Red Jacket (22 page)

She defends her dissertation on 21 May. Charlie, back in St. Chris since the end of April, comes armed with champagne and the offer of a job in the Haiti project.

“Exactly who am I working for, Charlie?”

At first he'd understood that the Centers for Disease Control were running one arm of the project, with sideways money from the National Institutes of Health. Now he was saying, “I believe that the CIA are on board as well.”

“Don't kid me, Charles.”

“Sweet one, even I, chuckling Charlie, wouldn't do that. I'm not certain, but I have to tell you what I suspect, don't I? Duvalier is gone, but the new National Council is rickety. Their assembly is only just tackling the constitution, and our friend Father Aristide and the youth of Ti Legliz, his little church movement, are making the establishment nervous. At the best of times there's not much in the world those CIA goons don't stick their fingers into.”

It isn't unlikely. Haiti is always more or less uneasy.

Charlie assures her that, as long as they are cautious, level headed, and sensible, they will be safe. She joins the project in January 1987.

On 19 April, Easter Monday, Charlie leaves for the office early. He is opening the locks on their door when she wakes, aware of a queasy belly and a funny taste in her mouth, migraine symptoms she hasn't had in a long while. The taste is different this time, though, like ashes. She slips into a robe and makes it outside in time to call goodbye as he enters the long grass that swallows the track going downhill to project headquarters. The blades shush as they bend and rise, mimicking his answering wave. Then, like a sea anemone's tentacles, they sweep him in. No one ever sees him again.

Grace spends the worst six weeks of her life alone in their small house, waiting for news of Charlie, forcing herself to work, downing pills so she can sleep at nights. When no news of him interrupts her tremulous vigil, she starts to look for him herself, until she is expressly forbidden, the order pronounced with menace by the blue-eyed, crew cut ex-marine who is in charge of security at headquarters. Josée, their translator, must have told him. Grace's Kwéyol isn't good like Charlie's, and so she asked Josée to come with her to help her search.

Then, for the second time in her life, she has an attack of migraine in which pain comes packaged in total blindness. After she has lost vision for three days, she panics. It makes no sense to stay in Haiti and risk complete physical and psychological breakdown. She'll be of use to no one then, least of all herself. Charlie alone has understood her, and loved her for who she is. And Charlie is gone, victim she is sure of some calculated or accidental act of lethal violence — it hardly matters which.

She decides she will make a place inside, a special space for Charlie, and put him away there. She will ration her thoughts about him because not to do so will be to risk total disintegration. She packs a few clothes, gives away most things, heads back to Daphne in Edison. Charlie's death is Papa God's coup de grâce. He shouldn't expect to hear from her anytime soon.

Coming to Order

This afternoon, even the subdued banter that council members normally bring into the meeting is absent. Not that they're a drab and sober lot, but close to year-end they're tired from travel, the pressures of island politics, the burdens of teaching and administration. Still, that is life in these parts, and these fellows get good money for dealing with it and plenty of perks.

He puts down his papers and looks around for Celia. She's on the other side of the room, in animated conversation with another admin officer. She will come over to him shortly, passing along any new information
,
conveying last-minute apologies for anyone delayed or unable to attend.

But she isn't the person approaching him. It's the principal, Gordon Crawford, skin bloodless, grey pupils skittering like marbles across the whites of his eyes.

“Jesus H. Christ, Mark! They've killed him!”

“Killed who? Who's killed who?”

“Langdon. They've shot him!”

“Langdon? Who's Langdon, Gordon?”

“Shit. Fucking place's turned into Jamaica. Jesus Christ! I need a drink.”

“Gordon, get a hold of yourself. Who's this who's been shot?”

“Edwin Langdon. The Minister of Education.”

Gordon says that, because the minister has been shot dead, the vice chancellor, who is talking to the Office of the Prime Minister, will be late. Based on this communication, council will decide whether graduation on Saturday should proceed. Edwin Langdon is not a friend, but he is, or was, in the first batch of students that Mark taught and was someone he had worked with often. If there's such a thing as an honest politician, the deceased is that.

