Sugar Money

by Jane Harris

  Furthermore – as it swiftly began to dawn upon me – he had been present for our every conversation since the previous day. He must have eavesdrop on our petty disputes; would have noted the names we called him; had surely listen to our discussion about runaway slaves and would most certainly have heard my hot-headed proposal to sling him overboard.

  ‘Well may you look surprised,’ said he. ‘Father Cléophas cooked up this jape of me being a dummie so that I might fish out if you half-breeds have the good sense and obedience to carry out your orders. Seems you made the right decision. Very wise – though you can forget about running for the mountains if you take fright. They have dogs and men here would find you quick enough and – fear not – I’ll tell them where to look.’

  I hardly dare to glance at Emile. The Béké kept talking without pause:

  ‘And if I were you, I wouldn’t be handing myself over to the authority here. What are you – a couple of chickens? Would you pluck yourselves and lie down in the oven? I’m an Englishman myself and take my word – you boys are better off with your monks back in Martinique than you would be here under English rule. Voo comprendee?’

  Well, I was speechless as a statue, but my brother did manage a nod in response.

  ‘Boys, I might try to find a bed up at that estate on the hill but I’ll be hereabouts, somewheres, if you need me. My name is White – Mr Theobald White. Now, alley veet, before those redcoats wander down here to poke their nose into my business – which they will do, shortly, I assure you. I’ll tell them some balderdash and send them packing.’ He glanced at the sky. ‘You have about three hours until sunset. Should give you enough time to find your way to town before dark.’

  His entire demeanour had utterly transform. Gone was the toe-nail-rooting, tooth-prodding dummie, replace by a man with a deal better polish and infinite more wiles. No wonder I had often felt uneasy beneath his gaze.

  ‘Incidentally, boy,’ he continued, to my brother, ‘that was a rather cunning ruse, when you called out, pretending to have a knife – to test if I was deaf or not. Very clever.’

  Emile gazed at him, unsmiling.

  ‘Please you, master,’ he said. ‘Not clever enough, for true.’

  ‘Ah well, I have an instinct for such matters,’ said White. ‘A man with murder on his mind does not usually announce his intentions. In most cases, the first thing you know about a knife is the pressure of the blade as it slices through your windpipe.’

  The look in his eye made me suppute that he had done some windpipe-slicing his own self. Emile regarded him, now somethingish wary.

  The Béké wagged his cutlass, shooing us toward the trees beyond the creek.

  ‘Alley-alley,’ said he. ‘If you go now you can be there by tonight. Cléophas wants you to stay out of sight if you can, so avoid the road and any plantations you pass en route.’ He pointed at the hill that sloped up from the bay. ‘Cross the road up there when it’s quiet and cut across the headland. Keep the coast in view and you won’t get lost.’

  ‘Thank you, master, sir,’ my brother said.

  ‘One other thing: watch out for that Scotch overseer at the plantation – Addison Bell. You might be accustom to a different cut of fellow, with those French fribblers of yours. Now, Addison Bell – you would be disappointed to fall into his hands, believe me, especially when he has drink taken. I have heard that he is a notorious drunkard.’

  He closed one bloodshot eye and leered at us out of the other.

  ‘Thank you for the advice, master,’ Emile replied, without a flicker. ‘Please you, sir – will you be here when Father Cléophas brings the other boat?’

  ‘All being well, my boy,’ said White, with a grin. ‘I’ll be lending a hand.’

  Just then, a drop of water splash my face. I glanced up. Unnotice by us, a cloud had come creeping over. Raindrops began to spatter the sand. My brother gave a sigh as he contemplated the Englishman. I knew what was going through his mind.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said Emile. ‘But – lapli – it’s raining.’

  ‘Hah!’ scoffed White. ‘Scared of a little shower?’ He laughed.

  ‘What are you, a muff? You and your parly-voo. Cléophas told me you were fearless.’

