The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  These women, with some help from their children, are transforming the beach into a kitchen, like those built in camps, by the soldiers in the Bimshire Volunteer Regiment and Brigade; or by Girl Guides and Boy Scouts in their annual camps during the long vacation, on this very same beach.

  The boys, sons of the workers and sons of the men under the beach-grape trees, are playing a game of beach cricket, with a hopping ball from the Tennis Club . . . Percy is watching Mary Gertrude Mathilda; and the gust of wind dies down, and the black pieces of leaves from the beach-grape tree are now settling on the sand; and these black dots make the sand look as if it is littered with dead, rotting cobblers, those black cousins of the sweet-tasting sea eggs; and Percy sees Mary Gertrude Mathilda again, after a short time, while the leaves and the small black dots are settling down on the sand, from flying through the air; and here she is, coming out of this clearing, as if she is emerging from clouds, from light shining behind her, as if she is a figure of adoration, in a story in Bible Stories for Children; and with the light on the beach, she is emerging in just that state of frightening glory, as if mauve velour curtains are being parted, and time is still; is halted; in order to allow her the space and the breath and the air her appearance demands; but Percy is too small to know these things, to see this holy angelic association with Mary; with Mary Gertrude Mathilda; he sees her only as a little innocent girl, a virgin he loves; and he follows her with his eyes, as she moves as if without legs, going farther up the beach, approaching the cluster of beach-grape trees and the men under them; reaches the end of the trees and passes the clump of men; and approaches the rise of rock that juts out from the evenness of the sand, the beginning of a wall, like a breakwater; and here she is, alongside the spot where the cooks and the maids and Mistress Rosa Mary Antoinette Brannford have chosen for the makeshift kitchen and the place for serving lunch. The women engaged in this occupation are all members of the Mothers Union. Slabs of three-ply wood are already placed on “horses,” to be made into tables; and the men are driving nails, with huge galvanized heads, into the plywood, into the “horses”; and white linen tablecloths are ready to be spread on them.

  The tables are long. Each one is large enough for twelve to sit at, which reminds Percy of that table in Bible Stories for Children, from Sunday School, of the Last Supper. And they are also similar to the Altar in Sin-Davids, especially on the first Sunday of the month, when Holy Communion is served by Vicar Dowd.

  On these Sunday mornings, the altar top is covered with a rich, white brocade cloth, embroidered with angels and crosses and swords and fire rampaging across the plains of its landscape, white as snow. Sargeant knows that his mother—when she was alive— and Golbourne’s mother, and Mistress Rosa Mary Antoinette Brannford, all the mothers in the Mothers Union knit these scenes of religious history, and turn them into altar cloths, and religious banners for Festival processions.

  And when the light is coming through the stained-glass windows to the east, behind the altar, just as the sun this afternoon is coming through the shivering deep-green leaves of the beach-grape trees, it makes the makeshift dining tables on the beach, in this picnic, appear to be more sturdy and resemble that part of the chancel in the Church where Communion is served.

  The cooks and the maids are now taking out the glass jars of rum punch, and jars of punch without rum for the children; and the glasses; and the bread for making sandwiches; and the chicken, fried and roasted and baked; and chicken boiled-down in Indian curry; and pork chops, thick and with the skin keeping the oiliness in, fried in butter from Australia; and a joint of roasted pork, as large as half the size of an ordinary pig, that part of the pig cut just under the head and including the highest ridge of ribs, succulent, deep brown and crackling, with the oil; and the heads of whole cloves, pieces of black pepper kernels dotting the skin, jutting through the skin like broken glass-bottle in the street; and the green of onions. And a huge crystal bowl, which contains the gravy.

  These eatables are being taken from boxes that previously contained loose-leaf tea, covered by white linen cloths, and placed, in the order for their eating, upon the tables. The bright, white brocade tablecloths make the tables shine in the sun, and give off a glare.

