Caribee

by Christopher Nicole

  Edward watched his father, anxiously. No matter what happened, he did not want to go home. He wanted to stay here, in the heat and the sun and the savagery. He wanted to see Yarico again. He had to see her again, soon, for the memory of her with bloodstained mouth and teeth, chewing at the lifeless piece of human flesh which was so precious to all mankind, hung before his face like an angry cloud; he had not slept soundly since the feast

  But he did not want to leave.

  Tom was sighing, and glancing at the other men. "What say your"

  'Mr Painton is right,' Tony said. 'There is nothing for us in England now. Be sure that Mr North will have told no flattering account of our decision to remain behind And Mr Painton is right on the other score, too. But let us recruit some reinforcements, and some women as wives, by God, Tom, you were promising us no more than that only a while ago.'

  'The lad is right, Tom,' Ashton said. 'Yet with due respect to Mr Painton, I feel that one of us ought to take the tobacco home, and attend to these other matters. 'Tis no business for agents. Although be sure that I do not seek to carp about your share, Mr Painton.'

  ‘I agree with Hal,' Berwicke said. 'And indeed, it is the more dangerous task, if Mr North has really spread rumours concerning us. I would willingly volunteer...'

  'No,' Tom said. 1 will go. I know best what we have achieved, what we can still achieve. And I will have the King's ear, especially if my lord of Warwick survives and prospers. Will you three remain and hold the colony for me?"

  'Against all, Captain,' Tony promised.

  Then it shall be so. Well reap tomorrow, and be away the day after. If that is satisfactory, John.'

  That will be splendid,' Painton said. 'But if you gentlemen will excuse my interfering with your affairs, you should appoint a deputy, Tom. Every society, no matter how limited, requires a leader to cope with whatever emergency may arise. A leader who is acknowledged, and whom the others will obey.'

  Tom glanced at his friends.

  'Again, Mr Painton is right,' Tony said. "Else shall we fall to quarrelling. And be sure that I have no interest in the post.'

  'Hal?'

  The sailing master shrugged. 'The decision is yours, Tom. I am easy in the matter.'

  Then it shall be Ralph. You have no objection, old friend?' ‘I am flattered, sir.'

  ‘You had agreed to call me Tom. I appoint Mr Berwicke, gentlemen, deputy governor of this colony, before you all, and before Mr Painton, as my witness, until my return. He is a good man and my oldest friend, and will shirk neither duty nor execution. Now there, it is done. And it was uncommonly solemn.' He filled his glass and held it up. ‘I drink a toast to Mr Ralph Berwicke, and his colony of three.'

  'Four, Father,' Edward said.

  W

  'With your permission, sir, I would also remain here. You will return with Mama, and Philip. I can wait until then. And St Christopher is more my home than England.'

  The lad is right,' Berwicke said, 'And we shall be happy to care for him, Tom.'

  Tom stared at his son.

  ‘I know he's right,' Tom said. Then he shall stay. Truly, he's safer here than chancing his life upon the ocean, there and back. By God, I feel a perfect woman, at the diought of leaving. Tell me what you would have me bring for you, as a reward for your labours here. Ralph?'

  Berwicke took off his battered hat. ‘I'd be grateful for a new one, Tom.'

  'You shall have it. Best beaver. Hal?'

  'A keg of English beer, Tom. God, my mouth waters at the thought'

  Then your thirst shall be quenched. Tony?’

  'Just bring me a woman, Tom.'

  ‘I have promised you all one of those. Edward?’

  'A sword, Father. A sword of my own.'

  'Spoken like a soldier's son. Well, then, be sure that I shall return before Christmas, with your requirements, with money and with men, with women, Tony, lad, and with your mother and brodier, Edward. Aye, and the new babe, too.'

  Edward stood on Brimstone Hill long after the Plymouth Belle had disappeared over the horizon, her dirt-grey sails merging into the haze. Up here he could weep, if he wished. Ji he discovered it to be unavoidable.

