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  TUCKER

  TRINIDAD, B.W.I.

  By the light of my pitch-oil lamp I shed my nightshirt. Hands trembling with excitement, I dressed myself in my linen shirt with French cuffs. Pinstripe pants & embroidered vest & boots & single-vented frock coat. But son, on this same night that I located the Tuckers’ trunk, sure-as-goatmouth, I also happened to find—at the other end of the passageway of locked plank doors, in another storeroom altogether, the only one I hadn’t yet inspected—I also discovered the compartment where the most valuable and luxurious articles aboard ship were stowed. All those extravagances served to upper class. Together with all the lavish goods destined to be sold off by merchants when the Rosalind arrived in Trinidad.

  Instead of proceeding direct to Marguerite’s cabin the following morning—or even that same night, now with the licence of my fashionable attire—I took off my fancified clothes again. Stripped myself down. Hanging my frock coat from a nail in one of the rafters, top hat safe on a shelf, and I folded up my linen shirt and pinstripe pants. I dressed myself back in my tatty nightshirt. Purposely postponing my reunion with Marguerite another four nights. Continuing my prowling. Returning for four more nights to this particular storeroom at the end of the passageway.

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  There were bottles of French champagne I taught myself careful to uncork. To enjoy the pop and fizz of the foam surging forth from the bottles’ narrow necks. Tingling cross the back of my parched throat. Bottles of twelve-year-old Irish whiskey I learnt to sip slow and patient, savouring the smoky taste. After my second night prowling I’d borrowed Papee’s pocketknife from the space beneath his bunk. Now I took down one of the hams swinging beside my head, and using the blunt back edge of the blade, I scraped-way a few remaining salt crystals. The sharp edge to hack off wedges of hard desiccated skin, with a few wayward tufts of hair. And I carved off paper-thin, semitransparent slivers of the finest acorn-fed Catalonian ham, stamped PATA NEGRA.

  They melted on my tongue like curls of butter.

  There were globe-shaped cheeses the size of ships’ buoys, encased in they skins of red wax. Labeled HOLLAND EDAM. Swiss cheeses. Rounds of Italian PARMASANO big as wagon wheels. Smaller cheeses in flat, mould-splattered boxes of light wood labeled ENGLAND STILTON, FRANCE CAMEMBERT, ESPAÑA MANCHEGO.

  There were big dusty tins of bonito marinating in oil; smaller tins of cockles & muscles & cherrystone clams; little square tins of herring, sardines, anchovies; tiny tins the size of demitasse saucers containing Russian caviar.

  In the shadowy light of my pitch-oil lamp, locked into the hold of the gently rolling ship, I taught myself to eat patient. I taught myself to eat purposeful. Then I paused from my eating for another short sup of whiskey. A cool draught of foamy champagne.

  Son, I ate till I couldn’t eat again. Till I was satiated, gorged, bloated-out. I drank till I couldn’t drink no more. Till I’d filled five champagne bottles with my own weewee, and carefully corked them back. My stools ritually wrapped in ladies’ negligees of the finest silk, the packets tucked careful into a large spherical bottle with a clampdown lid—its contents long ago consumed—labeled ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΦΕΤΑ ΣΤΟ ΕΛΑΙΟΛΑΔΟ.

  I outed my kerosene lamp and tumbled with a groan and a thud onto my back. Onto the rough plank flooring at the bottom of the ship with the pleasant sounds of bilgewater sloshing back-and-forth beneath the boards. The unceasing creak and jar of the ship all round me. Those faintly nauseating yet delightful smells of mould on the cheeses and cross the desiccated skins of the hanging hams, swaying to and fro in perfect unison, like a second ocean floating in the air above my head.

  I slept and dreamt of eating and drinking. And I awoke again and lit my lantern and ate and drank with such studied, sustained, precise and celebratory enjoyment—such patient purposeful pleasure—that I felt I must be asleep, dreaming that I was awake drinking and eating. Unless I’d died in my sleep and woken up in heaven. Drinking & eating & dreaming.

  Lying on my back at the bottom of the Rosalind’s hold, my arms folded comfortable behind my head, I gazed up into the hams swaying amongst they shadow-reflections from my pitch-oil lamp. Drifting again in that familiar memoryspace—what do you call a daydream that happens at night?

