Island in the Sun

by Alec Waugh

  “She deserved it,” the prisoner was continuing. “When her father was alive …”

  The judge interrupted him.

  “You have already told us that: according to your account your sister during her father’s life took advantage of her father’s strength to insult you. On this particular occasion she had troubled your food. That is what you have to tell us isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that is what I have to tell you. She deserved it. When her father was alive…”

  Again the judge interrupted him. “You have made yourself very clear. Unless you have anything to add, and I do not think you have, I will call on your counsel to address the jury on your behalf.”

  The prisoner nodded. He had had his say. He looked round the court. A friend waved at him. He saw a row of intent faces. He had never been listened to for so long before. They would remember how he had talked before the judge and these men with wigs, and how the judge had said that he had made things very clear. He was well content. He relapsed into apathy.

  Grainger rose. There was nothing that he could do but extend a plea for mercy: to ask the jury to consider the squalid conditions under which persons like the prisoner lived. He did it quietly, undramatically, without emotion.

  “Life is very different in these small shacks in airless back streets from what it is in the pleasant bungalows in which you live. You cannot declare my client innocent. He has confessed his guilt. It was a ruthless brutal act. But I think you would be justified in view of what the prisoner has told you in attaching a plea of mercy to your verdict.”

  But he did not get his plea of mercy. The prisoner was too well known to members of the jury. A verdict of guilty was brought in. The judge asked to see the prisoner’s record. There were three previous convictions, two for theft, one for robbery with violence. He received nine months and a lecture from the judge. “It was a beastly thing you did,” he was informed.

  It was now half-past two, and once again the body of the court was crowded. There were several new arrivals. Denis Archer had been sent down by the Governor. Euan had come with him. Brad-shaw was feeling faint. It had been a strenuous morning at the club. If only people would sit down at a table instead of standing at a bar; if only they would eat more. He had been very bored as they had gone on declaiming their opinions, their voices getting louder as their sentences grew less grammatical. He did not know how they could take so much to drink on an empty stomach. He had had one punch, and then made a rum and soda last him through a succession of fresh rounds. In the end they had only left themselves time for a hurried twenty minutes lunch. An exhausting morning. Still he had met David Boyeur, and Boyeur was coming to tea with him that afternoon. Tonight he would begin his article. He had so much to say that his problem was one of compression, not expansion. Now for the cause célèbre, he told himself.

  He was sitting two rows behind the Prestons. On an occasion such as this he made use of a hearing aid, and he was able to overhear the advice that Mrs. Preston gave her husband.

  “Don’t be diffident, that’s one of your weaknesses. And don’t get flustered, that’s another of them. It’s the obverse side of your diffidence. Tell your story in a straightforward way. Even if the judge won’t give you justice, you’ll have made it very clear to these people that you won’t be trampled on. It’s your turn: keep your head.”

  Preston was placed in what had been the witness box in the previous case. His neighbor stood in the dock. His neighbor wore a tight-fitting dark blue suit, a stiff white collar and a bright yellow and blue American tie arranged in a pattern of spheres and rhomboids. The neighbor was represented by counsel and had brought down ten witnesses from his estate, who stood against the wall in eagerly restless anticipation.

  The judge consulted his papers.

  “Now this is an appeal made by you, Mr. Preston, against a decision of the magistrate in your district in connection with a fine imposed on you, because of the trespass of your cattle on your neighbor’s land.” He turned to the man in the dock. “That neighbor is you, I take it?” The man in the dock nodded.

  “Good, now let me see.”

  The judge restudied the papers then turned to Preston. “Are you represented by counsel?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I see. Usually an appeal turns upon a technicality, and I wonder if you wouldn’t be well advised to consult with counsel. There is one other matter to be heard in court. If you cared to defer your case until tomorrow, I’m sure …” He paused. He looked at Grainger and Grainger nodded back. “As I thought. Mr. Morris, who is, I may say, a very talented member of the bar, would be only too glad to give you the benefit of his special knowledge. If I may say so, I think you would be wise to accept his offer.”

  Preston hesitated. He looked toward his wife. She shook her head emphatically.

  “I’m sorry, sir, it’s very generous of Mr. Morris, but I would prefer to handle it in my own way.”

  “Very good.”

  Mrs. Preston turned to Mrs. Norman. “A white man is perfectly capable of making his own case. We can’t have these local lawyers fixing our cases between themselves.” It was said in a stage whisper, not loud enough to reach the bench but loud enough for everyone in the body of the court to hear. Mavis flushed. Grainger must have heard. He could not have helped hearing. Her indignation rose. It was outrageous that he should have to endure a thing like that: as though anywhere in the world except this twopenny-ha’penny island he wasn’t worth fifty of Mrs. Preston and her upstart husband.

  Mavis was so angry that she could scarcely follow the conduct of the case.

  As the judge had prophesied, it turned upon a technicality. The judge was satisfied that Preston had acted in good faith, and had made every effort to discover how much damage had been done. He could appreciate Mr. Preston’s fears that this kind of thing might become a racket, but according to the evidence given and accepted at the trial before the magistrate there was an admitted trespass and the commission of a trespass assumed damage.

