He plans to hollow me out, I believe, and soon I will know his chosen tools.

  ‘Kalala,’ he says. Stern, solid, sure of purpose. I sense the looming of others, feel the shuffle of feet approaching, hear the nervous throat noises. ‘I welcomed you here to work. I gave you a rare chance. You could be far away from here – with your cousins on more distant isles, learning how to curse, no better than a slave. I took you in.’

  Understanding is slow to dawn. I wait. We all wait.

  ‘We had a bargain. You have broken it, and your hands are soiled with the blood of my oldest son. If you confess it so, I am prepared to believe you worked alone, without your brothers’ knowledge. Can you deny that you surprised him by chance on the first day that we searched for him, and decided then that my fine boy stood in your path to possession of this island. Can you deny that it was then you seized your opportunity?’

  My head thunders, loud as surf. I do not understand the question. I want to write it down, to study its meaning, to take it apart again so I can make it clear. It knocks me sideways.

  ‘No!’

  ‘No?’ His look of triumph tells me I have misspoken. ‘You see. He confesses.’

  ‘Yes, I mean yes,’ I cry. ‘I can deny this. I am no murderer.’

  But when I speak again, my words are rattling stones pulled back by sea, foam that flies on wind.

  ‘You cannot change your tune,’ he says. ‘Too late. You have already admitted your guilt. At last we have the truth about Albert.’

  ‘No!’ I shout out my denial, and hear its echo in the voices of my fellows, Solomona, Luka, all the others.

  ‘Too late to gainsay now.’ His right hand rests lightly on the broad part of his gun. I cannot stop staring at his fingers, their ridged nails, the polished wood, the metal. Iron and steel and fear control us all. ‘What did you imagine?’ he continues. ‘That I would be fool enough to let you kill me too? That because I am alone, the only man on this island, I cannot protect myself and my family? You’re the fool.’

  A terrible coldness comes upon me, as when you swim underwater into a cave. He is right. He has fooled me, turned my words, turned the truth, so that now it is plain only to me. I look over to my fellows, hoping for help. Understanding only my fear and confusion, Luka, Vilipate, Pineki and Iakopo beg Solomona for explanations, and I see he does not know how to quiet them. He strains to hear his master’s words, to understand himself.

  Mr Peacock has no need to silence his wife or any one of his white-faced children. None dare move a muscle. Their stupefaction is complete. And Lizzie too, half hiding at the back? Surely she will speak? Surely she knows that a word from her could change everything? I call her name. Nothing. Lizzie says nothing and will not look at me. Then a chill deeper than I have ever known before shudders my limbs. I sense an overturning and eating away at all my innards. No spirits. Worse by far, more all-possessing, this is comprehension, dawning only with her silence. To save me, Lizzie must condemn her father.

  I stand as stunned and lifeless as the rest.

  ‘Have no fear.’ Our master speaks as from a pulpit. Each word a wound. ‘We are no longer in danger. I will pro
tect us from this murderer until the Esperanza returns (please God may it be soon). You know me well. I am a decent Englishman, no tyrant, and I will have justice served on my island. We will try and sentence this felon before an honest jury.’

  Then I have time. My limbs and tongue return to life and I shout out, again and again.

  ‘I am no murderer! I am no murderer! I am no murderer! And in God’s name, I am honest. He is lying.’ Yet even Bible-sworn, I know my word alone is worthless. This certainty, this understanding that the truth is unspeakable, binds me harder than the ropes around my wrist which Mr Peacock – this ‘decent’ Englishman – now seizes. He pushes me violently towards the stake. I raise my voice again to speak in our language. ‘Help me! Stop him.’

  Pineki, the first to answer my call, straightway throws himself to the ground in fear, for the gun now points his way.

  ‘You,’ says Mr Peacock, staring at all five of them. ‘It is time to prove your loyalty. All of you. Your next job is to help me complete this prison. You will make it sound, with ironwood bars that can’t be broken. Secure the walls likewise. Or you will find yourselves prisoners too.’

  38

  ‘COME AWAY, GIRLS,’ SAYS MRS PEACOCK QUICKLY. The unmilked goats have set up an insistent bleat. Caught between possibilities, Queenie doesn’t move. ‘Harriet!’ her mother says, more sharply, using her given name for the first time since they landed here. Queenie? Her daughters are all dethroned. This island has only one monarch.