Caribbean (103 page)

Delia leaped from the driver’s seat and dashed across the somber headland to embrace Etienne and lead him behind the pile of rocks which marked the end of the island. There they remained for more than an hour while McKay tormented himself with imaginings of what they were doing. When they reappeared, Etienne more handsome than ever, she a windblown beauty standing out against the turbulent Atlantic, they formed a magnificent pair, and McKay was proud that he had been allowed to know each of them.

From the back of her MG, Delia produced a surprise hamper, the wicker kind that makes English and French open-air picnics extra delectable, as if demonstrating that the person who assembled the picnic had done so with proper seriousness. It was a sad feast they shared there at the end of the world, with a cliff for a table and an angry ocean for a tapestry, these three distraught strangers: a headstrong English girl rejecting womanly restraints, a fine young island man striving to find his precise plan in the world of shifting definitions, and a brash but perceptive American intruder, inheritor of English value systems respectful of island traditions. Proof of the confusion in which they found themselves came in the fact that each of them merely toyed with the good food that Delia had brought and stared disconsolately at the dark ocean to the east.

“How did Leckey acquire the power to discipline you, Etienne?”
McKay asked as a reporter, but Delia forestalled any answer: “We didn’t come here to give you material for an article, Millard.”

Boncour, however, wanted to explain: “Leckey acted only as he’s done for the past nine years. Anything, even the most trivial, if it threatens the governor general’s office in any way, he must stamp out. This island is on the brink of black-white trouble, all the Caribbean islands are, believe me. I see it when I travel to my other shops.”

“Even Barbados?” McKay asked, and Etienne snapped: “Especially Barbados. But in All Saints, we’re going to evade
that
trouble by bringing blacks and coloreds into full political partnership. Maybe even real self-government … earlier than you’d think.”

“I believe you’re right,” Delia said. “And from things I’ve seen my father do, like that Wrentham gala …” She stopped, placed her arm about Boncour’s shoulder, and quietly continued: “The night you and I were found out …” She did not complete her thought about her father.

“So,” Boncour resumed, “if the daughter of our Gee-Gee and an island man of color were to become items of gossip …” He made a slashing motion with the edge of his hand: “Chop him off.” He then looked at Delia and kissed her: “Or chop her off, if necessary. You’re in as much trouble as I am, Lady Delia.”

“I learned that during the trouble in Germany. Both sides were willing to throw little Delia overboard.” She rose, walked to the edge of the cap and tried to toss stones into the ocean, but they fell short.

For the next half-hour they talked of many things, and then Millard said: “I’d love to extend my stay, maybe I could wire the boss, asking him to allow me to take my vacation here in All Saints. I’ve grown to love this island … people like you … scenes like this.”

“Why don’t you?” Delia asked. “You could write a book about us.”

“It would take lots more knowledge than I have …”

“But Etienne and I would provide all your spadework. He knows All Saints, I know the government of British colonies.”

McKay looked at them, this handsome pair of people who had become so important to him: “The much bigger question is—what are you going to do?”

Without hesitation Delia said: “If this were France and we were going to live in France, we could get married, now. But in English territory …” She turned to McKay, placing her hand in his: “If we lived in Detroit, would it be any easier?”

“You’d be ostracized. My paper wouldn’t even run an article about your wedding. Too inflammatory.”

“What’s inflammatory?” she asked with snappish irritation.

“Black and white. Nobody’s ready for that yet.”

“But this man is
not
black. Look at him. He’s damned near as white as you are.”

“Does Major Leckey think so? That’s what really matters.”

When the time came to leave this tiny sanctuary, Delia jumped into Boncour’s truck, tossed her keys to McKay, and said: “I’ll pick it up at the Belgrave,” but Etienne would have none of that. He knew she needed to be protected from herself, and said: “Delia, you must ride with him,” and he made her leave his car.

He also insisted that she and McKay start off first: “I’ll follow long after and enter York through a different side road, one not often used. If Major Leckey does have spies watching you, I’ll fool them.” Of course, Delia roared back into York with her dust and noise only alerting everyone to her presence, and McKay’s cry “Don’t drive like a damned fool” merely encouraged her to drive faster.

