As Flies to Whatless Boys Page 21

  As it encountered the first white breakers the raft bounced still higher off the surface of the water (whether this was to due to the onrushing waves or the craft’s machinery was unclear). But as the first large waves broke over the bow, and her forward momentum increased, the craft seemed to dig into the water—in great, lunging jolts—driving itself deeper and deeper each time. Suddenly, as it encountered still another tall white crest, the raft disappeared altogether beneath the surface. A moment later the operators strapped to their stools disappeared beneath the water as well, then the pointed tip of the hut’s carrot-roof, last of all the fluttering white banner.

  Spectators and hecklers alike could be heard uttering cries of serious concern. They stared through their binoculars at the spot where the craft had gone down.

  Eventually, after several stressful minutes, the two operators were seen once more, splashing and flailing about amongst the waves. Captain Jerry immediately turned his mailboat about, making his way towards them. Thus the sea trial was concluded, with Mr. Etzler’s Naval Automaton gone to join the esteemed company of Davy Jones’s locker.

  Director of Trinidad Transport Company Names Son as Major Shareholder

  Trinidad Guardian, 7 May 1898

  After forty-eight years at the reins Mr. William Sanger Tucker today retired from his position as head of our largest shipping and lighterage company, the TTC. He has named his eldest son, Robert William Tucker, known to many of us as ‘R-W,’ as the company’s new Director and majority shareholder. The TTC owns and operates a fleet of nine lighters and three tugs. These vessels transport sugar, cocoa, copra, and other manner of agricultural produce from San Fernando and locations in the south to the capital, and they carry back supplies needed on the estates. The TTC also supervises a steady stream of traffic from the islands of Tobago, Grenada, several ports of costal Venezuela, and most recently Barbados.

  Tucker Senior got his start in the business of transportation soon after his arrival to Trinidad from London, at the young age of fifteen. At that time he began the operation of the island’s first ‘omnibus,’ a carriage drawn by a donkey along an unpaved track that delivered its passengers between Port of Spain and Arima. Indeed, no public transportation had existed in Trinidad until Mr. Tucker advertised in our own Guardian of 27 March 1846: ‘To commence on Monday morning Mr. William Tucker most respectfully informs the Public that he has established an omnibus for the purpose of conveyance of passengers and parcels to-and-fro Arima, starting from Losh, Spiers & Co. at Richmond Street Wharf Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and from the Arima Hotel on Coffee Street Tuesdays and Thursdays.’ Popularly called the ‘Van,’ it took about a day to make each leg of the journey, the charge for passengers being ¢10 per mile.

  Mr. Tucker claims never to have grown bored on these daily expeditions, since they allowed him the opportunity to make frequent stops along the way in pursuit of his hobby of collecting and stuffing hummingbirds. Mr. Tucker is also amongst Trinidad’s first experimenters in the art of photography, the plates and exhibits of his hummingbirds sold on the side to field naturalists and nature enthusiasts. The Van not only enabled Mr. Tucker to support his mother and three sisters, but after only five years he had set aside sufficient funds to put a down payment on the first TTC lighter, a sloop of twenty-one feet with sails and a small steam engine, marking the beginning of what would in short measure become a successful shipping empire. This first schooner Mr. Tucker captained himself for many years.

  The announcement of Tucker Senior’s retirement comes on the thirty-seventh birthday of his son, R-W, who has worked in the business alongside his father since the age of eighteen. He is himself a licenced ship’s captain.

  13

  Flies

  We tended to Mr. Whitechurch the whole of that afternoon. Watching him alternate between sessions of violent chills—he skin cold, teeth chattering—and bouts of feverous sweats. And I couldn’t tell you which one was worse. Mr. Whitechurch wrapped up in the old blanket belonging to Captain Taylor, retrieved by John from out the schooner on the beach. We wrapped him up like a mummy. Then we pulled the blanket off. Then we wrapped him up again. The hideous colour of he skin and eyes remaining constant, fixed. Till the sun descended below the rim of trees sheltering our compound, and under the glow of the flickering pitch-oil lamp his face turned yellower. More repugnant. But I couldn’t tell you, son, because I couldn’t hardly bring myself to look at him.

