The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  But the most loudest, the most body-wrenching crying that was crying did come from the woman with who Lionel did live and from who he had two thrildren. She burst in a earth-rendering weeping. She raise-up her two hands high-high-high up in the air and bawl for blue murder. She raise she voice when the Dean did emphasizing the part of the Scriptures, namely about “my Redeemer liveth.” And she lower-down her lamentations when he reach the words “the Lord giveth and the Lord tekketh away.” Her voice overtake all the other voices. Her voice reach right up to the tops o’ the almond trees and the casuarina trees in the pit of her sadness when the Dean reach “blessed be the name of the Lord.” Her voice was clearer, was higher, and was more unsettling than even the shimmering, dying light from the setting sun shining on the coconut and casuarina trees surrounding the grave, the people, and the graveyard.

  Seabert, as a tailor and man o’ letters, recognize the part of the Scriptures that the text was tek-from. “Joab,” he say, “chapter one, verse twenty-one.”

  The MP from Sin-James East, for who Lionel had work in the last campaign, see a cameraman pointing his lens in his direction and he start to wipe-off his sweating face with a blue and white polka-dot handkerchief. And start to weep like shite. The flash from the bulb explode like a big-big firefly before the MP could move-’way his handkerchief from covering up his whole face.

  “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live . . .”

  Oh Lord! Who tell the Dean to say so? Who tell the Very Rendable to utter them words?

  Lionel woman jump up in the air. She throw her long blue silk dress high-high over her two thighs. She raised um up in a gesture o’ grief. And in the gesture, she show-off one of the sweetest, juiciest, prettiest, and most luscious pairs o’ legs. And the two eyes of the MP from Sin-James East rested on them. Some other men look too, yuh. And they liked what they saw. But in the present circumstances, they put it outta their minds, for the time being. As man! ’Cause they understood.

  They did understand that Lionel, alas, born as he was of woman, no longer had all o’ this beautiful, nice, black flesh inside his hand to grasp and hold-on ’pon, to hold-on ’pon and slam as he like, as he uses to slam a domino in a big tournament game . . . “The Lord giveth and the Lord tekketh away, boy!” And she, a woman, pretty-pretty-pretty, and with some class, with good body and better body-line and more better thighs, was now left, poor soul, with only the sting of his death to comfort she.

  And the MP from Sin-James East start thinking ’bout slamming, ’bout slamming a dom, as they uses to call the game that brought-on Lionel death. And the two eyes of the same MP was stick-on ’pon the woman legs, and he couldn’t concentrate no more on the sadness of the moment. So he move over a little and rested a comforting hand ’pon the shoulder of the grieving woman. He feel the softness of her neck. And she stiffen-up, like if his hand was a stinging bee.

  And she bawl-out again. And the Dean was to pause in his reading of the Order of the Burial of the Dead.

  Soon after this, they start to sing a hymn. The hymn come from Hymns Ancient & Modern, the book they does use in the Cathedral and in all Anglican churches. Hymn 477. Hymn 477 is a hymn whiching no old woman in the whole country would ever go sleep at dusk without singing to herself.

  The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended,

  The darkness falls at thy behest.

  “Remind me,” the Prime Minister say, talking to his aide, the MP for Westbury North, all the time the people was singing, “remind me to call in the union boss of the Harbour Workers Union and the leader of the Garbage Collectors Union and get the two o’ them to brek-up these blasted strikes. They strangulating the people. First thing when we get back to the office, hear?” He wiped the booby outta his two eyes. “Sarge here?” he ask his aide, who was wiping the booby outta his two eyes too. “Sarge at this funeral?” His aide nod to say that Sarge here. “I want a tail put-on ’pon Sarge. Yuh can’t trust nobody these days. Not even the Police.”

  The singing was going-on all the time the weeping and the lamenting was punctuating the singing. And the last punctuation mark come when, in the end, the thick, black soil start hitting the top of the mahogany coffin that was polish to a high-brown sheen.

