As Flies to Whatless Boys Read online

  Ivy had once covered the brick wall, twisting between the chinks, weaving its way up. Now the vine was dead and leafless. I reached to take hold of the thickest part—bracing my boots against the wall—hoisting myself up.

  Reaching, grabbing, pulling myself higher. And higher still.

  Till I’d got to within an arm’s-reach of the sill—an arm’s-reach!

  All-in-a-sudden the vine pulled loose. In three punctuated sections—voop, voop, voop—and I tumbled backwards to the hard ground. Flat on my back with a loud humph. Inhaling a crust of gritty dirt.

  I lay there on my back—winded, panting—length of the vine still clutching between my fists. Struggling to breathe—my lungs on fire, burning, spitting out the grit.

  I couldn’t open up my eyes. Wouldn’t dare open them, thinking I was surely dead. And if not dead then paralysed from the neck down. Because I couldn’t suck a breath.

  Eventually—agonisingly—my breath returned. And when I’d managed, slowly, to open my eyes and look up, I found Marguerite again. Standing in the frame of her window, lit candle holding in her hand.

  I sat up, blinking, shaking the stars loose. Watching a wave of relief pass over Marguerite’s candle-lit face. She smiled, and after another minute she put the candle down on the sill. Marguerite disappeared, returning to the window a few seconds later with her small white book, her writing pencil.

  She daubed the lead three times against her tongue—her smile no longer one of simple relief, but joyful, playful—and she scribbled out a word. With the same flourish she tore the page loose, tossing it into the air. She repeated the gesture. Again & again & again. Daubing & scribbling & ripping out the page.

  Till seventeen pieces of paper floated in the dark air. Seventeen pale-white moths, fluttering, descending slowly towards me.

  Already I was on my feet, running behind the slips of paper. Grabbing them out the air one-after-the-next. Breathless again, I stopped to look up at her, clutching my slips of paper—Marguerite’s words, not my own, holding tight in my hands—and at that moment, in my beating fifteen-year-old heart, she appeared not simply beautiful, but radiant.

  Yet it lasted only a moment. Because quick like that she took up her candle from off the sill. She blew it out, the window darkening again.

  But son, something in all this had revived my spirits. I couldn’t tell you what. Not as yet. I turned to take up the last slip of paper, there on the bare ground before my boot. And I hurried cross the courtyard again, round the U-shaped building, clutching at my slips of paper.

  The streetlamps on the other side of Cliveden Place had been extinguished by now. I hurried towards the nearest source of light, I didn’t know what it was—something glowing in the direction of Sloane Square—bright in the distance. And a few seconds later, across the three wide marble steps of the Royal Court Theatre, beneath the flaming torches of the marquee, I spread out my seventeen slips of paper—

  sweet I mind Trinidad & that

  decided we two changed have will

  my together Willy travel go

  It must’ve been a couple hours later when I woke up. I didn’t have no idea. Only that the hard sun had dipped beneath the rim of the trees sheltering our compound. At first I didn’t know where-the-arse I was—I’d thought I was back in England! Then I recognised John’s face. Leaning in over my hammock, holding a cup of water against my lips. Tiltsing it back slow.

  I coughed, trying to swallow—

  Wha . . . ?

  Boy, John says, smiling. You catch one good fit o’ de malkodee, hear? Pass out cold-cold. Mistah Carr carry you ovah he shoulder all de way back from de gardnens!

  I looked round the compound. My eyes settling on the dining table, on the figure of Mr. Whitechurch reclining there on his back. Fully dressed now, but in the clothes he’d had on when we first arrived, including his green velvet vest. I could see a flash from the chain of his goldwatch disappearing into his breast pocket, a flicker of leftover sun reflecting off the gold St. Christopher medal round his neck. The rockstones weighing down Mr. Whitechurch’s eyelids had been removed, his white beard combed out and detangled. Even from a distance I could see that the hideous colour seemed to have drained-out some from his face. His cheeks rosy again, playful—like he’d just knocked back a calabash of rum. Only his boots, severely torn—one sole dangling loose in an ugly black gaping mouth—seemed to speak for the previous eight days. They looked like the boots of a bedlam beggar.

