The Ballad and the Source (46 page)

‘We all get morbid here,' continued her hostess. She sighed. ‘It's the climate. It's a most enervating climate.'

‘Have you lived here long?'

‘Since nineteen twenty-two. We were the first white settlers, weren't we Harold—in a manner of speaking. There were one or two old Creole families, like the de Pases, going a long way back. But they've mostly died out or left the island. Young Tony de Pas is the last of his line. Though I suppose he might marry … some nice strong healthy girl and … But somehow I don't—'

‘Rotten bad life,' chipped in the Captain. ‘Stands out a mile. Bad blood somewhere back along the line.'

‘Too true, poor old Tony. There was a curse put on the family, so they say. I don't know why or when. We don't listen to gossip. Oh, but Tony's a scream. He ought to be on the Halls. He keeps us in fits with his imitations.'

‘What does he imitate?'

‘Animal noises chiefly—quite uncanny. He's a ventriloquist as well. He quite takes in poor Bobby when he throws his voice and barks from just behind him. He makes a rude noise and Bobby thinks it's him! Oh, and lots of other animals—birds too. You must meet him dear—he's a most versatile chappie. Oh, this' —she waved an arm widely—‘was one great flourishing estate once. You've noticed the old mill? Isn't it picturesque? The natives still tread the cocoa once in a while. But soon after the war our poor little island fell on bad days. There was a terrible hurricane, it stripped most of the plantations to the bone. The shock killed old Mr de Pas. Tony was just a boy then. He left school and set to and worked like a—well I mustn't say like a black, and got most of the land going again. That's when he put up part of it for sale. Harold saw it advertised and we came out on spec. The first guests at Invergarrie, weren't we Staycie? Oh, she's still snoozing. The old de Pas home that was, he turned it into a guest house. Those were happy times. We bought our plot and built to Harold's very own specifications.'

‘How tremendously clever of you, Captain Cunningham. It is so charming.'

‘Hach! Ah well … Suits our modest requirements pretty well. Show you over it one day.' He flashed a brief smile, more a twitch of the lips, in her direction. (Is he very shy, perhaps? —a sensitive, wincing man under the coarse exterior?) ‘Not a palace. Fact is, m'wife thinks it pretty much of a come down.'

‘Well, after Malaya, you know—that's where we were before the war. Waited on hand and foot!—we were spoilt I dare say. And then … it was lonely here at first. My husband is a very active man, he didn't take kindly to retirement, did you Harold? He can be very grumpy.' She cast a speculative eye in the direction of her unresponsive spouse. ‘But then our little crowd started to come along—Jackie and Johnny—and a most interesting elderly lady, devoted to Johnny, she's dead now. And old Mr Bartholomew up at Invergarrie. He's Miss Stay's special pet. Now there's an interesting man. Such exquisite old-world manners. A great traveller, it seems; speaks six languages, very brainy.'

‘Spouts poetry,' intervened the Captain.

‘Oh, by the yard. He does let drop the strangest remarks. He's in love with his horse—Daisy her name is. He calls her his best girl, he
dotes,
my dear. Never a day passes but he's riding, riding, though he must be getting on for ninety, waving his hat and whooping like a cowboy, and talking to himself—or her, poor animal.'

‘He sounds a little eccentric.'

‘Oh yes, he is. If you want to study human nature, dear, you've come to the right spot. Then there's Kit and Trevor, the gay lads we call them. Dear boys, not boys exactly any more, very artistic and so kind and helpful. So we're quite a little colony. I only hope we can keep the atmosphere—well,
you
know, British. Oh, but I do miss England! How was it when you left? The weather?'

‘It was snowing.'

‘Oh
snowing!'
Her voice rose, lamenting and ecstatic. ‘What wouldn't I give to see a white world again!'

‘Burst pipes, what wouldn't she give for 'em.'

‘Or one of those rainy soft spring evenings, the scent of wet lilac, thrushes and blackbirds singing their hearts out.
Real
birdsong. There's a bird in these parts that gives me the pip, Mrs … Squeak, squeak, up and down, over and over on two awful piercing notes. Every blessed morning.'

‘Not the brain fever bird, I hope?'

‘Not
quite
so bad as that. The natives call it the day clean bird—cleaning the day you know—giving it a rub up. It's a picturesque thought.'