  The undertaker, or duppy agent, who was a member of the Party and the largest and most expensive duppy agent in the country, this undertaker tek-off all the silver-painted handles and other decorations from offa the coffin, just as they was about to lower Lionel in that deep, dark crevice.

  Four politicians and the two gravediggers on duty slipped Lionel coffin down gently-gently, with the help of three leather straps that was so big that they could have fit a giant waist.

  The mould start to pound on the shiny mahogany box. The men heard the pounding and start thinking of Lionel in the flesh and how he uses to pound a key card. As the mould fall, less louder now that the crevice in the ground was fulling up, as Lionel coffin was getting cover up, the screeling and the wailing start-up more louder. And when the coffin was hidden and conceal by the crumbly mould and the Dean say “ashes to ashes,” the screeling and crying come to a end.

  It was strange how it come to a end. Like if the end came and nobody didn’t know nor notice it. All like now-so, all you could hear was a moaning from the family. A sound like a painful, almost stifled groan cause by a toothache. One or two white handkerchiefs was tek-out by politicians and placed at their two eyes, in respect. The women in Lionel’s life moved from side to side in a slow-slow rhythm o’ sadness.

  “We must set-up a television station soon,” the Prime Minister say to his aide in a whisper. “State-own. And state-control, of course! All this nice feeling and emotion this afternoon, all this grassroot sentimentalism should be captured by a coloured television camera. It would make such lovely, nice news!”

  Standing ’round them, the cameramen was clicking their shutters tekking pictures and mekking noise like ducks and drakes chattering in a yard full o’ chickens.

  “I want to have a word with Lionel woman right after the funeral. Send-round my official car for she when she get home from the cemetery. As man!”

  The choirs from the Cathedral, who had march at the head of the procession, even in front o’ the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, start up now to sing the hymn, whiching if it wasn’t sung, nobody would believe there was a real funeral. It was a hymn whiching if it was not sung, nobody would believe that anybody dead or that a dead was buried.

  Abide with Me.

  “Hymn number twenty-seven,” the Dean say. “Hymn twenty-seven. Two-seven.”

  Man, “Abide with Me” was a immure popular song than “God Save the Queen.”

  The men who was singing bass and them who was playing they could touch the alto parts, these men start to make poetry with the parts. They was singing as if they was competing with themselves and with the choristers. And they was singing loud-loud to drown-out the voices of the poor choirboys. ’Cause they had already had-in some strong liquors and didn’t really know the tenor part or the alto part too good. But um was pure improvisation and imagination that make them sing-so.

  They was singing this burial hymn as if they was singing um at a wedding. So “Abide with Me” become, by the way they was singing it and by the way they was improvising the parts, like a national Sunday anthem.

  But all the people in the country did know that the men had good reason and cause to sing it so. Things was expensive. Crime was high-high. Unemployment was more higher. So the men had good reason to sing it. Without no reservation at all. Man, they lift-up their voices, right up to the top o’ the almond trees and the casuarina trees and the coconut trees and the bougainvillea, and shake-up the earth itself with their deep, sad challenge.

  Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;

  Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee:

  In life . . .

  And when they get to “in life,” the people make a pause; they paused, as if their own-own li
ves, the lives they been leading under this guvvamment’s regime, was itself in question. As if it was a stranglehold the Guvvament had grapple ’round their neck. ’Cause everybody did know from their own circumstances that in the midst o’ life, they was also in the midst o’ death.

  And when they reach “in death” in the hymn, they paused a next time. This pause was like if they was expressing in a gradual lowering-down the sadness that was in their very voices.

  Oh Lord! When the hymn reach “O Lord,” man, you woulda think that all the people in this whirl was shouting-out, compelling, telling, and calling-on ’pon God to lissen. Lissen, man, God. Jesus Christ, at least lissen to we . . .

  “. . . abide with me.”

  “The minute the news broadcast on the radio tonight,” the Prime Minister say, “the minute they broadcast this funeral—bram!—we calling elections! Political savvy and funerals, boy! Politics is like a nice funeral. Yuh does cry like shite over the coffin, and half-hour later yuh does catch some liquors at the wake. Political savvy and funerals, boy! And this is one o’ the loveliest funerals in the history of this country! We calling elections.”

