The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  Earlier on, he had been sitting in the sub-station, the white tunic of his daytime uniform draped over the back of an upright wooden chair with a cane bottom. His braces hung from his waist like the harness of a small parachute; and his grey flannel undershirt had changed to a darker shade than the colour from the perspiration that poured out of his body in the clutching humidity, like larva rising from the ground.

  The Constable, his assistant, was sitting in a matching wooden chair, slouched in the same manner as Sargeant was, fanning himself with the four pages of the Bimshire Daily Herald, one of the Island’s four newspapers, which he had folded into the shape of a Chinese fan. Naiman, the man who swept the yard and ran errands to the rum shop, who bought cigarettes and tins of Fray Bentos corn beef and hard round biscuits, and who did odd jobs around the substation, cleaning out the two cells, throwing Jays Fluid on the prisoners’ urine to deaden its pungency, himself a former convict, this man Naiman, who also fetched Sargeant’s and the Constable’s home-cooked meals (food: made by a woman in the Village, off the passenger bus, at the appropriate hours—eleven in the morning, for lunch; and five o’clock in the evening, for dinner), sat with them, barefoot, in his workman’s uniform of blue denim short-sleeved shirt and matching short pants, gasping instead of breathing, as if the humidity was about to choke him to death.

  Then the telephone had rung, rousing them from their lethargy. Sargeant turned the BBC programme down. They were playing hymns from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

  The telephone rang fifteen times.

  It was Naiman who had risen from his chair first, slowly and half-dead, to answer it.

  “His Majesty’s Police Station! ’Strict D Sub-station! Naiman speaking . . .”

  There was a pause.

  You could hear the change in Naiman’s breathing, the sudden intake of breath.

  The time by the noisy, ticking clock on the wall is seven thirtyfive. Sunday night. The clock is round, and has large black hands and hangs below a framed colour photograph of King George the Fifth.

  Just as the three of them, Sargeant, the Constable and Naiman himself, could, at certain times of the afternoon, hear the waves in the sea, when there were no cars and buses speeding in front of the sub-station, so too, now, they could hear the weak waves touching the iron pipe and the crumbling foundation wall of the sub-station. And they could hear the leaves in the beach almond trees shake. And hear the rattle of the dried inedible fruits of the shack-shack tree.

  “What you say? You had-better tell this to the Sargeant, yourself, ma’am,” Naiman said into the telephone. “Miss Bellfeels, the Sargeant here . . . he here.”

  Naiman pointed the telephone at Sargeant. Sargeant moved slowly, taking fifteen seconds to reach Naiman’s outstretched hand.

  Some time passed in silence. Naiman and the Constable could hear Sargeant’s breathing.

  “Miss Mary-Mathilda? What you telling me? I don’t want to hear it, if that is what you telling me, Miss Tilda. . . You sure you want me to hear this? Yes, ma’am . . . yes, please, ma’am . . . yes, ma’am. I will come to get a Statement . . . yes, yes . . . it is my duty as a police . . . I can keep a secret. Yes, please . . .”

  Sargeant gave the telephone back to Naiman, who put it back on its hook.

  “Constable,” Sargeant said.

  The Constable stood up.

  “Get-dress. Put-on your night uniform. Quick. Something like it happen. You ain’t got much time to change . . .”

  The large, round noisy clock told them it was exactly Thirty-seven minutes past seven o’clock. That was the time. Sargeant made a note of it. “Thirty-seven minutes passed seven o’clock, PM, Sunday evening,” he wrote in his small black notebook.

  Sargeant had looked through the window in the sub-station, towards the Plantation Main House, and could see the cane fields that stretched for miles and miles, round the small three-roomed substation, cells, water closet and office-cum-dressing-and-sleepingroom, making it look and feel like a fishing boat marooned in a sea that had no waves and no current; and no wind blowing on its surface.

  “Go up to the Great House,” Sargeant told the Constable, “and see if you could pacify Miss Bellfeels, Mr. Bellfeels lady Miss Tilda, till I get there. And whilst you there, see if you could find out what the arse that woman mean ’bout intent and intending. Tek-down every word she tell you, in a prelimary Statement. Tell she I coming, soon-soon . . .”

