by Chris Dolan
George shouted angrily at her, “Get a move on!” As if the storm were of her making. A trap to lead him to his death.
Then, abruptly, the storm stalled. Simply stopped, like a candle blown out. Not a bird sang, nor a tree moved. The silhouettes faded into the night, falling stones poised mid-air, and trees, half-felled, swayed, as if wondering what force had bent them into this position. The world holding its breath, petrified at the sky’s hatred. She saw then where George was leading her, and she tried to pull back. He hauled her towards Henry’s feeble chattel-house. If the bulk and strength of the great stone mansion had not been enough to protect them, what chance would they have in the flimsy little hut of the gardener’s?
“Wood bends with the wind. It doesn’t collapse.”
They were surrounded by massive trees blown over like skittles. Roots had torn up the earth, waving gutlessly in the air, over the deep wounds they had made in the gardens. She followed, pulled along by her stumbling protector. Henry opened his door and ran towards them, lumbering through water and wreckage. A dull red light began to gleam as if the heavens were opening a bloodshot eye to look on the catastrophe they were causing. The gardener wore no shirt and his breeches had been torn and rolled up at the calf, just like her image of him as Frankenstein’s Creature. The brutal embodiment of the storm itself. She reviled his blackness; wished hopelessly for the calming wisdom of a Lord Coak, an Overton, a superior white man from a steadfast castle; an elder who would know how to deal with Nature’s stupid temper.
Henry made straight for Elspeth and lifted her at the waist, held her above the water as though she were a mucky child. She hung on to George’s hand, as he stumbled along beside them, pale and shocked. Henry strode more steadily, stronger than George, more used to physical exertion. The rain began again, and a wind gently whistled. The night’s orange light gave Henry’s and George’s eyes a lost, ghostly look.
Inside Henry’s house his wife and children – more of them than she had realised – were huddling on the bedstead, keeping their feet curled around them, above the waterline. The gardener sat Elspeth down on a high shelf that ran along one side of the house. To make more space for her he cleared, with one lunge of his massive arm, all the cooking utensils and gardening tools and knick-knacks, letting them fall into the water and float or sink along with the rest of the debris. He repositioned her and then turned away as though he had just put an old doll of his daughter’s out of reach. George tried to clamber up beside her, but fell back down with a little cry of pain. Henry came to his aid, and the two men spoke. She could not understand what they said. Not because she couldn’t hear them – the hut was as quiet as the grave, the sky still inhaling – but her brain could not organise the sounds into any meaning. Even words, her old allies, failed her. Henry helped George up and sat him beside her, then bounced the shelf up and down to demonstrate its strength, proud that his workmanship was of value in calamitous circumstances.
“You be safe up here. That mantel take any weight and you a li’l elfy ting, Mistress.”
Everything Henry did he did merely in the way of duty. His face betrayed no real emotion. He had gone out to round them up as a shepherd might gather in his landlord’s sheep. The hard fact struck Elspeth like a falling stone. All of them – the smiling maids and servants, the skivvies at the theatres – they all giggled or nodded, assented to everything, because duty demanded it. His chores done, Henry turned back to his family, pulled two of the older children in towards him on the tabletop. His wife and younger daughters remained sitting on the bedstead, placid and staring into space, glancing at their visitors, clumped together in the soaked, muddied bedclothes.
The last thing Elspeth could remember was the sound of the wind getting its second terrifying breath, and thinking she would never sleep again. She laid her head on George’s shoulder; he raised his hand to stroke her but could not reach out far enough. He gave another cry of pain. She lowered her head onto his lap and he stroked her hair with his other hand. Then, miraculously, sleep came after all. She drifted into the safety and calm of inner darkness, George whispering in the distance, “Be over soon. Rest now.”
Now it was calm, the light peeking in the windows fresh and clear, sparkling like a rock pool in the early morning. She had regained partial wakefulness often enough during the night to know that the storm had built to at least one more riotous climax. She had dreamt that she was back on the Alba, the wind and rain pitching Henry’s hut more than the Atlantic ocean had ever shaken her cabin. She would have chosen the terrors of the high seas any day to the reality of this morn – calm and untroubled as it deceitfully was.