  Marguerite and me happy enough to let the eager crowd surge on ahead. For one thing, I had no idea where we’d go once we reached Satellite Field. I assumed we’d join Mum and Mrs. Whitechurch in the stands. But I wasn’t so keen about sitting there with Marguerite, under the maco-eyes of my three sisters. I’d seen Papee exit the station with his oversized roll of drawings tucked under his arm—other hooked round the elbow of an odd-looking little gentleman carrying a cane with a gleaming silver panther at the handle—who I assumed was Mr. Whitechurch. No doubt those two would make a beeline for the Satellite with the rest of the men. But I couldn’t see joining them neither—Marguerite would be the only woman out on the field. Son, the truth is I didn’t have no idea where we were going. And it wasn’t till I spied a place secluded from the boisterous crowd—hidden beneath the smaller of the grandstands and backed by a line of shaggy sycamores—that I caught a vaps.

  I veered Marguerite off in that direction.

  Suddenly all the shouting and ruckus behaviour seemed far away. Despite that the spectators were perched just above we heads. Marguerite untied her large silk scarf from round her shoulders. Spreading it out on the yellowed grass for us to sit on. I wanted to take off my jacket—not only to spread it on the ground as well, but all-in-a-sudden I’d found myself in a serious sweat. And not due to the warm weather neither. But I kept it on, too nervous to act one way or another: my mind felt scrambled as the guts of a calabash.

  Marguerite removed her little mother-of-pearl book from her rucksack again. She slipped out the pencil and daubed it three times against her tongue, scribbling, turning it round for me to read—

  I’m sure this isn’t the trial you were expecting

  After a time Marguerite removed her white gloves, setting them into the bowl of her overturned hat. She unpinned her hazel hair, letting it fall like a sprinkling of water down over her shoulders. Meanwhile, as I stretched my legs out before me, I heard Mr. Powell’s bottle give a summoning kinda slosh inside my breast pocket. Somehow I’d forgotten all about it. Now, for some reason I couldn’t fully explain, I took it out, offering Marguerite some. She shook her head. But I pulled the cork nonetheless, and after another pause I took a swig, trying my best to hide the grimace. And truth is it eased my anxieties further. Bolstered my self-confidence. And although I never did manage to take my jacket off that afternoon, eventually I became comfortable enough to unbutton it. I loosened my cravat and collar, took off the hideous cap.

  I had, of course, learnt a good deal about this Satellite from Papee. I’d studied his mechanical drawings, in addition to the plates and descriptions printed in the Star—it occurred to me that Marguerite might’ve glanced at them sheself. In any case, the Satellite provided an easy and convenient subject to talk about. A subject on which I could even be something of an expert.

  I took a next grimacing swig, and I found myself chatting on enthusiastic about Mr. Etzler’s machine. Surprising even me—till now I’d taken only a passing interest in it. Marguerite nodded her head. We ate a couple more cheese-and-tomato sandwiches.

  As I talked Marguerite reached to her ankles to untie the leather laces of her scoutboy-boots. She slipped them off, setting them aside. Then she rolled her cream-coloured wool stockings down along her brown legs, off the points of her toes, balling them into the cups of her boots. And as I continued chatting-way, out my eye-corners, I watched her rake her long toes through the yellowed grass. One slender foot and then the next. I watched her luxuriate in it, like a puss-cat.

  We sat in comfortable silence a minute.

  Eventually, Marguerite reached over for her little book, poised atop her rucksack. She flipped it open, scribbling out a line—

  he’s always struck me
as something of a buffoon

  I read it twice. Then I put the book down, rubbed my eyes. And I read it a third time—

  Who? I say, already a little bit geegeeree to hear her answer.

  She scribbled again—

  Mr. Etzler—though I fear he’s nearly as dangerous as he is foolish

  I was stunned. Nobody’d never uttered a condescending word against him before. Not in my hearing. It seemed blasphemous, a sacrilege. It seemed to me outrageous, utterly unthinkable, unsayable—certainly unwritedownable.

  I looked up—

  What can you possibly mean? I ask.