  “When I was a lil girl, I used to like to climb. Trees and rocks. Specially trees. Ma said I reminded her of the brown-and-white goat we kept in the yard, to give milk. Goats don’t climb trees, though; only rocks and hills. You know the clammy-cherry tree at the junction of Highgates Commons and Reservoir Lane that the Villagers sit under and shade from the sun, when they’re waiting for the bus to Town?”

  “I know it!” the Constable says. “We uses clammy-cherries to stick kite paper on our kite frames, during kite-season, when we mekking kites. ’Specially at Easter. Yes! The clammy-cherry tree at the junction!”

  “Things made from clammy-cherry last for generations. Tough and durable and rugged things. From clammy-cherry, the Plantation makes the handles of certain implements used in the fields. Like the handles for forks and hoes. And sickles that we cut Khus-Khus grass and Guinea grass with.

  “The handle of the hoe I used for all those years in the North Field was made from the same clammy-cherry tree. Yes.

  “Ma herself used the hoe she inherited from her mother, my gran. And it was there, on the day she died, leaning up in the yard, strong as anything, strong as the day the Plantation made it. This is the same hoe I inherited from Ma. Yes!

  “And it is the handle of that hoe I have been polishing. Rubbingit-down in oils. Night after night, for the past three months. And why three months? I can’t find rhyme nor reason to explain it! Must be one of the ironies Wilberforce always talking about, constantly. . .

  “I went one morning, when he wasn’t too busy, to see Mr. Waldrond the Joiner and Cabinetmaker. Mr. Waldrond makes the most beautiful furnitures in this Village, in the whole Island, if you ask me! And I respectfully asked Mr. Waldrond for a drop of oil and a daub of the stain or polish he uses on mahogany.Mr.Waldrond look at me, and laughed. ‘Never,’ Mr. Waldrond say, ‘in all my born-days, and during my time as joiner and cabinetmaker to this Plantation, plying my trade in this Village, have a girl, a woman, axe me to lend she the tools of my trade!’

  “Heh-heh-heh! I had to laugh, too. I didn’t tell Mr. Waldrond what I needed the stain and the oils for. But outta the goodness of his heart, and without cross-questioning me, Mr. Waldrond give me a few drops of linseed oil and some Hawes Lemon Oil and some homemade polish he uses for polishing mahogany.

  “I took those three things, and from that day, I would sit down in a chair in the kitchen, evening after evening, whilst Gertrude would steal a glance at me, when she think I don’t notice, wondering what I am doing rubbing and rubbing the handle of a hoe with linseed oil and Hawes Lemon Oil for, but there I would be, rubbing up and down, up and down; down and up, polishing till the handle start to shine, like Mr. Waldrond’s mahogany furnitures.

  “While Gertrude is washing the wares, or starching clothes, doing her housework, there I would be, polishing and polishing the clammy-cherry-tree handle.

  “I then turned my attention to the blade. And I used a piece of sharpening-stone with oil on it. This I got from the blacksmith, who shoes the horses on the Plantation. The mules and the donkeys. Ifonly I had the strength to use a anvil, and was able to lift his hammer, I would have beaten-out a brand-new-brand blade for myself. And sharp as a Gillette razor! But I had to rely, every evening, on the sharpening-stone and the oil only. For three months.

  “I had-got the oil off the chauffeur, Mr. Broomes, poor man, who drove the cane lorry the Saturday afternoon that he run-over the Bardrock fowl.

  “Sometimes, in the heat of thinking of things to do, like making doilies for the furnitures, or preparing great-cakes for
festivals and bank holidays, I would miss a evening of polishing and sharpening. But, as regular as I could, I would be at that kitchen table . . .

  “But what was I polishing and sharpening for? What was my purpose spending all those hours on a hoe, in the kitchen of this Great House for? After so many years using the same hoe in the fields, retired from the fields, put into the Main House as a houseservant, eventually given certain favours in my upliftment . . . then turned into some man’s kip-woman! To where I am now. Or was it that I am a dreamer?

  “Ma always said, ‘Girl, you is the biggest dreamer that I know. You’s a born dreamer, Mary-girl!’

  “But there I was . . . not really knowing what destiny God had in mind to put my hoe to.