  There was no reason for it. Father was going, to return with Mama and Philip. How they could be surprised to see the man into which he had grown. How they would be surprised at the island. Delighted. Until the next Carib feast? But the Carib feast was no worse than an execution at Tyburn. They would breed a different type of man here, perhaps, and woman. In time.

  And meanwhile there was the tobacco to be cared for. How bare the field looked, with the huge brown leaves departed. But the seed beds were full, and long before Father returned they would have to be planted out; he must return to a better crop than even that he carried with him. Because there was no question that it would grow. He could not imagine anything not growing here.

  But it was no longer paradise. No longer, perhaps, even the Enchanted Isle. Although enchanted did not always mean nothing but happiness. The enchanted forests and enchanted castles of legend invariably contained snares and dangers which had to be overcome. So perhaps St Christopher was, after all, an enchanted place.

  He turned at the sound. Yarico pointed at the sea, held her hands together in the shape of a boat and rocked them gently, and then put a forefinger to the comer of each eye and slowly traced them down her cheek.

  'Don'‘I be ridiculous,' he said angrily. ‘I but wished to be sure they were safe away. All, what's the use. You don'‘I understand me. And I don'‘I understand you, to be sure. Anything about you. You'd do best to leave me alone.'

  He walked on the path leading down, and felt her fingers on his arm. Lighdy. Not the way she had torn the penis from the dying Indian. And now there was no blood on her teeth as she smiled, and none dribbling from the comers of her hps. But Christ, one day her mouth could be full of him, should he ever fall out with her father's people. The lightness began to fill his belly, but it was a surging feeling, an awareness of liimself as a man. The feeling he knew whenever he thought of this girl; certainly whenever he saw her.

  As she knew. She smiled, and moved her head, towards the inland path. He had never been there. The north end of the island was nothing more than rocks and forest. Not even the Indians visited there, as a rule. But Yarico went everywhere, a spirit of the forest, of the pools and of the mountain. A bloodstained, bloodthirsty spirit

  Here was madness. Because when she released him, he followed her, where he should have taken to his heels. But Father had gone, across the ocean. As she knew, too. Here was no childlike savage, merely because she spoke a different tongue. And perhaps, no vicious monster, either, merely because she drank human blood. It occurred to him that she was a woman, much older than himself, although surely younger in years, moving through life with the singleminded-ness of any woman. A life in which he was included. His whole being became thrilled at the conception. Because this island was his life, now. This island, and Yarico. His gaze was once again held by the undulating buttocks.

  Which ceased movement, as she turned and gazed at him, allowing her delighted smile to travel from his ankles to his eyes. She could not see inside his breeches, but she knew she had obtained what she wanted. She pointed to the mountain, shrugged her shoulders, and gave a delightful little shriek of laughter as she released her cloth. Edward could not resist a glance at the ground, at the leaves and the coral outcrops and the endless creatures which would surely inhabit this world. Or did creatures matter at a time like tins?

  Nothing mattered. He was back in school, and the school was at Tyburn. He lay on his back, and his breeches were being removed by a fiendish executioner, whose fingers were light as snowilakes and whose smile continued to shroud him. He was helpless, and deliberately made himself more so, arms spread and legs spread, huge manhood launched at the sky, quivering and begging. Only this time he did not hate.

  And with all the skill of a practised torturer, she enjoyed her conquest, sitting between his legs, h
olding him in both hands and flicking him gentiy with her thumbs, her mouth opening and shutting, her teeth gleaming and disappearing behind the licking red tongue, until he diought he would burst. But with the certainty of knowledge, she timed his thrust, turning on to her hands and knees, away from him, yet still reaching behind herself to guide him, to feel his belly pressed against her buttocks. And still she laughed.

  Wliile she burned. With a fire which seemed to consume him as well.

  Then she was content to be the victim. She sat against the trunk of a tree, and smiled, mouth sagging. He knelt beside her and dragged his fingers through her hair. How long had he wanted to do that. And kiss her eyes, and her nose. This mystified her, but she liked it, judging by her expression, as she liked him to stroke her breasts. Small breasts, but throbbing mounds of womanhood, with strangely flaccid nipples, even when aroused. Or perhaps he had not yet fully aroused her. But she preferred him to explore her belly, moved it and thrust it in his face, and exploded into more delighted laughter when he allowed himself a gentle bite.