‘Damn bird, I'd like to picturesque it. Innerkleen bird I call it.'

Such genuinely hearty chuckles shook the couple that, next moment, the rustle and creak of wickerwork signalled Miss Stay's return to consciousness. As if galvanised by an electric battery her face started to twitch throughout the layers of rouge and powder caking it. Next, one eye fell open, winked. Presently she exhaled a long tremolo of beatitude; murmured:

‘Ah, what a treat to drop off after the long day's toil. A mor-or­-ortal treat. Hark now!'

Violently she flung her head up; assumed the look of one intently listening.

In truth the throbs, brays, moans of a recorded dance band had begun to float from far across the bay.

‘Jackie and her chums!' declared Miss Stay, exulting. ‘They will be at it over there. Dancing and prancing! Prancing and dancing!—as the saying goes.'

‘Jackie and young Tony get up little hops,' Mrs Cunningham explained. ‘I fancy he's got a friend over from Trinidad, and one or two girls as well—nurses from the hospital. They seem full of go. You ought to join them dear. It's dull for you, sitting here with us—though we love to have you.'

‘Oh no, no thank you, no,' cried the visitor appalled. ‘I don't dance—I hardly ever … I love being here with you.'

‘Jackie
lives
for dancing—she's taken up ballroom dancing. She and Tony went in for a competition a year or so ago in Georgetown. They got third prize. They're ever so skinny both of them, light on their toes. Strange when you think of it, him lying there, her swooping and twirling around just above him, so to speak.'

‘Doesn't he … does he mind, do you think?'

‘I really couldn't say,' remarked her hostess dreamily. ‘Johnny's a dark horse, you never know what he's thinking. He never gives himself away.'

The visitor once more raised the binoculars and gazed at the shore penetrated now with the full moon's lambent pallor: the leaf-crown of the tree was rimmed with silver; the hut was a square patch of darkness. She strove to reach the person living silent and invisible within, who never gives himself away.

I will never give myself away.

Then the clock inside her head again; and then again the crepitation, recurring automatically, stringing her skull with red-hot wires. And on this verandah or inside her head, voices chattering, crooning, quacking: sounds without meaning, signifying nothing. Then all the sounds spun themselves together into a thick knot of toneless sound; which dissolved into a high-pitched humming reverberation; on which she was sucked out through a long tunnel into some kind of unfamiliar space. She was floating, bouncing a little, just above a strip of shore—the same shore, not the same: grainy, faintly iridescent, the tumbled rocks that ringed it insubstantial, moving like semi-fluid pools of bronze. The tiny shift of the waves crashed in her ears. And that old stranded reptilian-vegetable growth had lost its petrifaction, had come alive, was coiling down violently to earth itself, upward as violently into an explosion of undulating tentacles upon which floated a cargo of shimmering fruit and foliage. One great multi-fingered arm stretched across the hut, enfolding it in what seemed a tender gesture of protection.

Then suddenly, within this tent, with stereoscopic sharpness, the figure of a man appeared, standing as if in mid-air: naked to the waist, towering, edged with light from some source behind him. Primitive he looked, powerful, cold, with a fixed expression; like a ship's figurehead; or like a sea-god standing beneath a panoply made of those marine-fleshed leaves. Looking straight at her … through her? All at once he smiled, showing a mouthful of strong white teeth. The shock of this was piercing. It brought her back into her body with a bump. She looked round wildly, gasped out:

‘Oh!'

The binoculars fell off her lap; were retrieved by her host with a glance of strong disapprobation. Gazing into a pocket mirror, reshaping her mauve lips a bright vermilion, Miss Stay was temporarily inattentive; but Mrs Cunningham enquired:

‘What is it, dear? … Ah, you've seen Joey! Yes, there he is, that's our Joey, our lizzy-boy, our tame lizard.'

Sure enough, something vivid, sinuous, emerald, streaked along the balustrade, ran up a vine-wreathed pillar and froze there, only its throat pulsating.

‘A lizard!' she said stupidly.

‘Did he startle you? Isn't he a poppet? He's come specially to have a look at you—he always does when we have company. He's such a nosy boy. He lives up there, under the roof. The other day Harold put his hand out, and we held our breath, and he scuttled on to it, right up his arm and rested on his shoulder. It's quite uncanny how he watches us. Staycie calls him our familiar.'