  “And sometimes, as I sit in my kitchen with Gertrude and my hoe, Wilberforce would come in, and pour himself a drink, or take up a slice of sweetbread or steal a pork chop outta Gertrude’s frying pan, and start telling us, Gertrude and me, of his travels.

  “And not once, did it enter his head to ask me why I was polishing a old hoe? And sharpening the blade?

  “And I would stop polishing and sharpening, and let Wilberforce words carry me on those journeys he describe. Wilberforce hadtravel all over Europe, after the War; and once, coming back from Italy, north of a lil town name Vincentia, and seeing the Dollarmites, near the Alps, caused him years later, to make the comment, about how he found the place so desolate; and at the same time, so pretty and appealing. The sharp points of the hills and the mountains, the steepness of the sides of hills forming themselves into gorges, down, down into the valleys, and the sides of those valleys, and how those valleys was so dramatic and frightening, harsh and lovely, painted in the strange colour of the Eyetalian light. Those wonderful colours, Wilberforce say, are to be found only in Italy. And Wilberforce conclude that this part of the world, the valleys of the Dollarmites— I think this is how you pronounce the word—the Dollarmites seemed to be a place where history ordain that a lot of killing and fighting had to take place. As if it was destiny. He told me it was the geography of the place that gave it that ironical meaning, and that history. A history of killing and fighting amongst those European tribes and clans.

  “Once, to show me the meaning of words that Winston Churchill used, during the War, namely, ‘Give we the tools, and we will do the rest,’Wilberforce said those words were really a code.

  “The women in my field gang, ordinary women, ascribed to weeding the North Field, I witnessed how some of them never took care of their hoes, the instruments they use daily, to make a living with—such as it was. So, their job and their labour was always more harduous. They had the tools, but not the sharpness in those tools to do the job.Well. And whenever their hoe hit a rock, their labour ended; and the rest of us women would bend over and laugh and laugh at that poor woman’s expense. At her misfortune. Yes.

  “When a hoe hits that rock-stone, it send zings of pain climbing right up your two arms. And it dullens the blade of your hope; and the hoe itself. Yes.

  “But the history of a hoe hitting rocks and old roots, stumps of pigeon-pea trees and other trees planted generations ago, before this very Plantation was cut out of the land, trees such as the same tamarind tree which Clotelle used; the clammy-cherry tree whose berry is used for sticking paper to kite frames; or the cordear tree, the loveliest tree in the Island, with the sweetest flowers, according to smell and fragrance, but a flower, my God, with the shortest lifespan of existence, this accident of a woman’s hoe hitting gainst a obstruction like the root of a tree hidden in the soil, was an everyday occurrence. Yes. Cause, from in the olden days, in the times of my great-gran, before Ma’s time, this Plantation was nothing but virgin land. Yes.

  “I must ask Wilberforce if the Plantation planted these trees after cutting up the land.

  “But, going back to Churchill’s code, ‘give we the tools,’my hoe was always ready. No rust. Always sharp. Sharp as the long knife Manny use for slaughtering animals. Sharp as a iron cane bill for cutting canes. Yes. And always shining. From the linseed oil and the Hawes Lemon Oil. And the sharpening-stone.

  “But going back to Wilberforce and his memories of flying over the Dollarmites and the Alps, and how it reminded him of Churchill’s code . . . that boy applies Churchill’s codes to every part of life, even to his own practice in Tropical Medicines . . . by having tools that are always sharp and sharpened, instruments and surgeons’ scalpels. If Wilberforce happen to be cutting-open a person’s stomach, in search for the groins, or the pennicitis, or the liver, my God, and the implements are not sharp . . . and you happen to be the patient on that cot . . . my God! And you are at Wilberforce mercy! Yes! But Wilberforce believe in the right tools, as a man who needs them for his use, to cut-open living persons with . . .

  “But he won’t use them on me! Wilberforce will never cut-open me! Not me! And he is my son! You think I would let Wilberforce come near to me, with one of his scalpels?

  “And all these years, I suffer silently, and in pain, from pennicitis? Still, do you think I would grant Wilberforce the right to come-near me, with a knife in his hand? No!

  “And you know Wilberforce is one of the best surgeons in Bimshire! . . .

  “. . . but the code about tools applies to everyday life. Yes.

  “Still, my question to myself is ‘Why?’ Why-though, was I polishing the handle and sharpening the blade of my hoe, all those evenings, after I wash my face-and-hands? What is the reason and motivation?