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ said Emile. ‘Pa ni pwoblèm. Only – if it please you, master – it might be for the best, pray, sir, if you found shelter elsewhere.’

  ‘I’m quite happy here, thank you.’

  ‘Quite so, master. It is a good spot. But, beg pardon, you may notice that this tree right behind you is a Manchineel …’

  With a great oath, White sprang to his feet and – snatching up his hat and rum – took several leaping steps across the sand, shuddering head to toe and uttering cries of revulsion much as though he had fallen into a stinky nest of cockroach. It was all I could do to keep a straight face. Emile pressed his lips together and raised his brow, such that he might not lose countenance. From a safe distance, the Englishman hurled a piece of driftwood at the Manchineel. Then, he glowered at the trees until he found a plain old seagrape and settle himself down in its shade.

  ‘Alley-alley, veet,’ he urged us, in his clumsy lingo. ‘Lez sodias arreevee.’

  Indeed, he was right. As Emile and I set off, southward bound, I glanced over my shoulder and made out on the far side of the cove three bright crimson shapes flickering in and out of view behind the trees: a trio of English soldiers in red jackets, descending from the point. They were heading for the narrow stretch of sand where Bianco – or White, as we must now call him – sat quaffing rum, awaiting their arrival. I scuddled after my brother, across the muddy creek and up out of the bay. We climb toward the road in silence, both of us perturb by how gullible we had been, after all, and by the revelation that the Englishman had eavesdrop on our discussions, such that we were reluctant to talk long after he was out of sight, lest he might somehow overhear.

  PART THREE

  Grenada (FIRST DAY)

  Chapter Fourteen

  This was a rough part of the island, inhospitable for cultivation: all steep foothills, their spines descending to the sea, and scraggy woodland of black sage, dogwood and blackthorn. We soon found the coastal highway – the Chemin de Gouyave or Gouyave Road – and were about to cross inland to deeper forest when Emile drag me back into the undergrowth. Moments later, a porteuse came around the bend, northward bound, swaying along with a springy step; black as a black-bone hen; her feet bare and on her head a trait of produce well wrap against the rain. I was simple-hearted enough then to believe we would be acquainted with all those we might encounter in Grenada and it came as a blow to realise I did not know her face. She move so fast, she pass before our eyes like a leaf on the breeze. Splish-splash, she went, through the shallow muddy river where it bisect the road. Then she turn the corner and was gone.

  Nobody else in sight, we scuddle like a pair of zaggada across the highway and into the forest. There, somewise inland, we found an overgrown goat track, little used, but it seem to lead south, across several steep ridges that rose toward the mountains of the interior. A forest trail can be treacherous in the wet but the rain that day was no more than a shower and the foliage above us made a fair umbrella. Emile went first, keeping an eye out for prickly plant and other hazard. The ground lay thick with debris – dead leaves and vine, shards of bark and rotting orchid – and the underbrush kept catching at our legs. Everywhere rose the scent of decay like earth newly upturned or mould; and always, in the near distance, to the west, the boom of the breakers. Soon I could see nothing overhead but gigantic trees and the lurid greenish light of the forest.

  All this while, devil the word we spoke but presently, my brother came to a halt in the shelter of a large, leafy tree, where the ground mostly dry. He prop himself up among the roots, glancing around to check we were alone, and when I caught up with him he open the satchel and took out the Power of Attorney. The seal had been broken already; Cléophas had simply folded the document and bound it with an old leather cord
. Emile loose the knot and unfurl the parchment before handing it to me. Straightways, my eyes were drawn to the foot of the page. I could make out five different signature, one below the other. With so many, perchance this might mean that the English Governor could be among them.

  ‘Five name,’ I told Emile.

  ‘Who are they?’

  The first signature comprised a lengthy appellation in a round and sweeping hand, simple enough to read. I began to spell it out:

  ‘V – I – C – T – O … Victor—’

  My brother interrupted before I could cipher the whole name:

  ‘Victor-Thérèse Charpentier, Comte d’Ennery –?’

