He nodded. “Seen.” They kept walking. In a few more minutes, he reached slowly for her hand. She took it and held on, tight-tight like creeper vine.
“Is really your home your taking me to, Tan-Tan?”
“My camp, yes.”
“It dark out here like backra soul, oui. You not frighten in this bush come nightfall?”
She felt pleased with herself. “Not any more.”
In another hour they were approaching the place where she and Tefa had made camp. Tefa had left pork-knacker signs, bush prospector signs, to tell her that she’d made that night’s nest in another nearby tree. They did that every night; it gave the rolling calf pup somewhere new to graze. Tefa was probably already hearing two sets of feet tramping through the bush, was wondering is what a-go on. “Tefa!” she skreeked. Her hinte talk was getting better. “A tallpeople with me! No danger!” Tefa carolled back that she was prepared.
Melonhead had jumped when she began calling. He halted dead where he stood. “What you make that noise for?” he asked.
“I have a packbird with me,” she said. The story she and Tefa had prepared if they were to need it. She hoped they could pull it off. “Just letting she . . . it know I coming.” Now she could see through the trees the flicker of the campfire. “Melonhead I have, ah, a pet.”
“You mean the bird?”
It took her a second to understand that he was calling Abitefa a pet. “No, a next beast. Don’t ’fraid when you see she.”
By the lamplight she could see him smiling. “You got what, a hunting dog or something?”
“No, more like a ankylosaur.”
“How you mean?”
“She getting big, all right? And she scary looking, but she won’t mean you no harm. Just don’t get where she could step on your foot.”
They stepped into the campsite. Snuffling with joy, the rolling calf pup rushed Tan-Tan, narrowly missing her with one of its horns. Melonhead shouted and froze. “What the bloodcloth . . . !” Inquisitive, the pup went to sniff at him. Melonhead put out warding hands, his face grey with alarm. The pup sampled a bit of his sleeve.
“Stop that!” Tan-Tan scolded her, pulling on her horns. “Sorry Melonhead, she growing; she is nothing but appetite.”
“She going to get bigger?” The pup chewed meditatively, spat out a button.
“Little bit, yes. Watch out for she tail there. She mother reached to my shoulder. I killed she, the mother I mean, but is my fault. I frighten she and she attack. I couldn’t abandon the pup after that.”
Some of the fear had gone from Melonhead’s face. Carefully he reached out a hand and stroked one of the pup’s horns. “In all my born days, I never.”
Abitefa fluttered down from the nest. Melonhead straightened, smiled. “Now, here something I more familiar with. Coo-coo, bird-oi.” He made dove noises at Abitefa, holding out his hand. She looked to Tan-Tan for guidance.
“Ahm, she not used to strangers. She won’t come to you.”
He dropped the hand, pulled it out of reach of the pup’s nibbling mouth. In her beak Abitefa picked up a log of the wood she had gathered to stoke the fire. She must have thought better of it, for she dropped it again and stood looking at Melonhead. She didn’t get to see plenty tallpeople.
Melonhead glanced round the campsite. “Nanny bless, Tan-Tan; is here you staying? And all because of Janisette?”
“I like it here,” she lied. “You hungry?”
That was a long night; long in good and bad ways. There was the moment when Tan-Tan realised she couldn’t really expect Melonhead to make his way back home through the bush in the dark. He was going to have to stay there with them. How come she hadn’t thought of that before? It pleased her and frightened her to have him stay. She showed him how to climb up into the nest and he praised her ingenuity at training her bird to build it for her. Abitefa’s neck feathers had bristled. Tan-Tan had told him how she slept snuggled next to Abitefa for warmth and he’d said sweetly, “You don’t have to do that tonight, sweetheart. I here.” Tan-Tan had gaped at him, looked helplessly at Tefa, who just gazed back, puzzled. Finally Tan-Tan had had to ask her in awkward hinte to please sleep somewhere else for the night. Abitefa had made a peculiar noise and climbed up higher in the tree. Leaves and twigs had rained down on she and Melonhead for a while as Tefa had woven herself a new nest.
Yes, a long, long night alone in a confined space with Melonhead, which she had managed by pretending to fall asleep almost instantly. Melonhead had called her name softly a few times, then sighed and curled himself round her. She’d lain like that for hours, feeling the slow beat of his heart against her spine, his arm curled round her belly.