  Huge pots of steamed white rice are cooked with green pigeon-peas. And pieces of sweet potato pone and cassava pone are cut into large rectangles. They look like bars of gold. Ma places a large crystal vase in the centre of the two huge tables. And into each vase, she places a bunch of flowers. Dragon lily and bird of paradise.

  Percy does not know the name of these flowers. Although he sees them every day growing around him; and passes them in the front garden of the Plantation Main House; in the grounds of the Garrison Savannah Lawn Tennis Club where he fields tennis balls and waters the gardens and mows the lawns, and still, he does not know their names. Flowers, to him, are to be looked at; and picked. Not to be known by name, regardless of where they spring up. And some of them spring up round the rum shop, which was at this time, owned and operated by Cyril Mandeville White, Mannny’s father; and called simply, Manny’s Rum Shop.

  It is at this time, this exact moment when Ma arranges the beautiful red and yellow flowers evenly into the vases, that Percy first rests his eyes on Mary Gertrude Mathilda; when she appears as in an Annunciation, like the one illustrated in Bible Stories for Children.

  He sees her come from behind a boulder, by the rock that served as a wall and a breakwater, and walk over the sand, moving as if she is really not walking, as if the sand, the grains of sand are small engines, ball-bearing contraptions that provide her motion.

  And Percy can feel the wind as it touches his face, and cools his excitement; the same gust, the same wind which had come up earlier, and had distributed the dried beach-grape leaves, and a few hats along the swept beach.

  It is this same gust of wind that lifts Mary Gertrude Mathilda’s white dress just that much above her knees, so that Percy can see the shape of her knees. The colour of her legs is “light-skin,” two or three tones lighter than her arms. Four or five tones lighter than his own black skin.

  And a pinch of a muscle, like a blow caused from the sudden pumping from his own blood, comes into his chest as he watches Mary Gertrude Mathilda move away from Ma, from the other women, and from Mistress Rosa Mary Antoinette Brannford, as they go on preparing lunch.

  It is when she passes the two dining tables—one to seat the husbands, one to seat their wives and children: the servants will sit on the warm sand, and on rocks on the beach—and is approaching the three short fat-limbed beach-grape trees, under which the husbands are sitting, only now does Percy first notice the water jug that she is carrying.

  It contains something. Rum punch, perhaps. Or freshly made lemonade, sweetened with white granulated sugar, and made from the limes on trees that grow wild like flowers, around the kitchen-gardens of the Plantation.

  She carries the jug in her left hand; and he can see that clearly; and he can see that she is carrying only one glass; and the glass is in her right hand—he thought she was right-handed—and she is holding it like an object of disgust, with the daintiness of touch, and held by her fingers, making it seem also that the object has a smell; an offensive smell; a strong smell. He wonders if she is lefthanded. And he wonders why.

  There are ten men sitting under the three beach-grape trees, talking and laughing, and they make sure the thick green leaves will muffle their jokes about women from reaching the ears of the women lolling at the edge of the water.

  Percy sees Mary Gertrude Mathilda walk past these men. Some nod to her. Some wave to her. Some turn their heads towards her. Every one of the men know her, through her mother. And some of them call to her by name.

  “Hello, Mary!”

  “Hello, Mary-girl!”

  “Hello, Mary-Mathilda!”

  “Hello, Tilda-girl!”

  And some wave, and smile.

  Sargeant sees how her body stiffens as it reacts to the differences i
n their greetings.