When McKay submitted his third long article, a tough assessment of Britain’s future in her smaller islands like All Saints, his editor in Detroit assumed that he would be sailing home promptly, but McKay had become so emotionally involved with the probable fate of Delia and Etienne, with the success or failure of Lord Wrentham and Major Leckey, with the fortunes of his two dark friends Bart Wrentham and cricketer Sir Benny, and yes, even with what might happen to those formless Ponsfords, that he wired his paper for permission to take his 1938 vacation early, in All Saints, and Gross replied that since his articles had done so much good for circulation in Canada, the publisher wanted him to take a reporting trip to Barbados or Trinidad or both, and on regular salary, not vacation.

He replied
SAILING TRINIDAD THEN BARBADOS TONIGHT
, and he sought out Etienne at his jewelry store and then Delia at Gommint House to explain his absence and to wish them well. As he was about to leave the Belgrave he encountered Major Leckey coming to escort him to the ship: “McKay, we’ve been immensely pleased with your stories. Remarkable that an American could penetrate our mysteries so accurately. Gee-Gee sends his regards.”

As they walked together toward the interisland ship, they were
overtaken by Boncour heading the same way to meet an important customer from another island and, repeating his farewell, McKay said, in formal style to mask his close friendship with the man: “Good luck in your various projects, Mr. Boncour,” and the major said stiffly, without bothering to look at the jeweler: “Evening, Boncour.” After Etienne had hurried past, Leckey rebuked McKay as if the American were a newcomer who planned to settle in All Saints: “You must never refer to a man like that as
Mister
. He’s in trade.” When Millard asked what that meant, Leckey explained: “Among the upper classes on any British island there are two kinds of men, sharply divided, gentlemen and those in trade. You can meet the latter politically and in business, but never socially.”

“What does that mean to a man like Boncour who’s in trade?”

“If he does very well indeed, there’s always the chance his daughter will marry a gentleman. Then, depending upon her father’s habits …” He waved his right hand nebulously. “He could very well be accepted in the better circles and in his later years even become known as a gentleman … if his trade earns him a respectable fortune.”

“Then Boncour has a chance?” McKay asked.

“Not that one. I’m afraid he’s blotted his copybook.”

At the ship, Leckey said with great sincerity: “When you’re through with Barbados and Trinidad, come back here. We’ve grown fond of you, really.” And then he cried: “Goodness, look who’s come down!” It was the governor general and his daughter Delia, and they repeated what the major had said: “We’d like you to come back.”

McKay spent six days in Trinidad, where his ship stopped first, and where he found so much strange and exciting material that he produced not one but two articles for his newspaper. For example, he had not known before that Trinidad contained so many Indians, that it was in some ways more a colonial adjunct of India than of England: “Hindus and Muslims, who were imported into Trinidad in the last century to work the great sugar plantations, perpetuate the tensions they experienced in their homeland, but in future, if they conciliate their differences, they can be expected to exert a new and vibrant political force in the island.”

His second article dealt with Trinidad’s proximity to Venezuela: “Actually, this island is a geographical extension of Venezuela, and only imperial Spain’s indifference allowed it to slip very late into British hands. Since the island has copious oil deposits, we can expect
Venezuela at some point in the future to lay claim to it, especially if Trinidad gains its independence from Great Britain and then fumbles its freedom, for trained observers are certain that the moment chaos rules in this island, Venezuela will intervene.” That information stunned many readers, even most Canadians.

But it was McKay’s obvious affection for the clean orderliness of Barbados that shone through his opening article on that island: “At various periods in history the United States has speculated about occupying this or that Caribbean island: Cuba, Santo Domingo, the Virgin Islands, Nicaragua on the mainland or Haiti? We’d have been much smarter not to have conducted negotiations with any of that group. What we should have done in the early days is purchase Barbados from Great Britain. We’d have had a paradise, self-sustaining too. We still ought to think about it.”