Come morning time Abitefa didn’t show up. Trying not to worry, Tan-Tan had shared with Melonhead her breakfast of smoked tree frog and dried halwa fruit. Things were awkward between them, shaped by the silences she insisted on. He said he had to get back to his shop. She walked him to the edge of the bush, made clumsy small talk the whole way. Before stepping back out into Sweet Pone he took her hand and said, “You going to be moving on soon?”
“Yes. Nuh must?”
“I not convinced, but if is so you want it. Come and see me before you go?”
“I promise.”
“Don’t promise, just do it.”
True, her promises were no good. Sadly she watched him thread his way through the corn. She had disappointed him again.
When she got back to the camp, Abitefa was waiting. *You partnering with that tallpeople now?*
No, she wasn’t. But she found herself back in Sweet Pone two days later, looking for excuses to keep passing and repassing the front of Melonhead’s shop, too jittery to just walk in. She stared wistfully at the people who did: the old man in the anachronistic suit; the bongo toughy little girl who was clutching a rubber ball in one hand and holding the torn seat of her dungarees closed with the other; the preoccupied-looking young woman who had a bag full of either cloth or mending. She was pretty, that one—fat and firm with a high, round behind. She stayed in Melonhead’s shop too long for Tan-Tan’s taste, left with too big a smile on her face.
And who was she Tan-Tan to care? Standing there in patched-up, leaf-stained clothes; no pot to piss in, no roof over her head. Who was she to be scrutinizing who Melonhead was entertaining?
She was preoccupied, that’s why he caught her. Another day and she would have zwipsed into the shadows as soon as he set foot out of his shop. Damned baby was slowing her down, yes.
“Tan-Tan!” he called, waving. She gasped. He was coming over, face alight with joy. “You come to see me!”
“Ahm, yes, I suppose so.” She couldn’t meet his eyes for long. She felt dirty, plain.
He looked glum. “Is ’cause you moving on?”
“Soon, yes. Not right now. I come, I come . . . because I want you make me some clothes,” she continued, happy to have thought of something that would make her feel less homely. “I need a new outfit that would hide this belly.”
This time his smile had some mischief in it. She knew that smile well. That smile had got her behind warmed for her one time when she had gone along with his suggestion that they knot all Compère Ramdass’s yellowed singlets together as they flapped on the clothes line behind his cottage. “If I going to sew for you, I have to measure you,” Melonhead said.
Her ears were burning. She just nodded. “Let we start then, nuh?”
She followed him into the shop. Pity that having clothes made would slow her down, waiting for him to finish them. She’d have to delay moving camp.
Melonhead closed the door. “You could take off the cape, people know not to come in while I measuring.”
Thankfully she shucked the heavy unbleached fabric she wore all the time now if she was among tallpeople. She should wash it soon; it was smeared with leaf and road stains. She rolled her shoulders luxuriously, stretched her neck.
Melonhead sat at his workspace and started pulling things out of a press beside his
sewing machine: a tape measure, a pencil, some scraps of paper. “Why you want to hide that you making baby, Tan-Tan? Begging your pardon, but who go care?”
“I can’t make nobody . . .” she started, then stopped. No words to speak about Tan-Tan the Robber Queen. That was another self, another dimension. “I alone on the road. If people know say I pregnant them might try to take advantage.”
He looked disturbed at that. “True thing. Maybe you could stop here little bit till the baby born. I don’t think Janisette will find you. Come, stand over here.” He draped the tape measure over his neck and stood to face her. His hair smelt of sweet oil. Cheeks flaming, she let him take her measurements and write them down. She looked round the room to distract herself.
To stop in one place. Sweet Pone was nice. With a start of surprise, Tan-Tan realised that she hadn’t played Robber Queen on the Sweet Pone people yet.
There was more fabric in Melonhead’s shop than there had been the last time. Plenty more, and bright bright colours too besides. Her sister Quamina would have loved it in here, all the shiny needles and gorgeous cloths. “Like somebody give you a big job, eh?”
He laughed. “Sweetness, you been in the bush so long you ain’t even know what time of year this is?”
She did. Time for the mako jumbies to migrate to the poles. Time for the foot snakes to moult. She was trying to work out a way to tan the shed hides they left behind. Maybe she could make wallets with them to sell. She frowned. What did tallpeople do this time of year?