  ‘… That’s right.’

  ‘Like Cléophas said: Governor of Martinique. Who’s there next?’

  ‘P – É – R – E … Père—’

  ‘That will be Lefébure. Go on.’

  Though I squinted at the writing on the page, the next hand was only a scrawl and I could make neither head nor tail of it. I shook my head.

  ‘It’s too ill-written.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Emile. ‘What about the next one?’

  But again, the scribble-scrabble on the page made no sense.

  ‘I can’t read it,’ I said.

  ‘What about the last?’

  The final signature had been inked in a backward-sloping scrawl. It took me a short while to make out the name.

  ‘P – I – E – R – Pierre. E – M – E – R – I – G … Pierre Emerigon.’

  ‘That’s the lawyer,’ said Emile. ‘Cléophas mentioned him – the notary that drew up the document. Those ones you can’t read – could either of them be Robert Melville? He is the English Governor here.’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘Check again.’

  I peered at the names once more then shook my head.

  ‘The writing is too bad.’

  My brother just stood there, staring at the ground between us. At our feet lay a fallen branch, swarming with ant, a thousand tiny dark speck, busy-busy.

  All at once, I heard a quick, stealthy scurry, close at hand among the fern. I wheeled around and peered at the bushes.

  ‘Just a bird,’ said Emile. ‘No need to worry – that old English mackerel won’t follow us. He’s back there laughing into his jug. Reckons we’re a couple of bufflehead. He might well be right.’ With a sigh, he folded the parchment and returned it to the satchel. ‘Well, at least it’s sign by the Governor of Martinique. That ought to be worth something, if we wind up in the suds. We’ll just have to get someone to read it properly and tell us what it says.’

  I had hoped he might be impress by my ability to spell – since he had nary knowledge of letters himself – but no praise was forthcoming. He simply patted me on the shoulder, saying: ‘You just need more practice.’ Then: ‘Annou alé – let’s go, bug. We would do better not to be stumbling around here in the dark.’

  With that, he clambered out of the tree root and we set off again toward Fort Royal. Every so often, as we laboured along, Emile would pause and listen to the forest. I listen too but the only sounds I could hear were the distant waves, water drip-dripping from the leaves and, once in a while, birdsong: the long, sad note of a dove, forever asking: ‘Who? – Who? – Who?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The overgrown path coiled on and on through the forest – an everlasting green tunnel. In places, the ground slope steep as a ladder and every otherwhile we had to haul ourselves up the track with the assistance of roots and branches. Like rigging strung from mast to mast, giant creepers bound each-every tree trunk to its neighbour. As we crested the spine of another ridge and began to descend the other side, the rain eased off, then stop altogether. Bright light burst through the foliage overhead and presently steam began to rise up all around us. From certain vantage point we could glimpse the ocean – blue-black in this light, the sun a silver disc in slow descent toward the horizon – and, between the trees, the Chemin de Gouyave, somewhiles visible. Not much of a thoroughfare, for true; at times no more than a wide beaten path along the cliff-edge, and the cause of much complaint among settlers since whole sections of this coastal highway were forever crumbling into the sea.

  Presently, we found ourselves at the skirt of the wood, overlooking a river valley. Here, the land had been clear to some extent to make way for cultivation. The river flowed wide and deep on its approach to the coast hence the Gouyave Road veered about half a mile inland where the water ran shallow enough for to cross. On the other side of the ford, a lane quitted the highway and snaked up a hill toward a large plantation house. Two Béké settler on horseback had stop near the ford to converse whiles half a dozen porteuses strode along the highway in both directions and far off, in a bend of the river, a team of slave were clearing a patch of land. In order to avoid the house and the open ground we would have to stay in the forest and make our way inland for quite a stretch, then cross the river far behind the estate, in the hills, keeping under cover of the trees all the while.

  Emile hesitated, staring at the plantation house.

  ‘Beausejour,’ said he.