He filed that story on Wednesday, and on Thursday night he called Detroit:
KILL WEDNESDAY STORY
.
HELL BROKE LOOSE BARBADOS
.
WILL FILE
. And early next morning he filed the first of six long accounts of the race riots that had suddenly erupted on seemingly peaceful Barbados and various other British islands in the Caribbean including Jamaica. The condescending type of paternalism he had witnessed on All Saints had finally become so galling to the blacks that they could no longer tolerate it, and in wild anger and resentment, mobs coursed through the towns and villages while smaller bands tried to burn plantations. On Barbados it was a savage uprising, resulting in many deaths, and McKay’s previous experiences in All Saints enabled him to write perceptively about the background causes.

As soon as Dan Gross in Detroit read McKay’s dispatches he realized they were an international scoop, so he placed them on the Associated Press wire, which assured the articles nationwide and even worldwide attention. With those chance articles, McKay became a national figure, and others beside his own editor began to view his work favorably.

When the Barbados riots subsided, he looked at the island dispassionately, and wrote a beautiful
mea culpa:
“Because I had been allowed to see good colonial government in All Saints, and reasonable advances toward some kind of self-government in Trinidad, I thought I understood the islands. And certainly when I first saw the peaceful, almost tranquil beauty of Barbados, I was ready to write a prose poem about its irresistible charm. What I had not seen, nor
understood if I did see it, was the deep, grinding hatred many blacks have for the system which had kept them in a kind of spiritual bondage. I am sorry if I misled my readers. I am overjoyed that peace has been restored to these admirable islands. And I hope the governments will begin to correct old wrongs.”

Six days later, when his homeward bound ship put in to Baie de Soleil, All Saints still slumbered in the sun as if no uprisings had occurred throughout the other islands. Here was peace. Here was British colonial government at its best, and as the manifold beauties of the
baie
revealed themselves once more he realized that his affections were permanently tied to this island. When he reached the Belgrave he actually ran forward to greet the Ponsfords, whom he had once considered to be impossible. As soon as his bags were deposited in his room, he hurried off to the Waterloo, where Black Bart left the bar to embrace him and listen to his adventures during the riots.

Then, in a much more sober attitude, he walked slowly toward Etienne Boncour’s jewelry store, where he found the fastidious Frenchman, as he was usually called, eager to talk. They went into a back room, where they could have privacy, and shared confidences. McKay had little news to offer, since Boncour had branch stores in both Barbados and Trinidad, but the Frenchman had much to confide: “Delia’s seriously talking about marrying me and setting up our household on another island. Keep this shop operating, because it’s the moneymaker. She thinks we could have a good life.”

“And what do you think?”

Boncour smiled gently and held out his hands palms up: “Impossible. She once told me she was a child of Europe.”

“She told me the same thing.” McKay stopped. “You know, Etienne, I was very fond of that young woman. Still am.”

“Who wouldn’t be? She seems to have broken hearts around the compass points.”

“So what’s going to happen?”

Boncour stiffened, as if harsh decisions had firmed his backbone: “One cannot say. One simply cannot say, but one thing’s certain. That girl could not exist, not happily, on a small British island.”

It was that statement which preoccupied McKay for the following day: Interesting. To me and the other Americans, they’re Caribbean islands. To Delia and Etienne and the other Englishmen, they’re the British West Indies, as if the French islands didn’t exist. But then his thoughts turned to the greater anomaly: Even the Dutch own islands
here. Who’s missing? The real owners, the Spaniards. Wouldn’t it be richly rewarding if one of the big islands were honestly and totally Spanish, so we could observe what might have been accomplished under that governance? And even though he knew little of Spain or the Spanish heritage, he lamented the loss.

This momentary sentimentalism over vanished Spanish grandeur did not mask his great pleasure at being safe within the security of All Saints: Actually, I like everything about this island except Major Leckey and the heavy food. Upon reflection, one of the things he liked most was the efficient way in which the Gee-Gee governed: Like at the cricket field the other day. He appeared for practice in his old all-England blazer, chased ground balls that black players hit, then took his turn at bat and swiped two or three out toward the boundary. Players and casual spectators alike, they loved it. They felt he was one of them.