  Marguerite smiled. She took her book back, scribbling—

  all these unfortunate labourers

  he’s robbing them blind

  She scribbled again—

  I shan’t lend him my support

  nor shall I follow him cross the sea to Trinidad

  I fought a few seconds to gather myself, to assemble my jumbled thoughts. My calabash guts. What she’d said made me vex, plain and simple—like if it was me she’d insulted. Though I doubt I could even isolate that emotion clearly inside me. More than anything I felt confused, unmoored, floating again. But not in any welcomed, agreeable, delicious kinda way.

  I took a deep breath—

  That’s the significance of all this, I say, slow, careful. That’s why we’re here. So Mr. Etzler’s Satellite can save us.

  I paused—

  My impoverished working class!

  Marguerite smiled at me again. Though not in an unkind way, nor patronizing neither. She wrote in her little book—

  he’s an unpardonable charlatan

  Then she took her book back, and I watched her writing—

  in addition to which his mathematics are unsound:

  there’s no infinity when it comes to mechanical function for the

  simple fact of friction—all things must, inevitably, draw to a halt

  I looked up from the page at her.

  Counted amongst the passengers travelling aboard the Rosalind were a handful of wealthy English and French estate owners. We never saw them. Excepting the French comte—who made a point of visiting the third-class deck almost every afternoon, same as Mr. Etzler. This Comte César de Beauvoisin as loud as he was large, with the rather disagreeable habit of animating his speech with one or the other of the half-eaten mutton legs held in his whitegloved hands. Having visited his cultivations in the Pyrenees during the pleasant autumn months, he was returning to his properties in the warmer climes. The comte’s discourses, almost without exception, dealt with the great hardships suffered by West Indian planters in recent years. Of they enormous monetary losses since the emancipation of the Africans.

  Yet despite his litany of complaints the comte’s sermons were lively. The estate owners had taken matters into they own hands. They’d sought to solve they own problem—this problem created for them by self-righteous, stiffnosed, bill-mongering MPs in London—and in a manner that seemed perfectly West Indian. Hope was, indeed, on its way. It travelled on the selfsame sea that we did. Bound for the same West Indies. For the very same island of Trinidad. This hope, however, came from a different place. And although it was the same general direction in which Africa lay, it originated in another continent altogether. Because at that very moment, on another ship called the Fatal Rozack, a cargo of 217 indentured East Indians were making they way from the city of Calcutta. Bound also for the estates in Trinidad.

  The comte claimed to have already purchased some forty-five of these same coolies due to arrive on the Rozack heself. If the new labour scheme proved successful—and who could say why it wouldn’t?—he’d set aside funds to purchase hundreds more. The comte estimated conservative that his cane, cocoa, and copra cultivations in Trinidad could easily employ a thousand coolies.

  As you can well imagine this comte was also the particular object of all Mr. Etzler’s seething, pent-up wrath. And not simply as a flesh-eater. It was rumored that the comte’s only luggage consisted of a hundred cured Catalonian hams, plus a flock of sheep from off his farm in the Pyrenees—one to be slaughtered every other day of the voyage for his individual consumption—kept in a special pen beneath the aft deck. As if the Rosalind was he own personal Noah’s ark.

  For the first couple weeks at sea Mr. Etzler and the comte did not exchange a word together. Though the comte was present for all Mr. Etzler’s lectures, improvised and advertised. At each of these discourses he made a deliberate show of dedicating more attention to his pair of half-eaten mutton legs—reclining on a chaise lounge toted by the stewards from deck to parlour to saloon—large white napkin spread diamond-wise over he bigsome belly. Shifting, quite audible and voracious, from one greasy whitegloved fist to the next. Likewise, each time the comte fell into a discourse on he indentured coolies, Mr. Etzler stood at a distance listening. Without so much as opening up he mouth. Till the experience became so painful for Mr. Etzler that he stormed off in a huff.

  Not till the afternoon of we fourteenth day at sea was there any direct communication between the two men. I happened to be there, having just awoken in my cabin and ascending to the deck to make a serious weewee. And son, even after hearing Mr. Etzler’s animated voice, I wondered if my own necessities didn’t take precedence. As usual he was standing atop a sailor’s stool to facilitate he delivery, addressing the group of men crowded round him—

  West Indian plantation owners, he says, stuck in zee blind prejudices huv zair age-old practises unt customs, are dumb as donkeys. Belligerent unt boorish as billy goats!