  The wind, always a companion, rises just a little more strongly and it lifts the hem of her dress a second time, a little higher, one inch more, and shows her legs and thighs; and she moves on and passes a second cluster of beach-grape trees, past the cave cut out by the wind and rain, and by the perpetual pounding of the waves laden with salt, at high tide, that corrodes it; and as she moves round the last rise of rocks, like an embankment, there is a solitary beach-grape tree. Under it, Mr. Bellfeels is waiting . . . and Percy can remember as if it was today, how his chest became tight, and the tightening of his chest was taken up by the stiffening of his tom-pigeon; and his desperation took a hold of him, telling him about actions taken; insults endured; challenges made; things that warriors did for chivalry; of warriors he had read about in a book, English Social History for Infants; acts of brave men like Richard the Lion-Hearted, and Lord Oliver Cro.Well and St. George who killed not only men but ferocious beasts, like dragons; of men like Charlemange and Napoleon and all the Czars of Russia; of men who had fought duels for the women they loved, and died doing it; men like a man named Pushkin who wrote poems; and of men who killed for the honour they had given those women, and for the insult that men, complete strangers, some bastards, had made, that some, sons of bitches, had thrown upon the character of those worthy women, ladies all; and Percy ignores the chastising voice of his own mother . . . Percy is ignoring the cries of his friends calling him to play Lilliputian cricket; ignoring Clotelle who is challenging him to a race along the wet sand . . . Percy walks far from the men sitting under the beach-grape trees, sheltering, talking, joking, hiding from the sun; and he follows in her footsteps, rough and large and deep like the footsteps of the man in history books named Friday, whom Mr. Edwards, his teacher, told him, walked this same stretch of beach to fetch water for “his master, that son-of-a-bitch Robinson Crusoe, the sex-molester”; he could still see the marks made by the heels of her white shoes, and the flatter indentation of her soles, and the shape in the sand that her speeding footsteps had left, elongated prints in the thick, white, clean sand. He is walking and looking into her footprints as if his eyes are not sufficient to give him direction to follow her.

  He came to the last cluster of three beach-grape trees. Then, to the pile of rocks. And to the cave built into the larger formation of rock. And then, to the clean, swept expanse of sand, pure as coral, shimmering with small almost invisible crabs, scurrying in no fixed or single direction, in flight, from the sudden appearance of a human being.

  On this stretch of sand and beach which dipped back into the sea—he came face-to-face—for the last twenty yards he has been walking in seawater, making it impossible for him to hop out of the way of the incoming waves—to the place, under a large tree, that gives shade and security and safety and the lack of detection. Privacy. And he knew. He knew what it meant. Even though he was only ten years old; a boy; he knew that such security, safety, such protection from the mouths of gossip, had been built up over years, by practice and by those times when there was no protection and no safety, and the two of them stood in danger of being heard and seen and detected; and that is why, now, today, Easter bank holiday, in the presence—even though they are farther down the beach— of all these ladies and gentlemen, the Vicar, the Solicitor-General, the two leading barristers-at-Law, the Headmaster and the Headmistress, they, the two of them, could be here. He and she. Mr. Bellfeels and Mary Gertrude Mathilda.

  The two of them in their cave, are safe and secure and not seen, or even thought of, by any of the others, servants, mothers and their husbands, on this happy food-clogged Easter Monday, attending Sin-Davids Anglican Church Annual Outing and Picnic.

  In the cave that custom and history had made, Percy could see the coconut fronds on the ground, and the softer leaves piled thick and comfortable as the Khus-Khus grass which Ma beat into sudden softness to make the mattress of her bed feel as if it were stuffed with the feathers of the peacock. And two stones. The two stones to serve as chairs. Or, as pillows. Depending upon how much time they had to spend, on how much secret time they could spend, on how much time they were wanting to spend in their retreat, in their cave.

  Percy reached their cave after “it” had started.

  He heard Mr. Bellfeels’ voice. It was the voice of a man who tried to talk while running, tremulous and emotional.

  He heard Mary’s voice. Her voice was tender, soft, like a soprano. It was a frightened voice; frightened as if it was coming out of the throat of a fawn; and who was trying to speak; and who knew that its throat would be cut.

  And when he was near the mouth of the cave, he heard Mary Gertrude Mathilda cry out. Perhaps, he imagined hearing her cry for help . . .

  He was not sure if her voice was a warning. If it was a cry of pain. Or a cry of surrender. Or of ecstasy. And if it were any of these, warning, pain, surrender, or ecstasy, he knew all of a sudden that he could not transfer the bravery and chivalry he had read in storybooks, to this sun-beaten portion of the beach. A black bird came from farther inland, and sailed close to him, and disap- peared down the beach where the women were sitting in the lapping waves.