“Who shot him? Anybody have any idea?”

“Just happened on his way here! Jesus, I'm cold. Mark, you don't carry a flask, do you?” Mark shakes his head, surprised at the younger man.

“All the same, you're a rum man,” Crawford babbles on. “Can't think how you drink that rot-gut.” Mark doesn't appreciate the remark, not because it says his taste in liquor is suspect, but because St. Chris rum is superb.

“So the police have no idea ...”

“Of who? Naaah, don't be stupid,” Crawford cuts him off. “How could they? Of course, that slut in the admin office is saying it's Langdon's wife.”

“You mean she's been killed, not him?”

“Good God, no, man. Use your head. It's him that's dead all right. Flap-mouth was saying his wife knocked him off or arranged for it.”

Mark decides that, even in the circumstances, he can't excuse the principal this degree of, to put it kindly, informality. “Gordon ...” His voice portends.

“What?”

“Restrain yourself.” He's never known anyone who died by anything more violent than a road accident. He doesn't fear death but he does fear dying, if that makes sense, and a bullet doesn't strike him as a bad way to go.

“Why don't you take five in the chancellor's suite and have a nip of brandy? Here's Celia.” He beckons her. “She'll see you in.”

“Celia,” he speaks before she does. “The principal is feeling unwell. Would you take him to Garvey, please? Organize a cup of tea?” He hopes Gordon notices that the nip has shape-shifted.

Celia hands him several files.

“For me? Thanks. I take it phones are in good working order?” He points to a red phone and a black one on a table immediately behind his chair.

“Yes, sir. They were checked earlier.”

“Very well. I'm going to start things off. I think it would be wise to have a car with a driver downstairs, just in case. Can we do that?”

“I'll ask admin to arrange it.” She reaches for the black phone.

Council must still meet, if only to decide if graduation should go ahead. Several hundred people will shortly arrive in Queenstown. Indeed, they are arriving already. Preposterously, it's Grace he thinks of, in Haiti for meetings, wondering again why she never answered his letters. Mona can't come! The magic of the words envelops him, like the heat of liniment on aching muscles. “Mona can't come.” Not in these circumstances!

Of course he's not just worried about Grace's safety, and Mona's, but about the safety of the families and friends coming for the ceremony. Most aren't wealthy people. It's a moment of triumph for them, dividend of many sweat-invested years. To be cheated of that is hard. Might there be some connection with the university, some mad student with a grudge? Nowadays, that's what angry people do, grab a gun and shoot. At any rate, today the politicians, senior civil servants, academics, and other pukka sahibs can sweat a little to earn their bread.

“Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for being on time. It's as well, since our normally difficult circumstances have turned catastrophic. I'm distressed to have to inform you that Minister Langdon has been shot dead on his way here.”

There are gasps, exclamations of horror. He allows a pause, seconds during which some gape, faces stung, others turn to jabber at their neighbours, so the noise increases. When some start to rise, he returns them to their chairs.

“We will, of course, continue with council. Before calling the meeting to order, however, I would ask that we stand and observe a moment of silence out of respect for the Hon. Minister of Education. May his soul rest in peace.”

In the silence, he peeps from under lowered lids, curious about whether any of these men has screwed Grace.

Shifting feet and papers tell him the minute is up.

“Sorry. Got distracted there. Please be seated.” He sits, pours himself some passion fruit punch and sips. The meeting will trundle on until late, no doubt reconvening tomorrow. He sets the glass down. Ice tinkles as the sun makes crisscross explosions in the crimson liquid.

Ralston

“Beg you take it from me and rest it on the table yonder, Zeke.”

Evadne stands in the doorway with a wooden tray on which there is a jug of lemonade and two glasses.

“Take your time, Vads,” Ezekiel Carpenter counsels, taking the tray from her and settling it on the wrought iron table that occupies most of the length of the small verandah, commanding the space like an altar. He returns to give her a hand as she steps down from the polished wood of the parlour onto the shiny red-stained concrete.