  And then the laughter died, and he straightened in some haste, gazed at Wapisiane, felt fear rising from his own belly to meet the strength coming down. The Indian boy was unarmed, but he had his hands and Ins teeth, and he too had tasted blood at the feast.

  He asked a question of Yarico, and the girl tossed her head, and answered him, vigorously and angrily. Wapisiane gazed at Edward for several seconds, seeming to be drinking him in with his eyes, and then turned and disappeared as silendy as he had come.

  Yarico laughed, touched Edward with her forefinger, and then thrust it between her legs, before cupping her hands and encircling her belly.

  ‘You mean he would have you mother his childrenr" Edward asked in horror. 'But then...

  She shook her head, gently, from side to side, and an expression of utter contempt crossed her face.

  'But he is angry,' Edward said. 'He will tell your father,' He pointed at the village, waved his arms above his head, fists clenched.

  Yarico gave another of her unforgettable shrieks, and again her head was shaking, from side to side, slowly. But now her arms were reaching for him, once again.

  The sun, Yarico, rose at dawn and declined at dusk. The moon, Yarico, was already high in the sky on most nights, and remained there, bathing St Christopher in its unforgettable light. The tobacco, Yarico, took to the fields and grew like weeds, sprouting forth in unimaginable profusion. The yams, the fish, the coconuts which were their staple diet, all contained Yarico. Every dream, every waking moment, was but an aspect of Yarico.

  Even the men contained Yarico. But with them he must be careful. They saw his contentedness, and were pleasantly surprised. But then, they were content themselves, and put his obvious happiness down to the withdrawal of the stern command and criticism of his father. Certainly Berwicke was more easy. Or perhaps life itself was more easy. There were some hours' work needed on the tobacco every day, and there was some cooking and laundry to be done. But now they could smoke their own crop, and Painton had left them delicacies like cheese and even a few bottles of wine. They dreamed, of Tom's return, with ships and men. And women. Tony Hilton might spend hours watching the Indian girls going about their various tasks, but he remembered too well the blood rolling down their chins to wish more than that. He too was content to wait. And so they assumed that Edward also dreamed, whatever boys dream about. They had forgotten, as they had forgotten snow and hail, market days and storms at sea, King James and Steenie Villiers, and all the ills of life. There were none here.

  But they were also a reminder that one day Father would return, and with him, Mama. There was onrushing cataclysm. Which made him the more anxious. He spent his leisure hours climbing Brimstone Hill, where he would be sure to find her, and his nights escaping the solitude of his house and seeking her behind the tobacco field, for she was always there. They sought love and found it with a passionate intensity which frightened him, when he thought about it, but which could not be resisted when he was in her presence. He endeavoured to introduce some aspect of rationality into their relationship by teaching her English while they were both regaining their strengths, and indeed she proved an apt pupil, for she was intelligent and anxious to please him in every way. Yet he could not escape the overwhelming feeling that to her he was no more than a large toy, fascinating in the colour of his skin, the texture of his face and hair and flesh, the innocence which she delighted in destroying, for she taught him to use his mouth and teeth on every part of her body, and she cared not where he made his entry so long as she felt him in her and against her. But how to know where pleasure ended and sin began? Or did sin belong here at all, in this enchanted, heathen place? Could he sin with a girl who had torn a living man to pieces with her teeth. Was she not, equally, his plaything, to be done with as he chose? There was a satisfying thought, and when he remembered the law laid down by Father on their first day here, he could not convince himself that sin had come into that at all. Father had been afraid of antagonizing the natives. He was just as afraid of that, and lived for some weeks in terror of what Wapisiane might do or say, but Yarico was reassuring, and certainly it seemed that she knew her people, and her designated husband, for Tegramond was as unfailingly good humoured as ever, and every day his women made the trek

  along the beach with their fish for the white men, and stood and giggled together and pointed at whatever took their fancy, and seemed amazed that the men should choose to keep to themselves.