  I turned my eyes back to John—

  Where’s Papee? And Mr. Carr?

  Dey still out by de gardnens, he says. Got to finish digging-out Mistah Whitechurch gravehole, you know!

  I sat up, anger washing through me hot again—

  We’ve got to get him back to his wife n’ Mar— Back to his wife n’ niece. It’s only proper!

  I swallowed—

  Doesn’t anybody realise they have to see him? they would want to be with him?

  John waited a few seconds—

  Ain’t no way to get he far as Port España. Less you aiming to tote he ovah de mountains youself!

  He paused—

  Mailboat don’t pass for ten days. And Cap Maynard don’t come again for more den fortnight.

  John smiled, shaking his head—

  Mistah Whitechurch can’t wait for dat, Willy-boy. He bound to find he res’ place inside de groun!

  I looked into his face another minute. Then I laid back in my hammock again, quiet, reaching to take the cup from him. Swallowing the remainder in a single mouthful.

  A few minutes later Esteban and Orinoko arrived, speaking softly with John. But for me it was like listening to a group of voices talking way off. Then I heard them set about preparing dinner.

  Sometime after that Papee and Mr. Carr returned from the gardens. And seeing supper was almost ready, they continued down to the beach to wash up. Now I swung my legs round, letting them hang down from out my hammock. Sitting there a moment—my feet planted on the ground, feeling it pushing up soft and cool through my footsoles. I went down to the beach to splash some cool water on my face too.

  ___________________

  The six of us ate our evening meal together. Sitting there at the same dining table with our balisier plates and calabash cups surrounding Mr. Whitechurch. Son, I found all this disconcerting—disrespectful to the old man. Then I realised something else. And this other thing upset me even further: someone had stolen Mr. Whitechurch’s pocketwatch. His gold St. Christopher medal from round his neck. Because I couldn’t find them a-tall! And son, this thiefing-business had me so vex, for several minutes I couldn’t even swallow down my dinner.

  Then, after a time, my anger began to wash-way. And I began to warm up a little better to this idea, this gesture of a final meal in the company of Mr. Whitechurch. Especially when Mr. Carr, seated now in Mr. Whitechurch’s place at the head of the table, tossed out the water from his calabash cup. Replacing it with a short draught of rum.

  He stood to his feet, raising up his cup—

  To a grand old gentleman, ’oom we shall all dearly miss!

  ’Ere, ’ere, we say together, quiet, touching our calabash cups. Even over Mr. Whitechurch heself.

  When our meal was finished we stood together. And the six of us took up Mr. Whitechurch. Me grasping one shoulder and Papee the next, John and Esteban holding they hands clasped beneath he pockeled potbelly, whilst Mr. Carr and Orinoko each took hold of a spindly leg. By this time his body had stiffened up substantial. So we hardly disturbed the position he’d rested in so peaceful a moment before atop the table.

  We carried him out to the gardens. Followed, high above—because I kept glancing back over my shoulder to see if they were still behind us—by the ragged birds.

  ___________________

  Whilst the others finished covering up Mr. Whitechurch’s grave, Papee and me set off on a short hike into the mountains. Our second excursion for the day. Papee saying he wanted to search the forest for two tall gr
i-gri trunks, suitable to replace the masts of Captain Taylor’s schooner. Something-or-other, because he never mentioned those trunks again after we’d left the gardens. We didn’t say nothing a-tall for the longest time, in the way of the forest. Plodding our way between the towering trees, cutlasses out swiping at vines draping down before us. A thick layer of leaftrash covering the ground beneath our boots, muffling our footsteps. Occasionally we passed patches of mist that had gathered at the bases of the thick trunks, ankle-deep—like small flat clouds—Papee and me kicksing them up as we passed through. Eventually we reached the place where the path turned vertical, and now we scaled the rockface on all fours. Then it turned again, cutting sideways cross the mountain, Papee leading me past the series of dark echoey caves.

  Suddenly, like if he’d caught a vaps, Papee stopped. Turning round to face me. Speaking for the first time since we’d started out—

  Let’s see if we can find those diabotins? he says. Those oilbirds John mentioned?