“I thank you for the help, Zeke. I am really very well indeed, except for this arthritis. It useful for predicting the weather, but when it ready, it transform me into a cripple. And God Almighty knows I already have troubles enough to cripple me!”

She settles herself on a high straight-backed bench, at the same time waving him into an old-fashioned dark green verandah chair, its seat sloping down to meet a long angled back.

“Maybe you best come to the troubles straight off, Vads,” Gramps begins. “Nothing to be gained by beating around the bush. We know each other too long. If Elsie was here, she would say, ‘No way to kill the chicken other than put the pan over the head and bring the knife down.' ”

“Is a hard thing for me to speak about, Zeke.” Evadne beats her fist on her small bosom. “I don't mind money troubles, for I am accustomed to being poor, and in sickness, I pray for endurance.” She holds up her hands, the joints swollen, the fingers curling over. “When storm and hurricane come, I recall the Book of Job and know God is master and I bow to his will and the might of his sceptre. But when evil come as close to me as my family, when I see a viper in my bosom and don't know when nor how it come to be there, I deem it hard indeed.”

Ezekiel knows her trial. He stepped off the bus in Hector's Castle and was making his way across to Hector's Hardware and Grocery, intending to buy a couple bottles of beer to take up the hill, for Vads enjoys a Red Stripe, when he came across her grandson, Ralston, and two other young men leaning against the wall of the shop, each with a bottle of warm Red Stripe — “hot hops” — and a cigarette in hand, though it was only ten in the morning.

Ralston was idling at full throttle. “Elvin, him that see it, know it. And him that feel it, know it better.” He sputtered on the swill of beer he'd just taken, finding his own joke funny. “I go show you living proof that if cousin boil good soup, sister boil better!”

Gramps wondered at first if under the bravado he detected something tremulous, a degree of unease. One good look at Ralston said it was wishful thinking.

“Morning, Ralston,” Gramps greeted the young man. Ralston raised his chin somewhat, but made no further response.

Gramps entered and threw his voice into the cool darkness of the store. “A howdy to you, Mr. Hector. I hope your day goes well and I would thank you to reach a couple Red Stripes for me.”

“You rather them cold, or you prefer them just so?”

“Just so is fine. Time I walk up the road, they going be hot anyhow.”

Mr. Hector emerged from the shelves and came to the counter to see Gramps searching in his pocket for the wherewithal to make his purchase. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Carpenter. I never see it was you. Welcome to Hector's. Last time I see you was in fifty-eight, right? Good to see you after this long little while.” He looked uncertain as he settled the beers into a paper bag and handed them over. Then he ventured, carefully, “I take it you come to see Miss Evadne?”

“You know that's why I come, Mr. Hector, excepting of course for my regular November visit to Elsie's grave.”

“Miss Evadne will be glad to see you, for sure, sir.” The grocer inclined his head, gesturing with an eyebrow in Ralston's direction.“I am slow to pronounce it, but it's as well I be the one to tell you. Ralston boasting out there these past days that he make a baby on his sister.”

“Is there truth in that, Mr. Hector?”

“I put nothing past that one, Mr. Carpenter.”

Now Gramps is looking at Evadne as she pours the lemonade for them both, She's put the Red Stripes in the ice-box, for though many people maintain that warm beer is good for lungs, teeth, and general well-being, they prefer their beer cold. Given the twisted fingers, he considers taking the jug from her, but she is managing, and he knows the importance of a person feeling that they have control, even over small things, when they have lost much bigger control. He notes his own hands on his knees and realizes he is clutching them. Never mind age and experience, if what Mr. Hector says is true, he is in alien waters. Still he's never been a man to shirk a hard thing. He goes across to Evadne, takes the glass she offers, and says, “Thanks, Vads. I need something to cool me down.”

Seating himself again, he takes courage. “First things first, Vads. How is Phyllis? Is she here?”

“How you mean, Zeke?”