He took her by the shoulders, turned her to face him. “Tan-Tan, Carnival is three weeks from now. What you going to wear?”
• • •
Tan-Tan stopped for a minute behind the new Sweet Pone Palaver House before turning the corner into the town square. The Robber Queen cape felt good on her shoulders, a comforting weight. Melonhead was a genius, oui? He’d pieced together precious ends of black velvet, made style by outlining the joins with iridescent shell buttons. The cape was edged with brightly coloured ribbons, ends left long and fluttering. It fastened in front with ornate brass frog closures, had two long slits through which she could thrust her arms. The round jutting collar had a support under it that also served to hold the cape away from her belly. Her soon-to-be baby was well-hidden.
And there was more. Melonhead had made her a fine Robber hat from goat wool felt that he’d dyed black and blocked into shape. There was a belt, extra-large to extend round her belly, with two holsters and sheathes for her knife and machète. He’d even found cap guns and caps! She did an experimental turn. The cape flared out satisfyingly. She wished Melonhead were there to see, but he’d stayed at his shop to make some last-minute adjustments to costumes. He’d said: “I catch up with you later, doux-doux. In the square, all right? Girl, you looking fine too bad!”
She’d leaned over her baby belly and kissed his mouth, gratified at the pleased look of surprise on his face before their lips touched. “Later, yes.” She’d waved happily and left, her body tingling from the contact of his skin. She stopped, stood knowledge-struck in the street. Touching Melonhead made her feel good, an unalloyed pleasure untainted by fear or anger. So different than she’d ever felt before.
But the feeling of well-being deserted her quickly. She didn’t belong here, amongst people like this. As she approached the square she could hear the music. A steel pan band was playing what should have been a sweet, sweet road march. The bass pans-them were beating out their deep, low notes like heartbeats: Boom, boom-boom-boom-boom. How come it sounded to her like “doom”? Over the beats, the tenor pans were working the melody hard: pure, tinny notes dancing up into the sky—a tune to make you want to wind your behind, shuffle in time, and take a swig out of the flask of red rum in your back pocket—Ting ting, ting te-ting ting ting. And all Tan-Tan could hear in the music was “Tan-Tan; doom, doom-doom-doom-doom.”
The square was full up with people. Even with the music she could hear the shuffling feet, the laughter, and every now and again, a joyous voice shouting out, “Koo fête, Papa! Wind your waist!” Melonhead had been busy these past few weeks, making costumes for those who couldn’t make their own. She saw Jab-Jab devils cracking whips, sporting horns on their heads; the Fancy Indians jumping up in their soft moccasins, hanging on to their feather headdresses so they wouldn’t fly off; the bats, silent and scary in skin-tight brown and black, waving their huge ratbat wings to and fro through the crowd; even the occasional Midnight Robber wearing a velvet sombrero, brim a metre wide, trimmed with pom-poms and papier-mâché skulls all round; leather chaps with plenty fringe; a noisemaker and fake guns. The Robbers carried sacks to hold the Carnival pounds and pennies people would throw them if they speechified well. Some of them were even pretending to be Tan-Tan, New Half-Way Tree’s Robber Queen. She was hiding in the best possible way, masquerading as herself! The smile that cracked onto her face was nearly a foreign thing, a half-forgotten thing. Just join the fête, stupid gal. When last you have a good time?
Still, something was holding her back. Months of living in the bush with Abitefa had made her sensitive to the slightest sounds. Too much noise in a town. Underneath all the shouting and the pan playing there was a sursurus: maybe a tiny cross-breeze, a little warmer than the rest of the air, skittering past her shins; there was a low thrumming that didn’t seem to be coming from the steel band. There was a barely audible staccato tattoo that wasn’t noisemakers. What was wrong?
Truth to tell though, nothing could be completely right about Carnival in this shadow land of New Half-Way Tree. Everyone here was an exile; this could only be a phantom of the celebration they would have had on Toussaint.
Cho! She couldn’t hang back like this all day. Time for fête, yes!
Tan-Tan took a deep breath and stepped round the corner of the new Palaver House, into Carnival in Sweet Pone.
Mama, if you see Masque!