  He paused, studying my face—

  What do you say, son, if we take a look?

  I shrugged my shoulders. Trying to recall whatever-the-arse kinda birds were those diabotins—and wondering how would we see them anyway? inside the darkness of these caves?

  The first two stretched back only ten-to-fifteen-feet. Barren as the skullcap of a baldheaded old man. A handful of zandolees scampering cross the green-gray walls.

  We had to enter the third, smallest-looking cave through a narrow porthole-like opening. Two- to three-feet wide and the same distance above the ground. Our cutlasses left stuck in the hard dirt outside. We stretched our arms out straight and ducked our heads, squeezing weself in, like diving through a hoop. Papee first and then me. Scrambling up from off our bellies once we’d found weself inside. We saw that this cave opened up and fingered off, but we didn’t have no idea how far at first. All we could know for now was that we were standing upright. That this front part of the cave could at least accommodate we full statures. Ten degrees colder inside than out, a coldness made the more palpable by the heavy humidity. We stood there, unmoving, a full minute. Just listening to each other breathing. Waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dark. Now—slow to begin with, then fast—this underground cave-world began to take shape before our eyes.

  First thing we noticed was the white flooring. Covered over with a chalky kinda paving, two-to-three-inches deep—guano, though we hadn’t identified the substance just as yet. We could also discern a slight echoing slurrrup-pup-pup slurrrup-pup-pup—water dripping into a puddle someplace. Though we couldn’t find the drip nor the puddle neither. All-in-a-sudden—very slow, then fast-fast—it dawned upon us that the entire ceiling of this cave was alive. Breathing. Undulating above our heads in a peculiar, splotchy kinda movement. Like the inside surface of the water when you gaze up at it from underneath.

  We saw that this entire cave-ceiling was covered over with a congregation of tiny bats. All hanging upside-down by they invisible feet. All trembling, hugging they folded-up wings in miniature gabardines clutched round them. All moving together—jittering, fidgeting, wriggling in they peculiar kinda aggregated, syncopated, breathing movement. And son, let me tell you, thousands-is-thousands of bats covering over the ceiling of this cave! With all they thousands of tiny black beetle-eyes, thousands of tiny black mouse-ears, thousands of tiny black picoplatt-beaks.

  And we began to perceive with our inner ears—at the bottom-edge of this cave’s profound silence—the low, squeaking, tit-tit-tittering of all these thousands of bats. All conversing they bat-conversations together!

  Papee pushed forward. Parting the air before him like a velvet curtain. Shoving his way into the cave a few more powdery steps. With me pressing tight against his back, following behind. He chose the fork branching off towards our right—this one narrower, deeper, taller. Yet after a few shuffling steps we were compelled to duck our heads beneath the living ceiling of bats.

  Straightway—like he wasn’t even pausing a second to reconsider this thing!—Papee got down on his hands and knees in the thick paving of guano. Me doing the same despite my reluctance just behind. And we recognised for the first time the awful stench of this blasted guano, because it hadn’t found our nostrils not till now. But much as our nostrils were flaring all-in-a-sudden to life, we couldn’t perceive nothing a-tall with our eyes yet. Feeling our way slow and cautious through the velvet curtain of moist cave-air—Papee crawling forward a few inches farther at a time, then stopping to let his eyes readjust—me crawling & stopping & readjusting reluctant behind.

  Through the jelly-thick blackness before us, plastered to the low walls at the back-end of this particular finger of the cave—like they were constructed from the same chalky white guano, in addition to a fistful of twigs—we began to recognise something looking like birds’ nests. Though we hadn’t seen the diabotins perching above them yet. But sure enough, slowly, we started to make them out. Crouching hunched-over on the ledges—big birds, between the size of a kiskadee and a cobo—coloured the same brownish-green as the cave-walls. Same filthy brownish-green as the cave-ceiling of living, fidgeting, breathing bats.

  And let me tell you son, now we understood why they called these birds diabotins—little devils—because they didn’t look like no kinda birds a-tall. Or only partly so. Like if these diabotins were some kinda cross between a bird, a river-agutee, and a mongrel-cat.