  Mr. Carr used Mr. Whitechurch’s watch to time his bouts of fever & sweats & the lapses between, doses of powdered acetylsalicylic acid dissolved in a calabash with water, the little blue homeopathic pills pressed under his yellow tongue. Then, towards midnight according to Mr. Whitechurch’s own pocketwatch, he stretched his clean-neck-fowl neck over the side of the hammock. He coughed twice. Spewing forth his second puddle of black vomit. Afterward—much to everybody’s surprise—he seemed better. Plenty better. Chatting-way enthusiastic & smiling & even giving us a good joke. Like if his fever was past now. Like if Mr. Whitechurch had returned to he previous, good self.

  Then he let loose a long sigh, closed his yellow bloated-out eyes, and he slept quiet and peaceful like that for the rest of the night.

  ___________________

  The following morning he was still sleeping docile as a baby, his temperature stable and normalised, when Papee suggested we make a short excursion up the coast. Him & John & me. Because what was the point in all of us sitting there watching Mr. Whitechurch sleep? Especially since he seemed to have recovered heself? Mr. Carr promising he wouldn’t stir from the old man’s side.

  There was another small bay a mile or so west of the settlement called Guanimita. It was part of the property, and Papee wanted to inspect it. Son, I couldn’t have cared a pum—far as this Guanimita was concerned—but I was getting antsy. I wanted to do something. Anything. Same as John and Papee.

  The tide dead-low, so we could make we way up the shore with a minimum of effort. We’d be back in no time a-tall. Yet it took a good hour of trudging through the thick black mud to get there. Our boots soppsing, heavy as bricks after our first five steps past the beach. Because Papee and me would’ve surely been better off barefoot like John, but our English footsoles were still too tender. And let me assure you of this: Guanimita wasn’t nothing much neither, once we got there. A little indentation in the mangroves scarcely seventy yards deep. Nothing but a small catchment filled up with the same stenching chagua-mud we’d been trodding we way through for the previous hour. No beach a-tall—not like Chaguabarriga had—nor nothing else neither. Only mud. Papee didn’t even bother making a drawing of it inside he journal. That’s how insignificant was this Guanimita. But the worst part was that now—when we turned round again to head back up the coast—the tide was coming in. Fast. So we didn’t have no choice a-tall but to climb over the thick arching mangrove roots, forging we way along. Slow & tedious & tiring enough.

  It took us probably another two-three hours to get back. But I couldn’t tell you for sure since we didn’t have Mr. Whitechurch’s watch with us to check the time. And son, it was a good while too—before we reached back to Chaguabarriga—that we saw the birds. Circling ominous over the compound. Four of them. Turning they slow ragged gyres through the bright liquid sky. Suspended a few hundred yards above the sun-glittering trees, above our tattered flag. It was the first time Papee and me had seen them congregated like that—other than over La Basse in Port-Spain—but we didn’t say nothing about the cobos. Neither Papee nor me. John didn’t mention them neither.

  What was there to say?

  Papee first to stomp up anxious off the beach. His boots and trousers wet and muddy up to he knees, same as me. He led us along the path through the grove of furry casuarinas—only that afternoon I didn’t like the melancholy sound of the breeze whistling through they needles. I didn’t like it a-tall.

  We found Mr. Whitechurch alone. Unattended. Much to our surprise. Lying there quiet in his hammock same as we’d left him
a few hours before. Even from the distance we could see his shaggy head—bony neck protruding over the side of the hammock at an oddish angle—his face illuminated by a slice of sun. And even from the distance it shocked us to see his deep yellow colouring again. But son, what struck us as still more disconcerting as we approached Mr. Whitechurch was he eyes. Because we realised he wasn’t sleeping a-tall—his eyes were wide open. Only now they didn’t appear yellow as before. They looked like dark slits. Slashed into a piece of sackcloth. Like if he eyeballs were missing altogether—dug from out they sockets!

  A pair of cobos crouching ragged and stoop-shouldered on the piece of thatching above his head. We approached stomping the ground, hard, scaring them off. Watching the cobos lift up swift and silent—voop voop voop—and with three wide flaps of they ragged wings, they sailed up to join the others.