The air was distilled and sweet; the world weightless, her body like a feather. The birds sang and the sea in the distance swished calm and regular. The echoes of last night’s howling wind and crashing trees and stone and bricks now murmured only softly in her ears. George’s judgement had proved correct – the chattel-house still stood steady. The water level had risen and pots and pans and loose articles had been tossed around. But the cast of human characters remained unchanged. Everyone was where they were when she had fallen asleep, all open-eyed, like a chorus required to hold their positions. Statues of loss and confusion. Henry and the two youths on the table, his wife and smaller children on the bed. The gardener woke a little after Elspeth and gently lifted the two boys he had been supporting, setting them down on the crowded bed with hardly a motion on their part. His legs, as he swung round to alight from the table, sank into the flood up to his thighs. He slushed through the water and the floating remains of his livelihood, and pulled the door open. The water from outside met the water within and created a little eddy around his bare legs. Looking out the open door, Elspeth saw the full extent of the damage.
The sea had leapt unaccountably from its bed. The sky had cracked and crumbled, and everything that ever was, was ripped up by its roots. The gods, she thought, are children who leave a shameful guddle behind their pranks and games. How on earth could such a supernatural mess be cleared by mere mortals? The day ahead would be different from the one she had been expecting – the day of her debut, the day she had been working towards and planning for months. She nursed the idea for a moment that things might be put back in order for her recital tonight, and nearly smiled at such a foolish hope.
Where does one start to tidy a clutter like that? Pick up that tree? Sort out the walls of the house from the roof? See if there is anyone buried under the rubble? Look for things left whole and undestroyed, pile them to one side? Wake up George now, or let him sleep?
None of these were matters for a woman like Elspeth to decide. Her father had ever railed against her for being “haunless, daft and yissless”. She had claimed, to him and inwardly to herself, that, when a true crisis came, she would rise to the challenge. Her daily ineffectiveness – striking sets and camp, loading carts – would be overcome and she would find within herself an heroic capacity. Well, here was a crisis beyond her worst expectations, and no heroism stirred.
What they must do, she and George, was find people to help them. Henry was strong, but not strong enough to do the work of twenty, forty men. How many would it take to rebuild this little corner of the world? Henry had his own house to put in order, and then his duty was to his own master at the mansion. His wife and children stared dumbly at him as if at any moment he would turn around and smile, lift all the chaos away with his huge arms, drain the water and clear the mud, turn the day into one like any other. They followed his every move – fishing out a passing joist, plucking it from the water, then throwing it back again. It chilled Elspeth’s heart to think that even a functional and instinctive being like Henry was at a loss.
She had to get down from this shelf. George had to call on the resources of his father’s house. People, servants, maids, slave-gangs who could get a good day’s work done, construct somewhere for them to be this evening. The first task was to wake him and send him off to muster helpers, bring tea and food, set abou
t putting things in order. She dreeped down from her shelf, slipping into the warm sludge, stretched and took a hold of George’s hand. It was cold from the wet and wind. She looked back out through the door, getting a broader view than from atop the shelf. Her vision was unobstructed for miles. Nothing stood to impede the view. The ground was strewn as far as the eye could see with rafters, planks, tabletops, chair legs – like a Glasgow barroom after a brawl – bricks and stones, blue porch tiles, red roof beams, chimneys, felled palms and grapefruit trees, single plantains and coconuts, everything higgelty-piggelty. Sugar canes, snapped up and thrown from fields miles away, floated past the chattel shack, leaving a tang of sweetness in the air.
George was huddled into his coat, face towards her, calm and calming, as he had been throughout the worst of it, protecting his mistress chivalrously throughout the storm, finding this sanctuary for them to survive the night. She shook him.
“George,” she said, soothingly. “Georgie.”
