Eden Falls (34 page)

The man, the first one, gave up conversation and instead mimed an elaborate winding motion, which triggered a memory in Silas, so that his face opened up with understanding and he nodded with precision. Someone said, ‘Leave ’im to sweat,’ and the woman chuckled and said, ‘’im fool-fool Englishman, too full a rum to drive,’ but the man only rolled his eyes and, walking to the front of the motorcar, grasped the handle. With two easy turns he sparked the engine into life. The roosting chicken threw itself off, an indignant ball of feathers, and everyone took a step back for safety then watched, pityingly, as the Ford Model K lurched into motion, weaving out of the market place, scattering dust and chickens and leaving in its wake a feeling of general disdain at the folly of the bubu who couldn’t hold his drink.

In his sozzled wisdom, Silas decided to call in at the hotel and so drove there pell-mell in first gear, the six-cylinder engine screaming in protest. At the gate he brought the vehicle to a halt by stalling, and swung out his legs with the theatrical flamboyance of the drunkard trying to demonstrate his sobriety. He plunged through the gate, stopping first at the new sign to shake his head sadly at the incontrovertible evidence of the name change, then threaded his way up the terraced path to the colonnaded entrance, where the doors were flung open to admit the breeze that blew in warm, comfortable gusts from the sea.

In the foyer he stood and observed from a safe distance what appeared to be a party in the bar. The place was hopping with people and music. Was someone drumming? He peered cautiously round the corner and saw Maxwell rapping out a beat with his hands on the wooden bar in time to the music of a small ensemble, while Scotty performed a loose-limbed dance and crooned,
‘I got de blues, I beg to be excuse, dat why I refuse, I feelin’ all confuse.’
There was general tipsy laughter, and some of the English guests were dancing too, copying Scotty’s rangy shimmy, picking up the words to his song, which didn’t, after all, deviate from those same four lines.

Silas shrank back, unseen. He felt out of place here, and this was disconcerting as it was his hotel, built on his land, with his money. The injustice of this made his mind turn to Eve, the architect of this new incarnation. There was no sign of her in the jamboree next door. Or Seth, for that matter. This aggravated him; he cupped his hands at his mouth and twice bellowed ‘Seth!’ in a manner that, had he been sober, would have appalled him in any other man. The music was loud, but not so loud that Silas couldn’t be heard. An uncertainty crept into the merry-making, as people looked around for the source of the uncouth interruption.

‘I say,’ someone said. ‘Isn’t that the owner, three sheets to the wind?’

There was a small outbreak of hilarity and Silas, with only the scantest idea of the impression he was making, stood his ground, his feet planted apart on the parquet floor of the foyer; he seemed to be swaying gently in the evening breeze.

‘Uncle Silas!’

Here was Seth, bounding down the staircase, two steps at a time, in the natty linen suit paid for from the profits of Whittam & Co. He looked brisk and capable, and Silas regarded him through narrowed eyes. Seth, bright and friendly, said, ‘I wondered where you’d got to. Are you all right?’

But he patently was not. His eyes were glassy and his mouth moved silently, as if he were practising speech before properly attempting it. In the bar the music had stopped, and while some of the guests were milling about with drinks, taking the air on the terrace, others were looking at Silas with knowing smiles, as if to say, there’s a fellow about to make an ass of himself. Silas turned away from Seth, moving his head in that steady, over-cautious manner of the pie-eyed, until he faced the onlookers.

‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,’ he slurred, pointing an accusatory finger at Seth. ‘He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.’ Then he executed a sweeping bow, which caused a rush of blood to his head, and proved too much. He fell to the floor in stages: first, all fours; next, hands and knees; finally, flat out, face down.

‘God damn it!’ he said, speaking into the parquet with a spirit that belied his helplessness. ‘God damn it all to hell!’

There was a ripple of applause and someone called, ‘Encore!’ Seth, who would have liked the floor to open up and swallow him whole, took his uncle in an underarm grip and dragged him into the office and out of sight.

S
ilas woke up with a fierce, hard pressure behind his eyes and a mouth as rough as stone. He was full length on the leather couch in his office, his shoes on the floor beside him. He had no idea how he had got here, although he did remember the car ride, and a chicken. He eased himself up on one shoulder and the room ebbed and flowed before him, so he put himself back again, gingerly. The carriage clock on his desk began to chime, and he counted the strokes: ten o’clock. He wondered, was it morning, or night?