‘Our visitor will soon become acquainted with our local fauna,' declared Miss Stay, nodding and winking vehemently. ‘Not to speak of our flora. This island is a paradise for nature-lovers. I daresay our visitor is a botanist and would put us all to shame with her lore.'

‘Oh
no
!'
protested the visitor, repudiating in the manageress­ a questing note, as of one bent, though delicately, upon a probe. ‘I'm entirely ignorant. I've only just learnt … bougainvillea … frangipani … the trumpet tree … the flamboyant … the entrance flower. …'

‘The
what?
'
barked the Captain.

‘A climbing plant with a marvellous bell-shaped flower. It was all round the porch of the Inn where Deshabille picked me up. I asked him its name and he said: “Oh, dat is de flower of de entrance of de house. We call it de entrance flower. And dat dere is a common bird. On dis island we have no expensive birdies runnin' wild.”'

Laughter rang out; Miss Stay exclaimed that that boy was a mortal caution.

Saved, I am saved, she told herself; hauled out in the nick of time, able to amuse and to partake in cheerful trivial conversation. Not the final crack-up after all. Merge yourself in flora and fauna, excellent therapy: for instance, identify with Joey. She observed the lizard who had now descended half-way down the pillar and was watching her, she thought. For a second she managed to change places: she was Joey on the pillar, motionless, indifferent, observing human specimens with a lizard's microscopic cold, intent percipience.

She dared now to tackle the binoculars again and see what could be seen afar by moon and starlight. Look straight into the dead centre … No longer dead. Light streamed steadily outwards from the hut.

Next moment, clearly seeing two figures move out and stand within the doorway, she hastily returned the glasses to her host, who exclaimed:

‘Now what? Seen a duppy?'

He was irritated by her nervy ways.

‘No. But it seems like spying.' Apologetically she added: ‘I thought I saw him—the man—Johnny. I didn't know he could stand.'

‘Ah well … Louis would be supporting him.' Mrs Cunningham had reverted to the dreamy note. ‘The fact is he keeps it to himself what he can do, what he can't. He may surprise us all one day.'

‘He will, he will!' cried Miss Stay in fervent affirmation. ‘That blessed patient long-suffering fellow will rise up one day and walk towards us. Take up his bed and walk! I pray for it. More things are wrought by prayer … How did the poet put it?'

‘I believe in miracles. My spouse does not,' said Mrs Cunningham, shaking out the hem of her skirt to fall just so, examining one neat ankle and pretty plump little foot in a white high-heeled sandal. ‘All my life I've told myself: every day, every hour of every day, somewhere in the world a miracle is happening. God is showing himself to someone. Mummy taught me that, and I know it's true. Only we're so blind. Watch and wait. Expect but don't expect, she said.'

‘Your mother was a wonderful woman, God rest her soul, no doubt of that.'

‘She was. And we were all in all to one another. Some might say I was spoilt.'

‘Privileged, not spoilt.' Miss Stay's nods grew more emphatic. ‘And the privilege
not
one-sided, some might say, with such a daughter!'

Hypnotised by the voices' rhythmical monotony the visitor sank by degrees into a state of semi-somnolence. All bearings lost. Let them go. In the irrational element immerse. She let her hand move almost imperceptibly back and forth over her lap, rapidly scribbling on an imaginary pad.
Are they all mad?
it wrote.
The things they
say! Is it the enervating climate? Are you dead drunk my dear?
Captain, unbeliever, spouse, behold I will show you a mystery. A few moments ago sitting here beside you sipping one of your rum punches extra special brew I was cleft in two. My body
s
tayed here dressed in pale blue-green shantung, I ME I was
on the beach. Good God my dear. Very very very strange Madam!!!
But it's true, very very strange but true. Everything but everything
had stopped being solid was made of iridescent rays in webs and
patterns that tree had come alive I saw its nature then I saw a MAN he smiled—did he see me? I don't think so the shock I
came back with a bump and here I sit. Captain, a miracle has been
vouchsafed. Perhaps I died for a moment. Another time perhaps for longer and never come back. This won't do now, wake up, pay attention to your hostess …