  “We send-off Lionel, God bless his soul,” the MP for Westbury North say, “to his final resting place this afternoon with one o’ the loveliest funerals for the year, in the history o’ this political party. And Lionel was only a common, half-ig’rant party supporter. A blasted yard-fowl. But as you say, Skipper. Political savvy and funerals. So we had to send-he-off with a lovely funeral. And with a pretty song, ‘Abide with Me.’”

  When the MP for Westbury North was saying this, um was only one hour after the funeral done. All the people at the cemetery didn’t even get home yet then. But the Prime Minister had already gone in Lionel’s home, or former home, with Lionel woman. He had just return to his official car after spending some time with she. It was a dark night. A dog was growling as if somebody dead, or as the old people uses to say, as if the dog seeing duppies and spirits and deads. Um was Lionel’s dog too. Spot. The dog was growling. And already the elections was in full swing.

  The MP from Westbury North, who had drive the car on this mission for the Prime Minister, start to sing:

  A-bide with me, O Lord, a-bide with me.

  The Prime Minister wipe his face and his two hands with a white handkerchief. He pass the handkerchief over his lips. And he then wipe-off each finger clean-clean-clean. And then he throw the handkerchief into the black gutter. The car was park beside the gutter. And the dog was laying down beside the gutter, beside the car. Because the dog had come to greet the Prime Minister.

  “And that blasted coffin cost the Party one thousand dollars. One thousand dollar bills for a blasted coffin, for a blasted political yard-fowl! But we intend to get-um-back, though,” the Prime Minister say after he spit in the gutter.

  “Lionel leff-back any property?” the MP say.

  “He leff-back his woman, though!” the Prime Minister say. “He dead, and leff-she-back.” And then he laugh.

  “As man!” the MP say.

  “We send-off Lionel as if he was a prime minister himself!” the Prime Minister say. “With a lovely funeral!” He spit again, in the gutter. “How you fix for tomorrow night? You could bring me back here?”

  “As man!”

  And then the Prime Minister sit down on the plush leather o’ the back seat of the large black car with the MP at the wheel, and he start to hum:

  Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;

  Heaven’s morning breaks . . .

  And for days afterwards, the people who had live near the cemetery and them who had attend the funeral as witnesses to its size and everybody connected to the Guvvament, they all say, “What a lovely funeral they give Lionel!”

  And more than anything else, more even than the voice of the Dean, the people remember the singing of “Abide with Me.” And especially one thing they remember, whiching was the way the choirs sing it and rendered it and how the people did sing the very last line, in the very last verse.

  In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

  BONANZA 1972

  IN TORONTO

  “Clemmie! CLEM-MEEEE! Child, you ain’ know the tellyphone did want you? Child, I ringing and ringing for you, the whole blasted morning, to tell you ’bout last night, and Christ, you ain’ answering at all, at all! You think I don’t have nothing more better to do, eh? Well, let me tell you that I am a busy-busy person, my Missy having-in friends this evening, I have a million-and-one things to do, and when she having-in friends, and the friends finish eat and drink and get drunk, be-Christ, you would think a hurricane pass through this home that I sweat over to make look decent for her . . . But that ain’ what I ringing you for, though . . .

  “Child, last night! Last night at the Holiday Inn up in Don Mills! But let me tell you first, how I get to get up there in amongst them high and mighty Canadian people. Well, lissen . . . seems as though the invitement did come to my Missy. But you know her. She hopping here and she hopping there, museum party tonight, art gallery party last night, here there and everywhere, child. Well, she says to me, ‘Pinky, darling?’ . . . Tha’ is how she addresses me when me and she setting horses. But don’t let that fool you, ’cause it don’t fool me, and I know it don’t fool you neither! I have her in my craw up to today for what she do me since last year; and no blasted skin-teet’ can’t fizz ’pon me, nor wipe-out that grief. You know that. But I telling you ’bout last night, darling. Last night, oh Christ, Clemmie! The free eats and the free drinks that the Barbados touriss people back home send up to that place! And in the midst o’ my eating and drinking—’cause last night I was right there with them; I was one o’ the tourisses too, like the best o’ them!—in the midst o’ my eating a flying-fish steak, I had was to wonder, ‘How many o’ we back home have a piece o’ this nice fish in their mouth, this evening?’