An hour passed, and another. Finally, a searing thirst proved stronger than the desire to quietly die, and he found the courage to move in small, careful increments towards the door and across the foyer. It was past midnight now, but there was still the murmur of conversation coming from the bar, so Silas headed instead for the dining room and the door at its far end, which led down the casement stairs to the kitchen. He had expected darkness, but a yellow glow seeped through the sides of the closed door, lighting his way, and when he pushed open the door Ruby Donaldson was sitting at the table. There was a deep, warm smell of baking bread; on the dresser behind her eight loaves had been left in tins to rise and prove. On a folded rug, on the floor by the stove, Roscoe lay like a comfortable puppy, sound asleep. Silas stared at the scene; there was something unutterably reassuring about it. The mother, the child, the halo of light from a lamp on the table, the warmth; like a stranger to comfort, Silas stared, drinking it in.

Ruby had expected to see Seth, not Silas, but she hid her dismay behind a neutral expression and waited for him to speak.

‘Ruby,’ he said, and his voice was almost humble.

‘Yes?’

‘Why are you here? It’s night time.’ His tongue felt fat and dry in his mouth, and he went to the sink and drew a glass of water. He was behind her now, and she felt the habitual fear that he might reach for her when she wasn’t looking. Still, though, she didn’t turn around, so he couldn’t see her face when she said, ‘Your sister has a fever.’

This startled him.

‘What sort of fever?’ he said stupidly.

‘The usual kind.’ Her voice was cold, but then she seemed to relent and added, ‘Her temperature’s up and she says her limbs are heavy. She’s sleeping now. I said I’d stay.’

He came around the table and sat down, opposite her. He noticed, now, that she wasn’t only sitting at the table, but also doing some mending. She had a grey sock stretched over a darning mushroom, and the long needle with its thread was poised in her hand. Roscoe’s school sock, Silas thought. When had he last given her money for the boy’s clothing? He didn’t ask her this, but said, ‘What do you think it is, then?’

‘She might be over-tired,’ Ruby said, half-heartedly.

‘I doubt that. She’s a Yorkshirewoman.’

Ruby had her eyes down, avoiding his gaze. She wanted him gone. The room was no longer safe with him in it, because the version of Silas who sat before her now was not to be trusted. She knew this better than anyone.

‘God, my head hurts,’ Silas said. He let it drop, with his forehead resting on the table. On the floor, Roscoe stirred and whimpered, but he didn’t wake, only turned so that his back was pressed against the lower part of the stove. Ruby stood and went to him, moving him gently away from the heat, and when she turned again Silas had turned his head on the table, and from this curious position was looking at her with a crooked half-smile, as if he knew everything about her, and one of the things he knew was this: she was his, if he wished it.

‘She may have yellow fever,’ Ruby said, partly to shock him but also because she feared it could be true. She had helped Eve into bed, when it was still just four o’clock in the afternoon, and her skin was hot over her whole body, burning up, bringing an unnatural flush to her face and neck. Eve had complained of aches deep in her bones and Ruby had given her fever-grass tea to bring out the perspiration, then covered her with a cool sheet. Eve, who had forgotten what it was to be sick, had looked at her with wild eyes. Ruby had thought she was afraid of the sickness, but really Eve had been afraid because she had realised, at last, how far away from home she was, and how very badly she wanted to be back there.

Silas sat up and said, ‘She can’t have yellow fever.’

‘Oh, really. Why is that?’ Ruby said.

He stared, having no good answer.

‘I’ve seen yellow fever,’ Ruby went on. ‘Have you?’

His mouth hardened into a cruel line. ‘I expect you’ve seen all manner of ailments, yes, raised as you were in the gutter.’

There, thought Ruby: there he is, the real Silas Whittam. She swallowed and moved towards him, to show him she wasn’t afraid.

‘I was raised in a poor home, but a loving one,’ she said. ‘I didn’t live in squalor though, as you did in Grangely.’

Her words cut like a blade; he could have howled with rage. She saw this and took pleasure from it. That Eve had discussed their childhood with Ruby Donaldson was a kind of treachery, in his view. Silas saw their impoverished childhood as a shameful stain on their reputation; Grangely was their secret, to be acknowleged only privately and to be buried so far beneath their success that even they might begin to believe it no longer existed. There was no honour in triumphing through adversity; to the world, he wished to appear invulnerable, invincible, a man of substance but a man without a past.

Without compassion, Ruby said, ‘Your mother died from typhus – Eve told me. And your father, who was a drunk, hanged himself rather than share your burden.’

Through clenched teeth Silas said, ‘Shut your filthy mouth.’

‘Filthy mouth? You considered it fit to kiss, once upon a time. You considered my mouth beautiful, as I recall. I tasted of vanilla, didn’t I?’