  Above they fiercely hooked beaks were huge, obscene, clouded-over eyes. Surrounded by agutee-lashes. Hideous whiskered cat-faces. All with they little chests thrusting forward, heads pulled back. And soon we made out the most frightening feature of all—they scarlet, gaping, mucus-dripping mouths.

  There were five-six of them. Perching on the cave-ledges in the darkness above they nests, staring straight at Papee and me. But not looking at us through they oversized, clouded-over eyes: because somehow these birds were staring at us through they scarlet-dripping throats.

  We’d only been in this branch of the cave a few seconds. Everything dead still up till now—dead silent—though these bloody diabotins’ mouths were wide-open. All-at-once they began kicksing up a tremendous screeching ruckus. Echoing off the cave-walls. So loud and piercing it pained us inside our ears.

  In the midst of they wild hullabaloo, all of them lifted off they cave-perches together. Hovering. Side-flapping the stagnant air with they large bat-like wings. Hovering before us in the furious wing-flapping cave-air.

  In addition to they piercing screeches, we began to hear the sharp metallic clacks of they echolocation—clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack.

  All-at-once, all-of-them-together—and without giving us any warning a-tall—these diabotins flew straight at Papee and me. Straight towards our faces with they hovering, screeching, clacking diabotin-flight. And before we could even duck our heads they’d brushed past, all five-six of them, clacking and screeching they way towards the cave-door behind our backs.

  Son, I couldn’t tell you why my fear was delayed—I couldn’t explain to you the logic of it a-tall—but now, not the moment before, a terrible fright overtook me. Because all-in-a-sudden I was trembling like a blasted mamapoule. Scared out my skin—I couldn’t think of nothing more than to hurry my little backside to hell out from this cave, fast as I could hurry it!

  I shifted round on my hands and knees with a few quick sideways-shuffling movements. Crawling and dragging myself cross the guano-carpeted floor—rising up onto my feet the same instant—stumbling the last few frantic paces towards the dimly lit, porthole-like door.

  I ducked my head down, stretching out my arms, diving through. Like diving through a flaming hoop.

  ___________________

  The sky was already dusking over a deep purple as I lifted my face off the hard dirt outside. Lying on my belly beside our stabbed-in cutlasses—spitting a mouthful of grit, swallowing a breath of clean air. But straightway I pulled myself up onto my feet again, stepping from out Papee’s way, as he was only a pace beh
ind.

  We stood side-by-side, hands bracing on our knees, bent over. Panting. Catching our breath. And for some peculiar reason both of us straightened up together, turning round together again. Looking back in through the cave-entrance. That same dark porthole through which we’d just fled, just escaped.

  And now, son, the most extraordinary thing of all: like we’d pulled the cork from a colossal glassbottle. Now—in a single, collective, fluttering rush—the bats commenced to exiting out they cave-dwelling behind us.

  Before us. All these thousands-upon-thousands of minuscule bats. All-at-once. All-of-them-together. Flying up round us with they great rush of tiny, fluttering wings—and it was as if we were being lifted up off our feet with them! Even though our feet remained planted firm and solid atop the ground. As if Papee and me were being elevated together. Up into the cool, purple, just-dusking-over sky. Together with all this multitude of wings flapping round us. To such extent that I reached out quick to grasp hold of Papee’s hand—because if I didn’t hold onto something, these bloody bats would surely carry me away with them!

  Yet somehow we didn’t feel nothing a-tall. Nothing but the rush of air. Lifting us up without our feet leaving the ground. Because not a single batwing even braised against our forearms—necks—cheeks—foreheads—not a touch.

  I have to tell you something else, son. Another thing not so much extraordinary as inexplicable. Because to this the day I can’t explain to you the logic of why it happened. Papee and me were standing there like that, holding hands, staring back into the cave-opening with all these thousands of tiny bats streaming up out they cave-door like the cork pulled loose from the colossal glassbottle. Streaming up all round us. I shut my eyes, squeezing them tight. Holding onto Papee’s hand and squeezing it tight too. Just sensing the exhilaration of all these bats fluttering round me, my own living, fluttering, exhilarating skin.