  At that same instant something terrifying occurred to me. Horrific: that in his enfeebled condition, Mr. Whitechurch had been too weak to fight off the birds—they’d blinded him, pecked out he eyes!

  Yet when we got to Mr. Whitechurch’s side we saw that his eyes were intact. And they were open—wide, wide open. Though the surfaces of both eyeballs seemed to be covered over with some kinda gelatinous, greenish-black, slightly iridescent substance. Slightly flickering. But not in any way a living & seeing & functioning eye ought to flicker.

  Only then did we realise that the surfaces of both Mr. Whitechurch’s eyeballs were covered over with a film of miniscule, flickering, greenish-black flies.

  Papee stepped up quick to brush his hand through the air before the old man’s face. Brisk. Two separate times—at first I thought he was trying to slap Mr. Whitechurch awake! John and me watching him bend over to blow into each of his eyes. Careful. Shooing-way the flies. Those same flies rising up and drifting off in a small, tumultuous-looking cloud. A couple of feet off the ground. Like if the air itself was boiling up before us. Drifting off towards the low sea grapes.

  Papee picked out two or three more that remained. Pinching them dead, flicking them away between his thumb and forefinger. Then he glanced back over his shoulder at John and me, summoning our assistance. We each took hold of a thin, bristly leg, whilst Papee grasped Mr. Whitechurch from behind, under his hairy armpits. And together we lifted him up and out the hammock, over to the dining table, laying him down atop his back. His body hadn’t stiffened up yet—though his neck held the same awkward clean-neck-fowl twist to it—even out the hammock. Mr. Whitechurch laying there with his one ear pressed tight against the table. Like if he’s straining to listen through a door.

  All his skin the same hideous colour, including the whites of his eyes now that they were exposed again. And son, laying like that in the middle of the long table, wearing his merino and tatty drawers, he looked even smaller than usual. Like a potbellied schoolboy, all ankles & knees & hipsbones & protruding knotted-up wrists.

  Papee searched the ground for two small smooth rockstones. Twisting Mr. Whitechurch’s head round, so his face looked straight up from the table. But when Papee let it loose his neck twisted back into its former clean-neck-fowl position. Papee then took hold of both his bearded-over cheeks, turning his face right the way round to the other side. With an awful creaksing noise I felt crick-crick-crick one-two-three right the way up through my own spinebones. Papee held his head firm like that a minute, his other ear straining to listen through the door. Then Papee released, and Mr. Whitechurch’s neck remained more-or-less straight, his face looking up. Like now he’s contemplating the bright almond leaves glittering high above.

  Papee blew-way the few flies that had settled again. And one-by-one he pulled down Mr. Whitechurch’s eyelids, weighing them closed with the small rockstones. He twisted Mr. Whitechurch’s arms round, smoothing out his knotted-up wrists, fixing his hands crosswise over his patch of woolly chest hair. With the bottom of Mr. Whitechurch’s soiled merino rising up to expose the half-moon of his soffee, rounded, slightly pockeled belly. Deep indentation of his navelhole staring up at us like a third yellow eye out the middle.

  Papee walked round to the other end of the table, bending to press and hold Mr. Whitechurch’s knobby ankles together. He stood, taking in a breath—

  Willy? he says, quiet.

  Sir, I answer, my own voice coming out creaksing as Mr. Whitechurch’s neckbones.

  See if you can find Mr. Carr out by the gardens, will you?

  I nodded my head, turning, hurrying off.

  Because son, let me tell you I was happy enough to unstick my eyes from Mr. Whitechurch’s geegeeree corpse. Happy too bad! But after hurrying along the path a minute or so, I came to a slow halt. Realising I’d clean forgotten my destination. Wherever-the-arse I was going to a-tall. I shook my head, trying to fling the cobwebs loose. All-in-a-sudden I couldn’t recall the name of the kind gentleman we’d just finished laying out atop the table.

  Not Carr, I think—he’s the man I’m going to look for. Out by the gardens.