  Never once had I been in that part of the island but I had heard of the Beausejour Estate. When I was four years old or thereabouts, Céleste had been hired out to look after newborn twins at the Beausejour house until a proper nursemaid could be sent from La Fwance. Back then, I felt closer to Céleste in some ways than I did to Emile. He spent his days toiling over at the surgeon growing ground whereas Céleste stayed around the hospital and quarters, ergo I pass more time in her company. I thought of her as my wise older sister, perhaps even a mother. Sometimes, the sight of her gave me a strange sensation inside, as though I was made of wax that grew so hot it had begun to melt. She had eyes as jet-black as her curls and her flesh shone dark and glossy like a melongene. For true, her large features and dusky skin meant she was never seen by most as the prettiest girl on the hospital estate. Nevertheless, she had the most wit and kindness which is why she made such a good nurse. Her voice would make you think of honey, the way it flowed and rose and fell, a little catch in it sometimes as though she was about to laugh or cry. And when she did laugh, you could see her tongue, pale pink, and her teeth, so white, against her skin.

  Of course, I was inconsolable when they sent her to Beausejour. Emile was allowed visit her there on Saturday night, if he could persuade Father Prudence to give him a ticket, but being only small, I was not permitted to go with him. One Saturday, I did follow him down to the river after he finish work and caught up with him at the ferry but as soon as he saw me trundling along behind him, he pick me up and carried me back to the quarters. There, he gave me to Angélique Le Vieux, the laundrywoman, and she put me in her cabin then sat against the doorflaps and though I kicked at them and howled and pounded, she held me prisoner inside and only release me after dark, when Emile had long gone.

  Once the new nursemaid arrive from France, Céleste return to us at the hospital. She had only been gone a few month, but to me it felt like the course of ages. When she got back, she told me that she had lived inside the plantation house itself, next to the nursery. Her room had a huge window that looked out toward the ocean and she slept in a real bed with a mattress and sheets.

  Curious now to see Beausejour at last, I took a good look at all the windows.

  ‘Which room did Céleste sleep in?’ I asked Emile, but got no reply.

  To my surprise, he had wandered off and begun to make a pile of short fallen branches. He pointed to some twig on the forest floor.

  ‘Gather up those stick there.’

  ‘For why?’

  ‘Firewood.’

  ‘It’s too wet to burn,’ I told him. ‘Besides, we have to hurry. What do you want to build a fire for?’

  ‘No fire,’ said he. ‘We carry it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just grab all the short branch you can, put them in a pile.’

  I shook my head in disbelief but it were poin
tless to resist my brother once he got an idea fix in his mind, thus I simply did as bid. Emile bound his bundle of branches and twig with a length of creeper and did the same with what I collected.

  ‘I bon,’ said I. ‘What shall we do now, I wonder? Let’s pick some flowers and press them, then smoke a pipe.’

  ‘You silly.’ Emile indicated the bundles. ‘Now we can go down there, walk on the highway and nobody notice us. We’re just two half-breed, hauling wood to our master for charcoal. Works every time.’

  A sudden pang of alarm ran through me.

  ‘But old Bianco – whatshisname White – he said—’

  ‘I know what he said but go too deep into those mountain and it will take all hell eternity to find a way back out. We have to get to the hospital quick, start spreading word among the slave. Let me hear you cough.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go ahead and cough.’

  I cleared my throat: a polite tussication. My brother rolled his eyes heavenward.

  ‘Not like that. Think how the Fathers sound when they have a fever – like they might yelk up their lung. Do that, like you’re about to drop down kickeraboo.’

  I tried again, hacking harder, until my throat did burn.

  Emile nodded.

  ‘You see a person on the road, you cough like that. Nobody will come near us.’

  He crouch down to adjust his bundle. Something about the set and angle of his shoulders made him appear obstinate in the extreme.

  ‘When did you do this before?’ I asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bundles of wood. You said they always work. Was it something to do with that lieutenant? The invasion?’