  “But I didn’t attend the trial. I do not accept that evidence,” Preston protested.

  “In that case your appeal should have taken a different form.”

  It hinged, so it seemed to Mavis, on a verbal quibble. She could not be bothered to listen to it. She was following her own thoughts. They were angry, rebellious thoughts. Here they sat, the Mrs. Prestons of Santa Marta, smug and complacent and superior, thinking themselves a heaven-appointed aristocracy, for no other reason than that their skin was white. To what would they have amounted anywhere but in a place like this? Who had ever heard of any of them outside the Caribbean? Everyone in England had heard of Grainger Morris, anyone who followed sport at least, and wasn’t the sports page the first one to which every Englishman turned automatically? How long did people like Mrs. Preston think they would be able to give themselves these airs and graces? Did they realize that they were outnumbered here by one hundred to one?

  “As you were not represented by counsel,” the judge was concluding, “I have allowed you greater freedom of expression than I should have done. Much of what I have let you say could not have been admitted in this court as evidence. And I have been at particular pains to explain why I have reached my opinion, that the magistrate’s decision must be allowed to stand.”

  He spoke quietly, friendlily; with an air of dignity and authority. He was a colored man, Mavis told herself; there was not a single white man in the smaller islands with sufficient brains and enterprise to be entrusted with such a post. Yet people like Mrs. Preston thought they belonged to a superior race.

  “But, my lord, I do entreat you …” The intensity in the voice broke her reverie. An argument was going on. The neighbor’s counsel was on his feet. He was asking for costs and the judge had refused him costs. “But, my lord, there are counsel’s and legal costs. Ten witnesses have been brought from the estate.”

  “There was no need for them to have been brought. They gave their evidence before the magistrate.
That evidence is on record.”

  A smile was flickering in the corners of the judge’s mouth. He knew his people. Whether or not a deliberate racket had been plotted, whether the fence had been removed and Preston’s cattle driven in to trespass at a point where no damage could be done, he knew very well that Montez, the peasant, had been resolved, once the trespass had been done, to take all the profit possible. Montez had asked in the first place for a ridiculously high recompense. And now he had thought that the appeal which he had been certain to win provided an excellent opportunity to bring ten of his friends into town for a day’s festivity. Montez must not get away with that.

  “There will be no costs. There was no reason for their having been incurred,” the judge decided.

  The decision filled the tennis club section of the audience with jubilation. Montez must have promised his witnesses a reward. Though he had been awarded fifteen dollars for damage to his property, he would be substantially out of pocket. It was a Pyrrhic victory; if a victory at all. The tennis club was delighted.

  In the street outside there was a clamor of indignation. Montez was surrounded by his witnesses. They were insisting that he had promised them five dollars each. He was arguing that that promise had been dependent on his obtaining the five dollars from the court.

  “You never said that, boss.”

  “I did not say it, but I meant it. How can I give you money I have not received?”

  Boyeur listened in the background. The estate hands were members of his union. He let them talk, he always let them talk; while they were talking, he made up his mind. He could turn this to his own advantage. He waited for a while, then interrupted.

  “Listen boys, you’ve had an unlucky deal, all of you. You should have had five dollars. You were promised five dollars and you should have had it. You feel that you’ve been humbugged; naturally.”

  “He said five dollars. He must pay five dollars.”

  Boyeur raised his hand.

  “Let’s look at it like this. A colonel says to his men during a war, ‘We are going to take that town. We will plunder it. There is much money in the bank, much jewelry, much silver in the houses. When we divide the spoil, each man will receive a hundred dollars.’ That is what he says. But suppose the town has been warned, suppose the money, the silver and the jewelry have been sent away. What to do? The colonel cannot give them a hundred dollars each. He has not got it. They have deserved it, but he has not got it. He cannot give them what he has not got. What to do?”

  Boyeur paused. He was following the same technique that Carson had, a few days earlier. If you went on talking, using one phrase as a refrain, you mesmerized your audience.

  “What to do? There is only one thing to do. The colonel makes a pile of what he has captured and divides it equally among his men. That is fair, that is just, that is all he can do. That is what you do now. How much money has the judge awarded you. Fifteen dollars. There are ten of you. There is also Montez. Montez has suffered damage to his land. He had also to pay his lawyer. It is fair that he should have the biggest share. What to do? I say five dollars to Montez, one dollar to each of you.”

  He looked round him. They were not yet wholly satisfied, but they were feeling better than they had. Ten minutes ago they had been afraid that they would get nothing.

  “One dollar is not as good as five,” Boyeur was continuing. “But you have had a day in town. Montez drove you in. You have seen your friends. It has been a party. If someone had said to you two weeks ago, ‘I drive you into town, you see your friends, you do no work, you drink mountain dew, I give you a dollar to spend,’ you would have been delighted, wouldn’t you?”

  They agreed that they would have been delighted.

  “Montez has done you no injury. He has said ‘What to do.’ He has done the best he can. He is not to blame. At the same time you have been humbugged. When you go back tonight, they will laugh at you in the village. Your girls will say ‘Where is that handkerchief. Where is that scent you promised me?’ You will look silly.”