  Now I heard a smooth, almost rhythmic scrapesing sound of metal-against-rock. I turned to abandon the path. Wandering aimless in the direction of the noise. A few haphazard steps later, in the hard ground beyond the pigeon peas plot, I found Mr. Carr. Already knee-deep inside he hole. Tossing out shovelfuls of ochre-coloured dirt and fist-sized rockstones. A low, loose mound along one side of the hole. And under his West Indian wife I could see that Mr. Carr was weeping—tears washing down his sunburnt face, the whole front of he canvas shirt soppsing with them.

  Mr. Carr didn’t even notice my approach. I stood there above him another minute. Watching him work his shovel. My mind a blank slate, head heavy as a bucket of water I’m struggling to keep balanced atop my shoulders.

  Then, slowly, it dawned on me what Mr. Carr was doing.

  I lurched forward, grasping hold of the shovel by its handle. Pulling it away. Nearly yanking Mr. Carr clean out he gravehole along with it!

  All-in-a-sudden I couldn’t hardly see beyond the tears burning inside my own eyes. I looked down at Mr. Carr—

  You can’t put him here, I say. You shan’t!

  And after another pant—

  Mr. Whitechurch needs to return to his wife and Marguerite!

  I raised the back of the shovel up above my shoulder. Trembling in the grips of my hands. Fully prepared to bludgeon Mr. Carr cross he pate with it.

  Then, through my wash of tears, I saw the mound of ochre-coloured dirt. Rising. Flying up to press itself enormous and gritty against my face.

  Unnoticed by the Whitechurches I slipped past the Royal Court Theatre on the eastern side of Sloane Square. Having followed them home after they meeting, in secret, just as I had planned. Now I hid myself in the shadow of a streetlamp along Cliveden Place, still lit in the early evening. I watched a doorman, summoned by the old couple, step from out a building designated by its shining bronze nameplate as Eaton Mansions. The doorman holding his lantern up for the Whitechurches to enter. He shut the door behind them. And a minute later a window lit up on the second landing. Faint. A few seconds later the window beside it lit up too.

  I waited patient in my hiding place. Till both lamps were extinguished again, a good few minutes later. Then I crossed the street and began making my way, shadow-by-shadow, round the sides of the building. It formed the shape of the letter U. With a small courtyard tucked between the arms. I leant against a brick wall at the back, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Making out a stone birdbath at the centre of the courtyard, beside it a single horse chestnut tree, already losing its leaves in autumn.

  I crossed over and hid myself behind the trunk.

  On the second floor—corresponding more-or-less to where the lights had appeared on the other side of the building—I noticed one of the windows slightly ajar. I stared up at it. Son, for some reason I can’t explain, I felt a peculiar attraction to this particular window. Something physical. Tingling up my spinebones like a line of crawling bachacks. Without taking my eyes off it I crouched down to swee
p aside the dry leaves beneath the tree, the eyelashed half-shells of the fallen horse chestnuts, scratching blind in the hard dirt. Till I’d scraped up a handful of small rockstones.

  Now, reckless, I began pelting them up at the slightly opened window.

  I listened to the sharp pings one after the next, watching the rockstones bounce off the thickly bevelled panes. But nothing happened. No response from nobody a-tall. I reached down to grab up one of those same big horse chestnuts—pelting it up at the window—smacking against the pane with a loud braps!

  Son, all-in-a-sudden the window lit up. But faint, coming from deeper within the room. My heart pounding inside my chest like a caged zandolee. A second later the curtains were swept aside—the two window-leaves swinging open with a single, sharp, rusty screech—and like the soft inhalation of a breath, Marguerite appeared. Her hazel hair loose and draping over her shoulders. Face lit from below by the candle holding in her hand.

  Son, I wanted for all the world to call out to her: now my voice stuck-up inside my throat like I’d swallowed laglee. I wanted to give her some kinda signal: I couldn’t even raise up my hand.

  After standing like that a full minute—unmoving, both of us—Marguerite stepped backwards into the depths of her room. Blowing out the candle. The window darkening again.

  I leant against the chestnut tree, catching my breath. Brushing the sleeve of my patched-up jacket across my beaded-over forehead—agonised, defeated, swallowed-up inside. Eventually, I crossed thorough the shadows of the small courtyard, till I stood directly below Marguerite’s window. Peering up at it in the dark, some twenty-or-so-feet above my head.