“I mean the plain words I'm saying, Evadne.”

“You mean to say that you know?”

“I know what Ralston is broadcasting in the shop piazza.”

“In that case, you see why I had to send her off. How could I have her here exposed to the cruelty of that boy and the bad-mindedness of people? You know all this time, she washing and ironing his clothes along with hers and mine? For is not much I can do with these now.” She displays the fingers again.

“I'm sorry Vads — ”

She cuts Gramps off. “Not only that, she cook food if I can't manage, clean this house from top to bottom, and all the while,” Evadne reaches down between breasts rising in swift tremors for a handkerchief, “the child is trying to keep up with her schoolwork.”

“And you're sure he did it?”

“That girl never yet tell me a lie.”

“And is she now in good hands? Is she safe?”

“I think so, Zeke. I s-s-send her to Alton Mount.” Evadne sniffles into the kerchief. “It's a place the church recommend.”

“Which church, Vads?”

“Which church you think? The Church of England, which I was brought up in.” She adds, with some ire, “The self-same church you and Elsie attend when you live here, for there was no Methodist Church then. You don't recall?”

Evadne's annoyance at his question helps her to compose herself, which is his intention.

“I don't mean to suggest that it was a foolish thing to do, Vads. I'm just concerned that Phyllis is in a place where people can offer her comfort as well as care for her and the baby, when it comes. She not the first to make a baby at her age, but having her half-brother's baby is another matter.”

Evadne's hands flutter up to hide her face.

“Think about Phyllis and you will manage it better, Vads.” He pauses. “So. You still don't tell me where she is.”

“They start a home for girls pregnant like she in Alton Mount. The home is Archdeacon's idea and his wife is running it. Reverend Myers say he would talk to Archdeacon. It's not many girls, but they are all high up in their teens, so Reverend Myers was worried about Phyllis.”

“It's the child's age that is worrying me, as well. Twelve years is very young. Pikni making pikni.”

“Well, Reverend Myers say we will tell a kindly lie and say Phyllis is nearly fourteen. And till the baby come, because of the circumstances, Archdeacon Miller say he and Mrs. Miller will have her in their own home. I praise God for that. You know Mrs. Miller's work is to counsel young people.”

Gramps wonders what there is to say to a twelve-year-old having a baby because her half-brother raped her.

“Not that I don't try to comfort her, Zeke. I tell her is not her fault, and I work quick to move her once I know what happen, for people too unkind. Everybody know her mother was working on papers for she and me, so I put it out that they come through. That time not a soul but me and Phyllis and Daphne know about the baby. Then Ralston start running his mouth down at the shop!”

“Sound like you did the best you could, Vads. How far along is she?”

“Two months. That boy is wicked to advantage her. The day he force himself on her, I wasn't here. When I come back about four, she vanish clean-clean. I search and I search, walk and walk, examine everywhere, saying over and over, ‘The Lord is my shepherd ...' ”

Evadne is distraught, her tale a tremulous outpouring, but Gramps doesn't stop her, conscious that the grief and powerlessness and guilt of it all are trying her sorely, and the words are a way to get it out. Gradually her speech fades, and her head falls to one side.

He looks across the road to a white scar of track running up a steep ridge on the other side. There is an old quarry up there. He must ask Vads when she wakes if it is still in use.

Evadne starts at the sound of metal banging against metal, as someone slams the gate. It is at the side of the property, the house placed on the land so it is parallel to the road. Done before Evadne and Malachi's time, it meets the need for privacy ingeniously. An arbour running down the side of the house prevents people from seeing through the bedroom windows, with the hanging orchids a further obstruction to prying eyes. They were Malachi's comfort as he dwindled into dementia, and mercifully, death.

The front verandah faces beds of gerberas and roses, a wide lawn of zoysia, bounded on the near side by a new fence, then guinea grass for the goats, and for the larger livestock grazing grass that continues to the steep mountains known as Long Backs. There is also a view across to the lower hills on the other side of the road.

“So why you let me sleep, Ezekiel?”