  “But the story running-’way from me. I beginned by telling you how I got there. It appears that the Missy been too busy with her own business, so she send me there in her place. Gal, I was dedigated to go there, yuh hear? I dressed-off in my best clothes, and the missy say, ‘Pinky, since you going in my behalfs, and to such a big affair as the Holiday Inn, here is taxi fare.’ Darling, I sit my behind in that back seat and watch that taxi-man drive as slow, slow-slow-slooooooww as he blasted-well like, the dollars and cents clockingup ’pon that damn meter in his car, and I didn’ as much as pick my teet’ to him. Is my Missy money I was spenning last night, soul. The blasted taxi-man make two wrong turns, on purpose, and I ain’ business with him yet, ’cause it is the Missy who paying for all this. Well, eventually, eventually, at long last, he reach the right driveway, and he tell me six-eighty-something, and child, I hand him a twenty-dollar bill, and on top of it, I give the bastard a fifty-cent tip! How yuh like muh? Ain’t that style? Child, that is style! Last night I was Miss Pinky Best! I was living in style with the best o’ them bitches I works for, up here in this exclusive district.

  “Well, let me tell you how things was situated. First, they had this man behind a counter who takes your coat, and you pay him a quarter; then, there was these stewardess-ladies from Air Canada, smiling and thing, and asking you what your name is, and then they write-down your name on a piece o’ paper, or card, which said HELLO in pink print; and child, then you stepped through that door of a big-big ballroom place, and first thing you know, a man with a butler jacket on, bring this tray in front o’ you . . . just like how we serves at a party . . . and ask you, ‘Please take a glass o’ champagne, madam.’ Child, last night was a night o’ champagne! I was the onliest domestic in that company, and I held my head high as shite—pardon my vernaculer—I held up my head high-high-high as if I was the wife o’ the Governor-General back home! I was Lady Best last night. That was my introduct—. . . What that you say?

  “You want to know what I wore? Well, child, I bathe myself in some o’ the Missy best bath oil, Estuh Lauder, and for the hell of it, I throw in
some Algemenge too; seeing as how I was going to a Wessindian fete, I figure that this Algemenge thing that this bitch here boast so much about, and does wear on her body as if it is water—well, what is good for her, was good enough and more proper for Miss Best, darling. It is a funny thing, this Algemenge. It does make the water turn blue-blue-blue, like seawater back home. Well, I was stepping-out last night to a Wessindian function, so what better bath-thing to use than one that does make the water look pretty as the blue sea we have in the Car’bean! Then I held up both my armpits and I powder them with dusting powder, and then stepped-into my pantsuit—yes! the one me and you buy together down in Simpson’s, the black one, darling. It was a blackdress affair! . . . Heh-heh-heh-heeee! and not a stitch on my bubbies. Be-Christ, last night, Clemmie dear, I was bra-less like the biggest and the most prettiest womensliberationiss in Amurca. And I going tell you something else. Iffen I was not the respectable woman you know me as, Clemmie, I telling you, I woulda gone up there at that Holiday Inn without panties too. Heh-heh-heh-heee-oh-Gaaaaaawwwwd! Child, I was wicked last night! But I did, in trute, at first put on the pantsuit pants without no panties, but when I figure that there could be some men up there, who with two free Bajan rums in their arse, and feeling their oats and might try to feel-me-up—Christ! Well, I didn’ want to be in a position to have to disgrace the clothes I was wearing. I ain’, at my age, putting no ideas in no blasted Canadian-man head. At my age, I isn’ no pup. Yes! That is what I wore.