  And in his confusion—fear and anger—into his mind comes the sagas of bravery and chivalry, Richard the Lion-Hearted, Hercules, Charles Atlas; his mind sending these bouts of bravery to his heart, and to his limbs; and he was now rushing from the waves that reached only to his ankles, to the mouth of the cave, water and sand spurting in his assault on the cave; and he grabbed Mr. Bellfeels by his neck and held on tight, but the bigger man’s body was too much for him; and even though this unfairness of body and might against his puny strength reminded him of the Bible story of David and Goliath, Percy could find no reason to prolong his defence of little Mary’s honour. The task was too epic for him.

  So, he walked back down the beach, looking at the sand, kicking old skeletons of crabs out of his way, counting the pebbles, trying to memorize the number of her footsteps stamped into the sand that he had followed, and that were now shifting under the weight of his weight.

  On this return journey, the sand was cleaner and more beautiful; and it had the shimmer of the inside of a conch shell, that colour of light pink and pearl.

  This has always been the colour of sand on all the beaches he remembers having walked on; and especially on this beach at the Crane Beach Hotel, that afternoon returning from Mary’s cave, when he held the conch shell up to the full blast of the sun; when he made an attempt to put the conch shell to his lips, to blow it, like a trumpet, to send the sound that fishermen made along the beach, when there was a tragedy at sea, into the ears of all. When a man had drowned . . .

  Mary has now taken the crank out of its hole. And is placing it on the blue felt cloth that lines the inside of the Victrola grammaphone; and she places the thick black disc to her face, inspecting it as if she is short-sighted, like a woman who wears glasses of thick magnification. And she moves her face ever so gently in a small circle, in the exact way, almost, as she does every morning when she gets out of bed religiously early, at five o’clock, even on Sundays; as she washes out her mouth with warm water with salt in it; turning the water round in her mouth, bulged like Dizzy Gillespie playing his trumpet—as if she is hiding two small balloons inside her mouth—as if a “centipee” had stung him there . . . She moves her face round and round the disc, as if she is whispering to it. But all she is doing is blowing the dust off the black circle. And then she places the disc on the turntable.

  The years she has had this record, and the number of times she has played it and played it for Wilberforce, even when he was a man; and the shorter number of times she played it for William Henry and for Rachelle Sarah Prudence, to their memory; and the times it has been dropped, through carelessness, or too much brandy, by mistake, on the hardwood floor not covered by the thick Persian carpets, in this section of the parlour.

  The scratch the needle makes on the disc sounds like a nail moving over glass; and it makes his skin
crawl; and it also marks off all those years when he passed near this Great House, and from a distance, heard this music being played on the grammaphone, coming through the open windows and the French doors. That was years ago, when he could only imagine what the inside of this Great House looked like. He and Manny and Golbourne and Pounce knew, in their bones, in their blood, that they dared not go too near to this House. It was an edict, unspoken and unwritten. But an edict, nevertheless. Mr. Bellfeels’ edict. Sargeant knew that before tonight he could not cross this threshold; even on police business.

  “Percy would know more better,” Mr. Bellfeels had said. He was not really talking to Mary-Mathilda, or to Wilberforce, when this threat was first uttered, but rather to the entire land; to everyone, even those who did not live on the Plantation. “He and the rest o’ them, Manny and Pounce, those little black bastards, would know more better than to think o’ crossing this blasted threshold. Not if he and them value their kiss-me-arse life!”

  Neither Mary-Mathilda nor Wilberforce understood the depth of Mr. Bellfeels’ anger; nor the cause of it. To their knowledge, Sargeant had never visited the Great House. The threat began when Sargeant was a boy, and lasted until he was a man.

  “I don’t give one shite if he is a police!” Mr. Bellfeels said, years later. “I would-blow his fecking brains out!”

  Mr. Bellfeels continued threatening, snapping his riding crop against the brown, shining, leather riding boot.

  The sun hit the boot as sharp as the whip cracked against it; and the rich leather, made redder in the sunlight, gave off blinding flashes.