The steel pan band was on a stage in the middle of the square, a whole side of about thirty pan men and women, beating the tune out of the steel drums with sticks wrapped in rubber. And dancing! The pan people-self couldn’t help stamping their feet to the music they were making. The whole stage was only jerking up and down to the beat.
Tout monde in Sweet Pone and the surrounding settlements must have been in the town square jumping-up to the music. Carnival was bringing people together on New Half-Way Tree. Tan-Tan revelled in the finery of the Bats and Jab-Jabs and Fancy Indians. It even had a few small bands, oui? A Pissenlit band inna Old Masque stylee: one set of hard-back men dressed off in women’s white petticoats, twisting and jutting their hips to show off the red stains painted on their panties; a Sailor band, every man and woman wearing navy and white naval uniforms with bell-bottom pants, and swaying from side to side like drunken sailors; a tiny Burroquite band, just two people—the King in satin and rhinestones, wearing a papier-mâché horse round his waist to look like he was riding it. Beside him came the Queen in her sari, passing round the brass plate to collect money. To the tune of the steel band the two of them were chanting:
Raja, Raja Hindako
Dhal bhat, dhal bhat Hindako
Soo, Mary, Soo Danka.
Midnight Robbers were holding up people to make their speeches. People were laughing at the verbal garbiage and handing over booty: calabashes of liquor; silver jewelry; taking off their good leather shoes even and giving them to the robbers.
The people who didn’t have on costumes had dressed for show anyway: their tightest bodices, their brightest bandanas. And plenty of people were beating bottle and spoon in time to the music.
“Oi-yo-yoi! Oi-yo-yoi!” chorussed two men in front of Tan-Tan, winding down each other, belly to behind. The man in front had on the tiniest pair of shorts Tan-Tan had ever seen. His brown skin was glistening from sweat and the gold glitter he had dusted all over his body. The cords in his thighs were like steel cable winching him low. He gyrated his hips against his dance partner’s crotch. The man in back was wearing a loincloth and n
othing else but a pair of alpagat slippers. His hair was chopped off at the sides. He waved round a wooden tomahawk as he danced. His round belly rolled and jumped in time. Tan-Tan smiled to see the two of them.
“Lower! Match me, come on!” Clustered in a circle, four people were having a contest to see who could wind down nearest to the ground without falling over. They spread their knees wide apart, worked their twisting hips lower. Squealing and giggling, three of them toppled into the dust. The one left on her feet was a woman wearing a halter top with an eye painted on over each bubby. She stood from her crouch, did a little victory dance, hands sketching curlicues in the air. The three rivals laughed, got up, brushed themselves off. One of them squirted a drink into the winner’s mouth from a leather bottle. Arm in arm, the four of them danced off to the middle of the square. Mama, this is Masque! Today, tout monde forget all their troubles. Music too sweet, oui!
Tan-Tan cocked her hips to one side, then the other. They felt rusty. How could she have forgotten how to dance?
The rhythm soon caught her up in it, though. Swaying to the music, she worked her way past the two men, right into the comess of Carnival. She swung her sack over her shoulder and just lost herself in the music for a while. Was that Melonhead over there? No. She’d probably buck him up soon.
Time to try to earn her coppers this Carnival day. She moved to the outskirts of the square, chipped along until she spied a likely target for her first speech; an old man dancing at the edge of the crowd. She unholstered her cap gun, presented herself in front of him, and shot off plai! plai! into the air.
“Papa-oi! Stand and hear my tribulation.”
The old man grinned and folded his arms, waiting to judge if her speech would be good enough for him to drop some coppers into her sack.
“Stand and deliver up your tears and your pounds,” said the Robber Queen, “else your tears and your life for my grievous and sad accounting!”
Her voice swelled with power as the Robber Queen persona came upon her. She spun him the tale, about being born a princess among men. “My father, Lord Raja, was the King of Kings, nemesis of the mighty. He command the engines of the earth, and they obey him. My mother, Queen Niobe, cause the stars to fall out the sky at her beauty and the wind to sigh at she nimble body as she dance. How I could not be joyful? How I could not be blissful?” She wove her deft weave about being kidnapped and stolen away. About fleeing her captors, stealing to survive, helping those worse off than herself. “A mere snap of my fingers jook terror into the hearts of the dastardly!”
Midnight Robber Page 31