  “Ma used to call me a crazy girl, along with saying I am a dreamer, when I was small.

  “Yes! Be prepared. As they learned me in the Girl Guides, teaching me preparedness concerning the tools I worked with.

  “If it wasn’t so dark outside, I would ask you to look out that window, and let your eyes travel to the shed, near the stables now turned into a cottage . . . the shed is made outta coral stone . . . but the shed was originally an oven. We used to bake cassava bread in it. It is a relic from the slave days . . . you would see the hoe in question.

  “No! I don’t think it is there. The hoe is not there. I didn’t put it back, I don’t think, when I returned from the Main House. And, my God, I can’t call-to-mind where I put it. The memory going, Constable. The mind slipping. But it got to be in this House, on this property, somewhere. The hoe is here. My hoe. Tonight, after I returned inside-here from the Main House, I realize tonight is the very first time, in all the years I inherited it from Ma, that my hoe hasn’t slept within my reach.

  “When I was carrying Wilberforce, after I lost his brother, William Henry, and his sister, Rachelle Sarah Prudence, soon after they born; after I start cohorting with Mr. Bellfeels . . . and God, you have to pardon me for that mistake . . . but life is life, and full of ironies . . . years and years afterwards; after cohorting, and I allowed Mr. Bellfeels to do what he wished with me, it suddenly hit me that I needed something to preoccupy myself with. Wilberforce was growing-away from me. Will married and move-out, someday. The crocheting was making my two eyes burn, and my eyesight bad. And three months ago, almost to the day, I took the hoe from its resting place under my bed, and start sharpening and polishing it. Sharpening and polishing in preparation for the right use to put my hoe to.

  “So, I slept with my hoe. Underneat my four-poster bed with the Simmons mattress. And before I moved into this Great House, I slept with it, wherever my bed was, in whichever place I lay my head.

  “I had an obsession about that hoe. And a identical one with the wishbone. That wishbone went with me wherever I went. I could hide it anywhere. But my hoe was too big to conceal. Still . . .

  “The afternoon that I asked Mr. Waldrond for the oil and the stain, when he told me how strange it was for me, a woman, to be interested in his profession, as if I was invading his sacred territory, it made me think of the place of woman in this Island. That thought hit me, hard-hard. It made me see that in this Village, now and in bygone days, and in Ma’s time, women were relegated.

 
; “Women were allowed to be schoolteachers sometimes. A few that you could count on one hand made it to headmistress. A few more became nurses in the Bimshire General Hospital. But the vast-majority spent their lives as field hands, maids, cooks and nursemaids. The enterprising few was the group that left and went Away, overseas to Amurca, Englund and the Panama Canal Zone. Some who got their hands on Amurcan magazines, from places like the South and Brooklyn, start looking in those magazines at Technicolor pictures of coloured women, these women tried their hands in a follow-pattern way, at imitating black Amurcan women, at fixing hairdos, at hairdressing; and needlework. The most ambitious put up shingles and announce themselves as SEAMSTRESS WITHIN.

  “Basically, not much more were women allowed to do, in this Island.

  “We never had the education that women in Amurca—not counting-in the South!—and other parts of the outside-world were allowed to cumulate from book-learning and practical experience; and encouragement.

  “But we were women who understood things; and we learned by listening and observing. So, even though I never had the education that could explain to me the reason and the motivation for polishing the handle of the hoe, and sharpening its blade, I knew that I had to keep-on doing it. And Be Prepared, religiously night after night, as the Girl Guides’ motto says.

  “I became overprepared. But I did not know who I was going to test the keenness of my preparation on. And while we’re waiting on Sargeant to come, I cannot tell you that I knew what my real intention was, neither.

  “There is a time when your past takes over you, and takes over your present; and if you stand and remain passive as Ma was in the Church Yard, that Sunday afternoon . . . when she stood there as if she had a sunstroke that rendered her parlyzed in speech; and all she could do was to watch how Mr. Bellfeels passed his riding-crop slow-slow, slow, over my body, as if he was telling Ma to her face, Old woman, look, I don’t need your wrinkle-up body no more. I have Mary-girl, this young, sweet delicious piece o’ veal, to feast on, at my heart’s delight.