Rarely had Ruby felt so powerful; she hadn’t realised that Eve had given her such a weapon. She rose above him like the wrathful Nemesis, calling him to account for his excessive pride, his undeserved good fortune, his absence of humanity. But he met her hot, red anger with his own, and he stood and stalked round the table so that she no longer looked down on him, but up.

‘You were nothing, nothing at all, when I met you,’ he said, and his mouth was twisted with spite. ‘I raised you to this, and I can return you to the gutter whenever I wish.’

‘You cannot. Once, perhaps. Not now.’

‘I can take him,’ Silas said, indicating Roscoe with a contemptuous toss of his head. ‘I can take him with me, back to England. Perhaps I shall.’

Ruby was unbowed. ‘You took my innocence. You will not, now, take my son.’

‘Our son.
My
son.’

‘The law would not allow it.’

He laughed, scorning her. ‘Really? I wonder where an English court might judge his best interests to lie? With you, barefoot in the Jamaican dirt, or with me, in a fine house in Bristol?’

Now Ruby began to feel afraid. The madness had gone from Silas’s voice and he spoke calmly, as if he were merely presenting a hypothesis, not threatening to rend her small world. In his cool stillness she sensed true danger.

‘You have no love for him,’ she said, her voice low with emotion. ‘Whereas I love him more than life.’

‘Actually, I find I’m almost fond of the little fellow. As he grows I begin to see myself in him.’

She struck him, fast and furious like a cobra, and her hand left its imprint on his cheek. He touched it tenderly with his fingertips, and smiled at her.

‘There is nothing of you in my beautiful boy,’ Ruby said, and her voice shook with contained anguish because she knew this wasn’t true.

‘Ruby?’

Eve stood at the open door to the kitchen, supporting herself on the frame. Her face was ghastly pale, and her hair was wet, plastered to her face and neck. In her nightdress, in this condition, she looked as if she’d risen from the grave. Ruby and Silas stared at her, she in horror, and he with a sort of savage amusement. Briefly, Ruby clutched at the hope that Eve hadn’t overheard their exchange, but it was a fleeting and insubstantial thought, because her expression dispelled all possible doubt.

Silas left the kitchen, with a sideways glance at his sister.

‘I’ll be in the office,’ he said, but she didn’t reply. He saw her glittering eyes, but thought that Ruby had almost certainly exaggerated the seriousness of Eve’s fever. It would pass by daybreak, more than likely. Now, Ruby would doubtless spill the beans, which was perhaps just as well and saved him the trouble. Before the door closed he turned to Ruby and winked. ‘Don’t keep her up too long,’ he said, and she returned his words with a silent stare.

‘Go on,’ Eve said.

‘It can wait,’ Ruby said, taking in her friend’s pallor and the way she sat heavily in the chair, as if dragged down by weights.

‘It can’t. It’s waited too long already.’

So Ruby told her, in a strange, detached style, as if she was recounting a tale of someone other than herself, and Eve didn’t interrupt, only listened.

‘The old plantation at Sugar Hill – the great house, the fields, the sugar mill and boiling house – had been bought outright by a young Englishman whose steamships had become a regular sight at the Port Antonio dock. He had no interest in sugar, and the instant the estate was his, he employed local men to hack down and tear up the old crop, and to till and feed the soil that, over the decades, had been thinned and depleted. The cane had grown high and wild, and it didn’t give up its ground without a fight; it stabbed at the men’s hands and arms, cutting into their flesh, and its deep roots clung tenaciously to their place in the baked earth.

‘Silas Whittam, the new master of the estate, was an impatient man, and he ordered the men to torch the crop. They hesitated, knowing – as he did not – how fire in Jamaica could rush like floodwater across the island’s fields and forests, ceasing its destruction only when it reached the sea. Their foreman, a thoughtful man named Roscoe Donaldson, stepped forwards to speak, and advised the hot-headed young master to wait for the rains, which would soon arrive, and would help contain and control the power of the blaze. Silas Whittam roared with contempt at their lily-livered concerns, and he pulled, from the crowd of women looking on, a young girl in a white slip, with bare feet and her hair falling to her shoulders in a mass of narrow braids. Roscoe Donaldson flinched and protested, for this was his only daughter, Ruby, but Silas only laughed because he intended her no harm. He smiled at the girl, who regarded him solemnly with her almond eyes, and he handed her a roughly made torch of wood and cloth. She held it at arm’s length, and he struck a match and lit it, then pushed her gently forwards to the edge of the cane fields.