His body juddered to her touch instead of rocking or waking. Henry watched her trying to rouse him, and made his way back through the deluge towards her. George slumped forward and she saw the splinter of mahogany protrude from his side.
“Had that in him last night. Didn’t want to pull it out. Save him bleeding.”
Elspeth nodded. The spear must have struck him on the way out of the house, or in the gardens where bits of the world flew about animated by the force of the storm. This complicated matters. In the midst of this catastrophe George’s death felt matter-of-course to her: another little piece of an enormous mess that would somehow have to be dealt with. As she dragged her legs, entangled in her muddied robe, she felt sorry for him. What a price to pay for two nights of gentleman’s pleasure! If only he had had the sense to go home, he would not now be sitting, cowped on a shelf, like a broken mannequin. Pleasure is a wanton curse. Drink it and ye’ll find him out. She paddled towards the door, out into the fresh, bleached day.
Elspeth Baillie lost in her land of dreams. The water at her feet raced away at her step, and she walked forward with the sure step she had learned from years of tramping through peat-bogs and lowland marshes. The sun sparkled and the air was sharp and diamond-bright, but her head was slumped low again, her shoulders huddled, as if she were battling against the old bluster and sleet. She had nowhere to go; no one to go to. No father or mother. No Lord Coak or Nonie. No Dainty or Tuesday to be seen. No George Lisle.
She walked and she walked, thoughts tumbling like blown leaves: George naked, George dead, the wailing Creature, Henry her saviour. Lines from roles and songs and poems. Gin a body kiss a body, need a body cry? Past the chasm where the house she had slept in with her lover had stood only hours earlier. With effort, she raised her head and looked out from Savannah, scanned the horizon. Half of Bridgetown had vanished. People in the distance wandered as she did, in ones and twos, dazed and aimless. There was weeping in the breeze; there were gaps in the world, whole neighbourhoods vanquished. Between the Garrison and Trafalgar an immense hole, like the fascinating cavity of a pulled tooth. The Synagogue was gone. The barracks were crushed. Fort Charles no longer protected anything, its saluting soldiers swept away. The Lyric Theatre, and with it all her plans, had been picked up and hurled into the sea – the smug sea that lay before her, calm, smiling, unconcerned. She walked on, automatically heading back towards town. Like one that on a lonesome road, doth walk in fear and dread.
Her nerves and mind jangling with wild self-accusations: had she herself caused this dreadful trespass? Her obscene fornicating, her seduction and corruption of a finely educated young gentleman had resulted in his death, had brought on the greater obscenity of the storm. She passed a house, buckled on its knees. A door opened and out filed a line of black people. They passed her without a word. She let her head drop again and kept on walking, walking.
Slowly, like Scottish drizzle that appears from nowhere, the notion grew that George Lisle had loved her. Loved her more than she knew, than she had given him credit for. He had been speared and wounded, conducting her out of an exploding house, ushering her to safety instead of saving himself. He had cradled her as he lay dying, making no mention or complaint of his predicament. One day she will cry for him, her tears will flow and gush for years; she may never be dry-eyed again. But at this moment tears were of no use to either him or her; there was enough water to deal with.
Had she passed town? Or was the town not where it used to be? At forks in the road she took one or the other, without thought. Her mind was beyond all decision-making. Her body had once more taken charge. North. The only word in her mind. A memory that the Coak plantation lay somewhere North. A woman sat on a stone where a house, a street perhaps, may once have been. Her hair was soaked. Her fine robe soiled and ripped. Face powder streaked.
“North?” asked Elspeth.
The woman wasn’t much older than her, but she looked like a hag. A ghost come to haunt her. Her hair a holy mess, clothing disarrayed, one shin and one breast exposed in accusation. Raped by the wind, degraded, a reflection of Elspeth’s conscience. The idea of “north” bemused her, and she turned and looked to her right, as if a faint memory of there once being something called north lay in that direction.
Discourse & Argument
A Disclosure On Captain R. Shaw
& the Path that led to his
Discoveries & Life’s Work
Only vainglorious old scunners – with as much of interest to say as a vomiting cur – log their tedious adventures & dreary thoughts. & only those partial to pukings adjudge them profundities. Amid the dross there are but a few Scientific & Progressive Men who have committed – reluctantly as I do now – the History of their Practice to paper.
Perhaps one day I will be granted a degree of leisureliness – surely my Successes will allow me that! – to supplement these first scribblings with greater detail. For the moment the barest facts will be here recorded.
There is a War going on in the heavens & until it is triumphed War will be waged on earth. ’Tis the only way of explaining the vile state of things. I have been a soldier in that War – & a Tactician in it. I am a Christian man – though religiosity in its present guise holds little attaction for me – & I know in my bowels that the Almighty has been in trouble for some decades & still is.
My Father & my Forefather recounted to me tales of our common Progenitor – the first Shaw in this land – of his valour & struggle for Justice. He was faithfull to his Celtic blood which is of the house of Gaul. The Gallic & the Celtic are close related as is proved. They are of the same Nation & therefore share the same circumstances & Nature. I have respect for their attributes but am sensible too to their Faults.
The Celtic is the most spiritual of all the Races. Churching & psalming can be a weakness in him – put the Celt in a tight spot & it’s as likely he’ll reach for his prayer book as for his blade. In the credit column we must concede that he will take up arms in defence of Good & Right & for the deliverance of his Soul. He is not so bellicose as his Saxon cousin who in matters Political is his Superior. Sometimes these natural allies have become confused in the Battlefield. Such was the case with my Forebear who fought one Tudor King in the cause of a Stewart one. A Jacobite he called himself – but became Loyal to the King of England upon his removal to this Land once the cause he fought for was lost. It was Kingship itself that mattered – that state being a reflection of the Heavenly Order.
But a black beginning – as my father was fond of saying & indeed was himself the proof – makes a black end. They sent that first Shaw to this land in Punishment in the year seventeen sixteen & degraded him to the rank of slave. Robert – as was his Christian name – was made the Property of a fellow Scotch man – a Lowlander more civilised than the Highlander – who blamed him for his stance in the old War but was sympathetic to his Nature. This Planter – Bell by name – ensured that Robert served only the minimum of his Indenture & manumitted him after the passage of five years. Thereup
on he bestowed on Robert ten acres of his own land in the parish of St. Andrew & the largest of his slave houses. Robert Shaw – as is inborn in our family – worked industriously & kept lealty to his Patron & became a faithfull servant of the Colonial Yeomanry or Militia.
By the time of his son – my great-Grandfather Jamie – our family property had increased to twenty acres & by the time of my Grandfather – Robert again – we kept a gang of Negroes. Robert Shaw II was promoted to the Rank of Captain in the Militia. His family were yet poor & no blame in that. This second Robert Shaw bequeathed his rank & acreage to my own Father who was not such a canny fellow in matters of agriculture. I was brought into this world in the year seventeen ninety-seven – while we fought the French rebels in the New World & our Militia was redoubled in strength.
My Father was a misguided unchancy beast but I believe that at bottom he was a Good Man. I say this as someone all would agree was treated most unjustly by him. His name was James & he was loved by all acquainted with him. Such love was the root of his weakness for he came to thirst for the friendship & good word of others. He saw no wrong in any man or woman & was beloved by his own Niggers – many of whom he manumitted before they were ready for such responsibility. He even gave them parts of his land – causing altercation & argument throughout the Colony. At his demise he had decreased rather than amplified our family holdings.
Whereas my Father was always for smiles & banter & the tussling of my hair my mother was strict. I am of a blend of bloods. My mother was of Norman descendancy – a haughtier people entirely. She was a lover of the Law – but more prone to material consolation than my father. She was never much of a Church-goer but solemn & righteous. My father used to joke that she needed no Kirk as she was her own bishop & priest & congregation.