  Surely, no sin in paradise. Nothing, in paradise, save unchanging sun and heat, daylight and darkness, a dawn breeze and a midday rain shower, the rumble of the surf and the desire of Yarico. Until the day that she was not on the hilltop when he got there, towards dusk, as was usual. For a moment he was too surprised to think. It had been an unnaturally hot day, even for St Christopher, and so they had done less work than usual, and now he was surprised to discover that it was as hot at dusk as it had been at noon. The breeze was absent, yet the clouds still moved, and when he looked at them from this vantage point he saw that they were far more numerous than usual, and thickly clustered, and in many places dark grey and even black, instead of fleecy white. And strange, now his interest was aroused, there were no Indian children bathing off the village, usually clearly to be seen from up here. The Island gave the appearance of having been deserted, save for the three Englishmen below him, lying on the sand and smoking their rolled leaves, and dreaming aloud to each other.

  The breeze puffed against his cheek, returning without warning, and he looked up in surprise. There was no twilight in these latitudes, but this transition from light to darkness was too sudden. It was caused by the cloud. It was huge, and black, and it spread and spread and spread to the eastern horizon, and the breeze was suddenly filled with rain, moving along, stinging his face and hands, filling his belly with fear.

  But Yarico was here. She stood amidst the trees, arms outstretched. 'Hurricane,' she said, and pointed. 'Wind.' And waved her hand.

  He ran to her, and they ducked into the trees. But this was Guyana again, as the huge raindrops crashed downwards, only here there was wind, stinging and sending branches thrashing to and fro. And then there was a louder sound, a noise he had never heard before, a growing whine as if every bird in the world was gathered together and rushing at St Christopher, crying and beating their wings in unison.

  Yarico threw herself to the ground, and he dropped with her. He watched her digging her toes and fingers into the earth, hands scrabbling to find some solidity, and wondered if this was a new means of self-satisfaction. Then she was gone, and he was gone. He did not know how or where. He felt no pain, just an enormous dizziness, and looked up. But he saw nothing, although his instincts told him he had been rolled off the path and down into the jungle below. How long he lay there he had no idea. The howling of the wind became one continuous roaring in his ears, shutting out all possibility of thought. The rain pounded on his face and body, hurting him, but not suggest
ing that he move. And then, sometimes, it would stop, and leave only the wind, before returning again with incessant power. The night grew ever darker, and the noise around him, when he could hear it above the wind, the crashes and the thuds, the huge booms of the breakers on the beach far below, the rumble of the thunder and the crackle of the lightning which cut vivid slashes through the darkness, grew ever more terrifying.

  In time, Yarico came to him again. Certainly she was as terrified as himself, but she had experienced such a storm before, and besides, she loved. This night he truly realized that. She was a savage, a bloodthirsty cannibal, and he would never be able to forget her as she had been on that terrible day, but she loved, with a protective desire which made nonsense of differences hi language, and religion, and outlook, in past and no doubt in future, in present. Where there was a love of this calibre, there could never be sin.

  And again in time, there was dawn. The wind dropped, although it remained a gale, but the terrifying whine and the equally terrifying clouds had passed away, and the sky was a more brilliant blue than he had ever seen, a drenched blue, washed clean by the pounding rain.

  He sat up, and then stood up, cautiously, because his muscles were cramped and he could not help but wonder if anything was broken. Amazingly he was unharmed, and so was the girl. In their mossy hollow they had lain in safety. Not so the forest. A giant hand had swept across St Christopher, plucking and flicking, enjoying itself with all the gusto of the Caribs destroying the man from Dominica. The analogy came strongly to mind as he looked at the uprooted trees, the overturned boulders, the swathes of bushes and scattered shrubs, almost as if a gigantic scythe had been at work. And the wind had come from the east, so there had been the mountain between them and the worst. What the windward side of the island must be like did not bear consideration.