  He cited, by way of example, the dangerous and labour-intensive method used by the planters for crystallising sugar from cane juice. This procedure could, he maintained, be accomplished virtually cost-free (since there wouldn’t be no such labour involved) and danger-free (since neither heat nor fuel would be needed to boil the juice) by employing a procedure of he own invention. This process for crystallising sugar—like all his inventions and discoveries—utilised only the most rudimentary of scientific, chemical, and engineering principles.

  Mr. Etzler continued—

  Zee problem wiss men since antiquity is zat zey do not reason. Zey do not sink! Stuck in zair state huv mental sloth unt barbaric ignorance, zee generality of men do not even open up zair eyes to see what sits in front huv zair noses!

  In fact, Mr. Etzler added, his little chest expanding within the confines of he crimson vest, this invention for crystallising sugar could earn him thousands of pounds if he offered it for purchase on the international market. And not the advancement of scientific knowledge for all humanity. Nonetheless, this invention utilised the simplest chemical principle­­—

  Known to every knucklehead schoolboy older zen zee age huv seffen!

  In the silence that followed Mr. Etzler’s speech—a moment that felt, in truth, like he’d sucked the air out the entire deck—the comte got up slow from out he lounge chair—

  Écoutez ici, Monsieur Etzler, he says, holding up a slightly soiled canvas sack in he whitegloved hands.

  Now we all turned to look at the comte—

  You crystallise sugar, he says, without the use of fuel—ou le feu, oui?—for everybody here to witness, and I pay you the equivalent of one thousand pounds in gold doubloons!

  With that he dropped he bag to the deckboards at his feet, giving out a shilllink and an exhalation of ancient dust.

  The comte continued—

  Fail, he says. Et avant le Christ avec sa Sainte Vierge, Captain Damphier will set you in a rowboat, adrift, au milieu de la grande mer!

  Another silence followed the comte’s pronouncement, with every man-jack on that deck only watching at him recline again in his chaise lounge. He reached to his vest pocket to take out a cigar, livery-clad butler stepping forward to light it. With Mr. Etzler still standing on he stool at the other end of the deck, jawbone hanging open like a zandolee catching flies.*

  ___________________

  * The Sugar Question Made Ea
sy, by C.F. Stollmeyer (London 1844): ‘Everyone who is acquainted with the cultivation of sugar knows that the labours of the sugar-house are the most dreaded by the slaves, or free-workmen; also what waste and other casualties are attendant upon the process of boiling sugar. It is therefore with pleasure I can announce that this very difficult point has at last been overcome by a gentleman of great talents, extensive learning, and extraordinary inventive powers—Mr. J.A. Etzler, who has succeeded in crystallising sugar without heat or boiling, at 1/5 the cost of making sugar in the conventional way. Experiments have proved the fact without a doubt.’

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  On the afternoon advertised in Mr. Stollmeyer’s handprinted announcement the sea was flat as a dishplate. As if to signal the approaching tropics, it was coloured a glittering sapphire. Indeed, the sun shone brighter and hotter that afternoon than it had since the start of we journey sixteen days before. Such fine weather worked well in Mr. Etzler’s favour. Adding to the festivities Captain Damphier ordered iced lemonade for the children, a special punch of he own recipe—spiked generous with dark West Indian rum—to be served to all the adults. And good quantity of this punch had already been consumed when, as advertised, Mr. Stollmeyer circulated round the men collecting the admission charge (women and children free, a group amongst which I was happy to hide myself).

  Ever since we’d first come aboard the third-class passengers had noticed an enormous and rather sinister-looking, cubelike structure—mysteriously covered over in thick canvas—standing in the aft-most part of our deck. Though by now we’d all learnt easy enough to ignore it. But that afternoon, with a bit of improvised ceremony, Mr. Stollmeyer untied the canvas cover. Revealing to us an obzockee crate lashed down to the boards—no possible hope of getting it into the hold—stenciled with the following lettering: