As Flies to Whatless Boys Read online

  When I’d finished picking off the leeches from Papee’s buttocks I shoved my boot sideways against one of the enamel bowls. Kicking it out the way. Splattering blood up cross the wall as high as the window of spiderweb-encrusted jalousies. I rolled Papee off the tilted-up table—so wet and slippery I was frightened I’d lose him onto the floor—taking him up in my arms. Son, where I got my strength from I couldn’t tell you neither. But I managed: I carried my father, naked, dripping, past the nurse and out of that tiny operating room. Down the dark corridor.

  ___________________

  He never regained consciousness after that. Whether it was the fever or those doctors that killed him, in the end, I couldn’t say. Certainly each contributed they part. But by the time we got Papee home and into his own bed again, he’d stopped bleeding entirely. No pulse left a-tall. No fever neither. We’d taken him away yellow and brought him back brown. His naked body as though beaten with a stick on every square inch—swollen, disfigured, covered over with a dried brown film.

  I never saw him again. Not alive. I imagine Mum and my sisters sponge-bathed him once more. I imagine they cleaned & disinfected & dressed each of his thousand-and-one wounds. But I couldn’t tell you. All I can say is it did no good for nobody a-tall.

  I left Papee with them—I didn’t even pause to tell my father an unheard good-bye. I stumbled into the next room and fell face-first on one of my sisters’ beds, inadvertently pulling out the mosquito net as I went down. And I wept. I wept for Papee, and Mum, and my three sisters, and I wept for myself. All of us together. And then I slept.

  ___________________

  I’d been awake for some time, my back pressed against the wall listening to the silent house, feeling its silence—not a solitary manikin cheeping in the backyard—when Amelia knocked on the door and entered. Still wearing her white frock from yesterday afternoon, stained brown along her left side. I looked straight at her, several seconds, but I could tell by the expression on her face she thought I was still asleep.

  Amelia stepped forward. Laying an envelope down gentle on the sheet beside me.

  She turned to leave. Then turned round again.

  I could see the circles surrounding her eyes—she’d been up crying the whole night, together with my mum and sisters. But I could also see that she wanted to talk to somebody about something else. Anything else. She was desperate for it. I could see—clearly, unmistakably—that somehow she wanted to move on. Her youthful imagination pressed her forward: already she’d taken the first tiny step. Amelia, Papee’s favourite, youngest and most tender of us all.

  Seeing me stir, she nodded her chin down at the letter—

  Mum sent me to bring it for you. We found it on the shelf in the parlour this morning. But it’s a mystery! Written on a leaf of writing paper from Georgina’s box. One of her envelopes. So whomever left it for you came into the house in order to write it—who knows when?

  She took a breath—

  Maybe a thief? in the middle of the night?

  Amelia stood there a few more seconds. Looking at me. Then she shrugged her shoulders, turned, and left the room.

  I sat with my back pressing against the wall for several more minutes. My mind blank, listening to the silent house, mosquito netting still bunched up on the bed beneath me. Then I reached and took up the envelope. Seeing my own name—Willy—written clearly cross the front. But not yet fully recognising that name as belonging to me. I slipped my filthy, bloodstained fingernail under the folded-in flap, sliding out the letter. And even after reading my name two more times, I remained unconvinced that I was the intended recipient of this letter. That I was the particular container labeled with that particular word.

  Then I knew for sure:

  Dear Willy—

  Capt Maynard, who was to transfer our trunks to the Caroline, the ship upon which we sail tomorrow morning with the tide, has informed us that you and your father are returned from Chaguabarriga, Mr. Tucker under distressed circumstances. Capt Maynard has set off directly for the estate himself. And he has kindly seen to it that our trunks and my aunt were dispatched to the Caroline on another ferry. As your father is ill, and as Mrs. Whitechurch and I have already bid farewell to your mother and sisters, we thought it best not to intrude. And of course we have our own distress and grief to contend with—but Willy, I could hardly leave without attempting to speak to you first! even at the risk of disturbing your family!

  So I have sent my aunt on ahead. And I have come straight to your home, which I now find wide open and worrisomely empty. I can only suppose that you and your family have accompanied Mr. Tucker for treatment at the hospital—I’m heartened to think he should have walked there under his own steam, I dare not allow my imagination to drift to darker places—and I can only hope that by the time you read these words Mr. Tucker may be removed from all danger.

  My dear Willy, I cannot be sure, given the present circumstances of your father’s illness, whether it is best for me to wait here for you to return from the hospital. If, indeed, that is where you are. I cannot even be sure that you would wish to see me at all—especially since our brief meeting would bring only another, perhaps sadder, farewell. I leave that decision up to you. Whichever way you choose I am prepared to accept—for who is to say we are not better off left with our memories? if those memories are not better off left intact? untroubled by further sadness? another farewell and another departure?

  You may find me tonight at Le Palais Cramoisi, where I intend to take a room and where I shall wait for you till daybreak, when I must perforce hurry to the harbour and make for my aunt and the Caroline.

  In haste, I remain yours—

  Marguerite

  I sat another minute. Then I reread the letter. I hadn’t thought of Marguerite in nearly two days. Now there she was, in a beat, holding in the palm of my hand. I couldn’t think what to do. Surely it was late in the morning already—if it was still morning? Because I hadn’t heard a solitary golden-headed manikin cheeping in the backyard. Then I realised I had to try. I had to at least go to the harbour and see if the Caroline had sailed—maybe I could hop on a ferry and be dropped aboard. I could remain with Marguerite till the ship left, even if it meant only to say good-bye.

  All-in-a-sudden my mind was working fast. At the risk of outrunning itself.

  All-in-a-sudden something else occurred—rash & irresponsible & far from thought-through, far from properly thought-through—but it occurred to me nonetheless: I could sail with her.

  I could let fate make the decision—if the ship remained in port I’d leave with her; if Marguerite had sailed I’d stay here. I wouldn’t have a hand in it a-tall.

  I got up and folded the letter twice and stuffed it inside my pocket. Thinking I didn’t want my mum and sisters to see it. Then I thought the reverse, and I took the letter back out and folded it open again. Placing it careful atop the mattress, beside the envelope: the letter would explain to them where I’d disappeared to. After a few days they’d work it out.

  I fled my little home feeling like a thief—as a thief, in fact—because when I passed through the parlour I grabbed up Georgina’s kerchief tied with coins.

  I stuffed it into my pocket. Stepping off the front stoop in a single stride and starting down Charlotte Street, towards the harbour—not running exactly, but walking at a swift pace. And whether or not there were others awake and walking the street at that hour of the morning I couldn’t tell you. I felt that even if I did encounter someone, I’d be invisible to them. The same way a thief feels invisible, invincible. Same way a thief walks as though he’s trapped inside a dream.

  I turned across on Duke Street thinking I’d go first to Le Palais Cramoisi. Then I decided the thing to do was to get to the harbour—the thing to do was to get to the Caroline—and I turned round and hurried back to Charlotte Street.

  I actually saw the Caroline a good while before I reached the harbour—from the hill where Charlotte crosses Queen Street—the only ship o
f its size in the bay. And although I had no sure way of knowing, I felt in my beating breast that she must be the Caroline. She could only be the Caroline. Still awaiting the tide, two of her aft-sails already raised a blistering white against the sparkling blue. But still at anchor: she hadn’t left.

  I walked faster, I was practically running. Yet those few remaining minutes seemed to last the longest. I was dripping with sweat, panting by the time I started out onto Kings Wharf, hurrying towards the only ferry tied up. Only vessel moored alongside.

  Then I stopped in my tracks: I knew this schooner. I’d sailed on her before—she was Captain Maynard’s Miss Bee.

  But my heart dropped, I had no idea why. I did not know why the sight of Captain Maynard’s schooner should suddenly fill me with dread. And yet it did.

  Yet I reversed my thoughts just as quick. Now I realised my good fortune at meeting up with this captain I already knew, this schooner I was already familiar with—because certainly Captain Maynard would be most pleased to ferry me out to the Caroline? certainly he’d be most obliging?

  I continued down the wharf, towards the Miss Bee, but the closer I drew the more my pace slackened. The slower my boots moved beneath me.

  I walked straight to the side of the dock, positioning myself at the centre of the fingerpier she was moored against. Just beside the gangway. And now I knew that I was invisible. I was a thief, dreaming of myself. Because as I stood there on that fingerpier no one said a word to me. They climbed down the slight decline of the wavering gangway—that’s how high the tide was—and they walked straight past me.

  Not saying a word.

  First it was Captain Maynard heself. Carrying a proper canvas hospital stretcher with Esteban lifting behind. And the woman moaning on the stretcher was Mrs. Hemmingway. Then, almost before they’d gotten past, another hospital stretcher appeared with Orinoko in front and Mr. Wood behind. Toting Mr. Hemmingway. They took them both to a wide flatbed-carriage that had backed down onto the wharf, the driver standing beside his rearing horse holding it steady—I’d walked straight past them, I was seeing this horse-and-carriage for the first time—and Mr. and Mrs. Hemmingway were transferred swiftly from they stretchers onto the carriage flatbed.

  Not a word spoken in all this. Not a word that I could hear. So far the only sound had been Mrs. Hemmingway’s moaning.

  Esteban and Captain Maynard returned with they stretcher and ascended the gangway into the Miss Bee’s cabin again. Now they emerged carrying young Billy Sharp, Mr. Brandon’s nephew. Then Orinoko and Mr. Wood went inside and came out carrying Mr. Brandon.

  It went on and on.

  Mr. Schofield & Mrs. Spenser & her husband & young son. Taken and transferred to the waiting carriage. Mr. Ford and the young man, Thomas Wilkinson. A long line of them, laid side-by-side cross the wide flatbed. So many I’d lost count. But it was only after watching Captain Maynard climb up onto the flatbed too—and Esteban handed up the stretcher and climbed up behind him, and Orinoko and his stretcher—and I watched the driver climb up heself onto the bench & crack his switch & rein in his still-rearing horse & mutter ho!, starting the carriage down the wharf with a jolt. It was only after they’d gone that I saw something else: now I saw clearly that three of those members of our group, removed from the Miss Bee and loaded onto the carriage—Mr. Hemmingway, Billy Sharp, and Thomas Wilkinson—those three were not sick a-tall.

  They were dead.

  I stood on the fingerpier staring at the slightly bobbing Miss Bee, at the wavering gangplank, just letting my mind fill with the schooner’s whiteness. Letting its whiteness drink me up. Thinking—this is the end, this must be the end. But it was far from over.

  Because some minutes later I recognised Mr. Wood, approaching from out the distance. Slow and a bit hazy—as though his feet weren’t quite touching the ground—like a spectre out of a dream. Drawing a noisy pushcart behind him. Bouncing it over every blasted rung between the boards of that dock. I was sure he’d departed on the horse-carriage with the others. I was certain I’d seen him climb up behind Orinoko.

  Mr. Wood stopped right in front of me. Just at my feet. He lowered the rusty handle of the pushcart and ascended the gangway into the Miss Bee’s cabin. Then he reappeared carrying his youngest daughter. Mr. Wood climbed down and laid her on the pushcart, fixing her hands crosswise over her breast.

  He brought them out in the order of they ages, youngest-to-oldest, and he laid them side-by-side and fixed they hands over they breasts and returned to the cabin for another of his daughters. Then Mr. Wood emerged carrying his wife.

  They’d stayed with us in our own home on Charlotte Street before we left. The entire week. The whole family squeezed into Mary and Amelia’s room, the same room I’d slept in last night. The same bed.

  I watched Mr. Wood load his wife onto the pushcart bedside his daughters. He turned round to take up the rusty handle, and the only sound I heard out of him the whole time was the gentle ugh! as he set the cart slowly into motion. As he set it bouncing over the rungs between the boards.

  ___________________

  How I found my way to the end of Kings Wharf I do not know. I cannot remember. But after a time, somehow, I must have wandered as far as the end. I sat down with my legs hanging over the side. I cannot tell you why, but after a time I reached to untie the laces of my ripped-up boots. Letting them slip off my feet and drop down into the water. Only a short distance, with the tide high. But they landed on the surface of the water with a loud smack one-after-the-next. Like two clean slaps cross my face. Waking me up.

  It was the first time I’d taken my boots off since we’d left Chaguabarriga. I felt the delightful sting of the breeze against my stockingless feet. Against my blisters. My feet suddenly light as air. My boots disappearing straightway under the water, and I was sure they’d sink to the bottom quick. But they didn’t. They didn’t sink a-tall. One-after-the-other they floated back up, bobbing, and the current carried them off. Slowly out to sea.

  I watched a gull squawk and swoop down to inspect them. Then I watched it fold away again.

  It was only then that I saw the Caroline, all her white sails raised, and I saw that she was headed out to sea too. I watched her go. Till she became nothing more than a blistering speck on the wide horizon. Then I watched the blue swallow her up.

  I sat there only a few more minutes, my legs dangling over the edge. Before I picked myself up and started back down the wharf, slow but steady, one burden already lifting, another shifting onto my fifteen-year-old shoulders to take its place. I’d seen and done so much already in my short life. So tender still. I’d carried my father in my arms. And yet I knew already how fortunate I was to have known him, to have loved him so hard, so well, such a short time. As I walked down the empty wharf towards my waiting family, my mum and my sisters, towards home.

  Postscript

  7 September 1881

  Busting a Leave

  The moon had long disappeared. That moon cut by a knife into a perfect half. It had travelled its slow course across the sky, disappearing beneath the sea somewhere behind our backs. Then there was only the pitch-oil lamp flickering at my father’s feet. The ship beneath us and the air and the sea upon which she floated became a black void. Only the pitch-oil lamp, and the handful of stars still flickering dimly overhead, the two lights tinkling at the end of Kings Wharf: only my father’s voice in the dark. Then slowly, vaguely, we got the impression that the ship was moving beneath us—huge, hesitant—slowly shifting round. The tide was turning. But the only indicator of this movement was our position relative to those two tinkling lights, swinging slowly, almost imperceptibly, around behind us too. Till eventually we couldn’t see them any longer. Now the Condor lay with her stern facing straight out to sea. The tide had turned, but only the stars overhead knew, if we had a way to read them. Because all we could see before us now was the black void.

  And as if my father had orchestrated another event to coincide with the telling of his tale
, just as he was approaching the end—just as he’d reached the final part about walking to the end of the wharf, sitting himself down and untying his boots—all-in-a-sudden the sun rose up from behind the black wall of the horizon before us. The sea caught fire like a piece of paper held up to a flame—slowly, then all-at-once—igniting & bursting into flames & dying out just as quick. Then the only fire was that flaming ball, so bright it pained our eyes to look at it. And the surface of the sea turned to a flickering of smouldering ash.

  We sat in silence, exhausted, filled-up. We didn’t move. We couldn’t have moved—not a muscle—because we didn’t exist yet. Neither me nor him. Only the story existed, during those few final moments of silence after my father’s voice had come to a halt. The sun wasn’t even there before us although it was burning holes into our eyes. Not as yet.

  Then my father sighed a soft ugh! like he was imitating Mr. Wood, and he leant forward to take up the pitch-oil lamp. He lifted the little glass and blew it out. Setting the lamp down again beside the empty rum bottle, the three empty glasses. He reached for his pasteboard cigar box again. My father briefly stacked the pile of soiled and ragged pieces of paper—his ‘artifacts’—and he put them carefully back into the box. Then he took up the small notebook lying there on the deck planking between us, CHAGUABARRIGA inscribed cross the cover, and he put it back inside his box too.

  My father fitted on the cover. Then, oddly enough, and as though the gesture had no particular meaning, he handed his box to me. He gave it to me to hold—

  I got one devil-of-a-weewee to make, R-W. When I tell you!