  He paused. It was a point that had not occurred to them. They would look silly. They had been thinking only of their five dollars. They had not realized that the girls would laugh at them. They would look silly in the village. That was much worse than losing five dollars.

  “You will look silly. And whose fault is it that you will look silly? Not Montez’. He did his best for you. Shall I tell you whose fault it is? Come close, I whisper.”

  They gathered round him and he dropped his voice.

  “It is a white man’s plot, to make the brown man look silly. Have you not heard that Preston is going to manage Belfontaine for Maxwell Fleury? It is Maxwell Fleury who wanted to make you silly, so that the village should be afraid of the white man. It was Maxwell Fleury who made Preston bring this case. It is not Preston’s fault. He is a little man. Maxwell Fleury is a big man, the son of a big man. It is Maxwell Fleury’s fault. You have been made to look silly because of him.”

  The argument, Boyeur knew it well, had no basis of truth whatsoever, but they would not recognize that. In their present mesmerized state they would believe anything.

  “You have been made to look silly. It is Maxwell Fleury’s fault. Shall I tell you what I do when a man makes me look silly? I wait my time and then I fix him good.”

  Across the street stood Maxwell Fleury talking to his wife and sister-in-law. He looked very handsome and at ease, laughing and chattering with a smug self-satisfied expression. I’ll teach you to ignore me in public, Boyeur thought.

  Smug was the word that had occurred to Boyeur looking at Maxwell across the street. Smug was the word that occurred to Mavis, as Maxwell gloated over the outcome of the case.

  “It’s the best thing that could have happened for the neighborhood,” he was saying, “It’ll show these nigger-men their place. They thought they were going to exploit us, now they’re in a worse state than when they started.”

  Mavis disliked his manner. It did not amuse her that an ignorant, ill-educated colored man had been discomfited. The case should never have been allowed to come into court, the appeal should never have been made. They were children, these people: they should be treated as children were, firmly no doubt when the occasion warranted, but kindly, with forbearance. She had no patience with this atmosphere of enmity. They were all Santa Martans weren’t they? There should not be two sides, there was only one side—the island’s welfare. It was this atmosphere of enmity that made possible a remark like Mrs. Preston’s. She was still incensed over that. She wanted to make amends. She watched for Grainger. The moment she saw him in the doorway, she hurried over.

  “I want to apologize, on behalf of all of us, for what Mrs. Preston said. I felt hurt on your account; but ashamed on mine. I felt humiliated that such a thing could be said, that nobody protested.”

  The words poured out; she was overwhelmed with an imperious need to subject herself, to make atonement by her own sacrifice for the intolerance, the narrowness, the injustice of her world.

  “We are not all like that,” she said. “I’m not the only one who is disgusted by that kind of talk, that way of thinking. It’s only the older ones who are like that. We, the younger ones, don’t draw these lines, don’t make these distinctions.”

  “I know.”

  “And it’s because you know that, that you’re so different: you haven’t any chip upon your shoulder. We can be natural with you. You don’t know how hard it is for us to be natural with the others, some of the others.”

  “I can guess that.”

  “We don’t blame them. It’s our fault, not theirs: ours in the long run, because of what we did in the past, ours too for what some of us are doing in the present, people like Mrs. Preston; we don’t blame your people for being difficult. But can’t you see what a relief it is to have some like yourself whom we can use as an example, of whom we can say, ‘Is there one point on which he isn’t the equal of any man we know?’ “

  She pa
used, breathless, flushed. She had never talked in this way in her life; she had never suspected that she could talk like this. She had become a new person to herself. Was she making herself ridiculous? She didn’t care. She had to get it all said, now; once and for all. She would have liked to have stood at his side and flung out a challenge to her world; a demand of it to find his equal.

  “I think you’re wonderful,” she said.

  He did not answer. He held out his hand. It was a firm cool handclasp, more eloquent than any verbal answer. She watched him as he mounted his bicycle and rode off. Something irremediable had been said, something that could never be unsaid now, that was a part of them for ever, their own secret. It was one of the biggest moments of her life. She felt reborn.

  And it was at that very moment that a hand took her arm above her elbow and a voice whispered, “What about a drive?”

  She turned and there was Euan Templeton. There was a hot look in his eyes; his thumb moved against the soft flesh of her upper arm. That touch, that look symbolized everything in herself that she despised, that this new-found self of hers rejected. She pulled herself away.

  “Leave me alone. Can’t you see how sick I am of that.”

  It was said in a low tense voice, so low that no one heard it. It happened so quickly that only two people saw it. But they were the two people to whom the seeing of it mattered most. Carl Bradshaw and Jocelyn Fleury; to both of them in a very different way, it had a special meaning.

  From the other side of the street Denis Archer was waving to young Templeton.

  “Do you want a lift? I promised your old man to hurry back.”

  “O.K.”

  “That’s exactly what the old man wanted,” Archer said. “Nobody really won, no one’s completely satisfied. The magistrate’s face is saved, and there’s a general feeling everywhere that it doesn’t pay to bring one’s grievances to court.”