“You were such a pretty picture, Vads. How could I disturb you?”

“That's why I warn Elsie Dixon about you! That day she come back from Queenstown carrying on about how she meet somebody on the bus that was reading poems. ‘Imagine, a man
reading
! And poems, Vads, poems!' ”

“You warn her about me because I was reading poems?”

“I warn her when she say you tell her, ‘This parting is sweetest sorrow.' ”

“Nothing wrong with making a good line better.”

Ezekiel is glad of their banter, for Evadne needs the diversion. He fears her reaction when they get to serious talking again.

“That's what I warned her about. Cocksure of yourself from the start.”

Clang. Clunk. Clunk.
Whoever is coming round to the front of the house is announcing his entry by hitting the containers that hold the orchids.

“Is so your acquaintances have licence to assault your property?”

Evadne's top lip pushes out, her chin muscle pleating her bottom lip so she resembles an angry fish. “That is my grandson, who do what he like, more so since he is now owner and controller of the piece of land yonder,” she flaps a wrist at the new fence, “as of his sixteenth birthday, just past, his no-good father having prevailed upon Malachi to sign a paper to that effect.”

“Come again, Vads? All this not your house and land?”

“No, siree.” Ralston swings the corner, a stout stick in hand. He is using it to swipe at the rose plants,
slap-slap-slap
the rails of the stairs, and thwack at the empty chair before he slouches down into it, exuding fumes of beer. “She own right up to that fence.” He gestures tipsily. “Me, Ralston Patterson, is rightful proprietor of what lie beyond.”

Having asserted his right of ownership, Ralston sets his stick to one side, pulls a pack of Lucky Strike from his back pocket, offers one to Gramps, to his great surprise, and when Gramps declines, lights up and blows a mighty puff of smoke in Miss Evadne's direction.

“How much time I am to tell you that I don't like that cigarette smoke, Ralston?” Miss Evadne rises. “I know with dinner in the offing,
you
not getting up to go nowhere, so I will just excuse myself. Ezekiel, I hope you plan to stop with us. I'm going to finish frying plantain. Once I done, dinner will be served.”

The two men sit in silence for a while, Ralston taking long drags on the cigarette and blowing smoke rings, Gramps staring out across the garden and up to the hills. Thank God, Phyllis and the baby are safe for the moment. His concern is now Evadne. Obviously it takes every effort of will for her to be in Ralston's presence, and he wonders why the fellow is still in her house. Perhaps Ralston has threatened her. Gramps doesn't know what kind of company he keeps. Though the young men with him are rough sorts, they don't look like thugs, but who can tell? As he sees it, ensuring that Evadne has a plan of action for Phyllis and herself is half of what is necessary. The other half is what to do about Ralston. They can go to the police, rape and incest being against the law, but the case will have to be made on Phyllis's word, and he is loath to put her through that ordeal.

Before she dozed off, Evadne had related more of her wretched tale. “That evening, I pray, Ezekiel. I ask the neighbours to help, and we search outside and up and down the road with lantern till late-late, and then I lie awake in what was left of the night begging God to show me where she is. When morning come, he lead me to the bruck-down shed by the river, where Malachi tend his plants. Is there I find her, sitting on a piece of old crocus bag, shivering with cold, wet from the dampness, and coughing like she have TB, her eyes red, for she couldn't stop crying. She wouldn't tell me what happen, why she run off and hide herself. When I see the blood on her, I remind her that we talked about that. I say, ‘That mean you're becoming a woman, Phyllis. You remember, don't it?' Same time she start a cow-bawling, and roll herself from side to side, and wouldn't stop.”

Gramps beholds the cause of all this trouble enjoying his smoke. He doubts that Ralston has any feelings for the half-sister whom he raped, any interest in what is happening to her, and the child he boasts he has put in her belly. There are a lot of things it behooves him to discover, but somehow the idea of a composed discussion on Evadne's verandah seems atrocious. He has to persuade Ralston to go somewhere else with him.